Basmanov.  Ay, my lord
Blessed a hundredfold will be that day
When fire consumes the lists of noblemen
With their dissensions, their ancestral pride.

Tsar.  That day is not far off; let me but first
Subdue the insurrection of the people.

Basmanov.  Why trouble about that?  The people always
Are prone to secret treason; even so
The swift steed champs the bit; so doth a lad
Chafe at his father’s ruling.  But what then? 
The rider quietly controls the steed,
The father sways the son.

Tsar.  Sometimes the horse
Doth throw the rider, nor is the son at all times
Quite ’neath the father’s will; we can restrain
The people only by unsleeping sternness. 
So thought Ivan, sagacious autocrat
And storm-subduer; so his fierce grandson thought. 
No, no, kindness is lost upon the people;
Act well—­it thanks you not at all; extort
And execute—­’twill be no worse for you.

(Enter a boyar.)

What now?

Boyar.  The foreign guests are come.

Tsar.  I go
To welcome them.  Basmanov, wait, stay here;
I still have need to speak:  a word with thee.

(Exit.)

Basmanov.  High sovereign spirit!  God grant he may subdue
The accurst Otrepiev; and much, still much
Of good he’ll do for Russia.  A great thought
Within his mind has taken birth; it must not
Be suffered to grow cold.  What a career
For me when the ancestral horn he breaks
Of the nobility.  I have no rivals
In war.  I shall stand closest to the throne—­
And it may chance—­ But what is that strange sound?

(Alarum.  Boyars and court-attendants run in
disorder, meet each other and whisper.)

One.  Fetch a physician!

Another.  Quickly to the Patriarch!

A third.  He calls for the tsarevich, the tsarevich!

A fourth.  A confessor!

Basmanov.  What has happened?

A fifth and sixth.  The tsar is ill,
The tsar is dying.

Basmanov.  Good God!

A fifth.  Upon the throne
He sat, and suddenly he fell; blood gushed
From his mouth and ears.

(The tsar is carried in on a chair.  All the Tsar’s household; all the boyars.)

Tsar.  Let all depart—­alone
Leave the tsarevich with me. (All withdraw.) I am dying;
Let us embrace.  Farewell, my son; this hour
Thou wilt begin to reign.—­O God, my God! 
This hour I shall appear before Thy presence—­
And have no time to purge my soul with shrift. 
But yet, my son, I feel thou art dearer to me
Than is my soul’s salvation—­be it so! 
A subject was I born; it seemed ordained