_Alv._ Have you forgot?
_Seb._ Thou mean'st my father's will,
In bar of marriage to Almeyda's bed.
Thou seest my faculties are still entire,
Though thine are much impaired. I weighed that will,
And found 'twas grounded on our different faiths;
But, had he lived to see her happy change,
He would have cancelled that harsh interdict,
And joined our hands himself.
_Alv._ Still had he lived and seen this change,
He still had been the same.
_Seb._ I have a dark remembrance of my father:
His reasonings and his actions both were just;
And, granting that, he must have changed his measures.
_Alv._ Yes, he was just, and therefore could not change.
_Seb._ 'Tis a base wrong thou offer'st to the dead.
_Alv._ Now heaven forbid,
That I should blast his pious memory!
No, I am tender of his holy fame;
For, dying, he bequeathed it to my charge.
Believe, I am; and seek to know no more,
But pay a blind obedience to his will;
For, to preserve his fame, I would be silent.
_Seb._ Crazed fool, who would'st be thought an oracle,
Come down from off the tripos, and speak plain.
My father shall be justified, he shall:
'Tis a son's part to rise in his defence,
And to confound thy malice, or thy dotage.
_Alv._ It does not grieve me, that you hold me crazed;
But, to be cleared at my dead master's cost,
O there's the wound! but let me first adjure you,
By all you owe that dear departed soul,
No more to think of marriage with Almeyda.
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