________________________________________________
_ ACT II - SCENE VIII
SCENE VIII.--KING, GLUMDALCA.
King.
[1] Sure never was so sad a king as I!
[2] My life is worn as ragged as a coat
A beggar wears; a prince should put it off.
[3] To love a captive and a giantess!
Oh love! oh love! how great a king art thou!
My tongue's thy trumpet, and thou trumpetest,
Unknown to me, within me. [4] Oh, Glumdalca!
Heaven thee designed a giantess to make,
But an angelick soul was shuffled in.
[5] I am a multitude of walking griefs,
And only on her lips the balm is found
[6] To spread a plaster that might cure them all.
[Footnote 1:
This speech has been terribly mauled by the poet.]
[Footnote 2:
----My life is worn to rags,
Not worth a prince's wearing.---Love Triumphant.]
[Footnote 3:
Must I beg the pity of my slave?
Must a king beg? But love's a greater king,
A tyrant, nay, a devil, that possesses me.
He tunes the organ of my voice and speaks,
Unknown to me, within me.---Sebastian.]
[Footnote 4:
When thou wert form'd, heaven did a man begin;
But a brute soul by chance was shuffled in.---Aurengzebe.]
[Footnote 5:
I am a multitude
Of walking griefs.---New Sophonisba.]
[Footnote 6:
I will take thy scorpion blood,
And lay it to my grief till I have ease.---Anna Bullen.]
Glum.
What do I hear?
King.
What do I see?
Glum.
Oh!
King.
Ah!
[1]Glum.
Ah! wretched queen!
King.
Oh! wretched king!
[2]Glum.
Ah!
King.
Oh!
[Footnote 1:
Our author, who everywhere shews his great penetration into human nature, here outdoes himself: where a less judicious poet would have raised a long scene of whining love, he, who understood the passions better, and that so violent an affection as this must be too big for utterance, chuses rather to send his characters off in this sullen and doleful manner, in which admirable conduct he is imitated by the author of the justly celebrated Eurydice. Dr Young seems to point at this violence of passion:
--Passion choaks
Their words, and they're the statues of despair.
And Seneca tells us, "Curse leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent." The story of the Egyptian king in Herodotus is too well known to need to be inserted; I refer the more curious reader to the excellent Montaigne, who hath written an essay on this subject.]
[Footnote 2:
To part is death.
Tis death to part.
Ah!
Oh---Don Carlos.] _
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