GARCERAN. Are you, perhaps, the father of the new
Decree that makes a threepence worth but two?
ISAAC. Money, my friend, 's the root of everything.
The enemy is threat'ning—buy you arms!
The soldier, sure, is sold, and that for cash.
You eat and drink your money; what you eat
Is bought, and buying's money—nothing else.
The time will come when every human soul
Will be a sight-draft and a short one, too;
I'm councilor to the King, and if yourself
Would keep in harmony with Isaac's luck—
GARCERAN. In harmony with you? It is my curse
That chance and the accursed seeming so
Have mixed me in this wretched piece of folly,
Which to the utmost strains my loyalty.
ISAAC. My little Rachel daily mounts in grace!
GARCERAN. Would that the King, like many another one,
In jest and play had worn youth's wildness off!
But he, from childhood, knowing only men,
Brought up by men and tended but by men,
Nourished with wisdom's fruits before his time,
Taking his marriage as a thing of course,
The King now meets, the first time in his life,
A woman, female, nothing but her sex,
And she avenges on this prodigy
The folly of too staid, ascetic youth.
A noble woman's half, yes all, a man—
It is their faults that make them woman-kind.
And that resistance, which the oft deceived
Gains through experience, the King has not;
A light disport he takes for bitter earn'st.
But this shall not endure, I warrant thee!
The foe is at the borders, and the King
Shall hie him where long since he ought to be;
Myself shall lead him hence. And so an end.
ISAAC. Try what you can! And if not with us, then
You are against us, and will break your neck
In vain attempt to clear the wide abyss.
(The sound of flutes.)
But hark! With cymbals and with horns they come,
As Esther with King Ahasuerus came,
Who raised the Jews to fame and high estate.
GARCERAN. Must I, then, see in this my King's debauch
A picture of myself from early days,
And be ashamed for both of us at once?
[A boat upon which are the KING, RACHEL and suite, appears on the river.]