LADY CLARENCE. Long live your Majesty! Shall Alice sing you One of her pleasant songs? Alice, my child, Bring us your lute (ALICE _goes_). They say the gloom of Saul Was lighten'd by young David's harp. MARY. Too young! And never knew a Philip. _Re-enter_ ALICE. Give _me_ the lute. He hates me! (_She sings_.) Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing! Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in loathing: Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing-- Low, lute, low! Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken; Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken; Low, my lute! oh low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken-- Low, dear lute, low! Take it away! not low enough for me! ALICE. Your Grace hath a low voice. MARY. How dare you say it? Even for that he hates me. A low voice Lost in a wilderness where none can hear! A voice of shipwreck on a shoreless sea! A low voice from the dust and from the grave (_Sitting on the ground_). There, am I low enough now? ALICE. Good Lord! how grim and ghastly looks her Grace, With both her knees drawn upward to her chin. There was an old-world tomb beside my father's, And this was open'd, and the dead were found Sitting, and in this fashion; she looks a corpse. _Enter_ LADY MAGDALEN DACRES. LADY MAGDALEN. Madam, the Count de Feria waits without, In hopes to see your Highness. LADY CLARENCE (_pointing to_ MARY). Wait he must-- Her trance again. She neither sees nor hears, And may not speak for hours. LADY MAGDALEN. Unhappiest Of Queens and wives and women! ALICE (_in the foreground with_ LADY MAGDALEN). And all along Of Philip. LADY MAGDALEN. Not so loud! Our Clarence there Sees ever such an aureole round the Queen, It gilds the greatest wronger of her peace, Who stands the nearest to her. ALICE. Ay, this Philip; I used to love the Queen with all my heart-- God help me, but methinks I love her less For such a dotage upon such a man. I would I were as tall and strong as you. LADY MAGDALEN. I seem half-shamed at times to be so tall. ALICE. You are the stateliest deer in all the herd-- Beyond his aim--but I am small and scandalous, And love to hear bad tales of Philip. LADY MAGDALEN. Why? I never heard him utter worse of you Than that you were low-statured. ALICE. Does he think Low stature is low nature, or all women's Low as his own? LADY MAGDALEN. There you strike in the nail. This coarseness is a want of phantasy. It is the low man thinks the woman low; Sin is too dull to see beyond himself. ALICE. Ah, Magdalen, sin is bold as well as dull. How dared he?