ONE OF THE BAND
What if he mean to offer up our Captain
An expiation and a sacrifice
To those infernal fiends!
What if he mean to offer up our Captain
An expiation and a sacrifice
To those infernal fiends!
Wordsworth - 1
--
LENNOX (to WALLACE)
His tool, the wandering Beggar, made last night
A plain confession, such as leaves no doubt,
Knowing what otherwise we know too well,
That she revealed the truth. Stand by me now;
For rather would I have a nest of vipers
Between my breast-plate and my skin, than make
Oswald my special enemy, if you
Deny me your support.
LACY We have been fooled--
But for the motive?
WALLACE Natures such as his
Spin motives out of their own bowels, Lacy!
I learn'd this when I was a Confessor.
I know him well; there needs no other motive
Than that most strange incontinence in crime
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him
And breath and being; where he cannot govern,
He will destroy.
LACY To have been trapped like moles! --
Yes, you are right, we need not hunt for motives:
There is no crime from which this man would shrink;
He recks not human law; and I have noticed
That often when the name of God is uttered,
A sudden blankness overspreads his face.
LENNOX Yet, reasoner as he is, his pride has built
Some uncouth superstition of its own.
WALLACE I have seen traces of it.
LENNOX Once he headed
A band of Pirates in the Norway seas;
And when the King of Denmark summoned him
To the oath of fealty, I well remember,
'Twas a strange answer that he made; he said,
"I hold of Spirits, and the Sun in heaven. "
LACY
He is no madman.
WALLACE
A most subtle doctor
Were that man, who could draw the line that parts
Pride and her daughter, Cruelty, from Madness,
That should be scourged, not pitied. Restless Minds,
Such Minds as find amid their fellow-men
No heart that loves them, none that they can love,
Will turn perforce and seek for sympathy
In dim relation to imagined Beings.
ONE OF THE BAND
What if he mean to offer up our Captain
An expiation and a sacrifice
To those infernal fiends!
WALLACE Now, if the event
Should be as Lennox has foretold, then swear,
My Friends, his heart shall have as many wounds
As there are daggers here.
LACY What need of swearing!
ONE OF THE BAND Let us away!
ANOTHER Away!
A THIRD Hark! how the horns
Of those Scotch Rovers echo through the vale.
LACY Stay you behind; and when the sun is down,
Light up this beacon.
ONE OF THE BAND You shall be obeyed.
[They go out together. ]
SCENE--The Wood on the edge of the Moor.
MARMADUKE (alone)
MARMADUKE Deep, deep and vast, vast beyond human thought,
Yet calm. --I could believe, that there was here
The only quiet heart on earth. In terror,
Remembered terror, there is peace and rest.
[Enter OSWALD]
OSWALD Ha! my dear Captain.
LENNOX (to WALLACE)
His tool, the wandering Beggar, made last night
A plain confession, such as leaves no doubt,
Knowing what otherwise we know too well,
That she revealed the truth. Stand by me now;
For rather would I have a nest of vipers
Between my breast-plate and my skin, than make
Oswald my special enemy, if you
Deny me your support.
LACY We have been fooled--
But for the motive?
WALLACE Natures such as his
Spin motives out of their own bowels, Lacy!
I learn'd this when I was a Confessor.
I know him well; there needs no other motive
Than that most strange incontinence in crime
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him
And breath and being; where he cannot govern,
He will destroy.
LACY To have been trapped like moles! --
Yes, you are right, we need not hunt for motives:
There is no crime from which this man would shrink;
He recks not human law; and I have noticed
That often when the name of God is uttered,
A sudden blankness overspreads his face.
LENNOX Yet, reasoner as he is, his pride has built
Some uncouth superstition of its own.
WALLACE I have seen traces of it.
LENNOX Once he headed
A band of Pirates in the Norway seas;
And when the King of Denmark summoned him
To the oath of fealty, I well remember,
'Twas a strange answer that he made; he said,
"I hold of Spirits, and the Sun in heaven. "
LACY
He is no madman.
WALLACE
A most subtle doctor
Were that man, who could draw the line that parts
Pride and her daughter, Cruelty, from Madness,
That should be scourged, not pitied. Restless Minds,
Such Minds as find amid their fellow-men
No heart that loves them, none that they can love,
Will turn perforce and seek for sympathy
In dim relation to imagined Beings.
ONE OF THE BAND
What if he mean to offer up our Captain
An expiation and a sacrifice
To those infernal fiends!
WALLACE Now, if the event
Should be as Lennox has foretold, then swear,
My Friends, his heart shall have as many wounds
As there are daggers here.
LACY What need of swearing!
ONE OF THE BAND Let us away!
ANOTHER Away!
A THIRD Hark! how the horns
Of those Scotch Rovers echo through the vale.
LACY Stay you behind; and when the sun is down,
Light up this beacon.
ONE OF THE BAND You shall be obeyed.
[They go out together. ]
SCENE--The Wood on the edge of the Moor.
MARMADUKE (alone)
MARMADUKE Deep, deep and vast, vast beyond human thought,
Yet calm. --I could believe, that there was here
The only quiet heart on earth. In terror,
Remembered terror, there is peace and rest.
[Enter OSWALD]
OSWALD Ha! my dear Captain.
