[Aida:]
I am here to tell you we can never meet again
Simple really, isn't it, a word or two and then
A lifetime of not knowing where or how or why or when
You think of me or speak of me and wonder what befell
The someone you once loved so long ago so well
[Radames:]
Never wonder what I'll feel as living shuffles by
You don't have to ask me and I need not reply
Every moment of my life from now until I die
I will think or dream of you and fail to understand
How a perfect love can be confounded out of hand
Is it written in the stars
Are we paying for some crime
Is that all that we are good for
Just a stretch of mortal time
Or some God's experiment
In which we have no say
In which we're given paradise
But only for a day
[Aida:]
Marry the Princess, Radames. You can help my people. This could be our chance to do something important. Don't you see? It may be the whole reason we met.
[Radames:]
Then it would be a cruel trick!
[Aida:]
Not if the Gods put us together for some greater purpose.
Nothing can be altered, there is nothing to decide
No escape, no change of heart, no anyplace to hide
[Radames:]
You are all I'll ever want, but this I am denied
Sometimes in my darkest thoughts, I wish I'd never learned
[Radames and Aida together:]
What it is to be in love and have that love returned
[Aida:]
Is it written in the stars
Are we paying for some crime
Is that all that we are good for
Just a stretch of mortal time
[Radames and Aida together:]
Or some God's experiment
In which we have no say
In which we're given paradise
But only for a day
[Radames:]
I will do what you ask of me. But you must also do something for me. Go home, leave Egypt forever.
[Aida:]
What are you saying?
[Radames:]
While I am taking my wedding vows, there will be a boat waiting for you at the docks to return you to Nubia. At least I will have a message of happiness knowing you are free.
(RADAMES kisses AIDA one last time and leaves. AIDA looks to the sky… knowing her gods have provided a way. The irony of it nearly breaks her in two. She exits in the opposite direction. AMNERIS emerges from the shadows. She has seen everything.)