We can ride on lovers' sighs,
Warm ourselves in lovers' eyes,
Bathe ourselves in lovers' tears,
Clothe ourselves with lovers' fears,
Arm ourselves with lovers' darts,
Hide ourselves in lovers' hearts.
When you know us, you'll discover
That we almost live on lover!

CHORUS.

Yes, we live on lover!
Tripping hither, etc.
(At the end of Chorus, all sigh wearily.)

CELIA. Ah, it's all very well, but since our Queen banished
Iolanthe, fairy revels have not been what they were!

LEILA. Iolanthe was the life and soul of Fairyland. Why, she
wrote all our songs and arranged all our dances! We sing her songs
and we trip her measures, but we don't enjoy ourselves!
FLETA. To think that five-and-twenty years have elapsed since
she was banished! What could she have done to have deserved so
terrible a punishment?
LEILA. Something awful! She married a mortal!
FLETA. Oh! Is it injudicious to marry a mortal?
LEILA. Injudicious? It strikes at the root of the whole
fairy system! By our laws, the fairy who marries a mortal dies!
CELIA. But Iolanthe didn't die!

(Enter Fairy Queen.)

QUEEN. No, because your Queen, who loved her with a
surpassing love, commuted her sentence to penal servitude for life,
on condition that she left her husband and never communicated with
him again!
LEILA. That sentence of penal servitude she is now working
out, on her head, at the bottom of that stream!
QUEEN. Yes, but when I banished her, I gave her all the
pleasant places of the earth to dwell in. I'm sure I never
intended that she should go and live at the bottom of a stream! It
makes me perfectly wretched to think of the discomfort she must
have undergone!
LEILA. Think of the damp! And her chest was always delicate.
QUEEN. And the frogs! Ugh! I never shall enjoy any peace of
mind until I know why Iolanthe went to live among the frogs!
FLETA. Then why not summon her and ask her?
QUEEN. Why? Because if I set eyes on her I should forgive
her at once!
CELIA. Then why not forgive her? Twenty-five years--it's a
long time!