Guta. See! see! she comes, with heaving breast,With bursting eyes, and purpled brow:Oh that the traitors saw her now!They know not, sightless fools, the heart they break.

[Elizabeth enters slowly.]

Eliz. He is in purgatory now! Alas!Angels! be pitiful! deal gently with him!His sins were gentle! That’s one cause left for living—To pray, and pray for him: why all these monthsI prayed,—and here’s my answer: Dead of a fever!Why thus? so soon! Only six years for love!While any formal, heartless matrimony,Patched up by Court intrigues, and threats of cloisters,Drags on for six times six, and peasant slavesGrow old on the same straw, and hand in handSlip from life’s oozy bank, to float at ease.

[A knocking at the door.]

That’s some petitioner.Go to—I will not hear them: why should I work,When he is dead? Alas! was that my sin?Was he, not Christ, my lodestar? Why not warn me?Too late! What’s this foul dream? Dead at Otranto—Parched by Italian suns—no woman by him—He was too chaste! Nought but rude men to nurse!—If I had been there, I should have watched by him—Guessed every fancy—God! I might have saved him!

[A servant-man bursts in.]

Servant. Madam, the Landgrave gave me strict commands—

Isen. The Landgrave, dolt?

Eliz. I might have saved him!

Servant [to Isen.] Ay, saucy madam!—The Landgrave Henry, lord and master,Freer than the last, and yet no waster,Who will not stint a poor knave’s beer,Or spin out Lent through half the year.Why—I see double!

Eliz. Who spoke there of the Landgrave? What’s this drunkard?Give him his answer—’Tis no time for mumming—

Serv. The Landgrave Henry bade me see you outSafe through his gates, and that at once, my Lady.Come!

Eliz. Why—that’s hasty—I must take my childrenAh! I forgot—they would not let me see them.I must pack up my jewels—

Serv. You’ll not need it—His Lordship has the keys.

Eliz. He has indeed.Why, man!—I am thy children’s godmother—I nursed thy wife myself in the black sickness—Art thou a bird, that when the old tree falls,Flits off, and sings in the sapling?

[The man seizes her arm.]

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