University of Virginia Library

Scene XXI.

Cyprian, half naked; People.—The Same.
Cyprian.
Never was I more collected;
It is you yourselves are mad.

Governor.
Cyprian, what is all this ferment?

Cyprian.
Governor of Antioch,
Viceroy of great Cæsar Decius,
Florus, Lelius, my young friends,
Whom I valued and respected,
Proud nobility, great people,
To my words be all attentive:
I am Cyprian, I am he
Once so studious, and so learnëd,
I the wonder of the schools,
Of the sciences the centre.
What I gained from all my studies
Was one doubt, a doubt that never
Left my wildered mind a moment,
Ever troubling and perplexing.
I Justina saw, and seeing,
To her charms my soul surrendered,
And for soft voluptuous Venus
Left the wise and learn'd Minerva.
Baffled by Justina's virtue,
I, pursuing though rejected,
And from one extreme to another
Passing on as passion led me,
To my guest, who from the sea
Found my feet a port of shelter,
For Justina pledged my soul,
Since at once he charmed my senses
And my intellect, by giving
Love its hopes, and thought its treasures.
From that hour, as his disciple
Lived I in these lonely deserts,
And to his laborious teaching
I am for a power indebted,
By which I can move even mountains
And in different places set them:
Yet although these mighty wonders
I can do to-day, I'm helpless
By the voice of my desire
To draw towards me one fair vestal.
And the cause why I am powerless
To subdue that beauteous virgin
Is that by a God she's guarded,
Whom, now knowing by His blesséd
Grace bestowed, I come to acknowledge
As the Infinite, the Eternal.
Yes, the great God of the Christians
I now openly confess here.
And though true it is I am
Still of hell the slave and servant,
Having with my very blood
Signed a certain secret cedule,
Yet my blood that blood may blot out
In the martyrdom I'm expecting.
If you are a judge, if Christians
You pursue with bloody vengeance,
I am one: for in these mountains
A grave venerable elder
The first sacrament conferring
With its sacred sign impressed me.
This being so, why wait? Your orders
Give unto the bloody headsman,
Tell him here to strike this neck
And from it my head dissever.
Try my firmness as you will,
For I, resolute and determined,
Will endure a thousand deaths
Since this truth at last I've learnéd,
That without the great God, whom
Now I seek, adore, and reverence,
Human glories are but ashes,
Dust, smoke, wind, delusive, empty.

[He falls as if in a swoon, with his face to the ground.
Governor.
So absorbed, so lost in wonder,
Cyprian, has thy daring left me,
That considering modes of torture
I have yet not one selected.
Rise. Bestir thee.

[Spurns him with his foot.
Florus.
As a statue
Formed of ice he lies extended.