[_Now, when the Italian Interlude is concluded, the
light—passing to the middle stage—illumines at
centre the lone figure of Caliban, where he squats
above his cell. Gazing out over the ground-circle, he
calls aloud his yearning thoughts_:]
CALIBAN
O Sands—Yellow Sands! Falleth on _you_ his rain,
Shineth his sun! Yea, there his breeding dews
Quicken your blind rock-seeds, till wondrous live things
Burst ’em with flame-bright petals; and where his light falls
You blossom with stars and flowers: But me—me saith,
Am mud! Calleth _me_ a bubble of black ooze
Can breed but only mine own belly-kind—
Bog-fish and moles.—Lieth!
[_Rising with a great gesture._]
He lieth! ’Tis lies!
Sands!—You wild, yellow sands! I, too, I, too,
Am born to dance by your eternal waves
And build brave temples there. I, too, shall bring you
Shoutings of life-song, like those Spirits.—Lo,
I come to you—I come now!
[_Running down the steps, he rushes out upon the ground-circle,
where he stoops on bent knees and kisses the shining
earth._
_Behind him, at the entrance of the cell, Death appears,
holding a great gray cloak._
_He comes forward, speaking in a thin monotone._]
DEATH
Caliban!
CALIBAN
[_Raising his head._]
What calleth me there?
DEATH
Death: priest of Setebos.
CALIBAN
His temple is fallen: will build no more like his.
DEATH
Thou shalt restore his temple, Caliban.
CALIBAN
[_Rising._]
Nay, _will_ not!
DEATH
None can say me Nay. I am
The will to _not_ be which denies all wills.
[_Through the Cloudy Curtains—slowly—Prospero enters,
in troubled meditation._]
CALIBAN
And I am Caliban: [_Pointing toward Prospero._]
will be his servant.
DEATH
Caliban, thou shalt fail. Thyself art failure, Setebos’ son.
CALIBAN
Myself am done with Setebos:
Wear now Miranda’s cloth.
DEATH
Thou shalt wear mine.
Behold!
CALIBAN
[_Looking at the gray cloak._]
What’s that?
DEATH
My cloak, where thou shalt hide
To snare Miranda unto bondage. Hark!
[_Far, cold, and thin a dirgeful choir sounds from the
cell behind the figure of Death._]
THE DIRGE
_Gray—gray—gray: Joy be unholy and hidden;_
_Wan be the rainbow of wonder, frozen the tide!_
_Blind—blind—blind: Passion be pale and forbidden;_
_Dumb be the lips of the soul to Beauty denied!_
PROSPERO
[_Speaks to Ariel, who comes running from behind the
Cloudy Curtains._]
Blithe bird of mine, my heart is boding ill.
Hast thou heard?
ARIEL
Nay, Master, what?
PROSPERO
His dirges.
ARIEL
Whose?
PROSPERO
Setebos’. Ha, ’tis not his lust I dread,
Nay, nor his tiger tooth, nor belly on fire:
’Tis when his fever cools: when the gray ash
Covers the life-flame, and the boiling senses
Skim with thin ice, and the rank bloom wears hoar-frost:
Not savage souls, ’tis dead souls that defeat us.
Not red, but gray—gray.
[_While Prospero and Ariel have spoken together above,
Caliban, below, has been drawn half hypnotized
by Death toward the cell._]
DEATH
[_To Caliban._]
Follow me.
CALIBAN
I follow!
DEATH
[_At the cell’s mouth, lifts the gray cloak to put upon
Caliban._]
Wear now my color.
CALIBAN
[_As Death touches him, springs back._]
No, no; thy hand-touch freezeth.
[_Fearfully he leaps up the steps, crying aloud_:]
Prospero! I will serve thee.
DEATH
[_Disappearing within the cell._]
Thou shalt fail.
CALIBAN
[_Bowing before Prospero._]
Master, raise up thy servant.
PROSPERO
Raise thyself.
CALIBAN
[_Slowly rising._]
So—while thou lookest on me, I can rise.
PROSPERO
Nay, look once more on what I now create
For thee to rise by. ’Tis mine art, not me,
Reigns as thy master. Master it, and go free.
[_The Three move toward the throne, where they soon
group themselves on the steps._]
CALIBAN
What wilt thou show me now?
PROSPERO
A mind distraught—
Grasping at realms invisible—like thine,
Poor groping dreamer. Ariel, from the scroll
Of mine old Gothic meditations, bid
Thy spirits blazon now a glimpse of Hamlet.
[_He hands to Ariel his scroll._]
ARIEL
Your will, great Master, we revere it.—
Lo where, to meet his father’s spirit,
Pale Hamlet watches now, before
The parapets of Elsinore!
[_Ariel raises the scroll; then, unrolling it, bends his looks
upon it, while the Cloudy Curtains part, revealing the_
FIFTH INNER SCENE.
On a platform at Elsinore, by blazing starlight, three Figures are seen
pacing the cold.
HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET
What hour now?
HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.
MARCELLUS
No, it is struck.
HORATIO
Indeed?
I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held its wont to walk.
[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.]
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-start reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge....
HORATIO
[Pointing.]
My lord, it comes!
[Enter Ghost.]
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!—
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O answer me!...
What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
[The Ghost beckons Hamlet.]
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
MARCELLUS
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.
HORATIO
No; by no means.
HAMLET
It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HORATIO
Do not, my lord.
HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?—
It waves me forth again: I’ll follow it.
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET
Hold off your hands.
HORATIO
Be ruled; you shall not go.
HAMLET
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!—Go on; I’ll follow thee!
[As Hamlet, impetuous, makes after the departing ghost,
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE
CALIBAN
[_Springing up._]
No, no! Follow not! Let him not follow! ’Tis
A spirit lureth to Setebos and Death.
He knoweth him not, what ’tis;—but, master, _I_ know.
Me, me too hath he beckoned with blind eyes
And offered his gray cloth.
PROSPERO
Thee? Death hath beckoned
And yet thou didst not follow?
CALIBAN
Hither I fled
To serve thee, but he said that I should fail;
Yet—yet, and thou wilt help, I _will_ not fail!
PROSPERO
And what wouldst have of me?
CALIBAN
[_Pointing to Ariel._]
Thy wonder scroll:
Nay, not thy staff again! Will never more
Botch with thy lightnings. Nay, but this littler thing
Lend me, and let me bear it against Death
To free _my_ father’s spirit from his gray pall.
Lettest Ariel: let now thy Caliban
Conspire to serve thee.
[_He reaches for the scroll._]
PROSPERO
Why, thou wheedlest well,
And I must hope in thy self-weening. Yet
Beware lest thou thyself shalt wear the drab
Thou takest from him: Gray hath arsenic
More keen than scarlet or the corroding blood
That sered the flesh of Hercules.
CALIBAN
[_Eagerly._]
Wilt lend me
The scroll?
PROSPERO
[_With a gesture to Ariel._]
Here!
[_Ariel hands the scroll, which Prospero then gives
to Caliban._]
Use this token of mine art
Less blindfold than the last.
[_Caliban bounds away with the scroll._]
ARIEL
[_Half protesting._]
Will trust him, Master?
PROSPERO
Yea, though he fail me yet again, for only
Trust can create its object.
CALIBAN
[_Joyfully kissing the scroll and raising it._]
Now, now, Setebos,
Thy son shall wean thy Powers from Death, thy priest!
[_Descending the steps, Caliban hastens to the mouth of
the cell, where—as he is about to enter—Death reappears
and hails him._]
DEATH
Welcome, Caliban!
[_Death beckons within. Pausing momentarily, Caliban
seems about to draw back, but recovering his purpose
cries out hoarsely:_]
CALIBAN
Go on; I’ll follow thee.
[_He follows within and disappears. Caliban and Death have
hardly vanished, when Miranda comes from her shrine,
followed by the Muses, who are accompanied by a troop
of Fauns. The classic hides of these are partly concealed
by gay mediæval garments [Florentine and French], and some
bear in their hands great vellum books and parchments,
which they stack in a pile near the shrine._]
MIRANDA
[_Calling joyously._]
Muses, sweet friends to mirth! Come forth again
And fetch your little Fauns, that drowsed so long
In mildew’d vaults of antique vellum, through all
The winters of dark ages. Come, sad Clio,
Unpucker your frown! You, pale Melpomene,
Blush to a lovelier time. Yond yellow sands,
That ran blood-red with orgies of old Rome,
Shine golden now with young renascence. The ages
Renew their summer. Joy hath its June once more,
For once more Prosper reigns.
PROSPERO
[_As Miranda comes to him._]
’Tis thy returning
Restores my summer time. I see thou hast
Been rummaging old lockers.
MIRANDA
Aye, sir, and found
These sharp-eared Fauns, hiding like wintered field-mice
In attic parchments. So I set ’em free
To play, while Care the Cat’s away.—Come, now,
Sicilian boys, caper your shag-hair shins,
And thou, Terpsychore, lead on their dance
To please my father.
[_At her command, Terpsychore and the Fauns—to instruments
played by the Muses—perform a joyous dance before
Prospero. As they conclude, he greets them with a smile._]
PROSPERO
Thanks, you hearts upleaping!
After long ominous hours, thanks for your festa!
And you, dear child incorrigible for joy,
Come now, I will requite you—not in gold,
But golden fantasy, wrought all one glow
Of shadowless shining.
MIRANDA
Ah, another vision?
PROSPERO
Aye, ’tis a vision, that myself beheld
Shine on the soil of France. I’ll show you _Peace_:
The kings of earth at peace, after red battle;
Two kings of men, each clasping brother’s hand
Warm with the golden passion of strong peace.
MIRANDA
What kings were they, and where?
PROSPERO
England and France:
’They met in the vale of Andren, ’twixt Guynes and Arde;
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;
Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung
In their embracement, as they grew together.’—[17]
But tell us, Ariel, what I told thee remember,
How Peace was crowned on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
MIRANDA
How brave a name! Would I had been there!
ARIEL
[_Bowing, as Prologue._]
’You lost
The view of earthly glory: men might say
Till this time pomp was single, but now married
To one above itself. Each following day
Became the next day’s master, till the last
Made former wonders its. To-day, the French,
All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
Shone down the English; and to-morrow, they
Made Britain India: every man that stood
Show’d like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labor
Was to them as a painting: now this masque
Was cried incomparable, and the ensuing night
Made it a fool and beggar. The two Kings,
Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,
As presence did present them.’[18]—Lo, now, see
How first they met, and clasped their hands in peace!
[_Lifting Prospero’s staff, Ariel makes a gesture toward
the Cloudy Curtains, which part, discovering the_
SIXTH INNER SCENE
Here, to an opening fanfare of golden trumpets, takes place a
PANTOMIME, all of gold, depicting to the eye, as in a glowing fantasy,
the meeting of the Kings and their Retinues: the alighting of the Kings
from horseback, their embracement and their clasping of hands.
During this enactment of the pantomime, the choirs of Ariel’s Spirits
sing, unseen:]
SPIRITS OF ARIEL
_Glory and serenity,
Splendor of desire,
Blend where golden lilies bloom
Mid St. George’s fire:
Lilies of France!—behold
How they glow on the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
And the battle-captains curb their bands
Where the kings of earth clasp hands._
_Power and principality
Raise to Peace their choir
Where Lord Christ his lilies cling
Round the Dragon’s ire:
Lilies of Christ!—behold
How they flame from the Field of the Cloth of Gold
Where the captains bow to their Lord’s commands
And the kings of men clasp hands._
[At the climax of the meeting of the Kings,
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE
PROSPERO
[_Smiling, to Miranda._]
This glowing taketh thee.
MIRANDA
O, my good father!
Methinks my soul is a flake o’ the sun, for where
Things golden shine, I spangle, too; yea, burn
To be Aurora, and trail cloth of gold
Around the world.
PROSPERO
Unless my will miscarry,
Thou shalt be such a morning messenger
And wake the world with beauty. Now my plans
Wait on a vast result, for Caliban
Himself hath gone to deal with Setebos
His gray priest, Death.
MIRANDA
What, Caliban! O glad
Hope for us all! Your art begins to triumph,
And Ariel’s Spirits to conquer.
PROSPERO
That still waits:
Meanwhile mine art drinks from this renaissance
Deep draughts against a dark to-morrow.—Hither,
You Fauns! Come, bear my gold-emblazoned scrolls
And silver-claspèd books before me!
[_Lifting the scrolls and volumes from their pile by the
shrine, the Fauns come forward with them to Prospero,
who turns affectionately to Miranda._]
I
Will leave you now, and pore awhile on these
For further conjurings.
MIRANDA
[_Detaining him._]
Yet conjure once
Again before you go!
PROSPERO
What wouldst thou, dear?
MIRANDA
Hardly I know: but something high, serene,
And passionately fair: some vision’d glimpse
Of fadeless youth, and lovers rich through love.
PROSPERO
Why, Ariel hath his orders still.—[_To Ariel._] List, pupil:
To glad thy mistress’ heart, when I am gone,
Pour the warm moon-wine of Italian night
Into a dream-cup, where entrancèd lovers
Seal with charm’d lips their vows. Therein dissolve
What visions rise, till they shall melt in one
Gloaming of love and music.—So, Miranda,
Rich dreams! Faun-boys, bear on my books before me!
[_Accompanied by the bright-clothed Fauns, bearing the
great books and scrolls in quaint procession, Prospero
departs through the throne-entrance._
_Meantime, the Muses and Miranda gather at the
shrine, where Ariel approaches Miranda._]
ARIEL
Mistress—
MIRANDA
Hark, Muses! Ariel, speak on!
ARIEL
Ear and eye, now, list and lo:
Mirth of mad Mercutio,
Juliet’s sigh for Romeo;
Dim Lorenzo’s murmur’d “Ah!”
For moon-dreaming Jessica;
Dance of flower-soul’d Perdita
Wafted to her Florizel
Like a wave o’ the sea: List well;
Lo, their night renews its spell!
[_At Ariel’s last word and gesture, the Cloudy Curtains
part, disclosing the_
SEVENTH INNER SCENE
In the glow and gloom of Italian night, as high clouds
intermittently obscure the moon, a palace garden lies
in deep shadow. Emerging only partly into view, where
soft light-floodings fall on moss-stained statue,
marble bench, and balcony, there is revealed at first
[on the left] nothing but a glimpse of garden wall,
before which flash in the dimness two pied figures
[Benvolio and Mercutio]. Calling shrilly, their young
voices rain showers of fluting laughter.
[Illustration: PRELIMINARY SKETCH FOR SEVENTH INNER SCENE: JONES]
BENVOLIO
Romeo! My cousin Romeo!...
He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.
MERCUTIO
Nay, I’ll conjure, too:
Romeo! humors! madman! passion! lover!—
I conjure thee by thy true love’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us!—
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not.
BENVOLIO
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
To be consorted with the humorous night:
Blind is his love and best befits the dark.
MERCUTIO
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark ...
Romeo, good-night: I’ll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?
[They disappear, swallowed up in black shadow. And now
the shadow, shifting, leaves bare in mellow
moonshine a glimpse of the garden and the balcony,
where Juliet, bending forward, calls mysteriously
into the dark below:]
JULIET
Hist! Romeo! hist! O for a falconer’s voice,
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.
ROMEO
[Emerging, below, from the shadow.]
It is my soul that calls upon my name:
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!
JULIET
Romeo!
ROMEO
My dear?
JULIET
At what o’clock to-morrow
Shall I send to thee?
ROMEO
At the hour of nine.
JULIET
I will not fail: ’tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.
ROMEO
Let me stand here till thou remember it.
JULIET
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.
ROMEO
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.
JULIET
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird,
Who lets it hop a little from her hand....
Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow!
[Once more deep shadow engulfs the scene; and now,
out of the dark, harmonious music sounds in
strains of passionate wistfulness. So, as the
music sounds, on the right, beams of the moon
reveal a flowery bank, whereby Lorenzo and Jessica
are discovered.]
LORENZO
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins,
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
[Swift shadow sweeps over them in darkness. Waning from
its visionary theme to a hint of the “muddy vesture
of decay,” the music flows onward then into a dance
melody; moonlight touches the garden again [on the left]
with its liquid glow, wherein—whirled into light from a
group of shadowy dancers outside—Florizel and Perdita
are disclosed.]
FLORIZEL
[As Perdita withdraws shyly her hand from his,
speaks to her ardently.]
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever ... When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
That all your acts are queens....
PERDITA
O Doricles,
Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
And the true blood which peepeth fairly through ’t,
Do plainly give you an unstained shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You woo’d me the false way.
FLORIZEL
I think you have
As little skill to fear as I have purpose
To put you to ’t. But come; our dance, I pray:
Your hand, my Perdita!
PERDITA
[Giving her hand confidingly.]
My Florizel!
[Together they dance away into the dark and the luring
music, as
THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE
[_Still, after the curtains’ closing, the music continues,
but now more faint, changing the idyllic strains of
the dance rhythm to a minor sadness, which gradually
takes form as a drear, monotonous processional.
Through the faint music, Miranda speaks to Ariel._]
MIRANDA
Too brief! too brief, sweet bird! O Ariel, be
Time’s nightingale, and charm these lovers back
To yearn immortal youth. Methinks already
Their absence leaves us age’d: Dost thou not feel
A waning of high powers? Doth not a pallor
Creep on the glowing world?
ARIEL
Yea, so I have felt
After the equinox—November coming on.
MIRANDA
[_Starting, as she gazes at one of the Muses._]
Euterpe dear! What lock of gray is this
In thy bright hair?—Quick, Ariel: fetch my father,
For sudden my heart aches, and I wish him near.
ARIEL
Straight I will bring him, and my Spirits, too.
Be merry, mistress: they shall soon restore us.
[_Ariel hastens off, left. As he does so, the Muses, with
downcast looks, file off right into the shrine._]
MIRANDA
Nay, darling Muses! do not leave me, too.
What, must you all go hence? Still I must tarry
To greet my father. Friends, good-bye!
[_They depart._]
Ah me!
What voices make their dirge within my heart?
[_While she has spoken, the mouth of Caliban’s cell,
emitting a ghastly glow, fills with dim Shapes, which
pour outward, and swarm slowly upward over the steps,
covering the stage with a moving, huddled grayness,
out of which two cloaked Figures rise distinct in the
dusk. As they come forth and hover nearer to Miranda,
a cold dirge issues with them from below._]
THE DIRGE
[_As before._]
_Gray—gray—gray: Joy be unholy and hidden;_
_Wan be the rainbow of wonder, frozen the tide!_
_Blind—blind—blind: Passion be pale and forbidden;_
_Dumb be the lips of the soul to Beauty denied!_
[_Slowly the gray hosts surround Miranda, who stares at
them, only half believing their presence, till the
dusk, growing lighter, reveals their long Puritan
cloaks and peaked hats, and the two muffled Ones in
Gray towering before her. Then faintly she speaks
to them_:]
MIRANDA
What are you? Why are you come? Ah, you—’tis _you_:
Priest of Setebos!—Caliban!
[_She sways and falls._]
CALIBAN
Ha, she swooneth.—
O Death, unfasten thy spell!
DEATH
Nay, thou hast failed.
[_Lifting the scroll of Prospero, which he has taken from
Caliban, Death makes a gesture to his followers._]
Bear her to Setebos!
[_Then, laying his hand upon Caliban, he turns with him
backward, as a group of the gray-cloaked Shapes raise
the limp form of Miranda to a cloth-draped bier, and
thus bear her downward toward the cell’s mouth. In
dim processional, as they go, they raise again their
dirge_:]
THE DIRGE
_Gray—gray—gray: Love, be sin-born of Misgiving!_
_Life, be a garment of dullness, drab from the loom!_
_Bleak—bleak—bleak: Death, Death is lord of the living:_
_Not in the clay but the heart of man lies the tomb._
[_Disappearing in the cell below, their chant dies away.
Above them, from the left, Ariel returns, alone.
Searching in the dusk, half fearfully, he calls_:]
ARIEL
Miranda—mistress: He hath vanished. Nowhere
Can I find trace of him. Yea, and my Spirits
They, too—they, too, are gone, lost in the grayness:
All have deserted us! Miranda—mistress!
Where art thou? Gone, thyself?—and I alone!
O gray, that hast engulfed a world of beauty,
Where shall I find them ever more—my master,
My star-bright mistress? Hear me, Yellow Sands!
If you have beheld them, answer now my prayer!
[_Outstretching his arms toward the Sands._]
Prospero! Prospero!—Master!
[_From far across the Sands bursts a mellow radiance,
and the rich voice of Prospero calling in answer_:]
PROSPERO
Ariel! Ariel!
Ho, bird!
[_Springing into light upon the farthest wave-lines of the
Yellow Sands, Prospero comes returning, surrounded by
the Spirits of Ariel, clad all in green and bearing in
their midst a garlanded May-pole._
_Marching joyously across the circle toward Ariel, all in
radiant glow, they come shouting a choral song_:]
THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL
“_Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu.—Sing cuccu!_
“_Awe bleteth after lomb
Lhouth after calve cu!
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!_
“_Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!_”
[_Leaping up the steps, they plant the May-pole at
the centre, where Ariel greets them._]
ARIEL
Dear Master! O blithe hearts: Have welcome home!
PROSPERO
Welcome our May-pole back!—Where is thy mistress?
ARIEL
[_Startled._]
Alas! _You_ know not?
PROSPERO
[_Reassuringly._]
Nay, I know. But cheerly,
My birdlings! Now that ye are flocked once more
Round this enchanted tree, I’ll conjure you
Out of mine art such joyous rites, that they
Shall draw your Mistress even from the tomb
To join our revels. Come now, gather round
And watch my antic rites of Merry England!
_THIRD INTERLUDE_[19]
_Now through the Interlude gates, and from all sides, a jocund festival
pours into the illumined space of the ground-circle: the folk festival
of Elizabethan England._
_Simultaneously, in different parts, as in a merry rural fair, various
popular arts and pastimes begin, and continue together: Morris dancers
and pipers, balladists and play-actors, folk dancers, fiddlers,
clowns, and Punch-and-Judy performers romp, rant, parade, and jingle
amongst flower-girls and gay-garbed jesters spangling by the bright
venders’ booths._
_Central, at a point of vantage, above a gaping crowd of lumpkins and
children, Noah’s wife harangues the heavens from the old play._
_So they pursue their merriment, till the low rumble and lowering of a
thunder-cloud disperses them with its passing shadow._