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 III

 

The forest near Dongurh.

 

Scene 1

 

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

 

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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

 

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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.

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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.

 

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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?

 

PRITHURAJ

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.

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