Ichtharion: 

It is mountainous with houses:  there are no flowers there.  I wonder how the winds come into it.

Ludibras: 

Ah.  Do you know that it is I that brought him here at last?  I gave him orchids from a far country.  At last he noticed them.  “Those are good flowers,” said he.  “They come from Thek,” I said.  “Thek is purple with them.  It seems purple far out on the sand to the camel men.”  Then...

Ichtharion: 

No, it was not you brought him.  He saw a butterfly once in Barbul-el-Sharnak.  There had not been one there for seven years.  It was lucky for us that it lived; I used to send for hundreds, but they all died but that one when they came to Barbul-el-Sharnak.  The King saw it.

Ludibras: 

It was since then that he noticed my purple orchids.

Ichtharion: 

Something changed in his mind when he saw the butterfly.  He became quite different.  He would not have noticed a flower but for that.

Ludibras: 

He came to Thek in order to see the orchids.

Ichtharion: 

Come, come.  We are here.  Nothing else matters.

Ludibras: 

Yes, we are here.  How beautiful are the orchids.

Ichtharion: 

What a beautiful thing the air is in the morning.  I stand up very early and breathe it from my casement; not in order to nourish my body, you understand, but because it is the wild, sweet air of Thek.

Ludibras: 

Yes, it is wonderful rising up in the morning.  It seems all fresh from the fields.

Ichtharion: 

It took us two days to ride out of Bar-el-Sharnak.  Do you remember how men stared at our camels?  No one had gone away from the city for years.

Ludibras: 

I think it is not easy to leave a great city.  It seems to grow thicker around you, and you forget the fields.

Ichtharion:  [looking off]

The jungle is like a sea lying there below us.  The orchids that blaze on it are like Tyrian ships, all rich with purple of that wonderful fish; they have even dyed their sails with it.

Ludibras: 

They are not like ships because they do not move.  They are like...  They are like no tangible thing in all the world.  They are like faint, beautiful songs of an unseen singer; they are like temptations to some unknown sin.  They make me think of the tigers that slip through the gloom below them.

    [Enter Harpagas and a Noble of the Court, with spears and leather
    belts.]

Ichtharion: 

Where are you going?

Harpagas: 

We are going hunting.

Ichtharion: 

Hunting!  How beautiful!

Harpagas: 

A little street goes down from the palace door; the other end of it touches the very jungle.

Ludibras: 

O, heavenly city of Thek.