DIEGO
The thought had never struck me; but men have told me what you tell me now.
PRINCESS
Even Antiquity, which surpasses us so vastly in all manner of wisdom and heroism, can boast of very few like you. The noblest souls have grown tyrannical and rapacious and foolhardy in sudden elevation. Remember Alcibiades, the beloved pupil of the wisest of all mortals. Signor Diego, you may have read but little; but you have meditated to much profit, and must have wrestled like some great athlete with all that baser self which the divine Plato has told us how to master.
DIEGO (shaking his head)
Alas, Madam, your words make me ashamed, and yet they make me smile, being so far of the mark! I have wrestled with nothing; followed only my soul's blind impulses.
PRINCESS (gravely)
It must be, then, dear Signor Diego, as the Pythagoreans held: the discipline of music is virtuous for the soul. There is a power in numbered and measured sound very akin to wisdom; mysterious and excellent; as indeed the Ancients fabled in the tales of Orpheus and Amphion, musicians and great sages and legislators of states. I have long desired your conversation, admirable Diego.
DIEGO (with secret contempt)
Noble maiden, such words exceed my poor unscholarly appreciation. The antique worthies whom you name are for me merely figures in tapestries and frescoes, quaint greybeards in laurel wreaths and helmets; and I can scarcely tell whether the Ladies Fortitude and Rhetoric with whom they hold converse, are real daughters of kings, or mere Arts and Virtues. But the Duke, a learned and judicious prince, will set due store by his youthful cousin's learning. As for me, simpleton and ignoramus that I am, all I see is that Princess Hippolyta is very beautiful and very young.