_Palace in_ XERES.
RODERIGO _and_ OPAS.
_Rod._ Impossible! she could not thus resign
Me, for a miscreant of Barbary,
A mere adventurer: but that citron face
Shall bleach and shrivel the whole winter long
There, on yon cork-tree by the sallyport.
She shall return.
_Opas_. To fondness and to faith?
Dost thou retain them, if she could return?
_Rod._ Retain them? she has forfeited by this
All right to fondness, all to royalty.
_Opas_. Consider, and speak calmly: she deserves
Some pity, some reproof.
_Rod._ To speak then calmly,
Since thine eyes open and can see her guilt—
Infamous and atrocious! let her go—
Chains
_Opas_. What! in Muza’s camp?
_Rod._ My scorn supreme!
_Opas_. Say pity.
_Rod._ Ay, ay, pity—that suits best.
I loved her, but _had_ loved her; three whole years
Of pleasure, and of varied pleasure too,
Had worn the soft impression half away.
What I once felt, I would recall; the faint
Responsive voice grew fainter each reply:
Imagination sank amid the scenes
It laboured to create; the vivid joy
Of fleeting youth I followed, and possessed.
’Tis the first moment of the tenderest hour,
’Tis the first mien on entering new delights,
We give our peace, our power, our souls, for these.
_Opas_. Thou hast; and what remains?
_Rod._ Myself—Roderigo—
Whom hatred cannot reach, nor love cast down.
_Opas_. Nor gratitude nor pity nor remorse
Call back, nor vows nor earth nor heaven control.
But art thou free and happy? art thou safe?
By shrewd contempt the humblest may chastise
Whom scarlet and its ermine cannot scare,
And the sword skulks for everywhere in vain,
Thee the poor victim of thy outrages,
Woman, with all her weakness, may despise.
_Rod._ But first let quiet age have intervened.
_Opas_. Ne’er will the peace or apathy of age
Be thine, or twilight steal upon thy day.
The violent choose, but cannot change, their end:
Violence, by man or nature, must be theirs:
Thine it must be, and who to pity thee?
_Rod._ Behold, my solace! none. I want no pity.
_Opas_. Proclaim we those the happiest of mankind
Who never knew a want? Oh, what a curse
To thee this utter ignorance of thine!
Julian, whom all the good commiserate,
Sees thee below him far in happiness:
A state indeed of no quick restlessness,
No glancing agitation, one vast swell
Of melancholy, deep, impassable,
Interminable, where his spirit alone
Broods and o’ershadows all, bears him from earth,
And purifies his chastened soul for heaven.
Both heaven and earth shall from thy grasp recede.
Whether on death or life thou arguest,
Untutored savage or corrupted heathen
Avows no sentiment so vile as thine.
Rod. Nor feels?
_Opas_. O human nature! I have heard
The secrets of the soul, and pitied thee.
Bad and accursed things have men confessed
Before me, but have left them unarrayed.
Naked, and shivering with deformity.
The troubled dreams and deafening gush of youth
Fling o’er the fancy, struggling to be free,
Discordant and impracticable things:
If the good shudder at their past escapes,
Shall not the wicked shudder at their crimes?
They shall—and I denounce upon thy head
God’s vengeance—thou shalt rule this land no more.
_Rod._ What! my own kindred leave me and renounce me!
_Opas_. Kindred? and is there any in our world
So near us, as those sources of all joy,
Those on whose bosom every gale of life
Blows softly, who reflect our images
In loveliness through sorrows and through age,
And bear them onward far beyond the grave.
_Rod._ Methinks, most reverend Opas, not inapt
Are these fair views; arise they from Seville?
_Opas_. He, who can scoff at them, may scoff at me.
Such are we, that the giver of all good
Shall, in the heart he purifies, possess
The latest love—the earliest—no, not there!
I’ve known the firm and faithful—even from these
Life’s eddying spring shed the first bloom on earth.
I pity them, but ask their pity too.
I love the happiness of men, and praise
And sanctify the blessings I renounce.
_Rod._ Yet would thy baleful influence undermine
The heaven-appointed throne.
_Opas_.—the throne of guilt
Obdurate, without plea, without remorse.
_Rod._ What power hast thou? perhaps thou soon wilt want
A place of refuge.
_Opas_. Rather say, perhaps
My place of refuge will receive me soon.
Could I extend it even to thy crimes,
It should be open; but the wrath of heaven
Turns them against thee, and subverts thy sway:
It leaves thee not, what wickedness and woe
Oft in their drear communion taste together,
Hope and repentance.
_Rod._ But it leaves me arms,
Vigour of soul and body, and a race
Subject by law, and dutiful by choice,
Whose hand is never to be holden fast
Within the closing cleft of gnarled creeds;
No easy prey for these vile mitred Moors.
I, who received thy homage, may retort
Thy threats, vain prelate, and abase thy pride.
_Opas_. Low must be those whom mortal can sink lower,
Nor high are they whom human power may raise.
_Rod._ Judge now: for, hear the signal.
_Opas_. And derides
The buoyant heart the dubious gulfs of war?
Trumpets may sound, and not to victory.
_Rod._ The traitor and his daughter feel my power.
_Opas_. Just God! avert it!
_Rod._ Seize this rebel priest.
I will alone subdue my enemies.
[_Goes out_.