Chapter 8

A Banquet; the KING seated; on his right ALARCOS. SIDONIA, LEON, the ADMIRAL OF CASTILLE, and other LORDS. Groups of PAGES, CHAMBERLAINS, and SERVING-MEN.

II:4:1 The KING. Would’st match them, cousin, ‘gainst our barbs?

II:4:2 ALAR. Against Our barbs, Sir!

II:4:3 KING. Eh, Lord Leon, you can scan A courser’s points?

II:4:4 LEON. O, Sir, your travellers Need fleeter steeds than we poor shambling folks Who stay at home. To my unskilful sense, Speed for the chase and vigour for the tilt, Meseems enough.

II:4:5 ALAR.’ If riders be as prompt.

II:4:6 LEON. Our tourney is put off, or please your Grace, I’d try conclusions with this marvellous beast, This Pegasus, this courser of the sun, That is to blind us all with his bright rays And cloud our chivalry.

II:4:7 KING. My Lord Sidonia, You’re a famed judge: try me this Cyprus wine; An English prince did give it me, returning From the holy sepulchre.

II:4:8 SIDO. Most rare, my liege, And glitters like a gem!

II:4:9 KING. It doth content Me much, your Cyprus wine. Lord Admiral, Hast heard the news? The Saracens have fled Before the Italian galleys.

II:4:10 THE ADMIRAL OF CASTILLE. No one guides A galley like your Pisan.

II:4:11 ALAR. The great Doge Of Venice, sooth, would barely veil his flag To Pisa.

II:4:12 ADM. Your Venetian hath his craft. This Saracenic rent will surely touch Our turbaned neighbours?

II:4:13 KING. To the very core, Granada’s all a-mourning. Good, my Lords, One goblet more. We’ll give our cousin’s health. Here’s to the Count Alarcos.

II:4:14 OMNES. To the Count Alarcos.

[The Guests rise, pay their homage to the KING, and are retiring.]

II:4:15 KING. Good night, Lord Admiral; my Lord of Leon, My Lord Sidonia, and my Lord of Lara, Gentle adieus; to you, my Lord, and you, To all and each. Cousin, good night--and yet A moment rest awhile; since your return I’ve looked on you in crowds, it may become us To say farewell alone.

[The KING waves his hand to the SENESCHAL--the Chamber is cleared.]

II:4:16 ALAR. Most gracious Sire, You honour your poor servant.

II:4:17 KING. Prithee, sit. This scattering of the Saracen, methinks, Will hold the Moor to his truce?

II:4:18 ALAR. It would appear To have that import.

II:4:19 KING. Should he pass the mountains, We can receive him.

II:4:20 ALAR. Where’s the crown in Spain More prompt and more prepared?

II:4:21 KING. Cousin, you’re right. We flourish. By St. James, I feel a glow Of the heart to see you here once more, my cousin; I’m low in the vale of years, and yet I think I could defend my crown with such a knight On my right hand.

II:4:22 ALAR. Such liege and land would raise Our lances high.

II:4:23 KING. We carry all before us. Leon reduced. The crescent paled in Cordova, Why, if she gain Valencia, Aragon Must kick the beam. And shall she gain Valencia? It cheers my blood to find thee by my side; Old days, old days return, when thou to me Wert as the apple of mine eye.

II:4:24 ALAR. My liege, This is indeed most gracious.

II:4:25 KING. Gentle cousin, Thou shalt have pause to say that I am gracious. O! I did ever love thee; and for that Some passages occurred between us once, That touch my memory to the quick; I would Even pray thee to forget them, and to hold I was most vilely practised on, my mind Poisoned, and from a fountain, that to deem Tainted were frenzy.

II:4:26 ALAR.

[Falling on his knee, and taking the KING’s hand.]

My most gracious liege, This morn to thee I did my fealty pledge. Believe me, Sire, I did so with clear breast, And with no thought to thee and to thy line But fit devotion.

II:4:27 KING. O, I know it well, I know thou art right true. Mine eyes are moist To see thee here again.

II:4:28 ALAR. It is my post, Nor could I seek another.

II:4:29 KING. Thou dost know That Hungary leaves us?

II:4:30 ALAR. I was grieved to hear There were some crosses.

II:4:31 KING. Truth, I am not grieved. Is it such joy this fair Castillian realm, This glowing flower of Spain, be rudely plucked By a strange hand? To see our chambers filled With foreign losels; our rich fiefs and abbeys The prey of each bold scatterling, that finds No heirship in his country? Have I lived And laboured for this end, to swell the sails Of alien fortunes? O my gentle cousin, There was a time we had far other hopes! I suffer for my deeds.

II:4:32 ALAR. We must forget, We must forget, my liege.

II:4:33 KING. Is’t then so easy? Thou hast no daughter. Ah! thou canst not tell What ‘tis to feel a father’s policy Hath dimmed a child’s career. A child so peerless! Our race, though ever comely, veiled to her. A palm tree in its pride of sunny youth Mates not her symmetry; her step was noticed As strangely stately by her nurse. Dost know, I ever deemed that winning smile of hers Mournful, with all its mirth? But ah! no more A father gossips; nay, my weakness ‘tis not. ‘Tis not with all that I would prattle thus; But you, my cousin, know Solisa well, And once you loved her.

II:4:34 ALAR.

[Rising.]

Once! O God! Such passions are eternity.

II:4:35 KING.

[Advancing.]

What then, Shall this excelling creature, on a throne As high as her deserts, shall she become A spoil for strangers? Have I cause to grieve That Hungary quit us? O that I could find Some noble of our land might dare to mix His equal blood with our Castillian seed! Art thou more learned in our pedigrees? Hast thou no friend, no kinsman? Must this realm Fall to the spoiler, and a foreign graft Be nourished by our sap?

II:4:36 ALAR. Alas! alas!

II:4:37 KING. Four crowns; our paramount Castille, and Leon, Seviglia, Cordova, the future hope Of Murcia, and the inevitable doom That waits the Saracen; all, all, all; And with my daughter!

II:4:38 ALAR. Ah! ye should have blasted My homeward path, ye lightnings!

II:4:39 KING. Such a son Should grudge his sire no days. I would not live To whet ambition’s appetite. I’m old; And fit for little else than hermit thoughts. The day that gives my daughter, gives my crown: A cell’s my home.

II:4:40 ALAR. O, life, I will not curse thee Let hard and shaven crowns denounce thee vain; To me thou wert no shade! I loved thy stir And panting struggle. Power, and pomp, and beauty Cities and courts, the palace and the fane, The chace, the revel, and the battle-field, Man’s fiery glance, and woman’s thrilling smile, I loved ye all. I curse not thee, O life! But on my start; confusion. May they fall From out their spheres, and blast our earth no more With their malignant rays, that mocking placed All the delight of life within my reach, And chained me film fruition.

II:4:41 KING. Gentle cousin, Thou art disturbed; I fear these words of mine, Chance words ere I did say to thee good night, For O, ‘twas joy to see thee here again, Who art my kinsman, and my only one, Have touched on some old cares for both of us. And yet the world has many charms for thee; Thou’rt not like us, and thy unhappy child The world esteems so favoured.

II:4:42 ALAR. Ah, the world III estimates the truth of any lot. Their speculation is too far and reaches Only externals, they are ever fair. There are vile cankers in your gaudiest flowers, But you must pluck and peer within the leaves To catch the pest.

II:4:43 KING. Alas! my gentle cousin, To hear thou hast thy sorrows too, like us, It pains me much, and yet I’ll not believe it, For with so fair a wife--

II:4:44 ALAR. Torture me not, Although thou art a King.

II:4:45 KING. My gentle cousin, f spoke to solace thee. We all do hear Thou art most favoured in a right fair wife. We do desire to see her; can she find A friend becomes her better than our child?

II:4:46 ALAR. My wife? would she were not!

II:4:47 KING. I say so too, Would she were not!

II:4:48 ALAR. Ah me! why did I marry?

II:4:49 KING. Truth, it was very rash.

II:4:50 ALAR. Who made me rash? Who drove me from my hearth, and sent me forth On the unkindred earth? With the dark spleen Goading injustice, that ‘tis vain to quell, Entails on restless spirits. Yes, I married, As men do oft, from very wantonness; To tamper with a destiny that’s cross, To spite my fate, to put the seal upon A balked career, in high and proud defiance Of hopes that yet might mock me, to beat down False expectation and its damned lures, And fix a bar betwixt me and defeat.

II:4:51 KING. These bitter words would rob me of my hope, That thou at least wert happy.

II:4:52 ALAR. Would I slept With my grey fathers!

II:4:53 KING. And my daughter too! O most unhappy pair!

II:4:54 ALAR. There is a way. To cure such woes, one only.

II:4:55 KING. ‘Tis my thought.

II:4:56 ALAR. No cloister shall entomb this life; the grave Shall be my refuge,

II:4:57 KING. Yet to die were witless, When Death, who with his fatal finger taps At princely doors, as freely as he gives His summons to the serf, may at this instant Have sealed the only life that throws a shade Between us and the sun.

II:4:58 ALAR. She’s very young.

II:4:59 KING. And may live long, as I do hope she will; Yet have I known as blooming as she die, And that most suddenly. The air of cities To unaccustomed lungs is very fatal; Perchance the absence of her accustomed sports, The presence of strange faces, and a longing For those she has been bred among: I’ve known This most pernicious: she might droop and pine, And when they fail, they sink most rapidly. God grant she may not; yet I do remind thee Of this wild chance, when speaking of thy lot. In truth ‘tis sharp, and yet I would not die When Time, the great enchanter, may change all, By bringing somewhat earlier to thy gate A doom that must arrive.

II:4:60 ALAR. Would it were there!

II:4:61 KING. ‘Twould be the day thy hand should clasp my daughter’s, That thou hast loved so Ion; ‘twould be the day My crown, the crown of all my realms, Alarcos, Should bind thy royal brow. Is this the morn Breaks in our chamber? Why, I did but mean To say good night unto my gentle cousin So long unseen. O, we have gossiped, coz, So cheering dreams!

[Exeunt.]

END OF THE SECOND ACT.