University of Virginia Library

SCENE VII.

Enter Montezuma supported behind by two Mexicans, and by Guyomar and Alibech on either hand.
Mont.
O, my kind children!—'tis too much—this goodness—
I shall oppress you with my weight—Alas!—
My limbs—all rent from their enfeebled burden—
Refuse to bear its bulk—There—seat me down—
Never to rise!—How blest the dead—if death—
Is free from pangs, like these!—

Cyder.
Alas, my father!

Cort.
Doubly accursed be the hands that did
This horrid deed!

[Cyderia and Cortez kneel to Montezuma.
Mont.
Away—nor blast my sight
With the detested aspect of a Spaniard!

[Cortez rises.
Guy.
O, Cortez, blame him not—there's cause, there's cause,
For hatred, never to be reconciled,
'Twixt Spain and Mexico!—I found him hemm'd,
Bound, and insulted, by a band of ruffians;
His aged limbs, all strain'd upon the rack
Until they crack'd the cordage!

Cort.
By the power
Whom the world ought to worship, they survive
No longer, than my vengeful arm shall reach
To hurl them to the fiends!—

Guy.
Their doom is seal'd.
Pizzarro, as I think, they call'd their chief—
With the one stroke of this thine honest sword,
I gave his head to leap, three javelins length,
From off his shoulders!

Mont.
Do me justice, boy!—
Say, did I, meanly, sue to them for mercy?
Did I degrade the majesty of kings—
Or bend, in vile compliance, to the terms
They wanted to extort?

Guy.
O, no, my father!—
You bore yourself above mortality;
And your fell torturers raged to find themselves
Defeated of your groans!

Mont.
O, my dear children!
Nature felt inward, still—and is the same,
When circled by a crown, as in the cottage.—
O—they return—my pains—sure harbingers
Of final dissolution!—Now, again—
Now they extend me on the rack!—they stretch
The leaping arteries, and the quivering members!—

Cort.
Support him—help!—his pangs are strong upon him.

[Cortez and Guyomar support him, while Cyderia and Alibech kneel weeping on either hand,
Cyder.
O, my lost father!

Guy.
O, the falling pillar,
Of our now desolated world!

Mont.
My children—
Bear with me!—O—fain, fain would I support—
As a king ought—these throes—this horrid cracking
Of the heart's cordage!—Nature sinks beneath
The ruins of her pile.—O, for a soul
Of independence on this rending frame
Of mortal structure!—'Twill not be—existence—
Cannot bear up against the tumbling crash—
Of its own being!—Oh—I am easier now—
What a sweet Heaven this relaxation brings
From tortures inexpressible!—'Tis past—
The storm of nature's laid—and all—to come—
Is calm—is quiet.—

[Dies.
Alib.
O, he is dead!

Cyder.
He's gone—he's gone—for ever!
And I, most wretched, left to wear the night
With endless tears, and rise, each cheerless morn,
A desolated orphan!—

Guy.
Down with thy towers, thou once exalted Mexico!
Crumble thy spires and palaces to dust!
Never be music, or the voice of joy,
Heard in thee!—Through the waste of thine high ways
May all who meet, behold in either face
The seal of wretchedness; and every ear
Hear sounds of sorrow, and the clank of bondage!
Fly, ye surviving innocents! to climes
Far distant from invasion—leave your mansions,
Your once endearing homes, to the possession
Of bats and birds of night, of Spanish vultures,
And beasts of depredation!

Cort.
Thy wrongs are great, my friend, thy sorrows just—
I feel and share them all! Yet, cruelty
Is not the growth of Spain alone—Mexico,
Even thy own Mexico, produces Odmars.
Chear you, my Guyomar!—chear, my Cyderia!—
Youth must succeed to age, and life to death;
'Tis nature's process—Come, ascend the throne
Of your great ancestors, and rule a people
Blest by your worth, and guarded by your valour!

Guy.
No, Cortez, generous chief, thou sole exception
To an inhuman race of men!—do thou
And thy Cyderia grace the throne—I list not
To rule o'er wretchedness; nor to be versed
In sciences that teach us to destroy,
And arts that serve to vitiate and corrupt
The honesty of nature.—Far from hence
I, with my willing exiles, will retire;
While my loved Alibech shall light our way,
And bless our steps with beauty—there, nor gems,
Nor gold, nor silver, shall excite the lust
Of fell invasion; nor insatiate Spain
E'er come, in search of poverty!—Know, Cortez,
Where wants are few, a little will suffice
To furnish nature; and a light content
Shall make it luxury!—The fearless sports
Of social Innocence shall chear our heaths—
Beauty and Love shall crown each peaceful night,
And morning wake to Liberty and Light!