The Saint's Tragedy Part 29

O people blest of Heaven!

Eliz. O master, master, You will not let the mob, when I lie dead, Make me a show--paw over all my limbs-- Pull out my hair--pluck off my finger-nails-- Wear sc.r.a.ps of me for charms and amulets, As if I were a mummy, or a drug?

As they have done to others--I have seen it-- Nor set me up in ugly naked pictures In every church, that cold world-hardened wits May gossip o'er my secret tortures? Promise-- Swear to me! I demand it!

Con. No man lights A candle, to be hid beneath a bushel: Thy virtues are the Church's dower: endure All which the edification of the faithful Makes needful to be published.

Eliz. O my G.o.d!

I had stripped myself of all, but modesty!

Dost Thou claim yet that victim? Be it so.

Now take me home! I have no more to give Thee!

So weak--and yet no pain--why, now naught ails me!

How dim the lights burn! Here-- Where are you, children?

Alas! I had forgotten.

Now I must sleep--for ere the sun shall rise, I must begone upon a long, long journey To him I love.

Con. She means her heavenly Bridegroom-- The Spouse of souls.

Eliz. I said, to him I love.

Let me sleep, sleep.

You will not need to wake me--so--good-night.

[Folds herself into an att.i.tude of repose. The scene closes.]

ACT V

SCENE I. A.D. 1235.

A Convent at Marpurg. Cloisters of the infirmary. Two aged monks sitting.

1st Monk. So they will publish to-day the Landgravine's canonisation, and translate her to the new church prepared for her.

Alack, now, that all the world should be out sight-seeing and saint- making, and we laid up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry!

2d Monk. Let be, man--let be. We have seen sights and saints in our time. And, truly, this insolatio suits my old bones better than processioning.

1st Monk. 'Tis pleasant enough in the sun, were it not for the flies. Look--there's a lizard. Come you here, little run-about; here's game for you.

2d Monk. A tame fool, and a gay one--Munditiae mundanis.

1st Monk. Catch him a fat fly--my hand shaketh.

2d Monk. If one of your new-lights were here, now, he'd pluck him for a fiend, as Dominic did the live sparrow in chapel.

1st Monk. There will be precious offerings made to-day, of which our house will get its share.

2d Monk. Not we; she always favoured the Franciscans most.

1st Monk. 'Twas but fair--they were her kith and kin.

She lately put on the habit of their third minors.

2d Monk. So have half the fine gentlemen and ladies in Europe.

There's one of your new inventions, now, for letting grand folks serve G.o.d and mammon at once, and emptying honest monasteries, where men give up all for the Gospel's sake. And now these Pharisees of Franciscans will go off with full pockets--

1st Monk. While we poor publicans--

2d Monk. Shall not come home all of us justified, I think.

1st Monk. How? Is there scandal among us?

2d Monk. Ask not--ask not. Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise. Of all sins, avoid that same gossiping.

1st Monk. Nay, tell me now. Are we not like David and Jonathan?

Have we not worked together, prayed together, journeyed together, and been soundly flogged together, more by token, any time this forty years? And now is news so plenty, that thou darest to defraud me of a morsel?

2d Monk. I'll tell thee--but be secret. I knew a man hard by the convent [names are dangerous, and a bird of the air shall carry the matter], one that hath a mighty eye for a heretic, if thou knowest him.

1st Monk. Who carries his poll screwed on over-tight, and sits with his eyes shut in chapel?

2d Monk. The same. Such a one to be in evil savour--to have the splendour of the pontifical countenance turned from him, as though he had taken Christians for Amalekites, and slain the people of the Lord.

1st Monk. How now?

2d Monk. I only speak as I hear: for my sister's son is chaplain, for the time being, to a certain Archisacerdos, a foreigner, now lodging where thou knowest. The young mail being hid, after some knavery, behind the arras, in come our quidam and that prelate. The quidam, surly and Saxon--the guest, smooth and Italian; his words softer than b.u.t.ter, yet very swords: that this quidam had 'exceeded the bounds of his commission--launched out into wanton and lawless cruelty--burnt n.o.ble ladies unheard, of whose innocence the Holy See had proof--defiled the Catholic faith in the eyes of the weaker sort--and alienated the minds of many n.o.bles and gentlemen'--and finally, that he who thinketh he standeth, were wise to take heed lest he fall.

1st Monk. And what said Conrad?

2d Monk. Out upon a man that cannot keep his lips! Who spake of Conrad? That quidam, however, answered nought, but--how 'to his own master he stood or fell'--how 'he laboured not for the Pope but for the Papacy'; and so forth.

1st Monk. Here is awful doctrine! Behold the fruit of your reformers! This comes of their realised ideas, and centralisations, and organisations, till a monk cannot wink in chapel without being blinded with the lantern, or fall sick on Fridays, for fear of the rod. Have I not testified? Have I not foretold?

2d Monk. Thou hast indeed. Thou knowest that the old paths are best, and livest in most pious abhorrence of all amendment.

1st Monk. Do you hear that shout? There is the procession returning from the tomb.

2d Monk. Hark to the tramp of the horse-hoofs! A gallant show, I'll warrant!

1st Monk. Time was, now, when we were young bloods together in the world, such a roll as that would have set our hearts beating against their cages!

2d Monk. Ay, ay. We have seen sport in our day; we have paraded and curvetted, eh? and heard scabbards jingle? We know the sly touch of the heel, that set him on his hind legs before the right window. Vanitas vanitatum--omnia vanitas! Here comes Gerard, Conrad's chaplain, with our dinner.

[Gerard enters across the court.]

1st Monk. A kindly youth and a G.o.dly, but--reformation-bitten, like the rest.

2d Monk. Never care. Boys must take the reigning madness in religion, as they do the measles--once for all.