Hernando

Osma

Ramiro

p. 1ACT I. SCENE 1.

p. 1

Camp of Julian.

OPAS. JULIAN.

Opas. See her, Count Julian: if thou lovest God, See thy lost child.

Jul. I have avenged me, Opas, More than enough: I sought but to have hurled The brands of war on one detested head, And died upon his ruin. O my country! O lost to honour, to thyself, to me, Why on barbarian hands devolves thy cause, Spoilers, blasphemers!

Opas. Is it thus, Don Julian, p. 2When thy own ofspring, that beloved child, For whom alone these very acts were done By them and thee, when thy Covilla stands An outcast, and a suppliant at thy gate, Why that still stubborn agony of soul, Those struggles with the bars thyself imposed? Is she not thine? not dear to thee as ever?

p. 2

Jul. Father of mercies! show me none, whene’er The wrongs she suffers cease to wring my heart, Or I seek solace ever, but in death.

Opas. What wilt thou do then, too unhappy man?

Jul. What have I done already? All my peace Has vanished; my fair fame in after-times Will wear an alien and uncomely form, Seen o’er the cities I have laid in dust, Countrymen slaughtered, friends abjured!

Opas. And faith?

Jul. Alone now left me, filling up in part The narrow and waste intervals of grief: It promises that I shall see again My own lost child.

p. 3Opas. Yes, at this very hour.

p. 3

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