Assad meets the Queen at Gath, performs his mission, and sets out to return, but, exhausted by the heat of the day, enters the forest on Mount Lebanon and lies down on a bank of moss to rest.

There the sound of plashing waters arrests his ear.

He seeks the cause of the grateful noise and comes upon a transportingly beautiful woman bathing.

The nymph, finding herself observed, does not, like another Diana, cause the death of her admirer, but discloses herself to be a veritable Wagnerian Venus.

She clips him in her arms and he falls at her feet; but a reed rustles and the charmer flees.