MENELAUS. Haven't the years taught you the cheapness of revenge?

ANALYTIKOS [mystified]. You do not intend to alter destiny.

MENELAUS. Never before has destiny been so clear to me.

ANALYTIKOS. Then the boy must die.

MENELAUS [with slow determination]. No! He has been sent by the Gods to
save me!

ANALYTIKOS. Your majesty! [He is trembling with apprehension.]

MENELAUS [with unbudgeable conviction]. Helena must elope with him!

ANALYTIKOS [falling into a seat]. Ye Gods!

MENELAUS [quickly]. I couldn't divorce the Queen. That would set a bad
example.

ANALYTIKOS. Yes, very.

MENELAUS. I couldn't desert her. That would be beneath my honor.

ANALYTIKOS [deeply]. Was there no other way?

MENELAUS [pompously]. The King can do no wrong, and besides I hate the
smell of blood. Are you a prophet as well as a scholar? Will she go?

ANALYTIKOS. To-night I will read the stars.

MENELAUS [meaningfully]. By to-night I'll not need you to tell me.
[ANALYTIKOS sits deep in thought.] Well?

ANALYTIKOS. Ethics cite no precedent.

MENELAUS. Do you mean to say I'm not justified?

ANALYTIKOS [cogitating]. Who can establish the punctilious ratio between
necessity and desire?

MENELAUS [beginning to fume]. This is no time for language. Just put
yourself in my place.

ANALYTIKOS. Being you, how can I judge as I?

MENELAUS [losing control]. May you choke on your dialectics! Zeus
himself could have stood it no longer.

ANALYTIKOS. Have you given her soul a chance to grow?

MENELAUS. Her soul, indeed! It's shut in her rouge pot. [He has been
strutting about. Suddenly he sits down crushing a roll of papyrus.
He takes it up and in utter disgust reads.] "The perfect hip, its
development and permanence." Bah! [He flings it to the floor.] I've done
what I had to do, and Gods grant the bait may be sweet enough to catch
the Queen.

ANALYTIKOS. If you had diverted yourself with a war or two you might
have forgotten your troubles at home.

MENELAUS [frightened]. I detest dissension of any kind--my dream was
perpetual peace in comfortable domesticity with a womanly woman to warm
my sandals.

ANALYTIKOS. Is not the Queen----?

MENELAUS. No! No! The whole world is but her mirror. And I'm expected to
face that woman every morning at breakfast for the rest of my life, and
by Venus that's more than even a King can bear!

ANALYTIKOS. Even a King cannot alter destiny. I warn you, whom the Gods
have joined together----

MEN