Five Plays Part 25

THE FIRST ACT

_The dinner-hour on the slave-fields of King Darniak. King Argimenes is sitting upon the ground, bowed, ragged and dirty, gnawing a bone. He has uncouth hair and a dishevelled beard. A battered spade lies near him. Two or three slaves sit at back of stage eating raw cabbage-leaves. The tear-song, the chant of the low-born, rises at intervals, monotonous and mournful, coming from distant slave-fields._

KING ARGIMENES

This is a good bone; there is juice in this bone.

ZARB

I wish I were you, Argimenes.

KING ARGIMENES

I am not to be envied any longer. I have eaten up my bone.

ZARB

I wish I were you, because you have been a king. Because men have prostrated themselves before your feet. Because you have ridden a horse and worn a crown and have been called Majesty.

KING ARGIMENES

When I remember that I have been a king it is very terrible.

ZARB

But you are lucky to have such things in your memory as you have. I have nothing in my memory--Once I went for a year without being flogged, and I remember my cleverness in contriving it--I have nothing else to remember.

KING ARGIMENES

It is very terrible to have been a king.

ZARB

But we have nothing who have no good memories in the past. It is not easy for us to hope for the future here.

KING ARGIMENES

Have you any G.o.d?

ZARB

We may not have a G.o.d because he might make us brave and we might kill our guards. He might make a miracle and give us swords.

KING ARGIMENES

Ah, you have no hope, then.

ZARB

I have a little hope. Hush, and I will tell you a secret--The King's great dog is ill and like to die. They will throw him to us. We shall have beautiful bones then.

KING ARGIMENES

Ah! Bones.

ZARB

Yes. That is what _I_ hope for. And have _you_ no other hope? Do you not hope that your nation will arise some day and rescue you and cast off the king and hang him up by his thumbs from the palace gateway?

KING ARGIMENES

No. I have no other hope, for my G.o.d was cast down in the temple and broken into three pieces on the day that they surprised us and took me sleeping. But will they throw him to us? Will so honorable a brute as the King's dog be thrown to us?

ZARB

When he is dead his honors are taken away. Even the King when he is dead is given to the worms. Then why should not his dog be thrown to us?

KING ARGIMENES

We are not worms!

ZARB

You do not understand, Argimenes. The worms are little and free, while we are big and enslaved. I did not say we were worms, but we are _like_ worms, and if they have the King when he is dead, why then--

KING ARGIMENES

Tell me more of the King's dog. Are there big bones on him?

ZARB

Ay, he is a big dog--a high, big, black one.

KING ARGIMENES

You know him then?

ZARB

Oh yes, I know him. I know him well. I was beaten once because of him, twenty-five strokes from the treble whips, two men beating me.

KING ARGIMENES

How did they beat you because of the King's dog?

ZARB