_Massinissa_. Right: which way Run mad? impossible distraction![2] _Sophonisba_. Dear lord, thy patience; let it maze all power, And list to her in whose sole heart it rests To keep thy faith upright. _Massinissa_. Wilt thou be slaved? _Sophonisba_. No; free. _Massinissa_. How then keep I my faith? _Sophonisba_. My death Gives help to all. From Rome so rest we free: So brought to Scipio, faith is kept in thee. _Massinissa_. Thou darest not die!--Some wine.--Thou darest not die! _Sophonisba_. How near was I unto the curse of man, Joy! How like was I yet once to have been glad! He that ne'er laughed may with a constant face Contemn Jove's frown. Happiness makes us base. [Footnote 1: This verse, unmusical to an English ear, is good Italian metre; possibly an intentional and deliberate example of the poet's Italian predilections, and if so certainly a less irrational and inexplicable one than the intrusion of some villanously bad Italian lines and phrases into the text of "Antonio and Mellida."] [Footnote 2: In other words--intolerable or unimaginable division or divulsion of mind and spirit between two contending calls of honor, two irreconcilable claims of duty. Modern editors of this great scene have broken up the line into pieces, marked or divided by superfluous dashes and points of exclamation. Campbell, who had the good taste to confute his own depreciatory criticism of Marston by including the passage among his "Selections," was the first, as far as I know, to adopt this erroneous and rather spasmodic punctuation.]