ANTONIO: More? more?
BARDAS: "Is 't not enough," she pled to me, "Enough
That I must wander the cold way of death
Unto his arms? Go hence! There is no rest.
I will go down and clasp him, drift with him
To some unhabited gray ocean vale
God hath forgot. There will we dwell away
From destiny and weeping, from despair!"
CHARLES: You left her?
BARDAS: As I held her piteous hand
Came revellers who saw us--jested her
Of taking a new love. She broke my grasp----
ANTONIO: And leapt?--down the wide air?
BARDAS: Swifter than all
Prevention.
ANTONIO: Helena! O Helena!
That all thy loveliness should fare to this,
Thy glory go in dark calamity!
BARDAS: I saw her as she leapt and until death
Shall see no more.
ANTONIO (_drawing_): Blot it from you! Her face,
Her sorrow and her fairness shall not stand
Imprisoned in your eye, tho' 'twere to cry
Relentlessly your crime.--But no--but no!
(_Sheathing his sword, he pauses, then staggers suddenly
out._)
PAULA: Let me go to my lady!
CHARLES: Still her! She
Forever hath a fluttering, a cry,
Undurably. It presses the lone air
With sensitive and aching agony.
PAULA (_witlessly, in tears_): I know thy song, my lady, I know, I
know!
'Twas pretty and 'twas strange, but now I know.
(_Sings._) Sappho! Sappho!
In maiden woe
(Let alone love, it spurns and burns!)
Wept--wept, and leapt--
O love is so!
(Let alone love, it burns!)
My lady! O my lady! my sweet lady!
(_She is led out._)
FULVIA: This is most sad--most sad, and pitiful.