Previous - next
deprived of the hope which he cherished of marrying Cassandra himself, if
Hormisdas should not forestall him. But like a wise man he concealed his
chagrin, and cast about how he might frustrate the arrangement: to which
end he saw no other possible means but to carry Cassandra off. It did not
escape him that the office which he held would render this easily
feasible, but he deemed it all the more dishonourable than if he had not
held the office; but, in short, after much pondering, honour yielded
place to love, and he made up his mind that, come what might, he would
carry Cassandra off. Then, as he took thought what company he should take
with him, and how he should go about the affair, he remembered Cimon,
whom he had in prison with his men, and it occurred to him that he could
not possibly have a better or more trusty associate in such an enterprise
than Cimon. Wherefore the same night he caused Cimon to be brought
privily to him in his own room, and thus addressed him:--"Cimon, as the
gods are most generous and liberal to bestow their gifts on men, so are
they also most sagacious to try their virtue; and those whom they find to
be firm and steadfast in all circumstances they honour, as the most
worthy, with the highest rewards. They have been minded to be certified
of thy worth by better proofs than thou couldst afford them, as long as
thy life was bounded by thy father's house amid the superabundant wealth
which I know him to possess: wherefore in the first place they so wrought
upon thee with the shrewd incitements of Love that from an insensate
brute, as I have heard, thou grewest to be a man; since when, it has been
and is their intent to try whether evil fortune and harsh imprisonment
may avail to change thee from the temper that was thine when for a short
while thou hadst joyance of the prize thou hadst won. And so thou prove
the same that thou wast then, they have in store for thee a boon
incomparably greater than aught that they vouchsafed thee before: what
that boon is, to the end thou mayst recover heart and thy wonted
energies, I will now explain to thee. Pasimondas, exultant in thy
misfortune and eager to compass thy death, hastens to the best of his
power his nuptials with thy Iphigenia; that so he may enjoy the prize
that Fortune, erstwhile smiling, gave thee, and forthwith, frowning, reft
from thee. Whereat how sore must be thy grief, if rightly I gauge thy
love, I know by my own case, seeing that his brother Hormisdas addresses
himself to do me on the same day a like wrong in regard of Cassandra,
whom I love more than aught else in the world. Nor see I that Fortune has
left us any way of escape from this her unjust and cruel spite, save what
we may make for ourselves by a resolved spirit and the might of our right
hands: take we then the sword, and therewith make we, each, prize of his
lady, thou for the second, I for the first time: for so thou value the
recovery, I say not of thy liberty, for without thy lady I doubt thou
Previous - next
