IRENE By VOLTAIRE

Translated and adapted by Frank J. Morlock C 2003

Etext by Dagny
  • ACT I
  • ACT II
  • ACT III
  • ACT IV
  • ACT V
  • Etext by Dagny
    
    This Etext is for private use only. No republication for profit in 
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    http://www.cadytech.com/dumas/personnage.asp?key=130
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    CHARACTERS:

    NICEPHORUS, Emperor of Constantinople

    IRENE, wife of Nicephorus

    ALEXIS COMNENUS, Prince of Greece

    LEONCE, father of Irene

    MEMNON, attache to Prince Alexis

    ZOE, favorite, follower of Irene

    AN OFFICER

    GUARDS

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    The Action takes place in a room of the old Palace of Constantine.

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    ACT I

    IRENE: What new change, what somber terror
         Has separated us from the court and the emperor?
         At the palace of seven towers a strange guard
         In a dismal silence astonishes my sight here.
         They've changed the court into a vast desert.

    ZOE: In the walls of Constantine, too often a fine day
         Is followed by horrors of most funereal storm.
         The court is no longer the noisy assembly
         Of all our idle pleasures chained to one another.
         Deceivers soothe unfortunate hearts.
         You must retire from the importunate crowd.
         Our Senators are assembled to reform the empire,
         To ruin it, perhaps, and these fierce Muslims,
         These vagabond Scythes, overrunning our fields,
         Thousands of hidden enemies that we must yet fear,
         Without doubt, at this moment are occupying Nicephorus.

    IRENE: Of his secret pains which he tries to dissemble,
         I know the cause too well; it's going to overwhelm me.
         I know with what suspicions his harsh jealousy
         In his uneasiness outrages his spouse.
         He hears in secret these detestable flatterers
         Of a suspicious mind, detestable impostors,
         Trafficking in lies and calumny
         And covering virtue with their ignominy.
         What a job for Caesar! and what sorrowful duties!
         I pity him, I moan—it makes it twice as bad!
         Ah! why didn't I embrace that austere retreat
         Where, after my marriage, my father shut himself up!
         He fled the illusion of courts forever.
         Hope which seduces us, which always deceives us,
         Fear which freezes us, and cruel pain,
         Which makes an eternal war on itself.
         Why didn't I trample under foot my funereal grandeur!
         I mounted the throne in misfortune,
         I am weeping before you my high destiny.
         And I am weeping especially for this fatal memory
         That my duty condemns, and makes me banish.
         Here, the air you breath poisons my life.

    ZOE: At least Nicephorus' somber jealousy
         Hasn't manifested itself by indiscreet outbursts.
         The shameful sentiment which torments him,
         He hides from the vulgar, from his court, from himself.
         He knows how to respect you, and perhaps he loves you.
         You are seeking to nourish an unjust sorrow.
         What are you afraid of?

    IRENE: Heaven, Alexis, and my heart.

    ZOE: But Alexis Comnenus in the fields of the Taurida
         Given entirely to glory and to duty which guides him,
         Is serving the Emperor and you without disturbing you,
         Faithful to his oaths to the point of avoiding you.

    IRENE: I know that this hero is seeking only glory.
         I don't know how to pity myself for it.

    ZOE: He has through victory
         Reaffirmed this long tottering empire.

    IRENE: Ah! I've admired his dazzling exploits too much.
         His distant glory has interested me too much.
         Caesar will have surprised in the depth of my thought
         Some indiscreet vows that I've been unable to hide,
         And that a spouse, a master, may rightfully reproach.
         Heaven created me for Alexis;
         From ancient Caesars we received life
         And from our cradle, betrothed to each other,
         It's in these same places we were united.
         It's with Alexis I was raised.
         The interest of state, this pretext invented
         To betray his promise with impunity;
         This terrifying phantom subjected my family;
         My father sacrificed his daughter to his pride.
         The crown of the Caesars was thought to hide my tears;
         They decorated my pain in dazzling grandeur.
         I had to extinguish, in my deep sorrow,
         A passion more dear to me than the empire of the world.
         I needed to tear myself away from the master of my heart.
         Weeping, I dared to detach myself even from myself,
         With the invincible power of religion,
         Aiding my weakness in this guilty combat,
         And learning to arm myself with this great aid,
         I took the frightful oath of never loving.
         I'll keep it. That word must make you grasp well enough
         What rendings this heart must await.
         My father, having been capable of exposing me to this storm,
         Would have me learn to appease it by his virtues.
         He left the court, he fled Nicephorus,
         He abandons me to the prey of a world he abhors.
         And I have only you alone to whom I can open
         This weak and wounded heart that nothing can cure.
         But they are opening the palace—I see Memnon appear.

    (Enter Memnon.)

    IRENE: Well, can I see your master in freedom?
         Memnon, can I, in my turn, be admitted today
         Amongst the courtiers who approach him?

    MEMNON: Madame, I will admit that he wants, in your sight,
         To hide the pains of his beaten soul.
         I am not counted among the courtiers
         Superbly confident of his secret plans:
         Caesar shuts me from the entrance to his councils,
         Commandant of his guard at the sacred gate,
         A soldier forgotten by his old masters,
         Relegated to my post like my warriors,
         Only now I learned that the brave Comnenus
         Long ago left the shores of Borystena,
         That he's travelling towards Byzantium and the worried Caesar
         Listens all atremble to his assembled council.

    IRENE: Alexis, you say?

    MEMNON He's scouring the Bosphorous.

    IRENE: He could offend Nicephorus to this degree!
         To return without his order!

    MEMNON: They are sure of it, and the court
         Is alarmed, divided, and trembles at his return.
         They say, he's broken the honorable slavery
         In which the jealous Emperor retained his courage.
         He's coming here to enjoy his honors and his rights.
         That's all I could learn from these sudden rumors
         Which are creating so many idle hopes in these parts,
         And which, from mouth to mouth, are arming factions,
         To prepare Byzantium for revolutions.
         As for me, I know enough what role I must take,
         What master I must follow, and who I must defend.
         I am not consulting our ministers, our grandees,
         Their hidden interests, their different factions,
         Their false friendships, their indiscreet hates.
         Attached without reserve to the pure blood of the Comnenus,
         I am serving him, and especially in extremities,
         Memnon will be faithful to the blood from which you come.
         Time doesn't permit me to say more of it.
         Allow me to fly back to where my duty engages me.

    (Memnon leaves.)

    IRENE: What has he dared to tell me?
         And what new danger is coming to afflict me again?
         He didn't explain: I'm afraid of understanding him.

    ZOE: Memnon is simply a warrior prompt for all undertakings.
         I know him: blood joins him to us sufficiently.
         Exhaling his scorn against our courtiers,
         He always detested their frivolous insolence,
         Their animosities which divide Byzantium,
         Their sad vanities that follow dishonor.
         But his high mind especially hates the emperor.
         Secretly, he's idolatrous of Alexis,
         And if he's to be believed, Byzantium is a stage
         Which will soon produce one of those reversals
         Whose bloody spectacle enflames the universe.
         You won't be astonished if his somber wrath
         Escapes itself in speaking to you and depicts his character.

    IRENE: But Alexis is coming back—Caesar is irritated.
         The surprised courtiers murmur, shocked.
         The Senators convened in uncertain Byzantium,
         Long weary of sovereign grandeur,
         Trouble the whole empire with their divisions.
         The whole populace is enflamed with the fire of factions.
         What can I hope from Memnon's speech?
         He commands a foreign guard at the palace.
         Is he in secret, the confident of Alexis?
         How I fear from Alexis' imprudent return,
         The designs of the Senate, the delirium of the populace
         And the burgeoning storm which threatens the empire!
         How I fear myself in my just sorrow!
         In secret I consult the trembling of my heart.
         Perhaps it's preparing me for a terrible future.
         In creating it, heaven made it very sensitive.
         If Alexis ever, in this funereal place,
         Betrays his oaths—What do I see? Just God!

    (Enter Alexis.)

    ALEXIS: Deign to suffer my sight, and banish your fears.
         I am not coming to trouble you with useless complaints,
         A heart to which mine must sacrifice itself,
         And to recall the times that we must forget.
         Fates ravished from me sovereign grandeur.
         It's done me further outrage; it deprived me of Irene.
         In the submissive Orient my services rendered
         Ought to have earned the treasures I lost;
         But when they placed Nicephorus on the throne
         Glory no longer spoke in my favor.
         And having for support only our common ancestors,
         I did not attempt anything which could make me approach them.
         Today, Trebizond is delivered into our hands,
         The Scythians repressed, Taurida conquered,
         Are the rights which have finally recalled me towards you.
         The reward for my labors was to be exiled!
         Am I still by you? Don't you dare recognize
         In my blood the blood which gave you birth?

    IRENE: Prince, what are you saying? In what time, in what places,
         By this fatal return are you astonishing my eyes?
         You know quite well what yoke holds me captive.
         The eternal barrier raised between us,
         Our duties, our oaths, and especially this law
         Which doesn't permit you to show yourself to me.
         To calm the unjust suspicion of Caesar,
         It would have sufficed for you to avoid my presence.
         You haven't foreseen what you are risking.
         You are making me tremble; lord, you are ruining yourself.

    ALEXIS: If I feared for you I would be more culpable,
         My presence would be more suspicious.
         What then! Am I in Byzantium? Is it you that I see?
         Is this a jealous Sultan who holds you under his sway?
         Are you in Greece a slave from Asia
         That a despot, a barbarian purchased in Circassia,
         That they throw in prison with cruel monsters,
         Forever invisible to the rest of mortals?
         Has Caesar changed in his somber crudity
         The mind of the West and the morals of Greece?

    IRENE: From the day that Nicephorus received my faith,
         You know quite well, everything changed for me.

    ALEXIS: Except my heart: destiny created it for Irene.
         It braves the power and hate of Caesar.
         It fears nothing but you! What! your last subjects
         Would have free access to their empress!
         All mortals will enjoy the happiness of her sight!
         Has Nicephorus forbidden in it me alone?
         And am I a criminal to his jealous glance,
         Since they made him Caesar, and he is your husband?
         Puffed up with this august marriage
         Does the excess of his happiness render him more unjust?

    IRENE: He is my sovereign.

    ALEXIS: No, he wasn't born
         To despoil me of the treasure that was my destiny.
         He isn't worthy of it and the blood of Comnenus
         Wasn't transmitted to you to serve in his chains.
         Let him govern, if he can, with his strict hands
         This empire, formerly the Roman Empire,
         That to the fields of Thrace, to the seas of Trebizond
         Constantine transported to the misfortune of the world.
         And that I've defended, less for him than for you.
         Let him reign, if he must; I am not jealous to that degree.
         I am following him for you alone; and never will my courage
         Pardon him for your unworthy slavery.
         You are hiding misfortunes of which your tears are the guarantee;
         And usurpers are always tyrants.
         But if heaven is just, it will perhaps recall
         That it owes the empire a less barbarous master.

    IRENE: Too idle regrets! I am a slave to my faith.
         Lord, I've given it, it's no longer mine.

    ALEXIS: Ah! you owe it to me.

    IRENE: And it's up to you to believe
         That I'm no longer to keep the memory of it.
         I made those vows for you and you are overwhelming me.

    (Enter a guard.)

    GUARD: Lord, Caesar demands you.

    ALEXIS: He will see me; leave. (to Irene)
         He will see me, Madame, such an interview
         Must not worry your combative soul.
         Don't fear for him; don't fear for me.
         I know, at least, what I owe to his rank.
         Return to your hearth, calm and reassured.

    (Alexis leaves.)

    IRENE: With what a seizure my soul is penetrated!
         How I feel weakness and horror at the same time!
         Each word that he said to me filled me with terror.
         What's he intend? Go, Zoe, direct that every hour
         They secretly survey this sad dwelling,
         These seven frightful towers, that, since Constantine,
         Have seen the horrible fate of so many heroes.
         Question Memnon, take pity on my fear.

    ZOE: I will go; I will observe this terrible enclosure.
         But I am trembling for you; a suspicious master
         Will perhaps condemn you and proscribe the two of you.
         Among so many dangers what do you intend to do?

    IRENE: To keep my pure and simple word to my spouse,
         To vanquish a fatal love, if its reignited fire
         Is reborn in this previously enflamed heart.
         To remain sovereign mistress of my feelings
         If strength is possible to human weakness.
         Not to fight in vain my duty and my fate;
         And not to dishonor either my life or my death.

    CURTAIN

    ACT II

    MEMNON: Yes, you are summoned; but Caesar is deliberating.
         In his unease he consults, he delays,
         Shut up with vile flatterers.
         No question, the return of a hero has alarmed him.
         But we still have time to speak to each other.
         This room which leads to those of Nicephorus
         Also leads to Irene's and I command here.
         Of all your partisans have no fear.
         I have prepared them. If this iniquitous court
         Dares to raise its despotic sword on you,
         Count on your friends. You will see this pompous lot
         Of proud slaves flee before them.
         At the first motion our valiant escort
         Are going to seize gates from the ramparts of the seven towers.
         And the others, armed under clothes of peace,
         Unknown to Caesar, are filling this palace.
         Nicephorus fears you because he is offending you.
         He places his confidence in this funereal castle.
         There, in complete repose, with a word, with a blink of the eye,
         He condemns to exile, to torture, to death.
         He dares to count me among the mercenaries
         Of his capricious frightful bloody ministers.
         He's deceiving himself. Lord, what secret difficulty,
         When I've prepared everything, seems to stop your steps?

    ALEXIS: Remorse. My heart must confess to you
         Some fortunate exploits for which Europe is praising me,
         My birth, my rank, the favor of the Senate,
         All are shouting to me: Come, show yourself to the state.
         That voice excited me. Scorn urges me on.
         My fatal passion dragged my youth.
         I came to oppose glory to grandeur,
         To share brotherhood and brave the emperor.
         I arrive, and I foresee my new career.
         Must I raise the standard of a rebel?
         Shame is attached to this dangerous name.
         Will I see myself carried beyond where I want to go?

    MEMNON: Shame! it's for you to serve under a master.

    ALEXIS: I dare to be his rival; I fear the name of traitor.

    MEMNON: Be his enemy in the field of honor.
         Dispute the empire with him and be his conqueror.

    ALEXIS: Do you think that the Bosphorous, and proud Thrace,
         And these feckless Greeks will serve so much audacity?
         I know that the estates are full of senators
         Attached to my race, and whose hearts I have.
         They are capable of supporting my bloody quarrel.
         But the people?

    MEMNON: They love you; they are calling you to the throne.
         Their courage is short-lived, they are dazzled by a great uproar.
         A moment gives it birth; a moment destroys it.
         I am inflaming this passion; and I dare tell you again
         That I will answer to you for the hearts of all the empire.
         Just appear, my prince, and you will make
         The senate and the people instant conspirators.
         In this bloody palace, abode of homicides,
         Revolutions were always rapid.
         Twenty times it sufficed to change the whole state
         By the voice of a pontiff or the shout of a soldier.
         These sudden changes are lightning bolts
         Which in serene days burst over the earth.
         The less they are foreseen, the less one can escape
         Those devouring darts with which one feels oneself struck
         We've seen these fugitive shades strike,
         Phantom emperors raised on our shores,
         Tumbling from the height of a throne into eternal oblivion,
         Where their name in a moment is lost in shrouds.
         It's time at Byzantium a man be recognized
         Who's worthy of true Caesars and Rome's finest days.
         Byzantium is offering to your hands sovereign power.
         Those I've seen reign had only the will.
         Carried into the hippodrome, they had only to appear
         Decorated by the purple and the scepter of a master.
         At the temple of Sophia a priest consecrates them,
         And Byzantium, suddenly on its knees, adores them.
         They had less than you of friends and courage
         They had less right; attempt the same work!
         Gather up the debris of their broken scepters;
         You will reign today, lord, if you dare.

    ALEXIS: Friend, you know me: I dare anything for Irene.
         Alone she has banished me, alone she brought me back;
         Alone over my still irresolute mind
         Irene has kept her absolute power.
         Nothing else is keeping me back;
         They threaten her and I love her.

    MEMNON: I deceive myself, lord, or the emperor himself
         Is coming to dictate his decisions to you in this retired place.
         Will you still wait for him?

    ALEXIS: Yes, I will answer him.

    MEMNON: His guard is already appearing; it's confided to me.
         If the studied hate of your enemy
         Has conceived some secret designs against you
         We will serve under Comnenus, and we are Romans.
         I am leaving you with him.

    (Memnon withdraws to the back and places himself at the head of the guards.)

    (Nicephorus enters followed by two officers.)

    NICEPHORUS: Prince, your presence
         Has thrown a little challenge into my court.
         On the shores of the Euxine sea you've served me really well
         But when Caesar commands, he must be obeyed.
         You are being watched here with an attentive glance.
         You are giving a dangerous example to the populace.
         You mustn't appear within the walls of Constantine
         Except on an express order emanating from my hand.

    ALEXIS: I didn't know it.—The Senate of the empire
         Knows little of these laws you wish to prescribe.
         I was able, without fail, to fulfill the will
         Of an august and sacred body, and respected by you.

    NICEPHORUS: I shall protect it as long as it is faithful;
         Be so, trust me; but since it is recalling you,
         It is I who am sending you to the shores of the Euxine.
         Leave this moment the walls of Constantine.
         You have no further excuse; and towards the Bosphorous
         The day star which shines will see you off again.
         You are no more for me anything but a subject in revolt.
         You will not be so with impunity.
         That's what Caesar intended to tell you.

    ALEXIS: The great by whose acclamation you were given the empire
         Made me the first person in the state after you,
         Lord, could bend this violent wrath.
         They know my name, my rank, and my service,
         And you yourself, with them, will give me justice.
         You will let me live within these sacred walls
         That my arm has delivered from your enemies.
         You will not separate me from an inviolable right
         That the law of the State only ravishes from the guilty.

    NICEPHORUS: You dare to pretend to it?

    ALEXIS: A simple citizen
         Would dare it, is owed it, and my right and his
         Is that of all mortals; fate which outrages me
         Has not marked my face with the seal of slavery.
         It's the right of Alexis; and I believe it is due
         To the blood which has been shed for you many times,
         To the blood whose valor has paid your glory
         And which can equal without increasing very much
         The blood of Nicephorus formerly unknown
         Today reaching the rank of my ancestors.

    NICEPHORUS: I know your race, and what's more your arrogance.
         For the last time, beware my vengeance.
         You will not obey me?

    ALEXIS: No, lord.

    NICEPHORUS: That's enough. (calling Memnon to him by a gesture, he gives him a note in the back)
         You who obey me, serve the empire, and me.

    (Nicephorus leaves.)

    MEMNON: Me, serve Nicephorus!

    ALEXIS: (after having observed first the place where he finds himself)
         First, I must learn
         What this note you were just given says.

    MEMNON: Look.

    ALEXIS: (after having calmly read a part of the note)
         In his council the order was taken!
         And I should have been made to wait for this atrocity!
         He flatters himself that as master he condemned Comnenus.
         He signed my death.

    MEMNON: He signed his.
         Surrounded by slaves, this shadowy tyrant,
         This blind despot thought me cowardly like them.
         How this palace has produced the habit
         And the barbarism of servitude!
         So long as our shaky Caesars on their frightful throne
         Think to reign without laws and speak like sultans!
         But get it over with, read this pitiless order.

    ALEXIA: (rereading) This despot is more culpable than I thought.
         Irene, prisoner! Is it really true, Memnon?

    MEMNON: For the great, their tomb is near the prison.

    ALEXIS: O heaven! Is Irene informed of your projects?

    MEMNON: She can suspect it, both the cause and the result.
         The rest is unknown.

    ALEXIS: Let's avoid afflicting her;
         And especially, dear friend, let's hide her danger from her.
         The enterprise must soon be discovered.
         But that's when my victory or my ruin will be known.

    MEMNON: Our friends are joined to these brave soldiers.

    ALEXIS: Are they ready to march?

    MEMNON: Lord, don't doubt it.
         At this moment their troupe is going to open a passage.
         Believe that friendship, zeal and courage
         Are of a greater service in these urgent perils
         Than all the battalions paid by tyrants.
         I see them advancing toward the sacred gate.
         The Emperor himself is going to defend the entrance.
         I already hear the shouts of the roused populace.

    ALEXIS: We have only a moment; I reign or I perish.
         Fate is cast. Let's forestall Nicephorus. (to soldiers)
         Come, brave friends, with whom my destiny honors me,
         You've fought under Memnon and under me,
         Fight for Irene, and avenge her virtue.
         Irene belongs to me, I cannot take her back
         Except under waves of blood and under walls of ashes.
         Let's march without hesitation.

    (Enter Irene.)

    IRENE: Where are you rushing? O heaven!
         Alexis! stop: what are you doing? cruel one!
         Remain: surrender to my legitimate concerns.
         Avoid your ruin, spare yourself crimes.
         I'm frozen with terror at the very name of revolt.
         It speaks to me of blood which is going to pour out for me.
         I'm no longer permitted, in my mute sorrow,
         To devour my tears in the depth of my retreat.
         My father, at this moment, excited by the populace,
         Is heading towards the palace which he deserted.
         The pontiff is following him, and in his ministry
         Attesting to the wrath of God whom they are outraging.
         They are both seeking you in these pressing dangers.
         Lord, hear them.

    ALEXIS: Irene, there isn't time.
         The quarrel is too great, it is too urgent.
         I will listen to them when you've been avenged.

    (Exit Alexis, Memnon, and their friends.)

    IRENE: He's fleeing me! What will become of me?
         O heaven! and what a moment!
         My husband is going to perish or strike down my lover!
         I am throwing myself in your arms, O God who caused my birth!
         You, who made my fate, who gave me for a master
         A respectable mortal who received my word;
         That I ought to love, if possible, despite myself!
         I heard my reason, but my unfaithful soul,
         Wanting to obey you, rose against it.
         Lead my steps, sustain this weak reason,
         Give life to this heart dying by its poison.
         Restore peace to the empire as well as to myself.
         Preserve my husband: order me to love him.
         The heart depends on you: human misfortunes
         Are the vile instruments of your divine hands.
         In this terrible disorder watch over Nicephorus.
         And when my despair implores you for my spouse,
         If other feelings are still permitted to me,
         God, who knows how to pardon, watch over Alexis.

    ZOE: (returning) They are in our hands; return

    IRENE: And my father?

    ZOE: He's coming;
         He's parting the waves of people, and the fearful crowd
         Of women, old men, children, who in their arms
         Push to heaven cries that heaven does not hear.
         The holy pontiff, with a useful aid
         To the wounded, to the dying, in vain is giving asylum.
         The fierce conquerors are sacrificing on the altar
         The escaped vanquished from this cruel battle.
         Don't expose yourself to this populace in fury.
         I see Byzantium falling, and the fatherland perishing,
         That our trembling hands cannot revive
         But you can ruin yourself trying to save them.
         At least await some news of the battle.

    IRENE: No, Zoe, heaven wants me to fall with her.
         No, I must not live in our burning walls,
         In the midst of tombs that my hands have created.

     CURTAIN

    ACT III

    ZOE: Your unique role, madame, was to await
         The irrevocable decree that destiny is going to render.
         In the ranks of soldiers, a Scythian would have been able
         To call on danger and to seek death;
         Under the rigorous heavens of their savage climate,
         The harshness of morals has produced these customs.
         Nature has established other laws for us.
         Let's submit ourselves to fate, and whatever may be its choice
         Let's accept, if need be, the master that it gives us.
         By birth, Alexis touched the crown,
         His valor deserved it; he brings to this battle
         That great heart and that arm which defended the state.
         Especially in his favor he has the public voice.
         It detests a tyrannical power
         As much as it cherishes an oppressed hero.
         He'll conquer because he is loved.

    IRENE: Eh! what's the use of being loved?
         You are just more unfortunate. I feel that myself too much.
         I fear discovering if it is true that I love him,
         To question my heart and only dare
         To ask what is the result of the battle.
         How much blood was spilled, who are the victims,
         How many crimes I have gathered together in this palace?
         They are all my work.

    ZOE: To your just sorrows
         Do you want to add the terrors of remorse?
         Your father left his holy retreat
         Where his sad virtue is hidden unknown.
         It's for you he's viewing these dangerous mortals again,
         Whose approach he fled to the shadow of altars.
         He was dead to the world; he's returning to it for his daughter,
         In this same palace where his family reigned.
         You will find consolation in him
         That destiny is refusing to your affliction.
         Throw yourself into his arms.

    IRENE: Will he find me worthy of him?
         Have I deserved what this effort reveals,
         Bringing him to his daughter in this cruel abode,
         Where for me he affronts the horrors of the court?

    (Leonce enters.)

    IRENE: Is it you who contemplates my despair in these parts?
         Support of the unfortunate, my father, my example.
         What! you are leaving the abode of peace for me!
         Alas! what crimes have you seen in it?

    LEONCE: The walls of Constantine are a field of carnage.
         Thanks to heaven, I am unaware what astonishing storm,
         What court interests, what factions,
         Have suddenly given birth to these desolations.
         They've told me that Alexis, armed against his master,
         Has dared to appear with conspirators.
         One said that he received the death that he deserved.
         The other that his emperor was fleeing before him.
         They believe Caesar is wounded; the battle is still going on
         From the gates of the seven towers
         To the shores of the Bosphorous.
         Tumult, death and crime are in these parts.
         I am coming to snatch you from these odious walls.
         If you have lost in this funereal battle
         An empire, a husband, let virtue remain to you.
         I have seen too many Caesars in this bloody abode
         From this throne degraded overturned one after the other
         Only that of God, my daughter, is unshakeable.

    IRENE: They're coming to complete the horror which overwhelms me.
         And here are the warriors who are announcing my fate to me.

    (Enter Memnon and soldiers.)

    MEMNON: He's no longer tyrant, it's done, he's dead.
         I saw it. It was in vain that repressing his rage,
         While holding under his feet this fatal adversary,
         Alexis, his conqueror, wished to spare him.
         The populace was bathing in his burning blood. (coming forward)
         Madame, Alexis reigns, everything conspires with my wishes.
         A single day has changed the fate of the empire.
         While Victory on our happy ramparts
         Raises with its hands the throne of the Caesars,
         While Alexis is restoring peace, he is sending me to your feet
         To interpret and witness the public joy.
         Forgive, if his mouth at this same moment
         Doesn't announce this great event,
         If the effort of stopping the blood and carnage
         Still busies his courage far from your eyes;
         If he's unable to bring to your sacred knees
         The laurels that his hands have gathered for you.
         I am flying to the Hippodrome, to the Temple of Sophia,
         To the assembled estates to save the country.
         We are all going to name with the holy name of emperor
         The hero of Byzantium and its liberator.

    (He leaves.)

    IRENE: What ought I to do? O God!

    LEONCE: Believe a father and follow him.
         In this abode of blood you cannot live
         Without rendering yourself execrable to posterity.
         I know that Nicephorus was too brutal;
         But he was your spouse: respect his memory,
         The duties of a wife, and especially your glory.
         I will not tell you that it is appropriate for you
         To avenge by blood, the blood of your spouse.
         That's only a barbarous right, a power that's founded
         On the false prejudices of false worldly honor.
         But it's a frightful crime, which cannot be expiated
         By being in communication with the murderer.
         Contemplate your condition: on one side is presented
         An audacious youth whose bloody hand
         Has just sacrificed a master to his ambition.
         On the other is duty and religion,
         True honor, virtue, God himself.
         I won't speak to you of a father who loves you.
         It's you that I want to believe in; listen to your heart.

    IRENE: I'm listening to your advice: lord, they are just.
         They are sacred. I know that a respectable custom
         Prescribes solitude to my fatal widowhood.
         I ought to seek peace in your holy refuge,
         For in this bloody palace, I've never known it.
         I have too great a need to flee, both this world that I love
         And its horrible prestige—and flee even from myself.

    LEONCE: Come then, dear support of my decrepitude.
         With me forget all that I have left
         In the breast of the retreat; believe there is still
         Consolation for an unquiet soul.
         There I found that peace that you are searching for in vain.
         I will lead you there, I know the way.
         I am going to prepare everything—Swear to your father,
         By the God who leads me, and whose eye enlightens you,
         That you will fulfill, in these sad ramparts,
         The duties imposed on the widows of Caesars.

    IRENE: It's true these duties can seem austere,
         But if they are strict, they are necessary to me.

    LEONCE: Let Alexis be forever forgotten by us.

    IRENE: If I must forget him why speak to me of him?
         I know that I ought to have asked you for mercy
         These bonds you are offering me and that I must embrace.
         After the frightful storm that I've just endured
         In the port with you all must be forgotten.
         I've hated this palace, where a flattering court
         Offered me vain pleasures, and thought me happy.
         If it's tainted with blood, I ought to detest it.
         Eh! what regret, lord, ought I to have to quit it?
         God has commanded it to me through the voice of a father.
         I owe him obedience and I am going to satisfy you.
         I am placing in your hands a solemn oath.
         I am descending from this throne and I am marching to the altar.

    LEONCE: Goodbye: remember this terrible oath.

    (Leonce leaves.)

    ZOE: What is this new yoke that on your sensitive heart
         A father imposes anew on this terrifying day?

    IRENE: Yes, I intend to fulfill this strict oath.
         Yes, I intend to consummate my fatal sacrifice.
         I am changing prisons, I'm changing tortures.
         You, who, always present to my diverse torments
         To the trouble of my heart, to the weight of my fetters
         Shared so many troubles and secret sorrows,
         Will you dare to follow me to the depth of these retreats
         Where my unhappy days are going to be enshrouded?

    ZOE: Mine are at all time subjected to yours.
         I see that our sex is born for slavery.
         On the throne, at all times, that was your share.
         Those moments, so brilliant, so short, so deceitful,
         That they called your fine days were lengthy misfortunes.
         Sovereign in name, you served a master.
         And when you were free, and that you ought to be,
         The dangerous weight of your dignity
         Instantly plunged you back into captivity!
         Customs, laws, public opinion,
         All hold you under a tyrannic yoke.

    IRENE: I will wear my chain—I'm no longer permitted
         To dare to interest myself in the plans of Alexis.
         I cannot breathe the air that he breathes.
         Let him be the savior of the empire to other eyes,
         Let them cherish in him the greatest of Caesars,
         He is only a criminal to my sad sight.
         He is only a parricide, and my soul is constrained
         To drive Alexis from my sad thoughts.
         If, in the solitude that I am going to enclose myself in,
         I recollect to myself that Alexis was lovable,
         That he was a hero—I will be very culpable.
         Go, my dear Zoe, go hurry my departure,
         Save me from an abode that I have left too late.
         I am going to find the pontiff and my father immediately.
         And I am striding fearlessly towards
         The pure day which enlightens me. (seeing Alexis)
         Heaven!

    (Enter Alexis and guards; the guards retire after having placed a trophy at Irene's feet.)

    ALEXIS: On this day of terror, I am placing at your feet
         All that I owe you, an empire and my heart.
         I wasn't fighting over this funereal empire;
         It was nothing without you: celestial justice
         Ought to despoil unworthy sovereigns
         Only to reestablish it with your august hands.
         Reign, since I reign, and let this day begin
         My happiness, and yours and that of Byzantium.

    IRENE: What a horrifying joy! Ah! prince! you are forgetting
         that you are covered with the blood of my husband?

    ALEXIS: Yes! I intend to efface his memory from the earth,
         So that his name will be lost in the dazzle of my glory.
         That in its happiness the Roman Empire
         Will be unaware if he ever reigned, if he ever was.
         I know that these great blows, the first day
         Are murmuring through astonished Asia and Greece.
         It gives rise to censors, to rivals.
         Soon, accustomed to its new masters
         They will end by loving their established power.
         Let them know a governor, madam, and everything's forgotten.
         After a few moments of a just severity
         That the public interest demands of a conqueror,
         You will bring back the fine times in which happy Livia
         Made the submissive earth adore Augustus.

    IRENE: Alexis! Alexis! we are only abusing ourselves.
         Crime and death have marched behind our steps.
         Blood shrieks: it rises, it demands justice.
         Murderer of Caesar, am I your accomplice?

    ALEXIS: That blood saved yours and you are punishing me for it?
         Who? me? I'm guilty in your offended eyes!
         A jealous despot, a pitiless master,
         Thanks only to the name of husband is respectable for you!
         His days were sacred to you! and your defender
         Was only a rebel, then, only a ravisher!
         When I dared to defend you against your tyrant
         Ought I to have expected your ingratitude?

    IRENE: I wasn't ungrateful: one day you will learn
         The unhappy battles of my torn feelings.
         You will pity a woman in whom, from her infancy
         Her heart and her relatives formed the hope
         Of spending the unalterable course of her life
         Under the laws, under the eyes of a hero of our time.
         You will then know what it cost, what she sacrificed
         The happiness of her life to her sacred duties.

    ALEXIS: What! You are weeping, Irene! and you are abandoning me!

    IRENE: We are condemned to flee each other forever.

    ALEXIS: Eh! who then condemns us? a fanatic law,
         A senseless respect for ancient custom
         Embraced by a populace in love with errors,
         Scorned by Caesars and especially by conquerors!

    IRENE: Nicephorus holds me enslaved from the tomb.
         And his death separates us yet further than his life.

    ALEXIS: Dear and fatal Irene, arbiteress of my fate,
         You are avenging Nicephorus and giving death to me.

    IRENE: Live, reign without me, make the empire happy.
         Fate is seconding you: it intends that another expire.

    ALEXIS: And you deign to speak with so much goodness
         And you are being stubborn with so much cruelty!
         What you are offering me is worse than hate and wrath?
         Will you be to yourself even totally contrary?
         I see, a father is constraining you to flee me.
         To who else would you have promised to betray yourself?

    IRENE: To myself, Alexis.

    ALEXIS: No, I cannot believe it.
         You didn't seek this frightful victory,
         You aren't renouncing the blood you come from.
         To your submissive subjects, to your properties,
         To go shut this adored head
         In the obscure redoubt of a holy prison.
         Your father is deceiving you: an imprudent error,
         After having seduced him, is seducing your heart.
         It's a new tyrant whose hand is oppressing you.
         He's sacrificed himself and is making you his victim.
         Has he fled humans so as to torment them?
         Is he coming out of his tomb to persecute us?
         More cruel towards you than even Nicephorus,
         Does he want to murder a daughter that he loves?
         I am rushing to him, madame, and I don't intend
         That he give laws against me in my realm.
         If he scorns the court and his heart abhors it,
         I won't suffer that he still govern it.
         And that the imprudent severity of his mind
         Persecute his blood, his master, and his avenger.

    (Enter Zoe.)

    ZOE: Madame, they are waiting for you; Leonce, your father,
         The minister of god who rules the sanctuary,
         Are ready to escort you; alas, according to your wishes,
         To this august asylum—happy or unhappy.

    IRENE: Everything is ready: I follow you.

    ALEXIS: And as for me, I am forestalling you.
         I am going to repress the insolence of these ingrates.
         To assure myself in their eyes of the reward of my labors
         And twice in one day to conquer all my rivals.

    (Exit all but Irene.)

    IRENE: What's going to become of me? How shall I escape
         This horrible precipice, this redoubtable trap,
         Into which my distracted steps are leading me despite myself?
         My lover has killed my husband and my king
         And on his bloody corpse this raging hand
         Dares to ignite for me the torch of marriage!
         He intends that this mouth on the steps of the altar
         Swear an eternal love to his murderer!
         Yes, great God, I love him; and my distracted soul
         Is still intoxicated with this fatal poison.
         What do you want from me, dangerous Alexis?
         Lover that I cherish, lover that I am abandoning,
         Are you forcing me into crime and do you still intend
         To be more my tyrant than Nicephorus was?

    CURTAIN

    ACT IV

    ZOE: What! timid and confused, you haven't dared
         To sustain an interview with a father and a lover?
         Ah, madame, could you secretly feel
         An unjust repentance over this fatal departure?

    IRENE: Me!

    ZOE: Often the danger whose image we brave
         Astonishes courage at the moment of its approach.
         Terrified nature and our secret inclinations
         Are awakened in us, stronger and more powerful.

    IRENE: No, I haven't changed; I am still the same
         I'm abandoning myself completely to my father who loves me.
         It's true, in this fatal moment, I haven't been able
         To withstand the looks of a father and a lover.
         I couldn't speak, trembling, fainting,
         The day refused my obscure sight.
         My blood was frozen; without strength and without help
         I was reaching the moment that would end my life.
         Shall I render thanks to the hands which helped me?
         Shall I withstand the life, alas! that they returned to me?
         If Leonce appears I feel my tears spill,
         If I see Alexis, I shake and I die.
         And I would like to hide from all nature
         My feelings, my fear and the ills I am enduring
         Ah! what's Alexis doing?

    ZOE: He intends as sovereign
         To place you back on the throne and to give you his hand.
         To Leonce, to the pontiff, he's explaining himself as master.
         In these distractions I have trouble knowing him.
         He won't suffer that you ever dare
         To dispose of yourself and leave the palace.

    IRENE: Heaven, you read in my heart, you see my sacrifice
         You will not suffer that I be his accomplice!

    ZOE: How you are in prey to sad battles!

    IRENE: You know them: pity me, don't condemn me.
         All that can tempt a weak mortal
         To punish herself and to reign over herself
         I have done, you know it; I still carry my weeping
         To God whose goodness, they say, changes hearts.
         He has not harkened to my assiduous complaints
         He pushes away my hands extended towards his throne
         He distances himself.

    ZOE: And still, free in your sorrows,
         You are fleeing your lover.

    IRENE: Perhaps, I cannot.

    ZOE: I see you are resisting the flame that devours you.

    IRENE: By wanting to suffocate it, could I be reigniting it still?

    ZOE: Alexis won't live and reign except for you.

    IRENE: No, Alexis will never be my spouse.

    ZOE: Well, if in Greece a barbarous custom
         Contrary to those of Rome, unworthily separates
         The widows of Caesars from the rest of mankind
         If this harsh prejudice reigns in our ramparts,
         This rigorous law—is it a supreme command
         That from the height of his throne was pronounced by God himself?
         Against you does he intend to arm himself with his lightning?

    IRENE: Yes: you see what mortal he forbids me to love.

    ZOE: Thus, far from the palace where you were nourished
         You are going, beautiful Irene, to inter your life!

    IRENE: I don't know where I am going—Humans, weak humans!
         Do we control our fate? Is it in our hands?

    (Enter Leonce.)

    LEONCE: Daughter, you must follow me and flee rapidly
         This odious abode, fatal to innocence.
         Cease to fear and follow on my steps,
         The efforts of tyrants that a father doesn't fear.
         Against these famous names of augustus and invincible,
         A word, a name from heaven, is a terrible weapon
         And religion, which commands them all,
         Puts in them a holy bridle that
         Brings them to their knees repenting.
         My hair shirt, that a prince contemplates with disdain
         Triumphs over his purple, and commands him to the temple.
         Your honors, more sure and more constant with me
         Will be independent of flighty humans.
         They won't have need to strike the vulgar
         With the dazzle borrowed from a foreign pomp.
         You've already learned what to disdain;
         You are going to reign far from the throne.

    IRENE: I've already told you, I am quitting it without regret.
         The new Caesar is coming; I'm leaving and avoiding him.

    (She leaves.)

    LEONCE: I won't leave you.

    ALEXIS: (entering) That's too much; stop
         For the last time, unjust father, listen.
         Hear your master to whom blood binds you
         And who has lavished his life for your daughter.
         Who has delivered you both from a tyrant,
         This unhappy conqueror that you are making desperate.
         The sovereign, sacred to the altars of Sophia
         Whose high cabal is tied to yours
         You are seconding against me, and think with impunity
         In the name of heaven, to ravish Irene from her lover.
         I've served all of you, you, Irene, and Byzantium.
         Your daughter was the just reward for it,
         The only prize owing to my arm, to my faith
         The only object that may be, in the end, worthy of me.
         My heart is open to you and you know if I love.
         You are coming to carry away from me half of myself.
         You who, from the cradle united the two of us
         With a paternal hand formed our bonds;
         You, by whom she was promised to me so many times,
         You are ravishing her from me, when I've conquered her.
         After I saved her, and you, and the whole realm!
         Too virtuous mortal, you are an ingrate.
         You dare to propose that my heart detach itself from her!
         Giver her to me, cruel man, or I will tear her from you!
         Embrace a tender son, born to cherish you
         Or beware an avenger armed to punish you.

    LEONCE: Be neither the one nor the other, and try to be just.
         Rapidly carried to this august throne
         Deserve your success—Hear me, lord:
         I can neither flatter nor fear an emperor.
         I didn't leave my profound retreat
         To deliver my old age to worldly intrigues
         To great passions, to their distracted desires.
         I can only announce harsh truths.
         Who serves only his God has nothing else to say.
         I am speaking to you in his name and in the name of the Empire.
         You are blind; I must reveal to you
         The crime and the dangers you intend to run.
         Know that on earth, there's no place,
         Or ferocious nation by the world abhorred,
         From a clime so savage, where a mortal ever
         With such a sacrilege dared to soil the altar.
         Hear God who speaks and the earth which screams:
         “Your hands have torn the life from your monarch.
         Don't marry his widow.” Or, if you dare
         To disdain the eternal laws of this voice
         Go rape my daughter and try to please her,
         Stained by the blood of a husband and that of a father:
         Strike—

    ALEXIS: (turning away) I cannot do it—and despite my wrath
         This heart you are piercing is softened for you.
         Is the harshness of yours unalterable?
         Do you see in me only a culpable enemy?
         And will you regret your persecutor
         To raise your voice against a liberator?
         Tender father of Irene, alas! be my father;
         Relinquish the role of a pitiless judge.
         Don't sacrifice your daughter and me
         To superstitions whose law you serve;
         Don't make an odious and cruel weapon of them.
         And don't force them with a paternal hand
         Into the unhappy heart that wants to revere you,
         And which your virtue is pleased to tear apart.
         Such severity is not in nature
         Abandon the imposture of a terrible prejudice—
         Cease—

    LEONCE: In what error is your spirit plunging itself?
         Is the voice of the universe a prejudice?

    ALEXIS: You argue, Leonce, and as for me, I am sensitive.

    LEONCE: I am like you—heaven is inflexible.

    ALEXIS: You are making it speak, you are forcing me, cruel man
         To battle my father and heaven at the same time.
         More blood is going to be shed for this unjust Irene
         Than shed for Roman ambition.
         The hand that saved you can no longer
         Do anything but avenge itself.
         I will destroy this temple where they dare to outrage me.
         I will smash the altar defended by your yourself.
         This altar at all times rival of the crown;
         This fatal instrument of so many passions,
         Loaded by our ancestors with the gold of nations,
         Cemented by their blood, surrounded by rapines.
         Ingrate, you will see me on these vast ruins
         Light the torches of a marriage they reprove
         In the midst of debris, of blood, of tombs.

    LEONCE: Now there are the horrors in which supreme grandeur
         That is without bridle, is abandoning itself!
         I pity you for reigning.

    ALEXIS: I am getting carried away;
         I feel it, I blush for it, but your cruelty
         Calm in striking me, studiously barbarous
         Insults with more art, and carries a most rough blow.
         Withdraw; flee.

    LEONCE: I will await, lord,
         What justice brings me and tells your heart.

    ALEXIS: No, don't wait: decide immediately
         If I must avenge myself or if I must die.

    LEONCE:
         Here's my blood, I tell you, and I am offering it to your blows.
         Respect my duty; it is stronger than you are.

    (Leonce leaves.)

    ALEXIS: How happy is his fate! seated on the shore
         He looks in pity on this turbulent storm
         Which has begun the course of my sad reign.
         Irene is the charm and the horror of my life.
         Her weakness is sacrificing me to the errors of her father.
         To the senseless speeches of a vulgar blind man.
         Those in whom I was hoping are all my enemies.
         I'm Caesar, I'm in love, and nothing is submissive to me!
         What! Without blushing, I can, in fields of carnage
         When a Scyth, a German succumbs to my courage
         Over his completely bloody corpse that they bring to my eyes
         Carry off his spouse in the sight of the gods
         Without a priest, a soldier daring to raise his head!
         No one dares to suspect the right of my conquest
         And my fellow citizens will forbid me to love
         The widow of a tyrant who wanted to oppress her!
         Let's enter. (enter Zoe)
         Well, Zoe, what have you come to inform me of?

    ZOE: In her apartment beware of entering.
         Leonce and the pontiff are dismaying her heart.
         Their holy and funereal voices bring terror to it;
         Shivering at their feet, trembling, fainting
         Our sad efforts barely recalled her life.
         They are daring to snatch her from the walls of this palace.
         A sad retreat will forever hide
         Abandoned Irene from the rest of the earth.
         Such is the destiny of widows of Caesars.
         They see in you only a furious tyrant
         A sacrilegious soldier, an enemy of the heavens,
         If, wishing to abolish these sinister customs,
         You brave the ministers of religion.
         The empress in tears, conjures you on her knees
         Not to listen to an imprudent wrath
         And to allow her to fulfill these deplorable duties
         That sacred masters judge inviolable.

    ALEXIS: Masters where I am! I thought not to have any more.
         To me, guards, come.

    (Enter Memnon and guards.)

    ALEXIS: My absolute orders
         Are that no mortal leave this enclosure
         That they be armed everywhere, and that this gate be watched.
         Go. They will learn who gives the law
         Which of us is Caesar, the pontiff or me.
         Dear Zoe, return, inform Irene
         That she must obey and that she must bear it in mind.
         (to Memnon; Zoe leaves)
         Friend, it's with you today, that I am undertaking
         To smash in one day all the fetters of tyrants.
         Nicephorus is fallen: let's drive out those that remain.
         These mental tyrants that my pains detest,
         Let Irene's father be arrested in the palace.
         Having, in the end, less authority and less audacity;
         Let him be distanced from his daughter and reduced to silence.
         He shall not raise the populace of Byzantium.
         Let this passionate pontiff be guarded in the palace.
         Another more submissive to my order is mandated
         Who will be more docile to my sovereign voice.
         Constantine, Theodosius found them without trouble
         More criminal than I in their sad abode.
         Their cruelty lacked the excuse of love.

    MEMNON: Caesar, what are you thinking of? this intractable old geezer
         Opinionated, high born, is still respectable.
         He is of those virtues, forced to esteem
         We tremble to oppress even while detesting them.
         Eh! don't you fear by this violence
         To do the heart of Irene a mortal offense?

    ALEXIS: No, I've decided on it. I owe it to my grandeur.
         And my throne, and my glory—it lacks happiness.
         I am succumbing, in reigning, to destiny which outrages me.
         Second my distractions, finish your work.

    CURTAIN

    ACT V

    MEMNON: Yes, sometimes, no question, it is most difficult
         To assure for oneself a pure and easy fate
         As to find glory in the midst of battle
         Which depends less on us than on our soldiers.
         I told you: Irene in her just wrath
         Will never pardon the outrage on her father.

    ALEXIS: But what! to allow an imperious master near her
         Who will reproach her for the power of her eyes,
         Who will especially make it a crime to please me
         And twisting at his will this simple and sincere heart
         Govern her weakness and deceive her candor
         Is going to change by degrees her tenderness into horror!
         I intend to reign over her as well as over Byzantium.
         To cover her with the rays of my total-power
         And this proud master, who intends to give her the law
         Shall be at the feet of his daughter and serve her with me.

    MEMNON: You are deceiving yourself, Caesar; I've foreseen your alarms
         You've turned your own arms against you.
         It's done; I pity you.

    ALEXIS: You've obeyed me?

    MEMNON: With regret; but I've served you.
         I seized the old geezer; and Caesar who is sighing
         With the weakness of love is teaching me what empire is.
         But after this injury, would you have hoped
         To draw to you an ulcerated spirit?
         Eh! why consult in such alarms
         An old soldier gone white in the horrors of fighting?

    ALEXIS: Ah! dear and wise friend, how your enlightened eyes
         Have indeed foreseen the effect of my distracted desires!
         How you know this heart so contrary to itself,
         Rebel slave that ruins all it loves;
         Blind in its wrath, prompt to contradict itself
         Born for passions and to repent them!

    (Memnon leaves.)

    ALEXIS: Come, come, Zoe, you who cherish Irene; (Zoe enters)
         Judge if my love has deserved her hate.
         If I wished as master, as conqueror, as Caesar
         To display the august Irene chained to my chariot.
         I would never order such an odious celebration
         At the temple of the Bosphorus being prepared with pomp.
         I won't insult to this degree these prejudices
         That the times implant in the heart of nations.
         I intend to prepare this marriage to which I aspire
         Far from an importunate populace attracted by a vain spectacle.
         You know the altar raised in these parts
         With the simplicity of the hands of our ancestors.
         Only admitting for witnesses of the faith that is pledged,
         Two friends, a priest and heaven that forgives.
         It's there that before God, I will promise my heart.
         Is it unworthy of her? does it inspire horror?
         From pity, tell me if her agitated soul
         Recoils in shock from offers that I am making.
         If my profound respect can only revolt her:
         Finally, if I am offending her in making her reign.

    ZOE: This morning, I admit, in prey to her alarms
         Your name spoken made her tears flow.
         But since Leonce spoke to you here
         Eye fixed, face pale, and mind overwhelmed
         She keeps a wild silence with us.
         Her heart doesn't make us a sad confidence
         Of this powerful remorse which battles her desires.
         Her eyes have no more tears, or her voice sighs
         Profoundly struck by her last affront,
         By Leonce and you completely occupied,
         She has not responded to our urgings
         Except with a dying regard and a distracted face;
         Unable to repulse from her somber thoughts
         The dolorous weight which oppresses her.

    ALEXIS: Alas! she loves you and no doubt fears me.
         If in my despair your friendship pities me
         If you can move much in this noble and tender heart
         Decide her at least to see me, to hear me,
         Not to reject these humiliated prayers
         From an emperor, submissive and trembling at her feet.
         The conqueror of Caesar is Irene's slave.
         She extends at her choice or shakes off her chain:
         Let her say but a single word.

    ZOE: Right in this abode
         I see her coming by the secret passage.

    ALEXIS: It's she herself, o heaven!

    ZOE Attached to the earth
         Her view at the sight of us is distracted wildly
    .
         She's hurrying towards us, but without looking at you.
         I don't know what horror seems to possess her.

    ALEXIS: Irene, is it really you? What! far from answering me
         She hardly intends to confound me with a look.

    (One of the soldiers who is accompanying her brings up a chair.)

    IRENE: (entering) A seat—I'm succumbing—In these isolated parts
         Attend me, soldiers.—Alexis, listen. (with an uneven voice, halting but firm more than sad)
         Know what I am suffering, and seeing what I dare,
         You will grasp the reason for such a conversation,
         And it will soon be known if I ought to have spoken to you.
         With a great enough reproach I can overwhelm you,
         But the excess of misfortune weakens anger.
         Tainted with the blood of a husband,
         You are taking a father from me.
         You are seeking to raise against you again
         This empire and heaven that you are daring to brave.
         I see the distraction of your frightful delirium
         With that pity that a frenzy inspires.
         And I am coming to you only to pull you back
         From the depth of the abyss in which I see you entering.
         I pity your blind funereal sense
         It cannot be cured—a sole role remains to me.
         Go seek my father, implore his pardon
         Come back with him, perhaps reason,
         Duty, friendship, the interest which ties us together,
         The voice of blood which speaks from his tenderized soul,
         Will bring closer three hearts which are not in accord.
         A moment can end so many sad battles.
         Go—bring me the virtuous Leonce;
         On my fate with you let his mouth pronounce.
         Can I count on it?

    ALEXIS: I am running without examining anything.
         Ah! if I dared to think that he could pardon me
         I would die at your feet from an excess of joy.
         I fly blindly where your order sends me.
         I am going to repair everything, yes, despite his rigors,
         I intend that with my hand his hand dry your tears.
         Irene, believe me. my life is destined
         To make you forget this frightful day.
         You tenderized father will see in me
         Only a tender and submissive son, worthy of your faith.
         If in Thrace much blood was shed for you
         My outpoured blessings will cover their trace.
         If I offended Leonce, he will see the whole realm
         Expiate with me this unworthy outrage.
         The two of you will reign, my tenderness only aspires
         To leave the reigns of empire in his hands.
         I am swearing it to the heroes with whom we won the day,
         And to heaven that hears me, and you, and my love.

    IRENE: (softening, and holding back her tears)
         Go: have pity of this unfortunate.
         Heaven tore her from you; for you she was born.
         Go, prince.

    ALEXIS: Ah! great God, witness of my blessings,
         I will be worthy yet of my happiness.

    IRENE: Go! (he leaves)
         Follow his steps, Zoe, so faithful and dear.

    (Zoe leaves.)

    IRENE: (rising)
         What have I said? What have I done? and is it what I am hoping?
         I no longer know myself—While he was speaking to me
         At only the sound of his voice all my heart escaped from me.
         Each word, each moment brought into my wound
         Devouring poisons which made nature shiver. (she walks dazed and beside herself)
         No, don't obey me, no my dear Alexis,
         Don't bring my father to my obscure eyes.
         Return—Ah! I see you: Ah! I hear you.
         Near you I idolize the crime.
         O crime! get away—Heaven! what a frightful object!
         What threatening specter is hurling itself between the two of us!
         Is it you, Nicephorus! Terrible shade, halt!
         Pour out only my blood, strike only my head.
         I alone did it all; it's my guilty love,
         It's I who betrayed you, who stole life from you.
         What! you are joining with him, you my unhappy father!
         You pursue this homicidal, adulterous daughter!
         Flee, my dear Alexis, turn away with horror
         Those eyes so dangerous so powerful to my heart!
         Disengage from my hand, your hand reeking with blood.
         My father and my spouse are pursuing your lover!
         On their embloodied bodies will you make me march
         To fly into your arms from those you've torn me?
         Ah! I'm coming to myself—Sacred religion,
         Duty, nature, honor, to this distracted soul
         You are returning her reason, you are calming her spirits.
         I no longer hear you, if I see Alexis!
         God, that I wish to serve, and that I am still outraging,
         Why have you delivered me to this cruel storm?
         Against a weak reed why do you want to arm yourself?
         What have I done? You know; my whole crime is to love!
         Despite my repentance, despite your supreme law
         You see that my lover has won despite yourself.
         He reigns, he has conquered you in my obscure feelings.
         Well! behold my heart! that's where Alexis is
         Yes, so long as I breathe he's the sole master of it.
         I feel that by adoring him I am going to deny you.
         I am betraying marriage, nature and you—

    (Irene draws a dagger and strikes herself. Enter Alexis, Leonce, Memnon and followers.)

    ALEXIS: I am bringing you a father and I've flattered myself
         That we can soften his harsh austerity;
         That his justice in the end will find me less culpable.
         He will deign—Just heaven! what a horrifying spectacle!
         Irene, darling Irene!

    LEONCE: O my daughter! O madness!

    ALEXIS: (throwing himself at Irene's knees)
         What demon inspired you?

    IRENE: (to Alexis) My love. (to Leonce) Your honor.
         I adored Alexis and I am punishing myself for it.

    (Alexis wants to kill himself. Memnon stops him.)

    LEONCE: Ah! my funereal zeal was too barbarous.

    IRENE: (extending her hands)
         Remember me—the two of you pity my fate.
         Heaven! take care of Alexis and pardon my death.

    ALEXIS: (on his knees on one side) Irene! Irene! ah, God!

    LEONCE: (on his knees at the other side of her) Wretched victim!

    IRENE: Pardon, clement God! Is my death a crime?

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    CURTAIN

    VOLTAIRE: “Her last act being an act of contrition, it is clear that she is saved.”