_Ste._ Not if the chit May corner in your kitchen! She's worth that.

_Pel._ You'll leave her here?

_Ste._ It will content me. I'll Surrender both.

_Pel._ What? Both! Nay, your free heart Shall not outdo my own.

_Ste._ You'll give me Pyrrha?

_Pel._ Friend of my soul, I will!

_Ste._ [_Moved_] Thanks, Pelagon.

She's dearer than my son. More like my blood.

Alcanor is too soft and woman-lipped.

Too much Archippe in him from his birth, Nor blows could drive it out.

_Pel._ And mine own eyes Have seen a cooing match between himself And Phania.

_Ste._ Zeus! His sister!

_Pel._ While we speak, The fated pair are yonder----

_Ste._ I'll get him home!

And leave the witch to you! Had I a doubt To hold me back, this turn would be Decision's point. She must stay here.

_Pel._ But how Make answer to our wives? Our wisdom's nicked Where it is tenderest if we confess.

_Ste._ What's to confess? I know my will and do it.

_Pel._ Ay, ay, you bear your wife in a sack, but mine Is on her feet and goes her pace. Look yon!

They come together! A brace, and one of them Would tie my tongue.

_Ste._ Tie water in a brook!

[_Archippe and Sachinessa enter upper right_]

_Sac._ We do not come to shame you, n.o.ble lords And husbands, though we've that to bear which put To honest ballad would uncrest your pride And clip a reef or two from the tall sail Of dignity.

_Ste._ Why, madam, this approach?

_Sac._ I walk, sir, in my garden when I please.

_Arc._ We have a suit, my honored lords, which you May think full strange, remembering our prayers Of twenty years ago.

_Ste._ What suit canst have?

If you must try the goose-step out of doors, Go thank the G.o.ds for suiting you with me, Who save you from all suit by hearing none.

_Sac._ Not hear us, sir? I'll catch you by the ears And shake the pride-wool out, but you shall hear!

Suited with you! And then go thank the G.o.ds!

_Pel._ Why, Sachinessa, love! What you, duck?

_Sac._ This, Pelagon. When in that sad year gone You took my child from me----

_Pel._ What? That again?

_Sac._ Not that, but this. I did not stay you then, Being young in wedlock and my wit at cheep In its first feathers. But this second time When you lift up your hand to cut the bough Whose root is in my heart, I'll speak so loud That if your dull ear miss, I'll reach you yet By way o' the stars that will cry back my wrong When they so hear it.

_Pel._ You would beg for Phania?

_Sac._ I would. There is no source of love so great As brooding care. That makes the mother, not The childing pangs. Though she, from the first hour, Will cherish what she must so dearly buy, 'Tis day by watchful day her swelling love Is born. So I, as new days past, forgot The child of my brief pain, and gave to one That nestled in her place my care-born love.

Now you would strike again----

_Pel._ Sweet, by my soul,-- Nay, Sachinessa, dearest heart, be calm.

Your words have never in our mated life Moved me as now. If Stesilaus yields, And his stern will be broken by your plea, I am content.

_Ste._ I'm so far moved, my friend, That I will hear Archippe speak her wish.

Her love for Pyrrha will not match with that Your wife bestows on Phania.

_Arc._ Ay, my lord, I've never loved the stranger as my own, But she is dearer than my own grown strange.

I see in Phania all my tender loss, But it is lost forever. Give me, Pyrrha.

I have no other daughter.

_Ste._ Keep her, dame.

But make this weakness not your heckling ground Where you would spar for favors. No more suits!

_Pel._ And, Sachinessa, hear the same from me.

_Sac._ You borrow feathers and I'll twitch 'em out!

_Ste._ [_To Archippe_] Lest you should badger, footed safe on this, Know that my judgment's not earwigged by you To this repeal, but now configures pat To the act itself, that keeps a constant step With our first purpose. Our intent comes out With even edges, though reversed in face.

An Athens' maid shall be a Spartan mother, And here shall dwell a dame of Spartan blood.

_Pel._ You hear it, Sachinessa. I'm not one To throw my pack away in sight of home.

Come mud, come mire, I bear my judgment out, As Athens knows.

_Sac._ I'll swear to it there's no man I' the city better hides the sun with a sieve!

_Ste._ And secondly, my dame, know that I've won My high contention that the laws of Sparta Are best for brooding earth a G.o.dlike race.

For here my proof enroots in warmest life That they can aggrandize the chalky veins Of pampered Attica to ducts that bear The red, unconquered sap of Lacedaemon.

_Sac._ So Pyrrha is your proof!

_Ste._ No question there.

A weak, Athenian babe grows up the pride Of Sparta, while a budling of her own, Nursled by Athens' soft and careless shift, Scarce grows to woman's level----

_Sac._ Why, you puffed---- You pride-blown----