Queen:
You have all thought it.
Rhadamandaspes:
We ask your pardon, Queen.
King of Four Countries:
We ask your pardon.
Duke of Ethiopia:
Indeed we erred.
Zophernes: [rising]
We have eaten your fruits and drunk your wine; and we have asked your pardon. Let us now depart in amity.
Queen:
No, no! No, no! You must not go! I shall say... "They are my enemies still," and I shall not sleep. I that cannot bear to have enemies.
Zophernes:
Let us depart in all amity.
Queen:
O will you not feast with me?
Zophernes:
We have feasted.
Rhadamandaspes:
No, no, Zophernes. Do you not see? The Queen takes it to heart.
[Zophernes sits down.]
Queen:
O feast with me a little longer and make merry, and be my enemies no more. Rhadamandaspes, there is some country eastwards towards Assyria, is there not? I do not know its name-a country which your dynasty claims of me...
Zophernes:
Ha!
Rhadamandaspes: [resignedly]
We have lost it.
Queen:
...and for whose sake you are my enemy and your fierce uncle, Prince Zophernes.
Rhadamandaspes:
We fought somewhat with your armies, Queen. But indeed it was but to practise the military art.
Queen:
I will call my Captains to me. I will call them down from their high places and reprove them and bid them give the country back to you that lies eastwards towards Assyria. Only you shall tarry here at the feast and forget you ever were my enemies... forget...
Rhadamandaspes:
Queen...! Queen...! It was my mother's country as a child.
Queen:
You will not leave me alone then here to-night.
Rhadamandaspes:
No, most royal lady.
Queen: [to King of Four Countries who appears about to depart]
And in the matter of the merchant men that trade amongst the isles, they shall offer spices at your feet, not at mine, and the men of the isles shall offer goats to your gods.
King of Four Countries:
Most generous Queen... indeed...
Queen:
But you will not leave my banquet and go unfriendly away.
King of Four Countries:
No, Queen... [He drinks.]
Queen: [she looks at the Twin Dukes amiably]
All Ethiopia shall be yours, down to the unknown kingdoms of the beasts.
1st Duke of Ethiopia:
Queen.
2nd Duke of Ethiopia:
Queen. We drink to the glory of your throne.
Queen:
Stay then and feast with me. For not to have enemies is the beggar's joy; and I have looked from windows long and long, envying those that go their way in rags. Stay with me, dukes and princes.
Priest of Horus:
Illustrious Lady, the generosity of your royal heart has given the gods much joy.
Queen: [smiles at him.]
Thank you.
Priest of Horus:
Er... in the matter of the tribute due to Horus from all the people of Egypt...
Queen:
It is yours.
Priest of Horus:
Illustrious Lady.
Queen:
I will take none of it. Use it how you will.
Priest of Horus:
The gratitude of Horus shall shine on you. My little Ackazarpses, how happy you are in having so royal a mistress.
[His arm is round Ackazarpses' waist: she smiles at him.]
Queen: [rising]
Princes and gentlemen, let us drink to the future.
Priest of Horus: [starting suddenly]
Ah-h-h!
Queen:
Something has troubled you, holy companion of the gods?
Priest of Horus:
No, nothing. Sometimes the spirit of prophecy comes on me. It comes not often. It seemed to come then. I thought that one of the gods spoke to me clearly.
Queen:
What said he?
Priest of Horus:
I thought he said... speaking here [right ear] or just behind me... Drink not to the Future. But it was nothing.
Queen:
Will you drink then to the past?
Priest of Horus:
O no, Illustrious Lady, for we forget the past; your good wine has made us forget the past and its quarrels.
Ackazarpses:
Will you not drink to the present?
Priest of Horus:
Ah, the present! The present that places me by so lovely a lady. I drink to the present.
Queen: [to the others]
And we, we will drink to the future, and to forgetting-to the forgetting of our enemies.
[All drink; good temper comes on all. The banquet begins "to
go well."]
Queen:
Ackazarpses, they are all merry now.
Ackazarpses:
They are all merry.
Queen:
They are telling Ethiopian tales.
1st Duke of Ethiopia:
...for when Winter comes the pigmies at once put themselves in readiness for war and having chosen a place for battle wait there for some days, so that the cranes when they arrive find their enemy already arrayed. And at first they preen themselves and do not give battle, but when they are fully rested after their great journey they attack the pigmies with indescribably fury so that many are slain, but the pigmies...
Queen: [taking her by the wrist]
Ackazarpses! Come!
[The Queen rises.]
Zophernes:
Queen, you do not leave us?
Queen:
For a little while, Prince Zophernes.
Zophernes:
For what purpose?
Queen:
I go to pray to a very secret god.
Zophernes:
What is his name?
Queen:
His name is secret like his deeds.
[She goes to door. Silence falls. All watch her. She and
Ackazarpses slip out. For a moment silence. Then all draw their
wide swords and lay them before them on the table.]
Zophernes:
To the door, slaves. Let no man enter.
1st Duke of Ethiopia:
She cannot mean to harm us!
[A Slave comes back from door and abases himself. Loq.]
Slave:
The door is bolted.
Rhadamandaspes:
It is easily broken with our swords.
Zophernes:
No harm can come to us while we guard the entrances.
[Meanwhile the Queen has gone up the stairs. She beats with a fan
on the wall thrice. The great grating lifts outwards and upwards
very slowly.]
Zophernes: [to the Two Dukes]
Quick, to the great hole.
Stand on each side of it with your swords.
[They lift their swords over the hole.]
Slay whatever enters.
Queen:
[on the step, kneeling, her two arms stretched upwards]
O holy Nile! Ancient Egyptian river! O blessed Nile!
When I was a little child I played beside you, picking mauve flowers. I threw you down the sweet Egyptian flowers. It is the little Queen that calls to you, Nile. The little Queen that cannot bear to have enemies.
Hear me, O Nile.
Men speak of other rivers. But I do not hearken to fools. There is only Nile. It is the little child that prays to you who used to pick mauve flowers.
Hear me, O Nile.
I have prepared a sacrifice to god. Men speak of other gods: there is only Nile. I have prepared a sacrifice of wine-the Lesbian wine from fairy Mitylene-to mingle with your waters till you are drunken and go singing to the sea from the Abyssinian hills.
O Nile, hear me.
Fruits also I have made ready, all the sweet juices of the earth; and the meat of beasts also.
Hear me, O Nile: for it is not the meat of beasts only. I have slaves for you and princes and a King. There has been no such sacrifice. Come down, O Nile, from the sunlight. O ancient Egyptian river!
The sacrifice is ready. O Nile, hear me.
Duke of Ethiopia:
No one comes.