Aur. Madam, I know whatever you can say: 
You might be pleased not to command my stay. 
All things are yet disordered in the fort;
I must crave leave your audience may be short.

Ind. You need not fear I shall detain you long:  Yet you may tell me your pretended wrong.

Aur. Is that the business? then my stay is vain.

Ind. How are you injured?

Aur. When did I complain?

Ind. Leave off your forced respect,
And show your rage in its most furious form: 
I’m armed with innocence to brave the storm. 
You heard, perhaps, your brother’s last desire,
And, after, saw him in my arms expire;
Saw me, with tears, so great a loss, bemoan;
Heard me complaining my last hopes were gone.

Aur. “Oh stay, or take me with you when you go,
There’s nothing now worth living for below.” 
Unhappy sex! whose beauty is your snare: 
Exposed to trials; made too frail to bear. 
I grow a fool, and show my rage again: 
’Tis nature’s fault; and why should I complain?

Ind. Will you yet hear me?

Aur. Yes, till you relate
What powerful motives did your change create. 
You thought me dead, and prudently did weigh
Tears were but vain, and brought but youth’s decay. 
Then, in Morat, your hopes a crown designed;
And all the woman worked within your mind.—­
I rave again, and to my rage return,
To be again subjected to your scorn.

Ind. I wait till this long storm be over-blown.

Aur. I’m conscious of my folly:  I have done.—­
I cannot rail; but silently I’ll grieve. 
How did I trust! and how did you deceive! 
Oh, Arimant, would I had died for thee! 
I dearly buy thy generosity.

Ind. Alas, is he then dead?

Aur. Unknown to me,
He took my arms; and, while I forced my way
Through troops of foes, which did our passage stay,
My buckler o’er my aged father cast,
Still fighting, still defending as I past,
The noble Arimant usurped my name;
Fought, and took from me, while he gave me, fame. 
To Aureng-Zebe, he made his soldiers cry,
And, seeing not, where he heard danger nigh,
Shot, like a star, through the benighted sky,
A short, but mighty aid:  At length he fell. 
My own adventures ’twere lost time to tell;
Or how my army, entering in the night,
Surprised our foes; The dark disordered fight: 
How my appearance, and my father shown,
Made peace; and all the rightful monarch own. 
I’ve summed it briefly, since it did relate
The unwelcome safety of the man you hate.

Ind. As briefly will I clear my innocence: 
Your altered brother died in my defence. 
Those tears you saw, that tenderness I showed,
Were just effects of grief and gratitude. 
He died my convert.

Aur. But your lover too: 
I heard his words, and did your actions view;
You seemed to mourn another lover dead: 
My sighs you gave him, and my tears you shed. 
But, worst of all,
Your gratitude for his defence was shown: 
It proved you valued life, when I was gone.