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,
This glorious sword--the dread of dark Kazan!
This good sword--servant of the tsars of Moscow!
Now will it revel in its feast of slaughter,
Serving the master of its hopes.
PRETENDER. (Moves quietly with bowed head.) How happy
Is he, how flushed with gladness and with glory
His stainless soul! Brave knight, I envy thee!
The son of Kurbsky, nurtured in exile,
Forgetting all the wrongs borne by thy father,
Redeeming his transgression in the grave,
Ready art thou for the son of great Ivan
To shed thy blood, to give the fatherland
Its lawful tsar.
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