I’ve lost a tune. It’s a spirit-rose, and a reed-limbed boy ran before me and whisked it past my ears before I could seize him. Have you seen him, window clearer than the clashing light bubbles in a woman’s eyes? (A pause). I sat on a rock in the midst of my sheep and smiled at the piping of my young soul, as it climbed a spirit-tree. Soon it would whirl joyously on the tip of the tree, and my heart would turn with it. Then the song brushed past me and made my head a burning feather dropping down. I stumbled after it, over the sun-dazed hills, and the reed-limbed boy would often stop, touch both of my eyes with the song-flower, and spring away. I saw him dance into this black palace. I followed, through high corridors, to you, palest purple window, towering over me like a silent mass of breath-clear souls. He has gone. Palest purple window, tell me where he is? (There is a short silence. The Mad Shepherd stands despairingly fingering his reed. The Narcissus Peddler appears from the right. He is an old man, a huge basket of cut narcissus strapped to his back. His body is tall and slender; his face a bit yellow, with a long silver-brown beard. His head is bare. He wears a black velvet coat, pale yellow shirt, soft grey, loose trousers, and black sandals. He rests his basket upon the floor. The Mad Shepherd takes a step toward him, wearily). The Narcissus Peddler: A Voice walked into me, one day. How he found me, sleeping between two huge purple hills, I do not know. He said with a laugh that had ghosts of weeping in it that he knew a garden where narcissus flowers grew taller than myself. What was there to do?—my soul and I, we had to walk with him. He lead us to this palace, spinning the thread of a laugh behind him so that we could follow. But now he has gone, and there is no window—only a palest purple window. The Mad Shepherd: We can leap through this window, but it may be a trap. The Narcissus Peddler: Or a dream? The Mad Shepherd: Perhaps this is a dream that is true—an endless dream. The Narcissus Peddler: Can that be death? Mad Shepherd (pointing to the other’s basket): With death, you would have left your narcissus behind you, for fragrance itself. Peddler: If my life has melted to an endless dream, my chase is over. I shall sit here and my soul will become an endless thought of narcissus. (He seats himself beside his basket; Shepherd stands despairingly; the Slender Nun appears from the right: She is small and her body like a thin drooping stem; she wears the black dress of a nun but her child face is uncovered. Her feet are bare. She stops, standing a step away from the Peddler.) The Slender Nun: