The Dynasts. Томас Харди

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      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Would thou couldst!

       But move That scoped above percipience, Sire,

       It cannot be!

      SHADE OF THE EARTH

       The spectacle proceeds.

      SPIRIT SINISTER

       And we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils at

       work in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison.

       [The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues. NAPOLEON goes to

       the front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up the

       crown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]

      NAPOLEON

       'Tis God has given it to me. So be it.

       Let any who shall touch it now beware! [Reverberations of applause.]

       [The Sacrament of the Mass. NAPOLEON reads the Coronation Oath in

       a loud voice.]

      HERALDS

       Give ear! Napoleon, Emperor of the French

       And King of Italy, is crowned and throned!

      CONGREGATION

       Long live the Emperor and King. Huzza!

       [Music. The Te Deum.]

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       That vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayed

       In planting on his brow the Lombard crown,

       Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts,

       And lets confusion loose on Europe's peace

       For many an undawned year! From this rash hour

       Austria but waits her opportunity

       By secret swellings of her armaments

       To link her to his foes.—I'll speak to him.

       [He throws a whisper into NAPOLEON'S ear.]

       Lieutenant Bonaparte,

       Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heart

       To these unhealthy splendours?—helmet thee

       For her thou swar'st-to first, fair Liberty?

      NAPOLEON

       Who spoke to me?

      ARCHBISHOP

       Not I, Sire. Not a soul.

      NAPOLEON

       Dear Josephine, my queen, didst call my name?

      JOSEPHINE

       I spoke not, Sire.

      NAPOLEON

       Thou didst not, tender spouse;

       I know it. Such harsh utterance was not thine.

       It was aggressive Fancy, working spells

       Upon a mind o'erwrought!

       [The service closes. The clergy advance with the canopy to the

       foot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to the

       Palace.]

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Officious sprite,

       Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of things

       Which some of us have inkled to thee here;

       Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor,

       Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       I feel, Sire, as I must! This tale of Will

       And Life's impulsion by Incognizance

       I cannot take!

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Let me then once again

       Show to thy sceptic eye the very streams

       And currents of this all-inhering Power,

       And bring conclusion to thy unbelief.

       [The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned,

       and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain which

       seems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whose

       tissues the personages of the action form portion.]

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Enough. And yet for very sorriness

       I cannot own the weird phantasma real!

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Affection ever was illogical.

      SPIRIT IRONIC [aside]

       How should the Sprite own to such logic—a mere juvenile— who only

       came into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age!

       [The scene changes. The exterior of the Cathedral takes the place

       of the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabric

       smalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carved

       alabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alps

       show afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf of

       Genoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them,

       till clouds cover the panorama.]

ACT SECOND

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