University of Virginia Library

Scena Prima.

Paulina
alone.
What floating cares! what confused clouds
Present inconstant images to mine eyes!
Sweet rest, which I dare not so much as hope,
Send thy divine Ray speedily to clear them;
A thousand diverse thoughts which my sad troubles
Produce in my uncertain heart, are lost
In wishes; no hope flatters me, not where
I dare persist, no fear affrights me not
Where I dare fix my self, my spirit imbracing
All what it doth imagine, would sometimes
My happiness, and sometimes my destruction;
Both one and tother strike it with so little
Effect, that it can neither hope nor fear.
Continually Severus troubleth
My fantasie, my hope is in his vertue,
I fear his jealousie; and I cannot think
That Polyeuctes with an equal eye
Can see his Rivall heer; as between such
The hate is natural, the interview
Soon endeth in a quarrel; the one sees
In the hands of the other what he thinks
He meriteth, the other sees a desperate
Would take it from him; whatsoe'r high reason
Raignsin their courage, th'one conceiveth envy,
The other jealousie: the shame of an
Affront, which each of them feareth to see,
Either receiv'd of old, or at this present,
Destroying all their patience from the first,
Forms choler and distrust, and seising on
The Husband and the Lover both together,
Whether they will or no delivers them
Over to their resentment, and their passion:
But what a strange Chymera do I fancy
Unto my self! and what an injury
Do I to Polyeuctes and Severus?
As if the vertue of these famous Rivals
Could not triumph over those common evils.
The minds of both, Mistresses to themselves
Are of too high an order for such baseness;
They shall see one another in the Temple
Like generous men; but alas, still I fear:
What is th'advantage that my Husband hath
To be in Militene, if Severus arm
The Roman Eagle 'gainst him, if my Father
Command here, and doth fear this Favorite,
And doth repent already of his choice?
The little hope I have is with constraint,
And born it is abortive, and gives place
To fear; what ought to fix it, doth but serve
To dissipate it. Gods! grant that my fear
Be false, and my sad fancy, a Chimere.