Act III

 

 

ACT III.

 

SCENE I.

The Tower, etc., as in Act I. Scene I. 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.

SEGISMUND
    Ay, I did indeed.

CLOTALDO
    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 -

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

CLOTALDO
    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.

SEGISMUND
    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.

CLOTALDO
    Ay?

SEGISMUND
    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.

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

SEGISMUND
    For you know
    'Tis nothing but a dream?

CLOTALDO
    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?

SEGISMUND
    Never, to such reality.

CLOTALDO
    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.

SEGISMUND
    Last night? Last night?

CLOTALDO
    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?

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

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

SEGISMUND
    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.

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

SEGISMUND
    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.

CLOTALDO
    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.

SEGISMUND
    Who meant me! - me! their Prince
    Chain'd like a felon -

CLOTALDO
    Stay, stay - Not so fast,
    You dream'd the Prince, remember.

SEGISMUND
    Then in dream
    Revenged it only.

CLOTALDO
    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.

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

CLOTALDO
    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.

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

(Exit into the tower.)

CLOTALDO
    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?

CLOTALDO
    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 -

CLOTALDO
    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.

CLOTALDO
    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 -

CLOTALDO
    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) -

CLOTALDO
    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 -

CLOTALDO
    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.

CAPTAIN
    How know you that?

SOLDIER
    He told me so - the Page
    Who put us on the scent.

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

CAPTAIN
    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!

CAPTAIN
    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.

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

CAPTAIN
    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.

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

CAPTAIN
    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!

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

FIFE .
    I set up! - I like that
    When 'twas yourselves besieged me.

CAPTAIN
    No matter - Look! - The signal from the tower.
    Prince Segismund!

SOLDIER (from the tower).
    Prince Segismund!

CAPTAIN
    All's well. Clotaldo safe secured? -

SOLDIER (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.

CAPTAIN
    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?

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

CAPTAIN
    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?

SOLDIER
    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.

CAPTAIN
    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.)

CAPTAIN
    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.

CAPTAIN
    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.)

SEGISMUND
    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.

CAPTAIN
    Sir!

SEGISMUND
    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 -

CAPTAIN
    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.)

SEGISMUND
    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.

CAPTAIN
    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.

SEGISMUND
    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?

CAPTAIN
    Fled, my lord, but close
    Pursued; and then -

SEGISMUND
    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!

CAPTAIN
    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.)

CAPTAIN
    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!

CAPTAIN
    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.

CAPTAIN
    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!

CAPTAIN
    Who calls for him?

SOLDIER
    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 -

ROSAURA
    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.

SEGISMUND
    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.

CAPTAIN
    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.)

SEGISMUND
    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?

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

SEGISMUND (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.