Carlos monologue (Act 1) — Don Carlos: A Play

Oft have I struggled with myself, and oft At midnight, when my guards were sunk in sleep, With floods of burning tears I've sunk before The image of the ever-blessed Virgin, And craved a filial heart, but all in vain. I rose with prayer unheard. O Roderigo! Unfold this wondrous mystery of heaven, Why of a thousand fathers only this Should fall to me--and why to him this son, Of many thousand better? Nature could not In her wide orb have found two opposites More diverse in their elements. How could She bind the two extremes of human kind-- Myself and him--in one so holy bond? O dreadful fate! Why was it so decreed? Why should two men, in all things else apart, Concur so fearfully in one desire? Roderigo, here thou seest two hostile stars, That in the lapse of ages, only once, As they sweep onwards in their orbed course, Touch with a crash that shakes them to the centre, Then rush apart forever and forever.