The Silent Knight [antikvár]

ACT IScene IA room on the first floor of Zilia's palace at Moncalieri. There is a door left and a door right. The curtains in the windows centre are open. Three Candelabra of wrought iron, one between each window with candles lighted later. The room is red with the glow of the setting sun. The time is 1476. On a bench down left is a portrait of Orlando, Zilia's dead husband. The general impression created is of a room belonging to a serious-minded even sanctimonious woman.As the curtain rises Zilia is sitting right centre, and her friend Monna Mea is sitting left centre, busy with a newly-begun embroidery for an altar cloth. Carlotta, Zilia's maid, sits at her feet, winding off a reel of silk. Gianetta, another friend, is standing on the balcony up left, looking out of the window.Gianetta: (Stags) When all the world's in love with spring, when olive greens and noonday is hot with the promise of the kiss we cannot love, we may not dance. The needle serves us for romance.From every tree the birds repeat the silver carillons that bring home to our hearts the bridal spring, and we must sit the whole day long like nuns who wait for evensong.Hear to that tune without, which is youth at the window softly knocking. Is it not time we were unlocking the keys, and all the bolts that tether, to let in spring and love together.to