"You love him; you cannot deny it!" cries Amneris, forgetting in her furious jealousy her dignity as a Princess. "But know, you have a rival. Yes—in me. You, my slave, have a rival in your mistress, a daughter of the Pharaohs!"
Having fathomed her slave's secret, she vents the refined cruelty of her jealous nature upon the unfortunate girl by commanding her to be present at the approaching triumphant entry of Rhadames and the Egyptian army:
"Come, follow me, and you shall learn if you can contend with me—you, prostrate in the dust, I on the throne beside the king!"
What has just been described is formulated by Verdi in a duet for Amneris and Aïda, "Amore! gaudio tormento" (Oh, love! Oh, joy and sorrow!), which expresses the craftiness and subtlety of the Egyptian Princess, the conflicting emotions of Aïda, and the dramatic stress of the whole episode.
This phrase especially seems to express the combined haughtiness and jealousy in the attitude of Amneris toward Aïda:
[[Listen]]
Scene 2. Brilliant indeed is the spectacle to which Aïda is compelled to proceed with the Princess. It is near a group of palms at the entrance to the city of Thebes that the King has elected to give Rhadames his triumph. Here stands the temple of Ammon. Beyond it a triumphal gate has been erected. When the King enters to the cheers of the multitude and followed by his gaudily clad court, he takes his seat on the throne surmounted by a purple canopy. To his left sits Amneris, singling out for her disdainful glances the most unhappy of her slaves.
A blast of trumpets, and the victorious army begins its defile past the throne. After the foot soldiers come the chariots of war; then the bearers of the sacred vases and statues of the gods, and a troupe of dancing girls carrying the loot of victory. A great flourish of trumpets, an outburst of acclaim, and Rhadames, proudly standing under a canopy borne high on the shoulders of twelve of his officers, is carried through the triumphal gate and into the presence of his King. As the young hero descends from the canopy, the monarch, too, comes down from the throne and embracing him exclaims: