If ye in me see guilt, then kill me, pray! 
             I will not live if I be flecked with sin. 
             Then may he from the princesses about
             A spouse him choose, since only his caprice,
             And not what is allowed, can govern him. 
             But if she is the vilest of this earth,
             Then purify your King and all his land. 
             I am ashamed to speak like this to men,
             It scarce becomes me, but I needs must speak.

MANRIQUE.  But will the King endure this?  If so, how?

QUEEN.  He will, indeed, because he ought and must. 
             Then on the murd’rers he can take revenge,
             And first of all strike me and this, my breast.

[She sits down.]

MANRIQUE.  There is no hope of any other way. 
             The noblest in the battle meet their doom—­
             To die a bitter, yea, a cruel death—­
             Tortured with thirst, and under horses’ hoofs,
             A doubler, sharper, bitt’rer meed of pain
             Than ever, sinner on the gallows-tree,
             And sickness daily takes our best away;
             For God is prodigal with human life;
             Should we be timid, then, where his command,
             His holy law, which he himself has giv’n,
             Demands, as here, that he who sins shall die? 
             Together then, we will request the King
             To move from out his path this stumbling-block
             Which keeps him from his own, his own from him. 
             If he refuse, blood’s law be on the land,
             Until the law and prince be one again,
             And we may serve them both by serving one.

A servant comes.

SERVANT.  Don Garceran!

MANRIQUE.  And does the traitor dare? 
             Tell him—­

SERVANT.  The message is his Majesty’s.

MANRIQUE.  That’s diff’rent.  An’ he were my deadly foe,
             He has my ear, when speaks he for the King.

Enter GARCERAN.

MANRIQUE.  At once your message give us; then, farewell.

GARCERAN.  O Queen, sublime, and thou my father, too,
             And ye besides, the best of all the land! 
             I feel today, as ne’er before I felt,
             That to be trusted is the highest good,
             And that frivolity, though free of guilt,
             Destroys and paralyzes more than sin
             Itself. One error is condoned at last,
             Frivolity is ever prone to err. 
             And so, today, though conscious of no fault,
             I stand before you sullied, and atone
             For youthful heedlessness that passed for wrong.

MANRIQUE.  Of that, another time!  Your message now!