Bethlen. Deluding spirits! Do ye mock me?
Question the Night! Bid Darkness tell its birth-place?
Yet hear! Within yon old oak's hollow trunk, 210
Where the bats cling, have I surveyed my cradle!
The mother-falcon hath her nest above it,
And in it the wolf litters!—--I invoke you,
Tell me, ye secret ones! if ye beheld me
As I stood there, like one who having delved 215
For hidden gold hath found a talisman,
[[925]] O tell! what rights, what offices of duty
This signet doth command? What rebel spirits
Owe homage to its Lord?

Raab Kiuprili (still unseen). More, guiltier, mightier,
Than thou mayest summon! Wait the destined hour! 220

Bethlen. O yet again, and with more clamorous prayer,
I importune ye! Mock me no more with shadows!
This sable mantle—tell, dread voice! did this
Enwrap one fatherless!

Zapolya (unseen). One fatherless!

Bethlen. A sweeter voice!—A voice of love and pity! [225]
Was it the softened echo of mine own?
Sad echo! but the hope it kill'd was sickly,
And ere it died it had been mourned as dead!
One other hope yet lives within my soul:
Quick let me ask!—while yet this stifling fear, [230]
This stop of the heart, leaves utterance!—Are—are these
The sole remains of her that gave me life?
Have I a mother? [Zapolya rushes out to embrace him.
Ha!

Zapolya. My son! my son!
A wretched—Oh no, no! a blest—a happy mother!

[They embrace. Kiuprili and Glycine come forward and the curtain drops.

LINENOTES:

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