To edge her champions' swords, and urge my ruin.
The shouts of soldiers, and the burst of cannon,
Maintain ev'n still a deaf and murm'ring noise;
Nor is heaven yet recover'd of the sound
Her battle rous'd: yet spite of me, I love.
Emp. Weak princes flatter when they want the
To curb their people: tender plants must bend:
But when a government is grown to strength,
Like some old oak, rough with its armed bark,
It yields not to the tug, but only nods,
And turns to sullen state.
Emp. Mark, my Sebastian, how that sullen frown,
Like flashing lightning, opens angry heaven;
And while it kills, delights.
Alm. You turn my prison to a paradise;
But I have turn'd your empire to a prison:
In all your wars good fortune flew before you;
Sublime you sat in triumph on her wheel:
Till in my fatal cause your sword was drawn.
The weight of my misfortunes dragg'd you down.
Alm. If shunning ill be good
To those who cannot shun it but by death,
Divines but peep on undiscover'd worlds,
And draw the distant landscape as they please:
But who has e'er return'd from those bright regions,
To tell their manners, and relate their laws?
I'll venture landing on that happy shore
With an unsullied body and white mind;
If I have err'd, some kind inhabitant
Will pity a stray'd soul, and take me home.
Alm. What shall I do? O teach me to refuse!
I would; and yet I tremble at the grant.
For dire presages fright my soul by day,
And boding visions haunt my nightly dreams;
Sometimes, methinks, I hear the groans of ghosts,
Thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams;
Then, like a dying echo, from afar,
My mother's voice, that cries, Wed not, Almeyda!
Forewarn'd, Almeyda, marriage is thy crime.
Alm. Old venerable Alvarez!
Seb. But why that sigh in naming that good man?
Alm. Your father's counsellor and confident-
Seb. He was; and, if he lives, my second father.
Alm. Mark'd our farewell, when going to the fight,
You gave Almeyda for the word of battle:
'Twas in that fatal moment, he discover'd
The love that long we labour'd to conceal.
I know it; though my eyes stood full of tears,
Yet through the mist I saw him steadfast gaze:
Then knock'd his aged breast, and inward groan'd;
Like some sad prophet, that foresaw the doom
Of those whom best he lov'd, and could not save.
Seb. It startles me! and brings to my remembrance,
That, when the shock of battle was begun,
He would have much complain'd (but had not time)
Of our hid passion; then, with lifted hands,
He begg'd me, by my father's sacred soul,
Not to espouse you, if he died in fight:
For if he liv'd, and we were conquerors,
He had such things to urge against our marriage,
As, now declar'd, would blunt my sword in battle,
And dastardize my courage.
Bend. Have patience till I clear it.
Emp. I have none:
Go, bid our moving plains of sand lie still,
And stir not, when the stormy south blows high:
From top to bottom thou hast toss'd my soul,
And now 'tis in the madness of the whirl,
Requir'st a sudden stop! unsay thy lie,
That may in time do somewhat.
That voice, methinks, I should have somewhere heard: But floods of woes have hurried it far off,
Dor. But I shall bring him back, ungrateful man,
I shall, and set him full before thy sight,
When I shall front thee, like some staring ghost,
With all my wrongs about me.
Haly. Two hours I warily have watch'd his palace;
All doors are shut, no servant peeps abroad;
Some officers with striding haste pass'd in,
While others outward went on quick dispatch;
Sometimes hush'd silence seem'd to reign within;
Then cries confus'd and a joint clamour follow'd;
Then lights went gliding by, from room to room,
And shot like thwarting meteors 'cross the house.
Hamet. The streets are thicker in this noon of night, That at the mid-day sun: a drowsy horror Sits on their eyes, like fear not well awake: All crowd in heaps, as at a night alarm The bees drive out upon each other's backs,
Timboss their hives in clusters; all ask news:
Their busy captain runs the weary round
To whisper orders; and, commanding silence,
Makes not noise cease, but deafens it to murmurs.
Emp. I will; and yet
A kind of weight hangs heavy at my heart;
My flagging soul flies under her own pitch,
Like fowl in air too damp, and lugs along,
As if she were a body in a body,
And not a mounting substance made of fire.
My senses too are dull and stupified,
Their edge rebated; sure some ill approaches,
And some kind sprite knocks softly at my soul,
To tell me fate's at hand.
Seb. Reserv'd behaviour, open nobleness, A long mysterious track of stern bounty. But now the hand of fate is on the curtain, And draws the scene to sight.
Re-enter DORAX, having taken off his Turban, &c.
Dor. Now do you know me?
Seb. Thou shouldst be Alonzo.
Dor. So you should be Sebastian:
But when Sebastian ceas'd to be himself,
I ceas'd to be Alonzo.
I see thee here, and scarce believe mine eyes.
Dor. Is it so strange to find me where my wrongs, And your inhuman tyranny have sent me?
Think not you dream: or, if you did, my injuries
Shall call so loud, that lethargy should wake;
And death should give you back to answer me.
A thousand nights have brush'd their balmy wings
Over these
eyes, but ever, when they clos'd,
Your tyrant image forc'd them ope again,
And dried the dews they brought.
The long-expected hour is come at length,
By manly vengeance to redeem my fame:
And that once clear'd, eternal sleep is welcome.
Dor. I must, and will reproach thee with my service, Tyrant-it irks me so to call my prince,
But just resentment and hard usage coin'd
Th' unwilling word; and grating as it is,
Take it, for 'tis thy due.
Seb. How, tyrant?
Dor. Tyrant.
Seb. Traitor; that name thou canst not echo back: That robe of infamy, that circumcision
Ill hid beneath that robe, proclaim the traitor:
More foul than traitor be, 'tis renegade.
Dor. If I'm a traitor, think, and blush, thou tyrant, Whose injuries betray'd me into treason,
Effac'd my loyalty, unhing'd my faith,
And hurried me from hopes of heaven to hell.
All these, and all my yet unfinish'd crimes,
When I shall rise to plead before the saints,
I charge on thee, to make thy damning sure.
Seb. Thy old presumptuous arrogance again!
That bred my first dislike, and then my loathing.
Once more be warn'd, and know me for thy king.
Dor. Too well I know thee, but for king no more:
This is not Lisbon, nor the circle this,
Where, like a statue, thou hast stood besieg'd
By sycophants, and fools, the growth of courts:
Where thy gull'd eyes, in all the gaudy round,
Met nothing but a lie in every face;
And the gross flatt'ry of a gaping crowd,
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