Act One  

SCENE I

An inner room of the palace in Avunthie.

Chunda Mahasegn, seated; Gopalaca.

MAHASEGN

Vuthsa Udayan drives my fortune back.

Our strengths retire from one luxurious boy,

Defeated.

GOPALACA

I have seen him in the fight

And I have lived to wonder.

O, he ranges As lightly through the passages of war

As might the moonbeam feet of some bright laughing girl,

Her skill concealing in her reckless grace,

The measures of a rapid dance.

MAHASEGN

If this dawn

Brings its portentous morning to our gates,

Our suns are ended. Yet I had great dreams.

Oudh and Cowsambie were my high-carved doors;

Ganges, Godavarie and Nurmada

In lion race besprayed with sacred dew

The moonlit jasmines in my pleasure-grounds.

All this great sunlit continent lay sleeping

At peace beneath the shadow of my brows.

But they were dreams.

GOPALACA

Art thou not great enough

To live them?

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MAHASEGN

O my son, many high hearts

Must first have striven, many must have failed

Before a great thing can be done on earth;

And who shall say then that he is the man ?

One age has seen the dreams another lives!

GOPALACA

Look up towards the hills where Rudra stands,

His dreadful war-lance pointing to the east.

Fear not the obstacles the gods have strewn.

Why should the mighty man restrain his soul ?

Stretch out thy hand to seize, thy foot to trample,

A Titan's motion.

MAHASEGN

High thou soarest now

But with eyes shut to the tempest.

GOPALACA

Suest thou at last

To foemen for the end of haughty strife ?

MAHASEGN

That never shall be seen. The boy must fall.

GOPALACA

He is young, noble, beautiful and bold,

But let him fall. We will not bear defeat.

MAHASEGN

How shall he fall, my son ? For Heaven-admired

Rudra still guards my stern and high-eyed fates,

But many gods stood smiling at his birth.

Luxmie came full of fortunate days; Vishnu

Poured down his radiant sanction in the skies

And promised his far stride across the earth;

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Magic Saruswathie between his hands

Laid down her lotus arts.

GOPALACA

The austere gods

Help best and not indulgent deities.

The greatness in him cannot grow to man.

Excused from effort and propped on difficult ascent

Birds that are brilliant-winged fly near to earth.

His hero hours are rare forgetful flights.

Wine, song and dance winging his peaceful days

Throng round his careless soul, it cannot find

The noble leisure to grow great.

MAHASEGN

There lives

Our hope. My son, spy out thy enemy's spirit,

Even as his wealth and armies! Let thy eyes

Find out its weakness and thy hand there strike.

GOPALACA

Thou hast a way to strike?

MAHASEGN

I have a way,

Not noble like the sounding paths of war.

GOPALACA

Take it; let us stride straight towards our goal.

MAHASEGN

Thy arm is asked for.

GOPALACA

It is thine to use.

MAHASEGN .

Invent some strong device and bring him to us

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A captive in Ujjayinie's golden groves.

Shall he not find there a jailor for his heart

To take the miracle of its keys and wear them

Swung on her raiment's border? Then he lives

Shut up by her close in a prison of joy,

Her and our vassal.

GOPALACA

Brought to the eagle's nest

For the eagle's child, thou giv'st him her heart's prey

To Vasavadutta? King, thy way is good.

Garooda on a young and sleeping Python

Rushing from heaven I'll lift him helpless up

Into the skiey distance of our peaks.

Though it is strange and new and subtle, it is good.

Think the blow struck, thy foeman seized and bound.

MAHASEGN

I know thy swiftness and thy gathered leap.

Once here! his senses are enamoured slaves

To the touch of every beautiful thing. O, there

No hero, but a tender soul at play,

A soft-eyed, mirthful and luxurious youth

Whom all sweet sounds and all sweet sights compel

To careless ecstasy. Wine, music, flowers

And a girl's dawning smile can weave him chains

Of vernal softness stronger than bonds can give

Of unyielding iron. Two lips shall seal his strength,

Two eyes of all his acts be tyrant stars.

GOPALACA

One aid I ask of thee and only one.

My banishment, O King, from thy domains.

MAHASEGN

Gopalaca, I banish thee, my child.

Return not with my violent will undone.

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