Racine: Phaedra

THE MISANTHROPE 317
Oronte. Madam, there is no need of these explanations ; I
only wish to know what your feelings are. Choose the one
or the other ; I am only waiting for your decision.
Alceste [stepping forth]. Yes, this gentleman is right,
madam, and you must choose; and his request entirely
agrees with mine. The same impatience urges me, and the
same anxiety brings me here. My love desires to receive
from you an undoubted proof ; the matter can be delayed
no longer; the time has come for you to explain your
feelings.
Oronte. I have no wish, sir, that an importunate love should
in any way interfere with your good fortune.
Alceste. Sir, I do not wish, jealous or not jealous, to share her
heart in anything with you.
Oronte. If she can prefer your love to mine . . .
Alceste. If she possibly can have the least inclination for
you . . .
Oronte. I swear to pretend no more to her.
Alceste. And I emphatically swear no more to set eyes upon
her.
Oronte. Madam, it remains with you to speak without hesita-
tion.
Alceste. Madam, you can explain yourself without fear.
Oronte. You have only to say which way your preference in-
clines.
Alceste. You have nothing to do but to cut matters short and
to choose between us.
Oronte. What ! you seem to find such a choice difficult
Alceste. What ! you hesitate and appear undecided
Celimene, Gracious heavens! how importunate this persist-
ence is, and how unreasonable you both are; my mind is
made up, and my heart does not waver ;
it does not hesitate
between you. Nothing is more easily decided than the
choice love makes. But I feel great repugnance to make a
declaration of this kind before you both. I think that dis-
obliging words should not be spoken in the presence of wit-
nesses, that our heart gives enough tokens of its inclination
without our being forced to an open quarrel with everyone,
and that, in short, a lover should be given more gentle evidence
of the ill-success of his attentions.