Page:CromwellHugo.djvu/283

Forms not the mystic triangle with Jod and Zain.
Cromwell.What care I for thy mystic triangle?
Thou son of Cain, expound to me the meaning
Of the dissevered head! Shall I be king?
Tell me!
Manasseh. Tell me Not so unless by miracle.
Cromwell [displeased and surly.
What meanest thou by that?
Manasseh. What meanest thou by that? A miracle—
Cromwell.What miracle?
Manasseh. What miracle? A miracle.
Cromwell. What miracle? A miracle. How now!
Am I a miracle?
Manasseh [pensively.] …cle? Perhaps.
Cromwell. Am I a miracle? Perhaps. So then,
It is the throne that you predict for me?
Manasseh.I cannot change the answers of the skies.
Cromwell.In heaven's name, what does the vision mean?
Was it a ghastly joke devised by death?
But I believe that you and all your like
Are rank impostors cozening with the stars.
Manasseh [gravely.]ive me thy hand, my son, and blaspheme not.

[Cromwell, as if cowed by the astrologer's air of authority, gives him his hand. Manasseh grasps it, scrutinizes it and sings in an undertone without taking his eyes from it:

Hence away, ye fiends forsworn,
Witches all, to youth reborn
By a magic potion deadly,
Dragons fierce, moon-elf and fairy,
And the spinners centenary,