The Project Gutenberg eBook ofFive PlaysThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Five PlaysAuthor: Lord DunsanyRelease date: November 7, 2012 [eBook #41311]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE PLAYS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Five PlaysAuthor: Lord DunsanyRelease date: November 7, 2012 [eBook #41311]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Five Plays
Author: Lord Dunsany
Author: Lord Dunsany
Release date: November 7, 2012 [eBook #41311]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE PLAYS ***
THE MODERN DRAMA SERIES
EDITED BY EDWIN BJÖRKMAN
THE GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN : THE GOLDEN DOOM : KING ARGIMĒNĒS AND THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR : THE GLITTERING GATE : THE LOST SILK HAT :BY LORD DUNSANY
GODS OF THE MOUNTAINTHE GOLDEN DOOMKING ARGIMĒNĒS AND THE UNKNOWN WARRIORTHE GLITTERING GATETHE LOST SILK HAT
BY
LORD DUNSANY
Publisher's logo
BOSTONLITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY1922
Copyright, 1914,By Little, Brown, and Company
All Dramatic rights reserved by the Author
These plays are fully protected by the copyright law, all requirements of which have been complied with. In their present printed form they are dedicated to the reading public only, and no performance of them, either professional or amateur, may be given without the written permission of the owner of the acting rights, who may be addressed in care of the publishers, Little, Brown, and Company.
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Observation and imagination are the basic principles of all poetry. It is impossible to conceive a poetical work from which one of them is wholly absent. Observation without imagination makes for obviousness; imagination without observation turns into nonsense. What marks the world's greatest poetry is perhaps the presence in almost equal proportion of both these principles. But as a rule we find one of them predominating, and from this one-sided emphasis the poetry of the period derives its character as realistic or idealistic.
The poetry of the middle nineteenth century made a fetish of observation. It came as near excluding imagination as it could without ceasing entirely to be poetry. That such exaggeration should sooner or later result in a sharp reaction was natural. The change began during the eighties and gathered full headway in the early nineties. Imagination, so long scorned, came into its rights once more, and it is rapidly becoming the dominant note in the literary production of our own day.
The new movement has been called "neo-romantic" and "symbolistic." Both these names apply, but neither of them exhausts the contents or meaning of the movement which received its first impetus from Ibsen and which later found its typical embodiment in Maeterlinck. From this movement came much of the inspiration that produced the poetical re-birth of Ireland out of which has sprung the man whom I have now the pleasure of introducing to American readers: a man with imagination as elfish as moonlight mist.
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, is the eighteenth member of his family to bear the title which gives him a place in the Irish peerage. He was born in 1878 and received his education at Eton and Sandhurst. In 1899 he succeeded his father to the title and the family estate in Meath, Ireland. During the South African war he served at the front with the Coldstream Guards. He is passionately fond of outdoor life and often spends the whole day in the saddle before sitting down at his desk to write late at night.
His work proves, however, that he is as fond of spiritual as of physical exercise, and that he is an inveterate traveller in those mysterious regions of the partly known or wholly unknown where the imagination alone can guide us. His first literary heroes were the brothers Grimm and Andersen. Then the Greek world of Olympians was revealed to him, making a lasting impression on his mind. But it was the Bible that gave him the limpid style which makes his most fantastic tales as real as government reports—or rather much more so. "For years no style seemed to me natural but that of the Bible," he said not long ago, "and I feared that I would never become a writer when I saw that other people did not use it."
For something like ten years he has been a pretty frequent and increasingly valued contributor to English and Anglo-Irish periodicals. He has previously published five volumes: "The Gods of Pegana," 1905; "Time and the Gods," 1906; "The Sword of Welleran," 1908; "A Dreamer's Tales," 1910; and "The Book of Wonder," 1912. All are collections of prose pieces that defy accepted classifications. They are fairy tales and short stories and essays and prose poems at the same time.
The reader has only to take a brief glance at one of those works to make the astounding discovery that he is being introduced to worlds of which he has never heard before. Even the "Arabian Nights" have a clearly identifiable background of popular legend and myth. Nothing of the kind is to be found in the writings of Lord Dunsany. He may be said to have created a new mythology wholly his own. He is not only the master but the maker of the countries to which he takes us on such fascinating jaunts. His commonest name for them is the Edge of the World, but sometimes he speaks of them as the Lands of Wonder. This latter name is doubly significant, for the whole movement of which he forms such a striking manifestation has been defined as a "renascence of wonder."
The names of places and persons appearing in the stories of Lord Dunsany are worth a study in themselves. There are hundreds of them, giving evidence of an inexhaustible imagination; and each one of them is as aptly suggestive as if generations of men had been at work shaping them. To hear of Sardathion, the city built by the Gods of Old, is to see its domes of marble rising sky-high in the sunset-lighted air. To hear of Slith and Sippy and Slorg, the three thieves who went to the Edge of the World in quest of the Golden Box, is to feel as if one were dealing with historical characters like Aaron Burr or Chinese Gordon. And as we learn more about them, these fanciful creatures of Lord Dunsany's brain assume still more familiar characteristics, as if they had been studied in some Irish village or English street. It is this fact that reveals one of the main secrets of Lord Dunsany's appeal: that behind all his exuberant imagination lies a solid basis of observation, enabling him to endow the most impossible adventures with a homely and convincing air.
The five plays contained in the present volume have all been produced on the stage. "The Golden Doom" and "The Gods of the Mountain" have been staged most successfully at the Haymarket Theatre, London. "King Argimēnēs" and "The Glittering Gate" have been given by the Irish Players, and "The Lost Silk Hat" has been put on by Iden Payne at Manchester. In America, the first three have been in the repertoire of Stuart Walker's Portmanteau Theatre, and "The Glittering Gate" has been given by the Neighborhood Players.
After seeing "The Gods of the Mountain," Frank Harris wrote: "It was one of the nights of my life; the only play, I said to myself, which meant anything to me in twenty years or more." Without sharing the opinion of Mr. Harris about the dramatic output of the last twenty years, I share fully his enthusiasm in regard to the play that caused his remark. The note struck in it is so distinctly new as to make one gasp as under a sharp shock. But the surprise turns quickly into pleasure such as only the originality of genius can confer.
It is hard to define just what makes these plays what they are. But certain qualities are tangible. Their deep and rich symbolism is one. It is the kind of symbolism for which the advances of modern psychology had prepared us—the kind that is inseparable from life itself as we are only just beginning to understand it. Another quality is their capacity for suggesting at once the intimate unity and appalling vastness of life. In "The Golden Doom" the fate of an empire and a little boy's desire for a new plaything become linked as facts of equal importance in the web of fate. In "The Gods of the Mountain" we meet with an atmosphere of fatality comparable only to that found in the Greek dramas. The crime ofhybris, which to the Greeks was the "unforgivable sin," is here made as real to us as it was to them.
But these remarks of mine about the inner significance of the plays should not tempt anybody into thinking them deficient in that element of formal perfection without which they could not be classed as works of art. They are, indeed, "things of beauty," and their beauty inheres in their design as well as in their style. Through all of them the greatest possible economy of means has been observed, so that not a word, not a tone, not a gesture is wasted in obtaining the effect aimed at. The dialogue of Maeterlinck is suggested, but not more than suggested. The words spoken by the characters of Maeterlinck are often so vague as to be practically meaningless. The characters of Lord Dunsany speak as simply as those of Maeterlinck, but always sharply to the point; there can be no mistaking of what they mean, and that meaning serves always to carry the action of the play forward. And each play of Lord Dunsany's is an exciting adventure, conveying to the reader an exhilarating sense of motion without ever descending to old-fashioned stage tricks for the production of that sense. This means that they combine to an extraordinary degree the qualities which make separately for theatrical or literary success.
Edwin Björkman.
Scene: The East
THE GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN
Outside a city wall. Three beggars are seated upon the ground.
OOGNO
These days are bad for beggary.
THAHN
They are bad.
ULF (an older beggar but not gray)
Some evil has befallen the rich ones of this city. They take no joy any longer in benevolence, but are become sour and miserly at heart. Alas for them! I sometimes sigh for them when I think of this.
OOGNO
Alas for them! A miserly heart must be a sore affliction.
THAHN
A sore affliction indeed, and bad for our calling.
OOGNO (reflectively)
They have been thus for many months. What thing has befallen them?
THAHN
Some evil thing.
ULF
There has been a comet come near to the earth of late and the earth has been parched and sultry so that the gods are drowsy and all those things that are divine in man, such as benevolence, drunkenness, extravagance, and song, have faded and died and have not been replenished by the gods.
OOGNO
It has indeed been sultry.
THAHN
I have seen the comet o' nights.
ULF
The gods are drowsy.
OOGNO
If they awake not soon and make this city worthy again of our order I for one shall forsake the calling and buy a shop and sit at ease in the shade and barter for gain.
THAHN
You will keep a shop?
[Enter Agmar and Slag. Agmar, though poorly dressed, is tall, imperious, and older than Ulf. Slag follows behind him.
AGMAR
Is this a beggar who speaks?
OOGNO
Yes, master, a poor beggar.
AGMAR
How long has the calling of beggary existed?
OOGNO
Since the building of the first city, master.
AGMAR
And when has a beggar ever followed a trade? When has he ever haggled and bartered and sat in a shop?
OOGNO
Why, he has never done so.
AGMAR
Are you he that shall be first to forsake the calling?
OOGNO
Times are bad for the calling here.
THAHN
They are bad.
AGMAR
So you would forsake the calling?
OOGNO
The city is unworthy of our calling. The gods are drowsy and all that is divine in man is dead. (To third beggar) Are not the gods drowsy?
ULF
They are drowsy in their mountains away at Marma. The seven green idols are drowsy. Who is this that rebukes us?
THAHN
Are you some great merchant, master? Perhaps you will help a poor man that is starving.
SLAG
My master a merchant! No, no. He is no merchant. My master is no merchant.
OOGNO
I perceive that he is some lord in disguise. The gods have woken and have sent him to save us.
SLAG
No, no. You do not know my master. You do not know him.
THAHN
Is he the Soldan's self that has come to rebuke us?
AGMAR
I am a beggar, and an old beggar.
SLAG (with great pride)
There is none like my master. No traveller has met with cunning like to his, not even those that come from Æthiopia.
ULF
We make you welcome to our town, upon which an evil has fallen, the days being bad for beggary.
AGMAR
Let none who has known the mystery of roads or has felt the wind arising new in the morning, or who has called forth out of the souls of men divine benevolence, ever speak any more of any trade or of the miserable gains of shops and the trading men.
OOGNO
I but spoke hastily, the times being bad.
AGMAR
I will put right the times.
SLAG
There is nothing that my master cannot do.
AGMAR (to Slag)
Be silent and attend to me. I do not know this city. I have travelled from far, having somewhat exhausted the city of Ackara.
SLAG
My master was three times knocked down and injured by carriages there, once he was killed and seven times beaten and robbed, and every time he was generously compensated. He had nine diseases, many of them mortal—
AGMAR
Be silent, Slag.—Have you any thieves among the calling here?
ULF
We have a few that we call thieves here, master, but they would scarcely seem thieves to you. They are not good thieves.
AGMAR
I shall need the best thief you have.
[Enter two citizens richly clad, Illanaun and Oorander.
ILLANAUN
Therefore we will send galleons to Ardaspes.
OORANDER
Right to Ardaspes through the silver gates.
[Agmar transfers the thick handle of his long staff to his left armpit, he droops on to it and it supports his weight; he is upright no longer. His right arm hangs limp and useless. He hobbles up to the citizens imploring alms.
ILLANAUN
I am sorry. I cannot help you. There have been too many beggars here and we must decline alms for the good of the town.
AGMAR (sitting down and weeping)
I have come from far.
[Illanaun presently returns and gives Agmar a coin. Exit Illanaun. Agmar, erect again, walks back to the others.
AGMAR
We shall need fine raiment; let the thief start at once. Let it rather be green raiment.
BEGGAR
I will go and fetch the thief. (Exit)
ULF
We will dress ourselves as lords and impose upon the city.
OOGNO
Yes, yes; we will say we are ambassadors from a far land.
ULF
And there will be good eating.
SLAG (in an undertone to Ulf)
But you do not know my master. Now that you have suggested that we shall go as lords, he will make a better suggestion. He will suggest that we should go as kings.
ULF
Beggars as kings!
SLAG
Ay. You do not know my master.
ULF (to Agmar)
What do you bid us do?
AGMAR
You shall first come by the fine raiment in the manner I have mentioned.
ULF
And what then, master?
AGMAR
Why, then we shall go as gods.
BEGGARS
As gods!
AGMAR
As gods. Know you the land through which I have lately come in my wanderings? Marma, where the gods are carved from green stone in the mountains. They sit all seven of them against the hills. They sit there motionless and travellers worship them.
ULF
Yes, yes, we know those gods. They are much reverenced here, but they are drowsy and send us nothing beautiful.
AGMAR
They are of green jade. They sit cross-legged with their right elbows resting on their left hands, the right forefinger pointing upward. We will come into the city disguised, from the direction of Marma, and will claim to be these gods. We must be seven as they are. And when we sit we must sit cross-legged as they do, with the right hand uplifted.
ULF
This is a bad city in which to fall into the hands of oppressors, for the judges lack amiability here as the merchants lack benevolence, ever since the gods forgot them.
AGMAR
In our ancient calling a man may sit at one street corner for fifty years doing the one thing, and yet a day may come when it is well for him to rise up and do another thing while the timorous man starves.
ULF
Also it were well not to anger the gods.
AGMAR
Is not all life a beggary to the gods? Do they not see all men always begging of them and asking alms with incense, and bells, and subtle devices?
OOGNO
Yes, all men indeed are beggars before the gods.
AGMAR
Does not the mighty Soldan often sit by the agate altar in his royal temple as we sit at a street corner or by a palace gate?
ULF
It is even so.
AGMAR
Then will the gods be glad when we follow the holy calling with new devices and with subtlety, as they are glad when the priests sing a new song.
ULF
Yet I have a fear.
[Enter two men talking.
AGMAR (to Slag)
Go you into the city before us and let there be a prophecy there which saith that the gods who are carven from green rock in the mountain shall one day arise in Marma and come here in the guise of men.
SLAG
Yes, master. Shall I make the prophecy myself? Or shall it be found in some old document?
AGMAR
Let someone have seen it once in some rare document. Let it be spoken of in the market place.
SLAG
It shall be spoken of, master.
[Slag lingers. Enter Thief and Thahn.
OOGNO
This is our thief.
AGMAR (encouragingly)
Ah, he is a quick thief.
THIEF
I could only procure you three green raiments, master. The city is not now well supplied with them; moreover, it is a very suspicious city and without shame for the baseness of its suspicions.
SLAG (to a beggar)
This is not thieving.
THIEF
I could do no more, master. I have not practised thieving all my life.
AGMAR
You have got something: it may serve our purpose. How long have you been thieving?
THIEF
I stole first when I was ten.
SLAG (in horror)
When he was ten!
AGMAR
We must tear them up and divide them amongst the seven. (To Thahn) Bring me another beggar.
SLAG
When my master was ten he had already to slip by night out of two cities.
OOGNO (admiringly)
Out of two cities?
SLAG (nodding his head)
In his native city they do not now know what became of the golden cup that stood in the Lunar Temple.
AGMAR
Yes, into seven pieces.
ULF
We will each wear a piece of it over our rags.
OOGNO
Yes, yes, we shall look fine.
AGMAR
That is not the way that we shall disguise ourselves.
OOGNO
Not cover our rags?
AGMAR
No, no. The first who looked closely would say, "These are only beggars. They have disguised themselves."
ULF
What shall we do?
AGMAR
Each of the seven shall wear a piece of the green raiment underneath his rags. And peradventure here and there a little shall show through; and men shall say, "These seven have disguised themselves as beggars. But we know not what they be."
SLAG
Hear my wise master.
OOGNO (in admiration)
Heis a beggar.
ULF
He is anoldbeggar.
CURTAIN
The Metropolitan Hall of the city of Kongros. Citizens, etc.
Enter the seven beggars with green silk under their rags.
OORANDER
Who are you and whence come you?
AGMAR
Who may say what we are or whence we come?
OORANDER
What are these beggars and why do they come here?
AGMAR
Who said to you that we were beggars?
OORANDER
Why do these men come here?
AGMAR
Who said to you that we were men?
ILLANAUN
Now, by the moon!
AGMAR
My sister.
ILLANAUN
What?
AGMAR
My little sister.
SLAG
Our little sister the moon. She comes to us at evenings away in the mountains of Marma. She trips over the mountains when she is young. When she is young and slender she comes and dances before us, and when she is old and unshapely she hobbles away from the hills.
AGMAR
Yet is she young again and forever nimble with youth; yet she comes dancing back. The years are not able to curb her nor to bring gray hairs to her brethren.
OORANDER
This is not wonted.
ILLANAUN
It is not in accordance with custom.
AKMOS
Prophecy hath not thought it.
SLAG
She comes to us new and nimble, remembering olden loves.
OORANDER
It were well that prophets should come and speak to us.
ILLANAUN
This hath not been in the past. Let prophets come. Let prophets speak to us of future things.
[The beggars seat themselves upon the floor in the attitude of the seven gods of Marma.
CITIZEN
I heard men speak to-day in the market place. They speak of a prophecy read somewhere of old. It says the seven gods shall come from Marma in the guise of men.
ILLANAUN
Is this a true prophecy?
OORANDER
It is all the prophecy we have. Man without prophecy is like a sailor going by night over uncharted seas. He knows not where are the rocks nor where the havens. To the man on watch all things ahead are black and the stars guide him not, for he knows not what they are.
ILLANAUN
Should we not investigate this prophecy?
OORANDER
Let us accept it. It is as the small, uncertain light of a lantern, carried it may be by a drunkard, but along the shore of some haven. Let us be guided.
AKMOS
It may be that they are but benevolent gods.
AGMAR
There is no benevolence greater than our benevolence.
ILLANAUN
Then we need do little: they portend no danger to us.
AGMAR
There is no anger greater than our anger.
OORANDER
Let us make sacrifice to them if they be gods.
AKMOS
We humbly worship you, if ye be gods.
ILLANAUN (kneeling too)
You are mightier than all men and hold high rank among other gods and are lords of this our city, and have the thunder as your plaything and the whirlwind and the eclipse and all the destinies of human tribes—if ye be gods.
AGMAR
Let the pestilence not fall at once upon this city, as it had indeed designed to; let not the earthquake swallow it all immediately up amid the howls of the thunder; let not infuriated armies overwhelm those that escape—if we be gods—
POPULACE (in horror)
If we be gods!
OORANDER
Come, let us sacrifice.
ILLANAUN
Bring lambs.
AKMOS
Quick! Quick! (Exeunt some)
SLAG (with solemn air)
This god is a very divine god.
THAHN
He is no common god.
MLAN
Indeed he has made us.
CITIZEN (to Slag)
He will not punish us, master? None of the gods will punish us? We will make a sacrifice, a good sacrifice.
ANOTHER
We will sacrifice a lamb that the priests have blessed.
FIRST CITIZEN
Master, you are not wroth with us?
SLAG
Who may say what cloudy dooms are rolling up in the mind of the eldest of the gods? He is no common god like us. Once a shepherd went by him in the mountains and doubted as he went. He sent a doom after that shepherd.
CITIZEN
Master, we have not doubted.
SLAG
And the doom found him on the hills at evening.
SECOND CITIZEN
It shall be a good sacrifice, master.
[Reënter with a dead lamb and fruits. They offer the lamb on an altar where there is fire, and fruits before the altar.
THAHN (stretching out a hand to a lamb upon an altar)
That leg is not being cooked at all.
ILLANAUN
It is strange that gods should be thus anxious about the cooking of a leg of lamb.
OORANDER
It is strange certainly.
ILLANAUN
Almost I had said that it was a man spoke then.
OORANDER (stroking his beard and regarding the second beggar)
Strange. Strange, certainly.
AGMAR
Is it then strange that the gods love roasted flesh? For this purpose they keep the lightning. When the lightning flickers about the limbs of men there comes to the gods in Marma a pleasant smell, even a smell of roasting. Sometimes the gods, being pacific, are pleased to have roasted instead the flesh of lamb. It is all one to the gods; let the roasting stop.
OORANDER
No, no, gods of the mountains!
OTHERS
No, no.
OORANDER
Quick, let us offer the flesh to them. If they eat, all is well.
[They offer it; the beggars eat, all but Agmar, who watches.
ILLANAUN
One who was ignorant, one who did not know, had almost said that they ate like hungry men.
OTHERS
Hush!
AKMOS
Yet they look as though they had not had a meal like this for a long time.
OORANDER
They have a hungry look.
AGMAR (who has not eaten)
I have not eaten since the world was very new and the flesh of men was tenderer than now. These younger gods have learned the habit of eating from the lions.
OORANDER
O oldest of divinities, partake, partake.
AGMAR
It is not fitting that such as I should eat. None eat but beasts and men and the younger gods. The sun and the moon and the nimble lightning and I—we may kill and we may madden, but we do not eat.
AKMOS
If he but eat of our offering he cannot overwhelm us.
ALL
Oh, ancient deity, partake, partake.
AGMAR
Enough. Let it be enough that these have condescended to this bestial and human habit.
ILLANAUN (to Akmos)
And yet he is not unlike a beggar whom I saw no so long since.
OORANDER
But beggars eat.
ILLANAUN
Now I never knew a beggar yet who would refuse a bowl of Woldery wine.
AKMOS
This is no beggar.
ILLANAUN
Nevertheless let us offer him a bowl of Woldery wine.
AKMOS
You do wrong to doubt him.
ILLANAUN
I do but wish to prove his divinity. I will fetch the Woldery wine. (Exit)
AKMOS
He will not drink. Yet if he does, then he will not overwhelm us. Let us offer him the wine.
[Reënter Illanaun with a goblet.
FIRST BEGGAR
It is Woldery wine!
SECOND BEGGAR
It is Woldery!
THIRD BEGGAR
A goblet of Woldery wine!
FOURTH BEGGAR
O blessed day!
MLAN
O happy times!
SLAG
O my wise master!
[Illanaun takes the goblet. All the beggars stretch out their hands including Agmar. Illanaun gives it to Agmar. Agmar takes it solemnly, and very carefully pours it upon the ground.
FIRST BEGGAR
He has spilt it.
SECOND BEGGAR
He has spilt it. (Agmar sniffs the fumes, loquitur)
AGMAR
It is a fitting libation. Our anger is somewhat appeased.
ANOTHER BEGGAR
But it was Woldery!
AKMOS (kneeling to Agmar)
Master, I am childless, and I—
AGMAR
Trouble us not now. It is the hour at which the gods are accustomed to speak to the gods in the language of the gods, and if Man heard us he would guess the futility of his destiny, which were not well for Man. Begone! Begone!
ONE LINGERS (loquitur)
Master—
AGMAR
Begone!
[Exeunt. Agmar takes up a piece of meat and begins to eat it; the beggars rise and stretch themselves: they laugh, but Agmar eats hungrily.
OOGNO
Ah! Now we have come into our own.
THAHN
Now we have alms.
SLAG
Master! My wise master!
ULF
These are the good days, the good days; and yet I have a fear.
SLAG
What do you fear? There is nothing to fear. No man is as wise as my master.
ULF
I fear the gods whom we pretend to be.
SLAG
The gods?
AGMAR (taking a chunk of meat from his lips)
Come hither, Slag.
SLAG (going up to him)
Yes, master.
AGMAR
Watch in the doorway while I eat. (Slag goes to the doorway) Sit in the attitude of a god. Warn me if any of the citizens approach.
[Slag sits in the doorway in the attitude of a god, back to the audience.
OOGNO (to Agmar)
But, master, shall we not have Woldery wine?
AGMAR
We shall have all things if only we are wise at first for a little.
THAHN
Master, do any suspect us?
AGMAR
We must beverywise.
THAHN
But if we are not wise, master?
AGMAR
Why, then death may come to us—
THAHN
O master!
AGMAR
—slowly.
[All stir uneasily except Slag, who sits motionless in the doorway.
OOGNO
Do they believe us, master?
SLAG (half turning his head)
Someone comes.
[Slag resumes his position.
AGMAR (putting away his meat)
We shall soon know now.
[All take up the attitude. Enter One, loquitur.
ONE
Master, I want the god that does not eat.
AGMAR
I am he.
ONE
Master, my child was bitten in the throat by a death-adder at noon. Spare him, master; he still breathes, but slowly.
AGMAR
Is he indeed your child?
ONE
He is surely my child, master.
AGMAR
Was it your wont to thwart him in his play, while he was strong and well?
ONE
I never thwarted him, master.
AGMAR
Whose child is Death?
ONE
Death is the child of the gods.
AGMAR
Do you that never thwarted your child in his play ask this of the gods?
ONE (with some horror, perceiving Agmar's meaning)
Master!
AGMAR
Weep not. For all the houses that men have builded are the play-fields of this child of the gods.
[The Man goes away in silence, not weeping.
OOGNO (taking Thahn by the wrist)
Is this indeed a man?
AGMAR
A man, a man, and until just now a hungry one.
CURTAIN
Same room.
A few days have elapsed.
Seven thrones shaped like mountain-crags stand along the back of the stage. On these the beggars are lounging. The Thief is absent.
MLAN
Never had beggars such a time.
OOGNO
Ah, the fruits and tender lamb!
THAHN
The Woldery wine!
SLAG
It was better to see my master's wise devices than to have fruit and lamb and Woldery wine.
MLAN
Ah! When they spied on him to see if he would eat when they went away!
OOGNO
When they questioned him concerning the gods and Man!
THAHN
When they asked him why the gods permitted cancer!
SLAG
Ah, my wise master!
MLAN
How well his scheme has succeeded!
OOGNO
How far away is hunger!
THAHN
It is even like to one of last year's dreams, the trouble of a brief night long ago.
OOGNO (laughing)
Ho, ho, ho! To see them pray to us.
AGMAR
When we were beggars did we not speak as beggars? Did we not whine as they? Was not our mien beggarly?
OOGNO
We were the pride of our calling.
AGMAR
Then now that we are gods, let us be as gods, and not mock our worshippers.
ULF
I think that the godsdomock their worshippers.
AGMAR
The gods have never mocked us. We are above all pinnacles that we have ever gazed at in dreams.
ULF
I think that when man is high then most of all are the gods wont to mock him.
THIEF (entering)
Master! I have been with those that know all and see all. I have been with the thieves, master. They know me for one of the craft, but they do not know me as being one of us.
AGMAR
Well, well!
THIEF
There is danger, master, there is great danger.
AGMAR
You mean that they suspect that we are men.
THIEF
That they have long done, master. I mean that they will know it. Then we are lost.
AGMAR
Then they do not know it.
THIEF
They do not know it yet, but they will know it, and we are lost.
AGMAR
When will they know it?
THIEF
Three days ago they suspected us.
AGMAR
More than you think suspected us, but have any dared to say so?
THIEF
No, master.
AGMAR
Then forget your fears, my thief.
THIEF
Two men went on dromedaries three days ago to see if the gods were still at Marma.
AGMAR
They went to Marma!
THIEF
Yes, three days ago.
OOGNO
We are lost!
AGMAR
They went three days ago?
THIEF
Yes, on dromedaries.
AGMAR
They should be back to-day.
OOGNO
We are lost!
THAHN
We are lost!
THIEF
They must have seen the green jade idols sitting against the mountains. They will say, "The gods are still at Marma." And we shall be burnt.
SLAG
My master will yet devise a plan.
AGMAR (to the Thief)
Slip away to some high place and look toward the desert and see how long we have to devise a plan.
SLAG
My master will find a plan.
OOGNO
He has taken us into a trap.
THAHN
His wisdom is our doom.
SLAG
He will find a wise plan yet.
THIEF (reëntering)
It is too late!
AGMAR
It is too late!
THIEF
The dromedary men are here.
OOGNO
We are lost!
AGMAR
Be silent! I must think.
[They all sit still. Citizens enter and prostrate themselves. Agmar sits deep in thought.
ILLANAUN (to Agmar)
Two holy pilgrims have gone to your sacred shrines, wherein you were wont to sit before you left the mountains. (Agmar says nothing) They return even now.
AGMAR
They left us here and went to find the gods? A fish once took a journey into a far country to find the sea.
ILLANAUN
Most reverend deity, their piety is so great that they have gone to worship even your shrines.
AGMAR
I know these men that have great piety. Such men have often prayed to me before, but their prayers are not acceptable. They little love the gods; their only care is their piety. I know these pious ones. They will say that the seven gods were still at Marma. They will lie and say that we were still at Marma. So shall they seem more pious to you all, pretending that they alone have seen the gods. Fools shall believe them and share in their damnation.
OORANDER (to Illanaun)
Hush! You anger the gods.
ILLANAUN
I am not sure whom I anger.
OORANDER
It may be they are the gods.
ILLANAUN
Where are these men from Marma?
CITIZEN
Here are the dromedary men; they are coming now.
ILLANAUN (to Agmar)
The holy pilgrims from your shrine are come to worship you.
AGMAR
The men are doubters. How the gods hate the word! Doubt ever contaminated virtue. Let them be cast into prison and not besmirch your purity. (Rising) Let them not enter here.
ILLANAUN
But oh, most reverend deity from the Mountain, we also doubt, most reverend deity.
AGMAR
You have chosen. You have chosen. And yet it is not too late. Repent and cast these men in prison and it may not be too late.The gods have never wept.And yet when they think upon damnation and the dooms that are withering a myriad bones, then almost, were they not divine, they could weep. Be quick! Repent of your doubt.
[Enter the Dromedary Men.
ILLANAUN
Most reverend deity, it is a mighty doubt.
CITIZENS
Nothing has killed him! They are not the gods!
SLAG (to Agmar)
You have a plan, my master. You have a plan.
AGMAR
Not yet, Slag.
ILLANAUN (to Oorander)
These are the men that went to the shrines at Marma.
OORANDER (in a loud, clear voice)
Were the Gods of the Mountain seated still at Marma, or were they not there?
[The beggars get up hurriedly from their thrones.
DROMEDARY MAN
They were not there.
ILLANAUN
They were not there?
DROMEDARY MAN
Their shrines were empty.
OORANDER
Behold the Gods of the Mountain!
AKMOS
They have indeed come from Marma.
OORANDER
Come. Let us go away to prepare a sacrifice. A mighty sacrifice to atone for our doubting. (Exeunt)
SLAG
My most wise master!
AGMAR
No, no, Slag. I do not know what has befallen. When I went by Marma only two weeks ago the idols of green jade were still seated there.
OOGNO
We are saved now.
THAHN
Ay, we are saved.
AGMAR
We are saved, but I know not how.
OOGNO
Never had beggars such a time.
THIEF
I will go out and watch. (He creeps out)
ULF
Yet I have a fear.
OOGNO
A fear? Why, we are saved.
ULF
Last night I dreamed.
OOGNO
What was your dream?
ULF
It was nothing. I dreamed that I was thirsty and one gave me Woldery wine; yet there was a fear in my dream.
THAHN
When I drink Woldery wine I am afraid of nothing.
THIEF (reëntering)
They are making a pleasant banquet ready for us; they are killing lambs, and girls are there with fruits, and there is to be much Woldery wine.
MLAN
Never had beggars such a time.
AGMAR
Do any doubt us now?
THIEF
I do not know.
MLAN
When will the banquet be?
THIEF
When the stars come out.
OOGNO
Ah! It is sunset already. There will be good eating.
THAHN
We shall see the girls come in with baskets upon their heads.
OOGNO
There will be fruits in the baskets.
THAHN
All the fruits of the valley.
MLAN
Oh, how long we have wandered along the ways of the world!
SLAG
Oh, how hard they were!
THAHN
And how dusty!
OOGNO
And how little wine!
MLAN
How long we have asked and asked, and for how much!
AGMAR
We to whom all things are coming now at last!
THIEF
I fear lest my art forsake me now that good things come without stealing.
AGMAR
You will need your art no longer.
SLAG
The wisdom of my master shall suffice us all our days.
[Enter a frightened Man. He kneels before Agmar and abates his forehead.
MAN
Master, we implore you, the people beseech you.
[Agmar and the beggars in the attitude of the gods sit silent.
MAN
Master, it is terrible. (The beggars maintain silence) It is terrible when you wander in the evening. It is terrible on the edge of the desert in the evening. Children die when they see you.
AGMAR
In the desert? When did you see us?
MAN
Last night, master. You were terrible last night. You were terrible in the gloaming. When your hands were stretched out and groping. You were feeling for the city.
AGMAR
Last night do you say?
MAN
You were terrible in the gloaming!