And all that I wou'd keep shou'd be Horatio. 395
So when the merchant sees his vessel lost,
Tho' richly freighted from a foreign coast,
Gladly, for life, the treasure he wou'd give,
And only wishes to escape and live.
Gold and his gains, no more employ his mind, 400
But driving o'er the billows with the wind,
Cleaves to one faithful plank, and leaves the
rest behind.
Altamont. With what unequal tempers are we
One day the soul, supine with ease and fulness,
Revels secure, and fondly tells her self,
The hour of evil can return no more;
The next, the spirit 's pall'd, and sick of riot,
Turn all to discord, and we hate our beings,
Curse the past joy, and think it folly all,
And bitterness and anguish. Oh! last night!
What has ungrateful beauty paid me back
For all that mass of friendship which I squan-
Coldness, aversion, tears, and sullen sorrow,
Dash'd all my bliss, and damp'd my bridal bed.
Soon as the morning dawn'd, she vanish'd from
Relentless to the gentle call of love.
I have lost a friend, and I have gain'd a wife! 15 Turn not to thought, my brain; but let me find Some unfrequented shade; there lay me down,
1-19 With what . . . thinking. Fomits. F opens Act IV with stage-direction: A garden. Lothario and Calista discovered seated.
And let forgetful dulness steal upon me,
To soften and asswage this pain of thinking.
Enter Lothario and Calista.
Lothario. Weep not, my fair, but let the god
of love
Laugh in thy eyes, and revel in thy heart,
Kindle again his torch, and hold it high,
To light us to new joys; nor let a thought
Of discord, or disquiet past, molest thee;
But to a long oblivion give thy cares,
And let us melt the present hour in bliss.
Calista. Seek not to sooth me with thy false
endearments,
To charm me with thy softness; 't is in vain ;
Thou can'st no more betray, nor I be ruin'd.
The hours of folly and of fond delight
Are wasted all and fled; those that remain
Are doom'd to weeping, anguish, and repent-
I come to charge thee with a long account
Of all the sorrows I have known already,
And all I have to come; thou hast undone
Loth. Unjust Calista! dost thou call it ruin.
To love as we have done; to melt, to languish,
To wish for somewhat exquisitely happy,
And then be blest ev'n to that wish's height?
To die with joy, and streight to live again,
Speechless to gaze, and with tumultuous trans-
Cal. Oh! let me hear no more; I cannot bear it,
'T is deadly to remembrance; let that night,
That guilty night, be blotted from the year;
Let not the voice of mirth, or musick, know it; 45
Let it be dark and desolate; no stars
To glitter o'er it; let it wish for light,
Yet want it still, and vainly wait the dawn;
For 't was the night that gave me up to shame,
To sorrow, to perfidious, false Lothario.
Loth. Hear this, ye pow'rs, mark how the fair
deceiver
Sadly complains of violated truth;
She calls me false, ev'n she, the faithless she,
Whom day and night, whom heav'n and earth
have heard
Sighing to vow, and tenderly protest,
Ten thousand times, she wou'd be only mine;
And yet, behold, she has giv'n her self away,
Fled from my arms, and wedded to another,
Ev'n to the man whom most I hate on earth
Cal. Art thou so base, to upbraid me with a
crime
Which nothing but thy cruelty cou'd cause?
50 perfidious, false. F, omitting perfidious, the false.
If indignation, raging in my soul,
For thy unmanly insolence and scorn,
Urg'd me to do a deed of desparation,
And wound my self to be reveng'd on thee,
Think whom I shou'd devote to death and hell,
Whom curse, as my undoer, but Lothario!
Hadst thou been just, not all Sciolto's pow'r,
Not all the vows and pray'rs of sighing Altamont,
Cou'd have prevail'd, or won me to forsake thee. 70
Loth. How have I fail'd in justice or in love?
Burns not my flame as brightly as at first?
Ev'n now my heart beats high, I languish for
thee,
My transports are as fierce, as strong my wishes,
As if thou hadst never blest me with thy beauty. 75
Cal. How didst thou dare to think that I
A slave to base desires and brutal pleasures,
To be a wretched wanton for thy leisure
Το
toy and waste an hour of idle time with?
My soul disdains thee for so mean a thought.
Loth. The driving storm of passion will have
And I must yield before it; wer't thou calm, Love, the poor criminal, whom thou hast doom'd,
72 at first. 1732, at the first.
75 hadst never. F, ne'er hadst.
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