CAPTAIN. Oh Royal Segismund, our Prince and King, Look on us--listen to us--answer us, Your faithful soldiery and subjects, now About you kneeling, but on fire to rise And cleave a passage through your enemies, Until we seat you on your lawful throne. For though your father, King Basilio, Now King of Poland, jealous of the stars That prophesy his setting with your rise, Here holds you ignominiously eclipsed, And would Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy, Mount to the throne of Poland after him; So will not we, your loyal soldiery And subjects; neither those of us now first Apprised of your existence and your right: Nor those that hitherto deluded by Allegiance false, their vizors now fling down, And craving pardon on their knees with us For that unconscious disloyalty, Offer with us the service of their blood; Not only we and they; but at our heels The heart, if not the bulk, of Poland follows To join their voices and their arms with ours, In vindicating with our lives our own Prince Segismund to Poland and her throne. SOLDIERS. --Segismund, Segismund, Prince Segismund! --Our own King Segismund, etc. (They all rise.) SEG. Again? So soon?--What, not yet done with me? The sun is little higher up, I think, Than when I last lay down, To bury in the depth of your own sea You that infest its shallows. CAPT. Sir! SEG. And now, Not in a palace, not in the fine clothes We all were in; but here, in the old place, And in our old accoutrement-- Only your vizors off, and lips unlock'd To mock me with that idle title-- CAPT. Nay, Indeed no idle title, but your own, Then, now, and now for ever. For, behold, Ev'n as I speak, the mountain passes fill And bristle with the advancing soldiery That glitters in your rising glory, sir; And, at our signal, echo to our cry, 'Segismund, King of Poland!' etc. (Shouts, trumpets, etc.) SEG. Oh, how cheap The muster of a countless host of shadows, As impotent to do with as to keep! All this they said before--to softer music. CAPT. Soft music, sir, to what indeed were shadows, That, following the sunshine of a Court, Shall back be brought with it--if shadows still, Yet to substantial reckoning. SEG. They shall? The white-hair'd and white-wanded chamberlain, So busy with his wand too--the old King That I was somewhat hard on--he had been Hard upon me--and the fine feather'd Prince Who crow'd so loud--my cousin,--and another, Another cousin, we will not bear hard on-- And--But Clotaldo? CAPT. Fled, my lord, but close Pursued; and then--