Ozm. We’ll double yet the exchange before we die, And each of ours two lives of yours shall buy.

  ALMANZOR enters betwixt them, as they stand ready to engage.

Alm. I cannot stay to ask which cause is best; But this is so to me, because opprest. [Goes to the Aben.

  To them BOABDELIN and his guards, going betwixt them.

Boab. On your allegiance, I command you stay;
Who passes here, through me must make his way;
My life’s the Isthmus; through this narrow line
You first must cut, before those seas can join. 
What fury, Zegrys, has possessed your minds? 
What rage the brave Abencerrages blinds? 
If of your courage you new proofs would show,
Without much travel you may find a foe. 
Those foes are neither so remote nor few,
That you should need each other to pursue. 
Lean times and foreign wars should minds unite;
When poor, men mutter, but they seldom fight. 
O holy Alha! that I live to see
Thy Granadines assist their enemy! 
You fight the christians’ battles; every life
You lavish thus, in this intestine strife,
Does from our weak foundations take one prop,
Which helped to hold our sinking country up.

Ozm. ’Tis fit our private enmity should cease; Though injured first, yet I will first seek peace.

Zul. No, murderer, no; I never will be won To peace with him, whose hand has slain my son.

Ozm. Our prophet’s curse On me, and all the Abencerrages light, If, unprovoked, I with your son did fight.

Abdelm. A band of Zegrys ran within the place,
Matched with a troop of thirty of our race. 
Your son and Ozmyn the first squadrons led,
Which, ten by ten, like Parthians, charged and fled. 
The ground was strowed with canes where we did meet,
Which crackled underneath our coursers’ feet: 
When Tarifa (I saw him ride a part)
Changed his blunt cane for a steel-pointed dart,
And, meeting Ozmyn next,—­
Who wanted time for treason to provide,—­
He basely threw it at him, undefied.

Ozm. [Shewing his arms.] Witness this blood—­which when by treason sought, That followed, sir, which to myself I ought.

Zul. His hate to thee was grounded on a grudge, Which all our generous Zegrys just did judge:  Thy villain-blood thou openly didst place Above the purple of our kingly race.

Boab. From equal stems their blood both houses draw, They from Morocco, you from Cordova.

Ham. Their mongrel race is mixed with Christian breed; Hence ’tis that they those dogs in prisons feed.

Abdelm. Our holy prophet wills, that charity Should even to birds and beasts extended be:  None knows what fate is for himself designed; The thought of human chance should make us kind.

Gom. We waste that time we to revenge should give: 
Fall on:  let no Abencerrago live.
                   [Advancing before the rest of his party. ALMANZOR
                    advancing on the other side, and describing a
                    line with his sword.