This is the day wherein you must satisfy Neptune and save yourselves. Call 698together your fair daughters, and for a sacrifice take the fairest; for better it is to offer 699a virgin than suffer ruin. If you think it against nature to sacrifice your children, think it 700also against sense to destroy your country. If you imagine Neptune pitiless to desire such a prey, 701confess yourselves perverse to deserve such a punishment. You see this tree, this fatal tree, whose leaves, 702though they glister like gold, yet it threateneth to fair virgins grief. To this tree must the 703beautifullest be bound until the monster Agar carry her away, and, if the monster come not, then 704assure yourselves that the fairest is concealed; and then your country shall be destroyed. Therefore consult with 705yourselves, not as fathers of children, but as favorers of your country. Let Neptune have his right 706if you will have your quiet. Thus have I warned you to be careful, and would wish 707you to be wise, knowing that whoso hath the fairest daughter hath the greatest fortune, in losing 708one to save all. And so I depart to provide ceremonies for the sacrifice, and command you to bring the sacrifice.

They say, Tityrus, that you have a fair daughter. If it be so, 710dissemble not, for you shall be a fortunate father. It is a thing holy to preserve one's 711country, and honorable to be the cause.

Indeed, Melibeus, I have heard you boast that you had a fair daughter, 713than the which none was more beautiful. I hope you are not so careful of a child 714that you will be careless of your country, or add so much to nature that you will 715detract from wisdom.

I must confess that I had a daughter, and I know you have; 717but alas! My child's cradle was her grave and her swath-clout her winding sheet. I would she 718had lived till now. She should willingly have died now; for what could have happened to poor 719Melibeus more comfortable than to be the father of a fair child and sweet country?

Oh, Melibeus, dissemble you may with men; deceive the gods you cannot. Did 721not I see (and very lately see) your daughter in your arms, whenas you gave her infinite 722kisses with affection I fear me more then fatherly? You have conveyed her away that you might 723cast us all away, bereaving her the honor of her beauty and us the benefit, preferring a 724common inconvenience before a private mischief.

It is a bad cloth, Tityrus, that will take no color, and a 726simple father that can use no cunning. You make the people believe that you wish well when 727you practice nothing but ill, wishing to be thought religious towards the gods when I know you 728deceitful towards men. You cannot overreach me, Tityrus; overshoot yourself you may. It is a wily mouse 729that will breed in the cat's ear, and he must halt cunningly that will deceive a cripple. 730Did you ever see me kiss my daughter? You are deceived; it was my wife. And if 731you thought so young a piece unfit for so old a person, and therefore imagined it to 732be my child, not my spouse, you must know that silver hairs delight in golden locks, and 733the old fancies crave young nurses, and frosty years must be thawed by youthful fires. But this 734matter set aside, you have a fair daughter, Tityrus, and it is pity you are so fond a father.

You are both either too fond or too froward, for, whilst you dispute to save your daughters, we neglect to prevent our destruction.

Come, let us away and seek out a sacrifice. We must sift out their cunning, and let them shift for themselves.