296]
[A pause.
And this majestic Moor, seems he not one
Who oft and long communing with my Alvar,
Hath drunk in kindred lustre from his presence,
And guides me to him with reflected light?
What if in yon dark dungeon coward treachery
Be groping for him with envenomed poniard —
Hence womanish fears, traitors to love and duty —
I’ll free him. [Exit TERESA.
SCENE III
The mountains by moonlight. ALHADRA alone in a Moorish dress.
Alhadra. Yon hanging woods, that touch’d by autumn seem
As they were blossoming hues of fire and gold;
{ The hanging Act V, l. 41.
{ The flower-like woods, most lovely in decay,
The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands,
Lie in the silent moonshine: and the owl,
(Strange! very strange!) the scritch-owl only wakes!
Sole voice, sole eye of all this world of beauty!
Unless, perhaps, she sing her screeching song
To a herd of wolves, that skulk athirst for blood.
Why such a thing am I? — Where are these men?
I need the sympathy of human faces,
To beat away this deep contempt for all things,
Which quenches my revenge. O! would to Alla,
The raven, or the sea-mew, were appointed
To bring me food! or rather that my soul
Could drink in life from the universal air!
It were a lot divine in some small skiff
Along some Ocean’s boundless solitude,
To float for ever with a careless course,
And think myself the only being alive.
[Vide post Osorio, Act V, ll. 39-56.]
My children! — Isidore’s children! — Son of Valdez,
This hath new strung mine arm. Thou coward tyrant!
To stupify a woman’s heart with anguish,
Till she forgot — even that she was a mother!
[She fixes her eye on the earth. Then drop in one after
another, from different parts of the stage, a
considerable number of Morescoes, all in Moorish
garments and Moorish armour. They form a circle at
a distance round ALHADRA, and remain silent till
NAOMI enters.
Remorse.
[After 353] [Stage-direction] Alhadra (to Naomi, who advances from the
circle). Remorse.
Remorse.
[After 359] Enter Warville. MS. III.
[A pause.
Ordonio was your chieftain’s murderer
Remorse.
[After 375] Alhadra. This night your chieftain armed himself Remorse.
[Affixed to 375] (not in S. T. C.’s handwriting) and erased:
Naomi.
Proceed, proceed, Alhadra.
Alhadra.
Yestermorning
He stood before our house, startful and gloomy,
And stirr’d up fierce dispute with Ferdinand,
I saw him when the vehement Gripe of Conscience
Had wrenched his features to a visible agony.
When he was gone Ferdinand sighed out ‘Villain’
And spake no other word.
Warville (mournfully).
The brother of Albert.
MS. III erased.
[Note. — Warville was a character introduced into the deleted passage
360-70, the name being always altered by S. T. C. to ‘Maurice’.]
[After 425
All. Away! away! [She rushes off, all following her.
Remorse.
ACT THE FIFTH
SCENE THE FIRST. — The Sea Shore.
NAOMI and a Moresco.
Moresco. This was no time for freaks of useless vengeance.
Naomi. True! but Francesco, the Inquisitor,
Thou know’st the bloodhound—’twas a strong temptation.
And when they pass’d within a mile of his house,
We could not curb them in. They swore by Mahomet, 5
It were a deed of treachery to their brethren
To sail from Spain and leave that man alive.
Moresco. Where is Alhadra?
Naomi. She moved steadily on
Unswerving from the path of her resolve.
Yet each strange object fix’d her eye: for grief 10
Doth love to dally with fantastic shapes,
