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ANTONIO: But you grasped----?
You held her?
BARDAS: Yes----
ANTONIO: Then--well?
BARDAS: She had a phial.
ANTONIO: G.o.d! G.o.d!
BARDAS: Out of her breast she drew it swift, And instant of it drank.
ANTONIO: Drank? and she fell?
No?--no?--Ah but you dashed it from her lips?
She did but taste?----
BARDAS: Only: and then----
ANTONIO: More? more?
BARDAS: "Is 't not enough," she pled to me, "Enough That I must wander the cold way of death Unto his arms? Go hence! There is no rest.
I will go down and clasp him, drift with him To some unhabited gray ocean vale G.o.d hath forgot. There will we dwell away From destiny and weeping, from despair!"
CHARLES: You left her?
BARDAS: As I held her piteous hand Came revellers who saw us--jested her Of taking a new love. She broke my grasp----
ANTONIO: And leapt?--down the wide air?
BARDAS: Swifter than all Prevention.
ANTONIO: Helena! O Helena!
That all thy loveliness should fare to this, Thy glory go in dark calamity!
BARDAS: I saw her as she leapt and until death Shall see no more.
ANTONIO (_drawing_): Blot it from you! Her face, Her sorrow and her fairness shall not stand Imprisoned in your eye, tho' 'twere to cry Relentlessly your crime.--But no--but no!
(_Sheathing his sword, he pauses, then staggers suddenly out._)
PAULA: Let me go to my lady!
CHARLES: Still her! She Forever hath a fluttering, a cry, Undurably. It presses the lone air With sensitive and aching agony.
PAULA (_witlessly, in tears_): I know thy song, my lady, I know, I know!
'Twas pretty and 'twas strange, but now I know.
(_Sings._) Sappho! Sappho!
In maiden woe (Let alone love, it spurns and burns!) Wept--wept, and leapt-- O love is so!
(Let alone love, it burns!)
My lady! O my lady! my sweet lady!
(_She is led out._)
FULVIA: This is most sad--most sad, and pitiful.
CHARLES: I cannot bear her voice upon my heart
_Enter AGABUS gazing into the air._
Again this monk? this dog of death?--and now?
AGABUS: My trusty Shadow (_Laughs madly._) Ha, he has been here!
My king o' the worms and all corruption!-- (_Approaching CHARLES._) Lovers, and lovers! O she leapt as 'twere To Christ and not sin's Pit! And he is gone To follow her! The devil's nine wits are Too many!
(_Wanders about._)
FULVIA: My lord! Your limbs are frozen, And bloodlessly you stand! Move, rouse, O breathe!
It is not truth but madness that he speaks.
(_A cry and clanking of armor are heard in the Hall. A SOLDIER bursts into the chamber._)
SOLDIER: O duke! O duke! (_Sinks to his knee._)
CHARLES: (_gazes at him, struggling to speak_): Rise--go--and, if thou canst-- To pray.
SOLDIER: O sir----!
CHARLES: You have no tidings.
SOLDIER: Sir----
CHARLES (_desperately_): None, fool! but come to say what silence groans, What earth numb and in deadness raves to me.
To tell Antonio hath gone out and o'er A precipice hath stepped for sake of love.
This is not tidings--hath it not on me Been fixed forever? It is older than Despair, as old as pain! (_To HaeMON, who has entered._) Your sister----
BARDAS: Haemon----!
CARDINAL: Hold him not in this anguish.
FULVIA: She and our Antonio have left us to our tears.
(_HaeMON stands motionless._)
CHARLES: Let no one groan. I say let no one groan-- Fury on him that groans! (_He blindly rocks to and fro._)
FULVIA: My lord!
