SCENE III

The Great Hall of the Palace. The room is plain, white marble. ISHAK alone, in his robes of Court Chamberlain.

(Enter SOLDIERS with the CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY and the CHIEF OF POLICE.) (The SOLDIERS intone "The War Song of the Saracens.")

SOLDIERS sing

We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late: We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the sunset beware! Not on silk nor on samet we lie, nor in curtained solemnity die Among women who chatter and cry and children who mumble a prayer. But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout and we tramp With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our hair.

From the lands where the elephant are to the forts of Merou and Balghar, Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum. We have marched from the Indies to Spain, and by God we will go there again; We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom. A mart of destruction we made at Yalula where men were afraid, For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom; And the Spear was a Desert Physician, who cured not a few of ambition, And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong.

And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool, And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when our cavalry thundered along: For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like a wave, And our dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song.

THE SOLDIERS (Cheering) Allah Akbar! (etc.)

CHIEF OF POLICE That is a splendid song your soldiers sing, O breaker of infidel bones. Permit an inglorious policeman to inquire what flaming victory you celebrate today. Such is my loathly ignorance, I knew not the Caliph's army (may it be ever plosh in seas of hostile blood!) had even left Baghdad.

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY It is true we have not left Baghdad, But perchance we have saved it from destruction. For when the Caliph's Police have allowed a conspiracy to ripen undetected, It is our duty to mow down the conspirators. It is true we did but vanquish beggars--but they were beggars to fight. Half of them we slew and one-half we captured, and, since the police believe no clue but the ocular, here they are. A victory is well worth a song.

CHIEF OF POLICE Allah, such a song! I thought: "At the least they have captured Cairo."

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY To save Bagdad is better than to capture Cairo.

CHIEF OF POLICE (Pointing to the captive BEGGARS) Behold only the chain-mail of the vanquished!

CHIEF OF MILITARY It is an old song, a glorious great battle song, and in mocking it thou has displayed on an absence of education, thou dragger of dead dogs from obscure gutters.

ISHAK Is this talk for the high divan, Captain? Ye have saved Bagdad? Bagdad is no longer worth saving. You rose-petal-bellied parasites of the palace, how dare you sing that song?

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY Allah, these poets talk in rhyme.

(Enter the Herald announcing various personages, who enter as he announces them and are motioned to their place by ISHAK.)

HERALD Abu Said, Prince of Basra, to do homage. Fahraddin, Prince of Damascus, to do homage. Al Mustansir, Prince of Koniah, to do homage. Tahir Dhu'l Yaminayn, governor of Khorasan, to do homage.

The great calligraphist, Afiq of Diarbekir, master of the riqa and the shikasta hands: also of the Peacock style, and of painting in miniature.

ISHAK (Aside) Episodes of considerable obscenity.

HERALD The celebrated Turkoman wrestler, Yurghiz Khan, whose thighs are three cubits in circumference.

ISHAK (Aside) As fat as a woman's, but not as nice.

HERALD Abu Nouwas, the Caliph's jester. The Rajah of the Upper Ganges, come hither to do homage with a present of 800 bales of indigo.

ISHAK (Aside) And never dyed his beard.

HERALD Hang Wung, the wisest philosopher in China, come hither to study the excellence of the habits of true believers. He is a hundred and ten years old....

ISHAK (Aside) And perfectly blind.

HERALD Anastasius Johannes Georgius, ambassador of the infidel Empress Irene, mistress till God wills of Constaniniyeh and the lands of Rum, come here on a vain errand....

ISHAK He understands no word, and believes we do honour to his name. But the jest is thin, my Herald.

HERALD Abul Asal, the wandering dervish, come hither to remind kings that they are but dust.

ISHAK "Where lies Nushiravan the Just?"

DERVISH The rhyme helps reason. In the dust.

ISHAK The platitudes of dervishes do not much disturb the beatitudes of kings.

HERALD Masrur, the Executioner, come hither to make several beggars the dusty equivalents of monarchs.

ISHAK Ah, you may well shiver, poor captives: it is draughty among your rags.

HERALD Hassan ben Hassan al Bagdadi, the Caliph's friend.

SOLDIERS Long live Hassan and the shadow of Hassan and the friend of Hassan ben Hassan al Bagdadi!

ISHAK (Drawing HASSAN aside) Come hither, friend of the Caliph; do not forget that you are the man with the broken lute.

HASSAN What is a friend?

ISHAK Are you not in favour? Has not the Caliph taught you? You have a royal friend.

HASSAN He is generous: he is gracious: he is intimate. He has leant on my arm, he has embraced me, he has called me by that name "friend". But I tremble before his eyes.

ISHAK You have found out. No man can ever be his friend.

HASSAN Alas, that is because he is exalted far above mankind!

ISHAK Alas, no: but because he uses that supremacy to play the artist with the lives of men.

HASSAN What do you mean, Ishak?

ISHAK Have you not seen the designer of carpets, O Hassan of Bagdad, put here the blue and here the gold, here the orange here the green? So have I seen the Caliph take the life of some helpless man-- who was contented in his little house and garden, enjoying the blue of happy days--and colour his life with the purple of power, and streak it with the crimson of lust: then whelm it all with the gloom-greys of abasement, touched with the glaring reds of pain, and edge the whole with the black border of annihilation.

HASSAN He has been so generous. Do not say he is a tyrant! Do not say he delights in the agony of men!

ISHAK Agony is a fine colour, and he delights therein as a painter in vermilion new brought from Kurdistan. But shall so great an artist not love contrast? To clasp a silver belt round the loins of a filthy beggar while a slave darkens the soles of his late vizier, is for him but a jest touched with a sense of the appropriate: and I have seen it enacted in this very room.

HASSAN But you are his friend.

ISHAK As you are. It is elegant for a monarch to condescend: it is refreshing for a monarch to talk as man to man. It is artistic for a monarch to enjoy the pleasures of contrast and escape the formalities of Court.... But here comes the preceder of the Caliph, the penultimate splendour of the divan, a man noble without passion, sagacious without inspiration, and weak as a miser's coffee.

HERALD The Tulip of the Parterre of Government, the Shadow of the Cypress Tree, the Sun's Moon, Jafar the Barmecide.

SOLDIERS Long live the great Vizier!

HERALD Let all mouths close but mine. (Lifting his staff.) The Holy, the Just, the High-born, the Omnipotent; the Gardener of the Vale of Islam, the Lion of the Imperial Forests, the Rider on the Spotless Horse, the Cyprus on the Golden Hill, the Master of Spears, the Redresser of Wrong, the Drinker of Blood, the Peacock of the World, the Shadow of God on Earth, the Commander of the Faithful, Haroun ar Raschid ben Mohammed, Ibn Abdullah Ibn Mohammed Ibn Ali ben Abdullah, Ibn 'Abbas, the Caliph.

SOLDIERS The Holy, the High-born, the Just One, the Caliph! The Cypress, the Peacock, the Lion, the Caliph! From Rum to Bokhara one monarch, the Caliph!

DERVISH (Gloomily) A clay thing, a plaything, a shadow, the Caliph!

CALIPH The Divan is open. Let all mouths close but mine. Our justice today will be swift as a blow of the sword. In the Book of the Wisdom of Rulers I read: "Be sudden to uproot the tree of conspiracy for it scatters far its seed." Are you the Beggars?

BEGGARS We are the beggars of Bagdad.

CALIPH Thou, spokesman, come hither! Wherefore didst thou plot against my throne and the safety of all Islam? Didst thou not fear not only for thy life but for thy salvation?

BEGGAR Master and Lord of the World, hast thou been poor, hast thou been hungry? Dost thou know what dreams enter the gaunt heads of starving men as they lie against the back of thy garden wall, and moan: "Bread in God's name, bread in the name of God?"

CALIPH Dost thou deny conspiracy?

BEGGAR I conspired.

CALIPH Is there one of you denieth conspiracy?

(Silence.)

Masrur, lead out the conspirators to death.

(MASRUR executes the order.)

CALIPH Let those whose duty it is fetch him who is called the King of the Beggars from his cell, and let him who did us the great service of capturing alive that dangerous man, step forth into the midst.

CHIEF OF POLICE (Stepping forward) Lord of the World--but I am dirt.

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY (Simultaneously advancing) Lord of the World--but I am dung.

CALIPH Where you both concerned in his capture? My favour is doubled upon you. Let two robes of honour be brought before my throne.

CHIEF OF POLICE Sir, I fail to comprehend the presence of this military man. He was but a spectator when I dragged out the King of Beggars from the gutter of his roof.

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY O thou civilian, I caught a valiant hold of his legs, despite his heavy and continuous kicks, whilst thou didst but timidly pluck at his sleeve.

CHIEF OF POLICE Pluck at his sleeve, tin-coated murderer! Summon the twenty drops of blood that trickle round thy lank and withered frame and let them mount to thy mendacious cheek!

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY Thou dropsical elephant!

CALIPH Enough! I love to hear the speech of heroes, but enough. It is clear the glory is divided. Give me one of those robes of honour, and summon the tailor of the court.

COURT TAILOR (Very prostrate) O Master of the World, O Master!

CALIPH Slit me this robe in twain.

COURT TAILOR (Moaning as he does so) Allah is great, Allah is great. Such a well-cut robe: such excellent silk!

CALIPH Come hither both.

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY (Hanging back) The glory is all to the police.

CHIEF OF POLICE The credit is entirely due to my honourable friend.

CALIPH (Insisting) Come hither both.

(They are fitted with half a robe of honour each amid laughter.)

SOLDIERS Long live those whom the Caliph delights to honour!

CAPTAIN OF MILITARY (Under his teeth) Mutinous swine!

CALIPH And now bring forth the King of the Beggars.

(The KING OF THE BEGGARS is brought in chained hand and foot, but still dressed in gold.)

The Salaam to my host of yesternight.

RAFI, KING OF BEGGARS The Salaam, O man of Basra. I see thy fellow-merchant in the robes of the Grand Vizier. But the negro, that most disgusting Negro, seems to be absent. To Hassan, my congratulations on his advancement.

CALIPH Thou dost speak with the impudence of a king, but thy subjects are taken from thee. They will soon be black crows in the pine-wood by the walls.

RAFI Had I but known thee last night, thou man of Basra, whom men call Caliph of the Faithful--O thou massacrer of good men--had I but known thee, had I but known thee!

CHIEF OF POLICE Shall I tear out his tongue?

CALIPH Let him talk. I have found a man who does not flatter me. Let me study the hatred in his eyes.

RAFI It is not enough for thee to misrule a quarter of the world. Thou art not only a fool tyrant, but a mean tradesman, thou dog-hearted spy!

JAFAR It is not decent to let this man continue his coarse abuse, O Master. Wilt thou not end him?

CALIPH He shall end in his time. (To KING OF THE BEGGARS) Thy impudence will not redound to thy advantage, Rafi! Wherefore dost thou not bite the tongue of insolence with the tooth of discretion?

RAFI I am a man in the presence of death.

CALIPH There a thousand paths to the delectable tavern of death, and some run straight and some run crooked.

RAFI Cut, scourge, burn, rack thy uttermost. The nobler the aim the baser the failure. Do not I deserve to feel every separate pain of those whom my folly has sent to cruel death?

CHINESE PHILOSOPHER I am a hundred and ten years old, and I have never heard a remark in more exquisite taste.

CALIPH It is well. But before I send thee to a death so cruel that thy conscience will be fully satisfied in this world and the next, answer me this: Hast thou forgotten that unparalleled lady whom the zeal of my servants ravished from thy embrace?

RAFI Thou devil of Eblis! Have I forgotten? Have I not prayed thou shouldst forget?

CALIPH Shall a gallant man forget the name of a beautiful woman? We will look on her, for whom thou didst attempt to raze the central fort of Islam. (To ATTENDANTS) Bring in this lady, Pervaneh.

RAFI (In supplication) O Master of the World! O Master of the World!

CALIPH Thou changest tone abruptly but late.

RAFI I was insolent only that her name should be forgotten in thy anger and my death, O Splendour of Islam!

CALIPH A crafty excuse for impoliteness. Wilt thou now begin to be polite to the tyrant whose coffin was to be nailed over his open eyes? He who hopes for his audience to forget the subject of his discourse should moderate his style.

RAFI God blind me that I may not see her!

CALIPH Why? Dost thou not love her still? Is not the sight of his beloved to the victim of separation like the vision of a fountain to him who dies of thirst?

HASSAN (Aside) But if that fountain be a fountain whose drops are blood?

RAFI Thou, thou hast held her in thy arms! O God, have pity on my soul!

CALIPH But with this knowledge thou didst still desire her, and was ready to wreck Bagdad for the sparkle of her eyes.

RAFI But first the blood of her possessor should have washed her honour clean.

CALIPH Thou art a most ridiculous man. Thou hast built thy monstrous tower of crime on a foundation of painted smoke. Dost thou imagine I have tasted all the fruit of my garden?

RAFI Allah has given thee men's bodies, but it is for him alone to torment the soul. By thy faith, O Caliph, speak the truth!

CALIPH Do I know every slave whom my industrious officials sweep in from the streets? To my knowledge I have never set my eyes on this woman of thine.

HERALD The maiden Pervaneh!

CALIPH Let her come before me.

(PERVANEH is ushered into the Presence.)

PERVANEH (With due reverence) O Master of the World!

CALIPH It is written in the Sacred Law: In the King's presence a woman may unveil, without fear of censure.

PERVANEH Ah, Master, but only the eagle dare look upon the sun.

CALIPH Thy speech is proud enough for all the eagles, Lady Pervaneh, and I doubt not thy eyes, which I desire to see, are steady in the blaze of danger. Must I command thee to unveil?

PERVANEH Alas, Master of the World, my eyes are dim with long confinement in a jewelled cage, and the wings of my soul are numb. Only on the hills of my country where the rolling sun of Heaven has his morning home, only on their windy hills do the women of my country go unveiled.

ISHAK (To himself, half singing) The hills, the hills, the morning on the hills!

CALIPH (To PERVANEH) I command thee to unveil.

PERVANEH If thou wilt tear my veil off my face, I will tear my face before thy eyes.

RAFI Ah, no!...

PERVANEH Who art thou who dost cry, "Ah, no!"? Who art thou who dost hide thy face in fettered hands ...

RAFI A prisoner.

PERVANEH dissembling thy voice...

RAFI A prisoner awaiting death.

PERVANEH trembling when I touch thee?

RAFI A man afraid.

PERVANEH (In a voice of exaltation) For thee, Sultan, I raise my veil; and wait, thy captive, to share thy destiny.

HASSAN Oh, Ishak! The fire of the heart of beauty!

RAFI Leave me, Pervaneh! Walk not upon my path! You do not know what a foul doom is mine.

PERVANEH Foul dooms? Foul dooms? Rafi, I can forget ten centuries of doom now that I see your eyes again!

RAFI I conspired against his throne to win you freedom. Through my fault I failed, through my fault my thousand followers are dancing in the wind.

PERVANEH For me you conspired? For me--for me?

RAFI I would have drowned Bagdad in blood to kiss your lips again.

PERVANEH O lover!

RAFI (Showing his fettered hands) Lover indeed!

PERVANEH There are a thousand eyes around us, O my beloved, but what care I? The voice of the world cries out, "Thou art a slave in the Palace, and thy lover a prisoner in chains." (Embracing him.) But we have heard the Trumpets of Reality that drown the vain din of the Thing that Seems. We have walked with the Friend of Friends in the Garden of the Stars, and He is pitiable to poor lovers who are pierced by the arrows of this ghostly world. Your lips are the only lips, my lover, your eyes the only eyes-- all the other eyes but phantom lights that glitter in the mist of dream.

COURTIER This is sheer heresy.

ISHAK Then a plague on your religion.

JAFAR This is Sufic doctrine, and most dangerous to the State.

HASSAN Then a plague on the State!

CALIPH Ye who make love in full Divan, can ye yet listen to the voice of the world?

PERVANEH (Dazed) They are speaking.

CALIPH O Rafi, King of the Beggars, since after all thou art much entangled in the web of unreality, it is necessary that I ask thee some phantom questions concerning thy apparent acts.

Firstly, dost thou deny thou didst call thyself Caliph of the Unbelievers, and blaspheme thy faith in my presence and in the presence of Jafar, my Vizier, Masrur, the Executioner, and Hassan, my friend?

RAFI I have nothing to deny.

CALIPH Dost thou, secondly, deny that thou didst swear in the presence of the same to nail the Caliph of the Faithful alive in his coffin, or that thou didst conspire with the beggars to slay me, to seize Bagdad and to usurp the throne?

RAFI I have nothing to deny.

CALIPH Dost thou, thirdly, deny that thou didst scheme this monstrous crime for the sake of a woman?

RAFI I have nothing to deny.

CALIPH Rafi, thou art confessed a Blasphemer, a Traitor...and a Lunatic. It remains to consider thy punishment.

RAFI As thou wilt.

CALIPH Thou art brave, but I fear the shafts of unreality will prick thee extremely hard. For thou hast merited not one but a dozen deaths. Now, if I impale thee for conspiracy, how shall I burn thee for blasphemy? But with such other pains as man can suffer, judicious arrangement carries the day over unthinking brutality. For if I skin thee for thy impudence, how can I flog thee for thy folly? But if the order is reversed thou canst enjoy the benefits of both expiations.

RAFI Thou hast certainly studied the art of pain.

CALIPH Yet what are the worst tortures thou shalt undergo to the horror of the death thou didst contrive for me?

RAFI (With impatience) What is my condemnation?

CALIPH For Lunacy to be nailed, for Conspiracy to be stretched, for Blasphemy to be split.

PERVANEH Ah!

(Murmurs of horror and satisfaction fill the Court at the announcement of this savage punishment.)

RAFI As Allah wills.

PERVANEH (Falling at the CALIPH's feet) Spare, Spare, O Master of the World!

CALIPH Dost thou think I will absolve him for thy "spare"?

PERVANEH Mercy! Oh, Mercy!

CALIPH Why dost thou cry "Mercy" and clasp my feet? Is not pain a fancy and this world a cloud?

PERVANEH (Rising to her feet) This world is Hell, but those that dig Hell deeper shall find the Hell-beneath-the-Hells which they search for.

CALIPH Thou hast metaphysic, but hast thou logic? Invent me a reason-- one small and subtle reason--why I should show mercy to this man.

PERVANEH Ah--wilt thou have reasons?

CALIPH Was not my sentence just?

PERVANEH Wilt thou have justice?

CALIPH If I had stood bound before him, would he have listened to my prayer?

PERVANEH Wilt thou have revenge?

CALIPH Shall I scorn reason, pervert justice, and put aside revenge-- for thy dark eyes?

PERVANEH Turn thy justice, turn thy revenge on me in the name of the dark eyes of God! They say a woman suffers longer and sharper than a man.

CALIPH Lady, dost thou mean this with all its meaning, or say it to implore pity? Beware of thy answer! The rack and the whip are ready and near at hand.

PERVANEH (Her arms outstretched) Then give the word. Knock off those fetters before my eyes--and nail me to the wall.

RAFI Pervaneh!

CALIPH Ecstasy! Ecstasy! Thou art an ecstatic and wilt not suffer. I know the thick skin of martyrs. I refuse.

PERVANEH (To RAFI) Alas, what can I do!

RAFI Let me die! I have seen you again. It is nothing for a man to die.

PERVANEH Nothing for a man to die? 'Tis Heaven wide open for a man to die. But they will tear you, Rafi, Rafi!

RAFI Shall I fear the pain you called upon yourself, or shrink where you were brave?

PERVANEH (To the CALIPH) I ask so small a boon. Grant my lover a clean death!

CALIPH Thou dost ask a very great boon indeed. For as thou sayest, what is death? Shall the man who shakes my kingdom slip into eternity like a thief men catch in the bazaar? Shall he who does the greater wrong not suffer the greater pain?

PERVANEH He is not afraid of pain.

CALIPH That is not to say he feels not pain.

PERVANEH Just and reasonable, yet there is a holier thing than reason and justice.

DERVISH (His orthodoxy disturbed) A holier thing than justice?

PERVANEH Yes, Dervish. There is that which should not be defiled.

CALIPH Whither now does thy plea wander?

PERVANEH O Father of Islam, can thine eyes that love flowers behold man's body hewn into foul shapes and monstrous as the phantoms that go wailing round the graves? Can thy ears that love the music of Ishak, listen to the gasps of the tormented droning through their bodies like a winter wind among the pines?

CALIPH I shall not honour Rafi with my attendance: I shall be far from sight and sound.

PERVANEH The thought of it--the thought of it!

CALIPH I have been ordering executions all my life. There is only one thought that can haunt me--the thought of a coffin closing on open eyes, the sway of the coffin carried to the grave, the crash at the bottom of the pit, the rumble of earth on the lid, the gasping for breath and light.

PERVANEH He was distraught by passion, he spoke in fury: but thou dost judge him with a quiet mind. He is a man among men, but thou art the representative of God on earth, the sole Priest of Islam. Thou shalt not order God's image to be defiled.

CALIPH So you would have me spare him for the sake of the perfection of man's body? O Pervaneh, I am far more likely to spare him for the perfection of woman's.

PERVANEH (Shrinking from the implied menace) For those that have wits, O Master, perfection is sundered from desire.

CALIPH You are a woman--perfect--but a woman.

PERVANEH By the curse of God.

CALIPH And however much you sunder perfection from desire, from desire your perfection is not sundered.

PERVANEH I am the slave of thy household to come or go, to fetch or to carry, to be struck or slain; but my perfection is not the slave of your desire.

CALIPH (Softly) Yet if you return to my household...

PERVANEH (In fury) To die.

CALIPH You would not be forgotten or neglected...and your presence would be a consolation and a charm....

PERVANEH Not to you, frigid tyrant, not to you!

CALIPH (Softly) Nor yet to the one who let your lover go in peace?

PERVANEH Is there no shame in the world of Islam? Will you unclothe your lust in full Divan?

CALIPH You have already given the example. Come, shall I set your lover free?

PERVANEH I would choke if you touched me, I would choke. Oh, the shame on me, the shame! You are smiling. It is not me you want but my shame! Is there a God in heaven that lets you sit and smile! But you can set him free. Ah, will you set him free? I am your slave--I am your slave. You can rob me of rope and knife--the very means of death. If you will set him free! I am your slave, what choice have I?

CALIPH Thou hast not the manners or the heart of a slave. Thou wast brought to my household by violence, a free woman born, and art no slave of mine. In the presence of my Divan I pronounce thee free. Thou art free to come and free to go, free to buy and free to sell, free to walk out or free to stay, free to wed and free to die-- and free to make a choice....

PERVANEH To make a choice? What choice? Between his death and my dishonour?

CALIPH No, between love and life.

PERVANEH Explain, O Master of the World.

CALIPH Between two deaths with torment and two lives with a separation. Between a day of love and all the years of life.

PERVANEH Enlighten my understanding.

CALIPH I have considered this matter. I have decided this matter. I will speak plain and clear. (Rising) This is my irrevocable judgment from which there is no appeal. I give a choice to Pervaneh and Rafi, the King of the Beggars, and I grant them till sunset to consult their hearts and make that choice together. They shall both live on these conditions: that the lady Pervaneh return forthwith to my harem to be my wife in lawful wedlock, and be treated with all the honour her boldness and her beauty merit. That the King of the Beggars leave Bagdad, and that these two lovers part for ever till they die.

But if they refuse this separation, I offer them one day of love, from sunset to-night to sunset on the morrow, unfettered and alone, with no more guard than may keep them from self-destruction. But when that day is over they shall die together in merciless torment.

In the name of Allah the most merciful, the Divan is closed.

CURTAIN