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_ ACT I - SCENE IV
The KING; the INFANTA.
KING.
I see my daughter?
SOL.
Sir, your duteous child.
KING.
Art thou indeed my child? I had some doubt
I was a father.
SOL.
These are bitter words.
KING.
Even as thy conduct.
SOL.
Then it would appear
My conduct and my life are but the same.
KING.
I thought thou wert the Infanta of Castille,
Heir to our realm, the paragon of Spain
The Princess for whose smiles crowned Christendom
Sends forth its sceptred rivals. Is that bitter?
Or bitter is it with such privilege,
And standing on life's vantage ground, to cross
A nation's hope, that on thy nice career
Has gaged its heart?
SOL.
Have I no heart to gage?
A sacrificial virgin, must I bind
My life to the altar, to redeem a state,
Or heal some doomed People?
KING.
Is it so?
Is this an office alien to thy sex?
Or what thy youth repudiates? We but ask
What nature sanctions.
SOL.
Nature sanctions Love;
Your charter is more liberal. Let that pass.
I am no stranger to my duty, sir,
And read it thus. The blood that shares my sceptre
Should be august as mine. A woman loses
In love what she may gain in rank, who tops
Her husband's place; though throned, I would exchange
An equal glance. His name should be a spell
To rally soldiers. Politic he should be;
And skilled in climes and tongues; that stranger knights
Should bruit on, high Castillian courtesies.
Such chief might please a state?
KING.
Fortunate realm!
SOL.
And shall I own less niceness than my realm?
No! I would have him handsome a god;
Hyperion in his splendor, or the mien
Of conquering Bacchus, one whose very step
Should guide a limner, and whose common words
Are caught by Troubadours to frame their songs!
And O, my father, what if this bright prince
Should I have a heart as tender as his soul
Was high and peerless? If with this same heart
He loved thy daughter?
KING.
Close the airy page
Of thy romance; such princes are not found
Except in lays and legends! yet a man
Who would become a throne, I found thee, girl;
The princely Hungary.
SOL.
A more princely fate,
Than an unwilling wife, he did deserve.
KING.
Yet wherefore didst thou pledge thy troth to him?
SOL.
And wherefore do I smile when I should sigh?
And wherefore do I feed when I would fast?
And wherefore do I dance when I should pray?
And wherefore do I live when I should die?
Canst answer that, good Sir? O there are women
The world deem mad, or worse, whose life but seems
One vile caprice, a freakish thing of whims
And restless nothingness; yet if we pierce
The soul, may be we'll touch some cause profound
For what seems causeless. Early love despised,
Or baffled, which is worse; a faith betrayed,
For vanity or lucre; chill regards,
Where to gain constant glances we have paid
Some fearful forfeit: here are many springs,
Unmarked by shallow eyes, and some, or all
Of these, or none, may prompt my conduct now--
But I'll not have thy prince.
KING.
My, gentle child--
SOL.
I am not gentle. I might have been once;
But gentle thoughts and I have parted long;
The cause of such partition thou shouldst know
If memories were just.
KING.
Harp not, I pray,
On an old sorrow.
SOL.
Old! he calls it old!
The wound is green, and staunch it, or I die.
KING.
Have I the skill?
SOL.
Why! art thou not a King?
Wherein consists the magic of a crown
But in the bold achievement of a deed
Would scare a clown to dream?
KING.
I'd read thy thought.
SOL.
Then have it; I would marry.
KING.
It is well;
It is my wish.
SOL.
And unto such a prince
As I've described withal. For though a prince
Of Fancy's realm alone, as thou dost deem,
Yet doth he live indeed.
KING.
To me unknown.
SOL.
O! father mine, before thy reverend knees
Ere this we twain have knelt.
KING.
Forbear, my child;
Or can it be my daughter doth not know
He is no longer free?
SOL.
The power that bound him,
That bondage might dissolve? To holy church
Thou hast given great alms?
KING.
There's more to gain thy wish,
If more would gain it; but it cannot be,
Even were he content.
SOL.
He is content.
KING.
Hah!
SOL.
For he loves me still.
KING.
I would do much
To please thee. I'm prepared to bear the brunt
Of Hungary's ire; but do not urge, Solisa,
Beyond capacity of sufferance
My temper's proof.
SOL.
Alarcos is my husband,
Or shall the sceptre from our line depart.
Listen, ye saints of Spain, I'll have his hand,
Or by our faith, my fated womb shall be
As barren as thy love, proud King.
KING.
Thou'rt mad!
Thou'rt mad!
SOL.
Is he not mine? Thy very hand,
Did it not consecrate our vows? What claim
So sacred as my own?
KING.
He did conspire--
SOL.
'Tis false, thou know'st 'tis false: against themselves
Men do not plot: I would as soon believe
My hand could hatch a treason 'gainst my sight,
As that Alarcos would conspire to seize
A diadem I would myself have placed
Upon his brow.
KING.
[taking her hand]
Nay, calmness. Say 'tis true
He was not guilty, say perchance he was not--
SOL.
Perchance, O! vile perchance. Thou know'st full well,
Because he did reject her loose desires
And wanton overtures--
KING.
Hush, hush, O hush!
SOL.
The woman called my mother--
KING.
Spare me, spare--
SOL.
Who spared me?
Did not I kneel, and vouch his faith, and bathe
Thy hand with my quick tears, and clutch thy robe
With frantic grasp? Spare, spare indeed? In faith
Thou hast taught me to be merciful, thou hast,--
Thou and my mother!
KING.
Ah! no more, no more!
A crowned King cannot recall the past,
And yet may glad the future. She thou namest,
She was at least thy mother; but to me,
Whate'er her deeds, for truly, there were times
Some spirit did possess her, such as gleams
Now in her daughter's eye, she was a passion,
A witching form that did inflame my life
By a breath or glance. Thou art our child; the link
That binds me to my race; thou host her place
Within my shrined heart, where thou'rt the priest
And others are unhallowed; for, indeed,
Passion and time have so dried up my soul,
And drained its generous juices, that I own
No sympathy with man, and all his hopes
To me are mockeries.
SOL.
Ah! I see, my father,
That thou will'st aid me!
KING.
Thou canst aid thyself.
Is there a law to let him from thy presence?
His voice may reach thine ear; thy gracious glance
May meet his graceful offices. Go to.
Shall Hungary frown, if his right royal spouse
Smile on the equal of her blood and state,
Her gentle cousin?
SOL.
And is this thine aid!
KING.
What word has roughed the brow, but now confiding
In a fond father's love?
SOL.
Alas! what word?
What have I said? what done? that thou should'st deem
I could do this, this, this, that is so foul,
My baffled tongue deserts me. Thou should'st know me,
Thou hast set spies on me. What! have they told thee
I am a wanton? I do love this man
As fits a virgin's heart. Heaven sent such thoughts
To be our solace. But to act a toy
For his loose hours, or worse, to find him one
Procured for mine, grateful for opportunities
Contrived with decency, spared skillfully
From claims more urgent; not to dare to show
Before the world my homage; when he's ill
To be away, and only share his gay
And lusty pillow; to be shut out from all
That multitude of cares and charms that waits
But on companionship; and then to feel
These joys another shares, another hand
These delicate rites performing, and thou'rt remembered,
In the serener heaven of his bliss,
But as the transient flash: this is not love;
This is pollution.
KING.
Daughter, I were pleased
My cousin could a nearer claim prefer
To my regard. Ay, girl, 'twould please me well
He were my son, thy husband; but what then?
My pleasure and his conduct jar; his fate
Baulks our desire. He's married and has heirs.
SOL.
Heirs, didst thou say heirs?
KING.
What ails thee?
SOL.
Heirs, heirs?
KING.
Thou art very pale!
SOL.
The faintness of the morn
Clings to me still; I pray thee, father, grant
Thy child one easy boon.
KING.
She has to speak
But what she wills.
SOL.
Why, then, she would renounce
Her heritage; yes, place our ancient crown
On brows it may become. A veil more suits
This feminine brain; in Huelgas' cloistered shades
I'll find oblivion.
KING.
Woe is me! The doom
Falls on our house. I had this daughter left
To lavish all my wealth on and my might.
I've treasured for her; for her I have slain
My thousands, conquered provinces, betrayed,
Renewed, and broken faith. She was my joy;
She has her mother's eyes, and when she speaks
Her voice is like Brunhalda's. Cursed hour,
That a wild fancy touched her brain to cross
All my great hopes!
SOL.
My father, my dear father,
Thou call'dst me fondly, but some moments past,
Thy gentle child. I call my saint to witness
I would be such. To say I love this man
Is shallow phrasing. Since man's image first
Flung its wild shadow on my virgin soul,
It has borne no other reflex. I know well
Thou deemest he was forgotten; this day's passion
Passed as unused confrontment, and so transient
As it was turbulent. No, no, full oft,
When thinking on him, I have been the same.
Fruitless or barren, this same form is his,
Or it is God's. My father, my dear father,
Remember he was mine, and thou didst pour
Thy blessing on our heads! O God, O God!
When I recall the passages of love
That have ensued between me and this man,
And with thy sanction, and then just bethink
He is another's, O it makes me mad.
Talk not to me of sceptres: can she rule
Whose mind is anarchy? King of Castille,
Give me the heart that thou didst rob me of!
The penal hour's at hand. Thou didst destroy
My love, and I will end thy line--thy line
That is thy life.
KING.
Solisa, I will do all
A father can,--a father and a King.
SOL.
Give me Alarcos!
KING.
Hush, disturb me not;
I'm in the throes of some imaginings
A human voice might scare. _
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