Precida, in his all-absorbing hate of the oppressors,
cannot forgive them; yet he seizes Tancredi, and imprisons him in his
castle, in order to save his life from the impending massacre of the
French; and in a scene with Imelda, he tells her that, while she was a
babe, the father of Tancredi had abducted her mother and carried
her to France. Years after, she returned heart-broken to die in her
husband's arms, a secret which she tries to reveal perishing with her.
While Imelda remains horror-struck by this history, Procida receives
an intercepted letter from Eriberto, Tancredi's father, in which
he tells the young man that he and Imelda are children of the same
mother. Procida in pity of his daughter, the victim of this awful
fatality, prepares to send her away to a convent in Pisa; but a French
law forbids any ship to sail at that time, and Imelda is brought back
and confronted in a public place with Tancredi, who has been rescued
by the French.
He claims her as his wife, but she, filled with the horror of what she
knows, declares that he is not her husband. It is the moment of the
Vespers, and Tancredi falls among the first slain by the Sicilians. He
implores Imelda for a last kiss, but wildly answering that they are
brother and sister, she swoons away, while Tancredi dies in this
climax of self-loathing and despair.
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