_Boab._ What counsel can this rising storm prevent? _Abdelm._ Their fright to no persuasions will give ear: There's a deaf madness in a people's fear. _Enter a Messenger._ _Mess._ Their fury now a middle course does take; To yield the town, or call Almanzor back. _Boab._ I'll rather call my death.-- Go and bring up my guards to my defence: I'll punish this outrageous insolence. _Aben._ Since blind opinion does their reason sway, You must submit to cure them their own way. You to their fancies physic must apply; Give them that chief on whom they most rely. Under Almanzor prosperously they fought; Almanzor, therefore, must with prayers be brought. _Enter a second Messenger._ _2 Mess._ Haste all you can their fury to assuage: You are not safe from their rebellious rage. _Enter a third Messenger._ _3 Mess._ This minute, if you grant not their desire, They'll seize your person, and your palace fire. _Abdelm._ Your danger, sir, admits of no delay. _Boab._ In tumults people reign, and kings obey.-- Go and appease them with the vow I make, That they shall have their loved Almanzor back. [_Exit_ ABDEL. Almanzor has the ascendant o'er my fate; I'm forced to stoop to one I fear and hate: Disgraced, distressed, in exile, and alone, He's greater than a monarch on his throne: Without a realm, a royalty he gains; Kings are the subjects over whom he reigns. [_A shout of acclamations within._ _Aben._ These shouts proclaim the people satisfied. _Boab._ We for another tempest must provide. To promise his return as I was loth, So I want power now to perform my oath. Ere this, for Afric he is sailed from Spain. _Aben._ The adverse winds his passage yet detain; I heard, last night, his equipage did stay At a small village, short of Malaga. _Boab._ Abenamar, this evening thither haste; Desire him to forget his usage past: Use all your rhetoric, promise, flatter, pray. _To them_ ALMAHIDE, _attended._ _Aben._ Good fortune shows you yet a surer way: Nor prayers nor promises his mind will move; 'Tis inaccessible to all, but love. _Boab._ Oh, thou hast roused a thought within my breast, That will for ever rob me of my rest. Ah jealousy, how cruel is thy sting! I, in Almanzor, a loved rival bring! And now, I think, it is an equal strife, If I my crown should hazard, or my wife. Where, marriage, is thy cure, which husbands boast, That in possession their desire is lost? Or why have I alone that wretched taste, Which, gorged and glutted, does with hunger last? Custom and duty cannot set me free, Even sin itself has not a charm for me. Of married lovers I am sure the first, And nothing but a king could be so curst. _Almah._ What sadness sits upon your royal heart? Have you a grief, and must not I have part? All creatures else a time of love possess; Man only clogs with cares his happiness: And, while he should enjoy his part of bliss, With thoughts of what may be, destroys what is.