520 SCENES FJtOM CALDERON^S NINA DE GOMEZ ARIAS. 



Thee, from the gnawing tooth of jealous fears, 

 And both from doubt, how would one foolish fear 

 E'er bring me to repent of what I've done ! 

 Is't not enough too, O my love ! my spouse ! 

 That I am all thine own in fullest faith, 

 And peace, and confidence, and free, and happy ? 

 Nay, fear not thou, that I into Castile, 

 As thou dost seek to go, will fear to follow 

 Where'er the sun his cheering beams denies ; 

 But with inhospitable hand revolves, 

 Alternate cold, and fierce and scorching heat, 

 Even there would I, with free will, follow too ! 



GOMEZ. You pay me more now than you ever owed. 

 Upon this bed of flower-bespangled grass, 

 Covered with countless hues rest till the sun 

 Tempers hib noon-day heat. Far from the road, 

 Fear of pursuit has led us, and we must 

 Wander a few days longer through the woods. 



GINES. Cold creeps athwart me when I hear you speak ! 



GOMEZ. How sir? 



GINES. From fear 



GOMEZ. What fear you ? 



GINES. For that here, 

 These tall Sierras at whose feet we stand, 

 Are Alpujarra's mountains, from whose tops 

 The outlaw Moors are wont each day to come 

 For gold and murder. 



GOMEZ. Idle fantasies ! 



When forth from Cadiz we, some two days hence, 

 Departed, chose we not the road opposed 

 To the Sierra Morena ? 



GINES. Truly, yes ! 



But was't not in the night ? and who can vouch 

 We have not missed the path we knew so badly ? 



GOMEZ. Speak low : Dorothea, I fear me sleeps : 

 My dearest maiden ! 



GINES. Hush ! why seek to wake her ! 

 Leave her 



GOMEZ. I will awake her not. 



GINES. Then hush ! 



GOMEZ. Only to see if she still sleeps 



GINES. You hear her 



GOMEZ. Then let us go, and with such silent steps 

 That even the moss shall suffer not the prints. 



GINES. If you depart that she may undisturbed 

 In silence take repose, then you do well. 



GOMEZ. No I do ill ; that she may sleep I fly not, 

 Tis from herself I fly. Untie our horses ! 

 We must begone ! 



GINES. O, sir, what do you say ? 



GOMEZ. What shall I say but that this mortal beauty, 

 That seems a heavenly type of Flora's self, 

 Within these woods of morning's purple glow, 

 And skilful pencil with the rose's hue, 

 And jessamine's, with snow and carmine tinged, 

 To me a serpent is, which, under flowers, 

 With traitorous art her deadly sting conceals. 



