ARKAS. Not the honest thanks Which prompt the heart to offices of love; The joyous glance, revealing to the host A grateful spirit, with its lot content. When thee a deep mysterious destiny Brought to this sacred fane, long years ago. To greet thee, as a treasure sent from heaven, With reverence and affection, Thoas came. Benign and friendly was this shore to thee, Which had before each stranger's heart appall'd, For, till thy coming, none e'er trod our realm But fell, according to an ancient rite, A bloody victim at Diana's shrine. IPHIGENIA. Freely to breathe alone is not to live. Say, is it life, within this holy fane, Like a poor ghost around its sepulchre To linger out my days? Or call you that A life of conscious happiness and joy, When every hour, dream'd listlessly away, Leads to those dark and melancholy days, Which the sad troop of the departed spend In self-forgetfulness on Lethe's shore? A useless life is but an early death; This, woman's lot, is eminently mine. ARKAS. I can forgive, though I must needs deplore, The noble pride which underrates itself It robs thee of the happiness of life. And hast thou, since thy coming here, done nought? Who cheer'd the gloomy temper of the king? Who hath with gentle eloquence annull'd, From year to year, the usage of our sires, By which, a victim at Diana's shrine, Each stranger perish'd, thus from certain death Sending so oft the rescued captive home? Hath not Diana, harbouring no revenge For this suspension of her bloody rites, In richest measure heard thy gentle prayer? On joyous pinions o'er the advancing host, Doth not triumphant conquest proudly soar? And feels not every one a happier lot, Since Thoas, who so long hath guided us With wisdom and with valour, sway'd by thee, The joy of mild benignity approves, Which leads him to relax the rigid claims Of mute submission? Call thyself useless! Thou, Thou, from whose being o'er a thousand hearts, A healing balsam flows? when to a race. To whom a god consign'd thee, thou dost prove A fountain of perpetual happiness, And from this dire inhospitable shore Dost to the stranger grant a safe return? IPHIGENIA. The little done doth vanish to the mind, Which forward sees how much remains to do. ARKAS. Him dost thou praise, who underrates his deeds? IPHIGENIA. Who estimates his deeds is justly blam'd.