Act IV

Scene I. — The sky near the doors of the sunrise; clouds everywhere. Chitralekha and Sahajanya.

SAHAJANYA

Dear Chitralekha, like a fading flower

The beauty of thy face all marred reveals

Sorrow of heart. Tell me thy melancholy;

I would be sad with thee.

CHITRALEKHA (sorrowfully)

O Sahajanya!

Sister, by rule of our vicissitude,

I serving at the feet of the great Sun

Was troubled at heart for want of Urvasie.

SAHAJANYA

I know your mutual passion of sisterliness.

What after?

CHITRALEKHA

I had heard no news of her

So many days. Then I collected vision

Divine into myself to know of her.

O miserable knowledge!

SAHAJANYA

Sister, sister!

What knowledge of sorrow?

CHITRALEKHA (still sorrowfully)

I saw that Urvasie

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Taking with her Pururavas and love —

For he had on his ministers imposed

His heavy yoke of kingship — went to sport

Amorously in Gandhamadan green.

SAHAJANYA (proudly)

O love is joy indeed, when in such spots

Tasted. And there?

CHITRALEKHA

And there upon the strands

Of heavenly Ganges, one, a lovely child

Of spirits musical, Udayavatie,

Was playing, making little forts of sand;

On her with all his soul the monarch gazed.

This angered Urvasie.

SAHAJANYA

O natural!

Deep passion always is intolerant.

Afterwards?

CHITRALEKHA

She pushed aside her pleading husband,

Perplexed by the Preceptor's curse forgot

The War-God's vow and entered in that grove

Avoidable of women; but no sooner

Had trod its green, most suddenly she was

A creeper rooted to that fatal verge.

SAHAJANYA (in a voice of grief )

Now do I know that Fate's indeed a thing

Inexorable, spares no one, when such love

Has such an ending; O all too suddenly!

How must it be then with Pururavas?

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CHITRALEKHA

All day and night he passions in that grove

Seeking her. And this cool advent of cloud

That turns even happy hearts to yearning pain,

Will surely kill him.

SAHAJANYA

Sister, not long can grief

Have privilege over such beautiful beings.

Some God will surely pity them, some cause

Unite once more.

(looking towards the east)

Come, sister. Our lord the Sun

Is rising in the east. Quick, to our service.

They go.

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Scene II. — Pururavas enters disordered, his eyes fixed on the sky.

PURURAVAS (angrily)

Halt, ruffian, halt! Thou in thy giant arms

Bearest away my Urvasie! He has

Soared up from a great crag into the sky

And wars me, hurling downward bitter rain

Of arrows. With this thunderbolt I smite thee.

He lifts up a clod and runs as to hurl it;

then pauses and looks upwards.

(pathetically)

Oh me, I am deceived! This was a cloud

Equipped for rain, no proud and lustful fiend,

The rainbow, not a weapon drawn to kill,

Quick-driving showers are these, not sleety rain

Of arrows; and that brilliant line like streak

Of gold upon a touchstone, cloud-inarmed,

I saw, was lightning, not my Urvasie.

(sorrowfully)

Where shall I find her now? Where clasp those thighs

Swelling and smooth and white? Perhaps she stands

Invisible to me by heavenly power,

All sullen? But her anger was ever swift

And ended soon. Perhaps into her heavens

She has soared? O no! her heart was soft with love,

And love of me. Nor any fiend adverse

To Heaven had so much strength as to hale her hence

While I looked on. Yet is she gone from me

Invisible, swiftly invisible, —

Whither? O bitter miracle! and yet —

He scans each horizon, then pauses and sighs.

Alas! when fortune turns against a man,

Then sorrow treads on sorrow. There was already

This separation from my love, and hard

Enough to bear; and now the pleasant days,

Guiltless of heat, with advent cool of rain

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Must help to slay me.

(laughing)

Why do I so tamely

Accept addition to my pangs? For even

The saints confess, "The king controls the seasons";

If it be so, I will command the thunder

Back to his stable.

(pausing to think)

No, I must permit

The season unabridged of pomp; the signs

Of storm are now my only majesty;

This sky with lightning gilt and laced becomes

My canopy of splendour, and the trees

Of rain-time waving wide their lavish bloom

Fan me; the sapphire-throated peacocks, voiced

Sweeter for that divorce from heat, are grown

My poets; the mountains are my citizens,

They pour out all their streams to swell my greatness.

But I waste time in idly boasting vain

Glories and lose my love. To my task, to my task!

This grove, this grove should find her.

He moves onward.

And here, O here

Is something to enrage my resolution.

Red-tinged, expanding, wet and full of rain,

These blossom-cups recall to me her eyes

Brimming with angry tears. How shall I trace her,

Or what thing tell me "Here and here she wandered"?

If she had touched with her beloved feet

The rain-drenched forest-sands, there were a line

Of little gracious footprints seen, with lac

Envermeilled, sinking deeper towards the heel

Because o'erburdened by her hips' large glories.

He moves onward.

(exultantly)

Oh joy! I see a hint of her. This way

Then went her angry beauty! Lo, her bodice

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Bright green as is a parrot's belly, smitten

With crimson drops. It once veiled in her bosom

And paused to show her navel deep as love.

These are her tears that from those angry eyes

Went trickling, stealing scarlet from her lips

To spangle all this green. Doubtless her heaving

Tumult of breasts broke its dear hold and, she

Stumbling in anger, from my heaven it drifted.

I'll gather it to my kisses.

He stoops to it, then sorrowfully,

O my heart!

Only green grass with dragon-wings enamelled!

From whom shall I in all the desolate forest

Have tidings of her, or what creature help me?

Lo, in yon waste of crags the peacock! he

Upon a cool moist rock that breathes of rain

Exults, aspires, his gorgeous mass of plumes

Seized, blown and scattered by the roaring gusts.

Pregnant of shrillness is his outstretched throat,

His look is with the clouds. Him I will question:

Have the bright corners of thine eyes beheld,

O sapphire-throated bird, her, my delight,

My wife, my passion, my sweet grief? Yielding

No answer, he begins his gorgeous dance.

Why should he be so glad of my heart's woe?

I know thee, peacock. Since my cruel loss

Thy plumes that stream in splendour on the wind,

Have not one rival left. For when her heavy

Dark wave of tresses over all the bed

In softness wide magnificently collapsed

On her smooth shoulders massing purple glory

And bright with flowers, she passioning in my arms,

Who then was ravished with thy brilliant plumes,

Vain bird? I question thee not, heartless thing,

That joyest in others' pain.

(turning away)

Lo, where, new-fired

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With sweet bird-passion by the season cool,

A cuckoo on the plum-tree sits. This race

Is wisest of the families of birds

And learned in love. I'll greet him like himself.

O cuckoo, thou art called the bird of love,

His sweet ambassador, O cuckoo. Thou

Criest and thy delightful voice within

The hearts of lovers like an arrow comes,

Seeks out the anger there and softly kills.

Me also, cuckoo, to my darling bring

Or her to me. What saidst thou? "How could she

Desert thee loving?" Cuckoo, I will tell thee.

Yes, she was angry. Yet I know I never

Gave her least cause. But, cuckoo, dost thou know not

That women love to feel their sovereignty

Over their lovers, nor transgression need

To be angry? How! Dost thou break off, O bird,

Our converse thus abruptly and turn away

To thine own tasks? Alas, 'twas wisely said

That men bear easily the bitter griefs

Which others feel. For all my misery

This bird, my orison disregarding, turns

To attack the plum-tree's ripening fruit as one

Drunken with love his darling's mouth. And yet

I cannot be angry with him. Has he not

The voice of Urvasie? Abide, O bird,

In bliss, though I unhappy hence depart.

He walks on, then stops short and listens.

O Heaven? what do I hear? the anklets' cry

That tell the musical footing of my love?

To right of this long grove 'twas heard. Oh, I

Will run to her.

(hurrying forward)

Me miserable! This was

No anklets' cry embraceable with hands,

But moan of swans who seeing the grey wet sky

Grow passionate for Himaloy's distant tarns.

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Well, be it so. But ere in far desire

They leap up from this pool, I well might learn

Tidings from them of Urvasie.

(approaching)

Listen,

O king of all white fowl that waters breed.

Afterwards to Himaloy wing thy way,

But now the lotus fibres in thy beak

Gathered by thee for provender resign;

Ere long thou shalt resume them. Me, ah, first

From anguish rescue, O majestic swan,

With tidings of my sweet; always high souls

Prefer another's good to selfish aims.

Thou lookest upward to the heavens and sayest,

"I was absorbed with thoughts of Himaloy;

Her have I not observed." O swan, thou liest,

For if she never trod upon thy lake's 

Embankment, nor thou sawest her arched brows,

How couldst thou copy then so perfectly

Her footing full of amorous delight,

Or whence didst steal it? Give me back my love,

Thou robber! Thou hast got her gait and this

Is law that he with whom a part is found

Must to the claimant realise the whole.

(laughing)

O yes, thou flyest up, clanging alarm,

"This is the king whose duty is to punish

All thieves like me!" Go then, but I will plunge

Into new hopeful places, seeking love.

Lo, wild-drake with his mate, famed chocrobacque,

Him let me question. O thou wondrous creature,

All saffron and vermilion! Wilt thou then

Not tell me of my love? Oh, sawest thou not

My Goddess laughing like a lovely child

In the bright house of spring? For, wild-drake, thou

Who gettest from the chariot's orb thy name,

I who deprived am of her orbed hips,

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The chariot-warrior great Pururavas,

Encompassed with a thousand armed desires,

Question thee. How! "Who? Who?" thou sayest to me!

This is too much. It is not possible

He should not know me! Bird, I am a king

Of kings, and grandson to the Sun and Moon,

And earth has chosen me for her master. This

Were little. I am the loved of Urvasie!

Still art thou silent? I will taunt him, then

Perhaps he'll speak. Thou, wild-drake, when thy love,

Her body hidden by a lotus-leaf,

Lurks near thee in the pool, deemest her far

And wailest musically to the flowers

A wild deep dirge. Such is thy conjugal

Yearning, thy terror such of even a little

Division from her nearness. Me afflicted,

Me so forlorn thou art averse to bless

With just a little tidings of my love!

Alas, my miserable lot has made

All creatures adverse to me. Let me plunge

Into the deeper wood. Oh no, not yet!

This lotus with the honey-bees inside

Making melodious murmur, keeps me. I

Remember her soft mouth when I have kissed it

Too cruelly, sobbing exquisite complaint.

These too I will implore. Alas, what use?

They will despise me like the others. Yet,

Lest I repent hereafter of my silence,

I'll speak to him. O lotus-wooing bee,

Tell me some rumour of those eyes like wine.

But no, thou hast not seen that wonder. Else

Wouldst thou, O bee, affect the lotus' bloom,

If thou hadst caught the sweetness from her lips

Breathing, whose scent intoxicates the breeze?

I'll leave him. Lo! with his mate an elephant.

His trunk surrounds a nym-tree to uproot.

To him will I, he may some rumour have

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Or whisper of my love. But softly! Haste

Will ruin me. Oh, this is not the time!

Now his beloved mate has in her trunk

Just found him broken branches odorous

And sweet as wine with the fresh leaves not long

In bud, new-honied. These let him enjoy.

His meal is over now. I may approach

And ask him. O rut-dripping elephant,

Sole monarch of the herd, has not that moon

With jasmines all a glory in her hair

And limbs of fadeless beauty, carrying

Youth like a banner, whom to see is bliss,

Is madness, fallen in thy far ken, O king?

Oh joy! he trumpets loud and soft as who

Would tell me he has seen indeed my love.

Oh, I am gladdened! More to thee I stand

Attracted, elephant, as like with like.

Sovereign of sovereigns is my title, thou

Art monarch of the kingly elephants,

And this wide freedom of thy fragrant rut

Interminable imitates my own

Vast liberality to suppliant men,

Regally; thou hast in all the herd this mate,

I among loveliest women Urvasie.

In all things art thou like me; only I pray,

O friend, that thou mayst never know the pang,

The loss. Be fortunate, king, farewell! Oh see,

The mountain of the Fragrant Glens appears,

Fair as a dream, with his great plateaus trod

By heavenly feet of women. May it not be,

To this wide vale she too has with her sisters

Brought here her beautiful body full of spring?

Darkness! I cannot see her. Yet by these gleams

Of lightning I may study, I may find.

Ah God! the fruit of guilt is bounded not

With the doer's anguish; this stupendous cloud

Is widowed of the lightning through my sin.

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Yet I will leave thee not, O thou huge pile

Of scaling crags, unquestioned. Hear me, answer me!

O mountain, has she entered then the woods,

Love's green estate, — ah, she too utter love!

Her breasts were large like thine, with small sweet space

Between them, and like thine her glorious hips

And smooth fair joints a rapture. Dumb? No answer?

I am too far away, he has not heard me.

Let me draw nearer. Mountain, seen was she,

A woman all bereaved, her every limb

A loveliness, in these delightful woods?

ECHO

Nearer, O nearer! Mountain-seen was she,

A woman all bereaved, her every limb

A loveliness, in these delightful woods.

PURURAVAS

He has answered, answered! O my heart, I draw

Nearer to her! In my own words the hill

Answers thee, O my heart. As joyous tidings

Mayst thou too hear, mountain. She then was seen,

My Urvasie in thy delightful woods?

ECHO

Mountain! mountain! mountain! She then was seen,

My Urvasie in thy delightful woods,

In thy delightful woods, delightful woods.

PURURAVAS

Alas! 'tis Echo mocks me with my voice

Rolling amid the crags and mountain glens.

Out on thee, Echo! Thou hast killed my heart.

O Urvasie! Urvasie! Urvasie!

He falls down and swoons.

(recovering)

I am all weary and sad. Oh, let me rest

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Beside this mountain river for a moment

And woo the breeze that dances on the waves.

All turbid is this stream with violent rain,

And yet I thrill to see it. For, O, it seems

Just like my angry darling when she went

Frowning — as this does with its little waves, —

A wrathful music in her girdle, — and see!

This string of birds with frightened clangour rise;

She trailed her raiment as the river its foam,

For it loosened with her passion as she moved

With devious feet, all angry, blind with tears,

And often stopped to brood upon her wrongs:

But soon indignantly her stormy speed

Resumed, so tripping, winding goes the stream,

As she did. O most certainly 'tis she,

My sweet quick-tempered darling, suddenly changed

Into a river's form. I will beseech her

And soothe her wounded spirit. Urvasie?

Did I not love thee perfectly? Did not

My speech grow sweetness when I spoke to thee?

And when did my heart anything but hate

To false our love? O what was the slight fault

Thou foundest in thy servant that thou couldst

Desert him, Urvasie, O Urvasie!

She answers not! It is not she, merely

A river. Urvasie would not have left

Pururavas to tryst with Ocean. And now

Since only by refusal to despair

Can bliss at last be won, I will return

Where first she fled from my pursuing eyes.

This couching stag shall give me tidings of her,

Who looks as if he were a splendid glance

Some dark-eyed Dryad had let fall to admire

This budding foliage and this young green beauty

Of grass. But why averts he then his head

As though in loathing? I perceive his reason.

Lo, his fair hind is hasting towards him, stayed

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By their young deerling plucking at her teats.

With her his eyes are solely, her with bent

Lithe neck he watches. Ho, thou lord of hind!

Sawst thou not her I love? O stag, I'll tell thee

How thou shouldst know her. Like thine own dear hind

She had large eyes and loving, and like hers

That gaze was beauty. Why does he neglect

My words and only gaze towards his love?

All prosperous creatures slight the unfortunate!

'Tis natural. Then elsewhere let me seek.

I have found her, I have found her! O a hint

And token of her way! This one red drop

Of summer's blood the very codome was,

Though rough with faulty stamens, yet thought worthy

To crown her hair. And thou, asoka red,

Didst watch my slender-waisted when she gave

So cruelly a loving heart to pain.

Why dost thou lie and shake thy windy head?

How couldst thou by her soft foot being untouched

Break out into such bloom of petals stung

And torn by jostling crowds of bees, who swarm

All wild to have thy honey? Ever be blest,

Thou noble trunk. What should this be, bright red,

That blazes in a crevice of the rocks?

For if it were a piece of antelope's flesh

Torn by a lion, 'twould not have this blaze,

This lustre haloing it; nor can it be

A spark pregnant of fire; for all the wood

Is drowned in rain. No, 'tis a gem, a miracle

Of crimson, like the red felicitous flower,

And with one radiant finger of the sun

Laid on it like a claim. Yet I will take it,

For it compels my soul with scarlet longing.

Wherefore? She on whose head it should have burned,

Whose hair all fragrant with the coral-bloom

I loved like Heaven, is lost to me, beyond

Recovery lost to me. Why should I take it

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To mar it with my tears?

A VOICE

Reject it not,

My son; this is the jewel Union born

From the red lac that on the marvellous feet

Was brilliant of Himaloy's child, and, soon,

Who bears it is united with his love.

PURURAVAS

Who speaks to me? It is a saint who dwells

In forest like the deer. He first of creatures

Has pitied me. O my lord anchoret,

I thank thee. Thou, O Union, if thou end

My separation, if with that small-waisted

Thou shouldst indeed be proved my Union,

Jewel, I'll use thee for my crown, as Shiva

Upon his forehead wears the crescent moon.

This flowerless creeper! Wherefore do mine eyes

Dwell with its barren grace and my heart yearn

Towards it? And yet, O, not without a cause

Has she enchanted me. There standst thou, creeper,

All slender, thy poor sad leaves are moist with rain,

Thou silent, with no voice of honey-bees

Upon thy drooping boughs; as from thy lord

The season separated, leaving off

Thy habit of bloom. Why, I might think I saw

My passionate darling sitting penitent

With tear-stained face and body unadorned,

Thinking in silence how she spurned my love.

I will embrace thee, creeper, for thou art

Too like my love. Urvasie! all my body

Is thrilled and satisfied of Urvasie!

I feel, I feel her living limbs.

(despairingly)

But how

Should I believe it? Everything I deem

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A somewhat of my love, next moment turns

To other. Therefore since by touch at least

I find my dear one, I will not separate

Too suddenly mine eyes from sleep.

(opening his eyes slowly)

O love,

'Tis thou!

He swoons.

URVASIE

Upraise thy heart, my King, my liege!

PURURAVAS

Dearest, at last I live! O thou hadst plunged me

Into a dark abyss of separation,

And fortunately art thou returned to me,

Like consciousness given back to one long dead.

URVASIE

With inward senses I have watched and felt

Thy whole long agony.

PURURAVAS

With inward senses?

I understand thee not.

URVASIE

I will tell all.

But let my lord excuse my grievous fault,

Who, wretch enslaved by anger, brought to this

My sovereign! Smile on me and pardon me!

PURURAVAS

Never speak of it. Thy clasp is thy forgiveness.

For all my outward senses and my soul

Leap laughing towards thy bosom. Only convince me

How thou couldst live without me such an age.

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URVASIE

Hearken. The War-God Skanda, from of old

Virginity eternal vowing, came

To Gandhamadan's bank men call the pure,

And made a law.

PURURAVAS

What law, beloved?

URVASIE

This

That any woman entering these precincts

Becomes at once a creeper. And for limit

Of the great curse, "Without the jewel born

From crimson of my mother's feet can she

Never be woman more." Now I, my lord,

My heart perplexed by the Preceptor's curse,

Forgot the War-God's oath and entered here,

Rejecting thy entreaties, to the wood

Avoidable of women: at the first step,

All suddenly my form was changed. I was

A creeper growing at the wood's wild end.

PURURAVAS

Oh, now intelligible! When from thy breasts

Loosening the whole embrace, the long delight,

I sank back languid, thou wouldst moan for me

Like one divided far. How is it then

Possible that thou shouldst bear patiently

Real distance between us? Lo, this jewel,

As in thy story, gave thee to my arms.

Admonished by a hermit sage I kept it.

URVASIE

The jewel Union! Therefore at thy embrace

I was restored.

She places the jewel gratefully upon her head.

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PURURAVAS

Thus stand a while. O fairest,

Thy face, suffused with crimson from this gem

Above thee pouring wide its fire and splendour,

Has all the beauty of a lotus reddening

In early sunlight.

URVASIE

O sweet of speech! remember

That thy high capital awaits thee long.

It may be that the people blame me. Let us,

My own dear lord, return.

PURURAVAS

Let us return.

URVASIE

What wafture will my sovereign choose?

PURURAVAS

O waft me

Nearer the sun and make a cloud our chariot,

While lightning like a streaming banner floats

Now seen, now lost to vision, and the rainbow

With freshness of its glory iridescent

Edges us. In thine arms uplift and waft me,

Beloved, through the wide and liquid air.

They go.

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