I may trust to gain her then
When I shall have my tetrarchy restored
By Rome, our mistress, grateful that I show'd her
The weakness and the dissonance of our clans,
And how to crush them easily. Wretched race!
And once I wish'd to scourge them to the bones.
But in this narrow breathing-time of life
Is vengeance for its own sake worth the while,
If once our ends are gain'd? and now this cup--
I never felt such passion for a woman.
[_Brings out a cup and scroll from under his cloak_.
What have I written to her?
[_Reading the scroll_.
'To the admired Gamma, wife of Sinnatus, the Tetrarch, one who years
ago, himself an adorer of our great goddess, Artemis, beheld you afar
off worshipping in her Temple, and loved you for it, sends you this
cup rescued from the burning of one of her shrines in a city thro'
which he past with the Roman army: it is the cup we use in our
marriages. Receive it from one who cannot at present write himself
other than 'A GALATIAN SERVING BY FORCE IN THE ROMAN LEGION.'
[_Turns and looks up to Boy_.
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