And if we have at all a fear of them,
It shall not be the old ignorant dismay,
But of their very potency to delight,
The way their looks make Will an enemy
Hating itself, shall men become afraid.
Women shall cause men know for why they have
Being in the earth;--not to be quailing slack
As if the whole world were a threat, but tuned
Ready for joy as harp-strings for the player.
And great desire of beauty and to be glad
Shall prompt our courages. Ha, what are those
Breaking from out the thickets?
_Gast_.
Wolves! They come!
Brothers, the fiends are on us: have good hearts!
Ho for the women and their sacred wombs!
_Brys_.
Ho for the women, their beauty and my pleasure!
VASHTI
I
AHASUERUS AND VASHTI
_Vashti_.
My lord requires me here.
_Ahasuerus_.
Does Heaven see this?
Dare I have this one humble unto me?
Was it not enough, Stars, to have given me
This marriage? but you must persuade your God
To have me as well the greatest king beneath you!
Look you now if men grow not insolent
Because of me, a man so throned, so wived.
Yea, and in me insolent groweth my love;
For if the wheels of the careering world
Brake, felley and spoke, that, pitching on the road,
It spilt the driving godhead from his seat,
And the unreined team of hours riskily dragg'd
Their crippled duty,--if in that lurching world
Like jarred glass my power shattered about me,
And I were a head unking'd, 'twere but a game,
So I were left possessing thee, and that
Escape from Heaven, the beauty that goes with thee.
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