Life Is A Dream | Page 9

the realm,
And under strict anathema of death
Guarded from
men's inquisitive approach,
Save from the trusty few one needs must
trust;
Who while his fasten'd body they provide
With salutary garb
and nourishment,
Instruct his soul in what no soul may miss

Of
holy faith, and in such other lore
As may solace his life-imprisonment,

And tame perhaps the Savage prophesied
Toward such a trial as I
aim at now,
And now demand your special hearing to.
What in this
fearful business I have done,
Judge whether lightly or maliciously,--

I, with my own and only flesh and blood,
And proper lineal
inheritor!
I swear, had his foretold atrocities
Touch'd me alone. I
had not saved myself
At such a cost to him; but as a king,--
A
Christian king,--I say, advisedly,
Who would devote his people to a

tyrant
Worse than Caligula fore-chronicled?
But even this not
without grave mis-giving,
Lest by some chance mis-reading of the
stars,
Or mis-direction of what rightly read,
I wrong my son of his
prerogative,
And Poland of her rightful sovereign.
For, sure and
certain prophets as the stars,
Although they err not, he who reads
them may;
Or rightly reading--seeing there is One
Who governs
them, as, under Him, they us,
We are not sure if the rough diagram

They draw in heaven and we interpret here,
Be sure of operation, if
the Will
Supreme, that sometimes for some special end
The course
of providential nature breaks
By miracle, may not of these same stars

Cancel his own first draft, or overrule
What else fore-written all
else overrules.
As, for example, should the Will Almighty
Permit
the Free-will of particular man
To break the meshes of else strangling
fate--
Which Free-will, fearful of foretold abuse,
I have myself
from my own son fore-closed
From ever possible self-extrication;

A terrible responsibility,
Not to the conscience to be reconciled

Unless opposing almost certain evil
Against so slight contingency of
good.
Well--thus perplex'd, I have resolved at last
To bring the
thing to trial: whereunto
Here have I summon'd you, my Peers, and
you
Whom I more dearly look to, failing him,
As witnesses to that
which I propose;
And thus propose the doing it. Clotaldo,
Who
guards my son with old fidelity,
Shall bring him hither from his tower
by night
Lockt in a sleep so fast as by my art
I rivet to within a link
of death,
But yet from death so far, that next day's dawn
Shall wake
him up upon the royal bed,

Complete in consciousness and faculty,

When with all princely pomp and retinue
My loyal Peers with due
obeisance
Shall hail him Segismund, the Prince of Poland.
Then if
with any show of human kindness
He fling discredit, not upon the
stars,
But upon me, their misinterpreter,
With all apology mistaken
age
Can make to youth it never meant to harm,
To my son's
forehead will I shift the crown
I long have wish'd upon a younger
brow;
And in religious humiliation,
For what of worn-out age
remains to me,
Entreat my pardon both of Heaven and him
For

tempting destinies beyond my reach.
But if, as I misdoubt, at his first
step
The hoof of the predicted savage shows;
Before predicted
mischief can be done,
The self-same sleep that loosed him from the
chain
Shall re-consign him, not to loose again.
Then shall I, having
lost that heir direct,
Look solely to my sisters' children twain
Each
of a claim so equal as divides
The voice of Poland to their several
sides,
But, as I trust, to be entwined ere long
Into one single wreath
so fair and strong
As shall at once all difference atone,
And cease
the realm's division with their own.
Cousins and Princes, Peers and
Councillors,
Such is the purport of this invitation,
And such is my
design. Whose furtherance
If not as Sovereign, if not as Seer,
Yet
one whom these white locks, if nothing else,
to patient acquiescence
consecrate,
I now demand and even supplicate.
AST.
Such news, and from such lips, may well suspend
The tongue
to loyal answer most attuned;
But if to me as spokesman of my
faction
Your Highness looks for answer; I reply
For one and
all--Let Segismund, whom now
We first hear tell of as your living
heir,
Appear, and but in your sufficient eye
Approve himself
worthy to be your son,
Then we will hail him Poland's rightful heir.

What says my cousin?
EST.
Ay, with all my heart.
But if my youth and sex upbraid me
not
That I should dare ask of so wise a king--
KING.
Ask, ask, fair cousin! Nothing, I am sure,
Not well
consider'd; nay, if 'twere, yet nothing
But pardonable from such lips
as those.
EST.
Then, with your pardon, Sir--if Segismund,
My cousin, whom
I shall rejoice to hail
As Prince of Poland too, as you propose,
Be to
a trial coming upon which
More, as I think, than life itself depends,

Why, Sir, with sleep-disorder'd senses brought
To this uncertain
contest with his stars?

KING.
Well ask'd indeed! As wisely be it answer'd!
/Because/ it is
uncertain, see you not?
For as I think I can discern between
The
sudden flaws of a sleep-startled man,
And of the savage thing we
have to dread;
If but bewilder'd, dazzled, and uncouth,
As might the
sanest and the civilest
In circumstance so strange--nay, more than that,

If moved to any out-break short of blood,
All shall be well with
him; and how much more,
If 'mid the magic