Eur. How strangely lies the devill here disguis'd Pri. Of age!-look here, Eurione, [Throws off his pontificals. Is this a face to be dispised? be not amaz'd: Eur. Witnesse, you gods, that see my soul devellop'd Of crawling worms, the cold inhabitants Of silent dormitories, than to have By those wilde fires of thy prodigious lusts. No, impious villain !—when ghastly horror makes Thy sins, like Furies, all appear to fright Thy trembling soul from her last stage of life When thou shalt curse thy birth-day, and implore Heaven's all discerning eye, this sin shall not Make up a link o' th' everlasting chain. Pri. Must I be then denied? fond girl! thou hast Precipitated all the hopes of life, By this abortive virtue; unlesse thou canst And helplesse deities, to circle thee In forms more dreadful than the night, or death, Presents them to our fears, no power shall save thee; Mixt with a wildernesse of air; through which Thou'lt never find them in their wisht effects. Tush! this weak resistance is in vain The virgin goddesse stirs not. VOL. I. PART II. T [Eurione flies to the altar. Eur. Oh, hear-hear me, you sacred [Oroandes comes forward. With what dignity and scorn does Eurione repel the offers of the Priest's "prodigious lusts;" with what awful solemnity does she pour forth her denunciation, as if it had burst from the stony lips of Minerva herself. Zannazarro takes leave of his sister thus. "Zan. So-now we have ended, my Eurione, Act III. The King, after struggling with his passion for Eurione until all his better feelings were silenced, resolves to put his love upon the fortune of the sword. The scene between him and Oroandes possesses great merit; it is introduced by a picture of placid beauty, which imparts to the mind of the reader the same harmonious sentiments which shed a dignified calm over the soul of Oroandes. They are noble spirits both. Oroandes is the very abstraction of loyalty -of high and principled loyalty. The poet has skilfully depicted the dread with which the King shrinks from breathing his guilty purpose; till, for fear of failing altogether in his object, he drags it forth with shame to light, and, impatient of a pretext to escape from the very thought of it, in the tumult of combat, seizes the words in which Oroandes disparagingly compares Eurione with the Cyprian princess, almost before they are uttered. Oroandes alone, reading a note. "Oro. The hour, five-the place, the plain beneath the Hermit's rock. I have not miss'd in either circumstance, Unlesse my haste anticipated time;-it yet is not full five; Nor step, but mine, soil'd the earth's tinsel'd robe. -How full of heaven this solitude appears, By a full quire of feather'd choristers, Enter the King, disguised. 'Tis he, but strangely chang'd. King. Oroandes, you're now a loyal subject. The glorious structure of thy hopes, or live "Till now my strongest fortresse, is become The fatall engine of my ruine. Oro. -Heavens! what have I done to merit this? King. Nothing but been too virtuous, and by that Center'd affections, which I must remove, Or shake thee into chaos. Oro. This language blasts me: sure, I have no sin The monster forth; and, in my blood imbalm'd, The latitude of my obedience, in Dying at the command of him for whom I only wish to live. Did my friends Look on the object through their tears, the ghost Those rivulets of sorrow should not wash The sanguine stain of my resolves, so they, In this high tempest of your soul. King. Thy virtue fathomes not my depth of guilt; Such a prevention of my anger would Only exchange the active passion for Sorrow as insupportable: those characters, Which must unfold the sables of my soul, Are in dark hieroglyphicks hid, through which Thy strength of judgment cannot pierce. Oro. You speak in misty wonders, sir; such as lead My apprehension into wild meanders. King. This will unriddle all your doubts-Draw. Oro. Against my sovereign!—an act so wicked would Retort the guilty steel into my breast. Fear never yet marbled a coward's blood More than obedience mine; that breath hath lockt No spirits dare from their cold center move. Not paus'd at the encounter of a danger, When ruffled into stormes, could present: I would bestride a cloud with lightning charg'd, Leap through the clefts of earthquakes, or attempt In the black shadow of rebellion, shakes The strongest pillars of my soul. You are my king! More dreadfull to me, than oraculous truths person Is circl'd with divinity, which, without reverence King. Are my attempts priz'd at so cheap a rate? Oro. This stirs my blood:-were you a private man, Protect him, though allied to me by all The ties of nature and of friendship, yet, Being thus far urg'd, our swords long since should have King. I have unfetter'd all those legall bondes-draw; Witnesse, ye gods, my innocence is wrong'd, Before I fall, or stand lesse fortunate More full of zeal than those pure orizons, Which martyr'd saints mix with their dying groans. King. And must such goodnesse die !-know, noble youth, I am so far from calling it desert In thee, that hath unsheath'd my sword, that, in This midnight storm of fancy, I can shed Some drops of pity too: pity, to change Too volatile to be contain'd within grown My brain, that over-heated crucible. I am diseas'd, and know no way to health |