Count Alarcos; a Tragedy Part 14

II:4:27 KING.

O, I know it well, I know thou art right true. Mine eyes are moist To see thee here again.

II:4:28 ALAR.

It is my post, Nor could I seek another.

II:4:29 KING.

Thou dost know That Hungary leaves us?

II:4:30 ALAR.

I was grieved to hear There were some crosses.

II:4:31 KING.

Truth, I am not grieved.

Is it such joy this fair Castillian realm, This glowing flower of Spain, be rudely plucked By a strange hand? To see our chambers filled With foreign losels; our rich fiefs and abbeys The prey of each bold scatterling, that finds No heirs.h.i.+p in his country? Have I lived And laboured for this end, to swell the sails Of alien fortunes? O my gentle cousin, There was a time we had far other hopes!

I suffer for my deeds.

II:4:32 ALAR.

We must forget, We must forget, my liege.

II:4:33 KING.

Is't then so easy?

Thou hast no daughter. Ah! thou canst not tell What 'tis to feel a father's policy Hath dimmed a child's career. A child so peerless!

Our race, though ever comely, veiled to her.

A palm tree in its pride of sunny youth Mates not her symmetry; her step was noticed As strangely stately by her nurse. Dost know, I ever deemed that winning smile of hers Mournful, with all its mirth? But ah! no more A father gossips; nay, my weakness 'tis not.

'Tis not with all that I would prattle thus; But you, my cousin, know Solisa well, And once you loved her.

II:4:34 ALAR.

[Rising.]

Once! O G.o.d!

Such pa.s.sions are eternity.

II:4:35 KING.

[Advancing.]

What then, Shall this excelling creature, on a throne As high as her deserts, shall she become A spoil for strangers? Have I cause to grieve That Hungary quit us? O that I could find Some n.o.ble of our land might dare to mix His equal blood with our Castillian seed!

Art thou more learned in our pedigrees?

Hast thou no friend, no kinsman? Must this realm Fall to the spoiler, and a foreign graft Be nourished by our sap?

II:4:36 ALAR.

Alas! alas!

II:4:37 KING.

Four crowns; our paramount Castille, and Leon, Seviglia, Cordova, the future hope Of Murcia, and the inevitable doom That waits the Saracen; all, all, all; And with my daughter!

II:4:38 ALAR.

Ah! ye should have blasted My homeward path, ye lightnings!

II:4:39 KING.

Such a son Should grudge his sire no days. I would not live To whet ambition's appet.i.te. I'm old; And fit for little else than hermit thoughts.

The day that gives my daughter, gives my crown: A cell's my home.

II:4:40 ALAR.

O, life, I will not curse thee Let hard and shaven crowns denounce thee vain; To me thou wert no shade! I loved thy stir And panting struggle. Power, and pomp, and beauty Cities and courts, the palace and the fane, The chace, the revel, and the battle-field, Man's fiery glance, and woman's thrilling smile, I loved ye all. I curse not thee, O life!

But on my start; confusion. May they fall From out their spheres, and blast our earth no more With their malignant rays, that mocking placed All the delight of life within my reach, And chained me film fruition.

II:4:41 KING.

Gentle cousin, Thou art disturbed; I fear these words of mine, Chance words ere I did say to thee good night, For O, 'twas joy to see thee here again, Who art my kinsman, and my only one, Have touched on some old cares for both of us.

And yet the world has many charms for thee; Thou'rt not like us, and thy unhappy child The world esteems so favoured.

II:4:42 ALAR.

Ah, the world III estimates the truth of any lot.

Their speculation is too far and reaches Only externals, they are ever fair.

There are vile cankers in your gaudiest flowers, But you must pluck and peer within the leaves To catch the pest.

II:4:43 KING.

Alas! my gentle cousin, To hear thou hast thy sorrows too, like us, It pains me much, and yet I'll not believe it, For with so fair a wife--

II:4:44 ALAR.

Torture me not, Although thou art a King.

II:4:45 KING.

My gentle cousin, f spoke to solace thee. We all do hear Thou art most favoured in a right fair wife.

We do desire to see her; can she find A friend becomes her better than our child?

II:4:46 ALAR.

My wife? would she were not!

II:4:47 KING.

I say so too, Would she were not!

II:4:48 ALAR.

Ah me! why did I marry?

II:4:49 KING.

Truth, it was very rash.

II:4:50 ALAR.

Who made me rash?

Who drove me from my hearth, and sent me forth On the unkindred earth? With the dark spleen Goading injustice, that 'tis vain to quell, Entails on restless spirits. Yes, I married, As men do oft, from very wantonness; To tamper with a destiny that's cross, To spite my fate, to put the seal upon A balked career, in high and proud defiance Of hopes that yet might mock me, to beat down False expectation and its d.a.m.ned lures, And fix a bar betwixt me and defeat.

II:4:51 KING.

These bitter words would rob me of my hope, That thou at least wert happy.

II:4:52 ALAR.

Would I slept With my grey fathers!