CID. Come, sister, and enjoy what is offered to you.
AGL. Prepare your charms to receive here a new triumph.
CID. These two princes have both so well felt the power of your beauty
that their lips are eager to declare it.
PSY. I little thought myself to be the cause of their pensiveness, and
I should have expected it to be quite otherwise when I found them
talking to you.
AGL. We have neither sufficient rank nor beauty to make us deserving
of their love and solicitude, but they favour us with the honour of
their confidence.
CLE. (_to_ PSYCHE). The avowal which we would make to your divine
charms, Madam, is, no doubt, a rash one; but so many hearts, on the
point of expiring, are by such avowals obliged to displease you, that
you have ceased to punish them by the terrors of your wrath. You see
in us two friends who were joined in childhood by a happy similarity
of feeling, and this tender union has been strengthened by a hundred
contests of esteem and gratitude. The attachment of our friendship has
been proved in the severe assaults of unfavourable fortune, the
contempt of death, the sight of torture, and the glorious splendour of
mutual good offices; but whatever trials it may have endured, to-day
witnesses its greatest triumph, and nothing proves so much its tried
fidelity as its duration through the rivalry of love. Yes, in spite of
so many charms, its constancy subjects our vows to the laws it gives
us. It comes with sweet and entire deference, to submit the success of
our passion to your choice; and, to give a weight to our competition
which may bring the balance of state reasons to favour the choice of
one of us, this friendship intends of free will to unite our two
estates to the fortune of the happy one.
AGE. Yes, Madam, we wish to make of these two estates, which we
propose to unite under your happy choice, a help towards obtaining
you. The sacrifice which we make to the king, your father, in order to
ensure this happiness, has nothing difficult in it to our loving
hearts, and it will be a necessary gift that the rejected unfortunate
should make over to the one who is fortunate a power which he will no
longer know bow to enjoy.
PSY. Princes, you both display to my eyes a choice so precious and
dazzling that it would satisfy the proudest heart. But your passion,
your friendship, your supreme virtue, all increase the value of your
vows of fidelity, and make it a merit that I should oppose myself to
what you ask of me. I must not listen to my heart only before engaging
in such a union, but my hand must await my father's decision before it
can dispose of itself, and my sisters have rights superior to mine.
But if I were referred absolutely to my own wishes, you might both
have too great a share in them, and my entire esteem be so evenly
balanced between you that I should not be able to decide in favour of
either. I would indeed respond with most affectionate interest to the
ardour of your suit, but amid so much merit two hearts are too much
for me, one heart too little for you. The accomplishment of my dearest
wishes would be to me a burden were it granted to me by your love.
Yes, Princes, I should greatly prefer you to all those whose love will
follow yours, but I could never have the heart to prefer one of you to
the other. My tenderness would be too great a sacrifice to the one
whom I might choose, and I should think myself barbarously unjust to
inflict so great a wrong upon the other. Indeed, you both possess such
greatness of soul that it would be wrong to make either of you
miserable, and you must seek in love the means of being both happy. If
your hearts honour me enough to give me the right of disposing of
them, I have two sisters well fitted to please, who might make your
destinies happy, and whom friendship endears to me enough for me to
wish that you should be their husbands.
CLE. Can a heart whose love, alas! is extreme, consent to be given
away by her it loves? We yield up our two hearts, Madam, to your
divine charms, even should you doom them to death; but we beg you not
to make them over to any one but yourself.
AGE. It would be too unjust to the princesses, Madam, and too poor a
tribute to their charms, if we should give to them the remains of a
former affection. Only the faithful purity of a first love deserves to
aspire to the honour to which your kindness invites us, for each of
your sisters merits a love which has sighed for her alone.
AGL. It seems to me, Princes, without any offence, that before thus
refusing, you might wait until our intentions had been declared. Do
you think our hearts so susceptible and tender? And when people
propose your offering yourselves to us, are you so sure of being
accepted?
CID. I think our sentiments are lofty enough to lead us to refuse a
heart which wants soliciting; and we wish to conquer our lovers by the
power of our own merit.