Strange thy voice can so unbend me, Strange thy sight can so suspend me, And respect so penetrate me! Who art thou? for though I see Little from this lonely room, This, my cradle and my tomb. Being all the world to me, And if birthday it could be, Since my birthday I have known But this desert wild and lone, Where throughout my life's sad course I have lived, a breathing corse, I have moved, a skeleton; And though I address or see Never but one man alone, Who my sorrows all hath known, And through whom have come to me Notions of earth, sky, and sea; And though harrowing thee again, Since thou'lt call me in this den, Monster fit for bestial feasts, I'm a man among wild beasts, And a wild beast amongst men. But though round me has been wrought All this woe, from beasts I've learned Polity, the same discerned Heeding what the birds had taught, And have measured in my thought The fair orbits of the spheres; You alone, 'midst doubts and fears, Wake my wonder and surprise -- Give amazement to my eyes, Admiration to my ears. Every time your face I see You produce a new amaze: After the most steadfast gaze, I again would gazer be. I believe some hydropsy Must affect my sight, I think Death must hover on the brink Of those wells of light, your eyes, For I look with fresh surprise, And though death result, I drink. Let me see and die: forgive me; For I do not know, in faith, If to see you gives me death, What to see you not would give me; Something worse than death would grieve me, Anger, rage, corroding care, Death, but double death it were, Death with tenfold terrors rife, Since what gives the wretched life, Gives the happy death, despair!

Sigismund Monologue from Life Is a Dream

Rehearse Sigismund's monologue