aw them rushing down upon us from the woody height,--showed them to my
companions with the point of my sword,--flew up the mountain towards
them, recall, O renowned warrior, the happiest of your youthful
ecstasies, you could never have been happier. But now, now behold me,
Strato; behold me ignominiously fallen from the summit of my lofty
expectations! O how I shudder to repeat this fall again in thought! I
had rushed too far in advance; I was wounded, and--imprisoned!
Poor youth, thou hadst prepared thyself only for wounds, only for
death,--and thou art made a prisoner! Thus always do the gods, in their
severity, send only unforeseen evils to stultify our self-complacency.
I weep--I must weep, although I fear to be despised for it by you. But
despise me not! You turn away?

STRATO.

I am vexed: you should not move me thus. I become a child with you.

PHILOTAS.

No; hear why I weep! It is no childish weeping which you deign to
accompany with your manly tears. What I thought my greatest happiness,
the tender love with which my father loves me, will now become my
greatest misery. I fear, I fear he loves me more than he loves his
empire! What will he not sacrifice, what will not your king exact from
him, to rescue me from prison! Through me, wretched youth, will he lose
in one day more than he has gained in three long toilsome years with
the blood of his noble warriors, with his own blood. With what face
shall I appear again before him? I, his worst enemy! And my father's
subjects--mine at some future day, if I had made myself worthy to rule
them. How will they be able to endure the ransomed prince amongst them
without contemptuous scorn. And when I die for shame, and creep
unmourned to the shades below, how gloomy and proud will pass by the
souls of those heroes who for their king had to purchase with their
lives those gains, which, as a father, he renounces for an unworthy
son! Oh, that is more than a feeling heart can endure!

STRATO.

Be comforted, dear prince! It is the fault of youth always to think
itself more happy or less than it really is. Your fate is not so cruel
yet;--the king approaches, you will hear more consolation from his
lips.

Scene III.

King Aridaeus, Philotas, Strato.

ARIDAeUS.

The wars which kings are forced