Plays of Near & Far Part 6

OOMUZ: The name frightened me, Mighty Highness.

ZOON: Yes, yes, Oomuz; there is only the Queen.

MOOMOOMON: No, there is nothing greater than the Queen, and she has no need of anything more than the treasure that he guards there.

OOMUZ: There is one thing more.

MOOMOOMON: More? What is that?

OOMUZ: There is one thing more. The Queen needs one thing more. This has been told us and we know.

MOOMOOMON: What is it?

OOMUZ: How should we know that? None knows the need of the Queen.

[OOMUZ _returns to guard his heap._

ZOON: What think you, Oomuz? What think you is this need of the Queen?

[OOMUZ _shakes his head about three times._ PRINCE OF ZOON _sighs._

SEVERAL PRINCES (_together wearily_): Heigho.

MELIFOR: Take comfort in our heritage, ill.u.s.trious comrades. Come! We will drink to the sun.

SOME: To the sun! To the sun! (_They drink._)

MELIFLOR: To the golden idle hours! (_He drinks._) Let us be worthy, glorious companions, of our exalted calling. Let us enjoy the days of idleness. Sing to us, mighty one of Zoon, as the idle hours go by. Sing us a song.

MOOMOOMON (_idly_): Yes, sing to us.

ZOON: As you all know, I can but hum. But I will hum you a song that I heard yesterday; very strange it was; sung in the meadows by two that were not of our people; sung in the evening. I heard it as I loitered home from the meadows beyond the marshes. There is no ease in the song, and yet ...

MOOMOOMON: Hum it to us.

ZOON: They sang it together, the two that were not of our people.

[_He hums a song. They all lift up their heads from their listlessness._

MELIFLOR (_wonderingly_): That is a song that is new.

ZOON: Yes, it is new to me.

MELIFLOR: It is like an old song.

ZOON: Yes, perhaps it is old.

MELIFLOR: What is the song?

ZOON: It tells of love.

THE PRINCES: Ah-h!

[_They seem to wake as though young and strong out of sleep. There is a great commotion among them. The sentries outside are utterly unmoved._ OOMUZ, _without sharing any of the excitement of the Princes, now nods his head solemnly as he had once shaken it._

MOOMOOMON: Love! It must have been that that I felt that day in the twilight as I came back round the peak of Zing-gee Mountain.

XIMENUNG: You felt it, Moomoomon? Tell us.

MOOMOOMON: All the air seemed gold, seemed gold of a sudden. Through it I saw fair fields, glittering green far down, glimpsed between clumps of the heather. The gold was all about them, yet they shone with their own fair colours. Ah, how can I tell you all I saw? My feet seemed scarce to touch the slope of the mountain; I too seemed one with the golden air in which all things were s.h.i.+ning.

XIMENUNG: And this was Love?

MOOMOOMON: I know not. It was some strange new thing. It was strange and new like this song.

MELIFLOR: Perhaps, it was some other strange new thing.

MOOMOOMON: Perhaps. I know not.

ZOON: No. It was Love.

MOOMOOMON: And then that evening in the golden light I knew the purpose of Earth and why all things are.

XIMENUNG: What is the purpose, Moomoomon?

MOOMOOMON: I know not. I was content. I troubled not to remember.

ZOON: It was love.

XIMENUNG: Let us love.

OTHERS: Aye.

HUZ: Aye, that is best of all.

MELIFLOR: No, Princes. The best is idleness. Out of the idle hours all good things come.

HUZ: I will love. That is best.

MELIFLOR: It is like all things, the gift of the idle hours. The workers never love. Their fancies are fastened to the work they do, and do not roam towards love.

ALL: Love! Let us love.

MELIFLOR: We will love in idleness and praise the idle hours.

XIMENUNG: Whom will you love, lord of the s.h.i.+mmering fields?

MELIFLOR: I have but to show myself loitering by lanes in the evening.