Mozart

So be it;

I'm glad. But let me first drop in at home

And tell my wife not to expect me later

For dinner.

(He leaves.)

Salieri

I am waiting; don't you fail me!

No, I cannot withstand it any longer,

Resist my destiny: I have been chosen

To stop him -- otherwise, all of us die!

All of us priests and votaries of music,

Not I alone with my faint-sounding glory...

What use is there in Mozart living on

And reaching yet to new and greater heights?

Will he thus lift up art? Not really: art

Will fall again as soon as he will vanish.

He will bequeath us no inheritor.

What use is he? Like some celestial cherub,

He came to bring us several tunes from heaven,

To rouse within us, creatures of the dust,

Wingless desire and fly away thereafter.

So fly away! the sooner now, the better.

Here's poison -- late Isora's final gift.

For eighteen years I've carried it with me,

And life since then has seemed to me quite often

A wound unbearable; and oft I sat

At the same table with a carefree foe,

And never to the whisper of temptation

Have I inclined -- although I'm not a coward,

Though I can feel profoundly the offense,

Though small my love for life. I kept delaying,

As thirst of death excruciated me.

Why die? I mused: perhaps yet life will bring