SCENE I.--The Tower, etc., as in Act I.Scene I.
Segismund, as at first, and Clotaldo CLOTALDO.
Princes and princesses, and counsellors Fluster'd to right and left--my life made at--But that was nothing Even the white-hair'd, venerable King Seized on--Indeed, you made wild work of it;And so discover'd in your outward action, Flinging your arms about you in your sleep, Grinding your teeth--and, as I now remember, Woke mouthing out judgment and execution, On those about you.
SEG.
Ay, I did indeed.
CLO.
Ev'n now your eyes stare wild; your hair stands up--Your pulses throb and flutter, reeling still Under the storm of such a dream--SEG.
A dream!
That seem'd as swearable reality As what I wake in now.
CLO.
Ay--wondrous how Imagination in a sleeping brain Out of the uncontingent senses draws Sensations strong as from the real touch;That we not only laugh aloud, and drench With tears our pillow; but in the agony Of some imaginary conflict, fight And struggle--ev'n as you did; some, 'tis thought, Under the dreamt-of stroke of death have died.
SEG.
And what so very strange too--In that world Where place as well as people all was strange, Ev'n I almost as strange unto myself, You only, you, Clotaldo--you, as much And palpably yourself as now you are, Came in this very garb you ever wore, By such a token of the past, you said, To assure me of that seeming present.
CLO.
Ay?
SEG.
Ay; and even told me of the very stars You tell me here of--how in spite of them, I was enlarged to all that glory.
CLO.
Ay, By the false spirits' nice contrivance thus A little truth oft leavens all the false, The better to delude us.
SEG.
For you know 'Tis nothing but a dream?
CLO.
Nay, you yourself Know best how lately you awoke from that You know you went to sleep on?--Why, have you never dreamt the like before?
SEG.
Never, to such reality.
CLO.
Such dreams Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations Of that ambition that lies smouldering Under the ashes of the lowest fortune;By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost The reins of sensible comparison, We fly at something higher than we are--Scarce ever dive to lower--to be kings, Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold, Nay, mounting heaven itself on eagle wings.
Which, by the way, now that I think of it, May furnish us the key to this high flight That royal Eagle we were watching, and Talking of as you went to sleep last night.
SEG.
Last night? Last night?
CLO.
Ay, do you not remember Envying his immunity of flight, As, rising from his throne of rock, he sail'd Above the mountains far into the West, That burn'd about him, while with poising wings He darkled in it as a burning brand Is seen to smoulder in the fire it feeds?
SEG.
Last night--last night--Oh, what a day was that Between that last night and this sad To-day!
CLO.
And yet, perhaps, Only some few dark moments, into which Imagination, once lit up within And unconditional of time and space, Can pour infinities.
SEG.
And I remember How the old man they call'd the King, who wore The crown of gold about his silver hair, And a mysterious girdle round his waist, Just when my rage was roaring at its height, And after which it all was dark again, Bid me beware lest all should be a dream.
CLO.
Ay--there another specialty of dreams, That once the dreamer 'gins to dream he dreams, His foot is on the very verge of waking.
SEG.
Would it had been upon the verge of death That knows no waking--Lifting me up to glory, to fall back, Stunn'd, crippled--wretcheder than ev'n before.
CLO.
Yet not so glorious, Segismund, if you Your visionary honour wore so ill As to work murder and revenge on those Who meant you well.
SEG.
Who meant me!--me! their Prince Chain'd like a felon--CLO.
Stay, stay--Not so fast, You dream'd the Prince, remember.
SEG.
Then in dream Revenged it only.
CLO.
True.But as they say Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul Yet uncorrected of the higher Will, So that men sometimes in their dreams confess An unsuspected, or forgotten, self;One must beware to check--ay, if one may, Stifle ere born, such passion in ourselves As makes, we see, such havoc with our sleep, And ill reacts upon the waking day.
And, by the bye, for one test, Segismund, Between such swearable realities--Since Dreaming, Madness, Passion, are akin In missing each that salutary rein Of reason, and the guiding will of man:
One test, I think, of waking sanity Shall be that conscious power of self-control, To curb all passion, but much most of all That evil and vindictive, that ill squares With human, and with holy canon less, Which bids us pardon ev'n our enemies, And much more those who, out of no ill will, Mistakenly have taken up the rod Which heaven, they think, has put into their hands.
SEG.
I think I soon shall have to try again--
Sleep has not yet done with me.
CLO.
Such a sleep.
Take my advice--'tis early yet--the sun Scarce up above the mountain; go within, And if the night deceived you, try anew With morning; morning dreams they say come true.
SEG.
Oh, rather pray for me a sleep so fast As shall obliterate dream and waking too.
(Exit into the tower.)
CLO.
So sleep; sleep fast: and sleep away those two Night-potions, and the waking dream between Which dream thou must believe; and, if to see Again, poor Segismund! that dream must be.--And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives, Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, How if our waking life, like that of sleep, Be all a dream in that eternal life To which we wake not till we sleep in death?
How if, I say, the senses we now trust For date of sensible comparison,--Ay, ev'n the Reason's self that dates with them, Should be in essence or intensity Hereafter so transcended, and awake To a perceptive subtlety so keen As to confess themselves befool'd before, In all that now they will avouch for most?
One man--like this--but only so much longer As life is longer than a summer's day, Believed himself a king upon his throne, And play'd at hazard with his fellows' lives, Who cheaply dream'd away their lives to him.
The sailor dream'd of tossing on the flood:
