Ard. O, too much
Thou lovest love! A fiend, I say!
Char. That name
Give unto me when I consent to piece
This spun-out life with breath of babes and gasp
Of dying mothers. Would you feed these veins,
Gelid and old, all golden venture done,
With the warm waste of youth whose savèd stream
Might bear mankind unto the port of gods?
Ard. But you—you are my father!
Char. It is such cries
Unsettle justice till her shaken scales
Weigh nations 'gainst a heart.
Ard. Must I not love you?
Char. My Ardia, fair as though thou wert not mine,
Or wert all hers who made gray Corinth young,
The love that feeds behind a sheltered door
Must be unroofed and take its bread of stars
Ere it may answer to its holy name.
The heart must build no walls——
Ard. I build them not,
But find them risen about me. You are here,
Guardful and best, fending my eyes,—there stands
My Biondel,—there Vigard brave,—and there....
Char. And there, my daughter?
Ard. Hark! 'Tis Vairdelan's voice!
[Singing heard below]