SCENE 1

The next day. The palace. Don Clotaldo and Basilio.

DON CLOTALDO: Segismundo’s in your bed, sire: lethargic, oblivious. The machinery of state is poised to honor and serve him as if he were Your Majesty. Will you now tell me your purpose in this?

BASILIO: Can my experiment change Fate? Can it challenge the stars? Can I, a free man, made in God’s image, can I alter my son’s destiny and prove the astral prophecies of two decades ago false? Today Segismundo will learn he is my son, heir to the Spanish throne. He’ll learn the extent of his absolute and riveting power. Then we’ll see. He’ll show us by his actions what he’s been dreaming of doing all these years. If he’s an enlightened despot he’ll be allowed to remain. If he’s a tyrant, he’ll be sent back to his chains and his solitude.

DON CLOTALDO: Why did you command that I drug him? Why bring him to the palace asleep?

BASILIO: If he fails this test and must be forced back to that miserable life, knowing he’s the real king, he’ll surely lose his mind. But he fell asleep in his cell before coming here. And he’ll reawaken in his cell again if necessary. Thus we’ll be able to tell him he only dreamed he was king. And he’ll accept that, knowing, as we all do, that all who live are dreamers.

DON CLOTALDO: I don’t know if you’ll succeed in this, sire, but it’s too late now. He’s been awakened and may be approaching.

BASILIO: I must withdraw. Speak to him, gentle friend, teach him as you have all his life. Be the golden thread that guides my son through his personal labyrinth.

DON CLOTALDO: Do I have permission to tell him it was you who ordered him imprisoned at birth?

BASILIO: If he knows everything, he’ll understand all the dangers involved in this experiment, and he’ll succeed.

(Basilio exits.

Clarín enters.)

DON CLOTALDO: Where’s your master—your mistress? What’s she—he doing?

CLARÍN: She’s taken your advice, now she’s a she again. And she’s dressing the part. Rosaura’s decided, since she’s come out of the closet, to raid that closet for the finest girl’s clothes in the kingdom.

DON CLOTALDO: That’s proper and good.

CLARÍN: She’s changed her name. And she’s told everyone she’s your niece. And that little white lie has sent her stock through the roof. She’s now an honored lady-in-waiting to the nubile, eye-pleasing, come-hither-but-don’t-touch-me-I’m-a-virgin Estrella.

DON CLOTALDO: That’s good. As her uncle I can legitimately be responsible for her honor; she’ll derive her honor strictly from me.

CLARÍN: Yeah, that too. About that other thing. The revenge-on-the-duke-thing. She says she agrees with you and she’s going to bide her time and wait for the perfect moment.

DON CLOTALDO: Simply waiting is the best thing she can do.

CLARÍN: As for me—well, the world seems to have forgotten me: faithful Clarín who’s tagged behind that stark, ungovernable girl for less than minimum wage for too long! But I tell you, sir, if I don’t get something to eat, and soon, I’m going to sing like a friggin’ canary and expose the whole lot of you double-dealers and flakes to every hack poet who’ll listen!

DON CLOTALDO: Be my slave and you will eat every day.

CLARÍN: Not perfect. The slave part is not perfect. But okay.

(Music plays. Segismundo enters, accompanied by the Servant carrying a full-length mirror.

Segismundo, wearing the radiant clothing of a prince, head to toe in gold and jewels, gazes at himself in wonder as the Servant places the mirror on the ground.)

SEGISMUNDO: Ay Dios, what am I seeing? Ay Dios, what do I feel? What’s this dreadful beauty? Why do I doubt it and believe it? God of Love, is this your son Segismundo? Is this me wearing silk and golden studs—and shoes? Is this me surrounded by lucid and spirited servants? Is this me among so many people dying to dress me and address me as “Your Lordship”? They say dreams are wonders. Wonders enchant and deceive. But I know I’m awake! I know, somehow, I am now splendid Segismundo! God, I didn’t know what it was like to walk without chains! My God, please, if this is your promise of the future, keep it! Don’t take it from me!

(Don Clotaldo approaches Segismundo.)

DON CLOTALDO: Give me your hand and let me kiss it. I am honored to be the first among the nobles of Castile to pledge you unconditional loyalty.

SEGISMUNDO: Your voice. You’re Don Clotaldo. How is it possible? How can the man who mistreated me in prison be here, pledging his allegiance to me?

DON CLOTALDO: In the great confusion your new state creates in you, you experience a thousand natural doubts. But I wish to free you from that, if I may. You are, sir, the king’s son, the prince, and the principle heir to the Spanish throne. You were secluded at birth and hidden in a desert tower because astrologers looking into your future predicted a thousand tragedies if you were ever to wear the crown. But trusting that your strength of character could vanquish the prophecies of the stars—because a magnificent soul can conquer anything—you’ve been brought to the king’s palace from the tower in which you languished. This was done while you slept, while your soul was resting and peaceful. Your father will come to see you and from the king, Segismundo, you’ll learn the rest.

SEGISMUNDO: Lawless traitor! Hypocrite! Subversive! What else do I need to know now that I know who I really am? You—Don Clotaldo—you have betrayed your nation by concealing me!

DON CLOTALDO: ¡Ay de mi triste!

SEGISMUNDO: You’ve degraded the royal family and rebelled against the law! You’ve been unnatural and cruel to me! Now, as king, as law, and as myself—I condemn you to die by these hands!

(The Servant gets between Don Clotaldo and Segismundo.)

SERVANT: Your Majesty!

SEGISMUNDO: No one will hinder me!

SERVANT (To Don Clotaldo): You must go!

DON CLOTALDO (To Segismundo): I feel sorry for you, my son. You have the chance to prove yourself. But if you’re barbaric and fierce, everything you see and feel will disappear.

(Don Clotaldo exits.)

SERVANT (To Segismundo): Sir, I must say something . . .

SEGISMUNDO: I’m pleading with you to shut your mouth!

SERVANT: By keeping you in the tower the grandee was only obeying the law of the king!

SEGISMUNDO: If the king’s law stinks it should not be obeyed!

SERVANT: Don Clotaldo didn’t question the law or his king—

SEGISMUNDO: I predict a really hard time for anyone—anyone— who contradicts me today—

CLARÍN (To Servant): Listen to your prince, fool!

SEGISMUNDO (To Clarín): And who the hell are you?

CLARÍN: Oh, just an old clown with a big mouth; a fly, really, a dust particle . . .

SEGISMUNDO: Well, you’re the only thing in this dreamlike world that makes me one bit happy.

CLARÍN: Can you translate that sentiment into food?

(Astolfo enters.)

ASTOLFO: May you achieve a kind of orgasmic happiness a thousand times a day, oh prince! Soul of Spain! Subduer of the Maya! Tamer of the Taino! Sovereign of the Old World, the New World and the Next World! You have emerged from the hot belly of those mountains like Christ clawing his way up from hell—a human sunrise, a resurrected hope, a Spanish Orpheus.

SEGISMUNDO: May God help you.

ASTOLFO: Uh-huh. Obviously you don’t know who I am. That’s the only excuse you have for not honoring me with a little more passion and a lot more language. Here’s a hint. I am Astolfo, Duke of Warsaw. Your cousin? We’re equals?

SEGISMUNDO: If I say, “May God bless you,” haven’t I honored you enough? Watch yourself or next time I’ll greet you with, “God save me from this fucking idiot!”

(Estrella enters. She’s written her little speech on a piece of paper.)

ESTRELLA (Reads): Majestic Father of the Spanish Civilization. You are most welcome to this throne which gratefully receives the round warmth of your royal rump and breathlessly desires union with you. Despite all the prophecies, which ranked you somewhat lower than Caligula, we know you will be a potent, plentiful and penetrating prince. Curtsy.

(Estrella curtsies. Segismundo gets closer to Estrella.)

SEGISMUNDO (To Estrella): Who are you, princess? Who is this fallen angel—wingless—almost human; one part dirt, one part blood, one part starlight?

CLARÍN: Cousin, sire, the girl’s your cousin . . .

ESTRELLA: Estrella is my name . . .

CLARÍN: . . . ambition is my game.

SEGISMUNDO: Many good things have happened to me, lady. Blinders have been taken from my eyes. Fetters have been removed from my legs. I’ve climbed the long road from Hell to Heaven in a day! But nothing has been quite as glorious as this glorious moment with you.

ESTRELLA (Getting closer to him): You have a way with words.

ASTOLFO (To Servant): If he touches her hand, I’m lost!

(Segismundo roughly grabs Estrella’s hand and kisses it violently.)

SERVANT (To Segismundo): Sire, what you’re doing violates every single convention . . .

SEGISMUNDO: Didn’t I tell you to get out of my way?

SERVANT: But she’s Astolfo’s lady. You insult him by . . .

SEGISMUNDO: I am the law now. I am convention. There can be no insult if I do what makes me happy!

SERVANT: But you said yourself if the law stinks it shouldn’t be obeyed—

SEGISMUNDO: Every word out of your mouth is treasonous! Can anyone tell me the punishment for treason?

SERVANT: You can’t punish me! I’ve been in this house all my life! I watched you being born! I watched your mother die!

SEGISMUNDO: I “can’t”? Did you say I “can’t”?

(Segismundo grabs the Servant. He sticks his thumbs into the Servant’s eyes until they bleed. Blinded, bleeding, screaming, the Servant staggers out of the room. Estrella, shocked, follows him. Astolfo stares at Segismundo whose hands are bloody.)

I think I can.

ASTOLFO (Shaken): Your Majesty . . . There’s a difference between men and animals . . . that difference is law . . . and law is the codification of self-mastery and self-restraint . . .

SEGISMUNDO: Shut up, Astolfo. You’re a blowhard and a bore.

ASTOLFO: Sire—

SEGISMUNDO: Relax—you don’t want to lose your head over this little matter, do you?

(Basilio enters.)

BASILIO: What’s happened here?

SEGISMUNDO: Nothing’s happened.

(Segismundo holds out his bloody hands.)

Here are his eyes.

CLARÍN (To Segismundo): . . . Excuse me, but that’s the, you know, king?

BASILIO (Horrified): Is that what this experiment has cost me? Has your freedom been paid for by a pair of eyes?

SEGISMUNDO: Is it the national pastime in Spain to speak in rhetorical questions?

BASILIO: My son, my prince . . . I came here expecting, hoping, that your good behavior would finally silence the arrogant stars . . . instead I walk in on a house of broken hearts . . . the servant blinded . . . the blood on your indifferent hands still warm. With what love can I touch you, my son, knowing the pain those fingers have caused? I came here with my arms out, hoping to embrace you, to welcome you to the society of men, to give a father’s love, and to energize our nation with a swift reunion . . . no, son . . . I am afraid to look at you.

SEGISMUNDO: I can live without your arms, your embraces and your fatherly love, father—I’ve lived without those things all my life. And I can live without the insipid rhetoric of love, father! I used to ask my mentor: “What does ‘father’ mean?” And he’d define it for me a hundred different ways. And I never got it, father! You’ve kept me from your side . . . I’ve been no more than an animal to you . . . you’ve treated me like a malformation . . . an embarrassment . . . a godless spirit deprived of teaching, laughter, the violent colors of nature, experience, time and destiny. In the dirty war you’ve waged against me, in my two decades as a political prisoner, you have desired nothing less than my total mutilation . . . what do I care, Father, that you won’t touch me now?

BASILIO: In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I ask to never be reminded that I brought you into existence!

SEGISMUNDO: If you hadn’t given me life, I wouldn’t have been offended. But you did give me life, and you did take it away, so you have offended me—

BASILIO: I freed you from the tower!

SEGISMUNDO: So you demand my gratitude? For what? You’re an old and dying tyrant. I suppose you have no other heirs—no, you’re incapable of really giving life—without another heir, you turn to me, your secret shame. Well, as prince, all of this—the empire itself, and every human soul in it—is mine by law. I owe you nothing. In fact, you owe me for the stolen years of imprisonment and abuse. I should have you arrested for theft! (Shouts of fstage) Don Clotaldo, arrest the king!

BASILIO: Barbarian! Atrocity! Pillager! Living outrage!

CLARÍN: Eye-gouger!

SEGISMUNDO: All my life I’ve tortured myself, asking God what crime I committed. Now I know—my only crime was being born your son.

BASILIO: The astrologers were right about you! Be careful, prince! You are the heir to this throne and the first citizen of this state, but you must be humble and docile! Otherwise, be warned . . . you may be sleeping right now . . . and what you think is real may not be . . . the power you enjoy may be nothing more substantial than the power of a dream . . .

(Basilio and Astolfo exit.)

SEGISMUNDO (To Clarín): The power of a dream! Is the old man crazy? Am I imagining all this? No. I touch things;

I feel them. I am who I am! He’ll regret what he said, you’ll see. I disbelieve what I was and believe what I am: heir to the crown, the wronged, much-deceived prince, back from political exile. If he kept me in darkness it was not because of my weakness but because I couldn’t know who I was. But now I know exactly what I am, what I’ve turned into courtesy of my dear dad: a crossbreed, a mixed-blood, a hybrid, half man, half animal.

(Rosaura enters, dressed as a woman. She does not see Segismundo and Clarín.)

ROSAURA: Estrella? Lady? Are you here?

SEGISMUNDO (Seeing her): My God, who is that?

(Segismundo stares at Rosaura. She practices fencing moves in preparation for killing Astolfo.)

CLARÍN: So . . . big guy . . . what do you like most about being rich and famous?

SEGISMUNDO: The women.

CLARÍN: No surprise there.

SEGISMUNDO: Nothing I’ve seen since my sudden awakening has filled me with more contradictory and untranslatable feelings. They look peaceful but they fill my inner heart with tempests and whirlwinds. They speak softly but their voices echo in my memory at such volume that my head would burst. I once read, in one of the many theological treatises I ate, that God gave his best gifts and focused His greatest creative energy on making Man. Man—with the strength of mountains, the depth of oceans, the brilliance of fire—is Earth itself in miniature. But I think it was Woman God really loved. Woman—with the mystery of clouds, the depth of outer space, and the strange fires of the Milky Way—is Heaven itself in miniature. Truly, the Earth is to Heaven as Man is to Woman . . . especially if she’s the woman I’m looking at right now.

(Rosaura sees Segismundo, gasps, and starts to leave.)

Stay, lady, stay!

ROSAURA: I can’t—

SEGISMUNDO: Don’t bring in the sunlight of your presence only to flee and leave me in the cold shadow of night.

ROSAURA: Sunlight? Shadow? I don’t know these flowery words . . .

SEGISMUNDO (Recognizing her face): I don’t believe what I see...

ROSAURA (Recognizing him): Neither do I, sire! Good-bye!

SEGISMUNDO: I’ve seen your face before, lady.

ROSAURA: No, I don’t think that’s possible. (To Clarín) Is it, you worthless peasant slave?

CLARÍN: Impossible! Sire, have you seen the beautiful girls who live in the west wing of the palace?

SEGISMUNDO (To Rosaura): But I look at you as if I’m looking at my own redemption, my own life.

ROSAURA: I have a job to do, my prince—

SEGISMUNDO: Dear woman—the two most excellent words a man may use in a lifetime of speaking—dear woman, who are you? Without knowing anything about you, I know I love you. I know it because, somehow, we’ve met before—maybe in a dream, in one of my few dreams of happiness! Please don’t leave without telling me your name.

ROSAURA (Trying to remember it): It’s . . .

CLARÍN AND ROSAURA: Agnes/Astrea.

ROSAURA: Astrea. And I belong to Princess Estrella. I am her servant, a low and minuscule working woman with a busy schedule . . .

(Rosaura tries to leave. Segismundo stops her.)

SEGISMUNDO: I just don’t understand how you—the obviously superior light, the greater beauty—should serve and honor that fading ragwoman Estrella. You, the real woman, should be empress here, not that counterfeit, pretending transparent forgery of a woman.

(Segismundo touches her face. Rosaura is frozen.)

ROSAURA: Since I crave your respect, sire, please let silence be my eloquent reply.

(Rosaura pushes his hand away and starts to leave.)

SEGISMUNDO: But you don’t have to leave me! You understand what I’m trying to tell you!

ROSAURA: I understand it too well!

SEGISMUNDO: Then understand that all this coyness does nothing but provoke my anger, lady!

ROSAURA: Even if fury overcomes you, it can’t destroy the respect and honor convention demands you have for me.

SEGISMUNDO: Convention! I blinded a man today, a nice man, a family man, probably had a house full of grand-kids—kids he’ll never see again—just to prove that I could do it!

(Segismundo grabs Rosaura.)

ROSAURA (To Clarín): Bring someone, fool!

CLARÍN (Calling off): Help!

SEGISMUNDO: I did it with these fingers! Fingers more than capable of stealing your precious chastity!

CLARÍN: Help!

ROSAURA (Struggling): Now I understand why the horoscopes said you’d desolate this kingdom and bring disgrace to your family and misery to your people! But what can the world expect from you? You’re not really a man, except in name. Without a soul, without a heart, without reason, a language of curses, an appetite for slaughter—you’re more animal than man . . .

CLARÍN: Help!

SEGISMUNDO: I spoke to you kindly! I used civilized phrases! I expect kindness and civility in return! Insult me and I have no choice but to answer you with the ultimate insult . . .

CLARÍN: Help!

(Segismundo begins tearing off Rosaura’s clothes.)

ROSAURA: God help me!

(Don Clotaldo enters.)

SEGISMUNDO: In this room, I am God and animal!

DON CLOTALDO: I must stop you, prince, even if it means my death!

(Don Clotaldo grabs Rosaura from Segismundo. Rosaura runs to Clarín, who holds her.)

SEGISMUNDO (To Don Clotaldo): This is the second time you’ve provoked me, you pathetic, weak, old man!

DON CLOTALDO: There is no unlimited power, even for a prince! You must control this passion! You must civilize your heart!

(Segismundo draws his dagger. Don Clotaldo kneels at Segismundo’s feet. He grabs Segismundo’s hands.)

Kneeling at your feet, I will save my life!

SEGISMUNDO: Take your hand away!

(Segismundo pulls away from Don Clotaldo. The two men fight.)

ROSAURA (Calling off): Don Clotaldo’s in danger! Please help!

(Segismundo knocks Don Clotaldo to the floor. Astolfo enters to help. Seeing him, Rosaura and Clarín go into hiding. Astolfo gets between Segismundo and Don Clotaldo.)

ASTOLFO: But what is this, my prince? Is this how a king’s sword is stained—with the cold blood of an old man?

SEGISMUNDO: His blood for my honor!

ASTOLFO: There’s no honor in fighting a weaker man.

SEGISMUNDO: Then let me fight a stronger, if a stronger one exists!

(Segismundo draws his sword.)

ASTOLFO: I may kill a member of the royal family in self-defense.

(Astolfo draws his sword. They duel.

Basilio and Estrella enter.)

BASILIO: A duel? In my presence? What’s happening here?

(Astolfo sheaths his weapon.)

ASTOLFO: Nothing, sire. We may both sheath our swords without losing our honor now that we’re in your presence.

SEGISMUNDO: Much, sir, even though you are present. I was about to slaughter that cringing old bastard . . .

BASILIO: With no respect for his old age?

DON CLOTALDO (To Basilio): It’s only me, Your Majesty; this conflict is of no importance . . .

SEGISMUNDO (To Basilio): It’s absurd to ask me to respect old age. It’s even more absurd to ask me to respect you. Some day soon, as I walk to the throne room, I’ll walk on a carpet made of your gray hair, old man. That’s the only way to repay you for the way you raised me.

(Segismundo exits.)

BASILIO: Before you take that walk, you’ll return to your sleep, child. There you’ll know that every good thing that’s happened today happened in your imagination.

(Basilio and Don Clotaldo exit.)

ASTOLFO: Isn’t it interesting, dear Estrella, how the prophets of doom are never wrong? You’d be the world’s greatest psychic if you always predicted the worst. Just look at Segismundo. The stars were completely right about him. And isn’t it interesting how the opposite never seems to happen? Look at me, for instance. My stars have always been good. My horoscopes bristled with happy news: conquests, applause, good looks, huge capital gains—and love—most of all, love. So why is it, princess, that my stars were wrong while Segismundo’s were right? Why is it that instead of the love promised to me by the zodiac all I’ve gotten lately is a cold shoulder and an empty bed? ES

TRELLA: Oh, give me a break. Ask the girl whose picture you wore around your neck so close to your fickle heart the day we met. Ask her to read your tea leaves, Astolfo. Ask her to do your tarot cards. She’s your confidante, your better self, your oracle and your soulmate—not me.

(Rosaura waits for Astolfo’s answer.)

ASTOLFO (To Estrella): I swear on my mother’s eyes to exorcise that girl’s devilish likeness from the sanctuary of my heart, dear princess.

(Rosaura attempts to lunge at Astolfo, to tear him apart with her bare hands, but Clarín restrains her.)

The space left behind by the flight of that black angel will be filled with your light and likeness. You are brighter than the sun. An eclipser of the Crab Nebula. I’ll get the picture right now—I’ll give it to you and you can destroy it.

(Astolfo exits.)

ESTRELLA: Astrea!

(Rosaura and Clarín emerge from hiding.)

ROSAURA: Your ladyship! Employer! Visionary! You, who outfox the foxes of Spain!

ESTRELLA: I like you. You’re the only woman in this murky cesspool of a palace I can trust with a really delicate matter.

ROSAURA: Your lowly slave doesn’t deserve such honor.

ESTRELLA: Probably not, but I don’t have much choice. All the girls around here hate me. Here’s the thing. My cousin Astolfo is a man—I mean, he’s quite a man. He’s rich, royal, handsome and I hear the guy’s got it where it counts. I mean, you’re a not-too-bad-looking young woman . . . for a specimen of your class, I mean . . . I don’t have to tell you about . . . the daydreams of a virgin princess . . . blind sexual attraction . . . fantasies the likes of which you’ve never experienced before . . . cold showers in the middle of the night . . . having to replace the damp bed sheets every morning! He talks too much and his metaphors drive me a little crazy, but the duke does something really wacky to my personal chemistry. Okay, but there’s a problem. Something is standing in our way. The faithless hog—can you believe this?—keeps a badly colorized picture of an ex-girlfriend on a little gold chain.

CLARÍN (Sotto voce, to Rosaura): Who could that be?

ROSAURA (Sotto voce, to Clarín): Me, bruto!

ESTRELLA: Being a princess, I can’t stand even the smallest competition and I’ve told him to bring it to me. And he’s so spastically in love with me, he agreed. But being a noblewoman, it would be socially embarrassing to take the picture from him. That’s where you come in. I want you to let Astolfo give you the picture, which you’ll give to me, which I’ll destroy thoroughly, okay? If you understand what love and all its humiliations are about, Astrea, you’ll understand why I ask this of you.

(Estrella exits.)

ROSAURA: Oh God, I wish I didn’t understand! Clarín, I need your advice. You have to tell me what to do!

CLARÍN: Advice is my forte, madam.

ROSAURA: I mean, who can figure this out? Who’s got enough brainpower to keep up with the endless supply of nagging misfortunes in this damn place?

CLARÍN: Prudent reflection often yields an abundance of—

ROSAURA: I mean, does good old God just sit up there all day long, casually choosing the people He’s going to pour extra misery on? Did I win some kind of perverse celestial lottery? I mean, what’s a girl to do faced with these choices?

CLARÍN: Cooler heads may sort out the complexities—

ROSAURA: Am I too ashamed to act? Why am I jealous of Estrella? What about the prince? Before he attacked me—what was I feeling for him?

CLARÍN: Um . . .

ROSAURA: It’s like capital “M” Misfortune is a strange variation of the mythological Phoenix: it burns itself out ruining your life until you’re both consumed in its fire, and out of your dead ashes it comes back to life, stronger, ready to do more damage, promote more carnage—an endless cycle of regurgitated despair!

CLARÍN: I’m drawing a complete blank.

ROSAURA: Come on, Clarín! If I tell everyone who I really am, then Don Clotaldo, who saved my life, and holds his honor around me like a shield, and has asked me to sit passively by and do nothing, may be offended. And we know how bad offense is around here. But. If I don’t tell Astolfo who I really am, and he sees me, how am I supposed to fool him? I’ll deny to his face that I’m Rosaura, but my soul will give me away through my eyes—dammit—if I could just poke them out! That’s it, Clarín: honor depends on blindness! If I could just find a pin to plunge into my eyes . . .

(Rosaura searches her clothes for a pin.)

CLARÍN: Madam!

ROSAURA (Looking at him): You’re right, what’s the point? Whatever I do is only going to make things worse. It’s my fate, wise Clarín, thank you for making that clear to me. It’s my atrocious horoscope. I should just surrender to it. Let it win. Let it take me. Let this tortured soap opera reach its bloody climax and be done.

(Astolfo enters, holding Rosaura’s picture.

Rosaura pushes Clarín away. Clarín hides and watches.)

ASTOLFO (Seeing Rosaura, amazed): I don’t believe this.

ROSAURA: What’s the matter? Something wrong with you?

ASTOLFO: That voice. That legendary face. Through the windows of those eyes, I see the soul of my dear love Rosaura.

ROSAURA: Me? Rosaura? Your eyes play tricks on you, sir. My name is Astrea.

ASTOLFO: Drop it Rosaura, it’s pointless. The soul doesn’t lie. Not to one as deeply in love as I am.

(Astolfo tries to kiss Rosaura. She pushes him away.)

ROSAURA: Sir, Estrella—a woman Aphrodite herself would be proud to imitate—ordered me to ask you to give me that picture you hold in your hand—

ASTOLFO: Try that again. This time tell your eyes to play along with you. Tell your voice to convince itself before it tries to convince me. Come on, Rosaura, once more from the top! “Sir, Estrella—a woman Aphrodite herself . . . ”

ROSAURA (Blushing with anger): “. . . would be proud to imitate—ordered me . . .”

ASTOLFO: Very well. If you want to play games, we’ll play games. “Ass-trea,” was it? Ass-trea, as Duke of Warsaw, I command you to trot your tight little Ass-trea over to the princess, immediately, and tell her I honor her so much, I refuse to send her a mere copy of the beautiful Rosaura. Instead I’m going to send her the original: you.

ROSAURA: Sir. Originals are worth more than copies, true. But when an honorable person goes off having promised to perform a deed and then returns without having accomplished that deed—even if she returns with something of greater worth—then that person is a liar and a promise breaker. And liars and promise breakers have a special place reserved for them in the Inferno of my heart. I promised to get that picture from you and I will get that picture from you right now!

ASTOLFO: No.

ROSAURA: Damn you! I spit in your father’s sperm!

(Rosaura tries to grab the picture. She and Astolfo tussle.)

ASTOLFO: ’Tis a fiery little bitch!

ROSAURA: I’ll kill us both before another woman—especially that simpleton—touches this picture of me!

ASTOLFO: I’m enjoying this tussle, Rosaura!

(Astolfo has Rosaura on her back. He lies on top of her. Estrella enters.)

ESTRELLA: Astolfo, Astrea—what’s all this tussling?

ASTOLFO: Estrella’s here!

ROSAURA: Aren’t you brilliant? (To Estrella) Lady, my lady, my lady . . . I can explain this, just give me a moment to order my thoughts.

ASTOLFO (Panicking): What are you going to say?

ROSAURA (To Estrella): You ordered me to wait here for Astolfo and ask him for that picture. I was alone. And, being alone, you know, the mind wanders, daydreams assert themselves, and since we were talking of pictures, I remembered I had one of myself, here, hidden in my sleeve. Crazy with boredom I took it out to look at it and I dropped it.

ASTOLFO: She dropped it.

ROSAURA: Astolfo the Brilliant, as he’s referred to by the epic poets of Warsaw, both of them, came along with the picture of that other girl, ready to surrender it to you via me, and he saw my picture on the floor. And he’s so adamantly opposed to giving you the picture of his sexy ex-lover that he actually intends to give you my picture instead! Which I can’t let him do. When he wouldn’t give me my picture, we tussled briefly for it.

ASTOLFO: I didn’t enjoy that part at all.

ROSAURA: The picture Ass-tolfo holds in his hand is mine. Look at it, whose face do you see?

ESTRELLA (To Astolfo): Give me the picture.

ASTOLFO: Do I have to?

(Estrella grabs the picture from Astolfo and looks at it.)

ESTRELLA: She’s a true beauty with a dangerous and fiery spirit—and your twin, Astrea. Take it and get out of here.

(Estrella gives Rosaura her picture.)

ROSAURA: Now ask him for the other one, miss.

(Rosaura exits.)

ESTRELLA: Give me the picture I requested. Though I’ll never look at it or refer to it again, I don’t want it in your hands. Since I disgraced myself by asking for it, it has to be destroyed.

ASTOLFO: I live to serve you, you know that—oh gorgeous one—but I can’t, I can’t, don’t make me . . .

ESTRELLA: You’re a lying heathen and a shitty boyfriend! I don’t want you to give it to me! If I had it, it would only remind me how I begged you for it!

(Estrella exits.)

ASTOLFO (To Estrella): Does that mean the engagement’s off? (To himself) Rosaura, Rosaura—Rosaura!

(Blackout.)

SCENE 1

SCENE 2