University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

Addis Ababa. The Sagonet, where the King sits in judgment. Upon a dais hung with silk and carpets, under a canopy covered with black satin and little tongueless silver bells, King Menelik is seated on embroidered cushions. His white dress is almost hidden under a purple cloak, silver-broidered, his head is bound in white, fastened with long sea-blue ribbons. He wears a cross round his neck. His red umbrella of state is held over him.
Behind him are Rases and Generals, mostly in white, with red-edged shammas and capes of various skins, lion, leopard: on his right The Abuna in black and violet robes; on the left, Princes of the Royal household, one young Prince swaying a fly-whisk. In front of him stands the Affa Negus. Ras Walda Giorgis leans on the dais.
MENELIK.
We are forward in our coming, and the hour
Yet lags behind.

THE AFFA.
But sooner than the hour, O King of Kings,
Complainant and defendant will approach.
Men may come slower than the sovereign judge;
Yet judgment draws them, as abounding ocean
Draws to its presence undistracted rivers
Upon the stretch of their necessity.

MENELIK.
Well is it spoken. So
Is judgment as a power that must avail. . . .
[To The Abuna.]
Before it, O Beatitude, ourself
Feels but as one who tarries to be judged.

THE ABUNA.
The Lord be with you! Even before His power
Are Kings in humbleness as men before
The sacred domination of a King.

MENELIK.
But if the burthened heart would countervail,
And is not level in capacity
With sanction of the judgment-seat—ah, then!
. . . The Ras Tasanna comes.

[He slightly bows as Ras Tasanna salaams, also Ras Mangasha among the witnesses, who are marshalled by the Agafari (Doorkeeper).]
RAS TASANNA.
Not here!

THE AFFA.
Ras Byzance now is at the door.
Open the door and hasten, Agafari.

RAS TASANNA.
But late! Assassin! Slow to show his face.

THE AFFA.
He comes, nor is the hour complete: he comes
Scarcely behind you, who are pricked with anger,
And active as a bridegroom is for love,
Through violence of the opposite of love—
Hate, punctual goad, your Highness. He is here.

[Enter Ras Byzance, with several followers. He salaams to the King. Discovering he has placed himself near Ras Mangasha he moves further away.]
MENELIK.
Complainant and defendant and all those
Who shall bear witness, are they now assembled?

THE AFFA.
All are within the Sagonet and ready.

MENELIK.
[With a wave of his hand toward the Affa.]
He who is justice in our land, the breath
Even of the body of the State, ourself,
Has gathered from all quarters to our knowledge
The circumstance on which denunciation
As murderer of his sister—all is known.
We therefore ask no teaching or recital
Of certainties: the deed was surely done
For which Ras Byzance stands before us. Speak,
Why you dispute this husband's chastisement
Of one who was his wife, and was of him
Esteemed adulterous? Ras Tasanna, speak!

RAS TASANNA.
O conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah,
And of our God appointed King of Kings,
I plead for one who was most innocent,
My father's daughter of his very blood,
Not by adoption, of his own begetting,
Abenetah, my sister from the womb
That bore me to my father, in true marriage,
Blessed by the Church, vowed by God's sacrament.
I stand here, brother of Abenetah,
And for her innocence.
Great King,
I will not speak of her as to myself
She showed in life: a brother may be partial
Towards those perfections of so close a strain
They are to him as flowers are to the leaves
Upon a parent-stem,—their neighbourhood
Being not of chance but breed. . . . Before this Court,
Before the light of Ethiopia, King,
I speak from testimony and pluck out
My own eyes from my plea. But at my side,
These men who have been visitant with me
How often to her husband, and these men
Of his who have been present, noon and evening
About her hut, swear they have never seen,
Nor ever heard what could bring shame on her
And on my friend from childhood, my companion,
The Ras Mangasha. More than this, behold
The Ras Mangasha at my side to swear
He never knew this murderer's wife, nor ever
Spoke with her otherwise than as my friend,
Familiar since the days when with shrill voice
She called us in from wrestling or from riding
The mules and horses, we could scarcely hold
With such small hands, or quite defeated us
In battles by her generous shout, our dinner
Lightly prepared by her small hands, was set.
Hear Ras Mangasha! And then give this man,
Assassin of my sister, to the sword
Of her avenger, her one brother's sword.

THE AFFA.
Come forward, Ras Mangasha; swear true witness.

RAS MANGASHA.
[To Ras Byzance.]

RAS BYZANCE.
[To Ras Mangasha.]

RAS MANGASHA.
[Lifting his black cloak between himself and Ras Byzance.]
Oh, by those
Sealed eyes of hers, we did commit against you
No crime, Ras Byzance.

RAS BYZANCE.
By her eyes?

RAS MANGASHA.
No crime,
Ras Byzance!

RAS BYZANCE.
By her eyes,
The truth is that you loved; the truth is there,
The grains of truth are there.

RAS MANGASHA.
I never wronged you.

RAS BYZANCE.
No, by the death of Menelik, you swear it . . .
And, by her eyes, I swear you did the wrong.
. . . O Lion of Judah, sweet was her new love
So short while since, when she and I together
Were homed as one within my province, sweet
As honey-comb of Lasta, full of honey
Fed on white heath and white . . .
We often sat
On a cliff's edge and watched the honey-bees
Come up from the warm valley to the downs
After their flowers, backward and forward coming,
And rising from the valley and then shutting
Their wings for rapid fall upon their hives
Down in the valley; and I thought my days
Were as their days; I drank of hydromel
Free as the breath of life, the living air.
Why was I hurried to the congregation
Of the massed Ethiop troops in war-array,
Commanded by yourself? Why did I house
My treasure on the peaceful field to lose her,
Torn from me by this perjured man, as false
To me as to her brother?
. . . Swift as snow,
That lights down on the mountains of our land,
And then is gone away from us, so swift
Her love and her fidelity were gone—
And she, being gone from me, had left, it seemed,
Her shadow; or at times when most her treason
Wrought in me, but a body where nought lived.
How should I bear or wraith or sullen body;
Sometimes a spectre, sometimes heated clay,
A horror and a loathing through the hours?
All was at end . . . I killed her
As simply as we kill an animal,
Take it and turn to it Jerusalem,
And, in the Virgin Maryam's holy name,
Strike with our knife . . .
All was at end! My days
Dazzled and sad and growing impotent.
They say that those who watch chameleons change
Their colour will most certainly go blind:
I watched her change and vary to his moods,
To her own moods, as he was simply loved,
Then was longed after, then adored . . .
Oh, purple!
O flame, O red of heavy passion!—I
With growing blackness on me all the day,
And double blackness on me all the night!
I to grow blind and perish, I the chief,
The guide of fifteen thousand braves, grow powerless,
And be forgotten and forget! . . .
Know that when once a woman at his side
Turns a man's life infectious he is altered
From all the light and strength of his estate,
As those who fall blind. This adultery!
It is the greatest sin in all the world,
And may not be forgiven.

RAS TASANNA.
But prove the sin,
Prove that my sister was a harlot, prove it!

RAS BYZANCE.
All was at end. . . .

RAS TASANNA.
O blinded!
Purblind—not from her turns, her changefulness,
But from your veering jealousies, your brood
Of ever-divers, alterable doubts . . .
These left you blinded.

MENELIK.
Highness,
Make good your accusation of this man.
What have you seen with your own eyes, what heard
With your own ears to justify the deed?

RAS BYZANCE.
I told you, King of Kings, she turned from me.
All was at end!
Were her looks ever on me? And she chaunted
Adôn, Adôn, Adoshava for him—.

RAS TASANNA.
For any of the braves who kill a lion.

RAS BYZANCE.
Low on her voice
For him! . . . That female chaunt, like a wind sweeping
The dark and lowered heavens, uplifted me
To God's celestial armoury, a chamber
Where His keen weapons flash . . . and in their flashing
I bent above the face that I adored,
Above a mouth that once spoke words of love—
Only the words of love—and I beheld
The face and mouth, as if I sank in space
Beneath the sight . . . till a bare weapon flashed;
And heaven was with me.

RAS TASANNA.
Is this proof, O King?

MENELIK.
It is not proof. . . . Consider,
Lay by your passion, take to thought your peril.
Highness Ras Byzance, have you ever found
This man among your women in their hut,
Or leaving it at risen dawn, or couched
Unlawfully with her who was your wife?

RAS TASANNA.
The women of her tendance would have guarded
With their linked oaths their mistress at this hour
Of imputation, had they lived, nor met
With her they served a lion's savageness.
Her six maid-servants lay dead.

RAS BYZANCE.
'Complices
In her empestering, base adultery—
Swept dead by heaven's bright sword, dead round the room.

MENELIK.
Peace, peace! Consider, Highness;
You have not fed our judgment with one proof
Bear out your sure conviction, let surmise
Show in effect and evidence authentic.
Consider, Highness!

RAS TASANNA.
Proof!
The deed was of his murderous passion done.

MENELIK.
Consider Highness!

THE AFFA.
We await
Avouchment of that crime that struck your honour;
The circumstance and the discovery.

RAS BYZANCE.
I have not seen, I have not heard—
No one gross moment gave me sight or hearing.
Day came and filled my eyes with her rejection
Of me from her desire; night folded us
Together in one cloak, as if no more
We were of kind. You ask me for a proof
More sure—and I declare there is no proof
Save this alone, and what beyond even this,
Seen in her senses, heard upon her voice,
Sparkled and rose up to him.

RAS TASANNA.
Did you charge
The Ras Mangasha to his face?

RAS MANGASHA.
[Unmuffling his face that has been half hidden in his cloak.]
No, never!

RAS BYZANCE.
Mute is the dog that heads an antelope.

THE AFFA.
You must show proof
Of the adulterous act.

MENELIK.
Consider, Highness!
Consider! [There is silence for a moment.]


THE AFFA.
. . . King of Kings, Ras Byzance, fails
In vindication of his bloody deed,
The cause being barred, unproven, and of surmise.

RAS TASANNA.
Abenetah!—O King, the deed was murder,
And I demand the utmost penalty:
Sword-thrust for sword-thrust, as her death his death.

[All groan.]
THE AFFA.
This cannot of our laws be disallowed.

MENELIK.
Highness Ras Byzance—.

RAS BYZANCE.
King!

MENELIK.
You have in rashness and in wrath unsheathed
Your sword against this noble sister, shedding
Her blood with steel, and for no cause the law
Of Ethiopia sanctions or allows.
Highness Ras Byzance, what your hand has done
Against the statutes of our country dooms you:
And for your death,
You are delivered to the Ras Tasanna
To perish at his hand by that same death
You dealt his sister—so our law condemns.

[He covers his face with his flowered Eastern handkerchief]
RAS BYZANCE.
But I protest. . . .

THE AFFA.
Peace, peace!
Do you not see the King of Kings would speak?

MENELIK.
[Dropping the handkerchief from his wet eyes.]
Mercy, have mercy, Ras Tasanna, mercy!

RAS BYZANCE.
No, King of Kings!

MENELIK.
Have mercy, Ras Tasanna!
I ask you, I the second Menelik,
I that am here for Soloman, being son
Of Hailo Melekot, in true descent
From Menelik, the son of Soloman,
And wise Nikaula, Queen of Sheba, I
That am of that wise King and that wise Queen
By veritable lineage, I implore
Your mercy for this man, for this assassin;
And by a wisdom drawn up from the tomb
Of Soloman or from that native tomb
Of Queen Nikaula, by a wisdom ripened
Through nigh four thousand years, I supplicate
That you release this young man from his death,
And take blood-money as his sacrifice.

RAS TASANNA.
No, Majesty!

MENELIK.
Guard silence
While your King's voice moves out to you. A jewel
Of the blind darkness waiting for the light
To whelm it from clear springs, so were this mercy
Of the wise Jewish King, my ancestor . . .
For see the wisdom!
Can you by the death
Of this most miserable, rash assassin
Bring the beloved dead back? She is gone utterly,
And all she might have been upon our earth
Is abrogated: but this man stands here
Among us, fifteen thousand warriors wait
His guiding, his command; within his eyes
Is light to urge them, on his lips the voice
To pierce their ignorance; and here, enthroned,
His King has need of him—the valorous mind
Seasoning to richer progress, the straight will
Informed with pertinence. Our Country needs him;
And he stands living in our midst. Have mercy,
Wise mercy, Ras Tasanna! Let him live,
Look at him . . . He is weeping. By God's gift
To Soloman in youth, let the man live!

RAS TASANNA.
[Springing forward.]
Do I then wear a sword upon my side?
Not for the Ethiopian kingdom, King!
You cannot feel; you have not been where I
Am set by his offence. 'Tis not for me
To judge; I have, committed to my sword,
The wrath of all my line, the wrath of men
And women far away, as thunder heard
Among the storm-struck hills, that travels on
With roar of many waters bubbling, hissing,
Screaming and bearing down trees, Zarebas
Of brambles, carcasses, while men in front,
Planted where now is empty river-bed,
Cry out “The River
Is come!” and with the roar of cannonade,
Like an enormous snake, the flood appears—
Such is my vengeance and my glittering sword.

RAS MANGASHA.
He killed her in her sleep. . . .

RAS TASANNA.
Yes, fast asleep!
But she has wakened from that sleep, far off.
Hark! . . . Where is desert, through long distances
Men may converse unseen and far away . . .
So comes faint echo from Abenetah
Beyond her death to me, and she is heard
More than the wrathful powers among the hills
That urge my sword . . .
O King,
Had it been quarrel between living man
And living man, at thy command alone,
Without one intercession, all offences,
As locusts killed by wind lie on the country,
Should fall and be forgotten.
King of Kings,
I stand before you, hearing her and hearing
All those from whom she drew her lineage forth,
Yea, and all those who, murdered, pray requital . . .
I hear . . . and I deny you, King of Kings.

MENELIK.
The Court is over. . . . Sentence passed. The man
I sentence is beloved; therefore a day
Or several days must pass to guard the city
From strife or tumult at his execution;
What day that shall be dealt we will appraise you,
As it behoves us, Ras Tasanna. Now
The Court is closed. . . .
And clear it, Agafari!
Stay, Affa, and, my body-guard, remain . . .
And the condemned.
[Ras Tasanna and Ras Mangasha salaam and depart in unbroken silence; outside is an outburst of groans and cries from the people. The Abuna departs; and the Agafari, with his olive-switch soon clears the Court.]
[Menelik has risen and now leans on Ras Walda Giorgis and on his crutch of office. Ras Walda Giorgis is weeping aloud. Menelik speaks to Ras Byzance.]
You are a prisoner now.
You must give up your sword.
[Ras Byzance ungirds his weapon.]
At my request,
Will you receive it, Affa, from his hand?
The Affa bows.]
It is its master's death.
O Highness, Highness,
I have been denied for you; in me your country,
Even Ethiopia, has been denied.
We cannot save your life: bear away with you
Love and a sorrow as for living man,
Not for the dead. . . . Come near!

RAS BYZANCE.
[Kneeling and throwing back his head.]
She was as false as any of those women
Their husbands kill, and, having killed, are free.
She was all gone to him. . . . She was not mine,
No more than now my sword. . . .
O holy Michael,
Saint George, Saint Gabriel, all is gone!

MENELIK.
Ras Byzance,
Not love, your God-appointed Judge's love . . .
I, Menelik, have been denied for you.
Hush! You are broken. . . .
We are here together
As men among the boulders in sheer darkness:
And we may fall and hurt each other, fall
And hurt ourselves. . . . Farewell.
See to it, Affa.
That he is guarded here till in seclusion
And cover of the night he be removed
Safe to our Amba.
In the name of God,
And Maryam, the Queen of Heaven, farewell!
[Menelik moves away; then suddenly whispers in his soft voice to Ras Walda Giorgis.]
Go to your friend, beloved.

[Ras Walda Giorgis runs to Ras Byzance, who is still kneeling with bowed head, and kneels by him; the two men are locked in embrace.]