Clodia.—To-day, you are a sober and a bitter sophist, poet Catullus. Love means a different thing to you than in former years. You have forgotten the happy days when you and I secretly met in the house of Manlius. Forgotten your kisses and your verses to me when we sat among the tangled blossoms of Egyptian poppies. Then you lived, Gaius, because you were a poet still, and you loved. To-day your lyre is mute—but I still love you fervently, passionately.

(Catullus reminds her of her liaison with Gellius. She replies that she uses Gellius to forget her sorrow, her love for Catullus. She demands and implores, wants to kill the Greek slave. He reminds her of her husband and her immorality. She admits she is but the victim of circumstances. When very young, she married Metellus, and he left her for a campaign through the morasses of Gaul. She is insistent. He moves away from her—she follows—)

Catullus.—What do you want? All is at an end between us.

Clodia (after him).—Nay nay. The poem of our love is but beginning now.

Catullus.—Unfortunate, what are you doing? (Moves nearer to the curtained niche.)

Clodia.—A great poet—you may be, but a heartless man you are. (She follows and he stops, at the curtain. She implores him and kneels down. She raises her hands to him.) Forgive me—love me!

Catullus (who is standing closely to the curtain, steps aside quickly and pulls the rope, the curtain opens rapidly and Clodia kneels at the feet of Metellus. The consul’s hands embrace his rotund abdomen, and he is snoring loudly).—Here is your place Clodia.

Clodia (crushed).—This is treason!

Catullus (laughing loudly).—Ho, Consul Metellus, rise! You never experienced such a scene as this. Behold!

Clodia (to Catullus).—You wretch!

Metellus (awaking, just as Clodia is rising from the ground.