John Dryden

“ PROLOGUE.
Our author, by experience, finds it true,
'Tis much more hard to please himself than you;
And out of no feigned modesty, this day
Damns his laborious trifle of a play:
Not that its worse than what before he writ,
But he has now another taste of wit;
And, to confess a truth, though out of time,
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme.
Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And nature flies him like enchanted ground:
What verse can do, he has performed in this,
Which he presumes the most correct of his ”

“ I, my own judge, condemned myself before;
For pity aggravate my crime no more!
So weak I am, I with a frown am slain;
You need have used but half so much disdain.
Ind. I am not cruel yet to that degree;
Have better thoughts both of yourself and me.
Beauty a monarch is,
Which kingly power magnificently proves,
By crowds of slaves, and peopled empire loves:
And such a slave as you what queen would lose?
Above the rest, I Arimant would chuse,
For counsel, valour, truth, and kindness too;
All I could wish in man, I find in you.
Arim. What lover could to greater joy be raised? ”

“ They are seldom visited from above, but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs. That ecstacy had need be strong, which, without any end, but that of admiration has power enough to destroy all other passions. You render mankind insensible to other beauties, and have destroyed the empire of love in a court which was the seat of his dominion. ”

“ But peopled heaven with angels, earth with man.
Raphael. As man and angels to the Deity,
So all inferior creatures are to thee.
Heaven's greatness no society can bear;
Servants he made, and those thou want'st not here.
Adam. Why did he reason in my soul implant,
And speech, the effect of reason? To the mute,
My speech is lost; my reason to the brute.
Love and society more blessings bring
To them, the slaves, than power to me, their king.
Raphael. Thus far to try thee; but to heaven 'twas known,
It was not best for man to be alone ”

“ Give me leave, madam, to acquaint the world, that I am jealous of this subject; and let it be no dishonour to you, that, after having raised the admiration of mankind, you have inspired one man to give it voice. But, with whatsoever vanity this new honour of being your poet has filled my mind, I confess myself too weak for the inspiration: the priest was always unequal to the oracle: the god within him was too mighty for his breast: he laboured with the sacred revelation, and there was more of the mystery left behind, than the divinity itself could enable him to express. ”

“ Emp. Oh, Aureng-Zebe! thy virtues shine too bright,
They flash too fierce: I, like the bird of night,
Shut my dull eyes, and sicken at the sight.
Thou hast deserved more love than I can show;
But 'tis thy fate to give, and mine to owe.
Thou seest me much distempered in my mind;
Pulled back, and then pushed forward to be kind.
Virtue, and—fain I would my silence break,
But have not yet the confidence to speak.
Leave me, and to thy needful rest repair.
Aur. Rest is not suiting with a lover's care.
I have not yet my Indamora seen. ”

“ Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name:
Awed when he hears his godlike Romans rage,
He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;
And to an age less polished, more unskilled,
Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield.
As with the greater dead he dares not strive,
He would not match his verse with those who live:
Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast,
The first of this, and hindmost of the last.
A losing gamester, let him sneak away;
He bears no ready money from the play.
The fate, which governs poets, thought it fit
He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. ”

“ Fortune has, indeed, but rendered justice to so much excellence, in setting it so high to public view; or, rather, Providence has done justice to itself, in placing the most perfect workmanship of heaven, where it may be admired by all beholders. Had the sun and stars been seated lower, their glory had not been communicated to all at once, and the Creator had wanted so much of his praise, as he had made your condition more obscure: but he has placed you so near a crown, that you add a lustre to it by your beauty. You are joined to a prince, who only could deserve you ”

“ But to press it yet farther, there are many witty men, but few poets; neither have all poets a taste of tragedy. And this is the rock on which they are daily splitting. Poetry, which is a picture of nature, must generally please; but it is not to be understood that all parts of it must please every man; therefore is not tragedy to be judged by a witty man, whose taste is only confined to comedy. Nor is every man who loves tragedy, a sufficient judge of it; he must understand the excellencies of it too, or he will only prove a blind admirer, not a critic. ”

“ I had forgot he was my husband's son.
Zayd. Nay, more, you have forgot who is your own:
For whom your care so long designed the throne.
Morat must fall, if Aureng-Zebe should rise.
Nour. 'Tis true; but who was e'er in love, and wise?
Why was that fatal knot of marriage tied,
Which did, by making us too near, divide?
Divides me from my sex! for heaven, I find,
Excludes but me alone of womankind.
I stand with guilt confounded, lost with shame,
And yet made wretched only by a name.
If names have such command on human life,
Love sure's a name that's more divine than wife. ”

“ How vain is virtue, which directs our ways
Through certain danger to uncertain praise!
Barren, and airy name! thee fortune flies,
With thy lean train, the pious and the wise.
Heaven takes thee at thy word, without regard,
And lets thee poorly be thy own reward.
The world is made for the bold impious man,
Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can.
Justice to merit does weak aid afford;
She trusts her balance, and neglects her sword.
Virtue is nice to take what's not her own;
And, while she long consults, the prize is gone.
To him Dianet. ”

“ Since virtue does your indignation raise,
'Tis pity but you had that wife you praise:
Your own wild appetites are prone to range,
And then you tax our humours with your change.
Emp. What can be sweeter than our native home?
Thither for ease and soft repose we come:
Home is the sacred refuge of our life;
Secured from all approaches, but a wife.
If thence we fly, the cause admits no doubt;
None but an inmate foe could force us out:
Clamours our privacies uneasy make;
Birds leave their nests disturbed, and beasts their haunts forsake.
Nour. Honour's my crime, that has your loathing bred ”

“ My queen and thou have got the start of me,
And I'm the lag of honour.—Gone so soon?
Is death no more? he used him carelessly,
With a familiar kindness: ere he knocked,
Ran to the door, and took him in his arms,
As who should say—You're welcome at all hours,
A friend need give no warning. Books had spoiled him;
For all the learned are cowards by profession.
'Tis not worth
My farther thought; for death, for aught I know,
Is but to think no more. Here's to be satisfied. ”

“ Moderation is doubtless an establishment of greatness; but there is a steadiness of temper which is likewise requisite in a minister of state; so equal a mixture of both virtues, that he may stand like an isthmus betwixt the two encroaching seas of arbitrary power, and lawless anarchy. The undertaking would be difficult to any but an extraordinary genius, to stand at the line, and to divide the limits; to pay what is due to the great representative of the nation, and neither to enhance, nor to yield up, the undoubted prerogatives of the crown. ”

“ Ambition is so far from being a vice in poets, that it is almost impossible for them to succeed without it. Imagination must be raised, by a desire of fame, to a desire of pleasing; and they whom, in all ages, poets have endeavoured most to please, have been the beautiful and the great. Beauty is their deity, to which they sacrifice, and greatness is their guardian angel, which protects them. Both these, are so eminently joined in the person of your royal highness, that it were not easy for any but a poet to determine which of them outshines the other. ”

“ Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.
Nour. 'Tis not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that's new:
Each day's a mistress, unenjoyed before;
Like travellers, we're pleased with seeing more.
Did you but know what joys your way attend,
You would not hurry to your journey's end.
Aur. I need not haste the end of life to meet;
The precipice is just beneath my feet.
Nour. Think not my sense of virtue is so small:
I'll rather leap down first, and break your fall.
My Aureng-Zebe, (may I not call you so?) ”

“ Raphael. Right reason's law to every human heart
The Eternal, as his image, will impart:
This teaches to adore heaven's Majesty;
In prayer and praise does all devotion lie:
So doing, thou and all thy race are blest.
Adam. Of every creeping thing, of bird, and beast,
I see the kinds: In pairs distinct they go;
The males their loves, their lovers females know:
Thou nam'st a race which must proceed from me,
Yet my whole species in myself I see:
A barren sex, and single, of no use,
But full of forms which I can ne'er produce. ”

“ Counsel was not enough to sway my heart;
An absolute restraint had been your part.
Adam. Even such returns do they deserve to find,
When force is lawful, who are fondly kind.
Unlike my love; for when thy guilt I knew,
I shared the curse which did that crime pursue.
Hard fate of love! which rigour did forbear,
And now 'tis taxed, because 'twas not severe.
Eve. You have yourself your kindness overpaid;
He ceases to oblige, who can upbraid.
Adam. On women's virtue, who too much rely,
To boundless will give boundless liberty. ”

“ By virtue, and without a blush to reign.
Mor. You show me somewhat I ne'er learnt before;
But 'tis the distant prospect of a shore,
Doubtful in mists; which, like enchanted ground,
Flies from my sight, before 'tis fully found.
Ind. Dare to be great, without a guilty crown;
View it, and lay the bright temptation down:
'Tis base to seize on all, because you may;
That's empire, that, which I can give away:
There's joy when to wild will you laws prescribe,
When you bid fortune carry back her bribe:
A joy, which none but greatest minds can taste;
A fame, which will to endless ages last. ”

“ Both my nature, as I am an Englishman, and my reason, as I am a man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious name of a republic; that mock appearance of a liberty, where all who have not part in the government, are slaves; and slaves they are of a viler note, than such as are subjects to an absolute dominion. For no Christian monarchy is so absolute, but it is circumscribed with laws; but when the executive power is in the law-makers, there is no farther check upon them; and the people must suffer without a remedy, because they are oppressed by their representatives. ”

“ Or 'twas imperfect till I saw your eyes.
Emp. Turn the discourse: I have a reason why
I would not have you speak so tenderly.
Knew you what shame your kind expressions bring,
You would, in pity, spare a wretched king.
Aur. A king! you rob me, sir, of half my due;
You have a dearer name,—a father too.
Emp. I had that name.
Aur. What have I said or done,
That I no longer must be called your son?
'Tis in that name, heaven knows, I glory more,
Than that of prince, or that of conqueror.
Emp. Then you upbraid me; I am pleased to see
You're not so perfect, but can fail, like me. ”

“ They approach so near to singularity in ours, that I can scarcely make a panegyric to your royal highness, without a satire on many others. But your person is a paradise, and your soul a cherubim within, to guard it. If the excellence of the outside invite the beholders, the majesty of your mind deters them from too bold approaches, and turns their admiration into religion. Moral perfections are raised higher by you in the softer sex; as if men were of too coarse a mould for heaven to work on, and that the image of divinity could not be cast to likeness in so harsh a metal. ”

“ I think, without flattery to my friend, he does. Were I to chuse, of all mankind, a man, on whom I would rely for faith and counsel, or more, whose personal aid I would invite, in any worthy cause, to second me, it should be only Gabriel Towerson; daring he is, and thereto fortunate; yet soft, and apt to pity the distressed, and liberal to relieve them: I have seen him not alone to pardon foes, but by his bounty win them to his love: If he has any fault, 'tis only that to which great minds can only subject be—he thinks all honest, 'cause himself is so, and therefore none suspects. ”

“ And now 'tis near, 'tis lessened.
Vent. Mark the end yet.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmion, and Iras.
Ant. Well, madam, we are met.
Cleo. Is this a meeting?
Then, we must part?
Ant. We must.
Cleo. Who says we must?
Ant. Our own hard fates.
Cleo. We make those fates ourselves.
Ant. Yes, we have made them; we have loved each other
In our mutual ruin.
Cleo. The gods have seen my joys with envious eyes;
I have no friends in heaven; and all the world,
As 'twere the business of mankind to part us,
Is armed against my love: even you yourself
Join with the rest; you, you are armed against me. ”