Raym. So diseases are:
Should not a lingering fever be removed,
Because it long has raged within my blood?
Do I rebel, when I would thrust it out?
459 What, shall I think the world was made for one,
And men are born for kings, as beasts for men,
Not for protection, but to be devoured?
Mark those, who dote on arbitrary power,
And you shall find them either hot-brained youth,
Or needy bankrupts, servile in their greatness,
And slaves to some, to lord it o'er the rest.
O baseness, to support a tyrant throne,
And crush your freeborn brethren of the world!
Nay, to become a part of usurpation;
To espouse the tyrant's person and her crimes,
And, on a tyrant, get a race of tyrants,
To be your country's curse in after ages.
Tor. I see no crime in her whom I adore,
Or, if I do, her beauty makes it none:
Look on me as a man abandoned o'er
To an eternal lethargy of love;
To pull, and pinch, and wound me, cannot cure,
And but disturb the quiet of my death.
Raym. O virtue, virtue! what art thou become,
That man should leave thee for that toy, a woman,
Made from the dross and refuse of a man!
Heaven took him, sleeping, when he made her too;
Had man been waking, he had ne'er consented.
Now, son, suppose
Some brave conspiracy were ready formed,
To punish tyrants, and redeem the land,
Could you so far belie your country's hope,
As not to head the party?
Tor. How could my hand rebel against my heart?
Raym. How could your heart rebel against your reason?
Tor. No honour bids me fight against myself;
The royal family is all extinct,
And she, who reigns, bestows her crown on me:
So must I be ungrateful to the living,
To be but vainly pious to the dead,
460 While you defraud your offspring of their fate.
Raym. Mark who defraud their offspring, you or I?
For know, there yet survives the lawful heir
Of Sancho's blood, whom when I shall produce,
I rest assured to see you pale with fear,
And trembling at his name.
Tor. He must be more than man, who makes me tremble.
I dare him to the field, with all the odds
Of justice on his side, against my tyrant:
Produce your lawful prince, and you shall see
How brave a rebel love has made your son.
Raym. Read that; 'tis with the royal signet signed,
And given me, by the king, when time should serve,
To be perused by you.
Tor. [Reads.] I, the king.
My youngest and alone surviving son,
Reported dead, to escape rebellious rage,
Till happier times shall call his courage forth,
To break my fetters, or revenge my fate,
I will that Raymond educate as his,
And call him Torrismond—
If I am he, that son, that Torrismond,
The world contains not so forlorn a wretch!
Let never man believe he can be happy!
For, when I thought my fortune most secure,
One fatal moment tears me from my joys;
And when two hearts were joined by mutual love,
The sword of justice cuts upon the knot,
And severs them for ever.