A funeral pile’s prepared, and all the pomp
With which man’s vanity adorns the dead.
’Tis said Olympia in this solitude
Will dwell where once her mother lived retired;
And that renouncing marriage and the world,
She’ll dedicate to heaven her future life,
And that she’ll in eternal silence weep
Her family, her mother, and her birth.
antigones.
No, no, her duty’s law she must obey,
My right to her admits of no dispute.
Statira gives her to me, and her will
When at the point of death’s a law divine.
Frantic Cassander and his fatal love
Statira’s daughter must with horror fill.
hermas.
Sir, can you think it?
antigones.
She herself declares
That her sad heart disclaims this barbarous man.
Should he persist in his audacious love.
He shall with life for his presumption pay.
hermas.
Would you mix blood with tears, and with the flames
Of the sad pile where burns the royal corpse?
Your awe-struck soldiers will with horror start
From such an object, they’ll not follow you.
antigones.
No, I will not disturb the funeral rites;
This I have sworn; Cassander will revere them,
Awhile Olympia shall my rage suspend,
But when the funeral’s o’er I’ll give it scope.
[The temple opens.
SCENE II.
antigones, hermas, the hierophants, the priests.
[Advancing slowly] olympia [in mourning, and supported by the priestesses.]
hermas.
Olympia scarce alive, is this way led.
I see the pontiff of the sacred shrine,
Who following bathes her tracks with floods of tears.
The priestesses support her in their arms.
antigones.
I own these objects in the hardest heart
Would raise emotion. Madam, give me leave
[To Olympia
To mix with yours my sorrows, and to swear
That I’ll avenge the wrongs you have sustained.
The wretch by whom you twice a mother lost,
A hope presumptuous madly entertains,
But know his punishment is not far off.
To your afflictions add not trembling fear:
But all his rash attempts defy secure.
olympia.
Ah! speak not now of vengeance and of blood,
Statira’s dead, I’m dead to human kind.
antigones.
Her loss I mourn, and I pity you,
Her sacred will I justly might allege,
Dear to my hopes, and by yourself revered;
But I know what is in this juncture due,
Both to her shade, her daughter, and your grief.
Madam, consult yourself, her will obey.
[Exit with Hermas.
SCENE III.
olympia, the hierophants, priests, priestesses.
olympia.
You who alone compassionate my woes,
Priest of a God of mildness and of peace,
Can I not forever dedicate my woe
To this sad shrine bathed with my mother’s tears?
Sure, sir, you cannot have so hard a heart
To shut this place of refuge from my grief?
’Tis all that’s claimed by one of royal race,
Do not refuse this poor inheritance.
the hierophants.
I mourn your fate, but how can I assist you?
Your mother dying has your husband named
You yourself heard her her last will declare,
Whilst with our hands we closed her dying eyes.
And if you will not her commands obey,
Cassander still may claim you as his right.
olympia.
’Tis true, I to my dying mother swore
Ne’er to receive Cassander’s bloody hand,
My oath I’ll keep.—
the hierophants.
—You freedom still enjoy,
The gods alone can of your hand dispose.
Things soon will change; you now, Olympia, may
Determine and dispose your future life.
Indeed it fits not that the self-same day
Should light the funeral pile and hymen’s torch.
Such marriage would be shocking, but a word
Suffices, and that word I want to hear.
In this extremity your heart should know
What to your royal race is justly due.
olympia.
Sir, I have told you any nuptial tie
Is hateful to my heart, and should be to yours.
A mother’s injured shade I’ll not betray:
A husband I forsake, that should suffice.
Both from the throne and marriage let me fly.
the hierophants.
Antigones or else Cassander choose.
Those armed rivals, jealous as they’re proud,
Are forced by your decision to abide.
You with a word confusion may prevent,
And slaughter which would quickly rage again;
Were not men filled with reverence and respect
By all that funeral pomp, that pile, those altars,
Those duties, and those honors which awhile
To serious contemplation souls dispose.
Piety lasts not long amongst the great;
Their rage I hardly could awhile suspend;
To-morrow blood will Ephesus o’erflow.