 | Ximenes |  |
SCENE I.
Enter Lopez, and Giraldo.Lopez.
Yes;—though, perhaps, my warmth is cooled by years,
Yet I love thine, Giraldo: may it kindle,
Whene'er thy bosom feels thy country's glory!
Even it's excess I love; that generous flame
Forms the good citizen; the gallant soldier.
What an auspicious æra marks our days!
For seven long ages did the Moors pollute
Our Christian soil; nay, ruled our Christian sons!
But Heaven crowned all our toils; our plans; our trophies;
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With never-fading laurels, or with palms
More sacred, from the moment when the cross
Waved on the high Alhambra!
Giraldo.
And who, Lopez,
Was evidently sent, as Heaven's vicegerent,
To crown our Spanish policy, and arms,
With a bright series of success, and triumph,
Who, but our glorious regent?—At the image,
Or name of Ximenes, my soul takes fire,
Inflamed with civick pride, flushed with the virtue,
And honour of Castile!
Lopez.
A juster cause,
Giraldo, never can awake thy ardour.
In varied scenes, propitious to fair fame,
He shines, with equal, and unrivalled lustre:
Whether he seeks, with piety sincere,
In the recesses of his chesnut-grove,
The pure, exalted pleasures of devotion;
Or whether he revisits Alcala;
And, there, improves the walks of literature;
Gives to the liberal arts his warm protection,
Minerva's more serene, sublimer province;
Blending his laurel with the peaceful olive;—
Or, if we view him in the royal palace,
The confessor, the counsellor, of kings;
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With the true patriots's warmth, would bear me witness,
How nobly he adorns his dignities.
Giraldo.
Genius, like other energies of nature
Of mighty force, subdues her weaker powers,
And moulds it's ductile captives to it's will:
It's keen, and active spirit supersedes
The true advantages of birth, and fortune;
It conquers, with it's ardent perseverance,
The prejudices, the malicious arts
Of human kind; and with it's inspiration,
Diverts, and breaks, the painted bubble, fashion,
Admired, and followed, by the vulgar throng.
Our cardinal evinced it's faculties
Intuitive, it's quick, and charming magick.
A pious monk, from a secluded cell,
And from secluded shades, inspired by genius,
Knew, in a moment, how to rule the world.
Lopez.
And yet his conquest of Oran (a conquest,
Which Ferdinand, though born, and trained, a hero,
Would never have presumed to meditate)
To which, planned by himself, he led, in person,
Gives the most burnished, and resplendent page
Of his eventful, and bright history.
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The real enterprize was so aspiring,
So picturesque, that to my mind it brings
My young, and beauteous dreams of chivalry.
Heavens! can I ere forget (thou knowest, I served,
Too young a volunteer, in that campaign!)
How my great master in all noble arts,
Tempered, from unexampled self-controul,
Giving fair scope to judgment, his high spirit,
With the calm style adapted to the juncture!
Blended his claim to absolute command
With mild expostulation's gentler empire;
And thus composed, and moulded to his purpose,
Two mutinous, and desperate myrmidons,
Raised by himself to highest warlike honours,
The ruffian of Navarre, and Vianelli!
Can I forget the new, and awful sight,
That struck my boyish fancy, and will warm
With youthful fire, my frost of hoary age!
A reverend prelate, with impassive soul,
Then only more august by seventy years,
And habited in robes pontifical;
Addressing, in the van, our listening army,
With force of language irresistible,
And with as powerful majesty of manner!
His varied speech inflaming, now, the soldier
With earthly honours; now, with those rewards
That mock the waste of time; that are eternal,
Inspired the faithful with a holy zeal,
And love of glorious deeds, unfelt before.
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No wonder, that the valour was determined,
And conquered all before it, which was fired,
At once, by eloquence, and by religion!
Giraldo.
At first, I imaged to myself, our troops
Led by a legate sent us from the skies.
And as undisciplined imagination
Is fertile to create, and to combine
Quickly successive, and fantastick pictures,
In fleeting scenes, I to my mind recalled
What I had read of Rome's illustrious worthies.
One while, our chieftain was my pious Numa,
Next, my Camillus; then, my Cincinnatus.
Lopez.
Giraldo, I'm enamoured with thy portrait,
Faithful, at once, and vivid; when the virtues,
And talents (various both) of our great man,
Are thus collected to one point of view,
With double energy, they strike the mind.
Giraldo.
My hero is as amiable as great;
Famed for the practice of humanity.
When Ximenes, with Pedro of Navarre,
Entered Oran, subdued, and desolate,
Through walls of slaughtered Moors; the pious victor
Felt his proud conquest fade; 'twas, in his breast,
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His venerable face; with look severe,
He to his warriour turned:—“Oh! why, Navarre,
“So prodigal of blood? The Moors were men,
“Our natural brothers; and, perhaps, ere long,
“Had been our brethren in the Christian faith!
“All human triumphs have their dark alloy.
“Each mortal stab superfluously given
“To them; given in wild, military ravage,
“Is a heart's wound to me.”
Lopez.
This anecdote,
Reflecting brighter fame than any laurel,
That e'er encircled a victorious brow,
Flows, in soft harmony with all his conduct,
In social, civil, and religious life.
And would this father of a grateful country,
Who, though his soul is generous, and humane,
Almost beyond example, can be stern,
At the command of justice, and severe,
Almost with heavenly awe; would he resolve
To quell his charming tenderness of nature,
For the state's good, and in religion's cause;
With firmness to atchieve one glorious deed;
I'd almost learn indifference to the names
Recorded in our holy calendar;
And he should be my tutelary saint!
Giraldo.
What action, Lopez, can thy mind imagine
Too great for his performance?
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You know Zaigri?
Giraldo.
The famous Moorish prince, the gallant captive,
Now in Granada, whom fair Leonora,
The daughter of Medina's duke, esteems
Too highly; who, at Munda's well-fought battle
(Munda, where empire has been thrice disputed!)
Sprung from his tent, forgetting malady,
To save his royal father, old Abdallah,
Pressed by a host of foes?
Lopez.
I mean the same.
Giraldo.
What conduct dost thou wish, from Ximenes,
To Zaigri?
Lopez.
'Tis my wish, that the good prelate
Would make a convert of his royal friend;
Would, for this end, exert a kind compulsion;
With true regard, would force him to be saved.
To sacrifice our present ease, is virtue.
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By feeling, for a while, the pangs of friendship!
His conscience ever would approve the deed;
His friend's eternal weal would be secured;
And thousands added to the Christian world!
Giraldo.
How superstition steels a heart humane!
And ranks oppressive with angelick deeds!
Have you to learn the regent's character?
I know him; he's a prodigy complete;
A churchman; yet he's not a hypocrite;
A churchman; yet he riots not in power;
A churchman; yet he most delights in mercy.
Yes; when the sun, propitious to our clime,
With wintry aspect rules the jocund spring,
A Ximenes will persecute a Zaigri.
Lopez.
Surely, all means are worthy of our praise,
Which bring mankind within the church's pale.
I fear, Giraldo will reject my tenet.
And if I was not, now, too long detained,
But with great pleasure to myself, I'd hear thee,
Well-pleased, even on this topick: from Alonzo,
Our regent's secretary, I've received
A message; my attendance it requires.
Different opinions, on important subjects
Are not with friendship incompatible.
Farewell, Giraldo.
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Lopez, fare you well.
[Exit Lopez.
Giraldo,
alone.
“Surely, all means are worthy of our praise,
“Which bring mankind within the church's pale!”
Curse on the doctrine!—Oh! benignant heaven!
Is not my execration ratified
By those eternal laws that spring from thee;
Laws coexistent with the first of beings!
If Ximenes could wound a Zaigri's conscience
(I feel it base, to form the supposition!)
All my sincere encomium I'd retract;
I'd give it to the winds.—He, who torments
Our mortal part, formed with acute sensations,
Is a fell tyrant: but the wretch who tortures
Our frame ethereal; who, with sacrilege
Never to be forgiven, presumes to check
The free, celestial spirit; who would chain
The mind, inspired by reason's heavenly ray;
Endowed with power discursive, or to choose,
Or to refuse;—the wretch, who bids the bloom
Of conscience wither (conscience, the good man's empire!)
—Who racks the soul; is, surely, more a tyrant;
More a refiner on barbarity.
The culprit lives on earth, supremely hated;
And, when he dies, hell's fiercest fiends receive him.
For him, there is no hope of purgatory.
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No penal fires can ever purify!
[Exit Giraldo.
Ad Mundam—castra Punica mota: et Romani eò confestim secuti sunt. Ibi signis collatis pugnatum per quatuor ferme horas; egregièque vincentibus Romanis, signum receptui est datum, quòd Cneii Scipionis femur tragulâ confixum erat; pavorque circa eum ceperat milites, ne mortiferum esset vulnus. Cæterùm haud dubium fuit, quin nisi ea mora intervenisset, castra eo die Punica capi potuerint. Livy, B. xxiv. ch. 42.
| Ximenes | |