Andromeda, Diomede.
SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part One
The women's apartments of the Palace.
Andromeda, Diomede.
All's ready, let us go.
Andromeda,
My little mistress whom I love, let me
Beseech you by that love, do not attempt it.
Oh, this is no such pretty wilfulness
As all men love to smile at and to punish
With tenderness and chidings. It is a crime
Full of impiety, a deed of danger
That venturous and iron spirits would be aghast
To dream of. You think because you are a child,
You will be pardoned, because you are a princess
No hand will dare to punish you. You do not know
Men's hearts. They will not pause to pity you,
They will not spare. The people in its rage
Will tear us both to pieces, limb from limb,
With blows and fury, roaring round like tigers.
Will you expose yourself to that grim handling
Who cry out at the smallest touch of pain?
Do not delay me on the brink of action.
You have said these things before.
You shall not do it.
So you expose me
To danger merely and break the oath you swore;
For I must do it then unhelped.
I'll tell
Your mother, child, and then you cannot go.
I shall die then on the third day from this.
What! you will kill yourself, and for two strangers
You never saw? You are no human maiden
But something far outside mortality,
Princess, if you do this.
I shall not need.
You threaten me with the fierce people's tearings,
And shall I not be torn when I behold
My fellows' piteous hearts plucked from their bosoms
Between their anguished shrieks? I shall fall dead
With horror and with pity at your feet:
Then you'll repent this cruelty.
Child, child!
Hush, I will go with you. If I must die,
I'll die.
Have I not loved you, Diomede?
Have I not taken your stripes upon myself,
Claiming your dear offences?
Have I not lain 
Upon your breast, stealing from my own bed
At night, and kissed your bosom and your hands
For very love of you? And I had thought
You loved me: but you do not care at last
Whether I live or die.
I'll go with you. You shall not die alone,
If you are bent on dying. I'll put on
My sandals and be with you in a moment.
Go, little princess. I am with you; go.
O you poor shuddering men, my human fellows,
Horribly bound beneath the grisly knife
You feel already groping for your hearts,
Pardon me each long moment that you wrestle
With grim anticipation. O, and you,
If there is any god in the deaf skies
That pities men or helps them, O protect me!
But if you are inexorably unmoved
And punish pity, I, Andromeda,
Who am a woman on this earth, will help
My brothers. Then, if you must punish me,
Strike home. You should have given me no heart;
It is too late now to forbid it feeling.
She is going out. Athene appears.
What is this light, this glory? who art thou,
O beautiful marble face amid the lightnings?
My heart faints with delight, my body trembles,
Intolerable ecstasy beats in my veins;
I am oppressed and tortured with thy beauty.
I am Athene. 
We hear far off in Syria.
I am she
Who helps and has compassion on struggling mortals.
Do not deceive me! I will kiss thy feet.
Lift up thy head,
My servant.
Thou art! there are not only void
Azure and cold inexorable laws.
Stand up, O daughter of Cassiope.
Wilt thou then help these men of Babylonia,
My mortals whom I love?
I help myself,
When I help these.
To thee alone I gave
This knowledge. O virgin, O Andromeda,
It reached thee through that large and noble heart
Of woman beating in a little child.
But dost thou know that thy reward shall be
Betrayal and fierce hatred? God and man
Shall league in wrath to kill and torture thee 
Mid dire revilings.
My reward shall be
To cool this anguish of pity in my heart
And be at peace: if dead, O still at peace!
Thou fear'st not then? They will expose thee, child,
To slaughter by the monsters of the deep
Who shall come forth to tear thy limbs.
Beyond too
Shall I be hated, in that other world?
Perhaps.
Wilt thou love me?
Thou art my child.
O mother, O Athene, let me go.
They linger in anticipated pangs.
Go, child. I shall be near invisibly.
She disappears. Andromeda stands with clasped
hands straining her eyes as if into infinity.
You are not gone as yet? what is this, princess? 
What is this light around you! How you are altered,
Andromeda!
Diomede, let us go.
In the Temple of Poseidon.
Cireas.
I am done with thee, Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-slayer, ship-breaker, earth-shaker, lord of the waters! Never was faithful service so dirtily rewarded. In all these years not a drachma, not an obolus, not even a false coin for solace. And when thou hadst mocked me with hope, when a Prince had promised me all my findings, puttest thou me off with two pauperized merchants of Babylon? What, thou takest thy loud ravenous glut of the treasures that should have been mine and roarest derision at me with thy hundred-voiced laughters? Am I a sponge to suck up these insults? No! I am only moderately porous. I will break thy treasury, Poseidon, and I will run. Think not either to send thy sea-griffins after me. For I will live on the top of Lebanon, and thy monsters, when they come for me, shall snort and grin and gasp for breath and return to thee baffled and asthmatic.
As he talks Iolaus and Perseus enter.
What, Cireas, wilt thou run? I'll give thee gold
To wing thy shoes, if thou wilt do my bidding.
I am overheard! I am undone! I am crucified! I am disembowelled!
Be tranquil, Cireas, fool, I come to help thee.
Do you indeed!
I see, they have made you a god, for you know men's minds.
But could old father Zeus find your newborn 
godhead no better work than to help thieves and give wings to runaways?
Will you indeed help me, god Iolaus?
I can steal then under thy welcome protection?
I can borrow Poseidon's savings and run?
Steal not: thou shalt have gold enough to buy
Thy liberty and farms and slaves and cattle.
Prince, art thou under a vow of liberality? or being about to die, wilt thou distribute thy goods and chattels to deserving dishonesty? Do not mock me, for if thou raise hopes again in me and break them, I can only hang myself.
I mock thee not, thou shalt have glut of riches.
What must I do? I'ld give thee nose and ears
For farms and freedom.
Wherefore dost thou bribe
This slave to undo a bond my sword unties?
I shrink from violence in the grim god's temple.
Zeus, art thou there with thy feathers and phosphorus?
I pray thee, my good bright darling Zeus, do not come in the way of my earnings.
Do not be so cantankerously virtuous, do not be so damnably economical.
Good Zeus, I adjure thee by thy foot-plumes. 
Cireas, wilt thou bring forth the wretched captives
Who wait the butcher Polydaon's knife
With groanings? we would talk with them. Wilt thou?
Will I? Will I? I would do any bad turn to that scanty-hearted rampageous old ship-swallower there. I would do it for nothing, and for so much gold will I not?
And thou must shut thine eyes.
Eyes! I will shut mouth and nose and ears too, nor ask for one penny extra.
Dost thou not fear?
Oh, the blue-haired old bogy there? I have lived eighteen years in this temple and seen nothing of him but ivory and sapphires. I begin to think he cannot breathe out of water; no doubt, he is some kind of fish and walks on the point of his tail.
Enough, bring forth the Babylonian captives.
I run, Zeus, I run: but keep thy phosphorus lit and handy against Polydaon's return unasked for and untrumpeted.
O thou grim calmness imaged like a man 
That frown'st above the altar! dire Poseidon!
Art thou that god indeed who smooths the sea
With one finger, and when it is thy will,
Rufflest the oceans with thy casual breathing?
Art thou not rather, lord, some murderous
And red imagination of this people,
The shadow of a soul that dreamed of blood
And took this dimness? If thou art Poseidon,
The son of Cronos, I am Cronos' grandchild,
Perseus, and in my soul Athene moves
With lightnings.
I hear the sound of dragging chains.
Cireas returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas.
Smerdas and thou, Tyrnaus, once again
We meet.
Save me, yet save me.
If thou art worth it,
I may.
Thou shalt have gold. I am well worth it.
I'll empty Babylonia of its riches
Into thy wallet.
Has terror made thee mad?
Refrain from speech!
Thine eyes are calm, Tyrnaus.
I have composed my soul to my sad fortunes.
Yet wherefore sad? Fate has dealt largely with me.
I have been thrice shipwrecked, twice misled in deserts,
Wounded six times in battle with wild men
For life and treasure. I have outspent kings:
I have lost fortunes and amassed them: princes
Have been my debtors, kingdoms lost and won
By lack or having of a petty fraction
Of my rich incomings: and now Fate gives me
This tragic, not inglorious death: I am
The banquet of a god. It fits, it fits,
And I repine not.
But will these help, Tyrnaus,
To pass the chill eternity of Hades?
This memory of glorious breathing life,
Will it alleviate the endless silence?
But there are lives beyond, and we meanwhile
Move delicately amid aerial things
Until the green earth wants us.
Perseus (shearing his chains with a touch of his sword)
Of the green earth take all thy frank desire,
Merchant: the sunlight would be loth to lose thee.
O radiant helpful youth! O son of splendour!
Thou livest, but in chains,
Smerdas.
But thy good sword will quickly shear them.
Thou wilt give me all Babylonia holds
Of riches for reward?
More, more, much more!
But thou must go to Babylon to fetch it.
Then what security have I of payment?
Keep good Tyrnaus here, my almost brother.
I will come back and give thee gold, much gold.
You'ld leave him here? in danger? with the knife
Searching for him and grim Poseidon angry?
What danger, when he is with thee, O youth,
Strong radiant youth?
Yourself then stay with me,
And he shall bring the ransom from Chaldea.
Here? here? Oh God! they'll seize me yet again
And cut my heart out. Let me go, dear youth,
Oh, let me go; I'll give thee double gold.
Thou sordid treacherous thing of fears, I'll not
Venture for such small gain as the poor soul
Thou holdest, nor drive with danger losing bargains.
Oh, do not jest! it is not good to jest
With death and horror.
I jest not.
Oh God! thou dost.
Is't not a woman's voice?
Withdraw into the shadow: let our swords
Be out against surprise. Hither, Tyrnaus.
Cireas! where are you, Cireas? It is I.
It is the little palace scamp, Diomede.
Plague take her! How she fluttered the heart in me!
Say nothing of us, merchant, or thou diest.
Iolaus, Perseus and Tyrnaus withdraw into the dimness
of the Temple.
Andromeda and Diomede enter.
Princess Andromeda!
Iolaus' rosy sister! O child goddess
Dropped recently from heaven! Its light is still
Upon thy face, thou marvel!
My little sister
In these grim precincts, who so feared their shadows!
Cireas, my servant Diomede means
To tell you of some bargain. Will you walk yonder?
Cireas and Diomede walk apart talking.
Art thou, as these chains say, the mournful victim
Our savage billows spared and men would murder?
But was there not another? Have they brought thee
From thy sad prison to the shrine alone?
He, — he, —
Has terror so possessed thy tongue,
It cannot do its office? Oh, be comforted.
Although red horror has its grasp on thee,
I dare to tell thee there is hope.
What hope?
Ah heaven! what hope! I feel the knife even now
Hacking my bosom. If thou bring'st me hope,
I'll know thee for a goddess and adore thee.
Be comforted: I bring thee more than hope,
Cireas!
You'll give me chains? you'll give me jewels?
All of my own that I can steal for you.
Steal boldly, O honey-sweet image of a thief, steal and fear not. I rose for good luck after all this excellent morning! O Poseidon, had I known there was more to be pocketed in thy disservice than in thy service, would I have misspent these eighteen barren years?
Undo this miserable captive's bonds.
What! I shall be allowed to live! Is't true?
No, I'll undo them, Cireas; I shall feel
I freed him. Is there so much then to unlink?
And bind and slay their brothers!
'Tis not a dream,
The horror was the dream. She smiles on me
A wonderful glad smile of joy and kindness,
Making a sunshine. Oh, be quicker, quicker.
Let me escape this hell where I have eaten
And drunk of terror and have slept with death.
Are you so careless of the friend who shared
The tears and danger? Where is he? Cireas!
O thou young goddess with the smile! Behold him,
Tyrnaus the Chaldean.
Andromeda (dropping the chain which binds Smerdas)
Maiden, art thou vexed
To see me unbound?
I grudge your rescuer the happy task
Heaven meant for me of loosening your chains.
It would have been such joy to feel the cold
Hard irons drop apart between my fingers!
A god as radiant as thyself,
Thou merciful sweetness.
Had he not a look
Like the Olympian's? Was he not bright like Hermes
Or Phoebus?
He was indeed. Thou know'st him then?
In dreams I have met him.
He was here but now? 
He has withdrawn into the shadow, virgin.
Why do you leave me bound, and talk, and talk,
As if Death had not still his fingers on me?
Forgive me! Tyrnaus, did that radiant helper
Who clove thy chains, forget to help this poor
Pale trembling man?
Because he showed too much
The sordid fear that pities only itself,
He left him to his fate.
Alas, poor human man!
Why, we have all so many sins to answer,
It would be hard to have cold justice dealt us.
We should be kindly to each other's faults
Remembering our own. Is't not enough
To see a face in tears and heal the sorrow,
Or must we weigh whether the face is fair
Or ugly? I think that even a snake in pain
Would tempt me to its succour, though I knew
That afterwards 'twould bite me! But he is a god
Perhaps who did this and his spotless radiance
Abhors the tarnish of our frailer natures.
Oh, I am free! I fall and kiss thy robe,
O goddess, O deliverer.
You must
Go quickly from this place. There is a cave
Near to those unkind rocks where you were shipwrecked,
A stone-throw up the cliff. We found it there
Climbing and playing, reckless of our limbs
In the sweet joy of sunshine, breeze and movement,
When we were children, I and Diomede.
None else will dream of it. There have I stored
Enough of food and water. Closely lurk
Behind its curtains of fantastic stone:
Venture not forth, though your hearts pine for sunlight,
Or Death may take you back into his grip.
When hot pursuit and search have been tired out,
I'll find you golden wings will carry you
To your Chaldea.
Can you not find out divers
Who'll rescue our merchandise from the sunk rocks
Where it is prisoned?
You have escaped grim murder,
Yet dream of nothing but your paltry gems!
You will call back Heaven's anger on our heads.
We cannot beg our way to far Chaldea.
Diving is dangerous there: I will not risk
Men's lives for money. I promised Cireas what I have,
And yet you shall not go unfurnished home.
I'll beg a sum from my brother Iolaus
Will help you to Chaldea.
O my dear riches!
Must you lie whelmed beneath the Syrian surge
Uncared for?
Take them to the cave. Show Cireas
The hidden mouth. I'll loiter and expect you
Under the hill-side, where sweet water plashes
From the grey fountain's head, our fountain. Merchants, go;
Athene guard you!
Not before I kneel
And touch thy feet with reverent humble hands,
O human merciful divinity,
Who by thy own sweet spirit moved, unasked,
Not knowing us, cam'st from thy safe warm chamber
Here where Death broods grim-visaged in his home,
To save two unseen, unloved, alien strangers,
And being a woman feared not urgent death,
And being a child shook not before God's darkness
And that insistent horror of a world
O'ershadowing ours. O surely in these regions
Where thou wert born, pure-eyed Andromeda,
There shall be some divine epiphany
Of calm sweet-hearted pity for the world,
And harsher gods shall fade into their Hades.
You prattle, and at any moment, comes
The dreadful priest with clutch upon my shoulder.
Come! come! you, slave-girl, lead the way, accursèd!
Chide not my servant, Babylonian.
Go, Diomede; darkness like a lid
Will soon shut down upon the rugged beach
And they may stumble as they walk. Go, Cireas.
followed by the merchants.
Alone I stand before thee, grim Poseidon,
Here in thy darkness, with thy altar near
That keeps fierce memory of tortured groans
And human shrieks of victims, and, unforced,
I yet pollute my soul with thy bloody nearness
To tell thee that I hate, contemn, defy thee.
I am no more than a brief living woman,
Yet am I more divine than thou, for I
Can pity. I have torn thy destined prey
From thy red jaws. They say thou dost avenge
Fearfully insult. Avenge thyself, Poseidon.
She goes out: Perseus and Iolaus come forward.
Thou art the mate for me, Andromeda!
Now, now I know wherefore my eager sandals
Bore me resistlessly to thee and Syria.
This was Andromeda and not Andromeda,
I never saw her woman till this hour.
Knew you so ill the child you loved so well,
Iolaus?
Sometimes we know them least
Whom most we love and constantly consort with.
How daintily she moved as if a hand
She loved were on her curls and she afraid
Of startling the sweet guest!
O Perseus, Perseus!
She has defied a strong and dreadful god,
And dreadfully he will avenge himself.
Iolaus, friend, I think not quite at random
Athene led me to these happy shores
That bore such beautiful twin heads for me
Sun-curled, Andromeda and Iolaus,
That I might see their beauty marred with death
By cunning priests and blood-stained gods. Fear not
The event. I bear Athene's sword of sharpness.
Darkness. The Temple of Poseidon.
Cireas! Why, Cireas! Cireas! Knave, I call you!
Is the rogue drunk or sleeps? Cireas! you, Cireas!
My voice comes echoing from the hollow shrine
To tell me of solitude. Where is this drunkard?
A dreadful thing it is to stand alone
In this weird temple. Forty years of use
Have not accustomed me to its mute threatening.
It seems to me as if dead victims moved
With awful faces all about this stone
Invisibly here palpable. And Ocean
Groans ever like a wounded god aloud
Against our rocky base, his voice at night
Weirdly insistent. I will go and talk
With the Chaldeans in their chains: better
Their pleasing groans and curses than the hush.
comes back, disordered.
Wake, sleeping Syria, wake. Thou art violated,
Thy heart cut out: thou art outraged Syria, outraged,
Thy harvests and thy safety and thy sons
Already murdered! O hideous sacrilege!
Who can have dared this crime? Could the slave Cireas
Have ventured thus? O, no, it is the proud
God-hating son of Cepheus, Iolaus,
And that swift stranger borne through impious air
To upheave the bases of our old religion.
They have rescued the Chaldeans. Cireas lies
Murdered perhaps on the sound-haunted cliffs
Who would have checked their crime. I'll strike the gong
That only tolls when dread calamity
Strides upon Syria.
Wake, doomed people, wake.
He rushes out. A gong sounds for
some moments. It is silent and he returns,
still more disordered.
Wake! Wake! Do you not hear Poseidon raging
Beneath the cliffs with tiger-throated menace?
Do you not hear his feet upon the boulders
Sounding, a thunderous report of peril,
As he comes roaring up his stony ramparts
To slay you? Ah, the city wakes. I hear
A surge confused of hurrying, cries and tumult.
What is this darkness moving on me? Gods!
Where is the image? Whose is this awful godhead?
The shadow of Poseidon appears, vague
and alarming at first, then distinct and
terrible in the darkness.
My victims, Polydaon, give me my victims.
It was not I, it was not I, but others.
My victims, Polydaon, give me my victims.
O dire offended god, not upon me
Fall thy loud scourges! I am innocent.
How art thou innocent, when the Chaldeans
Escape? Give me my victims, Polydaon.
I know not how they fled nor who released them.
Gnash not thy blood-stained teeth on me, O Lord,
Nor slay me with those glaring eyes. Thy voice
Thunders, a hollow terror, through my soul.
Hear me, unworthy priest. While thou art scheming
For thy own petty mortal aims abroad,
I am insulted in my temple, laughed at
By slaves, by children done injurious wrong,
My victims snatched from underneath my roof
By any casual hand, my dreadful image
Looking deserted on: for none avenges.
Declare thy will, O Lord, it shall be done.
Therefore I will awake, I will arise,
And you shall know me for a god. This day
The loud Assyrians shall break shouting in
With angry hooves like a huge-riding flood
Upon this country. The pleasant land of Syria
Shall be dispeopled. Wolves shall howl in Damascus,
And Gaza and Euphrates bound a desert.
My resonant and cliff-o'ervaulting seas,
Black-cowled, with foaming tops thundering shall climb
Into your lofty seats of ease and wash them
Strangled into the valleys. From the deep
My ravening herds pastured by Amphitrite
Shall walk upon your roads, devour your maidens
And infants, tear your strong and armèd men
Helplessly shrieking like weak-wristed women,
Till all are dead. And thou, neglectful priest,
Shalt go down living into Tartarus
Where knives fire-pointed shall disclose thy breast
And pluck thy still-renewing heart from thee
For ever: till the world cease shall be thy torments.
O dreadful Lord!
If thou wouldst shun the doom,
And keep my Syria safe, discover then
The rescuer of the Babylonian captives
And to the monsters of my deep expose
For a delicious banquet. Offer the heart
Of Iolaus here still warmly alive
And sobbing blood to leave his beautiful body;
Slaughter on his yet not inanimate bosom,
The hero for whose love he braved my rage,
And let the sacrilegious house of Cepheus
Be blotted from the light. Thy sordid aims
Put from thy heart: remember to be fearless.
I will inhabit thee, if thou deserve it.
Yes, Lord! shall not thy dreadful will be done?
Phineus enters and his Tyrians with torches.
Wherefore has the gong's ominous voice tonight
Affrighted Syria? Are you Polydaon
Who crouch here?
Who art thou?
Thine eyes roll round in a bright glaring horror
And rising up thou shak'st thy gloomy locks
As if they were a hungry lion's mane
Preparing for the leap.
Speak, Polydaon.
Yes, I shall speak, of sacrilege and blood,
Its terrible forfeit, and the wrath of Heaven.
Cepheus enters with Dercetes and Syrian
soldiers, Therops, Perissus and a throng
of Syrians; scores of torches.
What swift calamity, O Polydaon,
Has waked to clamorousness the fatal gong
At which all Syria trembles? What is this face
Thou showest like some grim accusing phantom's
In the torches' light? Wherefore rang'st thou the bell?
It rang the doom of thee and all thy house,
Cepheus.
My doom!
And 'tis well-staged too.
The victims are released,
The victims bound for terrible Poseidon.
Thou and thy blood are guilty.
Thou art mad!
'Tis thou and thy doomed race are seized with madness
Who with light hearts offend against Poseidon.
But they shall perish.
Thou and thy blood shall perish.
O, thou appal'st me. Wherefore rings out thy voice
Against me like a clamorous bell of doom
In the huge darkness?
Poseidon's self arose
In the dim night before me with a voice
As angry as the loud importunate surge
Denouncing thee. Thou and thy blood shall perish.
Cepheus, let search be made. Perhaps the victims
Have not fled far, and all may yet be saved.
Scour, captain, scour all Syria for the fugitives.
Dercetes and thy troop, down to the coast,
Scan every boulder: out, out, Meriones,
Callias, Oridamas and Pericarpus,
Ring in the country-side with cordons armed,
Enter each house, ransack most private chambers,
But find them.
out with their soldiers, the people
making way for them.
People of Syria, hearken, hearken!
Poseidon for this sacrilege arouses
The Assyrian from the land and from the sea
His waves and all their sharp-toothed monsters: your men
Shall be rent and disembowelled, your women ravished,
Butchered by foemen or by Ocean's dogs
Horribly eaten: what's left, the flood shall swallow.
Spare us, Poseidon, spare us, dread deity!
Would you be spared? Obey Poseidon, people.
Thou art our King, command us.
Bring the woman,
Chaldean Cassiopea, and her daughter.
Tell them that Syria's King commands them here.
Therops and others go out to do his bidding.
What mean you, priest?
Wherefore my queen and princess?
I do the will of terrible Poseidon.
Thou and thy blood shall perish.
Thou then art mad!
I thought this was a skilful play. Think'st thou
I will permit the young Andromeda,
My bride, to be mishandled or exposed
To the bloody chances of wild popular fury
In such a moment?
Phineus, I know not what thou wilt permit:
I know what terrible Poseidon wills.
Poseidon! thou gross superstitious fool,
Hast thou seen shadows in the night and took'st them
For angry gods?
Refrain from impious words,
Or else the doom shall take thee in its net.
Refrain thyself from impious deeds, or else
A hundred Tyrian blades shall search thy brain
To look for thy lost reason.
It may be, thou shalt have thy whole desire
By other means.
One of the fugitives is seized.
Where, where?
Creeping about the sea-kissed rocks we found him
Where the ship foundered, babbling greedily
Of his lost wealth, in cover of the darkness.
Now we shall know the impious hand. Tremble,
Tremble, King Cepheus.
No doubt it is my rash-brained Iolaus
Ruins us all.
Soldiers enter, driving in Smerdas.
I am lost and nothing now can save me.
Chaldean,
The choice is thine. Say, wilt thou save thy life
And see the green fields of thy land once more
And kiss thy wife and children?
You mock me, mock me!
No, man! thou shalt have freedom at a price
Or torture gratis.
Price? price? I'll give the price.
The names of those whose impious hands released thee:
Which if thou speak not, thou shalt die, not given
To the dire god, for he asks other victims,
But crushed with fearful tortures.
O kind Heaven!
Have mercy! Must I give her up,— that smile
Of sweetness and those kindly eyes, to death?
It is a dreadful choice!
I cannot do it.
It was a woman did this!
I will say no more.
I breathe again: it was not Iolaus.
Seize him and twist him into anguished knots!
Let every bone be crushed and every sinew
Wrenched and distorted, till each inch of flesh
Gives out its separate shriek.
O spare me, spare me:
I will tell all.
Speak truth and I will give thee
Bushels of gold and shipment to Chaldea.
Gold? Gold? Shall I have gold?
Thou shalt.
You would have taken on the beach, arrived,
And his the sword bit through my iron fetters.
Palter not!
Who was with him?
Thou shalt have gold.
Young Iolaus.
Alas!
Thus far is well.
Thou hast a shifty look about the eyes.
Thou spokest of a woman. Was't the Queen?
Hast thou told all? His face grows pale. To torment!
I will tell all. Swear then I shall have gold
And safety.
By grim Poseidon's head I swear.
O hard necessity! The fair child princess,
Andromeda, with her young slave-girl came,
She was my rescuer.
There is a deep silence of amazement.
I'll not believe this! could that gentle child
Devise and execute so huge a daring?
Thou liest: thou art part of some foul plot.
He has the accent of unwilling truth.
Phineus, she is death's bride, not thine. Wilt thou
Be best man in that dolorous wedding? Forbear
And wait Poseidon's will.
When it is mine to give thee.
The Queen arrives.
Remove the merchant.
The soldiers take Smerdas into the background,
Cassiopea enters with Andromeda and Diomede,
Nebassar and the Chaldean guard.
Keep ready hands upon your swords, Chaldeans.
What is this tumult? Wherefore are we called
At this dim hour and to this solemn place?
Com'st thou with foreign falchions, Cassiopea,
To brave the Syrian gods? Abandon her,
Chaldeans. 'Tis a doomed head your swords encompass.
Since when dost thou give thy commands in Syria
And sentence queens? My husband and thy King
Stands near thee; let him speak.
Why hidest thou thine eyes, monarch of Syria,
Sinking thy forehead like a common man
Unkingly? What grief o'ertakes thee?
You see he speaks not.
'Tis I command in Syria. Is't not so,
My people?
'Tis so.
Stand forth, Andromeda.
What would you with my child? I stand here for her.
She is accused of impious sacrilege,
And she must die.
Bring the Chaldean.
Oh, the merchant's seized
And all is known. Deny it, my sweet lady,
And we may yet be saved.
Oh poor, poor merchant!
Did I unloose thy bonds in vain?
Say nothing.
And why should I conceal it, Diomede?
What I had courage in my heart to do,
Surely I can have courage to avow.
But they will kill us both.
I am a princess.
Why should I lie? From fear? But I am not afraid.
Meanwhile the soldiers have brought Smerdas to the front.
Look, merchant. Say before all who rescued thee?
With that sad smile upon me. I am compelled.
Is this the slave-girl?
It is she.
This wretch
Lies at thy bidding. Put him to the question.
I'll not permit it.
Why man, it is the law. We'll not believe
Our little princess did the crime.
Syrians!
Look at the paltering priest. Do you not see
It is a plot, this man his instrument
Who lies so wildly? He'll not have him questioned.
No doubt 'twas he himself released the man, —
Who else could do it in this solemn temple
Where human footsteps fear to tread? He uses
The name of great Poseidon to conceal
His plottings. He would end the line of Cepheus
And reign in Syria.
This sounds probable.
Does he misuse Poseidon's name? unbind
Look how he pales, O people!
Is't thus that great Poseidon's herald looks
When charged with the god's fearful menaces?
He diets you with forgeries and fictions.
Let him be strangled!
This is a royal woman.
Well, let the merchant then be put to question.
Come and be tickled, merchant. I am the butcher.
Do you see my cleaver?
I will torture you kindly.
O help me, save me, lady Andromeda.
Oh, do not lay your cruel hands upon him.
Ah, child Andromeda.
You, little princess! Wherefore did you this?
Because I would not have their human hearts
Mercilessly uprooted for the bloody
Monster you worship as a god! because
I am capable of pain and so can feel
The pain of others! For which if you I love
Must kill me, do it. I alone am guilty.
Now, Cassiopea! You are silent, Queen.
Lo, Syrians, lo, my forgeries and fictions!
Lo, my vile plottings! Enough. Poseidon wills
That on the beach this criminal be bound
For monsters of the sea to rend in fragments,
And all the royal ancient blood of Syria
Must be poured richly forth to appease and cleanse.
Swords from the scabbard! gyre in your King from harm,
Chaldeans! Hew your way through all opposers!
Thou in my arms, my child Andromeda!
I'll keep my daughter safe upon my bosom
Against the world.
What dost thou, Babylonian?
To the palace,
My trusty countrymen!
Oppose them, soldiers!
They cheat the god of the crime-burdened heads
Doomed by his just resentment.
We are few:
And how shall we lay hands on royalty?
Nebassar, darest thou oppose the gods?
Out of my sword's way, priest! I do my duty.
Draw, King of Tyre!
'Tis not my quarrel, priest.
Nebassar and the Chaldeans with drawn swords
go out from the Temple, taking the King and
Queen, Andromeda and Diomede.
People of Syria, you have let them pass!
You fear not then the anger of Poseidon?
Would you have us spitted upon the Chaldean swords?
Mad priest, must we be broached like joints and tossed like pancakes?
We have no weapons.
Tomorrow we will go to the Palace and what must be done shall be done.
But 'tis not just that many should be slain for the crime of one and the house of Syria outrooted.
Follow me and observe my commands, brave aristocracy of the shop, gallant commoners of the lathe and anvil, follow Perissus.
I will lead you tonight to your soft downy beds and tomorrow to the Palace.
All the Syrians go out led by Therops and Perissus.
Thou hast done foolishly in this, O priest.
Hadst thou demanded the one needful head
Of Iolaus, it was easy: but now
The tender beauty of Andromeda
Compels remorse and the astonished people
Recoil from the bold waste of royal blood
Thou appointest them to spill. I see that zeal
And frantic superstition are bad plotters.
Henceforth I work for my sole hand, to pluck
My own good from the storms of civic trouble
This night prepares.
O terrible Poseidon,
Thyself avenge thyself! hurl on this people
The sea and the Assyrian. Where is the power
Thou said'st should tarry with me? I have failed.
He remains sunk in thought for a
while, then raises his head.
Tomorrow, Syrian? tomorrow is Poseidon's.
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Bande Mataram
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