University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Another apartment.
The Duke, Siegfried, Mario, Ziba and conspirators.
A conspirator
(to Siegfried)
Said he nought else?

Siegfr.
What else he said was worse.
He is no more Isbrand of yesterday;
But looks and talks like one, who in the night
Hath made a bloody compact with some fiend.
His being is grown greater than it was,
And must make room, by cutting off men's lives,
For its shadowy increase.

Conspir.
O friends, what have we done?
Sold, for a promise, still security,
The mild familiar laws our fathers left us;
Uprooted our firm country.

Ziba.
And now sit,
Weeping like babes, among its ruins. Up!
You have been cheated; now turn round upon him.
In this his triumph pull away his throne,
And let him into hell.

Another conspir.
But that I heard it
From you, his inmost counsel and next heart,
I'd not believe it. Why, the man was open;
We looked on him, and saw our looks reflected;
Our hopes and wishes found an echo in him;
He pleased us all, I think. Let's doubt the worst,
Until we see.

Duke.
Until you feel and perish.
You looked on him, and saw your looks reflected,
Because his soul was in a dark deep well,
And must draw down all others to increase it:
Your hopes and wishes found an echo in him,
As out of a sepulchral cave, prepared
For you and them to sleep in. To be brief,
He is the foe of all; let all be his,
And he must be o'erwhelmed.

Siegfr.
I throw him off,
Although I feared to say so in his presence,
And think you all will fear. O that we had
Our good old noble Duke, to help us here!

Duke.
Of him I have intelligence. The governor,
Whose guards are bribed and awed by these good tidings,
Waits us within. There we will speak at large:
And O! may justice, for this once, descend
Like lightning-footed vengeance.

Mario.
It will come;
But when, I know not. Liberty, whose shade
Attends, smiles still in patience, and that smile
Melts tyrants down in time: and, till she bids,
To strike were unavailing.

[Exeunt all but Siegfried and Ziba.
Ziba.
Let them talk:
I mean to do; and will let no one's thoughts,
Or reasonable cooling counsels, mix
In my resolve to weaken it, as little
As shall a drop of rain or pity-water
Adulterate this thick blood-curdling liquor.
Siegfried, I'll free you from this thankless master.

Siegfr.
I understand. To-night? Why that is best.
Man's greatest secret, like the earth's, the devil,
Slips through a key-hole or the smallest chink.
In plottings there is still some crack unstopped,
Some heart not air-tight, some fellow who doth talk
In sleep or in his cups, or tells his tale,
Love-drunk, unto his secret-selling mistress.
How shall't be done though?

Ziba.
I'm his cup-bearer;
An office that he gave me in derision,
And I will execute so cunningly
That he shall have no lips, to laugh with, long;
Nor spare and spurn me, as he did last night.
Let him beware, who shows a dogged slave
Pity or mercy! For the drug, 'tis good:
There is a little, hairy, green-eyed snake,
Of voice like to the woody nightingale,
And ever singing pitifully sweet,
That nestles in the barry bones of death,
And is his dearest pet and play-fellow.
The honied froth about that serpent's tongue
Deserves not so his habitation's name,
As doth the cup that I shall serve to him.

[Exeunt.