Chapter 4

The KING; the INFANTA.

I:4:1 KING. I see my daughter?

I:4:2 SOL. Sir, your duteous child.

I:4:3 KING. Art thou indeed my child? I had some doubt I was a father.

I:4:4 SOL. These are bitter words.

I:4:5 KING. Even as thy conduct.

I:4:6 SOL. Then it would appear My conduct and my life are but the same.

I:4:7 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?

I:4:8 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?

I:4:9 KING. Is it so? Is this an office alien to thy sex? Or what thy youth repudiates? We but ask What nature sanctions.

I:4:10 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?

I:4:11 KING. Fortunate realm!

I:4:12 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?

I:4:13 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.

I:4:14 SOL. A more princely fate, Than an unwilling wife, he did deserve.

I:4:15 KING. Yet wherefore didst thou pledge thy troth to him?

I:4:16 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.

I:4:17 KING. My, gentle child--

I:4:18 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.

I:4:19 KING. Harp not, I pray, On an old sorrow.

I:4:20 SOL. Old! he calls it old! The wound is green, and staunch it, or I die.

I:4:21 KING. Have I the skill?

I:4:22 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?

I:4:23 KING. I’d read thy thought.

I:4:24 SOL. Then have it; I would marry.

I:4:25 KING. It is well; It is my wish.

I:4:26 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.

I:4:27 KING. To me unknown.

I:4:28 SOL. O! father mine, before thy reverend knees Ere this we twain have knelt.

I:4:29 KING. Forbear, my child; Or can it be my daughter doth not know He is no longer free?

I:4:30 SOL. The power that bound him, That bondage might dissolve? To holy church Thou hast given great alms?

I:4:31 KING. There’s more to gain thy wish, If more would gain it; but it cannot be, Even were he content.

I:4:32 SOL. He is content.

I:4:33 KING. Hah!

I:4:34 SOL. For he loves me still.

I:4:35 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.

I:4:36 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.

I:4:37 KING. Thou’rt mad! Thou’rt mad!

I:4:38 SOL. Is he not mine? Thy very hand, Did it not consecrate our vows? What claim So sacred as my own?

I:4:39 KING. He did conspire--

I:4:40 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.

I:4:41 KING.

[taking her hand]

Nay, calmness. Say ‘tis true He was not guilty, say perchance he was not--

I:4:42 SOL. Perchance, O! vile perchance. Thou know’st full well, Because he did reject her loose desires And wanton overtures--

I:4:43 KING. Hush, hush, O hush!

I:4:44 SOL. The woman called my mother--

I:4:45 KING. Spare me, spare--

I:4:46 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!

I:4:47 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.

I:4:48 SOL. Ah! I see, my father, That thou will’st aid me!

I:4:49 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?

I:4:50 SOL. And is this thine aid!

I:4:51 KING. What word has roughed the brow, but now confiding In a fond father’s love?

I:4:52 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.

I:4:53 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.

I:4:54 SOL. Heirs, didst thou say heirs?

I:4:55 KING. What ails thee?

I:4:56 SOL. Heirs, heirs?

I:4:57 KING. Thou art very pale!

I:4:58 SOL. The faintness of the morn Clings to me still; I pray thee, father, grant Thy child one easy boon.

I:4:59 KING. She has to speak But what she wills.

I:4:60 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.

I:4:61 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!

I:4:62 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.

I:4:63 KING. Solisa, I will do all A father can,--a father and a King.

I:4:64 SOL. Give me Alarcos!

I:4:65 KING. Hush, disturb me not; I’m in the throes of some imaginings A human voice might scare.

END OF THE FIRST ACT.