University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

KING, PRINCESS.
KING.
How! in tears, Sophia?
Come, 'tis not well—I fear, I guess the cause.
This morn I did but hint a purpose to you,
Of import, dear to your own happiness,
And your chang'd brow reproving my intent
Cut short my free discourse.

PRINCESS.
Oh, good my Lord!
I am not practis'd to conceal my thoughts
(And least from you) by casting o'er my looks
The unalter'd vizor of tranquility,
When perturbation, like a sleepless guest,
Forbids my bosom's quiet.

KING.
I have lov'd thee
With fondness so unbated, that 'twere needless,
For confirmation, to attest by words,
What all my thoughts, my life's whole carriage towards thee,
Have set beyond the question.

PRINCESS.
Oh, to me,
Your love has been like those perpetual springs,
“That ever flow,” and waste not! my least wish
Scarce had its birth, ere its accomplishment
In your preventive kindness.

KING.
Since 'tis so,
If chance the current of my present will
To yours run contrary, you must not deem
That meerly to enforce authority,
Or wake controlement, which might sleep to death.
In its disuse, I now expect the course
Of your desires should lose themselves in mine,
Or flow by my direction.

PRINCESS.
As my father,
The giver of my life, I reverence you;
Next, as your subject, my obedience stands
Bound by the general tie; but since your power
Has still been temper'd so with lenity,
That even the stranger's cause, with patient hearing,
Is weigh'd ere you determine; I, your daughter,
May hope, at least, an equal privilege,
With favour in my audience.

KING.
I were else
Unnatural, withholding from my child,
What aliens claim by justice. Give me hearing—
The Duke Bireno loves you, has my promise,
That like a well-grac'd advocate, my tongue
Shou'd win your gentle favour to his suit,
Urging such commendations of his love,
As modesty, though conscious of desert,
May wish you hear, yet cannot speak itself.

PRINCESS.
Ah, Sir! forbear, he knows my heart already,
Already has he heard, from my own lips
I cannot love him; poorly he engages
Your honour'd combination, in a league
That (whatsoe'er its issue) must conspire
To wound your daughter's peace.

KING.
By heaven, you wrong him.
To wound your peace! He seeks your happiness,
And so am I his second.

PRINCESS.
But these means
Are adverse to the end; for if I wed him,
(This is no raving of rash extacy)
On death, that only can dissolve my chain,
Will hang my future hope: as eagerly
As the poor weary sea-beat mariner
Pants for the shore, so shall my outstretch'd arms
Embrace the welcome terror. My refusal
To you, the gentlest, kindest, best of fathers,
Must seem repugnance harsh, and o'er my duty,
Before untainted, casts the sickly hue
Of pale suspicion; thus begins his love,
Fearful to me in each alternative.

KING.
Why, this is infant rhet'ric, to protest
The impulse of a strong antipathy,
Which never causeless sways the human breast,
Yet give no reason why.

PRINCESS.
Alas! to feel it,
O'er-masters every reason. Need we search
To ground aversion on weigh'd argument,
When instinct cuts the tedious process short,
And makes the heart our umpire?

KING.
Hear me calmly—
My days are almost number'd: this white head
Bears not in vain its reverend monitors;
Time puts a tongue in every hoary hair,
To warn the wise man of mortality:
When I am gone, behold thy single state
Unhusbanded, unfather'd, stands expos'd,
Ev'n as the tender solitary shrub,
On the bleak mountain's summit—Every blast
May bend or break thy sweetness: this strong fence,
This union, would enroot its shelter round,
And, like a forest, shield thee.

PRINCESS.
Let me hope
A stronger fence in a whole people's love:
Their grateful memory of my father's virtue,
And loyalty hereditarly mine,
Descending, like the sceptre, to your issue.

KING.
Think'st thou, my aspiring kinsman, whose ambition,
Impatient, waits till my declining beam
Give place to his meridian, who, already
Wins from my side a moiety of my court,
By his succession's hope, will tamely view
That sceptre wielded by a woman's hand,
Nor wrest it from thy grasp? No, my fair kingdom!
I see the meeting torrents of contention
Deluge thy peaceful vales, while her weak sex,
Unable to direct, or stem the tide,
Will be borne down, and swept to ruin with it.

PRINCESS.
These evils, but in possibility,
May never come: but, Oh, 'tis certain sorrow
To promise love, obedience, duty, honor,
When the heart's record vouches 'gainst the tongue:
It changes order's course; the holy tie
Of well-proportion'd marriage still supposes
These bonds have gone before; nor is there power
Creative in the simple ceremony,
The seed unsown, to give that harvest growth.

KING.
Here break we off—To sue, and sue in vain,
But ill becomes a father: may my augury
Be more in fear than wisdom. Hold; to-morrow
The council meets to scan this threaten'd war:
The people call it thine: then be thou present
To thank and animate their zeal to serve us.

[Exit.