In view of the progress the modern drama has made as an interpreter of
social ideas and portrayer of the human struggle against internal and
external barriers, it is difficult to say what the future may bring in
the way of great dramatic achievement. So far, however, there is hardly
anything to compare with "Chantecler" in philosophic depth and poetic
beauty.
_Chantecler_ is the intense idealist, whose mission is light and truth.
His soul is aglow with deep human sympathies, and his great purpose in
life is to dispel the night. He keeps aloof from mediocrity; indeed, he
has little knowledge of his immediate surroundings. Like all great
visionaries, _Chantecler_ is human, "all too human"; therefore subject
to agonizing soul depressions and doubts. Always, however, he regains
confidence and strength when he is close to the soil; when he feels the
precious sap of the earth surging through his being. At such times he
feels the mysterious power that gives him strength to proclaim the
truth, to call forth the golden glory of the day.
The _pheasant hen_ is the eternal female, bewitchingly beautiful, but
self-centered and vain. True to her destiny, she must possess the man
and is jealous of everything that stands between her and him she loves.
She therefore employs every device to kill _Chantecler's_ faith in
himself, for, as she tells him, "You can be all in all to me, but
nothing to the dawn."
The _blackbird_ is the modernist who has become blasé, mentally and
spiritually empty. He is a cynic and scoffer; without principle or
sincerity himself, he sees only small and petty intentions in everybody
else.
_Patou_, true and stanch, is the symbol of honest conviction and
simplicity of soul. He loathes the blackbird because he sees in him the
embodiment of a shallow, superficial modernity, a modernity barren of
all poetic vision, which aims only at material success and tinseled
display, without regard for worth, harmony or peace.
The _peacock_ is the overbearing, conceited, intellectual charlatan; the
spokesman of our present-day culture; the idle prater of "art for art's
sake." As such he sets the style and pace for the idle pursuits of an
idle class.
The _guinea hen_ is none other than our most illustrious society lady.
Sterile of mind and empty of soul, she flits from one social function
to another, taking up every fad, clinging to the coattails of every
newcomer, provided he represent station and prestige. She is the slave
of fashion, the imitator of ideas, the silly hunter after effect--in
short, the parasite upon the labor and efforts of others.
The _night birds_ are the ignorant, stupid maintainers of the old. They
detest the light because it exposes their mediocrity and stagnation.
They hate _Chantecler_ because, as the old owl remarks, "Simple torture
it is to hear a brazen throat forever reminding you of what you know to
be only too true!" This is a crime mediocrity never forgives, and it
conspires to kill _Chantecler_.
The _woodpecker_ is our very learned college professor. Dignified and
important, he loudly proclaims the predigested food of his college as
the sole source of all wisdom.
The _toads_ represent the cringing, slimy hangers-on, the flunkies and
lickspittles who toady for the sake of personal gain.
"Chantecler," then, is a scathing arraignment of the emptiness of our
so-called wise and cultured, of the meanness of our conventional lies,
the petty jealousies of the human breed in relation to each other. At
the same time "Chantecler" characterizes the lack of understanding for,
and appreciation of, the ideal and the idealists--the mob spirit,
whether on top or at the bottom, using the most cruel and contemptible
methods to drag the idealist down; to revile and persecute him--aye,
even to kill him--for the unpardonable sin of proclaiming the ideal.
They cannot forgive _Chantecler_ for worshiping the sun:
_Chantecler._
Blaze forth in glory!...
O thou that driest the tears of the meanest among weeds
And dost of a dead flower make a living butterfly--
Thy miracle, wherever almond-trees
Shower down the wind their scented shreds,
Dead petals dancing in a living swarm--
I worship thee, O Sun! whose ample light,
Blessing every forehead, ripening every fruit,
Entering every flower and every hovel,
Pours itself forth and yet is never less,
Still spending and unspent--like mother's love!
I sing of thee, and will be thy high priest,
Who disdainest not to glass thy shining face
In the humble basin of blue suds,
Or see the lightning of thy last farewell
Reflected in an humble cottage pane!
...
Glory to thee in the vineyards! Glory to thee in the fields!
Glory among the grass and on the roofs,
In eyes of lizards and on wings of swans,--
Artist who making splendid the great things
Forgets not to make exquisite the small!
'Tis thou that, cutting out a silhouette,
To all thou beamest on dost fasten this dark twin,
Doubling the number of delightful shapes,
Appointing to each thing its shadow,
More charming often than itself.
I praise thee, Sun! Thou sheddest roses on the air,
Diamonds on the stream, enchantment on the hill;
A poor dull tree thou takest and turnest to green rapture,
O Sun, without whose golden magic--things
Would be no more than what they are!
In the atmosphere of persecution and hatred _Chantecler_ continues to
hope and to work for his sublime mission of bringing the golden day. But
his passion for the _pheasant hen_ proves his Waterloo. It is through
her that he grows weak, disclosing his secret. Because of her he attends
the silly five o'clock function at the _guinea hen's_, and is involved
in a prize fight. His passion teaches him to understand life and the
frailties of his fellow creatures. He learns the greatest of all
truths,--that "it is the struggle for, rather than the attainment of,
the ideal, which must forever inspire the sincere, honest idealist."
Indeed, it is life which teaches _Chantecler_ that if he cannot wake the
dawn, he must rouse mankind to greet the sun.
_Chantecler_ finds himself in a trying situation when he comes into the
gathering at the _guinea hen's_ five o'clock tea, to meet the pompous,
overbearing cocks representing the various governments. When he arrives
in the midst of these distinguished society people, he is plied with the
query, "How do you sing? Do you sing the Italian school or the French
school or the German school?" Poor _Chantecler_, in the simplicity of
his idealism, replies, "I don't know how I sing, but I know why I sing."
Why need the chanteclers know how they sing? They represent the truth,
which needs no stylish clothes or expensive feathers. That is the
difference between truth and falsehood. Falsehood must deck herself out
beyond all semblance of nature and reality.
_Chantecler._ I say ... that these resplendent gentlemen are
manufactured wares, the work of merchants with highly complex
brains, who to fashion a ridiculous chicken have taken a wing from
that one, a topknot from this. I say that in such Cocks nothing
remains of the true Cock. They are Cocks of shreds and patches, idle
bric-a-brac, fit to figure in a catalogue, not in a barnyard with
its decent dunghill and its dog. I say that those befrizzled,
beruffled, bedeviled Cocks were never stroked and cherished by
Nature's maternal hand.... And I add that the whole duty of a Cock
is to be an embodied crimson cry! And when a Cock is not that, it
matters little that his comb be shaped like a toadstool, or his
quills twisted like a screw, he will soon vanish and be heard of no
more, having been nothing but a variety of a variety!
The _Game Cock_ appears. He greets _Chantecler_ with the announcement
that he is the Champion fighter, that he has killed so and so many Cocks
in one day and an equal number on other occasions. _Chantecler_ replies
simply, "I have never killed anything. But as I have at different times
succored, defended, protected this one and that, I might perhaps be
called, in my fashion, brave."
The fight begins. _Chantecler_ is wounded and about to succumb, when
suddenly all the guests present rush to _Chantecler_ for protection: the
common enemy, the _Hawk_ is seen to approach. _Chantecler_ mistakes the
cowardice of those who come to seek his aid, for friendship; but the
moment the danger is over, the crowd again circles around the fighters,
inciting the _Game Cock_ to kill _Chantecler_. But at the critical
moment the _Game Cock_ mortally wounds himself with his own spurs, and
is jeered and driven off the scene by the same mob that formerly cheered
him on. _Chantecler_, weak and exhausted from loss of blood,
disillusioned and stung to the very soul, follows the _pheasant hen_ to
the Forest.
Soon he finds himself a henpecked husband: he may not crow to his
heart's content any more, he may not wake the sun, for his lady love is
jealous. The only time he can crow is when her eyes are closed in sleep.
But leave it to the _pheasant hen_ to ferret out a secret. Overhearing
_Chantecler's_ conversation with the _woodpecker_, she is furious. "I
will not let the sun defraud me of my love," she cries. But _Chantecler_
replies, "There is no great love outside of the shadow of the ideal."
She makes use of her beauty and charm to win him from the sun. She
embraces him and pleads, "Come to my soft bosom. Why need you bother
about the sun?"
_Chantecler_ hears the nightingale and, like all great artists, he
recognizes her wonderful voice, her inspiring powers compared with which
his own must seem hard and crude. Suddenly a shot is heard, and the
little bird falls dead to the ground. _Chantecler_ is heart-broken. And
as he mourns the sweet singer, the dawn begins to break. The _pheasant
hen_ covers him with her wing, to keep him from seeing the sun rise, and
then mocks him because the sun has risen without his crowing. The shock
is terrible to poor _Chantecler_, yet in his desperation he gives one
tremendous cock-a-doodle-do.
"Why are you crowing?" the hen asks.
"As a warning to myself, for thrice have I denied the thing I love."
_Chantecler_ is in despair. But now he hears another Nightingale, more
silvery and beautiful than the first. "Learn, comrade, this sorrowful
and reassuring fact, that no one, Cock of the morning or evening
nightingale, has quite the song of his dreams."
A wonderful message, for there must always be "in the soul a faith so
faithful that it comes back even after it has been slain." It Is vital
to understand that it is rather the consciousness that though we cannot
wake the dawn, we must prepare the people to greet the rising sun.