Cupid and Psyche
Page 12
(Separately, PERSEPHONE enters, bearing a lantern. She approaches PSYCHE.)
PSYCHE.
What fresh torment’s this? Who’s there?
(PERSEPHONE steps forward to the light.)
PSYCHE.
I know your visage well. Has been my friend
And confidant on Earth and then in Heaven.
The Bride of Hell: my mirror and my opposite.
I name you, Persephone, the Queen
And comforter of all the damned. But say!
Where is my Father?
PERSEPHONE.
Wise Thanos slipped my grasp. He is not here.
PSYCHE.
Not here? Then show me where he’s gone!
PERSEPHONE.
You cannot follow him. And I have need of you elsewhere.
PSYCHE.
Elsewhere?
(The earth shakes.)
PERSEPHONE.
Your Husband comes, as Bodies always yearn
To claim their Souls. That shall not be.
“Death shall conquer Love;” and all things come to me.
(The earth shakes again.)
PERSEPHONE.
Now, Justice, be my guide. I call you, Coward!
Come forth now, Beast! Thou wanton Passion—Come!
(He doesn’t.)
PERSEPHONE.
He cannot be far off. What, Eros! Now I name thee!
(The earth rumbles; the lights dim. No CUPID comes.)
PERSEPHONE.
He cannot help but hear me. Come Lust, approach!
Thou blind-boy, ope thine eyes, or I shall pluck them
From thy fallen bride, as once I tore
The flowers—roots and bulbs—the day thou
Toppled me. Still will not come? I’ll conjure thee:
By the three Fates’ bloody shears, and aye!
The severed tongue of Orpheus; by All
The wanton fools whose pricks you’ve brought to harms,
By every mewling slut with drooping charms,
By all who, lonely, whimpered out your name,
And all those who greet each morning weighed with shame—
Thou Lust! Thou Want, thou Passion, Ache, and Need!
By all thy names, I call thee!
(Her voice rings out in silence.)
PERSEPHONE.
Alone? Still of all the gods abandoned here?
I’ll tear your Soul to shreds, most wicked boy!
O, answer me!
PSYCHE.
He will not come.
PERSEPHONE.
O, no?
Well, I keep the oaths I swear. Name me, girl.
PSYCHE.
Death, and Judgment’s End.
PERSEPHONE.
No, lady. I’m Despair.
Act V, Scene 2
(Hades’ Gate. The ghosts of DAREIA and LIVIA stir from where they lie on the ground. The earth quakes. As the sisters speak or sing, they overlap each other’s voices.)
LIVIA.
(Singing.) A hop and a skip
To my earthly bed
Sorrow will be calling…
DAREIA.
I prithee, sister, cease your singing.
LIVIA.
(Singing.) For all the gods
Will soon be dead
And all the angels falling—
DAREIA.
I prithee, Livia, sto—
(The earth quakes again, throwing the two women apart from each other. A bright light scorches through Hades’ Gate, blinding the women who throw their arms against it. The sound of metal bent and broken. And when the light dwindles, there stands CUPID, silhouetted, powerful. Perhaps the edges of his invisible wings are briefly seen, like a thunderclap.)
LIVIA.
You.
(A final sear of light, and CUPID himself stumbles forward—bloodied, bruised, wingless, weak. His strength fails him and he falls to the ground, bowing before the two women.)
DAREIA.
You.
CUPID.
I come before you, supplicant—
DAREIA.
You.
LIVIA.
You….
DAREIA.
You.
(DAREIA strikes CUPID across the face…and then immediately cowers away, waiting for his retaliation.)
(A moment passes. CUPID’S face turned from us; something of the Beast still in him. Until with determined patience:)
CUPID.
I come before you, supplicant…
LIVIA.
(Overlapping.) Why are you here?
DAREIA.
(Overlapping.) What do you want? Well?
CUPID.
I’m—I lost her.
(The women burst out into laughter.)
DAREIA.
Good.
CUPID.
Good?
DARIEA.
Good.
CUPID.
Please…
LIVIA.
I know where she has gone.
CUPID.
Tell me.
DAREIA.
No. We’ll have no words with you, monster-maker.
CUPID.
Monster-maker…?
DAREIA.
Aye.
LIVIA.
She passed us by—
CUPID.
Show me.
DAREIA.
No.
LIVIA.
And if I do, what should I get?
CUPID.
I have naught to give you but what I lost;
And even that was never truly mine.
I can give you nothing, for I am Nothing:
A fancy; a feeling; a thing that promptly fades.
Still, I prithee stay, and take what pleases you.
Command a god, and I’ll obey!
DAREIA.
Then bleed.
CUPID.
And so I do.
DAREIA.
Aye. Bleed, monster. Bleed more.
Bleed until you overflow the flaming Styx,
Bleed until you drown the barren earth with Love—
O gods! Bleed! Bleed, thou Monster-Master-Prince!
Bleed, bleed I beg thee, bleed—That I may drink
Thy blood and remember—O! Why art thou here?
Why must thou, Passion, descend among the dead?
Hadst thou stayed in Heaven, I might have Hope
That somewhere in all this wretched world there lived
One happy; one hopeful; one untouched by Death…
O, faith! Why art thou here?
There’s naught I want, but what you so rudely took.
Then leave me, Love. You left me once before.
LIVIA.
While you never gave me anything, except one bad eye, and one bad ear; one tooth that died before I did; I daresay one bad nostril! What creature could love me? There’s no one, none. I am no Psyche: I know that now. There’s none who’ll journey here to Hell for me. But if you can love me—
CUPID.
What love is left me is all with her—!
Believe me, O my sisters, if I could love…
LIVIA.
Love you Psyche? Why then, you may love me!
For Love is not Love, if only one loved be.
See here, in my sister’s face, Psyche’s eyes,
Her cheeks, her frown! And here another copy,
And here (Touching DAREIA’S womb), here was Psyche, too.
Although she has passed on to better hands than ours.
Bleed not. Leave not. We have waited for you to see us.
Stay.
(CUPID casts about for something to comfort the two women, when his eye lights on the half-hidden figure of CHRYSOS, huddled in the shadows, singing to himself.)
CHRYSOS.
(Singing) And all the angels fall…
(Seeing CUPID.) You?
(CUPID does not answer him, but lifts CHRYSOS by the hand, and guides him towards DAREIA.)
CHRY
SOS.
(Seeing his Wife.) O. I remember you.
(DAREIA embraces her Husband.)
LIVIA.
And me? There’s one who stands half in the Gate to Hell, who will not live nor die, whose best eye is turned towards the dust of fallen Earth, while his blind eye cannot see I wait in Hell. Will you bring a Husband to me?
CUPID.
Bring to you a Cyclops? You are worth more than that.
LIVIA.
No more. See, see, how they sink upon the ground, like children sleeping beneath the first-made star! Yet I, hideous even in this horrid Hell, am courted by no Minotaur, no ghoul, no ghost, no gargoyle looks on me with love! O, I should tear myself to tatters and be done—!
(CUPID catches LIVIA in his arms.)
LIVIA.
Nay, let me go and die in truth. There’s none embraces me. None who loves me—none, none, none….
(LIVIA bursts into tears, as CUPID continues to hold her, wrapping the girl’s own arms about herself, and finally kissing her on the brow.)
CUPID.
None but yourself. Who is, I think, quite lovely, and worth a little love.
(Shuddering, LIVIA sinks to her knees, even as ADONIS rushes on.)
CUPID.
Then I’ll get up—aye, me! I cannot stand.
O Wife, await! I have no practice dying.
Who comes this way?
ADONIS.
(Entering.) My Lord?
CUPID.
Adonis. Friend! Confessor, priest, and slave.
What, still in chains? You shackled them yourself.
ADONIS.
I know them best. My Love, what have they done?
CUPID.
Not what they’ve done, but what I’ve done to them.
There’s no deception here, beyond the veil,
Which I have long avoided for that sake.
This is your Love, Adonis. Is he not fair?
ADONIS.
He is. Your Bride, my Lord…
CUPID.
Aye, tell me, quick.
ADONIS.
Remains in Hades’ grasp. Drunk Lethe, and forgot you.
CUPID.
O. My mother?
ADONIS.
Stands without the Gate, and will not enter in.
CUPID.
And all the world—
ADONIS.
Is dead because of you.
CUPID.
All this is just.
(CUPID tries to stand, but falls.)
ADONIS.
My Lord! You’re hurt.
CUPID.
Aye, gravely hurt, it’s true.
But I’ll tell you a secret: the wounds are old,
Save this. This wound I cannot part with, here:
Where Psyche stole my heart. It’s safe within her, now.
And she, Wise woman!, never traded hers for mine.
So she is whole. And safe. If she forgets,
It is a grace! For she should not remember me.
But you, old friend, who knows me even now,
You whom I have wronged—for that you loved me, O!
What crime is that? No crime. Then pardon me.
Or if you will not pardon, bless me then.
And let us learn together how to chastely love.
ADONIS.
My lord—I cannot do it. But yet, I’ll be your servant here. Stand in the gate to ward those souls from Hell, and light the way to Heaven. And if I find your Bride…I’ll beg of her forgiveness.
PERSEPHONE.
(Entering.) Adonis, rise. Now, cousin, thou art mine.
The first of all the gods to fall from grace.
CUPID.
You fell once, too.
PERSEPHONE.
Say, rather, pushed.
CUPID.
And brought to life again. Why stay you here,
Persephone? Why haunt this empty place,
When your mother ransomed you from Hell,
Stormed Olympus with Winter’s tearful wrath—
Yet here you stay. No husband holds you hostage,
But yourself. Why then, look up! The Spring
Is nearly here. The sparrow’s made his home
In your cathedral’s window; the marble steps
Are cracked with Life: lilies in first bloom
Teem the air with fresh intoxication!
The world awaits your footsteps, to christen you
With daisy chains, and remind you what you are.
PERSEPHONE.
What’s that?
CUPID.
I name thee, Mercy.
PERSEPHONE.
My name’s Despair.
CUPID.
Is now. But was not always so.
I call thee, Mercy, by thy proper name.
PERSEPHONE.
(Overlapping.) Speak not of that to me!
Who have been buried all my life, aye, buried
Love, by you! There is no Mercy now.
No Hope on Earth, since Love abandoned it.
CUPID.
Then is there Hope in Hell?
PERSEPHONE.
No, cousin, none. Then here my just decree:
Live here—alone. Unpardoned and unpardonable.
By all your Hopes attended and unanswered.
Farewell, Forgotten one. Adonis?
(ADONIS rises, the chains slipping off him as he stands.)
ADONIS.
Farewell, Dark Lady. Farewell—not yet forgiven.
(PERSEPHONE and ADONIS exeunt severally, as the cold light fades, trapping CUPID within its shrinking sphere.)
CUPID.
Alone, then. Aye, and blind. By all my loves
Abandoned. A weary thought—I will not think it.
But return, my Thought, to me! My memory, too.
My mother’s name was Kind, myself her Son,
We had no fear of Death, there was no Hell…
The stars are blinking out. Orion’s buckle—
Gone. All the world in empty blackness lies.
There should be tortures here—Persephone!
Alone.
A clever jail, with none to look on Love.
Would Psyche weep to know her Husband’s dead?
Alone. Ay—she! Alone! Or with my mother.
She’d be happier alone. Adonis!
Psyche?
Mother?
Gone, gone, gone.
(CUPID lies down with his back towards us.)
(Time passes with the dripping of stalactites.)
(Light dims, as all things end.)
(The world returns to silence.)
(Until a little light, not much more than a candle, quivers, grows brighter as we first hear, then see—)
PSYCHE.
(Running on with the lantern.) Husband! Love! I found my way to Earth, but it’s too cold for me. Your mother stands outside the Gate, forever weeping. I swear, she’s made of tears. Where are you, Love? This place is cold as well. Both Heaven and Earth are empty, save myself and who I bear. Where are you, Husband? Can you hear me? This is where I saw him when I fell, in the churchyard of the gods. But see, the walls are crumbling. How long have I been gone? Husband!—O!
(She stumbles across CUPID’S body.)
PSYCHE.
I pray you, pardon me. I didn’t see you there.
Need you two coins? I have some in my pocket.
CUPID.
Psyche?
PSYCHE.
Do you know me, sir?
CUPID.
I thought I heard one speak of you. It seemed a dream.
PSYCHE.
Who dreamed of me?
CUPID.
One—who came into this world and quickly died.
PSYCHE.
Perished?
CUPID.
If he ever had lived.
PSYCHE.
But was he fair?
CUPID.
O no, he was most foul.
PSYCHE.
The
n he could not dream of me. For my love’s fair.
Why do you weep? What is your story, Soul?
CUPID.
Aye “Soul,” indeed! A body, but no Soul. A body that has done wrong.
PSYCHE.
There’s none who’ve done no ill. Did you eat your children?
CUPID.
No.
PSYCHE.
Then you may be forgiven.
CUPID.
Forgiven, aye! There’s a word to use in Hell.
I’d ask you, Dream, to leave me. But I fear to wake
And find you gone. Do you not know me, Psyche?
PSYCHE.
I look on you, and think there should be something,
But either I forgot, or else we never met.
I’m sorry for you, Soul. But fare you well.
I hope your heart is eased.
CUPID.
It was.
PSYCHE.
That’s well.
CUPID.
One moment!…Miss. Who—whom do you seek?