SCENE I.——AGLAURA, CIDIPPE. Agl. I can bear it no longer, my sister. I have seen too many wonders; future times will scarcely conceive them; this sun, that sees all, and lays all before our gaze, never beheld the like. This dazzling palace and this stately equipage are a display hateful to me; shame as well as spite overwhelm me. How cruelly Fortune has treated us; see how her inconsiderate bounty blindly lavishes, exhausts, and unites her efforts to make all these treasures the lot of a younger sister! Agl Cid. I share all your feelings; your griefs are mine; in this delightful spot, all that displeases you wounds me; all which you consider a deadly insult oppresses me no less than yourself, and leaves bitterness within my breast and blushes on my brow. Cid Agl. No, my sister, no living queen, in her own realm speaks in such sovereign tones as Psyche in these abodes. Here we see her obeyed with scrupulous exactitude; and a yearning study of her will seeks it even in her eyes, a thousand beauties throng around her, and seem to say to our jealous looks, "Whatever your charms may be, she is still fairer, and we who serve her are fairer than you." She orders, it is done; none refuse, none rebel. Flora, clinging to her steps, lavishes her sweetest charms around her; Zephyr flies to execute her orders, and his mistress and he, too much a prey to her charms, forget their own love in their eagerness to serve her. Agl Cid. She has gods at her services, soon she will have altars; our sway extends over weak mortals only, whose continual caprice and impudence, rebelling secretly from us, oppose either murmurs or stratagem to our will. Cid Agl. It was but little indeed that at our court so many hearts contended for her, preferring her to us! It was not enough that she was there worshipped night and day by a crowd of lovers. When we were comforting ourselves with seeing her on the brink of the grave by the sudden order of the oracle, she thought fit to display before us the miracle of her new destiny, and has chosen our eyes to be witnesses of that which at the bottom of our hearts we least desire. Agl Cid. What above all fills my heart with despair is to see this lover, so perfect, so born to please, a captive under her sway. Were it in our
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