Gherardo. And these two years have been inviolate;[6]
Your life as pure as hers,
As virgin—
Save for the songs you've sung to her; those songs
This idle city echoes with. But now——
Petrarca. Now I will open all the gates to Pleasure!
To rosy Pleasure—warm, unspiritual,
Ready to spring
Into the arms of all
Whom bloodless Virtue pales.
For, of restraint and hoping, I have drunk
But a vintage of tears!
And what has been my gain?
Gherardo. Her chastity.[7]
Petrarca. A chastity unchallenged of desire—
And therefore none!
Aih, none!
For, were it other;
Could I aver that once, that ever once
Her lids had fallen low in fear of love,
I'd bid the desert of my heart burn dry—
To the last oasis—
With resignation!
But never have they, never! and I'm mad.
(Pours out wine.)
Gherardo. And you will seek to cure it with more madness?
To cast the devil of love out of your veins
With other love and lower!
Petrarca. Yes, yes, yes! (drinks.)[8]
With little Sancia's!
Whose soul is a sweet sin!
Who lives but for this life and asks of Death
Only a breath of time before he ends it,
To tell three beads and fill her mouth with aves.
Just for enough, she says,
"To tell God that He made me"—as He did.
Gherardo. And to blaspheme with! O obsessèd man.
(Has risen, flushed.)
But you will fail! For this vain revelry
Will ease not. And I see all love is base—
As say the Fathers—
All!... and the body of woman
Is vile from the beginning.