Vasavadatta
Act II
Scene I
A room in the palace at Cowsamby.
Alurca, Vasuntha.
ALURCA
He'll rule Cowsamby in the end, I think.
VASUNTHA
Artist, be an observer too. His eyes
Pursue young Vuthsa like a hunted prey
And seem to measure possibility,
But not for rule or for Cowsamby care.
To reign's his nature, not his will.
ALURCA
This man
Is like some high rock that was suddenly
Transformed into a thinking creature.
VASUNTHA
There's
His charm for Vuthsa who is soft as Spring,
Fair like a hunted moon in cloud-swept skies,
Luxurious like a jasmine in its leaves.
ALURCA
When will this Vuthsa grow to man? Hard-brained
Roomunwath, deep Yougundharayan rule;
The State, its arms are theirs. This boy between
Like a girl's cherished puppet stroked and dandled,
Chid and prescribed the postures it must keep,
Moves like a rhythmic picture of delight
And with his sunny smile he does it all.
Now in our little kingdom with its law
Of beauty and music this high silence comes
And seizes on him. All our acts he rules
And Vuthsa has desired one master more.
VASUNTHA
There is a wanton in this royal heart
Who gives herself to all and all are hers.
Perhaps that too is wisdom. For, Alurca,
This world is other than our standards are
And it obeys a vaster thought than ours,
Our narrow thoughts! The fathomless desire
Of some huge spirit is its secret law.
It keeps its own tremendous forces penned
And bears us where it wills, not where we would.
Even his petty world man cannot rule.
We fear, we blame; life wantons her own way,
A little ashamed, but obstinate still, because
We check but cannot her. O, Vuthsa's wise!
Because he seeks each thing in its own way,
He enjoys. And wherefore are we at all
If not to enjoy and with some costliness
Get dear things done, till rude death interferes,
God's valet moves away these living dolls
To quite another room and better play,—
Perhaps a better!
ALURCA
Yet consider this.
Look back upon the endless godlike line.
Think of Parikshith, Janamejoya, think
Of Suthaneke, then on our Vuthsa gaze.
Glacier and rock and all Himaloy piled!
What eagle peaks! Now this soft valley blooms;
The cuckoo cries from branches of delight,
The bee sails murmuring its low-winged desires.
VASUNTHA
It was to amuse himself God made the world.
For He was dull alone! Therefore all things
Vary to keep the secret witness pleased.
How Nature knows and does her office well.
What poignant oppositions she combines!
Death fosters life that life may suckle death.
Her certainties are snares, her dreams prevail.
What little seeds she grows into huge fates,
Proves with a smile her great things to be small!
All things here secretly are right; all's wrong
In God's appearances. World, thou art wisely led
In a divine confusion.
ALURCA
The Minister
Watches this man so closely, he must think
There is some dangerous purpose in his mind.
VASUNTHA
He is the wariest of all ministers
And would suspect two pigeons on a roof
Of plots because they coo.
ALURCA
All's possible.
Vuthsa enters with Gopalaca.
VUTHSA
Yes, I would love to see the ocean's vasts.
Are they as grand as are the mountains dumb
Where I was born and grew? Or is its voice
Like the huge murmur of our forests swayed
In the immense embrace of giant winds?
We have that in Cowsamby.
GOPALACA
Wilt thou show
Them to me, Vindhya's crags where forests dimly
Climb down towards my Avunthy?
VUTHSA
We will go
And hunt together the swift fleeing game
Or with our shafts unking the beast of prey.
GOPALACA
If we could range alone wide solitudes,
Not soil them with our din, not with our tread
Disturb great Nature in her animal trance,
Her life of mighty instincts where no stir
Of the hedged restless mind has spoiled her vasts.
VUTHSA
It is a thing I have dreamed of. Alurca, tell
The Minister that we go to hunt the deer
In Vindhya's forests on Avunthy's verge.
That's if my will's allowed.
Alurca goes out to the outer palace.
VASUNTHA
He will, Vuthsa,
Allow thy will. Where does it lead thee, king?
VUTHSA
A scourge for thee or a close gag might help.
VASUNTHA
A bandage for my eyes would serve as well.
VUTHSA
Shall we awaken in Alurca's hands
The living voices of the harp? Or willst thou
That I should play the heaven-taught airs thou lov'st
On the Gundhurva's magical guitar
Which lures even woodland beasts? For the elephant
Comes trumpeting to the enchanted sound,
A coloured blaze of beauty on the sward
The peacocks dance and the snake's brilliant hood
Lifts rhythmic yearning from the emerald herb.
GOPALACA
Vuthsa Udaian, suffer me awhile
To walk alone, for I am full of thoughts.
VUTHSA
Thou shouldst not be. Cannot my love atone
For lost Avunthy?
GOPALACA
Always; but a voice
Comes to me often from the haunts of old.
VASUNTHA
Returns no dim cloud-messenger to whisper
To thy great father's longing waiting heart
Far from his banished son?
GOPALACA
Thy satire's forced.
VASUNTHA
Thy earnest less?
VUTHSA
One hour, a long pale loss,
I sacrifice to thy thoughts. When it has dragged past,
Where shall I find thee?
GOPALACA
Where the flowers rain
Beneath the red boughs on the river's bank.
There will I walk while thou hearst harp or verse.
VUTHSA
Without thee neither harp nor verse can charm.
Gopalaca goes.
The harmony of kindred souls that seek
Each other on the strings of body and mind,
Is all the music for which life was born.
Vasuntha, let me hear thy happy crackling,
Thou fire of thorns that leapest all the day.
Spring, call thy cuckoo.
VASUNTHA
Give me fuel then,
Your green young boughs of folly for my fire.
VUTHSA
I give enough I think for all the world.
VASUNTHA
It is your trade to occupy the world.
Men have made kings that folly might have food;
For the court gossips over them while they live
And the world gossips over them when they are dead.
That they call history. But our man returns.
ALURCA
Do here and in all things, says the Minister,
Thy pleasure. But since upon a dangerous verge
This hunt will tread, thy cohorts armed shall keep
The hilly intervals, himself be close
To guard with vigilance his monarch's life
Against the wild beasts and what else means harm.
VUTHSA
That is his care; what he shall do, is good.
ALURCA
To lavish upon all men love and trust
Shows the heart's royalty, not the brain's craft.
VUTHSA
I have found my elder brother. Grudge me not,
Alurca, that delight. Thou lov'st me well?
ALURCA
Is it now questioned?
VUTHSA
Then rejoice with me
That I have found my brother. Joy in my joy,
Love with my love, think with my thoughts; the rest
Leave to much older wiser men whose schemings
Have made God's world an office and a mart.
We who are young, let us indulge our hearts.
ALURCA
Thou tak'st all hearts and givest thine to none,
Udaian. Yet is this prince Gopalaca,
This breed from Titans and from Mahasegn,
Hard, stern, reserved. Does he repay thy friendship
As we do?
VUTHSA
Love itself is sweet enough
Though unreturned; and there are silent hearts.
VASUNTHA
Suffer this flower to climb its wayside rock.
Oppose not Nature's cunning who will not
Be easily refused her artist joys.
Fierce deserts round the green oasis yearn
And the chill lake desires the lily's pomp.
VUTHSA
He is the rock, I am the flower. What part
Playst thou in the woodland?
VASUNTHA
A thorn beneath the rose
That from the heavens of desire was born
And men call Vuthsa.
VUTHSA
Poet, satirist, sage,
What other gifts keepst thou concealed within
More than the many that thy outsides show?
VASUNTHA
I squander all and keep none, not like thee
Who trad'st in honey to deceive the world.
VUTHSA
O, earth is honey; let me taste her all.
Our rapture here is short before we go
To other sweetness on some rarer height
Of the upclimbing tiers that are the world.
Scene II
A forest-glade in the Vindhya hills.
Vicurna, a Captain.
VICURNA
The hunt rings distant still; but all the ways
Troops and more troops besiege. Where is Gopalaca?
CAPTAIN
Our work may yet be rude before we reach
Our armies on the frontier.
VICURNA
That I desire.
O whistling of the arrows! I have yet
To hear that battle music.
CAPTAIN
Someone comes,
For wild things scurry forth.
They take cover. Gopalaca enters.
VICURNA
Whither so swiftly?
You are near the frontier for a banished man,
Gopalaca.
GOPALACA
Why has my father sent
Thy rash hot boyhood here, imperilling
Both of his sons? I find not here his wisdom.
VICURNA
There will be danger? I am glad. None sent me;
I came unasked.
GOPALACA
And also unasking?
VICURNA
Right.
GOPALACA
Trust me to have thee whipped. But since thou art here!
Where stand the chariots?
CAPTAIN
On our left they wait
Screened by the secret tunnel which the Boar
Tusked through the hill to Avunthy. Torches ready
And men in arms stand in the cavern ranked
They call the cavern of the Elephant
By giants carved. But all the forest passages
The enemy guards.
GOPALACA
There are some he cannot guard.
I know the forest better than their scouts.
When I shall speak of you and clap my hands,
Surround us in a silence armed.
CAPTAIN
His men
Resisting?
GOPALACA
No; we two shall be alone.
VICURNA
Fie! there will be no fighting?
GOPALACA
Goblin, off!
They take cover again. Gopalaca goes; then arrive from another side Vuthsa with Vasuntha and Alurca.
ALURCA
We lose our escort!
VASUNTHA
They lose us, I think.
ALURCA
What fate conspires with what hid treachery?
Our chariot broken, we in woods alone
And the night close.
VASUNTHA
Roomunwath guards the paths.
ALURCA
The night is close.
VUTHSA
Here I will rest, my friends,
Where all is green and silent; only the birds
And the wind's whisperings! Go, Alurca, meet
Our comrades of the hunt; guide their vague steps
To this green-roofed refuge.
ALURCA
It is the best, though bad.
I leave thee with unwarlike hands to guard.
VASUNTHA
I am no fighter; it is known. Run, haste.
Alurca hastens out.
And yet for all your speed, someone will worship
Great Shiva in Avunthy. I hear a tread.
Gopalaca returns.
VUTHSA
Where wert thou all this time, Gopalaca?
GOPALACA
Far wandering in the woods since a white deer
Like magic beauty drew my ardent steps
Into a green entanglement.
VASUNTHA
Simple!
You found there what you sought?
GOPALACA
No deer, but hunters,
Not of our troop. We spoke of this green glade
Where many wandering paths might lead the king.
In haste I came.
VASUNTHA
Greater the haste to go!
VUTHSA
Follow Alurca and come back with him.
VASUNTHA
What, cast myself into the forest's hands
To wander and be eaten by the night?
Come here and bid me then a long farewell.
Are thy eyes open at least? Is it thou in this
Who movest? I should know that at least from thee,
If nothing more.
VUTHSA
Why ask when thou hast eyes?
Thou seest that mine are open and I walk;
For no man drives me.
VASUNTHA
Walk! but far away
From thy safe capital.
VUTHSA
What harm?
VASUNTHA
And with
This prince Gopalaca?
VUTHSA
Suspicions then?
Why not suspect at once it is my will
To visit Avunthy?
VASUNTHA
So?
VUTHSA
Not so, but if?
VASUNTHA
Oh, if! And if return were much less easy
Than the going?
VUTHSA
Who has talked of easy things?
With difficulty then I will return.
VASUNTHA
I go, King Vuthsa.
VUTHSA
But tell Yougundharayan
And all who harbour blind uneasy thoughts,
"Whatever seeks me from Fate, man or god,
Leave all between me and the strength that seeks.
War shall not sound without thy prince's leave.
Vuthsa will rescue Vuthsa."
VASUNTHA
I will tell,
But know not if he'll hear.
VUTHSA
He knows who is
His sovereign.
VASUNTHA
King, farewell.
VUTHSA
I shall. Farewell.
Vasuntha disappears in the forest.
We two have kept our tryst, Gopalaca.
Hang there, my bow; lie down, my arrows. Now
Of you I have no need. O this, O this
Is what I often dreamed, to be alone
With one I love far from the pomp of courts,
Not ringed with guards and anxious friendships round,
Free like a common man to walk alone
Among the endless forest silences,
By gliding rivers and over deciduous hills,
In every haunt where earth our mother smiles
Whispering to her children. Let me rest awhile
My head upon thy lap, Gopalaca,
Before we plunge into this emerald world.
Shall we not wander in her green-roofed house
Where mighty Nature hides herself from men,
And be the friends of the great skyward peaks
That call us by their silence, bathe in tarns,
Dream where the cascades leap, and often spend
Slow moonless nights inarmed in leafy huts
Happier than palaces, or in our mood
Wrestle with the fierce tiger in his den
Or chase the deer with wind-swift feet, and share
With the rough forest-dwellers natural food
Plucked from the laden bounty of the trees,
Before we seek the citied haunts of men?
Shall we not do these things, Gopalaca?
GOPALACA
Some day we shall.
VUTHSA
Why some day? why not now?
Have I escaped my guards in vain?
GOPALACA
Not vainly.
VUTHSA
This sword encumbers; take it from me, friend,
And fling it there upon the bank.
GOPALACA
It is far.
I keep my arms lest some wild thing invade
These green recesses.
VUTHSA
Keep thy arms and me.
O, this is good to be among the trees
With thee to guard me and no soul besides.
GOPALACA
Thyself thou hast given wholly into my hands.
VUTHSA
Yes, take me, brother.
GOPALACA
I shall use the trust
And yet deserve it.
VUTHSA
I love thee well, Gopalaca.
How dost thou love me?
GOPALACA
It was hard to speak,
Now I can tell it. As a brother might
Elder and jealous, as a mother loves
Her beautiful flower-limbed boy or grown man yearns
Over some tender girl, his sister, comrade, child,
In all these ways, but many more besides,
But always jealously.
VUTHSA
Why?
GOPALACA
Because, Vuthsa,
I'ld have thee for my own and not as in
Thy city where a thousand shared thy rays
Who were strangers to me. In my own domain,
Part of a world that's old and dear to me,
Where thou shalt be no king, but Vuthsa only
And I can bind with many dearest ties
Heaped on thee at my will. This, Vuthsa, I desired
And therefore I have brought thee to this glade.
VUTHSA
And therefore I have come to thee alone.
GOPALACA
Thou must go farther.
VUTHSA
Yes? Then haste. Was that
A clank of arms amid the silent trees?
He makes as if to rise, but Gopalaca restrains him.
GOPALACA
Thy escort.
VUTHSA
Mine?
GOPALACA
My father sends for thee.
I seize upon thee, Vuthsa, thou art mine,
My captive and my prize. I'll bear thee far
As Heaven's great eagle bore thy mother once
Rapt to his unattainable high hills.
As he speaks the armed men appear.
Swift, captain, swift! I hold the royal boy.
On to the tunnel of the Boar.
CAPTAIN
Haste, haste!
There is a growing rumour all around.
GOPALACA
Care not for that, but follow me and guard.
They disappear among the trees. Vasuntha enters.
VASUNTHA
The forest lives with sound; but here all's empty.
The stake is thrown; it cannot be called in
Whatever happens.
Armed men break in from all sides; Yougundharayan, Roomunwath, Alurca.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN
Where is King Vuthsa? where?
His bow hangs lonely! sword and arrows lie.
VASUNTHA (indifferently)
I cannot tell.
ALURCA
Not tell! but you were here,
Were with him!
VASUNTHA
I was sent away like that.
But for a guess he's travelling far and fast
To Shiva in Avunthy.
ALURCA
And thou laughst,
Untimely jester!
YOUGUNDHARAYAN
Impetuously pursue!
The forest ways and mountain openings flood
That flee to Avunthy. Over her treasonous borders
Drive in your angry search.
VASUNTHA
Thy king commands thee
To leave all twixt him and the strength that seeks
Their quarrel; throw not armies in the balance.
War shall not sound her conch; but Vuthsa only
Shall rescue Vuthsa.
ROOMUNWATH
This is a boy's madness.
What lies behind this message?
YOUGUNDHARAYAN
Roomunwath, this. The lion's cub breaks forth
Whom we so guarded, from our strict control
To measure with the large and perilous world
The bounding rapture of his youth and force.
He throws himself into his foeman's lair
Alone and scorning every aid. I guess
His purpose and find it headlong, subtle, rash.
If he failed? This boy and iron Mahasegn!
We must obey.
ROOMUNWATH
There's time to arrest their flight
This side our frontier. Hastily pursue.
He goes with Alurca and the armed men, all in a tumult of haste.
YOUGUNDHARAYAN
It will be vain. A perilous leap and yet
Heroic with the bold and antique scorn
Of common deeds and the safe guarded paths.
This is the spirit that smiled hidden in him
Waiting for birth! At least my spies shall enter
Their secret chambers, even in his prison
My help be timely and near. Back to Cowsamby!
Scene III
Avunthy. A road on a wooded hill-side overlooking the plain.
Gopalaca, Vuthsa in a chariot, surrounded by armed men.
GOPALACA
Arrest our wheels. Those are our army's lights
That climb to us like fire-flies from the plain.
VUTHSA (awakened from sleep)
Is this Avunthy?
GOPALACA
We have passed her bounds.
VUTHSA
So, thou dear traitor, this thou from the first
Cam'st planning.
GOPALACA
This with more that follows it.
VUTHSA
Thou bearst me to thy father's town?
GOPALACA
Where thou
Shalt lie, a jewel guarded carefully,
Beside the dearest treasure of our house.
VUTHSA
I must be cooped up in a golden cage
As I was guarded in Cowsamby's walls.
You foes and friends think me your wealth inert,
And all men hope to do their will with me.
But now I warn you all that I will have
My freedom and will do my own dear will
By fraud or violence greater than your own.
GOPALACA
Thou canst not. If thou hadst thy bow indeed!
VUTHSA
Thou hadst me for the taking. I will break forth
Almost as easily.
GOPALACA
Thou shalt find it hard,
Such keepers shall enring thy steps.
VUTHSA
But I will
And carry with me something costlier far
Than what thou stealest from Cowsamby's realm.
For I will have revenge.
GOPALACA
No wealth we have
More precious than the thing I seize today.
Therefore thy boast is vain.
VUTHSA
That I will see.
Was it not thy brother rode behind our car?
He passes now; call him.
GOPALACA
Vicurna, here!
VUTHSA
Come near, embrace me, brother of Gopalaca,
Loved for his sake and for thy own desired
Since I beheld thee, son of Mahasegn.
VICURNA
Vuthsa Udaian, in the battle's front
I had hoped to meet thee and compel thy praise
As half thy equal in the fight. But this
Is nearer, this is better.
VUTHSA
Thou art fair to see.
Thy father has two noble sons. Are there
No others of your great upspringing stock?
GOPALACA
Only a sister.
VUTHSA
The world has heard of her.
GOPALACA
Thou shalt behold.
VUTHSA
Oh then, it is pure gain
I go to in Avunthy. O the night
With all her glorious stars and from the trees
Millions of shrill cigalas peal one note,
A thunderous melody! Shall we be soon
In the golden city? But it will be night
And I shall hardly see her famous fanes.
GOPALACA
Dawn will have overtaken us in her skies
Passing our chariots long before Ujjayiny's seen.
Our vanguard nears; unite with them; descend.
Roomunwath's cohorts should tread close behind.
VUTHSA
They will not come. My fate must ride with me
Unhindered to Avunthy.
GOPALACA
Hasten in front
Towards my father fire-hooved messengers
To cry aloud to him the prize we bring
Richer than booty of his twenty wars.
Shiva has smiled on us.
VUTHSA
Vishnu on me.
Godheads, it is by strife that you grow one.