Nour. Custom our native royalty does awe;
Promiscuous love is nature’s general law: 
For whosoever the first lovers were,
Brother and sister made the second pair,
And doubled, by their love, their piety.

Aur. Hence, hence, and to some barbarous climate fly,
Which only brutes in human form does yield,
And man grows wild in nature’s common field. 
Who eat their parents, piety pretend;[2]
Yet there no sons their sacred bed ascend. 
To vail great sins, a greater crime you chuse;
And, in your incest, your adultery lose.

Nour. In vain this haughty fury you have shewn. 
How I adore a soul, so like my own! 
You must be mine, that you may learn to live;
Know joys, which only she who loves can give. 
Nor think that action you upbraid, so ill;
I am not changed, I love my husband still[3];
But love him as he was, when youthful grace,
And the first down began to shade his face: 
That image does my virgin-flames renew,
And all your father shines more bright in you.

Aur. In me a horror of myself you raise;
Cursed by your love, and blasted by your praise. 
You find new ways to prosecute my fate;
And your least-guilty passion was your hate.

Nour. I beg my death, if you can love deny.
                                             [Offering him a dagger.

Aur. I’ll grant you nothing; no, not even to die.

Nour. Know then, you are not half so kind as I.
                                              [Stamps with her foot.

Enter Mutes, some with swords drawn, one with a cup.

You’ve chosen, and may now repent too late. 
Behold the effect of what you wished,—­my hate.
                                     [Taking the cup to present him.
This cup a cure for both our ills has brought;
You need not fear a philtre in the draught.

Aur. All must be poison which can come from thee;
                                             [Receiving it from her.
But this the least.  To immortal liberty
This first I pour, like dying Socrates; [Spilling a little of it.
Grim though he be, death pleases, when he frees.

As he is going to drink, Enter MORAT attended.

Mor. Make not such haste, you must my leisure stay;
Your fate’s deferred, you shall not die to-day.
                                           [Taking the cup from him.

Nour. What foolish pity has possessed your mind, To alter what your prudence once designed?

Mor. What if I please to lengthen out his date A day, and take a pride to cozen fate?

Nour. ’Twill not be safe to let him live an hour.

Mor. I’ll do’t, to show my arbitrary power.

Nour. Fortune may take him from your hands again, And you repent the occasion lost in vain.