Lady Milford Monologue from Love and Intrigue: A Tragedy

From Love and Intrigue: A Tragedy by Friedrich Schiller

female · defiant · 1:16 min

Do you ask because this is the first day on which you have learnt to know me? I have sold my honor to the prince, it is true, but my heart is still my own--a heart, dear Sophy, which even yet may be worth the acceptance of an honorable man--a heart over which the pestilential blast of courtly corruption has passed as the breath which for a moment dims the mirror's lustre. Believe me my spirit would long since have revolted against this miserable thraldom could my ambition have submitted to see another advanced to my place. (SOPHY: And could a heart like yours so readily surrender itself to mere ambition?) Has it not already been avenged? nay, is it not even at this very moment making me pay a heavy atonement (with emphasis laying her hand on SOPHY'S shoulder)? Believe me, Sophy, woman has but to choose between ruling and serving, but the utmost joy of power is a worthless possession if the mightier joy of being slave to the man we love be denied us.

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