University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

VICTORIA, OLYMPIA.
VICTORIA.
Ah, my dearest cousin!—
Come, we're alone.

OLYMPIA.
Welcome to my sad heart!—
What need have I of such a cordial sight!

VICTORIA.
Poor dear OLYMPIA!—How catching are thy tears!—
Thy griefs are mine. Would I could bear them for thee!

OLYMPIA.
How I have long'd to see my only friend,
My kind companion!—Now she comes too late;
For I'm undone for ever!

VICTORIA.
It must not be:
All is not lost yet.—Bless me! thy hands burn mine—
Thou art not well.

OLYMPIA.
Ah! did you know, VICTORIA,
What I have suffered since we parted last,
You'd wonder that this mortal frame so long
Could bear such misery.

VICTORIA.
Come, dry thy tears.
The worst is past.—Your father will relent:
He needs must yield at last.

OLYMPIA.
Oh! never, never!—
To-morrow, for ought that yet appears, compleats
My wretchedness.

VICTORIA.
Good Heaven! it must not be.
What! be engaged by force in vows so solemn!
'Tis madness to suppose it.

OLYMPIA.
Either it must be so,
Or I must live an out-cast in the world,
With all my father's curses on my head.—
That's my hard sentence.

VICTORIA.
Never till this moment
Have I once dreamt what happiness it was
To own a little fortune uncontroll'd
By any human caprice.—'Tis thine, OLYMPIA!—
Heavens! We shall be the happiest two that live!—
I say 'tis thine!

OLYMPIA.
My generous kind VICTORIA!
But can I bear my father's fix'd displeasure?—
Tho' to my daily grief I have found of late
His tenderness estrang'd, I am not yet
So harden'd with unkindness to endure
To lose his smiles for ever.

VICTORIA.
That fear is vain.
Your father is not of so stern a make.
He cannot tear you from his heart; in him
Nature defies it: this severity
Is but put on, and costs him many a pang,
No doubt, to urge you to what he conceives
Your greatest happiness.—But I long, OLYMPIA,
To hear the whole of thy disastrous tale.
For this long absence of two years, while all
Intelligence has been shut up between us,
Has kept me still in painful ignorance
Of what has past. The general part indeed
I know too well; but for particulars
All I have learnt is merely from report;
Whose specious lies discredit every truth
It chances to throw out. I left you blest
In the gay spring of love. A view more charming
Of all that's sweet in th' harmony of souls
Was never seen: your father too then seemed
To hold ALPHONSO as his own; as one
Soon to become his son-in-law.

OLYMPIA.
'Tis true:
And till my father had disclosed his mind,
To give a sanction to ALPHONSO's vows;
Whatever tenderness possess'd my soul,
I let it fondly prey upon itself;
My eyes ne'er told it, and much less my tongue.
I hid my conscious blushes as I could,
My fault'ring speech was virgin bashfulness,
And if I trembled 'twas alarm, not love.
Oh! I could burst, and on thy friendly bosom
Breathe out my soul, VICTORIA, to remember
The dear enchantments of those happy days!
It was a sweet disease, a charming dream,
And but a dream, of happiness. At last
We were contracted by the mutual will
Of both our parents; and a distant day
Fix'd for the nuptials; when, alas!—

VICTORIA.
I know
This CLAUDIO saw you; this rich Count: would he
And all his millions in a mine had been
Blown to the Moon, that luckless hour he came
Blundering to blast such hopeful buds of joy!
How I could curse him!—But my dear OLYMPIA,
I interrupt your story.

OLYMPIA.
Alas! my father,
Dazzled with CLAUDIO's wealth, and by his arts
Of most immoderate shameless flattery won,
Grew cold to poor ALPHONSO; by degrees
Chang'd his familiar cordial entertainment
To dry civility, and shocking ceremony:
Seized every opportunity to lessen him
In my affections, and to recommend
A stranger to my breast. 'Twas all in vain.
How could I hear him? Was it possible
To shift the pure devotion of my heart
From lov'd ALPHONSO to a golden idol?
Nay, to th' old object of ALPHONSO's hate?—
I own I ne'er attempted it. But from
That adverse time the fortune of our loves
Has still declined; and (strange fatality!)
Soon after this another cross event
Confirm'd the former.—

VICTORIA.
How?

OLYMPIA.
One night at court,
In the full splendor of a birth-day crowd,
A vain pert fool, a minion of the King's,
A coxcomb drunk with favour, snatch'd my hand
And rudely kiss'd it; such confusion seiz'd me
I had almost sunk: ALPHONSO, who was by,
Forgetful of the reverence of the place
And the King's presence, with one desperate blow
Laid the plum'd courtier sprawling on the floor:
And for that hasty generous fault was banished
From Naples to Palermo, for a twelvemonth.

VICTORIA.
Banish'd! Heaven's patience! Had he failed to do it
He had merited eternal banishment;
From Naples, Italy, from every land,
From all society where honour's thought of.
Had I been King th' ill-manner'd fool who gave
The first offence, and brought the other on,
(Which was at worst a noble rashness) should
Have bore the punishment alone.

OLYMPIA.
The King,
On due submissions offered by ALPHONSO,
'Tis thought would freely have revoked the sentence,
But for the secret practices of some
Who wish'd his absence. Those dark dealings made
All intercession vain; tho' for my sake
He sloop'd to more than otherways, I know,
His generous pride would have consented to.—
No remedy: he must depart, and leave me
A widowed bride; tho' first he press'd the nuptials,
He claimed my hand: that was denied; my father
Found some prudential reasons to excuse it
Till his return. ALPHONSO warmly urged
A private marriage: this my filial duty
Forbade; tho' else, with all my soul, I would
Have been the partner of his banishment,
Not to Palermo, but to any desart,
To Nature's wildest solitudes; I owed it,
Could ought be dismal where ALPHONSO was,
To him who owed his banishment to me.
It was a mournful parting: one sad year
Appeared an age; and till that age expired
Our only view of consolation was
Such intercourse as separates from the dead
Our absent friends.—But since that cruel day
Not one short letter—

VICTORIA.
How? That's strange, OLYMPIA!

OLYMPIA.
'Tis no such wonder. For this generous exile,
The hardly-used ALPHONSO, scarce had left
The gates of Naples, when my father hurried me
Down to these ancient melancholy walls,
Remote from Naples and all neighbourhood.
The real aim of this retreat, as from
Th' event appears too plain, was to cut off
All correspondence with ALPHONSO, and those
That might promote intelligence between us;
While this insidious rival should be favoured
With all advantages to undermine
My absent love. For ever since I have known
This sad retirement, this confinement rather,
My correspondence has been strictly watched
Like one in gaol for treason. No company
This twelvemonth have I seen but ALPHONSO,
And those who with his odious praises chafe
My persecuted ears. I have been afraid
Of every morning's light; for every day
Has seen me flattered, threatened, and cajoled,
Tortured and teized, to what I most abhor.
What's worse than these, strange fancies haunt my mind,
And jealous cares pursue me, that my breast
Pants with perpetual terrors and alarms.
My health in sickly languor pines away:
Kind sleep forsakes me; and when harrass'd Nature
Sinks in imperfect rest, distracted dreams,
Worse than my waking miseries, shake me from
My frighted slumbers. Gracious Heaven defend me!
'Tis horrible to think how near the verge
Of madness I have been.

VICTORIA.
Alas, OLYMPIA!
What blasts have shook thy gentle soul! But Heaven
And thine own fortitude will still support thee
To baffle all their rage.

OLYMPIA.
My fortitude!
Alas! my little share of that, VICTORIA,
Has failed me already; fatally has failed me.
For tired with endless teizing, glad to gain
Some respite from the present pain, at last
I promised in the weakness of my mind,
That if within three days beyond the term
In which ALPHONSO's banishment expir'd,
He did not claim my plighted faith, I should
Resign my hand to CLAUDIO. This I thought
Was no great venture. For tho' no letters came,
I hoped I knew the cause; nor would I doubt
ALPHONSO's faith, and purpose not to lose
One day of liberty in absence from me;
These I remember were his words at parting,
But, ah VICTORIA! would that doleful year
Was yet not ended, that I still might hope!

VICTORIA.
Is it then past?

OLYMPIA.
Two days since: and to-morrow
Decides my destiny.

VICTORIA.
But is there ought
In this, that at his father's instigation
ALPHONSO has commenced a nuptial treaty
With a Sicilian Lady?

OLYMPIA.
Such a rumour
Has, since that promise was extorted from me,
Been so industriously rung in my ears,
And managed with such arts and aggravations,
It seemed, when the first shock was past, a fiction
Contriv'd to shake my faith, and drive me in
A hurry of resentment to my ruin.
But by your looks you seem to apprehend
'Tis something more—Perhaps you've heard he's married.
For Heaven's sake do not flatter me, VICTORIA.
If it is so tell me.—Ah!

VICTORIA.
Nay, dear OLYMPIA,
I tell you all I have heard; and that perhaps
Comes from the secret fountain-head of lies.
At least if such a treaty was confirmed
You might expect the earliest notice of it.
My life for't your intelligence in that
Would pass without much barr or scrutiny.

OLYMPIA.
That's all my little comfort. But alas!
I know not what to think of this delay.
Sometimes my melancholy whispers me
He has forgot or hates me, and in revenge of
My father's slights has left me. At other times
That probity, that unaffected warmth
Of love unchanged by shocking injuries;
Those generous manners, th' inviolable honour
Which even his enemies admit, assure me
He cannot be so base to quit me thus,
Without some form at least of taking leave.
Perhaps he has heard I'm married, and believes it;
Perhaps he is not well.—I'm all perplexity.
This agony of suspence is perfect torture,
From which, to know that fate had done its worst
Would be a kind of desperate repose.—
Should he prove faithless, I have done, VICTORIA,
What you'll despise me for.

VICTORIA.
It cannot be.
You ne'er can stoop to ought that's really mean:
But what, dear cousin?

OLYMPIA.
As the time approach'd
Which was to prove decisive of my fortune,
My fears encreased; my anxious throbbings grew
Quite insupportable; my fluttering breast
Could find no quiet. My restless brain at work
How to prevent the worst, at last I found
A trusty messenger to bear with speed
A letter to ALPHONSO; which explained
Whate'er was needful of my sufferings past
And fears of worse to come; and that if still
He loved and meant to claim me, the least delay
Might render that impossible. Ere this
I might have had some answer; but no news
Arriving, in despair last night I sought
Protection in a monastry that stands
Amongst the neighbouring mountains: there I past
The anxious night; but thither traced, this morning
I was demanded by th' authority of
My father in his vassals.

VICTORIA.
But the sisters,
The Abbess, Heaven! how could they yield you up
So tamely?—their protection!

OLYMPIA.
Do not blame them;
They did their utmost for me. I was received
With manners most respectfully obliging,
With tears of sympathy, and fluttering care
To hide me panting from the hot pursuit.
But as my sheltering place was soon discovered,
'Twas more it seems than they could answer for,
To brave my father's summons.—You see, VICTORIA,
How every refuge fails me. A short time now
Remains for me to hope. Yet something still,
Whether the whisperings of some friendly power,
Or the last effort of tenacious hope,
Suggests to my sore mind that ere to-morrow
ALPHONSO will be here. But come what will
I shall not marry CLAUDIO; that's determined.—
I know one refuge from all misery—
One cordial draught shall—

VICTORIA.
What?—Thy words are frightful!—
Heaven banish all such thoughts!—Alas! OLYMPIA,
Thou lookst thro' the false glass of Melancholy.
Trust me there's nothing yet so desperate here.
Whate'er may happen lucklessly, the worst
Is still avoidable.—You shall be sick—
Or take another flight.—We'll fly together.
I will secure you in a little fortress
Which to the General himself in person
Shall scarce surrender you at the first summons.
There are a thousand shifts; more than we yet
Can think of.—But the time is precious:
Come let us hide ourselves, and plot together.
'Twill be a charming triumph, if we two,
In half a day, at one unlooked-for blow,
Can dreadful schemes demolish, which to rear
Has cost much older heads a restless year.