Her. Eugenio returned! thou hast reason, Phillida, I should be dead with sorrow: 'tis not fit we hear his name without a miracle. Where is he? Send to bring him hither.
Phil. He waits on your commands without.
Her. Bring him in. Good gods!
If you can suffer me one minute's joy,
Give it me now, and let excess of happiness
Finish what sorrow cannot. But where's this happiness
I fain would dream of? Eugenio is return'd,
That I may look on him, and not be his,
And call our faiths in vain to aid our loves.
[ACT IV., SCENE 2.]
Enter Eugenio and Phillida.
Eug. May the gods give you, madam, a content
As high as you have power to bestow
On those you favour, and then your happiness
Will be as great as is your beauty.
Her. O my best lord! you now behold a face
Too much acquainted with my sad heart's grief
Not to be stain'd with't. Sure, you cannot
Know it?—I pray, say you do not—you'll wrong
Two things I am most proud of—my just grief
And your young love—which could not grow,
Nourish'd with such poor heat as now it gives.
I have a story that will break your heart
When you have heard it, and mine, ere I
Deliver it. Prince Lysicles to-morrow marries me,
Or I must leave my duty or my life.
Forgive me, that I dare to utter this.
Eug. Madam, forbear your tears: they are a ransom
Too mighty to redeem the greatest faith
The gods were ever witness to. I know
Whereto you tend: you would have me untie
The knot that bound our loves, and I will do't,
Though it be fasten'd to my strings of life.
Be happy in your choice: give to his merit
What once you promis'd to my perfect love,
By which I only did pretend my claim.
I do release you, as I know heaven has;
Who in his justice cannot have consented
To a longer faith in you; you must not be
The conquest of a miserable man,
O'er whom their cruel'st influences reign.
Her. Some saving power close up my drowned eyes,
Which death had long since shut, had not the love
And hope of seeing you preserv'd them open.
Have I been false for this to all my friends?
That you should think I can be so to you? Add not
By your suspicions a crime to our misfortune.