Plays of Near Far | Page 6

Heigho.
MELIFLOR: Speak not against the idle hours, Moomoomon.
MOOMOOMON: Why then, lord of the sweet lands?
MELIFLOR: Because in idleness are all things, all things good.
XIMENUNG: Heigho, I am weary of the idle hours.
MOOMOOMON: You would work then?
XIMENUNG: No-o. That is not our destiny.
MELIFLOR: Let us be well contented with our lot. The idle hours are our sacred treasure.
XIMENUNG: Yes, I am well contented, and yet ...
MOOMOOMON (contemplatively): And yet ...
XIMENUNG: I sometimes dream that were it not for our glorious state, and this tradition of exalted ease, it might, it might be pleasant ...
MOOMOOMON: To toil, to labour, to raid the golden hoards.
XIMENUNG: Yes, Moomoomon.
MELIFLOR: Never! Never!
OTHERS: No. No. No.
ANOTHER: And yet ...
MELIFLOR: No, never. We should lose our glorious ease, the heritage that none may question.
XIMENUNG: What heritage is that, Prince Meliflor?
MELIFLOR: It is all the earth. To labour is to lose it.
MOOMOOMON: If we could toil we should gain some spot of earth that our labour would seem to make our own. How happily the workers come home at evening.
MELIFLOR: It would be to lose all.
PRINCE OF ZOON: How lose it, Meliflor?
MELIFLOR: To us alone the idle hours are given. The sky, the fields, the woods, the summer winds are for us alone. All others put the earth to uses. This or that field has this or that use; here one may go and another may not. They have each their bit of earth and become slaves to its purpose. But for us, ah! for us, is all; the gift of the idle hours.
SOME: Hurrah! Hurrah for the idle hours.
ZOON: Heigho. The idle hours weary me.
MELIFLOR: They give us all the earth and sky to contemplate. Both are for us.
MOOMOOMON: True. Let us drink, and speak of the blue sky.
MELIFLOR (lifting mug): And all our glorious heritage.
XIMENUNG (putting hand to mug): Aye, it is glorious, and yet ...
[Enter the RAIDERS of the Golden Hoard with spears and, in the other hand, leather wallets the size of your fist; these they cast on the heap. Nuggets the size of big filberts escape from some so that the heap is partly leather and partly gold. These wallets should be filled with nuggets of lead, about the size described, not one lump of lead and not sawdust or rags. Nothing destroys illusion on the stage more than a cannon ball falling with a soft pat. They look scowlingly at the Princes.
[Exeunt the RAIDERS. The Princes have scarcely noticed them.
MELIFLOR: See how they waste the hours.
XIMENUNG: They have brought treasure from the Golden Hoard.
ZOON: Yes, from the Golden Hoard beyond the marshes. I went there once with old brown Oomuz there.
MELIFLOR: Of what avail is it to come back burdened thus? Has not the Queen more wealth than she'll ever need?
MOOMOOMON: Aye, the Queen needs nothing more.
ZOON: How can we know that?
MOMOOMON: Why not?
ZOON: The Queen obeys old impulses. Her sires are dead. Who knows whence those impulses come? How can we say what they are?
MOOMOOMON: She cannot need more wealth than what is here.
MELIFLOR: No, no, she cannot.
ZOON: She needs more, for she has bidden them go again to the Golden Hoards. Her impulses have demanded it.
MOOMOOMON: Then there is no reason in her impulses.
ZOON: They do not come from reason.
MOOMOOMON: So I said.
ZOON: They come from Fate.
MOOMOOMON: From Fate!
[There is a hush at this. OOMUZ comes nearer and kneels down.
OOMUZ: Oh, Masters, Masters. If there be anything greater, greater than the Queen, speak not of it, Masters, speak not its name.
ZOON: No, Oomuz. We need nothing greater.
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, illustrious 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