Enter Polemius and servants.

Claudius. 
Jupiter doth know the anguish,
My good lord, with which I venture
To approach thee since this happened.

Polemius. 
Claudius, as thine own, I ’m sure,
Thou dost feel this great disaster.

Claudius. 
I my promise gave thee that
To Chrysanthus . . .

Polemius. 
                     Cease; I ask thee
Not to proffer these excuses,
Since I do not care to have them.

Claudius. 
Then it seems that all thy efforts
Have been useless to unravel
The strange mystery of his fate?

Polemius. 
With these questions do not rack me;
For, though I would rather not
Give the answer, still the answer
Rises with such ready aptness
To my lips from out my heart,
That I scarcely can withstand it.

Claudius. 
Why conceal it then from me,
Knowing that thy blood meanders
Through my veins, and that my life
Owns thee as its lord and master?—­
Oh! my lord, confide in me,
Let thy tongue speak once the language
That thine eyes so oft have spoken.

Polemius. 
Let the servants leave the apartment.

Escarpin (aside). 
Ah! if beautiful Daria
Would but favour my attachment,
Though I have no house to give her,
Lots of stories I can grant her:—­ [Exeunt Escarpin and servants.

Claudius. 
Now, my lord, we are alone.

Polemius. 
Listen then; for though to baffle
Thy desire were my intention,
By my miseries overmastered,
I am forced to tell my secret;
Not so much have I been granted
License to avow my sufferings,
But I am, as ’t were commanded
Thus to break my painful silence,
Doing honestly, though sadly,
Willingly the fact disclosing,
Which by force had been extracted. 
Hear it, Claudius:  my Chrysanthus,
My Chrysanthus is not absent: 
In this very house he ’s living!—­
Would the gods, ah! me, had rather
Made a tomb and not a prison
Of his present locked apartment! 
Which is in this house, within it
Is he prisoned, chained, made captive. 
This surprises thee, no wonder: 
More surprised thou ’lt be hereafter,
When thou com’st to know the reason
Of a fact so strange and startling. 
On that fatal day, when I
Sought the mount and thou the garden,
Him I found where thou didst lose him,
Near the wood where he had rambled: 
He was taken by my soldiers
At the entrance of a cavern,
With Carpophorus:—­oh! here
Patience, patience may heaven grant me!—­
It was lucky that they did not
See his face, for thus it happened
That the front of my dishonour
Was not in his face made patent: 
Him they captured without knowing
Who he was, it being commanded
That the faces of the prisoners
Should be covered, but ere captured