_2nd Woman_. Ay, Now it is true, the Queen is beautiful; She could, so looking, enrage love in one Whose blood a hundred years had frozen dry. _1st Woman_. Ah, but I fear thee, Queen: this dreadful mood Will break the pleasantness of friendship thou Hast kept for me, as a ship in a gale is broken. _Vashti_. Ay, very like: and the event will rouse Such work in the water where your comfort sails, More than my fortune will to pieces blow; You too I think will get some perilous tossing From what proves my destruction. _2nd Woman_. And, so knowing, For mere insane delight in violent things, Wilt thou awake in the fickle mood of men Again that ancient ignominy which once, Till beauty freed them, loaded the souls of women? _3rd Woman_. Truly, long time will work what now thou doest. _Vashti_. I know not rightly what I here begin; No more than one, who stands in midst of wind On a tall mountain, knows what breaking down The earth must have ere the wind's speed is done, And it hath drawn out of the drenched soil The clinging vapours, and made bright the air. _2nd Woman_. But we'll not have thee disobedient. The King's mind is a summer over us; Thou with a storm wilt fill him, and the hail That shatters thee will leave us bruised and weeping. _Vashti_. Be sulky in his arms: the weather soon Will pleasantly favour thee again. _4th Woman_. No, no; Not because from our heaven of man's mind Thou wilt bring down on us a rain of scorn,