For Love of the King: A Burmese Masque

The sun envelops them both in a sudden shaft of rose and purple and gold. A servant descends and comes across the grass. He shikoes profoundly to the two young men, lifting up his hands in the deepest reverence of Burmah.

“The Lord of the Earth and the Sky desires his sons; he nears the Great Unknown.”

curtainSCENE IV

The retreat of hip loong, the Wizard.

Time: the same night.

The curtain discovers mah phru, who has returned to human form, and the Wizard together.

He tells her that he has restored her to her former state only because she has implored him to do so; that her life is measured by hours as a consequence of such insensate folly in breaking the vow of five years back.

“But the King will live,” she murmurs.

“The King will live. He will find happiness with someone fairer than you. That is well. Your life for his. It is the price.”

“The price is nothing. Have I not looked on my heart’s beloved one for five years – looked on his face – heard his voice – trembled with joy at his footsteps? Have I not waited and watched? Have I not gazed on my sons and seen their royal bearing, and known their touch?”

“You are, then, content?”

“You are a Wizard – you can read that I am.”

“It is not I that am a Wizard – it is Love. That is the only Wizard this world knows.”

curtainSCENE V

The bed-chamber of the King—vast and shadowy. On heaped-up cushions and covers of yellow and blue, under a pearl-sewn creamy velvet baldaquin, embroidered with peacocks, lies meng beng, mortally stricken; his face bears the ashen pallor that only dark skins know. The ministers, the servants, the courtiers, the countless motley gathering of an Eastern Court are scattered in anxious groups, watching, waiting, murmuring. Only the space near the couch is clear. Without, the dawn breaks over the sea, and, stealing through the opening, makes the great chamber flush till it looks like porphyry.

The tolling of a deep gong and the voices of a myriad birds invade the throbbing silence of the Palace.

“He passes,” murmur the physicians. Everyone’s gaze turns to the dying man.

“Yet his star is in the ascendant,” say the astrologers. The risen sun touches him with its light like a caress. He opens his eyes. His sons advance. They raise him high on his cushions and give a restorative. The end has come. Suddenly he rallies slightly.

The doors at the far end are rudely opened. A woman, young and lovely, advances, thrusting roughly aside the many hands stretched out to bar her path.

She reaches the King.

“I bring you life, Star of my Soul,” she cries, “I bring you life,” and so saying, falls dead at his feet.

The Courtiers rush forward.

The King rises.

He stands erect.

The sun lies like a golden benediction over all.

Jewels glitter.

The whole world of birds sing.

the curtain falls

1

One of the greatest feasts of the Buddhist year.

2

Spire.

3

Fairy.