Ternissa. The bold, insidious, false creature!
Epicurus. What is that volume, may I venture to ask, Leontion? Why do you blush?
Leontion. I do not blush about it.
Epicurus. You are offended, then, my dear girl.
Leontion. No, nor offended. I will tell you presently what it contains. Account to me first for your choice of so strange a place to walk in: a broad ridge, the summit and one side barren, the other a wood of rose-laurels impossible to penetrate. The worst of all is, we can see nothing of the city or the Parthenon, unless from the very top.
Epicurus. The place commands, in my opinion, a most perfect view.
Leontion. Of what, pray?
Epicurus. Of itself; seeming to indicate that we, Leontion, who philosophize, should do the same.
Leontion. Go on, go on! say what you please: I will not hate anything yet. Why have you torn up by the root all these little mountain ash-trees? This is the season of their beauty: come, Ternissa, let us make ourselves necklaces and armlets, such as may captivate old Sylvanus and Pan; you shall have your choice. But why have you torn them up?
Epicurus. On the contrary, they were brought hither this morning. Sosimenes is spending large sums of money on an olive-ground, and has uprooted some hundreds of them, of all ages and sizes. I shall cover the rougher part of the hill with them, setting the clematis and vine and honeysuckle against them, to unite them.