Verus
Come, I know these tears that well at the same moment from our two hearts in our one joy.... But here, between the columns of the vestibule, come the greatest ornaments of that beautiful Rome which we shall soon astonish with our love.... I am right: it is our good Silanus, accompanied by the faithful Appius; led by the immortal gods, they descend the marble steps to hallow with their fraternal presence the first smiles of a happiness born under their eyes....
SCENE II
Silanus
It was said and it was written that, on this most propitious day, I should behold two marvels, not the lesser of which is to see thus promptly reunited two lovers who, according to love’s ancient custom, should have fled from each other the more obstinately the more they yearned to meet....
Appius
By Metrodorus, Hermachus and Zeno, there are other things on hand than the too-long-expected happiness of two lovers cutting short their quarrels!... Tell them at once what has happened; shout it to them, with all your throat and all your soul: death no longer exists! The graves are about to open, the spirits of the dead to show themselves; the gods are shaken, all the laws of life are overturned!... We have just admired an unequalled, unspeakable, unheard-of phenomenon, that has never been seen since light first rose upon the world, that will not be seen again before the death of the gods!...
Silanus
The more extraordinary it seems to you, Appius, the less should it trouble the perfect composure of your soul, considering that a phenomenon that will not be seen again could not well shake the laws of the universe nor the stability of the gods!