The circumcised apostate did not shame To shew in open day his turban’d head. The Queen too, Egilona, one exclaim’d; Was she not married to the enemy, The Moor, the Misbeliever? What a heart Were hers, that she could pride and plume herself To rank among his herd of concubines, Having been what she had been! And who could say How far domestic wrongs and discontent Had wrought upon the King!... Hereat the old man, Raising beneath the knit and curly brow His mournful eyes, replied, This I can tell, That that unquiet spirit and unblest, Though Roderick never told his sorrows, drove Rusilla from the palace of her son. She could not bear to see his generous mind Wither beneath the unwholesome influence, And cankering at the core. And I know well, That oft when she deplored his barren bed, The thought of Egilona’s qualities Came like a bitter medicine for her grief, And to the extinction of her husband’s line, Sad consolation, reconciled her heart. But Roderick, while they communed thus, had ceased To hear, such painfulest anxiety The sight of that old venerable man Awoke. A sickening fear came over him: The hope which led him from his hermitage Now seem’d for ever gone, for well he knew Nothing but death could break the ties which bound That faithful servant to his father’s house. She then for whose forgiveness he had yearn’d, Who in her blessing would have given and found The peace of Heaven, ... she then was to the grave Gone down disconsolate at last; in this Of all the woes of her unhappy life Unhappiest, that she did not live to see God had vouchsafed repentance to her child. But then a hope arose that yet she lived; The weighty cause which led Siverian here Might draw him from her side; better to know The worst than fear it. And with that he bent Over the embers, and with head half raised Aslant, and shadow’d by his hand, he said, Where is King Roderick’s mother? lives she still?