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.) THE COUNCIL OF THE TSAR.

The TSAR, the PATRIARCH and Boyars TSAR. Is it possible? An unfrocked monk against us

Leads rascal troops, a truant friar dares write

Threats to us! Then 'tis time to tame the madman!

Trubetskoy, set thou forth, and thou Basmanov;

My zealous governors need help. Chernigov

Already by the rebel is besieged;

Rescue the city and citizens.

BASMANOV. Three months

Shall not pass, Sire, ere even rumour's tongue

Shall cease to speak of the pretender; caged