CYPRIAN: 
Permit one question further:  is the lady
Impossible to hope or not?

LELIO: 
She is
So excellent, that if the light of day
Should excite Floro’s jealousy, it were 270
Without just cause, for even the light of day
Trembles to gaze on her.

CYPRIAN: 
Would you for your
Part, marry her?

FLORO: 
Such is my confidence.

CYPRIAN: 
And you?

LELIO: 
Oh! would that I could lift my hope
So high, for though she is extremely poor, 275
Her virtue is her dowry.

CYPRIAN: 
And if you both
Would marry her, is it not weak and vain,
Culpable and unworthy, thus beforehand
To slur her honour?  What would the world say
If one should slay the other, and if she 280
Should afterwards espouse the murderer?

[THE RIVALS AGREE TO REFER THEIR QUARREL TO CYPRIAN; WHO IN CONSEQUENCE VISITS JUSTINA, AND BECOMES ENAMOURED OF HER; SHE DISDAINS HIM, AND HE RETIRES TO A SOLITARY SEA-SHORE.]

SCENE 2.

CYPRIAN: 
O memory! permit it not
That the tyrant of my thought
Be another soul that still
Holds dominion o’er the will,
That would refuse, but can no more, 5
To bend, to tremble, and adore. 
Vain idolatry!—­I saw,
And gazing, became blind with error;
Weak ambition, which the awe
Of her presence bound to terror! 10
So beautiful she was—­and I,
Between my love and jealousy,
Am so convulsed with hope and fear,
Unworthy as it may appear;—­
So bitter is the life I live, 15
That, hear me, Hell!  I now would give
To thy most detested spirit
My soul, for ever to inherit,
To suffer punishment and pine,
So this woman may be mine. 20
Hear’st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it? 
My soul is offered!

DAEMON (UNSEEN): 
I accept it.

[TEMPEST, WITH THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.]

CYPRIAN: 
What is this? ye heavens for ever pure,
At once intensely radiant and obscure! 
Athwart the aethereal halls 25
The lightning’s arrow and the thunder-balls
The day affright,
As from the horizon round,
Burst with earthquake sound,
In mighty torrents the electric fountains;—­ 30
Clouds quench the sun, and thunder-smoke
Strangles the air, and fire eclipses Heaven. 
Philosophy, thou canst not even
Compel their causes underneath thy yoke: 
From yonder clouds even to the waves below 35
The fragments of a single ruin choke
Imagination’s flight;