his fists tightened and the blood hummed in his ears.

In the scene of the banquet-hall, where the followers of Ulysses lay before Lycomedes the offerings of the Greek chieftains, and, while the King and Deidamia are marvelling at the jewels and the Tyrian robes, Achilles, unmindful of his disguise, bursts out

Ah, chi vide finora armi piu belle?

—­at this supreme point Odo again turned to his neighbour.  They exchanged another look, and at the close of the act the youth leaned forward to ask with an air of condescension:  “Is this your first acquaintance with the divine Metastasio?”

“I have never been in a play-house before,” said Odo reddening.

The other smiled.  “You are fortunate in having so worthy an introduction to the stage.  Many of our operas are merely vulgar and ridiculous; but Metastasio is a great poet.”  Odo nodded a breathless assent.  “A great poet,” his new acquaintance resumed, “and handling a great theme.  But do you not suffer from the silly songs that perpetually interrupt the flow of the verse?  To me they are intolerable.  Metastasio might have been a great tragic dramatist if Italy would have let him.  But Italy does not want tragedies—­she wishes to be sung to, danced to, made eyes at, flattered and amused!  Give her anything, anything that shall help her to forget her own abasement.  Panem et circenses! that is always her cry.  And who can wonder that her sovereigns and statesmen are willing to humour her, when even her poets stoop to play the mountebank for her diversion?” The speaker, ruffling his locks with a hand that scattered the powder, turned on the brilliant audience his strange corrugated frown.  “Fools! simpletons!” he cried, “not to see that in applauding the Achilles of Metastasio they are smiling at the allegory of their own abasement!  What are the Italians of today but men tricked out in women’s finery, when they should be waiting full-armed to rally at the first signal of revolt?  Oh, for the day when a poet shall arise who dares tell them the truth, not disguised in sentimental frippery, not ending in a maudlin reconciliation of love and glory—­but the whole truth, naked, cold and fatal as a patriot’s blade; a poet who dares show these bedizened courtiers they are no freer than the peasants they oppress, and tell the peasants they are entitled to the same privileges as their masters!” He paused and drew back with a supercilious smile.  “But doubtless, sir,” said he, “I offend you in thus arraigning your sacred caste; for unless I mistake you belong to the race of demi-gods—­the Titans whose downfall is at hand?” He swept the boxes with a contemptuous eye.

Little of this tirade was clear to Odo; but something in the speaker’s tone moved him to answer, with a quick lifting of his head:  “My name is Odo Valsecca, of the Dukes of Pianura;” when, fearing he had seemed to parade his birth before one evidently of inferior station, he at once added with a touch of shyness:  “And you, sir, are perhaps a poet, since you speak so beautifully?”