duke.
A pleasant jest, from me to ask the key!
It hangs in thy bosom, lady. Friends, farewell!
I hasten hence ere this unpitying tempest
Its fiercest burst, its gathering deluge pour;
Cataracts of forked fire, commingled torrents,
From the wide womb of the vexed elements.
hermione.
Farewell, my lord! some other time we meet.
duke.
Farewell, my friends! another hour must tell
My purpose here this night. [Exeunt.
ACT III.—SCENE I.
A Chamber in the Palace.
The Duke at a table, surveying his sword.
duke.
Mischievous weapon!
I would forswear thy company: but now
We cannot part. Blameless,—inanimate,—
The heart alone makes thee its passive tool
To work the several ills its thought conceives!
What art thou, senseless steel? cold, motionless,
Incapable of ought, or fraud or injury,—
No dire intent there broods, no passionate flame
Mix'd with thy temper, flashes o'er the obscure,
The restless gulf within, troubling the spirit;
A fitful gleam, on the dark surges wreathing
Forms of unutterable horror,—wide
Disclosing from the womb—the fathomless womb
Of that abyss!—Would the events,
The brief record of time, the narrow space
By yesternight enclosed, were blotted out,
Effaced for ever. I must meet thee, stranger,—
Thou may'st avenge thy friend.—Hermione!—
Why should I start?—a sound—a bursting bubble
Moves me. Hermione!—Again!—This heart
Not so hath leapt in the loud roar of battle!
'Tis folly—madness,—yet she marks me out—
Gazes so strangely,—'twere an idle thought,
But from her soul, methinks, such pulses come
Of wild, unworded passion, as they'd mingle,
Perforce, with every faculty, desire,
And through each avenue rush, thralling the will
Unto its influence. Those basilisk eyes
Are on me ever! Asleep, awake, they change not.
'Tis fascination! If such spell there be,
Hermione doth use it! Yet enchains she not
Others unto the like. I've watch'd her thus,
How angrily,—as the quick lightning sped,
The night uncovering from her form,—I saw
Her eagle-glance the timorous love-sick wretch
Strike helpless at her feet. It is not love,—
A spell earth owns not hangs upon my heart!—
I love Beatrice; yet more tenderly
Unto her bosom mine affections cling,
The more this parasite, this foul excrescence
Preys on my vitals, wastes mine healthful spirit,
Poisoning life's current even at its source.
I'll shake me from these toils: I knew not when
The cunning net was thrown, so light the texture;
And warily I wot the snare was laid,
Or I had 'scaped it.
This unwelcome dawn
Comes dimly on the casement;—heavily
The day's dull beam seems labouring up the sky,—
Low hang the clouds, huge relics of the storm,
Like dark reflections brooding o'er the mind
When passion's rudest burst hath pass'd, and reason,
As yon pale gleam, thus struggling forth its way
Through adverse clouds, visits again the soul—
'Tis then the mind, shuddering, at once recoils
From the dire consequence, and conjures up
A thousand possibilities to scare
The resolute purpose. I linger at the threshold
Of this proceeding. I will not fight thee, stranger;
I've wrong'd thy friend. His death, yet unappeased,
Clings to my burden'd spirit: I'll atone
If yet there be of reparation aught
This hand can give. Sylvio!
Enter Sylvio.