Life Is A Dream | Page 6

upon the stage?Of under earth, where lion, wolf, and bear,?And they that on their treacherous velvet wear?Figure and constellation like your own,?With their still living slaughter bound away?Over the barriers of the mountain cage,?Against which one, blood-guiltless, and endued?With aspiration and with aptitude?Transcending other creatures, day by day?Beats himself mad with unavailing rage!
FIFE.?Why, that must be the meaning of my mule's?Rebellion--
ROS.?Hush!
SEG.?But then if murder be?The law by which not only conscience-blind?Creatures, but man too prospers with his kind;?Who leaving all his guilty fellows free,?Under your fatal auspice and divine?Compulsion, leagued in some mysterious ban?Against one innocent and helpless man,?Abuse their liberty to murder mine:?And sworn to silence, like their masters mute?In heaven, and like them twirling through the mask?Of darkness, answering to all I ask,?Point up to them whose work they execute!
ROS.?Ev'n as I thought, some poor unhappy wretch,?By man wrong'd, wretched, unrevenged, as I!?Nay, so much worse than I, as by those chains?Clipt of the means of self-revenge on those?Who lay on him what they deserve. And I,?Who taunted Heaven a little while ago?With pouring all its wrath upon my head--?Alas! like him who caught the cast-off husk?Of what another bragg'd of feeding on,?Here's one that from the refuse of my sorrows?Could gather all the banquet he desires!?Poor soul, poor soul!
FIFE.?Speak lower--he will hear you.
ROS.?And if he should, what then? Why, if he would,?He could not harm me--Nay, and if he could,?Methinks I'd venture something of a life?I care so little for--
SEG.?Who's that? Clotaldo? Who are you, I say,?That, venturing in these forbidden rocks,?Have lighted on my miserable life,?And your own death?
ROS.?You would not hurt me, surely?
SEG.?Not I; but those that, iron as the chain?In which they slay me with a lingering death,?Will slay you with a sudden--Who are you?
ROS.?A stranger from across the mountain there,?Who, having lost his way in this strange land?And coming night, drew hither to what seem'd?A human dwelling hidden in these rocks,?And where the voice of human sorrow soon?Told him it was so.
SEG.?Ay? But nearer--nearer--?That by this smoky supplement of day?But for a moment I may see who speaks?So pitifully sweet.
FIFE.?Take care! take care!
ROS.?Alas, poor man, that I, myself so helpless,?Could better help you than by barren pity,?And my poor presence--
SEG.?Oh, might that be all!?But that--a few poor moments--and, alas!?The very bliss of having, and the dread?Of losing, under such a penalty?As every moment's having runs more near,?Stifles the very utterance and resource?They cry for quickest; till from sheer despair?Of holding thee, methinks myself would tear?To pieces--
FIFE.?There, his word's enough for it.
SEG.?Oh, think, if you who move about at will,?And live in sweet communion with your kind,?After an hour lost in these lonely rocks?Hunger and thirst after some human voice?To drink, and human face to feed upon;?What must one do where all is mute, or harsh,?And ev'n the naked face of cruelty?Were better than the mask it works beneath?--?Across the mountain then! Across the mountain!?What if the next world which they tell one of?Be only next across the mountain then,?Though I must never see it till I die,?And you one of its angels?
ROS.?Alas; alas!?No angel! And the face you think so fair,?'Tis but the dismal frame-work of these rocks?That makes it seem so; and the world I come from--?Alas, alas, too many faces there?Are but fair vizors to black hearts below,?Or only serve to bring the wearer woe!?But to yourself--If haply the redress?That I am here upon may help to yours.?I heard you tax the heavens with ordering,?And men for executing, what, alas!?I now behold. But why, and who they are?Who do, and you who suffer--
SEG. (pointing upwards).?Ask of them,?Whom, as to-night, I have so often ask'd,?And ask'd in vain.
ROS.?But surely, surely--
SEG.?Hark!?The trumpet of the watch to shut us in.?Oh, should they find you!--Quick! Behind the rocks!?To-morrow--if to-morrow--
ROS. (flinging her sword toward him).?Take my sword!
(Rosaura and Fife hide in the rocks; Enter Clotaldo)
CLOTALDO.?These stormy days you like to see the last of?Are but ill opiates, Segismund, I think,?For night to follow: and to-night you seem?More than your wont disorder'd. What! A sword??Within there!
(Enter Soldiers with black vizors and torches)
FIFE.?Here's a pleasant masquerade!
CLO.?Whosever watch this was?Will have to pay head-reckoning. Meanwhile,?This weapon had a wearer. Bring him here,?Alive or dead.
SEG.?Clotaldo! good Clotaldo!--
CLO. (to Soldiers who enclose Segismund; others searching the rocks). You know your duty.
SOLDIERS (bringing in Rosaura and Fife).?Here are two of them,?Whoever more to follow--
CLO.?Who are you,?That in defiance of known proclamation?Are found, at night-fall too, about this place?
FIFE.?Oh, my Lord, she--I mean he--
ROS.?Silence, Fife,?And let me speak for both.--Two foreign men,?To whom your country and its proclamations?Are equally unknown; and had we known,?Ourselves not masters of our lawless beasts?That, terrified by the storm among your rocks,?Flung us upon them to our cost.
FIFE.?My mule--
CLO.?Foreigners? Of what country?
ROS.?Muscovy.
CLO.?And whither bound?
ROS.?Hither--if this be Poland;?But with no ill design on her, and therefore?Taking it ill that