"It is our festival," they said; "we are worshippers of Queen Beauty;
come and feast with us. The moon of May is rising; we shall dance
all night in her beautiful soft beams." But he said, "I have just
returned from a country the beauty of which far surpasses that of
anything one can see here, and where there is a Princess so lovely
and so stately that the greatest Queen of all your world is not
fit to be her tiring maid." Then they said, "Where is that country
of which you speak, and who is this wonderful Princess?" "It is
the land beyond the sunset," he answered, "but the name of the
Princess no man knows until she herself tells it him. And she will
tell it only to the man whom she loves."

At that they laughed and made mirth among themselves. "Your land
is the land of dreams," they said; "we have heard all about it.
Nothing there is real, and as for your Princess she is a mere shadow,
a vision of your own creation, and no substantial being at all.
The only real and true beauty is the beauty we see and touch and
hear; the beauty which sense reveals to us, and which is present
with us today." Then he answered, "I do not blame you at all, for
you have never seen my Princess. But I have seen her, and heard
her speak, and some day I hope to return to her. And when I came
away she warned me that in this country I should be beset by all
manner of strange and monstrous spectres, harpies, and sirens, eaters
of men, whom I must bravely meet and overcome. I pray you tell
me in what part of your land these dangers lie, that I may be on
my guard against them."

Thereat they laughed the more, and answered him, "Oh, foolish traveler,
your head is certainly full of dreams! There are no such things as
sirens; all that is an old Greek fable, a fairy tale with no meaning