Hernani

In a bedchamber in Zaragoza, at night, an old duenna opens a secret door and discovers not the man she was expecting, but a stranger with his cloak drawn over his face, who threatens her with a dagger, tosses her a purse, and has himself locked inside a wardrobe as narrow as a coffin. The stranger is Don Carlos, King of Spain, who has come to spy upon the woman he covets: Doña Sol, niece to the elderly Duke Ruy Gomez de Silva, betrothed to this old man but in love with another. The other soon arrives, his great cloak streaming with rain, a sword at his side, a horn at his belt—Hernani, a banished lord, leader of outlawed mountaineers, whose father died on the scaffold by the will of this very king's father. Hernani burns with two fires that ceaselessly fan one another: his love for Doña Sol and his sworn hatred for Carlos. He begs the young woman to weigh what she would accept by following him—the mountain, the torrent, bullets whistling in the night, the scaffold perhaps—and Doña Sol replies that she will follow him, that when the sound of his footsteps fades she believes her own heart has ceased to beat, that she is absent from herself.

Then Don Carlos bursts from the wardrobe with a crash, swords cross, but a knock comes at the main door: the old duke returns unexpectedly, finds two young men in his niece's chambers, and his wrath as a betrayed patriarch makes the walls tremble. Don Carlos unmasks himself—he is the king, come incognito to announce the death of the Emperor Maximilian and to consult his loyal vassal on the imperial succession. The duke bows, Hernani swallows his rage, and the king passes him off as a member of his retinue. Left alone, Hernani breaks into a monologue of vengeance: he will be the king's shadow, night and day, step by step, dagger in hand, until his bloodline has paid for the other's.

The following day, in a courtyard in Zaragoza, Don Carlos attempts to abduct Doña Sol by passing himself off as Hernani in the darkness. The young woman snatches a dagger from him, threatens him, and Hernani suddenly appears behind the king, arms crossed, eyes flashing. He could kill him but refuses assassination: he demands a duel, and the king refuses to duel a bandit. Hernani breaks his sword upon the paving stones, throws his cloak over the king's shoulders to protect him from his own men, and lets him go, consecrating this sacred head for himself alone. The tocsin rings, Zaragoza is ablaze, the henchmen arrive. Hernani kisses Doña Sol on the forehead—their first kiss, perhaps their last—and rushes to the fight.

Weeks pass. At the Castle of Silva, in the mountains of Aragon, the old duke is preparing his nuptials with Doña Sol. He loves her with an oak-like love, ponderous and steadfast, and his words possess the awkward tenderness of a man who knows that youth is slipping away from him. A pilgrim knocks at the door and seeks sanctuary. The duke welcomes him—hospitality is sacred among the Silvas. But when Doña Sol appears in her bridal gown, the pilgrim tears off his habit and thunders: he is Hernani, his head is worth a thousand golden carolus, let them take it. Not a single servant moves. The duke, faithful to his code, refuses to surrender his guest, were he a hundred times worse. He orders the castle to be armed.

Alone for a moment, Hernani overwhelms Doña Sol with jealous reproaches before the bridal casket, then falls to his knees when she reveals the dagger hidden at the bottom of the box—the one she had taken from the king on the night of the foiled abduction. He then describes himself as a force driven onward, a blind agent of funereal mysteries, a soul of sorrow forged from darkness, and begs her to flee far from his fatal path. Doña Sol weeps, and her tears bring him back: they embrace, entirely absorbed in one another, when the old duke appears on the threshold, petrified. He invokes the portraits of his ancestors lined up in the great hall, asking them if they have ever witnessed such treachery. But the king's trumpets sound. Don Ruy Gomez hides Hernani behind his own portrait, in a secret recess, and refuses to surrender him to Don Carlos, who threatens to raze the castle to the ground. The duke leads the king past the entire gallery of the Silvas—consuls of Rome, companions of El Cid, saviors of captive kings—and halts before the final portrait, his own, declaring that it shall never be said that this face belonged to a traitor who sold his guest's head. The king, disconcerted, takes Doña Sol away as a hostage.

Don Ruy Gomez brings Hernani out of his hiding place and wishes to kill him in a duel. Hernani accepts death—his life belongs to the man who saved it—but proposes first to jointly avenge Doña Sol, who was carried off by the king. He unfastens the horn from his belt and hands it to the old man: whenever he wishes, regardless of the time or place, let him blow this horn, and Hernani shall die. They clasp hands before the witnessing portraits.

In Aachen, within the vaults housing the tomb of Charlemagne, Don Carlos waits alone for the outcome of the imperial election. Conspirators—grandees of Spain and German princes—gather in the shadows to assassinate him. Hernani is among them, drawn by lot to strike the blow. But three cannon shots thunder: Carlos is elected Emperor. He emerges from Charlemagne's tomb transformed, as though the great shade had counseled him in the silence of the crypt. He orders the conspirators seized, and as Hernani steps forward to die, Doña Sol throws herself at his feet. Then Don Carlos, now Charles V, pronounces his pardon. He restores Doña Sol to Hernani, reinstates his titles—Juan of Aragon, Duke of Segorbe and Cardona—and declares that clemency is the lesson Charlemagne whispered to him from the depths of his sepulcher.

The final act is a celebration. Zaragoza illuminated, music, the nuptials of Don Juan of Aragon and Doña Sol. The newlyweds, reunited at last, savor the balmy night on a terrace, and their words of love possess the dizzying sweetness of those who dare not believe in their own happiness. Hernani murmurs that he would give everything for this moment never to end, and Doña Sol replies that she is his, that nothing can part them anymore. It is then that the sound of a horn pierces the night, distant, persistent, repeated three times. Hernani turns pale. The old duke appears, masked, clad in his black domino, and demands his due. Hernani begs for a moment, just a single one, but Don Ruy Gomez is inflexible: he holds out a vial of poison. Doña Sol snatches it and drinks first, Hernani drinks after her, and they die in each other's arms, he asking the old man for forgiveness, she murmuring that she is cold. Don Ruy Gomez contemplates the two bodies, turns toward the heavens, cries out that he is damned, and stabs himself to death over them.