ear till later.

A solemn sacrifice to the gods is to be celebrated in honor of imperial
victories lately won. Felix sends to summon Polyeuctes, his son-in-law.
To Felix's horror, Polyeuctes, with his friend Nearchus, coming to the
temple, proceeds in a frenzy of enthusiasm to break and dishonor the
images of the gods, proclaiming himself a Christian. In obedience to the
imperial decree, Nearchus is hurried to execution, in the sight of his
friend, while Polyeuctes is thrown into prison to repent and recant.

'Now is my chance,' muses Felix. 'I dare not disobey the emperor, to
spare Polyeuctes. Besides, with Polyeuctes once out of the way, Severus
and Paulina may be husband and wife.'

Polyeuctes in prison hears that his Paulina is coming to see him. With
a kind of altruistic nobleness which seems contagious in this play,
Polyeuctes resolves that Severus shall come too, and he will resign his
wife, soon to be a widow, to the care of his own rival, her Roman lover.
First, Polyeuctes and Paulina are alone together--Polyeuctes having,
before she arrived, fortified his soul for the conflict with her tears,
by singing in his solitude a song of high resolve and of anticipative
triumph over his temptation.

The scene between Paulina, exerting all her power to detach Polyeuctes
from what she believes to be his folly, and Polyeuctes, on the other
hand, rapt to the pitch of martyrdom, exerting all his power to resist
his wife, and even to convert her--this scene, we say, is full of noble
height and pathos, as pathos and height were possible in the verse which
Corneille had to write. Neither struggler in this tragic strife moves
the other. Paulina is withdrawing when Severus enters. She addresses her
lover severely, but Polyeuctes intervenes to defend him. In a short
scene, Polyeuctes, by a sort of last will and testament, bequeaths his
wife to his rival, and retires with his guard. Now, Severus and Paulina
are alone together. If there was a trace of the false heroic in
Polyeuctes's resignation of his wife to Severus, the effect of that is
finely counteracted by the scene which immediately follows between
Paulina and Severus. Severus begins doubtfully, staggering, as it were,
to firm posture, while he speaks to Paulina. He expresses amazement at
the conduct of Polyeuctes. Christians certainly deport themselves
strangely, he says. He at length finds himself using the following
lover-like language:--

As for me, had my des