The Dramatic Works of G. E. Lessing Part 33

Prince! Your countenance, so full of youthful graces, bespeaks a softer heart!

PHILOTAS.

Mock not my countenance! Your visage, full of scars, is a.s.suredly a more handsome face.

STRATO.

By the G.o.ds! A grand answer! I must admire and love you.

PHILOTAS.

I would not object if only you had feared me first.

STRATO.

More and more heroic! We have the most terrible of enemies before us, if there are many like Philotas amongst his youths.

PHILOTAS.

Do not flatter me! To become terrible to you, they must combine greater deeds with my thoughts. May I know your name?

STRATO.

Strato.

PHILOTAS.

Strato? The brave Strato, who defeated my father on the Lycus?

STRATO.

Do not recall that doubtful victory! And how bloodily did your father revenge himself in the plain of Methymna! Such a father must needs have such a son.

PHILOTAS.

To you, the worthiest of my father's enemies, I may bewail my fate! You only can fully understand me; you too, you too have been consumed in your youth by the ambition of the glory--the glory of bleeding for your native land. Would you otherwise be what you are? How have I not begged, implored, conjured him--my father these seven days--for only seven days has the manly toga covered me--conjured him seven times on each of these seven days upon my knees to grant me that I should not in vain have outgrown my childhood,--to let me go with his warriors who had long cost me many a tear of jealousy. Yesterday I prevailed on him, the best of fathers, for Aristodem a.s.sisted my entreaties. You know Aristodem; he is my father's Strato.--"Give me this youth, my king, to go with me to-morrow," spoke Aristodem, "I am going to scour the mountains, in order to keep open the way to Casena." "Would I could accompany you!" sighed my father. He still lies sick from his wounds.

"But be it so!" and with these words he embraced me. Ah, what did his happy son feel in that embrace! And the night which followed! I did not close my eyes; and yet dreams of glory and victory kept me on my couch until the second watch. Then I sprang up, threw on my new armour, pushed the uncurled hair beneath the helmet, chose from amongst my father's swords the one which matched my strength, mounted my horse and had tired out one already before the silver trumpet awakened the chosen band. They came, and I spoke with each of my companions, and many a brave warrior there pressed me to his scarred breast. Only with my father I did not speak; for I feared he might retract his word, if he should see me again. Then we marched. By the side of the immortal G.o.ds one cannot feel happier than did I by the side of Aristodem. At every encouraging glance from him I would have attacked a host alone, and thrown myself on the certain death of the enemy's swords. In quiet determination I rejoiced at every hill, from which I hoped to discern the enemy in the plain below, at every bend of the valley behind which I flattered myself that we should come upon them. And when at last I saw them rushing down upon us from the woody height,--showed them to my companions with the point of my sword,--flew up the mountain towards them, recall, O renowned warrior, the happiest of your youthful ecstasies, you could never have been happier. But now, now behold me, Strato; behold me ignominiously fallen from the summit of my lofty expectations! O how I shudder to repeat this fall again in thought! I had rushed too far in advance; I was wounded, and--imprisoned!

Poor youth, thou hadst prepared thyself only for wounds, only for death,--and thou art made a prisoner! Thus always do the G.o.ds, in their severity, send only unforeseen evils to stultify our self-complacency.

I weep--I must weep, although I fear to be despised for it by you. But despise me not! You turn away?

STRATO.

I am vexed: you should not move me thus. I become a child with you.

PHILOTAS.

No; hear why I weep! It is no childish weeping which you deign to accompany with your manly tears. What I thought my greatest happiness, the tender love with which my father loves me, will now become my greatest misery. I fear, I fear he loves me more than he loves his empire! What will he not sacrifice, what will not your king exact from him, to rescue me from prison! Through me, wretched youth, will he lose in one day more than he has gained in three long toilsome years with the blood of his n.o.ble warriors, with his own blood. With what face shall I appear again before him? I, his worst enemy! And my father's subjects--mine at some future day, if I had made myself worthy to rule them. How will they be able to endure the ransomed prince amongst them without contemptuous scorn. And when I die for shame, and creep unmourned to the shades below, how gloomy and proud will pa.s.s by the souls of those heroes who for their king had to purchase with their lives those gains, which, as a father, he renounces for an unworthy son! Oh, that is more than a feeling heart can endure!

STRATO.

Be comforted, dear prince! It is the fault of youth always to think itself more happy or less than it really is. Your fate is not so cruel yet;--the king approaches, you will hear more consolation from his lips.

Scene III.

King Aridaus, Philotas, Strato.

ARIDaUS.

The wars which kings are forced to wage together are no personal quarrels. Let me embrace you, prince! Ah what happy days your blooming youth recalls to me! Thus bloomed your father's youth! This was his open, speaking eye; these his earnest, honest features; this his n.o.ble bearing! Let me embrace you again; in you I embrace your younger father. Have you never heard from him, prince, what good friends we were at your age? That was the blessed age, when we could still abandon ourselves to our feelings without restraint. But soon we were both called to the throne, and the anxious king, the jealous neighbour, stifled, alas, the willing friend.

PHILOTAS.

Pardon me, O king, if you find me too cold in my reply to such sweet words. My youth has been taught to think, but not to speak. What can it now aid me, that you and my father once were friends? Were! so you say yourself. The hatred which one grafts on an extinguished friendship bears the most deadly fruit of all; or I still know the human heart too little. Do not, therefore, O king, do not prolong my despair. You have spoken as the polished statesman: speak now as the monarch, who has the rival of his greatness completely in: his power.

STRATO.

O king, do not let him be tormented longer by the uncertainty of his fate!

PHILOTAS.

I thank you, Strato! Yes, let me hear at once, I beg you, how despicable you will render an unfortunate son in his father's eyes.

With what disgraceful peace, with how many lands shall he redeem him?

How small and contemptible shall he become, in order to regain his child? O my father!

ARIDaUS.

This early, manly language too, prince, was your father's! I like to hear you speak thus. And would that my son, no less worthy of me, spoke thus before your father now.

PHILOTAS.

What mean you by that?

ARIDaUS.

The G.o.ds--I am convinced of it--watch over our virtue, as they watch over our lives. To preserve both as long as possible is their secret and eternal work. Where is the mortal who knows how wicked he is at heart,--how viciously he would act, if they allowed free scope to each treacherous inducement to disgrace himself by little deeds! Yes, prince! Perhaps I might be he, whom you think me; perhaps I might not have sufficient n.o.bleness of thought to use with modesty the strange fortune of war, which delivered you into my hands; perhaps I might have tried through you to exact that for which I would no longer venture to contend by arms; perhaps--but fear nothing; a higher power has forestalled this. Perhaps. I cannot let your father redeem his son more dearly than by--mine.

PHILOTAS.

I am astounded! You give me to understand that----

ARIDaUS.

That my son is your father's prisoner, as you are mine.

PHILOTAS.

Your son my father's prisoner? Your Polytimet? Since when? How? Where?