Jul. Conduct him in. [To Roderigo, who enters as Herald. A messager of peace! audacious man! In what attire appearest thou? a herald’s? Under no garb can such a wretch be safe. Rod. Thy violence and fancied wrongs I know, p. 8And what thy sacrilegious hands would do, O traitor and apostate! p. 8 Jul. What they would They cannot: thee of kingdom and of life ’Tis easy to despoil, thyself the traitor, Thyself the violator of allegiance. O would all-righteous Heaven they could restore The joy of innocence, the calm of age, The probity of manhood, pride of arms, And confidence of honour! the august And holy laws, trampled beneath thy feet. And Spain! O parent, I have lost thee too! Yes, thou wilt curse me in thy latter days, Me, thine avenger. I have fought her foe, Roderigo, I have gloried in her sons, Sublime in hardihood and piety: Her strength was mine: I, sailing by her cliffs, By promontory after promontory, Opening like flags along some castle-towers, Have sworn before the cross upon our mast Ne’er shall invader wave his standard there. p. 9Rod. Yet there thou plantest it, false man, thyself. p. 9 Jul. Accursed he who makes me this reproach, And made it just! Had I been happy still, I had been blameless: I had died with glory Upon the walls of Ceuta. Rod. Which thy treason Surrendered to the Infidel. Jul. ’Tis hard And base to live beneath a conqueror; Yet, amidst all this grief and infamy, ’Tis something to have rushed upon the ranks In their advance; ’twere something to have stood Defeat, discomfiture; and, when around No beacon blazes, no far axle groans Thro’ the wide plain, no sound of sustenance Or succour sooths the still-believing ear, To fight upon the last dismantled tower, And yield to valour, if we yield at all. But rather should my neck lie trampled down By every Saracen and Moor on earth, Than my own country see her laws o’erturn’d p. 10By those who should protect them: Sir, no prince Shall ruin Spain; and, least of all, her own. Is any just or glorious act in view, Your
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