Cupid and Psyche
Page 19
As all men are monstrous, and ev’ry lover brute.
PSYCHE.
And every woman, too. My fearful husband’s roughest touch, his cruellest word’s more gentle than this—!Thought I was mad on earth? Aye, and mad in Heaven, too. To let my fears hold sway. For by this light, I see how small we mortals are: we start at our own shadows, believe our own deceits, make puppets of the air, and never turn around to see the Sun that lights us; and when at last we do, we think we have gone blind—and prefer the dark to Light.
LIVIA.
Now, Psyche, lie you down.
CHRYSOS.
We came to bring you joy.
PSYCHE.
With death? Mine own?
BRONTES.
The goddess said—
DAREIA.
Now, Psyche, just lie down.
LIVIA.
I will be gentle.
PSYCHE.
I will not die this day.
DAREIA.
But hold her still.
PSYCHE.
Leave me go. You know my husband’s wrath.
BROTNES.
We might slay him and let Psyche go free.
LIVIA.
Husband—
PSYCHE.
And if I do not wish him dead?
DAREIA.
Not wish him dead? What hold has he on you?
LIVIA.
She has tasted his delights and lives enthralled.
BRONTES.
She’s fallen in love with one she’s never seen.
CHRYSOS.
She lives in fear of what the Beast may be.
LIVIA.
Already he’s devouring her, piece
By piece, kiss by kiss, breath by putrid breath.
BRONTES.
If you could see the face of he you love,
You’d bare your breast to the arrow’s mortal point
Than ever bare your breast to his carnal palm.
LIVIA.
O, you would beg for death before he kisses you
Good night, with a lion’s sopping lip.
CHRYSOS.
Happier he who dies an early death.
DAREIA.
But happiest he who never first was born.
LIVIA.
Shall we put you from your misery, my sweet?
Say but the word and death’s embrace is yours.
BRONTES.
Or will you rather take the lamp and see
The face of your most monsterous husband?
PSYCHE.
Give it me. I’ll look.
DAREIA.
Then take this, too.
That if you are not truly in his thrall
You may strike him down.
BRONTES.
And save yourself.
CHRYSOS.
Do not raise the lanthorn. Strike before you see.
LIVIA.
Nor do not think to fall in love with him—
PSYCHE.
Else you will kill me. Fear me not. I go.
[Alternate Scene] Act V, Scene 2 – Four Lovers’ Fate (Cupid)
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Once the main story of Cupid’s transformation solidified, the four clowns reappearing in Hades felt like an intrusion—a diversion—no matter that we continued to have really lovely actors playing the roles.
In line with the revision of Act IV, Scene 2, I first tried the “everything opposite” approach by having not Psyche but Cupid stumble upon the Four Lovers.
Difficulties immediately presented themselves: not in the least of which was that Cupid had no real relationship with these people to this point. Moreover, the audience was just exhausted by this point and couldn’t take much more bad news.
The following scene was presented at the public reading—you’ll see where I tried to keep some of the original text—and was the first thing that was cut immediately after that reading.
The scene eluded me. I feel in some ways it eludes me still.
I brought it to DARE with no text whatsoever. Four actors took on the four lovers, with James as our Cupid, and were filled in on the givens through Act III. We then released a bloodied and bruised Cupid to them and what followed was not—as again, my apparently revenge-driven brain believes—extended hate, but rather the plea of: “See us. Choose us. Love us.”
I wrote the scene in faith, and was gratified to learn once we had our read-through for the Valentine’s show, that the scene played. Especially when Chrysos starts singing in the corner.
Its still exhausting, but there’s hope. There’s a glimmer of things to come.
And sometimes, as the Shakespeare Forum often says, “Love is the strongest choice.”
(Hades’ Gate. The earth rumbles, and the sounds of howling attend it. Corpses strew the ground, jostled to life by the earthquake. Among them, the ghosts of DAREIA, LIVIA, CHRYSOS and BRONTES.)
DAREIA.
What sound was that?
LIVIA.
Why is’t so dark?
BRONTES.
Leave off my hand!
DAREIA.
‘Tis mine, you fool! Chrysos, husband!
CHRYSOS.
I know that voice.
LIVIA.
Where have we come?
DAREIA.
Who’s that?
(A light grows outside the Gate, casting the bodies of the Lovers into shadows. They throw their arms against it.)
CHRYSOS.
The moon! It’s crashing to the earth! O, save me, Wife!
DAREIA.
You foolish man! Wear skirts yourself to hide behind. What are you, speak?
BRONTES.
Nay, let me go!
CHRYSOS.
Belike it is the Beast!
LIVIA.
I pray it is. I’d have a word with him.
DAREIA.
Speak now, and show yourself!
(The light continues to grow, and the earth shake until the Gate bursts open…revealing CUPID, his breast still bleeding, his face a little paler than before.)
CHRYSOS.
The Beast! The Beast! O, it is green and…!
(Despite his best efforts, CUPID stumbles and falls.)
DAREIA, LIVIA, CHRYSOS, and BRONTES.
O.
BRONTES.
Does it live?
LIVIA.
He’s not so pretty, now.
DAREIA.
I feel I know his face. When I was young, I dreamed him.
BRONTES.
In nightmares, aye. I’ve seen his visage, too.
CHRYSOS.
Stay back! He stirs!
DAREIA.
What man are you?
CUPID.
Your brother—and your god.
LIVIA.
No god of mine!
DAREIA.
No brother, neither.
BRONTES.
What god?
CUPID.
As you have known me, Love.
(The mortals recoil. A beat.)
LIVIA.
Then take thou this. (She spits on him.) And this, and this, and this! And O! Had I a hundred hands, I
should not have fists enough! Give me a sharp-edged stone. I’ll cut his cruel heart out!
BRONTES.
Peace, Wife. He had no part with us; we need no part with him.
CUPID.
A bride, you say? O, Psyche will be pleased
To know her pretty sister’s made a bride.
A bride without my helps. She will be glad.
Yet, why stand you far apart? Be with your Bride!
She loves thee!
LIVIA.
Aye. He loved me, once, when Death was near.
BRONTES.
Then married her, the more fool I. To marry me to Hell!
LIVIA.
O, you are a brute! You Cyclops! You swine!
BRONTES.
Leave off your fists!
CUPID.
(Coming bet
ween them.) I pray you, peace! Did not your love endure?
BRONTES.
Our love? Our love, you say? No love felt I
For moping, miserable Livia!
If ever I gave my word, ‘twas when I hoped
That tomorrow I might die. The Beast had gone,
And with it went my passion.
CUPID.
Not all love is fire.
LIVIA.
Brontes’ was. And like all fire…dies.
CUPID.
Still, (To DARIEA and CHRYSOS.) you two cling together.
CHRYSOS.
We do.
DAREIA.
For grief.
CHRYSOS.
Her father murdered—
DAREIA.
I lost my child. While Psyche fled for shame of what she did.
LIVIA.
Aye, as Psyche fled when you, Dareia, killed Father.
As I fled when you strangled your own son.
CHRYSOS.
What’s this? Dareia, say she speaks not true.
DAREIA.
I did not like its face. I looked and thought:
“How easy it would be to crack its neck.”
I did; it was. I threw him in the trash;
And afterwards, I found I could not weep.
I waited for you; I waited in our bed—
But you forgot to come, and so I died.
Did you despise me?
CHRYSOS.
No, I was ever faithful, Wife.
LIVIA.
So he faithful whispered every night we lay entwined.
DAREIA.
You lie—with Chrysos? I shouldn’t laugh. No, has been an age. It’s good to laugh. You, Livia, who claim that your own husband ne’er deflowered you?
BRONTES.
Nor did he.
LIVIA.
Nor does he care.
BRONTES.
O, I do care!
LIVIA.
Care if you will, I care not. I’m happy!
I have a right to be happy in any way I can.
In this dull, unfeeling world, I’ll take my solace
In any outstretched arms.
DAREIA.
Even those not empty?
CHRYSOS.
O, I have been empty, and now I know why!
BRONTES.
And I unhappy, and now haply know why!
(CHRYSOS and BRONTES come to blows. CUPID steps between them, receiving the brunt of their fury.)
CUPID.
My brothers, no! You’ll shed no blood today.
Be ruled by me, and rule yourselves! Pray, peace!
LIVIA.
O, he is the Beast indeed, to make us speak
Our secrets so much against our will!
Why did you not strike him when you had the chance?
Give me a stone; I’ll do it now.
(LIVIA throws a rock, but hits BRONTES.)
BRONTES.
You traitor, Wife!
LIVIA.
Beware me, husband. I’ll take your other eye.
(LIVIA enters in the fray, clawing the skin from CUPID’S face. CUPID falls, ending face to face with DAREIA, who’s kneeling. She grasps him, and he—with bloody hand—touches her hair.)
DAREIA.
I have done wrong. I confess I have done ill.
LIVIA.
Now from Passion, set us free!
(LIVIA swings blindly, striking DAREIA in the back.)
DAREIA.
O.
CHRYSOS.
(Rushing forward.) Dareia, my Wife…
DAREIA.
‘Tis justice, nothing more. ‘Tis just, and still—
I see our father’s face. O, what mercy
Can I ask of him, who deserve much worse than this?
Do you see him, Chrysos? See how he smiles,
As though in Death all things were forgiven.
CHRYSOS.
Stay a moment, love.
DAREIA.
I cannot. O,—See!
It’s so beautiful. Where my father lives.
(DAREIA falls into that deepest slumber.)
CHRYSOS.
Gone? Well I will follow thee, though I do not know the way.
(He gathers DAREIA in his arms and walks with her towards the dawn. The light grows stronger.)
LIVIA.
Brontes? Husband? (To CUPID.) Where has he gone?
CUPID.
Run off, for fear. Poor miss, he never loved thee.
LIVIA.
No? Well, that’s all one. Have you no black arrow, then, for me?
(LIVIA exits, wandering into the darkness.)
[Deleted Scene] Act V, Scene 2 – O! Give Him Back To Me!
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Once, we followed Psyche as she marched to her death. And I’m still a bit miffed that this isn’t the case. (I’ll just have to settle for rewriting Antigone in the near future.) However, here’s a bit from the first draft of Aphrodite and Psyche’s final meeting. I have no doubt that actors will improvise something considerably better. But the first line seems about right.
APHRODITE.
O! Give him back to me!
PSYCHE.
Who calls me now? Step into this light.
(Aphrodite approaches.)
APHRODITE.
O, give him back. See! Upon my knees, I fall.
Myself! A goddess! Whose right is to command,
Now beg you as a wretched supplicant.
O, give him back to me. You do not love him;
Do not know all the wrongs that he has done you.
‘Tis but a little word. A simple ‘yea’ would do.
PSYCHE.
If I speak, I have but one thing to say to you.
APHRODITE.
Then say it now! Say you do not love my son.
PSYCHE.
Nay, ‘tis not that.
APHRODITE.
Then say you are not worthy of one so grand as he.
PSYCHE.
Not that, neither.
APHRODITE.
What would you then?
PSYCHE.
I would forgive you.
APHRODITE.
Forgive a god?
PSYCHE.
As you will forgive me?
APHRODITE.
I do not want your pity.
PSYCHE.
You have it still.
APHRODITE.
Your pity? Paugh! You’d only spare your life!
PSYCHE.
My life is spent. I would instead spare thine.
Forgive me, that first I disbelieved thee;
Forgive me, for my too proud inaction
That, by my hand, bereft the world of life.
APHRODITE.
And for the crime of taking my son from me?
PSYCHE.
His will’s his own. He is not mine to give
Nor yours to take.
APHRODITE.
Your heart is his.
PSYCHE.
I think so.
Or if not now, then very soon shall be.
APHRODITE.
Then you will die.
PSYCHE.
I have no doubt. Farewell.
I had hoped to have thy blessing.
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