John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series
Page 355
Thou miscreant elf, thou renegado scout!
So clean, so furbish’d, so renew’d in white,
The livery of our foes; I see thee thro’:
What mak’st thou here? Thou trim apostate, speak.
Phil.
Ah! mighty Grimbald,
Who would not fear, when seiz’d in thy strong gripe!
I’m fled from Merlin, free as air that bore me,
T’unfold to Osmond all his deep designs.
Grim.
I believe nothing: oh, thou fond impostor,
But since thou say’st thy errand was to Osmond,
To Osmond shalt thou go: March, know thy driver.
Phil.
[kneeling]
O spare me, Grimbald, and I’ll be thy slave:
Tempt hermits for thee in their holy cells,
And virgins in their dreams.
Grim.
Canst thou, a devil, hope to cheat a devil?
A spy! why that’s a name abhorr’d in hell.
Haste, forward, forward, or I’ll goad thee on
With iron spurs.
Phil.
But use me kindly then:
Pull not so hard, to hurt my airy limbs;
I’ll follow thee unforc’d: Look, there’s thy way.
Grim.
Ay, there’s thy way indeed; but for more surety
I’ll keep an eye behind: Not one word more,
But follow decently.
[Grim. goes out, dragging Phil.
Phil.
So catch him, spell.
[Aside.
Grim.
[within.]
O help me! help me Philidel!
Phil.
Why, what’s the matter?
Grim.
Oh, I am ensnar’d;
Heav’n’s birdlime wraps me round, and glues my wings.
Loose me, and I will free thee:
Do, and I’ll be thy slave.
Phil.
What, to a spy, a name abhorr’d in hell?
Grim.
Do not insult. Oh! oh! I grow to ground;
The fiery net draws closer on my limbs. Oh! oh! oh!
Phil.
Thou shalt not have the ease to curse in tor∣ments:
Be dumb for one half hour: so long my charm
Can keep thee silent, and there lie
Till Osmond breaks thy chain.
[Philadel unbinds his own fetters.
Enter to him Merlin.
Mer.
Well hast thou wrought thy safety with thy wit,
My Philidel; go meritorious one:
Me other work requires, to view the wood,
And learn to make the dire inchantments void;
Meantime thy fellows summon, and call forth
The precious drops I taught thee to compound,
And to the spirit of light his task assign;
Then may’st thou show King Arthur to his love,
Tho’ short must be their interview.
[Exit.
Phil.
Pleas’d I obey, and haste the mystic charm,
That gives fair Emmeline to light and love.
SONG and CHORUS.
Phil.
Come away,
From shades and cool fountains,
Bright spirits of day,
Who gild the high mountains.
Chorus.
We come, we obey,
With delight we attend thee.
Phil.
To fair Emmeline bear
Your heav’n born treasure,
Chorus.
Come away, we obey!
Phil.
With fair Emmeline share
Your pure light, love, and pleasure.
Chorus.
Lead on, point the way,
With delight we attend thee,
Lead on, point the way,
Love to light shall befriend thee.
[Exeunt.
END OF ACT FIRST.
ACT II.
SCENE I. A Landscape.
Enter PHILIDEL.
RECITATIVE.
SPIRIT of light, attend — the charm’s complete.
[Spirit of light descends.
Phil.
Thou gentle spirit of etherial light,
By Merlin’s will the grateful task is thine,
T’unveil the beauteous eyes of Emmeline.
Spirit.
Delighted, I fulfil his generous purpose.
SONG.
Spirit.
Oh sight, the mother of desires,
What charming objects dost thou yield!
’Tis sweet when tedious night expires.
To see the rosy morning gild
The mountain tops, and paint the field!
But when sweet Emm’line comes in sight,
She makes the summer’s day more bright,
And when she goes away ’tis night.
’Tis sweet the blushing morn to view;
And plains adorn’d with pearly dew.
But such cheap delights to see,
Heaven and nature
Give each creature;
They have eyes as well as we;
This is the joy, all joys above,
To see, to see,
That only she
Whose eyes can light with love.
Phil.
Now see where Emmeline approaches,
I leave her to thy art, and haste to guide
Impatient Arthur to her new-born sight.
[Exit.
Enter EMMELINE and MATILDA.
Mat.
This way, Madam, and we are shaded.
[Spirit approaches Emmeline, sprinkling some of the water over her eyes out of the vial.]
Spirit.
Thus, thus I infuse
These sovereign dews.
Fly back, ye films, that cloud her sight:
And you, ye chrystal humours bright,
Your noxious vapours purg’d away,
Recover and admit the day.
Now cast your eyes abroad, and see
All but me.
[Exit.
Em.
Ha! What was that? Who spoke?
Mat.
I heard the voice; ’tis one of Osmond’s fiends.
Em.
Some blessed angel sure; I feel my eyes
Unseal’d, they walk abroad, and a new world
Comes rushing on, and stands all gay before me.
Mat.
Oh heav’ns! oh joy of joy she has her sight!
Em.
I am new-born; I shall run man for pleasure.
[Staring on Mat.
Are women such as thou? Such glorious creatures?
Enter ARTHUR and PHILIDEL.
Arth.
[aside]
Oh! how I envy her, to be first seen!
Phil.
Approach not yet.
Em.
Stand farther; let me take my fill of sight.
[Looking up.
What’s that above that weakens my new eyes,
Makes me not see, by seeing?
Mat.
’Tis the sun.
Em.
The sun! ’tis sure a God, if that be Heav’n:
Oh! if thou art a creature, best and fairest,
How hast thou lighten’d even my very soul,
And let in knowledge by another sense!
Art thou not pleas’d, Matilda? Why, like me,
Dost thou not look and wonder?
Mat.
For these sights
Are to my eyes familiar.
Em.
That’s my joy,
Not to have seen before: for nature now
Comes all at once, confounding my delight.
But ah! what thing am I? Fain would I know;
Or am I blind, or do I see but half?
With all my care, and looking round about,
I cannot view my face.
&n
bsp; Mat.
None see themselves
But by reflection; in this glass you may.
[Gives her a glass.
Em.
[looking in the glass]
What’s this?
It holds a face within it: O sweet face!
It draws the mouth, and smiles, and looks upon me;
And talks, but yet I cannot hear it speak;
The pretty thing is dumb.
Mat.
The pretty thing
You see within the glass, is You.
Em.
What, am I two? Is this another me?
Indeed it wears my cloaths, had hands like mine,
And mocks whate’er I do; but that I’m sure
It cannot be, I’d swear it were my child.
[Matilda looks.
Look, my Matilda; we both are in the glass.
Oh, now I know it plain; they are our names,
That peep upon us there.
Mat.
Our shadows, Madam.
Em.
Mine is the prettier shadow far, than thine.
I love it; let me kiss my t’other self.
[Kissing the glass.
Alas! I’ve kiss’d it dead; the fine thing’s gone;
Indeed it kiss’d so cold as if’twere dying.
[Arthur comes forward softly; showing himself behind her.
’Tis here again.
Oh no, this face is neither mine nor thine:
I think the glass hath borne another child.
[She turns and sees Arthur.
Ha! What art thou, with a new kind of face,
And other cloaths, a noble creature too,
But taller, bigger, fiercer in thy look;
Of a controuling eye, majestic make?
Mat.
Do you not know him, Madam?
Em.
Is’t a man?
Arth.
Yes, and the most unhappy of my kind,
If you have chang’d your love.
Em.
My dearest Lord!
Was my soul blind; and could not that look out,
To know you, ere you spoke? Oh counterpart
Of our soft sex! Well are you made our Lords:
So bold, so great, so godlike are you form’d.
How can you love such silly things as women?
Arth.
Beauty like your’s commands; and man was made
But a more boisterous, and a stronger slave
To you, the best delights of human kind.
Em.
But are ye mine? Is there an end of war?
Are all those trumpets dead themselves, at last,
That us’d to kill men with their thund’ring sounds?
Arth.
The sum of war is undecided yet;
And many a breathing body must be cold,
Ere you are free.
Em.
How came you hither then?
Arth.
By Merlin’s art, to snatch a short-liv’d bliss;
To feed my famish’d love upon your eyes,
One moment, and depart.
Em.
Oh moment! worth
Whole ages past, and all that are to come!
Let love-sick Oswald now unpity’d mourn;
Let Osmond mutter charms to sprites in vain,
To make me love him; all shall not change my soul.
Arth.
Ha! Does th’ enchanter practise hell upon you?
Is he my rival too?
Em.
Yes, but I hate him;
For when he spoke, thro’ my shut eyes I saw him;
His voice look’d ugly, and breath’d brimstone on me:
And then I first was glad that I was blind,
Not to behold perdition.
Enter MERLIN.
Merl.
My Sovereign, we have hazarded too far;
But love excuses you, and prescience me.
Make haste; for Osmond is even now alarm’d,
And greedy of revenge is hasting home.
Arth.
Oh take my love with us, or leave me here.
Merl.
I cannot, for she’s held by charms too strong,
Which, with th’ enchanted grove, must be destroy’d:
Till when, my art is vain: but fear not, Emmeline;
Th’ enchanter has no power on innocence.
Em.
[to Arth.]
Farwell, since we must part: When you are gone,
I’ll look into my glass, just where you look’d,
To find your face again;
If’tis not there, I’ll think on you so long,
My heart shall make your picture for my eyes.
Arth.
Where e’er I go, my soul shall stay with thee:
’Tis but my shadow that I take away:
True love is never happy but by halves;
An April sunshine, that by fits appears,
It smiles by moments, but it mourns by years.
Em.
May all good Angels spread their wings,
And shield my love from harm.
[Ex. Arth. and Mer.
Now my Arthur’s gone, the loveliest object
To my new-born sight, I’ll look round and round
Upon the lesser beauties of creation.
Enter OSMOND at the other Door, who gazes on Emmeline, and she on him.
Em.
Ha! I’m deceiv’d; save me from this ugly thing,
This foe to sight! speak; dost thou know him?
Mat.
Too well; ’tis Oswald’s friend, the great ma∣gician.
Em.
It cannot be a man, he’s so unlike the man I love.
Osm.
[Aside.]
Death to my eyes, she sees!
Em.
I wish I could not; but I’ll close my sight,
And shut out all I can — It wo’not be;
Winking, I see thee still, thy odious image
Stares full into my soul; and there infects the room
My Arthur shou’d possess.
Osm.
[Aside.]
I find too late,
That Merlin and her lover have been here.
Em.
I pr’ythee, dreadful thing, tell me thy business here;
And, if thou canst, reform that odious face;
Look not so grim upon me.
Osm.
My name is Osmond; and my business, love.
Em.
Thou hast a grizly look forbidding what thou ask’st,
If I durst tell thee so.
Osm.
My pent-house eye-brows, and my shaggy beard,
Offend your sight, but these are manly signs:
Faint white and red abuse your expectations;
Be woman; know your sex, and love full pleasures.
Em.
Love from a monster, fiend?
Osm.
Come, you must love; or you must suffer love;
No coyness, none, for I am master here.
Em.
And when did Oswald give away his power?
Osm.
O’er-labour’d with the fight, opprest with thirst,
That Oswald, whom you mention’d, call’d for drink.
I mix’d a sleepy potion in his bowl,
Which he quaffd greedily.
The happy dose wrought the desir’d effect;
Then to a dungeon’s depth I sent him bound;
Now know you are my slave. No coying therefore
But make me happy.
Em.
From my sight,
Thou, all thy devils in one, thou dar’st not force me.
Osm.
You teach me well;
I’ll give you that excuse your sex desire.
[He seizes her, and she struggles.
Grim.
[within]
O master, master!
Osm.
Who’s that? my Grimbald!
Enter GRIMBALD hastily.
Grim.
O master! danger threatens thee:
There’s a black cloud descending from above,
Full of Heav’n’s venom, bursting o’er thy head.
Osm.
Malicious fiend, thou ly’st; for I am fenc’d
By millions of thy fellows, in my grove.
I bade thee, when I freed thee from the charm,
Run scouting thro’ the wood, from tree to tree,
And look if all my devils were on duty.
Grim.
When did a devil fail in diligence?
Poor mortal, thou thyself art overseen;
I have been there, and thence I bring this news.
Thy fatal foe, great Arthur, is at hand:
Merlin has ta’en his time, while thou wert absent,
To counterwork thy spells.
Osm.
Perdition seize on Merlin!
I’ll cast ‘em all a-new, and instantly,
All of another mould; be thou at hand.
Their composition was, before, of horror;
Now they shall be of blandishment, and love;
On my return, proud fair,
Resolve to meet my love;
But if you will not fairly be enjoy’d,
A little honest force is well employ’d.
[Exeunt Osm. and Grimb.
Em.
Heav’n! ever present to the suppliant’s aid,
Protect and pity innocence betray’d.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. A Wood, with a large Oak in the front.
Enter ARTHUR, and MERLIN on the other side.
Merl.
Thus far it is permitted me to go;
But all beyond this spot is fenc’d with charms;
I may no more, but only with advice.
Arth.
My sword shall do the rest.
Merl.
Remember well, that all is but illusion.
Arth.
Doubt me not.
Merl.
Yet in prevention
Of what may come, I’ll leave my Philidel
To watch thy steps, and with him leave my wand:
Farewell, and prosper.
[Exit Merlin.
Arth.
[walking.]
No danger yet, I see no walls of fire,
No city of the fiends, with forms obscene,
To grin from far on flaming battlements.
This is indeed the grove I should destroy;
But where’s the horror? sure the prophet err’d.
Hark! music, and the warbling notes of birds;
[Singing of birds, within.
More wonders yet; yet all delightful too.
The Scene opens and discovers a pleasant River, shaded with Trees, a golden Bridge over it.
A silver current here forbids my passage,
And yet t’invite me, stands a golden bridge;
Perhaps a trap for my unwary feet,
To sink and whelm me underneath the waves.
With fire or water let him wage his war,
Or all the elements at once, I’ll on.
[As he is going forward, Nymphs and Sylvans come out from behind the Trees.