University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Zamti, Etan,
Zamti.
My friend!—I understand—your tears explain it.

Etan.
Your hapless son—

Zamti.
Ah! speak of him no more;
Speak of our Monarch's son, the hope o'th' Empire.
Say, is he safe?

Etan.
The holy monuments
Of his great ancestors from hostile eyes
His life and woes conceal. To you he owes
A life, whose dawn in heaviness comes on:
Too fatal gift perhaps.

Zamti.
He lives: enough.
O you, my Royal Masters, to whose shades
My only child I sacrifice, forgive
A father's tears!

Etan.
Within these conquer'd walls
Your sorrows speak too loudly.

Zamti.
Oh! my friend,
In what sad mansion shall my grief have vent?
And how shall I sustain the first approach,
Bitter upbraidings, yellings, wild despair,
And imprecations of a furious mother?
Let us at first, if possible, deceive her!

Etan.
The ruffians, in her absence, took your son,
And to the cruel victors strait convey'd him.
I flew immediately to save, if possible,
Th'endanger'd Orphan.

Zamti.
Tell her, my good Etan,
That we have sav'd the heir of China; tell her,
Our boy is safe; and thus with kind delusion
Win her, if possible, to fond belief.
Alas! that truth so often should be cruel!
Mankind adore it; and it makes them wretched.
Come then, my Etan!—Heav'n! my wife approaches,
And death and madness stare within her eyes.