Plays of Gods and Men | Page 7

to think of the laughter of the gods. O the lute! the lute! How clearly I hear the lute. But you all hear it? Do you not? You swear that you all hear it?
King Karnos:
Yes, yes. We all hear the lute. It is only a man playing.
Queen:
I wish I could see him. Then I should know that he was only a man and not Gog-Owza, most terrible of the gods. I should be able to sleep then.
King Karnos: [Soothingly]
Yes, yes.
[Enter Attendant]
Here comes the man that I have sent to find him. You have found the lute player. Tell the queen that you have found the lute player.
Attendant:
The camel-guard have searched, your Majesty, and cannot find any man that is playing a lute.
[Curtain]
Act III
[Three days elapse.]
Tharmia:
We have done too much. We have done too much. Our husbands will be put to death. The prophet will betray them and they will be put to death.
Arolind:
O what shall we do?
Tharmia:
It would have been better for us to have been clothed with rags than to bring our husbands to death by what we have done.
Arolind:
We have done much and we have angered a king, and (who knows!) we may have angered even the gods.
Tharmia:
Even the gods! We are become like Helen. When my mother was a child she saw her once. She says she was the quietest and gentlest of creatures and wished only to be loved, and yet because of her there was a war for four or five years at Troy, and the city was burned which had remarkable towers; and some of the gods of the Greeks took her side, my mother says, and some she says were against her, and they quarrelled upon Olympus where they live, and all because of Helen.
Arolind:
O don't, don't. It frightens me. I only want to be prettily dressed and see my husband happy.
Tharmia:
Have you seen the prophet?
Arolind:
Oh yes, I have seen him. He walks about the palace. He is free but cannot escape.
Tharmia:
What does he look like? Has he a frightened look?
Arolind:
He mutters as he walks. Sometimes he weeps; and then he puts his cloak over his face.
Tharmia:
I fear that he will betray them.
Arolind:
I do not trust a prophet. He is the go-between of gods and men. They are so far apart. How can he be true to both?
Tharmia:
This prophet is false to the gods. It is a hateful thing for a prophet to prophesy falsely.
[Prophet walks across hanging his head and muttering.]
Prophet:
The gods have spoken a lie. The gods have spoken a lie. Can all their vengeance ever atone for this?
Tharmia:
He spoke of vengeance.
Arolind:
O he will betray them.
[They weep. Enter the Queen.]
Queen:
Why do you weep? Ah, you are going to die. You heard the death-lute. You do well to weep.
Tharmia:
No, your Majesty. It is the man that has played for the last three days. We all heard him.
Queen:
Three days. Yes, it is three days. Gog-Owza plays no longer than three days. Gog-Owza grows weary then. He has given his message and he will go away.
Tharmia:
We have all heard him, your Majesty, except the deaf young man that went back to Barbul-el-Sharnak. We hear him now.
Queen: Yes! But nobody has seen him yet. My maidens have searched for him but they have not found him.
Tharmia:
Your Majesty, my husband heard him, and Ludibras, and while they live we know there is nothing to fear. If the King grew angry with them-- because of any idle story that some jealous man might tell--some criminal wishing to postpone his punishment--if the King were to grow angry with them they would open their veins; they would never survive his anger. Then we should all of us say, "Perhaps it was Gog-Owza that Ichtharion or Ludibras heard."
Queen:
The King will never grow angry with Ichtharion or Ludibras.
Tharmia:
Your Majesty would not sleep if the King grew angry with them.
Queen:
Oh, no. I should not sleep; it would be terrible.
Tharmia:
Your Majesty would be wakeful all night long and cry.
Queen:
Oh, yes. I should not sleep; I should cry all night. [Exit]
Arolind:
She has no influence with the King.
Tharmia:
No. But he hates to hear her cry all night.
[Enter Ichtharion]
I am sure that the prophet will betray you. But we have spoken to the Queen. We have told her it would be dreadful if the King were to grow angry with you, and she things she will cry all night if he is angry.
Ichtharion:
Poor frightened brain! How strong are little fancies! She should be a beautiful Queen. But she goes about white and crying, in fear of the gods. The gods, that are no more than shadows in the moonlight. Man's fear rises weird and large in all this mystery and makes a shadow of himself upon the ground and Man jumps and says "the gods." Why they are less than shadows; we have seen shadows, we