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Don Carlos

Год написания книги
2017
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Dare you hope on, when all is lost forever?

CARLOS

I look on naught as lost – except the dead.

QUEEN

For me – your mother, do you dare to hope?

[She fixes a penetrating look on him, then continues with dignity and earnestness.

And yet why not? A new elected monarch
Can do far more – make bonfires of the laws
His father left – o'erthrow his monuments —
Nay, more than this – for what shall hinder him? —
Drag from his tomb, in the Escurial,
The sacred corpse of his departed sire,
Make it a public spectacle, and scatter
Forth to the winds his desecrated dust.
And then, at last, to fill the measure up —

CARLOS

Merciful heavens, finish not the picture!

QUEEN

End all by wedding with his mother.

CARLOS

Oh!
Accursed son!

[He remains for some time paralyzed and speechless.

Yes, now 'tis out, 'tis out!
I see it clear as day. Oh, would it had
Been veiled from me in everlasting darkness!
Yes, thou art gone from me – gone – gone forever.
The die is cast; and thou art lost to me.
Oh, in that thought lies hell; and a hell, too,
Lies in the other thought, to call thee mine.
Oh, misery! I can bear my fate no longer,
My very heart-strings strain as they would burst.

QUEEN

Alas, alas! dear Charles, I feel it all,
The nameless pang that rages in your breast;
Your pangs are infinite, as is your love,
And infinite as both will be the glory
Of overmastering both. Up, be a man,
Wrestle with them boldly. The prize is worthy
Of a young warrior's high, heroic heart;
Worthy of him in whom the virtues flow
Of a long ancestry of mighty kings.
Courage! my noble prince! Great Charles's grandson
Begins the contest with undaunted heart,
Where sons of meaner men would yield at once.

CARLOS

Too late, too late! O God, it is too late!

QUEEN

Too late to be a man! O Carlos, Carlos!
How nobly shows our virtue when the heart
Breaks in its exercise! The hand of Heaven
Has set you up on high, – far higher, prince,
Than millions of your brethren. All she took
From others she bestowed with partial hand
On thee, her favorite; and millions ask,
What was your merit, thus before your birth
To be endowed so far above mankind?
Up, then, and justify the ways of Heaven;
Deserve to take the lead of all the world,
And make a sacrifice ne'er made before.

CARLOS

I will, I will; I have a giant's strength
To win your favor; but to lose you, none.

QUEEN

Confess, my Carlos, I have harshly read thee;
It is but spoken, and waywardness, and pride,
Attract you thus so madly to your mother!
The heart you lavish on myself belongs
To the great empire you one day shall rule.
Look that you sport not with your sacred trust!
Love is your high vocation; until now
It hath been wrongly bent upon your mother:
Oh, lead it back upon your future realms,
And so, instead of the fell stings of conscience,
Enjoy the bliss of being more than man.
Elizabeth has been your earliest love,
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