Scene V

                         Vasanta

I CANNOT keep pace with thee, my friend!  I am tired.  It is a
hard task to keep alive the fire thou hast kindled.  Sleep
overtakes me, the fan drops from my hand, and cold ashes cover
the glow of the fire.  I start up again from my slumber and with
all my might rescue the weary flame.  But this can go on no
longer.


                          Madana

I know, thou art as fickle as a child.  Ever restless is thy play
in heaven and on earth.  Things that thou for days buildest up
with endless detail thou dost shatter in a moment without regret.
But this work of ours is nearly finished.  Pleasure-winged days
fly fast, and the year, almost at its end, swoons in rapturous
bliss.

Scene VI

                          Arjuna


I WOKE in the morning and found that my dreams had distilled a
gem.  I have no casket to inclose it, no king's crown whereon to
fix it, no chain from which to hang it, and yet have not the
heart to throw it away.  My Kshatriya's right arm, idly occupied
in holding it, forgets its duties.


                      Enter CHITRA.

                          Chitra

Tell me your thoughts, sir!


                          Arjuna

My mind is busy with thoughts of hunting today.  See, how the
rain pours in torrents and fiercely beats upon the hillside.  The
dark shadow of the clouds hangs heavily over the forest, and the
swollen stream, like reckless youth, overleaps all barriers with
mocking laughter.  On such rainy days we five brothers would go
to the Chitraka forest to chase wild beasts.  Those were glad
times. Our hearts danced to the drumbeat of rumbling clouds.  The
woods resounded with the screams of peacocks.  Timid deer could
not hear our approaching steps for the patter of rain and the
noise of waterfalls; the leopards would leave their tracks on the
wet earth, betraying their lairs.  Our sport over, we dared each
other to swim across turbulent streams on our way back home.  The
restless spirit is on me.  I long to go hunting.


                          Chitra

First run down the quarry you are now following.  Are you quite
certain that the enchanted deer you pursue must needs be caught?
No, not yet.  Like a dream the wild creature eludes you when it
seems most nearly yours.  Look how the wind is chased by the mad
rain that discharges a thousand arrows after it.  Yet it goes
free and unconquered.  Our sport is like that, my love!  You give
chase to the fleet-footed spirit of beauty, aiming at her every
dart you have in your hands.  Yet this magic deer runs ever free
and untouched.


                          Arjuna

My love, have you no home where kind hearts are waiting for your
return?  A home which you once made sweet with your gentle
service and whose light went out when you left it for this
wilderness?


                          Chitra

Why these questions?  Are the hours of unthinking pleasure over?
Do you not know that I am no more than what you see before you?
For me there is no vista beyond.  The dew that hangs on the tip
of a Kinsuka petal has neither name nor destination.  It offers
no answer to any question.  She whom you love is like that
perfect bead of dew.


                          Arjuna

Has she no tie with the world?  Can she be merely like a fragment
of heaven dropped on the earth through the carelessness of a
wanton god?


                          Chitra

Yes.


                          Arjuna

Ah, that is why I always seem about to lose you.  My heart is
unsatisfied, my mind knows no peace.  Come closer to me,
unattainable one!  Surrender yourself to the bonds of name and
home and parentage.  Let my heart feel you on all sides and live
with you in the peaceful security of love.


                          Chitra

Why this vain effort to catch and keep the tints of the clouds,
the dance of the waves, the smell of the flowers?


                          Arjuna

Mistress mine, do not hope to pacify love with airy nothings.
Give me something to clasp, something that can last longer than
pleasure, that can endure even through suffering.


                          Chitra

Hero mine, the year is not yet full, and you are tired already!
Now I know that it is Heaven's blessing that has made the
flower's term of life short.  Could this body of mine have
drooped and died with the flowers of last spring it surely would
have died with honour.  Yet, its days are numbered, my love.
Spare it not, press it dry of honey, for fear your beggar's heart
come back to it again and again with unsated desire, like a
thirsty bee when summer blossoms lie dead in the dust.

Scene VII

                          Madana

TONIGHT is thy last night.


                         Vasanta

The loveliness of your body will return tomorrow to the
inexhaustible stores of the spring.  The ruddy tint of thy lips
freed from the memory of Arjuna's kisses, will bud anew as a pair
of fresh asoka leaves, and the soft, white glow of thy skin will
be born again in a hundred fragrant jasmine flowers.


                          Chitra

O gods, grant me this my prayer!  Tonight, in its last hour let
my beauty flash its brightest, like the final flicker of a dying
flame.


                          Madana

Thou shalt have thy wish.


                           

Scene VIII

                        Villagers

WHO will protect us now?


                          Arjuna

Why, by what danger are you threatened?


                        Villagers

The robbers are pouring from the northern hills like a mountain
flood to devastate our village.


                          Arjuna

Have you in this kingdom no warden?


                        Villagers

Princess Chitra was the terror of all evil doers.  While she was
in this happy land we feared natural deaths, but had no other
fears.  Now she has gone on a pilgrimage, and none knows where to
find her.


                          Arjuna

Is the warden of this country a woman?


                        Villagers


Yes, she is our father and mother in one.
                                                  [Exeunt.


                      Enter CHITRA.

                          Chitra

Why are you sitting all alone?


                          Arjuna

I am trying to imagine what kind of woman Princess Chitra may be.
I hear so many stories of her from all sorts of men.


                          Chitra

Ah, but she is not beautiful.  She has no such lovely eyes as
mine, dark as death.  She can pierce any target she will, but not
our hero's heart.


                          Arjuna

They say that in valour she is a man, and a woman in tenderness.


                          Chitra

That, indeed, is her greatest misfortune.  When a woman is merely
a woman; when she winds herself round and round men's hearts with
her smiles and sobs and services and caressing endearments; then
she is happy.  Of what use to her are learning and great
achievements?  Could you have seen her only yesterday in the
court of the Lord Shiva's temple by the forest path, you would
have passed by without deigning to look at her.  But have you
grown so weary of woman's beauty that you seek in her for a man's
strength?

With green leaves wet from the spray of the foaming waterfall, I
have made our noonday bed in a cavern dark as night.  There the
cool of the soft green mosses thick on the black and dripping
stone, kisses your eyes to sleep.  Let me guide you thither.


                          Arjuna

Not today, beloved.


                          Chitra

Why not today?


                          Arjuna

I have heard that a horde of robbers has neared the plains.
Needs must I go and prepare my weapons to protect the frightened
villagers.


                          Chitra

You need have no fear for them.  Before she started on her
pilgrimage, Princess Chitra had set strong guards at all the
frontier passes.


                          Arjuna

Yet permit me for a short while to set about a Kshatriya's work.
With new glory will I ennoble this idle arm, and make of it a
pillow more worthy of your head.


                          Chitra

What if I refuse to let you go, if I keep you entwined in my
arms?  Would you rudely snatch yourself free and leave me?  Go
then!  But you must know that the liana, once broken in two,
never joins again.  Go, if your thirst is quenched.  But, if not,
then remember that the goddess of pleasure is fickle, and waits
for no man.  Sit for a while, my lord!  Tell me what uneasy
thoughts tease you.  Who occupied your mind today?  Is it Chitra?


                          Arjuna

Yes, it is Chitra.  I wonder in fulfilment of what vow she has
gone on her pilgrimage.  Of what could she stand in need?


                          Chitra

Her needs?  Why, what has she ever had, the unfortunate creature?
Her very qualities are as prison walls, shutting her woman's
heart in a bare cell.  She is obscured, she is unfulfilled.  Her
womanly love must content itself dressed in rags; beauty is
denied  her.   She  is like the spirit of  a  cheerless  morning,
sitting upon the stony mountain peak, all her light blotted out
by dark clouds.  Do not ask me of her life.  It will never sound
sweet to man's ear.


                          Arjuna

I am eager to learn all about her.  I am like a traveller come to
a strange city at midnight.  Domes and towers and garden-trees
look vague and shadowy, and the dull moan of the sea comes
fitfully through the silence of sleep.  Wistfully he waits for
the morning to reveal to him all the strange wonders.  Oh, tell
me her story.


                          Chitra

What more is there to tell?


                          Arjuna

I seem to see her, in my mind's eye, riding on a white horse,
proudly holding the reins in her left hand, and in her right a
bow, and like the Goddess of Victory dispensing glad hope all
round her.  Like a watchful lioness she protects the litter at
her dugs with a fierce love.  Woman's arms, though adorned with
naught but unfettered strength, are beautiful!  My heart is
restless, fair one, like a serpent reviving from his long
winter's sleep.  Come, let us both race on swift horses side by
side, like twin orbs of light sweeping through space.  Out from
this slumbrous prison of green gloom, this dank, dense cover of
perfumed intoxication, choking breath.


                          Chitra

Arjuna, tell me true, if, now at once, by some magic I could
shake myself free from this voluptuous softness, this timid bloom
of beauty shrinking from the rude and healthy touch of the world,
and fling it from my body like borrowed clothes, would you be
able to bear it?  If I stand up straight and strong with the
strength of a daring heart spurning the wiles and arts of twining
weakness, if I hold my head high like a tall young mountain fir,
no longer trailing in the dust like a liana, shall I then appeal
to man's eye?   No, no, you could not endure it.  It is better
that I should keep spread about me all the dainty playthings of
fugitive youth, and wait for you in patience.  When it pleases
you to return, I will smilingly pour out for you the wine of
pleasure in the cup of this beauteous body.  When you are tired
and satiated with this wine, you can go to work or play; and when
I grow old I will accept humbly and gratefully whatever corner is
left for me.  Would it please your heroic soul if the playmate of
the night aspired to be the helpmeet of the day, if the left arm
learnt to share the burden of the proud right arm?


                          Arjuna

I never seem to know you aright.  You seem to me like a goddess
hidden within a golden image.  I cannot touch you, I cannot pay
you my dues in return for your priceless gifts.  Thus my love is
incomplete.  Sometimes in the enigmatic depth of your sad look,
in your playful words mocking at their own meaning, I gain
glimpses of a being trying to rend asunder the languorous grace
of her body, to emerge in a chaste fire of pain through a
vaporous veil of smiles.  Illusion is the first appearance of
Truth.  She advances towards her lover in disguise.  But a time
comes when she throws off her ornaments and veils and stands
clothed in naked dignity.  I grope for that ultimate you, that
bare simplicity of truth.

Why these tears, my love?  Why cover your face with your hands?
Have I pained you, my darling?  Forget what I said.  I will be
content with the present.  Let each separate moment of beauty
come to me like a bird of mystery from its unseen nest in the
dark  bearing  a message of music.  Let me for ever sit  with
my hope on the brink of its realization, and thus end my days.

Scene IX


CHITRA and ARJUNA

                Chitra [cloaked]

My lord, has the cup been drained to the last drop?  Is this,
indeed, the end? No, when all is done something still remains,
and that is my last sacrifice at your feet.

I brought from the garden of heaven flowers of incomparable
beauty with which to worship you, god of my heart.  If the rites
are over, if the flowers have faded, let me throw them out of the
temple [unveiling in her original male attire].  Now, look
at your worshipper with gracious eyes.

I am not beautifully perfect as the flowers with which I
worshipped.  I have many flaws and blemishes.  I am a
traveller in the great world-path, my garments are dirty,
and my feet are bleeding with thorns.  Where should I achieve
flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment's life?  The
gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman.  Here have
all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a
daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling toward
immortal life.  Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble
and grand.  If the flower-service is finished, my master, accept
this as your servant for the days to come!

I am Chitra, the king's daughter.  Perhaps you will remember the
day when a woman came to you in the temple of Shiva, her body
loaded with ornaments and finery.  That shameless woman came to
court you as though she were a man.  You rejected her; you did
well.  My lord, I am that woman.  She was my disguise.  Then by
the boon of gods I obtained for a year the most radiant form that
a mortal ever wore, and wearied my hero's heart with the burden
of that deceit.  Most surely I am not that woman.

I am Chitra.  No goddess to be worshipped, nor yet the
object of common pity to be brushed aside like a moth with
indifference.  If you deign to keep me by your side in the path
of danger and daring, if you allow me to share the great duties
of your life, then you will know my true self.  If your babe,
whom  I  am nourishing in my womb be born a son, I  shall  myself
teach him to be a second Arjuna, and send him to you when the
time comes, and then at last you will truly know me. Today I can
only offer you Chitra, the daughter of a king.


                          Arjuna

Beloved, my life is full.

Index of the first lines


Ah, these jasmines
Ah, who was it coloured that little frock
Bless this little heart
Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust
Come and hire me
Day by day I float my paper boats
I am small because I am a little child
If baby only wanted to, he could fly
If I were only a little puppy
If people came to know where my king's palace is
I long to go over there
Imagine, mother
I only said, "When in the evening"
I paced alone
It is time for me to go, mother
I want to give you something, my child
I wish I could take a quiet corner
Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons
Mother, let us imagine we are travelling
Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds
Mother, the light has grown grey
Mother, your baby is silly
On the seashore of endless worlds
O you shaggy-headed banyan tree
Say of him what you please
Sullen clouds are gathering
Supposing I became a <i>champa</i> flower
The boat of the boatman Madhu
The night was dark when we went away
The sleep that flits on baby's eyes
They clamour and fight
This song of mine
When I bring you coloured toys
When storm clouds
When the gong sounds ten
Where have I come from
Who stole sleep from baby's eyes
Why are those tears in your eyes, my child
Why do you sit there on the floor
You say that father writes a lot of books

The home


I paced alone on the road across the field while the sunset was
hiding its last gold like a miser.

The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the
widowed land, whose harvest had been reaped, lay silent.

Suddenly a boy's shrill voice rose into the sky.  He traversed
the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song across the hush of
the evening.

His village home lay there at the end of the waste land, beyond
the sugar-cane field, hidden among the shadows of the banana and
the slender areca palm, the cocoa-nut and the dark green
jack-fruit trees.

I stopped for a moment in my lonely way under the starlight, and
saw spread before me the darkened earth surrounding with her arms
countless homes furnished with cradles and beds, mothers' hearts
and evening lamps, and young lives glad with a gladness that
knows nothing of its value for the world.

On the seashore


On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is
boisterous.  On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet
with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty
shells.  With withered leaves they weave their boats and
smilingly float them on the vast deep.  Children have their play
on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets.
Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships,
while children gather pebbles and scatter them again.  They seek
not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the
sea-beach.  Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the
children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the
sea-beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.  Tempest roams
in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water,
death is abroad and children play.  On the seashore of endless
worlds is the great meeting of children.

The source


The sleep that flits on baby's eyes--does anybody know from where
it comes?  Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where,
in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with
glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment.  From there
it comes to kiss baby's eyes.

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps--does
anybody know where it was born?  Yes, there is a rumour that a
young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a
vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the
dream of a dew-washed morning--the smile that flickers on baby's
lips when he sleeps.

The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs--does
anybody know where it was hidden so long?  Yes, when the mother
was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent
mystery of love--the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on
baby's limbs.

Baby's way


If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment.

It is not for nothing that he does not leave us.

He loves to rest his head on mother's bosom, and cannot ever bear
to lose sight of her.

Baby knows all manner of wise words, though few on earth can
understand their meaning.

It is not for nothing that he never wants to speak.

The one thing he wants is to learn mother's words from mother's
lips.  That is why he looks so innocent.

Baby had a heap of gold and pearls, yet he came like a beggar on
to this earth.

It is not for nothing he came in such a disguise.

This dear little naked mendicant pretends to be utterly helpless,
so that he may beg for mother's wealth of love.

Baby was so free from every tie in the land of the tiny crescent
moon.

It was not for nothing he gave up his freedom.

He knows that there is room for endless joy in mother's little
corner of a heart, and it is sweeter far than liberty to be
caught and pressed in her dear arms.

Baby never knew how to cry.  He dwelt in the land of perfect
bliss.

It is not for nothing he has chosen to shed tears.

Though with the smile of his dear face he draws mother's yearning
heart to him, yet his little cries over tiny troubles weave the
double bond of pity and love.