University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE THIRD.

Guglielmo, Bianca.
Bi.
What words! Ah wretched me! to death he flies!
And thou forbiddest me to follow him!
Cruel ...

Gu.
Stay, stay; be pacified; ere long
He will return.

Bi.
Cruel! dost thou thus feel
Compassion for thy son? Thou leavest him
Alone to encounter death, and thou'rt a father!
If thus thou canst, abandon him; but ah!
Stop not my steps: loose me, I will go to him ...

Gu.
Thy going now would be mistimed and late.

Bi.
Late! Ah! it is then true that he attempts ...
Ah! tell me ... Speak, or let me go ... Where flies he? ...
To some most dangerous enterprize I know;
But ought I not to hear of what belongs
To such a precious portion of myself?
Do you indeed more than myself remember
The blood from which I spring? Ah, speak! I am
Now fashion'd of your blood: I do not hate
My brothers, no; but I love only Raymond.
I love him much as human heart can love;
And now I fear for him, lest, ere he take
The state from them, they take from him his life.

Gu.
If this be what thou fear'st, and since thou seem'st
To know so much already, be assured
Less dubious is his life than that of others.

Bi.
Oh heaven! are then my brothers' lives in danger?

Gu.
Tyrants are never safe.

Bi.
What do I hear?
Alas! ...

Gu.
Think'st thou that one can wrest the state
From those possessing it, and not their lives?

Bi.
My consort ... then ... seeks ... to betray ... my blood? ...

Gu.
Yes, it behoves us treacherously to spill
Their blood, ere ours they treacherously quaff:
And to the hard extremity by force
They have compell'd us. Instantly from thee
Thy husband and thy children had been taken;
Ah, thence 'twas indispensable for us
To anticipate their cruel purposes.
Myself, thou seest, to aid the enterprise
Have girt the sword, so many years disused,
To my enfeebled side.

Bi.
Ferocious souls!
Dissembling hearts! I could not have believed ...

Gu.
Daughter, what wouldest thou? Necessity
To this compels us. For us to retract
'Tis now too late. Put up what vows to heaven
Thou likest best: meanwhile escape from hence
Is not allowed to thee: thou'rt guarded now
By many armed warriors.—If thou art,
As thou should'st be more than aught else, a mother,
Return to thy poor children, ah return ...
But now, methinks, I hear the sacred toll
Of the lugubrious bell ... I'm not mistaken.
Oh son! ... I fly to liberty or death!