ACT I, SCENE 3.


_The song ended_, TANCRED _the King cometh
out of his palace with his guard_.

TANCRED. Fair daughter, I have sought thee out with grief,
To ease the sorrows of thy vexed heart.
How long wilt thou torment thy father thus,
Who daily dies to see thy needless tears?
Such bootless plaints, that know nor mean nor end,
Do but increase the floods of thy lament;
And since the world knows well there was no want
In thee of ought, that did to him belong,
Yet all, thou seest, could not his life prolong.
Why then dost thou provoke the heavens to wrath?
His doom of death was dated by his stars,
"And who is he that may withstand his fate?"
By these complaints small good to him thou dost,
Much grief to me, more hurt unto thyself,
And unto nature greatest wrong of all.

GISMUNDA. Tell me not of the date of nature's days,
Then in the April of her springing age:
No, no, it was my cruel destiny,
That spited at the pleasance of my life.

TANCRED. My daughter knows the proof of nature's course.
"For as the heavens do guide the lamp of life,
So can they reach no farther forth the flame,