SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 7

COLLECTED PLAYS

The beginning  of a play from Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts

Act One

S C E N E   I

Mathura
A Street in Mathura: Ocroor House

OCROOR - SUDAMAN

          SUDAMAN

Who art thou?

         OCROOR

                             One that walks the night.

SUDAMAN

                                                                       No Ogre,

But Ocroor by thy voice.

         OCROOR

                                     Sudaman? The children

Of  Surasegn, hadst thou made such reply

 Would otherwise have answered.

         SUDAMAN

                                                                     So they would.

An Ogre, I ? Yes, one to eat all up.
Ocroor, I have a belly to digest
Much more than Mathura.

OCROOR

                                                  So Ravan had
And yet he perished. Walk not thus alone
When the black night has draped the cowering earth,

 Lest one of those whose brothers, fathers, sons

Thy word destroyed, should rip that belly through

And laugh, "So dies Sudaman."

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SUDAMAN

                                            I am shielded.

    OCROOR
Not by the gods at least.

SUOAMAN

                                     A greater god 

That's Fear. By her I rule this Mathura

And she walks by me in the eyeless night

Protecting. The peoples! Danger is easily cowed

 By men like me who do not fear to die
More than they fear to slay. But what dost thou

There lonely in our Mother's shadow black,

Ocroor? Her shades embrace the lover and the thief

Two kindred trades - but which of these is thou?


        OCROOR
Why both, Sudaman.

 
     SUDAMAN

                                 If thou turnst girl-stealer,

Pray, let it be from one of Yadu's stock.

(Incomplete)

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