 | The tragedy of Sophonisba |  |
SCENE II.
Scipio, Masinissa.Masinissa.
Scipio! more welcome than my tongue can speak!
Oh greatly, dearly welcome!
Scipio.
Masinissa!
My heart beats back thy joy.—A happy friend,
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Rais'd by his prudence, fortitude, and valour,
O'er all his foes; and on his native throne,
Amidst his rescu'd shouting subjects, set:
Say, can the gods in lavish bounty give
A sight more pleasing?
Masinsssa.
My great friend! and patron!
It was thy timely thy restoring arm,
That brought me from the fearful desart-life;
To live again in state, and purple splendor.
And now I wield the sceptre of my fathers,
See my dear people from the tyrant's scourge,
From Syphax freed; I hear their glad applauses;
And, to compleat my happiness, have gain'd
A friend worth all. O gratitude, esteem,
And love like mine, with what divine delight
Ye fill the heart!
Scipio.
Heroic youth! thy virtue
Has earn'd whate'er thy fortune can bestow.
It was thy patience, Masinissa, patience,
A champion clad in steel, that in the waste
Attended still thy step, and sav'd my friend
For better days. What cannot patience do?
A great design is seldom snatch'd at once;
'Tis patience heaves it on. From savage nature,
'Tis patience that has built up human life,
The nurse of arts! and Rome exalts her head
An everlasting monument of patience.
Masinissa.
If I have that, or any virtue, Scipio,
'Tis copy'd all from thee.
Scipio.
No Masinissa,
'Tis all unborrow'd, the spontaneous growth
Of nature in thy breast.—Friendship for once
Must, tho' thou blushest, wear a liberal tongue;
Must tell thee, noble youth, that long experience,
In councils, battles, many a hard event,
Has found thee still so constant, so sincere,
So wise, so brave, so generous, so humane,
So well attemper'd, and so fitly turn'd
For what is either great or good in life,
As casts distinguish'd honour on thy country;
And cannot but endear thee to the Romans.
For me, I think my labours all repaid,
My wars in Afric. Masinissa's friendship
Smiles at my soul. Be that my dearest triumph,
To have assisted thy forlorn estate,
And lent a happy hand in raising thee
To thy paternal throne, usurp'd by Syphax.
The greatest service could be done my country,
Distracted Afric, and Mankind in general,
Was aiding sure thy cause. To put the power,
The public power, into the good man's hand,
Is giving plenty, life, and joy to millions.
'Tis all unborrow'd, the spontaneous growth
Of nature in thy breast.—Friendship for once
Must, tho' thou blushest, wear a liberal tongue;
Must tell thee, noble youth, that long experience,
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Has found thee still so constant, so sincere,
So wise, so brave, so generous, so humane,
So well attemper'd, and so fitly turn'd
For what is either great or good in life,
As casts distinguish'd honour on thy country;
And cannot but endear thee to the Romans.
For me, I think my labours all repaid,
My wars in Afric. Masinissa's friendship
Smiles at my soul. Be that my dearest triumph,
To have assisted thy forlorn estate,
And lent a happy hand in raising thee
To thy paternal throne, usurp'd by Syphax.
The greatest service could be done my country,
Distracted Afric, and Mankind in general,
Was aiding sure thy cause. To put the power,
The public power, into the good man's hand,
Is giving plenty, life, and joy to millions.
But has my friend, since late we parted armies;
Since he with Lælius acted such a brave,
Auspicious part against the common foe;
Has he been blameless quite? has he consider'd,
How pleasure often on the youthful heart,
Beneath the rosy soft disguise of love;
(All sweetness, smiles, and seeming innocence)
Steals unperceiv'd, and lays the victor low?
I would not, cannot, put thee to the pain—
—It pains me deeper—of the least reproach.—
Let thy too faithful memory supply
The rest.
(Pausing)
Since he with Lælius acted such a brave,
Auspicious part against the common foe;
Has he been blameless quite? has he consider'd,
How pleasure often on the youthful heart,
Beneath the rosy soft disguise of love;
(All sweetness, smiles, and seeming innocence)
Steals unperceiv'd, and lays the victor low?
I would not, cannot, put thee to the pain—
—It pains me deeper—of the least reproach.—
Let thy too faithful memory supply
The rest.
Thy silence, that dejected look,
That honest colour flushing o'er thy cheek,
Impart thy better soul.
That honest colour flushing o'er thy cheek,
Impart thy better soul.
Masinissa.
Oh my good lord!
Oh Scipio! Love has seiz'd me, tyrant love
Inthralls my soul. I am undone by love!
Scipio.
And art thou then to ruin reconcil'd?
Tam'd to destruction? Wilt thou be undone?
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With future glories big? the warriour's wreathe?
The glittering files? the trumpets sprightly clang?
The praise of senates? an applauding world?
The patriot's statue, and the heroes triumph?
All for a sigh? all for a soft embrace?
For a gay transient fancy, Masinissa?
For shame, my friend! for honour's sake, for glory!
Sit not with folded arms, despairing, weak,
And careless all, till certain ruin comes:
Like a sick virgin sighing to the gale,
Unconquerable love!
Masinissa.
How chang'd indeed!
The time has been, when, fir'd from Scipio's tongue,
My soul had mounted in a flame with his.—
Where is ambition flown? Hopeless attempt!
Can love like mine be quell'd? Can I forget
What still possesses, charms my thoughts for ever
Throw scornful from me what I hold most dear?
Not feel the force of excellence? To joy
Be dead? And undelighted with delight?
Soft, let me think a moment—no! no! no!—
I am unequal to thy virtue, Scipio!
Scipio.
Fie, Masinissa, fie! By heavens! I blush
At thy dejection, this degenerate language.
What! perish for a woman! Ruin all,
All the fair deeds which an admiring world
Hopes from thy rising day; only to sooth
A stubborn fancy, a luxurious will?
At thy dejection, this degenerate language.
What! perish for a woman! Ruin all,
All the fair deeds which an admiring world
Hopes from thy rising day; only to sooth
A stubborn fancy, a luxurious will?
How must it, think you, found in future story?
Young Masinissa was a virtuous prince,
And Afric smil'd beneath his early ray;
But that a Carthaginian captive came,
By whom untimely in the common fate
Of love he fell. The wise will scorn the page.
And all thy praise be some fond maid exclaiming,
Where are those lovers now?—O rather, rather,
Had I ne'er seen the vital light of heaven,
Than like the vulgar live, and like them die!
Ambition sickens at the very thought.—
To puff, and bustle here from day to day,
Lost in the passions of inglorious life,
Joys which the careless brutes possess above us.
And when some years, each duller than another,
Are thus elaps'd, in nauseous pangs to die;
And pass away, like those forgotten things,
That soon become as they had never been.
Young Masinissa was a virtuous prince,
And Afric smil'd beneath his early ray;
But that a Carthaginian captive came,
By whom untimely in the common fate
Of love he fell. The wise will scorn the page.
And all thy praise be some fond maid exclaiming,
Where are those lovers now?—O rather, rather,
Had I ne'er seen the vital light of heaven,
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Ambition sickens at the very thought.—
To puff, and bustle here from day to day,
Lost in the passions of inglorious life,
Joys which the careless brutes possess above us.
And when some years, each duller than another,
Are thus elaps'd, in nauseous pangs to die;
And pass away, like those forgotten things,
That soon become as they had never been.
Masinissa.
And am I dead to this?
Scipio.
The gods, young man,
Who train up heroes in misfortune's school,
Have shook thee with adversity, with each
Illustrious evil, that can raise, expand,
And fortify the mind. Thy rooted worth
Has stood these wintry blasts, grown stronger by them.
Shall then in prosperous times, while all is mild,
All vernal, fair; and glory blows around thee;
Shall then the dead Serene of pleasure come,
And lay thy faded honours in the dust?
Masinissa.
O gentle Scipio! spare me, spare my weakness.
Scipio.
Remember Hannibal—A signal proof,
A fresh example of destructive pleasure.
He was the dread of nations, once of Rome!
When from Bellona's bosom, nurs'd in camps,
And hard with toil, he down the rugged Alps
Rush'd in a torrent over Italy;
Unconquer'd, till the loose delights of Capua
Sunk his victorious arm, his genius broke,
Perfum'd, and made a lover of the heroe.
And now he droops in Bruttium, fear'd no more,
Sinks on our borders like a scatter'd storm.
Remember him; and yet resume thy spirit,
Ere it is quite dissolv'd.
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Shall Scipio stoop,
Thus to regard, to teach me wisdom thus;
And yet a stupid anguish at my heart
Repel whate'er he says?—But why, my lord,
Why should we kill the best of passions, love?
It aids the heroe, bids ambition rise,
Turns us to please, inspires immortal deeds,
Even softens brutes, and makes the good more good.
Scipio.
There is a holy tenderness indeed,
A nameless sympathy, a fountain-love;
Branch'd infinite from parents to their children,
From child to child, from kindred on to kindred,
In various streams, from citizen to citizen,
From friend to friend, from man to man in general;
That binds, supports, and sweetens human life.
But is thy passion such?—List, Masinissa,
While I the hardest office of a friend
Discharge; and, with a necessary hand,
A hand tho' harsh at present really tender,
I paint this passion. And if then thou still
Art bent to sooth it, I must sighing leave thee,
To what the Gods think fit.
Masinissa.
O never, Scipio!
O never leave me to my self! Speak on.
I dread, and yet desire thy friendly hand.
Scipio.
I hope that Masinissa need not now
Be told, how much his happiness is mine;
With what a warm benevolence I'd spring
To raise, confirm it, to prevent his wishes.
O luxury to think!—But while he rages,
Burns in a fever, shall I let him quaff
Delicious poison for a cooling draught,
In foolish pity to his thirst? shall I
Let a swift flame consume him as he sleeps,
Because his dreams are gay? shall I indulge
A frenzy flash'd from an infectious eye?
A sudden impulse unapprov'd by reason?
Nay by thy cool deliberate thought condemn'd?
Resolv'd against?—A passion for a woman,
Who has abus'd thee basely? left thy youth,
Thy love as sweet as tender as the spring,
The blooming heroe for the hoary tyrant?
And now who makes thy sheltering arms alone
Her last retreat, to save her from the vengeance,
Which even her very perfidy to thee
Has brought upon her head?—Nor is this all.—
A woman who will ply her deepest arts,
(Ah too prevailing, as appears already)
Will never rest, till Syphax' fate is thine;
Till friendship weeping flies; we join no more
In glorious deeds, and thou fall off from Rome?
I too could add, that there is something mean,
Inhuman in thy passion. Does not Syphax,
While thou rejoicest, die? The generous heart
Should scorn a pleasure which gives others pain.
Be told, how much his happiness is mine;
With what a warm benevolence I'd spring
To raise, confirm it, to prevent his wishes.
O luxury to think!—But while he rages,
Burns in a fever, shall I let him quaff
Delicious poison for a cooling draught,
In foolish pity to his thirst? shall I
Let a swift flame consume him as he sleeps,
Because his dreams are gay? shall I indulge
A frenzy flash'd from an infectious eye?
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Nay by thy cool deliberate thought condemn'd?
Resolv'd against?—A passion for a woman,
Who has abus'd thee basely? left thy youth,
Thy love as sweet as tender as the spring,
The blooming heroe for the hoary tyrant?
And now who makes thy sheltering arms alone
Her last retreat, to save her from the vengeance,
Which even her very perfidy to thee
Has brought upon her head?—Nor is this all.—
A woman who will ply her deepest arts,
(Ah too prevailing, as appears already)
Will never rest, till Syphax' fate is thine;
Till friendship weeping flies; we join no more
In glorious deeds, and thou fall off from Rome?
I too could add, that there is something mean,
Inhuman in thy passion. Does not Syphax,
While thou rejoicest, die? The generous heart
Should scorn a pleasure which gives others pain.
If this, my friend, all this consider'd deep,
Allarm thee not, not rouze thy resolution,
And call the heroe from his wanton slumber,
Then Masinissa's lost.
Allarm thee not, not rouze thy resolution,
And call the heroe from his wanton slumber,
Then Masinissa's lost.
Masinissa.
Oh, I am pierc'd!
In every thought am pierc'd! 'Tis all too true.—
I wish I could refuse it.—Whither, whither,
Thro' what inchanted wilds have I been wandering?
They seem'd Elysium, the delightful plains,
The happy groves of heroes and of lovers:
But the divinity that breathes in thee
Has broke the charm, and I am in a desart;
Far from the land of peace. It was but lately
That a pure joyous calm o'erspread my soul,
And reason tun'd my passions into bliss;
When love came hurrying in, and with rash hand,
Mix'd them delirious, till they now ferment
To misery.—There is no reasoning down
This deep, deep anguish! this continual pang!
A thousand things! whene'er my raptur'd thought
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And yet I must—Oh Gods! that I could lose
What a fond few hours memory has grav'd
On adamant.
Scipio.
But one strong effort more,
And the fair field is thine—A conquest far
Excelling that o'er Syphax. What remains,
Since now thy madness to thy self appears,
But an immediate manly resolution,
To shake off this effeminate disease;
These soft ideas, which seduce thy soul,
Make it all idle, unaspiring, weak,
A scene of dreams; to puff them to the winds,
And be my former friend, thy self again?
And the fair field is thine—A conquest far
Excelling that o'er Syphax. What remains,
Since now thy madness to thy self appears,
But an immediate manly resolution,
To shake off this effeminate disease;
These soft ideas, which seduce thy soul,
Make it all idle, unaspiring, weak,
A scene of dreams; to puff them to the winds,
And be my former friend, thy self again?
I joy to find thee touch'd by generous motives;
And that I need not bid thee recollect,
Whose awful property thou hast usurp'd;
Need not assure thee, that the Roman people,
The senators of Rome, will never suffer
A dangerous woman, their devoted foe,
A woman, whose irrefragable spirit
Has in great part sustain'd this bloody war,
Whose charms corrupted Syphax from their side,
And fir'd embattled nations into rage;
Will never suffer her, when gain'd so dear,
To ruin thee too, taint thy faithful breast,
And kindle future war. No, fate it self
Is not more steady to the right than they.
And, where the public good but seems concern'd,
No motive their impenetrable hearts,
Nor fear nor tenderness, can touch: such is
The spirit, that has rais'd Imperial Rome.
And that I need not bid thee recollect,
Whose awful property thou hast usurp'd;
Need not assure thee, that the Roman people,
The senators of Rome, will never suffer
A dangerous woman, their devoted foe,
A woman, whose irrefragable spirit
Has in great part sustain'd this bloody war,
Whose charms corrupted Syphax from their side,
And fir'd embattled nations into rage;
Will never suffer her, when gain'd so dear,
To ruin thee too, taint thy faithful breast,
And kindle future war. No, fate it self
Is not more steady to the right than they.
And, where the public good but seems concern'd,
No motive their impenetrable hearts,
Nor fear nor tenderness, can touch: such is
The spirit, that has rais'd Imperial Rome.
Masinissa.
Ah killing truth!—But I have promis'd, Scipio!
Have sworn to save her from the Roman power.
My plighted faith is pass'd, my hand is given.
And, by the conscious gods! who mark'd my vows,
The whole united world shall never have her.
For I will die a thousand thousand deaths,
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Ere to the lowest wretch, much more to her
I love, to Sophonisba, to my queen,
I violate my word.
Scipio.
My heart approves
The resolution, thy determin'd honour.
For ever sacred be thy word, and oath.
Virtue by virtue will alone be clear'd,
And scorns the crooked methods of dishonour.
But, thus divided, how to keep thy faith
At once to Rome and Sophonisba; how
To save her from our chains, and yet thyself
From greater bondage; this thy secret thought
Can best inform thee.
Masinissa.
Agony! Distraction!
These wilful tears!—O look not on me, Scipio!
For I'm a child again.
Scipio.
Thy tears are no reproach.
Tears oft look graceful on the manly cheek.
The Cruel cannot weep. Even Friendship's eye
Gives thee the drop it would refuse itself.
I know 'tis hard, wounds every bleeding nerve
About thy heart, thus to tear off thy passion.
But for that very reason, Masinissa,
'Tis hop'd from thee. The harder, thence results
The greater glory.—Why should we pretend
To conquer, rule mankind, be first in power,
In great assemblies, honour, place, and pleasure,
While slaves at heart? while by fantastick turns
Our frantic passions rage? The very thought
Should turn our pomp to shame, our sweet to bitter;
And, when the shouts of millions meet our ears,
Whisper reproach.—O ye celestial powers!
What is it, in a torrent of success,
To bear down nations, and o'erflow the world?
All your peculiar favour. Real glory
Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves;
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Save the first slave.—Then rouze thee, Masinissa!
Nor in one weakness all thy virtues lose;
And oh beware of long, of vain repentance!
Masinissa.
Well, well! no more.—It is but dying too!
| The tragedy of Sophonisba | |