SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part One
A dramatic romance
A room in the royal apartments.
Mahasegn, Ungarica.
I conquer still though not with glorious arms.
He's seized! the young victorious Vuthsa's mine,
A prisoner in my hands.
Under thy armpit as the tailed god did.
Make it my moon
And shine by him upon the eastern night.
Thou canst?
Loved sceptic of my house, I can.
Have I not done all things I longed for yet
Since out of thy dim world I dragged thee alarmed
Into our sun and breeze and azure skies
By force, my fortune?
Yes, by force; but here
By force it was not done.
Wilt thou depart 
From thy own nature, Chunda Mahasegn,
And hop'st for victory?
Thou art my strength, my fortune,
But not my counsellor.
No, I obey and watch.
It is enough for me in your strange world.
For by your light I cannot guide myself.
Man is a creature, blinded by the sun,
Who errs by vision; but the world to you
That's darkness, they who walk there, they have sight.
Such am I; for the shades have reared my soul.
What dost thou see?
That Vuthsa is too great
For thy greatness, too cunning for thy cunning; he
Will bend not to thy pressure.
Thou hast bent,
The Titaness! this is a tender boy
As soft as summer dews or as the lily
That yields to every gentle pushing wave.
A hero? yes; all Aryan boys are that.
Thy daughter, Vasavadutta, is the wave
That shall o'erflow this lily!
Thou hast seen? 
'Tis good; it is the thing my heart desires.
My daughter shall have empire.
No, thy son.
No matter which. The first man of the age
Will occupy her heart; the pride and love
That are her faults will both be satisfied.
Call her here, my queen.
She shall be taught the thing she has to do.
Her heart will teach her. Veena, call to me
The princess.
Oh, the heart, it is a danger,
A madness. Let the thinking mind prevail.
We're women, king.
Has dignity, pride, wisdom, noble hopes.
She will not act as common natures do.
Love will unseat them all and put them down
Under his flower-soft feet.
Thou hast chosen ever
To oppose my thoughts.
It is their poor revenge
Who in their acts must needs obey. Thy lesson, King!
Vasavadutta enters and bows down to her parents.
Let royal wisdom teach a woman's brain
To use for statecraft's ends her dearest thoughts.
My daughter, Vasavadutta, my delight,
Now is thy hour to pay the long dear debt
Thou ow'st thy parents from whom thou wast made.
Hear me; thy brain is quick, will understand.
Vuthsa, Cowsambie's king, my rival, foe,
My fate's high stumbling-block, captive today
Comes to Avunthie. I mean that he shall be
Thy husband, Vasavadutta, and thy slave.
By thee he must become, who now resists,
My vassal even as other monarchs are.
Then shall thy father's fates o'erleap their bounds,
Then rule thy house, thy nation all this earth!
This is my will; my daughter, is it thine?
Father, thy will is mine, even as 'tis fate's.
Thou givest me to whom thou wilt; what share
In this have I but only to obey?
A greater part that makes thee my ally
And golden instrument; for without thee
I have no hold on Vuthsa. Thou, my child,
Must be the chain to bind him to my throne,
Thou my ambassador to win his mind 
And thou my viceroy over his subject will.
Will he submit to this?
Yes, if thou choose.
I choose, my father, since it is thy will.
That thou shouldst rule the world is all my wish,
My nation's greatness is my dearest good.
Thou hast kept my dearest lessons; lose them not.
O thou art not as common natures are;
Thou wilt not put thy own ambitions first,
Nor justify a blind and clamorous heart.
My duty to my country and my sire
Shall rule me.
I'll not teach thy woman's tact
How it should mould this youth nor warn thy will
Against the passions of the blood. The heart
And senses over common women rule;
Thou hast a mind.
Father, this is my pride,
That thou ennoblest me to be an engine
Of thy great fortunes; that alone I am.
Thou wilt not yield then to the heart's desire?
Let him desire, but I will nothing yield.
I am thy daughter; greatest kings should sue
And take my grace as an unhoped-for joy.
Thou art my pupil; statecraft was not wasted
Upon thy listening brain. Thou seest, my queen?
Thou hast made thy treaty with thy daughter, King?
As if this babe could understand! Go, go
And leave me with my child. For I will speak to her
Another language.
But no breath against
My purpose.
Fearest thou that?
No; speak to her.
Ungarica (drawing Vasavadutta into her arms)
Rest here, my child, to whom another bosom
Will soon be refuge. Thou hast heard the King,
Hear now thy mother. Thou wilt know, my bliss,
The fiercest sweet ordeal that can seize
A woman's heart and body. O my child,
Thou wilt house fire, thou wilt see living gods;
And all thou hast thought and known will melt away
Into a flame and be reborn. What now
I speak, thou dost not understand, but wilt
Before many nights have kept thy sleepless eyes.
My child, the flower blooms for its flowerhood only
And not to make its parent bed more high.
Not for thy sire thy mother brought thee forth,
But thy dear nature's growth and heart's delight
And for a husband and for children born.
My child, let him who clasps thee be thy god
That thou mayst be his goddess; let your wedded arms
Be heaven; let his will be thine and thine
Be his, his happiness thy regal pomp.
O Vasavadutta, when thy heart awakes
Thou shalt obey thy sovereign heart, nor yield
Allegiance to the clear-eyed selfish gods.
Do now thy father's will; the god awake
Shall do his own. Yes, tremble and yet fear
Nothing. Thy mother watches over thee, child.
She puts Vasavadutta from her and goes out.
I love her best, but do not understand:
My mind can always grasp my father's thoughts.
If I must wed, it shall be one I rule.
Vuthsa! Vuthsa Udayan! I have heard
Only a far-flung name. What is the man?
A flame? A flower? High like Gopalaca
Or else some golden fair and soft-eyed youth?
I have a fluttering in my heart to know.
The same.
Mahasegn, Ungarica, Gopalaca, Vuthsa.
King of Avunthie, Chunda Mahasegn,
Thy will I have performed. Thy dangerous foe,
The boy who rivalled thy ripe victor years
I lay, thy captive, at thy feet.
Gopalaca,
Thou hast done well; thou art indeed my son.
Hail, monarch of the West. We have met
In equal battle; it has pleased me now to approach
Thy greatness otherwise.
Pleased thee, vain youth!
No, but thy fate indignant that thou strovest
Against much prouder fortunes.
Think it so.
I am here. What wouldst thou with me, King, or wherefore
Hast thou by violence brought me to thy house?
To adore me as sole master, king and lord,
Assuming my great yoke as all have done
From Indus to the South.
Thou art in error. 
Thou hast not great Cowsambie's monarch here,
But Vuthsa only, Sathaneka's son,
Who sprang from sires divine.
And where then dwells
Cowsambie's youthful majesty if not
In thee, its golden vessel?
Where my throne
In high Cowsambie stands. Thou shouldst know that.
There is a kingship which exceeds the king;
For Vuthsa unworthy, Vuthsa captive, slain,
This is not captive, this cannot be slain.
It far transcends our petty human forms,
It is a nation's greatness. That, O king,
Was once Parikshit, that Urjoona's seed,
Janamejoya, that was Sathaneka,
That Vuthsa; and when Vuthsa is no more,
That shall live deathless in a hundred kings.
Thou speakest like the unripe boy thou seemst,
With thoughts high-winging; grown minds keep to earth's
More humble sureness and prefer to touch.
I am content to have thy gracious body here,
This earth of kingship; for with that I deal
And not with any high and formless1 thought.
My body! deal with it. It is thy slave
And captive by thy choice, as by my own.
What thou canst do with Vuthsa, do, O king.
In nothing will I pledge Cowsambie's majesty,
But Vuthsa is thy own and in thy hands. 
Him I defend not from thy iron will.
My prisoner, thou canst not so escape
My purpose.
I simply meant, I should not now be here.
'Tis not by bars or gates I can be bound.
But I will give thee other jailors, boy,
Surer than my armed sentries, against whom
Thou dar'st not lift thy helpless hands.
Find such,
I am content.
Humble thy bearing proud!
Be Vuthsa or be great Cowsambie's king,
Thou art here my captive only and my slave.
I accept thy stern rebuke as I accept
Whatever state the wiser gods provide
And bend my mood and action to their thought.
Vuthsa, thou hast opposed my sovereign will
Who meant to make all lands my private plot,
Fields for my royal tilling. Thou hast fought
And that by war I could not tame thee, hold
As thy most unexampled glory.
Now
My proud resistless fortune brings thee here;
Thou must, young hero, brook enslaved my will.
Thou knowst the law; whoever offers empire
A sacrifice to the high-seated gods,
Him must his subject kings as menials serve;
And this compelled have many proud lords done
Whose high beginnings disappear in Time.
But now I will make all my royal days
A high continual solemn sacrifice of kingship.
Thee, who art Bharuth's heir, a high-throned son
Of emperors and my equal in the world,
All thy long time I will superbly keep
Ornament and emblem of my arrogant greatness,
A royal serf of my proud house. Thee, Vuthsa,
As fitting thy yet tender years, I make
My daughter's servant, by her handmaidens
Guarded, thy jailors firm whose gracious cordon
Not even thy courage can transgress. To this
Dost thou consent?
Not only I consent,
But welcome with a proud aspiring mind,
Since to be Vasavadutta's servitor
Is honour, happiness and fortune's grace.
My greatness this shall raise, not cast it down,
King Mahasegn.
Lead then, Gopalaca,
My gift, this captive, to thy sister's feet.
He has a music that desires the gods,
A brush that outdoes Nature and a song
The luminous choristers of heaven have taught.
All this she can command or she can take;
For all he has, is hers.
Thou smilest, boy? 
What thou hast said is simply truth. And yet
I smiled to see how strong and arrogant minds
Dream themselves masters of the things they do.
Gopalaca and Vuthsa go out by a door leading
inward to Vasavadutta's apartments.
'Tis only a charming boy, Ungarica,
Who vaunts and yields!
What he has shown thee, King,
Thou seest.
Wilt thou lend next this graceful child,
Almost a girl in beauty, thoughts profound
And practised subtleties? I have done well,
Was deeply inspired.
He goes from the chamber towards the outer palace.
Our own ends seeking Heaven's ends we serve.
A room in Vasavadutta's apartment.
Vasavadutta, Munjoolica, Umba.
Thou hast seen him?
Yes.
Then speak, thou perverse silence,
Thou canst chatter when thou wilt.
What shall I say
Except that thou art always fortunate
Since first thy soft feet moved upon our earth,2
O living Luxmie, beauty, wealth and joy
Run overpacked into thy days, and grandeurs
Unmeasured. Now the greatest king on earth
Is given thy servant.
That's the greatest king's
High fortune and not mine. For nothing now
Can raise me higher than I am whose father
Is sovereign over greatest kings. Nothing are these
And what I long to know thou wilt not tell.
I have seen the god of love
Wearing a golden human body.
Vasavadutta (with a pleased smile)
As thou art and even more.
More!
Cry not out.
His eyes are proud and smiling like the gods',
His voice is like the sudden call of Spring.
O dear to me even as myself, wear this.
She puts her own chain round her neck.
That is my happiness; keep thy gifts.
Think them
My love around thy neck. Thou hast seen truly?
It was not spoken to beguile my mind?
Then tell me all you saw there, dearest one;
Not that these things I care for, but would know.
Munjoolica (showing Gopalaca and Vuthsa who enter)
Let thy eyes care not then, yet see.
My brother,
Long wast thou far from me.
For thy sake I was far.
Much have I flung, my sister, at thy feet
Nor thought my gifts were worthy of thy smile,
Not even Sourashtra's conquered daughter here,
But now I give indeed. This is that famous
Vuthsa Udayan, great Cowsambie's king,
Brought here by me to serve thee as thy slave,
Thy royal serf, musician, singer, page.
Look on him, tell me if I have deserved.
Much love, dear brother, not that any prize
I value as of worth for such as we,
But thy love gives it price.
My love for both.
My gift is precious to me, for my heart
Possessed him long before my hands have seized.
Then love him well, for so thou lov'st me twice.
Vasavadutta (looking covertly at Vuthsa)
Although my slave, dear then and prized.
Are we not all
Thy servants? The wide costly world is less,
My sister, than thy noble charm and grace
And beauty and the sweetness of thy soul
Deserve, O Vasavadutta.
Is it so?
My sister, thou wast born from Luxmie's heart.
And we thy brothers feel in thee, not us,
Our father's lordly star inherited
And in thy girdle all the conquered earth.
I know it, brother.
From thy childhood, yes,
Thou seemdst to know, thou heldst rule carelessly;
But since thou knowest, queen, assume thy fiefs,
Cowsambie and Ayodhya, for thy house!
Vasavadutta (glancing at Vuthsa and avoiding his gaze)
Since he's my slave, they are already mine.
Nay, understand me, sister: make them thine.
Thou, Vuthsa, serve thy mistress and obey.
He is a boy, a golden marvellous boy.
I am surely older! I can play with him.
There is no fear, no difficulty at all.
What is thy name? I'll hear it from thy lips.
Vuthsa.
Thou shudderest, Vuthsa; dost thou fear?
Perhaps; there is a fear in too much joy.
I did not hear. My brother loves thee well.
Take comfort. If thou serve me faithfully,
Thou hast no cause for any grief at all.
Men call me so.
And now my servant.
That my heart repeats.
I did not hear. Cowsambie's king, my slave,
What canst thou do to please me?
Dost thou choose
To know the songs that shake the tranquil gods
Or hear on earth the harps of heaven? dost thou
Desire the line and hue of living truth
That makes earth's shadows pale? or wilt thou have
The infinite abysmal silences
Made vocal, clothed with form? These things at birth
The Kinnarie, Vidyadhar and Gundharva
Around me crowding on Himaloy dumb
Gave to the silent god that smiled in me
Before my outer mind held thought. All these
I can make thine.
Vuthsa, I take all these,
All thy life's ornaments that thou wearst, for mine
And am not satisfied.
Dost thou desire
The earth made thine by my victorious bow?
Send me then forth to battle; earth is thine.
I take the earth and am not satisfied.
Say thou what thing shall please thee in thy slave,
What thou desir'st from Vuthsa?
Do I know?
Not less than all thou hast and all thou canst
And all thou art.
All's thine.
I speak and hear,
And know not what I say nor what thou meanst.
The deepest things are those thought seizes not;
Our spirits live their hidden meaning out.
Vasavadutta (after a troubled silence in which she tries to recover herself)
I know not how we passed into this strain.
Such words are troubling to the mind and heart;
Leave them.
They have been spoken.
Let them rest.
Vuthsa, my slave, who promisest me much,
Great things thou offerest, small things I'll demand
From thee, yet hard. Since he's my prisoner,
Munjoolica and Umba, guard this boy;
You are his jailors. When I have need of him,
Then bring him to me. Go, Vuthsa, to thy room.
Vuthsa makes an obeisance and touches her feet.
What dost thou? It is not permitted thee.
Vuthsa (letting his touch linger)
Let me be earth beneath thy tread at least.
Oh, take him from me; I have enough of him!
Thou, Umba, see he bribes thee not or worse.
I will be bribed to make thee smart for that.
Where shall we put him? In the tower-room
Closing the terrace where thou walkst when moonlight
Sleeps on the sward?
There; 'tis the nearest.
Will he charm me from my purpose with a smile?
How beautiful he is, how beautiful!
There is a fear, there is a happy fear.
But he is mine, his eyes confessed my sway;
Surely I shall do all my will with him.
I sent him from me, for his words troubled me
And still delighted. They have a witchery, —
No, not his words, but voice. 'Tis not his voice,
Nor yet his smile, his face, his flower-soft eyes
And yet it is all these and something more.
I fear it will be difficult after all.
The tower-room beside the terrace.
Vuthsa on a couch.
All that I dreamed or heard of her, her charm
Exceeds. She's mine! she has shuddered at my touch;
Thrice her eyes faltered as they gazed in mine.
He lies back with closed eyes;
Munjoolica enters and contemplates him.
O golden Love! thou art not of this earth.
He too is Vasavadutta's! All is hers,
As I am now and one day all the earth.
Vuthsa, thou sleep'st not, then.
Sleep jealous waits
Finding another image in my eyes.
Thou art disobedient. Wast thou not commanded
To sleep at once?
Sleep disobeys, not I.
But thou too wakest, yet no thoughts should have
To keep thy lids apart.
How knowst thou that?
I am thy jailor and I walk my rounds.
Bright jailor, thou art jealous without cause.
Who would escape from heaven's golden bars?
Thy name is Munjoolica? so is thy form
A bower of the graceful things of earth.
I had another name but it has ceased,
Forgotten.
Thou wast then Sourashtra's child?
I am still that royalty clouded, even as thou art
Captive Cowsambie. Me Gopalaca
In battle seized, brought a disdainful gift
To Vasavadutta.
Since our fates are one,
Should we not be allies?
For what bold purpose?
How knowest thou I have one?
Were I a man!
Wouldst thou have freedom? wilt thou give me help?
In nothing against her I love and serve.
No, but conspire to serve and love her best
And make her queen of all the Aryan earth.
My payment?
Name it thyself, when all is ours.
Content; it will be large.
However large.
Now shall I be avenged upon my fate.
I know what thy heart asks; too openly
Thou carriest the yearning in thy eyes.
Vuthsa, she loves thee as the half-closed bud
Thrills to the advent of a wonderful dawn
And like a dreamer half-awake perceives
The faint beginnings of a sunlit world.
Doubt not success more than that dawn must break;
For she is thine.
Take my heart's gratitude
For the sweet assurance.
Thy gratitude?
What wouldst thou have?
The ring
Upon thy finger, Vuthsa, for my own.
Vuthsa (putting it on her finger)
It shall live happier on a fairer hand.
Since thou hast paid me instantly and well,
I will be zealous, Vuthsa, in thy cause.
But my great bribe is in the future still.
Claim it in our Cowsambie.
There indeed.
By thy good help I now shall sleep.
Music is sweet; to rule the heart's rich chords
Of human lyres much sweeter. Art's sublime
But to combine great ends more sovereign still,
Accepting danger and difficulty to break
Through proud and violent opposites to our will.
Song is divine, but more divine is love.
A room in Vasavadutta's apartments.
I govern no longer what I speak and do.
Is this the fire my mother spoke of? Oh,
It is sweet, it is sweet. But I will not be mastered
By any equal creature. Let him serve
Obediently and I will load his lovely head
With costliest favours. He's my own, my own,
My slave, my toy to play with as I choose,
And shall not dare to play with me. I think he dares;
I do not know, I think he would presume.
He's gentle, brilliant, bold and beautiful.
I'll send for him and chide and put him down,
I'll chide him harshly; he must not presume.
O, I have forgotten almost my father's will,
Yet it was mine. Before I lose it quite,
I will compel a promise from the boy.
Will it be hard when he is all my own?
Umba! Bring Vuthsa to me from his tower.
His music is a voice that cries to me,
His songs are chains he hangs around my heart.
I must not hear them often; I forget
That I am Vasavadutta, that he is
My house's foe, and only Vuthsa feel,
Think Vuthsa only, while my captive heart
Beats in world-Vuthsa and on Vuthsa throbs.
Umba brings in Vuthsa and retires.
Before me.
It is my sovereign's voice that speaks.
Be silent! Lower thy eyes; they are too bold
To gaze on me, my slave.
Blame not my eyes,
They follow the dumb motion of a heart
Uplifted to adore thee.
Vasavadutta (with a shaken voice)
Adore me, Vuthsa?
Earth's one goddess, yes.
But, Vuthsa, men adore with humble eyes
Upon their deity's feet.
Oh, let me so
Adore thee then, thus humble at thy feet,
Their sleeping moonbeams in my eyes, and place
My hands in Paradise beneath these flowers
That bless too oft the chill unheeding earth.
Let this not be forbidden to thy slave.
So let me worship, and the carolling of thy speech
So listen.
Vuthsa, thou must not presume.
O even when faint thy voice, thy every word
Reaches my soul.
Wilt thou not let me free?
Yes, if thou bid; but do not.
Vasavadutta (bending down to caress his hair)
And as my slave thou adorest, nothing more,
I will not bid.
What more, when this means all.
But if thou serve me, is not all thou hast
Mine, mine? Why dost thou, Vuthsa, keep from me
My own?
Take all; claim all.
Vasavadutta (collecting herself)
It shall be thine, a jewel for thy feet.
Thy kingdom, Vuthsa, for my will to rule.
It shall be thine, the garden of thy pomp.
Shall?
Is it not far? We must go there, my queen,
Thou to receive and I to give.
I wish
To be there. But, Udayan, thou must vow,
And the word bind thee, that none else shall be
Cowsambie's queen and thou my servant live
Vowed to obedience underneath my throne.
Thou only shalt be over my heart a queen,
Yes, if thou wilt, the despot of my thoughts,
My hopes, my aims, but I will not obey
If thou command disloyalty to thee,
My sweet, sole sovereign.
But Vuthsa, if as subject of my sire,
High Chunda Mahasegn, I bid thee rule?
My queen, it will be void.
Would it not be disloyalty in me
To serve another sovereign?
Vasavadutta (vexed, yet pleased)
No, queen. What's wholly mine, that wholly take.
But this belongs to many other souls.
To whom?
Their names are endless. Bharuth first
Who ruled the Aryan earth that bears his name,
And great Dushyanta and Pururavus'
Famed warlike son and all their peerless line,
Urjoona and Parikshit and his sons
Whom God descended to enthrone, and all
Who shall come after us, my heirs and thine
Who choosest me, and a great nation's multitudes,
And the Kuru ancestors and long posterity
Who all must give consent.
Thy thoughts are high.
But if thy life must find a prison here?
My father is inflexible and stern.
Dost thou desire this really in thy heart?
Vuthsa diminished,3 art thou not diminished too?
My rule thou hast vowed?
To obey thee in all things
Throned in Cowsambie, not as here I must,
Thy father's captive.
There I shall be thine.
Leave, Vuthsa, leave me. Take him, Umba, from me.
Umba (entering, in Vasavadutta's ear)
Who now is bribed? We are all traitors now.
O joy, if he and all were only mine.
O greatness to be queen of him and earth.
I grow a rebel to my father's house.
Curtain
1 unseen
2 Since thou first moved with thy soft feet on our earth,
3 Degraded
{DocumentDescription}
{StartingDate}
{Year}
1915
{/Year}{Month}
10
{/Month}{Day}
18
{/Day}{Exactness}
Exact
{/Exactness}{/StartingDate}{EndingDate}{Year}
1915
{/Year}{Month}
10
{/Month}{Day}
30
{/Day}{Exactness}
Exact
{/Exactness}{/EndingDate}{DateType}
Writting
{/DateType}{WorkKind}
Play
{/WorkKind}{/DocumentDescription}