We’ll fill all the world with demi-gods
And start the world anew! You can keep your chains…
ADONIS.
I’ll not be touched by thee.
APHRODITE.
Will not? Son?
ADONIS.
Nor am I your son.
APHRODITE.
Sweetheart. Bond-slave. Tart.
I can rouge your cheeks with blushes as easily as blood.
Come, Adonis. Take pity on a goddess.
I’ll bother you no more if you give me one seed.
ADONIS.
I will not, whore.
APHRODITE.
Your mother-mistress, once—
ADONIS.
No more! Can you not conceive how much I hate thee, woman? How all my torments have been at thy most loving hands? How, were I free, my first act should be to strangle thee with chains and present thee, like a trophy, to thy son?
APHRODITE.
I see you have forgot what Zeus decreed:
One third the year for you, one third—
ADONIS.
Lady. I am dead.
APHRODITE.
You are in Hades: but may again arise.
ADONIS.
The skin peels freely from my bones—I’ve perished.
APHRODITE.
It cannot be. We made of you Immortal;
Pried wide your pleading mouth and made you drink,
Plunged deep the sticky liquor through your lungs,
So that you choked on screams, and when you spewed
The sweet ambrosia out, we scooped it up
And shoved it down your throat, while you lay thrashing,
Reduced to anguished tears, for that your mistresses
Loved you. No other mortal has been honoured thus!
Nor can any mortal take thy blessed life.
There’s none can kill you, but a goddess—
ADONIS.
Or a god.
APHRODITE.
Aye, a goddess, as I said. Who killed you sure, for—
ADONIS.
Passion.
APHRODITE.
Passion, aye. Or else for jealousy
As she is always jealous of me and of my S….
Perhaps, Adonis, we should be silent, now.
ADONIS.
There was one other in your loathsome hunt.
APHRODITE.
I said, my Prince, be silent.
ADONIS.
(Overlapping.) One other who loved me—once.
APHRODITE.
No more, my sweet…no more, I say!
ADONIS.
(Overlapping.) One who was all the world to you and me. And he—
APHRODITE.
I say no more!
ADONIS.
O He, was everything!
But you and I meant nothing—nothing!—Nothing
In the world to Him.
APHRODITE.
O, peace, Adonis …
ADONIS.
List.
I’d have you understand The day he murdered me—well, I say murdered, ‘twould better say the day I died, for I had long been murdered in his heart—the day, therefore, the god of Love last laid hands on me, he took me by the throat, shook me once, as though I were a burr he couldn’t make let go, and with his perfect hand squeezed out my carnal soul. I clung to him as long as there were feeling in my fingertips, for he was warm, and O! I loved him. And wished, mark you, yearned for him to murder me again! For then all his thoughts must turn to me. Both his hands rest firm on me. His eyes remain on mine. And I could die content within his arms.
I looked into his early-morning eyes—that sometimes have shone silver when he’s glad—and hoped therein to see myself at last. But as I gazed on him, my sight grown weak, my mind befogged with a rising scream, the smell of rotting festers already in my nose—I say, as I felt my soul slip down through Hades’ viscous maw—I saw within his tender, silver eyes that all his sight was still of her. And all his thoughts possessed by her. And all my death still reeked of her. Of Her! Whom he hath made his Bride.
Act IV, Scene 4
(In Heaven. CUPID descends towards earth.)
PSYCHE.
My sisters, too?
CUPID.
If they’re alive.
PSYCHE.
My father—?
CUPID.
Lies beyond my reach. You’ll wait for me?
PSYCHE.
Where should I go?
(He kisses her and leaves.)
(By Hades’ Gate, PERSEPHONE frees ADONIS, releasing him to APHRODITE.)
PERSEPHONE.
You know your place? Take care you fail me not.
ADONIS.
So that from chains I’m freed.
APHRODITE.
So that I save my son.
PERSEPHONE.
I will attend you here. Hark! He comes!
(PERSEPHONE and ADONIS retire as CUPID descends.)
Act IV, Scene 5
CUPID.
(Singing.) And I would pluck them from the sky—Why Mother!
I didn’t see you there. Your skin is pale;
This place too close to Hades. Good mother!
Have you died?
APHRODITE.
No Charon came for me,
Although I wore these rags. Where have you been?
CUPID.
In Heaven. Embrace me, mother! Your son’s a groom.
APHRODITE.
So I have heard. And heard as well what creature
Calls you husband. Have you forgot yourself?
Thou art the god of Passion, not of Love!
CUPID.
Was once. But now am newly named. Am more—
APHRODITE.
Than all the blessèd things thou wert before?
Art more than Pleasure, Bliss, Desire, Sweet—
CUPID.
Hunger? Want. Lust, Ache, Envy, Need—
APHRODITE.
Thou art
As I have made thee. And I have made thee well.
Then why rebel against the thing thou art?
CUPID.
Aye, thing.
APHRODITE.
Who hath forgot himself. My dear boy, know:
The sensual sweat was thy birthing place—
While I was made to be glorious, adored—
And when thou slipt from me, I cried out in crescendo!,
So all th’World, groaned anthems at the birth of Love!
But thou, desertest Earth, which groans in shrivelled pains
That thou—whom Heaven and Earth adored—abandoned us!
And will she thank you, do you think,
Your pretty little wife, your pretty little stupid wife,
For annihilating earth? Her neighbours, hm?
Her sisters, too? Destroyed. You see them there:
Their bloated corpses lie beyond the veil—
Quite dead, because cruel Love abandoned Earth.
And wouldst thou fetch them back to life again?
There’s none can do so. Orpheus had failed!
Or rather, O my plum-faced babe, creep back,
My dimpled cherub!, into my barren womb,
Which is well-stretched for thee, and I will birth thee,
Thou Glory of All the Gods, made New again!
Come, Cupid, and kiss thy Mother’s open mouth!
We cannot ever change.
CUPID.
I have. Or rather, by your tutelage—perverted.
I had forgot myself, indeed, good mother.
You’ve reminded me of what I was. And am—
No more. I thank you, mother. And wish you well.
Adieu.
APHRODITE.
Adieu? Adieu! You’ll turn no back on me!
(Or I shall take thee to me in another way.)
Adonis!
CUPID.
What dost thou do?
APHRODITE.
Remind thee of thyself. (
Calling out.) Go to!
(ADONIS enters Heaven, surprising PSYCHE.)
PSYCHE.
I know your face. ‘Twas bloated when I saw you last. Stand back! How came you here from Hades’ shore?
ADONIS.
I have two lovers, lady. And both are ware of you.
PSYCHE.
Alas! What have I done?
ADONIS.
Not what you’ve done, but what you’ll do.
PSYCHE.
What’s that?
ADONIS.
‘Tis pity you must die.
(ADONIS kills PSYCHE.)
CUPID.
What hast thou done?
APHRODITE.
Nay, patience, Son! You’re free!
CUPID.
My Wife…
APHRODITE.
No wife of thine who cannot match with thee.
CUPID.
Match me? Nay! She outshone me like the Sun!
APHRODITE.
You were deceived. You had forgot yourself!
CUPID.
No. No. I am…at last remembered….
APHRODITE.
Where dost thou go?
CUPID.
To Hell, good Mother! Whither thou hast sent me.
APHRODITE.
You cannot pass its Gate.
CUPID.
My Bride went thither;
There’s no Gate yet can keep this Bridegroom out.
APHRODITE.
Then will you die?
CUPID.
Aye! I’ll shake hands with her, too.
Persephone! I call you, Death!
APHRODITE.
Nay, silence, Son!
We may at last go free. But be thou silent—
CUPID.
What, Hades? Hm! You have a thing of mine!
Good mother, look not frightened! I do not hate you.
Hades! What, is he deaf? Where has he gone?
APHRODITE.
Why call him out to you? O, he is frightful.
CUPID.
But was not always so. Persephone!
Why tremble, mother? You’ve done me a great service!
I had, sometime, forgot myself—Adonis!
I can see you, man. Take care you hold her gently.—
But you have reminded me:
APHRODITE.
Of what?
CUPID.
We had another name. Good mother, think!
When earth was young and all things were permitted.
Can’t you recall? You were called Kindness, then,
And kissed my chin and named your small boy, Tender.
We slept beneath the lemon-scented trees,
And never knew that its fruit was bitter.
The wild hearts of men were to us gardens,
To be weeded, watered, tended, pruned—for aye,
We had no quarrel with the earthen grave,
Nor with its shyest master, Hades, who joyed
In spreading roots that other things might grow.
How happy we were then! But thou wert not—
Could never be content. Though all the world,
And Heaven’s fitful gods bent to our will,
You would not be content, and brandished vengeful
War upon our most peaceful neighbour, Death!
Armed your only son, a sobbing godling
Stunted to your service, with a quiver
Made of lead; screwed into my infant breast
Blunt nails, twelve inches long; gave me a bow
And bade me hunt the very souls we’d made;
Twist their hearts with arrows gold and black—
And said that this was “Love.”
Will you see the wounds where your “Love” gouged me?
Bled out my veins, and left my grey heart dry?
Or better! See the wreckage that your vengeance
Left behind in this never-ceasing War
‘Gainst Death’s still-gaping grave—We cannot win!
Cannot prevail against the Earth’s grim tomb!
Then, Mother—as thou cannot rule thyself,
I give thee leave to go. Taking with thee
All the barbs and cruel torments that I have borne
For love of thee. Who wert, and art, the fairest
Among all women. The first whom I had loved,
Who I love still, although your love had poisoned me…
Then I will drink no more. But give thee this—
(CUPID begins ripping the quiver from his breast.)
CUPID.
And this, and these as well—
APHRODITE.
O, Cupid!
CUPID.
Aye.
The arrows, too, and everything.
APHRODITE.
You bleed!
CUPID.
Do I? Well, that’s a relief.
APHRODITE.
Your heart! O!
My son. I cannot bear to see you bleed.
Put back on your buckler; stanch the wound—
CUPID.
No. No.
It is a little life before I die.
Farewell, my dearest Mother. I loved thee, once.
Farewell. Remember me.
(CUPID marches on into Hell.)
Act V, Scene 1
(Hades. ADONIS enters, bearing PSYCHE’S body. She stirs.)
PSYCHE.
Where am I?
ADONIS.
Hell.
PSYCHE.
Yet I’m alive?
ADONIS.
You died.
PSYCHE.
But still know who I am…
ADONIS.
The Lethe’s there if you will drink—
PSYCHE.
I’m well. Whose are these faces that stare so, gaunt and hollow-eyed? Why do you stare? What do you see?
ADONIS.
They will not answer you.
PSYCHE.
Why do you gape? My wounds bleed less than yours. What horrors see you here?
ADONIS.
No horror, no. They wonder at you. You were the last who lived.
PSYCHE.
The last?
ADONIS.
Aye. There’s no more living on the Earth, since Love abandoned it. For what can live that can no longer love?
PSYCHE.
I know your face, but not your name. What are you? Speak.
ADONIS.
Your rival. And your friend.
PSYCHE.
Strange friend to say a rival.
ADONIS.
Strange rival to say “Friend.” I warned you not to love. You did not heed.
PSYCHE.
I do not love him.
ADONIS.
No? I do!
PSYCHE.
Then I wish you very happy. For sooth, I wish I had not known him to have lost him…! And I am glad I never looked on him, for sure, to have his face haunt me here would make this place, indeed, a very Hell.
ADONIS.
You never looked?
PSYCHE.
No! And I am happy for my choice.
ADONIS.
How can you girl-things be so blind? To hate the one who loves you…How? Deny him sight when he, to whom that blest word “faithful” is foul in his mouth, would pluck his own eyes out if you would but deign to frown at him! When I have suffered, who knows him well—much better, girl-thing, than ever your sightless wonder could—what I had hoped, what prayed, what daydreamed that he’d blink at me by accident!… Loves you. Who hate him?
You—who, to be frank, are worthy of no second-glance, but that you have, I grant, some power over men. What is’t? We are quite secret here. O, if you will tell me, aye—I’ll be your friend. And show you all the secret ways from Hades, ways which Orpheus discovered with my helps, ways in which the ghosts slip out to moan at churchbells ringing for their Dooms—O! Speak, Heaven’s Bride, to me. And tell me where the secret Heart of Cupid lies.
Or, if yo
u will stay silent, as I can see you think quite ill of me, I’ll show you what strange gift our Lover forced into my flesh—
PSYCHE.
You will not touch me!
ADONIS.
(Overlapping.) Stay still. They don’t care if you scream.
PSYCHE.
(Overlapping.) Cupid! Husband! If ever you had loved me,
Fly on silver wings to fetch me now! Leave off
My waist! I charge you—let me go!
ADONIS.
(Overlapping.) I told you—O. O, no. O, Lady. O, Most Blessed Lady…!
There’s life within already. I felt her kick my hand as though to chasten me for touching...I fear I…did you know? How can this be? She lives though you had died. I pray you, Lady, pardon me. You’ve given him what I could not. You’ll make him very happy, your Love and mine, he will be happy, O, he will be glad. And he will hate me, disfigured wretched glutton that I am, for what I almost—O!
Look not on me. Why pity me? Spit at me, Woman! Strike me, girl-thing, who have unmanned me quite. You women! Who will not leave me be. Touch not my head…O!
Lost, lost, lost, lost, lost…
Cupid and Psyche Page 11
