ACT II
Scene 3
Amyntas, Tyrsis
AMYNTAS I want to see what Tyrsis has accomplished. If he has accomplished nothing, then I would rather kill myself before that cruel girl's eyes than waste away with love. She who so enjoys my heart's wound, inflicted by her beautiful eyes, will likewise have to enjoy the wound of my breast, inflicted by my own hand.
TYRSIS Amyntas, I have comforting news to announce: cease now this excessive lamenting.
AMYNTAS What are you saying? What news do you bring? Life or death?
TYRSIS I bring health and life, if you will dare to make yourself face them. But you will need to be a man, Amyntas, a daring man.
AMYNTAS What do I need dare, and to face what?
TYRSIS If your beloved were in the midst of a wood surrounded by the highest cliffs, which gave lodging to tigers and lions, would you go there?
AMYNTAS I would go there more sure and bold than the merry village girl to the dance.
TYRSIS And if she were among bandits and weapons, would you go there?
AMYNTAS I would go there more gladly and readily than the thirsty hind to the fountain.
TYRSIS An even greater daring is needed for this great test.
AMYNTAS I would go into the midst of the rapid torrents when the snow melts and sends them swollen to the sea; I would go into the fires of Hell, whenever she may go there, if such a beautiful thing can be found in Hell. Come, tell me everything.
TYRSIS Listen.
AMYNTAS Quickly, tell me!
TYRSIS Sylvia is waiting for you at a spring, naked and alone.
AMYNTAS What did you say? Sylvia is waiting for me, naked and alone?
TYRSIS Alone, save Daphne, who supports us.
AMYNTAS She is waiting for me, naked?
TYRSIS Yes, but ...
AMYNTAS But what? You are silent, you are torturing me.
TYRSIS But she does not yet know that you will be there.
AMYNTAS Bitter conclusion, that poisons all the past sweetness! With what cunning, cruel one, do you torment me? Does it not seem to you, then, that I am not so very unhappy, and you come to increase my misery?
TYRSIS If you do as I advise, you will be happy.
AMYNTAS What do you advise?
TYRSIS That you take what friendly fortune offers you.
AMYNTAS God would not wish me to do anything which displeases her; I have never done anything that displeased her except to love her; but this was forced upon me by her beauty and was no fault of mine. I will always try as I can to please her.
TYRSIS Then you would love her against her will, were you capable of not loving her.
AMYNTAS Not against her will—but I would still love her.
TYRSIS Against her wishes, then.
AMYNTAS Certainly, yes.
TYRSIS Though it may at first pain her, why not then dare against her wishes and take from her that which in the end would be precious and dear to her because you have taken it?
AMYNTAS Ah, Tyrsis, Love will answer for me, for he speaks from so deep within my heart, I cannot answer for myself. You by now are too shrewd through long habit to discuss love. That which binds my heart also binds my tongue.
TYRSIS Then we do not want to go?
AMYNTAS I want to go, but not where you believe.
TYRSIS Where, then?
AMYNTAS To death, since you have not done anything else in my favor other than what you now tell me.
TYRSIS And this seems so little to you? Then do you believe, fool, that Daphne would ever have advised you to go if she had not glimpsed, at least in part, Sylvia's heart? And though she may know her heart, perhaps she may not want others to know that she knows. If you seek Sylvia's approval, do you not know that you seek what would most displease her? Of what use, then, is this desire of yours to please her? And if she wills your happiness to be stolen or abducted, and not given through her mercy, why should the one method matter more than the other?
AMYNTAS But who can assure me that she wills it thus?
TYRSIS Oh, folly! You still ask for the assurance that it will displease her and it must rightly displease her, so you must not attempt. Yet who would assure you that she is as you say? And what if she were, and you did not go? The doubt and the risk are the same, yet it is better to die bravely than cowardly. You are silent; you are beaten. Now admit your loss, for your admission may bring about great victory. Let us go.
AMYNTAS Wait.
TYRSIS Why wait? Do you not know that time is flying?
AMYNTAS Well, let us first think of what must be done, and how.
TYRSIS Let us think on the way of what remains to be done; but he who thinks too much accomplishes nothing.
CHORUS Love, in what school, from what teacher, does one learn your intricate and mysterious art? Who can teach us to express what the soul understands as it flies to the heavens on your wings? Not even the learned Athena, nor Lyceus can explain it to us; nor Phoebus on Helicon, who considers Love to be as he teaches: he speaks of it coldly and rarely; he does not have the ardent voice that would be worthy of you; he does not elevate his thoughts to the heights of your mysteries. Love, you alone are the only teacher of yourself. You teach the simplest rustics to read those wondrous things that you write with your own hand in amorous letters within the eyes of others. With eloquent words you loosen the tongues of your faithful followers, and often (oh, strange and singular eloquence of Love!) with confused and broken words, one better expresses one's heart and moves another more deeply; for one cannot accomplish this with embellished and expert phrases, and silence is always filled with words and pleas. Love, others may still read the Socratic papers, but I will learn your art from two lovely eyes. The poems from the wisest pens may be lost, but I will have my simple ones, inscribed on rough bark by a rough hand.
To be continued.
