University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—An Antechamber in the Alcazar of Toledo, now the Palace of the Queen Joanna; in the middle of the backscene folding doors guarded by Sentinels.
Enter Donna Maria—she attempts to pass.
MARIA.
Give me free passage to the Queen.

SENTINEL.
My orders
Preclude all passage.

MARIA.
Orders! who dares give them?
Who has empower'd you to deny to me,
Wife of the Queen's Commander, while he sweeps
Her foes before him, leave to pay her service?

SENTINEL.
Don Giron has directed that none pass,
Save those who bear a summons to the council
The Queen this hour will hold.

MARIA.
The Queen hold council!
Do'st mean that Giron represents the Queen
Fit to embody royal will in acts?
I must pass to her.

SENTINEL.
Giron comes; if he
Accord you access, I shall gladly yield it.

Enter Giron.
MARIA.
You are well met, Don Giron, to assure me
If, by your order, I am denied free way
To attend my royal mistress?

GIRON.
Yes.—When trifles
Of womanly observance claim your aid
You shall have leave to render it; this hour
The state requires the Queen's unruffled wisdom;
And I must pray you to defer attendance
Till graver duties be fulfill'd.

MARIA.
O mockery
Of council! Well you know her mournful spirit,
Expanded for awhile by generous warmth,
Has closed in foldings that admit no access
To knowledge of state matters; and you seize
The moment when the afflicted sense has shrunk
Most deeply into gloom, and when the chief
Whose accents might recal it, is detain'd
By duty from her court, to practise on her
Some most ignoble treachery.

GIRON.
I respect
Your privilege to rail; but weightier cares
Oblige me to entreat you wait my leisure
For apt reply.

Enter Soldier.
SOLDIER.
The general just arrived
Desires to see Don Giron.

MARIA.
My dear husband?

GIRON.
Tell him his lady waits, and though I wish
A speedy conference with him on state matters,
I will not mar their meeting.
[Exit Soldier.
Farewell, lady,
Soon you will know me better.

MARIA.
Know thee better—
No, Giron; I may see thy giant webs
Immesh our fortunes in their threads, or crush'd
To atoms by an honest hand's chance grasp,
But for the soul that weaves them, no event
Can show it clearer.

Enter Padilla.
MARIA
(embracing him).
What delight to clasp you
After four weary weeks of absence, cheer'd
Only by such dim knowledge of your triumphs
As rumour bore!

PADILLA.
Have you received no letters?
Oh wicked craft!—But tell me of your charge,
In which I live or die—how fares the Queen?

MARIA.
Alas! there lies our grief. The courtly grace
With which she bless'd your banners when we parted
Shone through that evening's festival and charm'd
Her wondering guests; and during the five days
She after spent in Avila, her carriage
Remain'd most noble; though sometimes she sat
Abstracted, as if truant fancies play'd
With distant things as present, if a word
Reminded her of regal state, her soul
Collected in a moment all its strength
And started into majesty. She seem'd
Rapt in delicious musing through the journey
Thence to this city of her youth, and vow'd,
Before she sought repose to pay her thanks
In that august Cathedral where the Church
Embraced her soul in Baptism. As she kneel'd
Before the venerable font, her face
Shone with soft ecstasy, which so possess'd
Her frame in its composure, that men gazed
In awe, as if a bodiless spirit shed
Celestial thoughts among them. When we reach'd
This palace of her infancy, wild change
Came over her; she bounded with delight
Like that of a young peasant girl return'd
Home from first service and array'd as queen
Of village feast; now she some relic kiss'd
Of baby times: now burst out into sobs
Mingled with laughter; last in vivid speech
Told of august Columbus and the birds
Of dazzling colours that he brought from realms
Far westward, till her fancy seem'd to ache
With its own splendour, and, worn out, she slept
The gentle sleep of childhood; whence, alas!
She woke still more estranged.

PADILLA.
Did she not sit
Queen of the tournament our city held
In honour of her coming?

MARIA.
As an image
Shaped by the sculptor in unconscious semblance
Of majesty; her soul but once awoke
From heaviest dreaming;—when the conqueror kneel'd
Before her for his crown, a smile as faint
As sparkle that the moon's young crescent casts
On stedfast water circled on her face
In flickering sweetness. Never has she sat
In council till this hour, when Giron dares
Usurp her name for summons.

PADILLA.
So dissolves
The snow-wreath which I thought a sacred band
To gird our cause! Giron has stamp'd her seal
On orders which have drawn away my soldiers,
Troop after troop, till I was left as bare
As a thick grove in winter, sadly deck'd
By some few desperate friends that like dank leaves,
Which, in their fluttering yellow, cleave through rain
And frost to moss-clad boughs, would not forsake me;
But I would stand alone against the world
If my Queen's soul were clear.

Enter Soldier.
SOLDIER.
My Lord, the troops
The Regent has combined, in mighty force,
Advance upon Toledo.

PADILLA.
Who commands them?

SOLDIER.
'Tis said the Count de Haro.

PADILLA.
A great captain—
How many soldiers have we near Toledo?

SOLDIER.
The Junta's troops—

PADILLA.
The Junta's—say the Queen's.

SOLDIER.
I rather should say Giron's, for his friends
Command each band, and all obey his orders;
They number scarce six thousand.

PADILLA.
Tell Don Giron
That I await him here.

SOLDIER.
My lord—

PADILLA.
Obey me,
Or my own sword shall teach you duty; surely
I am your general still.

SOLDIER.
My lord, he comes.

PADILLA.
Leave us; and you, my love, withdraw awhile;
I must unmask the traitor.

MARIA.
Smite him down
With one proud look of goodness.
[Exit Maria.

Enter Giron.
GIRON.
Welcome home!

PADILLA.
Before I take your greeting, answer me;
Why, while our enemies remain unquell'd,
Were all my veteran soldiers order'd hither
And officer'd afresh? Why was I left
To learn, on chanced return, what dim report
Had scarce suggested, that an army raised
To sweep the Queen's battalions from Castile
Bursts on Toledo?

GIRON.
I shall make reply
To no one save the Queen, from whom I hold
Supreme commission to command the troops
And curb the citizens,—and with it hold
The right to counsel you to seek the shelter
Your neighbouring mansion offers.

PADILLA.
Am I awake?
Commission from the Queen? Supreme commission?
The power to bid me shrivel into sloth
While the war thunders? No; some desperate fraud
Gives semblance of authority to wrong
That passes fancy.

GIRON
(showing a scroll).
There is my commission;
Gaze on it; you will find it bears true impress.

PADILLA.
The same that drew my soldiers from my camp
To wait your orders, but 'twas not impress'd
By the Queen's will; I'll learn this very instant,
From her own lips, if her most noble nature
Sanction this deed.

GIRON.
She is reposing now;
You cannot see her.

PADILLA.
This atrocious scroll
Bears date this day; if she could do this act
She can avow it. Sentinels, make way—
He bleeds who stops me.

[Padilla rushes past the Sentinels through the folding doors.
GIRON
(alone).
Go—you will find her lips
Quivering with Giron's name if I have train'd
Her feeble sense aright; else they'll be dumb.

Enter a Captain of Giron's guard.
CAPTAIN.
My lord, the Regent's army like a flood
Pours down the black declivities that front
The northern gate; your soldiers stand in arms,
Impatient for their leader.

GIRON.
He is ready—
My armour!
(Calling.)
[Giron's Squire enters with his armour, and arms him while he speaks.
Do my captains hold the posts
I order'd?

CAPTAIN.
All is as you wish.

GIRON
(speaking in great excitement).
How light
This armour sits! Methinks the blood that springs
From Spain's remotest heroes never rush'd
Through any of my glorious ancestors
With such triumphant prophesy as now
It swells in mine. My horse—my noblest horse—
Is he attired for war?

CAPTAIN.
At the Alcazar gate
In conscious pomp he waits you.

GIRON.
Glorious steed!
I have reserved thy mettle for this conflict,
Which shall avenge us both on restless hours
When, in the gentleness of arrowy speed,
I have felt thy hidden valour under me,
And known thee panting for a leader's form
Thou shalt soon carry—for thy master comes
No slight lieutenant, but a chief to win
An empire in thy saddle.

Enter Padilla with the scroll.
GIRON.
May I take
My Queen's commission?

PADILLA
(giving the scroll).
Take it; by what spell,
What wicked blandishment, you snared her sense
I know not; but her lips, when I implored
That she would name her general, murmur'd—Giron;
Take it—my life goes with it.

GIRON.
Seek your home—
I will protect it.

PADILLA.
You?

GIRON.
Yes—I—
Before this night shall fall, your slow-won glories
Shall pale before the triumphs that await
Castile's first son in arms. I feel them crown me!

[Exit Giron followed by the Captain.
PADILLA.
Yet stay!—I would have pray'd to serve beneath you!
May God protect the brave men you command
From swift destruction!

Enter Maria.
MARIA.
What has Giron dared?

PADILLA.
His daring is made legitimate; he holds
The Queen's commission superseding mine,
And has gone forth to lead our mortal conflict
Against the Regent.

MARIA.
You'll not suffer it—
Joanna means it not.

PADILLA.
Alas! I sought her
And in such tremulous accents as my ear,
Attent with agony could catch, she gave
The monstrous parchment sanction.

MARIA.
Trample on it!
Proclaim it filch'd by most unrighteous practice
From a distracted mind which God absolves
From reason's duty!

PADILLA.
Never; I staked all—
My life, my honour, my dear country's peace,
On the Queen's waken'd spirit; with her title
Graced the wild tumults of the crowd, and made
Rebellion consecrate: and while a thread
Of consciousness within her soul can shape
A mandate, I will honour it as law
Announced by voice of angel.

MARIA.
Is it so?
You were not made for times like these.

PADILLA.
Not made
For any time Maria, but for life
Of which this is the threshold whence the gates
Of the eternal open. Hark! the streets
[Loud tumult without.
Are throng'd with battle.

Enter Mondeiar.
PADILLA.
Brother, you see how wildly
Change courses over us in this slight world,
For, in a little fragment of an hour,
You find me stripp'd of station, trust, command,
By arts of Giron.

MONDEIAR.
This same hour has brought
Deep retribution. Giron, drunk with joy
Of base success, impell'd the unsteady soldiers
Whom he had parcell'd out to silken captains,
Blindly against the Regent's troops, who, wing'd
With impulse from the mountain, broke their lines
At the first charge; they fled, and left our gates
Free to the victors, who are rushing through them
To threaten the Alcazar. Hark! They come!

PADILLA.
The spoilers in Toledo! sword, come forth;
I ask no warrant now to draw thee!
[Draws.
(To Maria.)
Dearest,
Attend the Queen; keep from her ear the crime
And anguish of this hour. Ancestral city,
I will deliver thee or die!

[Padilla rushes out, followed by Mondeiar—tumult continues.
MARIA
(alone).
In arms!
Heaven only grant that he remain in arms,
Sustain this righteous impulse of his valour,
And let what men call Fortune hurl its blows
Madly against us.

Enter Sentinel.
SENTINEL.
Lady, we are betray'd;
While at the Northern Gate the battle raged,
A band of soldiers through the Alcazar's portal
That opens on the Tagus, left unbarr'd
By treachery as I think, with furtive steps,
Found entrance to the chamber where the treasures
Of regal state lie heap'd, and thence approach
The person of the Queen; I have no force
To meet them—pray you fly.

MARIA.
“Fly,” saidst thou, craven?
My place is with my Queen.

SENTINEL.
Oh that our captains
Had mettle such as yours!

MARIA.
No speech—come with me.

[Exeunt.