Racine: Phaedra

LIFE A DREAM 361
Of those who now maintain it at that cost
With you all saved and won ; without, all lost.
That former recognition of your right
Grant but a dream, if you will have it so;
Great things forecast themselves by shadows great:
Or will you have it, this like that dream too.
People, and place, and time itself, all dream
Yet, being in't, and as the shadows come
Quicker and thicker than you can escape.
Adopt your visionary soldiery,
Who, having struck a solid chain away,
Now put an airy sword into your hand,
And harnessing you piecemeal till you stand
Amidst us all complete in glittering,
If unsubstantial, steel
RoSAURA [nnthout].—The Prince! The Prince!
Captain.—Who calls for him ?
A Soldier.— The Page who spurr'd us hither,
And now, dismounted from a foaming horse
Enter Rosaura.
RosAURA,—Where is—but where I need no further ask
Where the majestic presence, all in arms.
Mutely proclaims and vindicates himself.
Fife.—My darhng Lady-lord
Rosaura.— My own good Fife,
Keep to my side—and silence !—Oh, my Lord,
For the third time behold me here where first
You saw me, by a happy misadventure
Lx)sing my own way here to find it out
For you to follow with these loyal men.
Adding the moment of my little cause
To yours ; which, so much mightier as it is.
By a strange chance runs hand in hand with mine
The self-same foe who now pretends your right.
Withholding mine—that, of itself alone,
I know the royal blood that runs in you
Would vindicate, regardless of your own:
The right of injured innocence; and, more.
Spite of this epicene attire, a woman's