Act I: Scene III

PAUL.Yes, go, despise my prayer--my agony;Go, ruthless--meet thy fate--forewarned by me;Chase thy pursuer, herald thine own doom;Go, kiss the murderer's hand, and hail the tomb!Ah, Stratonice! for our boasted powerAs sovereigns o'er man's heart! Poor regents of an hour!Faint, helpless, moonbeam--light was all I gave,The sun breaks forth--his queen becomes his slave!Wooed? Yes; as other queens I held my courtWon--but to lose my crown, and be the sportOf proud, absorbing and imperious man!

STRAT.Ah, man does what he wills--we, what we can;He loves thee, lady!

PAUL.Love should mate with trusts;He leaves me!

STRAT.Lady, 'tis because he must!He loves thee with a love will never die,Then, if he leave thee, reason not the why:Give him thy trust! Oh, thou shalt have reward,For thee he hides the secret! Let him guardThy life beloved--in fullest liberty.The wife who wholly trusts alone is free!One heart for thee and him--one purpose sure,Yet this heart beats to dare--and to endure.The wife's true heart must o'er the peril sighWhich meets his heart moved but to purpose high;Thy pain his pain, but not his terror thine:He is Armenian, thou of Roman line.We, of Armenia, mock thy dreams to scorn,For they are born of night, as truth of morn;While Romans hold that dreams are heaven-sent,And spring from Jove for man's admonishment.

PAUL.Though this thy faith--if thou my dream shouldst hear--My grief must needs be thine, thy fear my fear,And, that the horror thou may'st fully prove,Know that I--his dear wife--did once another love!Nay, start not, shrink not, 'tis no tale of shame,For though in other years the heavenly flameDescended, kindled, scorched--it left me pureWith courage to resign--with strength to endure.He touched my heart, but never stained the soulThat gained this hardest conquest--self-control.At Rome--where I was born--a soldier's eyeMarked this poor face, from which must Polyeucte fly;Severus was his name:--Ah! memoryMay spare love linked with death a tear, a sigh!

STRAT.Say, is it he who, at the risk of life,Saved Decius from his foes and endless strife?Who, dying, dealt to Persia stroke of death,And shouted 'Victory!' with his latest breath?His whitening bones, amid the nameless brave,Lie still unfound, unknown, without a grave;Unburied lies his dust amid the slain,While Decius rears an empty urn in vain!

PAUL.Alas! 'tis he; all Rome attests his worth,Hide not his memory, kindly Mother Earth!'Tis but his memory that I adoreThe past is past--and I can say no more.All gifts save one had he--yes, Fortune held her hand,And I, as Fortune's slave, obeyed my sire's command.

STRAT.Ah! I must wish that love the day had won!

PAUL.Which duty lost--then had I been undone;Though duty gave, yet duty healed, my pain;Yet say not that my love was weak or vain!Our tears fell fast, yet ne'er bore our distressThe fatal fruit of strife and bitterness.Then, then, I left my hero, hope and Rome,And, far from him, I found another home;While he, in his despair, sought sure reliefIn death, the only end to life's long grief!You know the rest:--you know that Polyeucte's eyeWas caught,--his fancy pleased; his wife am I.Once more by counsel of my father led,To Armenia's greatest noble am I wed;Ambition, prudence, policy his guideYet only duty made Pauline his bride;Love might have bound me to Severus' heart,Had duty not enforced a sterner part.Yes, let these fears attest, all trembling for his life,That I am his for aye--his faithful, loving wife.

STRAT.Thy new love true and tender as the old:--But this thy dream? No more thy tale withhold!

PAUL.Last night I saw Severus: but his eyeWith anger blazed; his port was proud and high,No suppliant he--no feeble, formless shade,With dim, averted eye; no sword had madeMy hero lifeless ghost. Nor wound, nor scarMarked death his only conqueror in war.Nor spoil of death, nor memory's child was he,His mien triumphant, full of majesty!So might victorious Caesar near his homeTo claim the key to every heart in Rome!He spoke: in nameless awe I heard his voice,--'Give love, that is my due, to him--thy choice,--But know, oh faithless one, ere day expires,All vain these tears for him thy heart desires!'Anon a Christian band (an impious horde),With shameful cross in hand, attest his word;They vouch Severus' truth--and, to completeMy doom, hurl Polyeucte beneath his feet!I cried, 'O father, timely succour bear!'He heard, he came, my grief was now despair!He drew his dagger--plunged it in the breastOf him, my husband, late his honoured guest!Relief came but from agony supreme--I shrieked--I writhed--I woke--it was a dream!And yet my dream is true!

STRAT.'Tis true your dream is sad,But now you are awake, 'tis but a dream you had!For horror's prey in darkness of the nightIs but our reason's sport in morning light.How can you dread a shade? How a fond father fear,Who as a son regards the man you hold so dear?To phantom of the night no credence yield;For him and you he chose thy strength and shield.

PAUL.You say his words: at all my fears he smiles,But I must dread these Christians and their wiles!I dread their vengeance, wreaked upon my lord,For Christian blood my father has outpoured!

STRAT.Their sect is impious, mad, absurd and vain,Their rites repulsive, as their cult profane.Deride their altar, their weak frenzy ban,Yet do they war with gods and not with man!Relentless wills our law that they must die:Their joy--endurance; death--their ecstasy;Judged--by decree, the foes of human race,Meekly their heads they bow--to court disgrace!

PAUL.My father comes--oh, peace!