Blue eyes! Come, come, no tears!
Angel, I cannot be your nurse, I cannot.
[He passes on, slipping a rosary into the child’s lap.
How he inhabits
The air he breathes ... no need of clothing here,
Embellishments and laces—all is Cesare,
His lusts, his pride, his loneliness....
[The Pope sits down and sighs twice or thrice heavily, drumming with his fingers on the table: then he catches sight of a design for Cesare’s new scutcheon. He speaks in gasps.
Aut Cesar—fie! Aut nihil! He is Cesar;
Duke of Romagna first,
My bastard!—presently
King of all Italy. Am I, indeed, his father?
But if I am not, Roman Jupiter
Stole to my couch and got him such a son
As the whole earth acclaims. More beautiful
He is growing day by day. We interact;
We are together, or, if separate—
He breeding armies and I breeding gold—
What colloquy at nightfall.... And submissive,
He is submissive toward me as Lucrece.
What children these have been to me!
Enter Donna Fiammetta: she is a tall, perfectly fair young creature, of great dignity. She kneels.
Ah, Fiammetta, welcome!
Nay, ’tis your right, child.... Here I am intruder,
In the Lord Cesar’s absence. Take my blessing.
FIAMMETTA.
[As she rises.] Lord Cesare bade me this hour ...
[The Child cries. Fiammetta, looking for consent to the Pope, lifts the little Prince in her arms.