by John Dryden
Enter a Soldier.
Sold. Almanzor is victorious without fight;
The foes retreated when he came in sight.
Under the walls, this night, his men are drawn,
And mean to seek the Spaniard with the dawn.
Abdelm. The sun’s declined:
Command the watch be set without delay,
And in the fort let bold Benducar stay. — [Exit Sold.
I’ll haste to court, where solitude I’ll fly,
And herd, like wounded deer, in company.
But oh, how hard a passion to remove,
When I must shun myself, to ‘scape from love! [Exit.
SCENE III. — A Gallery in the Alhambra.
Zulema, Hamet.
Hamet. I thought your passion for the queen was dead,
Or that your love had, with your hopes, been fled.
Zul. ’Twas like a fire within a furnace pent:
I smothered it, and kept it long from vent;
But, fed with looks, and blown with sighs so fast,
It broke a passage through my lips at last.
Hamet. Where found you confidence your suit to move?
Our broken fortunes are not fit to love.
Well; you declared your love: — What followed then?
Zul. She looked as judges do on guilty men,
When big with fate they triumph in their dooms,
And smile before the deadly sentence comes.
Silent I stood, as I were thunder-struck;
Condemned and executed with a look.
Hamet. You must, with haste, some remedy prepare:
Now you are in, you must break through the snare.
Zul. She said, she would my folly yet conceal;
But vowed my next attempt she would reveal.
Hamet. ’Tis dark; and in this lonely gallery,
Remote from noise, and shunning every eye,
One hour each evening she in private mourns,
And prays, and to the circle then returns.
Zul. These lighted tapers show the time is nigh.
Perhaps my courtship will not be in vain:
At least, few women will of force complain.
At the other end of the Gallery, enter Almanzor and Esperanza.
Hamet. Almanzor, and with him
The favourite slave of the sultana queen.
Zul. Ere they approach, let us retire unseen,
And watch our time when they return again:
Then force shall give, if favour does deny;
And, that once done, we’ll to the Spaniards fly. [Exeunt Zul. and Hamet.
Almanz. Now stand; the apartment of the queen is near;
And, from this place, your voice will reach her ear. [Esperanza goes out.
SONG, IN TWO PARTS.
I.
He. How unhappy a lover am I,
While I sigh for my Phillis in vain;
All my hopes of delight
Are another man’s right,
Who is happy, while I am in pain!
II.
She. Since her honour allows no relief,
But to pity the pains which you bear,
’Tis the best of your fate
In a hopeless estate,
To give o’er, and betimes to despair.
III.
He. I have tried the false med’cine in vain;
For I wish what I hope not to win:
From without, my desire
Has no food to its fire;
But it burns and consumes me within.
IV.
She. Yet, at least, ’tis a pleasure to know
That you are not unhappy alone:
For the nymph you adore
Is as wretched, and more;
And counts all your sufferings her own.
V.
He. O ye gods, let me suffer for both;
At the feet of my Phyllis I’ll lie:
I’ll resign up my breath,
And take pleasure in death
To be pitied by her when I die.
VI.
She. What her honour denied you in life,
In her death she will give to your love.
Such flame as is true
After fate will renew,
For the souls to meet closer above.
Enter Esperanza again, after the Song.
Almanz. Accept this diamond, till I can present
Something more worthy my acknowledgement.
And now farewell: I will attend, alone,
Her coming forth; and make my sufferings known. [Exit Esperanza.
A hollow wind comes whistling through that door,
And a cold shivering seizes me all o’er;
My teeth, too, chatter with a sudden fright: —
These are the raptures of too fierce delight,
The combat of the tyrants, hope and fear;
Which hearts, for want of field-room, cannot bear.
I grow impatient; — this, or that’s the room: —
I’ll meet her; — now methinks, I her her come. [He goes to the door; the Ghost of his Mother meets him: He starts back: The Ghost stands in the door.
Well may’st thou make thy boast, whate’er thou art!
Thou art the first e’er made Almanzor start.
My legs
Shall bear me to thee in their own despite:
I’ll rush into the covert of thy night,
And pull thee backward, by the shroud, to light;
Or else I’ll squeeze thee, like a bladder, there,
And make thee groan thyself away to air. [The Ghost retires.
So, thou art gone! Thou canst no conquest boast:
I thought what was the courage of a ghost. —
The grudging of my ague yet remains;
My blood, like icicles, hangs in my veins,
And does not drop: — Be master of that door,
We two will not disturb each other more.
I erred a little, but extremes may join;
That door was hell’s, but this is heaven’s and mine. [Goes to the other door, and is met again by the Ghost.
Again! by heaven, I do conjure thee, speak!
What art thou, spirit? and what dost thou seek? [The Ghost comes on softly after the conjuration; and Almanzor retires to the middle of the stage.
Ghost. I am the ghost of her who gave thee birth;
The airy shadow of her mouldering earth.
Love of thy father me through seas did guide;
On seas I bore thee, and on seas I died.
I died; and for my winding sheet a wave
I had, and all the ocean for my grave.
But, when my soul to bliss did upward move,
I wandered round the crystal walls above;
But found the eternal fence so steeply high,
That, when I mounted to the middle sky,
I flagged, and fluttered down, and could not fly.
Then, from the battlements of the heavenly tower,
A watchman angel bid me wait this hour;
And told me, I had yet a task assigned,
To warn that little pledge I left behind;
And to divert him, ere it were too late,
From crimes unknown, and errors of his fate.
Almanz. Speak, holy shade; thou parent-form, speak on! [Bowing.
Instruct thy mortal-elemented son;
For here I wander, to myself unknown.
But O, thou better part of heavenly air,
Teach me, kind spirit, since I’m still thy care,
My parents’ names:
If I have yet a father, let me know
To whose old age my humble youth must bow,
And pay its duty, if he mortal be,
Or adoration, if a mind, like thee.
Ghost. Then, what I may, I’ll tell. —
From ancient blood thy father’s lineage springs,
Thy mother’s thou deriv’st from stems of kings.
A Christian bo
rn, and born again that day,
When sacred water washed thy sins away.
Yet, bred in errors, thou dost misemploy
That strength heaven gave thee, and its flock destroy.
Almanz. By reason, man a godhead may discern,
But how he should be worshipped cannot learn.
Ghost. Heaven does not now thy ignorance reprove,
But warns thee from known crimes of lawless love.
That crime thou knowest, and, knowing, dost not shun,
Shall an unknown and greater crime pull on:
But if, thus warned, thou leav’st this cursed place,
Then shalt thou know the author of thy race.
Once more I’ll see thee; then my charge is done.
Far hence, upon the mountains of the moon,
Is my abode; where heaven and nature smile,
And strew with flowers the secret bed of Nile.
Blessed souls are there refined, and made more bright,
And, in the shades of heaven, prepared for light. [Exit Ghost.
Almanz. O heaven, how dark a riddle’s thy decree,
Which bounds our wills, yet seems to leave them free!
Since thy fore-knowledge cannot be in vain,
Our choice must be what thou didst first ordain.
Thus, like a captive in an isle confined,
Man walks at large, a prisoner of the mind:
Wills all his crimes, while heaven the indictment draws,
And, pleading guilty, justifies the laws.
Let fate be fate; the lover and the brave
Are ranked, at least, above the vulgar slave.
Love makes me willing to my death to run;
And courage scorns the death it cannot shun.
Enter Almahide with a taper.
Almah. My light will sure discover those who talk. —
Who dares to interrupt my private walk?
Almanz. He, who dares love, and for that love must die,
And, knowing this, dares yet love on, am I.
Almah. That love which you can hope, and I can pay,
May be received and given in open day:
My praise and my esteem you had before;
And you have bound yourself to ask no more.
Almanz. Yes, I have bound myself; but will you take
The forfeit of that bond, which force did make?
Almah. You know you are from recompence debarred;
But purest love can live without reward.
Almanz. Pure love had need be to itself a feast;
For, like pure elements, ‘twill nourish least.
Almah. It therefore yields the only pure content;
For it, like angels, needs no nourishment.
To eat and drink can no perfection be;
All appetite implies necessity.
Almanz. ‘Twere well, if I could like a spirit live;
But, do not angels food to mortals give?
What if some demon should my death foreshow,
Or bid me change, and to the Christians go;
Will you not think I merit some reward,
When I my love above my life regard?
Almah. In such a case your change must be allowed:
I would myself dispense with what you vowed.
Almanz. Were I to die that hour when I possess,
This minute shall begin my happiness.
Almah. The thoughts of death your passion would remove;
Death is a cold encouragement to love.
Almanz. No; from my joys I to my death would run,
And think the business of my life well done:
But I should walk a discontented ghost,
If flesh and blood were to no purpose lost.
Almah. You love me not, Almanzor; if you did,
You would not ask what honour must forbid.
Almanz. And what is honour, but a love well hid?
Almah. Yes, ’tis the conscience of an act well done,
Which gives us power our own desires to shun;
The strong and secret curb of headlong will;
The self-reward of good, and shame of ill.
Almanz. These, madam, are the maxims of the day,
When honour’s present, and when love’s away.
The duty of poor honour were too hard,
In arms all day, at night to mount the guard.
Let him, in pity, now to rest retire;
Let these soft hours be watched by warm desire.
Almah. Guards, who all day on painful duty keep,
In dangers are not privileged to sleep.
Almanz. And with what dangers are you threatened here?
Am I, alas! a foe for you to fear?
See, madam, at your feet this enemy; [Kneels.
Without your pity and your love I die.
Almah. Rise, rise, and do not empty hopes pursue;
Yet think that I deny myself, not you.
Almanz. A happiness so high I cannot bear:
My love’s too fierce, and you too killing fair.
I grow enraged to see such excellence! —
If words, so much disordered, give offence,
My love’s too full of zeal to think of sense.
Be you like me; dull reason hence remove,
And tedious forms, and give a loose to love.
Love eagerly; let us be gods to-night;
And do not, with half yielding, clash delight.
Almah. Thou strong seducer, opportunity!
Of womankind, half are undone by thee!
Though I resolve I will not be misled,
I wish I had not heard what you have said!
I cannot be so wicked to comply;
And, yet, am most unhappy to deny!
Away!
Almanz. I will not move me from this place:
I can take no denial from that face!
Almah. If I could yield, — but think not that I will, —
You and myself I in revenge should kill;
For I should hate us both, when it were done,
And would not to the shame of life be won.
Almanz. Live but to-night, and trust to-morrow’s mind:
Ere that can come, there’s a whole life behind.
Methinks, already crowned with joys I lie,
Speechless and breathless, in an ecstasy!
Not absent in one thought: I am all there:
Still close, yet wishing still to be more near.
Almah. Deny your own desires; for it will be
Too little now to be denied by me.
Will he, who does all great, all noble seem,
Be lost and forfeit to his own esteem?
Will he, who may with heroes claim a place,
Belie that fame, and to himself be base?
Think how august and godlike you did look,
When my defence, unbribed, you undertook;
But, when an act so brave you disavow,
How little, and how mercenary now!
Almanz. Are, then, my services no higher prized?
And can I fall so low, to be despised?
Almah. Yes; for whatever may be bought, is low;
And you yourself, who sell yourself, are so.
Remember the great act you did this day:
How did your love to virtue then give way!
When you gave freedom to my captive lord, —
That rival who possessed what you adored, —
Of such a deed what price can there be made?
Think well; is that an action to be paid?
It was a miracle of virtue shown;
And wonders are with wonder paid alone.
And would you all that secret joy of mind,
Which great souls only in great actions find,
All that, for one tumultuous minute lose?
Almanz, I would that minute before ages chuse.
Praise is the pay of heaven for doing good;
But love’s the best return for flesh and bloo
d.
Almah. You’ve moved my heart so much, I can deny
No move; but know, Almanzor, I can die.
Thus far my virtue yields; if I have shown
More love than what I ought, let this atone. [Going to stab herself.
Almanz. Hold, hold!
Such fatal proofs of love you shall not give:
Deny me; hate me; both are just, — but live!
Your virtue I will ne’er disturb again;
Nor dare to ask, for fear I should obtain.
Almah. ’Tis generous to have conquered your desire;
You mount above your wish, and lose it higher.
There’s pride in virtue, and a kindly heat;
Not feverish, like your love, but full as great.
Farewell; and may our loves hereafter be
But image-like, to heighten piety.
Almanz. ’Tis time I should be gone. —
Alas! I am but half converted yet;
All I resolve, I with one look forget;
And, like a lion, whom no arts can tame,
Shall tear even those, who would my rage reclaim. [Exeunt severally.
[Zulema and Hamet watch Almanzor; and when he is gone, go in after the Queen.
Enter Abdelmelech and Lyndaraxa.
Lyndar. It is enough, you’ve brought me to this place:
Here stop, and urge no further my disgrace.
Kill me; in death your mercy will be seen,
But make me not a captive to the queen.
Abdelm. ’Tis therefore I this punishment provide:
This only can revenge me on your pride.
Prepare to suffer what you shun in vain;
And know, you now are to obey, not reign.
Enter Almahide shrieking; her hair loose; she runs over the stage.
Almah. Help, help, O heaven, some help!
Enter Zulema and Hamet.
Zul. Make haste before,
And intercept her passage to the door.
Abdelm. Villains, what act are you attempting here!
Almah.
I thank thee, heaven! some succour does appear. [As Abdelmelech is going to help the Queen, Lyndaraxa pulls out his sword, and holds it.
Abdelm. With what ill fate my good design is curst!
Zul. We have no time to think; dispatch him first.
Abdelm. O for a sword! [They make at Abdelmelech; he goes off at one door, while the Queen escapes at the other.
Zul. Ruined!
Hamet. Undone!
Lyndar. And, which is worst of all,
He is escaped.
Zul. I hear them loudly call.
Lyndar. Your fear will lose you; call as loud as they:
I have not time to teach you what to say.
The court will in a moment all be here;
But second what I say, and do not fear.
Call help; run that way; leave the rest to me. [Zul. and Hamet retire, and within cry, — Help!
