PERVANEH If thou wilt tear my veil off my face, I will tear my face before thy eyes.

RAFI Ah, no!...

PERVANEH Who art thou who dost cry, "Ah, no!"? Who art thou who dost hide thy face in fettered hands ...

RAFI A prisoner.

PERVANEH dissembling thy voice...

RAFI A prisoner awaiting death.

PERVANEH trembling when I touch thee?

RAFI A man afraid.

PERVANEH (In a voice of exaltation) For thee, Sultan, I raise my veil; and wait, thy captive, to share thy destiny.

Ha.s.sAN Oh, Ishak! The fire of the heart of beauty!

RAFI Leave me, Pervaneh! Walk not upon my path! You do not know what a foul doom is mine.

PERVANEH Foul dooms? Foul dooms? Rafi, I can forget ten centuries of doom now that I see your eyes again!

RAFI I conspired against his throne to win you freedom.

Through my fault I failed, through my fault my thousand followers are dancing in the wind.

PERVANEH For me you conspired? For me--for me?

RAFI I would have drowned Bagdad in blood to kiss your lips again.

PERVANEH O lover!

RAFI (Showing his fettered hands) Lover indeed!

PERVANEH There are a thousand eyes around us, O my beloved, but what care I?

The voice of the world cries out, "Thou art a slave in the Palace, and thy lover a prisoner in chains." (Embracing him.) But we have heard the Trumpets of Reality that drown the vain din of the Thing that Seems. We have walked with the Friend of Friends in the Garden of the Stars, and He is pitiable to poor lovers who are pierced by the arrows of this ghostly world.

Your lips are the only lips, my lover, your eyes the only eyes-- all the other eyes but phantom lights that glitter in the mist of dream.

COURTIER This is sheer heresy.

ISHAK Then a plague on your religion.

JAFAR This is Sufic doctrine, and most dangerous to the State.

Ha.s.sAN Then a plague on the State!

CALIPH Ye who make love in full Divan, can ye yet listen to the voice of the world?

PERVANEH (Dazed) They are speaking.

CALIPH O Rafi, King of the Beggars, since after all thou art much entangled in the web of unreality, it is necessary that I ask thee some phantom questions concerning thy apparent acts.

Firstly, dost thou deny thou didst call thyself Caliph of the Unbelievers, and blaspheme thy faith in my presence and in the presence of Jafar, my Vizier, Masrur, the Executioner, and Ha.s.san, my friend?

RAFI I have nothing to deny.

CALIPH Dost thou, secondly, deny that thou didst swear in the presence of the same to nail the Caliph of the Faithful alive in his coffin, or that thou didst conspire with the beggars to slay me, to seize Bagdad and to usurp the throne?

RAFI I have nothing to deny.

CALIPH Dost thou, thirdly, deny that thou didst scheme this monstrous crime for the sake of a woman?

RAFI I have nothing to deny.

CALIPH Rafi, thou art confessed a Blasphemer, a Traitor...and a Lunatic.

It remains to consider thy punishment.

RAFI As thou wilt.

CALIPH Thou art brave, but I fear the shafts of unreality will p.r.i.c.k thee extremely hard. For thou hast merited not one but a dozen deaths.

Now, if I impale thee for conspiracy, how shall I burn thee for blasphemy? But with such other pains as man can suffer, judicious arrangement carries the day over unthinking brutality.

For if I skin thee for thy impudence, how can I flog thee for thy folly?

But if the order is reversed thou canst enjoy the benefits of both expiations.

RAFI Thou hast certainly studied the art of pain.

CALIPH Yet what are the worst tortures thou shalt undergo to the horror of the death thou didst contrive for me?

RAFI (With impatience) What is my condemnation?

CALIPH For Lunacy to be nailed, for Conspiracy to be stretched, for Blasphemy to be split.

PERVANEH Ah!

(Murmurs of horror and satisfaction fill the Court at the announcement of this savage punishment.)

RAFI As Allah wills.

PERVANEH (Falling at the CALIPH's feet) Spare, Spare, O Master of the World!

CALIPH Dost thou think I will absolve him for thy "spare"?

PERVANEH Mercy! Oh, Mercy!

CALIPH Why dost thou cry "Mercy" and clasp my feet? Is not pain a fancy and this world a cloud?

PERVANEH (Rising to her feet) This world is h.e.l.l, but those that dig h.e.l.l deeper shall find the h.e.l.l-beneath-the-h.e.l.ls which they search for.