PHILOTAS.
No; hear why I weep! It is no childish weeping which you deign to accompany with your manly tears. What I thought my greatest happiness, the tender love with which my father loves me, will now become my greatest misery. I fear, I fear he loves me more than he loves his empire! What will he not sacrifice, what will not your king exact from him, to rescue me from prison! Through me, wretched youth, will he lose in one day more than he has gained in three long toilsome years with the blood of his noble warriors, with his own blood. With what face shall I appear again before him? I, his worst enemy! And my father's subjects--mine at some future day, if I had made myself worthy to rule them. How will they be able to endure the ransomed prince amongst them without contemptuous scorn. And when I die for shame, and creep unmourned to the shades below, how gloomy and proud will pass by the souls of those heroes who for their king had to purchase with their lives those gains, which, as a father, he renounces for an unworthy son! Oh, that is more than a feeling heart can endure!