by W. B. Yeats
DECIMA. You are in love with my husband.
NONA. Because I don’t want to see him jailed you say I am in love with him. Only a woman with no heart would think one can’t be sorry for a man without being in love with him. A woman who has never been sorry for anybody, but I won’t have him jailed, if you won’t play the part I’ll play it myself.
DECIMA. When I married him, I made him swear never to play with anybody but me, and well you know it.
NONA. Only this once and in a part nobody can do anything with.
DECIMA. That is the way it begins and all the time you would be saying things the audience couldn’t hear.
NONA. Septimus will break his oath and I have learnt the part. Every line of it.
DECIMA. Septimus would not break his oath for anybody in the world.
NONA. There is one person in the world for whom he will break his oath.
DECIMA. What have you in your head now?
NONA. He will break it for me.
DECIMA. You are crazy.
NONA. Maybe I have my secrets.
DECIMA. What are you keeping back?
Have you been sitting in corners with Septimus? giving him sympathy because of the bad wife he has and all the while he has sat there to have the pleasure of talking about me?
NONA. You think that you have his every thought because you are a devil.
DECIMA. Because I am a devil I have his every thought. You know how his own song runs. The man speaks first — [singing.
Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes,
and then the woman answers —
Oh no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise
And yet not cold.
NONA. His every thought — that is a lie. He forgets all about you the moment you’re out of his sight.
DECIMA. Then look what I carry under my bodice. This is a poem praising me, all my beauties one after the other — eyes, hair, complexion, shape, disposition, mind — everything. And there are a great many verses to it. And here is a little one he gave me yesterday morning. I had turned him out of bed and he had to lie alone by himself.
NONA. Alone by himself!
DECIMA. And as he lay there alone, unable to sleep, he made it up, wishing that he were blind so as not to be troubled by looking at my beauty. Hear how it goes! [sings again.]
O would that I were an old beggar
Without a friend on this earth
But a thieving rascally cur,
A beggar blind from his birth;
Or anything else but a man
Lying alone on a bed
Remembering a woman’s beauty,
Alone with a crazy head.
NONA. Alone in his bed indeed. I know that long poem, that one with all the verses; I know it to my hurt, though I haven’t read a word of it. Four lines in every verse, four beats in every line, and fourteen verses — my curse upon it!
DECIMA [taking out a manuscript from her bodice]. Yes, fourteen verses. There are numbers to them.
NONA. You have another there — ten verses all in fours and threes.
DECIMA [looking at another manuscript]. Yes, the verses are in fours and threes. But how do you know all this? I carry them here. They are a secret between him and me, and nobody can see them till they have lain a long while upon my heart.
NONA. They have lain upon your heart, but they were made upon my shoulder. Ay, and down along my spine in the small hours of the morning; so many beats a line, and for every beat a tap of the fingers.
DECIMA. My God!
NONA. That one with the fourteen verses kept me from my sleep two hours, and when the lines were finished he lay upon his back another hour waving one arm in the air, making up the music. I liked him well enough to seem to be asleep through it all, and many another poem too — but when he made up that short one you sang he was so pleased that he muttered the words all about his lying alone in his bed thinking of you, and that made me mad. So I said to him, ‘Am I not beautiful? Turn round and look.’ Oh, I cut it short, for even I can please a man when there is but one candle. [She takes a pair of scissors that are hanging round her neck and begins snipping at the dress for Noah’s wife.] And now you know why I can play the part in spite of you and not be driven out. Work upon Septimus if you have a mind for it. Little need I care. I will clip this a trifle and re-stitch it again — I have a needle and thread ready.
[The STAGE MANAGER comes in ringing a bell. He is followed by various players all dressed up in likeness of various beasts.
STAGE MANAGER. Put on that mask — get into your clothes. Why are you standing there as if in a trance?
NONA. Decima and I have talked the matter over and we have settled that I am to play the part.
STAGE MANAGER. Do as you please. Thank God it’s a part that anybody can play. All you have got to do is to copy an old woman’s squeaky voice. We are all here now but Septimus, and we cannot wait for him. I will read the part of Noah. He will be here before we are finished I daresay. We will suppose that the audience is upon this side, and that the Ark is over there with a gangway for the beasts to climb. All you beasts are to crowd up on the prompt side. Lay down Noah’s hat and cloak there till Septimus comes. As the first scene is between Noah and the beasts, you can go on with your sewing.
DECIMA. No, I must first be heard. My husband has been spending his nights with Nona, and that is why she sits clipping and stitching with that vainglorious air.
NONA. She made him miserable, she knows every trick of breaking a man’s heart — he came to me with his troubles — I seemed to be a comfort to him, and now — why should I deny it? — he is my lover.
DECIMA. I will take the vainglory out of her. I have been a plague to him. Oh, I have been a badger and a weasel and a hedgehog and pole-cat, and all because I was dead sick of him. And, thank God! she has got him and I am free. I threw away a part and I threw away a man — she has picked both up.
STAGE MANAGER. It seems to me that it all concerns you two. It’s your business and not ours. I don’t see why we should delay the rehearsal.
DECIMA. I will have no rehearsal yet. I’m too happy now that I am free. I must find somebody who will dance with me for a while. Come we must have music. [She picks up a lute which has been laid down amongst some properties. You can’t all be claws and hoofs.
STAGE MANAGER. We’ve only an hour and the whole play to go through.
NONA. Oh, she has taken my scissors, she is only pretending not to care. Look at her! She is mad! Take them away from her! Hold her hand! She is going to kill me or to kill herself. [To STAGE MANAGER.] Why don’t you interfere? My God! She is going to kill me.
DECIMA. Here, Peter. Play the lute.
[She begins cutting through the breast feathers of the Swan.
NONA. She is doing it all to stop the rehearsal, out of vengeance; and you stand there and do nothing.
STAGE MANAGER. If you have taken her husband, why didn’t you keep the news till the play was over? She is going to make them all mad now. I can see that much in her eyes.
DECIMA. NOW that I have thrown Septimus into her lap, I will choose a new man. Shall it be you, Turkey-cock? or you, Bullhead?
STAGE MANAGER. There is nothing to be done. It is all your fault. If Septimus can’t manage his wife, it’s certain that I can’t.
[He sits down helplessly.
FIRST PLAYER [who is in the jour legs of the Bull]. Come live with me and be my love.
DECIMA. Dance, Bullhead, dance. [The Bull dances.] You’re too slow on your feet.
FIRST PLAYER. Although I am slow I am twice as good as any other, for I am double — one in the forelegs and one behind.
DECIMA. You are heavy of build and that means jealousy, and there is a sort of melancholy in your voice; and what a folly, now that I have found out love, to stretch and yawn as if I loved.
SECOND PLAYER [who is in the form of a Turkey-cock]. Come live with me and be my l
ove, for as everybody can see from my ruff and my red wattle and my way of strutting and my chuckling speech, I have a cheerful appetite.
DECIMA. Dance, dance. [The Turkey-cock dances.] Ah, Turkey-cock, you are lively on your feet and I would find it hard to hide if you followed. Would you expect me to be faithful?
SECOND PLAYER. No, neither I nor you. I have a score of wives.
NONA. You are a disgrace.
SECOND PLAYER. Be content now that you have a man of your own.
DECIMA. You are quick of mind, Turkeycock. I see that by your bright eyes, but I want to let my mind go asleep. All dance, all, all, and I will choose the best dancer amongst you.
FIRST PLAYER. No, let us toss for it. I understand that better.
DECIMA. Quick, quick, begin to dance.
[All dance round DECIMA.
DECIMA [singing].
Shall I fancy beast or fowl,
Queen Pasiphae chose a bull,
While a passion for a swan
Made Queen Leda stretch and yawn,
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
Chorus.
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
DECIMA.
Spring and straddle, stride and strut,
Shall I choose a bird or brute?
Name the feather or the fur
For my single comforter?
Chorus.
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
DECIMA. None has found, that found out love,
Single bird or brute enough;
Any bird or brute may rest
An empty head upon my breast.
Chorus.
Wherefore spin ye, whirl ye, dance ye,
Till Queen Decima’s found her fancy.
STAGE MANAGER. Stop, stop, here is Septimus.
SEPTIMUS [the blood still upon his face and but little soberer]. Gather about me, for I announce the end of the Christian Era, the coming of a New Dispensation, that of the New Adam, that of the Unicorn; but alas, he is chaste, he hesitates, he hesitates.
STAGE MANAGER. This is not a time for making up speeches for your new play.
SEPTIMUS. His unborn children are but images; we merely play with images.
STAGE MANAGER. Let us get on with the rehearsal.
SEPTIMUS. No; let us prepare to die. The mob is climbing up the hill with pitchforks to stick into our vitals and burning wisps to set the roof on fire.
FIRST PLAYER [who has gone to the window]. My God, it’s true. There is a great crowd at the bottom of the hill.
SECOND PLAYER. But why should they attack us?
SEPTIMUS. Because we are the servants of the Unicorn.
THIRD PLAYER [at window], My God, they have dung-forks and scythes set on poles and they are coming this way.
[Many players gather round the window.
SEPTIMUS [who has found the bottle and is drinking]. Some will die like Cato, some like Cicero, some like Demosthenes, triumphing over death in sonorous eloquence, or, like Petronius Arbiter, will tell witty, scandalous tales; but I will speak, no, I will sing, as if the mob did not exist. I will rail upon the Unicorn for his chastity. I will bid him trample mankind to death and beget a new race. I will even put my railing into rhyme, and all shall run sweetly, sweetly, for, even if they blow up the floor with gunpowder, they are merely the mob.
Upon the round blue eye I rail,
Damnation on the milk-white horn.
A telling sound, a sound to linger in the ear — hale, tale, bale, gale — my God, I am even too sober to find a rhyme. [He drinks and then picks up a lute] — a tune that my murderers may remember my last words and croon them to their grandchildren.
[For the next few speeches he is busy making his tune.
FIRST PLAYER. The players of this town are jealous. Have we not been chosen before them all, because we are the most famous players in the world? It is they who have stirred up the mob.
THIRD PLAYER. When we played at Kzanadu, my performance was so incomparable that the men who pulled the strings of the puppet-show left all the puppets lying on their backs and came to have a look at me.
FOURTH PLAYER. Listen to him! His performance indeed! I ask you all to speak the truth. If you are honest men you will say that it was my performance that drew the town. Why, Kubla Khan himself gave me the name of the Talking Nightingale.
FIFTH, PLAYER. My God, listen to him! Is it not always the comedian who draws the people? Am I dreaming, and was it not I who was called six times before the curtain? Answer me that.
SIXTH PLAYER [at window]. There is somebody making a speech. I cannot see who it is.
SECOND PLAYER. Depend upon it, he is telling them to put burning wisps upon dungforks and put them into the rafters. That is what they did in the old play of the Burning of Troy. Depend upon it, they will burn the whole house.
FIFTH PLAYER [coming from window], I will stay here no longer.
OTHER PLAYERS. Nor I, nor I. [Exit.
FIRST PLAYER. Must we go dressed like this?
SECOND PLAYER. There is no time to change, and besides should the hill be surrounded, we can gather in some cleft of the rocks where we can be seen only from a distance. They will suppose we are a drove of cattle or a flock of birds.
[All go out except SEPTIMUS, DECIMA, and NONA. NONA is making a bundle of Noah’s hat and cloak and other properties. DECIMA is watching SEPTIMUS.
SEPTIMUS [while the players are going out]. Leave me to die alone? I do not blame you. There is courage in red wine, in white wine, in beer, even in thin beer sold by a blear-eyed potboy in a bankrupt tavern, but there is none in the human heart. When my master the Unicorn bathes by the light of the Great Bear, and to the sound of tabors, even the sweet river-water makes him drunk; but it is cold, it is cold, alas! it is cold.
NONA. I’ll pile these upon your back. I shall carry the rest myself and so we shall save all.
[She begins tying a great bundle of properties on SEPTIMUS’ back.
SEPTIMUS. You are right. I accept the reproach. It is necessary that we who are the last artists — all the rest have gone over to the mob — shall save the images and implements of our art. We must carry into safety the cloak of Noah, the high-crowned hat of Noah, and the golden face of the Almighty, and the horns of Satan.
NONA. Thank God you can still stand upright on your legs.
SEPTIMUS. Tie all upon my back and I will tell you the great secret that came to me at the second mouthful of the bottle. Man is nothing till he is united to an image. Now the Unicorn is both an image and beast; that is why he alone can be the new Adam. When we have put all in safety we will go to the high tablelands of Africa and find where the Unicorn is stabled and sing a marriage song. I will stand before the terrible blue eye.
NONA. There now I have tied them on.
[She begins making another bundle for herself.
SEPTIMUS. You will make Ionian music — music with its eyes upon that voluptuous Asia — the Dorian scale would but confirm him in his chastity. One Dorian note might undo us, and above all we must be careful not to speak of Delphi. The oracle is chaste.
NONA. Come, let us go.
SEPTIMUS. If we cannot fill him with desire he will deserve death. Even unicorns can be killed. What they dread most in the world is a blow from a knife that has been dipped in the blood of a serpent that died gazing upon an emerald.
[NONA and SEPTIMUS are about to go out, NONA leading SEPTIMUS.
DECIMA. Stand back, do not dare to move a step.
SEPTIMUS. Beautiful as the unicorn but fierce.
DECIMA. I have locked the gates that we may have a talk.
[NONA lets the hat of Noah fall in her alarm.
SEPTIMUS. That is well, very well. You would talk with me because to-day I am extraordinarily wise.
DECIMA. I will not unlock the gate ti
ll I have a promise that you will drive her from the company.
NONA. Do not listen to her; take the key from her.
SEPTIMUS. If I were not her husband I would take the key, but because I am her husband she is terrible. The Unicorn will be terrible when it loves.