Seg. 
     And what had those same stars to tell of me
     That should compel a father and a king
     So much against that double instinct?

     King. 
     That,
     Which I have brought you hither, at my peril,
     Against their written warning, to disprove,
     By justice, mercy, human kindliness.

     Seg. 
     And therefore made yourself their instrument
     To make your son the savage and the brute
     They only prophesied?—­Are you not afear’d,
     Lest, irrespective as such creatures are
     Of such relationship, the brute you made
     Revenge the man you marr’d—­like sire, like son. 
     To do by you as you by me have done?

     King. 
     You never had a savage heart from me;
     I may appeal to Poland.

     Seg. 
     Then from whom? 
     If pure in fountain, poison’d by yourself
     When scarce begun to flow.—­To make a man
     Not, as I see, degraded from the mould
     I came from, nor compared to those about,
     And then to throw your own flesh to the dogs!—­
     Why not at once, I say, if terrified
     At the prophetic omens of my birth,
     Have drown’d or stifled me, as they do whelps
     Too costly or too dangerous to keep?

     King. 
     That, living, you might learn to live, and rule
     Yourself and Poland.

     Seg. 
     By the means you took
     To spoil for either?

     King. 
     Nay, but, Segismund! 
     You know not—­cannot know—­happily wanting
     The sad experience on which knowledge grows,
     How the too early consciousness of power
     Spoils the best blood; nor whether for your long
     Constrain’d disheritance (which, but for me,
     Remember, and for my relenting love
     Bursting the bond of fate, had been eternal)
     You have not now a full indemnity;
     Wearing the blossom of your youth unspent
     In the voluptuous sunshine of a court,
     That often, by too early blossoming,
     Too soon deflowers the rose of royalty.

     Seg. 
     Ay, but what some precocious warmth may spill,
     May not an early frost as surely kill?

     King. 
     But, Segismund, my son, whose quick discourse
     Proves I have not extinguish’d and destroy’d
     The Man you charge me with extinguishing,
     However it condemn me for the fault
     Of keeping a good light so long eclipsed,
     Reflect!  This is the moment upon which
     Those stars, whose eyes, although we see them not,
     By day as well as night are on us still,
     Hang watching up in the meridian heaven
     Which way the balance turns; and if to you—­
     As by your dealing God decide it may,
     To my confusion!—­let