Apelles. It is not possible that a face so fair, and a wit so sharp, both without comparison, should not be apt to love.
Campaspe. If you begin to tip your tongue with cunning, I pray dip your pencil in colours; and fall to that you must do, not that you would do.
Thus she sets him aside. Poor Apelles, alone, in a later scene laments his fate in loving her whom Alexander desires, ending his mournful soliloquy with a song, the most beautiful of all that Lyly has scattered so lavishly through his plays.
Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then, down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on 's cheek, (but none knows how)
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O love! has she done this to thee?
What shall (alas!) become of me?
But when the picture is nearly finished, when the sittings are almost over and with them the intimacy of artist and model, then we discover that the tender sighs of Apelles have sweetened the friendship of Campaspe into love, and the secret of each soul is known to the other.
Apelles. I have now, Campaspe, almost made an end.
Campaspe. You told me, Apelles, you would never end.
Apelles. Never end my love, for it shall be eternal.
Campaspe. That is, neither to have beginning nor ending.
Apelles. You are disposed to mistake: I hope you do not mistrust.