Who shall speak to the child?
On the hills pass her hours,
As a shepherdess free;
She is fair as the flowers,
She is wild as the sea!
She is wild! She is wild!
Who shall speak to the child?[453]
The three uncles first endeavour to bribe their niece into a more teachable temper; but, failing in that, Moses undertakes to show her, from his own history of the creation, that marriage is an honorable sacrament and that she ought to enter into it. Cassandra replies, and, in the course of a rather jesting discussion with Abraham about good-tempered husbands, intimates that she is aware the Saviour is soon to be born of a virgin; an augury which the three Sibyls, her aunts, prophetically confirm, and to which Cassandra then adds that she herself has hopes to be this Saviour’s mother. The uncles, shocked at the intimation, treat her as a crazed woman, and a theological and mystical discussion follows, which is carried on by all present, till a curtain is suddenly withdrawn, and the manger of Bethlehem and the child are discovered, with four angels, who sing a hymn in honor of his birth. The rest of the drama is taken up with devotions suited to the occasion, and it ends with the following graceful cancion to the Madonna, sung and danced by the author, as well as the other performers:—
The maid is gracious all and fair;
How beautiful beyond compare!