Don Carlos | Page 4

I to blame, if slavish nurture crushed
Love's
tender germ within my youthful heart?
Six years I'd numbered, ere
the fearful man,
They told me was my father, met mine eyes.
One
morning 'twas, when with a stroke I saw him
Sign four
death-warrants. After that I ne'er
Beheld him, save when, for some
childish fault,
I was brought out for chastisement. O God!
I feel my
heart grow bitter at the thought.
Let us away! away!
MARQUIS.

Nay, Carlos, nay,
You must, you shall give all your sorrow vent,

Let it have words! 'twill ease your o'erfraught heart.
CARLOS.
Oft have I struggled with myself, and oft
At midnight,
when my guards were sunk in sleep,
With floods of burning tears I've
sunk before
The image of the ever-blessed Virgin,
And craved a
filial heart, but all in vain.
I rose with prayer unheard. O Roderigo!

Unfold this wondrous mystery of heaven,
Why of a thousand fathers
only this
Should fall to me--and why to him this son,
Of many
thousand better? Nature could not
In her wide orb have found two
opposites
More diverse in their elements. How could
She bind the
two extremes of human kind--
Myself and him--in one so holy bond?

O dreadful fate! Why was it so decreed?
Why should two men, in
all things else apart,
Concur so fearfully in one desire?
Roderigo,
here thou seest two hostile stars,
That in the lapse of ages, only once,

As they sweep onwards in their orbed course,
Touch with a crash
that shakes them to the centre,
Then rush apart forever and forever.
MARQUIS.
I feel a dire foreboding.
CARLOS.
So do I.
Like hell's grim furies, dreams of dreadful shape
Pursue me
still. My better genius strives
With the fell projects of a dark despair.

My wildered subtle spirit crawls through maze
On maze of
sophistries, until at length
It gains a yawning precipice's brink.
O
Roderigo! should I e'er in him
Forget the father--ah! thy deathlike
look
Tells me I'm understood--should I forget
The father--what
were then the king to me?
MARQUIS (after a pause).
One thing, my Carlos, let me beg of you!

Whate'er may be your plans, do nothing,--nothing,--
Without your
friend's advice. You promise this?
CARLOS.

All, all I promise that thy love can ask!
I throw myself

entirely upon thee!
MARQUIS.
The king, I hear, is going to Madrid.
The time is short.
If with the queen you would
Converse in private, it is only here,

Here in Aranjuez, it can be done.
The quiet of the place, the freer
manners,
All favor you.
CARLOS.
And such, too, was my hope;
But it, alas! was vain.
MARQUIS.
Not wholly so.
I go to wait upon her. If she be
The same in Spain
she was in Henry's court,
She will be frank at least. And if I can

Read any hope for Carlos in her looks--
Find her inclined to grant an
interview--
Get her attendant ladies sent away----
CARLOS.
Most of them are my friends--especially
The Countess
Mondecar, whom I have gained
By service to her son, my page.
MARQUIS.
'Tis well;
Be you at hand, and ready to appear,
Whene'er I give the
signal, prince.
CARLOS.
I will,--
Be sure I will:--and all good speed attend thee!
MARQUIS.
I will not lose a moment; so, farewell.
[Exeunt severally.
SCENE III.
The Queen's Residence in Aranjuez. The Pleasure Grounds, intersected

by an avenue, terminated by the Queen's Palace.
The QUEEN, DUCHESS OF OLIVAREZ, PRINCESS OF EBOLI,
and MARCHIONESS OF MONDECAR, all advancing from the
avenue.
QUEEN (to the MARCHIONESS).
I will have you beside me,
Mondecar.
The princess, with these merry eyes of hers,
Has
plagued me all the morning. See, she scarce
Can hide the joy she
feels to leave the country.
EBOLI.
'Twere idle to conceal, my queen, that I
Shall be most glad
to see Madrid once more.
MONDECAR.
And will your majesty not be so, too?
Are you so
grieved to quit Aranjuez?
QUEEN.
To quit--this lovely spot at least I am.
This is my world.
Its sweetness oft and oft
Has twined itself around my inmost heart.

Here, nature, simple, rustic nature greets me,
The sweet companion of
my early years--
Here I indulge once more my childhood's sports,

And my dear France's gales come blowing here.
Blame not this
partial fondness--all hearts yearn
For their own native land.
EBOLI.
But then how lone,
How dull and lifeless it is here! We might
As
well be in La Trappe.
QUEEN.
I cannot see it.
To me Madrid alone is lifeless. But
What saith our
duchess to it?
OLIVAREZ.
Why, methinks,
Your majesty, since kings have ruled in Spain,
It

hath been still the custom for the court
To pass the summer months
alternately
Here and at Pardo,--in Madrid, the winter.
QUEEN.
Well, I suppose it has! Duchess, you know
I've long
resigned all argument with you.
MONDECAR.
Next month Madrid will be all life and bustle.

They're fitting up the Plaza Mayor now,
And we shall have rare
bull-fights; and, besides,
A grand auto da fe is promised us.
QUEEN.
Promised? This from my gentle Mondecar!
MONDECAR.
Why not? 'Tis only heretics they burn!
QUEEN.
I hope my Eboli thinks otherwise!
EBOLI.
What, I? I beg your majesty may think me
As good a
Christian as the marchioness.
QUEEN.
Alas! I had forgotten where I am,--
No more of this! We
were speaking, I