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.
