EMPEROR.  Since the princess was yielded to the Tartars, we
    have not held an audience.  The lonely silence of night but increases
    our melancholy!  We take the picture of that fair one and suspend it
    here, as some small solace to our griefs, [To the attendant]
    Keeper of the yellow gate, behold, the incense in yonder vase is
    burnt out:  hasten then to add some more.  Though we cannot see her,
    we may at least retain this shadow; and, while life remains, betoken
    our regard.  But oppressed and weary, we would fain take a little
    repose.

[Lies down to sleep.  The Princess appears before him in a vision.] [1]

PRINCESS.  Delivered over as a captive to appease the barbarians,
    they would have conveyed me to their Northern country:  but I took an
    occasion to elude them and have escaped back.  Is not this the
    Emperor, my sovereign?  Sir, behold me again restored.

[A Tartar soldier appears in the vision.]

SOLDIER.  While I chanced to sleep, the lady, our captive, has
    made her escape, and returned home.  In eager pursuit of her, I have
    reached the imperial palace.—­Is not this she?

[Carries her off.  The Emperor starts from his sleep.]

EMPEROR.  We just saw the Princess returned—­but alas, how
    quickly has she vanished!  In bright day she answered not to our
    call—­but when morning dawned on our troubled sleep, a vision
    presented her in this spot. [Hears the wild fowl’s [2] cry] Hark,
    the passing fowl screamed twice or thrice!—­Can it know there is no
    one so desolate as I? [Cries repeated] Perhaps worn out and weak,
    hungry and emaciated, they bewail at once the broad nets of the
    South and the tough bows of the North. [Cries repeated] The
    screams of those water-birds but increase our melancholy.

ATTENDANT.  Let your Majesty cease this sorrow, and have
    some regard to your sacred [3] person.

EMPEROR.  My sorrows are beyond control.  Cease to upbraid
    this excess of feeling, since ye are all subject to the same.  Yon
    doleful cry is not the note of the swallow on the carved rafters,
    nor the song of the variegated bird upon the blossoming tree.  The
    princess has abandoned her home!  Know ye in what place she grieves,
    listening like me to the screams of the wild bird?

Enter President.

PRESIDENT.  This day after the close of the morning council,
    a foreign envoy appeared, bringing with him the fettered traitor
    Maouyenshow.  He announces that the renegade, by deserting his
    allegiance, led to the breach of truce, and occasioned all these
    calamities.  The princess is no more! and the K’han wishes for peace
    and friendship between the two nations.  The envoy attends, with
    reverence, your imperial decision.