HASSAN Have you come too? I do not know why I came. I hoped…I do not know why I came, but I think our hearts do beat together like the hearts of friends. Did you come here because of them?
ISHAK I came here to hear a play more tragic than the mysteries of Hossein, to listen to a debate more weighty than the council talk of kings….
HASSAN
You do not mean?…
ISHAK
I mean the debate of love and life.
HASSAN
Could you spy on that? How cruel!
ISHAK
The poet must learn what man's agony can teach him.
HASSAN
Is it then not better not to be a poet?
ISHAK (Bitterly) Allah did not ask me that question when he made me a poet and a dissector of souls. It is my trade: I do but follow my master, the exalted Designer of human carpets, the Ruler of the world. If he prepared the situation, shall I not observe the characters? Thus I corrupt my soul to create—Allah knoweth what—ten little words like rubies in a row. As for you, I think you begin to understand the Caliph of the Faithful.
HASSAN
Why speak of him? All men are brutes, you and he and I.
I thought that I was kinder than other men—but I was only more afraid.
This day is the first day of my exaltation, I have begun it
the all but murderer of a woman, and I end it a spy on souls in trouble.
ISHAK
Do not worry any longer, dear Hassan, on the moral problem.
The moths of curiosity will always flutter round the lamp of circumstances.
Here comes the Guard, they shall direct us.