ly, foully murdered.
The blood that should so gloriously have flowed
To honor us has stained the assassin's hand.
What claim had you to touch our sacred rights?
He but existed, by our hands to perish.
God gave him to this age's exigence,
To perish, as a terrible example,
And turn high-vaunting reason into shame.
Such was my long-laid plan--behold, destroyed
In one brief hour, the toil of many years.
We are defrauded, and your only gain
Is bloody hands.

KING.
Passion impelled me to it.
Forgive me.

GRAND INQUISITOR.
Passion! And does royal Philip
Thus answer me? Have I alone grown old?
[Shaking his head angrily.
Passion! Make conscience free within your realms,
If you're a slave yourself.

KING.
In things like this
I'm but a novice. Bear in patience with me.

GRAND INQUISITOR.
No, I'm ill pleased with you--to see you thus
Tarnish the bygone glories of your reign.
Where is that Philip, whose unchanging soul,
Fixed as the polar star in heaven above,
Round its own axis still pursued its course?
Is all the memory of preceding years
Forever gone? And did the world become
New moulded when you stretched your hand to him?
Was poison no more poison? Did distinction
'Twixt good and evil, truth and falsehood, vanish?
What then is resolution? What is firmness?
What is the faith of man, if in one weak,
Unguarded hour, the rules of threescore years
Dissolve in air, like woman's fickle favor?

KING.
I looked into his eyes. Oh, pardon me
This weak relapse into mortality.
The world has one less access to your heart;
Your eyes are sunk in night.

GRAND INQUISITOR.
What did this man
Want with you? What new thing could he adduce,
You did not know before? And are you versed
So ill with fanatics and innovators?
Does the reformer's vaunting language sound
So novel to your ears? If the firm edifice
Of your conviction totters to mere words,
Should you not shudder to subscribe the fate
Of many thousand poor, deluded souls
Who mount the flaming pile for nothing worse?

KING.
I sought a human being. These Domingos----

GRAND INQUISITOR.
How! human beings! What are they to you?
Cyphers to count withal--no more! Alas!
And must I now repeat the elements
Of kingly knowledge to my gray-haired pupil?
An earthly god must learn to bear the want
Of what may be denied him. When you whine
For sympathy is not the world your equal?
What rights should you possess above