slumbers; in my dreams I saw
My Brother's crime--yet, death!--it cannot be--

KING.

Ha!--what was that?--

VARDANES.

O! my dread Lord, some Villain
Bred up in lies, and train'd to treach'ry,
Has injur'd you by vile reports, to stain
My Princely Brother's honour.

KING.

Thou know'st more,
Thy looks confess what thou in vain wouldst hide--
And hast thou then conspir'd against me too,
And sworn concealment to your practices?--
Thy guilt--

VARDANES.

Ha! guilt!--what guilt?--

KING.

Nay, start not so--
I'll know your purposes, spite of thy art.

VARDANES.

O! ye great Gods! and is it come to this?--
My Royal Father call your reason home,
Drive these loud passions hence, that thus deform you.
My Brother--Ah! what shall I say?--My Brother
Sure loves you as he ought.

KING.

Ha! as he ought?--
Hell blister thy evasive tongue--I'll know it--
I will; I'll search thy breast, thus will I open
A passage to your secrets--yet resolv'd--
Yet steady in your horrid villany--
'Tis fit that I from whom such monsters sprung
No more should burthen earth--Ye Parricides!--
Here plant your daggers in this hated bosom--
Here rive my heart, and end at once my sorrows,
I gave ye being, that's the mighty crime.

VARDANES.

I can no more--here let me bow in anguish--
Think not that I e'er join'd in his designs,
Because I have conceal'd my knowledge of them:
I meant, by pow'rful reason's friendly aid,
To turn him from destruction's dreadful path,
And bring him to a sense of what he ow'd
To you as King and Father.

KING.

Say on--I'll hear.

VARDANES.

He views thy sacred life with envious hate,
As 'tis a bar to his ambitious hopes.
On the bright throne of Empire his plum'd wishes
Seat him, while on his proud aspiring brows
He feels the pleasing weight of Royalty.
But when he wakes from these his airy dreams
(Delusions form'd by the deceiver hope,
To raise him to the glorious height of greatness),
Then hurl him from proud Empire to subjection.
Wild wrath will quickly swell his haughty breast,
Soon as he finds 'tis but a shadowy blessing.--
'Twas fav'ring accident discover'd to me
All that I know; this Evening as I stood
Alone, retir'd, in the still gallery,
That leads up to th' appartment of my Brother,
T' indulge my melancholy thoughts,--