Racine: Phaedra

226
CALDERON
As shall at once all difiference atone,
And cease the realm's division with their own.
Cousins and Princes, Peers and Councillors,
Such is the purport of this invitation,
And such is my design. Whose furtherance
If not as Sovereign, if not as Seer,
Yet one whom these white locks, if nothing else,
To patient acquiescence consecrate,
I now demand and even supplicate.
AsTOLFO.—Such news, and from such lips, may well suspend
The tongue to loyal answer most attuned
But if to me as spokesman of my faction
Your Highness looks for answer ; I reply
For one and all—Let Segismund, whom now
We first hear tell of as your living heir.
Appear, and but in your sufficient eye
Approve himself worthy to be your son,
Then we will hail him Poland's rightful heir.
What says my cousin?
EsTRELLA. Ay, with all my heart.
But if my youth and sex upbraid me not
That I should dare ask of so wise a king
King.—Ask, ask, fair cousin ! Nothing, I am sure,
Not well consider'd ; nay, if 'twere, yet nothing
But pardonable from such lips as those.
EsTRELLA.—Then, with- your pardon. Sir—If Segismund,
My cousin, whom I shall rejoice to hail
As Prince of Poland too, as you propose.
Be to a trial coming upon which
More, as I think, than life itself depends,
Why, Sir, with sleep-disorder'd senses brought
To this uncertain contest with his stars?
King.—Well ask'd indeed ! As wisely be it answer'd !—
Because it is uncertain, see you not?
For as I think I can discern between
The sudden flaws of a sleep-startled man,
And of the savage thing we have to dread
If but bewilder'd, dazzled, and uncouth,
As might the sanest and the civilest
In circumstance so strange—nay, more than that,