SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 7

COLLECTED PLAYS

The beginning of a play from Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts

Act One

S C E N E I

Mathura
A Street in Mathura: Ocroor House

OCROOR - SUDAMAN

SUDAMAN

Who art thou?

OCROOR

One that walks the night.

SUDAMAN

No Ogre,

But Ocroor by thy voice.

OCROOR

Sudaman? The children

Of Surasegn, hadst thou made such reply

Would otherwise have answered.

SUDAMAN

So they would.

An Ogre, I ? Yes, one to eat all up.
Ocroor, I have a belly to digest
Much more than Mathura.

OCROOR

So Ravan had
And yet he perished. Walk not thus alone
When the black night has draped the cowering earth,

Lest one of those whose brothers, fathers, sons

Thy word destroyed, should rip that belly through

And laugh, "So dies Sudaman."

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SUDAMAN

I am shielded.

OCROOR
Not by the gods at least.

SUOAMAN

A greater god

That's Fear. By her I rule this Mathura

And she walks by me in the eyeless night

Protecting. The peoples! Danger is easily cowed

By men like me who do not fear to die
More than they fear to slay. But what dost thou

There lonely in our Mother's shadow black,

Ocroor? Her shades embrace the lover and the thief

Two kindred trades - but which of these is thou?


OCROOR
Why both, Sudaman.


SUDAMAN

If thou turnst girl-stealer,

Pray, let it be from one of Yadu's stock.

(Incomplete)

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