But come—already weary with your travel,
And ill refresh'd by this strange history,
Until the hours that draw the sun from heaven
Unite us at the customary board,
Each to his several chamber: you to rest;
I to contrive with old Clotaldo best
The method of a stranger thing than old
Time has a yet among his records told. [Exeunt.]
ACT II
SCENE I—A Throne-room in the Palace. Music within.
[Enter KING and CLOTALDO, meeting a Lord in waiting]
KING. You, for a moment beckon'd from your office,
Tell me thus far how goes it. In due time
The potion left him?
LORD. At the very hour
To which your Highness temper'd it. Yet not
So wholly but some lingering mist still hung
About his dawning senses—which to clear,
We fill'd and handed him a morning drink
With sleep's specific antidote suffused;
And while with princely raiment we invested
What nature surely modell'd for a Prince—
All but the sword—as you directed—
KING. Ay—
LORD. If not too loudly, yet emphatically
Still with the title of a Prince address'd him.
KING. How bore he that?
LORD. With all the rest, my liege,
I will not say so like one in a dream
As one himself misdoubting that he dream'd.
KING. So far so well, Clotaldo, either way,
And best of all if tow'rd the worse I dread.
But yet no violence?
LORD. At most, impatience;
Wearied perhaps with importunities
We yet were bound to offer.
KING. Oh, Clotaldo!
Though thus far well, yet would myself had drunk
The potion he revives from! such suspense
Crowds all the pulses of life's residue
Into the present moment; and, I think,
Whichever way the trembling scale may turn,
Will leave the crown of Poland for some one
To wait no longer than the setting sun!
CLOTALDO. Courage, my liege! The curtain is undrawn,
And each must play his part out manfully,
Leaving the rest to heaven.
KING. Whose written words
If I should misinterpret or transgress!
But as you say—
(To the Lord, who exit.) You, back to him at once;
Clotaldo, you, when he is somewhat used
To the new world of which they call him Prince,
Where place and face, and all, is strange to him,
With your known features and familiar garb
Shall then, as chorus to the scene, accost him,
And by such earnest of that old and too
Familiar world, assure him of the new.
Last in the strange procession, I myself
Will by one full and last development
Complete the plot for that catastrophe
That he must put to all; God grant it be
The crown of Poland on his brows!—Hark! hark!—
Was that his voice within!—Now louder—Oh,
Clotaldo, what! so soon begun to roar!—
Again! above the music—But betide
What may, until the moment, we must hide.
[Exeunt KING and CLOTALDO.]
SEGISMUND (within). Forbear! I stifle with your perfume! Cease
Your crazy salutations! peace, I say
Begone, or let me go, ere I go mad
With all this babble, mummery, and glare,
For I am growing dangerous—Air! room! air!—
[He rushes in. Music ceases.]
Oh but to save the reeling brain from wreck
With its bewilder'd senses!
[He covers his eyes for a while.]
What! E'en now
That Babel left behind me, but my eyes
Pursued by the same glamour, that—unless
Alike bewitch'd too—the confederate sense
Vouches for palpable: bright-shining floors
That ring hard answer back to the stamp'd heel,
And shoot up airy columns marble-cold,
That, as they climb, break into golden leaf
And capital, till they embrace aloft
In clustering flower and fruitage over walls
Hung with such purple curtain as the West
Fringes with such a gold; or over-laid
With sanguine-glowing semblances of men,
Each in his all but living action busied,
Or from the wall they look from, with fix'd eyes
Pursuing me; and one most strange of all
That, as I pass'd the crystal on the wall,
Look'd from it—left it—and as I return,
Returns, and looks me face to face again—
Unless some false reflection of my brain,
The outward semblance of myself—Myself?
How know that tawdry shadow for myself,
But that it moves as I move; lifts his hand
With mine; each motion echoing so close
The immediate suggestion of the will
In which myself I recognize—Myself!—
What, this fantastic Segismund the same
Who last night, as for all his nights before,
Lay down to sleep in wolf-skin on the ground
In a black turret which the wolf howl'd round,
And woke again upon a golden bed,
Round which as clouds about a rising sun,
In scarce less glittering caparison,
Gather'd gay shapes that, underneath a breeze
Of music, handed him upon their knees
The wine of heaven in a cup of gold,
And still in soft melodious under-song
Hailing me Prince of Poland!—'Segismund,'
They said, 'Our Prince! The Prince of Poland!' and
Again, 'Oh, welcome, welcome, to his own,
'Our own Prince Segismund—'
Oh, but a blast—
One blast of the rough mountain air! one look
At the grim features—[He goes to the window.]
What they disvizor'd also! shatter'd chaos
Cast into stately shape and masonry,
Between whose channel'd and perspective sides
Compact with rooted towers, and flourishing
To heaven with gilded pinnacle and spire,
Flows the live current ever to and fro
With open aspect and free step!—Clotaldo!
Clotaldo!—calling as one scarce dares call
For him who suddenly might break the spell
One fears to walk without him—Why, that I,
With unencumber'd step as any there,
Go stumbling through my glory—feeling for
That iron leading-string—ay, for myself—
For that fast-anchor'd self of yesterday,
Of yesterday, and all my life before,
Ere drifted clean from self-identity
Upon the fluctuation of to-day's
Mad whirling circumstance!—And, fool, why not?
If reason, sense, and self-identity
Obliterated from a worn-out brain,
Art thou not maddest striving to be sane,
And catching at that Self of yesterday
That, like a leper's rags, best flung away!
Or if not mad, then dreaming—dreaming?—well—
Dreaming then—Or, if self to self be true,
Not mock'd by that, but as poor souls have been
By those who wrong'd them, to give wrong new relish?
Or have those stars indeed they told me of
As masters of my wretched life of old,
Into some happier constellation roll'd,
And brought my better fortu
ne out on earth
Clear as themselves in heaven!—Prince Segismund
They call'd me—and at will I shook them off—
Will they return again at my command
Again to call me so?—Within there! You!
Segismund calls—Prince Segismund—
[He has seated himself on the throne.]
[Enter CHAMBERLAIN, with lords in waiting.]
CHAMBERLAIN. I rejoice
That unadvised of any but the voice
Of royal instinct in the blood, your Highness
Has ta'en the chair that you were born to fill.
SEGISMUND. The chair?
CHAMBERLAIN. The royal throne of Poland, Sir,
Which may your Royal Highness keep as long
As he that now rules from it shall have ruled
When heaven has call'd him to itself.
SEGISMUND. When he?—
CHAMBERLAIN. Your royal father, King Basilio, Sir.
SEGISMUND. My royal father—King Basilio.
You see I answer but as Echo does,
Not knowing what she listens or repeats.
This is my throne—this is my palace—Oh,
But this out of the window?—
CHAMBERLAIN. Warsaw, Sir,
Your capital—
SEGISMUND. And all the moving people?
CHAMBERLAIN. Your subjects and your vassals like ourselves.
SEGISMUND. Ay, ay—my subjects—in my capital—
Warsaw—and I am Prince of it—You see
It needs much iteration to strike sense
Into the human echo.
CHAMBERLAIN. Left awhile
In the quick brain, the word will quickly to
Full meaning blow.
SEGISMUND. You think so?
CHAMBERLAIN. And meanwhile
Lest our obsequiousness, which means no worse
Than customary honour to the Prince
We most rejoice to welcome, trouble you,
Should we retire again? or stand apart?
Or would your Highness have the music play
Again, which meditation, as they say,
So often loves to float upon?
SEGISMUND. The music?
No—yes—perhaps the trumpet—(Aside) Yet if that
Brought back the troop!
A LORD. The trumpet! There again
How trumpet-like spoke out the blood of Poland!
CHAMBERLAIN. Before the morning is far up, your Highness
Will have the trumpet marshalling your soldiers
Under the Palace windows.
SEGISMUND. Ah, my soldiers—
My soldiers—not black-vizor'd?—
CHAMBERLAIN. Sir?
SEGISMUND. No matter.
But—one thing—for a moment—in your ear—
Do you know one Clotaldo?
CHAMBERLAIN. Oh, my Lord,
He and myself together, I may say,
Although in different vocations,
Have silver'd in your royal father's service;
And, as I trust, with both of us a few
White hairs to fall in yours.
SEGISMUND. Well said, well said!
Basilio, my father—well—Clotaldo
Is he my kinsman too?
CHAMBERLAIN. Oh, my good Lord,
A General simply in your Highness' service,
Than whom your Highness has no trustier.
SEGISMUND. Ay, so you said before, I think. And you
With that white wand of yours—
Why, now I think on't, I have read of such
A silver-hair'd magician with a wand,
Who in a moment, with a wave of it,
Turn'd rags to jewels, clowns to emperors,
By some benigner magic than the stars
Spirited poor good people out of hand
From all their woes; in some enchanted sleep
Carried them off on cloud or dragon-back
Over the mountains, over the wide Deep,
And set them down to wake in Fairyland.
CHAMBERLAIN. Oh, my good Lord, you laugh at me—and I
Right glad to make you laugh at such a price:
You know me no enchanter: if I were,
I and my wand as much as your Highness',
As now your chamberlain—
SEGISMUND. My chamberlain?—
And these that follow you?—
CHAMBERLAIN. On you, my Lord,
Your Highness' lords in waiting.
SEGISMUND. Lords in waiting.
Well, I have now learn'd to repeat, I think,
If only but by rote—This is my palace,
And this my throne—which unadvised—And that
Out of the window there my Capital;
And all the people moving up and down
My subjects and my vassals like yourselves,
My chamberlain—and lords in waiting—and
Clotaldo—and Clotaldo?—
You are an aged, and seem a reverend man—
You do not—though his fellow-officer—
You do not mean to mock me?
CHAMBERLAIN. Oh, my Lord!
SEGISMUND. Well then—If no magician, as you say,
Yet setting me a riddle, that my brain,
With all its senses whirling, cannot solve,
Yourself or one of these with you must answer—
How I—that only last night fell asleep
Not knowing that the very soil of earth
I lay down—chain'd—to sleep upon was Poland—
Awake to find myself the Lord of it,
With Lords, and Generals, and Chamberlains,
And ev'n my very Gaoler, for my vassals!
[Enter suddenly CLOTALDO]
CLOTALDO. Stand all aside
That I may put into his hand the clue
To lead him out of this amazement. Sir,
Vouchsafe your Highness from my bended knee
Receive my homage first.
SEGISMUND. Clotaldo! What,
At last—his old self—undisguised where all
Is masquerade—to end it!—You kneeling too!
What! have the stars you told me long ago
Laid that old work upon you, added this,
That, having chain'd your prisoner so long,
You loose his body now to slay his wits,
Dragging him—how I know not—whither scarce
I understand—dressing him up in all
This frippery, with your dumb familiars
Disvizor'd, and their lips unlock'd to lie,
Calling him Prince and King, and, madman-like,
Setting a crown of straw upon his head?
CLOTALDO. Would but your Highness, as indeed I now
Must call you—and upon his bended knee
Never bent Subject more devotedly—
However all about you, and perhaps
You to yourself incomprehensiblest,
But rest in the assurance of your own
Sane waking senses, by these witnesses
Life is a Dream Page 4
