LADY MACBETH: Quite likely, child, ’tis a pretty chant, we thank you. (looks slowly around circle) Ah, Cleopatra, have you no suggestions?
(Cleopatra rises languidly and poses)
CLEOPATRA: Madam President, age cannot wither, nor custom stale the infinite variety of my memories of Egypt’s bounteous blooms; but alas! They would shrivel and die in your cold clime. Would that you might see green figs grow, and ripe luscious olives. And Oh for a glimpse of the date trees on the Nile, or a whiff of the orange blossoms’ perfume. Could you but imagine the beauty of the lemon tree heavy with golden fruit, or the loveliness of the lime. The dusky purple of Egypt’s wine-like grapes lies ever in mine eye, and I dream of the wondrous green of the Aspic vine. Yet perchance that which I love most is the polished sheen of laurel leaves, for Anthony and I wore laurel chaplets on our brows throughout the year. (Sinks back into seat)
MISTRESS PAGE: My word, she treats us English like 30 farthings.
LADY MACBETH: My lady Cleopatra hath told us what we may not have.
OPHELIA: (rising hastily) Dear lady, let me tell you what we must not have, ’tis aconite, bracken, bramble and brier, burs, burdock and cockle, duckweed and hemlock, insane-root, nettles and opium. All these are evil things. Let’s none of them.
(Members murmur and shiver)
PORTIA: The law would call this a process of elimination.
ROSALIND: Madam President, I speak for the greenwood tree, for trees are my delight. ’Twas but a while ago that I found a man haunting the forest and abusing our young plants with carving “Rosalind” on their bark. Hanging odes on Hawthornes, and elegies on brambles—forsooth deifying the name of Rosalind. I soon stopped that.
KATHERINE: Brave girl, what did you do?