Kwan-yin

By Stella Benson

"Kwan-yin" by Stella Benson is an intense one-act play presenting two acolytes and four priests worshiping before an altar of the Goddess Of Mercy. Do they, however, hear her voice when she answers? Or are they too preoccupied with their very own sound? Excerpt: "A woman's voice again sings, unheeded, from behind the veil of smoke. Wherefore plead with death? Who shall soften the terrible heart of death? All, in urgent but slow unison: Kwan-yin. Kwan-yin. Kwan-yin. Kwan-yin. The golden face of Kwan-yin above the altar changes suddenly and terribly, and becomes like a masque of fear. The lanterns flare spasmodically. The voice can now be identified as Kwan-yin's, but still the priests stand unhearing with their heads bowed, and still the passionless bell rings. Kwan-yin, in a screaming voice: Ah, be still, be still.... I am Kwan-yin. I am Mercy. Mercy is defeated. Mercy who battled not, is defeated. She is a captive bound to the chariot of pain. Sorrow has set his foot upon her neck. Sin has mocked her. Turn away thine eyes from Mercy, From poor Mercy. Woo her no more. Cry upon her no more."

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Jun 2, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547050100

Stella Benson

Stella Benson (1892-1933) was an English feminist poet, travel writer, and novelist. Born into a wealthy Shropshire family, Benson was the niece of bestselling novelist Mary Cholmondeley. Educated from a young age, she lived in London, Germany, and Switzerland in her youth, which was marked by her parents’ acrimonious separation. As a young woman in London, she became active in the women’s suffrage movement, which informed her novels This Is the End (1917) and Living Alone (1919). In 1918, Benson traveled to the United States, settling in Berkley for a year and joining the local Bohemian community. In 1920, she met her husband in China and began focusing on travel writing with such essay collections and memoirs as The Little World (1925) and World Within Worlds (1928). Benson, whose work was admired by Virginia Woolf, continued publishing novels, stories, and poems until her death from pneumonia in the Vietnamese province of Tonkin.

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