Emp. Sure our two souls have somewhere been acquainted
In former beings; or, struck out together,
One spark to Afric flew, and one to Portugal.
Expect a quick deliverance: Here's a third, [Turning to Almeyda.
Of kindred sold to both: pity our stars
Have made us foes! I should not wish her death.
Alm. I ask no pity; if I thought my soul
Of kin to thine, soon would I rend my heart-strings,
And tear out that alliance; but thou, viper,
Hast cancelled kindred, made a rent in nature,
And through her holy bowels gnawed thy way,
Through thy own blood, to empire.
Emp. This again!
And yet she lives, and only lives to upbraid me!
Seb. What honour is there in a woman's death!
Wronged, as she says, but helpless to revenge;
Strong in her passion, impotent of reason,
Too weak to hurt, too fair to be destroyed.
Mark her majestic fabric; she's a temple
341 Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine;
Her souls the deity that lodges there;
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god.
Emp. She's all that thou canst say, or I can think;
But the perverseness of her clamourous tongue
Strikes pity deaf.
Seb. Then only hear her eyes!
Though they are mute, they plead; nay, more, command;
For beauteous eyes have arbitrary power.
All females have prerogative of sex;
The she's even of the savage herd are safe;
And when they snarl or bite, have no return
But courtship from the male.
Emp. Were she not she, and I not Muley-Moluch,
She's mistress of inevitable charms,
For all but me; nor am I so exempt,
But that—I know not what I was to say—
But I am too obnoxious to my friends,
And swayed by your advice.
Seb. Sir, I advised not;
By heaven, I never counselled love, but pity.
Emp. By heaven thou didst; deny it not, thou didst:
For what was all that prodigality
Of praise, but to inflame me?
Seb. Sir—