Tannhäuser

XVI One is incisive, corrosive ; Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant ; Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive ; Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant : Five . . . O Danaides, O Sieve ! XVII Now, they ply axes and crowbars ; Now, they prick pins at a tissue Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue ? Where is our gain at the Two-bars ? XVI II Estfiiga, volvitur rota. On we drift : where looms the dim port ? One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their quota ; Something is gained, if one caught but the import— Show it us, Hughes of Saxe-Gotha ! R. Browning, Master Hugftes of Saxe-Gotha