SCENE I.--_A Bed-Chamber.

_Enter_ TORRISMOND.

_Tor._ Love, justice, nature, pity, and revenge, Have kindled up a wildfire in my breast, And I am all a civil war within!

_Enter Queen and_ TERESA, _at a distance._

My Leonora there!-- Mine! is she mine? my father's murderer mine? O! that I could, with honour, love her more, Or hate her less, with reason!--See, she weeps! Thinks me unkind, or false, and knows not why I thus estrange my person from her bed! Shall I not tell her?--no; 'twill break her heart; She'll know too soon her own and my misfortunes. [_Exit._

_Leo._ He's gone, and I am lost; did'st thou not see His sullen eyes? how gloomily they glanced? He looked not like the Torrismond I loved.

_Ter._ Can you not guess from whence this change proceeds?

_Leo._ No: there's the grief, Teresa: Oh, Teresa! Fain would I tell thee what I feel within, But shame and modesty have tied my tongue! Yet, I will tell, that thou may'st weep with me.-- How dear, how sweet his first embraces were! With what a zeal he joined his lips to mine! And sucked my breath at every word I spoke, As if he drew his inspiration hence: While both our souls came upward to our mouths, As neighbouring monarchs at their borders meet; I thought--Oh, no; 'tis false! I could not think; 'Twas neither life nor death, but both in one.

_Ter._ Then, sure his transports were not less than yours.

_Leo._ More, more! for, by the high-hung tapers' light, I could discern his cheeks were glowing red, His very eyeballs trembled with his love, And sparkled through their casements humid fires; He sighed, and kissed; breathed short, and would have spoke, But was too fierce to throw away the time; All he could say was--love and Leonora.

_Ter._ How then can you suspect him lost so soon?

_Leo._ Last night he flew not with a bridegroom's haste, Which eagerly prevents the appointed hour: I told the clocks, and watched the wasting light, And listened to each softly-treading step, In hope 'twas he; but still it was not he. At last he came, but with such altered looks, So wild, so ghastly, as if some ghost had met him: All pale, and speechless, he surveyed me round; Then, with a groan, he threw himself a-bed, But, far from me, as far as he could move, And sighed and tossed, and turned, but still from me.

_Ter._ What, all the night?

_Leo._ Even all the livelong night. At last, (for, blushing, I must tell thee all,) I pressed his hand, and laid me by his side; He pulled it back, as if he touched a serpent. With that I burst into a flood of tears, And asked him how I had offended him? He answered nothing, but with sighs and groans; So, restless, past the night; and, at the dawn, Leapt from the bed, and vanished.

_Ter._ Sighs and groans, Paleness and trembling, all are signs of love; He only fears to make you share his sorrows.

_Leo._ I wish 'twere so; but love still doubts the worst; My heavy heart, the prophetess of woes, Forebodes some ill at hand: to sooth my sadness, Sing me the song, which poor Olympia made, When false Bireno left her.

SONG.

_Farewell, ungrateful traitor! Farewell, my perjured swain! Let never injured creature Believe a man again. The pleasure of possessing Surpasses all expressing, But 'tis too short a blessing, And love too long a pain._

_'Tis easy to deceive us, In pity of your pain; But when we love, you leave us, To rail at you in vain. Before we have descried it, There is no bliss beside it; But she, that once has tried it, Will never love again._

_The passion you pretended, Was only to obtain; But when the charm is ended, The charmer you disdain. Your love by ours we measure, Till we have lost our treasure; But dying is a pleasure, When living is a pain._

_Re-enter_ TORRISMOND.

_Tor._ Still she is here, and still I cannot speak; But wander, like some discontented ghost, That oft appears, but is forbid to talk. [_Going again._

_Leo._ O, Torrismond, if you resolve my death, You need no more, but to go hence again; Will you not speak?

_Tor._ I cannot.

_Leo._ Speak! oh, speak! Your anger would be kinder than your silence.

_Tor._ Oh!--

_Leo._ Do not sigh, or tell me why you sigh.

_Tor._ Why do I live, ye powers!

_Leo._ Why do I live to hear you speak that word? Some black-mouthed villain has defamed my virtue.

_Tor._ No, no! Pray, let me go.

_Leo._ [_Kneeling._] You shall not go! By all the pleasures of our nuptial bed, If ever I was loved, though now I'm not, By these true tears, which, from my wounded heart, Bleed at my eyes--

_Tor._ Rise.

_Leo._ I will never rise; I cannot chuse a better place to die.

_Tor._ Oh! I would speak, but cannot.

_Leo._ [_Rising._] Guilt keeps you silent then; you love me not: What have I done, ye powers, what have I done, To see my youth, my beauty, and my love, No sooner gained, but slighted and betrayed; And, like a rose, just gathered from the stalk, But only smelt, and cheaply thrown aside, To wither on the ground.

_Ter._ For heaven's sake, madam, moderate your passion!

_Leo._ Why namest thou heaven? there is no heaven for me. Despair, death, hell, have seized my tortured soul! When I had raised his grovelling fate from ground, To power and love, to empire, and to me; When each embrace was dearer than the first; Then, then to be contemned; then, then thrown off! It calls me old, and withered, and deformed, And loathsome! Oh! what woman can bear loathsome? The turtle flies not from his billing mate, He bills the closer; but, ungrateful man, Base, barbarous man! the more we raise our love, The more we pall, and kill, and cool his ardour. Racks, poison, daggers, rid me of my life; And any death is welcome.

_Tor._ Be witness all ye powers, that know my heart, I would have kept the fatal secret hid; But she has conquered, to her ruin conquered: Here, take this paper, read our destinies;-- Yet do not; but, in kindness to yourself, Be ignorantly safe.

_Leo._ No! give it me, Even though it be the sentence of my death.

_Tor._ Then see how much unhappy love has made us. O Leonora! Oh! We two were born when sullen planets reigned; When each the other's influence opposed, And drew the stars to factions at our birth. Oh! better, better had it been for us, That we had never seen, or never loved.

_Leo._ There is no faith in heaven, if heaven says so; You dare not give it.

_Tor._ As unwillingly, As I would reach out opium to a friend, Who lay in torture, and desired to die. [_Gives the Paper._ But now you have it, spare my sight the pain Of seeing what a world of tears it costs you. Go, silently, enjoy your part of grief, And share the sad inheritance with me.

_Leo._ I have a thirsty fever in my soul; Give me but present ease, and let me die. [_Exeunt Queen and_ TERESA.

_Enter_ LORENZO.

_Lor._ Arm, arm, my lord! the city bands are up; Drums beating, colours flying, shouts confused; All clustering in a heap, like swarming hives, And rising in a moment.

_Tor._ With design to punish Bertran, and revenge the king; 'Twas ordered so.

_Lor._ Then you're betrayed, my lord. 'Tis true, they block the castle kept by Bertran, But now they cry, "Down with the palace, fire it, Pull out the usurping queen!"

_Tor._ The queen, Lorenzo! durst they name the queen?

_Lor._ If railing and reproaching be to name her.

_Tor._ O sacrilege! say quickly, who commands This vile blaspheming rout?

_Lor._ I'm loth to tell you; But both our fathers thrust them headlong on, And bear down all before them.

_Tor._ Death and hell! Somewhat must be resolved, and speedily. How say'st thou, my Lorenzo? dar'st thou be A friend, and once forget thou art a son, To help me save the queen?

_Lor._ [_Aside._] Let me consider:-- Bear arms against my father? he begat me;-- That's true; but for whose sake did he beget me? For his own, sure enough: for me he knew not. Oh! but says conscience,--Fly in nature's face?-- But how, if nature fly in my face first? Then nature's the aggressor; let her look to't.-- He gave me life, and he may take it back: No, that's boys' play, say I. 'Tis policy for a son and father to take different sides: For then, lands and tenements commit no treason. [_To_ TOR.] Sir, upon mature consideration, I have found my father to be little better than a rebel, and therefore, I'll do my best to secure him, for your sake; in hope, you may secure him hereafter for my sake.

_Tor._ Put on thy utmost speed to head the troops, Which every moment I expect to arrive; Proclaim me, as I am, the lawful king: I need not caution thee for Raymond's life, Though I no more must call him father now.

_Lor._ [_Aside._] How! not call him father? I see preferment alters a man strangely; this may serve me for a use of instruction, to cast off my father when I am great. Methought too, he called himself the lawful king; intimating sweetly, that he knows what's what with our sovereign lady:--Well if I rout my father, as I hope in heaven I shall, I am in a fair way to be the prince of the blood.--Farewell, general; I will bring up those that shall try what mettle there is in orange tawny. [_Exit._

_Tor._ [_At the Door._] Haste there; command the guards be all drawn up Before the palace-gate.--By heaven, I'll face This tempest, and deserve the name of king! O Leonora, beauteous in thy crimes, Never were hell and heaven so matched before! Look upward, fair, but as thou look'st on me; Then all the blest will beg, that thou may'st live, And even my father's ghost his death forgive. [_Exit._