Love-Letters Between a n.o.bleman and His Sister.
by Aphra Behn.
The Argument
In the time of the rebellion of the true Protestant _Huguenot_ in _Paris_, under the conduct of the Prince of _Conde_ (whom we will call _Cesario_) many ill.u.s.trious persons were drawn into the a.s.sociation, amongst which there was one, whose quality and fortune (joined with his youth and beauty) rendered him more elevated in the esteem of the gay part of the world than most of that age. In his tender years (unhappily enough) he chanced to fall in love with a lady, whom we will call _Myrtilla_, who had charms enough to engage any heart; she had all the advantages of youth and nature; a shape excellent; a most agreeable stature, not too tall, and far from low, delicately proportioned; her face a little inclined round, soft, smooth and white; her eyes were blue, a little languishing, and full of love and wit; a mouth curiously made, dimpled, and full of sweetness; lips round, soft, plump and red; white teeth, firm and even; her nose a little _Roman_, and which gave a n.o.ble grace to her lovely face, her hair light brown; a neck and bosom delicately turned, white and rising; her arms and hands exactly shaped; to this a vivacity of youth engaging; a wit quick and flowing; a humour gay, and an air irresistibly charming; and nothing was wanting to complete the joys of the young _Philander_, (so we call our amorous hero) but _Myrtilla_"s heart, which the ill.u.s.trious _Cesario_ had before possessed; however, consulting her honour and her interest, and knowing all the arts as women do to feign a tenderness; she yields to marry him: while _Philander_, who scorned to owe his happiness to the commands of parents, or to chaffer for a beauty, with her consent steals her away, and marries her. But see how transitory is a violent pa.s.sion; after being satiated, he slights the prize he had so dearly conquered; some say, the change was occasioned by her too visibly continued love to _Cesario_; but whatever it was, this was most certain, _Philander_ cast his eyes upon a young maid, sister to _Myrtilla_, a beauty, whose early bloom promised wonders when come to perfection; but I will spare her picture here, _Philander_ in the following epistles will often enough present it to your view: He loved and languished, long before he durst discover his pain; her being sister to his wife, n.o.bly born, and of undoubted fame, rendered his pa.s.sion too criminal to hope for a return, while the young lovely _Sylvia_ (so we shall call the n.o.ble maid) sighed out her hours in the same pain and languishment for _Philander_, and knew not that it was love, till she betraying it innocently to the overjoyed lover and brother, he soon taught her to understand it was love--he pursues it, she permits it, and at last yields, when being discovered in the criminal intrigue, she flies with him; he absolutely quits _Myrtilla_, lives some time in a village near _Paris_, called St _Denis_, with this betrayed unfortunate, till being found out, and like to be apprehended, (one for the rape, the other for the flight) she is forced to marry a cadet, a creature of _Philander_"s, to bear the name of husband only to her, while _Philander_ had the entire possession of her soul and body: still the _League_ went forward, and all things were ready for a war in _Paris_; but it is not my business here to mix the rough relation of a war, with the soft affairs of love; let it suffice, the _Huguenots_ were defeated, and the King got the day, and every rebel lay at the mercy of his sovereign. _Philander_ was taken prisoner, made his escape to a little cottage near his own palace, not far from _Paris_, writes to _Sylvia_ to come to him, which she does, and in spite of all the industry to re-seize him, he got away with _Sylvia_.
After their flight these letters were found in their cabinets, at their house at St _Denis_, where they both lived together, for the s.p.a.ce of a year; and they are as exactly as possible placed in the order they were sent, and were those supposed to be written towards the latter end of their amours.
Love-Letters
Part I.
_To_ SYLVIA.
Though I parted from you resolved to obey your impossible commands, yet know, oh charming _Sylvia_! that after a thousand conflicts between love and honour, I found the G.o.d (too mighty for the idol) reign absolute monarch in my soul, and soon banished that tyrant thence. That cruel counsellor that would suggest to you a thousand fond arguments to hinder my n.o.ble pursuit; _Sylvia_ came in view! her irresistible _Idea_! With all the charms of blooming youth, with all the attractions of heavenly beauty! Loose, wanton, gay, all flowing her bright hair, and languishing her lovely eyes, her dress all negligent as when I saw her last, discovering a thousand ravishing graces, round, white, small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, delicate neck, and rising bosom, heaved with sighs she would in vain conceal; and all besides, that nicest fancy can imagine surprising--Oh I dare not think on, lest my desires grow mad and raving; let it suffice, oh adorable _Sylvia_! I think and know enough to justify that flame in me, which our weak alliance of brother and sister has rendered so criminal; but he that adores _Sylvia_, should do it at an uncommon rate; "tis not enough to sacrifice a single heart, to give you a simple pa.s.sion, your beauty should, like itself, produce wondrous effects; it should force all obligations, all laws, all ties even of nature"s self: you, my lovely maid, were not born to be obtained by the dull methods of ordinary loving; and "tis in vain to prescribe me measures; and oh much more in vain to urge the nearness of our relation. What kin, my charming _Sylvia_, are you to me? No ties of blood forbid my pa.s.sion; and what"s a ceremony imposed on man by custom? What is it to my divine _Sylvia_, that the priest took my hand and gave it to your sister?
What alliance can that create? Why should a trick devised by the wary old, only to make provision for posterity, tie me to an eternal slavery? No, no, my charming maid, "tis nonsense all; let us, (born for mightier joys) scorn the dull _beaten road_, but let us love like the first race of men, nearest allied to G.o.d, promiscuously they loved, and possessed, father and daughter, brother and sister met, and reaped the joys of love without control, and counted it religious coupling, and "twas encouraged too by heaven itself: therefore start not (too nice and lovely maid) at shadows of things that can but frighten fools. Put me not off with these delays; rather say you but dissembled love all this while, than now "tis born, to die again with a poor fright of nonsense. A fit of honour! a phantom imaginary, and no more; no, no, represent me to your soul more favourably, think you see me languishing at your feet, breathing out my last in sighs and kind reproaches, on the pitiless _Sylvia_; reflect when I am dead, which will be the more afflicting object, the ghost (as you are pleased to call it) of your murdered honour, or the pale and bleeding one of
_The lost_ PHILANDER.
_I have lived a whole day, and yet no letter from_ Sylvia.
_To_ PHILANDER.
OH why will you make me own (oh too importunate _Philander_!) with what regret I made you promise to prefer my honour before your love?
I confess with blushes, which you might then see kindling in my face, that I was not at all pleased with the vows you made me, to endeavour to obey me, and I then even wished you would obstinately have denied obedience to my just commands; have pursued your criminal flame, and have left me raving on my undoing: for when you were gone, and I had leisure to look into my heart, alas! I found, whether you obliged or not, whether love or honour were preferred, I, unhappy I, was either way inevitably lost. Oh! what pitiless G.o.d, fond of his wondrous power, made us the objects of his almighty vanity? Oh why were we two made the first precedents of his new found revenge? For sure no brother ever loved a sister with so criminal a flame before: at least my inexperienced innocence never met with so fatal a story: and it is in vain (my too charming brother) to make me insensible of our alliance; to persuade me I am a stranger to all but your eyes and soul.
Alas, your fatally kind industry is all in vain. You grew up a brother with me; the t.i.tle was fixed in my heart, when I was too young to understand your subtle distinctions, and there it thrived and spread; and it is now too late to transplant it, or alter its native property: who can graft a flower on a contrary stalk? The rose will bear no tulips, nor the hyacinth the poppy, no more will the brother the name of lover. Oh! spoil not the natural sweetness and innocence we now retain, by an endeavour fruitless and destructive; no, no, _Philander_, dress yourself in what charms you will, be powerful as love can make you in your soft argument--yet, oh yet, you are my brother still.--But why, oh cruel and eternal powers, was not _Philander_ my lover before you destined him a brother? Or why, being a brother, did you, malicious and spiteful powers, destine him a lover? Oh, take either t.i.tle from him, or from me a life, which can render me no satisfaction, since your cruel laws permit it not for _Philander_, nor his to bless the now
_Unfortunate_ SYLVIA.
_Wednesday morning_.
_To_ PHILANDER.
After I had dismissed my page this morning with my letter, I walked (filled with sad soft thoughts of my brother _Philander_) into the grove, and commanding _Melinda_ to retire, who only attended me, I threw myself down on that bank of gra.s.s where we last disputed the dear, but fatal business of our souls: where our prints (that invited me) still remain on the pressed greens: there with ten thousand sighs, with remembrance of the tender minutes we pa.s.sed then, I drew your last letter from my bosom, and often kissed, and often read it over; but oh! who can conceive my torment, when I came to that fatal part of it, where you say you gave your hand to my sister? I found my soul agitated with a thousand different pa.s.sions, but all insupportable, all mad and raving; sometimes I threw myself with fury on the ground, and pressed my panting heart to the earth; then rise in rage, and tear my heart, and hardly spare that face that taught you first to love; then fold my wretched arms to keep down rising sighs that almost rend my breast, I traverse swiftly the conscious grove; with my distracted show"ring eyes directed in vain to pitiless heaven, the lovely silent shade favouring my complaints, I cry aloud, Oh G.o.d! _Philander_"s, married, the lovely charming thing for whom I languish is married!--That fatal word"s enough, I need not add to whom. Married is enough to make me curse my birth, my youth, my beauty, and my eyes that first betrayed me to the undoing object: curse on the charms you have flattered, for every fancied grace has helped my ruin on; now, like flowers that wither unseen and unpossessed in shades, they must die and be no more, they were to no end created, since _Philander_ is married: married! Oh fate, oh h.e.l.l, oh torture and confusion! Tell me not it is to my sister, that addition is needless and vain: to make me eternally wretched, there needs no more than that _Philander_ is married! Than that the priest gave your hand away from me; to another, and not to me; tired out with life, I need no other pa.s.s-port than this repet.i.tion, _Philander_ is married! "Tis that alone is sufficient to lay in her cold tomb
_The wretched and despairing Wednesday night, Bellfont._ SYLVIA.
_To_ SYLVIA.
Twice last night, oh unfaithful and unloving _Sylvia_! I sent the page to the old place for letters, but he returned the object of my rage, because without the least remembrance from my fickle maid: in this torment, unable to hide my disorder, I suffered myself to be laid in bed; where the restless torments of the night exceeded those of the day, and are not even by the languisher himself to be expressed; but the returning light brought a short slumber on its wings; which was interrupted by my atoning boy, who brought two letters from my adorable _Sylvia_: he waked me from dreams more agreeable than all my watchful hours could bring; for they are all tortured.----And even the softest mixed with a thousand despairs, difficulties and disappointments, but these were all love, which gave a loose to joys undenied by honour! And this way, my charming _Sylvia_, you shall be mine, in spite of all the tyrannies of that cruel hinderer; honour appears not, my _Sylvia_, within the close-drawn curtains; in shades and gloomy light the phantom frights not, but when one beholds its blushes, when it is attended and adorned, and the sun sees its false beauties; in silent groves and grottoes, dark alcoves, and lonely recesses, all its formalities are laid aside; it was then and there methought my _Sylvia_ yielded, with a faint struggle and a soft resistance; I heard her broken sighs, her tender whispering voice, that trembling cried,--"Oh! Can you be so cruel?--Have you the heart--Will you undo a maid, because she loves you? Oh! Will you ruin me, because you may?----My faithless----My unkind----" then sighed and yielded, and made me happier than a triumphing G.o.d! But this was still a dream, I waked and sighed, and found it vanished all! But oh, my _Sylvia_, your letters were substantial pleasure, and pardon your adorer, if he tell you, even the disorder you express is infinitely dear to him, since he knows it all the effects of love; love, my soul!
Which you in vain oppose; pursue it, dear, and call it not undoing, or else explain your fear, and tell me what your soft, your trembling heart gives that cruel t.i.tle to? Is it undoing to love? And love the man you say has youth and beauty to justify that love? A man, that adores you with so submissive and perfect a resignation; a man, that did not only love first, but is resolved to die in that agreeable flame; in my creation I was formed for love, and destined for my _Sylvia_, and she for her _Philander_: and shall we, can we disappoint our fate? No, my soft charmer, our souls were touched with the same shafts of love before they had a being in our bodies, and can we contradict divine decree?
Or is it undoing, dear, to bless _Philander_ with what you must some time or other sacrifice to some hated, loathed object, (for _Sylvia_ can never love again;) and are those treasures for the dull conjugal lover to rifle? Was the beauty of divine shape created for the cold matrimonial embrace? And shall the eternal joys that _Sylvia_ can dispense, be returned by the clumsy husband"s careless, forced, insipid duties? Oh, my _Sylvia_, shall a husband (whose insensibility will call those raptures of joy! Those heavenly blisses! The drudgery of life) shall he I say receive them? While your _Philander_, with the very thought of the excess of pleasure the least possession would afford, faints over the paper that brings here his eternal vows.
Oh! Where, my _Sylvia_, lies the undoing then? My quality and fortune are of the highest rank amongst men, my youth gay and fond, my soul all soft, all love; and all _Sylvia_"s! I adore her, I am sick of love, and sick of life, till she yields, till she is all mine!
You say, my _Sylvia_, I am married, and there my happiness is shipwrecked; but _Sylvia_, I deny it, and will not have you think it: no, my soul was married to yours in its first creation; and only _Sylvia_ is the wife of my sacred, my everlasting vows; of my solemn considerate thoughts, of my ripened judgement, my mature considerations. The rest are all repented and forgot, like the hasty follies of unsteady youth, like vows breathed in anger, and die perjured as soon as vented, and unregarded either of heaven or man.
Oh! why should my soul suffer for ever, why eternal pain for the unheedy, short-lived sin of my unwilling lips? Besides, this fatal thing called wife, this unlucky sister, this _Myrtilla_, this stop to all my heaven, that breeds such fatal differences in our affairs, this _Myrtilla_, I say, first broke her marriage-vows to me; I blame her not, nor is it reasonable I should; she saw the young _Cesario_, and loved him. _Cesario_, whom the envying world in spite of prejudice must own, has irresistible charms, that G.o.dlike form, that sweetness in his face, that softness in his eyes and delicate mouth; and every beauty besides, that women dote on, and men envy: that lovely composition of man and angel! with the addition of his eternal youth and ill.u.s.trious birth, was formed by heaven and nature for universal conquest! And who can love the charming hero at a cheaper rate than being undone? And she that would not venture fame, honour, and a marriage-vow for the glory of the young _Cesario_"s heart, merits not the n.o.ble victim; oh! would I could say so much for the young _Philander_, who would run a thousand times more hazards of life and fortune for the adorable _Sylvia_, than that amorous hero ever did for _Myrtilla_, though from that prince I learned some of my disguises for my thefts of love; for he, like _Jove_, courted in several shapes; I saw them all, and suffered the delusion to pa.s.s upon me; for I had seen the lovely _Sylvia_; yes, I had seen her, and loved her too: but honour kept me yet master of my vows; but when I knew her false, when I was once confirmed,--when by my own soul I found the dissembled pa.s.sion of hers, when she could no longer hide the blushes, or the paleness that seized at the approaches of my disordered rival, when I saw love dancing in her eyes, and her false heart beat with nimble motions, and soft trembling seized every limb, at the approach or touch of the royal lover, then I thought myself no longer obliged to conceal my flame for _Sylvia_; nay, ere I broke silence, ere I discovered the hidden treasure of my heart, I made her falsehood plainer yet: even the time and place of the dear a.s.signations I discovered; certainty, happy certainty! broke the dull heavy chain, and I with joy submitted to my shameful freedom, and caressed my generous rival; nay, and by heaven I loved him for it, pleased at the resemblance of our souls; for we were secret lovers both, but more pleased that he loved _Myrtilla_; for that made way to my pa.s.sion for the adorable _Sylvia_!
Let the dull, hot-brained, jealous fool upbraid me with cold patience: let the fond c.o.xcomb, whose honour depends on the frail marriage-vow, reproach me, or tell me that my reputation depends on the feeble constancy of a wife, persuade me it is honour to fight for an irretrievable and unvalued prize, and that because my rival has taken leave to cuckold me, I shall give him leave to kill me too; unreasonable nonsense grown to custom. No, by heaven! I had gather _Myrtilla_ should be false, (as she is) than wish and languish for the happy occasion; the sin is the same, only the act is more generous: believe me, my _Sylvia_, we have all false notions of virtue and honour, and surely this was taken up by some despairing husband in love with a fair jilting wife, and then I pardon him; I should have done as much: for only she that has my soul can engage my sword; she that I love, and myself, only commands and keeps my stock of honour: for _Sylvia_! the charming, the distracting _Sylvia_! I could fight for a glance or smile, expose my heart for her dearer fame, and wish no recompense, but breathing out my last gasp into her soft, white, delicate bosom. But for a wife! that stranger to my soul, and whom we wed for interest and necessity,--a wife, light, loose, unregarding property, who for a momentary appet.i.te will expose her fame, without the n.o.ble end of loving on; she that will abuse my bed, and yet return again to the loathed conjugal embrace, back to the arms so hated, and even strong fancy of the absent youth beloved, cannot so much as render supportable. Curse on her, and yet she kisses, fawns and dissembles on, hangs on his neck, and makes the sot believe:--d.a.m.n her, brute; I"ll whistle her off, and let her down the wind, as _Oth.e.l.lo_ says. No, I adore the wife, that, when the heart is gone, boldy and n.o.bly pursues the conqueror, and generously owns the wh.o.r.e;--not poorly adds the nauseous sin of jilting to it: that I could have borne, at least commended; but this can never pardon; at worst then the world had said her pa.s.sion had undone her, she loved, and love at worst is worthy of pity. No, no, _Myrtilla_, I forgive your love, but never can your poor dissimulation. One drives you but from the heart you value not, but the other to my eternal contempt.
One deprives me but of thee, _Myrtilla_, but the other ent.i.tles me to a beauty more surprising, renders thee no part of me; and so leaves the lover free to _Sylvia_, without the brother.
Thus, my excellent maid, I have sent you the sense and truth of my soul, in an affair you have often hinted to me, and I take no pleasure to remember: I hope you will at least think my aversion reasonable; and that being thus indisputably free from all obligations to _Myrtilla_ as a husband, I may be permitted to lay claim to _Sylvia_, as a lover, and marry myself more effectually by my everlasting vows, than the priest by his common method could do to any other woman less beloved; there being no other way at present left by heaven, to render me _Sylvia_"s.
_Eternal happy lover and I die to see you_.
PHILANDER.
_To_ SYLVIA.
When I had sealed the enclosed, _Brilliard_ told me you were this morning come from _Bellfont_, and with infinite impatience have expected seeing you here; which deferred my sending this to the old place; and I am so vain (oh adorable _Sylvia_) as to believe my fancied silence has given you disquiets; but sure, my _Sylvia_ could not charge me with neglect; no, she knows my soul, and lays it all on chance, or some strange accident, she knows no business could divert me. No, were the nation sinking, the great senate of the world confounded, our glorious designs betrayed and ruined, and the vast city all in flames; like _Nero_, unconcerned, I would sing my everlasting song of love to _Sylvia_; which no time or fortune shall untune. I know my soul, and all its strength, and how it is fortified, the charming _Idea_ of my young _Sylvia_ will for ever remain there; the original may fade; time may render it less fair, less blooming in my arms, but never in my soul; I shall find thee there the same gay glorious creature that first surprised and enslaved me, believe me ravishing maid, I shall. Why then, oh why, my cruel _Sylvia_ are my joys delayed? Why am I by your rigorous commands kept from the sight of my heaven, my eternal bliss? An age, my fair tormentor, is past; four tedious live-long days are numbered over, since I beheld the object of my lasting vows, my eternal wishes; how can you think, oh unreasonable _Sylvia_! that I could live so long without you? And yet I am alive; I find it by my pain, by torments of fears and jealousies insupportable; I languish and go downward to the earth; where you will shortly see me laid without your recalling mercy. It is true, I move about this unregarded world, appear every day in the great senate-house, at clubs, cabals, and private consultations; (for _Sylvia_ knows all the business of my soul, even in politics of State as well as love) I say I appear indeed, and give my voice in public business; but oh my heart more kindly is employed; that and my thoughts are _Sylvia_"s! Ten thousand times a day I breathe that name, my busy fingers are eternally tracing out those six mystic letters; a thousand ways on every thing I touch, form words, and make them speak a thousand things, and all are _Sylvia_ still; my melancholy change is evident to all that see me, which they interpret many mistaken ways; our party fancy I repent my league with them, and doubting I"ll betray the cause, grow jealous of me, till by new oaths, new arguments, I confirm them; then they smile all, and cry I am in love; and this they would believe, but that they see all women that I meet or converse with are indifferent to me, and so can fix it no where; for none can guess it _Sylvia_; thus while I dare not tell my soul, no not even to _Cesario_, the stifled flame burns inward, and torments me so, that (unlike the thing I was) I fear _Sylvia_ will lose her love, and lover too; for those few charms she said I had, will fade, and this fatal distance will destroy both soul and body too; my very reason will abandon me, and I shall rave to see thee; restore me, oh restore me then to _Bellfont_, happy _Bellfont_, still blest with _Sylvia_"s presence! permit me, oh permit me into those sacred shades, where I have been so often (too innocently) blest! Let me survey again the dear character of _Sylvia_ on the smooth birch; oh when shall I sit beneath those boughs, gazing on the young G.o.ddess of the grove, hearing her sigh for love, touching her glowing small white hands, beholding her killing eyes languish, and her charming bosom rise and fall with short-breath"d uncertain breath; breath as soft and sweet as the restoring breeze that glides o"er the new-blown flowers: But oh what is it? What heaven of perfumes, when it inclines to the ravish"d _Philander_, and whispers love it dares not name aloud?
What power with-holds me then from rushing on thee, from pressing thee with kisses; folding thee in my transported arms, and following all the dictates of love without respect or awe! What is it, oh my _Sylvia_, can detain a love so violent and raving, and so wild; admit me, sacred maid, admit me again to those soft delights, that I may find, if possible, what divinity (envious of my bliss) checks my eager joys, my raging flame; while you too make an experiment (worth the trial) what "tis makes _Sylvia_ deny her
_Impatient adorer_,
PHILANDER.
_My page is ill, and I am oblig"d to trust_ Brilliard _with these to the dear cottage of their rendezvous; send me your opinion of his fidelity: and ah! remember I die to see you_.
_To_ PHILANDER.
Not yet?--not yet? oh ye dull tedious hours, when will you glide away?
and bring that happy moment on, in which I shall at least hear from my _Philander_; eight and forty tedious ones are past, and I am here forgotten still; forlorn, impatient, restless every where; not one of all your little moments (ye undiverting hours) can afford me repose; I drag ye on, a heavy load; I count ye all, and bless ye when you are gone; but tremble at the approaching ones, and with a dread expect you; and nothing will divert me now; my couch is tiresome, my gla.s.s is vain; my books are dull, and conversation insupportable; the grove affords me no relief; nor even those birds to whom I have so often breath"d _Philander_"s, name, they sing it on their perching boughs; no, nor the reviewing of his dear letters, can bring me any ease. Oh what fate is reserved for me! For thus I cannot live; nor surely thus I shall not die. Perhaps _Philander_"s making a trial of virtue by this silence. Pursue it, call up all your reason, my lovely brother, to your aid, let us be wise and silent, let us try what that will do towards the cure of this too infectious flame; let us, oh let us, my brother, sit down here, and pursue the crime of loving on no farther.
Call me sister--swear I am so, and nothing but your sister: and forbear, oh forbear, my charming brother, to pursue me farther with your soft bewitching pa.s.sion; let me alone, let me be ruin"d with honour, if I must be ruin"d.--For oh! "twere much happier I were no more, than that I should be more than _Philander_"s sister; or he than _Sylvia_"s brother: oh let me ever call you by that cold name, "till that of lover be forgotten:--ha!--Methinks on the sudden, a fit of virtue informs my soul, and bids me ask you for what sin of mine, my charming brother, you still pursue a maid that cannot fly: ungenerous and unkind! Why did you take advantage of those freedoms I gave you as a brother? I smil"d on you; and sometimes kiss"d you too;--but for my sister"s sake, I play"d with you, suffer"d your hands and lips to wander where I dare not now; all which I thought a sister might allow a brother, and knew not all the while the treachery of love: oh none, but under that intimate t.i.tle of a brother, could have had the opportunity to have ruin"d me; that, that betray"d me; I play"d away my heart at a game I did not understand; nor knew I when "twas lost, by degrees so subtle, and an authority so lawful, you won me out of all. Nay then too, even when all was lost, I would not think it love.
I wonder"d what my sleepless nights, my waking eternal thoughts, and slumbering visions of my lovely brother meant: I wonder"d why my soul was continually fill"d with wishes and new desires; and still concluded "twas for my sister all, "till I discover"d the cheat by jealousy; for when my sister hung upon your neck, kiss"d, and caress"d that face that I ador"d, oh how I found my colour change, my limbs all trembled, and my blood enrag"d, and I could scarce forbear reproaching you; or crying out, "Oh why this fondness, brother? Sometimes you perceiv"d my concern, at which you"d smile; for you who had been before in love, (a curse upon the fatal time) could guess at my disorder; then would you turn the wanton play on me: when sullen with my jealousy and the cause, I fly your soft embrace, yet wish you would pursue and overtake me, which you ne"er fail"d to do, where after a kind quarrel all was pardon"d, and all was well again: while the poor injur"d innocent, my sister, made herself sport at our delusive wars; still I was ignorant, "till you in a most fatal hour inform"d me I was a lover. Thus was it with my heart in those blest days of innocence; thus it was won and lost; nor can all my stars in heav"n prevent, I doubt, prevent my ruin. Now you are sure of the fatal conquest, you scorn the trifling glory, you are silent now; oh I am inevitably lost, or with you, or without you: and I find by this little silence and absence of yours, that "tis most certain I must either die, or be _Philander_"s
SYLVIA.
_If_ Dorillus _come not with a letter, or that my page, whom I have sent to this cottage for one, bring it not, I cannot support my life: for oh_, Philander, _I have a thousand wild distracting fears, knowing how you are involv"d in the interest you have espoused with the young_ Cesario: _how danger surrounds you, how your life and glory depend on the frail sacrifice of villains and rebels: oh give me leave to fear eternally your fame and life, if not your love; If_ Sylvia _could command_, Philander _should be loyal as he"s n.o.ble; and what generous maid would not suspect his vows to a mistress, who breaks "em with his prince and master! Heaven preserve you and your glory_.
_To_ Philander.