The Market Place of Padua at noon; in the background is the great Cathedral of Padua; the architecture is Romanesque, and wrought in black and white marbles; a flight of marble steps leads up to the Cathedral door; at the foot of the steps are two large stone lions; the houses on each aide of the stage have coloured awnings from their windows, and are flanked by stone arcades; on the right of the stage is the public fountain, with a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch; around the fountain is a stone seat; the bell of the Cathedral is ringing, and the citizens, men, women and children, are passing into the Cathedral.
[Enter GUIDO FERRANTI and ASCANIO CRISTOFANO.]
ASCANIO Now by my life, Guido, I will go no farther; for if I walk another step I will have no life left to swear by; this wild-goose errand of yours!
[Sits down on the step of the fountain.] GUIDO I think it must be here. [Goes up to passer-by and doffs his cap.] Pray, sir, is this the market place, and that the church of Santa Croce? [Citizen bows.] I thank you, sir. ASCANIO Well?
GUIDO Ay! it is here.
ASCANIO I would it were somewhere else, for I see no wine-shop.
GUIDO [Taking a letter from his pocket and reading it.] ‘The hour noon; the city, Padua; the place, the market; and the day, Saint Philip’s Day.’
ASCANIO And what of the man, how shall we know him?
GUIDO [reading still] ‘I will wear a violet cloak with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder.’ A brave attire, Ascanio.
ASCANIO I’d sooner have my leathern jerkin. And you think he will tell you of your father?
GUIDO Why, yes! It is a month ago now, you remember; I was in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the road, where the goats used to get in, a man rode up and asked me was my name Guido, and gave me this letter, signed ‘Your Father’s Friend,’ bidding me be here to-day if I would know the secret of my birth, and telling me how to recognise the writer! I had always thought old Pedro was my uncle, but he told me that he was not, but that I had been left a child in his charge by some one he had never since seen.
ASCANIO And you don’t know who your father is?
GUIDO No.
ASCANIO No recollection of him even?
GUIDO None, Ascanio, none.
ASCANIO [laughing] Then he could never have boxed your ears so often as my father did mine.
GUIDO [smiling] I am sure you never deserved it.
ASCANIO Never; and that made it worse. I hadn’t the consciousness of guilt to buoy me up. What hour did you say he fixed?
GUIDO Noon. [Clock in the Cathedral strikes.]
ASCANIO It is that now, and your man has not come. I don’t believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. [Rises.] By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a monk’s sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; your man will not come.
GUIDO Well, I suppose you are right. Ah! [Just as he is leaving the stage with ASCANIO, enter LORD MORANZONE in a violet cloak, with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder; he passes across to the Cathedral, and just as he is going in GUIDO runs up and touches him.]
MORANZONE Guido Ferranti, thou hast come in time.
GUIDO What! Does my father live?
MORANZONE
Ay! lives in thee.
Thou art the same in mould and lineament,
Carriage and form, and outward semblances;
I trust thou art in noble mind the same.
GUIDO
Oh, tell me of my father; I have lived
But for this moment.
MORANZONE We must be alone.
GUIDO
This is my dearest friend, who out of love
Has followed me to Padua; as two brothers,
There is no secret which we do not share.
MORANZONE
There is one secret which ye shall not share;
Bid him go hence.
GUIDO [to ASCANIO] Come back within the hour.
He does not know that nothing in this world
Can dim the perfect mirror of our love.
Within the hour come.
ASCANIO Speak not to him,
There is a dreadful terror in his look.
GUIDO
[laughing]
Nay, nay, I doubt not that he has come to tell
That I am some great Lord of Italy,
And we will have long days of joy together.
Within the hour, dear Ascanio.
[Exit ASCANIO.]
Now tell me of my father?
[Sits down on a stone seat.]
Stood he tall?
I warrant he looked tall upon his horse.
His hair was black? or perhaps a reddish gold,
Like a red fire of gold? Was his voice low?
The very bravest men have voices sometimes
Full of low music; or a clarion was it
That brake with terror all his enemies?
Did he ride singly? or with many squires
And valiant gentlemen to serve his state?
For oftentimes methinks I feel my veins
Beat with the blood of kings. Was he a king?
MORANZONE
Ay, of all men he was the kingliest.
GUIDO [proudly]
Then when you saw my noble father last
He was set high above the heads of men?
MORANZONE
Ay, he was high above the heads of men,
[Walks over to GUIDO and puts his hand upon his shoulder.]
On a red scaffold, with a butcher’s block
Set for his neck.
GUIDO [leaping up]
What dreadful man art thou,
That like a raven, or the midnight owl,
Com’st with this awful message from the grave?
MORANZONE
I am known here as the Count Moranzone,
Lord of a barren castle on a rock,
With a few acres of unkindly land
And six not thrifty servants. But I was one
Of Parma’s noblest princes; more than that,
I was your father’s friend.
GUIDO [clasping his hand] Tell me of him.
MORANZONE
You are the son of that great Duke Lorenzo,
He was the Prince of Parma, and the Duke
Of all the fair domains of Lombardy
Down to the gates of Florence; nay, Florence even