Abdelm. Had fortune favoured him, and frowned on me,
I then had been that heavy fool, not he: 
Just this had been my funeral elegy. 
Thy arts and falsehood I before did know,
But this last baseness was concealed till now;
And ’twas no more than needful to be known;
I could be cured by such an act alone. 
My love, half blasted, yet in time would shoot;
But this last tempest rends it to the root.

Lyndar. These little piques, which now your anger move,
Will vanish, and are only signs of love. 
You’ve been too fierce; and, at some other time,
I should not with such ease forgive your crime: 
But, in a day of public joy like this,
I pardon, and forget whate’er’s amiss.

Abdelm. These arts have oft prevailed, but must no more: 
The spell is ended, and the enchantment o’er. 
You have at last destroyed, with much ado,
That love, which none could have destroyed, but you. 
My love was blind to your deluding art;
But blind men feel, when stabbed so near the heart.

Lyndar. I must confess there was some pity due; But I concealed it out of love to you.

Abdelm. No, Lyndaraxa; ’tis at last too late: 
Our loves have mingled with too much of fate. 
I would, but cannot now, myself deceive: 
O that you still could cheat, and I believe!

Lyndar. Do not so light a quarrel long pursue:  You grieve your rival was less loved than you.  ’Tis hard, when men of kindness must complain!

Abdelm. I’m now awake, and cannot dream again.

Lyndar. Yet hear—­

Abdelm. No more; nothing my heart can bend: 
That queen, you scorned, you shall this night attend. 
Your life the king has pardoned for my sake;
But on your pride I some revenge must take. 
See now the effects of what your arts designed! 
Thank your inconstant and ambitious mind. 
’Tis just that she, who to no love is true,
Should be forsaken, and contemned, like you.

Lyndar. All arts of injured women I will try: 
First I will be revenged; and then I’ll die. 
But like some falling tower,
Whose seeming firmness does the sight beguile,
So hold I up my nodding head a while,
Till they come under; and reserve my fall,
That with my ruins I may reach them all,

Abdelm. Conduct her hence. [Exit LYNDAR. guarded.

  Enter a Soldier.

Sold. Almanzor is victorious without fight;
The foes retreated when he came in sight. 
Under the walls, this night, his men are drawn,
And mean to seek the Spaniard with the dawn.

Abdelm. The sun’s declined: 
Command the watch be set without delay,
And in the fort let bold Benducar stay.—­ [Exit Sold.
I’ll haste to court, where solitude I’ll fly,
And herd, like wounded deer, in company. 
But oh, how hard a passion to remove,
When I must shun myself, to ’scape from love! [Exit.