"Dunsany, Lord - collection - Plays of Gods and Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

Bel-Narb! Bel-Narb! Child of two dogs. Come and
untether your camels. Come and start for holy Mecca.

Bel-Narb:
A curse on the desert.

Aoob:
The camels are rising. The caravan starts for Mecca.
Farewell, beautiful city.
[Pilgrims' voices off: "Bel-Narb!
"Bel-Narb!")
Bel-Narb:
I come, children of sin.
[Exeunt Bel-Narb and Aoob.]

[The King enters through the great door
crowned. He sits upon the step.]
King:
A crown should not be worn upon the head. A sceptre
should not be carried in Kings' hands. But a crown
should be wrought into a golden chain, and a sceptre
driven stake-wise into the ground so that a King may be
chained to it by the ankle. Then he would KNOW that he
might not stray away into the beautiful desert and
might never see the palm trees by the wells. O
Thalanna, Thalanna, how I hate this city with its
narrow, narrow ways, and evening after evening drunken
men playing skabash in the scandalous gambling house of
that old scoundrel Skarmi. O that I might marry the
child of some unkingly house that generation to
generation had never known a city, and that we might
ride from here down the long track through the desert,
always we two alone till we came to the tents of the
Arabs. And the crown -- some foolish, greedy man
should be given it to his sorrow. And all this may not
be, for a King is yet a King.

[Enter Chamberlain through door.]
Chamberlain:
Your Majesty!

King:
Well, my lord Chamberlain, have you MORE work for me to
do?

Chamberlain:
Yes, there is much to do.

King:
I had hoped for freedom this evening, for the faces of