Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 16.djvu/183

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How I lament thy fate!

Alas! I envy those whom death has freed From all their cares: but what remains for me, What pain and torment to a virtuous heart!

'Tis terrible indeed: the clamorous people, Warmed with false zeal, will cry aloud for vengeance, And soon demand their victim. I forbear To accuse him; but if he at last should prove The murderer of thy unhappy lord, How it must shock thy soul!

Impossible! Such guilt and baseness never dwelt in him. O my Ægina! since our bonds of love Were disunited, naught has pierced my heart Like this suspicion: this alone was wanting To make Jocaste most completely wretched: But I'll not bear to hear him thus accused; I loved him, and he must be innocent.

That constant love