Scene 4 — A garden near the Castle Enter Mortimer — Mort:

All nature seems to mourn for Adelaide's woes:
Why do I say for Adelaide's?
Are not my own as great?
Oh! Yes — and greater far;
But in her tears my sorrows are forgot
The Birds have ceased to tune their joyous strain,
And plaintive notes express their sympathy;
The Sun has sunk beneath the lowering clouds,
Which sprinkle all around with pitying tears;
The roses droop and wither in their bloom —
A mournful emblem of my hapless love —

Enter Stanmore Stan

" Hapless love " — What means this said complaint?
Has the fair shrine which humbly you adore
Refused to grant what vows and prayers seek?
Or has some young, some pretty sighing fool
Woo'd the inconstant fair one from your arms,
And triumphed in a heart not worth the having? Mort:

Cease Stanmore to profane,
With a blaspheming tongue,
The truest, loveliest, best of women — Stan:

Lovely she is; but true she cannot be;
Or if she is indeed, why then, she is the first
That e'er beneath an Angel's form
Concealed an Angel's mind —
I have abjured them all;
For all are treacherous alike — Mort:

Oh No! My Adelaide is excellence itself — Stan:

So I once thought Zalniora;
She too was lovely and I thought her true;
But oh! how fatally was I deceived —
When first my eyes beheld the beauteous slave
My heart confessed her charms more powerful far.