Act Two  

 SCENE 1

Park of the King's palace in Pratisthana. — In the background the wings of a great building, near it the gates of the park, near the bounds of the park an arbour and a small artificial hill to the side.

Manavaka enters.

MANAVAKA

Houp! Houp! I feel like a Brahmin who has had an invitation to dinner; he thinks dinner, talks dinner, looks dinner, his very sneeze has the music of the dinner-bell in it. I am simply bursting with the King's secret. I shall never manage to hold my tongue in that crowd. Solitude's my only safety. So until my friend gets up from the session of affairs, I will wait for him in this precinct of the House of Terraces.

Nipunika enters.

NIPUNIKA

I am bidden by my lady the King's daughter of Kashi, "Nipunika, since my lord came back from doing homage to the  Sun, he has had no heart for anything. So just go and learn from his dear friend, the noble Manavaka, what is disturbing his mind." Well and good! but how shall I overreach that rogue — a Brahmin he calls himself, with the murrain to him! But there! thank Heaven, he can't keep a secret long; 'tis like a dewdrop on a rare blade of grass. Well, I must hunt him out. O! there stands the noble Manavaka, silent and sad like a monkey in a picture. I will accost him. (approaching) Salutation to the noble Manavaka!

MANAVAKA

Blessing to your ladyship! (aside) Ugh, the very sight of this little rogue of a tiring-woman makes the secret jump at my

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throat. I shall burst! I shall split! Nipunika, why have you left the singing lesson and where are you off to?

NIPUNIKA

To see my lord the King, by my lady's orders.

MANAVAKA

What are her orders?

NIPUNIKA

Noble sir, this is the Queen's message. "My lord has always been kind and indulgent to me, so that I have become a stranger to grief. He never before disregarded my sorrow" —

MANAVAKA

How? how? has my friend offended her in any way?

NIPUNIKA

Offended? Why, he addressed my lady by the name of a girl for whom he is pining.

MANAVAKA (aside)

What, he has let out his own secret ? Then why am I agonizing here in vain? (aloud) He called her Urvasie?

NIPUNIKA

Yes. Noble Manavaka, who is that Urvasie ?

MANAVAKA

Urvasie is the name of a certain Apsara. The sight of her has sent the King mad. He is not only tormenting the life out of my lady, but out of me too with his aversion to everything but moaning.

NIPUNIKA (aside)

So! I have stormed the citadel of my master's secret. (Aloud) What am I to say to the Queen?

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MANAVAKA

Nipunika, tell my lady with my humble regards that I am endeavouring my best to divert my friend from this mirage and I will not see her ladyship till it is done. 

NIPUNIKA

As your honour commands.

She goes.

BARDS (within)

Victory, victory to the King!

The Sun in Heaven for ever labours; wide

His beams dispel the darkness to the verge

Of all this brilliant world. The King too toils,

Rescuing from night and misery and crime

His people. Equal power to these is given

And labour, the King on earth, the Sun in Heaven.

The brilliant Sun in Heaven rests not from toil;

Only at high noon in the middle cusp
And azure vault the great wheels slacken speed
A moment, then resume their way; thou too
In the mid-moment of daylight lay down
Thy care, put by the burden of a crown.

MANAVAKA

Here's my dear friend risen from the session. I will join him.

He goes out, then re-enters with Pururavas.

PURURAVAS (sighing)

No sooner seen than in my heart she leaped.
O easy entrance! since the bannered Love
With his unerring shaft had made the breach
Where she came burning in.

MANAVAKA (aside)

Alas the poor
King's daughter of Kashi!

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PURURAVAS (looking steadfastly at him)

Hast thou kept thy trust —
My secret ? .

MANAVAKA (depressed)

Ah! that daughter of a slave
Has overreached me. Else he would not ask
In just that manner.

PURURAVAS (alarmed)

What now? Silence?

MANAVAKA

Why, sir,
It's this, I've padlocked so my tongue that even
To you I could not give a sudden answer.

PURURAVAS

'Tis well. O how shall I beguile desire ?

MANAVAKA

Let's to the kitchen.

PURURAVAS

Why, what's there?

MANAVAKA

What's there?
The question! From all quarters gathered in
Succulent sweets and fivefold eatableness,
Music from saucepan and from frying-pan,
The beauty of dinner getting ready. There's
A sweet beguiler to your emptiness!

PURURAVAS (smiling)

For you whose heart is in your stomach. I
Am not so readily eased who fixed my soul  

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Upon what I shall hardly win.

MANAVAKA

Not win ?
Why, tell me, came you not within her sight ?

PURURAVAS

What comfort is in that?

MANAVAKA

When she has seen you,
How is she hard to win ?

PURURAVAS

O your affection
Utters mere partiality.

MANAVAKA

You make me
Desperate to see her. Why, sir, she must be
A nonpareil of grace. Like me perhaps ?

PURURAVAS

Who could with words describe each perfect limb

Of that celestial whole ? Take her in brief,

O friend, for she is ornament's ornament,

And jewels cannot make her beautiful.

They from her body get their grace. And when

You search the universe for similes,

Her greater beauty drives you to express

Fair things by her, not her by lesser fairness:

So she is perfection's model.

MANAVAKA

No wonder then,
With such a shower of beauty, that you play
The rainbird open-mouthed to let drops glide

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Graciously down his own particular gullet.
But whither now ?

PURURAVAS

When love grows large with yearning,
He has no sanctuary but solitude.
I pray you, go before me to the park.

MANAVAKA (aside)

Oh God, my dinner! There's no help.

(aloud) This way.
Lo, here the park's green limit. See, my lord,
How this fair garden sends his wooing breeze
To meet his royal guest.

PURURAVAS

O epithet
Most apt. Indeed this zephyr in fond arms
Impregnating with honey spring-creeper
And flattering with his kiss the white May-bloom,
Seems to me like a lover-girl divided
Between affection smooth and eager passion.

MANAVAKA

May like division bless your yearning, sir.
We reach the garden's gate. Enter, my lord.

PURURAVAS

Enter thou first. O! I was blindly sanguine,

By refuge in this flowery solitude

Who thought to heal my pain. As well might swimmer

Hurled onward in a river's violent hands

Oppose that roaring tide, as I make speed

Hither for my relief.

MANAVAKA

And wherefore so?

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PURURAVAS

Was passion not enough to torture me,

Still racking the resistless mind with thoughts

Of unattainable delight? But I

Must add the mango-trees' soft opening buds,

And hurt myself with pallid drifting leaves,

And with the busy zephyr wound my soul.

MANAVAKA

Be not so full of grief. For Love himself
Will help you soon to your extreme desire.

PURURAVAS

I seize upon thy word, — the Brahmin's speech
That never can be false!

MANAVAKA

See what a floral
Green loveliness expresses the descent
And rosy incarnation of the spring.
Do you not find it lovely ?

PURURAVAS

Friend, I do.
I study it tree by tree and leaf by leaf.
This courbouc's like a woman's rosy nail,
But darkens to the edge; heavy with crimson,
Yon red asoka breaking out of bud
Seems all on fire; and here the carvy mounting
Slight dust of pollen on his stamen-ends
Clusters with young sweet bloom. Methinks I see
The infant honeyed soul of spring, half-woman,
Grow warm with bud of youth.

MANAVAKA

This arbour green
With blosoms loosened by the shock of bees

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Upon a slab of costly stone, prepares

With its own hands your cushioned honours. Take

The courtesy.

PURURAVAS

As you will.

MANAVAKA

Here sit at ease.
The sensitive beauty of the creepers lax
Shall glide into your soul and gently steal
The thought of Urvasie.

PURURAVAS

O no, mine eyes
Are spoilt by being indulged in her sweet looks,
And petulantly they reject all feebler
Enchantings, even the lovely embowering bloom
Of these grace-haunted creepers bending down
To draw me with their hands. I am sick for her.
Rather invent some way to my desire.

MANAVAKA

Oh rare! when Indra for Ahalya pined

A cheapjack was his counsellor; you as lucky

Have me for your ally. Mad all! mad all!

PURURAVAS

Not so! affection edges so the wit,
Some help it's sure to find for one it loves.

MANAVAKA

Good, I will cogitate. Disturb me not
With your love-moanings.

PURURAVAS (his right arm throbbing. Aside)

Her face of perfect moonlight

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Is all too heavenly for my lips. How canst thou then
Throb expectation in my arm, O Love ?
Yet all my heart is suddenly grown glad
As if it had heard the feet of my desire.

He waits hopefully. There enter in the
sky Urvasie and Chitralekha.

CHITRALEKHA

Will you not even tell me where we go ?

URVASIE

Sister, when I upon the Peak of Gold
Was stayed from Heaven by the creeper's hands,
You mocked me then. And have you now to ask
'Whither it is I go?'

CHITRALEKHA

To seek the side
Of King Pururavas you journey then?

URVASIE

Even so shameless is your sister's mind.

CHITRALEKHA

Whom did you send before, what messenger
To him you love ?

URVASIE

My heart.

CHITRALEKHA

Sister; do not be rash.

URVASIE

O yet think well,

Love sends me. Love
Compels me. How can I then think ?

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CHITRALEKHA
 

To that

I have no answer.

URVASIE

Then take me to him soon.
Only let not our way be such as lies
Within the let of hindrance.

CHITRALEKHA

Fear not that.
Has not the great Preceptor of the Gods
Taught us to wear the crest invincible ?
While that is bound, not any he shall dare
Of all the Heaven-opposing faction stretch
An arm of outrage.

URVASIE (abashed)

Oh true! my heart forgot.

CHITRALEKHA

Look, sister! For in Ganges' gliding waves
Holier by influx of blue Yamuna,
The palace of the great Pururavas,
Crowning the city with its domes, looks down
As in a glass at its own mighty image.

URVASIE

All Eden to an earthly spot is bound.

But where is he who surely will commiserate

A pining heart ?

CHITRALEKHA

This park which seems one country
With Heaven, let us question. See the King
Expects thee, like the pale new-risen moon

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Waiting for moonlight.

URVASIE

How beautiful he is —
Fairer than when I saw him first!

CHITRALEKHA

'Tis true.

Come, we will go to him.

URVASIE

I will not yet.
Screened in with close invisibility,
I will stand near him, learn what here he talks
Sole with his friend.

CHITRALEKHA

You'll do your will always.

MANAVAKA

Courage! your difficult mistress may be caught,
Two ways.

URVASIE (jealously)

O who is she, that happy she
Being wooed by such a lover, preens herself
And is proud ?

CHITRALEKHA

Why do you mock the ways of men
And are a Goddess?

URVASIE

I dare not, sweet, I fear
To learn too suddenly my own misfortune,
If I use heavenly eyes.

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