JORGHEN. What does that concern us? Let the world perish, and I shall laugh at it.
ERIC. But this is what beats everything else for madness. Finding his treasury empty, the King, in his incredible simplicity, tries to borrow money from these Luebeckians, who are his enemies.
JORGHEN. Well, if you need money, your enemies are the best ones to take it from.
ERIC. If I am not crazy already, you'll make me so! Please be serious a moment!
JORGHEN. [Recites]
"The ring of gold, and rattling dice,
And wine brings light to tipsy eyes.
But in the night, that light must lack,
To wenches leads each crooked track."
At that moment AGDA appears with the wine.
ERIC. [Laughing idiotically at JORGHEN'S recitation] Ha-ha! That's a good one. But then, I made it myself.—Well, Agda, or Magda, or what it is, where's your pawnbroker to-day?
AGDA does not reply.
ERIC. Do you know that those Hanseatic people are in the habit of butchering little boys and selling them to the Turk?