That fits in place, and only what my realm Of pearls and precious jewels disenwombs From out the miner’s shaft or bed of ocean, Not more nor less, is here enharmonied. The noble stone that is not found among us, It matters not how fair, is straitly banned. I need not say I’ve left a place for such As are unearthed in the next hundred years. Now do you follow? (_To_ GYGES.) That one fitly suits Some massive giant-skull such as your sculptors Are wont to give my forebear for a head-piece, When in his lion-skin, with bulky club, Towering above a streamlet’s mossy rim, You make him useful as a children’s bogy. [_He girds on the sword._ This sword is somewhat lighter than the old one; But that’s no loss--you’ll swing it, if you must, Not outside merely ’neath unhampered heaven Where giants at each other volley boulders, [_He draws it and swings it._ No, but in space cramped human-small, like this! Then, Thoas, spare the pains of a third sermon, To-day I’ve heard the second. THOAS. Pardon, sire! And yet you know ’tis not the young man’s limbs In which a change of weather gives its warning, It is the old man’s bones that feel it first. [_Exit._ GYGES. He goes in sorrow! KAN. True; he’s loath to think That the next thunderbolt will now strike me; And that’s fast in his mind. I may, perhaps, Ere that can hap, be gulped into Earth’s entrails Unless, forsooth, the Minotaur appears! Such is their fashion; do not therefore think But light of them. This very day you’ll see Their fighting stuff. GYGES. And wish to join the fighting. KAN. What, Gyges? GYGES. Sire, I beg you for the boon. KAN. No, no! Beside myself you shall be seated That all may see how much I give you honour And will that all men give you honour-meed. GYGES. But if you honour me you’ll not refuse. KAN. You know not what you do. Know you the Lydians? You Grecians are a cunning folk; you set The others all to spinning, and you weave, And lo, a net wherein no piece of cordage Belongs to you, yet the whole thing’s your own! How easy ’twere to tighten, and how swift The wide world clutched in capture if the arm The fisher stretched were but a little stronger, The arm that should control! But there’s the rub! You have no trick to lure the nervy tendons From out our bodies, so with artful seeming We look much blinder than in truth we are, And with a covert laugh we bungle in Because a tiny fin-flick sets us free. GYGES. We celebrate these games as well. KAN.