HADDA PADDA 

GODMUNDER KAMBAN 

FOREWORD 

The value of this play lies in the fact that, beneath the surface,
it vibrates with the quivering, intensely pulsating forces of
life.  The speeches breathe.  The leading characters not only have
perspicuity, but each has its own representative melodic theme.
There is as music under the text, a constant accompaniment of
exquisite passion, rising, sinking, and now rising once more, in a
struggle with vacillating sensual pleasure and base inclination to
supersede others.  Around the simple action there is an atmosphere
of poetry.  The play opens with the superstition of olden times, in
the old nurse's tale about the life-egg, suggested to her by a
crystal ball, with which the sisters are playing.  Modern
superstition is woven into the beautiful scene, where Hadda Padda,
with heroically mastered despair, meets the herborist who talks of