He claims her as his wife, but she, filled with the horror of what she knows, declares that he is not her husband. It is the moment of the Vespers, and Tancredi falls among the first slain by the Sicilians. He implores Imelda for a last kiss, but wildly answering that they are brother and sister, she swoons away, while Tancredi dies in this climax of self-loathing and despair. The management of a plot so terrible is very simple. The feelings of the characters in the hideous maze which involves them are given only such expression as should come from those utterly broken by their calamity. Imelda swoons when she hears the letter of Eriberto declaring the fatal tie of blood that binds her to her husband, and forever separates her from him. When she is restored, she finds her father weeping over her, and says: Ah, thou dost look on me And weep! At least this comfort I can feel In the horror of my state: thou canst not hate A woman so unhappy.... ... Oh, from all Be hid the atrocity! to some holy shelter Let me be taken far from hence. I feel Naught can be more than my calamity, Saving God's pity. I have no father now, Nor child, nor husband (heavens, what do I say? He is my brother now! and well I know I must not ask to see him more). I, living, lose Everything death robs other women of. By far the greater feeling and passion are shown in the passages describing the wrongs which the Sicilians have suffered from the French, and expressing the aspiration and hate of Procida and his fellow-patriots. Niccolini does not often use pathos, and he is on that account perhaps the more effective in the use of it. However this may be, I find it very touching when, after coming back from his long exile, Procida says to Imelda, who is trembling for the secret of her marriage amidst her joy in his return: Daughter, art thou still So sad? I have not heard yet from thy lips A word of the old love.... ... Ah, thou knowest not What sweetness hath the natal spot, how many The longings exile hath; how heavy't is To arrive at doors of homes where no one waits thee! Imelda, thou may'st abandon thine own land, But not forget her; I, a pilgrim, saw Many a city; but none among them had A memory that spoke unto my heart; And fairer still than any other seemed The country whither still my spirit turned. In a vein as fierce and passionate as this is tender, Procida relates how, returning to Sicily when he was believed dead by the French, he passed in secret over the island and inflamed Italian hatred of the foreigners: