No More Learning

Do not attempt this fateful trial;
Spare my courage an unequal battle:
There is no honour for me in victory:
The lack of risk will deny me glory.
Men will know I conquered easily;
And only my regret would be left me.

Rodrigue
Your boldness is followed by ignoble pity:
You'll steal my honour yet fear to kill me!

Count
Withdraw from here.

Rodrigue
Come then, without speaking.

Count
So tired of life?

Rodrigue
So afraid of dying?

Count
Well, do your duty, the son proves lesser
Who seeks to outlast his father's honour.


Act II Scene III (The Infanta, Chimene, Leonor)

Infanta
Be calm, Chimene, calm your mind's disturbance,
Be steadfast in the face of this mischance,
You'll find fresh peace after this brief storm,
Over your joy light cloud has merely formed,
You will lose naught if joy must be deferred.

Chimene
My troubled mind dares hope for nothing there.
So swift a tempest stirring a calm sea
Threatens to bring on sure catastrophe:
I doubt it not, I perish in the harbour.
I loved, was loved, agreed were both our fathers;
I was telling you the delightful news
At the sad moment when they quarrelled too,
Which fatal telling, as soon as it was done,
Ruined all hope of its consummation.
Cursed ambition, detestable obsession
Whose tyranny sways the noblest of men!
Honour inimical to my dear prize,
You'll cost me yet a world of tears and sighs!

Infanta
In their quarrel you've naught to brood upon:
Born in a moment: in a moment gone.
It has caused too much stir to be allowed,
And already the King its end has vowed;
You know my soul, sensitive to your pain,
Will work to quench it at its source again.

Chimene
Vows and accommodations will do nothing:
Such mortal insults are unforgiving.
Force and prudence are invoked in vain;
The illness that seems cured appears again.
The hatred upon which the heart's intent,
Nourishes fires, hidden, yet more ardent.

Infanta
The sacred bond twixt Rodrigue and Chimene
Will quench the hatred between warring flames;
And we shall swiftly see your love the stronger:
Through a happy marriage, stifling all anger.

Chimene
I hope for it more than I expect it now;
Don Diegue is, like my father, too proud.
The tears I would retain, I feel them flow;
The past torments me, I fear the future so.

Infanta
Fear what? The failing powers of an old man?

Chimene
Rodrigue is brave.

Infanta
He is simply young.

Chimene
Such men are valorous in their first outing.

Infanta
In this, you have no need to fear a thing.
He is too much in love to court displeasure;
Two words from you will arrest his anger.

Chimene
If he disobeys, the increase to my pain!
And if he obeys, then what will others say?