Jul. Accursed he who makes me this reproach,
And made it just! Had I been happy still,
I had been blameless: I had died with glory
Upon the walls of Ceuta.
Rod. Which thy treason
Surrendered to the Infidel.
Jul. ’Tis hard
And base to live beneath a conqueror;
Yet, amidst all this grief and infamy,
’Tis something to have rushed upon the ranks
In their advance; ’twere something to have stood
Defeat, discomfiture; and, when around
No beacon blazes, no far axle groans
Thro’ the wide plain, no sound of sustenance
Or succour sooths the still-believing ear,
To fight upon the last dismantled tower,
And yield to valour, if we yield at all.
But rather should my neck lie trampled down
By every Saracen and Moor on earth,
Than my own country see her laws o’erturn’d
By those who should protect them: Sir, no prince
Shall ruin Spain; and, least of all, her own.
Is any just or glorious act in view,
Your oaths forbid it: is your avarice,
Or, if there be such, any viler passion
To have its giddy range, and to be gorged,
It rises over all your sacraments,
A hooded mystery, holier than they all.
Rod. Hear me, Don Julian; I have heard thy wrath
Who am thy king, nor heard man’s wrath before.
Jul. Thou shalt hear mine, for thou art not my king.
Rod. Knowest thou not the alter’d face of war?
Xeres is ours; from every region round
True loyal Spaniards throng into our camp:
Nay, thy own friends and thy own family,
From the remotest provinces, advance
To crush rebellion: Sisabert is come,
Disclaiming thee and thine; the Asturian hills
Opposed to him their icy chains in vain;
But never wilt thou see him, never more,
Unless in adverse war, and deadly hate.
Jul. So lost to me! So generous, so deceived!
I grieve to hear it.
Rod. Come, I offer grace,
Honour, dominion: send away these slaves,
Or leave them to our sword, and all beyond
The distant Ebro to the towns of France
Shall bless thy name, and bend before thy throne.
I will myself accompany thee, I,
The king, will hail thee brother.
Jul. Ne’er shalt thou
Henceforth be king: the nation, in thy name,
May issue edicts, champions may command
The vassal multitudes of marshall’d war,
And the fierce charger shrink before the shouts,
Lower’d as if earth had open’d at his feet,
While thy mail’d semblance rises tow’rd the ranks,
But God alone sees thee.
Rod. What hopest thou?
To conquer Spain, and rule a ravaged land?
To compass me around, to murder me?