Nay, start not so—
I'll know your purposes, spite of thy art.
Vardanes.
O! ye great Gods! and is it come to this?—
My Royal Father call your reason home,
Drive these loud passions hence, that thus deform you.
My Brother—Ah! what shall I say?—My Brother
Sure loves you as he ought.
King.
Ha! as he ought?—
Hell blister thy evasive tongue—I'll know it—
I will; I'll search thy breast, thus will I open
A passage to your secrets—yet resolv'd—
Yet steady in your horrid villany—
'Tis fit that I from whom such monsters sprung
No more should burthen earth—Ye Parricides!—
Here plant your daggers in this hated bosom—
Here rive my heart, and end at once my sorrows,
I gave ye being, that's the mighty crime.
Vardanes.
I can no more—here let me bow in anguish—
Think not that I e'er join'd in his designs,
Because I have conceal'd my knowledge of them:
I meant, by pow'rful reason's friendly aid,
To turn him from destruction's dreadful path,
And bring him to a sense of what he ow'd
To you as King and Father.
King.
Say on—I'll hear.
Vardanes.