RIBERA.
Obscure are all beginnings. Yet I muse
With pleasing pain on those fierce years of struggle.
They were to me my birthright; all the vigor,
The burning passion, the unflinching truth,
My later pencil gained, I gleaned from them.
I prized them. I reclaimed their ragged freedom,
Rather than hold my seat, a liveried slave,
At the rich board of my Lord Cardinal.
A palace was a prison till I reared
Mine own. But now my child’s heart I would pierce
Sooner than see it bear the least of ills,
Such as I then endured.
DON JOHN.
Donna Maria
May smile, sir, at your threat; she is in a pleasance,
Where no rude breezes blow, no shadow falls
Darker than that of cool and fragrant leaves.
Yea, were it otherwise—had you not reaped
The fruit of your own works, she had not suffered.
Your children are Spain’s children.
