SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part Two
Shaikh Ibrahim, Superintendent of the Caliph's gardens.
Mesrour, Haroun's friend and companion.
Mahomed bin Suleyman of Zayni, Haroun's cousin, King of Bassora.
Alfazzal Ibn Sawy, his chief Vizier.
Almuene bin Khakan, second Vizier of Bassora.
Murad, a Turk Captain of Police in Bassora.
Sunjar, a Chamberlain of the Palace of Bassora.
Aziz,
Abdullah, merchants of Bassora.
Harkoos, an Ethiopian eunuch in Ibn Sawy's household.
Kareem, a fisherman of Bagdad.
Slaves, Soldiers, Guards, Executioners, Merchants, Brokers.
Ameena, wife of Alfazzal Ibn Sawy.
Anice-Aljalice, a Persian slave-girl.
Khatoon, wife of Almuene, sister of Ameena.
Balkis,
Mymoona, sisters, slave-girls of Ajebe.
An antechamber in the palace.
Murad, Sunjar.
Chamberlain, I tell thee I will not bear it an hour longer than it takes my feet to carry me to the King's audience-room and my voice to number my wrongs. Let him choose between me, a man and one made in God's image, and this brutish amalgam of gorilla and Barbary ape whom he calls his Vizier.
You are not alone in your wrongs; all Bassora and half the Court complain of his tyrannies.
And as if all were too little for his heavy-handed malice, he must saddle us with his son's misdoings too, who is as like him as the young baboon is to the adult ape.
It is a cub, a monkey of mischief, a rod on the soles would go far to tame. But who shall dare apply that? Murad, be wary. The King, — who is the King and therefore blameless, — will not have his black angel dispraised. Complain rather to Alfazzal Ibn Sawy, the good Vizier.
The kind Alfazzal! Bassora is bright only because of his presence.
I believe you. He has the serenity and brightness of a nature that never willingly did hurt to man or living thing. I think sometimes every good kindly man is like the moon and carries a halo, while a chill cloud moves with dark and malignant natures. When we are near them, we feel it.
The fairest of all slave-girls! here's a task!
Why, my wild handsome roisterer, Nureddene,
My hunter of girls, my snare for hearts of virgins,
Could do this better. And he would strongly like
The mission; but I think his pretty purchase
Would hardly come undamaged through to the owner.
A perilous transit that would be! the rogue!
Ten thousand golden pieces hardly buy
Such wonders, — so much wealth to go so idly!
But princes must have sweet and pleasant things
To ease their labours more than common men.
Their labour is not common who are here
The Almighty's burdened high vicegerents charged
With difficult justice and calm-visaged rule.
The peace of the Prophet with thee, thou best of Viziers.
The peace, Alfazzal Ibn Sawy.
And to you also peace. You here, my Captain?
Vizier, and my own!
I would impeach the Vizier Almuene
Before our royal master.
You'll do unwisely.
A dark and dangerous mind is Almuene's,
Yet are there parts in him that well deserve
The favour he enjoys, although too proudly
He uses it and with much personal malice.
Complain not to the King against him, Murad.
He'll weigh his merits with your grievances,
Find these small jealous trifles, those superlative,
And in the end conceive a mute displeasure
Against you.
I will be guided by you, sir.
My honest Turk, you will do well.
He's here.
The peace upon you, son of Khakan.
Captain,
You govern harshly. Change your methods, Captain,
Your manners too. You are a Turk; I know you.
I govern Bassora more honestly
Than you the kingdom.
Soldier! rude Turcoman!
Nay, brother Almuene! Why are you angry?
That he misgoverns.
In what peculiar instance?
I'll tell you. A city gang the other day
Battered my little mild Fareed most beastly
With staves and cudgels. This fellow's bribed police,
By him instructed, held a ruffian candle
To the outrage. When the rogues were caught, they lied
And got them off before a fool, a Kazi.
The Vizier's son, as all our city knows,
A misformed urchin full of budding evil,
Ranges the city like a ruffian, shielded
Under his father's formidable name;
And those who lay their hands on him, commit
Not outrage, but a rescue.
Turk, I know you.
In all fraternal kindness hear me speak.
What Murad says, is truth. For your Fareed,
However before you he blinks angelically,
Abroad he roars half-devil. Never, Vizier,
Was such a scandal until now allowed
In any Moslem town.
Why, it is just
Such barbarous outrage as in Christian cities
May walk unquestioned, not in Bassora
Or any seat of culture. It should be mended.
Brother, your Nureddene is not all blameless.
His are the first wild startings
Of a bold generous nature. Mettled steeds,
When they have been managed, are the best to mount.
So will my son. If your Fareed's brute courses
As easily turn to gold, I shall be glad.
Let him be anything, he is a Vizier's son.
These are maxims, brother,
Unsuited to our Moslem polity.
They savour of barbarous Europe. But in Islam
All men are equal underneath the King.
Well, brother Turk, you are excused.
Excused!
I'll follow you.
Turk, the peace!
Peace, brother. See to it, brother.
Brother, peace.
Would I not gladly tweak your ears and nose
And catch your brotherly beard to pluck it out
With sweet fraternal pulls? Faugh, you babbler
Of virtuous nothings! some day I'll have you preach
Under the bastinado; you'll howl, you'll howl
Rare sermons there.
You! You! You spy? You eavesdrop?
And I must be rebuked with this to hear it!
Sir, I beseech you,
I had no smallest purpose to offend.
I know you, dog! When my back's turned, you bark,
But whine before me. You shall be remembered.
There goest thou, Almuene, the son of Khakan,
Dog's son, dog's father, and thyself a dog.
Thy birth was where thy end shall be, a dunghill.
A room in Almuene's house.
Almuene, Khatoon.
You have indulged the boy till he has lost
The likeness even of manhood. God's great stamp
And heavenly image on his mint's defaced,
Rubbed out, and only the brute metal left
Which never shall find currency again
Among his angels.
Oh always clamour, clamour!
I had been happier bedded with a slave,
Whom I could beat to sense when she was froward.
Oh, you'ld have done no less by me, I know,
Although my rank's as far above your birth
As some white star in heaven o'erpeers the muck
Of foulest stables, had I not great kin
And swords in the background to avenge me.
Termagant,
Some day I'll have you stripped and soundly caned
By your own women, if you grow not gentler.
I shall be glad some day to find your courage.
Enter Fareed, jumping and gyrating.
Oh father, father, father, father, father!
What means this idiot clamour? Senseless child,
Can you not walk like some more human thing
Or talk like one at least?
Dame, check once more
My gallant boy, try once again to break
His fine and natural spirit with your chidings,
I'll drive your teeth in, lady or no lady.
Do, father, break her teeth! She's always scolding.
Sometimes she beats me when you're out. Do break them,
I shall so laugh!
My gamesome goblin!
You prompt him
To hate his mother; but do not lightly think
The devil you strive to raise up from that hell
Which lurks within us all, sealed commonly
By human shame and Allah's supreme grace, —
But you! you scrape away the seal, would take
The full flame of the inferno, not the gusts
Of smoke jet out in ordinary men; —
Think not this imp will limit with his mother
Unnatural revolt! You will repent this.
Girl, father! such a girl! a girl of girls!
What girl, you leaping madcap?
In the slave-market for ten thousand pieces.
Such hands! such eyes! such hips! such legs! I am
Impatient till my elbows meet around her.
My amorous wagtail! What, my pretty hunchback,
You have your trophies too among the girls
No less than the straight dainty Nureddene,
Our Vizier's pride? Ay, you have broken seals?
You have picked locks, my burglar?
You have given me,
You and my mother, such a wicked hump
To walk about with, the girls jeer at me.
I have only a chance with blind ones. 'Tis a shame.
How will you make your slave-girl love you, hunch?
She'll be my slave-girl and she'll have to love me.
Whom would you marry, hunchback, for a wager?
Will the King's daughter tempt you?
My eye upon my uncle's pretty niece.
The Vizier, my peculiar hatred!
Wagtail, you must not marry there.
I hate him too
And partly for that cause will marry her,
To beat her twice a day and let him know it.
He will be grieved to the heart.
You're my own lad.
And then she's such a nice tame pretty thing,
Will sob and tremble, kiss me when she's told,
Not like my mother, frown, scold, nag all day.
But, dad, my girl! buy me my girl!
Come, wagtail.
Ten thousand pieces! 'tis exorbitant.
Two thousand, not a dirham more. The seller
Does wisely if he takes it, glad to get
A piastre for her. Call the slaves, Fareed.
Hooray! hoop! what a time I'll have! Cafoor!
'Tis thus a boy should be trained up, not checked,
Rebuked and punished till the natural man
Is killed in him and a tame virtuous block
Replace the lusty pattern Nature made.
I do not value at a brazen coin
The man who has no vices in his blood,
Never took toll of women's lips in youth
Nor warmed his nights with wine. Your moralists
Teach one thing, Nature quite another; which of these
Is likely to be right? Yes, cultivate,
But on the plan that she has mapped. Give way,
Give way to the inspired blood of youth
And you shall have a man, no scrupulous fool,
No ethical malingerer in the fray;
A man to lord it over other men,
Soldier of Vizier or adventurous merchant,
The breed of Samson. Man with such youth your armies.
Of such is an imperial people made
Who send their colonists and conquerors
Across the world, till the wide earth contains
One language only and a single rule.
Yes, Nature is your grand imperialist,
No moral sermonizer. Rude, hardy stocks
Transplant themselves, expand, outlast the storms
And heat and cold, not slips too gently nurtured
Or lapped in hothouse warmth. Who conquered earth
For Islam? Arabs trained in robbery,
Heroes, robust in body and desire.
I'll get this slave-girl for Fareed to help
His education on. Be lusty, son,
And breed me grandsons like you for my stock.
The Slave-market.
Muazzim and his man; Balkis and Mymoona, Ajebe, Aziz, Abdullah and other merchants.
Well, gentlemen, the biddings, the biddings! Will you begin, sir, for an example now?
Who is the handsome youth in that rich dress?
It is Ajebe, the Vizier's nephew, a good fellow with a bad uncle.
Praise me to them poetically, broker.
I promise you for the poetry. Biddings, gentlemen.
Three thousand for the pretty one.
Why, sir, I protest! Three thousand pieces! Look at her! Allah be good to me! You shall not find her equal from China to Frangistan. Seven thousand, say I.
The goods are good goods, broker, but the price heavy.
Didst thou say heavy? Allah avert the punishment from thee, merchant Aziz. Heavy!
Will you not bid for me? My mirror tells me
That I am pretty, and I can tell, who know it,
I have a touch upon the lute will charm
The winds to hear me, and my voice is sweeter
Than any you have heard in Bassora.
And wherefore do you choose me
From all these merchants, child?
I cannot say
That I have fallen in love with you. Your mother
Is kind and beautiful, I read her in your face,
And it is she I'ld serve.
I bid, Muazzim,
Five thousand for this little lady.
Five!
And she who chose you too! Bid seven or nothing.
Well, well, six thousand, not a dirham more.
Does any bid beyond?
Let me see, let me see.
Fie, leave them, man! You'll have no luck with her,
Crossing her wishes.
Let her go, let her go.
To you, sir, she belongs.
But if you'll have me,
Then take my sister too; we make one heart
Inseparably.
She's fair, but not like you.
If we are parted, I shall sicken and die
For want of her, then your six-thousand's wasted.
They make a single lot.
Two thousand more then.
Give her in that, or else the sale is off.
That's giving her away. Well, take her, take her.
I'll send the money.
What, a bargain, broker?
Not much, not much; the owner'll have some profit.
The Vizier!
Good sales today in the market, since his feet
Have trod here.
Welcome, welcome, noble Vizier.
The peace be on you all. I thank you, sirs,
What, good Abdullah, all goes well at home?
My brother's failed, sir.
Make me your treasurer.
I am ashamed to think good men should want
While I indulge in superfluities.
Well, broker, how's the market? Have you slaves
That I can profit by?
Admired Vizier,
There's nothing worth the kindness of your gaze.
Yet do but tell me what you need, I'll fit you
With stuff quite sound and at an honest price.
The other brokers are mere pillagers,
But me you know.
If there's an honest broker,
You are that marvel, I can swear so much.
Now pick me out your sweetest thing in girls,
Perfect in beauty, wise as Sheban Balkis,
Yet more in charm than Helen of the Greeks,
Then name your price.
I have the very marvel.
You shall not see her equal in a century.
She has the Koran and the law by heart;
Song, motion, music and calligraphy
Are natural to her, and she contains
All science in one corner of her mind;
Yet learning less than wit; and either lost
In the mere sweetness of her speech and beauty.
You'll hardly have her within fifteen thousand;
She is a nonpareil.
It is a sum.
Nay, see her only. Khalid, bring the girl.
I should not ask you, sir, but has your son
Authority from you to buy? He has
The promise of a necklet from me.
A necklet!
A costly trifle. “Send it to such a house,”
He tells me like a prince, “and dun my father
For the amount. I know you'll clap it on
As high as Elburz, you old swindler.
Fleece him!”
The handsome naughty rogue! I'll pull his curls for this.
The house? To whom is it given?
Well, sir, it is
A girl, a dainty Christian. I fear she has given
Something more precious far than what he pays her with.
No doubt, no doubt. The rogue! quite conscienceless.
I'm glad you told me of this. Dun me! Well,
The rascal's frank enough, that is one comfort;
He adds no meaner vices, fear or lying,
To his impetuous faults. The blood is good
And in the end will bear him through. There's hope.
The son repeats the father,
But with a dash of quicker, wilder blood.
Here's Khalid with the Persian.
Enter Khalid with Anice-Aljalice.
And call the Vizier, he was here just now.
Exit Khalid. Enter Almuene, Fareed and slaves.
There she is, father; there, there, there!
You deal, sir? I know you well. Today be more honest than is
Iblis straight out of Hell with his hobgoblin! (aloud) Sir, we are waiting for the good Vizier, who is to bid for her.
Here is the Vizier and he bids for her.
Two thousand for the lass. Who bids against me?
Vizier Almuene, you are too great to find any opposers, and you know it; but as you are great, I pray you bid greatly. Her least price is ten thousand.
Ten thousand, swindler! Do you dare to cheat
In open market? Two thousand's her outside.
This spindly common wench! Accept it, broker,
Or call for bids; refuse at your worst risk.
It is not the rule of these sales. I appeal to you, gentlemen. What, do you all steal off from my neighbourhood? Vizier, she is already bespoken by your elder, Ibn Sawy.
I know your broking tricks, you shallow rascal.
Call for more bids, you cheater, call for bids.
Abuse me not, Almuene bin Khakan! There is justice in Bassora and the good Ibn Sawy will decide between us.
Us! Between us! Thou dirty broking cheat,
Am I thy equal? Throw him the money, Nubian.
But if he boggle, seize him, have him flat
And powerfully persuade him with your sticks.
You, beauty, come. What, hussy, you draw back?
Father, let me get behind her with my horse-tickler. I will trot her home in a twinkling.
This is flat tyranny. I will appeal
To the good Vizier and our gracious King.
Impudent thief! have first thy punishment
And howl appeal between the blows. Seize him.
Protect me, Vizier, from this unjust man,
This tyrant.
What is this?
He takes by force
The perfect slave-girl I had kept for you,
And at a beggarly, low, niggard's price
I'ld not accept for a black kitchen-girl;
Then, when I named you, fell to tyrant rage,
Ordering his slaves to beat me.
Is this true,
Vizier?
Someone beat out my foggy brains?
I took it for a trick, a broker's trick.
What, you bespoke the girl? You know I'ld lose
My hand and tongue rather than they should hurt you.
Well, well, begin the bidding.
First, a word.
Vizier, this purchase is not for myself;
'Tis for the King. I deem you far too loyal
To bid against your master, needlessly
Taxing his treasuries. But if you will,
You have the right. By justice and the law
The meanest may compete here. Do you bid?
He baulks me everywhere. (aloud) The perfect slave-girl?
No, I'll not bid. Yet it is most unlucky,
My son has set his heart upon this very girl.
Will you not let him have her, Ibn Sawy?
I grieve that he must be so disappointed,
But there's no help. Were it my own dear son
And he should pine to death for her, I would not
Indulge him here. The King comes first.
Quite first.
Well, shall I see you at your house today?
State business, brother?
Our states and how to join
Their linked loves yet closer. I have a thought
Touching Fareed here and your orphaned niece.
I understand you. We will talk of it.
Brother, you know my mind about your boy.
He is too wild and rude; I would not trust
My dear soft girl into such dangerous hands,
Unless he showed a quick and strange amendment.
It is the wildness of his youth. Provide him
A wife and he will soon domesticate.
Pen these wild torrents into quiet dams
And they will fertilize the kingdom, brother.
Fareed, come with me.
I'll have my girl! I'll beat them all and have her!
Wagtail, your uncle takes her.
Break his head then,
Whip the proud broker up and down the square
And take her without payment. Why are you
The Vizier, if you cannot do your will?
Madcap, she's for the King, be quiet.
Oh!
Come, I will buy you prettier girls than this
By hundredweights and tons.
She has such hair! such legs!
God damn the Vizier and the King and you!
Exit in a rage, followed by Almuene and slaves.
This is a budding Vizier!
Sir, look at her; were mine mere broker's praises?
You, mistress! Does the earth contain such beauty?
Did I not tell you so?
'Tis marvellous,
And if her mind be equal to her body,
She is an emperor's portion. What's your name,
Sweet wonder?
Anice-Aljalice they call me.
What is your history?
My parents sold me
In the great famine.
What, is your mould indeed a thing of earth?
Peri, have you not come disguised from heaven
To snare us with your lovely smiles, you marvel?
I am a slave and mortal.
Prove me that.
A peri, sir, has wings, but I have none.
I see that difference only. Well now, her price?
She is a gift to thee, O Vizier.
Ceremony?
I rate her value at ten thousand clear.
It is the price expected at your hands,
Though from a private purse we'ld have full value.
Keep her ten days with you; her beauty's worn
With journeying and its harsh fatigues. Give rest,
Give baths, give food, then shade your eyes to gaze at her.
You counsel wisely. There's my poaching rascal, —
But I will seal her fast even from his questings,
The peace, Muazzim.
Peace, thou good Vizier, loaded with our blessings.
A room in the women's apartments of Ibn Sawy's house.
Ameena, Doonya.
Call, Doonya, to the eunuch once again
And ask if Nureddene has come.
Mother,
What is the use? You know he has not come.
Why do you fret your heart, sweet mother, for him?
Fie, Doonya! bad?
He is not bad, but wild, a trifle wild;
And the one little fault's like a stray curl
Among his clustering golden qualities,
That graces more than it disfigures him.
Bad coin! Oh, Doonya, even the purest gold
Has some alloy, so do not call him bad.
Sweet, silly mother! why, I called him that
Just to hear you defend him.
You laugh at me, —
Oh, you all laugh. And yet I will maintain
My Nureddene's the dearest lad in Bassora, —
Let him disprove't who can, — in all this realm
The beautifullest and kindest.
So the girls think
Through all our city.
Oh, I laugh at you
And at myself. I'm sure I am as bad
A sister to him as you are a mother.
I a bad mother, Doonya?
The worst possible.
You spoil him; so do I; so does his father;
So does all Bassora, — especially the girls!
Why, who could be unkind to him or see
His merry eyes grow clouded with remorse?
Is it he who comes?
And there's a girl with him, — I think she is
A copy of Nureddene in white and red.
Why, as I looked downstairs, she smiled up at me
And took the heart out of my body with the smile.
Are you going to have a rival at your years,
Poor mother? 'Tis late for uncle to go wooing.
A rival, you mad girl!
Enter Ibn Sawy and Anice-Aljalice.
Come forward, child.
Here is a slave-girl, Ameena, I've bought
For our great Sultan. Keep her from your son,
Your scapegrace son. My life upon it, dame!
I'll see to it.
Let a strong eunuch with a naked sword
Stand at her door. Bathe her and feed her daintily.
Your son! see that he does not wheedle you.
You've spoilt him so, there is no trusting you,
You tender, foolish heart.
I spoil him, husband!
Most damnably. Whenever I would turn
Wholesomely harsh to him, you come between
And coax my anger. Therefore he is spoilt.
Oh, uncle mine, when you are harsh, the world
Grows darker with your frown. See, how I tremble!
Oh, are you there, my little satirist?
When you last were harsh.
You shall be married off. I will not have you
Mocking an old and reverend man like me.
An old, old man,
Just such a smiling harsh old man as you,
None else.
And not a boy like young Fareed?
His father wishes it; he too, I think.
Throw me from this high window to the court
Or tell me ere the day and I will leap.
Is he so bad? I thought it. No, my niece,
You marry not with Khakan's evil stock,
Although there were no other bridegroom living.
I'll leave you, Ameena. Anice, I have a son,
Handsome and wanton. Let him not behold you!
You are wise and spirited beyond your years,
Above your sex; I trust in your discretion.
I will be careful, sir. Yet trust in bars
And portals, not in me. If he should find me,
I am his slave and born to do his will.
Be careful, dame.
How fair you are, small lady!
'Tis better truly he should see you not.
Doonya, be careful of her. I'll go before
And make your casket ready for you, gem.
What's your name,
You smiling wonder, what's your name?
Your name?
If you will let me a little breathe, I'll tell you.
Tell it me without breathing.
It's too long.
Let's hear it.
Anice-Aljalice.
Anice,
There is a sea of laughter in your body;
I find it billowing there beneath the calm
And rippling sweetly out in smiles. You beauty!
And I love laughers. Wherefore for the King?
Why not for me? Does the King ever laugh,
I wonder?
My King is here. But they would give me
To some thick-bearded swart and grizzled Sultan
Who'd see me once a week and keep me penned
For service, not for mirth and love. My prince
Is like our Persian boys, fair-faced and merry,
Fronting the world with glad and open looks
That make the heart rejoice. Ten days! 'tis much.
Kingdoms have toppled in ten days.
Come, Anice.
I wish my cousin Nureddene had come
And caught you here. What fun it would have been!
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