Standard Selections Part 83

GAL. Send me not hence Pygmalion; let me stay.

PYG. It may not be.

Come, Galatea, we shall meet again.

GAL. Do with me as thou wilt, Pygmalion!

But we shall meet again?--and very soon?

PYG. Yes, very soon.

GAL. And when thy wife returns, She'll let me stay with thee?

PYG. I do not know.

[_Aside_]. Why should I hide the truth from her [_aloud_] alas!

I may not see thee then.

GAL. Pygmalion!

What fearful words are these?

PYG. The bitter truth.

I may not love thee; I must send thee hence.

GAL. Recall those words, Pygmalion, my love!

Was it for this that heaven gave me life?

Pygmalion, have mercy on me; see, I am thy work, thou hast created me; The G.o.ds have sent me to thee. I am thine!

Thine! only, and unalterably thine!

This is the thought with which my soul is charged.

Thou tellest me of one who claims thy love, That thou hast love for her alone. Alas!

I do not know these things; I only know That heaven has sent me here to be with thee.

Thou tellest me of duty to thy wife, Of vows that thou wilt love but her. Alas!

I do not know these things; I only know That heaven, who sent me here, has given me One all absorbing duty to discharge-- To love thee, and to make thee love again.

[PYGMALION _takes her in his arms, and embraces her pa.s.sionately._]

ACT III, SCENE I

CHARACTERS: Pygmalion; Myrine, his sister; Cynisca, his wife; Galatea.

SCENE: Pygmalion's studio.

_Enter_ MYRINE

MYR. Pygmalion's heard that he must lose his wife, And swears, by all the G.o.ds that reign above, He will not live if she deserts him now!

What--what is to be done?

_Enter_ GALATEA

GAL. Myrine here!

Where is Pygmalion?

MYR. Oh, wretched girl!

Art thou not satisfied with all the ill Thy heedlessness has worked, that thou art come To gaze upon thy victim's misery?

Well, thou hast come in time!

GAL. What dost thou mean?

MYR. Why, this is what I mean; he will not live, Now that Cynisca has deserted him.

O, girl, his blood will be upon thy head!

GAL. Pygmalion will not live! Pygmalion die!

And I, alas, the miserable cause!

Oh, what is to be done?

MYR. I do not know.

And yet there is one chance, but one alone; I'll see Cynisca, and prevail on her To meet Pygmalion but once again.

GAL. But should she come too late? He may not live Till she returns.

MYR. I'll send him now to thee, And tell him that his wife awaits him here.

He'll take thee for Cynisca; when he speaks Answer thou him as if thou wast his wife.

GAL. Yes, yes, I understand.

MYR. Then I'll be gone.

The G.o.ds a.s.sist thee in this artifice! [_Exit_ MYRINE.

GAL. The G.o.ds will help me, for the G.o.ds are good.

[_Kneels._] Oh, heaven, in this great grief I turn to thee, Teach me to speak to him, as, ere I lived, Cynisca spake to him. Oh, let my voice Be to Pygmalion as Cynisca's voice, And he will live--for her and not for me-- Yet he will live. I am the fountain head

_Enter_ PYGMALION, _un.o.bserved, led in by_ MYRINE

Of all the horrors that surround him now, And it is fit that I should suffer this; Grant this, my first appeal--I do not ask Pygmalion's love; I ask Pygmalion's life.

[PYGMALION _utters an exclamation of joy. She rushes to him and seizes his hand_.

Pygmalion!

PYG. I have no words in which To tell the joy with which I heard that prayer.

Oh, take me to thine arms, my dearly loved!

And teach me once again how much I risked In risking such a heaven-sent love as thine.

GAL. [_believing that he refers to her_]. Pygmalion! my love!

Pygmalion!

Once more those words! again! say them again!

Tell me that thou forgivest me the ill That I unwittingly have worked on thee!

PYG. Forgive thee? Why, my wife, I did not dare To ask thy pardon, and thou askest mine.