(Enter ISHAK searching for HASSAN.)
ISHAK Hassan—where doth he lie? Hassan, O Hassan. Thou hast broken that gentle heart, Haroun, and I have broken my lute: I play no more for thee. Ah, why did they not tell me sooner— I fear his reason may have fled before I find him: he may be wandering in the streets to-night like Death, and tearing at his eyes. Hassan, oh, Hassan!
It is he: he lies just as I first saw him: beneath a fountain, face toward the moon. His life is rhyming like a song: it harks back to the old refrain. Is life a mirror wherein events show double?
HASSAN
(Half waking from his swoon) Swans that drift into the mist….
ISHAK
(Bending over him to raise him) Friend, I am glad to hear thy voice.
Rise, rise, thou art in a pitiable case.
HASSAN
(Faintly) Let me lie….This place is quiet, and the earth smells cool.
May I never rise till they lift me aboard my coffin,
and I'll go a sailing down the river and out to sea.
ISHAK You are alive—no one will hurt you: you hold to your reason and fight despair.
HASSAN
And in that sea are no red fish….
ISHAK
Come: rise: be brave: I know you have suffered.
HASSAN
She was brave. Ah, her hands, her hands!