The Complete Plays

by Oscar Wilde

  The Sibyls knew of His coming. The groves and the oracles spake of Him. David and the prophets announced Him. There is no love like the love of God nor any love that can be compared to it.

  The body is vile, Myrrhina. God will raise thee up with a new body which will not know corruption, and thou wilt dwell in the Courts of the Lord and see Him whose hair is like fine wool and whose feet are of brass.

  MYRRHINA. The beauty …

  HONORIUS. The beauty of the soul increases till it can see God. Therefore, Myrrhina, repent of thy sins. The robber who was crucified beside Him He brought into Paradise.

  Exit.

  MYRRHINA. How strangely he spake to me. And with what scorn he did regard me. I wonder why he spake to me so strangely.

  HONORIUS. Myrrhina, the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see now clearly what I did not see before. Take me to Alexandria and let me taste of the seven sins.

  MYRRHINA. Do not mock me, Honorius, nor speak to me with such bitter words. For I have repented of my sins and I am seeking a cavern in this desert where I too may dwell so that my soul may become worthy to see God.

  HONORIUS. The sun is setting, Myrrhina. Come with me to Alexandria.

  MYRRHINA. I will not go to Alexandria.

  HONORIUS. Farewell, Myrrhina.

  MYRRHINA. Honorius, farewell. No, no, do not go.

  I have cursed my beauty for what it has done, and cursed the wonder of my body for the evil that it has brought upon you.

  Lord, this man brought me to Thy feet. He told me of Thy coming upon earth, and of the wonder of Thy birth and the great wonder of Thy death also. By him, O Lord, Thou wast revealed to me.

  HONORIUS. You talk as a child, Myrrhina, and without knowledge. Loosen your hands. Why didst thou come to this valley in thy beauty?

  MYRRHINA. The God whom thou worshipped led me here that I might repent of my iniquities and know Him as the Lord.

  HONORIUS. Why didst thou tempt me with words?

  MYRRHINA. That thou shouldst see Sin in its painted mask and look on Death in its robe of Shame.

  [This play is only a fragment and stops here.]

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  Footnote

  Introduction

  1 There is an incomplete manuscript draft of the play in Wilde’s hand, with additions and corrections, in the British Museum (British Library), to which it was presented with other Wilde MSS by Robert Ross. It differs considerably from the published version. There are also acting versions in typescript in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in the University of California, Los Angeles, an acting typescript (revised in manuscript by several hands) in the University of Texas, and the Licensing copy dated 15 February 1892 in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. The differences between the various drafts and the version as published in 1893 are discussed by Ian Small in his recent edition of the play (1980).

  2 Later Brookfield, assisted by Hawtrey, so it is said, was instrumental in collecting incriminating evidence for Lord Queensberry’s use against Wilde in the trials.

  3 Frank Harris, who edited the Fortnightly Review, published Pen, Pencil and Poison (1890), The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891), and Poems in Prose (1894), by Wilde, which all originally appeared in this journal.

  4 E. San Juan. The Art of Oscar Wilde (1967), p. 165.

  5 The original manuscript in Wilde’s hand, written mostly in pencil in two exercise books, of an early draft (probably the first) of this play, is in the Williams Andrews Clark Library of the University of California, Los Angeles. Also in the Clark Library is the original typescript with autograph corrections and emendations by Wilde. Another draft entitled Mrs. Cheveley with an additional version of Act II and what is apparently a later version of Act IV, together with a corrected typescript, are in the British Museum (Add. MSS 37946/37947), to which they were presented with other Wilde manuscripts by the author’s literary executor Robert Ross. The proof sheets, with similar autograph corrections by Wilde, of the first edition published by Leonard Smithers in 1899, are in the Clark Library.

  6 The Gribsby scene, however, is included in this volume, with a note of explanation (see pp. 291–299).

  7 The original version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, as published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine for July 1890, received such hostile notices that W. H. Smith & Son were obliged to withdraw the magazine from their bookstalls on the ground that Wilde’s story had been ‘charac
terised by the press as a filthy one’. Consequently numerous passages were omitted or altered in the hardback edition which appeared in the following year, with seven additional chapters. Some of these passages in the magazine version emphasised in somewhat extravagant language the painter Basil Hallward’s admiration for his sitter Dorian Gray, and so were alleged by Queensberry to indicate homosexual tendencies. An authoritative account of the controversy which the work caused at the time has been given by Wilde’s bibliographer Stuart Mason in his Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality (1912). The Picture of Dorian Gray, edited with a critical introduction, and textual and explanatory notes, by Isobel Murray, has recently been published (1978).

  8 Max Beerbohm, Around Theatres (1953), pp. 189–90. Early drafts of the manuscripts of Acts I and II in the author’s hand of the original four-Act version entitled Lady Lancing are in the Arents Collection in the New York Public Library. Similar drafts of Acts III and IV are in the British Library (Add. MSS 37948). Also in the Arents Collection are typescripts of Acts I, III, and IV with Wilde’s autograph corrections. The Licensing Copy, entitled Lady Lancing is also in the British Library (Add. MSS 53567/17). A typescript of the four-Act version, dated 31 October 1894, is in the Burnside-Frohman Collection in the New York Public Library. George Alexander’s acting typescript copy, with his autograph alterations, is in the Harvard Theatre Collection. The typescript, revised by Wilde, for the published edition of 1899, is in the Arents Collection. The page-proofs of this edition with Wilde’s autograph additions, are in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The material comprising the four-Act version was first published, with facsimile photocopies, by the New York Public Library (The Importance of Being Earnest. With an Introduction and Bibliography by Sarah Augusta Dickson. 2 vols. New York, 1956). More recently (1980) the three-Act version has been edited with textual notes and other additions by Russell Jackson. In the same year the original four-Act version was performed at the Old Vic in London with Margaretta Scott as Lady Bracknell.

  9 The World, 26 April 1893.

  10 Saturday Review, 18 December 1900.

  11 Notable London revivals of A Woman of No Importance have taken place at His Majesty’s (22 May 1907), the Kingsway (13 May 1915) and the Savoy (12 February 1953). In the latter revival the parts of Lord Illingworth, Gerald and Mrs Arbuthnot were played respectively by Clive Brook, Peter Barkworth and Nora Swinburne.

  12 Vera Figner was arrested in 1883, served 22 years of imprisonment in the fortress of Schlusselburg, witnessed three Russian revolutions, and died in her nineties during the Second World War, being recognized as the Grand Old Lady of Russian Nihilism.

  13 One of only four copies of this edition known to exist; this one with Wilde’s inscription is preserved in the Ellen Terry Museum, her house at Small Hythe near Tenterden in Kent, where it can still be seen.

  14 Originally Fanny Mary Whitehead (1856–1915), English actress. Although married three times, she always acted under her second married name. She played the heroine Mrs Arbuthnot in A Woman of No Importance.

  15 Twenty copies are said to have been printed, of which only four are known to exist or have existed. The first with the author’s manuscript corrections was presented by Robert Ross to the British Museum. The second is in the Walter Ledger collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The third belonged to the actress Minna Gale who played the Duchess in New York in 1891, and the fourth bought by me from Sir Stirling Ingram, editor of The Illustrated London News, is now in the Hyde Collection belonging to Viscountess Eccles.

  16 Venice Preserved was written by Thomas Otway (1682) and Lucretia Borgia by Victor Hugo (1833).

  17 The manuscript was stolen during the sale of Wilde’s effects at his house in Chelsea following his arrest. The greater part (122 pages) is in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in the University of California, Los Angeles.

  18 Although the tetrarch of Judaea is described as Herod Antipas (Matthew 14:1) Wilde combined in his character features of the other two New Testament Herods, Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1), father of Herod Antipas, and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23). Herod Antipas, whose rule in Judaea lasted from 4BC to 39AD, married as his second wife his brother Philip’s wife Herodias, the parents of Salomé. It was because this alliance was denounced by John the Baptist (Jokanaan) that the tetrach imprisoned him and had him executed at Salome’s request. A tetrarch was governor of a quarter of a province, hence the Greek name.

  19 The script of the play could not be found in the Lord Chamberlain’s office where it should have been. It was discovered by the present editor in the shape of Mrs Patrick Campbell’s acting copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum and subsequently published and broadcast. See Mr and Mrs Daventry. A Play in Four Acts by Frank Harris. Based on the Scenario by Oscar Wilde. Introduction by H. Montgomery Hyde. (The Richards Press, London, 1956.)

  20 Robert Ross Friend of Friends Edited by Margery Ross (1952), at p. 129.

  21 op. cit. 583–85. See also Ross’s introduction to Miscellanies Vol. XIV of First Collected Edition of Wilde’s works.

  22 Alvin Redman. The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (1952), at p. 48.

  Appendix: The Gribsby Scene from The Importance of Being

  1 The Gribsby scene was broadcast on the present writer’s initiative in the B.B.C. Home Service in London on 27 October 1954, and subsequently reprinted in The Listener (4 November 1954). The text, which follows, has been taken from the original manuscript in Arents’s collection, which differs in a few minor particulars from the version as broadcast.

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  This collection first published in Great Britain in paperback in 1988 by

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  Lady Windermere’s Fan was first published in 1893. First published by

  Methuen in 1908

  An Ideal Husband was first published in 1899. First published by

  Methuen in 1908

  The Importance of Being Earnest was first published in 1899. First

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  The Gribsby Scene from the four-act version of The Importance of Being

  Earnest copyright © 1956 by the Estate of Vyvyan Holland

  Explanatory note to the Gribsby Scene copyright © 1981 by

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  A Woman of No Importance was first published in 1894. First published

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  Salomé was first published (in French) in 1893. First published

  by Methuen in 1908

  The Duchess of Padua was first published in 1883. First published by

  Methuen in 1908

  Vera or The Nihilists was first published in 1883. First published by

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  A Florentine Tragedy was first published by Methuen in 1908

  La Sainte Courtisane was first published by Methuen in 1908

  Introduction copyright © 1988 by H. Montgomery Hyde

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