Nicolli Casteletti
Being aware of the news from Malta
The sensation of our security
Replaced has been by one of urgent fear
But as Arch-Priest thy calmness I beseech
For as the hungry wolves seize straggle-lambs
A flock is always stronger together
In times of thorns & danger strength is all
When fortified by Jesus in Heaven
Better, standing firm, one corporeal
Member, bonded by singular spirit.
Don Lorenzo Apap
That is true, & tho’ Galiziano
Is here at the Hospitaler’s behest
Still he represents foreign opressors
Who say they are honour’d to protect us
But, Governor, what has your Order done?
I remember when L’Isle Adam first came
With cannons & provisions & strong men
Where are they now? Why have they been withdrawn?
Gozo, it seems, no partner in their plans.
Enter Barnardo D’Opua with Andreotto Brancato
Barnardo
This is no Janissary cur, this is
Andreotto Brancato of Nadur,
He’d rowed a stolen boat into Mgarr
& told a story fir for fireside tales
Of how he been captur’d by the Turks
On Gozo, & was made a shaven slave
Kept in his galley manacles for months
Until strange fate return’d him to these isles
It is better he tells you the details
Indented with grave warnings as they are
Andreotto Brancato
Remember me, Don Lorenzo Apap,
& you too Friar Bartolomeo,
Who was the soft baptiser of my birth
Escaped I have from Dragut’s very decks
Disguis’d myself a Janissary sword
& sped across all Malta, where I saw
The people of Mdina hold aloft,
A statue of Saint Agatha, in fear
The Corsairs broke their camp & now have turn’d
For Gozo, you must fortify at once!
Galaziano de Sasse
It is I who makes the decisions here,
Young man, Galaziano de Sesse
My name, a Knight of the Hospitalers
& being thus they must repsect my plan
That is to send Gozo’s youngest children
With mothers & grandmothers, to Birgu
By every little boat that we might find
Don Lorenzo shall lead the armarda
Prepare the deed at once, you are dismiss’d
& so, Andreotto, yes? please tell us
More about your struggle in the galleys.
Andreotto Brancato
Galleons & galleasees
A life upon the waves
Was more a mound of miseries
For the whip-well galley slaves.
After a day of picking fruit
In the fields of Marsalforn
I went to sleep under a tree
& I dreamt right thro’ til dawn
I was awoken by three Turks
With sabres, beards & bad breath
Who dragg’d me from this blessed isle
For a life far worse than death
We row’d to Italy & Spain
Sardinia & Djerba,
Shackl’d with a Venetian man
A Swedish & a Berber
Our tongues salt-rough with utter drought,
Were withering at the roots;
We could not speak, just row’d in rows
Of we brutish muscl’d mutes
We slept in our own excrement
& gnaw’d on stale bizcocho
The only thing of slender hope
Was dreaming of dear Gozo
Her fertile fields, her hills, her cliffs
Her villages & her bays
Tis there, on the bottomsea
I would wait to end my days
& glory be to God, I’m home
Those dreams are manifested
& I will pluck my fruits once more
When I am fully rested
Yes glory be to God, I’m back,
My dreams are all-fulfilling
Returning to my farm of weeds
To tend with tender tilling!
Scene 8: Fort Saint Angelo
A number of boats have arrived in the Grand Harbour from Gozo, carrying women & children
Don Lorenzo Apap
Knights of Saint John, we are come from Gozo,
Are you not our protectors, as you claim
Pleading before your chief regality
Grandmaster, take pity on our children,
The youngest of our litter, & with them
Their mothers & grandmothers, who shall care
For all their needs, if only they might pass
Among the safeties of your stalwart keep
Which has already held the Turks aloof
There must be room some underneath your rooves ?!
Grandmaster D’Homodes
Don Lorenzo, that is you, yes, but why?
What a crude foolishness of compulsion
This is a time of war, why men must fight
& men fight better in their wive’s defence
Protecting children, parents, would Gozo
Defend itself when sources of its strength
Sitting in Senglea doing nothing –
You have an hour to leave the Grand Harbour
Else force on me to train a cannonade
Upon your boats, to blow them all apart.
Don Lorenzo Apap
Where do you go Grandmaster D’Homodes
Do you not hear the wailing babies’ pleas
& is your faith not Christian, to care
For any stranger’s fate, with them to share
The bread & the body of Christ, as one,
They should be within, to hide from the swords
Drawn by Dragut, to slay & to enslave,
Tho soldiers of Gozo will still be brave
Where have you gone, Grandmaster D’Homodes
Save our young children, sir, hear their sad pleas!
De Valette
The maestro has important work to do,
Our islands are invaded as you know
Our enemy on Malta yet remains
Has not as yet set foot upon Gozo
As you well know, & might not even do,
Time to row this array of rabbledom
Back to their homes, there’s nothing doing here
That weaves in your concern, this is a fort
Of holy warriors, not nursery
I bid you au revoir, good luck, godspeed
Peter Towneley
What a travesty of human conscience
Those knights say they fight for the grace of God
But if they were they would have sworn like me
Upon the cross to smite all Moslems dead,
I offer you my services instead
Peter Towneley of Lancashire, England,
An ardent Catholic whom God has brought,
It seems, to Malta, where I’m needed most
Before he calls me to his just reward
I’ll honour my religion with my sword
Scene 9: The salt pans opposite the islet of Tal-Ħalfa.
Ioanna is making salt & singing
Ioanna
O sea ! O sea ! I hear you so
This morning I’ve come to see you
Whose flow encircles all the world
What a wondrous thing to view
Andreotto
Ioanna, Ioanna!
It is Andreotto, true
A miracle of God it is
That brings me back to you
Ioanna
Is this an apparition, ghost,
Or is it a living dream
Or light tricking through vapours
From the ocean’s girdling stream
Andreotto
No, I am real, & have returned
For I still love you darling
& have returned to your warm isles
Like the herons in the Spring
& if your heart was wooden cage
I’d be a bird inside it
The waves kept us apart a year
My mind could not abide it
Ioanna
Andreotto! we can’t be seen
In public, else my mother
Will fit & fret & faint in tears
For I have wed another
Andreotto
I heard this news so terrible
It claws my soul in pieces
As all the torments of the soul
In agony releases
Ioanna
I had a heart most sorrowful
Like the clouds that dark the day
First I had someone to love me
Ah! but then he went away
The sweet beloved of my heart
I pined for like the sunrise
My tears did cause the sea to swell
& my heart’s sighs winds to rise
Every shadow was your shadow
Say the angels all above
The worst misfortune in this life’s
Not to see the one you love
Andreotto
& my love for you ne’er falter’d
It could never go away
For it told me in the darkness
We would meet again one day
Ioanna
That might be so, but love can change
Sad tears dried on the pillows
For life goes on, the world still turns,
& a woman’s spirit grows
& I must leave my work & climb
The paths, & I implore thee
Not to follow up to town,
The gossip could destroy me
Exit Ioanna
Andreotto
Planting a fruit tree in thy heart
My love for you did nourish
Now someone else the apples pluck
In this my soul doth perish
At the sound of a musket shop nearly hitting him, Andreotto stops singing & in shock stares out to sea. Another shot is fired & Fransciscus quickly departs. A few moments later a rowing boat arrives at the shore, out of which spill several jannisaries.
Scene 10: Under the Citadella, Gozo
Sinan Pasha
Well here we are, & I have never seen
This citadel before, so impressive,
Sheer, but not at all indomitable
We should make shortling work of those old walls
Mustapha, set a cannonade in place
Six on a breah & three to terrify
The denizens of this mud-rustic isle
All huddl’d in dark chapels as we speak –
On deaf ears falls their supplicating faith.
Dragut
Terrified is a gross understatement
They fell like chickens from a slav’ring fox
Headbundling women hauling babes by arms
While grain & cattle that we could not catch
Must stench that place like a Cairo market
Their homes we raze, draw in or burn their crops,
They won’t forget the day Dragut return’d
Bourne on avenging wings; when a man’s blood
Absorb’d by foreign soil, on that same spot
A brother might enact as Fate sees fit
Enter Salah Rais with Paulo di Nas
Salah Rais
Blessed Pasha, this is Paulo di Nas
We caught him in the night, he’d tried to land
Upon these shores, his boat full of powder
Now requiesc’d with us – after tortures
He readily reveal’d his name & rank,
He is one of the jurors of Gozo,
More tortures yielded natures of his task,
& detail’d sketches of the defences
Paulo – tell these men everything you know
Exactly as you told me, now proceed.
Paulo di Nas
My name is Paulo di Nas of Mgarr
My governor had sent me to Malta
To seek assistance from the Grandmaster
Who gave us powder for the one cannon
That works within the central citadel
We are six thousand Gozitans, who feel
A sense of comfort in that rotunda
& well provision’d are, grain & water,
Meat & fruit – all in plentiful & supply
as befits our very Eden on Earth
Sinan Pasha
What mad temerity ! what presumption!
To think you can oppose, whats more withstand,
Suleiman, Sultan, master of the World !
Those old style walls lack sides & embankments,
It won’t be long before we tear them dwon
Cannons at the church of San Giorgio
& at the royal portway of Rabat
Shall form a criss-cross battery, let loose
Furious noises, angers & bloodshed,
{BOOM} & there it is, the first beat of the march.
The Turkish Warriors perform a Mehler
Scene 11: The Citadella
The bastion is under fire from the Turkish artillery. Leonardus Bongibino is assisiting Peter Townley with a cannon. Enter Castelletti
Nicolli Casteletti
Soldiers ! Soldiers of the Citadella
Our perdition seems inevitable
Those dark, brown clouds have hatch’d a bitter storm
The governor has vanish’d, known not where,
& so am I elected to report
Of most terrible tidings, in the night,
Paulo di Nas was captur’d out at sea
With all the promis’d powder, which now blasts
These cannonballs demolishing our walls,
That seem now more a net, & we its birds !
Peter Towneley
But birds have wings & we are in the sky,
On walls so high & solid to withstand,
Each stone was lain by a Christian hand,
While powder still remains within the kegs
Our will might blow a hole in birds’ nets yet
As Jesus died for you, & for us all,
Come place the ball & I shall light the fuse
Then land a shot upon the foe below
Ready thyselves, step back, & close your ears…
{BOOM}
Enter Barnardo
Barnardo
How goes the battle with our only gun
& I’ll contend with fate, why only one?
Abandon’d by the knights who serve Saint John
Who’ve shown tho’ they had sworn our protection
To be nothing but foreign oppressors
Milking the cattle of Melite’s isles
But we are Gozo, long live her people
Dress’d up as soldiers; flejgutas, muskets,
Who’d rather send their citadel to dust
Than claim surrender’d to the infidel
Peter Towneley
Pass me the very last of the powder
& let me end the lives of more heathen
Heretical thro’ every fibre
Only invading Christian nations
To permeate their evil conversion,
Now load the ball, matchlock shall start the flame,
Remember Peter Towneley is my name
Noble scion of noble parents born,
The saviour’s Cross is etch’d with bleeding thorns
Into my heart, til Judgment joins our souls.
A Turkish cannonball slays Peter Towneley
Scene 12 – The Citadella
Castelletti
This is a most unusual
Consiglio Popolare
The Citadel is crumbling down
The situation’s scary
Bongibino
Three days of deadly cannonfire
Has made a breach quite gaping
Thro which the Turks are set to swarm
For murdering & raping
Barnardo
& does our noble governor
Intend to turn protecter
You’re not in Zaragoza now
But with the Knights of Malta
Galaziano
This is a sad scenario
As hourly fade our prospects
Six thousand fates lying prostrate
To whatever happens next
Bartolomeo Bonavia
Dragut is with them & I fear
His vengeance shall be dreadful
Who here recalls the raid where slew
His brother in hot battle
Don Lorenzo
Let calm seas flow within us all
At pastoral insistance
Take out you rosaries & pray
For Heavenly resistance
Bongibino
Lament this awful tragedy
Our homelands plunge in ruin
Dismay ! Dismay ! our lands are lost
With further troubles brewing
Don Lorenzo
Our women, children, elderly
Within houses lock’d inside
& every living one of them
Waits completely terrified
Barnardo
To arms ! To arms ! ket Gozo men!
Defend their isle beloved
With mattocks, pitchforks, rocks & oil
Man the ramparts overhead
Castelletti
O what a cruel choice it is
To fight is to dig our graves
But if we lay our arms aside
It is certain we’ll be slaves
Bartolomeo Bonavia
The heart of every heathen Turk’s
Like the filthy soles of shoes
Better to die on Gozo, free,
Than to labour & amuse
Galaziano
What use is dying if one might
Find money for one’s ransom
The world would soon answer our plight
With benificience handsome
Castelletti
Perhaps they’ll leave the wealthiest
Gozitans unmolested
Who would serve better staying put
For to raise the sums requested
Galaziano
That is a splendid thought, lets send
Bartholomew to ask it
& each of us send precious jewels
With him inside a casket
& promise there’ll be thousands more
If they could save two hundred
Who’ll pay the ransoms of the rest
Whomever they have plunder’d
Barnardo
How can you try to save your skins
To this there’s no complying
I’d rather fight on ’til the end
There’s liberty in dying
Galaziano
No, it is settl’d, we shall send
Bartholomew tomorrow
By ropes down to the Turkish camp
To blow away our sorrow
Bartolomeo Bonavia
Convincing Sinan Pasha’s mind
Our torments shall be ended
& we shall bless the good Lord Christ
Who heavenward ascended
Castelletti
Amen ! Amen ! & thrice amen !
Lets feast Saint Iacamus
& bless again the good Lord Christ
The Son of God, sweet Jesus