XIII.

And here stern Azo hid his face-- For on his brow the swelling vein Throbbed as if back upon his brain The hot blood ebbed and flowed again; And therefore bowed he for a space, And passed his shaking hand along His eye, to veil it from the throng; While Hugo raised his chainéd hands, 230 And for a brief delay demands His father's ear: the silent sire Forbids not what his words require. "It is not that I dread the death-- For thou hast seen me by thy side All redly through the battle ride, And that--not once a useless brand-- Thy slaves have wrested from my hand Hath shed more blood in cause of thine, Than e'er can stain the axe of mine:[419] 240 Thou gav'st, and may'st resume my breath, A gift for which I thank thee not; Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot, Her slighted love and ruined name, Her offspring's heritage of shame; But she is in the grave, where he, Her son--thy rival--soon shall be. Her broken heart--my severed head-- Shall witness for thee from the dead How trusty and how tender were 250 Thy youthful love--paternal care. 'Tis true that I have done thee wrong-- But wrong for wrong:--this,--deemed thy bride, The other victim of thy pride,-- Thou know'st for me was destined long; Thou saw'st, and coveted'st her charms; And with thy very crime--my birth,-- Thou taunted'st me--as little worth; A match ignoble for her arms; Because, forsooth, I could not claim 260 The lawful heirship of thy name, Nor sit on Este's lineal throne; Yet, were a few short summers mine, My name should more than Este's shine With honours all my own. I had a sword--and have a breast That should have won as haught[420] a crest As ever waved along the line Of all these sovereign sires of thine. Not always knightly spurs are worn 270 The brightest by the better born; And mine have lanced my courser's flank Before proud chiefs of princely rank, When charging to the cheering cry Of 'Este and of Victory!' I will not plead the cause of crime, Nor sue thee to redeem from time A few brief hours or days that must At length roll o'er my reckless dust;-- Such maddening moments as my past, 280 They could not, and they did not, last;-- Albeit my birth and name be base, And thy nobility of race Disdained to deck a thing like me-- Yet in my lineaments they trace Some features of my father's face, And in my spirit--all of thee. From thee this tamelessness of heart-- From thee--nay, wherefore dost thou start?--- From thee in all their vigour came 290 My arm of strength, my soul of flame-- Thou didst not give me life alone, But all that made me more thine own. See what thy guilty love hath done! Repaid thee with too like a son! I am no bastard in my soul, For that, like thine, abhorred control; And for my breath, that hasty boon Thou gav'st and wilt resume so soon, I valued it no more than thou, 300 When rose thy casque above thy brow, And we, all side by side, have striven, And o'er the dead our coursers driven: The past is nothing--and at last The future can but be the past;[421] Yet would I that I then had died: For though thou work'dst my mother's ill, And made thy own my destined bride, I feel thou art my father still: And harsh as sounds thy hard decree, 310 'Tis not unjust, although from thee. Begot in sin, to die in shame, My life begun and ends the same: As erred the sire, so erred the son, And thou must punish both in one. My crime seems worst to human view, But God must judge between us too!"[422]