Psyche | Page 9

all their subjects, looking upon me as on a goddess, were but now beginning to accustom me to the incense they never ceased to offer; sighs followed me, for which I gave naught in return. My soul remained fancy-free, while it captivated so many, and in the midst of so much love was queen of all hearts, and yet mistress of my own. Oh! heaven! hast thou counted a crime this want of feeling? All this severity which thou dost exhibit, is it because in return for their vows I have given nothing but esteem? If such be thy law, why didst thou not create in me that which merit and love create in others, and.... But what do I see here?

SCENE IV.--CLEOMENES, AGENOR, PSYCHE.
CLE. Behold in us two friends, two rivals, whose only wish is to expose our life to save yours.
PSY. Can I listen to you when I have refused two sisters? Princes! think you that you could defend me against heaven? To surrender yourselves to the serpent, whose coming I must await here, is but a despair ill-becoming great hearts; and to die when I die is to overwhelm a sensitive, soul, that already has but too many sorrows.
AGE. A serpent is not invincible; Cadmus, who loved no one, slew Mars' own reptile. We love, and Love makes everything possible for the heart that follows his standard, for the hand of whose darts he is himself the guide.
PSY. Do you expect his aid in behalf of an ungrateful one whom all his shafts have been unable to wound? Think you he can stay his vengeance, when 'tis bursting forth, and help you to release me from its stroke? Even if you should serve me, even if you should restore me to life, what reward do you hope for from that which knows no love?
CLE. It is not by the hope of so lovely a reward that we are animated. We seek only to obey the dictates of a love that dares not presume, whatever its efforts may be, that it can be so fortunate as to please you, so worthy as to kindle within you a responsive flame.
AGE. Live, fair princess, and live for another; we will behold it with a jealous eye, we will die of it, yet of a death sweeter far than if we had to see you die. If we cannot save your life by the loss of ours, whatever love you may prefer to ours, we are ready to die of grief and of love.
PSY. Live, Princes, live, and no longer seek to ward off or to share my fate. I believe I have told you, heaven seeks me alone; me alone has it condemned. Methinks, I hear already the deadly hissing of its minister, who even now draws nigh. My dread pictures him to me, ever offers him to my view. Fear has mastered all my feelings; under its influence I see him on the summit of this rock; I sink for very weakness, and my fainting heart scarce keeps up a remnant of courage. Farewell, Princes; flee, lest he poison you.
AGE. We have seen nothing as yet to astonish us. And since you deem your death so nigh, if strength fail you, we have both arms and hearts which hope never forsakes. It may be a rival has dictated this oracle; and gold has made its interpreter speak. It would be no miracle if a man has answered in the stead of a dumb deity; and everywhere we have but too many examples that temples, no less than other places, are the abode of the wicked.
CLE. Suffer us to oppose to the cowardly ravisher to whom sacrilege abandons you a love that heaven has chosen for the defender of the only fair one for whom we wish to live. If we dare not aspire to her possession, at least, in the midst of her danger, allow us to follow the ardour and dictates of our passion.
PSY. These dictates, this extreme ardour, with which your hearts are filled in my behalf, obey them in behalf of others, in behalf of my sisters. Live for them, since I die. Lament the cruel rigour of my fate; and by your death do not give my sisters new ground for sorrow. These are my last wishes, and in all ages the orders of the dying have been received as law.
CLE. Princess....
PSY. Once more, Princes, live for my sisters. So long as you love me, you must obey me; do not drive me to hate you, and to look upon you as rebels for being too faithful to me. Go, leave me to die alone in this spot, where I have no voice left except to say farewell. But I feel myself lifted up, and