The common delights of love your mere
soldiers know. Lady, you may not love.
[_The_ QUEEN _sighs._ OOZIZI _continues her knitting._
QUEEN: My mother loved, Oozizi.
OOZIZI: Lady, for a day. For one day, mighty lady, As one might stoop in
idleness to a broken toy and pick it up and throw it again away, so she
loved for a day. That idle fancy of an afternoon tarnished no pinnacle
that shone from her exalted station. But to love for more than a
day--(QUEEN'S _face lights up_)--that were to place your high
unequalled glory below a vulgar pastime. One alone may sit in the golden
palace to reign over the green fields; but all may love.
QUEEN: Do all love but I, Oozizi?
OOZIZI: Wondrous many, lady.
QUEEN: How know you, Oozizi?
OOZIZI: The common shouts that come up at evening, the clamour of the
lanes; they are but from love.
QUEEN: What is love, Oozizi?
OOZIZI: Love is a foolish thing.
QUEEN: How know you, Oozizi?
OOZIZI: They came tittering to me once; but I saw the foolishness of it.
QUEEN (_a little sadly_): And they came no more?
OOZIZI (_a little sadly too_): No more.
[_Both look thoughtfully out into dreams, the_ QUEEN _on her throne,
chin on hand._
[_Suddenly a stir is heard from the Hall of the Hundred Princes._
QUEEN (_alarmed_): Hark! What was that?
OOZIZI (_rises, listening anxiously_): It sounded .
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