(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!

     CLO.
     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 fortune 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.)

     CHAMB.
     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.

     SEG.
     The chair?

     CHAMB.
     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.

     SEG.
     When he?—

     CHAMB.
     Your royal father, King Basilio, Sir.

     SEG.
     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?—

     CHAMB.
     Warsaw, Sir,
     Your capital—

     SEG.
     And all the moving people?

     CHAMB.
     Your subjects and your vassals like ourselves.

     SEG.
     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.

     CHAMB.
     Left awhile
     In the quick brain, the word will quickly to
     Full meaning blow.

     SEG.
     You think so?

     CHAMB.
     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?

     SEG.
     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!

     CHAMB.
     Before the morning is far up, your Highness
     Will have the trumpet marshalling your soldiers
     Under the Palace windows.

     SEG.
     Ah, my soldiers—
     My soldiers—not black-vizor'd?—

     CHAMB.
     Sir?

     SEG.
     No matter.
     But—one thing—for a moment—in your ear—
     Do you know one Clotaldo?

     CHAMB.
     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.

     SEG.
     Well said, well said!
     Basilio, my father—well—Clotaldo
     Is he my kinsman too?

     CHAMB.
     Oh, my good Lord,
     A General simply in your Highness' service,
     Than whom your Highness has no trustier.

     SEG.
     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.

     CHAMB.
     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—

     SEG.
     My chamberlain?—
     And these that follow you?—

     CHAMB.
     On you, my Lord,
     Your Highness' lords in waiting.

     SEG.
     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?

     CHAMB.
     Oh, my Lord!

     SEG.
     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.

     SEG.
     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?

     CLO.
     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
     Attested, till the story of it all,
     Of which I bring a chapter, be reveal'd,
     Assured of all you see and hear as neither
     Madness nor mockery—

     SEG.
     What then?

     CLO.
     All it seems:
     This palace with its royal garniture;
     This capital of which it is the eye,
     With all its temples, marts, and arsenals;
     This realm of which this city is the head,
     With all its cities, villages, and tilth,
     Its armies, fleets, and commerce; all your own;
     And all the living souls that make them up,
     From those who now, and those who shall, salute you,
     Down to the poorest peasant of the realm,
     Your subjects—Who, though now their mighty voice
     Sleeps in the general body unapprized,
     Wait but a word from those about you now
     To hail you Prince of Poland, Segismund.

     SEG.
     All this is so?

     CLO.
     As sure as anything
     Is, or can be.

     SEG.
     You swear it on the faith
     You taught me—elsewhere?—

     CLO (kissing the hilt of his sword).
     Swear it upon this Symbol,
     and champion of the holy faith
     I wear it to defend.

     SEG (to himself).
     My eyes have not deceived me, nor my ears,
     With this transfiguration, nor the strain
     Of royal welcome that arose and blew,
     Breathed from no lying lips, along with it.
     For here Clotaldo comes, his own old self,
     Who, if not Lie and phantom with the rest—
     (Aloud)
     Well, then, all this is thus.
     For have not these fine people told me so,
     And you, Clotaldo, sworn it? And the Why
     And Wherefore are to follow by and bye!
     And yet—and yet—why wait for that which you
     Who take your oath on it can answer—and
     Indeed it presses hard upon my brain—
     What I was asking of these gentlemen
     When you came in upon us; how it is
     That I—the Segismund you know so long
     No longer than the sun that rose to-day
     Rose—and from what you know—
     Rose to be Prince of Poland?

     CLO.
     So to be
     Acknowledged and entreated, Sir.

     SEG.
     So be
     Acknowledged and entreated—
     Well—But if now by all, by some at least
     So known—if not entreated—heretofore—
     Though not by you—For, now I think again,
     Of what should be your attestation worth,
     You that of all my questionable subjects
     Who knowing what, yet left me where I was,
     You least of all, Clotaldo, till the dawn
     Of this first day that told it to myself?

     CLO.
     Oh, let your Highness draw the line across
     Fore-written sorrow, and in this new dawn
     Bury that long sad night.

     SEG.
     Not ev'n the Dead,
     Call'd to the resurrection of the blest,
     Shall so directly drop all memory
     Of woes and wrongs foregone!

     CLO.
     But not resent—
     Purged by the trial of that sorrow past
     For full fruition of their present bliss.

     SEG.
     But leaving with the Judge what, till this earth
     Be cancell'd in the burning heavens, He leaves
     His earthly delegates to execute,
     Of retribution in reward to them
     And woe to those who wrong'd them—Not as you,
     Not you, Clotaldo, knowing not—And yet
     Ev'n to the guiltiest wretch in all the realm,
     Of any treason guilty short of that,
     Stern usage—but assuredly not knowing,
     Not knowing 'twas your sovereign lord, Clotaldo,
     You used so sternly.

     CLO.
     Ay, sir; with the same
     Devotion and fidelity that now
     Does homage to him for my sovereign.

     SEG.
     Fidelity that held his Prince in chains!

     CLO.
     Fidelity more fast than had it loosed him—

     SEG.
     Ev'n from the very dawn of consciousness
     Down at the bottom of the barren rocks,
     Where scarce a ray of sunshine found him out,
     In which the poorest beggar of my realm
     At least to human-full proportion grows—
     Me! Me—whose station was the kingdom's top
     To flourish in, reaching my head to heaven,
     And with my branches overshadowing
     The meaner growth below!

     CLO.
     Still with the same
     Fidelity—

     SEG.
     To me!—

     CLO.
     Ay, sir, to you,
     Through that divine allegiance upon which
     All Order and Authority is based;
     Which to revolt against—

     SEG.
     Were to revolt
     Against the stars, belike!

     CLO.
     And him who reads them;
     And by that right, and by the sovereignty
     He wears as you shall wear it after him;
     Ay, one to whom yourself—
     Yourself, ev'n more than any subject here,
     Are bound by yet another and more strong
     Allegiance—King Basilio—your Father—

     SEG.
     Basilio—King—my father!—

     CLO.
     Oh, my Lord,
     Let me beseech you on my bended knee,
     For your own sake—for Poland's—and for his,
     Who, looking up for counsel to the skies,
     Did what he did under authority
     To which the kings of earth themselves are subject,
     And whose behest not only he that suffers,
     But he that executes, not comprehends,
     But only He that orders it—

     SEG.
     The King—
     My father!—Either I am mad already,
     Or that way driving fast—or I should know
     That fathers do not use their children so,
     Or men were loosed from all allegiance
     To fathers, kings, and heaven that order'd all.
     But, mad or not, my hour is come, and I
     Will have my reckoning—Either you lie,
     Under the skirt of sinless majesty
     Shrouding your treason; or if that indeed,
     Guilty itself, take refuge in the stars
     That cannot hear the charge, or disavow—
     You, whether doer or deviser, who
     Come first to hand, shall pay the penalty
     By the same hand you owe it to—
     (Seizing Clotaldo's sword and about to strike him.)

     (Enter Rosaura suddenly.)

     ROSAURA.
     Fie, my Lord—forbear,
     What! a young hand raised against silver hair!—

     (She retreats through the crowd.)

     SEG.
     Stay! stay! What come and vanish'd as before—
     I scarce remember how—but—

     (Voices within. Room for Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy!)

     (Enter Astolfo)

     ASTOLFO.
     Welcome, thrice welcome, the auspicious day,
     When from the mountain where he darkling lay,
     The Polish sun into the firmament
     Sprung all the brighter for his late ascent,
     And in meridian glory—

     SEG.
     Where is he?
     Why must I ask this twice?—

     A LORD.
     The Page, my Lord?
     I wonder at his boldness—

     SEG.
     But I tell you
     He came with Angel written in his face
     As now it is, when all was black as hell
     About, and none of you who now—he came,
     And Angel-like flung me a shining sword
     To cut my way through darkness; and again
     Angel-like wrests it from me in behalf
     Of one—whom I will spare for sparing him:
     But he must come and plead with that same voice
     That pray'd for me—in vain.

     CHAMB.
     He is gone for,
     And shall attend your pleasure, sir. Meanwhile,
     Will not your Highness, as in courtesy,
     Return your royal cousin's greeting?

     SEG.
     Whose?

     CHAMB.
     Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy, my Lord,
     Saluted, and with gallant compliment
     Welcomed you to your royal title.

     SEG. (to Astolfo).
     Oh—
     You knew of this then?

     AST.
     Knew of what, my Lord?

     SEG.
     That I was Prince of Poland all the while,
     And you my subject?

     AST.
     Pardon me, my Lord,
     But some few hours ago myself I learn'd
     Your dignity; but, knowing it, no more
     Than when I knew it not, your subject.

     SEG.
     What then?

     AST.
     Your Highness' chamberlain ev'n now has told you;
     Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy,
     Your father's sister's son; your cousin, sir:
     And who as such, and in his own right Prince,
     Expects from you the courtesy he shows.

     CHAMB.
     His Highness is as yet unused to Court,
     And to the ceremonious interchange
     Of compliment, especially to those
     Who draw their blood from the same royal fountain.

     SEG.
     Where is the lad? I weary of all this—
     Prince, cousins, chamberlains, and compliments—
     Where are my soldiers? Blow the trumpet, and
     With one sharp blast scatter these butterflies
     And bring the men of iron to my side,
     With whom a king feels like a king indeed!

     (Voices within. Within there! room for the Princess Estrella!)

     (Enter Estrella with Ladies.)

     ESTRELLA.
     Welcome, my Lord, right welcome to the throne
     That much too long has waited for your coming:
     And, in the general voice of Poland, hear
     A kinswoman and cousin's no less sincere.

     SEG.
     Ay, this is welcome-worth indeed,
     And cousin cousin-worth! Oh, I have thus
     Over the threshold of the mountain seen,
     Leading a bevy of fair stars, the moon
     Enter the court of heaven—My kinswoman!
     My cousin! But my subject?—

     EST.
     If you please
     To count your cousin for your subject, sir,
     You shall not find her a disloyal.

     SEG.
     Oh,
     But there are twin stars in that heavenly face,
     That now I know for having over-ruled
     Those evil ones that darken'd all my past
     And brought me forth from that captivity
     To be the slave of her who set me free.

     EST.
     Indeed, my Lord, these eyes have no such power
     Over the past or present: but perhaps
     They brighten at your welcome to supply
     The little that a lady's speech commends;
     And in the hope that, let whichever be
     The other's subject, we may both be friends.

     SEG.
     Your hand to that—But why does this warm hand
     Shoot a cold shudder through me?

     EST.
     In revenge
     For likening me to that cold moon, perhaps.

     SEG.
     Oh, but the lip whose music tells me so
     Breathes of a warmer planet, and that lip
     Shall remedy the treason of the hand!
     (He catches to embrace her.)

     EST.
     Release me, sir!

     CHAMB.
     And pardon me, my Lord.
     This lady is a Princess absolute,
     As Prince he is who just saluted you,
     And claims her by affiance.

     SEG.
     Hence, old fool,
     For ever thrusting that white stick of yours
     Between me and my pleasure!

     AST.
     This cause is mine.
     Forbear, sir—

     SEG.
     What, sir mouth-piece, you again?

     AST.
     My Lord, I waive your insult to myself
     In recognition of the dignity
     You yet are new to, and that greater still
     You look in time to wear. But for this lady—
     Whom, if my cousin now, I hope to claim
     Henceforth by yet a nearer, dearer name—

     SEG.
     And what care I? She is my cousin too:
     And if you be a Prince—well, am not I
     Lord of the very soil you stand upon?
     By that, and by that right beside of blood
     That like a fiery fountain hitherto
     Pent in the rock leaps toward her at her touch,
     Mine, before all the cousins in Muscovy!
     You call me Prince of Poland, and yourselves
     My subjects—traitors therefore to this hour,
     Who let me perish all my youth away
     Chain'd there among the mountains; till, forsooth,
     Terrified at your treachery foregone,
     You spirit me up here, I know not how,
     Popinjay-like invest me like yourselves,
     Choke me with scent and music that I loathe,
     And, worse than all the music and the scent,
     With false, long-winded, fulsome compliment,
     That 'Oh, you are my subjects!' and in word
     Reiterating still obedience,
     Thwart me in deed at every step I take:
     When just about to wreak a just revenge
     Upon that old arch-traitor of you all,
     Filch from my vengeance him I hate; and him
     I loved—the first and only face—till this—
     I cared to look on in your ugly court—
     And now when palpably I grasp at last
     What hitherto but shadow'd in my dreams—
     Affiances and interferences,
     The first who dares to meddle with me more—
     Princes and chamberlains and counsellors,
     Touch her who dares!—

     AST.
     That dare I—

     SEG. (seizing him by the throat).
     You dare!

     CHAMB.
     My Lord!—

     A LORD.
     His strength's a lion's—

     (Voices within. The King! The King!—)

     (Enter King.)

     A LORD.
     And on a sudden how he stands at gaze
     As might a wolf just fasten'd on his prey,
     Glaring at a suddenly encounter'd lion.

     KING.
     And I that hither flew with open arms
     To fold them round my son, must now return
     To press them to an empty heart again!
     (He sits on the throne.)

     SEG.
     That is the King?—My father?
     (After a long pause.)
     I have heard
     That sometimes some blind instinct has been known
     To draw to mutual recognition those
     Of the same blood, beyond all memory
     Divided, or ev'n never met before.
     I know not how this is—perhaps in brutes
     That live by kindlier instincts—but I know
     That looking now upon that head whose crown
     Pronounces him a sovereign king, I feel
     No setting of the current in my blood
     Tow'rd him as sire. How is't with you, old man,
     Tow'rd him they call your son?—

     KING.
     Alas! Alas!

     SEG.
     Your sorrow, then?

     KING.
     Beholding what I do.

     SEG.
     Ay, but how know this sorrow that has grown
     And moulded to this present shape of man,
     As of your own creation?

     KING.
     Ev'n from birth.

     SEG.
     But from that hour to this, near, as I think,
     Some twenty such renewals of the year
     As trace themselves upon the barren rocks,
     I never saw you, nor you me—unless,
     Unless, indeed, through one of those dark masks
     Through which a son might fail to recognize
     The best of fathers.

     KING.
     Be that as you will:
     But, now we see each other face to face,
     Know me as you I know; which did I not,
     By whatsoever signs, assuredly
     You were not here to prove it at my risk.

     SEG.
     You are my father.
     And is it true then, as Clotaldo swears,
     'Twas you that from the dawning birth of one
     Yourself brought into being,—you, I say,
     Who stole his very birthright; not alone
     That secondary and peculiar right
     Of sovereignty, but even that prime
     Inheritance that all men share alike,
     And chain'd him—chain'd him!—like a wild beast's whelp.
     Among as savage mountains, to this hour?
     Answer if this be thus.

     KING.
     Oh, Segismund,
     In all that I have done that seems to you,
     And, without further hearing, fairly seems,
     Unnatural and cruel—'twas not I,
     But One who writes His order in the sky
     I dared not misinterpret nor neglect,
     Who knows with what reluctance—

     SEG.
     Oh, those stars,
     Those stars, that too far up from human blame
     To clear themselves, or careless of the charge,
     Still bear upon their shining shoulders all
     The guilt men shift upon them!

     KING.
     Nay, but think:
     Not only on the common score of kind,
     But that peculiar count of sovereignty—
     If not behind the beast in brain as heart,
     How should I thus deal with my innocent child,
     Doubly desired, and doubly dear when come,
     As that sweet second-self that all desire,
     And princes more than all, to root themselves
     By that succession in their people's hearts,
     Unless at that superior Will, to which
     Not kings alone, but sovereign nature bows?

     SEG.
     And what had those same stars to tell of me
     That should compel a father and a king
     So much against that double instinct?

     KING.
     That,
     Which I have brought you hither, at my peril,
     Against their written warning, to disprove,
     By justice, mercy, human kindliness.

     SEG.
     And therefore made yourself their instrument
     To make your son the savage and the brute
     They only prophesied?—Are you not afear'd,
     Lest, irrespective as such creatures are
     Of such relationship, the brute you made
     Revenge the man you marr'd—like sire, like son.
     To do by you as you by me have done?

     KING.
     You never had a savage heart from me;
     I may appeal to Poland.

     SEG.
     Then from whom?
     If pure in fountain, poison'd by yourself
     When scarce begun to flow.—To make a man
     Not, as I see, degraded from the mould
     I came from, nor compared to those about,
     And then to throw your own flesh to the dogs!—
     Why not at once, I say, if terrified
     At the prophetic omens of my birth,
     Have drown'd or stifled me, as they do whelps
     Too costly or too dangerous to keep?

     KING.
     That, living, you might learn to live, and rule
     Yourself and Poland.

     SEG.
     By the means you took
     To spoil for either?

     KING.
     Nay, but, Segismund!
     You know not—cannot know—happily wanting
     The sad experience on which knowledge grows,
     How the too early consciousness of power
     Spoils the best blood; nor whether for your long
     Constrain'd disheritance (which, but for me,
     Remember, and for my relenting love
     Bursting the bond of fate, had been eternal)
     You have not now a full indemnity;
     Wearing the blossom of your youth unspent
     In the voluptuous sunshine of a court,
     That often, by too early blossoming,
     Too soon deflowers the rose of royalty.

     SEG.
     Ay, but what some precocious warmth may spill,
     May not an early frost as surely kill?

     KING.
     But, Segismund, my son, whose quick discourse
     Proves I have not extinguish'd and destroy'd
     The Man you charge me with extinguishing,
     However it condemn me for the fault
     Of keeping a good light so long eclipsed,
     Reflect! This is the moment upon which
     Those stars, whose eyes, although we see them not,
     By day as well as night are on us still,
     Hang watching up in the meridian heaven
     Which way the balance turns; and if to you—
     As by your dealing God decide it may,
     To my confusion!—let me answer it
     Unto yourself alone, who shall at once
     Approve yourself to be your father's judge,
     And sovereign of Poland in his stead,
     By justice, mercy, self-sobriety,
     And all the reasonable attributes
     Without which, impotent to rule himself,
     Others one cannot, and one must not rule;
     But which if you but show the blossom of—
     All that is past we shall but look upon
     As the first out-fling of a generous nature
     Rioting in first liberty; and if
     This blossom do but promise such a flower
     As promises in turn its kindly fruit:
     Forthwith upon your brows the royal crown,
     That now weighs heavy on my aged brows,
     I will devolve; and while I pass away
     Into some cloister, with my Maker there
     To make my peace in penitence and prayer,
     Happily settle the disorder'd realm
     That now cries loudly for a lineal heir.

     SEG.
     And so—
     When the crown falters on your shaking head,
     And slips the sceptre from your palsied hand,
     And Poland for her rightful heir cries out;
     When not only your stol'n monopoly
     Fails you of earthly power, but 'cross the grave
     The judgment-trumpet of another world
     Calls you to count for your abuse of this;
     Then, oh then, terrified by the double danger,
     You drag me from my den—
     Boast not of giving up at last the power
     You can no longer hold, and never rightly
     Held, but in fee for him you robb'd it from;
     And be assured your Savage, once let loose,
     Will not be caged again so quickly; not
     By threat or adulation to be tamed,
     Till he have had his quarrel out with those
     Who made him what he is.

     KING.
     Beware! Beware!
     Subdue the kindled Tiger in your eye,
     Nor dream that it was sheer necessity
     Made me thus far relax the bond of fate,
     And, with far more of terror than of hope
     Threaten myself, my people, and the State.
     Know that, if old, I yet have vigour left
     To wield the sword as well as wear the crown;
     And if my more immediate issue fail,
     Not wanting scions of collateral blood,
     Whose wholesome growth shall more than compensate
     For all the loss of a distorted stem.

     SEG.
     That will I straightway bring to trial—Oh,
     After a revelation such as this,
     The Last Day shall have little left to show
     Of righted wrong and villainy requited!
     Nay, Judgment now beginning upon earth,
     Myself, methinks, in sight of all my wrongs,
     Appointed heaven's avenging minister,
     Accuser, judge, and executioner
     Sword in hand, cite the guilty—First, as worst,
     The usurper of his son's inheritance;
     Him and his old accomplice, time and crime
     Inveterate, and unable to repay
     The golden years of life they stole away.
     What, does he yet maintain his state, and keep
     The throne he should be judged from? Down with him,
     That I may trample on the false white head
     So long has worn my crown! Where are my soldiers?
     Of all my subjects and my vassals here
     Not one to do my bidding? Hark! A trumpet!
     The trumpet—

     (He pauses as the trumpet sounds as in Act I.,
      and masked Soldiers gradually fill in behind the Throne.)

     KING (rising before his throne).
     Ay, indeed, the trumpet blows
     A memorable note, to summon those
     Who, if forthwith you fall not at the feet
     Of him whose head you threaten with the dust,
     Forthwith shall draw the curtain of the Past
     About you; and this momentary gleam
     Of glory that you think to hold life-fast,
     So coming, so shall vanish, as a dream.

     SEG.
     He prophesies; the old man prophesies;
     And, at his trumpet's summons, from the tower
     The leash-bound shadows loosen'd after me
     My rising glory reach and over-lour—
     But, reach not I my height, he shall not hold,
     But with me back to his own darkness!

     (He dashes toward the throne and is enclosed by the soldiers.)

     Traitors!
     Hold off! Unhand me!—Am not I your king?
     And you would strangle him!—
     But I am breaking with an inward Fire
     Shall scorch you off, and wrap me on the wings
     Of conflagration from a kindled pyre
     Of lying prophecies and prophet-kings
     Above the extinguish'd stars—Reach me the sword
     He flung me—Fill me such a bowl of wine
     As that you woke the day with—

     KING.
     And shall close,—
     But of the vintage that Clotaldo knows.

     (Exeunt.)

     (Segismund, as at first, and Clotaldo.)

     CLOTALDO.
     Princes and princesses, and counsellors
     Fluster'd to right and left—my life made at—
     But that was nothing
     Even the white-hair'd, venerable King
     Seized on—Indeed, you made wild work of it;
     And so discover'd in your outward action,
     Flinging your arms about you in your sleep,
     Grinding your teeth—and, as I now remember,
     Woke mouthing out judgment and execution,
     On those about you.

     SEG.
     Ay, I did indeed.

     CLO.
     Ev'n now your eyes stare wild; your hair stands up—
     Your pulses throb and flutter, reeling still
     Under the storm of such a dream—

     SEG.
     A dream!
     That seem'd as swearable reality
     As what I wake in now.

     CLO.
     Ay—wondrous how
     Imagination in a sleeping brain
     Out of the uncontingent senses draws
     Sensations strong as from the real touch;
     That we not only laugh aloud, and drench
     With tears our pillow; but in the agony
     Of some imaginary conflict, fight
     And struggle—ev'n as you did; some, 'tis thought,
     Under the dreamt-of stroke of death have died.

     SEG.
     And what so very strange too—In that world
     Where place as well as people all was strange,
     Ev'n I almost as strange unto myself,
     You only, you, Clotaldo—you, as much
     And palpably yourself as now you are,
     Came in this very garb you ever wore,
     By such a token of the past, you said,
     To assure me of that seeming present.

     CLO.
     Ay?

     SEG.
     Ay; and even told me of the very stars
     You tell me here of—how in spite of them,
     I was enlarged to all that glory.

     CLO.
     Ay, By the false spirits' nice contrivance thus
     A little truth oft leavens all the false,
     The better to delude us.

     SEG.
     For you know
     'Tis nothing but a dream?

     CLO.
     Nay, you yourself
     Know best how lately you awoke from that
     You know you went to sleep on?—
     Why, have you never dreamt the like before?

     SEG.
     Never, to such reality.

     CLO.
     Such dreams
     Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations
     Of that ambition that lies smouldering
     Under the ashes of the lowest fortune;
     By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost
     The reins of sensible comparison,
     We fly at something higher than we are—
     Scarce ever dive to lower—to be kings,
     Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold,
     Nay, mounting heaven itself on eagle wings.
     Which, by the way, now that I think of it,
     May furnish us the key to this high flight
     That royal Eagle we were watching, and
     Talking of as you went to sleep last night.

     SEG.
     Last night? Last night?

     CLO.
     Ay, do you not remember
     Envying his immunity of flight,
     As, rising from his throne of rock, he sail'd
     Above the mountains far into the West,
     That burn'd about him, while with poising wings
     He darkled in it as a burning brand
     Is seen to smoulder in the fire it feeds?

     SEG.
     Last night—last night—Oh, what a day was that
     Between that last night and this sad To-day!

     CLO.
     And yet, perhaps,
     Only some few dark moments, into which
     Imagination, once lit up within
     And unconditional of time and space,
     Can pour infinities.

     SEG.
     And I remember
     How the old man they call'd the King, who wore
     The crown of gold about his silver hair,
     And a mysterious girdle round his waist,
     Just when my rage was roaring at its height,
     And after which it all was dark again,
     Bid me beware lest all should be a dream.

     CLO.
     Ay—there another specialty of dreams,
     That once the dreamer 'gins to dream he dreams,
     His foot is on the very verge of waking.

     SEG.
     Would it had been upon the verge of death
     That knows no waking—
     Lifting me up to glory, to fall back,
     Stunn'd, crippled—wretcheder than ev'n before.

     CLO.
     Yet not so glorious, Segismund, if you
     Your visionary honour wore so ill
     As to work murder and revenge on those
     Who meant you well.

     SEG.
     Who meant me!—me! their Prince
     Chain'd like a felon—

     CLO.
     Stay, stay—Not so fast,
     You dream'd the Prince, remember.

     SEG.
     Then in dream
     Revenged it only.

     CLO.
     True. But as they say
     Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul
     Yet uncorrected of the higher Will,
     So that men sometimes in their dreams confess
     An unsuspected, or forgotten, self;
     One must beware to check—ay, if one may,
     Stifle ere born, such passion in ourselves
     As makes, we see, such havoc with our sleep,
     And ill reacts upon the waking day.
     And, by the bye, for one test, Segismund,
     Between such swearable realities—
     Since Dreaming, Madness, Passion, are akin
     In missing each that salutary rein
     Of reason, and the guiding will of man:
     One test, I think, of waking sanity
     Shall be that conscious power of self-control,
     To curb all passion, but much most of all
     That evil and vindictive, that ill squares
     With human, and with holy canon less,
     Which bids us pardon ev'n our enemies,
     And much more those who, out of no ill will,
     Mistakenly have taken up the rod
     Which heaven, they think, has put into their hands.

     SEG.
     I think I soon shall have to try again—
     Sleep has not yet done with me.

     CLO.
     Such a sleep.
     Take my advice—'tis early yet—the sun
     Scarce up above the mountain; go within,
     And if the night deceived you, try anew
     With morning; morning dreams they say come true.

     SEG.
     Oh, rather pray for me a sleep so fast
     As shall obliterate dream and waking too.

     (Exit into the tower.)

     CLO.
     So sleep; sleep fast: and sleep away those two
     Night-potions, and the waking dream between
     Which dream thou must believe; and, if to see
     Again, poor Segismund! that dream must be.—
     And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives,
     Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake,
     How if our waking life, like that of sleep,
     Be all a dream in that eternal life
     To which we wake not till we sleep in death?
     How if, I say, the senses we now trust
     For date of sensible comparison,—
     Ay, ev'n the Reason's self that dates with them,
     Should be in essence or intensity
     Hereafter so transcended, and awake
     To a perceptive subtlety so keen
     As to confess themselves befool'd before,
     In all that now they will avouch for most?
     One man—like this—but only so much longer
     As life is longer than a summer's day,
     Believed himself a king upon his throne,
     And play'd at hazard with his fellows' lives,
     Who cheaply dream'd away their lives to him.
     The sailor dream'd of tossing on the flood:
     The soldier of his laurels grown in blood:
     The lover of the beauty that he knew
     Must yet dissolve to dusty residue:
     The merchant and the miser of his bags
     Of finger'd gold; the beggar of his rags:
     And all this stage of earth on which we seem
     Such busy actors, and the parts we play'd,
     Substantial as the shadow of a shade,
     And Dreaming but a dream within a dream!

     FIFE.
     Was it not said, sir,
     By some philosopher as yet unborn,
     That any chimney-sweep who for twelve hours
     Dreams himself king is happy as the king
     Who dreams himself twelve hours a chimney-sweep?

     CLO.
     A theme indeed for wiser heads than yours
     To moralize upon—How came you here?—

     FIFE.
     Not of my own will, I assure you, sir.
     No matter for myself: but I would know
     About my mistress—I mean, master—

     CLO.
     Oh, Now I remember—Well, your master-mistress
     Is well, and deftly on its errand speeds,
     As you shall—if you can but hold your tongue.
     Can you?

     FIFE.
     I'd rather be at home again.

     CLO.
     Where you shall be the quicker if while here
     You can keep silence.

     FIFE.
     I may whistle, then?
     Which by the virtue of my name I do,
     And also as a reasonable test
     Of waking sanity—

     CLO.
     Well, whistle then;
     And for another reason you forgot,
     That while you whistle, you can chatter not.
     Only remember—if you quit this pass—

     FIFE.
     (His rhymes are out, or he had call'd it spot)—

     CLO.
     A bullet brings you to.
     I must forthwith to court to tell the King
     The issue of this lamentable day,
     That buries all his hope in night.
     (To FIFE.)
     Farewell. Remember.

     FIFE.
     But a moment—but a word!
     When shall I see my mis—mas—

     CLO.
     Be content:
     All in good time; and then, and not before,
     Never to miss your master any more.
     (Exit.)

     FIFE.
     Such talk of dreaming—dreaming—I begin
     To doubt if I be dreaming I am Fife,
     Who with a lad who call'd herself a boy
     Because—I doubt there's some confusion here—
     He wore no petticoat, came on a time
     Riding from Muscovy on half a horse,
     Who must have dreamt she was a horse entire,
     To cant me off upon my hinder face
     Under this tower, wall-eyed and musket-tongued,
     With sentinels a-pacing up and down,
     Crying All's well when all is far from well,
     All the day long, and all the night, until
     I dream—if what is dreaming be not waking—
     Of bells a-tolling and processions rolling
     With candles, crosses, banners, San-benitos,
     Of which I wear the flamy-finingest,
     Through streets and places throng'd with fiery faces
     To some back platform—
     Oh, I shall take a fire into my hand
     With thinking of my own dear Muscovy—
     Only just over that Sierra there,
     By which we tumbled headlong into—No-land.
     Now, if without a bullet after me,
     I could but get a peep of my old home
     Perhaps of my own mule to take me there—
     All's still—perhaps the gentlemen within
     Are dreaming it is night behind their masks—
     God send 'em a good nightmare!—Now then—Hark!
     Voices—and up the rocks—and armed men
     Climbing like cats—Puss in the corner then.

     (He hides.)

     (Enter Soldiers cautiously up the rocks.)

     CAPTAIN.
     This is the frontier pass, at any rate,
     Where Poland ends and Muscovy begins.

     SOLDIER.
     We must be close upon the tower, I know,
     That half way up the mountain lies ensconced.

     CAPT.
     How know you that?

     SOL.
     He told me so—the Page
     Who put us on the scent.

     SOL. 2.
     And, as I think,
     Will soon be here to run it down with us.

     CAPT.
     Meantime, our horses on these ugly rocks
     Useless, and worse than useless with their clatter—
     Leave them behind, with one or two in charge,
     And softly, softly, softly.

     SOLDIERS.
     —There it is!
     —There what?
     —The tower—the fortress—
     —That the tower!—
     —That mouse-trap! We could pitch it down the rocks
     With our own hands.
     —The rocks it hangs among
     Dwarf its proportions and conceal its strength;
     Larger and stronger than you think.
     —No matter;
     No place for Poland's Prince to be shut up in.
     At it at once!

     CAPT.
     No—no—I tell you wait—
     Till those within give signal. For as yet
     We know not who side with us, and the fort
     Is strong in man and musket.

     SOL.
     Shame to wait
     For odds with such a cause at stake.

     CAPT.
     Because
     Of such a cause at stake we wait for odds—
     For if not won at once, for ever lost:
     For any long resistance on their part
     Would bring Basilio's force to succour them
     Ere we had rescued him we come to rescue.
     So softly, softly, softly, still—

     A SOLDIER (discovering Fife).
     Hilloa!

     SOLDIERS.
     —Hilloa! Here's some one skulking—
     —Seize and gag him!
     —Stab him at once, say I: the only way
     To make all sure.
     —Hold, every man of you!
     And down upon your knees!—Why, 'tis the Prince!
     —The Prince!—
     —Oh, I should know him anywhere,
     And anyhow disguised.
     —But the Prince is chain'd.
     —And of a loftier presence—
     —'Tis he, I tell you;
     Only bewilder'd as he was before.
     God save your Royal Highness! On our knees
     Beseech you answer us!

     FIFE.
     Just as you please.
     Well—'tis this country's custom, I suppose,
     To take a poor man every now and then
     And set him ON the throne; just for the fun
     Of tumbling him again into the dirt.
     And now my turn is come. 'Tis very pretty.

     SOL.
     His wits have been distemper'd with their drugs.
     But do you ask him, Captain.

     CAPT.
     On my knees,
     And in the name of all who kneel with me,
     I do beseech your Highness answer to
     Your royal title.

     FIFE.
     Still, just as you please.
     In my own poor opinion of myself—
     But that may all be dreaming, which it seems
     Is very much the fashion in this country
     No Polish prince at all, but a poor lad
     From Muscovy; where only help me back,
     I promise never to contest the crown
     Of Poland with whatever gentleman
     You fancy to set up.

     SOLDIERS.
     —From Muscovy?
     —A spy then—
     —Of Astolfo's—
     —Spy! a spy
     —Hang him at once!

     FIFE.
     No, pray don't dream of that!

     SOL.
     How dared you then set yourself up for our Prince Segismund?

     FIFE.
     I set up!—I like that
     When 'twas yourselves be-siegesmunded me.

     CAPT.
     No matter—Look!—The signal from the tower.
     Prince Segismund!

     SOL. (from the tower).
     Prince Segismund!

     CAPT.
     All's well. Clotaldo safe secured?—

     SOL. (from the tower).
     No—by ill luck,
     Instead of coming in, as we had look'd for,
     He sprang on horse at once, and off at gallop.

     CAPT.
     To Court, no doubt—a blunder that—And yet
     Perchance a blunder that may work as well
     As better forethought. Having no suspicion
     So will he carry none where his not going
     Were of itself suspicious. But of those
     Within, who side with us?

     SOL.
     Oh, one and all
     To the last man, persuaded or compell'd.

     CAPT.
     Enough: whatever be to be retrieved
     No moment to be lost. For though Clotaldo
     Have no revolt to tell of in the tower,
     The capital will soon awake to ours,
     And the King's force come blazing after us.
     Where is the Prince?

     SOL.
     Within; so fast asleep
     We woke him not ev'n striking off the chain
     We had so cursedly help bind him with,
     Not knowing what we did; but too ashamed
     Not to undo ourselves what we had done.

     CAPT.
     No matter, nor by whosesoever hands,
     Provided done. Come; we will bring him forth
     Out of that stony darkness here abroad,
     Where air and sunshine sooner shall disperse
     The sleepy fume which they have drugg'd him with.

     (They enter the tower, and thence bring out Segismund asleep on a
     pallet, and set him in the middle of the stage.)

     CAPT.
     Still, still so dead asleep, the very noise
     And motion that we make in carrying him
     Stirs not a leaf in all the living tree.

     SOLDIERS.
     If living—But if by some inward blow
     For ever and irrevocably fell'd
     By what strikes deeper to the root than sleep?
     —He's dead! He's dead! They've kill'd him—
     —No—he breathes—
     And the heart beats—and now he breathes again
     Deeply, as one about to shake away
     The load of sleep.

     CAPT.
     Come, let us all kneel round,
     And with a blast of warlike instruments,
     And acclamation of all loyal hearts,
     Rouse and restore him to his royal right,
     From which no royal wrong shall drive him more.

     (They all kneel round his bed: trumpets, drums, etc.)

     SOLDIERS.
     —Segismund! Segismund! Prince Segismund!
     —King Segismund! Down with Basilio!
     —Down with Astolfo! Segismund our King! etc.
     —He stares upon us wildly. He cannot speak.
     —I said so—driv'n him mad.
     —Speak to him, Captain.

     CAPTAIN.
     Oh Royal Segismund, our Prince and King,
     Look on us—listen to us—answer us,
     Your faithful soldiery and subjects, now
     About you kneeling, but on fire to rise
     And cleave a passage through your enemies,
     Until we seat you on your lawful throne.
     For though your father, King Basilio,
     Now King of Poland, jealous of the stars
     That prophesy his setting with your rise,
     Here holds you ignominiously eclipsed,
     And would Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy,
     Mount to the throne of Poland after him;
     So will not we, your loyal soldiery
     And subjects; neither those of us now first
     Apprised of your existence and your right:
     Nor those that hitherto deluded by
     Allegiance false, their vizors now fling down,
     And craving pardon on their knees with us
     For that unconscious disloyalty,
     Offer with us the service of their blood;
     Not only we and they; but at our heels
     The heart, if not the bulk, of Poland follows
     To join their voices and their arms with ours,
     In vindicating with our lives our own
     Prince Segismund to Poland and her throne.

     SOLDIERS.
     —Segismund, Segismund, Prince Segismund!
     —Our own King Segismund, etc.
     (They all rise.)

     SEG.
     Again? So soon?—What, not yet done with me?
     The sun is little higher up, I think,
     Than when I last lay down,
     To bury in the depth of your own sea
     You that infest its shallows.

     CAPT.
     Sir!

     SEG.
     And now,
     Not in a palace, not in the fine clothes
     We all were in; but here, in the old place,
     And in our old accoutrement—
     Only your vizors off, and lips unlock'd
     To mock me with that idle title—

     CAPT.
     Nay,
     Indeed no idle title, but your own,
     Then, now, and now for ever. For, behold,
     Ev'n as I speak, the mountain passes fill
     And bristle with the advancing soldiery
     That glitters in your rising glory, sir;
     And, at our signal, echo to our cry,
     'Segismund, King of Poland!' etc.

     (Shouts, trumpets, etc.)

     SEG.
     Oh, how cheap
     The muster of a countless host of shadows,
     As impotent to do with as to keep!
     All this they said before—to softer music.

     CAPT.
     Soft music, sir, to what indeed were shadows,
     That, following the sunshine of a Court,
     Shall back be brought with it—if shadows still,
     Yet to substantial reckoning.

     SEG.
     They shall?
     The white-hair'd and white-wanded chamberlain,
     So busy with his wand too—the old King
     That I was somewhat hard on—he had been
     Hard upon me—and the fine feather'd Prince
     Who crow'd so loud—my cousin,—and another,
     Another cousin, we will not bear hard on—
     And—But Clotaldo?

     CAPT.
     Fled, my lord, but close
     Pursued; and then—

     SEG.
     Then, as he fled before,
     And after he had sworn it on his knees,
     Came back to take me—where I am!—No more,
     No more of this! Away with you! Begone!
     Whether but visions of ambitious night
     That morning ought to scatter, or grown out
     Of night's proportions you invade the day
     To scare me from my little wits yet left,
     Begone! I know I must be near awake,
     Knowing I dream; or, if not at my voice,
     Then vanish at the clapping of my hands,
     Or take this foolish fellow for your sport:
     Dressing me up in visionary glories,
     Which the first air of waking consciousness
     Scatters as fast as from the almander—
     That, waking one fine morning in full flower,
     One rougher insurrection of the breeze
     Of all her sudden honour disadorns
     To the last blossom, and she stands again
     The winter-naked scare-crow that she was!

     CAPT.
     I know not what to do, nor what to say,
     With all this dreaming; I begin to doubt
     They have driv'n him mad indeed, and he and we
     Are lost together.

     A SOLDIER (to Captain).
     Stay, stay; I remember—
     Hark in your ear a moment.
     (Whispers.)

     CAPT.
     So—so—so?—
     Oh, now indeed I do not wonder, sir,
     Your senses dazzle under practices
     Which treason, shrinking from its own device,
     Would now persuade you only was a dream;
     But waking was as absolute as this
     You wake in now, as some who saw you then,
     Prince as you were and are, can testify:
     Not only saw, but under false allegiance
     Laid hands upon—

     SOLDIER 1.
     I, to my shame!

     SOLDIER 2.
     And I!

     CAPT.
     Who, to wipe out that shame, have been the first
     To stir and lead us—Hark!
     (Shouts, trumpets, etc.)

     A SOLDIER.
     Our forces, sir,
     Challenging King Basilio's, now in sight,
     And bearing down upon us.

     CAPT.
     Sir, you hear;
     A little hesitation and delay,
     And all is lost—your own right, and the lives
     Of those who now maintain it at that cost;
     With you all saved and won; without, all lost.
     That former recognition of your right
     Grant but a dream, if you will have it so;
     Great things forecast themselves by shadows great:
     Or will you have it, this like that dream too,
     People, and place, and time itself, all dream
     Yet, being in't, and as the shadows come
     Quicker and thicker than you can escape,
     Adopt your visionary soldiery,
     Who, having struck a solid chain away,
     Now put an airy sword into your hand,
     And harnessing you piece-meal till you stand
     Amidst us all complete in glittering,
     If unsubstantial, steel—

     ROSAURA (without).
     The Prince! The Prince!

     CAPT.
     Who calls for him?

     SOL.
     The Page who spurr'd us hither,
     And now, dismounted from a foaming horse—

     (Enter Rosaura)

     ROSAURA.
     Where is—but where I need no further ask
     Where the majestic presence, all in arms,
     Mutely proclaims and vindicates himself.

     FIFE.
     My darling Lady-lord—

     ROS.
     My own good Fife,
     Keep to my side—and silence!—Oh, my Lord,
     For the third time behold me here where first
     You saw me, by a happy misadventure
     Losing my own way here to find it out
     For you to follow with these loyal men,
     Adding the moment of my little cause
     To yours; which, so much mightier as it is,
     By a strange chance runs hand in hand with mine;
     The self-same foe who now pretends your right,
     Withholding mine—that, of itself alone,
     I know the royal blood that runs in you
     Would vindicate, regardless of your own:
     The right of injured innocence; and, more,
     Spite of this epicene attire, a woman's;
     And of a noble stock I will not name
     Till I, who brought it, have retrieved the shame.
     Whom Duke Astolfo, Prince of Muscovy,
     With all the solemn vows of wedlock won,
     And would have wedded, as I do believe,
     Had not the cry of Poland for a Prince
     Call'd him from Muscovy to join the prize
     Of Poland with the fair Estrella's eyes.
     I, following him hither, as you saw,
     Was cast upon these rocks; arrested by
     Clotaldo: who, for an old debt of love
     He owes my family, with all his might
     Served, and had served me further, till my cause
     Clash'd with his duty to his sovereign,
     Which, as became a loyal subject, sir,
     (And never sovereign had a loyaller,)
     Was still his first. He carried me to Court,
     Where, for the second time, I crossed your path;
     Where, as I watch'd my opportunity,
     Suddenly broke this public passion out;
     Which, drowning private into public wrong,
     Yet swiftlier sweeps it to revenge along.

     SEG.
     Oh God, if this be dreaming, charge it not
     To burst the channel of enclosing sleep
     And drown the waking reason! Not to dream
     Only what dreamt shall once or twice again
     Return to buzz about the sleeping brain
     Till shaken off for ever—
     But reassailing one so quick, so thick—
     The very figure and the circumstance
     Of sense-confess'd reality foregone
     In so-call'd dream so palpably repeated,
     The copy so like the original,
     We know not which is which; and dream so-call'd
     Itself inweaving so inextricably
     Into the tissue of acknowledged truth;
     The very figures that empeople it
     Returning to assert themselves no phantoms
     In something so much like meridian day,
     And in the very place that not my worst
     And veriest disenchanter shall deny
     For the too well-remember'd theatre
     Of my long tragedy—Strike up the drums!
     If this be Truth, and all of us awake,
     Indeed a famous quarrel is at stake:
     If but a Vision I will see it out,
     And, drive the Dream, I can but join the rout.

     CAPT.
     And in good time, sir, for a palpable
     Touchstone of truth and rightful vengeance too,
     Here is Clotaldo taken.

     SOLDIERS.
     In with him!
     In with the traitor!

     (Clotaldo brought in.)

     SEG.
     Ay, Clotaldo, indeed—
     Himself—in his old habit—his old self—
     What! back again, Clotaldo, for a while
     To swear me this for truth, and afterwards
     All for a dreaming lie?

     CLO.
     Awake or dreaming,
     Down with that sword, and down these traitors theirs,
     Drawn in rebellion 'gainst their Sovereign.

     SEG. (about to strike).
     Traitor! Traitor yourself!—
     But soft—soft—soft!—
     You told me, not so very long ago,
     Awake or dreaming—I forget—my brain
     Is not so clear about it—but I know
     One test you gave me to discern between,
     Which mad and dreaming people cannot master;
     Or if the dreamer could, so best secure
     A comfortable waking—Was't not so?
     (To Rosaura).
     Needs not your intercession now, you see,
     As in the dream before—
     Clotaldo, rough old nurse and tutor too
     That only traitor wert, to me if true—
     Give him his sword; set him on a fresh horse;
     Conduct him safely through my rebel force;
     And so God speed him to his sovereign's side!
     Give me your hand; and whether all awake
     Or all a-dreaming, ride, Clotaldo, ride—
     Dream-swift—for fear we dreams should overtake.

     (A Battle may be supposed to take place; after which)