 | Miscellanies |  |
SCENE IV.
OLYMPIA, VICTORIA, STRENI.STRENI.
Well, OLYMPIA.
You cannot doubt it now? The truth appears
At last. You see, what happens every day,
The fickleness of youthful vows: despise it;
The dignity of your sex demands it of you.
Laugh at it.
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Nay, my Lord, I have forgot it.
There is but one reflection stings me now.
I have, against my nature, stubbornly
Opposed my father's will, his just command.
Most heartily I repent it; and I hope
Your goodness will forgive a crime which honour
Betrayed me to. My honour disengaged,
I have no will but yours.
STRENI.
There spoke my daughter!
My will, my pleasure is to see you happy.
'Tis that engrosses all my cares; for that
Have I so steadily withstood your tears,
And made the weakness of affection yield
To rigid reason. Now th' auspicious hour
Appears; and not to dally needlesly
With time, what must be done to-morrow may
As well be done to-day. Nay were it only
For triumph's sake, to make as light of love
As the most fickle boy, the sooner the better.
This very day—
OLYMPIA.
This moment!
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Hold, OLYMPIA!
STRENI.
Hold you, VICTORIA!
VICTORIA.
No: I will not hold.
Shall I, my Lord, when hurried by despair
My friend would plunge into the boiling deep,
Look calmly on, and cry Well done; 'tis right;
This world is not for you; destroy yourself;
And do it bravely, as becomes your spirit?—
But this is worse. Death ends all human woes:
But this is launching a weak slender bark
Into a sea of sorrows.
STRENI.
Pray, good madam,
None of your rhetoric.
VICTORIA.
I affect not rhetoric.
'Tis truth.
STRENI.
'Tis false.
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My Lord, I should be grieved
To see the trial hazarded.—OLYMPIA!—
You're going in a sudden fit of spleen
To throw yourself away. ALPHONSO has done it.
But disagreeable ties sit not so heavy
On his as on our sex. Yet he's unhappy:
Self-ruined, blindly hurried to his fate.
For he has married from mere pique, I'm positive;
And loves you still. That angry letter shews it.
OLYMPIA.
Love me! Ne'er name him more: it shocks me.
VICTORIA.
Cousin,
Is't possible a little passing gust
Of spleen should drive you to devote your life
To eternal discontent? To wed the man
You cannot love—whom you despise?—Good Heaven!
The moment that you cool you'll give the world
To have the deed undone.
STRENI.
This is intolerable!
VICTORIA, you're too busy, much too busy.
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Affairs.
VICTORIA.
My friend's are mine. Pray, good my Lord,
What interest of my own have I to meddle?
'Tis neither vanity nor love of brawls,
I'm sure, that makes me busy. But is this
A time for tame implicit complaisance?
Can I sit still, and silently approve
When those I love are bent on desperate deeds?
Call me officious and impertinent,
As many meddlers as you chuse, I care not.
For be as angry as you please, at least
I will discharge my mind.
STRENI.
You're mad, you're mad.—
You're mad, I tell you.
VICTORIA.
'T may be.—But dear OLYMPIA.
Why will you hurry on a change, at best
So awful; here most certainly so fatal?
OLYMPIA.
It is my father's will.
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Your father is
Too good to exact obedience here, against
Your inclination. 'Tis not very long since
He told you so.
STRENI.
Good God! what must I bear?
Is this exaction? Bless me! is it not
Her own free choice?—Pray, is it not, OLYMPIA?
OLYMPIA.
Alas! my father!—
STRENI.
What wouldst thou say?
OLYMPIA.
Forgive
My wavering mind. I want not to retract
My hasty promise. Only give me time,
A little time, till old impressions die;
That I may yield a more devoted heart,
A heart more worthy of a good man's vows.
STRENI.
Heaven's curse on all romance! You've learnt, OLYMPIA,
A delicacy foreign to this world.
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Yourself into a fool. How many matches,
And happy matches too, had ne'er been made
Were all your sex as scrupulous as you are.
But you're so fickle, now you say this moment,
And now next year.
OLYMPIA.
Alas! it was my rashness.
I hope my father will not urge against me
What passion tortured from me.
STRENI.
Who can bear this?
By Heaven I shall run mad!—To have a daughter
So obstinate against her father's will!
Against her own good fortune!—Gracious Heaven!
Why did you curse me with a stubborn child?
I have but one, and she's—
VICTORIA.
Dear good my Lord,
Why all this heat? OLYMPIA knows her duty;
And only begs a little time—
STRENI.
To shuffle.
I'll have no more of that. I have too long
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Be longer trifled with in this, depend on't.
And if she is my daughter; if I live,
This day shall make her, what she ought to wish,
Count CLAUDIO's wife: this very hour shall do it.
By Heaven it shall.
VICTORIA.
But why to-day, my Lord?
Why should it be so sudden?
STRENI.
'Tis my pleasure,
I'll have it so. Let me alone; I know sure
What I am doing.
VICTORIA.
Yet hear me, good my Lord—
STRENI.
No more! I would not have you waste your breath.
'Tis fix'd; and may I never taste of bliss
If ought shall shake me.
VICTORIA.
O Heaven!—
OLYMPIA.
Cousin, forbear.—
Pardon it father to my perverse fate
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'Tis but in this I e'er could hesitate
At one command of yours. You are determined;
And were it to my ruin, I obey.
I've nothing more to plead.
STRENI.
My dearest child,
Not to thy ruin; Heaven forbid! I lead thee
To honour, happiness, establish'd bliss.
Thou soon shalt be the envy of thy sex,
And I the happiest father Heaven e'er smiled on.
Come; let us go, and seize the prosperous hour;
No dallying now, while fortune's in our power.
VICTORIA.
Alas! alas! what fortune I foresee
In this, is black, and ends in misery.
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