Part 32

ANALYTIKOS. Your Majesty is subtle in his cruelty.

MENELAUS. Haven't the years taught you the cheapness of revenge?

ANALYTIKOS [mystified]. You do not intend to alter destiny.

MENELAUS. Never before has destiny been so clear to me.

ANALYTIKOS. Then the boy must die.

MENELAUS [with slow determination]. No! He has been sent by the Gods to save me!

ANALYTIKOS. Your majesty! [He is trembling with apprehension.]

MENELAUS [with unbudgeable conviction]. Helena must elope with him!

ANALYTIKOS [falling into a seat]. Ye Gods!

MENELAUS [quickly]. I couldn't divorce the Queen. That would set a bad example.

ANALYTIKOS. Yes, very.

MENELAUS. I couldn't desert her. That would be beneath my honor.

ANALYTIKOS [deeply]. Was there no other way?

MENELAUS [pompously]. The King can do no wrong, and besides I hate the smell of blood. Are you a prophet as well as a scholar? Will she go?

ANALYTIKOS. To-night I will read the stars.

MENELAUS [meaningfully]. By to-night I'll not need you to tell me. [ANALYTIKOS sits deep in thought.] Well?

ANALYTIKOS. Ethics cite no precedent.

MENELAUS. Do you mean to say I'm not justified?

ANALYTIKOS [cogitating]. Who can establish the punctilious ratio between necessity and desire?

MENELAUS [beginning to fume]. This is no time for language. Just put yourself in my place.

ANALYTIKOS. Being you, how can I judge as I?

MENELAUS [losing control]. May you choke on your dialectics! Zeus himself could have stood it no longer.

ANALYTIKOS. Have you given her soul a chance to grow?

MENELAUS. Her soul, indeed! It's shut in her rouge pot. [He has been strutting about. Suddenly he sits down crushing a roll of papyrus. He takes it up and in utter disgust reads.] "The perfect hip, its development and permanence." Bah! [He flings it to the floor.] I've done what I had to do, and Gods grant the bait may be sweet enough to catch the Queen.

ANALYTIKOS. If you had diverted yourself with a war or two you might have forgotten your troubles at home.

MENELAUS [frightened]. I detest dissension of any kind--my dream was perpetual peace in comfortable domesticity with a womanly woman to warm my sandals.

ANALYTIKOS. Is not the Queen----?

MENELAUS. No! No! The whole world is but her mirror. And I'm expected to face that woman every morning at breakfast for the rest of my life, and by Venus that's more than even a King can bear!