blow,
  Except, like orange-trees, ’tis housed from snow. 
  There needs no care to put a playhouse down,
  ’Tis the most desart place of all the town: 
  We and our neighbours, to speak proudly, are,
  Like monarchs, ruined with expensive war;
  While, like wise English, unconcerned you sit,
  And see us play the tragedy of wit.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

The Old Emperor. AURENG-ZEBE, his Son. MORAT, his younger Son. ARIMANT, Governor of Agra. DIANET, } SOLYMAN, } MIR BABA, } Indian Lords, or Omrahs, of several ABAS, } Factions. ASAPH CHAN, } FAZEL CHAN, }

  NOURMAHAL, the Empress.
  INDAMORA, a Captive Queen.
  MELESINDA, Wife to Morat.
  ZAYDA, favourite Slave to the Empress.

SCENE—­Agra, in the year 1660.

AURENG-ZEBE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Enter ARIMANT, ASAPH CHAN, and FAZEL CHAN.

Arim. Heaven seems the empire of the east to lay
On the success of this important day: 
Their arms are to the last decision bent,
And fortune labours with the vast event: 
She now has in her hand the greatest stake,
Which for contending monarchs she can make. 
Whate’er can urge ambitious youth to fight,
She pompously displays before their sight;
Laws, empire, all permitted to the sword,
And fate could ne’er an ampler scene afford.

Asaph. Four several armies to the field are led,
Which, high in equal hopes, four princes head: 
Indus and Ganges, our wide empire’s bounds,
Swell their dyed currents with their natives’ wounds: 
Each purple river winding, as he runs,
His bloody arms about his slaughtered sons.

Fazel. I well remember you foretold the storm, When first the brothers did their factions form:  When each, by cursed cabals of women, strove To draw the indulgent king to partial love.

Arim. What heaven decrees, no prudence can prevent. 
To cure their mad ambition, they were sent
To rule a distant province each alone: 
What could a careful father more have done? 
He made provision against all, but fate,
While, by his health, we held our peace of state. 
The weight of seventy winters prest him down,
He bent beneath the burden of a crown: 
Sickness, at last, did his spent body seize,
And life almost sunk under the disease: 
Mortal ’twas thought, at least by them desired,
Who, impiously, into his years inquired: 
As at a signal, strait the sons prepare
For open force, and rush to sudden war: 
Meeting, like winds broke loose upon the main,
To prove, by arms, whose fate it was to reign.

Asaph. Rebels and parricides!