[_lit._ interests itself] against my own honor. I must avenge a father
and lose a mistress. The one stimulates my courage, the other restrains
my arm. Reduced to the sad choice of either betraying my love or of
living as a degraded [man], on both sides my situation is wretched
[_lit._ evil is infinite]. O heaven, the strange pang [_or,_
difficulty]! Must I leave an insult unavenged? Must I punish the father
of Chimène?

Father, mistress, honor, love--noble and severe restraint--a bondage
still to be beloved [_lit._ beloved tyranny], all my pleasures are dead,
or my glory is sullied. The one renders me unhappy; the other unworthy
of life. Dear and cruel hope of a soul noble but still enamored, worthy
enemy of my greatest happiness, thou sword which causest my painful
anxiety, hast thou been given to me to avenge my honor? Hast thou been
given to me to lose Chimène?

It is better to rush [_lit._ run] to death. I owe [a duty] to my
mistress as well as to my father. I draw, in avenging myself, her hatred
and her rage; I draw upon myself his [i.e. my father's] contempt by
not avenging myself. To my sweetest hope the one [alternative] renders
me unfaithful, and the other [alternative] renders me unworthy of her.
My misfortune increases by seeking a remedy [_lit._ by wishing to cure
it]. All [supposed reliefs] redoubles my woes. Come then, my soul [or,
beloved sword], and, since I must die, let us die, at least, without
offending Chimène!

To die without obtaining satisfaction! To seek a death so fatal to my
fame! To endure that Spain should impute to my memory [the fact] of
having badly maintained the honor of my house! To respect a love of
which my distracted soul already sees the certain loss. Let us no more