A lofty chamber of mingled Hellenic and Asiatic architecture is seen. The walls are of black stone: on the right a portal toward the front of the stage is concealed by a curtain embroidered with parrots and Babylonian branch-work; high and toward the back is a double window, with open cedar lattices, of an inner room: high in the opposed wall is a short arcade with a projecting gallery. An open colonnade extends across the rear wall at two-thirds of its height; its pillars support the roof: the platform of this colonnade is accessible by an open stair recessed in the wall.
Queen Laodice reclines on a great divan set toward the left centre of the chamber. The musicians whose singing and playing have just ceased kneel on a Persian carpet before her: between them and the portal stands a tall brazier whence a wavering heat rises. A golden evening sky is visible through the colonnade, where Danaë leans against a pillar.
Laodice.
BE silent now; I let you sing too much.
I am awaiting now too many things
To bear this fret of waiting till you end
And I can think again. Be quietly gone.
The women go out.
Danaë.
You bade them sing to make one moment brief.
Laodice.
What are you watching like a larger cat,
Sweetheart, little heart, noiseless and alert?
You shall not watch me like a prim wise cat.
Danaë.
I watch a girl sway slightly, near the tide,
As if rehearsing dance-steps in her heart;
She hangs lit snakes of sea-weed down her bosom;
She takes a letter from her bunchy hair....
She laughs and leans over, holding the pillar.
Laodice.
Find me a ship, ships; dark ones, strange ones.
I must have ships, so find them, little heart;
And, more than all, a ship of Antioch.
Danaë.
How tiny a girl looks under these deep rocks....
Laodice yawns.
Madam, I have searched well; yet until now
No deep-sea ship has passed the promontory;
Now a great ship with tawny sails comes on,
An ocean-threatening centaur for its prow.
Laodice.
That is from Ephesus, not Antioch....
I purge one thought thereby and make repayment.
I am taken with an inward shivering:
Perhaps I am cold with night—come down and warm me.
Danaë descends and reclines by Laodice.
Haughty and passive and obedient,
May not my queen's bosom receive your head?
When I worked empery in Ephesus
That Sophron, governor—did he not love you?
Danaë.
He said he did.
Laodice. And you?
Danaë. I said he did.
Thereon he made too sure of me too soon:
It is unwise to let men be too sure,
And for that reason I hung up my silks
On a swart Nabatæan, having smeared her
With my rare private unguent, and concealed her
In his choice corner—where she bit his lip,
Then let her laughing teeth take light of moon.
There was no more of Sophron afterward....
Although I looked at him almost penitently....
Laodice.
No more? Was there no more, my little one?
Danaë.
Ah, yes.... When he would never look at me
I felt I could not live outside his arms.
I went to him at night in a slave's skirt,
And by humiliating actions soothed
His wincing mind, until he stooped to me.
I had him soon. And then I tired of him.
Laodice.
And then, indeed, there was no more at all?
Danaë.
I have not seen him since. We left that city.
You have my faith. You know I am all yours.
Laodice.
That is quite well. He has no years for you;
He is found treasonous, and must be undone.
O, he goes out.... Dear, I am very cold.
Is it because my heart is cold? Men say it.
Danaë.
Your heart is warm to me.
Laodice. What do men say?
Danaë.
They say you fled to Sardis and to Smyrna
Because you poisoned him at Ephesus
And heard his feet when a room echoed.
Laodice. Him?
Danaë.
Antiochus the God, your king and spouse.
Laodice.
Why do they so consider me the cause?
Danaë.
You hold the physician Smerdis in more favour.
Laodice.
And did I poison him, my Danaë?
Danaë.
Dear lady, surely.
Laodice. Surely.... It is sure.
Was I not made the Sister, natural wife?
Did he not change me for a daughter of Egypt
Robed with a satrapy, crowned by an isle?
She laved her body daily in Nile water,
Which can make fruitful even stones and virgins;
It soon brought forth the mud's accustomed spawn,
A valuable heir of all the lands.
How could she keep him? Needing me he turned:
Was it not best for him to die still needing me
And leave the amount of kingdoms to my boy,
The climbing vine of gold up Shushan's front,
The cedar palaces of Ecbatana,
Though Berenice sits in Antioch
Safe with her suckling, in her suckling's name?
Winds, bring to me a ship from Antioch.
Since that dread night when Mysta stept not down
With all you speechless ones to disarray me,
Have you not dreamed that I did poison her?
Her love is more than yours, for she had crept
To Antioch to sell herself in bondage
Where Berenice buys, that she may nurse
The child for Berenice—and for me,
While uncle Egypt plucks my crown for it.
Danaë.
Which fingers mixed the poison? See, I kiss them,
Trust them ever to do their will with me.
There is no poison in a poppy-seed;
The seedling draws its venom from the earth—
'Tis the earth's natural need for such event.
Laodice.
Ay, but the disposition is in the seed;
I poison by a motion of the heart.
Rhodogune, a Parthian waiting-woman, enters.
Rhodogune.
Madam, the governor of Ephesus
Comes newly from the harbour to your will.
Danaë.
Sophron!
Laodice. Lie still. A silence.
Rhodogune. Madam, must I go down?
Laodice.
Bid this Ephesian governor to me.