TASSO AND CORNELIA
Tasso. She is dead, Cornelia! she is dead!
Cornelia. Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years of separation do I bend once more your beloved head to my embrace?
Tasso. She is dead!
Cornelia. Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and most unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven, so bewilders you?
Tasso. Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her.
Cornelia. Certainly it was a sad event; and they who are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent.
Tasso. How! What is this?
Cornelia. The little girl was crushed, they say, by a wheel of the car laden with grapes, as she held out a handful of vine-leaves to one of the oxen. And did you happen to be there at the moment?
Tasso. So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child! She was kind-hearted, else never would calamity have befallen her.