by Lord Dunsany. The Golden Doom
Persons THE KING CHAMBERLAIN CHIEF PROPHET GIRL BOY SPIES FIRST PROPHET SECOND PROPHET FIRST SENTRY SECOND SENTRY STRANGER ATTENDANTS
SCENE: Outside the King's great door in Zericon.
TIME: Some while before the fall of Babylon.
{Two Sentries pace to and fro, then halt, one on each side of the great door.}
First Sentry:
The day is deadly sultry.
Second Sentry:
I would that I were swimming down the Gyshon, on the cool side, under the fruit trees.
First Sentry:
It is like to thunder or the fall of a dynasty.
Second Sentry:
It will grow cool by night-fall. Where is the King?
First Sentry:
He rows in his golden barge with ambassadors or whispers with captains concerning future wars. The stars spare him!
Second Sentry:
Why do you say "the stars spare him"?
First Sentry:
Because if a doom from the stars fall suddenly on a king it swallows up his people and all things round about him, and his palace falls and the walls of his city and citadel, and the apes come in from the woods and the large beasts from the desert, so that you would not say that a king had been there at all.
Second Sentry:
But why should a doom from the stars fall on the King?
First Sentry:
Because he seldom placates them.
Second Sentry:
Ah! I have heard that said of him.
First Sentry:
Who are the stars that a man should scorn them? Should they that rule the thunder, the plague and the earthquake withhold these things save for much prayer? Always ambassadors are with the King, and his commanders, come in from distant lands, prefects of cities and makers of the laws, but never the priests of the stars.
Second Sentry:
Hark! Was that thunder?
First Sentry:
Believe me, the stars are angry.
{Enter a Stranger. He wanders towards the King's door, gazing about him.}
Sentries: {lifting their spears at him}
Go back! Go back!
Stranger:
Why?
First Sentry:
It is death to touch the King's door.
Stranger:
I am a stranger from Thessaly.
First Sentry:
It is death even for a stranger.
Stranger:
Your door is strangely sacred.
First Sentry:
It is death to touch it.
{The Stranger wanders off.}
{Enter two children hand in hand.}
Boy: {to the Sentry}
I want to see the King to pray for a hoop.
{The Sentry smiles.}
Boy: {pushes the door; to girl}
I cannot open it. {To the Sentry} Will it do as well if I pray to the King's door?
Sentry:
Yes, quite as well. {Turns to talk to the other Sentry} Is there anyone in sight?
Second Sentry: {shading his eyes}
Nothing but a dog, and he far out on the plain.
First Sentry:
Then we can talk awhile and eat bash.
Boy:
King's door, I want a little hoop.
{The Sentries take a little bash between finger and thumb from pouches and put that wholly forgotten drug to their lips.}
Girclass="underline" {pointing}
My father is a taller soldier than that.
Boy:
My father can write. He taught me.
Girclass="underline"
Ho! Writing frightens nobody. My father is a soldier.
Boy:
I have a lump of gold. I found it in stream that runs down to Gyshon.
Girclass="underline"
I have a poem. I found it in my own head.
Boy:
Is it a long poem?
Girclass="underline"
No. But it would have been only there were no more rhymes for sky.
Boy:
What is your poem?
Girclass="underline"
I saw a purple bird
Go up against the sky
And it went up and up
And round about did fly.
Boy:
I saw it die.
Girclass="underline"
That doesn't scan.
Boy:
Oh, that doesn't matter.
Girclass="underline"
Do you like my poem?
Boy:
Birds aren't purple.
Girclass="underline"
My bird was.
Boy:
Oh!
Girclass="underline"
Oh, you don't like my poem!
Boy:
Yes, I do.
Girclass="underline"
No, you don't; you think it horrid.
Boy:
No. I don't.
Girclass="underline"
Yes, you do. Why didn't you say you liked it? It is the only poem I ever made.
Boy:
I do like it. I do like it.
Girclass="underline"
You don't, you don't!
Boy:
Don't be angry. I'll write it on the door for you.
Girclass="underline"
You'll write it?
Boy:
Yes, I can write. My father taught me. I'll write it with my lump of gold. It makes a yellow mark on the iron door.
Girclass="underline"
Oh, do write it! I would like to see it written like real poetry.
{The Boy begins to write. The Girl watches.}
First Sentry:
You see, we'll be fighting again soon.
Second Sentry:
Only a little war. We never have more than a little war with the hill-folk.
First Sentry:
When a man goes to fight, the curtains of the gods wax thicker than ever before between his eyes and the future; he may go to a great or to a little war.
Second Sentry:
There can only be a little war with the hill-folk.
First Sentry:
Yet sometimes the gods laugh.
Second Sentry:
At whom?
First Sentry:
At kings.
Second Sentry:
Why have you grown uneasy about this war in the hills?
First Sentry:
Because the King is powerful beyond any of his fathers, and has more fighting men, more horses, and wealth that could have ransomed his father and his grandfather and dowered their queens and daughters; and every year his miners bring him more from the opal-mines and from the turquoise-quarries. He has grown very mighty.
Second Sentry:
Then he will the more easily crush the hill-folk in a little war.
First Sentry:
When kings grow very mighty the stars grow very jealous.
Boy:
I've written your poem.
Girclass="underline"
Oh, have you really?
Boy:
Yes, I'll read it to you. {He reads}
I saw a purple bird
Go up against the sky
And it went up and up
And round about did fly.
I saw it die.
Girclass="underline"
It doesn't scan.
Boy:
That doesn't matter.
{Enter furtively a Spy, who crosses stage and goes out. The Sentries cease to talk.}
Girclass="underline"
That man frightens me.
Boy:
He is only one of the King's spies.
Girclass="underline"
But I don't like the King's spies. They frighten me.
Boy:
Come on, then, we'll run away.
Sentry: {noticing the children again}
Go away, go away! The King is coming, he will eat you.
{The Boy throws a stone at the Sentry and runs out. Enter another Spy, who notices the door. He examines it and utters an owl-like whistle. No. 2 comes back. They do not speak. Both whistle. No. 3 comes. All examine the door. Enter the King and his Chamberlain. The King wears a purple robe. The Sentries smartly transfer their spears to their left hands and return their right arms to their right sides. They then lower their spears until their points are within an inch of the ground, at the same time raising their right hands above their heads. They stand for some moments thus. Then they lower their right arms to their right sides, at the same time raising their spears. In the next motion they take their spears into their right hands and lower the butts to the floor, where they were before, the spears slanting forward a little. Both Sentries must move together precisely.}