Daria (aside).
Ah! would to Jove 't were so!
And that my death in his wild hands had paid
For future chastisement by fate delayed!
But ah! the wish is vain,
Foreboding horror fills my heart and brain,
This mystic music borne upon the air
Must surely augur ill.
(Enter Nisida.)
Nisida.
Daria fair,
And Cynthia wise, I come to seek ye two.
Cynthia.
Has any thing occurred or strange or new?
Nisida.
I scarce can tell it. As I came along,
I heard a man, in a clear voice and strong,
Proclaiming as he went
Through all the mountain a most strange event:
Rome hath decreed
Priceless rewards to her whose charms may lead
Through lawful love and in an open way
By public wedlock in the light of day,
The son of proud Polemius from the state
Of gloom in which his mind is sunk of late.
Cynthia.
And what can be the cause that he is so?