King [aside].By Heaven, he touches me!
Mar. For you, however, this is unimportant;
It but makes you separate, peculiar;
'Tis the price you pay for being a god.
And frightful were it if you failed in this!
If for the desolated good of millions,
You the Desolator should gain—nothing!
If the very freedom you have blighted
And kill'd were that alone which could exalt
Yourself!—Sire, pardon me, I must not stay:
The matter makes me rash: my heart is full,
Too strong the charm of looking on the one
Of living men to whom I might unfold it.
[The Count de Lerma enters, and whispers a few words to the King. The latter beckons to him to withdraw, and continues sitting in his former posture.
King [to the Marquis, after Lerma is gone].
Speak on!
Mar. [after a pause] I feel, Sire, all the worth—
King.Speak on!
Y' had something more to say.
Mar.Not long since, Sire,
I chanced to pass through Flanders and Brabant.
So many rich and flourishing provinces;
A great, a mighty people, and still more,
An honest people!—And this people's Father!
That, thought I, must be divine: so thinking,
I stumbled on a heap of human bones.
[He pauses; his eyes rest on the King, who endeavours to return his glance, but with an air of embarrassment is forced to look upon the ground.
You are in the right, you must proceed so.
That you could do, what you saw you must do,
Fills me with a shuddering admiration.
Pity that the victim welt'ring in its blood
Should speak so feeble an eulogium
On the spirit of the priest! That mere men,
Not beings of a calmer essence, write
The annals of the world! Serener ages
Will displace the age of Philip; these will bring
A milder wisdom; the subject's good will then
Be reconcil'd to th' prince's greatness;
The thrifty State will learn to prize its children,
And necessity no more will be inhuman.
King. And when, think you, would those blessed ages
Have come round, had I recoil'd before
The curse of this? Behold my Spain! Here blooms
The subject's good, in never-clouded peace:
Such peace will I bestow on Flanders.