University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Sigismund, in the tower. Rosaura, Clarin.
Sigismund
(within).
Alas! ah, wretched me! Ah, wretched me!

Rosaura.
Oh what a mournful wail!
Again my pains, again my fears prevail.

Clarin.
Again with fear I die.

Rosaura.
Clarin!

Clarin.
My lady!

Rosaura.
Let us turn and fly
The risks of this enchanted tower.

Clarin.
For one,
I scarce have strength to stand, much less to run.

Rosaura.
Is not that glimmer there afar—
That dying exhalation—that pale star—
A tiny taper, which, with trembling blaze
Flickering 'twixt struggling flames and dying rays,
With ineffectual spark
Makes the dark dwelling place appear more dark?
Yes, for its distant light,
Reflected dimly, brings before my sight
A dungeon's awful gloom,
Say rather of a living corse, a living tomb;
And to increase my terror and surprise,
Drest in the skins of beasts a man there lies:
A piteous sight,
Chained, and his sole companion this poor light.
Since then we cannot fly,
Let us attentive to his words draw nigh,
Whatever they may be.

[The doors of the tower open wide, and Sigismund is discovered in chains and clad in the skins of beasts. The light in the tower increases.
Sigismund.
Alas! Ah, wretched me! Ah, wretched me!
Heaven, here lying all forlorn,
I desire from thee to know,
Since thou thus dost treat me so,
Why have I provoked thy scorn
By the crime of being born?—
Though for being born I feel
Heaven with me must harshly deal,
Since man's greatest crime on earth
Is the fatal fact of birth—
Sin supreme without appeal.
This alone I ponder o'er,
My strange mystery to pierce through;
Leaving wholly out of view
Germs my hapless birthday bore,
How have I offended more,
That the more you punish me?
Must not other creatures be
Born? If born, what privilege
Can they over me allege
Of which I should not be free?
Birds are born, the bird that sings,
Richly robed by Nature's dower,
Scarcely floats—a feathered flower,
Or a bunch of blooms with wings—
When to heaven's high halls it springs,
Cuts the blue air fast and free,
And no longer bound will be
By the nest's secure control:—
And with so much more of soul,
Must I have less liberty?
Beasts are born, the beast whose skin
Dappled o'er with beauteous spots,
As when the great pencil dots
Heaven with stars, doth scarce begin
From its impulses within—
Nature's stern necessity,
To be schooled in cruelty,—
Monster, waging ruthless war:—
And with instincts better far
Must I have less liberty?
Fish are born, the spawn that breeds
Where the oozy sea-weeds float,
Scarce perceives itself a boat,
Scaled and plated for its needs,
When from wave to wave it speeds,
Measuring all the mighty sea,
Testing its profundity
To its depths so dark and chill:—
And with so much freer will,
Must I have less liberty?
Streams are born, a coiled-up snake
When its path the streamlet finds,
Scarce a silver serpent winds
'Mong the flowers it must forsake,
But a song of praise doth wake,
Mournful though its music be,
To the plain that courteously
Opes a path through which it flies:—
And with life that never dies,
Must I have less liberty?
When I think of this I start,
Ætna-like in wild unrest
I would pluck from out my breast
Bit by bit my burning heart:—
For what law can so depart
From all right, as to deny
One lone man that liberty—
That sweet gift which God bestows
On the crystal stream that flows,
Birds and fish that float or fly?

Rosaura.
Fear and deepest sympathy
Do I feel at every word.

Sigismund.
Who my sad lament has heard?
What! Clotaldo!

Clarin
(aside to his mistress).
Say 'tis he.

Rosaura.
No, 'tis but a wretch (ah, me!)
Who in these dark caves and cold
Hears the tale your lips unfold.

Sigismund.
Then you'll die for listening so,
That you may not know I know
That you know the tale I told.
[Seizes her.
Yes, you'll die for loitering near:
In these strong arms gaunt and grim
I will tear you limb from limb.

Clarin.
I am deaf and couldn't hear:—
No!

Rosaura.
If human heart you bear,
'Tis enough that I prostrate me.
At thy feet, to liberate me!

Sigismund.
Strange thy voice can so unbend me,
Strange thy sight can so suspend me,
And respect so penetrate me!
Who art thou? for though I see
Little from this lonely room,
This, my cradle and my tomb,
Being all the world to me,
And if birthday it could be,
Since my birthday I have known
But this desert wild and lone,
Where throughout my life's sad course
I have lived, a breathing corse,
I have moved, a skeleton;
And though I address or see
Never but one man alone,
Who my sorrows all hath known,
And through whom have come to me
Notions of earth, sky, and sea;
And though harrowing thee again,
Since thou'lt call me in this den,
Monster fit for bestial feasts,
I'm a man among wild beasts,
And a wild beast amongst men.
But though round me has been wrought
All this woe, from beasts I've learned
Polity, the same discerned
Heeding what the birds had taught,
And have measured in my thought
The fair orbits of the spheres;
You alone, 'midst doubts and fears,
Wake my wonder and surprise—
Give amazement to my eyes,
Admiration to my ears.
Every time your face I see
You produce a new amaze:
After the most steadfast gaze,
I again would gazer be.
I believe some hydropsy
Must affect my sight, I think
Death must hover on the brink
Of those wells of light, your eyes,
For I look with fresh surprise,
And though death result, I drink.
Let me see and die: forgive me;
For I do not know, in faith,
If to see you gives me death,
What to see you not would give me;
Something worse than death would grieve me,
Anger, rage, corroding care,
Death, but double death it were,
Death with tenfold terrors rife,
Since what gives the wretched life,
Gives the happy death, despair!

Rosaura.
Thee to see wakes such dismay,
Thee to hear I so admire,
That I'm powerless to inquire,
That I know not what to say:
Only this, that I to-day,
Guided by a wiser will,
Have here come to cure my ill,
Here consoled my grief to see,
If a wretch consoled can be
Seeing one more wretched still.
Of a sage, who roamed dejected,
Poor, and wretched, it is said,
That one day, his wants being fed
By the herbs which he collected,
“Is there one” (he thus reflected)
“Poorer than I am to-day?”
Turning round him to survey,
He his answer got, detecting
A still poorer sage collecting
Even the leaves he threw away.
Thus complaining to excess,
Mourning fate, my life I led,
And when thoughtlessly I said
To myself, “Does earth possess
One more steeped in wretchedness?”
I in thee the answer find.
Since revolving in my mind,
I perceive that all my pains
To become thy joyful gains
Thou hast gathered and entwined.
And if haply some slight solace
By these pains may be imparted,
Hear attentively the story
Of my life's supreme disasters.
I am. ...