There that you two whose tongues have been so busy About the streets with laughing and innuendo, From ear to ear with jest and utter joy-- You, Titian, a sycophant of Fame, And you, Aretino, who incarnate lust, May know that Giorgione is above you. You coveted Isotta with your eyes, Now you shall have her as shall all the world!
[_Flings the curtain back from the picture then sinks to the couch._
_As they gaze on the unclothed form, BELLINI turns away, when he sees ISOTTA enter. She is pale and ill, but moves smilingly down toward GIORGIONE, till happening to see the picture, she gives a deep cry._
_GIORGIONE, springing to his feet, dazedly beholds her._
_Bellini_ (_speechless till he sees ISOTTA'S pallor_). Isotta! you are ill!... O would my breath Had never lasted to this evil hour--! Shall I not bring the leech? (_when she does not answer; to GIORGIONE_) This price has pride!
[_He goes: then ARETINO and TITIAN. The curtain falls back._
_Isotta_ (_whose eyes have closed_). The flesh of women is their fate forever! My poor, poor body! all I had to give So desecrated.
_Giorgione_ (_hoarsely_). Why have you come here?
_Isotta._ To see Messer Giorgione--who is brave.
To hear Messer Giorgione--who is gentle And honourable to women who are weak. To--heal Messer Giorgione--then to die!
_Isotta._ Why, it may be. If love Still leads me, it were best that it be slain.
_Isotta_ (_slowly_). Who beholds her body Given ... to unabated eyes--yet lives? I think it must be so.
_Giorgione._ Alluring lies! Out of pale lips of treachery but lies! You have returned to me, whom you have cursed With craving for you, With an immortal love, Because this lisping Luzzi, With whom you fled, weary of falsity, Has cast you off.
_Giorgione._ Ah! and blind? Not knowing that you now are here again, Where you disrobed to my adoring soul, But thinking that you wait him with fair eyes Of fond expectancy--as once for me! Believing that your breath is beating only With ecstasy for him!
_Giorgione._ And I but Giorgione, smiling quean!
But Giorgione, a vassal to your sway? Back to your orgies! and may Venus, goddess Of black adulteries, but not of love, Be with them! May your blood, that I believed Vestal to all but me, run vile with passions As any nymph's of Bacchus! May your body, That I have painted here, be to all time An image of soul-cheating chastity!