Latest / Tristan and Isolde / Ion-Thomas Noon Talfourd

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Ion-Thomas Noon Talfourd · Tristan and Isolde

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Act one of Ion by Thomas Noon Talford. This is
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Dramatis Persona, Ion A Foundling read by Kelly.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Taylor, Adrastus read by Thomas Peter.
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: Me Dunn read by Alan Mapstone.
• 0:29
  Speaker 5: Tatathon read by Todd.
• 0:32
  Speaker 6: Cassander read by Greg Giardano.
• 0:36
  Speaker 7: A Genre read by Wayne.
• 0:40
  Speaker 8: Cleon, read by Will Forbes, Phocion read by Andrew lather.
• 0:44
  Speaker 9: On, Tim Mcleas read by Phil Shamp.
• 0:47
  Speaker 10: Crises read by Jim Hedrick.
• 0:51
  Speaker 11: First Soldier read by Jake.
• 0:53
  Speaker 12: Militsia, Second Soldier read by Jim Locke.
• 0:58
  Speaker 13: Yours read Budjouanna, Michael.
• 1:00
  Speaker 14: Hoyte Clemente read by Jen Broda.
• 1:05
  Speaker 15: Abra read by Wendy katz Hiller.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Stage Directions read by Larry Wilson. Act one, Scene one.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The interior of the Temple of Apollo, which is supposed
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to be placed on a rocky imminence early morning. The
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: interior lighted by a single lamp suspended from the roof
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: auginor resting against the column. Right eris seated on a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: bench at the side of the scene. Left Auginoor comes
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: forward and speaks center.
• 1:38
  Speaker 7: Wilde done, never visit us. These hours tweled heavy with
• 1:43
  Speaker 7: the unresting curse. They there to do the work of
• 1:46
  Speaker 7: desolating years. All distant sounds are hushed the shriek of death,
• 1:54
  Speaker 7: and the survivors wailed now when heard, as grief had
• 1:58
  Speaker 7: worn itself to patience rus. I'm loth so soon to
• 2:03
  Speaker 7: break their scanty rest. But my heart seekins for the
• 2:07
  Speaker 7: tardy morn. Sure it is breaking speed. And look yet,
• 2:12
  Speaker 7: hold nor'st thou the fearful shelf of rock that hangs
• 2:16
  Speaker 7: above the encroaching waves, the loftiest pointed stretches eastward.
• 2:21
  Speaker 13: Know it, yes, my lord? There often have I blessed
• 2:24
  Speaker 13: the opening day, which thy free kindness gave me leave
• 2:27
  Speaker 13: to waste and happy wandering through the forests.
• 2:30
  Speaker 7: Well thou art not then afraid to tread it there
• 2:34
  Speaker 7: the earliest streak from the unreasent sun is to be welcomed.
• 2:38
  Speaker 7: Tell me how it gleams in bloody poratent, or in saffron. Hope,
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  Speaker 7: and hasten back to slumber.
• 2:46
  Speaker 13: I shall hasten, believe not that thy summons broke my rest.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I was not sleeping, exit left.
• 2:54
  Speaker 7: Heaven be with thee child, his grateful mention of delights
• 2:58
  Speaker 7: bestowed on utmost piteous state of servile childhood by liberal
• 3:02
  Speaker 7: words chance dropp'd hath touch'd then the feeling which I
• 3:07
  Speaker 7: deem'd for ever numbed, And by a gush of household
• 3:11
  Speaker 7: memories breaks the ice casing of that thick despair which
• 3:17
  Speaker 7: they by day had gathered o'er my heart, While basely
• 3:22
  Speaker 7: safe within this column, circle up lifted far into the
• 3:27
  Speaker 7: purer air, And by Apollo's partial love secur'd I have
• 3:33
  Speaker 7: in spirit glided with the plague, as in foul darkness,
• 3:38
  Speaker 7: or in sickliest light, it wafted death through argos and mine. Ears,
• 3:44
  Speaker 7: listening athirst for any human sound, have caught the dismal
• 3:48
  Speaker 7: cry of confused pain, which to this dizzy height, defeatful
• 3:53
  Speaker 7: wind hath borne from each sad quarter of the veil
• 3:57
  Speaker 7: where life was We enter ears left at their.
• 4:02
  Speaker 13: Signs of daybreak none the eastern sky is still unbroken gloom.
• 4:07
  Speaker 7: It cannot surely be thine. Neithers are of deem, no
• 4:12
  Speaker 7: fault of thine for the want of rest or Now
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: I look upon them near with scalding tears. Cath care
• 4:21
  Speaker 7: alighted on a head so young. What grief hast thou
• 4:25
  Speaker 7: been weeping?
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  Speaker 13: Pardon me? I never thought at such a mournful time
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  Speaker 13: to plead my humble sorrow and excuse of poorly rendered service.
• 4:32
  Speaker 13: But my brother, thou mayst have noted him A sturdy
• 4:36
  Speaker 13: lad with eyes so merry, and was foot so light
• 4:39
  Speaker 13: that none could chide his gamesomeness, fell sick, but yesterday
• 4:43
  Speaker 13: and died in my weak arms ere I could seek
• 4:45
  Speaker 13: for stouter aid. I hoped that I had taught my
• 4:48
  Speaker 13: grief to veil at signs from thy observant care. But
• 4:52
  Speaker 13: when I stood upon the well known terrace where we loved,
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  Speaker 13: arm LinkedIn armed watch the gleaming sails, his favorite pastime,
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  Speaker 13: for he burned to share a seaman's hardy lot, my
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  Speaker 13: tears would flow, and I forgot to dry them. But
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  Speaker 13: I see Cleon is walking yonder. Let me call him
• 5:09
  Speaker 13: for SURET will tear thy heart to speak with him.
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  Speaker 7: Call him good youth, and then go into sleep. Or
• 5:16
  Speaker 7: if thou.
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  Speaker 1: Wilt too weep exit ears left.
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  Speaker 7: I envy thee the privilege, but you puter forfend that
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  Speaker 7: I should rob thee.
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  Speaker 16: Of it enter cleon left hey Legnor dark as our
• 5:29
  Speaker 16: lot remains, does a comfort yet to see thy age unstricken.
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  Speaker 7: Rather mourn that I am destined still to linger here
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  Speaker 7: in strange, unnatural strength, while death is around me. I
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  Speaker 7: chide these sinews that are framed so tough grief cannot
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  Speaker 7: polsy them. I chie the air which round the citadel
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  Speaker 7: of nature, of breeze with sweetness, not of this world.
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  Speaker 7: I would share the common grave of my dear countrymen,
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  Speaker 7: and seem to rest while all familiar things old custom
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  Speaker 7: has endeared our failing with me, rather than shiver on
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: in life behind them. Nor should this whilst detain me
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  Speaker 7: from the paths where death may be embraced. But at
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  Speaker 7: my word, in a rash moment, plied you to our
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: host forbids me to depart with halt's license, which firmly
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  Speaker 7: he refuses.
• 6:27
  Speaker 16: Do not chide me if I rejoice to find the
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  Speaker 16: generous priest means with apollow's blessing to preserve the treasure
• 6:34
  Speaker 16: of thy wisdom. Nay, he trusts not to promises alone.
• 6:38
  Speaker 16: His gates are barred against thy regress. None indeed may
• 6:43
  Speaker 16: pass them, save the youth, Ion, whose earthest prayer his
• 6:47
  Speaker 16: foster father grants reluctantly to visit the sad city at
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  Speaker 16: his will, and freely does he use the dangerous boon which,
• 6:54
  Speaker 16: in my thought the love that cherished him, since he
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  Speaker 16: was found within the sacred grove, smileling amidst the storm,
• 7:01
  Speaker 16: a most rare infant should have had the sternness to deny.
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  Speaker 7: What Ion, the only inmate of this vein, allowed to
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  Speaker 7: seek the mournful wox where death is busy. Iron are
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  Speaker 7: sometime darling, whom he prized as a stray gift by
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  Speaker 7: bounteous Heaven, dismissed from some bright sphere which sorrow may
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  Speaker 7: not cloud, to make the happy happier, as he sent
• 7:29
  Speaker 7: to grapple with the miseries of this time, whose nature
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: such ethereal aspects wears as it would perish at the
• 7:37
  Speaker 7: touch of wrong. By no internal contest is he trained
• 7:42
  Speaker 7: for such hard duty, no emotions rude, had his clear
• 7:47
  Speaker 7: spirit vanquished love, the jerm of his mild nature has
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  Speaker 7: spread graces for expanding with its progress, as the store
• 7:58
  Speaker 7: of rainbow color which the the seed conceals sheds out
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  Speaker 7: its tints from its dim treasury to flush and circle
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  Speaker 7: in the flower. No tear hath filled his eye save
• 8:10
  Speaker 7: that of thoughtful joy, when in the evening stillness lovely
• 8:15
  Speaker 7: things pressed on his soul too busily. His voice, if
• 8:20
  Speaker 7: in the earnestness of childish sports, raised through the tone
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  Speaker 7: of anger, checked its force as if it feared to
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  Speaker 7: break its beings law, and faltered into music. When the
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: forms of guilty passion have been made to live in
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  Speaker 7: picture speech, and others have waxed loud and righteous indignation,
• 8:42
  Speaker 7: he hath heard with septic smile, or from some slender
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  Speaker 7: vein of goodness, which surrounding gloom concealed struck sunlight. Or
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  Speaker 7: so his life hath flowed from his mysterious arm, a
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  Speaker 7: sacred stream in whose all with depths, the beautiful and
• 9:02
  Speaker 7: pure alone are nearer, which though shapes of ill may
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  Speaker 7: hover around its surface, glides in light, and takes no
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  Speaker 7: shadow from him.
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  Speaker 16: Yet methinks thou hast not lately met him, or a
• 9:16
  Speaker 16: change past strangely on him, had not missed thy wonder.
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  Speaker 16: His form appears dilated in the eyes where pleasure danced,
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  Speaker 16: a thoughtful sadness dwells, stern purpose knits the forehead, which
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  Speaker 16: till now knew not the passing wrinkle of a care.
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  Speaker 16: Those limbs, which, in their heedless motion owned a stripling's
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  Speaker 16: playful happiness, are strong, as if iron hardships of the
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  Speaker 16: camp had given them sturdy nature, and his step its
• 9:45
  Speaker 16: airiness of yesterday forgotten, awakens the echoes of the desolate courts,
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  Speaker 16: as if a hero of gigantic mold pace them in armor.
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  Speaker 7: Hope is in thy tail. This is no freak of
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  Speaker 7: nature's wayward course, but work of pitying heaven, For not
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  Speaker 7: in vain the gods have poured into that guy less
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  Speaker 7: heart the strengths that nerve the hero. They are ours.
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  Speaker 16: How can he aid us? Can he stay the pull
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  Speaker 16: of ebbing life, arrests the infecting winds, or smite the
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  Speaker 16: hungry specter of the grave.
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  Speaker 7: And dost thou think these breezes are our foes, the
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  Speaker 7: innocent heirs that used to dance around us, as if
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  Speaker 7: they felt the blessings they conveyed, or that the death
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  Speaker 7: they bear is casual. No tis human guilt that blackens
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: in the cloud flashes a throat its mass, and jagged
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  Speaker 7: fire whirls in the hurricane polluci air turns all the
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  Speaker 7: joyous melodies of earth to murmurings of doom. There is
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  Speaker 7: a foe who in the glorious sumhat of the state,
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  Speaker 7: that rus down the great resentment of the gods, whom
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: he defies to strike us. Yet his power partakes the
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: just infirmity which nature blends in the empire of her
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  Speaker 7: proudest sons that it is cased within a single breast,
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  Speaker 7: and may be plucked thence by a single arm let.
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  Speaker 7: But that arm selected by the gods, do this great
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  Speaker 7: office on the tyrant's life and argos breeze again a.
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  Speaker 16: Footstep, Hush the wishes falling off slavish. Here would timpt
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  Speaker 16: another outrage. It's a friend, an honest though crapt one. Timocles,
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  Speaker 16: something hath thrifled him. Good day, Timocles.
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  Speaker 1: Timcles passes in front.
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  Speaker 7: He will not speak to us, but he shall speak,
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  Speaker 7: Timocles Nay, then, thus I must.
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  Speaker 1: Enforce thee stay in him.
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  Speaker 7: Sure thou wilt not refuse a comrade's hand that may
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  Speaker 7: be called the heir of sunset.
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  Speaker 1: Tim Macles giving his hand.
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  Speaker 9: Thou mayst school me. Thy years and life have license,
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  Speaker 9: But I own not a stripling's mastery ist fit agonor nay.
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  Speaker 7: Thou mast tell thy wrong, whate'er it prove. I hail
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  Speaker 7: thy anger as a hopeful sign, for it revives the
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  Speaker 7: thought of household days when the small bickerings of friends
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  Speaker 7: had space to thret, and debt was not forever nigh
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  Speaker 7: to frown upon esrangement? What has moved thee?
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  Speaker 9: I blush to tell it. Weary of the night and
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  Speaker 9: of my life, I sought the western portal. It opened
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  Speaker 9: when ascending from the stair that through the rock winds
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  Speaker 9: spiral from the town. I on the foundling, and cherished
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  Speaker 9: by the priest, stood in the entrance with such mild
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  Speaker 9: command as he has often smilingly obeyed, I bade him
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  Speaker 9: stand aside and let me pass. When wouldst thou think it?
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  Speaker 9: In determined speech, he gave me counsel to return. I pressed,
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  Speaker 9: impatient onward. He, with honeyed phrase is daring act excusing,
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  Speaker 9: grasped my arm with strength, resistless, led me from the gate,
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  Speaker 9: replaced its ponderous bars, and with a look as modest
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  Speaker 9: as he wore in childhood, left me.
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  Speaker 7: And thou wilt thank him for it? Soon he comes
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  Speaker 7: now will day angry purpose if thou.
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  Speaker 1: Canst enter ion left.
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  Speaker 2: I seek thee good timocles to implore again thy pardon.
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  Speaker 2: I am young in trust and fear lest in the
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  Speaker 2: earnestness of love. I stay thy course too rudely. Thou
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  Speaker 2: hast borne my childish folly. Often, do not frown if
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  Speaker 2: I ventured with unmannered zeal to guard the ripe experiences
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  Speaker 2: of years from one rash moment's danger, leave thy care.
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  Speaker 9: If I am weary of the flutterer life is mortal
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  Speaker 9: bidding thus to cage it.
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  Speaker 1: In ion crosses center and.
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  Speaker 2: Art Thou tired of being has the grave no terror
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  Speaker 2: for thee. Hast thou sundered quite those thousand meshes which
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  Speaker 2: all custom weaves to bind ust earthward and gay fancy
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  Speaker 2: films with airy lustered various hast subdued those cleavings of
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  Speaker 2: the spirit to its prison. Those nice regards, dear habits,
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  Speaker 2: pensive memories that change the valor of the thoughtful breast
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  Speaker 2: to brave dissimulation of its fears. Is hope quench'd in
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  Speaker 2: thy bosom. Thou art free, and in this simple dignity
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  Speaker 2: a man standest apart untempted. Do not lose the great occasion,
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  Speaker 2: thou hast plucked from misery, Nor play the spindthrift with
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: a great despair, but use it nobly.
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  Speaker 9: What to strike to slay?
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  Speaker 2: No, not unless the audible voice of Heaven call thee
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  Speaker 2: to that dire office. But to shed on ears abused
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: by falsehood, truce of power in words immortal. Not such
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: words as flash from the fierce demagogue's unthinking rage to
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: madden for a moment and expire, Nor such as the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: wrapt orator imbuse with warmth of facial sympathy and molds
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to mirrors radiant with fair images, to grace the noble
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: fervor of an hour. But words which bear the spirits
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: of great deeds, wing for the future, which the dying
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: breath of Freedom's martyr shapes as it exhales, and to
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the most enduring forms of Earth, commits to linger in
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the craggy shade of the huge valley neath the eagle's home,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: or in the sea cave where the tempest sleeps, till
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: some heroic leader bids them wake to thrill the world
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: with echoes. But I talk of things beyond my grasp,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: which strangely press upon my soul and tempt me to
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: forget the duties of my youth. Pray you forgive me, Have.
• 16:07
  Speaker 9: I not said so?
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: Welcome to the morn the east gates and fold the
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: priest approacheth.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: As Eginore speaks. The great gates at the back of
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the scene open. The sea is discovered far beneath, the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: dawn breaking over it midden. The priest enters attendant and lo.
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  Speaker 7: The sun is struggling with the gloom, whose masses fill
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: the eastern sky and tense its edges with telde reed.
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  Speaker 7: But he will triumph. Blessed be the.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: Omen, God of light and joy. Once more, delight us
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: with thy healing beams. If I may trace thy language
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: in the clouds that wait upon thy rising. Help is nigh,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: but help achieved in.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Blood, sayest thou in blood?
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  Speaker 4: Yes, Ion, Why he's sicken the word spite of all
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: his new born strength. The sights of woe that he
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: will seek have shed their paleness on him. Has this
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: night's walk shown more than common sorrow?
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I passed the palace where the frantic king yet holds
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: his crimson revel. Whence the roar of desperate mirth came
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: mingling the sigh of death subdued robustness, and the gleam
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: of festal lamps, mid spectral columns hung flaunting or shapes
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of anguish made them ghastlier. How can I cease to
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: tremble for the sad ones he mocks? And him the
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: wretchedest of all?
• 17:42
  Speaker 9: And canst thou pity him? Dost thou discern amidst his
• 17:46
  Speaker 9: impious darings? Plea for him?
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Is he not childless, friendless and a king? He's human?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And some pulse of good must live within his nature?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Have ye not tried to wake it?
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  Speaker 7: Yes?
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: I believe he felt our suffering once, when at my
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: strong entreaty, he dispatched Focion, my son, to Delphos, there
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: to seek our cause of sorrow. But as time dragged
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: on without his messenger's return, he grew impatient of all
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: counsel to his palace in awful mood, retiring wildly called
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: the reckless of his court to share its stores and
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: end all with him. When we dared disturb his dreadful
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: feasting with a humble prayer that he would meet us,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: the poor slave who bore the message flew back, smarting
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: from the scourge, and muttered a decree that he who
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: next unbidden met the tyrant's glance, should.
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: Die, I am prepared to prave it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 16: So am I am.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I Both sages do not think my prayers bespeaks unseemly forwardness.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Send me the coarsest read that trembles in the marsh,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: if Heaven select it for its instrument, may shed celestial
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: music on the breeze as clearly as the pipe whose
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: virgin gold befits the lip of Phoebus. Ye are wise
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: and kneaded by your country, ye are fathers. I am
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: a lone, stray thing, whose little life, by stranger's bounty,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: cherished like a wave that from the summer sea. A
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: wanton breeze lifts for a moment's sparkle will subside light
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: as it rose, Nor leave a sigh in breaking.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: I on no sigh.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Forgive me if I seem to doubt that Thou wilt
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: mourn me if I fall, Nor would I tax thy
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: love with such a fear. But that high promptings, which
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: could never rise spontaneous in my nature, bid me plead
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: thus boldly for the.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: Mission, my brave boy. It shall be as thou wilt.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: I see Thou art called to this great peril and
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: I will not stay THEE when wilt thou be prepared
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: to seek it?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Now, only before I go thus on my knee, let
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: me in one word, thank THEE for a life made
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: by thy love, a cloudless holiday, and oh more than
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: a father. Let me look up to thy face as
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: if indeed a father's, and give me a son's blessing.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: Bless THEE, son, I should be marble. Now, let's part
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: at once.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: If I should not return, bless phocion for me and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: for clamante. May I speak one word, one parting word
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: with my fair playfellow.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: If thou would have it, sir, Oh thou shalt fare well.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Then your prayers wait on my steps. The arm of
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: heaven I feel, in life or death will be around me.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: Exit left, Oh, grounds it be in life. Let's to
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: the sacrifice.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Excellent right Scene two an apartment of the temple inter
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: clementthe followed by opera. Right.
• 21:27
  Speaker 14: Is he so changed?
• 21:28
  Speaker 15: His bearing is so altered that distant I scarce knew
• 21:33
  Speaker 15: him for himself, But looking in his face, I felt
• 21:36
  Speaker 15: his smile gracious, as ever though its sweetness wore unwonted
• 21:42
  Speaker 15: sorrow in it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 14: He will go to some high fortune. And forget us
• 21:46
  Speaker 14: all reclaimed, be sure of it by noble parents. Me
• 21:51
  Speaker 14: he forgets already for five days, five melancholy days. I
• 21:57
  Speaker 14: have not seen him.
• 21:58
  Speaker 15: Thou knowest that he has privilege to range the infected city,
• 22:03
  Speaker 15: And tis said he spends the hours of needful rest
• 22:07
  Speaker 15: in squalid hovels, where death is most forsaken.
• 22:11
  Speaker 14: Why is this? Why should my father, niggard of the
• 22:15
  Speaker 14: lives of aged men, be prodigal of youth, so rich
• 22:19
  Speaker 14: and glorious prophecy as his?
• 22:21
  Speaker 15: He comes to answer for himself.
• 22:23
  Speaker 14: I leave you, exit aright, stay well, My heart may
• 22:29
  Speaker 14: guard its secret best by its own strength.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Enter ion left.
• 22:33
  Speaker 14: How fair is my pensive sister, How should I fare
• 22:36
  Speaker 14: but ill? When the pale hand draws the black foldings
• 22:40
  Speaker 14: of the eternal curtain closer and closer round us, Focion absent,
• 22:45
  Speaker 14: and thou forsaking all within thy home, wilt risk thy
• 22:50
  Speaker 14: life with strangers in whose aid even thou canst do
• 22:54
  Speaker 14: but little.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It is little, but in these sharp extremities of fortune,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: the blessings which the weak and poor can scatter have
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: their own season. Tis a little thing to give a
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: cup of water, yet its draft of cool refreshment drained
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: by fevered lips may give a shock of pleasure to
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: the frame, more exquisite than when nectar and juice renews
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: the life of joy in happiest hours. It is a
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: little thing to speak a phrase of common comfort, which,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: by daily use has almost lost its sense. Yet on
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the ear of him who thought to die unmourned, twill
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: fall like choicest music, Fill the glazing eye with gentle tears,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: relax the knotted hand to know the bonds of fellowship again,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: and shed on the departing soul a sense more precious
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: than the benison of friends. About the honored death bed
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: of the rich, to him who else were lonely, that
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: fills an mother of the great family is near and feels.
• 24:03
  Speaker 14: Oh, thou canst never bear these mournful offices, so blithe,
• 24:08
  Speaker 14: so merry once will not the sight of frenzied agonies,
• 24:12
  Speaker 14: unfix thy reason or the dumb woe can ngeal thee
• 24:16
  Speaker 14: no clamante.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: They are the patient sorrows that touch nearest. If thou
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: hadst seen the warrior when he writhed in the last
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: grapple of his sinewy frame with conquering anguish, strive to
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: cast a smile, and not in vain upon his fragile wife,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: waning beside him, and his limbs composed, the widow of
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: the moment, fix her gaze of longing, speechless love upon
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: the babe, the only living thing which yet was hers,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: spreading its arm for its own resting place. Yet the
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: attenuated hand wave off the unstricken child, and so embraceless die,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: stifling the mighty hunger of the heart. Thou couldst endure
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the sight of selfish grief in sullenness or frenzy. But
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: today another lot falls on me.
• 25:12
  Speaker 14: Thou wilt leave us. I read it plainly in thy
• 25:15
  Speaker 14: altered mien.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Is it forever, that is with the gods. I go,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: but to the palace, urged by hope which from afar
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: hath darted on my soul, that to the humbleness of
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: one like me. The haughty king may listen.
• 25:31
  Speaker 14: To the palace. Knowest thou the peril, nay, the certain
• 25:36
  Speaker 14: issue that waits thee death. The tyrant has decreed it,
• 25:40
  Speaker 14: confirmed it with an oath, and he has power to
• 25:43
  Speaker 14: keep that oath. For hated as he is, the reckless
• 25:47
  Speaker 14: soldiers who partake his riot are swift to do his bidding.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I know all, But they who call me to the
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: work can shield me or make me strong to suffer.
• 25:57
  Speaker 14: Then the sword falls on thy neck, o God, to
• 26:02
  Speaker 14: think that thou, who in the plenitude of youthful life,
• 26:05
  Speaker 14: art now before me ere the sun decline, perhaps in
• 26:09
  Speaker 14: one short hour, shalt thy lie cold, cold to speak, smile,
• 26:16
  Speaker 14: bless no more, Thou shalt not go.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Thou must not stay me, fair one. Even thy father,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: who blessings on him, loves me as his son yields
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: to the will of heaven.
• 26:30
  Speaker 14: And can he do this? I shall not bear his presence.
• 26:34
  Speaker 14: If thou fallest by his consent, so shall I be alone.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Fusion will soon return, and just the thoughts of thy
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: admiring father close the gap thy old companion left behind him.
• 26:46
  Speaker 14: Never what will be to me, father, brother, friends, when
• 26:51
  Speaker 14: thou art gone, the light of our life quenched, haunting
• 26:56
  Speaker 14: like specters of departed joy the home where thou wert dearest.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Thrill me not with words that in their agony suggest
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: a hope to ravishing, or my head will swim and
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: my heart faint within me.
• 27:10
  Speaker 14: Has my speech such blessed power? I will not mourn
• 27:14
  Speaker 14: it then, though it had told a secret I had
• 27:16
  Speaker 14: borne till death and silence. How affection grew to this
• 27:21
  Speaker 14: I know not. Day succeeded day, each fraught with the
• 27:26
  Speaker 14: same innocent delights, without one shock to ruffle the disguise
• 27:30
  Speaker 14: of sisterly regard, which failed it well till thy changed
• 27:35
  Speaker 14: mien revealed it to my soul, and thy great peril
• 27:39
  Speaker 14: makes me bold to tell it. Do not despise it
• 27:42
  Speaker 14: in me with.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Deep joy, bus I receive it. Trust me. It is
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: long since I have learned to tremble mid our pleasures.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Lest I should break the golden dream around me with
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: most ungrateful rashness, I should bless the sharp and perilous
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: duty which hath pressed a life's deliciousness into these moments
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: which here must end. I came to say farewell, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: the word must be said.
• 28:15
  Speaker 14: Thou canst not mean it? Have I disclaimed all maiden
• 28:19
  Speaker 14: bashfulness to tell the cherished secret of my soul to
• 28:22
  Speaker 14: my soul's master, and in rich return obtained the dearest
• 28:26
  Speaker 14: assurance of his love to hear him speak that miserable
• 28:30
  Speaker 14: word I cannot will not echo.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Heaven has called me, and I have pledged my honor.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: When thy heart bestowed its preference on a friendless boy,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Thou didst not imagine him a recreant, nor must he
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: prove so. By thy election crowned, Thou hast endowed me
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: with the right to claim thy help through this our journey,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: be its course lengthening to age, or in an hour
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: to end. And I now ask it, bid my courage hold,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: and with thy free approval, send me forth in soul
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: apparelled for my office. Go.
• 29:13
  Speaker 14: I would not have thee other than thou art, living
• 29:16
  Speaker 14: or dying. And if thou shouldst.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Fall, be sure I shall return.
• 29:21
  Speaker 14: If thou shouldst fall, I shall be happier as the
• 29:25
  Speaker 14: affianced bride of thy cold ashes than in the proudest
• 29:29
  Speaker 14: fortunes thine.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Ever thine she faints in his arms, I uncalls.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Barbra, so best to part.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Enter Aarbra with attendant right.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Let her have air be near her through the day.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I know thy tenderness. Should ill news come or any friend,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: she will require it all.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Barber bears Clementeu out right.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Ye gods that have enriched the life, ye claim with
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: priceless treasure, strengthen me to yield it.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Exit left end of Act one, Act two of Ion
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: by Thomas Noon Talford. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Act two,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Scene one, a terrace of the Palace Adstris, crithes and
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: guards from the terrace center.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: The air breeze freshly after a long night of glorious feathery.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: I'll walk awhile.
• 30:48
  Speaker 10: It blows across the town. Dost thou not fear it,
• 30:51
  Speaker 10: bear infection with it?
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: Fair?
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Dost talk of fear to me? I deemed even thy
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: poor thoughts had better scanned their master prythee Tell me in.
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: What act, word or look?
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Since I have borne thy converse here, hast thou discerned
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: such baseness as makes thee bold to prate to me
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: a fear.
• 31:13
  Speaker 10: My liege of human might all know thee fearless, but
• 31:19
  Speaker 10: may not hero shun the elements when sickness taints them.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Let them blast me, now, I stir not tremble.
• 31:27
  Speaker 17: Not.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: These massive wolves, whose date are All's tradition, gird the
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: home of the great race of Kings, along whose.
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: Line the eager mind lives, aching.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Through the darkness of ages, else unstoried till its shapes
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: of armed sovereigns spread to godlike port and frowning in
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: the uncertain dawn of time. Strike awe as powers who
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: ruled an elder world in mute obedience, a sad hereitage
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: of all their glories, fear our doom is nigh, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I will meet it as befits their fame. Nor will
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: I vary my selected path the breath of my soul's edge,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: nor check a wish if such unkingly yielding might avert it.
• 32:14
  Speaker 10: Thou art, ever royal in thy thoughts, No, awe, I
• 32:17
  Speaker 10: would be.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Private, exit quith these with guards right.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Groveling parasite. Why should I waste these fate environd eyes
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: and pledge my great defiance to despair with flatterers such
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: as thou, as if my joys required the pale reflections
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: cast by slaves in myrrored mockery around my throne, or
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: lack the aid of reptiles sympathies to stream through faced
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: black pageantry, let weakness seek companship. I'll henceforth feast alone.
• 32:47
  Speaker 11: Enter a soldier, right, my liege, forgive me well speak
• 32:52
  Speaker 11: out at once thy business and retire. I have no
• 32:54
  Speaker 11: part in the presumptuous message that I bear.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Tell it or go. There is no time to waste
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: on idle terrors.
• 33:01
  Speaker 11: Thus it is my lord. As we were burnishing our arms,
• 33:04
  Speaker 11: a man entered the court, and when we saw him first,
• 33:08
  Speaker 11: was tending towards the palace in a maze. We hailed
• 33:11
  Speaker 11: the ration intruder. Still he walked unheeding onward till the
• 33:15
  Speaker 11: western gate barred further course. Then turning, he besought our
• 33:19
  Speaker 11: startled band to herald him to thee, that he might
• 33:22
  Speaker 11: urge a message which the sages had charged him to deliver.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Ha The graybeards who mid the altars of the gods
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: conspired to cast the image of supernal power from earth.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Its shadow consecrates what sage is so resolved to play
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: the arator that he would die for it.
• 33:39
  Speaker 11: He is but a youth, yet urged his prayer with
• 33:42
  Speaker 11: sad constancy which could not be denied.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Most bravely planned sedition worthy of the reverend host of
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: Sophist traitors, brave to scatter fancies of discontent amids sturdy artisans,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: whose honest sinews they direct unseen and make their proxies
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: in the.
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: Work of pair.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Tis fit when burning to insult their king, and warned
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: the pleasure must be bought with life their valor. Send
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: a boy to speak their wisdom. Thou know'st my last decree.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Tell this rash youth the danger he incurs. Then let
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: him pass and own the king more gentle than his master's.
• 34:23
  Speaker 11: We have already told him of the fate which waits
• 34:25
  Speaker 11: his daring. Courteously he thanked us, but with still solemn aspect,
• 34:30
  Speaker 11: urged his suit.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Tell him once more. If he persists he dies, Then
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: if he will admit him, should he hold his purpose?
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Order their cry these to conduct him, and see the
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: headsman instantly prepare to do his office.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Exit a soldier.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: So resolved, so young to have pity, he should fall.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Yet he must fall, or the great scepter which I
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: swayed the fears of ages, will become a common star,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: off for youth to wield, or age to rest upon,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: and despoiled of all its virtues, he must fall. Else,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: they who prompt the insult will grow bold, and with
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: their pestilent wundings through the city, raise the low fog
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: of murky discontent, which now creeps harmless through its marshy
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: birthplace to veil my setting glories. He is warned, and
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: if he cross Yon threshold, he shall die.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Into Crithes an ion right the.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: King stranger, I bid THEE welcome. We are about to
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: tread the same dark passage. Thou almost on the instant
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: to Crithes, is the sword of justice sharpened and the
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: headsman ready.
• 35:45
  Speaker 10: Thou mayest behold them plainly in the court. Even now,
• 35:49
  Speaker 10: the solemn soldiers line the ground, the steel gleams on
• 35:53
  Speaker 10: the altar, and the slave disrobes himself for duty.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Oddras to Ion.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: Dost thou see that I do? By Heaven, he does
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: not change. If even now thou wilt depart and leave
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: thy traitress of unspoken thou art free.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: I thank THEE for thy offer. But I stand before
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: THEE for the lives of thousands, rich in all that
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: makes life precious, to the brave, who perish not alone,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: but in their fall break the far spreading tendrils that
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: they feed, and leave them nurtureless. If thou wilt hear
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: me for them, I am content to speak no more.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Thou hast thy wish, then cry these till Yon dire
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: curses thin shadow on the approaching hour. I hear this
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: gallant traitor on the instant, come without word, and lead
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: him to his doom. Now leave us what alone, yes,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: slave alone, he is no assassin.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Exit quoth these right?
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Tell me who thou art? What generous source owns that
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: aroic blood which held its course thus bravely? What great
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: wars have nursed the courage that can look on death,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: certain and speedy death with placid eye.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I am a simple youth, who never bore the weight
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: of armor, who may not boast of noble birth or
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: valor of his own deem, not the powers which nerved
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: me thus to speak in thy great presence, and have
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: made my heart upon the verge of bloody death, as calm,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: as equal in its beatings, as when sleep approacheth me
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: nestling from the sportive toils of thoughtless childhood, and celestial
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: dreams began to glimmer through the deepening shadows of soft
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: oblivion to belong to me. These are the strengths of heaven.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: To THEE, they speak, Bid THEE to hearken to thy
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: people's cry, or warn THEE that thy hour must shortly come.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: I know it must, so mayst thou spare thy warnings.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: The envious gods in may have doomed to race, whose
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: glory stream from the same cloud gird founce whence their
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: own dawned upon the infant world. And I shall sit
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: on my ancestral throne to meet their vengeance. But till
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: then I rule as I have ever rul'd, and thou
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: wilt feel, I.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Will not further urge thy safety to thee. It may be,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: as thou sayest too late, nor seek to make thee
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: tremble at the gathering curse which shall burst forth in
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: mockery at thy fall. But thou art gifted with a
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: nobler sense. I know thou art my sovereign, since a
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: pain endured by myriad argives in whose souls and in
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: whose father's souls. Thou and thy fathers have kept their
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: cherished state, whose heart strings still the living fibers of
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: thy rooted power quiver with agonies. Thy crimes have drawn
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: from heavily justice on them.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: How my crimes, Yes.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Tis the eternal law that where guilt is, sorrow shall
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: answer it. And thou hast not a poor man's privilege
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: to bear it alone or in the narrow circle of
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: his kinsmen, the penalties of evil, For in thine a
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: nation fate lies circled King Adrastus, stilled as thy heart is,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: with the usages of pomp and power a few short summers,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: since thou wert a child, and canst not be relentless. Oh,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: if a maternal love embraced thee, then think of the mothers, who,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: with eyes unwet, glare o'er their perishing children. Hast thou
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: shared the glow of a first friendship, which is borne
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: midst the rude sports of boyhood. Think of youth smitten
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: amidst its playthings. Let the spirit of thine own innocent
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: childhood whisper pity.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: In every word. Thou dost but steal my soul. My
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: youth was blasted parents, brother kin, All that should people
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: infancy with joy conspir'd to poison mine, despoiled my life
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: of innocence and hope. All but the sword and scepter
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: dost thou wander Men?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Now I knew that we should pity.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Pity dare to speak that word again, and torture awaits thee.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: I am, yet King of Argos, Well go on, That
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: time is short and I am pledged to.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Hear if thou hast ever.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Loved, beware, beware.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Thou hast I see thou hast Thou art not marble,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: and thou shalt hear me. Think upon the time when
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: the clear depths of thy yet lucid soul were ruffled
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: with the troublings of strange joy, as of some unseen
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: visitant from heaven touch'd the calm lake and wreathed its
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: images in sparkling waves. Recall the dallying hope that, on
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: the margin of assurance, trembled as loath to lose in
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: certainty too blessed its happy being. Taste in thought again
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: of stolen sweetness, those evening walks when pansied turf was
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: heir to winged feet and circling forest by ethereal touch, enchanted,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: wore the livery of the sky as if to melt
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: in gold and light shapes of one heavenly vision, and
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: thy heart, enlarged by its new sympathy with one, grew
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: boutiful to all.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: That tone, that tone, whence came it from thy lips,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: it cannot be the long, hushed music of the only
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: voice that ever spake, unbought affection to me and wake
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: my soul to blessing sweet hours of girlden. Joy Ye,
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: come your glorious break through my pavilion spirit sable folds,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Roll on, roll on, stranger, Thou dost enforce me to
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: speak of things unbreathed my lip of mind to human ear.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: But listen as a child again that voice again, thou
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: hast seen me moved, is never more toal saw me
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: by a tone in which some light breeze, enamoured of
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: the sound hath wafted through the woods to thy young voice,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: caught it to arrive and to me. At my birth,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: the city, which expectant of its prince lay hushed, broke
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: out in clamorous ecstasies. Yet in that moment, while the
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: uplifted cups foamed with the choicest product of the sun,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: and welcome thundered from a thousand throats, my doom was
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: sealed from the hearth's vacant space. In the dark chamber
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: where my mother lay faint with a sense of pain
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: bought happiness came forth in heart upalling tone, these words
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: of me, the nursling woe unto the babe, against the
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: life which now begins, shall life lighted from thence be armed,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: and both soon quenched. End this great line in sorrow.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Ere I grow of years to know myself a thing accursed.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: A second son was born to steal the love which
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: fate had elskirs rifled. He became my parent's hope, that
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: darling of the crew, who lived upon their smiles and
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: sought it flattery, to trace in every foible of my youth,
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: a prince's youth, the workings of the curse very mother,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: jov I cannot bear to speak. It now looked freezingly
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: upon me.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: But thy brother died.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Thou hast heard the lie. The common lie that every
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: peasant tells of me his master, that I slew the
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: boy tis false. One summer's eve, below a crag which
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: in his wilful mood he strove to climb, he lay
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: a mangled corpse. The very slaves whose cruelty had shut
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: him from my heart, now coined their own injustice into
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: proofs to brand me as his murderer.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Did they dare accuse thee not.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: An open speech? They felt I should have seized the
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: miscreant by the throat and crushed the lie half spoken
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: with the life of the base speaker. But the lie
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: looked out from the stolen gaze of ca eyes which
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: shrank when mine have met them, murmured through the crowd
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: at the sacrifice or feast or game, stood distant from me,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: burned into my soul when I beheld it in my
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: father shudder.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Did not declare thy innocence to.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Whom, to parents who could doubt me, to the ring
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: of grave impostors, or their shallow sons, who should have
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: studied to prevent my wish before it grew to language,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: hailed my choice to service as a prize to wrestle for,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: and whose reluctant courtesy I bore, pale with proud anger,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: till from lips compressed the blood has started to the
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: common her to the vassals of our ancient house. The
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: mass of bones and muscles, framed to till the soil
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: a few brief years, then wrought unnamed beneath it, or
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: decked for slaughter at their master's call to smite and
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: to be smitten, and lie crushed in heaps, to swell
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: his glory or his shame. Answer to them, No, though
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: my heart had burst, as it was night, a bursting
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: to the mountains, I fled, and on their pinnacles of
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: snow breasted the icy wind and hoped to cool my
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: spirit's fever. Struggled with the oak in search of weariness,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: and learned to arrive its stubborn bows till limbs one
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: slightly strung might mate incorridge with its infinite stems. Or
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: on the sea beat rock, tore off the vest which
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: burnt upon my bosom, and to air had long committed.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Clove the waters a depth which plummet, never as sounded,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: but in.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Vain yet succor came to thee.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: A blessed one which the strange magic of thy voice
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: revives and thus unlocks my soul. My rapid steps were
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: in a wood encircled valley, stayed by the bright vision
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: of a maid who was face most more than loveliness,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: revealed in touch of patient grief, which Gierre seemed than
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: happiness to spirit seared like mine. With feeble hands, she
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: strove to lay in earth the body of her aged sire,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: whose death left her alone. I aided her sad work,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: and soon two lonely ones by holy rites became onehappy
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: being days, weeks, months, and streamlike unity flowed silent by
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: us in our delightful nest. My father's spies, slaves whom
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: I not should have consigned her stripes, or the swift
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: fortune tracked our Sylvan home, just as my bosom knew
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: its second joy. In spite of fortune, I embraced a.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Son urged by thy trembling parents to avert that dreadful prophecy.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Fools did they deem its worst accomplishment could match the
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: ill which they wrought on me. It had left unharmed
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: a thousand decas disease of passioned years, which taste at
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: once live ever and disdain fate's iron grapple. Could I
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: now beheld that sun with a knife uplifted at my
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: heart a moment ere my life followed it. I would
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: embrace him with my dying eyes and pardoned destiny. Our
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Jocin's smiles wreathed on the infant's face, as if sweet
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: spirits suggested pleasant fancies to his soul. The ruffians broke
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: upon us, seized the child dashed through the thicket to
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: the beet like rocknath which the deep wave that is
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: I stood still, as stricken into stone. I heard him cry,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: pressed by the rudeness of the murderer's gripe, severer ill
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: and fearing. Then the splash of waters that shall cover
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: him forever, and could not stir to save him. The mother,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: she spake no word, but clasped me in her arms
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: and lay her down to die. Lingering gaze of love
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: she fixed on me. None other loved so past tense?
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Why you butter her look? The dying patience glimmers in
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: thy face. She lives again. She looks upon me. Now
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: this magicint bear with me?
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I am childish in de crites and guards right.
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: Why art thou here?
• 49:40
  Speaker 10: The dial points to the hour.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Dost thou not see that horrid purpose past? Hast thou
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: no heart, no sense?
• 49:49
  Speaker 10: Scarce half an hour, half flown since the command on
• 49:53
  Speaker 10: which I wait?
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: Scarce half an hour yees years have thrilled since then?
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Begone prove that pageantry of death. It blasts my sight
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: and hearken Dutch a hair of this brave youth, Or
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: look on him as now with thy cold headsman's eye
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: and yonder band shall not expect a fearful show in vain.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Hence, without word exit crith The is right?
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: What wouldst thou have me do.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Let thy awakened heart speak its own language. Convene thy sages, frankly,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: nobly meet them, Explore with them the pleasure of the gods,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: and whatsoe'er the sacrifice?
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Perform it well? I will seek their presence in an hour,
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: Go summon them, young hero, hold no word of the
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: strange passion thou hast witnessed.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: He distrust me, not minnionnet powers.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: I thank thee exit right.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: It stay is gone, His spell is only yet What
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: have I promised him to meet? The men who from
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: my living head would strip the crown and sit in
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: judgment on me. I must do it. It shall my
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: band be ready to owe alle the course of liberal speech.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: And if it rise so as too loudly to offend
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: my ear, strike the rash brawl at debt. What idle
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: dream of long past days had mounted me? It fades,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: it vanishes. I am again a king.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Scene two, the interior of the temple, same as Act
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: one seen one Clement thee seated arbora.
• 51:43
  Speaker 17: Attending her, Look, dearest lady. The thin smoke aspires in
• 51:48
  Speaker 17: the calm air, as when in happier times it showed
• 51:52
  Speaker 17: the gods propitious wilt thou seek thy chamber, lest thy
• 51:57
  Speaker 17: father and his friends returning find hinderers of their counsel.
• 52:02
  Speaker 17: She answers, not, she hearkens, not with joy? Could I
• 52:07
  Speaker 17: believe her for the first time? Sullen still she is wrapped.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Into aginor left.
• 52:15
  Speaker 15: Oh, speak to my sweet mistress, happily thy voice may
• 52:20
  Speaker 15: rouse her.
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: Dear Clemente, hope dance in every omen we shall hear
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: our tranquil hours.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Again Intermedian Pleyon, timcles and others.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: Left clementthe here, how sad, how pale her eye is kindling?
• 52:36
  Speaker 14: Hush hark hear ye not a distant footstep.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: No, look crowned, my faii ish child. Thy friends are
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: near thee.
• 52:47
  Speaker 14: Yes Now tis lost? Tis on that endless stare nearer
• 52:52
  Speaker 14: and more distinct tis his? Tis his?
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: He lives.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: He comes, rises and rushes to back of the stage
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: at which Ion appears, senter and returns with her Siner.
• 53:05
  Speaker 14: Here is your messenger, whom Heaven has rescued from the
• 53:08
  Speaker 14: tyrant's rage. Ye sent him forth to brave rejoice old men,
• 53:13
  Speaker 14: that ye are guiltless of his blood? Why pause, ye,
• 53:18
  Speaker 14: why shout ye?
• 53:19
  Speaker 9: Not?
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: His welcome dearest girl, This is no scene for thee
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: go to thy chamber. I'll come to thee.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Ere long, excellent Clemanthy and abra.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: She is or wrought by fear and joy for one
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: whose infinite hopes were mingled with her own, even.
• 53:39
  Speaker 9: As a brother's Ionor how shall we do thee honor?
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: None is due save to the gods, whose gracious influence
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: sways the king, Ye deemed relentless. He consents to meet
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: ye presently in council speed. This may be Nature's latest
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: rally in him in fitful strength. Ere it be quenched forever.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: Haste to your seats. I will but speak a word
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: with our brave friend, and follow, though convened in speed,
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: let our assembly lack no forms of due observance, which
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: to furious power. Plead with the silent emphasis of years.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Excellent, all but Meidan and Ion left.
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: Ion drawn near me. This eventful day hath shown thy
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: Nature's graces circled round with firmness, which accomplishes the hero,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: and it would bring to me but one proud thought
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: that virtues which required not culture's aid, shed their first
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: fragrance neath my roof, and there found shelter. But it
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: also hath revealed what I may not hide from THEE,
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: that my child, my blind, an innocent girl, more fair
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: in soul, more delicate in fancy than in mold, loves
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: THEE with other than a sister's love. I should have
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: cared for this, I vainly deemed a fellowship. In childhood's
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: thousand joys and household memories had nurtured friendship, which might
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: hold blameless empire in the soul. But in that guise
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: the traitor hath stolen in, and the fair citadel is
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: thine tis true.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: I did not think the nurseling of thy house could
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: thus disturb its holiest inmate's duty with a tale of
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: selfish passion. But we met as playmates who might never
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: meet again, and the hidden truth flashed forth and showed
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: to eat the image of the other's soul in one
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: bright instant.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: Be that instant blessed which which made THEE truly ours
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: my son, my son, tis we should feel uplifted, for
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: the seal of greatness is upon THEE. Yet I know
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: that when the gods won by thy virtues draw the
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: veil which now conceals their lofty birthplace, thou wilt not
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: spurn the maid who prize them slowly.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Span her My father intertestifon center, satsiphon and breathless, aren't
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: come to chide me to the council.
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: Crosses to center, No to bring unwanted joy, thy Thun approaches.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: Thank Heaven hast spoken with him? Is he well?
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: I strove in vain to reach him, for the crowd
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: rout on the untended couch and dismal hearth by the
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: strange visiting of hope press around him, But by his
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: head erect fiery glance. I know that he is well,
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: and that he bears a message which shall shake the
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: tyrant shouts without See the throng is tending this way.
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: Now it parts and yields him to thy arms into focion.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: Left welcome, my Phocian, long waited for in our gas.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: How detain now matters not? Since thou art here enjoy,
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: hast brought the answer of the gods.
• 57:31
  Speaker 8: I have now let adrestus tremble.
• 57:34
  Speaker 9: May we hear it?
• 57:35
  Speaker 8: I am sworn first to utter it to him.
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: But it is fatal to him say.
• 57:40
  Speaker 8: But that huh Tasifun I marked thee not before? How
• 57:44
  Speaker 8: fares thy father ion.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: To fulsion do not speak of him overhearing ion.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: Not speak of him? Dost think there is a moment
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: when common things eclipse the burning thought of him, and.
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: Vengeance has the tyrant's sword No.
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: Phocion, Thou were merciful and brave compared to his base deed.
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: Yet will I tell it crossest to center, to make
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: the flashing of thine eye more deadly, and edge thy
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: words that they may writhe his heart strings. The last
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: time that Adrastus dared to face the sages of the state,
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: although my father, yielding to nature's mild decay, had left
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: all worldly toil and hope, he gathered strength in his
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: old seat to speak one word of warning. Thou knowest
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: how bland with years his wisdom grew, and with what
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: phrases steeped in love, he sheathed the sharpness of rebuke.
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: Yet ere his speech was closed. The tyrants started from
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: his throne, and with his base hand smote him twas
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: his death stroke. The old man tottered home, and only
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: once raised his head, after.
• 58:53
  Speaker 8: Thou wert absent, Yes, the royal miscreant lives.
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: Had I beheld that sacrilege a tyrant had laid dead,
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: for I had been torn piecemeal by his minions. But
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: I was far away. When I returned, I found my
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: father on the nearest bench within our door, his thinly
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: silvered head supported by wan hands which hid his face
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: and would not be withdrawn. No groan, no sigh, was audible,
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: and we might only learn by short, convulsive tremblings of
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: his frame that life still flickered in it. Yet, at last,
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: by some unearthly inspiration roused, he dropped his withered hands
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: and sat erect as in his manhood's glory. The free
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: blood flushed crimson through his cheeks, his furrowed brow expanded clear,
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: and his eyes, opening full, gleamed with a youthful fire.
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: I fell in awe upon my knees before him. Still
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: he spake not, but slowly raised his arm untrembling, clenched
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: his hand as if it grasped an airy knife, and
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: struck in air. My hand was joined with his in
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: nervous grasp. My lifted eye met his insteadfast gaze. My
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: pressure answered his. We knew at once each other's thought.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: A smile of the old sweetness played upon his lips,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: and life forsook him weaponless. I flew to seek the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: tyrant and was driven with scoffs from the proud gates
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: which shell to him. He lives, and I am here
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: to babble of revenge.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 8: It comes my friend, Haste with me to the king.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Even while we speak, Adrastus meets his counsel there. Let
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: us seek him. Should ye find him touched with penitence
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: as haply, we may, oh give allowance to his soult
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: in nature.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: Show grace to him. Dost dare I had forgot Thou
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: dost not know how a son loves a father.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: I know enough to feel for thee. I know thou
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: hast endured the vilest wrongs that tyranny in the worst
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: frenzy can inflict. Yet think, oh, think, before the irrevocable
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: deed shuts out all thought? How much of power's excess
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: is theirs who raise the idol? Do we grown beneath
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: the personal force of this rash man, who, forty summers
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: since hung at the breast, a playful weakling, who the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: heat unnerves, the north wind pierces. The hand of death,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: may in a moment change to clay as vile as
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: that of the scourged slave whose chain it severs. No
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: tis our weakness grasping, or the shows of outward strength
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: that builds up a tyranny and makes it look glorious.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: If we shrink, faint hearted from the reckoning of our
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: span of mortal days, we pamper the fond wish for
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: long duration in a line of kings. If the rich
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: pageantry of thoughts must fade all unsubstantial as the regal
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: hues of eve which purple them, our cunning frailties must
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: robe a living image with their pomp, and wreathe a
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: diadem around its brow, in which our sunny fantasies may live,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: impearled and gleam in fatal splendor. Far on after ages.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: We must look within for that which makes us slaves
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: on sympathies which find no kindred objects in the plane
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: of common life, affections that expire in air too thin
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: and fancies dewy film, floating for rest. For even such
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: delicate threads gathered by Fate's engrossing hands supply the eternal spindle,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: whence she weaves the bond of cable strength in which
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: our nature struggles.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: Go talk to others, if thou wilt to me or argument,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: say that of steel is idle no more.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: Let's to the council. There, my son tell my great
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: message nobly, and for thee poor orphaned youth. Be sure
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: the gods are just excellent.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Left Scene three, the great square of the city. Adastrius
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: seated on a throne, aginor tim Mcles, Cleon and others
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: seated as counselors. Soldiers line the stage at a distance.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: Upon your summoned, sages, I am here. Your king attends
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: to know your pleasure, speak it?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 7: And canst thou ask if the heart dead within the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: receives no imp press of this awful time? Art Thou
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: of sense forsake? Are thine ears so charmed by strains
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: of slavey minstrelsy that the dog grown and frenzy point
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: shriek pass them unhurried to heaven? Or are thine eyes
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 7: so conversant with the prodigies of grief they cease to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 7: dazzle them? Art thou armed against wonder? While in all
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 7: things nature returns to dreadful contraries. While youth's full cheek
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: is shriveled into furrows of sad years, and neath its
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 7: glossy curls, untinged by care, looks out a keen anaarmony,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: while age is stung by fevery storture for an hour
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: intill use strength, while fragile womanhood starts into frightful courage.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: All unlike the gentle strength, its gentle weakness feeds to
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 7: make affliction beautiful and stalks abroad a tearless, an unshuddering thing.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 7: While childhood, in his orphan freedom, blithe finds in the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 7: shapes of wretchedness, which seem grotesque to its unsaddened vision,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: cause for dreadful mirth that shortly shall be hushed in
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: never broken silence. And while love immortal through all change,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: Nike's ghastly death, its idle and with furious passion, digs
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: amid securled images for regds to cheat its fancy with
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: to sights like these glare through their realm. Thou shouldst
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 7: be pared to and canst thou find the voice to
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: ask our pleasure?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: See spabbler? Wherefore would ye stun my ears with vain
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: recital the griefs I know and cannot heal? Will treason
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: turn as either shafts of fate or medicine Nature's ills?
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: I have no skill in pharmacy nor power to sway the.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 7: Elements, thou hast a power to cast thyself upon the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 7: earth with us in penitential shame. Or if these power
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 7: hath left a heart made weak by luxury and horrid
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: by pride, thou hast at least the power to cease
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 7: the mockery of thy frantic revels.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: I have yet power to punish insult. Look I use
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: it not at a alle Fate may dash my scepter
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: from me, but shall not command my will to hold
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: it with a feebler grasp. Nay, a few hours of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: empire yet are mine. They shall be colored with a
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: sterner pride, and peopled with more lustrous joys than flushed
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: in the serene procession of its greatness, which looked perpetual
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: as the flowing course of human things. Have you beheld
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: a pine that clasped the mountain summit with a route
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: as firm as its rough marble, and apart from the
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: huge shade of undistinguished trees, lifted its head as and
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: delight to share the evening gloss of the sky and
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: taste the wanton dalliance of the heavenly breeze that no
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: ignoble vapor from the veil could mingle with smit by
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: the flaming male, and lighted for destruction. How it stood
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: at one glorious moment, fringed and wreathed with fire, which
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: show the inward graces of its shape, uncumber now amidst
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: its topmost boughs, that young ambitions, airy fancies made their
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: giddy nest leaped sportive, never clad by liberal summer, in
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: a pomp so rich as waited on its downfall, while
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: it took the storm cloud rolled behind it for a
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: curtain to gird its benders round, and made the blast
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: its minister to whirl its flashing shreds aloft towards heaven
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: or to the startled depths of forests. Such a farm
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: might share its doom. So shall the royalty of Argus
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: pass it in vestal blaze to darkness? Have ye spoken?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 7: I speak mor to thee great Jove, look.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: Down, shouts without what faction's brawl is this? Disperse its soldiers.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Shouting renewed as some of the soldiers are about to march.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Ful Sion rushes in, followed by tessafon Ion and Medan.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: Whence is this insolent intrusion?
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 8: King I bear Apollo's answer to thy prayer, as not
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 8: thy travel.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: Tought thy needs duty. Here we had schooled thee.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: Better kneel to thee patience, my son, do homage to
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: the king.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: Never thou talkest of schooling. No Adrastus that I have
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 8: studied an ignobler school than the dull haunt of venal sophistry,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 8: or the lewd guard room, oh which ancient heaven extends
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 8: its arch for all, and mocks the span of palaces
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 8: and dungeons, where the heart, in its free beatings neath
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 8: the causest vest claims kindred with diviner things than power
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 8: of kings can raise or stifle. In the school of
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: mighty nature, where I learned to blush at sight like
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 8: this of thousands, basely hushed before a man no mightier
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 8: than themselves, save in the absence of that love that
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 8: softens peace.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: Speak thy message?
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 8: Shall I tell it here? Or shall I seek thy
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: couch at dead of night and breathe it in low
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 8: whispers as thou wilt hear, and this instant hearken. Then
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 8: addrest us and hearken our gaves. Thus Apollo speaks reads
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 8: a scrawl argos na'er shall find release till Harmonarch's race
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 8: shall cease.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: Tis not God's will, but man's sedition speaks Gods, tear
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: that lying parchment from his hands, and bear him to
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: the palace.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: Touch him not. He is Apollo's messenger, whose lips were
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: never stained with falsehood.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: Come on, all, surround him. Friends die with him.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: Soldiers charge upon these rebels, hew them down on on.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: The soldiers advance and surround the people they seize. Falsion
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Ion rushes from the back of the stage and throws
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: himself between a dastris and Fusian. Fusion to a Dastris.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Yet I defy thee Ion to fusion.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: Friend, forsake of all enrage him. Not wait while I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: speak a word to a Dastris, my sovereign, I implore THEE,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: do not stain this sacred place with blood. In Heaven's
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: great name, I do conjure THEE and in hers, whose
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: spirit is mourning for THEE.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: Now release the stripling. Let him go spread his treason
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: where he will. He is not worth my anger to
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: the palace.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Nay, yet an instant. Let my speech have power from
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Heaven to move THEE further. Thou hast heard the sentence
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: of the God and thy heart own. If thou wilt
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: cast aside this cumbrous pomp and in seclusion, purify thy soul,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: long fevered and sophisticate. The gods may give thee space
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: for penitential thoughts. If not as surely as thou standest here,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: wilt thou lie stiff and weltering in thy blood? The
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: vision presses on me.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: Now not mad is on my state. Sue to the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: gods for life, the common life which every slave endures
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: and meanly clings to. No within your woes, I shall
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: resume the banquet, never more broken by man's intrusion. Counselor's farewell,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: go mutter treason till he perish.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Excellent Adastus cried these and soldiers left. I stands apart,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: leaning on a.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: Pedestal tis sealed.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: Let us withdraw and strive by sacrifice to pacify the gods.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: Meden Aeginore and counselors retire. They leave tessefon Fulcion, and
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: ion Ion still stands apart, as wrapped in meditation.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: Tis well, the measure of his guilt is filled. Where
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: shall we meet at sunset in.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 8: The grove which, with its matted shade embrowns the veil
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 8: between those buttresses of rock that guard the sacred mountain.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 8: On its western side stands of rude altar, overgrown with
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 8: moss and stained with drippings of a million showers, so
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 8: old that no tradition names the power that hallowed it,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 8: which we will consecrate anew to freedom and justice.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 5: Thither will I bring friends to meet thee. Shall we
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 5: speak to Yon, wrapped youth pointing to Ion.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 8: His nature is too gentle? At sunset we will meet
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 8: with arms.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: A knife, One sacrificial knife will serve.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: At sunset exit tessifon bright fulcion center left iron comes forward.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: O, wretched man, Thy words have sealed thy doom. Why
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: shall I shiver at it? When no way save this
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: remains to break the ponderous cloud that hangs above my
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: wretched country. Death, a single death, the common lot of all,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: which it will not be mine to look upon. And
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: yet its ghastly shape dilates before me. I cannot shut
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: it out. My thoughts grow rigid, and as that grim
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: and prostrate figure haunts them, my sinew stiffen like it
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: courage Ion. No spectral form is here. All outward things
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: wear their own familiar looks. No die pollutes them. And
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: yet the air has the scent of blood, and now
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: it eddies with a hurtling sound, as if some weapons
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: swiftly clovid. No, the Vaushian's course is silent as the
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: grave that yawns before its victim. Gracious powers, if the
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: great duty of my life be near, grant it may
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: be to suffer.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: Not to strike excellent right. End of Act two, Act
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: three of Ion by Thomas Noon Talford. This is a
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Act three, Scene one, a terrace of the temple inter
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Clemente and Ion.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 14: Right, Nay, I must chide the sorrow from thy brow.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 14: Ort will rebuke my happiness. I know too well the
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 14: miseries that ham us round. And yet the inward sunshine
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 14: of my soul, unclouded by their melancholy shadows, bathes in
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 14: its deep tranquility one image, only one image, which no
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 14: outward storm can ever ruffle. Let me wean thee then
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 14: from this vain pondering o'er the general woe which makes
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 14: my joy look ugly.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: No, my fair one. The gloom that wrongs thy love
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: is unredeemed by generous sense of other's woe too. Sure
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: it rises from dark presages within, and not from me.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 14: Then it is most groundless. Hast thou not won the
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 14: blessing of the perishing by constancy, the fame of which
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 14: shall live while a heart beats an argos. Hast thou
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 14: not upon one agitated bosom board the sweetest peace, and
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 14: can thy generous nature, while it thus sheds felicity around it,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 14: remain itself unblessed.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: I strove a while to think the assured possession of
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: thy love with two divine a burthen weighed my heart
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: and press my spirits down. But tis not so, Nor
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: will I, with false tenderness, beguile thee by feigning that
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: my sadness has a cause so exquisite clamante, thou wilt
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: find me a sad companion. I who knew not life
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: save as the sportive breath of happiness, now fill my minutes,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: teeming as they rise with grave experiences. I dream no
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: more of azure reams, where restless beauty sports in myriad
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: shapes fantastic dismal vaults in black succession open till the
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: gloom afar is broken by a streak of fire that
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: shapes my name. The fearful wind that moans before the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: storm articulates its sound. And I pastt but now the
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: solemn range of our monarchs, that in sculptured mockery of
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: the present empire sit, their eyes of stone bent on
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: me instinct with a frightful life that drew me into
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: fellowship with them as conscious marble, while their ponderous lips
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: fit organs of eternity unclosed. And as I live to tell,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: thee murmured, Hail, Hail, Ion the devoted.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 14: These are fancies which thy soul, late, expanded with great purpose,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 14: shapes as it quivers to its natural circle in which
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 14: its joys should lurk. As in the bud the cells
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 14: of fragrance cluster bit them from thee and strive to
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 14: be thyself.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: I will do so. I'll gaze upon thy loveliness and
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: drink its quiet inn. How beautiful thou art. My pulse
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: throbs now as it was wont a being which owns
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: so fair a glass to mirror it cannot show darkly?
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 14: We shall soon be happy my father will rejoice to
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 14: bless our love. An argos waken for her. Tyrant's course
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 14: must have a speedy end.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: It must, it must.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 14: Yes, for no empty talk of public wrongs assails him now, keen,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 14: hatred and revenge aroused to crush him.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: Not by such base agents may the August lustration be achieved.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: He who shall cleanse his country from the guilt for
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: which Heaven smites her must be pure of soul, guileless
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: as infancy, and undisturbed by personal anger, as thy father is.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: When with unswerving hand and piteous eye he stops the
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: brief life of the innocent kid. Bound with white filets
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: to the altar so en wreathed by fate, the royal
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: victim heaves, and soon his breast shall shrink beneath the
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: knife of the selected slayer.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 14: Tis thyself, whom thy strange language pictures ion Thou.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: She hast said it. Her pure lips have spoken out
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: what all things intimate? Didst thou not mark me for
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: the office of advengre me?
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 14: No say from the wild picture that thy fancy, thy
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 14: overwrought fancy drew. I thought it looked too like thee
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 14: and I shuddered so do I.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: And yet I almost wish I shuddered more, for the
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: dire thought has grown familiar with me. Could I escape it?
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 14: Twill away in sleep?
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: No, No, I dare not sp for well I know
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: that then the knife will gleam, the blood will gush,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: the form will stiffen. I will walk awhile in the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: sweet evening light and try to chase these fearful images away.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 14: Let me go with thee. Oh, how often hand in hand,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 14: in such a lovely light, we have roamed westward, aimless
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 14: and blessed, when we were no more than playmates. Surely
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 14: we are not grown stranger since yesterday.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: No, dearest, not to night. The plague yet rages fiercely
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: in the veil, and I am placed in grave commission,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: here to watch the gate. Indeed, thou shalt not pass.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: I will be merrier when we meet again, Trust me,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: my love, I will farewell, exit left farewell.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 14: Then, how fearful disproportion shows in one whose life hath
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 14: been all harmony? He bends toward that thick covert wherein
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 14: blessed my father found him, which has ever been his
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 14: chosen place of musing? Shall I follow? Am I already
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 14: grown a selfish mistress to watch his solitude with jealous
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 14: eye and claim him all that let me never be.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 14: Yet danger from within besets him. Now known to me
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 14: only I will follow him.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Exit left. Scene two, an opening in a deep wood,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: in front of an old gray altar enter ion.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: O winding pathways, or whose scanty blades of unaspiring grass
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: mine eyes have bent so often when by musing fancy
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: swayed that craved alliance with no wider sense than your
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: fair thickets bordered, but was pleased to deem the toilsome
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: years of manhood flown, and on the pictured mellowness of
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: age idly reflect image my return from careful wanderings to
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: fine e gleam with unchanged aspect on a heart unchanged
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: and melt the busy past to a sweet dream, as
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: then the future was. Why should ye now echo my
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: steps with melancholy sound, as ye were conscious of a
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: guilty presence. The lovely light of eve, that, as it
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: waned touch'd ye with softer, homelier look now fades in
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: dismal blackness, and yon twisted roots of ancient trees, whose
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: fantastic forms my thoughts grew humorous looked terrible, as if
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: to start to serpent life and hiss about me. Whither
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: shall I turn? Where to fly? I see the myrtle cradle,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: spot where human love, instructed by divine found and embraced me.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: First I cast me down upon the earth as on
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: a mother's breast, in hope to feel myself again.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: A child retires into the wood inter testiphoned Cassander. Another
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: argive youths.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 5: Sure this must be the place that Fulcion spoke of
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: the twilight deepens. Yet he does not come. Ah, if
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: instead of idle dreams of freedom, he knew the sharpness
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: of a grief like mine, he would not linger.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 6: Thus the sun's broad disk of misty red a few
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 6: brief minutes since sank neath the leaden waves. But night
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 6: steals on with rapid pace to veil us, and thy
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 6: thoughts are eager as the favoring darkness.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: Enter Fulsion, welcome thou knowest all here.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 8: Yes, I rejoice, Cassander, to find thee my companion in
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 8: a deed worthy of all the dreamings of old days.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 8: When we two rebel youths grew safely brave in visionary perils.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 8: We'll not shame our young imaginations. Tessiphon, we look to
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 8: THEE for guidance.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: In our aim I.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: Bring you glorious news. There is a soldier who, in
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: his reckless boyhood, was my comrade, And though by taste
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 5: of luxury subdued even to brook, the tyrant's service, burns
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 5: with generous anger to avenge that grief I bear above
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: all others. He has made the retribution sure from him.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: I learnt that when Adrastus reached his palace court, he
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 5: paused to struggle with some mighty throw of passion, then
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 5: called eagerly for wine, and bade his soldiers share his
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 5: choicest stores and snatch like him a day from fortune. Soon,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 5: as one worn out by watching an excess, he staggered
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 5: to his couch, where now he lies oppressed with heavy sleep,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: while his loose soldiers, made by the fierce carousal, vainly
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: mad or grossly dull, are scattered to the court, unarmed
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: and cautionless. The eastern portal is at this moment open.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 5: By that gate, we all may enter, unperceived, and line
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: the passages which gird the royal chamber, Whilst one blest
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: hand within completes the doom which heaven pronounces nothing now remains,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 5: but that as all would share this action's glory, we
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: join in one great fowl and choose one arm our.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: Common Minister, Oh, if these sorrows confer on me the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 5: office to return upon the tyrant's shivering heart, the blow
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 5: which crushed by Father's spirit, I will leave to him
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 5: who cares for toys, the patriot's laurel, and the applause
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 5: of ages.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 8: Let the gods, by the old course of lot, reveal
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 8: the name of the predestined champion. For myself here do
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 8: I solemnly devote all powers of soul and body to
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 8: that glorious purpose we live but to fulfill.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: And I and I Ion, who has advanced from the
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: wood rushes to the altar and exclaimed, and.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 8: I most welcome the serenest powers of justice in prompting
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 8: thy unspotted soul to join our bloody counsels. Sanctify and
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 8: bless them.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: The gods have prompted me, for they have given one
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: dreadful voice to all things which should be else dumb
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: or musical. And I rejoice to step from the grim
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: round of waking dreams into this fellowship which makes all
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: clear wilt thou trust me Tasophon.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 5: Yes, but we waste the precious minutes in vain talk.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 5: If lots must guide us, have ye scrawls.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 8: Cassander has them. The flickering light of yonder glade will
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 8: serve him to inscribe them with our names.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 5: Be quick, Cassander, I wear a cask beneath whose iron circlet,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 5: my father's dark hairs whitened. Let it hold the names
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 5: of his avengers.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: Testaphon takes off his helmet and gives it to Cassander,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: who retires with it. Right for Seanta, Testaphon.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 8: He whose name thou shalt draw first, shall fill the
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 8: post of glory. Were it not also well, the second
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 8: name should designate another charge to take the same great office.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 8: If the first should leave his work imperfect.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: There can scarce be need. Yet, as thou wilt, may
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: the first chance be mine? I will leave little for
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 5: a second arm.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: Cassandra returns with the helmet.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 5: Now God's decide.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: Testaphon draws a lot from the helmet.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 8: The name. Why dost thou pause tis ion?
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: Well? I do it would be mine.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: Testaphon draws another.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 5: Lot, Focian, It will be thine to strike him dead.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 5: If he should prove fainthearted.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 8: With my life, I'll answer for his constancy.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: Qriote these to Ion.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 5: Thy hand tis cold as death.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, but it is as firm. What ceremony? Next?
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: Testaphon leads Ion to the altar and gives him a knife.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 5: Receive this steel for ages, dedicated my sad home to
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: sacrificial uses. Grasp it nobly and consecrate it to untrembling
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: service against the King of Argylls and his race.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: His race? Is he not left alone on earth? He
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: has no brother and no child.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 5: Such words the god hath used, who never speaks in vain.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 8: There were old rumors of an infant born and strangely vanishing,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 8: a tale of guilt, half hushed, perchance distorted in the hushing,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 8: and by the wise scarce heeded, for they deemed it
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 8: one of a thousand guilty histories, which, if the walls
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 8: of pallaces could speak, would show that nursed by prideful
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 8: luxury to pamper, which the virtuous peasant toils crimes go unpunished,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 8: which the pirate's nest or, once foul hovel or the
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 8: cell with justice keeps for unlicensed guilt, would startle at
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 8: we must root out the stock that no stray scion
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 8: renew the tree whose branches, stifling virtue shed poisoned dews.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: On joy Ion approaches the altar, and lifting up the knife, speaks.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: Ye, the eldest gods, who, in no statues of exactest form,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: are palpable, who shun the azure heights of beautiful Olympus
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: and the sound of ever young Apollo's minstrelsy, yet mindful
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: of the empire which he held over dim chaos, keep
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: revengeful watch on falling nations and on kingly lines about
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: to sink forever. Ye, who shed into the passions of
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: Earth's giant rood and their fierce usages the sense of justice,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: who clothe the fated battlements of tyranny with blackness as
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: a funeral pall, and breathe through the proud halls of time,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: emboldened guilt portents of ruin. Hear me in your presence,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: for now I feel ye nigh, I dedicate this arm
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: to the destruction of the king and of his race.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: O be pitiless, expel all human weakness from my frame,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: that this keen weapon shake not when his heart should
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: feel its point, And if he has a child whose
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: blood is needful to the sacrifice my country ask harden
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: my soul to shed. It was that not thunder?
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 5: No I heard no sound. Now mark me, Ion, thou
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 5: shalt straight be led to the King's chamber. We shall
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 5: be at hand. Nothing can give thee pause. Old one
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 5: should watch the city's eastern portal, lest the troops returning
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 5: from the work of plunder home surround us. Unprepared.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: Be that thy duty to Fulcion?
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 8: I am to second ion.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 5: If he fail, he cannot fail, I shall be nigh
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 5: what Ion.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: Who speak to me? Where am I? Friends? Your pardon?
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: I am prepared. Grant me a moment, one little moment,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: to be left alone.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 5: Be briefed then, or the season of revenge will pass
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 5: at yonder thicket will expect thee excellent all, but I
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 5: am left.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: Methinks I breathe more freely. Now My lot is palpable,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: and mortals gird me round, though my soul owns no
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: sympathy with theirs. Someone approaches, I must hide this knife.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: Hide I have ne'er till now had aught to hide
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: from any human eye.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: He conceals the knife in his vest into clemente upright left.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 14: Clementthe here forgive me that I break upon THEE. Thus
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 14: I meant to watch thy steps unseen. But night is thickening.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 14: Thou art haunted by sad fancies, And tis more terrible
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 14: to think upon THEE wandering with such companions in naposom
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 14: than in peril. Thou art wont to seek beside the
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 14: bed of death.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: Death, sayest thou death? Is it not righteous? When the
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: gods decree it and brief its sharpest agony? Yet fairest
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: it is no theme for THEE? Go in at once
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: and think of it no more, not without THEE.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 14: Indeed, thou art not well. Thy hands are marble, thine
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 14: eyes are fixed. Let me support THEE? Love ha, What
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 14: is that gleaming within thy vest? A knife? Tell me
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 14: it's purpose? Ion? No my oath forbids an oath, Oh,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 14: gentle Ion. What can have linked THEE to a cause
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 14: which needs a stronger cement than a good man's word?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 14: There's danger in it? Will thou keep it from me?
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: Alas I must thou wilt know all full? Soon?
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: Voices without call ion, hark.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 14: I am cold, nay, do not leave me?
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: Thus tis very.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: Sad voices again I stay farewell, exit first right left.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 14: It must be too adastris that he hastes if by
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 14: his hand the faded tyrant die austere remembrance of the
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 14: deed will hang upon his delicate spirit like a cloud,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 14: and tinge its world of happy images with hues of horror.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 14: Shall I to the palace, and has the price of
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 14: my disclosure claim his safety? No tis never woman's part
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 14: out of her fond misgivings to perplex the fortunes of
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 14: the man to whom she cleaves. Tis hers to weave
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 14: all that she has of fair and bright in the
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 14: dark meshes of their web, in separate from their windings.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 14: My poor heart hath found its refuge in a hero's love.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 14: Whatever destiny his generous soul shape for him, tis its
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 14: duty to be still and trust him till it bound
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 14: or break with his.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: Exit left. Scene three, A chamber in the temple, intermedan,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: followed by Obra right, my daughter.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 4: Not within the temple? Sayst thou uproad at such an hour?
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 4: Sure not alone, ye wandered? Tell me truly did Focion
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 4: r Ion bear her company? Twas Ion? Confess?
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 9: Was it not?
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 3: He?
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 4: I shall not hide indeed I shall not.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 15: She went forth alone. But it is true that Ion
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 15: just before had taken the same path.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: It was to meet with him. I would they were returned.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: The night is grown of unusual blackness. Some one comes.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 4: Look if it be my daughter ob looking out?
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 15: No young eires the little slave whose pretty tale of
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 15: grief agenore with so gracious a respect this morning told us.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 4: Let him come. He bears some message from his master.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: Into ears left beaten to ears.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 4: Thou art pale, has any evil happened to again?
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 13: Or no, my good lord, I do not come from him.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 13: I bear to thee a scroll from one who now
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 13: is numbered with the dead. He was my kinsman, but
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 13: I had never seen him till he lay upon his deathbed.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 13: For he left these drawers long before I was born,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 13: and no one knew his place of exile. On this
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 13: mournful day he landed, was plague stricken and expired. My
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 13: gentle master gave me leave to tend his else on's
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 13: solaced deathbed. When he found the clammy chillness of the
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 13: grave stolon, he called for parchment, and with trembling hand
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 13: that seemed to gather firmness from its task, wrote earnestly
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 13: conjured me. Take the scroll instant to thee and.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: Died ears gives a scroll to Medan Miden redeemed the scroll.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 4: These are high tidings, Abara, clemanthe come, I long to.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: Tell her all into Clemanthe.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 4: Sit down, my pensive child, Abra, this boy's faint. See
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 4: him refreshed with food and wine before thou letst him pass.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 13: I have been too long absent from a genoor who
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 13: needs niceleunder help, Nay.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 4: I will use thy master's firmness here and use it
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 4: so as he would use it. Keep him prisoner, Abra,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 4: till he has done my bidding.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: Excellent Ober near us right.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: Now, clementthe though thou hast played the truant and the rebel,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 4: I will not be too strict in my award my
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 4: keeping from the news of one to thee most dear, Nay,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 4: do not blush, I say, most dear.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 14: It is a Ion. No, I do not blush, but tremble. Oh,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 14: my father, what of Ion?
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 4: How often have we guessed his lineage noble? And now
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 4: tis proved the kinsman of that youth was with another
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 4: hired to murder him a babe. They tore him from
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: his mother's breast and to a seagert summit, where a
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: rock or hung a chasm by the surge's force made terrible,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 4: rushed with him as the gods in mercy ordered it.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 4: The foremost ruffian, who bore no burden, pressing through the
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 4: gloom in a wild hurry of his guilty purpose, trod
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 4: at the extreme verge upon a crag loosened by summer
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: from its granite bed, and suddenly fell with it, and
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 4: with his fall sank the base. Daring of the man
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: who held the infants, so he placed the unconscious babe
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: upon the spot where it was found by me, watch
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 4: till he saw the infants safe, then fled, fearful of question,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 4: and returned to die. That child is Ion, whom dost
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 4: guess his sire the first in argoss.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 14: Dost thou mean adastris. He cannot must not be the
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 14: tyrant's son, it.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 4: Is most certain, Nay, my thankless girl, he hath no
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: touch of his rash father's pride. For nature, from whose
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: genial lap he smiled upon us first hath molded for
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: her own the suppliant of her bounty. Thou art blessed
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: thus let me bid thee joy.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 14: Joy, sayest thou joy? Then I must speak. He seeks
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 14: a diastrous life, and at this moment while we talk,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 14: may stain his soul with parricide impossible.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 4: I on the gentlest it.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 14: Is true, my father, I saw the weapon gleaming in
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 14: his vest. I heard him.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 4: Called, Shall I alarm the palace?
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: No?
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 14: In the fierce confusion he would fall before our tail
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 14: could be a safeguard. God, is there no hope, no refuge.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, if Heaven assist us, I bethink me of a
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 4: passage which fashion'd by a king impious zeal, that he
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: might seek the altar of the God in secret from
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 4: the temple's inmost shrine leads to the royal chamber. I
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 4: have tracked it in youth for past time. Could I
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 4: tread it now? I yet might save him?
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 14: Oh, make haste, my father. Shall I attend thee?
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 4: No, thou wouldst impede my steps that fainting. When I
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: have lodged thee safe in thy own chamber, I will
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 4: light them torch and instantly set forward.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 14: Do not waste an instant space on me? Speed speed,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 14: my father. The fatal moments fly. I need no aid
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 14: thou seest I am calm, quite calm.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: The gods protect thee exit median left clemente right. End
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: of Act three, Act four of Ion by Thomas Noon Talford.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Act four, Scene one, the Royal Chamber.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: A dastrous on a couch asleep, enter Ion with the knife.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: Why do I creep thus stealthily along with trembling steps?
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: Am I not on by Heaven to execute its mandate
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: on a king whom it hath doomed? And shall I
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: alter now? While every moment that he breathes may crush
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: some life else? Happy? Can I be deceived by some
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: foul passion crouching in my soul which takes a radiant
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: form to lure me on? Assure me, Gods, yes, I
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: have heard your voices, for I dare pray ye now
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: to nerve my arm and see me strike.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: He goes to the couch.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: He's smiling in his slumper, as if some happy thought
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: of innocent days played at his heart strings. Must I
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: scare it? Thence with death's sharp agony. He lies condemned
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: by the high judgment of supernal powers, and he shall
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: know their sentence. Wake Edrastus, collect thy spirits and be
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: strong to die?
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 3: Who dares disturb my rest God's soldiers recruits? Where terry ye,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: why smighty not to worth this bold intruder? Ha no
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 3: weapon here? What wouldst thou with me ruffian rising?
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: I am none but a sad instrument in Jove's great hand.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: To take thy life long forfeited, Prepare thy hour is.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: Come, villains?
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 3: Does no one here vex.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: Not the closing minutes of thy being with torturing hope
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: or idle rage. Thy guards, palsied with revelry, are scattered senseless,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: while the most valiant of our argive youths hold every
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: passage by which human aid could reach thee. Present death
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: is the award of powers who watch above me while
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: I stand to execute their sentens.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: Thou I know thee, the youth this morning in whose
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 3: ear I pour the secrets of my bosom. Kill me
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 3: if thou darest do it, But bethink THEE first, how
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 3: the grim memory of thy thankless deed will haunt THEE
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 3: to the grave.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: It is most true, Thou spareest my life, And therefore
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: do the gods ordain me to this office, lest thy
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: fall seem the chance forfeit of some single sin, and
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: not the great redress of argos. Now Now, while I
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: parley spirits that have left within this hour their plague,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: tormented flesh to rot, untombed, glide by and frown on
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: me their slow avenguer, and the chamber swarms with a
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: look of furies. Yet a moment, Wait, ye, dreadful prompters,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: if there is a friend whom dying thou wouldst greet
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: by word or token, speak thy last being.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: I have none on earth. If thou hast courage.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: End me not one friend, wose piteous doom art melted.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: If I am hope nothing from my weakness, mortal arms
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: and eyes unseen, that sleep not gird us round, and
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: we shall fall together.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 3: Be it so no strike at once? My hour is
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 3: come in thee I recognize the Minister of Jove, and
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 3: kneeling thus submit me to his power.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: Kneels avert thy face, No.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: Let me meet thy gaze, for breathing pity lights thy
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 3: features up into more awful likeness of a form which
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: one shone on me, which now my sense shapes palpable
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 3: in habit of the grave, inviting me to the sad realm,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 3: where shades of inner lions, compassionate regard, linked with the guilty,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 3: are content to pace with them the margin of the
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 3: inky flood, mournful and calme tis surely there. She waves
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 3: her palid hand in circular thy head, as if to
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 3: bless thee, And I bless thee too, Death's gracious angel.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 3: Too much, turn away.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: Gods, to what office have ye doomed me? Now?
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: Ion raises his arm to Tabidastus, who is kneeling, and
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: gazes steadfastly upon him. The voice of Meidan is heard, without.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 9: Calling Ion, Ion.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: Ion drops his arm.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 3: Be quick, or thou art lost.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: As Ion has again raised his arm to strike, Miden
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: rushes in behind him, senter.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 4: Ion, forbear behold thy son, Adrastus.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: Iron stands for a moment, stupefied with horror, drops the
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: knife and falls senseless to the ground.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 3: What strange words are these which call my senses from
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: the death They were composed to welcome son tis false?
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 3: I had but one, and the deep wave rose over him.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 4: That wave received instead of the fair nursling one of
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 4: the slaves who bore him from thy sight in wicked
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 4: haste to slay. I'll give THEE proofs.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 3: Great Chef, I thank THEE, raise him gently. Proofs are
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: there not here the lignments of her who made me
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 3: happy ones the voice now still that bathe, the long
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 3: sealed fount of love gosh out, while with a prince's constancy,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 3: came to lay his noble life down, and the show
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 3: the dreadful proof that he was guileless. Brow instinct with
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 3: their spirit stood above me, armed for the traits deeed.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 7: It is my.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: Child, Ion reviving sinks on one knee before a dastris father. Noise,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: without the clang of arms, ions starting up.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: They come, They come, They our league with me against
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: thy life. Here let us fall.
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 3: I will confront them. Yet within I have a weapon
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 3: which has drunk a trait is bloody? Are now there?
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: Will I wait them? No power less strong than death
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 3: shall pat us.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: Now excellent Adastris and Ion as into an inner chamber
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: upper instants left.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 4: Have mercy on him. God's for the dear sake of
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 4: your most single heartied.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: Worshiper intertasifon Cassander and others left.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 5: What a treachery is this? The tyrant fled, and Ion
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 5: fled too. Comrades stay the sdaddard while I search yonder chamber.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 4: Spell friends spare him to clasp A, while his new
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 4: fan son spare him as Ion's father father.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 5: Yes, that is indeed a name to bid me spare.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 5: Let me but find him.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: God's rush us into an inner chamber, meet into Cassander
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: and others.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 4: Had ye but seen what I have seen, ye would
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 4: have mercy on him.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: Crites enters with soldiers. Right.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 4: Hah, soldiers, hasten to defend your master that way.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: As Crithes is about to enter the inner chamber upper
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: entrance left, Testify rushes from it with a bloody dagger
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: and stops them.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 5: It is accomplished. The foul blood is wiped away, shade
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 5: of my murdered father. Look on thy son and smile.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 10: Whose blood is that? It cannot be the king's?
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 5: It cannot be. Thinkest thou, fou minion of a tyrant?
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 5: Will he was to crush and thou to crawl forever?
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 5: Look there and tremble wretch.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 10: Thy life shall pay the forfeit of this deed.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: Crithes and soldiers seize Testophon into a dastros, mortally wounded,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: supported by ion upper entrance. Left here.
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 16: Let me rest.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 3: In this old chambers in my life beginned, and here
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: I'll end it. Cry this thou hast timed. I visit
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 3: well to bring thy soldiers hither, to gaze upon my party.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 10: To avenge thee. Here is the traitor.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 3: Sets him free at once? Why do ye not to
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 3: pay me, Tessephon, I gave the cost for this. Believe
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 3: me now that thou true steel hast made thy vengeance.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 3: Sure this we now stand equal. I will sue for
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 3: a small boon. Let me not see thee more.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 5: Farewell, exit right.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: Address to crities and soldiers.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 3: Why do ye arry here? Begone? Still do you have
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 3: around my couch? If the commandment the dying king is
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 3: feeble as a man who has embraced his child for
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 3: the first time, sinfancy presently must part with him forever,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 3: I do adjure ye leave us.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: Excellent all but iron a divastris.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: Oh my father, how is it with thee? Now well?
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 7: Very well?
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 3: Avenging Fate has spent its most force against me, And
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 3: I gaze upon my son with the sweet certainty that
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 3: nought can patss till all is quiet here, how like
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 3: a dream seems the succession of my regal pumps. Since
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 3: I embraced thy helplessness to me, the interval hath been
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 3: a weary one. How hath it passed with thee.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: But that my heart hath sometimes ached for a sweet
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: sense of kindred. I had enjoyed a round of happy
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: years as cherished youth ere knew.
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 3: I bless the gods that they have strewn along thy
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 3: humble path, the lights unblamed. And in this hour I
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 3: seem even as I lived, so I feel that I
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 3: should live in THEE, and a sad curse, if it
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 3: should survive me.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: Think not of it. The gods have shed such sweetness
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: in this moment that, howsoe'er they deal with me hereafter,
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: I shall not deign the angry. Let me call for
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: such help to staunch thy wound. Thou art strong yet
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: and yet may live to bless me.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 3: Do not stir. My strength is ebbing fast. Yet as
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 3: it leaves me, the spirit of my steamless days of
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 3: love awakens, and their images of joy, which at thy
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 3: voice started from blank oblivion. Thou worst strange to me, then,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 3: have shone looked sadly through the mist of guilty as
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 3: now glimmer. I mean the lovely light which at thy
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 3: age they wore. Thou art all thy mother's her elements
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 3: of gentlest virtue cast in mold, heroic.
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: Thy speech grows fainter. Can I do nothing for thee.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, my son? Thou art the best, the bravest of
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 3: a race of rightful monarchs. Thou must mount the thrown
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 3: thy ancestors have filled, and by great deeds efface the
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 3: memory of thy fated sire, and with the blessing of
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 3: the Gods for men stricken for him. Swear to me,
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: thou wilt do this, and I shall die forgiven.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: I will rejoice.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 3: Sufferers of Argus, I am growing weak and my eyes dazzled.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 3: Let me rest my hands. They have lost their feeling
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 3: on thy head. So so.
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 18: Thy air is class see to the Dutch. It's when
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 18: I last and read this tiny curl about my finger.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 18: I did imach and thy rene excelling mind.
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 7: It is fulfilled, and I die.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 3: Happy, blessed.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 7: King half.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 2: Accus dies, He's dead, and I am fatherless again. King
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: did he hail me? Shall I make that word a
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: spell to bid all happiness awake throughout the lovely land
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: that fathered me in my forsaken childhood.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: He sees the knife on the ground and takes.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: It up most vain dream This austere monitor, hath bid
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: me vanish ere half revealed, come back, Thou truant steal
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: and half of thy work of the gods. Absolve THEE
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: from the rest remains lie there.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: He conceals the knife in his vest, shouts heard without the.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: Voice of joy. Is this thy funeral wailing, O, my father,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: mournful and brief will be thy heritage? Thou leavest me.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: Yet I promise THEE in death to grasp it, and
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: I will embrace it.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 7: Now in Egenore, doth the king live.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: Alas in me. The son of him, whose princely spirit
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: is at rest, claims his ancestral honors.
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 7: I do anticipates the prayer of Argus, roused to sudden joy.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 7: The sages wait without greedy. Wilt thou conferter with them
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 7: to night or wake the morning?
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: Now the city state allows the past no sorrow. I
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: attend them excellent.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: Scene two before the gate of the city Fesium, on guard.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 8: Fool that I was to take this idle office, at
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 8: most inglorious distance from the scene which shall be Freedom's birthplace,
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 8: to endure the fantasies of danger which the soul, uncheered
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 8: by action, coldly dallies with till it begins to shiver.
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 8: Long ere this, if Ion's hand be firm, the deed
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 8: is past. And yet no shout announces that the bonds
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 8: of tyranny are broken.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: Shouts at a distance, hark tis done, Jurt has a
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: fun laft all hail.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 8: My brother, freeman, art not so thy looks are haggard?
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 8: Is the tyrant slain? Is liberty achieved?
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 5: The king is dead? This arm I bless the righteous
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 5: fury slew him.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 8: Did Ion quail?
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 5: Then Ion clothe thy speech and phrase more courtly. He
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 5: is king of Argos, accepted as the tyrant's son, and reigns.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 8: It cannot be I can believe him born of such
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 8: high lineage. Yet he will not change his own rich
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 8: treasury of unruffled thoughts. For all the frigid glories that
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 8: invest the loveless state in which the monarch dwells. A
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 8: terror and a slave.
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 5: Shouts again, dost hear that shout tis raised for him?
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 5: The craven hearted world is ever eager thus to hail
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 5: a master, and patriots might for it. In vain are soldiers,
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 5: in the gay recklessness of men who sport with life
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 5: as with a plaything, citizens on wretched beds gaping for show,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 5: and sages vain of a royal sophist madly join in
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 5: humble prayer that he would deign to tread upon their necks.
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 5: And he is please to grant it.
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 8: He shall not grant it. If my life, my sense,
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 8: my heart's affections, and my tongue's free scope wait the
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 8: dominion of immortal will. What is the sound to me
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 8: whether my soul bear Ion Noor Adrastos burnt within it?
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 8: As my heart's soul owner, Ion Tyrant, no grant me
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 8: a moment's pleading with his heart, which has not known
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 8: a selfish throb till now. And thou shalt see him
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 8: smile this greatness from him.
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 5: Go teach the eagle. When azure heaven he upward darts
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 5: to seize his maddened prey, shivering through the death circle
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 5: of its sphere, to pause and let it escape, And
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 5: thou may'st win man to forego the sparkling bound of
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 5: power when it floats airily within his grasp.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 8: Why thus severe our nature's come and wrongs affect thee not,
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 8: and that which touched thee nearly is well avenged.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 5: Not while the son of him who spote my father reigns.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 5: I little guess thou wouldst require a prompter to awake
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 5: the memory of the oath so freshly sworn, or of
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 5: the place assigned to thee by lot. Should our first
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 5: champion fail to crush the race, mark me the race
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 5: of him my arm has dealt with. Now is the time,
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 5: the powace all confused, and the Prince dizzy with strange
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 5: turns of fortune.
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 8: To do thy part, have mercy on my weakness. If
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 8: thou hadst known this comrade of my sports, one of
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 8: the same small household, whom his mirth unfailing gladdened, If
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 8: a thousand times thou hadst, by strong prosperity made thoughtless,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 8: touched his unfathered nature in its nerve of agony, and
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 8: felt no chiding glance, hadst thou beheld him overtax his
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 8: strength to serve the wish, his genial instinct guest till
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 8: his dim smile, the weariness betrayed, which it would fain dissemble.
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 8: Hadst thou known in sickness the sweet magic of his care,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 8: thou couldst not ask it. Hear me tasaphon if I
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 8: had a deadly fever once and slaves fed me. He
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 8: watched and glided to my bed, and soothed my dull
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 8: ear with discourse, which grew by nice degrees to ravishment,
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 8: till pain seemed an heroic sense, which made me kin
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 8: to the great deeds he pictured. And the brood of
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 8: dizzy weakness flickering through the gloom of my small, curtained prison,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 8: caught the hues of beauty spangling out in glorious change,
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 8: and it became a luxury to lie and faintly listen.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 8: Canst thou bid me slay him?
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 5: The deed be mine?
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: Thou not betray me going hold.
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 8: If by our dreadful compact he must fall, I will
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 8: not smite him with my coward thought. Winging a distant arm.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 8: I will confront him, armed with delicious memories of our youth,
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 8: and pierce him through them. All be speedy, then, fear
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 8: not that I shall prove a laggard charged with weight
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 8: of such a purpose. Fate commands, and I live now
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 8: but to perform her bidding.
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: Excellent tacifhon right Fucion left. Scene three, a terrace in
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: the garden of the palace, moonlight, enter ion and aginore center.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 7: Wilt thou not in to rest?
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: My rest is here beneath the greatness of the heavens,
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: which awes my spirit, tors by sudden change, and torn
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: by various passions. To repose, yet age requires more genial nourishment.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: Pray seek it. I will but stay thee to inquire
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: once more, if any symptom of returning health bless the
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: wan city.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 7: No, the perishing lived up their painful heads to bless
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 7: thy name, and their eyes kindle as the heerd it.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 7: But still they perish.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: So give instant order the rites which shall confirm me
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: in my throne be solemnized to morrow.
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 7: How So soon while the more sacred duties to the
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 7: dead remain un let.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: Them abide my time. They will not tarry long. I
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 2: see the gaze with wonder on me. Do my bidding now,
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: and trust me till to morrow. Pray go in the night,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: will chill thee else.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 7: Farewell, my lord exit.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: Right now, all is stillness in my breast, how soon
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: to be displaced by a more profound repose, in which
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 2: no thread of consciousness shall live to feel. How calm
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: it is o lamp serene, do I lift up to
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: thee undazzled eyes for the last time? Shall I enjoy
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 2: no more thy golden haziness, which seem akin to my
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: young fortune's dim felicity, And when it coldly shall embrace
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: the urn that shall contain my ashes, will no thought
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: of all the sweet ones cherish'd by thy beams, awake
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 2: to tremble with them vain regret. The pathway of my
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 2: duty lie in sunlight, and I would tread it with
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 2: his firmer step, though it should terminate in cold oblivion,
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: as if allegiant pleasures at its close, gleamed palpable to
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: sight of things of earth?
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 19: Who passes there inter Fosian upper entrance left, who strikes
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 19: at Ion with a dagger, This to the king of argos, Ion,
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 19: struggles with him, seizes the dagger, which he throws away.
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 2: I will not fall by thee poor wavering novice in
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 2: the assassin's trade. Thy arm is feeble.
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: He confronts Fosian Focion.
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: Was this well aimed thou didst not mean.
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 8: I meant to take thy life urged by remembrance of
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 8: yesterday's great vow?
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 2: And couldst thou think I had forgotten thou? Couldst thou
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 2: believe that one whose nature had been armed to stop
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: the life's blood current in a fellow's veins would hesitate
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: when gentler duty turned his steal to nearer. Use tomorrow's
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: dawn shall see me? Will the scepter of my father's
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: come watch beside my throne? And if I fail in
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: sternest duty which my country needs, my bosom will be
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: open to thy steel, as now to thy embrace.
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 8: Thus, let me fall lower thy feet and kneeling here
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 8: receive forgiveness. Do not crush me with more love than
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 8: lies in the word pardon, And.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: That word will I not speak? What have I to
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: forgive a devious fancy, a muscle raised obedied to its impulse.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: Dost thou think the tracings of a thousand kindnesses which
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 2: taught me all I guessed of brotherhood, are in the
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: rashness of a moment loss.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 8: I cannot look upon thee Let me go and lose
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 8: myself in darkness.
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: Nay o, playmate, we part not thus the duties of
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: my state will shortly end our fellowship, but spend a
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 2: few short minutes with me. Dost remember how in an
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: right like this we climbed Yon hills to vagrant urchins,
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: and with tremulous joy, skimmed through those statue bordered walks
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 2: that gleamed in bright succession. Let us tread them now
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: and think we are but older by a day, and
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: that the pleasant walk of yesternight we are tonight retracing. Come,
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 2: my friend, what grouping? Yet thou wert not wont to
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: seem so stubborn cheerly, my focian, come excellent right.
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: End of Act four, Act five, ion by Thomas Noon Talford.
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot RG. Act five, Scene one, the terrace
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: of the Palace, time the morning of the second day.
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: Two soldiers on guard.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 11: A stirring seasoned comrade, Our new Prince has leapt as
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 11: eagerly into his seat as he had languished, an expectant air,
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 11: weary of nature's kindness to old age, he was esteemed
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 11: a modest tripling. Strange that he should, with such reckless
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 11: hurry seize the gaudy shows of power.
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 12: Tis Zanna's nature. The royal instinct was but smoldering in him,
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 12: and now it blazes for it. I pray the gods
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 12: he may not give as cause to mourn his sire
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 12: no more he comes, enter Ion, siner.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: Why do you loader here? Are all the statues decked
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: with festal rees? As I commanded?
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 11: We have been on guard here by Ajennov's order since
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 11: the nightfall on.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: God will hasten now and see it done. I need
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: no guards, excellent souldiers. The awful hour draws near. I
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: am composed to meet it. Focion comes, he will unman me.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 2: Yet he must not go, thinking his presence painful interfusion.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 2: Left friend, good morrow, thou playest the courtier.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 8: Early, canst thou speak in that old tone of common
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 8: cheerfulness that blithely promises delightful years, And hold thy mournful purpose.
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 2: I have drawn from the selectest fountain of repose a
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 2: blessed calm. When I lay down to rest, I feared
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 2: lest bright remembrances of childhood should with untimely visitation mark me.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 2: But deep and dreamless have my slumbers been. If sight
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: of THEE renews the thoughts of life too busily, I
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 2: prize the love that wakes them.
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 8: Oh, I cherish them, and let them plead with THEE
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 8: to grant my prayer that thou wouldst live for Argos,
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 8: not die for her. Thy gracious life shall win more
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 8: than thy death, the favor of the gods and charm
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 8: the marble aspect of grim fate into a blessed change. I,
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 8: who am vowed, and who so late was armed Fate's minister,
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 8: implore THEE.
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 2: Speak to me no more of life. There is a
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: dearer name I would recall. Thou understandest me inter eginor left.
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 7: Thou hast forgotten to a name, who shall be bidden it?
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 7: This evening's feast.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: The feast most true. I had forgotten it. Bid whom
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: thou wilt. But let there be a large store. If
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 2: our sad walls contain it for the wretched whom hunger palsies,
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 2: it may be few else will taste it. With a
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: relish exit.
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: Eginor left Ion resumes his address to Fussion and continues it,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: broken by the interruptions which follow.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: I would speak a word of her, who, yester morn
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 2: rose to her light duties with as blithe a heart
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: as ever, yet its equal beating veil'd in moveless alabaster,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 2: plighted now in liberal hour to one whose destiny shall
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: freeze the sources of enjoyment in it and make it
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: heavy with a life long pang. A widowed spirit bears.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 16: Enter cleon left the herald's wait to learn the hour
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 16: which the solemn game shall.
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: Be proclaimed the games. Yes, I remember that sorrow's darkest
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: pageantries give place to youth's robustus pastimes, death and life embracing.
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 16: At the hour of noon, the wrestlers pray thee crowned
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 16: the victor.
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: If I live their wish shall govern me exit cleft.
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 2: Could I recall one hour and bid thy sister think
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 2: of me with gentle sorrow as a playmate lost, I
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 2: should escape the guilt of having stopped the pulse of
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 2: hope in the most innocent soul that ever passion ruffled.
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: Do not talk of me as I shall seem to
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: thy kind thoughts, but harsh as thou canst and if
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 2: thou steal from thy rich store of popular eloquence, some
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: bitter charge against the faith of kings. Twill be an
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: honest treason.
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 6: Entered, Cassander, Right, Pardon me if I entreat THEE to
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 6: permit a few of thy once cherished friends to bid
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 6: THEE joy of that which swells their pride.
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 2: They'll madden me. Dost thou not see me circled round
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: with care, urge me no more.
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: As Cassandra is going, I leave Socion and comes to him.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: Come back, Cassander, see how greatness frets the temper. Keep
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: this ring. It may remind THEE of the pleasant hours
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: that we spent together. Ere our fortunes grew separate, and
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: with thy gracious speech, excuse me to our friend.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: Exit, Cassander.
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 8: Right, tis time we seek the temple.
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: Focion. Must I to the temple?
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 8: Their sacrificial rights must be performed before thou art enthroned.
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 2: Then must I gaze on things which will arouse the
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 2: struggling thoughts I had subdued. Perchance may meet with her
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 2: whose name I dare not utter.
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: I am ready excellent. At left Scene two, the temple,
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: Clementi and Ober discovered.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 15: Be comforted. Dear lady, she must come to sacrifice.
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 14: Recall that churlish word, that stubborn must that bounds my
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 14: living hopes as with an iron circle. He must come,
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 14: how piteous its affections state that leaves to such a
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 14: wretched prop I had flown to him long before this,
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 14: but that I feared my presence might prove a burthen.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 14: And he sends no word, no token that he thinks
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 14: of me. Art sure that he must come. The hope
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 14: has torture in it. Yet it is all my bankrupt
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 14: heart hath left to feed upon.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 15: I see him now with phocian pass through the inner court.
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 14: He will not come this way then, to the place
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 14: for sacrifice. I can endure no more. Speak to him
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 14: aber and bid him if he holds Clemanthe's life worthy
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 14: a minute's loss to seek me here, dear lady, do
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 14: not answer me, but run, or I shall give yon
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 14: crowd of sickophants to gaze upon my sorrow.
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: Exit.
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 14: It is hard, yet I must strive to bear it
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 14: and find solace in that high fortune which has made
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 14: him strange. He bends this way, but slowly mournfully. Oh
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 14: he is ill? How has my slander wronged him?
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: Enter ion left?
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 2: What what'st thou with me, lady.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 14: Is it so nothing, my lord, save to implore thy
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 14: pardon that the departing gleams of a bright dream from
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 14: which I scarce had wakened, made me bold to crave
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 14: a word with THEE. But all are fled, and I
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 14: have naught to seek.
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: A goodly dream. But thou art right to think it
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: no more, and study to forget.
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 14: It, to forget it. Indeed, my Lord, I cannot wish
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 14: to lose what, being past his all, my future hath
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 14: all I shall live.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 3: For.
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 14: Do not grudge me this, the brief space I shall
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 14: need it.
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 2: Speak not fair one in a tone so mournful, for
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 2: it makes me feel too sensibly the hapless wretch I am,
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 2: that troubled the deep quiet of thy soul in that
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 2: pure fountain which reflected heaven for a brief taste a rapture.
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 14: Dost thou yet esteem it rapture? Then, my foolish heart
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 14: be still? Yet, wherefore should a crown divide us? Oh,
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 14: my dear ion, let me call THEE so this once
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 14: at least he could not, in my thoughts, increase the
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 14: distant that there was between us, When rich in spirit
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 14: thou to stranger's eyes seemed a poor foundling.
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 2: It must separate us. Think it no harmless bauble, But
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 2: a curse will freeze the current in the veins of youth,
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 2: and from familiar touch of genial hand, from household of pleasures,
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 2: from sweet daily task, from airy thought, free wanderer of
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 2: the heavens. Forever banish me.
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 14: Thou dost accuse thy state too hardly. It may give
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 14: some room, some little space amid its radiant folds, for
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 14: love to make its nest in.
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 2: Not for me. My pomp must be most lonesome, far
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 2: removed from that sweet fellowship of human kind. The slave
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 2: rejoices in my solemn robes shall wrap me as a
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 2: panoply of ice, and the attendants who may throng around
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 2: me shall want the flatteries which may basely warm the
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: sceptral thing. They circle dark and coal stretches the path which,
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 2: when I wear the crown I needs, must enter. The
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: great gods forbid that thou shouldst follow in it.
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 14: O unkind, and shall we never see each.
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: Other ion after a pause, Yes, I.
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 2: Have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal,
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 2: of the flowing streams that lucid flow, for ever of
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 2: the stars amid whose feels of azure. My raised spirit
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 2: hath trodden glory all wor dumb. But now while I
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 2: gaze upon thy living face, I feel the love that
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 2: kindles through its beauty, can never wholly perish. We shall
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 2: meet again, Clemante.
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 14: Bless THEE for that name. Call me that name again.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 14: Thy words sound strangely, yet they breathe kindness. Shall we meet? Indeed,
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 14: think not I would intrude upon thy cares, thy counsels,
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 14: or thy pomps. To sit at distance, to weave with
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 14: the nice labor which preserves the rebel pulses. Even from
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 14: gay threads. Faint records of thy deeds, and sometimes catch
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 14: the falling music of a gracious word, or the stray
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 14: sunshine of a smile will be comfort enough. Do not
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 14: deny me this, or if stern fate canpel THEE to deny,
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 14: kill me at once.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 2: No, thou must live, my fair one. There are thousand
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: joyous things in life which shall pass unheeded. In a
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 2: life of joy, as thine hath been till breezy sorrow
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 2: comes to ruffle it, and daily duties, pay aid hardly
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 2: at first, at length shall bring repose to the sad
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 2: mind that studies to perform them. Thou dost not mark me?
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 14: Oh I do I do?
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 2: If for thy brothers and thy father's sake, thou art
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 2: content to live? The healer time will reconcile THEE to
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: the lovelier things of this delightful world. And if another
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 2: a happier, No, I cannot bid THEE love another. I
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 2: did think I could say it, But tis in vain.
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 14: Thou art my own? Then still I am thy own.
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 2: Thus let me clasp thee nearer. Oh, joy too thrilling
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 2: and too short.
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 7: Inter agin All right, my lord, the sacrificial rites await
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 7: their presents.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 2: I come one more embrace the last, the last in
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 2: this world. Now farewell.
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: Ex soon as you nore an.
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 14: Ion the last embrace. Then he has cast me off. No,
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 14: tis not so. Some mournful secret of his fate divides us.
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 14: I'll struggle to bear that and snatch a comfort from
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 14: seeing him uplifted. I will look upon him on his throne.
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 14: Minerv's shrine will shelter me from vulgar gaze. I'll hasten
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 14: and feast my sad eyes with his greatness.
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: There exit right Scene three. The great square of the
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: city on the left, A throne of state prepared on
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: the right, and altar the statues decorated with garlands inter
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: testiphon A Cassander right, upper entrance.
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 5: Vex me no more by telling me Cassander of his
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 5: fair speech. I prize it at its worth. Thou'lt see
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 5: how he will act whence heated first upon the throne,
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 5: the craven tyrant filled whose blood he boast, unless some
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 5: honest arm should shed it first.
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 6: Hast thou forgot the time when thou thyself wert eager
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 6: to foretell his manhood's glory from his childish virtues. Let
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 6: me not think thee one of those fond prophets who
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 6: are well pleased still to foretell success, so it remains
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 6: their dream.
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 5: Thou dost forget what hast cholled fancy and delight within me.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: Music at a distance, hark, sir.
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 5: While trumpet speak his coming. Watch how power will change him.
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: They stand aside the procession enter upper entrants right medan
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: agenore fuscion Timcley's play on sages and people. I am
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: last in royal robes, he advances amidst shouts.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 2: I thank you for your greeting, shout no more, but
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 2: in deep silence, raise your hearts to Heaven, that it
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 2: may strengthen one so young and frail as I am.
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 2: For the business of this hour, must I sit here?
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 4: Permit thy earliest friend, who has so often propped thy
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 4: tottering steps, to lead THEE to thy throne, and thus
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 4: fulfill his fondest vision. Thou art most kind, Nay, do
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 4: not think of me, my son, my son? What ails thee?
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 4: When thou shouldst reflect the joy of Argos. The strange
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 4: paleness of the grave marbles thy face.
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 2: Am I indeed so pale? It is a solemn office
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 2: I assume, and yet thus with Phoebus's blessing I embrace it.
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: Sits on the throne.
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 2: Stand forth.
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 7: I await thou will to thee.
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 2: I look as to the wisest friend of this afflicted people.
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 2: Thou must leave a while the quiet which thy life
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 2: hath earn'd to rule our counsels, fill the seats of
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 2: justice with good men not so absolute in goodness as
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 2: to forget what human frailty is, and order my sad country.
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 2: Pardon me, nay, I will promise tis my last request.
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 2: Thou never couldst deny me what I sought in my
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 2: boyish wantonness, and shall not grudge thy wisdom to me
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 2: till our state revive from its long anguish, And it
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 2: will not be long if Heaven approve me here. Thou
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 2: hast all power, whether I live.
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 7: Or die die haimold death is.
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 2: Not jealous of thy mild decay, which gently wins thee.
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 2: His exulting youth provokes the ghastly monarch's sudden stride and
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 2: makes his horrid fingers quick to clasp his shivering prey.
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 2: At noontide, let me see the captain of the God.
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 10: I kneel to crave humbly the favor which thy sire
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 10: bestowed on one who loved him well.
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 2: I cannot thank THEE that waketh the memory of my
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 2: father's weakness. But I will not forget that thou hast
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 2: shared the light enjoyments of a noble spirit, and learn
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 2: the need of luxury. I grant for THEE and thy
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 2: brave comrades ample share of such rich treasures as my
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 2: stores contain, to grace thy passage to some distant land,
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: where if an honest cause engage thy sword may glorious
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 2: laurels wreathe it in our realm, we shall not need
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 2: it longer.
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 10: Dost intend to banish the firm troops before or whose
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 10: valor barbarian millions shrink appalled, and leave our city naked
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 10: to the first assault of reckless foes, no crifes.
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 2: And our selves and our own honest hearts and shameless
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 2: hands will be our safeguard. While we seek no use
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 2: of arms. We would not have our children blend with
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 2: their first innocent wishes, While the love of argos and
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 2: of justice shall be one to their young reason, while
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 2: their sinews grow firm midst the gladness of heroic sports.
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 2: We shall not ask to guard our country's peace one
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 2: selfish passion or one venal sword. I would not grieve
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 2: thee but thy valiant troop, for I esteem them valiant.
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 2: Must no more with luxury, which suits a desperate camp
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 2: infect us see that they embark agonore ere a knight,
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 2: my lord. No more my word hath passed Maton. There
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 2: is no office I can add to those thou hast
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 2: grown old. In Thou wilt God the shrine of fevers,
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: and within thy home, thy too delightful home. Befriend the
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 2: stranger as thou didst me there, sometimes waste the thought
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 2: on thy spurl'd inmte.
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 4: Think of thee, my lord, Long shall we triumph in
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 4: thy glorious reign.
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 2: Prithee no more Ah gives I have a boon to
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 2: crave of you, whene'er I shall join in death the
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 2: father from whose heart in life stern fate divided me.
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 2: Think gently of him, For ye who saw him in
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 2: his full blown pride knew little of affections crush'd within,
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 2: and wrongs which frenzied him. Yet never more, let the
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 2: great interest of states depend upon the thousand chances that
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 2: may sway a piece of human frailty. Swear to me
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 2: that you will seek hereafter in yourselves the means of
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 2: sovereign rule. Our narrow space, so happy in its confines,
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 2: so compact, needs not the magic of a single name,
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 2: which wider regions may require to draw their interest into one,
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 2: but circled thus like a blessed family, by simple laws,
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 2: may tenderly be governed, all decrees molded together as a
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 2: single form of nymph like loveliness, which finest chords of
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 2: sympathy pervading shall suffuse in times of quiet with one
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 2: bloom and fill with one resistless impulse. If the host
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 2: of foreign powers good threaten, swear to me that YE
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 2: will do this.
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 4: Wherefore ask this now, thou shalt live long. The paleness
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 4: of thy face, which later palled me, is grown radiant now,
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 4: and thine eyes kindle with the prophecy of lustrous years.
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 2: The gods approve me, then, Yet will I use the
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 2: function of a king and claim obedience? Promise if I
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 2: leave no issue, that sovereign power will live in the
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 2: affections of a general heart, and in the wisdom of.
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: The best meaning another's kneeling we.
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 2: Hear and record the oath immortal powers. Now give me
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 2: leave a moment to approach that altar unattended.
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: He goes to the altar.
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 2: Gracious gods in whose mile service my glad youth was spent.
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 2: Look upon me now, And if there is a power,
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 2: as at this solemn time I feel there is beyond
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 2: ye that hath breathed through all your shapes the spirit
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 2: of the beautiful that lives in earth and heaven, to ye,
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 2: I offer up this conscious being, full of life and
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 2: love for my dear country's welfare. Let this blow end
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 2: all her.
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: Sorrows, stabs himself and falls. Tasiphon rushes to support him.
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 2: Tassophon, Thou art avenged, and wilt forgive me?
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 5: Thou hast plucked the poor disguise of hatred from my
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 5: soul and made me feel how shallow is the wish
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 5: of vengeance? Could I die to say thee?
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: Clemente rushes forward.
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 14: Hold, let me support him? Stand away? Indeed I have
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 14: the best right, although ye know it not to cling
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 14: to him and death.
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 20: This it's a joy I did not hope, for this
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 20: is sweet. Indeed, been thy eyes on me?
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 14: And for this it was? Thou wouldst have weaned me
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 14: from thee? Couldst thou think I would be so divorced?
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 2: Thou art right, Clemente, It was a shallow and an
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 2: idle thought. Tis past. No show of coldness frets us now,
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 2: no vain disguise my love. Yet thou wilt think on
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 2: that which when I feigned, I truly said, wilt thou not? Sweet? One?
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 8: Treasure?
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: All inter ears left?
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 13: I bring you glorious tidings. No joy can enter here?
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, is it as I hope?
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 13: The pestilence abates.
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: Ion springs on his feet?
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 2: Do ye not hear, why shalt ye not you are strong?
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 2: Think not of me? Hearken the curse of my ancestry
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 2: had spread, or Argos is dispelled. Agonar, give this gentle
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 2: youth his freedom, who with broad sweet tidings that I
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 2: shall not die in vain and maidon cherish him as
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 2: thou hast one who dying blesses thee my own clemente.
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 2: Let this console thee autho Argos lives, The offering is accepted.
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: All is well dies, the curtain falls. End of Act five.
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: End of Ion by Thomas Noon Telford