MADDALO, A COURTIER.
MALPIGLIO, A POET.
PIGNA, A MINISTER.
ALBANO, AN USHER.
MADDALO:
No access to the Duke! You have not said
That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?
PIGNA:
Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna
Waits with state papers for his signature?
MALPIGLIO:
The Lady Leonora cannot know
That I have written a sonnet to her fame,
In which I … Venus and Adonis.
You should not take my gold and serve me not.
ALBANO:
In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,
‘If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,
Art the Adonis whom I love, and he
The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.’
O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,
Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.
MALPIGLIO:
The words are twisted in some double sense
That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me.
PIGNA:
How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?
ALBANO:
Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,
His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.
The Princess sate within the window-seat,
And so her face was hid; but on her knee
Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,
And quivering-young Tasso, too, was there.
MADDALO:
Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven
Thou drawest down smiles-they did not rain on thee.
MALPIGLIO:
Would they were parching lightnings for his sake
On whom they fell!
(Percy Bysshe Shelley)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Faces Poems, Smiling Poems, Art Poems, Truth Poems, Literature Poems, Snow Poems, Fame Poems, Poets PoemsBased on Keywords: signor, tasso, drawest, leonora, window-seat, albano, maddalo