ACT II. SCENE 3.
Egilona enters.
Egil. Remain, I order thee.
Attend, and do thy duty; I am queen,
Unbent to degradation.
Cov. I attend
Ever most humbly and most gratefully
My too kind sovran, cousin now no more;
Could I perform but half the services
I owe her, I were happy, for a time,
Or dared I show her half my love, ’twere bliss.
Egil. Oh! I sink under gentleness like thine
Thy sight is death to me; and yet ’tis dear.
The gaudy trappings of assumptive state
Drop, at the voice of nature, to the earth,
Before thy feet—I cannot force myself
To hate thee, to renounce thee; yet—Covilla!
Yet—O distracting thought! ’tis hard to see,
Hard to converse, with, to admire, to love,
As from my soul I do, and must do, thee—
One who hath robbed me of all pride and joy,
All dignity, all fondness.—I adored
[After a pause.
Roderigo—he was brave, and in discourse
Most voluble; the masses of his mind
[She walks about, and speaks by fits and abstractedly.
Were vast, but varied; now absorbed in gloom,
Majestic, not austere; now their extent
Opening, and waving in bright levity—
Jul. Depart, my daughter—’twere as well to bear
His presence as his praise [40]—go; she will dream
This phantasm out, nor notice thee depart.