ACT II
SCENE I
A great room. To the left three arches lead out onto the balcony where the personages CALIPH, JAFAR and HOST are collected. The interior of the room is blazing with lights, but empty. The architecture of the room is curious on account of the wide, low arches which cut off a square in the centre. The furniture of the room is in rich, rather vulgar Oriental taste.
CALIPH
Ishak, Ishak, we are waiting and waiting.
JAFAR
Ishak! Ishak! Perhaps he is faint.
CALIPH
Faint!
JAFAR
Let me go down and see what he is doing. I think I hear him talking.
CALIPH He is talking to shadows. He has one of his evil fits tonight. Do not trouble your head or mine about him. He presumes on our friendship, and forgets the respect due to us. Am I to be kept waiting like a Jew in a court of justice, I the Master…
JAFAR
(Quickly) We are not in Basra, Sir. But see, the rope has tightened.
(To MASRUR.) Haul, thou whose soul is white.
RAFI
(Helping with ropes to CALIPH who stands idle) God restore to you
the use of your arms, my brother from Basra.
(HASSAN rolls out of the basket, filthy and the inanimate.)
Yallah, Yallah, on what dunghill did this fowl die?
Is this your man of honour?
JAFAR (Astonished) Host of the house, this is not our companion, and we have never set eyes on him before.
RAFI
Then what is this?
CALIPH
Our friend has played a trick on us—may Allah separate him
from salvation!—and sent up this body in place of himself.
Come let us tip it out into the street.
RAFI
(Feeling HASSAN'S pulse) Wait; this man is by no means dead,
and the mill of his heart still grinds the flour of life.
Ho, Alder!
(Enter ALDER, a young and pretty page.)
ALDER
At his master's service.
RAFI
Ho, Willow!
WILLOW
(Younger still) At his lord's order.
RAFI
Juniper!
JUNIPER
At his Pasha's command.
RAFI
Tamarisk!
TAMARISK
(A little boy a with a squeaky voice) At his Sublimity's feet.
CALIPH (Aside to JAFAR) Truly, this is charming: an illustrious example of decorum and good taste.
RAFI Transform this into a man, my slaves. Revive him, bathe, soap, scent, comb him, clothe him with a ceremonial coat and bring him back to us.
ALDER
We hear,
WILLOW
We honour,
JUNIPER
We tremble,
TAMARISK
and obey.
CALIPH (Entering the great room of the house) Thy house is of grand proportions and eccentric architecture, my Host; it is astonishing that such a house should look out on to so mean a street.
RAFI
It is an old house where the Manichees (the devil roast all heretics!)
once held their meetings before they were all flayed alive.
It is called the house of the moving walls.
CALIPH
Why such a name?
RAFI
I do not know at all.
CALIPH
The merry noise of music that we heard is silent.
RAFI I waited for your permission, my guests, before continuing my meagre entertainment. Ho, music! Ho, dancers! (Claps his hands.)
(Music plays. The HOST enters the room and motions his GUESTS to be seated in silence.)
CALIPH Verily, after this prelude, and in this splendid palace, we shall see dancing women worthy of Paradise.
JAFAR
God grant it, Master.
CALIPH
(To JAFAR) Hush, I hear the pattering of feet.
The wine of anticipation is dancing through my veins.
O Jafar, what incomparable houris will charm our eyes to-night?
What rosy breasts, what silver shoulders, what shapely legs,
what jasmine arms!
(In good order, marching to the music, there enter the most awful selection of Eastern BEGGARS the eye could imagine, or the tongue describe. They are headed by their CHIEF, a rather fine fellow, in indescribable tatters. He leads the CHORUS with a song, half intoned in the Oriental style.)
Fathers of two feet, advance,
Dot and go ones, hop along,
Two feet missing need not dance,
But will join us in the song.
CHORUS OF CULS-DE-JATTE:
But will join you in the song.
Show your most revolting scar;
People never weary of it.
The more nauseous you are—
More the pity and your profit.
CHORUS And your profit, profit, profit.
Cracked of lip and gapped of tooth,
Apoplectic, maim or mad,
Blind of one eye, blind of both,
Up, the beggars of Bagdad.
CHORUS Up, the beggars of Baghdad.
There is a cellar, I am told,
Where a little lamp is lit,
And that cellar's full of gold,
Sacks and sacks and sacks of it.
CHORUS (Hoarsely)
Sacks and sacks and sacks of it,
Stacks and stacks and stacks of it.
Open eyes and stiffen backs,
There are sacks and sacks and sacks;
And gold for him who lacks of it.
(The HOST lifts his hand. The BEGGARS all fall flat on their faces.
Dance music.)
(Enter right, a BAND of fair, left, a BAND of dusky beauties.)
THE DANCING GIRLS
Daughters of delight, advance,
Petals, petals, drift along;
Cypress, tremble! Firefly, dance!
Nightingale, your song, your song!
THE FAIR
We are pale
THE DARK
as dawn, with roses,
O the roses, O desire!
We are dark,
THE FAIR
(Curtsying)
but as the twilight
Shooting all the sky with fire.
CHORUS
Daughters of delight, advance,
Petals, petals, drift along,
Cypress, tremble! Firefly, dance!
Nightingale, your song, your song!
(They surround the BEGGARS, dancing, and point at them.)
LEADER OF THE FAIR
From what base tavern, of what street
Were dragged these dogs, that foul our feet?
LEADER OF THE DARK
O sisters, fly, we shall be hurt:
(The LEADER OF THE BEGGARS catches her.)
Leave go my ankle, son of dirt.
LEADER OF THE BEGGARS
Lady, if the dirt should gleam,
Feel, but do not show surprise:
Things that happen here would seem
(Rises to his feet, his rags drop off, and he shines in gold.)
Paradox in Paradise.
(The infirmities and rags of the whole BAND disappear as if by magic, as they rise and shout in CHORUS.)
CHORUS
Paradox in Paradise
(RAFI raises his hand. ALL stand at attention.)
VOICES
Hush, the King speaks.
The King of the Beggars.
The King.
LEADER OF THE BEGGARS The King of the Beggars, the Caliph of the Faithless. The Peacock of the Silver Path, the Master of Bagdad!
(The BALLET line the room behind the arches.)
JAFAR
(Aside, astonished) King of the Beggars?
MASRUR
(Aside, astonished) Master of Bagdad?
CALIPH (Aside, astonished) Caliph of the Faithless? Allah kerim, this is a jest indeed!
RAFI (Throwing off his outer garment and discovering himself superbly dressed in a golden armour) Subjects and guests. Now that the night before our day is ending, and the Wolf's Tail is already brushing the eastern sky; now that our plot is ready, our conspiracy established, our victory imminent, what is there left for me to tell you, O faithful band? Shall I say, be brave? You are lions. Be cunning? You are serpents. Be bloody? You are wolves.
See now, Bagdad is still in dreams that in a few minutes shall be full of fire, and that fire redder than the dawn. You have begged—you shall buy: you have fawned—you shall fight: you have plotted—you shall plunder: you have cringed: you shall kill.
How loud they snore, those swine whose nostrils we shall slit to-day! Copper they flung to us, and steel we shall give them back; good steel of Damascus, that digs a narrow hole and deep.
But as for the Peacock of Peacocks, that sack of debauch, that Caliph, alive in his coffin, I and none other will nail him down, with his eyes staring into mine. His gardens, fountains, summer houses, and palaces; his horses, mules, camels, and elephants, his statues of Yoonistan, and his wines of Ferangistan, his eunuchs of Egypt, and his carpets of Bokhara, and his great sealed boxes bursting with unbeaten gold, and his beads of amethyst, and his bracelets of sapphire, all this and all his women, his chosen flower-like women, are yours for lust and loot and lechery, my children—all save her of whom I warned you—a woman who was mine, and who shall sit unveiled with me on the throne of all the Caliphs… and when you see us sitting on that throne together, then you shall cry…
THE BEGGARS
(Taking up with a shout) The Caliph is dead! The Caliphate is over!
Long live the King!
JAFAR
(In indignation) These words are not holy, even in jest.
RAFI O guests of an hour, I pray you put the tongue of discretion into the cheek of propriety.
JAFAR
Propriety! The host's obligations are greater than the guests.
It is not good taste to speak thus before the invited.
We pray you only that we may withdraw at once.
RAFI Then who will withdraw me, my masters, from the vengeance of the Caliph, once you have talked a talk with the Captain of his Guard?
JAFAR
We give you our promise: we are men of honour.
RAFI If you were thieves, as we are, I might trust you. But, if, as you say, you are men of honour, honour will drive you panting to the Caliph's gate, and honour will swiftly break a promise made to a this and a rebel, under compulsion.
JAFAR
Sir, I pray you, no more of this, be it jest or earnest.
It will soon be morning: we must away: we have pressing business:
our clients await us.
RAFI And give me their names, O my guests, and tonight I will fling their gold and their carcasses together at your feet.
JAFAR
We insist that you let us go.
RAFI O merchants, tell me but this one thing: Do you dwell in fine houses in the port of Basra?
JAFAR
We have no mean abodes.
RAFI
Are your apartment spacious and well furnished?
JAFAR
Well enough.
RAFI
Then tell me further, have you soft carpets on the floors of those rooms?
JAFAR
There are carpets.
RAFI
Great, rich, soft carpets from Persia and Afghanistan?
JAFAR
Yes.
RAFI
It is a pity. Soft carpets make soft the sole of the foot.
And they who have soft feet should ever keep them on the road of meekness.
MASRUR
(Drawing his sword) Dost thou dare threaten us, bismillah!
RAFI Truly, O most disgusting negro, comprehension and thou have been separated since your youth. Shall I then drop needle of insinuation and pick up the club of statement? Shall I tell you three guests of mine, with the plainness of plainness and the openness of plainness, that if you offer one threat more, propose one evasion more, or ask one question more, I will thrash your lives head downwards from your feet.
(Enter HASSAN finely dressed, and ushered in by the FOUR BOYS through the rows of DANCERS.)
HASSAN
(Lamenting) Eywallah, eywallah, eywah, eywah, Mashallah! Istagfurallah!
RAFI
Why, here is the fourth guest!
ALDER
We have washed him: he needed it.
WILLOW
Combed him: it was necessary.
JUNIPER
Scented him: it was our duty.
TAMARISK
Clothed him: it was our delight.
HASSAN
(As before) Eywallah! Yallah Akbar! Y'allah kerim! Istagfurallah!
Eywallah! Hassan is ended! Hassan is no more! He is dead!
He is buried! He is a bone! Y'allah kerim!
RAFI
Eyyah Hassan, if that is your name, have my boys not treated you well?
If they have hurt you with their tricks, by the Great Name, I will…
HASSAN I pray you, I pray you. Thrash no one's life out downwards from their feet, O master, and above all, not mine.
RAFI Ah, you heard me! Take courage. All that I require of my guests, good Hassan, is genteel behaviour.
HASSAN
Ah! Who are all these terrible men?
RAFI
Beggars of Bagdad! Ten thousand more await my signal on the streets.
In a few minutes they will surprise the drowsy Palace Guards,
sack Bagdad, kill the Caliph and make me King.
HASSAN (Stupefied) What has become of me this night! Just now I was in Hell, with all the fountains raining fire and blood.
RAFI Come, Hassan, you are only just in time; the cold dawn which ends the revellers' dark day will soon be uncurtaining the blue. One bowl to pledge me victory, O guests, for I must away and win it, and you shall lie here to sleep away the destruction of Bagdad. At least you shall say this of your host—he gave us splendid wine.
(The FOUR SLAVES hand round the bowl; the CALIPH refuses.)
(To CALIPH) Sir, you do not drink.
CALIPH
I obey the Prophet.
RAFI What wine do they grow in the desert of Meccah, or on the sandhills of Medina? Ah, had the Prophet tasted wine of Syria or the islands, the book would have been shorter by that uncomfortable verse.
JAFAR Come, host! I at all events will pledge you. There is ever fellowship between those who have drunk wine together, be they murderers or thieves or Christians.
MASRUR
Host, on the day when I shall spill your blood, I shall drink a little
in remembrance of this bowl of wine. Till then your health!
(Drinks.)
RAFI
(Sarcastically) Ye are three jolly fellows of amiable disposition.
(Drinks.)
I thank you, negro, I drink to yours.
HASSAN
I drink to forget a woman, but will this little cup suffice?
RAFI
Nor ten, nor ten thousand little cups like these, if you have loved.
Tonight I shall fill my bowl of the oblivion with the blood
of the Caliph of Bagdad. Brother, will that great cup suffice?
HASSAN (In terror) Call me not brother, thou savage man, who dost talk of shedding the holiest blood in Islam!
RAFI When high office is polluted, when the holy is unholy, when justice is a lie, when the people are starved, and the great fools of the world are in high office, then dares a man talk of shedding the holiest blood in Islam?
CALIPH Also when one has a vengeance to wreak on the Caliph and a claim on a lady of his household.
MASRUR
Why do you want to nail him in his coffin alive? Tell us the tale.
JAFAR
Tell us, if would not have us think you a mad man or a buffoon.
CALIPH Tell us about the woman; what harm can do you since we are in your power?
RAFI (After hesitation) Yes, what harm can it do, if for my own sake, to relieve the heaviness of my heart, I tell you something of my story?
My name is Rafi. I come from the hills beyond Mosul, where the men walk free and the women go unveiled. There I was betrothed to Pervaneh, a woman beautiful and wise. But the very day before our marriage the Governor of Mosul remembered my country and invaded it with a thousand men. And little enough plunder they got from our village, but they caught Pervaneh walking alone among the pine woods and carried her away. When I heard this I leapt on my horse and galloped to Mosul, prepared to slay the Governor and all the inhabitants thereof single-handed, if evil had come to Pervaneh. But there I found she had already been sent with a raft full of slaves down the Tigris to Bagdad. Whereupon I hired six men with shining muscles to row me there. We arrived at Bagdad at the end of the third night's rowing at the grey of dawn. I sprang out of the raft like a tiger, and ran like a madman through the streets, crying "The Slave Market! Tell me the way, O ye citizens! The Slave Market, O the Slave Market!"
And suddenly turning a corner I came upon the market, which was like a garden full of girls in splendid clothes grouped in groups like flowers in garden beds and some like lilies, naked. I ran around the market to find Pervaneh and all the women laughed at me aloud, and behold there she stood; she who had never worn a veil before, the only veiled woman in all the market, for she had sworn to bite off her lips if her master would not veil her: but I knew her by the beauty of her hands, and I cried: "O dealer, the veiled woman for a thousand dinars!" And the dealer laughed in the way of dealers at the presumption of my offer and demanded two thousand, and so I purchased for gold the blood of my own heart, and she lifted her veil and sang for joy and hung upon my neck, and all the slave girls clapped their hands.
But at that moment there entered into the market a negro eunuch, so tall and so disgusting that the sun was darkened and the birds whistled for terror in the trees. And all the dealers and the slaves bowed low before him. Coming to my dealer, he cried: "Why dost thou sell slaves before the Caliph has made his choice?"
Then turning to to Pervaneh, he said, "Go back to thy place."
And I cried, "She is my purchase." But the eunuch said,
"Hold thy peace; I take her for the Caliph."
And suddenly two guards seized Pervaneh, and I drawing my sword was about to hew the eunuch into a thousand pieces, Pervaneh made a sign to me, and looking up I saw I was surrounded by men at arms. And Pervaneh cried in the speech of my country, as they carried her way: "I will die, but I will not be defiled: rescue me alive or dead, soon or late, and avenge me on this Caliph, may the ravens eat his entrails!"
That is my story, and for this reason I will nail the Caliph down in his coffin, bound and living and with open eyes.
CALIPH
(In horror) Bound and living, with open eyes! Thou devil!
MASRUR
Is that all the story?
JAFAR
Will you tear up the Empire for the honour of a girl?
CALIPH (In fury) And set your worthless passion in scale against the splendour of Islam!
RAFI Is this Haroun the splendour of Islam? Is the prosperity of these people, a rosy slave in his serai, or their happiness, a fish in his silver fountain?
JAFAR
God will frustrate thee.
RAFI If he will. Farewell, my guests. I go to avenge Pervaneh, and to wash Bagdad in blood.
JAFAR
And what of us?
RAFI It is well be used that you are my guests, for you are rich and proud, and eminently deserve destruction. But you are safe in his room as in an iron cage; you will only hear, as in a dream, the crash of the fall of the statue of tyranny.
CALIPH (Rushing to intercept him) By the thick smoke of Hell's Pit and the Ghouls that eat man's flesh, you shall not go, and we shall not stay.
RAFI
Look twice before you touch me!
(He leaps behind the archway. The BEGGARS and the WOMEN are now lined close to the wall of the room and the GUESTS are isolated in the centre. From behind every pillar appears an ARCHER with bow drawn taut directed on the startled GUESTS.)
CHORUS OF BEGGARS AND DANCING GIRLS
Today the fools who catch a cold in summer
Will fly for winter in the windy moon.
To-day the little rills of shining water
Will catch the fire of morning oversoon.
To-day the state musicians and court poets
Will set new verses to a special tune.
Today Haroun, the much-detested Caliph
Will find his Caliphate inopportune.
RAFI (Silencing the SINGERS with a wave of his hand; to the GUESTS) Did not someone ask me why this house was called the House of the Moving Walls?
CALIPH
I asked the question.
(Sheets of iron with a crash covering the apertures of the arches.
The four GUESTS are completely walled in.)
RAFI, BEGGARS AND WOMEN
(From behind the iron partitions with a shout) Answered!
JAFAR
This is a disastrous situation!
(The BEGGARS Tramp out to martial music.)
VOICES OF THE BEGGARS
(Retreating)
Today Haroun, the much-detested Caliph,
Will find Caliphate inopportune!
JAFAR
(Listening at the wall) They have all left the room.
At least we are alone. Let us shout, they may hear us from the street.
MASRUR
(Banging on the wall) Eyyah! Help, help, men of Bagdad!
The Caliph is in danger! The Caliph is in prison!…
Come up and save the Caliph, the Master of Men, the Shaker of the World!…
(Silence.)
CALIPH
There comes no answering cheer…
JAFAR I had forgotten the height of this room above the streets: and on either side stretches the empty garden of this house!
(The CALIPH, JAFAR and MASRUR rush around as though trying to find a way out of their prison, and banging on the iron walls. HASSAN takes his seat on the carpet.)
CALIPH Allah! and this room is a box within a box like a Chinese toy. And that man will surprise my soldiers in the chill of dawn, and sack my palace and burn Baghdad. He will discover my identity and bury me alive!
JAFAR
Alas, Master! What shall we do?
CALIPH Thou dog! Thou dirt! Thou dunghill! Thou dustheap! Did I make thee Vizier to ask counsel or to give it? Find out what we shall do! Thou hast let me fall into a trap, and now dost quiver and quake and shiver and shake like a tub of whey on the back of a restive camel: my kingdom is reduced from twelve provinces to twelve square cubits: my subjects from thirty millions unto three, but Bismillah! one of my subjects is the Executioner, and Mashallah! another one merits execution: and Inshallah! if thy head doth not immediately devise a practical scheme of escape it shall dive off my shoulders and swim across the floor.
JAFAR What shall happen, shall happen. But here is one who is occupied in meditation, and is aloof from the circumstances of the moment: let us invite him to Council.
CALIPH
Ho, thou Hassan! What occupies thy spirit?
HASSAN I am examining the square of carpet. It is of cheap manufacturer, inferior dye and unpleasant pattern.
CALIPH
Art thou a carpet dealer?
HASSAN
No, sir, I am a confectioner,
CALIPH
And I am the Caliph.
HASSAN
As my heart surmised. O Commander of the Faithful!
(Performs the ceremonies prescribed.)
CALIPH
Canst thou give me one gleam of hope of salvation,
Hassan the Confectioner? If not, Masrur shall cut off all our heads,
beginning with thine, I dare not fall into that man's hands alive.
HASSAN But I dare! O spare me, spare me! What of the man who put me in the basket? He will know where we are, and come to our rescue.
CALIPH No good—no good. I would rather depend on the mercy of Rafi than on the whim of Ishak. Masrur, unsheathe. There is no hope.
HASSAN
Thy pardon on thy servant: there is hope! Behold the light!
(Points to crack between bottom of the iron wall and floor, towards the balcony.)
CALIPH
By the seven lakes of Hell, we are not mice!
HASSAN
A mouse could not pass. But what, O Master, of a message?
CALIPH
A message?
HASSAN
Written out black on paper, and dropped into the street.
CALIPH Ho, Jafar, thou art a fool to this man! Take out thy pen and write. Warn the Captain of the Soldiers. Warn the Police. Describe our position. Offer the the Government of Three Provinces to the man who picks up the paper. Write clearly, write quicker. Time's flying. Write, and we are saved. Write for the Salvation of Bagdad; write for the safety of Islam! O Hassan, the Confectioner, if we are rescued I will fill my mouth with gold!
(JAFAR having written on a long roll of paper, they thrust it in the crack.)
HASSAN No: at the corner here, where there is no balcony and the wall drops straight into the street.
(MASRUR pokes out the paper with his sword.)
CALIPH
And now how shall we employ the time of waiting for our deliverance?
JAFAR
I shall meditate upon the mutability of human affairs.
MASRUR
And I shall sharpen my sword upon my thigh.
HASSAN And I shall study the reasons of the excessive ugliness of the pattern of this carpet.
CALIPH
Hassan, I will join thee: thou art a man of taste.
SCENE II
(See ACT I, last Scene)
Again, the street outside the house—the Street of the Fountain, with the balcony of RAFI and the balcony of YASMIN opposite. Cold light before dawn.
(On the steps of the Fountain, two tired MENDICANTS asleep.
One slowly rubs his eyes and looks round him.
A paper comes floating down. One tired MAN lazily catches it.)
FIRST LOITERER
Here comes a new chapter of the Koran falling down from heaven.
SECOND LOITERER
Is it written, Abdu?
ABDU
It is written, Ali.
ALI
Read what is written, Abdu.
ABDU
I cannot read. Am I schoolmaster?
(Folds paper, puts it in his belt, and prepares to sleep again.
Several interesting ORIENTALS pass by.)
ALI
Abdu!
ABDU
I sleep.
ALI
I can read: give me the paper.
ABDU
I am asleep: get up and take it from my belt if you want it,
Ya Ali, I am heavy with a great sleep, like a tortoise in November.
ALI
Ya Abdu, I am too languishing to move. It is a paper and it is written.
It does not matter. To-morrow or the next day it will be read.
ABDU
To-morrow or the next day I shall wake and pass it to you.
(Interval: more interesting ORIENTALS go by.)
ALI
(With sudden inspiration) Blow me the paper, Abdu.
ABDU
Alas, Allah sent thee to trouble the world!
(ABDU blows the paper over. ALI with infinite difficulty spells it out, murmuring:)
ALI Ha, alif, alif, re wow wow 'ain jeem—ah, ye blessed ones in Paradise, is it thus ye write a jeem? Nun—but art thou a nun, O letter, or a drunkard's qaf? Verily an ape has written this with his tail: I have the second line. (With a start) Ho, Abdu, whence came this? Do not pretend to sleep. Answer me.
ABDU
From the sky: how do I know?
ALI
Let me look at the sky. (Rolls on his back and stares upward)
I tell you, Abdu, a mighty joker has flung this from the balcony.
ABDU
Allah plague him and his pen and thee! Is there no peace in the world?
ALI Here it is written, and do thou listen, O Abdu, for this is the strangest of the strange writings that are strange: "Whoever findeth this paper, know that the Caliph is in the house above, a prisoner, and his friends prisoners, and in the extremity of danger, he and they, with all Bagdad. Let the rescue be swift and sudden, but above all secret. The iron walls must be lifted from beneath. And send a man at once to the Guard, O fortunate discoverer, to warn them to protect the palace against the Beggars of Bagdad, and thou shalt be made Governor of Three Provinces. Signed, Jafar, the Vizier." (Bursting into laughter) Three Provinces, well I know their Three Provinces! Some rich young reveller hopes to play a game with poor old Ali, even as a game was played on the son of Abdullah, whom they dressed as a woman and placed in the Grand Vizier's Harem, and his reward came hailing down on his toes. (In a lower voice.) And I tell you, Abdu, what if the Caliph were in the house and his friends? What if this were true? Who would believe me? Who am I to rescue the Caliph? I never meddle in politics.
ABDU May the great gripes settle on thee and on the Caliph and the mother of the Caliph. Shall I not sleep? And now there comes a disturbance down the road. Ya, Jehannum, the Police!
(CHIEF OF POLICE with ISHAK)
ISHAK I tell you, I do not know precisely where I left them. It was somewhere in this quarter. It may have been this balcony they went to or that, but there are a thousand balconies. It was above a fountain, but there are a million fountains. I tell you they always come back. Have you not already twenty such scares as these for the safety of the Caliph?
CHIEF OF POLICE
Never and on no preceding occasion has his exalted name
been so long delayed in his return to the palace.
The day is dawning.
ISHAK I tell you, if you do find him you will get no thanks, O man of arms. Will you dare to unstick the Ruler of the Moslem World from the embrace of his latest slave girl or dash the cup of pleasure from his reluctant hand?
CHIEF OF POLICE
I tell you, if you do not find him, man of letters, I will have you
impaled upon a monstrous pen.
(Seizes him.)
ISHAK Thou beastly, blood-drinking brute and bloated bully, take off thy stable-reeking hands.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Yallah, these poets. They talk in rhyme.
ALI
(Who has risen and salaamed, advancing) I pray you, Sirs,…
CHIEF OF POLICE
O thou maggot! Darest thou address us?
ALI
I pray you only regard…
CHIEF OF POLICE
I pray you only remove, or I will split you from the top.
ISHAK
Do you not see that he has a paper, and that his manners are superior
to yours, O Captain of Police? Let me look at thy paper….
Ah—ah. Whence came this, O virtuous wanderer?
ALI
From that balcony, may thy slaves be forgiven!
CHIEF OF POLICE
This is a very important clue. Let us break in the door.
ISHAK
There is no door. But first of all send word to the Palace Guard.
CHIEF OF POLICE
(To a soldier) Ali
(To the other ALI, who runs and says: Excellence, I hear and obey)
Not thou, fool. Did Allah make the name Ali for thee alone?
Who art thou that I should address thee? Are there not ten thousand Alis
in Bagdad, and wilt thou lift up thy head, O worm, when I say Ali?
(To POLICEMAN) Here is my ring. Take this paper,
and run with all thy might and show it to the Captain of the Palace Guard.
POLICEMAN
I hear and obey. (Starts off.)
ISHAK
(Stopping him) Wait!
CHIEF OF POLICE What right have you to stop my man, you bastard son of a quill-bearing barn-fowl?
ISHAK Since when had a bludgeoning policeman the practical good sense of a thought-breathing poet? Tell them, Ali, to send a few men with levers and ladders.
CHIEF OF POLICE
It is well ordered: run, run, Ali!
ISHAK
You other Ali, who brought the paper…
ALI
Master?
ISHAK
How long is it since any paper was thrown from the balcony?
ALI
How do I know time? The time to go to market and buy a melon.
CHIEF OF POLICE By the great pit of torment, this swine-faced has had the paper a good hour! By the red blaze of damnation, thou maggot, why didst thou not run with this at once to the Palace Guard?
ALI
I had a great fear, and I thought it was a jest.
CHIEF OF POLICE
A jest! Rivers of blood, a jest! The life of the Caliph of Bagdad, a jest?
The safety of the Empire a jest! I knew thee a traitor from thy face.
I will teach thee jesting. I will teach thee fear.
Ho, Mahmud, Zia, Rustem, down with his head and up with his heels.
ALI (As his feet are looped into the pole to receive the bastinado) Ya, Abdu, you had the letter first, it is yours. Will you not claim it and the reward. Alas, that the Governor of Three Provinces should be treated thus!
ABDU
Do I meddle in politics? Hit him hard, O Executioner,
for he is a great disturber of peaceful citizens.
But as for me, O Ali, lest my sleep be troubled by thy groaning,
I will make my way a little further on. (Exit)
(The EXECUTIONERS proceed with their work, but stop on entrance of CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY with SOLDIERS.)
(On the balcony opposite house where CALIPH is imprisoned appears YASMIN.)
YASMIN
Look, look, Selim! there's a man being beaten.
SELIM Come in quick! this is a riot or some trouble; come in quick, and shut the shutters fast.
YASMIN You are a valiant protection indeed for frail-as-a-rose ladies in danger's hour.
(They remain at window.)
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
(To CHIEF OF POLICE) Sir.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Sir.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
(Saluting) Captain of the Victorious Army, at your service.
CHIEF OF POLICE
(Saluting) Chief of the August Police, at yours.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
(Bowing) I am honoured.
CHIEF OF POLICE
(Bowing) I am overwhelmed.
ISHAK Come, Sirs, brush away, I implore you, the cobwebs of ceremony with the broom of expedition.
CHIEF OF POLICE
Sir, when men of action meet, the place of the man of letters
is inside his pencase.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
A moment! Ere we proceed, Chief of Police, may I ask why this man
is undergoing punishment?
CHIEF OF POLICE
Since your excellency deigns to enquire, for urgent reasons of police.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY They must have been very urgent indeed before you would permit such an inopportune disturbance outside the very house where our Lord the Caliph is imprisoned. You have seriously impaired our chances of a speedy and effective rescue.
CHIEF OF POLICE (Drawing his sword and whirling it about) Thou melon head, thou, thou dung pig, thou brother of disaster, get thee hence with thy knock-kneed band of fatherless brigands, ere I have thee arrested for unnatural crime.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
Out with thy sword, thou big-bellied snatcher up of burglars,
thou manacler of little boys, thou terror of the peaceful market,
I will teach thee to insult the slaughterers of the infidel host.
ISHAK
(Interrupting the COMBATANTS) Is this a time for indecent brawling?
Quick, where are the ladders?
A SOLDIER
(Pompously) In the rear, Sir, in the rear.
(The ladders are brought along.)
CHIEF OF POLICE
(To POLICEMAN) Place a ladder.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
(To SOLDIERS) Place a ladder.
(Each goes up his ladder at the same time: bang at wall and are answered: shout for levers which are procured, and assistance which speedily arrives. The iron wall is lifted up, and CALIPH and the REST disclosed seated peaceably awaiting their deliverance, the lamp still burning.)
CHIEF OF POLICE
My royal master!
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
August Lord.
CHIEF AND CAPTAIN
(Together) I have saved thee, Master.
(Each attempts to seize the CALIPH.)
CHIEF OF POLICE
Honourable Police!…
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
Honourable Military!…
CHIEF OF POLICE It has been the high privilege of this grovelling slave to rescue the Lamp of the World! I shall carry him down.
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY Permit me to observe, O fire-spitting Battle Cleaver, that I was the first up this ladder, and though I tremble to obscure the Sun's Brilliance with my dirty little hand, yet it is I who have the prior claim.
(MASRUR pushes them aside, and assists the CALIPH down the ladder.
JAFAR and HASSAN follow. Shouts of "Long live the Caliph" from all
the people gathered in the street. The SOLDIERS salute.
The CALIPH raises his hand. Silence.)
CALIPH
Is my Palace safe?
MASRUR
O Lord and Master, we pray so.
CALIPH
And my people?
JAFAR
Around thee, O Lord and Master.
YASMIN
(From her balcony) By the Prophet, here is Hassan with the Caliph!
CALIPH
Are we all saved?
MASRUR
All, by the providence of Allah.
JAFAR
And the wisdom of Hassan.
CALIPH
And the Guard warned?
CAPTAIN OF MILITARY
All warned and at their posts, my Lord.
CALIPH
Allah, deliver our enemies into their hands. Let Hassan come to me.
HASSAN
(Prostrating himself) Master!
CALIPH (Raising him) Rise, Hassan. This Hassan, yesterday a stranger, has to-night by his skill and invention, saved my life and rescued this city from a greater peril than my death.
CROWD
May it be far!
CALIPH Therefore here and now, in the presence of all, I nominate Hassan to my court, to hold rank among my subjects second to none save to Jafar, my Grand Vizier.
YASMIN
(Who has been at her balcony with SELIM) O Allah!
CROWD
Honour to Hassan. Honour to Hassan.
HASSAN
Master, I sold confectionary in the market.
JAFAR
Thou shalt now confection the sweets of prosperity.
ISHAK
(To HASSAN) Why, Hassan. You are the man with the broken lute.
CALIPH
Is that the voice of Ishak?
ISHAK
It is the voice of Ishak that has often sung to you.
CALIPH
Why did you abandon me, Ishak, and flee into the night? I do not know
I shall forgive you.
ISHAK
I was weary of you, Haroun-ar-Raschid.
CALIPH
And if I weary of you?
ISHAK
You will one day or another, and you will have me slain.
CALIPH
And what of this day that dawns?
ISHAK
Dawn is the hour when most men die.
CALIPH
Your death is granted you, Ishak; you have but to kneel.
(A red glow on the horizon.)
ISHAK (As he kneels calmly) Why have they pinned the carpet of execution on the sky?
MASRUR
It is the Caliph's dawn.
JAFAR
Thy dawn, O Master!
ISHAK
Thy dawn, O Master of the world, thy dawn;
The hour the lilies open on the lawn,
The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains,
The hour of silence, when we hear the fountains,
The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder,
The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder,
O Master of the world, the Persian Dawn.
That hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:
Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,
The braves who fight thy war unsheathe the sabre,
The slaves who work thy mines are lashed to labour,
For thee the waggons of the world are drawn—
The ebony of night, the red of dawn!
CALIPH
Sheathe thy sword, Masrur! Would you kill my friend?
MASRUR
I hear and obey.
CALIPH I must go swiftly to my palace. But to you, Ishak, I leave the care of this man you sent up to me in the basket, who proved the salvation of Bagdad. Teach him the ceremonies and regulations. Is my chair ready?
MASRUR
Ready, Lord and Master.
(Exit CALIPH in chair, and JAFAR and CROWD. ISHAK signs to those who would kiss HASSAN's feet to leave him.)
YASMIN
(On balcony opposite. Giving SELIM a great clout on the ear)
Go, leave my sight, you fool. I shall burst with fury.
You made me insult Hassan, and now he is going to court.
SELIM
(Astonished) Eh, Yasmin, Yasmin how could I know?
ISHAK
Ah, bismillah, I had not forgotten you, O man with the broken lute.
HASSAN
The broken lute? The broken lute?
ISHAK
Here you were lying, at this fountain, like one dead.
HASSAN
Was it here? Is that the balcony? Who are you? What do you know?
ISHAK
Quietly, friend, quietly, your head is weak with joy.
HASSAN
With joy? Do I know what is true or false? Do I know if the Caliph
is the Caliph? And if the Caliph is the Caliph may he not mock me too?
What is joy? Let me look at that balcony for joy. I dare not look,
I fear she is there. Ah. it is she.
(YASMIN takes the rose from her hair and flings it at HASSAN, then retires within.)
ISHAK
Are you fortunate in love as well as in life, O Hassan? But come away.
This conduct ill beseems a minister of state; you are not unobserved.
HASSAN
I am coming. The rose is poisoned.
ISHAK
O friend, is this talk for the ardent lover?
HASSAN
Are you my friend? You, Ishak, the glorious singer of Islam?
And if you are my friend, are you like those who were my friends before?
ISHAK Last night, I found you lying like a filthy corpse beneath this window, but I knew by your lute and your countenance that you were a poet, like myself, and I was sorry to think you dead.
HASSAN
A poet? I? I am a confectioner.
ISHAK
You are my friend, Hassan.
HASSAN Then consider this rose. This rose is more bitter than colocynth. For, look you, friend, had she not flung this rose, I would have said she hated me and loved another; it is well. She had the right to hate and love. She could hate and she could love. But now, ah, tell me, you who seem to be my friend, are all you poets liars?
ISHAK
Ya, Hassan, but we tell excellent lies.
HASSAN Why do you say that beauty has a meaning? Why do you not say that beauty is hollow as a drum? Why do you not say that it is sold?
ISHAK
All this disillusionment because a fair lady flung you a rose!
HASSAN
Last night I baked sugar and she flung me water:
this morning I bake gold and she flings me a rose.
Empty, empty, I tell you, friend, all the blue sky.
ISHAK Come, forget her and come away. I will instruct you in the pleasures of the court.
HASSAN Forget, forget? O rose of morning and O rose of evening, vainly for me shall you fade on domes of ebony or azure. This rose has faded, and this rose is bitter, and this rose is nothing but the world.