you tell me so; we unjustly complain of one misfortune, when a much
greater threatens to afflict us. This succour from a rival is a cruel
mortification to me: but, alas! this is not the greatest of my
misfortunes; the blow, the severe blow which crushes me, is to see that
rival preferred to me. Yes, I but too plainly perceive that his greater
reputation was the reason that his love was preferred to mine; that
opportunity of serving you, the advantage he possessed of signalizing
his prowess, that brilliant exploit which he performed in saving you,
was nothing but the mere effect of being happy enough to please you, the
secret power of a wonderful astral influence which causes the object you
love to become famed. Thus all my efforts will be in vain. I am leading
an army against your haughty tyrants; but I fulfil this noble duty
trembling, because I am sure that your wishes will not be for me, and
that, if they are granted, fortune has in store the most glorious
success for my happy rival. Ah! Madam, must I see myself hurled from
that summit of glory I expected; and may I not know what crimes they
accuse me of, and why I have deserved that dreadful downfall?

ELV. Before you ask me anything, consider what you ought to ask of my
feelings. As for this coldness of mine, which seems to abash you, I
leave it to you, my Lord, to answer for me; for, in short, you cannot be
ignorant that some of your secrets have been told to me. I believe your
mind to be too noble and too generous to desire me to do what is wrong.
Say yourself if it would be just to make me reward faithlessness;
whether you can, without the greatest injustice, offer me a heart
already tendered to another; whether you are justified in complaining,
and in blaming a refusal which would prevent you from staining your
virtues with a crime? Yes, my Lord, it is a crime, for first love has so
sacred a hold on a lofty mind, that it would rather lose greatness and
abandon life itself, than incline to a second love.