I am not one to listen to love-speeches.

PRETENDER. No--easier far to strive with Godunov.
Or play false with the Jesuits of the Court,
Than with a woman. Deuce take them; they're beyond
My power. She twists, and coils, and crawls, slips out
Of hand, she hisses, threatens, bites. Ah, serpent!
Serpent! 'Twas not for nothing that I trembled.
She well-nigh ruined me; but I'm resolved;
At daybreak I will put my troops in motion.




THE LITHUANIAN FRONTIER

(OCTOBER 16TH, 1604)

PRINCE KURBSKY and PRETENDER, both
on horseback. Troops approach the Frontier

KURBSKY. (Galloping at their head.)
There, there it is; there is the Russian frontier!
Fatherland! Holy Russia! I am thine!
With scorn from off my clothing now I shake
The foreign dust, and greedily I drink
New air; it is my native air. O father,
Thy soul hath now been solaced; in the grave
Thy bones, disgraced, thrill with a sudden joy!
Again doth flash our old ancestral sword,