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 noble 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 passion 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 passing of this night is there
Conspiracy?--plot of some here? or of
That One whose necromancy wields the world?
I care not!--I care not! We must have mirth!
Have mirth! though it be laughter at damned souls.
HAEMON: And I must wake it? I with laugh and lay,
Doting upon dishonor?
CHARLES: What means he?
HAEMON: Give me again my sister from these walls,
Since might is yours, strip from me wealth and life
And more, and all--but let her not, no, no,
Meet here the touch and leprosy of shame!
CHARLES (_laughing_): Said I not, said I, friends, we should
have mirth?
You shall laugh with me laughter bright as wine.
ANTONIO: But, sir, this is not good for laughter! Sir!
HAEMON (_to ANTONIO_): Ah, put the lamb on--bleat mock sympathy!
CHARLES (_still laughing_): Fulvia, O, he foots it in the tracks
Of your own fear! and wanders to delusion!
HAEMON: Will you laugh at me, fiend!
CHARLES: Boy!
HAEMON: Had I but
Omnipotence a moment and could dash
Annihilation on you and your race!
(_Throws his glove in ANTONIO'S face._)
HELENA: Haemon!
FULVIA (_restraining her_): No, Helena.
CHARLES: Omnipotence?
And could Omnipotence make such a fool?
There must be two Gods in the world to do it.
HAEMON: She shall not----!
(_Attempts to kill HELENA._)
ANTONIO (_preventing_): Fury!--Ah! what would you do?
CHARLES: Such things can be? A sister, yet he strikes?
(_HAEMON is seized._)
HELENA: O let me speak with him, sir, let me speak!
CHARLES: Not now, girl, no, not now--lest in his breath
Be venom for thee! (_To soldiers._) Shut him from our gates
Till he repent this fever.
(_HAEMON goes quietly out._)
(_To guests who are suspicious and undetermined._) If you stare so
Will the skies stop! Have I not arm in arm
Friended this youth and meant him honor still?
Leave me. I had a thing to tell; but it
Must wait more seasonable festivity.
(_To PAULA._) See to thy mistress, child. Antonio, stay.
(_All go but ANTONIO and CHARLES, who leaves his chair
slowly and with dejection._)