Lord of the city which hath been Earth's Lord
Under its emperors, and-changing sex,
Not sceptre, an Hermaphrodite of Empire-
Lady of the old world.1

Arn.

New worlds?

Cas.

How old? What! are there 10

To you. You'll find there are such shortly,

By its rich harvests, new disease, and gold;

From one half of the world named a whole new one,
Because you know no better than the dull

And dubious notice of your eyes and ears.
Arn. I'll trust them.

was not, however, till he became a widower (Susanne, Duchesse de Bourbon, died April 28, 1521) that he finally broke with Francis and attached himself to the Emperor Charles V. Madame, the king's mother, not only coveted the vast estates of the house of Bourbon, but was enamoured of the Constable's person, and, so to speak, gave him his choice between marriage and a suit for his fiefs. Charles would have nothing to say to the lady's proposals or to her son's entreaties, and seeing that rejection meant ruin, he "entered into a correspondence with the Emperor and the King [Henry VIII.] of England . . . and, finding this discovered, went into the Emperor's service."

After various and varying successes, both in the South of France and in Lombardy, he found himself, in the spring of 1527, not so much the commander-in-chief as the popular capo of a mixed body of German, Spanish, and Italian condottieri, unpaid and ill-disciplined, who had mutinied more than once, who could only be kept together by the prospect of unlimited booty, and a timely concession to their demands. "To Rome! to Rome!" cried the hungry and tumultuous landsknechts, and on May 5, 1527, the "late Constable of France," at the head of an army of 30,000 troops, appeared before the walls of the sacred city. On the morning of the 6th of May, he was killed by a shot from an arquebuse. His epitaph recounts his honours: "Aucto Imperio, Gallo victo, Superatâ Italiâ, Pontifice obsesso, Româ captâ, Borbonius, Hic Jacet;" but in Paris they painted the sill of his gate-way yellow, because he was a renegade and a traitor. He could not have said, with the dying Bayard, "Ne me plaignez pas-je meurs sans avoir servi contre ma patrie, mon roy, et mon serment.' (See Modern Universal History, 1760, xxiv. 150-152, Note C; Nouvelle Biographie Universelle, art. Bourbon.")]

1. [The contrast is between imperial Rome, the Lord of the world, and papal Rome, "the great harlot which hath corrupted the earth with her fornications" (Rev. ii. 19). Compare Part II. sc. iii. line 26, vide post, p. 521.]

Cas.

Your obedient humble servant.

Arn. Say master rather. Thou hast lured me on, Through scenes of blood and lust, till I am here.

Cas. And where wouldst thou be?

Arn.

20

Oh, at peace-in peace!

Cas. And where is that which is so? From the star To the winding worm, all life is motion; and In life commotion is the extremest point

Of life. The planet wheels till it becomes

A comet, and destroying as it sweeps

The stars, goes out. The poor worm winds its way,
Living upon the death of other things,

But still, like them, must live and die, the subject

Of something which has made it live and die.
You must obey what all obey, the rule

Of fixed Necessity: against her edict
Rebellion prospers not.

Arn.

Cæs. 'Tis no rebellion.

Arn.

And when it prospers

Will it prosper now?

30

Cas. The Bourbon hath given orders for the assault, And by the dawn there will be work.

Arn.

Alas!

And shall the city yield? I see the giant

Abode of the true God, and his true saint,

Saint Peter, rear its dome and cross into

That sky whence Christ ascended from the cross,
Which his blood made a badge of glory and
Of joy (as once of torture unto him),-

God and God's Son, man's sole and only refuge!
Cas. 'Tis there, and shall be.

Arn.

Cæs.

What?

The Crucifix

Above, and many altar shrines below.
Also some culverins upon the walls,
And harquebusses, and what not; besides
The men who are to kindle them to death
Of other men.
Arn.

And those scarce mortal arches,1

1. [Compare Manfred, act iii. Canto IV. stanza cxxviii. line 1; ii, 423, note 2.]

40

sc. 4, line 10; and Childe Harold, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 131, 1899,

Pile above pile of everlasting wall,

The theatre where Emperors and their subjects
(Those subjects Romans) stood at gaze upon
The battles of the monarchs of the wild
And wood-the lion and his tusky rebels
Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust
In the arena-as right well they might,
When they had left no human foe unconquered-
Made even the forest pay its tribute of
Life to their amphitheatre, as well
As Dacia men to die the eternal death
For a sole instant's pastime, and “Pass on
To a new gladiator!"-Must it fall?

Cas. The city, or the amphitheatre ?

The church, or one, or all? for you confound
Both them and me.

Arn.

To-morrow sounds the assault

With the first cock-crow.

Cæs.

Which, if it end with

The evening's first nightingale, will be

Something new in the annals of great sieges;
For men must have their prey after long toil.

Arn. The sun goes down as calmly, and perhaps
More beautifully, than he did on Rome

On the day Remus leapt her wall.
Cæs.

Arn. You!
Cæs.

I saw him.

Yes, Sir! You forget I am or was Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape,

And a worse name. I'm Cæsar and a hunch-back

Now. Well! the first of Cæsars was a bald-head,
And loved his laurels better as a wig

(So history says) than as a glory.1 Thus
The world runs on, but we'll be merry still.

I saw your Romulus (simple as I am)

Slay his own twin, quick-born of the same womb,
Because he leapt a ditch ('twas then no wall,

50

60

70

80

1. ["Calvitii vero deformitatem iniquissime ferret, sæpe obtrectatorum jocis obnoxiam expertus. Ideoque et deficientem capillum revocare a vertice assuerat, et ex omnibus decretis sibi a Senatu populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius, quam jus laureæ coronæ perpetuo gestanda."-Suetonius, Opera Omnia, 1826, pp. 105, 106.]

Whate'er it now be); and Rome's earliest cement

Was brother's blood; and if its native blood

Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red

As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear
The deep hue of the Ocean and the Earth,
Which the great robber sons of fratricide
Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter,

For ages.

Arn. But what have these done, their far
Remote descendants, who have lived in peace,
The peace
of Heaven, and in her sunshine of

Piety?

Cæs. And what had they done, whom the old Romans o'erswept ?-Hark!

Arn.

They are soldiers singing

A reckless roundelay, upon the eve

Of many deaths, it may be of their own.

90

Cas. And why should they not sing as well as swans? They are black ones, to be sure.

Arn.

I see, too?

So, you are learned,

Cæs. In my grammar, certes. I
Was educated for a monk of all times,
And once I was well versed in the forgotten
Etruscan letters, and-were I so minded-
Could make their hieroglyphics plainer than
Your alphabet.

Arn.

And wherefore do you not?

Cas. It answers better to resolve the alphabet
Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman,
And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist,
Philosopher, and what not, they have built
More Babels, without new dispersion, than

100

The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze, 110

Who failed and fled each other. Why? why, marry,
Because no man could understand his neighbour.

They are wiser now, and will not separate
For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood,
Their Shibboleth-their Koran-Talmud-their
Cabala-their best brick-work, wherewithal
They build more-

Arn. (interrupting him). Oh, thou everlasting sneerer! Be silent! How the soldier's rough strain seems Softened by distance to a hymn-like cadence!

Listen!

Cas. Yes. I have heard the angels sing.

Arn. And demons howl.
Cæs.

I love all music.

120

And man, too. Let us listen:

And Death only be mute.2

With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er

The walls of old Rome,

And who then shall count o'er ".

The spoils of each dome?

i. With a soldier's firm foot.—[MS.]

ii. With the Bourbon will count o'er.—[MS.]

1. [Francis the First was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia, February 24, 1525.]

2. [Compare The Siege of Corinth, line 752, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 483. There is a note of tragic irony in the soldiers' vain-glorious prophecy.]