Chapter 5

WHAT mortal first by adverse fate assailed, Trampled by tyranny or scoffed by scorn, Stung by remorse or wrung by poverty, Bade with fond sigh his native laud farewell? Wretched! but tenfold wretched who resolved Against the waves to plunge th’ expatriate keel Deep with the richest harvest of his land! Driven with that weak blast which Winter leaves Closing his palace gates on Caucasus, Oft hath a berry risen forth a shade; From the same parent plant another lies Deaf to the daily call of weary hind; Zephyrs pass by and laugh at his distress. By every lake’s and every river’s side The nymphs and Naiads teach Equality; In voices gently querulous they ask, “Who would with aching head and toiling arms Bear the full pitcher to the stream far off? Who would, of power intent on high emprise, Deem less the praise to fill the vacant gulf Then raise Charybdis upon Etna’s brow?” Amid her darkest caverns most retired, Nature calls forth her filial elements To close around and cruel that monster _Void_: Fire, springing fierce from his resplendent throne, And Water, dashing the devoted wretch Woundless and whole with iron-coloured mace, Or whirling headlong in his war-belt’s fold. Mark well the lesson, man! and spare thy kind. Go, from their midnight darkness wake the woods, Woo the lone forest in her last retreat: Many still bend their beauteous heads unblest And sigh aloud for elemental man. Through palaces and porches evil eyes Light upon e’en the wretched, who have fled The house of bondage or the house of birth; Suspicions, murmurs, treacheries, taunts, retorts, Attend the brighter banners that invade; And the first horn of hunter, pale with want, Sounds to the chase, the second to the war. The long awaited day at last arrived, When, linked together by the seven-armed Nile, Egypt with proud Iberia should unite. Here the Tartesian, there the Gadite tents Rang with impatient pleasure: here engaged Woody Nebrissa’s quiver-bearing crew, Contending warm with amicable skill; While they of Durius raced along the beach And scattered mud and jeers on all behind. The strength of Bætis too removed the helm And stripped the corslet off, and staunched the foot Against the mossy maple, while they tore Their quivering lances from the hissing wound. Others push forth the prows of their compeers, And the wave, parted by the pouncing beak, Swells up the sides, and closes far astern: The silent oars now dip their level wings, And weary with strong stroke the whitening wave. Others, afraid of tardiness, return: Now, entering the still harbour, every surge Runs with a louder murmur up their keel, And the slack cordage rattles round the mast. Sleepless with pleasure and expiring fears Had Gebir risen ere the break of dawn, And o’er the plains appointed for the feast Hurried with ardent step: the swains admired What so transversely could have swept the dew; For never long one path had Gebir trod, Nor long, unheeding man, one pace preserved. Not thus Charoba: she despaired the day: The day was present; true; yet she despaired. In the too tender and once tortured heart Doubts gather strength from habit, like disease; Fears, like the needle verging to the pole, Tremble and tremble into certainty. How often, when her maids with merry voice Called her, and told the sleepless queen ’twas morn, How often would she feign some fresh delay, And tell them (though they saw) that she arose. Next to her chamber, closed by cedar doors A bath of purest marble, purest wave, On its fair surface bore its pavement high: Arabian gold enchased the crystal roof, With fluttering boys adorned and girls unrobed: These, when you touch the quiet water, start From their aërial sunny arch, and pant Entangled mid each other’s flowery wreaths, And each pursuing is in turn pursued. Here came at last, as ever wont at morn, Charoba: long she lingered at the brink, Often she sighed, and, naked as she was, Sat down, and leaning on the couch’s edge, On the soft inward pillow of her arm Rested her burning cheek: she moved her eyes; She blushed; and blushing plunged into the wave. Now brazen chariots thunder through each street, And neighing steeds paw proudly from delay. While o’er the palace breathes the dulcimer, Lute, and aspiring harp, and lisping reed; Loud rush the trumpets bursting through the throng And urge the high-shouldered vulgar; now are heard Curses and quarrels and constricted blows, Threats and defiance and suburban war. Hark! the reiterated clangour sounds! Now murmurs, like the sea or like the storm, Or like the flames on forests, move and mount From rank to rank, and loud and louder roll, Till all the people is one vast applause. Yes, ’tis herself, Charoba—now the strife To see again a form so often seen! Feel they some partial pang, some secret void, Some doubt of feasting those fond eyes again? Panting imbibe they that refreshing sight To reproduce in hour of bitterness? She goes, the king awaits her from the camp: Him she descried, and trembled ere he reached Her car, but shuddered paler at his voice. So the pale silver at the festive board Grows paler filled afresh and dewed with wine; So seems the tenderest herbage of the spring To whiten, bending from a balmy gale. The beauteous queen alighting he received, And sighed to loose her from his arms; she hung A little longer on them through her fears: Her maidens followed her, and one that watched, One that had called her in the morn, observed How virgin passion with unfueled flame Burns into whiteness, while the blushing cheek Imagination heats and Shame imbues. Between both nations drawn in ranks they pass: The priests, with linen ephods, linen robes, Attend their steps, some follow, some precede, Where clothed with purple intertwined with gold Two lofty thrones commanded land and main. Behind and near them numerous were the tents As freckled clouds o’erfloat our vernal skies, Numerous as wander in warm moonlight nights, Along Meander’s or Cayster’s marsh, Swans pliant-necked and village storks revered. Throughout each nation moved the hum confused, Like that from myriad wings o’er Scythian cups Of frothy milk, concreted soon with blood. Throughout the fields the savoury smoke ascends, And boughs and branches shade the hides unbroached. Some roll the flowery turf into a seat, And others press the helmet—now resounds The signal—queen and monarch mount the thrones. The brazen clarion hoarsens: many leagues Above them, many to the south, the heron Rising with hurried croak and throat outstretched, Ploughs up the silvering surface of her plain. Tottering with age’s zeal and mischief’s haste Now was discovered Dalica; she reached The throne, she leant against the pedestal, And now ascending stood before the king. Prayers for his health and safety she preferred, And o’er his head and o’er his feet she threw Myrrh, nard, and cassia, from three golden urns; His robe of native woof she next removed, And round his shoulders drew the garb accursed, And bowed her head and parted: soon the queen Saw the blood mantle in his manly cheeks, And feared, and faltering sought her lost replies, And blessed the silence that she wished were broke. Alas! unconscious maiden! night shall close, And love and sovereignty and life dissolve, And Egypt be one desert drenched in blood. When thunder overhangs the fountain’s head, Losing its wonted freshness every stream Grows turbid, grows with sickly warmth suffused: Thus were the brave Iberians when they saw The king of nations from his throne descend. Scarcely, with pace uneven, knees unnerved, Reached he the waters: in his troubled ear They sounded murmuring drearily; they rose Wild, in strange colours, to his parching eyes; They seemed to rush around him, seemed to lift From the receding earth his helpless feet. He fell—Charoba shrieked aloud—she ran— Frantic with fears and fondness, mazed with woe, Nothing but Gebir dying she beheld. The turban that betrayed its golden charge Within, the veil that down her shoulders hung, All fallen at her feet! the furthest wave Creeping with silent progress up the sand, Glided through all, and raised their hollow folds. In vain they bore him to the sea, in vain Rubbed they his temples with the briny warmth: He struggled from them, strong with agony, He rose half up, he fell again, he cried “Charoba! O Charoba!” She embraced His neck, and raising on her knee one arm, Sighed when it moved not, when it fell she shrieked, And clasping loud both hands above her head, She called on Gebir, called on earth, on heaven. “Who will believe me? what shall I protest? How innocent, thus wretched! God of gods, Strike me—who most offend thee most defy— Charoba most offends thee—strike me, hurl From this accursed land, this faithless throne. O Dalica! see here the royal feast! See here the gorgeous robe! you little thought How have the demons dyed that robe with death. Where are ye, dear fond parents! when ye heard My feet in childhood pat the palace-floor, Ye started forth and kissed away surprise: Will ye now meet me! how, and where, and when? And must I fill your bosom with my tears, And, what I never have done, with your own! Why have the gods thus punished me? what harm Have ever I done them? have I profaned Their temples, asked too little, or too much? Proud if they granted, grieved if they withheld? O mother! stand between your child and them! Appease them, soothe them, soften their revenge, Melt them to pity with maternal tears— Alas, but if you cannot! they themselves Will then want pity rather than your child. O Gebir! best of monarchs, best of men, What realm hath ever thy firm even hand Or lost by feebleness or held by force! Behold thy cares and perils how repaid! Behold the festive day, the nuptial hour!” Thus raved Charoba: horror, grief, amaze, Pervaded all the host; all eyes were fixed; All stricken motionless and mute: the feast Was like the feast of Cepheus, when the sword Of Phineus, white with wonder, shook restrained, And the hilt rattled in his marble hand. She heard not, saw not, every sense was gone; One passion banished all; dominion, praise, The world itself was nothing. Senseless man! What would thy fancy figure now from worlds? There is no world to those that grieve and love. She hung upon his bosom, pressed his lips, Breathed, and would feign it his that she resorbed; She chafed the feathery softness of his veins, That swelled out black, like tendrils round their vase After libation: lo! he moves! he groans! He seems to struggle from the grasp of death. Charoba shrieked and fell away, her hand Still clasping his, a sudden blush o’erspread Her pallid humid cheek, and disappeared. ’Twas not the blush of shame—what shame has woe?— ’Twas not the genuine ray of hope, it flashed With shuddering glimmer through unscattered clouds, It flashed from passions rapidly opposed. Never so eager, when the world was waves, Stood the less daughter of the ark, and tried (Innocent this temptation!) to recall With folded vest and casting arm the dove; Never so fearful, when amid the vines Rattled the hail, and when the light of heaven Closed, since the wreck of Nature, first eclipsed, As she was eager for his life’s return, As she was fearful how his groans might end. They ended: cold and languid calm succeeds; His eyes have lost their lustre, but his voice Is not unheard, though short: he spake these words: “And weepest thou, Charoba! shedding tears More precious than the jewels that surround The neck of kings entombed! then weep, fair queen, At once thy pity and my pangs assuage. Ah! what is grandeur, glory—they are past! When nothing else, not life itself, remains, Still the fond mourner may be called our own. Should I complain of Fortune? how she errs, Scattering her bounty upon barren ground, Slow to allay the lingering thirst of toil? Fortune, ’tis true, may err, may hesitate, Death follows close nor hesitates nor errs. I feel the stroke! I die!” He would extend His dying arm; it fell upon his breast: Cold sweat and shivering ran o’er every limb, His eyes grew stiff, he struggled and expired.

COUNT JULIAN.

CHARACTERS.

COUNT JULIAN.

RODERIGO, _King of Spain_.

OPAS, _Metropolitan of Seville_.

SISABERT, _betrothed to_ COVILLA.

MUZA, _Prince of Mauritania_.

ABDALAZIS, _Son of_ MUZA.

TARIK, _Moorish Chieftain_.

COVILLA, _Daughter of_ JULIAN.

EGILONA, _Wife of_ RODERIGO.

HERNANDO, OSMA, RAMIRO, &c. } _Officers_.

FIRST ACT: FIRST SCENE.

_Camp of_ JULIAN.

OPAS. JULIAN.

_Opas_. See her, Count Julian: if thou lovest God, See thy lost child.

_Jul._ I have avenged me, Opas, More than enough: I only sought to hurl The brands of war on one detested head, And die upon his ruin. O my country! O lost to honour, to thyself, to me, Why on barbarian hands devolves thy cause, Spoilers, blasphemers!

_Opas_. Is it thus, Don Julian, When thy own offspring, that beloved child, For whom alone these very acts were done By them and thee, when thy Covilla stands An outcast and a suppliant at thy gate, Why that still stubborn agony of soul, Those struggles with the bars thyself imposed? Is she not thine? not dear to thee as ever?

_Jul._ Father of mercies! shew me none, whene’er The wrongs she suffers cease to wring my heart, Or I seek solace ever, but in death.

_Opas_. What wilt thou do then, too unhappy man?

_Jul._ What have I done already? All my peace Has vanished; my fair fame in after-times Will wear an alien and uncomely form, Seen o’er the cities I have laid in dust, Countrymen slaughtered, friends abjured!

_Opas_. And faith?

_Jul._ Alone now left me, filling up in part The narrow and waste intervals of grief: It promises that I shall see again My own lost child.

_Opas_. Yes, at this very hour.

_Jul._ Till I have met the tyrant face to face, And gained a conquest greater than the last; Till he no longer rules one rood of Spain, And not one Spaniard, not one enemy, The least relenting, flags upon his flight; Till we are equal in the eyes of men, The humblest and most wretched of our kind, No peace for me, no comfort, no—no child!

_Opas_. No pity for the thousands fatherless, The thousands childless like thyself, nay more, The thousands friendless, helpless, comfortless— Such thou wilt make them, little thinking so, Who now perhaps, round their first winter fire, Banish, to talk of thee, the tales of old, Shedding true honest tears for thee unknown: Precious be these, and sacred in thy sight, Mingle them not with blood from hearts thus kind. If only warlike spirits were evoked By the war-demon, I would not complain, Or dissolute and discontented men; But wherefore hurry down into the square The neighbourly, saluting, warm-clad race, Who would not injure us, and cannot serve; Who, from their short and measured slumber risen, In the faint sunshine of their balconies, With a half-legend of a martyrdom And some weak wine and withered grapes before them, Note by their foot the wheel of melody That catches and rolls on the sabbath dance. To drag the steady prop from failing age, Break the young stem that fondness twines around, Widen the solitude of lonely sighs, And scatter to the broad bleak wastes of day The ruins and the phantoms that replied, Ne’er be it thine.

_Jul._ Arise, and save me, Spain!

FIRST ACT: SECOND SCENE.

MUZA _enters_.

_Muza_. Infidel chief, thou tarriest here too long, And art perhaps repining at the days Of nine continued victories, o’er men Dear to thy soul, tho’ reprobate and base. Away!

[_He retires_.

_Jul._ I follow. Could my bitterest foes Hear this! ye Spaniards, this! which I foreknew And yet encountered; could they see your Julian Receiving orders from and answering These desperate and heaven-abandoned slaves, They might perceive some few external pangs, Some glimpses of the hell wherein I move, Who never have been fathers.

_Opas_. These are they To whom brave Spaniards must refer their wrongs!

_Jul._ Muza, that cruel and suspicious chief, Distrusts his friends more than his enemies, Me more than either; fraud he loves and fears, And watches her still footfall day and night.

_Opas_. O Julian! such a refuge! such a race!

_Jul._ Calamities like mine alone implore. No virtues have redeemed them from their bonds; Wily ferocity, keen idleness, And the close cringes of ill-whispering want, Educate them to plunder and obey; Active to serve him best whom most they fear, They show no mercy to the merciful, And racks alone remind them of the name.

_Opas_. O everlasting curse for Spain and thee!

_Jul._ Spain should have vindicated then her wrongs In mine, a Spaniard’s and a soldier’s wrongs.

_Opas_. Julian, are thine the only wrongs on earth? And shall each Spaniard rather vindicate Thine than his own? is there no Judge of all? Shall mortal hand seize with impunity The sword of vengeance, from the armoury Of the Most High? easy to wield, and starred With glory it appears: but all the host Of the archangels, should they strive at once, Would never close again its widening blade.

_Jul._ He who provokes it hath so much to rue. Where’er he turn, whether to earth or heaven, He finds an enemy, or raises one.

_Opas_. I never yet have seen where long success Hath followed him who warred upon his king.

_Jul._ Because the virtue that inflicts the stroke Dies with him, and the rank ignoble heads Of plundering faction soon unite again, And prince-protected share the spoil at rest.

FIRST ACT: THIRD SCENE.

_Guard announces a herald_. OPAS _departs_.

_Guard_. A messenger of peace is at the gate, My lord, safe access, private audience, And free return, he claims.

_Jul._ Conduct him in.

RODERIGO _enters as a herald_.

A messenger of peace! audacious man! In what attire appearest thou? a herald’s? Under no garb can such a wretch be safe.

_Rod._ Thy violence and fancied wrongs I know, And what thy sacrilegious hands would do, O traitor and apostate!

_Jul._ What they would They cannot: thee of kingdom and of life ’Tis easy to despoil, thyself the traitor, Thyself the violator of allegiance. Oh would all-righteous Heaven they could restore The joy of innocence, the calm of age, The probity of manhood, pride of arms, And confidence of honour! the august And holy laws trampled beneath thy feet. And Spain! O parent, I have lost thee too! Yes, thou wilt curse me in thy latter days, Me, thine avenger. I have fought her foe, Roderigo, I have gloried in her sons, Sublime in hardihood and piety: Her strength was mine: I, sailing by her cliffs, By promontory after promontory, Opening like flags along some castle-towers, Have sworn before the cross upon our mast Ne’er shall invader wave his standard there.

_Rod._ Yet there thou plantest it, false man, thyself.

_Jul._ Accursed he who makes me this reproach, And made it just! Had I been happy still, I had been blameless: I had died with glory Upon the walls of Ceuta.

_Rod._ Which thy treason Surrendered to the Infidel.

_Jul._ ’Tis hard And base to live beneath a conqueror: Yet, amid all this grief and infamy, ’Twere something to have rushed upon the ranks In their advance; ’twere something to have stood Defeat, discomfiture; and, when around No beacon blazes, no far axle groans Through the wide plain, no sound of sustenance Or succour soothes the still-believing ear, To fight upon the last dismantled tower, And yield to valour, if we yield at all. But rather should my neck lie trampled down By every Saracen and Moor on earth, Than my own country see her laws o’erturned By those who should protect them: Sir, no prince Shall ruin Spain; and, least of all, her own. Is any just or glorious act in view, Your oaths forbid it: is your avarice, Or, if there be such, any viler passion, To have its giddy range, and to be gorged, It rises over all your sacraments, A hooded mystery, holier than they all.

_Rod._ Hear me, Don Julian; I have heard thy wrath Who am thy king, nor heard man’s wrath before.

_Jul._ Thou shalt hear mine, for thou art not my king.

_Rod._ Knowest thou not the altered face of war? Xeres is ours; from every region round True loyal Spaniards throng into our camp: Nay, thy own friends and thy own family, From the remotest provinces, advance To crush rebellion: Sisabert is come, Disclaiming thee and thine; the Asturian hills Opposed to him their icy chains in vain: But never wilt thou see him, never more, Unless in adverse war, and deadly hate.

_Jul._ So lost to me! So generous, so deceived! I grieve to hear it.

_Rod._ Come, I offer grace, Honour, dominion: send away these slaves, Or leave them to our sword, and all beyond The distant Ebro to the towns of France Shall bless thy name, and bend before thy throne. I will myself accompany thee, I, The king, will hail thee brother.

_Jul._ Ne’er shalt thou Henceforth be king: the nation in thy name May issue edicts, champions may command The vassal multitudes of marshalled war, And the fierce charger shrink before the shouts, Lowered as if earth had opened at his feet, While thy mailed semblance rises toward the ranks, But God alone sees thee.

_Rod._ What hopest thou? To conquer Spain, and rule a ravaged land? To compass me around, to murder me?

_Jul._ No, Don Roderigo: swear thou, in the fight That thou wilt meet me, hand to hand, alone, That, if I ever save thee from a foe—

_Rod._ I swear what honour asks—first, to Covilla Do thou present my crown and dignity.

_Jul._ Darest thou offer any price for shame?

_Rod._ Love and repentance.

_Jul._ Egilona lives: And were she buried with her ancestors, Covilla should not be the gaze of men, Should not, despoiled of honour, rule the free.

_Rod._ Stern man! her virtues well deserve the throne.

_Jul._ And Egilona—what hath she deserved, The good, the lovely?

_Rod._ But the realm in vain Hoped a succession.

_Jul._ Thou hast torn away The roots of royalty.

_Rod._ For her, for thee.

_Jul._ Blind insolence! base insincerity! Power and renown no mortal ever shared, Who could retain or grasp them to himself: And, for Covilla? patience! peace! for her? She call upon her God, and outrage Him At His own altar! she repeat the vows She violates in repeating! who abhors Thee and thy crimes, and wants no crown of thine. Force may compel the abhorrent soul, or want Lash and pursue it to the public ways; Virtue looks back and weeps, and may return To these, but never near the abandoned one Who drags religion to adultery’s feet, And rears the altar higher for her sake.

_Rod._ Have then the Saracens possessed thee quite, And wilt thou never yield me thy consent?