Chapter 11

_Palace in_ XERES.

RODERIGO _and_ OPAS.

_Rod._ Impossible! she could not thus resign Me, for a miscreant of Barbary, A mere adventurer—but that citron face Shall bleach and shrivel the whole winter long; There, on yon cork-tree by the sallyport. She shall return.

_Opas_. To fondness and to faith? Dost thou retain them, if she could return?

_Rod._ Retain them? she has forfeited by this All right to fondness, all to royalty.

_Opas_. Consider, and speak calmly: she deserves Some pity, some reproof.

_Rod._ To speak then calmly, Since thine eyes open and can see her guilt— —Infamous and atrocious! let her go— Chains—

_Opas_. What! in Muza’s camp?

_Rod._ My scorn supreme!

_Opas_. Say, pity.

_Rod._ Aye, aye, pity—that suits best, I loved her, but _had_ loved her; three whole years Of pleasure, and of varied pleasure too, Had worne the soft impression half away. What I once felt, I would recall; the faint Responsive voice grew fainter each reply: Imagination sunk amid the scenes It labour’d to create; the vivid joy Of fleeting youth I followed, and posest. ’Tis the first moment of the tenderest hour, ’Tis the first mien on entering new delights, We give our peace, our power, our souls, for these.

_Opas_. Thou hast; and what remains?

_Rod._ Myself—Roderigo— Whom hatred cannot reach, nor love cast down.

_Opas_. Nor gratitude nor pity nor remorse Call back, nor vows nor earth nor heaven controul. But art thou free and happy? art thou safe? By shrewd contempt the humblest may chastize Whom scarlet and its ermine cannot scare, And the sword skulks for everywhere in vain. Thee the poor victim of thy outrages, Woman, with all her weakness, may despise.

_Rod._ But first let quiet age have intervened.

_Opas_. Ne’er will the peace or apathy of age Be thine, or twilight steal upon thy day. The violent choose, but cannot change, their end— Violence, by man or nature, must be theirs; Thine it must be, and who to pity thee?

_Rod._ Behold my solace! none. I want no pity.

_Opas_. Proclaim we those the happiest of mankind Who never knew a want? O what a curse To thee this utter ignorance of thine! Julian, whom all the good commiserate, Sees thee below him far in happiness: A state indeed: of no quick restlesness, No glancing agitation—one vast swell Of melancholy, deep, impassable, Interminable, where his spirit alone Broods and o’ershadows all, bears him from earth And purifies his chasten’d soul for heaven. Both heaven and earth shall from thy grasp recede. Whether on death or life thou arguest, Untutor’d savage or corrupted heathen Avows no sentiment so vile as thine.

_Rod._ Nor feels?

_Opas_. O human nature! I have heard The secrets of the soul, and pitied thee. Bad and accursed things have men confest Before me, but have left them unarrayed, Naked, and shivering with deformity. The troubled dreams and deafening gush of youth Fling o’er the fancy, struggling to be free, Discordant and impracticable things: If the good shudder at their past escapes, Shall not the wicked shudder at their crimes? They shall—and I denounce upon thy head God’s vengeance—thou shalt rule this land no more.

_Rod._ What! my own kindred leave me, and renounce me!

_Opas_. Kindred? and is there any in our world So near us, as those sources of all joy, Those on whose bosom every gale of life Blows softly, who reflect our images In loveliness through sorrows and through age, And bear them onward far beyond the grave.

_Rod._ Methinks, most reverend Opas, not inapt Are these fair views; arise they from Seville?

_Opas_. He, who can scoff at them, may scoff at me. Such are we, that the giver of all good Shall, in the heart he purifies, posess The latest love—the earliest, no, not there! I’ve known the firm and faithful; even from these Life’s eddying spring shed the first bloom on earth. I pity them, but ask their pity too. I love the happiness of men, and praise And sanctify the blessings I renounce.

_Rod._ Yet would thy baleful influence undermine The heaven-appointed throne.

_Opas_. —the throne of guilt Obdurate, without plea, without remorse.

_Rod._ What power hast thou? perhaps thou soon wilt want A place of refuge.

_Opas_. Rather say, perhaps My place of refuge will receive me soon: Could I extend it even to thy crimes, It should be open; but the wrath of heaven Turns them against thee, and subverts thy sway; It leaves thee not, what wickedness and woe Oft in their drear communion taste together, Hope and repentance.

_Rod._ But it leaves me arms, Vigour of soul and body, and a race Subject by law, and dutiful by choice, Whose hand is never to be holden fast Within the closing cleft of knarled creeds; No easy prey for these vile mitred Moors. I, who received thy homage, may retort Thy threats, vain prelate, and abase thy pride.

_Opas_. Low must be those whom mortal can sink lower, Nor high are they whom human power may raise.

_Rod._ Judge now: for, hear the signal.

_Opas_. And derides Thy buoyant heart the dubious gulphs of war? Trumpets may sound, and not to victory.

_Rod._ The traitor and his daughter feel my power.

_Opas_. Just God! avert it.

_Rod._ Seize this rebel priest. I will alone subdue my enemies.