 | Eurydice |  |
SCENE VI.
Procles, Medon.Medon.
At length, Sir, all the Gods declare for you,
And fortune is your own. Your native realm,
Fair Epidaurus, peaceful and resign'd,
Acknowledges her Lord. Your rival's fate
Confirms his kingdom yours.
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Yet I am still
Unblest amidst this flow of prosperous fortune.
Not all that charms Ambition's shoreless wish,
Empire and kneeling homage, can bestow
The better joy I long for.
Medon.
Ah, my Prince,
Forget, or scorn that proud ill-natur'd fair one.
Procles.
Impossible. By heaven my soul can form
No wish, no thought but her. I tell thee, Medon,
With blushes tell thee, this proud charmer reigns
Unbounded o'er my reason. I have try'd
Each shape, each art of varied love to win her;
Alternate prayers and threats, the soothing skill
Of passionate sincerity, the fire
Of rapturous vows: but all these arts were vain.
Her rooted hate is not to be remov'd.
And 'twas my soul's first aim, the towering point
Of all my wishes, to prevail in this;
To triumph o'er my rival too in love.
That had been great revenge! but baffled here,
I'm disappointed still.
Medon.
Believe me, Sir,
When once the fit of wilfulness is o'er,
The burst of tears discharg'd, she'll quickly soften,
Stoop to your wishes, and forget a husband
Who is no more.
Procles.
Perdition on his name!
I dread his memory as my rival still.
But if I have not won her to be mine,
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From her fantastic honour. Stung to madness
For ill-requited love, I darkly spread
Surmizes of her truth. He thought her false:
And, as he doated on her, the dire tale
Was poison to his quiet. Jealousy,
In all its horrors, must have seiz'd his soul.
I triumph'd there!
Medon.
'Twas exquisite revenge.
I too, my Lord, who live but for your pleasure,
Your ever-faithful slave, I too combin'd
To aid your vengeance. You can still remember
When in a dungeon's depth Ariston lay,
Ariston, Periander's factious friend.
With looks of seeming pity I oft mourn'd
His hard imprisonment, complain'd of you,
Nay curs'd your cruelty; till I had brought
His unsuspecting honesty to credit
My fiction of the Queen. I told him then,
With well-dissembled hatred of her crime,
Embittering every circumstance, that she,
Forgetful of her better fame, had heard
Your secret passion, and with equal ardor
Return'd its warmth. Nay that she often urg'd you
To wreak your rage on him, the hated friend
Of Periander. Having thus alarm'd him,
After long pause I let him scape at last
To find his master out.
Procles.
I thank thee, Medon.
But this avails not much. My soul burns in me
With furious longings to subdue that woman;
To bend her pride of vertue to my passion.
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A heaven of higher bliss, not to be found
In unresisting Beauty, woo'd and won
At idle leisure. Yet once more I mean
To try the fortune of my wishes with her:
And if I am repuls'd, away at once
All little arts of love.
Medon.
Mean while, the banquet,
Which Pleasure's curious hand hath furnish'd out
With splendid choice, awaits you, and invites
To laughing thought and triumph. There the God,
Th'inspiring God of wine, with rose-buds crown'd,
Mirth in his look, and at his side the band
Of little playful Loves, fills high the bowl,
And bids it flow unbounded. Music too
Joins her enchanting voice, and wooes the soul
With all her powerful skill of moving strains:
Till the gay hour is quite dissolv'd in bliss,
In ecstacy of revel, all-unknown
To lean-look'd Temperance, and his peevish train.
Procles.
Come on then, Medon. Life is vainly short;
A very dream of being: and when death
Has quench'd this finer flame that moves the heart,
Beyond is all oblivion, and waste night
That knows no following dawn, where we shall be
As we had never been. The Present then
Is only ours: and shall we let it pass,
Untasted, unenjoy'd? No; let us on.
Hail we the rising shade: and now while night
Leads on the secret hour of free delight,
With wanton gayety, in naked state,
Let Music, Mirth, and Love around us wait.
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