ACT I

There is very loud buzzing. Coloured lights reveal in unearthly prettiness the same corner of Stephen’s Green.

The bee females are distinguished by high-heeled shoes, coloured handkerchiefs round the head, and various touches of daintiness about the person.

To one side an enormous flower is growing. The bowl of it must be big enough and strong enough for the bees to climb into it and disappear.

Soft ballet music. A young female bee dances in, flits about the stage, looks at the sleeping TRAMP without much attention, and dances out again. Enter immediately THE DRONE. He is the peppery colonel type, gross and debauched, and bent nearly double from sheer laziness. He waddles very slowly so as to reduce to the minimum the fatigue of locomotion. He collapses into one of the deck-chairs, which are now facing audience. Before he collapses, however, he makes a speech.

DRONE This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.1

He falls into the chair and seems to go to sleep. Enter a young bee, BASIL,  very refined in deportment. He starts, seeing THE DRONE asleep beside  the attractive flower.

BASIL Aoh. (He approaches THE DRONE, examines him and then pokes him gently in the ribs.) I say … hallao!

DRONE (Without rising or moving, in a graveyard voice)

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? 

Young son, it argues a distemper’d head

So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, 

And where care lodges sleep will never lie; 

But where unbruiséd youth with unstuff’d brain

Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:

Therefore thy earliness doth me assure

Thou art up-roused by some distemperature.2

BASIL I say aold chap — really! I’m out looking for a spot of honey. Work, you know, and all that. Frightful bore but one has to, you knaow. Grim shaow, working.

THE DRONE is asleep again, BASIL climbs into the flower and disappears. Enter two more bees, somewhat casually. They are CYRIL and CECIL.

CYRIL I say, Cec-eel, do look at that old rotter. Always asleep I mean.

CECIL I agree, Cyr-eel, a grey shaow. D’you knaow, there are some people who … simply … waon’t … work. (He approaches flower as if to enter; looks into it and then starts back.) Ao, bother! That sod Bas-eel!

CYRIL Is that dreadful Bas-eel working there?

CECIL Rather. (He sits down disconsolately.)

CYRIL I say, Cec-eel …

CECIL Yes old boy?

CYRIL D’you mind if I talk to you?

CECIL Nao, nao.

CYRIL I mean, are you ever bored by … I mean … this all-male company idea? I mean, no weemeen.

CECIL Well, sometimes, you know, I feel … I feel … I should like to see the Queen.

CYRIL Ha-ha-ha-ha! (Mirthless laugh act)

CECIL But look here, I mean eet, aold boy.

CYRIL The Queen!! Ho-ho-ho!

CECIL (Seriously) I should really like to see the Queen. Just for a short time, you knaow. And alone.

CYRIL One moment now Cec-eel. How many of us bees are there? Rough estimate, you knaow, and all that.

CECIL A million, I suppaose. Two million.

CYRIL Well there you are, old boy, there eet ees. Two million bees and one Queen. I mean, what chance have you, Cec-eel. You are a nice boy and all that but what chance have you?

CECIL (Crestfallen) None, I suppose.

CYRIL There eet ees. What can we do? What’s the point in being alive? What’s the point in all this working?

CECIL (Brightly) Well, I don’t know … I do think, you knaow … that life is rather … wizard. Planning and working, I mean. Ambition and all that.

CYRIL (Impatiently) I knaow, but wot … ees … the point … of eet all? Why, why, why? Where ees eet all leading? You do make me tired, Cec-eel.

CECIL I do think that life is … you knaow … fine, nobeel, something to live bravely, I mean.

CYRIL Cec-eel, I do wish you would be quiet, I mean. Wot can we do, WOT CAN WE DO?

CECIL (Again brightly) I will tell you, Cyr-eel. We can STING! We can STING, old boy.

CYRIL I knaow, I knaow. It is nice, I suppaose. Actually I suppaose eet ees unbearably nice. But the penalty … Death, I mean, and all that.

CECIL (Grandly) I am not afraid to die, Cyr-eel.

CYRIL I knaow. But one sting and we are dead. Is eet worth it, I mean?

CECIL Cyr-eel, I believe eet ees.

CYRIL(Meditatively) I suppaose you’re right, you knaow.

CECIL (Eagerly) I have talked with dying bees just after they have given somebody a sting. And d’you knaow wot they told me?

CYRIL Wot was eet, old boy?

CECIL When they were dying, you knaow, they said they heard voices … beautiful choirs, you knaow, and the soft music of harps and all that. I do think that to die from giving our sting is to become a martyr. And d’you knaow another thing they told me?

CYRIL Wot?

CECIL Absolutely no pain, old boy. They felt as if they were lying in the cups of daffodils, just falling asleep on something soft and sweet. I do think death can be rather charming, you knaow.

CYRIL I often wondered, Cec-eel — wot ees eet makes us sting. I mean, why do we do eet?

CECIL Health, old boy. High spirits, you knaow, joie de vivre and so on. When a bee is young and healthy and bulging with honey, he simply can’t help himself. He … simply … can’t … help himself. Stinging may be immoral but really I am sure it must be very nice. Matter of fact, I think I’ll soon do a spot of stinging myself.

CYRIL O, Cec-eel! And die?

CECIL Well, we all have to die sometime.

CYRIL I knaow, but still … Death is a grey grim shaow, you knaow, a grey grim shaow.

CECIL There is really only one thing that stops me from stinging somebody, Cyr-eel.

CYRIL And wot is that?

CECIL The Queen! The hope that one day … I may meet the Queen … and marry her, you knaow, old boy, at an altitude of eight hundred thousand feet.3 Alone, I mean, quite alone, you knaow, in the sky.

CYRIL I say, Cec-eel, you are silly. A chance of two million to one.

CECIL But listen, Cyr-eel, d’you knaow that man person that one sees …?

CYRIL That one stings, you mean? (They laugh.)

CECIL Quite. Well I do believe they sell each other little tickets.4 Tickets for a price, you knaow. Sometimes they sell two million of these tickets.

CYRIL And wot happens?

CECIL Why, some blighter wins the prize, of course!

CYRIL Is that any reason why we should be so foolish, old boy?

CECIL Well, I daon’t knaow. I do think life is very baffling. I mean, what is one to do. Sting, or live on in the hope of meeting the Queen?

CYRIL Yes, old boy, that’s the difficulty. The choice between the sensuous delight of stinging with the rather charming death that follows, or keeping oneself … you knaow … chaste and alive in the hope of meeting the Queen. It is very difficult, Cec-eel. Very, very difficult.

CECIL I do think I’ll sting some man person, Cyr-eel.

CYRIL Do wait a little longer, old boy. Control of the passions and all that. One mustn’t give in to every impulse, I mean.

CECIL (Impatiently) But really, life is such a bore. It is such a bore being good!

CYRIL Yes, I knaow. (He rubs his hands briskly.) If only one could work, if only Bas-eel would come out of that flower —

There is a violent interruption. A very young and agile bee rushes in,  beside himself with hysteria and delight.

YOUNG BEE I’ve done it! I’ve done it! Oooooooooh!

CYRIL Wot’s all this row?

The YOUNG BEE rushes about laughing hysterically but his antics soon weaken; eventually he becomes quiet and sinks down and dies in agony.

YOUNG BEE I stung a man, I stung a man! I stung him, I tell you! Ooooooooooooh!

CECIL Grim shaow. He’s dying, you knaow.

BASIL (Putting his head out of the flower) Do tell me, wot’s all this row?

CYRIL Our friend has shot his bolt. Looks quite young too, I don’t knaow wot the country is coming to.

BASIL Ao. (He climbs out of the flower carrying a little yellow bag marked ‘honey’. This he inadvertently leaves within reach of THE DRONE, who is already stirring from the noise.) I say, he is rather a rotter to be doing that at his age.

CECIL A grey tragic shaow.

BASIL ‘O Death, where is thy sting.’ (All laugh)5

DRONE (Awake)

Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.6

BASIL (To THE DRONE) I say old boy, do shut up. (He examines corpse.) I do think this mess should be put away. One should really arrange to die at home, you knaow.

Exit dragging the corpse. THE DRONE quietly snaffles the bag of honey and begins to consume it covertly. CYRIL and CECIL are depressed and nervous after the death scene.

CECIL (Hysterically) Cyr-eel, I do wish I was dead!

CYRIL I feel like stinging somebody myself now. Why should he have all the fun?

CECIL Yes, why?

CYRIL But Cec-eel, I could not bear to part with you. We must die together, you knaow. Suicide pact and all that. We will meet again in a better land.

CECIL (Taken aback) Aoh.

DRONE (Feeding contentedly)

This is the state of the bee; today he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope; tomorrow blossoms

And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, 

And — when he thinks, good easy bee, full surely

His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root,

And then he falls …7

CECIL (Annoyed) I say, do shut up, you awful useless parasite!

CYRIL Yes, do be quiet, you fat good-for-nothing sponger!

DRONE (Unabashed) If I am

Traduced by ignorant tongues, which neither know

My faculties nor person, yet will be

The chronicles of my doing, let me say

’Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake

That virtue must go through.8

CECIL (Shouting) I say, if you don’t keep quiet I shall tumble you out of that chair and kick the head off you! CYRIL Oh, the bastard! (They turn their backs on him.)

CECIL Cyr-eel.

CYRIL Yes, old boy.

CECIL D’you really think we should die, disappear forever from this earth and all that?

CYRIL I really believe I do, old boy. I mean, if we go on living, we will have to go on working. Like Bas-eel there, you know. And I do think, Cec-eel, that there is absolutely no point in working. Working makes one vulgar, you knaow. And I am absolutely sick of the sight of honey. I mean, all that yellow mess.

CECIL By Jove I think you’re right, I think you’ve got eet. Why work? Why work for nothing? I mean, what do we get out of it?

CYRIL One chance in two million of having ten minutes with the Queen at eight hundred thousand feet. Not worth eet, old boy, definitely not worth eet.

CECIL Rather not.

CYRIL Shall we die, Cec-eel? Shall we sting? Shall we have just one glorious … marvellous … sting?

CECIL Together, old boy?

CYRIL Of course. We must both die at the same time. We must make a pact, you knaow…

DRONE Things done well,

And with a care, exempt themselves from fear;

Things done without example, in their issue

Are to be feared. Have you a precedent

Of this commission? I believe, not any.9

CECIL That settles eet! I do think I would die without even stinging if I had to listen to more of that rotter’s dreadful talk. I say Cyr-eel, do let us die.

CYRIL But how, old boy? I mean, if I sting somebody and die, how can I be sure that you will do the same? Fair is fair, you knaow, old boy.

CECIL That is a point, isn’t it.

CYRIL It ees a point, you knaow. (They think.)

CECIL (Excitedly) I say! I’ve got eet! I’ve got eet! We have to sting to die? Right?

CYRIL RIGHT.

CECIL We want to die together?

CYRIL Right.

CECIL Therefore we must sting together?

CYRIL Right.

CECIL Therefore we must sting EACH OTHER!

CYRIL Right. RIGHT!

CECIL So there you are, there eet ees. Simple, isn’t it?

CYRIL Deucedly simple, old boy. (Pause)

CECIL Shall we do eet now, Cyr-eel?

CYRIL (Reluctantly) I suppose we should, Cec-eel. I suppose we should, really.

CECIL (Resolutely) Well, let’s.

They approach each other gingerly. THE DRONE is half asleep and pays absolutely no attention. CECIL and CYRIL timidly shake hands.

CYRIL Well … old boy … eet has been nice knaowing you.

CECIL Pleasure all mine, old chap.

CYRIL Sorry to part and all that.

CECIL It does frightfully depress one, I mean. Fearful grey shaow.

CYRIL But we will meet again in a better land and all that, don’t you think?

CECIL Ao, rather. And where every bee will have a queen to himself, one hopes.

CYRIL I say, that is an idea. One hopes eet ees true, you knaow.

CECIL One definitely does, I mean.

CYRIL Well, old chap … so long!

CECIL Cheers, Cyr-eel, old boy.

They turn back to back suddenly and bump their bums together. Immediately they are galvanized into frenzied prancing and screaming; they die like the YOUNG BEE earlier. THE DRONE looks on, bored.

DRONE What should this mean?

What sudden anger’s this? How have they reap’d it?

They parted frowning from me, as if ruin

Leap’d from their eyes: so looks the chaféd lion

Upon the daring huntsman that has gall’d him;

Then makes him nothing. Nay then, farewell!

They’ve touched the highest point of all their greatness;

And, from that full meridian of their glory,

They haste now to their setting; they shall fall

Like a bright exhalation in the evening,

And no bee see them more.10

Soft martial music is heard off; the lights change, presaging something momentous. THE DRONE resumes his honeyed doze. Alone, the queen of all the bees enters. For glitter and majesty she must exceed even Meriel Moore as the courtesan in ‘Jack-in-the-Box’.11 THE QUEEN must be a superlatively erotic job.

QUEEN What! More dead bees! (She is horrified.) Aoh! Am I left alone … with no bee at all … after ignoring two million of them … for years and years …?

DRONE (Stirring in his sleep) 

Who’s there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves

Into my private meditations?12

QUEEN What! Is this alive? How dare you? (She approaches and examines the sleeping DRONE; her disgust is tempered by the fact that after all he is alive and a male.) Aoh.

DRONE (Asleep) I prithee, go to.13

QUEEN Aoh, the nasty old man!

DRONE (Asleep)

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But, when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood;

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage:

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a galléd rock

O’erhang and jutty his confounded base

Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

To his full height!14

QUEEN Aoh!

DRONE Let us seek some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty.15

QUEEN (Incensed) The wretch is drunk with honey! Of all the nerve! How dare the wretch treat his Queen like this — the only female bee in the whole country! How dare he!

DRONE Like the Pontick sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

To the Propontic and the Hellespont;

Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,

Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,

Till that capable and wide revenge

Swallow them up.16

QUEEN (Rushing over and shaking him) You miserable sot! How dare you mumble your drunken rubbish in the presence of your Queen! HOW DARE YOU! Wake up! Do you hear me? WAKE UP! I command you to wake up, you drunken scoundrel. I am the Queen! THE QUEEN!

DRONE (Only half-waking)

This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart,

Hot, hot, and moist! This hand of yours requires

A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,

Much castigation, exercise devout …17

QUEEN Wake up! Do you hear me? I command you — WAKE UP! You are the last living bee and I command you to marry me! Do you hear? I COMMAND YOU TO MARRY ME!

DRONE Where, where, where?

QUEEN (Pointing up) Up there, eight hundred thousand feet up — you know very well where. WAKE UP, you miserable sot! Do you want the race to die out, you cynical nincompoop? WAKE UP!

DRONE (Half-awake) Stay, my pet,

And let your reason with your choler question

What ’tis you go about. To climb steep hills

Requires slow pace at first: anger is like

A full-hot horse, who being allow’d his way,

Self-mettle tires him.18

QUEEN (Mad) Do you refuse? You disobey me? You disobey your Queen’s command? YOU REFUSE TO MARRY ME, YOU TREASONABLE SCOUNDREL! (She cries hysterically.) O, you awful, awful, lazy, useless, wretched scoundrel, you refuse to marry me, reject my royal love! O—! (She breaks down.)

DRONE Be advised;

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself: we may outrun

By violent swiftness, that which we run at

And lose by over-running. Know you not,

The fire that mounts the liquor till ‘t run o’er,

In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advised:

I say again, there is no beeish soul

More stronger to direct you than yourself

If with the sap of reason you would quench,

Or but allay, the fire of passion.19

QUEEN O that dreadful … unctuous … oily … wretched … treasonable … useless … dirty … impossible … bore! (She rushes about the stage in frenzy.) I’ll kill myself, I’LL KILL MYSELF. (She screams.) Do you hear me, I’ll kill myself. (She catches sight of the sleeping TRAMP in foreground.) I’ll sting something and kill myself. I’ll die, I’ll sting this and die! (She stings the TRAMP, who starts up with a cry; then she dies after a brief and noisy paroxysm.)

TRAMP What the bloody hell was that? Bees, begob. (He examines himself gingerly.) Begob this place is alive with them divils, I believe wan of them’s after stingin’ me, pumpin’ dirt and poison into me arum. Sure I told yeh — I TOLD YEH there’s a bloody nest of them here. Where’s me bottle? (He finds it and takes a suck.) A little drop on the sting and I was right. But where is the sting? (He notices the dead QUEEN and stands up to peer over at her.) Holy God, a bee as big as a greyhound. Begob the eyes is goin’ — that or me oul’ head! What’s goin’ on in this place at all? (Enter BASIL) Holy God, look at your man!

BASIL (To DRONE) Hallao! What have we here? The Queen, by Jove! (He examines her.)

TRAMP I never seen bees that size before.

(BASIL approaches DRONE.)

BASIL The Queen, my lord, is dead.

DRONE (Half-asleep) She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.20 (He falls asleep completely.)

TRAMP Begob I AM stung. I am stung! I can feel it now. It’s here in the middle of me arum; Wan of them dirty bees has got me! (His voice becomes steely with menace.) If I could lay me hands on the bee that done that … do you know what I’m goin’ to tell yeh, if I could lay me two hands on the bee that done that, I’d ——

 

CURTAIN

Notes

1 This castle … senses: Macbeth 1.6.1–3, spoken by Duncan as he enters Macbeth’s castle.

2 What early tongue … distemperature: Romeo and Juliet 2.3.32–40. Friar Lawrence rebukes Romeo for visiting him so early.

3 eight hundred thousand feet: some species of bees do have queens who mate on a nuptial flight, but considerably closer to the ground. I am grateful to my colleague, Prof. Stephen Welter, for assistance with Myles’s erratic entomology.

4 little tickets: presumably coupons for the Irish Sweepstakes.

5 ‘O Death, where is thy sting’: 1 Corinthians 15.55.

6 Foul whisperings … their secrets: Macbeth 5.1. 79–80. The Doctor, after observing Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking scene.

7 This is the state … he falls: King Henry VIII 3.2. 352–8. Commencing ‘This is the state of man,’ the speech is Wolsey’s meditation on his downfall.

8 If I am … go through: Henry VIII 1.2. 71-6. Wolsey again, defending the taxes he has levied, when Queen Katherine tells the King they have angered the people.

9 Things done well … not any: Henry VIII 1.2. 88–92. King Henry rebuking Wolsey and ordering him to lower the tax.

10 What should this mean? … see them more: Henry VIII 3.2. 204–09; 223–8. Wolsey, as he begins to realize that the King knows of his secret dealings and the fortune he has amassed. Myles substitutes They for He (205) and bee for man (226).

11 Meriel Moore … ‘Jack-in-the-Box’: Jack-in-the-Box, the Gate Theatre’s 1942 Christmas entertainment, included Myles’s Thirst and Oscar Wilde’s ‘fragment,’ La Sainte courtisane, or, The Woman Covered with Jewels (written in 1894–5), in which Meriel Moore played the gaudily seductive Myrrhina.

12 Who’s there … meditations: Henry VIII 2.2. 64–5. King Henry, angry at being interrupted while brooding over his plans to divorce Queen Katherine.

13 I prithee, go to: Shakespearean phrases, but from no specific play. Please, leave me alone.

14 In peace there’s nothing … full height!: Henry V 3.1. 3–17. King Henry urging his men on at Harfleur; the speech begins with the famous, ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends …’

15 Let us seek … empty: Macbeth 4.3.1–2. Malcolm to Macduff, in their English exile. Uncharacteristically, the Drone has misquoted slightly: ‘seek out some desolate shade.’

16 Like the Pontick sea … swallow them up: Othello 3.3. 453–460. Othello, reacting to Iago’s insinuations about Desdemona and Cassio.

17 This argues fruitfulness … exercise devout: Othello 3.4. 38–41. Othello to Desdemona, suspicious because her palm is sweaty.

18 Stay, my pet … tires him: Henry VIII 1.1. 129–34. Norfolk, who begins, ‘Stay, my lord,’ urging Buckingham to behave prudently.

19 Be advised … fire of passion: Henry VIII 1.1. 139–49. Norfolk, continuing his good advice.

20 The Queen, my lord, is dead … Signifying nothing: Macbeth 5.5. 16–28. Myles neatly appropriates Seyton’s announcement of Lady Macbeth’s death, and Macbeth’s ensuing meditation.