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SCENE II.
The Street.Enter Benducar and Alonzo.
BENDUCAR.
The king, methinks, grows wary; 'twas a prompt
Decision, to allow so short a space
Between your trial and your coming home.
ALONZO.
'Tis better for the better cause. Deceit
Abruptly taken will lack breathing-time
To gloss and polish its contrivances;
While Truth, whose ready wit is at the call
Of quick emergence, needs no art to make
Her tale consistent.
BENDUCAR.
We will on to Court
Among the first: 'twill shew an eagerness
Befitting well your innocence.
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I'm ready.
BENDUCAR.
Soft you, Zelinda comes. Go thou before,
And wait my presence in the audience-hall,
Where, with my best dispatch, I'll follow you.
[Exit Alonzo.
How buried in her own surmise she seems!
I'll tax her indirectly with the doubt
That cross'd my mind, and haunts it still. How now!
Enter Zelinda.
ZELINDA.
My father!
BENDUCAR.
Start you, then, to find him here?
ZELINDA.
'Twas but a foolish tremor of the nerve;
Such as the languid spirits oft give way to,
When happiest and safest.
BENDUCAR.
I would have
A word with you: it will not take you long
To hear a simple story, not without
Its meaning, daughter.
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'Tis my duty, Sir,
In tale or precept, to attend your wisdom.
BENDUCAR.
I had a lambkin once, when I was young,
And in my arms I used to bear about
The woolly favourite: I fed it from
My hand with herbs, the sweetest I could find
Along the water's brink. It knew my voice,
And trotted at my call; but when it grew
To greater strength, it left me—join'd the flock—
Got wild, and wander'd:—I remember still
The pain I felt at brute ingratitude.
ZELINDA.
What should I draw from thence?
BENDUCAR.
No blame to that
Poor native of the field: it was its instinct:
The bleating flock it join'd spoke its own language:
Mine was a foreign tongue. But had it been
A human favourite—a creature skill'd
To weigh my words, to read my thoughts, to trace
The fondness here abiding,—and it left me;
Or if a daughter, and deserted me—
Would you not say that Nature had betray'd
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Ha!—do you shrink?
ZELINDA.
Your manner and your eye
Flash fear upon my soul.
BENDUCAR.
I have not leisure
For closer question now—Alonzo waits.
But be the issue of this day or good
Or bad, so he but live,—look you obey me:
The priest is ready to unite your hands,
The guests are bidden to the solemn rite,
And nought remains but your consent to crown
The ceremony.
ZELINDA.
How!—so soon, my father?
BENDUCAR.
Remember 'tis my will, and must be so.
[Exit.
ZELINDA.
Now is the measure of my woes complete.
To be Alonzo's wife!—the horrid thought
Creeps like some living reptile o'er my brain,
And threatens madness! Do I rave already?
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DURAZZO.
'Tis she herself! Oh, what a lip is there!
It speaks in silence to the soul of man,
And beauty is its language.
ZELINDA.
What to do
I know not, what I ought 's impossible.
DURAZZO.
Turn not away. Speak, prithee—speak again;
For not the Thracian Bard could touch a string
So melting sweet, when plaintive Echo stole
His music on the waters of Despair,
As in that accent bless'd me.
ZELINDA.
For my life,
I ought to bless you in the truest sense
Of blessing—by my earnest prayers to Heaven:
Yet if you knew my name—
DURAZZO.
Pronounce the word.
My heart is listening.
ZELINDA.
It will turn to stone
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DURAZZO.
What are my stars at now?
ZELINDA.
Search through your memory for such a name
As, with its hateful odour, turns the breath
Of mention to a curse.
DURAZZO.
In all the world
There is but one.
ZELINDA.
Then you can name my father.
DURAZZO.
Oh misery! and is it worth Heaven's while
To set the station'd planets on the watch,
That good approach me not.
ZELINDA.
Forgive my father:
Forgive him for Zelinda's sake.
DURAZZO.
The blow
Hatch reach'd my mind. Forgetfulness, that used
To walk with time, performing offices
Upon the earth that would become an angel,
Cooling the heats and fevers of the brain,
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To melt like snow, is buried in the centre,
And never, never more will visit me.
How can I then forgive?
ZELINDA.
By thinking on
His daughter's love, who weeps to own she loves you.
DURAZZO.
Bright angels catch the sound, and bear it on
Your silver wings to blend with my ambition.
[Trumpets sound.
But hark! the trumpet's tongue proclaims the court
Convened. Sweet, we must part: yet, ere I go,
One promise grant me: never, come what will,
To wed Alonzo.
ZELINDA.
Never.
DURAZZO.
One thing more,
And then good b'ye. As every parting says,
That those it severs ne'er may meet again,
For my sake wear this ring: that sparkling hoop
Of your's exchange with me: then, if the bolt
[They exchange rings.
Drop down, by rule or random, on my head,
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And bless you, ere I die. Farewell—farewell.
[Exit.
ZELINDA.
What have I done? how shall I meet my father?
How bear his look of anger? and the ring—
Ha! 'twas my mother's ring: I gave it in
Mistake. Avert this omen, gracious Heaven,
Which seems to threaten ruin and despair.
[Exit.
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