The Collected Plays. Rabindranath Tagore

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      Ah, Poet, now I don't care a straw for Sruti-bhushan. Let the Pundit go hang. But, do you know what my trouble is now? Though I can't, for the life of me, understand your words, the music haunts me. Now, it's just the other way round with the Pundit. His words are clear enough, and they obey the rules of syntax quite correctly. But the tune!—No, it's no use telling you any further.

      King, our words don't speak, they sing.

      Well, Poet, what do you want to do now?

      King, I'm going to have a race through those cries, which are rising outside your gate.

      What do you mean? Famine relief is for men of business. Poets oughtn't to have anything to do with things like that.

      King, business men always make their business so out of tune. That is why we Poets hasten to tune it.

      Now come, my dear Poet, do speak in plainer language.

      King, they work, because they must. We work, because we are in love with life. That is why they condemn us as unpractical, and we condemn them as lifeless.

      But who is right, Poet? Who wins? You, or they?

      We, King, we. We always win.

      But, Poet, your proof——

      King, the greatest things in the world disdain proof. But if you could for a time wipe out all the poets and all their poetry from the world, then you would soon discover, by their very absence, where the men of action got their energy from, and who really supplied the life-sap to their harvest-field. It is not those who have plunged deep down into the Pundit's Ocean of Renunciation, nor those who are always clinging to their possessions; it is not those who have become adepts in turning out quantities of work, nor those who are ever telling the dry beads of duty,—it is not these who win at last. But it is those who love, because they live. These truly win, for they truly surrender. They accept pain with all their strength and with all their strength they remove pain. It is they who create, because they know the secret of true joy, which is the secret of detachment.

      Well then, Poet, if that be so, what do you ask me to do now?

      I ask you, King, to rise up and move. That cry outside yonder is the cry of life to life. And if the life within you is not stirred, in response to that call without, then there is cause for anxiety indeed,—not because duty has been neglected, but because you are dying.

      But, Poet, surely we must die, sooner or later?

      No, King, that's a lie. When we feel for certain that we are alive, then we know for certain that we shall go on living. Those who have never put life to the test, in all possible ways, these keep on crying out:

      Life is fleeting, Life is waning,

       Life is like a dew-drop on a lotus leaf.

      But, isn't life inconstant?

      Only because its movement is unceasing. The moment you stop this movement, that moment you begin to play the drama of Death.

      Poet, are you speaking the truth? Shall we really go on living?

      Yes, we shall really go on living.

      Then, Poet, if we are going to go on living, we must make our life worth its eternity. Is not that so?

      Yes, indeed.

      Ho, Guard.

      Yes, Your Royal Highness.

      Call the Vizier at once.

      Yes, Your Royal Highness.

      (Vizier enters.)

      What is Your Majesty's pleasure?

      Vizier! Why on earth have you kept me waiting so long?

      I was very busy, Your Majesty.

      Busy? What were you busy about?

      I was dismissing the General.

      Why should you dismiss the General? We have got to discuss war matters with him.

      And arrangements had to be made for the state-departure of the Chinese Ambassador.

      What do you mean by his state-departure?

      If it please Your Majesty, you did not grant him an interview. So he——

      Vizier! You surprise me. Is this the way you manage state affairs? What has happened to you? Have you lost your senses?

      Then, again. Sire, I was trying to find a way to pull down the Poet's house. At first, no one would undertake it. Then, at last, all the Pundits of the Royal School of Grammar and Logic came up with their proper tools and set to work.

      Vizier! Are you mad this morning? Pull down the Poet's house? Why, you might as well kill all the birds in the garden and make them up into a pie.

      If it please Your Majesty, you need not be annoyed. We shan't have to pull down the house after all; for the moment Sruti-bhushan heard it was to be demolished, he decided to take possession of it himself.

      What, Vizier! That's worse still. Why! The Goddess of Music would break her harp in pieces against my head, if she even heard of such a thing. No, that can't be.

      Then, Your Majesty, there was another thing to be got through. We had to deliver over the province of Kanchanpur to the Pundit.

      No, Vizier! What a mess you are making. That must go to our Poet.

      To me, King? No. My poetry never accepts reward.

      Well, well. Let the Pundit have it.

      And, last of all, Sire. I have issued orders to the soldiers to disperse the crowd of famine-stricken people.

      Vizier, you are doing nothing but blunder. The best way to disperse the famished people is with food, not force.

      (Guard enters.)

      May it please Your Royal Highness.

      What's the matter, Guard?

      May it please Your Royal Highness, here is Sruti-bhushan, the Pundit, coming back with his Book of Devotions.

      Oh, stop him, Vizier, stop him. He will undo everything. Don't let him come upon me unawares like this. In a moment of weakness, I may suddenly find myself out of my depths in the Ocean of Renunciation. Poet! Don't give me time for that. Do something. Do anything. Have you got anything ready to hand? Any play toward? Any poem? Any masque? Any——

      Yes, King. I have got the very thing. But whether it is a drama, or a poem, or a play, or a masque, I cannot say.

      Shall I be able to understand the sense of what you have written?

      No, СКАЧАТЬ