ACIS. Oh, stow it, Ecrasia. Your lips are not so squeamish as all that. Studies of what?
THE NEWLY BORN [from the temple steps] Ancients.
ACIS [surprised but not scandalized] Ancients!
ECRASIA. Yes, ancients. The one subject that is by the universal consent of all connoisseurs absolutely excluded from the fine arts. [To Arjillax] How can you defend such a proceeding?
ARJILLAX. If you come to that, what interest can you find in the statues of smirking nymphs and posturing youths you stick up all over the place?
ECRASIA. You did not ask that when your hand was still skilful enough to model them.
ARJILLAX. Skilful! You high-nosed idiot, I could turn such things out by the score with my eyes bandaged and one hand tied behind me. But what use would they be? They would bore me; and they would bore you if you had any sense. Go in and look at my busts. Look at them again and yet again until you receive the full impression of the intensity of mind that is stamped on them; and then go back to the pretty-pretty confectionery you call sculpture, and see whether you can endure its vapid emptiness. [He mounts the altar impetuously] Listen to me, all of you; and do you, Ecrasia, be silent if you are capable of silence.
ECRASIA. Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. Scorn! That is what I feel for your revolting busts.
ARJILLAX. Fool: the busts are only the beginning of a mighty design. Listen.
ACIS. Go ahead, old sport. We are listening.