Collected Plays and Stories

Fragment of a Play

Act I

Mathura.

Scene I

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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