CLI. A fine prospect! Nonsense, you are joking; you know that a
little boldness always succeeds with lovers; it is only the bashful
and timid who are losers; and were I to fall in love with a goddess, I
would tell her of my passion at once.

SOS. Alas! too many things condemn my love to an eternal silence.

CLI. But what?

SOS. The lowness of my birth, by which it pleased heaven to humble the
ambition of my love; the princess's rank, which puts between her and
my desires such an impassable barrier. The rivalry of two princes who
can back the offer of their heart by the highest titles; two princes
who offer the most magnificent entertainments by turn to her whose
heart they strive to win, and between whom it is expected every moment
that she will make a choice. Besides all this, Clitidas, there is the
inviolable respect to which she subjugates the violence of my love.

CLI. Respect is not always as welcome as love; and if I am not greatly
mistaken, the young princess knows of your affection, and is not
insensible to it.

SOS. Ah! pray do not, out of pity, flatter the heart of a miserable
lover.

CLI. I do not say it without good reasons. She is a long time
postponing the choice of a husband, and I must try and discover a
little more about all this. You know that I enjoy a kind of favour
with her, that I have free access to her, and that, by dint of trying
all kinds of ways, I have gained the privilege of saying a word now