Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand | Page 8

(Puts his arm around her neck.)
HASSAN Torment of death!
YASMIN Are not my arms like swords of steel, hard and cold, and thirsty for blood? (Putting her arms around the neck of SELIM)
HASSAN Fire of hell!
SELIM Are not her eyes two sapphires in two pools?
HASSAN Woe is me! Woe is me!
YASMIN Are not my lips two rubies drenched in blood? (Kisses him)
HASSAN God, I shall fall!
SELIM (His face in YASMIN's bosom) Couldst thou but see, O my Uncle, the silver hills with their pomegranate groves; or the deep fountain in the swelling plain, or the Ethiopian who waters the roses in the garden, or the great lamp between the columns where the incense of love is burned. How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for the name and address, and half the old Jew's dinars!
YASMIN How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for sending me this strong and straight young friend of thine to console my loneliness and desolation? Ah, it is bitter to be a widow and so young!
HASSAN (Putting up his hands to his head) The fountain, the fountain! O my head, my head!
YASMIN Be not too rash, my Uncle, or thy hair will come away in thy hands.
HASSAN If I could but reach your necks with a knife, children of Sheitan!
YASMIN I was the sun of his existence, and now I am a child of Sheitan-- and why? Never again will I trust the love of a man. I was a glory too far shed, and now he wants to open my neck. And already he has tried to poison me. Ya, Hassan, if you desire my death, send me some more enchanted sweets!
SELIM Beware, O Hassan, of jesting with the Jinn.
YASMIN Buy, O Hassan, no more juice from Jews.
SELIM Much, I fear, O my friend, for thy character in the market. No more will men say: "Hassan is a safe man"; but they will nudge each other and say, "Beware of Hassan, Hassan is a great magician; he has talked with the spirit's of the air! Deal not with Hassan, O my son, Saadet, for he sells enchanted sweets that drive the consumer to madness. And at night Hassan becomes a cat, and walketh on the roofs after the female cats. Allah preserve me from the evil eye of such a one!" And another will say, tapping his forehead, "Speak no harm of poor Hassan, for his brain is very sick!" And the small, guileless boys will say, "Behold Hassan, who gave ten dinars for a pint of indigo and water."
HASSAN Ah, death!
YASMIN Look at him! He is drifting like a soul aswoon! Go home, old fellow!
SELIM Go home and write poems!
YASMIN Go home, and cook sweets!
HASSAN Yasmin! Yasmin! My head!
YASMIN Begone, or I will cool thy head, thou wearisome old fool!
HASSAN Yasmin! Yasmin! (Stands with his arms outstretched)
YASMIN Take this, my bulbul, to quench thy aspiration. (Pours a jug of water over him, and slams the shutters to. HASSAN does not budge from his position.)
HASSAN O thou villainous, unclean dog, Selim. O thou unutterable woman. I will have you both whipped through the city and impaled in the market-place, and your bodies flung to rot on a dung-heap. O, my head aches! Ah, you foul swine! May you scream in hell for ever. O, my head--my head. For ever. Thou and thy magic and thy Jew. There is blood dripping from the wall. (Banging on the gate) I will break the house in. I will kill you. Ya Allah, I am splitting in twain. It is my own fault for having dreams and believing magic. Ya Allah, I am dying. Oh, Yasmin, so beautiful, so brutal. O burning bright; you have killed me! Farewell, and the Salaam!
(Falls under the shadow of the fountain. Silence. A light appears in the next house. Soft music starts; the first light of dawn shines in the sky.)
(Enter the CALIPH HAROUN AR RASCHID, JAFAR, his Vizier, MASRUR (a Negro), his Executioner, and ISHAK, a young man, his poet, all attired as Merchants.)
CALIPH Ishak, my heart is heavy and still the night drags on, and still we wander in the crooked streets, and still we find no entertainment, and still the white moon shines.
ISHAK O Caliph of Islam, is there not vast entertainment for the wise in the shining of the moon, in the dripping of that fountain, and in the shape of that tall cypress that has leapt the wall to shoot her arrow at the stars?
(The music which had stopped recommences.)
CALIPH But I hear music, and see lights. Come on, come on, we will snatch profit from this cursed night even yet, my friends, even at the eleventh hour.
JAFAR Master, the night is far advanced, and you have not slept. It is a late hour to seek for