Enter Don John of Austria.
Don John. How vainly would dull moralists impose
Limits on love, whose nature brooks no laws?
Love is a god, and like a god should be
Inconstant, with unbounded liberty,
Rove as he list—
I find it; for even now I've had a feast,
Of which a god might covet for a taste.
Methinks I yet
See with what soft devotion in her eyes
The tender lamb came to the sacrifice.
Oh, how her charms surprised me as I lay!
Like too near sweets they took my sense away;
And I even lost the power to reach at joy.
But those cross witchcrafts soon unravelled were,
And I was lulled in trances sweeter far:
As anchored vessels in calm harbours ride,
Rocked on the swellings of the floating tide.
How wretched's then the man, who though alone
He thinks he's blest, yet, as confined to one,
Is but at best a prisoner on a throne?
Enter the King attended, Marquis of Posa, and Ruy-Gomez.
King. Ye mighty powers, whose substitutes we are,
On whom you've lain of earth the rule and care,
Why all our toils do you reward with ill,
And to those weighty cares add greater still?
Oh, how could I your deities enrage,
That blessed my youth, thus to afflict my age?
A queen and a son's incest! dismal thought!
Don John. What is't so soon his majesty has brought
From the soft arms of his young bride? [To Ruy-Gomez.
King. Ay, true!
Is she not, Austria, young and charming too?
Dost thou not think her to a wonder fair?
Tell me!
Don John. By Heaven, more bright than planets are:
Her beauty's force might even their power out-do.
King. Nay, she's as false, and as unconstant too.
O Austria, that a form so outward bright
Should be within all dark and ugly night!
For she, to whom I'd dedicated all
My love, that dearest jewel of my soul,
Takes from its shrine the precious relic down,
To adorn a little idol of her own,—
My son! that rebel both to Heaven and me!
Oh, the distracting throes of jealousy!
But as a drowning wretch, just like to sink,
Seeing him that threw him in upon the brink,
At the third plunge lays hold upon his foe,
And tugs him down into destruction too;
So thou, from whom these miseries I've known,
Shalt bear me out again, or with me drown.