AGABUS (_searching still_): Where?

I followed him--he sped and there was cold!

Behind him blows a horror!

(_Stops in fascinated awe before HELENA._) Ah, on her head!

His touch! his earthless finger!--and she rots To dust! to dust!

ANTONIO: Ill monk! are there no men That you must wring a woman so with fear?

AGABUS: Ha, men? Christ save all men but lovers! all! (_Crosses himself._)

CHARLES: Antonio, how speaks he?

ANTONIO: Sir, most mad With the pestilence of evil prophecy.

(_To guards._) Forth with him!

CHARLES: Stay.

ANTONIO: Let him not, for he will Beguile you to some ravening belief.

AGABUS (_going up to CHARLES, staring at him in suppressed excitement_): A lover! a lover! and he loves in vain!

Wilt go? There is a cave--(_taking his hand_), we'll curse her--come!

CHARLES: Out! out! (_Throws him from the dais._)

AGABUS: Christ save all men but-- (_Seeking vacantly._) Ah, the Shadow!

Has no one seen him? none?--the Shadow? none?

(_Goes dazed. Guests whisper, awed._

CHARLES: He is obsessed--vile utterly!

A GUEST: O duke, I pray, good-night.

ANOTHER: And I, my lord.

ANOTHER: And I----

ANOTHER: And----

CHARLES: Friends, you shall not--no. This pall will pa.s.s, My hospitality is up, you shall not!

ANOTHER: Pardon, O duke, we----

CHARLES: Though some grudging wind Blows us away from mirth, 'tis still in view, We've lute and dance that yet shall bring us in.

1ST LADY: O, dance!

CHARLES: Cecco, our Circes from the Nile.

(_CECCO goes._

2D LADY: The Nile! Ah, Cleopatra's Nile?

CHARLES: Her own; And sinuous as Nile water is their grace.

_Enter two Egyptian girls, who dance, then go._

GUESTS (_applauding_): Bravely!--O, brave!

CHARLES: Do they not whirl it lithe?

With limbs like swallow wings upon the blue?

1ST LADY: 'Twas witchery!

3D LADY: Such eyes! such hair!

2D LADY: And thus, Did Cleopatra thus steal Antony?

Wrap him about with motion that would seize His senses to an ecstasy? O, oh, To dance so!

CHARLES: And so steal an Antony?

We'll frame a law on thieving of men's heart's!

2D LADY: Then, vainly! 'tis a theft men like the most.

CHARLES: When in its stead the thief has left her own-- But shall we woo no boon of mirth save dance?

A lute! a lute! (_One is gone for._) Some new lay, Haemon, come!

And every word must dip its syllables In Pindar's spring to trip so lightly forth.

HaeMON: I have no lay.

CHARLES: The lute! (_It is offered HaeMON._) Sing us of love That builds a Paradise of kisses, thinks The Infinite bound up in an embrace.

Whose sighs seem to it hurricanes of pain, Whose tears as seas of molten misery.

HaeMON: I have none--cannot.

CHARLES: Now will you fright off Again our timid cheer?

HaeMON: While she, my sister--!

(_The lute is offered again._) I cannot, will not!

CHARLES: Will not? will not? Look!

I had an honor pluckt to laurel it, A wreath of n.o.ble worth, a thing to tell----

HaeMON: Honor upon dishonor sits not well.

CHARLES (_not hearing_): Heat me not with denial. Is new bliss Raised from the dead in me but to fall back As stone ere it has breathed? Have I so frequent Drained you? Be slow to tempt me--In me moves Peril that has a pa.s.sion to leap forth!

HaeMON: Antonio, speak! Where's innocence and where Begins deceit?

FULVIA (_to HaeMON aside_): Ask it not, or you step On waiting hazard and calamity.

CHARLES: New fret? and new confusion? In the blind Power and pa.s.sing of this night is there Conspiracy?--plot of some here? or of That One whose necromancy wields the world?