Creonta, again:

"Portal of iron, close! Grind yon base knaves and thieves to dust!"

And the gate:

"Cruel Creonta! vainly now your threats on me are thrust!
So many years, so many months, in rust and woe to pine,
You left me here; they oiled my bolts; no ingrate's heart is mine."

It was very funny to see Tartaglia's and Truffaldino's mock astonishment at the fine flow of the poet's eloquence. They stood dumbfounded to hear bakers' wives, and ropes, and dogs, and gates talking in Martellian verse. Then they thanked those courteous objects for the kindness shown them.

The audience were hugely delighted with these puerilities, and I confess that I joined heartily in their laughter, half-ashamed the while at being forced to relish a pack of infantile absurdities, which took me back to the days of my babyhood.

The giantess Creonta now appeared upon the stage. She was of towering stature, and attired in a vast sweeping andrienne. Tartaglia and Truffaldino fled before her horrible aspect. Then she gave vent to her despair in Martellian verses, not forgetting to invoke Pindar, whom Signor Chiari treated complacently as his own twin-brother:

"Woe to you, faithless servants! Woe, false rope and dog and gate!
Base baker's wife, I curse thee too! Ye traitors found too late!
Alas! Sweet Oranges! Ah me! Who stole you unaware?
Dear Oranges, my hope, my soul, my love, my life, my care!
Woe's me! I burst with bitter rage; there's boiling in my breast
Chaos, the Elements, the Sun, the Rainbow, and the rest!
I scarce can stand against it all: O Jove, the Thunderer, send
Thy lightnings on my pate, and me down to the slippers rend!
Help to me! Ho! Who helps me? Fiends! Who lifts me from this world?—
A friendly thunderbolt descends! I burn, I'm soothed, I'm hurled."

[These last verses were no bad parody of both Chiari's sentiments and style of writing.] A thunderbolt fell and reduced the giantess to ashes. Here ended the second act, which had been followed with more marked applause than the first. My bold experiment began to seem less culpable than it had done at the commencement.

ACT THE THIRD.