"Such was the decision of the Court. I do not believe the Court is willing to reconsider its decree."
All the members of the tribunal rise and declare that they adhere to their former judgment.
Adam the Hunchback of Arras—"In order to corroborate our decree and to render it more popular and easy to be remembered, I propose that it be formulated in meter, as follows:
| "You are pretty, young and tender, |
| Deigned to others show much good: |
| Hear my verdict: Nothing e'er would |
| God above so much displease |
| As to let a Christian die, whom |
| You could save with greatest ease." |
Both the tribunal and the audience applaud the metrical rendition of the decree, as proposed by Adam the Hunchback of Arras. The Court proceeds with the business before it.
Marphise—"Our Bailiff of the Joy of Joys shall insert the memorable decree in the archives of the Court, and order all our trouveres, minstrels, jugglers and other sinful brothers of the gay science, that they spread the formula of the sovereign decree with their songs among the subjects of Cytherea, to the end that none may plead ignorance on the head of the monstrous heresy—the idea that a woman who causes the death of her gallant by reason of her refusal is not a homicide."
Master Oenobarbus the Theologian (with fanatical zeal)—"Yes; let the women know that if other heresies may be expiated on earth in the flames of the pyre, the vestibule of the eternal fire, let the tigresses know that before they reach the furnace of Satan they will have to expiate their impiousness in this world in the furnace of remorse. Night and day they have before their eyes the specter of the ill-starred gallant, their victim."
Deliane the Canoness (plaintively languorous)—"Oh, only the pursuit of their gallants on the other side of the grave will cause these inhuman women to understand—but, alas! only too late—all the harm they have done."
Marphise (vainly seeking to detect the impatient Countess Ursine in the audience)—"Well—seeing that there is no other pressing suit before the Court, the tribunal will now take up the questions that have been submitted to it, and all of which demand its attention."