THE EQUINOX
LAYLAH. Silence, thou blotchy spider!
Thou baboon of
ugliness
!
Mother of curses!
[Four eunuch: bring in the corpse of the 6051 MOHAMMED.
Ah God
! my youngest, my own delicate darling! Lay him
by his sire
!
[She goes down and bends 01187 hint]
Was not
this arm too tender to bear a sword ?
Why would he go to
the battle?
He was made for luting and the zephyr.
His
eyes were larger and lovelier than the gazelle’s
!
His eyebrows
were blacker than the kohl upon mine eyelids.
Alas, my baby |
My young one, my tender one!
.
.
. Is there tidings, girl?
LEDMIYA. One rides fast,
His horse stumbles at the gate.
He leaps clear.
The horse has fallen,
He runs hither.
LAYLAH. News!
News
l
[LEDMIYA goes out
Enter a Messenger.
2ND MESSENGER. The duty οί my lord to his mother!
We
keep the hounds at bay now.
Prince Sliman is like the Angel
of Death.
No man can stand before him.
The Christians
tremble, and give back when he rides against them.
LAYLAH. A man!
A man!
He is not hurt?
2ND MESSENGER. Scratches.
As if a lion were at play with
kittens !
[.₪/1.1111 I am glad he has scratches.
Every one shall be
sung by the poets as if it were the axe-blow of old Duke Walter.
[Again the mailing surges in lhe courtyard.
LEDMIYA
rushes in.
LEDMIYA. Alas, alas, my queen!
I cannot say it!
Do not
ask me to say it
!
.
.
. They are bringing him in.
LAYLAH. Who?
Devil—child!
[She strikes her.
Four
euuuehs bring in the corpse of AKBAR]
Forgive me!
I am
not myself.
I am not a woman.
Lay him there, beside his
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