_Tor._ If she can make me blest? she only can; Empire, and wealth, and all she brings beside, Are but the train and trappings of her love: The sweetest, kindest, truest of her sex, In whose possession years roll round on years, And joys, in circles, meet new joys again; Kisses, embraces, languishing, and death, Still from each other to each other move, To crown the various seasons of our love; And doubt you if such love can make me happy? _Raym._ Yes; for, I think, you love your honour more. _Tor._ And what can shock my honour in a queen? _Raym._ A tyrant, an usurper? _Tor._ Grant she be; When from the conqueror we hold our lives, We yield ourselves his subjects from that hour; For mutual benefits make mutual ties. _Raym._ Why, can you think I owe a thief my life, Because he took it not by lawless force? What, if he did not all the ill he could? Am I obliged by that to assist his rapines, And to maintain his murders? _Tor._ Not to maintain, but bear them unrevenged. Kings' titles commonly begin by force, Which time wears off, and mellows into right; So power, which, in one age, is tyranny, Is ripened, in the next, to true succession: She's in possession. _Raym._ So diseases are: Should not a lingering fever be removed, Because it long has raged within my blood? Do I rebel, when I would thrust it out? What, shall I think the world was made for one, And men are born for kings, as beasts for men, Not for protection, but to be devoured? Mark those, who dote on arbitrary power, And you shall find them either hot-brained youth, Or needy bankrupts, servile in their greatness, And slaves to some, to lord it o'er the rest. O baseness, to support a tyrant throne, And crush your freeborn brethren of the world! Nay, to become a part of usurpation; To espouse the tyrant's person and her crimes, And, on a tyrant, get a race of tyrants, To be your country's curse in after ages. _Tor._ I see no crime in her whom I adore, Or, if I do, her beauty makes it none: Look on me as a man abandoned o'er To an eternal lethargy of love; To pull, and pinch, and wound me, cannot cure, And but disturb the quiet of my death. _Raym._ O virtue, virtue! what art thou become, That man should leave thee for that toy, a woman, Made from the dross and refuse of a man! Heaven took him, sleeping, when he made her too; Had man been waking, he had ne'er consented. Now, son, suppose Some brave conspiracy were ready formed, To punish tyrants, and redeem the land, Could you so far belie your country's hope, As not to head the party? _Tor._ How could my hand rebel against my heart? _Raym._ How could your heart rebel against your reason? _Tor._ No honour bids me fight against myself; The royal family is all extinct, And she, who reigns, bestows her crown on me: So must I be ungrateful to the living, To be but vainly pious to the dead, While you defraud your offspring of their fate.