thers! Where are you? All dead?
Enemies everywhere! Through here, Philotas! Ha! That is for you, rash
fellow!--And that for you!--And that for you! (_striking around him_.)

STRATO.

Prince! what ails you? Calm yourself (_approaches him_.)

PHILOTAS (_stepping away from him_).

You too, Strato? You too? O, foe, be generous! Kill me! Do not make me
captive! No, I do not deliver myself up! Were you all, who surround me,
Stratos, yet I will defend myself against you all--against a world will
I defend myself! Do your best, my foes! But you will not? You will not
kill me, cruel men? You only wish to have me alive? I laugh at you! To
take me prisoner alive? Me? Sooner shall this sword--this sword--shall
pierce this breast--sooner--before--(_he stabs himself_.)

ARIDAeUS.

God! Strato!

STRATO.

King!

PHILOTAS.

I wished it thus! (_sinking back_.)

ARIDAeUS.

Hold him, Strato! Help! help for the prince! Prince, what raving
anguish----

PHILOTAS.

Forgive me, king! I have dealt you a more deadly blow than myself! I
die, and soon will peaceful lands enjoy the fruit of my death. Your
son, king, is a prisoner, and the son of my father is free!

ARIDAeUS.

What do I hear?

STRATO.

Then it was your purpose, prince? But as our prisoner, you had no right
over yourself!

PHILOTAS.

Do not say that, Strato! Should a man be able to fetter another's
liberty to die, the liberty which the gods have left in all
vicissitudes of life?

STRATO.

O king! Terror has paralyzed him! King!

ARIDAeUS.

Who calls me?

STRATO.

King!

ARIDAeUS.

Be silent!

STRATO.

The war is over, king!

ARIDAeUS.

Over? You lie, Strato! The war is not over, prince! Die! yes, die! But
carry with you this tormenting thought! You believed, as a true
ignorant boy, that fathers were all of one and the same mould,--all of
the soft, effeminate nature of your father. They are not all like him!
I am not so! What do I care about my son? And do