KNIGHTS.
Who can be other in this royal presence?
SIMONIDES.
Here, with a cup that’s stored unto the brim,—
As you do love, fill to your mistress’ lips,—
We drink this health to you.
KNIGHTS.
We thank your grace.
SIMONIDES.
Yet pause awhile. Yon knight doth sit too melancholy,
As if the entertainment in our court
Had not a show might countervail his worth.
Note it not you, Thaisa?
THAISA.
What is’t to me, my father?
SIMONIDES.
O attend, my daughter:
Princes in this should live like gods above,
Who freely give to everyone that comes to honour them:
And princes not doing so are like to gnats,
Which make a sound, but kill’d are wonder’d at.
Therefore to make his entrance more sweet,
Here, say we drink this standing-bowl of wine to him.
THAISA.
Alas, my father, it befits not me
Unto a stranger knight to be so bold:
He may my proffer take for an offence,
Since men take women’s gifts for impudence.
SIMONIDES.
How? Do as I bid you, or you’ll move me else.
THAISA.
[Aside.] Now, by the gods, he could not please me better.
SIMONIDES.
And furthermore tell him, we desire to know of him,
Of whence he is, his name and parentage.