ls
The occasion, if our chief confederate fails?
My mother stands aloof, and blames our deed.

_Laias_

My royal sister?... but, without some cause,
I know, she honours not the dead so ill.

_Merope_

Brother, it seems thy sister must present,
At this first meeting after absence long,
Not welcome, exculpation to her kin;
Yet exculpation needs it, if I seek,
A woman and a mother, to avert
Risk from my new-restored, my only son?--
Sometimes, when he was gone, I wish'd him back,
Risk what he might; now that I have him here,
Now that I feed mine eyes on that young face,
Hear that fresh voice, and clasp that gold-lock'd head,
I shudder, Laias, to commit my child
To murder's dread arena, where I saw
His father and his ill-starr'd brethren fall!
I loathe for him the slippery way of blood;
I ask if bloodless means may gain his end.
In me the fever of revengeful hate,
Passion's first furious longing to imbrue
Our own right hand in the detested blood
Of enemies, and count their dying groans--
If in this feeble bosom such a fire
Did ever burn--is long by time allay'd,
And I would now have Justice strike, not me.
Besides--for from my brother and my son
I hide not even this--the reverence deep,
Remorseful, tow'rd my hostile solitude,
By Polyphontes never fail'd-in once
Through twenty years; his mournful anxious zeal
To efface in me the memory of his crime--
Though it efface not that, yet makes me wish
His death a public, not a personal act,
Treacherously plotted 'twixt my son and me;
To whom this day he came to proffer peace,
Treaty, and to this kingdom for my son
Heirship, with fair intent, as I believe.--
For that he plots thy death, account it false;

[_to_ AEPYTUS.

Number it with the thousand rumours vain,
Figments of plots, wherewith intriguers fill
The enforced leisure of an exile's ear.
Immersed in serious state-craft is the King,
Bent above all to pacify, to rule,
Rigidly, yet in settled calm, this realm;
Not prone, all say, averse to bloodshed now.--
So much is due to truth, even tow'rds our foe.

[_to_ LAIAS.

Do I, then, give to usurpation grace,
And from his natural rights my son debar?
Not so! let him--and none shall be more prompt
Than I to help-