Osorio (in a slow voice with a reasoning laugh). Love—love—and then we hate—and what? and wherefore?
Hatred and love. Strange things! both strange alike!
What if one reptile sting another reptile,
Where is the crime? The goodly face of Nature
Hath one trail less of slimy filth upon it. 215
[[559]] Are we not all predestined rottenness
And cold dishonor? Grant it that this hand
Had given a morsel to the hungry worms
Somewhat too early. Where's the guilt of this?
That this must needs bring on the idiotcy 220
Of moist-eyed penitence—'tis like a dream!

Velez. Wild talk, my child! but thy excess of feeling [Turns off from Osorio.
Sometimes, I fear, it will unhinge his brain!

Osorio. I kill a man and lay him in the sun,
And in a month there swarm from his dead body 225
A thousand—nay, ten thousand sentient beings
In place of that one man whom I had kill'd.
Now who shall tell me, that each one and all,
Of these ten thousand lives, is not as happy
As that one life, which being shov'd aside 230
Made room for these ten thousand?[559:1]

Velez. Wild as madness!

Osorio. Come, father! you have taught me to be merry,
And merrily we'll pore upon this picture.

Velez (holding the picture before Osorio). That Moor, who points his sword at Albert's breast——

Osorio (abruptly). A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain, 235
Whom I will strangle!

Velez. And these other two——

Osorio. Dead—dead already!—what care I for the dead?

Velez. The heat of brain and your too strong affection
For Albert, fighting with your other passion,
Unsettle you, and give reality 240
To these your own contrivings.