SEMIRA:
How many links to dire misfortune's chain
Are woven in one day!

(Enter MANDANE)
Stay, dear Mandane...
Why this haste?

MANDANE:
I attend the Council

SEMIRA:
I'll too attend, if ought within my pow'r
May help my brother

MANDANE:
Our views are different thou desir'st to save him,
I seek his death

SEMIRA:
Is this a language for Arbaces' lover?

MANDANE:
It well becomes the daughter of dead Xerxes

SEMIRA:
Away, thou cruel maid!
Enforce his crime, and urge his speedy death
But first prepare your heart, and quite erase
The soft remembrance of your former passion
The tender hopes and fears, warm vows of truth
Fond sighs exchang'd, and, last, the sweet idea
Of that dear form which first inspir'd your love

MANDANE:
Ah barbarous Semira, thus to wake
My guilty pity, rebel to my duty!