REMORSE.

A TRAGEDY. IN FIVE ACTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MARQUIS VALDEZ, Father to the two brothers, and Donna
Teresa's Guardian.

DON ALVAR, the eldest son.

DON ORDONIO, the youngest son.

MONVIEDRO, a Dominican and Inquisitor.

ZULIMEZ, the faithful attendant on Alvar.

ISIDORE, a Moresco Chieftain, ostensibly a Christian.
FAMILIARS OF THE INQUISITION.

NAOMI.

MOORS, SERVANTS, &c.

DONNA TERESA, an Orphan Heiress.

ALHADRA, Wife to Isidore.

Time. The reign of Philip II., just at the close of the civil wars against the Moors, and during the heat of the persecution which raged against them, shortly after the edict which forbade the wearing of Moresco apparel under pain of death.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The Sea-shore on the Coast of Granada.-DON ALVAR, wrapt in a boat cloak, and ZULIMEZ (a Moresco), both as just landed.

Zul. No sound, no face of joy to welcome us!
Alv. My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment
Let me forget my anguish and their crimes.
If aught on earth demand an unmix'd feeling,
'Tis surely this-after long years of exile,
To step forth on firm land, and gazing round us,
To hail at once our country, and our birth place.
Hail, Spain Granada, hail! once more I press
Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers!

Zul. Then claim your rights in it! O, revered Don Alvar,
Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose.

It is too hazardous ! reveal yourself,

And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt!

Alv. Remember, Zulimez! I am his brother,

Injured indeed! O deeply injured! yet

Ordonio's brother.

Zul.

Nobly minded Alvar!

This sure but gives his guilt a blacker dye.

Alv. The more behoves it, I should rouse within him
REMORSE! that I should save him from himself.

Zul. REMORSE is as the heart in which it grows:
If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews

Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,
It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost
Weeps only tears of poison!

Alv.

And of a brother,

Dare I hold this, unproved? nor make one effort

To save him?-Hear me, friend! I have yet to tell thee,
That this same life, which he conspired to take,

Himself once rescued from the angry flood,

And at the imminent hazard of his own.

Add too my oath

Zul.

You have thrice told already

The years of absence and of secrecy,

To which a forced oath bound you: if in truth
A suborned murderer have the power to dictate
A binding oath—

My long captivity

Alv.
Left me no choice: the very Wish too languished
With the fond Hope that nursed it; the sick babe
Drooped at the bosom of its famished mother.
But (more than all) Teresa's perfidy;

The assassin's strong assurance, when no interest,
No motive could have tempted him to falsehood;
In the first pangs of his awaken'd conscience,
When with abhorrence of his own black purpose
The murderous weapon, pointed at my breast,
Fell from his palsied hand-

Zul.

Heavy presumption !

Alv. It weighed not with me-Hark! I will tell thee all; As we passed by, I bade thee mark the base

Of yonder cliff

Zul.

That rocky seat you mean, Shaped by the billows?—

Alv.

There Teresa met me
The morning of the day of my departure.
We were alone: the purple hue of dawn,
Fell from the kindling east aslant upon us,
And blending with the blushes on her cheek
Suffused the tear-drops there with rosy light.
There seemed a glory round us, and Teresa
The angel of the vision!

[Then with agitation: Had'st thou seen

How in each motion her most innocent soul

Beamed forth and brightened, thou thyself would'st tell me,
Guilt is a thing impossible in her !

She must be innocent!

Zul. (with a sigh). Proceed, my Lord!

Alv. A portrait which she had procured by stealth,

(For even then it seems her heart foreboded

Or knew Ordonio's moody rivalry)

A portrait of herself with thrilling hand

She tied around my neck, conjuring me
With earnest prayers, that I would keep it sacred
To my own knowledge: nor did she desist,
Till she had won a solemn promise from me,
That (save my own) no eye should e'er behold it
Till my return. Yet this the assassin knew—
Knew that which none but she could have disclosed.
Zul. A damning proof!
Alv.

My own life wearied me!

And but for the imperative Voice within

With mine own hand I had thrown off the burthen.

That Voice, which quelled me, calmed me: and I sought
The Belgic states: there joined the better cause;

And there too fought as one that courted death!
Wounded, I fell among the dead and dying,

In death-like trance: a long imprisonment followed.
The fullness of my anguish by degrees

Waned to a meditative melancholy;

And still the more I mused, my soul became
More doubtful, more perplexed; and still Teresa
Night after night, she visited my sleep,
Now as a saintly sufferer, wan and tearful,
Now as a saint in glory beckoning to me!
Yes, still as in contempt of proof and reason,
I cherish the fond faith that she is guiltless!
Hear then my fixed resolve: I'll linger here
In the disguise of a Moresco chieftain.—
The Moorish robes ?—

Zul.

All, all are in the sea-cave,

Some furlong hence. I bade our mariners

Secrete the boat there.

Alv.

Of the assassination

Zul.

Above all, the picture

Be assured

Thus disguised

That it remains uninjured.

Alv.

I will first seek to meet Ordonio's-wife!

If possible, alone too. This was her wonted walk,
And this the hour; her words, her very looks

Will acquit her or convict.

Zul. Will they not know you?

Alv. With your aid, friend, I shall unfearingly Trust the disguise; and as to my complexion,

My long imprisonment, the scanty food,

This scar, and toil beneath a burning sun,

Have done already half the business for us.

Add too my youth, when last we saw each other.
Manhood has swoln my chest, and taught my voice
A hoarser note-Besides, they think me dead:
And what the mind believes impossible,
The bodily sense is slow to recognize.

Zul. 'Tis yours, sir, to command, mine to obey.

Now to the cave beneath the vaulted rock,
Where having shaped you to a Moorish chieftain,
I will seek our mariners; and in the dusk
Transport whate'er we need to the small dell
In the Alpuxarras-there where Zagri lived.
Alv. I know it well: it is the obscurest haunt
Of all the mountains-

[Both stand listening.

Voices at a distance !

Nor make the living wretched for the dead.

Ter. I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord Valdez, But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain

Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living.

Val. Heaven knows with what delight I saw your loves,
And could my heart's blood give him back to thee

I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts!

Thy dying father comes upon my soul

With that same look, with which he gave thee to me;
I held thee in my arms a powerless babe,

While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty
Fixed her faint eyes on mine. Ah not for this,
That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom,
And with slow anguish wear away thy life,

The victim of a useless constancy.

I must not see thee wretched.

Ter.

There are woes

Ill bartered for the garishness of joy!
If it be wretched with an untired eye

To watch those skiey tints, and this green ocean;
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock,

My hair dishevelled by the pleasant sea breeze,
To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again
All past hours of delight! If it be wretched
To watch some bark, and fancy Alvar there,
To go through each minutest circumstance
Of the blest meeting, and to frame adventures
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them;

* (As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid

Who drest her in her buried lover's clothes,

And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft

Hung with her lute, and played the self-same tune

He used to play, and listened to the shadow

[Here Valdez bends back, and smiles at her wildness, which Tereza noticing, checks her enthusiasm, and in a soothing half-playful tone and manner, apologizes for her fancy, by the little tale in the parenthesis.]

Herself had made)—if this be wretchedness,
And if indeed it be a wretched thing

To trick out mine own death bed, and imagine
That I had died, died just ere his return!
Then see him listening to my constancy,
Or hover round, as he at midnight oft
Sits on my grave and gazes at the moon ;
Or haply in some more fantastic mood,
To be in Paradise, and with choice flowers
Build up a bower where he and I might dwell,
And there to wait his coming! O my sire!
My Alvar's sire! if this be wretchedness

That eats away the life, what were it, think you,
If in a most assured reality

He should return, and see a brother's infant
Smile at him from my arms?

Oh what a thought!

[Clasping her forehead.

Val. A thought? even so! mere thought! an empty thought. The very week he promised his return

Ter. (abruptly). Was it not then a busy joy? to see him,

After those three years' travels! we had no fears—

The frequent tidings, the ne'er-failing letter,

Almost endeared his absence! Yet the gladness,
The tumult of our joy! What then if now-

Val. O power of youth to feed on pleasant thoughts,
Spite of conviction! I am old and heartless!
Yes, I am old-I have no pleasant fancies—
Hectic and unrefreshed with rest-

Ter. (with great tenderness).

My father!

Val. The sober truth is all too much for me!

I see no sail which brings not to my mind

The home-bound bark in which my son was captured
By the Algerine-to perish with his captors!

Ter. Oh no! he did not!

Val.

From yon hill point, nay, from our castle watch-tower

We might have seen

Ter.

Captured in sight of land!

His capture, not his death.

Val. Alas! how aptly thou forget'st a tale
Thou ne'er didst wish to learn! my brave Ordonio
Saw both the pirate and his prize go down,

In the same storm that baffled his own valour,

And thus twice snatched a brother from his hopes :

Gallant Ordonio! (pauses, then tenderly) O beloved Teresa, Would'st thou best prove thy faith to generous Alvar

And most delight his spirit, go, make thou

His brother happy, make his aged father

Sink to the grave in joy.

Ter.

Press me no more!

For mercy's sake

have no power to love him.

His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow,

Chill me like dew damps of the unwholesome night :