emember
How easy 'tis to promise and break faith
With insolent dogs like these. This Lamachus
Is older than your grace, and feebler far.
He will not live for ever, and, he gone,
Will not the Prince Asander be as great,
The husband of his daughter and his heir,
As _he_ is now, and sway the power of Cherson
For our own ends, and cast to all the winds
This foul enforced compact, and o'erturn
This commonwealth of curs? I will stake my life
That three years shall not pass ere he is King
Of Cherson in possession, and at once
Of Bosphorus next heir.
"The tongue hath sworn, the mind remains unsworn,"
So says their poet.

_Asan._ I'll have none of it.
I am not all Greek, but part Cimmerian,
And scorn to break my word.
Let us face ruin, father, not deceit.

_King._ My noble son, I love thee.

_Lys._ Good my liege,
And thou, my Lord Asander, ponder it.
Consider our poor country's gaping wounds,
And what a remedy lies to our hands.
I will die willingly if I devise not
A scheme to bend these upstarts to your will.

[_Exeunt omnes._

SCENE II.--_Outside the palace._

MEGACLES _and_ Courtiers.

_Meg._ Well, my lords, and so it is all settled. We must all be on
board in half an hour. His Altitude the Prince sails at once for
Cherson, and with a view to his immediate marriage. Was ever such a
rash step heard of? Not twenty-four hours to get ready the marriage
equipment of a Prince of Bosphorus. Well, well, I dare say they would
be glad enough to take him with no rag to his back. I dare say these
rascally republicans would know no better if he were to be married in
his everyday suit.

_1st Court._ I' faith, I should never have dreamt it. Asander, who is
the boldest huntsman and the bravest soldier, and the best of good
fellows, to go and tie himself to the apron-strings of a Greek girl,
a tradesman's daughter from Cherson, of all places on earth! Pah! it
makes me sick!

_2nd Court._ But I hear she is beautiful as Artemis, and----Well, we
are all young or have been, and beauty is a strong loadstone to such
metal as the Prince's.

_3rd Court._ Nay, he has never set eyes on her; and, for that matter,
the Lady Irene was handsome enough in all conscience, and a jovial
young gentlewoman to boot. Ye gods! do you mind how she sighed for
him and pursued him? It was a sight to please the goddess Aphrodite
herself. But then, ou