Cards of Identity
Page 33
2ND ATT: Awful, my lord, like Jove.
CAPT: Come, then, we’ll turn the galleries.
Exeunt.
IV.3
Scene: The Palace Dungeon, on the same night. Enter Turnkey.
TURN: Peace be with you, poor dead! About this hour your shrouds come, and after that is only a quick axe-fall ’tween you and redemption. I am almost minded to come with you there, carrying my chopped head gently.
COUNT: Three’s enough to go to trial together without heads: add a fourth and the symmetry’s too square for judgement.
DUKE: By God, despite it’s yet upon my shoulders, I feel the carriage of my head like a bird-in-hand!
PRINCE: Momentarily I feel affrighted: then stalk up reason and wisdom to remind me that I am a goose.
DUKE: Ay, with Christmas all but upon you.
COUNT: Gently, gently!
Enter Hermione and Catriona, still as friars, bearing three shrouds.
HERM: Dead souls, how hast thou stirred
Thy master Satan on this murky night?
Aloft, the noble duke doth pace and pace;
A train of sleepy courtiers at his heels,
Two ghosts supporting at his funny bones.
CATRI: Hast thou invoked black Hades to thy part?
Hast charmed stone gargoyles into whited flesh?
Around this place is come a swarm of owls
Bassoonly hooting of remorse to come.
COUNT: Nay, we’ve done nothing.
If ghosts and owls sooth are abroad tonight
They’re flit from crannies in a guilty skull.
HERM: Add not your number to the ghostly crew.
Two ghosts may ring a brainpan till it crack,
But if three more attend, then fear departs,
And haunted man, yielding to numbers,
Declares the world’s all ghosts, and quakes no more.
COUNT (aside): What admirable sense is here! This friar
Seems to advise me to a change in plan.
Doubtless some holy hand has seized his tongue
And twists its saying to my better fate.
I’ll trust this absent hand and press for more.
To Hermione.
Thou say’st, good father, that the dismal night
Has ghosts enough enow. How then
May three more souls disport and still affright?
HERM: There’s witchery.
CATRI: Ay: witchery flies by daylight when weary ghosts retire.
COUNT: You would have us witches, then?
HERM: We said nought.
COUNT: Who are ye? I doubt you are the friars ye seem.
HERM: Would we might doubt you are dead prisoners.
DUKE: We’d give thee room for doubt had we but the means of witchery.
HERM: Hush thy loud voice, amiable dead! Here! Take this.
Gives him a shroud. Two hammers, three files, a chisel, fall to the ground.
PRINCE: Ha, ha, ha! ’Tis a brisk game!
CATRI: Oh, Madam, thou art a sorry packer!
TURN (without): Ho, what’s the clangour?
HERM: Nought but five flows of tears,
Changed straight to ice by sorrow and remorse
And raining down like steel. I fear, should
We remain, our hearts will so complain
They’ll shrill like brass.
Gives Duke two more shrouds. Six poinards fall to the ground.
CATRI: Enough, enough. Let’s go
Before we wake the dead.
DUKE: We are already much alerted.
Exeunt Hermione and Catriona.
COUNT: Hide quickly these coarse tools of liberty!
DUKE: Douse out the candle;
We’ll work i’ the spring moon.
COUNT: I’m all agog to fret these rusted bars. Do you snore, piteously, good brother, and mute the file’s moan.
PRINCE (snoring): Thus?
DUKE: Ay, master will be proud of thee if thou canst snore like a file. I’ll drum my heels and dim the hammer-blows.
Count files and hammers, Prince snores, Duke drums.
TURN (without): Absolution hast left ye rowdy, meseems.
COUNT: Shall skeletons not rattle?
TURN (without): Why so hasty for thy last dance?
DUKE: We would practise, that we may turn our toes well and please the Duke.
COUNT (aside): Morning will see us prancing at his door, Forbidding, neighing females of the heath.
PRINCE: Let us confide all to the good turnkey that he, too, may enjoy the jest.
DUKE: Nay, for he is an ancient man and too much laughter might split his sides.
PRINCE: True, true.
DUKE: And take you heed, when we emerge past him in witches’ form, ask him not to delight in the metamorphosis.
PRINCE: Nay, that were to affright him, and fear is a great killer of jests. Ah, how wise I am grown! But I’ll not be puffed-up.
DUKE: Well said! There’s no end to wisdom, and doubtless further lessons await us.
PRINCE: I pray so. It is excellent comical.
Snores.
V.1
Scene: A Gallery. Enter Captain and Attendants, weary.
CAPT: They’re still here – off, off, traitors, mummies! (Brushes his elbows.) I’ll walk without you. Strike ’em away! (Attendants strike at his elbows with staffs and daggers.) Here’s morning come to my assistance. Oh angel dawn, self-murderer of ghosts!
1ST ATT: Are they gone, my lord, these weird identities?
CAPT: Yea, they’ve fled suddenly to China, where night’s descending to welcome them. I – poor, besieged fort – am granted respite. Sit, gentlemen.
All lie down.
Thus rises morning on a shattered sea
Whereon a storm of night hath played foul havoc:
And beaten sailor on his swinging feet,
The tempest’s memory athwart his eyes,
Incredulous regards the softened miles
And round horizon of a wavy wheel
To which he’s axis. Alas!
The connective spokes lie bobbing all about,
Ruptured and wreck’d, reminders of the night;
A chest, a jutting spar, a dawdling corpse,
A cage of singing birds the coxswain loved,
A beam of Orient teak, a small child’s hand –
All these stream by, confute the morning’s peace,
Carry the night into the day’s brain pan.
So you, my courtiers, like a score of wrecks,
Surround the haggard ship that floats in me.
Ay, yes, but float we do, and there’s the thought
Will properly exclude regret’s sad drift
And give us, as we weep, the heart to sleep.
Settles himself. Enter Servant.
SERV: Three witches to see you, my lord.
CAPT: Now, here’s naughty mischief! Do I dine ghosts to break fast with witches? Pray them wait for noon: say I’m closeted in stately business.
SERV: They flat refuse to wait, my lord.
Pent up with message like a bitch with whelps,
Delivery, they scream, is now, now, now!
CAPT: Show them in.
Exit Servant.
The way of Satan is not to dispatch,
But to prolong; ’til prolongation
Itself itself dispatches. Ah, ah!
Enter Prince, Count, Duke in rent shrouds, disguised as witches.
Crones, are ye real and actual?
COUNT: Indeed, my lord, we are, composed of pinched, torn flesh too quickly horrible for description.
CAPT: No cauldron, brazier, frogs’ legs?
COUNT: Nay, to carry your fate already was to overburden us.
DUKE: True, its dismal weight has given us the staggers.
CAPT: Speak, trio of horrors!
PRINCE (aside): Poor soul: he’s all haggard in earnest, and we here to torment him in play! We are cruel boys that hurt our teacher.
&nbs
p; COUNT: With goats and arabesques we three had framed
A sunny holiday with Egypt friends.
Scarce seated by the Nile with gipsy Nicks
The whole stream quaked, and turbulent rain
Deluged our hair, rinsed forth our greasy joy:
While through the torrent and black atmosphere,
Hordes of winged rats, vultures, and nimble stoats
(Bound round with gizzards of decaying whales)
Flew rushing northward in a spate of glee.
We asked: Sisters in Satan, what emergency
Doth so propel you from your native sands?
They, cackling and dribbling with a maniac spite,
Answered, they’d nest in Brittany come night.
We asking why, they chorused that a sea
Of depthless blood was washing to this place;
That by the fall of night a carnage heap
Would be their perch for song until their teeth
Had glutted every morsel under claw.
Picardy’s up, they howled, and so’s Burgoyne,
Normandy, Cognac, lily-stxewn Lorraine,
Feeble Artois has waked his sleepy sword,
And the fourth Henry on his London throne
Has heard such tumult that he’s spit poor Dick
And turned his pack in fleets across to France.
All say some villain has usurped the world,
Smashed the whole globe to dance among its shards,
They hint of one they’ll slaughter through and through;
We gravely do expect that it is you.
CAPT: May I not fly: are not legs for flying?
DUKE: Fly and be damned! Evade the natural sword
And hellish gnomes will speak the ghastly word.
CAPT: Then come, sweet death!
COUNT: Patience, he is on the threshold; a little minute, you’ll hear him knock.
CAPT: Bid him hurry, that I may die aloof from ghosts.
PRINCE (aside): I’ll play no more: we’ve hazed him unto death,
Shown we’re good pupils at his sad expense.
No more’s needed: to prolong were spite.
I’ll straight reveal myself.
To Captain.
Good Captain Jack, wipe off thy monstrous sweat,
Fear nothing; nothing’s here, and nothing looms.
Thy loving pupil, Prince of Antioch,
Doffs now his witchery and embraces you!
CAPT: Oh, helpless, awful combination!
Under the horrid witch, more horrid ghost
Of dungeon dead! Identity
Hard heaped upon identity! ’Neath each, another.
Remorseless spirit, spurn that ghastly smile
And let me flee!
Exit Captain, running, followed by Prince, Duke, Count, and attendants.
V.2
Scene: A plain in Brittany, Enter Captain, running, pursued by Prince.
PRINCE: Captain, my captain; halt; take conference! My partners in this game are fell behind.
CAPT: Leave me to hell, scurvy hag, ghost, prince, and whatsoever else you be!
Falls.
PRINCE: See, master, I rend my disguise, reveal plain Antioch! Here, touch my doublet and, under straggled hair, fur cap of maintenance. Look, my square rubies!
CAPT: Antioch’s doublet, Antioch’s rubies and, over all, Antioch’s callow voice. (Rises.) How dared you, pupil, witch thy teacher thus?
PRINCE: That our play might be match for thy play; two plays coincident and instructive.
CAPT (aside): ’Tis past incredible that a creature may so persist in innocence. Let’s screw him yet a notch farther. (To Prince.) Thou’st played admirably, chicken; master is proud of thee and ready to send thee to Sorbonne. Where’s thy two confederates?
PRINCE: Scouring the brush for thee, nearby.
CAPT: Then quickly, we’ll on to the next lesson – the very last. Hand me thy witchery, take my ducal robes.
PRINCE: Ha, ha! Gladly.
They change clothes.
CAPT: Now, off to our respective businesses; play thou a fleeing Asiatic mariner in a French duke’s disguise, forgetting thou art in reality a Syrian prince that feigns to be a witch.
PRINCE: I am much diverted.
Runs away, screaming.
CAPT: I, too; and, praise God, may so be also my enemies!
V.3
Scene: Another part of the plain. Enter King of Artois, Radegund, and Followers.
KING: This turf is soft and downy underfoot;
Unlike our rocky Artois as the dove
Is in caparison remote the rook.
Here’s murdock interfest with eglantine,
And savage roses pink as little babes.
There looms the master-castle which we seek,
Shaped in the river’s curved suggestion
Simply as child within a mothering arm.
Sad contemplation, that with steely swords
We’ll hack the ducal father into bits!
RADEG: Yet, father, spare to me some vital parts;
Enough to make a husband of a sort.
KING: What, wench; thou wouldst still marry Brittany?
RADEG: Better for me to wed his leg, his arm,
His left great-toe – whatever shall remain,
Than sit secluded on my maidenhead
While lawyers, counsellors procrastinate,
Unroll parchments, annotate in ink,
Negotiate husband this and husband that,
Melt wax enough to seal a leaking roof
And sand and polish for a dancing-floor.
One bit of Brittany to clasp today
Is fairer than whole husband years away.
KING: Thou art thy mother’s child. From me ne’er sprang
Such heedless, sentimental promptitude.
It shames me much to dally with your whim,
Yet shall I struggle to withhold my sword.
Thus was I ever: woman’s gentle voice
Gave hardest principle a soft distort.
Enter Captain disguised as a witch.
Welcome, good hag, if good and hag thou art,
If merely hag, get hence.
I seek the Duke; art thou his toy?
CAPT: Suffice to say I am a stranger here,
Witness of sights more foreign than myself.
Christian and prince of Syria, I sought
Solace and harbour when my úsurp’d throne
Was torn below me. Alas! here refuged,
Came new usurper to usurp my peace.
A dirty seaman so engaged the Duke
As wholly to offset him and take up
Cuckoo assumption of the dukely nest.
Yet God, who sleeps not, speedily dispatched
Some horrid emissaries retribute,
And now the usurping wretch runs here about
With nought but ghosts to claim his nasty soul.
Two awful witches follow in his train
And nag the remnants of the ghostly prey.
Such horrors had I seen that I despaired
Of tumbling safely from the bath of blood.
When, suddenly, rode up a blessed envoy
Which did inform me that my Syrian seat
Was new restored to me. Thither
I hurry now, disguised, and glutted up
With gloomy judgement of the Frankish ways,
Resolved that Antioch shall never see
Practices beastly as the ones I flee.
RADEG (aside): How sweet and courtierlike he doth appear,
Yet manly, broad, and muscular withal.
Would he were my duke!
KING: Poor royal traveller, Antioch’s far placed;
Placed far, meseems, beyond thy straitened means.
CAPT: I’ve three red stones will buy me to a ship.
Faith and robustiousness will buy the rest.
KING: Nobly said; yet take these aids also.
Hands Captain a bag of gold.
Come happier times, I’ll visit Syria,
And, smiling, ask of thee replenishment.
CAPT: Excellent King, come soon!
Now, go I must, while Antioch remains.
I prithee, shouldst thou meet my brother,
Inform him how I’m gone and whither.
KING: Gladly. Farewell!
Exit Captain.
There goes a royal pound of ounces!
RADEG: Would he were and would weigh him in my arms!
Enter Picardy.
PIC: Artois, thou too! Art here to hunt?
KING: To hunt carrion.
Enter Cognac.
COG: I fear I’m come too late
To rend the cur that’s rent my token up.
KING: Spirited Cognac, fear not truancy!
The chase is up, prey sighted, nothing more.
Come, ride with me, and as we ride I’ll tell
The tale which lies within this outer frame.
But first, send men-at-arms that will procure
Priests to protect us from the witches’ rage.
Exeunt Men.
COG: What, witchery to boot?
KING: Aye, to ghosts’ behoof.
Fall in with me; I’ll tell you all.
PIC: Lead us, Artois; for thy decrepit rage
Is nicely suited to the work in hand.
Where’s England’s Henry?
COG: Delayed, they say, by fog.
V.4
Scene: Before the Castle. Alarms and tumults. Enter, running, the Prince of Antioch as Duke; pursued by Count of Baalbeck and Duke of Brittany as witches; Hermione and Catriona as friars; Artois, Cognac, Picardy, men-at-arms, pikemen, and others all as themselves.
DUKE: Excellent, excellent; have at him; on, on!
PRINCE: Oh, oh, life is a hard teacher! I pray ’twill stop short of death, or wherefore my new self?
COUNT: Hew him hardly; blink not his babble and his ducal guise!
HERM: Heed not his puny cries, strike him to hell!
ARTOIS: Admirable priests, admonish those loud witches! They do affright our pikemen.
CATRI: Ho, witches, play the man; the chase is done!
Pikemen fall upon the Prince of Antioch.