IV
(Finale: Allegro con fuoco)
This bacchanal in the underground palace of Arimanes is Tschaikowsky's own invention; there is no bacchanal, or suggestion of one, in the corresponding scene in Byron's poem, where Arimanes, seated on his throne of fire, is surrounded by spirits, who praise him in a worshipful hymn.
At the climax of the music's wild revelling the motive of despair is recalled; the music becomes uncanny, mysterious; we hear the theme of Manfred. Nemesis, who has entered the hall together with the Destinies, invokes the wraith of Astarte:
"MANFRED. Can this be death? there's bloom upon her cheek;
But now I see it is no living hue,
But a strange hectic—like the unnatural red
Which Autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf.
It is the same! O God! that I should dread
To look upon the same—Astarte!—No,
I cannot speak to her—but bid her speak—
Forgive me or condemn me.
"PHANTOM OF ASTARTE. Manfred!
"MANFRED. Say on, say on—
I live but in the sound—it is thy voice!
"PHANTOM. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine earthly ills. Farewell!
"MANFRED. Yet one word more—am I forgiven?