SCENE II A garden at the town-house of Count Beltran. Antonio, Basil. BASIL I am abashed of¹ you. What, make a lady Woo you, and she a face so excellent, Of an address so admirably lovely It shows a goddess in her — at each sentence Let pause to give you opportunity Then shame with the dead silence of the hall For her continual answer. Fie, you're not Antonio, you are not Beltran's issue. Seek Your kindred in the snowdrifts of the Alps Or call a post your father. ANTONIO I deserve Your censure, Basil. Yet were it done again, I know I should again be dumb. My tongue Teems in imagina

SCENE II The Pavilion of Pleasure. Anice-Aljalice, Nureddene, Shaikh Ibrahim on couches, by a table set with dishes. NUREDDENE These kabobs are indeed good, and the conserves look sweet and the fruit very glossy. But will you sit and eat nothing? IBRAHIM Verily, my son, I have eaten at midday. Allah forbid me from gluttony! ANICE-ALJALICE Old father, you discourage our stomachs. You shall eat a morsel from my fingers or I will say you use me hardly. IBRAHIM No, no, no, no. Ah well, from your fingers, from your small slim rosy fingers. Allah! Only a bit, only a morsel: verily

Act Four Bagdad. SCENE I The gardens of the Caliph's Palace outside the Pavilion of Pleasure. Anice-Aljalice, Nureddene. ANICE-ALJALICE This is Bagdad! NUREDDENE Bagdad the beautiful, The city of delight. How green these gardens! What a sweet clamour pipes among the trees! ANICE-ALJALICE And flowers! the flowers! Look at these violets Dark blue like burning sulphur! Oh, rose and myrtle And gillyflower and lavender; anemones As red as blood! All spring walks here in blossoms And strews the pictured ground. NUREDDENE Do you see the fruit, Anice? Camphor and almond-apr

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 touchst

SCENE III The forest near Dongurh. Bappa, Sungram, Prithuraj. BAPPA It is the secret friend from whom in childhood I learned to wing my mounting thoughts aloft High as an eagle's flight. I know the hand, Though yet his name is hid from me. SUNGRAM Let's hear The very wording. BAPPA "To the Sun's child, from Edur. Comol Cumary, Edur's princess, goes With her fair sister and a knot of lances To Dongurh. Bappa, young lion of the hills, Be as the lion in thy ranging; prey Upon earth's mightiest, think her princesses Meant only for thy spoil and serving-girls, Her kings thy subjects and h

SCENE III The Gardens outside the Pavilion. Haroun al Rasheed, Mesrour. HAROUN AL RASHEED See, Mesrour; the Pavilion's all alight . 'Tis as I said. Where is the Barmeky? MESROUR The Vizier comes, my lord. Enter Jaafar. JAAFAR Peace be with thee, Commander of the Faithful. HAROUN AL RASHEED Where is peace, Thou faithless and usurping Vizier ? Hast thou Filched my Bagdad out of my hands, thou rebel, And told me nothing? JAAFAR What words are these, O Caliph? HAROUN AL RASHEED What mean these lights then ? Does another Caliph Ho

PRINCE OF EDUR PERSONS OF THE DRAMA RANA CURRAN, Prince of Edur, of the Rahtore clan. VISALDEO, a Brahmin, his minister; formerly in the service of the Gehelote Prince of Edur. HARIPAL, a Rajpoot noble. General of Edur; formerly in the service of the Gehelote Prince. BAPPA, son of the late Gehelote Prince of Edur, in refuge among the Bheels. KODAL, a young Bheel, foster brother and lieutenant of Bappa. TORAMAN, Prince of Cashmere. CANACA, the King's jester of Cashmere. PRATAP, Rao of Ichalgurh, a Chouhan noble. RUTTAN, his brother. A CAPTAIN OF RAJPOOT LANCES. MENADEVI, wife of Curran; a Chouhan prin

SCENE IV A street in Madrid. ANTONIO This is the places BASIL 'Tis farther. ANTONIO This, I know it. Here's the square Velasquez. There in his saddle Imperial Charles watches the silent city His progeny could not keep. Where the one light Stands beckoning to us, is Don Mario's dwelling. O thou celestial lustre, wast thou kindled To be her light who is my sun ? If so, Thou art most happy. For thou dost inherit The sanctuary of her dear sleep and art The confidant of those sweet secrecies. Though thou live for a night, yet is thy short And noble ministry, more rich and costly, Than ages of the sun. F

SCENE II The women's apartments in the palace at Edur. Comol Cumary, Coomood Cumary. COMOL CUMARY Tomorrow, Coomood, is the feast of May. COOMOOD CUMARY Sweetheart, I wish it were the feast of Will. I know what I would will for you. COMOL COOMARY What, Coomood ? COOMOOD CUMARY A better husband than your father'll give you. COMOL CUMARY You mean the Scythian ? I will not believe That it can happen. My father's heart is royal; The blood that throbs through it he drew from veins Of Rajpoot mothers. COOMOOD CUMARY But the brain's too politic. A

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The VIZIERS OF BASSORA is one of the early works of Sri Aurobindo on a major scale. Written in Baroda, it has a curious history attached to it. Sri Aurobindo seems to have had especial fondness for this early creation of his. He particularly mentioned it in the Introduction to Collected Poems and Plays as one of the two works, lost—the other being a translation of Kalidasa's Meghaduta (Cloud-Messenger). By a strange turn of destiny the drama was recovered from the Government Archives in 1951 along with other manuscripts which had been exhibits in the Alipore Conspiracy Case. This play was published in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, 1959, a