Opas and Sisabert.
Opas. The royal threat still sounds along these halls;
Hardly his foot hath past them, and he flees
From his own treachery—all his pride, his hopes,
Are scatter’d at a breath; even courage fails
Now falsehood sinks from under him: behold,
Again art thou where reign’d thy ancestors;
Behold the chapel of thy earliest prayers,
Where I, whose chains are sunder’d at thy sight
Ere they could close around these aged limbs,
Received and blest thee, when thy mother’s arm
Was doubtful if it loosed thee! with delight
Have I observed the promises we made
Deeply imprest and manfully perform’d.
Now, to thyself beneficent, O prince,
Never henceforth renew those weak complaints
Against Covilla’s vows and Julian’s faith,
His honour broken, and her heart estranged.
O, if thou holdest peace or glory dear,
Away with jealousy—brave Sisabert,
Smite from thy bosom, smite that scorpion down;
It swells and hardens amid mildewed hopes,
O’erspreads and blackens whate’er most delights,
And renders us, haters of loveliness,
The lowest of the fiends: ambition led
The higher on, furious to disposess,
From admiration sprung and phrenzied love.
This disingenuous soul-debasing passion,
Rising from abject and most sordid fear,
Stings her own breast with bitter self-reproof,
Consumes the vitals, pines, and never dies.
Love, Honour, Justice, numberless the forms,
Glorious and high the stature, she assumes;
But watch the wandering changeful mischief well,
And thou shalt see her with low lurid light
Search where the soul’s most valued treasure lies,
Or, more embodied to our vision, stand
With evil eye, and sorcery hers alone,
Looking away her helpless progeny,
And drawing poison from its very smiles.
For Julian’s truth have I not pledged my own?
Have I not sworne Covilla weds no other?
Sis. Her persecutor have not I chastized,
Have not I fought for Julian, won the town,
And liberated thee?
Opas. But left for him
The dangers of pursuit, of ambuscade,
Of absence from thy high and splendid name.
Sis. Do probity and truth want such supports?
Opas. Gryphens and eagles, ivory and gold,
Can add no clearness to the lamp above,
But many look for them in palaces
Who have them not, and want them not, at home.
Virtue and valour and experience
Are never trusted by themselves alone
Further than infancy and idiocy;
The men around him, not the man himself,
Are looked at, and by these is he prefer’d:
’Tis the green mantle of the warrener
And his loud whistle, that alone attract
The lofty gazes of the noble herd:
And thus, without thy countenance and help,
Feeble and faint is still our confidence,
Brief perhaps our success.
Sis. Should I resign
To Abdalazis her I once adored?
He truly, he must wed a Spanish queen!
He rule in Spain! ah! whom could any land
Obey so gladly as the meek, the humble,
The friend of all who have no friend beside,
Covilla! could he choose, or could he find
Another who might so confirm his power?
And now, indeed, from long domestic wars
Who else survives of all our ancient house—
Opas. But Egilona.
Sis. Vainly she upbraids
Roderigo.
Opas. She divorces him, abjures,
And carries vengeance to that hideous highth
Which piety and chastity would shrink
To look from, on the world, or on themselves.