The Step-Mother :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Step-Mother

Colman, George (1732-1794)

THE STEP-MOTHER;

SCENE III.

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SCENE III.

MYRRHINA
alone.
No woman more unhappy than myself:
For how he'd bear it, did he know the whole,
When he has taken such offence at this,
Which is of much less consequence, is plain.
Nor by what means to reconcile him to it,

482

Can I devise. After so many ills,
This only misery there yet remain'd,
To be oblig'd to educate the child,
Ignorant of the father's quality.
For he, the cruel spoiler of her honour,
Taking advantage of the night and darkness,
My daughter was not able to discern
His person; nor to force a token from him,
Whereby he might be afterwards discover'd:
But he, at his departure, pluck'd by force
A Ring from off her finger.— I fear too,
That Pamphilus will not contain himself,
Nor longer keep our secret, when he finds
Another's child acknowledg'd for his own.

[Exit.

This is a preparation for the Catastrophe; for the Ring produces the discovery.

Donatus.

This preparation being made by a soliloquy, which tells the circumstance directly to the audience, is not so artful as might be expected from Terence.