"Rather shall you be my queen, dear Chloris, receiving all that I most prize."
"But you are too domineering: and I am afraid to be alone with you and your big staff! Ah! not without knowing what she talked about did my mother use to quote her Æolic saying, The king is cruel and takes joy in bloodshed!"
"Presently you will not be afraid of me, nor will you be afraid of my staff. Custom is all. For this likewise is an Æolic saying, The taste of the first olive is unpleasant, but the second is good."
Now for a while was silence save for the small secretive rumors of the forest. One of the large green locusts which frequent the Island of Leukê began shrilling tentatively.
"Wait now, King Jurgen, for surely I hear footsteps, and one comes to trouble us."
"It is a wind in the tree-tops: or perhaps it is a god who envies me. I pause for neither."
"Ah, but speak reverently of the Gods! For is not Love a god, and a jealous god that has wings with which to leave us?"
"Then am I a god, for in my heart is love, and in every fibre of me is love, and from me now love emanates."
"But certainly I heard somebody approaching through the forest—"
"Well, and do you not perceive I have withdrawn my staff from its hiding-place?"