The Collected Plays. Rabindranath Tagore

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      I understand you, Pundit. Vizier! Order ornaments from the Court Jeweller for Sruti-bhushan's wife immediately.

      And, King, while he is about it, would you tell the Vizier, that we are both of us distracted in our devotions by house-repairs. Let him ask the royal masons to put up a thoroughly well-built house, where we can practise our devotions in peace.

      Very well, Pundit.—Vizier!

      Yes, Your Majesty.

      Give the order at once.

      Sire, your treasury is empty. Funds are wanting.

      Pooh! That's an old story. I hear that every year. It is your business to increase the funds, and mine to increase the wants. What do you say, Sruti-bhushan?

      King, I cannot blame the Vizier. He is looking after your treasures in this world. We are looking after your treasures in the next. So where he sees want, we see wealth. Now, if you would only let me dive deep once more into the Ocean of Renunciation you will find it written as follows:

      That King's coffers are well stored,

       Where wealth alone on worth is poured.

      Pundit, your company is most valuable.

      Your Majesty, Sruti-bhushan knows its value to a farthing. Come, Sruti-bhushan, make haste. Let us collect all the wealth you need for your Treasury of Devotion. For wealth has the ugly habit of diminishing fast. If we are not quick about it, little will remain to enable us to observe our renunciation with all splendour.

      Yes, Vizier, let us go at once. (To the King.) When he is making such a fuss about a tiny matter like this, it is best to pacify him first and then return to you afterwards.

      Pundit, I am afraid that, some day, you will leave my royal protection altogether, and retire to the forest.

      King, so long as I find contentment in a King's palace, it is as good as a hermitage for my peace of mind. I must now leave you, King. Vizier, let us go.

      (The Vizier and Pundit go out.

      Oh, dear me! Whatever shall I do? Here's the Poet coming. I am afraid he'll make me break all my good resolutions.—Oh, my grey hairs, cover my ears, so that the Poet's allurements may not enter.

      Why, King, what's the matter? I hear you want to send away your Poet.

      What have I to do with poets, when poetry brings me this parting message?

      What parting message?

      Look at this behind my ear. Don't you see it?

      See what? Grey hairs? Why, King, don't you worry about that.

      Poet, Nature is trying to rub out the green of youth, and to paint everything white.

      No, no, King. You haven't understood the artist. On that white ground, Nature will paint new colours.

      I don't see any sign of colours yet.

      They are all within. In the heart of the white dwell all the colours of the rainbow.

      Oh, Poet, do be quiet. You disturb me when you talk like that.

      King, if this youth fades, let it fade. Another Queen of Youth is coming. And she is putting a garland of pure white jasmines round your head, in order to be your bride. The wedding festival is being made ready, behind the scene.

      Oh, dear, Poet. You will undo everything. Do go away. Ho there, Guard. Go at once and call Sruti-bhushan.

      What will you do with him, King, when he comes?

      I will compose my mind, and practise my renunciation.

      Ah, King, when I heard that news, I came at once. For I can be your companion in this practice of renunciation.

      You?

      Yes, I, King. We Poets exist for this very purpose. We set men free from their desires.

      I don't understand you. You talk in riddles.

      What? You don't understand me? And yet you have been reading my poems all this while!—There is renunciation in our words, renunciation in the metre, renunciation in our music. That is why fortune always forsakes us; and we, in turn always forsake fortune. We go about, all day long, initiating the youths in the sacred cult of fortune-forsaking.

      What does it say to us?

      It says:

      "Ah, brothers, don't cling to your goods and chattels,

       And sit ever in the corner of your room.

       Come out, come out into the open world.

       Come out into the highways of life.

       Come out, ye youthful Renouncers."

      But, Poet, do you really mean to say that the highway of the open world is the pathway of renunciation?

      Why not, King? In the open world all is change, all is life, all is movement. And he who ever moves and journeys with this life-movement, dancing and playing on his flute as he goes, he is the true Renouncer. He is the true disciple of the minstrel Poet.

      But how then can I get peace? I must have peace.

      Oh, King, we haven't the least desire for peace. We are the Renouncers.

      But ought we not to get that treasure, which is said to be never-changing?

      No, we don't covet any never-changing treasures. We are the Renouncers.

      What do you mean? Oh, dear, Poet, you will undo everything, if you talk like that. You are destroying my peace of mind. Call Sruti-bhushan. Let some one call the Pundit.

      What I mean, King, is this. We are the true Renouncers, because change is our very secret. We lose, in order to find. We have no faith in the never-changing.

      What do you mean?

      Haven't you noticed the detachment of the rushing river, as it runs splashing from its mountain cave? It gives itself away so swiftly, and only thus it finds itself. What is never-changing, for the river, is the desert sand, where it loses its course.

      Ah, but listen, Poet—listen to those cries there outside. That is your world. How do you deal with that?

      King, they are your starving people.

      My people, Poet? Why do you call them that? They are the world's people, not mine. Have I created their miseries? What can your youthful Poet Renouncers do to relieve sufferings like theirs? Tell me that.

      King, it is we alone who can truly bear those sufferings, because we are like the river that flows on in gladness, thus lightening our burden, and the burden of the world. But the hard, metalled road is fixed and never-changing. And so it makes the burden more burdensome. The heavy loads groan and creak along it, and cut СКАЧАТЬ