To counsel and to soothe,
I sit within this chair.
[ALARCOS advances and kneels by the Confessional.]
III:1:3 ALAR.
O, holy father
My soul is burthened with a crime.
III:1:4 PRIOR.
My son,
The church awaits thy sin.
III:1:5 ALAR.
It is a sin
Most black and terrible. Prepare thine ear
For what must make it tremble.
III:1:6 PRIOR.
Thou dost speak
To Power above all passion, not to man.
III:1:7 ALAR.
There was a lady, father, whom I loved,
And with a holy love, and she loved me
As holily. Our vows were blessed, if favour
Hang on a father's benediction.
III:1:8 PRIOR.
Her
Mother?
III:1:9 ALAR.
She had a mother, if to bear
Children be all that makes a mother: one
Who looked on me, about to be her child,
With eyes of lust.
III:1:10 PRIOR.
And thou?
III:1:11 ALAR.
O, if to trace
But with the memory's too veracious aid
This tale be anguish, what must be its life
And terrible action? Father, I abjured
This lewd she-wolf. But ah! her fatal vengeance
Struck to my heart.
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