cept the thanks, rejoice
If these our teachings and our nurture, thus
Are mirrored in thy fame and in thy deeds,
Then we and thou are equally in debt.

(_To the_ QUEEN.)

Pray gaze on him with these thy gracious eyes;
Howe'er so many kings have ruled in Spain,
Not one compares with him in nobleness.
Old age, in truth, is all too wont to blame,
And I am old and cavil much and oft;
And when confuted in the council-hall
I secret wrath have ofttimes nursed--not long,
Forsooth--that royal word should weigh so much;
And sought some evil witness 'gainst my King,
And gladly had I harmed his good repute.
But always I returned in deepest shame--
The envy mine, and his the spotlessness.

KING. A teacher, Lara, and a flatt'rer, too?
But we will not dispute you this and that;
If I'm not evil, better, then, for you,
Although the man, I fear me, void of wrong,
Were also void of excellence as well;
For as the tree with sun-despising roots,
Sucks up its murky nurture from the earth,
So draws the trunk called wisdom, which indeed
Belongs to heaven itself in towering branch,
Its strength and being from the murky soil
Of our mortality-allied to sin.
Was ever a just man who ne'er was hard?
And who is mild, is oft not strong enough.
The brave become too venturesome in war.
What we call virtue is but conquered sin,
And where no struggle was, there is no power.
But as for me, no time was given to err,
A child--the helm upon my puny head,
A youth--with lance, high on my steed I sat,
My eye turned ever to some threat'ning foe,
Unmindful of the joys and sweets of life,
And far and strange lay all that charms and lures.
That there are women, first I learned to know
When in the church my wife was given me,
She, truly faultless if a human is,
And whom, I frankly say, I'd warmer love
If sometimes need to pardon were, not praise.

(_To the_ QUEEN.)

Nay, nay, fear not, I said it but in jest!