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Act II
A room in the palace at Cowsamby. Alurca, Vasuntha.
ALURCA He’ll rule Cowsamby in the end, I think.
VASUNTHA Artist, be an observer too. His eyes Pursue young Vuthsa like a hunted prey And seem to measure possibility, But not for rule or for Cowsamby care. To reign’s his nature, not his will.
ALURCA This man Is like some high rock that was suddenly Transformed into a thinking creature.
VASUNTHA There’s His charm for Vuthsa who is soft as Spring, Fair like a hunted moon in cloud-swept skies, Luxurious like a jasmine in its leaves.
ALURCA When will this Vuthsa grow to man? Hard-brained Roomunwath, deep Yougundharayan rule; The State, its arms are theirs. This boy between Like a girl’s cherished puppet stroked and dandled, Page – 640 Chid and prescribed the postures it must keep, Moves like a rhythmic picture of delight And with his sunny smile he does it all. Now in our little kingdom with its law Of beauty and music this high silence comes And seizes on him. All our acts he rules And Vuthsa has desired one master more.
VASUNTHA There is a wanton in this royal heart Who gives herself to all and all are hers. Perhaps that too is wisdom. For, Alurca, This world is other than our standards are And it obeys a vaster thought than ours, Our narrow thoughts! The fathomless desire Of some huge spirit is its secret law. It keeps its own tremendous forces penned And bears us where it wills, not where we would. Even his petty world man cannot rule. We fear, we blame; life wantons her own way, A little ashamed, but obstinate still, because We check but cannot her. O, Vuthsa’s wise! Because he seeks each thing in its own way, He enjoys. And wherefore are we at all If not to enjoy and with some costliness Get dear things done, till rude death interferes, God’s valet moves away these living dolls To quite another room and better play, — Perhaps a better!
ALURCA Yet consider this. Look back upon the endless godlike line. Think of Parikshith, Janamejoya, think Of Suthaneke, then on our Vuthsa gaze. Glacier and rock and all Himaloy piled! What eagle peaks! Now this soft valley blooms; Page – 641 The cuckoo cries from branches of delight, The bee sails murmuring its low-winged desires.
VASUNTHA It was to amuse himself God made the world. For He was dull alone! Therefore all things Vary to keep the secret witness pleased. How Nature knows and does her office well. What poignant oppositions she combines! Death fosters life that life may suckle death. Her certainties are snares, her dreams prevail. What little seeds she grows into huge fates, Proves with a smile her great things to be small! All things here secretly are right; all’s wrong In God’s appearances. World, thou art wisely led In a divine confusion.
ALURCA The Minister Watches this man so closely, he must think There is some dangerous purpose in his mind.
VASUNTHA He is the wariest of all ministers And would suspect two pigeons on a roof Of plots because they coo.
ALURCA All’s possible. Vuthsa enters with Gopalaca. VUTHSA Yes, I would love to see the ocean’s vasts. Are they as grand as are the mountains dumb Where I was born and grew? Or is its voice Like the huge murmur of our forests swayed In the immense embrace of giant winds? Page – 642 We have that in Cowsamby.
GOPALAKA Wilt thou show Them to me, Vindhya’s crags where forests dimly Climb down towards my Avunthy?
VUTHSA We will go And hunt together the swift fleeing game Or with our shafts unking the beast of prey.
GOPALAKA If we could range alone wide solitudes, Not soil them with our din, not with our tread Disturb great Nature in her animal trance, Her life of mighty instincts where no stir Of the hedged restless mind has spoiled her vasts.
VUTHSA It is a thing I have dreamed of. Alurca, tell The Minister that we go to hunt the deer In Vindhya’s forests on Avunthy’s verge. That’s if my will’s allowed. Alurca goes out to the outer palace. VASUNTHA He will, Vuthsa, Allow thy will. Where does it lead thee, king?
VUTHSA A scourge for thee or a close gag might help.
VASUNTHA A bandage for my eyes would serve as well.
Page – 643 VUTHSA Shall we awaken in Alurca’s hands The living voices of the harp? Or willst thou That I should play the heaven-taught airs thou lov’st On the Gundhurva’s magical guitar Which lures even woodland beasts? For the elephant Comes trumpeting to the enchanted sound, A coloured blaze of beauty on the sward The peacocks dance and the snake’s brilliant hood Lifts rhythmic yearning from the emerald herb.
GOPALAKA Vuthsa Udaian, suffer me awhile To walk alone, for I am full of thoughts.
VUTHSA Thou shouldst not be. Cannot my love atone For lost Avunthy?
GOPALAKA Always; but a voice Comes to me often from the haunts of old.
VASUNTHA Returns no dim cloud-messenger to whisper To thy great father’s longing waiting heart Far from his banished son?
GOPALAKA Thy satire’s forced.
VASUNTHA Thy earnest less?
VUTHSA One hour, a long pale loss, I sacrifice to thy thoughts. When it has dragged past, Page – 644 Where shall I find thee?
GOPALAKA Where the flowers rain Beneath the red boughs on the river’s bank. There will I walk while thou hearst harp or verse.
VUTHSA Without thee neither harp nor verse can charm. Gopalaca goes. The harmony of kindred souls that seek Each other on the strings of body and mind, Is all the music for which life was born. Vasuntha, let me hear thy happy crackling, Thou fire of thorns that leapest all the day. Spring, call thy cuckoo.
VASUNTHA Give me fuel then, Your green young boughs of folly for my fire.
VUTHSA I give enough I think for all the world.
VASUNTHA It is your trade to occupy the world. Men have made kings that folly might have food; For the court gossips over them while they live And the world gossips over them when they are dead. That they call history. But our man returns.
ALURCA Do here and in all things, says the Minister, Thy pleasure. But since upon a dangerous verge This hunt will tread, thy cohorts armed shall keep The hilly intervals, himself be close To guard with vigilance his monarch’s life Page – 645 Against the wild beasts and what else means harm.
VUTHSA That is his care; what he shall do, is good.
ALURCA To lavish upon all men love and trust Shows the heart’s royalty, not the brain’s craft.
VUTHSA I have found my elder brother. Grudge me not, Alurca, that delight. Thou lov’st me well?
ALURCA Is it now questioned?
VUTHSA Then rejoice with me That I have found my brother. Joy in my joy, Love with my love, think with my thoughts; the rest Leave to much older wiser men whose schemings Have made God’s world an office and a mart. We who are young, let us indulge our hearts.
ALURCA Thou tak’st all hearts and givest thine to none, Udaian. Yet is this prince Gopalaca, This breed from Titans and from Mahasegn, Hard, stern, reserved. Does he repay thy friendship As we do?
VUTHSA Love itself is sweet enough Though unreturned; and there are silent hearts.
VASUNTHA Suffer this flower to climb its wayside rock. Page – 646 Oppose not Nature’s cunning who will not Be easily refused her artist joys. Fierce deserts round the green oasis yearn And the chill lake desires the lily’s pomp.
VUTHSA He is the rock, I am the flower. What part Playst thou in the woodland?
VASUNTHA A thorn beneath the rose That from the heavens of desire was born And men call Vuthsa.
VUTHSA Poet, satirist, sage, What other gifts keepst thou concealed within More than the many that thy outsides show?
VASUNTHA I squander all and keep none, not like thee Who trad’st in honey to deceive the world.
VUTHSA O, earth is honey; let me taste her all. Our rapture here is short before we go To other sweetness on some rarer height Of the upclimbing tiers that are the world. Page – 647
A forest-glade in the Vindhya hills. Vicurna, a Captain. VICURNA The hunt rings distant still; but all the ways Troops and more troops besiege. Where is Gopalaca?
CAPTAIN Our work may yet be rude before we reach Our armies on the frontier.
VICURNA That I desire. O whistling of the arrows! I have yet To hear that battle music.
CAPTAIN Someone comes, For wild things scurry forth. They take cover. Gopalaca enters. VICURNA Whither so swiftly? You are near the frontier for a banished man, Gopalaca.
GOPALAKA Why has my father sent Thy rash hot boyhood here, imperilling Both of his sons? I find not here his wisdom. Page – 648 VICURNA There will be danger? I am glad. None sent me; I came unasked.
GOPALAKA And also unasking?
VICURNA Right.
GOPALAKA Trust me to have thee whipped. But since thou art here! Where stand the chariots?
CAPTAIN On our left they wait Screened by the secret tunnel which the Boar Tusked through the hill to Avunthy. Torches ready And men in arms stand in the cavern ranked They call the cavern of the Elephant By giants carved. But all the forest passages The enemy guards.
GOPALAKA There are some he cannot guard. I know the forest better than their scouts. When I shall speak of you and clap my hands, Surround us in a silence armed.
CAPTAIN His men Resisting?
GOPALAKA No; we two shall be alone.
Page – 649 VICURNA Fie! there will be no fighting?
GOPALAKA Goblin, off! They take cover again. Gopalaca goes; then arrive from another side Vuthsa with Vasuntha and Alurca. ALURCA We lose our escort!
VASUNTHA They lose us, I think.
ALURCA What fate conspires with what hid treachery? Our chariot broken, we in woods alone And the night close.
VASUNTHA Roomunwath guards the paths.
ALURCA The night is close.
VUTHSA Here I will rest, my friends, Where all is green and silent; only the birds And the wind’s whisperings! Go, Alurca, meet Our comrades of the hunt; guide their vague steps To this green-roofed refuge.
ALURCA It is the best, though bad. I leave thee with unwarlike hands to guard. Page – 650 VASUNTHA I am no fighter; it is known. Run, haste. Alurca hastens out. And yet for all your speed, someone will worship Great Shiva in Avunthy. I hear a tread. Gopalaca returns. VUTHSA Where wert thou all this time, Gopalaca?
GOPALAKA Far wandering in the woods since a white deer Like magic beauty drew my ardent steps Into a green entanglement.
VASUNTHA Simple! You found there what you sought?
GOPALAKA No deer, but hunters, Not of our troop. We spoke of this green glade Where many wandering paths might lead the king. In haste I came.
VASUNTHA Greater the haste to go!
VUTHSA Follow Alurca and come back with him.
VASUNTHA What, cast myself into the forest’s hands To wander and be eaten by the night? Come here and bid me then a long farewell. Are thy eyes open at least? Is it thou in this Who movest? I should know that at least from thee,
Page – 651 If nothing more.
VUTHSA Why ask when thou hast eyes? Thou seest that mine are open and I walk; For no man drives me.
VASUNTHA Walk! but far away From thy safe capital.
VUTHSA What harm?
VASUNTHA And with This prince Gopalaca?
VUTHSA Suspicions then? Why not suspect at once it is my will To visit Avunthy?
VASUNTHA So?
VUTHSA Not so, but if?
VASUNTHA Oh, if! And if return were much less easy Than the going?
VUTHSA Who has talked of easy things? With difficulty then I will return. Page – 652 VASUNTHA I go, King Vuthsa.
VUTHSA But tell Yougundharayan And all who harbour blind uneasy thoughts, “Whatever seeks me from Fate, man or god, Leave all between me and the strength that seeks. War shall not sound without thy prince’s leave. Vuthsa will rescue Vuthsa.”
VASUNTHA I will tell, But know not if he’ll hear.
VUTHSA He knows who is His sovereign.
VASUNTHA King, farewell.
VUTHSA I shall. Farewell. Vasuntha disappears in the forest. We two have kept our tryst, Gopalaca. Hang there, my bow; lie down, my arrows. Now Of you I have no need. O this, O this Is what I often dreamed, to be alone With one I love far from the pomp of courts, Not ringed with guards and anxious friendships round, Free like a common man to walk alone Among the endless forest silences, By gliding rivers and over deciduous hills, In every haunt where earth our mother smiles Whispering to her children. Let me rest awhile My head upon thy lap, Gopalaca, Page – 653 Before we plunge into this emerald world. Shall we not wander in her green-roofed house Where mighty Nature hides herself from men, And be the friends of the great skyward peaks That call us by their silence, bathe in tarns, Dream where the cascades leap, and often spend Slow moonless nights inarmed in leafy huts Happier than palaces, or in our mood Wrestle with the fierce tiger in his den Or chase the deer with wind-swift feet, and share With the rough forest-dwellers natural food Plucked from the laden bounty of the trees, Before we seek the citied haunts of men? Shall we not do these things, Gopalaca?
GOPALAKA Some day we shall.
VUTHSA Why some day? why not now? Have I escaped my guards in vain?
GOPALAKA Not vainly.
VUTHSA This sword encumbers; take it from me, friend, And fling it there upon the bank.
GOPALAKA It is far. I keep my arms lest some wild thing invade These green recesses.
VUTHSA Keep thy arms and me. O, this is good to be among the trees Page – 654 With thee to guard me and no soul besides.
GOPALAKA Thyself thou hast given wholly into my hands.
VUTHSA Yes, take me, brother.
GOPALAKA I shall use the trust And yet deserve it.
VUTHSA I love thee well, Gopalaca. How dost thou love me?
GOPALAKA It was hard to speak, Now I can tell it. As a brother might Elder and jealous, as a mother loves Her beautiful flower-limbed boy or grown man yearns Over some tender girl, his sister, comrade, child, In all these ways, but many more besides, But always jealously.
VUTHSA Why?
GOPALAKA Because, Vuthsa, I’ld have thee for my own and not as in Thy city where a thousand shared thy rays Who were strangers to me. In my own domain, Part of a world that’s old and dear to me, Where thou shalt be no king, but Vuthsa only And I can bind with many dearest ties Heaped on thee at my will. This, Vuthsa, I desired
Page – 655 And therefore I have brought thee to this glade.
VUTHSA And therefore I have come to thee alone.
GOPALAKA Thou must go farther.
VUTHSA Yes? Then haste. Was that A clank of arms amid the silent trees? He makes as if to rise, but Gopalaca restrains him. GOPALAKA Thy escort.
VUTHSA Mine?
GOPALAKA My father sends for thee. I seize upon thee, Vuthsa, thou art mine, My captive and my prize. I’ll bear thee far As Heaven’s great eagle bore thy mother once Rapt to his unattainable high hills. As he speaks the armed men appear. Swift, captain, swift! I hold the royal boy. On to the tunnel of the Boar.
CAPTAIN Haste, haste! There is a growing rumour all around.
GOPALAKA Care not for that, but follow me and guard. They disappear among the trees. Vasuntha enters. Page – 656 VASUNTHA The forest lives with sound; but here all’s empty. The stake is thrown; it cannot be called in Whatever happens. Armed men break in from all sides; Yougundharayan, Roomunwath, Alurca. YOUGUNDHARAYAN Where is King Vuthsa? where? His bow hangs lonely! sword and arrows lie.
VASUNTHA (indifferently) I cannot tell.
ALURCA Not tell! but you were here, Were with him!
VASUNTHA I was sent away like that. But for a guess he’s travelling far and fast To Shiva in Avunthy.
ALURCA And thou laughst, Untimely jester!
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Impetuously pursue! The forest ways and mountain openings flood That flee to Avunthy. Over her treasonous borders Drive in your angry search.
VASUNTHA Thy king commands thee To leave all twixt him and the strength that seeks Their quarrel; throw not armies in the balance. War shall not sound her conch; but Vuthsa only
Page – 657 Shall rescue Vuthsa.
ROOMUNWATH This is a boy’s madness. What lies behind this message?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN Roomunwath, this. The lion’s cub breaks forth Whom we so guarded, from our strict control To measure with the large and perilous world The bounding rapture of his youth and force. He throws himself into his foeman’s lair Alone and scorning every aid. I guess His purpose and find it headlong, subtle, rash. If he failed? This boy and iron Mahasegn! We must obey.
ROOMUNWATH There’s time to arrest their flight This side our frontier. Hastily pursue. He goes with Alurca and the armed men, all in a tumult of haste. YOUGUNDHARAYAN It will be vain. A perilous leap and yet Heroic with the bold and antique scorn Of common deeds and the safe guarded paths. This is the spirit that smiled hidden in him Waiting for birth! At least my spies shall enter Their secret chambers, even in his prison My help be timely and near. Back to Cowsamby! Page – 658
Avunthy. A road on a wooded hill-side overlooking the plain. Gopalaca, Vuthsa in a chariot, surrounded by armed men.
GOPALAKA Arrest our wheels. Those are our army’s lights That climb to us like fire-flies from the plain.
VUTHSA (awakened from sleep) Is this Avunthy?
GOPALAKA We have passed her bounds.
VUTHSA So, thou dear traitor, this thou from the first Cam’st planning.
GOPALAKA This with more that follows it.
VUTHSA Thou bearst me to thy father’s town?
GOPALAKA Where thou Shalt lie, a jewel guarded carefully, Beside the dearest treasure of our house.
VUTHSA I must be cooped up in a golden cage As I was guarded in Cowsamby’s walls.
Page – 659 You foes and friends think me your wealth inert, And all men hope to do their will with me. But now I warn you all that I will have My freedom and will do my own dear will By fraud or violence greater than your own.
GOPALAKA Thou canst not. If thou hadst thy bow indeed!
VUTHSA Thou hadst me for the taking. I will break forth Almost as easily.
GOPALAKA Thou shalt find it hard, Such keepers shall enring thy steps.
VUTHSA But I will And carry with me something costlier far Than what thou stealest from Cowsamby’s realm. For I will have revenge.
GOPALAKA No wealth we have More precious than the thing I seize today. Therefore thy boast is vain.
VUTHSA That I will see. Was it not thy brother rode behind our car? He passes now; call him.
GOPALAKA Vicurna, here! Page – 660 VUTHSA Come near, embrace me, brother of Gopalaca, Loved for his sake and for thy own desired Since I beheld thee, son of Mahasegn.
VICURNA Vuthsa Udaian, in the battle’s front I had hoped to meet thee and compel thy praise As half thy equal in the fight. But this Is nearer, this is better.
VUTHSA Thou art fair to see. Thy father has two noble sons. Are there No others of your great upspringing stock?
GOPALAKA Only a sister.
VUTHSA The world has heard of her.
GOPALAKA Thou shalt behold.
VUTHSA Oh then, it is pure gain I go to in Avunthy. O the night With all her glorious stars and from the trees Millions of shrill cigalas peal one note, A thunderous melody! Shall we be soon In the golden city? But it will be night And I shall hardly see her famous fanes.
GOPALAKA Dawn will have overtaken us in her skies Passing our chariots long before Ujjayiny’s seen.
Page – 661 Our vanguard nears; unite with them; descend. Roomunwath’s cohorts should tread close behind.
VUTHSA They will not come. My fate must ride with me Unhindered to Avunthy.
GOPALAKA Hasten in front Towards my father fire-hooved messengers To cry aloud to him the prize we bring Richer than booty of his twenty wars. Shiva has smiled on us.
VUTHSA Vishnu on me. Godheads, it is by strife that you grow one. Page – 662 |