DEMETRIUS.
Remember, peace and anguish are before thee,
And honour and reproach, and heav'n and hell.
ASPASIA.
Content with freedom, and precarious greatness.
DEMETRIUS.
Now make thy choice, while yet the pow'r of choice
Kind heav'n affords thee, and inviting mercy
Holds out her hand to lead thee back to truth.
IRENE.
Stay--in this dubious twilight of conviction,
The gleams of reason, and the clouds of passion,
Irradiate and obscure my breast, by turns:
Stay but a moment, and prevailing truth
Will spread resistless light upon my soul.
DEMETRIUS.
But, since none knows the danger of a moment,
And heav'n forbids to lavish life away,
Let kind compulsion terminate the contest.
[_Seizing her hand_.
Ye christian captives, follow me to freedom:
A galley waits us, and the winds invite.
IRENE.
Whence is this violence?
DEMETRIUS.
Your calmer thought
Will teach a gentler term.
IRENE.
Forbear this rudeness,
And learn the rev'rence due to Turkey's queen:
Fly, slaves, and call the sultan to my rescue.
DEMETRIUS.
Farewell, unhappy maid; may every joy
Be thine, that wealth can give, or guilt receive!
ASPASIA.
nd when, contemptuous of imperial pow'r,
Disease shall chase the phantoms of ambition,
May penitence attend thy mournful bed,
And wing thy latest pray'r to pitying heav'n!
[_Exeunt_ Dem.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262