"Alas, with thy father's death, I lost all my magic power, my child. He gave his sevenfold Shield of the Sun to Sarastro, and I have been perfectly helpless since."
"Then I have certainly lost Tamino," Pamina sobbed somewhat illogically.
"No, take this dagger and slay Sarastro, my love, and take the shield. That will straighten matters out."
Then the bloody Queen sang that the fires of hell were raging in her bosom. Indeed, she declared that if Pamina should not do as she was bidden and slay the priest, she would disown her. Thus Pamina had met with her temptation, and while she was rent between duty and a sense of decency—because she felt it would be very unpleasant to kill Sarastro—Monostatos entered and begged her to confide in him, that he of all people in the world was best able to advise her.
"What shall I do, then?" the trusting creature demanded.
"There is but one way in the world to save thyself and thy mother, and that is immediately to love me," he counselled.
"Good heaven! The remedy is worse than the disease," she cried.
"Decide in a hurry. There is no time to wait. You are all bound for perdition," he assured her, cheerfully.
"Perdition then! I won't do it." Temptation number two, for Pamina.
"Very well, it is your time to die!" Monostatos cried, and proceeded to kill her, but Sarastro entered just in time to encourage her.