_ Leave then the luggage of your fate behind;
To make your flight more easy leave Almeyda:
Nor think me left a base, ignoble prey,
Exposed to this inhuman tyrant's lust;
My virtue is a guard beyond my strength,
And death, my last defence, within my call.
_Seb._ Death may be called in vain, and cannot come;
Tyrants can tie him up from your relief;
Nor has a Christian privilege to die.
Alas, thou art too young in thy new faith:
Brutus and Cato might discharge their souls,
And give them furloughs for another world;
But we, like sentries, are obliged to stand
In starless nights, and wait the appointed hour[2].
_Alm._ If shunning ill be good
To those, who cannot shun it but by death,
Divines but peep on undiscovered worlds,
And draw the distant landscape as they please;
But who has e'er returned from those bright regions,
To tell their manners, and relate their laws?
I'll venture landing on that happy shore
With an unsullied body and white mind;
If I have erred, some kind inhabitant
Will pity a strayed soul, and take me home.
_Seb._ Beware of death! thou canst not die unperjured,
And leave an unaccomplished love behind.
Thy vows are mine; nor will I quit my claim:
The ties of minds are but imperfect bonds,
Unless the bodies join to seal the contract.
_Alm._ What joys can you possess, or can I give,
Where groans of death succeed the sighs of love?
Our Hymen has not on his saffron robe;
But, muffled up in mourning, downward holds
His drooping torch, extinguished with his tears.
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