Sri Aurobindo's Humour : an analysis & an anthology. Principles and art of humour with illustrations & related examples of Sri Aurobindo's humorous passages.
Chapter 10
Whether in the literatures of ancient times or in classical literature or in the literature of today, dramatic compositions have provided a rich and fertile field for the production and display of humour. To cite only two instances among a host of others, we are immediately reminded of the comic characters of Shakespeare's Falstaff and Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain who desperately tried to be a 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'.
The humour of Falstaff is based on "the chasm of contrast between his ungainly, inglorious person and the new glory of Elizabethan England." Prof. Stephen Leacock's remarks are worth recalling in this connection:
"Falstaff runs true to the line in which humour lies in that we don't dislike him: on the contrary, we feel we could enjoy his society. Most of us would rather take Falstaff out fishing or put him up at our golf club than we would Antonio or the Doge of Venice or King Lear. He'd make a bigger hit."1
And what about Monsieur Jourdain, that delectable creation of the unsurpassed genius of comedy, Moliere? "Polish me", entreated Jourdain who was a nouveau riche and who intensely desired to pay anything to anybody if only he would acquire the 'polish of the world of the court' of the Sun King, Louis XIV. And immediately at his request masters of philosophy and maitres d'armes begin to try 'to teach Monsieur Jourdain the unteachable and to make out of a bourgeois a gentleman.' Her too we feel tempted to quote the observations of Prof. Leacock:
"Moliere's humour turns partly on the simplicity and naivete of Monsieur Jourdain - his joy in his new coat, his amazement that he has talked prose all his life, etc., etc. but also on the silliness and futility of the things they teach him. Monsieur Jourdain, eager to learn rhetoric, desires to send a letter to a marquise to convey the sentiment: 'Belle marquise, vos yeux me
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font mourir d'amour., Nothing is more delightful than the way the sentence is twisted back and forward, to Monsieur Jour-dain's further amazement, in variants such as:- 'Belle marquise, d'amour mourir me font vos yeux' and 'Mourir d'amour me font, belle marquise, vos yeux', etc."2
Sri Aurobindo who has been the author of five complete plays and a few unfinished ones, has created in his turn quite a few humorous characters. Not only that: we discover in his dramas, apart from humour of characters, all other modes of creating humorous effects, such as, humour of words, humour of ideas, humour of situation, satirical humour, humour of narration, etc. We are reminded in this connection of a short dialogue between two of his 'characters', Brigida, the cousin of a nobleman, and Basil, the nephew of another nobleman:
"BRIGIDA: Pray now, disburden your intellect of all the brilliant things it has so painfully kept to itself. Plethora is unwholesome and I would not have you perish of an apoplexy of wit. Pour it out on me, conceit, epigram, irony, satire; flout and invective, tuquoque and double-entendre, pun and quibble, rhyme and unreason, catcall and onomatopoeia; all, all, though it be an avalanche. It will be terrible, but I will stand the charge of it.
"BASIL: St. Iago! I think she has the whole dictionary in her stomach. I grow desperate."3
Sri Aurobindo, born in 1872, was taken to England at the age of seven. He studied and stayed there till his twenty-first year. He came to India in 1893 and joined the Baroda State Service. He served from 1898 as the acting Professor of English and lecturer in French in the Baroda College. On June 19, 1906, he took one year's leave without pay from Baroda College and returned to Bengal. He became the Principal of the Bengal National College. He plunged into political activities for the liberation of his motherland and was arrested on 2 May 1908, being implicated in the terrorist activities of a group led by his younger brother Barindra. He stayed in the Alipore Jail for one
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full year as an unclertrial prisoner and was released on 6 May 1909. He left Calcutta for Chandernagore in February, 1910. And from there he proceeded to and reached Pondicherry on April 4, 1910. He lived there from then onward till the year 1950 when he withdrew from his body on the 5th of December.
Such being the short biographical sketch of Sri Aurobindo it is important to point out that he devoted to the writing of his dramas only a short period of time, barely ten years or so, stretching from the late nineties of the last century to the early years of the first decade of the present one. Perseus the Deliverer, Rodogune, The Viziers of Bassora, Eric and Vasava-dutta are the five complete plays written by Sri Aurobindo. These are really, to quote the words of Prof. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, "dramas of life and love, of conflict and change: of conflict that is at the heart of life, of change that is the result of the dialectic of the conflicting opposites - of 'thesis' and 'antithesis'! Sri Aurobindo was thinking and poetising and dramatising at once: he was looking at life steadily and in its totality, he was also peering into the future, throwing out suggestions, hinting at possibilities, invoking inspiring visions of the future."4
Apart from the five complete plays Sri Aurobindo has left behind some dramatic fragments like Prince of Edur (only three Acts), The Maid in the Mill (only the first Act and part of the second Act) and The House of Brut (only one scene). Strangely enough, although these three plays as they are extant are tantalisingly incomplete, Sri Aurobindo has prefixed to each of them the full dramatis personae. Does it signify that the author had completed the plotting in his mind although, for whatever reason, he did not or could not complete the writing?
Another intriguing question haunts our mind. Except for Perseus the Deliverer which was published in 1907, no other play of Sri Aurobindo saw the light of day during his long lifetime. Does it mean that Sri Aurobindo did not authorise their publication because he could not somehow find time to revise, finalise or complete them? - or, perhaps, these were not intended to be published at all! In that case it would be unfair
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to Sri Aurobindo's literary genius to judge his talents as a writer of drama solely on the basis of these first drafts of his complete or fragmentary plays. But these are questions for the literary critic to answer which need not detain us here. For we are concerned in our present dissertation only with the humorous aspect of Sri Aurobindo's writings. Hence, let us fix our attention on all that is there of humour in his plays in the forms they have come down to us.
In Perseus the Deliverer almost whatever is spoken by Cireas (a servant in the temple of Poseidon) and by Perissus (a citizen butcher) is enlivened with a rich touch of humour. Some conversations of Praxilla (head of the palace household in the women's apartments) and Diomede (a servant and playmate of Andromeda) are equally humorous in tone.
In Rodogune there is very little humour apart from some sarcasm in the words of Phayllus, the Chancellor of Syria.
Eric is very intense and compact as a play and there is almost no humour in it.
In the play Vasavadutta, Vasunthah, the friend and companion of Vutsa Udayan, the King of Cowsambie, is depicted as a poet, thinker and satirist; his words often have a twist of wit and humour, but they are not solely 'funny', they go further in depth and intent.
The Viziers of Bassora is a most enjoyable play, most of which is pure fun. If its blank verse is full of lightness and grace, its prose has wit and sparkle and the savour of earthiness. The entire play is bubbling with laughter and enjoyment of living. The humour expressed is either in the play of words or is of situation or of characters or of all of them together.
The incomplete plays, The Maid in the Mill and The Prince of Edur are all full of joie de vivre and gaiety. The Maid in the Mill is a play largely about wit. It is full of word-play and has strong feminist undertones. It has laughter in every page.
Readers are invited to read the above plays in their entirety and savour the humour contained therein. Space forbidding we cannot quote many examples here; we shall content ourselves
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with citing two long passages from two of Sri Aurobindo's dramas in order to illustrate his humour in plays.
I. From The Viziers of Bassora
[Background story: "Alzayni, King of Bassora, has two Viziers -the good Ibn Sawy and the evil-minded Almuene. Nureddene, the son of Ibn Sawy, is, although given to reckless ways, handsome and has a frank and open nature. On the King's behalf, Ibn Sawy buys a slave girl, Anice-aljalice, but later acquiesces in her romance with his own son, Nureddene - a romance half-promoted by Doonya, the fun-loving, frolicsome, but good-natured niece of the Vizier. Doonya and Anice-aljalice make a pair, equally quick-witted, equally open-hearted, and equally expert in the language of romance and gaiety.... Nureddene is a creature of romance too... [but] he squanders away his money in no time and finds himself high and dry... Before Almuene, the evil-minded Vizier is able to arrest Nureddene, he escapes to Bagdad with his beloved Anice. There at once their native gaiety returns.... There is elaborate wine-drinking and singing, in the company, first of Shaikh Ibrahim, the Superintendent of the Caliph's gardens, and later of the Caliph himself who joins them disguised as a fisherman."' Ibrahim, be it noted, is an inveterate liar and hypocrite who at first pretends to be himself the proprietor of Haroon al Rasheed's Garden of Delight and absolutely attached to ethical scruples. The denouement will be revealed in the extract below.]
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ACT FOUR
Bagdad
Scene I
The gardens of the Caliph's Palace outside the Pavilion of Pleasure.
Anice-Aljalice, Nureddene.
[...]
Nureddene:
And this pavilion with its crowd of windows!
Are there not quite a hundred?
Anice-Aljalice :
Do you see
The candelabrum pendent from the ceiling?
A blaze of gold!
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 sirvente 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 palmstick 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-Aljalice:
Is the poor man out of the use of his wits? He stares open-mouthed.
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.
This garden? My garden? Yes, my son; yes, my daughter. It is the fairer for your feet; never before did such flowers bloom there.
What, is it thine? And this pavilion?
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 sancti-fication, 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.
When did you buy or lay it out, old father?
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A grand-aunt left itto me. Wonder not, for she was indeed
aunt's grandmotherto a cousin of the sister-in-law of the Caliph.
Oh then indeed! She had the right divine to be wealthy. But I trust thou hast good doctrinal justification for inheriting after her?
I would not accept the Caliphate by any other. Oh my son, hanker not unlawfully after perishable earthly goods; for, verily, they are snare and verily, verily, they entrap the feet of the soul as it toileth over the straight rough road to Heaven.
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!
We are weary, old father; we hunger and thirst.
Oh, my son! Oh, my daughter! You put me to shame. Come in,
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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.
It is indeed thine? We may enter?
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.
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.
Scene II
The Pavilion of Pleasure.
Anice-Aljalice, Nureddene, Shaikh Ibrahim on couches, by a table set with dishes.
These kabobs are indeed good, and the conserves look sweet and the fruit very glossy. But will you sit and eat nothing?
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Verily, my son, I have eaten at midday. Allah forbid me from gluttony!
Old father, you discourage our stomachs. You shall eat a morsel from my fingers or I shall say you use me hardly.
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.
What, old father, you grow young?
Oh, now, now, now! 'Twas a foolish jest unworthy of my grey hairs. I take refuge with Allah! A foolish jest.
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.
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 Alhash-hash 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 coolness of it in the throat causeth bifurcation. Ay, verily, the great Alhashhash.
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Who are these learned doctors you speak of, old father? I have read all the books, but never heard of them?
Oh, thou hast read? These are very distant and mystic Sufis, very rare doctors. Their books are known only to the adepts.
What a learned old man art thou, Shaikh Ibrahim! Now Allah save the soul of the great Alhashhash!
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.
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?
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 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 or drinker, and if any be damned, it is an old ass that is damned. What saith the great Alhashhash?
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!
Exit.
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He is the very gem of hypocrites.
Shaikh Ibrahim returns with the wine and glasses in a tray.
Allah! Allah! Allah!
Where's that old sober learning?
I want to dance, to laugh, to outriot riot.
Oh, here he is.
What a quick ass was this, Shaikh Ibrahim!
No, no, the wineshop is near, very near. Allah forgive us, ours is an evil city, this Bagdad; it is full of winebibbers and gluttons and liars.
Dost thou ever lie, Shaikh 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 the young lady to thee, my son?
She is my slave-girl.
Ah, ah! thy slave-girl? Ah, ah! a slave-girl! ah!
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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?
Fast. This is the trick he always serves me. After the first cup he dozes off and leaves me quite sad and lonely.
Why, why, why, little one! Thou art not alone and why shouldst thou be sad! I am here, - old Shaikh Ibrahim; I am here.
I will not be sad, if you will drink with me.
Fie, fie, fie!
By my head and eyes!
Well, well, well! Alas, 'tis a sin, 'tis a sin, 'tis a sin. (drinks)
Verily, verily.
Anice-Aljalice: Another.
No, no, no.
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Well, well, well, well! Tis a grievous sin, Allah forgive me! (drinks)
Just one more.
Does he sleep? Now if it were the wine of thy lips, little one.
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 biforked with an evil bifurcation. Woe's me for the great Alhashhash!
An thou such a hypocrite? Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!
No, no, no! A fatherly jest! a little little jest! (drinks)
Nureddene (starting up):
Shaikh Ibrahim, thou drinkest?... You have drunk half your cup only; so, again; to Shaikh Ibrahim and his learned sobriety!
To the shade of the great Alhashhash!
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Fie on you! What cursed unneighbourly manners are these, to drink in my face and never pass the bowl?
Anice-Aijalice and Nureddene [together): Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh 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.
An thou transmogrified, O Sufi, O adept, O disciple of Ibn Batata?
Laugh, laugh! laughter is on your beauty like the sunlight on the fair minarets of Nazinderan the beautiful. Give me a cup. (drinks) You are sinners and I will sin with you. I will sin hard, mv beauties, (drinks)
Scene IV
Inside the pavilion.
Nureddene, Anice-Aljalice, Shaikh Ibrahim.
Shaikh Ibrahim, verily thou .art drunk.
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
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their son now, their pretty little son! But they are in their graves; they are in their cold, cold graves.
Oh, thou art most pathetically drunk....
Outside:
Fish! fish! sweet fried fish!
Fish! Shaikh Ibrahim, Shaikh Ibrahim! hearest thou? We have a craving for fish.
Call him in.
Ho! ho! come in, Satan! come in, thou brimstone fisherman. Let us see thy long tail.
[Enter the Caliph, Haroun al Rasheed,
dressed as a fisherman.]
What is your name, fisherman?
Haroun al Rasheed:
I call myself Kareem, and in all honesty when I fish, 'tis for the Caliph.
Who talks of the Caliph? Dost thou speak of the Caliph Haroun or the Caliph Ibrahim?
I speak of the Caliph, Haroun the Just, the great and only Caliph.
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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 cuts off a man's head when the nose on it does not please him. A very pestilence of a tyrant!
Now Allah save him!
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 pestri-giddi - prestigidgide - what the plague! prestidigitations, and some slaps and cuffs of which I pray you speak very low, he would be worse even than he is. Well, well, even Allah blunders; verily, verily!
Wilt thou be Caliph, Shaikh Ibrahim?
Yes, my jewel, and thou shalt be my Zobeidah. And we will tipple, beauty, we will tipple.
And Haroun?
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 al Rasheed {laughing): What an old treasonous rogue art thou, Shaikh Ibrahim!
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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!
Shaikh Ibrahim! Shaikh Ibrahim!
Nay, if thou art the angel Gabriel and forbiddest me, let be, but I hate lying and liars....6
II. From The Maid in the Mill
[The background. - The dramatis personae involved in the passage quoted below are two pairs of young people: Antonio, the son of a nobleman — Count Beltran by name, and Basil, the nephew of Count Beltran; Ismenia, the sister of Count Conrad, a young nobleman, and Brigida, the female cousin of Ismenia. Antonio and Ismenia form a romantic pair who love each other but the problem before them is who becomes the first to avow his or her love in open speech. Ismenia, accompanied by Brigida, at last decides to speak first although subtly and with much of double entendre. Too much of emotion renders Antonio speechless and he cannot respond to Ismenia in spite of the constant prodding by his cousin Basil.
Then Basil offers to teach Antonio how to woo a young girl. Antonio challenges Basil to show the efficacy of his teaching by actual demonstration and Basil picks up the gauntlet. At that very moment enters on the scene Brigida, a smart and witty girl, with a love-letter written by Ismenia and addressed to Antonio. Now Antonio invites his cousin Basil to try his wooing skill on Brigida, the cousin of Ismenia, and win her love. Basil fumbles and gets completely outmanoeuvred by the witty Brigida. Now, readers, come and enjoy the fun involved in this happy encounter of two young couples.]
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ACT ONE
[•••]
Brigida:
What other task! Shall we go, cousin?
Ismenia:
Stay.
Let us not press so closely after them.
Good manners? Oh, your pardon. I was blind.
Basil:
Are you a lover or a fish, Antonio?
Speak. She yet lingers.
Antonio:
Speak?
The devil remove you
Where you can never more have sight of her. I lose all patience.
Cousin, I know you are tired
With standing. Sit, and if you tire with that,
As perseverance is a powerful virtue,
For your reward the dumb may speak to you.
What I shall I do, dear girl?
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Why, speak the first,
Count Conrad's sister! Be the Mahomet To your poor mountain. Hang me if I think not The prophet's hill more moveable of the two; An earthquake stirs not this. What ails the man? He has made a wager with some lamp-post surely.
Brigida, are you mad? Be so immodest? A stranger and my house's enemy!
No, never speak to him. It would be indeed Horribly forward.
' Ismenia:
Why, you jest, Brigida.
I'm no such light thing that I must be dumb Lest men mistake my speaking. Let frail men Or men suspect to their own purity Guard every issue of speech and gesture. Wherefore Should I be hedged so meanly in? To greet With few words, cold and grave, as is befitting This gentle youth, why do you call immodest?
You must not.
Must not? Why, I will.
You must not, child.
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I will then, not because
I wish (why should I?), but because you always Provoke me with your idle prudities.
Good! You've been wishing it the last half-hour
And now you are provoked to't. Charge him, charge him.
I stand here as reserve.
Impossible creature!
But no! You shall not turn me.
'Twas not my meaning.
Sir-
Rouse yourself, Antonio. Gather back
Your manhood, or you're shamed without retrieval.
Help me,Brigida.
Not I, cousin.
Sir,
You spoke divinely well. I say this, Sir,
Not to recall to you that we have met -
Since you will not remember - but because
I would not have you - anyone - think this of me
That since you are Antonio and my enemy
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And much have hurt me — to the heart, therefore
When one speaks or does worthily, I can
Admire not, nor love merit, whosoe'er
Be its receptacle. This was my meaning.
I could not bear one should not know this of me.
Therefore I spoke.
Speak or be dumb forever.
I see, you have mistook me why I spoke
And scorn me. Sir, you may be right to think
You have so sweet a tongue would snare the birds
From off the branches, ravish an enemy,
- Some such poor wretch there may be - witch her heart out,
If you could care for anything so cheap
And hold it in your hand, lost, - lost, - Oh me!
Brigida!
O base silence! Speak! She is Confounded. Speak, you sheep, you!
Though this is so,
You do me wrong to think me such an one, Most flagrant wrong, Antonio. To think that I Wait one word of your lips to woo you, yearn To be your loving servant at a word From you, - one only word and I am yours.
Admirable lady! Saints, can you be dumb Who hear this?
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Still you scorn me. For all this You should not make me angry. Do you imagine Because you know I am Lord Conrad's sister And lodge with Donna Clara Santa Cruz In the street Velasquez, and you have seen it With marble front and the quaint mullioned windows, That you need only after vespers, when The streets are empty, stand there, and I will Send one to you? Indeed, indeed I merit not You should think poorly of me. If you're noble And do not scorn me, you will carefully Observe the tenour of my prohibition. Brigida.
Come away with your few words, Your cold grave words. You have frozen his speech with them.
Exeunt.
Heavens! it was she — her words were not a dream,
Yet I was dumb. There was a majesty
Even in her tremulous playfulness, a thrill
When she smiled most, made my heart beat too quickly
For speech. O that I should be dumb and shamefast,
When with one step I might grasp Paradise.
Antonio!
I was not deceived. She blushed, And the magnificent scarlet to her cheeks Welled from her heart an ocean inexhaustible. Rose but outcrimsoned rose. Yes, every word Royally marred the whiteness of her cheeks
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With new impossibilities of beauty.
She blushed, and yet as with an angry shame
Of that delicious weakness, gallantly
Her small imperious head she held erect
And strove in vain to encourage those sweet lids
That fluttered lower and lower. O that but once
My tongue had been as bold as were mine eyes!
But these were fastened to her as with cords,
Courage in them naked necessity.
Ah poor Antonio. You're bewitched, you're maimed, Antonio. You must make her groan who did this. One sense will always now be absent from him. Lately he had no tongue. Now that's returned His ears are gone on leave. Hark you, Antonio, Why do you stay here?
I am in a dream.
Lead where you will; since there is no place now
In all the world, but only she or silence.
A garden in the town-house of Count Beltran.
Antonio, Basil.
I am abashed of you. What, make a lady
Woo you, and she a face so excellent,
Of an address so admirably lovely
It shows a goddess in her — at each sentence
Let pause to give you opportunity
Then shame with the dead silence of the hall
For her continual answer. Fie, you're not
Antonio, you are not Beltran's issue. Seek
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Your kindred in the snowdrifts of the Alps Or call a post your father.
I deserve
Your censure, Basil. Yet were it done again,
I know I should again be dumb. My tongue
Teems in imagination but is barren
In actuality. When I am from her,
I woo her with the accent of a god,
My mind o'erflows with words as the wide Nile
With waters. Let her but appear and I
Am her poor mute.[...]
Away! You modest lovers are the blot
Of manhood, traitors to our sovereignty.
I'd have you banished, all of you, and kept
In desert islands, where no petticoat
Should enter, so the brood of you might perish.
O you speak at ease,
Loved you, you would recant this without small Torture to quicken you.
I? I recant?
I wish, Antonio, I had known your case Earlier. I would have taught you how to love.
Come, will you woo a woman? Teach me at least By diagram, upon a blackboard.
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Well,
I will so, if it should hearten your weak spirits. And now I think of it, I am resolved I'll publish a new Art of Love, shall be The only Ovid memorable.
On, on! Let's hear you.
First, I would kiss her.
What, without leave asked?
Leave? Ask a woman leave to kiss her! Why What was she made for else?
If she is angry?
So much the better. Then you by repetition Convince her of your manly strength, which is A great point gained at the outset and moreover Your duty, comfortable to yourself. Besides she likes it. On the same occasion When she will scold, I'll silence her with wit. Laughter breaks down impregnable battlements. Let me but make her smile and there is conquest Won by the triple strength, horse, foot, artillery, Of eloquence, wit and muscle. Then but remains Pacification, with or else without The Church's help, that's a mere form and makes No difference to the principle.[...]
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You are a Pagan and would burn for this If Love still kept his Holy Office.
Am safe from him.
And therefore boast securely
Conducting in imagination wars That others have the burden of. I've seen The critical civilian in his chair Win famous victories with wordy carnage, Guide his strategic finger o'er a map, Cry "Eugene's fault! here Marlboro' was to blame, And look, a child might see it, Villars' plain error That lost him Malplaquet!" I think you are Just such a pen-and-paper strategist. A wooer!
Death, I will have pity on you, Antonio. You shall see my great example And learn by me.
Good, I'm your pupil. But hear, A pretty face or I'll not enter for her, Wellborn or I shall much discount your prowess.
Agreed. And yet they say experimentum In corpore vili. But I take your terms Lest you subtract me for advantages.
Look where the enemy comes. You are well off
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If you can win her.
A rare face, by Heaven. Almost too costly a piece of goods for this Mad trial.
You sound retreat?
Not I an inch.
Watch how I'll overcrow her.
Hush, she's here.
Enter Brigida.
Senor, I was bidden to deliver this letter to you.
To me, sweetheart?
I have the inventory of you in my books, if you be he truly. I will study it. Hair of the ordinary poetic length, dress indefinable, a modest address, - I think not you, Senor, - a noble manner, -Pooh, no! - a handsome face. I am sure not to you, Senor.
Humph.
Well, cousin. All silent? Open your batteries, open your batteries!
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Wait, wait. Ought a conqueror to be hurried? Caesar himself must study his ground before he attempts it. You will hear my trumpets instanter.
Will you take your letter, Sir?
To me then, maiden? A dainty-looking note, and I marvel much from whom it can be. I do not know the handwriting. A lady's, seemingly, yet it has a touch of the masculine too - there is rapidity and initiative in its flow. Fair one, from whom comes this?
Why, Sir, I am not her signature; which if you will look within, there I doubt not you will find a solution of your difficulty.
Here's a clever woman, Antonio, to think of that, and she but eighteen or a miracle.
Well, cousin.
This Don Witty-pate eyes me strangely. I fear he will recognize me.
Ismenia Ostrocadiz! O my joy.
You're ill, sir, you change colour.
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Damsel, you are of the Lady Ismenia's household?
A poor relative of hers, Senor.
Your face seems strangely familiar to me. Have I not seen you in some place where I constantly resort?
0Sir, I hope you do not think so meanly of me. I am a poor girl but an honest.
How, how?
1know not how. I spoke only as the spirit moved me.
You have a marvellously nimble tongue. Two words with you.
Willingly, Sefior, if you exceed not measure.
Fair one -
Oh, Sir, I am glad I listened. I like your two words extremely. God be with you.
Why, I have not begun yet.
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The more shame to your arithmetic. If your teacher had reckoned as loosely with his cane-cuts, he would have made the carefuller scholar.
God's wounds, will you listen to me?
Well, Sir, I will not insist upon numbers. But pray, for your own sake, swear no more. No eloquence will long stand such draft upon it.
If you would listen, I would tell you a piece of news that might please you.
Let it be good news, new news and repeatable news and I will thank you for it.
Sure, maiden, you are wondrous beautiful.
Senor, Queen Anne is dead. Tell me the next.
The next is, I will kiss you.
Oh, Sir, that's a prophecy. Well, death and kissing come to all of us, and by what disease the one or by whom the other, wise men care not to forecast. It profits little to study calamities beforehand. When it comes, I pray God I may learn to take it with resignation, if I cannot do better.
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By my life, I will kiss you and without farther respite.
On what ground?
Have I not told you, you are beautiful.
So has my mirror, not once but a hundred times, and never yet offered to kiss me. When it does, I'll allow your logic. No, we are already near enough to each other. Pray, keep your distance.
I will establish my argument with my lips.
I will defend mine with my hand. I promise you 'twill prove the abler dialectician of the two.
Well.
I am glad you think so, Sefior. My lord, I cannot stay.
You look sad, Sir. God save you for a witty and eloquent gentleman.
... Saints and angels! How is it? How did it happen? Is the sun still in heaven? Is that the song of a bird or a barrel-organ? I am not drunk either. I can still distinguish between a tree and the squirrel upon it. What, am I not Basil? whom men call the witty
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and eloquent Basil? Did I not laugh from the womb? Was not my first cry a jest upon the world I came into? Did I not invent a conceit upon my mother's milk ere I had sucked of it? Death! And have I been bashed and beaten by the tongue of a girl? silenced by a common purveyor of impertinences? It is so and yet it cannot be. I begin to believe in the dogmas of the materialist. The gastric juice rises in my estimation. Genius is after all only a form of indigestion, a line of Shakespeare the apotheosis of a leg of mutton and the speculations of Plato an escape of diseased tissue arrested in the permanency of ink. What did I break my fast with this morning? Kippered herring? Bread? Marmalade? Tea? O kippered herring, art thou the material form of stupidity and is marmalade an enemy of wit? It must be so. O mighty gastric juice! Mother and Saviour! I bow down before thee. Be propitious, fair goddess, to thy adorer.
Arise, Basil. Today thou shalt retrieve thy tarnished laurels or be expunged for ever from the book of the witty. Arm thyself in full panoply of allusion and irony, gird on raillery like a sword and repartee like a buckler. I will meet this girl tonight. I will tund her with conceits, torture her with ironies, tickle her with jests, prick her all over with epigrams. My wit shall smother her, tear her, burst her sides, press her to death, hang her, draw her, quarter her, and if all this fails, Death! as a last revenge, I'll marry her. Saints!7
Here ends the chapter on humour in Sri Aurobindo's plays.
REFERENCES
N.B. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult the Bibliography on p. 439.
1.HH, 5.Ibid.,
2.Ibid., 6.CPSS , pp.672-97.
3.B-A, 7.Ibid.,
4.Ibid.,
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