Plays of Near Far | Page 3

who reigns in
Eng-Bathai, the reward of obedience to his edict, a goblet of
inestimable wine.
[He signs and there enters a page bearing a goblet of glass. He has a
pretty complexion and yellow hair falling as low as his chin and
curling inwards. He wears a cerise belt round his tunic exactly
matching the wine in the goblet he carries.
He prays you drink it, and to know that it was made by vintners whose
skill is lost, and stored in secret cellars over a hundred years; and that
the vineyards whence it came have been long since whelmed by war,
and only live now in legend and this wine.
KING: A gift, you say, for obedience.
AMBASSADOR: A gift from the old wine-gardens of the sun.
KING: How knew the Emperor that I had thus obeyed him?
AMBASSADOR: It has not been men's wont to disobey the Emperor.
KING: Yet if I have sheltered this man in the holy place of my Court?
AMBASSADOR: If that be so the Emperor bids you drink out of this
golden goblet. [He signs and it is brought on by a bent and ugly dwarf]
and wishes you farewell.
KING: Farewell, you say?
AMBASSADOR: Farewell.
KING: What have you in the goblet?

AMBASSADOR: It is no common poison, but a thing so strange and
deadly that the serpents of Lebutharna go in fear of it. Yea travellers
there hold high a goblet of this poison, at arm's length as they go. The
serpents hide their heads for fear of it. Even so the travellers pass the
desert safely, and come to Eng-Bathai.
KING: I have not sheltered this man.
AMBASSADOR: There is no need then for this Imperial gift.
[He throws the liquid out of the goblet through the doorway on to the
marble. A great steam goes up.
KING: Neither have I ordered that his head be sent back to Eng-Bathai.
AMBASSADOR: Alas, for so rare a wine.
[He pours it away.
KING: I have banished him and he is safe. I have neither obeyed nor
disobeyed.
AMBASSADOR: The Emperor therefore bids you choose the gift that
he honours himself by sending to your Court.
[He signs. Enter a massive NUBIAN with two cups.
The Emperor bids you drink one of these cups.
[The huge NUBIAN moves up close to the KING holding up the two
cups on a tray.
[The POLITICIAN slinks off. Exit L.
KING: The cups are strangely alike.
AMBASSADOR: Only one craftsman in the City of Smiths ever
discerned a difference. The Emperor killed him, and now no one
knows.

KING: The potions also are alike.
AMBASSADOR: Strangely alike. [The KING hesitates.] The Emperor
bids you choose his gift and drink.
KING: The Emperor has poisoned the cups!
AMBASSADOR: You greatly wrong the Emperor. Only one cup is
poisoned.
KING: You say that one is poisoned?
AMBASSADOR: Only one, O King! Who may say which?
KING: And what if I refuse to do this thing?
AMBASSADOR: There are tortures that the Emperor never names.
They are not spoken of where the Emperor is. Yet the Emperor makes a
sign and they are accomplished. He makes the sign with a certain one
of his fingers.
KING (half to himself): How wonderfully they have the look of wine.
AMBASSADOR: One is a wine scarcely less rare, scarcely less
jubilant in the wits of man, than that which alas is lost.
[He glances towards the spot where he threw the other.
KING: And the other?
AMBASSADOR: Who may say? It is the most treasured secret that the
Emperor's poisoners guard.
KING: I will send for my butlers that are wise in wine and they shall
smell the cups.
AMBASSADOR: Alas, but the Emperor's poisoners have added so
wine-like a flavour to their most secret draught, that no man may tell by
this means which is their work and which that inestimable wine.

KING: I will send for my tasters and they shall taste of the cups.
AMBASSADOR: Alas, so great a risk may not be run.
KING: Risks are the duty of a king's tasters.
AMBASSADOR: If they chanced to taste of the treasure of the
Emperor's poisoners--well. But if they, or any man of common birth,
were to taste of the wine that the Emperor sends only to kings, and
even to kings but rarely, that were an affront to the Emperor's ancient
wine that could not be permitted.
KING: It is surely permitted that I send for my priests, who tell by
divination, having burnt strange herbs to the gods that guard the Golden
Isles.
AMBASSADOR: It is permitted.
KING: Send for the priests.
KING (mainly to himself): They shall discern. The priests shall make
for me this dreadful choice. They shall burn herbs and discern it. (To
AMBASSADOR.) My