The Player.
Yes.... [After a pause.] And you.
Mary. Do you not ask me why
I'm here?
The Player.
I am not wont to shun the truth:
But yet I think the reason you could give
Were too uncomely.
Mary. Nay;—
The Player. If it were truth;
If it were truth! Although that likelihood
Scarce threatens.
Mary. So. Condemned without a trial.
The Player.
O, speak the lie now. Let there be no chance
For my unsightly love, bound head and foot,
Stark, full of wounds and horrible,—to find
Escape from out its charnel-house; to rise
Unwelcome before eyes that had forgot,
And say it died not truly. It should die.
Play no imposture: leave it,—it is dead.
I have been weak in that I tried to pour
The wine through plague-struck veins. It came to life
Over and over, drew sharp breath again
In torture such as't may be to be born,
If a poor babe could tell. Over and over,
I tell you, it has suffered resurrection,
Cheating its pain with hope, only to die
Over and over;—die more deaths than men
The meanest, most forlorn, are made to die
By tyranny or nature.... Now I see all
Clear. And I say, it shall not rise again.
I am as safe from you as I were dead.
I know you.
Mary. Herbert—
The Player. Do not touch his name.
Leave that; I saw.
Mary. You saw? Nay, what?