________________________________________________
_ ACT III - SCENE I
Interior of the Cathedral of Burgos.
The High Altar illuminated; in the distance,
various Chapels lighted, and in each of which Mass is celebrating:
In all directions groups of kneeling Worshippers.
Before the High Altar the Prior of Burgos officiates,
attended by his Sacerdotal Retinue.
In the front of the Stage, opposite to the Audience, a Confessional.
The chanting of a solemn Mass here commences; as it ceases,
[Enter ALARCOS.]
ALAR.
Would it were done! and yet I dare not say
It should be done. O, that some natural cause,
Or superhuman agent, would step in,
And save me from its practice! Will no pest
Descend upon her blood? Must thousands die
Daily, and her charmed life be spared? As young
Are hourly plucked from out their hearths. A life!
Why, what's a life? A loan that must return
To a capricious creditor; recalled
Often as soon as lent. I'd wager mine
To-morrow like the dice, were my blood pricked.
Yet now,
When all that endows life with all its price,
Hangs on some flickering breath I could puff out,
I stand agape. I'll dream 'tis done: what then?
Mercy remains? For ever, not for ever
I charge my soul? Will no contrition ransom,
Or expiatory torments compensate
The awful penalty? Ye kneeling worshippers,
That gaze in silent ecstacy before
Yon flaming altar, you come here to bow
Before a God of mercy. Is't not so?
[ALARCOS walks towards the High Altar and kneels.]
[A Procession advances front the back of the Scene, singing a
solemn Mass, and preceding the Prior of Burgos, who seats
himself in the Confessional his Train filing of on each side
of the Scene: the lights of the High Altar are extinguished,
but the Chapels remain illuminated.]
THE PRIOR.
Within this chair I sit, and hold the keys
That open realms no conqueror can subdue,
And where the monarchs of the earth must fain
Solicit to be subjects: Heaven and Hades,
Lands of Immortal light and shores of gloom.
Eternal as the chorus of their wail,
And the dim isthmus of that middle space,
Where the compassioned soul may purge its sins
In pious expiation. Then advance
Ye children of all sorrows, and all sins,
Doubts that perplex, and hopes that tantalize,
All the wild forms the fiend Temptation takes
To tamper with the soul! Come with the care
That eats your daily life; come with the thought
That is conceived in the noon of night,
And makes us stare around us though alone;
Come with the engendering sin, and with the crime
That is full-born. To counsel and to soothe,
I sit within this chair.
[ALARCOS advances and kneels by the Confessional.]
ALAR.
O, holy father
My soul is burthened with a crime.
PRIOR.
My son,
The church awaits thy sin.
ALAR.
It is a sin
Most black and terrible. Prepare thine ear
For what must make it tremble.
PRIOR.
Thou dost speak
To Power above all passion, not to man.
ALAR.
There was a lady, father, whom I loved,
And with a holy love, and she loved me
As holily. Our vows were blessed, if favour
Hang on a father's benediction.
PRIOR.
Her
Mother?
ALAR.
She had a mother, if to bear
Children be all that makes a mother: one
Who looked on me, about to be her child,
With eyes of lust.
PRIOR.
And thou?
ALAR.
O, if to trace
But with the memory's too veracious aid
This tale be anguish, what must be its life
And terrible action? Father, I abjured
This lewd she-wolf. But ah! her fatal vengeance
Struck to my heart. A banished scatterling
I wandered on the earth.
PRIOR.
Thou didst return?
ALAR.
And found the being that I loved, and found
Her faithful still.
PRIOR.
And thou, my son, wert happy?
ALAR.
Alas! I was no longer free. Strange ties
Had bound a hopeless exile. But she I had loved,
And never ceased to love, for in the form,
Not in the spirit was her faith more pure,
She looked upon me with a glance that told
Her death but in my love. I struggled, nay,
'Twas not a struggle, 'twas an agony.
Her aged sire, her dark impending doom,
And the overwhelming passion of my soul:
My wife died suddenly.
PRIOR.
And by a life
That should have shielded hers?
ALAR.
Is there hope of mercy?
Can prayers, can penances, can they avail?
What consecration of my wealth, for I'm rich,
Can aid me? Can it aid me? Can endowments?
Nay, set no bounds to thy unlimited schemes
Of saving charity. Can shrines, can chauntries,
Monastic piles, can they avail? What if
I raise a temple not less proud than this,
Enriched with all my wealth, with all, with all?
Will endless masses, will eternal prayers,
Redeem me from perdition?
PRIOR.
What, would gold
Redeem the sin it prompted?
ALAR.
No, by Heaven!
No, Fate had dowered me with wealth might feed
All but a royal hunger.
PRIOR.
And alone
Thy fatal passion urged thee
ALAR.
Hah!
PRIOR.
Probe deep
Thy wounded soul.
ALAR.
'Tis torture: fathomless
I feel the fell incision.
PRIOR.
There is a lure
Thou dost not own, and yet its awful shade
Lowers in the back-ground of thy soul: thy tongue
Trifles the church's ear. Beware, my son,
And tamper not with Paradise.
ALAR.
A breath,
A shadow, essence subtler far than love:
And yet I loved her, and for love had dared
All that I ventured for this twin-born lure
Cradled with love, for which I soiled my soul.
O, father, it was Power.
PRIOR.
And this dominion
Purchased by thy soul's mortgage, still is't thine?
ALAR.
Yea, thousands bow to him, who bows to thee.
PRIOR.
Thine is a fearful deed.
ALAR.
O, is there mercy?
PRIOR.
Say, is there penitence?
ALAR.
How shall I gauge it?
What temper of contrition might the church
Require from such a sinner?
PRIOR.
Is't thy wish,
Nay, search the very caverns of thy thought,
Is it thy wish this deed were now undone?
ALAR.
Undone, undone! It is; O, say it were,
And what am I? O, father, wer't not done,
I should not be less tortured than I'm now;
My life less like a dream of haunting thoughts
Tempting to unknown enormities. The sun
Would rise as beamless on my darkened days,
Night proffer the same torments. Food would fly
My lips the same, and the same restless blood
Quicken my harassed limbs. Undone! undone!
I have no metaphysic faculty
To deem this deed undone.
PRIOR.
Thou must repent
This terrible deed. Look through thy heart. Thy wife,
There was a time thou lov'dst her?
ALAR.
I'll not think
There was a time.
PRIOR.
And was she fair?
ALAR.
A form
Dazzling all eyes but mine.
PRIOR.
And pure?
ALAR.
No saint
More chaste than she. Her consecrated shape
She kept as 'twere a shrine, and just as full
Of holy thoughts; her very breath was incense,
And all her gestures sacred as the forms
Of priestly offices!
PRIOR.
I'll save thy soul.
Thou must repent that one so fair and pure,
And loving thee so well--
ALAR.
Father, in vain.
There is a bar betwixt me and repentance.
And yet--
PRIOR.
Ay, yet--
ALAR.
The day may come, I'll kneel
In such a mood, and might there then be hope?
PRIOR.
We hold the keys that bind and loosen all:
But penitence alone is mercy's portal.
The obdurate soul is doomed. Remorseful tears
Are sinners' sole ablution. O, my son,
Bethink thee yet, to die in sin like thine;
Eternal masses profit not thy soul,
Thy consecrated wealth will but upraise
The monument of thy despair. Once more,
Ere yet the vesper lights shall fade away,
I do adjure thee, on the church's bosom
Pour forth thy contrite heart.
ALAR.
A contrite heart!
A stainless hand would count for more. I see
No drops on mine. My head is weak, my heart
A wilderness of passion. Prayers, thy prayers!
[ALARCOS rises suddenly and exit.] _
Read next: Act 3 - Scene 2
Read previous: Act 2 - Scene 4
Table of content of Count Alarcos; a Tragedy
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
