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Do me a kindness: go thou to his door,
And beg admittance; then in my behalf,
Since by another's influence I must move him.
Crave audience even for a few short moments.

CARLOS.

Nay, charming Leonora, urge him not:

He will admit thee when he is disposed
For soothing sympathy; to press it sooner
Were useless—were unwise.

LEONORA.

Yet go to him; he will, perhaps, to thee,

So long his fellow-soldier and his friend,
Unburthen his sad heart.

CARLOS.

You are in this deceived. His fellow-soldier

I long have been. In the same fields we've fought;
Slept in one tent, or on the rugged heath,
Wrapt in our soldier's cloaks, have, side by side,
Stretch'd out our weary length like savage beasts
In the same cheerless lair; and many a time,
When the dim twilight of our evening camp
Has by my foolish minstrelsy been cheer'd,
He has bent o'er me, pleased with the old strains
That pleased him when a boy; therefore I may,
As common phrase permits, be call'd his friend.
But there existed one, and only one,
To whom his mind, with all its nice reserve
Above the sympathies of common men,