Panting, wooing,
Melting murmurs fill the grove,
Melting murmurs, lasting love.”—
Then in a duet, sparkling with the happiness of the lovers (“Happy We”), closing with chorus to the same words, this pretty picture of ancient pastoral life among the nymphs and shepherds comes to an end.
In the second part there is another tone both to scene and music. The opening chorus of alarm (“Wretched Lovers”) portends the coming of the love-sick Cyclops; the mountains bow, the forests shake, the waves run frightened to the shore as he approaches roaring and calling for “a hundred reeds of decent growth,” that on “such pipe” his capacious mouth may play the praises of Galatea. The recitative, “I melt, I rage, I burn,” is very characteristic, and leads to the giant’s love-song, an unctuous, catching melody almost too full of humor and grace for the fierce brute of Ætna:—
“O ruddier than the cherry!
O sweeter than the berry!
O nymph more bright
Than moonshine night,
Like kidlings, blithe and merry.