University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

An apartment.
Arak and Mora.
Arak.
Why will you, Mora, ever thus avoid me,
Why ever thus averted turn your eyes?
O look upon me; let me see again,
That gracious loveliness which won my heart,
But still, O still, must I in vain address you,
Your cold and alter'd looks in vain deplore?

Mora.
Leave me, good Arak, leave me to myself,
I would I were deserving of thy love.

Arak.
Alas, what frenzies now are rife among us!
Yamos bewails his consort's faded love,
And must I, Mora, also mourn for thine?

Mora.
It had been better, had we never known
These gay and festal arts Antonio teaches,
Than thus to feel all ties of truth relax'd.
Surely from them this sad perversion springs!

Arak.
O say not so, believe not so, dear maid;
Say rather he has taught us to cast off
Our savage nature, and with purer thoughts
So temper'd and refin'd our base desires
That we are rais'd into a nobler state.
Alas, perchance the passion of my heart,
Is but some dross of my barbarity,
Not yet remov'd. Ah it appears to thee
So gross and foul, that thou hast turn'd away,
Tir'd of my fondness, and with royal Idda
Delighted shar'st his ever-varying wisdom.

Mora.
O spare me, Arak, spare me, noble youth!

Arak.
Ha! why is this? O wherefore do you weep?

Mora.
Most true it is that I have been too oft
A happy listener to Antonio's voice.

Arak.
And mine no more is pleasant to your ear.

Mora.
But grieve not, Arak. I am innocent.

Arak.
Innocent! could you have e'er been guilty?
Guilty! of what! you are not yet my wife,
And if your heart be chang'd, though I must mourn,
Alas, must languish without hope of cure,
Why should the change be link'd to thoughts of guilt?
No, Mora, no. I long have fear'd this truth:
Antonio's virtues, like the solar beams
Which by their brightness quench the dim dull hearth,
Have all thy former love for me extinguish'd.
But gentle maid, to me for ever dear,
I will no more molest thee with my suit.
But speedily with all my earnest thoughts
Devise the means to make thee blest with him.

Mora.
O Arak, Arak, you know not the man.

[Exeunt.