University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

RAYMOND, EUDORA.
EUDORA,
entering.
My Lord! my husband! take me to thy arms,
And let us part no more! but let me still
Thro' every fortune be thy dear companion!
Now, as I entered here, I thought I heard,
Or love deceived me with a fancied sound,
Thy lips pronounce my name.

RAYMOND.
Thou heardst aright,
Thou, ever present to my constant mind!
Tho' deepest horrors, shame, and death, and anguish
Press me on every side, still is thy image
First in my thoughts, and nearest to my soul.
I wish to tell thee,—but, by Heaven, I cannot—
How shall I teach my tongue to wound thine ear
With such a tale?

EUDORA.
What! has infernal falsehood
Reached thy dear life?

RAYMOND.
Thy fears too well inform thee:
Yes! I must die—if, ye almighty powers,
If ye regard the prayer, the righteous prayer
Of innocence oppressed, O hear me now!
For every ill which you have heaped on me,
Pour down a blessing on this beauteous head,
Let not affliction—

EUDORA.
Think, yet think my Lord,
Canst thou not 'scape from these detested walls?
Canst thou not fly unseen? O I will follow thee
Thro' every peril, to the utmost verge
Of this wide earth; to some far happier clime,
Unstained by falsehood, and to guilt unknown.

RAYMOND.
Vain is thy matchless tenderness and love:
O! I must tell thee all—my open soul
Can never hide a single thought from thee,
But summon all thy fortitude, I pray thee,
And hear it like thyself! E'en now, my father
Distracted told me, that the king misled,
Dooms me to death—'tis said, that in my prison
This night, the rack—

EUDORA.
O tyranny accurst!
Distraction! horror! what thy limbs be torn!
Thou, thou endure the torture!

RAYMOND.
Never, never!
Banish the dreadful image from thy fancy.
We are prepared against it.

EUDORA.
Tell me Raymond!

A SERVANT,
entering.
My Lord Verino sends—

RAYMOND.
Enough! my friend,
I know thy message: give me what thou bring'st,
And say in answer to my noble father,
I bless him for a thousand proofs of kindness,
But chiefly for the last.

(Exit Servant.
EUDORA.
O speak, my Raymond,
Explain these horrid mysteries, while yet
My reason holds, and I have sense to hear thee!

RAYMOND.
Compose this wild emotion of thy soul!
Thou shalt not see me sunk to the condition
Of vilest criminals, and made a prey
To the stern ministers of blood and torture:
My father's love has armed me well against them;
I wait, Eudora, but to take a long,
A last farewell of thee, and then my soul,
Enfranchised by this friendly drug, shall soar
Beyond oppression, and elude its power.

EUDORA.
Must thou destroy thyself? think what it is
To die unbidden! to throw off obedience,
And in defiance of divine command,
Rush to the presence of offended Heaven!
Thus humbly on my knees let me entreat thee
To weigh the rash design!

RAYMOND.
Can my Eudora
Be thus unmindful of her husband's honor?
Can she, with tears, entreat him to preserve
A few sad moments of precarious life
To die disgraced, in agony and shame!

EUDORA.
O witness, Heaven! that I have ever prized
Thy honor as thy life!—they both may yet

RAYMOND.
Thy grief, my love, o'erwhelms thy troubled reason:
Life stands no longer in thy husband's choice:
I die to shun dishonorable death;
The rack's prepared—no power—

EUDORA.
Yes, Raymond, yes!
There is a power: that all-protecting hand,
Which oft has saved thee in the rage of battle,
And turned the uplifted falchion from thy head,
May still preserve thee. I conjure thee, do not
Resign that hope! do not, by blindly yielding
To fierce despair, distract thy wretched wife,
Forsake thy children; and distrust thy God!

RAYMOND.
I must not hear thee, for thy pleasing voice
Has known so long the passage to my soul,
That it may steal on my unguarded reason,
And lead me to forget the call of honor,
The expectations of a generous father.
He saw me doomed to infamy and torture,
And sends me freedom; shall he hear that I,
In weak compliance with a woman's tears,
Dare not embrace the remedy he gives?
Shall he despise me for an abject coward?
Despise the son, whom yet he fondly thinks
Firm like himself, and resolutely brave!

EUDORA.
O Raymond, say! what is it to be brave?
'Tis, to maintain the glorious cause of truth;
To fear not man; but, strong in conscious virtue,
And the protection of approving Heaven,
To stand unshaken in the sternest hour
That puts to proof the temper of his soul.

RAYMOND.
By Heaven, thy words have changed my every sense,
And thou appearst to my enlightened eyes
A guardian angel, speaking with a voice
Of eloquence divine; inspired by thee,
And surely thou art virtue's self, my soul
Shall quit its hasty purpose—Thou hast armed me
With nobler courage—I can now despise,
And calmly meet the terrors of my fate.

EUDORA.
O blessed change! illusion now has left
Thy noble mind; thou art thyself again:
Some Heavenly spirit checks my rising fears,
And whispers to me, we shall yet be happy:
But let me haste, nor lose these precious moments;
I'll force admittance to our royal master,
Will set thy innocence, thy worth before him,
And visit thee again with life and honor!
Exit Eudora.