THE PLAYER QUEEN

SCENE I.

An open space at the meeting of three streets. One can see for some way down one of these streets and at some little distance it turns, showing a bare piece of wall lighted by a hanging lamp. Against this lighted wall are silhouetted the heads and shoulders of two old men. They are leaning from the upper windows, one on either side of the street. They wear grotesque masks. A little to one side of the stage is a great stone for mounting a horse from. The houses have knockers.

FIRST OLD MAN. Can you see the Queen’s castle? You have better sight than I.

SECOND OLD MAN. I can just see it rising over the tops of the houses yonder on its great rocky hill.

FIRST OLD MAN. IS the dawn breaking?

Is it touching the tower?

SECOND OLD MAN. It is beginning to break upon the tower, but these narrow streets will be dark for a long while. [A pause.] Do you hear anything? You have better hearing than I.

FIRST OLD MAN. No, all is quiet.

SECOND OLD MAN. At least fifty passed by an hour since, a crowd of fifty men walking rapidly.

FIRST OLD MAN. Last night was very quiet, not a sound, not a breath.

SECOND OLD MAN. And not a thing to be seen till the tapster’s old dog came down the street upon this very hour from Cooper Malachi’s ash-pit.

FIRST OLD MAN. Hush, I hear feet, many feet. Perhaps they are coming this way.

[Pause.] No, they are going the other way, they are gone now.

SECOND OLD MAN. The young are at some mischief, — the young and the middle-aged.

FIRST OLD MAN. Why can’t they stay in their beds, and they can sleep too — seven hours, eight hours. I mind the time when I could sleep ten hours. They will know the value of sleep when they are near upon ninety years.

SECOND OLD MAN. They will never live so long. They have not the health and strength that we had. They wear themselves out. They are always in a passion about something or other.

FIRST OLD MAN. Hush! I hear a step now, and it is coming this way. We had best pull in our heads. The world has grown very wicked and there is no knowing what they might do to us or say to us.

SECOND OLD MAN. Yes, better shut the windows and pretend to be asleep.

[They pull in their heads. One hears a knocker being struck in the distance, then a pause and a knocker is struck close at hand. Another pause and SEPTIMUS, a handsome man of thirty-five, staggers on to the stage. He is very drunk.

SEPTIMUS. An uncharitable place, an unChristian place. [He begins banging at a knocker.] Open there, open there. I want to come in and sleep.

[A THIRD OLD MAN puts his head from an upper window.

THIRD OLD MAN. Who are you? What do you want?

SEPTIMUS. I am Septimus. I have a bad wife. I want to come in and sleep.

THIRD OLD MAN. YOU are drunk.

SEPTIMUS. Drunk I So would you be if you had as bad a wife.

THIRD OLD MAN. GO away.

[He shuts the window.

SEPTIMUS. Is there not one Christian in this town. [He begins hammering the knocker of the FIRST OLD MAN, but there is no answer.] No one there? All dead or drunk maybe — bad wives. There must be one Christian man.

[He hammers a knocker at the other side of the stage. An OLD WOMAN puts her head out of the window above.

OLD WOMAN [in a shrill voice]. Who’s there? What do you want? Has something happened?

SEPTIMUS. Yes, that’s it. Something has happened. My wife has hid herself, has run away, or has drowned herself.

OLD WOMAN. What do I care about your wife! You are drunk.

SEPTIMUS. Not care about my wife! But I tell you that my wife has to play by order of the Prime Minister before all the people in the great hall of the Castle precisely at noon and she cannot be found.

OLD WOMAN. Go away, go away! I tell you, go away. — [She shuts the window, SEPTIMUS. Treat Septimus, who has played before Kubla Khan, like this. Septimus, dramatist and poet! [The OLD WOMAN opens the window again and empties a jug of water over him.] Water! drenched to the skin — must sleep in the street. [Lies down.] Bad wife — others have had bad wives, but others were not left to lie down in the open street under the stars, drenched with cold water, a whole jug of cold water, shivering in the pale light of the dawn, to be run over, to be trampled upon, to be eaten by dogs, and all because their wives have hidden themselves.

Enter TWO MEN a little older than SEPTIMUS.

They stand still and gaze into the sky.

FIRST MAN. Ah, my friend, the little fairhaired one is a minx.

SECOND MAN. Never trust fair hair — I will have nothing but brown hair.

FIRST MAN. They have kept us too long — brown or fair.

SECOND MAN. What are you staring at?

FIRST MAN. At the first streak of the dawn on the Castle tower.

SECOND MAN. I would not have my wife find out for the world.

SEPTIMUS [sitting up]. Carry me, support me, drag me, roll me, pull me, or sidle me along, but bring me where I may sleep in comfort. Bring me to a stable — my Saviour was content with a stable.

FIRST MAN. Who are you? I don’t know your face.

SEPTIMUS. I am Septimus, a player, a playwright and the most famous poet in the world.

SECOND MAN. That name, sir, is unknown to me.

SEPTIMUS. Unknown?

SECOND MAN. But my name will not be unknown to you. I am called Peter of the Purple Pelican, after the best known of my poems, and my friend is called Happy Tom. He also is a poet.

SEPTIMUS. Bad, popular poets.

SECOND MAN. You would be a popular poet if you could.

SEPTIMUS. Bad, popular poets.

FIRST MAN. Lie where you are if you can’t be civil.

SEPTIMUS. What do I care for any one now except Venus and Adonis and the other planets of heaven?

SECOND MAN. You can enjoy their company by yourself. [The TWO MEN go out.

SEPTIMUS. Robbed, so to speak; naked, so to speak — bleeding, so to speak — and they pass by on the other side of the street.

[A crowd of CITIZENS and COUNTRYMEN enter. At first only a few, and then more and more till the stage is filled by an excited crowd.

FIRST CITIZEN. There is a man lying here.

SECOND CITIZEN. Roll him over.

FIRST CITIZEN. He is one of those players who are housed at the Castle. They arrived yesterday.

SECOND CITIZEN. Drunk, I suppose. He’ll be killed or maimed by the first milk-cart.

THIRD CITIZEN. Better roll him into the corner. If we are in for a bloody day’s business, there is no need for him to be killed — an unnecessary death might bring a curse upon us.

FIRST CITIZEN. Give me a hand here.

[They begin rolling SEPTIMUS.

SEPTIMUS [muttering]. Not allowed to sleep! Rolled off the street! Shoved into a stony place! Unchristian town!

[He is left lying at the foot of the wall to one side of the stage.

THIRD CITIZEN. Are we all friends here, are we all agreed?

FIRST CITIZEN. These men are from the country. They came in last night. They know little of the business. They won’t be against the people, but they want to know more.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. Yes, that is it. We are with the people, but we want to know more.

SECOND COUNTRYMAN. We want to know all, but we are with the people.

[Other voices take up the words, ‘We want to know all, but we are with the people,’ etc. There is a murmur of voices together.

THIRD CITIZEN. Have you ever seen the Queen, countryman?

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. NO.

THIRD CITIZEN. Our Queen is a witch, a bad evil-living witch, and we will have her no longer for Queen.

THIRD COUNTRYMAN. I would be slow to believe her father’s daughter a witch.

THIRD CITIZEN. Have you ever seen the Queen, countryman?

THIRD COUNTRYMAN. No.

THIRD CITIZEN. Nor has any one else. Not a man here has set eyes on her. For seven years she has been shut up in that great black house on the great rocky hill. From the day her father died she has been there with the doors shut on her, but we know now why she has hidden herself. She has no good companions in the dark night.

THIRD COUNTRYMAN. In my district they say that she is a holy woman and prays for us all.

THIRD CITIZEN. That story has been spread about by the Prime Minister. He has spies everywhere spreading stories. He is a crafty man.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. It is true, they always deceive us country people. We are not educated like the people of the town.

A BIG COUNTRYMAN. The Bible says, Suffer not a witch to live. Last Candlemas twelvemonth I strangled a witch with my own hands.

THIRD CITIZEN. When she is dead we will make the Prime Minister King.

SECOND CITIZEN. NO, no, he is not a king’s son.

SECOND COUNTRYMAN. I’d send a bellman through the world. There are many kings in Arabia, they say.

THIRD COUNTRYMAN. The people must be talking. If you and I were to hide ourselves, or to be someway hard to understand, maybe they would put some bad name on us. I am not against the people, but I want testimony.

THIRD CITIZEN. Come, Tapster, stand up there on the stone and tell what you know.

[The TAPSTER climbs up on the mounting-stone.

TAPSTER. I live in the quarter where her Castle is. The garden of my house and the gardens of all the houses in my row run right” p to the rocky hill that has her Castle on the top. There is a lad in my quarter that has a goat in his garden.

FIRST CITIZEN. That’s strolling Michael — I know him.

TAPSTER. That goat is always going astray.  Strolling Michael got out of his bed early one morning to go snaring birds, and nowhere could he see that goat. So he began climbing up the rock, and up and up he went, till he was close under the wall, and there he found the goat and it shaking and sweating as though something had scared it. Presently he heard a thing neigh like a horse, and after that a something like a white horse ran by, but it was no horse, but a unicorn. He had his pistol, for he had thought to bring down a rabbit, and seeing it rushing at him as he imagined, he fired at the unicorn. It vanished all in a moment, but there was blood on a great stone.

THIRD CITIZEN. Seeing what company she keeps in the small hours, what wonder that she never sets foot out of doors.

THIRD COUNTRYMAN. I wouldn’t believe all that night rambler says — boys are liars. All that we have against her for certain is that she won’t put her foot out of doors. I knew a man once that when he was five and twenty refused to get out of his bed. He wasn’t ill — no, not he, but he said life was a vale of tears, and for forty and four years till they carried him out to the churchyard he never left that bed. All tried him — parson tried him, priest tried him, doctor tried him, and all he’d say was, ‘Life is a vale of tears.’ It’s too snug he was in his bed, and believe me, that ever since she has had no father to rout her out of a morning she has been in her bed, and small blame to her maybe.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. But that’s the very sort that are witches. They know where to find their own friends in the lonely hours of the night. There was a witch in my own district that I strangled last Candlemas twelvemonth. She had an imp in the shape of a red cat, that sucked three drops of blood from her poll every night a little before the cock crew. It’s with their blood they feed them; until they have been fed with the blood they are images and shadows; but when they have it drunk they can be for a while stronger than you or me.

THIRD COUNTRYMAN. The man I knew was no witch, he was no way active. ‘Life is a vale of tears,’ he said. Parson tried him, doctor tried him, priest tried him — but that was all he’d say.

FIRST CITIZEN. We’d have no man go beyond evidence and reason, but hear the Tapster out, and when you have you’ll say that we cannot leave her alive this day — no, not for one day longer.

TAPSTER. It’s not a story that I like to be telling, but you are all married men. Another night that boy climbed up after his goat and it was an hour earlier by his clock and no light in the sky, and when he came to the Castle wall he clambered along the wall among the rocks and bushes till he saw a light from a little window over his head. It was an old wall full of holes, where mortar had fallen out, and he climbed up, putting his toes into the holes, till he could look in through the window; and when he looked in, what did he see but the Queen.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. And did he say what she was like?

THE TAPSTER. He saw more than that. He saw her coupling with a great white unicorn. — [Murmurs among the crowd.

SECOND COUNTRYMAN. I will not have the son of the unicorn to reign over us, although you will tell me he would be no more than half a unicorn.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. I’ll not go against the people, but I’d let her live if the Prime Minister promised to rout her out of bed in the morning and to set a guard to drive off the unicorn.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. I have strangled an old witch with these two hands, and to-day I will strangle a young witch.

SEPTIMUS [who has slowly got up and climbed up on to the mounting-stone which the TAPSTER has left]. Did I hear somebody say that the unicorn is not chaste? It is a most noble beast, a most religious beast. It has a milk-white skin and a milk-white horn, and milk-white hooves, but a mild blue eye, and it dances in the sun. I will have no one speak against it, not while I am still upon the earth. It is written in “The Great Beastery of Paris” that it is chaste, that it is the most chaste of all the beasts in the world.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. Pull him out of that, he’s drunk.

SEPTIMUS. Yes, I am drunk, I am very drunk, but that is no reason why I should permit any one to speak against the unicorn.

SECOND CITIZEN. Let’s hear him out. We can do nothing till the sun’s up.

SEPTIMUS. Nobody shall speak against the unicorn. No, my friends and poets, nobody.

I will hunt it if you will, though it is a dangerous and cross-grained beast. Much virtue has made it cross-grained. I will go with you to the high tablelands of Africa where it lives, and we will there shoot it through the head, but I will not speak against its character, and if any man declares it is not chaste I will fight him, for I affirm that its chastity is equal to its beauty.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. He is most monstrously drunk.

SEPTIMUS. No longer drunk but inspired.

SECOND CITIZEN. GO on, go on, we’ll never hear the like again.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. Come away. I’ve enough of this — we have work to do.

SEPTIMUS. Go away, did- you say, and my breast feathers thrust out and my white wings buoyed up with divinity? Ah! but I can see it now — you are bent upon going to some lonely place where uninterrupted you can speak against the character of the unicorn, but you shall not, I tell you that you shall not.

[He comes down off the stone and squares up at the crowd which tries to pass him.] In the midst of this uncharitable town I will protect that noble, milk-white, flighty beast.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. Let me pass.

SEPTIMUS. No, I will not let you pass.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. Leave him alone.

SECOND COUNTRYMAN. No violence — it might bring ill-luck upon us.

[They try to hold back the BIG COUNTRYMAN, SEPTIMUS. I will oppose your passing to the death. For I will not have it said that there is a smirch, or a blot, upon the most milky whiteness of an heroic brute that bathes by the sound of tabors at the rising of the sun and the rising of the moon, and the rising of the Great Bear, and above all, it shall not be said, whispered, or in any wise published abroad by you that stand there, so to speak, between two washings; for you were doubtless washed when you were born, and, it may be, shall be washed again after you are dead.

[The BIG COUNTRYMAN knocks him down.

FIRST CITIZEN. You have killed him.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. Maybe I have, maybe I have not — let him lie there. A witch I strangled last Candlemas twelvemonth, a witch I will strangle to-day. What do I care for the likes of him?

THIRD CITIZEN. Come round to the east quarter of the town. The basket-makers and the sieve-makers will be out by this.

FOURTH CITIZEN. It is a short march from there to the Castle gate.

[They go up one of the side streets, but return quickly in confusion and fear.

FIRST CITIZEN. Are you sure that you saw him?

SECOND CITIZEN. Who could mistake that horrible old man?

THIRD CITIZEN. I was standing by him when the ghost spoke out of him seven years ago.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. I never saw him before. He has never been in my district.

I don’t rightly know what sort he is, but I have heard of him, many a time I have heard of him.

FIRST CITIZEN. His eyes become glassy, and that is the trance growing upon him, and when he is in the trance his soul slips away and a ghost takes its place and speaks out of him — a strange ghost.

THIRD CITIZEN. I was standing by him the last time. ‘Get me straw,’ said that old man, ‘my back itches.’ Then all of a sudden he lay down, with his eyes wide open and glassy, and he brayed like a donkey. At that moment the King died and the King’s daughter was Queen.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. They say it is the donkey that carried Christ into Jerusalem and that is why it knows its rightful sovereign.

He goes begging about the country and there is no man dare refuse him what he asks.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. Then it is certain nobody will take my hand off her throat. I will make my grip tighter. He will be lying down on the straw and he will bray, and when he brays she will be dead.

FIRST COUNTRYMAN. Look! There he is coming over the top of the hill, and the mad look upon him.

SECOND COUNTRYMAN. I wouldn’t face him for the world this night. Come round to the market-place, we’ll be less afraid in a big place.

THE BIG COUNTRYMAN. I’m not afraid, but I’ll go with you till I get my hand on her throat.

[They all go out but SEPTIMUS. Presently SEPTIMUS sits up; his head is bleeding. He rubs with his fingers his broken head and looks at the blood on his fingers.

SEPTIMUS. Unchristian town! First I am, so to speak, thrown out into the street, and then I am all but murdered; and I drunk, and therefore in need of protection. All creatures are in need of protection at some time or other. Even my wife was once a frail child in need of milk, of smiles, of love, as if in the midst of a flood, in danger of drowning, so to speak.

[An OLD BEGGAR with long matted hair and beard and in ragged clothes comes in.

THE OLD BEGGAR. I want straw.

SEPTIMUS. Happy Tom and Peter of the Purple Pelican have done it all. They are bad, popular poets, and being jealous of my fame, they have stirred up the people.

[He catches sight of the OLD BEGGAR.] There is a certain medicine which is made by distilling camphor, peruvian bark, spurge and mandrake, and mixing all with twelve ounces of dissolved pearls and four ounces of the oil of gold; and this medicine is infallible to stop the flow of blood. Have you any of it, old man?

THE OLD BEGGAR. I want straw.

SEPTIMUS. I can see that you have not got it, but no matter, we shall be friends.

THE OLD BEGGAR. I want straw to lie down on.

SEPTIMUS. It is no doubt better that I should bleed to death. For that way, my friend, I shall disgrace Happy Tom and Peter of the Purple Pelican, but it is necessary that I shall die somewhere where my last words can be taken down. I am therefore in need of your support.

[Having got up he now staggers over to the OLD MAN and leans upon him.

THE OLD BEGGAR. Don’t you know who I am — aren’t you afraid? When something comes inside me, my back itches. Then I must lie down and roll, and then I bray and the crown changes.

SEPTIMUS. Ah! you are inspired. Then we are indeed brothers. Come, I will rest upon your shoulder and we will mount the hill side by side. I will sleep in the Castle of the Queen.

THE OLD BEGGAR. You will give me straw to lie upon?

SEPTIMUS. Asphodels! Yet, indeed, the asphodel is a flower much overrated by the classic authors. Still, if a man has a preference, I say for the asphodel —

[They go out and one hears the voice of SEPTIMUS murmuring in the distance about asphodels.

[The FIRST OLD MAN opens his window and taps with his crutch at the opposite window. The SECOND OLD MAN opens his window.

FIRST OLD MAN. It is all right now. They are all gone. We can have our talk out.

SECOND OLD MAN. The whole Castle is lit by the dawn now, and it will soon begin to grow brighter in the street.

FIRST OLD MAN. It’s time for the Tapster’s old dog to come down the street.

SECOND OLD MAN. Yesterday he had a bone in his mouth.

CURTAIN