“ AGMAR The men are doubters. How the gods hate the word! Doubt ever contaminated virtue. Let them be cast into prison and not besmirch your purity. (Rising) Let them not enter here. ILLANAUN But oh, most reverend deity from the Mountain, we also doubt, most reverend deity. AGMAR You have chosen. You have chosen. And yet it is not too late. Repent and cast these men in prison and it may not be too late. The gods have never wept. And yet when they think upon damnation and the dooms that are withering a myriad bones, then almost, were they not divine, they could weep. Be quick! ”
Summary
Quotes from Five Plays (Lord Dunsany)
“ AGMAR Was it your wont to thwart him in his play, while he was strong and well? ONE I never thwarted him, master. AGMAR Whose child is Death? ONE Death is the child of the gods. AGMAR Do you that never thwarted your child in his play ask this of the gods? ONE (with some horror, perceiving Agmar's meaning) Master! AGMAR Weep not. For all the houses that men have builded are the play-fields of this child of the gods. ”
“ Good-bye, my brittle glory; kings have sought you; the stars have envied you. (The stage grows darker) CHIEF PROPHET Even now the sun has set who denies the stars, and the day is departed wherein no gods walk abroad. It is near the hour when spirits roam the earth and all things that go unseen, and the faces of the abiding stars will be soon revealed to the fields. Lay your crown there and let us come away. KING (lays his crown before the iron door; then to the Sentries) Go! And let no man come near the door all night. ”
“ The beggars seat themselves upon the floor in the attitude of the seven gods of Marma. CITIZEN I heard men speak to-day in the market place. They speak of a prophecy read somewhere of old. It says the seven gods shall come from Marma in the guise of men. ILLANAUN Is this a true prophecy? OORANDER It is all the prophecy we have. Man without prophecy is like a sailor going by night over uncharted seas. He knows not where are the rocks nor where the havens. To the man on watch all things ahead are black and the stars guide him not, for he knows not what they are. ”
“ I have been a great King—Let it be said of me "The stars overthrew him, and they sent a god for his doom." For I have not met my equal among kings that man should overthrow me; and I have not oppressed my people that man should rise up against me. CHIEF PROPHET It is better to give worship to the stars than to do good to man. It is better to be humble before the gods than proud in the face of your enemy though he do evil. ”
“ Most reverend deity, their piety is so great that they have gone to worship even your shrines. AGMAR I know these men that have great piety. Such men have often prayed to me before, but their prayers are not acceptable. They little love the gods; their only care is their piety. I know these pious ones. They will say that the seven gods were still at Marma. They will lie and say that we were still at Marma. So shall they seem more pious to you all, pretending that they alone have seen the gods. Fools shall believe them and share in their damnation. ”
“ They should dance as they come. But the footfall is like the footfall of heavy crabs. ULF (in a loud voice, almost chanting) I have a fear, an old fear and a boding. We have done ill in the sight of the seven gods. Beggars we were and beggars we should have remained. We have given up our calling and come in sight of our doom. I will no longer let my fear be silent; it shall run about and cry; it shall go from me crying, like a dog from out of a doomed city; for my fear has seen calamity and has known an evil thing. ”
“ KING Let the stars hearken yet and I will sacrifice a child to them—I will sacrifice a girl child to the twinkling stars and a male child to the stars that blink not, the stars of the steadfast eyes. (To his Spies) Let a boy and girl be brought for sacrifice. (Exit a Spy to the right looking at footprints) Will you accept this sacrifice to the god that the stars have sent? They say that the gods love children. ”
“ AGMAR It is not fitting that such as I should eat. None eat but beasts and men and the younger gods. The sun and the moon and the nimble lightning and I—we may kill and we may madden, but we do not eat. ”
“ AGMAR Are you he that shall be first to forsake the calling? OOGNO Times are bad for the calling here. THAHN They are bad. AGMAR So you would forsake the calling? OOGNO The city is unworthy of our calling. The gods are drowsy and all that is divine in man is dead. (To third beggar) Are not the gods drowsy? ULF They are drowsy in their mountains away at Marma. The seven green idols are drowsy. Who is this that rebukes us? THAHN Are you some great merchant, master? Perhaps you will help a poor man that is starving. ”
“ Mine arm is stiff with three years' slavery, and remembers not the sword. But guide thy sword till I have slain six men and armed the strongest slaves, and thou shalt have the sacrifice every year of a hundred goodly oxen. And I will build in Ithara a temple to thy memory wherein all that enter in shall remember thee; so shalt thou be honored and envied among the dead, for the dead are very jealous of remembrance. Ay, though thou wert a robber that took men's lives unrighteously, yet shall rare spices smoulder in thy temple and little maidens sing and new-plucked flowers deck the solemn aisles ”
“ Exeunt. Agmar takes up a piece of meat and begins to eat it; the beggars rise and stretch themselves: they laugh, but Agmar eats hungrily. OOGNO Ah! Now we have come into our own. THAHN Now we have alms. SLAG Master! My wise master! ULF These are the good days, the good days; and yet I have a fear. SLAG What do you fear? There is nothing to fear. No man is as wise as my master. ULF I fear the gods whom we pretend to be. SLAG The gods? AGMAR (taking a chunk of meat from his lips) Come hither, Slag. ”
“ AGMAR Let the pestilence not fall at once upon this city, as it had indeed designed to; let not the earthquake swallow it all immediately up amid the howls of the thunder; let not infuriated armies overwhelm those that escape—if we be gods— POPULACE (in horror) If we be gods! ”
“ The leading Green Thing points his forefinger at the lantern—the flame turns green. When the six are seated the leader points one by one at each of the seven beggars, shooting out his forefinger at them. As he does this each beggar in his turn gathers himself back on to his throne and crosses his legs, his right arm goes stiffly upward with forefinger erect, and a staring look of horror comes into his eyes. In this attitude the beggars sit motionless while a green light falls upon their faces. The gods go out. ”
“ When the Queens come to the doorway they halt on each side of it. Then they turn facing one another. Then the King leaves his throne and passes between them into the Chamber of Banquets, each couple courtseying low to him as he passes. The Queens follow, then the attendants. There rises the wine-song, the chant of the nobles, drowning the chant of the low-born. Only the Idol-Guard remains behind, still kneeling beside Illuriel. ”
“ The names of places and persons appearing in the stories of Lord Dunsany are worth a study in themselves. There are hundreds of them, giving evidence of an inexhaustible imagination; and each one of them is as aptly suggestive as if generations of men had been at work shaping them. To hear of Sardathion, the city built by the Gods of Old, is to see its domes of marble rising sky-high in the sunset-lighted air. ”
“ Also it were well not to anger the gods. AGMAR Is not all life a beggary to the gods? Do they not see all men always begging of them and asking alms with incense, and bells, and subtle devices? OOGNO Yes, all men indeed are beggars before the gods. AGMAR Does not the mighty Soldan often sit by the agate altar in his royal temple as we sit at a street corner or by a palace gate? ”
“ THE IDOL-GUARD (kneeling over a fragment of Illuriel) Illuriel is broken. They have overthrown Illuriel. They have done great harm to the courses of the stars. The moon will be turned to blackness or fall and forsake the nights. The sun will rise no more. They do not know how they have wrecked the world. ”
“ AGMAR Trouble us not now. It is the hour at which the gods are accustomed to speak to the gods in the language of the gods, and if Man heard us he would guess the futility of his destiny, which were not well for Man. ”
“ 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. ”
“ For one month two weeks and a day I was yoked with a bullock and pulled a rounded stone all day over the paths, except while we were fed. I was flogged twice that year—with eighteen stripes and with ten stripes. This year the roof of the slave-sty has fallen in and King Darniak will not repair it. Five weeks ago one of his Queens laughed at me as she came across the slave-fields. I was flogged again this year and with thirteen stripes, and twelve times they have called me dog. And these things they have done to a king, and a king of the House of Ithara. ”
“ She comes to us at evenings away in the mountains of Marma. She trips over the mountains when she is young. When she is young and slender she comes and dances before us, and when she is old and unshapely she hobbles away from the hills. AGMAR Yet is she young again and forever nimble with youth; yet she comes dancing back. The years are not able to curb her nor to bring gray hairs to her brethren. ”
“ Agmar and the beggars in the attitude of the gods sit silent. MAN Master, it is terrible. (The beggars maintain silence) It is terrible when you wander in the evening. It is terrible on the edge of the desert in the evening. Children die when they see you. ”
“ And if thou hast the ear of any gods, speak there against Illuriel, god of King Darniak. (He rises and goes on digging) THE KING'S OVERSEER (reëntering) So you have been praying. KING ARGIMENES (kneeling) No, master. THE KING'S OVERSEER The slave-guard saw you. (Strikes him) It is not lawful for a slave to pray. KING ARGIMENES I did but pray to Illuriel to make me a good slave, to teach me to dig well and to pull the rounded stone and to make me not to die when the food is scarce, but to be a good slave to my master the great King. ”
“ There will be nothing more to hope for when we have eaten the King's dog. ZARB Why, you might find gold in the earth while you were digging. Then you might bribe the commander of the guard to lend you his sword; we would all follow you if you had a sword. Then we might take the King and bind him and lay him on the ground and fasten his tongue outside his mouth with thorns and put honey on it and sprinkle honey near. Then the gray ants would come from one of their big mounds. My father found gold once when he was digging. ”
“ AGMAR Is it then strange that the gods love roasted flesh? For this purpose they keep the lightning. When the lightning flickers about the limbs of men there comes to the gods in Marma a pleasant smell, even a smell of roasting. Sometimes the gods, being pacific, are pleased to have roasted instead the flesh of lamb. It is all one to the gods ”
“ 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. ”
“ Meanwhile enter Chief Prophet of the stars that look on Zericon. KING Chief Prophet of the Stars that look on Zericon, I would have you interpret the rhyme upon yonder door. CHIEF PROPHET (goes up to the door and reads) It is from the stars. KING Interpret it and you shall have great turquoises round your neck, with opals from the mines in the frozen mountains. CHIEF PROPHET (cloaks himself like the others in a great black cloak) Who should wear purple in the land but a King, or who go up against the sky but he who has troubled the stars by neglecting their ancient worship? ”
“ It is like the sound that goes up from the grandstand when a horse falls at a fence, or, in England, like the first exclamation of the crowd at a great cricket match when a man is caught in the slips. ”
“ It is the kind of symbolism for which the advances of modern psychology had prepared us—the kind that is inseparable from life itself as we are only just beginning to understand it. Another quality is their capacity for suggesting at once the intimate unity and appalling vastness of life. In "The Golden Doom" the fate of an empire and a little boy's desire for a new plaything become linked as facts of equal importance in the web of fate. In "The Gods of the Mountain" we meet with an atmosphere of fatality comparable only to that found in the Greek dramas. ”
“ Below the Lonely Place is an abyss hung with stars. The rising curtain reveals Jim wearily uncorking a beer-bottle. Then he tilts it slowly and with infinite care. It proves to be empty. Faint and unpleasant laughter is heard off. This action and the accompanying far laughter are repeated continually throughout the play. Corked bottles are discovered lying behind rocks, and more descend constantly through the air, within reach of Jim. All prove to be empty. ”
“ AGMAR They are of green jade. They sit cross-legged with their right elbows resting on their left hands, the right forefinger pointing upward. We will come into the city disguised, from the direction of Marma, and will claim to be these gods. We must be seven as they are. And when we sit we must sit cross-legged as they do, with the right hand uplifted. ”
“ They pass in front of the seven beggars, now in terrified attitudes, and six of them sit down in the attitude described, with their backs to the audience. The leader stands, still stooping. OOGNO (cries out just as they wheel left) The Gods of the Mountain! AGMAR (hoarsely) Be still! They are dazzled by the light. They may not see us. ”
“ Observation and imagination are the basic principles of all poetry. It is impossible to conceive a poetical work from which one of them is wholly absent. Observation without imagination makes for obviousness; imagination without observation turns into nonsense. ”
“ This is a bad city in which to fall into the hands of oppressors, for the judges lack amiability here as the merchants lack benevolence, ever since the gods forgot them. AGMAR In our ancient calling a man may sit at one street corner for fifty years doing the one thing, and yet a day may come when it is well for him to rise up and do another thing while the timorous man starves. ”
“ He will not punish us, master? None of the gods will punish us? We will make a sacrifice, a good sacrifice. ANOTHER We will sacrifice a lamb that the priests have blessed. FIRST CITIZEN Master, you are not wroth with us? SLAG Who may say what cloudy dooms are rolling up in the mind of the eldest of the gods? He is no common god like us. Once a shepherd went by him in the mountains and doubted as he went. He sent a doom after that shepherd. ”
