(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. Righteous art thou; thy soul Should flame with joy. KURBSKY. And dost not thou likewise Rejoice in spirit? There lies our Russia; she Is thine, tsarevich! There thy people's hearts Are waiting for thee, there thy Moscow waits, Thy Kremlin, thy dominion. PRETENDER. Russian blood, O Kurbsky, first must flow! Thou for the tsar Hast drawn the sword, thou art stainless; but I lead you Against your brothers; I am summoning Lithuania against Russia; I am showing To foes the longed-for way to beauteous Moscow! But let my sin fall not on me, but thee, Boris, the regicide! Forward! Set on! KURBSKY. Forward! Advance! And woe to Godunov. (They gallop. The troops cross the frontier.)
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