Ogre. Hello! What is this? Is there nobody here? Do we never eat in this house? Gods!… You gadding women!
Beauty. Don't call out; here I am.
The Beauty and Tony enter.
Ogre. Who is this fellow?
Tony. Your humble servant. [Aside] I don't like him. That enormous paunch doesn't make me feel comfortable; it's a bad sign. He's an ogre.
Beauty. He is a traveller who has lost his way at the entrance to the Dark Wood. There were two others with him, but surely they were mad, as they stayed behind by the roadside. This fellow told me that he was dying with hunger and fatigue, and I invited him to our house.
Ogre. Hum! I don't like these gentry who go about losing themselves on the roads. By your looks, you must be one of those jabbering jugglers who sing and dance at the country crossways so as to wheedle blockheads out of their pennies.
Tony. I am something better than that; I am the attendant of the Blue Prince.
Ogre. His fool, you mean. A miserable position!
Beauty. And was that the Prince who was with you—that unfortunate young man who ran off into the wood? Poor boy! What can have become of him?
18
