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Vasavadutta
A Dramatic Romance
Characters
VUTHSA UDAIAN, King of Cowsamby. YOUGUNDHARÂYAN, his Minister, until recently Regent of Cowsamby. ROOMUNWATH, Captain of his armies.
PARENACA, the King’s door-keeper. CHUNDA MAHASEGN, King of Avunthy.
RÉBHA, Governor of Ujjayiny, the capital of Avunthy. A CAPTAIN of Avunthy.
UNGÂRICÂ, Queen of Avunthy. VÂSAVADUTTÂ, daughter of Chunda Mahasegn and Ungarica. UMBÂ, her handmaiden. MUNJOOLICÂ, the servile name of Bundhumathie, the captive Princess of Sourashtra, serving Vasavadutta. A KIRÂTHA WOMAN.
The action of the romance takes place a century after the war of the Mahabharata; the capital has been changed to Cowsamby; the empire has been temporarily broken and the kingdoms of India are overshadowed by three powers, Magadha in the East ruled by Pradyotha, Avunthy in the West ruled by Chunda Mahasegn who has subdued also the Southern kings, and Cowsamby in the Centre where Yougundharayan strives by arms and policy to maintain the house of Parikshith against the dominating power of Avunthy. Recently since the young Vuthsa has been invested with the regal power and appeared at [ ], Chunda Mahasegn, till then invincible, has suffered rude but not decisive reverses. For the moment there is an armed peace between the two empires. The fable is taken from Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara (the Ocean of the Rivers of Many Tales) and was always a favourite subject of Indian romance and drama; but some of the circumstances, a great many of the incidents and a few of the names have been altered or omitted and others introduced in their place. Vuthsa, the name of the nation in the tale, is in the play used as a personal name of the King Udaian. Act I
A room in the palace in Ujjayiny. Chunda Mahasegn, seated; Gopalaca.
MAHASEGN Vuthsa Udaian drives my fortunes back. Our strengths retire from one luxurious boy, Defeated!
GOPALAKA I have seen him in the fight And I have lived to wonder. O, he ranges As lightly through the passages of war As moonbeam feet of some bright laughing girl, Her skill concealing in her reckless grace, The measures of a rapid dance.
MAHASEGN If this portentous morning reach our gates, My star is fallen. Yet I had great dreams. Oudh and Cowsamby were my high-carved doors, Ganges, Godavary and Nurmada In lion race besprayed with sacred dew My moonlit jasmines in my pleasure-grounds. All this great sunlit continent lay sleeping At peace beneath the shadow of my brows. But they were dreams.
GOPALAKA Art thou not great enough
Page – 623 To live them?
MAHASEGN O my son, many high hearts Must first have striven, many must have failed Before a great thing can be done on earth, And who shall say then that he is the man? One age has seen the dreams another lives.
GOPALAKA Look up towards the hills where Rudra stands, His dreadful war-lance pointing to the east. Is not thy spirit that uplifted spear?
MAHASEGN It has been turned by Vishnu’s careless hand!
GOPALAKA Fear not the obstacles the gods have strewn. Why should the mighty man restrain his soul? Stretch out thy hand to seize, thy foot to trample, A Titan’s motion.
MAHASEGN Thou soarst the eagle’s height, But with eyes closed to the tempest.
GOPALAKA Wilt thou sue To foemen for the end of haughty strife?
MAHASEGN That never shall be seen. The boy must fall.
GOPALAKA He is young, radiant, beautiful and bold. But let him fall. We will not bear defeat. Page – 624 MAHASEGN Yet many gods stood smiling at his birth. Luxmie came breathing fortunate days; Vishnu Poured down a radiant sanction from the skies And promised his far stride across the earth; Magic Saruswathie between his hands Laid down her lotus arts.
GOPALAKA The austere gods Help best and not indulgent deities. The greatness in him cannot grow to man. His hero hours are rare forgetful flights. Excused from effort and difficult ascent Birds that are brilliant-winged, fly near to earth. Wine, song and dance winging his peaceful days Throng round his careless soul. It cannot find The noble leisure to grow great.
MAHASEGN There lives Our hope. Spy out, my son, thy enemy’s spirit, Even as his wealth and armies! Let thy eyes Find out its weakness and thy hand there strike.
GOPALAKA Thou hast a way to strike?
MAHASEGN I have a way, Not noble like the sounding paths of war.
GOPALAKA Take it; let us stride straight towards our goal.
MAHASEGN Thy arm is asked for. Page – 625 GOPALAKA It is thine to use.
MAHASEGN Invent some strong device and bring him to us A captive in Ujjayiny’s golden groves. Shall he not find a jailor for his heart To take the miracle of its keys and wear them Swung on her raiment’s border? Then he lives Shut up by her close in a prison of joy, Her and our vassal.
GOPALAKA Brought to the eagle’s nest For the eagle’s child thou giv’st him her heart’s prey To Vasavadutta! King, thy way is good. Garooda on a young and sleeping Python Rushing from heaven I’ll lift him helpless up Into the skiey distance of our peaks. Though it is strange and new and subtle, it is good. Think the blow struck, thy foeman seized and bound.
MAHASEGN I know thy swiftness and thy gathered leap. Once here! his senses are enamoured slaves To the touch of every beautiful thing. O, there No hero, but a tender soul at play, A soft-eyed, mirthful and luxurious youth Whom all sweet sounds and all sweet sights compel To careless ecstasy. Wine, music, flowers And a girl’s dawning smile can weave him chains Of vernal softness stronger than can give The unyielding iron. Two lips shall seal his strength, Two eyes of all his acts be tyrant stars.
GOPALAKA One aid I ask of thee and only one. Page – 626 My banishment, O King, from thy domains.
MAHASEGN Gopalaca, I banish thee, my child. Return not with my violent will undone. Page – 627
A hall in the palace at Cowsamby. Yougundharayan, Roomunwath.
Y OUGUNDHARAYANI see his strength lie covered sleeping in flowers; Yet is a greatness hidden in his years.
ROOMUNWATH Nourish not such large hopes.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN I know too well The gliding bane that these young fertile soils Cherish in their green darkness; and my cares Watch to prohibit the nether snake who writhes Sweet-poisoned, perilous in the rich grass, Lust with the jewel love upon his hood, Who by his own crown must be charmed, seized, change Into a warm great god. I seek a bride For Vuthsa.
ROOMUNWATH Wisely; but whom?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN One only lives So absolute in her charm that she can keep His senses from all straying, the child far-famed For gifts and beauty, flower born by magic fate On a fierce iron stock. Page – 628 ROOMUNWATH Vasavadutta, Avunthy’s golden princess! Hope not to mate These opposite godheads. Follow Nature’s prompting, Nor with thy human policy pervert Her simple ends.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Nature must flower into art And science, or else wherefore are we men? Man out of Nature wakes to God’s complexities, Takes her crude simple stuff and by his skill Turns things impossible into daily miracles.
ROOMUNWATH This thing is difficult, and what the gain?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN It gives us a long sunlit time for growth; For we shall raise in her a tender shield Against that iron victor in the west, The father’s heart taking our hard defence Forbid the king-brain in that dangerous man. Then when he’s gone, we are his greatness’ heirs In spite of his bold Titan sons.
ROOMUNWATH He must Have fallen from his proud spirit to consent.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Another strong defeat and she is ours.
ROOMUNWATH Blow then the conchs for battle. Page – 629 YOUGUNDHARAYAN I await Occasion and to feel the gods inclined. (to Vuthsa entering) My son, thou comest early from thy breezes.
VUTHSA The dawn has spent her glories and I seek Alurca and Vasuntha for the harp With chanted verse and lyric ease until The golden silences of noon arrive. See this strange flower I plucked below the stream! Each petal is a thought.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And the State’s cares, King of Cowsamby?
VUTHSA Are they not for thee, My mind’s wise father? Chide me not. See now, It is thy fault for being great and wise. What thou canst fashion sovereignly and well, Why should I do much worse?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And when I pass?
VUTHSA Thy passing I forbid.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Vuthsa, thou art Cowsamby’s king, not Time’s, nor death’s.
VUTHSA O, then, Page – 630 The gods shall keep thee at my strong demand To be the aged minister of my sons. This they must hear. Of what use are the gods If they crown not our just desires on earth?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Well, play thy time. Thou art a royal child, And though young Nature in thee dallies long, I trust her dumb and wiser brain that sees What our loud thoughts can never reason out, Not thinking life. She has her secret calls And works divinely behind play and sleep, Shaping her infant powers.
VUTHSA I may then go And listen to Alurca with his harp?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Thy will In small things train, Udaian, in the great Make it a wrestler with the dangerous earth.
VUTHSA My will is for delight. They are not beautiful, This State, these schemings. War is beautiful And the bright ranks of armoured men and steel That singing kisses steel and the white flocking Of arrows that are homing birds of war. When shall we fight again?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN When battle ripens. And what of marriage? Is it not desired?
VUTHSA O no, not yet! At least I think, not yet. Page – 631 I’ll tell thee a strange thing, my father. I shudder, I know it is with rapture, at the thought Of women’s arms, and yet I dare not pluck The joy. I think, because desire’s so sweet That the mere joy might seem quite crude and poor And spoil the sweetness. My father, is it so?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Perhaps. Thou hast desire for women then?
VUTHSA It is for every woman and for none.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN One day perhaps thou shalt join war with wedlock And pluck out from her guarded nest by force The wonder of Avunthy, Vasavadutta.
VUTHSA A name of leaping sweetness I have heard! One day I shall behold a marvellous face And hear heaven’s harps defeated by a voice. Do the gods whisper it? Dreams are best awhile.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN These things we shall consider.
PARENACA (entering) Hail, Majesty! A high-browed wanderer at the portals seeks Admittance. Tarnished is he with the road, Alone, yet seems a mighty prince’s son.
VUTHSA Bring him with honour in. Such guests I love. Page – 632 YOUGUNDHARAYAN We should know first what soul is this abroad And why he comes.
VUTHSA We’ll learn that from his lips.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Hope not to hear truth often in royal courts. Truth! Seldom with her bright and burning wand She touches the unwilling lips of men Who lust and hope and fear. The gods alone Possess her. Even our profoundest thoughts Are crooked to avoid her and from her touch Crawl hurt into their twilight, often hating her Too bright for them as for our eyes the sun. If she dwells here, it is with souls apart.
VUTHSA All men were not created from the mud.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN See not a son of heaven in every worm. Look round and thou wilt see a world on guard. All life here armoured walks, shut in. Thou too Keep, Vuthsa, a defence before thy heart. Parenaca brings in Gopalaca. GOPALAKA Which is Udaian, great Cowsamby’s king?
VUTHSA He stands here. What’s thy need from Vuthsa? Speak.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Roomunwath, look with care upon this face. Page – 633 GOPALAKA Hail, then, Cowsamby’s majesty, well borne Though in a young and lovely vessel! Hail!
VUTHSA Thou art some great one surely of this earth Who com’st to me to live guest, comrade, friend, Perhaps much more.
GOPALAKA I have fought against thee, king.
VUTHSA The better! I am sure thou hast fought well. Com’st thou in peace or strife?
GOPALAKA In peace, O king, And as thy suppliant.
VUTHSA Ask; I long to give.
GOPALAKA Know first my name.
VUTHSA Thy eyes, thy face I know.
GOPALAKA I am Gopalaca, Avunthy’s son, Once thy most dangerous enemy held on earth.
VUTHSA A mighty name thou speakest, prince, nor one To supplications tuned. Yet ask and have. Page – 634 GOPALAKA Thou heardst me well? I am thy foeman’s son.
VUTHSA And therefore welcome more to Vuthsa’s heart. Foemen! they are our playmates in the fight And should be dear as friends who share our hours Of closeness and desire. Why should they keep Themselves so distant? Thou the noblest of them all, The bravest. I have played with thee, O prince, In the great pastime.
GOPALAKA This was Vuthsa, then!
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And wherefore seeks the son of Mahasegn Hostile Cowsamby? or why suppliant comes To his chief enemy?
GOPALAKA I should know that brow. This is thy great wise minister? That is well. I seek a refuge.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN And thou sayst thou art Avunthy’s son?
GOPALAKA Because I am his son. My father casts me from him and no spot Once thought my own will suffer now my tread. Therefore I come. Vuthsa Udaian, king, Grant me some hut, some cave upon thy soil, Some meanest refuge for my wandering head. But if thy heart can dwell with fear, as do Page – 635 The natures of this age, or feed the snake Suspicion, over gloomier borders send My broken life.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Vuthsa, beware. His words Strive to conceal their naked cunning.
VUTHSA Prince, What thou demandst and more than thou demandst, Is without question thine. Now, if thou wilt, Reveal the cause of thy great father’s wrath, But only if thou wilt.
GOPALAKA Because his bidding Remained undone, my exile was embraced.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN More plainly.
GOPALAKA Ask me not. I am ashamed. Nor should a son unveil his father’s fault. They, even when they tyrannise, remain Most dear and reverend still, who gave us birth. This, Vuthsa, know; against thee I was aimed, A secret arrow.
VUTHSA Keep thy father’s counsel. If he shoot arrows and thou art that shaft, I’ll welcome thee into my throbbing breast. What thou hast asked, I sue to thee to take. Thou seekst a refuge, thou shalt find a home: Thou fleest a father, here a brother waits Page – 636 To clasp thee in his arms.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Too frank, too noble!
VUTHSA Come closer. Child of Mahasegn, wilt thou Be king Udaian’s brother and his friend? This proud grace wilt thou fling on the bare boon That I have given thee? Is it much to ask?
GOPALAKA To be thy brother was my heart’s desire. Shod with that hope I came.
VUTHSA Clasp then our hands. Gopalaca, my play, my couch, my board, My serious labour and my trifling hours Share henceforth, govern. All I have is thine.
GOPALAKA Thine is the noblest soul on all the earth.
VUTHSA Frown not, my father. I obey my heart Which leaped up in me when I saw his face. Be sure my heart is wise. Gopalaca, The sentinel love in man ever imagines Strange perils for its object. So my minister Expects from thee some harm. Wilt thou not then Assure his love and pardon it the doubt?
GOPALAKA He is a wise deep-seeing statesman, king, And shows that wisdom now. But I will swear, But I will prove to thee, thou noble man, Page – 637 That dearest friendship is my will to him Thou serv’st and to work on him proudest love. Is it enough?
VUTHSA My father, hast thou heard? A son of kings swears not to lying oaths.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN It is enough.
VUTHSA Then come, Gopalaca, Into my palace and my heart. He goes into the palace with Gopalaca. YOUGUNDHARAYAN O life Besieged of kings! What snare is this? what charm? There was a falsehood in the Avunthian’s eyes.
ROOMUNWATH He has given himself into his foemen’s hands And he has sworn. He is a prince’s son.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Yes, by his sire; but the pale queen Ungarica Was to a strange inhuman father born And from dim shades her victor dragged her forth.
ROOMUNWATH There’s here no remedy. Vuthsa is ensnared As with a sudden charm.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN I’ll watch his steps. Keep thou such bows wherever these two walk Page – 638 As never yet have missed their fleeing mark.
ROOMUNWATH Yet was this nobly done on Vuthsa’s part.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN O, such nobility in godlike times Was wisdom, but not to our fall belongs. Sweet virtue now is mother of defeat And baser, fiercer souls inherit earth. Page – 639 |
