_Jul._ What they would They cannot: thee of kingdom and of life ’Tis easy to despoil, thyself the traitor, Thyself the violator of allegiance. O would all-righteous Heaven they could restore The joy of innocence, the calm of age, The probity of manhood, pride of arms, And confidence of honour! the august And holy laws, trampled beneath thy feet. And Spain! O parent, I have lost thee too! Yes, thou wilt curse me in thy latter days, Me, thine avenger. I have fought her foe, Roderigo, I have gloried in her sons, Sublime in hardihood and piety: Her strength was mine: I, sailing by her cliffs, By promontory after promontory, Opening like flags along some castle-towers, Have sworn before the cross upon our mast Ne’er shall invader wave his standard there. _Rod._ Yet there thou plantest it, false man, thyself. _Jul._ Accursed he who makes me this reproach, And made it just! Had I been happy still, I had been blameless: I had died with glory Upon the walls of Ceuta. _Rod._ Which thy treason Surrendered to the Infidel. _Jul._ ’Tis hard And base to live beneath a conqueror; Yet, amidst all this grief and infamy, ’Tis something to have rushed upon the ranks In their advance; ’twere something to have stood Defeat, discomfiture; and, when around No beacon blazes, no far axle groans Thro’ the wide plain, no sound of sustenance Or succour sooths the still-believing ear, To fight upon the last dismantled tower, And yield to valour, if we yield at all. But rather should my neck lie trampled down By every Saracen and Moor on earth, Than my own country see her laws o’erturn’d By those who should protect them: Sir, no prince Shall ruin Spain; and, least of all, her own. Is any just or glorious act in view, Your oaths forbid it: is your avarice, Or, if there be such, any viler passion To have its giddy range, and to be gorged, It rises over all your sacraments, A hooded mystery, holier than they all. _Rod._ Hear me, Don Julian; I have heard thy wrath Who am thy king, nor heard man’s wrath before. _Jul._ Thou shalt hear mine, for thou art not my king. _Rod._ Knowest thou not the alter’d face of war? Xeres is ours; from every region round True loyal Spaniards throng into our camp: Nay, thy own friends and thy own family, From the remotest provinces, advance To crush rebellion: Sisabert is come, Disclaiming thee and thine; the Asturian hills Opposed to him their icy chains in vain; But never wilt thou see him, never more, Unless in adverse war, and deadly hate. _Jul._ So lost to me! So generous, so deceived! I grieve to hear it.