Menelaus. Do you mean to say I'm not justified?
Analytikos [cogitating]. Who can establish the punctilious ratio between necessity and desire?
Menelaus [beginning to fume]. This is no time for language. Just put yourself in my place.
Analytikos. Being you, how can I judge as I?
Menelaus [losing control]. May you choke on your dialectics! Zeus himself could have stood it no longer.
Analytikos. Have you given her soul a chance to grow?
Menelaus. Her soul, indeed! It's shut in her rouge pot. [He has been strutting about. Suddenly he sits down crushing a roll of papyrus. He takes it up and in utter disgust reads.] "The perfect hip, its development and permanence." Bah! [He flings it to the floor.] I've done what I had to do, and Gods grant the bait may be sweet enough to catch the Queen.
Analytikos. If you had diverted yourself with a war or two you might have forgotten your troubles at home.
Menelaus [frightened]. I detest dissension of any kind—my dream was perpetual peace in comfortable domesticity with a womanly woman to warm my sandals.
Analytikos. Is not the Queen—?