behold issuing from this open casket? Love, unless thy compassion forbids my death, I must needs descend to the tomb, never to live again. Psyche swoons, and Love flies towards her. Psyche Love SCENE IV. Love. Thy danger, Psyche, dispels my wrath; nay, the violence of my passion has never abated; and though thou hast excited my highest displeasure, yet my anger was harboured only against my mother's wrath. I have seen all thy toils, I have followed all thy misfortunes, and throughout my sighs have answered thy tears. Look on me, I am still the same. What, again and again, I repeat that I love thee, and yet thou wilt not say that thou lovest me! Can it be that thy beauteous eyes are for ever closed, that they are for ever bereft of daylight? O Death! need'st thou have taken so cruel a dart, and, regardless of my eternal being, endangered my own life! How oft, ungrateful deity, have I swelled thy dark empire by the contempt or the cruelty of a fierce and proud fair one? How many faithful lovers, since I must confess it, have I, through irresistible raptures, sacrificed to thee? Go, I shall wound no more souls, I shall pierce no more hearts, but with darts dipped in the divine liquors that foster heaven's immortal passions. I shall hurl them no more but to make as many lovers as there are gods. As for thee, thou inexorable mother, who forcest her to bereave me of what I held dearest in this world, dread, in thy turn, the effects of my wrath. Thou wouldst sway my feelings, thou who art often swayed by my will; thou who wearest a heart as sensitive as that of mortals; thou enviest to mine the raptures of thine own! But in this same heart I shall plunge such darts as shall be followed by jealous sorrow. I shall crush thee by abasing ravishments, and ever choose as objects for thy dearest longings Adonises and Anchises who will nurse nothing but hatred towards thee. Love SCENE V.——VENUS, LOVE, PSYCHE (still senseless). Ven. The threat is full of respect, and the anger of a rebellious son presumptuous…. Ven
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