Life Is A Dream [15]
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,
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,