The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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[After 278] [TERESA looks round uneasily, but gradually becomes
attentive as ALVAR proceeds in the next speech. Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
As the gored lion’s bite!
Teresa (shuddering). A fearful curse!
Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
would, &c. Editions 1, 2, 3, 1829.
[After 364] End of the Act First. Editions 1, 2, 3.
ACT II
SCENE I
A wild and mountainous country. ORDONIO and ISIDORE are discovered,
supposed at a little distance from ISIDORE’S house.
Ordonio. Here we may stop: your house distinct in view,
Yet we secured from listeners.
Isidore. Now indeed
My house! and it looks cheerful as the clusters
Basking in sunshine on yon vine-clad rock,
That overbrows it! Patron! Friend! Preserver! 5
Thrice have you saved my life. Once in the battle
You gave it me: next rescued me from suicide
When for my follies I was made to wander,
With mouths to feed, and not a morsel for them:
Now but for you, a dungeon’s slimy stones 10
Had been my bed and pillow.
Ordonio. Good Isidore!
Why this to me? It is enough, you know it.
Isidore. A common trick of gratitude, my lord,
Seeking to ease her own full heart ——
Ordonio. Enough!
A debt repaid ceases to be a debt. 15
You have it in your power to serve me greatly.
Isidore. And how, my lord? I pray you to name the thing.
I would climb up an ice-glazed precipice
To pluck a weed you fancied!
Ordonio. Why — that — Lady —
Isidore. ‘Tis now three years, my lord, since last I saw you: 20
Have you a son, my lord?
Ordonio. O miserable — [Aside.
Isidore! you are a man, and know mankind.
I told you what I wished — now for the truth —
She loved the man you kill’d.
Isidore. You jest, my lord?
Ordonio. And till his death is proved she will not wed me. 25
Isidore. You sport with me, my lord?
Ordonio. Come, come! this foolery
Lives only in thy looks, thy heart disowns it!
Isidore. I can bear this, and any thing more grievous
From you, my lord — but how can I serve you here?
Ordonio. Why, you can utter with a solemn gesture 30
Oracular sentences of deep no-meaning,
Wear a quaint garment, make mysterious antics —
Isidore. I am dull, my lord! I do not comprehend you.
Ordonio. In blunt terms, you can play the sorcerer.
She hath no faith in Holy Church, ‘tis true: 35
Her lover schooled her in some newer nonsense!
Yet still a tale of spirits works upon her.
She is a lone enthusiast, sensitive,
Shivers, and can not keep the tears in her eye:
And such do love the marvellous too well 40
Not to believe it. We will wind up her fancy
With a strange music, that she knows not of —
With fumes of frankincense, and mummery,
Then leave, as one sure token of his death,
That portrait, which from off the dead man’s neck 45
I bade thee take, the trophy of thy conquest.
Isidore. Will that be a sure sign?
Ordonio. Beyond suspicion.
Fondly caressing him, her favour’d lover,
(By some base spell he had bewitched her senses)
She whispered such dark fears of me forsooth, 50
As made this heart pour gall into my veins.
And as she coyly bound it round his neck
She made him promise silence; and now holds
The secret of the existence of this portrait
Known only to her lover and herself. 55
But I had traced her, stolen unnotic’d on them,
And unsuspected saw and heard the whole.
Isidore. But now I should have cursed the man who told me
You could ask aught, my lord, and I refuse —
But this I can not do.
Ordonio. Where lies your scruple? 60
Isidore. Why — why, my lord!
You know you told me that the lady lov’d you,
Had loved you with incautious tenderness;
That if the young man, her betrothéd husband,
Returned, yourself, and she, and the honour of both 65
Must perish. Now though with no tenderer scruples
Than those which being native to the heart,
Than those, my lord, which merely being a man —
Ordonio. This fellow is a Man — he killed for hire
One whom he knew not, yet has tender scruples! 70
[Then turning to ISIDORE.
These doubts, these fears, thy whine, thy stammering —
Pish, fool! thou blunder’st through the book of guilt,
Spelling thy villainy.
Isidore. My lord — my lord,
I can bear much — yes, very much from you!
But there’s a point where sufferance is meanness: 75
I am no villain — never kill’d for hire —
My gratitude ——
Ordonio. O aye — your gratitude!
‘Twas a well-sounding word — what have you done with it?
Isidore. Who proffers his past favours for my virtue —
Ordonio. Virtue ——
Isidore. Tries to o’erreach me — is a very sharper, 80
And should not speak of gratitude, my lord.
I knew not ‘twas your brother!
Ordonio. And who told you?
Isidore.