SCENE IV     Eric, Aslaug. ERIC They say the anarchy of love disturbs ' Gods even, shaken are the marble natures, The deathless¹ hearts are melted to the pang And rapture. Still, O Odin, I would be Monarch of a calm royalty within, My blood my subject. But I hear her come. (to Aslaug who enters) Art thou resolved and hast thou made thy choice ? ASLAUG I choose, if there is anything to choose, The truth. ERIC Who art thou? ASLAUG Aslaug, who am now A dancing-woman. ERIC And afterwards ? Hast thou Understood nothing?² ASLAUG

SCENE III     A room in Vasavadutta's apartment. Vasavadutta, Munjoolica, Umba. VASAVADUTTA Thou hast seen him? MUNJOOLICA Yes. VASAVADUTTA Then speak, thou perverse silence, Thou canst chatter when thou wilt. MUNJOOLICA What shall I say Except that thou art always fortunate Since first thy soft feet moved upon our earth,¹ O living Luxmie, beauty, wealth and joy Run overpacked into thy days, and grandeurs Unmeasured. Now the greatest king on earth Is given thy servant. VASAVADUTTA That's the greatest king's High fortune and not mine. For nothing now Can

SCENE III     Vasavadutta's apartment. Mahasegn, Ungarica, Umba bound, armed women. MAHASEGN She is not here. O treachery! If thou Wert privy to this, thou shalt die impaled Or cloven in many pieces. UMBA I am resigned. UNGARICA Thou'lt stain thy soul with a woman's murder, King? MAHASEGN 'Tis truth; she is too slight a thing to crush. Are not the gardens searched ? Who are these slaves Who dare to loiter? If he's seized, he dies. UNGARICA Wilt thou make ill much worse, — if this be ill? MAHASEGN How say'st thou? 'Tis not ill? My h

SCENE II     The same. Mahasegn, Ungarica, Gopalaca, Vuthsa. GOPALACA King of Avunthie, Chunda Mahasegn, Thy will I have performed. Thy dangerous foe, The boy who rivalled thy ripe victor years I lay, thy captive, at thy feet. MAHASEGN Gopalaca, Thou hast done well; thou art indeed my son. Vuthsa, — VUTHSA Hail, monarch of the West. We have met In equal battle; it has pleased me now to approach Thy greatness otherwise. MAHASEGN Pleased thee, vain youth! No, but thy fate indignant that thou strovest Against much prouder fortunes. VUTHSA Think it so. I

1 Act Five   SCENE I   The sea-shore. Andromeda chained to the cliff. ANDROMEDA O iron-throated vast unpitying sea, Whose borders touch my feet with their cold kisses As if they loved me !f yet from thee my death Will soon arise, and in some monstrous form To tear my heart with horror before my body. I am alone with thee on this wild beach Filled with the echo of thy roaring waters. My fellowmen have cast me out: they have bound me Upon thy rocks to die. These cruel chains Weary the arms they keep held stiffly out Against the rough cold jagged stones. My bosom Hardly contains its

SCENE II     Antiochus' chamber. Cleopatra, Antiochus, Eunice, Rodogune. CLEOPATRA Eunice, cruel, heartless, sweet Eunice, How could you leave me? EUNICE       Pardon me, dear lady. ANTIOCHUS Mine was the error, mother. CLEOPATRA     O my son, If you had said that "mother" to me then, All this had never happened. ANTIOCHUS     I have been hard To you my mother, you to me your son. We have both erred and it may be the gods Will punish our offences even yet. CLEOPATRA O, say not that, my child. We must be happy; I will have just a l

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE PERSEUS THE DELIVERER was originally published in serial form in the weekly Bande Mataram, Calcutta, 1907. Subsequently it was included in Collected Poems and Plays of Sri Aurobindo, published in 1942, with the exception of two scenes which were not available at that time. The missing scenes (Act II, Scenes 2 & 3) were later found and included in the 1955 edition.   VASAVADUTTA exists in several versions, not all of them complete. What seems to be the last complete version has this note at the end: "Revised and recopied between April 8th and April 17th, 1916." An earlier version has a similar entry at the end: "Copied Nov. 2, 19

  Act One   SCENE I   An inner room of the palace in Avunthie. Chunda Mahasegn, seated; Gopalaca. MAHASEGN Vuthsa Udayan drives my fortune back. Our strengths retire from one luxurious boy, Defeated. GOPALACA I have seen him in the fight And I have lived to wonder. O, he ranges As lightly through the passages of war As might the moonbeam feet of some bright laughing girl, Her skill concealing in her reckless grace, The measures of a rapid dance. MAHASEGN If this dawn Brings its portentous morning to our gates, Our suns are ended. Yet I had great

SCENE IV     The hall in the palace. Timocles, Phayllus. TIMOCLES O, all the sweetness and the glory gathered Into one smiling life, the others left Barren, unbearable, bleak, desolate, A hell of silence and of emptiness Impossible for mortal souls to imagine, Much less to suffer. My mother does this wrong to me! Why should not we, kind brothers all our lives, — O, how we loved each other there in Egypt! — Divide this prize? Let his be Syria's crown, — Oh, let him take it! I have Rodogune. PHAYLLUS He will consent? TIMOCLES Oh, yes, and wi

SCENE II       A hall in the palace. Phayllus, Theras. THERAS His fortune holds. PHAYLLUS He has won great victories And stridden exultant like a god of death Over Grecian, Syrian and Armenian slain; But being mortal at each step has lost A little blood. His veins are empty now. Where will he get new armies ? His small force May beat Nicanor's large one, even reach Antioch, To find the Macedonian there. They have landed. He is ours, Theras, this great god of tempest, Our captive whom he threatens, doomed to death While he yet conquers.                                        Ti