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SCENE ii] THE MOURNING BRIDE 431
Re-enter GARCIA.
Gar. Ruin and horror! D heart-wounding sight!
Gon. What says my son? what ruin? ha, what horror?
Gar. Blasted my eyes, and speechless be my tongue!
Rather than or to see, or to relate
This deed.—0 dire mistake! D fatal blow!
The king—
Gon. Alvn. The king!
Gar. Dead, weltering, drowned in blood.
Sec, see, attired like Osmyn, where he lies! [They lool^ in.
O whence, or how, or wherefore was this done?
But what imports the manner, or the cause?
Nothing remains to do, or to require.
But that we all should turn our swords against
Ourselves, and expiate with our own his blood.
Gon. 0 wretch! D cursed, and rash, deluded fool!
On me, on me, turn your avenging sword!
I, who have spilt my royal master's blood,
Should make atonement by a death as horrid;
And fall beneath the hand of my own son.
Gar. Ha! what? atone this murder with a greater?
The horror of that thought has damped my rage.
The earth already groans to bear this deed;
Oppress her not, nor think to stain her face
With more unnatural blood. Murder my father!
Better with this to rip up my own bowels,
And bathe it to the hilt, in far less damnable
Self-murder.
Gon. O my son! from the blind dotage
Df a father's fondness these ills arose;
For thee I've been ambitious, base, and bloody:
For thee I've plunged into this sea of sin;
Stemming the tide with only one weak hand,
While t'other bore the crown, (to wreath thy brow,)
Whose weight has sunk me ere I reached the shore.
Gar. Fatal ambition! Hark! the foe is entered. [A shout.
The shrillness of that shout speaks 'em at hand.
We have no time to search into the cause
Of this surprising and most fatal error.
What's to be done? the king's death known, will strike
The few remaining soldiers with despair,
And make 'em yield to mercy of the conqueror.