 | The Self-Tormentor |  |
SCENE III.
Enter BACCHIS, and ANTIPHILA at a distance.Bacch.
Well, I commend you, my Antiphila:
Happy, that you have made it still your care,
That virtue should seem fair as beauty in you!
Nor, gracious Heav'n so help me, do I wonder
If ev'ry man should wish you for his own;
For your discourse bespeaks a worthy mind.
And when I ponder with myself, and weigh
Your course of life, and all the rest of those
Who live not on the common, 'tis not strange,
Your morals should be different from our's.
Forbid it to be our's: For our gallants,
Charm'd by our beauty, court us but for That;
Which fading, they transfer their love to others.
If then meanwhile we look not to ourselves,
We live forlorn, deserted, and distrest.
You, when you've once agreed to pass your life
Bound to one man, whose temper suits with your's,
He too attaches his whole heart to you:
Thus mutual friendship draws you each to each;
Nothing can part you, nothing shake your love.
Anti.
I know not others; for myself I know,
From his content I ever drew my own.
Clin.
(apart.) overhearing.]
Excellent maid! my best Antiphila!
Thou too, thy love alone is now the cause
That brings me to my native land again.
For when away, all evils else were light
Compar'd to wanting thee.
Syrus.
(apart.)
I do believe it.
Clin.
(apart.)
O Syrus, 'tis too much: I cannot bear it.
To give a loose to love, a love like this?
Syrus.
(apart.)
And yet if I may judge your father's mind,
He has more troubles yet in store for you.
Bacch.
Who is that youth that eyes us?
[seeing Clinia.
Anti.
Ha! [seeing him.]
—Support me!
Bacch.
Bless me, what now?
Anti.
I faint.
Bacch.
Alas, poor soul!
What is't surprizes you, Antiphila?
Anti.
Is't Clinia that I see, or no?
Bacch.
Whom do you see?
Clin.
Welcome my soul!
[running up to her.
Anti.
My wish'd-for Clinia, welcome!
Clin.
How fares my love?
Anti.
O'erjoy'd at your return.
Clin.
And do I hold thee, my Antiphila,
Thou only wish, and comfort of my soul?
Syrus.
In, in, for you have made our good man wait.
[Exeunt.
The character of Antiphila is here finely drawn, and represents innocence in perfection. There is nothing of constraint or emulation in her virtue, nor is she influenced by any consideration of the miseries likely to attend looseness or debauchery, but purely by a natural biass to virtue. Dacier.
Madam Dacier, contrary to the authority of all editions and MSS. adopts a conceit of her father's in this place, and places this speech to Clitipho, whom she supposes to have retired to a hiding-place, where he might over-hear the conversation, and from whence he peeps out to make this speech to Syrus. This she calls an agreeable jeu de theatre, and doubts not but all lovers of Terence will be obliged to her father for so ingenious a remark: but it is to be feared that critical sagacity will not be so lavish of acknowledgements as filial piety. There does not appear the least foundation for this remark in the scene, nor has the Poet given us the least room to doubt of Clitipho's being actually departed. To me, instead of an agreeable jeu de theatre, it appears a most absurd and ridiculous device; particularly vicious in this place, as it most injudiciously tends to interrupt the course of Clinia's more interesting passion, so admirably delineated in this little scene.
| The Self-Tormentor | |