The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats
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was prisoner ta’en
And rifled, stuff! the horses’ hoofs have minc’d it!
Auranthe.
He is alive?
Conrad.
He is! but here make oath
To alienate him from your scheming brain,
Divorce him from your solitary thoughts,
And cloud him in such utter banishment,
That when his person meets again your eye,
Your vision shall quite lose its memory,
And wander past him as through vacancy.
Auranthe.
I’ll not be perjured.
Conrad.
No, nor great, nor mighty;
You would not wear a crown, or rule a kingdom.
To you it is indifferent.
Auranthe.
What means this?
Conrad.
You’ll not be perjured! Go to Albert then,
That camp-mushroom dishonour of our house.
Go, page his dusty heels upon a march,
Furbish his jingling baldric while he sleeps,
And share his mouldy ration in a siege.
Yet stay, perhaps a charm may call you back,
And make the widening circlets of your eyes
Sparkle with healthy fevers. The Emperor
Hath given consent that you should marry Ludolph!
Auranthe.
Can it be, brother? For a golden crown
With a queen’s awful lips I doubly thank you!
This is to wake in Paradise ! Farewell
Thou clod of yesterday ’twas not myself!
Not till this moment did I ever feel
My spirit’s faculties! I’ll flatter you
For this, and be you ever proud of it;
Thou, Jove-like, struck’dst thy forehead,
And from the teeming marrow of thy brain
I spring complete Minerva! But the prince
His highness Ludolph where is he?
Conrad.
I know not:
When, lackeying my counsel at a beck,
The rebel lords, on bended knees, received
The Emperor’s pardon, Ludolph kept aloof,
Sole, in a stiff, fool-hardy, sulky pride;
Yet, for all this, I never saw a father
In such a sickly longing for his son.
We shall soon see him, for the Emperor
He will be here this morning.
Auranthe.
That I heard
Among the midnight rumours from the camp.
Conrad.
You give up Albert to me?
Auranthe.
Harm him not!
E’en for his highness Ludolph’s sceptry hand,
I would not Albert suffer any wrong.
Conrad.
Have I not laboured, plotted ?
Auranthe.
See you spare him:
Nor be pathetic, my kind benefactor,
On all the many bounties of your hand,
’Twas for yourself you laboured not for me!
Do you not count, when I am queen, to take
Advantage of your chance discoveries
Of my poor secrets, and so hold a rod
Over my life?
Conrad.
Let not this slave this villain
Be cause of feud between us. See! he comes!
Look, woman, look, your Albert is quite safe!
In haste it seems. Now shall I be in the way,
And wish’d with silent curses in my grave,
Or side by side with ‘whelmed mariners.
Enter ALBERT.
Albert.
Fair on your graces fall this early morrow!
So it is like to do, without my prayers,
For your right noble names, like favourite tunes,
Have fallen full frequent from our Emperor’s lips,
High commented with smiles.
Auranthe.
Noble Albert!
Conrad (aside). Noble!
Auranthe.
Such salutation argues a glad heart
In our prosperity. We thank you, sir.
Albert.
Lady! O, would to Heaven your poor servant
Could do you better service than mere words!
But I have other greeting than mine own,
From no less man than Otho, who has sent
This ring as pledge of dearest amity;
’Tis chosen I hear from Hymen’s jewel’ry,
And you will prize it, lady, I doubt not,
Beyond all pleasures past, and all to come.
To you great duke
Conrad.
To me! What of me, ha?
Albert.
What pleas’d your grace to say?
Conrad.
Your message, sir!
Albert.
You mean not this to me?
Conrad.
Sister, this way;
For there shall be no ‘‘‘gentle Alberts” now, [Aside.
No “sweet Auranthes!”
[Exeunt CONRAD and AURANTHE.
Albert (solus). The duke is out of temper; if he knows
More than a brother of a sister ought,
I should not quarrel with his peevishness.
Auranthe Heaven preserve her always fair!
Is in the heady, proud, ambitious vein;
I bicker not with her, bid her farewell!
She has taken flight from me, then let her soar,
He is a fool who stands at pining gaze!
But for poor Ludolph, he is food for sorrow:
No levelling bluster of my licens’d thoughts,
No military swagger of my mind,
Can smother from myself the wrong I’ve done him,
Without design, indeed, yet it is so,
And opiate for the conscience have I none! [Exit.
Scene II