KING. To-night is the full moon festival of the spring.
KING. To-day is a festive day, not a day of work. The pleasure gardens are in their full bloom—you will join in my festivities there.
SURANGAMA. I shall do as thou desirest, lord.
KING. The Queen wants to see me to-night with her own eyes.
KING. Where the music will play at its sweetest, where the air will be heavy with the dust of flowers—there in the pleasure grove of silver light and mellow gloom.
SURANGAMA. What can be seen in the hide-and-seek of darkness and light? There the wind is wild and restless, everything is dance and swift movement—will it not puzzle the eyes?
KING. The Queen is curious to search me out.
SURANGAMA. Curiosity will have to come back baffled and in tears!
_Ah, they would fly away, the restless vagrant eyes, the wild birds of the forest! But the time of their surrender will come, their flights hither and thither will be ended when The music of enchantment will pursue them and pierce their hearts. Alas, the wild birds would fly to the wilderness! _
[_Before the Pleasure Gardens. Enter AVANTI, KOSHALA, KANCHI, and other KINGS_]
AVANTI. Will the King of this place not receive us?
KANCHI. What manner of governing a country is this? The King is having a festival in a forest, where even the meanest and commonest people can have easy access!
KOSHALA. We ought to have had a separate place set apart and ready for our reception.
KANCHI. If he has not prepared such a place yet, we shall compel him to have one erected for us.
KOSHALA. All this makes one naturally suspect if these people have really got any King at all—it looks as if an unfounded rumour has led us astray.
AVANTI. It may be so with regard to the King, but the Queen Sudarshana of this place isn’t at all an unfounded rumour.
KOSHALA. It is only for her sake that I have cared to come at all. I don’t mind omitting to see one who never makes himself visible, but it would be a stupid Inistake if we were to go away without a sight of one who is eminently worth a visit.
KANCHI. Let us make some definite plan, then.
AVANTI. A plan is an excellent thing, so long as you are not yourself entangled in it.
KANCHI. Hang it, who are these vermin swarming this way? Here! who are you?