SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part One
The audience-chamber in the Palace of Cepheus.
Cepheus and Cassiopea, seated.
What will you do, Cepheus?
This that has happened
Is most unfortunate.
What will you do?
I hope you will not give up to the priest
My Iolaus' golden head? I hope
You do not mean that?
Great Poseidon's priest
Sways all this land: for from the liberal blood
Moistening that high-piled altar grow our harvests
And strong Poseidon satisfied defends
Our frontiers from the loud Assyrian menace.
Empty thy treasuries, glut him with gold.
Let us be beggars rather than one bright curl
Of Iolaus feel his gloomy mischiefs.
I had already thought of it. Medes!
He does, my lord.
Call him and Tyrian Phineus.
Bid Tyre save
Andromeda's loved brother from this doom;
He shall not have our daughter otherwise.
This too was in my mind already, queen.
Be seated, King of Tyre: priest Polydaon,
Possess thy usual chair.
Well, King of Syria,
Shall I have justice? Wilt thou be the King
Over a peopled country? or must I loose
The snake-haired Gorgon-eyed Erinnyes
To hunt thee with the clamorous whips of Hell
Blood-dripping?
Be content. Cepheus gives nought
But justice from his mighty seat. Thou shalt
Have justice.
I am not used to cool my heels
About the doors of princes like some beggarly
And negligible suitor whose poor plaint
Is valued by some paltry drachmas. I am
Poseidon's priest. 
The prince is called to answer here
Thy charges.
Done impudently in Syria's face? 'Tis well;
The Tyrian stands here who can meet that lie.
My children's lips were never stained with lies,
Insulting priest, nor will be now; from him
We shall have truth.
And grant the charge admitted,
The ransom shall be measured with the crime.
What talk is this of ransom? Think'st thou, King,
That dire Poseidon's grim offended godhead
Can be o'erplastered with a smudge of silver?
Shall money blunt his vengeance? Shall his majesty
Be estimated in a usurer's balance?
Blood is the ransom of this sacrilege.
Ah God!
Of gold and silver, gems and porphyry
Unvalued.
The gods are not to be bribed,
King Cepheus. 
Give him honours, state, precedence,
All he can ask. O husband, let me keep
My child's head on my bosom safe.
Listen!
What wouldst thou have? Precedence, pomp and state?
Hundreds of spears to ring thee where thou walkest?
Swart slaves and beautiful women in thy temple
To serve thee and thy god? They are thine. In feasts
And high processions and proud regal meetings
Poseidon's followers shall precede the King.
Me wilt thou bribe? I take these for Poseidon,
Nor waive my chief demand.
What will content thee?
A victim has been snatched from holy altar:
To fill that want a victim is demanded.
I will make war on Egypt and Assyria
And throw thee kings for victims.
Thy vaunt is empty.
Poseidon being offended, who shall give thee
Victory o'er Egypt and o'er strong Assyria?
Take thou the noblest head in all the kingdom
Below the Prince.
Take many heads for one. 
Shall then the innocent perish for the guilty?
Is this thy justice? How shall thy kingdom last?
You hear him, Cassiopea? he will not yield,
He is inexorable.
Must I wait longer?
Ho Medes!
Priest, thou wilt have my child's blood then, it seems!
Nought less will satisfy thee than thy prince
For victim?
Poseidon knows not prince or beggar.
Whoever honours him, he heaps with state
And fortune. Whoever wakes his dreadful wrath,
He throws down into Erebus for ever.
Beware! Thou shalt not have my child. Take heed
Ere thou drive monarchs to extremity.
Thou hopest in thy sacerdotal pride
To make the Kings of Syria childless, end
A line that started from the gods. Think'st thou
It will be tamely suffered? What have we
To lose, if we lose this? I bid thee again
Take heed: drive not a queen to strong despair. 
I am no tame-souled peasant, but a princess
And great Chaldea's child.
Thy treasury and all the promised honours,
If I excuse the deed?
They shall be thine.
He turns to whisper with Cassiopea.
Dost thou prefer me for thy foeman?
See
In the queen's eyes her rage. We must discover
New means; this way's not safe.
Thou art a coward, priest, for all thy violence.
But fear me first and then blench from a woman.
Well, as you choose.
Father, you sent for me?
There is a charge upon thee, Iolaus,
I do not yet believe. But answer truth
Like Cepheus' son, whatever the result. 
Whatever I have done, my father, good
Or ill, I dare support against the world.
Didst thou rescue
At dawn a victim from Poseidon's altar?
I did not.
Dar'st thou deny it, wretched boy?
Monarch, his coward lips have uttered falsehood.
Hear me speak first. Thou ruffian
Intriguer masking in a priest's disguise, —
Hear him, O King!
All violence. Thou deniest then the charge?
As it was worded to me, I deny it.
Syria, I have not spoken till this moment,
And would not now, but sacred truth compels
My tongue howe'er reluctant. I was there,
And saw him rescue a wrecked mariner
With his rash steel.
Would that I had not seen it! 
Thou liest, Phineus, King of Tyre.
Alas!
If thou hast any pity for thy mother,
Run not upon thy death in this fierce spirit,
My child. Calmly repel the charge against thee,
Nor thus offend thy brother.
I am not angry.
It was no shipwrecked weeping mariner,
Condemned by the wild seas, whom they attempted,
But a calm god or glorious hero who came
By other ways than man's to Syria's margin.
Nor did rash steel or battle rescue him.
With the mere dreadful waving of his shield
He shook from him a hundred threatening lances,
This hero hot from Tyre and this proud priest
Now bold to bluster in his monarch's chamber,
But then a pallid coward, — so he trusts
In his Poseidon!
Hast thou done?
Not yet.
That I drew forth my sword, is true, and true
I would have rescued him from god or devil
Had it been needed.
Enough! he has confessed! 
Give verdict, King, and sentence. Let me watch
Thy justice.
But this fault was not so deadly!
I see thy drift, O King. Thou wouldst prefer
Thy son to him who rules the earth and waters:
Thou wouldst exalt thy throne above the temple,
Setting the gods beneath thy feet. Fool, fool,
Know'st thou not that the terrible Poseidon
Can end thy house in one tremendous hour?
Yield him one impious head which cannot live
And he will give thee other and better children.
Give sentence or be mad and perish.
Father,
Not for thy son's but for thy honour's sake
Resist him. 'Tis better to lose crown and life,
Than rule the world because a priest allows it.
Give sentence, King. I can no longer wait,
Give sentence.
Cepheus (helplessly to Cassiopea)
Monarch of Tyre,
Thou choosest silence then, a pleased spectator?
Thou hast bethought thee of other nuptials?
Lady, 
You wrong my silence which was but your servant
To find an issue from this dire impasse,
Rescuing your child from wrath, justice not wounded.
The issue lies in the accuser's will,
If putting malice by he'ld only seek
Poseidon's glory.
The deed's by all admitted,
The law and bearing of it are in doubt.
You urge a place is void and must be filled
On great Poseidon's altar, and demand
Justly the guilty head of Iolaus.
He did the fault, his head must ransom it.
Let him fill up the void, who made the void.
Nor will high heaven accept a guiltless head,
To let the impious free.
Phineus, —
But if
The victim lost return, you cannot then
Claim Iolaus: then there is no void
For substitution.
King, —
The simpler fault
With ransom can be easily excused
And covered up in gold.
Let him produce
The fugitive.
Tyrian, —
I have not forgotten.
Patience! You plead that your mysterious guest
Being neither shipwrecked nor a mariner
Comes not within the doom of law. Why then,
Let Law decide that issue, not the sword
Nor swift evasion! Dost thou fear the event
Of thy great father's sentence from that throne
Where Justice sits with bright unsullied robe
Judging the peoples? Calmly expect his doom
Which errs not.
Thou art a man noble indeed in counsel
And fit to rule the nations.
I approve.
I laugh to see wise men
Catching their feet in their own subtleties.
King Phineus, wilt thou seize Olympian Zeus
And call thy Tyrian smiths to forge his fetters?
Or wilt thou claim the archer bright Apollo
To meet thy human doom, priest Polydaon?
'Tis well; the danger's yours. Give me three days
And I'll produce him.
Priest, art thou content?
Exceed not thou the period by one day,
Or tremble.
My Cassiopea: now our hearts can rest
From these alarms.
Cepheus and Cassiopea leave the chamber.
Keep thy knife sharp, sacrificant.
King Phineus, I am grateful and advise
Thy swift departure back to Tyre unmarried.
What hast thou done, King Phineus? All is ruined.
What, have the stripling's threats appalled thee, priest?
Thou hast demanded a bright dreadful god
For victim. We might have slain young Iolaus:
Wilt thou slay him whose tasselled aegis smote
Terror into a hundred warriors?
Priest,
Thou art a superstitious fool. Believe not
The gods come down to earth with swords and wings,
Or transitory raiment made in looms,
Or bodies visible to mortal eyes.
Far otherwise they come, with unseen steps
And stroke invisible, — if gods indeed
There are.
I doubt it, who can find no room
For powers unseen: the world's alive and moves
By natural law without their intervention.
King Phineus, doubt not the immortal gods.
They love not doubters. If thou hadst lived as I,
Daily devoted to the temple dimness,
And seen the awful shapes that live in night,
And heard the awful sounds that move at will
When Ocean with the midnight is alone,
Thou wouldst not doubt. Remember the dread portents
High gods have sent on earth a hundred times
When kings offended.
Well, let them reign unquestioned
Far from the earth in their too bright Olympus,
So that they come not down to meddle here
In what I purpose. For your aegis-bearer,
Your winged and two-legged lion, he's no god.
You hurried me away or I'ld have probed
His godlike guts with a good yard of steel
To test the composition of his ichor.
What of his flaming aegis lightning-tasselled?
What of his winged sandals, King?
The aegis?
Some mechanism of refracted light.
The wings? Some new aerial contrivance
A luckier Daedalus may have invented.
The Greeks are scientists unequalled, bold
Experimenters, happy in invention.
Nothing's incredible that they devise,
And this man, Polydaon, is a Greek.
Have it your way. Say he was merely man!
How do we profit by his blood?
O marvellous!
Thou hesitate to kill! thou seek for reasons!
Is not blood always blood? I could not forfeit
My right to marry young Andromeda;
She is my claim to Syria. Leave something, priest,
To fortune, but be ready for her coming
And grasp ere she escape. The old way's best;
Excite the commons, woo their thunderer,
That plausible republican. Iolaus
Once ended, by right of fair Andromeda
I'll save and wear the crown. Priest, over Syria
And all my Tyrians thou shalt be the one prelate,
Should all go well.
All shall go well, King Phineus.
A room in the women's apartments of the palace.
Andromeda, Diomede, Praxilla.
My brother lives then?
Thanks to Tyre, it seems.
Thanks to the wolf who means to eat him later.
You'll lose your tongue some morning; rule it, girl.
These kings, these politicians, these high masters!
These wise blind men! We slaves have eyes at least
To look beyond transparency.
Because
We stand outside the heated game unmoved
By interests, fears and passions.
He is a wolf, for I have seen his teeth.
Yet must you marry him, my little princess.
What, to be torn in pieces by the teeth?
I think the gods will not allow this marriage.
I know not what the gods may do: be sure,
I'll not allow it.
Fie, Andromeda!
You must obey your parents: 'tis not right,
This wilfulness. Why, you're a child! you think
You can oppose the will of mighty monarchs?
Yes, Praxilla?
And if my father bade me take a knife
And cut my face and limbs and stab my eyes,
Must I do that?
Where are you with your wild fancies?
Your father would not bid you do such things.
Because they'd hurt me?
Yes.
It hurts me more
To marry Phineus.
O you sly logic-splitter!
You dialectician, you sunny-curled small sophist
Chop logic with your father. I'm tired of you.
Father, I have been waiting for you.
What! you?
I'll not believe it. You? (caressing her) My rosy Syrian!
My five-foot lady! My small queen of Tyre!
Yes, you are tired of playing with the ball.
Two kisses for you.
Oh, now I understand.
You dancing rogue, you're not so free with kisses:
I have to pay for them, small cormorant.
What is it now? a talking Tyrian doll?
Or a strong wooden horse with silken wings
To fly up to the gold rims of the moon?
I will not kiss you if you talk like that.
I am a woman now. As if I wanted
Such nonsense, father!
Oh, you're a woman now?
Then 'tis a robe from Cos, sandals fur-lined
Or belt all silver. Young diplomatist,
I know you. You keep these rippling showers of gold
Upon your head to buy your wishes with.
Therefore you packed your small red lips with honey.
Well, usurer, what's the price you want?
I want, —
But, father, will you give me what I want?
I'ld give you the bright sun from heaven for plaything
To make you happy, girl Andromeda.
I want the Babylonians who were wrecked
In the great ship today, to be my slaves,
Father.
Was ever such a perverse witch?
To ask the only thing I cannot give!
Can I not have them, father?
They are Poseidon's.
Oh then you love Poseidon more than me!
Fie, child! the mighty gods
Are masters of the earth and sea and heavens,
And all that is, is theirs. We are their stewards.
But what is once restored into their hands
Is thenceforth holy: he who even gazes
With greedy eye upon divine possessions,
Is guilty in Heaven's sight and may awake
A dreadful wrath. These men Andromeda
Must bleed upon the altar of the God.
Speak not of them again: they are devoted.
Is he a god who eats the flesh of men?
O hush, blasphemer!
Father, give command,
To have Praxilla here boiled for my breakfast.
Praxilla!
'Tis thus
She talks. Oh but it gives me a shivering fever
Sometimes to hear her.
What mean you, dread gods?
Purpose you then the ruin of my house
Preparing in my children the offences
That must excuse your wrath? Andromeda,
My little daughter, speak not like this again,
I charge you, no, nor think it. The mighty gods
Dwell far above the laws that govern men
And are not to be mapped by mortal judgments.
It is Poseidon's will these men should die
Upon his altar. 'Tis not to be questioned.
It shall be questioned.
Let your God go hungry.
I am amazed! Did you not hear me, child?
On the third day from now these men shall die.
The same high evening ties you fast with nuptials
To Phineus, who shall take you home to Tyre.
On Tyre let the wrath fall, if it must come.
Father, you'll understand this once for all, —
I will not let the Babylonians die,
I will not marry Phineus.
Oh, you will not?
Here is a queen, of Tyre and all the world;
How mutinous — majestically this smallness
Divulges her decrees, making the most
Of her five feet of gold and cream and roses!
And why will you not marry Phineus, rebel?
He does not please me.
School your likings, rebel.
It is most needful Syria mate with Tyre.
Why, father, if you gave me a toy, you'ld ask
What toy I like! If you gave me a robe
Or vase, you would consult my taste in these!
Must I marry any cold-eyed crafty husband
I do not like?
You do not like! You do not like!
Thou silly child, must the high policy
Of Princes then be governed by thy likings?
'Tis policy, 'tis kingly policy
That made this needful marriage, and it shall not
For your spoilt childish likings be unmade.
What, you look sullen? what, you frown, virago?
Look, if you mutiny, I'll have you whipped.
You would not dare.
Not dare!
Of course you would not.
You are spoiled,
You are spoiled! Your mother spoils you, you wilful sunbeam.
Come, you provoking minx, you'll marry Phineus?
I will not, father. If I must marry, then
I'll marry my bright sungod! and none else
In the wide world.
Shall I not send an envoy to Olympus
And call the Thunderer here to marry you?
It is not that she means;
She speaks of the bright youth her brother rescued.
Since she has heard of him, no meaner talk
Is on her lips.
Who is this radiant coxcomb?
Whence did he come to set my Syria in a whirl?
For him my son's in peril of his life,
For him my daughter will not marry Tyre.
Oh, Polydaon's right. He must be killed
Before he does more mischief. Andromeda,
On the third day you marry Tyrian Phineus.
That was a valiant shot timed to a most discreet-departure.
Parthian tactics are best when we deal with mutinous daughters.
Andromeda, you will obey your father?
You are not in my counsels. You're too faithful.
Virtuous and wise, and virtuously you would
Betray me. There is a thing full-grown in me
That you shall only know by the result.
Diomede, come; for I need help not counsel.
What means she now! Her whims are as endless as the tossing of leaves in a wind. But you will find out and tell me, Diomede.
I will find out certainly, but as to telling, that is as it shall please me — and my little mistress.
You shall be whipped.
Pish!
The child is spoiled herself and she spoils her servants. There is no managing any of them.
An orchard garden in Syria by a river-bank: the corner of a cottage in the background.
O the sun in the reeds and willows!
O the sun with the leaves at play!
Who would waste the warm sunlight?
And for weeping there's the night.
Yes, willows and the reeds! and the bright sun
Stays with the ripples talking quietly.
And there, Cydone, look! how the fish leap
To catch at sunbeams. Sing yet again, Cydone.
O what use have your foolish tears?
What will you do with your hopes and fears?
They but waste the sweet sunlight.
Look! morn opens: look how bright
The world appears!
O you Cydone in the sweet sunlight!
You talk like Iolaus.
Come, here's your crown. I'll set it where 'tis due.
Crowns are too heavy, dear.
Sunlight was better.
'Tis a light crown of love I put upon you,
My brother Perseus.
Love! but love is heavy.
No, love is light. I put light love upon you,
Because I love you and you love Iolaus.
I love you because you love Iolaus,
And love the world that loves my Iolaus,
Iolaus my world and all thy world.
Only for Iolaus. Happy Cydone,
Who can lie here and babble to the river.
All day of love and light and Iolaus,
If't could last! But tears are in the world
And must some day be wept.
Why must they, Perseus?
When Iolaus becomes King in Syria
And comes no more, what will you do, Cydone?
Why, I will go to him.
And if perhaps,
He should not know you?
Then it will be night.
A bright philosophy,
But with the tears behind. Hellas, thou livest
In thy small world of radiant white perfection
With eye averted from the night beyond,
The night immense, unfathomed. But I have seen
Snow-regions monstrous underneath the moon.
And Gorgon caverns dim. Ah well, the world
Is bright around me and the quick lusty breeze
Of strong adventure wafts my bright-winged sandals
O'er mountains and o'er seas, and Herpe's with me,
My sword of sharpness.
Your sword, my brother Perseus?
But it is lulled to sleep in scarlet roses
By the winged sandals watched. Can they really
Lift you into the sky?
They can, Cydone.
What's in the wallet locked so carefully?
I would have opened it and seen, but could not.
'Tis well thou didst not. For thy breathing limbs
Would in a moment have been charmed to stone
And these smooth locks grown rigid and stiffened, O Cydone,
Thy happy heart would never more have throbbed
To Iolaus' kiss.
What monster's there?
It is the Gorgon's head who lived in night.
Snake-tresses frame its horror of deadly beauty
That turns the gazer into marble.
Ugh!
Why do you keep such dreadful things about you?
Why, are there none who are better turned to stone
Than living?
O yes, the priest of the dark shrine
Who hates my love. Fix him to frowning grimness
In innocent marble. (Listening) It is Iolaus!
I know his footfall, muffled in the green.
Perseus, my friend, —
Thou art my human sun.
Come, shine upon me; let thy face of beauty
Become a near delight, my arm, fair youth, possess thee.
I am a warrant-bearer to you, friend.
On what arrest?
For running from the knife
A debt that must be paid.
They'll not be baulked
Their dues of blood, their strict account of hearts;
Or mine or thine they'll have to crown their altars.
Why, do but make thy tender breast the altar
And I'll not grudge my heart, sweet Iolaus.
Poseidon's dark-browed priest,
As gloomy as the den in which he lairs,
Who hopes to gather Syria in his hands
Upon a priestly pretext.
Change him, Perseus,
Into black stone!
Oh, hard and black as his own mood!
He has a stony heart much better housed
In limbs of stone than a kind human body
Who would hurt thee, my Iolaus.
He'ld hurt
And find a curious pleasure. If it were even
My sister sunbeam, my Andromeda,
He'ld carve her soft white breast as readily
As any slave's or murderer's.
Andromeda!
It is a name that murmurs to the heart.
Of strength and sweetness,
Three days you are given to prove yourself a god!
You failing, 'tis my bosom pays the debt.
Turn them to stone, to stone!
Thy father bids this?
He dare not baulk this dangerous priest.
Ah, dare not!
Yes, there are fathers too who love their lives
And not their children: earth has known of such.
There was a father like this once in Argos!
Blame not the King too much.
Turn him to stone,
To stone!
Hush, hush, Cydone!
Stone, hard stone!
I'll whip thee, shrew, with rose-briars.
Will you promise
To kiss the blood away? Then I'll offend
Daily, on purpose.
Love's rose-briars, sweet Cydone,
Inflict no wounds.
Oh yes, they bleed within.
The brow of Perseus grows darkness!
Rise,
And be my guide. Where is this temple and priest?
The temple now?
Soonest is always best
When noble deeds are to be done.
What deed?
I will release the men of Babylon
From their grim blood-feast. Let them howl for victims.
It will incense them more.
Me they have incensed
With their fierce crafty fury. If they must give
To their dire god, let them at least fulfil
With solemn decency their fearful rites.
But since they bring in politic rage and turn
Their barbarous rite into a trade of murder,
Nor rite nor temple be respected more.
Must they have victims? Let them take and slay
Perseus alone. I shall rejoice to know
That so much strength and boldness dwells in men
Who are mortal.
Men thou needst not fear; but, Perseus,
Poseidon's wrath will wake, whose lightest motion
Is deadly.
Mine is not harmless.
Against gods
What can a mortal's anger do?
We'll talk
With those pale merchants. Wait for me; I bring
Herpe my sword.
The wallet, Perseus! leave not the dear wallet!
Perseus goes out towards the cottage.
My queen, have I your leave?
Give me a kiss
That I may spend the hours remembering it
Till you return.
I fear to ask for more. You're such a miser.
You rose-lipped slanderer! there! Had I the time
I would disprove you, smothering you with what
You pray for.
Come soon.
I'll watch the sun go down.
In your dark night of tresses.
Come.
I am ready.
Stone, brother Perseus, make them stone for ever.
Or a stony heart and this,
Which of these two wilt thou crave?
One or other thou shalt have.”
Which is flesh and which is stone.
Love, thy heart of stone! it quakes.
Sweet, thy fair cold limbs! love takes
With this warm and rosy trembling.
Where is now thy coy dissembling?
Heart and limbs I here escheat
For that fraudulent deceit”
“And will not marble even grow soft,
Kissed so warmly and so oft?”
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