Elvira A Tragedy |
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| 3. | SCENE III. |
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 | Elvira |  |
SCENE III.
The QUEEN, ALMEYDA.QUEEN.
Elvira see the King! What hast thou done?
Dishonor'd as we are, you seem to dread
The vengeance due to your disgrace and mine.
Far from resenting these repeated insults,
You, by your tears, solicite new and greater;
For they may live, the hated pair may live
To see our mutual shame, and triumph o'er it!
ALMEYDA.
Let not the pious meltings of compassion
Offend you, Madam. Let her virtue still
Be your Almeyda's happiness and pride.
QUEEN.
What is your aim? what visionary purpose
Deceives you into wishing they may meet?
'Tis madness all.
ALMEYDA.
When Lisbon first beheld
It blest your daughter's steps. As Peace and Ease
Came, her companions, shouting thousands rais'd
Her name to heaven, and hail'd their guardian-genius.
But what a peace, good Angels? writ in blood,
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The Messenger of heaven's severest vengeance?
To tear asunder nature's closest ties;
And by the Sire assassinate the Son?
'Tis more than horror! May Elvira's tears
Prevent these threaten'd mischiefs—
QUEEN.
May the rage,
This bosom swells with, rather be asswag'd
By seeing both expire! Rejected? heaven!
The daughter of a king! in whose high veins
Flows undebas'd from a long line of heroes
The noblest blood! Shall Europe hear it told,
She has been set at nought? Ha!—and for whom?
Degenerate boy! I, with my own, could purchase
His death, this moment!
ALMEYDA.
Do you then wish mine?
QUEEN.
Ah, can'st thou love him still?
ALMEYDA.
I still adore him,
Ungrateful, cruel as he is!
QUEEN.
O shame!
O fall ignoble from the high rais'd sense
Of that resentment, wrongs like ours demand,
Nay sanctify, and make our vengeance, virtue!
Can she, a child of mine, whose every pulse
Should beat with driving fury and disdain,
Whose bosom should expand to take in all
That brave revenge avows, thus melt away
In tears and sighs? like some fond village-maid
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That soothes her amorous folly?
ALMEYDA.
O yet think,
There is revenge more noble, more divine,
That spreads no blush upon the injur'd cheek,
By rendering good for ill.
QUEEN.
My Ferdinand!
Son of thy mother's soul, when thou shalt know
Thy sister's abject spirit, thus resign'd
To injuries and scorn, thy breast will flame
With anger uncontroul'd! On thee alone
My hopes, my life depend—Who waits?—'Tis glory
To fall reveng'd.
GUARD.
Your pleasure, Madam?
QUEEN.
Go,
Call in th'Ambassador of Spain.
ALMEYDA.
Ah me,
Whence this new storm of passion?
Enter AMBASSADOR.
QUEEN.
You have had
Your audience. Then be gone; this moment go;
On all the wings of haste to Spain return:
And there, this letter, as you prize your head,
Deliver on the instant to my son.
Yet, stay—You may be useful, and inforce
With your best reason what my letter urges;
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His troops the nearest road towards hated Lisbon.
Extremest need, mine and Almeyda's safety,
Requires he should. That writing will explain
What else remains.
Exit Ambassador.
My brain turns round—Ascend
From night eternal and profoundest hell,
Ye Powers of vengeance! Punish home with me
This object of my hate! thro all her frame
Spread fires unquench'd! then, with his funeral torch,
Let Death attend, to light her bridal bed!
And thus compleat my great revenge, as fits
A mother and a Queen!
| Elvira | |