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.
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.
Page 3
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,—
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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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