THE FOOL. Woman, go away. I do not want to be bothered by the old and the garrulous. I am composing a love-song.
THE OLD WOMAN. Has any one ever loved you, I would like to know? Now if it were that young prince who is staying with us, he would have some right to make love-songs—if what they say is true, that every woman he meets on his journey falls in love with him. Even our own Queen, I am thinking. But only three days does he stay in any place, and then he is up and gone on his long journey that nobody understands the reason or the end of, from the east to the west. He is too wise to be held by such toys as love.
THE FOOL. Then he is more a fool than I.
THE OLD WOMAN. Who should know about love, if not a man who has been loved by many women and by great queens? But you, what do you know about it?
THE FOOL. The trouble with the old is that they forget so many things. I am sorry for you, woman. You think yourself wise, but the fool that sits at the Queen's doorstep and looks at her as she passes, and she never seeing him at all, is wiser than you.
THE OLD WOMAN. I have wasted enough words with you. I will go away and sit in the sun and think of the days when there were heroes.
She goes.
THE FOOL. And I will make a song about love. I will make a song about the love that is too high for pride and too deep for shame.
The door has opened, and the young Queen stands looking down at him.
THE QUEEN. What is that, fool? What are the words you are saying?