Act the First: Scene I

ROSAURA. Wild hippogriff swift speeding,Thou that dost run, the winged winds exceeding,Bolt which no flash illumes,Fish without scales, bird without shifting plumes,And brute awhile bereftOf natural instinct, why to this wild cleft,This labyrinth of naked rocks, dost sweepUnreined, uncurbed, to plunge thee down the steep?Stay in this mountain wold,And let the beasts their Phaeton behold.For I, without a guide,Save what the laws of destiny decide,Benighted, desperate, blind.Take any path whatever that doth windDown this rough mountain to its base,Whose wrinkled brow in heaven frowns in the sun's bright face.Ah, Poland! in ill moodHast thou received a stranger, since in bloodThe name thou writest on thy sandsOf her who hardly here fares hardly at thy hands.My fate may well say so:--But where shall one poor wretch find pity in her woe?

CLARIN. Say two, if you please;Don't leave me out when making plaints like these.For if we are the twoWho left our native country with the viewOf seeking strange adventures, if we beThe two who, madly and in misery,Have got so far as this, and if we stillAre the same two who tumbled down this hill,Does it not plainly to a wrong amount,To put me in the pain and not in the account?

ROSAURA. I do not wish to impart,Clarin, to thee, the sorrows of my heart;Mourning for thee would spoil the consolationOf making for thyself thy lamentation;For there is such a pleasure in complaining,That a philosopher I've heard maintainingOne ought to seek a sorrow and be vain of it,In order to be privileged to complain of it.

CLARIN. That same philosopherWas an old drunken fool, unless I err:Oh, that I could a thousand thumps present him,In order for complaining to content him!But what, my lady, say,Are we to do, on foot, alone, our wayLost in the shades of night?For see, the sun descends another sphere to light.

ROSAURA. So strange a misadventure who has seen?But if my sight deceives me not, betweenThese rugged rocks, half-lit by the moon's rayAnd the declining day,It seems, or is it fancy? that I seeA human dwelling?

CLARIN. So it seems to me,Unless my wish the longed-for lodging mocks.

ROSAURA. A rustic little palace 'mid the rocksUplifts its lowly roof,Scarce seen by the far sun that shines aloof.Of such a rude deviceIs the whole structure of this edifice,That lying at the feetOf these gigantic crags that rise to greetThe sun's first beams of gold,It seems a rock that down the mountain rolled.

CLARIN. Let us approach more near,For long enough we've looked at it from here;Then better we shall seeIf those who dwell therein will generouslyA welcome give us.

ROSAURA. See an open door(Funereal mouth 'twere best the name it bore),From which as from a wombThe night is born, engendered in its gloom.

CLARIN. Heavens! what is this I hear?

ROSAURA. Half ice, half fire, I stand transfixed with fear.

CLARIN. A sound of chains, is it not?Some galley-slave his sentence here hath got;My fear may well suggest it so may be.