The Cup and The Falcon

Enter Synorix (looking round). Singing ceases.

Synorix.

Pine, beech and plane, oak, walnut, apricot,

Vine, cypress, poplar, myrtle, bowering-in

The city where she dwells. She past me here

Three years ago when I was flying from

My Tetrarchy to Rome. I almost touch’d her—

A maiden slowly moving on to music

Among her maidens to this Temple—O Gods!

She is my fate—else wherefore has my fate

Brought me again to her own city?—married

Since—married Sinnatus, the Tetrarch here—

But if he be conspirator, Rome will chain,

Or slay him. I may trust to gain her then

When I shall have my tetrarchy restored

By Rome, our mistress, grateful that I show’d her

The weakness and the dissonance of our clans,

And how to crush them easily. Wretched race!

And once I wish’d to scourge them to the bones.

But in this narrow breathing-time of life

Is vengeance for its own sake worth the while,

If once our ends are gain’d? and now this cup—

I never felt such passion for a woman.

[Brings out a cup and scroll from under his cloak.

What have I written to her?

[Reading the scroll.