Search the armoury. [Exit Michelotto.
We live and breathe for armaments, for choice
Of this Condottiere or another
To lead them. In two days the Duke will march.
Then news and letters, or discourse of these,
Will fill our ears and fill the Vatican.
His Holiness is chafing, and on fire
With all the wishes of Duke Cesare.
He laughs; but sometimes clouds:
—Comes to the Treasury, then leaves the door
Unopened, and the wrinkles of his face
Take seed of thoughts and teem.
Enter the Lord Cardinal Orsini.
CARDINAL ORSINI.
He is gone below....
Gone to the buried rooms where young Astorre,
Faënza’s lord, for now a twelvemonth past,
Lies captive.
Have you seen the catapult?
It terrorises by its fashion. Come!
[The Cardinals pass out. After a few moments the Lord Alexander VI. and the Lord Francesco Borgia enter together.
ALEXANDER.
Would he were in the Tiber!
A child so fresh and vigorous, a lad
As fair as Alexander, and a fame
As crescent. If we shut him up in marble,
A statue, we were justified: his body
Is of the ageless sculptures.
CARDINAL BORGIA.
Cousin,
You should not seek the prison-cells below.