To speak truth, Livia is she who has surprised my heart;
CYPRIAN as a Student; CLARIN and MOSCON as poor But he is more than half-way there.-Soho!
Livia, I come; good sport, Livia, soho!
The God defined by Plinius; if he must Be supreme goodness, even Jupiter Is not supremely good; because we see His deeds are evil, and his attributes Tainted with mortal weakness; in what manner Can supreme goodness be consistent with The passions of humanity?
Of the old world mask'd with the names of Gods The attributes of Nature and of Man; A sort of popular philosophy.
This reply will not satisfy me, for
Such awe is due to the high name of God That ill should never be imputed. Then, Examining the question with more care, It follows, that the Gods should always will That which is best, were they supremely good. How then does one will one thing-one another? And you may not say that I allege Poetical or philosophic learning: Consider the ambiguous responses
Of their oracular statues; from two shrines Two armies shall obtain the assurance of One victory. Is it not indisputable That two contending wills can never lead To the same end? And being opposite, If one be good, is not the other evil? Evil in God is inconceivable;
But supreme goodness fails among the Gods Without their union.
I deny your major. These responses are means towards some end Unfathom'd by our intellectual beam. They are the work of providence, and more The battle's loss may profit those who lose, Than victory advantage those who win.
That I admit, and yet that God should not (Falsehood is incompatible with deity) Assure the victory; it would be enough To have permitted the defeat; if God Be all sight,-God, who beheld the truth, Would not have given assurance of an end Never to be accomplish'd; thus, although The Deity may, according to his attributes, Be well distinguish'd into persons, yet, Even in the minutest circumstance, His essence must be one.
To attain the end, The affections of the actors in the scene Must have been thus influenced by his voice.
But for a purpose thus subordinate
He might have employed genii, good or evil,- A sort of spirits call'd so by the learn'd, Who roam about inspiring good or evil, And from whose influence and existence, we May well infer our immortality:—
Thus God might easily, without descending To a gross falsehood in his proper person, Have moved the affections by this mediation To the just point.
CYPRIAN.
Go in peace!
DÆMON.
Remain in peace! Since thus it profits him To study, I will wrap his senses up In sweet oblivion of all thought, but of A piece of excellent beauty; and as I Have power given me to wage enmity Against Justina's soul, I will extract From one effect two vengeances.
I never Met a more learned person. Let me now
If there were words, here is the place for deeds
Thou needest not instruct me: well I know That in the field the silent tongue of steel Speaks thus.
Ha! what is this? Lelio, Floro,
Be it enough that Cyprian stands between you, Although unarm'd.
Whence comest thou, to stand Between me and my vengeance?
Run, run! for where we left my master We hear the clash of swords.
I never Run to approach things of this sort, but only To avoid them. Sir! Cyprian! sir!
Though you may imagine That I know little of the laws of duel, Which vanity and valor instituted, You are in error. By my birth I am Held no less than yourselves to know the limits Of honor and of infamy, nor has study Quench'd the free spirit which first order'd them; [Exit. And thus to me, as one well experienced In the false quicksands of the sea of honor, You may refer the merits of the case; And if I should perceive in your relation
Revolve this doubt again with careful mind. [He reads. That either has the right to satisfaction
And if you both Would marry her, is it not weak and vain, Culpable and unworthy, thus beforehand To slur her honor. What would the world say If one should slay the other, and if she Should afterwards espouse the murderer?
[The rivals agree to refer their quarrel to CYPRIAN;| who in consequence visits JUSTINA, and becomes enamored of her: she disdains him, and he retires to a solitary sea-shore.
Oh, memory! permit it not That the tyrant of my thought Be another soul that still Holds dominion o'er the will,
That would refuse, but can no more. To bend, to tremble, and adore. Vain idolatry!--I saw,
And gazing, became blind with error; Weak ambition, which the awe Of her presence bound to terror' So beautiful she was-and I, Between my love and jealousy, Am so convulsed with hope and fear, Unworthy as it may appear;- So bitter is the life I live,
That, hear me, Hell! I now would give To thy most detested spirit My soul, for ever to inherit, To suffer punishment and pine, So this woman may be mine.
Hear'st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it? My soul is offer'd!
DÆMON (unseen). I accept it.
[Tempest, with thunder and lightning
What is this? ye heavens for ever pure, At once intensely radiant and obscure! Athwart the ethereal halls
The lightning's arrow and the thunder-balls The day affright
As from the horizon round,
Burst with earthquake sound,
In mighty torrents the electric fountains- Clouds quench the sun, and thunder-smoke Strangles the air, and fire eclipses heaven. Philosophy, thou canst not even Compel their causes underneath thy yoke: From yonder clouds even to the waves below The fragments of a single ruin choke
For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light, The ashes of the desolation cast
Upon the gloomy blast,
Tell of the footsteps of the storm. And nearer see the melancholy form Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea, Drives miserably!
And it must fly the pity of the port, Or perish, and its last and sole resort Is its own raging enemy.
The terror of the thrilling cry Was a fatal prophecy
Of coming death, who hovers now Upon that shatter'd prow,
That they who die not may be dying still And not alone the insane elements Are populous with wild portents, But that sad ship is as a miracle Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast It seems as if it had array'd its form With the headlong storm.
It strikes I almost feel the shock,
It stumbles on a jagged rock,—
Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.
A Tempest-All exclaim within,
Now from this plank wil I Pass to the land, and thus fulfil my scheme.
As in contempt of the elemental rage A man comes forth in safety, while the ship's Great form is in a watery eclipse Obliterated from the Ocean's page, And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit, A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave Are heaped over its carcase, like a grave.
The DÆMON enters, as escaped from the sea. DÆMON (aside)
It was essential to my purposes To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean, That in this unknown form I might at length Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture Sustain'd upon the mountain, and assail With a new war the soul of Cyprian,
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