University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Acciajoli and Maria.
Acciajoli.
By command
Of our most gracious queen, O royal lady!
I come for yours.

Maria.
That is, to bear me company.

Acciajoli.
Such only as the humblest bear the highest.

Maria.
Seneschal! you excell the best in phrases.
You might let others be before you there,
Content to shine in policy and war.

Acciajoli.
I have been placed where others would have shone.

Maria.
Come, do not beat me now in modesty.
Had I done anything, I might not boast,
Nor should I think I was improving it
By telling an untruth and looking down.
I do not like our lodgment, nor much wish
To see an arrow quivering in that wainscot:
The floors are well enough; I would not see them
Paved with smooth pebbles from Hungarian slings.
Can not you send those soldiers to their quarters?

Acciajoli.
In vain have I attempted it.

Maria.
Send Psein
To me.

Acciajoli.
He, like the rest, is an insurgent.
Civilest of barbarians, yet may Psein
(With horror I must utter it) refuse.

Maria.
Fear of refusal has lost many a prize. [Acciajoli goes.

I hope the Seneschal will go himself,
Not send another. How I wisht to ask it!
But, at my years, to hint an act of delicacy
Is too indelicate. He has seen courts,
Turn'd over their loose leaves (each more than half
Illumination, dulness the remainder),
And knows them from the cover to the core.