[They stare at him]
Arc. Her brother born?
So foul a hap?
Ste. A thing too dread in thought,
And in the act unutterable if Zeus
Be unconcerned in it. Therefore believe
His hand here moves, and holy majesty
O'errules the mortal scruple, so dividing
This horror from its kind. May it not be
The blood of Stesilaus hath in 'ts flow
A heavenly tinct that makes it not a sin,
But rather virtue, to keep pure the stream
From baser founts? They've done no more than kings
And gods before them.
Sac. Pelagon, your croak!
Pel. I take a lower ground, my dearest dove.
All Athens knows me modest——
Sac. Ay to that!
Can blush as deep as any crow that flies!
Pel. Now, now! From first to last I've held it truth
That breeding scantles birth, and on that count
Make Phania our daughter.
Sac. Oh, you do?
Pel. I stand on this, that training is the man.
Or woman, let us say, and not the blood
We buried with our fathers. So these two
Mate not ancestrally, but in their lives
That distantly upbred have not between them
A structural thread to bind them of one house.
Sac. What men are these?