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 shining. 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 shimmering fields? MELIFLOR: I have but to show myself loitering by lanes in the evening. XIMENUNG: I too will be there. MELIFLOR: And when they see me ... XIMENUNG: They will see me too ... MELIFLOR (_rising_): Behold me. XIMENUNG: So I do. MELIFLOR: Will they look towards you when this is there? XIMENUNG: Are birch-trees seen at dawn fairer than I? MELIFLOR: Behold me; not a poplar is straighter, not a flower is fairer. I will loiter along the lanes at evening. [_He draws his sword._ XIMENUNG _does the same._ MOOMOOMON _draws his too and places it between them._ MOOMOOMON: Be at peace. _I_ will go to the lanes, and there need be no quarrel between you, for _I_.... OTHERS: No, no, no.... HUZ: We will all go. ANOTHER: We will all love. Hurrah for love. [_They have all risen. They wave their swords on high, not threatening each other. Zoon alone has not risen._ MOOMOOMON (_to_ ZOON): You do not speak, Prince of Zoon. Will you not love along the idle hours? ZOON: Yes, yes. I love. MOOMOOMON: Come then to the lanes to loiter. It draws towards evening. Let us all come to the lanes, where the honeysuckle is hanging. ZOON: I love not in the lanes. MOOMOOMON: Not in the lanes? Then...! OTHERS: Not in the lanes? ZOON: I love her than whom there is no greater on earth--(_Some_ PRINCES: Ah!) unless it be that name that frightens Oomuz. MOOMOOMON: He loves the...! XIMENUNG: The ... MELIFLOR: The Queen!