Don Carlos (Act 2 Scene 5)

DON CARLOS. DUDE OF ALVA.

ALVA
(meeting him).
Two words, most gracious prince.

CARLOS.
Some other time.

&nbsp       &nbsp[Going.

ALVA.
The place is not the fittest, I confess;
Perhaps your royal highness may be pleased
To grant me audience in your private chamber.

CARLOS.
For what? And why not here? Only be brief.

ALVA.
The special object which has brought me hither,
Is to return your highness lowly thanks
For your good services.

CARLOS.
Thanks to me—
For what? Duke Alva's thanks!

ALVA.
You scarce had left
His majesty, ere I received in form
Instructions to depart for Brussels.

CARLOS.
What!
For Brussels!

ALVA.
And to what, most gracious prince,
Must I ascribe this favor, but to you—
Your intercession with the king?

CARLOS.
Ob, no!
Not in the least to me; but, duke, you travel,
So Heaven be with your grace!

ALVA.
And is this all?
It seems, indeed, most strange! And has your highness
No further orders, then, to send to Flanders?

CARLOS.
What should I have?

ALVA.
Not long ago, it seemed,
The country's fate required your presence.

CARLOS.
How?
But yes, you're right,—it was so formerly;
But now this change is better as it is.

ALVA.
I am amazed——

CARLOS.
You are an able general,
No one doubts that—envy herself must own it.
For me, I'm but a youth—so thought the king.

CARLOS.
The king was right, quite right. I see it now
Myself, and am content—and so no more.
God speed your journey, as you see, just now
My hands are full, and weighty business presses.
The rest to-morrow, or whene'er you will,
Or when you come from Brussels.

ALVA.
What is this?

CARLOS.
The season favors, and your route will lie
Through Milan, Lorraine, Burgundy, and on
To Germany! What, Germany? Ay, true,
In Germany it was—they know you there.
'Tis April now, May, June,—in July, then,
Just so! or, at the latest, soon in August,—
You will arrive in Brussels, and no doubt
We soon shall hear of your victorious deeds.
You know the way to win our high esteem,
And earn the crown of fame.

ALVA
(significantly).
Indeed! condemned
By my own conscious insignificance!

CARLOS.
You're sensitive, my lord, and with some cause,
I own it was not fair to use a weapon
Against your grace you were unskilled to wield.

ALVA.
Unskilled!

CARLOS.
'Tis pity I've no leisure now
To fight this worthy battle fairly out
But at some other time, we——

ALVA.
Prince, we both
Miscalculate—but still in opposite ways.
You, for example, overrate your age
By twenty years, whilst on the other band,
I, by as many, underrate it——

CARLOS.
Well

ALVA.
And this suggests the thought, how many nights
Beside this lovely Lusitanian bride—
Your mother—would the king right gladly give
To buy an arm like this, to aid his crown.
Full well he knows, far easier is the task
To make a monarch than a monarchy;
Far easier too, to stock the world with kings
Than frame an empire for a king to rule.

CARLOS.
Most true, Duke Alva, yet——

ALVA.
And how much blood,
Your subjects' dearest blood, must flow in streams
Before two drops could make a king of you.

CARLOS.
Most true, by heaven! and in two words comprised,
All that the pride of merit has to urge
Against the pride of fortune. But the moral—
Now, Duke Alva!

ALVA.
Woe to the nursling babe
Of royalty that mocks the careful hand
Which fosters it! How calmly it may sleep
On the soft cushion of our victories!
The monarch's crown is bright with sparkling gems,
But no eye sees the wounds that purchased them.
This sword has given our laws to distant realms,
Has blazed before the banner of the cross,
And in these quarters of the globe has traced
Ensanguined furrows for the seed of faith.
God was the judge in heaven, and I on earth.

CARLOS.
God, or the devil—it little matters which;
Yours was his chosen arm—that stands confessed.
And now no more of this. Some thoughts there are
Whereof the memory pains me. I respect
My father's choice,—my father needs an Alva!
But that he needs him is not just the point
I envy in him: a great man you are,
This may be true, and I well nigh believe it,
Only I fear your mission is begun
Some thousand years too soon. Alva, methinks,
Were just the man to suit the end of time.
Then when the giant insolence of vice
Shall have exhausted Heaven's enduring patience,
And the rich waving harvest of misdeeds
Stand in full ear, and asks a matchless reaper,
Then should you fill the post. O God! my paradise!
My Flanders! But of this I must not think.
'Tis said you carry with you a full store
Of sentences of death already signed.
This shows a prudent foresight! No more need
To fear your foes' designs, or secret plots:
Oh, father! ill indeed I've understood thee.
Calling thee harsh, to save me from a post,
Where Alva's self alone can fitly shine!
'Twas an unerring token of your love.

ALVA.
These words deserve——

CARLOS.
What!

ALVA.
But your birth protects you.

CARLOS
(seizing his sword).
That calls for blood! Duke, draw your sword!

ALVA
(slightingly).
On whom?

CARLOS.
(pressing upon him).
Draw, or I run you through.

ALVA.
Then be it so.

&nbsp       &nbsp[They fight.