Part 3

II:3:11 SOL. Mind not the rest; thou’rt sure on the right hand?

II:3:12 PAGE. Most sure; and on the left--

II:3:13 SOL. Ne’er mind the left, Speak only of the right. How did he seem? Did there pass words between him and the King? Often or scant? Did he seem gay or grave? Or was his aspect of a middle tint, As if he deemed that there were other joys Not found within that chamber?

II:3:14 PAGE. Sooth to say, He did seem what he is, a gallant knight. Would I were such! For talking with the King, He spoke, yet not so much but he could spare Words to the other lords. He often smiled, Yet not so often, that a limner might Describe his mien as jovial.

II:3:15 SOL. ‘Tis himself! What next? Will they sit long?

II:3:16 PAGE. I should not like Myself to quit such company. In truth, The Count of Leon is a merry lord. There were some tilting jests, I warrant you, Between him and your knight.

II:3:17 SOL. O tell it me!

II:3:18 PAGE. The Count Alarcos, as I chanced to hear, For tiptoe even would not let me see, And that same Pedro, who has lately come To Court, the Senor of Montilla’s son, He is so rough, and says a lady’s page Should only be where there are petticoats.

II:3:19 SOL. Is he so rough? He shall be soundly whipped. But tell me, child, the Count Alarcos--

II:3:20 PAGE. Well, The Count Alarcos--but indeed, sweet lady, I do not wish that Pedro should be whipped.

II:3:21 SOL. He shall not then be whipped--speak of the Count.

II:3:22 PAGE. The Count was showing how your Saracen Doth take your lion captive, thus and thus: And fashioned with his scarf a dexterous noose Made of a tiger’s skin: your unicorn, They say, is just as good.

II:3:23 SOL. Well, then Sir Leon--

II:3:24 PAGE. Why then your Count of Leon--but just then Sancho, the Viscount of Toledo’s son, The King’s chief Page, takes me his handkerchief And binds it on my eyes, he whispering round Unto his fellows, here you see I’ve caught A most ferocious cub. Whereat they kicked, And pinched, and cuffed me till I nearly roared As fierce as any lion, you be sure.

II:3:25 SOL. Rude Sancho, he shall sure be sent from Court! My little Ferdinand--thou hast incurred Great perils for thy mistress. Go again And show this signet to the Seneschal, And tell him that no greater courtesy Be shown to any guest than to my Page. This from myself--or I perchance will send, Shall school their pranks. Away, my faithful imp, And tell me how the Count Alarcos seems.

II:3:26 PAGE. I go, sweet lady, but I humbly beg Sancho may not be sent from Court this time.

II:3:27 SOL. Sancho shall stay.

[Exit PAGE.]

I hope, ere long, sweet child, Thou too shalt be a page unto a King. I’m glad Alarcos smiled not overmuch; Your smilers please me not. I love a face Pensive, not sad; for where the mood is thoughtful, The passion is most deep and most refined. Gay tempers bear light hearts--are soonest gained And soonest lost; but he who meditates On his own nature, will as deeply scan The mind he meets, and when he loves, he casts His anchor deep.

[Re-enter PAGE.]

Give me the news.

II:3:28 PAGE. The news! I could not see the Seneschal, but gave Your message to the Pages. Whereupon Sancho, the Viscount of Toledo’s son, Pedro, the Senor of Montilla’s son, The young Count of Almeira, and--

II:3:29 SOL. My child, What ails thee?

II:3:30 PAGE. O the Viscount of Jodar, I think he was the very worst of all; But Sancho of Toledo was the first.

II:3:31 SOL. What did they?

II:3:32 PAGE. ‘Las, no sooner did I say All that you told me, than he gives the word, ‘A guest, a guest, a very potent guest,’ Takes me a goblet brimful of strong wine And hands it to me, mocking, on his knee. This I decline, when on his back they lay Your faithful Page, nor set me on my legs Till they had drenched me with this fiery stuff, That I could scarcely see, or reel my way Back to your presence.

II:3:33 SOL. Marry, ‘tis too much E’en for a page’s license. Ne’er you mind, They shall to Prison by to-morrow’s dawn. I’ll bind this kerchief round your brow, its scent Will much revive you. Go, child, lie you down On yonder couch.

II:3:34 PAGE. I’m sure I ne’er can sleep If Sancho of Toledo shall be sent To-morrow’s dawn to prison.

II:3:35 SOL. Well, he’s pardoned.

II:3:36 PAGE. Also the Senor of Montilla’s son,

II:3:37 SOL. He shall be pardoned too. Now prithee sleep.

II:3:38 PAGE. The young Count of Almeira--

II:3:39 SOL. O no more. They all are pardoned.

II:3:40 PAGE. I do humbly pray The Viscount of Jodar be pardoned too.

[Exit SOLISA.]

## SCENE 4

A Banquet; the KING seated; on his right ALARCOS. SIDONIA, LEON, the ADMIRAL OF CASTILLE, and other LORDS. Groups of PAGES, CHAMBERLAINS, and SERVING-MEN.

II:4:1 The KING. Would’st match them, cousin, ‘gainst our barbs?

II:4:2 ALAR. Against Our barbs, Sir!

II:4:3 KING. Eh, Lord Leon, you can scan A courser’s points?

II:4:4 LEON. O, Sir, your travellers Need fleeter steeds than we poor shambling folks Who stay at home. To my unskilful sense, Speed for the chase and vigour for the tilt, Meseems enough.

II:4:5 ALAR.’ If riders be as prompt.

II:4:6 LEON. Our tourney is put off, or please your Grace, I’d try conclusions with this marvellous beast, This Pegasus, this courser of the sun, That is to blind us all with his bright rays And cloud our chivalry.

II:4:7 KING. My Lord Sidonia, You’re a famed judge: try me this Cyprus wine; An English prince did give it me, returning From the holy sepulchre.

II:4:8 SIDO. Most rare, my liege, And glitters like a gem!

II:4:9 KING. It doth content Me much, your Cyprus wine. Lord Admiral, Hast heard the news? The Saracens have fled Before the Italian galleys.

II:4:10 THE ADMIRAL OF CASTILLE. No one guides A galley like your Pisan.

II:4:11 ALAR. The great Doge Of Venice, sooth, would barely veil his flag To Pisa.

II:4:12 ADM. Your Venetian hath his craft. This Saracenic rent will surely touch Our turbaned neighbours?

II:4:13 KING. To the very core, Granada’s all a-mourning. Good, my Lords, One goblet more. We’ll give our cousin’s health. Here’s to the Count Alarcos.

II:4:14 OMNES. To the Count Alarcos.

[The Guests rise, pay their homage to the KING, and are retiring.]

II:4:15 KING. Good night, Lord Admiral; my Lord of Leon, My Lord Sidonia, and my Lord of Lara, Gentle adieus; to you, my Lord, and you, To all and each. Cousin, good night--and yet A moment rest awhile; since your return I’ve looked on you in crowds, it may become us To say farewell alone.

[The KING waves his hand to the SENESCHAL--the Chamber is cleared.]

II:4:16 ALAR. Most gracious Sire, You honour your poor servant.

II:4:17 KING. Prithee, sit. This scattering of the Saracen, methinks, Will hold the Moor to his truce?

II:4:18 ALAR. It would appear To have that import.

II:4:19 KING. Should he pass the mountains, We can receive him.

II:4:20 ALAR. Where’s the crown in Spain More prompt and more prepared?

II:4:21 KING. Cousin, you’re right. We flourish. By St. James, I feel a glow Of the heart to see you here once more, my cousin; I’m low in the vale of years, and yet I think I could defend my crown with such a knight On my right hand.

II:4:22 ALAR. Such liege and land would raise Our lances high.

II:4:23 KING. We carry all before us. Leon reduced. The crescent paled in Cordova, Why, if she gain Valencia, Aragon Must kick the beam. And shall she gain Valencia? It cheers my blood to find thee by my side; Old days, old days return, when thou to me Wert as the apple of mine eye.

II:4:24 ALAR. My liege, This is indeed most gracious.

II:4:25 KING. Gentle cousin, Thou shalt have pause to say that I am gracious. O! I did ever love thee; and for that Some passages occurred between us once, That touch my memory to the quick; I would Even pray thee to forget them, and to hold I was most vilely practised on, my mind Poisoned, and from a fountain, that to deem Tainted were frenzy.

II:4:26 ALAR.

[Falling on his knee, and taking the KING’s hand.]

My most gracious liege, This morn to thee I did my fealty pledge. Believe me, Sire, I did so with clear breast, And with no thought to thee and to thy line But fit devotion.

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 heirship 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 God! Such passions 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 noble 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 appetite. 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 damned 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!

II:4:53 KING. And my daughter too! O most unhappy pair!

II:4:54 ALAR. There is a way. To cure such woes, one only.

II:4:55 KING. ‘Tis my thought.

II:4:56 ALAR. No cloister shall entomb this life; the grave Shall be my refuge,

II:4:57 KING. Yet to die were witless, When Death, who with his fatal finger taps At princely doors, as freely as he gives His summons to the serf, may at this instant Have sealed the only life that throws a shade Between us and the sun.

II:4:58 ALAR. She’s very young.

II:4:59 KING. And may live long, as I do hope she will; Yet have I known as blooming as she die, And that most suddenly. The air of cities To unaccustomed lungs is very fatal; Perchance the absence of her accustomed sports, The presence of strange faces, and a longing For those she has been bred among: I’ve known This most pernicious: she might droop and pine, And when they fail, they sink most rapidly. God grant she may not; yet I do remind thee Of this wild chance, when speaking of thy lot. In truth ‘tis sharp, and yet I would not die When Time, the great enchanter, may change all, By bringing somewhat earlier to thy gate A doom that must arrive.

II:4:60 ALAR. Would it were there!

II:4:61 KING. ‘Twould be the day thy hand should clasp my daughter’s, That thou hast loved so Ion; ‘twould be the day My crown, the crown of all my realms, Alarcos, Should bind thy royal brow. Is this the morn Breaks in our chamber? Why, I did but mean To say good night unto my gentle cousin So long unseen. O, we have gossiped, coz, So cheering dreams!

[Exeunt.]

END OF THE SECOND ACT.

## ACT III

## SCENE 1

Interior of the Cathedral of Burgos. The High Altar illuminated; in the distance, various Chapels lighted, and in each of which Mass is celebrating: in all directions groups of kneeling Worshippers. Before the High Altar the Prior of Burgos officiates, attended by his Sacerdotal Retinue. In the front of the Stage, opposite to the Audience, a Confessional. The chanting of a solemn Mass here commences; as it ceases,

[Enter ALARCOS.]

III:1:1 ALAR. Would it were done! and yet I dare not say It should be done. O, that some natural cause, Or superhuman agent, would step in, And save me from its practice! Will no pest Descend upon her blood? Must thousands die Daily, and her charmed life be spared? As young Are hourly plucked from out their hearths. A life! Why, what’s a life? A loan that must return To a capricious creditor; recalled Often as soon as lent. I’d wager mine To-morrow like the dice, were my blood pricked. Yet now, When all that endows life with all its price, Hangs on some flickering breath I could puff out, I stand agape. I’ll dream ‘tis done: what then? Mercy remains? For ever, not for ever I charge my soul? Will no contrition ransom, Or expiatory torments compensate The awful penalty? Ye kneeling worshippers, That gaze in silent ecstacy before Yon flaming altar, you come here to bow Before a God of mercy. Is’t not so?

[ALARCOS walks towards the High Altar and kneels.]

[A Procession advances front the back of the Scene, singing a solemn Mass, and preceding the Prior of Burgos, who seats himself in the Confessional his Train filing of on each side of the Scene: the lights of the High Altar are extinguished, but the Chapels remain illuminated.]

III:1:2 THE PRIOR. Within this chair I sit, and hold the keys That open realms no conqueror can subdue, And where the monarchs of the earth must fain Solicit to be subjects: Heaven and Hades, Lands of Immortal light and shores of gloom. Eternal as the chorus of their wail, And the dim isthmus of that middle space, Where the compassioned soul may purge its sins In pious expiation. Then advance Ye children of all sorrows, and all sins, Doubts that perplex, and hopes that tantalize, All the wild forms the fiend Temptation takes To tamper with the soul! Come with the care That eats your daily life; come with the thought That is conceived in the noon of night, And makes us stare around us though alone; Come with the engendering sin, and with the crime That is full-born. To counsel and to soothe, I sit within this chair.

[ALARCOS advances and kneels by the Confessional.]

III:1:3 ALAR. O, holy father My soul is burthened with a crime.

III:1:4 PRIOR. My son, The church awaits thy sin.

III:1:5 ALAR. It is a sin Most black and terrible. Prepare thine ear For what must make it tremble.

III:1:6 PRIOR. Thou dost speak To Power above all passion, not to man.

III:1:7 ALAR. There was a lady, father, whom I loved, And with a holy love, and she loved me As holily. Our vows were blessed, if favour Hang on a father’s benediction.

III:1:8 PRIOR. Her Mother?

III:1:9 ALAR. She had a mother, if to bear Children be all that makes a mother: one Who looked on me, about to be her child, With eyes of lust.

III:1:10 PRIOR. And thou?

III:1:11 ALAR. O, if to trace But with the memory’s too veracious aid This tale be anguish, what must be its life And terrible action? Father, I abjured This lewd she-wolf. But ah! her fatal vengeance Struck to my heart. A banished scatterling I wandered on the earth.

III:1:12 PRIOR. Thou didst return?

III:1:13 ALAR. And found the being that I loved, and found Her faithful still.

III:1:14 PRIOR. And thou, my son, wert happy?

III:1:15 ALAR. Alas! I was no longer free. Strange ties Had bound a hopeless exile. But she I had loved, And never ceased to love, for in the form, Not in the spirit was her faith more pure, She looked upon me with a glance that told Her death but in my love. I struggled, nay, ‘Twas not a struggle, ‘twas an agony. Her aged sire, her dark impending doom, And the overwhelming passion of my soul: My wife died suddenly.

III:1:16 PRIOR. And by a life That should have shielded hers?

III:1:17 ALAR. Is there hope of mercy? Can prayers, can penances, can they avail? What consecration of my wealth, for I’m rich, Can aid me? Can it aid me? Can endowments? Nay, set no bounds to thy unlimited schemes Of saving charity. Can shrines, can chauntries, Monastic piles, can they avail? What if I raise a temple not less proud than this, Enriched with all my wealth, with all, with all? Will endless masses, will eternal prayers, Redeem me from perdition?

III:1:18 PRIOR. What, would gold Redeem the sin it prompted?

III:1:19 ALAR. No, by Heaven! No, Fate had dowered me with wealth might feed All but a royal hunger.

III:1:20 PRIOR. And alone Thy fatal passion urged thee

III:1:21 ALAR. Hah!

III:1:22 PRIOR. Probe deep Thy wounded soul.

III:1:23 ALAR. ‘Tis torture: fathomless I feel the fell incision.

III:1:24 PRIOR. There is a lure Thou dost not own, and yet its awful shade Lowers in the back-ground of thy soul: thy tongue Trifles the church’s ear. Beware, my son, And tamper not with Paradise.

III:1:25 ALAR. A breath, A shadow, essence subtler far than love: And yet I loved her, and for love had dared All that I ventured for this twin-born lure Cradled with love, for which I soiled my soul. O, father, it was Power.

III:1:26 PRIOR. And this dominion Purchased by thy soul’s mortgage, still is’t thine?

III:1:27 ALAR. Yea, thousands bow to him, who bows to thee.

III:1:28 PRIOR. Thine is a fearful deed.

III:1:29 ALAR. O, is there mercy?

III:1:30 PRIOR. Say, is there penitence?

III:1:31 ALAR. How shall I gauge it? What temper of contrition might the church Require from such a sinner?

III:1:32 PRIOR. Is’t thy wish, Nay, search the very caverns of thy thought, Is it thy wish this deed were now undone?

III:1:33 ALAR. Undone, undone! It is; O, say it were, And what am I? O, father, wer’t not done, I should not be less tortured than I’m now; My life less like a dream of haunting thoughts Tempting to unknown enormities. The sun Would rise as beamless on my darkened days, Night proffer the same torments. Food would fly My lips the same, and the same restless blood Quicken my harassed limbs. Undone! undone! I have no metaphysic faculty To deem this deed undone.

III:1:34 PRIOR. Thou must repent This terrible deed. Look through thy heart. Thy wife, There was a time thou lov’dst her?

III:1:35 ALAR. I’ll not think There was a time.

III:1:36 PRIOR. And was she fair?

III:1:37 ALAR. A form Dazzling all eyes but mine.

III:1:38 PRIOR. And pure?

III:1:39 ALAR. No saint More chaste than she. Her consecrated shape She kept as ‘twere a shrine, and just as full Of holy thoughts; her very breath was incense, And all her gestures sacred as the forms Of priestly offices!

III:1:40 PRIOR. I’ll save thy soul. Thou must repent that one so fair and pure, And loving thee so well--

III:1:41 ALAR. Father, in vain. There is a bar betwixt me and repentance. And yet--

III:1:42 PRIOR. Ay, yet--

III:1:43 ALAR. The day may come, I’ll kneel In such a mood, and might there then be hope?