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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3834.txt b/3834.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b7c69f --- /dev/null +++ b/3834.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5528 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hassan: The Story of Hassan of +Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand +by James Elroy Flecker +(#2 in our series by James Elroy Flecker) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* + + + + + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling <gcowling@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au> +or <ifni_au@yahoo.com> + + + + + +HASSAN: + +THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD + +AND HOW HE CAME TO MAKE + +THE GOLDEN JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND + + +A play in five acts + + +By James Elroy Flecker + + + + + +CHARACTERS + + + + +HASSAN, a Confectioner + +The CALIPH HAROUN AR RASCHID + +ISHAK, his Minstrel + +JAFAR, his Vizier + +MASRUR, his Executioner + +RAFI, King of the Beggars + +SELIM, a friend of Hassan's + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY + +THE CHIEF OF THE POLICE + +ALI, ABDU Nondescripts + +ALDER WILLOW <JUNIPER> TAMARISK Slaves + +THE PORTER of Yasmin's House + +THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER + +A DERVISH + +THE FOUNTAIN GHOST + +A HERALD + +THE PRISON GUARDS + +PERVANEH + +YASMIN + + + +An AMBASSADOR, a WRESTLER, a CALLIGRAPHIST, a JESTER, GHOSTS, +MUTES, DANCING WOMEN, BEGGARS, SOLDIERS, POLICE, ATTENDANTS +and CASUAL LOITERERS + + + + + + +THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD + + +ACT I + +SCENE I + +A room "behind the shop" in Old Bagdad. In the background a large +caldron steaming, for the shop is a sweet-stuff shop and the sugar +is boiling. The room has little furniture beyond the carpet, +old but unexpectedly choice, and some Persian hangings (geometrical +designs, with crude animals and some verses from the Koran +hand-printed on linen). A ramshackle wooden partition in one +corner shuts off from a living room what appears to be the shop. + +Squatting on the carpet--facing each other: + +HASSAN, the Confectioner, 45, rotund, moustache, turban, +greasy grey dress. + +SELIM, his friend, young, vulgarly handsome, gaudily clothed. + + HASSAN +(Rocking on his mat) Eywallah, Eywallah! + + SELIM +Thirty-seven times have you made the same remark, O father +of repetition. + + HASSAN +(More dolefully than ever) Eywallah, Eywallah! + + SELIM +Have you caught fever? Is your chest narrow, or your belly +thunderous? + + HASSAN +(With a ponderous sigh) Eywallah! + + SELIM +Is that the merchant of sweetmeats, that sour face? O poisoner +of children, surely it would be better to cut the knot of reluctance +and uncord the casket of explanation. And the poet Antari +has justly remarked: + + Divide your sorrow and impart your grief, O fool. + That good man comforteth beyond belief, O fool. + + HASSAN +(Inclining towards the mat) None is good, save God. +And Abou Awas has excellently sung: + + The importunate + Are seldom fortunate. + +Nevertheless, know, Selim, that I am in love. + + SELIM +In love! Then why sit moaning on the mat? Are there not beauties +at the barbers, and lights of love at the bazaar? + + HASSAN +(Angrily) Hold your tongue, Selim, or leave me. I was in earnest +when I said I loved, and your coarseness is ill-fitting to my mood. +And well I know I am Hassan, the Confectioner, yet I can love +as sincerely as Mejnun; for assuredly she of whom my heart is bent +is not less fair than Leila. + + SELIM +(Ironically) Alas! I mistook the particular for the general, and +did not recognise the purity of your intentions. But I would not +mention Mejnun. Mejnun was young, and you are old, and he was +a prince, and you are a Confectioner, and he was beautiful, +and you are not, and he was very thin because of his sorrow, +and you are fatter than those four-legged I mention not-- +God curse their herdsmen! + + HASSAN +And if it be as you say, Selim, if I am indeed a fat, old, ugly +tradesman, have I not good reason to be sorry and rock upon +my mat, for how shall maintain my heart's desire? + + SELIM +Listen to me, Hassan, why is it that in this last year you have +become different from the Hassan that was Hassan? From time to time +you talk strangely in your cups, like a mad poet; and you have bought +a lute and a carpet too fine for your house. And now I feel you +are losing your senses when I hear this talk of love from one who +is past the age of folly. + + HASSAN +It may be so, young man. Indeed, a think I am a fool. +It is the affliction of Allah. + + SELIM +Tell me, at least, who she is. It may be she is not so unattainable +as you imagine, unless indeed you have set eyes on the Caliph's +daughter, or on the Queen of all the Jinn. + + HASSAN +Listen, Selim, and I will tell you my affair. Three days ago +a woman came here to buy loukoum of me, dressed as a widow, +and bade me follow her to her door with a parcel. Alas, Selim! +I could see her eyes beneath her veil, and they were like +the twin fountains in the Caliph's garden; and her lips +beneath her veil were like roses hidden in moss, +and her waist was flexible as a palm-tree swaying in the wind, +and her hips were large and heavy and round, like water melons +in the season of water melons. I glanced at her but she would not smile, +and I sighed but she would not glance, and the door of her house +shut fast against me, like the gate of paradise against an infidel. +Eywallah! +(Recommences moaning.) + + SELIM +And where was the house of this widow who bought sweetmeats +and had none to sell? + + HASSAN +In the street of Felicity, by the fountain of the Two Pigeons. + + SELIM +(Musing) It must be the widow of that Achmet they hung last year +by the Basra Gate. + + HASSAN +Which Achmet? + + SELIM +The hairy one. + + HASSAN +Istagfurallah! He fluttered like a bird. May I never soar so high. + + SELIM +Istagfurallah! May I see you! I should burst with laughter +and vultures with repletion. But tell me, you who have fallen +so deeply in love, do you rejoice in your misfortune like a dervish +in his dirt, or do you honestly desire satisfaction? + + HASSAN +I desire satisfaction Selim. But I pray you talk no more of this. + + + SELIM +Well, take courage, faint heart, since all things can be cured +save perversity in asses. Perhaps I can cure you of love. + + HASSAN +By the Prophet, Selim, do not cure my love, cure her indifference. + + SELIM +(With sudden alertness) There is only one way of doing that. + + HASSAN +Which way? + + SELIM +Do you believe in magic, Hassan? + + HASSAN +Men who think themselves wise believe nothing till the proof. +Men who are wise believe anything till the disproof. + + SELIM +What do we know if magic be a lie or not? But since it is certain +that only magic can avail you, you may as well put it to the test. +You can buy a philtre that can draw her love, and send her a jar +of magic sweets. + + HASSAN +I am ready to all things, ingenious Selim; but do you know +a good magician? + + SELIM +Zachariah, the Jew, has but lately arrived from Aleppo: +he is the talk of all the market place, and a wonderful man if +tales be true. + + HASSAN +Have you the tales? + + SELIM +I have this among many. They say that in Bokhara a man called him +an offensive Jew and flung a stone at his head: and he caused the +stone to be suspended in the air and the man too, so that the man walked +all round Bokhara over the heads of the passers-by, who were +astonished, and was constrained to enter his house by the upper window. + + HASSAN +(Incredulous) Mashallah! + + SELIM +And stranger than that. At Ispahan men say he took off the dome +of the Great Mosque and turned it round and had a bath in it, +and put it back again. + + HASSAN +Mashallah! + + SELIM +And strangest of all, at Cairo, for the amusement of the Sultan, +he turned the whole population into apes for half an hour. + + HASSAN +A very trifling change if you knew the Egyptians. I don't believe +a word of all these tales. Yet, doubtless he is as good enough +physician to make a love philtre. But are philtres any good? + + SELIM +There can be no doubt that there are philtres which drive women to +love, though their hearts be as strong and their heads as cold as +the mountains of Qaf. But as for this Zachariah, I know he sells +philtres at ten dinars the bottle: his shop is crowded with rich +old women. + + HASSAN +Eywallah, Salim, I am sick of love; but no damsel is worth ten +dinars. And sages have remarked, "the ideal is expensive!" And +philosophers have observed, "There are a thousand figs on the fig-tree +and all as like as like." + + SELIM +What! All the smooth, shining hills and well-wooded valleys in that +country of love...All going for ten dinars!... And this is the man +whose love is like Mejnun's! What is ten dinars to a man in love? +You gave thrice that sum for this carpet. + + HASSAN +A carpet is a carpet, and a woman is is a woman. It is not only +the ten dinars. But you know that in this market I have a +character. "Hassan", men say, "is a safe man. Hassan will not +leave his jacket on the wall, or buy peas without prodding the sack." +But if they hear: "A stranger came to Bagdad and no Mussulman +and said he would do this, and Hassan has paid him ten dinars +and got no gain", they will nudge each other when I walk abroad +at evening, and say: "A sad end"; and another "Look at him, Saadet, +my son, and drink no wine"; and another, "God preserve me from the +friends of such a one!" and they will call out to me as they pass, +"Ya Hassan, give me ten dinars that I may build a mosque!" and I +will be shamed where I was honoured, and abased where I was exalted.... + +(A loud knocking on the floor of the adjacent shop causes HASSAN +to retire thither hurriedly. As he disappears YASMIN peeps +inquisitively, unveiled, through the little window in the partition.) + + SELIM +What an impudent little beauty.... Why, she had a widow's scarf on. +She must be the princess! (Rocks with laughter) The unattainable +ideal! And I have her address. It requires a frenzied lover +to pay cash for a flask of coloured water. But I doubt if Hassan's +sweets mingled with coloured water will do aught but can make her sick. +Whereas a cake stuffed with those very dinars.... Allah, the dinars +would not choke her! O thou fool Hassan! + + Tell not thy shirt who smiled and answered "Yes": + Dream not her name, nor fancy her address. + +(Enter Hassan, pale and staggering.) + + HASSAN +Selim, in the name of friendship, take these ten dinars and buy me +that philtre, and return with speed. + + SELIM +(Feigning irritation) Allah! Am I your messenger? +Go yourself to the Jew. + + HASSAN +I must prepare the sweetmeats this very hour, to send them to her +before sunset. In the name of friendship, Selim, take the dinars +and purchase me that philtre. + + SELIM +(Rising and taking dinars) Do not make me chargeable, O Hassan, +if the philtre is without effect. I only repeat what I have heard. + + + HASSAN +No, I will not blame you. But go quickly for the magic that nothing +may be left unsampled that may prove beneficial. + +(Exit SELIM; HASSAN makes up the fire and prepares his caldron, +saying meanwhile) + +That young man weareth out my carpet apace. I begin to think also +he doth fray the braid of my affection. But if he buys me a +good philtre I will forgive him. Oh, cruel destiny, thou hast made +me a common man with a common trade. My friends are fellows from +the market, and all my worthless family is dead. Had I been rich, +ah me! how deep had been my delight in matters of the soul, +in poetry and music and pictures, and companions who do not jeer +and grin, and above all, and in the colours of rich carpets +and expensive silks. But be content, O artist: thou hast one +carpet; be content, O confectioner: thou hast one love--one love, +but unattained...yet hadst thou been rich, O confectioner, never hadst +thou found her. + +Now I will make her sweets, such sweets, ah me! as never I made +in my life before. I will make her sweets like globes of crystal, +like cubes of jade, like polygons of ruby. I will make her sweets +like flowers. Great red roses, passionate carnations, raying +daisies, violets, and curly hyacinths. I will perfume my roses +(may they melt sweetly in her lips) with the perfume of roses, +so that she shall say "a rose"! and smell before she tastes. +And in the heart of each flower I will distil one drop +of the magic of love. Did I not say "they shall be flowers"? + + + + + SCENE II + + +Moonlight. The Street of Felicity by the Fountain of the Two Pigeons. +A house with a balcony on either side of the street. +In front of one of the houses, HASSAN, cloaked: a PORTER. + + HASSAN +Has she received the box, O guardian of the door of separation? + + PORTER +From my hands, O dispenser of bounty. + + HASSAN +What did thy mistress say? + + PORTER +Sir, the hands of mediation are empty. + + HASSAN +(Giving a dinar) I have filled them. +What honey dropped from that golden mouth? + + PORTER +She said--may thy servant find grace--"Curses on that fat sugar +cook and his love-sick eyes. Allah be praised, his confectionery +is better than his countenance!" + + HASSAN +(Aside) If she likes the confectionery, all may be well. +And what didst thou reply? + + PORTER: +I said: "His sweets sparkle like diamonds and rubies in the crown +of OUR Caliph, and his sugar is as pure as his intentions." +And she answered--the protection on thy slave--"his intentions may +be pure, but his coat is greasy." + + HASSAN +And did she eat the confectionery? + + PORTER +I do not know. But within the hour I removed the box, +and it was empty. + + HASSAN +Ah! Salaam and thanks. + + PORTER +And to thee the Salaam. + + HASSAN +But tell me what is the name of thy mistress? + + PORTER +Yasmin is her name, Sir. + + HASSAN +A sweet name for a moonlight night. Salaam aleikum. + + PORTER +Ya Hawaja, v'aleikum assalam! + +(The PORTER returns and shuts the gate.) + + HASSAN +(To himself) What if the Jews are an older race than we and know +old forgotten secrets? Alas, I believe no more in these +Israelitish sweets. Could those drops of purple liquid command +the spirit of love? And yet, who can say? the young men +of the market-place laugh at all enchantments--but do they know +how to spin the sun? On a night like this, does not the very +fountain sing in tune and enchant the dropping stones? Ah, Yasmin? +(Taking a lute from beneath his cloak and a tuning it.) +Yasmin...Yasmin...Yasmin...Yasmin. + +(Intones to the accompaniment of the lute.) + + How splendid in the morning glows the lily; with what grace he throws + His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin? + But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends, + Whose very name that sweetly ends, I say when I have said, Yasmin. + The morning light is clear and cold; I dare not in that light behold + A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin. + But when the deep red eye of day is level with for the lone highway, + And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin, + Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon, + And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin, + Shower down thy love, O burning bright! for one night or the other night + Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flower are dead, Yasmin! + +(As HASSAN intones the last "Yasmin" with passion the shutters open, +and YASMIN, veiled, looks out.) + + YASMIN +Alas, Minstrel, Yasmin is my name also, but it was for a fairer +Yasmin than me, I fear, you have strung these pearls. + + HASSAN +There is no Yasmin but Yasmin, and you are Yasmin. + + YASMIN +Can this be Hassan, the Confectioner? + + HASSAN +I am Hassan, and I am a confectioner. + + YASMIN +Mashallah, Hassan, your words are sweeter than your sweets. + + HASSAN +Gracious lady, your eyes look down through your veil like angels +through a cloud. Dare I ask to see your face, O bright perfection? + + YASMIN +(Roguishly) Do you take me for a Christian, father of impertinence? +And since when do the daughters of Islam unveil before strangers? + + HASSAN +It is said: he who speaks to the heart is no stranger. + + YASMIN +(Unveiling her eyes) Are you satisfied, O importunate! + + HASSAN +Never, till I have seen perfection to perfection. + + YASMIN +You would shrivel, my poet. What about "the glory too far shed, Yasmin"? + + HASSAN +Let me see you unveiled, Yasmin. + + YASMIN +Anything to close the portal of your face. +(Unveiling.) There. Do I please thee, my Sultan? + + HASSAN +(Rapturously) Oh, you are beautiful! + + YASMIN +Prince of poets, is that all you have to say! Not a stanza, +not a trope, not a turn, not a twist, not even a hint that the +heavens are opened, or that there are two moons in the sky together? + + HASSAN +There is but one. + + YASMIN +Well confectioned, my confectioner! And now, Good-night. + + HASSAN +O stay, Yasmin, you are too beautiful, and I too bold. +I am nothing, and you are the Queen of the Stars of Night. +But the thought of you is twisted in the strings of my heart; +I burn with love of you, Yasmin. Put me to the proof, my lady; +there was nothing I could not do for your bright eyes. +I would cross the salt desert and wrest a cup of the water of life +from the Jinn that guards it; I would walk to the barriers of the world +and steal the roc's egg from its diamond nest. I would swim +the seven oceans, and cross the five islands to rob Solomon ben Dawud +of his ring in the palace where he lies sleeping in the silence +and majesty of uncorrupting death. And I would slip the ring +on your finger and make you mistress of the spirits of the air-- +but would you love me? Could you love me, do you love me, Yasmin? + + YASMIN +There is love and love and love. + + HASSAN +(Passionately) Oh, answer me! + + YASMIN +I think I have been enchanted, Hassan; how, I cannot tell. +Till this afternoon the thought of your appearance made my heart +narrow with disgust. But since I ate your present of comfits-- +and they were admirable comfits, and I ate them with speed-- +my heart is changed and inclined toward you, I know not why or how, +except it be through magic. + + HASSAN +(Aside) She is mine, and magic rules the world! +(Aloud) Yasmin, shall I possess you, O Yasmin? + + YASMIN +Am I not the desert waiting for the rain? Was I not born for passion, +Hassan? Is not my bosom burning for kisses? Were not these arms +made smooth and hard to fight the battle of love? + + HASSAN +Are not your lips love's roses, your cheeks love's lilies, +your eyes love's hyacinths? + + YASMIN +Ya, Hassan, and my hair the net of love, and my girdle +the chain of love that breaks at a lovers touch? + + HASSAN +I am drowning in a wave of madness. Let me in, Yasmin; let me in! + + YASMIN +Ah, if I could! + + HASSAN +Why not? + + YASMIN +Ah, if I dared! + + HASSAN +What do you fear? It is night, and the street is silent. + + YASMIN: +Ah, dear Hassan, but I am not alone. + + HASSAN +(Whispering) Not alone? Who is there? Your mother? + + YASMIN +No! One who you sent here. + + HASSAN +I sent no one. + + YASMIN +One of your friends. + + HASSAN +A man? + + SELIM +(Poking his head out of the window) Ya, Hassan, Salaam aleikum. +I thank you for directing my steps to this rose-strewn bower. + + HASSAN +(Astonished) Selim! + + SELIM +Thy servant always. + + + HASSAN +(Wildly) Selim! + + SELIM +Be advised, O Hassan, go and seek the enchanted egg. + + HASSAN +Selim, what do you here? + + SELIM +Plunge not the finger of enquiry into the pie of impertinence, O my uncle. + + HASSAN +Since when have I become your uncle, Selim, and how did I cease +to be your friend? + + SELIM +Since when did you aspire to poetry, O Hassan? +But I have heard these lines: + + As from the eagle flies the dove + So friendship from the claw of love. + + HASSAN +Love. What love do you mean, scum of the market? + + SELIM +This. (Puts a hand on YASMIN's shoulder.) + + HASSAN +May God strike thee blind, Selim, and shut the door +of his compassion against thee! + + SELIM +What is my crime, Uncle? How have I sinned against thee, +or merited the solemn imprecation? + + HASSAN +Do not touch her, you dog, do not touch her! + + SELIM +Is it a crime to touch Yasmin, my Uncle? Am I not to be excused? +Is not her neck a pillar of the marble of Yoonistan? +(Puts his arm around her neck.) + + HASSAN +Torment of death! + + YASMIN +Are not my arms like swords of steel, hard and cold, +and thirsty for blood? (Putting her arms around the neck of SELIM) + + HASSAN +Fire of hell! + + SELIM +Are not her eyes two sapphires in two pools? + + HASSAN +Woe is me! Woe is me! + + YASMIN +Are not my lips two rubies drenched in blood? (Kisses him) + + HASSAN +God, I shall fall! + + SELIM +(His face in YASMIN's bosom) Couldst thou but see, O my Uncle, +the silver hills with their pomegranate groves; or the deep fountain +in the swelling plain, or the Ethiopian who waters the roses +in the garden, or the great lamp between the columns where the incense +of love is burned. How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for the name +and address, and half the old Jew's dinars! + + YASMIN +How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for sending me this strong +and straight young friend of thine to console my loneliness +and desolation? Ah, it is bitter to be a widow and so young! + + HASSAN +(Putting up his hands to his head) The fountain, the fountain! +O my head, my head! + + YASMIN +Be not too rash, my Uncle, or thy hair will come away in thy hands. + + HASSAN +If I could but reach your necks with a knife, children of Sheitan! + + YASMIN +I was the sun of his existence, and now I am a child of Sheitan-- +and why? Never again will I trust the love of a man. +I was a glory too far shed, and now he wants to open my neck. +And already he has tried to poison me. Ya, Hassan, if you desire my death, +send me some more enchanted sweets! + + SELIM +Beware, O Hassan, of jesting with the Jinn. + + YASMIN +Buy, O Hassan, no more juice from Jews. + + SELIM +Much, I fear, O my friend, for thy character in the market. +No more will men say: "Hassan is a safe man"; but they will nudge +each other and say, "Beware of Hassan, Hassan is a great magician; +he has talked with the spirit's of the air! Deal not with Hassan, +O my son, Saadet, for he sells enchanted sweets that drive the consumer +to madness. And at night Hassan becomes a cat, and walketh on the roofs +after the female cats. Allah preserve me from the evil eye of such a one!" +And another will say, tapping his forehead, "Speak no harm of poor Hassan, +for his brain is very sick!" And the small, guileless boys will say, +"Behold Hassan, who gave ten dinars for a pint of indigo and water." + + HASSAN +Ah, death! + + YASMIN +Look at him! He is drifting like a soul aswoon! +Go home, old fellow! + + SELIM +Go home and write poems! + + YASMIN +Go home, and cook sweets! + + HASSAN +Yasmin! Yasmin! My head! + + YASMIN +Begone, or I will cool thy head, thou wearisome old fool! + + HASSAN +Yasmin! Yasmin! (Stands with his arms outstretched) + + YASMIN +Take this, my bulbul, to quench thy aspiration. +(Pours a jug of water over him, and slams the shutters to. +HASSAN does not budge from his position.) + + HASSAN +O thou villainous, unclean dog, Selim. O thou unutterable woman. +I will have you both whipped through the city and impaled in the +market-place, and your bodies flung to rot on a dung-heap. +O, my head aches! Ah, you foul swine! May you scream in hell for ever. +O, my head--my head. For ever. Thou and thy magic and thy Jew. +There is blood dripping from the wall. (Banging on the gate) +I will break the house in. I will kill you. Ya Allah, +I am splitting in twain. It is my own fault for having dreams +and believing magic. Ya Allah, I am dying. Oh, Yasmin, +so beautiful, so brutal. O burning bright; you have killed me! +Farewell, and the Salaam! + +(Falls under the shadow of the fountain. Silence. A light appears +in the next house. Soft music starts; the first light of dawn +shines in the sky.) + +(Enter the CALIPH HAROUN AR RASCHID, JAFAR, his Vizier, MASRUR (a +Negro), his Executioner, and ISHAK, a young man, his poet, +all attired as Merchants.) + + CALIPH +Ishak, my heart is heavy and still the night drags on, +and still we wander in the crooked streets, and still +we find no entertainment, and still the white moon shines. + + ISHAK +O Caliph of Islam, is there not vast entertainment for the wise +in the shining of the moon, in the dripping of that fountain, +and in the shape of that tall cypress that has leapt the wall +to shoot her arrow at the stars? + +(The music which had stopped recommences.) + + CALIPH +But I hear music, and see lights. Come on, come on, we will snatch +profit from this cursed night even yet, my friends, +even at the eleventh hour. + + JAFAR +Master, the night is far advanced, and you have not slept. +It is a late hour to seek for entertainment. + + CALIPH +Jafar you are as prudent as a shopkeeper. + + ISHAK +There lies his merit, Haroun! For he keeps the great shop of state, +he sells the revenue of provinces, and buys in the lives of men. + + CALIPH +Enough, enough. Call to them, Jafar, and see if they will let us in. + + JAFAR +Oh, gentlefolk, in the name of Allah! + + VOICE +(From window, the person invisible) Who calls? + + JAFAR +Sir, we are four merchants who came yesterday night from Basra, +and on our arrival we met in the street a man of Basra settled in Bagdad, +who prayed us to dine with him. So we accepted and stayed late +talking the talk of Basra, and left him but an hour ago. +And since we were strangers to the city, we lost our way, +and have been wandering ever since in search of our Khan +and have not found it. And now a happy chance has taken us +to this street; for seeing lights and hearing music, indeed, sir, +we hope to taste the cup of thy kindness, being men of honour, +good companions and true believers. + + VOICE +Then you are not of Bagdad? + + JAFAR +No, sir, but of Basra. + + VOICE +Had you been a Baghdad, you should not have entered for all the gold +in the Caliph's coffers. + + CALIPH +Then we may enter, being of Basra? + + VOICE +If you enter, you will be in my power. And if you annoy me, +I will punish you with death. But no one constraineth you to enter. +Go in peace, O men of Basra. + + CALIPH +(Aside) A rare adventure. (Aloud) We take the risk of annoying you, +O host of terror, and are now looking for the door. + + VOICE +Since when did a door of good reputation open on to this street, +my masters? Our door is far from here, and you are strangers and merry, +and will not find it. But I will contrive a means for your ascent. + + CALIPH +Jafar, I never suspected there was a great house in this poor quarter +of the town. For from the outside it is a house like any other, +except that it has no door; but inside, if this is but the back of it, +it is of great extent and holds some secret. We shall make a discovery +tonight, O Jafar. + + JAFAR +Master, we have been warned of danger! + +(A basket comes down.) + + CALIPH +Danger? What care I? + +(Sits in the basket, and is drawn up.) + + JAFAR +Eh, Masrur, I could sleep a little. + + MASRUR +You would wake in paradise if the Caliph heard you, Jafar. + +(MASRUR waves his sword dexterously near JAFAR's neck.) + + JAFAR +(As he ascends into the basket, pointing to Masrur's sword) +The path to Paradise is narrow and shiny, O Masrur. + + MASRUR +(With the grim motion of the sword) Ya, Jafar, it is a short cut. + +(Jafar having ascended, MASRUR ascends, and the basket is let down +for Ishak.) + + ISHAK +(Alone) Go on thy way without me, Commander of the Faithful. +I will follow you no further. Find one more adventure if you will. +For me the break of day is adventure enough--and water splashing +in the fountain. Find out, Haroun, the secret of the lights +and of the music, of a house that has no door, and a master +that will admit no citizen. Drag out the mystery of a man's love +or loss, then break your oath and publish his tale to all Bagdad, +then fling him gold, and fling him gold, and dream you have made a friend! +Those bags of gold you fling, O my generous master, to a mistress for night, +to a poet for a jest, to a rich friend for entertainment, +to a beggar for a whim, are they not the revenues of cities, +wrung by torture from the poor? But the sighs of your people, Haroun, +do not so much as stir the leaves in your palace garden! + +And I--I have taken your gold, I, Ishak, who was born on the mountains +free of the woods and winds. I have made my home in your palace, +and almost forgot it was a prison. And for you I have strung glittering, +fulsome verses, a hundred rhyming to one rhyme, ingeniously woven, +my disgrace as a poet, my dishonour as a man. And I have forgotten +that there are men who dig and sow, and a hut on the hills +where I was born. +(Perceives Hassan.) Ah, there is a body, here in the shade. +Corpses of the poor are very common on the streets these days. +They die of poison or the knife, but most of hunger. Mashallah, +but you have not died of hunger, my friend, and there is that +on your face that I do not like to see. By his clothes +this was a common man, a grocer or a baker, his person ill-proportioned +and unseemly, but by his forehead not quite a common man. I think-- + + JAFAR +(From above) Ishak, are you coming up? + + ISHAK +(Shouting back) Wait a minute, I will come. + +(To himself) What has curved his mouth into that bitter line? +He is an ugly man, but I maintain there is grace in his countenance. + +What? A lute? Take my hand, O brother. You loved music too, +and you could sing the songs of the people, which are better than mine-- +the songs I learnt from the mother of my mother. + +(Taking the broken lute mechanically) What was that one? + + "The Green Boy came from over the mountains, + Joy of the morning, joy of his heart"? + +I have forgotten it, and the lute is broken. Or that other: + + "Come to the wells, the desert wells! + The caravan is marching down; I hear the camel bells." + +(Resumes HASSAN's hand) Ah, brother, your hand is warm and your heart +beating, you are not dead. +(Bathing HASSAN's forehead with water from the fountain) +I shall know after all what has twisted your mouth awry. + + CALIPH +Ishak, Ishak, we wait and wait. + + ISHAK +May I not be free one hour, to breathe the dawn alone! Ah!... +(Takes HASSAN's body and drags it to the basket.) I come, my master! +(Puts HASSAN in the basket.) There, take my place, brother, +and find your destiny. I will be free to-night, free for one dawn +upon the hills! + +(As HASSAN is drawn up in the basket, ISHAK walks rapidly away.) + + + CURTAIN + + + + + + + + + ACT II + + + + SCENE I + + + + +A great room. To the left three arches lead out onto the balcony +where the personages CALIPH, JAFAR and HOST are collected. +The interior of the room is blazing with lights, but empty. +The architecture of the room is curious on account of the wide, +low arches which cut off a square in the centre. The furniture +of the room is in rich, rather vulgar Oriental taste. + + + CALIPH +Ishak, Ishak, we are waiting and waiting. + + JAFAR +Ishak! Ishak! Perhaps he is faint. + + CALIPH +Faint! + + JAFAR +Let me go down and see what he is doing. I think I hear him talking. + + CALIPH +He is talking to shadows. He has one of his evil fits tonight. +Do not trouble your head or mine about him. He presumes on our friendship, +and forgets the respect due to us. Am I to be kept waiting like a Jew +in a court of justice, I the Master... + + JAFAR +(Quickly) We are not in Basra, Sir. But see, the rope has tightened. +(To MASRUR.) Haul, thou whose soul is white. + + RAFI +(Helping with ropes to CALIPH who stands idle) God restore to you +the use of your arms, my brother from Basra. +(HASSAN rolls out of the basket, filthy and the inanimate.) +Yallah, Yallah, on what dunghill did this fowl die? +Is this your man of honour? + + JAFAR +(Astonished) Host of the house, this is not our companion, +and we have never set eyes on him before. + + RAFI +Then what is this? + + CALIPH +Our friend has played a trick on us--may Allah separate him +from salvation!--and sent up this body in place of himself. +Come let us tip it out into the street. + + RAFI +(Feeling HASSAN'S pulse) Wait; this man is by no means dead, +and the mill of his heart still grinds the flour of life. +Ho, Alder! + +(Enter ALDER, a young and pretty page.) + + ALDER +At his master's service. + + RAFI +Ho, Willow! + + WILLOW +(Younger still) At his lord's order. + + RAFI +Juniper! + + JUNIPER +At his Pasha's command. + + RAFI +Tamarisk! + + TAMARISK +(A little boy a with a squeaky voice) At his Sublimity's feet. + + CALIPH +(Aside to JAFAR) Truly, this is charming: +an illustrious example of decorum and good taste. + + RAFI +Transform this into a man, my slaves. Revive him, bathe, soap, +scent, comb him, clothe him with a ceremonial coat +and bring him back to us. + + ALDER +We hear, + + WILLOW + We honour, + + JUNIPER + We tremble, + + TAMARISK + and obey. + + CALIPH +(Entering the great room of the house) Thy house is of grand proportions +and eccentric architecture, my Host; it is astonishing +that such a house should look out on to so mean a street. + + RAFI +It is an old house where the Manichees (the devil roast all heretics!) +once held their meetings before they were all flayed alive. +It is called the house of the moving walls. + + CALIPH +Why such a name? + + RAFI +I do not know at all. + + CALIPH +The merry noise of music that we heard is silent. + + RAFI +I waited for your permission, my guests, before continuing +my meagre entertainment. Ho, music! Ho, dancers! (Claps his hands.) + +(Music plays. The HOST enters the room and motions his GUESTS +to be seated in silence.) + + CALIPH +Verily, after this prelude, and in this splendid palace, +we shall see dancing women worthy of Paradise. + + JAFAR +God grant it, Master. + + CALIPH +(To JAFAR) Hush, I hear the pattering of feet. +The wine of anticipation is dancing through my veins. +O Jafar, what incomparable houris will charm our eyes to-night? +What rosy breasts, what silver shoulders, what shapely legs, +what jasmine arms! + +(In good order, marching to the music, there enter the most awful +selection of Eastern BEGGARS the eye could imagine, or the tongue describe. +They are headed by their CHIEF, a rather fine fellow, +in indescribable tatters. He leads the CHORUS with a song, +half intoned in the Oriental style.) + + Fathers of two feet, advance, + Dot and go ones, hop along, + Two feet missing need not dance, + But will join us in the song. + +CHORUS OF CULS-DE-JATTE: + But will join you in the song. + + Show your most revolting scar; + People never weary of it. + The more nauseous you are-- + More the pity and your profit. + +CHORUS And your profit, profit, profit. + + Cracked of lip and gapped of tooth, + Apoplectic, maim or mad, + Blind of one eye, blind of both, + Up, the beggars of Bagdad. + +CHORUS Up, the beggars of Baghdad. + + There is a cellar, I am told, + Where a little lamp is lit, + And that cellar's full of gold, + Sacks and sacks and sacks of it. + +CHORUS (Hoarsely) + Sacks and sacks and sacks of it, + Stacks and stacks and stacks of it. + Open eyes and stiffen backs, + There are sacks and sacks and sacks; + And gold for him who lacks of it. + +(The HOST lifts his hand. The BEGGARS all fall flat on their faces. +Dance music.) + +(Enter right, a BAND of fair, left, a BAND of dusky beauties.) + + THE DANCING GIRLS + Daughters of delight, advance, + Petals, petals, drift along; + Cypress, tremble! Firefly, dance! + Nightingale, your song, your song! + + THE FAIR + We are pale + + THE DARK + as dawn, with roses, + O the roses, O desire! + We are dark, + + THE FAIR +(Curtsying) + but as the twilight + Shooting all the sky with fire. + + CHORUS + Daughters of delight, advance, + Petals, petals, drift along, + Cypress, tremble! Firefly, dance! + Nightingale, your song, your song! + +(They surround the BEGGARS, dancing, and point at them.) + + LEADER OF THE FAIR + From what base tavern, of what street + Were dragged these dogs, that foul our feet? + + LEADER OF THE DARK + O sisters, fly, we shall be hurt: + +(The LEADER OF THE BEGGARS catches her.) + + Leave go my ankle, son of dirt. + + LEADER OF THE BEGGARS + Lady, if the dirt should gleam, + Feel, but do not show surprise: + Things that happen here would seem + +(Rises to his feet, his rags drop off, and he shines in gold.) + + Paradox in Paradise. + +(The infirmities and rags of the whole BAND disappear as if by magic, +as they rise and shout in CHORUS.) + + CHORUS + Paradox in Paradise + +(RAFI raises his hand. ALL stand at attention.) + + VOICES + Hush, the King speaks. + The King of the Beggars. + The King. + + LEADER OF THE BEGGARS +The King of the Beggars, the Caliph of the Faithless. The Peacock +of the Silver Path, the Master of Bagdad! + +(The BALLET line the room behind the arches.) + + JAFAR +(Aside, astonished) King of the Beggars? + + MASRUR +(Aside, astonished) Master of Bagdad? + + CALIPH +(Aside, astonished) Caliph of the Faithless? Allah kerim, +this is a jest indeed! + + RAFI +(Throwing off his outer garment and discovering himself superbly dressed +in a golden armour) Subjects and guests. Now that the night +before our day is ending, and the Wolf's Tail is already brushing +the eastern sky; now that our plot is ready, our conspiracy established, +our victory imminent, what is there left for me to tell you, +O faithful band? Shall I say, be brave? You are lions. +Be cunning? You are serpents. Be bloody? You are wolves. + +See now, Bagdad is still in dreams that in a few minutes +shall be full of fire, and that fire redder than the dawn. +You have begged--you shall buy: you have fawned--you shall fight: +you have plotted--you shall plunder: you have cringed: you shall kill. + +How loud they snore, those swine whose nostrils we shall slit to-day! +Copper they flung to us, and steel we shall give them back; +good steel of Damascus, that digs a narrow hole and deep. + +But as for the Peacock of Peacocks, that sack of debauch, +that Caliph, alive in his coffin, I and none other will nail him down, +with his eyes staring into mine. His gardens, fountains, summer houses, +and palaces; his horses, mules, camels, and elephants, +his statues of Yoonistan, and his wines of Ferangistan, his eunuchs +of Egypt, and his carpets of Bokhara, and his great sealed boxes +bursting with unbeaten gold, and his beads of amethyst, +and his bracelets of sapphire, all this and all his women, +his chosen flower-like women, are yours for lust and loot and lechery, +my children--all save her of whom I warned you--a woman who was mine, +and who shall sit unveiled with me on the throne of all the Caliphs... +and when you see us sitting on that throne together, then you shall cry... + + THE BEGGARS +(Taking up with a shout) The Caliph is dead! The Caliphate is over! +Long live the King! + + JAFAR +(In indignation) These words are not holy, even in jest. + + RAFI +O guests of an hour, I pray you put the tongue of discretion +into the cheek of propriety. + + JAFAR +Propriety! The host's obligations are greater than the guests. +It is not good taste to speak thus before the invited. +We pray you only that we may withdraw at once. + + RAFI +Then who will withdraw me, my masters, from the vengeance of the Caliph, +once you have talked a talk with the Captain of his Guard? + + JAFAR +We give you our promise: we are men of honour. + + RAFI +If you were thieves, as we are, I might trust you. But, if, as you say, +you are men of honour, honour will drive you panting to the Caliph's gate, +and honour will swiftly break a promise made to a this and a rebel, +under compulsion. + + JAFAR +Sir, I pray you, no more of this, be it jest or earnest. +It will soon be morning: we must away: we have pressing business: +our clients await us. + + RAFI +And give me their names, O my guests, and tonight I will fling +their gold and their carcasses together at your feet. + + JAFAR +We insist that you let us go. + + RAFI +O merchants, tell me but this one thing: Do you dwell in fine houses +in the port of Basra? + + JAFAR +We have no mean abodes. + + RAFI +Are your apartment spacious and well furnished? + + JAFAR +Well enough. + + RAFI +Then tell me further, have you soft carpets on the floors of those rooms? + + JAFAR +There are carpets. + + RAFI +Great, rich, soft carpets from Persia and Afghanistan? + + JAFAR +Yes. + + RAFI +It is a pity. Soft carpets make soft the sole of the foot. +And they who have soft feet should ever keep them on the road of meekness. + + MASRUR +(Drawing his sword) Dost thou dare threaten us, bismillah! + + RAFI +Truly, O most disgusting negro, comprehension and thou have been +separated since your youth. Shall I then drop needle of insinuation +and pick up the club of statement? Shall I tell you three guests of mine, +with the plainness of plainness and the openness of plainness, +that if you offer one threat more, propose one evasion more, +or ask one question more, I will thrash your lives head downwards +from your feet. + +(Enter HASSAN finely dressed, and ushered in by the FOUR BOYS +through the rows of DANCERS.) + + HASSAN +(Lamenting) Eywallah, eywallah, eywah, eywah, Mashallah! Istagfurallah! + + RAFI +Why, here is the fourth guest! + + ALDER +We have washed him: he needed it. + + WILLOW +Combed him: it was necessary. + + JUNIPER +Scented him: it was our duty. + + TAMARISK +Clothed him: it was our delight. + + HASSAN +(As before) Eywallah! Yallah Akbar! Y'allah kerim! Istagfurallah! +Eywallah! Hassan is ended! Hassan is no more! He is dead! +He is buried! He is a bone! Y'allah kerim! + + RAFI +Eyyah Hassan, if that is your name, have my boys not treated you well? +If they have hurt you with their tricks, by the Great Name, I will... + + HASSAN +I pray you, I pray you. Thrash no one's life out downwards +from their feet, O master, and above all, not mine. + + RAFI +Ah, you heard me! Take courage. All that I require of my guests, +good Hassan, is genteel behaviour. + + HASSAN +Ah! Who are all these terrible men? + + RAFI +Beggars of Bagdad! Ten thousand more await my signal on the streets. +In a few minutes they will surprise the drowsy Palace Guards, +sack Bagdad, kill the Caliph and make me King. + + HASSAN +(Stupefied) What has become of me this night! Just now I was in Hell, +with all the fountains raining fire and blood. + + RAFI +Come, Hassan, you are only just in time; the cold dawn which ends +the revellers' dark day will soon be uncurtaining the blue. +One bowl to pledge me victory, O guests, for I must away and win it, +and you shall lie here to sleep away the destruction of Bagdad. +At least you shall say this of your host--he gave us splendid wine. + + +(The FOUR SLAVES hand round the bowl; the CALIPH refuses.) + +(To CALIPH) Sir, you do not drink. + + CALIPH +I obey the Prophet. + + RAFI +What wine do they grow in the desert of Meccah, or on the sandhills +of Medina? Ah, had the Prophet tasted wine of Syria or the islands, +the book would have been shorter by that uncomfortable verse. + + JAFAR +Come, host! I at all events will pledge you. There is ever fellowship +between those who have drunk wine together, be they murderers +or thieves or Christians. + + MASRUR +Host, on the day when I shall spill your blood, I shall drink a little +in remembrance of this bowl of wine. Till then your health! +(Drinks.) + + RAFI +(Sarcastically) Ye are three jolly fellows of amiable disposition. +(Drinks.) +I thank you, negro, I drink to yours. + + HASSAN +I drink to forget a woman, but will this little cup suffice? + + RAFI +Nor ten, nor ten thousand little cups like these, if you have loved. +Tonight I shall fill my bowl of the oblivion with the blood +of the Caliph of Bagdad. Brother, will that great cup suffice? + + HASSAN +(In terror) Call me not brother, thou savage man, who dost talk +of shedding the holiest blood in Islam! + + RAFI +When high office is polluted, when the holy is unholy, when justice +is a lie, when the people are starved, and the great fools +of the world are in high office, then dares a man talk of shedding +the holiest blood in Islam? + + CALIPH +Also when one has a vengeance to wreak on the Caliph and a claim +on a lady of his household. + + MASRUR +Why do you want to nail him in his coffin alive? Tell us the tale. + + JAFAR +Tell us, if would not have us think you a mad man or a buffoon. + + CALIPH +Tell us about the woman; what harm can do you +since we are in your power? + + RAFI +(After hesitation) Yes, what harm can it do, if for my own sake, +to relieve the heaviness of my heart, I tell you something of my story? + +My name is Rafi. I come from the hills beyond Mosul, where the men +walk free and the women go unveiled. There I was betrothed to Pervaneh, +a woman beautiful and wise. But the very day before our marriage +the Governor of Mosul remembered my country and invaded it +with a thousand men. And little enough plunder they got from our village, +but they caught Pervaneh walking alone among the pine woods +and carried her away. When I heard this I leapt on my horse +and galloped to Mosul, prepared to slay the Governor and all +the inhabitants thereof single-handed, if evil had come to Pervaneh. +But there I found she had already been sent with a raft full of slaves +down the Tigris to Bagdad. Whereupon I hired six men with shining muscles +to row me there. We arrived at Bagdad at the end of the third night's +rowing at the grey of dawn. I sprang out of the raft like a tiger, +and ran like a madman through the streets, crying "The Slave Market! +Tell me the way, O ye citizens! The Slave Market, O the Slave Market!" + +And suddenly turning a corner I came upon the market, +which was like a garden full of girls in splendid clothes +grouped in groups like flowers in garden beds and some like lilies, naked. +I ran around the market to find Pervaneh and all the women laughed +at me aloud, and behold there she stood; she who had never worn a veil before, +the only veiled woman in all the market, for she had sworn to bite off +her lips if her master would not veil her: but I knew her +by the beauty of her hands, and I cried: "O dealer, the veiled woman +for a thousand dinars!" And the dealer laughed in the way of dealers +at the presumption of my offer and demanded two thousand, +and so I purchased for gold the blood of my own heart, +and she lifted her veil and sang for joy and hung upon my neck, +and all the slave girls clapped their hands. + +But at that moment there entered into the market a negro eunuch, +so tall and so disgusting that the sun was darkened and the birds +whistled for terror in the trees. And all the dealers and the slaves +bowed low before him. Coming to my dealer, he cried: "Why dost thou +sell slaves before the Caliph has made his choice?" + +Then turning to to Pervaneh, he said, "Go back to thy place." +And I cried, "She is my purchase." But the eunuch said, +"Hold thy peace; I take her for the Caliph." + +And suddenly two guards seized Pervaneh, and I drawing my sword +was about to hew the eunuch into a thousand pieces, +Pervaneh made a sign to me, and looking up I saw I was surrounded +by men at arms. And Pervaneh cried in the speech of my country, +as they carried her way: "I will die, but I will not be defiled: +rescue me alive or dead, soon or late, and avenge me on this Caliph, +may the ravens eat his entrails!" + +That is my story, and for this reason I will nail the Caliph +down in his coffin, bound and living and with open eyes. + + CALIPH +(In horror) Bound and living, with open eyes! Thou devil! + + MASRUR +Is that all the story? + + JAFAR +Will you tear up the Empire for the honour of a girl? + + CALIPH +(In fury) And set your worthless passion in scale against +the splendour of Islam! + + RAFI +Is this Haroun the splendour of Islam? Is the prosperity +of these people, a rosy slave in his serai, or their happiness, +a fish in his silver fountain? + + JAFAR +God will frustrate thee. + + RAFI +If he will. Farewell, my guests. I go to avenge Pervaneh, +and to wash Bagdad in blood. + + JAFAR +And what of us? + + RAFI +It is well be used that you are my guests, for you are rich and proud, +and eminently deserve destruction. But you are safe in his room +as in an iron cage; you will only hear, as in a dream, the crash +of the fall of the statue of tyranny. + + CALIPH +(Rushing to intercept him) By the thick smoke of Hell's Pit +and the Ghouls that eat man's flesh, you shall not go, +and we shall not stay. + + RAFI +Look twice before you touch me! + +(He leaps behind the archway. The BEGGARS and the WOMEN are now +lined close to the wall of the room and the GUESTS are isolated +in the centre. From behind every pillar appears an ARCHER +with bow drawn taut directed on the startled GUESTS.) + + CHORUS OF BEGGARS AND DANCING GIRLS + Today the fools who catch a cold in summer + Will fly for winter in the windy moon. + + To-day the little rills of shining water + Will catch the fire of morning oversoon. + + To-day the state musicians and court poets + Will set new verses to a special tune. + + Today Haroun, the much-detested Caliph + Will find his Caliphate inopportune. + + RAFI +(Silencing the SINGERS with a wave of his hand; +to the GUESTS) Did not someone ask me why this house was called +the House of the Moving Walls? + + CALIPH +I asked the question. + +(Sheets of iron with a crash covering the apertures of the arches. +The four GUESTS are completely walled in.) + + RAFI, BEGGARS AND WOMEN +(From behind the iron partitions with a shout) Answered! + + JAFAR +This is a disastrous situation! + +(The BEGGARS Tramp out to martial music.) + +VOICES OF THE BEGGARS +(Retreating) + + Today Haroun, the much-detested Caliph, + Will find Caliphate inopportune! + + JAFAR +(Listening at the wall) They have all left the room. +At least we are alone. Let us shout, they may hear us from the street. + + MASRUR +(Banging on the wall) Eyyah! Help, help, men of Bagdad! +The Caliph is in danger! The Caliph is in prison!... +Come up and save the Caliph, the Master of Men, the Shaker of the World!... +(Silence.) + + CALIPH +There comes no answering cheer... + + JAFAR +I had forgotten the height of this room above the streets: +and on either side stretches the empty garden of this house! + +(The CALIPH, JAFAR and MASRUR rush around as though trying to find +a way out of their prison, and banging on the iron walls. +HASSAN takes his seat on the carpet.) + + CALIPH +Allah! and this room is a box within a box like a Chinese toy. +And that man will surprise my soldiers in the chill of dawn, +and sack my palace and burn Baghdad. He will discover my identity +and bury me alive! + + JAFAR +Alas, Master! What shall we do? + + CALIPH +Thou dog! Thou dirt! Thou dunghill! Thou dustheap! +Did I make thee Vizier to ask counsel or to give it? +Find out what we shall do! Thou hast let me fall into a trap, +and now dost quiver and quake and shiver and shake like a tub of whey +on the back of a restive camel: my kingdom is reduced from +twelve provinces to twelve square cubits: my subjects from +thirty millions unto three, but Bismillah! one of my subjects +is the Executioner, and Mashallah! another one merits execution: +and Inshallah! if thy head doth not immediately devise +a practical scheme of escape it shall dive off my shoulders +and swim across the floor. + + JAFAR +What shall happen, shall happen. But here is one who is occupied +in meditation, and is aloof from the circumstances of the moment: +let us invite him to Council. + + CALIPH +Ho, thou Hassan! What occupies thy spirit? + + HASSAN +I am examining the square of carpet. It is of cheap manufacturer, +inferior dye and unpleasant pattern. + + CALIPH +Art thou a carpet dealer? + + HASSAN +No, sir, I am a confectioner, + + CALIPH +And I am the Caliph. + + HASSAN +As my heart surmised. O Commander of the Faithful! +(Performs the ceremonies prescribed.) + + CALIPH +Canst thou give me one gleam of hope of salvation, +Hassan the Confectioner? If not, Masrur shall cut off all our heads, +beginning with thine, I dare not fall into that man's hands alive. + + HASSAN +But I dare! O spare me, spare me! What of the man who put me +in the basket? He will know where we are, and come to our rescue. + + CALIPH +No good--no good. I would rather depend on the mercy of Rafi +than on the whim of Ishak. Masrur, unsheathe. There is no hope. + + HASSAN +Thy pardon on thy servant: there is hope! Behold the light! + +(Points to crack between bottom of the iron wall and floor, +towards the balcony.) + + CALIPH +By the seven lakes of Hell, we are not mice! + + HASSAN +A mouse could not pass. But what, O Master, of a message? + + CALIPH +A message? + + HASSAN +Written out black on paper, and dropped into the street. + + CALIPH +Ho, Jafar, thou art a fool to this man! Take out thy pen and write. +Warn the Captain of the Soldiers. Warn the Police. Describe our position. +Offer the the Government of Three Provinces to the man who picks +up the paper. Write clearly, write quicker. Time's flying. +Write, and we are saved. Write for the Salvation of Bagdad; +write for the safety of Islam! O Hassan, the Confectioner, +if we are rescued I will fill my mouth with gold! + +(JAFAR having written on a long roll of paper, they thrust it in the crack.) + + HASSAN +No: at the corner here, where there is no balcony and the wall +drops straight into the street. + +(MASRUR pokes out the paper with his sword.) + + CALIPH +And now how shall we employ the time of waiting for our deliverance? + + JAFAR +I shall meditate upon the mutability of human affairs. + + MASRUR +And I shall sharpen my sword upon my thigh. + + HASSAN +And I shall study the reasons of the excessive ugliness of the pattern +of this carpet. + + CALIPH +Hassan, I will join thee: thou art a man of taste. + + + + + + + + SCENE II + + (See ACT I, last Scene) + + +Again, the street outside the house--the Street of the Fountain, +with the balcony of RAFI and the balcony of YASMIN opposite. +Cold light before dawn. + +(On the steps of the Fountain, two tired MENDICANTS asleep. +One slowly rubs his eyes and looks round him. +A paper comes floating down. One tired MAN lazily catches it.) + + FIRST LOITERER +Here comes a new chapter of the Koran falling down from heaven. + + SECOND LOITERER +Is it written, Abdu? + + ABDU +It is written, Ali. + + ALI +Read what is written, Abdu. + + ABDU +I cannot read. Am I schoolmaster? + +(Folds paper, puts it in his belt, and prepares to sleep again. +Several interesting ORIENTALS pass by.) + + ALI +Abdu! + + ABDU +I sleep. + + ALI +I can read: give me the paper. + + ABDU +I am asleep: get up and take it from my belt if you want it, +Ya Ali, I am heavy with a great sleep, like a tortoise in November. + + ALI +Ya Abdu, I am too languishing to move. It is a paper and it is written. +It does not matter. To-morrow or the next day it will be read. + + ABDU +To-morrow or the next day I shall wake and pass it to you. + +(Interval: more interesting ORIENTALS go by.) + + ALI +(With sudden inspiration) Blow me the paper, Abdu. + + ABDU +Alas, Allah sent thee to trouble the world! + +(ABDU blows the paper over. ALI with infinite difficulty spells it out, +murmuring:) + + ALI +Ha, alif, alif, re wow wow 'ain jeem--ah, ye blessed ones in Paradise, +is it thus ye write a jeem? Nun--but art thou a nun, +O letter, or a drunkard's qaf? Verily an ape has written this +with his tail: I have the second line. (With a start) +Ho, Abdu, whence came this? Do not pretend to sleep. Answer me. + + ABDU +From the sky: how do I know? + + ALI +Let me look at the sky. (Rolls on his back and stares upward) +I tell you, Abdu, a mighty joker has flung this from the balcony. + + ABDU +Allah plague him and his pen and thee! Is there no peace in the world? + + ALI +Here it is written, and do thou listen, O Abdu, +for this is the strangest of the strange writings that are strange: +"Whoever findeth this paper, know that the Caliph is in the house above, +a prisoner, and his friends prisoners, and in the extremity of danger, +he and they, with all Bagdad. Let the rescue be swift and sudden, +but above all secret. The iron walls must be lifted from beneath. +And send a man at once to the Guard, O fortunate discoverer, +to warn them to protect the palace against the Beggars of Bagdad, +and thou shalt be made Governor of Three Provinces. +Signed, +Jafar, the Vizier." +(Bursting into laughter) Three Provinces, well I know +their Three Provinces! Some rich young reveller hopes to play a game +with poor old Ali, even as a game was played on the son of Abdullah, +whom they dressed as a woman and placed in the Grand Vizier's Harem, +and his reward came hailing down on his toes. (In a lower voice.) +And I tell you, Abdu, what if the Caliph were in the house +and his friends? What if this were true? Who would believe me? +Who am I to rescue the Caliph? I never meddle in politics. + + ABDU +May the great gripes settle on thee and on the Caliph and the mother +of the Caliph. Shall I not sleep? And now there comes a disturbance +down the road. Ya, Jehannum, the Police! + +(CHIEF OF POLICE with ISHAK) + + ISHAK +I tell you, I do not know precisely where I left them. +It was somewhere in this quarter. It may have been this balcony +they went to or that, but there are a thousand balconies. +It was above a fountain, but there are a million fountains. +I tell you they always come back. Have you not already twenty +such scares as these for the safety of the Caliph? + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Never and on no preceding occasion has his exalted name +been so long delayed in his return to the palace. +The day is dawning. + + ISHAK +I tell you, if you do find him you will get no thanks, +O man of arms. Will you dare to unstick the Ruler of the Moslem World +from the embrace of his latest slave girl or dash the cup of pleasure +from his reluctant hand? + + CHIEF OF POLICE +I tell you, if you do not find him, man of letters, I will have you +impaled upon a monstrous pen. +(Seizes him.) + + ISHAK +Thou beastly, blood-drinking brute and bloated bully, +take off thy stable-reeking hands. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Yallah, these poets. They talk in rhyme. + + ALI +(Who has risen and salaamed, advancing) I pray you, Sirs,... + + CHIEF OF POLICE +O thou maggot! Darest thou address us? + + ALI +I pray you only regard... + + CHIEF OF POLICE +I pray you only remove, or I will split you from the top. + + ISHAK +Do you not see that he has a paper, and that his manners are superior +to yours, O Captain of Police? Let me look at thy paper.... +Ah--ah. Whence came this, O virtuous wanderer? + + ALI +From that balcony, may thy slaves be forgiven! + + CHIEF OF POLICE +This is a very important clue. Let us break in the door. + + ISHAK +There is no door. But first of all send word to the Palace Guard. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(To a soldier) Ali +(To the other ALI, who runs and says: Excellence, I hear and obey) +Not thou, fool. Did Allah make the name Ali for thee alone? +Who art thou that I should address thee? Are there not ten thousand Alis +in Bagdad, and wilt thou lift up thy head, O worm, when I say Ali? +(To POLICEMAN) Here is my ring. Take this paper, +and run with all thy might and show it to the Captain of the Palace Guard. + + POLICEMAN +I hear and obey. (Starts off.) + + ISHAK +(Stopping him) Wait! + + CHIEF OF POLICE +What right have you to stop my man, you bastard son +of a quill-bearing barn-fowl? + + ISHAK +Since when had a bludgeoning policeman the practical good sense +of a thought-breathing poet? Tell them, Ali, to send a few men +with levers and ladders. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +It is well ordered: run, run, Ali! + + ISHAK +You other Ali, who brought the paper... + + ALI +Master? + + ISHAK +How long is it since any paper was thrown from the balcony? + + ALI +How do I know time? The time to go to market and buy a melon. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +By the great pit of torment, this swine-faced has had the paper +a good hour! By the red blaze of damnation, thou maggot, why didst thou +not run with this at once to the Palace Guard? + + ALI +I had a great fear, and I thought it was a jest. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +A jest! Rivers of blood, a jest! The life of the Caliph of Bagdad, a jest? +The safety of the Empire a jest! I knew thee a traitor from thy face. +I will teach thee jesting. I will teach thee fear. +Ho, Mahmud, Zia, Rustem, down with his head and up with his heels. + + ALI +(As his feet are looped into the pole to receive the bastinado) +Ya, Abdu, you had the letter first, it is yours. Will you not claim it +and the reward. Alas, that the Governor of Three Provinces should +be treated thus! + + ABDU +Do I meddle in politics? Hit him hard, O Executioner, +for he is a great disturber of peaceful citizens. +But as for me, O Ali, lest my sleep be troubled by thy groaning, +I will make my way a little further on. (Exit) + +(The EXECUTIONERS proceed with their work, but stop on entrance +of CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY with SOLDIERS.) + +(On the balcony opposite house where CALIPH is imprisoned +appears YASMIN.) + + YASMIN +Look, look, Selim! there's a man being beaten. + + SELIM +Come in quick! this is a riot or some trouble; come in quick, +and shut the shutters fast. + + YASMIN +You are a valiant protection indeed for frail-as-a-rose ladies +in danger's hour. + +(They remain at window.) + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(To CHIEF OF POLICE) Sir. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Sir. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(Saluting) Captain of the Victorious Army, at your service. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(Saluting) Chief of the August Police, at yours. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(Bowing) I am honoured. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(Bowing) I am overwhelmed. + + ISHAK +Come, Sirs, brush away, I implore you, the cobwebs of ceremony +with the broom of expedition. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Sir, when men of action meet, the place of the man of letters +is inside his pencase. + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +A moment! Ere we proceed, Chief of Police, may I ask why this man +is undergoing punishment? + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Since your excellency deigns to enquire, for urgent reasons of police. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +They must have been very urgent indeed before you would permit +such an inopportune disturbance outside the very house where +our Lord the Caliph is imprisoned. You have seriously impaired +our chances of a speedy and effective rescue. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(Drawing his sword and whirling it about) Thou melon head, +thou, thou dung pig, thou brother of disaster, get thee hence +with thy knock-kneed band of fatherless brigands, ere I have thee +arrested for unnatural crime. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +Out with thy sword, thou big-bellied snatcher up of burglars, +thou manacler of little boys, thou terror of the peaceful market, +I will teach thee to insult the slaughterers of the infidel host. + + ISHAK +(Interrupting the COMBATANTS) Is this a time for indecent brawling? +Quick, where are the ladders? + + A SOLDIER +(Pompously) In the rear, Sir, in the rear. + +(The ladders are brought along.) + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(To POLICEMAN) Place a ladder. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(To SOLDIERS) Place a ladder. + +(Each goes up his ladder at the same time: bang at wall and are answered: +shout for levers which are procured, and assistance which speedily arrives. +The iron wall is lifted up, and CALIPH and the REST disclosed seated +peaceably awaiting their deliverance, the lamp still burning.) + + CHIEF OF POLICE +My royal master! + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +August Lord. + + CHIEF AND CAPTAIN +(Together) I have saved thee, Master. + +(Each attempts to seize the CALIPH.) + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Honourable Police!... + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +Honourable Military!... + + CHIEF OF POLICE +It has been the high privilege of this grovelling slave to rescue +the Lamp of the World! I shall carry him down. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +Permit me to observe, O fire-spitting Battle Cleaver, +that I was the first up this ladder, and though I tremble to obscure +the Sun's Brilliance with my dirty little hand, +yet it is I who have the prior claim. + +(MASRUR pushes them aside, and assists the CALIPH down the ladder. +JAFAR and HASSAN follow. Shouts of "Long live the Caliph" from all +the people gathered in the street. The SOLDIERS salute. +The CALIPH raises his hand. Silence.) + + CALIPH +Is my Palace safe? + + MASRUR +O Lord and Master, we pray so. + + CALIPH +And my people? + + JAFAR +Around thee, O Lord and Master. + + YASMIN +(From her balcony) By the Prophet, here is Hassan with the Caliph! + + CALIPH +Are we all saved? + + MASRUR +All, by the providence of Allah. + + JAFAR +And the wisdom of Hassan. + + CALIPH +And the Guard warned? + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +All warned and at their posts, my Lord. + + CALIPH +Allah, deliver our enemies into their hands. Let Hassan come to me. + + HASSAN +(Prostrating himself) Master! + + CALIPH +(Raising him) Rise, Hassan. This Hassan, yesterday a stranger, +has to-night by his skill and invention, saved my life and rescued +this city from a greater peril than my death. + + CROWD +May it be far! + + CALIPH +Therefore here and now, in the presence of all, I nominate Hassan to my court, +to hold rank among my subjects second to none save to Jafar, my Grand Vizier. + + YASMIN +(Who has been at her balcony with SELIM) O Allah! + + CROWD +Honour to Hassan. Honour to Hassan. + + HASSAN +Master, I sold confectionary in the market. + + JAFAR +Thou shalt now confection the sweets of prosperity. + + ISHAK +(To HASSAN) Why, Hassan. You are the man with the broken lute. + + CALIPH +Is that the voice of Ishak? + + ISHAK +It is the voice of Ishak that has often sung to you. + + CALIPH +Why did you abandon me, Ishak, and flee into the night? I do not know +I shall forgive you. + + ISHAK +I was weary of you, Haroun-ar-Raschid. + + CALIPH +And if I weary of you? + ISHAK +You will one day or another, and you will have me slain. + + CALIPH +And what of this day that dawns? + + ISHAK +Dawn is the hour when most men die. + + CALIPH +Your death is granted you, Ishak; you have but to kneel. + +(A red glow on the horizon.) + + ISHAK +(As he kneels calmly) Why have they pinned the carpet of execution +on the sky? + + MASRUR +It is the Caliph's dawn. + + JAFAR +Thy dawn, O Master! + + ISHAK + Thy dawn, O Master of the world, thy dawn; + The hour the lilies open on the lawn, + The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains, + The hour of silence, when we hear the fountains, + The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder, + The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder, + O Master of the world, the Persian Dawn. + + That hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee: + Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea, + The braves who fight thy war unsheathe the sabre, + The slaves who work thy mines are lashed to labour, + For thee the waggons of the world are drawn-- + The ebony of night, the red of dawn! + + CALIPH +Sheathe thy sword, Masrur! Would you kill my friend? + + MASRUR +I hear and obey. + + CALIPH +I must go swiftly to my palace. But to you, Ishak, I leave +the care of this man you sent up to me in the basket, +who proved the salvation of Bagdad. Teach him the ceremonies +and regulations. +Is my chair ready? + + MASRUR +Ready, Lord and Master. + +(Exit CALIPH in chair, and JAFAR and CROWD. ISHAK signs to those +who would kiss HASSAN's feet to leave him.) + + YASMIN +(On balcony opposite. Giving SELIM a great clout on the ear) +Go, leave my sight, you fool. I shall burst with fury. +You made me insult Hassan, and now he is going to court. + + SELIM +(Astonished) Eh, Yasmin, Yasmin how could I know? + + ISHAK +Ah, bismillah, I had not forgotten you, O man with the broken lute. + + HASSAN +The broken lute? The broken lute? + + ISHAK +Here you were lying, at this fountain, like one dead. + + HASSAN +Was it here? Is that the balcony? Who are you? What do you know? + + ISHAK +Quietly, friend, quietly, your head is weak with joy. + + HASSAN +With joy? Do I know what is true or false? Do I know if the Caliph +is the Caliph? And if the Caliph is the Caliph may he not mock me too? +What is joy? Let me look at that balcony for joy. I dare not look, +I fear she is there. Ah. it is she. + +(YASMIN takes the rose from her hair and flings it at HASSAN, +then retires within.) + + ISHAK +Are you fortunate in love as well as in life, O Hassan? But come away. +This conduct ill beseems a minister of state; you are not unobserved. + + HASSAN +I am coming. The rose is poisoned. + + ISHAK +O friend, is this talk for the ardent lover? + + HASSAN +Are you my friend? You, Ishak, the glorious singer of Islam? +And if you are my friend, are you like those who were my friends before? + + ISHAK +Last night, I found you lying like a filthy corpse beneath this window, +but I knew by your lute and your countenance that you were a poet, +like myself, and I was sorry to think you dead. + + HASSAN +A poet? I? I am a confectioner. + + ISHAK +You are my friend, Hassan. + + HASSAN +Then consider this rose. This rose is more bitter than colocynth. +For, look you, friend, had she not flung this rose, I would have said +she hated me and loved another; it is well. She had the right to hate +and love. She could hate and she could love. But now, ah, tell me, +you who seem to be my friend, are all you poets liars? + + ISHAK +Ya, Hassan, but we tell excellent lies. + + HASSAN +Why do you say that beauty has a meaning? Why do you not say +that beauty is hollow as a drum? Why do you not say that it is sold? + + ISHAK +All this disillusionment because a fair lady flung you a rose! + + HASSAN +Last night I baked sugar and she flung me water: +this morning I bake gold and she flings me a rose. +Empty, empty, I tell you, friend, all the blue sky. + + ISHAK +Come, forget her and come away. I will instruct you in the pleasures +of the court. + + HASSAN +Forget, forget? O rose of morning and O rose of evening, +vainly for me shall you fade on domes of ebony or azure. +This rose has faded, and this rose is bitter, and this rose +is nothing but the world. + + + + + + CURTAIN + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ACT III + + + SCENE I + + +The Garden of the CALIPH's palace: in front of a pavilion. +The CALIPH: HASSAN in fine raiment, a sword of honour at his side. + + CALIPH +Yes, what the chief Eunuch told you is all true, my Hassan. +Our late host, the King of the Beggars, was captured hiding +in the gutter of his roof. This evening I shall judge him and his crew +in full divan. And in the divan thou shalt appear, O Hassan, +clothed in thy robe of ceremony, and seated on my right hand. + + HASSAN +Alas, O Serene Splendour, thy servant is a man of humble origin +and limited desires. I am one who would obey the old poet's behest: + + Give all thy day to dreaming and all thy night to sleep: + Let not Ambition's Tyger devour Contentment's Sheep! + +I am not one to open my mouth at divans, or to strut among courtiers +in robes of state. Sir, excuse me from these things. +Dispose thy favour like a high golden wall, and protect +the life of your servant from the wind of complication. +But at evening, when God flings roses through the sky, +call me then to some calm pavilion, and let us hear Ishak play +and let us hear Ishak sing, till you forget you are Lord of all the World, +and I forget I am a base-born tradesman; till we discover the speech +of things that have no life, and know what the clods of earth +are saying to the roots of the garden trees. + + CALIPH +Have no fear. You shall inhabit the place I shall assign you +in untroubled peace, and meditate till your beard grows +into the soil and you become wiser than Aflatun. +But in this case you are a witness and must be present at my divan, +be it but for this once only. And you shall call me Emir of the Faithful, +Redresser of Wrong, the Shadow of God on Earth, and Peacock of the World. +But in this garden you are Hassan, and I am your friend Haroun, +and you must address me as a friend a friend. + + HASSAN +(Kissing the CALIPH's hand) O master, you speak gently, +but I must fear you all the more. + + CALIPH +But why? I am but a kindly man. I love single-heartedness in men +as I love simplicity in my palace. There you have seen floors with but +one carpet--but that carpet like a meadow. You have seen walls with but +one curtain--but that curtain a sunset on the sea. You have seen white rooms +all naked marble: but they await my courtiers, all dressed like flowers. +If, therefore, I avoid complexity in the matter of walls and floors, +shall I not be simple in the things of heart and soul? +Shall I not, Hassan, be just your friend? + + HASSAN +Master, I find thy friendship like thy palace, endowed with all +the charm of beauty and the magic of surprise. As thou knowest, +I am but a man of the streets of Bagdad, and there men say, +"The Caliph's Palace, Mashallah! The walls are stiff with gold +and the ceilings plated with silver, and the urinals thereof +are lined with turquoise blue." And hearing men say this, +many a time hath Hassan the Confectioner stroked the chin +of Hassan the Confectioner saying, "O, Hassan, thy back parlour +is less ugly than that, with its tub for boiling sugar, +and its one good Bokhara carpet hanging on the wall. +And twelve months did I work at the tub, boiling sugar to buy that carpet." + + CALIPH +What a man you are for poetry and carpets! When you tread on a carpet, +you drop your eyes to earth to catch the pattern +and when you hear a poem, you raise your eyes to heaven to hear the tune. +Whoever saw a confectioner like this? When did you learn poetry, +Hassan of my heart? + + HASSAN +In that great school, the Market of Bagdad. For thee, Master of the World, +poetry is a princely diversion, but for us it was a deliverance from Hell. +Allah made poetry a cheap thing to buy and a simple thing to understand. +He gave men dreams by night that they might learn to dream by day. +Men who work hard have special need of these dreams. +All the town of Bagdad is passionate for poetry, O Master. +Dost thou not know what great crowds gather to hear the epic +of Antari sung in the streets at evening? I have seen cobblers weep +and butchers bury their great faces in their hands! + + CALIPH +By Eblis and the powers of Hell, should I not know this, +and know that therein lies the secret of the strength of Islam? +In poems and in tales alone shall live the eternal memory of this city +when I am dust and thou art dust, when the Bedouin shall build +his hut upon my garden and drive his plough beyond the ruins of my palace, +and all Bagdad is broken to the ground. Ah, if there shall ever arise +a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten +the people, though they send their ships around Taprobane +and their armies across the hills of Hindustan, though their city +be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league into earth +or mount to the stars on wings--what of them? + + HASSAN +They will be a dark patch upon the world. + + CALIPH +Well said! By your luck you have saved the life of the Caliph, +O Hassan; but by your conversation you have won the friendship of Haroun. +Indeed--but at what are you gazing as if enchanted? + + HASSAN +What a beautiful fountain, with the silver dolphin and the naked boy. + + CALIPH +A Greek of Constantinople made it, who came travelling hither +in the days of my father, the Caliph El Madhi (may earth be gentle +to his body and Paradise refreshing to his soul!). +He showed this fountain to my father, who was exceptionally pleased, +and asked the Greek if he could make more as fine. "A hundred," +replied the delighted infidel. Whereupon my father cried, +"Impale the pig." Which having been done, this fountain remains +the loveliest in the world. + + HASSAN +(With anguish) O Fountain, dost thou never run with blood? + + CALIPH +Why, what is the matter, Hassan? + + HASSAN +You have told a tale of death and tyranny, O Master of the World. + + CALIPH +(In a sudden and towering rage) Do you accuse my father of tyranny, +O fellow, for slaying a filthy Christian? + + HASSAN +(Prostrating himself) I meant no offence. My life is at your feet. +But you bade me talk to you as a friend. + + CALIPH +Not Ishak, not Ishak himself, who has been my friend for years, +would dare address me thus. (Bursting into laughter) +Rise, Hassan. Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, +like the hindquarters of an elephant. + + HASSAN +Forgive me, forgive me. + + CALIPH +I forgive you with all my heart, but, I advise you, +speak in conformity with your character and of things you understand, +and never leave the Garden of Art for the Palace of Action. +Trouble not your head with the tyranny of Princes, +or you may catch a cold therein from the Wind of Complication. +Keep to your poetry and carpets, Hassan, and make no reference to politics, +for which even the market of Bagdad is an insufficient school. + + HASSAN +(Dolefully) I hear and obey. + + CALIPH +Forget it now; set your mind on pleasant things. Have you noticed +this little pavilion in front of which we have talked so long? +This is your little house, good Hassan, where you shall find +a shelter from the wind you so much dislike and all all other blasts +that harm or chill. + + HASSAN +My little house? + + CALIPH +I chose it for you, knowing your disposition. Here in this remote corner +of the garden you will hear no noise of street or Palace, +but enjoy complete repose. + + HASSAN +(With rapture) Mine, this little house? Mine, this sweet-scented door! + + CALIPH +Knock on it and see. + +(HASSAN knocks. A door opens and ALDER, WILLOW, JUNIPER, +and TAMARISK appear. TAMARISK the youngest, has somewhat +of a mouse's squeak.) + + ALDER +(To CALIPH with prostration) O, Emir of the Faithful! + + WILLOW +(To CALIPH with prostration) O, Redresser of Wrong! + + JUNIPER +(To CALIPH with prostration) O, Shadow of God on earth! + + TAMARISK +(To CALIPH with prostration) O, Peacock of the World! + + ALDER +(To HASSAN with prostration) Master! + + WILLOW +(To HASSAN with prostration) Master! + + JUNIPER +(To HASSAN with prostration) Master! + + TAMARISK +(To HASSAN with prostration) Master! + +(They stand, their hands in their sleeves, across the doorway.) + + HASSAN +But these are the slaves of the King of the Beggars, who bathed me, +and anointed me, and brought back my soul into my eyes, +whence a woman had all but driven it forever. + + CALIPH +I have rescued them from the ruin of their master's house +as their polite and finished manners deserve, and I have given +them to you since you are likely to need and appreciate their service. + + HASSAN +And so faces not altogether strange will welcome me to my home. +(Kneels and kisses Caliph's hand.) + + CALIPH +Say not a word. For the pen of happiness hath written on thy face +the ode of gratitude. +(To SLAVES) Is all ready? + + ALDER +(Pompously) Ready, O Gardener of the Vale of Islam. + + WILLOW +Prepared, O Lion... + + CALIPH +Enough! Conduct your master into his house, show him +all there is inside, and serve him faithfully. + +Enter with them, Hassan; delicious has been our converse, but Jafar, +the Vizier has been awaiting me some two hours. +(As Hassan is about to prostrate himself) +No, it is thus Haroun takes leave of his friends. +(Kisses him on both cheeks. HASSAN watches till he is out of sight, +pensive. Then he goes to the fountain and observes it a moment. +Then advances slowly to the folding door of the pavilion +which ALDER and WILLOW hold open for him.) + + ALDER +Fortunate be thy entry! + + WILLOW +Prosperous thy sojourn! + + JUNIPER +Quiet thy days! + + TAMARISK +And riotous thy nights! + + + + + + SCENE II + + +The private apartment within the pavilion. A bed. Fine furniture. +A window with a view on the garden. + +(Enter HASSAN followed by his SLAVES.) + + HASSAN +In that apartment, therefore, I shall receive guests. +But in this apartment, whom? + + ALDER +Such ladies, Master, as you desire to honour. + + HASSAN +Yes, yes. I must visit the market and see. +(Staring at the floor, with a start) Wulluhi, what is that? + + TAMARISK +The carpet, Master. + + HASSAN +One of the wonderful new carpets of Ispahan. A hunting scene. +The Prince. His followers. Leopards and stags and three tigers, +and an elephant--his head only. O amazing carpet. +And everywhere great scarlet flowers, very stiff and fine. +O exquisite carpet. I have never seen so bright as scarlet. +(With a sudden earnestness) +Tell me. You were his slaves...? + + ALDER +Master? + + HASSAN +Well, well, we will not talk of it. How clearly that fountain +sounds outside with its little splash! + + ALDER +I pray you, Master, the Caliph said you should particularly observe +this mirror with the carven frame. + + HASSAN +(Looking at himself) By the Prophet, what a Phoenix I have become! +Provided I do not stumble on my sword. + + WILLOW +The Caliph hoped you should not fail to remark this exquisitely +upholstered couch. + + JUNIPER +The Caliph hopes you would admire these toilet requisites in alabaster. + + TAMARISK +The Caliph hopes you will make good use of this very slender whip +for our correction. + + HASSAN +A whip? For your correction, O slaves of charm? Am I the man to spoil +good almond paste with streaks of cochineal? + + ALDER +Thou art pleased, O my Master? + + HASSAN +Pleased? Look at the acacia tapping at my window; one night it will come +in softly and fling its moonlit blossom at my feet. But this is no place +for a man to live alone. Without a doubt I must visit the market. +They have Circassians; I have always wanted a Circassian. She must be +very young.... I have not finished the excellencies of the room. +These three chests, what do they contain? + + ALDER +This chest, O Master, contains your new robes. One of them is embroidered +with red carnations and silver bells. + + HASSAN +Was there ever generosity like this! + + WILLOW +This chest, O master, contains curtains, hangings, and cushions +for the sofa. One of the cushions is embellished with fifteen peacocks. + + HASSAN +Fifteen peacocks! And all those peacocks dumb! + + JUNIPER +This chest O master, contains fresh linen for your bed. +All marked with your name. + + HASSAN +Marked with my name! And what have you to say, Tamarisk? + + TAMARISK +That bed... + + HASSAN +That bed is not a chest. But doubtless it also contains fresh linen +marked with my name. + + TAMARISK +(Tremulous) That bed contains a most beautiful lady. + + HASSAN +(Jumping) What? + + TAMARISK +A most beautiful lady. She said she must see you, and gave me ten dinars. + + YASMIN +(As HASSAN tears aside the curtains of the bed) Hassan! +(She is dressed in a cloak and veiled.) + + HASSAN +What voice? + + YASMIN +Hassan. (She unveils.) + + HASSAN +Thou! + + YASMIN +I came: I hid: I waited. + + HASSAN +Why? + + YASMIN +Why does a woman hide in the bed of a man? + + HASSAN +(Furiously) You dared! Stay here, slaves. +Will you leave me at this moment, you fools who let this women in? +(To YASMIN) You dared? + + YASMIN +What is there a beautiful woman dare not dare? + + HASSAN +But your impudence is vile. Out of it! Get you back to Selim. + + + YASMIN +I have left Selim. + + HASSAN +Left Selim to come to me? + + YASMIN +I found Selim a coward and a fool. I have discovered in you +a man of taste and valour. How could I have known before? +But what matter? Am I not white enough to follow the caravans +of Wealth and Power? +(Flinging out her arms) Is this for Selim or that for Selim? + + HASSAN +Back to him, and no more words! You darken the world before my eyes. +If he is a fool and a coward, you're nothing but a whore. +Go, or my slaves shall fling you head foremost down my steps. + + YASMIN +I have left Selim because he proved a coward, a fool, a poor man +and a nobody. I have come to you because you are rich, famous, +and a man of taste. The day you fall into disfavour (may it be far, +O my Master!) I shall undoubtedly leave you. Till that day you +will find me faithful. I am that which you call me--but I bring you +a fair merchandise. + + HASSAN +I thank you, O seller of yourself. I buy no tainted meat. +I beg you seek another market, and that extremely soon. + + YASMIN +(Rubbing her face and rising lightly) I did not know I had a taint, +O Master. The mirror must deceive me. But merchandise must be +well inspected before its inferiority is assured. +It must be seen and touched. Will you see and will you touch? + + HASSAN +(Stepping back) Oh, away, away! Why did you seek me out? +Is it to rain back my words upon my face? +Or do you hope once more to show me yourself limb after limb +in the embrace of a new Selim? I pray you, however, spare the water +from the jug. My fire needs no quenching. + + YASMIN +(Suppliant) Be generous. It beseems the Caliph's friend to be generous. +If I have made you jealous, do I not not offer you a sumptuous revenge? + + HASSAN +Rise, take your pardon, and depart. Shall I tell you again? +If you need money, the slaves will give it you at the door. + + YASMIN +You are as cold as ice. + + HASSAN +You are brazen. + + YASMIN +I am brave. Farewell, I see you are not a man of love. + + HASSAN +Farewell. And defile no more the word love with your painted lips. + + + YASMIN +(Lingering at the door) Yet there is a little of love's language +that I do not know. When the bird of night sings on the bough +of the tree that rustles outside your window, and the shadows +creep away from the moon across the floor, I could have sung +you a song sweeter than the nightingales and shown you a whiteness +whiter than the moon. + + HASSAN +Ah--go! + + YASMIN +Because I was cruel could I not be kind? Because you can buy my body, +can you buy my soul? Because I am of the people have I no songs to sing? +Because I have sinned have I no secret to impart? Go to market, +O Hassan, and buy your Circassian girl. And one day you shall say: +Had Yasmin but lied to me of love, it were better than this fool's sincerity. + + HASSAN +Ah, leave me! + + YASMIN +There are lilies by the thousand in the meadows: there are roses +by the thousand in the gardens, and all as like as like-- +but there is only one shape in the world like mine. +There is only one face in the world where the eyebrows arch +and the eyes flash--where the nostrils are set just so, +and the lips are parted thus. There is no other arm beneath the skies +that has has here this curve and here this dimple, +and here the light soft golden hairs. There are rows and rows +of young fair girls in the Caliph's harem and many as fair as I, +but none whose veins are these veins, whose flesh is this flesh, +fiery and cool, whose body swings like mine upon the heel. +(Flinging off her cloak) Will you see and will you touch? +(Approaching.) Will you see and will you touch? +(Putting her arm round his neck) Will you touch? + + HASSAN +(With a shout as he pushes her back) Slaves, tear off this woman! + + YASMIN +(As the SLAVES force her back) Eh, your slaves are violent! + + HASSAN +(To SLAVES) Hold her! + + YASMIN +But you must let me go. + + HASSAN +I will not let you go. + + YASMIN +Come, I see you are but a sour fellow, for whom pleasure is but vain. +I will take away the hateful. Let me pass. +(She attempts to escape.) + + HASSAN +(To his SLAVES) Hold her! + +(ALDER and WILLOW each grip an arm. JUNIPER grips her ankles. +She is held standing. Her cloak falls. She is clothed in short jacket +and trousers of white silk with a pattern of blue flowers: +her waist is naked, in the Persian style.) + + YASMIN +Ah--what will you do to me? You forgave me. + + HASSAN +(To YASMIN) Ah, I forgave you the insults and all that hour of shame. +And Allah shall forgive you your trade if Allah wills. +But you have pressed your foul body on mine--you have breathed +your poison on my cheek, and twined your snakes (God break them!) +round my breast. Preparethen to die, for it is not right +for the sake of mankind would you should walk any more upon the road of earth.. + + YASMIN +(Quietly, but in terror) To die! What do you mean! No, no! +Ah, murder, ah! + + HASSAN +Do you hear the fountain dripping--drop by drop--drop by drop? +So shall your blood fall on my carpet and colour me more red flowers. + + YASMIN +(Recovering) I am not afraid. + + HASSAN +Do you expect mercy? I left mercy with my sweets. +For all these years I have been a humble man, of soft and kindly disposition-- +such a man as the world and a woman hate. But now I shall never again +be the fool of my fellows. Now all Bagdad shall know and say: +"We thought Hassan a mild man and a kind man; our children stole his sweets +and he did but stroke his beard, while to a beggar he had known three days +he would instantly lend three dinars. And behold, he has become powerful +and hath cut down the body of Yasmin the infamous who had done him wrong, +as a woodman cuts a tree. Yallah, our knees shall bend when Hassan +goes driving by!" Yasmin, stiffen your sinews and close your eyes. + + YASMIN +Not with the sword, not with the sword! + + HASSAN +Let me taste the ecstasy of power. Let me drink of the fulness of life. +Let me be one of those who conquer because they do not care. +(He draws the sword: Yasmin cries out loud.) +You are Yasmin, the poor, the beautiful, the proud: I am Hassan, +rich and passionate and strong. You have hurt me, I will hurt you; +it is the rule of the game, and the way of the world. +Do I hate you? I do not know or care. Do I love you?-- +then love shall drive the blade in deep. You are the world's +own stupendous harlot, and I will cut you clean in two. +(He swings sword over his head to strike.) + + YASMIN +(With a shout at once of terror and triumph) I will not close my eyes! +I will look at you. You dare not do it, looking at my eyes! + +(HASSAN whirls sword round.) + +You dare not do it, looking at my eyes! + +(HASSAN flings the sword across the room and falls across the +divan, his face in his hands.) + + HASSAN +O Hassan the Confectioner, thou art nothing but an old man and a fool! + +(YASMIN comes up to HASSAN. The BOYS silently disappear. +He draws her toward him.) + +(With infinite tenderness) Yasmin! + + + + + + + + SCENE III + + + +The Great Hall of the Palace. The room is plain, white marble. +ISHAK alone, in his robes of Court Chamberlain. + +(Enter SOLDIERS with the CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY and the CHIEF OF POLICE.) +(The SOLDIERS intone "The War Song of the Saracens.") + + SOLDIERS sing + + We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early + or late: + We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the sunset beware! + Not on silk nor on samet we lie, nor in curtained solemnity die + Among women who chatter and cry and children who mumble a prayer. + But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout and + we tramp + With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in + our hair. + + From the lands where the elephant are to the forts of Merou and + Balghar, + Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of + Rum. + We have marched from the Indies to Spain, and by God we will go + there again; + We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny + boom. + A mart of destruction we made at Yalula where men were afraid, + For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of + doom; + And the Spear was a Desert Physician, who cured not a few of + ambition, + And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong. + + And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate + pool, + And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when our cavalry thundered + along: + For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered + up like a wave, + And our dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our + song. + + THE SOLDIERS +(Cheering) Allah Akbar! (etc.) + + CHIEF OF POLICE +That is a splendid song your soldiers sing, O breaker of infidel bones. +Permit an inglorious policeman to inquire what flaming victory +you celebrate today. Such is my loathly ignorance, I knew not +the Caliph's army (may it be ever plosh in seas of hostile blood!) +had even left Baghdad. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +It is true we have not left Baghdad, But perchance we have saved it +from destruction. For when the Caliph's Police have allowed a conspiracy +to ripen undetected, It is our duty to mow down the conspirators. +It is true we did but vanquish beggars--but they were beggars to fight. +Half of them we slew and one-half we captured, and, +since the police believe no clue but the ocular, here they are. +A victory is well worth a song. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Allah, such a song! I thought: "At the least they have captured Cairo." + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +To save Bagdad is better than to capture Cairo. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(Pointing to the captive BEGGARS) Behold only the chain-mail +of the vanquished! + + CHIEF OF MILITARY +It is an old song, a glorious great battle song, and in mocking it +thou has displayed on an absence of education, thou dragger of dead dogs +from obscure gutters. + + ISHAK +Is this talk for the high divan, Captain? Ye have saved Bagdad? +Bagdad is no longer worth saving. You rose-petal-bellied parasites +of the palace, how dare you sing that song? + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +Allah, these poets talk in rhyme. + +(Enter the Herald announcing various personages, who enter as he announces +them and are motioned to their place by ISHAK.) + + HERALD +Abu Said, Prince of Basra, to do homage. Fahraddin, Prince of Damascus, +to do homage. Al Mustansir, Prince of Koniah, to do homage. +Tahir Dhu'l Yaminayn, governor of Khorasan, to do homage. + +The great calligraphist, Afiq of Diarbekir, master of the riqa +and the shikasta hands: also of the Peacock style, and of painting +in miniature. + + ISHAK +(Aside) Episodes of considerable obscenity. + + HERALD +The celebrated Turkoman wrestler, Yurghiz Khan, whose thighs are +three cubits in circumference. + + ISHAK +(Aside) As fat as a woman's, but not as nice. + + HERALD +Abu Nouwas, the Caliph's jester. The Rajah of the Upper Ganges, +come hither to do homage with a present of 800 bales of indigo. + + ISHAK +(Aside) And never dyed his beard. + + HERALD +Hang Wung, the wisest philosopher in China, come hither to study +the excellence of the habits of true believers. He is a hundred and ten +years old.... + + ISHAK +(Aside) And perfectly blind. + + HERALD +Anastasius Johannes Georgius, ambassador of the infidel Empress Irene, +mistress till God wills of Constaniniyeh and the lands of Rum, +come here on a vain errand.... + + ISHAK +He understands no word, and believes we do honour to his name. +But the jest is thin, my Herald. + + HERALD +Abul Asal, the wandering dervish, come hither to remind kings that they +are but dust. + + ISHAK +"Where lies Nushiravan the Just?" + + DERVISH +The rhyme helps reason. In the dust. + + ISHAK +The platitudes of dervishes do not much disturb the beatitudes of kings. + + HERALD +Masrur, the Executioner, come hither to make several beggars +the dusty equivalents of monarchs. + + ISHAK +Ah, you may well shiver, poor captives: it is draughty among your rags. + + HERALD +Hassan ben Hassan al Bagdadi, the Caliph's friend. + + SOLDIERS +Long live Hassan and the shadow of Hassan and the friend of Hassan +ben Hassan al Bagdadi! + + ISHAK +(Drawing HASSAN aside) Come hither, friend of the Caliph; +do not forget that you are the man with the broken lute. + + HASSAN +What is a friend? + + ISHAK +Are you not in favour? Has not the Caliph taught you? +You have a royal friend. + + HASSAN +He is generous: he is gracious: he is intimate. He has leant on +my arm, he has embraced me, he has called me by that name "friend". +But I tremble before his eyes. + + ISHAK +You have found out. No man can ever be his friend. + + HASSAN +Alas, that is because he is exalted far above mankind! + + ISHAK +Alas, no: but because he uses that supremacy to play the artist +with the lives of men. + + HASSAN +What do you mean, Ishak? + + ISHAK +Have you not seen the designer of carpets, O Hassan of Bagdad, +put here the blue and here the gold, here the orange here the green? +So have I seen the Caliph take the life of some helpless man-- +who was contented in his little house and garden, enjoying the blue +of happy days--and colour his life with the purple of power, +and streak it with the crimson of lust: then whelm it all +with the gloom-greys of abasement, touched with the glaring reds of pain, +and edge the whole with the black border of annihilation. + + HASSAN +He has been so generous. Do not say he is a tyrant! +Do not say he delights in the agony of men! + + ISHAK +Agony is a fine colour, and he delights therein as a painter +in vermilion new brought from Kurdistan. But shall so great an artist +not love contrast? To clasp a silver belt round the loins +of a filthy beggar while a slave darkens the soles of his late vizier, +is for him but a jest touched with a sense of the appropriate: +and I have seen it enacted in this very room. + + HASSAN +But you are his friend. + + ISHAK +As you are. It is elegant for a monarch to condescend: it is refreshing +for a monarch to talk as man to man. It is artistic for a monarch +to enjoy the pleasures of contrast and escape the formalities of Court.... +But here comes the preceder of the Caliph, the penultimate splendour +of the divan, a man noble without passion, sagacious without inspiration, +and weak as a miser's coffee. + + HERALD +The Tulip of the Parterre of Government, the Shadow of the Cypress Tree, +the Sun's Moon, Jafar the Barmecide. + + SOLDIERS +Long live the great Vizier! + + HERALD +Let all mouths close but mine. (Lifting his staff.) The Holy, the Just, +the High-born, the Omnipotent; the Gardener of the Vale of Islam, +the Lion of the Imperial Forests, the Rider on the Spotless Horse, +the Cyprus on the Golden Hill, the Master of Spears, the Redresser of Wrong, +the Drinker of Blood, the Peacock of the World, the Shadow of God on +Earth, the Commander of the Faithful, Haroun ar Raschid ben Mohammed, +Ibn Abdullah Ibn Mohammed Ibn Ali ben Abdullah, Ibn 'Abbas, the Caliph. + + SOLDIERS +The Holy, the High-born, the Just One, the Caliph! +The Cypress, the Peacock, the Lion, the Caliph! +From Rum to Bokhara one monarch, the Caliph! + + DERVISH +(Gloomily) A clay thing, a plaything, a shadow, the Caliph! + + CALIPH +The Divan is open. Let all mouths close but mine. Our justice today +will be swift as a blow of the sword. In the Book of the Wisdom of Rulers +I read: "Be sudden to uproot the tree of conspiracy for it scatters +far its seed." Are you the Beggars? + + BEGGARS +We are the beggars of Bagdad. + + CALIPH +Thou, spokesman, come hither! Wherefore didst thou plot +against my throne and the safety of all Islam? +Didst thou not fear not only for thy life but for thy salvation? + + BEGGAR +Master and Lord of the World, hast thou been poor, hast thou been hungry? +Dost thou know what dreams enter the gaunt heads of starving men +as they lie against the back of thy garden wall, and moan: +"Bread in God's name, bread in the name of God?" + + CALIPH +Dost thou deny conspiracy? + + BEGGAR +I conspired. + + CALIPH +Is there one of you denieth conspiracy? + +(Silence.) + +Masrur, lead out the conspirators to death. + +(MASRUR executes the order.) + + CALIPH +Let those whose duty it is fetch him who is called the King of the Beggars +from his cell, and let him who did us the great service of capturing alive +that dangerous man, step forth into the midst. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +(Stepping forward) Lord of the World--but I am dirt. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(Simultaneously advancing) Lord of the World--but I am dung. + + CALIPH +Where you both concerned in his capture? My favour is doubled upon you. +Let two robes of honour be brought before my throne. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Sir, I fail to comprehend the presence of this military man. +He was but a spectator when I dragged out the King of Beggars +from the gutter of his roof. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +O thou civilian, I caught a valiant hold of his legs, despite his heavy +and continuous kicks, whilst thou didst but timidly pluck at his sleeve. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Pluck at his sleeve, tin-coated murderer! Summon the twenty drops +of blood that trickle round thy lank and withered frame and let them +mount to thy mendacious cheek! + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +Thou dropsical elephant! + + CALIPH +Enough! I love to hear the speech of heroes, but enough. It is clear +the glory is divided. Give me one of those robes of honour, +and summon the tailor of the court. + + COURT TAILOR +(Very prostrate) O Master of the World, O Master! + + CALIPH +Slit me this robe in twain. + + COURT TAILOR +(Moaning as he does so) Allah is great, Allah is great. +Such a well-cut robe: such excellent silk! + + CALIPH +Come hither both. + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(Hanging back) The glory is all to the police. + + CHIEF OF POLICE +The credit is entirely due to my honourable friend. + + CALIPH +(Insisting) Come hither both. + +(They are fitted with half a robe of honour each amid laughter.) + + SOLDIERS +Long live those whom the Caliph delights to honour! + + CAPTAIN OF MILITARY +(Under his teeth) Mutinous swine! + + CALIPH +And now bring forth the King of the Beggars. + +(The KING OF THE BEGGARS is brought in chained hand and foot, +but still dressed in gold.) + +The Salaam to my host of yesternight. + + RAFI, KING OF BEGGARS +The Salaam, O man of Basra. I see thy fellow-merchant in the robes +of the Grand Vizier. But the negro, that most disgusting Negro, +seems to be absent. To Hassan, my congratulations on his advancement. + + CALIPH +Thou dost speak with the impudence of a king, but thy subjects are taken +from thee. They will soon be black crows in the pine-wood by the walls. + + RAFI +Had I but known thee last night, thou man of Basra, whom men call +Caliph of the Faithful--O thou massacrer of good men--had I but known thee, +had I but known thee! + + CHIEF OF POLICE +Shall I tear out his tongue? + + CALIPH +Let him talk. I have found a man who does not flatter me. Let me study +the hatred in his eyes. + + RAFI +It is not enough for thee to misrule a quarter of the world. +Thou art not only a fool tyrant, but a mean tradesman, thou dog-hearted spy! + + JAFAR +It is not decent to let this man continue his coarse abuse, O Master. +Wilt thou not end him? + + CALIPH +He shall end in his time. +(To KING OF THE BEGGARS) Thy impudence will not redound to thy advantage, +Rafi! Wherefore dost thou not bite the tongue of insolence +with the tooth of discretion? + + RAFI +I am a man in the presence of death. + + CALIPH +There a thousand paths to the delectable tavern of death, +and some run straight and some run crooked. + + RAFI +Cut, scourge, burn, rack thy uttermost. The nobler the aim +the baser the failure. Do not I deserve to feel +every separate pain of those whom my folly has sent to cruel death? + + + CHINESE PHILOSOPHER +I am a hundred and ten years old, and I have never heard a remark +in more exquisite taste. + + CALIPH +It is well. But before I send thee to a death so cruel +that thy conscience will be fully satisfied in this world and the next, +answer me this: Hast thou forgotten that unparalleled lady whom +the zeal of my servants ravished from thy embrace? + + RAFI +Thou devil of Eblis! Have I forgotten? Have I not prayed +thou shouldst forget? + + CALIPH +Shall a gallant man forget the name of a beautiful woman? +We will look on her, for whom thou didst attempt to raze +the central fort of Islam. +(To ATTENDANTS) Bring in this lady, Pervaneh. + + RAFI +(In supplication) O Master of the World! O Master of the World! + + CALIPH +Thou changest tone abruptly but late. + + RAFI +I was insolent only that her name should be forgotten in thy anger +and my death, O Splendour of Islam! + + CALIPH +A crafty excuse for impoliteness. Wilt thou now begin to be polite +to the tyrant whose coffin was to be nailed over his open eyes? +He who hopes for his audience to forget the subject of his discourse +should moderate his style. + + RAFI +God blind me that I may not see her! + + CALIPH +Why? Dost thou not love her still? Is not the sight of his beloved +to the victim of separation like the vision of a fountain to him +who dies of thirst? + + HASSAN +(Aside) But if that fountain be a fountain whose drops are blood? + + RAFI +Thou, thou hast held her in thy arms! O God, have pity on my soul! + + CALIPH +But with this knowledge thou didst still desire her, and was ready +to wreck Bagdad for the sparkle of her eyes. + + RAFI +But first the blood of her possessor should have washed her honour clean. + + CALIPH +Thou art a most ridiculous man. Thou hast built thy monstrous tower +of crime on a foundation of painted smoke. Dost thou imagine +I have tasted all the fruit of my garden? + + RAFI +Allah has given thee men's bodies, but it is for him alone to torment +the soul. By thy faith, O Caliph, speak the truth! + + CALIPH +Do I know every slave whom my industrious officials sweep in +from the streets? To my knowledge I have never set my eyes +on this woman of thine. + + HERALD +The maiden Pervaneh! + + CALIPH +Let her come before me. + +(PERVANEH is ushered into the Presence.) + + PERVANEH +(With due reverence) O Master of the World! + + CALIPH +It is written in the Sacred Law: In the King's presence a woman may unveil, +without fear of censure. + + PERVANEH +Ah, Master, but only the eagle dare look upon the sun. + + CALIPH +Thy speech is proud enough for all the eagles, Lady Pervaneh, +and I doubt not thy eyes, which I desire to see, are steady +in the blaze of danger. Must I command thee to unveil? + + PERVANEH +Alas, Master of the World, my eyes are dim with long confinement +in a jewelled cage, and the wings of my soul are numb. +Only on the hills of my country where the rolling sun of Heaven +has his morning home, only on their windy hills do the women +of my country go unveiled. + + ISHAK +(To himself, half singing) The hills, the hills, +the morning on the hills! + + CALIPH +(To PERVANEH) I command thee to unveil. + + PERVANEH +If thou wilt tear my veil off my face, I will tear my face +before thy eyes. + + RAFI +Ah, no!... + + PERVANEH +Who art thou who dost cry, "Ah, no!"? Who art thou who dost hide +thy face in fettered hands ... + + RAFI +A prisoner. + + PERVANEH +dissembling thy voice... + + RAFI +A prisoner awaiting death. + + PERVANEH +trembling when I touch thee? + + RAFI +A man afraid. + + PERVANEH +(In a voice of exaltation) For thee, Sultan, I raise my veil; +and wait, thy captive, to share thy destiny. + + HASSAN +Oh, Ishak! The fire of the heart of beauty! + + RAFI +Leave me, Pervaneh! Walk not upon my path! You do not know +what a foul doom is mine. + + PERVANEH +Foul dooms? Foul dooms? Rafi, I can forget ten centuries of doom +now that I see your eyes again! + + RAFI +I conspired against his throne to win you freedom. +Through my fault I failed, through my fault my thousand followers +are dancing in the wind. + + PERVANEH +For me you conspired? For me--for me? + + RAFI +I would have drowned Bagdad in blood to kiss your lips again. + + PERVANEH +O lover! + + RAFI +(Showing his fettered hands) Lover indeed! + + PERVANEH +There are a thousand eyes around us, O my beloved, but what care I? +The voice of the world cries out, "Thou art a slave in the Palace, +and thy lover a prisoner in chains." (Embracing him.) But we have +heard the Trumpets of Reality that drown the vain din +of the Thing that Seems. We have walked with the Friend of Friends +in the Garden of the Stars, and He is pitiable to poor lovers +who are pierced by the arrows of this ghostly world. +Your lips are the only lips, my lover, your eyes the only eyes-- +all the other eyes but phantom lights that glitter in the mist of dream. + + COURTIER +This is sheer heresy. + + ISHAK +Then a plague on your religion. + + JAFAR +This is Sufic doctrine, and most dangerous to the State. + + HASSAN +Then a plague on the State! + + CALIPH +Ye who make love in full Divan, can ye yet listen to the voice of the world? + + PERVANEH +(Dazed) They are speaking. + + CALIPH +O Rafi, King of the Beggars, since after all thou art much entangled +in the web of unreality, it is necessary that I ask thee some +phantom questions concerning thy apparent acts. + +Firstly, dost thou deny thou didst call thyself Caliph of the +Unbelievers, and blaspheme thy faith in my presence and in the presence +of Jafar, my Vizier, Masrur, the Executioner, and Hassan, my friend? + + RAFI +I have nothing to deny. + + CALIPH +Dost thou, secondly, deny that thou didst swear in the presence +of the same to nail the Caliph of the Faithful alive in his coffin, +or that thou didst conspire with the beggars to slay me, to seize +Bagdad and to usurp the throne? + + RAFI +I have nothing to deny. + + CALIPH +Dost thou, thirdly, deny that thou didst scheme this monstrous crime +for the sake of a woman? + + RAFI +I have nothing to deny. + + CALIPH +Rafi, thou art confessed a Blasphemer, a Traitor...and a Lunatic. +It remains to consider thy punishment. + + RAFI +As thou wilt. + + CALIPH +Thou art brave, but I fear the shafts of unreality will prick thee +extremely hard. For thou hast merited not one but a dozen deaths. +Now, if I impale thee for conspiracy, how shall I burn thee +for blasphemy? But with such other pains as man can suffer, +judicious arrangement carries the day over unthinking brutality. +For if I skin thee for thy impudence, how can I flog thee for thy folly? +But if the order is reversed thou canst enjoy the benefits of both expiations. + + RAFI +Thou hast certainly studied the art of pain. + + CALIPH +Yet what are the worst tortures thou shalt undergo to the horror +of the death thou didst contrive for me? + + RAFI +(With impatience) What is my condemnation? + + CALIPH +For Lunacy to be nailed, for Conspiracy to be stretched, +for Blasphemy to be split. + + PERVANEH +Ah! + +(Murmurs of horror and satisfaction fill the Court at the announcement +of this savage punishment.) + + RAFI +As Allah wills. + + PERVANEH +(Falling at the CALIPH's feet) Spare, Spare, O Master of the World! + + CALIPH +Dost thou think I will absolve him for thy "spare"? + + PERVANEH +Mercy! Oh, Mercy! + + CALIPH +Why dost thou cry "Mercy" and clasp my feet? Is not pain a fancy +and this world a cloud? + + PERVANEH +(Rising to her feet) This world is Hell, but those that dig Hell deeper +shall find the Hell-beneath-the-Hells which they search for. + + CALIPH +Thou hast metaphysic, but hast thou logic? Invent me a reason-- +one small and subtle reason--why I should show mercy to this man. + + PERVANEH +Ah--wilt thou have reasons? + + CALIPH +Was not my sentence just? + + PERVANEH +Wilt thou have justice? + + CALIPH +If I had stood bound before him, would he have listened to my prayer? + + PERVANEH +Wilt thou have revenge? + + CALIPH +Shall I scorn reason, pervert justice, and put aside revenge-- +for thy dark eyes? + + PERVANEH +Turn thy justice, turn thy revenge on me in the name of the dark eyes +of God! They say a woman suffers longer and sharper than a man. + + CALIPH +Lady, dost thou mean this with all its meaning, or say it to implore pity? +Beware of thy answer! The rack and the whip are ready and near at hand. + + PERVANEH +(Her arms outstretched) Then give the word. Knock off those fetters +before my eyes--and nail me to the wall. + + RAFI +Pervaneh! + + CALIPH +Ecstasy! Ecstasy! Thou art an ecstatic and wilt not suffer. +I know the thick skin of martyrs. I refuse. + + PERVANEH +(To RAFI) Alas, what can I do! + + RAFI +Let me die! I have seen you again. It is nothing for a man to die. + + PERVANEH +Nothing for a man to die? 'Tis Heaven wide open for a man to die. +But they will tear you, Rafi, Rafi! + + RAFI +Shall I fear the pain you called upon yourself, +or shrink where you were brave? + + PERVANEH +(To the CALIPH) I ask so small a boon. Grant my lover a clean death! + + CALIPH +Thou dost ask a very great boon indeed. For as thou sayest, what is death? +Shall the man who shakes my kingdom slip into eternity like a thief +men catch in the bazaar? Shall he who does the greater wrong not suffer +the greater pain? + + PERVANEH +He is not afraid of pain. + + CALIPH +That is not to say he feels not pain. + + PERVANEH +Just and reasonable, yet there is a holier thing than reason and justice. + + DERVISH +(His orthodoxy disturbed) A holier thing than justice? + + PERVANEH +Yes, Dervish. There is that which should not be defiled. + + CALIPH +Whither now does thy plea wander? + + PERVANEH +O Father of Islam, can thine eyes that love flowers behold man's body +hewn into foul shapes and monstrous as the phantoms +that go wailing round the graves? Can thy ears that love the music +of Ishak, listen to the gasps of the tormented droning +through their bodies like a winter wind among the pines? + + CALIPH +I shall not honour Rafi with my attendance: I shall be far +from sight and sound. + + PERVANEH +The thought of it--the thought of it! + + CALIPH +I have been ordering executions all my life. There is only one thought +that can haunt me--the thought of a coffin closing on open eyes, +the sway of the coffin carried to the grave, the crash at the bottom +of the pit, the rumble of earth on the lid, the gasping for breath +and light. + + PERVANEH +He was distraught by passion, he spoke in fury: but thou dost judge +him with a quiet mind. He is a man among men, but thou art +the representative of God on earth, the sole Priest of Islam. +Thou shalt not order God's image to be defiled. + + CALIPH +So you would have me spare him for the sake of the perfection +of man's body? O Pervaneh, I am far more likely to spare him +for the perfection of woman's. + + PERVANEH +(Shrinking from the implied menace) For those that have wits, +O Master, perfection is sundered from desire. + + CALIPH +You are a woman--perfect--but a woman. + + PERVANEH +By the curse of God. + + CALIPH +And however much you sunder perfection from desire, from desire +your perfection is not sundered. + + PERVANEH +I am the slave of thy household to come or go, to fetch or to carry, +to be struck or slain; but my perfection is not the slave of your +desire. + + CALIPH +(Softly) Yet if you return to my household... + + PERVANEH +(In fury) To die. + + CALIPH +You would not be forgotten or neglected...and your presence would be +a consolation and a charm.... + + PERVANEH +Not to you, frigid tyrant, not to you! + + CALIPH +(Softly) Nor yet to the one who let your lover go in peace? + + PERVANEH +Is there no shame in the world of Islam? Will you unclothe your lust +in full Divan? + + CALIPH +You have already given the example. Come, shall I set your lover free? + + PERVANEH +I would choke if you touched me, I would choke. Oh, the shame on me, +the shame! You are smiling. It is not me you want but my shame! +Is there a God in heaven that lets you sit and smile! But you can set +him free. Ah, will you set him free? I am your slave--I am your slave. +You can rob me of rope and knife--the very means of death. +If you will set him free! I am your slave, what choice have I? + + CALIPH +Thou hast not the manners or the heart of a slave. Thou wast brought +to my household by violence, a free woman born, and art no slave of mine. +In the presence of my Divan I pronounce thee free. Thou art free +to come and free to go, free to buy and free to sell, +free to walk out or free to stay, free to wed and free to die-- +and free to make a choice.... + + PERVANEH +To make a choice? What choice? Between his death and my dishonour? + + CALIPH +No, between love and life. + + PERVANEH +Explain, O Master of the World. + + CALIPH +Between two deaths with torment and two lives with a separation. +Between a day of love and all the years of life. + + PERVANEH +Enlighten my understanding. + + CALIPH +I have considered this matter. I have decided this matter. +I will speak plain and clear. +(Rising) This is my irrevocable judgment from which there is no appeal. +I give a choice to Pervaneh and Rafi, the King of the Beggars, +and I grant them till sunset to consult their hearts +and make that choice together. They shall both live on these conditions: +that the lady Pervaneh return forthwith to my harem to be my wife +in lawful wedlock, and be treated with all the honour her boldness +and her beauty merit. That the King of the Beggars leave Bagdad, +and that these two lovers part for ever till they die. + +But if they refuse this separation, I offer them one day of love, +from sunset to-night to sunset on the morrow, unfettered and alone, +with no more guard than may keep them from self-destruction. +But when that day is over they shall die together in merciless torment. + +In the name of Allah the most merciful, the Divan is closed. + + + + + CURTAIN + + + + + + + + + ACT IV + + + + + SCENE I + + +In the vaults of the palace, outside the cell of the KING OF THE BEGGARS. +Drop Scene. + +(Enter HASSAN) + + HASSAN +Which way? Which way? I am lost in this dark passage. My voice +rings around the arches. What's that noise? Is there an army coming? +Or are all the prisoners stamping with wrath?...No....It is only +someone walking....I wonder who! And if this stranger asks me +my business what shall I say to him? Do I know what brought me +to this dismal region? + + ISHAK +(From the darkness) Who goes there? Who goes there? What dost thou here? +What is thy business? + + HASSAN +Who calls? I am Hassan, inspecting the security of the imperial prisons. +Who art thou? + + ISHAK +Who am I? Ten books were written by Aflatun and twenty by Aristu +to answer that mighty question, O Hassan of my heart. + + HASSAN +Ishak! Come out of hiding, Ishak. What are you doing here? + + ISHAK +I gather mushrooms, O inspector of the vaults of vice! + + HASSAN +Have you come too? I do not know why I came. I hoped...I do not know +why I came, but I think our hearts do beat together like the hearts +of friends. Did you come here because of _them_? + + ISHAK +I came here to hear a play more tragic than the mysteries of Hossein, +to listen to a debate more weighty than the council talk of kings.... + + HASSAN +You do not mean?... + + ISHAK +I mean the debate of love and life. + + HASSAN +Could you spy on that? How cruel! + + ISHAK +The poet must learn what man's agony can teach him. + + HASSAN +Is it then not better not to be a poet? + + ISHAK +(Bitterly) Allah did not ask me that question when he made me a poet +and a dissector of souls. It is my trade: I do but follow my master, +the exalted Designer of human carpets, the Ruler of the world. +If he prepared the situation, shall I not observe the characters? +Thus I corrupt my soul to create--Allah knoweth what--ten little words +like rubies in a row. As for you, I think you begin to understand +the Caliph of the Faithful. + + HASSAN +Why speak of him? All men are brutes, you and he and I. +I thought that I was kinder than other men--but I was only more afraid. +This day is the first day of my exaltation, I have begun it +the all but murderer of a woman, and I end it a spy on souls in trouble. + + ISHAK +Do not worry any longer, dear Hassan, on the moral problem. +The moths of curiosity will always flutter round the lamp of circumstances. +Here comes the Guard, they shall direct us. + +(Enter 2 GUARDS) + + ISHAK +(To the GUARD) Ho, soldier, whither? + + Ist GUARD +(Saluting) To the cell of the King of the Beggars, my masters, +to relieve the Guard. + + ISHAK +What, will you stand inside the cell? + + Ist GUARD +Inside, O my masters. + + ISHAK +A shame, I say, a shame to spy on a pair of lovers. Will they fly +off through the keyhole? + + Ist GUARD +We know the ways of prisoners, O my masters. Masrur is disappointed +when we bring him corpses to be whipped. +(To 2nd GUARD) Is he not disappointed, Mohamed? + + + 2nd GUARD +(In deep, lugubrious and respectful tones) Oh, sir, +he is bitterly disappointed. + + ISHAK +Well, it is your fault, my fine fellows, if you leave daggers +and ropes lying about in your prisoners' cells. + + Ist GUARD +Ah, you do not know the artfulness of prisoners, my masters. +They will bang their heads against the wall, or they will eat their straw. +(To 2nd GUARD) Do they not eat their straw, Mohamed? + + 2nd GUARD +(To ISHAK) Oh sir, they frequently eat their straw. + + ISHAK +Chain them, chain them. + + Ist GUARD +We do, my masters, but even then they strangle themselves in their fetters. + + ISHAK +Strangle themselves in their fetters? + + Ist GUARD +Do they not strangle themselves in their fetters, Mohamed. + + 2nd GUARD +(To ISHAK) I have known them, sir, to strangle themselves in their fetters. + + ISHAK +But, as you know, these two have a choice between a life with separation +and a death with torment. Now surely they will choose life, +and will hardly need a sentry to spear them away from the doorstep +of eternity. + + Ist GUARD +I should think so indeed, sir. But you never can tell with prisoners. +Prisoners are very obstinate, especially women, are they not Mohamed? + + 2nd GUARD +(To ISHAK) Female prisoners are very obstinate, sir. + + ISHAK +(With assumed heartiness) Well, none of us would require till sunset +to make our choice, would we? + + Ist GUARD +No, sir, not those of us who have ever seen Masrur at work. + + ISHAK +But if they do choose their day of love, will they still not be +free according to the Caliph's promise? Will you still guard +them in their cell, O sons of impropriety, lest they eat their straw? + + Ist GUARD +(With a leer) Nay, we shall stand outside the door and listen at the grill. + + ISHAK +And that is precisely what we intend to do now if you will show us the door. + + Ist GUARD +I don't know whether I could quite do that, sir. + + ISHAK +(Giving him money) You are valiant fellows and, I am convinced, +considerably underpaid. + + Ist GUARD +Ours is a most disagreeable profession. your Excellency. + + 2nd GUARD +(Accepting money) And the emoluments are infinitesimal. + + Ist GUARD +This way, gentlemen. + +(Shews them to the door.) + + + + + + SCENE II + + + +A cell. A grating through which streams the sunlight. A heavy door +with a narrow spyhole. RAFI is fettered to the wall, but PERVANEH +has not been bound. TWO GUARDS stand immobile on either side of +the door, + + RAFI +They have changed our guard for the last time, it will be sunset in +an hour. + + PERVANEH +Still a long hour before your hands are freed to make me a belt of love. +O idle sun, I am weary of thy pattern on the wall. Still a long hour! + + RAFI +And still a night and a day before our doom. + + PERVANEH +Why is your voice so sorrowful? Your words do not keep step +with your decision nor march like standard-bearers of your great resolve. + + PERVANEH +What have I decided? What have I resolved? You came near. +I saw the wings of your spirit beating the air around you. +You locked the silver fetters around my neck and I forgot +these manacles of iron: you perfumed me with your hair +till this cell became a meadow: you turned toward me eyes +in whose night the seven deep oceans flashed their drowned stars, +and all your body asked without speech, "Wilt thou die for love?" + + PERVANEH +Do you repent? Do you unsay the golden words? + + RAFI +Put but your lips on mine and seal my words against unsaying. + + PERVANEH +I did wrong to make you passionate. I see that in your heart you do repent. +I would not have you bound by a moment's madness but wish +with all your reason and with all your soul. + + RAFI +Ah, stand apart and veil your face, you who call in the name of reason! +You are all afire for martyrdom: can you hear reason calling from her snows? +Oh, you woman, Allah curse you for blinding my eyes with love! + + PERVANEH +Ah, Rafi! + + RAFI +Be silent--be silent! Your voice is the voice of a garden at daybreak, +when all the birds are singing at the sun. Forget your whirling dreams, +your fires, your lightnings, your splendours of the soul, +and answer the passionless voice that asks you--why should your lover +die, and such a death? + + PERVANEH +I am listening. + + RAFI +I am very young. Shall I forget to laugh if I continue to live? +Shall I spend all my hours regretting you? Shall I not return +to my country and comfort the hearts of those that gave me birth? +Have I not my white-walled house, my books, my old friends, +my garden of flowers and trees? Has the stream forgotten to sing +at the end of my garden because Pervaneh comes no more? + +"Love fades," saith Reason, with a gentler voice. +"Love fades but doth not fall. Love fadeth not to yellow +like the rose but to gold like the leaves upon the poplar +by the stream." And when my poplars are all gold, +I shall sit beneath their shade beside the stream to read my book. +When I am tired of my book I will lie on my back and watch the clouds. +There in the clouds I shall see your face, and remember you with a wistful +remembrance as if you had always been a dream and the silver torment +of your arms had never been more than the white mists +circling the round mountain snows. + + PERVANEH +(With growing anger) And so, wrapped in pleasant fancies, you will forget +the woman you have sold to a tyrant. And so, while I, +far from my country and my home, am dying of shame and confinement, +you will dream and you will dream! + + RAFI +The plague on your dishonour! You are to be the Caliph's wife. +Is that not held for the highest honour to which a woman can attain? +Is that worse shame than being flayed by a foul negro? The shame! +the selling! the dishonour! A woman's vanity: am I to be tortured +to death to gratify your pride? If I must not have you, do I care +whose wife you are? I shall remember you as you are now-- +rock water undefiled. + + PERVANEH +Cold and heartless coward; you are afraid of death! + + RAFI +By Allah, I am afraid of death, and the man who fears not death +is a dullard and a fool! Are we still making speeches in full Divan +to the admiration of the by-standers? Must we pose even now! +If you hate me for fearing death, go your way and leave this coward. +Ah, no, no, do not leave me, O Pervaneh! Forgive me that I am what I am. +I have not unsaid my promise. I will die with you. I will die! +I will endure the tortures that are thrice as terrible as death, +the tortures that parch my mouth with fear. + + PERVANEH +Shame on you, weak and shivering lover! What is pain for us? + + RAFI +You do not see--you do not see! Look at your hands, they shall be torn-- +ah, I cannot speak of it. I shall see your blood flow like wine +from a white fountain drop by drop till you have painted the carpet +of execution all red lilies. + + PERVANEH +Ah--but will not even your poor love flow deep when I set +that crimson seal upon the story of our lives! + + RAFI +Alas, you are still dreaming: you are still blind with exaltation: +your speech is a metaphor. You do not see, you have never heard +the high, thin shriek of the tortured, you have not seen the shape +of their bodies when they are cast into the ditch. Come near, Pervaneh. +Do you know what they will do to you? Come near: I cannot say it aloud. +(PERVANEH approaches.) Ah, I dare not tell you...I dare not tell you! + + PERVANEH +Tell me, plain and clear. + + RAFI +(Whispers in PERVANEH's ear)... + + PERVANEH +(Covering her face with her hands) Ah, God--they will not do that! +No, no; they will not do that to me. + + RAFI +Pitilessly. + + PERVANEH +(Wildly) They will do that!--Ah, the shame of it! They will do that-- +Ah the pain of it! I see! I feel! I hear! O save me, Rafi! + + RAFI +Alas! Why did I tell you this? + + PERVANEH +It is beyond endurance: it is foul: my veins will burst at the very thought. +I am between a shame and a shame and there is no escape....But at least +they shall not do this to you, Rafi. Hush...talk low: the soldiers +must not hear. (Glancing at the GUARDs and whispering low) +Will you die here between my hands, instantly, and with no pain? + + RAFI +(In a hushed voice) Quickly! How can you do it? We are guarded-- +have you a knife? + + PERVANEH +My hands will be cunning round your neck, beloved. Did I not say you +should die between my hands? + + RAFI +Be quick: be quiet: I will cast back my head. + + A GUARD +(Thrusting PERVANEH back with his drawn sword as she lays her hands +on her lover's neck) Back, in the Caliph's name! + + RAFI +(To PERVANEH) Run in upon his sword.... + + PERVANEH +(Shrinking away from the GUARD's sword) I cannot! + + RAFI +Quick--quick! Fall on the sword and save all shame. + + PERVANEH +My breast, my breast: I am afraid...(Prostrate on the ground) +I am utterly shamed--I have missed your death and mine. + + RAFI +You have flinched. + + PERVANEH +The point was on my breast, and it might have been all ended +for you and me. + + RAFI +You have been afraid. + + PERVANEH +It would have driven to my heart. Ah, the woman that I am! + + RAFI +It is so small a thing, a pricking of the steel. + + PERVANEH +Ah!--it is a little thing, you say? It is like ice, so sharp and cold. +I am a vile coward. + + RAFI +We are both cowards, you and I. The sunlight changes on the wall +from white to gold. It is evening. Our time has come. +Shall we choose life? Shall we choose the sky and the sea, +the mountains, the rivers and the plains? Shall we choose +the flowers and the bees, and all the birds of heaven? +Shall we choose laughter and tears, sorrow and desire, +speech and silence, and the shout of the man behind the hill? + + PERVANEH +Ah, empty, empty without your heart! (She weeps.) + + RAFI +Empty as death, Pervaneh, empty as death? + + PERVANEH +The wall reddens: the last minute has come: we must choose. + + RAFI +Choose for me: I follow. Did I talk of life? My heart is breaking +for desire of you. If you bid me depart I will not live without you. +Choose for me--and choose well. Phantoms of pain! Let me but have you +in my arms, and one day of love shall widen into eternity. +Who knows? The earth may crack to-night, or the sun stay down for ever +in his grave. Who knows--tomorrow--God will begin and finish the judgment +of the world--and when it is all over find you sleeping in my arms? + + PERVANEH +(Rising slowly to her feet and laying her hands on the shoulders +of her lover): Oh, let us die! Not for my dishonour, Rafi. +What is my dishonour to me or to you, beloved, or the shame +of a girl's virginity to him who made the sea? This clay of mine +is fair enough, I think, but God hath cast it in the common mould. +O lover, lover, I would walk beneath the walls and sell my body +to the gipsy and the Jew ere you should cry "I am hungry" +or "I am cold." + + RAFI +Die for love of me--for a day and a night of love! + + PERVANEH +I die for love of you, Rafi! Behold, the Spirit grows bright around you: +you are one with the Eternal Lover, the Friend of the World. +His spirit flashes in thine eyes and hovers round thy lips: +thy body is all fire! + + RAFI +Comfort me, comfort me! I do not understand thy dreams. + + PERVANEH +(Her arms stiffening in ecstasy) The splendour pours from the window-- +the spirits in red and gold. Death with thee, O lover, death for thee, +death to attain thee, O lover--and then the garden--then the fountain-- +then the walking side by side. + + RAFI +O my sweet life, O my sweet life--must this mad dreaming end thee? + + PERVANEH +Sweet life--we die for thy sweetness, O Lord of the Garden of Peace. +Come, love, and die for the fire that beats within us, for the air +that blows around us, for the mountains of our country and the wind +among their pines you and I accept torture and confront our end. +We are in the service of the World. The voice of the rolling deep +is shouting: "Suffer that my waves may moan." The company of the stars +sing out: "Be brave that we may shine." The spirits of children +not yet born whisper as they crowd around us: "Endure that we may conquer." + + RAFI +Pervaneh, Pervaneh! + + PERVANEH +Hark! Hark!--down through the spheres--the Trumpeter of Immortality! +"Die, lest I be shamed, lovers. Die, lest I be shamed!" + + RAFI +Die then, Pervaneh, for thy great reasons. Me no ecstasy can help +through the hours of pain. I die for love alone. + + HERALD +(Entering) The Caliph demands your choice. + + RAFI +Death! + + HASSAN +(Bursting in) No, no. O God! + + ISHAK +They have chosen too well. + +(Exit HERALD. PERVANEH is still in ecstasy when the curtain falls.) + + + + + END OF ACT IV + + + + + + + + + + + + + ACT V + + + + + SCENE I + + +Towards the sunset of the next day. The CALIPH's garden (ACT III, SCENE I) +once more. + +(Enter the CALIPH with ATTENDANTS as HASSAN comes from his pavilion.) + + + CALIPH +We were coming to your door to seek you, Hassan, but you anticipated +the knock of doubt by the shock of appearance. Why have you left +your house before the nightingale? Will you too sing to the dawning moon? +If so--we have come to hear. + + HASSAN +Oh, Master of the World--the hour of the nightingale has not yet come. +I have sought thee all day, O Master, and could not find thee. +Thou didst hold the Divan--thou wast hunting--thou wast asleep-- +thou wast at dinner--and now the hour is near, O Master of the World-- +but not yet come. + + CALIPH +What hour? + + HASSAN +The hour of the nightingale: the hour when sun and moon are weighed +in the silver scales of heaven: and thy scale of justice moves downward +with the sun. + + CALIPH +Surely thy head is full of fancies and thy mood perverse. I cannot grasp +the shadow of thy meaning. + + HASSAN +(Throwing himself at the CALIPH's feet) O Master of the World, have mercy +on Pervaneh and Rafi! + + CALIPH +What--those two? Let them have mercy on themselves. They have chosen +death as I am told. The woman has paid me the compliment of preferring +torture with her Rafi to a marriage with myself. They have had a pleasant +day together. Exquisite food was placed before them and the surveillance +was discreet. They will now pass a less pleasant evening. + + HASSAN +Let not the woman be tortured: have mercy on the woman. + + CALIPH +Rise you fantastic supplicant. Do you dare ask mercy for these +insolent and dangerous folk whose life was in their own hands-- +who have themselves pulled down the cord of the rat-trap of destruction? + + HASSAN +Had you but heard them--had you but watched as I did while they made +that awful choice, you would have forgotten expediency, justice, +revenge, and listened only to the appeal of the anguish of their souls! + + CALIPH +I doubt it! + + HASSAN +They chose so well! They are so young. So terribly in love. +I have not slept, I have not eaten, Master! I take no pleasure +in my house and garden. I see blood on my walls, blood on my carpet, +blood in the fountain, blood in the sky! + + CALIPH +Well, well, I will leave you to these agreeable delusions. +Abu Nawas has found me a young Kurdish girl who can dance +with one leg round her neck, and knows by heart the song of Alexander. +I perceive you will be no fit companion for an evening's sport. + + HASSAN +It is only for the torture I speak: it is only for the woman I implore. +Say but one word: the sun will set so soon. + + CALIPH +(Angrily) If thou and Ishak, and Jafar and the Governors +of all the provinces were prostrate with supplication before me, +I would not spare her one caress of Masrur's black hand. + + HASSAN +(Springing to his feet and making at the CALIPH) Hideous tyrant, +torturer from Hell! + + CALIPH +(Coolly, as GUARDS seize HASSAN) You surprise me. Since when +have confectioners become so tigerish in their deportment? + + HASSAN +(Terrfied) What have I said! What have I done! + + CALIPH +There speaks the old confectioner again. + + HASSAN +I am not ashamed to be a confectioner, but I am ashamed to be a coward. + + CALIPH +Do not despair, good Hassan. You would not take my warning: +you have left the Garden of Art for the Palace of Action: +you have troubled your head with the tyranny of princes, +and the wind of complication is blowing through your shirt. +You will forfeit your house and be banished from the Garden, +for you are not fit to be the friend of kings. But for the +rest, since you did me great service the other night, go in peace, +and all the confectionery of the Palace will be ordered at your shop. + + HASSAN +Master, for this mercy, I thank you humbly. + + CALIPH +For nothing--for nothing. I make allowance for the purple thread +of madness woven in the camel-cloth of your character. +I know your head is affected by a caloric afternoon. +Indeed, I sympathise with the interest you have shown as to the fate +of Pervaneh and Rafi, and as a mark of favour I offer you a place +among the spectators of their execution. + + HASSAN +Ah, no, no!--that I could never bear to see! + + CALIPH +Moreover, as a special token of my esteem, I will not send you +to the execution--I will bring the execution here, and have it held +in your honour. You dreamt that your walls were sweating blood. +I will fulfil the prophecy implied and make the dream come true. + + HASSAN +I shall never sleep again! + + CALIPH +(To ATTENDANT) Take my ring; go to the postern gate, +intercept the procession of Protracted Death, and bid Masrur +bring his prisoners to this pavilion and slay them on the carpet +he shall find within the walls. + + HASSAN +Master! Master! Is it not enough? I must go back to my trade +and the filth of the Bazaar: I must be a poor man again +and the fool of poor men. "Look at Hassan," men will say, +"he has had his day of greatness: look at that greasy person: +he has been clothed in gold: let us therefore go and insult +the man who was once the Caliph's friend: let us draw +moral lessons from him on the mutability of human affairs." +But I, disregarding their jeers and insolent compassion, +wrapping my body in my cloak and my soul in contemplation, +would have remembered my day of pride, this Garden of Great Peace, +this Fountain of Charm, this Pavilion of Beatitude: +I would have recollected that I once had talked with Poets +of the art of poetry, and owned slaves as pretty as their names. +Preserve, preserve for me, O Master of the World, this palmgrove +of memory in the desert of my affliction. Defile not +this happy place with blood. Let not the trees that heard thee +but yesterday call me Friend bow their heads beneath the wind of anguish: +let not the threshold which I have crossed blossom out with blood! +Spare me, spare me from hearing that which will haunt me for ever +and ever--the moan of that white woman! + + CALIPH +(To GUARDS) Do not release him till the end. See that he keeps his eyes +well opened, and feasts them to the fill. + +(Exit CALIPH and train.) + +(The song of the MUEZZIN is heard, "La Allah illa Allah," etc.) + + HASSAN +The sun has set. Guards, O Guards! (No answer) It is the hour of prayer, +do you not pray? I have still a little treasure. (No answer from the GUARDS) +Are you dumb? (GUARDS nod) But why are you not deaf? +(GUARDS point to their tongues) Ah--your tongues have been torn out! +(GUARD points to window of the pavilion) +What do you point at?... Ah, Yasmin! + + YASMIN +I have seen and heard behind the lattice. Hassan has fallen from power +and favour. + + HASSAN +(Crazily) Ah, good, very good, surpassing good! You are at the window-- +I am in the street. This is a reflection of that. As swans go double +in a river, so do events come drifting down our lives. Again, again! + + Bow down thy head, O burning bright! for one night or the other + night + Will come the gardener in white, and gathered flowers are dead, + Yasmin! + +Come now, a sweet lie first, Yasmin: sing a little how you love me. +Show me your beauty limb by limb--then bring, ah, bring your new lover-- +mock my moon-touched verses and call me the fool, the old fool, +the weary fool I am. + + YASMIN +I will not yet call Hassan a fool. Hassan has fallen from power, +but he need not fall from riches. The Palace Confectioner Hassan, +may still become the richest merchant in Bagdad. + + HASSAN +Thou harlot, thou harlot, thou harlot! + + YASMIN +Why art thou angry? In what have I insulted thee? + + HASSAN +Oh, if it were thou about to suffer! If it were thou! + + YASMIN +(Staring across the garden and forgetting HASSAN) At last, at last!-- +the Procession of Protracted Death! I shall see it all! + +(A deep red afterglow illumines the back of the garden. +Across the garden towards the door of the pavilion moves +in black silhouettes the Procession of Protracted Death, +of which the order is this:) + +MASRUR, naked, with his scimitar. +Four assistant torturers in black holding steel implements. +Two men in armour bearing a lighted brazier slung between them on a pole. +Two men bearing a monstrous wheel. +Four men carrying the rack. +A man with a hammer and a whip. +PERVANEH and RAFI, half naked, pulling a cart that bears their coffins: +their legs drag great chains. +Behind each of them walks a soldier with uplifted sword. + +MASRUR knocks at the door of the Pavilion: the SLAVES open +and flee in terror at the sight. The light of the brazier +glows through the window. The SOLDIERS who guard PERVANEH and RAFI +unhook the chains that chain them to the cart, and placing their +hands on the necks of the prisoners push them in. The four SLAVES of the +house then appear under the guidance of the man with the whip +and lift in the coffins. Lastly, HASSAN is taken by his two GUARDS +and forced to enter. The stage grows absolutely dark, save for +the shining of the light from the windows. In the silence rises +the splashing of the fountain and the whirring and whirling of a wheel. +The sounds blend and grow unendurably insistent, and with them music +begins to play softly. A cry of pain is half smothered by the violins. +At last the silver light of the moon floods the garden. + +HASSAN, thrust forth by his GUARDS, appears at the door of the pavilion. +His face is white and haggard: he totters a few steps and finally falls +in a faint in the shadow of the fountain. The coffins are brought out, +nailed down, and placed in a cart. + +(The SOLDIERS pull the cart in place of the prisoners, and what remains +of the procession departs in reverse order. MASRUR only has lingered +by the door. YASMIN is clutching at his arm.) + + YASMIN +Masrur--thou dark Masrur. + + MASRUR +Allah--the woman. + + YASMIN +How you smell of blood. + + MASRUR +And you of roses. + + YASMIN +I laughed to see them writhe--I laughed, I laughed, +as I watched behind the curtain. Why did you drink his veins? + + MASRUR +A vow. + + YASMIN +Will you not drink mine also? + + MASRUR +Shall I put my arms around you? + + YASMIN +Your arms are walls of black and shining stone. +Your breast is the castle of the night. + + MASRUR +Little white moth, I will crush you to my heart. + + YASMIN +(With a sudden cry of terror, struggling from his embrace a moment after) +Ah, let me go. Do you hear them?... Do you hear them?... + + MASRUR +What is there to hear but the noises of the night? + + YASMIN +(Springing away) The flowers are talking...the garden is alive... +(She falls.) + + MASRUR +(Stooping the carry her) She loves blood and is frightened of the moon. +She is smooth and white, I will take her home. + +(Enter ISHAK searching for HASSAN.) + + ISHAK +Hassan--where doth he lie? Hassan, O Hassan. +Thou hast broken that gentle heart, Haroun, and I have broken my lute: +I play no more for thee. Ah, why did they not tell me sooner-- +I fear his reason may have fled before I find him: +he may be wandering in the streets to-night like Death, +and tearing at his eyes. Hassan, oh, Hassan! + +It is he: he lies just as I first saw him: beneath a fountain, +face toward the moon. His life is rhyming like a song: +it harks back to the old refrain. Is life a mirror wherein +events show double? + + HASSAN +(Half waking from his swoon) Swans that drift into the mist.... + + ISHAK +(Bending over him to raise him) Friend, I am glad to hear thy voice. +Rise, rise, thou art in a pitiable case. + + HASSAN +(Faintly) Let me lie....This place is quiet, and the earth smells cool. +May I never rise till they lift me aboard my coffin, +and I'll go a sailing down the river and out to sea. + + ISHAK +You are alive--no one will hurt you: you hold to your reason +and fight despair. + + HASSAN +And in that sea are no red fish.... + + ISHAK +Come: rise: be brave: I know you have suffered. + + HASSAN +She was brave. Ah, her hands, her hands! + + ISHAK +Do not tell me that tale. + + HASSAN +You are a poet. They cut off her lover's head +and poured blood upon her eyes! + + ISHAK +Be silent. You are full of devils. I tell you, it is not true. +Stop dreaming: look into my eyes: listen! + +(Bells are heard without the garden.) + +You hear? The camels are being driven to the Gate of the Moon. +At midnight starts the great summer caravan for the cities +of the Far North East, divine Bokhara and happy Samarkand. +It is a desert path as yellow as the bright sea-shore: +therefore the Pilgrims call it The Golden Journey. + + HASSAN +And what of that to you or me, your Golden Journey to Samarkand? + + ISHAK +I am leaving this city of slaves, this Bagdad of fornication. +I have broken my lute and will write no more qasidahs in praise of +the generosity of kings. I will try the barren road, and listen +for the voice of the emptiness of earth. And you shall walk beside me. + + HASSAN +I? + + ISHAK +Rise, and confide to me once more the direction of your way. + + HASSAN +(Rising with ISHAK's aid) Why save me from a death desired? +What am I to you or to any man living? Why would you force me +like a fate to live? + + ISHAK +Because I am your friend, and need you. + + HASSAN +Oh, Ishak, singer of songs! + + ISHAK +Prepare for travel. + + HASSAN +I have no possessions. + + ISHAK +O pilgrim! O true pilgrim! I have dinars of gold: +we will furnish ourselves at the gate, and change +these silks of indolence for the camel-hair of toil. +But have you not one thing in your house to take-- +no one single thing? + + HASSAN +(With a great shudder) Within that door--nothing. +But I have one old carpet that still lies in my shop. +Its gentle flowers the negro has not defiled. +And yet I dare not seek it. + + ISHAK +I will bring it you. You shall stretch it out upon the desert +when you say your evening prayer, and it will be a little meadow +in the waste of sand. + + HASSAN +(Seizing ISHAK on a sudden panic) Keep close to me: do not leave me! +The night is growing wild! + + ISHAK +Hold to your reason! It is all stars and moon and crystal peace. + + HASSAN +The trees are moving without a wind...the flowers are talking... +the stars are growing bigger.... + + ISHAK +Be calm, there is nothing. + +(The fountain runs red.) + + HASSAN +The fountain--the fountain! + + ISHAK +Oh! alas! it is pouring blood! Come away. + + HASSAN +The Garden is alive! + + ISHAK +Come away: it is haunted! Come away: come away! Follow the bells! + +(Exeunt in terror.) + + +(The GHOST of the Artist of the Fountain rises from the fountain itself +in pale Byzantine robes.) + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +The garden to the ghosts. Come forth, new brother and new sister. +Come forth while enough of earth's heavy influence remains upon you-- +to speak and to be seen. Come forth, and those who are past +shall dance with those who are to come. + + GHOST OF RAFI +(With the voice of RAFI, the clothes of RAFI, the broken fetters +of RAFI, but pale...as death) We are here, O Shadow of the Fountain. + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +Welcome, thou and thy white lady to these...haunts. +Wander at will. I have scared away the sons of flesh. + + GHOST OF RAFI +How were they scared, those two? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +When the water turned from white to red their faces turned +from red to white. They ran! + + GHOST HIDDEN IN THE TREES +Ha! ha! + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Tell us, O Man of the Fountain, what shall we do? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +Nothing: you are dead. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Shall we stay in this garden and be lovers still, +and fly in the air and flit among the leaves? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +As long as you remember what you suffered, +you will stay near the house where your blood was shed. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +We will remember that ten thousand years. + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +You have forgotten that you are a Spirit. +The memories of the dead are thinner than their dreams. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +But you stay here, by the fountain. + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +I created the fountain: what have you created in the world? + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Nothing but the story of our lives. + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +That will not save you. You were spiritual even in life. +I see it by the great shadows of your eyes. +But I cared only for the earth. I loved the veins of the leaves, +the shapes of crawling beasts, the puddle in the road, +the feel of wood and stone. I knew the shapes of things so well +that my sculpture was the best in the world. Therefore my spirit +is still heavy with memories of earth and I stay in the world I love. +Do I desire to see the back of the moon? + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +May not we stay also? May I not touch the shadow of his lips +and hear the whisper of his love? Shall we be driven from here, +O Man of the fountain? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +How do I know? Can I foresee? + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Thou, too dost not foresee. But what of Paradise, what of Infinity-- +what of the stars, and what of us? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +I know no more than you. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Is the secret secret still, and this existence darker than the last? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +Didst thou hope for a revelation? Why should the dead be wiser +than the living? The dead know only this--that it was better to be alive. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +But we shall feel no more pain--Oh, no more pain, Rafi! + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +But you will feel so cold. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +With the fire of love within us? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +You will forget when the wind blows. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Forget! Rafi, Rafi, shall we forget, Rafi? + + GHOST OF RAFI +(In a thin voice like an echo) +Forget...Rafi... + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +You will forget, when the great wind blows you asunder +and you are borne on it with ten million others like drops +on a wave of air. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +There is a faith in me that tells I shall not forget my lover +though God forget the world. And where will the wind take us? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +What do I know, or they? I only know it rushes. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +How do you know about the wind? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +Because it blows through the garden and drives the souls together. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +What souls? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +The souls of the unborn children who live in the flowers. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +And how do you know about the passage of ten million souls? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +They pass like a comet across the midnight skies. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Phantoms shall not make me fear. But what of Justice and Punishment +and Reason and Desire? What of the Lover in the Garden of Peace? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +Ask of the wind. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +I shall be answered: I know that in the end I shall find the Lover +in the Garden of Peace. + + VOICES +And what of Life? + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Who asks, What of Life? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +The spirits of those who will soon be born. + + VOICES +We have left our flowers. We know we shall soon be born. +What of Life, O dead? + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +(With a great cry) Why, Life...is sweet, my children! + +(The leaves of the trees begin to rustle.) + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +Listen to the tress. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Is it coming? + + FOUNTAIN GHOST +It is the wind. I must go down into the earth. + +(The FOUNTAIN GHOST vanishes.) + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Ah, I am cold--I am cold--beloved! + + GHOST OF RAFI +(Scarce visible and very faint) Cold...cold. + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Speak to me, speak to me, Rafi. + + GHOST OF RAFI +Rafi--Rafi--who was Rafi? + + GHOST OF PERVANEH +Speak to thy love--thy love--thy love. + + GHOST OF RAFI +Cold...cold...cold. + +(The wind sweeps the GHOSTS out of the garden, +seeming also to ring more wildly the bells of the Caravan.) + + + + + + + SCENE II + +At the Gate of the Moon, Bagdad. Blazing moonlight. +MERCHANTS, CAMEL-DRIVERS and their beasts, PILGRIMS, JEWS, WOMEN, +all manner of people. By the barred gate stands the WATCHMAN +with a great key. Among the pilgrims, HASSAN and ISHAK +in the robes of pilgrims. + + THE MERCHANTS +(Together) + Away, for we are ready to a man! + Our camels sniff the evening and are glad. + Lead on, O Master of the Caravan, + Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Bagdad. + + THE CHIEF DRAPER + Have me not Indian carpets dark as wine, + Turbans and sashes, gowns and bows and veils, + And broideries of intricate design, + And printed hangings in enormous bales? + + THE CHIEF GROCER + We have rose-candy, we have spikenard, + Mastic and terebinth and oil and spice, + And such sweet jams meticulously jarred + As God's Own Prophet eats in Paradise. + + THE PRINCIPAL JEWS: + And we have manuscripts in peacock styles + By Ali of Damascus: we have swords + Engraved with storks and apes and crocodiles, + And heavy beaten necklaces for lords. + + THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN + But you are nothing but a lot of Jews + + PRINCIPAL JEW + Sir, even dogs have daylight, and we pay. + + MASTER OF THE CARAVAN + But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes, + You dirty-bearded, blocking up the way? + + ISHAK + We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go + Always a little further; it may be + Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow + Across that angry or that glimmering sea, + + White on a throne or guarded in a cave + There lies a prophet who can understand + Why men were born: but surely we are brave, + Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand. + + THE CHIEF MERCHANTS + We gnaw the nail of hurry. Master, away! + + ONE OF THE WOMEN + O turn your eyes to where your children stand. + Is not Bagdad the beautiful? O, stay! + + MERCHANTS +(In chorus) + We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. + + AN OLD MAN + Have you not girls and garlands in your homes? + Eunuchs and Syrian boys at your command? + Seek not excess: God hateth him who roams! + + MERCHANTS +(In chorus) + We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. + + HASSAN + Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells + When shadows pass gigantic on the sand, + And softly through the silence beat the bells + Along the Golden Road to Samarkand. + + ISHAK + We travel not for trafficking alone; + By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: + For lust of knowing what should not be known, + We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. + + MASTER OF THE CARAVAN + Open the gate, O watchman of the night! + + THE WATCHMAN + Ho, travellers, I open. For what land + Leave you the dim-moon city of delight? + + MERCHANTS +(With a shout) + We take the Golden Road to Samarkand! + +(The CARAVAN passes through the gate.) + + WATCHMAN +(Consoling the women) + What would ye, ladies? It was ever thus. + Men are unwise and curiously planned. + + A WOMAN + They have their dreams, and do not think of us. + +(The WATCHMAN closes the gate.) + + VOICES OF THE CARAVAN +(In the distance singing) + We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. + + + CURTAIN + + + + + THE END + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hassan: The Story of Hassan +of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand +by James Elroy Flecker + diff --git a/3834.zip b/3834.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8581f2d --- /dev/null +++ b/3834.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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