THE KING: There, there, all about me, here, These clothes I still have on, these plates of iron. Quickly! Rid me of these rags. Let me wholly reveal myself As on the day the maternal habitation put the male out of doors! Let me be naked! O healing brews, O balms! Linen fresh and white, envelop me in linen! Wrap me in a napkin like a loaf of bread! _(They do as he says._ THE SURGEON: You are feeling better now? THE KING: Bound in swaddling bands like a baby. _(Pause._ THE CENTURION: Simon! THE KING: What name do I hear? Who calls me? THE CENTURION: Agnel! Simon Agnel! THE KING: Who dares to call me so? THE CENTURION: I, I dare! Let me weep above you, my royal brother! Here you lie and you touch the earth with your head. Arise, stand erect and draw the sword, uplift in your hand the sceptre! O my royal brother, prone you lie on the ground and I am bending above you! THE STANDARD BEARER: Alas, O King! THE COMMANDER OF THE CAVALRY: Alas! A CAPTAIN: Alas! ANOTHER: Master, master! Do you, our ruler, abandon us? THE KING: What do you wish of me? Devour me! THE CENTURION: Ruined stature of our hope! Image bloody and wasted! Open your arms at the moment of your death, and press to your breast in farewell, the sheaf of your geniuses with their sublime faces! Whence have you drawn your courage and your strength? Here instruct us, lest we despair! O Noble effort, you disappear whelmed in the holocaust! _(Pause._ THE KING (_crying out_): Ah! Ah! Ah! FIRST CAPTAIN: What convulsion seizes him? The King (_crying out_): Ah, ah, alas! Ah, ah, alas! Ah, alas! SECOND CAPTAIN: He remembers! He remembers! Wrath enters into him and he rears himself up like a half-killed cat! THIRD: The soul in such crises will forget The death of the body, even as a woman forgets that she is naked. THE KING: My dream! My dream! My hope torn from my jaws, and wholly lost! Ah! ah! Why Was this force given to me when I still could stand erect? Why this desire Voracious, obstinate, insatiable? O passion! O soul for which nothing existed too great! And see, these hands Clasp the void and take hold on nothing! O vanquished soul! O futile thing that I am! Miserably, O miserably have I been cast to the earth and slain! THE CENTURION: Answer us, Tête-d'or! Who will establish justice among the people? The justice that rests on force? THE KING: Certainly I have failed in my promises. But it matters little.--I wish, I wish-- THE CENTURION: You have not received, having given. THE KING: I could not do it! I could not do it, I am not a god. In what have I been lacking? Where do you find my fault? (_He tears off the bandages_) Rend me, hiccough! Off with you, rag! And let each spring Burst forth with a bubble as large as the eye-ball of a horse! Creatures who revel in omnipotence, behold me, lying in this cursed place, a wretched man pouring forth streams of blood! Ah! ah! Sparks of fire, the tide of battle!