TAVIO.
Countess, you tremble, you turn pale!

COUNTESS (reassembles all her powers, and speaks with energy and
dignity).
You think
More worthily of me than to believe
I would survive the downfall of my house.
We did not hold ourselves too mean to grasp
After a monarch's crown--the crown did fate
Deny, but not the feeling and the spirit
That to the crown belong! We deem a
Courageous death more worthy of our free station
Than a dishonored life. I have taken poison.

OCTAVIO.
Help! Help! Support her!

COUNTESS.
Nay, it is too late.
In a few moments is my fate accomplished.

[Exit COUNTESS.

GORDON.
Oh, house of death and horrors!

[An OFFICER enters, and brings a letter with the great seal.
GORDON steps forward and meets him.

What is this
It is the imperial seal.

[He reads the address, and delivers the letter to OCTAVIO with
a look of reproach, and with an emphasis on the word.

To the Prince Piccolomini.

[OCTAVIO, with his whole frame expressive of sudden anguish,
raises his eyes to heaven.

The Curtain drops.

FOOTNOTES.

[1] A great stone near Luetzen, since called the Swede's Stone, the body
of their great king having been found at the foot of it, after the
battle in which he lost his life.

[2] Could I have hazarded such a Germanism as the use of the word
afterworld for posterity,--"Es spreche Welt und Nachwelt meinen
Namen"--might have been rendered with more literal fidelity: Let
world and afterworld speak out my name, etc.

[3] I have not ventured to affront the fastidious delicacy of our age
with a literal translation of this line,

werth
Die Eingeweide schaudernd aufzuregen.

[4] Anspessade, in German, Gefreiter, a soldier inferior to a corporal,
but above the sentinels. The German name implies that he is exempt
from mounting guard.

[5] I have here ventured to omit a considerable number of lines. I fear
that I should not have done amiss had I taken this liberty more
frequently. It is, however, incumbent on me to give the original,
with a literal translation.

"Weh denen, die auf Dich vertraun, an Dich
Die sichre Huette ihres Glueckes lehnen,
Gelockt von deiner geistlichen Gestalt.
Schnell unverhofft, bei naechtlich stiller Weile,
Gaehrts in dem tueckschen Feuerschlunde, ladet,