Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay | Page 6

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