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I. When his dogs leapt on Actaeon, he cried (did he cry out?)—He flung his arm to command, they tore his hand from the wrist stump, tore guts from his belly through the tunic, ripped the cry from his throat. That’s how we know a god, when the facts leap at the tenderest innards, and we know the god is what we can’t change. You stood over me as I woke, I opened my eyes, I saw that I’d seen and that it was too late: the seeing of you in the doorway with weak electric light fanning behind you in the hall, and my room and narrow pallet steeped in shadow were what I couldn’t change, and distantly I wanted you, and, as distantly, I heard the dogs, baying. II. And yet the fountain spends itself, and it is in the clear light of its losing that we seem to take delight: you dipped your hand in its running braid to sprinkle my forehead, my lips. Garden deities observed us: three nymphs with moss staining their haunches, a pug-nosed faun. The wound in water closed perfectly around your gesture, erasing it, so that only the glimmer, swiftly drying, on my face recalled our interruption of the faultless, cold, passionate, perpetual idea of the stream’s descent— which, unlike ours, would always be renewed. III. I kissed a flame, what did I expect. Those days, you painted in fire. Tangerine, gold: one would have had to be a pilgrim to walk through that wall of molten glass. And purification could be conceived, if not attained, only after many years, in autumn, in a fire greater than yours, though menstrual blood still tinged the threshold and our ex-votos were sordid—scraps of blistered flesh taped to kitsch prayer cards—and neither of us knew the object of this exercise, except having, inadvertently, each of us, burned we recognized the smell of wood smoke, the slow swirl flakes of wood ash make in heavy air; and we were ready, each in a private way, to make the gifts the season required. Mine was the scene of my young self in your arms, eyes in your eyes, clutched in the effort to give each other away—when I glimpsed behind your pleasure, fear; behind fear, anger; and knew in a bolt some gifts conceal a greater gift. I have kept it. Now I am ready to give it back into darker flame in this season of goldenrod, the ardent weed, and Queen Anne’s lace in its mantilla of ash. And yet, how lumpishly, how stupidly I stand. How much that is human will never burn. IV. And if you should answer? I listened, years before I knew you, to the whine of wind through the high stony pastures above my childhood village; I breathed lavender and thyme and burned my bare legs on nettles, scraped them on thistles, and rubbed the sore skin till it reddened all the more. When we walked the uplands together, you burned your hand and I kissed the crimsoning nettle-rash. “We are the Lords of need,” you said Hafiz said, and I believed you, and we were. In the rugs of your country, carmine is crushed from insects, cochineal; saffron gold is boiled from crocus stamens; and indigo of heaven and fountain pools is soaked, hours upon hours, from indigo leaves. “Like the angel Harut,” you said, “We are in the calamity of love-desire.” The angel is chained by neck and knees, head down, in the pit of Babel for falling in love. Your carpets told a different story: scarlet and saffron blush as in Paradise, and God reveals himself in wine, flame, tulips, and the light in a mortal eye. All night you held me, sleepless, on my childhood cot in the stone house; all night the wind seethed through crags and twisted olive trees, high on the scents of thyme and goat droppings. “All night,” Hafiz sang, “I hope the breeze of dawn will cherish the lovers.” But the breeze of dawn is the angel of death. You are in your far landscape now, I am in mine: the wind complains and I can’t understand the words. And if you should answer? You, ten years away, in a different wind. “We are in the calamity,” Hafiz sang. “But tell the tale of the minstrel and of wine, and leave time alone. Time is a mystery no skill will solve.” We should thread words like pearls, you said, and the grateful sky would scatter the Pleiades upon us though we couldn’t see, and that was long ago. V. The carpet is not a story. It is a place, garden of crisscrossed pathways, labyrinth, fountain, pool, and stream. As though the fabric had ripped at the vanishing point at the top of the street of ashen façades and slate-sloped roofs, you stepped through the gap, out of your own world. I had already lost my world. We met in a torn design which we tore further, pulling the tall warp, thread wrapped tightly around our fingers until it bit the flesh and the rue de Lille unravelled. I know about design: it’s my job, arranging other people’s letters in star charts that phosphoresce in the dark between the closed covers of books. You knew about design from the holes blown through your country. We spoke in a language of no country on earth. You moved slowly, in shadow, teaching the shadows to echo my name. You ripped my shirt at the neck. Was it The Beloved I held, holding you? Down the middle of the carpet the river weaves a thousand gray glimmers into the deeper green. The river knows about mourning; that’s its job. How many years has it practiced? With such fleet fingers. A man woke me at dawn this morning, sobbing and cursing in the street, reeling from sidewalk to gutter and back again. On my long gray street, the rue de Lille, where I still live.

How is it that you live, and what is it you do? — William Wordsworth, to the leech-gatherer Three, no, four, that I know, married women of means and brains. One grew moss on her tongue, waking from dreams that smelled of mildew or hoary socks on a smothering train. One turned to falconry and the construction of seed bombs to be dropped from three- story houses. One burned her burka upon being released from prison for the fourth time shamed so down deep in her molested self, washed henceforth in formal darkness, another burned her wedding dress in a fire pot while house finches splashed in the birdbath. [howone momenttouches on another moment and a thought flickers on and off] One poet, obsessed with vulvae, son of a butcher, displayed a large bezoar on his coffee table, and slept in the bear nests in the d’Ardèche, obsessed. One poet, adopted shortly after birth by a levee builder on the St. Francis, shot himself with a target pistol on a beautiful afternoon in early June. One lay across the tracks on the brink of the Tiananmen uprising. One picked up her manuscript, a block of ash, from the embers of her Oakland home. Bakhtin, as we know, smoked his very best pages in prison. The poems of Radnóti were found by his widow in his overcoat, in a mass grave. One scribbled until his last conscious breath in an apartment in Waltham, brimmed over with hellish fury and dysfunctional passion. One was imprisoned on a ship in Valparaiso during the military coup, but lived with his “iron bad health” to carve a poem 3.5 kilometers long in the Atacama Desert, and another in the skies over Brooklyn; to cover thousands of pages with anguish and light. One is fascinated with lichens and other symbionts. One with fungi and other entheogens. [howthe divine is elusive and pelf is conspicuous] One spent the better part of this life writing in the dirt with a stick, crossing out with his foot, that his entire tribe could decipher the mystery inscribed. [Another surrendered hisyouth and gladness with lines of despondency and madness.] One broke faith with the word before the word could break faith with her, and built a mountain of detergent in her garage. One made a record of night-flying birds on a scroll longer than the roll of post-Katrina homicides in Orleans Parish. One does not like white flowers and has never shown her poems to a single solitary living soul. Another built a pair of metal wings to be worn once and then pressed between the covers of a golden book. One joined the Int’l Concatenated Order of the Hoo-Hoo but absconded for Europe where he lives large as an unaffiliated psychedelic narcissist. Some just want the big life. Others suffer into the night at the thought of what they should have said,un autre esprit d’escalier. One was able to buy his first car after a settlement from being bit by a pit bull. One resolved to trim her hair once she began to sit upon it. One walked alone from Savannah to Santa Monica. The perfect time to read the Bible and Gravity’s Rainbow. One posed under a tortuosa beech at Arnold Arboretum when her picture was taken; wrote longhand crossing the Gulf, got a job statuing in New Orleans. One of the venerated continues to write though his sight has abandoned him and his garden is returning to wilderness. One snores and never locks her doors. One has lamellar ichthyosis and did not shed her collodion membrane. Rare relief springs from poetry and lying flat, cloud-searching on the grass. [howa glass ear is fashioned from words] One poet goes silent as fishes; one stands in a lightning field and slowly begins to move. [asa fugue composed in an open boat] One writes again every thousand+ days and plants all things magenta, so named for the Italian town of that name. One, as a lock against beggary and death, writes only elegies; was advised by a mild elder: It is all right to be depressed just as long as you don’t let it get you down. [howwisteria can bring down a house/likewise cat’s claw] One dreamed of leaving her colicky son under the bleachers. One survived multiple tumors in his brain decades after a year-long tour in Vietnam. Another walked off the uranium fields, survived melanoma and many more unkind cuts,torn awake. How here: [The story has a skip in it. Listen, Señor, I have been used bymy own ignorance, self-disgust, my instinct for failure. Pray for me.] Seen in this light (this damnable dingy light), Brothers and Sisters, Señors y Señoras, I tell you how it is that we live, and what it is that we do, we get ourselves up, off our much abused sofas, Hermanos, Hermanas, to the old intolerable sound of hollow spoons in hollow bowls, to insure that our love has not left the world or else

18 These creatures of the languid Orient,— Rare pearls of caste, in their voluptuous swoon And gilded ease, by Eunuchs watched and pent, And doomed to hear the lute’s perpetual tune, Were passion’s toys—to lust an ornament; But not such was our thrush-voiced Octoroon,— The Southland beauty who was wont to hear Faith’s tender secrets whispered in her ear. 19 “An honest man’s the noblest work of”—No! That threadbare old mistake I’ll not repeat. A lovely woman—do you not think so?— Is God’s best work. That she is man’s helpmeet, The Bible says, and I will let it go; And yet she crowns and makes his life complete. Who would not shrive himself in her dear face, And find his sinless Heaven in her embrace! 20 Young Maury loved his slave—she was his own; A gift, for all he questioned, from the skies. Not other fortune had he ever known, Like that which sparkled in her wild blue eyes. Her seal-brown locks and cheeks like roses blown, Were wealth to him that e’en the gods might prize. And when her slender waist to him he drew, The sum of every earthly bliss he knew. 21 They had grown up together,—he and she— A world unto themselves. All else was bare,— A desert to them and an unknown sea. Their lives were like the birds’ lives—free and fair, And flowed together like a melody. They could not live apart, Ah! silly pair! But since she was his slave, what need to say, A swarm of troubles soon beset their way? 22 Just in the dawn of blushing womanhood; Her swan-neck glimpsed through shocks of wavy hair; A hint of olives in her gentle blood, Suggesting passion in a rosy lair; This shapely Venus of the cabins stood, In all but birth a princess, tall and fair; And is it any wonder that this brave And proud young master came to love his slave? 28 If it be shame to love a pretty woman, Then shameful loving is a pretty thing. And of all things the most divinely human Is this:—Love purifies life’s Fountain Spring; And he who has not quaffed that fount is no man— I’d rather be a lover than a king. And then, preach as we will or may, we’ll find That Cupid, dear young god, is sometimes blind. 55 Before the world, I hold that none of these: The Shushan slave, the Oreb shepherdess, Nor Moab’s gleaner, ever had the ease Of carriage, grace of speech, the stateliness Of step and pose, nor had the art to please And charm with symphonies of form and dress, Nor had such wond’rous eyes, such lovely mouth, As had this blue-eyed daughter [Lena] of the South! 56 Had priest or prophet ever heard her singing, Or seen her, where the clover was in bloom, Wading knee-deep, while larks were upward springing, And winds could scarcely breathe for want of room— Thus seen her from the dappled hillsides bringing The cows home, in the sunset’s golden gloom, Our good old Bible would have had much more Of love and romance mixed with sacred lore. 57 What man is there who would not dare defend A life like this? Is doing so a sin? Or who should blush to be known as her friend? White wonder of creation, fashioned in The moulds of loveliness; kings might contend On martial fields a prize like her to win, And yet, the cabin’s hate and mansion’s scorn,— She suffered both, betwixt them being born. 59 When genial Spring first hears the mating thrush, Where waters gossip and the wild flowers throng, Love rears her altar in the leafy bush, And Nature chants the sweetest bridal-song. When love is free, with madness in its rush, Its very strength defends the heart from wrong. Love, when untutored, walks a harmless way, With feet, though bare, that never go astray. 153 Mind knows no death. Life is the “first and last.” The falling leaf leaves its source living still; The flower which withers in the autumn blast Dies not, but thus escapes the winter’s chill, And will return, through changes strange and vast, When summoned forth to range o’er vale and hill. Shall mind which thus perceives Life’s changes die? Hath only matter immortality? 156 But, “if a man die, shall he live again?” This baffling question comes from long ago. Shall ashes only of Life’s torch remain? The mind cries out, and Nature answers, “No!” Ye who have heard the prophesying rain, And seen the flowery Resurrection glow: Ye know of better things than eye hath seen; Ye know sere Earth is Mother of the green. 157 The wild moose shivers in the north land’s breath, Where Huron’s wave upbraids the fretful shore; The marsh fowl far to southward wandereth And calls her tribes to milder climes explore; All Nature seems to sigh: “Remember death, For all the living soon shall be no more.” But mark how Faith sweeps on with tireless wing, To find for e’en the fowl an endless spring. 159 Let scoffers mock, let unbelief deny— Agnosticism stolidly ignore; Let worldly wisdom proudly ask us, “Why?” And still the soul cries out for something more— For something better than philosophy— Still longs for higher joys and looks before; And cannot rest—will ne’er contented be, Till triumph over matter leaves mind free. 160 Then hail we all the spirits of the just, With Lena we shall join them all. The mind Now risen looks down on Life’s unmeaning dust, And soars to higher spheres—all unconfined; To spheres of love and duty, hope and trust; And leaves the sordid and corrupt behind. The Virgin is the sign of vanquished night, Her child is born—born of the soul—the Light. 161 Farewell! In grandeur sinks the closing day, And on our vision slowly fades the light; And bygone scenes, like shadows fall away, To settle in the blank of coming night. The Octoroon has passed, but not for aye; To those who have the gift of inner sight, The spirit of all nature prophesies A home for love and beauty in the skies.

He brings me chocolate from the Pentagon, dark chocolates shaped like tanks and fighter jets, milk chocolate tomahawks, a bonbon like a kirsch grenade, mint chocolate bayonets. He brings me chocolate ships, a submarine descending in a chocolate sea, a drone unmanned and filled with hazelnut praline. He brings me cocoa powder, like chocolate blown to bits. Or chocolate squares of pepper heat. Or if perhaps we've fought, he brings a box of truffles home, missiles of semisweet dissolving on the tongue. He brings me Glocks and chocolate mines, a tiny transport plane, a bomb that looks delicious in its cellophane.

It is a soft thing, it has been sifted from the sieve of space and seems asleep there under the moths of light. Cluster of dust and fire, from up here you are a stranger and I am dropping through the funnel of air to meet you.

It seems I have always sat here watching men like you — who turn heads, whose gaze is always either a kiss or a slap or the whiplash of pure disregard. Why fret? All you’re doing is walking. You’re this year’s It, the one righteous integer of cool cruising down a great-lipped channel of hushed adoration, women turned girls again, brightening in spite of themselves. That brave, wilting smile — you don’t see it, do you? How she tells herself to move on; blinks until she can.

Rushing rushing water's rumbling old hypnosis. The river's flooding the car-graveyard, glittering behind the masks. I grab hold of the bridge railing. The bridge: a large iron bird sailing past death.

on thoth’s tits From Sonnet 75 (“So are you to my thoughts as food to life”) A groovy day, a fish fillet, an elf hair, A cosmonaut, a microdot, a hoedown, A trusty door, the finest whore on welfare, A neocon who’s keeping on the lowdown, A purple fist, a Federalist, a sunspot, A bird that’s got a big big butt to study, A guy named Toots, ten dumb galoots, a gunshot, Die Fledermaus by good ol’ Strauss (my buddy), A grinning troll, a real a-hole, a smiler, A dude who knows a gushing hose is funny, An underdressed (no tie, no vest) John Tyler, A sexy flirt, a cowboy shirt — oh honey! I’ll flip you for a dinosaur, my sweeties, When Uncle Pete lets Usher eat our Wheaties. uh huh: hi, hula tooth From Sonnet 135 (“Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will”) Will refried catnip addicts find a cure? Will daytime televangelists go broke? Will Algorithmic Horses go on tour? Will nineteen shekels buy one thin, thin Coke? Will innovative inverts be reported? Will weasel-human hybrids rent a maid? Will hesitating oxen get aborted? Will analysts of real estate get laid? Will hoochie-coochie nuns remove their mink? Will enemies of hotness shut it down? Will tame aphasic mynahs learn to think? Will Hi-Ho hunt the hound in Ho-Ho town? Will Willy Loman eat a thousand ants? Will Willa Cather do that nasty dance?

(Skellig Michael) does not belong to any world that you and I have lived and worked in: it is part of our dream world…then (heading back) we were pursued by terrors, ghost from Michael… George Bernard Shaw I The ferry furrows the foam, leaving a wake that quickly settles and forgets us, as it has forgotten all those who’ve opened these waters: fisherman, monk, pilgrim and pagan, some foundering here. Our mainland world diminishes. There is respite. A cloud engulfs us out of nowhere as if the miraculous were about to appear. The veil lifts to reveal the small Skellig and Skellig Michael rising like chapel and cathedral. II We forget speech, hypnotized by the climb, concentrating on narrow, rock-hewn steps that spiral up like the gyres of the Book of Kells, whirling in labyrinths of knowledge, turmoil and eternity. They lead to the beehive huts and oratories packed with a congregation of sightseers who whisper in disbelief and reverence at how those sometime monks lived in this wind-tugged cloister of shells. We browse in each dome’s live absence and picnic above the graveyard that’s no bigger than a currach with a crucifix for helmsman navigating his crew to the island of the dead. We’re eyed by the staunch, monkish puffins. Our tongues loosen, but, in keeping with the somberness of this sun-haloed place, we chat about the world with an earnestness that would embarrass us on the mainland. You tell of medieval monks charting world maps with countries drawn as humans gorging upon each other’s entangled bodies. We go on to the lands and demons of the world of poetry. I’m flummoxed when you ask what poetry is. I recall how the earliest musical instruments were hewn out of bones, and that poets carve their words out of those gone before. They are the primitive musicians who beat and blow words back to life. More than that I don’t know. III […] That dusk at Dún an Óir we slaughtered even the pregnant, whimpering women methodically while a bloodstained sun drowned in the ocean. Each fetus struggled in the belly of each slain mother as desperately as a lobster dropped in a boiling pot. Had shed blood been ink, I could still be quilling The Faerie Queene, but I did not allow a drop to blot a mere sonnet that you, trapped in complicity, can never quite break free of. Admit it, hypocrite! In your time few are not guilty of slaughter. Even the page you’ll pen this upon is of pine that Amazonians were shot for. I could go on. (Edmund Spenser) I lifted the pitch of my grief above the storm-lashing waves for my world breaking on the reefs of foreign, land-grabbing knaves, who ignore dependence upon the lowliest plants and creatures as the hermit crab and cloak anemone depend on one another. But no matter what, you must keen for the world’s theft as I keened mine, despite knowing soon no one may be left. (Aodhagán Ó Rathaille) Lend an ear to one of your own kind and do not let yourself be caught by the winds of lust, like Dante’s starlings blown this way and that by every gust. I myself was borne on this wind as I rode across country, always wary that around the next bend my life would catch up with me. My rakish ways squandered energy that I should have instilled in song, more worthy of the muse-gift given to me than my odd aisling, Pay particular heed to me, especially since your word-talent is less than mine. I’m still too bushed to eke out a last line. (Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin) Sing up front, cold-shouldering the fashionable low key of your time, closed, cautious and crabbit as a farmer. Sing as open-throated as my curlew keen. I supped the red wine of Art’s blood as he lay slain, already becoming Cork mud. Sing as full-throated as my unmatched plaint; matching my words to his cold body that would never again rouse to my touch. My hands wept that day’s icy rain as I swore to undo that kowtowing dribble of a man who slew my Art of the winged white horse. The spirit of that mare I rode fleeter than any hare, fleeter than any deer, fleeter than the wind through Munster’s open country. Sing your provenance, our elder province. (Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill) I sang not for my own or for beauty's sake as much as to keep our spirits fired, knowing as long as we sang we'd not break, refusing to allow the country be shired. But it was too much when even our lands turned hostile and drove us like lapwings in the hard winter, together in dying bands, our swollen bellies pregnant with nothing. Even the birds seemed to give up singing. So I lay down and relinquished song. But I should have kept up my amhrán-ing, adapting and transmuting their tongue. Transform the spirit of where you belong, make something right out of what's wrong. (Tomás Rua Ó Súilleabháin) Tell of those weather-sketched Attic islanders who half-tamed their school of rocky Blaskets, water spouting from the blowholes of cliffs. Tell how they were forced from their Ithaca, still dreaming in the surf-rush of Irish, the inland longing for the lilt of the sea. In them uncover the destiny of everyone, for all are exiled and in search of a home, as you settle the eroding island of each poem. (Robin Flower) […] The islands' standing army of gannets fiercely snap, stab and peck one another. Few could match the spite I unleashed on any who encroached into my territory. I spat with petrel accuracy. I should have had the wisdom of the sad-eyed puffins who let everyone come close, sensing few mean hurt, though when forced to tussle they'll show their worth. So learn from me. When I come to mind don't recall how, feisty, I knocked nests of words over the edge, splattering on the rocks the crude squwaks of other ravaging, wing-elbowing birds; rather think of the winged poems I hatched, seen, regardless of time and place, gliding and gyring with their own grace. (Patrick Kavanagh) Life when it is gone is like a woman you were glad to be quit of only to find yourself years later longing for her, catching her scent on a crowded street. Tell us of the seagull plundering your picnic before it wakes you. Tell us of the rain tapping a pane while you're ensconced by the fire cradling a pregnant brandy glass. (Louis MacNeice) Can you still hear a distant train whistle blow? Wet my whistle with a slug of Guinness. What is the texture of fresh-fallen snow? Do girls still wear their hair in braid? What's tea? What's the smell of the sea? Tell me. Tell me. I am beginning to fade. (Dylan Thomas) IV The alarming, silhouetted bird has a preternatural quality as it flutters about my head, drawing me from sleep's underworld. I resist its pull. Everything turns into dream's usual montage. Another figure emerges but says nothing, as if that's what he came to say. His face merges into one of a gagged female. She shimmers and vanishes. Dolphins break beyond Blind Man's Cove, returning the dead to Bull Island, transmitting their encrypted, underwater Morse. The savant local ferryman informs us that Skellig Michael was once a druidic site. His oil-wrinkled hands tug the engine cord, coaxing our boat out of the cliff-shaded cove. We withdraw into the distance, leaving a disgruntling sense that we've only touched the tip of these dark icebergs.

Act 2, Scene 2 Clindor, a young picaresque hero, has been living by his wits in Paris, but has now drifted to Bordeaux, to become the valet of a braggart bravo named Matamore. He is chiefly employed as a go-between, carrying Matamore's amorous messages to the beautiful Isabelle—who only suffers the master because she is in love with the messenger. clindor Sir, why so restless? Is there any need, With all your fame, for one more glorious deed? Have you not slain enough bold foes by now, And must you have fresh laurels for your brow? matamore It's true, I'm restless, and I can't decide Which of two foes should first be nullified— The Mogul emperor or the Persian Sophy. clindor Ah, let them live a while, Sir. Neither trophy Would add a great deal to your fame and standing. And where's the army that you'd be commanding? matamore Army? Ah, villain, coward, do you doubt That with this arm alone I'd wipe them out? The mere sound of my name makes ramparts yield, And drives divisions from the battlefield; My wrath against these rulers needs engage Only a piddling portion of my rage; With one commandment given to the Fates I oust the strongest monarchs from their states; Thunder's my cannon; my troops, the Destinies; One blow lays low a thousand enemies; One breath, and all their hopes go up in smoke. Yet you dare speak of armies! What a joke! No longer shall a second Mars employ you; With but a glance, you rogue, I shall destroy you      ... And yet the thought of her whom I adore Softens me now, and I'm enraged no more; That little archer, whom every God obeys, Forbids my eyes to glare with lethal rays. Observe how my ferocity, which hates And hacks and slaughters, gently dissipates When I recall my lady, and my face Is changed by thoughts of beauty, love, and grace. clindor Oh, Sir, you have a hundred selves or more; You're as handsome now as you were grim before. I can't imagine any lady who Could stubbornly refuse her heart to you. matamore Whatever I may have said, feel no alarm: Sometimes I terrify, sometimes I charm; Depending on my humor, I inspire Men with anxiety, women with desire. Before I had the power to suppress My beauty, women gave me much distress: When I appeared, they swooned in quantity, And thousands died each day for love of me. With every princess I had many a tryst, And every queen came begging to be kissed; The Ethiopian and the Japanese Murmured my name in all their sighs and pleas. Two sultanesses could not but adore me, Two more escaped from the seraglio fòr me, Which strained my friendship with the Turkish nation. clindor Their anger could but gild your reputation. matamore Still, all that was more trouble than it was worth. It balked my plans for conquering the earth. What's more, I tired of it, and to deter Such nuisances sent word to Jupiter That if he could not put a stop to these Fond women and their importunities, I'd rise up in a rage and end his reign As ruler of the Gods, and would obtain For Mars the right to throw his bolts of thunder. Needless to say, the coward knuckled under: He did as I desired, and now, you see, I'm handsome only when I choose to be. clindor What love notes you'd receive, were that not so! matamore Don't bring me any      ...      unless from her, you know. What does she say of me? clindor Today she said That you inspire all hearts with love and dread, And that if what you promise her comes true, She'll feel herself a Goddess, thanks to you. matamore Back in the times I've just been speaking of, Goddesses, also, pestered me for love, And I shall tell you of a strange event Which caused confusion without precedent And threw all nature into disarray. The Sun was powerless to rise one day Because that bright, much-worshipped deity Could not find where the Dawn, his guide, might be. He sought her everywhere, in Cephalus' bower, In old Tithonus' bed, in Memnon's tower, But since Aurora nowhere was in sight, The day, till noontide, was as black as night. clindor Where was the Goddess, during these alarms? matamore In my bedchamber, offering me her charms. But she gained nothing by such shameless actions; My heart was blind to all her bright attractions, And all she got by showing off her beauty Was a firm command to go and do her duty. clindor That curious story, Sir, I now recall. I was in Mexico, where I heard it all. They said that Persia, vexed by the insult to Their famous Sun God, had it in for you. matamore I heard as much, and would have made them pay, But was in Transylvania that day, Where their ambassador hastened to appease My wrath with presents and apologies. clindor Your brave heart showed them clemency. How fine! matamore Just look, my friend, upon this face of mine. There every human virtue can be found. Of all the foes I've stamped into the ground, Whose kingdoms are annulled and cast aside, There was not one who did not fall through pride. But those who humbly honored my perfection Have kept their power through a wise subjection. The modest kings of Europe are all my vassals; I do not sack their towns or wreck their castles; I let them reign. But it's another story In Africa, where I scorched the territory Of certain kings who lacked humility, And left great deserts there for all to see. Those endless sands, beneath those skies of fire, Are a great monument to my righteous ire. clindor Let us revert to love; your lady's here. matamore My cursèd rival's at her side, I fear. clindor Where are you going? matamore He isn't brave, this dunce, And yet he's vain, and could be bold for once. Perhaps he'll challenge me from foolish pride, Merely because he's at the lady's side. clindor By doing so, the fool might come to harm. matamore I can't be valorous when I'm full of charm. clindor Cease to be charming and be terrible, Sir. matamore Oh, you don't realize what that would incur. I can't be terrible by halves, you know; I'd slaughter both my mistress and my foe. Until they part, let's stand aside and wait. clindor Your prudence, like your valor, is very great. (They withdraw to a corner.)