REMORSE.

A TRAGEDY. IN FIVE ACTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

MARQUIS VALDEZ, father to the two brothers, and Doña TERESA's Guardian. DON ALVAR, the eldest son.

DON ORDONIO, the youngest son.

MONVIEDRO, a Dominican and inquisitor.

ZULIMEZ, the faithful attendant on ALVAR.

ISIDORE, a Moresco chieftain, ostensibly a Christian.

Familiars of the Inquisition.

ΝΑΟΜΙ.

Moors, Servants, &c..

DONA TERESA, an orphan heiress.

ALHADRA, wife of ISIDORE.

Time-The reign of PHILIP II., just at the close of the civil wars against the Moors, and during the heat of the persecution which raged against them, shortly after the edict which forbade the wearing of Moresco apparel under pain of death.

REMORSE.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The sea-shore on the coast of Granada.

Don Alvar, wrapt in a boat cloak, and Zulimez (a Moresco), both as just landed.

Zul. No sound, no face of joy to welcome us!
Alv. My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment
Let me forget my anguish and their crimes.
If aught on earth demand an unmix'd feeling,
'Tis surely this after long years of exile,

To step forth on firm land, and gazing round us,
To hail at once our country, and our birth-place.
Hail, Spain Granada, hail! once more I
Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers!

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Zul. Then claim your rights in it! O, revered Don Alvar

Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose.

It is too hazardous ! reveal yourself,

And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt!

Alv. Remember, Zulimez! I am his brother,

Injured indeed! O deeply injured! yet

Ordonio's brother.

Zul.

Nobly minded Alvar!

This sure but gives his guilt a blacker dye.

Alv. The more behooves it, I should rouse within him

Remorse that I should save him from himself.

Zul. Remorse is as the heart in which it grows t

If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews

Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,
It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost
Weeps only tears of poison.

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Alv.

And of a brother,

Dare I hold this, unproved? nor make one effort
To save him?-Hear me, friend! I have yet to tell thee,
That this same life, which he conspired to take,
Himself once rescued from the angry flood,

And at the imminent hazard of his own.

Add too my oath

Zul.

You have thrice told already

The years of absence and of secrecy,

To which a forced oath bound you if in truth
A suborned murderer have the power to dictate
A binding oath-

Left me no choice the very wish too languished
With the fond hope that nursed it; the sick babe
Drooped at the bosom of its famished mother.
But (more than all) Teresa's perfidy;

The assassin's strong assurance, when no interest,
No motive could have tempted him to falsehood:
In the first pangs of his awaken'd conscience,
When with abhorrence of his own black purpose
The murderous weapon, pointed at my breast,
Fell from his palsied hand-

Zul.

Heavy presumption !

Alv. It weighed not with me-Hark! I will tell thee all; As we passed by, I bade thee mark the base

The morning of the day of my departure.
We were alone the purple hue of dawn
Fell from the kindling east aslant upon us,
And blending with the blushes on her cheek,
Suffused the tear-drops there with rosy light.
There seemed a glory round us, and Teresa
The angel of the vision!

Had'st thou seen

How in each motion her most innocent soul

Beamed forth and brightened, thou thyself would'st tell me,