How hard the precepts of my virtue grow! But whate'er fortune is for me designed, Sweet heaven, be still to brave Porphyrius kind! [Exit with Erotion.
Por. She's gone unkindly, and refused to cast One glance to feed me for so long a fast.
Enter Maximin, Placidius, and guards.
Max. Porphyrius, since the Gods have ravished one, I come in you to seek another son. Succeed him then in my imperial states; Succeed in all, but his untimely fate. If I adopt you with no better grace, Pardon a father's tears upon my face, And give them to Charinus' memory: May they not prove as ominous to thee!
Por. With what misfortunes heaven torments me still! Why must I be obliged to one so ill? [Aside.
Max. Those offers which I made you, sir, were such, No private man should need to balance much.
Por. Who durst his thoughts to such ambition lift? [Kneeling.
The greatness of it made me doubt the gift. The distance was so vast, that to my view It made the object seem at first untrue; And now 'tis near, the sudden excellence Strikes through, and flashes on my tender sense.
Max. Yet heaven and earth, which so remote appear, [Raising him.
Are by the air, which flows betwixt them, near; And 'twixt us two my daughter be the chain, One end with me, and one with you remain.