Chapter II: Act II: A hall in the KING'S palace, with high windows at the hack (1)
_Night._ CÉBÈS, _sick, lying upon a bed. A little lamp is placed on the floor. Here and there men, stretched out asleep, snoring._
_Pantomime--Enter, as if half-crazed, the KING, barefoot, his clothes in disorder. He runs hither and thither about the hall in great agitation._
CÉBÈS (_not seeing the KING_): They are all asleep.
The lamp sputters and smokes.
_(He painfully stretches himself on his back._
THE KING(_groaning, in a low voice_): Ah!
_(Pause._
CÉBÈS (_lowering his voice_): Two, four,
Six, eight, twelve,
Fourteen,
Sixteen, eighteen, thirty-six,
Seventy-two, a hundred and forty-four. I wish that I could sleep, too.
THE KING: Ah!
CÉBÈS: I am thirsty. I would like a drink!
But I will not drink.
I am sick! The night is long. If only I could sleep a little!
_(He closes his eyes._
THE KING: Ah!
CÉBÈS: Who is sighing? Is anyone there?
_(He turns his head and sees the KING._
_(Silence._
THE KING: Ah!
__(He catches sight of CÉBÈS.
Can't you sleep, my child?
CÉBÈS: I cannot sleep.
THE KING: Are you thirsty? Would you like me to get you a drink?
CÉBÈS: Pardon me, Sire. I shall not drink till he returns.
THE KING: Sire! Is there still such a title? Do not call me Sire, my child!
They have left us all alone, my daughter and me, and everyone has fled, for the enemy is at hand.
They did not trouble themselves much about me.
The Prime Minister did it all. He explained to me how matters stood. He was always making me late to dinner. I have a bad digestion; I ought to have my meals at regular hours.
They held a meeting, some ten or twelve of them, and they brought a great pile of papers. One sees strange people nowadays.
Then they all went away. The Prime Minister went away also, taking with him the crown jewels to put them in safe keeping.
Even the servants have gone. Not a single one is left.
_(The bells begin to chime midnight._
It is as it is in the city. Only the poor remain and those who have no choice.
_(The last strokes sound._
What hour is that?
CÉBÈS: Midnight.
THE KING: There is no one here any longer.
But I cannot sleep and I wander through the palace
From the kitchen to the immense garrets and I seem to hear behind the doors the quiet breathing of sleepers, and the fire upon the hearth sends out a little glow.
These poor folk who arrived yesterday, seeing the palace empty, asked if they might spend the night here. They are visionaries; they wish to watch and pray.
It seems that we have been beaten everywhere. It is a shameful thing!
Our blunders
Surpass our misfortunes, and all is submerged in dishonor. And at will the enemy crosses our frontiers.
--Terror is upon us!
_(Silence.--The snores of the WATCHERS are heard._
Hark to these watchers who watch!
They whistle, wheeze and snort, they are so fast asleep! It is a voice, a horn, a leather trumpet!
_(Silence._
I tell you that a panic has seized the city
And each man cowers in his home and dares not stir from his door.
O people! O city! O my wretched country, destroyed, devastated, plundered like an unguarded sheep-fold!
Oh! oh!
Will this terrible night never end!
Sight was horrible to me; I went to bed. O Sleep,
Kill me with your leaden dart!
But I cannot sleep and I open my eyes again in the black Nothingness.
It has no knowledge nor any real existence
But the gloom takes weight and stiflingly presses upon us.
Oh! oh!
I shudder from head to foot and I cry aloud in my anguish!
And I leap out of bed and run hither and thither, striking my head against the walls.
And I see again these frightful places and I meet
Only Madness and Horror!
--Am I keeping you awake, my child?
CÉBÈS: I cannot sleep.
THE KING: Well, I will wait here with you.
CÉBÈS: How far away is the enemy?
THE KING: Not more than a day's march.
I think the battle must have already been fought.
--Still five hours till dawn! We shall see. Very soon we shall know.
CÉBÈS: This very morning! It must be so.
THE KING: Where are your parents, Cébès?
CÉBÈS: I do not know, Sire. The war has swept them away.
THE KING: I have only one daughter and I have no male child.
CÉBÈS: Are you speaking to me, Sire?
THE KING: How pale you are, my poor boy! You are very ill. Tête-d'or
Was wise to leave you here. We will look after you, lad.
I look at you! I wish to contemplate
A thing still young, as I myself have been,
And the dawning of power in astonished eyes!
The young man sleeps very tranquilly. He dreams, and in his dream is the morning sun.
The evening has been glorious, a golden day awaits him.
I also have been young. I have been a young man also,
And I have been a little, little child. Now I have lived three score and fifteen years, and I am old and at the end of my life.
And this is what I am, and this is what I see!
CÉBÈS: I shall be the first to die.
I have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
I have not strength enough to rise and walk.
Yes! What a thing it is to live!
What an astonishing thing it is
Only to live! What a mighty thing it is, only to live!
He who lives
And treads the earth under his feet, what does he envy the gods?
I die,
And only ask to once again behold him.
THE KING: Of what are you dreaming?
CÉBÈS: I dream of the day.
THE KING: Go, die!
CÉBÈS: What did you say?
THE KING (_rising and running about distractedly_): Go, die! We all must die!
O my country! My country! Behold your King wanders alone through his palace and can give you no aid.
I am weaker than a woman in childbirth.
_(He is seized with a fit of coughing._
A-ha! A-hha! O my country!
You were weary of me. And everyone said that I built too much and did not know what I was doing and they took the money from me.
But what of that! I loved you, O my realm!
And must I see you thus destroyed and ravaged!
Ah! Ah! Ah! Tremble, you lofty chimneys that tower to the stars and midst the marguerites and glow-worms are mirrored in the brimming moat.
Uproot yourself,
Ancestral beech whose branches shade the courtyard!
Down to the dust with you, genealogy!
And let the walls be rent asunder from base to battlement!
--Hola! You there! Wake up!
_(He jostles against a sleeper, who grunts._
What are you muttering down there?
_(He kicks him._
THE WATCHER (_asleep_): Oh hum!
THE KING: Wake up there, sack of wool! Wake up, block!
_(He kicks him._
THE WATCHER (_talking indistinctly in his sleep_): Ho! Ho!
Do not push me! I am falling! I am falling!
THE KING (_catching him by the foot and dragging him across the hall_): Will you wake up, or won't you?
THE WATCHER (_waking and rubbing his eyes_): Eh? Eh?
What's that? What? What? What?
What? What time is it?
Eh?
_(He sees the KING._
_(The KING goes to the middle of the hall and strikes furiously on a gong. All awake and look at him, dumbfounded, not moving from their places._
THE KING: Well, Watchers!
_(Silence._
Behold you sleep, and the first part of the night is not yet spent!
They care for nothing but eating and drinking and talking to each other!
Like brutes, like dogs that wag their tails! And when they cease their chatter, they fall asleep.
Their souls are simple! They are not capable of thinking for themselves.
Do you know where we are? Do you know for what we are waiting?
We must watch and listen! We must listen and wait!
_(The song of the nightingale is heard._
The nightingale is singing. All night he pours out his soul.
All night the tiny bird sings of the marvels of God.
And you, could you not watch? The worries of your wretched trades cannot trouble you now. That care has been taken from you. Could you not watch and wait?
But, like hulking lackeys you sleep!
And it may be that someone has entered and looked at you,
Like the bird that flies and does not alight.
But they sleep and leave me all alone!
And I David, The King, with my white hairs,
I wander through the palace in the pangs and agony of death,
And I tread my mitre under my feet and like an infant or an animal that one clutches to one's breast,
I hold back with my hands my escaping soul!
THE FIRST WATCHER: Pardon us, O King.
THE SECOND WATCHER: O King, why do you waken us and keep us from sleeping?
Go! Put out the light and lie down with us. Pillow your head on my side. All too soon will come the day.
The light troubles my eyes. I am going to sleep.
_(He drops his head on his chest. The KING gazes at him and, opening his mouth little by little, begins to yawn._
THE THIRD WATCHER: O King, you yourself are yawning!
It is weariness. It is the wind, the exhalation of the void within us.
We talked and our words were only an empty sound; and from morning until evening we gave ourselves no rest.
In truth we are dead.
As tired
As a man who comes home drunk in the morning and goes to bed without undressing or taking off his boots.
At first the heart was silent,
And then, like a tom-cat that yowls very softly, it began to voice its lament.
THE SECOND WATCHER: Be still, heart! Be still, poor heart! What would you have?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: And even now they come to extinguish us
As you quench a stinking lamp with a damp cloth.
THE FIRST WATCHER: O night! O chasm of blackness!
O open door through which whistles the wind!
We had come hither and stretched ourselves on your threshold.
But the abyss gave back no words. Who can fathom its secret ways?
So we remained here and the thought has come to me that there is nothing that can be changed.
The night is black and there is no more hope.
THE THIRD WATCHER: They die together. All the people shall be found cold in death, men and women and children and babes at the breast.
Therefore let us lie here and sleep,
Or go, if you have a wife, and lie with her.
And let not the maid-servant make too much noise in the kitchen or the baby in the room below,
Or the mouse in the cupboard or the fly against the pane.
We have begged and it has been in vain. Our sin has found us out. Who can conquer our ignorance?
Why are we born, since now it seems better to die?
What should we do and why should we do it?
We cannot attain to ability and we sway and stagger like a man who stands in a hot bath,
Or one who yawns from the fumes of a reeking opium pipe.
This parish dreams and is like a people who, like a nation of hens
Ranged on the ramparts of the quay, watch how the red sun drops away into a night that knows no day....
_(Pause._
THE FIRST WATCHER: Such is the report that we have to make to you.
THE KING: Wretched nonentities! He is a fool who puts his trust in you!
I knew you and your fathers before you, a broken reed to lean upon!
In my old age and bitter need there is little comfort in you!
My curse upon you, watchers that sleep! My curse upon you, sleepers, dreamers of dreams!
THE FIFTH WATCHER: A curse upon you yourself, old man! Be accursed, crowned carrion, lapdog, clown!
Is it not you who have brought us to this pass?
Curse you, and curse all men who have power in their hands,
Who have power in their hands, O God, and do not know how to use it!
Why do you come to break our sleep and keep our eyes from slumber?
You curse me, do you, old phantom? And I throw back your curse in your teeth!
A curse on your royal race, temporal King, on the office that you hold, on the system that permits your impotent sway!
A curse on all my teachers, from the one who taught me to read to the one who turned me loose with a box on the ear, dazzled and full of words!
For they took me when I was only a child and they gave me dirt to eat.
A curse on my father and on my mother also!
A curse on the food they gave me, and on their ignorance, and on the example they set me!
THE KING: Madman, be still!
THE FIFTH WATCHER: Why did you waken me, old man? Now you shall not silence me!
Whom else shall I curse? I am full of malediction!
My bile pours forth in a flood and boils up even to my eyes!
And so great is the spasm that shakes me
That my ribs are cracking with it and my bones are riven apart!
I will curse myself!
Myself, because I am worthless, lost, dishonored,
Degraded below all beings and cowardly beyond all measure!
And I will bury my teeth in my arms and tear my face with my nails!
Come then, O Death! Come, O Death!
_(A scratching is heard at the door. The door creaks. Silence. The scratching comes again._
THE KING: Who is there?
_(Silence._
Come in!
_(The PRINCESS enters, timidly._
THE KING (_shading his eyes with his hand_): Who are you?
THE PRINCESS: Father, may I come in?
THE KING: Is it you, my daughter? It is so dark here! I did not recognise you. And besides I am so old!
What have you been doing, my child?
THE PRINCESS: Pardon me, father!
I was all alone, for the servants have run away
And I was frightened.
THE KING: We are left alone in this abandoned palace
Around this little light placed on the floor.
THE PRINCESS: Shall I wait here with you, father?
THE KING: Stay.
_(She seats herself at some distance from Cébès._
CÉBÈS (_half-aloud_): I am thirsty!
_(She pours some water into a glass and gives it to him._
CÉBÈS (_shaking his head, without looking at her_): I do not want to drink. It is not worth the trouble any longer.
O God, how long the night is!
_(The nightingale sings again suddenly, close to the window._
THE PRINCESS (_listening, with the glass in her hand_): It is the first nightingale. He is trying out his song again, after the terrible winter.
_(The nightingale sings again._
CÉBÈS: O bird! O voice strong and pure in the night!
But the measure of time will not be changed.
O mystery of the night! And you, O season of the nudity of love when for leaves there are only blossoms on the trees!
What do you say, O bird? But you are only a voice and not a message.
THE PRINCESS: Do you think we shall have tidings soon?
CÉBÈS: With the first hour he will be here,
Bringing the news as a laborer brings his tools.
If only I do not die before he comes!
THE PRINCESS: Do not say such a thing!
CÉBÈS: Such a thing? Do you think I do not know what it means? Go and listen to the rabble who rave in the shadows of the room.
I lie here, and I die before my time through the sin of my parents. The sweat runs down my face.
And if you knew the terror that is in my soul
You would not treat me like a little child who says he cannot sleep.
Woman, you do not comfort me. I have nothing in common with you. I wait until my older brother
Comes again.
THE PRINCESS: You speak to me brutally as everyone does nowadays.
You do not want me to console you and perhaps in this you are wrong.
_(She moves away for some distance._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Well, after all....
That young man with the army he has raised, he may be able to....
THE FIRST WATCHER: What foolishness!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Oh you, you are frozen like a well, and like a well condemned!
But indeed there is a power in him. I could not stand against him when he talked
And at the same time looked at me. For his voice is strong and piercing
And he looked at me in such a way that I felt it in the pit of my stomach,
And the flame of confusion mounted to my cheeks.
Grant that he may return with a glorious victory.
THE FIFTH WATCHER: And then what will you do?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: O I shall live in joy!
Holding my face to the sun, holding my hands to the rain!
THE FIFTH WATCHER: Listen to him! You will live in joy, will you, carrion?
Listen to what he says! And already he has forgotten what he said a moment since and remembers it no more.
You will live in joy? But I tell you that you are already dead and life has departed from you and that you weep because the man is at hand who will drive you from your place!
Do not hope! For I say to you that the sword is loosed against you and it will not rest till it has devoured you, sweeping you from before the face of the sun.
Like the plague upon the poultry, like the pestilence upon the pigs, the sword has come upon you!
This I see and exult. Let me perish beneath the sword!
I do not wish to live in joy. Where is the joy in life?
But I long to die, like a man that has been flayed.
Fools! 'Tis enough for you that cozening life anoints your lips with its greasy thumb.
But nothing will keep me from dying of the malady of death
Unless I lay hold on joy, like a thing that one grasps with one hand and tears with the other,
Making no scrutiny or examination,
And put it in my mouth like an everlasting food, and like a fruit that one crushes between the teeth, so that the juice gushes down the throat!
Alas for me! There is a shadow upon me. And I know that there is something here invisible to my eyes.
For we have come to the end of things.
Man has worked and has not rested from labor; he has worked the livelong day from the morning until the evening, he has worked the whole of the night,
And seven days a week, and his work has taken form.
He pants and perhaps he wishes to rest. But his work is alive under him and it does not wish to stop. And he has become its slave, for he is snared by the feet
And trapped by the hands and no longer can he turn his eyes away.
And at last they loosen him that he may die on the ground,
And, drowned in night and utter wretchedness, alone and stretched in his dung, he gazes upward,
Like the drunkard sprawled in the gutter, staring with bleary eyes at the star of February in the pallid western sky.
And his eyes are like those of a little child and there is surprise in them.
So....
THE FIRST WATCHER: So what?
THE THIRD WATCHER: Let him alone, he is choking.
THE FIFTH WATCHER: I tell you that you are captives who cannot be delivered.
And the stone is sealed above you; it is sealed and firmly cemented and bound with iron bands.
We are shut in this secret place with a flickering lamp in our midst.
Shall I not be permitted to spit against the walls of my prison?
And after that I shall drop my head on my breast and my heart will break of sorrow.
_(Silence. The KING makes a sign to the PRINCESS._
THE PRINCESS: Father, what is it you wish?
_(He speaks to her.--She listens, her head bent._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: O when will the sun come again!
CÉBÈS: O when will the sun come again!
O the golden Marne,
Where the boatman half believes that he rows over hills and vineyards and houses whitewashed to the eaves, and gardens where the wash is hung out to dry!
Yet a few hours,
A few hours and the sun will thrust his splendor from out the Gloom!
O there were years before I had finished growing
When I went for a swim before the break of day, and as I climbed the muddy bank, pushing my way through the reeds,
I saw the Dawn brighten above the woods,
And like one who puts on his shirt, all naked as I was, I raised both arms towards the burning poppies of gold!
O when will the sun come again! Could I but see you once more, sun that makes bright the earth!
Yet I know that never again shall I watch you rise in the East.
THE PRINCESS (_to the KING_): Do not ask this thing of me! I could not do it.
THE KING: It is my will!
THE PRINCESS: Then your will shall be obeyed!
_(She goes out. Pause._
_(The _princess_ re-enters. She wears a red robe and a golden mantle that covers her from head to foot. On her head is a sort of mitre and a thick black braid is thrown across her shoulders. She comes forward, her eyes closed, moving rhythmically and very slowly, and stops at the edge of the lamplight. All look at her in silence and with great attention._
_Pause._
_One of the bystanders rises and, taking the lamp, he holds it close to the face of the PRINCESS and examines it. Then he replaces the lamp on the floor and returns to his place._
THE FIRST WATCHER (_breaking the silence_): Who is there?
THE SECOND WATCHER: Hush! Listen!
THE PRINCESS (_in a low voice, opening her eyes for an instant_): One with closed eyes who is about to awaken from a long sleep.
_(She closes her eyes again.--Silence._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: What did I say of the sun?
Here in this room there is another sun who gazes upon us in his splendor!
Who is this, clothed in such a garment, with hands hidden beneath a tissue of gold?
Who is this, of the height of a human being,
Who stands in a flowing robe between the lamp and the dark?
Turn towards us and hold your face before us!
Ahhh!
Our unworthiness is bodily present among us! There is not one of us who can escape it! Beautiful and blind,
Do not reopen your eyes! Let us feast on your loveliness
Now that you do not look at us.
THE PRINCESS (_sighing_): Nnn!
THE FIRST WATCHER (_half-aloud_): What does that mean?
THE SECOND WATCHER: Do you not understand?
_(Pantomime. The PRINCESS seems to be awakening from sleep, with slow gestures and eyes always closed._
Look!
THE PRINCESS (_sighing again_): No! ah!
_(She slowly shakes her head. Then remains motionless._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Will you awake?
THE PRINCESS (_very softly_): Ah!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Come, make an end, if those eyelids still are faithful to one another.
THE PRINCESS: Ah!
Must I leave you, lovely land?
THE FIRST WATCHER: What land?
THE PRINCESS: "I sleep" it is called.
I have fled from life, I am dancing in a dream,
My feet are set among strawberry blossoms and lilies of the valley.
I cannot move from my place.
A dull voice says, "Come!" A clear voice says, "Go!" But I cannot move from my place.
_(She opens her eyes._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Look and see! Alas, you have ceased to smile.
THE PRINCESS (_stretching out both arms and pointing to the bystanders_): Who are these?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Living men, and I am one also.
THE PRINCESS: And why do they stay here, seated on the floor?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: It is night, and there is no light while it endures.
THE PRINCESS: And what is that lamp?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: _Lampas est expectationis._
THE PRINCESS: And for what are they waiting?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: For Death, who is on the way, and the door is open for him.
THE PRINCESS: And what dwelling is this?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: It is the house of the King.
THE PRINCESS: And why have they placed the lamp upon the floor?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: I will tell you that. It is so that they can see it.
_(Short pause._
THE FIRST WATCHER: And who are you that question us?
_(Short pause._
THE PRINCESS: I do not know. Indeed I do not know who I am!
And you, do you not know? Oh, who among you will tell me?
THE THIRD WATCHER: _Gaudium nostrum es et dilectio, et jussimus te valere._
THE PRINCESS: Truly?
THE SECOND WATCHER: Have you come again, O woman?
Your absence has been long, but I have not forgotten, and often I dreamed of you.
THE PRINCESS: Then you have known me before?
THE SECOND WATCHER: Ask me no questions, for I am a surly man.
_(Pause._
THE PRINCESS (_looks pensively from one to another. They lower their eyes_): I see more clearly now. I see you all. Surely the darkness shall not hide you nor the light of the lamp.
It is I. What do you want of me?
You dreamed of me, you say? Well, I am here.
--Why do you keep your eyes lowered? Are you afraid to look at me?
THE THIRD WATCHER: There is nothing that we want,
O woman, and we do not ask you for anything.
THE PRINCESS (_looking at him_): So it is you. I know you now. (_She turns towards the_ FIRST WATCHER) And you! (_She turns towards the_ SECOND WATCHER) And you! (_She turns towards the_ THIRD WATCHER) And you! (_She turns towards the_ FOURTH WATCHER)
THE FOURTH WATCHER (_rising hurriedly_): Make way! Let me go!
THE PRINCESS (_stretching her hand towards him_): Stay!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: I understand only your beauty! It is all a play but why does she turn herself towards us
With the face of bygone things and of regret,
Alas! and things that were never to be? I remember the sweetness of love! Do not shame me before these men!
THE PRINCESS: Shame? And I myself, can I not be ashamed before them,
Like a wise and modest man who stands erect amidst drunkards?
Ah! Ah! I see and I know! Alas! I see! I see and I understand!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: We salute you, O beauty! We salute you, reproach!
O Notary of the dying, now you are drawing near us bearing your book and scroll.
THE PRINCESS: Truly, I pity you!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Be sad, for we are sad.
_(The nightingale sings again._
THE PRINCESS: I am not sad! The nightingale sings and I will also sing! Let him sing and I will sing also!
And my voice shall be uplifted like the piping of a flute,
Higher, louder, enfolding the city and the night.
I will sing and cast away all bounds and all restraint!
The bird sings in the summer and is silent in the winter, but I will sing in the chill and bitter air, and when all is frozen I will rise, drunk with ecstasy, towards the naked heavens!
For my voice is that of love and in my heart is the fire of youth.
_(She opens her mouth as if about to sing._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Be silent!
THE PRINCESS: You do not wish me to sing?
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Be silent!
THE PRINCESS: Then I will talk to you and will not sing....
Did you think I had gone away? In truth I was always with you.
And I will not tell you who I am, for you know it and do not forget.
Every woman is only a mother. I am she who rears and nourishes,
And entreating you for yourselves in the sacred name of pity,
Receive from you for her portion
A boundless labor hard to undertake! But because I do not speak with your speech you despise me.
And you did not think to see me; but at last I have shown myself!
THE THIRD WATCHER: Is it you?
THE PRINCESS (_after silently contemplating them_): O fools!
Fools! What shall I say? What shall I leave unsaid? Did you believe that you could hide from me? I penetrate to the bottom of your souls. Nothing is hidden in obscuring shadow.
And you will not always be able
To steal away from me like a thief of the night.
What have you done? How have you fled from me?
I could call to each of you
By his name and summon him to stand and face me, And one by one I could recount his acts,
Showing his deeds of folly and how he had sinned
Through his own fault and not the fault of another,
So that before me he would be like a man who gives himself up for lost.
O presumptuous fool! O vile and brazen companion! O horrible and ridiculous violence!
You have rebuffed me and have thrust me forth, but to-day I shall call you to account and you shall answer me!
I shall call you to account with a sharp and piercing voice, and it shall pass through your heart like a sword!
And I shall be harder and more bitter to you than a shrew to her husband!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: What could we do?
THE THIRD WATCHER: Shall we shriek before you like mandrakes? Shall we cause the moon to tremble with our cries, more dreadful than the shrieks of the murderer caught in the clutches of the law?
THE FIRST WATCHER: With what does she reproach us?
She is a woman. Have we not known
Women like her? And have we not found them nothing and less than nothing?
THE PRINCESS: And was I then so ugly,
So far from pleasing that no one of you would have looked with favor upon me, and followed after me, and taken me for his mistress?
What have you done for me? And yet what is there that I could not give you?
Sometimes the Muse descends to wander the ways of earth,
And profiting by the evening hour when the townspeople sit at supper,
Passes by, with laurel wreathing her brow; walks, barefoot, beside the flowing stream, singing immortal verses
All alone like a solitary stag.
And I, though I love that calm retreat,
Cannot always remain in the fountains and caves and deserted hollows among the oaks,
But I cry, at the cross-roads, and in the city streets,
In the bustling market-place and by the doors of the dance halls,
"Who will barter handfuls of blackberries for handfuls of heavy gold and give the flesh of his heart in exchange for a lasting love?"
_(She goes to each of the bystanders and, forcing him to raise his head and seizing it by the hair and the chin, she looks in his face, her eyes close to his. Then she resumes her former position in silence._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Save our souls for us if you have the power!
THE PRINCESS: From this time forth we are strangers!
Let the shadows and the lamp bear witness to our divorce!
Many a time in such dim shades, I have warned you earnestly. But you would give no heed.
Here in this murky light,
Now that your souls are numbered with those that are marked for death, I come to you once more
Not to repair the breach, but to proclaim it!
You invoke me at a moment when you are beyond all aid!
What have you made of me?
It is most fitting that you should taste of death!
But as for me, I suffer an iniquitous punishment and am a reproach to you
Unavailingly!
Alas that I should have met so much stubbornness and ignorance!
Alas, I could cry aloud in my grief and if you could not endure
To hear the cries of your wife in the agony of her travail, how could you bear to hear my grievances against you?
Oh! It is late! And I
Must go away alone like a widow harshly evicted from her home!
You will think of me with regret in the hour of your agony,
But I abandon you and leave this dwelling. And may the spiders weave their webs here!
_(Pause. She moves backwards till she is near the bed of Cébès and, bending her head towards him._
And you, sick man?
_(CÉBÈS raises his eyes, sees her, and begins to laugh._
THE PRINCESS: Why do you laugh?
CÉBÈS: That thing on your head is so queer!
I can't help laughing when I look at it!
THE PRINCESS: Look at me more closely.
Don't you think that I could cure you?
CÉBÈS: What shall I do to be cured, Most Beautiful?
THE PRINCESS: You must believe me and love me, Cébès.
CÉBÈS: I have given my troth to one and to one only, and I will die and will have no other love.
_(Silence._
What more have you to say?
THE PRINCESS (_making a movement_): Farewell!
CÉBÈS: Do not go! Stay with me!
THE PRINCESS: Take my hand. (_He takes it._) Listen to my last word.
CÉBÈS: I am listening.
THE PRINCESS: Farewell!
CÉBÈS: Not that! Not that cruel word! Do not go!
THE PRINCESS: Farewell!
The song draws to an end!
And the face of the singer, The Gatherer-of-Flowers,
Fades in the dusk of evening
Till only the eyes remain and the violet ghost of the mouth.
He who loves goes forth to greet The Bride,
And the door is opened by invisible hands.
Farewell, for I am going.
_(CÉBÈS half rises and, stretching out his hand towards her, passes it over her face. There is a tense silence._
THE PRINCESS (_rushing to the middle of the stage_): O my father,
You commanded me to show myself before you and I am here, a wretched girl decked out in these fantastic robes!
I have spoken, adding what was needful to phrases learned by heart. I suffer! I suffer! My soul is shaken in me!
And you, my father, is it thus I see you, gnawing your beard,
And fixing blood-shot eyes on the ground! Let me go, I beg of you!
The beautiful and illustrious lady who spoke just now is gone
And in her place there is only I myself, an every-day young girl, careful of her nails and her complexion.
Good-bye, father! Good-bye to you all!
For the sadness rises also in me and I must go,
Groping my way through gloomy corridors.
O father! O mother that I never knew!
Soon I shall lie full length on the ground with outspread hands,
Or, with a hidden spring of blood welling up between my breasts, I shall mock the maid who falls asleep in her chair.
--Off with you, heavy and importunate robes!
_(She goes out._
The King (_springing violently to his feet_): Go! It is well!
No imagined terror! Here is horror itself.
Look at me, me the old man!
By this hoary beard that I tear with both hands, I swear
That disaster incarnate
Stands before you and cries, _"Adsum!"_
You heard the sound of his rage like a battle beneath the horizon,
And now with nodding funereal plumes The Agony of Death strides terribly towards you, like a colossus, with copper cheeks, shaking the flimsy structures you have reared!
"I wandered in, the night with foam as thick as a camel's slaver, dripping from my jaws! I was an outcast! The hounds of hell were gnawing my heart!
Now in the day
I stride before the legions, mid blood and the crackle of fire, like a flaming windmill, brandishing a flail, clenching between my teeth a sword as big as an oar!"
THE FIFTH WATCHER: I defy you! I fear you not!
--Mangle me, cut me to bits and my severed head shall spring and bite!
Let the thunderbolt flay me and like Ajax voiding lightning and the water of the sea from mouth and nose,
A blinding mass, I shall vomit
Against heaven my malediction like a dart.
THE KING: Ruin! Destruction!
The forest flames! The rivers are choked with wreckage! The belfries full of clanging bells crash into chaos!
O my desolate fields!
O my strong men who strew the roads, like crushed beetles!
O the grocery and the bakery! O villages ill guarded by the Cock of the Cross, O towns devoured by the ravening grave-yard!
Past is the time of ploughing and reaping and peaceful sharing of daily bread!
And we ourselves like dead animals shall rot among weeds and nettles,
Or we shall be forced to take refuge in woods and caves and learn again the language of nymphs and ravens.
O race! O dynasty! Long have I lived! Long has the King been governor of this country.
Solitary, searching for Wisdom, fixing on Duty his arid eyes,
A helmsman made wise by steering in the uncharted sea, practised in deciphering the slow changes of the stars!
That I should cease to see and feel!
Oh, this life
Looks with two faces upon us:
Dawn, her cheeks anointed with honey and honeycomb,
And Care, with swarthy face like an old fisherman, taciturn, shedding tears of pitch!
That I should fall,
Striking the echoing pavement with the head
Of an anointed King!
THE SECOND WATCHER: Peace, peace, O King, and do not speak so loudly! Be still! If you cannot sleep, keep silence!
For this is the dreadful part of the night that was not meant for the eye of man,
And this is a task that was not intended for him. Nevertheless let him sleep his sleep;
For in its splendor the army of the heavens passes above the earth,
And is reflected in the puddles and the open wells in the market-gardens.
Wait patiently and listen to the cock crowing in the night,
And soon it will be the hour when the baker throws the dough on the kneading board with a dull thud, a sign that the dawn is near.
I think that the sun will rise and will strike with a ruddy light the wall overgrown with the ancient royal vine,
And the light and the breeze will enter through the windows vast and high!
I shall think only this and shall keep my eyes upraised. For they are made to see and if they close it is only to open again.
_(Prolonged silence.--The sound of cannon._
THE FIRST WATCHER: It is he! There is news!
_(The MESSENGER enters, out of breath._
THE FIRST WATCHER: Speak! Why do you open your mouth so wide? Why do you nod your head? If
It should be not haste but joy that makes you speechless, if
You only bring us tidings that are not of disaster,
Laugh only; do not keep that ominous air
Cassius!
THE MESSENGER: O
Triumph!
What glory! What human heart will be strong enough to bear
This!
And you, my brothers that I now behold again,
Listen to this resplendent news!
THE THIRD WATCHER: Speak! What? You say....
THE MESSENGER: ... That we have gained the victory? Yes.
THE THIRD WATCHER: That this Kingdom is saved? That we live once more? That this land
Is still intact with its people in its length and in its breadth?
I listen trembling! How,
How is it possible?
You do not say that we are victorious, we?
THE MESSENGER: Yes. That is what I said!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: My hair stands on end and my tears pour forth like the melting snow!
And I will utter such a cry
That one would think that a dead man had risen from his tomb, sending the stone flying!
What!
That armed horde that fell upon us terribly arrayed, those successive lines, those strong columns that, marching like one man, advanced across the valleys and the plains, that interminable line of cannon....
THE MESSENGER: I said that we had conquered.
Did you not understand? I said that we had won the battle.
THE FOURTH WATCHER: What is a single battle? The menace is always there.
THE MESSENGER: The enemy is retreating, struck with terror. Halted as though he had seen The Angel of Death!
THE THIRD WATCHER: Of course! He was here! He has shown himself in their path.
THE SECOND WATCHER: You say that the enemy is retreating?
THE MESSENGER: Retreating! Routed! Fleeing!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: You bring warmth into a frozen place and into a pitch black night a dazzling brightness.
Be patient with me! Repeat it yet again! Nourish my heart with that sustaining word!
THE MESSENGER: We have conquered! We have driven them before us! Our strength has prevailed!
THE FOURTH WATCHER: Triumph!
THE FIRST WATCHER: Do you say nothing, Sire?
THE KING: O my children!
I cannot speak,
For an hour better than I have deserved
Has come upon me,
On me, the incapable, useless governor of this country!
O Messenger, you have restored their taste to bread and wine.
Let the bells ring out till all the air resounds,
Let the round brazen throats beneath the bell-ringer's feet fill with our jubilation,
The circle of the earth and the height of heaven!
Let the singers of our triumph stand forth together,
And let their mouths exhaling
A song of benediction, eat of the sun till evening!
Wine! Wine! I wish to drink with you, O Messenger,
Even as two carters do who meet in a roadside inn!
_(Wine is brought._
O fortune, I drink to you with this trembling hand! Accept this toast!
O fortune, since you have given us this hour, conduct us where you will! (_He drinks._) Excellent glass of wine!
THE MESSENGER: I cannot
Put wine between my teeth till that excessive joy
Which buoyed me upon my horse as I galloped towards you
Has spoken.
I say that the kingdom has been saved by handfuls of gold and jewels!
He was not ashamed to beg, on the bridges, at the cross-roads,
Stretching out his princely hands,
Burying in the mud his armored knees....
THE THIRD WATCHER: We have seen him!
THE MESSENGER: ... Fixing before him his sparkling eyes, like an Andromeda with horse's mane, more proud than the god of the wind when at the water's edge
He kneels, stretching out his hands to the chains on the rocks of Occismor,
Till he was buried up to the thighs in alms!
For each man looked at him with astonishment, and struck with a vague shame, he gave in silence all that he had and placed it on the ground before him.
He had come, our king, unique in his beauty, adorned with marvellous deeds!
And, full of a secret sadness, we recalled his face, shy and terrible.
THE FIRST WATCHER: It is thus that....
THE MESSENGER: If anyone dared to speak to him, unaddressed, saying, "Who are you?"
He looked at him a moment, and answered, "I am what I seem to be. You are not mistaken."
"Oh!" one said to him, "Oh, war!
When shall we have peace?"
"You wish to live in peace?"
"Surely," he answered, "Yes, indeed."
"Coward, you cannot! Even now they come to rob you of your goods
And the man is at hand who will take you, caught by the scruff of the neck, and geld you like a domestic animal."
And the questioner said, "What can I do?"
"Fight!" he answered, "Resist!"
"And conquer also, perhaps?" "You can do it," he replied and he looked at him fixedly.
"O man insulted and outraged,
To-day you can wash away your shame and rise from your baseness and give the lie to the name they have bestowed upon you!"
These words were repeated and often he who heard them
Did not forget them, but, leaving his wife alone in her bed to weep,
He paced all night the floor of his room, pondering this question,
"If I try, why cannot I?"
Until a little phrase, full of a sense of strength,
Impinged upon his consciousness: "I can!"
THE FIRST WATCHER: It is astonishing! It is utterly astonishing! I did not believe what they told me.
THE MESSENGER: Then it was
That in the unhappy soul was born the fury of the captive!
Renouncing life and crying "Forward!", they flocked to where the bugle sounded the assembly.
Still not sure of themselves,
When, like a superintendent among his workmen, he walked among them, looking at them all, assuring himself
That everything was according to his command.
They turned to him their ranks of eyes of every kind and hue, and they were comforted again.
To a man they gladly left their families and their work.
There was on the slope a mighty growth of broom, tree of yellow flowers, dear to the bees.
He had it cut down and, having kissed it, he bade them bear it before him. Then he mounted his horse.
And the soldiers waiting their turn to set out,
Heard behind them the rustling of the flag, cock of the war, song of sails!
ALL: Come! Speak! Speak!
THE MESSENGER: But when they came to the field where they had to die or conquer,
They knew another flag.
THE FIRST WATCHER: What flag?
THE MESSENGER: What flag? Not a tatter of silk, not a woman's shirt that a child waves about on the end of a bean-pole!
But like some old gibbet that creaks beneath its burden of corpses, like a mast with its sinister yardarms,
The monstrous standard of our wretchedness, enormous, charged with chains!
They saw it while they set their feet on a soil enriched by the flesh
Of their fathers and mothers, like fallen leaves!
At first they kept their ranks, fighting shoulder to shoulder, and thus it was for some time.
But finally full of a rage like the lust for gold,
They rushed forward all together, raising discordant cries.
And then a sudden panic
Arose as if all at once, though it was day, the Night
Rearing up her giant head with its diadem of stars,
Confounded the sense with the blast of her prodigious horn.
They were astounded, those others, and they trembled, and suddenly the serried ranks of our foes,
Like colts stampeded by a clanking chain,
Turned tail and fled!
Thus did we raise that army, having gotten under it,
Thus did we tilt it backward like a cask,
Spilling a great tumult of men
On the earth and in the reedy beds of streams.
Think of it! That innumerable horde turned their backs, and ran before us! Zounds!
Oh who has seen such a massacre, the piles of wounded and dying
Gasping like a catch of fish in the bottom of a boat!
ALL: Triumph!
THE MESSENGER: Sharp cries resounded on the bleeding air, and the mad galloping of horsemen, and cannon whose flashes glared through the pall of smoke!
God!
We chased them with a shoe like rats!
Doddering gray beards with a gesture
Put to flight battalions, and children whose voices broke,
Catching him by the bridle, led away the horse and his rider.
This I saw.
I saw the captured flags brought in like fagots!
I remember soldiers, black-bearded, or with chins
Bristling with white hairs,
Who in the evening, while the soup was cooking,
Stood, their feet in the heather, like smiths worn out with toil,
Red like the arbute-berry in the ruddy gloaming,
Contemplating through the branches the scarlet sky from which comes life.
--As for him,
Those who stood by his stirrups, taking his orders,
Listening with parted lips to what he said, for the first time saw on his face,
Like that of a man who, in the midst of a crowd, mocks at an absurd misfortune,
The inconstant smile of a young girl!
ALL: Triumph! Triumph!
THE MESSENGER: Now let these eyes which have seen such a spectacle
Cover themselves with a film, and let this vase
That has contained such an image dash itself to pieces!
To think that I, I should have lived to see such a day!
Rejoice! Victory whinnying like a virgin mare
Rolls on the battlefield,
Lashing out with shining hooves, turning her trout's belly to the sky!
CÉBÈS: O messenger!
THE MESSENGER: Who calls me?
CÉBÈS: Is that all that Tête-d'or said to you? Won't he be coming soon?
THE MESSENGER: Are you he whom he calls Cébès?
CÉBÈS: Well?
THE MESSENGER: In that case, Tête-d'or gave me a message for you.
CÉBÈS: What? Did he think of me?
THE MESSENGER: He told me to say that he will soon be here. Listen, all of you!
These are his words, "Say that I shall be there.
I am coming, I myself."
CÉBÈS: He is coming?
THE MESSENGER: He is hard upon my heels.
_(Trumpet without._
THE FIRST WATCHER: Hark!
THE THIRD WATCHER: I hear the voice of the trumpet.
_(Pause. Noise of arms without._
THE FOURTH WATCHER: He is here.
_(TÊTE-D'OR enters._
THE KING (_advancing to meet him_): You have preserved this kingdom,
The men that work, the women that bear children, and the fields that yield food.
You have given a second birth to everything.
Young man, I greet you with the name of Father.
May blessings gather on your beloved head.
Enter, conquering hero,
Welcome to this hearth and to this shadowy hall almost bereft of light,
And first I salute you as is fitting.
_(He hows before him._
_(All come and one after the other bow before him._
Hail!
TÊTE-D'OR: I thank you, Sire.
I thank you all. Who am I? What have I done?
That which must be already exists. From whom is this knowledge hidden?
(_To_ CÉBÈS) And you, will you not give me a word of welcome, thus happily returned?
CÉBÈS: O Tête-d'or!
TÊTE-D'OR: Find an excuse! Pretend that you still are sick!
CÉBÈS: Stay here with me. I want to talk to you.
TÊTE-D'OR: He wants to talk to me.
THE KING: Do you wish us to withdraw?
TÊTE-D'OR: Do this for me.
Do this for me, my friends! I ask your pardon.
You shall hear what I have to say to you presently.
_(They all go out._
TÊTE-D'OR: Well, Cébès, here I am! The same as ever!
I come again, having conquered!
CÉBÈS: By these victorious hands, dear friend!
TÊTE-D'OR: Give me a brotherly welcome.
_(They embrace._
CÉBÈS: O man with the power to conquer!
TÊTE-D'OR: I bayed at their heels! I made them rise from the dung in which they sat.
Then I saw that what I wished for was.
CÉBÈS: But how?
TÊTE-D'OR: I am telling you! I was more firm on my horse than on a rock.
--But I wanted to talk with you and there you are still in your bed.
CÉBÈS: Do not pity me.
TÊTE-D'OR: Are you feeling better?
CÉBÈS: Because I am not worth your trouble, hero!
TÊTE-D'OR: You do not render me a true account.
Am I not your tutor? Do you think that all I have done can go for naught? Was it in vain, that adoption that bound us so close together on that night of sorrow?
And are you not mine?
_(Silence._
Eh?
CÉBÈS: Well?
TÊTE-D'OR: What?
CÉBÈS: Nothing.
TÊTE-D'OR: You twist the chain of my sword but do not speak.
CÉBÈS: Tête-d'or....
TÊTE-D'OR: Well?
_(Silence._
CÉBÈS: Did you bring back your army with you?
TÊTE-D'OR: Yes, it is close behind me.
CÉBÈS: You have gained the victory! You knew how to command all these men according to their corps and their battalion, and they obeyed you!
TÊTE-D'OR: Yes, for I saw and knew.
CÉBÈS: What?
TÊTE-D'OR: My opportunity and how to seize it.
The eyes and the brain cry at the selfsame instant:
"This thing must be!" I take that which is due me.
CÉBÈS: And I, I do not see and do not know!
What could I have done?
Yet I am wise though in one thing only.
TÊTE-D'OR: Which is?
CÉBÈS: Will it bore you if I tell you everything? Or shall I speak freely
As to the man in whom
I have put my trust?
TÊTE-D'OR: In what thing?
CÉBÈS (_very low_): To give
Myself.
But to give myself to whom? Not
To one as weak as I am.
Nothing imperfect can satisfy me for I do not satisfy myself.
So I seek a man who is perfectly just and true,
That he may be perfectly good and I may love him.
I am only a child, Tête-d'or, but I tell you I have within me
A thing older than I,
And it has its own secret source and seeks its own end, in spite of my sodden intellect and unsure senses, and it makes my life bitter.
But I open my eyes and see the sun as it rises and sets,
And nature, and I find no happiness there. And I see other men and they are like myself.
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Tête-d'Or: A play in three actsChapter II: Act II: A hall in the KING'S palace, with high windows at the hack (1)
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