SCENE II
The Garden of the Vatican, toward sunset.
The Lord Alexander VI., the Lord Cardinal Bartolomeo of Segovia, the Lord Bishop of Venosa and Monsignore Gaspare Poto.
BISHOP OF VENOSA.
The sun eats as a canker.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Rome
Is festering with this fever like a pest.
I move and speak with strange uneasiness,
As if the motions of my life had fear.
ALEXANDER.
Sol in Leone! There is nothing pleasant
When the year fills that tract ... rage, rage, and sandy,
Consuming light!
I live a damp, old horse,
O’er-ridden by the ardour of the air:
No neatness round my throat, the cope flung off,
And all the passion of my flesh for shade.
Here there are shady grottoes from the darkness
Of trees; the heat is here unpressed by walls;
[Little Don Rodrigo and Don Giovanni come from behind a shrubbery.