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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