e seen)
Begins the tale, "The Mighty Queen."

AQUILIUS.--I protest against "so if he will be thriving and improving
still." That is the Curate's interpolation. The fact is, he must have
rhymed a passage from his last sermon; and it has somehow or other
slipped into his Catullus.

CURATE.--No authority! What, then, is meant by "Quare si sapiet?"

AQUILIUS.--Simply, if he would know the secret--the "cogitationes."

GRATIAN.--I am inclined to agree with you. Now, Aquilius, we will listen
to your version.

AQUILIUS.

Hasten, papyrus! greet you well
That tender poet, my sweet friend
Caecilius--speedily I send,
As speedily my message tell:
That he should for Verona make
All haste--and quit his Larian Lake,
And Novum Comum--for I would
Some certain thoughts he understood
And purposes, that now possess
A friend of mine; and his no less.
And if he takes me rightly, say
His coming will devour the way,
Though that fair girl should bid him stay,
And round his neck her arms should throw,
And cry, Oh, do not, do not go!--
That girl, who, if the truth be told,
E'en in her heart of hearts doth hold
And cherish such sweet love--since he
First read to her of Cybele,
"Great Queen of Dindymus" the tale
Begun. Oh, then she did inhale
The living breath of love, whose heat
Into her very life doth eat.
Thy passion I can well excuse,
Fair maid! more learn'd than the tenth muse,
The Lesbian maid--nor couldst thou fail
To find for love an ample plea,
In that so nobly open'd tale
Of the great Goddess Cybele.

CURATE.--What's all this?--the "tenth muse!" where is she in the Latin?

AQUILIUS.--_Sapphica musa_, Doctor. That is Sappho, is it not? and pray
was Sappho one of the _nine_ muses? No; then of course she was the
_tenth_--and was not she "the Lesbian maid?"

CURATE.--Well, I admit it--you have vindicated your muse fairly, and I
will not pronounce against her, though tempted by an apt quotation from
the mouth of Bacchus, in the _Frogs_ of Aristophanes.

"[Greek: Aute poth e Mouo ouk elesbiazen ou]."

For your muse is certainly a Lesbian; but you have omitted "misellae,"
which shows that the passion was not returned.

GRATIAN.--I don't see that; for she throws her arms about his neck. But
neither of you have well spoken the "millies euntem revocet," the
calling him back after departure, and th