SCENE III.
CYPRIAN, MOSCON, CLARIN, and LIVIA.
CLARIN. Livia, while my master yonder,
Like a living skeleton,
Life and motion being gone,
On his luckless love doth ponder,
Give me an embrace.
LIVIA. Stay, stay.
Patience, man! until I see,
For I like my conscience free,
If to-day is your right day.—
Tuesday, yes, and Wednesday, no.
CLARIN. What are you counting there? Awake!
Moscon's mum.
LIVIA. He might mistake,
And I wish not to act so.
For, desiring to pursue
A just course betwixt you both,
Turn about, I would be loth
Not to give you each his due.
But I see that you are right,
'Tis your day.
CLARIN. Embrace me, then.
LIVIA. Yes, again, and yet again.
MOSCON. Hark to me, my lady bright,
May I from your ardour borrow
A good omen in my case;
And as Clarin you embrace,
Moscon you'll embrace to-morrow!
LIVIA. Your suspicion is, in fact,
Quite absurd; on me rely.
Jupiter forbid that I
Should commit so bad an act
As to be cool in any way
To a friend. I will to thee
Give an embrace in equity,
When it is your worship's day.
[Exit.
SCENE IV.
CYPRIAN, MOSCON, and CLARIN.
CLARIN. Well, I'll not be by to see,
That's a comfort.
MOSCON. How? why so?
Need I be chagrined to know,
If the girl's not mine, that she
Thus to you her debt did pay.
CLARIN. No.
MOSCON. This makes my point more strong,
Since to me it were no wrong
If it chanced not on my day.
But our master yonder, see,
How absorbed he seems.
CLARIN. More near,
If he speaks I'd like to hear.
MOSCON. And I, too, would like.
CYPRIAN. Ah me!
[As MOSCON and CLARIN approach CYPRIAN from opposite sides, he
gesticulates with his arms, and accidentally strikes both.
Love, how great thy agonies!—
CLARIN. Ah! ah, me!
MOSCON. Ah, me! I bawl.
CLARIN. Well, I think that we may call
This the land of the 'sigh-ah-mes'!
CYPRIAN. What! and have you both been here?
CLARIN. I, at least, was here, I'll swear.
MOSCON. And I, also.
CYPRIAN. O, despair
End at once my sad career!
Ah, what human heart to woe
Like to mine has given a home?
SCENE V.
THE COUNTRY.
CYPRIAN, CLARIN, and MOSCON.
CLARIN. Whither Moscon, do we roam?
MOSCON. When we've reached the end, we'll know.
Leagues behind us lies the town,
Still we go.
CLARIN. A strange proceeding!—
Little time have we for reading,
Idly pacing up and down.
CYPRIAN. Clarin, get thee home.
MOSCON. And I?
CLARIN. Sly-boots, would you rather stay?
CYPRIAN. Go: here leave me both; away!
CLARIN. Mind, he tells us both to fly.
[Exeunt CLARIN and MOSCON.
SCENE VI.
CYPRIAN. Memory of a maddened brain,
Do not with such strong control
Make me think another soul
Is what in my heart doth reign.
Blind idolator I have been—
Lost in love's ambitious flight,
Since such beauty met my sight,
Since a goddess I have seen.
Yet in such a maze of woe
Rigorous fate doth make me move,
That I know but whom I love,
And of whom I am jealous—no.
Yet this passion is so strong—
Ah, so sweet this fascination,
Driving my imagination
With resistless force along—
That I would (I know too well
How this madness doth degrade me)
To some devilish power to aid me,
Were it even to rise from hell,
Where some mightier power hath kept it,—
Sharing all its pains in common,—
I would, to possess this woman,
Give my soul.
SCENE VII.
The Demon and CYPRIAN.
Demon [within]. And I accept it.
[A great tempest is heard, with thunder and lightning.
CYPRIAN. What's this, ye heavens so pure?
Clear but a moment hence and now obscure,
Ye fright the gentle day!
The thunder-balls, the lightning's forked ray,
Leap from its riven breast—
Terrific shapes it cannot keep at rest;
All the whole heaven a crown of clouds doth wear,
And with the curling mist, like streaming hair,
This mountain's brow is bound.
Outspread below, the whole horizon round
Is one volcanic pyre.
The sun is dead, the air is smoke, heaven fire.
Philosophy, how far from thee I stray,
When I cannot explain the marvels of this day!
And now the sea, upborne on clouds the while,
Seems like some ruined pile,
That crumbling down the wind as 'twere a wall,
In dust not foam doth fall.
And struggling through the gloom,
Facing the storm, a mighty ship seeks room
On the open sea, whose rage it seems to court,
Flying the dangerous pity of the port.
The noise, the terror, and that fearful cry,
Give fatal augury
Of the impending stroke. Death hesitates,
For each already dies who death awaits.
With portents the whole atmosphere is rife,
Nor is it all the effect of elemental strife.
The ship is rigged with tempest as it flies.*
It rushes on the lee,
The war is now no longer of the sea;
Upon a hidden rock
It strikes: it breaks as with a thunder shock.
Blood flakes the foam where helpless it is tost.
[footnote] *Hartzenbusch remarks that there is no corresponding rhyme
for this line in the original, and that both the sense and the
versification are defective.—'Comedias de Calderon', t. 2, p. 178.