_Max._ Still must I be upbraided with your line? I know you speak it in contempt of mine. But your late brother did not prize me less, Because I could not boast of images; And the Gods own me more, when they decreed, A Thracian shepherd should your line succeed. _Ber._ The Gods! O do not name the powers divine, They never mingled their decrees with thine. My brother gave me to thee for a wife, And for my dowry thou didst take his life. _Max._ The Gods by many victories have shewn, That they my merits and his death did own. _Ber._ Yes, they have owned it; witness this just day, When they begin thy mischiefs to repay. See the reward of all thy wicked care Before thee; thy succession ended there. Yet, but in part my brother's ghost is pleased; Restless till all the groaning world be eased. For me, no other happiness I own, Than to have borne no issue to thy throne. _Max._ Provoke my rage no farther, lest I be Revenged at once upon the gods and thee. _Por._ What horrid tortures seize my labouring mind, O, only excellent of all thy kind, To hear thee threatened, while I idle stand! Heaven! was I born to fear a tyrant's hand? [_Aside._ _Max._ [_to Ber_.] Hence from my sight!--thy blood, If thou dost stay---- _Ber._ Tyrant! too well to that thou knowest the way. [_Going._ _Por._ Let baser souls from falling fortunes fly: I'll pay my duty to her, though I die. [_Exit, leading her._ _Max._ What made Porphyrius so officious be? The action looked as done in scorn of me. _Val._ It did, indeed, some little freedom shew; But somewhat to his services you owe. _Max._ Yet if I thought it his presumption were-- _Plac._ Perhaps he did not your displeasure hear. _Max._ My anger was too loud, not to be heard. _Plac._ I'm loth to think he did it not regard. _Max._ How, not regard! _Val._ Placidius, you foment, On too light grounds, my father's discontent. But when an action does two faces wear, 'Tis justice to believe what is most fair. I think, that, knowing what respect there rests For her late brother in the soldiers' breasts, He went to serve the emperor; and designed Only to calm the tempest in her mind, Lest some sedition in the camp should rise. _Max._ I ever thought him loyal as he's wise. Since therefore all the Gods their spite have shewn To rob my age of a successive throne; And you who now remain, The only issue of my former bed, In empire cannot, by your sex, succeed; To bind Porphyrius firmly to the state, I will this day my Cæsar him create: And, daughter, I will give him you for wife. _Val._ O day, the best and happiest of my life!