All original dramatic works including 'The Viziers of Bassora', 'Rodogune', 'Perseus the Deliverer', 'Eric' and 'Vasavadutta'.; and works of prose fiction.
All original dramatic works and works of prose fiction. Volume 1: The Viziers of Bassora, Rodogune, and Perseus the Deliverer. Volume II: Eric and Vasavadutta; seven incomplete or fragmentary plays; and six stories, two of them complete.
VOLUME 3 and 4 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1998 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA
Collected Plays and Stories comprises all Sri Aurobindo's original dramatic works and works of prose fiction. The material, which occupies two volumes, is divided by type into three parts: complete plays, incomplete and fragmentary plays, and stories, complete, incomplete and fragmentary.
The earliest of the pieces collected here was written in 1891, the latest in 1915. Only one of them, Perseus the Deliverer, was published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime.The rest have been reproduced from his manuscripts.
The first of these plays was written around 1905, the last in 1915. Only one of them, Perseus the Deliverer, was published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime.
A Romantic Comedy
HAROUN ALRASHEED - Caliph.
JAAFAR - his Vizier.
SHAIKH IBRAHIM - Superintendent of the Caliph's Gardens.
MESROUR - Haroun's friend and companion.
MOHAMAD BIN SULYMAN ALZAYNI - Haroun's cousin, King of Bassora.
ALFAZZAL IBN SAWY - his Chief Vizier.
NUREDDENE - son of Alfazzal.
ALMUENE BIN KHAKAN - second Vizier of Bassora.
FAREED - his son.
SALAR - confidant of Alzayni.
MURAD - a Turk, Captain of Police in Bassora.
AJEBE - nephew of Almuene.
SUNJAR - a Chamberlain of the Palace in Bassora.
AZIZ, ABDULLAH - Merchants of Bassora.
MUAZZIM - a broker.
AZEEM - steward of Alfazzal.
HARKOOS - an Ethiopian eunuch in Ibn Sawy's household.
KAREEM - a fisherman of Bagdad.
SLAVES, SOLDIERS, EXECUTIONERS, ETC.
AMEENA - wife of Alfazzal Ibn Sawy.
DOONYA - his niece.
ANICE-ALJALICE - a Persian slave-girl.
KHATOON - wife of Almuene, sister of Ameena.
BALKIS, MYMOONA - sisters, slavegirls of Ajebe.
SLAVEGIRLS.
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Bassora.
An antechamber in the Palace.
Murad, Sunjar.
MURAD Chamberlain, I tell thee I will not bear it an hour longer than it takes my feet to carry me to the King's audience-room and my voice to number my wrongs. Let him choose between me, a man and one made in God's image, and this brutish amalgam of gorilla and Barbary ape whom he calls his Vizier.
SUNJAR You are not alone in your wrongs; all Bassora and half the Court complain of his tyrannies.
MURAD And as if all were too little for his heavy-handed malice, he must saddle us with his son's misdoings too, who is as like him as the young baboon is to the adult ape.
SUNJAR It is a cub, a monkey of mischief, a rod on the soles would go far to tame. But who shall dare apply that? Murad, be wary. The King,—who is the King and therefore blameless,—will not have his black angel dispraised. Complain rather to Alfazzal Ibn Sawy, the good Vizier.
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MURAD The kind Alfazzal! Bassora is bright only because of his presence.
SUNJAR I believe you. He has the serenity and brightness of a nature that never willingly did hurt to man or living thing. I think sometimes every good kindly man is like the moon and carries a halo, while a chill cloud moves with dark and malignant natures. When we are near them, we feel it.
Enter Ibn Sawy.
IBN SAWY (to himself) The fairest of all slave-girls! here's a task! Why, my wild handsome roisterer, Nureddene, My hunter of girls, my snare for hearts of virgins, Could do this better. And he would strangely like The mission; but I think his pretty purchase Would hardly come undamaged through to the owner. A perilous transit that would be! the rogue! Ten thousand golden pieces hardly buy Such wonders,—so much wealth to go so idly! But princes must have sweet and pleasant things To ease their labours more than common men. Their labour is not common who are here The Almighty's burdened high vicegerents charged With difficult justice and calm-visaged rule.
SUNJAR The peace of the Prophet with thee, thou best of Viziers.
MURAD The peace, Alfazzal Ibn Sawy.
IBN SAWY And to you also peace. You here, my Captain? The city's business?
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MURAD Vizier, and my own! I would impeach the Vizier Almuene Before our royal master.
IBN SAWY You'll do unwisely. A dark and dangerous mind is Almuene's, Yet are there parts in him that well deserve The favour he enjoys, although too proudly He uses it and with much personal malice. Complain not to the King against him, Murad. He'll weigh his merits with your grievances, Find these small jealous trifles, those superlative, And in the end conceive a mute displeasure Against you.
MURAD I will be guided by you, sir.
IBN SAWY My honest Turk, you will do well.
SUNJAR He's here.
Enter Almuene.
MURAD The peace upon you, son of Khakan.
ALMUENE Captain, You govern harshly. Change your methods, captain, Your manners too. You are a Turk; I know you.
MURAD I govern Bassora more honestly
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Than you the kingdom.
ALMUENE Soldier! rude Turcoman!
IBN SAWY Nay, brother Almuene! Why are you angry?
ALMUENE That he misgoverns.
IBN SAWY In what peculiar instance?
ALMUENE I'll tell you. A city gang the other day Battered my little mild Fareed most beastly With staves and cudgels. This fellow's bribed police, By him instructed, held a ruffian candle To the outrage. When the rogues were caught, they lied And got them off before a fool, a Kazi.
MURAD The Vizier's son, as all our city knows, A misformed urchin full of budding evil, Ranges the city like a ruffian, shielded Under his father's formidable name; And those who lay their hands on him, commit Not outrage, but a rescue.
ALMUENE Turk, I know you.
IBN SAWY In all fraternal kindness hear me speak. What Murad says, is truth. For your Fareed, However before you he blinks angelically,
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Abroad he roars half-devil. Never, Vizier, Was such a scandal until now allowed In any Moslem town. Why, it is just Such barbarous outrage as in Christian cities May walk unquestioned, not in Bassora Or any seat of culture. It should be mended.
ALMUENE Brother, your Nureddene is not all blameless. He has a name!
IBN SAWY His are the first wild startings Of a bold generous nature. Mettled steeds, When they've been managed, are the best to mount. So will my son. If your Fareed's brute courses As easily turn to gold, I shall be glad.
ALMUENE Let him be anything, he is a Vizier's son. The Turk forgot that.
IBN SAWY These are maxims, brother, Unsuited to our Moslem polity. They savour of barbarous Europe. But in Islam All men are equal underneath the King.
ALMUENE Well, brother. Turk, you are excused.
MURAD Excused! Viziers, the peace.
IBN SAWY I'll follow you.
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ALMUENE Turk, the peace!
IBN SAWY Peace, brother. See to it, brother.
Exit with Murad.
ALMUENE Brother, peace. Would I not gladly tweak your ears and nose And catch your brotherly beard to pluck it out With sweet fraternal pulls? Faugh, you babbler Of virtuous nothings! some day I'll have you preach Under the bastinado; you'll howl, you'll howl Rare sermons there.
(seeing Sunjar)
You! you! you spy? you eavesdrop? And I must be rebuked with this to hear it! Well, I'll remember you.
SUNJAR Sir, I beseech you, I had no smallest purpose to offend.
ALMUENE I know you, dog! When my back's turned, you bark, But whine before me. You shall be remembered.
Exit.
SUNJAR There goest thou, Almuene, the son of Khakan, Dog's son, dog's father, and thyself a dog. Thy birth was where thy end shall be, a dunghill.
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A room in Almuene's house.
Almuene, Khatoon.
KHATOON You have indulged the boy till he has lost The likeness even of manhood. God's great stamp And heavenly image on his mint's defaced, Rubbed out, and only the brute metal left Which never shall find currency again Among his angels.
ALMUENE Oh always clamour, clamour! I had been happier bedded with a slave Whom I could beat to sense when she was forward.
KHATOON Oh, you'ld have done no less by me, I know, Although my rank's as far above your birth As some white star in heaven o'erpeers the muck Of foulest stables, had I not great kin And swords in the background to avenge me.
ALMUENE Termagant, Some day I'll have you stripped and soundly caned By your own women, if you grow not gentler.
KHATOON I shall be glad some day to find your courage.
Enter Fareed, jumping and gyrating.
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FAREED Oh father, father, father, father, father!
KHATOON What means this idiot clamour? Senseless child, Can you not walk like some more human thing Or talk like one at least?
ALMUENE Dame, check once more My gallant boy, try once again to break His fine and natural spirit with your chidings, I'll drive your teeth in, lady or no lady.
FAREED Do, father, break her teeth! She's always scolding. Sometimes she beats me when you're out. Do break them, I shall so laugh!
ALMUENE My gamesome goblin!
KHATOON You prompt him To hate his mother; but do not lightly think The devil you strive to raise up from that hell Which lurks within us all, sealed commonly By human shame and Allah's supreme grace,— But you! you scrape away the seal, would take The full flame of the inferno, not the gusts Of smoke jet out in ordinary men;— Think not this imp will limit with his mother Unnatural revolt! You will repent this.
FAREED Girl, father! such a girl! a girl of girls!
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Buy me my girl!
ALMUENE What girl, you leaping madcap?
FAREED In the slave-market for ten thousand pieces. Such hands! such eyes! such hips! such legs! I am Impatient till my elbows meet around her.
ALMUENE My amorous wagtail! What, my pretty hunchback, You have your trophies too among the girls No less than the straight dainty Nureddene, Our Vizier's pride? Ay, you have broken seals? You have picked locks, my burglar?
FAREED You have given me, You and my mother, such a wicked hump To walk about with, the girls jeer at me. I have only a chance with blind ones. 'Tis a shame.
ALMUENE How will you make your slave-girl love you, hunch?
FAREED She'll be my slave-girl and she'll have to love me.
ALMUENE Whom would you marry, hunchback, for a wager? Will the King's daughter tempt you?
FAREED Pooh! I've got My eye upon my uncle's pretty niece. I like her.
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ALMUENE The Vizier, my peculiar hatred! Wagtail, you must not marry there.
FAREED I hate him too And partly for that cause will marry her, To beat her twice a day and let him know it. He will be grieved to the heart.
ALMUENE You're my own lad.
FAREED And then she's such a nice tame pretty thing, Will sob and tremble, kiss me when she's told, Not like my mother, frown, scold, nag all day. But, dad, my girl! buy me my girl!
ALMUENE Come, wagtail. Ten thousand pieces! 'tis exorbitant. Two thousand, not a dirham more. The seller Does wisely if he takes it, glad to get A piastre for her. Call the slaves, Fareed.
FAREED Hooray! hoop! what a time I'll have! Cafoor!
Exit, calling.
ALMUENE 'Tis thus a boy should be trained up, not checked, Rebuked and punished till the natural man Is killed in him and a tame virtuous block Replace the lusty pattern Nature made. I do not value at a brazen coin The man who has no vices in his blood,
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Never took toll of women's lips in youth Nor warmed his nights with wine. Your moralists Teach one thing, Nature quite another; which of these Is likely to be right? Yes, cultivate, But on the plan that she has mapped. Give way, Give way to the inspired blood of youth And you shall have a man, no scrupulous fool, No ethical malingerer in the fray; A man to lord it over other men, Soldier or Vizier or adventurous merchant, The breed of Samson. Man with such youth your armies. Of such is an imperial people made Who send their colonists and conquerors Across the world, till the wide earth contains One language only and a single rule. Yes, Nature is your grand imperialist, No moral sermonizer. Rude, hardy stocks Transplant themselves, expand, outlast the storms And heat and cold, not slips too gently nurtured Or lapped in hothouse warmth. Who conquered earth For Islam? Arabs trained in robbery, Heroes, robust in body and desire. I'll get this slave-girl for Fareed to help His education on. Be lusty, son, And breed me grandsons like you for my stock.
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The slave-market.
Muazzim and his man; Balkis and Mymoona; Ajebe; Aziz, Abdullah and other merchants.
MUAZZIM Well, gentlemen, the biddings, the biddings! Will you begin, sir, for an example now?
BALKIS Who is the handsome youth in that rich dress?
MUAZZIM It is Ajebe, the Vizier's nephew, a good fellow with a bad uncle.
BALKIS Praise me to them poetically, broker.
MUAZZIM I promise you for the poetry. Biddings, gentlemen.
A MERCHANT Three thousand for the pretty one.
MUAZZIM Why, sir, I protest! Three thousand pieces! Look at her! Allah be good to me! You shall not find her equal from China to Frangistan. Seven thousand, say I.
AZIZ The goods are good goods, broker, but the price heavy.
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MUAZZIM Didst thou say heavy? Allah avert the punishment from thee, merchant Aziz. Heavy!
BALKIS (to Ajebe) Will you not bid for me? My mirror tells me That I am pretty, and I can tell, who know it, I have a touch upon the lute will charm The winds to hear me, and my voice is sweeter Than any you have heard in Bassora. Will you not bid?
AJEBE And wherefore do you choose me From all these merchants, child?
BALKIS I cannot say That I have fallen in love with you. Your mother Is kind and beautiful, I read her in your face, And it is she I'ld serve.
AJEBE I bid, Muazzim, Five thousand for this little lady.
MUAZZIM Five! And she who chose you, too! Bid seven or nothing.
AJEBE Well, well, six thousand, not a dirham more.
MUAZZIM Does any bid beyond?
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MERCHANT Let me see, let me see.
ABDULLAH Fie, leave them, man! You'll have no luck with her, Crossing her wishes.
MERCHANT Let her go, let her go.
MUAZZIM To you, sir, she belongs.
BALKIS But if you'll have me, Then take my sister too; we make one heart Inseparably.
AJEBE She's fair, but not like you.
BALKIS If we are parted, I shall sicken and die For want of her, then your six thousand's wasted.
MUAZZIM They make a single lot.
AJEBE Two thousand more then. Give her in that, or else the sale is off.
MUAZZIM That's giving her away! Well, take her, take her.
AJEBE I'll send the money.
Exit with Balkis and Mymoona.
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ABDULLAH What, a bargain, broker?
MUAZZIM Not much, not much; the owner'll have some profit.
AZIZ The Vizier!
ABDULLAH Noble Alfazzal! There will be Good sales today in the market, since his feet Have trod here.
MERCHANTS Welcome, welcome, noble Vizier.
IBN SAWY The peace be on you all. I thank you, sirs. What, good Abdullah, all goes well at home?
ABDULLAH My brother's failed, sir.
IBN SAWY Make me your treasurer. I am ashamed to think good men should want While I indulge in superfluities. Well, broker, how's the market? Have you slaves That I can profit by?
MUAZZIM Admired Vizier, There's nothing worth the kindness of your gaze. Yet do but tell me what you need, I'll fit you With stuff quite sound and at an honest price. The other brokers are mere pillagers,
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But me you know.
IBN SAWY If there's an honest broker, You are that marvel, I can swear so much. Now pick me out your sweetest thing in girls, Perfect in beauty, wise as Sheban Balkis, Yet more in charm than Helen of the Greeks, Then name your price.
MUAZZIM I have the very marvel. You shall not see her equal in a century. She has the Koran and the law by heart; Song, motion, music and calligraphy Are natural to her, and she contains All science in one corner of her mind; Yet learning less than wit; and either lost In the mere sweetness of her speech and beauty. You'll hardly have her within fifteen thousand; She is a nonpareil.
IBN SAWY It is a sum.
MUAZZIM Nay, see her only. Khalid, bring the girl.
Exit Khalid.
I should not ask you, sir, but has your son Authority from you to buy? He has The promise of a necklet from me.
IBN SAWY A necklet!
MUAZZIM A costly trifle. "Send it to such an house,"
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He tells me like a prince, "and dun my father For the amount. I know you'll clap it on As high as Elburz, you old swindler. Fleece him!" He is a merry lad.
IBN SAWY Fleece me! The rogue! The handsome naughty rogue! I'll pull his curls for this. The house? To whom is it given?
MUAZZIM Well, sir, it is A girl, a dainty Christian. I fear she has given Something more precious far than what he pays her with.
IBN SAWY No doubt, no doubt. The rogue! quite conscienceless. I'm glad you told me of this. Dun me! Well, The rascal's frank enough, that is one comfort; He adds no meaner vices, fear or lying, To his impetuous faults. The blood is good And in the end will bear him through. There's hope. I'll come, Muazzim.
MUAZZIM The son repeats the father, But with a dash of quicker, wilder blood. Here's Khalid with the Persian.
Enter Khalid with Anice-aljalice.
Khalid, run And call the Vizier; he was here just now.
Exit Khalid. Enter Almuene, Fareed and Slaves.
FAREED There she is, father; there, there, there!
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ALMUENE You deal, sir? I know you well. Today be more honest than is your wont. Is she bid for?
MUAZZIM (aside) Iblis straight out of Hell with his hobgoblin! (aloud) Sir, we are waiting for the good Vizier, who is to bid for her.
ALMUENE Here is the Vizier and he bids for her. Two thousand for the lass. Who bids against me?
MUAZZIM Vizier Almuene, you are too great to find any opposers, and you know it; but as you are great, I pray you bid greatly. Her least price is ten thousand.
ALMUENE Ten thousand, swindler! Do you dare to cheat In open market? two thousand's her outside. This spindly common wench! Accept it, broker, Or call for bids; refuse at your worst risk.
MUAZZIM It is not the rule of these sales. I appeal to you, gentlemen. What, do you all steal off from my neighbourhood? Vizier, she is already bespoken by your elder, Ibn Sawy.
ALMUENE I know your broking tricks, you shallow rascal. Call for more bids, you cheater, call for bids.
MUAZZIM Abuse me not, Almuene bin Khakan! There is justice in Bassora and the good Ibn Sawy will decide between us.
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ALMUENE Us! between us! Thou dirty broking cheat, Am I thy equal? Throw him the money, Nubian. But if he boggle, seize him, have him flat And powerfully persuade him with your sticks. You, beauty, come. What, hussy, you draw back?
FAREED Father, let me get behind her with my horse-tickler. I will trot her home in a twinkling.
MUAZZIM This is flat tyranny. I will appeal To the good Vizier and our gracious King.
ALMUENE Impudent thief! have first thy punishment And howl appeal between the blows. Seize him.
Enter Khalid with Ibn Sawy.
MUAZZIM Protect me, Vizier, from this unjust man, This tyrant.
IBN SAWY What is this?
MUAZZIM He takes by force The perfect slave-girl I had kept for you, And at a beggarly, low, niggard's price I'ld not accept for a black kitchen-girl; Then, when I named you, fell to tyrant rage, Ordering his slaves to beat me.
IBN SAWY Is this true,
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Vizier?
ALMUENE Someone beat out my foggy brains! I took it for a trick, a broker's trick. What, you bespoke the girl? You know I'ld lose My hand and tongue rather than they should hurt you. Well, well, begin the bidding.
IBN SAWY First, a word. Vizier, this purchase is not for myself; 'Tis for the King. I deem you far too loyal To bid against your master, needlessly Taxing his treasuries. But if you will, You have the right. By justice and the law The meanest may compete here. Do you bid?
ALMUENE (to himself) He baulks me everywhere. (aloud) The perfect slave-girl? No, I'll not bid. Yet it is most unlucky, My son has set his heart upon this very girl. Will you not let him have her, Ibn Sawy?
IBN SAWY I grieve that he must be so disappointed, But there's no help. Were it my own dear son And he should pine to death for her, I would not Indulge him here. The King comes first.
ALMUENE Quite first. Well, shall I see you at your house today?
IBN SAWY State business, brother?
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ALMUENE Our states and how to join Their linked loves yet closer. I have a thought Touching Fareed here and your orphaned niece.
IBN SAWY I understand you. We will talk of it. Brother, you know my mind about your boy. He is too wild and rude; I would not trust My dear soft girl into such dangerous hands, Unless he showed a quick and strange amendment.
ALMUENE It is the wildness of his youth. Provide him A wife and he will soon domesticate. Pen these wild torrents into quiet dams And they will fertilize the kingdom, brother.
IBN SAWY I hope so. Well, we'll talk.
ALMUENE Fareed, come with me.
FAREED I'll have my girl! I'll beat them all and have her!
ALMUENE Wagtail, your uncle takes her.
FAREED Break his head then, Whip the proud broker up and down the square And take her without payment. Why are you The Vizier, if you cannot do your will?
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ALMUENE Madcap, she's for the King, be quiet.
FAREED Oh!
ALMUENE Come, I will buy you prettier girls than this By hundredweights and tons.
FAREED She has such hair! such legs! God damn the Vizier and the King and you! I'll take her yet.
Exit in a rage, followed by Almuene and Slaves.
MUAZZIM This is a budding Vizier! Sir, look at her; were mine mere broker's praises?
IBN SAWY You, mistress? Does the earth contain such beauty?
MUAZZIM Did I not tell you so?
IBN SAWY 'Tis marvellous, And if her mind be equal to her body, She is an emperor's portion. What's your name, Sweet wonder?
ANICE Anice-aljalice they call me.
IBN SAWY What is your history?
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ANICE My parents sold me In the great famine.
IBN SAWY What, is your mould indeed a thing of earth? Peri, have you not come disguised from heaven To snare us with your lovely smiles, you marvel?
ANICE I am a slave and mortal.
IBN SAWY Prove me that.
ANICE A Peri, sir, has wings, but I have none.
IBN SAWY I see that difference only. Well now, her price?
MUAZZIM She is a gift to thee, O Vizier.
IBN SAWY Ceremony? I rate her value at ten thousand clear.
MUAZZIM It is the price expected at your hands, Though from a private purse we'ld have full value. Keep her ten days with you; her beauty's worn With journeying and its harsh fatigues. Give rest, Give baths, give food, then shade your eyes to gaze at her.
IBN SAWY You counsel wisely. There's my poaching rascal,—
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But I will seal her fast even from his questings. The peace, Muazzim.
MUAZZIM Peace, thou good Vizier, loaded with our blessings.
Exeunt.
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A room in the women's apartments of Ibn Sawy's house.
Ameena, Doonya.
AMEENA Call, Doonya, to the eunuch once again, And ask if Nureddene has come.
DOONYA Mother, What is the use? you know he has not come. Why do you fret your heart, sweet mother, for him? Bad coins are never lost.
AMEENA Fie, Doonya! bad? He is not bad, but wild, a trifle wild; And the one little fault's like a stray curl Among his clustering golden qualities, That graces more than it disfigures him. Bad coin! Oh, Doonya, even the purest gold Has some alloy, so do not call him bad.
DOONYA Sweet, silly mother! why, I called him that Just to hear you defend him.
AMEENA You laugh at me,— Oh, you all laugh. And yet I will maintain My Nureddene's the dearest lad in Bassora,— Let him disprove't who can,—in all this realm
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The beautifullest and kindest.
DOONYA So the girls think Through all our city. Oh, I laugh at you And at myself. I'm sure I am as bad A sister to him as you are a mother.
AMEENA I a bad mother, Doonya?
DOONYA The worst possible. You spoil him; so do I; so does his father; So does all Bassora,—especially the girls!
AMEENA Why, who could be unkind to him or see His merry eyes grow clouded with remorse?
DOONYA Is it he who comes?
She goes out and returns.
It is my uncle, mother, And there's a girl with him,—I think she is A copy of Nureddene in white and red. Why, as I looked downstairs, she smiled up at me And took the heart out of my body with the smile. Are you going to have a rival at your years, Poor mother? 'Tis late for uncle to go wooing.
AMEENA A rival, you mad girl!
Enter Ibn Sawy and Anice-aljalice.
IBN SAWY Come forward, child.
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Here is a slave-girl, Ameena, I've bought For our great Sultan. Keep her from your son, Your scapegrace son. My life upon it, dame! If he touches her, I'm gone.
AMEENA I'll see to it.
IBN SAWY Let a strong eunuch with a naked sword Stand at her door. Bathe her and feed her daintily. Your son! see that he does not wheedle you. You've spoilt him so, there is no trusting you, You tender, foolish heart.
AMEENA I spoil him, husband!
IBN SAWY Most damnably. Whenever I would turn Wholesomely harsh to him, you come between And coax my anger. Therefore he is spoilt.
DOONYA Oh, uncle mine, when you are harsh, the world Grows darker with your frown. See, how I tremble!
IBN SAWY Oh, are you there, my little satirist? When were you whipped last?
DOONYA When you last were harsh.
IBN SAWY You shall be married off. I will not have you Mocking an old and reverend man like me.
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Whom will you marry, chit?
DOONYA An old, old man, Just such a smiling harsh old man as you, None else.
IBN SAWY And not a boy like young Fareed? His father wishes it; he too, I think.
DOONYA Throw me from this high window to the court, Or tell me ere the day and I will leap.
IBN SAWY Is he so bad? I thought it. No, my niece, You marry not with Khakan's evil stock, Although there were no other bridegroom living. I'll leave you, Ameena. Anice, I have a son, Handsome and wanton. Let him not behold you! You are wise and spirited beyond your years, Above your sex; I trust in your discretion.
ANICE I will be careful, sir. Yet trust in bars And portals, not in me. If he should find me, I am his slave and born to do his will.
IBN SAWY Be careful, dame.
AMEENA How fair you are, small lady! 'Tis better truly he should see you not. Doonya, be careful of her. I'll go before
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And make your casket ready for you, gem. Bring her behind me, Doonya.
DOONYA (leaping on Anice) What's your name, You smiling wonder, what's your name? your name?
ANICE If you will let me a little breathe, I'll tell you.
DOONYA Tell it me without breathing.
ANICE It's too long.
DOONYA Let's hear it.
ANICE Anice-aljalice.
DOONYA Anice, There is a sea of laughter in your body; I find it billowing there beneath the calm And rippling sweetly out in smiles. You beauty! And I love laughers. Wherefore for the King? Why not for me? Does the King ever laugh, I wonder?
She runs out.
ANICE My King is here. But they would give me To some thick-bearded swart and grizzled Sultan Who'ld see me once a week and keep me penned
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For service, not for mirth and love. My prince Is like our Persian boys, fair-faced and merry, Fronting the world with glad and open looks That make the heart rejoice. Ten days! 'tis much. Kingdoms have toppled in ten days.
Doonya returns.
DOONYA Come, Anice. I wish my cousin Nureddene had come And caught you here. What fun it would have been!
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Ibn Sawy's house. An upper chamber in the women's apartments.
Doonya, Anice-aljalice.
DOONYA You living sweet romance, you come from Persia. 'Tis there, I think, they fall in love at sight?
ANICE But will you help me, Doonya, will you help me? To him, to him, not to that grizzled King! I am near Heaven with Hell that's waiting for me.
DOONYA I know, I know! you feel as I would, child, If told that in ten days I had to marry My cruel boisterous cousin. I will help you. But strange! to see him merely pass and love him! Did he look back at you?
ANICE While he could see me.
DOONYA Yes, that was Nureddene.
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ANICE You'll help me?
DOONYA Yes, With all my heart and soul and brains and body. But how? My uncle's orders are so strict!
ANICE And do you always heed your uncle's orders, You dutiful niece?
DOONYA Rigidly, when they suit me. It shall be done although my punishment Were even to wed Fareed. But who can say When he'll come home?
ANICE Comes he not daily then?
DOONYA When he's not hawking. Questing, child, for doves, White doves.
ANICE I'll stop all that when he is mine.
DOONYA Will you? and yet I think you will, nor find it A task at all. You can do it?
ANICE I will.
DOONYA You have relieved my conscience of a load.
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Who blames me? I do this to reform my cousin, Gravely, deliberately, with serious thought, And am quite virtuously disobedient. I almost feel a long white beard upon my chin, The thing's so wise and sober. Gravely, gravely!
She marches out, solemnly stroking an imaginary beard.
ANICE My heart beats reassuringly within. The destined Prince will come and all bad spells Be broken; then—You angels up in Heaven Who guard sweet shame and woman's modesty, Hide deep your searching eyes with those bright wings. It is not wantonness, though in a slave Permitted, spurs me forward. O tonight Let sleep your pens, in your rebuking volumes Record not this. I am on such a brink, A hound of horror baying at my heels, I cannot pause to think what fire of blushes I choose to flee through, nor how safe cold eyes May censure me. I pass though I should burn. You cannot bid me pick my careful steps! Oh, no, the danger is too near. I run By the one road that's left me, to escape, To escape, into the very arms I love.
Curtain
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Ibn Sawy's house. A room in the women's apartments.
AMEENA Has he come in?
DOONYA He has.
AMEENA For three long days! I will reprove him. Call him to me, Doonya. I will be stern.
DOONYA That's right. Lips closer there! And just try hard to frown. That's mildly grim And ought to shake him. Now you spoil all by laughing.
AMEENA Away, you madcap! Call him here.
DOONYA The culprit Presents himself unsummoned.
Enter Nureddene.
NUREDDENE (at the door) Ayoob, Ayoob! A bowl of sherbet in my chamber.
(entering)
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Well, mother, Here I am back, your errant gadabout, Your vagabond scapegrace, tired of truancy And very hungry for my mother's arms. It's good to see you smile!
AMEENA My dearest son!
NUREDDENE Why, Doonya, cousin, what wild face is this?
DOONYA This is a frown, a frown, upon my forehead. Do you not tremble when you see it? No? To tell you the plain truth, my wandering brother, We both were practising a careful grimness And meant to wither you with darting flames From basilisk eyes and words more sharp than swords, Burn you and frizzle into simmering cinders. Oh, you'ld have been a dolorous spectacle Before we had finished with you! Ask her else.
AMEENA Heed her not, Nureddene. But tell me, child, Is this well done to wander vagrant-like Leaving your mother to anxieties And such alarms? Oh, we will have to take Some measure with you!
DOONYA Oh, now, now, we are stern!
NUREDDENE Mother, I only range abroad and learn Of manners and of men to fit myself For the after-time.
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DOONYA True, true, and of the taste Of different wines and qualities of girls; What eyes Damascus sends, the Cairene sort, Bagdad's red lips and Yemen's willowy figures, Who has the smallest waist in Bassora, Or who the shapeliest little foot moonbright Beneath her anklets. These are sciences And should be learned by sober masculine graduates. Should they not, cousin?
NUREDDENE These too are not amiss, Doonya, for world-wise men. And do you think, Dear mother, I could learn the busy world Here, in your lap, within the shadowy calm Of women's chambers?
AMEENA No, child, no. You see, Doonya, it is not all so bad, this wandering. And I am sure they much o'erstate his faults Who tell of them.
DOONYA Oh, this is very grim!
AMEENA But, Nureddene, you must not be so wild; Or when we are gone, what will you do, if now You learn no prudence? All your patrimony You'll waste,—and then?
NUREDDENE Then, mother, life begins. I shall go forth, a daring errant-knight, To my true country out in faeryland;
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Wander among the Moors, see Granada, The delicate city made of faery stone, Cairo, Tangier, Aleppo, Trebizond; Or in the East, where old enchantment dwells, Find Pekin of the wooden piles, Delhi Of the idolaters, its brazen pillar And huge seven-storied temples sculpture-fretted, And o'er romantic regions quite unknown Preach Islam, sword in hand; sell bales of spice From Bassora to Java and Japan; Then on through undiscovered islands, seas And Oceans yet unnamed; yes, everywhere Catch Danger by the throat where I can find him,—
DOONYA Butcher blood-belching dragons with my blade, Cut ogres, chop giants, tickle cormorants,—
NUREDDENE Then in some land, I have not settled which,—
DOONYA Call it Cumcatchia or Nonsensicum.
NUREDDENE Marry a Soldan's daughter, sweet of eye And crowned with gracious hair, deserving her By deeds impossible; conduct her armies Against her foemen, enter iron-walled Cities besieged with the loud clang of war, Rescue imperilled kingdoms, mid the smoke Of desperate cities slay victorious kings, And so extend my lady's empire wide—
DOONYA From Bassora to the quite distant moon.
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NUREDDENE There I shall reign with beauty and splendour round In a great palace built of porphyry, Marble and jasper, with strange columns made Of coral and fair walls bright-arabesqued On which the Koran shall be written out In sapphires and in rubies. I will sit Drinking from cups of gold delightful wine, Watching slow dances, while the immortal strain Of music wanders to its silent home. And I shall have bright concubines and slaves Around me crowding all my glorious house With beautiful faces, thick as stars in heaven. My wealth shall be so great that I can spend Millions each day nor feel the want. I'll give Till there shall be no poor in all my realms, Nor any grieved; for I shall every night, Like Haroun Alrasheed, the mighty Caliph, Wander disguised with Jaafar and Mesrour Redressing wrongs, repressing Almuenes, And set up noble men like my dear father In lofty places, giving priceless boons, An unseen Providence to all mankind.
DOONYA And you will marry me, dear Nureddene, To Jaafar, your great Vizier, so that we Shall never part, but every blessed night Drink and be merry in your halls, and live Felicitously for ever and for aye, So long as full moons shine and brains go wrong And wine is drunk. I make my suit to you from now, Caliph of Faeryland.
NUREDDENE Your suit is granted. And meanwhile, Doonya, I amuse myself
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With nearer kingdoms, Miriam's wavy locks And Shazarath-al-Durr's sweet voice of song.
DOONYA And meanwhile, brother, till you get your kingdom, We shall be grim, quite grim.
AMEENA Your father's angry. I have not known him yet so moved. My child, Do not force us to punish you.
NUREDDENE With kisses? Look, Doonya, at these two dear hypocrites, She with her gentle honey-worded threats, He with his stormings. Pooh! I care not for you.
AMEENA Not care!
NUREDDENE No, not a jot for him or you, My little mother, or only just so much As a small kiss is worth.
AMEENA I told you, Doonya, He was the dearest boy in all the world, The best, the kindest.
DOONYA Oh yes, you told me that. And was the dearest boy in all the world Rummaging the regions for the dearest girl, While the admiring sun danced round the welkin A triple circuit?
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NUREDDENE I have found her, Doonya.
DOONYA The backward glance?
AMEENA Your father!
IBN SAWY Ameena, I'm called to the palace; something is afoot. Ah, rascal! ah, you villain! you have come?
NUREDDENE Sir, a long hour.
IBN SAWY Rogue! scamp! what do you mean? Knave, is my house a caravanserai For you to lodge in when it is your pleasure?
NUREDDENE It is the happiest home in Bassora, Where the two kindest parents in the world Excuse their vagabond son.
IBN SAWY Hum! well! What, fellow, You will buy trinkets? you will have me dunned? And fleeced?
NUREDDENE Did he dun you? I hope he asked A fitting price; I told him to.
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IBN SAWY Sir, sir, What game is this to buy your hussies trinkets And send your father in the bill? Who taught you This rule of conduct?
NUREDDENE You, sir.
IBN SAWY I, rascal?
NUREDDENE You told me That debt must be avoided like a sin. What other way could I avoid it, sir, Yet give the trinket?
IBN SAWY Logic of impudence! Tell me, you curled wine-bibbing Aristotle, Did I tell you also to have mistresses And buy them trinkets?
NUREDDENE Not in so many words.
IBN SAWY So many devils!
NUREDDENE But since you did not marry me Nor buy a beautiful slave for home delight, I thought you'ld have me range outside for pleasures To get experience of the busy world. If 'twas an oversight, it may be mended.
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IBN SAWY I'm dumb!
NUREDDENE There is a Persian Muazzim sells, Whom buy for me,—her rate's ten thousand pieces—
IBN SAWY A Persian! Muazzim sells! ten thousand pieces!
(to himself)
Where grows this tangle? I become afraid.
NUREDDENE Whom buy for me, I swear I'll be at home Quite four days out of seven.
IBN SAWY Hear me, young villain! I'm called to the palace, but when I return, Look to be bastinadoed, look to be curried In boiling water. (aside) I must blind him well. Ten days I shall be busy with affairs; Then for your slavegirl. Bid the broker keep her. Oh, I forgot! I swore to pull your curls For your offences.
NUREDDENE I must not let you, sir; They are no longer my own property. There's not a lock that has not been bespoken For a memento.
IBN SAWY What! what! Impudent rascal!
(aside)
You handsome laughing rogue! Hear, Ameena, Let Doonya sleep with Anice every night.
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No, come; hear farther.
Exit with Ameena.
NUREDDENE O Doonya, Doonya, tall, sweet, laughing Doonya! I am in love,—drowned, strangled, dead with longing.
DOONYA For the world's Persian? But she's sold by now.
NUREDDENE I asked Muazzim.
DOONYA A quite absolute liar.
NUREDDENE O if she is, I'll leave all other cares And only seek her through an empty world.
DOONYA What, could one backward glance sweep you so forward?
NUREDDENE Why, Doonya!
DOONYA Brother, I know a thing I know You do not know. A sweet bird sang it to me In an upper chamber.
NUREDDENE Doonya, you're full of something, And I must hear it.
DOONYA What will you give me for it?
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None of your nighthawk kisses, cousin mine! But a mild loving kind fraternal pledge I'll not refuse.
NUREDDENE You are the wickedest, dearest girl In all the world, the maddest sweetest sister A sighing lover ever had. Now tell me.
DOONYA More, more! I must be flattered.
NUREDDENE No more. Come, mischief, You'll keep me in suspense? (pulls her ears)
DOONYA Enough, enough! The Persian—listen and perpend, O lover! Lend ear while I unfold my wondrous tale, A tale long, curled and with a tip,—Oh Lord! I'll clip my tale. The Persian's bought for you And in the upper chambers.
NUREDDENE Doonya, Doonya! But those two loving hypocrites,—
DOONYA All's meant To be surprise.
NUREDDENE Surprise me no surprises. I am on fire, Doonya, I am on fire. The upper chambers?
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DOONYA Stop, stop! You do not know; There is an ogre at her door, a black White-tusked huge-muscled hideous grinning giant, Of mood uproarious, horrible of limb, An Ethiopian fell ycleped Harkoos.
NUREDDENE The eunuch!
DOONYA Stop, stop, stop. He has a sword, A fearful, forceful, formidable blade.
NUREDDENE Your eunuch and his sword! I mount to heaven And who shall stop me?
DOONYA Stop, stop! yet stop! He's off Like bolt from bowstring. Now the game's afoot And Bassora's Soldan, Mohamad Alzayni, May whistle for his slavegirl. I am Fate, For I upset the plans of Viziers and of Kings.
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Ibn Sawy's house. The upper chambers of the women's apartments.
Doonya, sleeping on a couch. Enter Nureddene and Anice.
NUREDDENE I told you 'twas the morning.
ANICE Morning so early? This moment 'twas the evening star; is that The matin lustre?
NUREDDENE There is a star at watch beside the moon Waiting to see you ere it leave the skies. Is it your sister Peri?
ANICE It is our star And guards us both.
NUREDDENE It is the star of Anice, The star of Anice-aljalice who came From Persia guided by its silver beams Into these arms of vagrant Nureddene Which keep her till the end. Sweet, I possess you! Till now I could not patently believe it. Strange, strange that I who nothing have deserved, Should win what all would covet! We are fools Who reach at baubles taking them for stars.
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O wiser woman who come straight to Heaven! But I have wandered by the way and staled The freshness of delight with gadding pleasures, Anticipated Love's perfect fruit with sour And random berries void of real savour. Oh fool! had I but known! What can I say But once more that I have deserved you not, Who yet must take you, knowing my undesert, Whatever come hereafter?
ANICE The house is stirring.
NUREDDENE Who is this sleeping here? My cousin Doonya!
DOONYA (waking) Is morning come? My blessing on you, children. Be good and kind, dears; love each other, darlings.
NUREDDENE Dame Mischief, thanks; thanks, Mother Madcap.
DOONYA Now, whither?
NUREDDENE To earth from Paradise.
DOONYA Wait, wait! You must not Walk off the stage before your part is done. The situation now with open eyes And lifted hands and chidings. You'll be whipped, Anice, and Nureddene packed off to Mecca On penitential legs; I shall be married.
(opening the door)
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Oh, our fell Ethiopian snoozing here? Snore, noble ogre, snore louder than nature To excuse your gloomy skin from worse than thwacks. Wait for me, Nureddene.
ANICE They will be angry.
NUREDDENE Oh, with two smiles I'll buy an easy pardon.
ANICE Whatever comes, we are each other's now.
NUREDDENE Nothing will come to us but happy days, You, my surpassing jewel, on my neck Closer to me than my own heartbeats.
ANICE Yes, Closer than kisses, closer than delight, Close only as love whom sorrow and delight Cannot diminish, nor long absence change Nor daily prodigality of joy Expend immortal love.
NUREDDENE You have the lore.
DOONYA I have told Nuzhath to call mother here. There will be such a gentle storm.
Enter Ameena at the door.
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AMEENA Harkoos! Sleeping?
HARKOOS Gmn—mmn—
DOONYA Grunted almost like nature, Thou excellent giant.
AMEENA Harkoos, dost thou sleep?
HARKOOS Sleep! I! I was only pondering a text of Koran with closed eyes, lady. You give us slaves pitiful small time for our devotions; but 'twill all be accounted for hereafter.
AMEENA And canst thou meditate beneath the lash? For there thou'lt shortly be.
HARKOOS Stick or leather, 'tis all one to Harkoos. I will not be cudgelled out of my straight road to Paradise.
AMEENA My mind misgives me.
(enters the room)
Was this well done, my child?
NUREDDENE Dear, think the chiding given; do not pain Your forehead with a frown.
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AMEENA You, Doonya, too Were part of this?
DOONYA Part! you shall not abate My glory; I am its artificer, The auxiliary and supplement of Fate.
AMEENA Quite shameless in your disobedience, Doonya? Your father's anger will embrace us all.
NUREDDENE And nothing worse than the embrace which ends A chiding and a smile, our fault deserves. You had a gift for me in your sweet hands Concealed behind you; I have but reached round And taken it ere you knew.
AMEENA For you, my son? She was not for you, she was for the King. This was your worst fault, child; all others venial Beside it.
NUREDDENE For the King! You told me, Doonya, That she was bought for me, a kind surprise Intended?
DOONYA I did; exact!
AMEENA Such falsehood, Doonya!
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DOONYA No falsehood, none. Purchased she was for him, For he has got her. And surprise! Well, mother, Are you not quite surprised? And uncle will be Most woefully. My cousin and Anice too Are both caught napping,—all except great Doonya. No falsehood, mere excess of truth, a bold Anticipation of the future, mother.
NUREDDENE I did not know of this. Yet blame not Doonya; For had I known, I would have run with haste More breathless to demand my own from Fate.
AMEENA What will your father think? I am afraid. He was most urgent, grave beyond his wont. Absent yourself awhile and let me bear The first keen breathings of his anger.
NUREDDENE The King! And if he were the Caliph of the world, He should not have my love. Come, fellow-culprit.
Exit with Doonya.
AMEENA Harkoos, go fetch your master here; and stiffen The muscles of your back. Negligent servant!
HARKOOS 'Tis all one to Harkoos. Stick or leather! leather or stick! 'Tis the way of this wicked and weary world.
AMEENA Yet, Anice, tell me, is't too late? Alas!
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Your cheeks and lowered eyes confess the fault. I fear your nature and your nurture, child, Are not so beautiful as is your face. Could you not have forbidden this?
ANICE Lady, Remember my condition. Can a slave Forbid or order? We are only trained To meek and quick obedience; and what's virtue In freemen is in us a deep offence. Do you command your passions, not on us Impose that service; 'tis not in our part.
AMEENA You have a clever brain and a quick tongue. And yet this speech was hardly like a slave's! I will not blame you.
ANICE I deny not, lady, My heart consented to this fault.
AMEENA I know Who 'twas besieged you, girl, and do not blame Your heart for yielding where it had no choice. Go in.
Exit Anice. Enter Harkoos and Ibn Sawy.
IBN SAWY I hope, I hope that has not chanced Which I have striven to prevent. This slave Grins only and mutters gibberish to my questions.
AMEENA The worst.
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IBN SAWY Why, so! the folly was my own And I must bear its heavy consequence. Sir, you shall have your wage for what has happened.
HARKOOS The way of the world. Whose peg's loose? Beat Harkoos. Because my young master would climb through the wrong window and mistake a rope-ladder for the staircase, my back must ache. Was the windowsill my post? Have I wings to stand upon air or a Djinn's eye to see through wood? How bitter is injustice!
IBN SAWY You shall be thrashed for your poor gift of lying.
AMEENA Blame none; it was unalterable fate.
IBN SAWY That name by which we put our sins on God, Yet shall not so escape. 'Twas our indulgence Moulded the boy and made him fit for sin; Which now, by our past mildness hampered quite, We cannot punish without tyranny. Offences we have winked at, when they knocked At foreign doors, how shall we look at close When they come striking home?
AMEENA What will you do?
IBN SAWY The offence here merits death, but not the offender. Easy solution if the sin could die And leave the sinner living!
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AMEENA Vizier, you are perplexed, to talk like this. Because a little's broken, break not more. Let Nureddene have Anice-aljalice, As Fate intended. Buy another slave Fairer than she is for great Alzayni's bed, Return his money to the treasury And cover up this fault.
IBN SAWY With lies?
AMEENA With silence.
IBN SAWY Will God be silent? will my enemies? The son of Khakan silent? Ameena, My children have conspired my shame and death.
AMEENA Face not the thing so mournfully. Vizier, you want A woman's wit beside you in the Court. Muene may speak; will you be dumb? Whom then Will the King trust? Collect your wits, be bold, Be subtle; guard yourself, protect your child.
IBN SAWY You urge me on a road my weaker heart Chooses, not reason. But consider, dame, If we excuse such gross and violent fault Done in our house, what hope to save our boy,— Oh, not his body, but the soul within? 'Twill petrify in vice and grow encrusted With evil as with a leprosy.
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AMEENA Do this. Show a fierce anger, have a gleaming knife Close at his throat, let him be terrified. Then I'll come in with tears and seem to save him On pledge of fairer conduct.
IBN SAWY This has a promise. Give me a knife and let me try to frame My looks to anger.
AMEENA Harkoos, a dagger here!
Harkoos gives his dagger.
IBN SAWY But see you come not in too early anxious And mar the game.
AMEENA Trust me.
IBN SAWY Go, call my son, Harkoos; let him not know that I am here.
Exit Harkoos.
Go, Ameena.
Exit Ameena.
Plays oft have serious fruit, 'Tis seen; then why not this? 'tis worth the trial. Prosper or fail, I must do something quickly Before I go upon the Caliph's work To Roum the mighty. But I hear him come.
Enter Nureddene and Harkoos.
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NUREDDENE You're sure of it? You shall have gold for this Kind treason.
HARKOOS Trust Harkoos; and if he beats me, Why, sticks are sticks and leather is but leather.
NUREDDENE Father!
IBN SAWY O rascal, traitor, villain, imp!
He throws him down on a couch and holds him under his dagger.
I'll father you. Prepare, prepare your soul, Your black and crime-encrusted soul for hell. I'm death and not your father.
NUREDDENE Mother, quick! Help, mother!
Ameena comes hurrying in.
The poor dear old man is mad.
IBN SAWY Ahh, woman! wherefore do you come so soon?
NUREDDENE How his eyes roll! Satan, abandon him. Take him off quickly.
IBN SAWY Take me off, you villain?
NUREDDENE Tickle him in the ribs, that's the best way.
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IBN SAWY Tickle me in the ribs! Impudent villain! I'll cut your throat.
AMEENA (frightened) Husband, what do you? think, He is your only son.
IBN SAWY And preferable I had not him. Better no son than bad ones.
NUREDDENE Is there no help then?
IBN SAWY None; prepare!
NUREDDENE All right. But let me lie a little easier first.
IBN SAWY Lie easier! Rogue, your impudence amazes. You shall lie easier soon on coals of hell.
AMEENA This goes no farther.
ANICE (looking in) They are in angry talk. Oh, kill me rather!
NUREDDENE Waste not your terrors, sweetheart. We are rehearsing an old comedy, "The tyrant father and his graceless son".
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Foolish old man!
IBN SAWY What! what!
NUREDDENE See now the end Of all your headstrong moods and wicked rages You would indulge yourself in, though I warned you, Against your gallant handsome virtuous son. And now they have turned your brain! Vicious indulgence, How bitter-dusty is thy fruit! Be warned And put a rein on anger, curb in wrath, That enemy of man. Oh, thou art grown A sad example to all angry fathers!
IBN SAWY Someone had told you of this. (to Harkoos) Grinning villain!
HARKOOS Oh yes, it is I, of course. Your peg's loose; beat Harkoos.
IBN SAWY My peg, you rogue! I'll loose your peg for you.
NUREDDENE No, father, let him be, and hear me out. I swear it was not out of light contempt For your high dignity and valued life More precious to me than my blood, if I Transgressed your will in this. I knew not of it, Nor that you meant my Anice for the King. For me I thought her purchased, so was told, And still believe religiously that Fate Brought her to Bassora only for me.
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IBN SAWY It was a fault, my child.
NUREDDENE Which I cannot repent.
IBN SAWY You are my son, generous and true and bold, Though faulty. Take the slave-girl then, but swear Never hereafter mistress, slave or wife Lies in your arms but only she; neither, Until herself desire it, mayst thou sell her. Swear this and keep thy love.
NUREDDENE I swear it.
IBN SAWY Leave us.
Exit Nureddene.
Anice, in care for thee I have required This oath from him, which he, perhaps, will keep. Do thou requite it; be to him no less Than a dear wife.
ANICE How noble is the nature That prompts you to enforce on great offenders Their dearest wishes!
IBN SAWY Go in, my child; go, Anice.
Exit Anice.
Last night of my departure hence to Roum To parley with the Greek for great Haroun I spoke with you, and my long year of absence,—
Page 63
AMEENA It is a weary time.
IBN SAWY Wherein much evil May chance; and therefore will I leave my children As safe as God permits. Doonya to nuptials. The son of Khakan wants her for his cub, But shall not have her. One shall marry her Who has the heart and hand to guard her well.
AMEENA Who, husband?
IBN SAWY Murad, Captain of the City. He rises daily in Alzayni's favour.
AMEENA He is a Turk. Our noble Arab branch Were ill engrafted on that savage stock.
IBN SAWY A prejudice. There is no stock in Islam Except the Prophet. For our Nureddene, I will divide my riches in two halves, Leave one to him and one for you with Murad, While you are with your kin or seem to be.
AMEENA Oh wherefore this?
IBN SAWY 'Tis likely that the boy, Left here in sole command, will waste his wealth And come to evil. If he's sober, well; If not, when he is bare as any rock,
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Abandoned by his friends, spewed out by all, It may be that in this sharp school and beaten With savage scourges the wild blood in him May learn sobriety and noble use: Then rescue him, assist his better nature. And we shall see too how the loves endure Betwixt him and the Persian; whether she Deserves her monarchy in his wild will, Or, even deserving, keeps it.
AMEENA But, dear husband, Shall I not see my boy for a whole year?
IBN SAWY No tears! Consider it the punishment Of our too fond indulgent love,—happy If that be worst. All will end well, I hope, And I returning, glad, to Bassora Embrace a son reformed, a happy niece Nursing her babe, and you, the gentle mother Like the sweet kindly earth whose patient love Embraces even our faults and sins. Grant it, O Allah, if it be at all Thy will.
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A room in Ajebe's house.
Ajebe.
AJEBE Balkis, do come, my heart.
Enter Balkis.
BALKIS Your will?
AJEBE My will! When had I any will since you came here, You rigorous tyrant?
BALKIS Was it for abuse You called me?
AJEBE Bring your lute and sing to me.
BALKIS I am not in the mood.
AJEBE Sing, I entreat you. I am hungry for your voice of pure delight.
BALKIS I am no kabob, nor my voice a curry.
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Hungry, forsooth!
AJEBE Oh, Balkis, Balkis! hear me.
Enter Mymoona.
MYMOONA It's useless calling; she is in her moods. And there's your Vizier getting down from horse In the doorway.
AJEBE I will go and bring him up. Mymoona, coax her for me, will you, girl?
MYMOONA It is as good to meet a mangy dog As this same uncle of ours. He seldom comes.
She conceals herself behind a curtain. Reenter Ajebe with Almuene.
ALMUENE He goes tomorrow? Well. And Nureddene The scapegrace holds his wealth in hand? Much better. I always said he was a fool. (to himself) Easily I might confound him with this flagrant lapse About the slave-girl. But wait! wait! He gone, His memory waned, his riches squandered quite, I'll ruin his son, ruin the insolent Turk He has preferred to my Fareed. His Doonya And Anice slave-girls to my lusty boy, His wife—but she escapes. It is enough. They come back to a desolate house. Oh, let Their forlorn wrinkles hug an empty nest In life's cold leafless winter! Meanwhile I set
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My seal on every room in the King's heart; He finds no chamber open when he comes.
AJEBE Uncle, you ponder things of weight?
ALMUENE No, Ajebe; Trifles, mere trifles. You're a friend, I think, Of Ibn Sawy's son?
AJEBE We drink together.
ALMUENE Right, right! Would you have place, power, honours, gold, Or is your narrow soul content with ease?
AJEBE Why, uncle!
ALMUENE Do you dread death? furious disgrace? Or beggary that's worse than either? Do you?
AJEBE All men desire those blessings, fear these ills.
ALMUENE They shall be yours in overflowing measure, Good, if you serve me, ill, if you refuse.
AJEBE What service?
ALMUENE Ruin wanton Nureddene.
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Gorge him with riot and excess; rob him Under a friendly guise; force him to spend Till he's a beggar. Most, delude him on To prone extremity of drunken shame Which he shall feel, yet have no power to check. Drench all his senses in vile profligacy, Not mere light gallantries, but gutter filth, Though you have to share it. Do this and you're made; But this undone, you are yourself undone. Eight months I give you. No, attend me not.
AJEBE Mymoona! girl, where are you?
MYMOONA Here, here, behind you.
AJEBE A Satan out of hell has come to me.
MYMOONA A Satan, truly, and he'ld make you one, Damning you down into the deepest hell of all.
AJEBE What shall I do?
MYMOONA Not what he tells you to.
AJEBE Yet if I do not, I am gone. No man In Bassora could bear his heavy wrath. On the other side—
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MYMOONA Leave the other side. 'Tis true, The dog will keep his word in evil; for good, 'Tis brittle, brittle. But you cannot do it; Our Balkis loves his Anice so completely.
AJEBE Girl, girl, my life and goods are on the die.
MYMOONA Do one thing.
AJEBE I will do what you shall bid me.
MYMOONA He has some vile companions, has he not?
AJEBE Cafoor and Ayoob and the rest; a gang Of pleasant roisterers without heart or mind.
MYMOONA Whisper the thing to them; yourself do nothing. Check him at times. Whatever else you do, Take not his gifts; they are the price of shame. If he is ruined, as without their urging Is likely, Satan's satisfied; if not, We'll flee from Bassora when there's no help.
AJEBE You have a brain. Yet if I must be vile, A bolder vileness best becomes a man.
MYMOONA And Balkis?
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AJEBE True.
MYMOONA Be safe, be safe. The rest Is doubtful, but one truth is sadly sure, That dead men cannot love.
AJEBE I'll think of it. Mymoona, leave me; send your sister here.
Exit Mymoona.
The thing's too vile! and yet—honours and place, And to set Balkis on a kingdom's crest Breaking and making men with her small hands The lute's too large for! But the way is foul.
BALKIS What's your command?
AJEBE Bring me your lute and sing. I'm sad and troubled. Cross me not, my girl; My temper's wry.
BALKIS Oh, threats?
AJEBE Remember still You are a slave, however by my love Pampered, and sometimes think upon the scourge.
BALKIS Do, do! Yes, beat me! Or why beat me only? Kill me, as you have killed my heart already
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With your harsh words. I knew, I knew what all Your love would end in. Oh! oh! oh! (weeps)
AJEBE Forgive me, O sweetest heart. I swear I did not mean it.
BALKIS Because in play I sometimes speak a little— O scourge me, kill me!
AJEBE 'Twas a jest, a jest! Tear not my heart with sobs. Look, Balkis, love, You shall have necklaces worth many thousands, Pearls, rubies, if you only will not weep.
BALKIS I am a slave and only fit for scourging, Not pearls and rubies. Mymoona! oh, Mymoona! Bring him a scourge and me a cup of poison.
AJEBE She plays upon me as upon her lute. I'm as inert, as helpless, as completely Ruled by her moods, as dumbly pleasureless By her light hands untouched. How to appease her? Mymoona! oh, Mymoona!
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Ibn Sawy's house. A room in the outer apartments decorated for a banquet.
Doonya, Anice, Balkis.
DOONYA Lord, how they pillage! Even the furniture Cannot escape these Djinns. Ogre Ghaneem Picks up that costly chair between his teeth And off to his castle; devil Ayoob drops That table of mosaic in his pocket; Zeb sweeps off rugs and couches in a whirlwind. What purse will long put up with such ill-treatment?
BALKIS It must be checked.
DOONYA 'Tis much that he has kept His promise to my uncle. Oh, he's sound! These villains spoil him. Anice, you're to blame. However you complain, yourself are quite As reckless.
ANICE I?
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DOONYA Yes, you. Is there a bright Unnecessary jewel you have seen And have not bought? a dress that took your fancy And was not in a moment yours? Or have you lost A tiny chance of laughter, song and wine, Since you were with him?
ANICE A few rings and chains, Some silks and cottons I have bought at times.
DOONYA What did these trifles cost?
ANICE I do not know.
DOONYA Of course you do not. Come, it's gone too far; Restrain him, curb yourself.
BALKIS Next time he calls you To sing among his wild companions, send Cold answers, do not go.
ANICE To break the jest, The flow of good companionship, drive out Sweet friendly looks with anger, be a kill-joy And frowner in this bright and merry world! Oh, all the sins that human brows grow wrinkled With frowning at, could never equal this!
DOONYA But if the skies grew darker?
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ANICE If they should! It was a bright and merry world. To see him Happy and gay and kind was all I cared for; There my horizon stopped. But if the skies Did darken! Doonya, it shall cease today.
Enter Azeem.
Well, Azeem.
AZEEM Madam, half the creditors, And that means half the shops in Bassora, Hold session in the outer hall and swear It shall be permanent till they get money.
ANICE Where is your master? Call him here. A moment! Have you the bills?
AZEEM All of them, long as pillars And crammed from head to foot with monstrous sums.
ANICE Call him.
AZEEM He's here.
NUREDDENE What, cousin Doonya! Balkis! Did you steal down to see the decorations? Are they not pretty?
DOONYA Like a painted tombstone
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Sculptured and arabesqued, but death's inside And bones, my brother, bones.
NUREDDENE And there are bones In this fair pleasing outside called dear Doonya, But let us only think of rosy cheeks, Sweet eyes and laughing lips and not the bones.
DOONYA You have boned my metaphor and quite disboned it, Until there's nothing firm inside; 'tis pulpy.
ANICE The creditors besiege you, Nureddene; You'll pay them.
NUREDDENE Serious, Anice?
ANICE Till you do, I will not smile again. Azeem, the bills!
NUREDDENE Is this your doing, Doonya?
DOONYA Yours, cousin, yours.
NUREDDENE Is't so? Anice?
ANICE I've told you.
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NUREDDENE Show me the bills. Go in, you three.
ANICE Ah, he is grieved and angry! His eyes are clouded; let me speak to him.
BALKIS Now you'll spoil all; drag her off, Doonya.
DOONYA Come.
Exit drawing away Anice, Balkis behind.
NUREDDENE Well, sir, where are these bills?
AZEEM You will see the bills?
NUREDDENE The sums, the sums!
AZEEM To tailor Mardouc twenty-four thousand pieces, namely, for caftans, robes, shawls, turbans, Damascus silks,—
NUREDDENE Leave the inventory.
AZEEM To tailor Labkan, another twenty thousand; to the baker, two thousand; to the confectioner, as much; to the Bagdad curio-merchant twenty-four thousand; to the same from Ispahan, sixteen thousand; to the jeweller on account of necklaces, bracelets, waist-ornaments, anklets, rings, pendents and all manner of
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trinkets for the slave-girl Anice-aljalice, ninety thousand only; to the upholsterer—
NUREDDENE Hold, hold! Why, what are all these monstrous sums? Hast thou no word but thousands in thy belly, Exorbitant fellow?
AZEEM Why, sir, 'tis in the bills; my belly's empty enough.
NUREDDENE Nothing but thousands!
AZEEM Here's one for seven hundred, twelve dirhams and some odd fractions from Husayn cook.
NUREDDENE The sordid, dingy rogue! Will he dun me so brutally for a base seven hundred?
AZEEM The fruiterer—
NUREDDENE Away! bring bags.
AZEEM Bags, sir?
NUREDDENE Of money, fool. Call Harkoos and all the slaves. Bring half my treasury.
Exit Azeem.
She frown on me! look cold! for sums, for debts! For money, the poor paltry stuff we dig
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By shovels from base mire. Grows love so beggarly That it must think of piastres? O my heart!
Enter Azeem, Harkoos and Slaves with bags of money.
Heap them about the room. Go, Azeem, call That hungry pack; they shall be fed.
Harkoos, Open two bags there. Have you broken the seals?
Enter Azeem ushering in the creditors.
Who asks for money?
COOK I, sir. Seven hundred denars, twelve dirhams and three fourths of a dirham, that is my amount.
NUREDDENE Take thy amount, thou dingy-hearted rogue.
Throws a bag towards him.
You there, take yours.
JEWELLER Sir, this is not a hundredth part of your debt to me.
NUREDDENE Give him two hundred bags.
HAROOKS Bags, sir?
NUREDDENE Do you grin, rogue, and loiter? Take that! (strikes him)
HAROOKS Exactly. Your peg's loose, beat Harkoos. Old master or young, 'tis all one to Harkoos. Stick or leather! cuff or kick! these are all the houses of my horoscope.
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NUREDDENE I am sorry I struck thee; there's gold. Give them all the money; all, I say. Porter that home, you rascals, and count your sums. What's over, cram your throats with it; or, if you will, throw it in the gutter.
CREDITORS (scrambling and quarrelling for the bags) That's mine! that's mine! no, mine! Leave go, you robber. Whom do you call robber, thief?
NUREDDENE Cudgel them from the room.
Exeunt Creditors snatching bags and pursued by the slaves.
AZEEM 'Tis madness, sir.
Nureddene motions him away. Exit Azeem.
NUREDDENE If she were clothed in rags And beggary her price, I'ld follow her From here to China. She to frown on me For money!
Enter Anice.
ANICE Nureddene, what have you done?
NUREDDENE You bade me pay the fellows: I have paid them.
ANICE You are angry with me? I did not think you could Be angry with me for so slight a cause.
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NUREDDENE I did not think that you could frown on me For money, for a matter of money!
ANICE You Believe that? Is it so you know me? Dear, While for my sake you ruined yourself, must I Look smiling on? Nay, ruin then yourself And try me.
NUREDDENE Dear Anice, it was with myself I was angry, but the coward in me turned On you to avenge its pain. Let me forget All else and only think of you and love.
ANICE Shall I sing to you?
NUREDDENE Do, Anice.
ANICE There's a song—
Song Love keep terms with tears and sorrow? He's too bright. Born today, he may tomorrow Say goodnight. Love is gone ere grief can find him; But his way Tears that, falling, lag behind him Still betray.
I cannot sing.
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NUREDDENE Tears, Anice? O my love, What worst calamity do they portend For him who caused them?
ANICE None, none! or only showers The sunlight soon o'ertakes. Away with grief! What is it after all but money lost? Beggars are happier, are they not, my lord?
NUREDDENE Much happier, Anice.
ANICE Let us be beggars, then. Oh, we shall wander blissfully about In careless rags. And I shall take my lute And buy you honey-crusts with my sweet voice. For is not my voice sweet, my master?
NUREDDENE Sweet As Gabriel's when he sings before the Lord And Heaven listens.
ANICE We shall reach Bagdad Someday and meet the Caliph in the streets, The mighty Caliph Haroun Alrasheed, Disguised, a beggar too, give him our crusts And find ourselves all suddenly the friends Of the world's master. Shall we not, my lord?
NUREDDENE Anice, we shall.
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ANICE Let us be beggars then, Rich happy paupers singing through the world. Ah, but you have a father and a mother! Come, sit down there and I will stand before you And tell a story.
NUREDDENE Sit by me and tell it.
ANICE No, no. I'll stand.
NUREDDENE Well, wilful. Now, your tale.
ANICE I have forgotten it. It was about A man who had a gem earth could not buy.
NUREDDENE As I have you.
ANICE Be silent, sir. He kept it With ordinary jewels which he took Each day and threw into the street, and said, "I'll show this earth that all the gems it has, Together match not this I'll solely keep."
NUREDDENE As I'll keep you.
ANICE Ah, but he did not know What slender thread bound to a common pearl That wonder. When he threw that out, alas!
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His jewel followed, and though he sought earth through, He never could again get back his gem.
NUREDDENE (after a pause) Tomorrow I will stop this empty life, Cut down expense and only live for you. Tonight there is the banquet. It must stand, My word being given. Azeem!
What money still Is in the treasury? What debts outstand?
AZEEM More now than you can meet. But for today's folly, all would have been well,—your lordly folly! Oh, beat me! I must speak.
NUREDDENE Realize all the estate, the house only excepted; satisfy the creditors. For what's left, entreat delay.
AZEEM They will not be entreated. They have smelt the carrion and are all winging up, beak outstretched and talons ready.
NUREDDENE Carrion indeed and vile! Wherefore gave God Reason to his best creatures, if they suffer The rebel blood to o'ercrow that tranquil wise And perfect minister? Do what thou canst. I have good friends to help me in my need.
AZEEM Good friends? good bloodsuckers, good thieves! Much help his need will have out of them!
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ANICE There's always Ajebe.
AZEEM Will you trust him? He is the Vizier's nephew.
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The same.
Anice, Nureddene.
ANICE And they all left?
NUREDDENE Cafoor crept down and heard The clamorous creditors; and they all left. Ghaneem's dear mother's sick; for my sweet love Only he came, leaving her sad bedside; Friend Ayoob's uncle leaves today for Mecca: In Cafoor's house there is a burial toward; Zeb's father, Omar's brother, Hussan's wife Are piteously struck down. There never was So sudden an epidemic witnessed yet In Bassora, and all with various ailments.
ANICE This is their friendship!
NUREDDENE We will not judge so harshly. It may be that a generous kindly shame Or half-remorseful delicacy had pricked them. I've sent Harkoos to each of them in turn For loans to help me. We shall see. Who's here?
Enter Ajebe.
Ajebe, you have come back, you only? Yes, You were my friend and checked me always. Man Is not ignoble, but has angel soarings,
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Howe'er the nether devil plucks him down. Still we have souls nor is the mould quite broken Of that original and faultless plan Which Adam spoilt.
AJEBE I am your ruin's author. If you have still a sword, use it upon me.
NUREDDENE What's this?
AJEBE Incited by the Vizier, promised Greatness, I in my turn incited these To hurry you to ruin. Will you slay me?
NUREDDENE (after a silence) Return and tell the Vizier that work's done. Be great with him.
AJEBE Are you entirely ruined?
NUREDDENE Doubt not your work's well done; you can assure The uncle. Came you back for that?
AJEBE If all I have,—
NUREDDENE No more! return alive.
AJEBE You punish home.
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NUREDDENE The eunuch lingers.
Enter Harkoos.
Well, sir, your success?
HARKOOS I went first to Ayoob. He has had losses, very suddenly, and is dolorous that he cannot help you.
NUREDDENE Ghaneem?
HARKOOS Has broken his leg for the present and cannot see anyone for a long fortnight.
NUREDDENE Cafoor?
HARKOOS Has gone into the country—upstairs.
NUREDDENE Zeb?
HARKOOS Wept sobbingly. Every time I mentioned money, he drowned the subject in tears. I might have reached his purse at last, but I cannot swim.
NUREDDENE Omar?
HARKOOS Will burn his books sooner than lend you money.
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NUREDDENE Did all fail me?
HARKOOS Some had dry eyes and some wet, but none a purse.
NUREDDENE Go.
What next? Shall I, like him of Athens, change And hate my kind? Then should I hate myself, Who ne'er had known their faults, if my own sins Pursued me not like most unnatural hounds Into their screened and evil parts of nature. God made them; what He made, is doubtless good.
ANICE You still have me.
NUREDDENE That's much.
ANICE No, everything.
NUREDDENE 'Tis true and I shall feel it soon.
ANICE My jewels And dresses will fill up quite half the void.
NUREDDENE Shall I take back my gifts?
ANICE If they are mine,
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I choose to sell them.
NUREDDENE Do it. I forgot; Let Cafoor have the vase I promised him. Come, Anice. I will ask Murad for help.
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Balkis, Mymoona.
BALKIS Did he not ask after me? I'm sick, Mymoona.
MYMOONA Sick? I think both of you are dying of a galloping consumption. Such colour in the cheeks was never a good symptom.
BALKIS Tell him I am very, very ill; tell him I am dying. Pray be pathetic.
MYMOONA Put saffron on your cheeks and look nicely yellow; he will melt.
BALKIS I think my heart will break.
MYMOONA Let it do so quickly; it will mend the sooner.
BALKIS (in tears) How can you be so harsh to me, Mymoona?
MYMOONA You foolish child! Why did you strain your power To such a breaking tightness? There's a rhythm Will shatter hardest stone; each thing in nature Has its own point where it has done with patience And starts in pieces; below that point play on it,
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Nor overpitch the music. Look, he's coming.
BALKIS I'll go.
MYMOONA (holding her) You shall not.
AJEBE I thought you were alone, Mymoona. I am not cheap to thrust myself Where I'm not wanted.
BALKIS I would be gone, Mymoona. In truth, I thought it was the barber's woman; Therefore I stayed.
AJEBE There are such hearts, Mymoona, As think so little of adoring love, They make it only a pedestal for pride, A whipping-stock for their vain tyrannies.
BALKIS Mymoona, there are men so weak in love, They cannot bear more than an ass's load; So high in their conceit, the tenderest Kindest rebuke turns all their sweetness sour.
AJEBE Some have strange ways of tenderness, Mymoona.
BALKIS Mymoona, some think all control a tyranny.
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MYMOONA O you two children! Come, an end of this! Give me your hand.
AJEBE My hand? Wherefore my hand?
MYMOONA Give it. I join two hands that much desire And would have met ere this but for their owners, Who have less sense than they.
BALKIS She's stronger than me, Or I'ld not touch you.
AJEBE I would not hurt Mymoona; Therefore I take your hand.
MYMOONA Oh, is it so? Then by your foolish necks! Make your arms meet About her waist.
AJEBE Only to satisfy you, Whom only I care for.
MYMOONA Yours here on his neck.
BALKIS I was about to yawn, therefore I raised them.
MYMOONA I go to fetch a cane. Look that I find you
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Much better friends. If you will not agree, Your bones at least shall sympathise and ruefully.
AJEBE How could you be so harsh to my great love?
BALKIS How could you be so cruel and so wicked?
AJEBE I kiss you, but 'tis only your red lips So soft, not you who are more hard than stone.
BALKIS I kiss you back, but only 'tis because I hate to be in debt.
AJEBE Will you be kinder?
BALKIS Will you be more obedient and renounce Your hateful uncle?
AJEBE Him and all his works, If you will only smile on me.
BALKIS I'll laugh Like any horse. No, I surrender. Clasp me, I am your slave.
AJEBE My queen of love.
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BALKIS Both, both.
AJEBE Why were you so long forward?
BALKIS Do you remember I had to woo you in the market? how you Hesitated a moment?
AJEBE Vindictive shrew!
BALKIS This time had I not reason to be angry?
AJEBE Oh, too much reason! I feel so vile until I find a means to wash this uncle stain from me.
MYMOONA That's well. But we must now to Nureddene's. For hard pressed as he is, he'll sell his Anice.
BALKIS Never!
MYMOONA He must.
AJEBE I'll lend him thrice her value.
MYMOONA Do not propose it. The wound you gave's too recent.
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BALKIS Then let me keep her as a dear deposit, The sweet security of Ajebe's loan, Till he redeems her.
MYMOONA He will take no favours. No, let him sell her in the open market; Ajebe will overtop all bids. Till he Get means, she's safe with us and waiting for him.
BALKIS Oh, let us go at once.
MYMOONA I'll order litters.
AJEBE Will you be like this always?
BALKIS If you are good, I will be. If not, I will out-shrew Xantippe.
AJEBE With such a heaven and hell in view, I'll be An angel.
BALKIS Of what colour?
AJEBE Black beside you, But fair as seraphs to what I have been.
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Ibn Sawy's house.
Anice, alone.
ANICE If Murad fails him, what is left? He has No other thing to sell but only me. A thought of horror! Is my love then strong Only for joy, only to share his heaven? Can it not enter Hell for his dear sake? How shall I follow him then after death, If Heaven reject him? For the path's so narrow Footing that judgment blade, to slip's so easy. Avert the need, O Heaven.
Has Murad failed him?
NUREDDENE Murad refuses. This load of debt's a torture!
ANICE The dresses and the gems you made me keep—
NUREDDENE Keep them; they are your own.
ANICE I am your slave-girl. My body and what it wears, all I am, all I have, Are only for your use.
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NUREDDENE Girl, would you have me strip you then quite bare?
ANICE What does it matter? The coarsest rag ten dirhams Might buy, would be enough, if you'ld still love me.
NUREDDENE These would not meet one half of what I owe.
ANICE Master, you bought me for ten thousand pieces.
NUREDDENE Be silent.
ANICE Has my value lessened since?
NUREDDENE No more! You'll make me hate you.
ANICE If you do, 'Tis better; it will help my heart to break.
NUREDDENE Have you the heart to speak of this?
ANICE Had I Less heart, less love, I would not speak of it.
NUREDDENE I swore to my father that I would not sell you.
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ANICE But there was a condition.
NUREDDENE If you desired it!
ANICE Do I not ask you?
NUREDDENE Speak truth! do you desire it? Truth, in the name of God who sees your heart! Ah, you are silent.
ANICE (weeping) How could I desire it? Ajebe is here. Be friends with him, dear love; Forgive his fault.
NUREDDENE Anice, my own sins are So heavy, not to forgive his lesser vileness Would leave me without hope of heavenly pardon.
ANICE I'll call him then.
NUREDDENE Let me absolve these debts, Then straight with Anice to Bagdad the splendid. There is the home for hearts and brains and hands, Not in this petty centre. Core of Islam, Bagdad, the flood to which all brooks converge.
Anice returns with Ajebe, Balkis, Mymoona.
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AJEBE Am I forgiven?
NUREDDENE Ajebe, let the past Have never been.
AJEBE You are Ibn Sawy's son.
NUREDDENE Give me your counsel, Ajebe. I have nothing But the mere house which is not saleable. My father must not find a homeless Bassora, Returning.
MYMOONA Nothing else?
ANICE Only myself Whom he'll not sell.
NUREDDENE Never, Mymoona.
MYMOONA Fear not the sale which shall be in name alone. 'Tis only Balkis borrowing her from you Who pawns her value. She will stay with me Serving our Balkis, safe from every storm. But if you ask, why then the mart and auction? We must have public evidence of sale To meet an uncle's questions.
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ANICE O now there's light. Blessed Mymoona!
NUREDDENE It must not be. My oath!
ANICE But I desire it now, yes, I desire it.
NUREDDENE And is my pride then nothing? Shall I sell her To be a slave-girl's slave-girl? Pardon, Balkis.
MYMOONA Too fine, too fine!
ANICE To serve awhile my sister! For that she is in heart.
BALKIS Serve only in name.
MYMOONA She will be safe while you rebuild your fortunes.
NUREDDENE I do not like it.
MYMOONA Nor does anyone As in itself, but only as a refuge From greater evils.
NUREDDENE Oh, you're wrong, Mymoona.
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To quibble with an oath! it will not prosper. Straight dealing's best.
MYMOONA You look at it too finely.
NUREDDENE Have it your way, then.
MYMOONA Call the broker here. A quiet sale! The uncle must not hear of it.
AJEBE 'Twould be the plague.
NUREDDENE I fear it will not prosper.
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Muazzim with Anice exposed for sale; Ajebe, Aziz, Abdullah and Merchants.
MUAZZIM Who bids?
AZIZ Four thousand.
MUAZZIM She went for ten when she was here first. Will you not raise your bid nearer her value?
AZIZ She was new then and untouched. 'Tis the way with goods, broker; they lose value by time and purchase, use and soiling.
MUAZZIM Oh, sir, the kissed mouth has always honey. But this is a Peri and immortal lips have an immortal sweetness.
AJEBE Five hundred to that bid.
Enter Almuene with Slaves.
ALMUENE (to himself) Ah, it is true! All things come round at last With the full wheel of Fate; it is my hour. Fareed shall have her. She shall be well handled To plague her lover's heart before he dies.
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(aloud)
Broker, who sells the girl and what's her rate?
AJEBE All's lost.
MUAZZIM Nureddene bin Alfazzal bin Sawy sells her and your nephew has bid for her four thousand and five hundred.
ALMUENE My nephew bids for me. Who bids against?
AJEBE Uncle—
ALMUENE Go, find out other slave-girls, Ajebe. Do well until the end.
Exit Ajebe.
Who bids against me? She's mine then. Come.
ANICE I'll not be sold to you.
ALMUENE What, dar'st thou speak, young harlot? Fear the whip.
ANICE Vizier, I fear you not; there's law in Islam. My master will deny the sale.
ALMUENE Thy master Shall be a kitchen negro, who shall use thee.
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ANICE Had I a whip, you should not say it twice.
MUAZZIM Vizier, Vizier, by law the owner's acceptance only is final for the sale.
ALMUENE It is a form, but get it. I am impatient Until I have this strumpet in my grip.
MUAZZIM Well, here he comes.
Enter Nureddene and Ajebe.
A MERCHANT Shall we go, shall we go?
ABDULLAH Stand by! 'Tis noble Ibn Sawy's son. We must protect him even at our own peril.
MUAZZIM She goes for a trifle, sir; and even that little you will not get. You will weary your feet with journeyings, only to be put off by his villains, and when you grow clamorous they will demand your order and tear it before your eyes. That's your payment.
NUREDDENE That's nothing. The wolf's cub, hunchback Fareed! The sale is off.
MUAZZIM Be advised by me. Catch the girl by the hair and cuff her soundly, abusing her with the harshest terms your heart can consent to, then off with her quickly as if you had brought her to market only to execute an oath made in anger. So he loses his hold on her.
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NUREDDENE I'll tell the lie. One fine, pure-seeming falsehood, Admitted, opens door to all his naked And leprous family; in, in, they throng And breed the house quite full.
MUAZZIM The Vizier wants her. He bids four thousand pieces and five hundred.
NUREDDENE 'Tis nothing. Girl, I keep my oath. Suffice it You're bidden for and priced in open market here. Come home! Be now less dainty, meeker of tongue, Or you shall have more feeling punishments. Do I need to sell thee? Home! my oath is kept.
ALMUENE This is a trick to cheat the law. Thou ruffian! Cheap profligate! What hast thou left to sell But thy own sensual filth and drunken body,— If any out of charity would spend Some dirhams to reform thee with a scourge? Vile son of a bland hypocrite!
He draws his scimitar.
ABDULLAH Pause, Vizier.
AZIZ Be patient, Nureddene.
ALMUENE I yet shall kill him. Hence, harlot, foot before me to my kitchen.
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ANICE He has abused me filthily, my lord, Before these merchants.
ALMUENE Abuse thee, rag? Hast thou An use? To be abused is thy utility. Thou shalt be used and common.
NUREDDENE Stand by, you merchants; let none interfere On peril of his life. Thou foul-mouthed tyrant, Into the mire and dirt, where thou wert gendered!
ALMUENE Help, help! Hew him in pieces.
The slaves are rushing forward.
ABDULLAH What do you, fellows? This is a Vizier and a Vizier's son. Shall common men step in? You'll get the blows For only thanks.
ALMUENE Oh! oh! Will you then kill me?
NUREDDENE If thou wouldst live, crave pardon of the star Thou hast spat on. I would make thee lick her feet But that thy lips would foul their purity.
ALMUENE Pardon, oh, pardon!
NUREDDENE (throwing him away) Live then, in thy gutter.
Exit with Anice.
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ABDULLAH Go, slaves, lift up your master, lead him off.
Exeunt Slaves with Almuene.
He is well punished.
AZIZ What will come of this?
ABDULLAH No good to Nureddene. Let's go and warn him; He's bold and proud, may think to face it out, Which were mere waiting death.
AZIZ I pray on us This falls not.
Exeunt Merchants.
MUAZZIM Here was ill-luck!
AJEBE Nor ends with this. I'll have a ship wide-sailed and well-provisioned For their escape. Bassora will not hold them.
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The Palace at Bassora.
Alzayni, Salar.
ALZAYNI So it is written here. Hot interchange And high defiance have already passed Between our Caliph and the daring Roman. Europe and Asia are at grips once more. To inspect the southward armies unawares Haroun himself is coming.
SALAR Alfazzal then Returns to us, unless the European, After their barbarous fashion, seize on him.
ALZAYNI 'Tis strange, he sends no tidings of the motion I made to Egypt.
SALAR 'Tis too dangerous To write of, as indeed 'twas ill-advised To make the approach.
ALZAYNI Great dangers justify The smaller. Caliph Alrasheed conceives On trifling counts a dumb displeasure towards me Which any day may speak; 'tis whispered of In Bagdad. Alkhasib, the Egyptian Vizier,
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Is in like plight. It is mere policy, Salar, to build out of a common peril A common safety.
SALAR Haroun Alrasheed Could break each one of you between two fingers, Stretching his left arm out to Bassora, His right to Egypt. Sultan, wilt thou strive Against the single giant of the world?
ALZAYNI Giants are mortal, friend, be but our swords As bold as sharp. Call Murad here to me.
Exit Salar.
My state is desperate, if Haroun lives; He's sudden and deadly, when his anger bursts. But let me be more sudden, yet more deadly.
Enter Murad.
Murad, the time draws near. The Caliph comes To Bassora; let him not thence return.
MURAD My blade is sharp and what I do is sudden.
ALZAYNI My gallant Turk! Thou shalt rise high, believe it. For I need men like thee.
MURAD (to himself) But Kings like thee Earth needs not.
VOICE WITHOUT Justice! justice! justice, King! King of the Age, I am a man much wronged.
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ALZAYNI Who cries beneath my window? Chamberlain!
Enter Sunjar.
SUNJAR An Arab daubed with mud and dirt, all battered, Unrecognizable, with broken lips cries out For justice.
ALZAYNI Bring him here.
Exit Sunjar.
It is some brawl.
Enter Sunjar with Almuene.
Thou, Vizier! Who has done this thing to thee?
ALMUENE Mohamad, son of Sulyman! Sultan Alzayni! Abbasside! how shalt thou long Have friends, if the King's enemies may slay In daylight, here, in open Bassora The King's best friends because they love the King?
ALZAYNI Name them at once and choose their punishment.
ALMUENE Alfazzal's son, that brutal profligate, Has done this.
MURAD Nureddene!
ALZAYNI Upon what quarrel?
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ALMUENE A year ago Alfazzal bought a slavegirl With the King's money for the King, a gem Of beauty, learning, mind, fit for a Caliph. But seeing the open flower he thought perhaps Your royal nose too base to smell at it, So gave her to his royaller darling son To soil and rumple. No man with a neck Dared tell you of it, such your faith was in him.
ALZAYNI Is't so? our loved and trusted Ibn Sawy!
ALMUENE This profligate squandering away his wealth Brought her to market; there I saw her and bid Her fair full price. Whereat he stormed at me With words unholy; yet I answered mild, "My son, not for myself, but the King's service I need her." He with bold and furious looks, "Dog, Vizier of a dog, I void on thee And on thy Sultan." With which blasphemy He seized me, rolled in the mire, battered with blows, Kicks, pullings of the beard, then dragged me back And flung me at his slavegirl's feet, who, proud Of her bold lover, footed my grey head Repeatedly and laughed, "This for thy King, Thy dingy stingy King who with so little Would buy a slavegirl sole in all the world."
SUNJAR Great Hasheem's vein cords all the Sultan's forehead.
MURAD The dog has murdered both of them with lies.
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ALZAYNI Now by the Prophet, my forefather! Out, Murad! drag here the fellow and his girl; Trail them with ropes tied to their bleeding heels, Their faces in the mire, with pinioned hands Behind their backs, into my presence here. Sack Sawy's mansion, raze it to the ground. What, am I grown so bare that by-lane dogs Like these so loudly bay at me? They die!
MURAD Sultan,—
ALZAYNI He's doomed who speaks a word for them.
ALMUENE Brother-in-law Murad, fetch your handsome brother. Soon, lest the Sultan hear of it!
MURAD Vizier, I know my duty. Know your own and do it.
ALMUENE I'll wash, then forth in holiday attire To see that pretty sport.
SUNJAR What will you do?
MURAD Sunjar, a something swift and desperate. I will not let them die.
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SUNJAR Run not on danger. I'll send a runner hotfoot to their house To warn them.
MURAD Do so. What will Doonya say When she hears this? How will her laughing eyes Be clouded and brim over! Till Haroun comes!
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Nureddene, Anice.
NUREDDENE 'Tis Sunjar warns us, he who always loved Our father.
ANICE Oh, my lord, make haste and flee.
NUREDDENE Whither and how? But come.
AJEBE Quick, Nureddene. I have a ship all ready for Bagdad, Sails bellying with fair wind, the pilot's hand Upon the wheel, the captain on the deck, You only wanting. Flee then to Bagdad And at the mighty Haroun's hand require Justice upon these tyrants. Oh, delay not.
NUREDDENE O friend! But do me one more service, Ajebe. Pay the few creditors unsatisfied; My father will absolve me when he comes.
AJEBE That's early done. And take my purse. No fumbling, I will not be denied.
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NUREDDENE Bagdad! (laughing) Why, Anice, Our dream comes true; we hobnob with the Caliph!
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Bagdad.
The gardens of the Caliph's Palace outside the Pavilion of Pleasure.
ANICE This is Bagdad!
NUREDDENE Bagdad the beautiful, The city of delight. How green these gardens! What a sweet clamour pipes among the trees.
ANICE And flowers! the flowers! Look at those violets Dark-blue like burning sulphur! Oh, rose and myrtle And gillyflower and lavender; anemones As red as blood! All Spring walks here in blossoms And strews the pictured ground.
NUREDDENE Do you see the fruit, Anice? camphor and almond-apricots, Green, white and purple figs and these huge grapes, Round rubies or quite purple-black, that ramp O'er wall and terrace; plums almost as smooth As your own damask cheek. These balls of gold
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Are lemons, Anice, do you think? Look, cherries, And mid these fair pink-budded orange-blossoms Rare glints of fruit.
ANICE That was a blackbird whistled. How the doves moan! It's full of cooing turtles. Oh see, the tawny bulbuls calling sweetly And winging! What a flutter of scarlet tails! If it were dark, a thousand nightingales Would surely sing together. How glad I am That we were driven out of Bassora!
NUREDDENE And this pavilion with its crowd of windows? Are there not quite a hundred?
ANICE Do you see The candelabrum pendent from the ceiling? A blaze of gold!
NUREDDENE Each window has a lamp. Night in these gardens must be bright as day. To find the master now! Here we could rest And ask our way to the great Caliph, Anice.
Enter Shaikh Ibrahim from behind.
IBRAHIM So, so! so, so! Cavalier servente with your bona roba! You do not know then of the Caliph's order forbidding entry into his gardens? No? I will proclaim it, then, with a palm-stick about your pretty back quarters. Will I not? Hoh!
He advances stealthily with stick raised. Nureddene and Anice turn towards him; he drops the stick and remains with arm lifted.
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NUREDDENE Here is a Shaikh of the gardens. Whose garden is this, friend?
ANICE Is the poor man out of the use of his wits? He stares open-mouthed.
IBRAHIM Glory to Allah who made you! Glory to the angel who brought you down on earth! Glory to myself who am permitted to look upon you! I give glory to Allah for your beauty, O people of Paradise!
NUREDDENE (smiling) Rather give glory to Him because he has given thee a fine old age and this long silvery beard. But are we permitted in this garden? The gate was not bolted.
IBRAHIM This garden? My garden? Yes, my son; yes, my daughter. It is the fairer for your feet; never before did such flowers bloom there.
NUREDDENE What, is it thine? And this pavilion?
IBRAHIM All mine, my son. By the grace of Allah to a poor sinful old man. 'Tis by His election, my son, and divine ordination and sanctification, and a little by the power of my prostrations and lustrations which I neglect not, neither morning nor noon nor evening nor at any of the intervals by the law commanded.
NUREDDENE When did you buy or lay it out, old father?
IBRAHIM A grand-aunt left it to me. Wonder not, for she was indeed aunt's grandmother to a cousin of the sister-in-law of the Caliph.
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NUREDDENE Oh then indeed! she had the right divine to be wealthy. But I trust thou hast good doctrinal justification for inheriting after her?
IBRAHIM I would not accept the Caliphate by any other. O my son, hanker not unlawfully after perishable earthly goods; for, verily, they are a snare and verily, verily, they entrap the feet of the soul as it toileth over the straight rough road to Heaven.
ANICE But, old father, are you rich and go so poorly robed? Were I mistress of such a garden, I would float about it in damask and crimson and velvet; silk and satin should be my meanest apparel.
IBRAHIM (aside) She has a voice like a blackbird's! O angel Gabriel, increase this unto me. I will not quarrel with thee though all Houridom break loose on my garden; for their gates thou hast a little opened. (aloud) Fie, my daughter! I take refuge with Allah. I am a poor sinful old man on the brink of the grave, what should I do with robes and coloured raiment? But they would hang well on thee. Praise the Lord who has given thee hips like the moon and a waist indeed! a small, seizable waist, Allah forgive me!
ANICE We are weary, old father; we hunger and thirst.
IBRAHIM Oh, my son! Oh, my daughter! you put me to shame. Come in, come in; this my pavilion is yours and there is within it plenty of food and drink,—such innocent things now as sherbet and pure kind water. But as for wine, that accursed thing, it is forbidden by the Prophet, whose name is a benediction. Come in, come in. Allah curse him that giveth not to the guest and the stranger.
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NUREDDENE It is indeed thine? we may enter?
IBRAHIM Allah! Allah! its floor yearns for thy beauty and for the fair feet of thy sister. If there were youth now instead of poor venerable me, would one not kiss the marble wherever her fair small feet will touch it? But I praise Allah that I am an old man with my thoughts turned to chastity and holiness.
NUREDDENE Come, Anice.
IBRAHIM (walking behind them) Allah! Allah! she is a gazelle that springeth. Allah! Allah! the swan in my lake waddleth less perfectly. She is as a willow when the wind swayeth it. Allah! Allah!
Exeunt to the pavilion.
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The Pavilion of Pleasure.
Anice, Nureddene, Shaikh Ibrahim on couches, by a table set with dishes.
NUREDDENE These kabobs are indeed good, and the conserves look sweet and the fruit very glossy. But will you sit and eat nothing?
IBRAHIM Verily, my son, I have eaten at midday. Allah forbid me from gluttony!
ANICE Old father, you discourage our stomachs. You shall eat a morsel from my fingers or I will say you use me hardly.
IBRAHIM No, no, no, no. Ah well, from your fingers, from your small slim rosy fingers. Allah! Only a bit, only a morsel; verily, verily! Allah! surely thy fingers are sweeter than honey. I could eat them with kisses.
ANICE What, old father, you grow young?
IBRAHIM Oh, now, now, now! 'Twas a foolish jest unworthy of my grey hairs. I take refuge with Allah! A foolish jest.
NUREDDENE But, my aged host, it is dry eating without wine. Have you never a flagon in all this palace? It is a blot, a blot on its fair perfection.
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IBRAHIM I take refuge with Allah. Wine! for sixteen years I have not touched the evil thing. When I was young indeed! ah well, when I was young. But 'tis forbidden. What saith Ibn Batata? That wine worketh transmogrification. And Ibrahim Alhashhash bin Fuzfuz bin Bierbiloon al Sandilani of Bassora, he rateth wine sorely and averreth that the red glint of it is the shine of the red fires of Hell, its sweetness kisseth damnation and the cool- ness of it in the throat causeth bifurcation. Ay, verily, the great Alhashhash.
ANICE Who are these learned doctors you speak of, old father? I have read all the books, but never heard of them.
IBRAHIM Oh, thou hast read? These are very distant and mystic Sufis, very rare doctors. Their books are known only to the adepts.
ANICE What a learned old man art thou, Shaikh Ibrahim! Now Allah save the soul of the great Alhashhash!
IBRAHIM Hm! 'Tis so. Wine! Verily, the Prophet hath cursed grower and presser, buyer and seller, carrier and drinker. I take refuge with Allah from the curse of the Prophet.
NUREDDENE Hast thou not even one old ass among all thy belongings? And if an old ass is cursed, is it thou who art cursed?
IBRAHIM Hm! My son, what is thy parable?
NUREDDENE I will show you a trick to cheat the devil. Give three denars of mine to a neighbour's servant with a dirham or two for his
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trouble, let him buy the wine and clap it on an old ass, and let the old ass bring it here. So art thou neither grower nor presser, seller nor buyer, carrier nor drinker, and if any be damned, it is an old ass that is damned. What saith the great Alhashhash?
IBRAHIM Hm! Well, I will do it. (aside) Now I need not let them know that there is wine galore in my cupboards, Allah forgive me!
NUREDDENE He is the very gem of hypocrites.
ANICE The fitter to laugh at. Dear my lord, be merry Tonight, if only for tonight. Let care Expect tomorrow.
NUREDDENE You are happy, Anice?
ANICE I feel as if I could do nothing else But laugh through life's remainder. You're safe, safe And that grim devil baffled. Oh, you're safe!
NUREDDENE It was a breathless voyage up the river. I think a price is on my head. Perhaps Our helpers suffer.
ANICE But you are safe, my joy, My darling.
She goes to him and kisses and clings about him.
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NUREDDENE Anice, your eyes are full of tears! You are quite overwrought.
ANICE Let only you be safe And all the world beside entirely perish. My love! my master!
She again embraces and kisses him repeatedly. Shaikh Ibrahim returns with the wine and glasses in a tray.
IBRAHIM Allah! Allah! Allah!
ANICE Where's that old sober learning? I want to dance, to laugh, to outriot riot. Oh, here he is.
NUREDDENE What a quick ass was this, Shaikh Ibrahim!
IBRAHIM No, no, the wine-shop is near, very near. Allah forgive us, ours is an evil city, this Bagdad; it is full of winebibbers and gluttons and liars.
NUREDDENE Dost thou ever lie, Shaikh Ibrahim?
IBRAHIM Allah forbid! Above all sins I abhor lying and liars. O my son, keep thy young lips from vain babbling and unnecessary lying. It is of the unpardonable sins, it is the way to Jahannam. But I pray thee what is this young lady to thee, my son?
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NUREDDENE She is my slave-girl.
IBRAHIM Ah, ah! thy slave-girl? Ah, ah! a slave-girl! ah!
ANICE Drink, my lord.
NUREDDENE (drinking) By the Lord, but I am sleepy. I will even rest my head in thy sweet lap for a moment.
He lies down.
IBRAHIM Allah! Allah! What, he sleeps?
ANICE Fast. That is the trick he always serves me. After the first cup he dozes off and leaves me quite sad and lonely.
IBRAHIM Why, why, why, little one! Thou art not alone and why shouldst thou be sad? I am here,—old Shaikh Ibrahim; I am here.
ANICE I will not be sad, if you will drink with me.
IBRAHIM Fie, fie, fie!
ANICE By my head and eyes!
IBRAHIM Well, well, well! Alas, 'tis a sin, 'tis a sin, 'tis a sin. (drinks) Verily, verily.
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ANICE Another.
IBRAHIM No, no, no.
IBRAHIM Well, well, well, well! 'Tis a grievous sin, Allah forgive me! (drinks)
ANICE Just one more.
IBRAHIM Does he sleep? Now if it were the wine of thy lips, little one!
ANICE Old father, old father! Is this thy sanctity and the chastity of thee and thy averseness to frivolity? To flirt with light-minded young hussies like me! Where is thy sanctification? Where is thy justification? Where is thy predestination? O mystic, thou art bifurked with an evil bifurcation. Woe's me for the great Alhashhash!
ANICE Art thou such a hypocrite? Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!
IBRAHIM No, no, no! A fatherly jest! a little little jest! (drinks)
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NUREDDENE (starting up) Shaikh Ibrahim, thou drinkest?
IBRAHIM Oh! ah! 'Twas thy slave-girl forced me. Verily, verily!
NUREDDENE Anice! Anice! Why wilt thou pester him? Wilt thou pluck down his old soul from heaven? Fie! draw the wine this side of the table. I pledge you, my heart.
ANICE To you, my dear one.
NUREDDENE You have drunk half your cup only; so, again; to Shaikh Ibrahim and his learned sobriety!
ANICE To the shade of the great Alhashhash!
IBRAHIM Fie on you! What cursed unneighbourly manners are these, to drink in my face and never pass the bowl?
ANICE AND NUREDDENE (together) Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!
IBRAHIM Never cry out at me. You are a Hour and she is a Houri come down from Heaven to ensnare my soul. Let it be ensnared! 'Tis not worth one beam from under your eyelids. Hour, I will embrace thee; I will kiss thee, Houri.
NUREDDENE Embrace not, Shaikh Ibrahim, neither kiss, for thy mouth smelleth evilly of that accursed thing, wine. I am woeful for the mystic Alhashhash.
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ANICE Art thou transmogrified, O Sufi, O adept, O disciple of Ibn Batata?
IBRAHIM Laugh, laugh! laughter is on your beauty like the sunlight on the fair minarets of Mazinderan the beautiful. Give me a cup. (drinks) You are sinners and I will sin with you. I will sin hard, my beauties. (drinks)
ANICE Come now, I will sing to you, if you will give me a lute. I am a rare singer, Shaikh Ibrahim.
IBRAHIM (drinks) There is a lute in yonder corner. Sing, sing, and it may be I will answer thee. (drinks)
ANICE But wait, wait. To sing in this meagreness of light! Candles, candles!
She lights the eighty candles of the great candelabrum.
IBRAHIM (drinks) Allah! it lights thee up, my slave-girl, my jewel. (drinks)
NUREDDENE Drink not so fast, Shaikh Ibrahim, but get up and light the lamps in the windows.
IBRAHIM (drinks) Sin not thou by troubling the coolness of wine in my throat. Light them, light them but not more than two.
Nureddene goes out lighting the lamps one by one and returns in the same way. Meanwhile Shaikh Ibrahim drinks.
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IBRAHIM Allah! hast thou lit them all?
ANICE Shaikh Ibrahim, drunkenness sees but double, and dost thou see eighty-four? Thou art far gone in thy cups, O adept, O Ibn Batatist.
IBRAHIM I am not yet so drunk as that. You are bold youths to light them all.
NUREDDENE Whom fearest thou? Is not the pavilion thine?
IBRAHIM Surely mine; but the Caliph dwells near and he will be angry at the glare of so much light.
NUREDDENE Truly, he is a great Caliph.
IBRAHIM Great enough, great enough. There might have been greater, if Fate had willed it. But 'tis the decree of Allah. Some He raiseth to be Caliphs and some He turneth into gardeners. (drinks)
ANICE I have found a lute.
NUREDDENE Give it me. Hear me improvise, Old Sobriety. (sings)
Saw you Shaikh Ibrahim, the grave old man? Allah! Allah! I saw him drunk and drinking. What was he doing when the dance began? He was winking; verily, verily, he was winking.
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IBRAHIM Fie! what cobbler's poetry is this? But thou hast a touch. Let me hear thee rather.
ANICE I have a song for you. (sings)
White as winter is my beard, All my face with wrinkles weird, Yet I drink. Hell-fire? judgment? who's afraid? Ibrahim would kiss a maid As soon as think.
IBRAHIM Allah! Allah! Nightingale! nightingale!
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The Gardens, outside the Pavilion.
Haroun, Mesrour.
HAROUN See, Mesrour, the Pavilion's all alight. 'Tis as I said. Where is the Barmeky?
MESROUR The Vizier comes, my lord.
Enter Jaafar.
JAAFAR Peace be with thee, Commander of the Faithful.
HAROUN Where is peace, Thou faithless and usurping Vizier? Hast thou Filched my Bagdad out of my hands, thou rebel, And told me nothing?
JAAFAR What words are these, O Caliph?
HAROUN What mean these lights then? Does another Caliph Hold revel in my Palace of all Pleasure, While Haroun lives and holds the sword?
JAAFAR (to himself) What Djinn
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Plays me this antic?
HAROUN I am waiting, Vizier.
JAAFAR Shaikh Ibrahim, my lord, petitioned me, On circumcision of his child, for use Of the pavilion. Lord, it had escaped My memory; I now remember it.
HAROUN Doubly thou erredst, Jaafar; for thou gavest him No money, which was the significance Of his request, neither wouldst suffer me To help my servant. We will enter, Vizier, And hear the grave Faqeers discoursing there Of venerable things. The Shaikh's devout And much affects their reverend company. We too shall profit by that holy talk Which arms us against sin and helps to heaven.
JAAFAR (to himself) Helps to the plague! (aloud) Commander of the Faithful, Your mighty presence will disturb their peace With awe or quell their free unhampered spirits.
HAROUN At least I'ld see them.
MESROUR From this tower, my lord, We can look straight into the whole pavilion.
HAROUN Mesrour, well thought of!
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JAAFAR (aside, to Mesrour) A blister spoil thy tongue!
MESROUR (aside, to Jaafar) I'll head you, Jaafar.
HAROUN (listening) Is not that a lute? A lute at such a grave and reverend meeting!
Shaikh Ibrahim sings within.
Chink-a-chunk-a-chink! We will kiss and drink, And be merry, O very very merry. For your eyes are bright Even by candle light And your lips as red as the red round cherry.
HAROUN Now by the Prophet! by my great forefathers!
He rushes into the tower followed by Mesrour.
JAAFAR May the devil fly away with Shaikh Ibrahim and drop him upon a hill of burning brimstone!
He follows the Caliph, who now appears with Mesrour on the platform of the tower.
HAROUN Ho, Jaafar, see this godly ceremony Thou gav'st permission for, and these fair Faqeers.
JAAFAR Shaikh Ibrahim has utterly deceived me.
HAROUN The aged hypocrite! Who are this pair
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Of heavenly faces? Was there then such beauty In my Bagdad, yet Haroun's eyes defrauded Of seeing it?
JAAFAR The girl takes up the lute.
HAROUN Now if she play and sing divinely, Jaafar, You shall be hanged alone for your offence, If badly, all you four shall swing together.
JAAFAR I hope she will play vilely.
HAROUN Wherefore, Jaafar?
JAAFAR I ever loved good company, my lord, And would not tread my final road alone.
HAROUN No, when thou goest that road, my faithful servant, Well do I hope that we shall walk together.
ANICE (within) Song King of my heart, wilt thou adore me, Call me goddess, call me thine? I too will bow myself before thee As in a shrine. Till we with mutual adoration And holy earth-defeating passion Do really grow divine.
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HAROUN The mighty Artist shows his delicate cunning Utterly in this fair creature. I will talk With the rare couple.
JAAFAR Not in your own dread person, Or fear will make them dumb.
HAROUN I'll go disguised. Are there not voices by the river, Jaafar? Fishermen, I would wager. My commands Are well obeyed in my Bagdad, O Vizier! But I have seen too much beauty and cannot now Remember to be angry. Come, descend.
As they descend, enter Kareem.
KAREEM Here's a fine fat haul! O my jumpers! my little beauties! O your fine white bellies! What a joke, to catch the Caliph's own fish and sell them to him at thrice their value!
HAROUN Who art thou?
KAREEM O Lord, 'tis the Caliph himself! I am a dead fisherman. (falling flat) O Commander of the Faithful! Alas, I am an honest fisherman.
HAROUN Dost thou lament thy honesty? What fish hast thou?
KAREEM Only a few whitebait and one or two minnows. Poor thin rogues, all of them! They are not fit for the Caliph's honourable stomach.
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HAROUN Show me thy basket, man. Are these thy whitebait and thy two thin minnows?
KAREEM Alas, sir, 'tis because I am honest.
HAROUN Give me thy fish.
KAREEM Here they are, here they are, my lord!
HAROUN Out! the whole basket, fellow. Do I eat live fish, you thrust them in my face? And now exchange thy outer dress with me.
KAREEM My dress? Well, you may have it; I am liberal as well as honest. But 'tis a good gabardine; I pray you, be careful of it.
HAROUN Woe to thee, fellow! What's this filthiness Thou callst a garment?
KAREEM O sir, when you have worn it ten days, the filth will come easy to you and, as one may say, natural. And 'tis honest filth; it will keep you warm in winter.
HAROUN What, shall I wear thy gabardine so long?
KAREEM Commander of the Faithful! since you are about to leave kingcraft and follow an honest living for the good of your soul,
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you may wear worse than an honest fisherman's gabardine. 'Tis a good craft and an honourable.
HAROUN Off with thee. In my dress thou'lt find a purse Crammed full of golden pieces. It is thine.
KAREEM Glory to Allah! This comes of being honest.
JAAFAR (coming up) Who's this? Ho, Kareem! wherefore here tonight? The Caliph's in the garden. You'll be thrashed And very soundly, fisher.
HAROUN Jaafar, 'tis I.
JAAFAR The Caliph!
HAROUN Now to fry these fish and enter.
JAAFAR Give them to me. I am a wondrous cook.
HAROUN No, by the Prophet! My two lovely friends Shall eat a Caliph's cookery tonight.
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Inside the Pavilion.
Nureddene, Anice, Shaikh Ibrahim.
NUREDDENE Shaikh Ibrahim, verily, thou art drunk.
IBRAHIM Alas, alas, my dear son, my own young friend! I am damned, verily, verily, I am damned. Ah, my sweet lovely young father! Ah, my pious learned white-bearded mother! That they could see their son now, their pretty little son! But they are in their graves; they are in their cold, cold, cold graves.
NUREDDENE Oh, thou art most pathetically drunk. Sing, Anice.
OUTSIDE Fish! fish! sweet fried fish!
ANICE Fish! Shaikh Ibrahim, Shaikh Ibrahim! hearest thou? We have a craving for fish.
IBRAHIM 'Tis Satan in thy little stomach who calleth hungrily for sweet fried fish. Silence, thou preposterous devil!
ANICE Fie, Shaikh, is my stomach outside me, under the window? Call him in.
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IBRAHIM Ho! ho! come in, Satan! come in, thou brimstone fisherman. Let us see thy long tail.
Enter Haroun.
ANICE What fish have you, good fisherman?
HAROUN I have very honest good fish, my sweet lady, and I have fried them for you with my own hand. These fish,—why, all I can say of them is, they are fish. But they are well fried.
NUREDDENE Set them on a plate. What wilt thou have for them?
HAROUN Why, for such faces as you have, I will honestly ask nothing.
NUREDDENE Then wilt thou dishonestly ask for a trifle more than they are worth. Swallow me these denars.
HAROUN Now Allah give thee a beard! for thou art a generous youth.
ANICE Fie, fisherman, what a losing blessing is this, to kill the thing for which thou blessest him! If Allah give him a beard, he will be no longer a youth, and for the generosity, it will be Allah's.
HAROUN Art thou as witty as beautiful?
ANICE By Allah, that am I. I tell thee very modestly that there is not my equal from China to Frangistan.
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HAROUN Thou sayest no more than truth.
NUREDDENE What is your name, fisherman?
HAROUN I call myself Kareem and, in all honesty, when I fish, 'tis for the Caliph.
IBRAHIM Who talks of the Caliph? Dost thou speak of the Caliph Haroun or the Caliph Ibrahim?
HAROUN I speak of the Caliph, Haroun the Just, the great and only Caliph.
IBRAHIM Oh, Haroun? He is fit only to be a gardener, a poor witless fellow without brains to dress himself with, yet Allah hath made him Caliph. While there are others—but 'tis no use talking. A very profligate tyrant, this Haroun! He has debauched half the women in Bagdad and will debauch the other half, if they let him live. Besides, he cuts off a man's head when the nose on it does not please him. A very pestilence of a tyrant!
HAROUN Now Allah save him!
IBRAHIM Nay, let Allah save his soul if He will and if 'tis worth saving; but I fear me 'twill be a tough job for Allah. If it were not for my constant rebukes and admonitions and predications and pestrigiddi—prestigidgidi—what the plague! pestidigitations; and some slaps and cuffs, of which I pray you speak very low, he
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would be worse even than he is. Well, well, even Allah blunders; verily, verily!
ANICE Wilt thou be Caliph, Shaikh Ibrahim?
IBRAHIM Yes, my jewel, and thou shalt be my Zobeidah. And we will tipple, beauty, we will tipple.
HAROUN And Haroun?
IBRAHIM I will be generous and make him my under-kitchen-gardener's second vice-sub-under-assistant. I would gladly give him a higher post, but, verily, he is not fit.
HAROUN (laughing) What an old treasonous rogue art thou, Shaikh Ibrahim!
IBRAHIM What? who? Thou art not Satan, but Kareem the fisherman? Didst thou say I was drunk, thou supplier of naughty houses? Verily, I will tug thee by the beard, for thou liest. Verily, verily!
NUREDDENE Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!
IBRAHIM Nay, if thou art the angel Gabriel and forbiddest me, let be; but I hate lying and liars.
NUREDDENE Fisherman, is thy need here over?
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HAROUN I pray you, let me hear this young lady sing; for indeed 'twas the sweet voice of her made me fry fish for you.
NUREDDENE Oblige the good fellow, Anice; he has a royal face for his fishing.
IBRAHIM Sing! 'tis I will sing: there is no voice like mine in Bagdad. (sings)
When I was a young man, I'd a very good plan; Every maid that I met, In my lap I would set, What mattered her age or her colour? But now I am old And the girls, they grow cold And my heartstrings, they ache At the faces they make, And my dancing is turned into dolour.
A very sweet song! a very sad song! Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 'Tis just, 'tis just. Ah me! well-a-day! Verily, verily!
ANICE I pray you, Shaikh Ibrahim, be quiet. I would sing.
IBRAHIM Sing, my jewel, sing, my gazelle, sing, my lady of kisses. Verily, I would rise up and buss thee, could I but find my legs. I know not why they have taken them from me.
ANICE (sings) Song Heart of mine, O heart impatient, Thou must learn to wait and weep.
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Wherefore wouldst thou go on beating When I bade thee hush and sleep? Thou who wert of life so fain, Didst thou know not, life was pain?
HAROUN O voice of angels! Who art thou, young man, And who this sweet-voiced wonder? Let me hear; Tell me thy story.
NUREDDENE I am a man chastised For my own errors, yet unjustly. Justice I seek from the great Caliph. Leave us, fisherman.
HAROUN Tell me thy story. Walk apart with me. It may be I can help thee.
NUREDDENE Leave us, I pray thee. Thou, a poor fisherman!
HAROUN I vow I'll help thee.
NUREDDENE Art thou the Caliph?
HAROUN If I were, by chance?
NUREDDENE If thou art as pressing with the fish as me, There's a good angler.
Exit with Haroun.
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ANICE Will you not have some of this fish, Shaikh Ibrahim? 'Tis a sweet fish.
IBRAHIM Indeed thou art a sweet fish, but somewhat overdone. Thou hast four lovely eyes and two noses wonderfully fine with just the right little curve at the end; 'tis a hook to hang my heart upon. But, verily, there are two of them and I know not what to do with the other; I have only one heart, beauty. O Allah, Thou hast darkened my brain with wine, and wilt Thou damn me afterwards?
ANICE Nay, if thou wilt misuse my nose for a peg, I have done with thee. My heart misgives me strangely.
NUREDDENE He's writing out a letter.
ANICE Surely, my lord, This is no ordinary fisherman. If 'twere the Caliph?
NUREDDENE The old drunkard knew him For Kareem and a fisherman. Dear Anice, Let not our dreams delude us. Life is harsh, Dull-tinted, not so kindly as our wishes, Nor half so beautiful.
HAROUN He is not fit To be a King.
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NUREDDENE Nor ever was. 'Tis late.
HAROUN Giv'st thou no gift at parting?
NUREDDENE You're a fisher! (opens his purse)
HAROUN Nothing more valuable?
ANICE Wilt take this ring?
HAROUN No; give me what I ask.
NUREDDENE Yes, by the Prophet, Because thou hast a face.
HAROUN Give me thy slave-girl.
There is a silence.
NUREDDENE Thou hast entrapped me, fisherman.
ANICE Is it a jest?
HAROUN Thou sworest by the Prophet, youth.
NUREDDENE Tell me,
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Is it for ransom? I have nothing left In all the world but her and these few pieces.
HAROUN She pleases me.
ANICE O wretch!
NUREDDENE Another time I would have slain thee. But now I feel 'tis God Has snared my feet with dire calamities, And have no courage.
HAROUN Dost thou give her to me?
NUREDDENE Take her, if Heaven will let thee. Angel of God, Avenging angel, wert thou lying in wait for me In Bagdad?
ANICE Leave me not, O leave me not. It is a jest, it must, it shall be a jest. God will not suffer it.
HAROUN I mean thee well.
ANICE Thy doing's damnable. O man, O man, Art thou a devil straight from Hell, or art thou A tool of Almuene's to torture us? Will you leave me, my lord, and never kiss?
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NUREDDENE Thou art his; I cannot touch thee.
HAROUN Kiss her once.
NUREDDENE Tempt me not; if my lips grow near to hers, Thou canst not live. Farewell.
HAROUN Where art thou bound?
NUREDDENE To Bassora.
HAROUN That is, to death?
NUREDDENE Even so.
HAROUN Yet take this letter with thee to the Sultan.
NUREDDENE Man, what have I to do with thee or letters?
HAROUN Hear me, fair youth. Thy love is sacred to me And will be safe as in her father's house. Take thou this letter. Though I seem a fisherman, I was the Caliph's friend and schoolfellow, His cousin of Bassora's too, and it may help thee.
NUREDDENE I know not who thou art, nor if this scrap
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Of paper has the power thou babblest of, And do not greatly care. Life without her Is not to be thought of. Yet thou giv'st me something I'ld once have dared call hope. She will be safe?
HAROUN As my own child, or as the Caliph's.
NUREDDENE I'll go play At pitch and toss with death in Bassora.
IBRAHIM Kareem, thou evil fisherman, thou unjust seller, thou dishonest dicer, thou beastly womanizer! hast thou given me stinking fish not worth a dirham and thinkest to take away my slave-girl? Verily, I will tug thy beard for her.
He seizes Haroun by the beard.
HAROUN (throwing him off) Out! Hither to me, Vizier Jaafar. (Enter Jaafar.) Hast thou my robe?
He changes his dress.
JAAFAR How dost thou, Shaikh Ibrahim? Fie, thou smellest of that evil thing, even the accursed creature, wine.
IBRAHIM O Satan, Satan, dost thou come to me in the guise of Jaafar, the Persian, the Shiah, the accursèd favourer of Gnosticism and heresies, the evil and bibulous Vizier? Avaunt, and return not save with a less damnable face. O thou inconsiderate fiend!
HAROUN Damsel, lift up thy head. I am the Caliph.
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ANICE What does it matter who you are? My heart, my heart!
HAROUN Thou art bewildered. Rise! I am the Caliph Men call the Just. Thou art as safe with me As my own daughter. I have sent thy lord To be a king in Bassora, and thee I will send after him with precious robes, Fair slave-girls, noble gifts. Possess thy heart Once more, be glad.
ANICE O just and mighty Caliph!
HAROUN Shaikh Ibrahim.
IBRAHIM Verily, I think thou art the Caliph, and, verily, I think I am drunk.
HAROUN Verily, thou hast told the truth twice, and it is a wonder. But verily, verily, thou shalt be punished. Thou hast been kind to the boy and his sweetheart, therefore I will not take from thee thy life or thy post in the gardens, and I will forgive thee for tugging the beard of the Lord's anointed. But thy hypocrisies and blasphemies are too rank to be forgiven. Jaafar, have a man with him constantly and wine before his eyes; but if he drink so much as a thimbleful, let it be poured by gallons into his stomach. Have in beautiful women constantly before him and if he once raise his eyes above their anklets, shave him clean and sell him into the most severe and Puritan house in Bagdad. Nay, I will reform thee, old sinner.
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IBRAHIM Oh, her lips! her sweet lips!
JAAFAR You speak to a drunken man, my lord.
HAROUN Tomorrow bring him before me when he's sober.
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Bassora and Bagdad.
Almuene, Fareed.
FAREED You'll give me money, dad?
ALMUENE You spend too much. We'll talk of it another time. Now leave me.
FAREED You'll give me money?
ALMUENE Go; I'm out of temper.
FAREED (dancing round him) Give money, money, money, give me money.
ALMUENE You boil, do you too grow upon me? There. (strikes him)
FAREED You have struck me!
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ALMUENE Why, you would have it. Go. You shall have money.
FAREED How much?
ALMUENE Quite half your asking. Send me a cup of water.
FAREED Oh yes, I'll send it. You'll strike me then?
ALMUENE Young Nureddene's evasion Troubles me at the heart; 'twill not dislodge. And Murad too walks closely with the King, Who whispers to him, whispers, whispers. What? Is't of my ruin? No, he needs me yet. And Ibn Sawy's coming soon. But there I've triumphed. He will have a meagre profit Of his long work in Roum,—the headsman's axe.
Enter a Slave with a cup of water.
Here set it down and wait. 'Tis not so bad. I'll have their Doonya yet for my Fareed.
Enter Khatoon, dragging in Fareed.
KHATOON He has not drunk it yet.
FAREED Why do you drag me, You naughty woman? I will bite your fingers.
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KHATOON O imp of Hell! Touch not the water, Vizier.
ALMUENE What's this?
KHATOON This brat whose soul you've disproportioned Out of all nature, turns upon you now. There's poison in that cup.
ALMUENE Unnatural mother, What is this hatred that thou hast, to slander The issue of thy womb?
FAREED She hates me, dad. Drink off the cup to show her how you love me.
KHATOON What, art thou weary of thy life? Give rather The water to a dog, and see.
ALMUENE Go, slave, And make some negro drink it off.
Exit Slave.
Woman, What I have promised often, thou shalt have,— The scourge.
KHATOON That were indeed my right reward For saving such a life as thine. Oh, God Will punish me for it.
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ALMUENE Thou tongue! I'll strike thee.
As he lifts his hand, the slave returns.
SLAVE Oh, sir, almost before it touched his throat, He fell in fierce convulsions. He is dead.
ALMUENE Fareed!
FAREED You'll strike me, will you? You'll give half My askings, no? I wish you'd drunk it off; I'ld have rare spendings!
He runs out.
ALMUENE God!
KHATOON Will you not scourge me?
ALMUENE Leave me.
Exit Khatoon.
What is this horrible surprise, Beneath whose shock I stagger? Is my term Exhausted? But I would have done as much, Had I been struck. It is his gallant spirit, His lusty blood that will not bear a blow. I must appease him. If my own blood should end me! He shall have money, all that he can ask.
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The Palace in Bassora.
Alzayni, Murad, Almuene, Ajebe.
ALZAYNI I like your nephew well and will advance him. For what's twixt you and Murad, let it sleep. You are both my trusty counsellors.
ALMUENE A nothing, I grieve I pressed; forget it, noble Murad.
MURAD That's as you please.
ALMUENE Come, you're my nephew too.
VOICE OUTSIDE Ho, Mohamad Alzayni, Sultan, ho!
ALZAYNI Who is that Arab?
ALMUENE (at the window) God! 'tis Nureddene.
MURAD Impossible!
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ALZAYNI Or he is courage-mad.
ALMUENE 'Tis he.
MURAD The devil and his unholy joy!
ALZAYNI Drag him to me! No, bring him quietly, Ajebe.
I wonder in what strength he comes.
ALMUENE The strength of madness.
MURAD Or of Heaven, whose wrath Sometimes chastises us with our desires.
Enter Ajebe with Nureddene.
NUREDDENE Greeting, Alzayni, King in Bassora. Greeting, sweet uncle. Has your nose got straight? Ajebe and Murad, greeting. Here am I!
ALZAYNI How dar'st thou come and with such rude demeanour? Knowst thou thy sentence?
NUREDDENE Why, I bring a sentence too, A fishy writing. Here it is. Be careful of it; It is my die on which I throw for death Or more than life.
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ALZAYNI A letter, and to me?
NUREDDENE Great King, 'tis from thy friend the fisherman, He with the dirty gabardine who lives In great Bagdad on stolen fish.
ALZAYNI Thinkst thou That thou canst play thus rudely with the lion?
NUREDDENE If I could see the mane, I'ld clutch at it. A lashing tail is not enough. The tiger Has that too and many trifling animals. But read the letter.
ALZAYNI Read it, Almuene.
ALMUENE 'Tis from the Caliph, it appears. Thus runs The alleged epistle: "Haroun Alrasheed, Commander of the Faithful, known by name To orient waters and the Atlantic seas, Whom three wide continents obey, to Mohamad The Abbasside, the son of Sulyman, Men call Alzayni, by our gracious will Allowed our subject king in Bassora, Greeting and peace. As soon as thou hast read Our letter, put from thee thy kingly robe, Thy jewelled turban and thy sceptred pomp And clothe with them the bearer Nureddene, Son of thy Vizier, monarch in thy stead In Bassora, then come to us in Bagdad To answer for thy many and great offences.
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This as thou hop'st to live."
NUREDDENE It was the Caliph.
ALZAYNI My mighty cousin's will must be obeyed. Why turnst thou to the light?
ALMUENE To scan it better. King, 'tis a forgery! Where is the seal, Where the imperial scripture? Is it thus On a torn paper mighty Caliphs write? Now on my life the fellow here has chanced Upon some playful scribbling of the Caliph's, Put in his name and thine and, brazen-faced, Come here to bluster.
AJEBE It was quite whole, I saw it.
ALMUENE Boy, silence!
AJEBE No, I will not. Thou hast torn it.
ALMUENE Where are the pieces then? Search, if thou wilt.
ALZAYNI Ho, there.
Enter Guards.
Take Ajebe to the prison hence. He shall have judgment afterwards.
Exit Ajebe, guarded.
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Thou, fellow, Com'st thou with brazen face and blustering tongue And forgeries in thy pocket? Hale him hence. After fierce tortures let him be impaled.
MURAD Hear me, O King.
ALZAYNI Thou art his sister's husband.
MURAD Yet for thy own sake hear me. Hast thou thought, If this be true, what fate will stride upon thee When Haroun learns thy deed? whom doubt not, King, Thy many enemies will soon acquaint.
ALZAYNI Send couriers; find this out.
ALMUENE Till when I'll keep My nephew safe under my private eye.
MURAD Thou art his enemy.
ALMUENE And thou his friend. He will escape from thee once more.
ALZAYNI Vizier, Thou keep him, use him well.
ALMUENE Ho! take him, Guards.
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NUREDDENE I lose the toss; 'tis tails.
Exit guarded.
ALZAYNI All leave me. Vizier, Remain.
Exit Murad.
Now, Almuene?
ALMUENE Kill him and be at rest.
ALZAYNI If 'twere indeed the Caliph's very hand? Vizier, I dare not suddenly.
ALMUENE Dare not! Nay, then, put off thy crown at Haroun's bidding, Who'll make thee his doorkeeper in Bagdad. The Caliph? How long will this drunken freak Have lodging in his lordly mind? Or fearst thou The half-veiled threat of thy own trusty Turk, Sultan Alzayni?
ALZAYNI Him I'll silence. Keep The boy ten days; then, if all's well, behead him.
ALMUENE You boggle, boggle; that is not the way To keep a crown. Have him and hold's the Vizier, Catch him and cut's the General. Loose your grip? Let the hand shake? So monarchs are unkinged. Ten days are mine at least. I have ten days To torture him, though Caliphs turn his friend.
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Will God befriend him next? My enemies He gives into my potent hand. Murad is gone, And I hold Doonya in my grip, Ameena too Who, I have news, lives secret with her niece. But where's the girl? God keeps her for me, I doubt not, A last, sweet morsel. It will please Fareed. But there's Haroun! Why should he live at all, When there are swords and poisons?
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A cell in Almuene's house.
Nureddene alone.
NUREDDENE We sin our pleasant sins and then refrain And think that God's deceived. He waits His time And when we walk the clean and polished road He trips us with the mire our shoes yet keep, The pleasant mud we walked before. All ills I will bear patiently. Oh, better here Than in that world! Who comes? Khatoon, my aunt!
Enter Khatoon and a Slave.
KHATOON My Nureddene!
NUREDDENE Good aunt, weep not for me.
KHATOON You are my sister's child, yet more my own. I have no other. Ali, mend his food And treatment. Fear not thou the Vizier's wrath, For I will shield thee.
SLAVE I'll do it willingly.
KHATOON What is this sound of many rushing feet?
Enter Almuene and Slaves.
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ALMUENE Seize him and bind. O villain, fatal villain! O my heart's stringlet! Seize him, beat to powder; Have burning irons. Dame, what do you here? Wilt thou prevent me then?
KHATOON Let no man touch The prisoner of the Sultan. What's this rage?
ALMUENE My son, my son! He has burned my heart. Shall I Not burn his body?
KHATOON What is it? Tell me quickly.
ALMUENE Fareed is murdered.
KHATOON God forbid! By whom?
ALMUENE This villain's sister.
KHATOON Doonya? You are mad. Speak, slave.
A SLAVE Young master went with a great company To Murad's house to carry Doonya off Who then was seated listening to the lute With Balkis and Mymoona, Ajebe's slave-girls. We stormed the house, but could not take the lady; Mymoona with a sword kept all at bay For minutes. Meantime the city fills with rumour,
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And Murad riding like a stormy wind Came on us just too soon, the girl defender Found wounded, Doonya at last in Fareed's grip Who made a shield of that fair burden; but Balkis Ran at and tripped him, and the savage Turk Fire-eyed and furious lunged him through the body. He's dead.
KHATOON My son!
ALMUENE Will you now give me leave To torture this vile boy?
KHATOON What is his fault? Touch him and I acquaint the King. Vizier, Thou slewst Fareed. My gracious, laughing babe Who clung about me with his little hands And sucked my breasts! Him you have murdered, Vizier, Both soul and body. I will go and pray For vengeance on thee for my slaughtered child.
ALMUENE She has baulked my fury. No, I'll wait for thee. Thou shalt hear first what I have done with Doonya And thy soft mother's body. Murad! Murad! Thou hast no son. Would God thou hadst a son!
NUREDDENE Not upon others fall Thy heavy scourge Who are not guilty. O Doonya, O my mother, In fiercest peril from that maddened tyrant!
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A house in Bassora.
Doonya, Ameena.
DOONYA Comfort, dear mother, comfort.
AMEENA Oh, what comfort? My Nureddene is doomed, Murad is gaoled, We in close hiding under the vile doom This tyrant King decrees.
DOONYA I did not think God was so keen-eyed for our petty sins, When great offences and high criminals Walk smiling. But there's comfort, mother, yet. My husband writes from prison. You shall hear.
(reads)
"Doonya, I have written this by secret contrivance. Have comfort, dry thy mother's tears. There is hope. The Caliph comes to Bassora and the King will release me for a need of his own. I have tidings of thy father; he is but two days journey from Bassora and I have sent him urgent and tremulous word to come, but no ill-news to break his heart. We have friends. Doonya, my beloved—" That's for me only.
AMEENA Let me hear it.
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DOONYA It is Pure nonsense,—what a savage Turk would write.
AMEENA Therefore you kissed it?
DOONYA Oh, you're comforted! You're smiling through your tears.
AMEENA My husband comes. He will save all. I never quite believed God would forget his worth so soon.
DOONYA (to herself) He comes, But for what fate? (aloud) True, mother, he'll save all.
AMEENA How is Mymoona?
DOONYA Better now. She suffered In our wild rapid flight. Balkis is with her. Let's go to them.
AMEENA My son will yet be saved.
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Bagdad. A room in the Caliph's harem.
Anice, with many slave-girls attending on her.
ANICE Girls, is he passing?
A SLAVE-GIRL He is passing.
ANICE Quick, my lute!
Song The Emperor of Roum is great; The Caliph has a mighty State; But One is greater, to Whom all prayers take wing; And I, a poor and weeping slave, When the world rises from its grave, Shall stand up the accuser of my King.
Girls, is he coming up?
A SLAVE-GIRL The Caliph enters.
Enter Haroun and Jaafar.
HAROUN Thou art the slave-girl, Anice-aljalice? Why chosest thou that song?
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ANICE Caliph, for thee. Where is my lord?
HAROUN A king in Bassora.
ANICE Who told thee?
HAROUN So it must be.
ANICE Is there news?
HAROUN No, strange! seven days gone by, nor yet a letter!
ANICE Caliph, high Sovereign, Haroun Alrasheed, Men call thee Just, great Abbasside! I am A poor and helpless slave-girl, but my grief Is greater than a King. Lord, I demand My soul's dear husband at thy hand, who sent him Alone, unfollowed, without guard or friend To a tyrant Sultan and more tyrant Vizier, His potent enemies. Oh, they have killed him! Give back my husband to my arms unhurt Or I will rise upon the judgment day Against thee, Caliph Haroun Alrasheed, Demanding him at that eternal throne Where names are not received, nor earthly pomps Considered. Then my frail and woman's voice Shall ring more dreadful in thy mighty hearing Than doom's own trumpet. Answer my demand.
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HAROUN Anice, I do believe thy lord is well. And yet—No, by my great forefathers, no! My seal and signature were on the script And they are mightier than a thousand armies. If he has disobeyed, for him 'twere better He were a beggar's unrespected child Than Haroun's kin;—the Arabian simoom Shall be less devastating than my wrath. Out, Jaafar, out to Bassora, behind thee Sweeping embattled war; nor night nor tempest Delay thy march. I follow in thy steps. Take too this damsel and these fifty slave-girls, With robes and gifts for Bassora's youthful king. I give thee power o'er Kings and Emperors To threaten, smite and seize. Go, friend; I follow As swift as thunder presses on the lightning.
JAAFAR (to the slave-girls) Make ready; for we march within the hour.
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The public square of Bassora.
Alzayni on a dais; in front a scaffold on which stand Nureddene, an Executioner, Murad and others. Almuene moves between the dais and scaffold. The square is crowded with people.
EXECUTIONER Ho! listen, listen, Moslems. Nureddene, Son of Alfazzal, son of Sawy, stands Upon the rug of blood, the man who smote Great Viziers and came armed with forgeries To uncrown mighty Kings. Look on his doom, You enemies of great Alzayni, look and shake.
(low, to Nureddene)
My lord, forgive me who am thus compelled, Oh much against my will, to ill-requite Your father's kindly favours.
NUREDDENE Give me water; I thirst.
MURAD Give water. Executioner, When the King waves the signal, wait; strike not Too hastily.
EXECUTIONER Captain, I will await thy nod. Here's water.
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ALMUENE (coming up) Rebellious sworder! giv'st thou drink To the King's enemies?
A VOICE IN THE CROWD God waits for thee, Thou wicked Vizier.
ALMUENE Who was that?
MURAD A voice. Behead it.
ALMUENE Mighty Sultan, give the word.
ALZAYNI There is a movement in the crowd and cries. Wait for one moment.
ALMUENE It is Ibn Sawy. Oh, this is sweet!
CRIES Make way for the Vizier, the good Vizier. He's saved! he's saved.
Enter Alfazzal; he looks with emotion at Nureddene, then turns to the King.
IBN SAWY Greeting, my King; my work in Roum is over.
ALZAYNI Virtuous Alfazzal! we will talk with thee As ever was our dearest pleasure; first,
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There is a spotted soul to be dislodged From the fair body it disgraced; a trifle Soon ended. There behold the criminal.
IBN SAWY The criminal! Pardon me, mighty King; The voice of Nature will not be kept down. Why wilt thou slay my son?
ALZAYNI Nay, 'tis himself Insisted obstinately on his doom; Abused his King, battered and beat my Vizier, Forged mighty Haroun's signature to wear My crown in Bassora. These are the chief Of his offences.
IBN SAWY If this thing is true, As doubtless near inquiry in Bagdad—
ALZAYNI Nay, take not up thy duties all too soon. Rest from thy travel, bury thy dear son And afterwards resume thy faithful works, My Vizier.
IBN SAWY I would not see my dear child slain. Permit me to depart and in my desolate house Comfort the stricken mother and his kin.
ALZAYNI Perhaps a stone of all thy house may stand. The mother and thy niece? It hurts my heart. They too are criminals and punished.
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IBN SAWY God!
ALZAYNI Slaves, help my faithful Vizier; he will faint.
IBN SAWY Let me alone; God made me strong to bear. They are dead?
ALZAYNI Nay, a more lenient penalty. What did I order? To be led through Bassora Bare in their shifts with halters round their necks And, stripped before all eyes, whipped into swooning, Then sold as slaves but preferably for little To some low Nazarene or Jew. Was that The order, Almuene?
IBN SAWY Merciful Allah! And it is done?
ALZAYNI I doubt not, it is done.
IBN SAWY Their crime?
ALZAYNI Conspiring murder. They have killed The son of Almuene. Good Ibn Sawy, God's kind to thee who has relieved thy age Of human burdens. Thus He turns thy thought To His ineffable and simple peace.
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IBN SAWY God, Thou art mighty and Thy will is just. King Mohamad Alzayni, I have come To a changed world in which I am not needed. I bid farewell.
ALZAYNI Nay, Vizier, clasp thy son, And afterwards await within my hearing Release.
IBN SAWY My Nureddene, my child!
NUREDDENE Justice Of God, thou spar'st me nothing. Father! father!
IBN SAWY Bow to the will of God, my son; if thou Must perish on a false and hateful charge, A crime in thee impossible, believe It is His justice still.
NUREDDENE I well believe it.
IBN SAWY I doubt not I shall join you, son. We'll hold Each other's hands upon the narrow way.
ALZAYNI Hast done, Alfazzal?
IBN SAWY Do thy will, O King.
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ALZAYNI (waving his hand) Strike.
Trumpets outside.
What are these proud notes? this cloud of dust That rushes towards us from the north? The earth Trembles with horse-hooves.
ALMUENE Let this wretch be slain; We shall have leisure then for greater things.
ALZAYNI Pause, pause! A horseman gallops through the crowd Which scatters like wild dust. Look, he dismounts.
Enter a Soldier.
SOLDIER Hail to thee, Mohamad Alzayni! Greeting From mightier than thyself.
ALZAYNI Who art thou, Arab?
SOLDIER Jaafar bin Barmak, Vizier world-renowned Of Haroun, master of the globe, comes hither. He's in your streets, Alzayni. Thus he bids thee: If Nureddene, thy Vizier's son, yet lives, Preserve him, Sultan, as thy own dear life; For if he dies, thou shalt not live.
ALZAYNI My guards! My soldiers! here to me!
SOLDIER Beware, Alzayni.
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The force he brings could dislocate each stone In Bassora within the hour and leave Thy house a ruin. In his mighty wake A mightier comes, the Caliph's self.
ALZAYNI 'Tis well. I have but erred. My Murad, here to me! Murad, thou shalt have gold, a house, estates, Noble and wealthy women for thy wives. Murad!
MURAD Erred, King, indeed who took a soldier For an assassin. King, my household gem I have saved and want no others. Were she gone, Thou wouldst not now be living.
ALZAYNI Am I betrayed?
MURAD Call it so, King.
ALZAYNI My throne is tumbling down. The crowd quite parts; the horsemen drive towards us.
ALMUENE Sultan Alzayni, kill thy enemies, Then die. Wilt thou be footed to Bagdad, Stumbling in fetters?
ALZAYNI They are here.
Enter Jaafar and Soldiers.
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JAAFAR This sight Is thy own sentence. Mohamad Alzayni, Allah deprived thee of reason to destroy thee, When thou didst madly disobey thy lord.
ALMUENE 'Twas a mistake, great Vizier. We had thought The script a forgery.
JAAFAR Issue of Khakan, I have seen many Viziers like thyself, But none that died in peace. Hail, Nureddene! I greet thee, Sultan, lord in Bassora.
NUREDDENE It is the second toss that tells; the first Was a pure foul. I thank Thee, who hast only Shown me the edge of Thy chastising sword, Then pardoned. Father, embrace me.
IBN SAWY Ah, child, Thy mother and thy sister!
MURAD They are safe And in my care.
IBN SAWY Nay, God is kind; this world Most leniently ruled.
JAAFAR Sultan Alzayni, Vizier Almuene, By delegated power I seize upon you,
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The prisoners of the Caliph. Take them, guards. I've brought a slave-girl for you, Nureddene, The Caliph's gift.
NUREDDENE I'll take her, if I like her. Life is my own again and all I love. Great are Thy mercies, O Omnipotent!
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Ibn Sawy, Ameena, Nureddene, Anice, Doonya, Ajebe.
IBN SAWY End, end embraces; they will last our life. Thou dearest cause at once of all our woes And their sweet ender! Cherish her, Nureddene, Who saved thy soul and body.
NUREDDENE Surely I'll cherish My heart's queen!
ANICE Only your slave-girl.
DOONYA You've got a King, You lucky child! But I have only a Turk, A blustering, bold and Caliph-murdering Turk Who writes me silly letters, stabs my lovers When they would run away with me, and makes A general Turkish nuisance of himself. 'Tis hard. Sultan of Bassora, great Sultan, Grave high and mighty Nureddene! thy sister And subject—
NUREDDENE Doonya, it is not Faeryland.
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DOONYA It is, it is, and Anice here its queen. O faery King of faery Bassora, Do make a General of my general nuisance. I long to be my lady Generaless Of faeryland, and ride about and charge At thorns and thistles with a churning-stick, With Balkis and Mymoona for my captains— They're very martial, King, bold swashing fighters!—
NUREDDENE Ajebe our Treasurer.
AJEBE To ruin you again?
NUREDDENE We'll have Shaikh Ibrahim for Lord High Humbug Of all our faeryland; shall we not, Anice?
AMEENA What nonsense, children! You a Sultan, child!
NUREDDENE Your Sultan, mother, as I ever was.
IBN SAWY Let happiness flow out in smiles. Our griefs Are ended and we cluster round our King. The Caliph!
Enter Haroun, Jaafar, Murad, Sunjar, Guards with Alzayni and Almuene.
The peace, Commander of the Faithful!
HAROUN Noble Alfazzal, sit. Sit all of you. This is the thing that does my heart most good, To watch these kind and happy looks and know
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Myself for cause. Therefore I sit enthroned, Allah's Vicegerent, to put down all evil And pluck the virtuous out of danger's hand. Fit work for Kings! not merely the high crown And marching armies and superber ease. Sunjar, Murad and Ajebe, you your King Can best reward. But, Ajebe, in thy house Where thou art Sultan, those reward who well Deserve it.
AJEBE They shall be my household queens, Enthroned upon my either hand.
HAROUN 'Tis well. Sultan Alzayni, not within my realm Shall Kings like thee bear rule. Great though thy crimes, I will not honour thee with imitation, To slay unheard. Thou shalt have judgment, King. But for thy Vizier here, his crimes are open And loudly they proclaim themselves.
ALMUENE Lord, spare me.
HAROUN For some offences God has punished thee. Shall I, His great Vicegerent, spare? Young King Of Bassora, to thee I leave thy enemy.
ALMUENE I did according to my blood and nurture, Do thou as much.
NUREDDENE He has beguiled me, Caliph. I cannot now pronounce his doom.
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HAROUN Then I will. Death at this moment! And his house and fortune Are to thy father due. Take him and slay.
Exeunt Guards with Almuene.
Let not his sad and guiltless wife be engulfed In his swift ruin. Virtuous Alfazzal,—
IBN SAWY She is my wife's dear sister and my home Is hers; my children will replace her son.
HAROUN All then is well. Anice, you're satisfied? I never was so scared in all my life As when you rose against me.
ANICE Pardon me!
HAROUN Fair children, worthy of each other's love And beauty! till the Sunderer comes who parts All wedded hands, take your delights on earth, And afterwards in heaven. Meanwhile remember That life is grave and earnest under its smiles, And we too with a wary gaiety Should walk its roads, praying that if we stumble, The All-Merciful may bear our footing up In His strong hand, showing the Father's face And not the stern and dreadful Judge. Farewell. I go to Roman wars. With you the peace!
IBN SAWY Peace with thee, just and mighty Caliph, peace.
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A Dramatic Romance
ANTIOCHUS, TIMOCLES - twin-brothers, Princes of Syria, sons of Nicanor and Cleopatra.
NICANOR - of the royal house, general-in-chief of the Syrian armies.
THOAS, LEOSTHENES - Greek nobles of the Kingdom of Syria, generals of its armies.
PHAYLLUS - an official, afterwards Minister of Timocles.
PHILOCTETES - a young Greek noble of Egypt, friend of Antiochus.
MELITUS - a Court official.
CALLICRATES - a young Greek noble of Syria.
THERAS - a gentleman in waiting.
AN EREMITE.
CLEOPATRA - an Egyptian princess, sister of the reigning Ptolemy, Queen of Syria; widow successively of King Nicanor and his brother Antiochus.
RODOGUNE - a princess of Parthia, prisoner in Antioch.
EUNICE - daughter of Nicanor.
CLEONE - sister of Phayllus, in attendance on the Queen.
MENTHO - an Egyptian woman, nurse of Antiochus.
ZOŸLA - an attendant of Cleopatra.
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Antioch. The Palace; a house by the sea.
The Palace in Antioch; Cleopatra's antechamber.
Cleone is seated; to her enters Eunice.
CLEONE Always he lives!
EUNICE No, his disease, not he. For the divinity that sits in man From that afflicted body has withdrawn,— Its pride, its greatness, joy, command, the Power Unnameable that struggles with its world: The husk, the creature only lives. But that husk Has a heart, a mind and all accustomed wants, And having these must be,—O, it is pitiful,— Stripped of all real homage, forced to see That none but Death desires him any more.
CLEONE You pity?
EUNICE Seems it strange to you? I pity. I loved him not,—who did? But I am human And feel the touch of tears. A death desired Is still a death and man is always man
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Although an enemy. If I ever slew, I think 'twould be with pity in the blow That it was needed.
CLEONE That's a foolish thought.
EUNICE If it were weakness and delayed the stroke.
CLEONE The Queen waits by him still?
EUNICE No longer now. For while officiously she served her lord, The dying monarch cast a royal look Of sternness on her. "Cease," he said, "O woman, To trouble with thy ill-dissembled joy My passing. Call thy sons! Before they come I shall have gone into the shadow. Yet Too much exult not, lest the angry gods Chastise thee with the coming of thy sons At which thou now rejoicest."
CLEONE Where is she then Or who waits on her?
EUNICE Rodogune.
CLEONE That slave! No nobler attendance?
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EUNICE I think I hear the speech Of upstarts. Are you, Cleone, of that tribe?
CLEONE I marvel at your strange attraction, Princess, You fondle and admire a statue of chalk In a black towel dismally arranged!
EUNICE She has roses in her pallor, but they are The memory of a blush in ivory. She is all silent, gentle, pale and pure, Dim-natured with a heart as soft as sleep.
CLEONE She is a twilight soul, not frank, not Greek, Some Magian's daughter full of midnight spells. I think she is a changeling from the dead. I hate the sorceress!
EUNICE We shall have a king Who's young, Cleone; Rodogune is fair. What think you of it, you small bitter heart?
CLEONE He will prefer the roses and the day, I hope!
EUNICE Yourself, you think? O, see her walk! A floating lily in moonlight was her sister.
Rodogune enters.
RODOGUNE His agony ends at last.
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CLEONE Why have you left Your mistress and your service, Rodogune?
RODOGUNE She will not have me near her now; she says I look at her with eyes too wondering and too large. So she expects alone her husband's end And her release. Alas, the valiant man, The king, the trampler of the fields of death! He called to victory and she ran to him, He made of conquest his camp-follower. How He lies forsaken! None regard his end; His flatterers whisper round him, his no more; His almost widow smiles. Better would men, Could they foresee their ending, understand The need of mercy.
CLEONE My sandal-string is loose; Kneel down and tie it, Parthian Rodogune.
EUNICE You too may feel the need of mercy yet, Cleone.
Cleopatra enters swiftly from the corridors of the Palace.
CLEOPATRA Antiochus is dead, is dead, and I Shall see at last the faces of my sons. O, I could cry upon the palace-tops My exultation! Gaze not on me so, Eunice. I have lived for eighteen years With silence and my anguished soul within While all the while a mother's heart in me Cried for her children's eyelids, wept to touch
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The little bodies that with pain I bore. The long chill dawnings came without that joy. Only my hateful husband and his crown,— His crown!
EUNICE To the world he was a man august, High-thoughted, grandiose, valiant. Leave him to death, And thou enjoy thy children.
CLEOPATRA He would not let my children come to me, Therefore I spit upon his corpse. Eunice, Have you not thought sometimes how strange it will feel To see my tall strong sons come striding in Who were two lisping babes, two pretty babes? Sometimes I think they are not changed at all And I shall see my small Antiochus With those sweet sunlight curls, his father's curls, And eyes in which an infant royalty Expressed itself in glances, Timocles Holding his brother's hand and toiling to me With eyes like flowers wide-opened by the wind And rosy lips that laugh towards my breast. Will it not be strange, so sweet and strange?
EUNICE And when Will they arrive from Egypt?
CLEOPATRA Ah, Eunice, From Egypt! They are here, Eunice.
EUNICE Here!
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CLEOPATRA Not in this room, dear fool; in Antioch, hid Where never cruel eyes could come at them. O, did you think a mother's hungry heart Could lose one fluttering moment of delight After such empty years? Theramenes,— The swift hawk he is,—by that good illness helped Darted across and brought them. They're here, Eunice! I saw them not even then, not even then Could clasp, but now Antiochus is dead, Is dead, my lips shall kiss them! Messengers Abridge the road with tempest in their hooves To bring them to me!
EUNICE Imperil not with memories of hate The hour of thy new-found felicity; For souls dislodged are dangerous and the gods Have their caprices.
CLEOPATRA Will the Furies stir Because I hated grim Antiochus? When I have slain my kin, then let them wake. The man who's dead was nothing to my heart: My husband was Nicanor, my beautiful High-hearted lord with his bright auburn hair And open face. When he died miserably A captive in the hated Parthian's bonds, My heart was broken. Only for my babes I knit the pieces strongly to each other, My little babes whom I must send away To Egypt far from me! But for Antiochus, That gloomy, sullen and forbidding soul, Harsh-featured, hard of heart, rough mud of camps And marches,—he was never lord of me. He was a reason of State, an act of policy;
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And he exiled my children. You have not been A mother!
EUNICE I will love with you, Cleopatra, Although to hate unwilling.
CLEOPATRA Love me and with me As much as your pale quiet Parthian's loved Whom for your sake I have not slain.
CLEONE She too, The Parthian!—blames you. Was it not she who said, Your joy will bring a curse upon your sons?
CLEOPATRA Hast thou so little terror?
EUNICE Never she said it!
CLEOPATRA Fear yet; be wise! I cannot any more Feel anger! Never again can grief be born In this glad world that gives me back my sons. I can think only of my children's arms. There is a diphony of music swells Within me and it cries a double name, Twin sounds, Antiochus and Timocles, Timocles and Antiochus, the two Changing their places sweetly like a pair Of happy lovers in my brain.
CLEONE But which
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Shall be our king in Syria?
CLEOPATRA Both shall be kings, My kings, my little royal faces made To rule my breast. Upon a meaner throne What matters who shall reign for both?
Zoӱla enters.
ZOŸLA Madam, The banner floats upon that seaward tower.
CLEOPATRA O my soul, fly to perch there! Shall it not seem My children's robes as motherwards they run to me Tired of their distant play?
She leaves the room followed by Zoӱla.
EUNICE You, you, Cleone! gods are not in the world If you end happily.
RODOGUNE Do not reproach her. I have no complaint against one human creature; Nature and Fate do all.
EUNICE Because you were born, My Rodogune, to suffer and be sweet As was Cleone to offend. O snake, For all thy gold and roses!
RODOGUNE I did not think Her guiltless sons must pay her debt. Account
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Is kept in heaven and our own offences Too heavy a load for us to bear.
Rodogune and Eunice go out.
CLEONE The doll, The Parthian puppet whom she fondles so, She hardly has a glance for me! I am glad This gloomy, grand Antiochus is dead. O now for pastime, dances, youth and flowers! Youth, youth! for we shall have upon the throne No grey beard longer, but some glorious boy Made for delight with whom we shall be young For ever.
(to Phayllus, as he enters)
Rejoice, brother; he is dead.
PHAYLLUS It was my desire and fear that killed him then; For he was nosing into my accounts. When shall we have these two king-cubs and which Is the crowned lion?
CLEONE That is hidden, Phayllus; You know it.
PHAYLLUS I know; I wish I also knew Why it was hidden. Perhaps there is no cause Save the hiding! Women feign and lie by nature As the snake coils, no purpose served by it. Or was it the grim king who'ld have it so?
CLEONE They are in Antioch.
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PHAYLLUS That I knew.
CLEONE You knew?
PHAYLLUS Before Queen Cleopatra. They do not sleep Who govern kingdoms; they have ears and eyes.
CLEONE Knew and they live!
PHAYLLUS Why should one slay in vain? A dying man has nothing left to fear Or hope for. He belongs to other cares. Whichever of these Syrian cubs be crowned, He will be hungry, young and African; He will need caterers.
CLEONE Shall they not be found?
PHAYLLUS In Egypt they have other needs than ours. There lust's almost as open as feasting is; Science and poetry and learned tastes Are not confined to books, but life's an art. There are faint mysteries, there are lurid pomps; Strong philtres pass and covert drugs. Desire Is married to fulfilment, pain's enjoyed And love sometimes procures his prey for death. He'll want those strange and vivid colours here, Not dull diplomacies and hard rough arms. Then who shall look to statecraft's arid needs If not Phayllus?
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CLEONE We shall rise?
PHAYLLUS It is that I came to learn from you. I have a need for growth; I feel a ray come nearer to my brow, The world expands before me. Will you assist,— For you have courage, falsehood, brains,—my growth? Your own assisted,—that is understood.
CLEONE Because I am near the Queen?
PHAYLLUS That helps, perhaps, But falls below the mark at which I aim. If you were nearer to the King,—why, then!
CLEONE Depend on me.
PHAYLLUS Cleone, we shall rise.
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The colonnade of a house in Antioch, overlooking the sea.
Antiochus, Philoctetes.
ANTIOCHUS The summons comes not and my life still waits.
PHILOCTETES Patience, beloved Antiochus. Even now He fronts the darkness.
ANTIOCHUS Nothing have I spoken As wishing for his death. His was a mould That should have been immortal. But since all Are voyagers to one goal and wishing's vain To hold one traveller back, I keep my hopes. O Philoctetes, we who missed his life, Should have the memory of his end! Unseen He goes from us into the shades, unknown: We are denied his solemn hours.
PHILOCTETES All men Are not like thee, my monarch, and this king Was great but dangerous as a lion is Who lives in deserts mightily alone. Admire him from that distance.
ANTIOCHUS O fear and base suspicion, evillest part Of Nature, how you spoil our grandiose life!
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All heights are lowered, our wide embrace restrained, God's natural sunshine darkened by your fault. We were not meant for darkness, plots and hatred Reading our baseness in another's mind, But like good wrestlers, hearty comrades, hearty foes, To take and give in life's great lists together Blows and embraces.
PHILOCTETES A mother's love, a mother's fears Earn their excuse.
ANTIOCHUS I care not for such love. O Philoctetes, all this happy night I could not sleep; for proud dreams came to me In which I sat on Syria's puissant throne, Or marched through Parthia with the iron pomps Of war resounding in my train, or swam My charger through the Indus undulant, Or up to Ganges and the torrid south Restored once more the Syrian monarchy. It is divinity on earth to be a king.
PHILOCTETES But if the weaker prove the elder born? If Timocles were Fate's elected king?
ANTIOCHUS Dear merry Timocles! he would not wish To wear the iron burden of a crown; If he has joy, it is enough for him. Sunshine and laughter and the arms of friends Guard his fine monarchy of cheerful mind.
PHILOCTETES If always Fate were careful to fit in
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The nature with the lot! But she sometimes Loves these strange contrasts and crude ironies.
ANTIOCHUS Has not nurse Mentho often sworn to me That I, not he, saw earth the first?
PHILOCTETES And when Did woman's tongue except in wrath or malice Deliver truth that's bitter?
ANTIOCHUS Philoctetes, Do you not wish me to be king?
PHILOCTETES Why left I then Nile in his fields and Egypt slumbering Couchant upon her sands, but to pursue Your gallant progress sailing through life's seas Shattering opponents till your flag flew high, Sole admiral-ship of all this kingly world? But since upon this random earth unjust We travel stumbling to the pyre, not led By any Power nor any law, and neither What we desire nor what we deserve Arrives, but unintelligible dooms O'ertake us and the travesty of things, It is better not to hope too much.
ANTIOCHUS It is better To lift our hopes heaven-high and to extend them As wide as earth. Heaven did not give me in vain This royal nature and this kingly form, These thoughts that wear a crown. They were not meant
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For mockery nor to fret a subject's heart. Do you not hear the ardour of those hooves? My kingdom rides to me.
He hastens to the other end of the colonnade.
PHILOCTETES O glorious youth Whose young heroic arms would gird the world, I like a proud and anxious mother follow, Desiring, fearing, drawn by cords of hope and love, Admire and doubt, exult and quake and chide. She is so glad of her brave, beautiful child, But trembles lest his courage and his beauty Alarm the fatal jealousy that watches us From thrones unseen.
Thoas and Melitus enter from the gates.
THOAS Are these the Syrian twins?
PHILOCTETES The elder of them only, Antiochus Of Syria.
THOAS Son of Nicanor! Antiochus The high Seleucid travels the dull stream And Syria's throne is empty for his heir.
ANTIOCHUS A glorious sun has fallen then from heaven Saddening the nations, even those he smote. It is the rule of Nature makes us rise Despite our hearts replacing what we love, And I am happy who am called so soon To rule a nation of such princely men. Are you not Thoas?
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THOAS Thoas of Macedon.
ANTIOCHUS Thoas, we shall be friends. Will it be long Before we march together through the world To stable our horses in Persepolis?
He turns to speak to Timocles who has just entered and goes into the house.
MELITUS This is a royal style and kingly brow.
THOAS The man is royal. What a face looks forth From under that bright aureole of hair!
TIMOCLES I greet you, Syrians. Shall I know your names?
MELITUS Melitus. This is Thoas.
TIMOCLES Melitus? Oh yes, of Macedon.
MELITUS No, Antioch.
TIMOCLES It is the same. We talked of you in Alexandria and in Thebes, All of you famous captains. Your great names Are known to us, as now yourselves must be Known and admired and loved.
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MELITUS Your courtesy Overwhelms me; but I am no captain, only The King's poor chamberlain, your servant come To greet you.
TIMOCLES Not therefore less a cherished friend Whose duty helps our daily happiness. Thoas, your name is in our country's book Inscribed too deeply to demand poor praise From one who never yet has drawn his sword In anger.
THOAS I am honoured, Prince. Do not forget Your mother is waiting for you after eighteen years.
TIMOCLES My mother! O, I have a mother at last. You lords shall tell me as we go, how fair She is or dark like our Egyptian dames, Noble and tall or else a brevity Of queenhood. And her face—but that, be sure, Is the sweet loving face I have seen so often In Egypt when I lay awake at night And heard the breezes whispering outside With many voices in the moonlit hours. It is late, Thoas, is it not, a child to see His mother when eighteen years have made him big? This, this is Paradise, a mother, friends And Syria. In our swart Egypt 'twas no life,— Although I liked it well when I was there; But O, your Syria! I have spent whole hours Watching your gracile Syrian women pass With their bright splendid faces. And your flowers, What flowers! and best of all, your sun, not like
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That burning Egypt, but a warmth, a joy And a kind brightness. It will be all pleasure To reign in such a country.
ANTIOCHUS (returning from the house) Let us ride Into our kingdom.
TIMOCLES Antioch in sweet Syria, The realm for gods, and Daphne's golden groves, And swift Orontes hastening to the sea! Ride by me, Melitus, tell me everything.
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Cleopatra's antechamber in the Palace.
Cleopatra, seated; Rodogune.
CLEOPATRA It is their horsehooves ride into my heart. It shall be done. What have I any more To do with hatred? Parthian Rodogune, Have you forgotten now your former pomps And princely thoughts in high Persepolis, Or do your dreams still linger near a throne?
RODOGUNE I think all fallen beings needs must keep Some dream out of their happier past,—or else How hard it would be to live!
CLEOPATRA O, if some hope survive In the black midst of care, however small, We can live, then only, O then only.
RODOGUNE Hope! I have forgotten how men hope.
CLEOPATRA Is your life hard In Syrian Antioch, Rodogune, a slave To your most bitter foemen?
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RODOGUNE Not when you speak So gently. Always I strive to make it sweet By outward harmony with circumstance And a calm soul within that is above My fortunes.
CLEOPATRA Parthian, you have borne the hate My husband's murder bred in me towards all Your nation. When I felt you with my heel, I trampled Tigris and Euphrates then And Parthia suffered. Therefore I let you live Half-loving in your body my revenge. But these are cruel and unhappy thoughts I hope to slay and bury with the past Which gave them birth. Will you assist me, girl? Will you begin with me another life And other feelings?
RODOGUNE If our fates allow Which are not gentle.
CLEOPATRA My life begins again, My life begins again in my dear sons And my dead husband lives. All's sweetly mended. I do not wish for hatred any more. The horrible and perilous hands of war Appal me. O, let our peoples sit at ease In Grecian Antioch and Persepolis, Mothers and children, clasping those golden heads Deep, deep within our bosoms, never allow Their going forth again to bonds and death. Peace, peace, let us have peace for ever more.
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RODOGUNE And will peace take me to my father's arms?
CLEOPATRA Or else detain you on a kingly throne. There are happier fetters.
RODOGUNE If it must be so!
CLEOPATRA Art thou insensible or fearst to rise? I cannot think that even in barbarous lands Any called human are so made that they prefer Serfhood and scourge to an imperial throne. Or is there such a soul?
RODOGUNE Shall I not know My husband first?
CLEOPATRA I did not ask your choice, But gave you a command to be obeyed Like any other that each day I give.
RODOGUNE Shall I be given him as a slave, not wife?
CLEOPATRA You rise, I think, too quickly with your fate. Or art thou other than I saw or thou Feignedst to be? Hast thou been wearing all this while Only a mask of smooth servility, Thou subtle barbarian?
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RODOGUNE Speak not so harshly to me Who spoke so gently now. I will obey.
CLEOPATRA Hop'st thou by reigning to reign over me Restoring on a throne thy Parthian soul?
RODOGUNE What shall I be upon the Syrian throne Except your first of slaves who am now the last, The least considered? I hope not to reign, Nor ever have desired ambitious joys, Only the love that I have lacked so long Since I left Parthia.
CLEOPATRA Obey me then. Remember, The hand that seats thee can again unthrone.
RODOGUNE I shall remember and I shall obey.
She retires to her station.
CLEOPATRA Her flashes of quick pride are quickly past. After so many cruel, black and pitiless years Shall not the days to come conspire for joy? The Queen shall be my slave, a mind that's trained To watch for orders, one without a party In Syria, with no will to take my son from me Or steal my sovereign station. O, they come! Slowly, my heart! break not with too much bliss.
Eunice comes in swiftly.
EUNICE Am I the first to tell you they have come?
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CLEOPATRA O girl, thy tongue rain joy upon the world, That speaks to me of heaven!
Cleone enters.
CLEONE (to Eunice) They are more beautiful than heaven and earth.
(to Cleopatra)
Thy children's feet are on the palace stairs.
CLEOPATRA O no! not of the palace but my heart; I feel their tread ascending. Be still, be still, Thou flutterer in my breast: I am a queen And must not hear thee.
Thoas and Melitus enter bringing in Antiochus and Timocles.
THOAS Queen, we bring her sons To Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA I thank you both. Approach. Why dost thou beat so hard within to choke me?
She motions to them to stop and gazes on them in silence.
TIMOCLES This is my mother. She is what I dreamed!
EUNICE O high inhabitants of Greek Olympus, Which of you all comes flashing down from heaven To snare us mortals with this earthly gaze, These simulations of humanity?
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CLEOPATRA Say to the Syrians they shall know their king In the gods' time and hour. But these first days Are for a mother.
THOAS None shall grudge them to thee, Remembering the gods' debt to thee, Cleopatra.
Thoas and Melitus leave the chamber.
CLEOPATRA My children, O my children, my sweet children! Come to me, come to me, come into my arms. You beautiful, you bright, you tall heart-snarers, You are all your father.
TIMOCLES Mother, my sweet mother! I have been dreaming of you all these years, Mother!
CLEOPATRA And was the dream too fair, my child? O strange, sweet bitterness that I must ask My child his name!
TIMOCLES I am your Timocles.
CLEOPATRA You first within my arms! O right, 'tis right! It is your privilege, my sweet one. Kiss me. O yet again, my young son Timocles. O bliss, to feel the limbs that I have borne Within me! O my young radiant Timocles, You have outgrown to lie upon my lap: I have not had that mother's happiness.
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TIMOCLES Mother, I am still your little Timocles Playing at bigness. You shall not refuse me The sweet dependent state which I have lost In that far motherless Egypt where I pined.
CLEOPATRA And like a child too, little one, you'ld have All of your mother to yourself. Must I Then thrust you from me? Let Antiochus, My tall Antiochus have now his share.
RODOGUNE He is all high and beautiful like heaven From which he came. I have not seen before A thing so mighty.
ANTIOCHUS Madam, I seek your blessing; let me kneel To have it.
CLEOPATRA Kneel! O, in my bosom, son! Have you too dreamed of me, Antiochus?
ANTIOCHUS Of great Nicanor's widow and the Queen Of Syria and my sacred fount of life.
CLEOPATRA These are cold haughty names, Antiochus. Not of your mother, not of your dear mother?
ANTIOCHUS You were for me the thought of motherhood, A noble thing and sacred. This I loved.
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CLEOPATRA No more? Are you so cold in speech, my son? O son Antiochus, you have received Your father's face; I hope you have his heart. Do you not love me?
ANTIOCHUS Surely I hope to love.
CLEOPATRA You hope!
ANTIOCHUS O madam, do not press my words.
CLEOPATRA I do press them. Your words, your lips, your heart, Your radiant body noble as a god's I, I made in my womb, to give them light Bore agony. I have a claim upon them all. You do not love me?
ANTIOCHUS The thought of you I have loved, Honoured and cherished. By your own decree We have been to each other only thoughts; But now we meet. I trust I shall not fail In duty, love and reverence to my mother.
EUNICE His look is royal, but his speech is cold.
RODOGUNE Should he debase his godhead with a lie? She is to blame and her unjust demand.
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CLEOPATRA It is well. My heart half slew me for only this! O Timocles, my little Timocles, Let me again embrace you, let me feel My child who dreamed of me for eighteen years In Egypt. Sit down here against my knee And tell me of Egypt,—Egypt where I was born, Egypt where my sweet sons were kept from me, Dear Egypt, hateful Egypt!
TIMOCLES I loved it well because it bore my mother, But not so well, my mother far from me.
CLEOPATRA What was your life there? Your mornings and your evenings, Your dreams at night, I must possess them all, All the sweet years my arms have lost. Did you Rising in those clear mornings see the Nile, Our father Nile, flow through the solemn azure Past the great temples in the sands of Egypt? You have seen hundred-gated Thebes, my Thebes, And my high tower where I would sit at eve Watching your kindred sun? And Alexandria With the white multitude of sails! My brother, The royal Ptolemy, did he not love To clasp his sister in your little limbs? There is so much to talk of; but not now! Eunice, take them from me for a while. Take Rodogune and call the other slaves. Let them array my sons like the great kings They should have been so long. Go, son Antiochus; Go, Timocles, my little Timocles.
ANTIOCHUS We are the future's greatness, therefore owe Some duty to the grandeurs of the past.
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The great Antiochus lies hardly cold, Garbed for his journey. I would kneel by him And draw his mightiness into my soul Before the gloomy shades have taken away What earth could hardly value.
EUNICE This was a stab. Is there some cold ironic god at work?
CLEOPATRA The great Antiochus! Of him you dreamed? You are his nephew! Parthian, take the prince To the dead King's death-chamber, then to his own.
ANTIOCHUS She was the Parthian! Great Antiochus, Syria thou leav'st me and her and Persia afterwards To be my lovely captive.
He goes out with Rodogune.
TIMOCLES (as he follows Eunice) Tell me, cousin,— I knew not I had such sweet cousins here,— Was this the Parthian princess Rodogune?
EUNICE Phraates' daughter, Prince, your mother's slave.
TIMOCLES There are lovelier faces then than Syria owns.
He goes out with Eunice.
CLEOPATRA You gods, you gods in heaven, you give us hearts For life to trample on! I am sick, Cleone.
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CLEONE Why, Madam, what a son you have in him, The joyous fair-faced Timocles, yet you are sick!
CLEOPATRA But the other, oh, the other! Antiochus! He has the face that gives my husband back to me, But does not love me.
CLEONE Yet he will be king. You said he was the elder.
CLEOPATRA Did I say it? I was perplexed.
CLEONE He will be king, a man With a cold joyless heart and thrust you back Into some distant corner of your house And rule instead and fill with clamorous war Syria and Parthia and the banks of Indus Taking our lovers and our sons to death! Our sons! Perhaps he will take Timocles And offer him, a lovely sacrifice, To the grim god of battles.
CLEOPATRA My Timocles! my only joy! Oh, no! We will have peace henceforth and bloodless dawns. My envoys ride today.
CLEONE He will recall them. This is no man to rest in peaceful ease While other sceptres sway the neighbouring realms.
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War and Ambition from his eyes look forth; His hand was made to grasp a sword-hilt. Queen, Prevent it; let our Timocles be king.
CLEOPATRA What did you say? Have you gone mad, Cleone? The gods would never bless such vile deceit. O, if it could have been! but it cannot.
CLEONE It must. Timocles dead, you a neglected mother, A queen dethroned, with one unloving child,— Childless were better,—and your age as lonely As these long nineteen years have been. Then you had hope, You will have none hereafter.
CLEOPATRA If I thought that, I would transgress all laws yet known or made And dare Heaven's utmost anger. Gods who mock me, I will not suffer to all time your wrongs. Hush, hush, Cleone! It shall not be so. I thought my heart would break with joy, but now What different passion tugs at my heart-strings, Cleone, O Cleone! O my sweet dreams, Where have you gone yielding to pangs and fears Your happy empire? Am I she who left Laughing the death-bed of Antiochus?
She goes into her chamber.
CLEONE We must have roses, sunlight, laughter, Prince, Not cold, harsh light of arms. Your laurels, laurels! We'll blast them quickly with a good Greek lie. Where he has gone, admire Antiochus, Not here repeat him.
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The Palace in Antioch
A hall in the Palace.
Cleone, Phayllus.
PHAYLLUS Worry the conscience of the Queen to death Like the good bitch thou art. If this goes well, I may sit unobserved on Syria's throne.
CLEONE Do not forget me.
PHAYLLUS Do not forget thyself, Then how shall I forget thee?
CLEONE I shall remember.
PHAYLLUS If for a game you were the queen, Cleone, And I your minister, how would you start Your play of reigning?
CLEONE I would have many perfect tortures made To hurt the Parthian with, for every nerve
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A torture. I would lie in flowers the while Drinking sweet Cyprian wine and hear her moan.
PHAYLLUS I do not like your thought; have better ones.
CLEONE Shall I not satisfy my love, my hate? Then just as well I might not reign at all.
PHAYLLUS O hatred, love and wrath, you instruments By which we are driven! Cleone, the gods use these For their own purposes, not we for ours.
CLEONE I'll do my will, Phayllus; you do yours.
PHAYLLUS Our kingdom being won! It is not, yet.
(turning away)
She's too violent for my calmer ends; Lust drives her, not ambition. I wait on you, You gods who choose. If Fate intends my rise, She will provide the instruments and cause.
Timocles enters from the inner palace.
TIMOCLES I think I am afraid to speak to her. I never felt so with the Egyptian girls In Thebes or Alexandria. Are you not Phayllus?
PHAYLLUS You remember faces well And have the trick for names, the monarch's trick.
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TIMOCLES Antiochus, all say, will be the king.
PHAYLLUS But I say otherwise and what I say Has a strange gift of happening.
TIMOCLES You're my friend!
PHAYLLUS My own and therefore yours.
TIMOCLES This is your sister?
PHAYLLUS Cleone.
TIMOCLES A name that in its sound agrees With Syria's roses. Are you too my friend, Cleone?
CLEONE Your subject, prince.
TIMOCLES And why not both?
CLEONE To serve is better.
TIMOCLES Shall I try your will?
(embracing her)
Thou art warm fire against the lips, thou rose Cleone.
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CLEONE May I test in turn?
TIMOCLES Oh, do!
CLEONE A rose examines by her thorns,—as thus.
She strikes him lightly on the cheek and goes out.
TIMOCLES (looking uncertainly at Phayllus who is stroking his chin) It was a courtesy,—our Egyptian way.
PHAYLLUS Hers was the Syrian. Do not excuse yourself; I am her brother.
TIMOCLES (turns as if to go, hesitates, then comes back) Oh, have you met, Phayllus, A Parthian lady here named Rodogune?
PHAYLLUS Blows the wind east? But if it brings me good, Let it blow where it will. I know the child. She's fair. You'ld have her?
TIMOCLES Fie on you, Phayllus!
PHAYLLUS Prince, I have a plain tongue which, when I hunger, Owns that there is a belly. Speak in your language! I understand men's phrases though I use them not.
TIMOCLES Think not that evil! She is not like those, The common flowers which have a fair outside
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Of beauty, but the common hand can pluck. We wear such lightly, smell and throw away. She is not like them.
PHAYLLUS No? Yet were they all Born from one mother Nature. What if she wears The quick barbarian's robe called modesty? There is a woman always in the end Behind that shimmering. Pluck the robe, 'twill fall; Then is she Nature's still.
TIMOCLES I have seen her eyes; they are a liquid purity.
PHAYLLUS And yet a fish swims there which men call love, But truth names lust or passion. Fear not, prince; The fish will rise to such an angler's cast.
TIMOCLES Mistake me not, nor her. These things are done, But not with such as she; she is heaven-pure And must like heaven be by worship won.
PHAYLLUS What is it then that you desire of her Or ask of me? I can do always much.
TIMOCLES O nothing else but this, only to kneel, Look up at her and touch the little hand That fluttered like a moonlit butterfly Above my mother's hair. If she consenting smiled A little, I might even dare so much.
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PHAYLLUS Why, she's your slave-girl!
TIMOCLES I shall kneel to her Some day and feel her hand upon my brow.
PHAYLLUS What animal this is, I hardly know, But know it is the animal for me: My genius tells me. Prince, I need a bribe Before I'll stir in this.
TIMOCLES What bribe, Phayllus?
PHAYLLUS A name,—your friend.
TIMOCLES O more than merely friend! Bring me into the temple dim and pure Whence my own hopes and fears now bar me out, Then I am yours, Phayllus, you myself For all things.
PHAYLLUS Remember me when you have any need.
He goes out.
TIMOCLES I have a friend! He is the very first Who was not conquered by Antiochus. How has this love like lightning leaped at me!
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Eunice, Rodogune.
RODOGUNE Heaven had a purpose in my servitude! I will believe it.
EUNICE One sees not now such men. What a calm royalty his glances wield! We are their subjects. And he treads the earth As if it were already his.
RODOGUNE All must be. I have lived a slave, yet always held myself A nobler spirit than my Grecian lords; But when he spoke, O, when he looked at me, I felt indeed the touch of servitude And this time loved it.
EUNICE O, you too, Rodogune!
RODOGUNE I too! What do you mean? Are you, Eunice—
EUNICE I mean, our thorny rose Cleone too Has fallen in love with pretty Timocles.
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RODOGUNE You slanderer! But I thought a nearer thing That ran like terror through my heart.
EUNICE And so You love him?
RODOGUNE What have I said, Eunice? what have I said? I did not say it.
EUNICE You did not say it, no! You lovely fool, hide love with blushes then And lower over your liquid love-filled eyes Their frightened lashes! Quake, my antelope! I'll have revenge at least. O sweet, sweet heart, My delicate Parthian! I shall never have Another love, but only Rodogune, My beautiful barbarian Rodogune With the tall dainty grace and the large eyes And vague faint pallor just like twilit ivory.
RODOGUNE My own Eunice!
They embrace. Phayllus enters.
PHAYLLUS (stroking his chin) I always hated waste.
EUNICE Your steps too steal, Phayllus?
PHAYLLUS I have a message.
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EUNICE I do not like the envoy. Find another And I will hear it.
PHAYLLUS Come, you put me out.
EUNICE Of your accounts? They say there is too much You have put out already for your credit.
PHAYLLUS You're called. The Queen's in haste, Cleone said.
Eunice goes.
Parthian, will you be Syria's queen or no? I startle you. The royal Timocles By your beauty strives ensnared. Don not your mask Of modesty, keep that for Timocles. I offer you a treaty. By my help You can advance your foot to Syria's throne: His bed's the staircase and you shall ascend, Nor will I rest till you are seated there. Come, have I helped you? Shall we be allies?
RODOGUNE You speak a language that I will not hear.
PHAYLLUS Oh, language! you're for language, all of you. Are you not Parthia's daughter? do you not wish To sit upon a throne?
RODOGUNE Not by your help, Nor as the bride of Syrian Timocles. What are these things you speak?
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PHAYLLUS Weigh not my speech, But only my sincerity. I have a tongue Displeasing to all women. Heed not that! My heart is good, my meaning better still.
RODOGUNE Perhaps! But know I yearn not for a throne. And if I did, Antiochus is king And not this younger radiance.
PHAYLLUS That's your reason? You are deceived. Besides he loves you not Nor ever will put on a female yoke. Prefer this woman's clay, this Timocles And by my help you shall have empire, joy, All the heart needs, the pleasures bodies use.
RODOGUNE I need no empire save my high-throned heart, I seek no power save that of sceptred love, I ask no help beyond what Ormuzd gives. Enough. I thank you.
PHAYLLUS You're subtler than these Greeks. Must he then pine? Shall he not plead his cause?
RODOGUNE I would not have him waste his heart in pain If what you say is true. Let him then know This cannot be.
PHAYLLUS He will not take from me An answer you yourself alone can give.
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I think you parry to be more attacked.
RODOGUNE Think what you will, but leave me.
PHAYLLUS If you mean that, The way to show it is to let him come. You feign and do not mean this, or else you would Deny him to his face.
RODOGUNE (flushing angrily) I will; tell him to come.
PHAYLLUS I thought so. Come he shall. Remember me.
RODOGUNE I did not well to bid him come to me. It is some passing fancy of the blood. I do not hear that he was ever hurt But danced a radiant and inconstant moth Above the Egyptian blossoms.
Timocles enters hastily, hesitates, then rushes and throws himself at the feet of Rodogune.
TIMOCLES Rodogune! I love thee, princess; thou hast made me mad. I know not what I do nor what I speak. What dreadful god has seized upon my heart? I am not Timocles and not my own, But am a fire and am a raging wind To seize on thee and am a driven leaf. O Rodogune, turn not away from me. Forgive me, O, forgive me. I cannot help it
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If thou hast made me love thee. Tremble not, Nor grow so pale and look with panic glances As if a fire had clutched thee by the robe. I am thy menial, thy poor trembling slave And thou canst slay me with a passing frown.
RODOGUNE Touch not my hand! 'tis sacred from thy touch!
TIMOCLES It is most sacred; even the roseate nail Of thee, O thou pale goddess, is a mystery And a strange holiness. Scorched be his hand Who dares with lightest sacrilegious touch Profane thee, O deep-hearted miracle, Unless thy glorious eyes condone the fault By growing tender. O thou wondrous Parthian, Fear not my love; it grows a cloistered worship. See, I can leave thee! see, I can retire. Look once on me, one look is food enough For many twelvemonths.
Eunice returns.
EUNICE You wrong your mother, cousin. Her moments linger when you are not there; Always she asks for you.
TIMOCLES My mother! You gods, Forbid it, lest I weary of her love.
He goes.
EUNICE What was this? Speak.
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RODOGUNE Was Fate not satisfied With my captivity? Waits worse behind? It was a grey and clouded sky before And bleak enough but quiet. Now I see Fresh clouds come stored with thunder toiling up From a black-piled horizon.
EUNICE Tell me all. What said Phayllus to you, the dire knave Who speaks to poison?
RODOGUNE He spoke of love and thrones and Timocles; He spoke as selfish cunning men may speak Who mean some evil they call good.
EUNICE And how Came Timocles behind him?
RODOGUNE Called by him, With such wild passion burning under his lids I never thought to see in human eyes. What are these movements?
EUNICE We move as we must, Not as we choose, whatever we may think. Your beauty is a torch you needs must carry About the world with you. You cannot help it If it burns kingdoms.
RODOGUNE I pray it may not. God who only rulest,
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Let not the evil spirit use my love To bring misfortune on Antiochus.
Mentho enters.
MENTHO Which is the Parthian?
EUNICE She.
MENTHO Antiochus Desires you in his chamber with a bowl Of Lesbian vintage.
EUNICE Does he desire? The gods then choose their hour For intervention. Move, you Parthian piece.
RODOGUNE Send someone else. I cannot go.
EUNICE I think You have forgotten that you are a slave. You are my piece and I will have you move. Move quickly.
RODOGUNE Surely he did not speak my name?
MENTHO Why do you fear, my child? He's good and noble And kind in speech and gentle to his servants.
RODOGUNE (low, to herself) It is not him I fear, it is myself.
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EUNICE Fear me instead. You shall be cruelly whipped Unless you move this instant.
RODOGUNE Oh, Eunice!
EUNICE Whipped savagely! I'll sacrifice so much For a shy pawn who will not move? Go, go, And come not back unkissed if you are wise.
She pushes Rodogune to the door and she goes, followed by Mentho.
His heart's not free, nor hers, or else I'ld try My hand at reigning. As the gods choose. Through her I may rule Syria.
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Antiochus' chamber.
Antiochus, with a map before him.
ANTIOCHUS Ecbatana, Susa and Sogdiana, The Aryan country which the Indus bounds, Euphrates' stream and Tigris' golden sands, The Oxus and Jaxartes and these mountains Vague and enormous shouldering the moon With all their dim beyond of nations huge; This were an empire! What are Syria, Greece And the blue littoral to Gades? They are Too narrow to contain my soul, too petty To satisfy its hunger and its vastness. O pale, sweet Parthian face with liquid eyes Mid darkest masses and O gracious limbs Obscuring this epitome of earth, You will not let me fix my eyes on Susa. I never yearned for any woman yet. While Timocles with the light Theban dames Amused his careless heart, I walked aside; Parthia and Greece became my mistresses. But now my heart is filled with one pale girl. Exult not, archer. I will quiet thee With sudden and assured possession first, Then keep thee beating an eternal strain. I have loved her through past lives and many ages. The Parthian princess, lovely Rodogune! O name of sweetness! Renowned Phraates' daughter, A bud of kings,—my glorious prisoner With those beseeching eyes. O high Antiochus,
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Who snatched her from among her guardian spears, Thou hast gone past but left this prophecy Of beautiful conquered Persia grown my slave To love me. It is thou, my Rodogune!
RODOGUNE (with lowered eyes) I have brought the wine.
ANTIOCHUS Thou art the only wine, O Parthian! Wine to flush Olympian souls Is in this glorious flask. Set down the bowl. Lift up instead thy long and liquid eyes; I grudge them to the marble, Rodogune. Thou knowest well why I have sent for thee. Have we not gazed into each other's eyes And thine confessed their knowledge?
RODOGUNE Prince, I am Thy mother's slave.
ANTIOCHUS Mine, mine, O Rodogune, For I am Syria.
RODOGUNE Thine.
ANTIOCHUS O, thou hast spoken!
RODOGUNE Touch me not, touch me not, Antiochus! Son of Nicanor, spare me, spare thyself. O me! I know the gods prepare some death;
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I am a living misfortune.
ANTIOCHUS Wert thou my fate Of death itself, delightful Rodogune, Not, as thou art, heaven's pledge of bliss, I'ld not abstain From thy delight, but have my joy of thee The short while it is possible on earth. O, play not with the hours, my Rodogune. Why should brief man defer his joys and wait As if life were eternal? Time does not pause, Death does not tarry.
RODOGUNE Alas!
ANTIOCHUS Thou lingerest yet. Wilt thou deny the beating of our hearts That call to us to bridge these sundering paces? O, then I will command thee as a slave. Thou wouldst not let me draw thee, come thyself Into my arms, O perfect Rodogune, My Parthian captive!
RODOGUNE Antiochus, my king!
ANTIOCHUS So heave against me like a wave for ever. Melt warmly into my bosom like the Spring, O honied breathing tumult!
RODOGUNE O release me!
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ANTIOCHUS Thou sudden sorceress, die upon my breast! My arms are cords to bind thee to this stake, Slowly to burn away in crimson fire.
RODOGUNE Release me, O release me!
ANTIOCHUS Not till our lips have joined Eternal wedlock. With this stamp and this And many more I'll seal thee to myself. Eternal Time's too short for all the kisses I yearn for from thee, O pale loveliness, Dim mystery! Press thy lips to mine. Obey. Again! and so again and even for ever Chant love, O marvel, let thy lips' wild music Come faltering from thy heart into my bosom.
Rodogune sinks at his feet and embraces his knees.
RODOGUNE I am thine, thine, thine, thine for ever.
She rises and hides her face in her hands.
ANTIOCHUS (uncovering her face) Beloved, Hide not thy face from love. The gods in heaven Look down on us; let us look up at them With fearless eyes of candid joy and tell them Not Time nor any of their dooms can move us now. The passion of oneness two hearts are this moment Denies the steps of death for ever.
RODOGUNE My heart Stops in me. I can bear no more of bliss.
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Oh, leave me now that I may live for thee.
ANTIOCHUS Stay where thou art. Or go, for thou art mine And I can send thee from me when I will And call thee when I will. Go, Rodogune Who yet remain with me.
Rodogune leaves the chamber with faltering steps.
O Love, thou art Diviner in the enjoying. Can I now Unblinded scan this map? No, she is there; It is her eyes I see and not Ecbatana.
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The hall in the Palace.
Timocles, Phayllus.
TIMOCLES O, all the sweetness and the glory gathered Into one smiling life, the other's left Barren, unbearable, bleak, desolate, A hell of silence and of emptiness Impossible for mortal souls to imagine, Much less to suffer. My mother does this wrong to me! Why should not we, kind brothers all our lives,— O, how we loved each other there in Egypt!— Divide this prize? Let his be Syria's crown,— Oh, let him take it! I have Rodogune.
PHAYLLUS He will consent?
TIMOCLES Oh, yes, and with a smile. He is all loftiness and warlike thoughts. My high Antiochus! how could I dream Of taking from him what he'ld wear so well? Let me have love and joy and Rodogune. The sunlight is enough for me.
PHAYLLUS It may be, Yet not enough for both. Look! there he comes Carrying himself as if he were the sun Brilliant alone in heaven. Oh, that to darken!
Antiochus enters.
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TIMOCLES Brother, it is the kind gods send you here.
ANTIOCHUS Dear Timocles, we meet not all the day. It was not so in Egypt. Tell me now, What were you doing all these busy hours? How many laughing girls of this fair land Have you lured on to love you?
TIMOCLES Have you not heard?
ANTIOCHUS What, Timocles?
TIMOCLES Our mother gives the crown And with the crown apportions Rodogune.
ANTIOCHUS Our royal mother? Are they hers to give? I do not marry by another's will.
TIMOCLES O brother, no; our hearts at least are ours. You have not marked, I think, Antiochus, This pale sweet Parthian Rodogune?
ANTIOCHUS (smiling) No, brother? I have not marked, you say?
TIMOCLES You are so blind To woman's beauty. You only woo great deeds And arms imperial. It is well for me You rather chose to wed the grandiose earth.
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I am ashamed to tell you, dear Antiochus, I grudged the noble crown that soon will rest So gloriously upon you. Take it, brother, But leave me my dim goddess Rodogune.
ANTIOCHUS Thy goddess! thine!
TIMOCLES It is not possible That you too love her!
ANTIOCHUS What is it to thee whom or what I love? Say that I love her not?
TIMOCLES Then is my offer Just, brotherly, not like this causeless wrath.
ANTIOCHUS Thy wondrous offer! Of two things that are mine To fling me one with "There! I want it not, I'll take the other"!
TIMOCLES (in a suffocated voice) Has she made thee king?
ANTIOCHUS I need no human voice to make me anything Who am king by birth and nature. Who else should reign In Syria? Thoughtst thou thy light and shallow head Was meant to wear a crown?
TIMOCLES In Egypt you were not like this, Antiochus.
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ANTIOCHUS See not the Parthian even in dreams at night! Remember not her name!
TIMOCLES She is my mother's slave: I'll ask for her and have her.
ANTIOCHUS Thou shalt have My sword across thy heart-strings first. She is The kingdom's prize and with the kingdom mine.
TIMOCLES My dream, my goddess with those wondrous eyes! My sweet veiled star cloistered in her own charm! I will not yield her to thee, nor the crown, Not wert thou twenty times my brother.
PHAYLLUS Capital! Delightful! O my fortune! my kind fortune!
TIMOCLES Thou lov'st her not who dar'st to think of her As if she were a prize for any arms, Thy slave, thy chattel.
ANTIOCHUS Speak not another word.
PHAYLLUS More! more! My star, thou risest o'er this storm.
ANTIOCHUS I pardon thee, my brother Timocles; Thy light passions are thy excuse. Henceforth
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Offend not. For the Parthian, she is mine And I would keep her though a god desired. Exalt not thy presumptuous eyes henceforth Higher than are her sandals.
PHAYLLUS This is your brother! Shall he not have the crown?
TIMOCLES Nor her, nor Syria.
Rodogune and Eunice enter passing through the hall. Timocles rushes to her.
My Rodogune, my star! Thou knowest the trade Which others seek to make of thee. Resist it, Prevent the insult of this cold award! Say that thou lov'st me.
RODOGUNE Prince, I pity thee, But cannot love.
She passes out.
EUNICE My cousin Timocles, All flowers are not for your plucking. Roses Enough that crave to satisfy your want, Are grown in Syria; take them. Here be wise; Touch not my Parthian blossom.
TIMOCLES How am I smitten as with a thunderbolt!
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PHAYLLUS Will you be dashed by this? They make her think Antiochus will reign in Syria.
TIMOCLES No, She loves him.
PHAYLLUS Is love so quickly born? Oh, then, It will as quickly die. Eunice works here To thwart you; she is for Antiochus.
TIMOCLES All, all are for Antiochus, the crown, And Syria and men's homage, women's hearts And life and sweetness and my love.
PHAYLLUS Young prince, Be more a man. Besiege the girl with gifts And graces; woo her like a queen or force her Like what she is, a slave. Be strong, be sudden, Forestalling this proud brother.
TIMOCLES I would not wrong her pure and shrouded soul Though all the gods in heaven should give me leave.
PHAYLLUS The graceful, handsome fool! Then from your mother Demand her as a gift.
TIMOCLES (going) My soul once more Is hunted by the tempest.
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Cleopatra's chamber.
Cleopatra, Cleone.
CLEOPATRA I am resolved; but Mentho the Egyptian knows The true precedence of the twins. Send her to me.
Cleone goes out.
O you, high-seated cold divinities, You sleep sometimes, they say you sleep. Sleep now! I only loosen what your careless wills Have tangled.
Mentho, sit by me. Mentho, You have not breathed our secret? Keep it, Mentho, Dead in your bosom, buy a queen for slave.
MENTHO Dead! Can truth die?
CLEOPATRA Ah, Mentho, truth! But truth Is often terrible. Justice! but was ever Justice yet seen upon the earth? Man lives Because he is not just and real right Dwells not with law and custom but for him It grows by whose arriving our brief happiness Is best assured and grief prohibited For a while to mortals.
MENTHO This is the thing I feared.
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O wickedness! Well, Queen, I understand.
CLEOPATRA Not less than you I love Antiochus; But Timocles seeks Parthian Rodogune. O, if these brother-loves should turn to hate And slay us all! Then rather let thy nursling stand,— Will he not rule whoever fills the throne?— Approved of heaven and earth, indeed a king, Protector of the weaker Timocles, His right hand in his wars, his pillar, guard And sword of action, grand in loyalty, Kingly in great subjection, famed for love. Then there shall be no grief for anyone And everything consent to our desires.
MENTHO Queen Cleopatra, shall I speak? shall I Forget respect? The god demands my voice. I tell thee then that thy rash brain has hatched A wickedness beyond all parallel, A cold, unmotherly and cruel plot Thou striv'st in vain to alter with thy words. O nature self-deceived! O blinded heart! It is the husband of thy boasted love, Woman, thou wrongest in thy son.
CLEOPATRA Alas, Mentho, my nurse, thou knowest not the cause.
MENTHO I do not need to know. Art thou Olympian Zeus? Has he given thee his sceptre and his charge To guide the tangled world? Wilt thou upset His rulings? wilt thou improve his providence? Are thy light woman's brain and shallow love
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A better guide than his all-seeing eye? O wondrous arrogance of finite men Who would know better than omniscient God! Beware his thunders and observe his will. What he has made, strive not to unmake, but shun The tragical responsibility Of such dire error. If from thy act spring death And horror, are thy human shoulders fit To bear that heavy load? Observe his will, Do right and leave the rest to God above.
CLEOPATRA Thy words have moved me.
MENTHO Let thy husband move thee. How wilt thou meet him in the solemn shades? Will he not turn his royal face from thee Saying, "Murderess of my children, come not near me!"
CLEOPATRA O Mentho, curse me not. My husband's eyes Shall meet me with a smile. Mentho, my nurse, You will not tell this to Antiochus?
MENTHO I am not mad nor wicked. Remain fixed In this resolve. Dream not that happiness Can spring from wicked roots. God overrules And Right denied is mighty.
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The Palace in Antioch. Under the hills.
The Audience-Chamber in the Palace.
Nicanor, Phayllus and others seated; Eunice, Philoctetes, Thoas apart near the dais.
THOAS Is it patent? Is he the elder? do we know?
EUNICE Should he not rule?
THOAS If Fate were wise, he should.
EUNICE Will Timocles sack great Persepolis? Sooner I think Phraates will couch here, The mighty, steadfast, patient, subtle man, And from the loiterer take, the sensualist Antioch of the Seleucidae.
THOAS Perhaps. But shall I rise against the country's laws That harbours me? The sword I draw, is hers.
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EUNICE Are law and justice always one? Reflect.
THOAS If justice is offended, I will strike.
He withdraws to another part of the hall.
EUNICE The man is wise, but when ambition's heaped In a great bosom, Fate takes quickly fire. It only needs the spark.
PHILOCTETES Is it only that That's needed? there shall be the spark.
He withdraws.
EUNICE Fate or else Chance Work out the rest. I have given your powers a lead.
Nicanor, who has drawn near, stops before her.
NICANOR Your council's finished then?
EUNICE What council, father?
NICANOR I have seen, though I have not spoken. Meddle not In things too great for you. This realm and nation Are not a skein for weaving fine intrigues In your shut chambers.
EUNICE We have other sports. What do you mean?
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NICANOR See less Antiochus. Carry not there your daring spirit and free rein To passion and ambition nor your bright scorn Of every law that checks your headstrong will. Or must I find a curb that shall restrain you?
EUNICE My prudent father! These men think that wisdom Is tied up to beards. We too have heads And finer brains within them, as I think!
She goes up on the dais. Leosthenes, Callicrates and others enter together.
THOAS Leosthenes from Parthia! Speeds the war?
LEOSTHENES It waits a captain.
THOAS It shall have today A king of captains.
LEOSTHENES I have seen the boy. But there's a mystery? Shall he be the king?
THOAS If Fate agrees with Nature.
LEOSTHENES Neither can err So utterly, I think; for, if they could, Man's will would have a claim to unseat Fate, Which cannot be.
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Cleopatra enters with Antiochus and Timocles; Cleone, Rodogune in attendance, the latter richly robed.
PHILOCTETES See where she places him!
THOAS 'Tis on her right!
PHAYLLUS It is a woman's ruse. Or must I at disadvantage play the game With this strong piece against?
CLEOPATRA The strong Antiochus has gone too early Down the dim gorges to that silent world Where we must one day follow him. A younger hand Takes up his sceptre and controls his sword. These are the Syrian twins, Nicanor's sons, These are Antiochus and Timocles. Why so long buried, why their right oppressed, Why their precedence tyrannously concealed, Forget. Forget old griefs, old hatreds; let them rest Inurned, nor from their night recover them.
NICANOR We need not raise the curtains that conceal Things long inurned, but lest by this one doubt The dead past lay a dark and heavy hand Upon our fairer future, let us swear The Queen shall be obeyed as if she spoke For Heaven. Betwixt the all-seeing gods and her Confine all cause of quarrel.
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PHAYLLUS Let the princes swear; For how can subjects jar if they agree?
CLEOPATRA O not with oaths compel the Syrian blood! My sons, do you consent?
TIMOCLES Your sovereign will must rule, Mother, your children and our fraternal kindness Will drown the loser's natural chagrin In joy at the other's joy.
CLEOPATRA Antiochus, my son!
ANTIOCHUS Your question, Madam, was for Timocles; From me it needs no answer.
PHAYLLUS You accept Your mother's choice?
ANTIOCHUS God's choice. My mother speaks A thing concealed, not one unsettled.
PHAYLLUS Prince, Syria demands a plainer answer here.
ANTIOCHUS Who art thou? Art thou of Seleucus' blood Who questionest Syria's kings?
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CLEOPATRA Enough. My sons Will know how to respect their kingly birth. Today begins another era. Rise, Princess of Parthia; sit upon this throne, Phraates' daughter; thou art peace and love And must today be crowned. Marvel not, Syrians; For it is peace my envoys bear by now Upon their saddles to Persepolis.
THOAS This was a secret haste!
LEOSTHENES Is it possible? We had our heel upon the Parthian's throat.
CLEOPATRA Since Parthia swept through the Iranian East Wrecking the mighty Macedonian's toil, War sways for ever like a darkened sea In turmoil twixt our realms. How many heart-strings Have broken, what tears of anguish have been wept And eyes sought eastward unreturning eyes! Joy has been buried in the blood-drenched sands. Vain blood, vain weeping! Earth was made so wide That many might have majesty and joy Upon one mother's equal breast. But we Arresting others' portions lose our own. Nations that conquer widest, perish first, Sapped by the hate of an uneasy world. Then they are wisest victors who in time Knowing the limits of their prosperous fate Avoid the violence of Heaven. Syrians, After loud battles I have founded glorious peace. That fair work I began as Syria's queen; To seal it Syria's king must not refuse.
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ANTIOCHUS I do refuse it. There shall be no peace.
CLEOPATRA My son!
ANTIOCHUS Peace! Are the Parthians at our gates? Has not alarm besieged Ecbatana? When was it ever seen or heard till now That victors sued for peace? And this the reason, A woman's reason, because many have bled And more have wept. It is the tears, the blood Prodigally spent that build a nation's greatness. I here annul this peace, this woman's peace, I will proclaim with noise of victories Its revocation.
PHAYLLUS Now!
THOAS Thou speakest, King!
TIMOCLES You are not crowned as yet, Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS Syria forbids it, Syria's destiny Sends forth her lion voices from the hills Where trumpets blare towards Persepolis, Forbidding peace.
CLEOPATRA We do not sue for peace, My son, but give peace, taking provinces And taking Rodogune.
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TIMOCLES Who twenty times Outweighs all hero's actions and exceeds Earth's widest conquests.
ANTIOCHUS For her and provinces! O worse disgrace! The sword had won us these. We wrong the mighty dead who conquered. Provinces! Whose soil are they that we must sue for them? The princess! She's my prisoner, is she not? Must I entreat the baffled Parthian then What I shall do with my own slave-girl here In Antioch, in my palace? Queen of Syria, This was ignobly done.
CLEOPATRA I know you do not love me; in your cold heart Love finds no home; but still I am your mother. You will respect me thus when you are king?
ANTIOCHUS I will respect you in your place, enshrined In your apartments, governing your women, Not Syria.
CLEOPATRA Leave it. You will not think of peace?
ANTIOCHUS Yes, when our armies reach Persepolis.
MELITUS How desperate looks the Queen! What comes of this?
NICANOR (who has been watching Eunice) End this debate; let Syria know her king.
Cleopatra rises and stands silent for a moment.
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TIMOCLES Mother!
CLEOPATRA Behold your king!
MENTHO She has done it, gods!
There is an astonished silence.
NICANOR Speak once more, daughter of high Ptolemy, Remembering God. Speak, have we understood? Is Timocles our king?
CLEOPATRA (with a mechanical and rigid gesture) Behold your king!
Nicanor makes a motion of assent as to the accomplished fact.
NICANOR Let then the King ascend his throne.
LEOSTHENES (half-rising) Thoas!
PHILOCTETES Speak, King Antiochus, God's chosen king Who art, not Cleopatra's.
THOAS Speak, Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS Why didst thou give to me alone the name Of Syria's princes? why upon thy right Hast seated me? or wherefore mad'st thou terms For that near time when I should be the king,
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Chaffering for my consent with arguments Unneeded if the younger were preferred? Wilt thou invoke the gods to seal this lie?
CLEOPATRA Dost thou insult me thus before my world? Ascend the throne, my son.
ANTIOCHUS Stay, Timocles. Make not such haste, my brother, to supplant Thy elder.
TIMOCLES My elder?
He looks at Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA I have spoken the truth.
MENTHO Thou hast not; thou art delivered of a lie, A monstrous lie.
CLEONE Silence, thou swarthy slave!
MENTHO I'll not be silent. She offends the gods. I am Mentho the Egyptian, she who saw The royal children born. She lies to you, O Syrians. Royal young Antiochus Was first on earth.
THOAS The truth breaks out at last.
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PHAYLLUS This is a slave the surplus mud of Nile Engendered. Shall we wrong the Queen by hearing her?
MENTHO I was a noble Egyptian's wife in Memphis, No slave, thou Syrian mongrel, and my word May stand against a perjured queen's.
EUNICE (leaning forward) Is't done?
Nicanor who has been hesitating, observes her action and stands forward to speak.
NICANOR The royal blood of Egypt cannot lie. Shall Syria's queen be questioned? Shall common words Of common men be weighed against the breath of kings? Let not wild strife arise, O princes, let it not. Antiochus, renounce unfilial pride; Wound not thy mother and thy motherland, Son of Nicanor.
THOAS Shall a lie prevail?
NICANOR (looking again at Eunice) It was settled then among you! Be it so. My sword is bare. I stand for Syria's king.
PHILOCTETES (in the midst of a general hesitation) Egyptian Philoctetes takes thy challenge, Nicanor.
ANTIOCHUS Who is for me in Syria?
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THOAS I set my sword Against Nicanor's.
LEOSTHENES I am Leosthenes. I draw my victor steel for King Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS Who else for me?
OTHERS I! I! and I! and I!
CALLICRATES AND OTHERS We for King Timocles.
LEOSTHENES Slay them, cut down The party of the liars.
There is a shouting and tumult with drawing and movement of swords.
NICANOR Protect the King. Let insolent revolt at once be quenched And sink in its own blood.
LEOSTHENES I slay all strife With the usurper.
THOAS Stay, stay, Leosthenes.
ANTIOCHUS Forbear! forbear, I say! let all be still!
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The great Seleucus' house shall not be made A shambles. Not by vulgar riot, not By fratricidal murder will I climb Into my throne, but up the heroic steps Of ordered battle. Brother Timocles, That oft-kissed head is sacred from my sword. Nicanor, thou hast thrown the challenge down; I lift it up.
CLEOPATRA O, hear me, son Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS I have renounced thee for my mother.
CLEOPATRA O wretched woman!
She hurries out followed by Rodogune, Eunice and Cleone.
NICANOR Thou shalt not do this evil, Though millions help thee.
He goes out with Timocles, Phayllus, Callicrates and the others of his party.
PHILOCTETES Can we hold the house And seize the city? We are many here.
THOAS Nicanor's troops hold Antioch.
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LEOSTHENES Not here, not here. Out to the army on the marches! There Is Syria's throne, not here in Antioch.
ANTIOCHUS Mentho, Go with us. Gather swiftly all our strength, Then out to Parthia!
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Rodogune, Eunice.
RODOGUNE God gave my heart and mind; they are not hers To force into this vile adultery. I am a Parthian princess, of a race Who choose one lord and cleave to him for ever Through death, through fire, through swords, in hell, in heaven.
EUNICE The Queen's too broken. It was Phayllus said it. He has leaped into the saddle of affairs And is already master. What can we hope for Left captive in such hands? Not Syria's throne Shall you ascend beside your chosen lord, But as a slave the bed of Timocles.
RODOGUNE If we remain! But who remains to die? In Parthian deserts, in Antiochus' tents! There we can smile at danger.
EUNICE Yes, oh, yes! Deserts for us are safe, not Antioch. Come.
Antiochus and Philoctetes enter from without.
ANTIOCHUS I sought for you, Eunice, Rodogune. To saddle! for our bridal pomp and torches
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Are other than we looked for.
Phayllus enters from within with Theras.
PHAYLLUS Today, no later. The Egyptian rebel ravishes our queen! Help! help!
ANTIOCHUS Off, Syrian weasel!
He flings off Phayllus and goes out with Eunice, Rodogune, Philoctetes.
PHAYLLUS Theras, pursue them!
Theras hastens out; Phayllus rushes to the window.
Antiochus escapes! Oppose him, sentinels. A thousand pieces for his head! He's through. O for a speedy arrow!
Timocles enters with Cleone.
TIMOCLES Who escapes?
PHAYLLUS Thy brother, forcing with him Rodogune, And with them fled Eunice.
TIMOCLES Rodogune!
PHAYLLUS By force he carried her.
TIMOCLES O no, she went Smiling and glad. O thou unwise Phayllus,
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Why dost thou stay with me, a man that's doomed? He will come back and mount his father's throne And rule the nations. Why wouldst thou be slain? All, all's for him and ever was. I have had Light loves, light friends, but no one ever loved me Whom I desired. So was it in our boyhood's days, So it persists. He is preferred in heaven And earth is his and his humanity. Even my own mother is a Niobe Because he has renounced her.
PHAYLLUS I understand, Seeing this, the reason.
TIMOCLES Why should he always have the things I prize? What is his friendship but a selfish need Of souls to unbosom himself to, who will share, Mirror and serve his greatness? Yet it was he The clear discerning Philoctetes chose; Upon his shoulder leaned my royal uncle Preferring him to admonish and to love; On me he only smiled as one too light For praise or censure. What's his kingliness But a lust of grandiose slaughter, an ambition Almost inhuman and a haughty mind That lifts itself above the highest heads As if his mortal body held a god And all were mean to him? Yet proudest men, Thoas, Theramenes, Leosthenes, Become unasked his servants. What's his love? A despot's sensual longing for a slave, Carnal, imperious, harsh, without respect, The hunger of the vital self, not raised, Refined, uplifted to the yearning heart. Yet Rodogune, my Rodogune to him
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Has offered up her moonlit purity, Her secret need of sweetness. O she has Unveiled to him her sweet proud heart of love. She would not look at me who worshipped her. You too, Phayllus, go, Cleone, go And serve him in his tents: the future's there, Not on this brittle throne with which the gods In idle sport have mocked me.
PHAYLLUS There must be a man Somewhere within this!
CLEONE You shall not speak so to him. Look round, King Timocles, and see how many Prefer you to your brother. I am yours, Phayllus works for you, princely Nicanor Protects you, famed Callicrates supports. Your mother only weeps in fear for you, Not passion for your brother.
TIMOCLES Rodogune Has left me.
PHAYLLUS We will have her back. Today Began, today shall end this rash revolt. Rise up, King Timocles, and be thyself, Possess thy throne, recover Rodogune.
TIMOCLES I cannot live unless you bring her back.
PHAYLLUS That is already seen to. My couriers ride
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Before them to Thrasyllus on the hills. Their flight will founder there.
TIMOCLES O subtle, quick And provident Phayllus! Thou, thou, deviser, Art the sole minister for me. Cleone, The gods have made thee wholly beautiful That thou mightst love me.
He goes out with Cleone.
PHAYLLUS Minister! That's something, Not all I work for.
(to Theras who enters)
Well?
THERAS He has escaped. Your throw this time was bungled, Chancellor.
PHAYLLUS I saw his rapid flight; but afterwards?
THERAS The band of Syrian Phliaps kept the gates. We shouted loud, but he more quick, more high, Like some clear-voiced Tyrrhenian trumpet cried, "Syrians, I am your king," and they at once, "Hail, glorious King!" and followed at his word, Galloping, till on the Orient road they seemed Like specks on a white ribbon.
PHAYLLUS Let them go. There's yet Thrasyllus. Or if he returns, Though gods should help, though victory march his friend, I am here to meet him.
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Under the Syrian hills.
Antiochus, his generals, soldiers; Eunice, Rodogune, Mentho.
ANTIOCHUS What god has moved them from their passes sheer Where they were safe from me?
THOAS They have had word, No doubt, to take us living.
LEOSTHENES On!
THOAS They are Three thousand, we six hundred armèd men. Shall we go forward?
LEOSTHENES Onward, still, I say!
ANTIOCHUS Yes, on! I turn not back lest my proud Fate Avert her eyes from me. A hundred guard The princesses.
He goes, followed by Thoas, Leosthenes, Philoctetes.
EUNICE He'll break them like sea-spray;
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They shall not stand before him.
RODOGUNE You missioned angels, guard Antiochus.
As she speaks, the Eremite enters and regards her.
EUNICE He is through them, he is through them! How they scatter Before his sword! My warrior!
RODOGUNE Who is this man, Eunice? He is terrible to me.
EREMITE Who art thou rather, born to be a torch To kingdoms? Is not thy beauty, rightly seen, More terrible to men than monstrous forms Which only frighten?
EUNICE What if kingdoms burn, So they burn grandly?
EREMITE Spirits like thine think so. Princess of Antioch, hast thou left thy father To follow younger eyes? Alas, thou knowst not Where they shall lead thee! It is to gates accursed And by a dolorous journey.
EUNICE Beyond all portals I'ld follow! I am a woman of the Greeks Who fear not death nor hell.
Antiochus returns.
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ANTIOCHUS Our swords have hewn A road for us. Who is this flamen?
EREMITE Hail! "Rejoice" I cannot say, but greet Antiochus Who never shall be king.
ANTIOCHUS Who art thou, speak, Who barst with such ill-omened words my way Discouraging new-born victory? What thou knowest, Declare! Curb not thy speech. I have a mind Stronger than omens.
EREMITE I am the appointed voice Who come to tell thee thou shalt not be king, But at thy end shall yield to destiny For all thy greatness, genius, pride and force Even as the tree that falls. March then no farther, For in thy path Fate hostile stands.
ANTIOCHUS If Fate Would have me yield, let her first break me. On!
EREMITE The guardians of the path then wait for thee Vigilant lest the world's destiny be foiled By human greatness. March on to thy doom.
ANTIOCHUS I will. Straight on, whatever doom it be!
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EREMITE Farewell, thou mighty Syrian, soul misled, Strength born untimely! We shall meet again When death shall lead thee into Antioch.
ANTIOCHUS March.
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The Palace in Antioch. Before the hills.
Cleopatra, Zoӱla.
CLEOPATRA Will he not come this morning? How my head aches! Zoӱla, smooth the pain out of it, my girl, With your deft fingers. Oh, he lingers, lingers! Cleone keeps him still, the rosy harlot Who rules him now. She is grown a queen and reigns Insulting me in my own palace. Yes, He's happy in her arms; why should he care for me Who am only his mother?
ZOŸLA Is the pain less at all?
CLEOPATRA O, it goes deeper, deeper. Ever new revels, While still the clang of fratricidal war Treads nearer to his palace. Zoӱla, You saw him with Cleone in the groves That night of revel?
ZOŸLA So I told you, madam. It is long since Daphne's groves have gleamed so bright
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Or trembled to such music.
CLEOPATRA They were together?
ZOŸLA Oh, constantly. One does not see such lovers.
CLEOPATRA (shaking her off) Go!
ZOŸLA Madam?
CLEOPATRA Thy touch is not like Rodogune's Nor did her gentle voice offend me. Eunice,
Zoӱla retires.
Why hast thou left me, cruel cold Eunice?
She walks to the window and returns swiftly.
God's spaces frighten me. I am so lonely In this great crowded palace.
Timocles enters the room reading a despatch.
TIMOCLES He rushes onward like a god of war. Mountains and streams and deserts waterless Are grown our foes, his helpers. The gods give ground Before his horse-hooves. Millions of men arrayed in complete steel Cannot restrain him. Almost we hear in Antioch His trumpets now. Only Nicanor and the hills Hardly protect my crown, my brittle crown!
CLEOPATRA Antiochus comes!
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TIMOCLES The Macedonian legions Linger somewhere upon the wide Aegean. Sea And land contend against my monarchy. Your brother sends no certain word.
CLEOPATRA It will come. Could not the Armenian helpers stay his course? They came like locusts.
TIMOCLES But are swept away As with a wind. O mother, fatal mother, Why did you keep me from the battle then? My presence might have spurred men's courage on And turned this swallowing fate. It is alone Your fault if I lose crown and life.
TIMOCLES There, mother, I have made you weep. I love you, Dear mother, though I make you often weep.
CLEOPATRA I have not blamed you, my sweet Timocles. I did the wrong. Go to the field, dear son, And show yourself to Syria. Timocles, I mean no hurt, but now, only just now, Would not a worthier presence at your side Assist you? My royal brother of Macedon Would give his child to you at my desire, Or you might have your fair Egyptian cousin Berenice. Syria would honour you, my son.
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TIMOCLES I know your meaning. You are so jealous, mother. Why do you hate Cleone, grudging me The solace of her love? I shall lose Syria And I have lost already Rodogune: Cleone clings to me. Nor is her heart Like yours, selfish and jealous.
CLEOPATRA Timocles!
TIMOCLES (walking to the window) O Rodogune, where hast thou taken those eyes, My moonlit midnight, where that wondrous hair In which I thought to live as in a cloud Of secret sweetness? Under the Syrian stars Somewhere thou liest in my brother's arms, Thy pale sweet happy face upon his breast Smiling up to be kissed. O, it is hell, The thought is hell! At midnight in the silence I wake in warm Cleone's rosy clasp To think of thee embraced; then in my blood A fratricidal horror works. Let it not be, You gods! Let me die first, let him be king. O mother, do not let us quarrel any more: Forgive me and forget.
CLEOPATRA You go from me?
TIMOCLES My heart is heavy. I will drink awhile And hear sweet harmonies.
CLEOPATRA There in the hall And with Cleone?
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TIMOCLES Let it not anger you. Yes, with Cleone.
CLEOPATRA I am alone, so terribly alone!
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Phayllus, Theras.
THERAS His fortune holds.
PHAYLLUS He has won great victories And stridden exultant like a god of death Over Grecian, Syrian and Armenian slain; But being mortal at each step has lost A little blood. His veins are empty now. Where will he get new armies? His small force May beat Nicanor's large one, even reach Antioch, To find the Macedonian there. They have landed. He is ours, Theras, this great god of tempest, Our captive whom he threatens, doomed to death While he yet conquers.
Timocles enters with Cleone, then the musicians and dancing-girls.
TIMOCLES Bring in the wine and flowers; sit down, sit down. Call in the dancers. Through the Coan robes Let their bright flashing limbs assault my eyes Capturing the hours, imprisoning my heart In a white whirl of movement. Sit, Cleone. Here on my breast, against my shoulder! You rose Petalled and armed, you burden of white limbs Made to be kissed and handled, you Cleone! Yes, let the world be flowers and flowers our crown
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With rosy linkings red as our own hearts Of passion. O wasp soft-settling, poignant, sting, Sting me with bliss until I die of it.
PHAYLLUS I do not like this violence. Theras, go.
Theras leaves the hall.
TIMOCLES Drink, brother Phayllus. Your webs will glitter more brightly, You male Arachne. More wine! I'll float my heart out in the wine And pour all on the ground to naked Eros As a libation. I will hide my heart In roses, I will smother thought with jonquils. Sing, someone to me! sing of flowers, sing mere Delight to me far from this troubled world.
Song Will you bring cold gems to crown me, Child of light? Rather quick from breathing closes Bring me sunlight, myrtles, roses, Robe me in delight. Give me rapture for my dress, For its girdle happiness.
TIMOCLES Closer, Cleone; pack honey into a kiss. Another song! you dark-browed Syrian there!
Song Wilt thou snare Love with rosy brightness To make him stay with thee? The petulant child of a fair, cruel mother, He flees from me to crown another. O misery! Love cannot be snared, love cannot be shared; Light love ends wretchedly.
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TIMOCLES Remove these wine-cups! tear these roses down! Who snared me with these bonds? Take hence, thou harlot, Thy rose-faced beauty! Thou art not Rodogune.
CLEONE What is this madness?
TIMOCLES Hence! leave me! I am sick Of thy gold and roses.
PHAYLLUS Go, women, from the room; The King is ill. Go, girl, leave him to me.
All go, Cleone reluctantly, leaving Phayllus with Timocles.
TIMOCLES I will not bear it any more. Give me my love Or let me die.
PHAYLLUS In a few nights from this Thou shalt embrace her.
TIMOCLES Silence! It was not I. What have I said? It was the wine that spoke. Look not upon me with those eyes of thine.
PHAYLLUS The wine or some more deep insurgent spirit Burns in thy blood. Thou shalt clasp Rodogune.
TIMOCLES Thy words, thy looks appal me. She's my brother's wife Sacred to me.
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PHAYLLUS His wife? Who wedded them? For not in camps and deserts Syria's kings Accomplish wedlock. She's his concubine. Slave-girl she is and bed-mate of thy brother And may be thine. Or if she were his soul-close wife, Death rends all ties.
TIMOCLES I will not shed his blood. Silence, thou tempter! he is sacred to me.
PHAYLLUS Thou needst not stain thy hands, King Timocles. Be he live flesh or carrion, she is thine.
TIMOCLES Yet has she lain between my brother's arms.
PHAYLLUS What if she were thy sister, should that bar thee From satisfaction of thy heart and body?
TIMOCLES Do you not tremble when you say such things?
PHAYLLUS We have outgrown these thoughts of children, king: Nor gods nor ghosts can frighten us. You shake At phantoms of opinion or you feign To start at such, forgetting what you are. The royal house of Egypt heeds them not, Where you were nursed. Your mother sprang from incest. If in this life you lose your Rodogune, Are others left where you may have her bliss? Your brother thought not so, but took her here.
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TIMOCLES I'll not be tempted by thee.
PHAYLLUS No, by thyself Be tempted and the thought of Rodogune. Or shall we leave her to her present joys? Perhaps she sleeps yet by Antiochus Or held by him to sweeter vigilance—
TIMOCLES (furiously) Accursed ruffian, give her to my arms. Use fair means or use foul, use steel, use poison, But free me from these inner torments.
PHAYLLUS From more Than passion's injuries. Trust thy fate to me Who am its guardian.
TIMOCLES I am afraid, afraid! What furies out of hell have I aroused Within, without me? Let them do their will. For I must have her once between my arms, Though Heaven leap down in lightnings.
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Before the Syrian hills. Antiochus' tent.
Antiochus, Thoas, Leosthenes, Philoctetes.
PHILOCTETES This is Phayllus' work, the Syrian mongrel. Who could have thought he'ld raise against us Greece And half this Asia?
ANTIOCHUS He has a brain.
THOAS We feel it. This fight's our latest and one desperate chance Still smiles upon our fate.
ANTIOCHUS Nicanor yields it us Scattering his armies; for if we can seize Before he gathers in his distant strengths This middle pass, Antioch comes with it. So I find it best and think the gods do well Who put before us one decisive choice Not lingering out their vote in balanced urns, Not tediously delaying strenuous fate,— Either to conquer with one lion leap Or end in glorious battle.
THOAS We ask no better; With you to triumph or die beside you taking
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The din of joyous battle in our ears, Following your steps into whatever world.
PHILOCTETES Have we not strength enough to enforce retreat Like our forefathers through the Asian vasts To Susa or the desert or the sea Or Ptolemy in Egypt,—thence returning With force of foreign levies, if Phayllus Draw even the distant Roman over here, Dispute with him the world?
ANTIOCHUS No, Philoctetes. With native swords I sought my native crown, Which if I win not upon Syria's hills A hero's death is mine. Make battle ready. Our bodies are the dice we throw again On the gods' table.
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Antiochus, Eunice, Rodogune.
ANTIOCHUS I put my hand on Antioch. Thou hast done well, O admirable quick Theramenes. This fight was lionlike.
EUNICE And like the lion Thou art, my warrior, thou canst now descend Upon Seleucus' city. How new 'twill seem After the mountains and the starlit skies To sleep once more in Antioch!
RODOGUNE I trust the stars And mountains better. They were kind to me. My blood within me chills when I look forward And think of Antioch.
ANTIOCHUS These are the shadows from a clouded past Which shall not be repeated, Rodogune. This is not Antioch that thou knewst, the prison Of thy captivity, thou enterest now, Not Antioch of thy foes, but a new city And thy own kingdom.
RODOGUNE Are the gods so good?
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ANTIOCHUS The gods are strong; they love to test our strength Like armourers hammering steel. Therefore 'twas said That they are jealous. No, but high and stern Demanding greatness from the great; they strike At every fault they see, perfect themselves Labour at our perfection. What rumour increases Approaching from the mountains? Thoas, thou?
Thoas enters.
Thy brow is dark. Is it Theramenes? Returns our fortune broken?
THOAS Broken and fallen. We who are left bring back Theramenes Upon whose body twenty glorious wounds Smile at defeat.
ANTIOCHUS Theramenes before me! How have you kept me lying in my tent! I thought our road was clear of foemen.
THOAS The gods Had other resources that we knew not of. Within the passes, on the summit couch The spears of Macedon. They have arrived From the sea, from Antioch.
ANTIOCHUS The Macedonians! Then Our day is ended; we must think of night. We reach our limit, Thoas.
THOAS That's if we choose;
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For there are other tidings.
ANTIOCHUS They should be welcome.
THOAS Phraates, thy imperial father, comes With myriad hosts behind him thunder-hooved, Not for invasion armed as Syria's foe, But for the husband of his Rodogune. Shall we recoil upon these helpers? Death Can always wait.
ANTIOCHUS Perhaps. Leave me awhile, Thoas; for we must sit alone tonight, My soul and I together. Rodogune,
Thoas goes.
Wouldst thou go back to Parthia, to thy country?
RODOGUNE I have no country, I have only thee. I shall be where thou art; it is all I know And all I wish for.
ANTIOCHUS Eunice, wilt thou go To Antioch safe? My mother loves thee well.
EUNICE I follow her and thee. What talk is this? I shall grow angry.
ANTIOCHUS Am I other, Eunice, Than once I was? Is there a change in me Since first I came into your lives from Egypt?
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EUNICE You are my god, my warrior and the same You ever were.
ANTIOCHUS To her and thee I am. Sleep well, my Rodogune, for thou and I, Not sure of Fate, are of each other sure. To thee what else can matter?
RODOGUNE Nothing else.
Rodogune and Eunice enter the interior of the tent.
ANTIOCHUS A god! Yes, I have godlike stirrings in me. Shall they be bounded by this petty world The sea can span? If Rome, Greece, Africa, Asia and all the undiscovered globe Were given me for my garden, all glory mine, All men my friends, all women's hearts my own, Would there not still be bounds, still continents Unvanquished? O thou glorious Macedonian, Thou too must seek at last more worlds to conquer. Hast thou discovered them? This earth is but a hillock when all's said, The sea an azure puddle. All tonight Seems strange to me; my wars, ambition, fate And what I am and what I might have been, Float round me vaguely and withdraw from me Like grandiose phantoms in a mist. Who am I? Whence come I? Whither go, or wherefore now? Who gave me these gigantic appetites That make a banquet of the world? who set These narrow, scornful and exiguous bounds To my achievement? O, to die, to pass,
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Nothing achieved but this, "He tried great things, Accomplished small ones." If this life alone Be given us to fail or to succeed, Then 'tis worth keeping.
The Parthian treads our land! Phraates' hooves dig Grecian soil once more! The subtle Parthian! He has smiled and waited Till we were weak with mutual wounds and now Stretches his foot towards Syria. Have I then Achieved this only, my country's servitude? Shall that be said of me? It galls, it stabs. My fame! "Destroyer of Syria, he undid The great Seleucus' work." Whatever else O'ertake me, in this the strong gods shall not win. I will give up my body and sword to Timocles, Repel the Parthian, save from this new death, These dangerous allies from Macedon Syria, then die. But wherefore die? Should I not rather go With my sole sword into the changeful world, Create an empire, not inherit one? Are there not other realms? has not the East Great spaces? In huge torrid Africa Beyond the mystic sources of the Nile There must be empires. Or if with a ship One sailed for ever through the infinite West, Through Ocean and still Ocean for three years, Might not one find the old Atlantic realms No fable? Thy narrow lovely littoral, O blue Mediterranean, India, Parthia, Is this the world? I thirst for mightier things Than earth has.
But for what I dreamed, to bound Upon Nicanor through the deep-bellied passes Or fall upon the Macedonian spears, It were glorious, yet a glorious cowardice, Too like self-slaughter. Is it not more heroic
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To battle with than to accept calamity? Unless indeed all thinking-out is vain And Fate our only mover. Seek it out, my soul, And make no error here; for on this hour The future of the man Antiochus, What future he may have upon the earth In name or body lies. Reveal it to me, Zeus! In Antioch or upon the Grecian spears, Where lies my fate?
While he is speaking, the Eremite enters.
EREMITE Before thee always.
ANTIOCHUS How Cam'st thou or whence? I know thy ominous look.
EREMITE The how inquire not nor the whence, but learn The end is near which I then promised thee.
ANTIOCHUS So then, defeat and death were from the first My portion! Wherefore were these thoughts gigantical With which I came into my mother ready-shaped If they must end in the inglorious tomb?
EREMITE Despise not proud defeat, scorn not high death. The gods accept them sternly.
ANTIOCHUS Yes, as I shall, But not submissively.
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EREMITE Break then, thou hill Unsatisfied with thy own height. The gods Care not if thou resist or if thou yield; They do their work with mortals. To the Vast Whence thou, O ravening, strong and hungry lion, Overleaping cam'st the iron bars of Time, Return! thou hast thy tamers. God of battles! Son of Nicanor! strong Antiochus! Depart and be as if thou wert not born. The gods await thee in Antioch.
He departs.
ANTIOCHUS I will meet them there. Break me. I see you can, O gods. But you break A body, not this soul; for that belongs, I feel, To other masters. It is settled then. Tomorrow sets in Antioch.
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Philoctetes, Thoas, Leosthenes, Eunice.
LEOSTHENES Surely this is the change that comes on men Who are to die.
PHILOCTETES O me! it is, it is.
THOAS Princess Eunice, what think you of it?
EUNICE Thoas, what matters what we think? We follow Our king; it is his to choose our paths for us. Lead they to death? Then we can die with him.
THOAS That's nobly spoken.
PHILOCTETES But too like a woman.
Antiochus enters with Rodogune.
ANTIOCHUS To Antioch! Is all ready for our march?
PHILOCTETES Antiochus, my king, I think in Egypt We loved each other.
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ANTIOCHUS Less here, my Philoctetes?
PHILOCTETES Then by that love, dear friend, go not to Antioch. Let us await the Parthian in his march. What do you seek at Antioch? A mother angry? A jealous brother at whose ear a fatal knave Sits always whispering? lords inimical? What can you hope from these? Go not to Antioch. I see Death smiling, waving you to go, But do not.
ANTIOCHUS Dearest comrade, Philoctetes, Fate calls to me and shall I shrink from her? I know my little brother Timocles, I feel his clasp already, see his smile. But there's Phayllus! Shall I fall so low As to fear him? Forgive me, friend; I go to Antioch.
PHILOCTETES It was decreed!
ANTIOCHUS But you, my friends, who have no love To shield you and perhaps great enemies, Will you fall back until I make your peace, To Egypt or Phraates?
THOAS Not a man Will leave your side who followed your victorious sword. We follow always.
ANTIOCHUS Beat then the drums and march.
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But let an envoy ride in front to Timocles And tell him that Antiochus comes to lay His victor sword between a brother's knees And fight for him with Parthia. Let us march.
All go except Philoctetes.
PHILOCTETES (looking after him) O sun, thou goest rushing to the night Which shall engulf thee!
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The Palace in Antioch.
Phayllus, alone.
PHAYLLUS My brain has loosened harder knots than this. Timocles gets by this his Rodogune; That's one thing gained. Tonight or else tomorrow I'll have her in his bed though I have to hale her Stumbling to it through her own husband's blood. For he must die. He is too great a man To be a subject: nor is that his intention Who hides some subtler purpose. Exile would free him For more stupendous mischief. Death! But how? There is this Syrian people, there is Timocles Whose light unstable mind like a pale leaf Trembles, desires, resolves, renounces.
Timocles enters.
TIMOCLES Phayllus, It is the high gods bring about this good. My great high brother, strong Antiochus To come and kneel to me! No hatred more! He is the brother whom I loved in Egypt.
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PHAYLLUS Oh, wilt thou always be, thou shapeless soul, Clay for each passing circumstance to alter?
TIMOCLES Do you not think I have only now to ask And he will give me Rodogune? She's not his wife! Cast always together in the lonely desert, Long nearness must have wearied him of her; For he was never a lover. O Phayllus, When so much has been brought about, will you tell me This will not happen too? I am sure the gods Intend this.
PHAYLLUS So you think Antiochus comes To lay his lofty head below your foot? You can believe it! Truly, if you think that, There's nothing left that cannot be believed. This soul that dreamed of conquests at its birth, This strong overweening swift ambitious man Whom victory disappoints, to whom continents Seem narrow, will submit, you say,—to you? You'll keep him for your servant?
TIMOCLES What is it you hint? Stroke not your chin! Speak plainly. Do you know, I sometimes hate you!
PHAYLLUS I care not, if you hear me And let me guard you from your enemies.
TIMOCLES I know you love me, but your thoughts are evil To every other and your ways are worse.
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Yet speak; what is it you fear?
PHAYLLUS How should I know? Yet this seems probable that having failed By violent battle he is creeping in To slay you silently. You smile at that? It is the commonest rule of statesmanship And History's strewn with instances. Believe it not; Believe your wishes, not mankind's record; Slumber till with the sword in you you wake And he assumes your purple.
TIMOCLES (indifferently) I hear, Phayllus. Let him give me Rodogune And all's excused he has ever done to me.
PHAYLLUS He will keep her and take all hearts besides That ever loved you.
TIMOCLES (still indifferently) I will see that first.
Cleopatra enters quickly.
CLEOPATRA It is true, Timocles? It is even true! Antiochus my son is coming to me, Is coming to me!
TIMOCLES Thus you love him still!
CLEOPATRA He is my child, he has his father's face. And I shall have my Parthian Rodogune With her sweet voice and gentle touch, and her,
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My darling, my clear-eyed delight, Eunice, And I shall not be lonely any more. I have not been so happy since you came From Egypt. But, O heaven! what followed that? Will now no stark calamity arise With Gorgon head to turn us into stone Venging this glimpse of joy? Torn by your scourges I fear you, gods, too much to trust your smile.
Nicanor enters.
NICANOR Antiochus comes.
TIMOCLES Hail, thou victorious captain, Syria's strong rescuer!
NICANOR Syria's rescuer comes, Thy brother Antiochus who makes himself A sword to smite thy dangerous enemies.
PHAYLLUS You used not once to praise him so, Nicanor.
NICANOR Because I knew not then his nobleness Who had only seen his might.
PHAYLLUS Yet had you promised That if he entered Antioch, it would be chained And naked, travelling to the pit or sword, Nicanor.
NICANOR He comes not as a prisoner,
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But royally disdaining to enslave For private ends his country to the Parthian.
TIMOCLES Comes my dear brother soon?
NICANOR Even at this moment He enters.
TIMOCLES Summon our court. Let all men's eyes behold This reconciliation. I shall see Next moment Rodogune!
There enter from one side Callicrates, Melitus, Cleone, courtiers; from the other Antiochus, Eunice, Rodogune, Thoas, Leosthenes, Philoctetes.
O brother, in my arms! Let this firm clasp Be sign of the recovered amity That binds once more for joy Nicanor's sons.
ANTIOCHUS This is like thee, my brother Timocles. Let all vain strife be banished from our souls. My sword is thine, and I am thine and all I have and love is thine, O Syrian Timocles, Devoted to thy throne for Syria.
TIMOCLES All? Brother! O clasp me once again, Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS The Syrian land once cleansed of foemen, rescued From these fierce perils, I shall have thy leave, Brother, to voyage into distant lands; But not till I have seen your Antioch joys
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Of which they told us, I and my dear wife, The Parthian princess Rodogune. See, brother, How all things work out by a higher will. Thou hast the Syrian kingdom, I have her And my own soul for monarchy.
TIMOCLES His wife!
MELITUS The King is pale and gnaws his nether lip.
ANTIOCHUS Mother, I kneel to you; raise me this time And I will not be forward.
CLEOPATRA My child! my child!
TIMOCLES He will not give me Rodogune! And now he'll steal My mother's heart. Captains, I welcome you: You are my soldiers now.
LEOSTHENES We thank thee, King. We are thy brother's soldiers, therefore thine.
TIMOCLES Yes! Philoctetes, old Egyptian friend, You go not yet to Egypt?
PHILOCTETES I know not where. I have forgotten why I came from thence. I hope that you will love your brother.
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TIMOCLES Him! Oh yes, I'll love him.
ANTIOCHUS Brother Timocles, We have come far today; will you appoint us Our chambers here?
TIMOCLES I'll take you to them, brother.
All leave the hall except Cleone and Phayllus.
CLEONE Is this their peace? But he'll have Rodogune And I shall like a common flower be thrown Into the dust-heap.
PHAYLLUS Pooh!
CLEONE I have eyes; I see. Even then I knew I would be nothing to you Once you were seated. I'll not be flung away! Beware, Phayllus; for Antiochus lives.
PHAYLLUS Make change of lovers then with Rodogune While yet he lives.
CLEONE I might do even that. He has a beautiful body like a god's. I will not have him slain.
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PHAYLLUS You may be his widow If you make haste in marrying him; for soon He will be carrion.
Timocles returns.
TIMOCLES I'ld have a word with you, Phayllus.
Cleone withdraws out of hearing.
Where will they put the Parthian Rodogune?
PHAYLLUS Put her?
TIMOCLES To sleep, dull ruffian! Her chamber! Where?
PHAYLLUS Why, in one bed with Prince Antiochus.
TIMOCLES Thou bitter traitor, dar'st thou say it too? Art thou too leagued to slay me? Shall I bear it? In my own palace! In one bed! O God! I will go now and stab him through the heart And drag her, drag her—
CLEONE (running to him) The foam is on his lips!
PHAYLLUS Restrain thy passions, King! He is transformed. This is that curious devil, jealousy. As if it mattered! He will have her soon.
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TIMOCLES Cleone, I thank you. When I think of this, Something revolts within to strangle me And tears my life out of my bosom. Phayllus, You spoke of plots; where are they? Let me see them.
PHAYLLUS That's hard. Are they not hidden in his breast?
TIMOCLES Can you not tear them out?
PHAYLLUS Torture your brother!
TIMOCLES Torture his generals; let them howl their love for him! Torture Eunice. Let truth come out twixt shrieks! Number her words with gouts of blood!
PHAYLLUS You'll hurt yourself. Be calmer. Torture! To what purpose that? It is not profitable.
TIMOCLES I will have proofs. Wilt thou thwart me, thou traitor, even thou? Arrange his trial instantly, arrange His exile.
PHAYLLUS Exile! You might as well arrange At once your ruin.
TIMOCLES There shall be justice, justice.
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Thou shalt be fairly judged, Antiochus. I will not slay him. Exile! And Rodogune With me in Antioch.
PHAYLLUS Listen! the passing people sing his name. They'll rise to rescue him and slay us all As dogs are killed in summer. Command his death: No man will rise for a dead carcase. Death, Not exile! He'll return with Ptolemy Or great Phraates, take your Syria from you, Take Rodogune.
TIMOCLES I give my power to you. Try him and sentence him. But execution, Let it be execution. I will have No murder done. Arrange it.
He goes out followed by Cleone.
PHAYLLUS While he's in the mood, It must be quickly done. But that's to venture With no support in Syria when it's done Except this brittle king. It matters not. Fortune will bear me out; she's grown my slave-girl. What liberties have I not taken with her Which she has suffered amorously, kinder grown After each handling. Watch me, my only lover! Sudden and swift shall be Phayllus' stroke.
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Cleopatra, Antiochus, Eunice, Rodogune.
CLEOPATRA Eunice, cruel, heartless, sweet Eunice, How could you leave me?
EUNICE Pardon me, dear lady.
ANTIOCHUS Mine was the error, mother.
CLEOPATRA O my son, If you had said that "mother" to me then, All this had never happened.
ANTIOCHUS I have been hard To you, my mother, you to me your son. We have both erred and it may be the gods Will punish our offences even yet.
CLEOPATRA O, say not that, my child. We must be happy; I will have just a little happiness.
RODOGUNE O, answer her with kisses, dear Antiochus.
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CLEOPATRA Do you too plead for me, sweet Parthian?
EUNICE Cousin Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS My heart is chastened and I love, Mother, though even now I will not lie And say I love you as a child might love Who from his infancy had felt your clasp. But, mother, give me time and if the gods Will give it too, who knows? we may be happy.
Philoctetes enters.
PHILOCTETES Pardon me, Madam, but my soul is harried With fierce anxieties. You do not well To linger with your son Antiochus. A jealous anger works in Timocles When he hears of it.
CLEOPATRA Is't possible?
PHILOCTETES Fear it! Believe it!
CLEOPATRA (shuddering) I will not give the gods a handle. But I may take Eunice and your wife To comfort me a little?
ANTIOCHUS Go with her,
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Eunice. Leave me for an hour, my Rodogune.
All go from the chamber except Antiochus.
When, when will the gods strike? I feel the steps Of Doom about me. Open thy barriers, Death; I would not linger underneath the stroke.
Phayllus enters with soldiers.
PHAYLLUS Seize him! This is the prince Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS So soon! I said not farewell to my love. Well, Syrian, dost thou carry only warrants Or keeps the death-doom pace with thy arrest?
PHAYLLUS Thy plots have been discovered, plotter.
ANTIOCHUS Plots! Vain subtle fool, I will not answer thee. What matters the poor pretext? Guards, conduct me.
He goes out, guarded.
PHAYLLUS Must thou be royal even in thy fall?
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RODOGUNE Will they not let me go and see him even?
EUNICE We'll make our way to him and out for him To Egypt, Egypt.
RODOGUNE There's only one joy left, To be with him whether we live or die.
EUNICE You are too meek. Cleone helps us here Whatever be the spring of her strange pity. When we come back, Phayllus, we shall find out Whether the ingenuity of men Holds tortures huge enough for your deserts.
RODOGUNE Why do you pace about with flaming eyes? Be still and sit and put your hand in mine.
EUNICE My Parthian sweetness! O, the gods are cruel Who torture such a heart as thine.
RODOGUNE Where is
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My mother?
EUNICE She is lying in her room Dry-eyed and voiceless, gazing upon Fate With eyes I dare not look at. Till tomorrow. At dawn we'll have him out. Cleone bribes The sentries; Thoas has horses and a ship Wide-winged for Egypt, Egypt.
RODOGUNE O yes, let us leave Syria and cruel Antioch.
EUNICE For a while. I would have had him out tonight, my king, But ruffian Theras keeps the watch till dawn. How long will walls immure so huge a prisoner? Trial! When he returns in arms from Egypt, Try him, Phayllus. We must wait till dawn.
RODOGUNE I shall behold him once again at dawn.
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A guard-room in the Palace.
Antiochus, alone.
ANTIOCHUS What were Death then but wider life than earth Can give us in her clayey limits bound? Darkness perhaps! There must be light behind.
As he speaks, Phayllus enters.
Who is it?
PHAYLLUS Phayllus and thy conqueror.
ANTIOCHUS In some strange warfare then!
PHAYLLUS I came to see Before thy end the greatness that thou wast; For thou wert great as mortals measure. Thou hast An hour to live.
ANTIOCHUS Shorter were better.
PHAYLLUS An hour! It is strange. The beautiful strong Antiochus In one brief hour and by a little stroke Shall be mere rotten carrion for the flies To buzz about.
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ANTIOCHUS Thinkest thou so, Phayllus?
PHAYLLUS I know it, and in thy fall, because thou wert great, I feel my greatness who am thy o'erthrower. I long to probe the mightiness thou art And know the thoughts that fill thee at this hour; For it must come to me some day. The things We are, do and are done to! Let it be. Dost thou not ask to kiss thy wife? She'ld come, Though she must leave thy brother's bed for it.
ANTIOCHUS What a poor lie, Phayllus, for the great man Thou thinkst thyself!
PHAYLLUS Thou knowst not then for her Thou diest, that his hungry arms may clasp Her warm sweet body thou hast loved to kiss?
ANTIOCHUS So didst thou work it? Thou art a rare study, Thou Graeco-Syrian.
PHAYLLUS I am what my clay Has made me. It does not hurt thee then to know That while thou art dying, they are hard at work Even now before thy kingly corpse is cold?
ANTIOCHUS What a blind owl thou art that seest the sun And thinkst it darkness! Hence! I weary of thee. Thou art too shallow after all. Outside Is it the dawn?
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PHAYLLUS The dawn. Thou wak'st too early For one who shall not sleep again.
ANTIOCHUS Yes, sleep I have done with; now for an immortal waking.
PHAYLLUS That dream of fools! Thou art another man Than any I have seen and to my eyes Thou seemst a grandiose lack-wit. Yet in defeat I could not move thee. I have limits then?
ANTIOCHUS Yes, didst thou think thyself a god in evil And souls of men thy subjects? Leave me, send Thy executioner. Let him be quick. I wait!
Phayllus goes.
I fear he still will loiter. Waiting Was ever tedious to me: I will sleep.
(he lies down; after a pause)
Is this that other country? Theramenes Before me smiling with his twenty wounds And Mentho with the breasts that suckled me! Who are these crowding after me so fast? My mother follows me and cousin Eunice Treads in her footsteps. Thou too, Timocles? Thoas, Leosthenes and Philoctetes, Good friends, will you stay long? The world grows empty. Why, all that's great in Syria staggers after me Into blind Hades; I am royally Attended.
Theras enters.
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THERAS Phayllus' will compels me to it, Or else I do not like the thing I do.
ANTIOCHUS Who is it? Thou art the instrument. Strike in. Keep me not waiting. I ever loved proud swiftness And thorough spirits.
THERAS I must strike suddenly or never strike.
He strikes.
ANTIOCHUS I pass the barrier.
THERAS Will not this blood stop flowing?
ANTIOCHUS The blood? Let the gods have it; 'tis their portion.
THERAS A red libation, O thou royal sacrifice! I have done evil. Will sly Phayllus help me? He was a trickster ever. I have done evil.
ANTIOCHUS Tell Parthian Rodogune I wait for her Behind Death's barrier.
THERAS The world's too still. Will he not speak again Upon this other side of nothingness? O sounds, sounds, sounds! The sentries change, I think. I'll draw thy curtains, O thou mighty sleeper.
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He draws the curtains, extinguishes the light and goes out. All is still for a while, then the door opens again and Eunice and Rodogune enter.
EUNICE Tread lightly, for he sleeps. The curtain's drawn.
RODOGUNE O my Antiochus, on thy hard bed In the rude camp with horses neighing round Thou well mightst slumber nor the undistant trumpet Startling unseal thy war-accustomed ears From the sweet lethargy of earned repose. But in the horrible silence of this prison How canst thou sleep? It clamours in my brain More than could any sound, with terror laden And voices.
EUNICE I'll wake him.
RODOGUNE Do not. He is tired And you will spoil his rest.
EUNICE He moves no more Than the dead might.
RODOGUNE Speak not of death, Eunice; We are too near to death to speak of him.
EUNICE He must be waked. Cousin Antiochus, You sleep too soundly for a prisoner. Wake!
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RODOGUNE There is some awful presence in this room.
EUNICE I partly feel it. Wake, wake, Antiochus.
She draws apart the curtain and puts in her arm, then hastily withdraws it.
O God, what is this dabbles so my hand, That feels almost like blood?
(tearing down the curtain)
Antiochus!
She falls half-swooned against the wall. There is a silence, then noise is heard in the corridors and the voice of Nicanor at the door.
NICANOR Guard carefully the doors; let no evasion Deceive you.
RODOGUNE Antiochus! Antiochus! Antiochus!
EUNICE Call him not; he will wake And Heaven be angry. O my Rodogune, Let us too sleep.
RODOGUNE Antiochus! Antiochus!
Nicanor enters armed with soldiers and lights.
NICANOR Am I in time? Thou? thou? How cam'st thou here? Who is this woman with the dreadful face? Can this be Rodogune? Eunice, speak. What is this blood upon thy hands and dress?
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Thou dost not speak! Oh, speak!
EUNICE I am going, I am going to my chamber To sleep.
NICANOR Arrest her, guards.
He approaches the bed and recoils.
Awake the house! Sound the alarm! O palace of Nicanor, Thou canst stand yet upon thy stony base Untroubled! The warlike prince Antiochus Lies on this bed most treacherously murdered.
Cries and commotion outside.
Speak, wretched girl. What villain's secret hand Profaned with death this royal sanctuary? How cam'st thou here or hast this blood on thee?
There enter in haste Callicrates, Melitus, Cleone; afterwards Phayllus and others.
CLEONE (to Nicanor) Thou couldst not save him then for all my warning? In vain didst thou mistrust me!
PHAYLLUS (entering) It is done. Yet Theras came not! Do I fail? Fortune, my kindly goddess, help me still In the storm I have yet to weather.
NICANOR Thou hast come! This is thy work, thou ominous counsellor.
PHAYLLUS In all the land who dare impugn me, if it be?
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NICANOR Thou art a villain! Thou shalt die for this.
PHAYLLUS One day I shall, for this or something else. But here's the King.
NICANOR No more a king for me Or Syria.
Timocles enters, followed by Cleopatra.
MELITUS The Queen comes cold and white and shuddering.
CLEOPATRA (speaking with an unnatural calmness) Why do these cries of terror shake the house Repeating Murder and Antiochus? Nicanor, lives my son?
NICANOR Behold, O woman, The frame you fashioned for Antiochus, Cast from your love before, now cast from life, By whose unnatural contrivance, let them say Who did it.
CLEOPATRA It is not true, it is not true! There can be no such horror. O, for this, For this you gave him back!
TIMOCLES O gods! Phayllus, I did not think that he would look like this.
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MELITUS Cover this death. It troubles the good King.
TIMOCLES (recovering himself) This is a piteous sight, beloved mother; Would that he lived and wore the Syrian crown Unquestioned.
CLEOPATRA Timocles, I will not credit What yet a horror in my blood believes. The eyes of all men charge you with this act; Deny it!
CLEOPATRA Deny it!
TIMOCLES Alas, mother!
TIMOCLES O mother, what shall I deny? It had to be. Blame only the dire gods And bronze Necessity.
CLEOPATRA Call me not mother! I have no children. I am punished, gods, Who dared outlive my great unhappy husband For this!
She rushes out.
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NICANOR Is this thy end, O great Seleucus? What Fury rules thy house? The Queen is gone With desperate eyes. Who next?
There enter in haste Philoctetes, Thoas, Leosthenes and others of Antiochus' party.
PHILOCTETES It is true then, It is most true! O high Antiochus, How are thy royal vast imaginations All spilt into a meagre stream of blood! And yet thy eyes seem to gaze royally Into death's vaster realms as if they viewed More conquests there and mightier monarchies. When we were boys and slumber came with noon, Often you'ld lay your head upon my knee Even thus. O little friend Antiochus, We are again in hundred-gated Thebes And life is all before us.
THOAS O insupportable! Thou styled by men a king, no king of mine, Acquit thyself of this too kindred blood. No murderer sits in great Seleucus' chair Longer than takes the movement of my sword Out of its scabbard. I live to ask this question.
LEOSTHENES Nor think thy royal title nor thy guards Shall fence thy life, thou crowned fratricide, Nor many ranks of triple-plated iron Shut out swift vengeance.
PHILOCTETES His eyes look up and seem to smile at me.
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NICANOR Thoas, thy anger ranges far too wide. Respect the blood of kings, Leosthenes.
THOAS See dabbled on this couch the blood of kings Thus by a kindred blood respected.
TIMOCLES The hearts Of kings are not their own, nor yet their acts. This was an execution, not a murder. In better time and place you shall have proofs: Phayllus knows it all. Be satisfied. Lift up this royal dead. All hatred now Forgotten, I will royally inter His ashes guarding still his diadem And sword and armour. All that most he loved Shall go with him into the silent world.
RODOGUNE I come.
TIMOCLES The voice of Rodogune! That woman's form The shadowy anguished robe concealed! She here Beside my brother!
NICANOR We had forgotten how piteous was this scene. O you who loved the dead, forbear a while; All shall be sternly judged.
TIMOCLES O Rodogune, The dead demands thy grief, since he too loved thee, But not in this red chamber pay thy debt,
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Not in this square of horror. In thy calm room Gently bedew his memory with tears And I will help them with my own. Me too He loved once.
LEOSTHENES Shall our swords yet sleep? He wooes His brother's wife beside his brother's corpse Whom he has murdered.
THOAS Yet, Leosthenes. For Heaven has borne enough from him. At last The gods lift up their secret thunderbolts Above us.
NICANOR She totters and can hardly move. Assist her or she falls.
PHILOCTETES (raising his head) O Rodogune, What wilt thou with my dead?
PHAYLLUS Shall it be allowed?
TIMOCLES I do not grudge this corpse her sad farewell. O Rodogune, embrace the unresponsive dead; But afterwards remember life and love Are still on earth.
THOAS Afterwards, Timocles. Give death a moment.
There is a silence while Rodogune bends swaying over the dead Antiochus.
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TIMOCLES O my Rodogune, Leave now the dead man's side whose debt is paid. Return to life, to love.
RODOGUNE (stretching out her arms) My king! my king! Leave me not, leave me not! I am behind thee.
She falls dead at the feet of Antiochus.
EUNICE O, take me also!
She rushes to Rodogune and throws herself on the dead bodies.
NICANOR Raise the princess up; She has swooned.
THOAS Her heart has failed her: she is dead.
TIMOCLES Rise up, my Rodogune.
THOAS She is dead, Timocles; She's safe from thee. Thou goest not alone, My king, into the darkness.
CLEONE Look to the King!
TIMOCLES (speaking with difficulty) Lives she?
MELITUS No, she is dead, King Timocles.
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CLEONE Brother, the King!
Timocles has been tearing at the robe round his neck. Phayllus, Melitus and others crowd round to support him as he falls.
NICANOR It is a fit at worst Which anger and despair have forced him to.
PHAYLLUS It is not death? I live then.
NICANOR Death, thou intriguer! Art thou not Death who with thy wicked promptings And poisonous whispers worked to dangerous rage The kindly moods of Timocles? Seize him, He shall atone this murder.
PHAYLLUS You build too soon Your throne upon these prostrate bodies. Your king Lives still, Nicanor.
NICANOR Not to save thee from death, Nor any murderer. Drag him hence.
CLEONE The King revives. Save thyself, brother.
LEOSTHENES Ten kings should not avail To save him.
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NICANOR Drag hence that subtle Satan.
TIMOCLES I live And I remember!
CLEONE Sleepest thou, Phayllus?
PHAYLLUS My king, they drag me hence to murder me.
TIMOCLES (vaguely at first) Who art thou? Thou abhorred and crooked devil, Thou art the cause that she is lost to me. Slay him! And that shrewd-lipped, rose-tinted harlot, Let her be banished somewhere from men's sight Where she can be forgotten. O brother, brother, I have sent thee into the darkling shades, Myself am barred the way.
PHAYLLUS What I have done, I did for this poor king and thankless man. But there's no use in talking. I am ready.
TIMOCLES (half-rising, furiously) Slay him with tortures! let him feel his death As he has made me feel my living.
NICANOR Take him And see this sentence ruthlessly performed Upon this frame of evil. May the gods In their just wrath with this be satisfied.
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PHAYLLUS And yet I loved thee, Timocles.
He is taken out, guarded.
NICANOR Daughter, Eunice, rise.
EUNICE I did not know till now Life was so difficult a thing to leave. Her going was so easy!
NICANOR Ah, girl, this tragic drama owns in part Thy authorship! Henceforth be wise and humble. To her chamber lead her.
EUNICE Do with me what you will. My heart has gone to journey with my dead. O father, for a few days bear with me; I do not think that I shall long displease you Hereafter.
She goes, attended by Melitus.
NICANOR Follow her, Callicrates, And let no dangerous edge or lethal drink Be near to her despair.
Callicrates follows.
THOAS This cannot keep us From those we loved.
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NICANOR Syrians, what yet remains Of this storm-visited, bolt-shattered house Let us rebuild, joining our strength to save The threatened kingdom. For when this deed is known, The Parthian lion leaps raging for blood And Ptolemy's dangerous grief for the boy he cherished Darkens on us from Egypt. Syria beset And we all broken!
TIMOCLES Something has snapped in me Physicians cannot bind. Thou, Prince Nicanor, Art from the royal blood of Syria sprung And in thy line Seleucus may descend Untainted from his source. Brother, brother, We did not dream that all would end like this, When in the dawn or set we roamed at will Playing together in Egyptian gardens, Or in the orchards of great Ptolemy Walked with our arms around each other's necks Twin-hearted. But now unto eternity We are divided. I must live for ever Unfriended, solitary in the shades; But thou and she will lie at ease inarmed Deep in the quiet happy asphodel And hear the murmur of Elysian winds While I walk lonely.
PHILOCTETES We too without thee now Breath-haunted corpses move, Antiochus. Thou goest attended to a quiet air; Doomed still to live we for a while remain Expecting what the gods have yet in store.
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A Drama
Acrisius, the Argive king, warned by an oracle that his daughter's son would be the agent of his death, hoped to escape his doom by shutting her up in a brazen tower. But Zeus, the King of the Gods, descended into her prison in a shower of gold and Danaë bore to him a son named Perseus. Danaë and her child were exposed in a boat without sail or oar on the sea, but here too fate and the gods intervened and, guided by a divine protection, the boat bore her safely to the Island of Seriphos. There Danaë was received and honoured by the King. When Perseus had grown to manhood the King, wishing to marry Danaë, decided to send him to his death and to that end ordered him to slay the Gorgon Medusa in the wild, unknown and snowy North and bring to him her head the sight of which turned men to stone. Perseus, aided by Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom, who gave him the divine sword Herpe, winged shoes to bear him through the air, her shield or aegis and the cap of invisibility, succeeded in his quest after many adventures. In his returning he came to Syria and found Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopea, King and Queen of Syria, chained to the rocks by the people to be devoured by a sea-monster as an atonement for her mother's impiety against the sea-god, Poseidon. Perseus slew the monster and rescued and wedded Andromeda.
In this piece the ancient legend has been divested of its original character of a heroic myth; it is made the nucleus round which there could grow the scenes of a romantic story of human temperament and life-impulses on the Elizabethan model. The country in which the action is located is a Syria of romance, not of history. Indeed a Hellenic legend could not at all be set in the environments of the life of a Semitic people and its early Aramaean civilisation: the town of Cepheus must be looked at as a Greek colony with a blonde Achaean dynasty ruling
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a Hellenised people who worship an old Mediterranean deity under a Greek name. In a romantic work of imagination of this type these outrages on history do not matter. Time there is more than Einsteinian in its relativity, the creative imagination is its sole disposer and arranger; fantasy reigns sovereign; the names of ancient countries and peoples are brought in only as fringes of a decorative background; anachronisms romp in wherever they can get an easy admittance, ideas and associations from all climes and epochs mingle; myth, romance and realism make up a single whole. For here the stage is the human mind of all times: the subject is an incident in its passage from a semi- primitive temperament surviving in a fairly advanced outward civilisation to a brighter intellectualism and humanism—never quite safe against the resurgence of the dark or violent life-forces which are always there subdued or subordinated or somnolent in the make-up of civilised man—and the first promptings of the deeper and higher psychic and spiritual being which it is his ultimate destiny to become.
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PALLAS ATHENE.
POSEIDON.
PERSEUS - son of Zeus and Danaë.
CEPHEUS - King of Syria.
IOLAUS - son of Cepheus and Cassiopea.
POLYDAON - priest of Poseidon.
PHINEUS - King of Tyre.
TYRNAUS, SMERDAS - merchants of Babylonia, wrecked on the coast of Syria.
THEROPS - a popular leader.
PERISSUS - a citizen butcher.
DERCETES - a Syrian captain.
NEBASSAR - captain of the Chaldean Guard.
CHABRIAS, DAMOETES, MEGAS, GARDAS, MORUS, SYRAX - townsmen and villagers.
CIREAS - a servant in the temple of Poseidon.
MEDES - an usher in the palace.
CASSIOPEA - princess of Chaldea, Queen of Syria.
ANDROMEDA - daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopea.
CYDONE - mistress of Iolaus.
PRAXILLA - head of the palace household in the women's apartments.
DIOMEDE - a slave-girl, servant and playmate of Andromeda.
BALTIS, PASITHEA - Syrian women.
SCENE. - The city of Cepheus, the seashore, the temple of Poseidon on the headland and the surrounding country.
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The Ocean in tumult, and the sky in storm: Pallas Athene appears in the heavens with lightnings playing over her head and under her feet.
ATHENE Error of waters rustling through the world, Vast Ocean, call thy ravenous waves that march With blue fierce nostrils quivering for prey, Back to thy feet. Hush thy impatient surges At my divine command and do my will.
VOICES OF THE SEA Who art thou layest thy serene command Upon the untamed waters?
ATHENE I am Pallas, Daughter of the Omnipotent.
VOICES What wouldst thou? For we cannot resist thee; our clamorous hearts Are hushed in terror at thy marble feet.
ATHENE Awake your dread Poseidon. Bid him rise And come before me.
VOICES Let thy compelling voice Awake him: for the sea is hushed.
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ATHENE Arise, Illimitable Poseidon! let thy blue And streaming tresses mingle with the foam Emerging into light.
Poseidon appears upon the waters.
POSEIDON What quiet voice Compels me from my rocky pillow piled Upon the floor of the enormous deep?
VOICES A whiteness and a strength is in the skies.
POSEIDON How art thou white and beautiful and calm, Yet clothed in tumult! Heaven above thee shakes Wounded with lightnings, goddess, and the sea Flees from thy dreadful tranquil feet. Thy calm Troubles me: who art thou, dweller in the light?
ATHENE I am Athene.
POSEIDON
Virgin formidable In beauty, disturber of the ancient world! Ever thou seekest to enslave to man The eternal Universe, and our huge motions That shake the mountains and upheave the seas Wouldst with the glancing visions of thy brain Coerce and bridle.
ATHENE Me the Omnipotent Made from His being to lead and discipline
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The immortal spirit of man, till it attain To order and magnificent mastery Of all his outward world.
POSEIDON What wouldst thou of me?
ATHENE The powers of the earth have kissed my feet In deep submission, and they yield me tribute, Olives and corn and all fruit-bearing trees, And silver from the bowels of the hills, Marble and iron ore. Fire is my servant. But thou, Poseidon, with thy kindred gods And the wild wings of air resist me. I come To set my feet upon thy azure locks, O shaker of the cliffs. Adore thy sovereign.
POSEIDON The anarchy of the enormous seas Is mine, O terrible Athene: I sway Their billows with my nod. Man's feeble feet Leave there no traces, nor his destiny Has any hold upon the shifting waves.
ATHENE Thou severest him with thy unmeasured wastes Whom I would weld in one. But I will lead him Over thy waters, thou wild thunderer, Spurning thy tops in hollowed fragile trees. He shall be confident in me and dare The immeasurable oceans till the West Mingles with India, and reach the northern isles That dwell beneath my dancing aegis bright, Snow-weary. He shall, armed with clamorous fire, Rush o'er the angry waters when the whale Is stunned between two waves and slay his foe
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Betwixt the thunders. Therefore I bid thee not, O azure strong Poseidon, to abate Thy savage tumults: rather his march oppose. For through the shocks of difficulty and death Man shall attain his godhead.
POSEIDON What then desir'st thou, Athene?
ATHENE On yonder inhospitable coast Far-venturing merchants from the East, or those Who put from Tyre towards Atlantic gains, Are by thy trident fiercely shaken forth Upon the jagged rocks, and who escape, The gay and savage Syrians on their altars Massacre hideously, thee to propitiate, Moloch-Poseidon of the Syrian coasts, Dagon of Gaza, lord of many names And many natures, many forms of power Who rulest from Philistia to the north, A terror and a woe. O iron King, Desist from blood, be glad of kindlier gifts And suffer men to live.
POSEIDON Behold, Athene, My waters! see them lift their foam-white tops Charging from sky to sky in rapid tumult: Admire their force, admire their thunderous speed. With green hooves and white manes they trample onwards. My mighty voices fill the world, Athene. Shall I permit the grand anarchic seas To be a road and the imperious Ocean A means of merchandise? Shall the frail keels Of thy ephemeral mortals score its back
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With servile furrows and petty souls of men Triumphing tame the illimitable sea? I am not of the mild and later gods, But of that elder world; Lemuria And old Atlantis raised me crimson altars, And my huge nostrils keep that scent of blood For which they quiver. Return into thy heavens, Pallas Athene, I into my deep.
ATHENE Dash then thy billows up against my aegis In battle! think not to hide in thy deep oceans; For I will drive thy waters from the world And leave thee naked to the light.
POSEIDON Dread virgin! I will not war with thee, armipotent.
ATHENE Then send thy champion forth to meet my champion, And let their conflict govern ours, Poseidon.
POSEIDON Who is thy champion?
ATHENE Perseus, the Olympian's son, Whom Danaë in her strong brazen tower, Acrisius' daughter, bore, by heavenly gold Lapped into slumber: for of that shining rain He is the beautiful offspring.
POSEIDON The parricide That is to be? But my sea-monster's fangs And fiery breathings shall prevent that murder.
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Farewell, Athene!
ATHENE Farewell, until I press My feet upon thy blue enormous mane And add thy Ocean to my growing empire.
Poseidon disappears into the sea.
He dives into the deep and with a din The thunderous divided waters meet Above his grisly head. Thou wingest, Perseus, From northern snows to this fair sunny land, Not knowing in the night what way thou wendest; But the dawn comes and over earth's far rim The round sun rises, as thyself shalt rise On Syria and thy rosy Andromeda, A thing of light. Rejoice, thou famous hero! Be glad of love, be glad of life, whose bosom Harbours the quiet strength of pure Athene.
She disappears into light.
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A rocky and surf-beat margin of land walled in with great frowning cliffs.
Cireas, Diomede.
CIREAS Diomede? You here so early and in this wild wanton weather!
DIOMEDE I can find no fault in the weather, Cireas; it is brilliant and frolicsome.
CIREAS The rain has wept itself out and the sun has ventured into the open; but the wind is shouting like mad and the sea is still in a mighty passion. Has your mistress Andromeda sent you then with matin-offerings to Poseidon, or are you walking here to whip the red roses in your cheeks redder with the sea-wind?
DIOMEDE My mistress cares as much for your Poseidon as I for your glum beetle-browed priest Polydaon. But you, Cireas? are you walking here to whip the red nose of you redder with the sea-wind or to soothe with it the marks of his holiness's cudgel?
CIREAS I must carry up these buckets of sea-water to swab down the blue-haired old fellow in the temple. Hang the robustious storm- shaken curmudgeon! I have rubbed him and scrubbed him and
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bathed him and swathed him for these eighteen years, yet he never sent me one profitable piece of wreckage out of his sea yet. A gold bracelet, now, crusted with jewels, dropped from the arm of some drowned princess, or a sealed casket velvet-lined with a priceless vase carried by the Rhodian merchants: that would not have beggared him! And I with so little could have bought my liberty.
DIOMEDE Maybe 'twas that he feared. For who would wish to lose such an expert body-servant as you, my Cireas?
CIREAS Zeus! if I thought that, I would leave his unwashed back to itch for a fortnight. But these Gods are kittle cattle to joke with. They have too many spare monsters about in their stables trained to snap up offenders for a light breakfast.
DIOMEDE And how prosper the sacrifices, Cireas? I hope you keep your god soothingly and daintily fed in this hot summer season?
CIREAS Alack, poor old Poseidon! He has had nothing but goats and sea-urchins lately, and that is poor food for a palate inured to homme à la Phénicienne, Diomede. It is his own fault, he should provide wreckage more freely. But black Polydaon's forehead grows blacker every day: he will soon be as mad as Cybele's bull on the headland. I am every moment in terror of finding myself tumbled on the altar for a shipwrecked Phoenician and old Blackbrows hacking about in search of my heart with his holy carving-tools.
DIOMEDE You should warn him beforehand that your heart is in your paunch hidden under twenty pounds of fat: so shall he have less cutting-exercise and you an easier exit.
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CIREAS Out! would you have me slit for a water-god's dinner? Is this your tenderness for me?
DIOMEDE Heaven forbid, dear Cireas. Syria would lose half her scampishness if you departed untimely to a worse world.
CIREAS Away from here, you long sauciness, you thin edge of naughty satire. But, no! First tell me, what news of the palace? They say King Phineus will wed the Princess Andromeda.
DIOMEDE Yes, but not till the Princess Andromeda weds King Phineus. What noise is that?
CIREAS It was the cry of many men in anguish.
He climbs up a rock.
DIOMEDE Zeus, what a wail was there! surely a royal Huge ship from Sidon or the Nile has kissed Our ragged beaches.
CIREAS A Phoenician galley Is caught and spinning in the surf, the men Urge desperate oars in vain. Hark, with a crash She rushes on the boulders' iron fangs That rip her tender sides. How the white ship Battered against them by the growling surf Screams like a woman tortured! From all sides The men are shaken out, as rattling peas Leap from a long and bursting sheath: these sink Gurgling into the billows, those are pressed
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And mangled on the jagged rocks.
DIOMEDE O it must be A memorable sight! help me up, Cireas.
CIREAS No, no, for I must run and tell old Blackbrows That here's fresh meat for hungry grim Poseidon.
He climbs down and out running.
DIOMEDE You disobliging dog! This is the first wreck in eighteen months and I not to see it! I will try and climb round the rock even if my neck and legs pay the forfeit.
She goes out in the opposite direction.
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Perseus descends on winged sandals from the clouds.
PERSEUS Rocks of the outland jaggèd with the sea, You slumbering promontories whose huge backs Jut into azure, and thou, O many-thundered Enormous Ocean, hail! Whatever lands Are ramparted with these forbidding shores, Yet if you hold felicitous roofs of men, Homes of delightful laughter, if you have streams Where chattering girls dip in their pitchers cool And dabble their white feet in the chill lapse Of waters, trees and a green-mantled earth, Cicalas noisy in a million boughs Or happy cheep of common birds, I greet you, Syria or Egypt or Ionian shores, Perseus the son of Danaë, who long Have sojourned only with the hail-thrashed isles Wet with cold mists and by the boreal winds Snow-swathed. The angry voices of the surf Are welcome to me whose ears have long been sealed By rigorous silence in the snows. O even The wail of mortal misery I choose Rather than that intolerable hush; For this at least is human. Thee I praise, O mother Earth and thy guardian Sea, O Sun Of the warm south nursing fair life of men. I will go down into bee-murmuring fields And mix with men and women in the corn And eat again accustomed food. But first
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This galley shattered on the sharp-toothed rocks I fly to succour. You are grown dear to me, You smiling weeping human faces, brightly Who move, who live, not like those stony masks And Gorgon visions of that monstrous world Beyond the snows. I would not lose you now In the dead surges of the inhuman flood.
He descends out of sight.
Iolaus enters with Cireas, Dercetes and soldiers.
IOLAUS Prepare your ambush, men, amid these boulders, But at the signal, leave your rocky lairs With level bristling points and gyre them in.
CIREAS O Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-swallower, earth-shaker, I have swabbed thee for eighteen years. I pray thee tot up the price of those swabbings and be not dishonest with me nor miserly. Eighteen by three hundred and sixty-five by two, that is the sum of them: and forget not the leap years either, O great Poseidon.
IOLAUS Into our ambush, for I hear them come.
They conceal themselves.
Perseus returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas.
PERSEUS Chaldean merchants, would my speed to save Had matched the hawk's when he swoops down for slaughter. So many beautiful bodies of strong men Lost in the surge, so many eager hopes Of happiness now quenched would still have gladdened The sunlight. Yet for two delightful lives Saved to the stir and motion of the world I praise the Gods that help us.
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TYRNAUS Thou radiant youth Whose face is like a joyous god's for beauty, Whatever worth the body's life may have, I thank thee that 'tis saved. Smerdas, discharge That hapless humour from thy lids! If riches Are lost, the body, thy strong instrument To gather riches, is not lost, nor mind, The provident director of its labours.
SMERDAS Three thousand pieces of that wealthy stuff, Full forty chests all crammed with noble gems, All lost, all in a moment lost! We are beggars.
TYRNAUS Smerdas, not beggared yet of arm or brain.
SMERDAS The toil-marred peasant has as much.
PERSEUS Merchant, I sorrow for thy loss: all beautiful things Were meant to shine in the bright day, and grievous It is to know the senseless billows play with them. Yet life, most beautiful of all, is left thee. Is not mere sunlight something, and to breathe A joy? Be patient with the gods; they love not Rebellion and o'ertake it with fresh scourgings.
SMERDAS O that the sea had swallowed me and rolled In my dear treasure! Tell me, Syrian youth, Are there not divers in these parts, could pluck My wealth from the abyss?
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PERSEUS Chaldean merchant, I am not of this country, but like thyself Hear first today the surf roar on its beaches.
SMERDAS Cursed be the moment when we neared its shores! O harsh sea-god, if thou wilt have my wealth, My soul, it was a cruel mercy then to leave This beggared empty body bared of all That made life sweet. Take this too, and everything.
IOLAUS (stepping forward) Thy prayer is granted thee, O Babylonian.
The soldiers appear and surround Perseus and the merchants.
CIREAS All the good stuff drowned! O unlucky Cireas! O greedy Poseidon!
SMERDAS Shield us! what are these threatening spear-points?
TYRNAUS Fate's. This is that strange inhospitable coast Where the wrecked traveller in his own warm blood Is given guest-bath. (draws) Death's dice are yet to throw.
IOLAUS Draw not in vain, strive not against the gods. This is the shore near the temple where Poseidon Sits ivory-limbed in his dim rock-hewn house And nods above the bleeding mariner His sapphire locks in gloom. You three are come, A welcome offering to that long dry altar,
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O happy voyagers. Your road is straight To Elysium.
PERSEUS An evil and harsh religion You practise in your land, stripling of Syria, Yet since it is religion, do thy will, If thou have power no less than will. And yet I deem that ere I visit death's calm country, I have far longer ways to tread.
TYRNAUS (flinging away his sword) Take me. I will not please the gods with impotent writhing Under the harrow of my fate.
They seize Tyrnaus.
SMERDAS O wicked fool! You might have saved me with that sword. Ah youth! Ah radiant stranger! help me! thou art mighty.
PERSEUS Still, merchant, thou wouldst live?
SMERDAS I am dead with terror Of these bright thirsty spears. O they will carve My frantic heart out of my living bosom To throw it bleeding on that hideous altar. Save me, hero!
PERSEUS I war not with the gods for thee. From belching fire or the deep-mouthed abyss Of waters to have saved the meanest thing That wears man's kindly semblance, is a joy.
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But he is mad who for another's ease Incurs the implacable pursuit of heaven. Yet since each man on earth has privilege To battle even against the gods for life, Sweet life, lift up from earth thy fellow's sword; I will protect meanwhile thy head from onset.
SMERDAS Alas, you mock me! I have no skill with weapons Nor am a fighter. Save me!
The Syrians seize Smerdas.
Help! I will give thee The wealth of Babylon when I am safe.
PERSEUS My sword is heaven's; it is not to be purchased.
Smerdas and Tyrnaus are led away.
IOLAUS Take too this radiance.
PERSEUS (drawing his sword) Asian stripling, pause. I am not weak of hand nor feeble of heart. Thou art too young, too blithe, too beautiful; I would not disarrange thy sunny curls By any harsher touch than an embrace.
IOLAUS I too could wish to spare thy joyous body From the black knife, whoe'er thou art, O stranger. But grim compulsion drives and angry will Of the sea's lord, chafing that mortal men Insult with their frail keels his rude strong oceans. Therefore he built his grisly temple here, And all who are broken in the unequal war With surge and tempest, though they evade his rocks,
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Must belch out anguished blood upon that altar Miserably.
PERSEUS I come not from the Ocean.
IOLAUS There is no other way that men could come; For this is ground forbidden to unknown feet.
(smiling)
Unless these gaudy pinions on thy shoes Were wings indeed to bear thee through the void!
PERSEUS Are there not those who ask nor solid land For footing nor the salt flood to buoy their motions? Perhaps I am of these.
IOLAUS Of these thou art not. The gods are sombre, terrible to gaze at, Or, even if bright, remote, grand, formidable. But thou art open and fair like our blue heavens In Syria and thy radiant masculine body Allures the eye. Yield! it may be the God Will spare thee.
PERSEUS Set on thy war-dogs. Me alive If they alive can take, I am content To bleed a victim.
IOLAUS Art thou a demigod To beat back with one blade a hundred spears?
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PERSEUS My sword is in my hand and that shall answer. I am tired of words.
IOLAUS Dercetes, wait. His face Is beautiful as Heaven. O dark Poseidon, What wilt thou do with him in thy dank caves Under the grey abysms of the salt flood? Spare him to me and sunlight.
Polydaon and Phineus enter from behind.
DERCETES Prince, give the order.
IOLAUS Let this young sun-god live.
DERCETES It is forbidden.
IOLAUS But I allow it.
POLYDAON (coming forward) And when did lenient Heaven Make thee a godhead, Syrian Iolaus, To set thy proud decree against Poseidon's? Wilt thou rescind what Ocean's Zeus has ordered?
IOLAUS Polydaon—
POLYDAON Does a royal name on earth Inflate so foolishly thy mortal pride, Thou evenest thyself with the Olympians?
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Beware, the blood of kings has dropped ere now From the grey sacrificial knife.
IOLAUS Our blood! Thou darest threaten me, presumptuous priest? Back to thy blood-stained kennel! I absolve This stranger.
POLYDAON Captain, take them both. You flinch? Are you so fearful of the name of prince He plays with? Fear rather dark Poseidon's anger.
PHINEUS Be wise, young Iolaus. Polydaon, Thy zeal outstrips the reverence due to kings.
IOLAUS I need not thy protection, Tyrian Phineus: This is my country.
He draws.
PHINEUS (aside to Polydaon) It were well done to kill him now, his sword Being out against the people's gods; for then Who blames the god's avenger?
POLYDAON Will you accept, Syrians, the burden of his sacrilege? Upon them for Poseidon!
DERCETES Seize them but slay not! Let none dare shed the blood of Syria's kings.
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SOLDIERS Poseidon! great Poseidon!
PERSEUS Iolaus, Rein in thy sword: I am enough for these.
He shakes his uncovered shield in the faces of the soldiers: they stagger back covering their eyes.
IOLAUS Gods, what a glory lights up Syria!
POLYDAON Amazement! Is this a god opposes us? Back, back!
CIREAS Master, master, skedaddle: run, run, good King of Tyre, it is scuttle or be scuttled. Zeus has come down to earth with feathered shoes and a shield made out of phosphorus.
He runs off, followed more slowly by Dercetes and the soldiers.
PHINEUS Whate'er thou art, yet thou shalt not outface me.
He advances with sword drawn.
Hast thou Heaven's thunders with thee too?
POLYDAON (pulling him back) Back, Phineus! The fiery-tasselled aegis of Athene Shakes forth these lightnings, and an earthly sword Were madness here.
He goes out with Phineus.
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IOLAUS O radiant strong immortal, Iolaus kneels to thee.
PERSEUS No, Iolaus. Though great Athene breathes Olympian strength Into my arm sometimes, I am no more Than a brief mortal.
IOLAUS Art thou only man? O then be Iolaus' friend and lover, Who com'st to me like something all my own Destined from other shores.
PERSEUS Give me thy hands, O fair young child of the warm Syrian sun. Embrace me! Thou art like a springing laurel Fed upon sunlight by the murmuring waters.
IOLAUS Tell me thy name. What memorable earth Gave thee to the azure?
PERSEUS I am from Argolis, Perseus my name, the son of Danaë.
IOLAUS Come, Perseus, friend, with me: fierce entertainment We have given, unworthy the fair joyousness Thou carriest like a flag, but thou shalt meet A kinder Syria. My royal father Cepheus Shall welcome, my mother give thee a mother's greeting And our Andromeda's delightful smile
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Persuade thee of a world more full of beauty Than thou hadst dreamed of.
PERSEUS I shall yet be glad with thee, O Iolaus, in thy father's halls, But I would not as yet be known in Syria. Is there no pleasant hamlet near, hedged in With orchard walls and green with unripe corn And washed with bright and flitting waves, where I Can harbour with the kindly village folk And wake to cock-crow in the morning hours, As in my dear Seriphos?
IOLAUS Such a village Lurks near our hills,—there with my kind Cydone Thou mayst abide at ease, until thou choose, O Perseus, to reveal thyself to Syria. I too can visit thee unquestioned.
PERSEUS Thither Then lead me. I have a thirst for calm obscurity And cottages and happy unambitious talk And simple people. With these I would have rest, Not in the laboured pomp of princely towns Amid pent noise and purple masks of hate. I will drink deep of pure humanity And take the innocent smell of rain-drenched earth, So shall I with a noble untainted mind Rise from the strengthening soil to great adventure.
They go out.
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The Palace of Cepheus. A room in the women's apartments.
Praxilla, to her enters Diomede.
DIOMEDE O Praxilla, Praxilla!
PRAXILLA So, thou art back, thou tall inutility? Where wert thou lingering all this hour? I am tired of always whipping thee. I will hire thee out to a timber-merchant to carry logs from dawn to nightfall. Thou shalt learn what labour is.
DIOMEDE Praxilla, O Praxilla! I am full to the throat with news. I pray you, rip me open.
PRAXILLA Willingly.
She advances towards her with an uplifted knife.
DIOMEDE (escaping) A plague! can you not appreciate a fine metaphor when you hear it? I never saw so prosaic a mortal. The soul in you was born of a marriage between a saucepan and a broomstick.
PRAXILLA Tell me your news. If it is good, I will excuse you your whipping.
DIOMEDE I was out on the beach thinking to watch the seagulls flying and crying in the wind amidst the surf dashing and the black cliff-heads—
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PRAXILLA And could not Poseidon turn thee into a gull there among thy natural kindred? Thou wert better fitted with that shape than in a reasonable human body.
DIOMEDE Oh then you shall hear the news tell itself, mistress, when the whole town has chewed it and rechewed it.
She is going.
PRAXILLA Stop, you long-limbed impertinence. The news!
DIOMEDE I'll be hanged if I tell you.
PRAXILLA You shall be whipped, if you do not.
DIOMEDE Well, your goddess Switch is a potent divinity. A ship with men from the East has broken on the headland below the temple and two Chaldeans are saved alive for the altar.
PRAXILLA This is glorious news indeed.
DIOMEDE It will be a great day when they are sacrificed!
PRAXILLA We have not had such since the long galley from Cnossus grounded upon our shores and the temple was washed richly with blood and the altar blushed as thickly with hearts of victims as the King's throne with rubies. Poseidon was pleased that year and the harvest was so plentiful, men were brought in from beyond the hills to reap it.
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DIOMEDE There would have been a third victim, but Prince Iolaus drew sword on the priest Polydaon to defend him.
PRAXILLA I hope this is not true.
DIOMEDE I saw it.
PRAXILLA Is the wild boy In love with ruin? Not the King himself Can help him if the grim sacrificant Demand his fair young head: only a god Could save him. And he was already in peril From Polydaon's gloomy hate!
DIOMEDE And Phineus'.
PRAXILLA Hush, silly madcap, hush; or speak much lower.
DIOMEDE Here comes my little queen of love, stepping As daintily as a young bird in spring When he would take the hearts of all the forest.
Andromeda enters.
PRAXILLA You have slept late, Andromeda.
ANDROMEDA Have I? The sun had risen in my dreams: perhaps I feared to wake lest I should find all dark
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Once more, Praxilla.
DIOMEDE He has risen in your eyes, For they are full of sunshine, little princess.
ANDROMEDA I have dreamed, Diomede, I have dreamed.
DIOMEDE What did you dream?
ANDROMEDA I dreamed my sun had risen. He had a face like the Olympian Zeus And wings upon his feet. He smiled upon me, Diomede.
PRAXILLA Dreams are full of stranger fancies. Why, I myself have seen hooved bears, winged lions, And many other monsters in my dreams.
ANDROMEDA My sun was a bright god and bore a flaming sword To kill all monsters.
DIOMEDE I think I've seen today Your sun, my little playmate.
ANDROMEDA No, you have not. I'll not have any eyes see him but mine: He is my own, my very own.
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DIOMEDE And yet I saw him on the wild sea-beach this morning.
PRAXILLA What mean you, Diomede?
DIOMEDE (to Andromeda) You have not heard? A ship was flung upon the rocks this morning And all her human burden drowned.
ANDROMEDA Alas!
DIOMEDE It was a marvellous sight, my little playmate, And made my blood with horror and admiration Run richer in my veins. The great ship groaned While the rough boulders dashed her into pieces, The men with desperate shrieks went tumbling down Mid laughters of the surge, strangled twixt billows Or torn by strips upon the savage rocks That tossed their mangled bodies back again Into the cruel keeping of the surge.
ANDROMEDA O do not tell me any more! How had you heart To look at what I cannot bear to hear? For while you spoke, I felt as if the rocks Were tearing my own limbs and the salt surge Choking me.
DIOMEDE I suppose it must have hurt them. Yes, it was pitiful. Still, 'twas a sight. Meanwhile the deep surf boomed their grandiose dirge
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With fierce triumphant voices. The whole scene Was like a wild stupendous sacrifice Offered by the grey-filleted grim surges On the gigantic altar of the rocks To the calm cliffs seated like gods above.
ANDROMEDA Alas, the unhappy men, the poor drowned men Who had young children somewhere whom they loved! How could you watch them die? Had I been a god, I would not let this cruel thing have happened.
DIOMEDE Why do you weep for them? they were not Syrians.
PRAXILLA Not they, but barbarous jabbering foreigners From Indus or Arabia. Fie, my child, You sit upon the floor and weep for these?
ANDROMEDA When Iolaus fell upon the rocks And hurt himself, you did not then forbid me To weep!
PRAXILLA He is your brother. That was loving, Tender and right.
ANDROMEDA And these men were not brothers? They too had sisters who will feel as I should If my dear brother were to die so wretchedly.
PRAXILLA Let their own sisters weep for them: we have Enough of our own sorrows. You are young
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And softly made: because you have yourself No griefs, but only childhood's soon-dried tears, You make a luxury of others' woes. So when we watch a piteous tragedy, We grace with real tears its painted sorrows. When you are older and have true things to weep for, Then you will understand.
ANDROMEDA I'll not be older! I will not understand! I only know That men are heartless and your gods most cruel. I hate them!
PRAXILLA Hush, hush! You know not what you say. You must not speak such things. Come, Diomede, Tell her the rest.
ANDROMEDA (covering her ears with her hands) I will not hear you.
DIOMEDE (kneeling by her and drawing her hands away) But I Will tell you of your bright sun-god.
ANDROMEDA He is not My sun-god or he would have saved them.
DIOMEDE He did.
ANDROMEDA (leaping to her feet) Then tell me of him.
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DIOMEDE Suddenly there dawned A man, a vision, a brightness, who descended From where I know not, but to me it seemed That the blue heavens just then created him Out of the sunlight. His face and radiant body Aspired to copy the Olympian Zeus And wings were on his feet.
ANDROMEDA He was my sun-god!
DIOMEDE He caught two drowning wretches by the robe And drew them safe to land.
ANDROMEDA He was my sun-god. Diomede, I have seen him in my dream.
PRAXILLA I think it was Poseidon come to take His tithe of all that death for the ancient altar, Lest all be engulfed by his grey billows, he Go quite unhonoured.
DIOMEDE Hang up your grim Poseidon! This was a sweet and noble face all bright With manly kindness.
ANDROMEDA O I know, I know. Where went he with those rescued?
DIOMEDE Why, just then
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Prince Iolaus and his band leaped forth And took them.
ANDROMEDA (angrily) Wherefore took them? By what right?
DIOMEDE To die according to our Syrian law On dark Poseidon's altar.
ANDROMEDA They shall not die. It is a shame, a cruel cold injustice. I wonder that my brother had any part in it! My sun-god saved them, they belong to him, Not to your hateful gods. They are his and mine, I will not let you kill them.
PRAXILLA Why, they must die And you will see it done, my little princess. You shall! Where are you going?
ANDROMEDA Let me go. I do not love you when you talk like this.
PRAXILLA But you are Syria's lady and must appear At these high ceremonies.
ANDROMEDA I had rather be A beggar's daughter who devours the remnants Rejected from your table, than reign a queen Doing such cruelty.
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PRAXILLA Little passionate scold! You mean not what you say. A beggar's daughter! You? You who toss about if only a rose-leaf Crinkle the creamy smoothness of your sheets, And one harsh word flings weeping broken-hearted As if the world had no more joy in store. You are a little posturer, you make A theatre of your own mind to act in, Take parts, declaim such childish rhetoric As that you speak now. You a beggar's daughter! Come, listen what became of your bright sun-god.
DIOMEDE Him too they would have seized, but he with steel Opposed and tranquil smiling eyes appalled them. Then Polydaon came and Phineus came And bade arrest the brilliant god. Our Prince, Seized by his glory, with his virgin point Resisted their assault.
ANDROMEDA My Iolaus!
DIOMEDE All suddenly the stranger's lifted shield Became a storm of lightnings. Dawn was blinded: Far promontories leaped out in the blaze, The surges were illumined and the horizon Answered with light.
ANDROMEDA (clapping her hands) O glorious! O my dream!
PRAXILLA You tell the actions of a mighty god, Diomede.
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DIOMEDE A god he seemed to us, Praxilla. The soldiers ran in terror, Polydaon Went snorting off like a black whale harpooned, And even Phineus fled.
ANDROMEDA Was he not killed? I wish he had been killed.
PRAXILLA This is your pity!
ANDROMEDA (angrily) I do not pity tigers, wolves and scorpions. I pity men who are weak and beasts that suffer.
PRAXILLA I thought you loved all men and living things.
ANDROMEDA Perhaps I could have loved him like my hound Or the lion in the park who lets me pat his mane. But since he would have me even without my will To foul with his beast touch, my body abhors him.
PRAXILLA Fie, fie! you speak too violently. How long Will you be such a child?
DIOMEDE Our Iolaus And that bright stranger then embraced. Together They left the beach.
ANDROMEDA Where, where is Iolaus?
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Why is he long in coming? I must see him. I have a thousand things to ask.
DIOMEDE She is A strange unusual child, my little playmate.
PRAXILLA None can help loving her, she is in charm Compelling: but her mind is wry and warped. She is not natural, not sound in fancy, But made of wild uncurbed imaginations, With feelings as unruly as winds and waves And morbid sympathies. At times she talks Strange childish blasphemies that make me tremble. She would impose her fancies on the world As better than the eternal laws that rule us! I wish her mother had brought her up more strictly, For she will come to harm.
DIOMEDE Oh, do not say it! I have seen no child in all our Syria like her, None her bright equal in beauty. She pleases me Like days of sunlight rain when spring caresses Warmly the air. Oh, here is Iolaus.
PRAXILLA Is it he?
DIOMEDE I know him by the noble strut He has put on ever since they made him captain.
Andromeda comes running.
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ANDROMEDA My brother comes! I saw him from the terrace.
Enters Iolaus. Andromeda runs and embraces him.
Oh, Iolaus, have you brought him to me? Where is my sun-god?
IOLAUS In heaven, little sister.
ANDROMEDA Oh, do not laugh at me. I want my sun-god Whose face is like the grand Olympian Zeus' And wings are on his feet. Where did you leave him After you took him from our rough sea-beaches?
IOLAUS What do you mean, Andromeda?
DIOMEDE Some power Divine sent her a dream of that bright strength Which shone by you on the sea-beach today, And him she calls her sungod.
IOLAUS Is it so? My little wind-tossed rose Andromeda! I shall be glad indeed if Heaven intends this.
ANDROMEDA Where is he?
IOLAUS Do you not know, little rose-sister, The great gods visit earth by splendid moments And then are lost to sight? Come, do not weep; He is not lost to Syria.
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ANDROMEDA Iolaus, Why did you take the two poor foreign men And give them to the priest? My sun-god saved them, Brother,—what right had you to kill?
IOLAUS My child, I only did my duty as a soldier, Yet grieve I was compelled.
ANDROMEDA Now will you save them?
IOLAUS But they belong to dread Poseidon now!
ANDROMEDA What will be done to them?
IOLAUS They must be bound On the god's altar and their living hearts Ripped from their blood-choked breasts to feed his hunger.
Andromeda covers her face with her robe.
Grieve not for them: they but fulfil their fate. These things are in the order of the world Like plagues and slaughters, famines, fires and earthquakes, Which when they pass us by killing their thousands, We should not weep for, but be grateful only That other souls than the dear heads we loved Have perished.
ANDROMEDA You will not save them?
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PRAXILLA Unhappy girl! It is impiety to think of it. Fie! Would you have your brother killed for your whimsies?
ANDROMEDA Will you not save them, brother?
IOLAUS I cannot, child.
ANDROMEDA Then I will.
She goes out.
IOLAUS Does she mean it?
PRAXILLA Such wild caprices Are always darting through her brain.
IOLAUS I could not take Poseidon's wrath upon my head!
PRAXILLA Forget it As she will too. Her strange imaginations Flutter awhile among her golden curls, But soon wing off with careless flight to Lethe.
Medes enters.
IOLAUS What is it, Medes?
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MEDES The King, Prince Iolaus, Requires your presence in his audience-chamber.
IOLAUS So? Tell me, Medes, is Poseidon's priest In presence there?
MEDES He is and full of wrath.
IOLAUS Go, tell them I am coming.
Medes goes out.
PRAXILLA Alas!
IOLAUS Fear not. I have a strength the grim intriguers dream not of. Let not my sister hear this, Diomede.
PRAXILLA What may not happen! The priest is dangerous, Poseidon may be angry. Let us go And guard our child from peril of this shock.
They go.
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The audience-chamber in the Palace of Cepheus.
Cepheus and Cassiopea, seated.
CASSIOPEA What will you do, Cepheus?
CEPHEUS This that has happened Is most unfortunate.
CASSIOPEA What will you do? I hope you will not give up to the priest My Iolaus' golden head? I hope You do not mean that?
CEPHEUS Great Poseidon's priest Sways all this land: for from the liberal blood Moistening that high-piled altar grow our harvests And strong Poseidon satisfied defends Our frontiers from the loud Assyrian menace.
CASSIOPEA Empty thy treasuries, glut him with gold. Let us be beggars rather than one bright curl Of Iolaus feel his gloomy mischiefs.
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CEPHEUS I had already thought of it. Medes!
Waits Polydaon yet?
MEDES He does, my lord.
CEPHEUS Call him, and Tyrian Phineus.
Medes goes out again.
CASSIOPEA Bid Tyre save Andromeda's loved brother from this doom; He shall not have our daughter otherwise.
CEPHEUS This too was in my mind already, queen.
Polydaon and Phineus enter.
Be seated, King of Tyre: priest Polydaon, Possess thy usual chair.
POLYDAON Well, King of Syria, Shall I have justice? Wilt thou be the King Over a peopled country? or must I loose The snake-haired Gorgon-eyed Erinnyes To hunt thee with the clamorous whips of Hell Blood-dripping?
CEPHEUS Be content. Cepheus gives nought But justice from his mighty seat. Thou shalt Have justice.
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POLYDAON I am not used to cool my heels About the doors of princes like some beggarly And negligible suitor whose poor plaint Is valued by some paltry drachmas. I am Poseidon's priest.
CEPHEUS The prince is called to answer here Thy charges.
POLYDAON Answer! Will he deny a crime Done impudently in Syria's face? 'Tis well; The Tyrian stands here who can meet that lie.
CASSIOPEA My children's lips were never stained with lies, Insulting priest, nor will be now; from him We shall have truth.
CEPHEUS And grant the charge admitted, The ransom shall be measured with the crime.
POLYDAON What talk is this of ransom? Thinkst thou, King, That dire Poseidon's grim offended godhead Can be o'erplastered with a smudge of silver? Shall money blunt his vengeance? Shall his majesty Be estimated in a usurer's balance? Blood is the ransom of this sacrilege.
CASSIOPEA Ah God!
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CEPHEUS (in agitation) Take all my treasury includes Of gold and silver, gems and porphyry Unvalued.
POLYDAON The Gods are not to be bribed, King Cepheus.
CASSIOPEA (apart) Give him honours, state, precedence, All he can ask. O husband, let me keep My child's head on my bosom safe.
CEPHEUS Listen! What wouldst thou have? Precedence, pomp and state? Hundreds of spears to ring thee where thou walkest? Swart slaves and beautiful women in thy temple To serve thee and thy god? They are thine. In feasts And high processions and proud regal meetings Poseidon's followers shall precede the King.
POLYDAON Me wilt thou bribe? I take these for Poseidon, Nor waive my chief demand.
CEPHEUS What will content thee?
POLYDAON A victim has been snatched from holy altar: To fill that want a victim is demanded.
CEPHEUS I will make war on Egypt and Assyria And throw thee kings for victims.
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POLYDAON Thy vaunt is empty. Poseidon being offended, who shall give thee Victory o'er Egypt and o'er strong Assyria?
CEPHEUS Take thou the noblest head in all the kingdom Below the Prince. Take many heads for one.
POLYDAON Shall then the innocent perish for the guilty? Is this thy justice? How shall thy kingdom last?
CEPHEUS You hear him, Cassiopea? he will not yield, He is inexorable.
POLYDAON Must I wait longer?
CEPHEUS Ho Medes!
Iolaus comes not yet.
CASSIOPEA (rising fiercely) Priest, thou wilt have my child's blood then, it seems! Nought less will satisfy thee than thy prince For victim?
POLYDAON Poseidon knows not prince or beggar. Whoever honours him, he heaps with state And fortune. Whoever wakes his dreadful wrath, He thrusts down into Erebus for ever.
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CASSIOPEA Beware! Thou shalt not have my child. Take heed Ere thou drive monarchs to extremity. Thou hopest in thy sacerdotal pride To make the Kings of Syria childless, end A line that started from the gods. Thinkst thou It will be tamely suffered? What have we To lose, if we lose this? I bid thee again Take heed: drive not a queen to strong despair. I am no tame-souled peasant, but a princess And great Chaldea's child.
POLYDAON (after a pause) Wilt thou confirm Thy treasury and all the promised honours, If I excuse the deed?
CEPHEUS They shall be thine.
He turns to whisper with Cassiopea.
PHINEUS (apart to Polydaon) Dost thou prefer me for thy foeman?
POLYDAON See In the queen's eyes her rage. We must discover New means; this way's not safe.
PHINEUS Thou art a coward, priest, for all thy violence. But fear me first and then blench from a woman.
POLYDAON Well, as you choose.
Iolaus enters.
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IOLAUS Father, you sent for me?
CEPHEUS There is a charge upon thee, Iolaus, I do not yet believe. But answer truth Like Cepheus' son, whatever the result.
IOLAUS Whatever I have done, my father, good Or ill, I dare support against the world. What is this accusation?
CEPHEUS Didst thou rescue At dawn a victim from Poseidon's altar?
IOLAUS I did not.
POLYDAON Dar'st thou deny it, wretched boy? Monarch, his coward lips have uttered falsehood. Speak, King of Tyre.
IOLAUS Hear me speak first. Thou ruffian, Intriguer masking in a priest's disguise,—
POLYDAON Hear him, O King!
CEPHEUS Speak calmly. I forbid All violence. Thou deniest then the charge?
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IOLAUS As it was worded to me, I deny it.
PHINEUS Syria, I have not spoken till this moment, And would not now, but sacred truth compels My tongue howe'er reluctant. I was there, And saw him rescue a wrecked mariner With his rash steel. Would that I had not seen it!
IOLAUS Thou liest, Phineus, King of Tyre.
CASSIOPEA Alas! If thou hast any pity for thy mother, Run not upon thy death in this fierce spirit, My child. Calmly repel the charge against thee, Nor thus offend thy brother.
PHINEUS I am not angry.
IOLAUS It was no shipwrecked weeping mariner, Condemned by the wild seas, whom they attempted, But a calm god or glorious hero who came By other way than man's to Syria's margin. Nor did rash steel or battle rescue him. With the mere dreadful waving of his shield He shook from him a hundred threatening lances, This hero hot from Tyre and this proud priest Now bold to bluster in his monarch's chamber, But then a pallid coward,—so he trusts In his Poseidon!
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POLYDAON Hast thou done?
IOLAUS Not yet. That I drew forth my sword, is true, and true I would have rescued him from god or devil Had it been needed.
POLYDAON Enough! He has confessed! Give verdict, King, and sentence. Let me watch Thy justice.
CEPHEUS But this fault was not so deadly!
POLYDAON I see thy drift, O King. Thou wouldst prefer Thy son to him who rules the earth and waters: Thou wouldst exalt thy throne above the temple, Setting the gods beneath thy feet. Fool, fool, Knowst thou not that the terrible Poseidon Can end thy house in one tremendous hour? Yield him one impious head which cannot live And he will give thee other and better children. Give sentence or be mad and perish.
IOLAUS Father, Not for thy son's, but for thy honour's sake Resist him. 'Tis better to lose crown and life, Than rule the world because a priest allows it.
POLYDAON Give sentence, King. I can no longer wait, Give sentence.
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CEPHEUS (helplessly to Cassiopea) What shall I do?
CASSIOPEA Monarch of Tyre, Thou choosest silence then, a pleased spectator? Thou hast bethought thee of other nuptials?
PHINEUS Lady, You wrong my silence which was but your servant To find an issue from this dire impasse, Rescuing your child from wrath, justice not wounded.
CASSIOPEA The issue lies in the accuser's will, If putting malice by he'ld only seek Poseidon's glory.
PHINEUS The deed's by all admitted, The law and bearing of it are in doubt.
(to Polydaon)
You urge a place is void and must be filled On great Poseidon's altar, and demand Justly the guilty head of Iolaus. He did the fault, his head must ransom it. Let him fill up the void, who made the void. Nor will high heaven accept a guiltless head, To let the impious free.
CASSIOPEA Phineus,—
PHINEUS But if The victim lost return, you cannot then
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Claim Iolaus; then there is no void For substitution.
POLYDAON King,—
PHINEUS The simpler fault With ransom can be easily excused And covered up in gold. Let him produce The fugitive.
IOLAUS Tyrian,—
PHINEUS I have not forgotten. Patience! You plead that your mysterious guest Being neither shipwrecked nor a mariner Comes not within the doom of law. Why then, Let Law decide that issue, not the sword Nor swift evasion! Dost thou fear the event Of thy great father's sentence from that throne Where Justice sits with bright unsullied robe Judging the peoples? Calmly expect his doom Which errs not.
CASSIOPEA Thou art a man noble indeed in counsel And fit to rule the nations.
CEPHEUS I approve. You laugh, my son?
IOLAUS I laugh to see wise men
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Catching their feet in their own subtleties. King Phineus, wilt thou seize Olympian Zeus And call thy Tyrian smiths to forge his fetters? Or wilt thou claim the archer bright Apollo To meet thy human doom, priest Polydaon? 'Tis well; the danger's yours. Give me three days And I'll produce him.
CEPHEUS Priest, art thou content?
POLYDAON Exceed not thou the period by one day, Or tremble.
CEPHEUS (rising) Happily decided. Rise My Cassiopea: now our hearts can rest From these alarms.
Cepheus and Cassiopea leave the chamber.
IOLAUS Keep thy knife sharp, sacrificant. King Phineus, I am grateful and advise Thy swift departure back to Tyre unmarried.
POLYDAON What hast thou done, King Phineus? All is ruined.
PHINEUS What, have the stripling's threats appalled thee, priest?
POLYDAON Thou hast demanded a bright dreadful god For victim. We might have slain young Iolaus: Wilt thou slay him whose tasselled aegis smote
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Terror into a hundred warriors?
PHINEUS Priest, Thou art a superstitious fool. Believe not The gods come down to earth with swords and wings, Or transitory raiment made on looms, Or bodies visible to mortal eyes. Far otherwise they come, with unseen steps And stroke invisible,—if gods indeed There are. I doubt it, who can find no room For powers unseen: the world's alive and moves By natural law without their intervention.
POLYDAON King Phineus, doubt not the immortal gods. They love not doubters. If thou hadst lived as I, Daily devoted to the temple dimness, And seen the awful shapes that live in night, And heard the awful sounds that move at will When Ocean with the midnight is alone, Thou wouldst not doubt. Remember the dread portents High gods have sent on earth a hundred times When kings offended.
PHINEUS Well, let them reign unquestioned Far from the earth in their too bright Olympus, So that they come not down to meddle here In what I purpose. For your aegis-bearer, Your winged and two-legged lion, he's no god. You hurried me away or I'ld have probed His godlike guts with a good yard of steel To test the composition of his ichor.
POLYDAON What of his flaming aegis lightning-tasselled?
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What of his winged sandals, King?
PHINEUS The aegis? Some mechanism of refracted light. The wings? Some new aerial contrivance A luckier Daedalus may have invented. The Greeks are scientists unequalled, bold Experimenters, happy in invention. Nothing's incredible that they devise, And this man, Polydaon, is a Greek.
POLYDAON Have it your way. Say he was merely man! How do we profit by his blood?
PHINEUS O marvellous! Thou hesitate to kill! thou seek for reasons! Is not blood always blood? I could not forfeit My right to marry young Andromeda; She is my claim to Syria. Leave something, priest, To Fortune, but be ready for her coming And grasp ere she escape. The old way's best; Excite the commons, woo their thunderer, That plausible republican. Iolaus Once ended, by right of fair Andromeda I'll save and wear the crown. Priest, over Syria And all my Tyrians thou shalt be the one prelate, Should all go well.
POLYDAON All shall go well, King Phineus.
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A room in the women's apartments of the Palace.
Andromeda, Diomede, Praxilla.
ANDROMEDA My brother lives then?
PRAXILLA Thanks to Tyre, it seems.
DIOMEDE Thanks to the wolf who means to eat him later.
PRAXILLA You'll lose your tongue some morning; rule it, girl.
DIOMEDE These kings, these politicians, these high masters! These wise blind men! We slaves have eyes at least To look beyond transparency.
PRAXILLA Because We stand outside the heated game unmoved By interests, fears and passions.
ANDROMEDA He is a wolf, for I have seen his teeth.
PRAXILLA Yet must you marry him, my little princess.
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ANDROMEDA What, to be torn in pieces by the teeth?
DIOMEDE I think the gods will not allow this marriage.
ANDROMEDA I know not what the gods may do: be sure, I'll not allow it.
PRAXILLA Fie, Andromeda! You must obey your parents: 'tis not right, This wilfulness. Why, you're a child! you think You can oppose the will of mighty monarchs? Be good; obey your father.
ANDROMEDA Yes, Praxilla? And if my father bade me take a knife And cut my face and limbs and stab my eyes, Must I do that?
PRAXILLA Where are you with your wild fancies? Your father would not bid you do such things.
ANDROMEDA Because they'ld hurt me?
PRAXILLA Yes.
ANDROMEDA It hurts me more To marry Phineus.
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PRAXILLA O you sly logic-splitter! You dialectician, you sunny-curled small sophist, Chop logic with your father. I'm tired of you.
Cepheus enters.
ANDROMEDA Father, I have been waiting for you.
CEPHEUS What! you? I'll not believe it. You? (caressing her) My rosy Syrian! My five-foot lady! My small queen of Tyre! Yes, you are tired of playing with the ball. You wait for me!
ANDROMEDA I was waiting. Here are Two kisses for you.
CEPHEUS Oh, now I understand. You dancing rogue, you're not so free with kisses: I have to pay for them, small cormorant. What is it now? a talking Tyrian doll? Or a strong wooden horse with silken wings To fly up to the gold rims of the moon?
ANDROMEDA I will not kiss you if you talk like that. I am a woman now. As if I wanted Such nonsense, father!
CEPHEUS Oh, you're a woman now? Then 'tis a robe from Cos, sandals fur-lined Or belt all silver. Young diplomatist,
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I know you. You keep these rippling showers of gold Upon your head to buy your wishes with. Therefore you packed your small red lips with honey. Well, usurer, what's the price you want?
ANDROMEDA I want,— But father, will you give me what I want?
CEPHEUS I'ld give you the bright sun from heaven for plaything To make you happy, girl Andromeda.
ANDROMEDA I want the Babylonians who were wrecked In the great ship today, to be my slaves, Father.
CEPHEUS Was ever such a perverse witch? To ask the only thing I cannot give!
ANDROMEDA Can I not have them, father?
CEPHEUS They are Poseidon's.
ANDROMEDA Oh then you love Poseidon more than me! Why should he have them?
CEPHEUS Fie, child! the mighty gods Are masters of the earth and sea and heavens, And all that is, is theirs. We are their stewards. But what is once restored into their hands
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Is thenceforth holy: he who even gazes With greedy eye upon divine possessions, Is guilty in Heaven's sight and may awake A dreadful wrath. These men, Andromeda, Must bleed upon the altar of the God. Speak not of them again: they are devoted.
ANDROMEDA Is he a god who eats the flesh of men?
PRAXILLA O hush, blasphemer!
ANDROMEDA Father, give command, To have Praxilla here boiled for my breakfast. I'll be a goddess too.
CEPHEUS Praxilla!
PRAXILLA 'Tis thus She talks. Oh but it gives me a shivering fever Sometimes to hear her.
CEPHEUS What mean you, dread gods? Purpose you then the ruin of my house Preparing in my children the offences That must excuse your wrath? Andromeda, My little daughter, speak not like this again, I charge you, no, nor think it. The mighty gods Dwell far above the laws that govern men And are not to be mapped by mortal judgments. It is Poseidon's will these men should die Upon his altar. 'Tis not to be questioned.
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ANDROMEDA It shall be questioned. Let your God go hungry.
CEPHEUS I am amazed! Did you not hear me, child? On the third day from now these men shall die. The same high evening ties you fast with nuptials To Phineus, who shall take you home to Tyre.
On Tyre let the wrath fall, if it must come.
ANDROMEDA Father, you'll understand this once for all,— I will not let the Babylonians die, I will not marry Phineus.
CEPHEUS Oh, you will not? Here is a queen, of Tyre and all the world; How mutinous-majestically this smallness Divulges her decrees, making the most Of her five feet of gold and cream and roses! And why will you not marry Phineus, rebel?
ANDROMEDA He does not please me.
CEPHEUS School your likings, rebel. It is most needful Syria mate with Tyre. And you are Syria.
ANDROMEDA Why, father, if you gave me a toy, you'ld ask What toy I like! If you gave me a robe Or vase, you would consult my taste in these! Must I marry any cold-eyed crafty husband
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I do not like?
CEPHEUS You do not like! You do not like! Thou silly child, must the high policy Of Princes then be governed by thy likings? 'Tis policy, 'tis kingly policy That made this needful marriage, and it shall not For your spoilt childish likings be unmade. What, you look sullen? what, you frown, virago? Look, if you mutiny, I'll have you whipped.
ANDROMEDA You would not dare.
CEPHEUS Not dare!
ANDROMEDA Of course you would not. As if I were afraid of you!
CEPHEUS You are spoiled, You are spoiled! Your mother spoils you, you wilful sunbeam. Come, you provoking minx, you'll marry Phineus?
ANDROMEDA I will not, father. If I must marry, then I'll marry my bright sun-god! and none else In the wide world.
CEPHEUS Your sun-god! Is that all? Shall I not send an envoy to Olympus And call the Thunderer here to marry you? You're not ambitious?
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PRAXILLA It is not that she means; She speaks of the bright youth her brother rescued. Since she has heard of him, no meaner talk Is on her lips.
CEPHEUS Who is this radiant coxcomb? Whence did he come to set my Syria in a whirl? For him my son's in peril of his life, For him my daughter will not marry Tyre. Oh, Polydaon's right. He must be killed Before he does more mischief. Andromeda, On the third day you marry Tyrian Phineus.
He goes out hurriedly.
DIOMEDE That was a valiant shot timed to a most discreet departure. Parthian tactics are best when we deal with mutinous daughters.
PRAXILLA Andromeda, you will obey your father?
ANDROMEDA You are not in my counsels. You're too faithful, Virtuous and wise, and virtuously you would Betray me. There is a thing full-grown in me That you shall only know by the result. Diomede, come; for I need help, not counsel.
She goes.
PRAXILLA What means she now? Her whims are as endless as the tossing of leaves in a wind. But you will find out and tell me, Diomede.
DIOMEDE I will find out certainly, but as to telling, that is as it shall please me—and my little mistress.
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PRAXILLA You shall be whipped.
DIOMEDE Pish!
PRAXILLA The child is spoiled herself and she spoils her servants. There is no managing any of them.
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An orchard garden in Syria by a river-bank: the corner of a cottage in the background.
Perseus, Cydone.
CYDONE (sings) O the sun in the reeds and willows! O the sun with the leaves at play! Who would waste the warm sunlight? And for weeping there's the night. But now 'tis day.
PERSEUS Yes, willows and the reeds! and the bright sun Stays with the ripples talking quietly. And there, Cydone, look! how the fish leap To catch at sunbeams. Sing yet again, Cydone.
CYDONE (sings) O what use have your foolish tears? What will you do with your hopes and fears? They but waste the sweet sunlight. Look! morn opens: look how bright The world appears!
PERSEUS O you Cydone in the sweet sunlight! But you are lovelier.
CYDONE You talk like Iolaus.
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Come, here's your crown. I'll set it where 'tis due.
PERSEUS Crowns are too heavy, dear. Sunlight was better.
CYDONE 'Tis a light crown of love I put upon you, My brother Perseus.
PERSEUS Love! but love is heavy.
CYDONE No, love is light. I put light love upon you, Because I love you and you love Iolaus. I love you because you love Iolaus, And love the world that loves my Iolaus, Iolaus my world and all the world Only for Iolaus.
PERSEUS Happy Cydone, Who can lie here and babble to the river All day of love and light and Iolaus. If it could last! But tears are in the world And must some day be wept.
CYDONE Why must they, Perseus?
PERSEUS When Iolaus becomes King in Syria And comes no more, what will you do, Cydone?
CYDONE Why, I will go to him.
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PERSEUS And if perhaps He should not know you?
CYDONE Then it will be night. It is day now.
PERSEUS A bright philosophy, But with the tears behind. Hellas, thou livest In thy small world of radiant white perfection With eye averted from the night beyond, The night immense, unfathomed. But I have seen Snow-regions monstrous underneath the moon And Gorgon caverns dim. Ah well, the world Is bright around me and the quick lusty breeze Of strong adventure wafts my bright-winged sandals O'er mountains and o'er seas, and Herpe's with me, My sword of sharpness.
CYDONE Your sword, my brother Perseus? But it is lulled to sleep in scarlet roses By the winged sandals watched. Can they really Lift you into the sky?
PERSEUS They can, Cydone.
CYDONE What's in the wallet locked so carefully? I would have opened it and seen, but could not.
PERSEUS 'Tis well thou didst not. For thy breathing limbs Would in a moment have been charmed to stone
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And these smooth locks grown rigid and stiffened, O Cydone, Thy happy heart would never more have throbbed To Iolaus' kiss.
CYDONE What monster's there?
PERSEUS It is the Gorgon's head who lived in night. Snake-tresses frame its horror of deadly beauty That turns the gazer into marble.
CYDONE Ugh! Why do you keep such dreadful things about you?
PERSEUS Why, are there none who are better turned to stone Than living?
CYDONE O yes, the priest of the dark shrine Who hates my love. Fix him to frowning grimness In innocent marble. (listening) It is Iolaus! I know his footfall, muffled in the green.
IOLAUS Perseus, my friend,—
PERSEUS Thou art my human sun. Come, shine upon me; let thy face of beauty Become a near delight, my arm, fair youth, possess thee.
IOLAUS I am a warrant-bearer to you, friend.
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PERSEUS On what arrest?
IOLAUS For running from the knife. A debt that must be paid. They'll not be baulked Their dues of blood, their strict account of hearts. Or mine or thine they'll have to crown their altars.
PERSEUS Why, do but make thy tender breast the altar And I'll not grudge my heart, sweet Iolaus. Who's this accountant?
IOLAUS Poseidon's dark-browed priest, As gloomy as the den in which he lairs, Who hopes to gather Syria in his hands Upon a priestly pretext.
CYDONE Change him, Perseus, Into black stone!
PERSEUS Oh, hard and black as his own mood! He has a stony heart much better housed In limbs of stone than a kind human body Who would hurt thee, my Iolaus.
IOLAUS He'ld hurt And find a curious pleasure. If it were even My sister sunbeam, my Andromeda, He'ld carve her soft white breast as readily As any slave's or murderer's.
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PERSEUS Andromeda! It is a name that murmurs to the heart Of strength and sweetness.
IOLAUS Three days you are given to prove yourself a god! You failing, 'tis my bosom pays the debt. That's their decree.
CYDONE Turn them to stone, to stone! All, all to heartless marble!
PERSEUS Thy father bids this?
IOLAUS He dare not baulk this dangerous priest.
PERSEUS Ah, dare not! Yes, there are fathers too who love their lives And not their children: earth has known of such. There was a father like this once in Argos!
IOLAUS Blame not the King too much.
CYDONE Turn him to stone, To stone!
IOLAUS Hush, hush, Cydone!
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CYDONE Stone, hard stone!
IOLAUS I'll whip thee, shrew, with rose-briars.
CYDONE Will you promise To kiss the blood away? Then I'll offend Daily, on purpose.
IOLAUS Love's rose-briars, sweet Cydone, Inflict no wounds.
CYDONE Oh yes, they bleed within.
IOLAUS The brow of Perseus grows darkness!
PERSEUS Rise, And be my guide. Where is this temple and priest?
IOLAUS The temple now?
PERSEUS Soonest is always best When noble deeds are to be done.
IOLAUS What deed?
PERSEUS I will release the men of Babylon
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From their grim blood-feast. Let them howl for victims.
IOLAUS It will incense them more.
PERSEUS Me they have incensed With their fierce crafty fury. If they must give To their dire god, let them at least fulfil With solemn decency their fearful rites. But since they bring in politic rage and turn Their barbarous rite into a trade of murder, Nor rite nor temple be respected more. Must they have victims? Let them take and slay Perseus alone. I shall rejoice to know That so much strength and boldness dwells in men Who are mortal.
IOLAUS Men thou needst not fear; but, Perseus, Poseidon's wrath will wake, whose lightest motion Is deadly.
PERSEUS Mine is not harmless.
IOLAUS Against gods What can a mortal's anger do?
PERSEUS We'll talk With those pale merchants. Wait for me; I bring Herpe my sword.
CYDONE The wallet, Perseus! leave not the dear wallet!
Perseus goes out towards the cottage.
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IOLAUS My queen, have I your leave?
CYDONE Give me a kiss That I may spend the hours remembering it Till you return.
IOLAUS (kissing her) Will one fill hours, Cydone?
CYDONE I fear to ask for more. You're such a miser.
IOLAUS You rose-lipped slanderer! there! Had I the time I would disprove you, smothering you with what You pray for.
CYDONE Come soon.
IOLAUS I'll watch the sun go down. In your dark night of tresses.
Perseus returns.
PERSEUS Come.
IOLAUS I am ready.
CYDONE Stone, brother Perseus, make them stone for ever.
Perseus and Iolaus go out.
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(sings) "Marble body, heart of bliss Or a stony heart and this, Which of these two wilt thou crave? One or other thou shalt have." "By my kisses shall be known Which is flesh and which is stone. Love, thy heart of stone! it quakes. Sweet, thy fair cold limbs! love takes With this warm and rosy trembling. Where is now thy coy dissembling? Heart and limbs I here escheat For that fraudulent deceit." "And will not marble even grow soft, Kissed so warmly and so oft?"
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The women's apartments of the Palace.
Andromeda, Diomede.
ANDROMEDA All's ready, let us go.
DIOMEDE Andromeda, My little mistress whom I love, let me Beseech you by that love, do not attempt it. Oh, this is no such pretty wilfulness As all men love to smile at and to punish With tenderness and chidings. It is a crime Full of impiety, a deed of danger That venturous and iron spirits would be aghast To dream of. You think because you are a child, You will be pardoned, because you are a princess No hand will dare to punish you. You do not know Men's hearts. They will not pause to pity you, They will not spare. The people in its rage Will tear us both to pieces, limb from limb, With blows and fury, roaring round like tigers. Will you expose yourself to that grim handling Who cry out at the smallest touch of pain?
ANDROMEDA Do not delay me on the brink of action. You have said these things before.
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DIOMEDE You shall not do it. I will not go with you.
ANDROMEDA So you expose me To danger merely and break the oath you swore; For I must do it then unhelped.
DIOMEDE I'll tell Your mother, child, and then you cannot go.
ANDROMEDA I shall die then on the third day from this.
DIOMEDE What! you will kill yourself, and for two strangers You never saw? You are no human maiden But something far outside mortality, Princess, if you do this.
ANDROMEDA I shall not need. You threaten me with the fierce people's tearings, And shall I not be torn when I behold My fellows' piteous hearts plucked from their bosoms Between their anguished shrieks? I shall fall dead With horror and with pity at your feet: Then you'll repent this cruelty.
She weeps.
DIOMEDE Child, child! Hush, I will go with you. If I must die, I'll die.
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ANDROMEDA Have I not loved you, Diomede? Have I not taken your stripes upon myself, Claiming your dear offences? Have I not lain Upon your breast, stealing from my own bed At night, and kissed your bosom and your hands For very love of you? And I had thought You loved me: but you do not care at last Whether I live or die.
DIOMEDE Oh hush! I love you, I'll go with you. You shall not die alone, If you are bent on dying. I'll put on My sandals and be with you in a moment. Go, little princess. I am with you; go.
ANDROMEDA O you poor shuddering men, my human fellows, Horribly bound beneath the grisly knife You feel already groping for your hearts, Pardon me each long moment that you wrestle With grim anticipation. O, and you, If there is any god in the deaf skies That pities men or helps them, O protect me! But if you are inexorably unmoved And punish pity, I, Andromeda, Who am a woman on this earth, will help My brothers. Then, if you must punish me, Strike home. You should have given me no heart; It is too late now to forbid it feeling.
She is going out. Athene appears.
What is this light, this glory? who art thou, O beautiful marble face amid the lightnings? My heart faints with delight, my body trembles, Intolerable ecstasy beats in my veins;
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I am oppressed and tortured with thy beauty.
ANDROMEDA Art thou a goddess? Thy name We hear far off in Syria.
ATHENE I am she Who helps and has compassion on struggling mortals.
ANDROMEDA (falling prostrate) Do not deceive me! I will kiss thy feet. O joy! thou art! thou art!
ATHENE Lift up thy head, My servant.
ANDROMEDA Thou art! there are not only void Azure and cold inexorable laws.
ATHENE Stand up, O daughter of Cassiope. Wilt thou then help these men of Babylonia, My mortals whom I love?
ANDROMEDA I help myself, When I help these.
ATHENE To thee alone I gave This knowledge. O virgin, O Andromeda,
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It reached thee through that large and noble heart Of woman beating in a little child. But dost thou know that thy reward shall be Betrayal and fierce hatred? God and man Shall league in wrath to kill and torture thee Mid dire revilings.
ANDROMEDA My reward shall be To cool this anguish of pity in my heart And be at peace: if dead, O still at peace!
ATHENE Thou fearst not then? They will expose thee, child, To slaughter by the monsters of the deep Who shall come forth to tear thy limbs.
ANDROMEDA Beyond too Shall I be hated, in that other world?
ATHENE Perhaps.
ANDROMEDA Wilt thou love me?
ATHENE Thou art my child.
ANDROMEDA O mother, O Athene, let me go. They linger in anticipated pangs.
ATHENE Go, child. I shall be near invisibly.
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She disappears. Andromeda stands with clasped hands straining her eyes as if into infinity.
Diomede returns.
DIOMEDE You are not gone as yet? what is this, princess? What is this light around you! How you are altered, Andromeda!
ANDROMEDA Diomede, let us go.
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In the Temple of Poseidon.
Cireas.
CIREAS I am done with thee, Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-slayer, ship-breaker, earth-shaker, lord of the waters! Never was faithful service so dirtily rewarded. In all these years not a drachma, not an obolus, not even a false coin for solace. And when thou hadst mocked me with hope, when a Prince had promised me all my findings, puttest thou me off with two pauperized merchants of Babylon? What, thou takest thy loud ravenous glut of the treasures that should have been mine and roarest derision at me with thy hundred-voiced laughters? Am I a sponge to suck up these insults? No! I am only moderately porous. I will break thy treasury, Poseidon, and I will run. Think not either to send thy sea-griffins after me. For I will live on the top of Lebanon, and thy monsters, when they come for me, shall snort and grin and gasp for breath and return to thee baffled and asthmatic.
As he talks Iolaus and Perseus enter.
IOLAUS What, Cireas, wilt thou run? I'll give thee gold To wing thy shoes, if thou wilt do my bidding.
CIREAS I am overheard! I am undone! I am crucified! I am disembowelled!
IOLAUS Be tranquil, Cireas, fool, I come to help thee.
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CIREAS Do you indeed! I see, they have made you a god, for you know men's minds. But could old father Zeus find your newborn godhead no better work than to help thieves and give wings to runaways? Will you indeed help me, god Iolaus? I can steal then under thy welcome protection? I can borrow Poseidon's savings and run?
IOLAUS Steal not: thou shalt have gold enough to buy Thy liberty and farms and slaves and cattle.
CIREAS Prince, art thou under a vow of liberality? or being about to die, wilt thou distribute thy goods and chattels to deserving dishonesty? Do not mock me, for if thou raise hopes again in me and break them, I can only hang myself.
IOLAUS I mock thee not, thou shalt have glut of riches.
CIREAS What must I do? I'ld give thee nose and ears For farms and freedom.
PERSEUS Wherefore dost thou bribe This slave to undo a bond my sword unties?
IOLAUS I shrink from violence in the grim god's temple.
CIREAS Zeus, art thou there with thy feathers and phosphorus? I pray thee, my good bright darling Zeus, do not come in the way of my earnings. Do not be so cantankerously virtuous, do not
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be so damnably economical. Good Zeus, I adjure thee by thy foot-plumes.
IOLAUS Cireas, wilt thou bring forth the wretched captives Who wait the butcher Polydaon's knife With groanings? we would talk with them. Wilt thou?
CIREAS Will I? Will I? I would do any bad turn to that scanty-hearted rampageous old ship-swallower there. I would do it for nothing, and for so much gold will I not?
IOLAUS And thou must shut thine eyes.
CIREAS Eyes! I will shut mouth and nose and ears too, nor ask for one penny extra.
IOLAUS Dost thou not fear?
CIREAS Oh, the blue-haired old bogy there? I have lived eighteen years in this temple and seen nothing of him but ivory and sapphires. I begin to think he cannot breathe out of water; no doubt, he is some kind of fish and walks on the point of his tail.
PERSEUS Enough, bring forth the Babylonian captives.
CIREAS I run, Zeus, I run: but keep thy phosphorus lit and handy against Polydaon's return unasked for and untrumpeted.
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PERSEUS O thou grim calmness imaged like a man That frownst above the altar! dire Poseidon! Art thou that god indeed who smooths the sea With one finger, and when it is thy will, Rufflest the oceans with thy casual breathing? Art thou not rather, lord, some murderous And red imagination of this people, The shadow of a soul that dreamed of blood And took this dimness? If thou art Poseidon, The son of Cronos, I am Cronos' grandchild, Perseus, and in my soul Athene moves With lightnings.
IOLAUS I hear the sound of dragging chains.
Cireas returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas.
PERSEUS Smerdas and thou, Tyrnaus, once again We meet.
SMERDAS Save me, yet save me.
PERSEUS If thou art worth it, I may.
SMERDAS Thou shalt have gold. I am well worth it. I'll empty Babylonia of its riches Into thy wallet.
PERSEUS Has terror made thee mad? Refrain from speech! Thine eyes are calm, Tyrnaus.
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TYRNAUS I have composed my soul to my sad fortunes. Yet wherefore sad? Fate has dealt largely with me. I have been thrice shipwrecked, twice misled in deserts, Wounded six times in battle with wild men For life and treasure. I have outspent kings: I have lost fortunes and amassed them: princes Have been my debtors, kingdoms lost and won By lack or having of a petty fraction Of my rich incomings: and now Fate gives me This tragic, not inglorious death: I am The banquet of a god. It fits, it fits, And I repine not.
PERSEUS But will these help, Tyrnaus, To pass the chill eternity of Hades? This memory of glorious breathing life, Will it alleviate the endless silence?
TYRNAUS But there are lives beyond, and we meanwhile Move delicately amid aerial things Until the green earth wants us.
PERSEUS (shearing his chains with a touch of his sword) Yet awhile Of the green earth take all thy frank desire, Merchant: the sunlight would be loth to lose thee.
SMERDAS O radiant helpful youth! O son of splendour! I live again.
PERSEUS Thou livest, but in chains, Smerdas.
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SMERDAS But thy good sword will quickly shear them.
PERSEUS Thou wilt give me all Babylonia holds Of riches for reward?
SMERDAS More, more, much more!
PERSEUS But thou must go to Babylon to fetch it. Then what security have I of payment?
SMERDAS Keep good Tyrnaus here, my almost brother. I will come back and give thee gold, much gold.
PERSEUS You'ld leave him here? in danger? with the knife Searching for him and grim Poseidon angry?
SMERDAS What danger, when he is with thee, O youth, Strong radiant youth?
PERSEUS Yourself then stay with me, And he shall bring the ransom from Chaldea.
SMERDAS Here? here? Oh God! they'll seize me yet again And cut my heart out. Let me go, dear youth, Oh, let me go; I'll give thee double gold.
PERSEUS Thou sordid treacherous thing of fears, I'll not
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Venture for such small gain as the poor soul Thou holdest, nor drive with danger losing bargains.
SMERDAS Oh, do not jest! it is not good to jest With death and horror.
PERSEUS I jest not.
SMERDAS Oh God! thou dost.
DIOMEDE (without) Cireas!
CIREAS (jumping) Who? who? who?
IOLAUS Is't not a woman's voice? Withdraw into the shadow: let our swords Be out against surprise. Hither, Tyrnaus.
DIOMEDE Cireas! where are you, Cireas? It is I.
CIREAS It is the little palace scamp, Diomede. Plague take her! How she fluttered the heart in me!
IOLAUS Say nothing of us, merchant, or thou diest.
Iolaus, Perseus and Tyrnaus withdraw into the dimness of the Temple. Andromeda and Diomede enter.
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CIREAS Princess Andromeda!
PERSEUS (apart) Andromeda! Iolaus' rosy sister! O child goddess Dropped recently from heaven! Its light is still Upon thy face, thou marvel!
IOLAUS My little sister In these grim precincts, who so feared their shadows!
ANDROMEDA Cireas, my servant Diomede means To tell you of some bargain. Will you walk yonder?
Cireas and Diomede walk apart talking.
Art thou, as these chains say, the mournful victim Our savage billows spared and men would murder? But was there not another? Have they brought thee From thy sad prison to the shrine alone?
SMERDAS He,—he,—
ANDROMEDA Has terror so possessed thy tongue, It cannot do its office? Oh, be comforted. Although red horror has its grasp on thee, I dare to tell thee there is hope.
SMERDAS What hope? Ah heaven! what hope! I feel the knife even now Hacking my bosom. If thou bringst me hope, I'll know thee for a goddess and adore thee.
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ANDROMEDA Be comforted: I bring thee more than hope. Cireas!
CIREAS You'll give me chains? you'll give me jewels?
ANDROMEDA All of my own that I can steal for you.
CIREAS Steal boldly, O honey-sweet image of a thief, steal and fear not. I rose for good luck after all this excellent morning! O Poseidon, had I known there was more to be pocketed in thy disservice than in thy service, would I have misspent these eighteen barren years?
ANDROMEDA Undo this miserable captive's bonds.
SMERDAS What! I shall be allowed to live! Is't true?
ANDROMEDA No, I'll undo them, Cireas; I shall feel I freed him. Is there so much then to unlink? O ingenuity of men to hurt And bind and slay their brothers!
SMERDAS 'Tis not a dream, The horror was the dream. She smiles on me A wonderful glad smile of joy and kindness, Making a sunshine. Oh, be quicker, quicker. Let me escape this hell where I have eaten And drunk of terror and have slept with death.
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ANDROMEDA Are you so careless of the friend who shared The tears and danger? Where is he? Cireas!
TYRNAUS (coming forward) O thou young goddess with the smile! Behold him, Tyrnaus the Chaldean.
ANDROMEDA (dropping the chain which binds Smerdas) Already free! Who has forestalled me?
TYRNAUS Maiden, art thou vexed To see me unbound?
ANDROMEDA I grudge your rescuer the happy task Heaven meant for me of loosening your chains. It would have been such joy to feel the cold Hard irons drop apart between my fingers! Who freed you?
TYRNAUS A god as radiant as thyself, Thou merciful sweetness.
ANDROMEDA Had he not a look Like the Olympian's? Was he not bright like Hermes Or Phoebus?
TYRNAUS He was indeed. Thou knowst him then?
ANDROMEDA In dreams I have met him. He was here but now?
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TYRNAUS He has withdrawn into the shadow, virgin.
SMERDAS Why do you leave me bound, and talk, and talk, As if Death had not still his fingers on me?
ANDROMEDA (resuming her task) Forgive me! Tyrnaus, did that radiant helper Who clove thy chains, forget to help this poor Pale trembling man?
TYRNAUS Because he showed too much The sordid fear that pities only itself, He left him to his fate.
ANDROMEDA Alas, poor human man! Why, we have all so many sins to answer, It would be hard to have cold justice dealt us. We should be kindly to each other's faults Remembering our own. Is't not enough To see a face in tears and heal the sorrow, Or must we weigh whether the face is fair Or ugly? I think that even a snake in pain Would tempt me to its succour, though I knew That afterwards 'twould bite me! But he is a god Perhaps who did this and his spotless radiance Abhors the tarnish of our frailer natures.
SMERDAS Oh, I am free! I fall and kiss thy robe, O goddess, O deliverer.
ANDROMEDA You must
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Go quickly from this place. There is a cave Near to those unkind rocks where you were shipwrecked, A stone-throw up the cliff. We found it there Climbing and playing, reckless of our limbs In the sweet joy of sunshine, breeze and movement, When we were children, I and Diomede. None else will dream of it. There have I stored Enough of food and water. Closely lurk Behind its curtains of fantastic stone: Venture not forth, though your hearts pine for sunlight, Or Death may take you back into his grip. When hot pursuit and search have been tired out, I'll find you golden wings will carry you To your Chaldea.
SMERDAS Can you not find out divers Who'll rescue our merchandise from the sunk rocks Where it is prisoned?
TYRNAUS You have escaped grim murder, Yet dream of nothing but your paltry gems! You will call back Heaven's anger on our heads.
SMERDAS We cannot beg our way to far Chaldea.
ANDROMEDA Diving is dangerous there: I will not risk Men's lives for money. I promised Cireas what I have, And yet you shall not go unfurnished home. I'll beg a sum from my brother Iolaus Will help you to Chaldea.
SMERDAS O my dear riches!
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Must you lie whelmed beneath the Syrian surge Uncared for?
ANDROMEDA (to Diomede) Take them to the cave. Show Cireas The hidden mouth. I'll loiter and expect you Under the hill-side, where sweet water plashes From the grey fountain's head, our fountain. Merchants, go; Athene guard you!
TYRNAUS Not before I kneel And touch thy feet with reverent humble hands, O human merciful divinity, Who by thy own sweet spirit moved, unasked, Not knowing us, cam'st from thy safe warm chamber Here where Death broods grim-visaged in his home, To save two unseen, unloved, alien strangers, And being a woman feared not urgent death, And being a child shook not before God's darkness And that insistent horror of a world O'ershadowing ours. O surely in these regions Where thou wert born, pure-eyed Andromeda, There shall be some divine epiphany Of calm sweet-hearted pity for the world, And harsher gods shall fade into their Hades.
SMERDAS You prattle, and at any moment, comes The dreadful priest with clutch upon my shoulder. Come! come! you, slave-girl, lead the way, accursed! You loiter?
ANDROMEDA Chide not my servant, Babylonian. Go, Diomede; darkness like a lid Will soon shut down upon the rugged beach
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And they may stumble as they walk. Go, Cireas.
Diomede and Cireas go out, followed by the merchants.
Alone I stand before thee, grim Poseidon, Here in thy darkness, with thy altar near That keeps fierce memory of tortured groans And human shrieks of victims, and, unforced, I yet pollute my soul with thy bloody nearness To tell thee that I hate, contemn, defy thee. I am no more than a brief-living woman, Yet am I more divine than thou, for I Can pity. I have torn thy destined prey From thy red jaws. They say thou dost avenge Fearfully insult. Avenge thyself, Poseidon.
She goes out: Perseus and Iolaus come forward.
PERSEUS Thou art the mate for me, Andromeda! Now, now I know wherefore my eager sandals Bore me resistlessly to thee and Syria.
IOLAUS This was Andromeda and not Andromeda. I never saw her woman till this hour.
PERSEUS Knew you so ill the child you loved so well, Iolaus?
IOLAUS Sometimes we know them least Whom most we love and constantly consort with.
PERSEUS How daintily she moved as if a hand She loved were on her curls and she afraid Of startling the sweet guest!
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IOLAUS O Perseus, Perseus! She has defied a strong and dreadful god, And dreadfully he will avenge himself.
PERSEUS Iolaus, friend, I think not quite at random Athene led me to these happy shores That bore such beautiful twin heads for me Sun-curled, Andromeda and Iolaus, That I might see their beauty marred with death By cunning priests and blood-stained gods. Fear not The event. I bear Athene's sword of sharpness.
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Darkness. The Temple of Poseidon.
Polydaon enters.
POLYDAON Cireas! Why, Cireas! Cireas! Knave, I call you! Is the rogue drunk or sleeps? Cireas! you, Cireas! My voice comes echoing from the hollow shrine To tell me of solitude. Where is this drunkard? A dreadful thing it is to stand alone In this weird temple. Forty years of use Have not accustomed me to its mute threatening. It seems to me as if dead victims moved With awful faces all about this stone Invisibly here palpable. And Ocean Groans ever like a wounded god aloud Against our rocky base, his voice at night Weirdly insistent. I will go and talk With the Chaldeans in their chains: better Their pleasing groans and curses than the hush.
He goes out and after a while comes back, disordered.
Wake, sleeping Syria, wake! Thou art violated, Thy heart cut out: thou art outraged, Syria, outraged, Thy harvests and thy safety and thy sons Already murdered! O hideous sacrilege! Who can have dared this crime? Could the slave Cireas Have ventured thus? O no, it is the proud God-hating son of Cepheus, Iolaus, And that swift stranger borne through impious air To upheave the bases of our old religion. They have rescued the Chaldeans. Cireas lies
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Murdered perhaps on the sound-haunted cliffs Who would have checked their crime. I'll strike the gong That only tolls when dread calamity Strides upon Syria. Wake, doomed people, wake!
He rushes out. A gong sounds for some moments. It is silent and he returns, still more disordered.
Wake! Wake! Do you not hear Poseidon raging Beneath the cliffs with tiger-throated menace? Do you not hear his feet upon the boulders Sounding, a thunderous report of peril, As he comes roaring up his stony ramparts To slay you? Ah, the city wakes. I hear A surge confused of hurrying, cries and tumult. What is this darkness moving on me? Gods! Where is the image? Whose is this awful godhead?
The Shadow of Poseidon appears, vague and alarming at first, then distinct and terrible in the darkness.
POSEIDON My victims, Polydaon, give me my victims.
POLYDAON (falling prostrate) It was not I, it was not I, but others.
POLYDAON O dire offended god, not upon me Fall thy loud scourges! I am innocent.
POSEIDON How art thou innocent, when the Chaldeans Escape? Give me my victims, Polydaon.
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POLYDAON I know not how they fled nor who released them. Gnash not thy blood-stained teeth on me, O Lord, Nor slay me with those glaring eyes. Thy voice Thunders, a hollow terror, through my soul.
POSEIDON Hear me, unworthy priest. While thou art scheming For thy own petty mortal aims abroad, I am insulted in my temple, laughed at By slaves, by children done injurious wrong, My victims snatched from underneath my roof By any casual hand, my dreadful image Looking deserted on: for none avenges.
POLYDAON Declare thy will, O Lord, it shall be done.
POSEIDON Therefore I will awake, I will arise, And you shall know me for a god. This day The loud Assyrians shall break shouting in With angry hooves like a huge-riding flood Upon this country. The pleasant land of Syria Shall be dispeopled. Wolves shall howl in Damascus, And Gaza and Euphrates bound a desert. My resonant and cliff-o'ervaulting seas, Black-cowled, with foaming tops thundering shall climb Into your lofty seats of ease and wash them Strangled into the valleys. From the deep My ravening herds pastured by Amphitrite Shall walk upon your roads, devour your maidens And infants, tear your strong and armed men Helplessly shrieking like weak-wristed women, Till all are dead. And thou, neglectful priest, Shalt go down living into Tartarus Where knives fire-pointed shall disclose thy breast
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And pluck thy still-renewing heart from thee For ever: till the world cease shall be thy torments.
POLYDAON O dreadful Lord!
POSEIDON If thou wouldst shun the doom, And keep my Syria safe, discover then The rescuer of the Babylonian captives And to the monsters of my deep expose For a delicious banquet. Offer the heart Of Iolaus here still warmly alive And sobbing blood to leave his beautiful body; Slaughter on his yet not inanimate bosom The hero for whose love he braved my rage, And let the sacrilegious house of Cepheus Be blotted from the light. Thy sordid aims Put from thy heart: remember to be fearless. I will inhabit thee, if thou deserve it.
He disappears thundering.
POLYDAON Yes, Lord! shall not thy dreadful will be done?
Phineus enters and his Tyrians with torches.
PHINEUS Wherefore has the gong's ominous voice tonight Affrighted Syria? Are you Polydaon Who crouch here?
POLYDAON (rising) Welcome, King Phineus.
PHINEUS Who art thou? Thine eyes roll round in a bright glaring horror
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And rising up thou shak'st thy gloomy locks As if they were a hungry lion's mane Preparing for the leap. Speak, Polydaon.
POLYDAON Yes, I shall speak, of sacrilege and blood, Its terrible forfeit, and the wrath of Heaven.
Cepheus enters with Dercetes and Syrian soldiers, Therops, Perissus and a throng of Syrians; scores of torches.
CEPHEUS What swift calamity, O Polydaon, Has waked to clamorousness the fatal gong At which all Syria trembles? What is this face Thou showest like some grim accusing phantom's In the torches' light? Wherefore rangst thou the bell?
POLYDAON It rang the doom of thee and all thy house, Cepheus.
CEPHEUS My doom!
PHINEUS (aside) I glimpse a striking plot And 'tis well-staged too.
POLYDAON The victims are released, The victims bound for terrible Poseidon. Thou and thy blood are guilty.
CEPHEUS Thou art mad!
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POLYDAON 'Tis thou and thy doomed race are seized with madness, Who with light hearts offend against Poseidon. But they shall perish. Thou and thy blood shall perish.
CEPHEUS O, thou appalst me. Wherefore rings out thy voice Against me like a clamorous bell of doom In the huge darkness?
POLYDAON Poseidon's self arose In the dim night before me with a voice As angry as the loud importunate surge Denouncing thee. Thou and thy blood shall perish.
PHINEUS Cepheus, let search be made. Perhaps the victims Have not fled far, and all may yet be saved.
CEPHEUS Scour, captains, scour all Syria for the fugitives. Dercetes and thy troop, down to the coast, Scan every boulder: out, out, Meriones, Callias, Oridamas and Pericarpus, Ring in the countryside with cordons armed, Enter each house, ransack most private chambers, But find them.
Dercetes and the captains go out with their soldiers, the people making way for them.
POLYDAON People of Syria, hearken, hearken! Poseidon for this sacrilege arouses The Assyrian from the land and from the sea His waves and all their sharp-toothed monsters: your men
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Shall be rent and disembowelled, your women ravished, Butchered by foemen or by Ocean's dogs Horribly eaten: what's left, the flood shall swallow.
Cries and groans.
VOICES Spare us, Poseidon, spare us, dread deity!
POLYDAON Would you be spared? Obey Poseidon, people.
THEROPS Thou art our King, command us.
POLYDAON Bring the woman, Chaldean Cassiopea, and her daughter. Tell them that Syria's King commands them here.
Therops and others go out to do his bidding.
PHINEUS What mean you, priest?
CEPHEUS Wherefore my queen and princess?
POLYDAON I do the will of terrible Poseidon. Thou and thy blood shall perish.
PHINEUS Thou then art mad! I thought this was a skilful play. Thinkst thou I will permit the young Andromeda, My bride, to be mishandled or exposed To the bloody chances of wild popular fury In such a moment?
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POLYDAON Phineus, I know not what thou wilt permit: I know what terrible Poseidon wills.
PHINEUS Poseidon! thou gross superstitious fool, Hast thou seen shadows in the night and tookst them For angry gods?
POLYDAON Refrain from impious words, Or else the doom shall take thee in its net.
PHINEUS Refrain thyself from impious deeds, or else A hundred Tyrian blades shall search thy brain To look for thy lost reason.
POLYDAON (recoiling) Patience, King Phineus! It may be, thou shalt have thy whole desire By other means.
Dercetes returns.
DERCETES One of the fugitives is seized.
POLYDAON Where, where?
DERCETES Creeping about the sea-kissed rocks we found him Where the ship foundered, babbling greedily Of his lost wealth, in cover of the darkness.
POLYDAON Now we shall know the impious hand. Tremble,
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Tremble, King Cepheus.
CEPHEUS (aside) I am besieged, undone. No doubt it is my rash-brained Iolaus Ruins us all.
Soldiers enter, driving in Smerdas.
SMERDAS (groaning) I am dragged back to hell. I am lost and nothing now can save me.
POLYDAON Chaldean, The choice is thine. Say, wilt thou save thy life And see the green fields of thy land once more And kiss thy wife and children?
SMERDAS You mock me, mock me!
POLYDAON No, man! thou shalt have freedom at a price Or torture gratis.
SMERDAS Price? price? I'll give the price!
POLYDAON The names of those whose impious hands released thee: Which if thou speak not, thou shalt die, not given To the dire god, for he asks other victims, But crushed with fearful tortures.
SMERDAS O kind Heaven! Have mercy! Must I give her up,—that smile
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Of sweetness and those kindly eyes, to death? It is a dreadful choice! I cannot do it.
POLYDAON It was a woman did this!
SMERDAS I'll say no more.
CEPHEUS I breathe again: it was not Iolaus.
POLYDAON Seize him and twist him into anguished knots! Let every bone be crushed and every sinew Wrenched and distorted, till each inch of flesh Gives out its separate shriek.
SMERDAS O spare me, spare me: I will tell all.
POLYDAON Speak truth and I will give thee Bushels of gold and shipment to Chaldea.
SMERDAS Gold? Gold? Shall I have gold?
POLYDAON Thou shalt.
SMERDAS (after a pause) The youth You would have taken on the beach, arrived, And his the sword bit through my iron fetters.
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POLYDAON Palter not! Who was with him? Thou shalt have gold.
SMERDAS Young Iolaus.
CEPHEUS Alas!
PHINEUS Thus far is well.
POLYDAON Thou hast a shifty look about the eyes. Thou spokest of a woman. Was't the Queen? Hast thou told all? His face grows pale. To torment!
SMERDAS (groaning) I will tell all. Swear then I shall have gold And safety.
POLYDAON By grim Poseidon's head I swear.
SMERDAS O hard necessity! The fair child princess, Andromeda, with her young slave-girl came, She was my rescuer.
There is a deep silence of amazement.
PHINEUS I'll not believe this! could that gentle child Devise and execute so huge a daring? Thou liest: thou art part of some foul plot.
POLYDAON He has the accent of unwilling truth.
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Phineus, she is death's bride, not thine. Wilt thou Be best man in that dolorous wedding? Forbear And wait Poseidon's will.
PHINEUS (low) Shall I have Syria?
POLYDAON When it is mine to give thee.
Therops returns.
THEROPS The Queen arrives.
POLYDAON Remove the merchant.
The soldiers take Smerdas into the background. Cassiopea enters with Andromeda and Diomede, Nebassar and the Chaldean Guard.
CASSIOPEA Keep ready hands upon your swords, Chaldeans. What is this tumult? Wherefore are we called At this dim hour and to this solemn place?
POLYDAON Com'st thou with foreign falchions, Cassiopea, To brave the Syrian gods? Abandon her, Chaldeans. 'Tis a doomed head your swords encompass.
CASSIOPEA Since when dost thou give thy commands in Syria And sentence queens? My husband and thy King Stands near thee; let him speak.
POLYDAON Let him. There stands he.
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CASSIOPEA Why hidest thou thine eyes, monarch of Syria, Sinking thy forehead like a common man Unkingly? What grief o'ertakes thee?
POLYDAON You see he speaks not. 'Tis I command in Syria. Is't not so, My people?
THEROPS 'Tis so.
POLYDAON Stand forth, Andromeda.
CASSIOPEA What would you with my child? I stand here for her.
POLYDAON She is accused of impious sacrilege, And she must die.
CASSIOPEA (shuddering) Die! Who accuses her?
POLYDAON Bring the Chaldean.
DIOMEDE Oh, the merchant's seized And all is known. Deny it, my sweet lady, And we may yet be saved.
ANDROMEDA Oh poor, poor merchant! Did I unloose thy bonds in vain?
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DIOMEDE Say nothing.
ANDROMEDA And why should I conceal it, Diomede? What I had courage in my heart to do, Surely I can have courage to avow.
DIOMEDE But they will kill us both.
ANDROMEDA I am a princess. Why should I lie? From fear? But I am not afraid.
Meanwhile the soldiers have brought Smerdas to the front.
POLYDAON Look, merchant. Say before all, who rescued thee? She was it?
SMERDAS It is she. Oh, do not look With that sad smile upon me. I am compelled.
POLYDAON Is this the slave-girl?
SMERDAS It is she.
CASSIOPEA This wretch Lies at thy bidding. Put him to the question. He said he was compelled.
POLYDAON I'll not permit it.
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PERISSUS Why, man, it is the law. We'll not believe Our little princess did the crime.
CASSIOPEA Syrians, Look at this paltering priest. Do you not see It is a plot, this man his instrument Who lies so wildly? He'll not have him questioned. No doubt 'twas he himself released the man,— Who else could do it in this solemn temple Where human footsteps fear to tread? He uses The name of great Poseidon to conceal His plottings. He would end the line of Cepheus And reign in Syria.
PERISSUS This sounds probable.
VOICES Does he misuse Poseidon's name? unbind Victims? Kill him!
CASSIOPEA Look how he pales, O people! Is't thus that great Poseidon's herald looks When charged with the god's fearful menaces? He diets you with forgeries and fictions.
CRIES Let him be strangled!
PHINEUS This is a royal woman!
POLYDAON Well, let the merchant then be put to question.
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PERISSUS Come and be tickled, merchant. I am the butcher. Do you see my cleaver? I will torture you kindly.
SMERDAS O help me, save me, lady Andromeda.
ANDROMEDA Oh, do not lay your cruel hands upon him. I did release him.
CASSIOPEA Ah, child Andromeda.
PERISSUS You, little princess! Wherefore did you this?
ANDROMEDA Because I would not have their human hearts Mercilessly uprooted for the bloody Monster you worship as a god! because I am capable of pain and so can feel The pain of others! For which if you I love Must kill me, do it. I alone am guilty.
POLYDAON Now, Cassiopea! You are silent, Queen. Lo, Syrians, lo, my forgeries and fictions! Lo, my vile plottings! Enough. Poseidon wills That on the beach this criminal be bound For monsters of the sea to rend in fragments, And all the royal ancient blood of Syria Must be poured richly forth to appease and cleanse.
CASSIOPEA Swords from the scabbard! gyre in your King from harm, Chaldeans! Hew your way through all opposers!
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Thou in my arms, my child Andromeda! I'll keep my daughter safe upon my bosom Against the world.
POLYDAON What dost thou, Babylonian?
CASSIOPEA To the palace, My trusty countrymen!
POLYDAON Oppose them, soldiers! They cheat the god of the crime-burdened heads Doomed by his just resentment.
DERCETES We are few: And how shall we lay hands on royalty?
POLYDAON Nebassar, darest thou oppose the gods?
NEBASSAR Out of my sword's way, priest! I do my duty.
POLYDAON Draw, King of Tyre!
PHINEUS 'Tis not my quarrel, priest.
Nebassar and the Chaldeans with drawn swords go out from the Temple, taking the King and Queen, Andromeda and Diomede.
POLYDAON People of Syria, you have let them pass!
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You fear not then the anger of Poseidon?
PERISSUS Would you have us spitted upon the Chaldean swords? Mad priest, must we be broached like joints and tossed like pancakes? We have no weapons. Tomorrow we will go to the Palace and what must be done shall be done. But 'tis not just that many should be slain for the crime of one and the house of Syria out-rooted. Follow me and observe my commands, brave aristocracy of the shop, gallant commoners of the lathe and anvil, follow Perissus. I will lead you tonight to your soft downy beds and tomorrow to the Palace.
All the Syrians go out, led by Therops and Perissus.
PHINEUS Thou hast done foolishly in this, O priest. Hadst thou demanded the one needful head Of Iolaus, it was easy: but now The tender beauty of Andromeda Compels remorse and the astonished people Recoil from the bold waste of royal blood Thou appointest them to spill. I see that zeal And frantic superstition are bad plotters. Henceforth I work for my sole hand, to pluck My own good from the storms of civic trouble This night prepares.
He goes out with his Tyrians.
POLYDAON O terrible Poseidon, Thyself avenge thyself! hurl on this people The sea and the Assyrian. Where is the power Thou saidst should tarry with me? I have failed.
He remains sunk in thought for a while, then raises his head.
Tomorrow, Syrian? tomorrow is Poseidon's.
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The countryside, high ground near the city of Cepheus. A crowd of Syrians, men and women, running in terror, among them Chabrias, Megas, Baltis, Pasithea, Morus, Gardas, Syrax.
BALTIS (stopping and sinking down on her knees) Ah, whither can we run where the offended Poseidon shall not reach us?
CHABRIAS Stop, countrymen; Let's all die here together.
OTHERS Let's stop and die.
MEGAS Run, run! Poseidon's monsters howl behind.
PASITHEA O day of horror and of punishment!
SYRAX Let us stay here; it is high ground, perhaps The monster will not reach us.
Damoetes enters.
DAMOETES I have seen the terror near, and yet I live.
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It vomits fire for half a league.
SYRAX It is As long as a sea-jutting promontory.
DAMOETES It has six monstrous legs.
SYRAX Eight, eight; I saw it.
MEGAS Chabrias, it caught thy strong son by the foot, And dashed his head against a stone, that all The brains were scattered.
CHABRIAS Alas, my son! I will Go back and join you in the monster's jaws.
He is stopped by the others.
DAMOETES It seized thy daughter, O Pasithea, And tore her limbs apart, which it devoured While yet the trunk lay screaming under its foot.
PASITHEA Oh God!
She swoons.
ALL Lift her up, lift her up. Alas!
MEGAS These sorrows may be ours.
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BALTIS Ah Heaven, my son! I did not wake him when this news of horror Plucked me from sleep.
GARDAS My wife and little daughter Are in my cottage where perhaps the monster Vomits his fiery breath against the door. I will go back.
MORUS Let us go back, Damoetes.
DAMOETES I'll not go back for twenty thousand wives And children. Life is sweet.
MANY VOICES Let us not go.
They stop Gardas.
MEGAS What noise is that?
BALTIS Run, run, 'tis some new horror.
All are beginning to run. Therops enters.
THEROPS Where will you run? Poseidon's wrath is near you And over you and behind you and before you. His monsters from the ooze ravage howling Along our shores, and the indignant sea Swelled to unnatural tumultuous mountains Is climbing up the cliffs with spume and turmoil.
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DAMOETES O let us run a hundred leagues and live.
THEROPS Before you is another death. Last night The Assyrians at three points came breaking in Across the border and the frontier forces Are slain. They torture, burn and violate: Young girls and matrons, men and boys are butchered. Salvation is not in your front and flight Casts you from angry gods to men more ruthless. I wonder not that you are silent, stunned With fear: but will you listen, countrymen, And I will show you a cure for these fierce evils.
VOICES Oh tell us, tell us, you shall be our king.
MEGAS We'll set thy image by the great Poseidon's And worship it.
THEROPS What is the unexampled cause of wrath Which whelms you with these horrors? Is't not the bold Presumptuous line of Cepheus? Is't not your kings Whose pride, swollen by your love and homage, Syrians, Insults the gods, rescues Poseidon's victims And with a sacrilegious levity Exposes all your lives to death and woe? There is the fount of all your misery, Syrians, For this the horror eats you up,—your kings.
CRIES Away with them! throw them into the sea—let Poseidon swallow them!
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THEROPS But most I blame the fell Chaldean woman Who rules you. What is this Cepheus but a puppet Dressed up in royal seemings, pushed forth and danced At her caprice? Unhappy is the land That women rule, that country more unhappy That is to heartless foreigners a prey. But thou, O ill-starred Syria, two worst evils Hast harboured in a single wickedness. What cares the light Chaldean for your gods, Your lives, your sons, your daughters? She lives at ease Upon the revenues of your hard toil, Depending on favourites, yes, on paramours,— For why have women favourites but to ease Their sensual longings?—and insults your deities. Do you not think she rescued the Chaldeans Because they were her countrymen, and used Her daughter, young Andromeda, for tool That her fair childish beauty might disarm Wrath and suspicion? then, the crime unearthed, Braved all and set her fierce Chaldeans' swords Against the good priest Polydaon's heart,— You did not hear that?—the good Polydaon Who serves Poseidon with such zeal! Therefore The god is angry: your wives, sisters, daughters Must suffer for Chaldean Cassiopea.
CRIES Let us seize her and kill, kill, kill, kill her!
DAMOETES Burn her!
MORUS Roast her!
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MEGAS Tear her into a million fragments.
CHABRIAS But are they not our kings? We must obey them.
THEROPS Wherefore must we obey them? Kings are men, And they are set above their fellow-mortals To serve us, friends,—not, surely, for our hurt! Why should our sons and daughters bleed for them, Syrians? Is not our blood as dear, as precious, As human? Why should these kings, these men, go clad In purple and in velvet while you toil For little and are hungry and are naked?
CRIES True, true, true!
GARDAS This is a wonderful man, this Therops. He has a brain, countrymen.
DAMOETES A brain! He is no cleverer than you or I, Morus.
MORUS I should think not, Damoetes!
DAMOETES We knew these things long ago and did not need wind-bag Therops to tell us!
MORUS We have talked them over often, Damoetes.
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MEGAS We'll have no more kings, countrymen.
CRIES No kings, no kings!
GARDAS Or Therops shall be king.
CRIES Yes, Therops king! Therops king!
DAMOETES Good king Lungs! Oh, let us make him king, Morus,—he will not pass wind in the market-place so often.
THEROPS Poseidon is our king; we are his people. Gods we must worship; why should we worship men And set a heavenly crown on mortal weakness? They have offended against great Poseidon, They are guilty of a fearful sacrilege. Let them perish.
CRIES Kill them! let us appease Poseidon.
CHABRIAS Worship Heaven's power but bow before the king.
THEROPS What need have we of kings? What are these kings?
CHABRIAS They are the seed of gods.
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THEROPS Then, let them settle Themselves their quarrel with their Olympian kindred. Why should we suffer? Let Andromeda Be exposed and Iolaus sacrificed: Then shall Poseidon's wrath retire again Into the continent of his vast billows.
CHABRIAS If it must be so, let it come by award Of quiet justice.
THEROPS Justice! They are the judges Who did the crime. Wherefore dost thou defend them? Thou favourest then Poseidon's enemies?
CRIES Kill him too, kill Chabrias. Poseidon, great Poseidon! we are Poseidon's people.
DAMOETES Let him join his son and by the same road.
MORUS Beat his brains out—to see if he has any. Ho! ho! ho!
THEROPS Let him alone: he is a fool. Here comes Our zealous good kind priest, our Polydaon.
CRIES Polydaon! Polydaon! the good Polydaon! Save us, Polydaon!
POLYDAON Ah, do you call me now to save you? Last night
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You did not save me when the foreign swords Were near my heart.
MEGAS Forgive us and protect.
DAMOETES You, lead us to the palace, be our chief.
MORUS We'll have no kings: lead, you: on to the palace!
MEGAS Poseidon shall be king, thou his vicegerent.
GARDAS Therops at thy right hand!
CRIES Yes, Therops! Therops!
POLYDAON Oh, you are sane now, being let blood by scourgings! Unhurt had been much better. But Poseidon Pardons and I will save.
CRIES Polydaon for ever, the good Polydaon, Poseidon's Viceroy!
POLYDAON Swear then to do Poseidon's will.
CRIES We swear!
DAMOETES Command and watch the effect!
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POLYDAON Will not the tongue Of Cassiopea once more change you, people?
DAMOETES We'll cut it out and feed her dogs with it.
POLYDAON Shall Iolaus bleed? Andromeda Be trailed through the city and upon the rocks, As the god wills, flung naked to his monsters? Cepheus and Cassiopea die?
CRIES They shall!
MEGAS Not one of them shall live.
POLYDAON Then come, my children.
DAMOETES But the beast! Will it not tear us on the road?
POLYDAON It will not hurt you who do Poseidon's will. I am your safeguard; I will march in front.
CRIES To the palace, to the palace! We'll kill the Chaldeans, strangle Cepheus, tear the Queen to pieces.
POLYDAON In order, in good order, my sweet children.
The mob surges out following Polydaon and Therops: only Damoetes, Chabrias, Baltis and Pasithea are left.
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DAMOETES Come, Chabrias, we'll have sport.
CHABRIAS My dead son calls me.
He goes out in another direction.
BALTIS Pasithea, rise and come: you'll see her killed Who is the murderess of your daughter.
PASITHEA Let me Stay here and die.
DAMOETES Lift her up. Come, fool.
They go out, leading Pasithea.
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Cydone's Garden.
Cydone, Iolaus, Perseus.
CYDONE Perseus, you did not turn him into stone?
IOLAUS You cruelty! must one go petrifying One's fellows through the world? 'Twould not be decent.
CYDONE He would have been so harmless as a statue!
PERSEUS The morning has broken over Syria and the sun Mounts royally into his azure kingdom. I feel a stir within me as if great things Were now in motion and clear-eyed Athene Urging me on to high and helpful deeds. There is a grandiose tumult in the air, A voice of gods and Titans locked in wrestle.
Diomede enters.
DIOMEDE Ah, prince!
She bursts into tears.
IOLAUS Diomede, what calamity?
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DIOMEDE Flee, flee from Syria, save thyself.
IOLAUS From Syria! Am I alone in peril? Then I'll sit And wait.
DIOMEDE Poseidon's monsters from the deep Arise to tear us for our sin. The people In fury, led by Polydaon, march Upon the palace, crying, "Slay the King, Butcher the Queen, and let Andromeda And Iolaus die." O my sweet playmate, They swear they'll bind her naked to the rocks Of the sea-beach for the grim monster's jaws To tear and swallow.
IOLAUS My sword, my sword, Cydone!
DIOMEDE Oh, go not to the fierce and bloody people! Praxilla stole me out, hiding my face In her grey mantle: I have outrun the wind To warn you. Had the wild mob recognised me, They would have torn me into countless pieces, And will you venture near whose name they join With death and cursings? Polydaon leads them.
CYDONE Had he been only stone!
IOLAUS My sword!
Cydone gives him the sword.
Perseus goes out to the cottage.
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DIOMEDE You'll go? What will you do alone against ten thousand?
IOLAUS To die is always easy. This canaille I do not fear; it is a coward rabble.
DIOMEDE But terror gives them fierceness: they are dangerous.
IOLAUS Keep Diomede for your service, love, If I am killed; escape hence with your mother To Gaza; she has gold: you may begin A life as fair there. Sometimes remember me.
CYDONE Diomede, will you comfort my dear mother? Tell her I am quite safe and will be back By nightfall. Hush! this in your ear, Diomede. Escape with her under the veil of night, For I shall not come back. Be you her daughter And comfort her sad lonely age, Diomede.
IOLAUS What do you mean, Cydone?
CYDONE Are you ready? Let us be going.
IOLAUS Us, sweet lunatic?
CYDONE Often you've said that you and I are only one, I shall know now if you mean it.
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IOLAUS You shall not give To the rude mob's ferocious violence The beautiful body I have kissed so often. You'll not obey me?
CYDONE No.
IOLAUS Leave this you shall not.
CYDONE I do not know how you will stop me.
IOLAUS Shrew! You shall be stopped by bonds. Here you'll remain Tied to a tree-trunk by your wilful wrists Till all is over.
Perseus returns, armed.
CYDONE I'll bring the tree and all and follow you.
IOLAUS Oh, will you, Hercules?
PERSEUS Forbid her not, My Iolaus; no tress of her shall fall. I have arisen and all your turbulent Syria Shall know me for the son of Zeus.
IOLAUS Perseus, Art thou indeed a god? What wilt thou do,
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One against a whole people? What way hast thou?
PERSEUS This is no hour to speak or plan, but to act. A presence sits within my heart that sees Each moment's need and finds the road to meet it. Dread nothing; I am here to help and save.
IOLAUS I had almost forgotten; the might thou hast shown Is a sufficient warrant.
CYDONE I shall come back, Diomede.
PERSEUS My grip is firm on Herpe, Athene's aegis guards my wrist; herself The strong, omnipotent and tranquil goddess Governs my motions with her awful will. Have trust in me. Borne on my bright-winged sandals Invisibly I will attend your course On the light breezes.
He goes out followed by Iolaus and Cydone.
DIOMEDE I am too tired to follow, Too daunted with their mad-beast howls. Here let me hide Awaiting what event this war of gods May bring to me and my sweet-hearted lady. O my Andromeda! my little playmate!
She goes out towards the cottage weeping.
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A room commanding the outer Court of the Palace.
Nebassar, Praxilla.
PRAXILLA I have seen them from the roof; at least ten thousand March through the streets. Do you not hear their rumour, A horrid hum as of unnumbered hornets That slowly nears us?
NEBASSAR If they are so many, It will be hard to save the princess.
PRAXILLA Save her! It is too late now to save anyone.
NEBASSAR I fear so.
PRAXILLA But never is too late to die As loyal servants for the lords whose bread We have eaten. At least we women of the household Will show the way to you Chaldeans.
NEBASSAR We are soldiers, Praxilla, and need no guidance on a road We daily tread in prospect. I'll bring my guards.
He goes out saluting Cassiopea who enters.
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CASSIOPEA Swift Diomede must have reached by now, Praxilla.
PRAXILLA I hope so, madam.
She goes out to the inner apartments.
CASSIOPEA Then Iolaus Is safe. My sad heart has at least that comfort. O my Andromeda, my child Andromeda, Thou wouldst not let me save thee. Hadst thou too gone, I would have smiled when their fierce fingers rent me.
CEPHEUS The mob is nearing; all my Syrian guards Have fled; we cannot hope for safety now.
CASSIOPEA Then what is left but to set rapid fire To the rafters and prevent on friendly swords The rabble's outrage?
CEPHEUS Was it for such a fate Thou camest smiling from an emperor's palace, O Cassiopea, Cassiopea!
CASSIOPEA For me Grieve not.
CEPHEUS O Lady, princess of Chaldea, Pardon me who have brought thee to this doom.
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Yet I meant well and thought that I did wisely: But the gods wrest our careful policies To their own ends until we stand appalled Remembering what we meant to do and seeing What has been done.
CASSIOPEA With no half soul I came To share thy kingdom and thy joys; entirely I came, to take the evil also with thee.
CEPHEUS Is there no truth in our high-winging ideals? My rule was mild as spring, kind as the zephyr: It tempered justice with benevolence And offered pardon to the rebel and sinner; I showed mercy, the rare sign of gods and kings. In this too difficult world, this too brief life To serve the gods with virtue seemed the best. A nation's happiness was my only care: I made the people's love my throne's sure base And dreamed the way I chose true, great, divine. But the heavenly gods have other thoughts than man's; Their awful aims transcend our human sight. Another doom than I had hoped they gave.
CASSIOPEA A screened Necessity drives even the gods. Over human lives it strides to unseen ends; Our tragic failures are its stepping-stones.
CEPHEUS My father lived calm, just, pitiless, austere, As a stern god might sway a prostrate world: Admired and feared, he died a mighty king. My end is this abominable fate.
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CASSIOPEA Another law than mercy's rules the earth.
CEPHEUS If I had listened to thee, O Cassiopea, Chance might have taken a fairer happier course. Always thou saidst to me, "The people's love Is a glimmer on quicksands in a gliding sea: Today they are with thee, tomorrow turn elsewhere. Wisdom, strength, policy alone are sure." I thought I better knew my Syrian folk. Is this not my well-loved people at my door, This tiger-hearted mob with bestial growl, This cry for blood to drink, this roar of hate? Always thou spok'st to me of the temple's power, A growing danger menacing the State, Its ambition's panther crouch and serpent pride And cruel craft in a priest's sombre face: I only saw the god and sacred priest. To priest and god I am thrown a sacrifice. The golden-mouthed orator of the market-place, Therops, thou bad'st me fear and quell or win Gaining his influence to my side. To me He seemed a voice and nothing but a voice. Too late I learn that human speech has power To change men's hearts and turn the stream of Time. Thy eyes could read in Phineus' scheming brain. I only thought to buy the strength of Tyre Offering my daughter as unwilling price. He has planned my fall and watches my agony. At every step I have been blind, have failed: All was my error; all's lost and mine the fault.
CASSIOPEA Blame not thyself; what thou hadst to be, thou wert, And never yet came help from vain remorse. It is too late, too late. To die is left;
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Fate and the gods concede us nothing more.
CEPHEUS But strength to meet the doom is always ours. In royal robes and crowned we will show ourselves To our people and look in the eyes of death and fate. What is this armoured tramp?
The Chaldean guards enter with Nebassar at their head.
CAPTAINS O King, we come To die with thee, the soldiers of Chaldea; For all in Syria have abandoned thee.
CEPHEUS I thank you, soldiers.
CRIES OUTSIDE Poseidon, great Poseidon! we are Poseidon's people. In, in, in! Kill the cuckold Cepheus, tear the harlot Cassiopea.
CEPHEUS Voices of insolent outrage Proclaim the heartless rabble. On the steps Of our own palace we'll receive our subjects.
CASSIOPEA This, this becomes thee, monarch.
NEBASSAR Soldiers, form With serried points before these mighty sovereigns.
The mob surges in, Therops and Perissus at their head, Polydaon a little behind, Damoetes, Morus and the rest. Praxilla and others of the household come running in.
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MOB On them! on them! Cut the Chaldeans to pieces!
THEROPS Halt, people, halt: let there be no vain bloodshed.
CASSIOPEA Here is a tender-hearted demagogue!
THEROPS Cepheus and Cassiopea, 'tis vain and heinous To dally with your fate; it will only make you More criminal before the majesty Of the offended people.
CEPHEUS Majesty!
CASSIOPEA An unwashed majesty and a wolf-throated!
THEROPS Insolent woman, to thee I speak not. Cepheus,—
CEPHEUS Use humbler terms. I am thy King as yet.
THEROPS The last in Syria. Tell me, wilt thou give up Thy children to the altar, and thyself Surrender here with this Chaldean woman For mercy or judgment to the assembled will Of Syria?
CASSIOPEA A tearing mercy, a howling judgment!
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POLYDAON Therops, why do you treat with these? Chaldeans! And you, Praxilla! women of the household! Bring out the abominable Andromeda Who brought the woe on Syria. Why should you vainly Be ripped and mangled?
CRIES OF WOMEN Bring out Andromeda! Bring out the harlot's daughter, bring her out!
CRIES OF MEN Andromeda! Andromeda! Andromeda! Bring out this vile Andromeda to die!
Andromeda enters from the inner Palace, followed by slave-girls entreating and detaining her.
PRAXILLA (sorrowfully) Wilt thou be wilful even to the end?
CASSIOPEA Alas, my child!
ANDROMEDA Mother, weep not for me. Perhaps my death May save you; and 'tis good that I should die, Not these poor innocent people. Against me Their unjust god is wroth.
CEPHEUS O my poor sunbeam!
ANDROMEDA (advancing and showing herself to the people) O people who have loved me, you have called me And I am here.
A fierce roar from the mob.
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THEROPS How she shrinks back appalled!
PRAXILLA God! What a many-throated howl of demons! Their eyes glare death. These are not men and Syrians. The fierce Poseidon has possessed their breasts And breathed his awful blood-lust into all hearts Deafening the voice of reason, slaying pity: Poseidon's rage glares at us through these eyes, It is his ocean roar that fills our streets.
Cries from the mob.
BALTIS Seize her! seize her! the child of wickedness!
VOICES OF WOMEN Throw her to us! throw her to us! We will pick The veins out of her body one by one.
DAMOETES Throw her to us! We will burn her bit by bit.
MORUS Yes, cook her alive; no, Damoetes? Ho, ho, ho!
VOICES OF MEN She has killed our sons and daughters: kill her, kill her!
VOICES OF WOMEN She is the child of her wicked mother: kill her!
MOB Throw her to us! throw her to us!
MEGAS We'll tear her here, and the furies shall tear her afterwards for ever in Hell.
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THEROPS Peace, people! she is not yours, she is Poseidon's.
ANDROMEDA Alas, why do you curse me? I am willing To die for you. If I had known this morn The monster's advent, I would have gone and met him While you yet slept, and saved your poor fair children Whose pangs have been my own. Had I died first, I should not then have suffered. O my loved people, You loved me too: when I went past your homes, You blessed me always; often your girls and mothers Would seize and bind me to their eager breasts With close imprisonment, kiss on their doorways And with a smiling soft reluctance leave. O do not curse me now! I can bear all, But not your curses.
PERISSUS Alack, my pretty lady! What madness made you do it?
POLYDAON She has rewarded Your love by bringing death upon you, Syrians, And now she tries to melt you by her tears.
MOB Kill her, kill her! Cut the Chaldeans to pieces! We will have her!
PASITHEA O do not hurt her! She is like my child Whom the fierce monster tore.
MEGAS Unnatural mother! Would you protect her who's cause your child was eaten?
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PASITHEA Will killing her give back my child to me?
MEGAS No, it will save the children of more mothers.
DAMOETES Gag up her puling mouth, the white-faced fool!
VOICES Tear, tear Andromeda! Seize her and tear her!
WOMEN Let us only get at her with our teeth and fingers!
NEBASSAR Use swords, Chaldeans.
POLYDAON Order, my children, order! Chaldean, give us up Andromeda, And save your King and Queen.
NEBASSAR What, wilt thou spare them?
CASSIOPEA Thou wilt not give my child to him, Nebassar? Thou dar'st not!
NEBASSAR Queen, 'tis better one should die For all.
POLYDAON I swear to thee, I will protect them.
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CASSIOPEA Trust not his oaths, his false and murderous oaths.
NEBASSAR He is a priest: if we believe him, nothing We lose, something may gain.
MEGAS What wilt thou do? The people do not like it. See, they mutter.
POLYDAON Let me have first their daughter in my grip, Be sure of the god's dearest victim. People, I am Poseidon's priest and your true friend. Leave all to me.
CRIES Leave all to Polydaon! the good priest knows what he is doing.
POLYDAON Soldier, give up the Princess.
NEBASSAR Shall she be only given to Poseidon? Will you protect her from worse outrage?
POLYDAON I will.
PRAXILLA Look! what a hideous triumph lights the eyes Of that fierce man. He glares at her with greed Like a wild beast of prey, and on his mouth There is a cruel unclean foam. Nebassar, O do not give her.
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NEBASSAR If there were any help! Go forth, O princess, O Andromeda.
CASSIOPEA My child! my child!
ANDROMEDA Give me one kiss, my mother. We shall yet meet, I think. My royal father, Andromeda farewells you, whom you loved And called your sunbeam. But the night receives me.
DAMOETES How long will these farewells endure? They are not needed: you shall meet presently If Death's angels can collect your tattered pieces.
CASSIOPEA O savage Syrians, let my curses brood Upon your land, an anguished mother's curse. May the Assyrian come and flay you living, Impale your sons, rip up your ravished daughters Before your agonising eyes and make you feel, Who drag my child from me to butcher her, The horror that you do. I curse you, Syrians.
ANDROMEDA Hush, mother, mother! what they demand is just.
NEBASSAR Lead back the King and Queen into the Palace, Women. We too will from this sad surrender Remove our eyes.
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CASSIOPEA I will not go. Let them tear her Before me: then surely Heaven will avenge me.
CEPHEUS Come, Cassiopea, come: our death's delayed By a few minutes. I will not see her slain.
Cepheus and Praxilla go in, forcibly leading Cassiopea; they are followed by the slave-girls and then by Nebassar and the Chaldeans: Andromeda is left alone on the steps.
CRIES (of the mob surging forward) Drag her, kill her, she is ours.
POLYDAON Therops and thou, Perissus, stand in front And keep the people off, or they will tear her, Defraud Poseidon.
PERISSUS Cheer up, my princess, come! You shall be cleanly killed.
THEROPS People of Syria, Rob not Poseidon of his own! 'tis not the way To turn his anger.
VOICES Right, right! leave her to Poseidon: out with her to the sea-monster.
GARDAS Therops is always right.
DAMOETES We will have her first: we will dress his banquet for him: none shall say us nay.
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MORUS Good; we will show Poseidon some excellent cookery. Ho, ho, ho!
MEGAS No, no, no! To the rocks with her! Strip her, the fine dainty princess, and hang her up in chains on the cliff-face.
A WOMAN Strip her! Off with her broidered robe and her silken tunic! Why should she wear such, when my daughter carries only coarse woollen?
A WOMAN (shaking her fist) Curse the white child's face of thee: it has ruined Syria. Die, dog's daughter.
DAMOETES Is she to die only once who has killed so many of us? I say, tie her to one of these pillars and flog her till she drops.
MORUS That's right, skin her with whips: peel her for the monster, ho, ho, ho!
BALTIS Leave her: Hell's tortures shall make the account even.
POLYDAON In order, children: let all be done in order.
THEROPS She droops like a bruised flower beneath their curses, And the tears lace her poor pale cheeks like frost Glittering on snowdrops. I am sorry now I had a hand in this.
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ANDROMEDA You two have faces Less cruel than the others. I am willing To die,—oh, who would live to be so hated? But do not let them shame or torture me.
PERISSUS Off! off! thick-brained dogs, loud-lunged asses! What do you do, yelping and braying here? Will you give a maimed meal to Poseidon's man-hound? Do you know me not? Have you never heard of Perissus, never seen Perissus the butcher? I guard Poseidon's meat, and whoever touches a morsel of it, I will make meat of him with my cleaver. I am Perissus, I am the butcher.
VOICES It is Perissus, the good and wealthy butcher. He is right. To the rocks with her!
VOICES OF WOMEN Bind her first: we will see her bound!
PERISSUS In all that is rational, I will indulge you. Where is a cord?
CRIES A cord, who has a cord?
DAMOETES Here is one, Perissus. 'Tis rough and strong and sure.
PERISSUS Come, wear your bracelets.
ANDROMEDA O bind me not so hard! You cut my wrists.
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PERISSUS You are too soft and tender. There, dry your eyes,—but that, poor slip, you cannot. See, I have tied you very lightly: say not That this too hurts.
ANDROMEDA I thank you; you are kind.
PERISSUS Kind! Why should I not be kind? Because I am a butcher must I have no bowels? Courage, little Princess: none shall hurt thee but thy sea- monster and he, I am sure, will crunch thy little bones very tenderly. Never had man-eater such sweet bones to crunch. Alack! but where is the remedy?
POLYDAON Now take her to the beach and chain her there Upon the rocks to bear her punishment. Perissus, lead her forth! We'll follow you.
CRIES Not I! not I!
DAMOETES You'ld kill us, Polydaon? Poseidon's anger walks by the sea-beaches.
POLYDAON The fierce sea-dragon will not hurt you, friends, Who bring a victim to Poseidon's altar Of the rude solemn beaches. I'll protect you.
CRIES We'll go with Polydaon! with the good Polydaon!
POLYDAON Perissus, go before. We'll quickly come.
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PERISSUS Make way there or I'll make it with my cleaver. Heart, little Princess! None shall touch thee. Heart!
Perissus and others make their way out with Andromeda.
POLYDAON Hem, people, hem the Palace in with myriads: We'll pluck out Cepheus and proud Cassiopea.
CRIES Kill Cepheus the cuckold, the tyrant! Tear the harlot Cassiopea.
THEROPS Is this thy sacred oath? Had not Nebassar Thy compact, priest?
POLYDAON I swore not by Poseidon. Wilt thou oppose me?
THEROPS Thy perjury too much Favours my private wishes. Yet would I not Be thou with such a falsehood on my conscience.
POLYDAON Why, Therops, be thyself and thou shalt yet Be something great in Syria.
DAMOETES Where's Iolaus? Shall he not also die?
POLYDAON Too long forgotten! O that I should forget my dearest hatred!
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By this he has concealed himself or fled And I am baulked of what I chiefly cherished.
THEROPS Oh, do them justice! the great house of Syria Were never cowards. The prince has been o'erwhelmed On his way hither with rash sword to rescue: So Aligattas tells, who came behind us. He's taken to the temple.
POLYDAON Heard you?
MOB Hurrah!
BALTIS But what's the matter now with our good priest? His veins are all out and his face is blood-red!
DAMOETES This joy is too great for him.
POLYDAON I am a god, A god of blood and roaring victory. Oh, blood in rivers! His heart out of his breast, And his mother there to see it! and I to laugh At her, to laugh!
THEROPS This is not sanity.
POLYDAON (controlling himself with a great effort) The sacrilegious house is blotted out Of Cepheus. Let not one head outlive their ending! Andromeda appoints the way to Hades
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Who was in crime the boldest, then her brother Yells on the altar: last Cepheus and his Queen—
CRIES Tear her! let the Chaldean harlot die.
POLYDAON She shall be torn! but not till she has seen The remnants of the thing that was her daughter: Not till her sweet boy's heart has been plucked out Under her staring eyes from his red bosom. Till then she shall not die. But afterwards Strew with her fragments every street of the city.
CRIES Hear, hear Poseidon's Viceroy, good Polydaon!
MEGAS In! in! cut off their few and foreign swordsmen.
CRIES In! in! let not a single Chaldean live.
The mob rushes into the Palace; only Therops and Polydaon remain.
POLYDAON Go, Therops, take good care of Cassiopea, Or she will die too mercifully soon.
THEROPS (aside) How shall we bear this grim and cruel beast For monarch, when all's done? He is not human.
He goes into the Palace.
POLYDAON I have set Poseidon's rage in human hearts; His black and awful Influence flows from me.
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Thou art a mighty god, Poseidon, yet And mightily thou hast avenged thyself. The drama's nearly over. Now to ring out The royal characters amid fierce howlings And splendid, pitiless, crimson massacre,— A great finale! Then, then I shall be King.
(As he speaks, he gesticulates more wildly and his madness gains upon him.)
Thou luckless Phineus, wherefore didst thou leave So fortunate a man for thy ally? The world shall long recall King Polydaon. I will paint Syria gloriously with blood. Hundreds shall daily die to incarnadine The streets of my city and my palace floors, For I would walk in redness. I'll plant my gardens With heads instead of lilacs. Hecatombs Of men shall groan their hearts out for my pleasure In crimson rivers. I'll not wait for shipwrecks. Assyrian captives and my Syrian subjects, Nobles and slaves, men, matrons, boys and virgins At matins and at vespers shall be slain To me in my magnificent high temple Beside my thunderous Ocean. I will possess Women each night, who the next day shall die, Encrimsoned richly for the eyes' delight. My heart throngs out in words! What moves within me? I am athirst, magnificently athirst, And for a red and godlike wine. Whence came The thirst on me? It was not here before. 'Tis thou, 'tis thou, O grand and grim Poseidon, Hast made thy scarlet session in my soul And growest myself. I am not Polydaon, I am a god, a mighty dreadful god, The multitudinous mover in the sea, The shaker of the earth: I am Poseidon And I will walk in three tremendous paces Climbing the mountains with my clamorous waters
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And see my dogs eat up Andromeda, My enemy, and laugh in my loud billows. The clamour of battle roars within the Palace! I have created it, I am Poseidon. Sitst thou, my elder brother, charioted In clouds? Look down, O brother Zeus, and see My actions! they merit thy immortal gaze.
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On the road to the sea-shore.
Phineus and his Tyrians.
PHINEUS A mightier power confounds our policies. Is't Heaven? is't Fate? What's left me, I will take. 'Tis best to rescue young Andromeda From the wild mob and bear her home to Tyre. She, when the roar is over, will be left My claim to Syria's prostrate throne, which force, If not diplomacy shall re-erect And Tyre become the Syrian capital. I hear the trampling of the rascal mob.
CRIES OUTSIDE Drag her more quickly! To the rocks! to the rocks! Glory to great Poseidon!
PHINEUS Tyrians, be ready.
Perissus and a number of Syrians enter leading Andromeda bound.
SYRIANS To the rocks with her, to the rocks! bind her on the rocks.
PHINEUS Pause, rabble! Yield your prey to Tyrian Phineus. Lift up thy lovely head, Andromeda! For thou art saved.
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PERISSUS Who art thou with thy nose and thy fellows and thy spits?
PHINEUS Knowst thou me not? I am the royal Phineus. Yield up the Princess, fair Andromeda.
PERISSUS Art thou the royal Phineus and is this long nose thy sceptre? I am Perissus, the butcher. Stand aside, royal Phineus, or I will chop thee royally with my cleaver.
ANDROMEDA What wilt thou with me, King of Tyre?
PHINEUS Sweet rose, I come to save thee. I will carry thee, My bride, far from these savage Syrian tumults To reign in loyal Tyre. Thou art safe.
ANDROMEDA (sorrowfully) Safe! My father and my mother are not safe Nor Iolaus: nor is Syria safe. Will you protect my people, when the god, Not finding me, his preferable victim, Works his fierce will on these?
PHINEUS Thou car'st for them? They have o'erwhelmed thee with foul insult, bound thee, Threatened thy lovely limbs with rascal outrage And dragged to murder!
ANDROMEDA But they are my people.
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Perissus, lead me on. I will not go with him.
PHINEUS Thou strange and beautiful and marvellous child, Wilt thou or wilt thou not, by force I'll have thee. Golden enchantment! thou art too rare a thing For others to possess. Run, rascal rabble! On, Tyrians!
PERISSUS Cleavers and axes to their spits!
ANDROMEDA King Phineus, pause! I swear I will prefer Death's grim embrace rather than be thy wife Abandoning my people. 'Tis a dead body Thou wilt rescue.
PHINEUS Is thy resolve unshakable?
ANDROMEDA It is.
PHINEUS Die then! To Death alone I yield thee.
PERISSUS So then thou art off, royal Phineus! so thou hast evaporated, bold god of the Hittites! Thou hast saved thy royal nose from my cleaver.
SYRIANS On to the rocks! Glory to great Poseidon.
They go leading Andromeda.
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The sea-shore.
Andromeda, dishevelled, bare-armed and unsandalled, stripped of all but a single light robe, stands on a wide low ledge under a rock jutting out from the cliff with the sea washing below her feet. She is chained to the rock behind her by her wrists and ankles, her arms stretched at full length against its side. Polydaon, Perissus, Damoetes and a number of Syrians stand near on the great rocky platform projecting from the cliff of which the ledge is the extremity.
POLYDAON There meditate affronts to dire Poseidon. Rescue thyself, thou rescuer of victims! I am sorry that thy marriage, sweet Andromeda, So poorly is attended. I could have wished To have all Syria gazing at thy nuptials With thy rare Ocean bridegroom! Thy mother most Should have been here to see her lovely princess So meetly robed for bridal, with these ornaments Upon her pretty hands and feet. She has Affairs too pressing. We do some surgery Upon thy brother Iolaus' heart To draw the bad blood out and make it holy, And she must watch the skilful operation. Do not weep, fair one. Soon, be confident, They'll meet thee in that wide house where all are going. Think of these things until thy lover comes. Farewell.
PERISSUS Art thou mad, priest Polydaon? How thou grinnest and drawest
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back thy black lips from thy white teeth in thy rapture! Hast thou gone clean mad, my skilful carver of hearts! art thou beside thyself, my ancient schoolmate and crony?
SYRIANS To the temple! To the temple!
POLYDAON Let one remain above the cliff And watch the monster's advent and his going. Till I have news of dead Andromeda The sacrifice cannot begin. Who stays?
DAMOETES Not I!
ALL Nor I! nor I! nor I!
DAMOETES As well stay here with the girl and be torn with her!
PERISSUS Do you quake, my brave shouters? must you curl your tails in between your manly legs? I will stay, priest, who fear neither dog nor dragon. I am Perissus, I am the butcher.
POLYDAON I'll not forget thy service, good Perissus.
PERISSUS Will you then make me butcher-in-chief to your viceroy in Damascus and shall I cut my joints under the patronage of King Polydaon? To the temple, Syrian heroes! I will go and cross my legs on the cliff-top.
They go. Andromeda is left alone.
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Andromeda chained to the cliff.
ANDROMEDA O iron-throated vast unpitying sea, Whose borders touch my feet with their cold kisses As if they loved me! yet from thee my death Will soon arise, and in some monstrous form To tear my heart with horror before my body. I am alone with thee on this wild beach Filled with the echo of thy roaring waters. My fellowmen have cast me out: they have bound me Upon thy rocks to die. These cruel chains Weary the arms they keep held stiffly out Against the rough cold jagged stones. My bosom Hardly contains its thronging sobs; my heart Is torn with misery: for by my act My father and my mother are doomed to death, My dear kind brother, my sweet Iolaus, Will cruelly be slaughtered; by my act A kingdom ends in miserable ruin. I thought to save two fellowmen: I have slain A hundred by their rescue. I have failed In all I did and die accursed and hated. I die alone and miserably, no heart To pity me: only your hostile waves Are listening to my sobs and laughing hoarsely With cruel pleasure. Heaven looks coldly on.
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Yet I repent not. O thou dreadful god! Yes, thou art dreadful and most mighty; perhaps This world will always be a world of blood And smiling cruelty, thou its fit sovereign. But I have done what my own heart required of me, And I repent not. Even if after death Eternal pain and punishment await me And gods and men pursue me with their hate, I have been true to myself and to my heart, I have been true to the love it bore for men, And I repent not.
She is silent for a while.
Alas! is there no pity for me? Is there No kind bright sword to save me in all this world? Heaven with its cold unpitying azure roofs me, And the hard savage rocks surround: the deaf And violent Ocean roars about my feet, And all is stony, all is cold and cruel. Yet I had dreamed of other powers. Where art thou, O beautiful still face amid the lightnings, Athene? Does a mother leave her child? And thou, bright stranger, wert thou only a dream? Wilt thou not come down glorious from thy sun, And cleave my chains, and lift me in thy arms To safety? I will not die! I am too young, And life was recently so beautiful. It is too hard, too hard a fate to bear.
She is silent, weeping. Cydone enters: she comes and sits down at Andromeda's feet.
CYDONE How beautiful she is, how beautiful! Her tears bathe all her bosom. O cruel Syrians!
ANDROMEDA What gentle touch is on my feet? Who art thou?
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CYDONE I am Cydone. Iolaus loves me.
ANDROMEDA My brother! lives he yet?
CYDONE He lives, dear sweetness, And sent me to you.
ANDROMEDA (joyfully) It was a cruel lie! He's free?
CYDONE No, bound and in the temple. Weep not.
ANDROMEDA Alas! And you have left him there alone?
CYDONE The gods are with him, sister. In a few hours We shall be all together and released From these swift perils.
ANDROMEDA Together and released! Oh yes, in death.
CYDONE I bid you hope. O child, How beautiful you are, how beautiful, Iolaus' sister! This one white slight garment Fluttering about you in the ocean winds, You look like some wind-goddess chained in play By frolic sisters on the wild sea-beaches. I think all this has happened, little sister,
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Just that the gods might have for one brief hour You for a radiant vision of childish beauty Exposed against this wild stupendous background.
ANDROMEDA You make me smile in spite of all my grief. Did you not bid me hope, Cydone?
CYDONE And now I bid you trust: for you are saved.
ANDROMEDA I am. I feel it now.
CYDONE Your name's Andromeda?
ANDROMEDA Iolaus calls me so.
CYDONE I think he cheats me. You are Iolaus changed into a girl. Come, I will kiss you dumb for cheating me With changes of yourself.
Kisses her.
If I could have My Iolaus always chained like this To do my pleasure with, I would so plague him! For he abuses me and calls me shrew, Monster and vixen and names unbearable, Because he's strong and knows I cannot beat him.
ANDROMEDA The world is changed about me.
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CYDONE Heaven's above. Look up and see it.
ANDROMEDA There is a golden cloud Moving towards me.
CYDONE It is Perseus. Sweetheart, I go to Iolaus in the temple,— I mean your other fair boy-self. Kiss me, O sweet girl-Iolaus, and fear nothing.
She goes out over the rocks.
ANDROMEDA I shall be saved! What is this sudden trouble That lifts the bosom of the tossing deep, Hurling the waves against my knees? Save me! Where art thou gone, Cydone? What huge head Raises itself on the affrighted seas? Where art thou, O my saviour? Come! His eyes Glare up at me from the grey Ocean trough Hideous with brutish longing. Like great sharp rocks His teeth are in a bottomless dim chasm.
She closes her eyes in terror. Perseus enters.
PERSEUS Look up, O sunny-curled Andromeda! Perseus, the son of Danaë, is with thee To whom thou now belongest. Fear no more Sea-monsters nor the iron-souled Poseidon, Nor the more monstrous flinty-hearted rabble Who bound thee here. This huge and grisly enemy That rises from the flood, need not affright thee. Thou art as safe as if thy mother's arms Contained thee in thy brilliant guarded palace
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When all was calm, O white Andromeda! Lift up thy eyes' long curtains: aid the azure With thy regards, O sunshine. Look at me And see thy safety.
ANDROMEDA O thou hast come to me! It was not only a radiant face I dreamed of.
PERSEUS In time to save thee, my Andromeda, Sole jewel of the world. I go to meet Thy enemy, confronting grim Poseidon.
ANDROMEDA O touch me ere you go that I may feel You are real.
PERSEUS Let my kiss, sweet doubting dreamer, Convince thee. Now I dart like a swift hawk Upon my prey and smite betwixt the billows. Watch how I fight for thee. I will come soon To gather thee into my grasp, my prize Of great adventure.
ANDROMEDA The music of his name Was in my brain just now. What must I call thee? Perseus, the son of Danaë! Perseus! Perseus, Athene's sword! Perseus, my sun-god! O human god of glad Andromeda! Forgive, Athene, my lack of faith. Thou art! How like a sudden eagle he has swooped Upon the terror, that lifts itself alarmed, Swings its huge length along the far-ridged billows
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And upwards yawns its rage. O great Athene! It belches fiery breath against my Perseus And lashes Ocean in his face. The sea Is tossed upon itself and its huge bottoms Catch chinks of unaccustomed day. But the aegis Of Perseus hurls the flame-commingled flood Back in the dragon's eyes: it shoots its lightnings Into the horizon like fire-trailing arrows. The world surprised with light gazes dismayed Upon the sea-surrounded war, ringed in With foam and flying tumult. O glorious sight, Too swift and terrible for human eyes! I will pray rather. Virgin, beautiful Athene, virgin-mother of my soul! I cannot lift my hands to thee, they are chained To the wild cliff, but lift my heart instead, Virgin, assist thy hero in the fight. Descend, armipotent maiden, child of Zeus, Shoot from his godlike brain the strength of will That conquers evil: in one victorious stroke Collecting hurl it on the grisly foe. Thou, thou art sword and shield, and thou the force That uses shield and sword, virgin Athene. The tumult ceases and the floods subside. I dare not look. And yet I will. O death, Thou tossest there inertly on the flood, A floating mountain. Perseus comes to me Touching the waves with airy-sandalled feet, Bright and victorious.
PERSEUS The grisly beast is slain that was thy terror, And thou mayst sun the world with smiles again, Andromeda.
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ANDROMEDA Thou hast delivered me, O Perseus, Perseus, My sovereign!
PERSEUS Girl, I take into my arms My own that I have won and with these kisses Seal to me happy head and smiling eyes, Bright lips and all of thee, thou sunny Syrian. All thy white body is a hero's guerdon.
ANDROMEDA Perseus!
PERSEUS Sweetly thou tak'st my eager kisses With lovely smiles and glorious blushing cheeks Rejoicing in their shame.
ANDROMEDA I am chained, Perseus, And cannot help myself.
PERSEUS O smile of sweetness! I will unravel these unworthy bonds And rid thee of the cold excuse.
ANDROMEDA My chains? They do not hurt me now, and I would wear them A hundred times for such a happy rescue.
PERSEUS Thou tremblest yet!
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ANDROMEDA Some sweet and sudden fear O'ertakes me! O what is it? I dare not look Into thy radiant eyes.
PERSEUS Sweet tremors, grow Upon her. Never shall harsher fears again O'ertake you, rosy limbs, in Perseus' keeping. How fair thou art, my prize Andromeda! O sweet chained body, chained to love not death, That with a happy passiveness endures My touch, once more, once more. And now fall down Clashing into the deep, you senseless irons, That took a place my kisses only merit. Princess of Syria, child of imperial Cepheus, Step forward free.
ANDROMEDA (falling at his feet and embracing them) O Perseus, O my saviour! Wilt thou not also save those dear to me And make this life thou givest worth the giving? My father, mother, brother, all I love, Lie for my fault shuddering beneath the knife.
PERSEUS It was a glorious fault, Andromeda. Tremble not for thy loved ones. Wilt thou trust Thy cherished body in my arms to bear Upward, surprising Heaven with thy beauty? Or wilt thou fear to see the blue wide Ocean Between thy unpropped feet, fathoms below?
ANDROMEDA With you I fear not.
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PERSEUS Cling to me then, sweet burden, And we will meet our enemies together.
He puts his arms round her to lift her and the curtain falls.
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The Temple of Poseidon.
Polydaon, Therops, Dercetes, Cydone, Damoetes and a great number of Syrians, men and women. Iolaus stands bound, a little to the side: Cepheus and Cassiopea, surrounded by armed men.
POLYDAON Cepheus and Cassiopea, man and woman, Not sovereigns now, you see what end they have Who war upon the gods.
CASSIOPEA To see thy end My eyes wait only.
POLYDAON Let them see something likelier. Is't not thy son who wears those cords, and that An altar? What! the eyes are drowned in tears Where fire was once so ready? Where is thy pride, O Cassiopea?
CASSIOPEA There are other gods Than thy Poseidon. They shall punish thee.
POLYDAON If thou knewst who I am, which is most secret, Thou wouldst not utter vain and foolish wishes. When thou art slain, I will reveal myself.
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CASSIOPEA Thou hast revealed thyself for what thou art Already, a madman and inhuman monster.
CEPHEUS My queen, refrain from words.
DAMOETES Perissus comes.
THEROPS Look, the Queen swoons! Oh, look to her!
Perissus enters.
POLYDAON Yes, raise her up, bring back her senses: now I would not have them clouded. News, Perissus! Thy face is troubled and thy eyes stare wildly.
PERISSUS Stare, do they? They may stare, for they have cause. You too will stare soon, Viceroy Polydaon.
THEROPS What rare thing happened? The heavens were troubled strangely, Although their rifts were blue. What hast thou seen?
PERISSUS I have seen hell and heaven at grips together.
POLYDAON What do I care for hell or heaven? Your news! Did the sea-monster come and eat and go?
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PERISSUS He came but went not.
POLYDAON Was not the maiden seized?
PERISSUS Ay, was she, in a close and mighty grasp.
POLYDAON By the sea-beast?
PERISSUS 'Tis said we all are animals; Then so was he: but 'twas a glorious beast.
POLYDAON And was she quite devoured?
PERISSUS Why, in a manner,— If kisses eat.
POLYDAON Ha! ha! such soft caresses May all my enemies have. She was not torn? What, was she taken whole and quite engulfed?
PERISSUS Something like that.
POLYDAON You speak with difficult slowness And strangely. Where's your blithe robustness gone, Perissus?
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PERISSUS Coming, with the beast. He lifted her Mightily from the cliff to heaven.
POLYDAON So, Queen, Nothing is left thee of Andromeda.
PERISSUS Why, something yet, a sweet and handsome piece.
POLYDAON You should have brought it here, my merry butcher, That remnant of her daughter.
PERISSUS It is coming.
POLYDAON Ho, ho! then you shall see your daughter, Queen.
DERCETES This is a horrid and inhuman laughter. Restrain thy humour, priest! My sword's uneasy.
THEROPS It is a scandal in Poseidon's temple.
POLYDAON Do you oppose me?
(to Therops)
Wilt thou resist Poseidon, Misguided mortal?
DERCETES He glares and his mouth works. This is a maniac. Does a madman rule us?
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THEROPS There has been much of violence and mad fierceness, Such as in tumults may be pardoned. Now It is the tranquil hour of victory When decency should reign and mercy too. What do we gain by torturing this poor Queen And most unhappy King?
POLYDAON Hear him, O people! He favours great Poseidon's enemies. Therops turns traitor.
DAMOETES He rails at the good priest.
CRIES Therops a traitor!
MEGAS Therops, thou favour kings? Thou traitor to Poseidon and his people?
GARDAS I say, hear Therops. He is always right, Our Therops; he has brains.
CRIES Hear Therops, Therops!
THEROPS Let them be punished, but with exile only. I am no traitor. I worked for you, O people, When this false priest was with the King of Tyre Plotting to lay on you a foreign chain.
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CRIES Is it so? Is it the truth? Speak, Polydaon.
POLYDAON Must I defend myself? Was it not I Who led you on to victory and turned The wrath of dire Poseidon? If you doubt me, Be then the sacrifice forbidden; let Cepheus And Cassiopea reign; but when the dogs Of grim Poseidon howl again behind you, Call not to me for help. I will not always pardon.
CRIES Polydaon, Polydaon, Poseidon's mighty Viceroy! Kill Therops! Iolaus upon the altar!
POLYDAON Now you are wise again. Leave this Therops. Bring Iolaus to the altar here. Lay bare his bosom for the knife.
THEROPS Dercetes, Shall this be allowed?
DERCETES We must not dare offend Poseidon. But when it's over, I'll break in With all my faithful spears and save the King And Cassiopea. Therops, 'twould be a nightmare, The rule of that fierce priest and fiercer rabble.
THEROPS With all the better sort I will support thee.
PERISSUS Therops, my crowd-compeller, my eloquent Zeus of the market-place, I know thy heart is big with the sweet passion of
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repentance, but let it not burst into action yet. Keep thy fleet sharp spears at rest, Dercetes. There are times, my little captain, and there is a season. Watch and wait. The gods are at work and Iolaus shall not die.
POLYDAON We only wait until our mighty wrath Is shown you in the mangled worst offender Against our godhead. Then, O Cassiopea, I'll watch thy eyes.
PERISSUS Behold her, Polydaon.
Perseus and Andromeda enter the temple.
CRIES Andromeda! Andromeda! who has unchained her? It is Andromeda!
CEPHEUS It is the spirit of Andromeda.
THEROPS Shadows were ne'er so bright, had never smile So sunny! she is given back to earth: It is the radiant winged Hermes brings her.
DERCETES 'Tis he who baffled us upon the beach. I see the gods are busy in our Syria.
Andromeda runs to Cassiopea and clasps and kisses her knees, the soldiers making way for her.
CASSIOPEA (taking Andromeda's face between her hands) O my sweet child, thou livest!
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ANDROMEDA Mother, mother! I live and see the light and grief is ended.
CASSIOPEA (lifting Andromeda into her arms) I hold thee living on my bosom. What grief Can happen now?
CEPHEUS Andromeda, my daughter!
POLYDAON (awaking from his amazement) Confusion! Butcher, thou hast betrayed me. Seize them! They shall all die upon my mighty altar. Seize them!
PERSEUS (confronting him) Priest of Poseidon and of death, Three days thou gav'st me: it is but the second. I am here. Dost thou require the sacrifice?
POLYDAON Art thou a god? I am a greater, dreadfuller. Tremble and go from me: I need thee not.
PERSEUS Expect thy punishment. Syrians, behold me, The victim snatched from grim Poseidon's altar. My sword has rescued sweet Andromeda And slain the monster of the deep. You asked For victims? I am here. Whose knife is ready? Let him approach.
THEROPS Who art thou, mighty hero? Declare unto this people thy renown And thy unequalled actions. What high godhead
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Befriends thee in battle?
PERSEUS Syrians, I am Perseus, The mighty son of Zeus and Danaë. The blood of gods is in my veins, the strength Of gods is in my arm: Athene helps me. Behold her aegis, which if I uncover Will blind you with its lightnings; and this sword Is Herpe, which can pierce the earth and Hades. What I have done, is by Athene's strength. Borne from Seriphos through pellucid air Upon these winged shoes, in the far west I have traversed unknown lands and nameless continents And seas where never came the plash of human oars. On torrid coasts burned by the desert wind I have seen great Atlas buttressing the sky, His giant head companion of the stars, And changed him into a hill; the northern snows Illimitable I have trod, where Nature Is awed to silence, chilled to rigid whiteness; I have entered caverns dim where death was born: And I have taken from the dim-dwelling Graiae Their wondrous eye that sees the past and future: And I have slain the Gorgon, dire Medusa, Her head that turns the living man to stone Locking into my wallet: last, today, In Syria by the loud Aegean surges I have done this deed that men shall ever speak of. Ascending with winged feet the clamorous air I have cloven Poseidon's monster whose rock-teeth And fiery mouth swallowed your sons and daughters. Where now has gone the sea-god's giant stride That filled with heads of foam your fruitful fields? I have dashed back the leaping angry waters; His Ocean-force has yielded to a mortal. Even while I speak, the world has changed around you.
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Syrians, the earth is calm, the heavens smile; A mighty silence listens on the sea. All this I have done, and yet not I, but one greater. Such is Athene's might and theirs who serve her. You know me now, O Syrians, and my strength I have concealed not. Let no man hereafter Complain that I deceived him to his doom. Speak now. Which of you all demands a victim?
He pauses: there is silence.
What, you have howled and maddened, bound sweet women For slaughter, roared to have the hearts of princes, And are you silent now? Who is for victims? Who sacrifices Perseus?
THEROPS Speak! is there A fool so death-devoted?
PERSEUS Claims any man victims?
CRIES There's none, great Perseus.
PERSEUS Then, I here release Andromeda and Iolaus, Syrians, From the death-doom: to Cepheus give his crown Once more. Does any man gainsay my action? Would any rule in Syria?
CRIES None, mighty Perseus.
PERSEUS Iolaus, sweet friend, my work is finished.
He severs his bonds.
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IOLAUS O mighty father, suffer me for thee To take thy crown from the unworthy soil Where rude hands tumbled it. 'Twill now sit steady. Dercetes, art thou loyal once again?
DERCETES For ever.
IOLAUS Therops?
THEROPS I have abjured rebellion.
IOLAUS Lead then my royal parents to their home With martial pomp and music. And let the people Cover their foul revolt with meek obedience. One guiltiest head shall pay your forfeit: the rest, Since terror and religious frenzy moved To mutiny, not their sober wills, shall all Be pardoned.
CRIES Iolaus! Iolaus! Long live the Syrian, noble Iolaus!
IOLAUS Andromeda, and thou, my sweet Cydone, Go with them.
CEPHEUS I approve thy sentence, son.
Dercetes and his soldiers, Therops and the Syrians leave the temple conducting Cepheus and Cassiopea, Andromeda and Cydone.
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IOLAUS Now, Polydaon,—
POLYDAON I have seen all and laughed. Iolaus, and thou, O Argive Perseus, You know not who I am. I have endured Your foolish transient triumph that you might feel My punishments more bitter-terrible. 'Tis time, 'tis time. I will reveal myself. Your horror-starting eyes shall know me, princes, When I hurl death and Ocean on your heads.
PERSEUS The man is frantic.
IOLAUS Defeat has turned him mad.
PERISSUS I have seen this coming on him for a season and a half. He was a fox at first, but this tumult gave him claws and muscles and he turned tiger. This is the end. What, Polydaon! Good cheer, priest! Roll not thy eyes: I am thy friend Perissus, I am thy old loving schoolmate; are we not now fellow-craftsmen, priest and butcher?
POLYDAON Do you not see? I wave my sapphire locks And earth is quaking. Quake, earth! rise, my great Ocean! Earth, shake my foemen from thy back! clasp, sea, And kiss them dead, thou huge voluptuary. Come barking from your stables, my sweet monsters: With blood-stained fangs and fiery mouths avenge me Mocking their victory. Thou, brother Zeus, Rain curses from thy skies. What, is all silent? I'll tear thee, Ocean, into watery bits
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And strip thy oozy basal rocks quite naked If thou obey me not.
IOLAUS (advancing) He must be seized And bound.
PERSEUS Pause. See, he foams and clutches!
Polydaon falls to the ground.
He Is sentenced.
PERISSUS Polydaon, old crony, grows thy soul too great within thee? dost thou kick the unworthy earth and hit out with thy noble fists at Heaven?
IOLAUS It was a fit; it is over. He lies back white And shaking.
POLYDAON (As he speaks, his utterance is hacked by pauses of silence. He seems unconscious of those around him, his being is withdrawing from the body and he lives only in an inner consciousness and its vision.)
I was Poseidon but this moment. Now he departs from me and leaves me feeble: I have become a dull and puny mortal. (half rising) It was not I but thou who fearedst, god. I would have spoken, but thou wert chilled and stone. What fearedst thou or whom? Wast thou alarmed By the godhead lurking in man's secret soul Or deity greater than thy own appalled thee?... Forgive, forgive! pass not away from me. Thy power is now my breath and I shall perish
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If thou withdraw.... He stands beside me still Shaking his gloomy locks and glares at me Saying it was my sin and false ambition Undid him. Was I not fearless as thou bad'st me? Ah, he has gone into invisible Vast silences!... Whose, whose is this bright glory? One stands now in his place and looks at me. Imperious is his calm Olympian brow, The sea's blue unfathomed depths gaze from his eyes, Wide sea-blue locks crown his majestic shape: A mystic trident arms his tranquil might. As one new-born to himself and to the world He turns from me with the surges in his stride To seek his Ocean empire. Earth bows down Trembling with awe of his unbearable steps, Heaven is the mirror of his purple greatness.... But whose was that dimmer and tremendous image?... A horror of darkness is around me still, But the joy and might have gone out of my breast And left me mortal, a poor human thing With whom death and the fates can do their will.... But his presence yet is with me, near to me.... Was I not something more than earthly man?...
(with a cry)
It was myself, the shadow, the hostile god! I am abandoned to my evil self. That was the darkness!... But there was something more Insistent, dreadful, other than myself! Whoever thou art, spare me!... I am gone, I am taken. In his tremendous clutch he bears me off Into thick cloud; I see black Hell, the knives Fire-pointed touch my breast. Spare me, Poseidon.... Save me, O brilliant God, forgive and save.
He falls back dead.
PERSEUS Who then can save a man from his own self?
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IOLAUS He is ended, his own evil has destroyed him.
PERSEUS This man for a few hours became the vessel Of an occult and formidable Force And through his form it did fierce terrible things Unhuman: but his small and gloomy mind And impure dark heart could not contain the Force. It turned in him to madness and demoniac Huge longings. Then the Power withdrew from him Leaving the broken incapable instrument, And all its might was spilt from his body. Better To be a common man mid common men And live an unaspiring mortal life Than call into oneself a Titan strength Too dire and mighty for its human frame, That only afflicts the oppressed astonished world, Then breaks its user.
IOLAUS But best to be Heaven's child. Only the sons of gods can harbour gods.
PERISSUS Art thou then gone, Polydaon? My monarch of breast-hackers, this was an evil ending. My heart is full of woe for thee, my fellow-butcher.
IOLAUS The gods have punished him for his offences, Ambition and a hideous cruelty Ingenious in mere horror.
PERSEUS Burn him with rites, If that may help his soul by dark Cocytus.
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But let us go and end these strange upheavals: Call Cireas from his hiding for reward, Tyrnaus too, and Smerdas from his prison, Fair Diomede from Cydone's house. Humble or high, let all have their deserts Who partners were or causes of our troubles.
IOLAUS There's Phineus will ask reasons.
PERSEUS He shall be satisfied.
PERISSUS He cannot be satisfied, his nose is too long; it will not listen to reason, for it thinks all the reason and policy in the world are shut up in the small brain to which it is a long hooked outlet.
PERSEUS Perissus, come with me: for thou wert kind To my fair sweetness; it shall be remembered.
PERISSUS There was nothing astonishing in that: I am as chock-full with natural kindness as a rabbit is with guts; I have bowels, great Perseus. For am I not Perissus? am I not the butcher?
They go out: the curtain falls.
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The audience-chamber of the Palace.
Cepheus, Cassiopea, Andromeda, Cydone, Praxilla, Medes.
CEPHEUS A sudden ending to our sudden evils Propitious gods have given us, Cassiopea. Pursued by panic the Assyrian flees Abandoning our borders.
CASSIOPEA And I have got My children's faces back upon my bosom. What gratitude can ever recompense That godlike youth whose swift and glorious rescue Lifted us out of Hell so radiantly?
CYDONE He has taken his payment in one small white coin Mounted with gold; and more he will not ask for.
CASSIOPEA Your name's Cydone, child? your face is strange. You are not of the slave-girls.
CYDONE O I am! Iolaus' slave-girl, though he calls me sometimes His queen: but that is only to beguile me.
ANDROMEDA Oh, mother, you must know my sweet Cydone.
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I shall think you love me little if you do not Take her into your bosom: for she alone, When I was lonely with my breaking heart, Came to me with sweet haste and comforted My soul with kisses,—yes, even when the terror Was rising from the sea, surrounded me With her light lovely babble, till I felt Sorrow was not in the same world as she. And but for her I might have died of grief Ere rescue came.
CASSIOPEA What wilt thou ask of me, Even to a crown, Cydone? thou shalt have it.
CYDONE Nothing, unless 'tis leave to stand before you And be for ever Iolaus' slave-girl Unchidden.
CASSIOPEA Thou shalt be more than that, my daughter.
CYDONE I have two mothers: a double Iolaus I had already. O you girl-Iolaus, You shall not marry Perseus: you are mine now. Oh, if you have learned to blush!
ANDROMEDA (stopping her mouth) Hush, you mad babbler! Or I will smother your wild mouth with mine.
Perseus and Iolaus enter.
CEPHEUS O welcome, brilliant victor, mighty Perseus! Saviour of Syria, angel of the gods,
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Kind was the fate that led thee to our shores.
CASSIOPEA (embracing Iolaus) Iolaus, Iolaus, my son! My golden-haired delight they would have murdered! Perseus, hast thou a mother?
PERSEUS One like thee In love, O Queen, though less in royalty.
CASSIOPEA What can I give thee then who hast the world To move in, thy courage and thy radiant beauty, And a tender mother? Yet take my blessing, Perseus, To help thee: for the mightiest strengths are broken And divine favour lasts not long, but blessings Of those thou helpest with thy kindly strength Upon life's rugged way, can never fail thee.
CEPHEUS And what shall I give, seed of bright Olympus? Wilt thou have half my kingdom, Argive Perseus?
PERSEUS Thy kingdom falls by right to Iolaus In whom I shall enjoy it. One gift thou hadst I might have coveted, but she is mine, O monarch: I have taken her from death For my possession.
CEPHEUS My sunny Andromeda! But there's the Tyrian: yet he gave her up To death and cannot now reclaim her.
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IOLAUS Father, The Babylonian merchants wait, and Cireas: The people's leaders and thy army's captains Are eager to renew an interrupted Obedience.
CEPHEUS Admit them all to me: go, Medes.
As Medes goes out, Diomede enters.
ANDROMEDA Diomede! playmate! you too have come quite safe Out of the storm. I thought we both must founder.
DIOMEDE Oh, yes, and now you'll marry Perseus, leave me No other playmate than Praxilla's whippings To keep me lively!
ANDROMEDA Therefore 'tis you look So discontent and sullen? Clear your face, I'll drag you to the world's far end with me, And take in my own hands Praxilla's duty. Will that please you?
DIOMEDE As if your little hand could hurt! I'm off, Praxilla, to pick scarlet berries In Argolis and hear the seabirds' cries And Ocean singing to the Cyclades. I'll buy you brand new leather for a relic To whip the memory of me with sometimes, Praxilla.
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PRAXILLA You shall taste it then before you go. You'll make a fine fair couple of wilfulnesses. I pity Perseus.
ANDROMEDA You are well rid of us, My poor Praxilla.
PRAXILLA Princess, little Princess, My hands will be lighter, but my heart too heavy.
Therops and Dercetes enter with the Captains of the army, Cireas, Tyrnaus and Smerdas.
ALL Hail, you restored high royalties of Syria.
THEROPS O King, accept us, be the past forgotten.
CEPHEUS It is forgotten, Therops. Welcome, Dercetes. Thy friend Nebassar is asleep. He has done His service for the day and taken payment.
CASSIOPEA His blood is a deep stain on Syria's bosom.
DERCETES On us the stain lies, Queen: but we will drown it In native streams, when we go forth to scourge The Assyrian in his home.
THEROPS Death for one's King Only less noble is than for one's country.
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This foreign soldier taught us that home lesson.
CASSIOPEA Therops, there are kings still in Syria?
THEROPS Great Queen, Remember not my sins.
CASSIOPEA They are buried deep, Thy bold rebellion,—even thy cruel slanders, If only thou wilt serve me as my friend True to thy people in me. Will this be hard for thee?
THEROPS O noble lady, you pay wrongs with favours! I am yours for ever, I and all this people.
CIREAS (to Diomede) This it is to be an orator! We shall hear him haranguing the people next market-day on fidelity to princes and the divine right of queens to have favourites.
IOLAUS Cireas, old bribe-taker, art thou living? Did Poseidon forget thee?
CIREAS I pray you, Prince, remind me not of past foolishness. I have grown pious. I will never speak ill again of authorities and divinities.
IOLAUS Thou art grown ascetic? thou carest no longer then for gold? I am glad, for my purse will be spared a very heavy lightening.
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CIREAS Prince, I will not suffer my young piety to make you break old promises; for if it is perilous to sin, it is worse to be the cause of sin in others.
IOLAUS Thou shalt have gold and farms. I will absolve Andromeda's promise and my own.
CIREAS Great Plutus! O happy Cireas!
IOLAUS Merchant Tyrnaus, art thou for Chaldea?
TYRNAUS When I have seen these troubles' joyous end And your sweet princess, my young rescuer, Happily wedded.
IOLAUS I will give thee a ship And merchandise enough to fill thy losses.
PERSEUS And prayers with them, O excellent Chaldean. The world has need of men like thee.
SMERDAS (aside) I quake. What will they say to me? I shall be tortured And crucified. But she with her smile will save me.
IOLAUS Smerdas, thou unclean treacherous coward soul!
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SMERDAS Alas, I was compelled by threats of torture.
IOLAUS And tempted too with gold. Thy punishment Shall hit thee in thy nature. Farmer Cireas!
CIREAS Prince Plutus!
IOLAUS Take thou this man for slave. He's strong. Work him upon thy fields and thy plantations.
SMERDAS O this is worst of all.
IOLAUS Not worse than thy desert. For gold thou lustest? earn it for another. Thou'lt save thy life? it is a freedman's chattel.
SMERDAS O speak for me, lady Andromeda!
ANDROMEDA Dear Iolaus,—
CEPHEUS My child, thou art all pity; But justice has her seat, and her fine balance Disturbed too often spoils an unripe world With ill-timed mercy. Thy brother speaks my will.
IOLAUS Thou hast increased thy crime by pleading to her Whom thou betrayedst to her death. Art thou
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Quite shameless? Hold thy peace!
ANDROMEDA Grieve not too much. Cireas will be kind to thee; wilt thou not, Cireas?
CIREAS At thy command I will be even that And even to him.
Noise outside.
CEPHEUS What other dangerous clamour Is at our gates?
Perissus enters, brandishing his cleaver.
PERISSUS Pull out that sharp skewer of thine, comrade Perseus, or let me handle my cleaver.
CEPHEUS Thou art angry, butcher? Who has disturbed thy noble serenity?
PERISSUS King Cepheus, shall I not be angry? Art thou not again our majesty of Syria? And shall our majesty be insulted with noses? Shall it be prodded by a proboscis? Perseus, thou hast slaughtered yonder palaeozoic ichthyosaurus; wilt thou suffer me to chop this neozoan?
PERSEUS Calmly, precisely and not so polysyllabically, my good Perissus. Tell the King what is this clamour.
PERISSUS My monarch, Phineus of Tyre has brought his long-nosed royalty to thy gates and poke it he will into thy kingly presence.
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His blusterings, King, have flustered my calm great heart within me.
CEPHEUS Comes he alone?
PERISSUS Damoetes and some scores more hang on to his long tail of hook-nosed Tyrians; but they are all rabble and proletariate, not a citizen butcher in the whole picking. They brandish skewers; they threaten to poke me with their dainty iron spits,—me, Perissus, me, the butcher!
CEPHEUS Phineus in arms! This is the after-swell Of tempest.
PERSEUS Let the Phoenician enter, comrade.
Perissus goes out.
Look not so blank. This man with all his crew Shall be my easy care.
Phineus enters the hall with a great company, Tyrians with drawn swords, Damoetes, Morus and others; after them Perissus.
CEPHEUS Welcome, Tyre.
CASSIOPEA Thou breakest armed into our presence, Phineus. Had they been earlier there, these naked swords Would have been welcome.
PHINEUS I am not here for welcome, Lady. King Cepheus, wilt thou yield me right,
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Or shall I take it with my sword?
CEPHEUS Phineus, I never have withheld even from the meanest The least thing he could call his right.
PHINEUS Thou hast not? Who gives then to a wandering Greek my bride, Thy perfect daughter?
CASSIOPEA She was in some peril, When thou wert absent, Tyre.
PHINEUS A vain young man, A brilliant sworder wandering for a name, Who calls himself the son of Danaë, And who his father was, the midnight knows. This is the lord thou giv'st Andromeda, Scorning the mighty King of ancient Tyre.
CEPHEUS He saved her from the death to which we left her, And she was his,—his wife, if so he chose, Or, conquered by the sword from grim Poseidon, His then to take her as he would from that moment.
PHINEUS Do his deeds or thy neglect annul thy promise?
IOLAUS King Phineus, wilt thou take up and lay down At pleasure? Who leaves a jewel in the mud, Shall he complain because another took it?
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PRAXILLA And she was never his; she hated him.
PHINEUS I'll hear no reasons, but with strong force have her, Though it be to lift her o'er the dearest blood Of all her kin. Tyrians!
Andromeda takes refuge with Perseus.
Abandon, princess, The stripling bosom where thou tak'st thy refuge. Thou hast mistook thy home, Andromeda.
IOLAUS 'Tis thou mistakest, Phineus, thinking her A bride who, touched, shall be thy doom. Get hence Unhurt.
PHINEUS Prince Iolaus, the sword that cut Thy contract to Poseidon, cuts not mine,— Which if you void, thou and thy father pay for it.
PERSEUS Phineus of Tyre, it may be thou art wronged, But 'tis not at his hands whom thou impugnest. Her father gave her not to me.
PHINEUS Her mother then? She is the man, I think, in Syria's household.
PERSEUS Her too I asked not.
PHINEUS Thou wooedst then the maid? It shall not help thee though a thousand times
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She kissed thee yes. Pretty Andromeda, Wilt thou have for thy lord this vagabond, Wander with him as beggars land and sea? Despite thyself I'll save thee from that fate Unworthy of thy beauty and thy sweetness, And make thee Queen in Tyre. Minion of Argos, Learn, ere thou grasp at other's goods, to ask The owner, not the owned.
PERSEUS I did not ask her.
PHINEUS Then by what right, presumptuous, hast thou her? Or wherefore lies she thus within thy arm?
PERSEUS Say, by what right, King Phineus, thou wouldst take her, Herself and all refusing?
PHINEUS By my precontract.
PERSEUS Thou gavest her to Death, that contract's broken. Or if thou seekest to revoke thy gift, Foregather then with Death and ask him for her. The way to him is easy.
PHINEUS Then by my sword, Not asking her or any, because I am a king, I'll take her.
PERSEUS If the sword is the sole judge, Then by my own sword I have taken her, Tyrian,
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Not asking her or any, who am king O'er her, her sovereign. This soft gold is mine And mine these banks of silver; this rich country Is my possession and owes to my strong taking All her sweet revenues in honey. Phineus, I wonder not that thou dost covet her Whom the whole world might want. Wrest her from me, Phoenician; to her father she belongs not.
(opening his wallet)
King Phineus, art thou ready? Yet look once more On the blue sky and this green earth of Syria.
PHINEUS Young man, thou hast done deeds I'll not belittle. Yet was it only a sea-beast and a rabble Whom thou hast tamed; I am a prince and warrior. Wilt thou fright me with thy aegis?
PERSEUS Not fright, but end thee; For thou hast spoken words deserving death. Come forth into the open, this is no place For battle. Marshal thy warlike crew against me, And let thy Syrian mob-men help with shouts: Stand in their front to lead them; I alone Will meet their serried charge, Dercetes merely Watching us.
PHINEUS Thou art frantic with past triumphs: Argive, desist. I would not rob thy mother Of her sole joy, howe'er she came by thee. The gods may punish her sweet midnight fault, To whom her dainty trickery imputes it.
PERSEUS Come now, lest here I slay thee.
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PHINEUS Thou art in love With death: but I am pitiful, young Perseus; Thou shalt not die. My men shall take thee living And pedlars hawk thee for a slave in Tyre, Where thou shalt see sometimes far off Andromeda, A Queen of nations.
PERSEUS Thou compassionate man! But I will give thee, hero, marvellous death And stone for monument, which thou deservest; For thou wert a great King and famous warrior, When still thou wert living. Forth and fight with me! Afterwards if thou canst, come for Andromeda; None shall oppose thy seizure. Behind me, captain, So that the rabble here may not be tempted To any treacherous stroke.
Phineus goes out with the Tyrians, Damoetes and the Syrian favourers of Phineus, followed by Perseus and Dercetes. Cireas behind them at a distance.
CEPHEUS Sunbeam, I am afraid.
ANDROMEDA I am not, father.
CEPHEUS Alone against so many!
IOLAUS Shall I go, father, And stand by him?
CEPHEUS He might be angry. Hark!
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The voice of Phineus.
IOLAUS He cries some confident order.
CEPHEUS The Tyrians shout for onset; he is doomed.
There is a moment's pause, all listening, painfully.
IOLAUS The shouts are stilled; there is a sudden hush.
CEPHEUS What can it mean? This silence is appalling.
What news? Thou treadest like one sleeping, captain.
DERCETES O King, thy royal court is full of monuments.
CEPHEUS What meanest thou? What happened? Where is Perseus?
DERCETES King Phineus called to his men to take alive The Greek; but as they charged, great Perseus cried, "Close eyes, Dercetes, if thou car'st to live," And I obeyed, yet saw that he had taken A snaky something from the wallet's mouth He carries on his baldric. Blind I waited And heard the loud approaching charge. Then suddenly The rapid footsteps ceased, the cries fell dumb And a great silence reigned. Astonishment For two brief moments only held me close; But when I lifted my sealed lids, the court Was full of those swift charging warriors stiffened To stone or stiffening, in the very posture
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Of onset, sword uplifted, shield advanced, Knee crooked, foot carried forward to the pace, An animated silence, life in stone. Only the godlike victor lived, a smile Upon his lips, closing his wallet's mouth. Then I, appalled, came from that place in silence.
CEPHEUS Soldier, he is a god, or else the gods Walk close to him. I hear his footsteps coming.
Perseus returns, followed by Cireas.
Hail, Perseus!
PERSEUS King, the Tyrians all are dead, Nor needst thou build them pyres nor dig them graves. If any hereafter ask what perfect sculptor Chiselled these forms in Syria's royal court, Say then, "Athene, child armipotent Of the Olympian, hewed by Perseus' hand In one divine and careless stroke these statues To her give glory."
CEPHEUS O thou dreadful victor! I know not what to say nor how to praise thee.
PERSEUS Say nothing, King; in silence praise the Gods. Let this not trouble you, my friends. Proceed As if no interruption had disturbed you.
CIREAS O Zeus, I thought thou couldst juggle only with feathers and phosphorus, but I see thou canst give wrinkles in magic to Babylon and the Medes. (shaking himself) Ugh! this was a stony conjuring. I cannot feel sure yet that I am not myself a statue.
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PERISSUS (who has gone out and returned) What hast thou done, comrade Perseus? Thou hast immortalised his long nose to all time in stone! This is a woeful thing for posterity; thou hadst no right to leave behind thee for its dismay such a fossil.
CEPHEUS What now is left but to prepare the nuptials Of sweet young sunny-eyed Andromeda With mighty Perseus?
PERSEUS King, let it be soon That I may go to my blue-ringed Seriphos, Where my mother waits and more deeds call to me.
CASSIOPEA Yet if thy heart consents, then three months give us, O Perseus, of thyself and our sweet child, And then abandon.
PERSEUS They are given.
ANDROMEDA Perseus, You give and never ask; let me for you Ask something.
PERSEUS Ask, Andromeda, and have.
ANDROMEDA Then this I ask that thy great deeds may leave Their golden trace on Syria. Let the dire cult For ever cease and victims bleed no more On its dark altar. Instead, Athene's name
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Spread over all the land and in men's hearts. Then shall a calm and mighty Will prevail And broader minds and kindlier manners reign And men grow human, mild and merciful.
PERSEUS King Cepheus, thou hast heard; shall this be done?
CEPHEUS Hero, thou cam'st to change our world for us. Pronounce; I give assent.
PERSEUS Then let the shrine That looked out from earth's breast into the sunlight, Be cleansed of its red memory of blood, And the dread Form that lived within its precincts Transfigure into a bright compassionate God Whose strength shall aid men tossed upon the seas, Give succour to the shipwrecked mariner. A noble centre of a people's worship, To Zeus and great Athene build a temple Between your sky-topped hills and Ocean's vasts: Her might shall guard your lives and save your land. In your human image of her deity A light of reason and calm celestial force And a wise tranquil government of life, Order and beauty and harmonious thoughts And, ruling the waves of impulse, high-throned will Incorporate in marble, the carved and white Ideal of a young uplifted race. For these are her gifts to those who worship her. Adore and what you adore attempt to be.
CEPHEUS Will the fiercer Grandeur that was here permit?
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PERSEUS Fear not Poseidon; the strong god is free. He has withdrawn from his own darkness and is now His new great self at an Olympian height.
CASSIOPEA How can the immortal gods and Nature change?
PERSEUS All alters in a world that is the same. Man most must change who is a soul of Time; His gods too change and live in larger light.
CEPHEUS Then man too may arise to greater heights, His being draw nearer to the gods?
PERSEUS Perhaps. But the blind nether forces still have power And the ascent is slow and long is Time. Yet shall Truth grow and harmony increase: The day shall come when men feel close and one. Meanwhile one forward step is something gained, Since little by little earth must open to heaven Till her dim soul awakes into the Light.
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ERIC
SWEGN
GUNTHAR
HARDICNUT
RAGNAR
HARALD
ASLAUG
HERTHA
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Eric's Palace at Yara.
ERIC Eric of Norway, first whom these cold fiords, Deep havens of disunion, from their jagged And fissured crevices at last obey, The monarch of a thousand Vikings! Yes, But how long shall that monarchy endure Which only on the swiftness of a sword Has taken its restless seat? Strength's iron hound Pitilessly bright behind his panting prey Can guard for life's short splendour what it won. But when the sword is broken or when death Proves swifter? All this realm with labour built Dissolving like a transitory cloud Becomes the thing it was, cleft, parcelled out By discord. I have found the way to join, The warrior's sword, builder of unity, But where's the way to solder? where? O Thor And Odin, masters of the northern world, Wisdom and force I have; some strength is hidden I have not; I would find it out. Help me, Whatever power thou art who mov'st the world, To Eric unrevealed. Some sign I ask.
ASLAUG (singing, outside) Love is the hoop of the gods Hearts to combine.
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Iron is broken, the sword Sleeps in the grave of its lord. Love is divine. Love is the hoop of the gods Hearts to combine.
ERIC Is that your answer? Freya, mother of heaven, Thou wast forgotten. The heart! the seat is there. For unity is sweet substance of the heart And not a chain that binds, not iron, gold, Nor any helpless thought the reason knows. How shall I seize it? where? give me a net By which the fugitive can be snared. It is Too unsubstantial for my iron mind.
ASLAUG (singing, outside) When Love desires Love, Then Love is born. Nor golden gifts compel, Nor even beauty's spell Escapes his scorn. When Love desires Love, Then Love is born.
ERIC (calling) Who sings outside? Harald! who sings outside?
HARALD (entering) Two dancing-girls from Gothberg. Shall they come?
ERIC Admit them.
Harald goes out.
From light lips and casual thoughts The gods speak best as if by chance, nor knows
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The speaker that he is an instrument But thinks his mind the mover of his words.
Harald returns with Aslaug and Hertha.
HARALD King Eric, these are they who sang.
ERIC Women, Who are you? or what god directed you?
ASLAUG The god who rules all men, Necessity.
ERIC It was thou who sangst!
ASLAUG My lips at least were used.
ERIC Thou sayest. Dost thou know by whom?
ASLAUG By Fate. For she alone is prompter on our stage, And all things move by an established doom, Not freely. Eric's sword and Aslaug's song, Music and thunder are the rhythmic chords Of one majestic harp. With equal mind She breaks the tops that she has built; her thrones Are ruins. She treads her way foreseen; our steps Are hers, our wills are blinded by her gaze.
ERIC I think the soul is master. Who art thou?
Page 535
HERTHA Expelled from Gothberg with displeasure fierce, Norwegians by the wrathful Swede constrained, To Norway we return.
ERIC Why went you forth?
HERTHA From a bleak country rich by spoil alone Of kinder populations, far too cold, Too rough to love the sweetness of a song, The rhythm of a dance, with need for spur, We fled to an entire and cultured race, Whose hearts come apt and liberal from the gods Are steel to steel, but flowers to a flower.
ERIC And wherefore war they upon women now?
ASLAUG By thy aggressions moved.
ERIC A nobler choice Of vengeance I will give them, though more hard.
(to Gunthar who enters)
Gunthar, thou comest from the front. What news?
GUNTHAR Swegn, earl of Trondhjem, lifts his outlawed head. By desperate churls and broken nobles joined He moves towards the Swede.
ERIC Let Sigurd's force Cut off from Sweden and his lair the rude
Page 536
Revolted lord. He only now resists, Champion of discord, remnant like our seas, The partisan and pattern of the past. They waste their surge of strength in sterile foam, Hungry for movement, careless what they break, Splendid, disastrous, active for no fruit. Such men are better with the gods than here To trouble earth. Taken, let him not live.
ASLAUG Taken! Our words are only an arrogant breath, Who all are here, the doomer and the doomed, As captives of a greater doom than ours, To live or die.
HERTHA Be silent.
ASLAUG I silence my heart Which has remembered what all men forget, That Olaf of the seas was Norway's head And Swegn his son.
ERIC Will you remain with me? Though from my act there flowed on you distress, Make me be fountain of your better days; Your loss shall turn a fall to splendid gains.
HERTHA Thy royal bounty shall atone for much.
ASLAUG (low, to herself) Nobler atonement's needed.
Page 537
ERIC It is yours. Harald, make room for them within my house. Gunthar, we will converse some other hour.
(alone)
Love! If it were this girl with antelope eyes And the high head so proudly lifted up Upon a neck as white as any swan's! But how to sway men's hearts rugged and hard As Norway's mountains, as her glaciers cold, The houses of their violent desires, Whose guests are interest and power and pride? Perhaps this stag-eyed woman comes for that, To teach me.
Page 538
Hertha, Aslaug.
ASLAUG Hertha, we dance before the man tonight. Why not tonight?
HERTHA Because I will not act Lifting in vain a rash frustrated hand. When all is certain, I will strike.
ASLAUG To near, To strike while all posterity applauds! For Norway's poets to the end of time Shall sing in phrases noble as the theme Of Aslaug's dance and Aslaug's dagger.
HERTHA Yes, If we succeed, but who will sing the praise Of foiled assassins? Shall we risk defeat? While we sleep flung in a dishonoured tomb, And Swegn of Norway roams until the end The desperate snows and forest silences Hopeless, proscribed, alone?
ASLAUG No more defeat! Too often, too deeply have we drunk that cup!
Page 539
HERTHA The man we come to slay,—
ASLAUG A mighty man! He has the face and figure of a god, A marble emperor with brilliant eyes. How came the usurper by a face like that?
HERTHA His father was a son of Odin's stock.
ASLAUG His fable since he rose! A pauper house Of one poor vessel and a narrow fiord And some bare pine-trees possessor,—this was he, The root he sprang from.
HERTHA But from this to tower In three swift summers undisputed lord Of Norway, before years had put their growth Upon his chin! If not of Odin's race, Odin is for him. Are you not afraid, You who see Fate even in a sparrow's flight, When Odin is for him?
ASLAUG Aslaug is against. He has a strength, an iron strength, and Thor Strikes hammerlike in his uplifted sword. But Fate alone decides when all is said, Not Thor, nor Odin. I will try my fate.
HERTHA He is a pure usurper, is he not? Norway's election made him king, men say.
Page 540
ASLAUG Left Olaf Sigualdson no heirs behind? Was his chair vacant?
HERTHA Of Trondhjem; but they cried, The inland and the north were free to choose.
ASLAUG As rebels are.
HERTHA Discord was seated there. To the South rejoicing in her golden gains, Crying, "I am Norway", all the rude-lipped North Blew bronze refusal and its free stark head To breathe cold heaven was lifted like its hills. We sought the arbitration of the sword, That sharp blind last appeal. The sword has judged Against our claim.
ASLAUG The dagger overrides.
HERTHA When it is keen and swift enough! O yet, If kindly peace even now were possible! The suzerainty? it is his. We fought for it, We have lost it. Let it rest where it has fallen.
ASLAUG Better our barren empire of the snows! Better with reindeer herding to survive, Or else a free and miserable death Together!
Page 541
HERTHA It is well to be resolved. Therefore I flung the doubt before your mind, To strike more surely. Aslaug, did you see The eyes of Eric on you?
ASLAUG (indifferently) I am fair. Men look upon me.
HERTHA You see nothing more?
ASLAUG (disdainfully) What is it to me how he looks? He is My human obstacle and that is all.
HERTHA No, Aslaug, there's much more. Alone with you, Absorbed,—you see it,—suddenly you strike And strike again, swift great exultant blows.
ASLAUG It is too base!
HERTHA Unlulled, he could not perish. Have you not seen his large and wakeful gaze? This is our chance. Must not Swegn mount his throne?
ASLAUG So that I have not to degrade myself, Arrange it as you will. You own a swift, Contriving, careful brain I cannot match. To dare, to act was always Aslaug's part.
Page 542
HERTHA You will not shrink?
ASLAUG I sprang not from the earth To bound my actions by the common rule. I claim my kin with those whom Heaven's gaze Moulded supreme, Swegn's sister, Olaf's child, Aslaug of Norway.
HERTHA Then it must be done.
ASLAUG Hertha, I will not know the plots you weave: But when I see your signal, I will strike.
HERTHA (alone) Pride violent! loftiness intolerable! The grandiose kingdom-breaking blow is hers, The baseness, the deception are for me. It was this, the assumption, the magnificence, Made Swegn her tool. To me his lover, counsellor, Wife, worshipper, his ears were coldly deaf. But, lioness of Norway, thy loud bruit And leap gigantic are ensnared at last In my compelling toils. She must be trapped! She is the fuel for my husband's soul To burn itself on a disastrous pyre. Remove its cause, the flame will sink to rest,— And we in Trondhjem shall live peacefully Till Eric dies, as some day die he must, In battle or by a revolting sword, And leaves the spacious world unoccupied. Then other men may feel the sun once more. Always she talks of Fate: does she not see, This man was born beneath exultant stars,
Page 543
Had gods to rock his cradle? He must possess His date, his strong and unresisted time When Fate herself runs on his feet. Then comes,— All things too great end soon,—death, overthrow, The slow revenges of the jealous gods. Submitting we shall save ourselves alive For a late summer when cold spring is past.
Page 544
Eric, Aslaug.
ERIC Come hither.
ASLAUG Thou hast sent for me?
ERIC Come hither. What art thou?
ASLAUG What thou knowest.
ERIC Do I know?
ASLAUG (to herself) Does he suspect? (aloud) I am a dancing-girl. My name is Aslaug. That thou knowest.
ERIC Where Did Odin forge thy sweet imperious eyes, Thy noble stature and thy lofty look? Thou dancest,—yes, thou hast that motion; song, The natural expression of thy soul, Comes from thy lips, floats, hovers and returns Like a wild bird which wings around its nest. This art the princesses of Sweden use,
Page 545
And those Norwegian girls who frame themselves On Sweden.
ASLAUG It may be, my birth and past Were nobler than my present fortunes are.
ERIC Why cam'st thou to me?
ASLAUG (to herself) Does Death admonish him Of danger? does he feel the impending stroke? Hertha could turn the question.
ERIC Why soughtst thou out Eric of Norway? Wherefore broughtst thou here This beauty as compelling as thy song No man can gaze on and possess his soul?
ASLAUG I am a dancing-girl; my song, my face Are my best stock. I carried them for gain Here to the richest market.
ERIC Hast thou so? I buy them for a price. Aslaug, thy body too.
ASLAUG Release me! Wilt thou lay thy hands on death?
(wrenching herself free)
All Norway has not sold itself thy slave.
ERIC This was not spoken like a dancing-girl!
Page 546
ASLAUG (to herself) What is this siege? I have no dagger with me. Will he discover me? will he compel?
ERIC Though Norway has not sold itself my slave, Thou hast. Remember what thou art, or else Thou feignst to be.
ASLAUG (to herself) I am caught in his snare. He is subtle, terrible. I see the thing He drives at and admire unwillingly The marble tyrant.
ERIC Better play thy part Or leave it. If thou wert fashioned nobler than thou feignst, Confess that mightier name and lay thyself Between my hands. But if a dancing-girl, I have bought thee for a hire, thy face, thy song, Thy body. I turn not, girl, from any way I can possess thee, more than the sea hesitates To engulf what it embraces.
ASLAUG Thou speakest words I scorn to answer.
ERIC Or to understand? Thou art an enemy who in disguise Invad'st my house to spy upon my fate.
ASLAUG What if I were?
Page 547
ERIC Thou hast too lightly then Devised thy chains and close imprisonment, Too thoughtlessly adventured a divine And glorious stake, this body, heaven's hold, This face, the earth's desire.
ASLAUG What canst thou do? I do not think I am afraid of death.
ERIC Far be death from thee who, if heaven were just, Wouldst walk immortal! Thou seest no nearer peril?
ASLAUG None that I tremble at or wish to flee.
ERIC Let this shake thee that thou art by thy choice Caged with the danger of the lion's mood, Helpless hast seen the hunger of his eyes And feelst on thee the breath of his desire.
ASLAUG (alarmed) I came not here to spy.
ERIC Why cam'st thou then?
ASLAUG To sing, to dance, to earn.
ERIC Richly then earn. Thou hast a brain, and knowest why I looked On thee, why I have kept thee in my house.
Page 548
My house! what fate has brought thy steps within? Thou, thou hast found the way to my desire! Thinkst thou thy feet have entered to escape As lightly as a wild bee from a flower, The lair and antre of thy enemy? Disguise? Canst thou disguise thy splendid soul? Then if thy face and speech more nobly express The truth of thee than this vocation can, Reveal it and deserve my clemency.
ASLAUG (violently) Thy clemency!
(restraining herself)
I am a dancing-girl; I came to earn.
ERIC Thou art obstinate in pride! Choose yet.
ASLAUG I have not any choice to make.
ERIC Wilt thou still struggle vainly in the net? Because thou hast the lioness in thy mood, Thou thoughtst to play with Eric! It is I Who play with thee; thou liest in my grasp, As surely as if I held thee on my knees. I am enamoured of thy golden hair, Thy body like the snow, thy antelope eyes, This neck that seems to know it carries heaven Upon it easily. Thy song, thy speech, This gracious rhythmic motion of thy limbs Walking or dancing, all the careless pride That undulates in every gesture and tone, Have seized upon me smiling to possess.
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But I have only learned from Fate and strength To seize by force, master, enjoy, compel, As I will thee. Enemy and prisoner, Or dancing-girl and purchased chattel, choose! Thou wilt not speak? thou findest no reply?
ASLAUG Because I am troubled by thy violent words. I cannot answer thee, or will not yet.
How could he see this death? Is he a god And knows men's hearts? This is a terrible And iron pressure!
ERIC What was thy design? To spy? to slay? For thou art capable Even of such daring.
ASLAUG (to herself) Swiftly, swiftly done It might be still! To put him off an hour, Some minutes,—O, to strike!
ERIC What hast thou chosen?
ASLAUG (turning to him) King, mend thy words and end this comedy. I have laughed till now and dallied with thy thoughts, A little amazed. Unfearing I stand here, Who come with open heart to seek a king, Pure of all hostile purpose, innocent Of all the guileful thoughts and blood-stained plans Thou burdenest thy fierce suspicions with. This is the Nemesis of men who rise Too suddenly by fraud or violence
Page 550
That they suspect all hearts, yes, every word Of sheltering some direr violence, Some subtler fraud, and they expect their fall Sudden and savage as their rise has been.
ERIC Thou art my dancing-girl and nothing more? Assume this chain, this necklace, for thy life. Nor think it even thy price.
She dashes the necklace to the ground.
Thou art not subtle!
ASLAUG (agitated) It is not so that women's hearts are wooed.
ERIC Yet so I woo thee, so do all men woo Enamoured of what thou hast claimed to be. Art thou the dancing-girl of Norway still Or some disguised high-reaching nobler soul?
ASLAUG (suddenly) I am thy dancing-girl, King Eric. Look, I lift thy necklace.
ERIC Take it, yet be free. Thou canst not slip out from my hands by this. No feigned decision will I let thee make, But one which binds us both. I give thee time, In hope thy saner mind will yet prevail, Not courage most perverse, though ardent, rule. Only one way thou hast to save thyself: Reveal thy treason, Aslaug, trust thy king.
Aslaug, alone, lifts the chain, admires it and throws it on a chair.
Page 551
ASLAUG You are too much like drops of royal blood.
She lifts it again.
A necklace? No, my chain! Or wilt thou prove A god's death-warrant?
She puts it round her neck.
Hertha, Hertha, here!
(to Hertha, as she enters)
O counsellor, art thou come?
HERTHA I heard thee call.
ASLAUG I called. Why did I call? See, Hertha, see How richly Norway's Eric buys his doom!
HERTHA He gave thee this? It is a kingdom's price.
ASLAUG A kingdom's price! the kingdom of the slain! A price to rid the nations of a god. O Hertha, what has earth to do with gods, Who suffers only human weight? Will she Not go too swiftly downward from her base If Eric treads her long?
HERTHA Sister of Swegn, There are new lustres in thy face and eyes. What said he to thee?
ASLAUG What did Eric say, Eric to Aslaug, sister of King Swegn? A kingdom's price! Swegn's kingdom! And for him,
Page 552
My marble emperor, my god who loves, This mortal Odin? What for him? By force Shall he return to his effulgent throne?
HERTHA You were not used to a divided mind.
ASLAUG Nor am I altered now, nor heart-perplexed. But these are thoughts which naturally arise.
HERTHA He loves you then?
ASLAUG He loves and he suspects.
HERTHA What, Aslaug?
ASLAUG What we are and we intend.
HERTHA If he suspects!
ASLAUG It cannot matter much, If we are rapid.
HERTHA If we spoil it all! I will not torture Swegn with useless tears Perishing vainly. I will slay and die. He shall remember that he wears his crown By our great sacrifice and soothe his grief With the strong magnificent circle, or else bear it
Page 553
A noble duty to the nobly dead.
(after a moment's reflection)
Child, you must humour him, you must consent.
ASLAUG To what?
HERTHA To all.
ASLAUG Hast thou at all perused The infamy which thou advisest?
HERTHA Yes. I do not bid you yield, but seem to yield. Even I who am Swegn's wife, would do as much. But though you talk, you still are less in love, Valuing an empty outward purity Before your brother's life, your brother's crown.
ASLAUG You know the way to bend me to your will!
HERTHA Give freedom, but no licence to his love, For when he thinks to embrace, we shall have struck.
ASLAUG And, Hertha, if a swift and violent heart Betrayed my will and overturned your plans? Is there no danger, Hertha, there?
HERTHA Till now I feared not that from Aslaug, sister of Swegn.
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But if you fear it!
ASLAUG No, since I consent. You shall not blame again my selfishness, Nor my defect of love.
HERTHA (alone) Swegn then might rule!
(with a laugh)
I had almost forgotten Fate between Smiling, alert, and his too partial gods.
Page 555
ERIC They say the anarchy of love disturbs Gods even: shaken are the marble natures, The deathless hearts are melted to the pang And rapture. I would be, O Odin, still Monarch of my calm royalty within, My thoughts my subjects. Do I hear her come?
(to Aslaug who enters)
Thou com'st? thou art resolved? thou hast made thy choice?
ASLAUG I choose, if there is anything to choose, The truth.
ERIC Who art thou?
ASLAUG Aslaug, who am now A dancing-woman.
ERIC And afterwards? Hast thou then Understood nothing?
ASLAUG What should I understand?
ERIC What I shall do with thee. This earthly heaven In which thou liv'st shall not be thine at all.
Page 556
It was not fashioned for thy joy but mine And only made for my immense desire. This hast thou understood?
ASLAUG (pale and troubled) Thou triest me still.
ERIC I saw thee shake.
ASLAUG It is not easily A woman's heart sinks prostrate in such absolute Surrender.
ERIC Thy heart? Is it thy heart that yields? O thou unparalleled enchanting frame For housing of a strong immortal guest, If man could seize the heart as palpably, The form, the limbs, the substance of this soul! That, that we ask for; all else can be seized So vainly! Walled from ours are other hearts: For if life's barriers twixt our souls were broken, Men would be free and one, earth paradise And the gods live neglected.
ASLAUG This heart of mine? Purchase it richly, for it is for sale.
ERIC Yes, speak.
ASLAUG With love; I meant no more.
Page 557
ERIC With love? Thou namest lightly a tremendous word. If thou hadst known this mightiest thing on earth And named it, should it not have upon thy lips So moving an impulsion for a man That he would barter worlds to hear it once? Words are but ghosts unless they speak the heart.
ASLAUG I have yielded.
ERIC Then tonight. Thou shak'st?
ASLAUG There is A trouble in my blood. I do not shake.
ERIC Thou heardst me?
ASLAUG Not tonight. Thou art too swift, Too sudden.
ERIC Thou hast had leisure to consult Thy comrade smaller, subtler than thyself? Better hadst thou chosen candour and thy frank soul Consulted, not a guile by others breathed.
ASLAUG What guile, who give all for an equal price? Thou giv'st thy blood of rubies; I my life.
Page 558
ERIC Thou hast not chosen then to understand.
ASLAUG Because I sell myself, yet keep my pride?
ERIC Thou shalt keep nothing that I choose to take. I see a tyranny I will delight in And force a oneness; I will violently Compel the goddess that thou art. But I know What soul is lodged within thee, thou as yet Ignorest mine. I still hold in my strength, Though it hungers like a lion for the leap, And give thee time once more; misuse it not. Beware, provoke not the fierce god too much; Have dread of his flame round thee.
ASLAUG (alone) Odin and Freya, you have snares! But see, I have not thrown the dagger from my heart, But clutch it still. How strange that look and tone, That things of a corporeal potency Not only travel coursing through the nerves But seem to touch the seated soul within! It was a moment's wave, for it has passed And the high purpose in my soul lives on Unconquerably intending to fulfil.
Page 559
A room in Eric's house.
HERTHA See what a keen and fatal glint it has, Aslaug.
ASLAUG Hast thou been haunted by a look, O Hertha, has a touch bewildered thee, Compelling memory?
HERTHA Then the gods too work?
ASLAUG A marble statue gloriously designed Without that breath our cunning maker gives, One feels it pain to break. This statue breathes! Out of these eyes there looks an intellect That claims us all; this marble holds a heart, The heart holds love. To break it all, to lay This glory of God's making in the dust! Why do these thoughts besiege me? Have I then— No, it is nothing; it is pity works, It is an admiration physical. O he is far too great, too beautiful
Page 560
For a dagger's penetration. It would turn, The point would turn; it would deny itself To such a murder.
HERTHA Aslaug, it is love.
ASLAUG (angrily) What saidst thou?
HERTHA When he lays a lingering hand Upon thy tresses,—Aslaug, for he loves,— Canst thou then strike?
ASLAUG What shakes me? Have I learned To pity, to tremble? That were new indeed In Olaf's race. Give me self-knowledge, Gods. What are these unaccustomed moods you send Into my bosom? They are foreign here.
Eric enters and regards them. Hertha, seeing him, rises to depart.
ERIC Thou art the other dancing-woman come From Sweden to King Eric!
HERTHA He has eyes That look into the soul. What mean his words? But they are common. Let me leave you, Aslaug.
ASLAUG I would have freedom here from thy pursuit.
Page 561
ERIC Why shouldst thou anywhere be free from me? I am full of wrath against thee and myself. Come near me.
ASLAUG (to herself) It is too strange—I am afraid! Of what? Of what? Am I not Aslaug still?
ERIC Art thou a sorceress or conspirator? But thou art both to seize my throne and heart, And I will deal with thee, thou dreadful charm, As with my enemy.
ASLAUG Let him never touch!
ERIC I give thee grace no longer; bear thy doom.
ASLAUG My doom is in my hands, not thine.
ERIC (with a sudden fierceness) Thou errst, And thou hast always erred. Dar'st thou imagine That I who have enveloped in three years All Norway more rebellious than its storms, Can be resisted by a woman's strength, However fierce, however swift and bold?
ASLAUG I have seen thy strength. I cherish mine unseen.
ERIC And I thy weakness. Something yet thou fearst.
Page 562
ASLAUG Nothing at all.
ERIC Yes! though thy eyes defy me, Thy colour changes and thy limbs betray thee. All is not lionlike and masculine there Within.
He advances towards her.
ASLAUG Touch me not!
ERIC It is that thou fearst? Why dost thou fear it? Is it thine own heart Thou tremblest at? Aslaug, is it thy heart?
He takes her suddenly into his arms and kisses her. Aslaug remains like one stricken and bewildered.
Lift up thine eyes; let me behold thy strength!
ASLAUG O gods! I love! O loose me!
ERIC Thou art taken. Whatever was thy purpose, thou art mine, Aslaug, thou sweet and violent soul surprised, Intended for me when the stars were planned! Sweetly, O Aslaug, to thy doom consent, The doom to love, the death of hatred. Draw No useless curtaining of shamed refusal Betwixt our yearnings, passionately take The leap of love across the abyss of hate. Force not thy soul to anger. Leave veils and falterings For meaner hearts. Between us let there be
Page 563
A noble daylight.
ASLAUG Let me think awhile! Thy arms, thy lips prevent me.
ERIC Think not! Only feel, Love only!
ASLAUG O Eric, king, usurper, conqueror! O robber of men's hearts and kingdoms! O Thou only monarch!
ERIC Art thou won at last, O woman who disturbst the musing stars With passion? Soul of Aslaug, art thou mine?
ASLAUG Thine, Eric? Eric! Whose am I, by whom am held?
(sinking on a seat)
I cannot think. I have lost myself! My heart Desires eternity in an embrace.
ERIC Wilt thou deny me anything I claim Ever, O Aslaug? Art thou mine indeed?
ASLAUG What have I done? What have I spoken? I love!
(after a silence, feeling in her bosom)
But what was there concealed within my breast?
ERIC (observing her action) I take not a divided realm, a crown
Page 564
That's shared. Thou hadst a purpose in thy heart I know not, but divine. Thou lov'st at length; But I have knowledge of the human heart, What opposite passions wrestle there with gusts And treacherous surprises. I trust not then Too sudden a change, but if thou canst be calm, Yet passionately submit, I will embrace thee For ever. Think and speak. Art thou all mine?
ASLAUG I know no longer if I am my own. The world swims round me and heaven's points are changed. A purpose! I had one. I had besides A brother! Had! What have I now? You Gods, How have you rushed upon me! Leave me, King. It is not good to trust a sudden heart. The blood being quiet, we will speak again Like souls that meet in heaven, without disguise.
ERIC I do not leave thee, for thou art ominous Of an abysm uncrossed.
ASLAUG Yet that were best. For there has been too much between us once And now too little. Leave me, King, awhile To wrestle with myself and calmly know In this strange strife the gods have brought me to, Which thing of these in me must live and which Be dumb for ever.
ERIC Something yet resists. I will not leave thee till I know it and tame, For, Aslaug, thou wast won.
Page 565
ASLAUG King, thou art wise In war and counsel, not in women's hearts. Thou hast surprised a secret that my soul Kept tremblingly from my own knowledge. Yet, If thou art really wise, thou wilt avoid To touch with a too rude and sudden hand The direr god who made my spirit fear To own its weakness.
ERIC Art thou wise thyself? I take thee not for counsellor.
ASLAUG Yet beware. There was a gulf between my will and heart Which is not bridged yet.
ERIC Break thy will, unless Thou wouldst have me break it for thee. The older Aslaug rises now against the new.
ASLAUG It rises, rises. Let it rise. Leave me My freedom.
ERIC Aslaug, no, for free thou roamst A lioness midst thy passions.
ASLAUG (with a gesture) Do then, O King, Whatever Fate commands.
Page 566
ERIC I am master of my Fate.
ASLAUG Too little, who are not masters of ourselves!
ERIC Art thou that dancing-woman, Aslaug, yet?
ASLAUG I am the dancing-girl who sought thee, yet, Eric.
ERIC It may be still the swiftest way. Let then my dancing-woman dance for me Tonight in my chambers. I will see the thing Her dancing means and tear its mystery out.
ASLAUG If thou demandest it, then Fate demands.
ERIC Thy god grows sombre and he menaces, It seems! For afterwards I can demand Whatever soul and body can desire Twixt man and woman?
ASLAUG If thy Fate permits. Thy love, it seems, communes not with respect.
ERIC The word exists not between thee and me. It is burned up in too immense a fire. Wilt thou persist even after thou hast lain Upon my bosom? Thou claimest my respect?
Page 567
Yet art a dancing-woman, so thou sayst? Aslaug, let not the darker gods prevail. Put off thy pride and take up truth and love.
ASLAUG (sombre) I am a dancing-woman, nothing more.
ERIC The hate love struck down rises in thy heart. But I will have it out, by violence, Unmercifully.
He strides upon her, and she half cowers from him, half defies.
(taking her violently into his arms)
Thus blotted into me Thou shalt survive the end of Time. Tonight!
ASLAUG How did it come? What was it leaped on me And overpowered? O torn distracted heart, Wilt thou not pause a moment and give leave To the more godlike brain to do its work? Can the world change within a moment? Can Hate suddenly be love? Love is not here. I have the dagger still within my heart. O he is terrible and fair and swift! He is not mortal. Yet be silent, yet Give the brain leave. O marble brilliant face! O thou art Odin, thou art Thor on earth! What is there in a kiss, the touch of lips, That it can change creation? There's a wine That turns men mad; have I not drunk of it? To be his slave, know nothing but his will! Aslaug and Eric! Aslaug, sister of Swegn, Who makes his bed on the inclement snow And with the reindeer herds, that was a king.
Page 568
Who takes his place? Eric and Aslaug rule. Eric who doomed him to the death, if seized, Aslaug, the tyrant, the usurper's wife, Who by her brother's murder is secured In her possession. Wife! The concubine, The slave of Eric,—that his pride intends. What was it seized on me, O heavenly powers? I have given myself, my brother's throne and life, My pride, ambition, hope, and grasp, and keep Shame only. Tonight! What happens then tonight? I dance before him,—royal Olaf's child Becomes the upstart Eric's dancing-girl! What happens else tonight? One preys upon Aslaug of Norway! O, I thank thee, Heaven, That thou restorest me to sanity. It was his fraudulent and furious siege, And something in me proved a traitor. Fraud? O beauty of the godlike brilliant eyes! O face expressing heaven's supremacy! No, I will put it down, I put it down. Help me, you gods, help me against my heart. I will strike suddenly, I will not wait. 'Tis a deceit, his majesty and might, His dreadful beauty, his resistless brain. It will be very difficult to strike! But I will strike. Swegn strikes, and Norway strikes, My honour strikes, the Gods, and all his life Offends each moment.
(to Hertha, who enters)
Hertha, I strike tonight.
HERTHA Why, what has happened?
ASLAUG That thou shalt not know. I strike tonight.
Page 569
HERTHA It is not difficult To know what drives her. I must act at once, Or this may have too suddenly a tragic close. Not blood, but peace, not death, you Gods, but life, But tranquil sweetness!
Page 570
Eric, Hertha.
ERIC I sent for thee to know thy name and birth.
HERTHA My name is Hertha and my birth too mean To utter before Norway's lord.
ERIC Yet speak.
HERTHA A Trondhjem peasant and a serving-girl Were parents to me.
ERIC And from such a stock Thy beauty and thy wit and grace were born?
HERTHA The Gods prodigiously sometimes reverse The common rule of Nature and compel Matter with soul. How else should it be guessed That Gods exist at all?
ERIC Who nurtured thee?
HERTHA A dancing-girl of Gothberg by a lord
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Of Norway entertained, to whom a child I was delivered. Song and dance were hers; I made them mine.
ERIC Their names? the thrall? the lord?
HERTHA Olaf of Norway, earl of Trondhjem then, And Thiordis whom he loved.
ERIC Thou knowest Swegn, The rebel?
HERTHA Yes, I know.
ERIC And lov'st perhaps?
HERTHA Myself much better.
ERIC Yes? He is a man Treacherous and rude and ruthless, is he not?
HERTHA (with a movement) I would not speak of kings and mighty earls: These things exceed my station.
ERIC Ah, thou lov'st! Thou wilt not blame.
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HERTHA Thou art mistaken, King. He cannot conquer and he will not yield, But weakens Norway. This in him I blame.
ERIC Thou hast seen that? Thy peasant father got A wondrous politician for his child! Do I abash thee?
HERTHA I am what the Gods Have made me. But I understand at last; Thou thinkst me other than I seem.
ERIC Some thought Like that I had.
HERTHA King Eric, wilt thou hear?
ERIC I much desire it, if I hear the truth.
HERTHA Betray me not to Aslaug then.
ERIC That's just. She shall not know.
HERTHA What if I came, O King, For other purpose, not to sing and dance, And yet thy friend, the well-wisher, at least, Of Norway and her peace?
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ERIC Speak plainly now.
HERTHA If I can show thee how to conquer Swegn Without one stroke of battle, wilt thou grant My bitter need?
ERIC I would give much.
HERTHA Wilt thou?
ERIC If so I conquer him and thy desire Is something I can grant without a hurt To Norway or myself.
HERTHA It is.
ERIC Speak then, Demand.
HERTHA I have not finished yet. Meantime If I avert a danger from thy head Now threatening it, do I not earn rewards More ample?
ERIC More? On like conditions, then.
HERTHA If I yield up great enemies to thy hands
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Thou knowst not of, wilt thou reject my price, Confusing different debts in one account?
ERIC Hast thou yet more to ask? Thou art too shrewd A bargainer.
HERTHA Giving Norway needed peace, Thyself friends, safety, empire, is my claim Excessive then?
ERIC I grant thee three demands.
HERTHA They are all. He asks not more who has enough. Thrice shall I ask and thrice shall Eric give And never have an enemy again In Norway.
ERIC Speak.
HERTHA Thy enemies are here, No dancing-girls, but Hertha, wife of Swegn, And Aslaug, child of Olaf Sigualdson, His sister.
ERIC It is well.
HERTHA The danger lies In Aslaug's hand and dagger which she means To strike into thy heart. Tonight she strikes.
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ERIC And Swegn?
HERTHA Send me to him with perilous word Of Aslaug in thy hands; so with her life Buy his surrender, afterwards his love With kingly generosity and trust.
ERIC Freely and frankly hast thou spoken, Queen Who wast in Trondhjem: now as freely ask.
HERTHA The life of Swegn; his liberty as well, Submitting.
ERIC They are thine.
HERTHA And Aslaug's life And pardon, not her liberty.
ERIC They are given.
HERTHA And, last, forgiveness for myself, O King, My treason and my plots.
ERIC This too I grant.
HERTHA I have nothing left to ask for.
Page 576
ERIC Thou hast done? Let me consign thee to thy prison then.
HERTHA My prison! Wilt thou send me not to Swegn?
ERIC I will not. Why, thou subtle, dangerous head, Restored to liberty, what perilous schemes Might leap into thy thoughts! Shall I give Swegn, That fierce and splendid fighter, such a brain Of cunning to complete and guide his sword? What if he did not yield, rejected peace? Wilt thou not tell him Aslaug's life is safe? To prison!
HERTHA Thou hast promised, King.
ERIC I keep My promise to thee, Hertha, wife of Swegn. For Swegn thou askest life and liberty, For Aslaug life and pardon, for thyself Forgiveness only. I can be cunning too. Hertha, thou art my prisoner and thrall.
HERTHA (after a pause, smiling) I see. I am content. Thou showest thyself Norway's chief brain as her victorious sword. Free or a prisoner, let me do homage To Eric, my King and Swegn's.
ERIC Thou art content?
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HERTHA This face and noble bearing cannot lie. I am content and feel as safe with thee As in my husband's keeping.
ERIC (smiling) So thou art, Thou subtle voice, thou close and daring brain. I would I felt myself as safe with thee.
HERTHA King Eric, think me not thy enemy. What thou desirest, I desire yet more.
ERIC Keep to that well; let Aslaug not suspect. My way I'll take with her and thee and Swegn. Fear nothing, Hertha; go.
Hertha goes out.
O Freya Queen, Thou helpst me even as Thor and Odin did. I make my Norway one.
Page 578
Eric's Chamber.
Eric, Harald.
ERIC At dawn have all things ready for my march. Let none be near tonight. Send here to me Aslaug the dancing-girl.
I have resumed The empire and the knowledge of myself. For this strong angel Love, this violent And glorious guest, let it possess my heart Without a rival, not invade the brain, Not with imperious discord cleave my soul Jangling its ordered harmonies, nor turn The manifold music of humanity Into a single and a maddening note. Strength in the spirit, wisdom in the mind, Love in the heart complete the trinity Of glorious manhood. There was the wide flaw,— The coldness of the radiance that I was. This was the vacant space I could not fill. It left my soul the torso of a god, A great design unfinished, and my works Mighty but crude like things admired that pass Bare of the immortality which keeps The ages. O, the word they spoke was true!
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'Tis Love, 'tis Love fills up the gulfs of Time! By Love we find our kinship with the stars, The spacious uses of the sky. God's image Lives nobly perfect in the soul he made, When Love completes the godhead in a man.
Aslaug enters.
Thou com'st to me! I give thee grace no more. What hast thou in thy bosom?
ASLAUG Only a heart.
ERIC A noble heart, though wayward. Give it me, Aslaug, to be the secret of the dawns, The heart of sweetness housed in Aslaug's breast Delivered from revolt and ruled by love.
ASLAUG Why hast thou sent for me and forced to come? Wilt thou have pity on me even yet And on thyself?
ERIC I am a warrior, one Who have known not mercy. Wilt thou teach it me? I have learned, Aslaug, from my soul and Life The great wise pitiless calmness of the gods, Found for my strength the proud swift blows they deal At all resistance to their absolute walk, Thor's hammer-stroke upon the unshaped world. Its will is beaten on a dreadful forge, Its roads are hewn by violence divine. Is there a greater and a sweeter way? Knowst thou it? Wilt thou lead me there? Thy step Swift and exultant, canst thou tread its flowers?
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ASLAUG I know not who inspires thy speech; it probes.
ERIC My mind tonight is full of Norway's needs. Aslaug, she takes thy image.
ASLAUG Mine! O if Tonight I were not Norway!
ERIC Thou knowest Swegn?
ASLAUG I knew and I remember.
ERIC Yes, Swegn,—a soul Brilliant and furious, violent and great, A storm, a wind-swept ocean, not a man. That would seize Norway? that will make it one? But Odin gave the work to me. I came Into this mortal frame for Odin's work.
ASLAUG So deify ambition and desire.
ERIC If one could snap this mortal body, then Swegn even might rule,—not govern himself, yet govern All Norway! Aslaug, canst thou rule thyself? 'Tis difficult for great and passionate hearts.
ASLAUG Then Swegn must die that Eric still may rule! Was there no other way the gods could find?
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ERIC A deadly duel are the feuds of kings.
ASLAUG They are so.
She feels for her dagger.
ERIC Aslaug, thou feelest for thy heart? Unruled it follows violent impulses This way, that way, working calamity Dreams that it helps the world. What shall I do, Aslaug, with an unruly noble heart? Shall I not load it with the chains of love And rob it of its treasured pain and wrath And bind it to its own supreme desire? Richly 'twould beat beneath an absolute rule And sweetly liberated from itself By a golden bondage.
ASLAUG And what of other impulses it holds? Shall they not once rebel?
ERIC They shall keep still; They shall not cry nor question; they shall trust.
ASLAUG It cannot be that he reads all my heart! The gods play with me in his speech.
ERIC Thou knowest Why thou art called?
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ASLAUG I know why I am here.
ERIC Few know that, Aslaug, why they have come here, For that is heaven's secret. Sit down beside me Nearer my heart. No hesitating! come. I do not seize thy hands.
ASLAUG They yet are free. Is it the gods who bid me to strike soon? My heart reels down into a flaming gulf. If thou wouldst rule with love, must thou not spare Thy enemies?
ERIC When they have yielded. Is thy choice made? Whatever defence thou hast against me yet Use quickly, before I seize these restless hands And thy more restless heart that flees from bliss.
Aslaug rises trembling.
ASLAUG Desiredst thou me not to dance tonight, O King, before thee?
ERIC It was my will. Is it thine Now? Dance, while yet thy limbs are thine.
ASLAUG I dance The dance of Thiordis with the dagger, taught To Hertha in Trondhjem and by her to me.
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ERIC (smiling) Aslaug, my dancing-girl, thou and thy dance Have daring, but too little subtlety.
ASLAUG (moving to a distance) What use to struggle longer in the net? Vain agony! he watches and he knows! I'll strike him suddenly. It cannot be The senses will so overtake the will As to forbid its godlike motion. If I feared not my wild heart, I could lean down And lull suspicion with a fatal gift. My blood would cleanse what shame was in the touch. So would one act who knew her tranquil will But none thus in the burning heart sunk down.
ERIC Wilt thou play vainly with that fatal toy? Dance now.
ASLAUG My limbs refuse.
ERIC They have no right.
ASLAUG O Gods, I did not know myself till now, Thrown in this furnace. Odin's irony Shaped me from Olaf's seed! I am in love With chains and servitude and my heart desires Fluttering like a wild bird within its cage A tyrant's harshness.
ERIC Wilt thou dance? or wait Till the enamoured motion of thy limbs
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Remember joy of me? So would I have Thy perfect motion grow a dream of love. Tomorrow at the dawning will I march To violent battle and the sword of Swegn Bring back to be thy plaything, a support Appropriate to thy action in the dance. Aslaug, it shall replace thy dagger.
ASLAUG Fate Still drives me with his speech and Eric calls My weakness on to slaughter Eric. Yes, But he suspects, he knows! Yet will I strike, Yet will I tread down my rebellious heart, And then I too can die and end remorse.
ERIC Where is thy chain I gave thee, Aslaug? I would watch it rise, Rubies of passion on a bosom of snow, And climb for ever on thy breast aheave With the sea's rhythm as thou dancest. Dance Weaving my life a measure with thy feet And of thy dancing I will weave the stroke That conquers Swegn.
ASLAUG The necklace? I will bring it. Rubies of passion! Blood-drops still of death!
ERIC The power to strike has gone out of her arm And only in her stubborn thought survives. She thinks that she will strike. Let it be tried!
He lies back and feigns to sleep. Aslaug returns.
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ASLAUG Now I could slay him. But he will open his eyes Appalling with the beauty of his gaze. He did not know of peril! All he has said Was only at a venture thought and spoken,— Or spoken by Fate? Sleeps he his latest sleep? Might I not touch him only once in love And no one know of it but death and I, Whom I must slay like one who hates? Not hate, O Eric, but the hard necessity The gods have sent upon our lives,—two flames That meet to quench each other. Once, Eric! then The cruel rest. Why did I touch him? I am faint! My strength ebbs from me. O thou glorious god, Why wast thou Swegn's and Aslaug's enemy? We might so utterly have loved. But death Now intervenes and claims thee at my hands— And this alone he leaves to me, to slay thee And die with thee, our only wedlock. Death! Whose death? Eric's or Swegn's? For one I kill. Dreadful necessity of choice! His breath Comes quietly and with a happy rhythm, His eyes are closed like Odin's in heaven's sleep. I must strike blindly out or not at all Screening out with my lashes love,—as now—or now! For Time is like a sapper mining still The little resolution that I keep. Swegn's death or life upon that little stands. Swegn's death or life and such an easy stroke, Yet so impossible to lift my hand! To wait? To watch more moments these closed lids, This quiet face and try to dream that all Is different! But the moments are Fate's thoughts Watching me. While I pause, my brother's slain, Myself am doomed his concubine and slave. I must not think of him! Close, mind, close, eyes. Free the unthinking hand to its harsh work.
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She lifts twice the dagger, lowers it twice, then flings it on the ground.
Eric of Norway, live and do thy will With Aslaug, sister of Swegn and Olaf's child, Aslaug of Trondhjem. For her thought is now A harlot and her heart a concubine, Her hand her brother's murderess.
ERIC Thou hast broken At last.
ASLAUG Ah, I am broken by my weak And evil nature. Spare me not, O King, One vileness, one humiliation known To tyranny. Be not unjustly merciful! For I deserve and I consent to all.
ERIC Aslaug!
ASLAUG No, I deny my name and parentage. I am not she who lived in Trondhjem: she Would not have failed, but slain even though she loved. Let no voice call me Aslaug any more.
ERIC Sister of Swegn, thou knowest that I love. Daughter of Olaf, shouldst thou not aspire To sit by me on Norway's throne?
ASLAUG Desist! Thou shalt not utterly pollute the seat Where Olaf sat. If I had struck and slain,
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I would deserve a more than regal chair. But not on such must Norway's diadem rest, A weakling with a hand as impotent And faltering as her heart, a sensual slave Whose passionate body overcomes her high Intention. Rather do thy tyrant will. King, if thou spare me, I will slay thee yet.
ERIC Recoil not from thy heart, but strongly see And let its choice be absolute over thy soul. Its way once taken thou shalt find thy heart Rapid; for absolute and extreme in all, In yielding as in slaying thou must be, Sweet violent spirit whom thy gods surprise. Submit thyself without ashamed reserve.
ASLAUG What more canst thou demand than I have given? I am prone to thee, prostrate, yielded.
ERIC Throw from thee The bitterness of thy self-abasement. Find That thou hast only joy in being mine. Thou tremblest?
ASLAUG Yes, with shame and grief and love. Thou art my Fate and I am in thy grasp.
ERIC And shall it spare thee?
ASLAUG Spare Swegn. I am in thy hands.
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ERIC Is't a condition? I am lord of thee And lord of Swegn to slay him or to spare.
ASLAUG No, an entreaty. I am fallen here, My head is at thy feet, my life is in thy hands: The luxury of fall is in my heart.
ERIC Rise up then, Aslaug, and obey thy lord.
ASLAUG What is thy will with me?
ERIC This, Aslaug, first. Take up thy dagger, Aslaug, dance thy dance Of Thiordis with the dagger. See thou near me; For I shall sit, nor shouldst thou strike, defend. What thy passion chose, let thy freed heart confirm; My life and kingdom twice are in thy hands And I will keep them only as thy gift.
ASLAUG So are they thine already; but I obey.
She dances and then lays the dagger at his feet.
Eric, my king and Norway's, my life is mine No longer, but for thee to keep or break.
ERIC Swegn's life I hold. Thou gavest it to me With the dagger.
ASLAUG It is thine to save.
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ERIC Norway Thou hast given, casting it for ever away From Olaf's line.
ASLAUG What thou hast taken, I give.
ERIC And last thyself without one covering left Against my passionate, strong, devouring love. Thou seest I leave thee nothing.
ASLAUG I am thine. Do what thou wilt with me.
ERIC Because thou hast no help?
ASLAUG I have no help. My gods have brought me here And given me into thy dreadful hands.
ERIC Thou art content at last that they have breathed Thy plot into thy mind to snare thy soul In its own violence, bring to me a slave, A bright-limbed prisoner and thee to thy lord? See Odin's sign to thee.
ASLAUG I know it now. I recognise with prostrate heart my fate And I will quietly put on my chains Nor ever strive nor wish to break them more.
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ERIC Yield up to me the burden of thy fate And treasure of thy limbs and priceless life. I will be careful of the golden trust. It was unsafe with thee. And now submit Gladly at last. Surrender body and soul, O Aslaug, to thy lover and thy lord.
ASLAUG Compel me, they cannot resist thy will.
ERIC I will have thy heart's heart's surrender, not Its body only. Give me up thy heart. Open its secret chambers, yield their keys.
ASLAUG O Eric, is not my heart already thine, My body thine, my soul into thy grasp Delivered? I rejoice that God has played The grand comedian with my tragedy And trapped me in the snare of thy delight.
ERIC Aslaug, the world's sole woman! thou cam'st here To save for us our hidden hope of joy Parted by old confusion. Some day surely The world too shall be saved from death by love. Thou hast saved Swegn, helped Norway. Aslaug, see, Freya within her niche commands this room And incense burns to her. Not Thor for thee, But Freya.
ASLAUG Thou for me! not other gods.
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ERIC Aslaug, thou hast a ring upon thy hand. Before Freya give it me and wear instead This ancient circle of Norwegian rites. The thing this means shall bind thee to our joy, Beloved, while the upbuilded worlds endure. Then if thy spirit wander from its home, Freya shall find her thrall and lead her back A million years from now.
ASLAUG A million lives!
Page 592
ASLAUG The world has changed for me within one night. O surely, surely all shall yet go well, Since Love is crowned.
ERIC (entering) Aslaug, the hour arrives When I must leave thee. For the dawn looks pale Into our chamber and these first rare sounds Expect the arising sun, the daylight world.
ASLAUG Eric, thou goest hence to war with Swegn, My brother?
ERIC What knows thy heart?
ASLAUG That Swegn shall live.
ERIC Thou knowst his safety from deliberate swords. None shall dare touch the head that Aslaug loves. But if some evil chance came edged with doom, Which Odin and my will shall not allow, Thou wouldst not hold me guilty of his death, Aslaug?
ASLAUG Fate orders all and Fate I now
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Have recognised as the world's mystic Will That loves and labours.
ERIC Because it knows and loves, Our hearts, our wills are counted, are indulged. Aslaug, for a few days in love and trust Anchor thy mind. I shall bring back thy joy. For now I go with mercy and from love.
He embraces her and goes.
ASLAUG Swegn lives. A Mind, not iron gods with laws Deaf and inevitable, overrules.
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Swegn's fastness in the hills.
Swegn, Hardicnut, with soldiers.
SWEGN Fight on, fight always, till the Gods are tired. In all this dwindling remnant of the past Desires one man to rest from virtue, cease From desperate freedom?
HARDICNUT No man wavers here.
SWEGN Let him depart unhurt who so desires.
HARDICNUT Why should he go and whither? To Eric's sword That never pardoned? If our hearts were vile, Unworthily impatient of defeat, Serving not harassed right but chance and gain, Eric himself would keep them true.
SWEGN Not thine, My second soul. Yet could I pardon him Who faltered, for the blow transcends! And were King Eric not in Yara where he dwells,
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I would have seen his hand in this defeat, Whose stroke is like the lightning's, silent, straight, Not to be parried.
HARDICNUT Sigurd smote, perhaps, But Eric's brain was master of his stroke.
SWEGN The traitor Sigurd! For young Eric's part In Olaf's death, he did a warrior's act Avenging Yarislaf and Hacon slain, And Fate, not Eric slew. But he who, trusted, lured Into death's ambush, when the rebel seas Rejoicing trampled down the royal head They once obeyed, him I will some day have At my sword's mercy.
(to Ragnar who enters)
Ragnar, does it come, The last assault, death's trumpets?
RAGNAR Rather peace, If thou prefer it, Swegn. An envoy comes From Eric's army.
SWEGN Ragnar, bring him in.
Ragnar goes out.
He treats victorious? When his kingdom shook, His party faltered, then he did not treat Nor used another envoy than his sword.
(to Gunthar who enters, escorted by Ragnar)
Earl Gunthar, welcome,—welcome more wert thou When loyal.
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GUNTHAR Ragnar, Swegn and Hardicnut, Revolting Earls, I come from Norway's King With peace, not menace.
SWEGN Where then all these days Behind you lurked the Northerner?
GUNTHAR Thou art In his dread shadow and in your mountain lair Eric surrounds you.
SWEGN (contemptuously) I will hear his words.
GUNTHAR Eric, the King, the son of Yarislaf, To Swegn, the Earl of Trondhjem. "I have known The causes and the griefs that raise thee still Against my monarchy. Thou knowest mine That raised me against thy father,—Hacon's death, My mother's brother, butchered shamefully And Yarislaf by secret sentence slain. Elected by our peers I seized his throne. But thou, against thy country's ancient laws Rebelling, hast preferred for judge the sword. Respect then the tribunal of thy choice And its decision. Why electest thou In thy drear fastness on the wintry hills To perish? Trondhjem's earldom shall be thine, And honours and wealth and state, if thou accept The offer of thy lenient gods. Consider, O Swegn, thy country's wounds, perceive at last Thy good and ours, prolong thy father's house." I expect thy answer.
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SWEGN I return to him His proffered mercy. Let him keep it safe For his own later use.
GUNTHAR Thou speakest high. What help hast thou? what hope? what god concealed?
SWEGN I have the snow for friend and, if it fails, The arms of death are broad enough for Swegn, But not subjection.
GUNTHAR For their sake thou lov'st, Thy wife's and sister's, yield.
RAGNAR Thou art not wise. This was much better left unsaid.
SWEGN It seems Your pastime to insult the seed of Kings. Yet why Am I astonished if triumphant mud Conceives that the pure heavens are of its stuff And nature? To the upstart I shall yield, The fortune-fed adventurer, the boy Favoured by the ironic Gods? Since fell By Sigurd's treachery and Eric's fate In resonant battle on the narrow seas Olaf, his children had convinced the world, I thought, of their great origin. Men have said, "Their very women have souls too great to cry For mercy even from the Gods." His Fates Are strong indeed when they compel our race
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To hear such terms from his! Go, tell thy King, Swegn of the ancient house rejects his boons. Not terms between us stand, but wrath, but blood. I would have flayed him on a golden cross And kept his women for my household thralls, Had I prevailed. Can he not do as much That he must chaffer and market Norway's crown? These are the ways of Kings, strong, terrible And arrogant, full of sovereignty and might. Force in a King's his warrant from the Gods. By force and not by bribes and managements Empires are founded! But your chief was born Of huckstering earls who lived by prudent gains. How should he imitate a royal flight Or learn the leap of Kings upon their prey?
GUNTHAR Swegn Olafson, thou speakest fatal words. Where lodge thy wife and sister? Dost thou know?
HARDICNUT Too far for Eric's reach.
GUNTHAR Earl, art thou sure?
SWEGN What means this question?
GUNTHAR That the Gods are strong Whom thou in vain despisest, that they have dragged From Sweden into Eric's dangerous hands Hertha and Aslaug, that the evil thou speakst Was fatally by hostile Powers inspired.
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SWEGN Thou liest! They are safe and with the Swede.
GUNTHAR I pardon thy alarm the violent word. Earl Swegn, canst thou not see the dreadful Gods Have chosen earth's mightiest man to do their will? What is that will but Norway's unity And Norway's greatness? Canst thou do the work? Look round on Norway by a boy subdued, The steed that even Olaf could not tame See turn obedient to an unripe hand. Behold him with a single petty pace Possessing Sweden. Sweden once subdued, Thinkst thou the ships that crowd the Northern seas Will stay there? Shall not Britain shake, Erin Pray loudly that the tempest rather choose The fields of Gaul? Scythia shall own our yoke, The Volga's frozen waves endure our march, Unless the young god's fancy rose-ensnared To Italian joys attracted amorously Should long for sunnier realms or lead his high Exultant mind to lord in eastern Rome. What art thou but a pebble in his march? Consider, then, and change thy fierce response.
HARDICNUT Deceives the lie they tell, thy reason, Swegn? Earl Gunthar may believe, who even can think That Yarislaf begot a god!
SWEGN Gunthar, I have my fortune, thou thy answer. Go.
GUNTHAR I pity, Swegn, thy rash and obstinate soul.
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SWEGN Aslaug would scorn me yielding, even now And even for her. He has unnerved my will, The subtle tyrant! O, if this be true, My Fate has wandered into Eric's camp, My soul is made his prisoner. Friends, prepare Resistance; he's the thunderbolt that strikes And threatens only afterwards. It is Our ultimate battle.
HARDICNUT On the difficult rocks We will oppose King Eric and his gods.
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Swegn with his earls and followers in flight.
SWEGN Swift, swift into the higher snows, where Winter Eternal can alone of universal things Take courage against Eric to defend His enemies. O you little remnant left Of many heroes, save yourselves for Fate. She yet may need you when she finds the man She lifts perpetually, too great at last Even for her handling.
HARDICNUT Ragnar, go with him, While I stand here to hinder the pursuit Or warn in time. Fear not for me, assailed. Leave, Ragnar, leave me; I am tired at last.
All go out upward except Hardicnut.
Here then you reach me on these snows. O if my death Could yet persuade indignant Heaven to change
[Scene incomplete]
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Eric's Palace.
ERIC Not by love only, but by force and love. This man must lower his fierceness to the fierce, He must be beggared of the thing left, his pride, And know himself for clay, before he will consent To value my gift. He would not honour nor revere This unfamiliar movement of my soul But would contemn and think my seated strength Had changed to trembling. Strike the audience-bell, Harald. The master of my stars is he Who owns no master. Odin, what is this play, Thou playest with thy world, of fall and rise, Of death, birth, greatness, ruin? The time may come When Eric shall not be remembered! Yes, But there's a script, there are archives that endure. Before a throne in some superior world Bards with undying lips and eyes still young After the ages sing of all the past And the immortal Children hear. Somewhere In this gigantic world of which one grain of dust Is all our field, Eternal Memory keeps Our great things and our trivial equally To whom the peasant's moans above his dead Are tragic as a prince's fall. Some say Atomic Chance put Eric here, Swegn there, Aslaug between. O you revealing Gods,
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But I have seen myself and know though veiled The immortality that thinks in me, That plans and reasons. Masters of Norway, hail! For all are masters here, not I alone Who am my country's brain of unity, Your oneness. Swegn's at last in Norway's hands, Who shook our fates. And what shall Norway do with Swegn, One of her mightiest?
GUNTHAR If his might submits Then, Eric, let him live. We cannot brook These discords always.
ERIC Norway cannot brook. Therefore he must submit. Bring him within. We'll see if this strong iron can be bent, This crudeness bear the fire. Swegn Olafson, Hast thou considered yet thy state? hast thou Submitted to the gods; or must we, Swegn, Consider now thy sentence?
SWEGN I have seen My dire misfortunes, I have seen myself And know that I am greater. Do thy will, Since what the son of Yarislaf commands, The son of Olaf bears!
ERIC Thou wilt not yield?
SWEGN My father taught me not the word.
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ERIC Shall I? Thou hast forgotten, Swegn, thy desperate words. Or were they meant only for the free snows, And here retracted?
SWEGN Son of Yarislaf, they stand. I claim the cross I would have nailed thee on, I claim the flayer's knife.
ERIC These for thyself. And for thy wife and sister, Swegn?
SWEGN Alas!
ERIC I think thy father taught thee not that word, But I have taught thee. Since thou lovest yet,— No man who says that he will stand alone, Swegn, can afford to love,—thou then art mine Inevitably. He must be half a god Who can oppose Thor's anger, Odin's will Nor dream of breaking. Such the gods delight in, Raising or smiting; such in the gods delight, Raised up or smitten. But thou wast always man And canst not now be more. Thou vauntst thy blood, Thy strength? Thou art much stronger, so thou sayst, Than thy misfortunes. Art thou stronger, Swegn, Than theirs? Can all thy haughty pride of race Or thy heart's mightiness undo my will In whose strong hands they lie? Swegn Olafson, The gods are mightier than thy race and blood, The gods are mightier than thy arrogant heart. They will not have one violent man oppose
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His egoism, his pride and his desire Against a country's fate. Use then thy eyes And learn thy strength.
At a sign of his hand Aslaug and Hertha are brought in.
Thou hast no strength, For thou and these are only Eric's slaves Who have been his stubborn hinderers. Therefore Fate, Whose favourite and brother I have grown, Turned wroth with you and dragged you all into my grasp. I will that you should live and yield. These yield, But thou withstandest wisdom, Fate and love Allied against thee. Swegn Olafson, submit, Stand by my side and share thy father's throne.
SWEGN (after a silence) Yes, thou art fierce and subtle! Let them pronounce My duty's preference if not my heart's, To them or Right.
ERIC O narrow obstinate heart! Had this been for thy country or a cause Men worship, then it would indeed have been A noble blindness, but thou serv'st thy pride, Swegn, son of Olaf, not the noble cause Of God or man or country. Look now on these. I give thee the selection of their fate. If these remain my slaves, an upstart's, Swegn, Who yet are Olaf's blood and Norway's pride, I swear 'tis thou that mak'st them so. Now choose.
(Swegn is silent)
How sayst thou, Swegn Olafson, shall these be Eric's thralls? Wilt thou abide by their pronouncement, Swegn? Aslaug and Hertha, see your brother and lord, This mighty captive, royal once, now fallen
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And helpless in my hands. I wish to spare His mightiness, his race, his royal heart; But he prefers the cross instead, prefers Your shame—thy brother, Aslaug,—Hertha, he. Thy spouse consents to utmost shame for both If from the ages he can buy this word, "Swegn still was stubborn." That to him is all. He who forgot to value Norway's will, Forgets to value now your pride, your love. This was not royal, nor like Olaf's son! Come, will you speak to him, will you persuade? Walk there aside awhile; aim at his heart. Hertha, my subject, Aslaug, thou my thrall, Save, if he will, this life.
SWEGN 'Tis thus we meet,— Were not the snows of Norway preferable, Daughter of Olaf?
ASLAUG They were high, but cold.
HERTHA Wilt thou not speak to Hertha, Swegn, my lord?
SWEGN Hertha, alas, thy crooked scheming brain That brought us here.
HERTHA The gods use instruments, Not ask their counsel. O Swegn, accept the gods And their decision.
ASLAUG Must we live always cold?
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O brother, cast the snows out of thy heart. Let there be summer.
HERTHA Yield, husband, to the sun. There is no shame in yielding to the gods.
ASLAUG Nor to a god, although his room be earth And his body mortal.
SWEGN There was an Aslaug once Whose speech had other grandeurs. Can it find In all its sweet and lofty harmonies The word or argument that can excuse thy fall, O not to me, but to that worshipped self Thou wast, my sister?
ASLAUG I have no argument except my heart Nor need excuse for what I glory in. Brother, were we not always one? 'Tis strange That I must reason with thee.
SWEGN O, thou knewest. Therefore I fell, therefore my strength is gone, And where a god's magnificence lived once, Here, here 'tis empty. O inconstant heart, Thou wast my Fate, my courage, and at last Thou hast gone over to my enemy, Taking my Fate, my courage. I will hear No words from such. Thou wouldst betray what's left, Until not even Swegn is left to Swegn, But only a coward's shadow.
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HERTHA Hear me, Swegn.
SWEGN Ah, Hertha! what hast thou to say to me?
HERTHA Save me, my lord, from my own punishment, Forgetting my deserts.
SWEGN Alas! thy love, Though great, was never wise, and must it ask So huge a recompense? Thou hadst myself. Thou askst my honour.
ASLAUG Will this persuade thee? I have nothing else.
SWEGN Thou only and so only couldst prevail. O thou hast overcome my strength at last. King, thou hast conquered. Not to thee I yield, But those I loved are thy allies. From these Recall thy wrath and on my head pronounce What doom thou wilt, though yielding is doom enough For Swegn of Norway.
ERIC Abjure rebellion then; receive my boons, Receive my mercy.
SWEGN Mercy. It is received. Let all the world hear Olaf's son abjure His birth and greatness. I accept—accept! King Eric's boons, King Eric's mercy. O torture!
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The spirit of Olaf will no more sit still Within me. O though thou slaughter these with pangs, I will not yield. Take, take thy mercy back.
ERIC I take it back. What wouldst thou in its stead?
SWEGN Do what thou wilt with these and me. I have done!
ERIC Thou castst thy die, thou weak and violent man, I will cast mine And conquer.
SWEGN I have endured the worst.
ERIC Not so. Thou thinkest I will help thee to thy death, Allowing the blind grave to seal thy eyes To all that I shall do to these. Learn, Swegn, I am more cruel! Thou shalt live and see On these my vengeance. Go, Aslaug, and return Robed as thou wast upon the night thou knowest Wearing thy dagger, wearing too thy ring.
SWEGN What wilt thou do with her? God! what wilt thou do? O wherefore have I seen and taken back love Into a heart had shut itself to all But death and greatness?
ERIC I will inflict on them What thou canst not endure to gaze upon— Or if thou canst, then with that hardness live
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For die thou shalt not. I have ways for that. Thou thoughtst to take thy refuge in a grave And let these bear thy punishment for thee, Thy heart being spared. It was no valiant thought, No worthy escape for Swegn. Aslaug and Hertha, Remove your outer robes.
SWEGN What must I see?
ERIC As dancing-girls these women came to me. As dancing-girls I keep them. Thou shalt see Aslaug of Norway at her trade—to dance Before me and my courtiers. That begins, There's more behind, unless thou change thy mood.
SWEGN Thou knowest how to torture.
ERIC And to break.
Aslaug reenters.
Thou seest, Swegn. Shall I command the dance? Shall this be the result of Olaf's house?
SWEGN Daughter of Olaf, wilt thou then obey?
ASLAUG Yes, since thou lov'st me not, my brother Swegn, Whom else should I obey, save him I love? If thou hadst loved me still, I should not need.
ERIC Dance.
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SWEGN No. Stay, Aslaug. Since thou bad'st me love Thee, not my glory, as indeed I must To save the house of Olaf from this shame,— Whose treacherous weakness works for him and thee,—
ERIC Pause not again—for pause is fatal now.
SWEGN King, I have yielded, I accept thy boons. Heir of a starveling Earl, I bow my head Even to thy mercies. I am Olaf's son, Yet yield—that name remember, speak this word— I shall be faithful to my own disgrace. O fear not, King, I can be great again.
ERIC Without conditions hast thou yielded?
SWEGN No. Let these be spared all shame—for that I yield. My honour has a price—and O 'tis small.
ERIC That's given. Without terms besides?
SWEGN One prayer. Give me a dungeon deep enough, O King, To hide my face from all these eyes.
ERIC Swear then, Whatever prison I assign thee, be it wide Or narrow, to observe its state, its bounds
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And do even there my will.
SWEGN (with a gesture) That too is sworn! Let Thor and Odin witness to my oath.
ERIC Four prisons I assign to Olaf's son. Thy palace first in Trondhjem, Olaf's roof— This house in Yara, Eric's court—thy country To whom thou yieldest, Norway—and at last My army's head when I invade the world.
SWEGN (amazed and doubtful) Thou hast surprised me, Eric, with an oath And circumvented.
ERIC Hertha, to thy lord Return unharmed—thou seest thou wast safe As in his dearest keeping. Take, Hertha, Trondhjem with thee and Olaf's treasures; sit The second in the land, beneath our throne.
SWEGN Eric, enough. Have I not yielded? Here Let thy boons rest.
ERIC 'Tis truth. For my next boon Is to myself. Look not upon this hand I clasp in mine, although the fairest hand That God has made. Observe this ring instead And recognise it.
GUNTHAR It is Freya's ring
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On Aslaug's hand; she who once wears it sits Thenceforth on Norway's throne.
ERIC Possess thy father's chair Intended for thee always from the first, Nor be amazed that in these dancing robes I seat her here, for they increase its pomp More than imperial purple. Think not, Swegn, Thy sister shamed or false who came to me, Spilling my blood and hers to give thee back thy crown, A violent and mighty purpose such As only noble hearts conceive; and only She yielded to that noble heart at last Because of Odin's pressure.
SWEGN So they came. Aslaug, thou soughtst my throne, but findst it thine. I grudge it not to thee—for thy great heart Deserved it. Eric, thou hast won at last, Now only.
ERIC I could not shame thy sister, Swegn, Save by my wife's disgrace, and this was none But only a deceit to prove thy heart And now thou seest thou couldst not have rebelled Except by violence to Olaf's seed That must again rule Norway.
SWEGN Eric, for thy boons, They hurt not now, take what return thou wilt, For I am thine. Thou hast found out the way To save from me thy future. It is secured Even with my heart's strings.
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ERIC Swegn, I too have boons To ask of thee.
SWEGN Let them be difficult then, If thou wouldst have me grant them.
ERIC Swegn, excuse and love Thy comrade Hardicnut, for he intended A kind betrayal.
SWEGN This is nothing, King. His act my heart had come to understand And it has pardoned.
ERIC Forgive then Swegn, dearest, Sigurd, thy foe, as I have pardoned first My father's slaughterer. This thing is hard.
SWEGN He's pardoned, not forgiven. Let him not come Too often in my sight.
ERIC The gods have won. Let this embrace engulf our ended strife, Brother of Aslaug.
SWEGN Husband of my sister, Thou assum'st our blood and it ennobles thee To the height of thy great victories—this thy last And greatest. Thou hast dealt with me as a King,
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Then as a brother. Thou adornst thy throne.
ERIC Rest, brother, from thy hardships, toils and wars Until I need the sword that matched with mine, To smite my foemen. Aslaug, what thinkst thou? If thou art satisfied, all was well done.
ASLAUG Thou hast the tyrant in thy nature still, And so I love thee best, for then I recognise My conqueror. O what canst thou do but well? For in thy every act and word I see The gods compel thee.
ERIC O thou hast changed me with thy starry eyes, Daughter of Olaf, and hast made me a man Where was but height and iron; all my roots Of action, mercy, greatness, enterprise, Sit now transplanted to thy breast, O charm, O noble marvel! From thy bosom my strength Comes out to me. Mighty indeed is love, Thou sangst of, Aslaug, once, the golden hoop Mightier, swifter than the warrior's sword. Dost thou remember what thou cam'st to do, Aslaug, from Gothberg?
ASLAUG (wondering) Only ten days ago I came from Gothberg!
She turns with a laugh and embraces Eric.
ERIC The gods have spoken since and shown their hand.
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They seal our eyes and drive us, but at last Our souls remember when the act is done, That it was fated. Aslaug, now for us The world begins again,—our world, beloved, Since once more we—who since the stars were formed Playing the game of games by Odin's will Have met and parted—parted, meet again For ever.
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VUTHSA UDAIAN - King of Cowsamby.
YOUGUNDHARÂYAN - his Minister, until recently Regent of Cowsamby.
ROOMUNWATH - Captain of his armies.
ALURCA, VASUNTHA - young men of Vuthsa's age, his friends and companions.
PARENACA - the King's door-keeper.
CHUNDA MAHASEGN - King of Avunthy.
GOPÂLACA, VICURNA - his sons.
RÉBHA - Governor of Ujjayiny, the capital of Avunthy.
A CAPTAIN of Avunthy.
UNGÂRICÂ - Queen of Avunthy.
VÂSAVADUTTÂ - daughter of Chunda Mahasegn and Ungarica.
UMBÂ - her handmaiden.
MUNJOOLICÂ - the servile name of Bundhumathie, the captive Princess of Sourashtra, serving Vasavadutta.
A KIRÂTHA WOMAN.
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The action of the romance takes place a century after the war of the Mahabharata; the capital has been changed to Cowsamby; the empire has been temporarily broken and the kingdoms of India are overshadowed by three powers, Magadha in the East ruled by Pradyotha, Avunthy in the West ruled by Chunda Mahasegn who has subdued also the Southern kings, and Cowsamby in the Centre where Yougundharayan strives by arms and policy to maintain the house of Parikshith against the dominating power of Avunthy. Recently since the young Vuthsa has been invested with the regal power and appeared at [ ], Chunda Mahasegn, till then invincible, has suffered rude but not decisive reverses. For the moment there is an armed peace between the two empires.
The fable is taken from Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara (the Ocean of the Rivers of Many Tales) and was always a favourite subject of Indian romance and drama; but some of the circumstances, a great many of the incidents and a few of the names have been altered or omitted and others introduced in their place. Vuthsa, the name of the nation in the tale, is in the play used as a personal name of the King Udaian.
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A room in the palace in Ujjayiny.
Chunda Mahasegn, seated; Gopalaca.
MAHASEGN Vuthsa Udaian drives my fortunes back. Our strengths retire from one luxurious boy, Defeated!
GOPALACA I have seen him in the fight And I have lived to wonder. O, he ranges As lightly through the passages of war As moonbeam feet of some bright laughing girl, Her skill concealing in her reckless grace, The measures of a rapid dance.
MAHASEGN If this portentous morning reach our gates, My star is fallen. Yet I had great dreams. Oudh and Cowsamby were my high-carved doors, Ganges, Godavary and Nurmada In lion race besprayed with sacred dew My moonlit jasmines in my pleasure-grounds. All this great sunlit continent lay sleeping At peace beneath the shadow of my brows. But they were dreams.
GOPALACA Art thou not great enough
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To live them?
MAHASEGN O my son, many high hearts Must first have striven, many must have failed Before a great thing can be done on earth, And who shall say then that he is the man? One age has seen the dreams another lives.
GOPALACA Look up towards the hills where Rudra stands, His dreadful war-lance pointing to the east. Is not thy spirit that uplifted spear?
MAHASEGN It has been turned by Vishnu's careless hand!
GOPALACA Fear not the obstacles the gods have strewn. Why should the mighty man restrain his soul? Stretch out thy hand to seize, thy foot to trample, A Titan's motion.
MAHASEGN Thou soarst the eagle's height, But with eyes closed to the tempest.
GOPALACA Wilt thou sue To foemen for the end of haughty strife?
MAHASEGN That never shall be seen. The boy must fall.
GOPALACA He is young, radiant, beautiful and bold. But let him fall. We will not bear defeat.
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MAHASEGN Yet many gods stood smiling at his birth. Luxmie came breathing fortunate days; Vishnu Poured down a radiant sanction from the skies And promised his far stride across the earth; Magic Saruswathie between his hands Laid down her lotus arts.
GOPALACA The austere gods Help best and not indulgent deities. The greatness in him cannot grow to man. His hero hours are rare forgetful flights. Excused from effort and difficult ascent Birds that are brilliant-winged, fly near to earth. Wine, song and dance winging his peaceful days Throng round his careless soul. It cannot find The noble leisure to grow great.
MAHASEGN There lives Our hope. Spy out, my son, thy enemy's spirit, Even as his wealth and armies! Let thy eyes Find out its weakness and thy hand there strike.
GOPALACA Thou hast a way to strike?
MAHASEGN I have a way, Not noble like the sounding paths of war.
GOPALACA Take it; let us stride straight towards our goal.
MAHASEGN Thy arm is asked for.
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GOPALACA It is thine to use.
MAHASEGN Invent some strong device and bring him to us A captive in Ujjayiny's golden groves. Shall he not find a jailor for his heart To take the miracle of its keys and wear them Swung on her raiment's border? Then he lives Shut up by her close in a prison of joy, Her and our vassal.
GOPALACA Brought to the eagle's nest For the eagle's child thou giv'st him her heart's prey To Vasavadutta! King, thy way is good. Garooda on a young and sleeping Python Rushing from heaven I'll lift him helpless up Into the skiey distance of our peaks. Though it is strange and new and subtle, it is good. Think the blow struck, thy foeman seized and bound.
MAHASEGN I know thy swiftness and thy gathered leap. Once here! his senses are enamoured slaves To the touch of every beautiful thing. O, there No hero, but a tender soul at play, A soft-eyed, mirthful and luxurious youth Whom all sweet sounds and all sweet sights compel To careless ecstasy. Wine, music, flowers And a girl's dawning smile can weave him chains Of vernal softness stronger than can give The unyielding iron. Two lips shall seal his strength, Two eyes of all his acts be tyrant stars.
GOPALACA One aid I ask of thee and only one.
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My banishment, O King, from thy domains.
MAHASEGN Gopalaca, I banish thee, my child. Return not with my violent will undone.
Page 627
A hall in the palace at Cowsamby.
Yougundharayan, Roomunwath.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN I see his strength lie covered sleeping in flowers; Yet is a greatness hidden in his years.
ROOMUNWATH Nourish not such large hopes.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN I know too well The gliding bane that these young fertile soils Cherish in their green darkness; and my cares Watch to prohibit the nether snake who writhes Sweet-poisoned, perilous in the rich grass, Lust with the jewel love upon his hood, Who by his own crown must be charmed, seized, change Into a warm great god. I seek a bride For Vuthsa.
ROOMUNWATH Wisely; but whom?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN One only lives So absolute in her charm that she can keep His senses from all straying, the child far-famed For gifts and beauty, flower born by magic fate On a fierce iron stock.
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ROOMUNWATH Vasavadutta, Avunthy's golden princess! Hope not to mate These opposite godheads. Follow Nature's prompting, Nor with thy human policy pervert Her simple ends.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Nature must flower into art And science, or else wherefore are we men? Man out of Nature wakes to God's complexities, Takes her crude simple stuff and by his skill Turns things impossible into daily miracles.
ROOMUNWATH This thing is difficult, and what the gain?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN It gives us a long sunlit time for growth; For we shall raise in her a tender shield Against that iron victor in the west, The father's heart taking our hard defence Forbid the king-brain in that dangerous man. Then when he's gone, we are his greatness' heirs In spite of his bold Titan sons.
ROOMUNWATH He must Have fallen from his proud spirit to consent.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Another strong defeat and she is ours.
ROOMUNWATH Blow then the conchs for battle.
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YOUGUNDHARAYAN I await Occasion and to feel the gods inclined.
(to Vuthsa entering)
My son, thou comest early from thy breezes.
VUTHSA The dawn has spent her glories and I seek Alurca and Vasuntha for the harp With chanted verse and lyric ease until The golden silences of noon arrive. See this strange flower I plucked below the stream! Each petal is a thought.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And the State's cares, King of Cowsamby?
VUTHSA Are they not for thee, My mind's wise father? Chide me not. See now, It is thy fault for being great and wise. What thou canst fashion sovereignly and well, Why should I do much worse?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And when I pass?
VUTHSA Thy passing I forbid.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Vuthsa, thou art Cowsamby's king, not Time's, nor death's.
VUTHSA O, then,
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The gods shall keep thee at my strong demand To be the aged minister of my sons. This they must hear. Of what use are the gods If they crown not our just desires on earth?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Well, play thy time. Thou art a royal child, And though young Nature in thee dallies long, I trust her dumb and wiser brain that sees What our loud thoughts can never reason out, Not thinking life. She has her secret calls And works divinely behind play and sleep, Shaping her infant powers.
VUTHSA I may then go And listen to Alurca with his harp?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Thy will In small things train, Udaian, in the great Make it a wrestler with the dangerous earth.
VUTHSA My will is for delight. They are not beautiful, This State, these schemings. War is beautiful And the bright ranks of armoured men and steel That singing kisses steel and the white flocking Of arrows that are homing birds of war. When shall we fight again?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN When battle ripens. And what of marriage? Is it not desired?
VUTHSA O no, not yet! At least I think, not yet.
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I'll tell thee a strange thing, my father. I shudder, I know it is with rapture, at the thought Of women's arms, and yet I dare not pluck The joy. I think, because desire's so sweet That the mere joy might seem quite crude and poor And spoil the sweetness. My father, is it so?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Perhaps. Thou hast desire for women then?
VUTHSA It is for every woman and for none.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN One day perhaps thou shalt join war with wedlock And pluck out from her guarded nest by force The wonder of Avunthy, Vasavadutta.
VUTHSA A name of leaping sweetness I have heard! One day I shall behold a marvellous face And hear heaven's harps defeated by a voice. Do the gods whisper it? Dreams are best awhile.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN These things we shall consider.
PARENACA (entering) Hail, Majesty! A high-browed wanderer at the portals seeks Admittance. Tarnished is he with the road, Alone, yet seems a mighty prince's son.
VUTHSA Bring him with honour in. Such guests I love.
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YOUGUNDHARAYAN We should know first what soul is this abroad And why he comes.
VUTHSA We'll learn that from his lips.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Hope not to hear truth often in royal courts. Truth! Seldom with her bright and burning wand She touches the unwilling lips of men Who lust and hope and fear. The gods alone Possess her. Even our profoundest thoughts Are crooked to avoid her and from her touch Crawl hurt into their twilight, often hating her Too bright for them as for our eyes the sun. If she dwells here, it is with souls apart.
VUTHSA All men were not created from the mud.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN See not a son of heaven in every worm. Look round and thou wilt see a world on guard. All life here armoured walks, shut in. Thou too Keep, Vuthsa, a defence before thy heart.
Parenaca brings in Gopalaca.
GOPALACA Which is Udaian, great Cowsamby's king?
VUTHSA He stands here. What's thy need from Vuthsa? Speak.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Roomunwath, look with care upon this face.
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GOPALACA Hail, then, Cowsamby's majesty, well borne Though in a young and lovely vessel! Hail!
VUTHSA Thou art some great one surely of this earth Who com'st to me to live guest, comrade, friend, Perhaps much more.
GOPALACA I have fought against thee, king.
VUTHSA The better! I am sure thou hast fought well. Com'st thou in peace or strife?
GOPALACA In peace, O king, And as thy suppliant.
VUTHSA Ask; I long to give.
GOPALACA Know first my name.
VUTHSA Thy eyes, thy face I know.
GOPALACA I am Gopalaca, Avunthy's son, Once thy most dangerous enemy held on earth.
VUTHSA A mighty name thou speakest, prince, nor one To supplications tuned. Yet ask and have.
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GOPALACA Thou heardst me well? I am thy foeman's son.
VUTHSA And therefore welcome more to Vuthsa's heart. Foemen! they are our playmates in the fight And should be dear as friends who share our hours Of closeness and desire. Why should they keep Themselves so distant? Thou the noblest of them all, The bravest. I have played with thee, O prince, In the great pastime.
GOPALACA This was Vuthsa, then!
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And wherefore seeks the son of Mahasegn Hostile Cowsamby? or why suppliant comes To his chief enemy?
GOPALACA I should know that brow. This is thy great wise minister? That is well. I seek a refuge.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And thou sayst thou art Avunthy's son?
GOPALACA Because I am his son. My father casts me from him and no spot Once thought my own will suffer now my tread. Therefore I come. Vuthsa Udaian, king, Grant me some hut, some cave upon thy soil, Some meanest refuge for my wandering head. But if thy heart can dwell with fear, as do
Page 635
The natures of this age, or feed the snake Suspicion, over gloomier borders send My broken life.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Vuthsa, beware. His words Strive to conceal their naked cunning.
VUTHSA Prince, What thou demandst and more than thou demandst, Is without question thine. Now, if thou wilt, Reveal the cause of thy great father's wrath, But only if thou wilt.
GOPALACA Because his bidding Remained undone, my exile was embraced.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN More plainly.
GOPALACA Ask me not. I am ashamed. Nor should a son unveil his father's fault. They, even when they tyrannise, remain Most dear and reverend still, who gave us birth. This, Vuthsa, know; against thee I was aimed, A secret arrow.
VUTHSA Keep thy father's counsel. If he shoot arrows and thou art that shaft, I'll welcome thee into my throbbing breast. What thou hast asked, I sue to thee to take. Thou seekst a refuge, thou shalt find a home: Thou fleest a father, here a brother waits
Page 636
To clasp thee in his arms.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Too frank, too noble!
VUTHSA Come closer. Child of Mahasegn, wilt thou Be king Udaian's brother and his friend? This proud grace wilt thou fling on the bare boon That I have given thee? Is it much to ask?
GOPALACA To be thy brother was my heart's desire. Shod with that hope I came.
VUTHSA Clasp then our hands. Gopalaca, my play, my couch, my board, My serious labour and my trifling hours Share henceforth, govern. All I have is thine.
GOPALACA Thine is the noblest soul on all the earth.
VUTHSA Frown not, my father. I obey my heart Which leaped up in me when I saw his face. Be sure my heart is wise. Gopalaca, The sentinel love in man ever imagines Strange perils for its object. So my minister Expects from thee some harm. Wilt thou not then Assure his love and pardon it the doubt?
GOPALACA He is a wise deep-seeing statesman, king, And shows that wisdom now. But I will swear, But I will prove to thee, thou noble man,
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That dearest friendship is my will to him Thou serv'st and to work on him proudest love. Is it enough?
VUTHSA My father, hast thou heard? A son of kings swears not to lying oaths.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN It is enough.
VUTHSA Then come, Gopalaca, Into my palace and my heart.
He goes into the palace with Gopalaca.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN O life Besieged of kings! What snare is this? what charm? There was a falsehood in the Avunthian's eyes.
ROOMUNWATH He has given himself into his foemen's hands And he has sworn. He is a prince's son.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Yes, by his sire; but the pale queen Ungarica Was to a strange inhuman father born And from dim shades her victor dragged her forth.
ROOMUNWATH There's here no remedy. Vuthsa is ensnared As with a sudden charm.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN I'll watch his steps. Keep thou such bows wherever these two walk
Page 638
As never yet have missed their fleeing mark.
ROOMUNWATH Yet was this nobly done on Vuthsa's part.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN O, such nobility in godlike times Was wisdom, but not to our fall belongs. Sweet virtue now is mother of defeat And baser, fiercer souls inherit earth.
Page 639
A room in the palace at Cowsamby.
Alurca, Vasuntha.
ALURCA He'll rule Cowsamby in the end, I think.
VASUNTHA Artist, be an observer too. His eyes Pursue young Vuthsa like a hunted prey And seem to measure possibility, But not for rule or for Cowsamby care. To reign's his nature, not his will.
ALURCA This man Is like some high rock that was suddenly Transformed into a thinking creature.
VASUNTHA There's His charm for Vuthsa who is soft as Spring, Fair like a hunted moon in cloud-swept skies, Luxurious like a jasmine in its leaves.
ALURCA When will this Vuthsa grow to man? Hard-brained Roomunwath, deep Yougundharayan rule; The State, its arms are theirs. This boy between Like a girl's cherished puppet stroked and dandled,
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Chid and prescribed the postures it must keep, Moves like a rhythmic picture of delight And with his sunny smile he does it all. Now in our little kingdom with its law Of beauty and music this high silence comes And seizes on him. All our acts he rules And Vuthsa has desired one master more.
VASUNTHA There is a wanton in this royal heart Who gives herself to all and all are hers. Perhaps that too is wisdom. For, Alurca, This world is other than our standards are And it obeys a vaster thought than ours, Our narrow thoughts! The fathomless desire Of some huge spirit is its secret law. It keeps its own tremendous forces penned And bears us where it wills, not where we would. Even his petty world man cannot rule. We fear, we blame; life wantons her own way, A little ashamed, but obstinate still, because We check but cannot her. O, Vuthsa's wise! Because he seeks each thing in its own way, He enjoys. And wherefore are we at all If not to enjoy and with some costliness Get dear things done, till rude death interferes, God's valet moves away these living dolls To quite another room and better play,— Perhaps a better!
ALURCA Yet consider this. Look back upon the endless godlike line. Think of Parikshith, Janamejoya, think Of Suthaneke, then on our Vuthsa gaze. Glacier and rock and all Himaloy piled! What eagle peaks! Now this soft valley blooms;
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The cuckoo cries from branches of delight, The bee sails murmuring its low-winged desires.
VASUNTHA It was to amuse himself God made the world. For He was dull alone! Therefore all things Vary to keep the secret witness pleased. How Nature knows and does her office well. What poignant oppositions she combines! Death fosters life that life may suckle death. Her certainties are snares, her dreams prevail. What little seeds she grows into huge fates, Proves with a smile her great things to be small! All things here secretly are right; all's wrong In God's appearances. World, thou art wisely led In a divine confusion.
ALURCA The Minister Watches this man so closely, he must think There is some dangerous purpose in his mind.
VASUNTHA He is the wariest of all ministers And would suspect two pigeons on a roof Of plots because they coo.
ALURCA All's possible.
Vuthsa enters with Gopalaca.
VUTHSA Yes, I would love to see the ocean's vasts. Are they as grand as are the mountains dumb Where I was born and grew? Or is its voice Like the huge murmur of our forests swayed In the immense embrace of giant winds?
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We have that in Cowsamby.
GOPALACA Wilt thou show Them to me, Vindhya's crags where forests dimly Climb down towards my Avunthy?
VUTHSA We will go And hunt together the swift fleeing game Or with our shafts unking the beast of prey.
GOPALACA If we could range alone wide solitudes, Not soil them with our din, not with our tread Disturb great Nature in her animal trance, Her life of mighty instincts where no stir Of the hedged restless mind has spoiled her vasts.
VUTHSA It is a thing I have dreamed of. Alurca, tell The Minister that we go to hunt the deer In Vindhya's forests on Avunthy's verge. That's if my will's allowed.
Alurca goes out to the outer palace.
VASUNTHA He will, Vuthsa, Allow thy will. Where does it lead thee, king?
VUTHSA A scourge for thee or a close gag might help.
VASUNTHA A bandage for my eyes would serve as well.
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VUTHSA Shall we awaken in Alurca's hands The living voices of the harp? Or willst thou That I should play the heaven-taught airs thou lov'st On the Gundhurva's magical guitar Which lures even woodland beasts? For the elephant Comes trumpeting to the enchanted sound, A coloured blaze of beauty on the sward The peacocks dance and the snake's brilliant hood Lifts rhythmic yearning from the emerald herb.
GOPALACA Vuthsa Udaian, suffer me awhile To walk alone, for I am full of thoughts.
VUTHSA Thou shouldst not be. Cannot my love atone For lost Avunthy?
GOPALACA Always; but a voice Comes to me often from the haunts of old.
VASUNTHA Returns no dim cloud-messenger to whisper To thy great father's longing waiting heart Far from his banished son?
GOPALACA Thy satire's forced.
VASUNTHA Thy earnest less?
VUTHSA One hour, a long pale loss, I sacrifice to thy thoughts. When it has dragged past,
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Where shall I find thee?
GOPALACA Where the flowers rain Beneath the red boughs on the river's bank. There will I walk while thou hearst harp or verse.
VUTHSA Without thee neither harp nor verse can charm.
Gopalaca goes.
The harmony of kindred souls that seek Each other on the strings of body and mind, Is all the music for which life was born. Vasuntha, let me hear thy happy crackling, Thou fire of thorns that leapest all the day. Spring, call thy cuckoo.
VASUNTHA Give me fuel then, Your green young boughs of folly for my fire.
VUTHSA I give enough I think for all the world.
VASUNTHA It is your trade to occupy the world. Men have made kings that folly might have food; For the court gossips over them while they live And the world gossips over them when they are dead. That they call history. But our man returns.
ALURCA Do here and in all things, says the Minister, Thy pleasure. But since upon a dangerous verge This hunt will tread, thy cohorts armed shall keep The hilly intervals, himself be close To guard with vigilance his monarch's life
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Against the wild beasts and what else means harm.
VUTHSA That is his care; what he shall do, is good.
ALURCA To lavish upon all men love and trust Shows the heart's royalty, not the brain's craft.
VUTHSA I have found my elder brother. Grudge me not, Alurca, that delight. Thou lov'st me well?
ALURCA Is it now questioned?
VUTHSA Then rejoice with me That I have found my brother. Joy in my joy, Love with my love, think with my thoughts; the rest Leave to much older wiser men whose schemings Have made God's world an office and a mart. We who are young, let us indulge our hearts.
ALURCA Thou tak'st all hearts and givest thine to none, Udaian. Yet is this prince Gopalaca, This breed from Titans and from Mahasegn, Hard, stern, reserved. Does he repay thy friendship As we do?
VUTHSA Love itself is sweet enough Though unreturned; and there are silent hearts.
VASUNTHA Suffer this flower to climb its wayside rock.
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Oppose not Nature's cunning who will not Be easily refused her artist joys. Fierce deserts round the green oasis yearn And the chill lake desires the lily's pomp.
VUTHSA He is the rock, I am the flower. What part Playst thou in the woodland?
VASUNTHA A thorn beneath the rose That from the heavens of desire was born And men call Vuthsa.
VUTHSA Poet, satirist, sage, What other gifts keepst thou concealed within More than the many that thy outsides show?
VASUNTHA I squander all and keep none, not like thee Who trad'st in honey to deceive the world.
VUTHSA O, earth is honey; let me taste her all. Our rapture here is short before we go To other sweetness on some rarer height Of the upclimbing tiers that are the world.
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A forest-glade in the Vindhya hills.
Vicurna, a Captain.
VICURNA The hunt rings distant still; but all the ways Troops and more troops besiege. Where is Gopalaca?
CAPTAIN Our work may yet be rude before we reach Our armies on the frontier.
VICURNA That I desire. O whistling of the arrows! I have yet To hear that battle music.
CAPTAIN Someone comes, For wild things scurry forth.
They take cover. Gopalaca enters.
VICURNA Whither so swiftly? You are near the frontier for a banished man, Gopalaca.
GOPALACA Why has my father sent Thy rash hot boyhood here, imperilling Both of his sons? I find not here his wisdom.
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VICURNA There will be danger? I am glad. None sent me; I came unasked.
GOPALACA And also unasking?
VICURNA Right.
GOPALACA Trust me to have thee whipped. But since thou art here! Where stand the chariots?
CAPTAIN On our left they wait Screened by the secret tunnel which the Boar Tusked through the hill to Avunthy. Torches ready And men in arms stand in the cavern ranked They call the cavern of the Elephant By giants carved. But all the forest passages The enemy guards.
GOPALACA There are some he cannot guard. I know the forest better than their scouts. When I shall speak of you and clap my hands, Surround us in a silence armed.
CAPTAIN His men Resisting?
GOPALACA No; we two shall be alone.
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VICURNA Fie! there will be no fighting?
GOPALACA Goblin, off!
They take cover again. Gopalaca goes; then arrive from another side Vuthsa with Vasuntha and Alurca.
ALURCA We lose our escort!
VASUNTHA They lose us, I think.
ALURCA What fate conspires with what hid treachery? Our chariot broken, we in woods alone And the night close.
VASUNTHA Roomunwath guards the paths.
ALURCA The night is close.
VUTHSA Here I will rest, my friends, Where all is green and silent; only the birds And the wind's whisperings! Go, Alurca, meet Our comrades of the hunt; guide their vague steps To this green-roofed refuge.
ALURCA It is the best, though bad. I leave thee with unwarlike hands to guard.
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VASUNTHA I am no fighter; it is known. Run, haste.
Alurca hastens out.
And yet for all your speed, someone will worship Great Shiva in Avunthy. I hear a tread.
Gopalaca returns.
VUTHSA Where wert thou all this time, Gopalaca?
GOPALACA Far wandering in the woods since a white deer Like magic beauty drew my ardent steps Into a green entanglement.
VASUNTHA Simple! You found there what you sought?
GOPALACA No deer, but hunters, Not of our troop. We spoke of this green glade Where many wandering paths might lead the king. In haste I came.
VASUNTHA Greater the haste to go!
VUTHSA Follow Alurca and come back with him.
VASUNTHA What, cast myself into the forest's hands To wander and be eaten by the night? Come here and bid me then a long farewell. Are thy eyes open at least? Is it thou in this Who movest? I should know that at least from thee,
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If nothing more.
VUTHSA Why ask when thou hast eyes? Thou seest that mine are open and I walk; For no man drives me.
VASUNTHA Walk! but far away From thy safe capital.
VUTHSA What harm?
VASUNTHA And with This prince Gopalaca?
VUTHSA Suspicions then? Why not suspect at once it is my will To visit Avunthy?
VASUNTHA So?
VUTHSA Not so, but if?
VASUNTHA Oh, if! And if return were much less easy Than the going?
VUTHSA Who has talked of easy things? With difficulty then I will return.
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VASUNTHA I go, King Vuthsa.
VUTHSA But tell Yougundharayan And all who harbour blind uneasy thoughts, "Whatever seeks me from Fate, man or god, Leave all between me and the strength that seeks. War shall not sound without thy prince's leave. Vuthsa will rescue Vuthsa."
VASUNTHA I will tell, But know not if he'll hear.
VUTHSA He knows who is His sovereign.
VASUNTHA King, farewell.
VUTHSA I shall. Farewell.
Vasuntha disappears in the forest.
We two have kept our tryst, Gopalaca. Hang there, my bow; lie down, my arrows. Now Of you I have no need. O this, O this Is what I often dreamed, to be alone With one I love far from the pomp of courts, Not ringed with guards and anxious friendships round, Free like a common man to walk alone Among the endless forest silences, By gliding rivers and over deciduous hills, In every haunt where earth our mother smiles Whispering to her children. Let me rest awhile My head upon thy lap, Gopalaca,
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Before we plunge into this emerald world. Shall we not wander in her green-roofed house Where mighty Nature hides herself from men, And be the friends of the great skyward peaks That call us by their silence, bathe in tarns, Dream where the cascades leap, and often spend Slow moonless nights inarmed in leafy huts Happier than palaces, or in our mood Wrestle with the fierce tiger in his den Or chase the deer with wind-swift feet, and share With the rough forest-dwellers natural food Plucked from the laden bounty of the trees, Before we seek the citied haunts of men? Shall we not do these things, Gopalaca?
GOPALACA Some day we shall.
VUTHSA Why some day? why not now? Have I escaped my guards in vain?
GOPALACA Not vainly.
VUTHSA This sword encumbers; take it from me, friend, And fling it there upon the bank.
GOPALACA It is far. I keep my arms lest some wild thing invade These green recesses.
VUTHSA Keep thy arms and me. O, this is good to be among the trees
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With thee to guard me and no soul besides.
GOPALACA Thyself thou hast given wholly into my hands.
VUTHSA Yes, take me, brother.
GOPALACA I shall use the trust And yet deserve it.
VUTHSA I love thee well, Gopalaca. How dost thou love me?
GOPALACA It was hard to speak, Now I can tell it. As a brother might Elder and jealous, as a mother loves Her beautiful flower-limbed boy or grown man yearns Over some tender girl, his sister, comrade, child, In all these ways, but many more besides, But always jealously.
VUTHSA Why?
GOPALACA Because, Vuthsa, I'ld have thee for my own and not as in Thy city where a thousand shared thy rays Who were strangers to me. In my own domain, Part of a world that's old and dear to me, Where thou shalt be no king, but Vuthsa only And I can bind with many dearest ties Heaped on thee at my will. This, Vuthsa, I desired
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And therefore I have brought thee to this glade.
VUTHSA And therefore I have come to thee alone.
GOPALACA Thou must go farther.
VUTHSA Yes? Then haste. Was that A clank of arms amid the silent trees?
He makes as if to rise, but Gopalaca restrains him.
GOPALACA Thy escort.
VUTHSA Mine?
GOPALACA My father sends for thee. I seize upon thee, Vuthsa, thou art mine, My captive and my prize. I'll bear thee far As Heaven's great eagle bore thy mother once Rapt to his unattainable high hills.
As he speaks the armed men appear.
Swift, captain, swift! I hold the royal boy. On to the tunnel of the Boar.
CAPTAIN Haste, haste! There is a growing rumour all around.
GOPALACA Care not for that, but follow me and guard.
They disappear among the trees. Vasuntha enters.
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VASUNTHA The forest lives with sound; but here all's empty. The stake is thrown; it cannot be called in Whatever happens.
Armed men break in from all sides; Yougundharayan, Roomunwath, Alurca.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Where is King Vuthsa? where? His bow hangs lonely! sword and arrows lie.
VASUNTHA (indifferently) I cannot tell.
ALURCA Not tell! but you were here, Were with him!
VASUNTHA I was sent away like that. But for a guess he's travelling far and fast To Shiva in Avunthy.
ALURCA And thou laughst, Untimely jester!
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Impetuously pursue! The forest ways and mountain openings flood That flee to Avunthy. Over her treasonous borders Drive in your angry search.
VASUNTHA Thy king commands thee To leave all twixt him and the strength that seeks Their quarrel; throw not armies in the balance. War shall not sound her conch; but Vuthsa only
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Shall rescue Vuthsa.
ROOMUNWATH This is a boy's madness. What lies behind this message?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Roomunwath, this. The lion's cub breaks forth Whom we so guarded, from our strict control To measure with the large and perilous world The bounding rapture of his youth and force. He throws himself into his foeman's lair Alone and scorning every aid. I guess His purpose and find it headlong, subtle, rash. If he failed? This boy and iron Mahasegn! We must obey.
ROOMUNWATH There's time to arrest their flight This side our frontier. Hastily pursue.
He goes with Alurca and the armed men, all in a tumult of haste.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN It will be vain. A perilous leap and yet Heroic with the bold and antique scorn Of common deeds and the safe guarded paths. This is the spirit that smiled hidden in him Waiting for birth! At least my spies shall enter Their secret chambers, even in his prison My help be timely and near. Back to Cowsamby!
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Avunthy. A road on a wooded hill-side overlooking the plain.
Gopalaca, Vuthsa in a chariot, surrounded by armed men.
GOPALACA Arrest our wheels. Those are our army's lights That climb to us like fire-flies from the plain.
VUTHSA (awakened from sleep) Is this Avunthy?
GOPALACA We have passed her bounds.
VUTHSA So, thou dear traitor, this thou from the first Cam'st planning.
GOPALACA This with more that follows it.
VUTHSA Thou bearst me to thy father's town?
GOPALACA Where thou Shalt lie, a jewel guarded carefully, Beside the dearest treasure of our house.
VUTHSA I must be cooped up in a golden cage As I was guarded in Cowsamby's walls.
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You foes and friends think me your wealth inert, And all men hope to do their will with me. But now I warn you all that I will have My freedom and will do my own dear will By fraud or violence greater than your own.
GOPALACA Thou canst not. If thou hadst thy bow indeed!
VUTHSA Thou hadst me for the taking. I will break forth Almost as easily.
GOPALACA Thou shalt find it hard, Such keepers shall enring thy steps.
VUTHSA But I will And carry with me something costlier far Than what thou stealest from Cowsamby's realm. For I will have revenge.
GOPALACA No wealth we have More precious than the thing I seize today. Therefore thy boast is vain.
VUTHSA That I will see. Was it not thy brother rode behind our car? He passes now; call him.
GOPALACA Vicurna, here!
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VUTHSA Come near, embrace me, brother of Gopalaca, Loved for his sake and for thy own desired Since I beheld thee, son of Mahasegn.
VICURNA Vuthsa Udaian, in the battle's front I had hoped to meet thee and compel thy praise As half thy equal in the fight. But this Is nearer, this is better.
VUTHSA Thou art fair to see. Thy father has two noble sons. Are there No others of your great upspringing stock?
GOPALACA Only a sister.
VUTHSA The world has heard of her.
GOPALACA Thou shalt behold.
VUTHSA Oh then, it is pure gain I go to in Avunthy. O the night With all her glorious stars and from the trees Millions of shrill cigalas peal one note, A thunderous melody! Shall we be soon In the golden city? But it will be night And I shall hardly see her famous fanes.
GOPALACA Dawn will have overtaken us in her skies Passing our chariots long before Ujjayiny's seen.
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Our vanguard nears; unite with them; descend. Roomunwath's cohorts should tread close behind.
VUTHSA They will not come. My fate must ride with me Unhindered to Avunthy.
GOPALACA Hasten in front Towards my father fire-hooved messengers To cry aloud to him the prize we bring Richer than booty of his twenty wars. Shiva has smiled on us.
VUTHSA Vishnu on me. Godheads, it is by strife that you grow one.
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Avunthy. In the palace.
A room in the royal apartments.
Mahasegn, Ungarica.
MAHASEGN I conquer still though not with glorious arms. He's seized! the young victorious Vuthsa's mine, A prisoner in my grasp.
UNGARICA (laughing) Thou holdst the sun Under thy arm-pit as the tailed god did. What wilt thou do with it?
MAHASEGN Make him my moon And shine by him upon the eastern night.
UNGARICA Thou canst?
MAHASEGN Loved sceptic of my house, I can. What thing desired has long escaped my hands Since out of thy dim world I dragged thee conquered Into our sun and breeze and azure skies By force, my fortune?
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UNGARICA Yes, by force, but this By force thou hast not done. Wilt thou depart From thy own nature, Chunda Mahasegn, And hop'st for victory?
MAHASEGN Thou wert my strength, my fortune, But never my counsellor! My own mind's my seer.
UNGARICA I do not counsel, but obey and watch. That is enough for me in your strange world, For in your light I cannot guide myself. Man is a creature blinded by the sun Who errs by seeing; but the world that to you Is darkness,—they who walk there, they have sight. Such am I, for the shades have reared my soul.
MAHASEGN What dost thou see?
UNGARICA That Vuthsa is too great For thy greatness, too cunning for thy cunning. He Will bend not to thy pressure.
MAHASEGN Thou hast bent, The Titaness. This is a delicate boy Softer than summer dews or like the lily That yields to every gentle, insistent wave. A hero? yes: all Aryan boys are that.
UNGARICA Thou thinkst thy daughter thy proud fortune's wave, He its bright flower—a nursling reared by gods
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Only to be thy servant?
MAHASEGN Thou hast seen? I kept my counsel hidden in my soul.
UNGARICA It is good; it is the thing my heart desires. My daughter shall have empire.
MAHASEGN No, thy son.
UNGARICA No matter which. The first man of the age Will occupy her heart; the pride and love That are her faults will both be satisfied. She will be happy.
MAHASEGN Call thy child, my queen. For I will teach her what her charm must weave.
UNGARICA Her heart's her teacher. Call here, Vullabha, The princess.
MAHASEGN O, the heart, it is a danger, A madness! Let the thinking mind prevail.
UNGARICA We are women, king.
MAHASEGN Be princesses! My daughter Has dignity, pride, wisdom, noble hopes;
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She will not act as common natures do.
UNGARICA Love will unseat them all and put them down Under his flower-soft feet.
MAHASEGN Thou hast ever loved To oppose my thoughts!
UNGARICA That is our poor revenge Who in our acts must needs obey.
Vasavadutta enters.
Let now Thy princely cunning teach a woman's brain To use for statecraft's ends her dearest thoughts.
MAHASEGN My daughter Vasavadutta, my delight, Now is thy hour to pay the long dear debt Thou ow'st thy parents by whom thou wast made. Vuthsa, Cowsamby's king, my rival, foe, My Fate's high stumbling-block, captive today Is brought to Avunthy. I mean he shall become Thy husband, Vasavadutta, and my slave. By thee he shall become my subject king. Then shall thy father's fate outleap all bounds, Thy house and nation rule the prostrate world. This is my will, my daughter; is it thine?
VASAVADUTTA Father, thy will is mine, as it is fate's. Thou givest me to whom thou wilt; what share In this have I except only to obey?
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MAHASEGN A greater part which makes thee my ally And golden instrument; for thou, my child, Must be, who only canst, my living sceptre, Thou my ambassador to win his mind And thou my viceroy over his subject will.
VASAVADUTTA Will he submit to this?
MAHASEGN Yes, if thou choose.
VASAVADUTTA I choose, my father, since it is thy will. That thou shouldst rule the world, is my desire; My nation's greatness is my dearest good.
MAHASEGN Thou hast kept my proudest lessons; lose them not. O, thou art not as feebler natures are! Thou wilt not put thy own ambitions first, Nor justify a blind and clamorous heart.
VASAVADUTTA My duty to my country and my sire Shall lead me.
MAHASEGN I will not teach thy woman's brain How thou shalt mould this youth, nor warn thy will Against the passions of the blood. The heart And senses over common women rule; Thou hast a mind.
VASAVADUTTA Father, this is my pride,
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That thou ennoblest me to be the engine Of thy great fortunes; that alone I am.
MAHASEGN Thou wilt not yield then to the heart's desire?
VASAVADUTTA Let him desire, but I will nothing yield. I am thy daughter; greatest kings should sue And take my grace as an unhoped-for joy.
MAHASEGN Thou art my pupil; statecraft was not wasted Upon thy listening brain. Thou seest, my queen?
UNGARICA As if this babe could understand! Go, go And leave me with my child. I will speak to her Another language.
MAHASEGN Breathe no breath against My purpose!
UNGARICA Fearst thou that?
MAHASEGN No; speak to her.
He goes out from the chamber.
UNGARICA (taking Vasavadutta into her arms) Rest here, my child, to whom another bosom Will soon be refuge. Thou hast heard the King; Hear now thy mother. Thou wilt know, my bliss, The fiercest sweet ordeal that can seize A woman's heart and body. O my child,
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Thou wilt house fire, thou wilt see living gods, And all thou hast thought and known will melt away Into a flame and be reborn. What now I speak, thou dost not understand, but wilt Before many nights have kept thy sleepless eyes. My child, the flower blooms for its flowerhood only, To fill the air with fragrance and with bloom, And not to make its parent bed more high. Not for thy sire thy mother brought thee forth But thy own nature's growth and heart's delight And for a husband and for children born. My child, let him who clasps thee be thy god That thou mayst be his goddess; make your wedded arms Heaven's fences; let his will be thine and thine Be his, his happiness thy regal throne. O Vasavadutta, when thy heart awakes Thou shalt obey thy sovereign heart, nor yield Allegiance to the clear-eyed selfish gods. Do now thy father's will, the god awake Shall do his own. Fear not, whatever threatens. Thy mother watches over thee, my child.
VASAVADUTTA I love her best, but do not understand; My mind can always grasp my father's thoughts. If I must wed, it shall be one I rule. Vuthsa! Vuthsa Udaian! I have heard Only a far-flung name. What is the man? A flame? a flower? High like Gopalaca Or else some golden-fair and soft-eyed youth? I have a fluttering in my heart to know.
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Mahasegn, Ungarica, Gopalaca, Vuthsa.
GOPALACA King of Avunthy, see thy will performed. The boy who rivalled thy ripe victor years, I bring a captive to thy house.
MAHASEGN Gopalaca, Thou hast done well, thou art indeed my son. Vuthsa,—
VUTHSA Hail, monarch of the West. We have met In equal battle; it has pleased me to approach Thy greatness otherwise.
MAHASEGN Pleased thee, vain boy! No, but thy fate indignant that thou strov'st Against heaven-chosen fortunes.
VUTHSA Think it so. I am here. What is thy will with me or wherefore Hast thou by violence brought me to thy house?
MAHASEGN To serve me as earth's sovereign and thy own Assuming my great yoke as all have done
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From Indus to the South.
VUTHSA This is thy error. Thou hast not great Cowsamby's monarch here, But Vuthsa only, Suthaneka's son Who sprang from sires divine.
MAHASEGN And where then dwells Cowsamby's youthful majesty, if not In thee its golden vessel?
VUTHSA Where my vacant throne In high Cowsamby stands. Thou shouldst know that. There is a kingship which exceeds the king. For Vuthsa unworthy, Vuthsa captive, slain, This is not captive, this cannot be slain. It far transcends our petty human forms, It is a nation's greatness. This, O King, Was once Parikshith, this Urjoona's seed, Janamejoya, this was Suthaneke, This Vuthsa; and when Vuthsa is no more, This shall live deathless in a hundred kings.
MAHASEGN Thou speakest like the unripe boy thou seemst, With thoughts high-winging. Grown minds keep to earth's More humble sureness and prefer her touches. I am content to have thy gracious body here, This earth of kingship; with things sensible I deal, for they are pertinent to our days, And not with any high and unseen thought.
VUTHSA My body? deal with it. It is thy slave
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And captive by thy choice and by my own. What thou canst do with Vuthsa, do, O King; In nothing will I pledge Cowsamby's majesty, But Vuthsa is a prisoner in thy hands. Him I defend not from thy iron will.
MAHASEGN My prisoner, thou shalt not so escape My purpose.
VUTHSA I embrace it. If escape Were my desire, I should not now be here. It is not bars and gates can keep me.
MAHASEGN But I will give thee other jailors, boy, Surer than my armed sentries, against whom Thou dar'st not lift thy helpless hands.
VUTHSA Find such; I am satisfied.
MAHASEGN Grow humbler in thy bearing. Be Vuthsa or be great Cowsamby's king, Know thyself only for a captive and a slave.
VUTHSA I accept thy stern rebuke, as I accept Whatever state the wiser gods provide And bend my action to their mood and thought.
MAHASEGN Thou knowst the law of the high sacrifice, Where many kings as menials serve the one,
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And this compelled have many proud lords done Whose high beginnings disappear in time. Now I will make my throned triumphant days A high continual solemn sacrifice Of kingship. There shalt thou, great Bharuth's heir, Dwell in my house a royal servitor, And as most fitting thy yet tender years, My daughter's serf. She with her handmaidens Shall be thy jailors whose firm gracious cordon Thy strength disarmed stands helpless to transgress. To this Thy pride must, forced, consent.
VUTHSA Not only consent, But welcome with a proud aspiring mind Since to be Vasavadutta's servitor Is honour, happiness and fortune's grace. My greatness this shall raise, not cast it down, King Mahasegn.
MAHASEGN Lead now, Gopalaca, Thy gift, her servant, to thy sister's feet. He has a music that the gods desire, His brush leaves Nature wondering and his song The luminous choristers of heaven have taught. All this is hers to please her. Boy, thou smilest?
VUTHSA What thou hast said, is merely truth. And yet I smiled to see how strong and arrogant minds Think themselves masters of the things they do.
Gopalaca goes out with Vuthsa towards Vasavadutta's apartments.
MAHASEGN This is a charming boy, Ungarica,
Page 673
Who vaunts and yields!
UNGARICA What he has shown thee, King, Thou seest.
MAHASEGN Wilt thou lend next this graceful child, Almost a girl in beauty, thoughts profound And practised subtleties? I have done well, Was deeply inspired.
UNGARICA For him and her thou hast. Our own ends seeking, Heaven's ends are served.
Page 674
A room in Vasavadutta's apartments.
Vasavadutta, Munjoolica, Umba.
VASAVADUTTA But hast thou seen him?
MUNJOOLICA Yes!
VASAVADUTTA Speak, perverse silence. Thou canst chatter when thou wilt.
MUNJOOLICA What shall I say Except that thou art always fortunate. Since first thy soft feet moved upon our earth, O living Luxmie, beauty, wealth and joy Run overpacked into thy days, and grandeurs Unmeasured. Now the greatest king on earth Becomes thy servant.
VASAVADUTTA That's the greatest king's Proud fortune and not mine; for nothing now Can raise me higher than I am whose father Is sovereign over greatest kings. Nothing are these And what I long to know thou dost not tell. What is he like?
Page 675
MUNJOOLICA I have seen the lord of love Wearing a golden human body.
VASAVADUTTA (with a pleased smile) So fair!
MUNJOOLICA As thou art; yes, and more.
VASAVADUTTA More!
MUNJOOLICA Cry not out. His eyes are proud and smiling like the god's; His voice is like the sudden call of Spring.
VASAVADUTTA O dear to me even as myself, wear this!
She puts her own chain round her neck.
MUNJOOLICA That is my happiness; keep thy gifts.
VASAVADUTTA Think them My love around thy neck. Thou hast spoken truly, Not woven fictions to beguile my heart? Then tell me more, tell tell, thou dearest one. Not that I care for these things, but would know.
MUNJOOLICA Let thy eyes care not then, but gaze.
Gopalaca comes, bringing in Vuthsa.
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VASAVADUTTA My brother! Long thou wast far from me.
GOPALACA For thy sake far. Much have I flung, my sister, at thy feet Nor thought my gifts were worthy of thy smile, Not even Sourashtra's captive daughter here, The living flower and jewel of her race. But now I give indeed. This is that famous boy, Vuthsa Udaian, great Cowsamby's king, Brought by my hands to serve thee in our house. Look on him; tell me if I have deserved.
VASAVADUTTA (looking covertly at Vuthsa) Much love, dear brother; not that any prize I value as of worth for such as we, But thy love gives it price.
GOPALACA My love for both. My gift is precious to me, for my heart Possessed him long before my hands have seized. Then love him well, for so thou lov'st me twice.
VASAVADUTTA Dear then and prized although a slave.
GOPALACA Are we not all Thy servants? The wide costly world is less, My sister, than thy noble charm and grace And beauty and the sweetness of thy soul Deserve, O Vasavadutta.
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VASAVADUTTA (smiling, pleased) Is it so?
GOPALACA My sister, thou wast born from Luxmie's heart, And we, thy brothers, feel in thee, not us, Our father's fate inherited; our warrings Seek for thy girdle all the conquered earth.
VASAVADUTTA I know it, brother.
GOPALACA From thy childhood, yes, Thou seem'dst to know, ruling with queenly eyes. But since thou knowest, queen, assume thy fiefs Cowsamby and Ayodhya for our house!
VASAVADUTTA (glancing at Vuthsa, then avoiding his eyes) Since he's my slave, they are already mine.
GOPALACA No; understand me, sister; make them thine. Thou, Vuthsa, serve thy mistress and obey.
VASAVADUTTA He is a boy, a marvellous golden boy. I am surely older! I can play with him. There is no fear, no difficulty at all.
(to Vuthsa)
What is thy name? I'll hear it from thy lips.
VUTHSA Vuthsa.
Page 678
VASAVADUTTA Thou tremblest, Vuthsa; dost thou fear?
VUTHSA Perhaps. There is a fear in too much joy.
VASAVADUTTA (smiling) I did not hear. My brother loves thee well. Take comfort. If thou serve me faithfully, Thou hast no cause for any grief at all. Thou art Cowsamby's king—
VUTHSA Men call me so.
VASAVADUTTA And now my servant.
VUTHSA That my heart repeats.
VASAVADUTTA (smiling) I did not hear. Cowsamby's king, my slave, What canst thou do to please me?
VUTHSA Dost thou choose To know the songs that shake the tranquil gods Or hear on earth the harps of heaven? dost thou Desire such lines and hues of living truth As make earth's shadows pale? or wilt thou have The infinite abysmal silences Made vocal, clothed with form? These things at birth The Kinnarie, Vidyadhur and Gundhurva Around me crowding on Himaloy dumb Gave to the silent god that lived in me Before my outer mind held thought. All these
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I can make thine.
VASAVADUTTA Vuthsa, I take all these, All thy life's ornaments that thou wearst, for mine And am not satisfied.
VUTHSA Dost thou desire The earth made thine by my victorious bow? Send me then forth to battle; earth is thine.
VASAVADUTTA I take the earth and am not satisfied.
VUTHSA Say then what thing shall please thee in thy slave, What thou desir'st from Vuthsa.
VASAVADUTTA Do I know? Not less than all thou canst and all thou hast,—
(hesitating a little)
And all thou art.
VUTHSA All's thine.
VASAVADUTTA I speak and hear And know not what I say, nor what thou meanst.
VUTHSA The deepest things are those thought seizes not; Our spirits live their hidden meaning out.
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VASAVADUTTA (after a troubled silence in which she tries to recover herself) I know not how we passed into this strain. Such words are troubling to the mind and heart; Leave them.
VUTHSA They have been spoken.
VASAVADUTTA Let them rest. Vuthsa, my slave who promisest me much, Great things thou offerest, small things I'll demand From thee, yet hard. Since he's my prisoner, Munjoolica and Umba, guard this boy; You are his jailors. When I need him near me Bring him to me. Go, Vuthsa, to thy room.
Vuthsa falls at her feet which he touches.
What dost thou? It is not permitted thee.
VUTHSA Not this? That's hard.
VASAVADUTTA (troubled and feigning anger) Thou art too bold a slave.
VUTHSA Let me be earth beneath thy tread at least.
VASAVADUTTA O, take him from me; I have enough of him. Thou, Umba, see he bribes thee not or worse.
UMBA I will be bribed to make thee smart for that. Where shall we put him? In the turret rooms Beside the terrace where thou walkst when moonlight
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Sleeps on the sward?
VASAVADUTTA There; it is nearest.
UMBA (taking Vuthsa's hand) Come.
They go out, leaving Vasavadutta alone.
VASAVADUTTA Will he charm me from my purpose with a smile? How beautiful he is, how beautiful! There is a fear, there is a happy fear. But he is mine, his eyes confessed my yoke. Surely I shall do all my will with him. I sent him from me, his words troubled me And yet delighted. They have a witchery,— No, not his words, but voice. 'Tis not his voice, Nor yet his face, his smile, his flower-soft eyes, And yet it is all these and something more.
(shaking her head)
I fear it will be difficult after all.
Page 682
The tower-room beside the terrace.
Vuthsa on a couch.
VUTHSA All that I dreamed or heard of her, her charm Exceeds. She's mine! she has shuddered at my touch; Thrice her eyes faltered as they gazed in mine.
He lies back with closed eyes; Munjoolica enters and contemplates him.
MUNJOOLICA O golden Love! thou art not of this earth. He too is Vasavadutta's! All is hers, As I am now and one day all the earth. Vuthsa, thou sleepst not, then.
VUTHSA Sleep jealous waits Finding another image in my eyes.
MUNJOOLICA Thou art disobedient. Wast thou not commanded To sleep at once?
VUTHSA Sleep disobeys, not I. But thou too wakest, yet no thoughts should have To keep thy lids apart.
MUNJOOLICA How knowst thou that?
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I am thy jailor and I walk my rounds.
VUTHSA Bright jailor, thou art jealous without cause. Who would escape from heaven's golden bars? Thy name's Munjoolica? So is thy form A bower of the graceful things of earth.
MUNJOOLICA I had another name but it has ceased, Forgotten.
VUTHSA Thou wast then Sourashtra's child?
MUNJOOLICA I am still that royalty clouded, even as thou Captive Cowsamby. Me Gopalaca In battle seized, brought a disdainful gift To Vasavadutta.
VUTHSA Since our fates are one, Should we not be allies?
MUNJOOLICA For what bold purpose?
VUTHSA How knowest thou I have one?
MUNJOOLICA Were I a man!
VUTHSA Wouldst thou have freedom? wilt thou give me help?
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MUNJOOLICA In nothing against her I love and serve.
VUTHSA No, but conspire to serve and love her best And make her queen of all the Aryan earth.
MUNJOOLICA My payment?
VUTHSA Name it thyself, when all is ours.
MUNJOOLICA Content; it will be large.
VUTHSA However large.
MUNJOOLICA Now shall I be avenged upon my fate! What thy heart asks I know; too openly Thou carriest the yearning in thy eyes. Vuthsa, she loves thee as the half-closed bud Thrills to the advent of a wonderful dawn And like a dreamer half-awake perceives The faint beginnings of a sunlit world. Doubt not success more than that dawn must break; For she is thine.
VUTHSA Take my heart's gratitude For the sweet assurance.
MUNJOOLICA I am greedy. Only Thy gratitude?
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VUTHSA What wouldst thou have?
MUNJOOLICA The ring Upon thy finger, Vuthsa, for my own.
VUTHSA (putting it on her finger) It shall live happier on a fairer hand.
MUNJOOLICA Since thou hast paid me instantly and well, I will be zealous, Vuthsa, in thy cause. But my great bribe is in the future still.
VUTHSA Claim it in our Cowsamby.
MUNJOOLICA There indeed. Sleep now.
VUTHSA By thy good help I now shall sleep.
Munjoolica goes out.
Music is sweet; to rule the heart's rich chords Of human lyres much sweeter. Art's sublime But to combine great ends more sovereign still, Accepting danger and difficulty to break Through proud and violent opposites to our will. Song is divine, but more divine is love.
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VASAVADUTTA I govern no longer what I speak and do. Is this the fire my mother spoke of? Oh, It is sweet, is sweet. But I will not be mastered By any equal creature. Let him serve Obediently and I will load his lovely head With costliest favours. He's my own, my own, My slave, my toy to play with as I choose, And shall not dare to play with me. I think he dares; I do not know, I think he would presume. He's gentle, brilliant, bold and beautiful. I'll send for him and chide and put him down; I'll chide him harshly; he must not presume. O, I have forgotten almost my father's will; Yet it was mine. Before I lose it quite, I will compel a promise from the boy. Will it be hard when he is all my own?
(she calls)
Umba! Bring Vuthsa to me from his tower. His music is a voice that cries to me, His songs are chains he hangs around my heart. I must not hear them often; I forget That I am Vasavadutta, that he is My house's foe and only Vuthsa feel, Think Vuthsa only, while my captive heart Beats in world-Vuthsa and on Vuthsa throbs. This must not be.
Umba brings in Vuthsa and retires.
Go, Umba. Vuthsa, stand
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Before me.
VUTHSA It is my sovereign's voice that speaks.
VASAVADUTTA Be silent! Lower thy eyes; they are too bold To gaze on me, my slave.
VUTHSA Blame not my eyes; They follow the dumb motion of a heart Uplifted to adore thee.
VASAVADUTTA (with a shaken voice) Dost thou really Adore me, Vuthsa?
VUTHSA Earth's one goddess, yes.
VASAVADUTTA (mildly) But, Vuthsa, men adore with humble eyes Upon their deity's feet.
VUTHSA Oh, let me so Adore thee then, thus humble at thy feet, Their sleeping moonbeams in my eyes, and place My hands in Paradise beneath these flowers That bless too oft the chill unheeding earth. Let this not be forbidden to thy slave. So let me worship and the carolling of thy speech So listen.
VASAVADUTTA Vuthsa, thou must not presume.
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VUTHSA O even when faint thy voice, thy every word Reaches my soul.
VASAVADUTTA Wilt thou not let me free?
VUTHSA Yes, if thou bid; but do not.
VASAVADUTTA (bending down to caress his hair) If really And as my slave thou adorest, nothing more, I will not bid.
VUTHSA What more, when this means all?
VASAVADUTTA But if thou art such, is not all thou hast Mine, mine? Why dost thou, Vuthsa, keep from me My own?
VUTHSA Take all; claim all.
VASAVADUTTA (collecting herself) Cowsamby first.
VUTHSA It shall be thine, a jewel for thy feet.
VASAVADUTTA Thy kingdom, Vuthsa, for my will to rule.
VUTHSA It shall be thine, the garden of thy pomp.
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VASAVADUTTA Shall?
VUTHSA Is it not far? We must go there, my queen, Thou to receive and I to give.
VASAVADUTTA I wish To be there. But, Udaian, thou must vow, And the word bind thee, that none else shall be Cowsamby's queen and thou my servant live Vowed to obedience underneath my throne.
VUTHSA Thou only shalt be over my heart a queen, Yes, if thou wilt, the despot of my thoughts, My hopes, my aims, but I will not obey If thou command disloyalty to thee, My sweet, sole sovereign.
VASAVADUTTA (smiling) This reserve I yield.
(hesitatingly)
But Vuthsa, if as subject of my sire, High Chunda Mahasegn, I bid thee rule?
VUTHSA My queen, it will be void.
VASAVADUTTA Void? And thy vow?
VUTHSA Would it not be disloyalty in me, To serve another sovereign?
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VASAVADUTTA (vexed, yet pleased) O, thou playst with me.
VUTHSA No, queen. What's wholly mine, that wholly take. But this belongs to many other souls.
VASAVADUTTA To whom?
VUTHSA Their names are endless. Bharuth first, Who ruled the Aryan earth that bears his name, And great Dushyanta and Pururavus' Famed warlike son and all their peerless line, Urjoona and Parikshith and his sons Whom God descended to enthrone, and all Who shall come after us, my heirs and thine Who choosest me, and a great nation's multitudes, And the Kuru ancestors and long posterity Who all must give consent.
VASAVADUTTA Thy thoughts are high. But if thy life must fade a prisoner here? My father is inflexible and stern.
VUTHSA Dost thou desire this really in thy heart? Vuthsa degraded, art thou not degraded too?
VASAVADUTTA My rule thou hast vowed?
VUTHSA To obey thee in all things Throned in Cowsamby, not as here I must,
Page 691
Thy father's captive. There I shall be thine.
VASAVADUTTA Leave, Vuthsa, leave me. Take him, Umba, from me.
UMBA (entering, in Vasavadutta's ear) Who now is bribed? We are all traitors now.
She goes out with Vuthsa.
VASAVADUTTA O joy, if he and all were only mine. O greatness, to be queen of him and earth. I grow a rebel to my father's house.
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Ungarica, Vasavadutta.
UNGARICA Thou singest well; a cry of Vuthsa's art Has stolen into thy song.
She takes Vasavadutta on her lap.
Look up at me, My daughter, let me gaze into thy eyes And from their silence learn thy treasured thoughts. Thou knowest I can read twixt human lids The secrets of the throbbing heart? I search In Vasavadutta's eyes by what strange skill Vuthsa has crept into my daughter's voice. Thou keepst thy lashes lowered? thou wilt not let me look? But that too I can read.
VASAVADUTTA O mother, mother mine, Plague me not; thou knowst all things; comfort me.
UNGARICA Thou needest comfort?
VASAVADUTTA Yes, against myself Who trouble my own heart.
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UNGARICA Why? though I know. Thou wilt not speak? I'll speak then for thee.
Vasavadutta alarmed puts her hand over Ungarica's mouth.
Off! It is because thou canst not here control What thy immortal part with rapture wills And the mortal longingly desires; for yet Thy proud heart cannot find the way to yield.
VASAVADUTTA If thou knewst, mother.
UNGARICA No, thou hast the will But not the art, Love's learner. O my proud Sweet ignorance, 'tis he shall find the way And thou shalt know the joy of being forced To what thy heart desires.
VASAVADUTTA O mother!
She hides her face in Ungarica's bosom.
UNGARICA Thou hast done thy father's will? Thy husband shall be vassal to thy sire?
VASAVADUTTA Have I a father or a house? O none, O none, O none exists but only he.
UNGARICA Let none exist for thee but the dear all thou lov'st. I charge thee, Vasavadutta, when thou rul'st In far Cowsamby, let this be thy reign
Page 694
To heap on him delight and seek his good. Raise his high fortunes, shelter from grief his heart, Even with thy own tears buy his joy and peace, Nor let one clamorous thought of self revolt Against him.
VASAVADUTTA Mother, thou canst see my heart; Is this not there? Can it do otherwise, Being thus conquered, even if it willed?
UNGARICA Child, 'tis my care to give thy heart a voice And bind it to its nobler loving self. Let this be now thy pride.
VASAVADUTTA It is, it is. But, mother, it is very sweet to rule, And if I rule him for his good, not mine?
UNGARICA Thou canst not be corrected! Queenling, rule. Go now; thy brother comes.
Vasavadutta escapes towards her own apartments; Vicurna enters from the outer door.
Why is thy brow A darkness?
VICURNA Wherefore was King Vuthsa brought Into Ujjayiny? why is captive kept?
UNGARICA Thy father's will, who knows.
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VICURNA But I would know.
UNGARICA Him ask.
VICURNA (taking her face between his hands) I ask thee; thou must answer.
UNGARICA To wed Thy sister.
VICURNA Let him wed and be released. Our fame is smirched; the city murmurs. War Threatens from Vuthsa's nation and our cause Is evil.
UNGARICA Wedding her he must consent To be our vassal.
VICURNA Thus are vassals made? Thus empires built? This is a shameful thing. Release him first, then with proud war subdue.
UNGARICA Thou knowest thy father's stern, unbending will Whom we must all obey.
VICURNA Not I, or not In evil things.
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UNGARICA Respect thy father! He Will not, unsatisfied, release his foe. Demand not this.
VICURNA I will release him then.
UNGARICA Him by what right who is thy house's peril?
VICURNA He is a hero and he is my friend.
UNGARICA Didst thou not help to bring him captive here?
VICURNA For Vasavadutta. I will bear them both Out from the city in my chariot far Into the freedom of the hills. I will hew down All who oppose me.
UNGARICA Rash and violent boy, So wilt thou make bad worse. Await the hour When Vuthsa shall himself demand thy aid.
VICURNA The hour will come?
UNGARICA He will be free.
VICURNA Then soon, Or I myself will act.
Page 697
UNGARICA This too is well And most that the proud chivalries of old Are not yet dead in all men's hearts. O God Shiva, thou mak'st me fortunate in my sons.
Page 698
Vasavadutta's chamber.
Vuthsa, Vasavadutta.
VUTHSA Thy hands have yet no cunning with the strings. 'Tis not the touch alone but manner of the touch That calls the murmuring spirit forth,—as thus.
VASAVADUTTA I cannot manage it; my hand rebels.
VUTHSA I will compel it then.
He takes her hand in his.
Thou dost not chide.
VASAVADUTTA I am weary of chiding; and how rule a boy Who takes delight in being chidden? And then 'Twas only my hand. What dost thou?
Vuthsa takes her by the arms and draws her towards him.
VUTHSA What thy eyes Commanded me and what for many days My heart has clamoured for in hungry pain.
VASAVADUTTA Presumptuous! wilt thou not immediately Release me?
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VUTHSA Not till thy heart's will is done.
He draws her down on his knees, resisting.
VASAVADUTTA What will? I did not bid. What will? Vuthsa! Vuthsa! I did not bid. This is not well.
He masters her and holds her on his bosom.
Her head falls on his shoulder.
VUTHSA O my desire, why should we still deny Delight that calls to us? Strive not with joy, But yield me the sweet mortal privilege That makes me equal with the happiest god In all the heavens of fulfilled desire. O on thy sweet averted cheek! My queen, My wilful empress, all in vain thou striv'st To keep from me the treasure of thy lips I have deserved so long.
VASAVADUTTA Vuthsa! Vuthsa!
He forces her lips up to his and kisses her.
VUTHSA O honey of thy mouth! The joy, the joy Was sweeter. I have drunk in heaven at last, Let what will happen.
Vasavadutta escapes and stands quivering at a distance.
VASAVADUTTA Stand there! approach me not.
VUTHSA I thought 'twould be enough for many ages;
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But 'tis not so.
VASAVADUTTA Go from me, seek thy room.
VUTHSA Have I so much offended? I will go.
He pretends to go.
VASAVADUTTA Vuthsa, I am not angry; do not go. Sit; I must chide thee. Was this well to abuse My kindness, to mistake indulgence?—No, I am not angry; thou art only a boy. I have permitted thee to love because Thou saidst thou couldst not help it. This again Thou must not do,—not thus.
VUTHSA Then teach me how.
VASAVADUTTA (with a troubled smile) I never had so importunate a slave. I must think out some punishment for thee.
She comes to him suddenly, takes him to her bosom and kisses him with passion.
VUTHSA O if 'tis this, I will again offend.
She clings to him, kisses him again, then puts him away from her.
VASAVADUTTA Go from me, go. Wilt thou not go? Munjoolica!
VUTHSA She is not here to help thee against thy heart.
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But I will go; thou willst it.
VASAVADUTTA Wilt thou leave me?
VUTHSA Never! thus, thus into my bosom grow, O Vasavadutta.
VASAVADUTTA O my happiness! O Vuthsa, only name that's sweet on earth I have murmured to the silence of the hours, Give me delight, let me endure thy clasp For ever. O loveliest head on all the earth!
VUTHSA If we could thus remain through many ages, Nor Time grow weary ever of such bliss, O Vasavadutta!
VASAVADUTTA I have loved thee always Even when I knew it not. Was't not the love Secret between us, drew thee here by force, Vuthsa?
VUTHSA Thou wilt not now refuse thy lips?
VASAVADUTTA Nothing to thee.
VUTHSA Yes, thou shalt be my queen Surrendered henceforth, I thy slave enthroned. Give me the largess of thyself that I may be
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The constant vassal of thy tyrant eyes And captive of thy beauty all my days And homage pay to thy sweet sovereign soul. Thus, thus accept me.
VASAVADUTTA I accept, my king, Thy service and thy homage and thy love. If in return the bounty of myself I lavish on thee, will it be enough? Can it hold thy life as thou wilt fill all mine?
VUTHSA Weave thyself into morn and noon and eve. We will not be as man and woman are Who are with partial oneness satisfied, Divided in our works, but one large soul Parted in two dear bodies for more bliss. For all my occupations thou shalt rule, And those that take me from thy blissful shadow Still with thy sweet remembrance shall inspired Be done by thee.
VASAVADUTTA If thy heart strays from me,—
VUTHSA Never my heart.
VASAVADUTTA If thy eyes stray from me, O Vuthsa,—
VUTHSA If I view all beautiful things With natural delight, thou wilt pardon that Because thou wilt share the joy.
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VASAVADUTTA Then must I find Thy beauty there.
VUTHSA Tonight, my love, my love, Shall we not linger heart on heart tonight?
VASAVADUTTA Ah, Vuthsa, no.
VUTHSA Does not thy heart cry, yes? Are we not wedded? Shall we dally, love, Upon heaven's outskirts, nor all Paradise This hour compel?
VASAVADUTTA (faintly) Munjoolica!
VUTHSA Beloved, thy eyes Beseech me to overcome thee with my will.
Munjoolica entering, Vuthsa releases Vasavadutta.
MUNJOOLICA Princess!
VASAVADUTTA Munjoolica! Why camest thou?
MUNJOOLICA Call'dst thou not?
VASAVADUTTA 'Tis forgotten. Oh, I remember. 'Twas to lead Vuthsa to his prison. (low) Smile,
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And I will beat thee! It was all thy fault.
MUNJOOLICA Oh, very little. Come, the hour is late; The Princess' maidens will come trooping in. Turn not reluctant eyes behind but come.
She takes Vuthsa by both wrists and leads him out.
VASAVADUTTA There is a fire within me and a cry. My longings have all broken in a flood And I am the tossed spray! O my desire That criest for the beauty of his limbs And to feel all his body with thyself And lose thy soul in his sweet answering soul, Wilt thou not all this night be silent? I Will walk upon the terrace in moonlight; Perhaps the large, silent night will give me peace. For now 'twere vain to sleep. O in his arms! His arms about me and the world expunged!
Page 705
The tower-room by the terrace.
Vuthsa asleep on a couch; Munjoolica.
MUNJOOLICA He sleeps and now to lure my victim here. You! princess! Vasavadutta!
VASAVADUTTA (appearing at the doorway) Didst thou call?
MUNJOOLICA Yes, to come in from moonlight to the moon. Thou hast never seen him yet asleep.
VASAVADUTTA He sleeps!
MUNJOOLICA His curls are pillowed on one golden arm Like clouds upon the moon. Wilt thou not see?
VASAVADUTTA I dare not. I will stand here and will see.
MUNJOOLICA Thou shalt not. Either pass or enter in.
VASAVADUTTA Thou playst the tyrant? I will stand and see.
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MUNJOOLICA (pushing her suddenly in) In with thee!
VASAVADUTTA Munjoolica!
MUNJOOLICA Hush, wake him not!
She drags her to the couch-side.
Is he not beautiful?
She draws back and after a moment goes quietly out and closes the door.
VASAVADUTTA Oh, now I feel My mother's heart when over me she bowed Wakeful at midnight! He has never had Since his strange birth a mother's, sister's love. O sleeping soul of my beloved, hear My vow, that while thy Vasavadutta lives, Thou shalt not lack again one heart's desire, One tender bodily want. All things at once, Wife, mother, sister, lover, playmate, friend, Queen, comrade, counsellor I will be to thee. Self shall not chill my heart with wedded strife, Nor age nor custom pale my fire of love. I have that strength in me, the strength to love of gods.
A tress of her hair falls on his face and awakes him.
VUTHSA O Vasavadutta, thou hast come to me!
VASAVADUTTA It was not I! Munjoolica dragged me in. O where is she? The door!
She hastens to the door and finds it bolted from outside.
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Munjoolica! What is this jest? I shall be angry. Open.
MUNJOOLICA (outside, solemnly) Bolted.
VASAVADUTTA For pity, sweet Munjoolica!
MUNJOOLICA I settle my accounts. Be happy. I Am gone.
VASAVADUTTA Go not, go not, Munjoolica.
VUTHSA (coming to her) She's gone, the thrice-blessed mischief, and tonight This happy prison thou gav'st me is thine too. Goddess! thou art shut in with thy delight. Why wouldst thou flee then through the doors of heaven?
VASAVADUTTA O not tonight! Be patient! I will ask My father; he will give me as thy wife.
VUTHSA Thou thinkst I'll take thee from thy father's hands Like a poor Brahmin begging for a dole? Not so do heroes' children wed, nor they Who from the loins of puissant princes sprang. With the free interchange of looks and hearts Nobly self-given, heaven for the priest And the heart's answers for the holy verse, They are wedded or by wished-for violence torn Consenting, yet resisting from the midst Of many armed men. So will I wed thee, O Vasavadutta, so will bear by force
Page 708
Out of the house and city of my foes Breaking through hostile gates. By a long kiss I'll seal thy lips that vainly would forbid. Let thy heart speak instead the word of joy, O Vasavadutta.
VASAVADUTTA Do with me what thou wilt, for I am thine.
Page 709
Vasavadutta, Munjoolica.
VASAVADUTTA So thou hast dared to come.
MUNJOOLICA I have. Thou, dare To look me in the eyes. Thou canst not. Then?
VASAVADUTTA Hast thou no fear of punishment at all?
MUNJOOLICA For shutting thee in with heaven? none, none at all.
VASAVADUTTA How didst thou dare?
MUNJOOLICA How didst thou dare, proud girl, To make of kings and princesses thy slaves? How dare to drag Sourashtra's daughter here, To keep her as thy servant and to load With gifts, caresses, chidings and commands, The puppet of thy sweet imperious will? Thinkst thou my heart within me was not hot? But now I am avenged on thee and all.
Page 710
VASAVADUTTA Vindictive traitress, I will beat thee.
MUNJOOLICA Do And I will laugh and ask thee of the night.
VASAVADUTTA Then take thy chastisement.
She seizes and beats her with the tassels of her girdle.
MUNJOOLICA Stop! I'll bear no more. Art not ashamed to spend thy heart in play Knowing what thou hast done and what may come? Think rather of what thou wilt do against Thy dangerous morrow.
VASAVADUTTA See what thou hast done! How shall I look my father in the eyes? What speak? what do? my Vuthsa how protect?
MUNJOOLICA Thy father must not know of this.
VASAVADUTTA Thou thinkst My joy can be shut in from every eye? Besides thee I have other serving-girls.
MUNJOOLICA None who'ld betray thee. This thing known, his wrath Would strike thy husband.
Page 711
VASAVADUTTA Me rather. I will throw My heart and body, twice his shield, between.
MUNJOOLICA You will be torn apart and Vuthsa penned In some deep pit or fiercer vengeance taken To soothe the stern man's outraged heart.
VASAVADUTTA Alas! Thou hast a brain; give me thy counsel. The ill Thyself hast done, must thou not remedy?
MUNJOOLICA If thou entreat me much, I will and can.
VASAVADUTTA I shall entreat thee!
MUNJOOLICA Help thyself, proud child.
VASAVADUTTA O, if I have thee at advantage ever! Stay! I beseech thee, my Munjoolica,—
MUNJOOLICA More humbly!
VASAVADUTTA Oh!
She kneels.
I clasp thy feet. O friend, In painful earnest I beseech thee now To think, plan, spend for my sake all thy thought. Remember how I soothed thy fallen life
Page 712
Which might have been so hard. O thou my playmate, Joy, servant, sister who hast always been, Help me, save him, deceive my father's wrath, Then ask from me what huge reward thou wilt.
MUNJOOLICA Nothing at all. Vengeance is sweet enough Upon thy father and Gopalaca. I'm satisfied now. First give me a promise; Obey me absolutely in all things Till Vuthsa's free.
VASAVADUTTA I promise. Thou art my guide And I will walk religiously thy path.
MUNJOOLICA Then think it done.
VASAVADUTTA (smiling on Vuthsa who enters) Vuthsa, I asked not for thee.
VUTHSA Thou didst. I heard thy heart demand me.
MUNJOOLICA Hark! What is this noise and laughter in the court? See, see, the hunchbacked laughable old man! What antics!
VUTHSA Surely I know well those eyes. Munjoolica, this is a friend. He must Be brought here to me.
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MUNJOOLICA Princess, let us call him. It is an admirable buffoon.
VASAVADUTTA Fie on thee! Is this an hour for jests and antics?
MUNJOOLICA (looking significantly at her) Yes.
VASAVADUTTA Call him.
MUNJOOLICA And thou go in.
VASAVADUTTA How, in!
MUNJOOLICA This girl! Hast thou not promised to obey me?
VASAVADUTTA Yes.
She goes in. Munjoolica descends.
VUTHSA Yougundharayan sends him. O, he strikes The hour as if a god had planned all out. This world's the puppet of a silent Will Which moves unguessed behind our acts and thoughts; Events bewildered follow its dim guidance And flock where they are needed. Is't not thus, O Thou, our divine Master, that Thou rulest, Nor car'st at all because Thy joy and power
Page 714
Are seated in Thyself beyond the ages?
Munjoolica returns bringing in Vasuntha disguised.
Who is this ancient shape thou bringest?
MUNJOOLICA I'ld know If he has a tongue as famous as his hump And as preposterous; that to learn I bring him.
VASUNTHA Where is the only lady of the age? Princes or else domestics,—
MUNJOOLICA Something, sir, of both.
VASUNTHA O masters then of princes, think not that I scorn Your prouder royalty; but now if any Will introduce my hungry old hunchback To Avunthy's far-famed paragon of girls, He shall have tithe of all my golden gains.
MUNJOOLICA Why not to Avunthy's governor and a prison, Yougundharayan's spy?
VASUNTHA (looking at Vuthsa) What's this? what's this?
MUNJOOLICA Strong tonic for a young old man.
VUTHSA Speak freely Thy message; there are only friends who hear.
Page 715
VASUNTHA (to Vuthsa, with a humorous glance at Munjoolica) Thy hours were not ill-spent. But thou hast nearly Frighted these poor young hairs to real grey, My sportive lady. Hear now why I crouch Beneath the hoary burden of this beard And the insignia of a royal hump,— And an end to jesting. Vuthsa, in thy city The people clamour; they besiege thy ministers Railing at treason and demanding thee; Nor can their rage be stilled. Do swiftly then Whatever thou must do yet, swiftly break forth Or war will seek thee clamouring round these doors. To bear thy message back to him I come, Upon Avunthy's mountain verge who lurks, Or else to aid thee if our help thou needest.
VUTHSA Let him restrain my army forest-screened Where the thick woodlands weave a border large To the ochre garment round Avunthy's loins Nearest Ujjayiny. Under the cavern-hill Of Lokanatha let him lie, but never Transgress that margin till my chariot comes.
VASUNTHA 'Tis all?
VUTHSA In my own strength all else I'll do.
VASUNTHA Good; then I go?
VUTHSA Yes, but with gold, thy fee, To colour thy going. Bring him gold, dear friend,
Page 716
Or take from Vasavadutta gem or trinket That shall bear out his mask to jealous eyes.
Munjoolica goes into the inner chamber.
VASUNTHA Leave that to me.
VUTHSA Thou hast adventured much For my sake.
VASUNTHA Poor Alurca cried to come, But this thing asked for brains and he had only Blunt courage and a harp. The danger's nothing, But oh, this hump! I shall not soon walk straight, Nor rid myself of all the loyal aches I bear for thee.
VUTHSA Pangs fiercer would have chased them, Hadst thou been caught, my friend. I shall remember.
Munjoolica returns with gold and a trinket.
Take now these gauds; haste, make thy swiftest way, For I come close behind thee.
Vasuntha goes.
MUNJOOLICA Tell me thy plan.
VUTHSA These chambers are too strongly kept.
MUNJOOLICA But there's The pleasure-ground.
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VUTHSA Let Vasavadutta call Her brothers on an evening to the park And wine flow fast. The nights are moonlit now. How many gates?
MUNJOOLICA Three, but the southern portal Nearest the ramparts.
VUTHSA There, how many guard?
MUNJOOLICA Three armed Kiratha women keep the gate.
VUTHSA I cannot hurt them. Thou must find a way.
MUNJOOLICA They shall be drowned in wine. The streets outside?
VUTHSA A chariot,—find one for me. I cannot fight With Vasavadutta on my breast.
MUNJOOLICA I think That I shall find one.
VUTHSA Do it. The rest is easy, To break the keepers of the city-gate In one fierce moment and be out and far. There are arms enough in the palace?
Page 718
MUNJOOLICA The armoury I use sometimes.
VUTHSA Conceal them in the grounds. No, in the chariot let them wait for me.
MUNJOOLICA Thou wilt need both thy hands in such a fight. Vuthsa, I'll be thy charioteer.
VUTHSA Thou canst?
MUNJOOLICA Hope not to find a better in thy realms.
VUTHSA My battle-comrade then! Words are not needed Between us.
MUNJOOLICA More than that before all's done I will be to thee. Good fortune makes hard things Most easy; for the god comes with laden hands. If the strange word the queen half spoke to me Means anything, Vicurna's car shall bear His sister to her joy and sovereign throne.
Page 719
The pleasure-groves of the palace in Ujjayiny.
Gopalaca, Vuthsa, Vicurna; at a distance under the trees Ungarica, Vasavadutta and Umba.
GOPALACA Vuthsa, the wine is singing in my brain, The moonlight floods my soul. These are the hours When the veil for eye and ear is almost rent And we can hear wind-haired Gundhurvas sing In a strange luminous ether. Thou art one, Vuthsa, who has escaped the bars and walks Smiling and harping to enchanted men.
VUTHSA It was your earthly moonlight drew me here And thou, Gopalaca, and Vindhya's hills And Vasavadutta. Thou shalt drink with me In moonlight in Cowsamby.
GOPALACA Vuthsa, when? What wild and restless spirit keeps thy feet Tonight, Vicurna?
VICURNA 'Tis the wine. I wait.
GOPALACA For what?
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VICURNA (with a harsh laugh) Why, for the wine to do its work.
GOPALACA Where's Vasavadutta? Call her to us here. We are not happy if she walks apart.
VICURNA There with the mother underneath the trees.
GOPALACA Call them. Thou, Vuthsa, she and I will drink One cup of love and pledge our hearts in wine Never to be parted. Thou deceiv'st the days, O lax and laggard lover.
VUTHSA 'Tis the last. Tomorrow lights another scene.
GOPALACA 'Tis good That thou inclin'st thy heart. My father grows Stern and impatient. This done, all is well.
VUTHSA All in this poor world cannot have their will; Its joys are bounded. I submit, it seems. Wilt thou incline thy heart, Gopalaca?
GOPALACA To what?
VUTHSA To this fair moonlit night's result And all that follows after.
Page 721
GOPALACA Easily I promise that.
VUTHSA All surely will be well.
Munjoolica arrives from the gates; Vicurna returning from the trees with Ungarica, Vasavadutta and Umba, goes forward to meet her.
VICURNA Is't done?
MUNJOOLICA They sprawl half-senseless near the gate.
VICURNA Whole bound and gagged were best. Give Vuthsa word.
He goes towards the gates.
UNGARICA Munjoolica, is it tonight?
MUNJOOLICA What, madam?
UNGARICA (striking her lightly on the cheek) Vicurna rides tonight?
MUNJOOLICA He rides tonight.
UNGARICA Let him not learn, nor any, that I knew.
She returns to the others.
Page 722
GOPALACA Come, all you wanderers. Mother, here's a cup That thou must bless with thy fair magic hands Before we drink it.
UNGARICA May those who drink be one In heart and great and loving all their days Favoured by Shiva and by Luxmie blest Until the end and far beyond.
GOPALACA Drink, Vuthsa. Three hearts meet in this cup.
UNGARICA Who drinks this first, He shall be first and he shall be the bond.
GOPALACA Drink, sister Vasavadutta, queen of all.
UNGARICA Queen thou shalt be, my daughter, as in thy heart, So in thy love and fortunes.
GOPALACA Mine the last.
UNGARICA Thou sayest, my son, yet first mid many men.
GOPALACA Whatever place, so in this knot 'tis found.
UNGARICA (embracing Vasavadutta closely) Forget not thy dear mother in thy bliss.
Page 723
Gopalaca, attend me to the house, I have a word for thee, my son.
GOPALACA I come.
They go towards the palace.
VUTHSA Is it the moment?
MUNJOOLICA Yonder lies the gate.
VUTHSA Love! Vasavadutta.
VASAVADUTTA Vuthsa! Vuthsa! speak. What has been quivering in the air this night?
He takes her in his arms.
VUTHSA Thy rapt and rapture far away, O love. Look farewell to thy father's halls.
VASAVADUTTA Alas! What is this rashness? Thou art unarmed; the guards Will slay thee.
VUTHSA Fear not! Thou in my arms, Our fates a double shield, thou hast no fear, Nor anything this night to think or do Save in the chariot lie between my knees And listen to the breezes in thy locks Whistling to thee of far Cowsamby's groves.
Page 724
He bears her towards the gate, Vicurna crossing him in his return.
VICURNA Haste, haste! all's ready.
MUNJOOLICA Umba! Umba! here!
UMBA (who comes running up) Oh, what is this?
VICURNA Should not this girl be bound?
UMBA Give rather thy commands.
MUNJOOLICA Thou'lt face the wrath?
UMBA O, all for my dear mistress. If the King Slays me, I shall have lived and died for her For whom I was born.
MUNJOOLICA Hide in the groves until Thou hearst a rumour growing from the walls, Then seek the house and save thyself. Till then Let no man find thee.
UMBA I will lose myself In the far bushes. O come safely through. Could you not have trusted me in this?
Page 725
MUNJOOLICA Weep not! I'll have thee to Cowsamby if thou live.
VICURNA Come, follow, follow. He is near the gates.
MUNJOOLICA I to my freedom, she her royal crown!
Page 726
Vasavadutta's apartments.
Mahasegn, Ungarica, Umba bound, armed women.
MAHASEGN She is not here. O treachery! If thou Wert privy to this, thou shalt die impaled Or cloven in many pieces.
UMBA I am resigned.
UNGARICA Thou'lt stain thy soul with a woman's murder, King?
MAHASEGN 'Tis truth; she is too slight a thing to crush. Are not the gardens searched? Who are these slaves Who dare to loiter? If he's seized, he dies.
UNGARICA Wilt thou make ill much worse,—if this be ill?
MAHASEGN How sayst thou? 'Tis not ill? My house is shamed, My pride downtrodden; all the country laughs Already at the baffled Mahasegn Whose daughter was plucked out by one frail boy From midst his golden city and his hosts Unnumbered. Who shall honour me henceforth? Who worship? who obey? who fear my sword?
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UNGARICA Cowsamby's king has kept the Aryan law, Nor is thy daughter shamed at all in this, But taken with noblest honour.
MAHASEGN 'Tis a law I spurn. My will is trodden underfoot, My pride which to preserve or to avenge Is the warrior's righteousness. Udaian dies. Or if he reach his capital, my hosts Shall thunder on and blot it into flame, A pyre for his torn dishonoured corpse.
UNGARICA Hast thou forgotten thy daughter's heart? Her good, Her happiness are nothing then to thee?
MAHASEGN Is she my daughter? She'll not wish to live Her sire's dishonour.
UNGARICA Thinkest thou he seized her, Her heart consenting not?
MAHASEGN If it be so And she thus rebel to my will and blood, Let her eyes gaze upon their sensuous cause Of treason mocked with many marring spears.
UNGARICA Art thou an Aryan king and threatenest thus? Thy daughter only for thyself was loved?
Page 728
MAHASEGN Silence, my queen! Chafe not the lion wroth.
UNGARICA The tiger rather, if this mood thou nurse.
A Kiratha woman enters.
MAHASEGN Thou com'st, slow slave!
KIRATHIE King, all the grounds are searched. The guards lie gagged below the southern gate; All's empty.
MAHASEGN Where's Gopalaca? He too Has leisures!
KIRATHIE There's a captain from the walls.
MAHASEGN Ha! bring him.
The Kirathie brings in the Avunthian captain.
Well!
CAPTAIN Vuthsa has broken forth. The wardens of the gate are maimed or dead; Triumphant, bearing Vasavadutta, far Exults his chariot o'er the moonlit plains.
MAHASEGN O bitter messenger! Pursue, pursue!
Page 729
CAPTAIN Rebha with his armed men and stern-lipped speed Is hot behind.
MAHASEGN Let all my force that keeps Ujjayiny, be hurled after them, one speed. Call, call Vicurna; let the boy bring back First fame of arms today in Vuthsa slain, His sister's ravisher.
CAPTAIN Let not my words Offend my king. 'Twas Prince Vicurna's car Bore forth his sister and Vicurna's self Rode as her guard.
MAHASEGN (after an astonished pause) Do all my house, my blood Revolt against me?
CAPTAIN The princess Bundhumathie, Thy daughter's serving-maiden, at Vuthsa's side Controlled his coursers.
MAHASEGN Her I do not blame, Yet will most fiercely punish. Captain, go; Gather my chariots; let them gallop fast Crushing these fugitives' new-made tracks.
As the captain departs, Gopalaca enters.
Gopalaca, Head, son, my armies; bear thy sister back Before irrevocable shame is done, Nor with thy father's greatness unavenged return.
Page 730
GOPALACA My father, hear me. Though quite contrary To all our planned design this thing has fallen, Yet no dishonour tarnishes the deed, But as a hero with a hero's child Has Vuthsa seized the girl. We planned a snare, He by a noble violence answers us. We sought to bribe him to a vassal's state Dangling the jewel of our house in front; He keeps his freedom and enjoys the gem. Then since we chose the throw of dice and lost, Let us be noble gamblers, like a friend Receive God's hostile chance, nor house blind wounded thoughts As common natures might. Sanction this rapt; Let there be love twixt Vuthsa's house and us.
MAHASEGN I see that in their hearts all have conspired Against my greatness. Thou art Avunthy's prince, My second in my cares. Hear then! if twixt Ujjayiny and my frontiers they are seized, My fiercer will shall strike; but if they reach Free Vindhya, thou thyself shalt make the peace. Take Vasavadutta's household and this girl, Take all her wealth and gauds; lead her thyself Or follow to Cowsamby, but leave not Till she is solemnised as Vuthsa's queen. Sole let her reign throned by Udaian's side; Then only shall peace live betwixt our realms.
GOPALACA And I will fetch Vicurna back.
MAHASEGN Son, never. I exile the rebel to his name and house. Let him with Vuthsa whom he chooses dwell,
Page 731
My foeman's servant.
He goes out, followed by the guards.
Gopalaca unbinds Umba.
UNGARICA If we give his rage its hour, 'Twill sink. His pride will call Vicurna back, If not the father's heart.
GOPALACA Haste, gather quickly Her wealth and household. I would make earliest speed, Lest Vuthsa by ill hap be seized for ill.
UNGARICA Fear not, my son. The hosts are not on earth That shall prevail against these two in arms.
Page 732
The Avunthian forests; moonlight.
Vuthsa, Vasavadutta, Munjoolica.
VUTHSA Thou hast held the reins divinely. We approach Our kingdom's border.
MUNJOOLICA But the foe surround.
VUTHSA We will break through as twice now we have done. Vicurna comes.
Vicurna arrives ascending.
VICURNA Vuthsa, yon Rebha asks For parley; is it given? I'ld hold him here While by a long masked woodland breach I know Silent we pass their cordon.
VUTHSA Force is best.
VICURNA Vuthsa, to my mind more; but I would spare Our Vasavadutta's heart these fierce alarms. Though she breathe nothing, yet she suffers.
VUTHSA Good!
Page 733
We'll choose thy peaceful breach.
Vicurna descends.
VASAVADUTTA Vuthsa, if I Stood forth and bade their leader cease pursuit Since of my will I go, he must desist.
VUTHSA It would diminish, love, my victory And triumph which are thine.
VASAVADUTTA Then let it go. I would not stain thy fame in arms, though over My house's head its wheels go trampling.
MUNJOOLICA (yawning) Ough! If we could parley a truce for sleep. This fighting Makes very drowsy.
Vicurna returns with Rebha.
VUTHSA Well, captain, thy demand!
REBHA Vuthsa, thou art environed. Dost thou yield?
VUTHSA Thou mockst! Return; we'll break the third last time Thy fragile chain. Are thy dead counted?
REBHA The living Outnumber their first strength; more force comes on Fast from Ujjayiny. Therefore yield the princess.
Page 734
Thyself depart a freeman to thy realms.
VUTHSA Knowst thou thy offer is an insolence?
REBHA Then, Prince, await the worst. Living and bound Or else a corpse we'll bring thee back to our city. Three times around thee is my cordon passed, Thy steeds are spent, nor hast thou Urjoon's quiver. The dawn prepares; think it thy last.
VUTHSA At noon I give thee tryst within my borders.
Rebha goes.
VICURNA Swift! Before he reach his men and back ascend, We must be far. Munjoolica, mount my horse, Ride to Yougundharayan, bid him bring on His numbers; for I see armies thundering towards us With angry speed o'er the Avunthian plains. I'll guide the car.
MUNJOOLICA The horse?
VICURNA Bound in yon grove. Rein lightly; he's high-mettled.
MUNJOOLICA Teach me not. There is no horse yet foaled I cannot ride. Which is my way through all this leafy tangle?
Page 735
VICURNA Thou canst not miss it; for yon path leads only To Lokanatha's hill beyond our borders. Now on!
VUTHSA The moonlight and the glad night-winds Have rustled luminously among the leaves And sung me wordless paeans while I fought. Now let them fall into a rapturous strain Of silence, while I ride with thee safe-clasped Upon my bosom.
VASAVADUTTA If I could hold thee safe at last!
Page 736
On the Avunthian border.
Roomunwath, Yougundharayan, Alurca, soldiers.
ROOMUNWATH The dawn with rose and crimson crowned the hills, There was no sign of Vuthsa's promised wheels. Another noon approaches.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Two days only Vasuntha's here. Yet is Udaian swift With the stroke he in a secret sloth prepares.
ROOMUNWATH We learned that though too late. A secret rashness, A boy's wild venture with his life for stake And a kingdom! Dangerously dawns this reign.
ALURCA See, see, a horseman over Avunthy's edge Rides to us. He quests forward with his eyes.
ROOMUNWATH Whoe'er he be, he has travelled far. His beast Labours and stumbles on.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN This is no horseman; It is a woman rides though swift and armed.
Page 737
ALURCA She has seen us and dismounts.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN A woman rides! My mind misgives me. Is't some evil chance? Comes she a broken messenger of grief? She runs as if pursued.
ALURCA She's young and fair.
Munjoolica arrives.
MUNJOOLICA Art thou King Vuthsa's captain?
ROOMUNWATH I am he.
MUNJOOLICA Gather thy force; for Vuthsa drives here fast, But hostile armies surge behind his wheels. Fast, fast, into the woods your succour bring, Lest over his wearied coursers and spent quiver Numbers and speed prevail.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Roomunwath, swift.
Roomunwath goes.
But who art thou or where shall be my surety That thou art no Avunthian sent to lure Our force into an ambush?
MUNJOOLICA This is surely Yougundharayan of the prudent brain. Thy question I reply; the rest resolve
Page 738
But swiftly, lest Fate mock thy wary thoughts. My name is Bundhumathie and my father Sourashtra held; but I, his daughter, taken Served in Avunthy Vasavadutta. Knowest thou This ring?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN 'Tis Vuthsa's.
MUNJOOLICA Young Vicurna's bay I rode, who guards his sister's ravisher Against the angry rescuers. Will these riddles, Wisest of statesmen, solve thy cautious doubt?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Thy tale is strange; but thou at least art true.
MUNJOOLICA Thou art not prudent only!
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Forward then. Roomunwath's camp already is astir.
Page 739
Near the edge of the forest in Avunthy.
Roomunwath, Yougundharayan, Alurca, Munjoolica, forces.
ROOMUNWATH Stay, stay our march; 'tis Vuthsa's car arrives. The tired horses stumble as they pause.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN There is a noise of armies close behind And out of woods the Avunthian wheels emerge.
There arrive Vuthsa, Vicurna, Vasavadutta.
VUTHSA My father, all things to their hour are true And I bring back my venture. Am I pardoned Its secrecy?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN My pupil and son no more, But hero and monarch! Thou hast set thy foot Upon Avunthy's head.
VUTHSA Yet still thy son.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Hail, Vasavadutta, great Cowsamby's queen.
VASAVADUTTA (smiling happily on Vuthsa) My crown was won by desperate alarms.
Page 740
VUTHSA It was a perilous race and in the end Fate won by a head. Were it not the difficult paths Baffled their numbers, we were hardly here, So oft we had to pause and rest our steeds. But in less strength they dared not venture on.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN They range their battle now.
VUTHSA Speak thou to them. War must not break.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Demand a parley there.
VUTHSA If we must fight, it shall be for defence Retreating while we war unless they urge Too far their violent trespass.
VICURNA Rebha comes.
Rebha arrives.
REBHA Ye are suitors for a parley?
VICURNA Rebha, with beaten men?
REBHA Because you had your sister in the car Our shafts were hampered.
Page 741
VICURNA Nor could with swords prevail Against two boys so many hundred men.
REBHA O Prince Vicurna, what thou hast done today Against thy name and nation, I forbear To value. 'Tis thy first essay of arms.
VICURNA Well dost thou not to weigh thy better's deeds.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Rebha, wilt thou urge vainly yet this strife? What hitherto was done, was private act And duel; now if thou insist on fight, Two nations are embroiled; and to what end?
REBHA I will take Vuthsa and the Princess back. It is my king's command.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN The impossible No man is bound to endeavour. While we fight, King Vuthsa with the captive princess bounds Unhindered to his high-walled capital.
REBHA It is my king's command. I am his arm And not his counsellor; nor to use my brain Have any right, save for the swift way to fulfil His proud and absolute mandate.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN If there came Word from Ujjayiny, then pursuit must cease?
Page 742
REBHA Then truly.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Send a horseman, Rebha, ask. All meanwhile shall remain as now it stands.
REBHA I'll send no horseman; I will fight.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Then war!
REBHA We fear it not. This is strange insolence To stand in arms upon Avunthian ground And issue mandates to the country's lords.
He is going.
ROOMUNWATH Rebha, yet pause! No messenger thou needst. Look where yon chariot furious-bounding comes And over it streams Avunthy's royal flag.
REBHA It is the prince Gopalaca. Of this I am glad.
VASAVADUTTA O if my brother comes, then all is well.
VUTHSA For thou art Luxmie. Thou beside me, Fate And Fortune, peace and battle must obey The vagrant lightest-winged of my desires.
Gopalaca arrives; with him Umba.
Page 743
GOPALACA Hail, Vuthsa! peace and love between our lands!
VUTHSA I hold them here incarnate. Welcome thou, Their strong achiever.
GOPALACA As earnest and as proof Receive this fair accomplice of thy flight Unpunished. Sister, take her to thy arms.
VASAVADUTTA O Umba, thou com'st safe to me!
GOPALACA And all My sister's household and her wealth comes fast Behind me. Only one claim Avunthy keeps; My sister shall sit throned thy only queen,— Which, pardon me, my eyes must witness done With honour to our name.
VUTHSA Cowsamby's majesty Will brook not even in this, Gopalaca, A foreign summons. Surely my will and love Shall throne most high, not strong Avunthy's child, But Vasavadutta; whether alone, her will And mine, the nation and the kingdom's good Consenting shall decide. Therefore this claim Urge not, my brother.
GOPALACA Let not this divide us. The present's gladness is enough: the future's hers And thine, Udaian, nor shall any man
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Compel thee. Boy, thy revolt was rash and fierce Wronging thy house and thy high father's will. Exiled must thou in far Cowsamby dwell Until his wrath is dead.
VICURNA I care not, brother. I have done my will, I have observed the right. Near Vuthsa and my sister's home enough And I shall see new countries.
VUTHSA Follow behind, Gopalaca; thy sister's household bring And all the force thou wilt. We speed in front. Ride thou, Alurca, near us; let thy harp Speak of love's anthems and her golden life To Vasavadutta. Love, the storm is past, The peril o'er. Now we shall glide, my queen, Through green-gold woods and between golden fields To float for ever in a golden dream, O earth's gold Luxmie, till the shining gates Eternal open to us thy heavenly home.
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A dream of the woodlands
CORILLO - prince of Ilni.
VALENTINE - a courtier.
IAMBLICHUS, PALLEAS, MARCION - foresters.
MELANDER - a sylvan poet.
FORESTERS, COURTIERS.
ALACIEL - the witch of Ilni.
GUENDOLEN - her sister.
MYRTIL, DORIS, ERMENILD - forest damsels.
GIRLS OF THE FOREST.
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The woodlands of Ilni.
Girls and youths dancing.
Song
Under the darkling tree Who danceth with thee, Sister say? His hair is the sweet sunlight, His eyes a starry night In May.
Under the leaf-wrought screen Who crowns thee his queen Kissing thee? His lips are a ruby bright, His cheek the May-bloom's light On the tree.
Under the grass-green bough Whom pillowest thou On thy breast? His voice is a swallow's flight, His limbs are jonquils white Dewy-drest.
IAMBLICHUS Unwind the linkèd rapture of the dance!
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For in the purple verge and slope of morn Fast-flowering blooms, fire-robed and honey-haired, In stainless wastes the daffodil of heaven. Here till the golden-handed sun upbuilds The morning's cenotaph blue-domed and vast, On daisy-dotted bank where sunlight nods We'll spin a curious weft of lyric tales.
MYRTIL Be it so. But what occupation stays Our deftest in the jewelry of rhymes, Our liberal dispenser of sweet words, Our laureate with the throstle in his throat? Sleeps he so long? who saw Melander last, Melander ashbud-browed with April hair?
ERMENILD Before the russet-hooded morn gave birth In Day's embraces to the fire-eyed sun I spied him nigh a mossy-mantled cave Which rosy trailers draped, and at his side The silver-seeming witch Alaciel.
MYRTIL Pray God, the black-haired witch may do no harm! She is most potent and her science plucks The ruby nightshade, Hecate's deadly plum, Soul-killing meadow-sweet, the hemlock starred And berries brown crushed in the vats of death, Her mother's hell-brewed legacy of arts.
MARCION Were it not wisely done to call him hither?
IAMBLICHUS 'Tis wisely urged, good Marcion. Make good haste
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And drench thy words in Hybla's golden milk To lure him thence.
Exit Marcion.
But you with dance and song Beguile the laggard moments into joy.
Page 755
A glade in the woodlands.
ALACIEL Why wilt thou go? Noon has not budded, sweet. Fresh-fallen dew stars yet the silvered grass, The leaves are lyrical with lisp of birds And piping voices flutter thro' the grove. Repose thyself where blue-eyed violet Is married to that bugle of pale gold We call the cowslip, and I'll chain thee here With flowery bands of rosebud-linked tales Or murmur Orphic falls to draw thy soul Upon the smoother wings of measured song. Noon has not budded, sweet. Why wilt thou go?
MELANDER The sylvan youths expect my lyric touch To gild their leisure: nor am I so bold To linger by thy snowy side too long Whom men call perilous. Oh thou art fair! Dawn reddens in thy vermil-tinted cheeks And on thy tresses pansy-purple night Hangs balsam-drenched with dewdrops for her stars. Thou art a flower with candid petals wide, Moon-flushed, most innocent-seeming to the eye; But in thy cup, they say, lurks venomed wine Which whoso sucks, pale Hades on him lays Ensnaring arms to drag from the sweet sun.
ALACIEL Whom will not Envy's livid tooth assail?
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'Tis true my wisdom dwarfs their ignorance; That is most true: for in my fledgeling days When callow childhood loved the rushy nest, My mother drew my steps thro' fretted walks, Rose-rubied gardens, acorn-pelted glades, Green seas of pasture, rural sweeps of bloom, And taught the florid sensuous dialect Of simple plants. This way I learned to love The shining sisterhood of rhythmic names, Roses and lilies, honey-hiding thyme, Pied gillyflowers, painted wind-blossoms, Gold crocus, milky bell, sweet marjoram, Fire-coloured furze and wayside honey-suckle. Nor these alone, but all the helpful plants Gave me the liquid essence of their souls Potent to help or hurt, to cure or kill. Indeed the milky juice of pungent roots I poured you in that curious walnut cup With moderation just, were in excess More deadly than the hemlock's dooming wine.
MELANDER It fused new blood into my pulsing veins Raising me twice the stature of a soul.
ALACIEL 'Tis margarite, the rare and pungent root, That brewed this foamy vintage in his wand. For twixt the bulb and pithy texture wrapt You find a pod nut-form with misty skin, In size no bigger than the early grape But full and sweet with honey-tempered wine. Such are my potions, philtres, poisons, drugs, Distempered brews, and all the juggling arts Your ignorance rebukes my wisdom with.
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MELANDER From such sweet lips when poppied utterance falls, The carping spirit of disdain must sleep; For subtler logic drops in simple words From woman's tongue, than phraseful orator Or fine scholastic wit may offer up.
ALACIEL Sweet youth, why should I net you with deceit? Ah yet, in truth you are too beautiful! Come, you are skilled in phrases, are you not? You dice with women's hearts—they tell me 'tis A pastime much in vogue with idle youths. (The philtre works: his eyelids brim with dew.) You throw cogged dice with women for their souls, You barter with them and deny the price, Is it not so? (O rare, fine margarite!) Oh you are deft at such deceits: you make Your beauty lime to cozen linnets with And bid them sing, if they'd have sustenance. Oh you will not deceive me, think it not: You are just such a fowler to my guess.
MELANDER Dear linnet, did I lime you in my nets, One fine, sweet Hamadryad note would lift The tangle from your wild-rose-petal wings.
ALACIEL Ah but when lurking faces flower the bush Wild birds mock expectation with wild wings.
MELANDER Nay, dear, you shall not go: I have you fast. Come, where's your ransom? the sweet, single note I bargained for, ere you may climb the winds? Prune not your fluttering wings: I have you fast.
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ALACIEL I pray you, make not earnest of my jest. You are too quick: you shall not have a stiver, No, not a coin to bless repentance with.
MELANDER Then I will pay myself, sweet: from that warm And flowering bed of kisses, I will pluck Fresh with the dews of youth one red sweet rose.
(kisses her)
Oh I have sucked out poison from your lips! Physicians say that certain maladies Are by their generating causes killed. Sweet poison, one more drop to cure the last.
ALACIEL You shall pluck no more roses from my tree. Unclasp me now or you will anger me.
MELANDER Dear, be not angry. I did but accept The written challenge peeping thro' the lids Of those delicious eyes: O shy soft eyes, Hiding with jetty fringes such a world Of swimming beauty, virgin-sweet desire, You shine like stars upon the rim of night, Like dewdrops thro' green leaves, mute orators Instinct with dropping eloquence to sway The burning heart of boyhood to your will. If I look on you long, you will seduce My acts from virtue; which to anticipate I'll kill you both with kisses, thus, and thus. Sweet, do not blush. I claim what is my own, And with my lips I seal your whole self mine From dear, dark head to dainty wild-rose feet. Or, if you will, in sanguine tumult show
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The throbbing conscience of a lover's touch, That I may watch a sea of springing rose Diffuse its gorgeous triumph in your cheeks.
ALACIEL Oh you have golden pieces on your tongue To buy your pleasure: yet this single once I'll be your fool. Come, throw me clinking coin, The thin flute-music of your flatteries. You shall have favours if you pay for them.
MELANDER His lips should dribble honey, who'd make out The style and inventory of your graces. His voice should be the fifing of mild winds To happy song of bees in rose-red June, His every word a crimson-tasselled rose, His lightest phrase a strip of cedar-wood, Each clause a nutmeg-peppered jug of cream; The very stops should argue aloes fetched By spicèd winds upon the rocking brine. What, have I earned my wage? I am athirst With praising you. Give me your lips to drink.
ALACIEL You trifle, sweet. Yours is no mint of coin But scribbled paper-specie large as wind Which I'll not take. Here comes your paedagogue To school you into more sobriety.
Alaciel retires. Enter Marcion.
MARCION Well met, Melander. Long thro' mossy paths Have I with patient footing peered thee out, Thro' shadow-sundered slopes of racing light, In ferny pales with blots of colour pricked And by the rushy marge of spuming streams
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Till lucky hazard made the Venus throw. Why art thou here? On leafy-sheltered sward Where daubs of sunlight intersperse the shade, The rubious posies thrill to mazy feet Like stars danced over by an angel's tread And strive with glimmering corollaries To make a twinkling heaven of the green. Moist blow the breezes with the myrrhy tears Of pining night, and ruffle every blade That keeps his pearls from clutch of dewy thieves Until their indignation murmur past. From airy flute, from seraph-stringed harp, A daedal rain of music drop on drop Wells fast to rule the waft of dove-like feet. The clustered edges of close-heapèd thyme, A murmurous haven sailed by merchant bees, Are crumbling into fragrance and young flowers Make fat by their decay the greedy earth, While golden youths and silver feet of girls Pass fluttering as with glimpse of gorgeous hues A fleet of moths on emigrating winds. There you shall see upon the pearled grass The forest antelope, brown Ermenild, Iamblichus the honey-hearted boy, Rose-cheeked Iamblichus with roses wreathed, And Myrtil honey-haired, our woodland moon, Myrtil the white, a silver loveliness, But tipped with gold. Thou only lingerest; Only thy voice, the pilot of our moods, Only thy thrushlips welling facile rhymes Mar the sweet harmonies of holiday With one chord missing from the clamorous harp.
MELANDER I thank you, Marcion, for your careful pain But cannot guerdon you with more than thanks. I am not well: the fumes of midnight thought
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Unfit me for a holiday attire.
MARCION Fie, fie, Melander! When have you before Denied the riches of your tongue to eke Our poorness with? The forest waits for you Dew-drenched with tears because you will not come.
MELANDER Well, I will go with you, but not for long. I'll join you where deep-cushioned in soft grass The stream turns inward like a scimitar. Go on before, I pray you. I will come.
ALACIEL There, there, I said so! you are docile, sir. Indeed I did not spy the leading-strings, But they must be there. 'Twas your paedagogue, Was it not, come to fetch the truant back?
MELANDER Dear, be not vexed with me. I will return Ere noon has dotted with her golden ball The eminence of heaven. It seems not well, When judgment has decreed the award of merit, To disappoint Persuasion of her prize. In sweetly-cultured minds civility Breathes music to the touch of wooing words.
ALACIEL Oh words and words enough! but what's the gist, The run, the purport? Tush, a chattering pie, A pie that steals and chatters, would not deign To jeer this flaunting daw. What, did he deem His gaudy colony of phrases roofed The meaning from my eyes? The prosing fool
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Fibs very vilely: why, he has not conned The rudiments and letters of his craft.
MELANDER You do miscall sincerest courtesy, Sweet courtesy that solders our conditions Into the builded structure of a state.
ALACIEL Yes, till the winds unbuild it for worse ruin. But go your way. I'll know you as a man That honeys leisure with a lovely face And coins sweet perjuries to make the hearts Of women bankrupt. No defence, I pray you. I'll have no slices of your company.
MELANDER Leave wrangling, sweet, and tell me soft and kind, Where shall I see you next? I may not tarry.
ALACIEL Why nowhere: for I'll not receive you, sir. But if you love a door shut in your face Come to my cottage on the forest's hem Where rarer thickets melt into the plain.
MELANDER Thither I will outstrip the climbing noon. For this one tedious hour, dear love, farewell.
ALACIEL I pray you, sweet, do not break promise with me, For that will kill me. I will think of you And comfort solitude with sighs and tears Until you dawn afresh, a noontide star.
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The woodlands as at first.
Foresters and girls.
Melander leans against a tree absorbed in thought: in one group Marcion and Ermenild are talking: in another Iamblichus and Myrtil: Myrtil comes forward.
MYRTIL What passion, dear Melander, numbs thy voice? Why wilt thou cherish humorous peevishness, The nursling of a moment and a mood? Now kernelled in the golden husk of day Pale night with all her pomp of sorrow sleeps, And stinted of soft-clinging melancholy The elegiac nightingale is hushed.
MELANDER Sweet friend, my spirit is too deeply hued With sombre-sweet Imagination's brush To dress the nimble spirit of the dance In lilt of phrase and honey-packing rhyme. I pray you, urge it not. I am not well.
IAMBLICHUS Urge him no more. The rash and humorous spirit That governs him at times, will not be schooled. But since the sweetest tongue of all is mute, Some harsher voice prick on the creeping hour.
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MYRTIL Ah no, Iamblichus! when winds are hushed Fall then the clapping cymbals of the sea, And every green-haired dancing-girl down-drop Her foam-tipped sinuous wand to kiss her feet! The loss of sweetest palls what is but sweet, For should the honey-throated mavis die, Who in the laughing linnet takes delight Or lends ear to the rhyming hedge-priest wren? Let us not challenge passion-pale regret, But hand-in-hand down ruby-tinted walks Gather the poppies of sweet speech, to press For opiates when dank autumn looms and Life Is empty of her rose. Were not this well?
IAMBLICHUS Thy words are sweet as joy, more wise than sorrow. Come, friends, let us steal honey from the hours For memory to suck when winter comes.
Exeunt all but Melander.
MELANDER Ah me, what drug Circean wakes in me? My blood steals from my heart like pulsing fire And the fresh sap exudes upon my brow. O faster, faster urge thy golden wheels, Thou sun that like a fiery lizard creepst Glib-footed to the parapet of heaven! Oh that my hand might clutch thy saffron curls And thrust thee in the loud Atlantic! So The violet mares of Evening may drink up The sweet, damp wind, so dawn the ivory moon And lurk shy-peeping in my darling's eyes. For my desire is like the passionate sea That calls unto her paramour the wind And only hears a strangled murmur pant, Mute, muffled by the hollow-breasted hills.
Enter Iamblichus with Myrtil in his arms.
Page 765
MYRTIL No farther drag my steps, Iamblichus! I am not fond to bow my doating neck Under your feet, like other woodland girls Who image beauty's model in your shape, Heaven in your eyes and nectar in your kiss. Fie, fie, be modest, sir. Let go your grasp.
[Here a page of the notebook was torn out.]
[MELANDER] Ah me, again a sea of subtle fire Clamours about the ruby gates of Life! My soul expanding like a Pythian seer Thrives upon torture, and the insurgent blood, Swollen as with wine, menaces mutiny. How slowly buildst thou up the spacious noon To dome thy house, O architect of day! Not from the bubbling smithy where Love works Smooth He be fetched thy world-revealing fires; Nor to the foam-bound bride-bed of the sea Thou sailest, but like one with doom foreseen Whose bourne and culmination lapses down To sunless hell. Hope thou not to set out My seasons in the golden ink of day: My heart anticipates the pilot moon Who steers the cloudy-wimpled night. Pale orb, Thou art no symbol for my burning soul: Lag thou behind or lag not, I will lead.
He is going out.
Reenter foresters with Palleas.
MARCION What's this, Melander? Noon not yet has sealed His titles with the signet of the sun. 'Tis early yet to leave. Why will you go?
Page 766
MELANDER I am bound down by iron promises, The hour named. Would I not linger else? Even now the promise has outstript the act.
MYRTIL Melander, do not go.
MELANDER Dear child, I must.
IAMBLICHUS Come, come, you shall not go. 'Tis most unkind, Let me not say uncourteous, to withdraw The sunshine of your presence from this day, Our little day of unmixed joy. Be ruled.
PALLEAS Boy, let me counsel you. This eager fit And hot eruption does much detriment To youth and bodes no good to waning years. When I was young, I ruled my dancing blood, Abstained from brabbles, women, verses, wine, And now you see me bask in hale old age, Mid Autumn's gilded ruin one green leaf. Life's palate dulls with much intemperance, And whoso breaks the law, the law shall break. Love is a specious angler—
MELANDER Dotard, off! Confide thy heavy rumours to the grave Where thou shouldst now be rotting.
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Before Alaciel's house.
GUENDOLEN But what you tell me is not credible. Could Love at the prime vision slip your fence And his red bees wing humming to your heart? What, at the premier interchange of eyes Seed bulged into the bud, the bud to flower, Bloom waxing into fruit? can passion sink Thus deep embedded in a maiden soil? Masks not your love in an unwonted guise?
ALACIEL Sweet girl, you are a casket yet unused, A fair, unprinted page. These mysteries Are alien to your grasp, until Love pen His novel lithograph and write in you Songs bubbling with the music of a name. Oh, I am faster tangled in his eyes Than, in the net smoke-blasted Vulcan threw, Foam-bosomed Cytherea to her Mars.
GUENDOLEN But will he push his fancy to your bent?
ALACIEL How else? for in the coy glance of a girl A subtle sorcery lies that draws men on
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As with a thread, nor snaps not ere it should. Love's palate is with acid flavours edged When what the lips repel, the eyes invite.
GUENDOLEN Have you forgotten then, my sister, how Since war's ensanguined dice have thrown a cast So fatal to our peace, the sweet confines Of Ilni and her primitive content Are hedged and meted by the savage Law?
ALACIEL Child, I have not forgotten; but first love Poseidon-like submerges with his sea All barriers, and the checks that men oppose But make him fret and spume against the sky. Who shall withstand him? not the gnawing flame Nor toothed rocks nor gorgon-fronted piles Nor metal bars; thro' all he walks unharmed. But lo where on the forest's lip there dawns My noonstar in the garish paths of day. He should not see you, sweet. Prithee, go in.
Enter Melander.
How now? was this your compact? Lift your glance Where yet the primrose-pale Hyperion clings Upon the purple arches of the air Nor on the cornice prints his golden seal. You are too soon. Why with this fire-eyed haste Have you o'ershot the target of your vows?
MELANDER Ah, cruel child! what hast thou done to me? What expiation in the balance pends Against thy fault? Not the low sweets of sound Fetched by thy piping tongue from ruby stops, Nor fluttering glances under velvet lids, Nor the rich tell-tale blush that sweetly steals
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As if a scarlet pencil would indite A love-song in thy cheeks. These candid brows, The hushed seraglio to thy veiled thoughts, These light wind-kissing feet, these milky paps That peep twixt edge and loosely-married edge, Thy slumber-swollen purple-fringed orbs, Thy hands, cinque-petalled rose-buds just apart Beneath the wheedling kiss of spring, thy sides, Those continents of warm, unmelting snow, All in the balance are but precious air. Nay, with thy whole dear sum of beauties fill The scale, it will not tremble to the dust Save hooped upon thy breast my weight helps thine. If you deny me my just claim, I'll snatch You from yourself and torture with the whips Of Love, till you disclose your hoardings. Oh To seize this loaded honeycomb of bliss And make a rich repast! Oh turn from me The serious wonder of those orbed fires! Their lustre stabs my heart with agony. Hide in thy hair those passion-moulded lips! Veil up those milky glimpses from my sight! Oh I will drag thy soul out in a kiss! Wilt thou add fire to fire? Torture not My longing with reluctance; forge not now The pouted simulation of disdain. Leap quick into my arms! there lose thyself.
She embraces him.
Pardon me, sweet: thy beauties in my soul Blow high the leaping billows of desire And temperance is a wreck merged in his sea.
ALACIEL Loveliest Melander, if I have offended, Here like a Roman debtor yield I up My body to thy mercy or thy doom. Take my soul too! and in thy princely pomp
Page 770
Let this rebellious heart that needs will fret To be thy slave, be dragged to thraldom. See, I hang, a lustrous jewel, on thy neck: Break me or keep me! I am thine to keep Or break: fear not to do thy utmost will.
MELANDER Hang there till thou hast grown a part of me! Ah yet, if passion be Love's natural priest Let not his fire-lipped homage scare thy soul. Thy ripe, unspotted girlhood give to me, For which the whole world yearns. A gift is sweet, And thou, O subtle thief, hast stolen my calm Who was before not indigent of bliss. Oh closer yet! Let's glue our lips together, That all eternity may be a kiss.
ALACIEL What, will you bury me with kisses? Dear, Be modest. Tell me why by a full hour You outran expectation's reaching eye?
MELANDER Inquire the glowing moon why she has dared Forestal the set nor wait the ushering star; Inquire the amorous wind, why he has plucked, Ere Autumn's breath have tampered with her hair, Petal on crimson petal the red rose: Nay, catechise the loud rebombing sea Who in a thundrous summer dim with rain Conspired with hoarse rebellious winds to merge The lonely life of ocean-wading ships; Then ask fire-footed passion why his rage Has shipwrecked me upon thy silver breasts. Ah love, thyself the culprit, thine the fault. Alaciel, thou,—O sweet unconscious sin!— Hast in my members kindled such a fire
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As only sorcery knows: which to atone Thy virgin hours must sweetly swoon to death While in the snowy summer of thy lap Kind Night shall cool these passion-melted limbs. When thou dost imitate the blushing rose, I swear thy tint is truer than the life, Than loveliness more lovely. Dearest one, Let naked Love abash the curtained prude. Shame was not made to burn thy field of roses Nor in this married excellence of hues Unfurl disorder's ruby-tinted flag.
ALACIEL Dear, if I blush, 'tis modesty, not shame. I can refuse you nothing. When 'tis night And like a smile upon a virgin's lips Young moonlight dallies with a sleepy rose, Then come and call me gently twice and thrice, And I will answer you. Observe this well In that the harsh and beldam Law excludes Nature's sweet rites and Paphian marriage Unless her bleared eyes be privy too.
MELANDER O love, have you forgot the long elapse And weary pomp of hours ere the sun That follows now a path sincere of foam Make sanguine shipwreck in the lurid west? Scarce now his golden eye drops vertical Upon the belt and midline of our scope. Shorten your sentence by a term of hours When I shall ease my pain. Turn caution out To graze in nunneries: his sober feint Of prudence suits not with a lover's tryst.
ALACIEL Content you, sweet: let patience feed on hope
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Until night's purple awning bar from view The hidden thefts of love. Nay, go not yet. Sit here awhile until yon sloping disk Swings prone above the poplar. Sweet, come in.
Page 773
Melander alone.
MELANDER Now, for her widowed state is wooed by night, The sable-vested air puts on her stars And in her bosom pins for brooch the moon. She from her diamond chalice soon will pour Her flowing glories on a rose's hair, In pity of my love. Sweet crimson rose, Alaciel's lamp, the beacon of my bliss, O kindle quickly at the moon thy rays. How happy art thou being near my love! For thou who hast the perfume of her breath, Why shouldest thou the spice-lipped Zephyr want? Her dove's-feet whispering in the happy grass Are surely lovelier to thee than the dawn; Or wilt thou woo the world-embracing orb, Who hast the splendour of her eyes to soothe Thy slumber into waking? O red rose, Might I but merge in thee, how would her touch Thrill all my petals with delicious pain! O could I pawn my beauty for a kiss, How happy were I to waste all myself In shreds of scarlet ruin at her feet! It is my hour! for see, the cowslip-curled Night-wandering patroness of lovers throws Her lantern's orange-coloured beams, where sleeps A bright, blown rose. Hail, empress of the stars! Be thou tonight my hymeneal torch. Alaciel! Echo, hush thy babbling tongue!
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'Tis not Narcissus calls. I am a thief Who steal from beauty's garden one sweet bud Nor need like visitants thy tinkling bell. Alaciel! O with thy opiate wand, Thought-killing Mercury, seal every eye On whom the drowsy Morpheus has not breathed. Yet once again the charm. Alaciel! Now at thy window dawn, thou lovelier moon Than sojourns in the sky! look out on me, An ivory face thro' rippling clouds of hair.
Enter Alaciel above.
Marcion and Doris behind.
ALACIEL Who calls?
[The next sixteen pages of the notebook were torn out.]
Page 775
A Play
BRUTUS - Prince of Britain.
CORINEUS, ASSARAC - his brothers.
DEVON - son of Corineus.
Sons of Brutus CAMBRE - Prince of Cambria. ALBANACT - Prince of Albany. LOCRINE - Prince of Leogrys. HUMBER - King of Norway.
OFFA, SIGFRID - Norwegian leaders.
GUENDOLEN - daughter of Corineus.
ESTRILD - A Pictish princess, concubine of Humber.
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The camp of Humber.
Humber, Offa, Norwegians.
HUMBER Drinkhael, dragons and stormwinds of the sea!
(drinks)
Spare not to drain this sweetened force of earth, You Vikings! How it bubbles to the lips Vigorous as newspilt blood. Drink deep, and shout "Glory to Thor and Humber!" With the sun Upon the force of Albanact we march. Shout, Norsemen! Let the heavens hear your menace. Drinkhael!
ALL Washael! Glory to ancient Thor And Humber.
HUMBER I am the hammer old of Thor When he would crush the nations. He is merry With wine and smites the world with me.
Or wherefore Should I derive my glory? Have I not Rushed through the angry waters when the whale Was stunned between two waves and slain my foe
Page 779
Betwixt the thunders? Have not the burning hamlets Of Gaul lighted me homeward for a league? Erin has felt me, Norsemen.
ALL Glory to Humber.
HUMBER Have I not slain the Alban hosts and bound The necks of princes? Yea, their glorious star And wonder for whom three kingdoms strove, Estrild, Led to my ships? The queens of the Orcades Are slaves and concubines to private Norsemen.
ALL Glory to Humber, Thor's hammer! Humber! Humber!
HUMBER Have I not harried Ireland, Denmark, Orkney? Shattered the Pictish wheels, broken their scythes, Unpeopled living tracts? Why then prefer you Thor's self to me? Has he filled up your ships With gold and wines of France, rich rings and jewels, Metals untold and beautiful sharp steel? Who has enriched and aggrandized you all Till you are gods, to each hand a country's wealth, To each sword a century's glory? Who has given The commonest man beauty divine to sleep with, Made queens your slaves and kings your thralls, you Norsemen?
ALL Humber, Humber! Not Thor, but mightier Humber.
HUMBER Drink, Norsemen. Ye shall all be kings. Scotia And Albany and Ireland shall be mine. I'll have as many kingdoms as the year
Page 780
Has moons. Do you doubt me, Vikings? Do you mutter? But you shall see my glory. Call Estrild, You thralls of Humber.
ALL Glory to great Humber! Humber shall now be Thor. He shall new-make The bones of Heimir in his hands. Cry "Humber!"
HUMBER This river we ascend, shall now no more Bear its old name but mine; and all this region Be Albany no more but Humberland. The world's name changed shall be my monument.
Enter thralls with Estrild.
ESTRILD Gods, if you be, protect me!
HUMBER Lo she whose starlike eyes enthral the nations, Comes to do reverence to Humber, glad To be his glory's meanest satellite. Kneel down, daughter of princes, favoured more Than Freya or Gudrun; for these were wives Of gods or demigods, but thou the slave Of Humber. Lo whose pleasure kingdoms strove To do, is made my footstool. I have slain Nations to win her and have ravished her Before her father's eyes, not yet made blood And faces of a hundred warlike lovers. Yet all these could not help her cries.
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ALL Humber!
OFFA The strong, the noble Humber!
HUMBER Girl, arise And serve me. Thou shalt do it royally. This is thy father's skull [incomplete]
Page 782
A Comedy
CUPID.
ATE.
KING PHILIP OF SPAIN.
COUNT BELTRAN - a nobleman.
ANTONIO - his son.
BASIL - his nephew.
COUNT CONRAD - a young nobleman.
RONCEDAS, GUZMAN - courtiers.
THE FARMER.
JACINTO - his son.
JERONIMO - a student.
CARLOS - a student.
FRIAR BALTASAR - a pedagogue.
EUPHROSYNE - the maid of the farm.
ISMENIA - sister of Conrad.
BRIGIDA - her cousin.
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The King's Court at Salamanca.
King Philip, Conrad, Beltran, Roncedas, Guzman, Antonio, Basil, Ismenia, Brigida; Grandees.
CONRAD Till when do we wait here?
RONCEDAS The Court is dull. This melancholy gains upon the King.
CONRAD I should be riding homeward. How long it is To lose the noble hours so emptily.
RONCEDAS This is a daily weariness. But look: The King has left his toying with the tassels Of the great chair and turns slow eyes to us.
KING PHILIP Count Beltran.
BELTRAN Your Highness?
KING PHILIP What is your masque's device
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For which I still must thank your loyal pains To cheer our stay in this so famous city? Shall we hear it?
BELTRAN Nothing from me, Your Highness. Castilians, forged iron of old time, And hearts that beat to tread of empires, cannot Keep pace with dances, entertainments, masques. But here's my son, a piece of modern colour, For now our forward children overstep Their rough begetters—ask him, Sire; I doubt not His answers shall reveal the grace men lend him In attribution,—would 'twere used more nobly.
KING PHILIP Your son, Lord Beltran? Surely you fatigued The holy saints in heaven and perfect martyrs In your yet hopeful youth, till they consented To your best wish. What masque, Antonio?
ANTONIO One little worthy, yet in a spirit framed That may excuse much error; 'tis the Judgment Of Paris and the Rape of Spartan Helen.
GUZMAN Is that not very old?
ISMENIA Antonio? He Antonio? O my poor eyes misled, Whither have you wandered?
BRIGIDA Hush.
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KING PHILIP It has I think Been staged a little often and though, Antonio, I doubt not that fine pen and curious staging Will raise it beyond new things rough conceived, Yet is fresh subject something.
ANTONIO For a play It were so; this is none. Pardon me, Sir, I err in boldness, urge too far my answer.
KING PHILIP Your boldness, youth, is others' modesty. Speak freely.
ANTONIO Thus I say then. A masque is heard Once only and in that once must all be grasped at But the swift action of the stage speeds on, While slow conception labouring after it Roughens its subtleties, blurs over shades, Sees masses only. If the plot is new, The mind is like a traveller pressed for time, And quite engrossed with incident, omits To take the breath of flowers and lingering shade From haste to reach a goal. But the plot old Leaves it at leisure and it culls at ease Those delicate, scarcely-heeded strokes, which art Throws in, to justify genius. These being lost Perfection's disappointed. Then if old The subject amplifies creative labour, For what's creation but to make old things Admirably new; the other's mere invention, A small gift, though a gracious. He's creator Who greatly handles great material, Calls order out of the abundant deep,
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Not who invents sweet shadows out of air.
KING PHILIP You are blessed, Lord Beltran, in your son. His voice Performs the promise of his eyes; he is A taking speaker.
ISMENIA True, O true! He has taken My heart out of my bosom.
BRIGIDA Will you hush?
KING PHILIP You have, Lord Beltran, lands of which the fame Gives much to Nature. I have not yet beheld them. Indeed I grudge each rood of Spanish earth My eyes have not perused, my heart stored up. But what with foreign boyhood, strange extraction, And hardly reaching with turmoil to power I am a stranger merely. I have swept Through beautiful Spain more like a wind than man, Now fugitive, now blown into my right On a great whirlwind of success. So tell me, Have you not many lovely things to live with?
BELTRAN My son would answer better, Sire. I care not Whether this tree be like a tower or that A dragon: and I never saw myself Difference twixt field and field, save the main one Of size, boundary and revenue; and those Were great once,—why now lessened and by whom I will not move you by repeating, Sire, Although my heart speaks of it feelingly.
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KING PHILIP I have not time for hatred or revenge. Speak then, Antonio, but tell me not Of formal French demesnes and careful parks, Life dressed like a stone lady, statuesque. They please the judging eye, but not the heart. When Nature is disnatured, all her glowing Great outlines chillingly disharmonised Into stiff lines, the heart's dissatisfied, Asks freedom, wideness; it compares the sweep Of the large heavens above and feels a discord. Your architects plan beauty by the yard, Weigh sand with sand, parallel line with line But miss the greatest, since uncultured force Though rude, yet striking home by far exceeds Artisan's work, mechanically good.
ANTONIO Our fields, Sir, are a rural holiday, Not Nature carved.
KING PHILIP Has she a voice to you? Silent, she's not so fair.
ANTONIO Yes, we have brooks Muttering through sedge and stone, and willows by them Leaning dishevelled and forget-me-nots, Wonders of lurking azure, rue and mallow, Honeysuckle and painful meadowsweet, And when we're tired of watching the rich bee Murmur absorbed about one lonely flower, Then we can turn and hear a noon of birds. Each on his own heart's quite intent, yet all Join sweetness at melodious intervals.
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KING PHILIP You have many trees?
ANTONIO Glades, Sire, and green assemblies And separate giants bending to each other As if they longed to meet. Some are pranked out; Others wear merely green like foresters.
ISMENIA Can hatred sound so sweet? Are enemies' voices Like hail of angels to the ear, Brigida?
BRIGIDA Hush, fool. We are too near. Someone will mark you.
ISMENIA Why, cousin, if they do, what harm? Sure all Unblamed may praise sweet music when they hear it.
BRIGIDA Rule your tongue, madam. Or must I leave you?
KING PHILIP You have made me sorrowful. How different Is this pale picture of a Court, these walls Shut out from honest breathing; God kept not His quarries in the wild and distant hills For such perversion. It was sin when first Hands serried stone with stone. Guzman, you are A patient reasoner,—is it not better To live in the great air God made for us, A peasant in the open glory of earth, Feeling it, yet not knowing it, like him To drink the cool life-giving brook nor crave The sour fermented madness of the grape Nor the dull exquisiteness of far-fetched viands
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For the tired palate, but black bread or maize, Mere wholesome ordinary corn. Think you not A life so in the glorious sunlight bathed, Straight nursed and suckled from the vigorous Earth With shaping labour and the homely touch Of the great hearty mother, edifies A nobler kind than nourished is in courts? For we are even as children, when removed From those her streaming breasts, we of the sun Defrauded and the lusty salutation Of wind and rain, grow up amphibious nothing, Not man, who are too sickly wise for earth Nor angel, too corrupt for heirs of heaven.
GUZMAN I think not so, Your Highness.
KING PHILIP Not so, Guzman? Is not a peasant happier than a king? For he has useful physical toil and sleep Unbroken as a child's. He is not hedged By swathing ceremony which forbids A king to feel himself a man. He has friends, For he has equals. And in youth he marries The comrade of his boyhood whom he loved And gets on that sweet helper stalwart children. Then vigorously his days endure till age Sees his grandchildren climbing on his knees, A happy calm old man; because he lived Man's genuine life and goes with task accomplished Thro' death as thro' a gate, not questioning.
GUZMAN Each creature labouring in his own vocation Desires another's and deems the heavy burden Of his own fate the world's sole heaviness.
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Each thing's to its perceptions limited, Another's are to it intangible, A shadow far away, quite bodiless, Lost in conjecture's wide impalpable. On its unceasing errand through the void The earth rolls on, a blind and moaning sphere; It knows not Venus' sorrows, but it looks With envy crying, "These have light and beauty, I only am all dark and comfortless." The land yearning for life, endeavours seaward, The sea, weary of motion, pines to turn Into reposeful earth: yet were this done Each would repine again and hate the doer, The land would miss its flowers and grass and birds, The sea long for the coral and the cave. For he who made expenditure of life Condition of that life prolonged, made also Each mortal gift dependent on defect And truth to one's own self the only virtue. The labourer physically is divine, Inward a void; yet in his limits blest. But were the city's cultured son, who turns Watching and envious, crying "Were I simple, Primeval in my life as he, how happy!", Into such environs confined, how then His temperament would beat against the bars Of circumstance and rage for wider field. Uninterchangeable their natures stand And self-confined; for so Earth made them, Earth, The brute and kindly mother groping for mind. She of her vigorous nature bore her sons, Made lusty with her milk and strengthening motion Abundant in her veins; her dumb attraction Is as their mother's arms, else like the lark Aiming from her to heaven. And Souls are there Who rooted in her puissant animalism Are greatly earthy, yet widen to the bound
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And heighten towards the sun. But these are rare And of no privileged country citizens Nor to the city bounded nor the field. They are wise and royal in the furrow, keep In schools their chastened vigour from the soil Full-tempered. Man Antaeuslike is strong While he is natural and feels the soil From which being lifted great communities Die in their intellectual grandeur. Let then The city's many-minded son preserve And the clear-natured peasant unabridged Their just, great uses, heighten or refresh By breath and force of each a different spirit If may be; one not admit untutored envy, The other vain imagination making Return to nature a misleading name For a reversion most unnatural.
KING PHILIP You reason well, Guzman; nor must we pine At stations where God and his saints have set us. And yet because I'ld feel the rural air, Of greatness unreminded, I will go Tomorrow as a private noble, you, My lords, forget for one day I'm the king, Nor watch my moods, nor with your eyes wait on me Nor disillusionize by close observance But keep as to an equal courtesy.
MAJORDOMO Your Majesty—
KING PHILIP Well, sir, Your Ancient Wisdom—
MAJORDOMO The Kings of Spain—
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KING PHILIP Are absolute, you'ld say, Over men only? Custom masters kings. I'll not be ruled by your stale ceremonies As kings are by an arrogating Senate, But will control them, wear them when I will, Walk disencumbered when I will. Enough. You have done your part in protest. I have heard you. And now, my lords.
LORDS Your Highness is obeyed.
KING PHILIP Tell on, Antonio. Who perform the masque?
BELTRAN That can I tell Your Highness; rural girls, The daughters of the soil, whom country air Has given the red-blooded health to bloom. Full of our Spanish sunlight are they, voiced Like Junos and will make our ladies pale Before them. And there's a Farmer's lovely daughter, A marvel. Robed in excellent apparel, As she will be, there's not a maid in Spain Can stand beside her and stay happy. My sons Have spared nor words nor music nor array Nor beauty, to express their loyal duty.
KING PHILIP I am much graced by this their gentle trouble And yet, Lord Beltran, there are nobler things Than these brocaded masques; not that I scorn these,— Do not believe I would be so ungracious,— Nor anything belittle in which true hearts Interpret their rich silence. Yet there's one Desire, I would exchange for many masques.
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'Tis little: an easy word bestows it wholly, And yet, I fear, for you too difficult.
BELTRAN My lord, you know my service and should not Doubt my compliance. Name and take it. Else judge me.
KING PHILIP Why, noble reconcilement, Conde Beltran, Sweet friendship between mighty jarring houses And by great intercession war renounced Betwixt magnificent hearts: these are the masques Most sumptuous, these the glorious theatres That subjects should present to princes. Conrad And noble Beltran, I respect the wrath Sunders your pride: yet mildness has the blessing Of God and is religion's perfect mood. Admit that better weakness. Throw your hearts Wide to the low knock of entering peace: let not The ashes of a rage the world renounces Smoulder between you nor outdated griefs Keep living. What, quite silent? Will you, Conrad, Refuse to me your anger, who so often Have for my sake your very life renounced?
CONRAD My lord, the hate that I have never cherished, I know not how to abandon. Not in the sway Of other men's affections I have lived But walked in the straight road my fortunes build me. Let any love who will or any hate who will, I take both with a calm, unburdened spirit, Inarm my lover as a friend, embrace My enemy as a wrestler: do my will, Because it is my will, go where I go Because my path lies there. If any cross me, That is his choice, not mine. And if he suffer,
Page 797
Again it is his choice, not mine. If I, That is my star: I curse him not for it: My fate's beyond his making as my spirit's Above affection by him. I hate no man And if Lord Beltran give to me his hand, Gladly I'll clasp it, easily forget Outdated injuries and wounds long healed.
BELTRAN You are most noble, Conrad, most benign. Who now can say the ill-doer ne'er forgives? Conrad has dispossessed my kinsmen, slain My vassals, me of ancient lands relieved, Thinned my great house; but Beltran is forgiven. Will you not now enlarge your generous nature, Wrong me still more, have new and ampler room For exercise to your forgiving heart? I do embrace misfortune and fresh loss Before your friendship, lord.
KING PHILIP No more of this.
BELTRAN Pardon, Your Highness; this was little praise For so much Christianity. Lord Conrad, I will not trouble you further. And perhaps With help of the good saints and holy Virgin I too shall make me some room to pardon in.
CONRAD I fear you not, Lord Count. Our swords have clashed: Mine was the stronger. When I was but a boy I carved your lands out. So had you won mine If you had simply grappled fortune to you And kept her faithful with your sword. 'Tis not Crooked dexterity that has the secret
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To win her. Briefly I hold your lands and satire Has no sharp edge, till it cut that from me.
KING PHILIP This is unprofitable. No more of it. Lord Conrad, you go homeward with the dawn?
CONRAD Winning your gracious leave to have with me My sisters, Sir.
KING PHILIP The Queen is very loth To lose her favourites, but to disappoint you Much more unwilling.
Exeunt King, Beltran, Guzman and Grandees.
RONCEDAS A word with you, Lord Conrad.
CONRAD As many as you will, Roncedas.
RONCEDAS This. (whispers) My lord, your good friend always.
CONRAD So you have been.
Exit Roncedas.
Cousin, and sweetest sister, I am bound Homeward upon a task that needs my presence. Don Mario and his wife will bring you there. Are you content or shall I stay for you?
ISMENIA With all you do, dear brother, yet would have
Page 799
Your blessing by me.
CONRAD May your happiness Greatly exceed my widest wishes.
Exit Conrad.
ISMENIA So It must do, brother, or I am unhappy. What task?
BRIGIDA Some girl-lifting. What other task Will he have now? Shall we go, cousin?
ISMENIA Stay. Let us not press so closely after them.
BRIGIDA Good manners? Oh, your pardon. I was blind.
BASIL Are you a lover or a fish, Antonio? Speak. She yet lingers.
ANTONIO Speak?
BASIL The devil remove you Where you can never more have sight of her. I lose all patience.
BRIGIDA Cousin, I know you're tired
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With standing. Sit, and if you tire with that, As perseverance is a powerful virtue, For your reward the dumb may speak to you.
ISMENIA What shall I do, dear girl?
BRIGIDA Why, speak the first, Count Conrad's sister! Be the Mahomet To your poor mountain. Hang me if I think not The prophet's hill more moveable of the two; An earthquake stirs not this. What ails the man? He has made a wager with some lamp-post surely.
ISMENIA Brigida, are you mad? Be so immodest? A stranger and my house's enemy!
BRIGIDA No, never speak to him. It would be indeed Horribly forward.
ISMENIA Why, you jest, Brigida. I'm no such light thing that I must be dumb Lest men mistake my speaking. Let hidden frailness Or men suspect to their own purity Guard every issue of speech and gesture. Wherefore Should I be hedged so meanly in? To greet With few words, cold and grave, as is befitting This gentle youth, why do you call immodest?
BRIGIDA You must not.
Page 801
ISMENIA Must not? Why, I will.
BRIGIDA I say, You must not, child.
ISMENIA I will then, not because I wish (why should I?), but because you always Provoke me with your idle prudities.
BRIGIDA Good! you've been wishing it the last half hour And now you are provoked to't. Charge him, charge him. I stand here as reserve.
ISMENIA Impossible creature! But no! You shall not turn me.
BRIGIDA 'Twas not my meaning.
ISMENIA Sir—
BASIL Rouse yourself, Antonio. Gather back Your manhood, or you're shamed without retrieval.
ISMENIA Help me, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Not I, cousin.
Page 802
ISMENIA Sir, You spoke divinely well. I say this, Sir, Not to recall to you that we have met— Since you will not remember—but because I would not have you—anyone think this of me That since you are Antonio and my enemy And much have hurt me—to the heart, therefore When one speaks or does worthily, I can Admire not, nor love merit, whosoe'er Be its receptacle. This was my meaning. I could not bear one should not know this of me. Therefore I spoke.
BASIL Speak or be dumb for ever.
ISMENIA I see, you have mistook me why I spoke And scorn me. Sir, you may be right to think You have so sweet a tongue would snare the birds From off the branches, ravish an enemy,— Some such poor wretch there may be—witch her heart out, If you could care for anything so cheap, And hold it in your hand, lost,—lost—Oh me! Brigida!
BASIL O base silence! Speak! She is Confounded. Speak, you sheep, you!
ISMENIA Though this is so, You do me wrong to think me such an one, Most flagrant wrong, Antonio. To think that I Wait one word of your lips to woo you, yearn To be your loving servant at a word
Page 803
From you,—one only word and I am yours.
BASIL Admirable lady! Saints, can you be dumb Who hear this?
ISMENIA Still you scorn me. For all this You shall not make me angry. Do you imagine Because you know I am Lord Conrad's sister And lodge with Donna Clara Santa Cruz In the street Velasquez, and you have seen it With marble front and the quaint mullioned windows, That you need only after vespers, when The streets are empty, stand there, and I will Send one to you? Indeed, indeed I merit not You should think poorly of me. If you're noble And do not scorn me, you will carefully Observe the tenour of my prohibition. Brigida!
BRIGIDA Come away with your few words, Your cold grave words. You've frozen his speech with them.
ANTONIO Heavens! it was she—her words were not a dream, Yet I was dumb. There was a majesty Even in her tremulous playfulness, a thrill When she smiled most, made my heart beat too quickly For speech. O that I should be dumb and shamefast, When with one step I might grasp Paradise.
BASIL Antonio!
Page 804
ANTONIO I was not deceived. She blushed, And the magnificent scarlet to her cheeks Welled from her heart an ocean inexhaustible. Rose but outcrimsoned rose. Yes, every word Royally marred the whiteness of her cheeks With new impossibilities of beauty. She blushed, and yet as with an angry shame Of that delicious weakness, gallantly Her small imperious head she held erect And strove in vain to encourage those sweet lids That fluttered lower and lower. O that but once My tongue had been as bold as were mine eyes! But these were fastened to her as with cords, Courage in them naked necessity.
BASIL Ah poor Antonio. You're bewitched, you're maimed, Antonio. You must make her groan who did this. One sense will always now be absent from him. Lately he had no tongue. Now that's returned His ears are gone on leave. Hark you, Antonio! Why do we stay here?
ANTONIO I am in a dream. Lead where you will, since there is no place now In all the world, but only she or silence.
Page 805
A garden at the town-house of Count Beltran.
Antonio, Basil.
BASIL I am abashed for you. What, make a lady Woo you, and she a face so excellent, Of an address so admirably lovely It shows a goddess in her—at each sentence Let pause to give you opportunity, Then shame with the dead silence of the hall For her continual answer. Fie, you're not Antonio, you're not Beltran's issue. Seek Your kindred in the snowdrifts of the Alps, Or call a post your father.
ANTONIO I deserve Your censure, Basil. Yet were it done again, I know I should again be dumb. My tongue Teems in imagination but is barren In actuality. When I am from her, I woo her with the accent of a god, My mind o'erflows with words as the wide Nile With waters. Let her but appear and I Am her poor mute. She may do her will with me And O remember but her words. When she, Ah she, my white divinity with that kindness Celestial in the smiling of her eyes And in her voice the world's great music, rose Of blushing frankness, half woman and half angel, Crowned me unwooed, lavished on me her heart
Page 806
In her prodigious liberality, Could I then speak? O to have language then Had been the index to a shallow love.
BASIL Away! you modest lovers are the blot Of manhood, traitors to our sovereignty. I'ld have you banished, all of you, and kept In desert islands, where no petticoat Should enter, so the breed of you might perish.
ANTONIO You speak against the very sense of Love Which lives by service.
BASIL Flat treason! Was not man made Woman's superior that he might control her, In strength to exact obedience and in wisdom To guide her will, in wit to keep her silent, Three Herculean labours. O were women Once loose, they would new-deluge earth with words, Sapiently base creation on its apex, Logic would be new-modelled, arithmetic Grow drunk and reason despairing abdicate. No thunderbolt could stop a woman's will, Once it is started.
ANTONIO O you speak at ease. Loved you, you would recant this and without small Torture to quicken you.
BASIL I? I recant? I wish, Antonio, I had known your case Earlier. I would have taught you how to love.
Page 807
ANTONIO Come, will you woo a woman? Teach me at least By diagram upon a blackboard.
BASIL Well, I will so, if it should hearten your weak spirits. And now I think of it, I am resolved I'll publish a new Art of Love, shall be The only Ovid memorable.
ANTONIO Well, quickly teach Your diagram. Suppose your maid and win her.
BASIL First, I would kiss her.
ANTONIO What, without leave asked?
BASIL Leave? Ask a woman leave to kiss her! Why, What was she made for else?
ANTONIO If she is angry?
BASIL So much the better. Then you by repetition Convince her of your manly strength, which is A great point gained at the outset and moreover Your duty, comfortable to yourself. Besides she likes it. On the same occasion When she will scold, I'll silence her with wit. Laughter breaks down impregnable battlements. Let me but make her smile and there is conquest
Page 808
Won by the triple strength, horse, foot, artillery, Of eloquence, wit and muscle. Then but remains Pacification, with or else without The Church's help; that's a mere form and makes No difference to the principle.
ANTONIO There should be Inquisitions for such as you. What after?
BASIL Nothing unless you wish to assure the conquest, Not plunder it merely like a Tamerlane. I'll teach that also. 'Tis but making her Realise her inferiority. Unanswerably and o'erwhelmingly Show her how fortunate she is to get you And all her life too short for gratitude; That you have robbed her merely for her good, To civilize her or to train her up: Punish each word that shows want of affection. Plague her to death and make her thank you for it. Accustom her to sing hosannas to you When you beat her. All this is ordinary, And every wise benevolent conqueror Has learnt the trick of it. Then she'll love for ever.
ANTONIO You are a Pagan and would burn for this If Love still kept his Holy Office.
BASIL I Am safe from him.
ANTONIO And therefore boast securely
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Conducting in imagination wars That others have the burden of. I've seen The critical civilian in his chair Win famous victories with wordy carnage, Guide his strategic finger o'er a map, Cry "Eugene's fault! Here Marlborough was to blame; And look, a child might see it, Villars' plain error That lost him Malplaquet!" I think you are Just such a pen-and-paper strategist. A wooer!
BASIL Death! I will have pity on you, Antonio. You shall see my great example And learn by me.
ANTONIO Good! I'm your pupil. But hear, A pretty face or I'll not enter for her, Wellborn or I shall much discount your prowess.
BASIL Agreed. And yet they say, Experimentum In corpore vili. But I take your terms Lest you substract me for advantages.
ANTONIO Look where the enemy comes. You are well off If you can win her.
BASIL A rare face, by Heaven. Almost too costly a piece of goods for this Mad trial.
ANTONIO You sound retreat?
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BASIL Not I an inch. Watch how I'll overcrow her.
ANTONIO Hush, she's here.
Enter Brigida.
BRIGIDA Señor, I was bidden to deliver this letter to you.
BASIL To me, sweetheart?
BRIGIDA I have the inventory of you in my pock, if you be he truly. I will study it. Hair of the ordinary poetic length—no; dress indefinable—no; a modest address—I think not you, Señor; a noble manner—Pooh, no! that fits not in; a handsome face—I am sure not you, Señor.
BASIL Humph.
ANTONIO Well, cousin. All silent? Open your batteries, open your batteries.
BASIL Wait, wait. Ought a conqueror to be hurried? Caesar himself must study his ground before he attempts it. You will hear my trumpets instanter.
BRIGIDA Will you take your letter, Sir?
Page 811
ANTONIO To me then, maiden? A dainty-looking note, and I marvel much from whom it can be. I do not know the handwriting. A lady's, seemingly, yet it has a touch of the masculine too—there is rapidity and initiative in its flow. Fair one, from whom comes this?
BRIGIDA Why, sir, I am not her signature; which if you will look within, I think you will find unforgotten.
BASIL Here is a clever woman, Antonio, to think of that, and she but eighteen or a miracle.
ANTONIO Well, cousin?
BRIGIDA This Don Witty-pate eyes me strangely. I fear he will recognise me.
ANTONIO Ismenia Ostrocadiz. O my joy!
BRIGIDA You're ill, sir, you change colour.
ANTONIO Now, by heaven, Were death within my heart's door or his blast Upon my eyelids, this would exile him. The writing swims before me.
BRIGIDA Sir, you pale Extremely. Is there no poison in the letter?
Page 812
ANTONIO O might I so be poisoned hourly. Let me No longer dally with my happiness, Lest it take wings or turn a dream. Hail, letter, For thou hast come from that white hand I worship. "To Lord Antonio. Señor, how you may deem of my bold wooing, How cruelly I suffer in your thoughts, I dread to think. Take the plain truth, Antonio. I cannot live without your love. If you From this misdoubt my nobleness or infer A wanton haste or instability,— As men pretend quick love is quickly spent— Tear up this letter, and with it my heart. And yet I hope you will not tear it. I love you And since I saw our family variance And your too noble fearfulness withhold me From my heart's lord, I have thrown from me shame And the admired dalliance of women To bridge it. Come to me, Antonio! Come, But come in honour. I am not nor can be So far degenerate from my house's greatness Or my pure self to love ignobly. Dear, I have thrown from me modesty's coy pretences But the reality I'll grapple to me Close as your image. I am loth to end, Yet must, and therefore will I end with this, Beloved, love me, respect me or forget me." Writing more sweet than any yet that came From heaven to earth, O thou dear revelation, Make my lips holy. Ah, could I imagine Thee the white hand that wrote thee, I were blest Utterly. Thou hast made me twice myself. I think I am another than Antonio: The sky seems nearer to me or the earth Environed with a sacred light. O come! I'll study to imprint this on my heart,
Page 813
That when death comes he'll find it there and leave it, A monument and an immortal writing.
BASIL Damsel, you are of the Lady Ismenia's household?
BRIGIDA A poor relative of hers, Señor.
BASIL Your face seems strangely familiar to me. Have I not seen you in some place where I constantly resort?
BRIGIDA O Sir, I hope you do not think so meanly of me. I am a poor girl but an honest.
BASIL How, how?
BRIGIDA I know not how. I spoke only as the spirit moved me.
BASIL You have a marvellously nimble tongue. Two words with you.
BRIGIDA Willingly, Señor, if you exceed not measure.
BASIL Fair one—
BRIGIDA Oh, sir, I am glad I listened. I like your two words extremely. God be with you.
Page 814
BASIL Why, I have not begun yet.
BRIGIDA The more shame to your arithmetic. If your teacher had reckoned as loosely with his cane-cuts, he would have made the carefuller scholar.
BASIL God's wounds, will you listen to me?
BRIGIDA Well, Sir, I will not insist upon numbers. But pray, for your own sake, swear no more. No eloquence will long stand such drafts upon it.
BASIL If you would listen, I would tell you a piece of news that might please you.
BRIGIDA Let it be good news, new news and repeatable news and I will thank you for it.
BASIL Sure, maiden, you are wondrous beautiful.
BRIGIDA Señor, Queen Anne is dead. Tell me the next.
BASIL The next is, I will kiss you.
BRIGIDA Oh, Sir, that's a prophecy. Well, death and kissing come to all of us, and by what disease the one or by whom the other, wise men care not to forecast. It profits little to study calamities
Page 815
beforehand. When it comes, I pray God I may learn to take it with resignation, if I cannot do better.
BASIL By my life, I will kiss you and without farther respite.
BRIGIDA On what ground?
BASIL Have I not told you, you are beautiful?
BRIGIDA So has my mirror, not once but a hundred times, and never yet offered to kiss me. When it does, I'll allow your logic. No, we are already near enough to each other. Pray keep your distance.
BASIL I will establish my argument with my lips.
BRIGIDA I will defend mine with my hand. I promise you 'twill prove the abler dialectician of the two.
BASIL Well.
BRIGIDA I am glad you think so, Señor. My lord, I cannot stay. What shall I tell my lady?
ANTONIO Tell her my heart is at her feet, and I Am hers, hers only until heaven ceases And after. Tell her that I am more blest In her sweet condescension to my humbleness Than Ilian Anchises when Love's mother
Page 816
Stooped from her golden heavens into his lap. Tell her that as a goddess I revere her And as a saint adore; that she and life Are one to me, for I've no heart but her, No atmosphere beyond her pleasure, light But what her eyes allow me. Tell, O tell her—
BRIGIDA Hold, hold, Señor. You may tell her all this yourself. I would not remember the half of it and could not understand the other half. Shall I tell her, you will come surely?
ANTONIO As sure as is the sun to its fixed hour Or midnight to its duty. I will come.
BRIGIDA Good! there are at last three words a poor girl can understand. Mark then, you will wait a while after nightfall, less than half a bowshot from the place you know towards the Square Velasquez, within sight of the Donna's windows. There I will come to you. Sir, if your sword be half as ready and irresistible as your tongue, I would gladly have you there with him, though Saint Iago grant that neither prove necessary. You look sad, Sir. God save you for a witty and eloquent gentleman.
ANTONIO O cousin, I am bewitched with happiness. Pardon me that I leave you. Solitude Demands a god and godlike I am grown Unto myself. This letter deifies me. I will be sole with my felicity.
BASIL God grant that I am not bewitched also! Saints and angels! How
Page 817
is it? How did it happen? Is the sun still in heaven? Is that the song of a bird or a barrel-organ? I am not drunk either. I can still distinguish between a tree and the squirrel upon it. What, am I not Basil? whom men call the witty and eloquent Basil? Did I not laugh from the womb? Was not my first cry a jest upon the world I came into? Did I not invent a conceit upon y mother's milk ere I had sucked of it? Death! and have I been bashed and beaten by the tongue of a girl? silenced by a common purveyor of impertinences? It is so and yet it cannot be. I begin to believe in the dogmas of the materialist. The gastric juice rises in my estimation. Genius is after all only a form of indigestion, a line of Shakespeare the apotheosis of a leg of mutton and the peculations of Plato an escape of diseased tissue arrested in the permanency of ink. What did I break my fast with this morning? Kippered herring? bread? marmalade? tea? O kippered herring, art thou the material form of stupidity and is marmalade an enemy of wit? It must be so. O mighty gastric juice! Mother and Saviour! I bow down before thee. Be propitious, fair goddess, to thy adorer.
Arise, Basil. Today thou shalt retrieve thy tarnished laurels or be expunged for ever from the book of the witty. Arm thyself in full panoply of allusion and irony, gird on raillery like a sword and repartee like a buckler. I will meet this girl tonight. I will tund her with conceits, torture her with ironies, tickle her with jests, prick her all over with epigrams. My wit shall smother her, tear her, burst her sides, press her to death, hang her, draw her, quarter her, and if all this fails, Death! as a last revenge, I'll—I'll beat her. Saints!
Page 818
Ismenia's chamber.
ISMENIA Brigida lingers. O, he has denied me And therefore she is loth to come, for she Knows she will bring me death. It is not so. He has detained her to return an answer. Yet I asked none. I am full of fear. O heart, I have staked thee upon a desperate cast, Which if I win not, I am miserable. 'Tis she. O that my hope could give her wings Or lift her through the window bodily To shorten this age of waiting. I could not Discern her look. Her steps sound hopefully.
Dearest Brigida! at last! What says Antonio? Tell me quickly. Heavens! you look melancholy.
BRIGIDA Santa Catarina! How weary I am! My ears too! I think they have listened to more nonsense in these twenty minutes than in all their natural eighteen years before. Sure, child, thou hast committed some unpardonable sin to have such a moonstruck lover as this Antonio.
ISMENIA But, Brigida!
BRIGIDA And his shadow too, his Cerberus of wit who guards this poetical treasure. He would have eaten me, I think, if I had not given him
Page 819
the wherewithal to stop the three mouths of him.
ISMENIA Why, Brigida, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Saints! to think how men lie! I have heard this Basil reputed loudly for the Caesar of wits, the tongue and laughter of the time; but never credit me, child, if I did not silence him with a few stale pertnesses a market-girl might have devised for her customers. A wit, truly! and not a word in his mouth bullet-head Pedro could not better.
ISMENIA Distraction! What is this to Antonio? Sure, your wits are bewildered, Brigida. What said Antonio? Girl, I am on thorns.
BRIGIDA I am coming to that as fast as possible. Jesus! What a burning hurry you are in, Ismenia! You have not your colour, child. I will bring you sal volatile from my chamber. 'Tis in a marvellous cut bottle with a different hue to each facet! I filched it from Donna Clara's room when she was at matins yesterday.
ISMENIA Tell me, you magpie, tell me.
BRIGIDA What am I doing else? You must know I found Antonio was in his garden. Oh, did I tell you, Ismenia? Donna Clara chooses the seeds for me this season and I think she has as rare a notion of nasturtiums as any woman living. I was speaking to Pedro in the summer house yesterday; for you remember it thundered terrifically before one had time to know light from darkness; and there I stood miles from the garden door—
Page 820
ISMENIA In the name of pity, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Saints! how you hurry me. Well, when I went to Antonio in his garden—There's an excellent garden, Ismenia. I wonder where Don Beltran's gardener had his bignonias.
ISMENIA Oh-h-h!
BRIGIDA Well, where was I? Oh, giving the letter to Antonio. Why, would you believe it, in thrust Don Wit, Don Cerberus, Don Subtle- three-mouths.
ISMENIA Will you tell me, you ogress, you paragon of tyrannesses, you she-Nero, you compound of impossible cruelties?
BRIGIDA Saints, what have I done to be abused so? I was coming to it faster than a mail-coach and four. You would not be so unconscionable as to ask me for the appendage of a story, all tail and nothing to hang it on? Well, Antonio took the letter.
ISMENIA Yes, yes and what answer gave he?
BRIGIDA He looked all over the envelope to see whence it came, dissertated learnedly on this knotty question, abused me your handwriting foully.
ISMENIA Dear cousin, sweet cousin, excellent Brigida! On my knees, I entreat you, do not tease me longer. Though I know you would
Page 821
not do it, if all were not well, yet consider what a weak tremulous thing is the heart of woman when she loves and have pity on me. On my knees, sweetest.
BRIGIDA Why, Ismenia, I never knew you so humble in my life,—save indeed to your brother; but him indeed I do not reckon. He would rule even me if I let him. On your knees, too! This is excellent. May I be lost, if I am not tempted to try how long I can keep you so. But I will be merciful. Well, he scanned your handwriting and reviled it for the script of a virago, an Amazon.
ISMENIA Brigida, if you will not tell me directly, without phrase and plainly, just what I want to know and nothing else, by heaven, I will beat you.
BRIGIDA Now, this is foul. Can you not keep your better mood for fifty seconds by the clock? O temper, temper. Ah well, where was I? Oh yes, your handwriting. Oh! Oh! Oh! What mean you, cousin? Lord deliver me. Cousin! Cousin! He will come! He will come! He will come!
ISMENIA Does he love me?
BRIGIDA Madly! distractedly! like a moonstruck natural! Saints!
ISMENIA Dearest, dearest Brigida! You are an angel. How can I thank you?
BRIGIDA Child, you have thanked me out of breath already. If you have not dislocated my shoulder and torn half my hair out.
Page 822
ISMENIA Hear her, the Pagan! A gentle physical agitation and some rearrangement of tresses, 'twas less punishment than you deserved. But there! that is salve for you. And now be sober, sweet. What said Antonio? Come, tell me. I am greedy to know.
BRIGIDA I'll be hanged if I do. Besides I could not if I would. He talked poetry.
ISMENIA But did he not despise me for my forwardness?
BRIGIDA Tut, you are childish. But to speak the bare fact, Ismenia, I think he is most poetically in love with you. He made preparations to swoon when he no more than saw your name; but I build nothing on that; there are some faint when they smell a pinch of garlic or spy a cockchafer. But he wasted ten minutes copying your letter into his heart or some such note-book of love affairs; yet that was nothing either; I doubt if he found room for you, unless on the margin. Then he began drawing cheques on Olympus for comparisons, left that presently as antique and out of date, confounded Ovid and his breviary in the same quest; left that too for mediaeval, and diverged into Light and Heat, but came not to the very modernness of electricity. But Lord! Cousin, what a career he ran! He had imagined himself blind and breathless when I stopped him. I tremble to think what calamities might have ensued, had I not thrown myself under the wheels of his metaphor. The upshot is, he loves you, worships you and will come to you.
ISMENIA O Brigida, Brigida, be you as happy as you have made me.
BRIGIDA Truly, the happiness of lovers, children with a new plaything and
Page 823
mad to handle it. But when they are tired of the game—No, I'll be the type and patroness of all spinsters and the noble army of old maids shall gather about my tomb to do homage to me.
ISMENIA And he will come tonight?
BRIGIDA Yes, if his love lasts so long.
ISMENIA For a thousand years. Come with me, Brigida, and help me to bear my happiness. Till tonight!
Page 824
A street in Madrid.
ANTONIO This is the place.
BASIL 'Tis farther.
ANTONIO This, I know it. Here's the square Velasquez. There in his saddle Imperial Charles watches the silent city His progeny could not keep. Where the one light Stands beckoning to us, is Don Mario's dwelling. O thou celestial lustre, wast thou kindled To be her light who is my sun? If so, Thou art most happy. For thou dost inherit The sanctuary of her dear sleep and art The confidant of those sweet secrecies. Though thou live for a night, yet is thy short And noble ministry more rich and costly Than ages of the sun. For thou hast seen, O blessed, her unveiled and gleaming shoulder Make her thick-treasured hair more precious. Thou Hast watched that face upon her heavenly pillow Slumbering amid its peaceful curls. O more! For thou perhaps hast laid one brilliant finger On her white breast mastered with sacred sleep, And there known Paradise. Therefore thou'rt famous Above all lights that human hands have kindled.
Page 825
BASIL Here's a whole epic on an ounce of oil, A poor, drowned wick bought from the nearest chandler And a fly sodden in it.
ANTONIO Listen! one comes.
BASIL Stand back, abide not question.
ANTONIO They'll not doubt us. We are far from the building.
BASIL Am I mad? Do you think I'll trust a lover? Why, you could not Even ask the time but you would say, "Good sir, How many minutes to Ismenia?"
ANTONIO Well, Stand back.
BASIL No need. I see it. 'Tis the she-guide, The feminine Mercury, the tongue, the woman.
Hark to the bell now.
BRIGIDA You, my lord Antonio? This way, my lord.
ANTONIO Which way you will. I know
Page 826
You are my guide to heaven.
BRIGIDA O you have come? I take this kindly of you, Señor. Tell me, Were you not hiding when I came up to you? What was it, Sir? A constable or perhaps A creditor? For to be dashed by a weak girl I know you are too bold. What did you say? I did not hear you. We are there, my lord. Now quietly, if you love her, your sweet lady.
(to Basil)
Can you be silent, Señor? We are lost else.
Page 827
Ismenia's antechamber.
Ismenia waiting.
ISMENIA It is too dark. I can see nothing. Hark! Surely it was the door that fastened then. My heart, control thyself! Thou beatst too quickly And wilt break in the arms of happiness. Brigida.
BRIGIDA Here. Enter, my lord, and take her.
ANTONIO Ismenia!
ISMENIA Antonio, O Antonio!
ANTONIO My heart's dearest.
BRIGIDA Bring your wit this way, Sir. It is not needed.
Exit with Basil.
ISMENIA O not thus! You shame me. This is my place, dear, at your feet; and then Higher than is my right.
Page 828
ANTONIO I cannot suffer Blasphemy to touch my heaven, though your lips Have hallowed it. Highest were low for you. You are a goddess and adorable.
ISMENIA Alas, Antonio, this is not the way. I fear you do not love me, you despise me. Come, do you not despise me?
ANTONIO The leaf might then Despise the moonbeam that has come to kiss it. I love and reverence.
ISMENIA Then you must take me, As I have given myself to you, your servant, Yours wholly, not to be prayed to and hymned As a divinity but to be commanded As a dear handmaid. You must rule me, sweet, Or I shall spoil with liberty and lose you.
ANTONIO Must I? I will then. Yet you are so queenly, I needs must smile when I attempt it. Come, Shall I command you?
ISMENIA Do, sweet.
ANTONIO Lay your head Upon my shoulder so and do not dare To lift it till I give you leave.
Page 829
ISMENIA Alas, I fear you'll be a tyrant. And I meant To bear at most a limited monarchy.
ANTONIO No murmuring. Answer my questions.
ISMENIA Well, That's easy and I will.
ANTONIO And truly.
ISMENIA Oh, But that's almost impossible. I'll try.
ANTONIO Come, when did you first love me?
ISMENIA Dear, today.
ANTONIO When will you marry me?
ISMENIA Tomorrow, dear.
ANTONIO Here is a mutinous kingdom to my hands. Now truly.
ISMENIA Truly then, seven days ago,
Page 830
No more than seven, at the court I saw you, And with the sight my life was troubled, heard you And your voice tore my heart out. O Antonio, I was an empty thing until today. I saw you daily, but because I feared What now I know, you were Lord Beltran's son, I dared not ask your name, nay shut my ears To knowledge. O my love, I am afraid. Your father seems a hard vindictive man. What will you do with me, Antonio?
ANTONIO Fasten My jewel safe from separating hands Holily on my bosom. My father? He Shall know not of our love, till we are sure From rude disunion. Though he will be angry I am his eldest and beloved son, And when he feels your sweetness and your charm He will repent and thank me for a daughter.
ISMENIA When 'tis your voice that tells me, I believe Impossibilities. Well, let me know— You've made me blush, Antonio, and I wish I could retaliate—were you not amazed At my mad forwardness, to woo you first, A youth unknown?
ANTONIO Yes, even as Adam was When he first saw the sunrise over Eden. It was unsunlike to uplift the glory Of those life-giving rays, unwooed, uncourted.
ISMENIA Alas, you flatter. Did you love me, Antonio?
Page 831
ANTONIO Three days before I had the bliss to win The wonder of your eyes.
ISMENIA Three days! Oh me, Three days, Antonio? Three whole days before I loved you?
ANTONIO Three days, dearest.
ISMENIA Oh, You've made me jealous. I am angry. Three Whole days! How could it happen?
ANTONIO I will make You compensation, dear; for in revenge I'll love you three whole days, when you have ceased To love me.
ISMENIA O not even in jest, Antonio, Speak of such separation. Sooner shall The sun divorce his light than we two sunder. But you have given me a spur. I must Love you too much, I must, Antonio, more Than you love me, or the account's not even. A noise?
ANTONIO One passes in the street.
ISMENIA We are
Page 832
Too near the window and too heedless, love. Come this way; here 'tis safe; I fear your danger.
Exeunt. After a while enter Brigida.
BRIGIDA No sound? Señor! Ismenia! Surely they cannot have embraced each other into invisibility. No, Cupid has flown away with them. It cannot have been the devil, for I smell no brimstone. Well, if they are so tedious I will not mortify myself with solitude either. I have set Don Cerberus on the stairs out of respect for the mythology. There he stands with his sword at point like the picture of a sentinel and protects us against a surprise of rats from the cellar; for what other wild beasts there may be to menace us, I know not. Don Mario snores hard and Donna Clara plays the violin to his bassoon. I have heard them three rooms off. These men! these men! and yet they call themselves our masters. I would I could find a man fit to measure tongues with me. I begin to feel lonely in the Alpine elevation of my own wit. The meditations of Matterhorn come home to me and I feel a sister to Monte Rosa. Certainly this woman's fever is catching, a most calamitous infection. I have overheard myself sighing; it is a symptom incubatory. Heigh-ho! When turtles pair, I never heard that the magpie lives lonely. I have at this moment a kindly thought for all suffering animals. I begin to pity Cerberus even. I will relieve him from guard. Hist! Señor! Don Basil!
Enter Basil.
Is all quiet?
BASIL Not a mouse stirring.
BRIGIDA Put up your sword, pray you; I think there is no danger, and if one comes, you may draw again in time to cut its tail off.
BASIL At your service, Señorita. If it were not treason to my wit, I
Page 833
begin to feel this strip of a girl is making an ass of me. I am transformed; I feel it. I shall hear myself bray presently. But I will defy enchantment, I will handle her. A plague! Must I continually be stalemated by a will-o'-the-wisp, all sparkle and nowhere? Courage, Basil.
BRIGIDA You meditate, Señor? If it be to allay the warmth you have brought from the stairs with the coolness of reflection, I would not hinder you.
BASIL In bare truth, Señorita, I am so chilled that I was even about to beg of you a most sweet and warming cordial.
BRIGIDA For a small matter like that, I would be loth to deny you. You shall have it immediately.
BASIL With your permission, then.
BRIGIDA Ah Señor, beware. Living coals are dangerous; they burn, Señor.
BASIL I am proof.
BRIGIDA As the man said when he was bitten by the dog they thought mad; but 'twas the dog that died. Pray, sir, have a care. You will put the fire out.
BASIL Come, I have you. I will take ten kisses for the one you refused me this forenoon.
Page 834
BRIGIDA That is too compound an interest. I do entreat you, Sir, have a care. This usury is punishable by the law.
BASIL I have the rich man's trick for that. With the very coin I have unlawfully gathered, I will stop her mouth.
BRIGIDA O sir, you are as wasteful an accountant of kisses as of words. I foresee you will go bankrupt. No more. Señor, what noise was that on the stair? Good, now you have your distance. I will ev'n trouble you to keep it. No nearer, I tell you. You do not observe the laws of the duello. You take advantages.
BASIL With me? Pooh, you grow ambitious. Because I knew that to stop your mouth was to stop your life, therefore in pity I have refused your encounter, in pure pity.
BRIGIDA Was it truly? Alas, I could weep to think of the violence you have done yourself for my sake. Pray, sir, do not torture yourself so. To see how goodness is misunderstood in this world! Out of pity? And made me take you for a fool!
BRIGIDA O no, Señor, it is not well; indeed it is not well. You shall not do this again. If I must die, I must die. You are scatheless. Pray now, disburden your intellect of all the brilliant things it has so painfully kept to itself. Plethora is unwholesome and I would not have you perish of an apoplexy of wit. Pour it out on me, conceit, epigram, irony, satire, vituperation; flout and invective, tu quoque and double-entendre, pun and quibble, rhyme and
Page 835
unreason, catcall and onomatopoeia; all, all, though it be an avalanche. It will be terrible, but I will stand the charge of it.
BASIL St Iago! I think she has the whole dictionary in her stomach. I grow desperate.
BRIGIDA Pray, do not be afraid. I do not indeed press you to throw your-self at my head, but for a small matter like your wit, I will bear up against it.
BASIL This girl has a devil.
BRIGIDA Why are you silent, Señor? Are you angry with me? I have given you no cause. This is cruel. Don Basil, I have heard you cited everywhere for absolutely the most free and witty speaker of the age. They told me that if none other offer, you will jest with the statues in the Plaza Mayor and so wittily they cannot answer a word to you. What have I done that with me alone you are dumb?
BASIL I am bewitched certainly.
BRIGIDA Señor, is it still pity? But why on me alone? O sir, have pity on the whole world and be always silent. Well, I see your benevolence is unconquerable. With your leave, we will pass from unprofitable talk; I would be glad to recall the sound of your voice. You may come nearer, since you decline the duello.
BASIL I thank you, Señorita. Whose sheep baaed then?
Page 836
BRIGIDA Don Basil, shall we talk soberly?
BASIL At your pleasure, Madam.
BRIGIDA No Madam, Señor, but a poor companion. You go to Count Beltran's house tomorrow?
BASIL It is so intended.
BRIGIDA O the masque, who play it?
BASIL Masquers, Señorita.
BRIGIDA O sir, is this your pity? I told you, you would burst if you kept in your wit too long. But who are they by condition? Goddesses are the characters and by rule modern they should be live goddesses who play them.
BASIL They are so.
BRIGIDA Are they indeed so lovely?
BASIL Euphrosyne, Christofir's daughter, is simply the most exquisite beauty of the kingdom.
BRIGIDA You speak very absolutely, Señor. Fairer than Ismenia?
Page 837
BASIL I speak it with unwillingness, but honestly the Lady Ismenia, rarely lovely as she is, could not stand beside this farmer's daughter.
BRIGIDA I think I have seen her and I do not remember so outshining a beauty.
BASIL Then cannot you have seen her, for the wonders she eclipses, themselves speak to their disgrace, even when they are women.
BRIGIDA Pardon me if I take you to speak in the pitch of a lover's eulogy.
BASIL Were it so, her beauty and gentleness deserve it; I have seen none worthier.
BRIGIDA I wish you joy of her. I pray you for permission to leave you, Señor.
BASIL Save one indeed.
BRIGIDA Ah! and who was she?
BASIL You will pardon me.
BRIGIDA I will not press you, Sir. I do not know her, do I?
Page 838
BASIL O 'tis not so much as that either. 'Twas only an orange-girl I saw once at Cadiz.
BRIGIDA Oh.
BASIL Ha! she is galled, positively. This is as sweet to me as honey.
BRIGIDA Well, Señor, your taste is as undeniable as your wit. Flour is the staff of life and oranges are good for a season. What does this paragon play?
BASIL Venus; and in the after-scene, Helen.
BRIGIDA So? May I know the others? You may find one of them to be a poor cousin of mine.
BASIL Catriona, the bailly's daughter to Count Conrad, and Sofronia, the student Jeronimo's sister; she too is of the Count's household.
BRIGIDA It is not then difficult to act in a masque?
BASIL A masque demands little, Señorita. A taking figure, a flowing step, a good voice, a quick memory—but for that a speaking memory hard by in a box will do much at an emergency.
BRIGIDA True, for such long parts must be a heavy tax on the quickest.
Page 839
BASIL There are but two such, Venus-Helen and Paris. The rest are only a Zephyr's dance in, a speech and a song to help the situation and out again with a scurry.
BRIGIDA God be with you. You have a learned conversation and a sober, and for such I will always report you. But here comes a colon to it. We will keep the full stop for tomorrow.
Enter Antonio and Ismenia.
ISMENIA I think the dawn moves in the east, Brigida. Pray you, unlock the door, but noiselessly.
BRIGIDA Teach me not. Though the wild torrent of this gentleman's conversation have swept away half my wit, I have at a desperate peril, saved the other half for your service. Come, Sir, I have need of you to frighten the mice away.
BASIL St Iago!
Exit Brigida with Basil.
ISMENIA Dear, we must part. I would have you my necklace, That I might feel you round my neck for ever; Or life be night and all men sleep, then we Need never part: but we must part, Antonio. Will you forget me?
ANTONIO When I cease to feel.
ISMENIA I know you cannot, but I am so happy,
Page 840
I love to play with my own happiness And ask it questions. Dear, we shall meet soon. I'll make a compact with you, sweet. You shall Do all my will and make no question, till We're married; then you know, I am your servant. Will you, till then?
ANTONIO Till then and after.
ISMENIA Go now, Love, I must drive you out or you'll not go.
ANTONIO One kiss.
ISMENIA You've had one thousand. Well, one more, One only or I shall never let you part.
BRIGIDA Are you both distracted? Is this, I pray you, a time for lingering and near dawn over the east? Out with you, Señor, or I will set your own Cerberus upon you, and I wager he bites well, though I think poorly of his bark.
Exit with Antonio.
ISMENIA O I have given all myself and kept Nothing to live with when he's gone from me. My life's his moon and I'm all dark and sad Without him. Yesterday I was Ismenia, Strong in myself, an individual woman. Today I'm but the body of another, No longer separate reality.
Page 841
Well, if I gain him, let me lose myself And I'm still happy. The door shuts. He is gone.
Reenter Brigida.
Ah, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Come, get in, get in. Snatch a little sleep, for I promise you, you shall have none tomorrow.
ISMENIA How do you mean by that? Or is it jest merely?
BRIGIDA Leave me alone. I have a whole drama in my head, a play in a play and yet no play. I have only to rearrange the parts a little and tomorrow's sunlight shall see it staged, scened, enacted and concluded. To bed with you.
Page 842
A room in Conrad's house.
Conrad, a servant.
CONRAD Where is Flaminio?
SERVANT He's in waiting, Sir.
CONRAD Call him.
Exit servant.
I never loved before. Fortune, I ask one day of thee and one great night, Then do thy will. I shall have reached my summit.
Enter Flaminio.
FLAMINIO My lord?
[Work on the play was broken off here. What follows is a sketch by Sri Aurobindo of the plot of three scenes of Acts II and III.]
Act II Scene 1. Conrad and Flaminio arrange to surprise the Alcalde's house and carry off Euphrosyne; Brigida converses with Conrad.
Page 843
Scene 2. Jacinto monologuises; Jacinto and his father; Jacinto and Euphrosyne; students, friends of Jacinto. Conrad and Euphrosyne.
Act III Scene 1. Beltran and his sons. Ismenia, Brigida.
Page 844
RANA CURRAN - Prince of Edur, of the Rahtore clan.
VISALDEO - a Brahmin, his minister; formerly in the service of the Gehlote Prince of Edur.
HARIPAL - a Rajpoot noble, General of Edur; formerly in the service of the Gehlote Prince.
BAPPA - son of the late Gehlote Prince of Edur, in refuge among the Bheels.
SUNGRAM, PRITHURAJ - young Rajpoot refugees, companions of Bappa.
KODAL - a young Bheel, foster-brother and lieutenant of Bappa.
TORAMAN - Prince of Cashmere.
CANACA - the King's jester of Cashmere.
HOOSHKA - Scythian captain.
PRATAP - Rao of Ichalgurh, a Chouhan noble.
RUTTAN - his brother.
A CAPTAIN of Rajpoot lances.
MÉNADEVI - wife of Curran; a Chouhan princess, sister of the King of Ajmere.
COMOL CUMARY - daughter of Rana Curran and Menadevi.
COOMOOD CUMARY - daughter of Rana Curran by a concubine.
NIRMOL CUMARY - daughter of Haripal, friend of Comol Cumary.
ISHANY - a Rajpoot maiden, in attendance on Comol Cumary.
Page 847
The Palace in Edur. The forests about Dongurh.
The Palace in Edur.
Rana Curran, Visaldeo.
CURRAN He is at Deesa then?
VISALDEO So he has written.
CURRAN Send out a troop for escort, yielding him Such honours as his mighty birth demands. Let him be lodged for what he is, a Prince Among the mightiest.
VISALDEO You have chosen then? You'll give your daughter, King, to this Cashmerian?
CURRAN My brother from Ajmere writes to forbid me, Because he's Scythian, therefore barbarous. A Scythian! He is Cashmere's mighty lord Who stretches out from those proud Himalayan hills His giant arms to embrace the North.
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VISALDEO But still A Scythian.
CURRAN Whom many Aryan monarchs crouch to appease When he but shakes his warlike lance. A soldier And conqueror,—what has the earth more noble? And he is of the great Cushanian stock That for these centuries bestride the hills Against all comers. World-renowned Asoca Who dominated half our kingly East, Sprang from a mongrel root.
VISALDEO Rana, you'll wed Your daughter to Prince Toraman?
CURRAN I'm troubled By Ajmere's strong persistence. He controls Our Rajpoot world and it were madly done To offend him.
VISALDEO That's soon avoided. Send your daughter out To your strong fort among the wooded hills, Dongurh; there while she walks among the trees, Let the Cashmerian snatch her to his saddle In the old princely way. You have your will And the rash Chouhan has his answer.
CURRAN Visaldeo, You are a counsellor! Call the queen hither; I'll speak to her.
Exit Visaldeo.
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O excellently counselled! What is it but a daughter? One mere girl And in exchange an emperor for my ally. It must be done.
Enter Menadevi and Visaldeo.
MENADEVI You sent for me, my lord?
CURRAN How many summers might our daughter count, Mena?
MENADEVI Sixteen, my lord.
CURRAN She flowers apace And like a rose in bloom expects the breeze With blushing petals. We can delay no longer Her nuptial rites.
MENADEVI The Rao of Ichalgurh Desires her. He's a warrior and a Chouhan.
CURRAN A petty baron! O my dearest lady, Rate not your child so low. Her rumoured charm Has brought an emperor posting from the north To woo her.
MENADEVI Give me the noble Rajpoot blood, I ask no more.
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CURRAN The son of great Cashmere Journeys to Edur for her.
MENADEVI Your royal will Rules her and me. And yet, my lord, a child Of Rajpoot princes might be better mated; So much I'll say.
CURRAN You are your brother's sister. He says he will not have a Scythian wed her.
MENADEVI He cherishes the lofty Chouhan pride. You know, my lord, we hold a Rajpoot soldier Without estate or purse deserves a queen More than a crowned barbarian.
CURRAN You are all As narrow as the glens where you were born And live immured. No arrogance can match The penniless pride of mountaineers who never Have seen the various world beyond their hills. Your petty baron who controls three rocks For all his heritage, exalts himself O'er monarchs in whose wide domains his holding's An ant-hill, and prefers his petty line To their high dynasties;—as if a mountain tarn Should think itself more noble than the sea To which so many giant floods converge.
MENADEVI Our tarns are pure at least, if small, they hold Sweet water only; but your seas are brackish.
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CURRAN Well, well; tomorrow send your little princess To Dongurh, there to dwell till we decide If great Cashmere shall have her. Visaldeo, Give ten good lances for her escort.
MENADEVI Only ten! It is not safe.
VISALDEO Rana, the queen is right. The Bheels are out among the hills; they have A new and daring leader and beset All wayside wealth with swarms of humming arrows.
CURRAN The lord of Edur should not fear such rude And paltry caterans. When they see our banner Advancing o'er the rocks, they will avoid Its peril. Or if there's danger, take the road That skirts the hills. Ten lances, Visaldeo!
MENADEVI My blood shall never mingle with the Scythian. I am a Chouhan first and next your wife, Edur. What means this move to Dongurh, Visaldeo?
VISALDEO (as if to himself) Ten lances at her side! It were quite easy To take her from them, even for a Cashmerian.
MENADEVI I understand. The whole of Rajasthan Would cry out upon Edur, were this marriage Planned openly to soil their ancient purity.
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The means to check this shame?
VISALDEO Lady, I am The Rana's faithful servant.
MENADEVI So remain. I'll send a horse to Ichalgurh this hour. There may be swifter snatchers than the Scythian.
VISALDEO Or swifter even than any in Ichalgurh. I too have tidings to send hastily.
Page 854
The women's apartments in the Palace at Edur.
Comol Cumary, Coomood Cumary.
COMOL Tomorrow, Coomood, is the feast of May.
COOMOOD Sweetheart, I wish it were the feast of Will. I know what I would will for you.
COMOL What, Coomood?
COOMOOD A better husband than your father'll give you.
COMOL You mean the Scythian? I will not believe That it can happen. My father's heart is royal; The blood that throbs through it he drew from veins Of Rajpoot mothers.
COOMOOD But the brain's too politic. A merchant's mind into his princely skull Slipped in by some mischance, and it will sell you In spite of all the royal heart can say.
COMOL He is our father, therefore blame him not.
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COOMOOD I blame his brain, not him. Sweetheart, remember, Whomever you may marry, I shall claim Half of your husband.
COMOL If't be the Scythian, you may have The whole uncouth barbarian with Cashmere In the bad bargain.
COOMOOD We will not let him have you. We'll find a mantra that shall call Urjoon From Eden's groves to wed you; great Dushyanta Shall leave Shacoontala for these wide eyes Which you have stolen from the antelope To gaze men's hearts out of their bodies with, You lovely sorceress; or we'll have Udaian To ravish you into his rushing car, Edur's Vasavadutta. We'll bring crowding The heroes of romance out of the past For you to choose from, sweet, and not a Scythian In all their splendid ranks.
COMOL But my poor Coomood, Your hero of romance will never look at you, Finding my antelope eyes so beautiful. What will you do then?
COOMOOD I will marry him By sleight of hand and never let him know. For when the nuptial fire is lit and when The nuptial bond is tied, I'll slip my raiment's hem Into the knot that weds your marriage robes And take the seven paces with you both
Page 856
Weaving my life into one piece with yours For ever.
Enter Nirmol Cumary.
NIRMOL News, princesses, news! What will you give me for a sackful of news?
COMOL Two switches and a birch-rod. A backful for your sackful!
NIRMOL I will empty my sack first, if only to shame you for your base ingratitude. To begin with what will please you best, Prince Toraman is arrived. I hear he is coming to see and approve of you before he makes the venture; it is the Scythian custom.
COMOL He shall not have his Scythian custom. In India it is we girls who have the right of choice.
NIRMOL He will not listen. These Scythians stick to their customs as if it were their skin; they will even wear their sheepskins in midsummer in Agra.
COMOL Then, Nirmol, we will show you to him for the Princess Comol Cumary and marry you off into the mountains. Would you not love to be the Queen of Cashmere?
NIRMOL I would not greatly mind. They say he is big as a Polar bear and has the sweetest little pugnose and cheeks like two fat pouches. They say too he carries a knout in his hand with which he will touch up the bride during the ceremony as a promise of what
Page 857
she may expect hereafter; it is the Scythian custom. Oh, I envy you, Princess.
COMOL Nirmol, in sober earnest I will beat you.
NIRMOL Strike but hear! For I have still news in my sack. You must gather your traps; we are to start for Dongurh in an hour. What, have I made your eyes smile at last?
COMOL To Dongurh! Truth, Nirmol.
NIRMOL Beat me in earnest, if it is not. Visaldeo himself told me.
COMOL To Dongurh! To the woods! It is three years Since I was there. I wonder whether now The woodland flowers into a sudden blush Crimsoning at the sweet approach of Spring As once it did against that mooned white Of myriad blossoms. We shall feel again, Coomood, the mountain breezes kiss our cheeks Standing on treeless ridges and behold The valleys wind unnoticeably below In threads of green.
COOMOOD It is the feast of May. Shall we not dance upon the wind-blown peaks And put the peacock's feather in our hair And think we are in Brindavon the green?
NIRMOL With a snub-nosed Scythian Krishna to lead the dance. But they say Krishna was neither Scythian nor Rajpoot but a Bheel. Well,
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there is another Krishna of that breed out who will make eighth-century Rookminnies of you if you dance too far into the forest, sweethearts.
COOMOOD You mean this boy-captain of robbers who makes such a noise in our little world? Bappa they call him, do they not?
NIRMOL 'Tis some such congregation of consonants. Now which sort of husband would the most modern taste approve?—a coal-black sturdy young Bheel, his face as rugged as Rajpootana, or a red and white snub-nosed Scythian with two prosperous purses for his cheeks. There's a problem in aesthetics for you, Coomood.
COMOL A barbarous emperor or a hillside thief Are equals in a Rajpoot maiden's eyes. Yon mountain-peak or some base valley clod, 'Tis one to the heaven-sailing star above That scorns their lowness.
NIRMOL Yes, but housed with the emperor the dishonour is lapped in cloth of gold; on the thief's hillside it is black, naked and rough, its primitive and savage reality. To most women the difference would be great.
COMOL Not to me. I wonder they suffer this mountain springald to presume so long.
NIRMOL Why, they sent out a captain lately to catch him, but he came back a head shorter than he went. But how do you fancy my news, sweethearts?
Page 859
COMOL What, is your sack empty?
NIRMOL Your kingly father was the last to stalk out of it. I expect him here to finish my story.
Enter Rana Curran, Menadevi and Visaldeo.
CURRAN Maid Comol, are you ready yet for Dongurh?
COMOL I heard of it this moment, sir.
CURRAN Make ready. Prince Toraman arrives. You blush, my lily?
MENADEVI There is a maiden's blush of bashfulness, But there's her blush of shame too when her cheeks Offended scorn a suitor far too base Should bring such noble blood to flush their whiteness.
CURRAN Maid Comol, which was yours?
COMOL I would learn that, Father, from your high sovereign will. I am not The mistress of my blushes.
CURRAN Keep them for him, Comol, for whom their sweetness was created. Hearken, my little one, you are marked out To reign an empress; 'tis the stars decree it
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That in their calm irrevocable round Weave all our fates. Then shrink not if thou hearest The noise of battle round thy palanquin Filling the hills, nor fear its rude event, But veil thy cheeks in scarlet to receive Thy warlike husband.
COMOL Father!
CURRAN It is so. Thou journeyest not to Dongurh but thy nuptials.
COMOL With Toraman?
CURRAN With one whose lofty doom Is empire. Keep this in thy joyous bosom Throbbing in a sweet secrecy. Farewell. When we foregather next, I hope to greet My little empress.
MENADEVI Comol, what said he to thee?
COMOL What I unwillingly have heard. Mother, Must I be mated to a barbarous stock?
MENADEVI No, child. When you shall hear the trumpet's din Or clash of blades, think not 'tis Toraman, But your dear mother's care to save her child From shameful mating. Little sweetheart, go.
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When I shall meet you next, you'll shine a flower Upon the proudest crest in Rajasthan, No Scythian's portion. Visaldeo, prepare Her going quickly.
COMOL What plots surround me? Nirmol, Give me my sword with me. I'll have a friend To help me, should the world go wrong.
VISALDEO Our self, Lady, is our best helper.
COMOL I believe it. Which path's resolved on?
VISALDEO 'Tis the valley road That clings to the deep bases of the hills.
COMOL 'Tis not the shortest.
VISALDEO The easiest,—to Cashmere.
COMOL The other's safer then for Dongurh.
VISALDEO At least 'Tis green and beautiful, and love may walk there Unhindered.
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COMOL Thou seemst to be my friend, But I'll believe myself and no one else Except my sword whose sharpness I can trust Not to betray me. Come, girls, make we ready For this planned fateful journey.
COOMOOD Let them keep Our palanquins together. One fate for both, Sweetheart.
COMOL If we must marry Toraman, Coomood, it shall be in that shadowy country.
NIRMOL Where, I hope, justice will have set right the balance between his nose and his cheeks. Girls, we are the prizes of this handicap and I am impatient to know which jockey wins.
Page 863
The forest near Dongurh.
Bappa, Sungram, Prithuraj.
BAPPA It is the secret friend from whom in childhood I learned to wing my mounting thoughts aloft High as an eagle's flight. I know the hand, Though yet his name is hid from me.
SUNGRAM Let's hear The very wording.
BAPPA "To the Sun's child, from Edur. Comol Cumary, Edur's princess, goes With her fair sister and a knot of lances To Dongurh. Bappa, young lion of the hills, Be as the lion in thy ranging; prey Upon earth's mightiest, think her princesses Meant only for thy spoil and serving-girls, Her kings thy subjects and her lands thy prey. Dare greatly and thou shalt be great; despise Apparent death and from his lifted hand Of menace pluck thy royal destinies By warlike violence. Thus thy fathers did From whose great blood thou springest, child of Kings. Thy friend in Edur."
SUNGRAM Writes he that? The child of Kings!
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He never spoke so plainly of your birth Till now.
PRITHURAJ A kindling hint to fire our blood! Two princesses and only a knot of swords For escort? The gods themselves arrange this for us.
SUNGRAM Bappa, you are resolved to court this peril?
PRITHURAJ Doubt you? Think how 'twill help our treasury. The palanquins alone must be a mint Of money and the girls' rich ornaments Purchase half Rajasthan.
SUNGRAM The immediate gain's Princely, nor the mere capture perilous. But afterwards the armed wrath of Edur Descends upon us in a thunder and whirlwind. Are we yet strong enough to bear the shock?
PRITHURAJ Why, let it come. I shall rejoice to feel The true and dangerous bite of war at last, Not always play the mountain cateran's part, To skulk among the hills and only assail The weak and timid, or butcher distant force With arrows. I long for open shocks of fight And glorious odds and all the world for audience.
BAPPA Sungram, I do not rashly take this step, But with fixed policy. Unless we break Edur's supreme contempt for our annoyance,
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How can we bring him to the difficult hills? So must we take the open where our Bheels Will scatter from the massed Rajpoot swords Nor face their charging horsemen. But if we capture Their princess, inconsiderate rage will hurl them Into our very fastnesses to wear Their strength out under our shafts. Then will I seize At the right moment, they being few and weary, Edur by force or guile and hold it fast Though all the warlike world come up against me.
SUNGRAM With Bheels?
BAPPA I will invite all Rajpoot swords That now are masterless and men exiled, And desperate fortunes. So the iron hands Join us and the adventurous hearts, to build A modern seat of empire;—minds like Sungram, Wise to forecast and bold to execute, Heroes like Prithuraj, who know not fear Nor put a limit to their vaulting thoughts Save death or unforgettable renown, The Rajpoot's choice. Are we not strong enough? We have a thousand hardy Bheels, expert In mountain warfare, swift unerring bowmen; We have ourselves to lead them, each worth thousands, Sheva Ekling above us and in our hands Our destiny and our swords.
SUNGRAM They are enough.
Enter Kodal.
KODAL Bappa, our scouts have come in. The prey is in the toils.
Page 866
BAPPA How many are they, Kodal?
KODAL Merely ten lances. The servants and women they have sent round by the lower road; the escort with four palanquins come up through the hills. They have run their heads into the noose. We will draw it tight, Bappa, and choke them.
BAPPA Is their escape Impossible?
SUNGRAM Bappa, a hundred Bheels surround the pass By which alone they can return. Myself Have posted them.
BAPPA Beside the waterfall Surround them, Sungram. Kodal, let there be No random shafts to imperil by mischance Our lovely booty.
KODAL Trust me for that, Bappa. We'll shoot through the twenty eye- balls of them and never even touch the white. Ten lances they are and ten arrows will stretch them flat; there shall be nothing left to be done but the burning. If I cannot do this, I am no Bheel, no Kodal and no foster-brother of Bappa.
BAPPA Economise our strength. I will not lose A single man over this easy capture. You're captain, Sungram.
Exeunt Sungram and Kodal.
Prithuraj, my friend. Today begins our steep ascent to greatness.
Page 867
The forest near Dongurh. By the waterfall.
Enter Captain and soldiers escorting Comol Cumary, Coomood, Nirmol and Ishany in palanquins.
ISHANY (from her palanquin) Set down the palanquins. Captain, make void This region; here the princess would repose Beside the murmuring waterfall awhile And breathe into her heart the winds of Dongurh.
Exit Captain with soldiers and palanquin-bearers. The girls leave their palanquins.
COMOL Coomood, this is the waterfall we loved To lean by, singing to the lyre the deeds Our fathers wrought or listening silently Its soft continuous roar. Beyond that bend We shall see Dongurh,—Dongurh, our delight Where we were children, Coomood.
COOMOOD Comol, our tree's All scarlet, as if splashed with crimson fire, Just as of old.
COMOL O it is Spring, and this Is Dongurh.
ISHANY Girls, we must not linger long.
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Our Scythian, missing us, may take the hills.
NIRMOL Purse-cheeks? Oh, he has lifted Mera the servant-girl to his saddle-bow by now and is garlanding her Queen of Cashmere. I wish I were there to be bridesmaid.
COMOL That was a sweet touch of thine, Nirmol. But the child deserves her promotion; she has served me willingly. A Scythian throne is no great wages for service to a Rajpoot princess.
COOMOOD How the hill gives you back your laughter, repeating Its sweetness with delight, as if it had a soul To love you.
COMOL We have shaken them off prettily by turning away through the hills. Alas! my royal father will not greet his little empress this journey, nor my lady mother scent her blossom on a Rajpoot crest. They must even put up with their poor simple Comol Cumary just as she was,—(aside) and as she will be until her heart finds its mate.
NIRMOL It is a sin, I tell you, Comol; I am mad when I think of it. Why, I came out to be abducted; I did not come for a quiet stroll through the woodlands. But I have still hopes of our Bheel cateran, our tangle-locked Krishna of the hill-sides; surely he will not be so ungallant as to let such sweet booty pass through his kingdom ungathered.
COMOL I would gladly see this same stripling and talk to him face to face who sets his Bheel arrows against our Rajpoot swords. He should be a man at least, no Scythian Toraman.
Page 869
ISHANY The presumptuous savage! it will earn him a stake yet for his last session. Were I a man, I would burn these wasps from their nest and catch and crush them in my mailed gauntlet as they buzzed out into the open.
SHOUTS OUTSIDE Bappa! Bappa! Ho Sheva Ekling!
CAPTAIN (shouting within) Lances, lances, Rajpoots! Bearers, to the palanquins!
COMOL Bappa!
NIRMOL (laughing) You'll have that talk with Bappa yet, Comol.
COOMOOD Oh, let us flee! They swarm towards us.
ISHANY Stand firm! Our gallant lances soon will prick These bold hill-foxes to their lairs. Stand firm! We should but fly into the mouth of danger.
COMOL (climbing on to a rock) You Gods! our Rajpoots all are overwhelmed Before they used their weapons. What next, Ishany? Shall we sit still to be made prisoners?
ISHANY Get swiftly to your palanquin. The bearers Run hither. Flee towards the valley road! It may be that the swords of Ichalgurh Range there already.
Page 870
COMOL Shall I escape alone?
ISHANY Ah, save the glory of Edur from disgrace Of savage handling!
Enter the palanquin-bearers fleeing.
Halt! Take your princess, men, And flee with her into the valley road.
FIRST BEARER The funeral fire in the mouth of your princess! Every man save himself.
Exit with most of the bearers.
SECOND BEARER Halt, halt! We have eaten and shall we not pay for the salt? Yes, even with our blood. We four will take her, if we are not cut into pieces first. Into the palanquin, lady.
NIRMOL Quick, Comol! or are you longing for your palaver with Tangle-locks?
Comol enters the palanquin.
COOMOOD What will become of us?
NIRMOL We shall become Bheel housewives. After all, a Scythian throne Was better.
ISHANY We have our weapons to befriend us yet. Coomood, look not so pale.
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NIRMOL See, see, Ishany! The Bheels are leaping down upon our rear.
ISHANY Quick, bearers, bearers.
NIRMOL It is too late. She's taken.
Enter Kodal and Bheels.
KODAL Whoever wants an arrow through his skull, let him move his shanks. Women, you are my brother Bappa's prisoners; we have need of some Rajpoot slave-girls for his kitchen. Take them, my children, and tie them.
ISHANY Stab any who comes; let not these lumps of dirt Insult your Rajpoot bodies with their fingers.
KODAL Shut your mouth, Rajpootny, or I will skewer your tongue to your palate with an arrow. Knock their daggers out of their hands.
He lays his hand on Nirmol's wrist.
Enter Sungram.
NIRMOL Off, savage! I will have no tongue-skewerer for my husband.
SUNGRAM Release her, Kodal. Lay not thy Bheel hand Upon a Rajpoot virgin. Maiden of Edur, Expect no outrage. We are men who keep Some tincture of manners yet, though savage hills Harbour us and our looks and deeds are rugged
Page 872
As the wild land we dwell in.
NIRMOL I grant you that. If you are the master-jockey, the winners of this handicap are no such rank outsiders after all.
KODAL Because thou art a Rajpoot, must thou command me? To me, Bheels! Tie up these Rajpootnies hand and leg like so many chickens. Heed not Sungram.
SUNGRAM Mutineer! (draws his sword)
ISHANY (rapidly approaching the bearers) Slip off unnoticed while they brawl; run, run! O save the princess!
SECOND BEARER We will do our man's best. Silently, men, and swiftly.
KODAL I boggle not for your sword, Rajpoot. Taste my arrows.
Exeunt bearers with Comol in the palanquin. Bappa and Prithuraj enter from the other side.
BAPPA Now, what's the matter, Kodal?
KODAL Why, Bappa, these new servant-girls of yours will not come to heel; they talk proudly. Yet Sungram will not let me teach them manners, because, I think, they are his aunt's cousins.
BAPPA They shall be obedient, Kodal. Leave them to me. Remember Sungram's your commander, brother.
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What, you, a soldier, and break discipline!
KODAL I am your soldier, Bappa. Sungram, you shall have your Rajpootny. I am a soldier, Rajpoot, and know my duty.
COOMOOD Is this the Bheel? the rough and uncouth outlaw? He has a princely bearing. This is surely A Rajpoot and of a high-seated blood.
BAPPA Which of you's Edur's princess? Let her stand Before me.
ISHANY Who art thou that speakst so proudly As if a Rajpoot princess were thy slave, Outlaw?
BAPPA Whoe'er I am, you are in my hands, My spoil and captives. Speak, which is the princess?
COOMOOD Out of thy grip and now almost in safety, Chieftain, upon the valley road.
ISHANY Coomood, Thou hast betrayed thy sister by thy folly And into vilest shame.
COOMOOD At least I'll share it.
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BAPPA Ay, so? these maidens are but three. Kodal, Four palanquins were on the road, thou toldst me.
KODAL Sungram, give thy sword a twist in my guts. While I wrangled with thee, the best shikar of all has skedaddled.
BAPPA Nay, mend it,—intercept the fugitive.
Exit Kodal with Bheels.
The other too has fled? but she's on foot. Sungram and Prithuraj, lead these fair captives Into their prison. I will go and seize The runaways.
ISHANY They are not for thee yet, Hill-cateran, while I stand between.
PRITHURAJ Oh, here's A Rajpoot spirit.
BAPPA Foolish girl, canst thou Oppose the storm-blast with a dove's white wings?
As he goes out, she strikes at him with a dagger; he seizes her wrist and puts her by. Exit Bappa.
PRITHURAJ Thou hast a brave but headstrong spirit, maiden. It is no savages to whom your Fates Are kind, but men of Rajpoot blood and nurture. Have I your leave?
He lays his hand on her wrist.
Page 875
ISHANY (sullenly) You take it in these hills Before the asking, as it seems.
(throwing away her dagger)
Away, Thou useless helper.
PRITHURAJ Very useless, maiden. When help is needed, ask it of my sword.
ISHANY You play the courteous brigand. I shall need No help to cast myself out of the reach Of villains' courtesies.
PRITHURAJ (lifting her in his arms) 'Tis not so easy. Must I then teach you you're a prisoner? Come, be more patient. You shall yet be glad Of the sweet violence today we do you.
He carries her out.
SUNGRAM Must we follow in the same order?
NIRMOL By your leave, no. I turn eleven stone or thereabouts.
SUNGRAM I will not easily believe it. Will you suffer me to test the measure?
NIRMOL I fear you would prove an unjust balance; so I will even walk, if you will help me over the rough places. It seems you were not Krishna after all?
Page 876
SUNGRAM Why, take me for brother Balaram then. Is not your name Revaty?
NIRMOL It is too early in the day for a proposal; positively, I will not say either yes or no till the evening. On, Balaram! I follow.
Page 877
Enter Bearers with Comol Cumary in the palanquin.
SECOND BEARER Courage, brothers, courage! We are almost out of the wood.
Enter Kodal, leaping down from a thicket in front.
KODAL But it is too soon to hollo. Stop, you plain-frogs, or you shall gutturalize your last croak.
SECOND BEARER Put down the palanquin; we are taken. Great emperor of Bheels, be merciful.
KODAL Stand still, rogues. I must first haul the runaway Rajpootny out of her dog-box.
As he approaches the palanquin, the Bearer strikes him down suddenly and throws his bow and arrows down the hillside.
SECOND BEARER Quick! Let us be off while he's stunned.
Enter Bappa and Coomood, followed by Bheels.
BAPPA Your sister cannot overstep the pass, Which is beset and ambushed. Ho, there, halt! Put down the palanquin. Insensate fools,
Page 878
Invite not death.
The Bheels crowd in and surround the bearers.
Is't Kodal? is he hurt?
KODAL (rising) Only stunned, Bappa. The hillside was a trifle harder than my head. Plain-frog, thou didst that trick handsomely. Give me thy paw, fellow.
BAPPA Take these men prisoners and keep them safely. Remove your men; and, Kodal, guard the road Barring all rescue.
Exit Kodal and Bheels with the bearers.
Princess, take your sister Out of the palanquin.
COOMOOD Comol, Comol, Dear fugitive from fate's arrest, you're taken. Come out.
COMOL How was it?
COOMOOD I told him of your flight. You'll leave me all alone to wed a Bheel? You'll break our compact? I have dragged you back To servitude.
COMOL Nay, let me see my captor then. For if you smile, my Coomood, I must be Out of misfortune's reach.
(leaving the palanquin)
Stand back, sweet. Come,
Page 879
Where is this mountain thief who wars with Kings And lays his hands on Edur's princesses As if his trunk were an immortal piece And he unhangable?
BAPPA (advancing) I am the man, Bappa, the outlaw.
COMOL This Bappa! this the Bheel?
They gaze at one another.
Why, Coomood, it was Krishna after all. Monarch of caterans, I am Edur's princess, Comol Cumary. Why didst thou desire me?
BAPPA O who would not desire thee, glorious virgin? Thou art the rose of Rajasthan and I Will wear thee on my crest.
COMOL 'Twas prophesied me. But roses, King of thieves, have thorns, and see! I have a sword.
BAPPA (smiling) Thinkst thou that pretty toy Will save thee from me?
COMOL It will do its best. And if you take me still, 'tis at your peril. I am a dangerous creature to possess.
Page 880
BAPPA I will embrace the peril as a bride If in thy shape it dwell.
COMOL I swear I pity you. You rush upon you know not what. Come now, If 'tis a gentle serving-girl you need, Here is my sister, Coomood, who can cook Divinely. Take her. Let me walk on to Dongurh. You will regret it, youth.
COOMOOD Believe her not, 'Tis she's a Droupadie; and who possesses her Is fated to be Emperor of the West.
BAPPA Nay, you are twin sweet roses on one stalk And I will pluck you both, O flowers of Edur.
COMOL Why did thy men beset me, mountaineer? What was thy hope?
BAPPA At first 'twas policy And some desire of thy imperial ransom. But now I've seen thee, I will hold thee fast. Thou art not ransomable.
COMOL You shall not have me, sir, till you have fought And beaten me. You shall not get me cheaply. I am a swashbuckler. Bheel, I can fight.
Page 881
BAPPA Marvel, thou mayst and with great ease be victor If thou but use thy soft and shining eyes To dazzle me out of all possibility Of sound defence.
COMOL Come, measure swords, on guard!
BAPPA Thou wilt persist then in this pretty folly?
COMOL Halt, halt! I will not fight except on terms. You'll yield yourself my prisoner, Bheel, and free My maidens, when I've drubbed you handsomely?
BAPPA If when I've conquered, you will utterly Surrender your sweet self into my arms, Princess of Edur.
COMOL Take me if you can.
BAPPA Thus then I take you.
(disarms her)
Rose, where is thy thorn? Now thou must yield indeed.
COMOL Foul play! foul play! It was not fair to rob me of my sword. Call you this fighting? I'll not yield myself.
Page 882
BAPPA Thou hast no choice.
He seizes her.
COMOL I was not fairly won. Avaunt! this is mere highway robbery. I will not bear it.
BAPPA Virgin, this is the moment For which thy loveliness was born.
COMOL (faintly) Alas, What will you do with me?
BAPPA I'll carry thee, A hungry lion, to my secret lair Among the mighty hills, where none shall come To save thee from me, O my glorious prey, Bright antelope of Edur!
COOMOOD Will you play With the young lion, Comol, and chafe his mood? Now you are borne down by his heavy mane And lie beneath his huge and tawny chest, Trembling and silent.
BAPPA Princess,—
COOMOOD May I walk on To Dongurh?
Page 883
BAPPA No, thou mayst not. Follow me. Hold fast my arm, nor, princess, fear to hang Thy whole slight weight on me up these abrupt And breathless places, for the high ascent Is steep and rough to our uncouth abodes. Descent's for your small feet impossible, Coomood, from your green prison on the heights. There Spring shall wall you in with flowers and make Her blossoming creepers chains for your bright limbs Softly forbidding you, when you'ld escape.
COOMOOD Comol, tomorrow is the feast of May.
Page 884
In the forest near Dongurh.
Bappa, Sungram. The Captain and Rajpoot soldiers, guarded by Bheels.
BAPPA Ponder it, captain. Sungram, see the bearers Released, but let those cowards first be scourged Who put their lives above their lady's honour. Give golden largess to the faithful four And send them with a script. Let Edur know That Bappa holds his cherished daughter fast And frees her not save for a lakh of mohurs, Her insufficient ransom. If it displease him, Let him come here with all his fighting-men And take her from my grip. Word it to wound him So that he shall come thundering up the hills Incensed inexorably.
Exit Sungram.
Soldier, again, 'Tis not my wont to slay my prisoners, Who am a Rajpoot, and to pen you here Eating your hearts away like prisoned lions Were the world's loss and to myself no profit. Take then your choice and either follow me Or to your Edur back return unharmed.
Page 885
CAPTAIN Thou art a noble enemy, young chieftain; But change thy boon; for I have lost my charge Ingloriously and now can only entreat The use of my own sword to avenge my honour On its betrayer. Living I go not back To Edur.
BAPPA Soldier, thou art too scrupulous. The wariest captain need not think it shame To be surprised among these mountains. If Edur Receive you not, follow my fortunes, Rajpoot. I am as noble as the prince you serve, And he who waits on Bappa's fateful star, May be more fortunate than kings.
CAPTAIN Chieftain, Save my old master's blood I serve no other Than noble Edur.
(suddenly with excitement)
What is that jewel, boy, Upon thy sword-hilt? Where hadst thou that weapon?
BAPPA What moves thee thus? It is my father's sword, Though who my father was, Fate hides from me.
CAPTAIN (with emotion) I take thy offer, prince. I am thy soldier, And all these men shall live and die for thee.
A SOLDIER What dost thou, captain?
Page 886
CAPTAIN I have never swerved From the high path of Rajpoot honour. Trust me, Rajpoots.
SOLDIER Thou wast our chief in war and always We found thee valiant, proud and honourable. Convince us that we may transfer unshamed Our falchions only stained with foemen's blood, And still we'll follow thee.
CAPTAIN I will convince you At a fit season.
BAPPA Knowst thou something, soldier, That's hid from me?
CAPTAIN Pardon my silence, chieftain. All things have their own time to come to light.
BAPPA I will expect my hour then and meanwhile Think myself twice as great as yesterday Whom your strong hands now serve. Come, friends, with me; Resume your swords for yet more glorious use In Bappa's service.
Page 887
The road through the valley to Dongurh.
Toraman, Canaca, Hooshka and Scythians.
TORAMAN I know not what impelled these mountain-boars To worry Death with their blunt tusks. This insult I will revenge in kind at first, then take A bloody reckoning.
CANACA Figh! it was a trick even beyond my wits. To put a servant-girl on the throne of Cashmere! All Asia would have been one grin had the jest prospered.
TORAMAN They take us for barbarians And thought such gross imposture good enough To puzzle Scythian brains. But I'll so shame The witty clowns, they shall hang down their waggish heads While they are still allowed to live. You'll wed A princess of the Rajpoots, Canaca?
CANACA I would prefer a haunch of Rajpoot venison any day; they have fat juicy stags in their mountains.
TORAMAN I give thee Edur's daughter. While I ride With half my lances to our mountains, thou Shalt ruffle round as Scythian Toraman And wed the princess.
Page 888
CANACA Shall I indeed? Do you take me for a lettuce that you would have me sliced for a Rajpoot salad? Oh, I'ld love to be a prince if only to comfort myself with one full meal in a lifetime; but an empty plebeian paunch is a more comfortable possession than a princely belly full of Rajpoot lances.
TORAMAN Why should they at all Discover thee, dull fool? None know me here. The Rana and his men have not received me. No doubt the arrogant princeling scorned to eat As host and guest with me in Edur; even to dine With us is thought a soil! Therefore 'twas fixed In this rare plot that I should ride from Deesa On a fool's errand. Well, it helps me now, Though I'll avenge it fearfully. 'Tis feasible. None know us, you are richer-robed than I, And what's uncouth in you, they will put down To Scythia's utter barbarousness, whose princes Are boors and boors unhuman. Oh, 'twill work.
CANACA Will it? Well, so long as I keep my belly unprodded, 'tis a jest after my own heart.
TORAMAN And mine. These haughty Rajpoots think themselves The only purity on earth; their girls So excellent in Aryan chastity, That without Rajpoot birth an emperor's wooing Is held for insult. This they hoped to avenge By foisting a baseborn light serving-wench On the prince of all the North. How will they stare, How gnash their teeth and go stark-mad with shame When they discover their sweet cherished lily, The pride of Rajasthan, they thought too noble
Page 889
To lower herself to Cashmere's lofty throne, Bedded with the court-jester of Cashmere, Soiled by the embraces of a low buffoon Who patters for a wage, her pride a jest, Her purity a puddle and herself The world's sole laughing-stock.
CANACA Hem! 'Twill be a jest for the centuries.
TORAMAN About it, then. Feign to laugh off the insult put on you And urge your suit. Bound by their trick that failed, They must, though with great sullenness, consent; And that's desirable: the shame will taste A thousand times more bitter afterwards. Have her by force, if they are obstinate; But have her. Soon, be sure, I will be back With an avenging host and ring in Edur With loud assaults till I have crucified King, queen and princess on her smoking ruins.
Exit with a number of Scythians.
CANACA Well then, I am Prince Toraman of Cashmere; remember that, villains. Or why not Prince Toraman-Canaca or Prince Canaca-Toraman? it is rounder and more satisfying to the mouth. Yet simple Prince Toraman has a chastity of its own and all the magnificence of Cashmere marches after it. Ho, slave! What sounds are those approaching my majesty? Send scouts and reconnoitre. Prince Toraman, the imperial son of Cashmere! It is a part I shall play with credit; Nature made me for it of sufficient proportions and gave me a paunch imperial.
Page 890
HOOSHKA (approaching) Prince Canaca-Toraman or Prince Toraman-Canaca or very simple Toraman, I hear tramp of men and the clang of armour. No doubt, the princess of Edur, thinking all safe by now, rides to Dongurh. Will you charge them and seize her?
CANACA To cover, thou incompetent captain, to cover. Hast thou learned war and knowest not the uses of ambush? We will hide, slave. See thou pokest not out that overlong nose of thine! Find thyself a branch big enough to cover it.
HOOSHKA Humph! What signal shall we expect from your Majesty for the charge?
CANACA Prate not to me of signals! How lacking are thy dull soldier-wits in contrivance! If I jump down into the road and howl, you will all come jumping and howling after me; but if I run, you will catch hold of my tail and run too like the very devil. Nay, I have a rare notion of tactics. To cover, to cover!
They conceal themselves. Enter the Rao of Ichalgurh, Ruttan and Rajpoots.
ICHALGURH She has escaped me, or the Scythian has her. The last were my dishonour.
RUTTAN We've held the road Since dawn. The Scythian had the serving-women. The princess has escaped.
ICHALGURH I'm glad of it.
Page 891
RUTTAN Will you pursue it farther?
ICHALGURH Ambition only Engaged me once to woo her; now my honour Is deeply pledged. The spur of chivalry Suffers me not to yield a Rajpoot flower To Scythian handling; nor could I refuse A challenge to adventurous emprise So fairly given. About, to Dongurh!
RUTTAN Brother, The place is strong, nor we equipped for sieges.
ICHALGURH I'll have her out even from that fortressed keeping And set her in my crest at Ichalgurh For gods to gaze at.
Canaca leaps down into the road brandishing a sword, followed by Hooshka and his Scythians.
CANACA Ho Amitabha! Buddha for Cashmere!
ICHALGURH The Scythians on us! Swords!
CANACA Put up your skewers! Quiver not, ye wretches; steady, steady your quaking kneecaps. Though I have cause for anger, yet am I merciful. Ye would have robbed me of some very pretty property, but ye are mountain-thieves by nature and nurture and know no better. Therefore peace. Sleep in thy scabbard, thou dreadful servant of the wrath of Toraman; await a fitter subject than these carcasses. Courage, Rajpoots, you shall not die.
Page 892
ICHALGURH (smiling) Who is Your Mightiness?
CANACA I am the very formidable and valiant hero and Scythian, Toraman, prince of Cashmere. Nevertheless, tremble not. I am terrible to look at, but I have bowels;—ay, a whole paunchful of them.
ICHALGURH You sought the Princess? What, she has slipped through your most valiant fingers?
CANACA As if she had greased herself with butter. But I am going to Dongurh straight away to demand her and dinner.
ICHALGURH Together then. We're comrades in her loss; Why not allies to win her?
CANACA Am I to be so easily bamboozled? wilt thou insult my cranium? Thou wouldst use my valiant and invincible sword to win her, thinking to steal her from me afterwards when I am not looking.
ICHALGURH Who would dare Defraud the formidable Toraman, The valiant and heroic Scythian?
CANACA Well! I am content; fall in behind me, mountaineers.
ICHALGURH Ruttan, we'll keep an eye upon this Scythian.
Page 893
His show of braggart folly hides, I fear, A deal of knavishness.
CANACA Trumpets! To Dongurh! March!
Page 894
Bappa's cot on the hillside.
Bappa; the captain; Coomood, decorating the cot with flowers.
BAPPA Where was she when you had the script from her?
CAPTAIN Singing of battle on the rocks alone With wrestling winds in her wild hair and raiment, A joyous Oread.
BAPPA Said she anything?
CAPTAIN She gave it me with glad and smiling eyes And laughed: "This for my noble Bheel, my sovereign Of caterans, my royal beast of prey. These to their mighty owners."
COOMOOD Will you read it?
BAPPA (reads) "Cateran, I have given thy captain letters which when thou hast read them, fail not to despatch. I have sent for teachers for thee to beat thee into modesty and lesson thee in better behaviour to a lady and princess.—"
What letters has she given thee, captain? These?
Page 895
CAPTAIN To Pratap, Rao of Ichalgurh;—and one To Toraman the Scythian.
BAPPA Deliver them. Thou'lt find at Dongurh both these warlike princes. No, I'll not read them.
Exit Captain.
COOMOOD Let me hear the rest.
BAPPA "Cateran, I will show thee the sum of thy bold and flagitious offences, though I dare not to hope that it will make thee ashamed. Thou hast laid injurious hands on a royal maiden, being thyself a mere Bheel and outlaw and of no parentage; thou hast carried me most violently to this thy inconsiderable and incommodious hut, treating the body of a princess as if it were a sack of potatoes; thou hast unmercifully and feloniously stripped my body with thy own rude Bheel hands of more ornaments than thou hast seen in thy lifetime and didst hurt me most cruelly in the deed, though thou vainly deniest it; thou hast compelled and dost yet compel me, the princess of Edur, by the infamous lack of women-servants in thy hut, to minister to thee, a common Bheel, menially with my own royal hands, so that my fingers are sore with scrubbing thy rusty sword which thou hast never used yet on anything braver than a hill-jackal, and my face is still red with leaning over the fire cooking thy most unroyal meals for thee; and to top these crimes, thou hast in thy robustious robber fashion taken a kiss from my lips without troubling thyself to ask for it, and thou yet keepest it with thee. All which are high misdoings and mortal offences; yet would I have pardoned them knowing thee to be no more than a boy and a savage. But now thou darest to tell me that I, a Rajpoot maiden, am in love with thee, a Bheel, and that even if I deny it, thou carest not; for I am
Page 896
thine already whether I will or no, thy captive and thy slave-girl. This is not to be borne. So I have written to my noble suitors of Ichalgurh and Scythia to avenge me upon thy Bheel body; I doubt not, they will soon carry thy head to Edur in a basket, if thou hast the manners to permit them. Yet since thy followers call thee Smiter of the Forest and Lion of the Hills, let me see thee smite more than jackals and rend braver than flesh of mountain-deer. Cateran, when thou trundlest the Scythian down-hill like a ball, thou mayst marry me in spite of thy misdeeds, if thou darest; and when thou showest thyself a better man than the Chouhan of Ichalgurh, which is impossible, thou mayst even keep me for thy slave-girl and I will not deny thee. Meanwhile, thou shalt give me a respite till the seventh morn of the May. Till then presume not to touch me. Thy captive, Comol Cumary."
Why, here's a warlike and most hectoring letter, Coomood.
COOMOOD She pours her happy heart out so In fantasies; I never knew her half so wayward. The more her soul is snared between your hands, The more her lips will chide you.
BAPPA Can you tell Why she has set these doughty warriors on me, Coomood?
COOMOOD You cannot read a woman's mind. It's to herself a maze inextricable Of vagrant impulses with half-guessed tangles Of feeling her own secret thoughts are blind to.
BAPPA But yet?
Page 897
COOMOOD Her sudden eager headstrong passion Would justify its own extravagance By proving you unparalleled. Therefore she picks Earth's brace of warriors out for your opponents.
BAPPA Pratap the Chouhan, Rao of Ichalgurh! To meet him merely were a lifetime's boast; But to cross swords with him! Oh, she has looked Into my heart.
COOMOOD You'll give her seven days?
BAPPA Not hours,—the dainty rebel! Great Ichalgurh Will wing here like an eagle; soon I'll meet him And overthrow, who feel a giant's strength, Coomood, since yesterday. My fate mounts sunward.
COOMOOD Ours, Bappa, has already arrived. Our sun Rose yesterday upon the way to Dongurh.
Page 898
Outside Dongurh.
Ichalgurh, a letter in his hand; Ruttan, the Captain.
ICHALGURH Who art thou, soldier?
CAPTAIN The leader of the lances That guarded Edur's princess and with her Were captived by the Bheels. Their chief I serve.
ICHALGURH Thou hast dishonoured then the Rajpoot name Deserting from thy lord to serve a ruffian Under the eyes of death, thou paltry trembler.
CAPTAIN My honour, Rao of Ichalgurh, is mine To answer for, and at a fitting time I will return thy insults on my sword-point. But now I am only a messenger.
ICHALGURH I'll read The princess' writing. (reads) "Baron of Ichalgurh, My mother's clansman, warrior, noble Rajpoot, Thrice over therefore bound to help the weak And save the oppressed! A maiden overpowered, Comol Cumary, Edur's princess, sues For thy heroic arm of rescue, prince, To the Bheel outlaws made a prey, unsought
Page 899
By her own kin; whom if thou save, I am A princess and thy handmaid, else a captive Only and Bappa's slave-girl." Go! my war-cry Echoing among the hills shall answer straightway This piteous letter. Ruttan, swift! Arm! arm! I will not vent my wrath in braggart words But till it leap into my sword, I suffer.
RUTTAN You shall not wait for long.
CAPTAIN I have a letter To Toraman the Scythian.
ICHALGURH Give it to him, For this is he.
Enter Canaca, Hooshka and Scythians.
CANACA It will not fill. This paltry barren Rajpootana has not the where-withal to choke up the gulf within me. Ha! avaunt! Dost thou flutter paper before me? I have no creditors in Rajpootana.
CAPTAIN I understand thee not. This is a script Comol Cumary sends thee, Edur's princess.
CANACA Is it so? Well then, thou mayst kneel and lay it at my feet; I will deign to read it. (The Captain flings it into his hands.) What, thou dirty varlet! (The Captain lays his hand on his sword.) Nay, it is a game? Oh, I can catch, I can catch.
Page 900
"Prince Toraman, they say thou desirest me and camest from Cashmere as far as Edur for my sake. Thou must come a little farther, prince! Bappa, the outlaw, has been beforehand with thee and holds me in durance among the hills. Prince, if thou yet desirest this little beauty one poor body can hold, come up hither and fight for its possession which otherwise I must in seven days perforce yield to my captor. From whom if thou canst rescue me,—but I will not drive bargains with thee, trusting rather to thy knightly princeliness to succour a distressed maiden for no hope of reward. Comol Cumary."
No, no, no; there is too much butter about thee. No hope of reward! What! I shall fight like an enraged rhinoceros, I shall startle the hills by my valour, I shall stick three thousand Bheels with my own princely hand like so many boar-pigs; and all this violent morning exercise for what? To improve my appetite? I have more gastric juice than my guts can accommodate. They roar to me already for a haunch of venison.
HOOSHKA Prince Toraman, shall I give the order for the hills?
CANACA Ay, Hooshka Long-nose, hast thou news of venison, good fellow?
HOOSHKA I meant, to rescue the Princess Comol Cumary from the Bheels.
CANACA Didst thou mean so? Nay, I will not hinder thy excellent intentions. But bring some venison with thee as thou comest along with her, Hooshka.
HOOSHKA Prince of Cashmere, lead us to the hills and tear her from the grip of the outlaws. As a prince and a soldier thou canst do no less.
Page 901
CANACA Thou liest through thy long nose! I can do much less than that. I will not suffer thee to put limits to my infinite ability. And I can tell a decoy- duck from a live gander. Shall I waddle my shins into Bappa's trap? This letter was written under compulsion.
HOOSHKA The Princess must be rescued. I wonder, Prince Toraman, that thou wilt jest over a thing so grave and unhappy.
CANACA Why, genius will out, you cannot stable it for long, Hooshka; it will break bounds and gallop. Yet go, Hooshka, go; take all my men, Hooshka. Hooshka, slay the Bheel; rescue the lady, Hooshka. I wish I could go with thee and swing my dreadful blade with my mighty arm till the mountains re-echoed. But the simple truth is, I have a bleeding dysentery. Willingly would I shed my princely blood for my sweet lady, but it is shedding itself already otherwise.
HOOSHKA (aside) Thou fat-gutted cowardly rogue, wilt thou blacken the name of a hero with thy antics? Out at once, or the Rajpoots shall know who thou art and carve thee into little strips for a dog's dinner.
CANACA Sayst thou, my little captain? Thy arguments are strangely conclusive. Arms! arms! my horse! my horse! Out, Scythians, to the hills! My horse, I say! I will do deeds; I will paint the hills in blood and tattoo the valleys. (Enter Scythians.) Amitabha! Amitabha! Yell, you rogues, have you no lungs in your big greasy carcasses? With what will you fight then?
SCYTHIANS Amitabha!
Enter Ruttan and Rajpoots.
Page 902
RUTTAN Rajpoots, to save a noble lady captived We march today. No gallant open enemy, But savages who lurk behind the rocks Are our opposers. Sweep them from the hills, Rajpoots, with the mere flashing of your swords And rescue from their villain touch a princess.
Exeunt Ichalgurh, Ruttan and Rajpoots.
CANACA March, Scythians! (aside) Hooshka, what say you? We will keep behind these mad-dog Rajpoots and fight valiantly in their shadow. That is but strategy.
HOOSHKA (aside) If thou dost, I will kick thee into the enemy's midst with my jackboots.
CANACA (aside) Wilt thou muddy such a fine coat as this is? Hast thou the heart? (aloud) Trumpets! Into the breach, into the breach, my soldiers!
Page 903
In the forest.
Ichalgurh, Ruttan and Rajpoots.
OUTSIDE Bappa! Bappa! Ho, Sheva Ekling!
An arrow descends and a Rajpoot falls.
RUTTAN Still upwards!
ICHALGURH Upwards still! Death on the height Sits crowned to meet us; downwards is to dishonour And that's no Rajpoot movement. Brother Ruttan, We're strangled with a noose intangible. O my brave Rajpoots, by my headlong folly Led to an evil death!
RUTTAN What is this weakness, Chouhan of famous Ichalgurh? Remember Thyself, my brother. But a little more And we have reached their wasps'-nest on the hills.
ICHALGURH Not one alive.
Another arrow. A Rajpoot falls.
RUTTAN I ask no better fate, Brother, than at thy side however slain,
Page 904
Victorious or defeated.
ICHALGURH We have acted Like heedless children, thinking we had to stamp Our armoured heel on a mere swarm and rabble, But find ourselves at grips with skilful fighters And a great brain of war. Safe under cover They pick us off; we battle blindly forwards Without objective, smiting at the wind, Stumbling as in a nightmare and transfixed Ignobly by a foe invisible Our falchions cannot reach,—like crows, like jackals, Not like brave men and battle-famous warriors.
RUTTAN Still on!
ICHALGURH Yes, on, till the last man falls pierced Upon the threshold that immures the sweetness We could not save. Forward the Chouhan!
KODAL Halt! A parley!
ICHALGURH Speak, but talk not of surrender.
KODAL 'Tis that I'll talk of. I am Bappa's mouthpiece. Rajpoots, you're quite surrounded. If we choose, Our arrows buzzing through your brains can end you In five swift minutes. Lay then at Bappa's feet Your humble heads; else like mad dogs be skewered
Page 905
And yelp your lives out.
ICHALGURH Return unpunished; the name Of envoy guards thy barbarous insolence.
SUNGRAM You speak too insolently your message, Kodal. Chouhan of Ichalgurh, thou art too great To die thus butchered. We demand a parley For courteous equal terms, not base surrender.
ICHALGURH Thou art a Rajpoot; dost thou lead these arrows?
SUNGRAM I lead the shafts that wear thee out; another Surrounds the Scythian; but we are the hands Of one more godlike brain.
ICHALGURH With him I'll parley.
SUNGRAM 'Tis well. Go, Kodal, learn our chieftain's will.
Exit Kodal.
ICHALGURH Young man, thou hast a Rajpoot form and bearing, Yet herdst with the wild forest tribes, remote From arms and culture. Dost thou hide thy name too?
SUNGRAM I am a Chouhan like thyself, of birth As princely. Ask the warriors of Ajmere Who valiant Martund was; his sons are we,
Page 906
Sungram and Prithuraj.
ICHALGURH O youth, thy father Was my great pattern and my guide in war. Brother and enemy, embrace me.
They embrace.
Sungram, Who is thy captain? For the sons of Martund Serve not a Bheel.
SUNGRAM Thine eyes shall answer thee.
Enter Bappa and Kodal.
ICHALGURH A noble-featured youth! What son of Kings Lives secret in these rugged hills?
BAPPA Chouhan Of famous Ichalgurh, now if I'm slain In battle, I can tell the dead I've seen thee, Thou god of war. O let there be no hatred, Hero, between us, but only faith.
ICHALGURH Young chieftain, Thou bearst a godlike semblance, but thy deeds Are less than noble. Hast thou not seized a princess By robber violence, forced her with thee To thy rude lair and threatenest her sweet body With shameful mastery?
BAPPA We are warriors, Rajpoot; Two ways of mating only fit for us,
Page 907
By mutual sweet attraction undenied To grow to oneness as they do in heaven, Or else with lion leap to seize our bride And pluck her from the strong protecting spears Taking her heart by violence. We mate not Like castes unwarlike, from a father's hand Drawing an innocent wide-eyed wondering child Like cattle given or sold. This was the way Of Rajpoots long before the earth grew aged; And shall a Rajpoot blame it? Wherefore then rod'st thou Clanging last morn from Ichalgurh in arms, Pratap the Chouhan?
ICHALGURH Chieftain, I am pledged To save the girl from thee.
BAPPA But canst redeem The vow with thy dead body only. Hero, I too am sworn to keep her 'gainst the world. Let us in the high knightly way decide it. Deign to cross swords with me and let the victor Possess the maiden.
ICHALGURH O thou springing stem That surely yet wilt rise to meet the sun! Agreed. Let no man intervene betwixt us.
BAPPA Kodal, restrain thy Bheels.
Exit Kodal. They fight.
RUTTAN Bold is thy chieftain To match his boyish arm against my brother!
Page 908
SUNGRAM He is a mighty warrior, but not age Nor bulk can measure strength; the exultant spirit Pressing towards glory gives the arm a force Mightier than physical. He's down.
Ichalgurh falls wounded.
RUTTAN Great Ichalgurh! Who is this godlike combatant?
BAPPA Surrender My princess, Chouhan.
ICHALGURH Thou hast her who deserv'st Much more than her.
He rises.
Young hero who in thy first battle o'erbearst Maturer victors! know Pratap the Chouhan Unalterably thy friend. When thou shalt ask My sword, 'tis thine.
BAPPA Thou'rt wounded?
ICHALGURH (binding his wound) I have been worse And ridden far to meet the foe. Another day We'll share one rocky pillow on the hills And talk of battles.
BAPPA Pratap, I could but offer A rude and hillside hospitality. But when I hold my court in mighty Edur
Page 909
I will absolve this morning's debt.
Enter Captain.
ICHALGURH Farewell.
BAPPA Escort him, friend.
Exeunt Sungram, Ichalgurh, Ruttan and Rajpoots.
How speeds the battle, comrade, There with the Scythians?
CAPTAIN It is finished, prince. They fell in slaughtered heaps.
BAPPA Prince Toraman?
CAPTAIN Lay flat and bellowed. We'ld have taken him, But Prithuraj, mad for the joy of battle, Leaped on their foremost; while he hewed them down, Like an untiring woodman, one giant Scythian Crashing through bush and boulder hurled himself Out of thy net; with him a loyal handful Carried this Toraman.
Enter Prithuraj.
PRITHURAJ Pardon my error, Bappa.
BAPPA It was a noble fault, my soldier. We have done all we hoped. The amorous Scythian Will not return in haste mid our green hills
Page 910
To woo a Rajpoot maiden. Let us go. I wonder when great Edur moves upon us. I long to hear his war assail our mountains.
Page 911
Outside Bappa's cot.
Comol Cumary alone.
COMOL Have I too dangerously ventured my all Daring a blast so rude? The Scythian roar Appals no more the forest, nor the war-cry Of Ichalgurh climbs mightily the hills; The outlaws' fierce triumphant shout is stilled Of their young war-god's name. Who has won? who fallen?
Enter Bappa.
COMOL (coming eagerly to him) How went the fight? You're safe! And Ichalgurh?
BAPPA Give me your hands; I'll tell you.
COMOL I see your head's Not in the basket.
He takes her hands and draws her towards him.
Cateran, I forbade you To touch me till the seventh day.
BAPPA I touch What is my own. To bid or to forbid Is mine upon this hillside where I'm sovereign. Sit down by me.
Page 912
COMOL I will not be commanded.
She sits down at his feet.
BAPPA Oh, you are right, love. At my feet's more fitting Who am your master and monarch. Come, no rising. Stay there, where I can watch your antelope eyes Look up at me bright with all love's own sunshine.
COMOL Oh, you provoke me. You've not met the Chouhan, Or you'ld have been much chastened.
BAPPA I have met him.
COMOL Great Ichalgurh?
BAPPA We soon o'ercame the Scythians. Your lover, Comol, the great Toraman, Was borne, a mass of terror-stricken flesh, By faithful fugitives headlong down the hillside.
COMOL You need not triumph. These were only Scythians. But what of Ichalgurh?
BAPPA We fought. I conquered.
COMOL Thou? thou? It is impossible.
Page 913
BAPPA But done.
COMOL Why, you're a boy, a child! O my bright lion, You are a splendid and a royal beast, But very youthful. This was the maned monarch Whose roar shook all the forest when he leaped Upon his opposite. Then the great tusker Went down beneath his huge and tawny front As if it were an antelope. Him you've conquered?
BAPPA He fell and yielded.
COMOL You have learned romance From the wild hill-tops and the stars at night And take your visions for the fact.
BAPPA Arch-infidel! Ask Sungram.
COMOL Then I understand. You won As in your duel with me, quite unfairly. You used your sleight of hand?
BAPPA Perhaps, my princess, His foot slipped and he fell; 'twas my good fortune, Not I that conquered him.
COMOL Indeed it was Your high resistless fortune. O my king,
Page 914
My hero, thou hast o'erborne great Ichalgurh; Then who can stand against thee? Thou shalt conquer More than my heart.
(Bappa takes her into his arms)
What dost thou, Bheel? Forbear! I did but jest.
BAPPA Do you recall your letter, Comol? I have outdone the Chouhan, girl.
COMOL Bheel, I wrote nothing, nothing.
BAPPA I'll keep you now For my sweet slave-girl, princess? You will not Deny me?
COMOL 'Twas not my hand. Your Coomood forged it. I'll not admit it.
BAPPA Rebel against your heart! You're trapped in your own springe. My antelope!
I've brought you to my lair; shall I not prey on you? Kiss me.
COMOL I will not.
(kisses him)
O not now! O give me The memory of this May to keep with me Till death and afterwards, a dream of greenness With visions of the white and vermeil spring,
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A prelude set to winds and waterfalls Among the mountains of immortal Dongurh Far from the earth, in a delightful freedom Treading the hill-tops, all the joy of life In front of me to dream of its perfection, Bappa.
BAPPA When you entreat, who shall refuse you, O lips of honey?
COMOL Till the seventh morning, Bappa.
BAPPA Only till then.
COMOL That is a promise.
(escaping from him)
Which, having won, I do deny, unsay, Wholly recant and absolutely abjure Whatever flattery I have said or done To win it. You are still my Bheel and brigand, My lawless cateran; I great Edur's princess. I love you! Do not dream of it. Six days! By then my father'll smoke you from your lair, And take me from your dreadful claws, my lion, An antelope undevoured.
BAPPA Have you yet thought Of the dire punishments you'll taste for this, Deceiver?
Page 916
COMOL Not till the seventh morning, lion.
BAPPA Till then, my antelope, range my hills and make them An Eden for me with thy wondrous beauty Moving in grace and freedom of the winds, Sweetness of the green woodlands; for of these Thou seemst a part and they thy natural country.
Page 917
Comol, Coomood, meeting in the forest.
COOMOOD Where were you hidden, Comol, all this morning?
COMOL I have been wandering in my woods alone Imagining myself their mountain queen. O Coomood, all the woodland worshipped me! Coomood, the flowers held up their incense-bowls In adoration and the soft-voiced winds Footing with a light ease among the leaves Paused to lean down and lisp into my ear, Oh, pure delight. The forest's unnamed birds Hymned their sweet sovran lady as she walked Lavishing melody. The furry squirrels Peeped from the leaves and waved their bushy tails, Twittering, "There goes she, our beloved lady, Comol Cumary"; and the peacocks came Proud to be seen by me and danced in front, Shrilling, "How gorgeous are we in our beauty, Yet not so beautiful as is our lady, Comol Cumary." I will be worshipped, Coomood.
COOMOOD You shall be. There's no goddess of them all
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That has these vernal looks and such a body Remembering the glory whence it came Or apt to tread with the light vagrant breeze Or rest with moonlight.
COMOL That was what they told me, The voices of the forest, sister Coomood,— The myriad voices.
COOMOOD What did they tell you, Comol?
COMOL They told me that my hair was a soft dimness With thoughts of light imprisoned in't; the gods, They said, looked down from heaven and saw my eyes Wishing that that were heaven. They told me, child, My face was such as Brahma once had dreamed of But could not,—no, for all the master-skill That made the worlds,—recapture in the flesh So rare a sweetness. They called my perfect body A feast of gracious beauty, a refrain And harmony in womanhood embodied. They told me all these things,—Coomood, they did, Though you will not believe it. I understood Their leafy language.
COOMOOD Come, you did not need So to translate the murmurings of the leaves And the wind's whisper. 'Twas a human voice I'll swear, so deftly flattered you.
COMOL Fie, Coomood, It was the trees, the waters; the pure, soft flowers
Page 919
Took voices.
COOMOOD One voice. Did he roar softly, sweetheart, To woo you?
COMOL Oh, he's a recreant to his duty. He loves the wild-deer fleeing on the hills And the strong foeman's glittering blade, not Comol. You must not talk of him, but of the hills And greenness and of me.
COOMOOD And Edur, Comol?
COMOL Edur! It is a name that I have heard In some dim past, in some old far-off world I moved in, oh, a waste of centuries And many dreams ago. I'll not return there. It had no trees, I'm sure, no jasmine-bushes, No happy breezes dancing with linked hands Over the hill-tops, no proud-seated hills Softening the azure, high-coped deep-plunging rocks Or flowery greenness round, no birds, no Spring.
COOMOOD We are the distance of a world from Edur. Tomorrow is the May-feast's crowning day, Comol.
COMOL Oh then we shall be happy breezes And dance with linked hands upon the hills All the Spring-morning.
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COOMOOD It is a May to be Remembered.
COMOL It is the May-feast of my life, Coomood, the May-feast of my life, the May That in my heart shall last for ever, sweet, For ever and for ever. Where are our sisters?
COOMOOD Nirmol is carrying water from the spring; Ishany hunts the browsing stag today, A sylvan archeress.
COMOL What have you in the basket?
COOMOOD Flowers I have robbed the greenest woodland of For Bappa's worship. They must hide with bloom Sheva Ekling today. Tomorrow, sweet, I'll gather blossoms for your hair instead And weave you silver-petalled anklets, earrings Of bright maybloom, zones of Spring honeysuckle, And hide your arms in vernal gold. We'll set you Under a bough, our goddess of the Spring, And sylvanly adore, covering your feet With flowers that almost match their moonbeam whiteness Or palely imitate their rose;—our Lady, Comol Cumary.
COMOL Will Bappa worship me? But I am an inferior goddess, Coomood, And dare not ask the King of Paradise To adore me.
Page 921
COOMOOD You must adore him, that's your part.
COMOL I will, while 'tis the May.
COOMOOD And afterwards?
COMOL Coomood, we will not think of afterwards In Dongurh, in the springtide.
COOMOOD Tomorrow dawns The seventh morning, Comol.
COMOL I did not hear you. Are these our hunters?
Enter Prithuraj and Ishany.
ISHANY I have a better aim Than yours.
PRITHURAJ Did I deny it? Oh, you shoot Right through the heart.
ISHANY I'll never marry one Whom I outdo at war or archery. You tell me you are famous Martund's son, The mighty Gehlote. Wherefore lurk you then In unapproachable and tangled woods Warding off glory with your distant shafts,
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While life sweeps past in the loud vale below? Not breast the torrent, not outbrave its shocks To carve your names upon the rocks of Time Indelibly?
PRITHURAJ We will affront, Ishany, The Ganges yet with a victorious gleam Of armour. But our fates are infant still And in their native thickets they must wait To flesh themselves and feel their lion strengths Before they roar abroad.
ISHANY Until they do, Talk not of love.
PRITHURAJ What would you have me do? O'erbear in arms the Scythian Toraman, And slay the giant Hooshka? meet Ichalgurh And come unharmed, or with my single sword Say halt to a proud score of the best lances You have in Edur? This and more I can For thee, Ishany.
ISHANY You talk, but do it first. Doers were never talkers, Prithuraj.
PRITHURAJ Oh, that's a narrow maxim. Noble speech Is a high prelude fit for noble deeds; It is the lion's roar before he leaps. Proud eloquence graces the puissant arm And from the hall of council to the field Was with the great and iron men of old
Page 923
Their natural stepping.
ISHANY You only roar as yet. I beat you with the bow today; sometime I'll fight you with the sword and beat you.
PRITHURAJ Will you? Just as your lady did?
ISHANY She played, she played, But I would aim in earnest at your heart. One day we'll fight and see.
PRITHURAJ Why, if we do, I'll claim a conqueror's right on your sweet body, Ishany.
ISHANY And my heart? You must do more, If you'll have that.
PRITHURAJ It cannot now be long Before the mailed heel of Edur rings Upon our hillside rocks. Then I'll deserve it.
ISHANY Till then you are my fellow-hunter only, Not yet my captain.
Enter Nirmol.
NIRMOL Idlers and ne'er-do-weels, home! Here have I carried twelve full jars from the spring, set wood on the stove, kindled the fire,
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while you play gracefully the sylvan gadabouts. Where is the venison?
PRITHURAJ Travelling to the cooking-pot on a Bheel's black shoulders.
NIRMOL To your service, Ishany! or you shall not taste the stag you have hunted.
ISHANY Child, do not tyrannize. I am as hungry with this hunting as a beef-swallowing Scythian.
NIRMOL Off with you, hero, and help her with your heroic shoulders.
Exit Prithuraj.
COMOL A pair of warlike lovers!
NIRMOL You are there, sister-truants? Have you no occupation but to lurk in leaves and eavesdrop upon the prattle of lovers?
COMOL Why, Nirmol, I did my service before I came.
NIRMOL Yes, I know! To sweep one room—oh, scrupulously clean, for is it not Bappa's? and to scrub his armour for a long hour till it is as bright as your eyes grow when they are looking at Bappa,—do they not, Coomood?
COOMOOD They do, like stars allowed to gaze at God.
Page 925
NIRMOL Exact! I have seen her—
COMOL Nirmol, I do not know how many twigs there are in the forest, but I will break them all on your back, if you persevere.
NIRMOL Do you think you are princess of Edur here that you threaten me? No, we are in the democracy of Spring where all sweet flowers are equals. Oh, I will be revenged on you for your tyrannies in Edur. I have seen her, Coomood, when she thought none was looking, lay her cheek wistfully against the hilt of his sword, trying to think that the cold hard iron was the warm lips of its master and hers. I have seen her kiss it furtively—
COMOL (embracing and stopping her mouth) Hush, hush, you wicked romancer.
NIRMOL Go then and cook our meal like a good princess and I will promise not to repeat all the things I have heard you murmur to yourself when you were alone.
COMOL Nirmol, you grow in wickedness with years. Wait till I have you back in Edur, maiden; I'll scourge this imp of mischief out of you.
NIRMOL I have heard her, Coomood,—
COMOL I am off, I am away! I am an arrow from Kodal's bow.
Page 926
NIRMOL She is hard to drive, but I have the whiphand of her.
COOMOOD Have you the crimson sandal-powder ready? Flowers for the garlands Spring in sweet abundance Provides us.
NIRMOL Yes. She shall be wedded fast Before she knows it.
COOMOOD Unless my father's sword Striking us through the flowery walls we hide in, Prevent it, Nirmol.
NIRMOL Coomood, our fragile flowers will weave A bond that steel cannot divide, nor death Dissever.
Page 927
AJAMEDE - Prince of Mathura, a fugitive in the mountains.
INDRADYUMNA - his friend and comrade.
ATRY - King of Mathura, by the help of the Scythians.
TORAMAN - Prince of Cashmere, son of the Scythian overlord of the North-West.
CANACA - a Brahmin, his court jester.
HOOSHKA - captain of the Scythian bodyguard.
MAYOOR - Atry's general and minister.
INDRANY - Queen of Mathura.
URMILA - Princess of Mathura, daughter of Atry and Indrany.
LILA - daughter of Hooshka.
Page 929
Mathura. A room in the Palace.
Atry, Indrany.
ATRY However hard it be, however gross The undisguised compulsion, none can stay Compulsion by impracticable revolt, Indrany. Deeper, viler the disgrace If by rebellion we invite constraint Naked, contemptuous, to a slave subdued. The reed that bows to the insistent wind Is wiser than the trunk which the cyclone Indignantly uproots. To force we yield, But to a force disguised in courtly forms. That's better than to yield beneath the scourge.
INDRANY There's a defeat more noble, not to yield, Even though we break. And break, I know, we must, But to live fouled for ever, vilely robed In a soiled purple, marked out to all the world For laughter by the puppet's tinsel crown, That is disgrace indeed.
ATRY We hold this realm Because the northern Scythian helps our sword.
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INDRANY By princely compromise, alliance high, Not yet by purchase or a social stain.
ATRY Our child will be an empress.
INDRANY And outcaste.
ATRY There have been many nuptials mixed like these, Of which world-famous emperors were born.
INDRANY Yes, but we took, not gave, were lords, not slaves. As ransom of his fate the conquered Greek To Indian Chandragupta gave his child, Knowing a son by her could never rule.
ATRY There is no bar. The Scythian weds with all And makes impartial Time the arbiter Whether a native or a foreign womb Shall be the shelterer of his empire's heir.
INDRANY This honour's purchased at too vile a cost.
ATRY There is no help. If we deny our girl, He'll have her violently, make her his slave And not his wife.
INDRANY Do this then, seem to yield, But send her to your fortress on the hills,
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Whence let one take her with a show of force, Whoever's noblest now of Aryan lords In Magadha, Avanty or the South, Fit mate for Atry's stock. Twixt him be strife And the Cashmerian, we escape his wrath.
ATRY It shall be so. I'll choose a trusty man Who shall to Magadha before the morn. Meanwhile prepare your daughter for the hills.
Indrany goes out joyfully.
It is not good. The man will learn the trick, A fierce barbarian, rapid as the storm, Violent, vindictive, stamping on the world Like a swift warhorse, neighing to the winds With nostrils wide for any scent of war, For men to kill, lands to lay desolate, Haughty and keen amid his violence With the king's eye that reads the minds of men,— Such is the man she counsels me to tempt By palpable evasion. I will send Urmila to my fortress on the hills. But he, not Magadha, shall take her forth By secret nuptials. He is honourable Though violent, a statesman though too proud. The prejudices of our race and day Must yield to more commanding thoughts and views That suit the changing times. Custom is mutable, Only the breach of it is dangerous If too impetuously we innovate. It's best To circumvent opinion, not provoke. Who's there? Call Mayoor! The King's first task is to preserve his realm, Means honourable or dishonourable Are only means to use impartially, The most effective first.
Mayoor enters.
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Mayoor, you know The motion made by the Cashmerian's son To wed my daughter.
MAYOOR We have spoken of it Already.
ATRY You are still of the same mind? You think my subjects will revolt?
MAYOOR It's sure.
ATRY The Scythian sword can keep them hushed and still.
MAYOOR And you its slave and pensioner, impotent.
ATRY Then do it thus. The thing is secret still. Let it remain so. Let Prince Toraman Wed Urmila in secret in the hills As if herself had yielded to his suit, Not my consent. Against whom then, Mayoor, Shall Mathura revolt?
MAYOOR It may be done. But will the Scythian's pride assent, or if The bond is secret, will he own the bond?
ATRY He shall, he must. To break by any means The bar of pride that lowers him beneath
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The lowest of his Aryan tributaries, He will consent to much. And for the bond He shall engage his honour, then possess. Yourself go to him, Mayoor, where he's camped. Persuade him. Let an escort start at once With Urmila to Roondhra in the hills. I trust you, Mayoor, for entire success. My crown, my honour are upon this cast.
MAYOOR Your crown is safe with me; your honour, King, I'll save.
ATRY Always few words were yours, Mayoor, But each one solid gold.
MAYOOR To cheat you's best Of the dishonour to which you aspire And for the crown, it's safer in my hands Than Toraman's, the Scythian giant, bold, Subtle and violent, who spreads his toils Over all India, helping force with guile And guile with force.
Enter Mekhala.
MEKHALA He is alone. Hear you, Mayoor!
MAYOOR It's from the queen?
MEKHALA Read it and see.
Page 935
MAYOOR Tell her my word is pledged and Urmila Saved from the Scythian wedlock.
MEKHALA And that means You'll do it?
MAYOOR She shall not wed Toraman.
Mekhala goes out.
This is another coil. The King, it seems, Deceives his people and deceives his queen. She trusts him not, nor they. A lying King Tortuous and serpentine in policy, Loses as much by the distrust he breeds As all his shufflings gain. I'll write to Magadha In other terms than Queen Indrany dreams. I will send out my messengers at once. One first to Ajamede, the lion dispossessed, Where in the hills of Roondhra now he lairs. Another to the mighty Magadhan Who gathers up his strength to free the land From the barbarian's tread. Myself shall go To Toraman and meet the Scythian will. The end shall be as God long since decreed.
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LUCIFER - the Angel of Power.
SIRIOTH - the Angel of Love.
GABRIEL - the Angel of Obedience.
MICHAEL - the Angel of War.
RAPHAEL - the Angel of Sweetness.
THE ELOHIM.
BELIAL - the Angel of Reason.
BAAL - the Angel of Worldly Wisdom.
MOLOCH - the Angel of Wrath.
SUN.
ASHTAR - the Angel of Beauty.
MEROTH - the Angel of Youth.
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LUCIFER Master of light and glory, lift thy rays Over the troubled flood; lift up thy rays. Obey me.
SUN Lucifer! who gave thee power Over the gods that rule the ancient world? Or why should I obey thee? Art thou God? Hast thou dethroned the Omnipotent from Heaven And cast Him down into His nether glooms, Revolting? Gave He then His supreme command, Speak as a servant then and minister, Not with the accent that controls the stars.
LUCIFER Who then compelled thee from thy bright repose, Or wherefore hast thou come?
SUN By Him compelled, Before whose mandate tremble all the Gods.
LUCIFER By His or mine? That I will see. Rise, Sun, And from thy luminous majestic orb Cast out into the azure hold of Space Creative Energy and pregnant Fire
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Whirling around thee while the years endure.
SUN Lucifer, Son of Morning, First in Heaven, What madness seizes thee? What awful force Darkly magnificent, brilliantly ominous Looks out from eyes that own no more the calm?
LUCIFER Obey!
SUN I cannot choose. Power leaps from thee Upon me. I am seized with fiery pangs. Spare me, thou dreadful Angel. I obey.
LUCIFER Power, power to make and to unmake the world! Power grows in me. I am omnipotent. Children of immortality whose ranks And brilliant armies people the infinite, Creatures of wonder, creatures of desire, O suns that wheel in everlasting fire, O stars that sow the ethereal spaces thick, O worlds of various life! I am your King. This I have learnt that God and I are one. If one, then equal! Rightly too I deemed That God develops, God increases. I, Younger than He am greater than the Power From which I sprang; the new excels the old.
BELIAL What dost thou, Lucifer, Angel of God? The infinite spaces murmur like a sea, The ethereal realms are rocked as with a wind, All Nature stands amazed. Whence this revolt?
Page 940
Who gave thee force to overturn the world?
LUCIFER Watch, Belial, watch with me. A crisis comes In the infinite, mobile and progressive world. For God shall cease and Lucifer be God.
BELIAL Thou speakst a thing that madness only speaks. If God be God, how can He change or cease?
LUCIFER Watch, Belial! I will prove to thee the truth, Thou reasonable Angel.
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Mathura.
A street in Mathura. Ahuca's house.
Sudaman, Ocroor.
SUDAMAN What art thou?
OCROOR One that walks the Night.
SUDAMAN No Ogre! Thou art Ocroor by thy voice.
OCROOR Whatever name The Lord has given his creature. Thou shouldst be Sudaman.
SUDAMAN If I am?
OCROOR Walk not alone When the black-bellied Night has swallowed earth Lest all thou hast done to others should return Upon thee with a sword in the dumb Night
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And no man know it.
SUDAMAN Care not; I am shielded.
OCROOR Not by the gods!
SUDAMAN No, by a greater god Than any that have seats near Vishnu's throne.
OCROOR What god whom even Sudaman worships?
SUDAMAN Terror Whose shoe I have enshrined in Mathura And all men kiss it and their tongues declare 'Tis justice and mild rule while their hearts hate And quiver.
OCROOR Thou art the Ogre. Has the blood Of many nobles not contented thee? Dost thou not feel enough thy furious greatness yet, Sudaman?
SUDAMAN Ocroor, I have a belly to digest Much more than Mathura.
OCROOR So Ravan had Who perished.
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SUDAMAN What dost thou in this black night Whose shadows help the lover and the thief, Two kindred traders? Which of these art thou?
OCROOR Both, may be.
SUDAMAN If thou be, then let thy theft Attain some Yadav's house, that I may laugh At his dishonour.
OCROOR Thou hatest much, it seems, Thy father's nation!
SUDAMAN Whom I have imprisoned That I may mock him daily, else were he dead And with the gods he worships.
OCROOR Thou shalt end Evilly yet.
SUDAMAN If it is so, 'tis so Because the round of being leads to that, And not because of gods or virtue.
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More than once Sri Aurobindo remarked in conversation that he had written some stories that subsequently were lost. “The white ants have finished them and with them has perished my future fame as a storyteller”, he noted ironically in 1939. All his known stories and fragments of fiction are published here in two sections.
Sri Aurobindo wrote fair copies of the two pieces published in this section in the same notebook. On the first page he wrote the general title “Occult Idylls”
Sturge Maynard rose from the fireside and looked out on the blackish yellow blinding fog that swathed London in the dense folds of its amplitude. In his hand he carried the old book he was reading, his finger was still in the page, his mind directed, not with entire satisfaction, to the tenour of the writer's imaginations. For, if these pleased his sense of the curious, they disgusted his reason. A mystic, mediaeval in epoch and temperament, the old Latinist dealt with psychological fancies the modern world has long discarded in order to bustle to the polling booth and the counting house. Numerous subtleties occurred repulsive to the rigid and definite solutions of an age which, masterful with knowledge in the positive and external, tries to extend its autocracy in the shape of a confident ignorance over the bounds of the occulter world within, occult—declared the author,—only because we reject a key that is in everyone's hand, himself.
"Prosaist of mysteries," thought Sturge, "trafficker in devious imaginations, if one could find only the thinnest fact to support the cumbrous web that is here woven! But the fog is less thick than the uncertainty in which these thoughts were content to move."
In a passage of unusual but bizarre interest the German mystic maintained that the principle of brilliancy attended with a ceaseless activity the motions of thought, which, in their physical aspect, are flashes of a pure, a lurid or a murky light. It was, he said, a common experience with seers in intense moments of rapid cerebration to see their heads, often their whole surroundings besieged by a brilliant atmosphere coruscating with violet lightnings. Even while he wondered at these extravagances, it flashed across Sturge's memory that he himself in his childhood had been in the habit of seeing precisely such violet coruscations
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about his head and had indulged his childish fancy with them until maturer years brought wonder, distrust and the rapid waning of the phenomenon.
Was there then some justification of experience for the fancies of the German? With an impulse he tried vainly to resist, he fixed his eye piercingly on the fog outside the window and waited. At the moment he was aware of a curious motion in his head, a crowding of himself and all his faculties to the eye; then came the sight of violet flashes in the fog and a growing excitement in his nerves watched by a brain that was curiously, abnormally calm. A whole world of miraculous vision, of marvellous sound, of ancient and future experience was surely pressing upon him, surging against some barrier that opposed intercourse. Astonished and interested, but not otherwise disturbed, his reason attempted to give itself some account of what was happening. The better to help the effort, he fixed his eye again on the fog for repetition or disproof of what he had seen. There were no further violet flashes, but something surely was hinting, forming, manifesting in the grey swathe outside. It became bright, it became round, it became distinct. Was it a face or a globe? With a disappointed revulsion of feeling he saw himself face to face with nothing more romantic than a clock. He smiled and turned to compare with that strong visualised image his own substantial, unmystic, workday companion on the mantelpiece. His body grew tense with a shock of surprise. There indeed was the clock, his ebony-faced, gold-lettered recorder of hours, balanced lightly on a conventional Father Time in the centre and two winged goddesses at the side; the hands, he noted, were closing upon the twelve and the five, and there would soon ring out the sound of the hour. But, by its side, what was this phantasmal and unwonted companion, fixed, distinct, aping reality, ebony-faced also, but silver-lettered, solidly pedestalled, not lightly balanced, pointing to the hour eight with the same closeness as the real clock pointed to the hour five? He had time to notice that the four of this timepiece was not lettered in the ordinary Roman numerals, but with the four vertical and parallel strokes; then the apparition disappeared.
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An optical hallucination! Probably, the mental image intensely visualised, of some familiar timepiece in a friendly sitting-room. Indeed, was it not more than familiar? Surely he knew it,—had seen it, daily, insistently,—that ebony face, that silver lettering, that strong ornamented pedestal, even that figure four! But where was it, when was it? Some curious bar in his memory baffled the mind wandering vainly for the lost details.
Suddenly the clock, his own clock, struck five. He counted mechanically the familiar sounds, sharp, clear, attended with a metallic reverberation. And then, before the ear could withdraw itself from its object, another clock began, not sharp, not clear, not metallic but with a soft, harmonious chime and a musical jangling at the end. And the number of the strokes was eight!
Sturge sat down at the table and opened his book at random. If this were a hallucination, it was a carefully arranged and well-executed hallucination. Was someone playing hypnotic tricks with his brain? Was he hypnotising himself? His eye fell on the page and met not mediaeval Latin, but ancient Greek, though unHomeric hexameters. Very clear was the lettering, very plain the significance.
"For the gods immortal wander always over the earth and come unguessed to the dwellings of mortals; but rare is the eye that can look on them and rarer the mind that can distinguish the disguise from the deity."1
Hypnotism again! for he knew that the original lucubrations of the old mystic, subtle in substance, but in expression rough, tedious, amorphous, persisted from the beginning to the end in their crabbed Latin and deviated nowhere into Greek, flowered nowhere into poetry. There was yet more of the hexameters, he noticed, and he read on.
"And men too live disguised in the sunlight and never from their birth to their death shalt thou see the mask uplifted. Nay,
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thou thyself, O Pelops, hast thou seen even once the daemon within thee?"2
There the hexameters ceased and the next moment the physical page reappeared with its native lettering. But sweet, harmonious, clear in his hearing jangled once more the chimes of the phantom hour. And again the number of strokes was eight.
Sturge Maynard rose and waited for some more definite sign. For he divined now that some extraordinary mental state, some unforgettable experience was upon him. His expectation was not deceived. Once more the chimes rang out, but this time it seemed to him as if a woman's voice were crying to him passionately under cover of that perfectly familiar melody. But were the two phantasmal sounds memories of this English land and birth or was it out of some past existence they challenged him, insisting and appealing, inviting him to remember some poignant hour of a form he had worn and discarded, a name he had answered to and forgotten? Whatever it was, it was near to him, it touched potently his heart-strings. And then immediately following the eighth stroke there came, as if far off, an unmistakable explosion of sound, the report of a modern revolver.
Sturge Maynard left the fireplace and the room, descended the stairs, put on his hat and overcoat, and moved towards the door of his house. He had no clear idea where he would go or what he must do, but whatever it might be, it had to be done. Then it occurred to him that he had forgotten his revolver which was lying in the drawer of his wardrobe. He went up, possessed himself of the weapon, loaded it, put it in his right-hand side pocket, assured himself that the pocket carried his two latchkeys, once more descended the stairs and walked out into one of the densest of London fogs, damp, choking and impenetrable.
He moved through a world that seemed to have no existence
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except in memory. There was no speed of traffic. Only an occasional cartman hoarsely announced from time to time the cautious progress of his vehicle. Sturge could not see anything before or around him,—except when he neared the curb and a lamppost strove to loom out on him shadowily or on the other side a spectral fragment of wall brushed his coat-sleeve. But he was certain of the pavement under his feet, and he felt he could make no false turn. A surer guide than his senses and memory led him.
He crossed the road, entered the gates of Hyde Park, traversed in a sure and straight line of advance the fogbound invisible open, passed through the Marble Arch, and in Oxford Street, for the first time, hesitated. There were two women who were dear to him, either of whom by her death could desolate half his existence. To whom should he go? Then his mind, or something within it, decided for him. These speculations were otiose. He need not go to his sister Imogen. What possible evil could happen to her in her uncle's well-appointed, well-guarded comfortable home, in the happy round of her life full of things innocently careless and harmlessly beautiful. But Renée ! Renée was different.
He pursued his walk in a familiar direction. As he went, it flashed across his memory that she had forbidden him to visit her today. There was some living reminiscence of her past life coming to her, someone she did not care for Sturge to meet, she had said with her usual frank carelessness; he must not come. He had not questioned. Since he first knew her, he had never questioned, and the past of Renée Beauregard was a void even for the man to whom she had surrendered everything. There was room in that void for unusual incidents, supreme perils. He remembered now that her parting clasp had been almost convulsive in its strength and intensity, her speech vibrant with some unexplained emotion. He had been aware of it without observing it, being preoccupied with his passion. Whatever part of his mind had noted it, had confined its possible cause within the limits of the usual, as men are in the habit of doing, ignoring the unusual until it seizes and surprises them.
He reached the square and the house in which she lived,
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opened the door with one of the latchkeys in his pocket, divested himself of his coat and hat, and directed his steps to the drawing-room. A girl of nineteen or twenty rose, calm and pale, fronting the open doorway. The clutch of her hand on the chair, the rigid forward impulse in her frame were the index of a great emotion and an intense expectation. But her face flushed, the hand and figure relaxed, when she saw her visitor. Renée Beauregard was a Frenchwoman of the South, rich in physical endowment, in nervous vitality, in the elan of her tongue and her spirit. Her exquisite full limbs, her buoyant gait, the mobility of her crimson lips, her smiling dark eyes made great demands on life, on success, on pleasure, on love. But in the invincibly happy flame of the eyes there was at the moment the shadow of a tragic disappointment haunting and disfiguring their natural expression. This was plainly a woman with a past,—and a present. And her nature, if not her fate, demanded a future.
"Sturge!" She took a step towards the door. Sturge walked over to the fireplace and took her hand.
"I forgot your prohibition till I was too near to turn back. And there was the fog; and return was cheerless and you were here!"
"You should not have forgotten!" she said, but she smiled, well-pleased at his coming. Then the dark look reusurped those smiling eyes. "And you must go back. No, not now. In a quarter of an hour. You may stop for quarter of an hour."
She had glanced at the clock, and his eyes followed hers. He saw an ebony-faced timepiece, silver-lettered, solidly-pedestalled, rendering the figure four in parallel strokes, and smiled at the curious tricks that his memory had played him. It was five minutes past six.
"I will go to Imogen's," he said, very deliberately. She looked at him, looked at the clock, then cried impulsively, leaning towards him: "And you will come at eight and dine with me! Rachel shall lay the covers for two," then drew back, as if repenting her invitation.
Eight! Yes, he would dine with her—after he had done his work. That seemed to be the arrangement,—not hers, but
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whose? The daemon's perhaps, the god's, within or without. They sat talking for a while, and it seemed to him that never had their talk been so commonplace in form or so vibrant with emotion. At twenty past six he rose, took his farewell and moved out to the fog; but she followed him to the door, helped him on with his overcoat, trembling visibly as she did so. And before he went, she embraced and kissed him once, not vehemently, but with a strong quietude and as if some fateful resolution had at that moment been formed in her heart, and expressed itself in her caress.
"I shall be back by eight," he said quietly. He had accepted, but not returned her embrace.
By eight! Yes, and before. But he did not tell her that. He swung through the fog to his uncle's residence, with a light, clear and careless mind, but an intense quiet in his heart. He reached the place, in a very aristocratic neighbourhood, and was invited in by a portly footman. Sir John was out, at the House, but Miss Imogen Maynard was at home. The next hour Sturge passed calmly and lightly enough; for in his sister's everyday attractive personal talk coursing lightly over the surface of life, amusements and theatres, books, music, paintings varied with politics and a shade of politely hinted scandal, even his heart insensibly lost its tension and he slipped back into the usual, forgetting the within in the without.
The next hour and more. It was Imogen Maynard who rose and said:
"Ten minutes to eight, Sturge. I must go and dress. You are sure you won't dine?"
Sturge Maynard looked at the clock and his heart stood still. He bid his sister a hasty adieu, ran down the stairs, clutched his hat and coat and was out in the fog, donning his overcoat as he walked. He made sure of the revolver and the latchkeys, then broke into a run. His great dread was that he might lose the turning in his haste and arrive after the stroke of the hour. But it was difficult to miss it, the only open space for half a mile! And the daemon? was he a spirit of prophecy only? Did he not visit to save?
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He turned into Renée 's square and, as he strode to the house and ascended the steps, the agitation passed from him and it was with an even pulse and a steady nerve that he turned to the drawing-room door. He had flung aside his hat but not waited to divest himself of the coat. His hand was in the pocket and the butt of the revolver was in his hand.
The door was open and, unusual circumstance, veiled by the Japanese screen. He stood at its edge and looked into the room which was intensely still, but not untenanted—for on the rug before the fireplace, at either end of it, stood Renée Beauregard and a man unknown to Sturge. He looking at her as if waiting for her speech; she calm, pale, resolute in silence, with the heavy burden of her past in her eyes. The stranger's back was half turned to Sturge and only part of his profile was visible, but the Englishman quivered with his hatred even as he looked at him. Was this what he had to do? He took out the revolver and put his finger on the trigger. Then he glanced at the clock,—it wanted four minutes to the hour; and at the stranger again,—in his hand, too, was a revolver and his finger also rested on the trigger. Sturge Maynard smiled.
Then the man's voice was heard. "It has to be then, Idalie!" he said, in a thin, terrible, mournful plaint, "You have decided it. Don't bear any grudge. You know it can't be helped. You have to die."
Sturge remembered that Idalie was Renée 's second name, but she had always forbidden him to use it. The thin voice continued, this time with a note of curious excitement in its plaintiveness.
"And you throw it all on me! What does it matter how I got you, what I did afterwards? Everything's allowed to a lover. And I loved you. It's dangerous to play with love, Idalie. You find it now!"
Sturge looked at the man. Danger for her there was none, but great danger for this rigid, thin-voiced assassin, this man whom Sturge Maynard hated with every muscle in his body, with every cell of his brain. It seemed to him that each limb of him greatened and vibrated with the energy of the homicide,
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with the victorious impulse to slay. There was a fog outside, what a fog! and he could easily dispose of the body. Really that was a good arrangement. God did things very cleverly sometimes. And he laughed in himself at the grimness of his conceit. Yet somehow he believed it. God's work, not his. And yet his, too, preordained—since when? But the doomed voice was going on.
"I give you still a chance, Idalie—always, always a chance. Will you go with me? You've been false to me, false with your body, false with your heart. But I'll forgive. I forgave your desertion, I'll forgive this too. Come with me, Idalie. And if not,—Renée Idalie, it is going to strike eight, and when the hour has done striking, I strike. It's God shoots you with this hand of mine,—the God of Justice, the God of Love. It's both you have offended. Will you come?"
She shook her head. A deadly pallor swept over the man. "It's done then," he cried, "you've done it. You have got to die." He trained the pistol on her and his finger closed on the trigger. Sturge remained motionless. Nothing could happen before the hour struck. That was the moment destined, and no one could outrun Fate by a second. The man went on:
"Don't say it till the clock strikes! There's time till then. When I shoot you, Rachel will run up and I will shoot her. I left the door open so that she might hear the sound. Who else in England knows that I exist? I shall go out—oh, when you are both dead, not before. There's a fog, there's not a soul about, and I shall walk away very quietly. No one will see, no one will hear. God with his fog has blinded and deafened the world. You see it's He or it would not have been so perfectly arranged for me."
Very grimly Sturge Maynard smiled. Men who hated each other might, it seemed, have very similar minds. Perhaps that was why they clashed. Well, if it was God, He was a tragic artist too and knew the poetical effectiveness of dramatic irony! Everything this man reckoned on or had arranged for his deed and his safety, had been or would be helpful to his own executioner! And then the consciousness came upon him that this had all happened before. But not here, not in these English surroundings! A great
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blur of green came before his eyes, obscuring the clock. Then it leaped on him—green grass, green trees, green-covered rocks, a green sea and on the sward a man face downward, stabbed in the back, over him his murderer, the stiletto fresh-stained with blood. A boat rocked on the waters; it had been arranged for the assassin's escape, and in it there lay a woman, bound. Sturge knew those strange faces very well and remembered how he had lain dead on that sward. It was strange to see it all again in this drawing-room with the fateful modern ebony-faced timepiece seen through the green of Mediterranean trees! But it was going to end very differently this time.
Then the voice of the woman rang out, cold, strong, like the clang of iron. "I will not go," she said, simply. And the hour struck. It struck once, it struck twice, thrice, four times. And then she lifted her eyes and saw Sturge Maynard walking forward from the side of the screen. He was a good shot and there was no chance of his bungling it and killing her. But he would make sure!
The woman in her intensity had summoned up a marvellous self-control, and it did not break now; she neither moved, nor uttered a sound. But a look came into her eyes poignant in its appeal, terrible in its suggestion. For it was a cry for life, a command to murder.
The doomed man was looking at the clock, not at her, still less at any possible danger behind. He looked up as the eighth musical jangle died away and Sturge saw his light, steady, cruel eyes gleaming like those of a beast. He pressed his finger on the trigger.
"It is finished!" cried the man. And as he spoke, Sturge Maynard fired. The room rang with the shot, filled with the smoke. When the smoke cleared, the stranger was seen prostrate on the rug: his head lay at the feet of the woman he had doomed.
There was a running of steps in the passage and the maid Rachel entered,—as the man who lay there had foreseen. She was trembling when she came, but she saw the man on the rug, paused, steadied herself, and smiled. "We must carry it out at once into the fog," she said simply in French. With
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a simultaneous impulse both she and Sturge approached the corpse. Then Renée, breaking into excited motion, ran to Sturge and putting her hand on his shoulder made as if to push him out of the room.
"I will see to that!" she panted, "Go!"
He turned to her with a smile.
"You must go at once," she reiterated, "For my sake, do not be found in this house. Others besides Rachel may have heard the shot."
But he took her by the wrists, drew her away from the fireplace and set her in a chair. "We lose time, Monsieur," said Rachel, again.
"It is better to lose time, Rachel," he said, "we will give ten minutes to Fate." And the serving-woman nodded and proceeding to the corpse began to tie up the wound methodically in her apron. The others waited in absolute stillness, Sturge arranging in his mind the explanation he would give, if any had heard the report and broke in on them. But silence and fog persisted around the house.
They took up the body. "If anyone notices, we are carrying a drunken man home," said Sturge. "Carry it carefully; there must be no trail of blood." And so into the English fog they carried out the man who had come living from foreign lands, and laid him down in the public road, far from the house and the square where he had perished. When they returned to the room, Rachel took up the bloodstained rug and apron, sole witnesses of the thing that had been done.
"I will destroy these," she said, "and bring the rug from Madame's room. And then," she said, as simply as before, "Monsieur and Madame will dine."
Renée shuddered and looked at Sturge.
"I remain here," he said, "till the body is found. We are linked henceforth indissolubly and for ever, Idalie." And as he stressed lightly the unwonted name, there was a look in his eyes she dared not oppose.
That night, when Renée had gone to her room, Sturge, sitting over the fire, remembered that he had not told her the
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strange incident which had brought about one tragedy today and prevented another. When he went into her chamber, she came to him, deeply agitated, and clasped him with violence.
"Oh, Sturge, Sturge!" she cried, "to think that if you had not chanced to come, I should be dead now, taken from you, taken from God's beautiful world!"
Chanced! There is no such thing in this creation as chance, thought Sturge. But who then had given him that mystic warning? Who had put the revolver in his hand? or sent him on a mission of slaughter? Who had made Imogen rise just in time? Who had fired that shot in the drawing-room? The God within? The God without? The Easterns spoke of God in a man. This might well be He. And then there returned to his memory those fierce emotions, the hatred that had surged in him, the impulse and delight of slaughter, the song of exultation that his blood yet sang in his veins, because a man that had lived, was dead and could not return to life again. He remembered, too, the command in Renée 's eyes. God in a man?—was God in a man a murderer then? In him? and in her?
"It is to enquire too curiously to think so," he concluded, "but very strangely indeed has He made His world."
Then he told her about the German mystic and the chime of the phantom hour that had brought him to her in the tragic moment of their destinies. And when he spoke of the daemon within, the woman understood better than the man.
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Sri Aurobindo wrote this, his only complete story, during the early part of his stay in Pondicherry, 1910-12, or perhaps a year or two earlier.
The Village of Streadhew lay just under the hill, a collection of brown solid cottages straggling through the pastures, and on the top of the incline Abelard with its gables and antique windows watched the road wind and drop slowly to the roofs of Orringham two miles away. For many centuries the house and the village had looked with an unchanged face on a changing world, and in their old frames housed new men and manners, while Orringham beyond adapted itself and cast off its mediaeval slough. The masters of Abelard lived with the burden of a past which they could not change.
Stephen Abelard of Abelard, the last male of his line, had lived in the house with the old gables for the past twenty years mixing formally in the society of his equals, discharging the activities incidental to his position with a punctilious conscientiousness, but withdrawn in soul from the life around him. That was since the death of his wife in childbirth followed soon afterwards by the fading of the son to give whom she had died. Two daughters, Isabel and Aloÿse, survived. Stephen Abelard did not marry again; he was content that the old line should be continued through the female side, and when his daughter Isabel married Richard Lancaster, the younger son of a neighbouring country family, he stipulated that the husband should first consent to bear the name of his wife's ancestors. This attachment to the old name was the one thing known in the lord of the old house that belonged to the past. For Stephen Abelard, in spite of his spiritual aloofness, was a man forward in thought, with a keen emancipated intellect which neither present nor past dogma could bind, and gifted with a high courage to act according to the light that he had.
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A strange series of accidents had helped to bring the old family near to extinction. For the last hundred years no daughter-in-law of the house had been able to survive by many days the birth of her first male child. Girl-children had been born and no harm had happened but some fatality seemed to attend the birth of a son. Stephen's great-grandfather had male issue, Hugh and Walter, and one daughter, Bertha, who died tragically, murdered in her chamber, no one knew by whom. It was after this incident that the fatality seemed to weigh on the house and popular superstition was not slow to connect the fatality with the deed. Hugh Abelard had already a wife and two sons at the time of the occurrence, but Walter was unmarried. One year after the tragic and mysterious death of his sister he brought a bride home to Abelard and in yet another year a son had been born to him. But only seven days after the birth of her child Mary Abelard was found dead in her room, possibly from some unexplained shock to the heart, for she was strong and in good health when she perished, and Walter, unhinged by the death of his young wife, went into foreign lands where he too died. The tongues of the countryside did not hesitate to whisper that he only paid in his affliction the penalty of an undetected crime. Hugh's sons grew up and married, but the same fatality fell upon the unions they had contracted; they died early and their sons did not live to enjoy the estate they successively inherited. Then Walter Abelard's son came with his wife and daughter and took possession. Stephen was born two years later and within three days of his birth his mother had shared the fate of all women who married into the fated house. So strong was the impression made upon Richard Abelard by this fate or this strong recurrent coincidence that when he married again, he would not allow his wife to enter the home of his ancestors. He bought a house in the neighbouring county and lived there till his death from an accident in the hunting-field. After him Stephen reigned, a man modern-minded, full of energy and courage, who returned, scornful of antiquated superstitions, to the old family house, married and had two daughters, and then—well, coincidence insisted and the male child came and the mother, adored of her
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husband, passed away. But there was no mystery about this death. She died of collapse after childbirth, her life fought for by skilful doctors, watched over by careful attendants, sleeplessly guarded at night by her husband. A coincidence, nothing more.
Therefore Isabel and Richard Lancaster Abelard came fearlessly to live at the fated house. The daughters of the house had been immune from any fatality, and when she became enceinte, no superstitious fears haunted the mind of any among the numerous friends and relatives who loved her for her charm and her gaiety. About three months before the birth of the child could be expected her sister Aloÿse married, not as the Abelards had hitherto done, into the neighbouring families, but, contrary to all precedent, a young foreign doctor settled at Orringham, a man not only foreign, but of Asiatic blood. Popular as Dṛ Armand Sieurcaye was in the neighbourhood, the alliance had come with something of a shock to the countryside; for the Abelards, though less wealthy than many, were the oldest of the county families. But neither Abelard nor his daughter were troubled with these prejudices. The young man had powerfully attracted them both and the marriage was as much the choice of the father as of the daughter.
Armand Sieurcaye came from the south of France, and there was only the glossy blackness of his hair and the richer tint of the olive in his face to suggest a non-European origin. His grandfather, son of the mixed alliance of a Maratha Sirdar with the daughter of a French adventurer in the service of Scindia, had been the first to settle in France purchasing an estate in Provence with the riches amassed and hoarded by battle and plunder on Indian soil. Armand was the younger of two sons and had studied medicine at Nancy and then, driven rather by some adventurous strain in his blood than any necessity, sought his fortune abroad. He went first to Bombay, but did little there beyond some curious investigations which interested his keen, sceptical and inquiring mind, but did not help his purse. At Bombay, he met John Lancaster, Richard's brother, and was induced by him to try his fortune in the English county town aided by whatever local influence his friend, plucked by an almost
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miraculous cure from the grip of a fatal disease, could afford him in gratitude for the saving of his life. In twelve months Armand Sieurcaye had won for himself universal popularity, a lucrative practice, and Aloÿse Abelard.
The old house, bathed in spring sunshine, had little in it of the ominous or weird to Armand Sieurcaye when with his young wife he entered it for a lengthened stay in the month of Isabel's delivery. He was attracted by its old-world quaintness, by the mass of the green ivy smothering the ancient walls, by the heavenward question of its short pointed towers; but there was nothing there to alarm or to daunt. Isabel had hurried to the study to her father, and Armand guided by Richard Lancaster repaired to the room into which the domestics had already carried his belongings.
"Awfully good of you to leave your practice and come," said Lancaster, "It's a relief to have you. Herries is a fool and I'm not used to the worry."
Armand looked at him with some surprise. He had not expected even so much nervousness in his cheerful, vigorous, commonplace brother-in-law.
"Is there any trouble?" he asked lightly, "Isabel seems strong. There can't be any reason for fear."
"Oh, there isn't. But I tell you, I'm not used to the worry," and, then, starting off from the subject, "How do you like your room?"
Armand had not looked at his room, but he looked at it now. It was a comfortable, well-furnished room with nothing apparently unmodern about it except the old oak panelling of the walls and the unusual narrowness and length of the two windows that looked out on the grounds behind the house. His eyes fell on a door in the wall to his right hand.
"What's there?" he asked. "I thought the room was the last at this end of the house."
"I haven't any idea," was the indifferent answer. "It can't be anything more than a balcony or closet."
The door attracted Armand's attention strangely. Of some slighter wood, not of the oak with which Abelard abounded, it
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was carved with great plainness and struck him as more modern than the rest of the house. Still it was not precisely a modern door. He walked over to it to satisfy his curiosity, but the attempt to turn the handle brought no result.
"Locked?" questioned Lancaster, a little surprised. He too sauntered over and turned the handle in vain.
"I hope it's not a haunted chamber," said Armand, making the useless attempt again. He had spoken carelessly and was not prepared for the unwonted ebullition that followed his words. Richard's face darkened, he struck the floor with his heel, angrily.
"It's a beastly house," he cried. "When old Stephen dies, I'll sell it for a song."
More and more surprised, Armand turned to look closely at his brother-in-law. It might be his fancy which told him that the young man's face was paler than ordinarily and an uneasy restless look leaped from time to time into the shallowness of his light blue eyes. It was certainly his fancy which said that Richard looked as an animal might look when it is aware of some hidden enemy hunting it. He dismissed the imagination immediately, and put away from him the thought of the door.
But it occurred to him again when, returning from a solitary walk in the grounds, he chanced to look up at the angle of the house occupied by his room and the locked closet or balcony.
A corner of wall there did jut out beyond what he judged to be the limit of his room and then curved lightly round and formed a porch supporting a small room that could not have been more than eight feet by twelve in size; over the room a peaked tower. The erection was meant to imitate and harmonise with the older pointed towers of the building, but a slight observation confirmed the Doctor's surmise that here was a later excrescence inharmoniously added for some whim or personal convenience. But the ivy was unusually thick on this side and even covered the great carved and high-arched orifices that all along the length of the erection did duty for windows. It must then be rather in the nature of a closed balcony than a room. It struck him casually how easy it would be for an intruder to climb up the strong thick growths of ivy from outside and enter
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the house by the balcony. The possibility, no doubt, explained the locked door. Greatly relieved, he knew not why, Armand continued his walk. But he thought of the door idly more than once before nightfall.
That night, Armand Sieurcaye, sleeping by the side of his wife, was awakened by what seemed to him a noise in or outside his room. The lamp was burning low but nothing stirred in the dimness of the room. His eyes fell on the locked door and a disagreeable attraction rivetted them upon it; to his newly-awakened senses there seemed to be something weird and threatening in the plain mass of wood. With a violent effort he flung the fancy from him and sought slumber again; the noise that awakened him was possibly some figment of senses bewildered by sleep. He knew not after how long an interval he again woke, but this time a cold air upon him, and before he opened unwilling eyes, he was aware of the door of his room being softly opened and closed. Still the lamp burned,—the room was empty. Involuntarily his eyes sought the locked door. It was swung back on its hinges, wide open! And if the closed door had alarmed something sensitive and irrational within him, how much ghastlier, more menacing seemed that open rectangle with the pit of darkness beyond!
Cursing his nerves for fools Armand Sieurcaye leaped from the bed, turned up the lamp and, conquering a nervous reluctance the violence of which surprised him, stood, lamp in hand, at the threshold of the darkness beyond. It was, as he had conjectured, a wide balcony walled in so as to form a habitable sitting or sleeping-room in summer, and it seemed as such to have been utilised; for a bare iron bedstead occupied the width of the room near the wall, an old armchair with faded and tarnished cushions stood against the opposite end of the room. But the arched orifices were now heavily curtained with the thick folds of the climbing ivy. Otherwise the room was entirely empty. He decided to look out from these windows into the moonlit world outside.
But as he advanced into the room, he was aware of a growing disorder in his nerves which he could not control. It was
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not fear, so much as an intense horror and hatred—of what, he could not determine, but, it almost seemed to him, of that bare iron bed, of that faded armchair. In any case, he carefully kept his full distance from both as he crossed the room to the ivied openings and thrusting aside part of those green curtains peered into the night. A great world of dark green flooded with moonlight met his eyes. And then he noticed in the moonlight a man standing in the grounds of Abelard looking up at the balcony with a hand shading his eyes. It was Richard Lancaster Abelard, heir of the old house, he who knew nothing of the door and the balcony. And then the strong descendant of old French and Maratha fighters recoiled as if he had received a blow. He did not look again but hastily crossed the balcony and entered his room casting a glance of loathing as he passed to each side of him, once at the iron bed, once at the disused armchair. He could almost have sworn that a shadowy form lay propped upon shadowy pillows on the old iron bed, that somebody looked at him ironically from the tarnished cushions of the chair.
Wondering at himself Armand put on a dressing gown and sat down in an easy chair. "I must have it out with my nerves," he said, resolutely; "Whoever entered my room and opened the door, will, I feel sure, return to close it; I will wait, I will see him and prove to my nerves what unspeakable superstitious idiots they are. There is nothing strange in Richard Lancaster being out there in the moonlight; no doubt, he could not sleep and was taking a stroll outside to help pass away some sleepless hours. What I saw in him, was an optical effect of the moonlight—nothing more, I tell you, nothing more."
For about half an hour he kept his vigil. As he sat his mind left its present surroundings and turned to the experiments in occultism he had conducted in Bombay. From his childhood he had been a highly imaginative lad with a nervous system almost as sensitive as an animal's. But if Armand Sieurcaye had the nervous temperament of the Asiatic mystic, his brain had been invincibly sceptical not only with the material French scepticism but with the merciless Indian scepticism which, once aroused, is far more obstinate and searching than its grosser European
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shadow. Refusing to accept second-hand proof, however strong, and aware of his own rich nervous endowment, he had himself experimented in occult science with the double and inconsistent determination to be rigidly fair to the supernatural and allow it to establish itself if it existed, and, secondly, to destroy and disprove it for ever by the very fairness and thoroughness of his experiments. He had been able to establish as undoubtedly existing in himself a fair power of correct presentiment, but against this he had to set a number of baulked presentiments; he therefore dismissed the gift as merely a lively power of divining the trend of events. He was also aware that his personal attractions and repulsions were practically unerring; but, after all, was not this merely the equivalent in man to the instinct which so often warns children and animals of their friends and enemies? It was probable that the adventurous life of his Maratha forefathers, compelled to be always on the alert against violence and treachery, had stamped the instinct deep into the hereditary temperament of their issue. All the rest of the phenomena valued by occultists he had, he thought, proved to be sensory hallucinations or inordinate subconscious cerebral activity.
In the course of his reflections he returned suddenly to his immediate surroundings and, with a start, looked towards the balcony-chamber. The door was closed, that had been open! There it stood shut, plain, dumb, denying that it had ever been anything else. Amazed, Armand leaped to his feet, strode to the door and turned the handle, ignoring a cry within that commanded him to desist. The door yielded not; it was not only closed but locked. Was it possible for any human being to have crossed his room, closed that door and locked it, under his very eyes and yet without his knowledge? Then he remembered the completeness of his absorption and how utterly his mind had withdrawn into itself. "Nothing wonderful in that!" he said. "How often have I been oblivious to time and space and circumstance outside when absorbed in a train of thoughts or in an experiment." The visitor must have thought him asleep in the easy chair and moved quietly. There was nothing more to be done that night and he returned, baffled, to his slumbers.
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The first man he met next morning was Richard Lancaster who greeted him with his usual shallow and cheerful cordiality. There was no trace of yesterday's disturbance in his look or demeanour.
"Slept well?" asked Armand casually, but carefully watching his features.
"Like a top!" answered Richard, heartily. "Didn't raise my head once from the pillow from eleven to seven."
Wondering Armand passed him and entered the library. Stephen Abelard sat deep in the pages of a book; a cup of tea stood untasted beside his elbow. After some ordinary conversation suggested by the book, Armand suddenly questioned his father-in-law:
"By the way, sir, is there a room next to mine? I noticed a locked door between."
Stephen Abelard's eyes narrowed a little and he looked at his questioner before he replied. He had raised the cup of tea to his lips, but he put it down still untasted.
"Disturbed?" he questioned, sharply.
"Not at all," parried Armand. "Why should I be?"
"Why indeed? You don't believe in the supernatural. Who does? But in our nerves and imaginations we are all of us the fools our ancestors made us. I had better tell you." Stephen Abelard began sipping his tea and then pursued with a careful deliberateness. "The room you sleep in was the chamber occupied by the unfortunate girl, Bertha Abelard, with whose name scandal in her life and superstition after her death have been busy. You've heard all that nonsense about the curse on Abelard. I need not repeat the rubbish. But this is true that only two people have slept in the balcony-chamber since her death. One was a guest, and he refused to sleep there after the first night."
"Why?"
"Nervous imaginations! Somebody resenting his presence, somebody in the armchair opposite. What will not men imagine? The other was Hugh Abelard's youngest son and he—"
A shade crossed the face of the master of the house.
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"And he—"
"Was found dead in the iron bed the next morning."
Armand Sieurcaye quivered like a horse struck by the lash. He restrained himself.
"Any cause?"
"Failure of the heart. The Abelards are subject to failure of the heart. Might it not have happened equally in any other room? It has so happened, in fact, more than once."
Armand nodded. Hereditary weakness of the heart! It might very well be. But what then was Richard Lancaster or the hallucination of him doing outside in the moonlight?
"Since that death, out of deference to prejudices the balcony is kept locked and opened twice a week only when Roberts takes the key of the door from Isabel and cleans up. Roberts has no nerves. She believes in the ghost, but argues she, Miss Bertha won't hurt me; I'm only keeping her quarters clean for her.'"
Armand remembered the stories in circulation in the county. Rumour had charged Walter Abelard with the responsibility for the death of his sister, partly on the ground of subsequent incidents, partly on the impossibility of an outside assassin penetrating so far or, even supposing he entered, committing the deed and effecting his escape without leaving one trace behind. Why, there was the ivy. And even if the ivy were not so thick one hundred years ago, an agile man and a gymnast could easily ascend the porch to the arched orifices and descend again after his work had been done.
"You are interested?" said Abelard, "well, we'll go at once and see the room." And he rang for a servant to bring the key of the ominous chamber.
Armand had by this time almost convinced himself that his nocturnal experience was only a peculiarly vivid and disagreeable dream. He followed Stephen with the expectation,—or was it not the hope?—of finding the room quite other than he had seen it in that uncomfortable experience. As Stephen Abelard opened the door and light overcame its native dimness, the first thing Armand saw was a bare iron bed in the width of the outer wall, the next a faded armchair with tarnished cushions against
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the inner masonry. The room was dim by reason of the thickness of the ivy choking its arched stone orifices.
No dream then, but a reality! Someone had twice entered his room, once to open, once to shut the door of ill omen. Was it Mṛṣ Roberts, somnambulist, vaguely drawn to the door she alone was accustomed to unlock? But where at night could she get the key? for it was, Stephen had said, with Isabel Abelard. Again, it was as if a blow struck him. For, if the key was with Isabel, only Richard Lancaster could easily have got it from her at night, only he or she could have made that nocturnal entry. And it was Richard Lancaster he had seen under the balcony when he looked out into the moonlight. Was it the heir of the house who had entered, opened the door, gone out to look up at the room from outside and afterwards returned to shut it? But on what conceivable impulse? Was it the memory of a somnambulist returning to Armand's question of the morning? That was a very likely explanation and fitted admirably with all the circumstances. Or was his action in any way linked to those nervous perturbations so new and out of place in this shallow, confident and ordinary nature? That was a circumstance into which the theory did not fit quite so easily. A great uneasiness was growing on Armand Sieurcaye. In a supernatural mystery he did not believe, but he was too practised in life not to believe in natural human mysteries underlying the even surface of things. He knew that men of the most commonplace outside have often belied their appearance by their actions. A presentiment of dangerous and calamitous things was upon him, and he remembered that his presentiments had more often justified themselves than not. But to Stephen Abelard he said nothing; least of all did he say anything to Richard Abelard of that nocturnal outing which he had so glibly denied.
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This piece was written around the same time as The Phantom Hour, but was never completed.
Another week had passed by, but Armand's nerves were not reconciled to the door of ill omen that looked nightly at him with the secret of Bertha Abelard's death behind it. Yet nothing farther had happened of an unusual nature. Richard Abelard was often absent and distracted, a thing formerly unknown in him, and his speech was occasionally irritable, but there was nothing out of the ordinary in his action. He walked, smoked, shot, rode, hunted, played billiards and read the light literature that pleased him, without any deviation from his familiar habits. Armand noticed that on some days he was entirely his old self, and then he invariably spoke with great satisfaction of the profound sleep he had enjoyed all night. Sieurcaye finally dismissed the presentiment from his mind. He had accepted the somnambulist theory; it was sleeplessness that was telling on Richard's nerves. The whole mystery received a rational explanation on that simple hypothesis.
Two nights after he arrived at this cheerful conclusion, he woke at night for the first time after the experience of the open door. Every night he had thought of watching for the somnambulist, but, though he had been accustomed all his life to light slumbers, a sleep as profound as that of which Richard Lancaster boasted, glued his head to the pillow. On this particular night his wife was not with him, for, to satisfy a caprice of Isabel's, she was sleeping with her sister in their old nursery. Armand turned on his pillow, noticed with the surprise of a half-sleeping man the absence of his wife, then glanced about the room and observed that the door of his chamber was slightly open. A meaningless detail at first, the circumstance began to awaken a sort of indolent wonder—had Aloÿse come into the room to visit his sleep and gone back to the nursery? Or was it Richard the somnambulist driven by the monomania of the locked room? And then, as if galvanised by a shock of electricity, he sat up in bed, suddenly, violently, and stared at the door with unbelieving eyes. It had come back to him that, before turning into bed, on the spur of some unaccountable impulse, he had locked his
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room and lain down wondering at his own purposeless action. And there now was the door he had thus secured, open, with the key in the lock, challenging him for an explanation. Had he got up himself in his sleep and opened it? Had he too grown a somnambulist? He remembered the profound slumber, so unusual to him, so similar to Lancaster's, that had surprised him for the last few nights. Then an idea occurred to his rapidly working mind; he got out of bed, went to the inner door and turned the handle. It opened! He looked into the room with the iron bed. There was no one there, only the bed and the armchair. Then he closed the door, walked over to his own door, locked it, put the key under his pillow and got into bed again. His heart was beating a little faster than usual as he lay gazing at the door of Bertha Abelard's death chamber. And then a very simple explanation flashed on him. Baulked by the locked door, Richard had climbed up by the ivy from outside and effected his entry from Bertha's chamber. But Isabel was not with Richard tonight—how could he have got possession of the key? Well, conceivably, Isabel might have left her keys by oversight in her own chamber, or the somnambulist might have entered the nursery and detached what he needed from his wife's chatelaine. But what settled waking idea, what persistent fancy of sleep drove Richard Lancaster to the ominous chamber, forced him to devise entrance against every obstacle and by such forbidden means? Armand shuddered as he remembered the story of Bertha Abelard's death and his own theory of the means by which her assassin had gained entrance.
As he expected, he soon fell asleep. Rising the next morning, his first action was to walk over to the inner door and try it. It was locked! Well, that was natural. Somnambulists were often alert and keen-minded even beyond their waking selves and Richard, foiled again by the locked door, had climbed up once more by the ivy to efface all proof of his nocturnal visit.
Armand contrived that morning to be alone with Isabel in order to ask her where she kept the key of Bertha Abelard's chamber. She turned to him with laughing eyes.
"You are not haunted, Armand? No? It's always with me and the ghost, if she's there, must get through solid wood to
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invade your room. I keep my chatelaine at night under my pillow."
"You had it there last night?"
"Armand! I am positive our ancestress has visited you. Yes, last night too." And then suddenly, "Why, no, it was not. I put it last night in the box where I kept my doll and my toys. Don't look surprised, Armand. I'm a great baby still in many things and I wanted to have everything last night just as it was when we were children. I was a very careful and jealous little housewife, and before I slept I used always to lock up my chatelaine with my doll and playthings and treasure the tiny key of my box in a locket under my nightgown. I did all that last night. If you have been haunted, I'm not responsible."
"Did you tell anybody what you were going to do?"
"I did not think of it till we went to bed. Only Aloÿse knew."
"Does anybody else know of this habit of your childhood?"
"Only Roberts and papa. They don't remember, probably. I had forgotten it myself till last night. What is puzzling you, Armand?"
"Oh, it is only an idea I had," he replied, and rapidly escaped from farther question to the sitting-room set apart for himself and Aloÿse.
The thing was staggering. Somnambulism did not make one omniscient, and it was impossible that Richard Abelard should have known this arrangement of Isabel's far-off childhood, extracted the key from his sleeping wife's locket, the chatelaine from the box and restored them undiscovered, when his need was finished. The theory involved such a chain of impossibilities and improbabilities that it must be rejected. And then, as always, a solution suggested itself. Richard Abelard must have taken, long ago, the impress of the key and got a duplicate of it made for his own secret use. But if so, what unavowable design, what stealthy manoeuvres must such a subterfuge be intended to serve? What legitimate need could Richard Abelard have of this secret and ominous exit or entry? Was it not Armand's duty to warn Stephen Abelard of proceedings that must conceal in them something abnormal, perilous or even criminal? But there
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was the danger that Isabel might come to hear of it and receive a shock. Armand decided to wait till after her delivery.
A knock at the door roused him from his thoughts and in response to his invitation Richard Abelard himself entered. He walked up to the fireplace, flung himself into a chair opposite Armand and jerked out abruptly:
"Dṛ Armand, you are a dab at medical diagnosis. Can't you tell me what's the matter with me?"
"Name your symptoms."
"You've seen some of them yourself. I've observed you noticing me. But that's nothing. It's the mind."
"What of the mind?"
"Oh, how should I know? Dreams, imaginations, sensations, impulses. Yes, impulses." He grew pale as he repeated the word.
"Can't you be more precise?"
"I can't; the thing's vague." He paused a moment; and then his features altered, a look of deep agony passed over them. "Somebody is hunting me," he cried, "somebody's hunting me."
A great dread and sickness of heart seized upon Armand Sieurcaye as he looked at his brother-in-law.
"Steady!" he cried, "it's a nervous disorder, of course, nothing more. But you are hiding something from me. That won't do."
"Nerves! Don't tell me I'm going mad! Or if I am, prevent it, for Isabel's sake."
"Of course, I'll prevent it. But you have got to be frank with me. I must know everything."
A visible hesitation held Richard for a few seconds, then he said, "I've told all I can think of, all that's definite." Then, suddenly, striking the arm of his chair with his closed hand, "It's this beastly house," he cried; "there's something in it! There's something in it that ought not to be there."
"If you think so, you must leave it till your nerves are restored. Look here, why not take John's yacht and go for a cruise, oh, to America, if you like,—or to Japan. Japan will give you a longer spell of the sea."
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"I'll do it," cried Richard Lancaster, "as soon as Isabel's safe through this, I'll go. Thank you, Armand." And with a look of great relief on his face, he rose and left the room.
Armand had not much time to ponder over this singular interview, though certain phrases Richard had used, kept ringing in his brain; for that night the pangs of childbirth came upon Isabel and she was safely delivered of a male child. An heir was born to the dying house of Abelard. The strong health of Isabel Abelard easily shook from it the effects of the strain. There was no danger for her and the child seemed likely to inherit the robust physique of his parents. As for Richard, he was joyous, at ease and seemed to have put from him his idea of a flight from Abelard.
But on the third night after the delivery Armand Sieurcaye had troubled dreams and wandered through strange afflictions; the rustling of a dress haunted him; a pang of terror, a movement of agony seemed to come from someone's heart into his own, and there was a laughter in the air he did not love. And in the grey of the autumn morning, Stephen Abelard with a strange look in his eyes stood by his side.
"Get up, Armand; dress and come. Do not disturb Aloÿse."
In three minutes Armand was outside on the landing where Stephen Abelard was pacing to and fro under the whip of the sorrow that had leaped upon him.
"Isabel is dead," he said briefly.
With a dull brain that refused to think Armand followed the father to the death chamber of his child. The wall lamp was flaring high above the bed. A night-lamp that no one had thought to put out, burned on the toilette-table. In a chair far from the bed Richard Lancaster with his face hidden in his hands sat rocking himself, his body shaken by sobs. When Armand entered, he uncovered his face, cast at him a tragic look from eyes full of tears, and went swaying from the room.
Armand stood at the bedside and looked at the dead girl. As he looked, a pang of fear troubled his heart, for his practised perceptions, familiar with many kinds of death, gave him an appalling intimation. Isabel had not died easily! Then something
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peculiar in the pose of the head and neck struck his awakened brain. He bent down suddenly, then rose as suddenly, his olive face sallow with some strong emotion, strode to the toilette-table, seized the night-lamp and returning held it to Isabel's neck.
"What is it?" asked Stephen Abelard. One could see that he was holding himself tight to meet a possible shock. Armand carefully put back the lamp where it had stood and returned to the bedside before he answered. In the shock of his discovery he had forgotten his surroundings, forgotten to whom he was about to speak.
"It is a murder," he said, slowly and mechanically.
"Armand!"
"It is a murder," he continued, unheeding the cry of the father, "I cannot be mistaken. And effected by unusual means. There is a spot in the body which has only to be found by the fingers and receive a peculiar pressure and a man dies suddenly, surely, with so light a trace only the eyes of the initiate can discover it—not even a trace, only an indication, but a sure indication. The Japanese wrestlers know the device, but do not impart it except to those who are too self-disciplined to abuse it. That is what has been done here."
Stephen Abelard seized Armand's shoulder with a tense, violent grip. "Armand," he cried, "who besides yourself knows of this means of murder?"
"John Lancaster knows it."
Stephen's hand fell limply from his son-in-law's shoulder. After a time he said in a voice that was again calm, "Armand, my child died of heart-failure as so many of the Abelards have done."
"It is best so," replied Armand Sieurcaye.
"Now go, Armand," continued Stephen quietly, "go and leave me alone with my child."
Armand did not return to his chamber, but went into his sitting-room, lighted a candle and sat, looking at the chair in which Richard Abelard had consulted him only three days ago. John Lancaster, Richard's brother, who alone near Orringham knew of the Japanese secret! What share had John Lancaster,
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friend of Armand Sieurcaye, in the murder of Isabel Abelard? Was it for his entry that Richard had provided, by the duplicate key, by his strange and perilous manoeuvres with the ivy and the balcony room? But why not open the front door for him or leave unshuttered one of the lower windows, a much easier and less dangerous passage? Then he remembered that the great dog, Brilliant, lay at the bottom of the stairs and would not allow any but an inmate to pass unchallenged. John Lancaster was his friend, his benefactor, but Armand knew the man, a reckless flamboyant profligate capable of the most glorious and self-immolating actions and capable equally of the most cruel and cynical crimes. He remembered, too, how he himself had taught John that peculiar trick of the Japanese art of slaying. In a certain sense he himself was responsible for Isabel's death. How wise were the Easterns in their rigid reticence when they taught only to prepared and disciplined natures the secrets that might be misused to harm mankind! And then his mind travelled to Isabel and her sorrowful end slain in the supreme moment of a woman's joy by the husband she loved. What grim and inexorable Power ruling the world, Fate, Chance, Providence, had singled out for this doom a girl whose whole life had been an innocent shedding of sunshine on all who came near? Providence! He smiled. There were still fools who believed in an overruling Providence, a wise and compassionate God! And then the insoluble problem returned to baffle his mind, what possible motive moved Richard to compass this heartless crime or John to assist him?
All that day of sorrow Richard was absent from the house, and Armand had no chance of probing him. It was late at night, about eleven, that he entered. Armand met him on his way to his room, candle in hand.
"I should like a word with you, Richard," he said.
Richard turned on him, laughing with a terrible gaiety. "No use, Doctor Armand. You could not save me, you see. The thing was too strong. Mark my words, the thing will be too strong even for you." And he strode to his room leaving Armand amazed on the staircase.
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Aloÿse had elected to sleep that night with her dead sister's child and Armand once more found himself alone in Bertha Abelard's chamber with no companion except the locked door, accomplice perhaps in the tragedy that had darkened the house. Again his slumbers were troubled and he dreamed always of the locked door open and someone traversing the room on a mission of evil, a work of horror. He woke with a start, his heart in him dull and heavy as lead and full of the conviction, which it called knowledge, that the tragedy was not finished but more crimes mysterious and unnatural were about to pollute the old walls of Abelard. Then his thoughts flew to Aloÿse. He dressed himself hastily and went to the room where she was sleeping. Aloÿse was asleep and the child's nurse slept on a bed some five feet away, but Armand cast only a fleeting glance at the two women, for between the beds was the cradle of Isabel's child and over it was a figure stooping, and as it lifted its face towards the opened door, he saw a face that was and yet was not the face of Richard Lancaster. Richard immediately moved over to the door. As he neared, Armand drew away from it with the first pang of absolute terror in his heart he had ever experienced since his childhood. Richard Lancaster noted the emotion and it seemed to amuse him, for he laughed. And again there was something in the laugh that was not in the laugh of Richard Lancaster or of any human mirth to which Armand Sieurcaye had ever listened. As soon as Richard had left the room, Armand almost ran to the door, locked it and sat down at his wife's bedside shaking with an excitement he could not control. He soon recovered hold of his nerves, but he did not leave the room and its unconscious inmates. He sat there motionless till at four o'clock in the morning a light knock at the door startled him. When he opened it, Stephen Abelard entered. He took Armand's presence as a matter of course and went calmly to the side of the child and began looking down on the heir of his house, the little baby who was all that was left to him of Isabel. When he turned from the cradle, Armand spoke.
"Sir, you must do something about Richard."
Stephen looked at him. "Come to my room, Armand," he
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said, "We will talk there." Before following Stephen, Armand woke the nurse and bade her watch over the child. "Lock the door," he added, "and keep it locked till I return." As he went through the corridors, he passed Richard's room. The door was open, but the room absolutely dark; still his practised eyes perceived in the doorway a figure standing which drew back when he looked at it, obviously not the figure of Richard, for it was shorter, slenderer. When he was entering Stephen's room, it occurred to him that he had unconsciously carried away in his mind the impression that it was the figure of a woman. After the first disagreeable feeling had passed, he shook the absurdity from him; it must have been the dressing-gown that gave him the idea of a woman's robe. After a brief talk with Stephen, the two were pulling in silence at the cigars they had lighted, when, perhaps half an hour after his leaving the nursery, someone knocked at the door and the nurse appeared and beckoned to Armand Sieurcaye. There was a look of terrible anxiety on her face that brought Armand striding to the door.
"Will you come, sir?" she said, "I don't know what's the matter with the child."
"Did you lock the door?" asked Armand, as they went.
The nurse looked troubled. "I thought I did, though I could not understand why you wanted it; but it seems I can't have turned the key well. For when I dozed off for two minutes, I woke to find the door open." Then she paused and added with great hesitation. "And I almost felt, sir, as if I had noticed a woman in the room standing by the cradle, but I was too sleepy to understand. It wasn't Mṛṣ Sieurcaye, for I had to wake her up afterwards."
A woman! And the locked door that opened! Armand groaned; he could understand nothing, but he knew what he would find even before he bent with the already awakened and anxious Aloÿse over the dead child who had thus so swiftly followed his mother to the grave. And it was by the same way.
That morning Stephen Abelard spoke to his elder son-in-law. "Richard," he said, "you will start for your sea-voyage today. Take John's yacht at Bristol. You need not wait for the
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funeral nor mind what people will say. If I were you, I'ld have a doctor on board."
Richard Lancaster was very calm and deliberate as he replied, "I had settled that, sir, before you spoke. I'm going on a long journey and I'm going direct, not by Bristol nor in the yacht. As you suggest, I'll not wait for the funeral and I'm past caring what people will say."
"Don't forget the doctor," insisted Stephen.
"The doctor can't come," said Richard, "And he wouldn't like the voyage. I'm not mad, sir,—worse luck!"
The two sons-in-law of Stephen Abelard left the house-steps together, Armand for a stroll in the grounds to steady his heated brain and his shaken nerves, Richard in the direction of the stables.
When Armand was returning to the house, a pale-faced groom ran up to him and pointed in the direction of the great avenue of stately trees before Abelard.
"Mṛ Richard's lying there," he faltered, "—shot!"
Armand stood stock-still for a moment, then ran to the spot indicated. Of this last tragedy he had had no presentiment. What was it? What was this maddening and bloody tangle? This death dance of an incomprehensible fate which had struck down mother, father and child in less than thirty hours? No gleam of motive, no shred of coherence illuminated the nightmare. His reason stood helpless at last in the maze. It was the locked door, he thought, that opened and revealed nothing. But his reason insisted. Richard Abelard was mad, and in his madness he had used the device John must have incautiously taught him to slay wife and child; and this last act of self-slaughter was the natural refuge of a disturbed brain made aware by Armand's looks and by Stephen's words of discovery.
Richard Abelard lay dead on the grass by the avenue, shot through the heart and the revolver lay fallen two feet from his outstretched and nerveless hand. Armand, bending to assure himself that life was extinct, caught sight of a small piece of paper lying close to the knee of the dead man. When he rose, he turned to the groom. "Mṛ Richard's dead," he said, "go and tell
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Mṛ Abelard and bring men here to carry him in."
The man reluctantly departed and Armand caught up the paper and put it swiftly into his pocket. It was not till an hour later that he had time to take it out in his parlour and look at it. As he had suspected, it was a brief note in Richard's handwriting, and thus it ran, brief, pointed, tragic, menacing.
"Armand, you knew! But it was not I. God is my Witness, I am not guilty of murder. I can say no more; but in mercy to Aloÿse, look to yourself!"
For a long time Armand Sieurcaye held in his hand the dead man's mysterious warning. Then he flung it into the fire and watched its whiteness blacken, shrivel and turn into ashes.
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[The story was abandoned here.]
Mṛṣ Bolton was one of those sharp and rancid women whose very aspect gives a cultured man the toothache; it recalls vividly the taste of sour grapes. There had perhaps been a time when she was not elderly, but the boldest flight of metaphor would never have imaged her as young. The slanders of her enemies drew a frightful picture of the low-class Gorgon: they compared her chin to a penknife, her lips to a pair of icicles: her smile was a perpetual reminder of vinegar, her voice was like frost against the teeth. The sobriety of history merely records that her face was twin sister to a ferret, her features sharp and if the word may be used without offence gritty: altogether she was an excellent type of that class of crude failures whose mould nature has left unbroken that there may be a scourge for the refined and a pattern for housewifes.
Her face was Nemesis sculptured in marble
In her distress the child of the hothouse spoke the language of nature.
"I never forgive, but I bear no malice when I have requited"
She felt as if she were groping for a coin in the dark
A fire of remembrance burned a forgotten sentence into her brain and wrote it in crimson on her cheeks.
The voiceful hurry of the indicator copied the pattering footfall of the fugitive hours.
His amazement unwound itself in a coil of laughter.
Just as the clouds that steal the sunshine cannot throttle the sunlight as well
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Sri Aurobindo wrote down these lines on two pages of a notebook he used at Cambridge between 1890 and 1892.
A quiet hilly country on the confines of Bengal after rain. Grey cloud yet banked up the horizon except in the north and sloped over the eastern down-curve in great sheeny ribs brownish and grey like the ribs of a fan. The mango trees by the road with their crowded burden of ruddy or stained-yellow blossom looked moist and quite fresh, the earth discoloured, draggled and limp with the wet, but healed of the dusty thirst and discomfort of many showerless days. The west showed patches of pale bluish steel-grey sky where the veil of cloud was thinnest and the sinking light able to break through; just on the verge one or two of the outlying clouds were ruddy like a dull fire just meaning to go out. The moon must be somewhere eastward, a pale wisp of half-lucid yellow, waiting for the brilliancy to come, but in the east the long dark-ribbed layers ran down with a forbidding thickness. They were the skirts of the retreating storm.
The soldier Rajmohan as he reined in his horse on the top of a rise looked behind him once at the western and once at the southern sky and observed with a contraction of the brow the line of the southern horizon growing a heavy black and glaring up with a lowering threat at the half-cleared zenith.
"A storm brews there" he muttered to himself "and it may break here or it may pass. Either way there is no moonlight for me tonight."
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Sri Aurobindo wrote this piece around 1904, either in Baroda or while on vacation in Bengal.
There had been a heavy fall throughout the whole of that December day. The roads were white and indistinguishable in a thick pall of moonlight and dazzling snow; here and there a drift betrayed the footing. In the sky a bright moon pursued by clouds ran timidly up the ascent of the firmament; great arms of darkness sometimes closed over it; sometimes it emerged and proceeded with its still luminous race, ran, swayed, floated, glided forward intently, unfalteringly. Patrick Curran, treading cautiously the white uncertain flooring of earth, stumbling into snowdrifts, scouting into temporary darkness for his right road, cursed the weather and his fortunes.
"It is not enough," he complained, "that I should be a proscribed fugitive hiding my head in every uncertain refuge from the pursuit of this devil's Cromwell, doomed already to the gallows, owing my life every day to the trembling compassion of my poor father's tenants; it is not enough that I should have lost Alicia and that Luke Walter should have her; but the very moon and the snow and the night are his allies against me. Since God is so hard on me, I wonder why the devil does not come to my help—I would sell my soul to him this moment willingly. But perhaps he too is afraid of Cromwell."
"It is hardly probable," said a voice at his side suddenly.
Patrick Curran turned with a fierce start and clutched at his dagger. He was aware in the darkness of a dim form pacing beside him with a step much quieter and more assured than his own.
"Who are you?" he cried, rigid and menacing.
"A wayfarer like yourself," said the other, "I travel earth as a fugitive."
"From whom or what?" asked Patrick.
"How shall I say?" said the shadow, "Perhaps from my own
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thoughts, perhaps from a too powerful enemy."
After the discovery of the recent conspiracy to murder Cromwell and restore Charles Stuart, the country was full of Royalist fugitives, hiding by day, travelling by night, in the hope of reaching a port whence they could sail for Ostende or Calais. For the inquisitions of the Republican magistrates were imperative and undiscriminating.
"I would give," he said to himself, "my soul and the rest of my allotted days as a free gift to Satan, if I might once clasp Alicia in my arms and take with me into Hell the warm sense of the joy of her body and if I might see Luke Walter dead before me or be sure he was following me. Oh if I can once be sure of that, let the brown dog of the Dacres leap on me the next moment, I care not."
"You may be sure of it," answered the voice at his side, strangely sweet, yet to Patrick's ear formidable. He turned, thrilling.
"You must be the devil himself," he almost shouted.
"I may be only one who can read your thoughts," said the other in that sweet sinister voice which made the young man fancy sometimes that a woman spoke to him. "And that I can, you will easily judge when I have told you a very little of what I know of you. You are Patrick, the second son of Sir Gerald Curran who got his estate from his wife, Margaret Dacre, his baronetcy from King James and his death from Cromwell who took him prisoner at Worcester and hanged him. You were to have married Lady Alicia Nevil, when the conspiracy of which you were one of the heads as well as the hand destined to strike down the Puritan tyrant, was discovered by the discernment, luck and ruthless skill of Colonel Luke Walter."
The young Cavalier started and uttered a furious imprecation.
"It was he;" said the other, "he has great brain-power and penetration and a resolute genius. It is even possible he may succeed Cromwell, if the God of the Puritans gives him a lease long enough."
"If I have the chance, I will shorten it," cried Patrick Curran.
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"Or I;" said the unknown, "for just now I too am a Royalist. But to proceed. You were proclaimed and doomed to a felon's death in your absence; the Earl, implicated in the conspiracy, was compelled as the price of his pardon to betroth his daughter to Luke Walter, and the marriage is fixed for tonight."
"Tonight!" groaned the young man, and he smote his thigh miserably with his hand.
"At the Church of Worndale."
"But will it matter if Luke Walter perishes before he has consummated his nuptials?"
"I promise you that," said the unknown. "It does not suit you that Alicia should marry another. It does not suit me that there should be a strong successor to Cromwell. Charles Stuart is my good friend, and I wish that he should rule England. Therefore, Patrick, it is a bargain."
"Who the devil are you?" cried the young man again, marvelling.
As if to answer the moon peeped out from between two heavy angry masses of black cloud, illumining the earth's intense and inclement whiteness. He saw beside him a young man of remarkable beauty, whose face was perfectly familiar, but his name could not be remembered.
"As for your soul and your life," said the stranger, and as their eyes met, Patrick shuddered, "you need not give them to the devil whether freely or as part of the bargain, for they are already his."
He laughed a laugh of terrible and ominous sweetness, and in a moment Patrick remembered. He knew that laugh, he knew that face. They were his own.
At that moment the moon passed away into the second fragment of cloud. Patrick stood, unable to speak, looking at the dim shadow in front of him. Then it vanished.
It was some time before the young man could command himself sufficiently to pursue his way. He tried to think for a moment that it was John Dacre, the illegitimate son of Sir Gerald by his sister-in-law Matilda Dacre, who resembled Patrick strongly and was his sworn comrade and lover. But he knew
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it was not John. That was not John's face or John's speech or John's thinking. It must have been a vivid dream or a waking illusion. He walked forward in the darkness, greatly disturbed, but with recovered courage.
Again the moon shone out, this time with a clear gulf of sky just in front of her. Before Patrick the white road stretched long, straight and visible to a great distance and was marked out here by a high snow-covered hedge from the equally white indistinguishable country around.
"Come now, that is better," said Patrick Curran. As he spoke, he saw far off on the road a dark object travelling towards him; he slackened his pace and was minded to turn off the road to avoid it. But it was approaching with phenomenal speed. As it came nearer, he saw that it was only a dog. Again Patrick stood still. A dog! There was nothing in that. It was not what he had feared. But he remembered that singular conversation and the impious prayer that had arisen in his heart about the brown Dog of the Dacres,—the dog which showed itself always when a Dacre was about to die and leaped on him whenever the doom was by violence. He smiled, but a little uncertainly. Then the moonlight seemed to dwell on the swiftly-travelling animal more intensely and he saw that it was brown.
Never had Patrick seen any earthly thing master of such a terrible speed. It ran, it galloped, it bounded, and the wretched man watching the terrific charge of that phantasmal monster,—for it was a gigantic mastiff,—felt his heart stop and his warm youthful blood congeal in his veins. It was now within twenty paces; he felt the huge eyes upon him and knew that it was going to leap. He went down heavily with the ponderous frame of the animal oppressing his breast, its leonine paws on his shoulders, its hot breathing moistening his face. And then there was nothing.
That was the most terrible part of it, to have been borne down physically by a semblance, an unearthly hallucination, a thing that was this moment and the next was not. Patrick struggled to his feet, overcome by a panic terror; his nerves cried to him to run, to travel away quickly from this accursed night
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and this road of ghastly encounters. But he felt as if hamstrung, helpless, clutched by an intangible destruction. He sat down on the snow, panted and waited.
After a few minutes the blood began to flow more quietly through his veins, the pounding of his heart slackened and the sick agitation of his nerves yielded to a sudden fiery inrush. He leaped furiously to his feet. "The Dog of the Dacres," he cried, "the brown Dog, the Devil's Mastiff! And no doubt it was his master spoke to me in my own semblance. I am doomed, then. But not to the gallows. No, by God, not to the gallows. God's doom and the devil's, since I can resist neither, but not man's, not Cromwell's!" Then he paused. "Tonight!" he cried again. "At Worndale Church! But I will see her once before I go down to Hell. And it may be I shall take Luke Walter with me. It may be that is what the Devil wants of me."
He looked about the landscape and thought he could distinguish the trees that bordered the distant Church of Worndale. That was in front of him. Also in front, but much more to the left, was Trevesham Hall, the home of Alicia Nevil. He began walking rapidly, no longer with his first cautious and doubtful treading, but with a bold reckless stride. And it was noticeable that he no longer stumbled or floundered into snowdrifts. Patrick knew that he had only a few brief inches of his life's road left to his treading; for no man of the Dacre blood had ever lived more than twenty-four hours after the Brown Dog leaped on him. A desperate courage had entered into his veins. He would see [incomplete]
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Nothing is known for certain about the date of this piece, but it seems to belong to the period of “Occult Idylls” and may have been intended for that series. The manuscript was lost after being published in the Advent in February 1954.
It was in the forests of Asan that the Golden Bird first flew out from a flower-besieged thicket and fluttered before the dazzled eyes of Luilla. It was in the forests of Asan,—the open and impenetrable, the haunt of the dancers and the untrodden of human feet, coiling place of the cobra and the Python, lair of the lion and the jaguar, formidable retreat of the fleeing antelope, yet also the green home of human safety where a man and a maiden could walk in the moonlit night and hear unconcerned the far-off brool of the kings of the wilderness. It was into the friendly and open places that the golden bird fluttered, but it came no less from the coverts of dread and mystery. From the death and the night it flew out into the sunlight where Luilla was happily straying.
Luilla loved to wander on the verges of danger just where those flower-besieged thickets began and formed for miles together a thorny and tangled rampart full at once of allurement and of menace. She did not venture in, for she had a great fear of the thorns and brambles and a high respect for her radiant beauty, her constant object of worship and the daily delight of all who dwelt for a while on earth labouring the easy and kindly soil on the verges of the forests of Asan. But always she wandered close to the flowery wall and her mind, safe in its volatile incorporeality, strayed like a many-hued butterfly far into the forbidden region which the gods had so carefully secluded. Perhaps secretly she hoped that one day some kingly and leonine head would thrust itself out through the flowers and compel her with a gaze of friendly and majestic invitation or else that the green poisonous head of a serpent, reposing itself on a flower, would scrutinise her out of narrow eyes and express a cunning approval of her beauty. It was not out of fear of the lions and the serpents that Luilla forbore to enter the secret places. She
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knew she could overcome the most ferocious intentions of any destroyer in the world, four-footed or footless, if only he would give her three minutes before making up his mind to eat or bite her. But neither lion nor serpent strayed out of their appointed haunts. It was the golden bird that first fluttered out from the thickets to Luilla.
Luilla looked at it as it flitted from bough to bough, and her eyes were dazzled and her soul wondered. For the little body of the bird was an inconstant flame of flying and fleeting gold and the wings that opened and fluttered were of living gold and the small shapely head was crested gold and the long graceful quivering tail was feathered trailing gold; all was gold about the bird, except the eyes and they were two jewels of a soft ever-changing colour and sheltered strange looming depths of love and thought in their gentle brilliance. On the bough where it perched, it seemed as if all the soft shaded leaves were suddenly sunlit. For as Luilla accustomed her eyes to the flickering brightness of the golden bird, it hovered at last over a branch, settled and sang. And its voice also was of gold.
The bird sang in its own high secret language; but Luilla's ear understood its thoughts and in Luilla's soul as it thirsted and listened and trembled with delight, the song shaped itself easily into human speech. This then was what the bird sang—the bird that came out of the death and night, sang to Luilla a song of beauty and of delight.
"Luilla! Luilla! Luilla! green and beautiful are the meadows where the children run and pluck the flowers, green and beautiful the pastures where the calm-eyed cattle graze, green and beautiful the cornfields ripening on the village bounds, but greener are the impenetrable thickets of Asan than her open places of life and more beautiful than the meadows and the pastures and the cornfields are the forests of death and night. More ensnaring to some is the danger of the jaguar than the attractive face of a child, more welcome the foot-tracks of the lion as it hunts than the pastures of the cattle, more fair and fruitful the thorn and the wild-briar than the fields full of ripening grain. And this I know that no such flowers bloom in the safety and ease of
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Asan's meadows, though they make a thick and divine treading for luxurious feet, as I have seen blooming on the borders of the wild morass, in the heart of the bramble thicket and over the mouth of the serpent's lair. Shall I not take thee, O Luilla, into those woods? Thou shalt pluck the flowers in the forests of night and death, thou shalt lay thy hands on the lion's mane.
"O Luilla! O Luilla! O Luilla!
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This piece was written in Pondicherry, probably in 1911 or 1912.
COLLECTED PLAYS AND STORIES comprises all of Sri Aurobindo's dramatic and fictional writings, with the exception of prose dialogues, verse dialogues more in the nature of poems than plays, and translations from Sanskrit drama. Writings in these three categories are published in Early Cultural Writings, Collected Poems, and Translations, volumes 1, 2 and 5 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.
Collected Plays and Stories is divided into three parts according to type of material. The first part includes the five complete plays; the second, incomplete and fragmentary plays; the third, prose fiction, complete, incomplete and fragmentary. The first two parts are arranged chronologically, from earliest to latest. The third is subdivided into two sections: Occult Idylls, a series planned by the author, followed by a section consisting of all other pieces of fiction, arranged chronologically.
COMPLETE PLAYS
The Viziers of Bassora. The manuscript of this play was seized by the police at the time of Sri Aurobindo's arrest in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case in May 1908. It seems to have been written a few years before that, towards the end of the period of his employment in the Baroda State (1893 - 1906).
Sri Aurobindo never saw the manuscript of The Viziers after his arrest, and he is said to have particularly regretted its loss. Once in Pondicherry he tried to reconstruct one of the missing scenes using a partial draft he had with him, but soon abandoned the effort. In March 1952, fifteen months after his passing, the manuscript was handed over
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to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram by the Government of West Bengal. It was transcribed and in 1959 published in the Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, as well as separately.
The source of the plot of The Viziers of Bassora is "Nur al-Din Ali and the Damsel Anis al-Jalis", a story told in the Arabian Nights (thirty-fourth to thirty-eighth nights). Sri Aurobindo owned in Baroda a multi-volume edition of Richard Burton's translation of the Arabic text (London, 1894), which he considered "as much a classic as the original".
Rodogune. Two complete, independent versions of this play exist. Sri Aurobindo wrote the first one in Baroda between 31 January and 14 February 1906, on the eve of his departure from the state to join the national movement. In May 1908 the notebooks containing his fair copy of Rodogune, like the notebook containing The Viziers of Bassora, were seized by the police when Sri Aurobindo was arrested. Fortunately, other notebooks remaining in his possession contained much of the penultimate draft of the 1906 version. Basing himself on these passages, he was able to reconstruct the play in Pondicherry around 1912. This version was published in the Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual and separately in 1958. It supersedes the Baroda version, which was recovered in 1952.
The plot of Rodogune derives ultimately from the history of Cleopatra, Queen of Syria, as recounted by such classical historians as Appian, Justin and Josephus. The immediate source probably was Rodogune (1645), by the French dramatist Pierre Corneille.
Perseus the Deliverer. Sri Aurobindo wrote this play during the period of his political activity, and its publication history is marked by the uncertainties of that era. A notation from the now-lost manuscript, accidentally set in type, gives 21 June 1906 as the date of the writing or copying of Act III, Scene 1. Sri Aurobindo seems to have intended the play to be published in Baroda, and parts of it were composed there by August of the same year. This plan fell through, however, and the play did not appear until 1907, when it was brought out serially between 30 June and 20 October in the weekly edition of the Bande Mataram, a journal of political opinion edited by Sri Aurobindo. The next year a book-edition was printed, but was destroyed by the printer
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at the time of Sri Aurobindo's arrest. In 1942 the Bande Mataram text of Perseus the Deliverer — with the exception of three passages published in issues of the journal that were not then available, namely, all of Act II, Scenes 2 and 3, and the end of Act V, Scene 3 — was included in Sri Aurobindo's Collected Poems and Plays. Sri Aurobindo revised this text, adding a new ending but ignoring the missing scenes of Act II. (The issues of Bande Mataram containing these two scenes were subsequently rediscovered, and in 1955 they were restored to the text.)
The plot of Perseus the Deliverer derives of course from the Greek legend of Perseus and Andromeda, the most important surviving classical source of which is the fourth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Notable among modern retellings of the story are Corneille's Andromede (1650) and Charles Kingsley's Andromeda (1859), a poem in English hexameters with which Sri Aurobindo was familiar.
Eric. Sri Aurobindo began work on this play in 1910, shortly after his arrival in Pondicherry, and continued intermittently over a period of several years. No complete fair copy of the play survives. The fullest manuscript, a typed copy that contains the last version of Act II, breaks off in the middle of Act IV, Scene 2. Handwritten versions subsequent to the typed copy exist for Acts I and III and part of Act IV. There is only a single draft of Act V. Its interlinear and marginal revisions present unusual textual difficulties.
Eric was first published in 1960 in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual and as a separate book. The present text is thoroughly re-edited. As a rule, the last version of each act has been transcribed as far as it goes; where the last version is incomplete, the previous version is used for the remainder of the act. The order in which the last two manuscripts of Acts I and III were written and revised is not entirely clear. The unused versions of these two acts are reproduced in the reference volume (volume 35), along with two partial rewritings of Act IV, Scene 1, which could not be worked into the text of the play.
No specific source of the plot of Eric is known. Sri Aurobindo seems to have made free use of names and events from the history of Norway in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, a period that was the subject of much mediaeval Scandinavian literature.
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Vasavadutta. This play was written in Pondicherry in 1915. The earliest extant draft is dated thus at the end: "Copied Nov. 2, 1915. Written between 18th & 30th October 1915. Completed 30th October. Pondicherry. Revised in April 1916." The fair copy, used as the text from Act III, Scene 4, to the end, gives details of this revision: "Revised and recopied between April 8th and April 17th 1916." Subsequently, on three or four different occasions, Sri Aurobindo began to rewrite the play, stopping at an earlier point each time. The editors have used the last version of a given passage as far as it goes and then reverted to the previous version.
A typed copy of Vasavadutta was prepared for Sri Aurobindo sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s, and he made a few scattered revisions to it. When its publication was proposed, he demurred, saying it was "too romantic". The play did not appear in print until 1957, when it was published in the Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual and as a separate book.
As stated by Sri Aurobindo in his author's note, he took the plot of Vasavadutta from the Kathasaritsagara, an eleventh-century Sanskrit story-cycle written by Somadeva Bhatta.
INCOMPLETE AND FRAGMENTARY PLAYS (1891 - 1915)
The Witch of Ilni. Sri Aurobindo wrote this piece when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. The manuscript bears dates ranging between October and December 1891.
The source of the plot of The Witch of Ilni is not known, but the play evidently owes much to Milton's Comus and similar works.
The House of Brut. Sri Aurobindo wrote this fragment during the early part of his stay in Baroda, probably in 1899.
The idea for The House of Brut seems to have come from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae or another chronicle of early Britain.
The Maid in the Mill. This piece was written in Baroda, probably around 1902.
The source of the plot of The Maid in the Mill was apparently The Maid in the Mill by John Fletcher and William Rowley (1647). The
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two plays have many characters and situations in common. Certain plays of Shakespeare and Calderon may also have influenced the plot of Sri Aurobindo's play.
The Prince of Edur. Editorial title. Sri Aurobindo wrote the three acts of this incomplete play between 28 January and 1 February 1907, and copied them on 11 and 12 February. He was at that time staying at his family's house in Deoghar, Bihar, during a brief respite from his political activities.
The plot of The Prince of Edur is based loosely on the life of Bappa Rawal, the eighth-century Rajput hero. The scene, which includes parts of what is now eastern Gujarat, was familiar to Sri Aurobindo, who was posted in the area while serving as a Baroda state officer.
The Prince of Mathura. Editorial title. This fragment, related in theme to The Prince of Edur, was written a few years later, probably in 1909 or 1910.
The Birth of Sin. This fragment, written in the same notebook as The Prince of Mathura, must date from the same period, that is, 1909 - 10. In December 1909 a related piece, also entitle The Birth of Sin, was published in the Karmayogin, a weekly newspaper edited by Sri Aurobindo. The Karmayogin piece is more in the nature of a poem, and was published as such in Collected Poems and Plays (1942). (It is included in Collected Poems, volume 2 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.) The present draft is structured more as a drama, and is published as such here. The exact relationship between the two texts is not clear. Both obviously owe much to Milton.
Fragment of a Play. This piece was written in Pondicherry sometime around 1915. The plot appears to be based on an episode in the Bhagavata Purana.
STORIES
More than once Sri Aurobindo remarked in conversation that he had written some stories that subsequently were lost. "The white ants have
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finished them and with them has perished my future fame as a storyteller", he noted ironically in 1939. All his known stories and fragments of fiction are published here in two sections.
Occult Idylls
Sri Aurobindo wrote fair copies of the two pieces published in this section in the same notebook. On the first page he wrote the general title "Occult Idylls".
The Phantom Hour. Sri Aurobindo wrote this, his only complete story, during the early part of his stay in Pondicherry, 1910 - 12, or perhaps a year or two earlier.
The Door at Abelard. This piece was written around the same time as The Phantom Hour, but was never completed.
Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories (1891 - 1912)
Fictional Jottings. Sri Aurobindo wrote down these lines on two pages of a notebook he used at Cambridge between 1890 and 1892.
Fragment of a Story. Sri Aurobindo wrote this piece around 1904, either in Baroda or while on vacation in Bengal.
The Devil's Mastiff. Nothing is known for certain about the date of this piece, but it seems to belong to the period of "Occult Idylls" and may have been intended for that series. The manuscript was lost after being published in the Advent in February 1954.
The Golden Bird. This piece was written in Pondicherry, probably in 1911 or 1912.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
As mentioned above, Perseus the Deliverer was published in the weekly Bande Mataram in 1907, and in Collected Poems and Plays in 1942. All the other pieces in the present volume were brought out posthumously. "Fictional Jottings" and "Fragment of a Story" appear here for the first time. All the texts have been checked against Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts.
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