Original Plays, Second Series E-Book

W. S. Gilbert

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

In "Original Plays, Second Series," W. S. Gilbert showcases his mastery of comedic dialogue and sharp satire, expanding upon the whimsical and often absurd themes established in his earlier works. This collection includes four plays that deftly intertwine wit with social commentary, using clever wordplay and intricate plots to entertain while provoking thought. The literary style, characterized by its rhythmic verse and clever puns, places Gilbert at the forefront of Victorian theater, where he seamlessly blends farce with poignant critiques of society, marriage, and morality. W. S. Gilbert, an influential figure in the collaboration with Sir Arthur Sullivan, was a playwright, poet, and illustrator, whose extensive background in law and journalism informed his sharp social observations. This eclectic professional journey provided Gilbert with the lens through which he viewed the Victorian era's conventions, compelling him to question societal norms and delve into the nature of human relationships. His unique ability to blend humor with critical insight has solidified his reputation as a pioneering dramatist. Readers seeking an enriching experience that combines laughter with thoughtful commentary will find "Original Plays, Second Series" to be an invaluable addition to their literary collection. This compendium not only exemplifies Gilbert's brilliance but also invites reflection on timeless themes, ensuring its relevance for contemporary audiences. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.

Leseprobe

W. S. Gilbert

Original Plays, Second Series

Enriched edition. Witty and Satirical Plays from the Victorian Era

In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience.

Introduction, Studies and Commentaries by Paige Gibson

Edited and published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4064066092580

Table of Contents

Introduction

Historical Context

Synopsis (Selection)

Original Plays, Second Series

Analysis

Reflection

Memorable Quotes

Introduction

Table of Contents

This second series brings together a substantial range of W. S. Gilbert’s stage writing, presenting a single-author panorama of his dramatic craft. As a companion to earlier volumes of original plays, it extends the profile of a writer equally at home in intimate drama, high-spirited farce, and comic opera. The volume preserves the practical architecture of performance—lists of characters and act divisions—so that readers encounter the works as playwrights, actors, and audiences once did. Read continuously, these texts reveal a coherent artistic vision: a dramatist testing ideas across forms, refining techniques, and shaping the comic and dramatic idioms that made his name enduring.

The contents are unified by the stage, yet varied in mode. The book includes prose plays of sentiment and satire, brisk comic pieces, and the libretti of comic operas in which spoken dialogue and lyrics intertwine. Each work appears with its dramatis personae and acts clearly marked, underscoring the texts’ theatrical origins. In addition to these dramatic works, the volume concludes with a publisher’s catalogue of contemporary offerings, a period feature that situates the plays within their commercial and literary marketplace. No ancillary essays, letters, or critical apparatus are supplied; the emphasis remains on the plays and libretti themselves.

Taken together, the selection maps Gilbert’s versatility. Domestic and romantic dramas stand alongside intricate comedies of manners and identity, while the operatic texts—developed for musical setting in collaboration with a composer—translate his stage wit into song and ensemble. Some pieces engage familiar literary traditions or legends; others mine everyday situations for comic paradox. The progression from straight play to operatic libretto shows a writer testing the same preoccupations in different keys, calibrating pace, rhythm, and structure to the demands of the form. This breadth allows readers to trace continuities of technique and tone across seemingly disparate theatrical terrains.

A recurring set of themes threads the whole: the clash between social duty and private desire; the transactional nature of courtship and marriage; the pressure of rank, money, and reputation; and the comic volatility of oaths, contracts, and misunderstandings. Gilbert often introduces a single bold premise—a rule, a bargain, a disguise, or a whimsical mechanism—that unsettles ordinary life and exposes hidden motives. Naval decorum, rustic custom, and drawing-room propriety each become arenas for gently barbed scrutiny. Even when plots remain light of touch, the works use their premises to question convention, revealing how language, status, and habit shape human behavior.

Stylistically, the collection showcases Gilbert’s precision: crisp dialogue, exact plotting, and a distinctive logical playfulness that turns premises inside out. In the prose plays, the humour springs from unflinching adherence to absurd rules; in the operatic libretti, the verbal ingenuity expands into patter, refrain, and chorus, marrying clarity with speed. Characters are etched with economical strokes—types at first glance, but animated by idiom, contradiction, and timing. Stage directions and act breaks reflect a craftsman’s sensitivity to movement, surprise, and reveal. The result is theatre that balances irony and sentiment, satire and sympathy, without sacrificing coherence or momentum.

The enduring significance of these works lies in their fusion of popular appeal with sharp construction. They helped define a distinctive English comic sensibility on the stage and shaped expectations for modern operetta and theatrical farce. Their premises remain accessible, their language agile, and their structures instructive to readers and performers alike. Encountered on the page, they reward attention to cadence, logic, and set-up, while the libretti demonstrate how character and situation can be articulated musically without blurring narrative clarity. As a group, they offer a durable toolkit for understanding comic architecture and its capacity to interrogate society.

Readers approaching the volume will profit from treating it as living theatre: noting dramatis personae, tracking how each act resets dilemmas, and comparing how similar motifs—courtship, duty, disguise—are handled across forms. The juxtaposition of prose plays with operatic texts invites reflection on how dialogue, lyric, and structure adapt to different performance contexts. The appended catalogue of popular novels and series provides a snapshot of the book trade that first circulated these works, hinting at the audiences they courted. Above all, this collection demonstrates a writer’s sustained dialogue with the stage—elastic in method, consistent in purpose, and rich in invention.

Historical Context

Table of Contents

William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911) emerged from mid-Victorian London as a barrister-turned-playwright whose wit, logic, and “topsy-turvy” paradoxes shaped English comic theatre. Called to the bar in 1863, he soon made his name with the Bab Ballads in Fun magazine and a sequence of West End plays and fairy comedies that culminated in his collaborations with Arthur Sullivan. The works gathered in Original Plays, Second Series span the crucial 1870s, when Gilbert refined his satire of social pretension, romantic sentiment, and bureaucratic ritual. Across farce, domestic drama, historical romance, and operetta, he forged a distinctive method: literalize an absurd premise, pursue its consequences rigorously, and expose the hypocrisies of polite society.

The theatrical landscape in which Gilbert worked was regulated and changing. London stages operated under the Lord Chamberlain’s licensing system, encouraging indirection and allegory rather than overt politics. Meanwhile, audiences were expanding with urban growth and rising literacy. Respectable “family” entertainment, championed by Thomas German Reed at St. George’s Hall from the 1860s, offered Gilbert early platforms for musical-dramatic experiment. At the same time, West End managements such as Squire and Marie Bancroft’s at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre and the Haymarket fostered finely rehearsed ensemble acting and realistic staging. These institutional habits, constraints, and ambitions frame the tonal range seen here—from delicate sentiment to merciless farce and satiric fantasy.

Gilbert’s alliance with composer Arthur Sullivan and impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte professionalized a new English comic opera. Trial by Jury (Royalty Theatre, 25 March 1875) proved the model: tightly integrated lyrics, ensemble writing, and disciplined staging. The Sorcerer opened at the Opera Comique on 17 November 1877, followed there by H.M.S. Pinafore on 25 May 1878. To counter rampant American piracy of Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance premiered in New York at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on 31 December 1879 (after a British copyright performance at Paignton), returning to London in 1880. Though the Savoy Theatre opened later (1881), these works established the procedures and audiences that would define the “Savoy Opera” tradition.

Victorian social legislation sharpened Gilbert’s favourite targets. The Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, the Married Women’s Property Act 1870 (extended in 1882), and the Education Act 1870 changed the legal and cultural terms of marriage, property, and respectability. The Reform Acts broadened the electorate; the Cardwell Army Reforms (1868–74) abolished purchase of commissions, spotlighting patronage and merit. Such shifts animated Gilbert’s fun with courtship as contract, inheritance as entanglement, and “duty” as a comic straightjacket—motifs that reverberate across his comedies and operettas. By transposing contemporary anxieties into stylized settings—Highland glens, Puritan hamlets, or ship decks—he exposed the mechanisms of class deference, bureaucratic advancement, and pecuniary marriage without triggering the censor.

Onstage style was likewise in flux. The Bancrofts popularized “cup-and-saucer” realism and box-set interiors; T. W. Robertson’s naturalism encouraged intimate gesture, meticulous props, and conversational rhythm. Gilbert could write within this idiom—most notably in domestic and sentimental pieces—yet he also caricatured its platitudes by pushing consistency beyond comfort. His historical and legendary dramas draw on the era’s medievalism and moral earnestness, while his Continental interests—seen in an engagement with Goethean material—reflect Victorian theatre’s cosmopolitan borrowings. Across genres, he cultivated exacting rehearsal, ensemble precision, and verbal clarity, aligning his plays with a broader movement to elevate comic entertainment from rough burlesque to crafted literary performance for a mixed middle-class audience.

The 1870s teemed with fads in science, pseudo-science, and commerce—mesmerism, spiritualism, phrenology, and patent remedies—underwritten by aggressive advertising. Gilbert’s comic logic treats quackery, fate, and love-potions as systems to be interrogated rather than merely mocked, revealing how fashion, credulity, and market forces shape private feeling. His dramatic engines often turn on contracts, labels, and technicalities; the joke lies in literal compliance with social rules taken to their limit. This rationalist mischief, applied to the vocabulary of romance and superstition, bridges his straight plays and operettas, and it resonated with urban audiences accustomed to newspapers, testimonials, and the new rhythms of consumer culture in late Victorian London.

National identity and imperial confidence provided a rich backdrop. The Royal Navy, emblem of British power, invited affectionate satire of administration and class. Sir Joseph Porter’s type echoed public debate after W. H. Smith—a bookseller and MP—became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1877. Military and colonial news filled the press; volunteerism, parade-ground ritual, and reform controversies made “duty” a household word. Concurrently, transatlantic theatrical circuits and weak U.S. copyright law produced the Pinafore mania of 1878–79 and prompted the New York premiere of The Pirates of Penzance. Carte’s touring companies carried Gilbert’s idiom through Britain and abroad, turning topical British ironies into exportable commodities of song, situation, and style.

The printing of plays for home reading—exemplified by Chatto & Windus’s Original Plays, Second Series, complete with dramatis personae and publisher catalogues—reflects a market of circulating libraries, cheap series, and armchair spectators. This commercial ecology both preserved and reshaped performance texts, fixing variants and widening their reach beyond the theatre. The works gathered here cluster around 1874–79, a transitional phase before the purpose-built Savoy Theatre (electrically lit in 1881) consolidated the brand. Yet the themes, methods, and institutions they embody—legalistic satire, disciplined ensembles, topical allusion, and shrewd management—span Gilbert’s career and illuminate how late Victorian Britain consumed, debated, and immortalized its own manners in comic art.

Synopsis (Selection)

Table of Contents

Broken Hearts

A poetic fairy-play set in a remote island palace where proud lovers, outcasts, and princes collide; a stranger’s arrival unravels hidden loyalties and tests mercy against pride.

Engaged

A satiric farce about a charmingly amoral gentleman whose serial betrothals expose a society where love and friendship are governed by self-interest and money.

Sweethearts

Two linked acts decades apart contrast the bright vows of youthful lovers with their later reunion, exploring how time reshapes memory, constancy, and regret.

Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith

A village drama in which a solitary blacksmith adopts an abandoned child and, years later, must reckon with her origins and his own capacity for sacrifice.

Gretchen

Gilbert’s rendering of the Faust story centers on Gretchen’s seduction and the ensuing personal and communal consequences, emphasizing human cost over supernatural spectacle.

Tom Cobb; or, Fortune's Toy

A whirlwind farce of mistaken identity in which a debt-ridden man assumes a dead soldier’s name, triggering crossed romances, legal confusions, and escalating complications.

The Sorcerer

In a country village, a hired love potion throws every heart into comic confusion across class lines, forcing well-meaning matchmakers to confront the price of meddling with love.

H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor

A nautical comic opera of star-crossed love aboard a Royal Navy ship that lampoons class pretensions and officialdom, upended by a long-kept secret of birth.

The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty

A duty-obsessed young man seeks to quit a band of tender-hearted pirates after an apprenticeship blunder, but legal scruples, timid police, and spirited maidens entangle his release.

Chatto & Windus’s Catalogues and Book Lists

Publisher advertisements and alphabetical lists of novels and series included at the end of the volume, providing contemporary marketing rather than dramatic content.

Original Plays, Second Series

Main Table of Contents

BROKEN HEARTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

BROKEN HEARTS.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ENGAGED.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ENGAGED.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

SWEETHEARTS.

CHARACTERS.

SWEETHEARTS.

ACT I.

ACT II.

DAN’L DRUCE, BLACKSMITH.

CHARACTERS.

DAN’L DRUCE, BLACKSMITH.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

GRETCHEN.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

GRETCHEN.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

TOM COBB; OR, FORTUNE’S TOY.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

TOM COBB; OR, FORTUNE’S TOY.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

THE SORCERER.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

THE SORCERER.

ACT I.

ACT II.

H.M.S. PINAFORE; OR, THE LASS THAT LOVED A SAILOR.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

H.M.S. PINAFORE; OR, THE LASS THAT LOVED A SAILOR.

ACT I.

ACT II.

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE; OR, THE SLAVE OF DUTY.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE; OR, THE SLAVE OF DUTY.

ACT I.

ACT II.

CHATTO & WINDUS’S

CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS BY THE BEST AUTHORS.

AN ALPHABETICAL CATALOGUE OF BOOKS IN FICTION AND GENERAL LITERATURE

SOME BOOKS CLASSIFIED IN SERIES.

POPULAR SIXPENNY NOVELS.

THE PICCADILLY NOVELS.

CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS.

NEW SERIES OF TWO-SHILLING NOVELS.

"

BROKEN HEARTS.

Table of Contents

AN ENTIRELY ORIGINAL FAIRY PLAY, IN THREE ACTS.

First produced at the Royal Court Theatre, under the management ofMr. Hare, Thursday, 9th December, 1875.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Table of Contents

Prince Florian

Mr. W. H. Kendal

.

Mousta

(

a deformed Dwarf

)

Mr. Anson

.

The Lady Hilda

Miss M. Robertson

.

(Mrs. Kendal.)

The Lady Vavir

(

her Sister

)

Miss Hollingshead

.

The Lady Melusine

Miss Plowden

.

The Lady Amanthis

Miss Rorke

.

SCENE: THE ISLAND OF BROKEN HEARTS.

The action of the piece takes place within twenty four hours.

Costumes—1300-1350.

BROKEN HEARTS.

Table of Contents

ACT I.

Table of Contents

Scene: A tropical landscape. In the distance, a calm sea. A natural fountain—a mere thread of water—falls over a rock into a natural basin. An old sun-dial formed of the upper part of a broken pillar, round the shaft of which some creeping flowers are trained, stands on a small mound. The time is within half an hour of sunset.

Mousta, a deformed, ill-favoured dwarf hump-backed and one-eyed, is discovered seated, reading a small black-letter volume.

Mous. (reads). “To move a mountain.” That will serve me not,

Unless, indeed, ’twill teach me how to lift

This cursed mountain from my crippled back!

“To make old young.” Humph! I’m but forty-two—

But still, I’ll mark that page—the day will come

When I shall find it useful. Ha! what’s this?

“To make the crooked straight; to heal the halt;

And clothe unsightly forms with comeliness.”

At last! At last!

Enter Vavir, who listens in amazement.

(Reads) “Take scammony and rue,

With henbane gathered in a fat churchyard—

Pound in a mortar with three drops of blood,

Drawn from a serpent’s tail at dead of night.”

Yes, yes, that’s plain enough! (reads) “Take pigeon’s egg

Wrapped in the skin of a beheaded toad,

And then—” (sees Vavir) Who’s there?

Vav. (astonished).Why, Mousta?

Mous.Pardon me,

I’m at my book. I did not hear thy step.

Vav. Thy book hath lines both strange and terrible:

Why Mousta, this is arrant sorcery!

How camest thou with such a fearful thing?

Mous. (whispering). An unseen spirit brought it to me—Ay,

Brought it to me. An hour or so ago

I saw a distant boat make for our shores,

The wind was on her bow—she tacked as though

Handled by one well-skilled in such small craft.

Well—on she came—and I awaited her,

Armed with a boat-hook. When within fair hail,

“Sheer off!” I cried; “No stranger touches here!”

But, heedless of my hail, she kept her course,

And, when within a bow-shot of the beach,

Down came her sail, and in she ran to shore!

Vav. (alarmed). Whom did she carry, Mousta?

Mous.Not a soul!

The boat was tenantless! Some unseen power

Had guided her! I overhauled the craft

To find some sign of human agency,

And found—this book.

Vav. (shrinking from it). It is unholy lore!

Oh, burn it, Mousta!

Mous.Burn it? No, not I!

See what I am—dwarfed, twisted, and deformed!

I have a fancy to be tall and straight—

This volume teaches me to have my will.

My only eyeball flashes from its pit

Like a red snake trapped in a sunken snare—

I do not like my eye. As I’ve but one,

I’d have it large and bright. This teaches me

To make it so. My mouth is coarsely cut—

I like a tempting mouth—a mouth that smiles—

A mouth that’s smiled upon. This teaches me

To make it so. I will not burn this book!

The Lady Hilda has entered during the last line.

Hil. And what would’st thou with beauty?

Mous.What would I?

Why, lady, look around; the isle is fair:

Its feathery palms that tower towards the sky,

Its prattling brooks that trickle to the sea,

Its hills and dales, its sea and sky—are fair:

The beasts that dwell upon it, and the birds

That fly above it—even they are fair:

And, beyond all, the ladies who have made

This isle their chosen home are very fair!

And what am I? Why, lady, look at me!

I am the one foul blot upon its face:

I am the one misshapen twisted thing

In this assemblage of rare loveliness:

I am the one accursed discord in

This choir of universal harmony!

Is this, think you, a proud pre-eminence?

Or, rather, is it not a red-hot brand

That stamps its damning impress on one’s heart,

And changes man to devil before his time!

(Sadly.) Ah! you are mocking me!

Hil. (kindly).I mock thee not.

We maidens all (save one) have dearly loved,

And those we loved have died. We, broken hearts,

Knit by the sympathy of kindred woe,

Have sought this isle far from the ken of man;

And having loved, and having lost our loves,

Stand pledged to love no living thing again.

Thou art our trusted servant and our friend;

The only man of all the world of men

Whom we admit upon our virgin shores.

We know thee, and we trust thee, Mousta—Come,

This thought might soften harder hearts than thine!

Mous. (angrily). And why choose me alone of all mankind

To serve you in your island loneliness?

Because my limbs, though crooked, are strongly framed?

Bah, there are tall straight men as strong as I.

Because my heart goes with my fealty?

Why half my wage would buy the heart and soul

Of twenty well-proportioned servitors.

Because by reason of my face and form

I do not count as man? Yes! I’m an ape!

A crippled, crumpled, devil-faced baboon,

Who claims a place amid this loveliness

By title of his sheer deformity!

Now, monkey though I be, I am a man

In all but face and form—I’ve a man’s heart,

A man’s desire to love—and to be loved—(Hilda seems amused.)

Ay, you may laugh—but those who seek to laugh

May find, methinks, more fitting merriment

In such mad love as deals with sun-dials,

Trees, rocks, and fountains, and such baby game.

My love at least is human in its aim.

It’s well you should know this—be on your guard!

[Exit Mousta.

Hil. In truth, the love that Mousta laughs at tells

How strangely ordered is a woman’s heart!

Dost thou remember how, when first we came

To this fair isle, I said, in thoughtless jest,

“As woman’s heart must love, and we are women,

So let us choose our loves”—then, looking round,

“This running fountain shall be mine,” I cried,

And, kneeling by the brink, then sealed the vow

As all such vows are sealed ’twixt men and women—

And thou, poor child, pleased with the jest, replied,

“I take this dial to be my love for life!”

Vavir, we little thought that in those words

We pledged ourselves to an abiding love

That rivals in its pure intensity

The love that we had banished from our hearts!

Yet so it is. We have so dwelt upon

This idle fancy—keeping it alive

With songs and sighs and vows of constancy,

That we have tricked ourselves into a love

Akin to that which we had all forsworn.

I love this little fountain as my life!

Vav. To me my dial is more, far more, than life;

It is the chronicle of the World’s life,

Written by Heaven’s own hand. As, rapt in thought,

I watch its silent solemn shadow creep

From hour to hour, and so from day to day,

True as the Sun itself—an awful record

Of Heaven’s most perfect and most glorious order—

My love is lost in reverential awe.

Oh I have chosen well in choosing this!

It is a holy thing, that bears a warrant,

Sent from the Source of Life, to tell the Earth

That even Time is hastening to its end!

What is mere world-love to such love as this?

Hil. And yet thou hast no cause to shun world-love.

When my great sorrow came and I withdrew

To this lone isle with other broken hearts,

Thou, heart-whole and untouched by love of Man,

Yet gavest up the world and all it holds

To bide with me.

Vav. I do not love the world.

My darling sister found her sorrow there—

The world is naught to me. This tiny isle,

But half a league in girth holds all I love.

My world is where thou art—there let me stay

For the few months that yet remain to me!

I think my time on earth will be but brief.

Hil. Hush, hush, Vavir. I will not hear these things.

Vav. My life has been a very happy life,

So free from pain and sorrow of its own

That, but that I have shared my sister’s grief,

I had not known what pain and sorrow are—

Yet even this calm rest—this changeless peace,

Saps my poor fragile fabric day by day,

And the first shaft that sorrow aims at it,

May shake its puny structure to the ground!

Hil. Why, what sad silly fancy’s this, Vavir?

Thou hast no pain, my child?

Vav.No pain, indeed;

But a calm happiness so strangely still,

It comes not of this world. I am to die

Ere very long. Pray Heaven I be prepared!

Hil. It’s well for me and well for both of us

I do not share these foolish fantasies!

Why, silly child, believest thou that Time

Will see the fruit that ripens on those cheeks,

And note the dainty banquet of those lips,

And not preserve such rich and radiant fare,

For his own feasting in his own good time?

Trust the old Epicure!

[Exeunt Hilda and Vavir together.

Enter Florian. He comes down, looking around him in admiration.

Flor. All men who say I’m five-and-twenty, lie.

I was born but to-day! An hour ago!

Yes—this must be the World. The distant land

In which I’ve passed so many years, and which

I, in my puppy-blindness, called “The World,”

Is but its antechamber.

Enter Mousta (with book).

Born to-day,

And by a process which is new to me,

My faculties are scarcely wide awake,

But if my memory serves me faithfully,

This twisted thing and I have met before.

Mous. The ladies are at supper. Now’s my time

To master, undisturbed by curious eyes,

The ghostly secrets of my spirit book!

Where was I? Oh! (reads) “Take scammony and rue,

With henbane gathered—”

Flor. (coming behind and taking book from him).

Pardon me—that’s mine.

Mous. Oh, Heaven and Earth—a Man! Thou hardy fool,

What dost thou on this isle? (Draws knife.) Come, answer me.

Flor. Give me that knife. (Twists it out of his hand.)

That’s well! Now, what’s your will?

Mous. Go—get thee hence at once.

Flor.No, not just yet.

This Paradise—if Rumour tells the truth—

Is ruled by six fair ladies. I prefer

To take my sailing orders from their lips.

Mous. Their lips are mine!

Flor.Then you’re a lucky dog!

Mous. I am their mouthpiece. By their solemn rules

No man may set his foot upon these shores.

Those rules thy hardihood hath set at naught.

How camest thou, and when?

Flor.I am a Prince,

Prince Florian of Spain. I landed here

From yonder boat—about an hour ago.

Mous. Liar! The boat was empty!

Flor.No, not quite.

I was on board.

Mous. (puzzled). But I was on the beach—

Flor. I know you were—with boat-hook in your hand

To thrust her off. You hailed me angrily:

I had no time to stop and parley then,

So, in the hope that Fate would furnish me

With some more fitting opportunity

To offer you my best apologies,

I kept her head to land, and jumped ashore.

Those best apologies I offer now.

Mous. (alarmed). If you’ll believe me, sir, I saw you not!

Flor. I quite believe you, for I have the power

To make myself invisible at will,

And, having such a power, you’ll see at once

That force will serve you nothing.

Mous. (amazed).Say you true?

Flor. Undoubtedly. I’ve but to wind this veil

(producing a grey gauze veil with gold tassels)

About my head, and I’m invisible,

And so remain till I remove it.

Mous.Why,

This is a priceless Talisman, indeed!

Invisible! I’d give one half my life

To be invisible for half-a-day!

Flor. Indeed? And why?

Mous.There is no living thing

But seeks a mate—What birds and beasts may do

Mousta may seek to do—I want to mate!

And whom d’ye think I want? Some kitchen-wench?

One-eyed, hump-backed, and twisted like myself?

I want the purest, fairest form on earth!

Flor. Upon my word, you aim full high!

Mous.I do!

Why not? Suppose I loved a kitchen-wench,

And told her so?

Flor.A decent kitchen-wench

Would soundly box your ears!

Mous.You’re right—She would;

My Lady can’t do more. As I must fail

At least I’ll fail for game worth failing for!

As yet I’ve breathed no word—were I unseen

I could take heart of grace and tell my love!

Flor. (laughing). What would you say?

Mous.Ay, ay, you laugh at me;

But I’ve a wily tongue, and I can woo

Like an Adonis—when I’m in the dark!

A blind girl loved me once—a fair young girl

With gentle face and gentle heart—but blind!

Flor. I’ll swear she was!

Mous. (gently).Ah, mock her not—she died!

Flor. Well, peace be with her—Find me some safe spot,

Where I can pass the night—I’ll pay you well.

Mous. Ha! ha!

Flor.Why do you laugh?

Mous.Had I your power

To make myself invisible at will,

I should take up my quarters in the castle

Where all the ladies dwell!

Flor.I’m sure you would,

Unfortunately I’m a gentleman,

And so that course is closed to me—

Mous.Of course!

I did but jest—I beg your pardon, sir.

(Aside.) If I could get that veil for one short hour—

Eh, but I’ve drugs to lull a man to sleep!

If I can tempt this squeamish popinjay

To trust himself to me, the thing is done!

(Aloud). I’ve a poor cottage—it is close at hand,

Though humble, it is clean and weather-tight:

It will afford you shelter. Then for food

I’ve some dried fish and eggs and oaten bread

Quite at your service.

Flor.Good.

Mous. (quickly).But hide yourself,

Some one approaches!

[Florian covers his head with veil as Vavir enters with flowers.

Flor. (aside to Mousta). Who is this fair maid?

Mous. (aside). Lady Vavir. She always comes at eve

To bid “good night” to this old sun-dial!

Keep your ears open, and I’ll warrant you

Yours eyes will open too! (Aloud.) Lady Vavir,

I bid you fair good night.

Vav.Good night to you.

[Exit Mous.

Flor. In truth a fair young girl!

Vav.Dear sun-dial,

Dost know what day this is?

Flor. (aside).He ought to know,

It comes within the radius of his calling!

Vav. A year to-day, and we two were betrothed—

One happy, happy year!

Flor. (aside).Betrothed, i’ faith!

They’re lovers, then!

Vav.I must devise some gift

To mark this happy day. What shall it be?

I’ll weave a bower of rose and eglantine

To place above thy head at eventide,

When the full moon’s abroad. No foolish moon

Shall cast false shadows on thy sleeping face,

Or make thee mutter incoherent tales

Of hours long since gone by or yet to come.

No madcap moon shall mar thy nightly rest,

Or in the mischief of half-witted glee

Awake thy sleeping hours before their time.

Flor. (aside). He doesn’t answer—the insensate dolt!—

And yet such words are warm enough to rouse

A tombstone into life!

Vav.I’ve brought thee flowers

To deck thy stem. They live their little life,

And then they die; but others follow them—

And thou shalt have thy garland day by day

While I am here to weave it for thee?

Flor. (aside).Well,

This is the oddest wooing! On my word,

A thousand pities that the lady’s love

Should be lopsided! Come, arouse thee, dial—

Be eloquent with thanks! I’ve half a mind

To thank her for thee, in the interests

Of all true horologes!

Vav.I’m content

To sit and deck thee, silent though thou art.

And yet I would thou hadst the gift of speech

For one brief second—time enough to say,

“Vavir, I love thee with my whole, whole heart!”

Flor. (aloud). “Vavir, I love thee with my whole, whole heart!”

Vav. (recoiling, horrified). Who spake?

Flor.’Twas I—thy dial!

Vav. Oh, terrible!

What shall I do?

Flor.Fair lady—have no fear.

Vav. “Fair lady”—It’s a man! My sisters, help!

I am betrayed!

Flor.Have patience for a while—

Vav. Who and what art thou?—speak!

Flor. (aside).What shall I say?

(Aloud.) I am a poor, long-suffering, mortal man,

Whom in the stony substance of thy dial,

A cruel magician holds incarcerate!

Vav. Oh, marvellous!

Flor.And very pitiful!

Vav. Aye, pitiful indeed, poor prisoned soul! (advancing.)

Flor. “There shalt thou lie,” said he, “till some pure maid

Shall have been constant to thine unseen self

A twelvemonth and a day.” That maid art thou!

Vav. Alas! poor man, I fain would set thee free.

Yet I have loved not thee, but this thy tomb!

Flor. Thou canst not separate me from my tomb

Except by loving me. In loving it

Thou lovest me who am bound up with it;

And in so loving me—provided that

Thy love, a twelvemonth old, lasts one day more—

Thou givest me my freedom and my life!

If thou hast loved thy dial thou hast loved me.

Vav. Yes, I have loved my dial!

Flor.But earnestly—

With a surpassing love?

Vav.I cannot say—

I am ill-versed in the degrees of love.

Judge for thyself—When I am weak and ill

My sisters place my couch beside my dial

That I may lay my poor thin hand on it:

It gives me life and strength—I know not why.

Judge for thyself—

When the black winter comes my sisters weep

To see me weep my darling’s brief day-life;

And when the bright, long summer days return

They join my joy—because with Light comes Hope,

And Hope is Life—and they would have me live!

Judge for thyself—

At dawn of day I seek my dial alone,

To watch its daily waking into life;

At set of sun I come to it again,

To kiss “good night” upon its fading shade:

Then, with a prayer that I may lay to heart

The lesson of its silent eloquence,

I seek my bed. So speeds my little life.

If this be love, then have I loved indeed!

Judge for thyself. (Rises.)

Enter Melusine (a small hand-mirror hangs from her waist).

Mel. Vavir, the evening dews are falling fast;

The night air teems with damp. So, come, dear love,

Return at once with me.

Vav.Oh, Melusine,

I have a secret. (Aside to dial.) May I tell it?

Flor. (whispering).Yes.

Mel. A secret?

Vav.Ay, a wondrous secret, too!

My sun-dial hath ears to hear withal—

And eyes to see withal—and a sweet voice,

A gentle, tender voice to woo withal!

Mel. Oh, marvellous! Oh, fortunate Vavir!

To woo—and to be woo’d—and, being woo’d,

To keep her vow intact! I’d give the world

If my loved mirror were endowed with speech!

Flor. Have then thy wish, fair lady!

Mel.Why, who spake?

Vav. Thy mirror spake!

Mel.Oh, day of wonderment!

Who gave thee speech? Art thou enchanted too?

Flor. Ay, that in truth I am, as all must be

On whom those eyes are turned so lovingly!

Mel. A very polished mirror!

Flor.As for that,

We mirrors are as other gallants are—

Teeming with compliment to fair young maids—

But apt to be extremely curt and rude

With old and wrinkled faces. On the whole

We are good gallants as good gallants go!

Mel. And dost thou love me?

Flor.Love thee, gentle maid?

Have I not laughed with thee, and wept with thee,

And ever framed my face in sympathy

With all the changes of thy varying moods?

Hast thou e’er cast thine eyes upon my face

And found me light of heart when thou wast sad?

Or sad when thou wast light of heart?

Mel.No! no!

Most wonderful!

Flor.And yet not wonderful!

I am but one of many. This fair isle

Teems with poor prisoned souls! There’s not a tree—

There’s not a rock, a brook, a shrub, a stone,

But holds some captive spirit who awaits

The unsought love that is to set him free!

Mel. (to Vavir). We’ll keep this secret safely to ourselves.

If it should get abroad, this little isle

Will barely hold the maidens who will come,

Prepared to pass the spring-time of their lives

In setting free these captives! Come, Vavir,

And we will warn our sisters.

Vav.Fare thee well,

Beloved dial: I go to dream of thee,

Dream thou of me! God send thee Sun. Good night!

[Exeunt Vavir and Melusine.

Flor. Two maids, at once bewitching—and bewitched!

One loves a mirror—well, that’s not so strange,

Though she’ll grow angry with it ten years hence!

The other loves a dial—a cold stern fact

That surely marks the deadly flight of time!

Wonders will never cease! let none despair—

Old Chronos, enemy of womankind,

Has found a pretty sweetheart, after all!

Enter Lady Hilda, singing and playing on mandolin.

Far from sin—far from sorrow

Let me stay—let me stay!

From the fear of to-morrow

Far away—far away!

I am weary and shaken,

Let me stay—let me stay,

Till in death I awaken

Far away—far away!

[Towards the close of the song, she sinks on her knees as a ray of moonlight falls on her. Florian has watched her eagerly during the song, with every symptom of the profoundest admiration.

Flor. Oh, Heaven enlighten me—is this fair thing

A soul of Earth—a being, born of woman,

Conscious of sin and destined to decay?

Oh, Good and Ill, how share ye such a spoil!

Can this pure form, instinct with Heaven’s own light,

Clothed in the majesty of innocence,

Have aught in common with the vapid toy

We break and cast aside? Oh, sordid Earth,

Praise Heaven that leaves this angel yet unclaimed.

Oh, heart of mine—oh, wilful, wayward heart,

Bow down in homage—thou art caught and caged!

[During these lines Hilda, seated by the fountain, has been playing with its water, and kissing her wet hands.

Hil. The sun has set—the fierce hot thirsty sun

Who, like a greedy vampire as he is,

Drinks my love’s life-blood till it pines away,

And dwindles to a thread. The moon’s abroad—

She is not jealous of my fountain love;

She sheds her gentle light upon our tryst

And decks my love with diamonds of her own!

Flor. (aside). Poor, senseless fount! To have thy home in Heaven

And not to know it!

Hil.Shall I tell thee how

I came to give my poor bruised heart to thee?

Or art thou of those churlish lovers who

Can brook no love that is not born of them?

Why, then, I am unworthy in thine eyes,

For I have loved, as women love but once!

He was a prince—a brave, God-fearing knight—

The very pink and bloom of Chivalry,

Proud as a war-horse—fair as the dawn of day—

Staunch as a Woman—tender as a Man!

He knew not that I loved him. Who was I

That he should mark the flushing of my face,

Amid a thousand maids whose stricken hearts

Danced to their lips, as he, my prince, rode by?

One sullen winter day—dark as his doom,

He left his home to seek a distant land.

A weary while I wept—months passed away,

And yet no tidings came. Then tales were told

Of ships o’erwhelmed by boisterous wintry seas;

And rough men prayed, and maidens wept aloud,

For he was loved of all! Then came the news;

At first in shuddering whispers, one by one—

Then babbled by ten thousand clamorous tongues—

The cold fierce sea had robbed me of my love!

My star—my light—my life—my Florian!

Flor. (aside). Oh, senseless dullard—to have turned away

From Heaven’s own threshold at thine own free will!

Hil. I wept no more.

Tears are the balm of sorrow—not of woe.

I fled my home—

A gentle sister whose poor little life

Lives on the love I bear it, fled with me;

So, hand in hand, we wandered through the world

Till, in this haven of pure peace and rest,

We found safe sanctuary from our woe.

Flor. (aloud). Who would not die to be so mourned by thee?

[Hilda expresses alarm and intense surprise.

Fear nothing. I who speak am but a voice—

The murmur of the waters, shaped to words

By the all-potent alchemy of Love!

Hil. Oh, foolish maid—this is some madcap dream!

Flor. No dream indeed—or if it be, dream on!

Hil. Canst thou then hear the words I speak to thee?

Flor. Ay, that I can—and every word I hear

Adds fuel to my love!

Hil.Oh, wonderful!

Hast thou the power to love?

Flor.Indeed I have!

Hil. And is thy love akin to mine?

Flor.It is

So near akin that, as it comes of thine,

And lives on thine, so, without thine, it dies!

Hil. If my poor love

Hath called thine into life—so is my love

In duty bound to thine—its kith and kin!

Flor. But if the rumours of thy Florian’s death

Should prove, as rumours often prove, untrue?

If he should be alive—loving thee well—

Eager to tell his love to thee—what then?

Hil. (sadly). Thou jealous fount, what untold miracle

Would bear the tidings to this lonely isle?

Flor. Say that in wandering through the unknown world

Chance led Prince Florian to these shores, and he,

Flushed with the radiance of thy loveliness,

Stood manifest before thine eyes—what then?

Hil. Oh, Heaven, what then! Joy kills as sorrow kills.

I dare not think what then! Let it suffice

That I have given thee all—that I am thine

For ever and for aye!

Enter Mousta unperceived; he places himself so that the dial conceals him from Florian and Hilda.

Flor.“Ever and aye”

Are fragile flowers that fade before the breath

Of an old love long lost!

Hil.Oh, gentle voice,

Born of the falling water—have no fear—

In Heaven’s sight I pledge myself to thee—

What love is in me, that I give to thee—

What love thou hast to give, I take from thee—

Kiss thou my hands—(holding her hands for the water to

fall on)—henceforth we twain are one!

ACT II.

Table of Contents

Scene, same as Act I. Time, Sunrise.

Enter Mousta, cautiously.

Mous. I left him sleeping soundly in my hut,

He did not drink the wine—but still he sleeps.

(Producing veil.) I stole it from his pillow! Here’s a prize!

Poor devil that I am—whose only hope

Of meeting other men on equal terms,

Lies in his chance of keeping out of sight!

Ha! someone comes. I’ll hide thee carefully.

[Places it under a stone of dial.

Some day, maybe, thou’lt do as much for me!

Enter Florian, angrily.

Flor. So here you are: I’ve sought you everywhere—

Mous. Ay, I am here. You’re early from your bed—

Well, it’s no bed for such fine folk as you;

I’m very sorry, but ’twas all I had.

Flor. The bed was well enough. I have been robbed.

Mous. Ay, ay? And how was that?

Flor.There is a thief

Upon this isle.

Mous.It’s very possible.

When people come and go invisibly,

It’s hard to say who is or is not here.

What has the villain robbed? a woman’s heart?

Two women’s hearts? How many women’s hearts?

If there’s a thief here, it is you or I,

It comes to that. Now, what is it you’ve lost?

Flor. My Talisman.

Mous.Your Talisman? Oh ho!

Flor. I see no cause for jest.

Mous.You don’t? Observe—

A prince, or someone who so styles himself,

With power to make himself invisible,

Employs that power to gain admission to

An isle where certain maidens dwell—when there

His Talisman is stolen and he stands

Revealed before their eyes—the helpless butt

Of all their ridicule, with naught to say

But “Ladies, pray forgive me—I had thought

To enter unobserved—to wander here

And watch your movements—also unobserved;

And when grown weary of this novel sport

To take my leave of you—still unobserved,

But as I’ve failed, so pray you pardon me.”

And off he goes, his tail between his legs,

Like a well-beaten hound!

Flor. (seizing him).Misshapen imp,

Have you so little care for such dog-life

As warms your twisted carcase, that you dare

To bandy jests with me?

Mous.Release me, sir!

Had I your Talisman, do you suppose

I should be here before your eyes? No, no—

Whoever has the veil is using it.

There are but six of us, besides myself.

If one of those is missing, why, be sure

That one hath taken it. I’ll go and see.

[Exit Mousta.

Flor. The imp is right, and yet the Talisman

Was safe with me last night. But, who comes here!

Confusion! ’tis Vavir. I shall be seen!

Where can I hide myself?

Enter Vavir; she starts in intense alarm on seeing Florian.

Vav.Kind Heaven protect me!

Who art thou, and what dost thou on this isle?

Flor. Fair maiden, have no fear. I am a knight,

Sworn on the sacred code of Chivalry,

To hold all womankind in reverence.

Listen, and I will tell thee all—

Vav. (who has recognized his voice, kneels as in adoration.)

No need!

Thy voice hath told me all! I know thee now!

Oh, foolish heart, be still, for all is well—

He will not harm thee; this is he whose words,

Through the still watches of the long, long night,

Rang like a mighty clarion in mine ears,

“Vavir, I love thee with my whole, whole heart!”

Thou art the messenger of hope and life,

For Heaven hath not bestowed this joy on me

To take me from it. Yes, I am to live!

Flor. (raising her). Why, Heaven forgive me, maiden—can it be

That thou hast loved this dial of thine with love

Akin to that which women bear to men?

Vav. Ay, that I have, as I’ve a soul to save!

Why, I have sat for hours and clung to it,

Until I half believed I felt a heart

Beating within its frame—and as I clung

Methought I drew both warmth and life from it!

I wondered then that such a thing could be—

Oh, my dear love, I do not wonder now! (Embracing him.)

Flor. (aside). God help thee, gentle maid! I little thought

My heedless words, conceived in arrant jest,

Chimed in so aptly with thy fantasies!

(Aloud.) Be not deceived;

I am a mortal like thyself, in all

Except thine innocence!—A sinning man,

Unworthy of thy love. Be not deceived.

Vav. I know thee, and I love thee as thou art—

Not as the Spirit of my nightly dreams,

But as thou art—a man of Life and Death.

Flor. Hast thou then seen a Spirit in thy dreams?

Vav. I have—the Spirit of the Sun-dial—

A godlike form of fearful excellence,

Clad, like the Sun, in golden panoply—

His head surmounted with a diadem

That shed eternal rays—and, in his hand,

A mighty javelin of gold and fire.

So pictured I the Sun’s Ambassador—

A god to worship—not a man to love! (Leaning on his breast.)

I had not guessed at half my happiness!

Flor. (aside). Now, by my knighthood, I would give ten years—

To find some way to break the truth to her!

Vav. Time was when I was very glad to die;

I did not fear what others seem to fear.

I have heard say that brave, stout-hearted men,

Whose reckless valour has withstood the test

Of many a battle-plain, will quail and blanch

Brought face to face with unexpected death.

I am a poor weak girl, whose fluttering heart

Quakes at the rustle of a leaf, and yet

I did not fear to die—I prayed to die!

But now thou hast so bound me to the earth,

Thou, oh my first, my last, my only love,

I dare not think of death! Oh, let me live,

My life is in thine hands—Oh, let me live!

Flor. Yes, thou shalt live, Vavir, so have no fear.

Vav. Thou wilt not leave me?

Flor.Only for a while;

I will return to thee.

Vav.So, hand in hand

We shall grow old, and die, still hand in hand?

Flor. Yes, ever hand in hand.

Vav.Oh, gentle Heaven,

I have more happiness than I can bear!

[Exit Vavir.

Flor. Poor soul, what shall I say? To tell her now

Would be to kill her!

[Pauses irresolute, then exit.

Enter Mousta, watching them.

Mous. Oh, ho! young knight! I’m sorry for Vavir!

Well, it concerns me not: the girl is fair;

And traps are set for her because she’s fair,

And she’ll fall into them because she’s fair.

Good looks

Should pay some penalty—that’s only fair.

Better be such as I am, after all;

No one sets traps for me. Ha! who comes here?

The Lady Hilda, parting from Vavir—

Come forth, my Talisman, the time has come

To test thy power.

[Takes veil from behind stone as Hilda enters hurriedly. He winds it about his head.

Hil.Oh, Spirit of the Well,

I’ve wondrous news! The poor enchanted soul,

Till now entombed within the sun-dial,

Hath taken human form!

Oh, gentle spirit, grant my trembling prayer,

If thou hast power to quit thy silver stream

And stand in human form before mine eyes,

Then by my long and faithful love, I pray

That thou wilt suffer me to see thy face!

[Mousta hobbles across behind the fountain, and replies as Florian.

Mous. Yes, I can take such form, but press me not——

Hil. And wherefore not?

Mous.I dare not show myself

Lest all thy love should fade?

Hil.Ah, have no fear,

My love runs with my life.

Mous.So women say,

Who live but once, yet love a dozen times!

Hil. I am not such as they!

Mous.I know it well—

Hil. Then let me see thy face—but once—but once—

Then thou shalt hie thee to thy well again

For ever if thou wilt!

Mous.That may not be—

Once seen in human form I must remain

A man—with more than man’s infirmities.

I am no shapely spirit framed to catch

A woman’s fancy—I am roughly hewn—

Somewhat uncouth—misshapen, some might say—

Dost thou not fear to look on me?

Hil.No, no.

Take thou thy form, whate’er that form may be!

Mous. But stay—

Thou hast a serving man—a crumpled wretch—

One-eyed and lame—but passing honest—say

That I am such a twisted thing as he?

What then?

Hil. (tenderly). Oh, Spirit of the Well, fear not,

My love is not a thing of yesterday;

Nor does it spring from thought of face and form.

I love thee for thy boundless charity,

That seeks no recompense—doing good works

In modest silence from the very love

Of doing good—bestowing life and strength

On high and low, on rich and poor alike;

Embracing in thy vast philosophy,

All creeds, all nations, and all ranks of men!

Holding thyself to be no higher than

The meanest wretch who claims thy charity,

Yet holding none to be of such account

As to deserve thine homage. Just to all,

Lovely in all thy modest deeds of good,

Excelling type of godliest charity,

Show thyself in whatever form thou wilt,

Oh, Spirit of the Well,

And I perforce must love thee!

Mous.Be it so!

Thou shalt behold me as I am. But first,

Ere I do that which cannot be undone,

Give me a solemn token that shall serve

As evidence of troth twixt thee and me.

Hil. Dost thou still doubt me then?

Mous.I doubt myself—

I doubt my rugged form, my rough-hewn face,

My crumpled limbs!—See, lady, I exchange

My immortality for Life and Death,

My demi-godhead for the state of Man—

Man, undersized and crippled, and accurst!

All this I do for thee—Let me be sure

That when I’ve done all this, thou wilt not cry,

“Away, distorted thing,

My love is not for such a one as thou!”

Hil. Oh, doubting Spirit, take this sacred ring.

It is a holy relic—and a vow

Spoken thereon binds her who utters it

Through life to death. Upon this sacred stone,

I do repeat my vow of yesternight!

I am thy bride! (Throws ring into the fountain.)

Mous. (taking the ring out of the fountain). Then, lady, have thy will!

But, bear in mind that modest virtue oft

Will clothe herself in most unlikely garb—

Mistrust all prejudice—well-favoured hearts

May underlie ill-favoured heads. We spurn

The dirt beneath our feet—but never less

We grovel in such dirt for diamonds,

And sometimes find them there! A comely face

Is but the food of Time—a kindly heart

Time touches but to soften—think of this,

And in thy breast some pity may be found,

For the poor wretch to whom thy troth is given!

[Mousta reveals himself. Hilda, whose fears have been gradually aroused during this speech, recoils in horror and amazement at seeing him.

Hil. Mousta! Oh, Heaven, what have I said and done!

Was thine the voice that spake?

Mous. (abashed).My lady, yes!

Hil. Oh, cruel, cruel!

Mous.Lady, pardon me.

I knew not what I did!

Hil.Oh, wretched man!

I pardon thee—thou dost not, canst not know

How deep a wound thine idle words have riven!

Oh, heart! my broken heart! (Sinks on to ground by dial.)

My Mousta, shame upon thee for this jest—

This heartless jest—this scurril mockery!

When thou wast sick to death I tended thee,

Through weary days, and weary, weary nights,

And bathed thy fevered brow, and prayed with thee,

And soothed thy pain with such poor minstrelsy

As I am mistress of—I sang to thee,

And brought thee pleasant books to help thee speed

The lagging hours of thy recovery.

Has my heart seemed to thee so stony hard

That it could bear this deadly blow unbruised?

Oh, Mousta, shame upon thee for this jest!

Mous. Jest, Lady Hilda? Nay, I did not jest!

Why, look at me!

Hil. (gazing at him). Oh, Mousta! Can it be

That thou hast dared—No, no, impossible,——

It is too terrible!

Mous.Ay, I have dared!

I studied necromancy—and I learnt

To weave a mighty engine for myself—

A web that gives invisibility. (Producing veil.)

Shrouded in this, I woo’d thee yesternight!

Oh, I can woo—At least, I’ve shown thee that!

A voice rang music in thine ears—’twas mine!

Words thrilled thee to the core—I spake those words!

Love filled thy very soul—’twas I that woo’d!

My very self, stripped of the hideous mask

In which my soul stands shrouded from the world.

I’ll woo like that all day! But shut thine eyes,

Or turn thine head away, and I shall make

As fair a husband as the best of them!

Hil. Oh, horrible! Go—get thee hence, away—

Take money—what thou wilt—but get thee hence!

Oh, madman! madman!

Mous.Why, what could I do?

Should I have reasoned with myself, and said,

“Mousta, when thou wast sick and like to die,

The Lady Hilda came to thy bedside,

And sat, and nursed thee day by day—’twas nothing!

When writhing at thy very worst, her tears

Fell on thy face like rain,—a woman’s trick!

When baffled Death was tugging at thy throat,

Her gentle prayers rose to the gate of Heaven,

Mingled with the insensate blasphemies

Of thy delirium—account it naught!

Go to thy labour—get thy spade and dig,

And when a foolish sob of gratitude

Rises unbidden to thy choking throat”

(They sometimes will—one can’t be sure of them),

“Swear a big oath and whistle it away,

Lest it take root and blossom into love!”

Was this my duty, think ye? No, no, no,

My body’s twisted, lady, not my heart.

Hil. (with forced calmness). But say that, bound in duty to the troth

That thou hast wrung from me, I taught myself

I will not say to love—to bear with thee—

How could I hope to live at peace with one

Armed with so terrible a Talisman?

A Talisman that vests in him the power,

To come to me and go from me, unseen,

And play the truant at his own free will?

Thou askest more than womankind can grant.

Mous. (trembling with excitement).

Oh, lady, lady, give me but thy love,

And in that gift will lie the surest proof

That I will not misuse my Talisman!

Hil. It may be so—but Time’s an alchymist,

Who changes gold to dross. Some day, may be,

This love of thine will sicken, wane, and die.

How could I bear this widowhood of soul,

Knowing that thou hast power to come and go,

Unseen?

Mous. (overjoyed). Be sure I’ll neither come nor go:

My place is at thy side. Such love as thine

Would surely chain the proudest prince on earth,

And how much more so poor a wretch as I!

Hil. I’ll trust thee not.

Doubt would lie heavy at my heart, not less

Because I had no reason for that doubt.

Give me thy Talisman.

Mous.Nay, bear with me.

Hil. Give me thy Talisman.

Mous.Well, well, ’tis thine.

But bear in mind, the troth that thou hast pledged

Upon this ring can never be recalled.

Hil. I know it well.

I’ll keep my troth. Give me thy Talisman.

Mous. Lady, ’tis thine. See how I trust in thee.

Do with it as thou wilt—rend it apart,

And cast it to the winds—its work is done! (giving it to her)

Behold me now unarmed.

Hil. (changing her manner). Unarmed be thou

As all should be who use a deadly power

To such foul traitorous ends! I am thy bride—

I am thy bride! Make thou the very most

Of such poor comfort as those words may hold.

Proclaim thy victory—say to thyself,

“She is my bride—I wrung an oath from her,

With miserable lies—she is my bride!

She saved my wretched life, and in return

I poison hers—but still she is my bride.

She shudders at my all-polluting touch—

She loathes my mean and miserable soul:

What matters it, so that she be my bride?”

Oh, purblind fool—thy plot so subtly laid

Is laid too subtly—and the cunning snare

That trapped thy bird is laid too cunningly;

For as it made me thy poor prisoner,

So shall it hold me from thy deadly grasp

For ever and for ever! Raise thine head,

And look upon thy bride for once and all,

For by the Heaven above, the eye of man

Shall never rest upon my face again!

[She covers her face with veil, and exit.

Mous. (furiously). Fiends tear your throat to rags!—No, no, I rave——

Hilda—come back to me—I’ll be thy slave,

Thy willing slave once more! I did but jest:

My jest is dead and gone—come back to me!

I will release thee from thy plighted troth:

I love thee—love thee—love thee! Oh, come back,

And save my soul and body! ’Twas a jest—

An idle jest. I am thy drudging slave,

No more than that! I never thought of love—

’Twas but a jest—’twas idly done, but well—

Oh, Lady Hilda—oh, come back to me!

Enter Florian.

Flor. What is this outcry?

Mous.It concerns you not.

Flor. Where is the Lady Hilda?

Mous.Who shall say?

Flor. Why, thou shalt say. As there’s a heaven above

I’ll wring a civil answer from thy lips.

Mous. Take any answer that may fit your mood,

And leave me to myself. I’m not in cue

For more cross-questioning.

Flor.Thine impish tongue

Is set awry to-day.

Mous. (savagely). It is awry.

Take care! But stay; when you were seeking for

Your Talisman, you bade me ascertain,

If any one were missing. Very well,

The Lady Hilda’s missing.

Flor.Foolish ape,

Dost thou infer—

Mous.I draw no inference.

I state the figures—add them for thyself.

Enter Hilda, still veiled; she gazes in amazement at Florian.

Hil. (aside). Merciful Heaven, restore me if I rave—

His form, his face, his voice!

Flor. (to Mousta).Base liar, know

That we are plighted lovers, she and I—

She gave her heart to me but yesternight;

Why should she hide herself from me to-day?

Mous. Perhaps excess of joy hath driven her mad!

Flor. I’ll not believe thy tale. The maid is here,

And can and shall be found!

Mous.Well, go and search.

And if thou findest her, why, I’m a liar—

Reward me as thou wilt!

Flor.A fit reward

Will be a yard of steel between thy ribs,

And thou shalt have it!

Mous.Thank you kindly, sir!

[Exit Mousta; Florian sits dejectedly by fountain.

Hil. ’Twas he that spake to me! How can I doubt?

Are there two such as he? Oh, Heaven, is this

The senseless herald of a mind unstrung?

Let me be sure.

He spake of me, who long had mourned him dead—

He told how, shrouded from my gaze last night,

He gave his love to me. Oh, gentle Heaven,

Give me more strength to bear this weight of joy!

[She advances to reveal herself, when Vavir enters, and sits lovingly at Florian’s feet. Hilda, horrified, veils herself again.

Vav. At last I’ve found thee, Florian—far and near

I’ve sought thee, for I’m very strong to-day.

Why, what a wise physician is this Love!

For see—my eyes are bright—my face is flushed—

Flushed with the glow of health. This new-born love

Gives me a new-born strength. Oh, Florian,

Place thine arms round me—let me rest on thee;

I draw my life from thee—my heart—my heart!

Flor. (aside.) Alas, poor maiden—I must tell thee all,

May Heaven help me break the truth to thee!

(Aloud.) Dear little lady, yield not up thine heart

Too readily. The world is set with traps

And hidden pitfalls. Keep thy gentle heart

For one who, by his pure and godly life,

Hath given thee proof of his right worthiness.

Vav. (surprised). Why speakest thou in parable? Behold,

Have I not loved thee for a long, long year?

Flor. What proof hast thou that I indeed am he

Whom thou hast loved so long?

Vav.I have thy word,

And had I not thy word, I have my heart

To tell me whom to seek and whom to shun.

Flor. Mistrust that little heart. It is not framed

To guide thee of itself. Like virgin gold

Untainted by alloy, it is too pure

For this rough-ready world of work-a-day!

I have a tale to tell. There was a knight

Who, as he journeyed, met a gentle maid,

With whom he, light of heart and light of tongue,

Conversed in playful strain. The maid was fair,

And he, in jest, spake loving words to her,