 | Inez de Castro |  |
SCENE II.
A Prison.Inez, alone.
Inez.
Surely the hour is past! How wearily
Lags this long, lonely pause! No friend to cheer,
No priest to pray for me, and he my husband—
I have dearly purchased the blest right to call thee
By that fond name, my Pedro!—he—I dare not
Think of his fierce, unmitigated woe.
Alas! they might have granted one farewell—
The last! Well! well! once in her quiet grave,
And they'll forgive poor Inez! Now—Don Manuel!
115
So! Art thou come to lead me to the death?
Say Yes, and for the first time win of me
A free and joyous welcome.
Man.
Lovely lady,
I come to bring thee life.
Inez.
Life!—to live on
With him and for him! Life and life's best joy—
Pure wedded love! Oh, Heaven is merciful,
Refusing our fond, peevish prayers! I asked
For death—but life with him! Oh, we shall be
Too happy! Wherefore flew he not to share
Mine ecstasy? How bent he to his will,
His kingly father? What detains my Prince?
Why comes he not himself? Alas! forgive me
These my ungrateful questionings. Thanks! thanks!
Thou art a wise man, Manuel, and the wise
Are ever good. Thanks, generous friend, high thanks
For thy blest tidings! Wherefore start'st thou?
Man.
Inez,
I come to proffer life; but not—nay listen—
Hear out mine errand, lady, and then speak.
I bring thee life. Alphonso hath dispatched
A messenger to sue the Holy Pontiff
That he dissolve these rash, unlawful bridals;
And thou consenting, as thy stiffest denial
Were vain, to this divorce—I pr'ythee, hearken!—
And wedding with another—
Inez.
Man, begone!
I am Don Pedro's wife. Go read my title
In the stern scroll that doomed me to the block
For that inexpiable crime, the sentence
That shall descend, enrolled amongst thy archives,
116
My honour's bloody guardian. Wherefore loiters
The headsman? Wherefore art thou here to vex
My parting spirit?
Man.
Sweet, I come to save thee.
Inez.
Thou cam'st to proffer choice of life or death,
And I have chosen. Lead to the block.
Man.
I'll shake
This stubborn calmness yet.
Inez.
Thou canst not, Sir;
It is the calm of virtue.
Man.
A fair word
That virtue! Yet in this bad world of ours,
How many passions, sins, and miseries,
Lurk underneath its honest seeming. Virtue!
Why 'tis the very cloak Ambition wears—
The mask Rebellion dons. What if more lives
Than thine hang on thy choice?
Inez.
Whose life? his? his?
My Pedro's? No! no! no! Thou art a cunning
And merciless fiend, sent here afore my death
To tempt and torture my frail, sinful soul
With thoughts that burn like purgatorial fires.
Heaven pardon my impatience! There's none other
In peril, none in jeopardy of death,
Save her who prays for death to end her woes.
Man.
Didst sleep last night?
Inez.
No; for I thought of him,
And of his bitter grief. Lead to the block
For his dear sake. When Hope is dead, pale Fear
Fills the same monument.
Man.
Didst thou not hear
Noises around thy prison?
Inez.
Ha!
117
Strange noises:
Knolling of bells, and clattering of arms,
And trampling of mailed steeds, and shouts of men?
Inez.
Say that I did, and what of that? He's safe!
Man.
As safe as one who leads a rebel force
Against a monarch's power.
Inez.
In rebellion
For me! for me!—Oh! no, no, no! 'Tis false!
A traitor to his King!—Why rend my heart
With these wild thoughts? Confess thy falsehood, Manuel!
In arms against his father!
Man.
Ay, to arm
Father 'gainst son, son against father, subjects
'Gainst their anointed King; to raise a war—
A desperate civil war; to fire a nation,
This is rare virtue! Why that fairest piece
Of heathen wantonness, the beauteous Helen,
In that old ten years' siege, hatched not the mischief
Virtue and thou have wrought in one short hour.
Inez.
Oh, woe is me that ever I was born!
He in rebellion, slain in arms, a rebel
Against his father-King, fallen, vanquished, laid
In an unhonoured grave,—or conqueror,
Murderer, parricide, cursing her name
Who plunged him in that gulph of sin! Alas,
That ever I was born!
Man.
Take comfort, sweet one;
It stands within thy power to end this strife,
And with a word.
Inez.
How? where? Show me but how,
And I will worship thee.
Man.
Be mine.
Inez.
No, no;
118
Man.
Thou dost refuse?
[Going.
Inez.
Man, man,
What ill hath the poor Inez done to thee,
That thou shouldst wring her very soul? In mercy
Say can I end these wars? Can I save him?
Man.
Only as I have said. These fatal nuptials
Be the thrice fatal cause, and that removed—
Inez.
Ay, ay, I am the cause. Remove that cause,
And then there will be peace.
Man.
And bliss.
Inez.
Ay, bliss
In heaven.
Man.
After long bliss on earth.
Inez.
In heaven—
That is the blessedest place. The peace-maker
Will go there. That way's sure. Remove the cause—
The fatal cause!—On, on, Don Manuel. Show me
To stay the strife.
Man.
Do but consent, sweet lady,
To this divorce; and when for ever parted—
Inez.
For ever!
Man.
Then in a fresh bridal seek
A lowlier bliss.
Inez.
A lowlier bridal bed!
It must be, and it shall be. Manuel, hasten
To end these woes. Pray them forgive me, Manuel,
Me, the unhappy cause of this great woe.
Pray them forgive poor Inez! Tell Don Pedro
That in my love I never was ambitious;
I thought not of the crown; 'twas he, 'twas he
That was mine idol! Bear him back his gifts;
These pearls of Ind; he tied them round my neck
119
Where he first spake of love. Oh, wretched love!
Oh, miserable hour! This ruby ring
At midnight, in St. Vincent's lonely church,
He on my trembling finger fondly prest,
Sole token of that fatal union! Take it,
And pray that it be buried in my grave.
And this small Moorish attaghan, his first
And dearest gift, the jewelled attaghan,
Which, half in sport, and half in manly scorn
Of the effeminate gaud, he bade me wear
A woman's fitting weapon, say I bore it
Next to my heart, so that the faithful steel
Glowed with each hope and trembled with each fear,
Like a true friend. Oh, precious gift of love!
Say it shall wed me to my second bridegroom—
Death! death!
[Stabs herself.
Man.
Hold thy rash hand! Live, Inez, live!
She's dead! And I—oh, blindest wretch, that read not
Her desperate purpose—
Ped.
(Behind.)
Inez!
Man.
'Tis Don Pedro.
My bitter cup hath yet one sweetening drop—
Revenge.
Ped.
Mine Inez! Give her to my arms!
That yearn for their sweet burthen. Touch her not,
She is my wife.
Man.
Take her.
Ped.
She falls! she bleeds!
Inez! She hears me not. Her pulse is still.
She's dead! She's slain! Cowardly murderer!
Man.
Prince! was that dagger mine?
Ped.
Oh, torturing fiend!
Thou shalt abide this deed.
120
Father, look on her!
Look where she lies, love's martyr. She is slain,
And we are murderers, father! Mine own Inez!
My love! my wife! my Queen! The crown! the crown!
The glittering diadem! O blessed Shade,
Look down! Lo, where I crown thee, Death's pale bride
And mine. Lo, where I place the cold stiff sceptre
In thy cold stiffening hand. Lo, where I drop
The holy oil on the wan brow that bears
A majesty above this earth. My Queen!
Mine only Queen! Oh, never living love
Shall part our union, Inez! With this kiss
Do I re-wed thee! With this kiss devote
My life to thy dear memory. Do homage!
Viper, do homage! Father, bless thy daughter!
And pray for thy poor son! Pray for thy son!
| Inez de Castro | |