[_Going near to MONK._ If you would try, you might persuade him, father. I cannot make him answer me, and yet If fitting hands would offer him the food, He might accept it. MONK. Certainly I will not. I’ve made too many homilies, wherein The wanton imagination of the poets Has been condemned, to be his flatterer. If pride and disobedience are unpunished Who will obey? CHAMBERLAIN. [_Going to other side towards SOLDIER._] If you would speak to him, You might not find persuasion difficult, With all the devils of hunger helping you. SOLDIER. I will not interfere, and if he starve For being obstinate and stiff in the neck, ’Tis but good riddance. CHAMBERLAIN. One of us must do it. It might be, if you’d reason with him, ladies, He would eat something, for I have a notion That if he brought misfortune on the King, Or the King’s house, we’d be as little thought of As summer linen when the winter’s come. FIRST GIRL. But it would be the greater compliment If Peter’d do it. SECOND GIRL. Reason with him, Peter. Persuade him to eat; he’s such a bag of bones! SOLDIER. I’ll never trust a woman’s word again! There’s nobody that was so loud against him When he was at the table; now the wind’s changed, And you that could not bear his speech or his silence, Would have him there in his old place again; I do believe you would, but I won’t help you. SECOND GIRL. Why will you be so hard upon us, Peter? You know we have turned the common sort against us, And he looks miserable. FIRST GIRL. We cannot dance, Because no harper will pluck a string for us. SECOND GIRL. I cannot sleep with thinking of his face. FIRST GIRL. And I love dancing more than anything. SECOND GIRL. Do not be hard on us; but yesterday A woman in the road threw stones at me. You would not have me stoned? FIRST GIRL. May I not dance? SOLDIER. I will do nothing. You have put him out, And now that he is out—well, leave him out. FIRST GIRL. Do it for my sake, Peter. SECOND GIRL. And for mine. [_Each girl as she speaks takes PETER’S hand with her right hand, stroking down his arm with her left. While SECOND GIRL is stroking his arm, FIRST GIRL leaves go and gives him the dish._ SOLDIER. Well, well; but not your way. [_To SEANCHAN._] Here’s meat for you. It has been carried from too good a table For men like you, and I am offering it Because these women have made a fool of me. [_A pause._ You mean to starve? You will have none of it? I’ll leave it there, where you can sniff the savour. Snuff it, old hedgehog, and unroll yourself! But if I were the King, I’d make you do it With wisps of lighted straw. SEANCHAN.