Part 2

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: When the dead walk'd, the waters turn'd to blood, Earth and her cities totter'd, and the world Seem'd shaken to its last paralysis. In such a paroxysm of dissolution That son of mine was born; by that first act Heading the monstrous catalogue of crime, I found fore-written in his horoscope; As great a monster in man's history As was in nature his nativity; So savage, bloody, terrible, and impious, Who, should he live, would tear his country's entrails, As by his birth his mother's; with which crime Beginning, he should clench the dreadful tale By trampling on his father's silver head. All which fore-reading, and his act of birth Fate's warrant that I read his life aright; To save his country from his mother's fate, I gave abroad that he had died with her His being slew; with midnight secrecy I had him carried to a lonely tower Hewn from the mountain-barriers of the realm, And under strict anathema of death Guarded from men's inquisitive approach, Save from the trusty few one needs must trust; Who while his fasten'd body they provide With salutary garb and nourishment, Instruct his soul in what no soul may miss Of holy faith, and in such other lore As may solace his life-imprisonment, And tame perhaps the Savage prophesied Toward such a trial as I aim at now, And now demand your special hearing to. What in this fearful business I have done, Judge whether lightly or maliciously,-- I, with my own and only flesh and blood, And proper lineal inheritor! I swear, had his foretold atrocities Touch'd me alone. I had not saved myself At such a cost to him; but as a king,-- A Christian king,--I say, advisedly, Who would devote his people to a tyrant Worse than Caligula fore-chronicled? But even this not without grave mis-giving, Lest by some chance mis-reading of the stars, Or mis-direction of what rightly read, I wrong my son of his prerogative, And Poland of her rightful sovereign. For, sure and certain prophets as the stars, Although they err not, he who reads them may; Or rightly reading--seeing there is One Who governs them, as, under Him, they us, We are not sure if the rough diagram They draw in heaven and we interpret here, Be sure of operation, if the Will Supreme, that sometimes for some special end The course of providential nature breaks By miracle, may not of these same stars Cancel his own first draft, or overrule What else fore-written all else overrules. As, for example, should the Will Almighty Permit the Free-will of particular man To break the meshes of else strangling fate-- Which Free-will, fearful of foretold abuse, I have myself from my own son fore-closed From ever possible self-extrication; A terrible responsibility, Not to the conscience to be reconciled Unless opposing almost certain evil Against so slight contingency of good. Well--thus perplex'd, I have resolved at last To bring the thing to trial: whereunto Here have I summon'd you, my Peers, and you Whom I more dearly look to, failing him, As witnesses to that which I propose; And thus propose the doing it. Clotaldo, Who guards my son with old fidelity, Shall bring him hither from his tower by night Lockt in a sleep so fast as by my art I rivet to within a link of death, But yet from death so far, that next day's dawn Shall wake him up upon the royal bed, Complete in consciousness and faculty, When with all princely pomp and retinue My loyal Peers with due obeisance Shall hail him Segismund, the Prince of Poland. Then if with any show of human kindness He fling discredit, not upon the stars, But upon me, their misinterpreter, With all apology mistaken age Can make to youth it never meant to harm, To my son's forehead will I shift the crown I long have wish'd upon a younger brow; And in religious humiliation, For what of worn-out age remains to me, Entreat my pardon both of Heaven and him For tempting destinies beyond my reach. But if, as I misdoubt, at his first step The hoof of the predicted savage shows; Before predicted mischief can be done, The self-same sleep that loosed him from the chain Shall re-consign him, not to loose again. Then shall I, having lost that heir direct, Look solely to my sisters' children twain Each of a claim so equal as divides The voice of Poland to their several sides, But, as I trust, to be entwined ere long Into one single wreath so fair and strong As shall at once all difference atone, And cease the realm's division with their own. Cousins and Princes, Peers and Councillors, Such is the purport of this invitation, And such is my design. Whose furtherance If not as Sovereign, if not as Seer, Yet one whom these white locks, if nothing else, to patient acquiescence consecrate, I now demand and even supplicate.

AST. Such news, and from such lips, may well suspend The tongue to loyal answer most attuned; But if to me as spokesman of my faction Your Highness looks for answer; I reply For one and all--Let Segismund, whom now We first hear tell of as your living heir, Appear, and but in your sufficient eye Approve himself worthy to be your son, Then we will hail him Poland's rightful heir. What says my cousin?

EST. Ay, with all my heart. But if my youth and sex upbraid me not That I should dare ask of so wise a king--

KING. Ask, ask, fair cousin! Nothing, I am sure, Not well consider'd; nay, if 'twere, yet nothing But pardonable from such lips as those.

EST. Then, with your pardon, Sir--if Segismund, My cousin, whom I shall rejoice to hail As Prince of Poland too, as you propose, Be to a trial coming upon which More, as I think, than life itself depends, Why, Sir, with sleep-disorder'd senses brought To this uncertain contest with his stars?

KING. Well ask'd indeed! As wisely be it answer'd! _Because_ it is uncertain, see you not? For as I think I can discern between The sudden flaws of a sleep-startled man, And of the savage thing we have to dread; If but bewilder'd, dazzled, and uncouth, As might the sanest and the civilest In circumstance so strange--nay, more than that, If moved to any out-break short of blood, All shall be well with him; and how much more, If 'mid the magic turmoil of the change, He shall so calm a resolution show As scarce to reel beneath so great a blow! But if with savage passion uncontroll'd He lay about him like the brute foretold, And must as suddenly be caged again; Then what redoubled anguish and despair, From that brief flash of blissful liberty Remitted--and for ever--to his chain! Which so much less, if on the stage of glory Enter'd and exited through such a door Of sleep as makes a dream of all between.

EST. Oh kindly answer, Sir, to question that To charitable courtesy less wise Might call for pardon rather! I shall now Gladly, what, uninstructed, loyally I should have waited.

AST. Your Highness doubts not me, Nor how my heart follows my cousin's lips, Whatever way the doubtful balance fall, Still loyal to your bidding.

OMNES. So say all.

KING. I hoped, and did expect, of all no less-- And sure no sovereign ever needed more From all who owe him love or loyalty. For what a strait of time I stand upon, When to this issue not alone I bring My son your Prince, but e'en myself your King: And, whichsoever way for him it turn, Of less than little honour to myself. For if this coming trial justify My thus withholding from my son his right, Is not the judge himself justified in The father's shame? And if the judge proved wrong, My son withholding from his right thus long, Shame and remorse to judge and father both: Unless remorse and shame together drown'd In having what I flung for worthless found. But come--already weary with your travel, And ill refresh'd by this strange history, Until the hours that draw the sun from heaven Unite us at the customary board, Each to his several chamber: you to rest; I to contrive with old Clotaldo best The method of a stranger thing than old Time has a yet among his records told.

Exeunt.

## ACT II

## 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--

(He has seated himself on the throne. Enter Chamberlain, with lords in waiting.)

CHAMB. I rejoice That unadvised of any but the voice Of royal instinct in the blood, your Highness Has ta'en the chair that you were born to fill.

SEG. The chair?

CHAMB. The royal throne of Poland, Sir, Which may your Royal Highness keep as long As he that now rules from it shall have ruled When heaven has call'd him to itself.

SEG. When he?--

CHAMB. Your royal father, King Basilio, Sir.

SEG. My royal father--King Basilio. You see I answer but as Echo does, Not knowing what she listens or repeats. This is my throne--this is my palace--Oh, But this out of the window?--

CHAMB. Warsaw, Sir, Your capital--

SEG. And all the moving people?

CHAMB. Your subjects and your vassals like ourselves.

SEG. Ay, ay--my subjects--in my capital-- Warsaw--and I am Prince of it--You see It needs much iteration to strike sense Into the human echo.

CHAMB. Left awhile In the quick brain, the word will quickly to Full meaning blow.

SEG. You think so?

CHAMB. And meanwhile Lest our obsequiousness, which means no worse Than customary honour to the Prince We most rejoice to welcome, trouble you, Should we retire again? or stand apart? Or would your Highness have the music play Again, which meditation, as they say, So often loves to float upon?

SEG. The music? No--yes--perhaps the trumpet-- (Aside) Yet if that Brought back the troop!

A LORD. The trumpet! There again How trumpet-like spoke out the blood of Poland!

CHAMB. Before the morning is far up, your Highness Will have the trumpet marshalling your soldiers Under the Palace windows.

SEG. Ah, my soldiers-- My soldiers--not black-vizor'd?--

CHAMB. Sir?

SEG. No matter. But--one thing--for a moment--in your ear-- Do you know one Clotaldo?

CHAMB. Oh, my Lord, He and myself together, I may say, Although in different vocations, Have silver'd in your royal father's service; And, as I trust, with both of us a few White hairs to fall in yours.

SEG. Well said, well said! Basilio, my father--well--Clotaldo Is he my kinsman too?

CHAMB. Oh, my good Lord, A General simply in your Highness' service, Than whom your Highness has no trustier.

SEG. Ay, so you said before, I think. And you With that white wand of yours-- Why, now I think on't, I have read of such A silver-hair'd magician with a wand, Who in a moment, with a wave of it, Turn'd rags to jewels, clowns to emperors, By some benigner magic than the stars Spirited poor good people out of hand From all their woes; in some enchanted sleep Carried them off on cloud or dragon-back Over the mountains, over the wide Deep, And set them down to wake in Fairyland.

CHAMB. Oh, my good Lord, you laugh at me--and I Right glad to make you laugh at such a price: You know me no enchanter: if I were, I and my wand as much as your Highness', As now your chamberlain--

SEG. My chamberlain?-- And these that follow you?--

CHAMB. On you, my Lord, Your Highness' lords in waiting.