And the troating warrior, like a tower, the shaggy horse with hands of horn! Ah! ah! Charge! Forward! Forward! --Redness, hole, mouth, gullet of glory, insupportable gate! O you mighty Beings, Let them cut off my hands and my feet, and to you I will stretch the stumps, and on my bones I will march to you! To you! FIRST CAPTAIN: What a sight to see! SECOND: Hold his feet, wipe the foam from his mouth. THIRD: Horror! More than horror! Spectacle Lamentable, detestable, terrible, pitiable! And we have Two eyes to see this, stupidly ranged about him, like cattle that gather around a watering-place! THE CENTURION: Calm yourself, O King! THE STANDARD BEARER: How the blood jets out of him! How the mare shakes her mane in the breeze! What life Like that of a tiger is taken in his bones! How he roars, how he Writhes, smearing the altar with blood, till it trickles down in rills, And all about him the earth drinks. _(The KING calms himself._ FIRST CAPTAIN (_to another who has turned his head towards the West_): --What is it that you see? SECOND CAPTAIN: What a conflagration flares in the sky! _(All turn their eyes towards the West._ THIRD CAPTAIN: A street Is opened through the stony breast of the earth. And the wall is so high that the trees that cling there appear like tufts of laurel. And here and there, detaching themselves from the ancient rock, the forms of monsters watch on the cornices, and what might be the ruins of bygone cities. And the Sun stands at the end in his magnificence and in a dreadful splendor. Everything is full of gold and we stand confronting a blinding glory. THE KING: He founders! He founders! He falls! He sinks towards the nether abyss. It is not the Sun, it is the dreadfully flaming citadel of our hope! And man will not make a higher ascent lest together his path and he plunge headlong! You, springs, tomb of the forests where I have lived so long, branches charged with malediction, paths, deep-sunken roads, See what injustice I suffer! To-day I try in vain to escape from an innocent sepulchre! And you, like an everlasting face, Infinite riches of the year, world abounding in fruits, I shall not possess you, crowned like the mother of Zeus! And I shall not kiss you like a King, O Peace! King not by chance but by force and truth, O earth! O earth that I cannot conquer! _(He throws himself on the ground._ _(They raise him and replace him on the rock._ _(Confused clamor below._ A CAPTAIN (_leaning over the precipice_): It is the army returning. ANOTHER: They draw themselves up at the foot of this precipice. THE CENTURION: Is he still alive? THE SURGEON: He lives. I cannot understand how. FIRST CAPTAIN: Let us go! What do we still await? _(The CENTURION raises his hand._ SECOND CAPTAIN: He is coming to himself. His eyes re-open. THE CENTURION: Sire, how is it with you? THE KING: How long has it been Since I Was living? FIRST CAPTAIN: You were unconscious some minutes.