The Sea Shore on the Coast of Granada.
Don Alvar, wrapt in a Boat cloak, and Zulimez (a Moresco), both as just landed.
Zulimez. No sound, no face of joy to welcome us!
Alvar. My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment
Let me forget my anguish and their crimes.
If aught on earth demand an unmix'd feeling,
'Tis surely this—after long years of exile, 5
To step forth on firm land, and gazing round us,
To hail at once our country, and our birth-place.
Hail, Spain! Granada, hail! once more I press
Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers!
Zulimez. Then claim your rights in it! O, revered Don Alvar, 10
Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose.
It is too hazardous! reveal yourself,
And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt!
Alvar. Remember, Zulimez! I am his brother,
Injured indeed! O deeply injured! yet [15]
Ordonio's brother.
Zulimez. Nobly-minded Alvar!
This sure but gives his guilt a blacker dye.
Alvar. The more behoves it I should rouse within him
Remorse! that I should save him from himself.
Zulimez. Remorse is as the heart in which it grows: [20]
If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews
Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,
It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost
Weeps only tears of poison!
Alvar. And of a brother,
Dare I hold this, unproved? nor make one effort 25
To save him?—Hear me, friend! I have yet to tell thee,
That this same life, which he conspired to take,
Himself once rescued from the angry flood,
And at the imminent hazard of his own.
Add too my oath—