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OTHO THE GREAT.
Come, fair Auranthe, try if your soft hands
Can manage those hard rivets to set free
So brave a prince and soldier
Can manage those hard rivets to set free
So brave a prince and soldier
Auranthe (sets him free).Welcome task!
Gersa. I am wound up in deep astonishment!
Thank you, fair lady, Otho! emperor!
You rob me of myself; my dignity
Is now your infant; I am a weak child.
Thank you, fair lady, Otho! emperor!
You rob me of myself; my dignity
Is now your infant; I am a weak child.
Otho. Give me your hand, and let this kindly grasp
Live in our memories.
Live in our memories.
Gersa.In mine it will.
I blush to think of my unchasten'd tongue;
But I was haunted by the monstrous ghost
Of all our slain battalions. Sire, reflect,
And pardon you will grant, that, as this hour,
The bruised remnants of our stricken camp
Are huddling undistinguished, my dear friends,
With common thousands, into shallow graves.
I blush to think of my unchasten'd tongue;
But I was haunted by the monstrous ghost
Of all our slain battalions. Sire, reflect,
And pardon you will grant, that, as this hour,
The bruised remnants of our stricken camp
Are huddling undistinguished, my dear friends,
With common thousands, into shallow graves.
Otho. Enough, most noble Gersa. You are free
To cheer the brave remainder of your host
By your own healing presence, and that too,
Not as their leader merely, but their king;
For, as I hear, the wily enemy,
Who eas'd the crownet from your infant brows,
Bloody Taraxa, is among the dead.
To cheer the brave remainder of your host
By your own healing presence, and that too,
Not as their leader merely, but their king;
For, as I hear, the wily enemy,
Who eas'd the crownet from your infant brows,
Bloody Taraxa, is among the dead.
Gersa. Then I retire, so generous Otho please,
Bearing with me a weight of benefits
Too heavy to be borne.
Bearing with me a weight of benefits
Too heavy to be borne.
Otho.It is not so;
Still understand me, King of Hungary,
Nor judge my open purposes awry.
Still understand me, King of Hungary,
Nor judge my open purposes awry.
