第9章

SCENE I--A Throne-room in the Palace.Music within.

(Enter King and Clotaldo, meeting a Lord in waiting)KING.

You, for a moment beckon'd from your office, Tell me thus far how goes it.In due time The potion left him?

LORD.

At the very hour To which your Highness temper'd it.Yet not So wholly but some lingering mist still hung About his dawning senses--which to clear, We fill'd and handed him a morning drink With sleep's specific antidote suffused;And while with princely raiment we invested What nature surely modell'd for a Prince--All but the sword--as you directed--

KING.

Ay--

LORD.

If not too loudly, yet emphatically Still with the title of a Prince address'd him.

KING.

How bore he that?

LORD.

With all the rest, my liege, I will not say so like one in a dream As one himself misdoubting that he dream'd.

KING.

So far so well, Clotaldo, either way, And best of all if tow'rd the worse I dread.

But yet no violence?

LORD.

At most, impatience;

Wearied perhaps with importunities We yet were bound to offer.

KING.

Oh, Clotaldo!

Though thus far well, yet would myself had drunk The potion he revives from! such suspense Crowds all the pulses of life's residue Into the present moment; and, I think, Whichever way the trembling scale may turn, Will leave the crown of Poland for some one To wait no longer than the setting sun!

CLO.

Courage, my liege! The curtain is undrawn, And each must play his part out manfully, Leaving the rest to heaven.

KING.

Whose written words If I should misinterpret or transgress!

But as you say--

(To the Lord, who exit.)

You, back to him at once;

Clotaldo, you, when he is somewhat used To the new world of which they call him Prince, Where place and face, and all, is strange to him, With your known features and familiar garb Shall then, as chorus to the scene, accost him, And by such earnest of that old and too Familiar world, assure him of the new.

Last in the strange procession, I myself Will by one full and last development Complete the plot for that catastrophe That he must put to all; God grant it be The crown of Poland on his brows!--Hark! hark!--Was that his voice within!--Now louder--Oh, Clotaldo, what! so soon begun to roar!--Again! above the music-- But betide What may, until the moment, we must hide.

(Exeunt King and Clotaldo.)

SEGISMUND (within).

Forbear! I stifle with your perfume! Cease Your crazy salutations! peace, I say Begone, or let me go, ere I go mad With all this babble, mummery, and glare, For I am growing dangerous--Air! room! air!--(He rushes in.Music ceases.)

Oh but to save the reeling brain from wreck With its bewilder'd senses!

(He covers his eyes for a while.)

What! E'en now That Babel left behind me, but my eyes Pursued by the same glamour, that--unless Alike bewitch'd too--the confederate sense Vouches for palpable: bright-shining floors That ring hard answer back to the stamp'd heel, And shoot up airy columns marble-cold, That, as they climb, break into golden leaf And capital, till they embrace aloft In clustering flower and fruitage over walls Hung with such purple curtain as the West Fringes with such a gold; or over-laid With sanguine-glowing semblances of men, Each in his all but living action busied, Or from the wall they look from, with fix'd eyes Pursuing me; and one most strange of all That, as I pass'd the crystal on the wall, Look'd from it--left it--and as I return, Returns, and looks me face to face again--Unless some false reflection of my brain, The outward semblance of myself--Myself?

How know that tawdry shadow for myself, But that it moves as I move; lifts his hand With mine; each motion echoing so close The immediate suggestion of the will In which myself I recognize--Myself!--What, this fantastic Segismund the same Who last night, as for all his nights before, Lay down to sleep in wolf-skin on the ground In a black turret which the wolf howl'd round, And woke again upon a golden bed, Round which as clouds about a rising sun, In scarce less glittering caparison, Gather'd gay shapes that, underneath a breeze Of music, handed him upon their knees The wine of heaven in a cup of gold, And still in soft melodious under-song Hailing me Prince of Poland!--'Segismund,'

They said, 'Our Prince! The Prince of Poland!' and Again, 'Oh, welcome, welcome, to his own, 'Our own Prince Segismund--'

Oh, but a blast--

One blast of the rough mountain air! one look At the grim features--(He goes to the window.)

What they disvizor'd also! shatter'd chaos Cast into stately shape and masonry, Between whose channel'd and perspective sides Compact with rooted towers, and flourishing To heaven with gilded pinnacle and spire, Flows the live current ever to and fro With open aspect and free step!--Clotaldo!

Clotaldo!--calling as one scarce dares call For him who suddenly might break the spell One fears to walk without him--Why, that I, With unencumber'd step as any there, Go stumbling through my glory--feeling for That iron leading-string--ay, for myself--For that fast-anchor'd self of yesterday, Of yesterday, and all my life before, Ere drifted clean from self-identity Upon the fluctuation of to-day's Mad whirling circumstance!--And, fool, why not?

If reason, sense, and self-identity Obliterated from a worn-out brain, Art thou not maddest striving to be sane, And catching at that Self of yesterday That, like a leper's rags, best flung away!

Or if not mad, then dreaming--dreaming?--well--Dreaming then--Or, if self to self be true, Not mock'd by that, but as poor souls have been By those who wrong'd them, to give wrong new relish?

Or have those stars indeed they told me of As masters of my wretched life of old, Into some happier constellation roll'd, And brought my better fortune out on earth Clear as themselves in heaven!--Prince Segismund They call'd me--and at will I shook them off--Will they return again at my command Again to call me so?--Within there! You!

Segismund calls--Prince Segismund--