Arsaces.
What means that sigh?
Tell me why heaves thy breast with such emotion?
Some dreadful thought is lab'ring for a vent,
Haste, give it loose, ere strengthen'd by confinement
It wrecks thy frame, and tears its snowy prison.
Is sorrow then so pleasing that you hoard it
With as much love, as misers do their gold?
Give me my share of sorrows.
Evanthe.
Ah! too soon
You'll know what I would hide.
Arsaces.
Be it from thee—
The dreadful tale, when told by thee, shall please;
Haste, to produce it with its native terrors,
My steady soul shall still remain unshaken;
For who when bless'd with beauties like to thine
Would e'er permit a sorrow to intrude?
Far hence in darksome shades does sorrow dwell,
Where hapless wretches thro' the awful gloom,
Echo their woes, and sighing to the winds,
Augment with tears the gently murm'ring stream;
But ne'er disturbs such happiness as mine.
Evanthe.
Oh! 'tis not all thy boasted happiness,
Can save thee from disquietude and care;
Then build not too securely on these joys,
For envious sorrow soon will undermine,
And let the goodly structure fall to ruin.
Arsaces.
I charge thee, by our mutual vows, Evanthe,
Tell me, nor longer keep me in suspense:
Give me to know the utmost rage of fate.