Always
I built broad the foundations of my power.
The kindred
Of all I dispossessed are gone from earth,
Where no successor of your Holiness
Could raise them my opponents: half my train
Is filled with high-born nobles, once the servants
Of Colonnesi and Orsini, now
My gentlemen and hung upon my fortune
As it were hope itself: the Sacred College,
You know, is more than half subservient to me....
But—are you ailing?
ALEXANDER.
No, no—hot and dull,
Not ailing.
CESARE.
There are dancers, courtesans,
Who will in movements of the long-lost breeze
Fan the dead air—if you will visit me
To-night: to-morrow in the vineyard-garden
We sup.... ’Tis hard to get the dancers now:
The women shut their doors and strike their bodies
In terror at the fever that can kill.
They need await no other—lust is dead.
... You will announce at the next Consistory
I join the French?
ALEXANDER.
Ay—with the treaties
Between us and the Spaniards and Gonsalvo
Safe in my coffers: for the French will fail;
And, though they raised you up, they hold you back
From Florence and your clutch on Tuscany.
You have Romagna firm.
CESARE.
O father,
Live a few years and I shall be your king!
As you love me, live till Tuscany is mine.
Live, live!