The Gods of the Mountain The First Act of King Argimēnēs and the Unknown Warrior A Miracle The Castle of Time Lady Wilde once told me that when she was a young girl she was stopped in some Dublin street by a great crowd and turned into a shop to escape from it. She stayed there some time and the crowd still passed. She asked the shopman what it was, and he said, 'the funeral of Thomas Davis, a poet.' She had never heard of Davis; but because she thought a country that so honoured a poet must be worth something, she became interested in Ireland and was soon a famous patriotic poet herself, being, as she once said to me half in mockery, an eagle in her youth. That age will be an age of romance for an hundred years to come. Its poetry slid into men's ears so smoothly that a man still living, though a very old man now, heard men singing at the railway stations he passed upon a journey into the country the verses he had published but that morning in a Dublin newspaper; and yet we should not regret too often that it has vanished, and left us poets even more unpopular than are our kind elsewhere in Europe; for now that we are unpopular we escape from crowds, from noises in the street, from voices that sing out of tune, from bad paper made one knows not from what refuse, from evil-smelling gum, from covers of emerald green, from that ideal of reliable, invariable men and women, which would forbid saint and connoisseur who always, the one in his simple, the other in his elaborate way, do what is unaccountable, and forbid life itself which, being, as the definition says, the only thing that moves itself, is always without precedent. When our age too has passed, when its moments also, that are so common and many, seem scarce and precious, students will perhaps open these books, printed by village girls at Dundrum, as curiously as at twenty years I opened the books of history and ballad verse of the old 'Library of Ireland.' They will notice that this new 'Library,' where I have gathered so much that seems to me representative or beautiful, unlike the old, is intended for few people, and written by men and women with that ideal condemned by 'Mary of the Nation', who wished, as she said, to make no elaborate beauty and to write nothing but what a peasant could understand. If they are philosophic or phantastic, it may even amuse them to find some analogy of the old with O'Connell's hearty eloquence, his winged dart shot always into the midst of the people, his mood of comedy; and of the new, with that lonely and haughty person below whose tragic shadow we of modern Ireland began to write. The melancholy, the philosophic irony, the elaborate music of a play by John Synge, the simplicity, the sense of splendour of living in Lady Gregory's lamentation of Emer, Mr. James Stephens when he makes the sea waves 'Tramp with banners on the shore' are as much typical of our thoughts and day, as was 'She dwelt beside the Anner with mild eyes like the dawn,' or any stanza of the 'Pretty girl of Lough Dan,' or any novel of Charles Lever's of a time that sought to bring Irish men and women into one nation by means of simple patriotism and a genial taste for oratory and anecdotes. A like change passed over Ferrara's brick and stone when its great Duke, where there had been but narrow medieval streets, made many palaces and threw out one straight and wide street, as Carducci said, to meet the Muses. Doubtless the men of 'Perdondaris that famous city' have such antiquity of manners and of culture that it is of small moment should they please themselves with some tavern humour; but we must needs cling to 'our foolish Irish pride' and form an etiquette, if we would not have our people crunch their chicken bones with too convenient teeth, and make our intellect architectural that we may not see them turn domestic and effusive nor nag at one another in narrow streets. Some of the writers of our school have intended, so far as any creative art can have deliberate intention, to make this change, a change having more meaning and implications than a few sentences can define. When I was first moved by Lord Dunsany's work I thought that he would more help this change if he could bring his imagination into the old Irish legendary world instead of those magic lands of his with their vague Eastern air; but even as I urged him I knew that he could not, without losing his rich beauty of careless suggestion, and the persons and images that for ancestry have all those romantic ideas that are somewhere in the background of all our minds. He could not have made Slieve-na-Mon nor Slieve Fua incredible and phantastic enough, because that prolonged study of a past age, necessary before he could separate them from modern association, would have changed the spontaneity of his mood to something learned, premeditated, and scientific. When we approach subtle elaborate emotions we can but give our minds up to play or become as superstitious as an old woman, for we cannot hope to understand. It is one of my superstitions that we became entangled in a dream some twenty years ago; but I do not know whether this dream was born in Ireland from the beliefs of the country men and women, or whether we but gave ourselves up to a foreign habit as our spirited Georgian fathers did to gambling, sometimes lying, as their history has it, on the roadside naked, but for the heap of straw they had pulled over them, till they could wager a lock of hair or the paring of a nail against what might set them up in clothes again. Whether it came from Slieve-na-Mon or Mount Abora, AE. found it with his gods and I in my 'Land of Heart's Desire,' which no longer pleases me much. And then it seemed far enough till Mr. Edward Martyn discovered his ragged Peg Inerney, who for all that was a queen in faery; but soon John Synge was to see all the world as a withered and witless place in comparison with the dazzle of that dream; and now Lord Dunsany has seen it once more and as simply as if he were a child imagining adventures for the knights and ladies that rode out over the drawbridges in the piece of old tapestry in its mother's room. But to persuade others that it is all but one dream, or to persuade them that Lord Dunsany has his part in that change I have described I have but my superstition and this series of little books where I have set his tender, pathetic, haughty fancies among books by Lady Gregory, by AE., by Dr. Douglas Hyde, by John Synge, and by myself. His work which seems today so much on the outside, as it were, of life and daily interest, may yet seem to those students I have imagined rooted in both. Did not the Maeterlinck of 'Pelleas and Melisande' seem to be outside life? and now he has so influenced other writers, he has been so much written about, he has been associated with so much celebrated music, he has been talked about by so many charming ladies, that he is less a vapour than that Dumas fils who wrote of such a living Paris. And has not Edgar Allen Poe, having entered the imagination of Baudelaire, touched that of Europe? for there are seeds still carried upon a tree, and seeds so light they drift upon the wind and yet can prove that they, give them but time, carry a big tree. Had I read 'The Fall of Babbulkund' or 'Idle Days on the Yann' when a boy I had perhaps been changed for better or worse, and looked to that first reading as the creation of my world; for when we are young the less circumstantial, the further from common life a book is, the more does it touch our hearts and make us dream. We are idle, unhappy and exorbitant, and like the young Blake admit no city beautiful that is not paved with gold and silver. These plays and stories have for their continual theme the passing away of gods and men and cities before the mysterious power which is sometimes called by some great god's name but more often 'Time.' His travellers, who travel by so many rivers and deserts and listen to sounding names none heard before, come back with no tale that does not tell of vague rebellion against that power, and all the beautiful things they have seen get something of their charm from the pathos of fragility. This poet who has imagined colours, ceremonies and incredible processions that never passed before the eyes of Edgar Allen Poe or of De Quincey, and remembered as much fabulous beauty as Sir John Mandeville, has yet never wearied of the most universal of emotions and the one most constantly associated with the sense of beauty; and when we come to examine those astonishments that seemed so alien we find that he has but transfigured with beauty the common sights of the world. He describes the dance in the air of large butterflies as we have seen it in the sun-steeped air of noon. 'And they danced but danced idly, on the wings of the air, as some haughty queen of distant conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance in some encampment of the gipsies for the mere bread to live by, but beyond this would never abate her pride to dance for one fragment more.' He can show us the movement of sand, as we have seen it where the sea shore meets the grass, but so changed that it becomes the deserts of the world: 'and all that night the desert said many things softly and in a whisper but I knew not what he said. Only the sand knew and arose and was troubled and lay down again and the wind knew. Then, as the hours of the night went by, these two discovered the foot-tracks wherewith we had disturbed the holy desert and they troubled over them and covered them up; and then the wind lay down and the sand rested.' Or he will invent some incredible sound that will yet call before us the strange sounds of the night, as when he says, 'sometimes some monster of the river coughed.' And how he can play upon our fears with that great gate of his carved from a single ivory tusk dropped by some terrible beast; or with his tribe of wanderers that pass about the city telling one another tales that we know to be terrible from the blanched faces of the listeners though they tell them in an unknown tongue; or with his stone gods of the mountain, for 'when we see rock walking it is terrible' 'rock should not walk in the evening.' Yet say what I will, so strange is the pleasure that they give, so hard to analyse and describe, I do not know why these stories and plays delight me. Now they set me thinking of some old Irish jewel work, now of a sword covered with Indian Arabesques that hangs in a friend's hall, now of St. Mark's at Venice, now of cloud palaces at the sundown; but more often still of a strange country or state of the soul that once for a few weeks I entered in deep sleep and after lost and have ever mourned and desired. Not all Lord Dunsany's moods delight me, for he writes out of a careless abundance; and from the moment I first read him I have wished to have between two covers something of all the moods that do. I believe that I have it in this book, which I have just been reading aloud to an imaginative young girl more French than English, whose understanding, that of a child and of a woman, and expressed not in words but in her face, has doubled my own. Some of my selections, those that I have called 'A Miracle' and 'The Castle of Time' are passages from stories of some length, and I give but the first act of 'Argimēnēs,' a play in the repertory of the Abbey Theatre, but each selection can be read I think with no thoughts but of itself. If 'Idle Days on the Yann' is a fragment it was left so by its author, and if I am moved to complain I shall remember that perhaps not even his imagination could have found adventures worthy of a traveller who had passed 'memorable, holy Golnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying,' and smelt burned poppies in Mandaroon. Normandy 1912. W. B. Yeats. Top SCENE: The East. Outside a city wall; three beggars seated on the ground. OOGNO: These days are bad for beggary. THAHN: They are bad. ULF: (an older beggar but not grey) 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: (with great pride) I am a beggar, and an old beggar. SLAG: 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 that 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: (incredulous) 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 upwards. 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 to 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. 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: 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 had 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) He is a beggar. ULF: He is an old beggar. SCENE: 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 mountain 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 she is young again and forever nimble with youth: yet she comes dancing back. The years are not able to curb her nor to bring grey 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 infuriate 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. (Exit 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: (A WOMAN) (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. (Re-enter 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 mountain! 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: O 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 not 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. (Re-enter 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! (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.) 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! (Exeunt all but one who lingers.) ONE Master: .... AGMAR: Begone! (exit one) (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 be very wise. 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 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.) 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. 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. MLAN: Ho, ho, ho, to see them pray to us! AGMAR: (sternly) When we were beggars did we not speak as beggars? Did we not whine as they? Was not our mien beggarly? MLAN: We were the pride of our calling. AGMAR: (sternly) Then now that we are gods let us be as gods, and not mock our worshippers. ULF: I think the gods do mock 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. (Enter Thief) THIEF: Master, I have been with those that see all and know 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 towards the desert and see how long we have to devise a plan. (Exit Thief.) SLAG: My Master will devise a plan. OOGNO: He has taken us into a trap. THAHN: His wisdom is our doom. SLAG: He will find a wise plan yet. (Re-enter Thief.) THIEF: 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. 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 O most reverened 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. 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. (Enter the dromedary men.) 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: Aye, 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. (Re-enter Thief.) THIEF: 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: Ah, how long we have wandered along the ways of the world. SLAG: Ah, 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 abases 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! AGMAR: You yourself saw us? MAN: Yes, Master, you were terrible. Children too saw you and they died. AGMAR: You say you saw us? MAN: Yes, Master. Not as you are now, but otherwise. We implore you, Master, not to wander at evening. You are terrible in the gloaming. You are.... AGMAR: You say we appeared not as we are now. How did we appear to you? MAN: Otherwise, Master, otherwise. AGMAR: But how did we appear to you? MAN: You were all green, Master, all green in the gloaming, all of rock again as you used to be in the mountains. Master, we can bear to see you in flesh like men, but when we see rock walking it is terrible, it is terrible. AGMAR: That is how we appeared to you? MAN: Yes, Master. Rock should not walk. When children see it they do not understand. Rock should not walk in the evening. AGMAR: There have been doubters of late. Are they satisfied? MAN: Master, they are terrified. Spare us, Master. AGMAR: It is wrong to doubt. Go, and be faithful. (Exit Man.) SLAG: What have they seen, Master? AGMAR: They have seen their own fears dancing in the desert. They have seen something green after the light was gone, and some child has told them a tale that it was us. I do not know what they have seen. What should they have seen? ULF: Something was coming this way from the desert, he said. SLAG: What should come from the desert? AGMAR: They are a foolish people. ULF: That man's white face has seen some frightful thing. SLAG: A frightful thing? ULF: That man's face has been near to some frightful thing. AGMAR: It is only we that have frightened them, and their fears have made them foolish. (Enter an attendant with a torch or lantern which he places in a receptacle. Exit.) THAHN: Now we shall see the faces of the girls when they come to the banquet. MLAN: Never had beggars such a time. AGMAR: Hark! They are coming. I hear footsteps. THAHN: The dancing girls. They are coming. THIEF: There is no sound of flutes; they said they would come with music. OOGNO: What heavy boots they have, they sound like feet of stone. THAHN: I do not like to hear their heavy tread; those that would dance to us must be light of foot. AGMAR: I shall not smile at them if they are not airy. MLAN: They are coming very slowly. They should come nimbly to us. THAHN: They should dance as they come. But the footfall is like the footfall of heavy crabs. ULF: (in a loud voice, almost chaunting) I have a fear, an old fear and a boding. We have done ill in the sight of the seven gods; beggars we were and beggars we should have remained; we have given up our calling and come in sight of our doom: I will no longer let my fear be silent: it shall run about and cry: it shall go from me crying, like a dog from out of a doomed city; for my fear has seen calamity and has known an evil thing. SLAG: (hoarsely) Master! AGMAR: (rising) Come, come! (They listen. No one speaks. The stony boots come on. Enter in single file a procession of seven green men, even hands and faces are green; they wear greenstone sandals, they walk with knees extremely wide apart, as having sat cross-legged for centuries, their right arms and right forefingers point upwards, right elbows resting on left hands: they stoop grotesquely: halfway to the footlights they wheel left. They pass in front of the seven beggars, now in terrified attitudes and six of them sit down in the attitude described, with their backs to the audience. The leader stands, still stooping. Just as they wheel left, OOGNO cries out.) The gods of the mountain! AGMAR: (hoarsely) Be still. They are dazzled by the light, they may not see us. (The leading green thing points his forefinger at the lantern, the flame turns green. When the six are seated the leader points one by one at each of the seven beggars, shooting out his forefinger at them. As he does this each beggar in his turn gathers himself back on to his throne and crosses his legs, his right arm goes stiffly upwards with forefinger erect, and a staring look of horror comes into his eyes. In this attitude the beggars sit motionless while a green light falls upon their faces. The gods go out.) (Presently enter the Citizens, some with victuals and fruit. One touches a beggar's arm and then another's.) CITIZEN: They are cold; they have turned to stone. (All abase themselves foreheads to the floor.) ONE: We have doubted them. We have doubted them. They have turned to stone because we have doubted them. ANOTHER: They were the true gods. ALL: They were the true gods. Top King Argimēnēs Zarb (a slave born of slaves) An Old Slave Slaves of King Darniak A Young Slave Slaves King Darniak The King's Overseer A Prophet The Idol-Guard The Servant of the King's Dog Queen Otharlia Queen Oxara Queen Cahafra Queens of King Darniak Queen Thragolind Guards and Attendants Time: A long time ago. SCENE: The dinner-hour on the slave-fields of King Darniak. (The Curtain rises upon King Argimēnēs, sitting upon the ground, bowed, ragged, and dirty, gnawing a bone. He has uncouth hair and a dishevelled beard. A battered spade lies near him. Two or three slaves sit at back of stage eating raw cabbage-leaves. The tear-song, the chaunt of the low-born, rises at intervals, monotonous and mournful, coming from distant slave-fields.) KING Argimēnēs: This is a good bone; there is juice in this bone. ZARB: I wish I were you, Argimēnēs. KING Argimēnēs: I am not to be envied any longer. I have eaten up my bone. ZARB: I wish I were you, because you have been a King. Because men have prostrated themselves before your feet. Because you have ridden a horse and worn a crown and have been called Majesty. KING Argimēnēs: When I remember that I have been a king it is very terrible. ZARB: But you are lucky to have such things in your memory as you have. I have nothing in my memory--Once I went for a year without being flogged, and I remember my cleverness in contriving it--I have nothing else to remember. KING Argimēnēs: It is very terrible to have been a king. ZARB: But we have nothing who have no good memories in the past. It is not easy for us to hope for the future here. KING Argimēnēs: Have you any god? ZARB: We may not have a god because he might make us brave and we might kill our guards. He might make a miracle and give us swords. KING Argimēnēs: Ah, you have no hope then. ZARB: I have a little hope. Hush, and I will tell you a secret--The King's great dog is ill and like to die. They will throw him to us. We shall have beautiful bones then. KING Argimēnēs: Ah! Bones. ZARB: Yes. That is what I hope for. And have you no other hope? Do you not hope that your nation will arise some day and rescue you and cast off the king and hang him up by his thumbs from the palace gateway? KING Argimēnēs: No. I have no other hope, for my god was cast down in the temple and broken into three pieces on the day that they surprised us and took me sleeping. But will they throw him to us? Will so honourable a brute as the King's dog be thrown to us? ZARB: When he is dead his honours are taken away. Even the King when he is dead is given to the worms. Then why should not his dog be thrown to us? KING Argimēnēs: We are not worms! ZARB: You do not understand, Argimēnēs. The worms are little and free, while we are big and enslaved. I did not say we were worms, but we are like worms, and if they have the King when he is dead, why then-- KING Argimēnēs: Tell me more of the King's dog. Are there big bones on him? ZARB: Ay, he is a big dog--a high, big, black one. KING Argimēnēs: You know him then? ZARB: O yes, I know him. I know him well. I was beaten once because of him, twenty-five strokes from the treble whips, two men beating me. KING Argimēnēs: How did they beat you because of the King's dog? ZARB: They beat me because I spoke to him without making obeisance. He was coming dancing alone over the slave-fields and I spoke to him. He was a friendly great dog, and I spoke to him and patted his head, and did not make obeisance. KING Argimēnēs: And they saw you do it? ZARB: Yes, the slave-guard saw me. They came and seized me at once and bound my arms. The great dog wanted me to speak to him again, but I was hurried away. KING Argimēnēs: You should have made obeisance. ZARB: The great dog seemed so friendly that I forgot he was the King's great dog. KING Argimēnēs: But tell me more. Was he hurt, or is it a sickness? ZARB: They say that it is a sickness. KING Argimēnēs: Ah. Then he will grow thin if he does not die soon. If it had been a hurt!--but we should not complain. I complain more often than you do because I had not learned to submit while I was yet young. ZARB: If your beautiful memories do not please you, you should hope more. I wish I had your memories. I should not trouble to hope then. It is very hard to hope. KING Argimēnēs: There will be nothing more to hope for when we have eaten the King's dog. ZARB: Why you might find gold in the earth while you were digging. Then you might bribe the commander of the guard to lend you his sword; we would all follow you if you had a sword. Then we might take the King and bind him and lay him on the ground and fasten his tongue outside his mouth with thorns and put honey on it and sprinkle honey near. Then the grey ants would come from one of their big mounds. My father found gold once when he was digging. KING Argimēnēs: (pointedly) Did your father free himself? ZARB: No. Because the King's Overseer found him looking at the gold and killed him. But he would have freed himself if he could have bribed the guard. (A prophet walks across the stage attended by two guards.) SLAVES: He is going to the King. He is going to the King. ZARB: He is going to the King. KING Argimēnēs: Going to prophesy good things to the King. It is easy to prophesy good things to a king, and be rewarded when the good things come. What else should come to a king? A prophet! a prophet! (A deep bell tolls slowly. King Argimēnēs and Zarb pick up their spades at once, and the old slaves at the back of the stage go down on their knees immediately and grub in the soil with their hands. The white beard of the oldest trails in the dirt as he works. King Argimēnēs digs.) KING Argimēnēs: What is the name of that song that we always sing? I like the song. ZARB: It has no name. It is our song. There is no other song. KING Argimēnēs: Once there were other songs. Has this no name? ZARB: I think the soldiers have a name for it. KING Argimēnēs: What do the soldiers call it? ZARB: The soldiers call it the tear-song, the chaunt of the low-born. KING Argimēnēs: It is a good song. I could sing no other now. (Zarb moves away digging.) KING Argimēnēs: (to himself as his spade touches something in the earth.) Metal! (Feels with his spade again.) Gold perhaps!--It is of no use here. (uncovers earth leisurely. Suddenly he drops on his knees and works excitedly in the earth with his hands. Then very slowly, still kneeling, he lifts, lying flat on his hands, a long greenish sword, his eyes intent on it. About the level of his uplifted forehead he holds it, still flat on both hands, and addresses it thus:) O holy and blessed thing. (Then he lowers it slowly till his hands rest on his knees, and looking all the while at the sword.) KING Argimēnēs: Three years ago tomorrow King Darniak spat at me, having taken my kingdom from me. Three times in that year I was flogged, with twelve stripes, with seventeen stripes, and with twenty stripes. A year and eleven months ago, come Moon-day, the King's Overseer struck me in the face, and nine times in that year he called me dog. For one month two weeks and a day I was yoked with a bullock and pulled a rounded stone all day over the paths, except while we were fed. I was flogged twice that year--with eighteen stripes and with ten stripes. This year the roof of the slave-sty has fallen in and King Darniak will not repair it. Five weeks ago one of his queens laughed at me as she came across the slave-fields. I was flogged again this year and with thirteen stripes, and twelve times they have called me dog. And these things they have done to a king, and a king of the house of Ithara. (He listens attentively for a moment, then buries the sword again and pats the earth over it with his hands, then digs again. The old slaves do not see him: their faces are to the earth.) (Enter the King's Overseer carrying a whip. The slaves and King Argimēnēs kneel with their foreheads to the ground as he passes across the stage. Exit the King's Overseer.) KING Argimēnēs: (kneeling, hands outspread downwards.) O warrior spirit, wherever thou wanderest, whoever be thy gods; whether they punish thee or whether they bless thee; O kingly spirit that once laid here this sword, behold I pray to thee having no gods to pray to, for the god of my nation was broken in three by night. Mine arm is stiff with three years' slavery and remembers not the sword. But guide thy sword till I have slain six men and armed the strongest slaves, and thou shalt have the sacrifice every year of a hundred goodly oxen. And I will build in Ithara a temple to thy memory wherein all that enter in shall remember thee, so shalt thou be honoured and envied among the dead, for the dead are very jealous of remembrance. Aye, though thou wert a robber that took men's lives unrighteously, yet shall rare spices smoulder in thy temple and little maidens sing and new-plucked flowers deck the solemn aisles; and priests shall go about it ringing bells that thy soul shall find repose. O but it has a good blade this old green sword; thou wouldst not like to see it miss its mark (if the dead see at all, as wise men teach,) thou wouldst not like to see it go thirsting into the air; so huge a sword should find its marrowy bone. (Extending his right hand upward.) Come into my right arm, O ancient spirit, O unknown warrior's soul. And if thou hast the ear of any gods, speak there against Illuriel, god of King Darniak. (He rises and goes on digging. Re-enter the King's Overseer.) THE KING'S OVERSEER: So you have been praying. KING Argimēnēs: (kneeling) No, Master. THE KING'S OVERSEER: The slave-guard saw you. (Strikes him) It is not lawful for a slave to pray. KING Argimēnēs: I did but pray to Illuriel to make me a good slave, to teach me to dig well and to pull the rounded stone, and to make me not to die when the food is scarce, but to be a good slave to my master, the great King. THE KING'S OVERSEER: Who art thou to pray to Illuriel? Dogs may not pray to an immortal god. (Exit. Zarb comes back, digging.) KING Argimēnēs: (digging) Zarb. ZARB: (also digging) Do not look at me when you speak. The guards are watching us. Look at your digging. KING Argimēnēs: How do the guards know we are speaking because we look at one another? ZARB: You are very witless. Of course they know. KING Argimēnēs: Zarb. ZARB: What is it? KING Argimēnēs: How many guards are there in sight? ZARB: There are six of them over there. They are watching us. KING Argimēnēs: Are there other guards in sight of these six guards? ZARB: No. KING Argimēnēs: How do you know? ZARB: Because whenever their officer leaves them they sit upon the ground and play with dice. KING Argimēnēs: How does that show that there are not another six in sight of them? ZARB: How witless you are, Argimēnēs. Of course it shows there are not. Because, if there were, another officer would see them, and their thumbs would be cut off. KING Argimēnēs: Ah. (a pause.) Zarb. (a pause) Would the slaves follow me if I tried to kill the guards? ZARB: No, Argimēnēs. KING Argimēnēs: Why would they not follow me? ZARB: Because you look like a slave. They will never follow a slave, because they are slaves themselves, and know how mean a creature is a slave. If you looked like a king they would follow you. KING Argimēnēs: But I am a king. They know that I am a king. ZARB: It is better to look like a king. It is looks that they would go by. KING Argimēnēs: If I had a sword would they follow me? A beautiful huge sword of bronze. ZARB: I wish I could think of things like that. It is because you were once a king that you can think of a sword of bronze. I tried to hope once that I should some day fight the guards, but I couldn't picture a sword, I couldn't imagine it; I could only picture whips. KING Argimēnēs: Dig a little nearer, Zarb. (They both edge closer.) I have found a very old sword in the earth. It is not a sword such as common soldiers wear. A king must have worn it, and an angry king. It must have done fearful things; there are little dints in it. Perhaps there was a battle here long ago where all were slain, and perhaps that king died last and buried his sword, but the great birds swallowed him. ZARB: You have been thinking too much of the King's dog, Argimēnēs, and that has made you hungry, and hunger has driven you mad. KING Argimēnēs: I have found such a sword. (A pause.) ZARB: Why--then you will wear a purple cloak again, and sit on a great throne, and ride a prancing horse, and we shall call you Majesty. KING Argimēnēs: I shall break a long fast first and drink much water, and sleep. But will the slaves follow me? ZARB: You will make them follow you if you have a sword. Yet is Illuriel a very potent god. They say that none have prevailed against King Darniak's dynasty so long as Illuriel stood. Once an enemy cast Illuriel into the river and overthrew the dynasty, but a fisherman found him again and set him up, and the enemy was driven out and the dynasty returned. KING Argimēnēs: If Illuriel could be cast down as my god was cast down perhaps King Darniak could be overcome as I was overcome in my sleep? ZARB: If Illuriel were cast down all the people would utter a cry and flee away. It would be a fearful portent. KING Argimēnēs: How many men are there in the armoury at the palace? ZARB: There are ten men in the palace armoury when all the slave-guards are out. (They dig awhile in silence.) ZARB: The officer of the slave-guard has gone away--they are playing with dice now. (Zarb throws down his spade and stretches his arms)--The man with the big beard has won again, he is very nimble with his thumbs--They are playing again, but it is getting dark, I cannot clearly see. (King Argimēnēs furtively uncovers the sword, he picks it up and grips it in his hand.) ZARB: Majesty! (King Argimēnēs crouches and steals away towards the slave-guard.) ZARB: (to the other slaves) Argimēnēs has found a terrible sword and has gone to slay the slave-guard. It is not a common sword, it is some king's sword. AN OLD SLAVE: Argimēnēs will be dreadfully flogged. We shall hear him cry all night. His cries will frighten us, and we shall not sleep. ZARB: No! no! The guards flog poor slaves, but Argimēnēs had an angry look. The guards will be afraid when they see him look so angry and see his terrible sword. It was a huge sword, and he looked very angry. He will bring us the swords of the slave-guard. We must prostrate ourselves before him and kiss his feet or he will be angry with us too. OLD SLAVE: Will Argimēnēs give me a sword? ZARB: He will have swords for six of us if he slays the slave-guard. Yes, he will give you a sword. SLAVE: A sword! No, no, I must not; the King would kill me if he found that I had a sword. SECOND SLAVE: (slowly, as one who develops an idea) If the King found that I had a sword, why then it would be an evil day for the King. (They all look off left.) ZARB: I think that they are playing at dice again. FIRST SLAVE: I do not see Argimēnēs. ZARB: No, because he was crouching as he walked. The slave-guard is on the sky-line. SECOND SLAVE: What is that dark shadow behind the slave-guard? ZARB: It is too still to be Argimēnēs. SECOND SLAVE: Look! It moves. ZARB: The evening is too dark, I cannot see. (They continue to gaze into the gathering darkness. They raise themselves on their knees and crane their necks. Nobody speaks. Then from their lips and from others further off goes up a long deep Oh! It is like the sound that goes up from the grand stand when a horse falls at a fence, or in England like the first exclamation of the crowd at a great cricket match when a man is caught in the slips.) Top There is a road in Rome that runs through an ancient temple that once the gods had loved; it runs along the top of a great wall, and the floor of the temple lies far down beneath it, of marble, pink and white. Upon the temple floor I counted to the number of thirteen hungry cats. 'Sometimes,' they said among themselves, 'it was the gods that lived here, sometimes it was men, and now it's cats. So let us enjoy the sun on the hot marble before another people comes.' For it was at that hour of a warm afternoon when my fancy is able to hear the silent voices. And the fearful leanness of all those thirteen cats moved me to go into a neighbouring fish shop, and there to buy a quantity of fishes. Then I returned and threw them all over the railing at the top of the great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, and hit the sacred marble with a smack. Now, in any other town but Rome, or in the minds of any other cats, the sight of fishes falling out of heaven had surely excited wonder. They rose slowly, and all stretched themselves; then they came leisurely towards the fishes. 'It is only a miracle,' they said in their hearts. Top Presently there was a stir in one of the houses, and a bat flew out of the door into the daylight, and three mice came running out of the doorway down the step, an old stone cracked in two and held together by moss; and there followed an old man bending on a stick with a white beard coming to the ground, wearing clothes that were glossed with use, and presently there came others out of the other houses, all of them as old, and all hobbling on sticks. These were the oldest people that the King had ever beheld, and he asked them the name of the village and who they were; and one of them answered: 'This is the City of the Aged in the Territory of Time.' And the King said; 'Is Time then here?' And one of the old men pointed to a great castle standing on a steep hill and said: 'Therein dwells Time, and we are his people;' and they all looked curiously at King Karnith Zo, and the eldest of the villagers spoke again and said: 'Whence do you come, you that are so young?' and Karnith Zo told him how he had come to conquer Time, to save the world and the gods, and asked them whence they came. And the villagers said: 'We are older than always, and know not whence we came, but we are the people of Time, and here from the Edge of Everything he sends out his hours to assail the world, and you may never conquer Time.' But the King went back to his armies, and pointed toward the castle on the hill and told them that at last they had found the Enemy of the Earth; and they that were older than always went back slowly into their houses with the creaking of olden doors. And they went across the fields and passed the village. From one of his towers Time eyed them all the while, and in battle order they closed in on the steep hill as Time sat still in his great tower and watched. But as the feet of the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army stiffened, and their beards grew and turned grey, and the hours and days and the months went singing over their heads, and their hair turned whiter and whiter, and the conquering hours bore down, and the years rushed on and swept the youth of that army clear away till they came face to face under the walls of the castle of Time with a mass of howling years, and found the top of the slope too steep for aged men. Slowly and painfully, harassed with agues and chills, the King rallied his aged army that tottered down the slope. Slowly the King led back his warriors over whose heads had shrieked the triumphant years. Year in, year out, they straggled southwards, always towards Zoon; they came, with rust upon their spears and long beards flowing, again into Astarma, and none knew them there. HERE ENDS 'SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF LORD DUNSANY.' FINISHED ON LADY DAY, IN THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE. End |
