Will you be
More patient?
More patient?
Byron
[179]
He's mean, deceitful, avaricious. You
Deem yourself safe, as young and brave; but learn
None are secure from desperation, few
From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralenheim, 130
Housed in a Prince's palace, couched within
A Prince's chamber, lay below my knife!
An instant--a mere motion--the least impulse--
Had swept him and all fears of mine from earth.
He was within my power--my knife was raised--
Withdrawn--and I'm in his:--are you not so?
Who tells you that he knows you _not? _ Who says
He hath not lured you here to end you? or
To plunge you, with your parents, in a dungeon?
[_He pauses_.
_Ulr. _ Proceed--proceed!
_Wer. _ _Me_ he hath ever known, 140
And hunted through each change of time--name--fortune--
And why not _you? _ Are you more versed in men?
He wound snares round me; flung along my path
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would have spurned
Even from my presence; but, in spurning now,
Fill only with fresh venom.
Will you be
More patient? Ulric! --Ulric! --there are crimes
Made venial by the occasion, and temptations
Which nature cannot master or forbear. [180]
_Ulr. _ (_who looks first at him and then at_ JOSEPHINE).
My mother!
_Wer. _ Ah! I thought so: you have now 150
Only one parent. I have lost alike
Father and son, and stand alone.
_Ulr. _ But stay!
[WERNER _rushes out of the chamber_.
_Jos. _ (_to_ ULRIC).
He's mean, deceitful, avaricious. You
Deem yourself safe, as young and brave; but learn
None are secure from desperation, few
From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralenheim, 130
Housed in a Prince's palace, couched within
A Prince's chamber, lay below my knife!
An instant--a mere motion--the least impulse--
Had swept him and all fears of mine from earth.
He was within my power--my knife was raised--
Withdrawn--and I'm in his:--are you not so?
Who tells you that he knows you _not? _ Who says
He hath not lured you here to end you? or
To plunge you, with your parents, in a dungeon?
[_He pauses_.
_Ulr. _ Proceed--proceed!
_Wer. _ _Me_ he hath ever known, 140
And hunted through each change of time--name--fortune--
And why not _you? _ Are you more versed in men?
He wound snares round me; flung along my path
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would have spurned
Even from my presence; but, in spurning now,
Fill only with fresh venom.
Will you be
More patient? Ulric! --Ulric! --there are crimes
Made venial by the occasion, and temptations
Which nature cannot master or forbear. [180]
_Ulr. _ (_who looks first at him and then at_ JOSEPHINE).
My mother!
_Wer. _ Ah! I thought so: you have now 150
Only one parent. I have lost alike
Father and son, and stand alone.
_Ulr. _ But stay!
[WERNER _rushes out of the chamber_.
_Jos. _ (_to_ ULRIC).
