PHYL. The prospect's very bad. My heart so sore and sad Will never more be glad As summer's sun. PHYL., IOL., LORD TOLL., STREPH. The prospect's not so bad, My/Thy heart so sore and sad May very soon be glad As summer's sun; PHYL., IOL., LORD TOLL., STEPH., LORD MOUNT. For when the sky is dark And tempests wreck his/thy/my bark, he should If thou shouldst need an Ark, I should She'll him I'll give thee one! me PHYL. (revealing herself). Ah! (Iolanthe and Strephon much confused.) PHYL. Oh, shameless one, tremble! Nay, do not endeavour Thy fault to dissemble, We part—and for ever! I worshipped him blindly, He worships another— STREPH. Attend to me kindly, This lady's my mother! TOLL. This lady's his what? STREPH. This lady's my mother! TENORS. This lady's his what? BASSES. He says she's his mother! (They point derisively to Iolanthe, laughing heartily at her. She goes for protection to Strephon.) (Enter Lord Chancellor. Iolanthe veils herself.) LORD CH. What means this mirth unseemly, That shakes the listening earth? LORD TOLL. The joke is good extremely, And justifies our mirth. LORD MOUNT. This gentleman is seen, With a maid of seventeen, A-taking of his dolce far niente; And wonders he'd achieve, For he asks us to believe She's his mother—and he's nearly five-and-twenty! LORD CH. (sternly). Recollect yourself, I pray, And be careful what you say— As the ancient Romans said, festina lente. For I really do not see How so young a girl could be The mother of a man of five-and-twenty. ALL. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! STREPH. My Lord, of evidence I have no dearth— She is—has been—my mother from my birth! BALLAD. In babyhood Upon her lap I lay, With infant food She moistened my clay; Had she withheld The succour she supplied, By hunger quelled, Your Strephon might have died! LORD CH. (much moved). Had that refreshment been denied, Indeed our Strephon might have died!