Act 3 — SCENE III.

A room in Fernando’s house.

Clara discovered seated in a chair, Pedro and Maria standing by.

Mar. Clara, hope of mine age!

Ped. Soul of my comfort!

Kill us not both at once: why dost thou speed

Thine eye in such a progress ’bout these walls?

Cla. Yon large window

Yields some fair prospect; good my lord, look out

And tell me what you see there.

Ped. Easy suit:

Clara, it overviews a spacious garden,

Amidst which stands an alablaster^[295] fountain,

A goodly one.

Cla. Indeed, my lord!

Mar. Thy griefs grow wild,^[296]

And will mislead thy judgment through thy weakness,

If thou obey thy weakness.

Cla. Who owns these glorious buildings?

Ped. Don Fernando

De Azevida,^[297] the corregidor

Of Madrill,^[298] a true noble gentleman.

Cla. May I not see him?

Mar. See him, Clara? why?

Cla. A truly noble gentleman, you said, sir?

Ped. I did: lo, here he comes in person.—

Enter Fernando.

We are,

My lord, your servants.

156Fer. Good, no compliment.—

Young lady, there attends below a surgeon

Of worthy fame and practice; is’t your pleasure

To be his patient?

Cla. With your favour, sir,

May I impart some few but needful words

Of secrecy to you, to you yourself,

None but yourself?

Fer. You may.

Ped. Must I not hear ’em?

Mar. Nor I?

Cla. O yes.—Pray, sit, my lord.

Fer. Say on.

Cla. You have been married?

Fer. To a wife, young lady,^[299]

Who, whiles the heavens did lend her me, was fruitful

In all those virtues which style^[300] woman good.

Cla. And you had children by her?

Fer. Had, ’tis true;

Now have but one, a son, and he yet lives;

The daughter, as if in her birth the mother

Had perfected the errand she was sent for

Into the world, from that hour took her life

In which the other that gave it her lost hers;

Yet shortly she unhappily, but fatally,

Perish’d at sea.

Cla. Sad story!

Fer. Roderigo,

My son——

Cla. How is he call’d, sir?

Fer. Roderigo:

He lives at Salamanca; and I fear

That neither time, persuasions, nor his fortunes,

Can draw him thence.

157Cla. My lord, d’ye know this crucifix?^[301]

[Shewing the crucifix.

Fer. You drive me to amazement! ’twas my son’s,

A legacy bequeath’d him from his mother

Upon her deathbed, dear to him as life;

On earth there cannot be another treasure

He values at like rate as he does this.

Cla. O, then I am a cast-away!

Mar. How’s that?

Ped. Alas, she will grow frantic!

Cla. In my bosom,

Next to my heart, my lord, I have laid up,

In bloody characters, a tale of horror.

Pray, read the paper; and if there you find

[Giving a paper.

Ought that concerns a maid undone and miserable,

Made so by one^[302] of yours, call back the piety

Of nature to the goodness of a judge,

An upright judge, not of a partial father;

For do not wonder that I live to suffer

Such a full weight of wrongs, but wonder rather

That I have liv’d to speak them: thou, great man,

Yet read, read on, and as thou read’st consider

What I have suffer’d, what thou ought’st to do,^[303]

Thine own name, fatherhood, and my dishonour:

Be just as heaven and fate are, that by miracle

Have in my weakness wrought a strange discovery:

Truth copied from my heart is texted there:

Let now my shame be throughly understood;

Sins are heard farthest when they cry in blood.

Fer. True, true, they do not cry but holla here;

158This is the trumpet of a soul drown’d deep

In the unfathom’d seas of matchless sorrows.

I must lock fast the door. [Exit.

Mar. I have no words

To call for vengeance.

Ped. I am lost in marvel.

Re-enter Fernando.

Fer. Sir,^[304] pray sit as you sat before. White paper,

This should be innocence; these letters gules^[305]

Should be the honest oracles of revenge:

What’s beauty but a perfect white and red?

Both here well mix’d limn truth so beautiful,

That to distrust it, as I am a father,

Speaks me as foul as rape hath spoken my son;

’Tis true.

Cla. ’Tis true.

Fer. Then mark me how I kneel

Before the high tribunal of your injuries. [Kneels.

Thou too, too-much-wrong’d maid, scorn not my tears,

For these are tears of rage, not tears of love,—

Thou father of this too, too-much-wrong’d maid,—

Thou mother of her counsels and her cares,

I do not plead for pity to a villain;

O, let him die as he hath liv’d, dishonourably,

Basely and cursedly! I plead for pity

To my till now untainted blood and honour:

Teach me how I may now be just and cruel,

For henceforth I am childless.

Cla. Pray, sir, rise;

You wrong your place and age.

Fer. [rising] Point me my grave

159In some obscure by-path, where never memory

Nor mention of my name may be found out.

Cla. My lord, I can weep with you, nay, weep for ye,

As you for me; your passions are instructions,

And prompt my faltering tongue to beg at least

A noble satisfaction, though not revenge.

Fer. Speak that again.

Cla. Can you procure no balm

To heal a wounded name?

Fer. O, thou’rt as fair

In mercy as in beauty! wilt thou live,

And I'll be thy physician?

Cla. I'll be yours.

Fer. Don Pedro, we’ll to counsel;

This^[306] daughter shall be ours.—Sleep, sleep, young angel,

My care shall wake about thee.

Cla. Heaven is gracious,

And I am eas’d!

Fer. We will be yet more private;

Night^[307] curtains o’er the world; soft dreams rest with thee!

The best revenge is to reform our crimes,

Then time crowns sorrows, sorrows sweeten times.

[Exeunt all except Clara, on whom the scene shuts.

160