 | The Physician of his own Honour |  |
395
SCENE V.
—THE STREET.Enter the KING and DON DIEGO at opposite sides. The song is continued by the same voices.
MUSICIANS,
within.
To Consuegra hath departed
The Infante of Castile—
Who knows what scenes may yet be acted
Among the mountains of Montiel?
KING.
Don Diego!
DIEGO.
Sire!
KING.
'Tis certain
They are singing in the street;
Shall we not their names discover?—
Can it be the wind that speaks?
DIEGO.
Do not deign, my lord, to notice
Idle songs like those we hear—
Since to anger you, no better
Can be heard through Seville's streets.
KING.
Two men are advancing hither.
396
True, we now can have an answer;
It to-day may be important
To find out who these may be.
Enter DON GUTIERRE, conducting LUDOVICO blindfolded as before.
GUTIERRE,
aside.
Ah! that Heaven should interfere,
To prevent the sure concealment
Of my secret's second key
By this wretch's death!—'Tis needful
I withdraw me from these two—
Nothing could be more disastrous
Than that they should know me now,—
Here I leave him for the present.
[Exit.
DIEGO.
Of the two, my lord, advancing
Hither, one has gone, and one
Here remains.
KING.
For my confusion:—
Since if I can trust the glimmer
Which the pale moon dimly sheds,
Shapeless seem its form and features—
Rudely sculptured, like a bust
Roughly cut from snow-white jasper.
DIEGO.
Stay, I pray your majesty,
I will go to him.
KING.
Permit me,
Don Diego:—Man, thy name?
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Two confusions are the reason
Why, my lord, I cannot answer:
First, the humbleness of one
In my lowly station feeleth
At conversing with his king.
[Takes off the bandage.
By your voice, my lord, I knew you—
It is a light that makes you known
Unto every one who hears it:—
And the second,—the most novel,
The most wonderful adventure
That the archives of the people
Chronicle in all their annals.
KING.
What has happened?
LUDOVICO.
To you only
Will I tell it—come apart.
KING.
Yonder wait me, Don Diego.
[Ludovico appears to address the king.
DIEGO,
aside.
What surprising circumstances
Have I seen this night! May God
Draw me from its further dangers!
LUDOVICO,
in continuation to the king.
I saw not the face, but only
Heard her mid repeated sobbings
Say, “I die in innocence—
May Heaven ask my life not of you;”
This she said and then expired:—
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And by all the ways we entered
Issued forth again: and hearing
As we came along this street,
Some one speaking, left me in it:—
I forgot, my lord, to mention
That my hands bathed red and reeking
With the blood he made me shed,
I, pretending to support me
By the walls, impressed their marks
On the doorways as I issued:—
By which bloody signs 'tis easy
To find out the house.
KING.
'Tis well:—
Come and tell me when you find it,
And whatever else you learn;—
Take this diamond ring, present it—
By this token that I give thee,
You can enter and have audience
With me any hour you come.
LUDOVICO.
Heaven, my gracious lord, preserve you!
[Exit.
KING.
Don Diego, let us go.
DIEGO.
What hath happened?
KING.
An occurrence
Stranger than perhaps the world
Ever saw.
399
You seem dejected.
KING.
I must needs indeed be so.
DIEGO.
Then retire to rest: for morning
Now begins to shine amid
The golden clouds.
KING.
I have no power
To take rest, until I learn
Something that I must discover.
DIEGO.
Do you not perceive the sun
Rises brightly now? your person
Will be known.
Enter COQUIN.
COQUIN.
Although you kill me
For my having recognised you,
O my lord! I must speak with you,
Hear me!
KING.
'Tis no time for mirth:
Why this daring? this distraction?
COQUIN.
'Tis an honourable action,
Worthy one of nobler birth:—
For though classed among the mimes,
Jesters, jokers, daft, delirious,
Still, my lord, when things grow serious,
400
Hear me, 'tis no idle chaff,
But the gravest, the most deep,
For I wish to make thee weep,
Since I failed to make thee laugh:—
Gutierre, misinformed
By appearances, became
So unjust to his good fame
As to doubt his wife, and warmed
By suspicion, yesterday
Found her writing (sad mistake)
A request, for honour's sake,
To the Infante, that he'd stay
Some days longer here, and so
Save the breath of scandal blasting
Her good name, by falsely casting
Blame on her, that he should go:—
Guilelessly, without deceit
Asked she, as is known to me:—
Where she wrote it, noiselessly
Gliding in with coward feet,
He, the letter seized, and mocked
By the words whose sense he missed,
Jealously went mad, dismissed
All his servants, and then locked
Up himself with only her:—
I then pitying ('tis but human)
To behold a hapless woman
Persecuted by her star,
Hither come, my lord, to pray thee
That your strong and mighty arm
Save her from some fatal harm.
KING.
Tell me how can I repay thee
For this pity?
COQUIN.
Never after
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The payment of my teeth, my lord.
KING.
This is not the time for laughter.
COQUIN.
When then is it?
KING.
Since the day
Now grows bright, and well 'tis so—
Let us, Don Diego, go:—
Since I thus the better may
Try a plan that I devise:
'Tis this moment to repair
To his house, and say that there
I would change this night disguise:
Being there, whate'er doth seem
Then indeed to be the fact,
I shall be prepared to act
As a king and judge supreme.
DIEGO.
Better plan was ne'er contrived.
COQUIN.
While you both have thus been speaking,
Here's the house that you are seeking:
At the door we have arrived.
KING.
Don Diego!
DIEGO.
What do you see?
402
See you not the bloody stain
Of a hand on the door?
DIEGO.
'Tis plain.
KING,
aside.
Gutierre evidently
Is the man to whom belongs
This night's unequalled tragedy;
How shall I act? Deliberately
Hath he satisfied his wrongs.
Enter DOÑA LEONORE and INES, veiled.
LEONORE.
I go to Mass, before the day,
In order to avoid the gaze
Of people in the public ways
Of Seville: that my sorrows may
Be quite forgot. But Ines, why
Stands that group yonder? 'Tis the King!
What to this house his grace can bring?
INES.
Draw close your veil till we pass by.
KING.
That precaution is unavailing,
Since you are known, fair Leonore.
LEONORE.
My lord, I drew my thick veil o'er
My face, that I might not be failing
In my respect: to be unknown,
Methought was your desire;—if not,
I would, my lord, upon the spot
My life before your feet have thrown.
403
Concealment is a thing, by Heaven!
Which would have rather suited better
Me than you: I am thy debtor
For injured honour, having given
Thee my word, without evasion
Or postponement to renew it;
Once again, I say I'll do it
On the very first occasion:—
DON GUTIERRE,
within.
Why, oh! why, unpitying Heaven,
Do you leave me thus despairing,
When one flash of thy red lightning
Could reduce me into dust?
[He rushes from the house.
KING.
What is this?
DIEGO.
Don Gutierre
Rushes frantic from his house!
KING.
Whither goest thou, Gutierre?
GUTIERRE.
To embrace thy feet, my lord:—
Hear the most extreme misfortune,
Of all tragedies the rarest
That man's wondering admiration
Ever blended with his fear.
My beloved wife, my Mencia,
She as chaste as she was beauteous,
She as fair as she was pure—
She whose praises time re-echoed—
She my Mencia, whom I worshipped
404
Saw herself this night prostrated
By a sharp and sudden illness,
Which, to prove that she was human
And not all divine, attacked her:
A physician who can boast him
Of the highest name and fame,
And who in the world doth merit
Never-ending deathless praises,
Quick prescribed for her a bleeding,
As he hoped to re-establish
By this means, the healthy action
Of the part thus sorely threatened
By an illness so important:—
So 'twas done; for I in person
Being the only one remaining
In the house, called in a surgeon,
All my servants being absent:—
When, my lord, I went to see her,
Hastening to her room this morning—
(Here my tongue grows mute with sorrow!
Here my trembling breath doth fail me!)
I beheld the bed empurpled
With her blood so sadly fatal,
And her white robe crimsoned over,—
And in it, O God! was lying
Cold and dead, my darling Mencia,
Having bled to death at night;
Which doth prove how very easy
Can itself a bandage open.
But ah! me, why thus presuming
Strive I to reduce to language
Such a sorrowful misfortune?
Turn your pitying gaze then yonder—
There you see the sun looks bloody,
There you see the pale moon darkened—
Robbed of light the starry legions,
Dark with clouds the azure skies—
405
Born for sorrow and misfortune,
Who that I might die while living,
Takes my soul with her to Heaven!
[The door of the house is thrown open, and Doña Mencia is seen lying dead upon a couch.
KING,
aside.
Wonderful occurrence! Now
Prudence is of utmost moment,
Greatly will forbearance cost me;—
What a strange revenge is his!—
Hide this horror so appalling—
[Aloud.
Prodigy so sadly fearful—
Piteous spectacle of wonder—
Hapless symbol of misfortune!
[The door is closed.
Gutierre, consolation
You require, that your bereavement,
Which is great, may be atoned for
By a gain of equal value—
Give your hand to Leonore:—
For 'tis time you satisfy the
Debt you owe to her so long,
And that I fulfil my promise
When a fit occasion offered,
To restore her fame and honour.
GUTIERRE.
Ah! my lord, while yet the ashes
Of so great a fire are glowing
With the scarce fled vital heat,
Let me weep my loss a little;
Have I not a fatal warning?
KING.
It must be; it is enough.
406
Would you wish, my lord, that scarcely
Safe from the howling storm, again
I the angry sea should trust to?
What shall excuse so wild an act?
KING.
Obedience to your King's commands.
GUTIERRE.
Deign, then, to hear, my lord, in private
Still stronger reasons:—
KING.
These excuses
What may they be?
GUTIERRE.
Must I re-enter
Upon a state so full of peril?
What, if I find your royal brother
Disguised at night within my house?
KING.
Do not give faith to mere suspicion.
GUTIERRE.
And if behind the very arras
Of my bed, I find the dagger
Of the Infante Don Enrique?
KING.
Remember there are thousand servants
In the world by gold corrupted,
And thy better sense invoke.
407
How many times then must I do so,
If night and day I see him haunting
The very precincts of my house?
KING.
Complain to me:
GUTIERRE.
And if complaining
A greater grief, by listening, hear?
KING.
What matter if it proves unreal,
And that her beauty stands a fortress,
Ever girt round by walls of virtue,
'Gainst which the winds may blow in vain?
GUTIERRE.
And if, unto my home returning,
I find a certain letter, asking
The Infante not to go?
KING.
There is a remedy for all things.
GUTIERRE.
What! is it possible? for this one?
KING.
Yes, Gutierre.
GUTIERRE.
What, my lord?
408
It is your own.
GUTIERRE.
What is it?
KING.
Bleeding!
GUTIERRE.
What do you say?
KING.
That you had better
Make clean the portals of your dwelling—
A bloody hand is on your doors.
GUTIERRE.
Those who exercise a calling,
Place a scutcheon o'er their doors,
On whose shield their arms are blazoned.
Honour is my calling, so
I my hand in red blood bathed
Placed upon my door, to show
That the secret stains of honour
Can be only washed in blood.
KING.
Give your hand to Leonore,
Since I know her many virtues
Merit it.
GUTIERRE.
I give it, then;
But remember it is bathed
Still with blood, fair Leonore.
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'Tis no matter; that doth neither
Wake my wonder nor my fear.
GUTIERRE.
Remember, too, I am Physician
Of my own Honour, and my skill
Is not forgotten.
LEONORE.
Cure with it
My life, when deadly danger threatens.
GUTIERRE.
Then, on that express condition
I present it unto you.
ALL THE CHARACTERS.
Thus is ended the Physician
Of his own Honour; pray forgive
All its many imperfections.
| The Physician of his own Honour | |