CLOTALDO. Listen! hear me! wait! oh, stay! What a labyrinthine thicket Is all this, where reason gives Not a thread whereby to issue? My own honour here is wronged, Powerful is my foe's position, I a vassal, she a woman; Heaven reveal some way in pity, Though I doubt it has the power; When in such confused abysses, Heaven is all one fearful presage, And the world itself a riddle. * * * * * ACT THE SECOND. A HALL IN THE ROYAL PALACE. * * * * * SCENE I. BASILIUS and CLOTALDO. CLOTALDO. Everything has been effected As you ordered. BASILIUS. How all happened* Let me know, my good Clotaldo. [footnote] *The metre of this and the following scene is the asonante in a--e. CLOTALDO. It was done, sire, in this manner. With the tranquillising draught, Which was made, as you commanded, Of confections duly mixed With some herbs, whose juice extracted Has a strange tyrannic power, Has some secret force imparted, Which all human sense and speech Robs, deprives, and counteracteth, And as 'twere a living corpse leaves the man whose lips have quaffed it So asleep that all his senses, All his powers are overmastered . . . . -- No need have we to discuss That this fact can really happen, Since, my lord, experience gives us Many a clear and proved example; Certain 'tis that Nature's secrets May by medicine be extracted, And that not an animal, Not a stone, or herb that's planted, But some special quality Doth possess: for if the malice Of man's heart, a thousand poisons That give death, hath power to examine, Is it then so great a wonder That, their venom being abstracted, If, as death by some is given, Sleep by others is imparted? Putting, then, aside the doubt That 'tis possible this should happen, A thing proved beyond all question Both by reason and example . . . . -- With the sleeping draught, in fine, Made of opium superadded To the poppy and the henbane, I to Sigismund's apartment -- Cell, in fact -- went down, and with him Spoke awhile upon the grammar Of the sciences, those first studies Which mute Nature's gentle masters, Silent skies and hills, had taught him; In which school divine and ample, The bird's song, the wild beast's roar, Were a lesson and a language. Then to raise his spirit more To the high design you planned here, I discoursed on, as my theme, The swift flight, the stare undazzled Of a pride-plumed eagle bold, Which with back-averted talons, Scorning the tame fields of air, Seeks the sphere of fire, and passes Through its flame a flash of feathers, Or a comet's hair untangled. I extolled its soaring flight, Saying, "Thou at last art master Of thy house, thou'rt king of birds, It is right thou should'st surpass them." He who needed nothing more Than to touch upon the matter Of high royalty, with a bearing As became him, boldly answered; For in truth his princely blood Moves, excites, inflames his ardour To attempt great things: he said, "In the restless realm of atoms