CID. How does this sudden misfortune into which destiny has plunged
Psyche affect you, sister?
AGL. But how does it affect you, sister?
CID. To speak the truth, my heart is not very much grieved at it.
AGL. My heart feels something which very much resembles joy. Let us
go; Fate has sent us a calamity which we can consider as a blessing.
FIRST INTERLUDE.
_The scenery changes to horrible rocks, and shows a dreadful cavern in
the distance. It is in this desert that_ PSYCHE, _in obedience to the
oracle, is to be exposed. A band of afflicted people come to bewail
her death. Some give utterance to their pity by touching complaints
and mournful lays, while the rest express their grief by a dance full
of every mark of the most violent despair_.
WAILINGS _sung by a woman and two men_.
WOMAN.
Ah! weep with me, ye forests;
Ye mighty rocks of hardest adamant,
Ye Springs, ye beasts,
Lament the fate of one so fair.
1ST MAN.
Alas! dire grief
2ND MAN.
Without relief!
1ST MAN.
Cruel death!
2ND MAN.
Fell decree
ALL THREE (_together_).
Of sternest fate that dooms to die
Such beauty rare! Oh! heavens high!
And stars! behold! and sigh!
WOMAN.
My sad, sad lay repeat,
Ye caverns deep;
With notes of sorrow greet
Her death, ye mountains steep;
Re-echo, woods, and silent hills,
My grief; and ye, soft rippling rills!
1ST MAN.
Alas! dire grief
2ND MAN.
Without relief!
1ST MAN.
Cruel death!
2ND MAN.
Fell decree
ALL THREE (_together_).
Of sternest fate that dooms to die
Such beauty rare! Oh! heavens high!
And stars! behold! and sigh!
2ND MAN.
Who then, eternal gods, will doom
A guiltless maid to lasting gloom?
Oh! this thy rigour, heaven, shames
Hell's unrelenting flames!
1ST MAN.
Cruel will
2ND MAN.
Of gods severe!
THE TWO MEN.
Say why this hard decree,
To crush a heart so free
From guilt or stain?
Oh! fell edict unheard ere this!
Thou doomest a maid who showers bliss
Upon the mortal race.
She the sad earth would grace,
And would give life for pain!
WOMAN.
All tears are idle, all sighs.
Heaven wills it so--she dies!
Whene'er the gods their powers wield,
All man can do--is but to yield.
1ST MAN.
Alas! dire grief
2ND MAN.
Without relief!
1ST MAN.
Cruel death!
2ND MAN.
Fell decree!
ACT II.
SCENE I.--THE KING, PSYCHE, AGLAURA, CIDIPPE, LYCAS, _and_ FOLLOWERS.
PSY. The cause of your tears, my Lord, is dear to me; but you are too
kind when you allow a father's love to overmaster the duties of a
great king. The homage which here you pay to nature is fraught with
too much injury to the rank which you hold. I must decline its
touching favours. Check somewhat the sway of your grief over your
wisdom, and cease to honour my destiny with tears, which, springing
from a king's heart, show weakness.
KING. Ah! my daughter! close not my eyes to these tears; my grief is
reasonable, even though it be extreme; and when such a loss as mine
must endure for ever, wisdom herself, believe me, may weep. 'Tis in
vain that pride of regal sway bids us be insensible to such
calamities; as vain for reason to come to our help, and desire us to
see with unmoved eye the death of what we love. The effort required is
barbarous in the eyes of the universe--'tis brutality rather than
highest virtue. In this misfortune I will not wear a show of
insensibility, and hide the grief I feel. I renounce the vanity of
this fierce callousness, known as fortitude, and whatever be the name
given to the keen pain, the pangs of which I feel, I will exhibit it,
my daughter, to the gaze of all, and in the heart of a king display
that of a man.
PSY. I deserve not this violent grief. Seek, I pray, to resist the
claims it asserts over your heart, whose might a thousand events have
marked. What! for me, my Lord, you must abandon that kingly firmness
of which, under the blows of misfortune, you have shown such perfect
proofs?
KING. In numberless occasions firmness is easy. All revolutions to
which ruthless fortune can expose us--loss of rank, persecution,
envy's venom, hatred's dart--present nothing which the will of a soul,
but a little swayed by reason, cannot easily brave. But those rigours
which crush the heart under the weight of bitter grief are ... are the
cruel darts of those severe decrees of fate which deprive us for ever
of our loved ones. Against such ills reason offers no available
weapons. These are the direst blows that the gods in their wrath can
hurl against us!
PSY. My Lord, one consolation is still left you. Your marriage has
been graced with more than one gift from the gods, and by hiding me
from your sight, they with open favour deprive you of nothing but what
they have not carefully made good for you. Enough remains to relieve
your sorrow, and this law of heaven which you call cruel leaves
sufficient room in the two princesses, my sisters, for paternal love
wherein to place all its kindness.
KING. Ah! empty comfort to my sorrow. There is naught that can console
me for thy loss. My grief fills my soul, I am conscious of nothing
else; in presence of such cruel destiny, I look to what I lose, and
see not what I still retain.
PSY. My Lord, you know better than myself that we must rule our will
by that of heaven; and in this sad farewell I can only say to you that
which you can much better say to others. These gods are sovereign
lords of the gifts they deign to offer us; they leave them in our
hands so long only as it pleases them; when they withdraw them, we
have no right to murmur over the favours which their hands refuse any
longer to pour upon us. My Lord, I am a gift they have offered to your
vows, and when, by this decree, they wish to take me back, they
deprive you of nothing that you do not hold from them; and it is
without a murmur that you must resign me.
KING. Ah! seek, I pray, better foundations for the comfort thy heart
would offer me. Do not by the fallacy of thy reasoning increase the
burden of the piercing grief which now torments me. Dost thou imagine
that thou givest me a powerful reason why I should not complain of
this decree of heaven? and in this proceeding of the gods, of which
thou biddest me be satisfied, dost thou not clearly see a deadly
severity? Consider the state in which the gods force me to resign
thee, and that in which my hapless heart received thee. Thou shalt
know then that they take from me much more than they gave: from them I
received in thee, my daughter, a gift I did not ask for; then I found
in it but few charms, and without joy I saw my family increased by it.
But my heart and my eyes have made a sweet habit of this gift. Fifteen
years of care, of watchfulness, of study, have I employed to render it
precious to me. I have decked it with the lovely wealth of a thousand
brilliant virtues; I have enshrined in it, by assiduous care, the
rarest treasures that wisdom yields; to it clings the tenderness of my
soul. I have made it the charm, the joy of this heart, the solace of
my wearied senses, the sweet hope of my old age. All this they take
from me--these gods! And thou wouldst have me utter no complaint
concerning this dire edict from which I suffer! Ah! with too much
rigour their power tramples upon the affections of our heart. To
withdraw their gift, have they not waited till I had made it my all?
Rather, if it was their purpose to remove it, had it not been better
to give me nothing?
PSY. My Lord! dread the wrath of those gods whom you dare upbraid.
KING. After this blow, what more can they inflict on me?
PSY. Ah! my Lord! I tremble for your sins, of which I am the cause; I
hate myself for this....
KING. Ah! let them bear with my legitimate complaints; 'tis pain
enough for me to obey them; it ought to suffice them that my heart
abandons thee to the barbarous respect we must bear them, without
claiming also to control the grief that so frightful a decree calls
forth. My just despair can know no bounds. My grief, my grief, I will
nurse it for ever! I will feel for ever the loss I sustain, of
heaven's rigour I will always raise high my complaint; until death I
will unceasingly weep for that than which the whole world could give
me naught more precious.
PSY. Ah! I pray you, my Lord, spare my weakness. I need constancy in
these circumstances. Add not to the excess of my grief by the tears of
your fondness. My sorrow alone is deep enough; my fate and your grief
are too much for my heart.
KING. True! I must spare thee my disconsolate trouble. The fatal
moment has come. I must tear myself from thee; but how can I utter
this dreadful word? And yet I must! Heaven commands it. An unavoidable
cruelty forces me to leave thee in this fatal spot. Farewell, I go...
Farewell.
SCENE II.--PSYCHE, AGLAURA, CIDIPPE.
PSY. Follow the king, my sisters; dry his tears, solace his grief. You
would fill him with alarm were you to, expose yourselves to my
misfortune. Preserve for him whatever he possesses still; the serpent
I expect might prove hurtful to you, and draw you in the same fate as
myself; nay, through _your_ death might cause me a second death.
Me alone has heaven condemned to his poisonous breath; nothing could
save me; and I need no example to die.
AGL. Grudge us not this cruel privilege of mingling our tears with
your sorrows; suffer our sighs to answer your last sighs; accept this
last pledge of our tender love.
PSY. 'Tis but to lose yourselves to no purpose.
CID. 'Tis to hope for a miracle in your favour, or to accompany you to
the tomb.
PSY. What room is there for hope after such an oracle?
AGL. An oracle is ever veiled in obscurity; the more we believe that
we know its meaning, the less do we understand it. Perhaps, after all,
you must expect from it nothing but glory and happiness. Suffer us,
dear sister, to behold this mortal dread deceived by a worthy issue;
or at least let us die with you, if heaven does not show itself more
propitious to our prayers.
PSY. Dear sister, lend a readier ear to nature's voice, which summons
you to stand by the king. You love me too much, and duty murmurs; you
know its unavoidable laws. A father ought to be dearer to you than
myself; become both the mainstays of his old age. A thousand kings, a
thousand rival kings, cherish love for you; you both owe your father a
son-in-law and grandchildren. A thousand kings vie with each other to
whisper their vows to you. Me alone the oracle demands, and alone,
too, I will die, if I can, without weakness, or, if not, at least
without you as witnesses of that little which nature has left me.
AGL. Then by sharing your woe we annoy you!
CID. I dare go somewhat further, we offend you!
PSY. No; but you add to my torture, and perhaps increase the wrath of
heaven.
AGL. It is your will; we go. May that same heaven, more just, and less
severe, decree for you the fate we desire, and for which our sincere
friendship, in spite of you and of the oracle, still hopes!
PSY. Farewell. This hope, these vows, my sisters, none of the gods
will ever fulfil.
SCENE III.--PSYCHE (_alone_).
Alone, at last, I can look on this terrible change, which from the
summit of highest glory hurls me to the tomb. This glory was without
parallel. Its sheen spread from pole to pole; all kings seemed created
to love me; all their subjects, looking upon me as on a goddess, were
but now beginning to accustom me to the incense they never ceased to
offer; sighs followed me, for which I gave naught in return. My soul
remained fancy-free, while it captivated so many, and in the midst of
so much love was queen of all hearts, and yet mistress of my own. Oh!
heaven! hast thou counted a crime this want of feeling? All this
severity which thou dost exhibit, is it because in return for their
vows I have given nothing but esteem? If such be thy law, why didst
thou not create in me that which merit and love create in others,
and.... But what do I see here?
SCENE IV.--CLEOMENES, AGENOR, PSYCHE.
CLE. Behold in us two friends, two rivals, whose only wish is to
expose our life to save yours.
PSY. Can I listen to you when I have refused two sisters? Princes!
think you that you could defend me against heaven? To surrender
yourselves to the serpent, whose coming I must await here, is but a
despair ill-becoming great hearts; and to die when I die is to
overwhelm a sensitive, soul, that already has but too many sorrows.
AGE. A serpent is not invincible; Cadmus, who loved no one, slew Mars'
own reptile. We love, and Love makes everything possible for the heart
that follows his standard, for the hand of whose darts he is himself
the guide.
PSY. Do you expect his aid in behalf of an ungrateful one whom all his
shafts have been unable to wound? Think you he can stay his vengeance,
when 'tis bursting forth, and help you to release me from its stroke?
Even if you should serve me, even if you should restore me to life,
what reward do you hope for from that which knows no love?
CLE. It is not by the hope of so lovely a reward that we are animated.
We seek only to obey the dictates of a love that dares not presume,
whatever its efforts may be, that it can be so fortunate as to please
you, so worthy as to kindle within you a responsive flame.
AGE. Live, fair princess, and live for another; we will behold it with
a jealous eye, we will die of it, yet of a death sweeter far than if
we had to see you die. If we cannot save your life by the loss of
ours, whatever love you may prefer to ours, we are ready to die of
grief and of love.
PSY. Live, Princes, live, and no longer seek to ward off or to share
my fate. I believe I have told you, heaven seeks me alone; me alone
has it condemned. Methinks, I hear already the deadly hissing of its
minister, who even now draws nigh. My dread pictures him to me, ever
offers him to my view. Fear has mastered all my feelings; under its
influence I see him on the summit of this rock; I sink for very
weakness, and my fainting heart scarce keeps up a remnant of courage.
Farewell, Princes; flee, lest he poison you.
AGE. We have seen nothing as yet to astonish us. And since you deem
your death so nigh, if strength fail you, we have both arms and hearts
which hope never forsakes. It may be a rival has dictated this oracle;
and gold has made its interpreter speak. It would be no miracle if a
man has answered in the stead of a dumb deity; and everywhere we have
but too many examples that temples, no less than other places, are the
abode of the wicked.
CLE. Suffer us to oppose to the cowardly ravisher to whom sacrilege
abandons you a love that heaven has chosen for the defender of the
only fair one for whom we wish to live. If we dare not aspire to her
possession, at least, in the midst of her danger, allow us to follow
the ardour and dictates of our passion.
PSY. These dictates, this extreme ardour, with which your hearts are
filled in my behalf, obey them in behalf of others, in behalf of my
sisters. Live for them, since I die. Lament the cruel rigour of my
fate; and by your death do not give my sisters new ground for sorrow.
These are my last wishes, and in all ages the orders of the dying have
been received as law.
CLE. Princess....
PSY. Once more, Princes, live for my sisters. So long as you love me,
you must obey me; do not drive me to hate you, and to look upon you as
rebels for being too faithful to me. Go, leave me to die alone in this
spot, where I have no voice left except to say farewell. But I feel
myself lifted up, and the air opens a road whence you will no longer
hear this dying voice. Farewell, Princes, farewell, for the last time.
See, can you doubt my destiny?
PSYCHE _is borne through the air by two_ ZEPHYRS.
AGE. We lose sight of her. Prince, let us both seek on the summit of
this rock some means of following her.
CLE. Let us seek those of not surviving her.
SCENE V.--LOVE (_in the air_).
LOVE. Die, then, rivals of a jealous god, whose wrath you have
deserved, since your heart was sensible to the same charms. And thou,
Vulcan, fashion a thousand brilliant ornaments to adorn the palace
where Love will dry Psyche's tears, and yield himself her slave.
SECOND INTERLUDE.
_The scene changes to a splendid terrace, surrounded by pillars
emblazoned with golden figures. The whole represents a magnificent
palace, which_ LOVE _designs for_ PSYCHE. _Six_ CYCLOPS, _accompanied
by four_ FAIRIES, _introduce a ballet, and, whilst keeping time,
give the last touches to four huge silver vases which the_ FAIRIES
_have brought. The ballet is twice interrupted by this recitation of_
VULCAN, _which he gives out in two parts._
PART I.
Hasten, these seats prepare
For heaven's gentlest god.
No strength, no effort spare;
With mighty zeal and constant care
Do now, my lads, what must be done.
When Love commands us--see!
What haste too great can be?
Great Love no lazy hand will brook;
So work with might and main.
Your ancient hammers ply,
And sparks will swiftly fly
Beneath your arms that rain
The fast, resounding blows;
While zeal to please him glows
Within your heaving breasts.
PART II.
Then serve a god so kind,
Who loves great zeal to find.
No strength, no effort spare;
With mighty zeal and constant care
Do now, my lads, what must be done.
When Love commands us--see!
What haste too great can be?
Great Love no lazy hand can brook;
So work with might and main.
Your ancient hammers ply,
And sparks will swiftly fly
Beneath your arms that rain
The fast, resounding blows,
While zeal to please him glows;
Within your heaving breasts.
ACT III.
SCENE I.--LOVE, ZEPHYR.
ZEP. Yes! right gallantly have I acquitted myself of your errand; and
from the summit of that rock I have softly borne this beauty through
the air to this enchanted palace, where, with full freedom, you can
decree her fate. Yet you astonish me by this mighty change in your
appearance. That figure, that countenance, that costume, perfectly
conceal your real being, and I defy the most cunning to see in you
to-day the god of love.
LOVE. 'Tis because I do not wish to be known to Psyche. 'Tis my heart,
my heart alone, I wish to unfold; nothing more than the sweet raptures
of this keen passion, which her charms excite within it. To express
its gentle pining, and to hide what may be from those eyes that impose
on me their will, I have assumed this form which thou seest.
ZEP. You are a master in everything; this is how I know it. Often the
gods, when in love, have been seen assuming various disguises, seeking
to alleviate the pleasing wound inflicted on all hearts by your fiery
darts; but in good sense you outstrip them. Yours is the form
necessary for succeeding with the lovely sex, for whom we sigh. Yes,
the assistance derived from that form is powerful; and, apart from
rank and wit, whoever finds the means of being so fashioned does not
sigh in vain.
LOVE. I have decided, my dear Zephyr, to remain always thus; and the
oldest of all loves cannot be blamed for this. It is time to issue
from this long infancy, that wears out my patience. It is time,
henceforth, that I should be grown up.
ZEP. You are right. You cannot do better; and you are initiated into a
mystery that demands no childish powers.
LOVE. This change will, no doubt, vex my mother.
ZEP. I foresee some anger in that quarter, although disputes about age
ought not to exist among immortals; yet, your mother Venus shares the
spirit of beauties, who do not like grown-up children. But whereat I
fancy her offended is the line of conduct you are pursuing; and 'tis a
strange method of avenging her, to love the beauty she wished to see
punished. This hatred to which she expects the power of a son
generally feared by the gods to answer....
LOVE. Let us drop this discourse, Zephyr, and tell me whether thy eyes
do not find Psyche the fairest woman in the world? Is there aught on
the earth, aught in heaven, that could seize from her the glorious
title of matchless beauty? But I see her, my dear Zephyr, wondering at
the splendours of this spot.
ZEP. You can show yourself, to put an end to her torture, and unfold
to her her glorious destiny. Speak to one another all that sighs,
lips, and glances can speak. As a discreet confident, I know my duty,
and will not interrupt lovers' secrets.
SCENE II.--PSYCHE (_alone_).
Where am I? and in a spot I deemed deserted, what skilled hand has
reared this palace, which art and nature deck with the rarest gifts
that the eye could ever admire. Everything smiles, shines, sparkles in
this garden, in these apartments, whose pompous furniture presents
nothing that does not charm and flatter the beholder; and
whithersoever my fears lead me, I see under my feet naught but gold or
flowers. Can heaven have formed this world of wonders for the abode of
a serpent? And when, by this sight, it amuses and stays the unequalled
rigour of my jealous fate, does it wish to show that it repents of it?
No, no; this is the darkest, the keenest shaft of its hatred, so
fertile in its cruelties. This hatred, by a renewed and unparalleled
sternness, lays before my gaze the choice it has made of all that is
fairest in the world, only that I may leave it with deeper regret.
How foolish is my hope if it fancies it can thus alleviate my pain.
Every moment that my death is delayed becomes a new misfortune for me;
the more it stays its coming, the oftener I die.
Leave me no longer to pine; come, take thy victim, monster, whose
mission it is to slay me. Wouldst thou have me seek thee? and must I
rouse thy fury to devour me? If heaven wills my death, if my life be a
crime, dare at length to seize whatever little remains of it; I am
tired of murmuring against a lawful penalty; I am weary of sighs;
come, that I may end the death I am dying.
SCENE III.--LOVE, PSYCHE, ZEPHYR.
LOVE. Behold this serpent, this pitiless monster, whom a wonderful
oracle has prepared for you, and who perhaps does not inspire such
dread as you had imagined.
PSY. You, my Lord! you are that monster who, so spoke the oracle,
threatens my sad life? you, who seem rather a god, deigning
miraculously to come yourself to my rescue?
LOVE. What need of help in the midst of an empire where all that
breathes only awaits your look to do its bidding, where I am the only
monster you have to fear?
PSY. But small is the fear that a monster like you inspires, and if it
has any venom, a soul has little reason to venture on the least
complaint against a pleasing poison, the cure of which all the heart
would dread! Scarce do I behold you than already my calmed fears
suffer the image of death to vanish; and I feel I know not what
unknown fire flow through my frozen veins: Esteem I have felt, and
kindness, friendship, gratitude; compassion's innocent sorrows have
made me know its power, but I have not yet felt what I now feel. I
know not what it is, but I know that it fills me with delight, and
causes me no alarm. The longer I gaze on you, the more I feel the
spell. Nothing that I have ever felt had the same effect; and I would
tell you, my Lord, that I love you, did I know what love is. Turn them
not away, those eyes that poison me, those eyes so tender, so
piercing, yet so loving, that look as if they shared the confusion
they cause me. Alas! the more dangerous they prove, the more fondly I
cling to them. What decree of heaven is it which I cannot understand,
that forces me to tell you more than I should? I, whose modesty ought
at least to wait that you explain the confusion that, I see, is within
you. You sigh, my Lord, as I sigh; your senses, like mine, seem
amazed. 'Tis my duty to be silent concerning this, yours to speak it,
yet it is I who tell this to you.
LOVE. Your heart, Psyche, has ever been too insensible, and you must
not wonder if, to repair the insult, Love now pays himself with usury
for that which your soul ought to have granted him. The time is come
in which your lips must breathe those sighs so long restrained; and
while it draws you from that fierce humour, an endless rapture, as
sweet as it is unknown, must wound you as deeply as it ought to have
wounded you during those golden days the course of which your
unfeeling soul has profaned.
PSY. Not to love is, then, a great crime?
LOVE. Do you suffer a hard punishment for it?
PSY. The punishment is mild indeed.
LOVE. The penalty is suited to the offence; and Love, on this glorious
day, avenges himself of lack of love by an excess of love.
PSY. Would I had been punished before! My life's happiness lies in it.
I ought to blush at it, or to whisper it low, but this torture has too
many charms. Suffer me to say, and to repeat it aloud; though I said
it a hundred times, I would never blush for it. It is not I who speak;
and the wonderful empire, the amiable violence of your presence, sway
my voice as soon as I begin to speak. Vainly does my modesty take
secret offence at it; vainly would my sex and decency bind me to other
laws; it is your eyes that dictate my answer, and my lips, the slaves
of their almighty power, no longer consult me on the self-respect I
owe myself.
LOVE. Fair Psyche, believe what these eyes tell you. Let yours vie
with each other in instructing me of all your emotions. Trust this
sighing heart, which, so long as yours will answer, will tell you more
by a sigh than a hundred looks can express. 'Tis the sweetest
language, the most powerful, the truest of all!
PSY. The understanding of it was due to both our hearts to make them
equally satisfied. I have sighed, you have understood me; you sigh,
and I heard you. But release me from doubt, my Lord, and tell me, if
by the same road Zephyr has led you hither after me; to tell me what I
hear now. When I arrived here, were you expected? and when you speak
to him, are you obeyed?
LOVE. The empire I exercise over this sweet climate is as sovereign as
yours is over my heart. _Love_ is favourable to me, and 'tis for his
sake that Aeolus has placed Zephyr under my command. It was Love who,
to reward my passion, dictated this oracle, by which your fair days
that were threatened have been released from a throng of lovers; and
which has freed me from the lasting obstacle of so many ardent sighs
that were unworthy of being addressed to you. Ask not of me what this
region be, nor the name of its ruler; you shall know it in time. My
object is to win you; but I wish to do so by my services, my assiduous
care, my constant vows, by a lover's sacrifice of all that I am, of
all my power can effect. The splendour of my rank must not solicit you
for me, neither must I make a merit of my power; and though sovereign
lord of this blissful realm, I wish to owe you, Psyche, to nothing but
my love.
Come with me, Princess, and admire its marvels; prepare your eyes and
ears to the charms it will offer you. You shall gaze on woods and
meads, contesting their beauties with gold and gems; you shall hear
nothing but sweet concerts; a hundred beauties shall serve you here;
without envy they shall worship you, and every moment with a humble
and raptured soul shall solicit the honour of your commands.
PSY. My will waits upon yours; I can no longer have one of my own; but
at any rate your oracle has severed me from two sisters, and the king,
my father, whom my supposed death has all three reduced to bewail me.
Suffer my sisters to be witnesses of my glory and your love for me, to
dissipate the error which overwhelms their soul with mortal sorrow.
Lend them too, as you did me, Zephyr's wings, that they may facilitate
their access to your empire, as they did mine. Let them see where I
live, let them wonder at the success of my loss.
LOVE. You do not yield me all your soul, Psyche. This affectionate
remembrance of a father and two sisters snatches from me part of that
which I crave for my passion only. Have no eyes for anyone but for me,
who have none but for you. Let love for me, and the desire of pleasing
me, be your only thought, and when such cares dare divert you from
it....
PSY. Can you be jealous of affection for kin?
LOVE. I am jealous, my Psyche, jealous of all nature. The sun's rays
kiss you too often; your tresses are too sensible to the wooing of the
breeze; no sooner does it caress them than I murmur. The very air
which you breathe passes with too much pleasure between your lips;
your robes cling too closely to your form. I know not what bewilders
me, and I dread amidst your sighs some stray one.
But you would see your sisters. Be gone, Zephyr; Psyche commands, I
cannot forbid.
SCENE IV.--LOVE, PSYCHE.
LOVE. When you shall show them this blissful seat, make them a
thousand gifts from these treasures; lavish on them endearments,
caresses; and, if possible, exhaust the tendernesses that blood
demands, so that you may yield yourself entirely to love. I shall not
importune you with my presence, but let not your meeting be too long,
remembering that you rob _me_ of whatever attention you pay _them_.
PSY. Your love grants me a favour, which 'twere not possible for me to
abuse.
LOVE. Still, let us visit these gardens, this palace, where you will
meet naught but what will pale before your dazzling charms. And you,
little Cupids, you, young Zephyrs, whose souls are but soft sighs, vie
with each other in showing what joy you feel at the appearance of my
princess.
THIRD INTERLUDE.
_Entry of ballet, composed of four_ CUPIDS _and four_ ZEPHYRS, _twice
interrupted by a dialogue sung by a_ CUPID _and a_ ZEPHYR.
LOVE, PSYCHE.
PART I.
A ZEPHYR.
Ye gentle youth, follow
Love's sweet and tender glow;
In happy days and fair,
From passion's joys do not forbear.--
'Tis to deceive they tell you, aye,
You should avoid the wooing sigh,
And fear the pressing suit.--
'Tis now the time to learn
What fires within you burn!
_They sing together._
All gentle hearts in turn
With love must glow;
And greater charms that burn
A greater debt will owe.
A ZEPHYR (_alone_).
A youthful heart and tender
At last must yield surrender.
BOTH (_together_).
All gentle hearts in turn
With love must glow;
And greater charms that burn
A greater debt will owe.
A CUPID (_alone_).
What boots to play the truant's part,
And shield yourselves against the dart?
The sunny day is flown and gone,
The hour lost may ne'er be won.
BOTH (_together_).
All gentle hearts in turn
With love must glow;
And greater charms that burn
A greater debt will owe.
PART II.
A ZEPHYR.
Great Love hath potent charms;
To him we yield our arms;
His cares and sorrows sweet
Have, too, their joy--though fleet!
To follow him, all hearts
Would court a thousand darts.
If we would taste his deep delight,
Ah! we must pine till fades the light
Before our eyes.
A worthless life it is--when love
Fills not the heart it fain would move!
_They sing together._
In love if we must grieve and sigh,
A moment's bliss still well repays
The ills and woes of many days.
A ZEPHYR (_alone_).
'Midst hopes and fears,
And mystery and tears,
We cannot, without the touch of pain,
Bliss seek again.
BOTH (_together_).
In love if we must grieve and sigh,
A moment's bliss still well repays
The ills and woes of many days.
A CUPID (_alone_).
What better deed is there to do
Than strive to please and softly woo?
A lover's part is sweetest care,
And this it is that all must bear.
BOTH (_together_).
In love if we must grieve and sigh,
A moment's bliss still well repays
The ills and woes of many days.
ACT IV.
_The scene changes to a splendid palace, in the interior of which is
seen at the end of a long vestibule a lovely garden, in which are many
trees laden with all kinds of fruit._
SCENE I.--AGLAURA, CIDIPPE.
AGL. I can bear it no longer, my sister. I have seen too many wonders;
future times will scarcely conceive them; this sun, that sees all, and
lays all before our gaze, never beheld the like. This dazzling palace
and this stately equipage are a display hateful to me; shame as well
as spite overwhelm me. How cruelly Fortune has treated us; see how her
inconsiderate bounty blindly lavishes, exhausts, and unites her
efforts to make all these treasures the lot of a younger sister!
CID. I share all your feelings; your griefs are mine; in this
delightful spot, all that displeases you wounds me; all which you
consider a deadly insult oppresses me no less than yourself, and
leaves bitterness within my breast and blushes on my brow.
AGL. No, my sister, no living queen, in her own realm speaks in such
sovereign tones as Psyche in these abodes. Here we see her obeyed with
scrupulous exactitude; and a yearning study of her will seeks it even
in her eyes, a thousand beauties throng around her, and seem to say to
our jealous looks, "Whatever your charms may be, she is still fairer,
and we who serve her are fairer than you." She orders, it is done;
none refuse, none rebel. Flora, clinging to her steps, lavishes her
sweetest charms around her; Zephyr flies to execute her orders, and
his mistress and he, too much a prey to her charms, forget their own
love in their eagerness to serve her.
CID. She has gods at her services, soon she will have altars; our sway
extends over weak mortals only, whose continual caprice and impudence,
rebelling secretly from us, oppose either murmurs or stratagem to our
will.
AGL. It was but little indeed that at our court so many hearts
contended for her, preferring her to us! It was not enough that she
was there worshipped night and day by a crowd of lovers. When we were
comforting ourselves with seeing her on the brink of the grave by the
sudden order of the oracle, she thought fit to display before us the
miracle of her new destiny, and has chosen our eyes to be witnesses of
that which at the bottom of our hearts we least desire.
CID. What above all fills my heart with despair is to see this lover,
so perfect, so born to please, a captive under her sway. Were it in
our power to choose from so many monarchs, should we find one who
bears such a noble mien? To see your wishes fulfilled beyond
expectation is oftentimes a bliss that engenders unhappiness; there is
no splendid train, no proud palace, but opens some door to incurable
ills. But to possess a lover of perfect merit, to see yourself dearly
beloved by him, is a happiness so lofty, so exquisite, that its worth
cannot be expressed.
AGL. No more of this, my sister; the thought of it would kill us; let
us rather think of revenge; let us find means of breaking the spell
that fosters this affection between her and him.
She comes; I have darts ready, such as she shall find difficult to
parry.
SCENE II.--PSYCHE, AGLAURA, CIDIPPE.
PSY. I come to bid you farewell; my lover wishes your departure. He
can no longer endure that you should deprive him of a particle of the
joy he feels in being alone to contemplate me. The merest look, the
slightest word, is a treasure for his love, and I rob him of it when I
grant it to my sisters in favour of the ties of blood.
AGL. Jealousy is very keen, and these nice sentiments well deserve
that he who shows such tenderness for you should be considered above
the generality of lovers. I speak thus because I do not know him; nor
do you know his name, or that of those to whom he owes the light. This
alarms us. I hold him to be a mighty prince, whose power is extreme,
far above kingly sway. His treasure which he has strewn beneath your
feet would put Abundance herself to the blush. Your love for him is as
keen as his for you; you are his delight, he is yours; your happiness,
my sister, would be perfect if you but knew whom you love.
PSY. What care I! He loves me. The more he sees me, the more I please
him. There are no pleasures which delight the soul, but anticipate my
wishes. I do not understand the cause of your alarm when all here
obeys my will.
AGL. What boots it that all bows to you here if this lover ever
conceals what he is? If we are alarmed, it is for your interest alone.
Vain it is that everything meets you with a smile, and brings delight;
true love scorns reserve; and whoever persists in concealment is
conscious that he is in some way open to reproach. Should this suitor
prove fickle--for often change in love is pleasing, and between
ourselves, I dare say that, however dazzling the flash of your charms,
there are others as fair as you--if, I say, another beauty should bind
him under new thralls, if in the state in which you are now, alone and
defenceless at his mercy, he should go so far as to offer violence, on
whom should the king wreak his vengeance for this change or this
insolence?
PSY. You fill me with dread. Kind heaven! can I be so unfortunate?
CID. Who knows but that Hymen's knot....
PSY. Say no more, I could not bear it.
AGL. I have but one word more to say. This prince who loves you, sways
the winds, gives us Zephyr's wings for a chariot, and every moment
lavishes on you new pleasures, when he thus openly breaks the order of
nature, may perhaps mingle some little imposture with so much love.
Perhaps this palace is nothing more than an enchantment; these gilt
ceilings, these mountains of wealth, with which he buys your
affection, so soon as he shall be weary of your caresses, will vanish
in a moment. You know as well as ourselves what power lies in spells.
PSY. In my turn, what cruel alarms I feel!
AGL. Our friendship seeks your good only.
PSY. Farewell, sisters, we must close our meeting; I love, and fear
lest he should grow impatient; go, and to-morrow, if I may, you shall
see me, either happier or crushed by the deepest anguish.
AGL. We go to apprise the king of the new glory, the excess of bliss
which heaven showers upon you.
CID. We go to relate to him the surprising and marvellous tale of so
pleasing a change.
PSY. Trouble him not, sisters, with your suspicions, and when you
describe to him this charming empire....
AGL. We both know what we must conceal and what speak, and need no
lessons.
ZEPHYR _carries off_ PSYCHE'S _sisters in a cloud, which
descends to the earth, and in which he bears them rapidly away._
SCENE III.--LOVE, PSYCHE.
LOVE. You are alone at last. I can once more without your importunate
sisters as witnesses declare to you what sway eyes so fair have won
over me, and how extreme is the delight that a sincere ardour inspires
when once it has locked two hearts together. I can unfold to you the
loving eagerness of my enraptured soul, and swear that, enslaved to
you alone, its rapture has no other aim than to behold this ardour
followed by a similar ardour, to conceive no other wish but to bind my
vows to your desires, and make all that pleases you my only delight.
But wherefore does a cloud of sadness seem to dim the brightness of
those beautiful eyes? Is there aught which you can want in these
abodes? Scorn you the homage of the vows here paid to you?
PSY. No, my Lord!
LOVE. What is it then? And to what must I attribute my misfortune? You
sigh less from love than from grief. The roses of your cheek are
faded, a token of secret sorrow. Scarce are your sisters gone than you
sigh of regret. Ah! my Psyche, when two hearts are swayed by an equal
passion, can their sighs have a different object? and when their love
is true, and the loved one nigh, is there room to sigh for relatives?
PSY. That is not the cause of my sorrow.
LOVE. Is it the absence of a rival, and a favoured rival too, that
causes this neglect?
Psy. How ill you understand a heart wholly yours. I love you, my Lord;
and my love is vexed at the undeserved suspicion which you have
conceived. You but little know your own deserts, if you fear that you
are not loved. I love you; and since I beheld the light of day, I have
shown myself proud enough to scorn the vows of more than one king; and
since I must disclose to you my whole heart, I have found none but you
worthy of me. And yet I feel a certain sadness, which I would fain
conceal from you; a gloomy grief is mingled with all my affection. Ask
not the cause of it; perhaps, if you knew it, you would punish me for
it, and if I still dare to aspire to anything, I am sure I should not
obtain it.
LOVE. And do you not dread lest I should in my turn feel vexed at you
for so ill understanding your own powers, or for pretending to be
ignorant of the absolute sway you exercise over me? Ah! if you doubt
it in the least, be undeceived. Speak.
PSY. I should have to bear with the shame of a refusal.
LOVE. I pray you to harbour kinder feelings in my behalf; the trial of
it is easy. Speak; everything waits on your will. If you cannot trust
my words without oaths, I swear by those beautiful eyes, those lords
of my heart, those divine authors of my passion; and if it be not
sufficient to swear by your beautiful eyes, I swear by the Styx, by
which all the gods do swear.
PSY. After this assurance, my fears are somewhat allayed. My Lord,
here I look on pomp and abundance, I adore you, and you worship me; my
heart is enraptured, my senses charmed by it; but amidst this highest
bliss, I have the misfortune of not knowing which it is whom I love.
Dispel this darkness, and unfold to me who this perfect lover is.
LOVE. Psyche, what is that you say?
PSY. That this is the happiness for which I long, and that if you
refuse it to me ...
LOVE. I have sworn it, I am no longer master of it; but you do not
know what you ask. Leave me my secret. If I discover myself, I lose
you and you me. The only remedy is for you to retract your words.
PSY. Is this my sovereign sway over you?
LOVE. Your power is unbounded, and I am wholly yours. But if our
wooing has charms for you, lay no obstacle in the way of its pleasing
continuance. Do not force me to flight. This would be the least
misfortune which can happen to us from that wish which has seduced
you.
PSY. My Lord, you now wish to test me; but I know how far I am to
believe it. I pray you to let me know the measure of my glory, and no
longer to conceal from me for what illustrious choice I have rejected
the vows of so many kings.
LOVE. Do you will it so?
PSY. Suffer me to beseech you to it.
LOVE. If you knew what cruel misfortune you draw upon yourself by
it....
PSY. My Lord, you fill me with despair.
LOVE. Think well on it; I can yet be silent.
PSY. Do you pledge yourself by oaths which you do not mean to keep.
LOVE. Be it so! I am a god, the most powerful of all gods, absolute
master on this earth, and in the heavens; my power is supreme in the
ocean and the air; in a word, I am Love himself. I have wounded myself
with my own darts for love of you; and, alas! but for the violence
which you impose on me, and which has turned my passion for you into
wrath, you would have me now for your husband. Your wish is
accomplished; you know whom you loved; you know the lover whom you
charmed; see now what misfortune is upon us. Yourself you force me to
abandon you, yourself you force me to deprive you of all the fruits of
your victory. It may be that your beautiful eyes will see me no more;
this palace, these grounds, once vanished with me, will cause your
rising glory to fade away. You would not believe me, and the
dispelling of this doubt has for fruit that Fate, at whose blows the
very heavens tremble, mightier than my love, mightier than all the
gods united, which is even now showing its hatred to you, and driving
me hence.
LOVE _flies away, and the gardens vanish._
SCENE IV.
_The stage represents a desert and the wild banks of a river._
PSYCHE, _the_ RIVER GOD, _reclining on a bank of reeds, and leaning on
an urn._
PSY. Cruel destiny! aching pain! fatal curiosity! Speak, dread
solitude, what hast thou done with all my felicity? I loved a god; was
beloved by him; my happiness redoubled at every moment; and now behold
me, alone, bewailing, in the midst of a desert, where, to increase my
pain, when shame and despair are upon me, I feel my love increasing
now that I have lost the lover. Its very remembrance charms and
poisons my soul. Its delights tyrannise over a wretched heart, which
my passion has condemned to the keenest pain. Kind heaven! When Love
abandoned me, why did he leave me the fire he had breathed into me. O
thou! the pure and inexhaustible source of all good, lord of men and
gods, dear author of the pain I now endure, art thou for ever vanished
from my sight? I! I banished thee! when love was deepest, when bliss
supreme, an unworthy suspicion filled my heart with alarm. Ungrateful
heart, the fire was but ill-kindled; for from the first moment of love
we cannot have any wish other than that of him whom we cherish. Let me
die, it is the only choice left me after the loss I have made. For
whom, great gods, would I live, for whom entertain a single wish?
Thou, river, whose wave washes these desert sands, bury my crime in
thy waters; and end ills so miserable by allowing me to find a rest in
thy bed.
THE RIVER GOD. Thy death would sully my stream, Psyche. Heaven forbids
it. Perhaps after such heavy sorrows, another fate awaits thee. Rather
flee Venus' implacable anger. I see her seeking thee in order to
punish thee; the son's love has excited the mother's hatred. Flee! I
will detain her.
PSY. I shall await her avenging wrath! What can it have that will not
be too pleasant for me? Whoever seeks death dreads no gods or
goddesses, but can defy all their darts.
SCENE V.--VENUS, PSYCHE, THE RIVER GOD.
VEN. Insolent Psyche, you dare then to await my arrival after you have
deprived me on earth of my honours, after your seducing charms have
received the incense which is due to mine alone? I have seen my
shrines forsaken, I have seen all the world, enslaved by your charms,
idolise you as the sovereign beauty, offer to you a homage until then
unknown, and not stay to consider whether there was another Venus at
all; notwithstanding this, I see you bold enough not to dread the
punishment your crime justly deserves, and to meet my gaze as if my
resentment were but little matter.
PSY. If I have been loved by a few mortals, is it a crime in me to
have possessed charms by which they allowed their eyes to be captured
while they were blind to you? I am but what heaven hath made me, I
have only those attractions which it has been willing to lend me; if
the vows that were paid to me pleased you but little, you had only to
show yourself, to conceal no longer from men that perfect beauty which
has but to show itself in order to bring them back to their duty.
VEN. You should have guarded better against these vows; this
veneration, this incense ought to be declined, and in order to
undeceive them more effectively, you should yourself have rendered
this homage to me in their presence. You found pleasure in this error,
from which on the contrary you should have shrunk with horror. Your
haughty temper, proud of having rejected a thousand kings, has carried
the extravagant ambition of its choice even to the skies.
PSY. Have I in my ambition aspired to heaven?
VEN. Your insolence is without an equal; do you not aspire to the gods
when you reject all the kings of the world?
PSY. If Love had hardened my heart to all their passion, and had
reserved me for himself alone, do I stand guilty? and must you to-day
as a price for so dazzling a love crush me with everlasting sorrow?
VEN. Psyche, you should have known your position better, and the rank
of this god.
PSY. And has he allowed me time and opportunity for doing so when from
the first he became absolute master of my heart?
VEN. You have allowed your heart to be charmed by him, and you have
loved him as soon as he said, "I love."
PSY. How could I refuse to love the god who inspires all with love,
and who was pleading his own cause? He is your son; you well know his
power, his merit.
VEN. Yes; he is my son; but a son who excites my wrath; a son who ill
returns to me what he knows is due; a son who knows that I am
forsaken, and who, the more to flatter his own unworthy affection,
since you return his love, wounds no one, forces no one to come to my
shrine and address his supplications to me. You have made a rebel of
him; but the whole world shall behold my dire revenge on you, and I
shall teach you whether it is meet for a mortal maiden to suffer a god
to sigh at her feet. Follow me; you shall find by your own experience
to what degree of mad self-reliance this ambition was leading you.
Come, and arm yourself with as much patience as you possess
presumption.
FOURTH INTERLUDE.
_The scenes represent the infernal regions; a sea of fire is
discovered, whose waves are rolling unceasingly. This terrible sea is
enclosed by burning ruins; and, standing in the midst of the raging
billows, through a frightful opening, appears_ PLUTO'S _palace. Eight_
FURIES _issue from it, and form the entry of the ballet, in which they
show their delight at having kindled such dire wrath in the heart of
the sweetest of divinities. A_ GOBLIN _adds perilous jumps to their
dances, and meanwhile_ PSYCHE, _who, in obedience to_ VENUS, _has come
to the infernal regions, is seen crossing again in_ CHARON'S _bark,
holding the box given to her by_ PROSERPINA _for_ VENUS.
ACT V.
SCENE I.--PSYCHE (_alone_)
Alas! Ye awful waves of hell, ye gloomy palaces where Megaera and her
sisters hold their court, far ever foes to the sun's light, amongst
your Ixions and your Tantaluses, in the midst of so many incessant
tortures, in these hideous recesses, what pain, what toil so great as
those to which Venus condemns my love? Yet my troubles satisfy not her
wrath; and since I am subject to her laws, since I see myself a prey
to her resentment, in these cruel moments I must have had more than
one soul, more than one life, to fulfil her commands. Yet all this I
could bear with joy if, in the midst of her hatred, my eyes could
behold, were it for one moment only, my darling, my beloved lover! His
name I dare not utter; my lips, whose guilt it was to exact too much,
are now unworthy of him; and in this deadly anguish, the keenest pain
my ever-returning death subjects me to is that I may not see him. If
his anger lasted still, no anguish could equal mine; but if he felt
any pity for a soul that worships him, however great the sufferings to
which I am condemned, I should feel them not. Yea, thou mighty
destiny, if he would but stay his wrath, all my sorrows would be at an
end. Ah! a mere look from the son suffices to make me insensible to
the mother's fury. I will doubt it no longer; he shares my grief, he
sees what I endure, and weeps with me; my sufferings are his too; it
is a self-imposed law of love; in spite of Venus, in spite of my
crime, he it is who sustains and revives me in the midst of the
dangers I have to encounter. He harbours still the tender feelings
urged by his passion, and hastens to restore me to new life as soon as
I perish. But what would with me those two shades I see advancing
towards me through the doubtful light of these dark recesses?
SCENE II.--PSYCHE, CLEOMENES, AGENOR.
PSY. Cleomenes, Agenor, is it not you whom I see? Who has deprived you
of life?
CLE. The meetest grief that could have caused a noble despair. That
funeral pomp where you awaited the fiercest rigour and highest
injustice of a fate most dark.
AGE. On that same rock where heaven in its wrath was promising to you,
instead of a husband, a dragon who would forthwith devour you, we held
ourselves ready to repulse his fury, or die with you. You know it
well, Princess; and when you disappeared from our gaze through the
air, both, equally carried away by our love and grief, cast ourselves
headlong from that rock, in order to follow your beauty, or rather to
feel that love-born joy of offering in your behalf a first prey to the
monster.
CLE. We were fortunately deceived as to the meaning of your oracle;
but here we have recognised its miracle, and learned that the serpent,
ready to devour you, was the god who is the source of all love, and
who, in spite of his divinity, adoring you himself, could not bear
that mortals such as we are should presume to love you.
AGE. We now enjoy a pleasant death, as a reward for having followed
you. What would have been life to us if we could not have been yours?
Here we behold your charms once more; which neither of us would ever
have seen again in the world above. Happy shall we be if we see the
merest tear honour the misfortunes of which you have been the cause.
PSY. How can I have more tears to shed when my own misfortunes have
been carried to the highest pitch? Let us mingle our sighs, since we
have so fatal a destiny; we cannot exhaust sighs; but yours, Princes,
are uttered in behalf of an ungrateful being. You would not survive my
misfortune; but under whatever blow I fall, I cannot die for you.
CLE. Have we deserved aught else, we whose great passion has not
ceased to weary you with the tale of our woes?
PSY. Princes, you might have won my whole soul but for your being
rivals; those incomparable qualities which attended the vows of both
rendered you too deserving of love to allow me to reject either.
AGE. You have been able, without injustice or cruelty, to refuse a
heart reserved for a god. But behold Venus! Fate bids us return, and
forces us to say "Farewell."
PSY. Is not leisure allowed you to tell me what your abode is here?
CLE. Among groves ever green, where we breathe naught but love; no
sooner do we die of love than through love we revive; we sigh for love
under the sweet laws of his blest empire; and everlasting night dares
not expel from it the day which Love himself brings on our phantoms,
which he inspires, and of which he forms a court even in Hades.
AGE. Your envious sisters, who descended here below after us lost
themselves in the hope of losing you. Both, each in turn, as a reward
for the plot which cost them their life, suffer, now the rock at
Ixion's side, now the vulture at Tityus'! Love, by means of the
Zephyrs, has executed on them swift justice for their envenomed and
jealous malice. Those winged ministers of his just wrath, under
pretence of restoring them again to you, cast them both to the bottom
of a precipice, where the hideous spectacle of their mangled bodies
displays but the first and least torture for that stratagem the
cunning of which was the cause of the ills you now endure.
PSY. How I pity them!
CLE. You alone are to be pitied; but we tarry too long conversing with
you. Farewell! May we live in your remembrance; may you, and that
soon, have nothing further to dread. Soon may Love exalt you to
heaven, place you beside the other gods, and, kindling again a flame
that cannot be extinguished, release for ever your beauteous eyes from
the task of increasing daylight in these realms!
SCENE III.--PSYCHE (_alone_).
Hapless lovers! their passion still continues; though dead, both love
me--me, whose harshness so ill received their vows. 'Tis not thus thou
actest--thou, who alone hast seized my heart; lover whom I still prize
a thousand times more than my life, and who breakest such charming
ties. Shun me no longer, and leave me to hope that one day thou shalt
cast a glance on me, that by my sufferings, I shall please thee, and
again win thy plighted faith. But my woes have disfigured me too much
to allow to entertain such hopes. Eyes dejected, sad, despairing,
pining, and with cheeks faded, what have I that can speak in my favour
if some miracle impossible to foresee does not restore to me the
beauty which once captivated thee? This treasure of divine beauty,
which Proserpina has entrusted to me for Venus, contains charms which
I can make mine own, and their lustre must be extreme, since beauty
herself, Venus, requires them to adorn herself. Would it be a great
crime to snatch a few? To captivate a god, who has been my lover, to
recover his affection, and put an end to my torture, can anything that
I may do be unlawful? Let me open it. What vapours cloud my brain? and
what do I behold issuing from this open casket? Love, unless thy
compassion forbids my death, I must needs descend to the tomb, never
to live again.
PSYCHE _swoons, and_ LOVE _flies towards her_.
SCENE IV.
LOVE. Thy danger, Psyche, dispels my wrath; nay, the violence of my
passion has never abated; and though thou hast excited my highest
displeasure, yet my anger was harboured only against my mother's
wrath. I have seen all thy toils, I have followed all thy misfortunes,
and throughout my sighs have answered thy tears. Look on me, I am
still the same. What, again and again, I repeat that I love thee, and
yet thou wilt not say that thou lovest me! Can it be that thy
beauteous eyes are for ever closed, that they are for ever bereft of
daylight? O Death! need'st thou have taken so cruel a dart, and,
regardless of my eternal being, endangered my own life! How oft,
ungrateful deity, have I swelled thy dark empire by the contempt or
the cruelty of a fierce and proud fair one? How many faithful lovers,
since I must confess it, have I, through irresistible raptures,
sacrificed to thee? Go, I shall wound no more souls, I shall pierce no
more hearts, but with darts dipped in the divine liquors that foster
heaven's immortal passions. I shall hurl them no more but to make as
many lovers as there are gods. As for thee, thou inexorable mother,
who forcest her to bereave me of what I held dearest in this world,
dread, in thy turn, the effects of my wrath. Thou wouldst sway my
feelings, thou who art often swayed by my will; thou who wearest a
heart as sensitive as that of mortals; thou enviest to mine the
raptures of thine own! But in this same heart I shall plunge such
darts as shall be followed by jealous sorrow. I shall crush thee by
abasing ravishments, and ever choose as objects for thy dearest
longings Adonises and Anchises who will nurse nothing but hatred
towards thee.
SCENE V.--VENUS, LOVE, PSYCHE (_still senseless_).
VEN. The threat is full of respect, and the anger of a rebellious son
presumptuous....
LOVE. I am no longer a child; my childhood has been but too long, and
my wrath is as just as it is impetuous.
VEN. Its impetuosity should be subdued, and thou oughtest to remember
that to me thou owest thy birth.
LOVE. And thou mightest well not forget that thou possessest a heart
and beauty that hold their power from me; that my bow is the only
support of this power, that without my shafts it is nothing, and that
if the stoutest hearts have suffered themselves to be drawn in thy
triumphant train, thou hast never enslaved any one whose chains it was
not my pleasure to forge. Mention no more those rights of birth that
fetter my desires; and if thou dost not wish to lose a thousand sighs,
pay thy tribute to gratitude when thou seest me; thou whose glory and
delights are the offsprings of my power.
VEN. How hast thou defended this glory of which thou speakest? How
hast thou restored it to me? And when thou hast seen my shrines
deserted, my temples violated, the honours due to me rivalled by those
of another, if thou hast shared my shame, how hast thou punished
Psyche, who hath stolen them from me? I bade thee throw a spell over
her, that she might love the basest of mortals, who would not
condescend to answer her passion but by continual repulse and
cruellest contempt; and thyself thou hast loved her! Thou hast seduced
immortal deities against me; for the Zephyrs have concealed her from
me; for thee, Apollo himself, by an oracle cleverly turned, had
snatched her from my power so well that, but for the curiosity which
by a blind distrust restored her to my vengeance, she escaped for ever
my angry passion. See to what thy love has reduced her, thine own
Psyche! See! her soul is even now departing; and if thine is still
smitten, receive now her last breath. Threaten and brave me if thou
wilt, but she must die. So much insolence suits thee well; and I must
needs bow to all it pleases thee to say, I, who can do nothing without
thy darts.
LOVE. Thy power is but too great, relentless goddess! Fate abandons
her to thy wrath; but be less inexorable to the prayers and tears of a
son who beseeches thee on his knees. It must be a pleasant sight
enough for thee to see on one side Psyche expiring, on the other a son
who, in a suppliant voice, wishes to hold his heart's happiness from
thee only. Give me back my Psyche, restore to her all her charms,
surrender her to my tears, to my love, to my grief; for she is my
eyes' delight, my heart's happiness.
VEN. However deep thy love for Psyche, do not expect me to put an end
to her misfortunes. If Fate abandons her to me, I abandon her to her
fate. Importune me no more, and let her in the midst of her calamities
triumph or perish without Venus.
LOVE. Alas! if I am too importunate, I would not be so if I could but
die!
VEN. This grief is not common that drives an immortal to long for
death.
LOVE. Thou mayest judge of the intensity of my passion by its very
excess; wilt thou not be merciful?
VEN. I must confess thy love touches my heart; it disarms, it abates
my sternness; thy Psyche shall see the light again.
LOVE. How powerfully I shall cause thy sway to be felt everywhere!
VEN. Ay! thou shalt behold her decked in her first beauty; but I will
have the entire deference of thy grateful vows. I will that a true
respect allow my love to select for thee another spouse.
LOVE. And I will have no such grace; I assume all my former boldness;
I will have Psyche; I will have her plighted faith; I will that she
live again, and that she live for me; and I reckon as naught that thy
wearied hatred give way to favour another maiden. Jupiter, who even
now appears, shall judge betwixt us, and decide between my
insubordination and thy wrath.
_The lightning flashes, the thunder rolls, and_ JUPITER
_appears in the air borne aloft by his eagle_.
SCENE VI.--JUPITER, VENUS, LOVE, PSYCHE (_senseless_).
LOVE. O thou to whom alone all is possible, father of gods, lord of
mortals, soften the rigour of an inexorable mother, who without me
would have no shrines. I have wept, I have supplicated; I sigh, I
threaten. Sighs and threats are alike vain. She will not perceive that
on my displeasure hangs the happy or sad condition of the whole world,
and that if Psyche dies, if Psyche be not mine, I am no longer "Love".
Yes! I shall break my bow, shatter my arrows; I shall even extinguish
my sacred flame, and leave all nature to pine to death; or if I deign
to wound a few more hearts with these golden shafts that arrest my
sway, I shall wound you all above in behalf of mortals, while I shall
hurl against them blunted darts only that inspire hatred, and produce
thankless and cruel rebels. What tyrannical law is this that would
bind me to keep my shafts ever ready to serve you, and would have me
make conquest upon conquest for you, while you forbid me to make one
for myself?
JUP. (_to_ VENUS). My daughter, show thyself less severe towards
him; his Psyche's destiny is even now in thy hands. Fate, at thy
slightest word, is ready to follow up thy wrath. Speak, and let a
mother's tenderness prevail upon thy designs. All dread this wrath
which awes even me. Will thou leave the world to become the prey of
hatred, disorder, and confusion, and change a god of union, of
delights, of joy, into one of bitterness and division? Consider the
lofty rank we hold, and say whether passion ought to sway our
feelings. The word revenge is pleasing to mortals; the more is it meet
that we should resort to forgiveness.
VEN. I forgive this rebel son. Yet would you have me submit to the
reproach that a contemptible mortal, the object of my wrath, proud
Psyche, because she displays some charms, has defiled my alliance and
my son's couch?
JUP. Well, then, I make her immortal, so that all shall be equal.
VEN. I feel no longer hatred or contempt for her, but admit her to the
honour of this conjugal tie. Psyche! recover your life, never more to
lose it. Jupiter has contrived your restoration, and I abandon that
lofty humour which opposed itself to your wishes.
PSY. (_recovering from her fainting condition_). It is you then,
mighty goddess, who restores the life to this innocent being?
VEN. Jupiter extends his pardon to you, and my wrath lasts no longer.
Live! Venus commands it. Love allows it.
PSY. (_to_ LOVE). At last I see you again, dear object of my
passion!
LOVE. (_to_ PSYCHE). You are mine at last, my soul's own delight!
JUP. Come, lovers, come; and conclude in heaven so great, so lofty a
union. Come, fair Psyche, to change thy destiny, and take thy place
among the gods.