Ah, no further! Know I more? All that he felt I understand and feel, And that as full and flaming as himself. But how he wooed and how the quest was won, That is his mystery--one alone can have it And this sole one is he and never I. Now, then, you know why I was in a tremble, A shiver of rapture ’twas that held me gripped, A quake of holy dread that shook my frame When thus I stood so sudden in your sight And saw that Aphrodite has a sister. Now say--for what end have you summoned me? RHOD. For death. GYGES. How say you? RHOD. Is it not deserved? GYGES. If you adjudge the doom--so must it be. RHOD. And in this very hour. GYGES. I am prepared. RHOD. Not seized with shudders such as come on all men, Such as must come on youth with double power? Think you perchance this is not bitter earnest Because a woman speaks your bloody sentence And you’ve ne’er yet known woman but as mother? Oh, do not hope that even the mildest-souled Will alter it. The murder she can pardon, Nay more, can for her murderer raise petition If he has deigned her so much remnant breath; Ay, but a shame, a blasting sacrilege That fills her from the crown to the toe top-full Of self-recoil--blood only blots that shame! The more whole woman else, mere shrinking woman, The more man bruises just that womanhood. GYGES. Oh horror! RHOD. Comes the shudder? Hear me out. Stood you not now before me judged and doomed, Guarded by shining swords before the door, And, if you will or not, sure sacrifice To Them of Underneath whom I’ve conjured, Then would I ope, though with reluctant hand, My very veins ere yet the sun had sunk And wash myself in my own lustral blood. For lo, the gods all stand with eyes avert Though with a pity filled; the golden threads Are snapped--those threads that knit me to the stars And held me upright. Direly draws the dust And if I wait and waver my new sister, The toad, hops cosily into my chamber. GYGES. O Queen, there’s many a word that I could say, Much fouling sand could shake from out my locks That’s flown thereon but in the stress of storm. I will not do it. Believe but this alone-- Now, now, I see what I have done, and yet It scarce was done before I felt the urge To make atonement. If your lord, the King, Had stood not in the path that points to Orcus I long had been a shadow among shadows And you been cleansed if yet unrecompensed. RHOD. My lord baulked your intent although he knew---- GYGES. ’Twas naught. The unwonted crisis that beset him Cost me the service of a free-willed death But did not cheat you of your sacrifice. Farewell; there’ll be no sword of yours unclean. RHOD.