The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hassan: The Story of Hassan of
Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand
by James Elroy Flecker
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Title: Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand
Author: James Elroy Flecker
Release Date: March, 2003 [Etext #3834]
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The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hassan: The Story of Hassan of
Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand
by James Elroy Flecker
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Produced by Geoffrey Cowling <[email protected]> or <[email protected]>
HASSAN:
THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD
AND HOW HE CAME TO MAKE
THE GOLDEN JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND
A play in five acts
By James Elroy Flecker
CHARACTERS
HASSAN, a Confectioner
The CALIPH HAROUN AR RASCHID
ISHAK, his Minstrel
JAFAR, his Vizier
MASRUR, his Executioner
RAFI, King of the Beggars
SELIM, a friend of Hassan's
THE CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY
THE CHIEF OF THE POLICE
ALI, ABDU Nondescripts
ALDER WILLOW <JUNIPER> TAMARISK Slaves
THE PORTER of Yasmin's House
THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER
A DERVISH
THE FOUNTAIN GHOST
A HERALD
THE PRISON GUARDS
PERVANEH
YASMIN
An AMBASSADOR, a WRESTLER, a CALLIGRAPHIST, a JESTER, GHOSTS, MUTES, DANCING WOMEN, BEGGARS, SOLDIERS, POLICE, ATTENDANTS and CASUAL LOITERERS
THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD
ACT I
SCENE I
A room "behind the shop" in Old Bagdad. In the background a large caldron steaming, for the shop is a sweet-stuff shop and the sugar is boiling. The room has little furniture beyond the carpet, old but unexpectedly choice, and some Persian hangings (geometrical designs, with crude animals and some verses from the Koran hand-printed on linen). A ramshackle wooden partition in one corner shuts off from a living room what appears to be the shop.
Squatting on the carpet—facing each other:
HASSAN, the Confectioner, 45, rotund, moustache, turban, greasy grey dress.
SELIM, his friend, young, vulgarly handsome, gaudily clothed.
HASSAN
(Rocking on his mat) Eywallah, Eywallah!
SELIM Thirty-seven times have you made the same remark, O father of repetition.
HASSAN
(More dolefully than ever) Eywallah, Eywallah!
SELIM Have you caught fever? Is your chest narrow, or your belly thunderous?
HASSAN
(With a ponderous sigh) Eywallah!
SELIM Is that the merchant of sweetmeats, that sour face? O poisoner of children, surely it would be better to cut the knot of reluctance and uncord the casket of explanation. And the poet Antari has justly remarked:
Divide your sorrow and impart your grief, O fool.
That good man comforteth beyond belief, O fool.
HASSAN
(Inclining towards the mat) None is good, save God.
And Abou Awas has excellently sung:
The importunate
Are seldom fortunate.
Nevertheless, know, Selim, that I am in love.
SELIM In love! Then why sit moaning on the mat? Are there not beauties at the barbers, and lights of love at the bazaar?
HASSAN (Angrily) Hold your tongue, Selim, or leave me. I was in earnest when I said I loved, and your coarseness is ill-fitting to my mood. And well I know I am Hassan, the Confectioner, yet I can love as sincerely as Mejnun; for assuredly she of whom my heart is bent is not less fair than Leila.
SELIM (Ironically) Alas! I mistook the particular for the general, and did not recognise the purity of your intentions. But I would not mention Mejnun. Mejnun was young, and you are old, and he was a prince, and you are a Confectioner, and he was beautiful, and you are not, and he was very thin because of his sorrow, and you are fatter than those four-legged I mention not— God curse their herdsmen!
HASSAN And if it be as you say, Selim, if I am indeed a fat, old, ugly tradesman, have I not good reason to be sorry and rock upon my mat, for how shall maintain my heart's desire?
SELIM Listen to me, Hassan, why is it that in this last year you have become different from the Hassan that was Hassan? From time to time you talk strangely in your cups, like a mad poet; and you have bought a lute and a carpet too fine for your house. And now I feel you are losing your senses when I hear this talk of love from one who is past the age of folly.
HASSAN
It may be so, young man. Indeed, a think I am a fool.
It is the affliction of Allah.
SELIM Tell me, at least, who she is. It may be she is not so unattainable as you imagine, unless indeed you have set eyes on the Caliph's daughter, or on the Queen of all the Jinn.
HASSAN Listen, Selim, and I will tell you my affair. Three days ago a woman came here to buy loukoum of me, dressed as a widow, and bade me follow her to her door with a parcel. Alas, Selim! I could see her eyes beneath her veil, and they were like the twin fountains in the Caliph's garden; and her lips beneath her veil were like roses hidden in moss, and her waist was flexible as a palm-tree swaying in the wind, and her hips were large and heavy and round, like water melons in the season of water melons. I glanced at her but she would not smile, and I sighed but she would not glance, and the door of her house shut fast against me, like the gate of paradise against an infidel. Eywallah! (Recommences moaning.)
SELIM And where was the house of this widow who bought sweetmeats and had none to sell?
HASSAN
In the street of Felicity, by the fountain of the Two Pigeons.
SELIM (Musing) It must be the widow of that Achmet they hung last year by the Basra Gate.
HASSAN
Which Achmet?
SELIM
The hairy one.
HASSAN
Istagfurallah! He fluttered like a bird. May I never
SELIM Istagfurallah! May I see you! I should burst with laughter and vultures with repletion. But tell me, you who have fallen so deeply in love, do you rejoice in your misfortune like a dervish in his dirt, or do you honestly desire satisfaction?
HASSAN
I desire satisfaction Selim. But I pray you talk no more of this.
SELIM Well, take courage, faint heart, since all things can be cured save perversity in asses. Perhaps I can cure you of love.
HASSAN
By the Prophet, Selim, do not cure my love, cure her indifference.
SELIM
(With sudden alertness) There is only one way of doing that.
HASSAN
Which way?
SELIM
Do you believe in magic, Hassan?
HASSAN
Men who think themselves wise believe nothing till the proof.
Men who are wise believe anything till the disproof.
SELIM What do we know if magic be a lie or not? But since it is certain that only magic can avail you, you may as well put it to the test. You can buy a philtre that can draw her love, and send her a jar of magic sweets.
HASSAN I am ready to all things, ingenious Selim; but do you know a good magician?
SELIM Zachariah, the Jew, has but lately arrived from Aleppo: he is the talk of all the market place, and a wonderful man if tales be true.
HASSAN
Have you the tales?
SELIM I have this among many. They say that in Bokhara a man called him an offensive Jew and flung a stone at his head: and he caused the stone to be suspended in the air and the man too, so that the man walked all round Bokhara over the heads of the passers-by, who were astonished, and was constrained to enter his house by the upper window.
HASSAN
(Incredulous) Mashallah!
SELIM And stranger than that. At Ispahan men say he took off the dome of the Great Mosque and turned it round and had a bath in it, and put it back again.
HASSAN
Mashallah!
SELIM And strangest of all, at Cairo, for the amusement of the Sultan, he turned the whole population into apes for half an hour.
HASSAN A very trifling change if you knew the Egyptians. I don't believe a word of all these tales. Yet, doubtless he is as good enough physician to make a love philtre. But are philtres any good?
SELIM There can be no doubt that there are philtres which drive women to love, though their hearts be as strong and their heads as cold as the mountains of Qaf. But as for this Zachariah, I know he sells philtres at ten dinars the bottle: his shop is crowded with rich old women.
HASSAN Eywallah, Salim, I am sick of love; but no damsel is worth ten dinars. And sages have remarked, "the ideal is expensive!" And philosophers have observed, "There are a thousand figs on the fig-tree and all as like as like."
SELIM What! All the smooth, shining hills and well-wooded valleys in that country of love…All going for ten dinars!… And this is the man whose love is like Mejnun's! What is ten dinars to a man in love? You gave thrice that sum for this carpet.
HASSAN A carpet is a carpet, and a woman is is a woman. It is not only the ten dinars. But you know that in this market I have a character. "Hassan", men say, "is a safe man. Hassan will not leave his jacket on the wall, or buy peas without prodding the sack." But if they hear: "A stranger came to Bagdad and no Mussulman and said he would do this, and Hassan has paid him ten dinars and got no gain", they will nudge each other when I walk abroad at evening, and say: "A sad end"; and another "Look at him, Saadet, my son, and drink no wine"; and another, "God preserve me from the friends of such a one!" and they will call out to me as they pass, "Ya Hassan, give me ten dinars that I may build a mosque!" and I will be shamed where I was honoured, and abased where I was exalted….
(A loud knocking on the floor of the adjacent shop causes HASSAN to retire thither hurriedly. As he disappears YASMIN peeps inquisitively, unveiled, through the little window in the partition.)
SELIM What an impudent little beauty…. Why, she had a widow's scarf on. She must be the princess! (Rocks with laughter) The unattainable ideal! And I have her address. It requires a frenzied lover to pay cash for a flask of coloured water. But I doubt if Hassan's sweets mingled with coloured water will do aught but can make her sick. Whereas a cake stuffed with those very dinars…. Allah, the dinars would not choke her! O thou fool Hassan!
Tell not thy shirt who smiled and answered "Yes":
Dream not her name, nor fancy her address.
(Enter Hassan, pale and staggering.)
HASSAN Selim, in the name of friendship, take these ten dinars and buy me that philtre, and return with speed.
SELIM
(Feigning irritation) Allah! Am I your messenger?
Go yourself to the Jew.
HASSAN I must prepare the sweetmeats this very hour, to send them to her before sunset. In the name of friendship, Selim, take the dinars and purchase me that philtre.
SELIM (Rising and taking dinars) Do not make me chargeable, O Hassan, if the philtre is without effect. I only repeat what I have heard.
HASSAN No, I will not blame you. But go quickly for the magic that nothing may be left unsampled that may prove beneficial.
(Exit SELIM; HASSAN makes up the fire and prepares his caldron, saying meanwhile)
That young man weareth out my carpet apace. I begin to think also he doth fray the braid of my affection. But if he buys me a good philtre I will forgive him. Oh, cruel destiny, thou hast made me a common man with a common trade. My friends are fellows from the market, and all my worthless family is dead. Had I been rich, ah me! how deep had been my delight in matters of the soul, in poetry and music and pictures, and companions who do not jeer and grin, and above all, and in the colours of rich carpets and expensive silks. But be content, O artist: thou hast one carpet; be content, O confectioner: thou hast one love—one love, but unattained…yet hadst thou been rich, O confectioner, never hadst thou found her.
Now I will make her sweets, such sweets, ah me! as never I made in my life before. I will make her sweets like globes of crystal, like cubes of jade, like polygons of ruby. I will make her sweets like flowers. Great red roses, passionate carnations, raying daisies, violets, and curly hyacinths. I will perfume my roses (may they melt sweetly in her lips) with the perfume of roses, so that she shall say "a rose"! and smell
SCENE II
Moonlight. The Street of Felicity by the Fountain of the Two Pigeons.
A house with a balcony on either side of the street.
In front of one of the houses, HASSAN, cloaked: a PORTER.
HASSAN
Has she received the box, O guardian of the door of separation?
PORTER
From my hands, O dispenser of bounty.
HASSAN
What did thy mistress say?
PORTER
Sir, the hands of mediation are empty.
HASSAN
(Giving a dinar) I have filled them.
What honey dropped from that golden mouth?
PORTER She said—may thy servant find grace—"Curses on that fat sugar cook and his love-sick eyes. Allah be praised, his confectionery is better than his countenance!"
HASSAN
(Aside) If she likes the confectionery, all may be well.
And what didst thou reply?
PORTER: I said: "His sweets sparkle like diamonds and rubies in the crown of OUR Caliph, and his sugar is as pure as his intentions." And she answered—the protection on thy slave—"his intentions may be pure, but his coat is greasy."
HASSAN
And did she eat the confectionery?
PORTER I do not know. But within the hour I removed the box, and it was empty.
HASSAN
Ah! Salaam and thanks.
PORTER
And to thee the Salaam.
HASSAN
But tell me what is the name of thy mistress?
PORTER
Yasmin is her name, Sir.
HASSAN
A sweet name for a moonlight night. Salaam aleikum.
PORTER
Ya Hawaja, v'aleikum assalam!
(The PORTER returns and shuts the gate.)
HASSAN (To himself) What if the Jews are an older race than we and know old forgotten secrets? Alas, I believe no more in these Israelitish sweets. Could those drops of purple liquid command the spirit of love? And yet, who can say? the young men of the market-place laugh at all enchantments—but do they know how to spin the sun? On a night like this, does not the very fountain sing in tune and enchant the dropping stones? Ah, Yasmin? (Taking a lute from beneath his cloak and a tuning it.) Yasmin…Yasmin…Yasmin…Yasmin.
(Intones to the accompaniment of the lute.)
How splendid in the morning glows the lily; with what grace he throws
His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin?
But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends,
Whose very name that sweetly ends, I say when I have said, Yasmin.
The morning light is clear and cold; I dare not in that light behold
A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin.
But when the deep red eye of day is level with for the lone highway,
And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,
Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon,
And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin,
Shower down thy love, O burning bright! for one night or the other night
Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flower are dead, Yasmin!
(As HASSAN intones the last "Yasmin" with passion the shutters open, and YASMIN, veiled, looks out.)
YASMIN
Alas, Minstrel, Yasmin is my name also, but it was for a fairer
Yasmin than me, I fear, you have strung these pearls.
HASSAN
There is no Yasmin but Yasmin, and you are Yasmin.
YASMIN
Can this be Hassan, the Confectioner?
HASSAN
I am Hassan, and I am a confectioner.
YASMIN
Mashallah, Hassan, your words are sweeter than your sweets.
HASSAN Gracious lady, your eyes look down through your veil like angels through a cloud. Dare I ask to see your face, O bright perfection?
YASMIN
(Roguishly) Do you take me for a Christian, father of impertinence?
And since when do the daughters of Islam unveil before strangers?
HASSAN
It is said: he who speaks to the heart is no stranger.
YASMIN
(Unveiling her eyes) Are you satisfied, O importunate!
HASSAN
Never, till I have seen perfection to perfection.
YASMIN
You would shrivel, my poet. What about "the glory too far shed, Yasmin"?
HASSAN
Let me see you unveiled, Yasmin.
YASMIN
Anything to close the portal of your face.
(Unveiling.) There. Do I please thee, my Sultan?
HASSAN
(Rapturously) Oh, you are beautiful!
YASMIN Prince of poets, is that all you have to say! Not a stanza, not a trope, not a turn, not a twist, not even a hint that the heavens are opened, or that there are two moons in the sky together?
HASSAN
There is but one.
YASMIN
Well confectioned, my confectioner! And now, Good-night.
HASSAN O stay, Yasmin, you are too beautiful, and I too bold. I am nothing, and you are the Queen of the Stars of Night. But the thought of you is twisted in the strings of my heart; I burn with love of you, Yasmin. Put me to the proof, my lady; there was nothing I could not do for your bright eyes. I would cross the salt desert and wrest a cup of the water of life from the Jinn that guards it; I would walk to the barriers of the world and steal the roc's egg from its diamond nest. I would swim the seven oceans, and cross the five islands to rob Solomon ben Dawud of his ring in the palace where he lies sleeping in the silence and majesty of uncorrupting death. And I would slip the ring on your finger and make you mistress of the spirits of the air— but would you love me? Could you love me, do you love me, Yasmin?
There is love and love and love.
HASSAN
(Passionately) Oh, answer me!
YASMIN I think I have been enchanted, Hassan; how, I cannot tell. Till this afternoon the thought of your appearance made my heart narrow with disgust. But since I ate your present of comfits— and they were admirable comfits, and I ate them with speed— my heart is changed and inclined toward you, I know not why or how, except it be through magic.
HASSAN
(Aside) She is mine, and magic rules the world!
(Aloud) Yasmin, shall I possess you, O Yasmin?
YASMIN
Am I not the desert waiting for the rain? Was I not born for passion,
Hassan? Is not my bosom burning for kisses? Were not these arms
made smooth and hard to fight the battle of love?
HASSAN Are not your lips love's roses, your cheeks love's lilies, your eyes love's hyacinths?
YASMIN Ya, Hassan, and my hair the net of love, and my girdle the chain of love that breaks at a lovers touch?
HASSAN
I am drowning in a wave of madness. Let me in, Yasmin; let me in!
YASMIN
Ah, if I could!
HASSAN
Why not?
YASMIN
Ah, if I dared!
HASSAN
What do you fear? It is night, and the street is silent.
YASMIN:
Ah, dear Hassan, but I am not alone.
HASSAN
(Whispering) Not alone? Who is there? Your mother?
YASMIN
No! One who you sent here.
HASSAN
I sent no one.
YASMIN
One of your friends.
HASSAN
A man?
SELIM
(Poking his head out of the window) Ya, Hassan, Salaam aleikum.
I thank you for directing my steps to this rose-strewn bower.
HASSAN
(Astonished) Selim!
SELIM
Thy servant always.
HASSAN
(Wildly) Selim!
SELIM
Be advised, O Hassan, go and seek the enchanted egg.
HASSAN
Selim, what do you here?
SELIM
Plunge not the finger of enquiry into the pie of impertinence, O my uncle.
HASSAN Since when have I become your uncle, Selim, and how did I cease to be your friend?
SELIM
Since when did you aspire to poetry, O Hassan?
But I have heard these lines:
As from the eagle flies the dove
So friendship from the claw of love.
HASSAN
Love. What love do you mean, scum of the market?
SELIM
This. (Puts a hand on YASMIN's shoulder.)
HASSAN May God strike thee blind, Selim, and shut the door of his compassion against thee!
SELIM What is my crime, Uncle? How have I sinned against thee, or merited the solemn imprecation?
HASSAN
Do not touch her, you dog, do not touch her!
SELIM
Is it a crime to touch Yasmin, my Uncle? Am I not to be excused?
Is not her neck a pillar of the marble of Yoonistan?
(Puts his arm around her neck.)
HASSAN
Torment of death!
YASMIN Are not my arms like swords of steel, hard and cold, and thirsty for blood? (Putting her arms around the neck of SELIM)
HASSAN
Fire of hell!
SELIM
Are not her eyes two sapphires in two pools?
HASSAN
Woe is me! Woe is me!
YASMIN
Are not my lips two rubies drenched in blood? (Kisses him)
HASSAN
God, I shall fall!
SELIM (His face in YASMIN's bosom) Couldst thou but see, O my Uncle, the silver hills with their pomegranate groves; or the deep fountain in the swelling plain, or the Ethiopian who waters the roses in the garden, or the great lamp between the columns where the incense of love is burned. How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for the name and address, and half the old Jew's dinars!
YASMIN How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for sending me this strong and straight young friend of thine to console my loneliness and desolation? Ah, it is bitter to be a widow and so young!
HASSAN
(Putting up his hands to his head) The fountain, the fountain!
O my head, my head!
YASMIN
Be not too rash, my Uncle, or thy hair will come away in thy hands.
HASSAN
If I could but reach your necks with a knife, children of Sheitan!
YASMIN I was the sun of his existence, and now I am a child of Sheitan— and why? Never again will I trust the love of a man. I was a glory too far shed, and now he wants to open my neck. And already he has tried to poison me. Ya, Hassan, if you desire my death, send me some more enchanted sweets!
SELIM
Beware, O Hassan, of jesting with the Jinn.
YASMIN
Buy, O Hassan, no more juice from Jews.
SELIM Much, I fear, O my friend, for thy character in the market. No more will men say: "Hassan is a safe man"; but they will nudge each other and say, "Beware of Hassan, Hassan is a great magician; he has talked with the spirit's of the air! Deal not with Hassan, O my son, Saadet, for he sells enchanted sweets that drive the consumer to madness. And at night Hassan becomes a cat, and walketh on the roofs after the female cats. Allah preserve me from the
HASSAN
Ah, death!
YASMIN
Look at him! He is drifting like a soul aswoon!
Go home, old fellow!
SELIM
Go home and write poems!
YASMIN
Go home, and cook sweets!
HASSAN
Yasmin! Yasmin! My head!
YASMIN
Begone, or I will cool thy head, thou wearisome old fool!
HASSAN
Yasmin! Yasmin! (Stands with his arms outstretched)
YASMIN
Take this, my bulbul, to quench thy aspiration.
(Pours a jug of water over him, and slams the shutters to.
HASSAN does not budge from his position.)
HASSAN
O thou villainous, unclean dog, Selim. O thou unutterable woman.
I will have you both whipped through the city and impaled in the
market-place, and your bodies flung to rot on a dung-heap.
O, my head aches! Ah, you foul swine! May you scream in hell for ever.
O, my head—my head. For ever. Thou and thy magic and thy Jew.
There is blood dripping from the wall. (Banging on the gate)
I will break the house in. I will kill you. Ya Allah,
I am splitting in twain. It is my own fault for having dreams
and believing magic. Ya Allah, I am dying. Oh, Yasmin,
so beautiful, so brutal. O burning bright; you have killed me!
Farewell, and the Salaam!
(Falls under the shadow of the fountain. Silence. A light appears in the next house. Soft music starts; the first light of dawn shines in the sky.)
(Enter the CALIPH HAROUN AR RASCHID, JAFAR, his Vizier, MASRUR (a Negro), his Executioner, and ISHAK, a young man, his poet, all attired as Merchants.)
CALIPH Ishak, my heart is heavy and still the night drags on, and still we wander in the crooked streets, and still we find no entertainment, and still the white moon shines.
ISHAK O Caliph of Islam, is there not vast entertainment for the wise in the shining of the moon, in the dripping of that fountain, and in the shape of that tall cypress that has leapt the wall to shoot her arrow at the stars?
(The music which had stopped recommences.)
CALIPH But I hear music, and see lights. Come on, come on, we will snatch profit from this cursed night even yet, my friends, even at the eleventh hour.
JAFAR
Master, the night is far advanced, and you have not slept.
It is a late hour to seek for entertainment.
CALIPH
Jafar you are as prudent as a shopkeeper.
ISHAK There lies his merit, Haroun! For he keeps the great shop of state, he sells the revenue of provinces, and buys in the lives of men.
CALIPH
Enough, enough. Call to them, Jafar, and see if they will let us in.
JAFAR
Oh, gentlefolk, in the name of Allah!
VOICE
(From window, the person invisible) Who calls?
JAFAR Sir, we are four merchants who came yesterday night from Basra, and on our arrival we met in the street a man of Basra settled in Bagdad, who prayed us to dine with him. So we accepted and stayed late talking the talk of Basra, and left him but an hour ago. And since we were strangers to the city, we lost our way, and have been wandering ever since in search of our Khan and have not found it. And now a happy chance has taken us to this street; for seeing lights and hearing music, indeed, sir, we hope to taste the cup of thy kindness, being men of honour, good companions and true believers.
VOICE
Then you are not of Bagdad?
JAFAR
No, sir, but of Basra.
VOICE Had you been a Baghdad, you should not have entered for all the gold in the Caliph's coffers.
CALIPH
Then we may enter, being of Basra?
VOICE
If you enter, you will be in my power. And if you annoy me,
I will punish you with death. But no one constraineth you to enter.
Go in peace, O men of Basra.
CALIPH
(Aside) A rare adventure. (Aloud) We take the risk of annoying you,
O host of terror, and are now looking for the door.
VOICE Since when did a door of good reputation open on to this street, my masters? Our door is far from here, and you are strangers and merry, and will not find it. But I will contrive a means for your ascent.
CALIPH Jafar, I never suspected there was a great house in this poor quarter of the town. For from the outside it is a house like any other, except that it has no door; but inside, if this is but the back of it, it is of great extent and holds some secret. We shall make a discovery tonight, O Jafar.
JAFAR
Master, we have been warned of danger!
(A basket comes down.)
CALIPH
Danger? What care I?
(Sits in the basket, and is drawn up.)
JAFAR
Eh, Masrur, I could sleep a little.
MASRUR
You would wake in paradise if the Caliph heard you, Jafar.
(MASRUR waves his sword dexterously near JAFAR's neck.)
JAFAR
(As he ascends into the basket, pointing to Masrur's sword)
The path to Paradise is narrow and shiny, O Masrur.
MASRUR
(With the grim motion of the sword) Ya, Jafar, it is a short cut.
(Jafar having ascended, MASRUR ascends, and the basket is let down for Ishak.)
ISHAK (Alone) Go on thy way without me, Commander of the Faithful. I will follow you no further. Find one more adventure if you will. For me the break of day is adventure enough—and water splashing in the fountain. Find out, Haroun, the secret of the lights and of the music, of a house that has no door, and a master that will admit no citizen. Drag out the mystery of a man's love or loss, then break your oath and publish his tale to all Bagdad, then fling him gold, and fling him gold, and dream you have made a friend! Those bags of gold you fling, O
And I—I have taken your gold, I, Ishak, who was born on the mountains free of the woods and winds. I have made my home in your palace, and almost forgot it was a prison. And for you I have strung glittering, fulsome verses, a hundred rhyming to one rhyme, ingeniously woven, my disgrace as a poet, my dishonour as a man. And I have forgotten that there are men who dig and sow, and a hut on the hills where I was born. (Perceives Hassan.) Ah, there is a body, here in the shade. Corpses of the poor are very common on the streets these days. They die of poison or the knife, but most of hunger. Mashallah, but you have not died of hunger, my friend, and there is that on your face that I do not like to see. By his clothes this was a common man, a grocer or a baker, his person ill-proportioned and unseemly, but by his forehead not quite a common man. I think—
JAFAR
(From above) Ishak, are you coming up?
ISHAK
(Shouting back) Wait a minute, I will come.
(To himself) What has curved his mouth into that bitter line?
He is an ugly man, but I maintain there is grace in his countenance.
What? A lute? Take my hand, O brother. You loved music too, and you could sing the songs of the people, which are better than mine— the songs I learnt from the mother of my mother.