Part 16 (2/2)

_Enter_ MELISSA _and other_ Ladies.

(_To_ MELISSA) Fairest and loveliest of your adorable s.e.x, your slave prostrates himself before your stainless and beatific feet (_bowing low and kissing his fingers_). Ill.u.s.trious Ladies, I pray you to advance.

_Lys._ (_with Courtiers standing apart_). A good appet.i.te, my friends. Enjoy yourselves while you may.

_Bard._ We are quite ready, my Lord Lysimachus. Are you not (_with a sneer_) for the banquet?

_Lys._ In good time, in good time. If they only knew.

[_Aside._

_Bard._ (_overhearing_). If _you_ knew all, my friends.

_Meg._ (_returning_). I pray you, most Ill.u.s.trious Senators, to excuse the absence of a guard of honour.

_Bard._ Nay, nay; we are peaceful people, and have no armed men nearer than Bosphorus, as my Lord Lysimachus knows. There are plenty in that favoured State, no doubt.

_Lys._ (_confused_). What does this insolence mean? I would the hour were come.

_Enter_ ZETHO, _with his retinue._

_Meg._ Your Gravity, Your Sincerity, Your Sublime and Wonderful Magnitude, Your Ill.u.s.trious and Magnificent Highness, I prostrate myself before Your Alt.i.tude. Will You deign to walk this way?

_Zetho._ My lord, I am no Caesar, but a simple citizen of Cherson, called by my fellows to preside over the State. Use not to me these terms, I pray of you, but lead on quickly.

_Meg._ I prostrate myself before Your Eminence.

_Enter_ ASANDER _and_ GYCIA.

_Meg._ (_returning_). n.o.ble Prince, will your Ill.u.s.trious Consort and yourself deign to follow me?

_Asan._ Nay, good Megacles, will you and these gentlemen go first? I have a word to say to the Lady Gycia. We will be with you before the guests are seated.

_Meg._ I obey, my Lord Asander, and will await you at the door.

[MEGACLES, LYSIMACHUS, _and the rest, pa.s.s on._

_Asan._ Gycia, though we have pa.s.sed from amity And all our former love, yet would I pray you, By our sweet years of wedded happiness, Give ear to me a moment. It may be That some great shock may come to set our lives For evermore apart.

_Gycia._ Ah yes, Asander-- For evermore apart!

_Asan._ And I would fain, If it must be, that thou shouldst know to-night That never any woman on the earth Held me one moment in the toils of love Except my wife.

_Gycia._ What! not Irene's self?

_Asan._ Never, I swear by Heaven. She was a woman In whom a hopeless pa.s.sion burnt the springs Of maiden modesty. I never gave her The solace of a smile.

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