University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Roxolana, Mufti.
Roxolana.
Where will this fearful revolution end?
And who must fall the sacrifice of fate,
Rustan or Mustapha?

Mufti.
Their fury seems
As if inflam'd, and chequ'd, by one sole will,
Unlike the wavering multitude.

Roxolana.
That shows
Most terrible!

Mufti.
It would be—but for him,
Their idol Mustapha, whose pride of soul—
Or call it loyalty—will surely prompt him,
With ostentation, to repress at once
The storm his fancy'd danger has arrous'd.

Roxolana.
Dost thou believe so, Mufti?

Mufti.
Hold it, Madam,
A most undoubted truth: and that on you
No other labour lies, but to perplex
By study'd doubts and fears the Sultan's spirit;
To hint his certain ruin from a son
So dangerously powerful o'er the passions
Of men inur'd to turbulence and treasons.

Roxolana.
My better angel warns me from thy lips:
And, Mufti, thou shalt find me nobly grateful.
Rustan, what news?

SCENE II.

Roxolana, Mufti, Rustan.
Rustan.
This tumult threaten'd more
Than even my fears surmiz'd. Already were
Those daring traitors pour'd around the grove
That shades this tent; a mighty host in arms,
Outragious, clamouring high for Mustapha,
And menacing perdition to his foes;
But chief to me.

Roxolana.
Audacious slaves!—but on.

Rustan.
In that nice moment, Solyman appear'd
Superior and unmov'd. At sight of him,
A space they stood confounded and appall'd.

Mufti.
The multitude unaw'd is insolent;
Once seiz'd with fear, contemptible and vain.

Rustan.
Yet, Mufti, when they cast their eyes abroad
On their own gather'd strength, rekindled rage
Spoke loud their madness in tempestuous shouts,
And mingled uproar. I beheld from far
The various horror; how at once they rag'd,
At once kept silence: and, as thwarting passions
By turns prevail'd, were dreadful and dismay'd!

Roxolana.
What follow'd this?

Rustan.
Just then—but I could wish
To leave that part untold—the Prince rush'd in;
His look with grief and anger deep impress'd,
His bosom naked to their swords—“Strike here;
“Here point your rage, he cry'd. I, only I
“Am guilty—if your impious arms have dar'd,
“In violation of th' allegiance due
“From subjects, chief from me, to menace him
“Who reigns supreme o'er all.”

Mufti.
Why did they not,
O Prophet! fairly take him at his word?

Rustan.
This, with strong transport utter'd, and enforc'd
By bursting tears, which indignation shed,
Amaz'd, abash'd them into fear and shame.
At once they crouded round the rais'd tribunal;
Threw down their arms at once, and prostrate begg'd
For pardon, or for death.—I would not dwell
Upon the sequel. Mustapha's demeanor
Has won anew his father's heart, and wrought
A firmer reconcilement.

Roxolana.
Wrought our ruin;
If this be so.

Mufti.
An enterprize like ours,
Rais'd to this fateful point, must be accomplish'd,
Or crush its authors.

Rustan.
There is no return.
No; we must on, must pass the perilous flood:
To venture backward from this depth, we risque
Inevitable sinking.

Roxolana.
Ha!—it dawns:
Thy counsel, Mufti, breaks upon my thought,
Like morning o'er the shades of night. We yet
Shall counterwork our fate. This paper too,
Even from the friends of Mustapha procur'd,
May serve to urge his fate.—The Sultan comes.
Retire, my Lords—Stay, Rustan: I may want
Thy present aid. Now recollect thy soul,
And second what I say.

SCENE III.

Solyman, Roxolana, Rustan.
Solyman.
Presumptuous slaves!—
These accidents in such a state as this is,
By laws unfix'd, are ever to be fear'd,
Are often fatal—This alarming storm
Is past, my love: and tho' the rage of tumults
Has from old time shook sore our empire's frame,
Nay buried monarchs in the general wreck,
This last I can forgive. It shew'd me plain
The soul of Mustapha. With care I watch'd
Th' emotions springing from his inmost breast,
There where no art has power: and found them true
To virtue and to me. I know this news,
To her whose dearest happiness is mine,
Will be most welcome.

Roxolana.
You are just, my Lord;
Just to us both. I triumph in your joy,
And wish it all sincere.

Solyman.
Long peace, I find,
But nurses dangerous humours up to strength,
Licence and wanton rage; which war alone
Can purge away. I will resume my arms.
The Persian, whom I deadly hate, must down.
Some slight advantage by his troops obtain'd—
I fought not there—has swell'd his inborn pride
Above all equal bounds. But ere the sun
Lights up another morn, my powers shall hence
To scourge that pride. A rougher season now,
My Roxolana, must divide the hearts,
It shall not change.

Roxolana.
Mine is not in the power
Of time or accident. This faithful breast
Will know no hour of joy, till favouring heaven
Restore you, bright with conquest, to these arms.
But—is all well, my Lord?

Solyman.
All well!

Roxolana.
Alas!

Solyman.
Ha! what alarms thee?

Roxolana.
Does my Lord believe,
His lowly handmaid loves him?

Solyman.
Most unkind!
Why dost thou kneel, and hang upon my robe?

Roxolana.
O Solyman—But wilt thou then forgive
The woman's softness? those presaging thoughts
That wish, yet doubt thy safety?

Solyman.
Safety! what,
What wouldst thou say?

Roxolana.
O may my fears be vain!
But when my thought recalls this horrid tumult;
Recalls th' unbounded insolence that spread
So fast, and rag'd so high; when I revolve
The cause that spirited those factious men
To such bold outrage—can I chuse but weep,
And tremble for thy life?

Solyman.
My life!

Rustan,
aside.
Well said,
Exquisite woman!

Roxolana.
Have they not presum'd
On idle rumors—rumors too that fix
The name of murderer on you—here to judge
Betwixt you and your son? to give you laws?
As if the sovereign power was in their hands!
And you their slave!

Solyman.
Ha!—Roxolana—Rustan!

Rustan.
She speaks a dreadful truth! Power is no more;
Authority is lost, when rebel subjects dare,
With curious boldness, scan their master's right,
Control his royal pleasure, and rejudge
His highest acts. Contempt unkings a sovereign.

Solyman.
Contempt!—perdition!—Am I vilely fallen
To that dishonor?

Rustan.
You are still yourself,
Great, valiant, glorious: but ungrateful subjects,
Wanton with wealth and ease, may wish to change
The happy present for th' uncertain future—
Alas, I go too far; you droop, my Lord.

Solyman.
Away—What should I fear? My son's known virtue
Forbids a doubt of him.

Roxolana.
How I have lov'd,
How oft with rapture dwelt upon his name,
You, Solyman, best know. But duty now
Shall triumph o'er that fondness—This wild storm
He with a breath appeas'd.

Solyman.
He did.

Roxolana.
Grant heaven
I be mistaken!—That same breath can raise
A second, wilder far; and bid it burst
On me—would that were all!—alas on you!
Even on your sacred head—for who will then
Bid the rous'd ocean peace? or drive its surge
With govern'd fury?

Solyman.
Hold I then a crown
Precarious and dependent on the nod,
The caprice of another?—Roxolana!
Thou dost not think so.

Roxolana.
Would I could not think it.
O who can sound the secret heart of man?—
Pardon my anxious love—His thoughts are hid,
His real aims unseen: his power is known,
Is evident and felt.

Solyman.
Woman! by heaven!
Thy words dart light into my darken'd soul—
There must be treachery. Who told those rebels
I sought his life? What friend of mine would say,
That danger threaten'd him?

Rustan.
O justly thought.
Did Roxolana, did your slave, whose head
They loudly call'd for, bid the traitors rise,
To plunge their daggers in our breasts?

Solyman.
'Tis plain.—
Who, who would be a father?—Friends, you weep
In pity of my fate!—I too could pour
A breaking heart in tears.

Roxolana.
O may the news,
This paper holds, be false as Calumny,
As Malice can devise.

Solyman.
What news? what paper?
Whence comes it?

Rustan.
From Amasia. Sir: a slave
Deliver'd it but now.

Solyman.
I dread to look
Upon this fatal paper—Ha! it speaks
“Of peace at hand; of terms the Persian offers.”—
“That monarch courts with ardent love and service
“My favourite son”—Why trembles thus my frame?
What dire suggestions, conjur'd up at once
In fiend-like shapes, spread horror thro' my breast?
Where am I?—What?—depos'd? plung'd in a dungeon,
To drag out weary life to its last verge,
A slave! a nameless reptile!—These strong warnings
Are heaven's impressive hand.—But how resolve?
How satisfy my vengeance and my fame?
My stormy soul yet knows not, dares not yet
Acknowledge to itself.

Roxolana
looking after him.
The Mufti soon
Shall clear that doubt.

SCENE IV.

Rustan.
We are not yet secure.
Fond nature may return, and baffle all
Our labour'd schemes.—Ambition! deadly tyrant!
Inexorable master! what alarms,
What anxious hours, what agonies of heart,
Are the sure portion of thy gaudy slaves?
Cruel condition! Could the toiling hind,
The shivering beggar, whom no roof receives,
Wet with the mountain shower, and crouching low
Beneath the naked cliff, his only home;
Could he but read the statesman's secret breast,
But see the horrors there, the wounds, the stabs,
From furious passions and avenging guilt:
He would not change his rags and wretchedness,
For gilded domes and greatness!

SCENE V.

Zanger, Rustan.
Zanger.
Rustan! yes,
Alone and musing—Soft: I will repress
Th' indignant rage my honest bosom swells with,
And speak him fair.

Rustan.
I heard a noise—Prince Zanger!

Zanger.
You seem wrapt up in meditation, Vizir.

Rustan.
I have been thinking what sweet peace attends
The homely shepherd's life.

Zanger.
Can such a life
Provoke a great man's envy?

Rustan.
Sir, forgive me:
I must attend the Sultan.

Zanger.
Vizir, stay:
The Sultan is retir'd. I saw and mark'd
His visage, ruffled with tempestuous passions.
I know the dreadful cause: thou too must know,
Some instant peril menaces a life
That mine but lives in. Rustan, by the names,
The sacred names of honor and renown!
Now join thy influence with mine, and save
The noblest of his race.

Rustan.
Save whom, young Prince?

Zanger.
Whom! holds the world a second Mustapha?
Vizir, believe me, this one glorious deed,
Were thy life stain'd and foul with every crime,
Would wash out all.

Rustan.
You much amaze me, Prince.
Is it for me to trace the secret springs
That act my sovereign's will? or cross its workings?
Be far that curious rashness from my thought.
But what alarms you thus? I have not learnt
What fate impends o'er Mustapha—and yet
Suppose—'twere death.

Zanger.
Ha! Vizir—

Rustan.
Yours, my Lord,
Is all the gain.

Zanger.
O Prophet!

Rustan.
He remov'd,
You are this empire's heir.

Zanger.
By that sole Being
Who governs all events! I would not reign,
In wrong to him, the master of mankind.

Rustan.
Fine air-built notions, Prince. The wise have thought,
That power, howe'er acquir'd, is sovereign good.
Devoted to your service, let me speak
With useful freedom. Be advis'd in time;
Renounce a friendship that avails not him,
And may to you prove fatal.

Zanger.
Sure thou dost not,
All-statesman as thou art, thou canst not mean
The horrors thou hast utter'd? Were I, Vizir,
This empire's lord, my first, my dearest care,
Should be rewarding thee, even to the full,
For giving righteous counsel.

Rustan.
My advice
Bespeaks my hearty love, and merits not
Such harsh and proud return.

Zanger.
Thou earth-born slave!—
I thought to have restrain'd me—but thy baseness
Arrouses me beyond dissembling.—No:
Thy counsel perish with thee—Heaven! is he,
Are such as he the men whom princes trust?
And must the fate, the safety or destruction
Of millions, each less guilty than himself,
Hang on the breath of one whom thou must hate?
O providence! is human race no more
The object of thy care?—Why end I not,
Even here, his life and crimes?

Rustan.
Prince, have a care:
Nay handle not your sword. These starts of youth,
Swelling and frantic, touch not, move not me.
Yet know—that but for her, my royal mistress,
Who loves thee, and to whom my duty bends—
This threat may cost thee dear.

SCENE VI.

Zanger.
How could I hope
To melt a heart like his? What now remains?
Said he, my mother loves me? then I know
Where even her breast is vulnerable. Yes;
It is determin'd—If my friend must fall;
This righteous sword, thro' mine, shall reach her heart.

SCENE VII.

Mustapha, Zanger.
Zanger.
Nature and friendship!—how they tear my bosom?
How wound my inmost soul?

Mustapha.
What means my brother?

Zanger.
I know not what has wrought this fatal change:
Some moments past, the Sultan cross'd my walk;
His brow was knit in frowns, his eye look'd ruin—
This villain-statesman too has talk'd such things!—
Thy ruin is resolv'd on.

Mustapha.
Be it so.
Life is beneath my care; nor can I wish
To wear it longer, if a father deems me
Unworthy to partake the common blessing,
All creatures share in.

Zanger.
Mustapha, no more.
Self-preservation is heaven's eldest law,
Imprest upon our nature with our life
In characters indelible. Who shrinks
From this great cause is wanting to his reason:
But when our honor is traduc'd and stab'd at,
'Tis virtue, 'tis heroic fortitude,
Then to encounter violence with force.

Mustapha.
What force, my Zanger, shall a son employ
Against the sacred life that gave him being?
In me, resistance would be parricide:
That guilt I dread; I cannot fear to die.

Zanger.
Fly then: prevent th' enormous guilt of others
By timely flight.

Mustapha.
And so avow the crime
My foes would fix, in all its blackness, on me?
Such cowardice were treason to my self.
Think, Zanger, for us both.

Zanger.
What can I think,
But that you charm th' unhappy breast you wound?
O Mustapha!—yet can your virtue bear
To see our father stain himself with blood?
The blood that Nature, Honor, bid him spare?
He is no more the Monarch, Europe, Asia,
Have trembled at. His amorous weakness grows
To dotage: and has robb'd him of himself.
Slave to a woman's will—I would forget
She gave me birth—and to a minister,
Familiar with all guilt; behold his sword,
That should be drawn for justice, turn'd to murder!
To perpetrate th' offence it should revenge!
And will not you by honest flight prevent
His sin and shame? prevent the sure reproach
That must descend for ever on his name?
The brand of murderer?

Mustapha.
Zanger, should I fly—
No other choice is mine—I must unsheathe
The all-devouring sword. Then what ensues?
Revolt, intestine broils, the baneful train
Of crimes and miseries that wait on war.
Shall I, good heaven! to breathe this idle air
A few years longer, load me with the sins
And blood of thousands? shake an empire's peace,
Unhinge its frame, and rend it with convulsions?
Is life worth saving at such mighty cost?
Compar'd with this, can death be terrible?

Zanger.
The crime is theirs who force you into arms.
On them alone, the rapines that shall waste,
The flames that shall devour, our fields, our towns,
The blood that shall be spilt, for ever rests.
Yet more; a Prince's life is not his own:
Not for himself, he lives for human race.
This universal duty to your kind
Cancels all private bonds. The future bliss,
Or woe of millions, you were born to rule,
Hangs on your great resolve.

Mustapha.
I hear with wonder
The glorious counsel which I must not take.
No end is noble where the means are base.
What? violate allegiance, duty, nature?
Wade on thro' cruelty, rebellion, ruin?
Thro' all the varied guiltiness of war?
And rise to empire by ten thousand horrors,
That subjects may, at last, have cause to bless
A sovereign, thus exalted?—No, my friend;
Heaven means not me its instrument of good,
If but by ways like these I must effect it.
Brother—farewel: I leave the world with joy,
Leaving it thee!

Zanger.
O cruel—godlike friend!
Canst thou resolve on death, and bid me live?

Mustapha.
Yes, live, my brother, live to bless mankind.
Shew wondering nations what a Monarch should be;
Heaven's true Vicegerent, whose superior soul,
Rais'd high above the tyrant's selfish poorness,
Pants but for power of doing good, rejects
All power of doing ill; who makes no war
But to revenge his people's wrongs, no peace
But what secures their safety; courts no fame
But from their happiness: a parent he,
The public parent; they not slaves, but sons.

Zanger.
Thou shalt not go. This moment yet remains;
Perhaps the last—Does friendship plead in vain?
Yet if thine ear is deaf to Zanger's call—
Think of Emira! think of her, my brother,
To whom thy soul has wedded all its wishes!
Canst thou abandon her? be deaf to love?
The pleading voice of love, and youth, and beauty,
Despairing, dying in thy death?

Mustapha.
Ah friend,
What hast thou done? Why dost thou sound my heart,
To shew me I am man? frail, fearful man?
Why, Zanger, hast thou brought to light a weakness,
I would have kept in darkness from all eyes?
Even from my self? or wept in silence o'er it,
My last unconquerable fondness?

Zanger.
See!—
She comes. What grace, what noble sweetness shines,
Victorious, in her opening spring of charms!

Mustapha.
O go, my brother; leave me to my self:
My heart runs o'er with passion, nor can bear
Even a friend's eye should read its tender follies.

SCENE VIII.

Emira, Mustapha.
Mustapha.
Emira!

Emira.
Prince!—what mean these eager tremblings?
This troubled silence?

Mustapha.
O my soul's best joy!
At sight of thee, I feel—I know not what:
My beating heart is all a soft confusion
Of fears and wishes, tenderness and tears—
Blest heaven!

Emira.
My Lord!—why are you thus alarm'd?
Ah! have you then deceiv'd me? Was the peace,
The reconcilement with your royal father
But feign'd to soothe me with betraying hopes?
Cruel—

Mustapha.
Emira, I am much to blame:
And manhood murmurs at the fond consent
That has expos'd thee, in this doubtful journey,
To danger and alarms. Love made me weak,
Even made me cruel!

Emira.
Prince, why am I yours
But to divide your cares? to share your fortunes?
I feel no danger, Mustapha, but thine;
No fears but for thy safety.

Mustapha.
Knowing that,
I know too much, and therefore am most wretched!

Emira.
Ha! thou art pale—why dost thou hide thee from me?
What fatal change has happen'd?

Mustapha.
Dear Emira!
Thou amiable goodness! stop these tears.
There is no present danger; none, my love.
But let me place thee safe beyond the din,
Beyond the rage of war—for war is threaten'd.
Now while the friendly shades of night descend,
Let Achmet guide thee hence.

Emira.
Inhuman! oh—
You hide some horrid secret from mine ear.
What leave thee? fly with Achmet at this hour?
Must then Emira be the last to know,
She is for ever wretched?

Mustapha.
No, my Love:
Our parting shall be short—Nay hang not on me:
Resist not with thy tears. I must a while,
Refusing thee, deny my soul its comfort—
See Achmet comes.—'Tis well. Retire at once.
[Achmet whispers him.
Angels conduct thy steps!

Emira.
O lost Emira!

SCENE IX.

Mustapha, Osman.
Osman.
The Sultan, on whose head be peace and blessing!
Commands, my Lord, you should expect his pleasure
Alone in that pavilion.

Mustapha.
I obey.
O heaven-born patience! source of peace and rest,
Descend; infuse thy spirit thro' my breast;
That I may calmly meet the hour of fate,
My foes forgive and triumph o'er their hate.
This body let their engines tear and grind:
But let not all their racks subdue my mind.