University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE SECOND.

Rosmunda, Almachilde, Romilda.
Rosmunda.
Me thou dost see, perfidious traitor! me.—
Ye are well match'd in turpitude: to learn
The certainty of your disloyalty
Stabs me the deepest: but I will not bear
Its penalty alone. Your guilty plots
I come to disappoint.—Miscreant, dost thou
Render me such a recompense?—And thou,
With thy feign'd virtue ...

Rom.
Keep them all for him,
Those names appropriate to himself alone:
He is the sole delinquent; he the traitor,
He the dissembling liar; he maintains
With thee such faith as thou deservest; such
As should the guilty with the guilty keep.
I the delinquent am not; he suborned me,
With base contrivances, to hear his words ...

Al.
I will myself, since thou hast learn'd a part,
Divulge the whole to thee. I love, adore
Romilda; nor is this a flame at which
I need to blush. Seek in thyself, and thou
The conscious reason speedily wilt find,
Whence thou hast not my love, as thou pretendest.
I, not for crimes design'd, could I e'er love
Her who seduced me to them? Space immense
Betwixt Rosmunda and Romilda lies;
Thou feel'st that it is so. I love Romilda,
And traitresses abhor. In what perdition
Thy fierce and haughty vengeance can o'erwhelm me,
I know already; yes, thou art to me
But too completely known! Ah, could I thus,
As I have slain her father, could I die!
Could I appease Romilda's just disdain
Expiring! Ah, that I had never been
To thee a husband! That I were not now
A traitor and a regicide! and then
Romilda had not had her heart so closed
Against my love.

Rom.
I! I should hate thee still,
Not the assassin of my sire, not girt
With his ill-gotten crown, and not espoused
To a fierce step-mother. Far greater merit,
Far greater than thy own, far nobler heart,
Do I require to make me hear of love.
E'en as my murder'd father renders thee
To me abominate, so much and more,
Thy wife betray'd, though such a wife she be,
Makes thee in my esteem contemptible.
Renown'd by her means, your united guilt,
That blood which thou hast spill'd, should have joined thee
To her in everlasting fellowship.
I cannot, even in my own behalf,
Treason endure; how much less then can I
Endure a traitor! In my breast I bear
Another flame more noble, whence my face
Is not discolour'd with the blush of shame.
I am prepared to die, but not prepared,
No, never, never to resign my love.

Al.
Thou lovest?

Rom.
Ildovaldo.

Al.
This indeed,
This is indeed the blow that quite unmans me.

Ros.
Speakst thou the truth, or dost thou still deceive me?
Dost thou love Ildovaldo?

Rom.
I adore him
With such affection as not e'en in thought
Ye can conceive, much less then feel in heart:
We are not for participated crimes
Scourged with remorseful visitings; our souls
Unspotted, 'twixt each other have no strife
Save that of which shall love the other best.
To him those mournful days, those days in which
I have perchance unluckily survived
My murder'd sire, to him I consecrate:
To me his life, his lofty fame, his sword,
His sword invincible, he consecrates.
But should our life be cheated of its objects;
Should we of all deliverance, all revenge
Be disappointed, yet e'en then were we
Eternally less desolate than you.
Death were our refuge then, and unsubdued
Shall we obtain it; for to abject minds
The noble never yield: exultingly
Shall we embrace him since betwixt us shared,
From penitence and from reproaches free,
From terror and remorse; and finally
We shall obtain a death a thousand times
More sweet than your appalled, degraded lives.

Ros.
Enough; depart. Thou soon shalt know thy fate.