Cards of Identity

by Nigel Dennis

  He’s there and we are here.

  PRINCE: When all’s done, we’ll explain ’twas all a jest.

  DUKE: An’ he survive the jest, ay, explanation will be forthcoming.

  PRINCE: We were better witches, brother Duke, meseems.

  DUKE: Howso?

  PRINCE: In that the ghost is an element which is already resident within him that observes it.

  DUKE: I’d not heard so.

  PRINCE: Ay, ’tis the latest discovery among froward alchemists.

  DUKE: What say you, Count?

  COUNT: That we await the coming of a suitable disguise before we anticipate the nature thereof. And that we ready ourselves to provide whatsoever it may be that our enemy is loth to project from within.

  DUKE: Excellent man!

  PRINCE: Ay, ’tis sage advice, inasmuch as our dear Master, being innocent, may lack the propulsive guilt which, alone, may fire forth a destestable apparition.

  III.4

  Scene: Hermione’s room. Enter Hermione and Catriona carrying bundles of disguises.

  HERM: Look to the lattice, Cat!

  CATRI: Clear, Madam. No peeping Tom!

  HERM: Then let’s to our mirrors. Oh, I do love the glass which will not give exit to the eye but returns it whence it came!

  CATRI: Ay, ’tis ever the brighter vista, yet like a dwelling, a walled self, permitting but one visitor to the single hostess yet never saying which be visitor and which hostess. Oh what a hairy robe is this, Madam! I caution you, divest nothing but lay it straight over much understuff, as it were nettles. But what of our hair, Madam, our ells of sweet honeysuckle?

  HERM: We’ll be of an order which is sworn ever to be hooded and is thus eternally upbraided. Step about, Cat, that I may examine you.

  CATRI: So, Madam.

  HERM: Wherefore art thou all crouched, like a curious badger?

  CATRI: To be humble, Madam, no?

  HERM: Stoop but the head; there’s pride’s seat. Ay, better, better!

  CATRI: How’s my buttocks, Madam; for there’s the test? ’Tis hard to thwart the roll of a lifetime, and moreover one that’s joined to the eyes, making every turn of the keel swing the lanterns of the poop.

  HERM: Fair, fair. Now, ’tis my turn to be examined.

  CATRI: So soon, Madam? I was but begun.

  HERM: Nay, thou’rt blind to thine own needs. And thou would’st reach woman’s goal, thou must first and ever bear in mind the state of men.

  CATRI: True, Madam. I had clean forgot them, poor souls! in admiration of my new buttocks.

  HERM: Watch my gait, dear Cat! Do I walk lowly yet with pride! Am I of reverence, but not offensive? Am I a father that is ever childless withal and elevated by his looking down? How seems my paradox?

  CATRI: Madam, thou art the thing himself – same teeth, same eyes, same air, same everything.

  III.5

  Scene: The Palace Dungeon. Enter Turnkey.

  TURN: Oh, oh, what a weight of death! I can never hear the carpenter’s merry hammer but think what a deal of good ash must go into a gibbet – all waste, extravagance, pomp, where a penny knife would perform quicker, neater, nicer.

  DUKE (within): Ho, ape, dog, dungeon porpentine! What’s the clock?

  TURN: Not so late that it will not briefly fetch you up.

  (Enter Hermione and Catriona disguised as Friars.)

  Good morrow, good clockmakers!

  CATRI: Good morrow, good catsguts!

  HERM (aside to Cat.): Naughty doll! Hast forgot thou art no longer a woman? (To Turnkey.) Sweet servant, we are come to shrive the dead. Admit us to the room.

  CATRI: And leave us to incline the tender ear,

  The harebell chalice of confesséd dew.

  DUKE (within): Oh, oh, what comes!

  Meseems we shall in truth change into ghosts

  More real and ghostly than our plot designed.

  TURN: That man just spoke, ’a calls ’a self a duke But is a very devil.

  HERM: Admit us; we’ll expunge him.

  TURN (unlocks gate): I’ll hover near, as ward.

  CATRI: Yet not overnear.

  TURN (shouting): Forth, dead! Ye’ve your emissaries. Forward!

  COUNT (aside): That taller friar has elements of face

  Which turn my mind to other sorts of grace.

  His succ’ring eyes, so soft in innocence,

  Are somehow far removed from penitence.

  No matter!

  To Hermione.

  Good priest, ’fore any absolution,

  We mortal three do make a plea for shrouds,

  Shrouds white as lilies, to conduct our clay

  From here to thence.

  HERM: Shrouds, thou’lt have them, poor soul, three shrouds in nominem Domini, shrouds (with a stout saw i’ the hem) pax vobiscum, shrouds shall carry thee high as Elijah (with a stout rope i’ the girdle), shrouds, three soft shrouds (with hard daggers for seams) to ensure requiescat in pace.

  TURN: This tender scene brims gallons o’er my lids! Shrouds, white shrouds; thus passed my own mother, and my three sucking brothers who never lived one whole turn o’ the seasons; countless others all in shrouds, oh, oh!

  Weeps.

  HERM: Two women which we know will pare these shrouds

  And, weeping, press them in our saintly hands.

  TURN: Prithee, father, say no more: thy voice is sweet as a choir, so warm it melts manacles. Oh, the littlest of my brothers, his shroud was so small it could better have been used to steam puddings.

  HERM: Bless you, good keeper!

  To you, tomorrow, we’ll confide the shrouds.

  Now you, three dead, fold down upon your knees

  And glut our ears with expiated slough.

  Need’st aught but shrouds?

  DUKE: Here’s an odd question, damned odd!

  COUNT: A little chalk

  Shall smooth our way to Heaven.

  TURN: Oh, I am quite on the rack! Pity, cruel pity, cease tearing me!

  HERM: What more?

  COUNT: Why, in case we should sin again meanwhile, let us leave absolution until the shrouds come.

  TURN: Now, here’s real tragedy, for what sin could such a place as this allow? Prison’s prison indeed when even sin lacks room to raise his elbow.

  HERM: Here’s foretaste of absolution.

  Kisses Count.

  TURN: Nobly and mercifully done – to kiss a dead dog. Thus kissed my mother when the rest declared me stillborn.

  CATRI: Good gaoler: that kiss, ten times compounded, shall be yours When Heaven dotes upon your limey corse.

  TURN: And say you so: and true it is, for lime, they say, doth break and sweeten clay. But say no more; else I’ll forget I’ve duties here and fly off harping on a white cloud. Come, come, fathers, hastily, hastily, or my rackhand itself will turn human-fond.

  Exeunt Hermione, Catriona, and Turnkey.

  DUKE: I am much bewildered; yet meseems ’tis a tolerably favourable condition.

  PRINCE: I think it was a venal sin of us

  To confuscate their piety for play.

  I trust that in the acts which follow this

  Our naughtiness avoids a sanctive kiss.

  IV.1

  Scene: Morning. The bedroom of the King of Artois. King and Queen in bed. Enter Minister, holding a letter.

  KING: What strange conundrums do appear in spring!

  Sixty long winters, sweet, it seemed to me

  Had played tag-harry with my brow and crop,

  And thou also had lately looked to me

  A plaintive ruin of thy former self.

  But, in this April month, the sun has turned

  And goldened all those winters into springs.

  This sudden sun hath glowed upon thee too,

  And where I late did rue a fallen town,

  (Battlements crumpled, arcatures unpierd)

  I see thee in a lovely pride of place,

  Solid and pink as new-chopped porphyry.

>   QUEEN: Thank you, dear heart, for nice and tender words.

  Though couched in stone they speak a gentle soul.

  They embrace.

  For my own part, I thank the providence

  Which hath allayed my weak maternal fears

  And, to six upright Christian courts of France,

  Hath brided our six girls.

  KING: And has bespoke therewith an easy dower

  That’s left our treasury well-stocked despite.

  Six brave alliances we have transpired –

  Matilda, Ingfried, and proud Winifred,

  Cortona, Mary, and dear Radegund –

  With six great nobles at the trifling cost

  Of livres ten thousand multiplied by six.

  QUEEN: Yet when I part from Radegund, I’ll weep.

  I’ll flood the very moat.

  KING: Such is thy duty, hen, as mother.

  E’en I, hard cock, shall fling from out my eye

  A tributary gush.

  But let’s not speak of tears.

  I hear a lark cry, and a robin chime.

  Let’s be ourselves that lark’s and robin’s tone

  And crown the sunshine with a king’s duet.

  KING (sings): When gaffer in his snowy hat

  QUEEN (sings): And beldame in her strawy flat

  KING (sings): Do find that in this late attire

  QUEEN (sings): They yet may with the spring conspire

  BOTH (sing): Then off flies age and out flies doubt

  Then winter’s heart is turned about

  Then fires burn that were put out

  And maypole dons his ribboned clout

  In hey the dandy over the rig.

  In hey the dandy over the rig.

  KING: Why jenny wren, thou sangst it every word as gay as thy cock robin! (Minister coughs.) But what’s this now? Who called you, Monsieur eavesdropper, into our very bedchamber?

  MINIS: Outrageous news impelled me to invade

  The sacred privy of thy regal choir.

  KING: Give it here, sirrah! (Takes letter.) And pray you it is enough outrageous to vindicate your prying! (Reads.) Eh, eh, what’s this, what’s this? ‘Brittan’s Duke, by Eternal Grace and His own Effort, Lord of this World – doth commence herein his supreme Preamble – doth summon you.’ Who shall summon Artois, by God? No sixth son-in-law, by all the Saints! Has plague o’ madness reamed Brittany? The Duke’s style was never thus; always suave as a ferret, yet indolent and half asleep. (Reads.)

  ‘We here denounce that scabrous contrack,

  Made unbeknownst to Us twixt thee and We,

  In which the princess Radegund was plight

  To Us in paltry purse ten thousand livres.

  Hereby We slash this parchment with our sword

  And munch its ribbons into papery shards,

  Demand a moiety above this dower

  Paid instantly upon the union’s flower.

  Five thousand more to linger in Our chest

  ’Til Radegund’s conceived.’ Oh, blatent cockerel!

  Would doubt my fecund loin?

  Fetch me my spurs, my sharpest golden ones.

  Where are they?

  QUEEN: Why, in that closet, Lord, where they’ve been hung

  Since your return with Egbert from crusade.

  KING: My mantle, hauberk, two-hand sword, and boots,

  My archers, pikemen, and artillery,

  My shield inscript with Artois’ badger’s teeth,

  My water-bottle, and five thousand men.

  I’ll rive bold Brittan ’twixt two poplar trees

  And share his moieties with Belle and Beau.

  QUEEN: But ever gently, love; in no rash blood.

  KING: Rash, say you? I’m crazed to slobbering

  And deaf with rage. My aged joints

  Crackle like smitten thistles.

  Spurs, archers, water-bottle, here, here! To me! to me!

  Exit King, furiously.

  IV.2

  Scene: Brittany. The Ducal Chamber. Enter two Courtiers.

  1ST COURT: I promise you, he’s mad.

  2ND COURT: Hush, prithee: no ruler’s safe dubbed mad ’til a’s made his last bow.

  1ST COURT: I’ll not be squeamish. Mad, mad – ’tis my word! Yesterday, great duffer, he sundered five more alliances – Poitiers, Cognac, Normandy, Burgoyne, and Charente. I’ve no mind to find myself beneath a red heap with five furious dukedoms reared upon my one belly.

  2ND COURT: True, true; ’twould be unbearable.

  1ST COURT: Yet such’s the sage’s fate when eminence

  Takes a new master on its vaunting back. Gone’s

  The old counsellor with his twisted maps,

  His gentle cough, his subterfuging trap.

  Where craft and bargain weft a knotty tie

  Runs in the usurper with his razor eye.

  He sights afar the rangéd hornbeam pins

  And with one furious bowl makes smitherins.

  ’Tis ever thus with men too lowly bred,

  They stretch their sinew and abase our head.

  To me, old men, old ways are ever best

  And novelty a most detested guest.

  Exeunt.

  Enter Captain with Attendants.

  CAPT: There’s respect wanting here; of me and mine: it roils me, boils me, sirrahs, lessens me. I would see more caps doffed, like a storm of autumn leaves; more knees biased, like hedged limbs; tones more clotty with unction, as dressed salads. As one who’s dropped straight as a hailstone from the groins of Alexander of India, Abraham, Platon, and the kings of Jerusalem – to name but a few venerable blooms which dropped seed to my comminglement – can there be a limit to my due homage? I’d see it press me so close I should be perforce upright, and having that incapacity to move which is dignity’s mark. Ay me! I recall more awe, more tremulous celerity, when I stood upon the poop – nay, nay, that’s wrong; that was not me; I was never to sea; he that was was a certain self once claimed me; an imposter that spoke to another of his strange poops. Poop, poop forsooth! What should it mean and who spake it?

  1ST ATT: No man spoke of any such, my lord: ’twere a ridiculous, absurd word and without any vestige of meaning – unless, indeed, the speaker were inspired by thought of King Jason; he that steered to immortality disguised as a seaman.

  CAPT: Tell me more of this Jason and where he sailed, the contemptible rascal.

  1ST ATT: Why, sire, though he was a priceless king, he sailed to Troy, where he confounded and ripped up an hundred Greek kingdoms and came home to his own seat in robes of gold fleece, and was married to one Dido of Carthage.

  2ND ATT: Ay: so ’twas exactly: rare, rare.

  CAPT: Was this Jason a Christian king?

  1ST ATT: Ay, when age pressed him thus; and so he embraced the Cross despite the protestations of his pagans on Tiber, which he once swam.

  CAPT: Mark him then among my ancestors, remarking beside the mark that albeit I disclaim him as a silly voyager, I do inherit him as a hero king and a Christian.

  2ND ATT: It shall be writ down straight-faced immediately, my lord, as is ever best with pedigrees.

  CAPT: Good, good. Dim the lights, and I’ll sleep. (A couch is brought; he reclines.) Put out the rabble, lock the doors; a few remain to guard. But, stay. Why needs omnipotence any guard?

  1ST ATT: That it may be protected from a dreamy misuse of its own power, my lord: no more than that.

  CAPT: Well, well …

  Sleeps.

  1ST ATT: Why, how he snores there like a truffling hog!

  2ND ATT: There’s a monstrous belly asking a rip from Picardy’s sword!

  1ST ATT: The salt’s still in hard crystal in his beard, and the stink of the hold, overdue in hot weather, clinging to him.

  CAPT: Belay, whore’s sons, belay! Steward!

  2ND ATT: A pretty duke, his crown dropt on his nose-bridge, and he a-wallow in sea-dreams.

  Enter Ghost, much devoured by fishes, wearing th
e legend H.M.S. Dog on his cap.

  GHOST: Captain Jack, yes, yes; steward’s here, sir, at your service.

  CAPT: Oh, oh, ’tis you, ragamuffin, conscience demon?

  GHOST: Ay, sir, old Dombey still himself, still, at your service, though bedraggled by much immersion since you pleased to drop him out, that black night.

  CAPT: Eh, clammy man come to cold-finger me! (Wakes. Exit ghost.) Where’s he, that wet steward walking on a draught?

  1ST ATT: No steward, sir, only a brave bodyguard – and, above, the horned window flap-at-the-catch.

  CAPT: Make all fast, for Christ’s dear sake! (Attendant locks window.) Ow, he looked all rubbery! More like himself in spirit than ever was in flesh. How’s that? Tobe more when thou art less? ’Tis like a sieve, the greater for being fraught with nothings.

  2ND ATT: Lie down, dear lord.

  CAPT: Ay, ’tis sleepy-time for tiny Jack.

  Sleeps.

  1ST ATT: Now is the big hog turned little suckling.

  2ND ATT: Had I a red asp, I’d stuff it in him for teat.

  CAPT: Ma-ma, ma-ma!

  Enter Ghost of a much debauched female.

  GHOST: No cozzle for thy own mother, sweet Jacky, little Jack! Wouldst sell me for a Portuguese mark, strumpet thy own milkweed?

  CAPT: Nay, nay, I never did: only that he was passing, and the gold shone in his palm.

  GHOST: How salves this my poor heart, that’s wandered mizzling so long in Purgation, moaning that its own son made it a trade-stuff? Clip me, little Jack, own Johnny, fast and tight.

  Embraces Captain.

  CAPT: Oh, trenchant octopus: I’m all strangled: give over my manhood and depart! (Exit Ghost, sobbing.) Where’s she, the old whore?

  2ND ATT: What old whore’s that, Duke?

  CAPT: My mother, fool!

  2ND ATT: The noble dowager, thy mother, mumbles with fan, poodle, and beads in her retired villa.

  CAPT: Why, so she does. I’ve mixed her quite. What’s the hour?

  1ST ATT: Early for dukes to be astir, sir.

  CAPT: Yet I’ll sleep no more. My pendulum’s unhooked, and clock’s face is white, and the steady pointers threat to cease their indications. How do I look?