ise thee, seeing that I who do make
this song am thy cub.

_Uk:_

Well, let us have the song.

_Oan (facing the tribe):_

The bright day is gone.
The night maketh me sa--sad.
But the stars are very white.
They whisper that the day shall return.
O stars; little pieces of the day!

_Uk:_

This is indeed madness. Hast thou heard a star whisper? Did Ul, thy
father, tell thee that he heard the stars whisper when he was in the
tree-top? And of what moment is it that a star be a piece of the day,
seeing that its light is of no value? Thou art a fool!

_Ok and Un:_

Thou art a fool!

_All the Tribe:_

Thou art a fool!

_Oan:_

But it was so born unto me. And at that birth it was as though I would
weep, yet had not been stricken; I was moreover glad, yet none had given
me a gift of meat.

_Uk:_

It is a madness. How shall the stars profit us? Will they lead us to a
bear's den, or where the deer foregather, or break for us great bones
that we come at their marrow? Will they tell us anything at all? Wait
thou until the night, and we shall peer forth from between the boulders,
and all men shall take note that the stars cannot whisper.... Yet it may
be that they are pieces of the day. This is a deep matter.

_Oan:_

Ay! they are pieces of the moon!

_Uk:_

What further madness is this? How shall they be pieces of two things
that are not the same? Also it was not thus in the song.

_Oan:_

I will make me a new song. We do change the shape of wood and stone, but
a song is made out of nothing. Ho! ho! I can fashion things from
nothing! Also I say that the stars come down at morning and become the
dew.

_Uk:_

Let us have no more of these stars. It may be that a song is a good
thing, if it be of what a man knoweth. Thus, if thou singest of my club,
or of the bear that I slew, of the stain on the Stone, or the cave and
the warm leaves in the cave, it might be well.

_Oan:_

I will make thee a song of Ala!

_Uk (furiously):_

Thou shalt make me no such song! Thou shalt make me a song of the
deer-liver that thou hast eaten! Did I not give to thee of the liver of
the she-deer, because thou didst bring me crawfish?

_Oan:_

Truly I did eat of the liver of the she-deer; but to sing thereof is
another matter.

_Uk:_

It was no labour for thee to sing of the stars. See now our clubs and
casting-stones, with which we slay flesh to eat; also the caves in which
we dwell, and the