Love constrains hearts that it seizes.
To suffer rigorous ills,
If your fate is in your power,
Choose indifference
It assures a happy repose.
ARMIDA:
No, no:
it’s no longer possible for me
To spend my trouble in a peaceable state.
My heart can no longer calm itself.
Renaud greatly offends me; only he’s too lovable.
Henceforth, for me the choice is indispensable,
Either to hate him or love him.
PHENICIA:
You’ve been unable to hate this invincible hero
When he was the most terrible
Of all your enemies.
He loves you; love enfetters him.
Will you be able to better keep your hate
Against a lover so tender and submissive?
ARMIDA:
He loves me? What love! My shame increases from it.
Must I be loved this way? Can I be satisfied with it?
It’s a vain triumph, a false blessing.
Alas! How different his love is from mine!
I had recourse to Hell to ignite his flame.
It’s the power of my art which can do anything to his soul.
My weak beauty can do nothing.
With his own worthiness he suspends my vengeance.
Without help, without effort, even without thinking of it,
He enfetters my heart with a very charming bond.
Alas, how different my love is from his!
What vengeance have I to pretend to
If I want to love him forever?
What! to give up without doing anything!
No, hate must be called to my aid.
The horror of these solitary regions
Is going to increase multifold through my art.
Turn your sight from my frightful mysteries
And especially prevent Renaud from troubling me.
(Exit Phenicia and Sidonia.)
ARMIDA:
(alone) Come, come, implacable hate!
Leave the appalling abyss
Where you cause eternal horror to rule.
Save me from love: nothing is so formidable
Against an enemy too lovable.
Give me back my wrath, re-ignite my furor.
Come, come, implacable hate,
Leave the appalling abyss,
Where you cause eternal horror to rule.
(Hate leaves Hell accompanied by the Furies, Cruelty, Vengeance, Rage, and the passions which depend on hate.)
HATE:
I answer your wishes: your voice made itself heard
Into the depth of Hell.
For you, I am going to undertake everything against love.
And when one really wants to be protected from it,
One can be guaranteed proof against its unworthy fetters.
HATE AND HER FOLLOWING:
The more one knows love
The more one detests it:
Let’s destroy its funereal power.
Let’s break its bonds, let’s tear its chain,
Let’s burn its fetters, let’s extinguish its torch.
(The chorus repeats the last four verses)
(Hate’s suite rushes to break and burn the arms employed by love.)
HATE AND HER FOLLOWING:
Love, leave forever, leave a heart that chases you out.
May Hate reign in your place.
You cause too much suffering under your rule!
No, all Hell has nothing so cruel as you.
(Hate’s followers demonstrate pleasure as she prepares to triumph over love.)
HATE:
(coming close to Armida)
Get out, get out of Armida’s breast:
Love, break your chain.
ARMIDA:
Stop, stop, horrid Hate.
Leave me under the rule of such a charming conqueror.
Leave me alone:
I renounce your horrifying assistance.
No, no, don’t finish, no it is not possible
To separate me from my love without tearing out my heart.
HATE:
Did you implore my assistance
So as to scorn my power?
Follow Love, since you wish to.
Unlucky Armida;
Follow love who is guiding you
Into a horrifying abyss.
On these remote shores, it’s in vain that you are hiding
This hero that your heart is too weak to touch.
Glory
