SCENE II
Moonlight. The Street of Felicity by the Fountain of the Two Pigeons.
A house with a balcony on either side of the street.
In front of one of the houses, HASSAN, cloaked: a PORTER.
HASSAN
Has she received the box, O guardian of the door of separation?
PORTER
From my hands, O dispenser of bounty.
HASSAN
What did thy mistress say?
PORTER
Sir, the hands of mediation are empty.
HASSAN
(Giving a dinar) I have filled them.
What honey dropped from that golden mouth?
PORTER She said—may thy servant find grace—"Curses on that fat sugar cook and his love-sick eyes. Allah be praised, his confectionery is better than his countenance!"
HASSAN
(Aside) If she likes the confectionery, all may be well.
And what didst thou reply?
PORTER: I said: "His sweets sparkle like diamonds and rubies in the crown of OUR Caliph, and his sugar is as pure as his intentions." And she answered—the protection on thy slave—"his intentions may be pure, but his coat is greasy."
HASSAN
And did she eat the confectionery?
PORTER I do not know. But within the hour I removed the box, and it was empty.
HASSAN
Ah! Salaam and thanks.
PORTER
And to thee the Salaam.
HASSAN
But tell me what is the name of thy mistress?
PORTER
Yasmin is her name, Sir.
HASSAN
A sweet name for a moonlight night. Salaam aleikum.
PORTER
Ya Hawaja, v'aleikum assalam!
(The PORTER returns and shuts the gate.)
HASSAN (To himself) What if the Jews are an older race than we and know old forgotten secrets? Alas, I believe no more in these Israelitish sweets. Could those drops of purple liquid command the spirit of love? And yet, who can say? the young men of the market-place laugh at all enchantments—but do they know how to spin the sun? On a night like this, does not the very fountain sing in tune and enchant the dropping stones? Ah, Yasmin? (Taking a lute from beneath his cloak and a tuning it.) Yasmin…Yasmin…Yasmin…Yasmin.
(Intones to the accompaniment of the lute.)
How splendid in the morning glows the lily; with what grace he throws
His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin?
But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends,
Whose very name that sweetly ends, I say when I have said, Yasmin.
The morning light is clear and cold; I dare not in that light behold
A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin.
But when the deep red eye of day is level with for the lone highway,
And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,
Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon,
And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin,
Shower down thy love, O burning bright! for one night or the other night
Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flower are dead, Yasmin!
(As HASSAN intones the last "Yasmin" with passion the shutters open, and YASMIN, veiled, looks out.)
YASMIN
Alas, Minstrel, Yasmin is my name also, but it was for a fairer
Yasmin than me, I fear, you have strung these pearls.
HASSAN
There is no Yasmin but Yasmin, and you are Yasmin.
YASMIN
Can this be Hassan, the Confectioner?
HASSAN
I am Hassan, and I am a confectioner.
YASMIN
Mashallah, Hassan, your words are sweeter than your sweets.
HASSAN Gracious lady, your eyes look down through your veil like angels through a cloud. Dare I ask to see your face, O bright perfection?
YASMIN
(Roguishly) Do you take me for a Christian, father of impertinence?
And since when do the daughters of Islam unveil before strangers?
HASSAN
It is said: he who speaks to the heart is no stranger.
YASMIN
(Unveiling her eyes) Are you satisfied, O importunate!
HASSAN
Never, till I have seen perfection to perfection.
YASMIN
You would shrivel, my poet. What about "the glory too far shed, Yasmin"?
HASSAN
Let me see you unveiled, Yasmin.
YASMIN
Anything to close the portal of your face.
(Unveiling.) There. Do I please thee, my Sultan?
HASSAN
(Rapturously) Oh, you are beautiful!
YASMIN Prince of poets, is that all you have to say! Not a stanza, not a trope, not a turn, not a twist, not even a hint that the heavens are opened, or that there are two moons in the sky together?
HASSAN
There is but one.
YASMIN
Well confectioned, my confectioner! And now, Good-night.
HASSAN O stay, Yasmin, you are too beautiful, and I too bold. I am nothing, and you are the Queen of the Stars of Night. But the thought of you is twisted in the strings of my heart; I burn with love of you, Yasmin. Put me to the proof, my lady; there was nothing I could not do for your bright eyes. I would cross the salt desert and wrest a cup of the water of life from the Jinn that guards it; I would walk to the barriers of the world and steal the roc's egg from its diamond nest. I would swim the seven oceans, and cross the five islands to rob Solomon ben Dawud of his ring in the palace where he lies sleeping in the silence and majesty of uncorrupting death. And I would slip the ring on your finger and make you mistress of the spirits of the air— but would you love me? Could you love me, do you love me, Yasmin?
YASMIN
There is love and love and love.
HASSAN
(Passionately) Oh, answer me!
YASMIN I think I have been enchanted, Hassan; how, I cannot tell. Till this afternoon the thought of your appearance made my heart narrow with disgust. But since I ate your present of comfits— and they were admirable comfits, and I ate them with speed— my heart is changed and inclined toward you, I know not why or how, except it be through magic.
HASSAN
(Aside) She is mine, and magic rules the world!
(Aloud) Yasmin, shall I possess you, O Yasmin?
YASMIN
Am I not the desert waiting for the rain? Was I not born for passion,
Hassan? Is not my bosom burning for kisses? Were not these arms
made smooth and hard to fight the battle of love?
HASSAN Are not your lips love's roses, your cheeks love's lilies, your eyes love's hyacinths?
YASMIN Ya, Hassan, and my hair the net of love, and my girdle the chain of love that breaks at a lovers touch?
HASSAN
I am drowning in a wave of madness. Let me in, Yasmin; let me in!
YASMIN
Ah, if I could!
HASSAN
Why not?
YASMIN
Ah, if I dared!
HASSAN
What do you fear? It is night, and the street is silent.
YASMIN:
Ah, dear Hassan, but I am not alone.
HASSAN
(Whispering) Not alone? Who is there? Your mother?
YASMIN
No! One who you sent here.
HASSAN
I sent no one.
YASMIN
One of your friends.
HASSAN
A man?
SELIM
(Poking his head out of the window) Ya, Hassan, Salaam aleikum.
I thank you for directing my steps to this rose-strewn bower.
HASSAN
(Astonished) Selim!
SELIM
Thy servant always.
HASSAN
(Wildly) Selim!
SELIM
Be advised, O Hassan, go and seek the enchanted egg.
HASSAN
Selim, what do you here?
SELIM
Plunge not the finger of enquiry into the pie of impertinence, O my uncle.
HASSAN Since when have I become your uncle, Selim, and how did I cease to be your friend?
SELIM
Since when did you aspire to poetry, O Hassan?
But I have heard these lines:
As from the eagle flies the dove
So friendship from the claw of love.
HASSAN
Love. What love do you mean, scum of the market?
SELIM
This. (Puts a hand on YASMIN's shoulder.)
HASSAN May God strike thee blind, Selim, and shut the door of his compassion against thee!
SELIM What is my crime, Uncle? How have I sinned against thee, or merited the solemn imprecation?
HASSAN
Do not touch her, you dog, do not touch her!
SELIM
Is it a crime to touch Yasmin, my Uncle? Am I not to be excused?
Is not her neck a pillar of the marble of Yoonistan?
(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 entertainment.
CALIPH
Jafar you are as prudent as a shopkeeper.
ISHAK There lies his merit, Haroun! For he keeps the great shop of state, he sells the revenue of provinces, and buys in the lives of men.
CALIPH
Enough, enough. Call to them, Jafar, and see if they will let us in.
JAFAR
Oh, gentlefolk, in the name of Allah!
VOICE
(From window, the person invisible) Who calls?
JAFAR Sir, we are four merchants who came yesterday night from Basra, and on our arrival we met in the street a man of Basra settled in Bagdad, who prayed us to dine with him. So we accepted and stayed late talking the talk of Basra, and left him but an hour ago. And since we were strangers to the city, we lost our way, and have been wandering ever since in search of our Khan and have not found it. And now a happy chance has taken us to this street; for seeing lights and hearing music, indeed, sir, we hope to taste the cup of thy kindness, being men of honour, good companions and true believers.
VOICE
Then you are not of Bagdad?
JAFAR
No, sir, but of Basra.
VOICE Had you been a Baghdad, you should not have entered for all the gold in the Caliph's coffers.
CALIPH
Then we may enter, being of Basra?
VOICE
If you enter, you will be in my power. And if you annoy me,
I will punish you with death. But no one constraineth you to enter.
Go in peace, O men of Basra.
CALIPH
(Aside) A rare adventure. (Aloud) We take the risk of annoying you,
O host of terror, and are now looking for the door.
VOICE Since when did a door of good reputation open on to this street, my masters? Our door is far from here, and you are strangers and merry, and will not find it. But I will contrive a means for your ascent.
CALIPH Jafar, I never suspected there was a great house in this poor quarter of the town. For from the outside it is a house like any other, except that it has no door; but inside, if this is but the back of it, it is of great extent and holds some secret. We shall make a discovery tonight, O Jafar.
JAFAR
Master, we have been warned of danger!
(A basket comes down.)
CALIPH
Danger? What care I?
(Sits in the basket, and is drawn up.)
JAFAR
Eh, Masrur, I could sleep a little.
MASRUR
You would wake in paradise if the Caliph heard you, Jafar.
(MASRUR waves his sword dexterously near JAFAR's neck.)
JAFAR
(As he ascends into the basket, pointing to Masrur's sword)
The path to Paradise is narrow and shiny, O Masrur.
MASRUR
(With the grim motion of the sword) Ya, Jafar, it is a short cut.
(Jafar having ascended, MASRUR ascends, and the basket is let down for Ishak.)
ISHAK (Alone) Go on thy way without me, Commander of the Faithful. I will follow you no further. Find one more adventure if you will. For me the break of day is adventure enough—and water splashing in the fountain. Find out, Haroun, the secret of the lights and of the music, of a house that has no door, and a master that will admit no citizen. Drag out the mystery of a man's love or loss, then break your oath and publish his tale to all Bagdad, then fling him gold, and fling him gold, and dream you have made a friend! Those bags of gold you fling, O my generous master, to a mistress for night, to a poet for a jest, to a rich friend for entertainment, to a beggar for a whim, are they not the revenues of cities, wrung by torture from the poor? But the sighs of your people, Haroun, do not so much as stir the leaves in your palace garden!
And I—I have taken your gold, I, Ishak, who was born on the mountains free of the woods and winds. I have made my home in your palace, and almost forgot it was a prison. And for you I have strung glittering, fulsome verses, a hundred rhyming to one rhyme, ingeniously woven, my disgrace as a poet, my dishonour as a man. And I have forgotten that there are men who dig and sow, and a hut on the hills where I was born. (Perceives Hassan.) Ah, there is a body, here in the shade. Corpses of the poor are very common on the streets these days. They die of poison or the knife, but most of hunger. Mashallah, but you have not died of hunger, my friend, and there is that on your face that I do not like to see. By his clothes this was a common man, a grocer or a baker, his person ill-proportioned and unseemly, but by his forehead not quite a common man. I think—
JAFAR
(From above) Ishak, are you coming up?
ISHAK
(Shouting back) Wait a minute, I will come.
(To himself) What has curved his mouth into that bitter line?
He is an ugly man, but I maintain there is grace in his countenance.
What? A lute? Take my hand, O brother. You loved music too, and you could sing the songs of the people, which are better than mine— the songs I learnt from the mother of my mother.
(Taking the broken lute mechanically) What was that one?
"The Green Boy came from over the mountains,
Joy of the morning, joy of his heart"?
I have forgotten it, and the lute is broken. Or that other:
"Come to the wells, the desert wells!
The caravan is marching down; I hear the camel bells."
(Resumes HASSAN's hand) Ah, brother, your hand is warm and your heart
beating, you are not dead.
(Bathing HASSAN's forehead with water from the fountain)
I shall know after all what has twisted your mouth awry.
CALIPH
Ishak, Ishak, we wait and wait.
ISHAK May I not be free one hour, to breathe the dawn alone! Ah!… (Takes HASSAN's body and drags it to the basket.) I come, my master! (Puts HASSAN in the basket.) There, take my place, brother, and find your destiny. I will be free to-night, free for one dawn upon the hills!
(As HASSAN is drawn up in the basket, ISHAK walks rapidly away.)