Act the Second: Scene X

POLONIA. Oh, hold thy bloody hand!Though love be dead, let Christian faith command.My honour take; but, oh, my poor life spare,That suppliant at thy feet pours out its humble prayer.

LUIS. Hapless Polonia, since creation's hourBeauty has ever one unvarying dower,It brings misfortune with it, it is thisMakes beauty rarely live long time with bliss.I, who less pity feelThan any headsman who e'er held death's steel,May by thy death procureMy life, since with it I will go secure.If thee I bring where fortune's hand may guide meI bring the witness of my woes beside me,By whom they may pursue me,Track me, discover me, in fact, undo meIf here I leave thee living,I leave thee angry, vengeful, unforgiving;Leave thee, in fact, to beOne enemy more (and what an enemy!);Thus equally I grieve thee,Thus evil do whether I take or leave thee;And so 'tis better thus,That I a wretch, cruel and infamous,False, impious, fierce, abandoned, wicked, bannedBy God and man, should slay thee by my hand,Since buried here,Within the rustic entrails dark and drearOf this rude realm of stone,My worst misfortune shall remain unknown.My fury, too, shall gainA novel kind of vengeance when thou'rt slain,Remaining satisfiedThat Philip, too, by the same stroke has died,If in thy heart he lived; and then mine ireWill need no victim more except thy sire.Through thee first cameMy first disgrace, the cause of all my shame,And so the first of allOn thee my vengeful strokes shall furious fall.

POLONIA. Ah me! my fate pursuing,I have but only worked my own undoing,Like to the worm that by its subtle artSpins its own grave. Hast thou a human heart?

LUIS. I am a demon. So to prove it, die.Thus --

POLONIA. God of Patrick, listen to my cry!

LUIS. She fell on flowers, there sowingBoth lives and horrors in her blood outflowing.Thus now with greater easeI can escape, and carry o'er the seas,In many a gem and chain,Treasure enough to make me rich in Spain,Until so changed by time,Disguised by wandering in a foreign clime,I may return to reapMy vengeance; for a wrong doth never sleep.But whither do I stray,Treading the shades of death in this dark way?My path is lost: I goWhither I do not know;Perchance escaping from my prison bandsTo fall again into my tyrant's hands.If the dark night doth not my sight deceive,Yonder a rustic cabin I perceive.Yes, I am right. I'll knock; I can't much err,They'll know the way.