my own.  Be then no longer surprised if my troubled soul with impatience awaits their bridal; thou seest that my happiness [lit. repose] this day depends upon it.  If love lives by hope, it perishes with it; it is a fire which becomes extinguished for want of fuel; and, in spite of the severity of my sad lot, if Chimene ever has Rodrigo for a husband, my hope is dead and my spirit, is healed.  Meanwhile, I endure an incredible torture; even up to this bridal.  Rodrigo is dear to me; I strive to lose him, and I lose him with regret, and hence my secret anxiety derives its origin.  I see with sorrow that love compels me to utter sighs for that [object] which [as a princess] I must disdain.  I feel my spirit divided into two portions; if my courage is high, my heart is inflamed [with love].  This bridal is fatal to me, I fear it, and [yet] I desire it; I dare to hope from it only an incomplete joy; my honor and my love have for me such attractions, that I [shall] die whether it be accomplished, or whether it be not accomplished.

Leonora. Dear lady, after that I have nothing more to say, except that, with you, I sigh for your misfortunes; I blamed you a short time since, now I pity you.  But since in a misfortune [i.e. an ill-timed love] so sweet and so painful, your noble spirit [lit. virtue] contends against both its charm and its strength, and repulses its assault and regrets its allurements, it will restore calmness to your agitated feelings.  Hope then every [good result] from it, and from the assistance of time; hope everything from heaven; it is too just [lit. it has too much justice] to leave virtue in such a long continued torture.

Infanta. My sweetest hope is to lose hope.

(The Page re-enters.)

Page. By your commands, Chimene comes to see you.

Infanta (to Leonora).  Go and converse with her in that gallery [yonder].

Leonora. Do you wish to continue in dreamland?

Infanta. No, I wish, only, in spite of my grief, to compose myself [lit. to put my features a little more at leisure].  I follow you.

[Leonora goes out along with the Page.]

Scene III.—­The INFANTA (alone).

Just heaven, from which I await my relief, put, at last, some limit to the misfortune which is overcoming [lit. possesses] me; secure my repose, secure my honor.  In the happiness of others I seek my own.  This bridal is equally important to three [parties]; render its completion more prompt, or my soul more enduring.  To unite these two lovers with a marriage-tie is to break all my chains and to end all my sorrows.  But I tarry a little too long; let us go to meet Chimene, and, by conversation, to relieve our grief.

Scene IV.—­COUNT DE GORMAS and DON DIEGO (meeting).

Count. At last you have gained it [or, prevailed], and the favor of a King raises you to a rank which was due only to myself; he makes you Governor of the Prince of Castile.