Queen.  You may approach, sir; [To PHIL.  We two discourse no secrets.

Phil.  I come, madam, to weary out your royal bounty.

Queen.  Some suit, I warrant, for your cousin Celadon.  Leave his advancement to my care.

Phil.  Your goodness still prevents my wishes.—­
Yet I have one request,
Might it not pass almost for madness, and
Extreme ambition in me—­

Queen.  You know you have a favourable judge;
It lies in you not to ask any thing
I cannot grant.

Phil.  Madam, perhaps, you think me too faulty:  But love alone inspires me with ambition, Tho’ but to look on fair Candiope were an excuse for both.

Queen.  Keep your ambition, and let love alone: 
That I can cloy, but this I cannot cure. 
I have some reasons (invincible to me) which must forbid
Your marriage with Candiope.

Phil.  I knew I was not worthy.

Queen.  Not for that, Philocles; you deserve all things,
And, to shew I think it, my admiral, I hear, is dead;
His vacant place (the best in all my kingdom,)
I here confer on you.

Phil.  Rather take back all you had giv’n before,
Than not give this;
For believe, madam, nothing is so near
My soul, as the possession of Candiope.

Queen.  Since that belief would be to your disadvantage, I will not entertain it.

Phil.  Why, madam, can you be thus cruel to me? 
To give me all things, which I did not ask,
And yet deny that only thing, I beg: 
And so beg, that I find I cannot live
Without the hope of it.

Queen.  Hope greater things; But hope not this.  Haste to o’ercome your love; It is but putting a short-liv’d passion to a violent death.

Phil.  I cannot live without Candiope;
But I can die, without a murmur,
Having my doom pronounced from your fair mouth.

Queen.  If I am to pronounce it, live, my Philocles,
But live without, (I was about to say) [Aside. 
Without his love, but that I cannot do;
Live Philocles without Candiope.

Phil.  Madam, could you give my doom so quickly,
And knew it was irrevocable! 
’Tis too apparent,
You, who alone love glory, and whose soul
Is loosened from your senses, cannot judge
What torments mine, of grosser mould, endures.

Queen.  I cannot suffer you
To give me praises, which are not my own: 
I love like you, and am yet much more wretched,
Than you can think yourself.

Phil.  Weak bars they needs must be, that fortune puts
’Twixt sovereign power, and all it can desire. 
When princes love, they call themselves unhappy;
Only, because the word sounds handsome in a lover’s mouth;
But you can cease to be so when you please,
By making Lysimantes fortunate.