Socrates | Page 6

will touch your heart. Goodbye, one more time. Remember you
promised me not to marry Sophronine.
AGLAEA: I promised that to myself not to you.

(Anitus leaves)
How that man increases my chagrin. I don't know why I never see that
priest without trembling. But here's Sophronine. Alas, while his rival
fills me with terror, this one increases my sorrows and my tenderness.
SOPHRONINE: (entering) Darling Aglaea, I see Anitus, that priest of
Ceres, that evil man, that sworn enemy of Socrates, is leaving you, and
your eyes seem damp with tears.
AGLAEA: Him! He's the enemy of our benefactor, Socrates? I am no
longer astonished by the aversion that he inspired me with even before
he spoke to me.
SOPHRONINE: Alas, is it to him that I must impute the tears that
darken your eyes?
AGLAEA: He can only inspire me with disgust. No, Sophronine, only
you can make my tears flow.
SOPHRONINE: Me, great gods! I who would pay for them with my
blood! I, who adore you, who flatter myself to be loved by you! I, who
must reproach myself for having cast a moment of bitterness into your
life? You are weeping and I am the cause of it? Then what have I done?
What crime have I committed?
AGLAEA: You didn't commit any. I am crying because you deserve all
my tenderness; because you have it; and because I must renounce you.
SOPHRONINE: What funereal words have you uttered? No, I cannot
believe it; you love me, you cannot change. You promised me to be
mine; you don't wish my death.
AGLAEA: I want you to live happy, Sophronine, and I cannot make
you happy. I hoped, but my fate misled me. I swear that, not being able
to be yours, I will belong to no one. I declared it to that Anitus who is
pursuing me, and whom I scorn. I declare to you my heart is full of the
most acute sorrow and the most tender love.

SOPHRONINE: Since you love me, I ought to live; but if you refuse
me your hand, I must die. Dearest Aglaea, in the name of so much love,
in the name of your charms and your virtues, explain this funereal
mystery to me.
(Socrates enters)
O Socrates! my master! my father! I see myself here the most unlucky
of men: between two beings through whom I breathe; it's you who
taught me wisdom; it's Aglaea who taught me how to feel love. You've
given your consent to our marriage; the beautiful Aglaea who seems to
desire it refuses me and, as she tells me she loves me, plunges the
dagger in my heart. She breaks off our marriage without explaining to
me the reason for such a cruel caprice. Either prevent my pain, or teach
me, if it is possible, to bear it.
SOCRATES: Aglaea is the mistress of her will; her father made me her
tutor and not her tyrant. I based my happiness on seeing you united
together; if she has changed her mind, I am surprised by it, but we must
hear her reasons. If they are just, we must submit to them.
SOPHRONINE: They cannot be just.
AGLAEA: They are, at least in my eyes. Condescend to listen to me,
person to person. When you had accepted the secret testament of my
father, wise and generous Socrates, you told me that it would leave me
an honest fortune with which I could establish myself. From that time, I
formed the plan of giving this fortune to your dear disciple, Sophronine,
who has only your support and for his entire wealth possessed only his
virtue. You entirely approved my resolution. You conceived that it was
my good fortune to make the fortune of an Athenian that I regard as
your son. Full of my happiness, carried away by a sweet joy, that my
heart could not contain, I confided this delirious state my soul was in to
your wife, Xantippe, and just as soon that condition disappeared. She
treated me as a dreamer. She showed me the will of my father who died
in poverty, who left me nothing, and who confided me to the friendship
which united you. At that moment, awakened from my dream, I felt
only sadness at being unable to make the fortune of Sophronine; I don't

wish to overwhelm him with the weight of my misery.
SOPHRONINE: Indeed, I told you Socrates that her reasons were
valueless; if she loves me am I not rich enough? I've subsisted, it's true
through your charity, but it's not a guilty employment that I embrace
only to support my dear Aglaea. I must, it's true, make her the sacrifice
of my love, to find for her, an advantageous role for myself. But I
confess,