IPH. Are you afraid, Sostratus, of making yourself an enemy?

SOS. I should have but little fear for the enemies I might make in
obeying the will of my sovereigns.

TIM. Why, then, do you refuse to accept the power which is entrusted
to you, and to acquire to yourself the friendship of a prince who
would owe all his happiness to you?

SOS. Because it is not in my power to grant to that prince what he
would wish from me.

IPH. What reason can you have?

SOS. Why should you so insist upon this? Perhaps I may have, my Lord,
some secret interest opposed to the pretensions of your love. Perhaps
I may have a friend who burns with a respectful flame for the divine
charms with which you are in love. Perhaps that friend makes me the
daily confidant of his sufferings, that he complains to me of the
rigour of his fate, and is looking upon the marriage of the princess
as the dreadful sentence which is to send him to his grave. Supposing
it were so, my Lord, would it be right that he should receive his
death-wound from my hands?

IPH. You seem to me, Sostratus, very likely to be that friend whose
interests you have so much at heart.

SOS. I beg of you, my Lord, not to render me odious tote persons who
hear you. I know what I am, and unfortunate people like me are not
ignorant of the limits which fortune assigned to their desires.