Be comforted, dear prince! It is the fault of youth always to think itself more happy or less than it really is. Your fate is not so cruel yet;--the king approaches, you will hear more consolation from his lips.
Scene III.
King Aridäus, Philotas, Strato.
ARIDÄUS.
The wars which kings are forced to wage together are no personal quarrels. Let me embrace you, prince! Ah what happy days your blooming youth recalls to me! Thus bloomed your father's youth! This was his open, speaking eye; these his earnest, honest features; this his noble bearing! Let me embrace you again; in you I embrace your younger father. Have you never heard from him, prince, what good friends we were at your age? That was the blessed age, when we could still abandon ourselves to our feelings without restraint. But soon we were both called to the throne, and the anxious king, the jealous neighbour, stifled, alas, the willing friend.
PHILOTAS.
Pardon me, O king, if you find me too cold in my reply to such sweet words. My youth has been taught to think, but not to speak. What can it now aid me, that you and my father once were friends? Were! so you say yourself. The hatred which one grafts on an extinguished friendship bears the most deadly fruit of all; or I still know the human heart too little. Do not, therefore, O king, do not prolong my despair. You have spoken as the polished statesman: speak now as the monarch, who has the rival of his greatness completely in: his power.
STRATO.
O king, do not let him be tormented longer by the uncertainty of his fate!