Chapter VI: Act III (2)

And we, insensible and stupid,

We have let him slip from our hands like flashing gold that falls and sinks in the stream!

--O days sublime!

_(They all go out at the back, except one of the captains who goes in another direction._

_(Silence. Then rolling of funeral drums below._

THE PRINCESS: No! No!

I do not wish to re-open my eyes!

Ah! ah! I suffer! Ho! ho!

I am alive--

Rending pain pierces me!

I am still alive!

_(She opens her eyes and tries to walk and lower her arms._

Ah!

--O

God!--

O hands! O, O arms! I am fastened here by the hands!

And racked, I fell into a dream, unhappy girl that I am!

I see again! The troubled day brings the arduous end of life.

How long must I remain here? The day draws to its end.

--Who is there? What man is that?

Ah! It is he! Yes,

He of whom they spoke when the violence

Of the pain made me swoon towards death.--Dead!

O Tête-d'or!

You are dead before me and soon I shall follow you.

_(The KING stirs and sighs._

He is not dead.

THE KING: Ah!

THE PRINCESS: His soul returns to him. He has been wounded in some combat. He is covered with blood.

But why have they left him thus dishevelled and uncleansed?

THE KING: Ah!

THE PRINCESS: I will not speak. Thus do we die together!

(_She sobs._) But truly this pain is unbearable!

My God!

My bones! My arms! Ah! ah!

_(She utters a sharp cry._

THE KING: What cry is that? Who is there?

THE PRINCESS: He heard me. What have I done?

THE KING: Someone uttered a cry. Is there anyone here?

_(Silence._

THE PRINCESS (_in a very low voice_): It is I.

THE KING: Is there anyone here? I seem to hear a voice that says, "It is I."

THE PRINCESS (_more loudly_): It is I.

THE KING: Who are you?

THE PRINCESS: I am the one to whom you gave your bread

This morning, and your mantle also.

THE KING: This morning? So now you speak? You speak my language?

Yet that cry that I heard ... I know that voice.

THE PRINCESS: The Queen.

_(Silence._

THE KING: You are not that till I am dead.

Are you glad to see me?

THE PRINCESS: Yes, I am content.

THE KING: What did you say? Draw nearer. I have robbed you of everything. Come and avenge yourself upon my body with the malice only known by women who hate. (_He laughs._)

THE PRINCESS: Are you wounded

Mortally?

THE KING: Yes.

THE PRINCESS: I cannot come to you.

THE KING: Why not?

THE PRINCESS: I am fastened by the hands.

THE KING: What did you say?

THE PRINCESS: When you usurped my father's place

And had me driven away,

I became a wanderer,

And no one wished to take me in for they were afraid of you.

And at last I found a refuge in the mountains, among the trees and shrubs,

And savage animals, far from the eyes of men.

And this morning after you had given me your bread....

--And so you did not recognise me?

THE KING: No.

THE PRINCESS: Am I so changed? I know that my beauty is gone.

--... A man threw himself upon me and took it from me,

--And that did not satisfy his evil soul. But he has, ah! ah!

THE KING: Well?

THE PRINCESS: ... By the hands, ah!

THE KING: Well?

THE PRINCESS: He has nailed me to a tree.

I have been here many hours.

Why I die, I do not know.

But as for you, I have called to you

To tell you that you die justly,

Because I ought to be the Queen and you ought not to be the King.

And to-day we are both dying in the same place.

THE KING: You are nailed by the hands!

THE PRINCESS: Yes. What is that to you?

I am weak. I shall be the first to die.

THE KING: How is it you have not been seen?

THE PRINCESS: I am fastened to a pine

Whose branches make a roof that descends to the ground in front of me.

THE KING: Where is this tree?

THE PRINCESS: I am just behind you.

THE KING: Now

When it is more difficult to stir one foot than the whole mass of an empire

I must rise

From the lazy bed of death.

_(He struggles to his feet and walks toward her, reeling._

THE PRINCESS: What are you doing?

THE KING: This way?

THE PRINCESS: Leave me! What are you doing?

Why do you come?

THE KING: Is it you that I hold? I can no longer see distinctly. Let me

Lean upon you till I can get my breath. I can do no more!

I need your help to keep myself on my feet.

_(Pause._

Where are your hands?

THE PRINCESS: What can you do?

THE KING: Where are your hands? I tell you that now I cannot see distinctly.

Quickly, before I fall.

I feel your hair. Your arms are here.

I cannot raise my arms. My hands are dead

Like those of a man who has stayed too long in cold water.

But there is still strength in my head. My teeth shall serve for pincers.

_(He pulls the nail out of the left hand._

One hand--the other.

_(He pulls out the other nail._

Ah!

_(He reels violently._

THE PRINCESS: You are falling! Take care!

THE KING: I plunge my thighs in the void! Death shakes me violently!

I am falling! I am falling!

Do not forget that I have drawn out the nails from your hands.

_(He falls before her._

_(The PRINCESS sways and falls to her knees and remains crouching beside him._

THE PRINCESS: It is not just that he should die stretched on the ground here. I must carry him back.

_(She tries to raise him._

How heavy he is! I cannot do it! And yet it must be done!

With these maimed hands, these arms that are weaker than tendrils of ivy, this body that cannot even support its own weight.

_(She carries him with difficulty to the funeral bier where she replaces him._

I have done it! I have rivalled the black ant that drags a burden greater than itself.

_(She puts her ear to the breast of the KING._

But who would have believed

That he could still be alive! I hear the beating of his heart.

Here I will wait until it is silent

Or until mine has stopped.

--No. He awakes.

THE KING (_he looks at her with friendly eyes_): Behold the courage of the wounded, the strength that sustains the weak,

The fellowship of the dying. She could carry me here with these bleeding and dislocated hands.

Through this same meek courage with which you have dragged me here, through this naive endurance,

The woman in her sphere is the image of an inspired resignation, teaching good will to men,

As formerly, servant of the house, she became servant of God.

And it is you

Who join me once more in this place where I must perish!

Do not be ashamed because you see me naked.

It is needful at times that the woman, wife or nurse,

Should contemplate man in his virility.

Consider it! I was man! And through me the strength of the man has satisfied his will,

And suddenly I have been broken! I have been thrown, like carrion, under the shadow of a tree!

Those others, I did not wish to have them see me die. But we cannot hide ourselves

From the eyes of the woman who bears us children. Stay, if this pleases you,

My enemy! What do you say? Do you think that our obstinate souls

Do not wish to keep their grievance?

Mine still preserves a savor of ancient rancour against you,

For you come of a race of enemies.--And yet

I thank you.

THE PRINCESS: I do not wish

To have you thank me.

THE KING (_scrutinising her_): Your face is beautiful and in itself sets forth your sovereignty.

--You hate me with reason. For it seems

That we must hate those who have done us wrong.

And you

Have much to lay at my door. Avenge yourself

On these pitiable remains!

But I beg you to do one of two things,

Either kill me, if such is your will, upon the instant,

Or let me die and do not trouble me with your importunate cries.

It is the moment in which I would meditate alone.

THE PRINCESS: I do not hate you.

THE KING: I am glad. Farewell, young girl.

_(He smiles at her._

_(Pause._

THE PRINCESS: O Tête-d'or!

I do not regret that you killed my father!

How happy I am! It is you

Who took my royal throne, and it is through your doing

That I have walked the roads with weary feet, in shame and poverty, despised, insulted, denied, and that I have come to this place and that I die!

And I could wish that it had been you

Who nailed me to that tree,

And I would have closed my eyes to feel the better,

And loving you I would have died in silence.

My very dear! O my most precious one!

You see, this injury that you did me was not in vain.

I die indeed like you! This last, this lingering suffering has frozen me to death.

O let me be like the gathered flower that smells the sweeter, and like the new-mown grass!

O I am happy to think that there is not one of my many sufferings but had its source in you,

And that now I can breathe them back to you, like a perfume, O my master!

THE KING: O Pity with hands transpierced!

Sweet as the last of the sun!

Happy is he who can take this rapture in his arms and kiss it on the softness of its cheek!

I am overjoyed to see you, Benediction!

As the supreme sun

Dyes golden the saliva on the lips and the tears in the eyes and the dew in its rose-leaf cradle,

And makes a multitude happy in the mist....

I do not see clearly! Listen to what I have to say to you.

Death presses me!

THE PRINCESS: Do not die yet, I beg of you!

THE KING: Death is nothing; but here, here is the final throe!

On what a breast do you lay your head, Compassion!

The vintage is wholly trodden, and from my wounds there oozes only water.

I did not wish to weep, but to arise and walk.

But man goes only forward and he must halt at last.

And from his eyes gush forth the waters

Of that sea whose tide is the same for every breast.

It has been given to you to charm all hearts, august shoot of the cedar!

THE PRINCESS: I give you all that I have.

THE KING: And I also was not destitute of glory.

Ha! ha!

THE PRINCESS: Do not laugh thus with that contorted mouth!

THE KING: Shadows! Shadows!

Call back the army that I may solemnly address them,

Call back the army that I may explain to them everything, having woefully arisen.

Shadows on every man!

Wretched men, most wretched among you all is the person of the King that lies here.

O earth, receive my body! O death, accept my mysterious soul!

THE PRINCESS: O Tête-d'or, do not die so desolate!

THE KING: Ah! Ah!

THE PRINCESS: Listen, my brother!

THE KING: Ah!

THE PRINCESS (_putting her hand on his head_): Hush! Hush!

--You were able

To resurrect the ruin of your body,

And, in despite of death,

Incarnate suffering, to make your way to me, emerging from the tomb like a man that had been flayed!

O sight to wring the heart,

That, royal both, we should encounter thus!

You, robed in blood, and I,

A tortured thing, transfixed against a tree,

Sunk in a stupor, blind, like a wretched caterpillar!

You have delivered me!

And I,

I shall not permit you to die in such despair.

No, do not think that you can do it!

She will not abandon you, she whom you have delivered,

Pressing your mouth against the palms of her bleeding hands!

Behold you have delivered one who is stronger than yourself!

THE KING: No, woman! You cannot

Take this life in your hair.

Live! Be queen! All that I have I leave to you.

Mortal man,

As a traveller benighted in bitter cold takes refuge in the entrails of his horse,

Comforts himself with his woman, seizing her by the breast.

But as for me, I do not desire you.

Let me die alone!

Once more

Like a flame there rolls

In my breast the great desire.

Ah!

The child of my mother

Has been enmeshed in a whirling fury, as his face is enmeshed by the soft and terrestrial flame of his hair;

But now I, a better mother, I myself like a rigid son, shall give birth to a hairy soul!

I hope! I hope! I aspire.

You cannot undo this tough soul with your woman's nails.

Again it fills its iron harness.

--Ah! I see again! Ah! ah!

_(The sun near its setting fills all the scene with an immense redness._

O sun! You, my

Only love! O gulf and fire! O abyss! O blood!

O blood! O

Door! Gold! Gold! Absorb me, anger!

THE PRINCESS: How his thirst upraises him.

THE KING: I see.

--An odor of violets excites my soul to undo it.

THE PRINCESS: Tête-d'or, think of me!

THE KING: O Father,

Come! O Smile, recline upon me.

As the folk of the vintage before the vats

Go out from the house of the wine-press by all the doors like a torrent,

My blood by all these wounds goes out to meet you in triumph.

I die. Who shall relate

That dying, arms outstretched, I held the sun on my breast like a wheel?

O Prince, clothed with glory,

Breast against breast you mingle yourself in my terrestrial blood! Drink the slave!

O lion, you overwhelm me! O eagle, you grasp me in your talons!

THE PRINCESS: He is dead.

O body, you repose in incorruptible gold.

_(Silence._

I remember everything, the winter, the days of feasting,

The people I knew, the times of rejoicing and of mourning, the changes of the weather, the countries I have seen,

And my robes that were kept in the cypress chest.

O Prince! O Master! King of men!

_(Pause._

_(Steps. Voices behind the scenes._

_(Enter the COMMANDER OF THE SECOND ARMY with other officers._

THE COMMANDER: Here?

THE CAPTAIN: Here, on this rock in the middle.

THE COMMANDER: I do not dare to advance. Monarchy reposes in these shadows.

THE CAPTAIN: He is there.

THE COMMANDER (_perceiving the_ PRINCESS): But who is that? Whom have you left beside him?

THE CAPTAIN: No one.

THE COMMANDER: No one? Yet yonder are hands and the semblance of a face. Look.

AN OFFICER: Yes. There is someone there beside the bier.

THE CAPTAIN: It is most astonishing. I saw them all depart before I set out myself to meet you.

THE COMMANDER: Hola! Is there someone living in the shade of the trees and the night?

THE OFFICER: No answer.

THE COMMANDER: Let us advance.

_(Together they approach._

FIRST OFFICER: A young girl.

SECOND OFFICER: And fainting or dead.

THE COMMANDER: Care for her. Find if she lives!...

And I for him

Lying here with a face so pale....

_(He puts his hand, on the breast of the KING._

THE PRINCESS: Ah!

FIRST OFFICER: Does she live?

SECOND OFFICER: Yes. She is coming to herself.

THE COMMANDER: Both live.

FIRST OFFICER: What did you say?

THE COMMANDER: A glimmer of life like the fire in a dying coal. The four limbs are dead; but still the heart stirs beneath the touch of the fingers.

And see!

SECOND OFFICER: Yes; his lips are moving.

FIRST OFFICER: Speak to him. Perhaps he will hear. And if he hears he may contrive to speak.

THE COMMANDER: O King! I am the head of the second army.

Have you anything to say to me?

THE KING: Let her ... let her....

THE COMMANDER: Did you hear?

THE KING: Let her be....

THE COMMANDER: Let her be ...?

FIRST OFFICER: What? Speak.

THE KING: Qu....

_(He dies._

THE COMMANDER: Peace to his soul!

THE SECOND OFFICER: He said "Queen," I heard him.

THE COMMANDER: Let her be Queen?

ANOTHER OFFICER (_who supports the_ PRINCESS): Ah! A thing horrible and very strange!

See!

ANOTHER: Her hands bleed.

ANOTHER: Pierced through and through!

THE COMMANDER: Who can she be? Let her be Queen? Who? Have any of you seen this wild, creature before?

FIRST OFFICER: No.

SOMEONE: I know

That face,

That face in so far as I can see

In the obscurity of the twilight.

THE COMMANDER: Who is she?

_(The PRINCESS regains consciousness._

THE MAN (_staring at her_): I know it....

No longer.

THE PRINCESS: What men are you? Let me go!

_(She frees herself and falls._

SOMEONE: She speaks our language.

THE COMMANDER: Lift her with all respect.

_(They support her in their arms._

Young girl, can you hear me?

THE PRINCESS: Yes.

THE COMMANDER: Who are you?

THE PRINCESS: Why should I hide it? Your former King who was killed by that man there....

THE COMMANDER: Are you his daughter?

THE PRINCESS: I am.

THE COMMANDER: Tête-d'or

Commands that you be Queen.

THE PRINCESS: He said this to you?

THE COMMANDER: Yes, with his last breath.

THE PRINCESS: Then let it be according to his wish.

THE COMMANDER: What he wished, we also wish.

THE PRINCESS: Make haste! Clothe me again in the garments of a queen.

THE COMMANDER: What did you say?

THE PRINCESS: The coronation costume. Put it on me.

The crown and the sceptre.

THE COMMANDER: Go search for it, one of you. The royal treasures are packed among our stores.

_(An Officer goes out._

THE COMMANDER (_to the_ PRINCESS): I am astonished to see you.

THE PRINCESS: After I had left your country

I was pursued

Thus far. And here I lived.

But have you never seen me

Before?

THE COMMANDER: Never.

THE PRINCESS: You will be faithful to me?

THE COMMANDER: Yes, Queen.

THE PRINCESS: All is well.

_(Enter many men hearing various parts of the coronation costume._

THE PRINCESS: These are the things I asked for?

THE COMMANDER: Yes.

THE PRINCESS: You must serve as my maids, soldiers.

My strength is gone.

THE COMMANDER (_to another_): You, support her beneath the other arm.

_(They present to her one by one the parts of the coronation costume._

FIRST OFFICER: The long chemise, the Alb.

_(They put them on her._

THE PRINCESS: I saw him....

THE COMMANDER: It is true. At the last moment of his life.

THE PRINCESS: One desire lived in him

Still. Certainly a desire still burned in his breast.

--The robe.

SECOND OFFICER: Here it is.

THE PRINCESS: Hide me under the costume of the Queen.

_(They put the robe on her._

THE PRINCESS: The sleeves. Gently, gently, my friends! Ah!

Have patience. My arms are somewhat rusty.

THE COMMANDER: O Queen, let me take your foot.

_(They remove the hide boot and put a sandal in its place._

THIRD OFFICER: This that you remove is the shoe of the exile.

THE COMMANDER: And they place upon your foot the imperial sandal with fastenings of gold.

_(They do the same for the other foot._

THE PRINCESS: What is there still to do? Throw the mantle over my shoulders. Quick, I am in haste! Fasten this clasp!

And you, place the crown on my head, O paranymph!

THE COMMANDER: Be Queen!

_(He places the crown on her head._

THE PRINCESS: The sceptre. (_They present it to her._) How shall I hold it? (_To the_ COMMANDER.) See this hand!

_(She turns it painfully from side to side._

THE COMMANDER: It bleeds!

THE PRINCESS: Poor hand!

_(She looks at it with a kind of smile._

I have been nailed....

THE COMMANDER: Nailed!

THE PRINCESS: Know that I have been nailed by the hands.

What are they good for? Nailed like a bird of the night.

Like the tree that is crucified that it may fructify.

THE COMMANDER: You have suffered a great outrage.

THE PRINCESS: I cannot hold the golden sceptre and yet I must. Help me.

Clench my fist with your hand that I may hold it erect.

_(She grasps the sceptre._

THE COMMANDER: Hail to you, Queen!

ALL: Hail!

THE PRINCESS: Indeed there still is dimly visible

Through thickening veils of murky air

The procurator of royalty,

The ruler of men, the bell-wether of the tribe.

I, woman, covered with this sumptuous apparel!

Nothing is lacking. The crown is on my head,

And the pompous train of the mantle sweeps the earth at my feet.

THE COMMANDER: Queen....

THE PRINCESS: Dust and ashes!

Why was I born what I am? It is only I.

I am the sovereign of a season that is ending.

Who calls me queen, unless it be the queen of things that exist no more,

Or of the leaves in the instant that they swim in the dusty air?

Already the mist submerges the valleys and, through the fog,

The Moon shines forth, like a beckoning finger with sharply pointed nail.

Lead me....

THE COMMANDER: Where?

THE PRINCESS: To your testator, there.

_(She approaches the body of the KING._

O dead body, do not refuse this present that I bring you.

It is to you that I speak, body!

That austere spirit

Who inhabited you is now as far removed

From you as from me.

--Oh, that I had been dowered with that soul! Here, all ungrateful more vainly than the urn of Aquarius empties itself....

--But you!

This is ineffable.

It is to you that I make this last offering, belovèd dead.

--Help me to lower myself.

_(She painfully sinks to her knees and kisses him on the lips, then rises._

You tremble, my heart?

I was born that I might live. And I die that I may....

_(She dies._

FIRST OFFICER: The Queen is dead.

SECOND OFFICER: How her head suddenly drooped beneath the crown!

THE COMMANDER: O Queen! O Empress still warm!

THIRD OFFICER: Her golden shoes have made

Only a rustling in the bed of leaves.

_(Pause. The COMMANDER gently and respectfully lays the body of the Queen on the ground._

THE COMMANDER: Three dead Kings! Events most strange!

The laws of custom broken, human weakness surmounted, the obstacle of circumstances

Dissipated. And our effort, reaching a vain conclusion,

Undoes itself like a fold.

Place the queen on a shield, clad in her royal robes. We will bear her with us.

We must descend. The West, behind the shaggy boughs of sombre pines,

Grows pale, and Memnon cries in the mist!

Thus a hundred times before us

Hyperion will disappear in the clouds

Before our rear-most legion will see its flaming buckler sink in the blackness of the sea.

_(They raise the body._

Exalt these shining feet which thus adorned to tread the earth no more shall retraverse

The people.

As for us, we understand how not to be afraid!

And if attacked we will show

Gums that are formidable yet.

_(Retreat, scarcely perceptible in the distance._

Come! Those who go before us already are far away.

Forward! Home! To the West!

_(They all go out._

FINIS.