SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part One
| Antiochus, | son of Cleopatra by her first husband Nicanor (dead). |
|
| Timocles, |
twin brother of Antiochus. |
|
| Phayllus, | Chancellor of Syria. |
|
| Nicanor, | a prince of the house of Syria and father of Eunice. |
|
| Philoctetes, | companion of Antiochus. |
|
| Melitus, | King's Chamberlain. |
|
| Thoas, |
 |
captains of Syrian army. |
| Theramenes, | ||
| Leosthenes, | ||
| Callicrates, | ||
| Theras, | ||
| Eremite, | ||
| Cleopatra, | Queen of Syria, wife of King Antiochus of Syria. |
|
| Rodogune, | Parthian princess, daughter of King Phraates of Parthia, captive attendant of Cleopatra. |
|
| Eunice, | daughter of prince Nicanor and cousin to the brothers Antiochus and Timocles and companion of Cleopatra. |
|
| Cleone, | sister of Phayllus and companion of Cleopatra. |
|
| Mentho, | Egyptian nurse of Antiochus and Timocles. |
|
| Zoyla, | attendant of Cleopatra. |
Scene: The city of Antioch, capital of Syria.
Antioch. The palace, a house by the sea.
The palace in Antioch; Cleopatra's antechamber.
Cleone is seated; to her enters Eunice.
Always he lives!
No, his disease; not he.
For the divinity that sits in man
From that afflicted body has withdrawn, —
Its pride, its greatness, joy, command, the Power
Unnameable that struggles with its world:
The husk, the creature only lives. But that husk
Has a heart, a mind and all accustomed wants,
And having these must be, — O, it is pitiful, —
Stripped of all real homage, forced to see
That none but Death desires him any more.
You pity?
Seems it strange to you? I pity.
I loved him not, — who did? But I am human
And feel the touch of tears. A death desired
Is still a death and man is always man
Although an enemy. If I ever slew,
I think 'twould be with pity in the blow
That it was needed. 
That's a foolish thought.
If it were weakness and delayed the stroke.
The Queen waits by him still?
No longer now.
For while officiously she served her lord,
The dying monarch cast a royal look
Of sternness on her. “Cease,” he said, “O woman,
To trouble with thy ill-dissembled joy
My passing. Call thy sons! Before they come
I shall have gone into the shadow. Yet
Too much exult not, lest the angry gods
Chastise thee with the coming of thy sons
At which thou now rejoicest.”
Where is she then
Or who waits on her?
Rodogune.
That slave!
I think I hear the speech
Of upstarts.
Are you, Cleone, of that tribe? 
I marvel at your strange attraction, Princess!
You fondle and admire a statue of chalk
In a black towel dismally arranged.
She has roses in her pallor, but they are
The memory of a blush in ivory.
She is all silent, gentle, pale and pure,
Dim-natured with a heart as soft as sleep.
She is a twilight soul, not frank, not Greek,
Some Magian's daughter full of midnight spells.
I think she is a changeling from the dead.
We shall have a king
Who's young, Cleone; Rodogune is fair.
What think you of it, you small bitter heart?
He will prefer the roses and the day,
I hope!
Yourself, you think? O, see her walk!
A floating lily in moonlight was her sister.
His agony ends at last.
Why have you left
Your mistress and your service, Rodogune? 
She will not have me near her now; she says
I look at her with eyes too wondering and too large.
So she expects alone her husband's end
And her release. Alas, the valiant man,
The king, the trampler of the fields of death!
He called to victory and she ran to him,
He made of conquest his camp-follower. How
He lies forsaken! None regard his end;
His flatterers whisper round him, his no more;
His almost widow smiles. Better would men,
Could they foresee their ending, understand
The need of mercy.
My sandal-string is loose;
Kneel down and tie it, Parthian Rodogune.
You too may feel the need of mercy yet,
Cleone.
Cleopatra enters swiftly from the
corridors of the palace.
Antiochus is dead, is dead, and I
Shall see at last the faces of my sons.
O, I could cry upon the palace-tops
My exultation! Gaze not on me so,
Eunice. I have lived for eighteen years
With silence and my anguished soul within
While all the while a mother's heart in me
Cried for her children's eyelids, wept to touch
The little bodies that with pain I bore.
The long chill dawnings came without that joy.
Only my hateful husband and his crown, —
To the world he was a man august,
High-thoughted, grandiose, valiant. Leave him to death,
And thou enjoy thy children.
He would not let my children come to me,
Therefore I spit upon his corpse. Eunice,
Have you not thought sometimes how strange it will feel
To see my tall strong sons come striding in
Who were two lisping babes, two pretty babes?
Sometimes I think they are not changed at all
And I shall see my small Antiochus
With those sweet sunlight curls, his father's curls,
And eyes in which an infant royalty
Expressed itself in glances, Timocles
Holding his brother's hands and toiling to me
With eyes like flowers wide-opened by the wind
And rosy lips that laugh towards my breast.
Will it not be strange, so sweet and strange?
And when
Will they arrive from Egypt?
Ah, Eunice,
From Egypt! They are here, Eunice.
Here!
Not in this room, dear fool, in Antioch, hid
Where never cruel eyes could come at them.
O, did you think a mother's hungry heart
Could lose one fluttering moment of delight 
After such empty years? Theramenes, —
The swift hawk he is — by that good illness helped
Darted across and brought them. They're here, Eunice!
I saw them not even then, not even then
Could clasp, but now Antiochus is dead,
Is dead, my lips shall kiss them! Messengers
Abridge the roads with tempest in their hooves
To bring them to me!
Imperil not with memories of hate
The hour of thy new-found felicity;
For souls dislodged are dangerous and the gods
Have their caprices.
Will the Furies stir
Because I hated grim Antiochus?
When I have slain my kin, then let them wake.
The man who's dead was nothing to my heart:
My husband was Nicanor, my beautiful
High-hearted lord with his bright auburn hair
And open face. When he died miserably
A captive in the hated Parthian's bonds,
My heart was broken. Only for my babes
I knit the pieces strongly to each other,
My little babes whom I must send away
To Egypt far from me! But for Antiochus
That gloomy, sullen and forbidding soul,
Harsh-featured, hard of heart, rough mud of camps
And marches, — he was never lord of me.
He was a reason of State, an act of policy;
And he exiled my children. You have not been
A mother!
I will love with you, Cleopatra,
Although to hate unwilling.
Love me, and with me
As much as your pale quiet Parthian's loved
Whom for your sake I have not slain.
She too,
The Parthian! — blames you. Was it not she who said
Your joy will bring a curse upon your sons?
Hast thou so little terror?
Never she said it!
Fear yet; be wise! I cannot any more
Feel anger! Never again can grief be born
In this glad world that gives me back my sons.
I can think only of my children's arms.
There is a diphony of music swells
Within me and it cries a double name,
Twin sounds, Antiochus and Timocles,
Timocles and Antiochus, the two
Changing their places sweetly like a pair
Of happy lovers in my brain.
But which
Shall be our king in Syria?
Both shall be kings,
My kings, my little royal faces made 
To rule my breast. Upon a meaner throne
What matters who shall reign for both?
Madam,
The banner floats upon that seaward tower.
O my soul, fly to perch there! Shall it not seem
My children's robes as motherwards they run to me
Tired of their distant play?
She leaves the room followed by Zoyla.
You, you, Cleone! gods are not in the world
If you end happily.
Do not reproach her.
I have no complaint against one human creature;
Nature and Fate do all.
Because you were born,
My Rodogune, to suffer and be sweet
As was Cleone to offend. O snake,
For all thy gold and roses!
I did not think
Her guiltless sons must pay her debt. Account
Is kept in heaven and our own offences
Too heavy a load for us to bear.
The doll,
The Parthian puppet whom she fondles so,
She hardly has a glance for me! I am glad
This gloomy, grand Antiochus is dead.
O now for pastime, dances, youth and flowers!
Youth, youth! for we shall have upon the throne
No grey beard longer, but some glorious boy
Made for delight with whom we shall be young
For ever.
It was my desire and fear that killed him then;
For he was nosing into my accounts.
When shall we have these two king-cubs and which
Is the crowned lion?
That is hidden, Phayllus;
You know it.
I know; I wish I also knew
Why it was hidden. Perhaps there is no cause
Save the hiding! Women feign and lie by nature
As the snake coils, no purpose served by it.
Or was it the grim king who'ld have it so?
They are in Antioch.
That I knew.
You knew?
Before Queen Cleopatra. They do not sleep
Who govern kingdoms; they have ears and eyes.
Knew and they live!
Why should one slay in vain?
A dying man has nothing left to fear
Or hope for. He belongs to other cares.
Whichever of these Syrian cubs be crowned,
He will be hungry, young and African;
He will need caterers.
Shall they not be found?
In Egypt they have other needs than ours.
There lust's almost as open as feasting is;
Science and poetry and learned tastes
Are not confined to books, but life's an art.
There are faint mysteries, there are lurid pomps;
Strong philtres pass and covert drugs. Desire
Is married to fulfilment, pain's enjoyed
And love sometimes procures his prey for death.
He'll want those strange and vivid colours here,
Not dull diplomacies and hard rough arms.
Then who shall look to statecraft's arid needs
If not Phayllus?
We shall rise? 
It is that
I came to learn from you. I have a need for growth;
I feel a ray come nearer to my brow,
The world expands before me. Wilt thou assist, —
For you have courage, falsehood, brains, — my growth?
Your own assisted, — that is understood.
Because I am near the Queen?
That helps, perhaps,
But falls below the mark at which I aim.
If you were nearer to the King, — why, then!
Depend on me.
Cleone, we shall rise.
Scene II
The colonnade of a house in Antioch, overlooking the sea.
Antiochus, Philoctetes.
The summons comes not and my life still waits.
Patience, beloved Antiochus. Even now
He fronts the darkness.
Nothing have I spoken
As wishing for his death. His was a mould
That should have been immortal. But since all
Are voyagers to one goal and wishing's vain
To hold one traveller back, I keep my hopes.
O Philoctetes, we who missed his life,
Should have the memory of his end! Unseen
He goes from us into the shades unknown:
We are denied his solemn hours.
All men
Are not like thee, my monarch, and this king
Was great but dangerous as a lion is
Who lives in deserts mightily alone.
Admire him from that distance.
O fear and base suspicion, evillest part
Of Nature, how you spoil our grandiose life!
All heights are lowered, our wide embrace restrained,
God's natural sunshine darkened by your fault.
We were not meant for darkness, plots and hatred
Reading our baseness in another's mind,
But like good wrestlers, hearty comrades, hearty foes,
To take and give in life's great lists together
Blows and embraces.
A mother's love, a mother's fears
Earn their excuse.
I care not for such love.
O Philoctetes, all this happy night
I could not sleep; for proud dreams came to me
In which I sat on Syria's puissant throne,
Or marched through Parthia with the iron pomps
Of war resounding in my train, or swam
My charger through the Indus undulant,
Or up to Ganges and the torrid south
Restored once more the Syrian monarchy.
It is divinity on earth to be a king.
But if the weaker prove the elder born?
If Timocles were Fate's elected king?
Dear merry Timocles! he would not wish
To wear the iron burden of a crown;
If he has joy, it is enough for him.
Sunshine and laughter and the arms of friends
Guard his fine monarchy of cheerful mind.
If always Fate were careful to fit in
The nature with the lot! But she sometimes
Loves these strange contrasts and crude ironies.
Has not nurse Mentho often sworn to me
That I, not he, saw earth the first?
And when
Did woman's tongue except in wrath or malice
Deliver truth that's bitter?
Philoctetes,
Do you not wish me to be king?
Why left I then
Nile in his fields and Egypt slumbering
Couchant upon her sands, but to pursue
Your gallant progress sailing through life's seas
Shattering opponents till your flag flew high
Sole admiral-ship of all this kingly world?
But since upon this random earth unjust
We travel stumbling to the pyre, not led
By any Power nor any law, and neither
What we desire nor what we deserve
Arrives, but unintelligible dooms
O'ertake us and the travesty of things,
It is better not to hope too much.
It is better
To lift our hopes heaven-high and to extend them
As wide as earth. Heaven did not give me in vain
This royal nature and this kingly form,
These thoughts that wear a crown. They were not meant
For mockery nor to fret a subject's heart.
Do you not hear the ardour of those hooves?
He hastens to the other end of the colonnade.
O glorious youth
Whose young heroic arms would gird the world,
I like a proud and anxious mother follow,
Desiring, fearing, drawn by cords of hope and love,
Admire and doubt, exult and quake and chide.
She is so glad of her brave, beautiful child,
But trembles lest his courage and his beauty
Alarm the fatal jealousy that watches us
From thrones unseen.
Thoas and Melitus enter from the gates.
Are these the Syrian twins?
The elder of them only, Antiochus
Of Syria.
The high Seleucid travels the dull stream
And Syria's throne is empty for his heir.
A glorious sun has fallen then from heaven
Saddening the nations, even those he smote.
It is the rule of Nature makes us rise
Despite our hearts replacing what we love,
And I am happy who am called so soon
To rule a nation of such princely men.
Thoas of Macedon.
Thoas, we shall be friends. Will it be long
Before we march together through the world
To stable our horses in Persepolis?
He turns to speak to Timocles who has
just entered and goes into the house.
This is a royal style and kingly brow.
The man is royal. What a face looks forth
From under that bright aureole of hair!
I greet you, Syrians. Shall I know your names?
Melitus?
No, Antioch.
It is the same.
We talked of you in Alexandria and in Thebes,
All of you famous captains. Your great names
Are known to us, as now yourselves must be
Known and admired and loved.
Your courtesy
Overwhelms me; but I am no captain, only
The King's poor chamberlain, your servant come
To greet you.
Not therefore less a cherished friend
Whose duty helps our daily happiness.
Thoas, your name is in our country's book
Inscribed too deeply to demand poor praise
From one who never yet has drawn his sword
In anger.
I am honoured, Prince. Do not forget
Your mother is waiting for you after eighteen years.
My mother! O, I have a mother at last.
You lords shall tell me as we go, how fair
She is or dark like our Egyptian dames,
Noble and tall or else a brevity
Of queenhood. And her face — but that, be sure,
Is the sweet loving face I have seen so often
In Egypt when I lay awake at night
And heard the breezes whispering outside
With many voices in the moonlit hours.
It is late, Thoas, is it not, a child to see
His mother when eighteen years have made him big?
This, this is Paradise, a mother, friends
And Syria. In our swart Egypt 'twas no life, —
Although I liked it well when I was there;
But O, your Syria! I have spent whole hours
Watching your gracile Syrian women pass
With their bright splendid faces. And your flowers,
What flowers! and best of all, your sun, not like
That burning Egypt, but a warmth, a joy
And a kind brightness. It will be all pleasure
To reign in such a country.
Antiochus (returning from the house)
Into our kingdom.
Antioch in sweet Syria,
The realm for gods, and Daphne's golden groves,
And sweet Orontes hastening to the sea!
Ride by me, Melitus, tell me everything.
Cleopatra's antechamber in the palace.
Cleopatra seated, Rodogune.
It is their horsehooves ride into my heart.
It shall be done. What have I any more
To do with hatred? Parthian Rodogune,
Have you forgotten now your former pomps
And princely thoughts in high Persepolis,
Or do your dreams still linger near a throne?
I think all fallen beings needs must keep
Some dream out of their happier past, — or else
How hard it would be to live!
O, if some hope survive
In the black midst of care, however small,
We can live, then only, O then only.
Hope!
I have forgotten how men hope.
Is your life hard
In Syrian Antioch, Rodogune, a slave
To your most bitter foemen?
Not when you speak
So gently. Always I strive to make it sweet
By outward harmony with circumstance
And a calm soul within that is above
My fortune.
Parthian, you have borne the hate
My husband's murder bred in me towards all
Your nation. When I felt you with my heel,
I trampled Tigris and Euphrates then
And Parthia suffered. Therefore I let you live
Half-loving in your body my revenge.
But these are cruel and unhappy thoughts
I hope to slay and bury with the past
Which gave them birth. Will you assist me, girl?
Will you begin with me another life
And other feelings?
If our fates allow
Which are not gentle.
My life begins again,
My life begins again in my dear sons
And my dead husband lives. All's sweetly mended.
I do not wish for hatred any more.
The horrible and perilous hands of war
Appal me. O, let our peoples sit at ease
In Grecian Antioch and Persepolis,
Mothers and children, clasping those golden heads
Deep, deep within our bosoms, never allow
Their going forth again to bonds and death.
Peace, peace, let us have peace for ever more.
And will peace take me to my father's arms?
Or else detain you on a kingly throne.
If it must be so!
Art thou insensible or fear'st to rise?
I cannot think that even in barbarous lands
Any called human are so made that they prefer
Serfhood and scourge to an imperial throne.
Shall I not know
My husband first?
I did not ask your choice,
But gave you a command to be obeyed
Like any other that each day I give.
Shall I be given him as a slave, not wife?
You rise, I think, too quickly with your fate.
Or art thou other than I saw or thou
Feignedst to be? Hast thou been all this while
Only a mask of smooth servility,
Thou subtle barbarian?
Speak not so harshly to me
Who spoke so gently now. I will obey.
Hop'st thou by reigning to reign over me
Restoring on a throne thy Parthian soul?
What shall I be upon the Syrian throne
Except your first of slaves who am now the last,
The least considered? I hope not to reign
Nor ever have desired ambitious joys,
Only the love that I have lacked so long
Since I left Parthia.
The hand that seats thee can again unthrone.
I shall remember and I shall obey.
Her flashes of quick pride are quickly past.
After so many cruel, black and pitiless years
Shall not the days to come conspire for joy?
The Queen shall be my slave, a mind that's trained
To watch for orders, one without a party
In Syria, with no will to take my son from me
Or steal my sovereign station. O, they come!
Slowly, my heart! break not with too much bliss.
Am I the first to tell you they have come?
O girl, thy tongue rain joy upon the world,
That speaks to me of heaven!
They are more beautiful than heaven and earth.
Thy children's feet are on the palace stairs.
O no! not of the palace but my heart;
I feel their tread ascending. Be still, be still,
Thou flutterer in my breast. I am a queen
And must not hear thee.
Thoas and Melitus enter bringing
in Antiochus and Timocles.
Queen, we bring her sons
To Cleopatra.
I thank you both; approach.
Why dost thou beat so hard within to choke me?
She motions to them to stop and
gazes on them in silence.
This is my mother. She is what I dreamed!
O high inhabitants of Greek Olympus,
Which of you all comes flashing down from heaven
To snare us mortals with this earthly gaze,
These simulations of humanity?
Say to the Syrians they shall know their king
In the gods' time and hour. But these first days
Are for a mother.
None shall grudge them to thee,
Remembering the gods' debt to thee, Cleopatra.
Thoas and Melitus leave the chamber.
My children, O my children, my sweet children!
Come to me, come to me, come into my arms.
You beautiful, you bright, you tall heart-snarers,
You are all your father.
Mother, my sweet mother!
I have been dreaming of you all these years,
Mother!
And was the dream too fair, my child?
O strange, sweet bitterness that I must ask
My child his name!
I am your Timocles.
You first within my arms! O right, 'tis right.
It is your privilege, my sweet one. Kiss me.
O yet again, my young son Timocles.
O bliss, to feel the limbs that I have borne
Within me! O my young radiant Timocles,
You have outgrown to lie upon my lap:
I have not had that mother's happiness.
Mother, I am still your little Timocles
Playing at bigness. You shall not refuse me
The sweet dependent state which I have lost 
In that far motherless Egypt where I pined.
And like a child too, little one, you'ld have
All of your mother to yourself. Must I
Then thrust you from me? Let Antiochus,
My tall Antiochus have now his share.
He is all high and beautiful like heaven
From which he came. I have not seen before
A thing so mighty.
Madam, I seek your blessing; let me kneel
To have it.
Have you too dreamed of me, Antiochus?
Of great Nicanor's widow and the Queen
Of Syria and my sacred fount of life.
These are cold haughty names, Antiochus.
Not of your mother, not of your dear mother?
You were for me the thought of motherhood,
A noble thing and sacred. This I loved.
No more? Are you so cold in speech, my son?
O son Antiochus, you have received
Your father's face; I hope you have his heart.
Surely I hope to love.
You hope!
O madam, do not press my words.
I do press them. Your words, your lips, your heart,
Your radiant body noble as a god's
I, I made in my womb, to give them light
Bore agony. I have a claim upon them all.
The thought of you I have loved,
Honoured and cherished. By your own decree
We have been to each other only thoughts;
But now we meet. I trust I shall not fail
In duty, love and reverence to my mother.
His look is royal, but his speech is cold.
Should he debase his godhead with a lie?
She is to blame and her unjust demand.
It is well. My heart half slew me for only this!
O Timocles, my little Timocles,
Let me again embrace you, let me feel
My child who dreamed of me for eighteen years
In Egypt. Sit down here against my knee
And tell me of Egypt, — Egypt where I was born,
Egypt where my sweet sons were kept from me!
I loved it well because it bore my mother,
But not so well, my mother far from me.
What was your life there? your mornings and your evenings,
Your dreams at night, I must possess them all,
All the sweet years my arms have lost. Did you
Rising in those clear mornings see the Nile,
Our father Nile, flow through the solemn azure
Past the great temples in the sands of Egypt?
You have seen hundred-gated Thebes, my Thebes,
And my high tower where I would sit at eve
Watching your kindred sun? And Alexandria
With the white multitude of sails? My brother,
The royal Ptolemy, did he not love
To clasp his sister in your little limbs?
There is so much to talk of; but not now!
Eunice, take them from me for a while.
Take Rodogune and call the other slaves.
Let them array my sons like the great kings
They should have been so long. Go, son Antiochus;
Go, Timocles, my little Timocles.
We are the future's greatness, therefore owe
Some duty to the grandeurs of the past.
The great Antiochus lies hardly cold,
Garbed for his journey. I would kneel by him
And draw his mightiness into my soul
Before the gloomy shades have taken away
What earth could hardly value.
This was a stab.
Is there some cold ironic god at work?
The great Antiochus! Of him you dreamed?
You are his nephew! Parthian, take the prince
To the dead King's death-chamber, then to his own.
She was the Parthian! Great Antiochus,
Syria thou leav'st me and her and Persia afterwards
To be my lovely captive.
Timocles (as he follows Eunice)
I knew not I had such sweet cousins here, —
Was this the Parthian princess Rodogune?
Phraates' daughter, Prince, your mother's slave.
There are lovelier faces then than Syria owns.
You gods, you gods in heaven, you give us hearts
For life to trample on! I am sick, Cleone.
Why, Madam, what a son you have in him,
The joyous fair-faced Timocles, yet you are sick!
But the other, O the other!
Antiochus!
He has the face that gives my husband back to me,
But does not love me.
Yet he will be king.
Did I say it?
He will be king, a man
With a cold joyless heart and thrust you back
Into some distant corner of your house
And rule instead and fill with clamorous war
Syria and Parthia and the banks of Indus
Taking our lovers and our sons to death!
Our sons! Perhaps he will take Timocles
And offer him, a lovely sacrifice,
To the grim god of battles.
My Timocles! my only joy! Oh, no!
We will have peace henceforth and bloodless dawns.
He will recall them.
This is no man to rest in peaceful ease
While other sceptres sway the neighbouring realms.
War and Ambition from his eyes look forth;
His hand was made to grasp a sword-hilt. Queen,
Prevent it; let our Timocles be king.
What did you say?
Have you gone mad, Cleone?
The gods would never bless such vile deceit.
O, if it could have been! but it cannot.
It must.
Timocles dead, you a neglected mother,
A queen dethroned, with one unloving child, —
Childless were better, — and your age as lonely
As these long nineteen years have been. Then you had hope,
You will have none hereafter.
If I thought that,
I would transgress all laws yet known or made
And dare Heaven's utmost anger. Gods who mock me,
I will not suffer to all time your wrongs.
Hush, hush, Cleone! It shall not be so.
I thought my heart would break with joy, but now
What different passion tugs at my heart-strings,
Cleone, O Cleone! O my sweet dreams,
Where have you gone yielding to pangs and fears
Your happy empire? Am I she who left
Laughing the death-bed of Antiochus?
We must have roses, sunlight, laughter, Prince,
Not cold, harsh light of arms. Your laurels, laurels!
We'll blast them quickly with a good Greek lie.
Where he has gone, admire Antiochus,
Not here repeat him.