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.
Zulimez. No sound, no face of joy to welcome us!
Alvar. My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment
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!
Zulimez. Then claim your rights in it! O, revered Don Alvar, 10
Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose.
It is too hazardous! reveal yourself,
And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt!
Alvar. Remember, Zulimez! I am his brother,
Injured indeed! O deeply injured! yet 15
Ordonio's brother.
Zulimez. Nobly-minded Alvar!
This sure but gives his guilt a blacker dye.
Alvar. The more behoves it I should rouse within him
Remorse! that I should save him from himself.
Zulimez. Remorse is as the heart in which it grows: 20
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!
Alvar. And of a brother,
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—
Zulimez. You have thrice told already 30
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—
Alvar. My long captivity
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—
Zulimez. Heavy presumption!
Alvar. It weighed not with me—Hark! I will tell thee all; 45
As we passed by, I bade thee mark the base
Of yonder cliff—
Zulimez. That rocky seat you mean,
Shaped by the billows?—
Alvar. There Teresa met me
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]
Had'st thou seen 55
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!
Zulimez. Proceed, my lord!
Alvar. A portrait which she had procured by stealth, 60
(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
Zulimez. A damning proof!
Alvar. My own life wearied me!
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?—
Zulimez. All, all are in the sea-cave, 90
Some furlong hence. I bade our mariners
Secrete the boat there.
Alvar. Above all, the picture
Of the assassination—
Zulimez. Be assured
That it remains uninjured.
Alvar. Thus disguised
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.
[823]Zulimez. Will they not know you?
Alvar. With your aid, friend, I shall unfearingly 100
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.
Zulimez. 'Tis yours, sir, to command, mine to obey. 110
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
Alvar. I know it well: it is the obscurest haunt
Of all the mountains—[823:1]
[Both stand listening.
Voices at a distance!
Let us away! [Exeunt.
FOOTNOTES:
LINENOTES:
[19] Remorse] Remorse Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[20] Remorse] Remorse Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[31] years] year Editions 1, 2, 3.
[35] wish] Wish Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[36] hope] Hope Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[55] After vision! [Then with agitation Editions 1, 2,
3.
[56-9] Compare Destiny of Nations, ll. 174-6, p. 137.
[59] After Zulimez (with a sigh), Editions 1, 2, 3,
1829.
[95] wife] wife Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[105] since] when Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[113] I'll] I will Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[115] Alpujarras] Alpuxarras Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
Scene II
Enter Teresa and Valdez.
Teresa. I hold Ordonio dear; he is your son
And Alvar's brother.
Valdez. Love him for himself,
Nor make the living wretched for the dead.
Teresa. I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord Valdez,
But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain 5
Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living.
Valdez. Heaven knows with what delight I saw your loves,
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.
Teresa. There are woes
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!
Valdez. A thought? even so! mere thought! an empty thought.
The very week he promised his return——
Teresa. Was it not then a busy joy? to see him,
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——
Valdez. O power of youth to feed on pleasant thoughts,
Spite of conviction! I am old and heartless! 60
Yes, I am old—I have no pleasant fancies—
Hectic and unrefreshed with rest—
Teresa. My father!
Valdez. The sober truth is all too much for me!
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!
Teresa. Oh no! he did not!
Valdez. Captured in sight of land!
From yon hill point, nay, from our castle watch-tower
We might have seen——
Teresa. His capture, not his death.
Valdez. Alas! how aptly thou forget'st a tale 70
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.
Teresa. For mercy's sake
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.
Valdez. You wrong him, maiden!
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.
Teresa. Oh pardon me, Lord Valdez! pardon me!
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——
Valdez (looking forward). Hush! 'tis Monviedro.
Teresa. The Inquisitor! on what new scent of blood?
Enter Monviedro with Alhadra.
Monviedro. Peace and the truth be with you! Good my Lord, 105
My present need is with your son.
We have hit the time. Here comes he! Yes, 'tis he.
[Enter from the opposite side Don Ordonio.
My Lord Ordonio, this Moresco woman
(Alhadra is her name) asks audience of you.
Ordonio. Hail, reverend father! what may be the business? 110
Monviedro. My lord, on strong suspicion of relapse
[827]
To his false creed, so recently abjured,
The secret servants of the Inquisition
Have seized her husband, and at my command
To the supreme tribunal would have led him, 115
But that he made appeal to you, my lord,
As surety for his soundness in the faith.
Though lessoned by experience what small trust
The asseverations of these Moors deserve,
Yet still the deference to Ordonio's name, 120
Nor less the wish to prove, with what high honour
The Holy Church regards her faithful soldiers,
Thus far prevailed with me that——
Ordonio. Reverend father,
I am much beholden to your high opinion,
Which so o'erprizes my light services. [Then to Alhadra. 125
I would that I could serve you; but in truth
Your face is new to me.
Monviedro. My mind foretold me
That such would be the event. In truth, Lord Valdez,
'Twas little probable, that Don Ordonio,
That your illustrious son, who fought so bravely 130
Some four years since to quell these rebel Moors,
Should prove the patron of this infidel!
The warranter of a Moresco's faith!
Now I return.
Alhadra. My Lord, my husband's name 135
Is Isidore. (Ordonio starts.) You may remember it:
Three years ago, three years this very week,
You left him at Almeria.
Monviedro. Palpably false!
This very week, three years ago, my lord,
(You needs must recollect it by your wound) 140
You were at sea, and there engaged the pirates,
The murderers doubtless of your brother Alvar!
What, is he ill, my Lord? how strange he looks!
Valdez. You pressed upon him too abruptly, father!
[828]
The fate of one, on whom, you know, he doted. 145
Ordonio. O Heavens! I?—I doted?
Yes! I doted on him. [Ordonio walks to the end of the stage, Valdez follows.
Teresa. I do not, can not, love him. Is my heart hard?
Is my heart hard? that even now the thought
Should force itself upon me?—Yet I feel it! 150
Monviedro. The drops did start and stand upon his forehead!
I will return. In very truth, I grieve
To have been the occasion. Ho! attend me, woman!
Alhadra (to Teresa). O gentle lady! make the father stay,
Until my lord recover. I am sure, 155
That he will say he is my husband's friend.
Teresa. Stay, father! stay! my lord will soon recover.
Ordonio (as they return, to Valdez). Strange, that this Monviedro
Should have the power so to distemper me!
Valdez. Nay, 'twas an amiable weakness, son! 160
Monviedro. My lord, I truly grieve——
Ordonio. Tut! name it not.
A sudden seizure, father! think not of it.
As to this woman's husband, I do know him.
I know him well, and that he is a Christian.
Monviedro. I hope, my lord, your merely human pity 165
Doth not prevail——
Ordonio. 'Tis certain that he was a catholic;
What changes may have happened in three years,
I can not say; but grant me this, good father:
Myself I'll sift him: if I find him sound, 170
You'll grant me your authority and name
To liberate his house.
Monviedro. Your zeal, my lord,
And your late merits in this holy warfare
Would authorize an ampler trust—you have it.
Ordonio. I will attend you home within an hour. 175
Valdez. Meantime return with us and take refreshment.
Alhadra. Not till my husband's free! I may not do it.
I will stay here.
[829]Teresa (aside). Who is this Isidore?
Valdez. Daughter!
Teresa. With your permission, my dear lord, 180
I'll loiter yet awhile t' enjoy the sea breeze.
[Exeunt Valdez, Monviedro and Ordonio.
Alhadra. Hah! there he goes! a bitter curse go with him,
A scathing curse!
You hate him, don't you, lady?
Teresa. Oh fear not me! my heart is sad for you. 185
Alhadra. These fell inquisitors! these sons of blood!
As I came on, his face so maddened me,
That ever and anon I clutched my dagger
And half unsheathed it——
Teresa. Be more calm, I pray you.
Alhadra. And as he walked along the narrow path 190
Close by the mountain's edge, my soul grew eager;
'Twas with hard toil I made myself remember
That his Familiars held my babes and husband.
To have leapt upon him with a tiger's plunge,
And hurl'd him down the rugged precipice, 195
O, it had been most sweet!
Teresa. Hush! hush for shame!
Where is your woman's heart?
Alhadra. O gentle lady!
You have no skill to guess my many wrongs,
Many and strange! Besides, I am a Christian,
And Christians never pardon—'tis their faith! 200
Teresa. Shame fall on those who so have shewn it to thee!
Alhadra. I know that man; 'tis well he knows not me.
Five years ago (and he was the prime agent),
Five years ago the holy brethren seized me.
Teresa. What might your crime be?
Alhadra. I was a Moresco! 205
They cast me, then a young and nursing mother,
Into a dungeon of their prison house,
Where was no bed, no fire, no ray of light,
No touch, no sound of comfort! The black air,
It was a toil to breathe it! when the door, 210
[830]
Slow opening at the appointed hour, disclosed
One human countenance, the lamp's red flame
Cowered as it entered, and at once sank down.
Oh miserable! by that lamp to see
My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread 215
Brought daily; for the little wretch was sickly—
My rage had dried away its natural food.[830:1]
In darkness I remained—the dull bell counting,
Which haply told me, that the all-cheering sun
Was rising on our garden. When I dozed, 220
My infant's moanings mingled with my slumbers
And waked me.—If you were a mother, lady,
I should scarce dare to tell you, that its noises
And peevish cries so fretted on my brain
That I have struck the innocent babe in anger. 225
Teresa. O Heaven! it is too horrible to hear.
Alhadra. What was it then to suffer? 'Tis most right
That such as you should hear it.—Know you not,
What nature makes you mourn, she bids you heal?[830:2]
Great evils ask great passions to redress them, 230
And whirlwinds fitliest scatter pestilence.
Teresa. You were at length released?
Alhadra. Yes, at length
I saw the blessed arch of the whole heaven!
'Twas the first time my infant smiled. No more—
For if I dwell upon that moment, Lady, 235
A trance comes on which makes me o'er again
All I then was—my knees hang loose and drag,
And my lip falls with such an idiot laugh,
That you would start and shudder!
Teresa. But your husband—
Alhadra. A month's imprisonment would kill him, Lady. 240
Teresa. Alas, poor man!
Alhadra. He hath a lion's courage,
Fearless in act, but feeble in endurance;
Unfit for boisterous times, with gentle heart
He worships nature in the hill and valley,
[831]
Not knowing what he loves, but loves it all— 245
Enter Alvar disguised as a Moresco, and in Moorish garments.