University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Before Lara's Tent.
Enter Lara and Pedro.
LARA.
My faithful Pedro, this thy wondrous tale
Confounds all reason. Oh! he is undone!
Unhappy, lost Gonzalvo! that a girl,
A Moorish girl, should by her wiles ensnare thee!

PEDRO.
Nay, sir, the princess is a gracious creature;
My lord had died but for her tender care.
Oh! she is innocent as nature's self,
Fair as her fairest works, and yet withal
She wears a native simple dignity,
Commanding most when most her sweetness wins.

LARA
(smiling).
Why, Pedro, thou hast caught thy master's frenzy.

PEDRO.
Oh! 'tis no time to jest. My lord has sworn
His sword shall never take Almanzor's life.

LARA.
Blasted his fame! For ever wrapt in night,
If he so bear himself as he has sworn!
Gonzalvo throw his country's cause away!
Impossible!

Enter Gonzalvo.
GONZALVO.
Is it Lara speaks my name
As 'twere in anger? Pity, sure, my friend,
Had better suited thy Gonzalvo's sorrows.

LARA.
Oh, my Gonzalvo! I do pity thee;
I pity thee, but I must blame thee too.

GONZALVO.
Speak, Lara, show me any way to escape
The brand of treason or of perjury.

LARA.
We are our country's ere we are our own;
This tie is prior to all other claims.

GONZALVO.
And know'st thou, Lara, all my country asks?

LARA.
To rid her of the proud insulting foe
Who checks her arms.

GONZALVO.
Nay, more than that, my friend:
To be ungrateful as the venomous serpent,
That stung the bosom which had foster'd it;
To mock the laws of hospitality,
Sacred to all who bear the form of man:
The very savage, in the deadly strife
By life's first wants provoked, will slack the bow,
Or drop th' uplifted club, if he but mark
In th' adverse band his sometime host, whose hut
Had housed him from the night storm.

LARA.
Why, Gonzalvo,
Then why receive the sword of famed Rodrigo?
Confirming thus th' acceptance of the challenge.

GONZALVO.
That none other might.

LARA.
Think'st thou no other arm
Has power to wield?

GONZALVO.
Think'st thou the Spaniard lives
Shall claim the challenge to Gonzalvo offer'd?

LARA.
Then wilt thou meet the Moor, and by thy arm
Almanzor dies!—Thou art thyself again.

GONZALVO
(shuddering).
“Almanzor dies!”—Is this to be myself?
Oh horror! horror! which way soe'er I turn,
Dishonour meets my view. Or I betray
My country's sacred trust, or break the faith
I swore to her I love! Shall a Castilian
Not shudder at the charge of perjury?

LARA.
The time has been when we two, side by side,
Like two young lions rush'd into the fight.
The turban'd infidels, disparting wide,
Shrank from the lightning of our swords. Thy soul
Then knew not of these nice distinctions; no,
Thy country, and her cause, and love of fame,
Led thee resistless on.

GONZALVO.
I had not loved!

LARA.
The soldier has no leisure for soft love,
Save when, his iron harness all unbraced,
He gives his toil-worn limbs to careless ease,
Or looser revelry; till braying trumpets
Rouse to the war, and scare the baby god
Far, far away, with all his idle toys.

GONZALVO.
Thou hast not loved if thou hast loved but so;
And nothing know'st thou of the hallow'd bond
Of virtuous attachment. He whose soul
Owns with true loyalty his king and country,
Alike is loyal to the maid he loves.
For oh! what traitor, Lara, is more base
Than he who steals a maid's first thoughts from peace,
And leaves her desolate?

LARA.
I am not skill'd
In Love's quaint rhetoric:—the subject's loyalty,
The soldier's glory mine!

GONZALVO.
Alas, my friend!
My thoughts of glory are not what they were.
To stay the fury of wide-wasting war,
And give fair peace to this distracted land;
This was th' ambition that fill'd all my soul.
How dear I hold my country, witness Heaven!
But I would fold in my expanded love
All—all her children, natives of her soil,
And commoners to breathe her balmy gales.
My friend, the vision's past! war still must rage.
'Tis doom'd!—To-morrow's sun must set in blood!
Thousands must sleep in death!—But not Almanzor.
I fly to tell her this.

[Going.
LARA.
What would'st thou do?

GONZALVO.
Pedro! my steed, my steed!—Thou only, Lara,
Couldst thus have held me from her.

LARA
(holding him).
My Gonzalvo!

GONZALVO.
Off, Lara! stay me not.—Peace may not be!
My Zelima must learn it from myself,
Must know Almanzor's life to me is sacred;
My own, thus lost to her, not worth my care.

[Exit.
LARA.
Follow him, Pedro—Nay, a moment stay—
This passion robs him of his better judgment.
Mark me!—
[After anxious thought.
Remind him not how fly the hours,
And lead him if thou canst through devious paths,—
And still of Zelima thy converse be,—
Devise delays as best thou canst, old man:
His life, his fame, hang on thy skill in this,
Nay more, the weal of Spain!

PEDRO.
I will, my lord;
But how may this delay avert the ill?

LARA.
Gain but a day.—Let pass this fever'd dream,
Then Glory's voice and Lara's will be heard.
Gonzalvo's valour who shall dare to question?
And trust to friendship;—yes, there yet are means
To save his fame!—His well-known casque, his shield,
Now lie within my tent.—My soul beats high—
Yes, either host shall deem Gonzalvo's arm
Deals the unerring stroke!—His proudest courser
Shall think he yields but to Gonzalvo's mastery!—
Follow him, Pedro,—soothe him, and be secret.

[Exeunt severally.