No More Learning

_3rd Woman_.
A queer tale, this.

_1st Woman_.
A spectre visited you?

_Vashti_.
Indeed, a spectre.

_1st Woman_.
That have I never seen.
Was it the kind with nose and mouth grown sharp
To an eagle's bill, and claws upon its fingers,
The curve of them pasted with a bloody glue?

_Vashti_.
The spectre was--my beauty.

_3rd Woman_.
It is as I said.
O Queen, send for a wise man in the morning;
And let him leech thy spirit.

_4th Woman_.
I've heard, the best
Riddance for evil notions in the mind,
Is for a toad to sit upon the tongue;
While, breathed against the scalp, some power of spells
Loosens the clasp the notion hath digg'd deep
Into the soul; so that it passeth down,
Shaken and mastered, and creeps into the toad,--

_3rd Woman_.
Which gives a foolish kick or start to feel it,--

_4th Woman_.
Then the trapt notion may be easily burnt.

_Vashti_.
Yea? --I think mine would not burn easily.
With fire, with such indignant fire as pride
Yields, when it must destroy itself to feel
The power of the world touch it with humbling flame,--
With such a fire, whose heat you know not of,
Have I assayed this--notion, didst thou say?
And it stood upright, with its shape unquencht,
And lived within the fire.

_3rd Woman_.
Thou hast it wrong.

_4th Woman_.
Thou hast not understood the cure we meant.

_2nd Woman_.
Stop brabbling, fools; I would hear the Queen's mind.

_1st Woman_.
I too; I hate a thing I cannot skill;
And thee and all that lives in thee, O Queen,
I would keep friendly to my spirit; yet
I do suspect something amazing in thee.