the heavens yet once more prolong it in me a little for some instants that I might testifie my acknowledgment It seems to me my prayer is heard for although I feel that the hour of my death is neer it seems to me I say if I deceive not my self that I have cause to believe I shall not expire till I have related to you a part of those thoughts that are in me Do not fear that I shall complain of you or of fate I have too great a soul too firm and too reasonable to have a ressentment so vulgar so weak and so unjust I know that in Battels one finds as often death as victory that one must equally prepare for the one and the other and that if so be we be overcome without shame or basenesse we should lose such a victorie without despair die without murmuring I do not then regret the portion of life which I might yet have had mine hath been long enough since it hath been unspotted I have lived little I confess but I have lived with glory and I die with honour If Clorinda must be vanquished it must needs have been by him who uses to overcome all others 't is no small thing for her to have disputed with him for that illustrious prize as she hath done and not to have yielded but onlie because nothing can resist him Do not mourn for me then more than I mourn for my self rule your ressentments by mine comfort your self as I am comforted and be not more sensible of my misfortune than your own interest If you behold me as your enemy you will rejoice at my loss all Godfreys armie will give you thanks for this action for though I be of that sex from which ordinarily men can draw no advantage to fight and overcome us I think nevertheless without vanitie that Clorinda's name is famous enough to dare believe as I do that all your Knights would think themselves fortunate not onlie to be her conquerers but even to be cōquered by her Do not therefore cast that crown upon my Tomb which you have acquired by my defeat as if unworthy of your temples do not disdain the victory if you will not disgrace me On the contrary proclaim it to all the world let all the world know what it hath cost you do not hide the blood which you have lost onlie hide your tears from Clorinda that her death may be more quiet since it cannot be more honourable And to testifie that she pardons it with a willing heart to you she conjures you if it be true that you have any affection for her to conserve it even after she is dead let not her ashes extinguish that noble ardour which her Heroick actions have kindled in your soul you have loved her an enemy love her in the grave you have loved her when she was armed against you love her when she shall be dead by your hands you have loved her even when she hated you love her also when she shal have ended her days in assuring you that she hath esteemed your valour and your vertue even so far as to suffer her death without murmuring and to think it a glory to lose her life by the same hand that had preserved it for her I die nevertheless with the sorrow of not having implied it for the service of my deliverer but as that ingratitude is not voluntary so let it not hinder you to look upon my death as if I suffered it to save you though I suffer it because I would have lost yours Imagine that all the blowes I made at you were directed against your enemies and not against your person let the blood which I lose serve for a price for the tears which you shed and in fine believe that seeing the generosity I have found in your soul if Clorinda had lived she would have testified to you by her actions that she could no longer reckon you amongst her enemies But since things past cannot be revoked and that shortly there will no more remain of Clorinda but her name her ashes and her Monuments if you have the goodness to afford her one have a care of all those heighten her reputation if you can that so yours may increase and that you may also justifie at the same time your affection and your sufferings Be not so weak as those persons unworthy the light of the day which cease from loving their friends as soon as ere they are uncapable or not in a condition to acknowledge their amity Be not I say of those in whom the grave strikes an horrour who dare not follow the persons they love into the shades of death Those that are so weakly interested they seek onlie but for the recompence of their affections and who loves onelie pleasing things are not worthy the light of the Sun the great and generous souls are not wont to do thus and to tell things as they are t is onely within the grave and 'twixt the very armes of death that we can assure our selves certainty of the good will any hath for us all the services which are rendred to the living may be suspected of self-interest the honours done to the dead cannot be ill interpreted but merit to live eternally in the memory of all men This is the true mark of Heroick love and of true vertue t is as I have said the infallible Character of a soul great noble and generous t is loving for love and not for the reward and 't is in fine the right means as I have also said to become worthy of all imaginable honours to honour the memory of those who during their lives have merited to be esteemed by us in a particular manner Is it not enough that we lose a person so dear to us unlesse we blot her Image from our memory Ha! no no too generous Prince you will not do thus you will visit her Tomb with respect and her name becomming inseparable from yours by her deplorable adventures shall fly 'ore all the world with luster and glory you will conserve this love which was so pure that hope it self hath had no share for truly it would not be just that Clorinda ceasing to hate when she descends into the grave you should begin to wish her ill when she ceases to live and when she begins to know you and by consequence to esteem you very much After you have been my enemy be my Champion I conjure you defend against all the world the beauty of those advantageous Pourtraits which fame hath made of me over all the earth maintain that she hath not flattered Clorinda speak of the grandeur of her courage of her experience in her youth of her success in combats of the purity of her soul of the innocency of her life and of the glory of her death It concerns me little that you should publish how I was born upon the throne it suffices that you perswade them I was worthy and that
their grief and sometimes of their temperature for a mark of passion Notwithstanding it is absolutely impossible that love and death can ever reign together they think to love their Mistresses and indeed they love only their memory they say they are faithful and constant and yet all their sentiments are changed for of all the tendernesses which true affection inspires there remains nothing in portion to them but grief besides that with time does ordinarily become onely a melancholy habit rather than an effect of their losse or the ressentment they have of it they accustome themselves to sadnesse as to joy their fighes do ease them their tears fall without bitternesse and the recital of their ill fortunes instead of increasing their torments and renewing their displeasures serves them for a pastime and a pleasing divertisement Believe me Arsetes those are not the signs of a violent passion Neverthelesse it is certain that the wisdome of nature works in us whether we will or not this advantageous change Death is an evil too inevitable and too common amongst men to be left without a consolation for the losses it brings and indeed we finde it to be so and reason hath not left us without giving the just limits to the greatest sorrow Ever since the beginning of ages death hath made men shed tears which time hath wiped off again all the children have been comforted for the death of their fathers all the fathers have not despaired at the death of their children the most faithful husbands have attended their wives to their graves without descending therein themselves and the most constant women have buried their husbands and yet did not lie down with them in the same bed of earth In fine Arsetes as there is no joy permanent in this life there ought to be no eternal affection You will tell me that the bands of blood and those of love are things very different and that for the most part the interest of the person beloved has more power in our hearts than any other consideration You will adde to this that we would forsake our Countrey and all our Parents to serve her and that likewise when it happens that we lose her she causes as much affliction she alone as if we lost all together both our Parents that gave us birth and our fortunes and in short all that is left us to lose in the world Though I should agree touching that yet we must still come to my argument which is that either we must comfort our selves after the death of the person whom we love or we must die with her For to think that love is a thing compatible with the darknesse of the grave is a belief of small appearance 't is a thing without reason and without example and which can never happen unless they lose their sence and understanding with their Mistresses As we do not affect what we never see neither ought we to love what we shall never behold more one may preserve the remembrance but we cannot love the beauties since they are no longer in being one may still love the chains and shakels which they wore but as these chains and bands are broken for ever we may without inconstancy or infidelity retake some others provided they be not unworthy of the first We must not break down a golden Statua to put a brass one in the place But amongst some Christians it is usual to adorn the place with more than one Image I do not therefore desire that Tancred should raze out that of his Clorinda intirely from his heart I have more respect to her and more complacence for him I would only have him since he has not renounced all humane society for we know he does both give and receive Orders go to the wars defend his life and imploy the same hand with which he cut the bands that tied him to the service of Clorinda against those whom Clorinda has alwayes served I would I say that having never ceased to be faithfull to his party having never ceased to be valiant in battels and having never forgotten to be generous he may not now omit to be an acknowledger of my affections In the state as things now are he owes nothing but compassion to Clorinda but he owes love to Erminia Clorinda can now no more either love or hate him and Erminia has not only lov'd him before he knew Clorinda but she loves him still even whilst he prefers Clorinda's ashes before Erminia's chaste flames Heavens be my witnesse if I nourish the least thought of hatred against that illustrious person as long as she lived I held as great an esteem of her vertue as I had affection for the Prince whom I loved no Arsetes her death did not rejoyce me on the contrary it did grieve me I honour'd her enough to weep her loss and I loved Tanered enough to desire almost that he might not have such a sad misfortune although according to appearance it might be advantageous to me and if after their interest I may have leave to think of my own I dare avouch again that I believe that I should be less unhappy if Clorinda were not dead than I am now though she be equally incapable to give either love or jealousie Did she yet live I should not take it ill if Tancred would give me but his esteem and friendship and preserved his intire love and passion for her I would say in his defence he loves that which cannot be beloved too much Clorinda is young fair vertuous and valiant and his inclination does prompt him to adore her let us bemoan our fortune then without accusing her that causes it since we can finde nothing to object against his choice But now that Clorinda is no more but a little dust that her youth does subsist no more that her beauty is destroyed that her vertue cannot appear but only by the relations of those that know her that her valour can be no more either useful or hurtful to her friends or enemies and that in fine she is as far distant from us as if she had never been It is not just that Tancred should have more fidelity for the ashes of his enemy than acknowledgment and regard for her who began to love him from the first instant she ever beheld him although that first instant cast her from the Throne to slavery and that the hands which enchained her had torne a Crown from off her Fathers head yea a Crown which should have been placed upon her own temples But perhaps generous Arsetes you do not know all the rights which I have in Tancreds affection by the birth of that love which I have for him it will not then be out of our discourse and way if I tell it you in a few words that so if it happens one day that he hear my reasons with more sweetness than you believe you may not accuse him of infidelity and injustice if he do prefer Erminia
that reason did authorize such a strange proceeding by this means such a thrid of sorrows would run through all the world as would render the lives of all men unhappy and destroy the Universe Or else we must not to be exposed to such troublesome adventures refuse the amity of all honest men never have any love for any nor be obliged to any but take all care to make our selves become hated and rather look to the health of those for whom we have any good wil than to their deserts or worth for fear lest their constitutions being weak the end of their dayes happening it may be before old age should oblige those which love them to spend the rest of their dayes in mourning about their graves Seriously Arsetes it is not to be easily imagined that there are rational souls which believe that death does not destroy love time and absence which have nor so much power as that do every day make too many become constant to leave a belief that after death hath ravished the object away which gave birth to that passion we should yet preserve a love for it We cannot continue to love that object since it is destroyed nor ought we to do it since we should equally resist both Reason and Nature which will not have it so Those who are said to have been in love with a fair Statua or a Picture are more excusable than those that love a grave or the ashes which it incloses the eyes which are wont to seduce the imagination and will by the advantage of all fair objects betray them and gives them some kind of delight in sweetly deceiving them but to preserve a love for an object that is so horrid for that which can never behold without tears and affright nay for that which we shall never behold again t is that which cannot which ought not to be and t is that which makes me with boldness maintain That the love ought not to last but to the grave All men that have not lost their judgements neither do nor ought to do any thing without a design T is so general a rule that there are hardly any which misse it the covetous know wherefore they guard their treasures all the ambitious know whither they would climb all that are of vindicative spirits know for what end they molest their enemies nor are the lovers ignorant what they intend when they weep and sigh at the feet of their Mistresses They know I say that love is the price of love and that in fine we love to be beloved again But should we ask the Prince Tancred what he pretends by continuing to love the ghost of Clorinda as much as he love her person I believe he would be somewhat troubled for an answer To say that his tears and sighes have for their principall design to touch and move her heart would not be believed since t is impossible it should be so Or else to think that he preserves his first flames to animate the ashes of his Mistris he is too wise to have such a thought or again to imagine that he has no other end in what he does but to make himself unhappy needlesly is a thing without all appearance Neverthelesse it is certain that the love which you so much praise in this Prince can produce no more advantage to him nor to me but either my own death or his Ha! if it were possible that the illustrious Clorinda could hear his moanes and my reasons and that from the midst of her grave she could make him hear her commands how she would blame his proceedings and mourn my unhappinesse she was other-while too generous to think it now just that Tancred being no longer obliged to be faithful to her should be still ingrateful towards me You may tell me perhaps that her last desires were not as I perswade But Arsetes she then lived yet when she declared them to Tancred That imbecillity which is common to all those that are dying is not to be found in them after they are dead all their passions become tranquil in the grave the deceased desire neither the love nor the constancy of any they have no share in our fortunes they do not care whether others meddle with their destiny and as they are separated from all things they do not trouble themselves whether we separate also from them or yet still follow them Believe me Arsetes t is enough to be constant during our lives without being so after death t is I say enough to do what we ought without doing what we ought not and then to say things as they are so long as we are alive we are obliged to serve to the publick society it is not permitted us to be ingratefull it is not permitted us to be unjust and this being so it is not permitted to Tancred to love Erminia no more and to love Clorinda still though Clorinda be no more and that Erminia be in a condition to love him to his grave Besides if we do likewise but rightly expound the last desires and will of your illustrious Mistris one shall finde that they were ill understood by this Prince for whatso'ere commands she gave him to reverence her memory she made him none more pressing than those by which she injoyn'd him to be comforted Now what means is there for this Prince to be ever comforted if he retain the love he had for her What Arsetes can a true lover live happily and know that he can never be seen nor be beloved by his Lady Ha! no no let 's not abuse our selves in expounding Clorinda's last speeches for without doubt she is agreed to what I say she will willingly remain in Tancreds memory but she will not be angry if I reign in his heart she will be willing to have him respect her name but she will not be displeased if he love my person she was willing that he should shed some tears upon her grave but she will not murmur if reason time and Erminia dries them up againe she has consented that her death should make him unhappy for some few dayes but she will consent likewise that he should make me happy for all my life Do not therefore Arsetes resist Clorinda's will perswade the Prince her lover that which I would perswade you tell him he disobeys his Mistris and yours in not comforting himself and that if it be permitted for any one to pretend a part in his affection it can be onely to me As a friend to Clorinda I have some right to the amity he had for her as his slave which I have been he should let me wear his fetters as a Queen which I ought to be he should give me the Empire of his heart instead of the Crowne which he hath made me lose and as his lover he ought to leave Clorinda's grave to follow me even till my death That is the term that I prescribe to the love which I will have him
that which is found in our soul when the inclination constrains it to do what she will and not that which its selfe pleases When I ceased to love Renaldo I did cease knowing that he was yet worthy of my esteeme and when 't was his turne to cease from loving me yet I believe he did acknowledge that Angelica had some beauty Notwithstanding because it is not the judgment that begets affection we know one another to bee lovely and yet love not and perhaps wee did love without knowing whether we had any lovely qualities or not So true it is that reason acts but weakly and so certain is it that inclination is altogether powerful The first makes us obey only by the same means legitimate Monarchs imploy against their subjects but the other makes her self to feared and followed as victorious Tyrants use to do She imployes nought but force against us but as that force and violence is almost inevitable and that she hath no lesse sweetnesse than power there is hardly any thing which resists but she overcomes it Honour glory private interest and vertue it selfe are many times too weak an obstacle to hinder her designes she makes Kings love shepherdesses and that shepherds raise their looks even up to their Sovereigns Thrones and without distinction either of qualities or of merit She makes a mixture of Scepters and sheephooks of Crowns and chains of free persons and slaves and by these extraordinary effects sufficiently testifies that we are not masters of our own will of affections or that our reason is not alwayes so strong as to overcome her In effect should we act but by her counsells should our love follow only our knowledge and were it by her consent only that we should weare our fetters it is certain that we should weare but one in all our lives That which we had once found faire would alwayes be so to us we should love till death what we once thought lovely and inconstancy in fine would never be found amongst lovers Since the beginning of the World the Sun hath given admiration to all men gold pearls and diamonds have never found any that questioned their beauty briefly all things universally known remain constant why then if love took birth from perfect knowledge and by the operations of the judgement should it not alwaies remain in the hearts that possesse it Ha no no Medoro that cannot be so and therefore 't is that all those that are unfaithfull are not so worthy of blame as is beleeved nor those that are constant merit so much praise as is bestowed upon them The one and the other do what they are forced to do some break their bands and others preserve theirs because they are constrained to it You see some who after they have broken their chains do rivet them together again with care and binde themselves again more closely than they were before There are some others even weighed downe by their burden who sigh under the load that presses them and who might neverthelesse disengage themselves but will not preferring their servitude above liberty Do you beleeve Medoro that these bizare effects can proceed from a clear-sighted reason and a free will Or do you not believe on the contrary that the sole inclination is that which unchains us or unties us which makes us inconstant or faithfull and that which makes us either love or hate Let none wonder than any more if we behold queens descending from their Thrones to place their Lovers there though they be not of a royall birth Let none wonder then any more to see Princes despised Crowns rejected and Hero's unfortunate in their amours since 't is not neither from reason nor from interest nor from ambition nor from glory that this noble ardour derives its birth But you will aske what obligation has a lover to his Mistres if it be true that she loves him only because she is constrained cannot chuse but love him None my dear Medoro none 't is for that in my opinion that love passes for the most noble of all passions because it is not mercinary In common friendship and amity it is permitted to count the services we render or receive and to name a thing that we do willingly an obligation but in the actions of lovers there should be no such thing The persons which love owing all things there are no thanks owing in returne again so that though I had given you my Crowne as I have already given you my heart I do not pretend you should be the more obliged to me since amongst those that know how to love who ever bestowes their affections do at the same instant bestow both their Scepters and Kingdomes and to be short all that they possess And if by misfortune it had hapned that your inclination had been contrary to mine that you had hated me as much as I have and do love you do you thinke my dear Medoro that I should have blamed you No I would have bemoaned my self without accusing you and as by my own experience I know one cannot love through reason I would not have murmured against you though you had refused Angelica's love with as much rigour as she has refused the services of all the Kings in the world to accept those of the amiable and generous Medoro Some might perhaps say to me that I am not very ingenious but rather very ill advised to entertaine you with these discourses that I take off your fetters by perswading you that you may leave them without a crime and that I instruct you in ingratitude when I avouch my selfe that you owe me no obligation although for the love of you I have done all what I was capable to do in giving you my kingdome and which is more my affection which I preferre before the Scepter that I mean to give into your hands But to answer that objection I must tell you that seeing the condition wherein I found you and the difference of your birth from mine if I could have hindred my love to you I should be guilty if I had not done it and being so rational as I know you to be you would your selfe secretly have condemned my affection though it were advantageous to you You would have more esteemed in me the quality of Queen than that of Lover and have rejoyced more for conquering my kingdome than my person So that to perswade you all at once both of the greatnesse of this affection and that I am not unworthy of your esteeme no more than of your love I shall never be weary with telling you that 't is a superiour power that causes us to love that all the wisdome and all the human prudence cannot bring any obstacle and that in fine 't is only the inclination alone which may bee said the true mother of all loves There is I know not what secret charme which passes from the eyes of the lover into the heart of her whom the
your self be perswaded that my defeat is honourable to you I perceive that this discourse redoubles your anguish and that you had rather not have vanquish'd than buy the victory by my loss Do not however regret so much an unhappy person neither accuse your self to have cōmitted so great a crime The Clorinda whom you fought is not she whō you behold The other was an infidel an enemy of all Christians by consequence yours and this on the contrary is at present better instructed more enlightened and more rational since she dies with a great esteem and acknowledgment for Tancred But however you will tell me she dies by the hand of that Tanered it is true I shall answer but she dies for her glory None amongst mortals ought to have been her conqueror but him that was so generous as to weep for his victory The blood she should have lost in any other encounter would have sullied her reputation it must needs be then for the honour of her arms that she lose her life by your hand that so she might live eternally and then illustrious Prince if the hazard of the war had not made us meet and chance your valour had not brought me to these conditions I am in never had Clorinda given you any marks of her acknowledgments she had an austere vertue which would alwayes have obliged her to treat you like an enemy you have sweetned the haughtiness of her soul by overcoming her her pride hath been weaker than your civility and the death which she receives from your hands causes her to entertain your love without anger and hatred which she would never have done at any other time Do not then complain of the rigour of the adventure since to it you owe a part of my esteem I had admired your courage in battels but I confesse that I had not so perfectly known your generosity after the victory There be more valiant souldiers than merciful and debonair Conquerours and more men that are able to spill the blood of their enemies than to shed tear upon their graves Cease then cease from afflicting your self and complaining for me death not being harsh to me methinks you should comfort your self like me and in fine you ought to resolve to that which you cannot possible shun If I had lived longer what happiness more could you have expected you should never have seen Clorinda but with her weapons in hand is not it better since heaven will have it so that you never see her more her Idea will be more pleasing to you than she her self would have been in such a posture and in the humour she is of she is content you should love her memory but perhaps she would not have had you love her person otherwise Acknowledge with me therefore the advantages that this victory gives you and do not murmur inconsiderately for that which you cannot hinder Moderate your sorrow that it may last the longer I receive my death with tranquility suffer my losse with patience but never lose the memory of what I was You will restore my life in preserving my image in your heart but a life more noble and more glorious and for the which I have so often hazarded the other All that Clorinda hath done hath been but to immortalize her name hinder then by your cares that it be not buried in oblivion and if it be true as I cannot doubt it that your soul is altogether generous do not change your minde since I am going to be in an estate which suffers no more change I die with much admiration for your vertue live with a great esteem of my courage bear even from my grave to your owne the affection which you say you have for me and when misfortune will have you quit this life let it be ordained that an Image of Clorinda be inclosed in your Tomb let her be yet found imprinted in your heart and that nothing be so puissant as to deface and blot it out 'T is in vulgar souls that time and absence destroyes the fair opinions which vertue alone had impressed but amongst Heroick persons time absence nor death it self are not able to change their inclinations They love in the grave that which they loved in the world the remembrance of that pleasing object serves in lieu of their persons and as they have loved without hope and interest they preserve without infidelity and without trouble the amity which they had promised Certainly there would be somewhat of cruel and unjust to lose together the life the light and the affection of our friends we do revive again if we live in their memory raise up therefore your Clorinda in this manner and do not make her die yet once more in so cruel a manner far worse than the former The first is an effect of your skill of your courage and of her fate and the second would be one of your forgetfulness of your indifferency and if I may speak so of your ingratitude Yes generous Prince I may make use of those terms and I dare believe that you will not think it ill if Clorinda believes she obliges you sensibly when even she imploys the last moments of her life to testifie to you the true esteem she hath conceived of your extream vertue Do not then be wanting of acknowledgment since you see I am not wanting in it receive the regret I have for not having served you as an undubitable proof that I should have done it had I lived longer But render also to my ashes and to my name the honours and the cares which you would have rendered to Clorinda had she survived longer Do not fear that her ghost shall affright you when you shall visit her grave nor that with a querulous and moaning voice she will reproach you for her death No Tancred you shall behold no more neither Clorinda nor her shadow you shall hear no more neither her voice nor her plaints But alas I know I increase your sorrow in thinking to cure it that the testimonies of amity which I render you do cause more affliction than they bring joy that I am so far unhappy as to trouble you even when I would serve you that I pierce your heart when my own is readie to expire and that I am more dreadful to you dying and dis-armed than I was to you in the midst of Combats I shall therefore tell you nothing more that may augment your tears I will hide a part of my mind from you for fear of stirring yours and for fear likewise lest your imbecility should take hold of me Ha! no no I repent me of that thought and since I have no more than a few minutes to live I must wholly give them to him who otherwhile did save my life to him who at this time does weep my death although it hath hindred his and to him whose cares should immortalize me As well I do not think that my silence would stop
to my grave So long as Achilles lived he hath desired that I should be his slave and now he ceases to live he will have me for his victime Le ts satisfie this last desire since we may do it without shame and le ts rejoyce that we have neither been his wife nor his Mistris hor his slave Whoever goes out of this life with glory ought ever to esteem themselves happy principally if we leave a chain in leaving this world what matter is it whether they unlose the chains that binds us or whether they break them however it is t is still to set us at liberty Be then my deliverer and fear not for your particular that I shall wish you any hurt The hand that frees me cannot but be grateful to me and he that hinders me from being a captive cannot be hated by me But what do I and what is' t I say unhappy that I am I do not think to whom I speak He whom I behold is not onely a Grecian not only my enemy not onely my sacrifier but he was likewise the executioner of my father No Pyrrhus 't is neither as Grecian nor as my enemy nor as Achilles son nor as my sacrifier that I look on you even when I change my thoughts and that I make imprecations against you but t is because you were my fathers murtherer What Pyrrhus could you so hatefully pursue that venerable old man to the very feet of the altar where his sought his refuge to thrust a dagger even into his heart Did your hand not tremble at the aspect of that great Prince Father of so many Heroes truly it should have done so but those that do not revere the gods have no reason to respect men Ha! truly that act hath acquired you a great deal of glory and t is a difficult thing to kill a Prince worn out with age feeblenesse and misery and who seeks his defence onely by the protection of those sacred places which ought to be inviolable Methinks there was no need of staining your arm and name by so barbarous an action the flames which have consumed our City would have sufficed to take away the life of that deplorable King and the least you could do was to let his Palace be his Funeral-pile to be consumed in But you are too nice an observer of Achilles his cruelties not to observe them exactly 'T was not enough to have usurped an Empire and to set Illium all in one flame the altars must be prophan'd they must be sprinkled with humane blood and that not onely with the blood of vulgar ones It must be the noblest blood in all the earth that must be spilt it must be a royall person that must be trampled under foot despising in him and with him all that was holy or sacred in our Palaces and in our Temples after such an unnatural action I was in the wrong to fear lest any pity should enter your soul and defer my death that 's a sentiment which the Grecians in general are unacquainted with and of which the son of Achilles cannot be capable possibly That dagger which I behold in your hand and with which you are a going to pierce my heart is perhaps the same which hath gone through the King my Fathers heart O sad spectacle O too cruel torment why is it that I did not perish in the flames which have devoured so many illustrious persons and that I have been reserved to behold such horrid things am I guilty of Helena's crimes or of Paris his failings No Polixena is innocent and if she have outlived so many misfortunes t is to die with more constancy and with more glory also t is to let the Grecians which did not come to this siege know what the sons of Priam might be since even his daughter dare encounter and confront death without any the least fear If those flames which consum'd Troy had put a period to my destiny I should have had no witnesses of these last sentiments of my soul Posterity might have doubted of Polixena's vertue and might have believed that since Achilles had had the temerity after he had made her Countrey desolate and slain her brothers to demand her for his wife and to say that he was in love with her that she had not done as she should in so strange a business But as things are now I die in publishing that I am an utter enemy to Achilles that I have ever been so and that I shall be so eternally let the ghost of that cruel one come once more forth of his sepulchre let it appear to all the Grecians and let it declare whether Polixena does erre from the truth To justifie what she sayes you need but consider the animosity which he retains for her even after his death and one may easily know that which she had for him so long as he lived For although what ever comes from the Grecians ought to be suspected by the Trojans this apparition of Achilles is not one of Ulisses deceits as that was whereby our City was betrayed No t is a perfect hatred which makes him come forth of his grave to make me enter into mine and this sanguinary ghost did re-behold the day onely to make me lose the light for ever Why do you stay then O Prince unworthy of that title and why do not you end this woful sacrifice Do you respect the daughter more than you have done the Father and does your hand rather tremble to stab Polixena than when you massacred the deplorable Priam hearken to that subterranean voice which issues from the hollownesse of that grand sepulchre with an horrid sound and which with threats commands you to immolate me to his fury Behold that earth which opens it self behold the ghost of Achilles which appears to me or rather Achilles himself who is leaving his grave He is pale and disfigured a terrour inflames his eyes even dead as they are and I behold him just such as he appeared to me on the sad day when he fought with Hector unlesse death or perhaps the remorse for his crimes have changed his skinne and colour Behold Phyrrus behold that hideous spirit which arises little by little and who to his threatening actions joyning his horrid voice does for the last time ordain you to sacrifice Polixena to him Make this Ghost to vanish by obeying it the Victime is ready prepared the poyniard is in your hand and you are accustomed to shed the Blood Royall Strike then as your Slave I conjure you and as the Daughter of a King I command you The effect of this HARANGUE This fair and unhappy Princesse drew the tears of all the Grecians Pyrrhus himself was moved nor could his eyes behold the crime which his hand committed He struck her nevertheless barbarous man that he was and that young and deplorable creature had so much modesty that even in falling struck with the deadly blow she was careful to lay her
hands upon her lower garments for fear lest after her death some indecent action should offend her modesty PENELOPE TO LAERTES The Eighth HARANGUE The Argument PENELOPE that vertuous wife to ULISSES whose reputation yet lives after so many ages past and who from the borders of that seldome frequented Island where she lived has made her renown spread over the whole world finding her self one day extreamly afflicted for the absence of her Husband who after the siege of Troy had strayed almost ten years at the mercy of the windes and waves without possibility of seeing his Countrey would ease her sorrowes by her plaints and make her dear Husbands Father acknowledge by the discourse you are now going to see That absence is worse than death PENELOPE TO LAERTES HE that undertakes to maintain that death is the most sensible and greatest of all evils is surely such a one as either never loved at all or at least hath never under one the unhappinesse of being absent from the person beloved No my Lord that monster which desolates all the earth who by the succession of time changes the face of the whole Universe who treats alike both vice and vertue who strikes with the same fatal dart the Kings and Shepherds and whose very portraiture alone fills the stoutest soul with horrour and amazement is not yet that thing which I believe we ought the most to apprehend Absence which we may truly say is the commencement of all sorrowes and the end of all joyes hath in it somewhat that is more harsh and insupportable for if the first be that which destroyes our prosperity the second is that which makes us unhappy even in the midst of abundance yea on the Throne it self There is neverthelesse a great deal of difference betwixt them for death ravishes equally from us both our felicities and misfortunes if it rob us of any flowers it does not leave us the prickles behind them it crushes with the same hand both our Crowns and fetters and in a word when it deprives us of life it likewise utterly extinguishes in our hearts all the flames of love and anger all the resentments of hatred vengeance and in fine all other passions It causes I say both our joy and trouble to expire together at the same moment whereas absence not onely robs us of all the good that ever death deprives us of but likewise causes all those evils to fall on â—s to which the other puts a sudden period Our life it self in this occasion is left us but onely to make us the more sensible of the most piercing pain that can be felt and if there be sometimes such people who prefer the absence of the beloved person rather than death 't is because they suffer themselves to be deluded by false appearances t is because that mournful dress in which it is represented affrights them t is because they contemplate it more with their bodily sight than the eyes of the soul t is because they only consider it in what is most terrible and t is in fine because they love themselves better than they doe their Mistresses and prefer the rayes of the Sun above the lustre of her eyes and had rather not see her at all than be deprived of their sight Ha! how ignorant those people are of the true sentiments which love inspires But you will say to me my Lord perhaps you do not seriously consider how great that violence must needs be which separates so close an union as that of soul and body But I shall answer you you do not truly consider your self what a greater violence that must be which for a long season separates that which love reason and inclination seem to have joyned with an eternal and immortal chain Death sage Laertes as you know better than my self is as natural to us as life if it be an evil 't is at least an evil that should not surprize us as soon as we begin to live we ought to begin to learn to die at the first opening of our eyes we should already look on the opening of our graves and every Monarch in the world that hath not renounced common sence cannot be ignorant that as he mounts up to his Throne so he shall once descend into his sepulchre 'T is not thus in the things of love that passion being altogether divine seizes so imperiously on those whom she possesses and the sight of the beloved person does so absolutely fill all the soul of her adorer that this absence is an evil which still surprizes him and comes so unawares that by consequence it renders him more unhappy than death can which we ought alwayes to expect That amazing instant which parts two persons perfectly loving one another is a sadnesse beyond my expression though I have proved it more cruelly than any other but to make you in some manner comprehend it Imagine to your self my Lord that you were ambitious and that your Crown were torn from you imagine your self were extreamly coverous and that your treasures were all stolâ— from you imagine you were victorious and that your victory were ravished out of your hands imagine you were shakled with chains whose very weight were insupportable imagine you lost all that is dear to you in the world imagine you were deprived of the light of the day and that you remained in horrid darknesse imagine your heart were torn forth of your bosome and you not yet dead and imagine in fine that I not onely suffered all these pains but that even death how terrible so'ere it be was the utmost of all my wishes at that sad moment of Ulisses departure Ha! my Lord yet once more how grievous that funest minute was to me death is rather the lulling asleep of all our troubles than any sensible evil and it has nothing troublesome but the way that leads to it But absence is a chain of misfortunes which finds no end but at the end of our lives or the return of the beloved person The first sigh which death does make us breath hath alwayes the advantage of being the last but the first which absence obliges us unto is followed with so many others and accompanied with so many tears so many disturbances so many torments or to speak better so many deaths that its evill suffers no comparison and then to speak rationally death and absence may be taken for one another since both the one and the other equally deprives us of all that we can love but as t is impossible that the loss of all the riches in the world can be so sensible to us as the absence of the person whom we dearly love since she is in the stead of all unto us so also it is impossible but that that which deprives us of it must be more harsh than death it self which can only take away that good from us which we esteem farre lesse than she But you will say again that death which snatches
the perils he was going to expose himself unto did no sooner come into my mind but that tumult was appeased but I was not the less unhappy for all this since there is no danger which I did not apprehend for him and which by consequence I did not undergo I imagined that I beheld him ready to make ship-wrack I beheld him in the combats I beheld him wounded I saw him a prisoner I beheld him ready to expire and I think truly that the onely fear of his death had made me die if hope more to make me suffer than to ease me had not preserved my life I hoped then my Lord but to say truly 't was so feebly and with so much uncertainty that that hope was rather a trouble than an help unto me That ill founded hope had no sooner inspired my heart with some pleasing thought but presently my fear quenched it again if the one made me imagine Ulisses returned victorious the other persctaded me he might be then perishing in the waves if one made me behold the harbour the other shewed me nothing but tempests and wracks in fine I alwayes thought him either inconstant or dead and the successive raign of two such contrary sentiments tyrannized so fiercely in my soul that to be in a condition not to fear any more nor to be flattered again with hope I wished more than an hundred times for death You may know from thence if I do not deceive my self that absence is more to be feared than that since t is desired as a remedy for those evils which this last makes us suffer Truly my Lord they are so great and so sensible that if it were possible to comprehend that there could be a sharper pain or a greater misfortune than the death of the beloved person we might yet say that such a losse caused lesse affliction than the torment of an absence whose duration is incertain Yes my Lord those which do not love their husbands so well as to follow them into their graves and who have courage enough or to say better insensibility enough to suffer that separation without despairing have more rest than I have they have this advantage to know that they are unhappy alone and that those whom they mourn are at quiet they fear neither their inconstancy nor their death which is already happened nor can they any more apprehend ought either from that pitiless monster nor from inconstant fortune since there remains no more for them to lose but their own life which is no longer pleasing to them But what do I say insensible as I am No no my Lord do not give ear to what my sorrow makes me speak nor believe that I could ever prefer the death of my dearest Ulisses before his absence how rigorous so'ere it is unto me May he live and may he also live happy though distant from his Penelope rather than I should hear that he lives no more I had rather never behold him than to behold him die and I had rather hear he were inconstant than to hear of the end of his life O heaven to what a strange necessity do you reduce me to make wishes against my self Now my Lord is not absence worse than death and have I not reason to say that I am the most unhappy person of all my sex those that die have this sad consolation in losing their lives that they may consider that from the beginning of ages all men have undergone what they do and as long as the world shall last all those that are born must undergo the very same but of all the Grecian Princesses whose husbands have followed Menelaus I am the only she that have heard no news of mine I am the onely she that yet doth sigh I am the only she that have no share in the publick joy and the onely he alone that dares not prepare Crowns not knowing whether those Crowns should be made of Lawrel or of Cypress branches The victory has been woful only to me alone and Polixena yea Hecuba her self though the unhappiest amongst the Trojans are not yet so unhappy as poor Penelope The first died with constancy and by consequence with glory and last had at least this advantage that she could weep over the bodies of her children and revenge the death of her son whereas I weep and do not know what object my tears should have Perhaps alas thinking onely to weep for the absence of my dear Ulisses I am obliged to weep for his inconstancy or it may be for his death For my Lord how can I think him living and not criminal since he does not come he knowes he is King of this Island and that his subjects have need of him he knowes you are his Father and that you wish for his return he knows Telemachus is his son and that he desires to know him he being so young when he departed that time has effaced the memory of him he knowes in fine that Penelope is his wife and that upon that happy return depends all her felicity nevertheless it is now almost twenty years since he went it is neer ten years since the Grecians conquered and yet we do not know whether we should bemoan him as unhappy or guilty However it be 't is certain that I have cause to complain and to despair on what side so'ere I turn I still finde new subjects of sorrow your old age afflicts me my sons green years disquiets me those that would comfort me increase my troubles those which bear no part with me in my woes anger me and both the discourses of the one and the silence of the others are equally insupportable to me But that which nevertheless is the most cruel to me is that neither time nor affliction hath sullied that little beauty on my face which hereaofore charmed Ulysses 't is not but that if I must see him again I shall be joyful to have preserved it but in the condition I am I finde that t is shameful to me to be yet able to make any conquests Nevertheless you are not ignorant what a number of importunate persons do persecute me though I despise them for my part I am in doubt whether I ought to hide from them my person or my tears for to say truth I think verily I have now no other amability nor any thing worthy of esteem but only my excessive regrets and sorrow for the absence of my dearest Husband and yet Helena hardly ever had more slaves than I have captâ—ves though Helena and Penelope are persons very different and although I take as great care to break their chains as she did to manacle them O heavens who ever heard such amorous discourses as these indiscreet people make to court me to an approbation of their fond passions and to gain my belief that their intentions are legitimate Ulysses is dead say these impatient men and by consequence our love does not offend you ha if Ulysses be dead do
you know your own cruelties and how ill are you acquainted with Briseis how little do you conceive what death is or how little do you confider what I suffer Though it should present it self to my sight in all that funest bloudie equipage which the most barbarous Tyrant can dress it withall though I should meet it accompanied with executioners with scourges and with flames though there were new tortures invented to please you and to afflict me withall I should yet prefer all these before the miserable condition I am now in and should sooner resolve to suffer them all than to suffer your outrages and disdain for in fine one may be both Captive and Mistris bur one cannot remain a captive without being Mistris after the once having had the glorie of being so I could have lived without that glorie but I cannot live and lose it I could have resolved to have lived in your chains but I cannot resolve now to return to them again I could have indured the anger of my Conquerour but I cannot indure the disdain of my lover I could then have remembred that I was your slave but now I cannot forget that you have mine in a word you may be barbarous and inconstant but I cannot be insensible and have no resentment O cruel and unreasonable Achilles are you not also cruel enough to believe that I should be yet too much honoured in serving the new and fairer object of your flames have you not so much blindness as to hope that I shall become her captive as you say I am yours do you not expect from my complacence and willingnesse that I should take the care to chuse her an habit that may adorn her and the pains to curl her hair to imbroider her head-attire with jewels and to indeavour besides to adde new graces to those she received at her birth that thereby art may finish in her that which nature has so gloriously begun will you not have me extol her perfections tell you of her charmes make you remark the lustre of her eies the pureness of her skin and beauteous face thereby to increase your affection and your delight together will you not afterwards make me goe and entertain that faire Phrigian of the rare qualities that are in you must I not vaunt of your courage and speak to her of your skill and above all value your constancy which I know so well that so I may inkindle her soule with the bright flame which consumes yours But will you not have me tell her to prove your valour that you have besieged Troy that you have vanquisht the Trojans a thousand times and that you took away her brothers life Will you not have me declare aloud your liberality when you took money for Hectors corps and your civility when you threatened Priam who came to your Tents to demand it of you O barbarous man that you are are those your intents but ô faint-hearted as I am my selfe am I not ashamed of what I do and should I not blush since contrary to my designe and first dicourse my verie anger it selfe is become a token of my passion or rather of my errour No no do not listen to me any more neither listen to love who speaks to you even as I do nor to reason which sayes the same that love does Be gone since you will goe and passe from this Camp to the other where glorie waits for you as well as Polixena Leave your ancient friends and runne to the imbraces of those whom you have fought withall and whom you ought to fight withall again forget the interest of your own Nation and lose all even to your very honour to behold your Mistris againe look upon Briseis tears with smiles and scoffe at her troubles if at least her troubles doe not provoke your anger Joyn her chains to Hectors armes and carry both the one and the others to that Trojans feet and in fine goe and marrie an unworthie sister upon the tombe of her most generous brother You will have it so and Fate will have it so likewise and although I would not if I could help it yet I must needs consent to it for who can withstand Fate and Achilles his obstinacy But remember cruel and blinde as you are that a God hath told you by my mouth yes I swear that I feel a God inspiring what I now tell you that you shall finde hatred where you hope to meet with love that you shall have nothing but regret where you expected nothing but pleasure that you shall be betrayed by the Trojans as you now betray the Grecians that they shall have as much craft as you have simplicity that if Polixena do wait for you death does wait for you also neer her that if you approach neer Troy your fatal houre does approach likewise that the first day of that fatall Marriage shall be the last of your dayes and that your death must quickly make me die Behold what Heaven has inspir'd me with and this is that which you ought to believe this is that which you will not believe and this is that insensible and mad man which will be the cause both of your ruine and mine Just Gods he hears me no more he is going the power of his destiny drags him away I shall behold him no more nor shall he ' ere see me again he leaves me he is going to die and I my self am going to die likewise The effect of this HARANGUE THe unfortunate Briseis obtained nothing of the patilesse Achilles but her prediction was not untrue He went to see Polixena that he might see the day no longer and every one knows that one of Paris's arrows sent him to his grave for not having believed this lovely slave who without doubt deserved to be together both Slave and Mistris FINIS