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WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYE
_DRAMAS_
THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. A Comedy.
JEANNE D’ARC. A Tragedy.
SAPPHO AND PHAON. A Tragedy.
FENRIS THE WOLF. A Tragedy.
A GARLAND TO SYLVIA. A Dramatic Reverie.
THE SCARECROW. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous.
YANKEE FANTASIES. Five One-act Plays.
MATER. An American Study in Comedy.
ANTI-MATRIMONY. A Satirical Comedy.
TO-MORROW. A Play in Three Acts.
A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. A Romance of the Orient.
THE IMMIGRANTS. A Lyric Drama.
_MASQUES_
CALIBAN. A Shakespeare Masque.
SAINT LOUIS. A Civic Masque.
SANCTUARY. A Bird Masque.
THE NEW CITIZENSHIP. A Civic Ritual.
_POEMS_
THE SISTINE EVE, and Other Poems.
URIEL, and Other Poems.
LINCOLN. A Centenary Ode.
THE PRESENT HOUR.
POEMS AND PLAYS. In Two Volumes.
_ESSAYS_
THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PLAY.
THE CIVIC THEATRE.
A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR.
_AT ALL BOOKSELLERS_
Uniform with this volume
SAINT LOUIS: A CIVIC MASQUE
AS ENACTED BY 7,000 CITIZENS OF SAINT LOUIS
CALIBAN
[Illustration: PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF SETEBOS, BY JOSEPH URBAN]
CALIBAN
BY THE YELLOW SANDS
BY
PERCY MACKAYE
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1916
ENDORSED BY THE DRAMA LEAGUE OF AMERICA
_Copyright, 1916, by_
PERCY MACKAYE
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_
_All acting rights, and motion picture rights, are reserved
by the author in the United States, Great Britain
and countries of the copyright Union_
SPECIAL NOTICE
Regarding Public Performances and Readings
No performance of this Masque—professional or amateur—and
no public reading of it may be given without the written
permission of the author and the payment of royalty.
The author should be addressed in care of the publishers.
During the Shakespeare Tercentenary season of 1916, the
Masque--after its New York production at the City College
Stadium, May 23, 24, 25, 26, 27--will be available for
production elsewhere, on a modified scale of stage
performance.
With proper organization and direction, amateur participants
may take part in performances with or without the Interludes.
For particulars concerning performances wholly amateur,
address Miss Clara Fitch, Secretary Shakespeare Tercentenary
Committee, 736 Marquette Building, Chicago, Ill.
After June first, a professional company, which will
coöperate with local communities, will take the Masque on
tour. For particulars address Miss A. M. Houston, Drama
League of America, 736 Marquette Building, Chicago, Ill.
“_Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands!_”
THE TEMPEST.
CALIBAN
BY THE YELLOW SANDS
_A COMMUNITY MASQUE
Of the Art of the Theatre_
Devised and Written to Commemorate the
Tercentenary of the Death of
SHAKESPEARE
_Illustrations by_
Joseph Urban & Robert Edmond Jones
TO · THE · ONLIE
BEGETTER · OF · THE · BEST
IN · THESE · INSUING
SCENES · MASTER · W · S
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS
Cover Design: “When the kings of earth
clasp hands” (Act II, Second Inner
Scene). By Robert Edmond Jones.
Preliminary Sketch of Setebos.
By Joseph Urban _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Ground Plan for Auditorium (with
Stages of Masque Proper and
Interludes). By Joseph Urban xxx
Design of Stage for Masque Proper.
By Joseph Urban xxxii
Preliminary Sketch for Seventh Inner
Scene. By Robert Edmond Jones 98
Preliminary Sketch for Tenth Inner
Scene. By Robert Edmond Jones 138
APPENDIX
Inner Structure of Masque (Chart).
By Percy MacKaye 154
A Community Masque Audience
(Photograph). By E. O. Thalinger 156
Community Masque Organization Plan
(Chart). By Hazel MacKaye 158
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE xiii
MASQUE STRUCTURE xxix
PERSONS AND PRESENCES xxxi
PROLOGUE 3
FIRST INTERLUDE 32
ACT I 34
SECOND INTERLUDE 76
ACT II 78
THIRD INTERLUDE 110
ACT III 111
EPILOGUE 142
APPENDIX 147
PREFACE
Three hundred years alive on the 23rd of April, 1916, the memory of
Shakespeare calls creatively upon a self-destroying world to do him
honor by honoring that world-constructive art of which he is a master
architect.
Over seas, the choral hymns of cannon acclaim his death; in
battle-trenches artists are turned subtly ingenious to inter his art;
War, Lust, and Death are risen in power to restore the primeval reign
of Setebos.
Here in America, where the neighboring waters of his “vexed Bermoothes”
lie more calm than those about his own native isle, here only is given
some practical opportunity for his uninterable spirit to create new
splendid symbols for peace through harmonious international expression.
As one means of serving such expression, and so, if possible, of
paying tribute to that creative spirit in forms of his own art, I have
devised and written this Masque, at the invitation of the Shakespeare
Celebration Committee of New York City.
The dramatic-symbolic motive of the Masque I have taken from
Shakespeare’s own play “The Tempest,” Act I, Scene 2. There, speaking
to Ariel, Prospero says:
“Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? This damn’d witch Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing was hither brought with child
And there was left by the sailors. Thou ...
Wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthly and abhorred commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her most potent ministers
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine, within which rift
Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain ...
Then was this island—
Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp hag-born—not honor’d with
A human shape ... that Caliban
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in, ... it was a torment
To lay upon the damn’d.... _It was mine art_,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.”
“It was mine art”.... There—in Prospero’s words [and
Shakespeare’s]—is the text of this Masque.
The art of Prospero I have conceived as the art of Shakespeare in its
universal scope: that many-visioned art of the theatre which, age after
age, has come to liberate the imprisoned imagination of mankind from
the fetters of brute force and ignorance; that same art which, being
usurped or stifled by groping part-knowledge, prudery, or lust, has
been botched in its ideal aims and—like fire ill-handled or ill-hidden
by a passionate child—has wrought havoc, hypocrisy, and decadence.
Caliban, then, in this Masque, is that passionate child-curious part of
us all [whether as individuals or as races], grovelling close to his
aboriginal origins, yet groping up and staggering—with almost rhythmic
falls and back-slidings—toward that serener plane of pity and love,
reason and disciplined will, where Miranda and Prospero commune with
Ariel and his Spirits.
In deference to the master-originator of these characters and their
names, it is, I think, incumbent on me to point out that these four
characters, derived—but reimagined—from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,”
become, for the purposes of my Masque, the presiding symbolic _Dramatis
Personæ_ of a plot and conflict which are my own conception. They are
thus no longer Shakespeare’s characters of “The Tempest,” though born
of them and bearing their names.
Their words [save for a very few song-snatches and sentences] and their
actions are those which I have given them; the development of their
characters accords with the theme—not of Shakespeare’s play but of
this Masque, in which Caliban’s nature is developed to become the
protagonist of aspiring humanity, not simply its butt of shame and
ridicule.
My conception and treatment also of Setebos [whose name is but a
passing reference in Shakespeare’s play], the fanged idol [substituted
by me for the “cloven pine”]; of Sycorax, as Setebos’ mate [in form
a super-puppet, an earth-spirit rather than “witch”], from both
of whom Caliban has sprung; of the Shakespearian Inner Scenes, as
brief-flashing visions in the mind of Prospero; of the “Yellow Sands”
as his magic isle, the world; these are not liberties taken with text
or characters of Shakespeare; they are simply the means of dramatic
license whereby my Masque aims to accord its theme with the art and
spirit of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s own characters, that use his words[1] in scenes of his
plays, have then no part in my Masque, except in the Inner Scenes,[2]
where they are conceived as being conjured by Prospero and enacted by
the Spirits of Ariel.
The theme of the Masque—Caliban seeking to learn the art of
Prospero—is, of course, the slow education of mankind through the
influences of coöperative art, that is, of the art of the theatre in
its full social scope. This theme of coöperation is expressed earliest
in the Masque through the lyric of Ariel’s Spirits taken from “The
Tempest”; it is sounded, with central stress, in the chorus of peace
when the kings clasp hands on the Field of the Cloth of Gold;[3] and,
with final emphasis, in the gathering together of the creative forces
of dramatic art in the Epilogue. Thus its motto is the one printed on
the title page, in Shakespeare’s words:
“Come unto these yellow sands
And then take hands.”
So much for my Masque in its relationship to Shakespeare’s work and his
art. Its contribution to the modern development of a form of dramatic
art unpractised by him requires some brief comment.
This work is not a pageant, in the sense that the festivals excellently
devised by Mr. Louis N. Parker in England, Mr. Lascelles in Canada, or
Mr. Thomas Wood Stevens in America have been called pageants. Though of
necessity it involves aspects of pageantry, its form is more closely
related to the forms of Greek drama and of opera. Yet it is neither of
these. It is a new form to meet new needs.
I have called this work a Masque, because—like other works so named
in the past—it is a dramatic work of symbolism involving, in its
structure, pageantry, poetry, and the dance. Yet I have by no means
sought to relate its structure to an historic form; I have simply
sought by its structure to solve a modern [and a future] problem of the
art of the theatre. That problem is the new one of creating a focussed
dramatic technique for the growing but groping movement vaguely called
“pageantry,” which is itself a vital sign of social evolution—the
half-desire of the people not merely to remain receptive to a popular
art created by specialists, but to take part themselves in creating
it; the desire, that is, of democracy consistently to seek expression
through a drama _of_ and _by_ the people, not merely _for_ the people.
For some ten years that potential drama of democracy has interested
me as a fascinating goal for both dramatist and citizen, in seeking
solution for the vast problem of leisure.[4] Two years ago at Saint
Louis I had my first technical opportunity, on a large scale, to
experiment in devising a dramatic structure for its many-sided
requirements. There, during five performances, witnessed by half a
million people, about seven thousand citizens of Saint Louis took part
in my Masque [in association with the Pageant by Thomas Wood Stevens].
In the appendix of this volume a photograph gives a suggestion of one
of those audiences, gathered in their public park [in seats half of
which were free, half pay-seats] to witness the production.[5]
That production was truly a drama of, for, and by the people—a
true Community Masque; and it was largely with the thought of that
successful civic precedent that the Shakespeare Celebration first
looked to Central Park as the appropriate site to produce their
Community Festival, the present Masque, as the central popular
expression of some hundreds of supplementary Shakespearean celebrations.
In so doing, they conceived the function of a public park—as it is
conceived almost universally west of the Eastern States, and almost
everywhere in Europe—to be that of providing outdoor space for the
people’s expression in civic art-forms.
The sincere opposition of a portion of the community to this use of
Central Park would never, I think, have arisen, if New York could have
taken counsel with Saint Louis’s experience, and its wonderfully happy
civic and social reactions. The opposition, however, was strong and
conscientious; so that, on the same principle of community solidarity
which was the _raison d’etre_ for their informal application to use
Central Park, the Shakespeare Celebration withdrew their wish to use
it. To split community feeling by acrimonious discussion was contrary
to the basic idea and function of the Celebration, which are to help
unite all classes and all beliefs in a great coöperative movement for
civic expression through dramatic art.
One very important public service, however, was performed by this
Central Park discussion; it served clearly to point out a colossal lack
in the democratic equipment of the largest and richest metropolis of
the western hemisphere: namely, the total lack of any public place of
meeting, where representative numbers of New York citizens can unite
in seeing, hearing, and taking part in a festival or civic communion
of their own. New York, a city of five million inhabitants, possesses
no public stadium or community theatre. Little Athens, a mere village
in comparison, had for its heart such a community theatre, which
became the heart of civilization. Without such an instrument, our own
democracy cannot hope to develop that coöperative art which is the
expression of true civilization in all ages.
Happily for the Shakespeare Celebration and its aims, a large measure
of solution has, at the date of this preface, been attained by the
gracious offer of the New York City College authorities, through
President Mezes, to permit the use of the Lewisohn Stadium and athletic
field, temporarily to be converted into a sort of miniature Yale Bowl,
for the production of the Shakespeare Masque on the night of May 23rd
and the following four nights.
By the brilliant conception and technical plans of Mr. Joseph Urban
for joining to the present concrete stadium of Mr. Arnold Brunner
its duplicate in wood, on the east side of the field, and so placing
the stage on its narrower width to the north, there will be created
a practical outdoor theatre, remarkable in acoustics, qualified to
accommodate in excellent seats about twenty thousand spectators, and
some two or three thousand participants in the festival.
If such a consummation shall eventually become permanent there, it
will complete the realization of a practicable dream already rendered
partly complete by Mr. Adolf Lewisohn’s public-spirited donation of
the present concrete structure. Referring to that practicable dream,
I wrote four years ago in my volume “The Civic Theatre”:[6] “One day
last spring, traversing with President John Finley the grounds lately
appropriated, through his fine efforts, by the City of New York for a
great stadium at the City College, I discussed with him the splendid
opportunity there presented for focussing the popular enthusiasm toward
athletic games in an art dramatic and nobly spectacular.”
This new dramatic art-form, then—a technique of the theatre adapted to
democratic expression and dedicated to public service—I have called by
the name Community Masque, and have sought to exemplify it on a large
scale in two instances, at Saint Louis and at New York.
The occasion of this preface is not one to discuss the details of that
new technique further than to suggest to the public, and to those
critics who might be interested to make its implications clearer than
the author and director of a production has time or opportunity to
do, that the exacting time limits of presenting dramatically a theme
involving many dissociated ages, through many hundreds of symbolic
participants and leaders, are conditions which themselves impel the
imagination toward creating a technique as architectural as music, as
colorful as the pageant, as dramatic as the play, as plastic as the
dance.
That my own work has attained to such a technique I am very far from
supposing. I have, however, clearly seen the need for attaining to it,
whatever the difficulties, if a great opportunity for democracy is not
to be lost. To see that much, at a time when the vagueness of amateurs,
however idealistic in desire, is obscuring the austere outlines of a
noble technical art looming just beyond us, may perhaps be of some
service.
As visual hints to the structure (Inner and Outer) of the present
Masque, the charts here published may be suggestive to the reader.
To the reader as such it remains to point out one vital matter of
technique, namely, the relation of the dramatic dialogue to the
Masque’s production.
Even more than a play [if more be possible], a Masque is not a realized
work of art until it is adequately produced. To the casual reader, this
Masque, as visualized merely on these printed pages, may appear to be
a structure simply of written words: in reality it is a structure of
potential interrelated pantomime, music, dance, lighting, acting, song
[choral and lyric], scene values, stage management and _spoken_ words.
Words spoken, then, constitute in this work but one of numerous
elements, all relatively important. If no word of the Masque be heard
by the audience, the plot, action, and symbolism will still remain
understandable and, if properly produced, dramatically interesting.
Synchronous with every speech occur, in production, effects of
pantomime, lighting, music, and movement with due proportion and
emphasis. Such, at least, is the nature of the technique sought,
whether or not this particular work attains to it.
A Masque must appeal as emphatically to the eye as a moving picture,
though with a different appeal to the imagination.
Because of this only relative value of the spoken word, there are many
producers [theoretical and practical] who believe that the spoken word
should be eliminated entirely from this special art of the theatre.
Artists as eminent and constructive in ideas as Gordon Craig, and many
whom his genius has inspired, advocate indeed this total elimination of
speech from the theatre’s art as a whole. For them that art ideally is
the compound of only light and music and movement. The reason for this,
I think, is because the sensibility of those artists is preëminently
visual. Moreover, they are relatively inexpert, as artists, in the
knowledge of the technique and values of the spoken word. Being
visually expert and creative, they have, by their practical genius,
established a world-wide school of independent visual art [assisted
only by mass sounds of music].
For them this art has well nigh become _the_ art of the theatre. Yet
it is not so, I think, and can never be so, to that watching and
listening sensibility for which all dramatic art is created—the soul
of the audience. That soul, our soul, is a composite flowering of all
the senses, and the life-long record of the spoken word [reiterated
from childhood] is an integral, yes, the most intimate, element of our
consciousness.
The association of ideas and emotions which only the spoken word can
evoke is, therefore, a dramatic value which the art of the theatre
cannot consistently ignore. It is chiefly because those artist-experts
in word values, the poets, who might contribute their special technique
to the theatre’s art, turn elsewhere creatively, that the field is left
unchallenged and open to the gifted school of the visualists. The true
dramatic art—which involves ideally a total coöperation—does not, and
cannot, exclude the poet-dramatist. Shakespeare and Sophocles lived
before electric light; if they had lived after, they would have set
a different pace for Bakst and Reinhardt, and established a creative
school more nobly poised in technique, more deeply human in appeal.
Now, therefore, when the poets are awaking to a new power and control
of expression, here especially in our own country, if they will both
learn and teach in this larger school, there rises before us the
promise of an art more sensuous, sane, and communal than the theatre
has ever known.
So, in the pioneering adventure of this Masque, which seeks by
experiment to relate the spoken word to its larger coöperation with the
visual arts, I have devised a structure in which the English language,
spoken by actors, is an essential dramatic value.
Why, then, take pains [as I have done] to make it relatively
non-essential in case it should _not_ be heard?
For this reason: that now—at the present temporary and still
groping stage of development of community Masque organization and
production—there can be, in the nature of the case, no complete
assurance beforehand of adequate acoustics in setting, or of voices
trained to large-scale outdoor speech.
But, if this be so, would it not be the wiser part of creative valor to
adapt my structure wholly to these elementary conditions, risk nothing,
and devise simply pantomime?
No, for by that principle no forward step for the spoken word could
ever be taken. _If we are to progress in this new art, we must seek to
make producing conditions conform to the spoken play, even more than
the play to those conditions._
And this can be done; it has been done.
At Saint Louis the vast amphitheatre for my Masque was at first
considered, by nearly all who saw it, to be utterly unsuited to the
spoken word; yet, after careful study, experiment and technical
provision for its use, the speech of actors was heard each night by at
least two-thirds of the hundred and fifty thousand listeners. Of the
seven thousand actors only about fifteen spoke, but these conveyed the
spoken symbolism and drama of the action.
In the present Masque I have focussed the spoken word on the raised
constructed stage of wood [A. and B. in the Chart], confined it to
the speech of eight principal acting parts, and about twenty other
subordinate parts, whose speaking lines [from Shakespeare’s plays] are
still further focussed at the narrower inner stage [A. in the Chart],
provided with special sounding boards.
On the other hand, for the ground-circle of the “Yellow Sands” [C.
in the Chart], where the thousands of participants in the Interludes
take part under an open sky, I have provided no spoken words, but only
pantomime, mass movements, dances and choruses.
To the reader, then, I would repeat, that the words of this printed
Masque are an essential, though not an exclusive, part of its
structure, and are meant primarily to be spoken, not primarily to be
read.
As in the case of my Civic Ritual “The New Citizenship”[7] this Masque
can only have its completely adequate production on a large and
elaborate scale. Like the Civic Ritual, however, which—originally
designed for the New York stadium—is being performed on an adapted
scale in many parts of the country, in schools and elsewhere, this
Masque may perhaps serve some good purpose in being made available
for performance in a smaller, simpler manner, adapted to the purposes
of festivals during this year of Shakespeare’s Tercentenary. At the
invitation, therefore, of Mr. Percival Chubb, President of the Drama
League of America, who first suggested to me the writing of a Memorial
Masque to Shakespeare, the publishers have made arrangements with
officers of the Drama League for making known its availability as
stated in their announcement printed at the back of this volume.
The accompanying stage-designs are the work of Mr. Joseph Urban, the
eminent Viennese artist and producer [who has recently become an
American], and of Mr. Robert Edmond Jones, designer of the scenes and
costumes for Mr. Granville Barker’s production of “The Man Who Married
a Dumb Wife.”
At the date of this preface, Mr. Arthur Farwell has nearly completed
his compositions for the lyric choruses and incidental music of the
Masque. The choruses will shortly be made available, published by G.
Schirmer, New York.
With all three of these artists I am fortunate in being associated in
preparations for the Masque’s New York production next May.
These preparations have met with many complex difficulties of launching
and organization; the time remaining is very brief to accomplish the
many-sided community task for which the Masque is designed; only the
merest beginnings of so vast a movement can be attempted; but, with
coöperation and support from those who believe in that task, the
producers look forward hopefully to serving, in some pioneering degree,
the great cause of community expression through the art of the theatre.
PERCY MACKAYE.
New York, February 22, 1916.
[Illustration]
MASQUE STRUCTURE
THE ACTION
The action takes place, symbolically, on three planes: (1) in the cave
of Setebos (before and after its transformation into the theatre of
Prospero); (2) in the mind of Prospero (behind the Cloudy Curtains of
the inner stage); and (3) on the ground-circle of “the Yellow Sands”
(the place of historic time).
THE TIME
The Masque Proper is concerned, symbolically, with no literal period of
time, but with the waxing and waning of the life of dramatic art (and
its concomitant, civilization) from primitive barbaric times to the
verge of the living present.
The Interludes are concerned with ritualistic glimpses of the art of
the theatre (in its widest, communal scope) during three historical
periods: (1) Antiquity, (2) the Middle Ages, and (3) Elizabethan
England.
The Epilogue is concerned with the creative forces of dramatic art from
antiquity to the present, and—by suggestion—with the future of those
forces.
THE SETTING
The setting of the entire Masque is architectural and scenic, not
a background of natural landscape as in the case of most outdoor
pageants. Being constructed technically for performance, on a large
scale, by night only, its basic appeals are to the eye, through expert
illusions of light and darkness, architectural and plastic line, the
dance, color, and pageantry of group movements; to the ear, through
invisible choirs and orchestra, stage instrumental music and voices of
visible mass-choruses [in the Interludes only].
As indicated by the accompanying diagram [Time Chart][8] of its Inner
Structure, the Masque Proper is enacted by a comparatively few [about
thirty] professional actors, who use the spoken word to motivate the
large-scale pantomime of their action; the Interludes [which use no
spoken word, but only dance, pageantry, miming, and choruses] are
performed by community participants [to the number of thousands]; the
Epilogue utilizes both kinds of performers.
Corresponding to this Inner Structure, the Outer Structure consists
of three architectural planes or acting stages [all interdependent]:
a modified form of Elizabethan stage, [here called “the Middle
Stage—B”] consisting of a raised platform [to which steps lead up from
a ground-circle, eight feet below] provided with a smaller, curtained
Inner Stage [A—under a balcony, on which the upper visions appear, and
above which the concealed orchestra and choirs are located]. This Inner
Stage is two feet higher than the Middle Stage, from which ramps lead
up to it. Shutting it off from the other, its “Cloudy Curtains,” when
closed, meet at the centre; when they are open, the inner Shakespearean
scenes [visions in the mind of Prospero] are then revealed within.
Between the raised Middle Stage and the audience lies the
Ground-Circle—in form like the “orchestra” of a Greek theatre. Here
the community Interludes take place around a low central Altar, from
which rises a great hour-glass, flowing with luminous sands. This
ground-circle is the place of the Yellow Sands, the outer wave-lines
of which are bordered by the deep blue of the space beyond. The circle
itself, representing the magic isle of Prospero [the temporal place of
his art], is mottled with shadowy contours of the continents of the
world.
Beneath the middle stage, and between the broad spaces of the steps
which lead up to it from the ground-circle, is situated, at centre,
the mouth of Caliban’s cell, which thus opens directly upon the Yellow
Sands.
All of these features of the setting, however, are invisible when the
Masque begins, and are only revealed as the lightings of the action
disclose them.
[Illustration:
GROUND·PLAN
FOR·AUDITORIUM·AND·STAGE
OF·SHAKESPEARE·MASQUE
A·INNER·STAGE
·SHAKESPEARE·SCENES
B·MIDDLE·STAGE·
ACTION·OF·MASQUE·PROPER·
C·OUTER·STAGE·(ON·THE·YELLOW·SANDS)
·ACTION·OF·INTERLUDES·]
PERSONS AND PRESENCES
I. _OF THE MASQUE PROPER_[9]
SPEAKING PERSONS
ARIEL
SYCORAX[10]
CALIBAN
PROSPERO
MIRANDA
LUST
DEATH
WAR
CALIGULA [Impersonated by Lust]
ONE IN GRAY [Impersonated by Death]
ANOTHER IN GRAY [Impersonated by Caliban]
MUTE PRESENCES
SETEBOS[11]
CHORAL PRESENCES
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
POWERS OF SETEBOS
PANTOMIME GROUPS
LUST GROUP }
DEATH GROUP }
WAR GROUP } Impersonated by the Powers of Setebos
ROMAN GROUP }
THE ONES IN GRAY }
TRANSFORMATION CHOIR }
GREGORIAN CHOIR } Impersonated by the Spirits of Ariel
THE ONES IN GREEN }
THE NINE MUSES
RENAISSANCE FAUNS
_II. OF THE TEN INNER-STAGE SCENES_
[_Enacted by the Spirits of Ariel._]
SEE APPENDIX: Pages 159-161.
Of these scenes eight are spoken scenes taken from plays of
Shakespeare; one (the sixth) is a pantomime devised from a descriptive
speech in “Henry the Eighth,” Act I, Scene I; one (the fourth) is a
tableau scene symbolic of the early Christian Church. Those taken from
Shakespeare are printed in black-faced type.
_III. OF THE INTERLUDES_
SEE APPENDIX: Pages 162, 166, 172, 184, 187, 190, 195.
_IV. OF THE EPILOGUE_
SPEAKING PERSONS
THE SPIRIT OF TIME
SHAKESPEARE [as Prospero]
PANTOMIME GROUPS [12]
THEATRES [with Musicians, Dancers, Designers, Producers,
Inventors, etc.: Creators of the art of the theatre]
ACTORS
DRAMATISTS
SPIRIT TRUMPETERS [Announcers of the Groups]
[Illustration: STAGE·FOR·SHAKESPEARE·MASQUE·
BEHIND THE CLOUDY CURTAINS IS STAGE _A_ OF INNER SCENES
(SEE GROUND PLAN)
IN FRONT OF THE CURTAINS IS STAGE _B_ OF MASQUE PROPER
(SEE GROUND PLAN)
AT CENTRE, CALIBAN’S CELL OPENS UPON STAGE _C_ OF INTERLUDES
(SEE GROUND PLAN)]
CALIBAN
PROLOGUE
_The action begins in semi-darkness, out of which sound invisible
choirs._
_The scene is the cave of_ SETEBOS, _whose stark-colored idol—half
tiger and half toad—colossal and primitive—rises at centre above a
stone altar_.
_On the right, the cave leads inward to the abode of_ SYCORAX; _on the
left, it leads outward to the sea, a blue-green glimpse of which is
vaguely visible_.
_High in the tiger-jaws of the idol_, ARIEL—_a slim, winged figure,
half nude—is held fettered_.
_In the dimness, he listens to deep-bellowing choirs from below,
answered by a chorus of sweet shrill voices from within._
THE VOICES FROM BELOW
[_Sing._]
_Setebos! Setebos!_
THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
[_Sing._]
_Ariel!_
ARIEL
[_Calls aloud._]
O, my brave spirits!
THE VOICES FROM BELOW
_Setebos! Setebos!
Over us which art, and under:
Fang of fire
From mouth of thunder!
Hungering goad
From belly of mire!
Tiger and toad—
Setebos!
Blood which art on the jungle bloom,
Sloth and slumber and seed in the womb:
Which art wondrous
Over and under us,
Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!_
THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
_Sealèd in a starless cell,
We are shut from dawn and sky.
Ariel!—Ariel!
Why?_
ARIEL
Setebos knows, but his jaws
Fetter me fast: he is dumb—
Answering never.
THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
_We, who parch for dew and star—
Ariel!—Ariel!—
Must we perish where we are?
Tell!_
ARIEL
Sycorax knows, but she sits
There in the cave with her son—
Mocking us ever.
THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
_Ariel!_
ARIEL
Call me no more,
Lest they torment us. I hear them
Coming now.
THE VOICE OF SYCORAX
Caliban!
ARIEL
Hush!
[_Gigantic, the twisted form of_ SYCORAX _looms from
within the rock_.]
SYCORAX
[_Calling toward the sea._]
Come, fish-fowl! Leave thy flapping in the mud
And keep thy father’s temple. Call his priests.
Thy father Toad’s a god, hath double teeth
In his two heads. The Tiger loins of him
Begot thee in my belly for a cub
To lick his paws and purr, else he may pinch thee
Behind an eye-tooth, like yon flitter mouse
That hangs there wriggling.
THE VOICE OF CALIBAN
So, so Sycorax!—
Coming!
SYCORAX
Aye, so so: crawling still!
[_Malformed and hissing_, CALIBAN _enters on his belly
and arms_.]
CALIBAN
Syc-Syco-
Sycorax! See!
SYCORAX
What hast thou got thee?
CALIBAN
[_Laughs, half rising, and holds up a wriggling creature._]
Got
A little god—a little Caliban.
Ha!—make him out of mud. See: Squeezed it round
And slipped him through my fist-hole. Am a god:
[_Rising._]
See Sycorax—her grandchild!
SYCORAX
’Tis an eel-worm.
Fling him to the white bat yonder.
[_Her form vanishes in the rock._]
CALIBAN
[_Approaching the idol._]
Ariel,
Here’s food for thee: a wormling for thy beak.
So, my trapped bird:—How sayst, ha?
ARIEL
[_Sings._]
“_Where the bee sucks there suck I._”
CALIBAN
[_Laughing._]
Bee, sayst thou?
Still buzzest of thy wings, and eatest—air!
ARIEL
[_Sings._]
“_In a cowslip’s bell I lie._”
CALIBAN
My father’s gullet is no cowslip’s bell.
Shalt lie in the belly of Setebos.
[_Tossing away the eel._]
—What waitest for?
ARIEL
I am waiting for one who will come.
CALIBAN
Aye? _Who_ will come?
ARIEL
One from the heart of the world; and he shall rise
On tempest of music and in thunder of song.
CALIBAN
[_Gaping._]
Thunder and tempest—so!
ARIEL
[_With ecstasy._]
I see him now.
CALIBAN
[_Crouching back._]
See him! _Where_, now?
ARIEL
In my dream:—He bears
A star-wrought staff and hooded cloak of blue,
And on his right hand bums the sun, and on
His left, the moon; and these he makes his masks
Of joy and sorrow.
CALIBAN
Where? Mine eye seeth naught.
ARIEL
Before him comes a maid—a child, all wonder—
And leads, him to this blighted isle.
CALIBAN
What for, here?
ARIEL
To set me free, and all my air-born spirits
Whom Setebos holds prisoned in this earth.
CALIBAN
Free? What’s that—free?
ARIEL
What thou canst never be
Who never shalt dance with us by yellow sands.
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_Sing within._]
“_Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss’d
The wild waves whist.
Foot it featly here and there_”—
CALIBAN
Ho, blast their noises! Stop thy spirits’ squealing.
Their piping itcheth me like hornets’ stings.
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_Sing on, within._]
“_And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear_”—
CALIBAN
[_Screaming._]
Setebos! Squash ’em!
POWERS OF SETEBOS
[_Sing below with strident roarings, drowning the song
of Ariel’s Spirits._]
_Setebos_! _Setebos_,! _Thou art Setebos_!
CALIBAN
[_Exulting grotesquely._]
Who’ll dance by yellow sands?—Who’s free now, spirit?
Ho, Caliban can squash their music. Free?
Aren’t I a god, bitch-born, the son of Setebos
Can howl all hell up? Worship me, thou wings!
Praise my toad-father in his temple!
ARIEL
The priests
Of Setebos are Lust and Death and War.
Not Ariel—nor Ariel’s Spirits ever—
Shall do them honor. One shall come hereafter
Whom we now worship, waiting.
CALIBAN
[_Roaring._]
Sycorax!
SYCORAX
[_Reappearing._]
Swallow thy croakings, bullfrog. Call the priests,
And fill this spirit’s nostrils with the reek
Of Setebos, his blood-rites.
THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_Cry out piercingly._]
_Ariel!_
ARIEL
Peace, my brave hearts! Be dumb—but still be dreaming!
CALIBAN
Powers of Setebos!—Lust, Death, War,—ho, now!
Hither, and do my father worship!
ARIEL
[_Stifling a cry._]
Ah!
[_Enter_ LUST, DEATH, _and_ WAR, _arrayed as priests
of Setebos_.]
SYCORAX
[_To Caliban._]
Come, toad-boy: watch with me, within.
CALIBAN
[_Going within the cave, as Sycorax disappears._]
Free, saith?
Will dance by yellow sands?—Now, Spirit, dance!
[_As Caliban goes within, the powers of Setebos come forth._
_At the altar beneath Ariel, the three Priests lead
them in ceremonial rites of primeval pageantry and
dance—the sacrificial worship of Setebos. Above
them Ariel suffers, with closed eyes. In their
rites, Lust pours his libation, and lights the
altar fire, which—when War has made there his
living sacrifice—Death extinguishes in darkness._
_Through the dark, which gradually changes to a glowing
dusky Ariel speaks aloud._]
ARIEL
O Spirits, I have dreamed, but Death has closed
My sight in darkness. Spirits, I have begotten
Sweet Joy, but Lust hath drowned her in his wine.
Yea, I have wove Love wings, but War hath robbed them
And riven his lovely body all alive
To feed the hungering flames of Setebos.
My Spirits, I your master am unmastered.
Speak to me! Comfort me! Is there no joy,
No love, no dream, that shall survive this dark?
Hath this our isle no king but Caliban?
Are there no yellow sands where we shall dance
To greet the master of a timeless dawn?
Or must there break no morning?—Ah, you are dumb
Still to my doubtings. Yet the dark grows pale,
And, paling, pulses now with rosier shadows;
And now the shadows tremble, and draw back
Their trailing glories: hark! All little birds
Wake in the gloaming: look! What young Aurora
Walks in the dusk below, and like a child
Turns her quick face to listen?—Ah!
[_Below, against the light from the sea, has entered
the dim Figure he descries._]
THE FIGURE
Who calls?
ARIEL
Spirits, ’tis she! O, we have dreamed her true
At last—Miranda!
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_Call, in echoing song._]
_Miranda!_
MIRANDA
[_Searching with her eyes._]
Earth and air
Echo my name. Who calls me?
ARIEL
Ariel.
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_As before._]
_Ariel!_
MIRANDA
Light and dark spin webs around me.
What art thou, voice—and where?
ARIEL
Here—and your servant.
MIRANDA
[_Beholding him._]
O me!—poor Spirit!—What mouth so terrible
Utters a voice so tender?
ARIEL
Setebos,
God of this isle, holds me in ’s fangs.
MIRANDA
But why?
ARIEL
I will not serve him.
MIRANDA
[_Naïvely, drawing nearer to the huge idol._]
Setebos, be kind.
Release this Spirit.
ARIEL
He hath nor ears, nor eyes,
Nor any sense to know thee by, but only
These tusks and claws and his toad-belly.
MIRANDA
Dost
Thou suffer, so?
ARIEL
Not now.
MIRANDA
And hath he held thee
Long captive?
ARIEL
Since old ocean’s slime first spawned
Under the moon, I have awaited thee
And him thou bringest here.
MIRANDA
You mean my father,
Prospero.
ARIEL
[_Exultingly._]
Hail him, Spirits!
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_Sing._]
_Prospero!_
MIRANDA
Yea, many a starry journey we have made
Searching this isle. At last to-day, at dawn,
I saw its yellow sands, and heard thy voice
Calling for pity. Now my father is come
And shall release thee.
ARIEL
Where? Where is he?
MIRANDA
Here:
His cloak is round us now: he holds us now
In his great art, revealing each to each
Though he be all invisible.
[_Reëntering, Caliban comes forward, sniffing and
peering at Miranda._]
CALIBAN
Hath feet
And hair: hath bright hair shineth like a fish’s tail;
Hath mouth, and maketh small, sweet noises.
ARIEL
[_Crying out._]
Beast,
Go back!
MIRANDA
[_Staring, amazed._]
What’s here?
CALIBAN
Ca—Caliban; cometh here
To smell what ’tis.
[_He sniffs nearer; then howls strangely._]
Spring in the air: Oho!
MIRANDA
Alas, poor creature! Who hath hurt thee?
CALIBAN
Hurt?
Who hurteth God? Am seed of Setebos:
Am Caliban: the world is all mine isle:
Kill what I please, and play with what I please;
So, yonder, play with him: pull out his wings
And put ’em back to grow.—Where be _thy_ wings,
Spring-i’-the-air?
MIRANDA
O Ariel, is this sight
A true thing, and speaks truly?
ARIEL
What you hear
And see—’tis my master.
MIRANDA
’Tis so wonderful
I know not how to be sad.
CALIBAN
[_In puzzled fascination, staring at Miranda._]
The moon hath a face
And smileth on the lily pools, but hath
No lily body withal: thy body is
All lilies and the smell of lily buds,
And thy round face a pool of moonbeams!
MIRANDA
[_With smile and laughter._]
Nay,
Then look not in, lest thou eclipse the moon.
CALIBAN
Syc—Sycorax hath no such laughing: soundeth
Like little leaves i’ the rain! Hath no such mouth
Bright-lipp’d with berries ripe to suck i’ the sun—
Sycorax.
MIRANDA
Who is Sycorax?
ARIEL
Ah, pain!
CALIBAN
Ho, she that hath calved Caliban to the bull
Setebos, my blood-sire. [_Pauses at a glowing thought,
then cries with sudden exultance_:] So shall us twain
Caliban all this world!
[_He crouches, then rolls over at her feet._]
—Laugh, Spring-i’-the-air!
Lift so thy lily-pad foot and rub his ear
Where the fur tickleth, and let thy Caliban
Tongue-lick its palm.
[_He lies, dog-like, on his back, and laughs loud._]
MIRANDA
This wonder grows too wild.
ARIEL
Go, go! O flee away!
CALIBAN
[_Leaping up._]
Away?—Aye, so!
[_He approaches Miranda, who recoils, half fearful._]
Wist where salt water lappeth warm i’ the noon
And shore-fish breed i’ the shoals.—Wist where the sea-bull
Flap-flappeth his fin and walloweth there his cow
And snoreth the rainbow from his nostrils.
[_He begins to dance grotesquely about her._]
Ho,
Spring-i’-the-air! shalt leap, shalt roll in the sun,
Shalt dance with lily-warm limbs, shalt race wi’ the gulls!
Shalt laugh, and call—Come, Come!
Come, come, Caliban!
Catcheth who catcheth can!
Mateth mew, mateth man:
Catch, come, Caliban!
ARIEL
O Setebos, let me go free!
MIRANDA
[_To Caliban._]
Peace! Dance no more.
Go hence, and leave me.
CALIBAN
[_Staring._]
Hence? Aye, both—us twain.
MIRANDA
[_With simple command._]
Nay, thou alone.
CALIBAN
[_With narrowing eyes, draws nearer._]
Saith _what_?
MIRANDA
[_Unafraid._]
Go from me.
CALIBAN
[_Stops, with a hissing growl._]
Syc-
Syc-Sycorax! Sycorax!
SYCORAX
[_Reappearing._]
Mole in the mire, wilt squeak
When thou art trod on?—Bite! Bite, Setebos’ son!
Let the brave wonder breed of thee.
CALIBAN
Aye, mother.
[_With rising passion—to Miranda._]
A child! Shalt bear me such as thou, with head
Of Caliban: no eel-worm, nay—a wonder,
With lily feet, that walk. Ho, Setebos!
SYCORAX
Setebos! Mate them at thine altar.
MIRANDA
[_Fleeing from Caliban, pauses in terror of Sycorax._]
Save me!
POWERS OF SETEBOS
[_Sing within._]
_Setebos! Setebos!_
CALIBAN
[_Rushing toward Miranda._]
Mine!
MIRANDA
Save me, father!
ARIEL
[_Calling shrilly._]
Prospero!
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[_Sing within._]
_Prospero! Hail!_
[_A clap of thunder strikes, rolling, in sudden darkness.
Lightnings burst from the idol of Setebos.
From the flashing gloom, choruses of contending
spirits commingle the roar of their deep bass and
high-pitched choirs._]
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
_Prospero! Prospero!_
_Out of our earth-pain_
_Raise and array us_
_In splendor of order!_
_Pour on our chaos—_
_Prospero! Prospero!—_
_Peace to our earth-pain!_
POWERS OF SETEBOS
_Setebos! Setebos!_
_Lord of our earth-bane,_
_Loose on his wrath way_
_The beast of thy jungle!_
_Pour on our pathway—_
_Setebos! Setebos!_
_Blood for thine earth-bane!_
[_Amid the tempestuous song, darkness, and thunder,
appears on the left a glowing, winged throne. On
the throne sits_ PROSPERO—_in one hand, a scroll;
in the other, a miraculous staff_.]
PROSPERO
[_Raising his staff._]
Darkness, be light!—Tempest, be calm!—Miranda!
[_The scene grows light, and is still._]
MIRANDA
[_At the steps of the throne._]
Father!
PROSPERO
Come to me, child.
[_As she mounts to him gladly._]
Sit here beside me.
[_She sits at his feet, nestling in the folds of his great
garment._]
My cloak and staff protect thee.
MIRANDA
[_Raising her eyes in dread._]
But the wild thing?
PROSPERO
Must be transformed.—Caliban!
CALIBAN
[_Crouching at the centre, howls terribly._]
Setebos—sire!
Sycorax—mother! Hast swallowed them. Lord Thunder,
Strike us no more!
PROSPERO
I strike no more till time
Hath need of thunder. Rise now and be tamed,
Howler at Heaven.
CALIBAN
[_Rising, bewildered._]
Tamed, saith? What shall it be—
That “tamed?”
PROSPERO
That shalt thou learn of Ariel.
Now—Ariel!
[_He looks toward Ariel, still held in the mouth of Setebos.
Sycorax lies heaped and still by the altar._]
ARIEL
[_Joyously._]
Master!
PROSPERO
Sycorax, lo, ’tis dead.
CALIBAN
[_With wailing cry._]
Ah-yo!
PROSPERO
The will of Setebos is matched with mine
To rule our world. Time shall award the prize—
Mine own Miranda—to his power or mine.
His might is awful, but mine art is deep
To foil his power and exalt mine own.
Ariel, thy spirits shall help me.
ARIEL
Master, how?
PROSPERO
Thou, long time artless, now shalt learn mine art
To win my goal—Miranda’s freedom. Never
Till this immortal Caliban shall rise
To lordly reason, can Miranda hold
Her maiden gladness undismayed. For that
I will release thee from those fangs
Of Setebos.
ARIEL
For that, dear master, I have waited
Long ages, dreaming.
PROSPERO
So, wilt give thy promise
To learn of me, and teach this monster here?
ARIEL
O set me free to be thy servant ever.
Master, I promise!
PROSPERO
Fly! Run free!—Unfang him,
Setebos!
[_Prospero raises his staff._
_Slowly the tiger-jaws of the Idol open their fangs.
Ariel, with a joyous cry, slips into the air, and—as
he floats fluttering to the earth—his unseen
choir of Spirits sing with shrilly gladness:_]
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
_Prospero! Prospero! Hail!_
ARIEL
[_Dancing on the earth._]
Free! Free!
MIRANDA
[_Eagerly._]
O, now his fettered Spirits: Free them too!
PROSPERO
Well urged, my own Miranda.—Setebos,
Disgorge these long-embowelled choirs!—Spirits,
Come forth!
[_Again Prospero raises his staff._
_Yawning enormous, the toad-mouth of the Idol, fitted
with green and blue light, widens to a lurid aperture
out of which come forth—dancing—the star-bright
Spirits of Ariel._
_As they come, Ariel—springing toward Caliban—cries
exultingly:_]
ARIEL
Now, Caliban, we dance by yellow sands!
[_Singing as they rush forth, the Spirits dart with Ariel
swiftly about the grovelling Caliban and chase him,
dodging and whining, down the steps to the ground-circle,
mottled with its shadowy continents of the
world, and rimmed with its long, yellow wave-lines._]
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
“_Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss’d
The wild waves whist.
Foot it featly here and there
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear:
Hark, hark!
Bow-wow!
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow-wow!
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry: cock-o-diddle-dow!_”
[_Encircling Caliban in their dance, and pelting him with
bright handfuls of the yellow sands, they tease and
drive him howling into his cave cell, where his dark,
monstrous shape silhouettes for a moment on the
orange-red glow, then vanishes within._
_As he disappears, to their last “Bow-wow!”
and “Cock-a-diddle-dow!”, they hasten back above
to Ariel, who leads them before Prospero._]
ARIEL
The beast is routed, Master. Was’t well done?
PROSPERO
The routed beast—returns. I charge thee, Spirit,
Not to torment, but teach him—for which task
Thou wilt require mine art. So by its power
We will transform this cave of Setebos
To be a temple to Miranda. Now
Let these thy Spirits lead her to her shrine
Yonder, where all her maiden Muses wait
To make her welcome.
[_Prospero points to where, on the right, appears Miranda’s
shrine. From its portals come forth the Nine Muses, bearing
lutes and pipes. Prospero, turning to Miranda, rises and
gives her into Ariel’s care._]
Child, go with them now
And tarry till I summon.
MIRANDA
Sir, I will.
I thank you and these Spirits, and may we all
Be saved from Setebos.
ARIEL
Sweet Mistress, follow!
[_To a melodious tiding and piping played by the Muses,
Ariel and his Spirits escort Miranda to the centre,
where the Muses meet and conduct her into the shrine,
while Ariel’s Spirits—at a gesture from him—dart
through the centre of the Cloudy Curtains and disappear._]
PROSPERO
[_Calling._]
Now hither, bird, and perch!
ARIEL
[_Running to him, on the throne._]
Beside you, Master!
PROSPERO
[_Pointing to the ground-circle._]
Seest yonder Yellow Sands? There sleep the shores,
The cloudy capes and continents of time;
There wane and wax eternal tides, that mark
The ebb and flow of empires with their foam.
There shalt thou see the million-colored skein
Whereof I weave mine art. Look well and learn!
For this my art is of no only land
Or age, but born of all—itself a world
Snatched from the womb of History, to survive
Its mortal mother in imagination.—
Dost thou attend me?
ARIEL
Word and will, dear Master!
[_At the mouth of Caliban’s cell are now visible Lust,
Death, and War, who in pantomime indicate to Caliban
their conspiracy against Prospero and Ariel._]
PROSPERO
’Tis well, for thou must prove my pupil. Look!
Even now the priests of Setebos conspire
With Caliban against us. They will compass
My fall, Miranda’s ruin, and thy bondage
Unless mine art can foil them. Therefore, now
Thou shalt behold the pageant of mine art
Pace from antiquity. First, while yon glass
Lets flow its yellow sands, behold appear
My rites of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
And, while they pass, I will instruct thee how
To use them.—Pageant, appear!
[_A deep gong sounds._]
Lo, Egypt comes!
_FIRST INTERLUDE_[13]
_Now in succession through the great gates of the ground-circle, in
colorful incursions of costume and musky appear three main pageant
groups, that perform—with distinctive artistry of dance, pantomime,
mass movement, and choral song—three ritual episodes of the dramatic
art of antiquity. The nature of each, by a few brief sentences,
Prospero expounds to Ariel, and so to the audience. Concluding, each
group of the first two departs from the circle._
_The first Action—a symbolic ritual of Egypt—enters in seven separate
processions, which converge at the centre in worship of the golden god
Osiris._
_The second group—expressing the noble zenith of Greek dramatic
art—chants, with aspiring, athletic dance, the second chorus of the
Antigone of Sophocles, celebrating the splendor of man. This Action is
performed by the altar._
_With the third enters a contrasted decadence of the theatre’s art with
the Roman Mimes, who enact a farcical Comedy in Masks, in presence of
the emperor Caligula and the Roman populace. Concluding, this Roman
group does not depart, but retiring into partial shadow on the right,
awaits there its later summons._
ACT I
[_As the Roman Interlude closes, the light passes from the
ground-circle to the middle stage, where Prospero—descending
his throne with Ariel—moves toward the centre. While they
speak together there, Caliban—coming from his cave—crawls
part way up the steps and lies flat, occasionally lifting
his head to listen._]
PROSPERO
So, Ariel, I have harvested for thee
These orchards of mine art, and let thee taste
Their varied fruitages, some that have ripened
In climes auspicious, some that are part decayed.
Now from three vineyards—Egypt, Greece, and Rome—
I will distill a varicolored wine
For Caliban to drink. So, steeped in spirit,
Haply he also shall see visions. Hast
Thou learned by heart all that I whispered to thee?
ARIEL
All, Master.
PROSPERO
Tell me part.
ARIEL
You will create
Out of this world of art three scenes of vision.
PROSPERO
And who shall act them—say!
ARIEL
My Spirits shall;
And I will be their Prologue.
PROSPERO
For what purpose?
ARIEL
To tutor this beast.
PROSPERO
And why?
ARIEL
That he may grow
To reverence Miranda, and forswear Setebos.
PROSPERO
So! and to dispel the Powers
Of Setebos, I have transformed his cave
To be her temple and my theatre.—Look!
[_Prospero raises his staff toward the darkness that conceals
the background. As he does so, increasing light reveals the
rude, irregular contours of the cave of Setebos transformed
to the architectural lines of a splendid proscenium, in the
oblong of which the Cloudy Curtains shut off the inner stage.
The idol of Setebos has vanished._
_While this transformation is taking place, the Spirit Choirs
of Ariel appear above the proscenium, singing._]
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
_In the same abode and cell_
_Where the Toad was wont to dwell,_
_And the Tiger stretched his claw,_
_We have built a shrine of Law:_
_We have chosen the lair of hate_
_To love, imagine and create._
_Out of blood and dross,_
_Out of Setebos,_
_We are risen to show_
_The art of Prospero:_
_Here within his head and heart_
_Our souls are servants of his art._
[_Their appearances vanish above._]
ARIEL
Most noble Master! Show me now behind
Those cloudy curtains: How have you transformed
The cave within?
PROSPERO
Come; I will show thee how.
[_Prospero and Ariel pass through the curtains at the
centre and disappear within._
_Meanwhile Caliban, peering above the top step, stares
in dumb awe at the changed scene. There he is hailed
from below by the priest of Setebos, Lust, who comes
forth from his cell and calls_:]
LUST
Caliban! Remember Setebos!
CALIBAN
[_Starting, backs down the steps in scared pantomime._]
Aye, Setebos! But I hear their watch-dogs bark:
_Bow-wow!_ I feel their tongue-bites yet—their torments.
LUST
Caliban! Restore thy father’s temple.
CALIBAN
Yea, but my father had no feet to dance.
Curse on their yellow sands! They sting my eyes
Still wi’ their blindings. Blast ’em!
[_He springs part way up the steps again._]
LUST
Caliban!
Restore the priests of Setebos!
CALIBAN
His priests!
Nay, what if the cock sang—their chanticleer
His _Diddle-diddle-dow_! Burneth my spine
Still with that crowing.
[_Reënter Prospero through the curtains._]
LUST
Hush! he comes again.
I await thy call. Cry on _Caligula_
And I will come.
[_Lust goes in the cell._]
PROSPERO
[_Calling within the curtains._]
Now, Ariel, where art thou?
Ariel!
ARIEL
[_Stepping forth from behind the curtains, dressed in
the garb of Prologue, bows low._]
Here, great Master! I am now
Prologus, at your service.
PROSPERO
Nay, not mine
But _his_. [_Calling._]
Come, Caliban: behold thy tutor.
Behind these curtains he will show thee now
More than thy nature dreams on. If thou obey him
And learn mine art, thou shalt go free like him.
If not, thou shalt be spitted on a tooth
More sharp than Setebos. What sayest?
CALIBAN
[_Cringing._]
Lord,
Art Cock o’ the world, and Caliban thy worm;
Yea, only beggeth thee crow no more, nor set
Thy dancing dogs to bark at him.
PROSPERO
Tush, fool:
Wilt thou obey?
CALIBAN
Obeyeth both of you.
PROSPERO
That’s well. Sit here and watch. Now, Ariel,
Thy prologue: then reveal what lies behind.
[_Prospero mounts his throne, on the steps of which Caliban
squats below him, watching and listening with growing
curiosity. At the centre, before the Cloudy Curtains,
Ariel speaks._]
ARIEL
From Egypt, by our Master’s art,
Behold now, when these curtains part,
A scene of fleeting pageantry:
Behold where pale Mark Antony
Hath fled his sore defeated ships
In quest of Cleopatra’s lips,
And turned the tides of war amiss
To pawn a kingdom for a kiss.—
So, by my Spirits’ acting, see
Of what strange stuff these humans be!
[_Ariel retires within through the curtains, which then—to
the melodic dirge of flutes within—draw apart, disclosing
the inner stage, which depicts a scene of vivid Egyptian
coloring._]
FIRST INNER SCENE
Against a background of deep blue sky, the barge[14] of Cleopatra lies
moored at an ancient wharf:
From the left, along the wharf, enters Mark Antony, attended by
Soldiers and Populace in Roman and Egyptian garb.
ANTONY
Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon ’t;
It is ashamed to bear me! Friends, come hither.
I am so hated in the world, that I
Have lost my way forever. I have a ship
Laden with gold; take that, divide it; fly,
And make your peace with Cæsar.
ALL
Fly! Not we.
ANTONY
I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards
To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;
I have myself resolv’d upon a course
Which has no need of you; be gone....
Nay, do so; for, indeed, I have lost command....
[His followers depart, and Antony throws himself
down on a buttress of the wharf.
Meantime from the barge, Cleopatra—who has
looked on and listened—is led down to the landing
by Charmian and her Attendants, behind whom Eros
[a friend of Antony] follows.
They approach Antony, who—absorbed in his
grief—does not see them.]
EROS
Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him....
CHARMIAN
Do! Why, what else?
CLEOPATRA
Let me sit down. O Juno!
[As Cleopatra sinks down near him, Antony—now
beholding her—starts up with a cry of surprise and
passionate pain.]
ANTONY
No, no, no; no, no!
EROS
[Pointing to Cleopatra’s piteous aspect.]
See you here, sir?
ANTONY
[Hiding his face.]
O fie, fie, fie!
CHARMIAN
[Bending over her.]
Madam!
EROS
[Appealing to Antony.]
Sir, sir,—
ANTONY
Yes, my lord, yes; he at Philippi kept
His sword e’en like a dancer, while I struck
The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and ’twas I
That the mad Brutus ended ... yet now—No matter.
[He sinks down again.]
CLEOPATRA
[Rising, to her Attendants.]
Ah, stand by ... sustain me! O!
EROS
Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches.
Her head’s declin’d, and death will seize her, but
Your comfort makes the rescue.
ANTONY
[Drawing still away, despairfully.]
I have offended reputation,
A most unnoble swerving.
EROS
Sir, the queen!
[Cleopatra and Antony face each other—gazing
into each other’s eyes.]
ANTONY
[Suddenly crying out.]
O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See,
How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
By looking back what I have left behind
’Stroy’d in dishonor.
CLEOPATRA
O my lord, my lord,
Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
You would have follow’d.
ANTONY
Egypt, thou knew’st too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.
CLEOPATRA
O my pardon!
ANTONY
Now I must
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
With half the bulk o’ the world play’d as I pleased,
Making and marring fortunes. You did know
How much you were my conqueror; and that
My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.
CLEOPATRA
[Touching his arm, clings to him.]
Pardon, pardon!
ANTONY
[Overcome at her touch.]
Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss.
Even this repays me.... Wine!
Bring wine, within there: wine! For fortune knows
We scorn her most when most she offers blows.
[He embraces Cleopatra.
From the right slaves enter, bearing chalices and
wine-beakers. With them come flutists and harpers,
making festal music.
Snatching from them a golden cup, Antony raises
it aloft with an impassioned gesture, returning the
triumphant smile of the Egyptian queen.]
CLOSING, THE CLOUDY CURTAINS SHUT OFF THE SCENE.
[_Meantime Caliban, who has risen absorbed and drawn slowly
nearer in child-like fascination, stands for an instant,
bewildered. Then, with a cry, he leaps forward in the dim-lit
space and gropes along the curtains with arms wide._]
CALIBAN
Ho, light! All’s smother: ’tis gone! Yo—yo, all gone—
Cloud-swallowed, all! Ah, woman, snake-bright queen,
Thou wonder-thing, come back! Ah, where—where—where?
PROSPERO
So, so! Canst thou, then, taste my vision, slave?
[_He descends the throne toward Caliban._]
CALIBAN
[_Staring about him._]
O dazzle-blue, gold-shine, hot lotus smell!
Blood-root in bloom, and scarlet water-weed!—
O silver sight and tinkle-tickling sound!—
Spurteth my body with joy—burst in my brain
Enormous moons of wonder!—Float, still float,
You purpling sails! Blaze, thou flame-woman! Speak
Sparkles of kissing fire!
PROSPERO
[_Approaching him._]
Nay, art thou touched
Beyond thy tiger cravings?
CALIBAN
Ho, Lord Master,
Lord Chanticleer, unswallow from thy gorge
The world thou hast devoured!
PROSPERO
[_Pointing toward Ariel, who comes forth again as
Prologus through the curtains._]
Ask of thy tutor;
He hath revealed that world to thy brute ken.—
Ariel, this lump of earth hath dreams within ’t,
That now begin to sprout. Send it more sun
And watering.
ARIEL
Sir, your art is rain and sun:
I am but air, to carry its wet or warmth
Whereso you list.
PROSPERO
So let it fall on him
Till he shall wax to a more worthy plant
For Miranda’s temple-garden.—Here is my Staff:
This wields my power. Here keep it in thy charge
Till I return. So, use it as a rod
To instruct this bungling cub of Setebos.
ARIEL
[_As Prospero goes._]
I will, sir.—Go you far?
PROSPERO
No farther than
The frontiers of mine art. Farewell a while!
[_Prospero passes within through the curtains. Half
confiding, half suspicious, Caliban comes near to
Ariel and questions him._]
CALIBAN
Art, saith! What’s that—his art?
ARIEL
’Tis that which burns
Now in thy blood: the same which conjured hither
Bright Egypt and the kiss of Antony.
CALIBAN
The woman and the kiss! Nay, saidest now
’Tis rain and sun!
ARIEL
’Tis so.
CALIBAN
Where falleth his rain?
Where shineth his sun?
ARIEL
Yonder on the Yellow Sands.
CALIBAN
Nay, show me this art! Is ’t hidden in thy hand?
Here, let _me_ hold the staff.
[_Caliban reaches for the staff; Ariel raises it warningly._]
ARIEL
Stay! Touch it not
Lest it shall scorch thy fingers and set fire
To the building world. The staff of Prospero
Is for his servants, not for slaves, to wield.
CALIBAN
[_Drawing back from it, in fear._]
Scorcheth my fingers, ah?—So wield it, thou!
Show me once more the snake-bright queen.
ARIEL
Nay, Egypt
No more! But come with me to Prosper’s throne
Where _I_ play master now. Here thou shalt sit
And watch the battlements of eternal Troy
Where Troilus woos inconstant Cressida.
CALIBAN
Showest me once more—woman?
ARIEL
Even so;
For many kinds of woman make mankind.
[_Rising, Ariel points toward the inner stage
and speaks chantingly._]
Now, from out Time’s storied sphere,
Homer’s Troy I summon here,
On a dawn when Hector seeks
Battle with the besieging Greeks:
There, while heroes throng the gates,
Cressida her lover ’waits,
Casting from a height apart
Tangling hooks for Troilus’ heart.—
Behold her now, by Prosper’s art!
[_Ariel raises his staff._]
SECOND INNER SCENE[15]
The Cloudy Curtains draw back, revealing the battlements of Troy.
Above, on a rampart, in the first rays of morning, CRESSIDA appears,
with a maiden Attendant.
Below, murmuring crowds are looking toward the outer gates. Among them
pass the aged Trojan Queen, and the Greek Helen, in her younger beauty.
CRESSIDA
[Peering below.]
Who were those went by?
ATTENDANT
Queen Hecuba and Helen.
CRESSIDA
And whither go they?
ATTENDANT
Up to the eastern tower
To see the battle—Hector,
Before the sun uprose, was harnessed light
And to the field goes he.
[Enter behind them Pandarus.]
CRESSIDA
Hector’s a gallant man.—
[Turning to greet him.]
Good morrow, Uncle Pandarus.
PANDARUS
[Smiling.]
Good morrow, Cousin Cressid.
[Trumpets are sounded, off left.]
Hark! They are coming from the field. Shall we
stand up here and see them as they pass toward
Ilium?
CRESSIDA
At your pleasure.
[They move to a better vantage. At a gesture
from Cressida the Attendant departs.]
PANDARUS
Here, here’s an excellent place. I’ll tell you them
all by their names, as they pass by; but mark
Troilus above the rest.
CRESSIDA
[With a reproving laugh.]
Speak not so loud.
[Below, from the left, Trojan warriors, in battle
gear, begin to pass by, through the admiring
populace who cheer them occasionally.
Among them
ÆNEAS PASSES]
PANDARUS
That’s Æneas: is not that a brave man? He’s one
of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark
Troilus; you shall see anon.
ANTENOR PASSES
CRESSIDA
Who’s that?
PANDARUS
That’s Antenor: he’s one o’ the soundest judgments
in Troy. But when comes Troilus? I’ll show
you Troilus anon. If he sees me, you shall see
him nod at me.
CRESSIDA
[Archly.]
Will he give _you_ the nod?
PANDARUS
You shall see.
CRESSIDA
If he do, the rich shall have more.
HECTOR PASSES
PANDARUS
That’s Hector: that, that, look you, that; there’s a fellow!
Go thy way, Hector! There’s a brave man, niece.
CRESSIDA
O, a brave man!
PANDARUS
Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil comes to
him, it’s all one. Yonder comes Paris—Paris!
PARIS PASSES
Who said he came hurt home to-day? He’s not hurt.
Why, this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha! Would
I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.
HELENUS PASSES
CRESSIDA
Who’s that?
PANDARUS
[Searching with his eyes, grows impatiently expectant.]
That’s Helenus.—I marvel where Troilus is.—That’s
Helenus—I think he went not forth to-day.—That’s
Helenus.
CRESSIDA
Can Helenus fight, uncle?
PANDARUS
Helenus? no. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well.—I
marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you hear the
people cry “Troilus?”
TROILUS PASSES
[As he approaches, the populace cheer him.
His eyes, however, search about till they rest on
the battlement, where Cressida, returning his look,
starts back, trembling.
Noting both their actions, Pandarus continues
flauntingly to point out the young hero.]
’Tis Troilus! There’s a man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus!
CRESSIDA
Peace! For shame, peace!
PANDARUS
Mark him: note him. O brave Troilus! Look well
upon him, niece; look you how his sword is bloodied,
and his helm more hacked than Hector’s.
O admirable youth! Go thy way, Troilus, go thy
way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a
goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable
man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him.
[While he is speaking, Cressida has taken from her
hair a flower, knotted its stem to an arrow, and
dropped the arrow beneath the rampart, where Troilus
lifts it with a smile and happy gesture, bearing it away
with him, right. As Pandarus now turns to her,
Cressida looks away left and points to others below.]
CRESSIDA
Here comes more.
MORE FORCES PASS
PANDARUS
Asses, fools, dolts! Chaff and bran! Porridge after
meat! I could live and die i’ the eyes of Troilus.
Ne’er look, ne’er look! the eagles are gone; crows
and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such
a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.
[Enter, above, Troilus’ Boy, who speaks to Pandarus.]
THE BOY
Sir, my lord Troilus would instantly speak with you.
PANDARUS
Where?
THE BOY
At your own house; there he unarms him.
PANDARUS
Good boy, tell him I come. [Exit Boy.]
Fare ye well, good niece.
[He goes off, above.]
CRESSIDA
Adieu, uncle!
[Below, the last of the soldiers and populace have
passed off, right, where Cressida gazes after them,
speaking aloud to herself:]
O more in Troilus thousandfold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing.
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
[Below, from the right, Troilus hastens back, alone.
The arrow with the flower he has thrust through the
links in his chain armor on his left side. Pointing
to it, he calls up toward the battlement.]
TROILUS
Cressida!
CRESSIDA
[With a glad cry.]
Troilus!
[Unwinding her long wine-red scarf, she ties it to
the battlement, whence it flutters down to Troilus.
Seizing it, he mounts by its aid toward the rampart,
where the face of Cressida peers luringly above him.]
TROILUS
[Calling upward as he mounts.]
Cressida!
[Just as he is about to reach Cressida,
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE.
[_At the centre Caliban now leaps up in loud, excited
laughter. Clapping his hands in the air, he
strides toward Ariel on the throne._]
CALIBAN
Aha! Troy, Troy! Lips of Troyland and Egypt!
Lovers in links of gold! Ho, wine of woman
Bubbling in vats of war!—drinketh you all
Caliban, Caliban, son of Setebos.—Ariel,
Learnest me Art? Lo, now: _I_ am his Artist!
Tell him, Lord Prospero, Caliban createth
Glories more ’stounding still. Art? Ho, ’tis God’s play!
But _me_? Am God i’ the mire: can make me Troy
And purple Egypt out of the mud i’ my palm;
Giveth me only that—his little play stick
[_Pointing to the staff in Ariel’s hand._]
To stir in the mud withal.
ARIEL
Not yet!—This staff
Is wrought to stir the spirits of the air,
Not dabble i’ the slime.
CALIBAN
Why so? From bog-slime bloometh
The lotus, and the sea-lark feedeth her young
Along the salt flats.—
[_With childish wheedling._]
Prithee—the staff?
ARIEL
[_Descending the throne._]
’Twould burn thee.
Touch not till thou art free. Yet patience, monster,
For thou hast learned to answer well, and growest
Rarely in thought and speech.
CALIBAN
[_Tickled to laughter._]
Yea, clever monster
Soon groweth monstrous clever. More art, fine Ariel!
Let Caliban speak thy Prologue.
ARIEL
Hush!—Miranda!
[_From her shrine Miranda comes forth, with the Muses.
Seeing the two, she pauses astonished._]
MIRANDA
Nay!—Is this Ariel?
ARIEL
’Tis I—Prologus.
Will you hear me, Mistress?
MIRANDA
[_As Caliban approaches._]
Thou!—thou, Caliban!
ARIEL
My pupil.
CALIBAN
[_With confiding assurance._]
Liketh well thy father’s art,
Spring-i’-the-air.
MIRANDA
God speed thy learning, monster!
I am more fain to help thee in that task
Than all else in the world.
CALIBAN
[_Astonished and eager._]
Wouldst help me—thou?
MIRANDA
How happy, if I could!
CALIBAN
Yea, canst thou!—Hark:
[_Glancing from his garb to Ariel’s._]
Let me wear glory, too! What booteth me
To be his Artist, if I wear no cloth
To show my glory? He there talketh no Prologue
Without his toga. Tog me, too, in brave
Colors!
MIRANDA
Well thought on.
[_To one of the Muses._]
Quick, Euterpe: Fetch
Bright vesture forth.
ARIEL
For Caliban?
MIRANDA
For whom
So fit? The need of beauty lies
Most near to them who lack it.
[_Euterpe returns, bringing bright garments, which she and
the other Maidens help now to put upon Caliban._]
So, dear Muses:
Lay on!
CALIBAN
[_Delightedly tries to survey himself._]
Ha, Sycorax, an thou wert here now
To look on this thy son!
[_He parades, with swelling pleasure, before the Muses._]
Gaze well, good Spirits!
Now, Ariel, thy pupil soon shall teach thee
What thing this Art is: yea, teach Prospero
A lesson in ’s own lore.
MIRANDA
[_To Ariel, who is about to protest._]
Pray, let him tarry
This time with us. He is too full of dreams
To act us harm. Speak on thy Prologue.
CALIBAN
[_Still parading._]
Prologue!
Aye, good: _my_ Prologue shall come after.
ARIEL
Mistress,
Keep here, this staff for your protection.
[_Accepting the staff from Ariel, Miranda takes seat on
the shrine, where the Muses range themselves about her._]
MIRANDA
So!
Be near us, Caliban.
CALIBAN
[_Moving to the shrine steps, speaks to Ariel._]
What showest now?
ARIEL
[_At centre, before the curtains._]
Now, in Time’s emblazoned tome
Egypt, Greece, turn page for Rome.
CALIBAN
[_Mutters aloud._]
Rome, ha! I’ll show you Rome!
ARIEL
Rocked by mighty Cæsar’s fall
Glooms the world in battle pall,
Where by midnight, worn and spent,
Weary Brutus, in his tent,
Watches ’mid the Roman host.
There the pallid Cæsar’s ghost
Rises from his candle-flame
Accusing.—Who shall bear that blame?
Can Brutus wake a world from shame?
[_Ariel disappears through the curtains.
Miranda raises the staff._]
THIRD INNER SCENE
The Cloudy Curtains part, disclosing the tent of Brutus, by moonlight.
Brutus—his outer armor laid aside—sits on a couch: near him Lucius,
a boy, nods drowsily over a stringed instrument. After a brief pause,
Brutus—gazing at him—speaks wistfully:
BRUTUS
Bear with me, good boy:
Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile
And touch thy instrument a strain or two?
LUCIUS
Aye, my lord, an’t please you.
BRUTUS
It does, my boy:
I should not urge thy duty past thy might;
I know young bloods look for a time of rest.
LUCIUS
I have slept, my lord, already.
BRUTUS
It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again;
I will not hold thee long. If I do live
I will be good to thee.
LUCIUS
[Tuning his instrument, sings dreamily:]
Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the seed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.
[Lucius falls asleep.]
BRUTUS
This is a sleepy tune. O murderous slumber,
Lay’st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good-night;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.—
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turned down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.
[The Ghost of Cæsar appears.]
How ill this taper burns!—Ha! Who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou anything?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.
[In the darkness, dark ghostly shapes, hardly visible,
appear to urge forward the dead Cæsar, who alone
is luminous.]
THE GHOST
Thy evil spirit, Brutus.
BRUTUS
Why comest thou?
THE GHOST
To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.
BRUTUS
Well; then I shall see thee again?
THE GHOST
Aye, at Philippi.
BRUTUS
Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then.
[The Ghost and the dim Shapes disappear.
Brutus rises.]
Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest:
Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.—
[Calling aloud.]
Boy, Lucius! Romans, Romans! Awake—awake!
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE
[_Instantly, in the semi-darkness without, Caliban—with
a great cry—springs among the Muses, snatches
from Miranda the staff, and rushes with it to the
centre of the middle stage, shouting aloud_:]
CALIBAN
Awake, Romans, awake!
[_Low thunders growl, and sharp flashes glimmer about him._]
MIRANDA
[_Cries out, appalled._]
The staff! His staff!
Touch not its power, lest thou lay waste the world!
CALIBAN
[_Grasping the staff, staggers and sways wildly with it,
as though being shocked by an invisible force._]
Rome! Now do I hold the roof-beam o’ the world.
Now am _I_ lord of lightnings: Lo, mine art
Shaketh the throne of Prospero.
[_He strides upon the throne, raising the staff._]
Awake,
Imperial Rome! Return, ye snake-bright women
Of Troy and Egypt! Stain these yellow sands
Wine-red with spillings of your wreathèd bowls,
And let the orgied priests of revel reign.—
Caligula, be crowned by Setebos!
Caligula! Caligula! Caligula!
[_While he cries aloud, the Powers of Setebos come forth
from the cell beneath, clad as Roman men, women,
and slaves and, joined by the Roman Interlude
Pageant on the ground-circle, raise the Emperor on a
palanquin upon their shoulders, and bear him up
the steps to the middle stage, shouting “Caligula!”_
_Here a scene of mingled riot and orgy follows:_
_Women dancers with golden bowls, slaves shackled and driven
with whips, rabble groups scrambling for bread loaves
flung them by heralds, armed soldiery, and gorgeous
patrician lords: these swarm in a sordid saturnalia,
from the midst of which the masked form of Caligula
rises dominant in splendor. At his gesture, slaves
tear the Muses from their shrine, and give them over
to the revellers._
_High above all, clutching the staff, his huge limbs rioting
grotesque from his silken garments, Caliban dances on
the throne of Prospero._
_Below, bass voices of invisible choirs chant through the din_:
_“Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!”_
_Seized from the throne with the Muses, Miranda—at the
centre—is borne in faint dread to the reaching arms
of Caligula, who is about to place upon her his crown,
when a sudden pealing of silvery trumpets strikes
silence over all. In awe the revellers gaze upward,
and turn toward the background, listening._
_Above them there, from the darkness, appears a colossal_
CROSS, _burning with white fire_.
_Caligula drops his crown._
_Shadow falls on the colorful pageantry, and all sink slowly
to their knees, as the Spirits of Ariel appear again
above—their luminous wings outspread like seraphim._
_At either end one blows a slim tapering trumpet._
_High and clear, then, their choirs chant in Gregorian
unison_:
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
Vexilla Regis pródeunt;
Fulget Crucis mystérium,
Quo carne carnis Cónditor
Suspénsus est patíbulo.
Quo vulneratis ínsuper
Mucróne diro lanceæ,
Ut nos laváret crimine,
Manavit unda et sánguine.
O Crux, ave, spes, unica:
Hoc Passiónis témpore,
Auge piis justítiam
Reisque dona veniam.
Te summa Deus Trínitas,
Collaudet omnis spiritus:
Quos per Crucis mystérium
Salvas, rege per sæcula.
_During this chant, the dim revellers beneath bow their
bodies more low._
_And now, to faint organ music, the Cloudy Curtains,
parting, reveal the_ INNER STAGE _hung like an early
Christian shrine in a catacomb—with primitive
tapestries of dusky blue and gold. Against these
in the glow of candles, an image of haloed Saint
Agnes holds a white lamb, which silent shepherds are
adoring. This group remains motionless as a tableau._
_Then silently from either side two priests come forth with
swinging censers. Passing forward and down the steps
to the ground-circle, they are followed in the dim
light by the Roman revellers, who rise and pass off
through the Interlude gates._
_Last of all rises Caligula, who pauses hesitant, looking
back where Miranda still kneels, now grouped about by
her Muses._
_As he stoops to lift his crown from the earth, two
Figures in the_ INNER SCENE—_a Shepherd Boy, and a
Shepherd wrapt in a hide mantle—stir from the still
picture and come forward in a circle of light, while_
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE _behind them, and above the
white cross vanishes_.
_Speaking from the place of light to the Emperor’s form in
shadow, the Shepherd calls to him_:]
THE SHEPHERD
Caligula!
THE EMPEROR
Who calls?
THE SHEPHERD
Reveal thyself—
What thing thou art.
_[Stepping slowly into the light, the_ EMPEROR _bows himself
before the_ SHEPHERD, _holding up his crown
which the Shepherd takes and says with a gesture_:]
Lay off thy mask.
[_Rising, the Emperor puts of his mask, revealing himself
as the_ PRIEST OF SETEBOS.]
Hail, Lust!
LUST
[_To the Shepherd._]
Hail, Prospero!
PROSPERO
[_Putting of his sheepskin cloak, which the boy
takes from him._]
Return to Setebos.
[_To the Shepherd Boy._]
Ariel, lead him below.
ARIEL
So, Master!
[_Ariel leads Lust away to the cell beneath._]
MIRANDA
[_Rising, goes to Prospero’s arms._]
Father!
[_From the outer dimness, Caliban—who, since the appearance
of the burning Cross, has lain flat on the throne steps—
now grovels forward [trailing his silken garment by one
sleeve] and flings the staff of Prospero into the light
space._]
CALIBAN
No more! Will never touch it more!
PROSPERO
[_Staring at the staff._]
A thousand years
To build, and build for beauty, yet in one flare
Of riot lust, a lubber idiot
Confounds time and my toil.—Ah, daughter, daughter!
How shall mine art reclaim this lapsing ape
From his own bondage?
MIRANDA
Sir, my heart is shaken;
Yet the sweet sight of Agnes and her lamb
Hath shown new comfort.
[_Stooping, she lifts the staff and holds it toward him._]
Therefore, even as a Shepherd,
Take up thy staff in patience, and urge still onward
This poor sloughed sheep.
PROSPERO
Yea, patience! Sun, moon, stars,
And all that waxes hath its waning-hour;
But patience is the night behind the stars,
Steadfast through all eclipse.
[_With his staff, he touches Caliban where he lies cringed._]
Stir, thou thick clot
Of clay and god-spittle! Let thine atoms thaw
To mud, where Prosper may imprint once more
His blurrèd seal.
CALIBAN
[_Hoarsely, half rising._]
Mud: yea, methought to be
His Artist, and make dream-things of mine own
Like Ariel his spirits, yet now—am mud.
MIRANDA
[_Pitifully._]
Nay, star-dust!
ARIEL
[_Returning._]
Master, from those far frontiers
You visited, have you not brought us back
More pageants of your art?
PROSPERO
Yes, Ariel:
Back from the dim bourns of the Middle Age
Of Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
And now, for this slave’s tutelage, I’ll show you
Their quaint moralities and mad-cap mirth.
Come hither, and watch: Lo, olden Germany!
Pageant of the north, appear.
_SECOND INTERLUDE_[16]
_Once more, through the community gates of the ground-circle, appear,
in contrasted ritual, successive Folk-Groups, that perform now episodic
phases of the dramatic art of Europe in the Middle Ages. Concluding,
each group departs._
_First comes the Germanic, in part grimly austere, in part naïvely
grotesque. On a portable, three-tiered stage this group enacts both
audience and players of a popular morality play: a pantomime scene
depicting—in heaven, earth, and hell—the tragic, romantic_ HISTORY OF
DOCTOR FAUSTUS.
_This Action is followed by the contrasted splendor of a mediæval
French scene. Here, in presence of the Kings of France and England, on_
THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, _is performed a colorful tournament on
horseback_.
_Last follows a fusion of the Spanish and Italian groups in the Third
Action: a light-hearted dramatic Scherzo, full of laughter, knavery,
and romantic love, performed—in the midst of a festa—by the pied
actors of the_ COMMEDIA DELL’ ARTE.
_During this last Action, Prospero and Ariel [above] have withdrawn
through the Cloudy Curtains, leaving Caliban alone, staring spellbound
at the many-hued festival below him._