me answer it
     Unto yourself alone, who shall at once
     Approve yourself to be your father’s judge,
     And sovereign of Poland in his stead,
     By justice, mercy, self-sobriety,
     And all the reasonable attributes
     Without which, impotent to rule himself,
     Others one cannot, and one must not rule;
     But which if you but show the blossom of—­
     All that is past we shall but look upon
     As the first out-fling of a generous nature
     Rioting in first liberty; and if
     This blossom do but promise such a flower
     As promises in turn its kindly fruit: 
     Forthwith upon your brows the royal crown,
     That now weighs heavy on my aged brows,
     I will devolve; and while I pass away
     Into some cloister, with my Maker there
     To make my peace in penitence and prayer,
     Happily settle the disorder’d realm
     That now cries loudly for a lineal heir.

     Seg. 
     And so—­
     When the crown falters on your shaking head,
     And slips the sceptre from your palsied hand,
     And Poland for her rightful heir cries out;
     When not only your stol’n monopoly
     Fails you of earthly power, but ’cross the grave
     The judgment-trumpet of another world
     Calls you to count for your abuse of this;
     Then, oh then, terrified by the double danger,
     You drag me from my den—­
     Boast not of giving up at last the power
     You can no longer hold, and never rightly
     Held, but in fee for him you robb’d it from;
     And be assured your Savage, once let loose,
     Will not be caged again so quickly; not
     By threat or adulation to be tamed,
     Till he have had his quarrel out with those
     Who made him what he is.

     King. 
     Beware!  Beware! 
     Subdue the kindled Tiger in your eye,
     Nor dream that it was sheer necessity
     Made me thus far relax the bond of fate,
     And, with far more of terror than of hope
     Threaten myself, my people, and the State. 
     Know that, if old, I yet have vigour left
     To wield the sword as well as wear the crown;
     And if my more immediate issue fail,
     Not wanting scions of collateral blood,
     Whose wholesome growth shall more than compensate
     For all the loss of a distorted stem.

     Seg. 
     That will I straightway bring to trial—­Oh,
     After a revelation such as this,
     The Last Day shall have little left to show
     Of righted wrong and villainy requited! 
     Nay, Judgment now beginning upon earth,
     Myself, methinks, in sight of all my wrongs,
     Appointed heaven’s avenging minister,
     Accuser, judge, and executioner
     Sword in hand, cite the guilty—­First, as worst,
     The usurper of his son’s