SCENE IV. A street.

Enter CELEGORM, HUAN, MAEDHROS with company.

Celegorm: Shall we explain our presence in some way?

Maedhros: There's no need to explain; who will keep count

of guests, when all are dancing and in masques?

Celegorm: Speak for yourself. I don't intend to dance.

Huan: Don't be ridiculous, you have to dance!

Celegorm: My soul's too heavy -

Huan: Dance without your shoes,

if all that bothers you are heavy soles!

Why, I, being a hound, have got no shoes,

but think my paws as light as any elf's...

Celegorm: My soul, I said – it's love that weighs me down.

Huan: Love weigh you down? This must be some mistake!

By all that I have heard, it is not so;

why, lovers have the lightest feet of all,

as light as leaf on linden-tree, they say.

So soar on wings of love among the crowd…

Celegorm: Fall on my face, more like it.

Huan: How you mope!

I've never seen you fall upon your face;

I doubt that love could rob your hunter's grace.

Give me a masque.

Maedhros: It won't hide who you are.

Huan: You needn't tell me that; but after all

the invitation said "a masquerade".

Though I may be a hound, I'm not so rude

that I'd ignore the dress code -

Maedhros: You are nude.

Huan: A mask was all it said on the invite;

I think you'll find no more was specified.

Celegorm: Dance if you like, dear Huan, but I won't.

Huan: Oh yes, you will, and it will do you good;

you cannot mope forever, you must know.

Come, hurry now!

Celegorm: I think we shouldn't go.

Huan: Why, may I ask?

Celegorm: I dreamed this dream, you see…

Huan: Not every dream is true.

Celegorm: This one might be.

Huan: Oh, then I see that Irmo's been with you!

He sends his servants out in many shapes;

some are no bigger than a jewel-stone,

and ride in wagons drawn by downy moths;

their reins are made of finest spider-web,

the chariot is an empty hazelnut,

its wheels are carved from pearls as white as snow...

Maedhros [aside to Celegorm]: Dear brother, does he ever shut his mouth?

Huan: Thus galloping the Path of Dreams, they come,

his servants, sending visions while you sleep...

Celegorm [aside to Maedhros]: Alas, he can't. He'll never speak but thrice,

and to evade this fate, he never stops.

Huan: They come to lovers, sending dreams of love,

of tender whispered words and kisses sweet;

they send the hunters dreams of fleeing harts,

of bowstrings singing and of arrows fleet;

they show the builders towers tall and fair,

and to the sailors show the roaring sea;

they come to bards, and sing them unsung songs,

that echoed ere the world was brought to be;

they come to poets, bringing visions fair,

that never words can capture, try as might;

and to the craftsmen show things never seen,

new ways of shaping stars, of binding light...

Celegorm: Calm down! You speak of nothing.

Huan: Yes; of dreams,

which, as I said before, are like the wind,

that often turns, and can't be built upon…

Maedhros: If you two are quite finished, can we go?

I think we'll miss the supper even so.

Celegorm: I have a dreadful feeling about this…

I've never let that stop me, though. Let's go.

Exeunt.