University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Sophonisba, Phoenissa, and to them a Messenger from the Battle.
Sophonisba.
Ha! Whence art thou? Speak, tho' thy bleeding wounds
Might well excuse thy tongue.

Messenger.
Madam escap'd,
With much ado, from yon wide death—

Sophonisba.
No more.
At once thy meaning flashes o'er my soul.
Oh all my vanish'd hopes! repairless chance
Of undiscerning war!—And is all lost?
An universal havock?

Messenger.
Madam, all.
For scarce a Masæsylian, save my self,
But is or seiz'd, or bites the bloody plain.
The King—

Sophonisba.
Ah! what of him?

Messenger.
His fiery steed,
By Masinissa, the Massylian prince,
Pierc'd, threw him headlong to his clustering foes;
And now he comes in chains.

Sophonisba.
'Tis wond'rous fit,
Absolute gods! All Afric is in chains!
The weeping world in chains!—Oh is there not
A time, a righteous time, reserv'd in fate,
When these oppressors of mankind shall feel
The miseries they give; and blindly fight
For their own fetters too?—The conquering troops,
How points their motion?

Messenger.
At my heels they came,
Loud-shouting, dreadful, in a cloud of dust,
By Masinissa headed.

Sophonisba.