the hierophants.
Hold your audacious hands, you men profane!
Respect our god, respect his sacred rites!
Haste, priests and people, part these barbarous men:
Banish fierce discord from this sacred shrine.
Your crimes atone—swords quickly disappear—
Ye gods grant pardon—monarchs heaven obey.
cassander.
To you and heaven I yield.—
antigones.
—I still persist,
I call to witness Alexander’s shade,
I call to witness the avenging gods,
That whilst I live, Olympia, my beloved,
Ne’er shall be folded in my rival’s arms.
The impious match on Ephesus would bring
Shame, and make Asia’s sons with horror shrink.
cassander.
It would, no doubt, had it been made by you.
the hierophants.
With spirit calmer, and with heart less fierce.
Yield to the law obedience and respect.
All men it binds, by all should be fulfilled.
The poor man’s hut, the haughty monarch’s throne,
Alike subjected hear the voice of law;
The weak she aids, transgressors she restrains,
And her power sets the blameless victim free.
Whene’er a husband of whatever rank
Has chanced the parents of his wife to slay,
Though he be by our mysteries purified,
By Vesta’s fire, and by her healthful stream,
And by repentance more essential still,
His wife that day may new engagements form.
She may, without offence, except she choose
To imitate the gods and pardon him.
As still Statira lives, you well may think
That she will of her daughter’s fate dispose.
A mother’s woes, a mother’s rights respect;
The law of nations, and the character
Which nature gives, and nothing can efface.
Her voice august Olympia must obey.
All your attempts are vain since you must wait,
The widow’s and her daughter’s final will.
[Exit with his followers.
antigones.
I to these terms subscribe, she’s surely mine.
[Exit Antigones with Hermas.
SCENE IV.
cassander, sosthenes.
In the porch.
cassander.
You shall not find her treacherous, cruel man.
Let us remove her from this fatal shrine,
And disappoint this daring villain’s hopes,
He laughs at my remorse, insults my grief,
And would with calm serenity and joy
Concealed, destroy my peace and tear my heart.
sosthenes.
Statira he seduces, sir, the deed
He justifies by laws he violates,
And by the gods his impious soul contemns.
cassander.
Let’s take her from the gods whom I have served,
Those cruel gods by whom I am betrayed.
I’d gladly die, the thunderer’s stroke I’d bless;
But that my wife should in this fatal day
Pass from Cassander’s to his rival’s hand:
Ere that I bear, this temple shall be laid
In ashes, oh ye gods, you pardoned me!
My soul grown calm with blessed tranquillity,
Gave itself up to that delusive hope,
Ye gods, you snatch Olympia from my arms,
Thus do you pardon expiated crimes?
sosthenes.
You have not lost the fair; her tender heart
To you obedient and devoted still
Cannot so soon the man she loved forget;
Changes so quick are to the heart unknown.
By loving you she breaks not nature’s law;
The wounds which you in fight at random dealt
Have, I will grant you, shed most precious blood!
The gods permitted that calamity.
You are not guilty of her father’s death.
Your tears have for her mother’s blood atoned;
Her woes are past, your favors present still.
cassander.
The anguish of my soul you sooth in vain:
Statira’s blood and Alexander’s ghost
Cry from the ground and fill my soul with dread
She is their daughter, and may justly hate
Her hapless husband with relentless rage;
Olympia hates me, she whom I prefer
To Cyrus’ throne, to all the thrones on earth.
Those expiations, secret mysteries
By kings neglected, sought with care by me,
She was their object, and my guilty soul
Approached the gods her presence to enjoy.
sosthenes.
[Seeing Olympia.
Alas! behold her to her griefs a prey,
She clasps the altar, bathes it with her tears.
cassander.
’Tis time to take her from this shrine by force:
Go, lose no time, but everything prepare.
[Exit Sosthenes.
SCENE V.
cassander, olympia.
olympia.
[Reclined upon the altar without seeing Cassander.
How my heart rises in my throbbing breast!
How in despair ’tis plunged! how self-condemned!
[Seeing Cassander.
What do I see?—
cassander.
Your husband plunged in woe.
olympia.
Cassander, to that name no more