Daria. 
If to what I said but now
You had listened, I believe
You would have preferred to leave
Still unspoken love’s vain vow. 
This you would yourself allow.

Chrysanthus. 
What then was it?

Daria. 
                   I do n’t know: 
Something ’t was that typified
My presumption and my pride.

Chrysanthus. 
Let me know it even so.

Daria. 
That in me no love could grow
Save for one who first would die
For my love.

Chrysanthus. 
              And death being past,
Would he win your love at last?—­

Daria. 
Yes, on that he might rely.

Chrysanthus. 
Then I plight my troth that I
Will to that reward aspire,—­
A poor offering at the fire
By those beauteous eyes supplied.

Daria. 
But as you have not yet died,
Pray do n’t follow me, but retire. [Exit.

Chrysanthus. 
In what bosom, at one moment,
Oh! ye heavens! e’er met together[6]
Such a host of anxious troubles? 
Such a crowd of boding terrors? 
Can I be the same calm student
Who awhile ago here wended? 
To a miracle of beauty,
To a fair face now surrendered,
I scarce know what brought me hither,
I my purpose scarce remember. 
What bewitchment, what enchantment,
What strange lethargy, what frenzy
Can have to my heart, those eyes
Such divine delirium sent me? 
What divinity, desirous
That I should not know the endless
Mysteries of the book I carry,
In my path such snares presenteth,
Seeking from these serious studies
To distract me and divert me? 
But what ’s this I say?  One passion
Accidentally developed,
Should not be enough, no, no,
From myself myself to sever. 
If the violence of one star
Draws me to a deity’s service,
It compels not; for the planets
Draw, but force not, the affections. 
Free is yet my will, my mind too,
Free is still my heart:  then let me
Try to solve more noble problems
Than the doubts that love presenteth. 
And since Claudius, the new Clytie[7]
Of the sun, whose golden tresses
Lead him in pursuit, her footsteps
Follows through the wood, my servant
Having happily too departed,
And since yonder rocks where endeth
The dark wood in savage wildness
Must be the rude rustic shelter
Of the Christians who fled thither,
I ’ll approach them to endeavour
To find there Carpophorus:—­
He alone, the wise, the learn`ed,
Can my understanding rescue
From its night-mare dreams and guesses. [Exit.

Scene iii.  The extremity of the wood:  wild rocks with the entrance to a cave.  Carpophorus comes forth from the cave, but is for a while unseen by Chrysanthus, who enters.