SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part Two
Comol, Coomood, meeting in the forest.
Where were you hidden, Comol, all this morning?
I have been wandering in my woods alone
Imagining myself their mountain queen.
O Coomood, all the woodland worshipped me!
Coomood, the flowers held up their incense-bowls
In adoration and the soft-voiced winds
Footing with a light ease among the leaves
Paused to lean down and lisp into my ear,
Oh, pure delight. The forest's unnamed birds
Hymned their sweet sovran lady as she walked
Lavishing melody. The furry squirrels
Peeped from the leaves and waved their bushy tails,
Twittering, “There goes she, our beloved lady,
Comol Cumary;” and the peacocks came
Proud to be seen by me and danced in front,
Shrilling, “How gorgeous are we in our beauty,
Yet not so beautiful as is our lady,
Comol Cumary.” I will be worshipped, Coomood.
You shall be. There's no goddess of them all
That has these vernal looks and such a body
Remembering the glory whence it came
Or apt to tread with the light vagrant breeze
Or rest with moonlight.
That was what they told me,
The voices of the forest, — sister Coomood,
The myriad voices.
What did they tell you, Comol?
They told me that my hair was a soft dimness
With thoughts of light imprisoned in't; the gods,
They said, looked down from heaven and saw my eyes
Wishing that that were heaven. They told me, child,
My face was such as Brahma once had dreamed of
But could not — no, for all the master-skill
That made the worlds — recapture in the flesh
So rare a sweetness. They called my perfect body
A feast of gracious beauty, a refrain
And harmony in womanhood embodied.
They told me all these things, — Coomood, they did,
Though you will not believe it. I understood
Their leafy language.
Come, you did not need
So to translate the murmurings of the leaves
And the wind's whisper. 'Twas a human voice
I'll swear, so deftly flattered you.
Fie, Coomood,
It was the trees, the waters; the pure, soft flowers
Took voices.
One voice. Did he roar softly, sweetheart,
To woo you?
Oh, he's a recreant to his duty.
He loves the wild deer fleeing on the hills
And the strong foeman's glittering blade, not Comol.
You must not talk of him, but of the hills
And greenness and of me.
And Edur, Comol?
Edur! It is a name that I have heard
In some dim past, in some old far-off world
I moved in, oh, a waste of centuries
And many dreams ago. I'll not return there.
It had no trees, I'm sure, no jasmine-bushes,
No happy breezes dancing with linked hands
Over the hill-tops, no proud-seated hills
Softening the azure, high-coped deep-plunging rocks
Or flowery greenness round, no birds, no Spring.
We are the distance of a world from Edur.
Tomorrow is the May-feast's crowning day,
Comol.
Oh then we shall be happy breezes
And dance with linkèd hands upon the hills
All the Spring-morning.
It is a May to be
Remembered.
It is the May-feast of my life,
Coomood, the May-feast of my life, the May
That in my heart shall last for ever, sweet
For ever and for ever. Where are our sisters?
Nirmol is carrying water from the spring;
Ishany hunts the browsing stag today,
A sylvan archeress.
What have you in the basket?
Flowers I have robbed the greenest woodland of
For Bappa's worship. They must hide with bloom,
Sheva Ekling today. Tomorrow, sweet,
I'll gather blossoms for your hair instead
And weave you silver-petalled anklets, ear-rings
Of bright may-bloom, zones of Spring-honeysuckle,
And hide your arms in vernal gold. We'll set you
Under a bough, our goddess of the Spring,
And sylvanly adore, covering your feet
With flowers that almost match their moonbeam whiteness
Or palely imitate their rose; — our Lady,
Comol Cumary.
Will Bappa worship me?
But I am an inferior goddess, Coomood,
And dare not ask the King of Paradise
To adore me.
You must adore him, that's your part.
I will, while 'tis the May.
And afterwards?
Coomood, we will not think of afterwards
In Dongurh, in the springtide.
Tomorrow dawns
The seventh morning, Comol.
I did not hear you.
I have a better aim
Than yours.
Right through the heart.
I'll never marry one
Whom I outdo at war or archery.
You tell me you are famous Martund's son,
The mighty Gehlote. Wherefore lurk you then
In unapproachable and tangled woods
Warding off glory with your distant shafts,
While life sweeps past in the loud vale below?
Not breast the torrent, not outbrave its shocks
To carve your names upon the rocks of Time
Indelibly?
We will affront, Ishany,
The Ganges yet with a victorious gleam
Of armour. But our fates are infant still
And in their native thickets they must wait
To flesh themselves and feel their lion strengths
Before they roar abroad.
Until they do,
Talk not of love.
What would you have me do?
O'erbear in arms the Scythian Toraman,
And slay the giant Hooshka? Meet Ichalgurh
And come unharmed, or with my single sword
Say halt to a proud score of the best lances
You have in Edur? This and more I can
For thee, Ishany.
You talk, but do it first.
Doers were never talkers, Prithuraj.
Oh, that's a narrow maxim. Noble speech
Is a high prelude fit for noble deeds;
It is the lion's roar before he leaps.
Proud eloquence graces the puissant arm
And from the hall of council to the field
Was with the great and iron men of old
Their natural stepping.
You only roar as yet.
I beat you with the bow today; sometime
I'll fight you with the sword and beat you.
Will you?
She played, she played,
But I would aim in earnest at your heart.
Why, if we do,
I'll claim a conqueror's right on your sweet body,
Ishany.
And my heart? You must do more,
If you'll have that.
It cannot now be long
Before the mailèd heel of Edur rings
Upon our hill-side rocks. Then I'll deserve it.
Till then you are my fellow hunter only,
Not yet my captain.
Idlers and ne'er-do-weels, home! Here have I carried twelve full jars from the spring, set wood on the stove, kindled the fire, while you play gracefully the sylvan gadabouts. Where is the venison?
Travelling to the cooking-pot on a Bheel's black shoulders.
In your service, Ishany! or you shall not taste the stag you have hunted.
Child, do not tyrannize. I am as hungry with this hunting as a beef-swallowing Scythian.
Off with you, hero, and help, her with your heroic shoulders.
A pair of warlike lovers!
You are there, sister-truants? Have you no occupation but to lurk in leaves and eavesdrop upon the prattle of lovers?
Why, Nirmol, I did my service before I came.
Yes, I know! To sweep one room — oh, scrupulously clean, for is it not Bappa's? and to scrub his armour for a long hour till it is as bright as your eyes grow when they are looking at Bappa, — do they not, Coomood?
They do, like stars allowed to gaze at God.
Nirmol, I do not know how many twigs there are in the forest, 
but I will break them all on your back, if you persevere.
Do you think you are princess of Edur here that you threaten me? No, we are in the democracy of Spring where all sweet flowers are equals. Oh, I will be revenged on you for your tyrannies in Edur. I have seen her, Coomood, when she thought none was looking, lay her cheek wistfully against the hilt of his sword, trying to think that the cold hard iron was the warm lips of its master and hers. I have seen her kiss it furtively —
Comol Cumary (embracing and stopping her mouth)
Hush, hush, you wicked romancer.
Go then and cook our meal like a good princess and I will promise not to repeat all the things I have heard you murmur to yourself when you were alone.
Nirmol, you grow in wickedness with years.
Wait till I have you back in Edur, maiden;
I'll scourge this imp of mischief out of you.
I have heard her, Coomood, —
I am off, I am away! I am an arrow from Kodal's bow.
She is hard to drive, but I have the whip-hand of her.
Have you the crimson sandal-powder ready?
Flowers for the garlands Spring in sweet abundance
Provides us.
Yes. She shall be wedded first
Before she knows it.
Unless my father's sword
Striking us through the flowery walls we hide in,
Prevent it, Nirmol.
Coomood, our fragile flowers will weave
A bond that steel cannot divide, nor death
Dissever.
