Mor. Cease to enhance her misery: 
Pity the queen, and show respect to me. 
’Tis every painter’s art to hide from sight,
And cast in shades, what, seen, would not delight.—­
Your grief in me such sympathy has bred, [To her.
I mourn, and wish I could recal the dead. 
Love softens me; and blows up fires, which pass
Through my tough heart, and melt the stubborn mass.

Ind. Break, heart; or choak, with sobs, my hated breath! 
Do thy own work:  admit no foreign death. 
Alas! why do I make this useless moan? 
I’m dead already, for my soul is gone.

  To them, MIR BABA.

Mir. What tongue the terror of this night can tell,
Within, without, and round the citadel! 
A new-formed faction does your power oppose;
The fight’s confused, and all who meet are foes: 
A second clamour, from the town, we hear;
And the far noise so loud, it drowns the near. 
Abas, who seemed our friend, is either fled,
Or, what we fear, our enemies does head: 
Your frighted soldiers scarce their ground maintain.

Mor. I thank their fury; we shall fight again: 
They rouse my rage; I’m eager to subdue: 
’Tis fatal to with-hold my eyes from you. [Exit with the two Omrahs.

  Enter MELESINDA.

Mel. Can misery no place of safety know? 
The noise pursues me wheresoe’er I go,
As fate sought only me, and, where I fled,
Aimed all its darts at my devoted head. 
And let it; I am now past care of life;
The last of women; an abandoned wife.

Ind. Whether design or chance has brought you here,
I stand obliged to fortune, or to fear: 
Weak women should, in danger, herd like deer. 
But say, from whence this new combustion springs? 
Are there yet more Morats? more fighting kings?

Mel. Him from his mother’s love your eyes divide, And now her arms the cruel strife decide.

Ind. What strange misfortunes my vext life attend!  Death will be kind, and all my sorrows end.  If Nourmahal prevail, I know my fate.

Mel. I pity, as my own, your hard estate: 
But what can my weak charity afford? 
I have no longer interest in my lord: 
Nor in his mother, he:  she owns her hate
Aloud, and would herself usurp the state.

Ind. I’m stupified with sorrow, past relief Of tears; parched up, and withered with my grief.

Mel. Dry mourning will decays more deadly bring, As a north wind burns a too forward spring.  Give sorrow vent, and let the sluices go.

Ind. My tears are all congealed, and will not flow.

Mel. Have comfort; yield not to the blows of fate.

Ind. Comfort, like cordials after death, comes late.  Name not so vain a word; my hopes are fled:  Think your Morat were kind, and think him dead.