TANCRED. Fair daughter, I have sought thee out with grief,
To ease the sorrows of thy vexed heart.
How long wilt thou torment thy father thus,
Who daily dies to see thy needless tears?
Such bootless plaints, that know nor mean nor end,
Do but increase the floods of thy lament;
And since the world knows well there was no want
In thee of ought, that did to him belong,
Yet all, thou seest, could not his life prolong.
Why then dost thou provoke the heavens to wrath?
His doom of death was dated by his stars,
"And who is he that may withstand his fate?"
By these complaints small good to him thou dost,
Much grief to me, more hurt unto thyself,
And unto nature greatest wrong of all.
GISMUNDA. Tell me not of the date of nature's days,
Then in the April of her springing age:
No, no, it was my cruel destiny,
That spited at the pleasance of my life.
TANCRED. My daughter knows the proof of nature's course.
"For as the heavens do guide the lamp of life,
So can they reach no farther forth the flame,
Than whilst with oil they do maintain the same."
GISMUNDA. Curst be the stars, and vanish may they curst,
Or fall from heaven, that in their dire aspèct[47]
Abridg'd the health and welfare of my love.
TANCRED. Gismund, my joy, set all these griefs apart;
"The more thou art with hard mishap beset,
The more thy patience should procure thine ease."
GISMUNDA. What hope of hap may cheer my hapless chance?
What sighs, what tears may countervail my cares?
What should I do, but still his death bewail,
That was the solace of my life and soul?
Now, now, I want the wonted guide and stay
Of my desires and of my wreakless thoughts.
My lord, my love, my life, my liking gone,
In whom was all the fulness of my joy,
To whom I gave the first-fruits of my love,
Who with the comfort of his only sight
All care and sorrows could from me remove.
But, father, now my joys forepast to tell,
Do but revive the horrors of my hell.
As she that seems in darkness to behold
The gladsome pleasures of the cheerful light.
TANCRED. What then avails thee fruitless thus to rue
His absence, whom the heavens cannot return?
Impartial death thy husband did subdue,
Yet hath he spar'd thy kingly father's life:
Who during life to thee a double stay,
As father and as husband, will remain,
With double love to ease thy widow's want,
Of him whose want is cause of thy complaint.
Forbear thou therefore all these needless tears,
That nip the blossoms of thy beauty's pride.
GISMUNDA. Father, these tears love challengeth of due.
TANCRED. But reason saith thou shouldst the same subdue.
GISMUNDA. His funerals are yet before my sight.