ACT V

_Two months later. The wedding day of the_ DUKE. _Another part of the Palace of Mantua. A long terrace still to be seen, with roof supported by columns. It looks on one side on to the jousting ground, a green meadow surrounded by clipped hedges and set all round with mulberry trees. On the other side it overlooks the lake, against which, as a fact, it acts as dyke. The Court of Mantua and Envoys of foreign Princes, together with many Prelates, are assembled on the terrace, surrounding the seats of the_ DUKE, _the young_ DUCHESS HIPPOLYTA, _the_ DUCHESS DOWAGER _and the_ CARDINAL. _Facing this gallery, and separated from it by a line of sedge and willows, and a few yards of pure green water, starred with white lilies, is a stage in the shape of a Grecian temple, apparently rising out of the lake. Its pediment and columns are slung with garlands of bay and cypress. In the gable, the_ DUKE'S _device of a labyrinth in gold on a blue ground and the motto:_ "RECTAS PETO." _On the stage, but this side of the curtain, which is down, are a number of_ Musicians _with violins, viols, theorbs, a hautboy, a flute, a bassoon, viola d'amore and bass viols, grouped round two men with double basses and a man at a harpsichord, in dress like the musicians in Veronese's paintings. They are preluding gently, playing elaborately fugued variations on a dance tune in three-eighth time, rendered singularly plaintive by the absence of perfect closes_.

CARDINAL

(_to_ VENETIAN AMBASSADOR)

What say you to our Diego's masque, my Lord? Does not his skill as a composer vie almost with his sublety as a singer?

MARCHIONESS OF GUASTALLA

(_to the_ DUCHESS DOWAGER)

A most excellent masque, methinks, Madam. And of so new a kind. We have had masques in palaces and also in gardens, and some, I own it, beautiful; for our palace on the hill affords fine vistas of cypress avenues and the distant plain. But, until the Duke your son, no one has had a masque on the water, it would seem. 'Tis doubtless his invention?

DUCHESS

(_with evident preoccupation_)

I think not, Madam. 'Tis our foolish Diego's freak. And I confess I like it not. It makes me anxious for the players.

BISHOP OF CREMONA (_to the_ CARDINAL)

A wondrous singer, your Signor Diego. They say the Spaniards have subtle exercises for keeping the voice thus youthful. His Holiness has several such who sing divinely under Pierluigi's guidance. But your Diego seems really but a child, yet has a mode of singing like one who knows a world of joys and sorrows.

CARDINAL

He has. Indeed, I sometimes think he pushes the pathetic quality too far. I am all for the Olympic serenity of the wise Ancients.

YOUNG DUCHESS (_laughing_)

My uncle would, I almost think, exile our divine Diego, as Plato did the poets, for moving us too much.

PRINCE OF MASSA (_whispering_)

He has moved your noble husband strangely. Or is it, gracious bride, that too much happiness overwhelms our friend?

YOUNG DUCHESS

(_turning round and noticing the_ DUKE, _a few seats off_)

'Tis true. Ferdinand is very sensitive to music, and is greatly concerned for our Diego's play. Still----I wonder----.

MARCHIONESS (_to the_ DUKE OF FERRARA'S POET, _who is standing near her_)

I really never could have recognised Signor Diego in his disguise. He looks for all the world exactly like a woman.

POET

A woman! Say a goddess, Madam! Upon my soul (_whispering_), the bride is scarce as beautiful as he, although as fair as one of the noble swans who sail on those clear waters.

JESTER

After the play we shall see admiring dames trooping behind the scenes to learn the secret of the paints which can change a scrubby boy into a beauteous nymph; a metamorphosis worth twenty of Sir Ovid's.

DOGE'S WIFE (_to the_ DUKE)

They all tell me--but 'tis a secret naturally--that the words of this ingenious masque are from your Highness's own pen; and that you helped--such are your varied gifts--your singing-page to set them to music.

DUKE (_impatiently_)

It may be that your Serenity is rightly informed, or not.

KNIGHT OF MALTA (_to_ YOUNG DUCHESS)

One recognises, at least, the mark of Duke Ferdinand's genius in the suiting of the play to the surroundings. Given these lakes, what fitter argument than Ariadne abandoned on her little island? And the labyrinth in the story is a pretty allusion to your lord's personal device and the magnificent ceiling he lately designed for our admiration.

YOUNG DUCHESS

(_with her eyes fixed on the curtain, which begins to move_)

Nay, 'tis all Diego's thought. Hush, they begin to play. Oh, my heart beats with curiosity to know how our dear Diego will carry his invention through, and to hear the last song which he has never let me hear him sing.

_The curtain is drawn aside, displaying the stage, set with orange and myrtle trees in jars, and a big flowering oleander. There is no painted background; but instead, the lake, with distant shore, and the sky with the sun slowly descending into clouds, which light up purple and crimson, and send rosy streamers into the high blue air. On the stage a rout of_ Bacchanals, _dressed like Mantegna's Hours, but with vine-garlands; also_ Satyrs _quaintly dressed in goatskins, but with top-knots of ribbons, all singing a Latin ode in praise of_ BACCHUS _and wine; while girls dressed as nymphs, with ribboned thyrsi in their hands, dance a pavana before a throne of moss overhung by ribboned garlands. On this throne are seated a_ TENOR _as_ BACCHUS, _dressed in russet and leopard skins, a garland of vine leaves round his waist and round his wide-brimmed hat; and_ DIEGO, _as_ ARIADNE. DIEGO, _no longer habited as a man, but in woman's garments, like those of Guercino's Sibyls: a floating robe and vest of orange and violet, open at the throat; with particoloured scarves hanging, and a particoloured scarf wound like a turban round the head, the locks of dark hair escaping from beneath. She is extremely beautiful_.

MAGDALEN (_sometime known as_ DIEGO, _now representing_ ARIADNE) _rises from the throne and speaks, turning to_ BACCHUS. _Her voice is a contralto, but not deep, and with upper notes like a hautboy's. She speaks in an irregular recitative, sustained by chords on the viols and harpsichord_.

ARIADNE

Tempt me not, gentle Bacchus, sunburnt god of ruddy vines and rustic revelry. The gifts you bring, the queenship of the world of wine-inspired Fancies, cannot quell my grief at Theseus' loss.

BACCHUS (_tenor_)

Princess, I do beseech you, give me leave to try and soothe your anguish. Daughter of Cretan Minos, stern Judge of the Departed, your rearing has been too sad for youth and beauty, and the shade of Orcus has ever lain across your path. But I am God of Gladness; I can take your soul, suspend it in Mirth's sun, even as the grapes, translucent amber or rosy, hang from the tendril in the ripening sun of the crisp autumn day. I can unwind your soul, and string it in the serene sky of evening, smiling in the deep blue like to the stars, encircled, I offer you as crown. Listen, fair Nymph: 'tis a God woos you.

ARIADNE

Alas, radiant Divinity of a time of year gentler than Spring and fruitfuller than Summer, there is no Autumn for hapless Ariadne. Only Winter's nights and frosts wrap my soul. When Theseus went, my youth went also. I pray you leave me to my poor tears and the thoughts of him.

BACCHUS

Lady, even a God, and even a lover, must respect your grief. Farewell. Comrades, along; the pine trees on the hills, the ivy-wreaths upon the rocks, await your company; and the red-stained vat, the heady-scented oak-wood, demand your presence.

_The_ Bacchantes _and_ Satyrs _sing a Latin ode in praise of Wine, in four parts, with accompaniment of bass viols and lutes, and exeunt with_ BACCHUS.

YOUNG DUCHESS

(_to_ DUKE OF FERRARA'S POET)

Now, now, Master Torquato, now we shall hear Poetry's own self sing with our Diego's voice.

DIEGO, _as_ ARIADNE, _walks slowly up and down the stage, while the viola plays a prelude in the minor. Then she speaks, recitative with chords only by strings and harpsichord_.

ARIADNE

They are gone at last. Kind creatures, how their kindness fretted my weary soul I To be alone with grief is almost pleasure, since grief means thought of Theseus. Yet that thought is killing me. O Theseus, why didst thou ever come into my life? Why did not the cruel Minotaur gore and trample thee like all the others? Hapless Ariadne! The clue was in my keeping, and I reached it to him. And now his ship has long since neared his native shores, and he stands on the prow, watching for his new love. But the Past belongs to me.

_A flute rises in the orchestra, with viols accompanying, pizzicati, and plays three or four bars of intricate mazy passages, very sweet and poignant, stopping on a high note, with imperfect close_.

ARIADNE (_continuing_)

And in the past he loved me, and he loves me still. Nothing can alter that. Nay, Theseus, thou canst never never love another like me.

_Arioso. The declamation becomes more melodic, though still unrhythmical, and is accompanied by a rapid and passionate tremolo of violins and viols_.

And thy love for her will be but the thin ghost of the reality that lived for me. But Theseus----Do not leave me yet. Another hour, another minute. I have so much to tell thee, dearest, ere thou goest.

_Accompaniment more and more agitated. A hautboy echoes_ ARIADNE'S _last phrase with poignant reedy tone_.

Thou knowest, I have not yet sung thee that little song thou lovest to hear of evenings; the little song made by the Aeolian Poetess whom Apollo loved when in her teens. And thou canst not go away till I have sung it. See! my lute. But I must tune it. All is out of tune in my poor jangled life.

_Lute solo in the orchestra. A Siciliana or slow dance, very delicate and simple_. ARIADNE _sings_.

Song

Let us forget we loved each other much; Let us forget we ever have to part; Let us forget that any look or touch Once let in either to the other's heart.

Only we'll sit upon the daisied grass, And hear the larks and see the swallows pass; Only we live awhile, as children play, Without to-morrow, without yesterday.

_During the ritornello, between the two verses._

POET

(_to the_ Young Duchess, _whispering_)

Madam, methinks his Highness is unwell. Turn round, I pray you.

YOUNG DUCHESS (_without turning_).

He feels the play's charm. Hush.

DUCHESS DOWAGER (_whispering_)

Come Ferdinand, you are faint. Come with me.

DUKE (_whispering_)

Nay, mother. It will pass. Only a certain oppression at the heart, I was once subject to. Let us be still.

Song (_repeats_)

Only we'll live awhile, as children play, Without to-morrow, without yesterday.

_A few bars of ritornello after the song_.

DUCHESS DOWAGER (_whispering_)

Courage, my son, I know all.

ARIADNE

(_Recitative with accompaniment of violins, flute and harp_)

Theseus, I've sung my song. Alas, alas for our poor songs we sing to the beloved, and vainly try to vary into newness!

_A few notes of the harp well up, slow and liquid_.

Now I can go to rest, and darkness lap my weary heart. Theseus, my love, good night!

_Violins tremolo. The hautboy suddenly enters with a long wailing phrase_. ARIADNE _quickly mounts on to the back of the stage, turns round for one second, waving a kiss to an imaginary person, and then flings herself down into the lake_.

_A great burst of applause. Enter immediately, and during the cries and clapping, a chorus of_ Water-Nymphs _in transparent veils and garlands of willows and lilies, which sings to a solemn counterpoint, the dirge of_ ARIADNE. _But their singing is barely audible through the applause of the whole Court, and the shouts of_ "DIEGO! DIEGO! ARIADNE! ARIADNE!" _The young_ DUCHESS _rises excitedly, wiping her eyes_.

YOUNG DUCHESS

Dear friend! Diego! Diego! Our Orpheus, come forth!

CROWD

Diego! Diego!

POET (_to the_ POPE'S LEGATE)

He is a real artist, and scorns to spoil the play's impression by truckling to this foolish habit of applause.

MARCHIONESS

Still, a mere singer, a page----when his betters call----. But see! the Duke has left our midst.

CARDINAL

He has gone to bring back Diego in triumph, doubtless.

VENETIAN AMBASSADOR

And, I note, his venerable mother has also left us. I doubt whether this play has not offended her strict widow's austerity.

YOUNG DUCHESS

But where is Diego, meanwhile?

_The Chorus and orchestra continue the dirge for_ ARIADNE. A GENTLEMAN-IN-WAITING _elbows through the crowd to the_ CARDINAL.

GENTLEMAN (_whispering_)

Most Eminent, a word----

CARDINAL (_whispering_)

The Duke has had a return of his malady?

GENTLEMAN (_whispering_)

No, most Eminent. But Diego is nowhere to be found. And they have brought up behind the stage the body of a woman in Ariadne's weeds.

CARDINAL (whispering)

Ah, is that all? Discretion, pray. I knew it. But 'tis a most distressing accident. Discretion above all.

_The Chorus suddenly breaks off. For on to the stage comes the_ DUKE. _He is dripping, and bears in his arms the dead body, drowned, of_ DIEGO, _in the garb of_ ARIADNE. _A shout from the crowd_.

YOUNG DUCHESS

(_with a cry, clutching the_ POET'S _arm_)

Diego!

DUKE

(_stooping over the body, which he has laid upon the stage, and speaking very low_)

Magdalen!

(_The curtain is hastily closed_.)

THE END

APPENDIX

THE LAKES OF MANTUA

It was the Lakes, the deliciousness of water and sedge seen from the railway on a blazing June day, that made me stop at Mantua for the first time; and the thought of them that drew me back to Mantua this summer. They surround the city on three sides, being formed by the Mincio on its way from Lake Garda to the Po, shallow lakes spilt on the great Lombard Plain. They are clear, rippled, fringed with reed, islanded with water lilies, and in them wave the longest, greenest weeds. Here and there a tawny sail of a boat comes up from Venice; children are bathing under the castle towers; at a narrow point is a long covered stone bridge where the water rushes through mills and one has glimpses into cool, dark places smelling of grist.

The city itself has many traces of magnificence, although it has been stripped of pictures more than any other, furnishing out every gallery in Europe since the splendid Gonzagas forfeited the Duchy to Austria. There are a good many delicate late Renaissance houses, carried on fine columns; also some charming open terra-cotta work in windows and belfries. The Piazza Erbe has, above its fruit stalls and market of wooden pails and earthenware, and fishing-tackle and nets (reminding one of the lakes), a very picturesque clock with a seated Madonna; and in the Piazza Virgilio there are two very noble battlemented palaces with beautiful bold Ghibelline swallow-tails. All the buildings are faintly whitened by damp, and the roofs and towers are of very pale, almost faded rose colour, against the always moist blue sky.

But what goes to the brain at Mantua is the unlikely combination, the fantastic duet, of the palace and the lake. One naturally goes first into the oldest part, the red-brick castle of the older Marquises, in one of whose great square towers are Mantegna's really delightful frescoes: charming cupids, like fleecy clouds turned to babies, playing in a sky of the most marvellous blue, among garlands of green and of orange and lemon trees cut into triumphal arches, with the Marquis of Mantua and all the young swashbuckler Gonzagas underneath. The whole decoration, with its predominant blue, and enamel white and green, is delicate and cool in its magnificence, and more thoroughly enjoyable than most of Mantegna's work. But the tower windows frame in something more wonderful and delectable--one of the lakes! The pale blue water, edged with green reeds, the poplars and willows of the green plain beyond; a blue vagueness of Alps, and, connecting it all, the long castle bridge with its towers of pale geranium-coloured bricks.

One has to pass through colossal yards to get from this fortified portion to the rest of the Palace, Corte Nuova, as it is called. They have now become public squares, and the last time I saw them, it being market day, they were crowded with carts unloading baskets of silk; and everywhere the porticoes were heaped with pale yellow and greenish cocoons; the palace filled with the sickly smell of the silkworm, which seemed, by coincidence, to express its sæcular decay. For of all the decaying palaces I have ever seen in Italy this Palace of Mantua is the most utterly decayed. At first you have no other impression. But little by little, as you tramp through what seem miles of solemn emptiness, you find that more than any similar place it has gone to your brain. For these endless rooms and cabinets--some, like those of Isabella d'Este (which held the Mantegna and Perugino and Costa allegories, Triumph of Chastity and so forth, now in the Louvre), quite delicate and exquisite; or scantily modernised under Maria Theresa for a night's ball or assembly; or actually crumbling, defaced, filled with musty archives; or recently used as fodder stores and barracks--all this colossal labyrinth, oddly symbolised by the gold and blue labyrinth on one of the ceilings, is, on the whole, the most magnificent and fantastic thing left behind by the Italy of Shakespeare. The art that remains (by the way, in one dismantled hall I found the empty stucco frames of our Triumph of Julius Cæsar!) is, indeed, often clumsy and cheap--elaborate medallions and ceilings by Giulio Romano and Primaticcio; but one feels that it once appealed to an Ariosto-Tasso mythological romance which was perfectly genuine, and another sort of romance now comes with its being so forlorn.

Forlorn, forlorn! And everywhere, from the halls with mouldering zodiacs and Loves of the Gods and Dances of the Muses; and across hanging gardens choked with weeds and fallen in to a lower level, appear the blue waters of the lake, and its green distant banks, to make it all into Fairyland. There is, more particularly, a certain long, long portico, not far from Isabella d'Este's writing closet, dividing a great green field planted with mulberry trees, within the palace walls, from a fringe of silvery willows growing in the pure, lilied water. Here the Dukes and their courtiers took the air when the Alps slowly revealed themselves above the plain after sunset; and watched, no doubt, either elaborate quadrilles and joustings in the riding-school, on the one hand, or boat-races and all manner of water pageants on the other. We know it all from the books of the noble art of horsemanship: plumes and curls waving above curvetting Spanish horses; and from the rarer books of sixteenth and seventeenth century masques and early operas, where Arion appears on his colossal dolphin packed with _tiorbos_ and _violas d'amore_, singing some mazy _aria_ by Caccini or Monteverde, full of plaintive flourishes and unexpected minors. We know it all, the classical pastoral still coloured with mediæval romance, from Tasso and Guarini--nay, from Fletcher and Milton. Moreover, some chivalrous Gonzaga duke, perhaps that same Vincenzo who had the blue and gold ceiling made after the pattern of the labyrinth in which he had been kept by the Turks, not too unlike, let us hope, Orsino of Illyria, and by his side a not yet mournful Lady Olivia; and perhaps, directing the concert at the virginal, some singing page Cesario.... Fancy a water pastoral, like the Sabrina part of "Comus," watched from that portico! The nymph Manto, founder of Mantua, rising from the lake; cardboard shell or real one? Or the shepherds of Father Virgil, trying to catch hold of Proteus; but all in ruffs and ribbons, spouting verses like "Amyntas" or "The Faithful Shepherdess." And now only the song of the frogs rises up from among the sedge and willows, where the battlemented castle steeps its buttresses in the lake.

There is another side to this Shakespearean palace, not of romance but of grotesqueness verging on to horror. There are the Dwarfs' Apartments! Imagine a whole piece of the building, set aside for their dreadful living, a rabbit warren of tiny rooms, including a chapel against whose vault you knock your head, and a grand staircase quite sickeningly low to descend. Strange human or half-human kennels, one trusts never really put to use, and built as a mere brutal jest by a Duke of Mantua smarting under the sway of some saturnine little monster, like the ones who stand at the knee of Mantegna's frescoed Gonzagas.

After seeing the Castello and the Corte Nuova one naturally thinks it one's duty to go and see the little Palazzo del Te, just outside the town. Inconceivable frescoes, colossal, sprawling gods and goddesses, all chalk and brick dust, enough to make Rafael, who was responsible for them through his abominable pupils, turn for ever in his coffin. Damp-stained stuccoes and grass-grown courtyards, and no sound save the noisy cicalas sawing on the plane-trees. How utterly forsaken of gods and men is all this Gonzaga splendour! But all round, luxuriant green grass, and English-looking streams winding flush among great willows. We left the Palazzo del Te very speedily behind us, and set out toward Pietola, the birthplace of Virgil. But the magic of one of the lakes bewitched us. We sat on the wonderful green embankments, former fortifications of the Austrians, with trees steeping in the water, and a delicious, ripe, fresh smell of leaves and sun-baked flowers, and watched quantities of large fish in the green shadow of the railway bridge. In front of us, under the reddish town walls, spread an immense field of white water lilies; and farther off, across the blue rippled water, rose the towers and cupolas and bastions of the Gonzaga's palace--palest pink, unsubstantial, utterly unreal, in the trembling heat of the noontide.