O you are fair!
Fairer than ever! In this tangle of trees
Your hot breath wraps you in perfume.

ALICIA.
There is some gloom or doom,
A bitter harsh ingredient
In these my sorceries
Of animal scent.

CRASSUS.
Yes! there is fear mixed with the fascination.
It is the reverence that chastity, be sure!
Gains from the impure.

ALICIA.
O virtuous nation!
It is the fear of the uninitiate
Before the throne of Fate
The hierophant.

CRASSUS.
Kiss me, however!

ALICIA.
Did I grant
This favour, all were lost. It is your truth
To Adela that tempts my youth.
[Henceforth Alicia shakes with silent laughter.]

CRASSUS.
What little breasts you have!

ALICIA.
Ay, maiden breasts!
Would you betray my oath?

CRASSUS.
My will contests
My wishes.

ALICIA.
Wait, and you shall surely see
Part of the secret that ensorcels me.
See all these bosses! It is not
As if a Titan smote himself into the earth,
And was caught into her, made one with her?

CRASSUS.
The scent is fierce and hot
Like a rutting panther's slot.
Yet you are matched with mirth,
Shaking each other like two wrestlers.

ALICIA.
What should stir
Your melancholy but laughter?

CRASSUS.
Look, before us
Light streams, a tremulous chorus.
Oh, it is vague and vacillating!

ALICIA.
Love,
Young love of maidens, is the soul thereof.
And in the midst, behold, O man!
The image of great Pan.

CRASSUS.
I fear him.

ALICIA.
Go and lie there, at his feet.
Lie supine! Lie on that moss-covered root,
While I draw forth the flute
And make a marvellous music.
[She ceases laughing and begins to play.]

CRASSUS.
O I writhe
Beneath the force of lips, of fingers lithe
That touch the delicate stops so delicately.

ALICIA.
Hush!
I have drawn the bird from the bush.
Pan will appear anon.

CRASSUS.
Ah! Ah! ... Ah! Ah!

ALICIA.
This music moves you. Now I'll play a tune
That would make mad the melancholy moon.
This.

CRASSUS.
Ah! you tear my soul out with the trills.
Your fingers play like summer lightning on the shaft.
It is like a storm on the mountains when it shrills;
Like the angry sea when it booms. Hark!

ALICIA.
Some god laughed.

CRASSUS.
Your mouth is like some god's It burns and blooms
With fire unheard of, with unguessed perfumes.
O let me kiss you!

ALICIA.
So you stop my song!
[She ceases the tune.]

CRASSUS.
There is another song.

ALICIA.
You do me wrong