LURIA.

PERSONS.

LURIA, a Moor, Commander of the Florentine Forces.

HUSAIN, a Moor, his friend.

PUCCIO, the old Florentine Commander, now LURIA'S Chief Officer. BRACCIO, Commissary of the Republic of Florence.

JACOPO (LAPO), his Secretary.

TIBURZIO, Commander of the Pisans.

DOMIZIA, a noble Florentine Lady.

Time, 14

SCENE.-LURIA's Camp between Florence and Pisa.

ACT I.

MORNING.

BRACCIO, as dictating to his Secretary; PUCCIO standing by.

Brac. [to Puc.] Then, you join battle in an hour?

Puc.

Luria, the Captain.

Brac. [to the Sec.] "In an hour, the battle.”

Not I;

[To Puc.] Sir, let your eye run o'er this loose digest,

And see if very much of your report

Have slipped away through my civilian phrase.

Does this instruct the Signory aright

How army stands with army?

All seems here:

Puc. [taking the paper.]
-That Luria, seizing with our City's force
The several points of vantage, hill and plain,
Shuts Pisa safe from help on every side,
And baffling the Lucchese arrived too late,
Must, in the battle he delivers now,

Beat her best troops and first of chiefs.

Brac.

Tiburzio's a consummate captain too!

So sure?

Puc. Luria holds Pisa's fortune in his hand.

Brac. [to the Sec.] "The Signory hold Pisa in their

hand!"

Your own proved soldiership's our warrant, sir:

So, while my secretary ends his task,

Have out two horsemen, by the open roads,
To post with it to Florence!

Puc. [returning the paper.] All seems here;
Unless... Ser Braccio, 'tis my last report!
Since Pisa's outbreak, and my overthrow,
And Luria's hastening at the city's call
To save her, as he only could, no doubt;
Till now that she is saved or sure to be,-
Whatever you tell Florence, I tell you:
Each day's note you, her Commissary, make
Of Luria's movements, I myself supply.
No youngster am I longer, to my cost;
Therefore while Florence gloried in her choice

And vaunted Luria, whom but Luria, still,
As if zeal, courage, prudence, conduct, faith,
Had never met in any man before,

I saw no pressing need to swell the cry.
But now, this last report and I have done-
So, ere to-night comes with its roar of praise,
"Twere not amiss if some one old i' the trade
Subscribed with, "True, for once rash counsel's best;
"This Moor of the bad faith and doubtful race,
"This boy to whose untried sagacity,

“Raw valour, Florence trusts without reserve "The charge to save her, justifies her choice;

"In no point has this stranger failed his friends; "Now praise!" I say this, and it is not here.

Brac. [to the Sec.] Write, "Puccio, superseded in the charge

"By Luria, bears full witness to his worth,

"And no reward our Signory can give

"Their champion but he'll back it cheerfully."

Aught more? Five minutes hence, both messengers!

[PUCCIO goes.

Brac. [after a pause, and while he slowly tears the paper into shreds.]

I think pray God, I hold in fit contempt

...

This warfare's noble art and ordering,

And, once the brace of prizers fairly matched,
Poleaxe with poleaxe, knife with knife as good,-
Spit properly at what men term their skill...
Yet here I think our fighter has the odds;

With Pisa's strength diminished thus and thus,
Such points of vantage in our hands and such,
With Lucca off the stage, too,―all's assured:
Luria must win this battle. Write the Court,
That Luria's trial end and sentence pass!

You overshoot the mark, my Lapo! Nay!
When did I say pure love's impossible?

I make you daily write those red cheeks thin,
Load your young brow with what concerns it least,
And, when we visit Florence, let you pace
The Piazza by my side as if we talked,
Where all your old acquaintances may see
You'd die for me, I should not be surprised!
Now then!

Sec.

Sir, look about and love yourself!
Step after step the Signory and you
Tread gay till this tremendous point's to pass;
Which, pass not, pass not, ere you ask yourself,
Bears the brain steadily such draughts of fire,
Or too delicious may not prove the pride
Of this long secret Trial you dared plan,

Dare execute, you solitary here,

With the gray-headed toothless fools at home,

Who think themselves your lords, they are such slaves?

If they pronounce this sentence as you bid,
Declare the treason, claim its penalty,—
And sudden out of all the blaze of life,
On the best minute of his brightest day,
From that adoring army at his back,
Thro' Florence' joyous crowds before his face,
Into the dark you beckon Luria. . .

Brac.

Then

Why, Lapo, when the fighting-people vaunt,
We of the other craft and mystery,

May we not smile demure, the danger past?

Sec. Sir, no, no, no,-the danger, and your spirit At watch and ward? Where's danger on your part, With that thin flitting instantaneous steel,

'Gainst the blind bull-front of a brute-force world? If Luria, that's to perish sure as fate,

Should have been really guiltless after all?

Brac. Ah, you have thought that?

Sec.

Here I sit, your scribe,

And in and out goes Luria, days and nights;
This Puccio comes; the Moor his other friend,
Husain; they talk-all that's feigned easily;
He speaks (I would not listen if I could)
Reads, orders, counsels ;—but he rests sometimes,—
I see him stand and eat, sleep stretched an hour
On the lynx-skins, yonder; hold his bared black arms
Into the sun from the tent-opening; laugh

When his horse drops the forage from his teeth
And neighs to hear him hum his Moorish songs,