The Queen intrusts
Gonzales with a signet ring as the means of liberating him and conducting
him to the royal chamber. Bourbon is immovable; and in revenge upon the
Court, he falls in with a private scheme of Gonzales, which is to accept
of his liberty, and set off to the Court of Spain. The undisguising of the
treacherous monk is in these powerful lines:
GONZALES.
Now,
That day is come, ay, and that very hour:
Now shout your war-cry; now unsheath your sword;
I'll join the din, and make these tottering walls
Tremble and nod to hear our fierce defiance.
Nay, never start, and look upon my cowl--
You love not priests, De Bourbon, more than I.
Off, vile denial of my manhood's pride;
Off, off to hell! where thou wast first invented,
Now once again I stand and breathe a knight.
Nay, stay not gazing thus: it is Garcia,
Whose name hath reach'd thee long ere now, I trow;
Whom thou hast met in deadly fight full oft,
When France and Spain join'd in the battle field.
Beyond the Pyrenean boundary
That guards thy land, are forty thousand men:
Their unfurl'd pennons flout fair France's sun,
And wanton in the breezes of her sky:
Impatient halt they there; their foaming steeds,
Pawing the huge and rock-built barrier,
That bars their further course--they wait for thee:
For thee whom France hath injur'd and cast off;
For thee, whose blood it pays with shameful chains,
More shameful death; for thee, whom Charles of Spain
Summons to head his host, and lead them on
To conquest and to glory.
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