[812:1] Preface, Prologue, and Epilogue do not appear in the 1834 edition.
[812:2] The long passage here placed within square brackets [ ] appeared in the first edition only.
[812:4] Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
[812:5] Tragedy for his theatre MS. R.
[812:6] I need not say to Authors, that as to the essentials of a Poem, little can be superinduced without dissonance, after the first warmth of conception and composition. [Note by S. T. C., first edition.]
[812:7] would condescend to point out MS. R.
[813:1] not only returned MS. R.
[813:2] and] not only MS. R.
[813:3] that he] not only MS. R.
[813:4] I for the first time saw MS. R.
[813:5] likewise . . . assured] not only asserted MS. R.
[813:6] but finally (and it is this last fact alone, which was malice for which no excuse of indolence self-made is adduced which determined me to refer to what I had already forgiven and almost forgotten) in the year 1806 MS. R.
[813:7] the] this MS. R.
[813:8] (Private.) Had the Piece been really silly (and I have proof positive that Sheridan did not think it so) yet 10 years afterwards to have committed a breach of confidence in order to injure the otherwise . . . that on the ground of an indiscretion into which he had himself seduced the writer, and the writer, too, a man whose reputation was his Bread—a man who had devoted the firstlings of his talents to the celebration of Sheridan's genius—and who after he met treatment not only never spoke unkindly or resentfully of it, but actually was zealous and frequent in defending and praising his public principles of conduct in the Morning Post—and all this in the presence of men of Rank previously disposed to think highly . . . I am sure you will not be surprised that this did provoke me, and that it justifies to my heart the detail here printed.
P.S.—I never spoke severely of R. B. S. but once and then I confess, I did say that Sheridan was Sheridan. MS. R.
[813:9] The fourth act of the play in its original shape, and, presumably, as sent to Sheridan, opened with the following lines:—
It has nothing else to do but drip! drip! drip!
I wish it had not dripp'd upon my torch.'
In MS. III the opening lines are erased and the fourth Act opens thus:—
| This ceaseless dreary sound of |
|
dropping water |
|
| I would they had not fallen upon my Torch! | |||
After the lapse of sixteen years Coleridge may have confused the corrected version with the original. There is no MS. authority for the line as quoted in the Preface.
[814:1] 'This circumstance.' Second edition.
[814:2] The caste was as follows:—Marquis Valdez, Mr. Pope; Don Alvar, Mr. Elliston; Don Ordonio, Mr. Rae; Monviedro, Mr. Powell; Zulimez, Mr. Crooke; Isidore, Mr. De Camp; Naomi, Mr. Wallack; Donna Teresa, Miss Smith; Alhadra, Mrs. Glover.
[814:3] Mrs. G.'s eldest child was buried on the Thursday—two others were ill, and one, with croup given over (tho' it has since recovered) and spite of her's, the physician's and my most passionate remonstrances, she was forced to act Alhadra on the Saturday!!!
Mrs. Glover (I do not much like her, in some respects) was duped into a marriage with a worthless Sharper, who passed himself off on her as a man of rank and fortune and who now lives and feeds himself and his vices on her salary—and hence all her affections flow in the channel of her maternal feelings. She is a passionately fond mother, and to act Alhadra on the Saturday after the Thursday's Burial! MS. H. (For MS. H see p. 819.)
[815:1] Poor Rae! a good man as Friend, Husband, Father. He did his best! but his person is so insignificant, tho' a handsome man off the stage—and, worse than that, the thinness and an insufficiency of his voice—yet Ordonio has done him service. MS. H.
PROLOGUE
BY C. LAMB[816:1]
Spoken by Mr. Carr
Our modern theatres' unwieldy size.
We players shall scarce plead guilty to that charge,
Who think a house can never be too large:
Griev'd when a rant, that's worth a nation's ear, 5
Shakes some prescrib'd Lyceum's petty sphere;
And pleased to mark the grin from space to space
Spread epidemic o'er a town's broad face.—
O might old Betterton or Booth return
To view our structures from their silent urn, 10
Could Quin come stalking from Elysian glades,
Or Garrick get a day-rule from the shades—
Where now, perhaps, in mirth which Spirits approve,
He imitates the ways of men above,
And apes the actions of our upper coast, 15
As in his days of flesh he play'd the ghost:—
How might they bless our ampler scope to please,
And hate their own old shrunk up audiences.—
Their houses yet were palaces to those,
Which Ben and Fletcher for their triumphs chose, 20
Shakspeare, who wish'd a kingdom for a stage,
Like giant pent in disproportion'd cage,
Mourn'd his contracted strengths and crippled rage.
He who could tame his vast ambition down
To please some scatter'd gleanings of a town, 25
And, if some hundred auditors supplied
Their meagre meed of claps, was satisfied,
How had he felt, when that dread curse of Lear's
Had burst tremendous on a thousand ears,
While deep-struck wonder from applauding bands 30
Return'd the tribute of as many hands!
Rude were his guests; he never made his bow
To such an audience as salutes us now.
He lack'd the balm of labour, female praise.
Few Ladies in his time frequented plays, 35
[817] Or came to see a youth with awkward art
And shrill sharp pipe burlesque the woman's part.
The very use, since so essential grown,
Of painted scenes, was to his stage unknown.
The air-blest castle, round whose wholesome crest, 40
The martlet, guest of summer, chose her nest—
The forest walks of Arden's fair domain,
Where Jaques fed his solitary vein—
No pencil's aid as yet had dared supply,
Seen only by the intellectual eye. 45
Those scenic helps, denied to Shakspeare's page,
Our Author owes to a more liberal age.
Nor pomp nor circumstance are wanting here;
'Tis for himself alone that he must fear.
Yet shall remembrance cherish the just pride, 50
That (be the laurel granted or denied)
He first essay'd in this distinguished fane,
Severer muses and a tragic strain.
FOOTNOTES:
[816:1] A rejected address—which poor Charles was restless to have used. I fitted him with an Epilogue of the same calibre with his Prologue, but I thought it would be going a little too far to publish mine. MS. H.
EPILOGUE
Written by the Author, and spoken by Miss Smith in the character of Teresa.
[As printed in The Morning Chronicle, Jan. 28, 1813.]
The Poet has just sent his Epilogue;
Ay, 'tis just like him!—and the hand!
[Poring over the manuscript.
The stick!
I could as soon decipher Arabic!
But, hark! my wizard's own poetic elf 5
Bids me take courage, and make one myself!
An heiress, and with sighing swains in plenty
From blooming nineteen to full-blown five-and-twenty,
Life beating high, and youth upon the wing,
'A six years' absence was a heavy thing!' 10
Heavy!—nay, let's describe things as they are,
With sense and nature 'twas at open war—
Mere affectation to be singular.
Yet ere you overflow in condemnation,
Think first of poor Teresa's education; 15
'Mid mountains wild, near billow-beaten rocks,
[818] Where sea-gales play'd with her dishevel'd locks,
Bred in the spot where first to light she sprung,
With no Academies for ladies young—
Academies—(sweet phrase!) that well may claim 20
From Plato's sacred grove th' appropriate name!
No morning visits, no sweet waltzing dances—
And then for reading—what but huge romances,
With as stiff morals, leaving earth behind 'em,
As the brass-clasp'd, brass-corner'd boards that bind 'em. 25
Knights, chaste as brave, who strange adventures seek,
And faithful loves of ladies, fair as meek;
Or saintly hermits' wonder-raising acts,
Instead of—novels founded upon facts!
Which, decently immoral, have the art 30
To spare the blush, and undersap the heart!
Oh, think of these, and hundreds worse than these,
Dire disimproving disadvantages,
And grounds for pity, not for blame, you'll see,
E'en in Teresa's six years' constancy. 35
[Looking at the manuscript.
But stop! what's this?—Our Poet bids me say,
That he has woo'd your feelings in this Play
By no too real woes, that make you groan,
Recalling kindred griefs, perhaps your own,
Yet with no image compensate the mind, 40
Nor leave one joy for memory behind.
He'd wish no loud laugh, from the sly, shrewd sneer,
To unsettle from your eyes the quiet tear
That Pity had brought, and Wisdom would leave there.
Now calm he waits your judgment! (win or miss), 45
By no loud plaudits saved, damn'd by no factious hiss.
REMORSE[819:1]
A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS[819:2]
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
| 1797. | 1813-1834. | |
| Velez | = | Marquis Valdez, Father to the two brothers, and Doña Teresa's Guardian. |
| Albert | = | Don Alvar, the eldest son. |
| Osorio | = | Don Ordonio, the youngest son. |
| Francesco | = | Monviedro, a Dominican and Inquisitor. |
| Maurice | = | Zulimez, the faithful attendant on Alvar. |
| Ferdinand | = | Isidore, a Moresco Chieftain, ostensibly a Christian. |
| Naomi | = | Naomi. |
| Moors, Servants, &c. | ||
| Maria | = | Doña Teresa, an Orphan Heiress. |
| Alhadra, wife of Ferdinand | = | Alhadra, Wife of Isidore. |
| Familiars of the Inquisition. | ||
| Moors, Servants, &c. | ||
Time. The reign of Philip II., just at the close of the civil wars against the Moors, and during the heat of the persecution which raged against them, shortly after the edict which forbade the wearing of Moresco apparel under pain of death.
FOOTNOTES:
[819:1] Remorse, a recast of Osorio, was first played at Drury Lane Theatre, January 23, 1813, and had a run of twenty nights. It was first published as a pamphlet of seventy-two pages in 1813, and ran through three editions. The Second Edition, which numbered seventy-eight pages, was enlarged by an Appendix consisting of a passage which formed part of Act IV, Scene 2 of Osorio, and had been published in the Lyrical Ballads (1798, 1800, 1802, and 1805) as a separate poem entitled 'The Foster-Mother's Tale' (vide ante, pp. 182-4, 571-4), and of a second passage numbering twenty-eight lines, which was afterwards printed as a footnote to Remorse, Act II, Scene 2, line 42 (vide post, p. 842) 'You are a painter, &c.' The Third Edition was a reissue of the Second. In the Athenæum, April 1, 1896, J. D. Campbell points out that there were three issues of the First Edition, of which he had only seen the first; viz. (1) the normal text [Edition I]; (2) a second issue [Edition I (b)] quoted by the Editor (R. H. Shepherd) of Osorio, 1877, as a variant of Act V, line 252; (3) a third issue quoted by the same writer in his edition of P. W., 1877-80, iii. 154, 155 [Edition I (c)]. There is a copy of Edition I (b) in the British Museum: save in respect of Act V, line 252, it does not vary from Edition I. I have not seen a copy of Edition I (c). Two copies of Remorse annotated by S. T. Coleridge have passed through my hands, (1) a copy of the First Edition presented to the Manager of the Theatre, J. G. Raymond (MS. R.), and (2) a copy of the Second Edition presented to Miss Sarah Hutchinson (MS. H.). Remorse is included in 1828, 1829, and 1834.
[819:2] This Tragedy has a particular advantage—it has the first scene, in which Prologue plays Dialogue with Dumby. (MS. H.)
ACT I
Scene I
The Sea Shore on the Coast of Granada.
Don Alvar, wrapt in a Boat cloak, and Zulimez (a Moresco), both as just landed.
Let me forget my anguish and their crimes.
If aught on earth demand an unmix'd feeling,
'Tis surely this—after long years of exile, 5
To step forth on firm land, and gazing round us,
To hail at once our country, and our birth-place.
Hail, Spain! Granada, hail! once more I press
Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers!
Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose.
It is too hazardous! reveal yourself,
And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt!
Injured indeed! O deeply injured! yet 15
Ordonio's brother.
This sure but gives his guilt a blacker dye.
Remorse! that I should save him from himself.
If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews
Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,
It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost
Weeps only tears of poison!
Dare I hold this, unproved? nor make one effort 25
To save him?—Hear me, friend! I have yet to tell thee,
That this same life, which he conspired to take,
Himself once rescued from the angry flood,
And at the imminent hazard of his own.
Add too my oath—
The years of absence and of secrecy,
[821] To which a forced oath bound you; if in truth
A suborned murderer have the power to dictate
A binding oath—
Left me no choice: the very wish too languished 35
With the fond hope that nursed it; the sick babe
Drooped at the bosom of its famished mother.
But (more than all) Teresa's perfidy;
The assassin's strong assurance, when no interest,
No motive could have tempted him to falsehood: 40
In the first pangs of his awaken'd conscience,
When with abhorrence of his own black purpose
The murderous weapon, pointed at my breast,
Fell from his palsied hand—
As we passed by, I bade thee mark the base
Of yonder cliff—
Shaped by the billows?—
The morning of the day of my departure.
We were alone: the purple hue of dawn 50
Fell from the kindling east aslant upon us,
And blending with the blushes on her cheek,
Suffused the tear-drops there with rosy light.
There seemed a glory round us, and Teresa
The angel of the vision![821:1]
How in each motion her most innocent soul
Beamed forth and brightened, thou thyself would'st tell me,
Guilt is a thing impossible in her!
She must be innocent!
(For even then it seems her heart foreboded
[822] Or knew Ordonio's moody rivalry)
A portrait of herself with thrilling hand
She tied around my neck, conjuring me,
With earnest prayers, that I would keep it sacred 65
To my own knowledge: nor did she desist,
Till she had won a solemn promise from me,
That (save my own) no eye should e'er behold it
Till my return. Yet this the assassin knew,
Knew that which none but she could have disclosed. 70
And but for the imperative voice within,
With mine own hand I had thrown off the burthen.
That voice, which quelled me, calmed me: and I sought
The Belgic states: there joined the better cause; 75
And there too fought as one that courted death!
Wounded, I fell among the dead and dying,
In death-like trance: a long imprisonment followed.
The fulness of my anguish by degrees
Waned to a meditative melancholy; 80
And still the more I mused, my soul became
More doubtful, more perplexed; and still Teresa,
Night after night, she visited my sleep,
Now as a saintly sufferer, wan and tearful,
Now as a saint in glory beckoning to me! 85
Yes, still as in contempt of proof and reason,
I cherish the fond faith that she is guiltless!
Hear then my fix'd resolve: I'll linger here
In the disguise of a Moresco chieftain.—
The Moorish robes?—
Some furlong hence. I bade our mariners
Secrete the boat there.
Of the assassination—
That it remains uninjured.
I will first seek to meet Ordonio's—wife! 95
If possible, alone too. This was her wonted walk,
And this the hour; her words, her very looks
Will acquit her or convict.
Trust the disguise; and as to my complexion,
My long imprisonment, the scanty food,
This scar—and toil beneath a burning sun,
Have done already half the business for us.
Add too my youth, since last we saw each other. 105
Manhood has swoln my chest, and taught my voice
A hoarser note—Besides, they think me dead:
And what the mind believes impossible,
The bodily sense is slow to recognize.
Now to the cave beneath the vaulted rock,
Where having shaped you to a Moorish chieftain,
I'll seek our mariners; and in the dusk
Transport whate'er we need to the small dell
In the Alpujarras—there where Zagri lived. 115
Of all the mountains—[823:1] [Both stand listening.
Voices at a distance!
Let us away! [Exeunt.
FOOTNOTES:
[821:1] May not a man, without breach of the 8th Commandment, take out of his left pocket and put into his right? MS. H. (Vide ante, p. 406, To William Wordsworth, l. 43.)
[823:1] Till the Play was printed off, I never remembered or, rather, never recollected that this phrase was taken from Mr. Wordsworth's Poems. Thank God it was not from his MSS. Poems; and at the 2nd Edition I was afraid to point it out lest it should appear a trick to introduce his name. MS. H. [Coleridge is thinking of a line in The Brothers, 'It is the loneliest place in all these hills.']
LINENOTES:
Remorse] Remorse Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
Remorse] Remorse Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
years] year Editions 1, 2, 3.
wish] Wish Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
hope] Hope Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
After vision! [Then with agitation Editions 1, 2, 3.
Compare Destiny of Nations, ll. 174-6, p. 137.
After Zulimez (with a sigh), Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
Yes] And Edition 1.
wife] wife Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
since] when Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
I'll] I will Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
Alpujarras] Alpuxarras Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
Scene II
Enter Teresa and Valdez.
And Alvar's brother.
Nor make the living wretched for the dead.
But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain 5
Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living.
And could my heart's blood give him back to thee
I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts!
Thy dying father comes upon my soul 10
With that same look, with which he gave thee to me;
[824] I held thee in my arms a powerless babe,
While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty
Fixed her faint eyes on mine. Ah not for this,
That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom, 15
And with slow anguish wear away thy life,
The victim of a useless constancy.
I must not see thee wretched.
Ill bartered for the garishness of joy!
If it be wretched with an untired eye 20
To watch those skiey tints, and this green ocean;
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock,
My hair dishevelled by the pleasant sea breeze,
To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again
All past hours of delight! If it be wretched 25
To watch some bark, and fancy Alvar there,
To go through each minutest circumstance
Of the blest meeting, and to frame adventures
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them;[824:1]
(As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid 30
Who drest her in her buried lover's clothes,
And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft
Hung with her lute, and played the selfsame tune
He used to play, and listened to the shadow
Herself had made)—if this be wretchedness, 35
And if indeed it be a wretched thing
To trick out mine own death-bed, and imagine
That I had died, died just ere his return!
Then see him listening to my constancy,
Or hover round, as he at midnight oft 40
Sits on my grave and gazes at the moon;
Or haply in some more fantastic mood,
To be in Paradise, and with choice flowers
Build up a bower where he and I might dwell,
[825] And there to wait his coming! O my sire! 45
My Alvar's sire! if this be wretchedness
That eats away the life, what were it, think you,
If in a most assured reality
He should return, and see a brother's infant
Smile at him from my arms? 50
Oh what a thought!
The very week he promised his return——
After those three years' travels! we had no fears— 55
The frequent tidings, the ne'er failing letter.
Almost endeared his absence! Yet the gladness,
The tumult of our joy! What then if now——
Spite of conviction! I am old and heartless! 60
Yes, I am old—I have no pleasant fancies—
Hectic and unrefreshed with rest—
I see no sail which brings not to my mind
The home-bound bark in which my son was captured 65
By the Algerine—to perish with his captors!
From yon hill point, nay, from our castle watch-tower
We might have seen——
Thou ne'er didst wish to learn! my brave Ordonio
Saw both the pirate and his prize go down,
In the same storm that baffled his own valour,
And thus twice snatched a brother from his hopes:
Gallant Ordonio! O beloved Teresa, 75
Would'st thou best prove thy faith to generous Alvar,
And most delight his spirit, go, make thou
[826] His brother happy, make his aged father
Sink to the grave in joy.
Press me no more! I have no power to love him. 80
His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow,
Chill me like dew-damps of the unwholesome night:
My love, a timorous and tender flower,
Closes beneath his touch.
You wrong him, by my soul! Nor was it well 85
To character by such unkindly phrases
The stir and workings of that love for you
Which he has toiled to smother. 'Twas not well,
Nor is it grateful in you to forget
His wounds and perilous voyages, and how 90
With an heroic fearlessness of danger
He roam'd the coast of Afric for your Alvar.
It was not well—You have moved me even to tears.
It was a foolish and ungrateful speech, 95
A most ungrateful speech! But I am hurried
Beyond myself, if I but hear of one
Who aims to rival Alvar. Were we not
Born in one day, like twins of the same parent?
Nursed in one cradle? Pardon me, my father! 100
A six years' absence is a heavy thing,
Yet still the hope survives——
Enter Monviedro with Alhadra.