-The flames are steady.

_1st Woman_.
No wind at all: the air's like one closed room.

_2nd Woman_.
There is no talk like this at the King's feast,
I warrant. Were we not best be merry,
And thank the King so for these wines and sweets?

_Vashti_.
Yes, let us not forget our thankfulness;
For is not, sisters, everything we have
Mere gift?

_2nd Woman_.
My beauty pays for what I get.

_Vashti_.
I would, 'twere not so.

_2nd Woman_.
Queen, I doubt thee not.

_Vashti_.
Pert little fool, where lies thy beauty, then?
Thou hast it not: its place is not thy flesh,
But the delighting loins of men, there only.
Thy beauty! And thou knowest not that man
Hath forged in his furnace of desire our beauty
Into that chain of law which binds our lives--
Man, please thyself, and woman, please thou man.
But thou wilt have thy beauty pence, thou sayest?
And what's thy purchase? Listen, I will tell thee:
Just that thou art not whipt and drudged: the rest,
All that thou hast beyond, is gift.

_2nd Woman_.
Why not?

_Vashti_.
Truly, for thee, why not?

_2nd Woman_.
Wouldst thou, 'twere yours?

_1st Woman_.
Thou shudderest again; what ails thee, Queen?

_Vashti_.
I would have lived in beauty once.

_2nd Woman_.
In whose?

_Vashti_.
I know the King finds relish in thy looks,
Wench, and I have no care to grudge thy pride;
But when thy face is named throughout the world
For wonder, I will bear thy impudence.

_1st Woman_.
But tell us, Queen, thy thought; for we have made
An end almost of eating; and it seems
It will be somewhat strange, pleasing our mood.

_Vashti_.
Strange you will find it doubtless; but scarce pleasing,
Unless 'tis pleasing to have news of danger.
Listen! your lives are propt like a rotten house.
Your souls, that should have noble lodging here,
Have crept like peasants into huts that have
No force within their walls, but must be shored
With borrowed firmness. Yea, man's stubborn lust
To feed his heart upon your beauty, is all
The strength your lives have, all that holdeth you
Safe in the world,--propt like a rotten house.

_1st Woman_.
Shall woman then not love to have man's love?

_3rd Woman_.
To feed his heart on us, thou sayest? O yea!
And how can a woman know such might of living
As when upon her breast she feels the man,
The man of her desire, like sacrament
Feeding his heart, yea and his soul, on her?

_Vashti_.
Are we for nought but so to nourish h