University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

Gardens adjoining to several apartments of Demophoon's palace.
Dirce, Mathusius.
Dir.
Believe me, sir, a parent's fond affection
But hurries on that evil which you dread:
Why should you hope to see your daughter's name
Alone exempted from the fatal urn?
You plead the king perhaps—

Mat.
And just the plea:
Am I, because a subject, less a father?
Apollo wills some virgin nobly born
Should stain his altar every year with blood
On this returning day; but yet excludes not
The maids of royal birth. Let him who shews
Such rigid zeal to enforce the laws divine,
Teach others patience by his own example:
Let him recall those daughters kept at distance
With artful policy: let him expose
Their names in yonder urn; and let him feel
What pangs distract a wretched parent's breast,
When his heart trembles as the priest draws near
The dreadful vase, while with a solemn mien
His lips prepare to speak the victim's name.
So may he blush with conscious shame to think
He could till now with cruel pride look on,
The tame spectator of another's woe.

Dir.
Thou know'st the laws are subject to the king.

Mat.
The laws of man, but not the laws of Heaven.

Dir.
Yet these a king explains.

Mat.
Not when the Gods
So fully speak their will.

Dir.
Yet ne'er so fully—

Mat.
Dirce, no more—I am resolv'd.

Dir.
O sir!
Reflect awhile; quick runs the flame of wrath
In mighty men, but slowly is extinguish'd:
'Twere rashness to provoke impending rage
That's arm'd with power. Alas! the king already
Beholds you with an unpropitious eye.
I dread to think, if, now too far provok'd,
He find new matter to augment his hatred,
What mischief may ensue!

Mat.
In vain thou tell'st me
Of wrath or hatred in his breast: while reason
Asserts my cause, and Heaven inspires my thoughts.

[Exit.