Ye low-browed arches, through whose sullen

gloom

Resound the ceaseless groans of pale despair!
Ye dreadful shambles, caked with human blood!
Receive a guest from far, far other scenes,
From pompous courts, from shouting victories,
Carousing festivals, harmonious bowers,
And the soft chains of heart-dissolving love.
Oh, how unlike to these! Heart-breaking load
Of shame eternal, ne'er to be knocked off!
Oh welcome death!-no, never but by thee!-
Nor has a foe done this. A friend! a father!-
Oh, that I could have died without their guilt!

Enter ERIXENE, DEMETRIUS gazing at her.
So looked in chaos the first beam of light:
How drives the strong enchantment of her eye
All horror hence !-How die the thoughts of
death!

Eriz. I knew not my own heart. I cannot bear it.

Shame chides me back; for, to insult his woes
Is too severe; and to condole, too kind. [Going.
Dem. Thus I arrest you in the name of mercy,
And dare compel your stay. Is then one look,
One word, one moment, a last moment too,
When I stand tottering on the brink of death,
A cruel ignominious death, too much
For one, that loves like me? A length of years
You may devote to my blest rival's arms;
I ask but one short moment. O permit,
Permit the dying to lay claim to thee!
To thee, thou dear equivalent for life,
Cruel, relentless, marble-hearted maid!

Erir. Demetrius, you persist to do me wrong; For, know, though I behold thee as thou art, Doubly a traitor, to the state and me,

Thy sorrow, thy distress, have touched my bo

som:

I own it is a fault-I pity thee.

Enter Officer.

Offi. My lord, your time is short, and death waits for you.

Erir. Death!-I forgive thee from my inmost soul.

Dem. Forgive me? Oh! thou need'st not to

forgive,

If imposition had not struck thee blind.
Truth lies in ambush yet, but will start up,
And seize thy trembling soul, when mine is fled.
0, I've a thousand, thousand things to say!

Erir. And I am come a secret to disclose, That might awake thee, wert thou dead already! Offi. My lord, your final moment is expired. Dem. and Erix. One, one short moment more! Dem. No; death lets fall

The curtain, and divides our love for ever!

[DEMETRIUS is forced out. Erit. Oh, I've a darker dungeon in my soul, Nor want an executioner to kill me. What revolutions in the human heart Will pity cause! What horrid deeds revenge!

Erit.

SCENE III.

Enter ANTIGONUS, with Attendants.

Ant. How distant virtue dwells from mortal man!

Was't not that each man calls for others' virtue,
Her very name on earth would be forgot,
And leave the tongue, as it has left the heart!
Was ever such a laboured plan of guilt?
Take the king's mandate, to the prison fly,
Throw wide the gates, and let Demetrius know
The full detail!

Enter ERIXENE.

The princess! ha! begone! [To the Attendants.
While I stir up an equal transport here.
Princess, I see your griefs, and judge the cause;
But I bring news might raise you from your

grave,

Or call you down from Heaven to hear with joy!
Just gods! the virtuous will at last prevail.
On motives, here too tedious to relate,
I begged the king to re-examine those,
Who came from Rome. The king approved my
counsel.

Surprised, and conscious, in their charge they faultered,

And threatened tortures soon discovered all:
That Perseus bribed them to their perjuries;
That Quintius' letter was a forgery;
That prince Demetrius' intercourse with Rome
Was innocent of treason to the state.

Erir. Oh, my swoln heart! What will the
gods do with me?

Ant. And to confirm this most surprising news, Dymas, who, striving to suppress a tumult, The rumour of Demetrius' flight had raised, Was wounded sore, with his last breath confessed, The prince refused his daughter; which affront Inflamed the statesman to his prince's ruin. [Swoons.

Erix. Did he refuse her?
Ant. Quite o'ercome with joy,
Transported out of life.-The gods restore her!
Erix. Ah! why recall me? This is a new kind
Of murder, most severe, that dooms to life!
Ant. Fair princess, you confound me!
Erix. Am I fair?

Am I a princess? Love and empire mine?
Gay, gorgeous visions dancing in my sight!
No, here I stand a naked, shipwrecked wretch,
Cold, trembling, pale, spent, helpless, hopeless,
maid;

| Cast on a shore as cruel as the waves,
O'erhung with rugged rocks, too steep to climb;
The mountain billows loud, come foaming in
Tremendous, and confound, ere they devour!
Ant. Madam, the king absolves you from your

Dem. Talk not of sorrow, lest the gods resent, As underprized, so loud a call to joy. I live, I love, am loved, I have her here! Rapture in present, and, in prospect, more! No rival, no destroyer, no despair! For jealousies, for partings, groans, and death, A train of joys, the gods alone can name! When Heaven descends in blessings so profuse, So sudden, so surpassing hope's extreme, Like the sun bursting from the midnight gloom, 'Tis impious to be niggards in delight; Joy becomes duty Heaven calls for some ex

I tremble on the brink; yet must plunge in!
Know, my Demetrius, joys are for the gods;
Man's common course of nature is distress:
His joys are prodigies; and, like them too,
Portend approaching ill. The wise man starts,
And trembles at the perils of a bliss.

To hope, how bold! how daring to be fond,
When, what our fondness grasps, is not immortal!
I will presume on thy known, steady virtue,
And treat thee like a man; I will, Demetrius,
Nor longer in my bosom hide a brand,
That burns unseen, and drinks my vital blood.
Dem. What mystery?

What tempest e'er discharged so fierce a fire? Calm and deliberate anguish feeds upon me; Each thought sent out for help brings in new

woe!

Where shall I turn? Where fly? To whom but
thee,
[Kneeling.
Tremendous Jove! whom mortals will not know
From blessing, but compel to be severe !
I feel thy vengeance, and adore thy power;
I see my failings, and a solve thy rage.
But, oh! I must perceive the load that's on me;
I can't but tremble underneath the stroke.
Aid me to bear!-But since it can't be borne,
Oh, let thy mercy burst in flames upon me!
Thy triple bolt is healing balm to this;
This pain unfelt, unfancied by the wretch,
The groaning wretch, that on the wheel expires!
Erix. Why did I tell thee?
Dem. Why commit a deed,

Too shocking to be told? What fumes of hell
Flew to thy brain? What fiend the crime in-
spired!
Erix. Perseus, last night, as soon as thou wast
fled,

At that dead hour, when good men are at rest,
When every crime and horror is abroad,
Graves yawn, fiends yell, wolves howl, and ravens

scream;

Than ravens, wolves, or fiends, more fatal far,
To me he came, and threw him at my feet,
* And wept, and swore unless I gave consent
To call a priest that moment, all was ruined;
That the next day Demetrius and his powers
Might conquer, he lose me, and I my crown,
Conferred by Philip but on Perseus' wife.
I started, trembled, fainted: he invades
My half-recovered strength, bribed priests con-
spire,

All urge my vow, all seize my ravished hand,
Invoke the gods, run o'er the hasty rite,
While each ill omen of the sky flew o'er us,
And furies howled our nuptial song below.
Canst thou forgive?

Dem. By all the flames of love,
And torments of despair, I never can!
The furies toss their torches from thy hand,
And all their adders hiss around thy head!
I'll see thy face no more.

Erix. Thy rage is just.
Yet stay and hear me!

[Going.

[She kneels, and holds him. Dem. I have heard too much.

Erix. Till thou hast heard the whole, O do not curse me!

Dem. Where can I find a curse to reach thy crime?

Ev'n with thine eye?

[As he is going, she lays hold of his robe. Erir. I dare-and more, dare seize, And fix him here; no doubt, to thy surprise: I'm blemished, not abandoned; honour still Is sacred in my sight. Thou call'st it incest: 'Tis innocence, 'tis virtue; if there's virtue In fixed, inviolable strength of love. For know, the moment the dark deed was done, The moment madness made me Perseus' wife, I seized this friend, and lodged him in my bosom, [Shewing a dagger.

Firmly resolved I never would be more:
And now I fling me at thy feet, imploring
Thy steadier hand to guide him to my heart.
Who wed in vengeance, wed not but to die.

Dem. Has Perseus, then, an hymeneal claim ? And no divorce, but death ?—And death from me, Who should defend thee from the world in arms! O thou still excellent! still most beloved!

Erix. Life is the foe, that parts us; death, a
friend,

All knots dissolving, joins us; and for ever.
Why so disordered? wherefore shakes thy frame?
Look on me; do I tremble? am I pale?
When I let loose a sigh, I'll pardon thine.
Take my example, and be bravely wretched.
True grandeur rises from surmounted ills;
The wretched only can be truly great.
If not in kindness, yet, in vengeance, strike!
'Tis not Erixene, 'tis Perseus' wife.
Thou'lt not resign me?

Dem. Not to Jove.
Erir. Then strike!
Dem. How can I strike?

[Gazing on her with astonishment.
Stab at the face of Heaven?
How can I strike? Yet how can I forbear?
I feel a thousand deaths debating one.
A deity stands guard on every charm,
And strikes at me.

Erix. As will thy brother soon;
He's now in arms, and may be here this hour.
Nothing so cruel as too soft a soul;

This is strange tenderness, that breaks my heart;
Strange tenderness, that dooms to double death-
To Perseus.

Dem. True-but how to shun that horror! By wounding thee, whom savage pards would

Dem. Yes, one,

That cannot feel. Mine bleeds at every vein. Who never loved, ne'er suffered; he feels nothing,

Who nothing feels but for himself alone;
And, when we feel for others, reason reels,
O'erloaded, from her path, and man runs mad.
As love alone can exquisitely bless,
Love only feels the marvellous of pain;
Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
And wakes the nerve, where agonies are born.
E'en Dymas, Perseus, (hearts of adamant!)
Might weep these torments of their mortal foe.
Erix. Shall I be less compassionate than they?
[Takes up the dagger.
What love denied, thine agonies have done,
[Stabs herself.
Demetrius' sigh outstings the dart of death.

Enter the King, &c.

King. Give my Demetrius to my arms; I call him

To life from death, to transport from despair. Dem. See Perseus' wife! [Pointing at Erix. let Delia tell the rest.

King. My grief-accustomed heart can guess too well.

Dem. That sight turns all to guilt, but tears and death.

King. Death! Who shall quell false Perseus, now in arms?

Who pour my tempest on the capitol?
How shall I sweeten life to thy sad spirit?-
I'll quit my throne this hour, and thou shalt
reign.

Dem. You recommend that death, you would dissuade;

Ennobled thus by fame and empire lost,
As well as life! Small sacrifice to love.

[Going to stab himself, the king runs to pre-
vent him; but too late.

King. Ah, hold! nor strike thy dagger through my heart!

Dem. 'Tis my first disobedience, and my last. [Falls. King. There Philip fell! There Macedon expired!

I see the Roman eagle hovering o'er us, And the shaft broke, should bring her to the ground. [Pointing to DEMETRIUS. Dem. Hear, good Antigonus, my last request: Tell Perseus, if he'll sheath his impious sword Drawn on his father, I'll forgive him all; Though poor Erixene lies bleeding by: Her blood cries vengeance; but my father'speace[Dies. King. As much his goodness wounds me, as

his death.

What then are both? O Philip, once renowned!
Where is the pride of Greece, the dread of Rome,
The theme of Athens, the wide world's example,
And the god Alexander's rival, now?
Even at the foot of fortune's precipice,
Where the slave's sigh wafts pity to the prince,
And his omnipotence cries out for more!

Ant. As the swoln column of ascending smoke,
So solid swells thy grandeur, pigmy man!
King. My life's deep tragedy was planned with

art,

From scene to scene, advancing in distress,
Through a sad series, to this dire result;
As if the Thracian queen conducted all,
And wrote the moral in her children's blood;
Which seas might labour to wash out in vain.
Hear it, ye nations! distant ages, hear,
And learn the dread decrees of Jove to fear!
His dread decrees the strictest balance keep;
The father groans who made a mother weep;
But if no terror for yourselves can move,
Tremble, ye parents, for the child ye love;
For your Demetrius: mine is doomed to bleed,
A guiltless victim, for his father's deed.

[Exeunt omnes

AN epilogue, through custom, is your right, But ne'er, perhaps, was needful till this night; To-night the virtuous falls, the guilty flies, Guilt's dreadful close our narrow scene denies.

In history's authentic record read
What ample vengeance gluts Demetrius' shade:
Vengeance so great, that when his tale is told,
With pity some even Perscus may behold.

Perseus surviv'd, indeed, and fill'd the throne; But ceaseless cares in conquest made him groan. Nor reign'd he long; from Rome swift thunder flew,

And headlong from his throne the tyrant threw:
Thrown headlong down, by Rome in triumph led,
For this night's deed, his perjur'd bosom bled.
His brother's ghost each moment made him start,
And all his father's anguish rent his heart.
When rob'd in black his children round him
hung,

And their rais'd arms in early sorrows wrung;
The younger smil'd, unconscious of their woe,
At which thy tears, O Rome! began to flow,
So sad the scene: what then must Perseus feel,
To see Jove's race attend the victor's wheel:
To see the slaves of his worst foes increase,

From such a source!- -an emperor's embrace!
He sicken'd soon to death, and, what is worse,
He well deserv'd and felt the coward's curse;
Unpitied, scorned, insulted his last hour,
Far, far from home, and in a vassal's power:
His pale cheek rested on his shameful chain,
No friend to mourn, no flatterer to feign.
No suit retards, no comfort sooths his doom,
And not one tear bedews a monarch's tomb.
Nor ends it thus-dire vengeance to complete,
His ancient empire, falling, shares his fate.
His throne forgot!-his weeping country chain'd!
And nations ask-Where Alexander reign'd?
As public woes a prince's crimes pursue,
So public blessings are his virtues' due.
Shout, Britons, shout! auspicious fortune bless,
And cry, long live-our title to success!