Collected Plays and Stories

 

CONTENTS

 

Pre-content

 

PLAYS

THE VIZIERS OF BASSORA

 

Rodogune

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II  

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

 

 

Perseus the Deliverer

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

Eric

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

 

Vasavadutta

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Plays

The Witch of Ilni

Act One

 

Act Two

 

Act Three

SCENE I

SCENE II

 

SCENE I

 

 SCENE I

SCENE II

 

The House of Brut

Act  twO

 

SCENE I

 

The Maid in the Mill

Act One

 

 

 

Act Two

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE Iii

SCENE Iv

SCENE v

 

 

 

SCENE I

 

The Prince of Edur

The Prince of Mathura

Act  One

SCENE I

 

The Birth of Sin

Act ONE

 

Fragment of a Play

Act  One

SCENE I

 

STORIES

Occult Idylls

The Phantom Hour

 The Door at Abelard

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories

Fictional Jottings

Fragment of a Story

The Devil's Mastiff

The Golden Bird

 

 

Act II

 

Scene 1

 

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,

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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;

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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?

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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.

 

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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


Scene 2

 

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


Scene 3

 

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