第6章

Where you may plead, and, I may promise, win Pardon for this, you say unwilling, trespass, And prosecute what else you have at heart, With me to help you forward all I can;Provided all in loyalty to those To whom by natural allegiance I first am bound to.

ROS.

As you make, I take Your offer: with like promise on my side Of loyalty to you and those you serve, Under like reservation for regards Nearer and dearer still.

CLO.

Enough, enough;

Your hand; a bargain on both sides.Meanwhile, Here shall you rest to-night.The break of day Shall see us both together on the way.

ROS.

Thus then what I for misadventure blamed, Directly draws me where my wishes aim'd.

(Exeunt.)

SCENE II.

The Palace at Warsaw Enter on one side Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy, with his train: and, on the other, the Princess Estrella, with hers.

ASTOLFO.

My royal cousin, if so near in blood, Till this auspicious meeting scarcely known, Till all that beauty promised in the bud Is now to its consummate blossom blown, Well met at last; and may--ESTRELLA.

Enough, my Lord, Of compliment devised for you by some Court tailor, and, believe me, still too short To cover the designful heart below.

AST.

Nay, but indeed, fair cousin--

EST.

Ay, let Deed Measure your words, indeed your flowers of speech Ill with your iron equipage atone;Irony indeed, and wordy compliment.

AST.

Indeed, indeed, you wrong me, royal cousin, And fair as royal, misinterpreting What, even for the end you think I aim at, If false to you, were fatal to myself.

EST.

Why, what else means the glittering steel, my Lord, That bristles in the rear of these fine words?

What can it mean, but, failing to cajole, To fight or force me from my just pretension?

AST.

Nay, might I not ask ev'n the same of you, The nodding helmets of whose men-at-arms Out-crest the plumage of your lady court?

EST.

But to defend what yours would force from me.

AST.

Might not I, lady, say the same of mine?

But not to come to battle, ev'n of words, With a fair lady, and my kinswoman;And as averse to stand before your face, Defenceless, and condemn'd in your disgrace, Till the good king be here to clear it all--Will you vouchsafe to hear me?

EST.

As you will.

AST.

You know that, when about to leave this world, Our royal grandsire, King Alfonso, left Three children; one a son, Basilio, Who wears--long may he wear! the crown of Poland;And daughters twain: of whom the elder was Your mother, Clorilena, now some while Exalted to a more than mortal throne;And Recisunda, mine, the younger sister, Who, married to the Prince of Muscovy, Gave me the light which may she live to see Herself for many, many years to come.

Meanwhile, good King Basilio, as you know, Deep in abstruser studies than this world, And busier with the stars than lady's eyes, Has never by a second marriage yet Replaced, as Poland ask'd of him, the heir An early marriage brought and took away;His young queen dying with the son she bore him;And in such alienation grown so old As leaves no other hope of heir to Poland Than his two sisters' children; you, fair cousin, And me; for whom the Commons of the realm Divide themselves into two several factions;Whether for you, the elder sister's child;Or me, born of the younger, but, they say, My natural prerogative of man Outweighing your priority of birth.

Which discord growing loud and dangerous, Our uncle, King Basilio, doubly sage In prophesying and providing for The future, as to deal with it when come, Bids us here meet to-day in solemn council Our several pretensions to compose.

And, but the martial out-burst that proclaims His coming, makes all further parley vain, Unless my bosom, by which only wise I prophesy, now wrongly prophesies, By such a happy compact as I dare But glance at till the Royal Sage declare.

(Trumpets, etc.Enter King Basilio with his Council.)ALL.

The King! God save the King!

ESTRELLA (Kneeling.)

Oh, Royal Sir!--

ASTOLFO (Kneeling.)

God save your Majesty--

KING.

Rise both of you, Rise to my arms, Astolfo and Estrella;As my two sisters' children always mine, Now more than ever, since myself and Poland Solely to you for our succession look'd.

And now give ear, you and your several factions, And you, the Peers and Princes of this realm, While I reveal the purport of this meeting In words whose necessary length I trust No unsuccessful issue shall excuse.

You and the world who have surnamed me "Sage"Know that I owe that title, if my due, To my long meditation on the book Which ever lying open overhead--The book of heaven, I mean--so few have read;Whose golden letters on whose sapphire leaf, Distinguishing the page of day and night, And all the revolution of the year;So with the turning volume where they lie Still changing their prophetic syllables, They register the destinies of men:

Until with eyes that, dim with years indeed, Are quicker to pursue the stars than rule them, I get the start of Time, and from his hand The wand of tardy revelation draw.

Oh, had the self-same heaven upon his page Inscribed my death ere I should read my life And, by fore-casting of my own mischance, Play not the victim but the suicide In my own tragedy!--But you shall hear.

You know how once, as kings must for their people, And only once, as wise men for themselves, I woo'd and wedded: know too that my Queen In childing died; but not, as you believe, With her, the son she died in giving life to.

For, as the hour of birth was on the stroke, Her brain conceiving with her womb, she dream'd A serpent tore her entrail.And too surely (For evil omen seldom speaks in vain)The man-child breaking from that living tomb That makes our birth the antitype of death, Man-grateful, for the life she gave him paid By killing her: and with such circumstance As suited such unnatural tragedy;He coming into light, if light it were That darken'd at his very horoscope, When heaven's two champions--sun and moon I mean--Suffused in blood upon each other fell In such a raging duel of eclipse As hath not terrified the universe Since that which wept in blood the death of Christ: