Alexander. O Poto, Poto, search
His haunts! The malice of these chamberlains!
Madonna Giulia, Monsignore Poto
Would search the place where Don Giovanni hides.
Have mercy on my son!
Giulia. Monsignore finds
Your Holiness so jovial he is conquered
By the same vein.
Lucrezia. Excuse him!
Alexander. Even our ladies, Poto,
Plead for the Duke’s seclusion. Without doubt
He waits for sundown to forsake the place
Where he was sociable.
But in Scene 2 levity is turned to fear. Cesare, who was last in his brother’s company two nights before at a banquet given by their mother, Vanozza de’ Catanei, is commanded to the Pope’s presence, and succeeds in turning his father’s suspicion in the direction of the Orsini. In Scene 3 the Pope, in desperate anxiety, is watching from a window of the Vatican the darkening Tiber, where fishermen are dragging for Giovanni’s body. He turns suddenly to the cardinals about him:
Alexander. Where is he—;my young son,
My beautiful Giovanni? You stand round,
Wise with the Church’s wisdom, but where is he?
He may be living, tortured, gagged.... He is not!
No, there is come a change in me: I know
He is not breathing with me any more,
And yet I cannot bid you pray for him;
I do not count him dead. He is but lost,
And lost so deep I do not think a creature,
Not even his Creator knows the place
That he has wandered to....
Cardinal Borgia. Have faith, his body will be found.
Alexander. His body!
When last I saw the boy
He shook his golden poll with merriment
That I received his Spanish mistress here,
A most devout and humble Catholic,
With eyes dark wells for Cupid’s thirst. He laughed,
Till all the room was sunbeams from his mirth.
If God
Turn such a thing as that to carrion—;then
I shall curse God. [Turning to Lucrezia.
Well, wanton, you look white!
What comfort have you? Would you be a nun
That you crept to San Sisto from your palace
Soon as you heard? Is not this missing boy
Your brother?...
You have been with the boy: you know
Where he loved, where he was hated. All our loves
And hates are in your hands. You have grown more blind
Than any woman ever made herself
That she might see in the dark.
Give up your witness.
[Lucrezia remains before him silent,
with open mouth.
A little devil, circumspect,
When I would have rank truth.
As he wrathfully dismisses the circle Madonna de’ Catanei enters:
Alexander. God’s breath,
His mother!
[She falls at his feet: he raises her.
O Vanozza,
Poor heart!