Chapter 2Act I, Scene 1

Scene 1 The woodlands of Ilni. Girls and youths dancing.

Song

Under the darkling tree Who danceth with thee,

Sister say?

His hair is the sweet sunlight, His eyes a starry night

In May.

Under the leaf-wrought screen Who crowns thee his queen

Kissing thee?

His lips are a ruby bright, His cheek the May-bloom’s light

On the tree.

Under the grass-green bough Whom pillowest thou

On thy breast?

His voice is a swallow’s flight, His limbs are jonquils white

Dewy-drest.

IAMBLICHUS Unwind the link`ed rapture of the dance!

For in the purple verge and slope of morn Fast-flowering blooms, fire-robed and honey-haired, In stainless wastes the daffodil of heaven. Here till the golden-handed sun upbuilds The morning’s cenotaph blue-domed and vast, On daisy-dotted bank where sunlight nods We’ll spin a curious weft of lyric tales.

MYRTIL Be it so. But what occupation stays Our deftest in the jewelry of rhymes, Our liberal dispenser of sweet words, Our laureate with the throstle in his throat? Sleeps he so long? who saw Melander last, Melander ashbud-browed with April hair?

ERMENILD Before the russet-hooded morn gave birth In Day’s embraces to the fire-eyed sun I spied him nigh a mossy-mantled cave Which rosy trailers draped, and at his side The silver-seeming witch Alaciel.

MYRTIL Pray God, the black-haired witch may do no harm! She is most potent and her science plucks The ruby nightshade, Hecate’s deadly plum, Soul-killing meadow-sweet, the hemlock starred And berries brown crushed in the vats of death, Her mother’s hell-brewed legacy of arts.

MARCION Were it not wisely done to call him hither?

IAMBLICHUS ’Tis wisely urged, good Marcion. Make good haste And drench thy words in Hybla’s golden milk To lure him thence.

Exit Marcion.

But you with dance and song Beguile the laggard moments into joy.