Enter the Lord Cardinal Cesare Borgia.
CESARE.
The sword!
So I receive my fate. Cum numine
Cesaris omen. [He holds the sword erect and kisses the motto.
The Lord Cardinal’s Sword,
The Legate’s Sword! I laugh ... it is at others,
The names they call me, when I have one name
Hot at the core of fixedness, my heart.
O antique Cesar, conqueror and fount
Of empire, thou wert made my saint at birth;
Thou art my spirit and my augury,
Thy laurels guard me and thy eagles’ wings.
My eyes are on thee and thou lead’st my dreams
To homage and thy triumph. Dive Cesar,
Here is thy name
Cut as I bade upon thy chariot-wheel,
Since triumphers can use the spokes of Fortune
For carriage of their prevalence.
My thanks
To you, dear Bernardino, I have always
Loved for your gifts, esteemed as one of ours,
Who wove our life round with the signs and legends
Denoting us by power of phantasy;
I thank you for this emblem of my soul,
Prefigured in these lovely images.
My equal thanks
To you, good Messer Ercole, for strength
And nobleness of handiwork, the craft
That has subverted matter, as the god
Turned chaos to a fabric. Ah, and the work,
Your work, is done, signed of your fame and done.
You are most happy. Mine is all an absence
As yet, a future! But the pledge is mine—
This sword, your creature, and my prophecy.
PINTORICCHIO.
Beloved and Cesar, you have been our poet;
From you our valid agency, from you
The teeming of the parable.
ERCOLE.
You notice
The azure guard? It pleases you?
CESARE.
As spring’s
Sky-blue. Lord Bonafede, you that savour
The taste of steel, run with your finger down
These grooves: now see the contour and the curves,
The equilibrium, so beautiful
I worship it with reverence. Now bend
Above the glass, like adamant, and trace
My hero in his deeds.
Here is a mighty deed,
And one that was of doom. This floating ensign,
These naked horsemen at the riverside,
The child, with wreath of laurel, by the flood
Playing his flute to outset of a life....
For this is Cesar crossing Rubicon.
Here are his very words: “The die is cast.” ...
Enter Monsignore Gaspare Poto.