tiny become a little earlier propitious and
honored my devotion by marriage with you, I should have adored only
the splendor of your eyes; of them I should have made my kings; of
them I should have made my gods; sooner would I have been reduced
to dust, sooner would I have been reduced to ashes, than--

But here Paulina interrupts, and Severus is not permitted to finish his
protestation. Her reply is esteemed, and justly esteemed, one of the
noblest things in French tragedy--a French critic would be likely to
say, the very noblest in tragedy. She says:--

Let us break off there; I fear listening too long; I fear lest this
warmth, which feels your first fires, force on some sequel unworthy
of us both. [Voltaire, who edited Corneille with a feeling of
freedom toward a national idol comparable to the sturdy
independence that animated Johnson in annotating Shakspeare, says
of "This warmth which feels your first fires and which forces on a
sequel": "That is badly written, agreed; but the sentiment gets the
better of the expression, and what follows is of a beauty of which
there had been no example. The Greeks were frigid declaimers in
comparison with this passage of Corneille."] Severus, learn to know
Paulina all in all.

My Polyeuctes touches on his last hour; he has but a moment to
live; you are the cause of this, though innocently so. I know not
if your heart, yielding to your desires, may have dared build any
hope on his destruction; but know that there is no death so cruel
that to it with firm brow I would not bend my steps, that there are
in hell no horrors that I would not endure, rather than soil a
glory so pure, rather than espouse, after his sad fate, a man that
was in any wise the cause of his death; and if you suppose me of a
heart so little sound, the love which I had for you would all turn
to hate. You are generous; be so even to the end. My father is in a
state to yield every thing to you; he fears you; and I further
hazard this saying, that, if he destroys my husband, it is to you
that he sacrifices him. Save this unhappy man, use your influence
in his favor, exert yourself to become his support. I know that
this is much that I ask; but the greater the effort, the greater
the glory from it. To preserve a rival of whom you are jealous,
that is a trai