Chapter 1

CLI. (_aside_). He is buried in thought.

SOS. (_believing himself alone_). No, Sostratus, I do not see where you can look for help, and your troubles are of a kind to leave you no hope.

CLI. (_aside_). He is talking to himself.

SOS. (_believing himself alone_). Alas!

CLI. These sighs must mean something, and my surmise will prove correct.

SOS. (_believing himself alone_). Upon what fancies can you build any hope? And what else can you expect but the protracted length of a miserable existence, and sorrow to end only with life itself.

CLI. (_aside_). His head is more perplexed than mine.

SOS. (_believing himself alone_). My heart! my heart! to what have you brought me?

CLI. Your servant, my Lord Sostratus!

SOS. Where are you going, Clitidas?

CLI. Rather tell me what you are doing here? And what secret melancholy, what gloomy sorrow, can keep you in these woods when all are gone in crowds to the magnificent festival which the Prince Iphicrates has just given upon the sea to the princesses. There they are treated to wonderful music and dancing, and even the rocks and the waves deck themselves with divinities to do homage to their beauty.

SOS. I can fancy all this magnificence, and as there are generally so many people to cause confusion at these festivals, I did not care to increase the number of unwelcome guests.

CLI. You know that your presence never spoils anything, and that you are never in the way wherever you go. Your face is welcome everywhere, and is not one of those ill-favoured countenances which are never well received by sovereigns. You are equally in favour with both princesses, and the mother and the daughter show plainly enough the regard they have for you; so that you need not fear to be accounted troublesome. In short, it was not this fear that kept you away.

SOS. I acknowledge that I have no inclination for such things.

CLI. Oh indeed! Yet, although we may not care to see things, we like to go where we find everybody else; and whatever you may say, people do not, during a festival, stop all alone among the trees to dream moodily as you do, unless they have something to disturb their minds.

SOS. Why? What do you think could disturb my mind?

CLI. Well, I can't say; but there is a strong scent of love about here, and I am sure it does not come from me, and it must come from you.

SOS. How absurd you are, Clitidas!

CLI. Not so absurd as you would make out. You are in love; I have a delicate nose, and I smelt it directly.

SOS. What can possibly make you think so?

CLI. What? I daresay you would be very much surprised if I were to tell you besides with whom you are in love.

SOS. I?

CLI. Yes; I wager that I will guess presently whom you love. I have some secrets, as well as our astrologer with whom the Princess Aristione is so infatuated; and if his science makes him read in the stars the fate of men, I have the science of reading in the eyes of people the names of those they love. Hold up your head a little, and open your eyes wide. _E_, by itself, _E; r, i, ri, Eri; p, h, y, phy, Eriphy; l, e, le, Eriphyle_. You are in love with the Princess Eriphyle.

SOS. Ah! Clitidas, I cannot conceal my trouble from you, and you crush me with this blow.

CLI. You see how clever I am!

SOS. Alas! if anything has revealed to you the secret of my heart, I beseech you to tell it to no one; and, above all things, to keep it secret from the fair princess whose name you have just mentioned.

CLI. But, to speak seriously, if for awhile I have read in your actions the love you wish to keep secret, do you think that the Princess Eriphyle has been blind enough not to see it? Believe me, ladies are always very quick to discover the love they inspire, and the language of the eyes and of sighs is understood by those to whom it is addressed sooner than by anybody else.

SOS. Leave her, Clitidas, leave her to read, if she can, in my sighs and looks the love with which her beauty has inspired me; but let us be careful not to let her find it out in any other way.

CLI. And what is it you dread? Is it possible that this same Sostratus, who feared neither Brennus nor all the Gauls, and whose arm has been so gloriously successful in ridding us of that swarm of barbarians which ravaged Greece; is it possible, I say, that a man so dauntless in war should be so fearful as to tremble at the very mention of his being in love?

SOS. Ah! Clitidas, I do not tremble without a cause; and all the Gauls in the world would seem to me less to be feared than those two beautiful eyes full of charms.

CLI. I am not of the same opinion, and I know, as far as I am concerned, that one single Gaul, sword in hand, would frighten me much more than fifty of the most beautiful eyes in the world put together. But, tell me, what do you intend to do?

SOS. To die without telling my love.

CLI. A fine prospect! Nonsense, you are joking; you know that a little boldness always succeeds with lovers; it is only the bashful and timid who are losers; and were I to fall in love with a goddess, I would tell her of my passion at once.

SOS. Alas! too many things condemn my love to an eternal silence.

CLI. But what?

SOS. The lowness of my birth, by which it pleased heaven to humble the ambition of my love; the princess's rank, which puts between her and my desires such an impassable barrier. The rivalry of two princes who can back the offer of their heart by the highest titles; two princes who offer the most magnificent entertainments by turn to her whose heart they strive to win, and between whom it is expected every moment that she will make a choice. Besides all this, Clitidas, there is the inviolable respect to which she subjugates the violence of my love.

CLI. Respect is not always as welcome as love; and if I am not greatly mistaken, the young princess knows of your affection, and is not insensible to it.

SOS. Ah! pray do not, out of pity, flatter the heart of a miserable lover.

CLI. I do not say it without good reasons. She is a long time postponing the choice of a husband, and I must try and discover a little more about all this. You know that I enjoy a kind of favour with her, that I have free access to her, and that, by dint of trying all kinds of ways, I have gained the privilege of saying a word now and then, and of speaking at random on any subject. Sometimes I do not succeed as I should like, but at others I succeed very well. Leave it to me, then; I am your friend, I love men of merit, and I will choose my time to speak to the princess of....

SOS. Oh! for heaven's sake, however much you may pity my misfortune, Clitidas, be careful not to tell her anything of my love. I had rather die than to be accused by her of the least temerity, and this deep respect in which her divine charms....

CLI. Hush! they are all coming.