Limbo and Other Essays Part 13

PRINCESS (_gravely_)

It must be, then, dear Signor Diego, as the Pythagoreans held: the discipline of music is virtuous for the soul. There is a power in numbered and measured sound very akin to wisdom; mysterious and excellent; as indeed the Ancients fabled in the tales of Orpheus and Amphion, musicians and great sages and legislators of states. I have long desired your conversation, admirable Diego.

DIEGO (_with secret contempt_)

n.o.ble maiden, such words exceed my poor unscholarly appreciation. The antique worthies whom you name are for me merely figures in tapestries and frescoes, quaint greybeards in laurel wreaths and helmets; and I can scarcely tell whether the Ladies Fort.i.tude and Rhetoric with whom they hold converse, are real daughters of kings, or mere Arts and Virtues.

But the Duke, a learned and judicious prince, will set due store by his youthful cousin's learning. As for me, simpleton and ignoramus that I am, all I see is that Princess Hippolyta is very beautiful and very young.

PRINCESS

(_sighing a little, but with great simplicity_)

I know it. I am young, and perhaps crude; although I study hard to learn the rules of wisdom. You, Diego, seem to know them without study.

DIEGO

I know somewhat of the world and of men, gracious Princess, but that can scarce be called knowing wisdom. Say rather knowing blindness, envy, cruelty, endless nameless folly in others and oneself. But why should you seek to be wise? you who are fair, young, a princess, and betrothed from your cradle to a great prince? Be beautiful, be young, be what you are, a woman.

Diego _has said this last word with emphasis, but the_ Princess _has not noticed the sarcasm in his voice_.

PRINCESS (_shaking her head_)

That is not my lot. I was destined, as you said, to be the wife of a great prince; and my dear father trained me to fill that office.

DIEGO

Well, and to be beautiful, young, radiant; to be a woman; is not that the office of a wife?

PRINCESS

I have not much experience. But my father told me, and I have gathered from books, that in the wives of princes, such gifts are often thrown away; that other women, supplying them, seem to supply them better. Look at my cousin's mother. I can remember her still beautiful, young, and most tenderly loving. Yet the Duke, my uncle, disdained her, and all she got was loneliness and heartbreak. An honourable woman, a princess, cannot compete with those who study to please and to please only. She must either submit to being ousted from her husband's love, or soar above it into other regions.

DIEGO (_interested_)

Other regions?

PRINCESS

Higher ones. She must be fit to be her husband's help, and to nurse his sons to valour and wisdom.

DIEGO

I see. The Prince must know that besides all the knights that he summons to battle, and all the wise men whom he hears in council, there is another knight, in rather lighter armour and quicker tired, another counsellor, less experienced and of less steady temper, ready for use.

Is this great gain?

PRINCESS

It is strange that being a man, you should conceive of women from----

DIEGO

From a man's standpoint?

PRINCESS

Nay; methinks a woman's. For I observe that women, when they wish to help men, think first of all of some transparent masquerade, donning men's clothes, at all events in metaphor, in order to be near their lovers when not wanted.

DIEGO (_hastily_)

Donning men's clothes? A masquerade? I fail to follow your meaning, gracious maiden.

PRINCESS (_simply_)

So I have learned at least from our poets. Angelica, and Bradamante and Fiordispina, scouring the country after their lovers, who were busy enough without them. I prefer Penelope, staying at home to save the lands and goods of Ulysses, and bringing up his son to rescue and avenge him.

DIEGO (_rea.s.sured and indifferent_)

Did Ulysses love Penelope any better for it, Madam? better than poor besotted Menelaus, after all his injuries, loved Helen back in Sparta?

PRINCESS

That is not the question. A woman born to be a prince's wife and prince's mother, does her work not for the sake of something greater than love, whether much or little.

DIEGO

For what then?

PRINCESS

Does a well-bred horse or excellent falcon do its duty to please its master? No; but because such is its nature. Similarly, methinks, a woman bred to be a princess works with her husband, for her husband, not for any reward, but because he and she are of the same breed, and obey the same instincts.

DIEGO

Ah!----Then happiness, love,--all that a woman craves for?

PRINCESS

Are accidents. Are they not so in the life of a prince? Love he may s.n.a.t.c.h; and she, being in woman's fas.h.i.+on not allowed to s.n.a.t.c.h, may receive as a gift, or not. But received or s.n.a.t.c.hed, it is not either's business; not their nature's true fulfilment.

DIEGO

You think so, Lady?

PRINCESS

I am bound to think so. I was born to it and taught it. You know the Duke, my cousin,--well, I am his bride, not being born his sister.

DIEGO