Seb. Good heaven, thou speak'st my thoughts, and I speak thine!
Nay, then there's incest in our very souls,
For we were formed too like.
Alm. Too like indeed,
And yet not for each other.
Sure when we part, (for I resolved it too,
Though you proposed it first,) however distant,
We shall be ever thinking of each other,
And the same moment for each other pray.
Seb. But if a wish should come athwart our prayers!
Alm. It would do well to curb it, if we could.
Seb. We cannot look upon each other's face,
But, when we read our love, we read our guilt:
And yet, methinks, I cannot chuse but love.
Aim. I would have asked you, if I durst for shame,
If still you loved? you gave it air before me.
Ah, why were we not born both of a sex?
For then we might have loved without a crime.
Why was not I your brother? though that wish
Involved our parents' guilt, we had not parted;
We had been friends, and friendship is no incest.
Seb. Alas, I know not by what name to call thee!
Sister and wife are the two dearest names,
And I would call thee both, and both are sin.
Unhappy we! that still we must confound
The dearest names into a common curse.
Alm. To love, and be beloved, and yet be wretched!
Seb. To have but one poor night of all our lives;
It was indeed a glorious, guilty night;
So happy, that—forgive me, heaven!—I wish,
With all its guilt, it were to come again.
Why did we know so soon, or why at all,
That sin could be concealed in such a bliss?
440 Alm. Men have a larger privilege of words,
Else I should speak; but we must part, Sebastian,—
That's all the name that I have left to call thee;—
I must not call thee by the name I would;
But when I say Sebastian, dear Sebastian,
I kiss the name I speak.