Act II
Scene I
Interlocutors.
Theogenes and Corabino, with four other Numantines, Governors of Numantia, Marquino, a wizard, and a Corpse which will appear in due time. They are seated in council, and the four nameless Numantines are distinguished by First, Second, Third, and Fourth.
Theogenes.
Ye valiant men, it seems to me this day
That every adverse fate and direful sign
Conspire to crush us with their baleful sway,
And cause our force and fury to decline.
The Romans shut us in, do what we may,
With cruel craft our strength to undermine.
No vengeance comes to us by death in fight,
Nor, save with wings, can we escape by flight,
Not these alone would crush us to the ground,
Who oft have suffered at our hands defeat;
For Spaniards too, with them in paction bound,
Would cut our throats with treachery complete.
May Heaven such knavish villany confound!
May lightning flashes wound their nimble feet,
Who rush to give their friends a deadly blow,
And lend their succour to our wily foe!
See if ye cannot now devise some plan
To mend our fortunes, and our city save;
For this laborious siege, of lengthened span,
Prepares for us a sure and certain grave.
Across that fearful ditch no single man
May seek the fortune that awaits the brave;
Though valiant arms, at times, in close array
Will sweep a thousand obstacles away.
Corabino.
I would that mighty Jove, in sovereign grace,
Might grant our gallant youth this very day
To meet the Roman army face to face,
Where’er their arms might have the freest play.
Not death itself, in such a happy case,
Would keep their Spanish fortitude at bay;
They’d hew a pathway, beat the foemen down,
And succour bring to our Numantian town.
But since we find ourselves in this sad state,
Like women harboured and by force confined,
Then let us do our utmost in the strait,
And show a daring and determined mind;
Let us invite our foes to test their fate
By single combat; haply we shall find
That, worn out by this siege and lengthened fray,
They fain would end it in this simple way.
But if this remedy should not succeed,
And this our just demand should baffled be,
One other plan may bring us better speed,
Though more laborious, as it seems to me:
That ditch and battled trench, which now impede
Our passage to the foeman’s camp ye see,
By sudden night assault let us break through,
And march for succour to good friends and true.
First Numantine.
Be it by ditch or death, we must, ’tis plain,
Free passage force, if we would still survive;
For death is most insufferable pain,
If it should come when life is most alive.
Death is the certain cure for woes that drain
The strength of life, and on it grow and thrive;
For death with honour is supremest bliss;
No fate can be more excellent than this.
Second Numantine.
Can higher honour crown our latest years,
If so our souls must from our bodies part,
Than thus to rush upon the Roman spears,
And dying, strike our foemen at the heart?
Let him who will display the coward’s fears,
And stay within the city all apart;
For me, at least, my life I’d rather yield,
Within the ditch, or on the open field.
Third Numantine.
This cruel hunger, fearsome and malign,
Which tracks our path, and goads us bitterly,
Constrains me to consent to your design,
However rash and hair-brained it may be.
By death in fight this insult we decline;
Who would not die of hunger come with me,
To force the trenches, and with one accord
Cut out a path to safety with the sword.
Fourth Numantine.
It seemeth good to me, before we dare
The desperate act which promises relief,
That we should summon from the rampart there
Our haughty foe, and ask of him in brief:
That he will grant an open field and fair
To one Numantian, and one Roman chief,
And that the death of either in the fight
Shall end our quarrel and decide the right.
These Romans are a people of such pride
That they will sanction what we now propose;
And if by this our challenge they abide,
Then sure am I our griefs will have a close;
For here sits Corabino at our side,
Upon whose mighty valour I repose,
That he alone, in open fight with three,
Will from the Romans snatch the victory.
’Tis also fitting that Marquino here,
Whose fame as sage diviner is so great,
Should note what sign or planet in the sphere
Forbodeth death to us, or glorious fate;
And find some means perchance to make it clear,
If we shall issue from our present strait,
When once this doubtful cruel siege has passed,
The victors or the vanquished at the last.
Be it as well our first and chief concern
To make to Jove a solemn sacrifice;
It well may be that thereby we shall earn
A boon still higher than the proffered price.
If by such aid supernal we shall learn
To staunch the wounds of our deep-rooted vice,
Then haply may our rugged fates relent,
And change to brighter fortune and content.
There never lacketh opportunity to die,
The desperate may have it when inclined;
The fitting time and place are always nigh
To show in dying the determined mind.
But lest the passing hours in vain should fly,
Say if ye now approve what I’ve designed,
And if ye do not, then devise some plan
Will better suit, and pleasure every man.
Marquino.
There is good reason in thy sage advice;
Its weighty counsel is approved by me;
Prepare the offering and the sacrifice,
And let the challenge quick delivered be.
As for myself, I’ll hasten in a trice
To show my science in supreme degree;
For one I’ll drag from out the heart of Hell
Our future, be it good or bad, to tell.
Theogenes.
I herewith offer me, if so indeed
Ye can but trust my valour and my might,
To sally forth, if it be so decreed,
And be your champion in the single fight.
Corabino.
Thy valour rare deserves a better meed;
We well may trust—it is thy patent right—
Affairs by far more difficult and grave
To him who is the bravest of the brave.
And since the chiefest place is at thy call,
Due to thy worth, by general assent,
I, who esteem myself the least of all,
Will act as herald of this tournament.
First Numantine.
Then I, with all the people, great and small,
Will do what gives to Jove the most content;
For prayers and sacrifice have mighty sway,
When purged and contrite hearts prepare the way.
Second Numantine.
Now let us go, with ready wills and free,
To do as we have sworn, whate’er befall,
Before pale hunger’s gnawing misery
Hath brought us to the last extreme of all.
Third Numantine.
If Heaven already hath pronounced decree
That we are doomed in dire distress to fall,
May Heaven revoke it now, and aid us soon,
If our contrition meriteth the boon.