The Bride of Messina - Friedrich Schiller (best books to read for women .txt) 📗

/> Child of my heart!

BEATRICE.
See! kneeling at thy feet
The guilty one!

ISABELLA.
I hold thee in my arms!
Enough - forgotten all!

DIEGO.
Look in my face,
Canst thou remember me?

BEATRICE.
The reverend brows
Of honest old Diego!

ISABELLA.
Faithful guardian
Of thy young years.

BEATRICE.
And am I once again
With kindred?

ISABELLA.
Naught but death shall part us more!

BEATRICE.
Will thou ne'er send me to the stranger?

ISABELLA.
Never!
Fate is appeased.

BEATRICE.
And am I next thy heart?
And was it all a dream - a hideous dream?
My mother! at my feet he fell! I know not
What brought me hither - yet 'tis well. Oh, bliss!
That I am safe in thy protecting arms;
They would have ta'en me to the princess, mother -
Sooner to death!

ISABELLA.
My daughter, calm thy fears;
Messina's princess - -

BEATRICE.
Name her not again!
At that ill-omened sound the chill of death
Creeps through my trembling frame.

ISABELLA.
My child! but hear me - -

BEATRICE.
She has two sons by mortal hate dissevered,
Don Manuel and Don Caesar - -

ISABELLA.
'Tis myself!
Behold thy mother!

BEATRICE.
Have I heard thee? Speak!

ISABELLA.
I am thy mother, and Messina's princess!

BEATRICE.
Art thou Don Manuel's and Don Caesar's mother?

ISABELLA.
And thine! They are thy brethren whom thou namest.

BEATRICE.
Oh, gleam of horrid light!

ISABELLA.
What troubles thee?
Say, whence this strange emotion?

BEATRICE.
Yes! 'twas they!
Now I remember all; no dream deceived me,
They met - 'tis fearful truth! Unhappy men!
Where have ye hid him?

[She rushes towards the Chorus; they turn away from her.
A funeral march is heard in the distance.

CHORUS.
Horror! Horror!

ISABELLA.
Hid!
Speak - who is hid? and what is true? Ye stand
In silent dull amaze - as though ye fathomed
Her words of mystery! In your faltering tones -
Your brows - I read of horrors yet unknown,
That would refrain my tongue! What is it? Tell me!
I will know all! Why fix ye on the door
That awe-struck gaze? What mournful music sounds?

[The march is heard nearer.

Chorus (BOHEMUND).
It comes! it comes! and all shall be declared
With terrible voice. My mistress! steel thy heart,
Be firm, and bear with courage what awaits thee -
For more than women's soul thy destined griefs
Demand.

ISABELLA.
What comes? and what awaits me? Hark
With fearful tones the death-wail smites mine ear -
It echoes through the house! Where are my sons?

[The first Semi-chorus brings in the body of DON MANUEL
on a bier, which is placed at the side of the stage.
A black pall is spread over it.

ISABELLA, BEATRICE, DIEGO.

Both Choruses.

First Chorus (CAJETAN).

With sorrow in his train,
From street to street the King of Terror glides;
With stealthy foot, and slow,
He creeps where'er the fleeting race
Of man abides
In turn at every gate
Is heard the dreaded knock of fate,
The message of unutterable woe!

BERENGAR.

When, in the sere
And autumn leaves decayed,
The mournful forest tells how quickly fade
The glories of the year!
When in the silent tomb oppressed,
Frail man, with weight of days,
Sinks to his tranquil rest;
Contented nature but obeys
Her everlasting law, -
The general doom awakes no shuddering awe!
But, mortals, oh! prepare
For mightier ills; with ruthless hand
Fell murder cuts the holy band -
The kindred tie: insatiate death,
With unrelenting rage,
Bears to his bark the flower of blooming age!

CAJETAN.

When clouds athwart the lowering sky
Are driven - when bursts with hollow moan
The thunder's peal - our trembling bosoms own
The might of awful destiny!
Yet oft the lightning's glare
Darts sudden through the cloudless air: -
Then in thy short delusive day
Of bliss, oh! dread the treacherous snare;
Nor prize the fleeting goods in vain,
The flowers that bloom but to decay!
Nor wealth, nor joy, nor aught but pain,
Was e'er to mortal's lot secure: -
Our first best lesson - to endure!

ISABELLA.
What shall I hear? What horrors lurk beneath
This funeral pall?

[She steps towards the bier, but suddenly pauses,
and stands irresolute.

Some strange, mysterious dread
Enthrals my sense. I would approach, and sudden
The ice-cold grasp of terror holds me back!

[To BEATRICE, who has thrown herself between her and the bier.

Whate'er it be, I will unveil - -

[On raising the pall she discovers the body of DON MANUEL.

Eternal Powers! it is my son!

[She stands in mute horror. BEATRICE sinks to the ground
with a shriek of anguish near the bier.

CHORUS.
Unhappy mother! 'tis thy son. Thy lips
Have uttered what my faltering tongue denied.

ISABELLA.
My soul! My Manuel! Oh, eternal grief!
And is it thus I see thee? Thus thy life
Has bought thy sister from the spoiler's rage?
Where was thy brother? Could no arm be found
To shield thee? Oh, be cursed the hand that dug
These gory wounds! A curse on her that bore
The murderer of my son! Ten thousand curses
On all their race!

CHORUS.
Woe! Woe!

ISABELLA.
And is it thus
Ye keep your word, ye gods? Is this your truth?
Alas for him that trusts with honest heart
Your soothing wiles! Why have I hoped and trembled?
And this the issue of my prayers! Attend,
Ye terror-stricken witnesses, that feed
Your gaze upon my anguish; learn to know
How warning visions cheat, and boding seers
But mock our credulous hopes; let none believe
The voice of heaven!
When in my teeming womb
This daughter lay, her father, in a dream
Saw from his nuptial couch two laurels grow,
And in the midst a lily all in flames,
That, catching swift the boughs and knotted stems
Burst forth with crackling rage, and o'er the house
Spread in one mighty sea of fire. Perplexed
By this terrific dream my husband sought
The counsels of the mystic art, and thus
Pronounced the sage: "If I a daughter bore,
The murderess of his sons, the destined spring
Of ruin to our house, the baleful child
Should see the light."

Chorus (CAJETAN and BOHEMUND).
What hast thou said, my mistress?
Woe! Woe!

ISABELLA.
For this her ruthless father spoke
The dire behest of death. I rescued her,
The innocent, the doomed one; from my arms
The babe was torn; to stay the curse of heaven,
And save my sons, the mother gave her child;
And now by robber hands her brother falls;
My child is guiltless. Oh, she slew him not!

CHORUS.
Woe! Woe!

ISABELLA.
No trust the fabling readers of the stars
Have e'er deserved. Hear how another spoke
With comfort to my soul, and him I deemed
Inspired to voice the secrets of the skies!
"My daughter should unite in love the hearts
Of my dissevered sons;" and thus their tales
Of curse and blessing on her head proclaim
Each other's falsehood. No, she ne'er has brought
A curse, the innocent; nor time was given
The blessed promise to fulfil; their tongues
Were false alike; their boasted art is vain;
With trick of words they cheat our credulous ears,
Or are themselves deceived! Naught ye may know
Of dark futurity, the sable streams
Of hell the fountain of your hidden lore,
Or yon bright spring of everlasting light!

First Chorus (CAJETAN).

Woe! Woe! thy tongue refrain!
Oh, pause, nor thus with impious rage
The might of heaven profane;
The holy oracles are wise -
Expect with awe thy coming destinies!

ISABELLA.
My tongue shall speak as prompts my swelling heart;
My griefs shall cry to heaven. Why do we lift
Our suppliant hands, and at the sacred shrines
Kneel to adore? Good, easy dupes! What win we
From faith and pious awe? to touch with prayers
The tenants of yon azure realms on high,
Were hard as with an arrow's point to pierce
The silvery moon. Hid is the womb of time,
Impregnable to mortal glance, and deaf
The adamantine walls of heaven rebound
The voice of anguish: - Oh, 'tis one, whate'er
The flight of birds - the aspect of the stars!
The book of nature is a maze - a dream
The sage's art - and every sign a falsehood!

Second Chorus (BOHEMUND).