University of Virginia Library

SCENE IX.

VERINO, LELIO, OFFICER.
OFFICER
(entering with a drawn sword.)
Noble veteran!
The wretches, who have toil'd to crush thy house,
Have hurried quick perdition on themselves;
The generous people, raging for thy wrongs,
And now apprized of all Majone's crimes,
With a precipitate justice have destroyed
Him, and his creature, the corrupt Sicardi!

VERINO.
There's comfort yet—the hero's slanderers
Can stab his fame no more—lend me thy weapon!
When his assassin, whom thou know'st not, soldier
Has at the stroke of retribution yielded
His forfeit life to this thy honest sword—
We still in happier worlds—

EUDORA,
(Entering behind him and snatching the sword as he attempts to destroy himself
Forbear! forbear!
Thou tender father! blest be heaven! I save thee!
For O! I come to banish thy deep anguish,
And raise thee up to joy!

VERINO.
My daughter! O!
Speak not of joy, Eudora to a wretch,
Weighed down with guilt! nor wear that kind concern!
No! no! my daughter! take a different form!
Come like the angel of eternal wrath,
Arrayed in terrors from avenging heaven!
And with a voice, whose horror-striking sound
May penetrate the earth, demand thy husband!
Thy murder'd Raymond! bid the guilty father
Restore the son he slew!

EUDORA,
Alas! my Lord!
A fatal error clouds your troubled sense
My Raymond lives—

VERINO.
My poor deluded daughter!
He might have lived; long years with glory lived;
Nor envy, fraud, nor slander could oppress
His stronger innocence, but O Eudora!
There is, there is, my child, a curst assassin,
Whose base unnatural heart—

EUDORA.
Soon undeceived,
Again my father shall embrace his Raymond:
He comes to say how providence has saved
The son so worthy of his glorious sire;
See, my dear Lord, he comes!