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Act III
The forest near Dongurh.
Comol, Coomood, meeting in the forest.
COOMOOD Where were you hidden, Comol, all this morning?
COMOL I have been wandering in my woods alone Imagining myself their mountain queen. O Coomood, all the woodland worshipped me! Coomood, the flowers held up their incense-bowls In adoration and the soft-voiced winds Footing with a light ease among the leaves Paused to lean down and lisp into my ear, Oh, pure delight. The forest’s unnamed birds Hymned their sweet sovran lady as she walked Lavishing melody. The furry squirrels Peeped from the leaves and waved their bushy tails, Twittering, “There goes she, our beloved lady, Comol Cumary”; and the peacocks came Proud to be seen by me and danced in front, Shrilling, “How gorgeous are we in our beauty, Yet not so beautiful as is our lady, Comol Cumary.” I will be worshipped, Coomood.
COOMOOD You shall be. There’s no goddess of them all
Page – 918 That has these vernal looks and such a body Remembering the glory whence it came Or apt to tread with the light vagrant breeze Or rest with moonlight.
COMOL That was what they told me, The voices of the forest, sister Coomood, — The myriad voices.
COOMOOD What did they tell you, Comol?
COMOL They told me that my hair was a soft dimness With thoughts of light imprisoned in’t; the gods, They said, looked down from heaven and saw my eyes Wishing that that were heaven. They told me, child, My face was such as Brahma once had dreamed of But could not, — no, for all the master-skill That made the worlds, — recapture in the flesh So rare a sweetness. They called my perfect body A feast of gracious beauty, a refrain And harmony in womanhood embodied. They told me all these things, — Coomood, they did, Though you will not believe it. I understood Their leafy language.
COOMOOD Come, you did not need So to translate the murmurings of the leaves And the wind’s whisper. ‘Twas a human voice I’ll swear, so deftly flattered you.
COMOL Fie, Coomood, It was the trees, the waters; the pure, soft flowers
Page – 919 Took voices.
COOMOOD One voice. Did he roar softly, sweetheart,
To woo you?
COMOL Oh, he’s a recreant to his duty. He loves the wild-deer fleeing on the hills
And the strong foeman’s glittering blade, not Comol. You must not talk of him, but of the hills
And greenness and of me.
COOMOOD And Edur, Comol? COMOL Edur! It is a name that I have heard In some dim past, in some old far-off world
I moved in, oh, a waste of centuries And many dreams ago. I’ll not return there.
It had no trees, I’m sure, no jasmine-bushes, No happy breezes dancing with linked hands
Over the hill-tops, no proud-seated hills Softening the azure, high-coped deep-plunging rocks
Or flowery greenness round, no birds, no Spring.
COOMOOD We are the distance of a world from Edur. Tomorrow is the May-feast’s crowning day,
Comol.
COMOL Oh then we shall be happy breezes
And dance with linked hands upon the hills All the Spring-morning.
Page – 920 COOMOOD It is a May to be Remembered. COMOL It is the May-feast of my life,
Coomood, the May-feast of my life, the May That in my heart shall last for ever, sweet,
For ever and for ever. Where are our sisters?
COOMOOD Nirmol is carrying water from the spring; Ishany hunts the browsing stag today,
A sylvan archeress.
COMOL What have you in the basket? COOMOOD Flowers I have robbed the greenest woodland of For Bappa’s worship. They must hide with bloom
Sheva Ekling today. Tomorrow, sweet, I’ll gather blossoms for your hair instead
And weave you silver-petalled anklets, earrings Of bright maybloom, zones of Spring honeysuckle,
And hide your arms in vernal gold. We’ll set you Under a bough, our goddess of the Spring,
And sylvanly adore, covering your feet With flowers that almost match their moonbeam whiteness
Or palely imitate their rose; — our Lady, Comol Cumary. COMOL Will Bappa worship me?
But I am an inferior goddess, Coomood, And dare not ask the King of Paradise
To adore me.
Page – 921 COOMOOD You must adore him, that’s your part. COMOL I will, while ’tis the May. COOMOOD And afterwards? COMOL Coomood, we will not think of afterwards In Dongurh, in the springtide. COOMOOD Tomorrow dawns
The seventh morning, Comol.
COMOL I did not hear you. Are these our hunters?
Enter Prithuraj and Ishany. ISHANY I have a better aim Than yours. PRITHURAJ Did I deny it? Oh, you shoot
Right through the heart.
ISHANY I’ll never marry one Whom I outdo at war or archery.
You tell me you are famous Martund’s son, The mighty Gehlote. Wherefore lurk you then
In unapproachable and tangled woods Warding off glory with your distant shafts,
Page – 922 While life sweeps past in the loud vale below?
Not breast the torrent, not outbrave its shocks To carve your names upon the rocks of Time
Indelibly?
P We will affront, Ishany, The Ganges yet with a victorious gleam Of armour. But our fates are infant still And in their native thickets they must wait To flesh themselves and feel their lion strengths Before they roar abroad.
ISHANY Until they do, Talk not of love.
PRITHURAJ What would you have me do? O’erbear in arms the Scythian Toraman, And slay the giant Hooshka? meet Ichalgurh And come unharmed, or with my single sword Say halt to a proud score of the best lances You have in Edur? This and more I can For thee, Ishany.
ISHANY You talk, but do it first. Doers were never talkers, Prithuraj.
PRITHURAJ Oh, that’s a narrow maxim. Noble speech Is a high prelude fit for noble deeds; It is the lion’s roar before he leaps. Proud eloquence graces the puissant arm And from the hall of council to the field Was with the great and iron men of old
Page – 923 Their natural stepping.
ISHANY You only roar as yet. I beat you with the bow today; sometime I’ll fight you with the sword and beat you.
PRITHURAJ Will you? Just as your lady did?
ISHANY She played, she played, But I would aim in earnest at your heart. One day we’ll fight and see.
PRITHURAJ Why, if we do, I’ll claim a conqueror’s right on your sweet body, Ishany.
ISHANY And my heart? You must do more, If you’ll have that.
PRITHURAJ It cannot now be long Before the mailed heel of Edur rings Upon our hillside rocks. Then I’ll deserve it.
ISHANY Till then you are my fellow-hunter only, Not yet my captain. Enter Nirmol. NIRMOL Idlers and ne’er-do-weels, home! Here have I carried twelve full jars from the spring, set wood on the stove, kindled the fire,
Page – 924 while you play gracefully the sylvan gadabouts. Where is the venison?
PRITHURAJ Travelling to the cooking-pot on a Bheel’s black shoulders.
NIRMOL To your service, Ishany! or you shall not taste the stag you have hunted.
ISHANY Child, do not tyrannize. I am as hungry with this hunting as a beef-swallowing Scythian. Exit. NIRMOL Off with you, hero, and help her with your heroic shoulders. Exit Prithuraj. COMOL A pair of warlike lovers!
NIRMOL You are there, sister-truants? Have you no occupation but to lurk in leaves and eavesdrop upon the prattle of lovers?
COMOL Why, Nirmol, I did my service before I came.
NIRMOL Yes, I know! To sweep one room — oh, scrupulously clean, for is it not Bappa’s? and to scrub his armour for a long hour till it is as bright as your eyes grow when they are looking at Bappa, — do they not, Coomood?
COOMOOD They do, like stars allowed to gaze at God.
Page – 925 NIRMOL Exact! I have seen her —
COMOL Nirmol, I do not know how many twigs there are in the forest, but I will break them all on your back, if you persevere.
NIRMOL Do you think you are princess of Edur here that you threaten me? No, we are in the democracy of Spring where all sweet flowers are equals. Oh, I will be revenged on you for your tyrannies in Edur. I have seen her, Coomood, when she thought none was looking, lay her cheek wistfully against the hilt of his sword, trying to think that the cold hard iron was the warm lips of its master and hers. I have seen her kiss it furtively —
COMOL (embracing and stopping her mouth) Hush, hush, you wicked romancer.
NIRMOL Go then and cook our meal like a good princess and I will promise not to repeat all the things I have heard you murmur to yourself when you were alone.
COMOL Nirmol, you grow in wickedness with years. Wait till I have you back in Edur, maiden; I’ll scourge this imp of mischief out of you.
NIRMOL I have heard her, Coomood, —
COMOL I am off, I am away! I am an arrow from Kodal’s bow. Exit. Page – 926 NIRMOL She is hard to drive, but I have the whiphand of her.
COOMOOD Have you the crimson sandal-powder ready? Flowers for the garlands Spring in sweet abundance Provides us.
NIRMOL Yes. She shall be wedded fast Before she knows it.
COOMOOD Unless my father’s sword Striking us through the flowery walls we hide in, Prevent it, Nirmol.
NIRMOL Coomood, our fragile flowers will weave A bond that steel cannot divide, nor death Dissever. Exeunt. Page – 927 |