With faint embrace your languid arms clasp me;
Your organs fail; you strive to speak, in vain.
Speak to me.—
statira.
My utterance fails, I sink, I’m overwhelmed;
The trouble which I feel will end my days.
SCENE IV.
statira, olympia, the hierophants.
the hierophants.
Priestess of heaven, and queen of human race,
Say what new change has happened in your fate?
What must we do? What art thou now to hear?
statira.
Misfortunes, but I’m now prepared for all.
the hierophants.
The greatest good is ever dashed with grief;
No bliss is pure. Antigones’s rage,
The troops, the citizens that rise in arms,
The general voice, by ardent zeal inspired,
All these things prove the object you behold,
Like you long buried in obscurity.
The object which your hands should to Cassander
This day have given, Olympia—
statira.
—What means this!
the hierophants.
Is daughter of the late victorious king.
statira.
[Running to embrace Olympia.
My torn heart had told me this before.
My child! my daughter! dear, but fatal names;
Do I then press you in a close embrace,
When by your marriage thus you wound my soul!
olympia.
Does then to be my mother make you grieve?
statira.
No, I thank heaven, whose anger long I felt,
Nature pleads loudly, joy pours on my soul;
But heaven deprives me of the promised bliss.
You are to wed Cassander.—
olympia.
If from you
Olympia is descended, if the love
A parent bears a child inspires your heart,
Cassander surely never could offend.
the hierophants.
You are descended from her, doubt it not;
Cassander owns and will attest the truth.
With him united, may you both find means
To make two hostile races live in peace.
olympia.
Is he your foe then, am I so accursed?
statira.
The villain poisoned your victorious sire;
He plunged his dagger in your mother’s breast,
Even in her breast whose hapless womb first bore you;
He plunged the steel which oft had princes pierced:
Even to this temple he pursues my steps;
The gods he braves, pretending to appease:
He tears you from your weeping mother’s arms,
And can you ask me why I hate this man?
olympia.
Does then the conqueror’s family survive?
Are you his widow; is he then my sire?
Have I my mother’s assassin espoused?
Am I become an object of your wrath,
And is this marriage then a horrid crime?
the hierophants.
Hope in the gods—
olympia.
Ah, if their ruthless hate
To my soul’s wishes can no hopes afford;
Opening my eyes a pit they opened before me.
Knowing myself too well I know my fate.
My great misfortune is to know my birth,
Before the altar where you joined our hands
I should have fallen, and at your feet expired.
SCENE V.
statira, olympia, the hierophants, and a priest.
the priest.
The temple’s threatened, all our mysteries
Quickly will be profaned by impious hands;
The two contending kings dispute the right
There to command where gods alone should sway.
Groans heard within these vaults foreboded this,
In sign of this the ground shook under us.
The gods denounce some change to mortal man,
The earth offends them; they must be appeased.
The furious people whom fell discord fires
Run headlong to this temple’s sacred porch;
Two rival factions Ephesus divide.
Like other nations we shall be at strife;
Morals, peace, sanctity, shall all give way;
Kings shall prevail and we shall have a Lord.
the hierophants.
Ah may they bear from Ephesus their crimes,
And leave one place of refuge to the earth:
Oh royal mother sprung from royal race,
Olympia, shall I say Cassander’s wife?
Before these altars you’ll protection find.
To daring kings I shall present myself.
I know how much respect is due to crowns,
But more by far is due to Heaven that gives them.
Let them keep fair with Heaven if they would reign:
We have not arms or soldiers, it is true,
Our power we only from our laws derive.
God’s my support, his temple’s my defence,
Should tyranny once dare to make approach.
My bloody corpse awhile shall bar its way.
[The Hierophants go out with the inferior priest.
SCENE VI.
statira, olympia.
statira.
Oh fate! oh God of altars and of thrones!
Oppose Cassander, shield