To breathe in the same house where we were born,And sleep where slept our fathers? Should that chafe?
I:2:15 COUN.
Yet didst then leave my side this very morn,
And with a vow this day should ever count
Amid thy life most happy; when we meet
Thy brow is clouded.
I:2:16 ALAR.
Joy is sometimes grave,
And deepest when ’tis calm. And I am joyful
If it be joy, this long forbidden hall
Once more to pace, and feel each fearless step
Tread on a baffled foe.
I:2:17 COUN.
Hast thou still foes
I:2:18 ALAR.
I trust so; I should not be what I am,
Still less what I will be, if hate did not
Pursue me as my shadow. Ah! fair wife,
Thou knowest not Burgos. Thou hast yet to fathom
The depths of thy new world.
I:2:19 COUN.
I do recoil
As from some unknown woo, from this same world.
I thought we came for peace.
I:2:20 ALAR.
Peace dwells within
No lordly roof in Burgos. We have come
For triumph.
I:2:21 COUN.
So I share thy lot, Alarcos,
All feelings are the same.
I:2:22 ALAR.
My Florimonde,
I took thee from a fair and pleasant home
In a soft land, where, like the air they live in,
Men’s hearts are mild. This proud and fierce Castille
Resembles not thy gentle Aquitaine,
More than the eagle may a dove, and yet
It is my country. Danger in its bounds
Weighs more than foreign safety. But why speak
Of what exists not?
I:2:23 COUN.
And I hope may never!
I:2:24 ALAR.
And if it come, what then? This chance shall find me
Not unprepared.
I:2:25 COUN.
But why should there be danger?
And why should’st thou, the foremost prince of Spain,
Fear or make foes? Thou standest in no light
Would fall on other shoulders; thou hast no height
To climb, and nought to gain. Thou art complete;
The King alone above thee, and thy friend.
I:2:26 ALAR.
So I would deem. I did not speak of fear.
I:2:27 COUN.
Of danger?
I:2:28 ALAR.
That’s delight, when it may lead
To mighty ends. Ah, Florimonde! thou art too pure;
Unsoiled in the rough and miry paths
Of ibis same trampling world; unskilled in heats
Of fierce and emulous spirits. There’s a rapture
In the strife of factions, that a woman’s soul
Can never reach. Men smiled on me to-day
Would gladly dig my grave; and yet I smiled,
And gave them coin as ready as their own,
And not less base.
I:2:29 COUN.
And can there be such men,
And canst thou live with them?
I:2:30 ALAR.
Ay! and they saw
Me ride this morning in my state again;
The people cried ‘Alarcos and Castille!’
The shout will dull their feasts.
I:2:31 COUN.
There was a time
Thou didst look back as on a turbulent dream
On this same life.
I:2:32 ALAR.
I was an exile then.
This stirring Burgos has revived my vein.
Yea, as I glanced from off the Citadel
This very morn, and at my feet outspread
Its amphitheatre of solemn towers
And groves of golden pinnacles, and marked
Turrets of friends and foes; or traced the range,
Spread since my exile, of our city’s walls
Washed by the swift Arlanzon: all around
The flash of lances, blaze of banners, rush
Of hurrying horsemen, and the haughty blast
Of the soul-stirring trumpet, I renounced
My old philosophy, and gazed as gazes
The falcon on his quarry!
I:2:33 COUN.
Jesu grant
The lure will bear no harm!
[A trumpet sounds.]
