The Magnificent Lovers | Page 9

night.
PHILINTE. But if our passion's gentle ray A lingering spark would kindle anew, And from my heart expel to-day Chloris the fair, thy love to sue?
CLIMENE. Though Myrtil loves me true, Though constant e'er to sigh, Still, I confess, with you I'd gladly live and die.
BOTH (_together_). 'Midst love then more than ever let us fleet The lingering hours, and own a bond so sweet.
BALLET, DIVERTISSEMENT, ETC.

ACT III.
ARISTIONE, IPHICRATES, TIMOCLES, ERIPHYLE, ANAXARCHUS, SOSTRATUS, CLITIDAS.
ARI. We must always repeat the same words. We have always to exclaim: This is admirable! Wonderful! It is beyond all that has ever been seen.
TIM. You bestow too much praise on these trifles, Madam.
ARI. Such trifles may agreeably engage the thoughts of the most serious people. Indeed, my daughter, you have cause to be thankful to these princes, and you can never repay all the trouble they take for you.
ERI. I am deeply grateful for it, Madam.
ARI. And yet you make them languish a long time for what they expect from you. I have promised not to constrain you; but their love claims from you a declaration that you should not put off any longer the reward of their attentions. I had asked Sostratus to sound your heart, but I do not know if he has begun to acquit himself of his commission.
ERI. Yes, Madam, he has. But it seems to me that I cannot put off too long the decision which is asked of me, and that I could not give it without incurring some blame. I feel equally thankful for the love, attentions, and homage of these two princes, and I think it a great injustice to show myself ungrateful either to the one or to the other by the refusal I must make of one in preference to his rival.
IPH. We should call this, Madam, a very pretty way of refusing us both.
ARI. This scruple, daughter, should not stop you; and those two princes have both long since agreed to submit to the preference you show.
ERI. Our inclinations easily deceive us, Madam, and disinterested hearts are more able to make a right choice.
ARI. You know that I have engaged my word to give no opinion upon this matter, and you cannot make a bad choice when you have to choose between these two princes.
ERI. In order not to do violence either to your promise or to my scruples, Madam, pray agree to what I shall propose.
ARI. And what is that, my daughter?
ERI. I should like Sostratus to decide for me. You chose him to try to discover the secret of my heart; suffer me to choose him to end the perplexity I am in.
ARI. I have such a high regard for Sostratus that, whether you mean to employ him to explain your feelings or to leave him entirely to decide for you, I consent heartily to this proposition.
IPH. Which means, Madam, that we must pay our court to Sostratus.
SOS. No, my Lord, you will have no court to pay to me; and with all the respect due to the princesses, I refuse the glory to which they would raise me.
ARI. How is that, Sostratus?
SOS. I have reasons, Madam, which do not allow me to accept the honour you would do me.
IPH. Are you afraid, Sostratus, of making yourself an enemy?
SOS. I should have but little fear for the enemies I might make in obeying the will of my sovereigns.
TIM. Why, then, do you refuse to accept the power which is entrusted to you, and to acquire to yourself the friendship of a prince who would owe all his happiness to you?
SOS. Because it is not in my power to grant to that prince what he would wish from me.
IPH. What reason can you have?
SOS. Why should you so insist upon this? Perhaps I may have, my Lord, some secret interest opposed to the pretensions of your love. Perhaps I may have a friend who burns with a respectful flame for the divine charms with which you are in love. Perhaps that friend makes me the daily confidant of his sufferings, that he complains to me of the rigour of his fate, and is looking upon the marriage of the princess as the dreadful sentence which is to send him to his grave. Supposing it were so, my Lord, would it be right that he should receive his death-wound from my hands?
IPH. You seem to me, Sostratus, very likely to be that friend whose interests you have so much at heart.
SOS. I beg of you, my Lord, not to render me odious tote persons who hear you. I know what I am, and unfortunate people like me are not ignorant of the limits which fortune assigned to their desires.
ARI. Let us drop this subject; we will find means for overcoming my daughter's irresolution.
ANA. Are