n, sweet Chariclea, since you have silenced Speusippus,
you shall sing yourself.

CHARICLEA. What shall I sing?

ALCIBIADES. Nay, choose for yourself.

CHARICLEA. Then I will sing an old Ionian hymn, which is chanted every
spring at the feast of Venus, near Miletus. I used to sing it in my own
country when I was a child; and--ah, Alcibiades!

ALCIBIADES. Dear Chariclea, you shall sing something else. This
distresses you.

CHARICLEA. No hand me the lyre:--no matter. You will hear the song to
disadvantage. But if it were sung as I have heard it sung:--if this
were a beautiful morning in spring, and if we were standing on a woody
promontory, with the sea, and the white sails, and the blue Cyclades
beneath us,--and the portico of a temple peeping through the trees on
a huge peak above our heads,--and thousands of people, with myrtles
in their hands, thronging up the winding path, their gay dresses and
garlands disappearing and emerging by turns as they passed round the
angles of the rock,--then perhaps--

ALCIBIADES. Now, by Venus herself, sweet lady, where you are we shall
lack neither sun, nor flowers, nor spring, nor temple, nor goddess.

CHARICLEA. (Sings.)

Let this sunny hour be given,
Venus, unto love and mirth:
Smiles like thine are in the heaven;
Bloom like thine is on the earth;
And the tinkling of the fountains,
And the murmurs of the sea,
And the echoes from the mountains,
Speak of youth, and hope, and thee.

By whate'er of soft expression
Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes,
Faint denial, slow confession,
Glowing cheeks and stifled sighs;
By the pleasure and the pain,
By the follies and the wiles,
Pouting fondness, sweet disdain,
Happy tears and mournful smiles;

Come with music floating o'er thee;
Come with violets springing round:
Let the Graces dance before thee,
All their golden zones unbound;
Now in sport their faces hiding,
Now, with slender fingers fair,
From their laughing eyes dividing
The long curls of rose-crowned hair.

ALCIBIADES. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I would
chide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine there. I wish to all the
gods that I had fairly sailed from Athens.

CHARICLEA. And from me, Alcibiades?

ALCIBIADES. Yes, from you, dear lady. The days which immediately precede
separation are the most melancholy of our live