University of Virginia Library

ACT. III.

Enter Otrantes as General, Magi, Guards, and Attendants.
Otrant.
His Army, Titles, Fortunes, Honours, all
His rifled Plumes my own! Beyond my Flight
No Glory ever soar'd.

1 Mag.
Yes, Princely Darling,
Thou great Hormidas, Greater Successor,

2 Mag.
Greatest of all, thou our wrong'd Altar's Champion,
All hail!

Otrant.
Yes, holy Fiends! in your next Embassy
To Heav'n, your next kind Prayers and kinder Sacrifice,
Tell the once wrong'd, now righted Powers of Persia;
I mount upon their Christian Enemies Heads.
Witness their opning Veins and streaming Blood,
That now bedews the sprinkled Persian World.
Enter Rugildas.
My dear Rugildas,
Come to my Arms; my Gratitude's too narrow,
And Soul wants room to hold thee.

Rug.
Oh Otrantes!
Now Fortune crowns the day. The great Hormidas
Whose formidable rowling Bulk of Power
Once fill'd the Deep and swell'd the foaming Surge,
How have we hunted down. Oh! We have driven him
Pent in a Creek, and stranded the Leviathan;
Whilst thou with all thy taller weight above him
Mount'st on his Head, and tread'st him into dust.

Otrant.
The Western Prince—that Fool comes to preach Conscience,
A subject not at present for my purpose.
Let me avoid him, and retire t'embrace thee.

[Exeunt.
Enter Theodosius and Nearchus.
Theod.
Thou black Usurper! (Oh the lost Hormidas!)
Yes, thou hast it now: an angry Storm shoots down
The Royal Eagle, and a wanton Humour
Perches a sooty Raven in his Nest.

Nearch.
A sooty one indeed!

Theod.
But if a Prince must fall;
Birth-right, Inheritance and Royal Veins,
All glittering Titles, mighty Names; but all
Too weak to grapple Fate: Yet, why Otrantes?
Oh! why mistaken King! such low-born Veins
Chose the selected Minion to succeed
The great Hormidas! Drest in all his Honours,
And in his Post of Trust and Glory, rais'd
No less than the first Pillar of the State,
And the first Prince o'th'Empire! A strange Leap!
What Merit cou'd'st thou find in such course Blood
To mount Him?

Nearch.
Merit! None.

Theod.
What Kindness then?
What unaccountable strange Favour smil'd
On that mean Wretch?

Nearch.
Favour! None neither.

Theod.
None!

Nearch.
Neither Desert nor Love, but Spight preferr'd him

Theod.
Spight!

Nearch.
Down right Spight, pure natural Gall, meer Malice
Advanced this humble Tool.

Theod.
'Tis strange!

Nearch.
Alas!
He knew that only Villain of the Worl
The very Slave Hormidas hated most.
And therefore all his disrobed Plumes torn from him;
For the most sensible last Stab, On whom
Cou'd the Kings artful Spight bestow the Spoils
But on this most loath'd Slave, his mortall'st Enemy?
Not giv'n him as his Worth and Vertues due,
Nor Patrons Favour; not that kind Donation;
But lodg'd like Scorpions in a Furies Hand,
For that poor persecuted Princes Torturers.

Theod.
Oh studied Tyranny!

Nearch.
This is not half, Sir,
Th'insatiate Gorge of Vengeance yet unglutted,
'Tis not enough he's stript, stript barer than
The poorest Vagrant Wretch, born to load Earth,
And tire out Heav'n; but ev'n that wretched Misery
Must stand the blast of universal Shame;
Placed in a Post so vile, doom'd ev'n to water
The very Camels of the Army; once
Their General, Lord of Lords, now Slave of Slaves,
A Vassal to the meanest Vassal there.

Theod.
Oh King! if this be Pow'r,
Crowns hide your tarnisht Jems, and shine no more.

Nearch.
Oh! had you seen him, Sir, as I have done;
Naked to th'Waste, his galling Feet all bare;
His tender Flesh parcht with the scorching Sun
And Dog-star blast; a little humble Drudge,
Driving a happier Brutal Herd before him,
Wearied and tired, a thousand Eyes around him:
Enter Hormidas, in a Slavelike Habit.
But look, seet here!
Blast your own Eyes, see there the small Remains
Of that prodigious Man!

Theod.
Thou Royal Ruines!
Oh thou poor wrong'd Hormidas!

Horm.
Poor! ah no:
I'am rich, richer than Indian Mines, more rich
Than all the Wealth of Empire. The kind King
Has left me Vertue, Patience, Innocence,
Obedience, and fair spotless Truth, young Prince,
Treasures above the fading Jems of Crowns;
Which not the frowning World can e're take from me.

Theod.
No, The ungrateful World has took too much.

Horm.
Too much! Alas, No more than I had to spare:
The welcome Thief came to an open door,
And took but what was giv'n me all to lose;
Had he but took my Life too, t'had been kind.

Theod.
Thy Life, my dear Hormidas!

Horm.
Yes, my Life.
Dost thou not see the Christian Veins around me
All flowing, and are mine too course to bleed?

Theod.
The Christian Veins that Spectacle of Horror!
Yes, Oh that frightful Gore!

Horm.
That streaming Glory.
When Truth and Vertue bleed, Oh the rich Martyr,
Drest in his noblest Royalty, Innocence,
That pure white Ermin to his Royal Purple!

Theod.
But, oh, unhappy Prince, if thine be Royalty,
It is a sad one!

Horm.
No, mistaken World,
The brightest Heav'n can give; these gloomy Rags,
My Coronation Robe t'a Crown of Stars.

Theod.
But in such vast accumulated wrongs
Thy Miseries and thy Shame, hard fated Prince,
With Sense and Reason, Thought and Man about thee,
Oh how can thy resenting Soul support
A Load of so much barbarous Injustice!

Horm.
Support it Sir, Alas! My King commands it. Th'awful
Divinity of a crown'd Head frowns on me;
And I must bear the undisputed Thunder.

Theod.
Match me this Vertue, Worlds: thou poor Creation,
Where has such Worth a second!

Nearch.
Oh, lost Prince!
How canst thou live beneath a weight so cruel?
Methinks such Sufferings, such falling Greatness
Shou'd strike so heavy, that were thine my Pain,
To break my Tyrant Yoke 'twou'd nobly wake
My own delivering Hand.

Horm.
A Roman Hand!

Nearch.
Yes, my own Hand, like the old Roman Glory
Shou'd shake my Shackles off, mount my free'd Soul,
And lull me sleeping in the Peace of Graves.

Horm.
True, my kind Counsellor, were I less a Christian
I should be more than Roman. Nor should that
Unpunisht Ravisher of all my Honours,
Otrantes, that usurping perjur'd Miscreant—
Yes, thou shouldst see me naked, as I am,
Arm'd with my Wrongs, break through a thousand Javelins,
Up to that guarded Monster's upstart Throne;
Tear through his grapled Throat his Poyson'd Heart;
And the black Lake just floating with her Load
Of dear Damnation down; then, like a Roman
I'de give my plunging Soul a bold Leap after him,
To hunt him beyond Death—All this thou shouldst
Behold, did not a Manacle of Religion
Bind up my Arm, and ev'n this bloated Ruffian
Must live to wrong me and I live to bear it.

Theod.
Thou matchless Miracle! What wou'd I give
For Pow'r to save such Goodness!

Horm.
Generous Prince;
I am not worth that wish.

Theod.
Yes, my Hormidas,
Look up, and hope,

Horm.
In Heaven.

Theod.
No, Royal Mourner,
Earth must not lose thee yet. Oh, I have form'd
Such a design to save thee.
I'le sound the drowing Deep in which thou 'rt swallow'd,
Hoist thy sunk Glories, and weigh up thy Ruins.
I love thy beauteous Tyrant, sigh and dye
For the fair Infidel Orundana.

Horm.
Love her!
Yes, Prince, she is all Charm, born to warm Hearts,
Tho' like a Northern Blast she has kill'd mine.

Theod.
Her pitying and her Father's Listening Ear
Already have permitted me to Kneel.
And when I have married that too Cruel Fair,
Then do but think when Lodged in those soft Arms,
By the Authority of his Royal Son,
And her Commanding Lord, I shall have Pow'r
To serve so dear a Friend; what for thy sake—
Yes, t'Heaven and Friendship this just Debt I'le pay,
From out the bloody Paws to break thy way,
I'le wed the Tygress, and Redeem the Prey.

[Exeunt Theod. and Nearchus.
Enter Cleomira, in a Poor Slave-like Habit.
Horm.
My Cleomira! Art thou kindly come
To Visit Wretchedness; thou shining Cloud,
The Lovely sharer of my Woes?

Cleom.
No Sir, the Partner of your Joys. For Woe's
A Stranger in these Arms; my Love, my Soul
[Embracing.
My more than all.

Horm.
Thou Angel of thy kind.
For sure Seraphick Sweetness breath'd Life in thee,
And thou wert born all Paradice.

Cleom.
My Dear Love,
I do not come to visit thee alone:
I've brought my whole Court too. Come forth Celinda;
And thou Dear Infant pledge of our Chast Loves.

Enter Celinda leading an Infant.
Horm.
My little second Self, thou pretty Innocence,
Come to thy Father's Arms.

Cleom.
Of all those thousands,
The flattering Crouds that cluster'd round our Glory,
See here the scatter'd small Remains of Misery;
The poor dear All that's left.

Horm.
O thou young Martyr,
To what a train of Sorrows art thou born!
Thy Father's Wrongs ecclipse thy Morning Star,
And thou beginst an early Race of Woe.—
But oh thy bleeding Wounds, thy bitterer draught of Sorrow,
Poor pitied fair.

[to Cleom.
Cleom.
Oh do not pity me.
For I was born a Slave; And tho advanced
To thy Proud Royal Bed, born a poor Captive,
Obscure my Blood. And Sir, Alas, who knows
But I am now in these course homely Weeds
The very Wretch my Vassal Mother bore me!
But thou wert born a Prince, Power and Pride's Darling,
Rich hopes, and richer Veins; and fall'n so low!
Sure Pity's only thine.

Horm.
Ah no, thou all Divine! No false Accuser
Has stabb'd thy Fame; no Listning King has swallowed
Infusing Poysons 'gainst thy slander'd Virtue;
No Royal Thunder aims at thee; and my
Infectious Ruine to Involve thy Fate,
Is very hard.

Cleom.
Can any thing be hard when I have thy Love?

Horm.
But oh, my Fairest
Canst thou love Raggs!

Cleom.
Oh canst thou ask that Question!
Within this Dear Embrace, this more than Crowns:
[hanging about his Neck.
Now Lightning, Earthquakes, Death and Vengeance fall,
In these Dear Arms I'le singly stand 'em all.
Enter King, Orundana and Attendants.
Let Angry Kings, and frowning Worlds conspire,
Their utmost Rage is all but Love's refining Fire.

King.
And am I brav'd! Death! the Proud Slave's turn'd Cynick,
And does not feel my weight; proud of his Raggs,
Affects a vanity from Shame and Beggary,
Whilst his Diogenes out-prides his Alexander.
To water Camels, in that Post he courts
The Popular Eyes, and wantons in their Pity.
Take him away, and let him hold a Trencher;
A Ministring Vassal, and a Houshold Drudge
To his new Lord the great Otrantes; under
The same proud Roof where he suckt in Ambition,
Let him taste Slavery. Away with him.

Horm.
Sir you are my King, and when you speak, Heav'n dooms:
And I the humble work of your Creation,
What e're you will, I am—
Life of my Life,
[to Cleomira.
And thou young Innocence, if we ne're meet again
'Till beyond Death, for one short Glass, farewell.

Cleom.
Dearer than Joy, and more than Love farewell.

[Exit Hormidas.
King.
Am I so weak! no, thou shalt feel me Slave;
Take that young Darling of his Love, and send him
A present to the Sarasens.

[Some of the Attendants Seize on the Child.
Cleom.
How King?

King.
Take him away, and bid those kind Barbarians
Nurse him a Slave; I'le have no more o'th'Breed.

Cleom.
Oh Cruel King!
[Kneeling
Stay ye black Limbs of Vengeance!
Oh my Dread Lord—

[Catching hold of the Kings Robe
King.
Away, I'le hear no more

[Exeunt, King, Attendants and Infant.
Cleom.
Stay, Orundana stay, thou art a Woman,
That tender Sex where Native Mercy dwells.
Tho pitiless Man is Deaf, thou wilt be kind,
And hear my Pleading Groans.

Orund.
Yes, suffering Virtue
Thy sullen Fortune, and the louring Cloud
That breaks o're that fair Brow, falls so severe,
As I must pity thee.

Cleom.
If the poor Mother's Wounds can move Compassion,
Why that Dear Infant's Doom?

Orund.
Alas young Sufferer,
The Guilty Fathers Fate hangs o're his Head.

Cleom.
The Guilty Father! does that name condemn him?
Oh were the Father that black thing you think him,
What has the Infant sinn'd! And is this Justice,
To wrong poor Innocence to punish Guilt?
Oh Princess, they are very hungry Hunters
That thirst for such young Prey.

Orund.
I must confess
This Infant Sacrifice—

Cleom.
Is that Barbarity
As blushing Fame will break her very Trump
To breath a sound so shameful? Distant Worlds
And Ages yet unborn will hear, and tremble
At this Recorded Infamy.

Orund
Gods! how she talks!

Cleom.
But, oh thou dear All-Goodness, send thy kind
Recalling Mandat for that ravisht Innocence;
Snatch the Poor Lamb from the Wild Ravenous Wolves,
And give him to a Longing Mothers Arms.
Oh Royal Virgin, Love will one day make
Thee a blest Mother too, and then thou'lt feel
A Tender Mother's Love.

Orund.
Where am I going?
Oh let me fly, fly whilst my Soul stands safe;
[Aside.
I feel a softning Mercy rise within me:
Thro my weak Veins its spreading Poysons Post,
One dangerous Minute more, and I am lost.

[Exit.
Cleom.
And does she fly me too? Oh take Dear Earth
[Lyes down.
The Miserablest Wretch, that the Sun sees,
Or the Grave hides! Oh Misery like mine!

Enter King, Otrantes, and Magi.
King.
Thou loveliest Child of Woe, and Heir of Pity,
The Fairest Pile of Beauteous Ruins, rise.

Cleom.
Ha! Is't my King that speaks? and can that Voice
Of Thunder breath the Gentle Name of Pity?

King.
Yes, Mourning Sweetness, my Imperial Ballance
Has weighed thy Miseries, thy Tears, thy Ruines;
And tho Hormidas justly suffers—

Cleom.
Justly!

King.
Thy Innocence, poor persecuted Fair,
Has undeserv'd his Fate, and therefore summon'd
By Mercies tenderest Call I come to raise thee
A Drooping Lilly from thy Watry Bed,
Thy Gloomy Shade of Death; and Plant thee Blest
In Life and Glories warmer Smiling Sun.

Cleom.
No King, that smiling Sun is now
Beyond thy Power to give. Is there a Balm
For Wounds like mine?—So the relenting Thief
Rifles the Plunder'd Traveller, stript naked
To the cold Blast of a long Winter's Night,
To starve and dye; and his Dear All took from him,
Returns him only some poor worthless Ragg
To cover Shame and Life; and calls it Mercy.

King.
Dear Rifled Fair, thou art that plunder'd Traveller,
And I the Kinder Thief, as will not only
Restore thee thy Dear All, but more than all.

Cleom.
What says the flattering Sound!

King.
I come to call thee
Forth from thy dark and sullen fate; root up
Those hungry Cankers of thy Youth and Beauty,
Lean Cares and meager Sorrows; To unloose thee
From fall'n Hormidas dragging Train of Woes,
And in the Great Otrantes kinder Arms—

Cleom.
O my chaste Ears!

King.
Invite thee to revisit Light, prepare thee
To mount once more a Bird of Paradice,
New plumed with Glories, all that Life and Love—

Cleom.
How King, desert the Bed of my dear Lord,
And in his Arms—

King.
His Arms my Royal Fair.
Alas, Dear Shrowded Excellence, put out
Thy poorer Smoky Brand that leads to Graves,
And light a Nobler Hymens fairer Torch.
Wed him, and with him me; shake off those Shackles
That Bind thee groveling to a Bed of Dust,
And in this Livelyer Bed of Honour—

Cleom.
Honour!

King.
Otrantes happier Arms—

Cleom.
Oh King, no more.
Is this the All, the more than all you bring me?
Think'st thou mistaken King, I am faln so low,
That for the purchase of a Lifes short Vanity,
A little popular Breath and guilded Dross,
I'le pawn a Soul, renounce a long Eternity;
Oh canst thou think my Vertue and Religion,
W'all in my heart so weak! No; cou'dst thou mount
That wretch thou offer'st me (oh the vile thought)
Lord of more Worlds than e're Ambition wept for,
Or cloyster'd Vertue scorn'd, thou coudst not dress him
Half, half so rich, as my Hormida's Rags.

Otrant.
Alas! Dear Madam—

Cleom.
Dungeon Toad, darst thou
Presume to croak! Thou art no King; no dread
Divinity hems round thy sordid Clod
Of Earth: But I dare boldly tell thee, Tyrant,
Thou poorest, littlest, despicablest Trifle
That trampling Pride e're trod beneath her scorn,
Tho thy usurping Villany has rais'd thee
Proud in my dear Hormidas ravisht Spoils,
Imp'd with his Plumes—Yes, there thou mayst reign Lord;
But know vain Fool, his Cleomira's Heart's
A Throne above thee, Traytor.

[Exit.
King.
Peevish obstinate!
So deaf t'Ambition, and so fond of Rags,
And yet a Woman! Well, thy Sexes Prodigy,
This Vertue, my coy Lucrece, shall not guard thee;
Thy Crags of Ice, and all thy Alpine Snow,
By Hannibal, must melt. Pursue her, Fool,
[To Otrantes.
Quit not the noble siege; pursue and storm her,
And take the promise of a King, she's thine.

Otrant.
That Guarranty 's enough to inspire Victory.
And if I win her—

King.
If thou dost not win her,
Say I'm a Girl, and my weak Infant Vengeance
More worthy of a Rattle than a Scepter.

Otrant.
Gain but this prize, ye Gods, I ask no more.

[Exit.
King.
Well, my kind Sanctity, how does your Wisdoms
[To th' Magi.
Your Heav'nly Pallates relish my design?

1 Mag.
As the profoundest Reach of Royal Thought.
Your feeble Rage till now has been no more
Than Lambent Fire; has only blaz'd, not burn'd.
To water Camels, hold a Trencher, be
A Dog, a Varlet; those his tougher scorn
Of Fate can bear. But touch him in his Love,
That Vital of his Soul, his Cleomira—

King.
Thou hast me right. My impotent Revenge,
Has yet but only play'd;
But if this last home Blow thro' Cleomira
Strike him not tottering, groaning, bleeding, dying,
Let him brave Fate; set up a Counter second
To the fam'd Atlas, and his untir'd Souldiers
Bear the whole Hell.

2 Mag.
True, Sir, her Love's the Medicine
To all his Pains; at the least sickning Gasp
Strait to that Herb of Life he runs for Cure:
But cut the Balm-Root up, and he is lost.

3. Mag.
Yes, Royal Sir, and if her stubborn Vertue
Can be but shaken—

King.
If it can be shaken!
A Priest, and ask that question!
But I lose time, in short, my holy Friends,
I want your Learned help.

1 Mag.
Ours, my dread Leige!
Oh name the Dear Command.

King.
You see this dull
Religious fondling stands so fortified
Against all Batteries from Human Reason,
That subtler Depths, and more uncommon Mines
Must be prepared for her Assault; and therefore
To your profounder Reach, and deeper Studies
I leave the whole design.

1 Mag.
To ours!

King.
To yours,
My honest Pioneers: Work, my dear Earthmoles.

2. Mag.
All our divine Assistance can perform
Of that, Sir, rest secure. If the kind Gods
On your great purpose smile, doubt not success.

King.
If the kind Gods—What if the Gods stand neuter,
Must my Machine stand still? The time has been
When the fam'd Persian Magi have been Masters
Of those bold Arts, and Charms have stagger'd Nature;
Wrought Wonders as Day, trembled at: Done feats
Undreamt by Gods. And is your Strentgh grown weaker,
Or shrinks it now t'obey my Pleasure?

1 Mag.
Shrinks!
No, Sir, your animating Cause wou'd rouze
The Souls of our great Ancestors. And all,
All that Heav'n will, we can. That we dare promise you.

King.
Heav'n or no Heav'n, my idle Trifflers, do 't,
Do it or dye. I know your Pow'r to serve me.
And dare your Rebel Will dispute my Mandates!

1 Mag.
Heav'n or no Heav'n then, Sir, it shall be done.
If the Gods will be kind, they may; if not,
If the assisting Powers above are sturdy,
We have honest Friends below shall do't without 'em.

King.
Go on then my best Friends; succeed and claim
My kindest smiles, win her and conquer me.

[Exit.
3 Mag.
Do it or dye.

1 Mag.
So run the Prologue, but
Win her and conquer him made up the Chorus.

3 Mag.
But Sir, consider th'hardy Enterprize.

1 Mag.
Consider, Younger Brother! yes, dear Novice,
I have considered.

3 Mag.
Oh the massey Vertue!
The Rock of Adamant we have to storm:
Such mortified disdain of Worlds, such Faith,
Such Constancy.

1 Mag.
No Fool, such Clay, soft Clay,
As never fear the moulding. See this Ring,
[Taking out a Ring out of a Box]
This homely Ring enricht with more than Gems
The Workmanship of an Arabian Sorcerer.
In this inchanted Circle dance those Devils
Of Love; not Pride, Scorn, Vertue, Nuptial Fire
Or Virgin Ice, nought Female stands before it.
This Rarity of Art (to tell the Truth)
Is a small Instrument of my own pleasures.

2 Mag.
Just my own Tool.

1 Mag.
And to be free, my Brothers,
I never saw that Beauty, Wife, Maid, Widow
Humbly or nobly born, the Spawn of Cots
Or Palaces my hawking Eye ere fixt on,
But with this faithful Engine I subdued her.
Not the fond Loadstone t'its dear North so kind
So melting kind—Pardon my Vow of Chastity,
For Flesh and Blood in spight of our Divinity,
Sometime creeps in, a common Venial Frailty.

2 Mag.
Oh Brother!
Thou hast hit my Soul, I have a Philter too
A private Pill for crude, weak stomach'd Beauty.
A Compound of that strange prodigious Vertue,
That more than Magick Power, that yielding Woman,—
But I talk time away; the pretious Minutes
Call us to action. Our joyn'd Force, my Brother,
T'attack this stubborn Girl.

1 Mag.
Yes, my coy Vertue;
Religion and stiff Morals hold your toughest;
And if we do not crak your feeble Gordian—

3 Mag.
But if so fair your hopes; so sure your Arts;
Why that slow Answer to the King?

1 Mag.
Fy; Fool.
We must not cheapen Mischief. T'have been easy
Had underpriz'd the Work, and made Art little.
But the Projection calls, we must make haste;
The Coals, the Fire, the Bellows, and the Minerals,
And then the great Elixir.

[Exeunt.
The Scene changes. Enter Cleomira pursued by Otrantes.
Cleom.
Was ever persecuted Vertue
Worried by such a Bloodhound!

Otrant.
In vain, in vain you fly me.

Cleom.
Fly thee Monster!

Otrant.
I tell thee lovely fugitive, I'le chace thee
Disdaining, frowning, flying; and untired
With Love hunt on, and even whole years pursue thee.

Cleom.
Years! is that all, yes Slave, pursue me Ages,
I'd have a long Eternity a Witness,
How I can loath a Villain.

Otrant.
Fair Barbarian,
Why is thy Heatt all Ice?

Cleom.
Ice Fool, No; 'tis all Chrystal
Too pure to hold thy Poysons.

Otrant.
Cruel Fair,
Cou'dst thou but love.

Cleom.
Love thee, black Infidel!
No; despicable Wretch, not pamper'd Beauty
Bears a more mortal hate to wrinkled Age,
Nor hoarding Misers to a Grave, than I
Bear thee.

Otrant.
If I've deserved all this disdain,
I'll call th'attesting World my Judge, i'th'Face
Of open day, proclaim th'inviting Glories
That call thee to my Arms, thou Fair ungrateful.

Cleom.
In open day—Thou canst not please me better
Yes, in the face of Heav'n, that all the whole
Eternal Host above may stand the kind
Spectators of my Honour and thy Shame.
Nay, when thou hast tir'd out Light and Day to chace me,
Haunt me (if possible) to Shades so close;
And Walks so dark, as Hell can only peep through.
Oh the sweet pleasure t'have thy own dear grinning Imps
Behold me scorn their Elder Brother Devil.

[Exit.
Otrant.
So tough my Pride, so fierce my battayling Tyrant?
No my fair Foe, I am not conqurer'd yet;
I'le rally once again and brave thy scorn.

[As going after her:
Enter Hormidas.
Horm.
Stay Earth-born Meteor, Mushroom Greatness stay.

Otrant.
That Interrupting Face!

Horm.
How Interrupting!
Is there that Terror in this humble Form,
Thy Pride's low Footstool and thy trampled Slave,
As can check Thee? Thou whose proud Phaeton Wheels
Have driven or'e burning Temples, butchered Innocents,
The reeking gore of thousand bleeding Martyrs?

Otrant.
Ha!

Horm.
Thou who Faith, Honour, Vertue, Conscience, Heav'n
And all its Bolts defyed, hast play'd the boldest Voyager,
That ever shot Ambition's darkest Gulph,
Through Plots, Conspiracies, Treasons, Murders, Perjuries, all
Above Gigantick Size;
Original Villany, Crimes even unminted,
In the whole Forge of Lucifer.

Otrant.
I tell thee,
Thy Breath's too sultry, and this haughty Boldness—

Horm.
This Truth, this honest Truth, your Glories Panegyrick,
And sung by me, my Duty and Allegiance.
What can your humblest flattering Slave do less,
Than chant his Lord and Master's Io Pœans?

Otrant.
Such Insolence from any other Tongue—
But I forget—I mount upon thy Ruines;
And talking Misery, I can forgive thee.

Horm.
Ruine and Misery! No, mistaken Fool,
Those are thy Portion—Dull, dull Wretch how much
My Rags outshine thy Pride? These pitied Raggs
Shall cloath my Name with never dying Honours,
When thine shall rust and canker into Poyson;
The short liv'd Blaze of thy detested Glories
Hist to their Grave, and hooted from the World.
And then (Oh) what a little tarnisht thing
Will that now glittering piece of Vanity look,
When all 'its Gold's washt off!

Otrant.
Poor Snarler, how
Thou play'st the Prodigal! thy Breath is all
That's left thee, and even that thou spend'st in vain:
I'le hear thy babling Dreams no more.

Horm.
Not hear 'em!
No, thou hast dreamings of thy own to listen to,
Thy consummating Master stroke of Villany;
Thy Tarquin Siege of Cleomira's Heart;
The Bloudhound Chace of that fair hunted Vertue.

Otrant.
Thy Cleomira's Heart, Ha! does that shake thee!

Horm.
Dost thou shake her 's the Question? Shake me, Brute!
No, thou poor little stingless Animal,
Mine and my Cleomira's equal Scorn—
But stay, perhaps thou lovest—Who knows but a bright Beam
From that fair Heav'n has light this Crawling Mud,
And warm'd it into Love?
Love did I say? thou couldst not please me more.
Pursue, love on, strow all thy Baits of Power
Before her: Fix thy Mines, Trains, Engins, all
Thy planted Batteries of Hell against her;
Of all the Trophies that my Wrongs, and even
Her Pride can wish, she wants but such a Lover,
And I just such a Rival.

Otrant.
Death and Furies!
This arrogant Contempt's beyond all sufferance.
But that the King has tyed my Arm from killing thee
Thou soon shouldst know—

[Laying his Hand on his Sword.
Horm.
That thou'rt not he can kill me.

Otrant.
Can kill thee!

Horm.
Yes, mighty man of Breath;
This unarm'd Hand my Feeble Thunderer tells thee,
Though thy black Soul wears Villain enough about thee
To wish my Death, yet thou want'st Man to act it.

Otrant.
Oh my tyred Patience! I can hold no longer:
To make thee feel my keener Vengeance smart,
I'le stab thee through thy Cleomira's Heart.

[Exit.
Horm.
Not yet unpitying Providence! And (oh)
Coy Death, why comes thy courted shaft so slow?
Not one kind Dart for thy poor Suppliant Slave?
Is it so long a Voyage to a Grave!

Enter Theodosius.
Theod.
What have my Eyes beheld? Oh my Hormidas!
If my astonishment has left a Tongue
To utter it, I come to tell thee Prodigies.

Horm.
Alas dear Prince, Lust and unreign'd Ambition,
Drive the mad World at that disordered Rate,
That Prodigies now grown the Common Work
Of every Day, must sure have lost their Name.

Theod.
As on Euphrates Banks my Pensive sorrow
For the poor bleeding Christian Wounds, and all
My dear Hormidas Wrongs led me this morning
A Melancholly Walk; brush from a Thicket
I saw a Lovely Hind, her Milk-white Skin
Not Virgin Snow more fair, till in a Toyle
The beauteous Fugitive was lost. But oh!
Just as the Savage Hunter's Griping Hand
Seiz'd the fair Prey, I saw, to my Confusion,
Her Ermine-White Transformed all of a suddain
In darkest Sable dyed, not Jet more black.

Horm.
This was Indeed Prodigious!

Theod.
So Prodigious,
The very Hunter sunk beneath the Prey,
And dying fell a Victim to a Victim;
Even my own sense was struck with that amazement,
As scarce my trembling Wonder has recovered.

Horm.
This Prodigy indeed is more than Wondrous,
And carries in't no doubt some dire Portent.
But what—the Event alone must only Tell.
Alas the Bounded Eye of Human Knowledge
Sees only backwards; there through spacious Regions
Vast open Plains, and Thousand Years behind,
Our Guided Reason lights; but the vast All
Before us lends not one kind Starry Spark;
One Minute of to Morrow's all i'th Dark.

Theod.
But hark.
[Thunders.
So loud a Storm my Young Ears never heard,
Unless these Roarers of the Sky are only
The Revellers of Heaven, and Tune for Pleasure;
Some more than Common Cause leads this rough Dance.

Horm.
Tis a rough Storm indeed; but th'angry blast
Of Thunder let the Prosperous Guilty dread.
My Miseries, young Prince, are past that fear,
Heavens keenest Boult would be a Mercy here.

[Exeunt.