The throne-room in the Castle. Between pillars are gilded openwork doors, except at one side, where there is a large window. The morning light is slanting through the window, making dark shadows among the pillars. As the scene goes on, the light, at first feeble, becomes strong and suffused and the shadows disappear. Through the openwork doors one can see down long passages, and one of these passages plainly leads into the open air. — see daylight at the end of it. There is a throne in the centre of the room and a flight of steps that leads to it.
The PRIME MINISTER, an elderly man with an impatient manner and voice, is talking to a group of players, among whom is Nona, a fair, comely, comfortable-looking young woman of perhaps thirty-five; she seems to take the lead.
PRIME MINISTER. I will not be trifled with. I chose the play myself; I chose “The Tragical History of Noah’s Deluge.” because when Noah beats his wife to make her go into the Ark everybody understands, everybody is pleased, everybody recognises the mulish obstinacy of their own wives, sweethearts, sisters. And now, when it is of the greatest importance to the State that everybody should be pleased, the play cannot be given. The leading lady is lost, you say, and there is some unintelligible reason why nobody can take her place; but I know what you are all driving at — you object to the play I have chosen. You want some dull, poetical thing, full of long speeches. I will have that play and no other. The rehearsal must begin at once and the performance take place at noon punctually.
NONA. We have searched all night, sir, and we cannot find her anywhere. She was heard to say that she would drown rather than play a woman older than thirty. Seeing that Noah’s wife is a very old woman, we are afraid that she has drowned herself indeed.
[DECIMA, a very pretty woman, puts her head out from under the throne where she has been lying hidden.
PRIME MINISTER. Nonsense! It is all a conspiracy. Your manager should be here. He is responsible. You can tell him when he does come that if the play is not performed, I will clap him into jail for a year and pitch the rest of you over the border.
NONA. Oh, sir, he couldn’t help it. She does whatever she likes.
PRIME MINISTER. Does whatever she likes — I know her sort; would pull the world to pieces to spite her husband or her lover. I know her — a bladder full of dried peas for a brain, a brazen, bragging baggage. Of course he couldn’t help it, but what do I care.
[DECIMA -pulls in her head.] To jail he goes — somebody has got to go to jail. Go and cry her name everywhere. Away with you! Let me hear you cry it out. Call the baggage. Louder. Louder. [The players go out crying, ‘Where are you, Decima?’]
Oh, Adam! why did you fall asleep in the garden? You might have known that while you were lying there helpless, the Old Man in the Sky would play some prank upon you.
[The QUEEN, who is young, with an ascetic timid face, enters in a badly fitting state dress.
Ah!
QUEEN. I will show myself to the angry people as you have bidden me. I am almost certain that I am ready for martyrdom. I have prayed all night. Yes, I am almost certain.
PRIME MINISTER. Ah!
QUEEN. I have now attained to the age of my patroness, Holy Saint Octema, when she was martyred at Antioch. You will remember that her unicorn was so pleased at the spectacle of her austerity that he caracoled in his excitement. Thereupon she dropped out of the saddle and was trampled to death under the feet of the mob. Indeed, but for the unicorn, the mob would have killed her long before.
PRIME MINISTER. No, you will not be martyred. I have a plan to settle that. I will stop their anger with a word. Who made that dress?
QUEEN. It was my mother’s dress. She wore it at her coronation. I would not have a new one made. I do not deserve new clothes. I am always committing sin.
PRIME MINISTER. IS there sin in an egg that has never been hatched, that has never been warmed, in a chalk egg?
QUEEN. I wish I could resemble Holy Saint Octema in everything.
PRIME MINISTER. What a dress! It is too late now. Nothing can be done. It may appear right to those on the edge of the crowd. The others must be conquered by charm, dignity, royal manner. As for the dress, I must think of some excuse, some explanation. Remember that they have never seen your face, and you will put them in a bad humour if you hang your head in that dumbfounded way.
QUEEN. I wish I could return to my prayers.
PRIME MINISTER. Walk! Permit me to see your Majesty walk. No, no, no. Be more majestic. Ah! If you had known the Queens I have known — they had a way with them. Morals of a dragoon, but a way, a way. Give the people some plain image or they will invent one. Put on a kind of eagle look, a vulture look.
QUEEN. There are cobble-stones — if I might go barefoot it would be a blessed penance. It was especially the bleeding feet of Saint Octema that gave pleasure to the unicorn.
PRIME MINISTER. Sleep of Adam! Barefoot — barefoot, did you say? [A pause.]
There is not time to take off your shoes and stockings. If you were to look out of the window there, you would see the crowd becoming wickeder every minute. Come!
[He gives his arm to the QUEEN.]
QUEEN. You have a plan to stop their anger so that I shall not be martyred?
PRIME MINISTER. My plan will be disclosed before the face of the people and there alone. — [They go out.
[NONA comes in with a bottle of wine and a boiled lobster and lays them on the middle of the floor. She puts her finger on her lip and stands in the doorway towards the back of the stage.
DECIMA [comes cautiously out of her hiding place singing].
‘He went away,’ my mother sang,
‘When I was brought to bed.’
And all the while her needle pulled
The gold and silver thread.
She pulled the thread and bit the thread
And made a golden gown,
She wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.
[She is just reaching her hand for the lobster when NONA comes forward holding out towards her the dress and mask of Noah’s wife which she had been carrying over her left arm.
NONA. Thank God you are found! [Getting between her and the lobster.] No, not” ntil you have put on this dress and mask. I have caught you now and you are not going to hide again.
DECIMA. Very well, when I have had my breakfast.
NONA. Not a mouthful till you are dressed ready for the rehearsal.
DECIMA. Do you know what song I was singing just now?
NONA. It is that song you’re always singing. Septimus made it up.
DECIMA. It is the song of the mad singing daughter of a harlot. The only song she had. Her father was a drunken sailor waiting for the full tide, and yet she thought her mother had foretold that she would marry a prince and become a great queen. [Singing
‘When she was got,’ my mother sang,
‘I heard a seamew cry, I saw a flake of yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh.’
How therefore could she help but braid
The gold upon my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care.
The moment ago as I lay here I thought I could play a Queen’s part, a great Queen’s part; the only part in the world I can play is a great Queen’s part.
NONA. You play a Queen’s part? You that were born in a ditch between two towns and wrapped in a sheet that was stolen from a hedge.
DECIMA. The Queen cannot play at all, but I could play so well. I could bow with my whole body down to my ankles and could be stern when hard looks were in season. Oh, I would know how to put all summer in a look and after that all winter in a voice.
NONA. Low comedy is what you are fit for.
DECIMA. I understood all this in a wink of the eye, and then just when I am saying to myself that I was born to sit up there with soldiers and courtiers, you come shaking in front of me that mask and that dress. I am not to eat my breakfast unless I play an old peaky-chinned, drop-nosed harridan that a foul husband beats with a stick because she won’t clamber among the other brutes into his cattle boat. [She makes a dart at the lobster.]
NONA. No, no, not a drop, not a mouthful till you have put these on. Remember that if there is no play Septimus must go to prison.
DECIMA. Would they give him dry bread to eat?
NONA. They would.
DECIMA. And water to drink and nothing in the water?
NONA. They would.
DECIMA. And a straw bed?
NONA. They would, and only a little straw maybe.
DECIMA. And iron chains that clanked.
NONA. They would.
DECIMA. And keep him there for a whole week?
NONA. A month maybe.
DECIMA. And he would say to the turnkey, ‘I am here because of my beautiful cruel wife, my beautiful flighty wife.’
NONA. He might not, he’d be sober.
DECIMA. But he’d think it and every time he was hungry, every time he was thirsty, every time he felt the hardness of the stone floor, every time he heard the chains clank, he would think it, and every time he thought it I would become more beautiful in his eyes, NONA. No, he would hate you.
DECIMA. Little do you know what the love of man is. If that Holy Image of the Church where you put all those candles at Easter was pleasant and affable, why did you come home with the skin worn off your two knees?
NONA [in tears], I understand — you cruel, bad woman — you won’t play the part at all, and all that Septimus may go to prison, and he a great genius that can’t take care of himself.
[Seeing NONA distracted with tears DECIMA makes a dart and almost gets the lobster.
NONA. No, no! Not a mouthful, not a drop. I will break the bottle if you go near it. There is not another woman in the world would treat a man like that and you were sworn to him in Church — yes, you were, there is no good denying it. [DECIMA makes another dart, but NONA, who is still in tears, puts the lobster in her pocket.] Leave the food alone; not one mouthful will you get. I have never sworn to a man in Church, but if I did swear I would not treat him like a tinker’s donkey — before God I would not — I was properly brought up; my mother always told me it was no light thing to take a man in Church.
DECIMA. You are in love with my husband.
NONA. Because I don’t want to see him jailed you say I am in love with him. Only a woman with no heart would think one can’t be sorry for a man without being in love with him. A woman who has never been sorry for anybody, but I won’t have him jailed, if you won’t play the part I’ll play it myself.
DECIMA. When I married him, I made him swear never to play with anybody but me, and well you know it.
NONA. Only this once and in a part nobody can do anything with.
DECIMA. That is the way it begins and all the time you would be saying things the audience couldn’t hear.
NONA. Septimus will break his oath and I have learnt the part. Every line of it.
DECIMA. Septimus would not break his oath for anybody in the world.
NONA. There is one person in the world for whom he will break his oath.
DECIMA. What have you in your head now?
NONA. He will break it for me.
DECIMA. You are crazy.
NONA. Maybe I have my secrets.
DECIMA. What are you keeping back?
Have you been sitting in corners with Septimus? giving him sympathy because of the bad wife he has and all the while he has sat there to have the pleasure of talking about me?
NONA. You think that you have his every thought because you are a devil.
DECIMA. Because I am a devil I have his every thought. You know how his own song runs. The man speaks first — [singing.
Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes,
and then the woman answers —
Oh no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise
And yet not cold.
NONA. His every thought — that is a lie. He forgets all about you the moment you’re out of his sight.
DECIMA. Then look what I carry under my bodice. This is a poem praising me, all my beauties one after the other — eyes, hair, complexion, shape, disposition, mind — everything. And there are a great many verses to it. And here is a little one he gave me yesterday morning. I had turned him out of bed and he had to lie alone by himself.
NONA. Alone by himself!
DECIMA. And as he lay there alone, unable to sleep, he made it up, wishing that he were blind so as not to be troubled by looking at my beauty. Hear how it goes! [sings again.]
O would that I were an old beggar
Without a friend on this earth
But a thieving rascally cur,
A beggar blind from his birth;
Or anything else but a man
Lying alone on a bed
Remembering a woman’s beauty,
Alone with a crazy head.
NONA. Alone in his bed indeed. I know that long poem, that one with all the verses; I know it to my hurt, though I haven’t read a word of it. Four lines in every verse, four beats in every line, and fourteen verses — my curse upon it!
DECIMA [taking out a manuscript from her bodice]. Yes, fourteen verses. There are numbers to them.
NONA. You have another there — ten verses all in fours and threes.
DECIMA [looking at another manuscript]. Yes, the verses are in fours and threes. But how do you know all this? I carry them here. They are a secret between him and me, and nobody can see them till they have lain a long while upon my heart.
NONA. They have lain upon your heart, but they were made upon my shoulder. Ay, and down along my spine in the small hours of the morning; so many beats a line, and for every beat a tap of the fingers.
DECIMA. My God!
NONA. That one with the fourteen verses kept me from my sleep two hours, and when the lines were finished he lay upon his back another hour waving one arm in the air, making up the music. I liked him well enough to seem to be asleep through it all, and many another poem too — but when he made up that short one you sang he was so pleased that he muttered the words all about his lying alone in his bed thinking of you, and that made me mad. So I said to him, ‘Am I not beautiful? Turn round and look.’ Oh, I cut it short, for even I can please a man when there is but one candle. [She takes a pair of scissors that are hanging round her neck and begins snipping at the dress for Noah’s wife.] And now you know why I can play the part in spite of you and not be driven out. Work upon Septimus if you have a mind for it. Little need I care. I will clip this a trifle and re-stitch it again — I have a needle and thread ready.
[The STAGE MANAGER comes in ringing a bell. He is followed by various players all dressed up in likeness of various beasts.
STAGE MANAGER. Put on that mask — get into your clothes. Why are you standing there as if in a trance?
NONA. Decima and I have talked the matter over and we have settled that I am to play the part.
STAGE MANAGER. Do as you please. Thank God it’s a part that anybody can play. All you have got to do is to copy an old woman’s squeaky voice. We are all here now but Septimus, and we cannot wait for him. I will read the part of Noah. He will be here before we are finished I daresay. We will suppose that the audience is upon this side, and that the Ark is over there with a gangway for the beasts to climb. All you beasts are to crowd up on the prompt side. Lay down Noah’s hat and cloak there till Septimus comes. As the first scene is between Noah and the beasts, you can go on with your sewing.
DECIMA. No, I must first be heard. My husband has been spending his nights with Nona, and that is why she sits clipping and stitching with that vainglorious air.
NONA. She made him miserable, she knows every trick of breaking a man’s heart — he came to me with his troubles — I seemed to be a comfort to him, and now — why should I deny it? — he is my lover.
DECIMA. I will take the vainglory out of her. I have been a plague to him. Oh, I have been a badger and a weasel and a hedgehog and pole-cat, and all because I was dead sick of him. And, thank God! she has got him and I am free. I threw away a part and I threw away a man — she has picked both up.
STAGE MANAGER. It seems to me that it all concerns you two. It’s your business and not ours. I don’t see why we should delay the rehearsal.
DECIMA. I will have no rehearsal yet. I’m too happy now that I am free. I must find somebody who will dance with me for a while. Come we must have music. [She picks up a lute which has been laid down amongst some properties. You can’t all be claws and hoofs.
STAGE MANAGER. We’ve only an hour and the whole play to go through.
NONA. Oh, she has taken my scissors, she is only pretending not to care. Look at her! She is mad! Take them away from her! Hold her hand! She is going to kill me or to kill herself. [To STAGE MANAGER.] Why don’t you interfere? My God! She is going to kill me.
DECIMA. Here, Peter. Play the lute.
[She begins cutting through the breast feathers of the Swan.
NONA. She is doing it all to stop the rehearsal, out of vengeance; and you stand there and do nothing.
STAGE MANAGER. If you have taken her husband, why didn’t you keep the news till the play was over? She is going to make them all mad now. I can see that much in her eyes.
DECIMA. NOW that I have thrown Septimus into her lap, I will choose a new man. Shall it be you, Turkey-cock? or you, Bullhead?
STAGE MANAGER. There is nothing to be done. It is all your fault. If Septimus can’t manage his wife, it’s certain that I can’t.
[He sits down helplessly.
FIRST PLAYER [who is in the jour legs of the Bull]. Come live with me and be my love.
DECIMA. Dance, Bullhead, dance. [The Bull dances.] You’re too slow on your feet.
FIRST PLAYER. Although I am slow I am twice as good as any other, for I am double — one in the forelegs and one behind.
DECIMA. You are heavy of build and that means jealousy, and there is a sort of melancholy in your voice; and what a folly, now that I have found out love, to stretch and yawn as if I loved.
SECOND PLAYER [who is in the form of a Turkey-cock]. Come live with me and be my love, for as everybody can see from my ruff and my red wattle and my way of strutting and my chuckling speech, I have a cheerful appetite.
DECIMA. Dance, dance. [The Turkey-cock dances.] Ah, Turkey-cock, you are lively on your feet and I would find it hard to hide if you followed. Would you expect me to be faithful?
SECOND PLAYER. No, neither I nor you. I have a score of wives.
NONA. You are a disgrace.
SECOND PLAYER. Be content now that you have a man of your own.
DECIMA. You are quick of mind, Turkeycock. I see that by your bright eyes, but I want to let my mind go asleep. All dance, all, all, and I will choose the best dancer amongst you.
FIRST PLAYER. No, let us toss for it. I understand that better.
DECIMA. Quick, quick, begin to dance.
[All dance round DECIMA.
DECIMA [singing].
Shall I fancy beast or fowl,
Queen Pasiphae chose a bull,
While a passion for a swan
Made Queen Leda stretch and yawn,
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
Chorus.
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
DECIMA.
Spring and straddle, stride and strut,
Shall I choose a bird or brute?
Name the feather or the fur
For my single comforter?
Chorus.
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
DECIMA. None has found, that found out love,
Single bird or brute enough;
Any bird or brute may rest
An empty head upon my breast.
Chorus.
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
STAGE MANAGER. Stop, stop, here is Septimus.
SEPTIMUS [the blood still upon his face and but little soberer]. Gather about me, for I announce the end of the Christian Era, the coming of a New Dispensation, that of the New Adam, that of the Unicorn; but alas, he is chaste, he hesitates, he hesitates.
STAGE MANAGER. This is not a time for making up speeches for your new play.
SEPTIMUS. His unborn children are but images; we merely play with images.
STAGE MANAGER. Let us get on with the rehearsal.
SEPTIMUS. No; let us prepare to die. The mob is climbing up the hill with pitchforks to stick into our vitals and burning wisps to set the roof on fire.
FIRST PLAYER [who has gone to the window]. My God, it’s true. There is a great crowd at the bottom of the hill.
SECOND PLAYER. But why should they attack us?
SEPTIMUS. Because we are the servants of the Unicorn.
THIRD PLAYER [at window], My God, they have dung-forks and scythes set on poles and they are coming this way.
[Many players gather round the window.
SEPTIMUS [who has found the bottle and is drinking]. Some will die like Cato, some like Cicero, some like Demosthenes, triumphing over death in sonorous eloquence, or, like Petronius Arbiter, will tell witty, scandalous tales; but I will speak, no, I will sing, as if the mob did not exist. I will rail upon the Unicorn for his chastity. I will bid him trample mankind to death and beget a new race. I will even put my railing into rhyme, and all shall run sweetly, sweetly, for, even if they blow up the floor with gunpowder, they are merely the mob.
Upon the round blue eye I rail,
Damnation on the milk-white horn.
A telling sound, a sound to linger in the ear — hale, tale, bale, gale — my God, I am even too sober to find a rhyme. [He drinks and then picks up a lute] — a tune that my murderers may remember my last words and croon them to their grandchildren.
[For the next few speeches he is busy making his tune.
FIRST PLAYER. The players of this town are jealous. Have we not been chosen before them all, because we are the most famous players in the world? It is they who have stirred up the mob.
THIRD PLAYER. When we played at Kzanadu, my performance was so incomparable that the men who pulled the strings of the puppet-show left all the puppets lying on their backs and came to have a look at me.
FOURTH PLAYER. Listen to him! His performance indeed! I ask you all to speak the truth. If you are honest men you will say that it was my performance that drew the town. Why, Kubla Khan himself gave me the name of the Talking Nightingale.
FIFTH, PLAYER. My God, listen to him! Is it not always the comedian who draws the people? Am I dreaming, and was it not I who was called six times before the curtain? Answer me that.
SIXTH PLAYER [at window]. There is somebody making a speech. I cannot see who it is.
SECOND PLAYER. Depend upon it, he is telling them to put burning wisps upon dungforks and put them into the rafters. That is what they did in the old play of the Burning of Troy. Depend upon it, they will burn the whole house.
FIFTH PLAYER [coming from window], I will stay here no longer.
OTHER PLAYERS. Nor I, nor I. [Exit.
FIRST PLAYER. Must we go dressed like this?
SECOND PLAYER. There is no time to change, and besides should the hill be surrounded, we can gather in some cleft of the rocks where we can be seen only from a distance. They will suppose we are a drove of cattle or a flock of birds.
[All go out except SEPTIMUS, DECIMA, and NONA. NONA is making a bundle of Noah’s hat and cloak and other properties. DECIMA is watching SEPTIMUS.
SEPTIMUS [while the players are going out]. Leave me to die alone? I do not blame you. There is courage in red wine, in white wine, in beer, even in thin beer sold by a blear-eyed potboy in a bankrupt tavern, but there is none in the human heart. When my master the Unicorn bathes by the light of the Great Bear, and to the sound of tabors, even the sweet river-water makes him drunk; but it is cold, it is cold, alas! it is cold.
NONA. I’ll pile these upon your back. I shall carry the rest myself and so we shall save all.
[She begins tying a great bundle of properties on SEPTIMUS’ back.
SEPTIMUS. You are right. I accept the reproach. It is necessary that we who are the last artists — all the rest have gone over to the mob — shall save the images and implements of our art. We must carry into safety the cloak of Noah, the high-crowned hat of Noah, and the golden face of the Almighty, and the horns of Satan.
NONA. Thank God you can still stand upright on your legs.
SEPTIMUS. Tie all upon my back and I will tell you the great secret that came to me at the second mouthful of the bottle. Man is nothing till he is united to an image. Now the Unicorn is both an image and beast; that is why he alone can be the new Adam. When we have put all in safety we will go to the high tablelands of Africa and find where the Unicorn is stabled and sing a marriage song. I will stand before the terrible blue eye.
NONA. There now I have tied them on.
[She begins making another bundle for herself.
SEPTIMUS. You will make Ionian music — music with its eyes upon that voluptuous Asia — the Dorian scale would but confirm him in his chastity. One Dorian note might undo us, and above all we must be careful not to speak of Delphi. The oracle is chaste.
NONA. Come, let us go.
SEPTIMUS. If we cannot fill him with desire he will deserve death. Even unicorns can be killed. What they dread most in the world is a blow from a knife that has been dipped in the blood of a serpent that died gazing upon an emerald.
[NONA and SEPTIMUS are about to go out, NONA leading SEPTIMUS.
DECIMA. Stand back, do not dare to move a step.
SEPTIMUS. Beautiful as the unicorn but fierce.
DECIMA. I have locked the gates that we may have a talk.
[NONA lets the hat of Noah fall in her alarm.
SEPTIMUS. That is well, very well. You would talk with me because to-day I am extraordinarily wise.
DECIMA. I will not unlock the gate till I have a promise that you will drive her from the company.
NONA. Do not listen to her; take the key from her.
SEPTIMUS. If I were not her husband I would take the key, but because I am her husband she is terrible. The Unicorn will be terrible when it loves.
NONA. You are afraid.
SEPTIMUS. Could not you yourself take it? She does not love you, therefore she will not be terrible.
NONA. If you are a man at all you will take it.
SEPTIMUS. I am more than a man, I am extraordinarily wise. I will take the key.
DECIMA. If you come a step nearer I will shove the key through the grating of the door.
NONA [pulling him back]. Don’t go near her; if she shoves it through the door we shall not be able to escape. The crowd will find us and murder us.
DECIMA. I will unlock this gate when you have taken an oath to drive her from the company, an oath never to speak with her or look at her again, a terrible oath.
SEPTIMUS. You are jealous; it is very wrong to be jealous. An ordinary man would be lost — even I am not yet wise enough.
[Drinks again.] Now all is plain.
DECIMA. You have been unfaithful to me.
SEPTIMUS. I am only unfaithful when I am sober. Never trust a sober man. All the world over they are unfaithful. Never trust a man who has not bathed by the light of the Great Bear. I warn you against all sober men from the bottom of my heart. I am extraordinarily wise.
NONA. Promise, if it is only an oath she wants. Take whatever oath she bids you. If you delay we shall all be murdered.
SEPTIMUS. I can see your meaning. You would explain to me that an oath can be broken, more especially an oath under compulsion, but no, I say to you, no, I say to you, certainly not. Am I a rascally sober man, such a man as I have warned you against? Shall I be foresworn before the very eyes of Delphi, so to speak, before the very eyes of that cold, rocky oracle? What I promise I perform, therefore, my little darling, I will not promise anything at all.
DECIMA. Then we shall wait here. They will come in there and there, they will carry dung-forks with burning wisps. They will put the burning wisps into the roof and we shall be burnt.
SEPTIMUS. I shall die railing upon that beast. The Christian era has come to an end, but because of the machinations of Delphi he will not become the new Adam.
DECIMA. I shall be avenged. She starved me, but I shall have killed her.
NONA [who has crept behind DECIMA and snatched the key], I have it, I have it I [DECIMA tries to take the key again but SEPTIMUS holds her.
SEPTIMUS. Because I am an unforesworn man I am strong: a violent virginal creature, that is how it is put in “The Great Beastery of Paris.”
DECIMA. Go, then. I shall stay here and die.
NONA. Let us go. A half hour since she offered herself to every man in the company.
DECIMA. If you would be faithful to me, Septimus, I would not let a man of them touch me.
SEPTIMUS. Flighty, but beautiful.
NONA. She is a bad woman.
[NONA runs out.
SEPTIMUS. A beautiful, bad, flighty woman I will follow, but follow slowly. I will take with me this noble hat. [He picks up Noah’s hat with difficulty.] I will save the noble, high-crowned hat of Noah. I will carry it thus with dignity. I will go slowly that they may see I am not afraid. — [singing.
Upon the round blue eye I rail
Damnation on the milk-white horn.
But not one word of Delphi.
I am extraordinarily wise. — [He goes.
DECIMA. Betrayed, betrayed, and for a nobody. For a woman that a man can shake and twist like so much tallow. A woman that till now never looked higher than a prompter or a property man. [The OLD BEGGAR comes in.] Have you come to kill me, old man?
OLD BEGGAR. I am looking for straw. I must soon lie down and roll, and where will I get straw to roll on? I went round to the kitchen and ‘Go away’ they said. They made the sign of the cross as if it were a devil that puts me rolling.
DECIMA. When will the mob come to kill me?
OLD BEGGAR. Kill you? It is not you they are going to kill. It’s the itching in my back that drags them hither, for when I bray like a donkey, the crown changes.
DECIMA. The crown? So it is the Queen they are going to kill.
OLD BEGGAR. But, my dear, she can’t die till I roll and bray, and I will whisper to you what it is that rolls. It is the donkey that carried Christ into Jerusalem, and that is why he is so proud; and that is why he knows the hour when there is to be a new King or a new Queen.
DECIMA. Are you weary of the world, old man?
OLD BEGGAR. Yes, yes, because when I roll and bray I am asleep. I know nothing about it, and that is a great pity. I remember nothing but the itching in my back. But I must stop talking and find some straw.
DECIMA [picking up the scissors]. Old man, I am going to drive this into my heart.
OLD BEGGAR. NO, no; don’t do that. You don’t know what you will be put to when you are dead, into whose gullet you will be put to sing or to bray. You have a look of a foretelling sort. Who knows but you might be put to foretell the death of kings; and bear in mind I will have no rivals, I could not endure a rival.
DECIMA. I have been betrayed by a man, I have been made a mockery of. Do those who are dead, old man, make love and do they find good lovers?
OLD BEGGAR. I will whisper you another secret. People talk, but I have never known of anything to come from there but an old jackass. Maybe there is nothing else. Who knows but he has the whole place to himself. But there, my back is beginning to itch, and I have not yet found any straw.
[He goes out. DECIMA leans the scissors upon the arm of the throne and is about to press herself upon them when the QUEEN enters.
QUEEN [stopping her]. No, no, — that would be a great sin.
DECIMA. Your Majesty!
QUEEN. I thought I would like to die a martyr, but that would be different, that would be to die for God’s glory. The Holy Saint Octema was a martyr.
DECIMA. I am very unhappy.
QUEEN. I, too, am very unhappy. When I saw the great angry crowd and knew that they wished to kill me, though I had wanted to be a martyr, I was afraid and ran away.
DECIMA. I would not have run away. Oh no, but it is hard to drive a knife into one’s own flesh.
QUEEN. In a moment they will have come and they will beat in the door, and how shall I escape them?
DECIMA. If they could mistake me for you, you would escape.
QUEEN. I could not let another die instead of me. That would be very wrong.
DECIMA. Oh, your Majesty, I shall die whatever you do, and if only I could wear that gold brocade and those gold slippers for one moment, it would not be so hard to die.
QUEEN. They say that those who die to save a rightful sovereign show great virtue.
DECIMA. Quick! the dress.
QUEEN. If you killed yourself your soul would be lost, and now you will be sure of heaven.
DECIMA. Quick, I hear them coming.
[DECIMA puts on the QUEEN’S robe of state and her slippers. Underneath her robe of state the QUEEN wears some kind of nun-like dress. The following speech is spoken by the QUEEN while she is helping DECIMA to fasten the dress and the slippers.
QUEEN. Was it love? [DECIMA nods.] Oh, that is a great sin. I have never known love. Of all things, that is what I have had most fear of. Saint Octema shut herself up in a tower on a mountain because she was loved by a beautiful prince. I was afraid it would come in at the eye and seize upon me in a moment. I am not naturally good, and they say people will do anything for love, there is so much sweetness in it. Even Saint Octema was afraid of it. But you will escape all that and go up to God as a pure virgin. [The change is now complete.] Goodbye, I know how I can slip away. There is a convent that will take me in. It is not a tower, it is only a convent, but I have long wanted to go there to lose my name and disappear. Sit down upon the throne and turn your face away. If you do not turn your face away, you will be afraid. [The QUEEN goes out.
[DECIMA is seated upon the throne. A great crowd gathers outside the gates.
A BISHOP enters.
BISHOP. Your loyal people, your Majesty, offer you their homage. I bow before you in their name. Your royal will has spoken by the mouth of the Prime Minister — has filled them with gratitude. All misunderstandings are at an end, all has been settled by your condescension in bestowing your royal hand upon the Prime Minister. [To crowd] Her Majesty, who has hitherto shut herself away from all men’s eyes that she might pray for this kingdom undisturbed, will henceforth show herself to her people.
[To PLAYER QUEEN.] So beautiful a queen need never fear the disobedience of her people [shouts from crowd of ‘never’]
PRIME MINISTER [entering hurriedly]. I will explain all, your Majesty — there was nothing else to be done — This Bishop has been summoned to unite us [seeing the QUEEN]; but, sleep of Adam! — this — who is this?
DECIMA. Your emotion is too great for words. Do not try to speak.
PRIME MINISTER. This — this!
DECIMA [standing up], I am queen. I know what it is to be queen. If I were to say to you I had an enemy you would kill him — you would tear him in pieces. [Shouts ‘we would kill him’, ‘we would tear him in pieces’ etc.] But I do not bid you kill any one — I bid you obey my husband when I have raised him to the throne. He is not of royal blood, but I choose to raise him to the throne. That is my will. Show me that you will obey him so long as I bid you to obey. — [Great cheering, [SEPTIMUS, who has been standing among the crowd, comes forward and takes the PRIME MINISTER by the sleeve. Various persons kiss the hand of the supposed QUEEN, SEPTIMUS. My Lord, that is not the queen; that is my bad wife. [DECIMA looks at them.
PRIME MINISTER. Did you see that? Did you see the devil in her eye. They are mad after her pretty face, and she knows it. They would not believe a word I say; there is nothing to be done till they cool.
DECIMA. Are all here my faithful servants?
BISHOP. All, your Majesty.
DECIMA. All?
PRIME MINISTER [bowing low]. All, your Majesty.
DECIMA [singing].
She pulled the thread, and bit the thread
And made a golden gown.
Hand me that plate of lobster and that bottle of wine. While I am eating I will have a good look at my new man.
[The -plate and bottle of wine are handed to her. The bray of a donkey is heard and the OLD BEGGAR is dragged in.
BISHOP. At last we have found this impostor out. He has been accepted by the whole nation as if he were the Voice of God. As if the crown could not be settled firmly on any head without his help. [Shouts from the mob of ‘impostor’, ‘rogue’ etc.]. It’s plain that he has been in league with the conspirators, and believed that your Majesty had been killed. He is keeping it up still. Look at his glassy eye. But his madman airs won’t help him now.
PRIME MINISTER [shaking SEPTIMUS]. Do you understand that there has been a miracle, that God or the Fiend has spoken, and that the crown is on her head for good, that fate has brayed on that man’s lips. [Aloud.] We will hang him in the morning.
SEPTIMUS. She is my wife.
PRIME MINISTER. The crown has changed and there is no help for it. Sleep of Adam, I must have that woman for wife. The Oracle has settled that.
[Take him away to prison.
SEPTIMUS. She is my wife, she is my bad, flighty wife.
PRIME MINISTER. Seize this man. He has been whispering slanders against her Majesty. Cast him beyond the borders of the kingdom and find the company of players he belongs to. They also are banished and must not return on pain of death. Now, my Lord Bishop, I am ready.
DECIMA [singing].
She wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.
[She flings the lobster’s claw at the PRIME MINISTER.
Come — crack that claw.