John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

‘em to you.

  Dal. And, in requital, I receive you for my servant, cavalier.

  Carl. [Aside.] Damn him for his awkward liberality; he’s always covetous, but when ’tis to do me a mischief.

  Lop. [To Dal.] He’s come on again; my heart was almost at my mouth. — Now, Mrs.

  Minion, let me take you to task in private. [Draws her aside a little.] What hope have you of the Conde Don Alonzo de Cardona?

  Dal. Little or none; a bare possibility. You know what has passed betwixt us.

  Lop. But suppose he should renew his love, had you rather marry that rich old Conde, or this poor young rogue, Don Carlos?

  Dal. This poor young rogue, if you please, father.

  Lop. I thought as much, good madam. But, to come closer to the present business, betwixt

  Don Carlos and Don Sancho, that is to say, a poor young wit, and a rich young fool; put the case, gentlewoman, which of them would you choose?

  Dal. If it were not for mere necessity, I have a kind of a loathing to a fool.

  Lop. The more fool you, madam.

  Dal. Would you have a race of booby grandsons?

  Lop. That’s as your conscience serves you. I say only, that your husband shall be a fool; I say not, your children’s father shall be one.

  San. [ To Car.] This is a plaguy long whisper, I do not like it. And yet, now I think on’t, my left eye itches, some good luck is coming toward me.

  Lop. [To them.] I’ll be short and pithy with you. Don Sancho, — I think they call ye, — if but of my abundant love I should bestow my dutiful daughter on you, what kind of husband would you make?

  San. Husband, senor? Why, none at all. None of my predecessors were ever married; my father and my mother never were, and I will not be the first of my family that shall degenerate. I thought my two hundred pistoles would have done my business with Dalinda, and a little winking money with you.

  Lop. What, would you make me a pimp to my own daughter?

  Dal. And imagine my chastity could be corrupted with a petty bribe?

  San. Nay, I am not so obstinate neither against marriage. Carlos gave me this wicked counsel, on purpose to banish me; and, in revenge to him, I will marry.

  Lop. I hope you’ll ask her leave first?

  San. Pho! I take that for granted; no woman has the power to resist my courtship.

  Lop. Suppose then, as before supposed; what kind of husband would you make?

  San. Then, to deal roundly with you, I would run a-rambling myself, and leave the drudgery of my house to her management; all things should go at sixes and sevens for Sancho. In short, senor, I will be as absolute as the Great Turk, and take as little care of my people as a heathen god.

  Lop. Now, Don Carlos, what say you?

  Carl. [Aside.] I’ll fit them for a husband. — [To Lop.] Why, senor, I would be the most careful creature of her business; I would inspect everything, would manage the whole estate, to save her the trouble; I would be careful of her health, by keeping her within-doors; she should neither give nor receive visits; nor kneel at church among the fops, that look one way, and pray another.

  Dal. Oh, abominable!

  Lop. Why, thou ungrateful fellow! wouldst thou make a slave of my daughter? And leave her no business, that is to say, no authority in her own house?

  Dal. Ay, and to call fine young gentlemen fops, too! To lock me up from visitants, which are the only comfort of a disconsolate, miserable, married woman!

  Lop. An”twere not for fear thou shouldst beat me, I could find in my heart to beat thee.

  — Don Sancho; I have an olla at home, and you shall be welcome to it. — Farewell, kinsman.

  [To Carlos. Exeunt Lopez and Sancho, leading out Dalinda.

  Carl. Now, if I had another head, I could find in my heart to run this head against that wall. Nature has given me my portion in sense, with a pox to her, and turned me out into the wide world to starve upon it. She has given Sancho an empty noddle; but fortune, in revenge, has filled his pockets: just a lord’s estate in land and wit. Well, I have lost Dalinda; and something must be done to undermine Sancho in her good opinion. Some pernicious counsel must be given him. He is my prince, and I am his statesman; and when our two interests come to clash, I hope to make a mere monarch of him; and my hunger is somewhat in my way to quicken my invention.

  Want whets the wit, ’tis true; but wit, not blest

  With fortune’s aid, makes beggars at the best.

  Wit is not fed, but sharpened with applause;

  For wealth is solid food, and wit but hungry sauce. — [Exit.

  ACT II.

  SCENE I. — A Bedchamber; a couch prepared, and set so near the pit that the audience may hear.

  Alphonso enters with a book in his hand, and sits; reads to himself a little while. Enter

  Victoria, and sits by him, then speaks.

  Vict. If on your private business I intrude,

  Forgive the excess of love, that makes me rude.

  I hope your sickness has not reached your heart,

  But come to bear a suffering sister’s part;

  Yet, lest I should offend you by my stay,

  Command me to depart, and I obey.

  Alph. The patient, who has passed a sleepless night,

  Is far less pleased with his physician’s sight.

  Welcome, thou pleasing, but thou short reprieve,

  To ease my death, but not to make me live.

  Welcome, but welcome as a winter’s sun,

  That rises late, and is too quickly gone.

  Vict. You are the star of day, the public light;

  And I am but your sister of the night;

  Eclipsed, when you are absent from my sight.

  Alph. Death will for ever take me from your eyes;

  But grieve not you, for, when I set, you rise:

  Don Garcia has deserved to be your choice,

  And ’tis a brother’s duty to rejoice.

  Vict. And yet, methought, you gave him not your voice.

  Alph. You saw a sudden sickness left me weak;

  I had no joy to give, nor tongue to speak:

  And therefore I withdrew, to seek relief

  In books, the fruitless remedies of grief.

  Vict. But tell me what philosopher you found

  To cure your pain?

  Alph. The fittest for my wound,

  Who best the gentle passions knows to move;

  Ovid, the soft philosopher of love.

  His Love Epistles for my friends I chose;

  For there I found the kindred of my woes.

  Vict. His nymphs the vows of perjured men deplore;

  One in the woods, and one upon the shore:

  All are at length forsaken or betrayed;

  And the false hero leaves the faithful maid.

  Alph. Not all; for Linus kept his constancy;

  And one, perhaps, who more resembled me.

  Vict. That letter would I view; in hope to find

  Some features of the fair that rules your mind.

  Alph. Read, for the guilty page is doubled down;

  The love too soon will make the lover known.

  [ Giving her the book.

  Read, if you dare; and, when the crime you see,

  Accuse my cruel fate, but pity me.

  Vict. [Aside.] ’Tis what I feared, the unhappy Canace! —

  Read you; for, to a brother ’twas designed,

  [To him

  And sent him by a sister much too kind.

  [Alphonso takes the book, and reads.

  Why did thy flames beyond a brother’s move?

  Why loved I thee with more than sister’s love?

  [He looks upon her, and she holds down her head. He reads again.

  My cheeks no longer did their colour boast;

  My food grew loathsome, and my strength I lost;

  Still, ere I spoke, a sigh would stop my tongue;

  Short were my slumbers, and my nights were long.

  I knew not
from my love these griefs did grow,

  Yet was, alas! the thing I did not know.

  [She looks on him, and he holds down his head.

  Forced at the last, my shameful pain I tell.

  Vict. No more; we know our mutual love too well.

  [Both look up, and meet each other’s eyes.

  Alph. Two lines in reading had escaped in y sight;

  Shall I go back, and do the poet right?

  Vict. Already we have read too far, I fear;

  But read no more than modesty may bear.

  Alphonso, reading.

  For I loved too, and, knowing not my wound,

  A secret pleasure in thy kisses found.

  [He offers to kiss her, and she turns her head away.

  May we not represent the kiss we read?

  Vict. Alphonso, no: — brother, I should have said!

  ALPHONSO, reading again.

  When half denying, more than half content,

  Embraces warmed me to a full consent;

  Then, with tumultuous joys my heart did beat,

  And guilt, that made them anocious, made them great.,

  [She snatches the book, and throws it down, then rises and walks; he rises also.

  Vict. Incendiary book, polluted flame,

  Dare not to tempt the chaste Victoria’s fame!

  I love, perhaps, more than a sister should;

  And nature prompts, but heaven restrains my blood.

  Heaven was unkind, to set so strict a bound,

  And love would struggle to forbidden ground.

  Oh, let us gain a Parthian victory!

  Our only way to conquer is to fly.

  Alph. No more, Victoria; though my love aspires

  More high than yours, and fiercer are my fires,

  I cannot bear your looks; new flames arise

  From every glance, and kindle from your eyes.

  Pure are the beams which from those suns you dart;

  But gather blackness from my sooty heart

  Then let us each with hasty steps remove;

  Nor spread contagion, where we meant but love.

  Vict. Hear, heaven and earth, and witness to my vows;

  And Love, thou greatest power that nature knows!

  This heart, Alphonso, shall be firmly thine;

  This hand shall never with another join:

  Or if, by force, my father makes me wed,

  Then Death shall be the bridegroom of my bed.

  Now let us both our shares of sorrow take;

  And both be wretched for each other’s sake.

  Alph. By those relentless powers that rule the skies,

  And by a greater power, Victoria’s eyes,

  No love but yours shall touch Alphonso’s heart;

  Nor time, nor death, my vowed affections part:

  Nor shall my hated rival live to see

  That hour which envious fate denies to me.

  Now seal we both our vows with one dear kiss.

  Vict. No; ’tis a hot, and an incestuous bliss!

  Let both be satisfied with what we swore;

  I dare not give it, lest I give you more.

  [Exit Victoria, looking back on him, and he gazing on her.

  Alph. O raging, impious, and yet hopeless fire!

  Not daring to possess what I desire;

  Condemned to suffer what I cannot bear;

  Tortured with love, and furious with despair.

  Of all the pains which wretched mortals prove,

  The fewest remedies belong to love:

  But ours has none; for, if we should enjoy,

  Our fatal cure must both of us destroy.

  O dear Victoria! cause of all my pain;

  O dear Victoria! whom I would not gain:

  Victoria, for whose sake I would survive!

  Victoria, for whose sake I dare not live!

  Enter Garcia with Attendants. The two

  Princes salute, but Alphonso very coldly.

  Gar. I come to show my grief for your distemper;

  For, if my noble brother saw my heart,

  There should you find a plain, a holy friendship,

  Unmixed with interest, equally partaking

  Of what affects you, both of good and ill.

  Alph. I thank you: but my malady increases

  At your approach. I have no more to say;

  But wish you better health than I can boast,

  And to myself a lonely privacy.

  Gar. I find I am not welcome to your sight;

  But know not from what cause.

  Alph. [Angrily.] My surest remedy is in your absence.

  ’Tis hard my lodgings cannot be my own,

  But importuned with visits undesired;

  And therefore, I must tell you, troublesome.

  Gar. ’Tis an odd way of entertaining friends;

  But, since I find you discomposed with sickness,

  That shall excuse your humours; where I go,

  I hope for better welcome.

  Alph. Sir, I must ask, whom you pretend to visit?

  Gar. My mistress, prince.

  Alph. Your mistress! who’s that mistress?

  Gar. What need I name Victoria?

  Alph. Who? my sister!

  Gar. Whom else could you imagine?

  Alph. Any other.

  Gar. And why not her?

  Alph. Because I know not if she will admit you.

  Gar. Her father has allowed it

  Alph. But not she;

  Or, if both have, yet my consent is wanting.

  You take upon you in a foreign kingdom,

  As if you were at home in your Navarre.

  Gar. And you, methinks,

  As if you had no father, or no king.

  Farewell, I will not stay.

  Alph. You shall not go:

  Thus as I am, thus single, thus unarmed,

  And you with guards attended —

  Gar. You teach me to forget the rule of manners.

  Alph. I mean to teach you better.

  [As Garcia is going to pass by him, Alphonso runs to one of his Attendants and snatches his sword away, then steps between Garcia and the door.

  Enter Veramond and Ximena, attended.

  Vera. What means this rude behaviour in my court?

  As if our Arragon were turned to Thrace,

  Unhospitable to our guests, and thou,

  Alphonso, a Lycurgus.

  Alph. He would pass,

  Without my sister’s leave, into her lodgings.

  By heaven, if this be suffered to proceed,

  The next will be to treat the royal maid

  As coarsely as she were some suburb girl.

  Gar. [To Vera.] Had I not your permission, sir?

  Vera. You had.

  But these, Alphonso, are thy ruffian manners.

  How dar’st thou, boy, to break my orders,

  And then asperse thy sister with thy crime?

  Alph. She said his presence was unpleasing to her.

  Vera. Come, thou beliest her innocence and duty:

  She did not, durst not say it.

  Alph. If she did not,

  I dare, and will maintain to all the world,

  That Garcia is not worthy of my sister.

  Vera. Not worthy!

  Alph. No; I say once more, not worthy.

  Gar. Not in myself; for who deserves

  Victoria?

  But, since her royal father bids me hope,

  Not less unworthy than another prince:

  And none, with your permission, sir, shall dare

  [To Veramond.

  To interpose betwixt my love and me.

  Alph. Sure a less price, than our infanta’s bed,

  Might pay thee for thy mercenary troops.

  Vera. Peace, insolent; too long I have endured

  Thy haughty soul, untamed and turbulent:

  But, if I live, this shall not pass unpunished;

  Darkness and chains are medicine
s for a madman.

  Xim. My lord, I humbly beg you, spare your son;

  And add not fury to a (raging fire.

  He soon will recollect his scattered reason,

  Which heat of youth, and sickness and fatigues,

  Have dissipated in his foiling blood.

  Give him but time, and then his temperate humour

  Will soon return into the native channel,

  And, unopposed, be calm.

  Vera. No; never more.

  The moon has rolled above his head, and turned it;

  As peals of thunder sour the generous wine.

  Hence from my presence, thou no more my son!

  [To Alphonso.

  Xim. If he be mad, be madness his excuse;

  And pardon nature’s error, not his own.

  Vera. Ximena, you have fondled him to this:

  I prophesied; and now ’tis come to pass.

  Gar. Perhaps I interrupted him too rudely;

  And, since I caused myself that ill reception,

  Forgive our mutual faults.

  Vera. You shall prevail;

  Though he deserves not such an intercessor. —

  [To Alph.] Retire, Alphonso, to your inmost lodgings,

  And there enclose yourself, and mourn your crimes.

  Be this your last relapse; the next is fatal.

  Alph. I will retire:

  But, if I am a madman, as you say,

  And as I half believe, expect no cure

  But in Alphonso’s death. [Alphonso goes in.

  Xim. [Aside.] It works apace;

  But whither it will tend, heaven only knows.

  [Veramond sees the book upon the ground, and takes it up.

  Vera. This book he left; go, bear it after him. —

  Yet stay; I know not why, but somewhat prompts me

  To read this folded page. —

  [To Garcia.] Go, royal youth:

  I would myself conduct you to Victoria,

  But lovers need no guide to their desires;

  And love no witness, but himself, requires.

  Vict.Exeunt the King and Queen one way, with their Attendants; and Don Garcia with his, another.

  SCENE II. — A Street.

  Enter Carlos before Don Lopez’s door.

  Carl. That is the door of Lopez, and Sancho must come out this way. Now, fool, sit fast, for thou shalt not want for pestilent advice: but first,

  I must know how far thou hast proceeded with the father and the daughter, that I may know what drugs I must prepare for the present condition of my patient. — Oh, the door opens already, and he bolts out single, as I wished.

  Enter Sancho, picking his teeth.

  San. What, Carlos, you have dined before me; but, it may be, you have not fared so well.