_Chimène._ Well, sire! add this crown to my misfortune--call my swoon
the effect of my grief; a justifiable dissatisfaction reduced me to that
extremity; his death would have saved his head from my pursuit. If he
had died of wounds received for the benefit of his country, my revenge
would have been lost, and my designs betrayed; such a brilliant end [of
his existence] would have been too injurious to me. I demand his death,
but not a glorious one, not with a glory which raises him so high, not
on an honorable death-bed, but upon a scaffold. Let him die for my
father and not for his country; let his name be attainted and his memory
blighted. To die for one's country is not a sorrowful doom; it is to
immortalize one's self by a glorious death! I love then his victory, and
I can do so without criminality; it [the victory] secures the kingdom
and yields to me my victim. But ennobled, but illustrious amongst all
warriors, the chief crowned with laurels instead of flowers--and to say
in a word what I think--worthy of being sacrificed to the shade of my
father. Alas! by what [vain] hope do I allow myself to be carried away?
Rodrigo has nothing to dread from me; what can tears which are despised
avail against him? For him your whole empire is a sanctuary [_lit._ a
place of freedom]; there, under your power, everything is lawful for
him; he triumphs over me as [well as] over his enemies; justice stifled
in their blood that has been shed, serves as a new trophy for the crime
of the conqueror. We increase its pomp, and contempt of the law causes
us to follow his [triumphal] chariot between two kings.

_Don Fernando._ My daughter, these transports are too violent [_lit._
have too much violence]. When justice is rendered, all is put in the
scale. Thy father has been slain, he was the aggressor; and justice
itself commands me [to have] mercy. Before accusing that [degree of
clemency] which I show, consult well thine heart; Rodrigo is master of