Plays of Near & Far by Lord Dunsany (top novels to read TXT) 📗

following from crag to crag; if it be true that she would go that way.

Moomoomon: It is true. They know it. They say her mother went that way before. It is one of the royal impulses.

Zoon: Oomuz, did the mother of the Queen go once up Aether Mountain?

Oomuz: Aye, and her mother.

Zoon: It is true.

Ximenung: You are sure of this?

Oomuz: We know it. It has been said.

Huz: We will all follow her up Aether Mountain.

Meliflor: We will follow merrily.

Ximenung: If we did this what would they do when we returned?

Meliflor: Who?

Ximenung: They.

Meliflor: They? They would not dare to speak to us.

Ximenung: Who knows what they would dare if we dared go after the Queen?

Moomoomon: They would dare nothing, knowing whence we come.

Ximenung: They care not whence we come.

Moomoomon: But they care for the event that is in our hands. They dare never touch us because of the event.

Meliflor: We are the heirs of the idle hours. For them is work. Surely they dare not leave their work to touch us.

Moomoomon: They care only for the event. Because it is prophesied that we are needed for the event we are sacred. Were it not for the event, why ...

Meliflor: Were it not for the event we might not dare to do it; but, being sacred, let us enjoy our idle hours.

Ximenung: What if the event should one day befall?

Meliflor: It was prophesied long ago and has not come. It will not come for a long time.

Moomoomon: No, not for a long time.

[A sentry passes.

Meliflor: So we will follow the Queen.

Huz: Yes, we will follow.

Moomoomon: We shall be a merry company.

Meliflor: Splendid to see.

Zoon: I would follow though I were not guarded for the event. Though the event should befall and we be immune no longer, still I should dare it.

Meliflor: I would dare it if I knew what they would do. But knowing not ...

Moomoomon: What matter? We are guarded by the event.

Zoon: I say I care not.

Meliflor: Let us drum with our heels and beat with our scabbards against the benches so that we frighten the Queen. She will run from the palace then, and we will go after her with all our merry company.

Moomoomon: Yes, let us drum all together. I will give the word. All together and she will run from the palace. We will go after and our cloaks will stream behind us.

Huz: Brave! And our scabbards will show bright beneath them.

Meliflor: No, I will give the word. When she flees from the palace I will follow her first. Crowd not about my cloak as it streams in the wind. We must throw up our heels as we run to make our shoes twinkle. We must show gaily in the little street. Afterwards we can run more easily.

Huz: Aye, in the street we must run beautifully.

Moomoomon: I think that I should give the word when we rattle our scabbards and all drum with our heels; but I waive the point. But I do not think that the Queen can run far. She has never left the palace. How could she run over the moor as far as Aether Mountain. She will faint at the end of the street and we shall come up with her and bow and offer her our assistance.

Meliflor: Good, good. It would be cold and rocky on Aether Mountain.

Moomoomon: The Queen could never go there over the moor.

Huz: No, she is too dainty.

Ximenung: They say she could.

Meliflor: They; what do they know? Common workers. What should they know of queens?

Ximenung: They have the old prophesies that came over the fields from the dawn.

Meliflor: Yet they cannot understand the Queen.

Ximenung: They say her mother went there.

Meliflor: That was long ago. Women are quite different now.

Ximenung: Well, give the word.

Meliflor: Nay. You shall give the word, Moomoomon. When you raise your hand we will all drum with our heels together and rattle our scabbards together, and frighten the Queen.

Moomoomon: I honour your courtesy, lord of the deep meadows.

Meliflor: We are ready then. When you raise your hand——

[A gust of laughter is heard off, from a far part of the palace.

Moomoomon: Hark! Hark!

Meliflor: It is the Queen! She laughed.

Huz: Could she have guessed...?

Moomoomon: I trust not.

Meliflor: She—she—cannot have been thinking of us.

Moomoomon: She—she—seldom laughs.

Huz: What can it be?

Moomoomon: Perhaps it was nothing and yet ...

Meliflor: Yet it makes me uneasy.

Moomoomon: It is not that I fear, but, when a queen laughs—it makes a feeling in the palace—as though all were not well.

Huz: It makes one have forebodings. One cannot help it.

Meliflor: Perhaps; perhaps later we could return to our gallant scheme; for the present I think I'll hide a while.

Moomoomon: Yes, let us hide.

Meliflor: So that if there be anything wrong in the palace it will not find us.

[Exeunt Moomoomon and Meliflor.

Huz: Let us hide.

[Exeunt all but Zoon and Oomuz.

[Zoon has sat always with bent head at table. He sits so, still.

Zoon (bitterly): They would follow the Queen.

Oomuz: Mighty Highness——

Zoon (still to himself): They will come back boasting that they dared follow the Queen.

Oomuz: Mighty Highness.

Zoon: Yes, good Oomuz.

Oomuz: In other times once princes followed a queen and came back boasting. Master, the workers were angry. Be warned, Master, because you and I went together once to the hoard beyond the marshes. Be warned. They were angry, Master.

Zoon: I care not for the workers.

Oomuz: Master, be warned. It was long ago and they say they were very angry.

Zoon: I care not, Oomuz. I come not boasting back from the hills under Aether Mountain. I shall not halt till I have told the Queen my love. I shall wed with her who is less only than Fate, if less she be. I am not as those, Oomuz. Who weds the Queen is more than the servant of Fate.

Oomuz: Master——

[He stretches out his hands towards Zoon imploringly.

Zoon: Well, Oomuz?

Oomuz: Master. There is a doom about the Queen.

Zoon: What doom, Oomuz?

Oomuz: We know not, Master. We are simple people and we know not that. But we know from of old there is a doom about her. We know it, Master; we have been told from of old.

Zoon: Yes, there could well be a doom about the Queen.

Oomuz: Follow not after, Master, when she goes to Aether Mountain. There is surely a doom about her. A doom was with her mother upon that very peak.

Zoon: Yes, Oomuz, a doom well becomes her.

Oomuz: Doubt it not, Master; there is a doom about her.

Zoon: Oomuz, I doubt not. For there is something wonderful about the Queen, beyond all earthly wonders. Something like thunder beyond far clouds or hail hurling from heaven; there should be indeed a terrible doom about her.

Oomuz: Master, I have warned you for the sake of the days when we raided the golden hoard beyond the marshes.

Zoon (taking his hand): Thank you, good Oomuz.

[He goes towards door after the others.

Oomuz: But where go you, Master?

Zoon: I wait to follow the Queen when she goes to Aether Mountain.

[Exit. Oomuz weeps silently on to the Queen's Treasure.

CURTAIN. Scene II

The Palace of Zoorm: the Hall of Queen Zoomzoomarma.

Time: Same as Scene I.

The Queen: Is none worthy to kiss my hand, Oozizi; none?

Lady Oozizi: Lady, none.

[The Queen sighs.

You should not sigh, great lady.

Queen: Why should I not sigh, Oozizi?

Oozizi: Great lady, because such things as sighs pertain only to love.

Queen: Love is a joy, Oozizi; love is a glow. Love makes them dance so lightly along rays of the sunlight. It is made of sunlight and gladness. It is like flowers in twilight. How should they sigh?

Oozizi: Lady! Great lady! Say not such things of love!

Queen: Say not such things, Oozizi? Are they not true?

Oozizi: True? Yes, great lady, true. But love is a toy of the humble; love is a common thing that the lowly use; love is ... Great lady, had any overheard you speaking then they might have thought, they might have madly dreamed ...

Queen: Dreamed what, Oozizi?

Oozizi: Incredible things.

Queen (meditatively): I must not love, Oozizi.

Oozizi: Lady! The common people love.

[She points to door.

Lady, the green fields going from here to the blueness, and bending towards it, and going wandering on, and the rivers they meet and the woods that shade the rivers, all own you for their sovereign. Lady, a million lime-trees mellow your realm. The golden hoards are yours. Yours are the deep fields and the iris marshes. Yours are the roads of wandering and all ways home. The common delights of love your mere soldiers know. Lady, you may not love.

[The Queen sighs. Oozizi continues her knitting.

Queen: My mother loved, Oozizi.

Oozizi: Lady, for a day. For one day, mighty lady, As one might stoop in idleness to a broken toy and pick it up and throw it again away, so she loved for a day. That idle fancy of an afternoon tarnished no pinnacle that shone from her exalted station. But to love for more than a day—(Queen's face lights up)—that were to place your high unequalled glory below a vulgar pastime. One alone may sit in the golden palace to reign over the green fields; but all may love.

Queen: Do all love but I, Oozizi?

Oozizi: Wondrous many, lady.

Queen: How know you, Oozizi?

Oozizi: The common shouts that come up at evening, the clamour of the lanes; they are but from love.

Queen: What is love, Oozizi?

Oozizi: Love is a foolish thing.

Queen: How know you, Oozizi?

Oozizi: They came tittering to me once; but I saw the foolishness of it.

Queen (a little sadly): And they came no more?

Oozizi (a little sadly too): No more.

[Both look thoughtfully out into dreams, the Queen on her throne, chin on hand.

[Suddenly a stir is heard from the Hall of the Hundred Princes.

Queen (alarmed): Hark! What was that?

Oozizi (rises, listening anxiously): It sounded ... to come from the Hall ... of the Hundred Princes.

Queen: They were never heard here before.

Oozizi: Lady, never.

Queen (anxiously): What can it mean?

Oozizi: I know not, lady.

Queen: Sound never troubled our inner chamber before.

Oozizi: All is quiet now.

Queen: Hark! (They listen.)

Oozizi: All is quiet.

Queen: Sound from beyond our wall, Oozizi. How it disturbs. I could not rule over the green fields if sounds came up to me from the further halls full of their strange thoughts. Why do sounds come to me, Oozizi?

Oozizi: Great lady, it has never been before. It will never be again. You must forget it, lady. You must not let it disturb your reign.

Queen: It brought strange thoughts with it, Oozizi.

Oozizi: All is quiet now.

Queen: If it came again....

Oozizi: Lady, it will not come again. It will come no more. It is quiet.

Queen: If it came again ... Is the door open, Oozizi? Yes ... If it came again I should almost flee from the palace.

Oozizi: Lady! Think