SCENE V
Nepi: a sullen evening over the volcanic country. Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna lies stretched on a black litter along the terrace of the castle, under a clump of pomegranate-trees covered with blood-red apples.
A beautiful Mute sits on the ground and watches his every look or gesture.
CESARE.
Banished from all the passion of events,
While, like a sisterhood of Fates, at Rome,
The Conclave sits—
While hot night compasses these empty hills
That once had fire and action! [To the girl at his feet.
O my Silence,
What health in you, what pleasantness! A refuge,
A sepulchre, yet not of death!
They call Love blind: the finer love is dumb—
Our horses’ love, our dogs’, our falcons’, thine.
[She rises by him to be caressed. As Madonna de’ Catanei comes to him, with a cup in her hand, the girl draws back and curls herself up in the roots of a cypress-tree.
VANOZZA.
It is the hour: forgive me, I have brought you
The draught, my Duke.... But let me take your hand,
And guide it to your lips.
[He drinks: suddenly she kisses the blond hair over his forehead.