Seb. I prophesied thy proud soul could not bear it.—
Now, judge thyself, who best deserved my love?
I knew you both; and (durst I say) as heaven
Foreknew, among the shining angel host,
Who would stand firm, who fall.
Dor. Had he been tempted so, so had he fallen;
And so had I been favoured, had I stood.
417 Seb. What had been, is unknown; what is, appears.
Confess, he justly was preferred to thee.
Dor. Had I been born with his indulgent stars,
My fortune had been his, and his been mine.—
O worse than hell! what glory have I lost,
And what has he acquired, by such a death!
I should have fallen by Sebastian's side,
My corps had been the bulwark of my king.
His glorious end was a patched work of fate,
Ill sorted with a soft effeminate life;
It suited better with my life than his,
So to have died: Mine had been of a piece,
Spent in your service, dying at your feet.
Seb. The more effeminate and soft his life,
The more his fame, to struggle to the field,
And meet his glorious fate. Confess, proud spirit,
(For I will have it from thy very mouth)
That better he deserved my love than thou?
Dor. O, whither would you drive me? I must grant,—
Yes, I must grant, but with a swelling soul,—
Henriquez had your love with more desert.
For you he fought, and died: I fought against you;
Through all the mazes of the bloody field,
Hunted your sacred life; which that I missed
Was the propitious error of my fate,
Not of my soul: My soul's a regicide.
Seb. [More calmly.]
Thou might'st have given it a more gentle name.
Thou meant'st to kill a tyrant, not a king:
Speak, didst thou not, Alonzo?
Dor. Can I speak!
Alas, I cannot answer to Alonzo!—
No, Dorax cannot answer to Alonzo;
Alonzo was too kind a name for me.
Then, when I fought and conquered with your arms,
418 In that blest age, I was the man you named:
Till rage and pride debased me into Dorax,
And lost, like Lucifer, my name above.
Seb. Yet twice this day I owed my life to Dorax.
Dor. I saved you but to kill you: There's my grief.