High and lonely, in the foothills east of Naples,
Castle Gesualdo looms over curry-combed fields,
Haughty stone lair where the Prince of Venosa,
Suckled like a wolf-cub on rich seething milk,
Would lean from windows, excited by stormbursts,
Stretch out his hands and catch rain in his mouth.
Sorcery of music! His whole body trembles,
Discovering itself, future’s ghost, alive and strange,
God’s harpsichord, established in the air,
Attuned to the mind’s slightest tremulation.
Cousin Donna Maria-O, dangerous magic!
She, his bretrothed since childhood, a vision
Of luminous black eyes and black tresses,
A body of spun glass, glowing in the dark....
Beside him now, beneath the high cathedral altar,
Pledging herself, his honour, his pleasure, his wife,
Blessed by summer’s dancing sheaves of light,
Their names entwined on the sun’s scarlet seal.
Lean and sallow, the prince gallops over hills,
His long lutenist’s fingers gripping the reins,
Breeze on his face, breath of music in him,
His small mouth set in an enigmatic frown...
The nights glow with passion and adventure,
Worshipping Maria’s naked body by moonlight,
Her brooding breasts taut with the inexpressible...
Hoisting his newborn son high like a monstrance,
Gesualdo hears divine chords resound through time
And space, as cypresses’ dark tapers smoke
On the earth’s altar, in awe of willing sacrifice.
What, then, makes the loving heart turn traitor,
Scorning and forsaking the graces it has known,
For novelties and adventures, doomed to destroy?
The handsomest, most gracious cavalier in Naples
They call the Duke of Andria, a dancer’s poise
And pride in every sinewy motion and look,-
For him Donna Maria falls, cuckolds Gesualdo,
Dancing secret capers away from the ballroom,
As stealthy couriers shuttle between them,
Arranging hurried trysts in havens of dreams.
Exulting at the prize in his arms, the Duke
Plunders her with ravenous kisses, as they smelt
Together, transubstantiated in their revels,
Twin idols of their own private cult;
But, unbeknown to them, a jealous spy
Looks on, the flickering eyes of Don Giulio,-
The Prince’s uncle, himself rebuffed and shunned
By the beauteous Maria,-peeping from behind
Dusty shutters, pounce upon their entrances
And exits, their noonday tarantellas...
That sinuous dry voice, electric with indignation,
Hisses in his blanching nephew’s ear,
Drawing out scandalous report
With vindictive aplomb, feigning sympathy
And gesturing the most sincere regret.
Scorched and twisted by lightining, more dead
Than alive, cast into a snakepit of confusion,
Don Carlos howls, grieved to the marrow
By his wife’s betrayal, and cries to heaven:
“Let me witness this hell with my own eyes!”
Alerted now to the traitoress’s every feint,
Gesualdo, lying sleepless beside her in the dark,
Plots revenge with grim anticipation, there
In the Palazzo di San Severo, and one day soon
Informs his court that he is off to hunt,
Not to return until the morrow, and, thereupon,
Accompanied by kinsmen and cronies,
Mounts his horse and rides away, with the air
Of a smiling dupe, to his enemies’ satisfaction,
Who do not see him halt five streets hence,
And hide behind a kinsman’s door, waiting
For the blundering bird to trip the snare.
That very night, the Duke of Andria, hungrily
Steals into the lady’s rooms in the palace,
And, as they pluck the clothes from each other,
And wrestle on the bed, taking their pleasure
Under the hunter’s moon, then fall asleep,
Contented, in one another’s embrace,
Gesualdo swoops, fierce troop at his heels.
Rushing upstairs to the guilty bedchamber,
He smashes in the door with his boot,
And looks on, aghast, at the adulterers,
Naked as newborns, in diabolical cahoots,
The silk sheets rumpled by their foul joys.
Mad with God’s vengeance, the Prince leaps in,
And falls upon the sleeping sinners, his henchmen
Joining in at his command, with poniards and pistols,
As he stabs the whore’s belly again and again,
Her treacherous womb and loahesome sex,
Butchers her carcass, and slits her gullet,
And empties his pistol into the writhing Duke,
The skewers him, screaming, with his sword,
Stabbing and stabbing till he falls back, spent,
Staggers off, panting, stepped in blood,
And groans, “Is she dead? I do not believe it...”
Mangled on marble floor, the lovers lie
Like two dogs killed and rotting by the road,
As Don Carlos helterskelters down stairs
And vanishes like a hell-hound in the night.
At Castle Gesualdo, assured of immunity from trial,
The grieving Prince wanders, in terror of his soul,
As fierce storms burst over the walls and towers,
The hilltops bristling like frightened cats.
Through hours, days, months he fights the devil
As fiercely as any desert saint, close to suicide,
Blood for blood the burden of the soul,
Till, suddenly, he realizes the way to atone.
He builds a gift for God, a Capuchin monastery,
And, in its chapel, commissions his artists
To paint a great altarpiece, of his own design:
He, Gesualdo, kneels to beg God’s forgiveness,
Presented by his uncle, Saint Carlo Borromeo,
While saints and angels point to the sinner,
And the Magdalene outstretches, interceding;
Christ himself raises his hand in absolution
As a man and woman are hoisted out
Of Purgatory’s flames, reprieved by His mercy.
Solitary, the Prince breathes silence, composing
Madrigals, lovely and brief as shooting stars;
Compacted abundance of gesture and allusion,
Iridescent and precarious, oppositions pressed
To near-implosion, tortured and rejoicing,
Portents in a fevered dream.
Such is the anguish of style,
Intricate and oxymoronic beyond all,
Rich in new sonorities and new tones.
Alliance with the House of Este, Ferrara’s
Golden hive of artists and musicians
Making honey for God,-joyous prospect!
Trekking along dusty roads with grand cortege,
Gesualdo arrives in his unseen bride’s city,
Met with banquets, tournaments and pageants,
Orchestras hymning the illustrious nuptials.
And when flesh’s treaty is signed and delivered,
Night setting its seal upon the risky bond,
Young Leonora’s lovely face gasps
In astonished pain as the ageing Prince,
Maddened by her mystery, takes her
With furious passion, behind their bed’s holy veils.
Bizarre in this northern realm, possessed
By music and fury, his head a nest of singing snakes,
Cruel whims afflict the southern seigneur,
Who beats his bride for pleasure, and flaunts
Infidelities, only to worsen her misery,
Delighting in his power to torment another soul.
Asthmatic, drowning in a sea of monsters,
He finds himself reviled by the Estes,
So abandons Leonora and the north
To trek home to the native lands below
Which bred his tumultuous spirit.
Listless, he prowls the castle corridors, alone,
And, kneeling in chapel, supplicates the Virgin
To intercede for him with God;
Naked, he enters under Her blue mantle,
Bliss! Bliss!-sighs of unsatisfied love
Turned into the Passion’s threnody.
Stretched out like a villain on the block,
He bids hired men beat and flog him
For his pleasure, bringing a saintly smile
To those lips, as he hymns his martyrdom
In anguished cries, separating from the body
To float on heavenly harmonies above,
The purest music bleeding from wounds
Of love.Eventually, weakened, he crawls
To his bed, closes his eyes, and listens
For the first last note, the perfect sound.
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