Sri Aurobindo

Collected Plays and Stories

CWSA. Volume 3 and 4

Incomplete and Fragmentary Plays

Fragment of a Play

Act I

Mathura.

Scene 1

A street in Mathura. Ahuca’s house.
Sudaman, Ocroor.

Sudaman

What art thou?

Ocroor

One that walks the Night.

Sudaman

No Ogre!

Thou art Ocroor by thy voice.

Ocroor

Whatever name

The Lord has given his creature. Thou shouldst be

Sudaman.

Sudaman

If I am?

Ocroor

Walk not alone

When the black-bellied Night has swallowed earth

Lest all thou hast done to others should return

Upon thee with a sword in the dumb Night

And no man know it.

Sudaman

Care not; I am shielded.

Ocroor

Not by the gods!

Sudaman

No, by a greater god

Than any that have seats near Vishnu’s throne.

Ocroor

What god whom even Sudaman worships?

Sudaman

Terror

Whose shoe I have enshrined in Mathura

And all men kiss it and their tongues declare

’Tis justice and mild rule while their hearts hate

And quiver.

Ocroor

Thou art the Ogre. Has the blood

Of many nobles not contented thee?

Dost thou not feel enough thy furious greatness yet,

Sudaman?

Sudaman

Ocroor, I have a belly to digest

Much more than Mathura.

Ocroor

So Ravan had

Who perished.

Sudaman

What dost thou in this black night

Whose shadows help the lover and the thief,

Two kindred traders? Which of these art thou?

Ocroor

Both, may be.

Sudaman

If thou be, then let thy theft

Attain some Yadav’s house, that I may laugh

At his dishonour.

Ocroor

Thou hatest much, it seems,

Thy father’s nation!

Sudaman

Whom I have imprisoned

That I may mock him daily, else were he dead

And with the gods he worships.

Ocroor

Thou shalt end

Evilly yet.

Sudaman

If it is so, ’tis so

Because the round of being leads to that,

And not because of gods or virtue.

The work was not compared with other editions.