Scene 15

XV

[The Gathering of the PRINCES]

VIDARBHA. King of Kanchi, how is it that you have not got a
single piece of ornament on your person?

KANCHI. Because I entertain no hopes at all, my friend.
Ornaments would but double the shame of my defeat.

KALINGA. But your umbrella-bearer seems to have made up for
that,--he is loaded with gold and jewellery all over.

VIRAT. The King of Kanchi wants to demonstrate the futility and
inferiority of outer beauty and grandeur. Vanity of his prowess
has made him discard all outer embellishments from his limbs.

KOSLIALA. I am quite up to his trickery; he is seeking to prove
his own dignity, maintaining a severe plainness among the
bejewelled princes.

PANCHALA. I cannot commend his wisdom in this matter. Every one
knows that a woman's eyes are like a moth in that they fling
themselves headlong on the glare and glitter of jewel and gold.

KALINGA. But how long shall we have to wait more?

KANCHI. Do not grow impatient, King of Kalinga--sweet are the
fruits of delay.

KALINGA. If I were sure of the fruit I could have endured it.
It is because my hopes of tasting the fruit are extremely
precarious that my eagerness to have a sight of her breaks
through all bounds.

KANCHI. But you are young still--abandoned hope comes back to
you again and again like a shameless woman at your age: we,
however, have long passed that stage.

KOSHALA. Kanchi, did you feel as if something shook your seat
just now? Is it an earthquake?

KANCHI. Earthquake? I do not know.

VIDARBHA. Or perhaps some other prince is coming with his army.

KALINGA. There is nothing against your theory except that we
should have first heard the news from some herald or messenger in
that case.

VIDARBHA. I cannot regard this as a very auspicious omen.

KANCHI. Everything looks inauspicious to the eye of fear.

VIDARBHA. I fear none except Fate, before which courage or
heroism is as futile as it is absurd.

PANCHALA. Vidarbha, do not darken to-day's happy proceedings
with your unwelcome prognostications.

KANCHI. I never take the unseen into account till it has become
"seen."

VIDARBHA. But then it might be too late to do anything.

PANCHALA. Did we not all of us start at a specially auspicious
moment?

VIDARBHA. Do you think you insure against every possible risk by
starting at auspicious moments? It looks as if--

KANCHI. You had better let the "as if" alone: though our own
creation, it often proves our ruin and destruction.

KALINGA. Isn't that music somewhere outside?

PANCHALA. Yes, it sounds like music, sure enough.

KANCHI.