Torquato Tasso: A Play

Princess.

You have gone very deep into this science,
Eleonore, you tell me things
That almost only touch my ear
And barely penetrate into the soul.

Leonore.

You? A student of Plato! Not understand?
What a novice dares to chatter to you.
It would have to be that I was too mistaken,
Yet I am not entirely mistaken, I know it well.
Love, in this fair school,
Does not show itself, as it otherwise does, as a spoiled child;
It is the youth who wedded himself to Psyche,
Who has a seat and a voice in the council of the gods.
He does not rampage wantonly
Back and forth from one breast to another;
He does not attach himself to beauty and form
Immediately with sweet error, and does not

For fleeting intoxication with disgust and annoyance.