PSY. Can I listen to you when I have refused two sisters? Princes!
think you that you could defend me against heaven? To surrender
yourselves to the serpent, whose coming I must await here, is but a
despair ill-becoming great hearts; and to die when I die is to
overwhelm a sensitive, soul, that already has but too many sorrows.

AGE. A serpent is not invincible; Cadmus, who loved no one, slew Mars'
own reptile. We love, and Love makes everything possible for the heart
that follows his standard, for the hand of whose darts he is himself
the guide.

PSY. Do you expect his aid in behalf of an ungrateful one whom all his
shafts have been unable to wound? Think you he can stay his vengeance,
when 'tis bursting forth, and help you to release me from its stroke?
Even if you should serve me, even if you should restore me to life,
what reward do you hope for from that which knows no love?

CLE. It is not by the hope of so lovely a reward that we are animated.
We seek only to obey the dictates of a love that dares not presume,
whatever its efforts may be, that it can be so fortunate as to please
you, so worthy as to kindle within you a responsive flame.

AGE. Live, fair princess, and live for another; we will behold it with
a jealous eye, we will die of it, yet of a death sweeter far than if
we had to see you die. If we cannot save your life by the loss of
ours, whatever love you may prefer to ours, we are ready to die of
grief and of love.

PSY. Live, Princes, live, and no longer seek to ward off or to share