Isen [entering]. As after wolf wolf presses, leaping through the
snow-glades,
So woe on woe throngs surging up.
Guta. What? treason?
Isen. Treason, and of the foulest. From her state she's rudely
thrust;
Her keys are seized; her weeping babies pent from her:
The wenches stop their sobs to sneer askance,
And greet their fallen censor's new mischance.
Agnes. Alas! Who dared to do this wrong?
Isen. Your mother and your mother's son--
Judge you, if it was knightly done.
Guta. See! see! she comes, with heaving breast,
With bursting eyes, and purpled brow:
Oh that the traitors saw her now!
They know not, sightless fools, the heart they break.
[Elizabeth enters slowly.]
Eliz. He is in purgatory now! Alas!
Angels! be pitiful! deal gently with him!
His sins were gentle! That's one cause left for living--
To pray, and pray for him: why all these months
I prayed,--and here's my answer: Dead of a fever!
Why thus? so soon! Only six years for love!
While any formal, heartless matrimony,
Patched up by Court intrigues, and threats of cloisters,
Drags on for six times six, and peasant slaves
Grow old on the same straw, and hand in hand
Slip from life's oozy bank, to float at ease.
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