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.