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_ ACT II
SCENE: The Metropolitan Hall of the city of Kongros. Citizens, etc. Enter the seven beggars with green silk under their rags.
OORANDER.
Who are you and whence come you?
AGMAR.
Who may say what we are or whence we come?
OORANDER.
What are these beggars and why do they come here?
AGMAR.
Who said to you that we were beggars?
OORANDER.
Why do these men come here?
AGMAR.
Who said to you that we were men?
ILLANAUN.
Now, by the moon!
AGMAR.
My sister.
ILLANAUN.
What?
AGMAR.
My little sister.
SLAG.
Our little sister the Moon. She comes to us at evenings away in the mountain of Marma. She trips over the mountains when she is young: when she is young and slender she comes and dances before us: and when she is old and unshapely she hobbles away from the hills.
AGMAR.
Yet she is young again and forever nimble with youth: yet she comes dancing back. The years are not able to curb her nor to bring grey hairs to her brethren.
OORANDER.
This is not wonted.
ILLANAUN.
It is not in accordance with custom.
AKMOS. Prophecy hath not thought it.
SLAG.
She comes to us new and nimble remembering olden loves.
OORANDER.
It were well that prophets should come and speak to us.
ILLANAUN.
This hath not been in the past. Let prophets come; let prophets speak to us of future things. (The beggars seat themselves upon the floor in the attitude of the seven gods of Marma.)
CITIZEN.
I heard men speak to-day in the market-place. They speak of a prophecy read somewhere of old. It says the seven gods shall come from Marma in the guise of men.
ILLANAUN.
Is this a true prophecy?
OORANDER.
It is all the prophecy we have. Man without prophecy is like a sailor going by night over uncharted seas. He knows not where are the rocks nor where the havens. To the man on watch all things ahead are black and the stars guide him not, for he knows not what they are.
ILLANAUN.
Should we not investigate this prophecy?
OORANDER.
Let us accept it. It is as the small uncertain light of a lantern, carried it may be by a drunkard but along the shore of some haven. Let us be guided.
AKMOS.
It may be that they are but benevolent gods.
AGMAR.
There is no benevolence greater than our benevolence.
ILLANAUN.
_Then_ we need do little: they portend no danger to us.
AGMAR.
There is no anger greater than our anger.
OORANDER.
Let us make sacrifice to them, if they be gods.
AKMOS.
We humbly worship you, if ye be gods.
ILLANAUN.
(kneeling too)
You are mightier than all men and hold high rank among other gods and are lords of this our city, and have the thunder as your plaything and the whirlwind and the eclipse and all the destinies of human tribes, if ye be gods.
AGMAR.
Let the pestilence not fall at once upon this city, as it had indeed designed to; let not the earthquake swallow it all immediately up amid the howls of the thunder; let not infuriate armies overwhelm those that escape if we be gods.
POPULACE
(in horror)
If we be gods!
OORANDER.
Come let us sacrifice.
ILLANAUN.
Bring lambs.
AKMOS.
Quick, quick.
(Exit some.)
SLAG.
(with solemn air)
This god is a very divine god.
THAHN.
He is no common god.
MLAN. Indeed he has made us.
CITIZEN. (A WOMAN)
(to Slag)
He will not punish us, Master? None of the gods will punish us? We will make a sacrifice, a good sacrifice.
ANOTHER.
We will sacrifice a lamb that the priests have blessed.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Master, you are not wroth with us?
SLAG.
Who may say what cloudy dooms are rolling up in the mind of the eldest of the gods. He is no common god like us. Once a shepherd went by him in the mountains and doubted as he went. He sent a doom after that shepherd.
CITIZEN.
Master, we have not doubted.
SLAG.
_And the doom found him on the hills at evening._
SECOND CITIZEN.
It shall be a good sacrifice, Master.
(Re-enter with a dead lamb and fruits. They offer the lamb on an altar where there is fire, and fruits before the altar.)
THAHN.
(stretching out a hand to a lamb upon an altar.)
That leg is not being cooked at all.
ILLANAUN.
It is strange that gods should be thus anxious about the cooking of a leg of lamb.
OORANDER.
It is strange certainly.
ILLANAUN.
Almost I had said that it was a man spoke then.
OORANDER.
(Stroking his beard and regarding the second beggar.)
Strange. Strange certainly.
AGMAR.
Is it then strange that the gods love roasted flesh? For this purpose they keep the lightning. When the lightning flickers about the limbs of men there comes to the gods in Marma a pleasant smell, even a smell of roasting. Sometimes the gods, being pacific, are pleased to have roasted instead the flesh of lamb. It is all one to the gods: let the roasting stop.
OORANDER.
No, no, gods of the mountain!
OTHERS.
No, no.
OORANDER.
Quick, let us offer the flesh to them. If they eat all is well. (They offer it, the beggars eat, all but Agmar who watches.)
ILLANAUN.
One who was ignorant, one who did not know, had almost said that they ate like hungry men.
OTHERS.
Hush.
AKMOS.
Yet they look as though they had not had a meal like this for a long time.
OORANDER.
They _have_ a hungry look.
AGMAR.
(who has not eaten)
I have not eaten since the world was very new and the flesh of men was tenderer than now. These younger gods have learned the habit of eating from the lions.
OORANDER.
O oldest of divinities, partake, partake.
AGMAR.
It is not fitting that such as I should eat. None eat but beasts and men and the younger gods. The Sun and the Moon and the nimble Lightning and I, we may kill, and we may madden, but we do not eat.
AKMOS.
If he but eat of our offering he cannot overwhelm us.
ALL.
O ancient deity, partake, partake.
AGMAR.
Enough. Let it be enough that these have condescended to this bestial and human habit.
ILLANAUN.
(to Akmos)
And yet he is not unlike a beggar whom I saw not so long since.
OORANDER.
But beggars eat.
ILLANAUN.
Now I never knew a beggar yet who would refuse a bowl of Woldery wine.
AKMOS.
This is no beggar.
ILLANAUN.
Nevertheless let us offer him a bowl of Woldery wine.
AKMOS.
You do wrong to doubt him.
ILLANAUN.
I do but wish to prove his divinity. I will fetch the Woldery wine.
(Exit)
AKMOS.
He will not drink. Yet if he does, then he will not overwhelm us. Let us offer him the wine.
(Re-enter Illanaun with a goblet.)
FIRST BEGGAR
It is Woldery wine!
SECOND BEGGAR.
It is Woldery!
THIRD BEGGAR
A goblet of Woldery wine!
FOURTH BEGGAR
O blessed day!
MLAN. O happy times!
SLAG.
O my wise Master!
(All the Beggars stretch out their hands, including Agmar. Illanaun gives it to Agmar. Agmar takes it solemnly, and very carefully pours it upon the ground.)
FIRST BEGGAR.
He has spilt it.
SECOND BEGGAR.
He has spilt it.
(Agmar sniffs the fumes.)
AGMAR.
It is a fitting libation. Our anger is somewhat appeased.
ANOTHER BEGGAR.
But it was Woldery!
AKMOS.
(kneeling to Agmar)
Master, I am childless, and I....
AGMAR.
Trouble us not now. It is the hour at which the gods are accustomed to speak to the gods in the language of the gods, and if Man heard us he would guess the futility of his destiny, which were not well for Man. Begone! Begone!
(Exeunt all but one who lingers.)
ONE LINGERS
[Loquitur]
Master....
AGMAR.
Begone!
(exit one)
(Agmar takes up a piece of meat and begins to eat it: the beggars rise and stretch themselves: they laugh, but Agmar eats hungrily.)
OOGNO.
Ah, now we have come into our own.
THAHN.
Now we have alms.
SLAG.
Master! My wise Master!
ULF.
These are the good days, the good days; and yet I have a fear.
SLAG.
What do you fear? There is nothing to fear. No man is as wise as my Master.
ULF.
I fear the gods whom we pretend to be.
SLAG.
The gods?
AGMAR.
(taking a chunk of meat from his lips)
Come hither, Slag.
SLAG.
(going up to him)
Yes, Master.
AGMAR.
Watch in the doorway while I eat. (Slag goes to the doorway) Sit in the attitude of a god. Warn me if any of the citizens approach. (Slag sits in the doorway in the attitude of a god, back to the audience)
OOGNO.
(to Agmar)
But, Master, shall we not have Woldery wine?
AGMAR.
We shall have all things if only we are wise at first for a little.
THAHN.
Master, do any suspect us?
AGMAR.
We must be _very_ wise.
THAHN.
But if we are not wise, Master?
AGMAR.
Why then death may come to us ...
THAHN.
O Master!
AGMAR.
... slowly.
(All stir uneasily except Slag motionless in the doorway.)
OOGNO.
Do they believe us, master?
SLAG.
(half turning his head)
Someone comes.
(Slag resumes his position.)
AGMAR.
(putting away his meat)
We shall soon know now.
(All take up the attitude. Enter one.)
ONE.
Master, I want the god that does not eat.
AGMAR.
I am he.
ONE.
Master, my child was bitten in the throat by a death-adder at noon. Spare him, Master; he still breathes, but slowly.
AGMAR.
Is he indeed your child?
ONE.
He is surely my child, Master.
AGMAR.
Was it your wont to thwart him in his play, while he was strong and well?
ONE.
I never thwarted him, Master.
AGMAR.
Whose child is Death?
ONE.
Death is the child of the gods.
AGMAR.
Do you that never thwarted your child in his play ask this of the gods?
ONE.
(with some horror, perceiving Agmar's meaning)
Master!
AGMAR.
Weep not. For all the houses that men have builded are the play-fields of this child of the gods. (The man goes away in silence not weeping.)
OOGNO.
(Taking Thahn by the wrist)
Is this indeed a man?
AGMAR.
A man, a man, and until just now a hungry one. _
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