Scene II. Megacles and Courtiers. Megacles Meg. Well, my lords, and so it is all settled. We must all be on board in half an hour. His Altitude the Prince sails at once for Cherson, and with a view to his 16 immediate marriage. Was ever such a rash step heard of? Not twenty-four hours to get ready the marriage equipment of a Prince of Bosphorus. Well, well, I dare say they would be glad enough to take him with no rag to his back. I dare say these rascally republicans would know no better if he were to be married in his everyday suit. 16 1st Court. I' faith, I should never have dreamt it. Asander, who is the boldest huntsman and the bravest soldier, and the best of good fellows, to go and tie himself to the apron-strings of a Greek girl, a tradesman's daughter from Cherson, of all places on earth! Pah! it makes me sick! 2nd Court. But I hear she is beautiful as Artemis, and——Well, we are all young or have been, and beauty is a strong loadstone to such metal as the Prince's. 3rd Court. Nay, he has never set eyes on her; and, for that matter, the Lady Irene was handsome enough in 17 all conscience, and a jovial young gentlewoman to boot. Ye gods! do you mind how she sighed for him and pursued him? It was a sight to please the goddess Aphrodite herself. But then, our good Asander, who had only to lift up his little finger, was so cold and positively forbidding, that I once came upon the poor lady crying her eyes out in a passion of mortified feeling. 17 1st Court. Ay, she was from this outlandish Cherson, was not she? Aphrodite was a Greek woman also, remember. 2nd Court. So she was. I had quite forgotten where the lady came from. Well, if she is there now, and cannot get her Prince, and would like a gay, tolerably well-favoured young fellow for a lover, I suppose she need go no further than the present company. Meg. My lords, I pray you leave these frivolities, and let us come to serious matters. Think, I beg you, in what a painful position I am placed. I am to go, 18 without proper notice, as Master of the Ceremonies of the Court of Bosphorus, to conduct an important Court-ceremonial with a pack of scurvy knaves, who, I will be bound, hardly know the difference between an Illustrious and a Respectable, or a Respectable and an Honourable. I must do my best to
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