The Infernal Machine and Other Plays

by Jean Cocteau

  CHRISTINE. He has no vocation and you know it. He would bring nothing but trouble to the monks.

  CARDINAL. Trouble? He would have no time. The rule is too strict for that.

  CHRISTINE. That’s what I wanted to know. Hans will not sign.

  CARDINAL. You promised me to persuade him.

  CHRISTINE. I did not know that this meant a complete break with everything.

  CARDINAL. What do you mean by “with everything”?

  CHRISTINE. By “everything ” I mean that freedom which he has made his rule.

  CARDINAL. Should you not rather say that you consider that he is no longer free.

  CHRISTINE. Your Eminence!

  CARDINAL. You forget that he has no choice and that our institution is the only one which will save him from a dreadful end.

  DUKE. You have no right to influence him, Christine. You are already answerable for his present dilemma. Duty demands that you should even try what seems impossible to get him out of it.

  LOTHAR. Christine has her reasons and I have mine. But her attitude is the right one. We are not influencing Hans. If he refuses to sign, no one in the world will make him change his mind.

  CARDINAL. I know neither your reasons nor your sister’s. But I can guess that your sister’s are of a kind which may well give her pause when a frightful death closes in upon a man who is offered a way of escape.

  CHRISTINE. Your way out leads to another kind of death. Hans would be dead.

  CARDINAL, in a low, terrible voice. To you!

  HANS. Your Eminence, I would be most grateful if you would put an end to this discussion. It is painful to me and it implicates people whom I love and admire and who have nothing to do with my refusal.

  DUKE. My boy. My dear boy! The Cardinal is offering to save your life.

  HANS. Let the Cardinal remember: did I not say to Your Eminence that my true victory lay in failure?

  CARDINAL. Those were paradoxes.

  HANS. They were not mere paradoxes. Just as in my eyes this masquerade is no masquerade. And because it has never been a mere masquerade it must rise to the level of tragedy and not fall short of it. Should I become a monk, my lord, that would indeed be a masquerade in which I should change from one fancy dress to another.

  LOTHAR. That is why I love him!

  DUKE. When one loves anyone, Lothar, surely one saves him.

  LOTHAR. Not always.

  He goes to the window, separating himself from the others, and looks out.

  CARDINAL, to Hans. You definitely refuse to sign this?

  HANS. Yes, Your Eminence.

  CARDINAL. A pity. My only consolation is that the Church offered to help you and will not be guilty of your death.

  HANS. Did you not say that our mind often refused to obey the dictates of our conscience. And did I not answer that I tried to overcome this bad habit. I should like to obey you, Your Eminence. But an order is an order and my conscience tells me to disobey.

  LOTHAR, looking out of the window and without turning his head. You’ve still got fifteen archers and a captain.

  CARDINAL. What can fifteen archers and a captain do to quell a riot?

  DUKE. Lothar’s right. Fifteen archers can keep the mob in check just long enough for a man to skirt the walls and cross the woods and so get over the frontier. Once in Switzerland he would be safe.

  CARDINAL, to Hans. Are you sure of your men?

  HANS. Sure

  CARDINAL. You were sure. Let us try an experiment.

  HANS. What experiment?

  CARDINAL. Tell them to arrest me.

  DUKE. Arrest Your Eminence?

  CARDINAL. It is an experiment to which I am willing to lend myself and you will all play your parts.

  HANS, opening the door at the back of the stage. Karl!

  Karl appears.

  Call six of my men.

  Six men enter. To the Cardinal.

  Your Eminence, I am sorry that my safety obliges me to refrain from showing you the respect due to you.

  To Karl.

  Arrest this Priest.

  No one moves.

  CARDINAL. Arrest me, gentlemen. HANS. Arrest this Priest. That is an order. No one moves.

  A conclusive experiment … You are dismissed, or rather you will be in a few minutes’ time. Fall in outside the door.

  The archers go out. The door closes.

  CARDINAL. The king is dead, long live the king. Only one force could now arrest me. It is the force of inertia very understandable in the case of men who see time shortening between the joy of being hangmen and the fear of being hanged.

  Enter the Bishop, Provost Marshal and Syndic by door at back of stage.

  DUKE. Well, gentlemen, and what is your news?

  BISHOP. The Cathedral is occupied by sixty men-at-arms.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. Not mine.

  To Syndic.

  They must be yours.

  SYNDIC. I wanted to sober them down. But no one listens to me any longer. They all look at me askance.

  DUKE. Is flight out of the question?

  PROVOST MARSHAL. More than a hundred and fifty young men are stationed in the streets leading to the open roads. And I could not have failed to call the garrison without rousing suspicion.

  HANS. Admit, Provost Marshal, that you did not try very hard.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. YOU are incredible! Look out of the window for yourself. I have placed a picket between the stake and the Cathedral and yet the Square is no longer empty. It seems as if they are coming silently up through holes in the ground. You’d think that they are afraid that if they utter a word they will not hear the clocks or that they will stop the jack o’ the clock from striking. Even a child is dragging a branch bigger than itself to add to the pile. And a one-legged man might throw on his crutch.

  HANS, by the window. It’s vile!

  He turns around violently.

  It’s filthy. Even the manhunt was not so bad. There was a commotion, splashing about, screaming, and barking. I was swimming like a beast. I became a beast. There was something so mad about it that fear changed to madness and was no longer fear but a monstrous music of wild trumpetings and laughter and pounding hearts, and singing ears and horses and water frothing and foaming. There were water weeds clinging to my legs and wet leaves stuck over my eyes. I clung to roots. Hatred sounded a fanfare. But here it is the silence of dull hatred. They are lying in wait for the chance to let go their secret blood lust. They are going back to what they were. They are cowardly, that’s why they are silent. They are saving themselves up for the kill. Even the little wooden men who wait with their bronze hammers to strike the hour are more human than they are. I shall not reach my funeral pyre alive. They will beat me and strangle me and drag me along — but what they throw into the flame will be my carcass.

  Crying out.

  There must be something to do. You must find something. I won’t have such a filthy death. I won’t have it.

  CARDINAL. A little ink would save a lot of blood.

  CHRISTINE, dragging Hans forward. Hans, I must have been mad. Sign. You must sign. I beg you to sign.

  HANS. They are watching us. Don’t give them the pleasure of a scene.

  DUKE. There are only a few minutes left, Hans, I solemnly beg of you to reconsider.

  CARDINAL, putting his hand into his robes. A little ink …

  LOTHAR. Hans, don’t listen to them!

  He leaves the window, goes straight through the groups of people, and goes out of the door at the back of the stage, banging it to.

  Christine takes Lothar’s place at the window.

  CHRISTINE. The grizzly beasts!

  PROVOST MARSHAL. They’re coming from all sides. The square is swarming.

  SYNDIC. Look, my lord Duke. All faces are turned to your balcony.

  He makes a gesture as if he would open the window.

  BISHOP. Toward us!

  DUKE. Do not open the window.

  HANS. It is for me to open it. I st
ill belong to myself; I am still in my own house. I shall speak to the people.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. YOU make me think of one of our heretics. On the top of the stake, he cried out, “My people,” and the executioner said to him, “You’ll have a chance to speak when it’s over.”

  HANS. I shall cry out to this town what it deserves to hear.

  SYNDIC. Be careful that he does not throw himself from the balcony.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. I don’t advise you to throw yourself from the balcony. It is not very high and hatred would receive you with open arms.

  HANS. I will speak.

  DUKE. You have already spoken too much.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. My captains have excellent counter-weapons for chatterboxes: drums.

  He makes a sign at the window and the drums roll out. They go on rotting to the end of the act.

  CARDINAL. A little ink and the bells will ring. They would ring above the drums.

  HANS. I want to look at the stake, at my funeral pyre, to see it face to face.

  He tries to open the window. Christine, the Provost Marshal, and the Syndic prevent him.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. Keep still.

  HANS. I order you to let me open the window.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. All right, you win. Open it!

  CHRISTINE. No, Hans!

  HANS, struggles and gets free, shouting out. A condemned man has the right to do what he wants! I open it.

  He flings open the window and disappears from view. He is heard to shout: Shoot and shoot straight.

  General movement to the window. Then, all move back, as Hans comes back and leans on the window frame, his hand on his chest in which an arrow is sticking.

  Free….

  Then he slips down and falls backward. Christine rushes forward, lifts him up, kneeling down and putting his head on her knees. The bells of the Cathedral begin to ring. The Syndic wants to draw out the arrow.

  CHRISTINE. Don’t draw out the arrow!

  BISHOP. Close the window!

  The Provost Marshal closes it. The sound of bells and of drums becomes fainter.

  DUKE. Where is Lothar?

  PROVOST MARSHAL. I am afraid he shot the arrow.

  DUKE. Then they’ll hack him to pieces.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. No one in the Square seems to realize what has happened. He must have leaned forward and he must have been shot at from below.

  CHRISTINE. Hans! Look at me! … Speak to me….

  The door at the back is opened. Lothar comes in, framed in the doorway by the six Archers and Karl. They take the bow which he is holding from him.

  LOTHAR. He has escaped the lot of you.

  PROVOST MARSHAL. I charge you with murder. I arrest you.

  LOTHAR. I suppose you want your bonfire.

  DUKE, who has been kneeling by Christine to support her, gets up. Since my children are bent on their own ruin …

  CARDINAL, putting his hand on the Duke’s arm and speaking in a low voice. Your children will need your testimony. Do not speak irrevocable words.

  SYNDIC, at the window. The hour is about to strike. They’ll burn him, burn him dead.

  CARDINAL. They will not burn him dead, nor would they have burned him alive. Gentlemen, this young man had recanted his errors and was going to enter orders. He was safe.

  LOTHAR. That’s a lie.

  DUKE. Lothar!

  CARDINAL. I have his signed recantation in my pocket.

  CHRISTINE. It is not true! Hans, Hans!Get up arise from the dead! Denounce them. Tell them that they lie.

  BISHOP. We have convents where mad virgins are kept quiet.

  LOTHAR. You wanted to steal Hans. You wanted to rob him of his martyrdom.

  CARDINAL. You robbed him of it yourself.

  In the voice of a ruler of men.

  Once for all, will everyone be quiet. Bacchus shall be clothed in his costume. The stake shall become living light around him while he lies in state and the crowd shall file past his body. I shall say the Prayers for the Dead and bless this young man. Go down on your knees.

  The Archers kneel down, forcing Lothar to do the same. The Provost Marshal and the Syndic remain standing. The Cardinal slowly turns around and looks steadily at them. They go down on their knees reluctantly. The Cardinal lifts up his hand to bless.

  CURTAIN

  The Speaker’s Text of

  OEDIPUS

  REX

  Libretto by Jean Cocteau

  Music by Igor Stravinsky

  translated by

  E. E. CUMMINGS

  This English translation of the Speaker’s Text of Oedipus Rex was commissioned by the Juilliard Opera Theatre. The opera is sung in Latin, and only this text was written in French.

  Vocal Score : Facing page 1*

  You are about to hear a Latin version of King Oedipus.

  This version is an opera-oratorio; based on the tragedy by Sophocles, but preserving only a certain monumental aspect of its various scenes. And so (wishing to spare your ears and your memories) I shall recall the story as we go along.

  Oedipus, unknown to himself, contends with supernatural powers: those sleepless deities who are always watching us from a world beyond death. At the moment of his birth a snare was laid for him — and you will see the snare closing.

  Now our drama begins.

  Thebes is prostrate. After the Sphinx, a plague breaks out. The chorus implores Oedipus to save his city. Oedipus has vanquished the Sphinx; he promises.

  Vocal Score: page 14

  Creon, the brother-in-law of Oedipus, has returned from Delphi, where he consulted the oracle.

  The oracle demands that Laius’ murderer be punished. The assassin is hiding in Thebes; at whatever cost, he must be discovered.

  Oedipus boasts of his skill in dealing with the powers of darkness. He will discover and drive out the assasin.

  Vocal Score: page 26

  Oedipus questions that fountain of truth: Tiresias, the seer.

  Tiresias will not answer. He already realizes that Oedipus is a plaything of the heartless gods.

  This silence angers Oedipus, who accuses Creon of desiring the throne for himself, and Tiresias of being his accomplice.

  Revolted by the injustice of this attitude, Tiresias decides — the fountain speaks.

  This is the oracle: the assassin of the King is a King.

  Vocal Score: page 43

  The disupte of the princes attracts Jocasta.

  You will hear her calm them, shame them for raising their voices in a stricken city.

  She proves that oracles he. For example, an oracle predicted that Laius would perish by the hand of a son of hers; whereas Laius was murdered by thieves, at the crossing of three roads from Daulis and Delphi.

  Three roads … crossroads — mark well those words. They horrify Oedipus. He remembers how, arriving from Corinth before encountering the Sphinx, he killed an old man where three roads meet. If Laius of Thebes were that man — what then? Oedipus cannot return to Corinth, having been threatened by the oracle with a double crime: killing his father and marrying his mother.

  He is afraid.

  Vocal Score: page 63

  The witness of the murder steps from the shadows. A messenger, announcing that King Polybus of Corinth is dead, reveals to Oedipus that he is only an adopted son of the King.

  Jocasta understands.

  She tries to draw Oedipus back — in vain. She flees.

  Oedipus supposes that she is ashamed of being the wife of an upstart.

  O, this lofty all-discerning Oedipus: He is in the snare. He alone does not know it.

  And then the truth strikes him.

  He falls. He falls headlong.

  Vocal Score: page 78

  And now you will hear that famous monologue “The Divine Jocasta Is Dead,” a monologue in which the messenger describes Jocasta’s doom.

  He can scarcely open his mouth. The chorus takes his part and helps him to tell how the Queen has hanged herself, and how Oedipus has pierced
his eyeballs with her golden pin.

  Then comes the epilogue.

  The King is caught. He would show himself to all: as a filthy beast, an incestuous monster, a fatherkiller, a fool.

  His people drive him (gently, very gently) away.

  Farewell, farewell, poor Oedipus!

  Farewell, Oedipus — we loved you.

  * * *

  *In Boosey & Hawkes 1949 edition.

  COPYRIGHT © 1963 by New Directions Publishing Corporation

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-18631

  This volume is published by arrangement with Jean Cocteau and his representative, Societé des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, 9, rue Ballu, 75009 Paris Cedex 09, France. The translation of La Machine Infernale is published under contract with Editions Bernard Grasset; the translations of Bacchus, Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde and Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel under contract with Librarie Gallimard; and the translation of Orphée under contract with Librarie Stock.

  “The Speaker’s Text” for Oedipus Rex, translated by E. E. Cummings, is previously published by Boosey and Hawkes, Copyright 1949 by Boosey and Hawkes, Inc., reprinted by permission. The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party translated by Dudley Fitts, is Copyright 1937 by New Directions. The other translations in this volume are published here for the first time. The Infernal Machine translated by Albert Bermel, © 1958 by Albert Bermel as an unpublished play.

  For U.S.A. and Canada amateur performance rights to these works in any translation please apply to New Directions, 80 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10011

  For professional performance rights please apply as follows: for “The Infernal Machine” to Theron Raines, Agent, 207 East 37, New York 10016; for “Orpheus” and “The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party” to New Directions, 80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011; for “The Knights of the Round Table” to Curtis Brown Ltd., 10 Astor Place, New York 10003; for “Bacchus” to Dr. Jan Van Loewen Ltd., 81 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W.I., England; for “The Speaker’s Text of Oedipus Rex” to Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., 52 Cooper Square, New York 10003.

  CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that these plays are copyrighted. All rights to them are reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part, in the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, including Canada, and all other countries of the world. Particular emphasis is placed on the matter of public readings, permission for which also must be secured from the publishers.