SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part One
The countryside, high ground near the city of Cepheus.
A crowd of Syrians, men and women, running in terror, among
them Chabrias, Megas, Baltis, Pasithea, Morus, Gardas, Syrax.
Baltis (stopping and sinking down on her knees)
Ah, whither can we run where the offended
Poseidon shall not reach us.
Stop, countrymen;
Let's all die here together.
Let's stop and die.
Run, run! Poseidon's monsters howl behind.
O day of horror and of punishment!
Let us stay here; it is high ground, perhaps
The monster will not reach us.
I have seen the terror near, and yet I live.
It vomits fire for half a league.
It is 
As long as a sea-jutting promontory.
It has six monstrous legs.
Eight, eight; I saw it.
Chabrias, it caught thy strong son by the foot,
And dashed his head against a stone, that all
The brains were scattered.
Go back and join you in the monster's jaws.
It seized thy daughter, O Pasithea,
And tore her limbs apart, which it devoured
While yet the trunk lay screaming under its foot.
Oh God!
Lift her up, lift her up. Alas!
These sorrows may be ours.
I did not wake him when this news of horror
Plucked me from sleep. 
My wife and little daughter
Are in my cottage where perhaps the monster
Vomits his fiery breath against the door.
Let us go back, Damoetes.
I'll not go back for twenty thousand wives
Let us not go.
What noise is that?
Run, run, 'tis some new horror.
All are beginning to run. Therops enters.
Where will you run? Poseidon's wrath is near you
And over you and behind you and before you.
His monsters from the ooze ravage howling
Along our shores, and the indignant sea
Swelled to unnatural tumultuous mountains
Is climbing up the cliffs with spume and turmoil.
O let us run a hundred leagues and live.
Before you is another death.
Last night 
The Assyrians at three points came breaking in
Across the border and the frontier forces
Are slain. They torture, burn and violate:
Young girls and matrons, men and boys are butchered.
Salvation is not in your front and flight
Casts you from angry gods to men more ruthless.
I wonder not that you are silent, stunned
With fear: but will you listen, countrymen,
And I will show you a cure for these fierce evils.
Oh tell us, tell us, you shall be our king.
We'll set thy image by the great Poseidon's
And worship it.
What is the unexampled cause of wrath
Which whelms you with these horrors? Is't not the bold
Presumptuous line of Cepheus? Is't not your kings
Whose pride, swollen by your love and homage, Syrians,
Insults the gods, rescues Poseidon's victims
And with a sacrilegious levity
Exposes all your lives to death and woe?
There is the fount of all your misery, Syrians,
For this the horror eats you up, — your kings.
Away with them! throw them into the sea — let Poseidon swallow them!
But most I blame the fell Chaldean woman
Who rules you. What is this Cepheus but a puppet
Dressed up in royal seemings, pushed forth and danced
At her caprice?
Unhappy is the land 
That women rule, that country more unhappy
That is to heartless foreigners a prey.
But thou, O ill-starred Syria, two worst evils
Hast harboured in a single wickedness.
What cares the light Chaldean for your gods,
Your lives, your sons, your daughters? She lives at ease
Upon the revenues of your hard toil,
Depending on favourites, yes, on paramours, —
For why have women favourites but to ease
Their sensual longings? — and insults your deities.
Do you not think she rescued the Chaldeans
Because they were her countrymen, and used
Her daughter, young Andromeda, for tool
That her fair childish beauty might disarm
Wrath and suspicion? then, the crime unearthed,
Braved all and set her fierce Chaldeans' swords
Against the good priest Polydaon's heart, —
You did not hear that? — the good Polydaon
Who serves Poseidon with such zeal! Therefore
The god is angry: your wives, sisters, daughters,
Must suffer for Chaldean Cassiopea.
Let us seize her and kill, kill, kill, kill her!
Burn her!
Roast her!
Tear her into a million fragments.
But are they not our kings?
We must obey them. 
Wherefore must we obey them? Kings are men,
And they are set above their fellow-mortals
To serve us, friends, — not, surely, for our hurt!
Why should our sons and daughters bleed for them,
Syrians? Is not our blood as dear, as precious,
As human? Why should these kings, these men, go clad
In purple and in velvet while you toil
For little and are hungry and are naked.
True, true, true!
This is a wonderful man, this Therops. He has a brain, countrymen.
A brain! He is no cleverer than you or I, Morus.
I should think not, Damoetes!
We knew these things long ago and did not need wind-bag
Therops to tell us!
We have talked them over often, Damoetes.
We'll have no more kings, countrymen.
No kings, no kings!
Or Therops shall be king.
Yes, Therops king! Therops king!
Good king Lungs! Oh, let us make him king, Morus, — he will not pass wind in the market-place so often.
Poseidon is our king; we are his people.
Gods we must worship; why should we worship men
And set a heavenly crown on mortal weakness?
They have offended against great Poseidon,
They are guilty of a fearful sacrilege.
Kill them! let us appease Poseidon.
Worship Heaven's power, but bow before the king.
What need have we of kings? What are these kings?
They are the seed of gods.
Then, let them settle
Themselves their quarrel with their Olympian kindred.
Why should we suffer? Let Andromeda
Be exposed and Iolaus sacrificed;
Then shall Poseidon's wrath retire again
Into the continent of his vast billows.
If it must be so, let it come by award
Of quiet justice.
Who did the crime. Wherefore dost thou defend them?
Thou favourest then Poseidon's enemies?
Kill him too, kill Chabrias. Poseidon, great Poseidon! we are Poseidon's people.
Let him join his son and by the same road.
Beat his brains out — to see if he has any. Ho! ho! ho!
Let him alone: he is a fool. Here comes
Our zealous good kind priest, our Polydaon.
Polydaon! Polydaon! the good Polydaon! Save us, Polydaon!
Ah, do you call me now to save you? Last night
You did not save me when the foreign swords
Were near my heart.
Forgive us and protect.
You, lead us to the palace, be our chief. 
We'll have no kings: lead, you: on to the palace!
Poseidon shall be king, thou his vicegerent.
Therops at thy right hand!
Oh, you are sane now, being let blood by scourgings!
Unhurt had been much better. But Poseidon
Pardons and I will save.
Polydaon for ever, the good Polydaon, Poseidon's Viceroy!
Swear then to do Poseidon's will.
We swear!
Command and watch the effect!
Will not the tongue
Of Cassiopea once more change you, people?
We'll cut it out and feed her dogs with it. 
Be trailed through the city and upon the rocks,
As the god wills, flung naked to his monsters?
They shall!
Not one of them shall live.
Then come, my children.
But the beast? Will it not tear us on the road?
It will not hurt you who do Poseidon's will.
I am your safeguard; I will march in front.
To the palace, to the palace! We'll kill the Chaldeans, strangle Cepheus, tear the Queen to pieces.
In order, in good order, my sweet children.
The mob surges out following Polydaon
and Therops: only Damoetes, Chabrias, Baltis
and Pasithea are left.
Come, Chabrias, we'll have sport.
My dead son calls me.
He goes out in another direction.
Pasithea, rise and come: you'll see her killed
Who is the murderess of your daughter.
Let me
Stay here and die.
They go out, leading Pasithea.
Cydone's garden.
Cydone, Iolaus, Perseus.
Perseus, you did not turn him into stone?
You cruelty! must one go petrifying
One's fellows through the world? 'Twould not be decent.
He would have been so harmless as a statue!
The morning has broken over Syria and the sun
Mounts royally into his azure kingdom.
I feel a stir within me as if great things
Were now in motion and clear-eyed Athene
Urging me on to high and helpful deeds.
There is a grandiose tumult in the air,
A voice of gods and Titans locked in wrestle.
Ah, prince!
Diomede, what calamity?
Flee, flee, from Syria, save thyself.
From Syria!
Am I alone in peril? Then I'll sit
And wait.
Poseidon's monsters from the deep
Arise to tear us for our sin. The people
In fury, led by Polydaon, march
Upon the palace, crying, “Slay the King,
Butcher the Queen, and let Andromeda
And Iolaus die.” O my sweet playmate,
They swear they'll bind her naked to the rocks
Of the sea-beach for the grim monster's jaws
To tear and swallow.
My sword, my sword, Cydone!
Oh, go not to the fierce and bloody people!
Praxilla stole me out, hiding my face
In her grey mantle: I have outrun the wind
To warn you. Had the wild mob recognized me,
They would have torn me into countless pieces,
And will you venture near whose name they join
With death and cursings? Polydaon leads them.
Had he been only stone!
My sword!
Perseus goes out to the cottage.
You'll go?
What will you do alone against ten thousand?
To die is always easy. This canaille
I do not fear; it is a coward rabble.
But terror gives them fierceness: they are dangerous.
Keep Diomede for your service, love,
If I am killed; escape hence with your mother
To Gaza; she has gold: you may begin
A life as fair there. Sometimes remember me.
Diomede, will you comfort my dear mother?
Tell her I am quite safe and will be back
By nightfall. Hush! this in your ear, Diomede.
Escape with her under the veil of night,
For I shall not come back. Be you her daughter
And comfort her sad lonely age, Diomede.
What do you mean, Cydone?
Are you ready?
Us, sweet lunatic?
Often you've said that you and I are only one,
I shall know now if you mean it.
You shall not give
To the rude mob's ferocious violence
The beautiful body I have kissed so often.
No.
Leave this you shall not.
I do not know how you will stop me.
Shrew!
You shall be stopped by bonds. Here you'll remain
Tied to a tree-trunk by your wilful wrists
Till all is over.
I'll bring the tree and all and follow you.
Oh, will you, Hercules?
Forbid her not,
My Iolaus; no tress of her shall fall.
I have arisen and all your turbulent Syria
Shall know me for the son of Zeus.
Perseus,
Art thou indeed a god? What wilt thou do,
One against a whole people?
What way hast thou?
This is no hour to speak or plan, but to act.
A presence sits within my heart that sees
Each moment's need and finds the road to meet it.
Dread nothing; I am here to help and save.
I had almost forgotten; the might thou hast shown
Is a sufficient warrant.
I shall come back,
Diomede.
My grip is firm on Herpe,
Athene's aegis guards my wrist; herself
The strong, omnipotent and tranquil goddess
Governs my motions with her awful will.
Have trust in me. Borne on my bright-winged sandals
Invisibly I will attend your course
On the light breezes.
He goes out followed by Iolaus and Cydone.
I am too tired to follow,
Too daunted with their mad-beast howls. Here let me hide
Awaiting what event this war of gods
May bring to me and my sweet-hearted lady.
O my Andromeda! my little playmate!
She goes out towards the cottage weeping.
A room commanding the outer court of the palace.
Nebassar, Praxilla.
I have seen them from the roof; at least ten thousand
March through the streets. Do you not hear their rumour,
A horrid hum as of unnumbered hornets
That slowly nears us?
If they are so many,
It will be hard to save the princess.
Save her!
It is too late now to save anyone.
I fear so.
But never is too late to die
As loyal servants for the lords whose bread
We have eaten. At least we women of the household
Will show the way to you Chaldeans.
We are soldiers,
Praxilla, and need no guidance on a road
We daily tread in prospect. I'll bring my guards.
He goes out saluting Cassiopea who enters.
Swift Diomede must have reached by now,
Praxilla.
I hope so, madam.
She goes out to the inner apartments.
Then Iolaus
Is safe. My sad heart has at least that comfort.
O my Andromeda, my child Andromeda,
Thou wouldst not let me save thee. Hadst thou too gone,
I would have smiled when their fierce fingers rent me.
The mob is nearing; all my Syrian guards
Have fled; we cannot hope for safety now.
Then what is left but to set rapid fire
To the rafters and prevent on friendly swords
The rabble's outrage?
Was it for such a fate
Thou camest smiling from an emperor's palace,
O Cassiopea, Cassiopea!
For me
Grieve not.
O Lady, princess of Chaldea,
Pardon me who have brought thee to this doom.
Yet I meant well and thought that I did wisely:
But the gods wrest our careful policies
To their own ends until we stand appalled
Remembering what we meant to do and seeing
What has been done.
With no half soul I came
To share thy kingdom and thy joys; entirely
I came, to take the evil also with thee.
Is there no truth in our high-winging ideals?
My rule was mild as spring, kind as the zephyr:
It tempered justice with benevolence
And offered pardon to the rebel and sinner;
I showed mercy, the rare sign of gods and kings.
In this too difficult world, this too brief life
To serve the gods with virtue seemed the best.
A nation's happiness was my only care:
I made the people's love my throne's sure base
And dreamed the way I chose true, great, divine.
But the heavenly gods have other thoughts than man's;
Their awful aims transcend our human sight.
Another doom than I had hoped they gave.
A screened Necessity drives even the gods.
Over human lives it strides to unseen ends;
Our tragic failures are its stepping-stones.
My father lived calm, just, pitiless, austere,
As a stern god might sway a prostrate world:
Admired and feared, he died a mighty king.
My end is this abominable fate.
Another law than mercy's rules the earth.
If I had listened to thee, O Cassiopea,
Chance might have taken a fairer happier course.
Always thou saidst to me, “The people's love
Is a glimmer on quicksands in a gliding sea:
Today they are with thee, to-morrow turn elsewhere.
Wisdom, strength, policy alone are sure.”
I thought I better knew my Syrian folk.
Is this not my well-loved people at my door,
This tiger-hearted mob with bestial growl,
This cry for blood to drink, this roar of hate?
Always thou spok'st to me of the temple's power,
A growing danger menacing the State,
Its ambition's panther crouch and serpent pride
And cruel craft in a priest's sombre face:
I only saw the god and sacred priest.
To priest and god I am thrown a sacrifice.
The golden-mouthed orator of the market-place,
Therops, thou bad'st me fear and quell or win
Gaining his influence to my side. To me
He seemed a voice and nothing but a voice.
Too late I learn that human speech has power
To change men's hearts and turn the stream of Time.
Thy eyes could read in Phineus' scheming brain.
I only thought to buy the strength of Tyre
Offering my daughter as unwilling price.
He has planned my fall and watches my agony.
At every step I have been blind, have failed:
All was my error; all's lost and mine the fault.
Blame not thyself; what thou hadst to be, thou wert,
And never yet came help from vain remorse.
It is too late, too late. To die is left;
Fate and the gods concede us nothing more.
But strength to meet the doom is always ours.
In royal robes and crowned we will show ourselves
To our people and look in the eyes of death and fate.
The Chaldean guards enter with
Nebassar at their head.
O King, we come
To die with thee, the soldiers of Chaldea;
For all in Syria have abandoned thee.
I thank you, soldiers.
Poseidon, great Poseidon! we are Poseidon's people. In, in, in!
Kill the cuckold Cepheus, tear the harlot Cassiopea.
Voices of insolent outrage
Proclaim the heartless rabble. On the steps
Of our own palace we'll receive our subjects.
This, this becomes thee, monarch.
Soldiers, form
With serried points before these mighty sovereigns.
The mob surges in, Therops and Perissus at their
head, Polydaon a little behind, Damoetes, Morus
and the rest. Praxilla and others of the household
come running in.
On them! on them! Cut the Chaldeans to pieces!
Halt, people, halt: let there be no vain bloodshed
Cassiopea
Here is a tender-hearted demagogue!
Cepheus and Cassiopea, 'tis vain and heinous
To dally with your fate; it will only make you
More criminal before the majesty
Of the offended people.
Majesty!
An unwashed majesty and a wolf-throated!
Insolent woman, to thee I speak not. Cepheus, —
Use humbler terms. I am thy King as yet.
The last in Syria. Tell me, wilt thou give up
Thy children to the altar, and thyself
Surrender here with this Chaldean woman
For mercy or judgment to the assembled will
Of Syria.
A tearing mercy, a howling judgment!
Therops, why do you treat with these? Chaldeans!
And you, Praxilla! women of the household!
Bring out the abominable Andromeda
Who brought the woe on Syria. Why should you vainly
Be ripped and mangled?
Bring out Andromeda!
Bring out the harlot's daughter, bring her out!
Andromeda! Andromeda! Andromeda!
Bring out this vile Andromeda to die!
Andromeda enters from the inner Palace, followed
by slave-girls entreating and detaining her.
Wilt thou be wilful even to the end?
Alas, my child!
Mother, weep not for me. Perhaps my death
May save you; and 'tis good that I should die,
Not these poor innocent people. Against me
Their unjust god is wroth.
O my poor sunbeam!
Andromeda (advancing and showing herself to the people)
O people who have loved me, you have called me
And I am here.
How she shrinks back appalled!
God! What a many-throated howl of demons!
Their eyes glare death. These are not men and Syrians.
The fierce Poseidon has possessed their breasts
And breathed his awful blood-lust into all hearts
Deafening the voice of reason, slaying pity:
Poseidon's rage glares at us through these eyes,
It is his ocean roar that fills our streets.
Seize her! seize her! the child of wickedness!
Throw her to us! throw her to us! We will pick
The veins out of her body one by one.
Throw her to us! We will burn her bit by bit.
Yes, cook her alive; no, Damoetes? Ho, ho, ho!
She has killed our sons and daughters: kill her! kill her.
She is the child of her wicked mother: kill her!
Throw her to us! throw her to us!
We'll tear her here, and the furies shall tear her afterwards for ever in Hell.
Peace, people! she is not yours, she is Poseidon's.
Alas, why do you curse me? I am willing
To die for you. If I had known this morn
The monster's advent, I would have gone and met him
While you yet slept, and saved your poor fair children
Whose pangs have been my own. Had I died first,
I should not then have suffered. O my loved people,
You loved me too: when I went past your homes,
You blessed me always; often your girls and mothers
Would seize and bind me to their eager breasts
With close imprisonment, kiss on their doorways
And with a smiling soft reluctance leave.
O do not curse me now! I can bear all,
But not your curses.
Alack, my pretty lady!
She has rewarded
Your love by bringing death upon you, Syrians,
And now she tries to melt you by her tears.
Kill her, kill her! Cut the Chaldeans to pieces! We will have her!
O do not hurt her! She is like my child
Whom the fierce monster tore.
Unnatural mother!
Would you protect her who's cause your child was eaten?
Will killing her give back my child to me?
No, it will save the children of more mothers.
Gag up her puling mouth, the white-faced fool!
Tear, tear Andromeda! Seize her and tear her!
Let us only get at her with our teeth and fingers!
Use swords, Chaldeans.
Order, my children, order!
Chaldean, give us up Andromeda,
And save your King and Queen.
What, wilt thou spare them?
Thou wilt not give my child to him, Nebassar?
Queen, 'tis better one should die
For all.
I swear to thee, I will protect them.
Trust not his oaths, his false and murderous oaths.
He is a priest: if we believe him, nothing
We lose, something may gain.
What wilt thou do?
The people do not like it. See, they mutter.
Let me have first their daughter in my grip,
Be sure of the god's dearest victim. People,
I am Poseidon's priest and your true friend.
Leave all to Polydaon! the good priest knows what he is doing.
Soldiers, give up the Princess.
Shall she be only given to Poseidon?
Will you protect her from worse outrage?
I will.
Look! what a hideous triumph lights the eyes
Of that fierce man. He glares at her with greed
Like a wild beast of prey, and on his mouth
There is a cruel unclean foam. Nebassar,
O do not give her.
If there were any help!
Go forth, O princess, O Andromeda.
My child! my child!
Give me one kiss, my mother.
We shall yet meet, I think. My royal father,
Andromeda farewells you, whom you loved
And called your sunbeam. But the night receives me.
Alas!
How long will these farewells endure?
They are not needed: you shall meet presently
If Death's angels can collect your tattered pieces.
O savage Syrians, let my curses brood
Upon your land, an anguished mother's curse.
May the Assyrian come and flay you living,
Impale your sons, rip up your ravished daughters
Before your agonising eyes and make you feel,
Who drag my child from me to butcher her,
The horror that you do. I curse you, Syrians.
Hush, mother, mother! what they demand is just.
Lead back the King and Queen into the Palace,
Women. We too will from this sad surrender
Remove our eyes.
I will not go. Let them tear her
Before me: then surely Heaven will avenge me.
Come, Cassiopea, come: our death's delayed
By a few minutes. I will not see her slain.
Cepheus and Praxilla go in, forcibly leading Cassiopea;
they are followed by the slave-girls and then by Nebassar
and the Chaldeans: Andromeda is left alone on the steps.
Cries of the mob (surging forward)
Drag her, kill her, she is ours.
Therops and thou, Perissus, stand in front
And keep the people off, or they will tear her,
Defraud Poseidon.
Cheer up, my princess, come!
People of Syria,
Rob not Poseidon of his own! 'tis not the way
To turn his anger.
Right, right! leave her to Poseidon: out with her to the sea-monster.
Therops is always right.
We will have her first: we will dress his banquet for him: none shall say us nay.
Good; we will show Poseidon some excellent cookery. Ho, ho, ho!
No, no, no! To the rocks with her! Strip her, the fine dainty princess, and hang her up in chains on the cliff-face.
Strip her! Off with her broidered robe and her silken tunic! Why should she wear such, when my daughter carries only coarse woollen?
Curse the white child's face of thee: it has ruined Syria. Die, dog's daughter.
Is she to die only once who has killed so many of us? I say, tie her to one of these pillars and flog her till she drops.
That's right, skin her with whips: peel her for the monster, ho, ho, ho!
Leave her: Hell's tortures shall make the account even.
In order, children: let all be done in order.
She droops like a bruised flower beneath their curses,
And the tears lace her poor pale cheeks like frost
Glittering on snowdrops. I am sorry now
I had a hand in this.
You two have faces
Less cruel than the others. I am willing
To die, — oh, who would live to be so hated?
But do not let them shame or torture me.
Off! off! thick-brained dogs, loud-lunged asses! What do you do, yelping and braying here? Will you give a maimed meal to Poseidon's manhound? Do you know me not? Have you never heard of Perissus, never seen Perissus the butcher? I guard Poseidon's meat, and whoever touches a morsel of it, I will make meat of him with my cleaver. I am Perissus, I am the butcher.
It is Perissus, the good and wealthy butcher. He is right. To the rocks with her!
Bind her first: we will see her bound!
In all that is rational, I will indulge you.
A cord, who has a cord?
Here is one, Perissus.
'Tis rough and strong and sure.
Come, wear your bracelets.
O bind me not so hard!
You are too soft and tender.
There, dry your eyes, — but that, poor slip, you cannot.
See, I have tied you very lightly: say not
That this too hurts.
I thank you; you are kind.
Kind! Why should I not be kind? Because I am a butcher must I have no bowels? Courage, little Princess: none shall hurt thee but thy sea-monster and he, I am sure, will crunch thy little bones very tenderly. Never had man-eater such sweet bones to crunch. Alack! but where is the remedy?
Now take her to the beach and chain her there
Upon the rocks to bear her punishment.
Perissus, lead her forth! We'll follow you.
Not I! not I!
You'ld kill us, Polydaon!
Poseidon's anger walks by the sea-beaches.
The fierce sea-dragon will not hurt you, friends,
Who bring a victim to Poseidon's altar
Of the rude solemn beaches. I'll protect you.
We'll go with Polydaon! with the good Polydaon!
Perissus, go before. We'll quickly come.
Make way there or I'll make it with my cleaver.
Heart, little Princess! None shall touch thee. Heart!
Perissus and others make their way
out with Andromeda.
Hem, people, hem the Palace in with myriads:
We'll pluck out Cepheus and proud Cassiopea.
Kill Cepheus the cuckold, the tyrant! Tear the harlot Cassiopea.
Is this thy sacred oath? Had not Nabassar
Thy compact, priest?
I swore not by Poseidon.
Thy perjury too much
Favours my private wishes. Yet would I not
Be thou with such a falsehood on my conscience.
Why, Therops, be thyself and thou shalt yet
Be something great in Syria.
Where's Iolaus?
Too long forgotten!
O that I should forget my dearest hatred!
By this he has concealed himself or fled
And I am baulked of what I chiefly cherished.
Oh, do them justice! the great house of Syria
Were never cowards. The prince has been o'erwhelmed
On his way hither with rash sword to rescue:
So Aligattas tells, who came behind us.
Heard you?
Hurrah!
But what's the matter now with our good priest?
His veins are all out and his face is blood-red!
This joy is too great for him.
I am a god,
A god of blood and roaring victory.
Oh, blood in rivers! His heart out of his breast,
And his mother there to see it! and I to laugh
At her, to laugh!
This is not sanity.
Polydaon (controlling himself with a great effort)
The sacrilegious house is blotted out
Of Cepheus. Let not one head outlive their ending!
Andromeda appoints the way to Hades
Who was in crime the boldest, then her brother
Yells on the altar: last Cepheus and his Queen —
Tear her! let the Chaldean harlot die.
She shall be torn! but not till she has seen
The remnants of the thing that was her daughter:
Not till her sweet boy's heart has been plucked out
Under her staring eyes from his red bosom.
Till then she shall not die. But afterwards
Strew with her fragments every street of the city.
Hear, hear Poseidon's Viceroy, good Polydaon!
In! in! cut off their few and foreign swordsmen.
In! in! let not a single Chaldean live.
The mob rushes into the Palace; only
Therops and Polydaon remain.
Go, Therops, take good care of Cassiopea,
Or she will die too mercifully soon.
How shall we bear this grim and cruel beast
For monarch, when all's done! He is not human.
I have set Poseidon's rage in human hearts;
His black and awful Influence flows from me.
Thou art a mighty god, Poseidon, yet
And mightily thou hast avenged thyself.
The drama's nearly over. Now to ring out
The royal characters amid fierce howlings
And splendid, pitiless, crimson massacre, —
A great finale! Then, then I shall be King.
(As he speaks, he gesticulates more
wildly and his madness gains upon him.)
Thou luckless Phineus, wherefore didst thou leave
So fortunate a man for thy ally?
The world shall long recall King Polydaon.
I will paint Syria gloriously with blood.
Hundreds shall daily die to incarnadine
The streets of my city and my palace floors,
For I would walk in redness. I'll plant my gardens
With heads instead of lilacs. Hecatombs
Of men shall groan their hearts out for my pleasure
In crimson rivers. I'll not wait for shipwrecks.
Assyrian captives and my Syrian subjects,
Nobles and slaves, men, matrons, boys and virgins
At matins and at vespers shall be slain
To me in my magnificent high temple
Beside my thunderous Ocean. I will possess
Women each night, who the next day shall die,
Encrimsoned richly for the eyes' delight.
My heart throngs out in words! What moves within me?
I am athirst, magnificently athirst,
And for a red and godlike wine. Whence came
The thirst on me? It was not here before.
'Tis thou, 'tis thou, O grand and grim Poseidon,
Hast made thy scarlet session in my soul
And growest myself. I am not Polydaon,
I am a god, a mighty dreadful god,
The multitudinous mover in the sea,
The shaker of the earth: I am Poseidon
And I will walk in three tremendous paces
Climbing the mountains with my clamorous waters
And see my dogs eat up Andromeda,
My enemy, and laugh in my loud billows.
The clamour of battle roars within the Palace!
I have created it, I am Poseidon.
Sit'st thou, my elder brother, charioted
In clouds? Look down, O brother Zeus, and see
My actions! they merit thy immortal gaze.
On the road to the sea-shore.
Phineus and his Tyrians.
A mighty power confounds our policies.
Is't Heaven? is't Fate? What's left me, I will take.
'Tis best to rescue young Andromeda
From the wild mob and bear her home to Tyre.
She, when the roar is over, will be left
My claim to Syria's prostrate throne, which force,
If not diplomacy shall re-erect
And Tyre become the Syrian capital.
I hear the trampling of the rascal mob.
Drag her more quickly! To the rocks! to the rocks!
Tyrians, be ready.
Perissus and a number of Syrians
enter leading Andromeda bound.
To the rocks with her, to the rocks! bind her on the rocks.
Pause, rabble! Yield your prey to Tyrian Phineus.
Lift up thy lovely head, Andromeda!
Who art thou with thy nose and thy fellows and thy spits?
Know'st thou me not? I am the royal Phineus.
Yield up the Princess, fair Andromeda.
Art thou the royal Phineus and is this long nose thy sceptre? I am Perissus, the butcher. Stand aside, royal Phineus, or I will chop thee royally with my cleaver.
What wilt thou with me, King of Tyre?
Sweet rose,
I come to save thee. I will carry thee,
My bride, far from these savage Syrian tumults
To reign in loyal Tyre. Thou art safe.
My father and my mother are not safe
Nor Iolaus: nor is Syria safe.
Will you protect my people, when the god,
Not finding me, his preferable victim,
Works his fierce will on these?
Thou car'st for them?
They have o'erwhelmed thee with foul insult, bound thee,
Threatened thy lovely limbs with rascal outrage
And dragged to murder!
But they are my people.
Perissus, lead me on.
I will not go with him.
Thou strange and beautiful and marvellous child,
Wilt thou or wilt thou not, by force I'll have thee.
Golden enchantment! thou art too rare a thing
For others to possess. Run, rascal rabble!
Cleavers and axes to their spits!
King Phineus, pause! I swear I will prefer
Death's grim embrace rather than be thy wife
Abandoning my people. 'Tis a dead body
Thou wilt rescue.
Is thy resolve unshakable?
It is.
Die then! To Death alone I yield thee.
So then thou art off, royal Phineus! so thou hast evaporated, bold god of the Hittites! Thou hast saved thy royal nose from my cleaver.
On to the rocks! Glory to great Poseidon.
Andromeda, dishevelled, bare-armed and unsandalled, stripped of all but a single light robe, stands on a wide low ledge under a rock jutting out from the cliff with the sea washing below her feet. She is chained to a rock behind her by her wrists and ankles, her arms stretched at full length against its side.
Polydaon, Perissus, Damoetes and a number of Syrians stand near on the great rocky platform projecting from the cliff of which the ledge is the extremity.
There meditate affronts to dire Poseidon.
Rescue thyself, thou rescuer of victims!
I am sorry that thy marriage, sweet Andromeda,
So poorly is attended. I could have wished
To have all Syria gazing at thy nuptials
With thy rare Ocean bridegroom! Thy mother most
Should have been here to see her lovely princess
So meetly robed for bridal, with these ornaments
Upon her pretty hands and feet. She has
Affairs too pressing. We do some surgery
Upon thy brother Iolaus' heart
To draw the bad blood out and make it holy,
And she must watch the skilful operation.
Do not weep, fair one. Soon, be confident,
They'll meet thee in that wide house where all are going.
Think of these things until thy lover comes.
Art thou mad, priest Polydaon?
How thou grinnest and drawest back thy black lips from thy white teeth in thy rapture!
Hast thou gone clean mad, my skilful carver of hearts! art thou beside thyself, my ancient schoolmate and crony?
Let one remain above the cliff,
And watch the monster's advent and his going.
Till I have news of dead Andromeda
The sacrifice cannot begin. Who stays?
Not I!
Nor I! nor I! nor I!
As well stay here with the girl and be torn with her!
Do you quake, my brave shouters? must you curl your tails in between your manly legs? I will stay, priest, who fear neither dog nor dragon. I am Perissus, I am the butcher.
I'll not forget thy service, good Perissus.
Will you then make me butcher-in-chief to your viceroy in Damascus, and shall I cut my joints under the patronage of King Polydaon? To the temple. Syrian heroes! I will go and cross my legs on the cliff-top.
They go. Andromeda is left alone.
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Bande Mataram
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