CLO. 
     All it seems: 
     This palace with its royal garniture;
     This capital of which it is the eye,
     With all its temples, marts, and arsenals;
     This realm of which this city is the head,
     With all its cities, villages, and tilth,
     Its armies, fleets, and commerce; all your own;
     And all the living souls that make them up,
     From those who now, and those who shall, salute you,
     Down to the poorest peasant of the realm,
     Your subjects—­Who, though now their mighty voice
     Sleeps in the general body unapprized,
     Wait but a word from those about you now
     To hail you Prince of Poland, Segismund.

     Seg. 
     All this is so?

     CLO. 
     As sure as anything
     Is, or can be.

     Seg. 
     You swear it on the faith
     You taught me—­elsewhere?—­

CLO (kissing the hilt of his sword).  Swear it upon this Symbol, and champion of the holy faith I wear it to defend.

     Seg (to himself). 
     My eyes have not deceived me, nor my ears,
     With this transfiguration, nor the strain
     Of royal welcome that arose and blew,
     Breathed from no lying lips, along with it. 
     For here Clotaldo comes, his own old self,
     Who, if not Lie and phantom with the rest—­
     (Aloud)
     Well, then, all this is thus. 
     For have not these fine people told me so,
     And you, Clotaldo, sworn it?  And the Why
     And Wherefore are to follow by and bye! 
     And yet—­and yet—­why wait for that which you
     Who take your oath on it can answer—­and
     Indeed it presses hard upon my brain—­
     What I was asking of these gentlemen
     When you came in upon us; how it is
     That I—­the Segismund you know so long
     No longer than the sun that rose to-day
     Rose—­and from what you know—­
     Rose to be Prince of Poland?

     CLO. 
     So to be
     Acknowledged and entreated, Sir.

     Seg. 
     So be
     Acknowledged and entreated—­
     Well—­But if now by all, by some at least
     So known—­if not entreated—­heretofore—­
     Though not by you—­For, now I think again,
     Of what should be your attestation worth,
     You that of all my questionable subjects
     Who knowing what, yet left me where I was,
     You least of all, Clotaldo, till the dawn
     Of this first day that told it to myself?

     CLO. 
     Oh, let your Highness draw the line across
     Fore-written sorrow, and in this new dawn
     Bury that long sad night.

     Seg. 
     Not ev’n the Dead,
     Call’d to the resurrection of the blest,
     Shall so directly drop all memory
     Of woes and wrongs foregone!