KING. How! ye immortal deities,
Would you still try by threatenings such as these
What I can bear?
Is it your wish that I should mount and tear
This azure palace down, as if the shape
Of a new Nimrod* I assumed, to show
How on my shoulders might the world escape,
Nor as I gazed below
Feel any fear, though all the abysses under
Were rent with fire and flame, with lightning and with thunder.
[footnote] *Nimrod is here used for Atlas. "Nimrod aber ist hier,
was den Profandichtern und auch dem Calderon oft Atlas ist." --
Schmidt, 'Die Schauspiele Calderon's' etc.,' p. 426.
* * * * *
SCENE II.
PATRICK, and then LUIS ENIUS.
PATRICK [within]. Ah me!
LEOGAIRE. Some mournful voice.
KING. What's this?
CAPTAIN. The form,
As of a man who has escaped the storm,
Swims yonder to the land.
LESBIA. And strives to give a life-sustaining hand
Unto another wretch, when he
Appeared about to sink in death's last agony.
POLONIA. Poor traveller from afar,
Whom evil fate and thy malignant star
On this far shore have cast,
Let my voice guide thee, if amid the blast
My accents thou canst hear; since it is only
To rouse thy courage that I speak to thee.
Come!
[Enter PATRICK and LUIS ENIUS, clasping each other.
PATRICK. Oh, God save me!
LUIS. Oh, the devil save ME!
LESBIA.
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