Читать книгу The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 154
SCENE II
ОглавлениеThe interior Court of a Saracenic or Gothic Castle with the iron gate
of a dungeon visible.
Teresa. Heart-chilling Superstition! thou canst glaze
Ev’n Pity’s eye with her own frozen tear.
In vain I urge the tortures that await him:
Even Selma, reverend guardian of my childhood,
My second mother, shuts her heart against me!
Well, I have won from her what most imports
The present need, this secret of the dungeon
Known only to herself. — A Moor! a Sorcerer!
No, I have faith, that nature ne’er permitted
Baseness to wear a form so noble. True,
I doubt not, that Ordonio had suborned him
To act some part in some unholy fraud;
As little doubt, that for some unknown purpose
He hath baffled his suborner, terror-struck him,
And that Ordonio meditates revenge!
But my resolve is fixed! myself will rescue him,
And learn if haply he knew aught of Alvar.
Enter VALDEZ.
Valdez. Still sad? — and gazing at the massive door
Of that fell dungeon which thou ne’er had’st sight of,
Save what, perchance, thy infant fancy shap’d it
When the nurse still’d thy cries with unmeant threats.
Now by my faith, girl! this same wizard haunts thee!
A stately man, and eloquent and tender —
Who then need wonder if a lady sighs
Even at the thought of what these stern Dominicans —
Teresa. The horror of their ghastly punishments
Doth so o’ertop the height of all compassion,
That I should feel too little for mine enemy,
If it were possible I could feel more,
Even though the dearest inmates of our household
Were doom’d to suffer them. That such things are —
Remorse.
O honor’d Selma! this strange man has left me
Wilder’d with stranger fancies than yon moon
Corr. in MS. III.
She gazes idly!
Ter. But that entrance, Selma
Corr. in MS. III.
[Between 248 and 255:]
What if Monviedro or his creatures hear us!
I dare not listen to you.
Teresa. My honoured lord,
These were my Alvar’s lessons, and whene’er
I bend me o’er his portrait, I repeat them,
As if to give a voice to the mute image.
Valdez. —— We have mourned for
Alvar.
Of his sad fate there now remains no doubt.
Have I no other son?
Remorse.
Remorse.
[Between 262 and 268:]
O that I had indeed the sorcerer’s power. —
I would call up before thine eyes the image
Of my betrothed Alvar, of thy first-born!
His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love’s day-dawn on his lips!
That spiritual and almost heavenly light
In his commanding eye — his mien heroic,
Virtue’s own native heraldry! to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
Whene’er he gladden’d, how the gladness spread
Wide round him! and when oft with swelling tears,
Flash’d through by indignation, he bewail’d
The wrongs of Belgium’s martyr’d patriots,
Oh, what a grief was there — for joy to envy,
Or gaze upon enamour’d!
O my father!
Recall that morning when we knelt together,
And thou didst bless our loves! O even now,
Even now, my sire! to thy mind’s eye present him,
As at that moment he rose up before thee,
Stately, with beaming look! Place, place beside him
Ordonio’s dark perturbed countenance!
Then bid me (Oh thou could’st not) bid me turn
From him, the joy, the triumph of our kind!
To take in exchange that brooding man, who never
Lifts up his eye from the earth, unless to scowl.
Remorse.
[Between 274-87:]
Teresa. O grief! to hear
Hateful intreaties from a voice we love!
Enter a PEASANT and presents a letter to VALDEZ.
Valdez (reading it). ‘He dares not venture hither!’ Why what can
this mean?
‘Lest the Familiars of the Inquisition,
That watch around my gates, should intercept him;
But he conjures me, that without delay
I hasten to him — for my own sake entreats me
To guard from danger him I hold imprison’d —
He will reveal a secret, the joy of which
Will even outweigh the sorrow.’ — Why what can this be?
Perchance it is some Moorish stratagem,
To have in me a hostage for his safety.
Nay, that they dare not! Ho! collect my servants!
I will go thither — let them arm themselves. [Exit VALDEZ.
Teresa (alone). The moon is high in heaven, and all is hush’d.
Yet anxious listener! I have seem’d to hear
A low dead thunder mutter thro’ the night,
As ‘twere a giant angry in his sleep.
O Alvar! Alvar! &c.
Remorse.
[After 276] And all his wealth perhaps come to the Church MS. III.
erased.
[After 296]
[A pause.
And this majestic Moor, seems he not one
Who oft and long communing with my Alvar,
Hath drunk in kindred lustre from his presence,
And guides me to him with reflected light?
What if in yon dark dungeon coward treachery
Be groping for him with envenomed poniard —
Hence womanish fears, traitors to love and duty —
I’ll free him. [Exit TERESA.
