Text 8

GIMBLET:

I'm sure this is not religion. [Sings to PHILOSOPHERS, COLUMN, TILLY LALLY, and ARADOBO: the men work hard at ignoring her flirtations; the boy is enraptured]

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

ARADOBO:

[to GIMBLET, staring at her breasts] Is Chatterton a mathematician?

OBTUSE ANGLE:

No. How can you be so foolish as to think he was?

ARADOBO:

Oh, I did not think he was; I only asked.

OBTUSE ANGLE:

How could you think he was not, and ask if he was?

ARADOBO:

Oh no, sir. I did not think he was, before you told me, but afterwards I thought he was not.

OBTUSE ANGLE:

In the first place you thought he was, and then afterwards when I said he was not, you thought he was not. Why, I know that . . .

ARADOBO:

Oh no, sir, I thought that he was not, but I asked to know whether he was.

OBTUSE ANGLE:

How can that be? How could you ask and think that he was not?