University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Amyntas, Daphne, Nerina.
AMYNTAS.
Daphne, thy pity was barbarity;
Thy hand my enemy that checked the dart.
And when I've formed the manly rosolution,
Why should I shrink, and cling again to life?
By lengthening life, I only suffer more.
And why dost thou, who art my friend, amuse me
With a delusive maze of argument?
Why dost thou cheat me into life, and make
The painted bubble Hope thus dance before me?
Daphne, there is more force, more genuine truth
In our strong feelings, our immediate sense,
Than in the waste of flowery eloquence,
And all the fopperies of the coxcomb, Reason.

DAPHNE.
Do not despair, Amyntas; if I know
Of Sylvia aught, it was not cruelty,
But shame, that caused her late behaviour to thee.

AMYNTAS.
Thou art a true physician; thou wouldst have
Thy love-sick patient dwindle on in torment.
Again thou offerest me false consolation,
A pleasing antidote against my welfare:
Despair alone can be my remedy;
A bitter, but a salutary medicine.
The specious liar, Hope, hath been my ruin:
Again I feel it rising in my breast;
It often faints, but still resumes its vigour;
Nay, when 'tis quite extinct, it lives again;
The merest trifle can restore it's being.
Nay, what it's bane should be, it's cordial proves!
Why do I hope? because I live; alas!
What evil greater than a life like mine!

DAPHNE.
For shame, support your misery like a man;
Live on in misery; nay, with future bliss
Contrast it, and convert it to your pleasure.
Who never suffers, never can enjoy;
He only dozes on a bed of down;
Pleasure's acutest point can hardly wake him.
But he whose frame, originally fine,
Is wrought still finer by adversity,
In better days, feels all their genial sun-shine;
His path is strewed with amaranths, and roses;
Elysium's glory opens on his eyes;
His ears are ravished with celestial musick:
What to the wallowing hog of Epicurus
Is bare convenience, is to him enjoyment:
No particle of happiness goes past him.
Live then, and hope; and your reward shall be
Those naked beauties which you lately saw.

AMYNTAS.
Why am I galled again with that idea?
Fortune, and love, my unrelenting foes,
Held forth the treasure to my longing view,
Of which they ne'er will grant me the fruition,
Only to render me completely wretched.

NERINA.
Alas! must I then be the croaking raven
Of melancholy news! Ah! poor Montanus!
What will thy feelings be, when thou shalt hear
Thy Sylvia's cruel fate, thy only daughter!

DAPHNE.
Amyntas, dont you hear the voice of woe?

AMYNTAS.
Yes; and I likewise hear the name of Sylvia;
It strikes my ear, and sets my heart a-beating.
Say, dost thou know the voice?

DAPHNE.
Yes, 'tis Nerina's;
A favourite of Diana; famous too
For her fine hand, and for her sparkling eye,
Her easy shape, and her engaging manner.

NERINA.
Yet he should know the mournful accident;
For he would wish to gather her remains,
If any can be found: Oh! hapless Sylvia!

AMYNTAS.
What can this be? What does this woman say?

NERINA.
Oh Daphne!

DAPHNE.
Whence, Nerina, this confusion?
Why speakest thou of Sylvia with a sigh?

NERINA.
Alas! her fate the deepest sigh demands!

AMYNTAS.
What dost thou mean? thou overwhelmest me;
My heart is freezing, and my life goes from me:
I dare not ask; yet say, doth Sylvia live?

DAPHNE.
Speak; be explicit; let us know the worst.

NERINA.
Why should I be a doleful messenger?
But now I must unfold the dreadful tale.
Sylvia came naked to my habitation;
Why she came so, I need not tell Amyntas.
As soon as she was dressed, she begged I would
A-hunting with her go to Elicetum.
Thither we went, and many nymphs we found
Assembled, by appointment, for the chace.
We had not long been there, when a fierce wolf
From covert rushed; enormous was his size;
And from his jaws a bloody foam distilled.
Forthwith the dexterous Sylvia took her aim,
And in the neck her arrow wounded him.
Howling he fled into the deepest wood;
And Sylvia, brandishing a dart, pursued him.

AMYNTAS.
Dreadful is the beginning of thy story;
I'm on the rack; it bodes a horrid end.

NERINA.
I likewise had a dart, and followed with it;
But soon in the pursuit I lagged behind;
Sylvia's agility surpasses mine.
I lost my objects, but I still advanced;
And hoping to recover them, I wandered
Through many a winding of the thickest wood.
But in my search a dreadful sight alarmed me;
The dart of Sylvia on the ground I saw;
And near it I beheld her snowy veil,
Which my own hands adjusted to her head.
Examining the ground with eager eyes,
A scene of greater horrour I surveyed;
I saw seven hungry wolves feasting on blood;
And near it, stripped of flesh, some bones lay scattered.
Intent upon their prey, they spied not me,
So fortunate I was: I hied me back,
Sore dreading for my friend, and spurred with fear.
No fuller tidings can I give of Sylvia;
Each monument of a departed friend
Is dear; her veil I brought; lo! here it is.

AMYNTAS.
No fuller tidings! thou hast told enough!
Oh! blood, Oh! veil, Oh! Sylvia, thou art dead!

DAPHNE.
He faints; the sudden shock of grief hath stopped
The springs of life! I fear he too is dead.

NERINA.
Fear not, he breathes; nature but makes a pause,
His colour is returning; he recovers.

AMYNTAS.
Oh! Grief, thou art a cruel, slow tormentor!
Wilt thou ne'er rid me of a painful life!
For my own hand reservest thou the office?
It willingly accepts it; by its blow,
It's speedy, and decisive blow, I'll pass
At once to that desirable quietus
From human misery, which thou, trifling mocker,
Refusest me, or hast not force to give!
And since I, from Nerina's deathful tongue,
Hear that appalling certainty, which makes
Desponding nature sink before it dies;
Since life, which way soe'er I turn myself,
Is waste, and rugged, all; no nook now left
For blooming hope to vegetate upon,
Why should I longer stay, what do I wait for?
O Daphne, 'tis to thy mistaken friendship
I owe the knowledge of this tragedy!
Thou hast officiously prolonged my life,
Only to arm my death with tenfold horrour.
Thy hand the seasonable blow prevented,
Which would have crowned my death with tender fame;
By one determined act I should have fallen,
A gallant sacrifice to slighted love.
I should have been imbalmed with elegy;
Some swain, more favoured than the rest by Phœbus,
My story would have sung in deathless verse;
He would have given me, with departed lovers,
A fragrant mansion in the myrtle grove,
Nor should I then have died reluctantly.
So fondly do we cling to life, we fancy,
That, when we're dead, we still exist in others,
Whom we have left behind. Thus leaving Sylvia,
Thinking that she would long be well, and happy;
And thinking (vain perhaps the thought had been)
That for Amyntas she would drop a tear,
I had from life to death an easy passage;
'Twas bidding but the world a slight adieu.
But now with what ideas shall I die?
For die I must; I am resolved to die.
The beauteous object of my passion dead,
Torn limb from limb by hungry, ravenous wolves,
Her soul breathed out in agony, and horrour!
No image left to substitute my being!
Oh! with what grimness death now stalks before me!
I leave thee, cruel world; ere long, Amyntas
Shall be to thee as he bad never been!
Oh! 'tis a blank farewel! it numbs the soul;
It almost kills without the fatal blow.
That I now feel this last, this worst distress,
I owe to fortune, and to thee, O Daphne!
Thou hast been only my unthinking friend;
But she was ever my deliberate foe.
But now the wished-for crisis sure is come;
Now have I reached the extremity of woe;
Fortune must now be willing to dismiss me,
Tired, or unable to distress me more:
And thou too, Daphne, wilt, at length, from friendship,
Assent that I should manumit my soul,
Too long a tortured prisoner in this body.

DAPHNE.
Thy grief, and wild despair shut out thy reason;
As yet the tale is not completely known;
Live yet awhile, till thou hast learned the whole.

AMYNTAS.
Alas! too long I've lived; too much I've learned.

NERINA.
I wish that Providence had struck me dumb
Ere I began to tell this dismal story.

AMYNTAS.
Give me that veil, Nerina, I intreat thee;
'Twas Sylvia's; therefore it is dear to me.
It's company will give me strength to go
My small remaining part of life's rough way.
A feeling soul, impoverished, and afflicted,
Is wont on trifles to recline itself,
And from them draws a melancholy pleasure.
If 'tis not blasphemy, to call a trifle,
What left behind a mistress, or a friend,
Is hallowed by a warm imagination.
It will encourage me to undertake,
With resolution, the last, painful task;
'Twill be my best viaticum; and cheer
My fluttering soul upon her dreary passage.

NERINA.
Say, Daphne, must I give it, or refuse it?
The motives that induce him to request it,
Persuade me strongly to withhold it from him.

AMYNTAS.
And wilt thou cruelly this little boon
Refuse me, now I'm on the verge of life?
Even to life's verge doth fortune persecute me.
I to her uniformity resign;
Keep it; and Heaven's protection keep you both;
I go from whence I never shall return.

DAPHNE.
Amyntas, stop, and hear me—no, he's gone;
With what a fury hath he flung away!

NERINA.
So swift he flies we cannot overtake him:
I'll then pursue my way, and to Montanus
I'm now resolved not to unfold this tale,
Till certainty shall warrant it's recital.
For since my blabbing tongue, too late, I find,
Hath raised a whirlwind in the lover's mind,
Which, I'm afraid, death will alone assuage,
More tender let me be to hoary age.

CHORUS.