SWANWHITE. You haven't learned yet, but you will! Now take the rattle, too, and play with her.
The PRINCE receives the rattle.
SWANWHITE. That's something you don't understand, I see. [She takes the doll and the rattle away from him and throws them back into the chest; then she takes out the hobby-horse] Here is my steed.—It has saddle of gold and shoes of silver.—It can run forty miles in an hour, and on its back I have travelled through Sounding Forest, across Big Heath and King's Bridge, along High Road and Fearful Alley, all the way to the Lake of Tears. And there it dropped a golden shoe that fell into the lake, and then came a fish, and after came a fisherman, and so I got the golden shoe back. That's all there was to that! [She throws the hobby-horse into the chest; instead she takes out a chess-board with red and white squares, and chess-men made of silver and gold] If you will play with me, come here and sit upon the lion skin. [She seats herself on the skin and begins to put up the pieces] Sit down, won't you—the maids can't see us here!
The PRINCE sits down on the skin, looking very embarrassed.
SWANWHITE. It's like sitting in the grass—not the green grass of the meadow, but the desert grass which has been burned by the sun.—Now you must say something about me! Do you like me a little?
PRINCE. Are we to play?
SWANWHITE. To play? What care I for that?—Oh—you were to teach me something!
PRINCE. Poor me, what can I do but saddle a horse and carry arms—with which you are but poorly served.
SWANWHITE. You are so sad!
PRINCE. My mother died quite recently.