Alicia. 
Oh! you great fools fo men, I know you well. 
But nothing is so detrimental
To love as to be sentimental. 
I will yet make you wise. 
Know that I have the magic to disguise
Myself in manyt ways.  Do you feel this? 
(Lie still, this heaven were ruined by a kiss!)
I am a butterfly, such idle flitting
As to a flower like you is fitting
Now I’m a mole.  Do you think you know me now? 
Here is the earthworm severed by the plough.

Crassus. 
You are a witch.  I want your love; you give
Only love’s comedy.

Alicia. 
The way to live
Is to find comedy and tragedy
In everything.  But if you cannot see
Through to the Bacchanal spirit, this should suit. 
Here is the blacksmith hammering a flute.

Crassus. 
Oh love, love, kiss me!

Alicia. 
I will forge a ring
Of bloom of blood-kisses upon your neck,
Till it is like a garden of roses in late spring.

Crassus. 
“Soft, and stung softly, fairer for a fleck.”

Alicia. 
O marvellous nation! 
Vanity, dullness, slobber, and quotation!

Crassus. 
Why do you love me if you scorn me so?

Alicia. 
Why, did I say I loved you?  I say no.

Crassus. 
Why do you make love?

Alicia. 
To beguile the hour;
To crown my rose-wreath with a greener flower’
To do my master’s bidding, that’s to give
Life to yourself, who only think you live. 
But listen!  Have you seen the nine waves roll
Monotonous upon the shoal,
Rising and falling like a maiden asleep;
Then with a lift and a leap
The ninth wave curls, and breaks upon the beach,
And rushes up it, swallowing the sand? 
I am that ocean....  Now, you understand?

Crassus. 
Alicia!  O! this is unbearable. 
Surely this wave washes the shore of hell!

Alicia. 
Each follows each
Remorseless and indifferent as Nature
Is to each creature.

Crassus. 
Wonderful, wonderful woman!
                        [She throws her head back, and laughs]

Alicia. 
Now, you think
You know my secret.  I have given you drink,
And you are wise.  But hush! to all emotion
Save this the pulse and swell of Ocean
For at the last with mouth and fingers wried
All must proclaim the triumph of the tide.

Crassus. 
Ah! still you mock me with your cruel laugh.

Alicia. 
It is your foolish epitaph.

Crassus. 
But this can be no mockery.  Heave and sway
And curl and thrust — these waves are not at play.

Alicia. 
You feel the ocean breaking on the shoal;
But passionless and moveless is its soul.

Crassus. 
Ah! but your soul is in your breath.