Sophron, your bare grand neck's a tawny pillar
To lean a cheek against in burning noons;
Your careless eyes look deeplier than you know;
You must be kept in life.... Down there, down there
Is something darker, swifter than the sea....
An unseen smoky glare is mirrored now....
That was his boat: he is gone.... Sophron, Sophron!
The sea is suddenly empty--and all places.
I have given him to mine enemies. She'll not kill him.
Now I must waken and repent my dreams:
Ay, Sophron, get you gone--I am whole again;
I am the Queen's--and O, farewell, farewell.
_She descends the stair slowly._
I am the Queen's indeed. Is she yet mine?
Ditizele--
_A VOICE, from within the cedar lattice._
Who is it calls me?
DANAE. Danae.
THE VOICE. Yes?
DANAE.
The queen has spoilt my rose--throw me a young one.
_A rosebud falls from the lattice: DANAE sets it in her hair._
Thanks, dear.... She has put up my hair awry--
It will remind her she put up my hair.
_She shakes down her hair and knots it again, holding the rose-stalk in
her mouth until she can replace it._
These Asiatic nights ruin the hair,
Their humid heat puts out its inner lights--
Mine waves with gleams no more than manes of Iran....
Now she has left the shore--now she will set
Her feet upon the stairs like setting-of teeth....
_The child cries a little once: DANAE goes to it._
O, baby, the old silence of palaces
Is settling on you steadily. Your crying
Is shut within--and shall be farther enclosed.
One light small cry shows all so much too quiet.
_LAODICE, who has entered noiselessly and come close behind DANAE._
Ay, do you consort with mine enemies?
DANAE, _wailing._
Ah ... Ah ... I sickened with the secret thing,
The too faint sound that crept about my neck.
LAODICE, _slipping an arm about her._
Nay, Rose-Locks, calm thy heart; I did but tease
Thy mothering this lost child, kings' waif and surplus.
Rare nurses his: the next will be the last:
Some treachery will ever draw toward him.
Rest you again upon the Persian couch,
And I will sit with you and comfort you.
_Leading her to the divan._
Do not forget the cherishing of a queen:
I could not catch your Sophron for you, child.
DANAE.
I did not want him: he is better gone.
LAODICE.
Yet such delight to lead him to your arms:
You said you looked at him almost penitently.
DANAE.
Madam, you mock me; I have passed from him.
LAODICE.
Yes, yes; but rapture, for your mind severe,
Lies in the nearness of wise and powerful men--
As once for famous high Leontion,
That philosophic courtesan your mother.
Let be; but tell me of his quietest scheme.
DANAE.
I know him not: I never knew his mind.
_Several women appear dimly at the latticed windows and the gallery._
LAODICE.
Ah, well ... I am tired, and it is your dear turn
To open your arms. Hold me and I will nestle,
Will murmur for you to hear along your neck.
What shall we do to-morrow, Danae?
DANAE.
Fair mistress, I can dance for you to-morrow.
LAODICE.
Yes, but my dainty cannot dance all day--
She must have long, long quiet for her thoughts.
DANAE.
Then shall I wing the bright and silken birds
About the border of your Persian mantle?
LAODICE.
How should I do without you so many hours?
DANAE.
Your Parthian has a witch of snakes for you--
LAODICE.
I can charm snakes and even pith their fangs.
DANAE.
This is a rare one and, if she is drunken,
Does uncouth things delicious to the senses.
Steep in her wine the herb that makes insane--
LAODICE.
The herb....?
DANAE.
The viscous plant that grows i' your chamber:
Strange longer serpents shall be swiftly snared
And mixt untamed with hers, for you to read
Her gaping and ridiculous tragedy
As the cold perils sober her to pallor.
LAODICE.
It is not novel: with a secret call
I have turned snakes upon such things before.
I am learned and I need some graver pang--
Something as unsuspected as to tell you
That I had poisoned you three hours ago,
And see you disbelieve--begin to believe.
DANAE.
But you did not.
LAODICE. There is the disbelief.
_A pause._
If I had done so I should here avouch
I could not do it--then await a sign.
DANAE.
Ah, I am yours.... You have not doomed me yet.
Queen with the wells of night for human eyes,
Let us descend upon the sea to-morrow,
Rule your own kingdom by your cedarn barge:
We will recline together, hushed as here--
Save for the waters' converse just beneath,
Permeant as my pulse veiled by your cheek.
LAODICE.
I am uneasy now and should disturb you--
And thence your restlessness would chafe me more.
I must make sure that you will lie quite still:
May I so still you? Then you shall to sea.
We'll sail about the limit of the lands
Until you reach the river of Babylon.
DANAE.
So much in one rapt day?
The days of life can never compass that.
LAODICE.
Not in a day, but in a day and night:
Conceive the night, my Danae, the night--
It is the natural state of being and space,
Briefly interrupted by casual suns.
Much unknown empires are attained in night--
Perhaps not Babylon, yet far enough.
One night can be a very proper length.
DANAE.
You mean that I am poisoned after all.
LAODICE.
Indeed, my Danae, it is not so.
In this barbaric land, this bright harsh dye-pot,
Peopled by camels and cynocephali
And hairy men of soiled uncertain hue,
O, do you not remember nights of Athens
Built well about with marbles and clear skies,
Wherein your mother and such noble women
Conversed with poets and heroes in lit groves,
And life subtled? Have you not longed for them?
I am sending you to such a farther country,
Away from this shrunk mummy of live earth.
DANAE.
Madam, I know you not--when must I leave you?
LAODICE, _clapping her hands._
It is the hour, and you shall launch to-night.
Women, women, come hither every woman.
_The faces disappear from the upper windows: eleven women appear on the
colonnade, some from each side, and descend the stair rapidly._
Get to your knees about us--both knees.
Stand up, my Danae, be overbearing.
Women, when any woman has a kingdom
And is a regnant being, does it not suit
That in the disposition of her state
Women should figure her and power afar?
This kingdom I control has thrones of cities,
So many that I, when I would sit therein,
Must cast my shadow there: and chief of these
Is Babylon the nest of bygone things.
'Tis to that Babylon I now appoint
My bosom's clasp, my Danae, for satrap;
She shall oppress among dead queens and gods,
Keep house where sheer dominion walks, command
Enamelled palaces with copper roofs,
Pillars with gardens for their pediments--
Staircase for Anakim in Babylon:
And when ye are as dear to me as she
Ye shall advance upon such larger ways.
DANAE.
O, what is this you do? I am lost in it.
A WOMAN.
But how? The duplicate queen holds Babylon.
LAODICE.
It shall be mine again ere Danae's advent....
Danae, sister of pearls, do I displease you?
DANAE.
Tell out your purpose, though I wreck by it.
LAODICE.
Could higher estate persuade such disbelief?
Barsine, now disburden of its store
The old brass coffer in my inner house--
The gems, the flower-striped silks, the mousse-lines
Worn by such royal girls of Babylon;
So rare a satrap as we do devise
Must be as Babylonish as her earth.
_BARSINE goes out._
Put out your hand, young princess, dip your hand
Among these herded common indiscretions,
And gratefully they'll mouth it. Nay, I'll lead you.
SECOND WOMAN.
Madam, remember me when you are mighty.
THIRD WOMAN.
And, O, forget not me.
LAODICE.
Arise, you humbled ones, jealous too long;
Take off her Greekish marks of my poor service,
Make ready her precious body to be tangled
In clotted skeins of her affiliate province.
_The women strip DANAE of all but her under-robe._
O friend, I do reproach you, for your gay heart
Has surely turned from me too easily
When something in you fades and alters so....
I have done this--my cherished, still keep mine....
_BARSINE enters, her arms heaped with robes: LAODICE fingers them._
These are your pretties. Greeks know not how to use
Layers of denial--you Persian, can you say?
_BARSINE, attiring DANAE in the new garments._
These silken trousers tied above the knees,
Yet falling to the feet, are first.
LAODICE. Ay, so.
BARSINE.
And now this inner gown shrinks close.
LAODICE. Ay, so.
BARSINE.
Then this brocady robe with fan-flung train
And widening muffling sleeves.
LAODICE, _holding up a sleeve._ Can it be so?
Pure Greeks conceive not slavery of sleeves.
BARSINE.
The pointed citron shoes.
LAODICE. Not even sandals?
BARSINE.
There needs a shawl like gardens for a girdle,
But none was hoarded.
LAODICE. Put your own on her.
Give me the jewels: I wish to play with the jewels.
BARSINE.
In the horn sphere: press on the metal hands.
The strings of golden tears and yellow stones
Hang hidy in the hair. I will unbind
Your lady's locks and shew you.
LAODICE. Keep off: I must unloose them,
It is my custom.
DANAE, _in a low voice._ O, what are you doing?
BARSINE.
Round to the temples, so: this drops upon the brow....
That breast of gold--pierced roses, diamond dew--
Curves on the head, no heavier than your hand....
Coils chime upon the ankles--the East walks slowly.
LAODICE.
We come to the necklace.
BARSINE. Yes, but it is lacking.
LAODICE, _to the_ SECOND WOMAN.
You white-faced marvel, body of straight lines,
Give me your necklace dropt inside your chiton.
SECOND WOMAN.
O, do you see it? I cannot let it go--
It was my sister's, and she is dead since.... Ah ... h ...
LAODICE, _snatching the necklace roughly._
'Tis well for you it did not strangle you
When caught: but ye are all so envious yet.
There, Danae, my hands shall finish you.
A painted wonder this I have created--
I am no better than the rest before it,
And I will do my homage, knees and lips.
DANAE, _faintly._
What is the end, ah me!
LAODICE. But in true Asia
Great ladies must live veiled; they are too choice
For foreign casual sight.
BARSINE, _veiling_ DANAE. This is the veil.
_LAODICE, peeping behind the veil._
Bound so beneath the eyes? Show slipper-tips?
Indeed you are ended, Danae, and shall part.
Farewell! Farewell! Fare delicately! Fare swiftly!
Will you go down by Ephesus, my rose;
Or all the sea?
FIRST WOMAN. Not Babylon by sea!
LAODICE.
If not to Babylon, yet far enough.
Tie up these arms and bind these feet together;
Bear to the columns and cast her forth to sea,
Where she shall be my satrap of the darkness.
She has been dying many moments now,
She shall have burial as one who ceases
In a strange ship, unfriended on the deeps.
_The women laugh._
FIRST WOMAN.
Joy--but wherewith, O Light?
LAODICE. Your sandal-thongs:
You are good enough to obey me on bare feet.
_Several of the women hastily untie their sandals._
FOURTH WOMAN, _kneeling to bind DANAE'S feet._
Forget not me to heel, my mighty lady.
VARIOUS WOMEN, _clustering about_ DANAE _and seizing her._
Come on, come on to Babylon, dread Madam....
Up and down to Babylon, cold Highness....
I'll be her coiffing slave and tend her head....
I'll be her nurse and hold her in my breast....
More humbly I will take her feet in mine....
What honour to be trusted with such life--
priceless load.... Ah, do not let it fall....
DANAE, _to_ LAODICE.
Yet I have served you well.
LAODICE. Yea, very well.
Whereto did Sophron flee?
DANAE. I do not know.
LAODICE.
Tell me why Sophron fled, and what he knew.
_A pause._
Tell even where your thoughts are following him.
_A pause._
Even at what point of my research in him
Your heart lifted, and I will keep you back.
_A pause._
Then are you both completed and concluded.
Knot elbows too, and lift her to the columns.
DANAE.
Yet I have loved you.
LAODICE.
You are not mine: this earth shall not contain you.
I could unmake the stars to ensure darkness,
To cheat me of the places that have known you.
DANAE.
Must I go out?
Then pay me for my spent devotion first.
Let not these spittly weeds close in and choke me;
Undrape these silk and Asiatic jeers;
Let me go loose, and I will go indeed
As far as your desire--serving you yet.
_LAODICE, severing DANAE'S bonds with her dagger, then rending away her
veil and upper garments._
Your rigid mortal bonds, ...
Your isolating veil, ...
Your scarf of earthly flowers, ...
Your robe that once was royal, ...
Your chill, worn-out simarre,
Slide as the world slides....
Put off your useless shoes
To enter a holy place....
Get to your high estate.
DANAE, _standing in her under-garment._
Gather your jewels.
LAODICE. You trifle to gain moments.
DANAE.
Give me one kiss.
LAODICE. You have not time. These wait.
_Indicating the surrounding women._
DANAE.
Your house shall be the firmer by your sentence.
_She takes the sleeping child in her arms, and mounts the stair
quickly._
SEVERAL WOMEN.
The child; she has the child.
LAODICE. Yes. And then?
_DANAE, pausing by a column._
The common run of men make small account
Of high religion; and they are very right.
I saved my lover, and I now receive
This recognition from the Powers who still
Dispose of us: Laodice killed hers,
And she is held deserving of all that honour.
LAODICE, _pointing at the_ FOURTH WOMAN.
Thrust her down, you.
_DANAE disappears while the FOURTH WOMAN stealthily mounts the stair.
LAODICE has thrown herself on the divan, with her back to the
colonnade._
To-morrow will be soon.
To-morrow I will sit with men in council,
And muster men to leaguer Ephesus.
These fretting hens, these women, burden me--
I know their eyes too well; let them keep hid.
To-morrow I will walk upon the harbour,
And board my ships and see them manned and ready--
No, no, I will not step toward the sea....
SEVERAL WOMEN, _as_ LAODICE _speaks._
Ai! Ai! Is she down? Not yet....
I cannot see.... No one can see.
SECOND WOMAN, _sobbing in the corner near the stair._
My necklace
Save my dear gems!
FOURTH WOMAN, _from the colonnade._
She is not here. She falls.
LAODICE.
Is that hoarse dashing how the surge receives her?
FOURTH WOMAN.
It is the old recession of the waves;
The rocks are bare. No movement could be seen;
No pallor could emerge. There is no sound.
LAODICE, _in a dull voice._
She was as false as all the rest of you;
But she was brave. Remember that she died;
Be cowards still, and so be false and safe.
She had a lulling hand.... Put me to sleep.
_RHODOGUNE goes toward her._
CURTAIN.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
"KING LEAR'S WIFE" was performed for the first time on 25 September 1915
at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, with the following cast:
Lear Mr. E. Ion Swinley.
Hygd Miss Cathleen Orford.
Goneril Miss Margaret Chatwin.
Cordeil Miss Betty Pinchard.
Merryn Miss Dorothy Taylor.
Gormflaith Miss Mary Merrall.
Physician Mr. Ivor Barnard.
{Miss Betty Pinchard.
Two Elderly Women {Miss Maud Gill.
Costumes and decoration designed by Mr. Barry V. Jackson.
Production by Mr. John Drinkwater.
In the course of the production the song of the Elder Woman, toward the
close of the play, was fitted with so appropriate a melody, by a
fortunate modification of a folk-tune, that it seems well to continue
the connexion by printing the arrangement here.
[Illustration: music]
The louse made off unhappy and wet--
A-humm, A-humm, A-hee--
He's looking for us, the little pet;
So haste, for her chin's to tie up yet,
And let us be gone with what we can get--
Her ring for thee, her gown for Bet,
Her pocket turned out for me ... me....
This represents the extension of the melody used for the final stanza of
the song: it can be adapted to the forms of the first and second stanzas
by the omission of the sections A-C and B-C respectively. The Coda is
intended for use with the final stanza only.
First performed in London on 19 May 1916 at His Majesty's Theatre, under
the direction of Miss Viola Tree.
Lear Mr. Murray Carrington.
Hygd Lady Tree.
Goneril Miss Viola Tree.
Cordeil Miss Odette Goimbault.
Gormflaith Miss Julia James.
Merryn Miss Beatrice Wilson.
Physician Mr. H. A. Saintsbury.
{Miss Ada King
Two Elderly Women {Miss Bertha Fordyce.
Play produced by Mr. John Drinkwater, and mounted by Mr. Purcell Jones:
music by Mr. Ivor Novello.
SONGS
For the London performance of "King Lear's Wife."
I (p. 43)
Mother, it is my wedding morn,
Come, bring the linen fine,
And wash my face with milk so warm
Drawn from the young white kine.
The blackbird in the apple-tree
Was waking ere the day;
But I was ready sooner than he,
For I watched the night away.
II (p. 44)
The Queen has gone to bed
In the middle of the day;
But what about her bedfellow?
No one dares to say.
She cannot sleep at night:
She does not care to try;
The darkness makes her restless,
And nobody knows why.
III (p. 48)
O, merry, merry will my heart be
When I can sit me down and rest:
If you would live to make old bones
Keep your knees off the kitchen-stones,
And go like a lady, warmly drest.
APPENDIX B
"THE CRIER BY NIGHT" was first performed by Mr. Stuart Walker's
Portmanteau Theatre Company in Wyoming, U.S.A., in September 1916, and
in New York at the Princess Theatre on 18 December 1916, with the
following cast:
Hialti Mr. McKay Morris.
Thorgerd Miss Judith Lowry.
Blanid Miss Florence Buckton.
An Old, Strange Man Mr. Edgar Stehli.
Play produced by Mr. Stuart Walker and mounted by Mr. W. J. Zimmerer.
_SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF_
KING LEAR'S WIFE AND OTHER PLAYS. 1920. 4to. With binding design by
Charles Ricketts. Pp. 209. 15_s._ net. (_Out of print._)
A special edition of 50 copies signed by the author, in white and gold
binding. 31_s._ 6_d._ net. (_Out of print._)
* * * * *
Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie (Lecturer in Poetry at the University of
Liverpool) in _The Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury_.
This volume has been long overdue. It was the great
good fortune of "Georgian Poetry" that it was
permitted to give this remarkable tragedy of "King
Lear's Wife" to the world, and thus to have the
privilege of pioneering Mr. Bottomley's reputation
among those who are unable to do much experimental
reading. It was obviously not only a dramatic poem but
an actable play; so actable, indeed, that it had the
extraordinary fortune of being acted; and what was
perhaps even more remarkable of a poetic play
nowadays, it showed itself capable of being acted
precisely and entirely as it had been written, the
technique of the poet contriving to be, with a
completeness not to be paralleled anywhere to-day
except in Italy, simultaneously the technique of the
playwright.
The other plays contained in this volume are still to
be staged. They would certainly be not less effective
than "King Lear's Wife" ... the cunning elaboration of
supernaturalism in "The Crier by Night" and "The
Riding to Lithend," its combination in the former with
the elemental humanities, in the latter with vivid
character and strangely heroic passion; the deft
lucidity of "Laodice and Danae," which might serve as
a type of dramatic suspense passing at the exact
moment into inevitable catastrophe: these things, one
would think, should be eminently practical politics
for the theatre. If any manager wants plays in which
exciting action is at the same time profound
significance, here they are.
However, we are only able to speculate on this aspect
of Mr. Bottomley's work. But we can console ourselves
by simply reading the plays as poetry.... In the days
when theurgy was still an honourable profession,
Apollonius of Tyana said "Knowing what people say is
nothing; I know what people don't say." That might be
put as motto for such poetry as Mr. Bottomley writes.
It is the art of exhibiting realities. What people
don't say is what they really are; and they don't say
it because they can't get hold of it. But he can, and
he can make them say it ... they speak and act as
unconstrainedly as the folk of the everyday world; yet
every word and every gesture is a flashing revelation
of spiritual destiny. And not only men and women, but
nature also: tarns and mountains, winds and the night,
trees and stars--of these, too, Mr. Bottomley "knows
what they don't say."
To the technical beauty of Mr. Bottomley's poetry I
have not alluded. It is extraordinary; but, as in all
great poetry, it is no more than the sign that the
reality of things is being successfully exhibited.
Mr. John Drinkwater in "The Nature of Drama" ("Prose Papers": London,
Elkin Mathews, 1917, p. 220).
I do say that the capital power of the commercialised
theatre in England to-day is so great that it has been
able to impose its standard on nearly all the people
who are habitually in contact with its merchandise ...
so that one piece of catchpenny insincerity after
another is extolled by what passes for expert opinion
as a valuable contribution to the great art of the
dramatist, while a piece of work like Mr. Gordon
Bottomley's "King Lear's Wife," which ... is for
vigour of imagination, poetic eagerness, and dramatic
passion not to be excelled by anything that has been
put on to the English stage since the Elizabethans, is
met with a clamour of ignorance ... in most cases
(1915-16) we find no standard whatever being brought
to the judgment of an original work of art other than
a spurious morality.
Solomon Eagle in _The Outlook_.
The various societies which desire to regenerate the
theatre talk a good deal about the poetic drama of the
future, but they do not seem to take much trouble to
find it.... Of Mr. Gordon Bottomley's fine plays only
one, to the best of my knowledge, has yet been
produced in this country.... There is certainly the
possibility of a great play in their author, and one
at least of them is better than any play in verse
which has been staged for many years, and is likely to
live longer than most of the so-called masterpieces of
our time. If "Midsummer Eve" had been by Claudel, or
"The Riding to Lithend" by some German (a most
unlikely supposition) all the coteries would have been
talking about them years ago....
"Midsummer Eve" is original, and the work of a
poet.... There is fine meditative poetry in it,
poetry, moreover, not grafted or glued on to its main
structure, but growing out of the dialogue naturally,
in an inevitable manner.... "Laodice and Danae" is
equally good reading, and it is dramatic. But none of
these plays is equal to the two latest, "The Riding to
Lithend" and "King Lear's Wife."...
Enough has been written about the grimness of "King
Lear's Wife," the fine bursts of poetry in it, and the
remarkable character of Goneril.... "The Riding to
Lithend" is, up to the present, the best of Mr.
Bottomley's plays; and its superiority is a
superiority which, I think, would be still more
evident on the stage than it is in print.... It comes
straight out of an old tale; the characters are
recreated and enriched.... The diction is, as a rule,
perfect in its propriety and often striking in its
beauty. And, above all, Gunnar is a hero, his fight a
heroic fight, his courage, his generosity, his
humanity (a few sentences to wife and hound are
wonderfully chosen), and even his weaknesses are such
as to move the heart. His fall is like the fall of all
noble and fighting things; the sense of defeat comes
with it, but above that a feeling of exultation. On
the stage the end, I fancy, would be profoundly
moving, and the fight exciting to a degree, though
there is no obvious rhodomontade about it.
Mr. John Freeman in _The Bookman_.
This comely volume at last makes public what has been
too long a fugitive and cloistered pleasure.... These
five plays show the author in the most powerful
exercise of his faculties. Imagination here is free
and moves with growing ease, music enlarges like a
splendid wind through the verse; and the common
reproach of mere "poetic plays" has been avoided in
these, where character and action develope as surely
as music itself. Gordon Bottomley has remembered that
his plays can have no life except in the activity of
his characters.... Fine careless raptures alone will
not produce a play like "The Riding to Lithend" ...
you may quote almost any lines from this fierce
Icelandic play and find that what you are reading is
vital and essential to the expression of character and
action. And in this poetry, too ... the beautiful
images flow in and out with the ease of light on
water; the rhythms have the natural movement of
thought, and the secret discipline of masculine habit.
"King Lear's Wife" will be familiar to many readers,
but to others it will come with the delicious shock of
a new creation.... The new play is a beam of light
crossing the darkness of the old. Few passages of
modern verse reach the beauty of Goneril's
hunting-narration; and it is no isolated beauty.
Mr. William Rose Benet in The Literary Review of the _New York Evening
Post_.