I am a beautiful child. By those who desire me may my worth be known: princes of the land, rich men, and powerful, in whose hands is dominion. For two months have I walked before them, and laughed to wind them so around myself. Two months, and no more, since I passed my fourteenth birthday, and threescore men have sued for my hand, laid hearts and wealth on the floor before my parents, from dawn of day to the third star that marks the night, and still I walked alone upon these homely hills, unwed, selfcontained.

I know a secret. In the fields where I wondered among the stalks a man came upon me. His touch was languor, and all I knew was sleep. When I awoke he was gone and the sun was low upon the mountains. Aweary were my bones, and creaking, as though carrying some unaccustomed weight. At red light of day’s end I came again to my father’s house, and there in my chamber I found yet a man, a stranger, who, though fair of face and straight of limb, was all unknown to me. Soothly he spoke, and I listened, and the night passed outside the window…

Now I wake in the night and see the lines of the stars passing my window, and spread my fingers upon my bed, and whisper my name to my pillow. And it is a stranger’s name, a beautiful, unknown child…