(_DIOGENES, who has stood unconscious of all that has
passed, is pushed forward._)

Ah, peer of Socrates and perfect Plato,
Leave your unseeing silence now and tell us----

_Enter AGABUS gazing anxiously and wildly before him._

Who's this?

AGABUS (_hoarsely_): Where went he--the Shadow?--whither?

CHARLES: Who's this broke from his grave upon us?

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 pass,
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._

GUE