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Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein
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www.willow-n.com Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein |
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Name of Play: Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein Playwright: William Owen Type of Play: Melodrama |
Synopsis |
Synopsis: An adaptation for the stage of Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein. Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein is a melodrama. When begun, this play was projected for a traveling troupe of only four actors and two actresses; the strictures throughout the script -- the actress who plays Elizabeth also voices the Demon, the crew is ever unseen, etc. -- all stem from the limits imposed by this originating projection.
Cast Breakdown: With doubling, this script can be played by four actors and two actresses. The Demon is a monstrous, hideous progeny. Only its voice has escaped deformity, and (given the resource constraints applied here) is the voice of the actress who also plays Elizabeth. The Demon appears only suddenly and briefly, or in scenes pitched in darkness. It hides, cowled and draped in capes and furs. The horrifying life-form beneath is only for brief instants glimpsed by the members of the audience. What is seen onstage can be an inanimate creation of the set- and costume-maker's art as its voice is spoken from the wings, transmitted through speakers in the prop etc.
Scene Breakdown: The action takes place in two contiguous backgrounds -- a sailing ship, in the main, in the captain's cabin of that ship, and an adjunct background, variously adapted for representing action contiguous to that being enacted on the ship.
Production Requirements: If the members of the audience pay for tickets, the playwright gets paid. If the actors, actresses and other production artists get paid, the playwright also gets paid. If there's no box office and all the production artists work for free, the playwright works for free too. The playwright is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. In instances of professional productions, Dramatists Guild royalty, contract etc. guidelines apply. So long as no changes are made to the text, so long as all copies are given away free of any charge, and so long as the author's full ownership of his work (copyright etc.) is duly acknowledged, the script can be downloaded, printed, copied and distributed for use in rehearsals and auditions, classes and workshops, etc.
Contact Information:
All inquiries are sincerely welcome. I can be reached by regular mail at:
Will Owen, Willow N TheaterShows, Box 25447, Washington DC 20007 USA
or by e-mail at: willow_nts@hotmail.com
Script: Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein is published here (www.willow-n.com/scripts/msf/msf.htm). Downloading this work in whole or part implies accepting the Copyright Acknowledgement.
copyrighted play and performance scripts, registered trademark -- all rights reserved -- www.willow-n.com
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Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein
Will Owen
to the memory of Francois Colonna d'Istria
melodrama
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TIMES AND SCENES
THE ACTION TAKES PLACE ON A SHIP ON A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY TO THE NORTH POLE
CHARACTERS
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THE DEMON WALTON MARGARET VICTOR ELIZABETH WINSLOW HOPKINS WAVERLEY |
a hideous progeny a captain and explorer his wife a biological chemist his betrothed a sailing master a young sailor an old sailor |
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www.willow-n.com |
Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein mwsf1: Background is ship: captain's cabin -- with quarterdeck above -- and adjunct area. Margaret, at home in England, is (playing from adjunct area) reading letters from her husband, Walton, an explorer, who is in the captain's cabin of his ship, iced in, in the Arctic ocean. |
MARGARET reading letter in adjunct space as Walton writes and paces in his ship's cabin
"My most extraordinary and loving wife..."
Oh how, from a husband far away, it pleases so
the heart longing to hold him to eye the hand
his hand inked on this page that in its turns
and breaks and plunges so bespeaks the fire,
the drive and fervor of the mind that wrote them --
and the ambition so insistent on the mind it led him
to the most distant bleakest reaches where, if the world
were not a globe those on it might well find its end.
"...here all goes as well it might since no disaster
has accompanied the commencement -- nay, the near
accomplishment of my purpose for which
I've sailed so far"
WALTON
and am now here becalmed
in gloom so deep were it not suffused with light
of endless day so pale and grey it would be a darkness
where there's no seeing what's land, what's sky
what's frozen sea -- it's all one calm fury
of dense and silent cold. The sooner shackles
of craggy ice that vise against this hull break up
and seethe into the cold and watery sea, the better,
for we break away and again upon my quest set sail.
For come whatever searing danger or
adversity, I'll lead this voyage of
discovery to its successful end,
and return to fame and triumph in the eyes of men!
"Oh my Margaret, sweetest bride and greatest blessing,
if you knew my yearning, for you and all around you.
I see the house graced in its garden,
recall the hearth's bright cheer, and all the warmth
of home, and news of nothing, prattle of aunts
and children, all suffused in loving parents' light --
and how I'd hold you, my face buried in
the perfumes by your neck, standing close and still
beside the dimming glowing in the grate --
then lead you to the stairs and love's dark bower..."
But I am here, commanding, this vessel and her crew,
all in the service of the fortune and
distinction I will yet make mine!
Mister Winslow! Boy, have Mister Winslow attend to me.
CABIN BOY heard from off
Sir! Aye aye, sir.
MARGARET
"All goes well" he writes "or as well it might
beset by storms and stinging accidents"
that many a countryman would make
a hoary, harrowing tale, but that mariners
inured to the usury of the angry sea but log,
laconic and dull, credits of leagues against debits of time
in their account books of passage over pathless waves.
And in what logbook of heavy heartedness,
in what ciphers marking ache and longing can
a woman's missing of her stalwart husband
and all the rapture, fire and fervor of
the strength of truest love be counted
'gainst her angry passage through abandoned days?
WALTON
"My dearest and most beloved wife, since last
I wrote" -- and how may this letter come to you from here
where there is and will not be another human creature --
and if this pack ice does not loosen before
this pole tilts from the sun and swirls us all
stranded here to slow and lightless death --
I would not know, but write with all conviction
that what I write will somehow find its way --
"my ship and men have stayed my course right well,
their spirits and our ship still stoutly holding" --
till now, here, beached in this mist of dim
and endless, disorienting light, blank as an empty page.
A strange foreboding fills me here, so still
in this white, so windless cold it couldn't cut
the flame off from a candle yet could so quickly
cut the life out of a man. ... Aye!
WINSLOW
You asked to see me, Sir?
WALTON
Indeed I did, Mister Winslow. And I thank you. I would have you
WINSLOW
Sir, I am glad you did, for I would speak with you
WALTON
And I would gladly speak with you, Mister Winslow, but first
WINSLOW
Sir, the men
WALTON
Indeed, the men, Mister Winslow --
and I would have you make doubly certain
they hew to each iota of our shipboard practice.
Full complements must stand ev'ry watch
as if underway, and all must stand their turn,
with duties specified -- sectors of horizon set,
repair and revision of all that may be amiss --
for idleness in time like this of withering inaction
will soon sour their spirits and vinegar their courage.
WINSLOW
Sir, I know, so I would
WALTON
You would speak to me and I would gladly speak with you
but first, if you would, I'd have my orders met.
WINSLOW
Aye, sir. But, sir
WALTON
But what? For you would tell me in this icy calm
their minds do turn to nourishing their fears,
and dream of turning back and reaching home,
to be, at last, again, asleep, so warm and soundly safe
abed beside their faithful Janes or slattern jades?
And no! There'll be no thought of that until is ended,
crowned with glory, what we've begun.
WINSLOW
If I would know I'll see my wife and home again
I'd give the failure of this quest. Are you not afraid?
WALTON
No. Not yet.
WINSLOW
And if this ice that prisons us does not melt?
WALTON
It will. It will. It must. We are at height
of Summer, season here of warmest tides
and of perpetual day. This must be just
an aberrant..aberrant..aberrance...
And it will end and soon we shall away,
my purpose stronger than it was before.
WINSLOW
When Winters are remembered for their long
and bitter cold, or long recalled as mild,
when Springs bring floods of rain or Summers
long draughts that wither kine and fields,
none blame aberrance for Nature's happenstance.
This ice has now been this way for
WALTON
I know, Mister Winslow, I know. Oh God, I know.
And I am telling you it will change...soon.
WINSLOW
No luck was ever changed by saying so.
Sir, I have lived a life at sea, and know
too well the way that courage and resolve
of even strongest hearts are swept away,
made tiny timbers churned in smash of waves --
mere nothings in the face of Nature's rage.
WALTON
And I would gladly speak of that with you,
to learn, by thinking on what I may have not seen.
But first, if you would, I'd have my orders met.
I thank you, Mister Winslow. And for now that will be all.
WINSLOW
Aye, aye, Sir. Understood.
WAVERLEY on watch on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Near eight bells and all is far from well. Eight bells, and yet
the midnight sky is bright as day. This is not fit
for men to live this way. This light portends
our death, in resplendent heaven or fires of hell?
WALTON
And I write her all goes well? "My sweetest one,"
should we survive and turn safely home
I would spare you worry, and should we not,
I would you knew of how I did my best
against the ugly end, and early sensed
the cancer, slowly reaching like a dark
and stifling insect infestation -- mutiny!
so slowly breeding in th'instersticies
of dull inaction and despair, so soon
to spread its thick and wid'ning sway upon
the hearts and minds of what were once good men.
And til my end I did my best to keep
them drawing strong on all that's best in men,
and face our death as best men can.
That I breathe -- as I take it in -- another breath
is certain, but for the next, and next, until which
shall be last in a gathering avalanche
of accident and misfortune is the uncertainty
that so easily ends in the certainty of our end?
"My sweetest, dearest, most beloved bride, here all goes well and..."
MARGARET
"All goes well" he writes, but not as well
as were he here safely home in England
in deepest love of fam'ly and relations and
the care and company of his new wife --
and the admiration and renown that men
of daring and ambition seek in others eyes.
Oh my love, I pray, that yours by shipwreck,
so mine by heartbreak, both our lives won't end.
A loving marriage is a joy forever.
Yet why's it not enough to quell and sate
the lust for glory, too strong and clever
to live in happiness bound to home and mate?
The woods beyond the garden where we walked
are thick with life at cusp of Summer's wane;
the willow by the stream where we so often talked
of love and winning of my heart stands swain --
so emptily bereaved of our long kissings hid
amid its tendril strands, buddingly leaved.
In stirring, laughing Spring there we undid
the locks that lace up hearts and clothes, and weaved
two bodies into one with Nature's racing course.
That willow now it trails its lassid tears
heavy, by a with'ring brook of fading force,
so ominous a portent of cold fears
the news of you will turn from desperate to worse --
that come the Spring I'll walk there so alone
to swell the stream with the torrent of my tears?
HOPKINS comes on on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
I come relieve you of your watch.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
And welcome too, for there need be no watch
where there's but icy waste to see -- and from
a dying ship at that, bestilled and choked with cold.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
What? No watch? No, for the lieutenant he clutched my sleeve as we just passed, and fixed me in the eye and said: "watch as intent and lively as if every sail and timber of this ship were groaning free in a stiff'ning wind and ever heavier, heaving swells." And so I will. Give me the glass so I may scan...this strangeness...pressing on us with no weight or sound -- ice field, fog and sky all one, only at instants made out one from the other...and to see what? Here now? But our brave captain he has said
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Aye, brave, so more fit to die so uselessly with us all.
Watch well your useless watch so we'll not see
the slow and bitter end that closes fast on us,
led here by that reckless man that well we would...
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Would what, you say?
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Make pay for bringing us to this death this way.
And with the strongest of the crew betake us then,
across the ice with boat and supplies in tow
to reach close open water and make for land --
and save our lives
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
It would be madness to leave the ship -- even if the captain, he would agree to come...
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
He wouldn't come, nor the lieutenant neither.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
What?
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Yes, that.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
No.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Wait then, we'll see what you think when others sound you out -- but breath a word of this where it does not belong, and accidents befall even dearest shipmates. Watch lively then your watch. I am off below.
WALTON to himself
Aye, watch your watch, without care or question,
just play your part of loyal sailors, with cheer --
and leave the somber part of leading lives
to life or death, to me, worn out -- gripped
in fear and loneliness of all who wear
the proud mask of command.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
What? What's there to see in this pale mist?
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Oh, God...oh God, protect us. Ohohoh... It cannot be.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
You dream. The quarter rations we are fed
have sent your empty stomach to your head.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
No! I see... I see it -- scudding dark and swift in the mists and swirl -- up behind the blur of dogs that pull the sled -- it seems to slump and sway, and ohohoh...its legs folded in front shrouded in furs, and arm-limbs long like tentacles grasp the reins, and flies a flag -- no! a mane wild to the wind behind the head... No! the wind has torn the hood... Is it a face?...Ohhh... glistening huge like a mangled creature's, newly born
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Give me the glass!
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Oh strangest living thing that I have seen...
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Where? So I can see. Where you say?
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
There, abeam. Not far, but for the mists.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
There's nothing there!
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
What? There was. There was. By God, I saw it. I saw. I know I did. Look there. Do you see it?
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
No. You dream. There's nothing there.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
No. No. No. I saw it there.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Enough. I am off below.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Wait. Give me back the glass.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Take it, and look your fill, and in this frozen hell
you and your false sightings be truly damned.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Wait. Leave me not so freightened here alone.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Oh... If freightened so, how will you join us
in killing them -- so we save ourselves and go?
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
I...
WALTON to himself
There's nothing there. But better they dream?
Have eerie visions thrall their minds, that then,
telling the tale, they'll splice a meaning to,
that sustains their ends -- as they listless while
the empty hours to mutinous intent?
They shall talk of this -- and we shall splice to it
the meaning that makes the best of it --
a harbinger of our success to come!
There was airy nothing there, and yet I'll make
of it a stanchion strong to buttress sagging spirits,
and undermine the foolish desperation
that would kill me, forsake the ship, and trek
afoot across the blinding, shifting ice.
But foolish never held men back from deeds
of evil or disastrous mistake.
This foreboding that I feel, I must directly face.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
I fear 'tis gone. But we must tell the captain of this we've seen.
WAVERLEY on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
Belay your sorry tale. Oh, tell him if you will
but ask me not to tell I saw it too.
HOPKINS on quarterdeck above, overheard in cabin below
I'll tell the lieutenant then, but report it, that we must.
WALTON
"My dearest wife," and did you not once say
a deep foreboding, evil, swept you
as on this quest I set on my way
as at that last embrace I turned and left you?
I so remember well that fateful day --
the bunting decks the ship, the party stiff at quay,
the crew's all eyes upon me, and yours seeming to say
MARGARET or WALTON or together
"Oh go, and act the part of captain if you must play,
but spare pretending you're my love if going away."
WALTON
Oh my Margaret, if vouchsafed this ambition
and I turn safely home to you one day,
I swear that I'll not risk again perdition
and hazard happiness for glory's sway.
But this one time, I would my vindication
achieve, for all to see as clear as day.
Aye!
WINSLOW
Sir, the watch reports the sighting of a fearful thing.
WALTON
Indeed?
WINSLOW
Sir?
WALTON
The watch, Mister Winslow, watches on this deck over our heads.
WINSLOW
Aye Sir.
WALTON
Who was it says he saw the sled with the maned and glistening-faced, long-limbed creature on it?
WINSLOW
Hopkins, Sir.
WALTON
And who was with him who says he didn't?
WINSLOW
Waverely, Sir.
WALTON
And who is senior?
WINSLOW
The second is an able seaman sir, with many years before the mast.
WALTON
Aye, so I thought. And I would far trust Hopkins first
for his spirit and his cheer, where Waverely
if not kept battened to the challenge of the sea
in idleness would make the busiest of mutineers
until the busyness of his life was ended dangling from a yard.
WINSLOW
Aye, sir; 'tis so. 'Tis so indeed.
WALTON
And kill us both to boot to save us of its pain.
WINSLOW
Shall I move to arrest him, Sir, and those who rally to him?
WALTON
We are unsure who they are. And now,
arrests would make it worse, and further feed
their rant of blaming you and me, for they'd
but find in that more salt to rub
into their wound of circumstances' victim,
that throbs with dim but smoldering
resentment, to burn with fixed self-pitying.
And for now we're all under arrest in this...
No... No, for now until I find a way, we'll leave it be.
It is the same men, after all, who can be led
to true heroics or base depravity.
WINSLOW
Aye aye, Sir. But, Sir
WALTON
But Hopkins and Waverly was it that did --
and didn't -- make this sighting by our beam?
Here the credence to time at sea we'll give,
There was nothing there to see, it seems to me.
What else, Mister Winslow, would be living here in this
WINSLOW
But ourselves, Sir -- and for how long, and how?
Long and slowly from cold starvation
or tonight and quickly from colder steel
bristling in the hands of mutineers?
WALTON
We will live long enough to see this voyage to its end
and then, and only then, return to see our homes again.
WINSLOW
And if your confident courage, Sir
blurs your prudence and your reason?
WALTON
Others -- you -- pay the price, am I to think?
WINSLOW
Sir. And as for this apparition,
if it is strange that we are here then what is strange
that there might not be others also venturing here?
WALTON
Aye. Aye. But the strange is not the likely, Mister Winslow,
and on what is likely reason must always rule.
WINSLOW
Oh Sir, the cracking of the ice!
WALTON
Aye, Mister Winslow, aye! And soon this hull
will slip its clutching and sway in sea again --
and I hear the breeze come from the West
stirring our still rigging and aye! on our way again!
Have the men spoken of this apparition?
WINSLOW
Oh aye, first Waverely, at the changing of the watch,
to mock young Hopkins, did rant on Hopkin's tale.
Then Hopkins, fiery angry, to eyes that lined the foc'sle,
peering, widening from the hammocks, or glinting,
standing stooped beside the beams, did tell
his tale of a glistening livid face and head, wild-maned,
sledding, dark and slumping, through the mists
not a mile abeam beside us here in this frozen hell.
And all consensed it is an auger of our death.
WALTON
Auger of our success! Listen to the weather in your ears, Mister Winslow, not the fears of your mind's creation. Muster the men, for I would speak to them.
WINSLOW
Sir?
WALTON
Beat the drum to muster, Mister Winslow,
for I would speak to them, and then I'll
have them turn this ship on a course set Northwards
to vouchsafe us our ambition's quest!
WINSLOW
Aye, aye, sir! Boy, break out your drum and call the men to muster!
CABIN BOY heard from off
Sir! Aye aye, sir.
WALTON
My hearties, for that you are, and I am proud of you,
how many here are list'ning to the cracking of the ice?
Aey?
A SAILOR heard from main deck
Ahoy! Ahoy! A shape! A shape below the bow!
WINSLOW
The watch! Something upon us. Some thing is seen!
WALTON
Send a party to ascertain.
WINSLOW
Avast! Muster belayed. Hands to the forequarter. Lively now! This may be
WALTON
This may be what it will be when we see it.
A SAILOR heard from main deck
A man! A man upon a floe of ice! A sled..but the dogs are gone -- or dead. Ahoy!
VICTOR heard weakly from alongside the ship
Aieieieie...
A SAILOR heard from main deck
It is a man, Sir. Alive.
VICTOR heard weakly from alongside the ship
Aieieieie...
WINSLOW
A line to rescue him if he can use it.
A SAILOR heard from main deck
Ahoy! Ahoy! Grasp the lifeline; we will take you aboard.
VICTOR heard weakly from alongside the ship
No. No. I would not, cannot, will not, for it still lives. I must kill it and must die. Take my thanks and leave me, leave me on my quest, I beg of you.
A SAILOR heard from main deck
He seems too weak, Sir -- and refuses.
WALTON
See to the rigging of a chair, Mister Winslow.
WINSLOW
There is the churning of the breaking ice, Sir.
WALTON
See to the rigging of a chair, Mister Winslow,
Take care to take what risk is prudent,
but take no more than that. For life,
when saved it can be, to reasonable risk,
it must be. Would you Sir, sail happy
on a ship that left the stranded to their death,
refusing any risk to the safety of its own,
before reasonable chance of saving others'?
WINSLOW going off from quarterdeck above, to (unseen) main deck
No, Sir. Aye, aye, Sir. Avast! You and you, break out plank and tackle, and to the gun'l -- follow me.
A SAILOR heard from main deck
He flails upon the ice, possessed by fury, raging, but too weak to stand!
WINSLOW heard from main deck
Lively, lively, sure all's ready -- weather eye to where the ice moves! Hopkins, man the chair and take care to bring him safe aboard.
HOPKINS heard from main deck
Aye, aye, Sir. Ready, Sir.
WINSLOW heard from main deck
Lower, lower, quick and gently. Weather eye to danger!
HOPKINS heard faintly from alongside the ship
And the dog, Sir?
WINSLOW heard from main deck
Leave him, get the man aboard.
HOPKINS heard faintly from alongside the ship
He will not come, Sir -- refuses -- and as fevered rails at a demon he must kill.
WINSLOW heard from the deck below
He must for our captain says so! Lash him to the plank, and betake you to it too. Now! There is no time -- the ice it breaks away!
HOPKINS heard faintly from alongside the ship
Aye Sir, aye Sir -- almost ready, but he struggles
WINSLOW heard from main deck
Make him! Strike him if you must! There is no time!
HOPKINS heard faintly from alongside the ship
Aye Sir, aye Sir -- ready, now! What of the dog, Sir? He lives too.
WINSLOW heard from the deck below
Damn the dog! Ready, ready -- hoist away, hoist away, my hearties, now. Heave! Steady, steady, and bring them in.
WALTON to himself
Heave, my hearties heave -- and well done too, for he is safe aboard.
WINSLOW heard from main deck
He is aboard, Sir.
WALTON
Bring him to my cabin.
WINSLOW heard from main deck
All hands, all hands to quarters. Now. You heard our captain. Ready to make way as soon we can. Hopkins, take his feet; we'll take him.
WALTON as Victor tumbles to the cabin floor with Winslow trying to carry him
What!? With care Mister Winslow!
WINSLOW shouting up at Hopkins whom he no longer sees
Hopkins! Damn you, Hopkins! What devil has possessed you?
VICTOR
No...No...No...I must go on until my quest is finished. If I can no longer hope to kill it, then I would no longer live. I must undo what I have done.
WALTON
Calm, calm, calm yourself. You are safe now.
VICTOR
No, no... You must understand, but cannot, cannot.. I have made a monstrous thing, and it still lives! I have so failed, I have so failed, so let me go...
WALTON
to Victor Please, my friend. You are safe with us now. to Winslow He is delirious, gone. Hold him down, til we can put him in the bunk.
WINSLOW struggling with Victor in cabin below, as Hopkins struggles with The Demon on quarterdeck above
My God, for one so frail -- help me -- but such strength in throes of fury... Oh!
VICTOR struggling, then fainting from exhaustion
No, no, I must go, go on, until I've killed the life I made, that killed all living that made life worth to me. No.... It lives and taunts me still! I know it lives! No!
WINSLOW
He seems he was once a man of lively mind and station, but so wan and broken now -- as cold and hardship beyond endurance, would do to me, or you.
WALTON
Indeed he does, Mister Winslow -- and indeed it could.
THE DEMON clutching Hopkins, simultaneously with above
Silence. Dare to breathe, but dare not to speak. What you see in seeing me, my human one, you have not seen. You speak of me on this ship, and quickly, I will find and kill you. I come not for you. So silence, silence, lest you lose your life beneath the stifling of this hand. You struggle? My embrace is it so displeasing? What? My smell? My touch upon your skin? My voice as I whisper by your ear? Within, your self curdles seeing the closeness of my face? You faint with fear? And if I moved this hand so your mouth might taste my lips?
HOPKINS petrified with fear, then staggering into cabin
Oh, God, oh God, I have been clutched, clutched...by...oh, I... Captain...
WALTON
Hopkins? You are Hopkins, are you not?
HOPKINS
I... Ahahieie..
WINSLOW
"Sir," Hopkins. It is the captain you address.
WALTON
Pull yourself together, man. You just did well, very well indeed, in saving our new guest. And you have reason to rejoice in that.
WINSLOW
Except for tripping at the hatch! What befell you of a sudden?
HOPKINS
Sir..Oh, Sir...
WALTON
There. You will be right when on deck and back at work again. As will we all. Mister Winslow, as soon the parting of the ice allows, set a course for Northwards. Double watches on the bow, making all deliberate speed that conditions will allow.
WINSLOW going to quarterdeck above
Aye aye, Sir. At stations, now hear this. Man the halyards, make ready to set sail!
A SAILOR heard from main deck
Sir, the ice is thickening again, so fast. The wind has fallen.
WINSLOW on quarterdeck above, heard in cabin below
Damn, damn, damn -- it closes in on us again!
WALTON
Oh... Oh, no...
HOPKINS
Sir... Oh, Sir, I am torn with fear.
WALTON
Get him to the bunk, he is, it seems, but fainted.
HOPKINS going off, as Winslow re-enters cabin
Aye, aye, Sir.
WINSLOW
Sir, the wind has died. The cold has risen -- and so strangely quick. The ice crushes in around us like a sheet of steel. I have never seen such angry changing in conditions -- something vast has gone amiss in Nature here, and I despair.
WALTON
Aye. Aye, Mister Winslow, I know.
WINSLOW
What shall we do, Sir? How will this end?
WALTON
I know not. Mister Winslow -- nor do you, nor all of us.
I know... I know the taste of these bitter cinders
that blanket up my heart, so dull yet stinging,
in eerie silence once the fire of battle lost is gone.
Then nothing stirs within that might give rise to hope,
and all the valor and the pitch of the attack
is but an empty echo, a crushing quiet.
I feel as if an orchestra surging at full throated play
was wrenched by accident to discordant stop.
WINSLOW
Are you afraid?
WALTON
I am. And we shall be afraid together --
now, when so much harder than we ever thought
that it could be, is when men learn to lead.
And of our fear, none on this ship must know.
WINSLOW
I understand, and will do my best.
WALTON
And Winslow, mutiny's contagion will again,
when hopelessness becomes too hard to bear,
cloud their minds with angry desperation --
more likely now, so soon enough they'll come.
So on our guard for that we'll start, and now.
For those who plan for worst events
are likeliest to have the luck to miss them.
WINSLOW
Aye, Sir. I await your orders, Sir.
WALTON
Go to the men, Winslow, stand them down from quarters,
and speak to each of them, of nothing, just
kind words that speak of trust in them.
Order skeleton watches on the deck,
one ration of grog for all, and a double watches' sleep,
before or after duty, for all hands. And by then
this Earth will swing around once more, and bring
the sun from where it skids by the pale horizon here
to the center of the sky, and we will call it tomorrow,
and live to fight another day.
WINSLOW going off, meeting Hopkins who comes on
Aye, aye Sir.
HOPKINS
I have the draught, Sir.
WINSLOW
Good, Mister Hopkins -- then take it to the captain, will you?
HOPKINS
Sir? Aye aye, Sir.
WALTON as Hopkins comes into cabin after knocking
Aye. Hopkins, I see you have the draught.
HOPKINS
Aye, Sir.
WALTON looking at Victor
We'll not be needing it. He seems asleep,
if fitfully so, so why wake him now?
Oh, put it there -- in this becalment there's no danger
from any yaw or heeling it might spill.
HOPKINS helping the unconscious Victor
Aye, aye Sir. Sir, is he dead?
WALTON looking at Victor
No, I think not.
HOPKINS
And Sir...Sir, did he speak, Sir?
WALTON laughing
Of a creature, a demon to be killed? Glistening-faced, wild-maned and monstrous, like the one you too have seen?
HOPKINS
Sir...Oh, Sir, I have seen no such thing.
WALTON
I thought not.
HOPKINS
Oh, Sir... Sir... But he? Has he? I fear I heard him say
WALTON
Fear not, I say. You too would see demons
after the wrack of cold exhaustion he has seen.
Tomorrow when he wakes, let us sustain
the hope that he can tell us of what destiny
did bring him here so strangely to cross paths --
with yours who saved him as his was near its end.
HOPKINS
And ours, Sir, is it to end? Here too?
WALTON laughing
Ours too we will sustain, and take that up
tomorrow, fearing not -- short as your life
may be, it's still the longest thing you'll live.
Batten the ports, Hopkins, for we all need sleep --
if for no better reason, then to spite
this endless day of unendingly bad luck.
Aye.
WINSLOW
Sir, all is secure. As well she can this ship
now sleeps in her cold, hard bed tonight.
WALTON
Well done. If you would stay Winslow
to share my watch over our fevered guest,
then take that chair and take some rest,
and keep this cutlas near at hand...in case
he wakes, insurgent with such fury that
we must by force restrain him for his good...
I here shall clean and prime my pistols --
to while away the time -- and log a few
new lines on this encounter unexpected,
and damned reversal of our hopes.
So it does change, inconstant luck, so fast,
both first to good, and back to bad.
WINSLOW
I will, in case he wakes and raves again.
I feel the unfamiliar darkness here
does balm the rasping on my eyes and soul
from insistent day and thrilling expectation
of getting back to action, now so cruelly dashed.
HOPKINS
If, Sir, I might stay...in case he wakes and speaks...and madly raves, I might help, please Sir...
WINSLOW
Hopkins, it seems to me your place
WALTON laughing
May better be with us and not his mates?
Wrap yourself in our guest's sledding furs
and stretch out to guard beside his bed --
if he should wake and rail, he'll wake you first
stomping upon you.
WINSLOW
Goodnight, Sir, and may
WALTON
we rest in peace -- not yet, I pray, and trust.
HOPKINS
Goodnight. And thank you...Sirs.
WALTON
My dearest, beloved, extraordinary bride,
if dare you think of me as I of you,
a prow to swelling sea surging inside,
it's best words blush at saying what I would do.
My longing fits within me I know not how;
its vastness in this little self that's me --
as closing these my eyes I see you now --
outbounds the mighty reach of sky and sea.
Two lovers twixt to one, specks twixt in an enlace,
so small as hull twixt to sails, twixt stars and ocean's face,
are far out-towered by reach of Nature's place,
as I'd be lost in love in your embrace.
The resounding spell of Nature's majesty
sings of your great and distant love to me.
MARGARET
My dearest husband, oh so far away
care you to think of me as I of you?
Bright sun that lights this side of Earth at day,
why have you left me, spun to face the night's dread hue?
My longing fits within me I know not how;
its vastness in this little self am I --
as closing these my eyes I see you now --
outbounds the mighty dark of starlit sky.
Two lovers twixt to one, specks twixt in an enlace,
so great as sun twixt to Earth, twixt stars and heaven's face,
can as far out-tower the reach of Nature's place,
as we'd be lost in our love's embrace.
The resounding spell of Nature's harmony
sings of our child, you've left to live in me.
THE DEMON
Sleep, sleep, sweet sleep -- one more deep innocence
my wretched and inhuman life denied me.
In every instant that I have lived
there's been a restless toss and turn within,
as what I feel I should be, I can't forget I'm not.
Since none let me forget the hideous I seem,
I've learned so well the art of hiding me --
so still, in any nook or shadow I can fit
yet still be there a monstrous secret
like an appearing from so deep in dreams.
WINSLOW
Are they come?
WALTON
I know not. The hatch is latched behind?
WINSLOW
No.
WALTON
Then invite them in.
WINSLOW
Aye. For these doors would hardly keep your hearties out.
WALTON
Carefully then -- but better the cutlas sheathed
and by my side, and you stand here to meet them
by the table but with the pistols near at hand.
They may come to speak with us, not to attack,
and we should meet them in that way.
to Victor and Hopkins
Silence! Quit your frightened prattle!
And next you speak when I shall give you leave.
WINSLOW opening cabin door
No one is there. All is so deathly quiet.
The cabin boy he gently sleeps.
Shall I call the watch Sir, and ask for a report?
simultaneously with just above
HOPKINS
Arghohrghrgh!
VICTOR
Erhrhfh! It clutched me, oh! It lives and here.
Where are you? Where are you that I...
HOPKINS
You saw it? You saw it? Oh, what is this thing?
VICTOR
The demon I have made. It is alive
and come for me. God give me all my strength
that I may grapple with it now, and end
with vengeance life that cursed my own.
Help me find it where it's hid.
HOPKINS
No! I would not know, for I saw no
such thing that clutched me. No, it never did!
VICTOR
Oh, you saw it then, mantled dark, but then beneath
HOPKINS
No! No! No!
VICTOR
You did! The living flesh so wretchedly alive
beneath yet speaking with that sweetest voice.
You saw it, you did.
HOPKINS overcome with fear
No. Ohohohoh....
VICTOR
Here on this ship, at last the time has come.
Wherever you are hid, stay and end this with me now!
WALTON to Winslow
No. No. They did not come.
And yet our fears made us fear they did.
And was it prudence or runaway imagining
that brought us to our feet, our weapons in our hands?
to Victor and Hopkins
And what are you still moaning of?VICTOR
Did you not see it?
WALTON
See what? Did someone approach us while we slept?
WINSLOW
I saw no one there when they awoke -- so suddenly.
A dream it must have been, of those the young,
as when still children, startle wildly up
from sleep, but soon by loving arms consoled
return untroubled to their rest.
Was it not that that troubled so your sleep?
HOPKINS overcome with fear
Oh Sir, oh Sir, ohohohoh....
VICTOR
No! Did you not see it?
WALTON
See what?
VICTOR
The demon -- evil creature I have made
that killed near all who ever loved me,
and now will make your ship a shambles
equal to the horror of its monstrous flesh.
WALTON
My friend, I'm glad to see you have regained your strength, if not your senses.
VICTOR
What? You don't believe me? And you? Look at me.
I owe to you and to your crew my life --
worth nothing to me save to bring to death
the demon that at last here with your help
I may bring down, and end my sad travail on earth.
HOPKINS overcome with fear
Oh Sir, oh Sir, ohohohoh....
WALTON
There is no demon creature. Not on this ship,
not on this shelf of ice, nor on this world it sits atop.
WINSLOW
What Sir?
WALTON
What you heard, Mister Winslow, what you heard.
VICTOR
Captain, you must listen to me and understand.
I am a scholar, a man of mind and reason.
You must believe me. Yes, it is strange even to me
that I succeeded, but I did -- and curse
my own ambition now -- in undertaking the creation
of a form of life that was intended human.
And now it is here, hiding, and I beg your help
to find and kill it. You look at me as if I rave.
How think you I came here to cross the path
of your ship lost in this vast desolation where
no one would think another soul might venture
unless a destiny
WALTON
Aye, a destiny indeed. How you came to cross
our path -- and here -- that must be a tale to tell,
and we would hear it with much curiosity --
and here we may well have the time as we
pass the time waiting to satisfy
that final, rending, curiosity --
but not yet, not now, for I still have a ship to run
and crew to care for in their dangerous despair.
Hopkins
WINSLOW
Hopkins!
HOPKINS
Uhuhuh....
WINSLOW
Shake yourself alive, man. This is not like you.
WALTON
Unbatten all the ports, and let in the light
of this pale endless hell, and we shall call it day --
and fill it full of purpose to its very end.
Mister Winslow, once the men have had their rest
VICTOR
Captain, captain, listen to me. Look at
my body, see the withered battering
it bears that were it not for fury of the will
I'd be a sagging heap of jutting bones
crumpled here in an integument of skin,
and think upon the hardship it endured
to reach this place in chase of it that's here
WALTON
My friend, we have had the great good fortune
to save you from the ice and sea -- and thanks
to this brave sailor who risked himself for you --
and we will gladly harbor you and have
you share, equally, with all the honor of
a welcome guest whatever trial and darkening end --
or trial and hewed-to-worked-for triumph in the end
VICTOR
Captain, captain, it is here -- you must listen to me, oh!
WALTON
Sir, you are our guest and I would honor you,
a stranger strangely here among us, as best
we can, and so would not speak to you as I
a bumbling sailor might caution for his fault.
As I was saying Mister Winslow,
WINSLOW
Aye Sir.
WALTON
put them to work with our new purpose now --
outlast bestilled enclenchment by this monstrous ice --
so we must find for crew and ship a habit that befits...
more that of an encampment than ship at sea...
put them to work through long and measured days,
the deck and fire watches cut to few at night.
Through many days have each group take
as system of the vessel as their own
and every last thread and splinter of her
aye! kissed with loving care -- assayed, repaired
and put to test until this ship achieves
the best perfection that she can.
For that put them to work, unhurriedly, so joyfully
together, singing songs, to bind them into one --
and turns at work that long enough
to concentrate and tire are not yet so long
as to kindle anger and resistance to the task
and so the tasks can seem like play -- and so they are.
And let the watches see each other,
so that the pride men take in any group
that sets them off from others, spurs them on
to vy, in excellence, or just in rivalry.
And the rests from turns at work shall be
simultaneously with just above, then interrupting Walton
VICTOR accosting Hopkins
You saw it. You did. So you must tell him.
Why will you not speak? It woke you as it held me.
HOPKINS trying to get away
Oh Sir, Ohhh... I must to my duties Sir, and I saw no such thing.
VICTOR
You did! And this now is too grave to lie.
It will stay here, hiding, the more to taunt me,
but together with you, captain and crew,
I can kill it at long last hard though it will be.
So you must tell him so he knows.
HOPKINS
No, no... Sir, oh, Sir I saw no such thing.
VICTOR
You lie! And lie to me as you please
but to your captain you cannot, because
to him loyalty's a duty that you owe!
WALTON
What is clear Sir, is you are really mad as a hatter.
VICTOR
No! Ohohoh...
WALTON
The rests from turns at work shall be -- not short,
but not long either -- and at same time for all
so there is time for fellowship, and ease --
but not so long there's time for lassitude --
so they can drink, and share the draughts of melted ice
that may in time be all that may remain
for us to share. You and I Winslow,
with cook and steward will again assay
our stores of food and supply of coal.
The keys to them will from now on be only ours,
and you and I we shall preside at every day's
withdrawal of what will be apportioned.
Telltale ties will seal the stores at every other time.
Oh! and each work day each group in turn
will go upon the ice, axe holes in it and fish.
We shall make of this adversity
the best we can for all; we shall provide
intelligent purpose with planful command,
til we no longer can or til this ice it melts,
at last setting us free and then...and then, we'll see...
WINSLOW
Aye, aye. I can do it, Sir. But day after day til when?
The men are not, not learned nor seized
by high ambition, and so for them day's work
is not its own reward and will not,
in and of itself, suffice forever.
They must have a respite, something near to look to,
a sure reward for their acceptance of
the stretch of working time, that marks its end,
and wins their acceptance to begin again.
WALTON
I understand, but there are no holidays
from the dire work of survival.
VICTOR
Captain, captain, my heart and hands they tremble
at the holding of this book. If you do not believe me,
then tell me how did this book come here?
WINSLOW
Our mad guest again.
WALTON
Aye.
VICTOR
I tell you it could not have come except
the Demon brought it! And to taunt me more!
This is the notebook that I kept in Ingolstadt,
a student there when I was young -- yet it was not
a hand of years ago -- in it I see again
my thirst for hidden lore and pellmell drive
to make anew from nothing what all that live
in this bounteous house of God's creation
do so equally, blessedly share,
and I, I made my life a house
of murd'rous desolation and untimely death.
WINSLOW
And so the more to be pitied by us both.
My dear good Sir, look at the ample furs,
and boots and cape you wore when pulled --
by Hopkins here -- from floes of ice readying
to smash and tip you down into the sea --
you do recall your rescue by this man?
VICTOR to Hopkins
Was it you that did this for me?
I thank you more than words can say.
WALTON
And in their pockets and their folds is ample room
for instruments and notebooks to navigate and record
VICTOR
That's why it's dry and fresh and newly pressed
as something treasured, lovingly kept,
not something trailed in packs and pockets
worn and wracked by headlong months
of desperate travel across the Earth? No!
And if it was you who rescued me then I
would everything I have, what will be left
of my father's lands, I'll gladly leave to you
for I have no more use for any thing on Earth,
but help me once more I beg of you and speak!
Tell them of what you saw that came to kill
us in our sleep! For we must search this ship,
and kill it! I beg you. I beg you. I beg you.
WALTON
Hopkins, wake the cabin boy and have him rouse the cook and bring us breakfast -- no, let the boy sleep -- you rouse the cook, and have him make a ration of coffee like mine and the lieutenant's for our guest -- and one for you Hopkins -- and have him make it strong and thick however small as our quarter rations will allow.
WINSLOW
Aye, aye Sir! Thank you Sir!
HOPKINS goes off
Aye, aye Sir. Thank you Sir.
VICTOR
Why won't he speak? I know he saw it.
I swear I have not seen this book since my
so fateful student days. And you are blind
to how it must have come here and to how
the Demon, here, alive, somewhere beside us
will ruin the happiness of your ship. ... Ohohoh...
WALTON to Winslow
There is demon on this ship and it is that of mutiny.
And it will ruin, indeed, its happiness,
and all the justice and the order of its society.
And so our plan of giving them a purpose despite
the tenuousness of hope must work, and well!
WINSLOW
I understand, but would it not be best
to also give
WALTON laughing
They can pray, Winslow, pray alone or together --
that too is needed to bear our consciousness.
Or Winslow, break out that guitar you keep,
and we can give them songs and music that,
like plays and poetry, loosely ribbon
ties of trust and common feeling, lovely,
among all them that take part there together --
and bestir the mind to self-command and wisdom,
away from the fear and anger of survival. ... Did you say that to me?
WINSLOW
What, Sir? ... You seem perplexed, Sir? ...
Shall I begin to put in place your orders, Sir,
wake the cabin boy and call the men to muster?
WALTON
No, not yet. Let them sleep, let them sleep their fill,
forget that they are here and dream they are again
at home, in safety and at peace, with loves
they wish they'd known to never leave.
Is not so also for you Mister Winslow?
WINSLOW
Indeed it is, Sir. ... Aye!
HOPKINS
Sir, I have
WALTON
Bring it here and we shall drink it.
VICTOR to Hopkins
You! You must! You know what you have seen!
WALTON
Sir! Belay your demon tale awhile I beg,
and share with us this cup of dark elixir
that for an instant blots all cares away.
VICTOR
You think some dram from black roasted seeds
can wash away the desert of my cares --
as with a mop you might dry up the sea?
The loss I've known is constant on my mind --
the sky remains, no matter what the weather.
The Demon's death, and also mine is all
can reconcile my life to my life's pain.
WINSLOW
It's said the pain of those stark mad who dream
their sorrows, cuts more sharp and deep than that
of ours, the sane, who learn how to forget
the facts of loss that for a time make life
more cruel than our hearts and minds can bear.
WALTON
And I believe it. Tell us then, as now
we pause our work with this most bittersweet
and aromatic drink, tell us your tale
for we would hear it, for it indeed seems strange.
VICTOR
You will rue your laugh and mocking of my truth.
WALTON
Sir, I do not believe you, but I do not mock you.
And now I have the leisure, and I would gladly, humbly listen.
VICTOR
Most immediately I come from months,
months of travel beyond endurance in pursuit
of it, so monstrous, that now is on your ship
and you, a fool, will not believe it.
WINSLOW
Sir, you insult your host, and were you not mad
VICTOR
and I humbly, truly beg your pardon then.
But I am not mad. And no offense was meant
for truth cannot offend
WALTON
those who would strip off
the hide of lies men tell themselves to clothe
their mind and senses from the bitter cold
of naked wisdom of our human lot.
And were I not a fool, then I should choose
to be offended by truths such as those.
And so this demon that you see,
what does it look like, and how did it come to be?
VICTOR
In this notebook that it chills my heart to read
on every page I can relive another step
of the fateful course I took to make it live --
and from nothing but the wastes of charnel houses
and the ruins of whore's wombs -- until I,
from ancient lore and deepest science --
becoming less a man than a haunted beast
possessed by an Olympian fire and driven
like some shrill fury on a vengeful quest
did somehow unlock and prompt to action
the chemistry whence stems the spark of life.
And what I made I saw it thrived and grew --
and my heart burned with joy, joy with tears
like flames might shine upon my face,
that I myself had a God become!
Those days I watched my creature grow
oh ever larger, slowly stirring, and those nights
I slept the deepest sleep of high ambition slaked.
Like men who strive to rule, and at last achieve
the highest office, sleep so well on those first nights --
like infants sated after feeding at their mother's breast --
until wakened by the prowl of hungry rivals
who would now take their power from them.
And yet it grew, and grew -- but not at all
human and like me as I had dreamed --
yet so alive a thing of hideous bones and flesh.
It seemed in days it was full grown and then
began to speak in sweetest, wordless burblings.
And listening, I looked at the cacophony
of glistening organs twisting through its flesh,
but thrilled to who it was speaking to me,
and at the horror of the clash that I had made,
I closed my eyes, I turned my face, and ran away.
HOPKINS to himself
I understand, now all too well.
WINSLOW
Your story, Sir, draws my breaths shorter
quickens my pulse, and sends a chill of fear
bristling up along my back -- oh, if true,
why I near lost myself and did neigh forget
WALTON
the fright of slow death by starvation in a field of ice?
WINSLOW
Aye. That too.
WALTON
And where was this sweet-voiced demon by you
brought to such frightening life? And what became of it?
VICTOR
In my student rooms at Ingolstadt --
oh, such an ordinary place for such
a lasting horror -- but so it always is --
like student rooms, run down and cramped, unkept
and furnished with such cheap carelessness,
yet remembered after, though not noticed then,
there where we took first fateful actions on our own
like toddling grown-ups taking first steps
away from home. ... Oh, home... Oh, then my tragedies began.
It killed my brother William, just a boy
happening upon him in a wood, in fury at the sound
of just my fam'ly's name, and taking a locket from
his breast it happened on Justine asleep,
after her search for him, and left the locket in her hand
so all believed that she had killed the boy.
And I kept silent and let the law wrongly take her life.
And then it killed the truest friend that any man
has ever had the luck to have.
WINSLOW
I know not how we can console him.
If mad, he dreamt the deaths of those
whose names he speaks with soft regret
and deeper bitterness.
WALTON
Aye. But did you not say the sorrow of
the mad it pains as much as that of those
said fully in their senses and completely well?
A part of that I understand. I too
have wept, surprised by tears, for friends
and more, closer than brothers, and
so uselessly slain by glory's butcher on
what was til then a nameless, ordinary field,
unsure if we all were wildly mad, or not.
VICTOR
Clerval, who came to help me near the end
when near all, already, in my life was lost --
it wrenched the life from him who most deserved
to keep and live it, to its fullest end.
And then my father, strong and loving, standing by me
to the last, as much by sorrow as by violence
succumbed to its dread, vengeful hand.
And last -- and so to last until I end it's life with mine --
it killed my dearest, sweet Elizabeth,
who true to my poor mother's dying wish
stayed so devoted to this undeserving man.
At last when on our wedding night, I dared to hope
I might touch happiness again, it came,
and put its hand around her throat and more
than seal the breathing from her breast,
like worst of Winter storms in Spring do break
the twigs where new and tender blossoms bloom,
did crack the bones that held her head
and there I found her on our wedding bed.
And when it shows itself to you, I beg,
you listen not to the sunlight sweetness of its voice,
but drive the steel of death into its darkest heart.
WALTON
And how shall I know this demon if I see it?
HOPKINS
Oh Sir
VICTOR
It's here aboard your ship and you will know.
Do you believe me now?
WALTON
No. ... Would you that I pretend I did?
So what does it look like so when I see it I
will know to drive the steel of death into its heart?
VICTOR
You dare to laugh?
WINSLOW
What does it look like? If you saw it
you must at least have seen what it did seem?
VICTOR
It appears, cowled and draped in capes and furs
to hide its glistening self beneath
and, though larger than a man, so cloaked
it folds into the dark to seem not there, but is.
WALTON to Hopkins
Put on the sledding furs our guest left there.
HOPKINS
What Sir?
WALTON
Put on the sledding furs our guest left there.
HOPKINS
Oh no Sir, no; I would not seem the Demon, no, it
WALTON laughing
Put them on, we'll see if there's a demon in you ... you can play. For I would see this demon ... more than hear of it.
VICTOR
What's it matter if he looks much like it?
Indeed, when it appears, it cloaks itself like that
to hide the horror that it is beneath.
WALTON
And when it came here to you in the dark,
where did it stand, what did it do, or say
just now when you say that it awakened,
and tried to kill you, leaving as a present
a notebook from your student days?
VICTOR
It was here I say as I and he are here!
I was asleep and in this bunk like this,
where you and ...
HOPKINS
I
VICTOR
you must have placed me,
and like a figure hanging over me
WALTON
Hopkins, was that the place it was?
VICTOR
No, here it must have stood, and thus its furs
skirting the floor lapped against your face,
and waked you -- and you saw beneath
HOPKINS
Oh, no...
VICTOR
You lie. Why do you lie? You saw it.
WALTON
Enough! I would you showed me what it did.
VICTOR
and like a figure hanging over me
it stretched its hand and clutched my throat.
WALTON
Like that Hopkins, like that?
HOPKINS
I ...
WALTON
Aye! And those others whom you speak of
you say it killed them too that way?
VICTOR
It did. It did.
WALTON
A tale of dread and horror, which well could be a play?
WINSLOW
What Sir?
WALTON
Aye, Winslow aye! This is the respite that we seek!
Go to the men and let them know that once
they have oh ev'ry bit of this dear ship
assayed and passed in most caring review
some days of sport and play-going there'll be --
for when at evening they take their rest
well you and I, our guest, and demon here
HOPKINS
Oh Sir, oh no I cannot ... no, not play
WALTON
You can. And will. And will do well.
For I and Winslow will your prompters be.
and you, my friend, will tell us all your tale
VICTOR
my story's not for mocking in a play.
WALTON
Not mocking Sir, oh truly not. And yes,
now here it's I that ask that you believe.
You would that I believed you, and I, I would
that you help us in making for my men
an evening's entertainment, so piteous
and frightening that it makes them all forget
the pity and the fright that Nature holds
for us in this pale, endless cold.
Aye, Winslow, tell them so they talk of it,
with expectation, as at evening
they take some rest, and we as we take ours
will in my cabin here prepare for them a play --
so thus they too shall know the story that
you say did bring you here to join our ship and crew --
that, they will surely talk about and want to know.
VICTOR
And will you believe me then?
WALTON
I believe what I am shown, not merely told.
Go, put in place, in steps, preparing them,
this ship's new cycle of its work and days
to last through this strange, cold becalment
that all must trust will someday end, and I
shall follow, in every instance to support
the work you put in place with them, and well!
WINSLOW
Aye aye Sir. I will do my best.
WALTON
And in our time of leisure with our guest,
we'll put in place the showing of his quest.
And all the sorrow and adventure you have known
we'll make of the tale you tell a play that's shown.
HOPKINS
A strange foreboding fills me here.
www.willow-n.com |
Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein mwsf2: Background is same as previous: cabin -- with quarterdeck above -- and adjunct area. The cabin has been set up to represent Victor's rooms at the university in Ingolstadt where he brings his hideous progeny to life. The adjunct area represents Victor's home in Geneva, and then a snowy countryside though which the Demon (played by Hopkins) flees, and a shepherds' encampment where it finds refuge. The Demon plays from the cabin. Margaret and Elizabeth play from the adjunct area. Victor, Walton, Winslow and Hopkins play from both the cabin and adjunct area. The crew (unseen) is the audience for the playing of Victor's story. |
WALTON first welcoming the (unseen) crewmen as they file in, take their places etc., then as The Prologue
Aye! Aye, my hearties, for that you are --
and welcome too, with all my heart.
There, serry! Serry! Range yourselves
in ranks close ordered before this cabin's stage
for these sea-stained and rough-hewn planks
are now the benches of our theater's pit,
and these low rooftrees now the soaring,
ceiling chandeliered with trembling light --
and oh if only from the galleries and boxes of
these bulkheads and their stanchions glowed
the damasks' red and pilasters also chased in gold,
and from them leaned down for our eyes
the ladies, looking, bending to review
who else is there to share the night's bright play.
Tonight, and here, we'll share the one that's ours --
for I am proud of you -- you have stood firm
against the hard adversity that yet
does hold us here, but it will end --
we shall sail free if we hold fast!
For now, our ship is coldly beached stone still
as if a building on its city square.
And aye, why not, the threat'ning howl and reach
of our pale field of endless, windswept ice
in an imagination's trice for now we'll make
the fields of Lincoln's Inn where playgoers
ahastening a balmy evening in Spring
between the carriages and crowds
through Bridge Street down to Drury Lane do run
to reach their places by the curtain's rise?
Aye, for I am proud of you -- since in these days
you have assayed, repaired and put to test
oh every last thread and splinter of this ship --
aye! as this sun that never sets' a fire
that casts in our world's cave the blurred
and lying shadow of the ideals of all things
so you have made the shadow of this ship
as sharp and true as human work it can.
And then tomorrow when this respite
and a day of rest it ends, we shall begin again!
And now, I am the prologue to this play:
our scene the glorious pinnacles of the Alps,
grand and looming down in deepest green
to lakes of slivered silver with marble towns
strewn like toys of giants on their banks;
and here, in the heaven of his childhood comes
the guest we rescued from the icy sea,
who then from hardship was so wracked and worn,
but now's a handsome student full of youth
here to tell us what he says is his tale's truth.
VICTOR
I am by birth a Genevese, and proud
of that self-governing Republic's way of life.
My father was a man of deeply held ideals.
His was a tried and true devotion to
well-being and just-ruling of the city,
freely and by nature given, not from fear
of shame nor imitation of any said
his masters or his betters. Middle-aged,
he let go his place in public service
to those younger whose ambition he had formed,
and late in life, at last he saw fit to marry.
My mother was the daughter of a merchant,
a man my father held in friendship and regard.
This merchant lost his fortune and in pride
retreated from society, and fell,
thriftless, quickly into poverty.
My father, when he heard of this searched out
the friend he had lost sight of, finding him, too late.
To honor him he wished had asked for help,
he took the sheltering of the daughter on himself.
And from the deathbed where she wept he placed
her with relations in Geneva near his house.
Duty's visits to his ward in time became,
as kindness and courage in her heart won his,
a suitor's wooing of an admired betrothed.
They took to traveling through Italy and then,
between the shadow of Vesuvius and
the sun-struck idyl of the island of Capri,
I spilled from out the tunnel of her womb
to sep'rate life in the tumult of Naples' light.
And thinking back to then I ask again
how such happy childhood did begin
my destiny, to such unhappy end.
MARGARET as Caroline, laughing, playing with the baby
Kookooloo! Kookee kookee kookooloo!
Ohooohooh! Victor!
Kookooloo! Kookee kookee kookooloo!
Ohooohooh! Victor!
It's you! It's you! Victor! Oh Victor, yes it's you!
Oh, my most extraordinary and beloved one!
You! My one and only first-born son!
You, already, as I hold your face to mine,
are a person of ... oh! your power and your beauty...
The resplendent wonder of you in my eyes
and all the world's is greater happiness
than my poor grateful, human soul can stand.
THE DEMON momentarily emerging from hiding from where it has been watching, and seen and heard only by the members of the audience as Margaret as Caroline keeps playing with baby
And how much greater the despair that weighs
upon a consciousness completely free
of any hope an other gracious being might
deign to hold its face to mine and loom --
oh ev'ry kind word and ev'ry loving look
another soft weft thread in shedspace laced
through taut and twisted warp threads of my self
to weave a body's soul strong supple web?
Oh weariness of solitude, oh bring --
descending through the dark I hold, closed,
behind my eyes -- bring me to death right now.
Oh I have been alone, alone, oh so alone
since my unasked for bitter life began.
Oh would my tears scald me blind
so I'd not see, and know so clear the pain
of how I ache for a love like this, for me.
And seeing this, my maker loved,
with such intensity of tenderness
and caring patience to lead into the world,
the angry envy in me stirs again,
and I am kindled to revenge and kill. returns to hiding
MARGARET as Caroline, laughing, playing with the baby
Kookooloo! Kookee kookee kookooloo!
Ohooohooh! Victor!
Kookooloo! Kookee kookee kookooloo!
Ohooohooh! Victor!
It's you! It's you! Victor! Oh Victor, yes it's you!
Oh my extraordinary, wonderful, beautiful you!
WALTON as Alphonse
My love for you in strength and wisdom grows,
as pride brings tears to my eyes as I
do look upon and hold both you and him --
my first-born son, the princely, strong and wise
protector of my fam'ly's name and house.
Oh my Victor, all I have that I can give,
and all that I wish best for you are one.
What you have given in giving me this son
is in the living wonder of him more
than in any expectation ever I imagined.
MARGARET as Caroline, laughing, playing with the baby
And now you have a rival for my heart.
With your eyes my Victor, tell him. Is it not so?
Yes there's mama, papa, and then there's Victor!
Tell him with our look of eyes to eyes,
locked in a oneness face to face,
that in its way is close as that as when
you in my womb were one with me.
Where would I be had you not taken me
to be your wife? What rude experience
might life have held for me, alone, without
a father's house? And you, my love, my love,
have given me this chance to live and love,
and have this child. My love for you
grows stronger, deeper. I arch beneath
your face to mine, as land in Spring
does open to the warming kiss, the force
that ever high'r through length'ning days does bring
such sweet renew'l to ev'ry living thing.
WALTON as Alphonse
Of brothers and of sisters for him we
should think -- so he will have the company
of family companions better than
those that you and I would make for play.
And we must think of educating them.
That too, I had not thought of until now.
Their education, an inward, mighty balance
it should be, that yet sways gently, tugged
by rich and massy goldenweights,
both slowly built through caring, daily thrift --
one that tends to self-serving individuality
and the other to the service of community,
and neither one ever so far outbalancing
the other that a fillip of sound reason
won't return them to their tipping point.
MARGARET as Caroline, singing
Name baby, name, name
what is your name name?
Love baby love love
who is your love love?
Sleep baby sleep sleep
where is your sleep sleep?
You are my love, love
love is our name love.
Sleep in my song, love,
sweet sleep so long love.
Long as I live love
you'll be my deep love.
Life of my womb, love
now in the world, love.
Long as I live love
when we were one, love
that's how I'll remember
you now and forever.
Sleep baby sleep sleep
in sweet peace so deep.
THE DEMON & MARGARET as Caroline, singing
Name baby, name, name
what is your name name? / I have no name name.
Love baby love love
who is your love, love? / I know no love, I.
Sleep baby sleep sleep
where is your sleep sleep? / for me there's no sleep, me.
Long as I live love / Long as I live life
when we were one, love / always alone I
that's how I'll remember / oh how I'll remember
you now and forever. / my lonely forever.
Sleep baby sleep sleep
in sweet peace so deep. / death your soul will keep.
VICTOR
And thus, the eldest son, I became
the conqueror at the center of their lives,
certain I was destined for great things,
with only which achievements, to experience left
to be discovered. And how I rue
my bent that took me soon to delve as deep
as human knowledge can into the secret springs
of heaven, earth and life itself.
Like my dear friend, Clerval, I wish I'd taken
to poetry and politics, affairs of hearts and minds,
and not the deepest mechanisms
of matter and of nature that underpin it all.
At seventeen, my childhood barely ending
my father he resolved I should become
a student at the university of Ingolstadt
to complete my learning and become acquainted
with the customs of a country other than my own.
The carriage came that fateful morning and
I slumped in it reflecting on my exile
from my happy home and the old familiar faces
of brothers, of my father, of Clerval,
and of my dear, faithful Elizabeth
and of my mother whom I would never see again.
They came to see me off; it was the most
that I could do to keep back tears, seem brave,
and not give in to desperation,
and foreboding at the child dying within.
WALTON as Alphonse
Good-bye my son, stay proud and steadfast in
your manners and your purpose and remember
all our faith in you and all our hopes for you.
MARGARET as Caroline
Oh my dearest Victor, I cannot bear to see you go,
you my first-born, lovely little princely one
that I love so -- and go you must but I ...
my loving heart rebels at my own reason's rule,
crushed within me by the welling of my tears,
and leaving only all my prayers to go with you.
ELIZABETH
My silence, Victor, speaks my longing --
you will achieve so much I know, and you must go --
but already how I miss your return to me.
HOPKINS as Clerval
I would still go with you my dear friend,
but you know why I can't but still --
embrace me once again for all our days at play.
WALTON as Alphonse
My Caroline, it must be so -- hard as it is, I know.
MARGARET as Caroline
I know, but ask me not to hide my sorrow.
VICTOR
Clerval, Clerval -- your name I'll keep
a touchstone for the light of friendship in
the solitary dark of life.
And Elizabeth, Elizabeth, remember me,
and keep my mother in your care.
Good-bye, Papa; good-bye, Mama.
ELIZABETH
Oh my Victor, if you knew my love.
VICTOR
And so I left them, in sadness without words.
I hardly spoke, I think, until the spires
of Ingolstadt, and the newness of the challenge
of mast'ring life at university
did coax out some desire for life in me.
Unknown to me I left behind what soon
became a scene of greater desolation --
my mother's death, an omen of my future misery.
MARGARET as Caroline
Oh water, just a tiny sip, so fresh
from melting snows, that I can hardly swallow
for this all-filling fever swells my throat.
WALTON as Alphonse
Doctor, what can be done?
WINSLOW as doctor
I have done what I can. Rest now, rest -- that is all.
WALTON as Alphonse
No. ... No. I cannot think of life without her.
ELIZABETH
Here, my beloved lady.
HOPKINS as Clerval
Elizabeth, I am as stricken here as you.
ELIZABETH
Clerval, Clerval, help me hold her.
HOPKINS as Clerval
She is so pale and weak.
MARGARET as Caroline
How cool it feels, yet how hard it is to drink.
I thank you truly. What news is there of my Victor?
And where are my Ernest and my William?
ELIZABETH
Ernest and William soon will be back from school.
Justine your most loving servant she will come
with them to see you (as she too, heartbroken,
dares not tell them, but they sense so well something's
so wrong) and they will soon be here to see you.
(Are they coming now?)
HOPKINS as Clerval
(Yes, I'm sure. I sent Justine -- distraught --
but, stronghearted, all the more clearminded for it.)
ELIZABETH
Justine has gone for them and they will soon
be here to see you. They are ... oh!
as you so well do know and love them --
just thinking of them is itself a joy.
MARGARET as Caroline
It is. It is. And I will miss them so.
ELIZABETH
Oh my sweet lady, do not even say... Oh...
for they will be here any instant now.
Your William is the most life-full, bright-eyed
and dancing cherub of a boy,
as if in armfuls taking in so fiercely
all there is of life and learning -- til bedtime,
and collapsing, from every day's long exhilaration.
And Earnest -- youth just begun and boyhood
not yet ended -- in love with school for all the friends,
but not at all for poring closely over books,
and ever brimming over with insouciant,
intrepid laughter, so all the world laughs with him,
following him on any venture he might lead.
MARGARET as Caroline
And you my dear Elizabeth, will care
for them I know, and love them as I do.
ELIZABETH
My lady Caroline -- oh say it is not so...
MARGARET as Caroline
And of my eldest, Victor -- he here will not
ELIZABETH
No but he
HOPKINS as Clerval
has written me, and we have best news of him.
ELIZABETH
He has?
HOPKINS as Clerval
Well, yes, yes a bit -- oh yes! Oh, he has --
in letters full of fine-drawn anecdote,
he tells us of his early college days --
the teachers that he met who prompted him
to follow on his bent for physics and
for chemistry, and soon -- I think he wrote --
success, just as expected, many friends,
professors' admiration for his balance,
the justness of his judgment and his reason's calm
VICTOR
(It was its opposite, obsession, as I threw myself
into the ever-faster, deepening vortex of
in-gathering the knowledge-hoard I craved --
needed! -- to unfold the deepest mysteries of life)
VICTOR and HOPKINS as Clerval, together
to make you proud of me/him as one who did achieve
great things as you did both expect of me/him.
WALTON as Alphonse
That there is greatness in my Victor, dear Clerval,
I never doubted -- if only it be as you describe.
MARGARET as Caroline
It is as he describes, it is, my love.
Do you remember how it was those many years,
but yet it feels...
WINSLOW as doctor
Lady Caroline, rest if you please for
MARGARET as Caroline
soon
it will be over so I would remember well
all that in my life was best. You do remember
how we were sure that we could see the great
strong goodness of his genius in his eyes
from the very start when he was born?
WALTON as Alphonse
I so remember his, and Ernest and WiIliam's
new presence in our lives, and oh my love,
I remember ev'ry kiss and conversation, all
that we have shared, and now, oh now...
MARGARET as Caroline
Take my hand, so I may take, my love,
the strength of yours with me. You will remain
a loving father to them all, so I
may die at peace, as now it pleases God I must.
Elizabeth, my firmest hopes are placed upon
the prospect of your and Victor's married happiness.
ELIZABETH
I will be faithful to him to the end,
my lady, oh my lady, and with all my heart
will give him what happiness I can, for you
and for myself.
MARGARET as Caroline
With that assurance, in all your love, I turn away.
VICTOR
And so I learned of it, my mother's death,
and I fell, like the letter from my hand --
the groan that welled from me a strangled breath,
the tears, the rush of a lifetime's worth of love at end.
I struggled to continue, as if nothing new,
denying, that today, like yesterday, seeing her again
was possible in time -- so again, put off anew.
But now, her loving eyes on me, I'll never see again.
But tide of habit, stress of living, ever-warning,
soon lifts us back to action -- against the lethargy
of pain, few can afford much pine and mourning,
for necessity soon impinges with all its dull energy.
We wonder how others live with great loss and pain,
forgetting, that nature cauterizes to keep us sane.
My ceaseless work, with destructive intensity,
ever further, drew me from all else -- and I let it.
I became disquieting to all I frequented --
and they dwindled, including my teachers
as I surpassed them, until I was alone,
alone with what I achieved: my creature.
I lived closeted in my rooms, they were
an unkept charnel house, the shambled
reflection of my ambition's horror
though I saw them as the workshop of my glory.
I left them only to troll the city's world
of sick and dying -- the churning, like goods
through a market, of those at last enticed
beyond the edge of the ballroom floor
by dancing death -- and that I pillaged
for organs, freshly dead, that I might, dissecting,
somehow coax and galvanize, spellcast up,
engend'ring from within the spark of life and growth.
What I achieved was great indeed, and had
not this creation 'scaped from my control
and run amok destroying all there was
of good and sensible in my life,
my fame -- renown! -- would lord over the world,
and I'd not have lived hiding guilty shame
at the hideous progeny I made that was
to be so good, and yet turned out so wrong.
Yes, then, a grim November night of cold
and rain and lightning -- how many hours on end
had I bent to my microscopes and labors --
despairing yet convinced one more, one more, action,
and the tangle of cells and membranes so far
in scale at my instruments' end, so close
at hand before my face, and ever still,
as if I could forever recompile them, bring them close,
but never spark them to self-directed growth,
might, at last, somehow, take up life of their own.
Within I felt my mind careening wildly,
as my body, at the precipice of exhaustion,
teetered at the edge of consciousness;
fainting, slipping from my instruments and table,
I sighed a last breath on my work --
and at that instant as I fell I think
that lightening bolted through the room but I
remember nothing clearly of that now
as I must have lain upon the floor,
I know not how long.
THE DEMON momentarily emerging from hiding from where it has been watching, and seen and heard only by the members of the audience
Better you had spilled it all, the vessel
that nurtured me, as you were falling
and I had not lived, left alone to wrestle
with mere self-survival's bitter calling.
Tell it again, for hearing by your vanity,
your tale of your heroic struggle -- how, possessed,
and so then blameless by insanity,
you dared for glory, so proud to be obsessed.
There is nothing men will not forgive themselves,
no killing, crimes, destruction or unkindness;
for all, they never fail to give themselves
a heroic tale to memorialize the mindless.
When I, as calm as death, shall triumph over you,
there'll be no tale to tell, by me, nor you.
So now, in the brightness of the day,
awake and discover, the fleshy clay
you breathed to life, but soon will give way
from hero's triumph to fool's comic play. returns to hiding
VICTOR
When I awoke the lightening light -- that I
may well have dreamed for all I know -- that from
the storm an arc of sparking sear swept through
this room, a galvanizing hand of God,
had given way to limpid sunlight's resplendent play,
as if blessing all with the brightness of the day.
So sorely from where I'd fallen, I lifted me
up from the ground, and sudden struck by fear
of loss of all my work, of having to begin again,
I reached to check the warming coils I'd placed
around the vessel where I strained to knit
life up again from organs that had been
themselves once parts of living things.
There, as tired I leaned to rearrange
the scatter of my instruments and tools,
there! amid the membrane swaddling in
the basin pool, oh there...there so like
a tiny star of fishpink flesh, and trembling
its limbs at me...alive...alive, and as if gesturing to me.
I had done it. I had. Made life anew.
I breathed, and sighed, and closed my eyes,
and triumph like a killing surged through me.
I saw the world in awe of me through fame!
What no, no man had ever done, I had,
and soon, the world would know of my so great
and good achievement in making human life,
and I'd transcend my mere, small self and bask
in worship of my high and just renown.
And quickly I went back to work and put in place
all needed for my creature's growth and health.
Those days, it grew apace -- and more than that --
and I, I slept the peaceful, happy sleep
of those who have attained a long-sought goal,
and believe that they need quest no more.
Awake, I would admire my work, and say
my name out loud -- my family's name that now
because of me would live for time untold --
then I would sleep again, and wake to dream
my time of fame so soon to come, I thought.
I had the leisure now, for my creation thrived
all on its own, and so I rested -- I could, for it
did need no care it seemed; the nourishment
I left, so like a feral thing, it quickly learned
to feed upon completely on its own.
It grew, and grew, so fast, with no abatement --
life's orderly sorcery gone mad
(how quickly doubts do turn to dread) --
as I in dawning horror looked on the confusion
of what was to be human in its form,
Hopkins, as The Demon, is seen stirring, trying to look like he's growing in Victor's workshop; tittering is heard from (unseen) crew as they find their shipmate ludicrous. Walton, with a glare and gesture, tries to silence them. (Walton and Winslow are back on in cabin space, clearly fretting about the (unseen) crew's unruly reaction to Hopkins' portrayal of The Demon.)
but was a tangled, moving progenyHopkins, as The Demon, tries burbling sweetly like a baby, and the crew (unseen) bursts out in taunts and guffaws at him.
WALTON
Avast! Avast there with your gawfs and jibes!
Silence! By God, my hearties, do you dare
to laugh at your best shipmate's strive to show
a creature full of agony and life,
that does not know it has no hope?
What you see there's not Hopkins painted, playing,
but a hid'ous progeny 'bout to plunge, headlong,
lost and uncomprehending, into the dark
adventure of unhappy destiny.
And I say you will see it as I do,
and master the mutinous defiance of
your rude, untutored, boist'rous ways.
WINSLOW
Aye, or rue not seeing it as the captain says.
Hopkins, as The Demon, again tries burbling sweetly like a baby, as Victor takes up where they left off.
VICTOR
for it would speak its self to me, and I
thrilled to who it was speaking to me,
but at the horror of the clash that I had made,
I closed my eyes, I turned my face, and ran away.
Victor goes off. Hopkins, as The Demon, keeps burbling and flailing, trying to look like the new-born monster, growing precipitously, etc. The crew (unseen) with hoots and whistles, and calling him by name, starts jeering at Hopkins.
HOPKINS as The Demon, to Walton
I can't, Sir. Please Sir, I beg you, no more.
Crew (unseen) explodes in catcalls and roistering.
WINSLOW
Sir, do we belay this, call the crew to quarters and
WALTON
No, we finish what we've begun.
Steady, Hopkins, steady; we will make them see.
And you, look at him. Look at him, I say,
and see him as I ask you to, not as you do.
WINSLOW
And look in silence lest the lash
be brought to use upon this ship and it --
and you -- become like all the others,
vessels ruled by fear, manned by fearful men.
WALTON
Look at him I say, and fear not to see him --
not the shipmate, burning in your gaze,
but the creature, new-born, full-grown
(Hopkins, to it) -- see the way the light
so hurts its eyes and how it writhes as if
within the self was tumbling in an avalanche
of sharp sensations from the panoply
of restless senses so undistinguishable one
from another for it knows no words
to set apart the light from dark, the sound
from silence, warmth from cold and smell from breathe --
it even cannot wish for the cool taste of water
for the pangs of thirst and hunger that it feels
with such awareness, it, so desperate and ignorant,
can only cast about to wildly test
of what the world does offer to the sight
and smell and hearing that might be good
for to slake and satisfy the cries within.
THE DEMON momentarily emerging from hiding from where it has been watching, and seen and heard only by the members of the audience
And I, who had almost forgotten, those first --
like lightning flashes harrowing out
the marrow of a tree and leaving a sundered
scorching bole -- moments of my life,
that did so fiercely take the full-grown oak
of me and burning scission it a crippled stump.
WALTON
And we, who have had our hearts so hardened,
taught ourselves to turn away to struggle on,
so coldly taking in the sight of shipmates
a sudden from their stations torn by fouling accident
or by towering wave awash swept lost to sea,
oh even we, would we not pity it?
(Good, Hopkins, good. And again, more frantic and insensate.)
Such a base, and rage and whimpering unsightly beast --
yet almost like us in glance and cunning,
in the energy and agile of its haunted search,
so if a shipmate, brought here aboard, by me,
how would...? If staunch and steady, pulling all
its watches and making up the shirkers' share of work
but just in appearance so inhuman, so like that...
What would you take it in as one of you, or us?
It's but the habitual judgment of the mind
that makes us draw the line somewhere, and set
apart the equal brother from the unequal other.
(Aye, Hopkins aye, you have them now.)
See him, raging in the rooms, a god
from nature's bestiary, and now surprised
at the cage he recognizes is enclosing him.
THE DEMON momentarily emerging from hiding from where it has been watching, and seen and heard only by the members of the audience
My pain so great , my fear so acute,
I felt the walls crush in around me and
the sound and fury of my raging brought
a terror face-to-face to me so great
I now still tremble in its recall.
WINSLOW as Victor's landlord, carrying stick
Watchman, watchman, succor now, now!
I, the landlord to a student, fear the din --
an assault upon him in his rooms and harm
to him and to my furnishings might come.
WALTON as a night watchman, carrying stick
Is here the room whence come these cries?
WINSLOW as Victor's landlord, carrying stick
Aye.
WINSLOW as Victor's landlord, carrying stick
What has happened to my rooms? Oh, he will pay!
WALTON as a night watchman, carrying stick and catching sight of Hopkins, as the Demon
Oh God, what beast is this that huddles there?
WINSLOW as Victor's landlord, carrying stick, also catching sight of Hopkins, as the Demon
A devil, a veritable devil that has killed my tenant.
We must kill it, kill this demon now before it kills again!
They attack Hopkins, as the Demon, who, uncomprehending, finally screams and flees.
WALTON as a night watchman, carrying stick
It has escaped; the evil thing has fled.
Without its body, all will scoff at us,
and none believe what evil we have seen.
What demon was this that bled so like a man?
WINSLOW as Victor's landlord, carrying stick
It fled into the night's dark cold.
All holy beings come, come to us now;
protect us from its dark return.
We must make haste to find my tenant.
If he is dead, then who will pay?
Winslow and Walton, respectively, as Victor's landlord and a night watchman, go off, leaving Hopkins, as the Demon, collapsed from exhaustion.
THE DEMON momentarily emerging from hiding from where it has been watching, and seen and heard only by the members of the audience
The humans who hit and hit me knew not...
knew not what? That I feared them more than
they feared me? And would they have had
the courage of some kindness then,
then would that have won me to mansuetude?
I ran and ran with all the power of youth
into the strangeness of the night -- my feet,
I felt it was the natural thing to keep
them in the air for on the ground the white
that clung to them and all around laced down
to touch me in the dark, so made them burn
that soon they seared away to madly numbing me.
I was naked in the snow and didn't know it.
My breathing foamed upon my face; I was
unable to go on, yet knew I could not stop.
I sensed what that would be -- and feared -- though I
had no name for it yet, I knew right then
the breath of life I drew within so warm
could end, and I would fall -- and almost did,
a stone cold thing aground to death so numb.
I was now far from what I later learned
was called a town, and entering a wood
to die among the trees huddled from the wind,
I clasped the thing I took and raised my head
to gasp a last cold breath -- and glimpsed a light.
I rose and made my way, lifted beyond my strength
by what I later learned was human hope.
I stumbled heedless, drawn by firelight first,
and then it came, enveloping the world of me
and took me by the ears and turned my face
up to the night where I, I saw her sing
a shining sheen of firelight blessing me.
Walton and Margaret and Winslow (with guitar), as shepherds, sing and dance around a fire in their shelter, as Hopkins, as the Demon, approaches them entranced.
MARGARET as shepherdess
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
Three words, and your way with me
you'll have for joying night and day.
Three words though that bewitchingly
must truth that's in your heart display.
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
WALTON as shepherd
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
Three words, and you, my beauty, you
I'll have for joying my life away.
Three words that for long I'll rue
if it's you that with truth do play.
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
MARGARET as shepherdess
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
Three words as true as my love for you
is all that is asked for all I'll give you.
Three words though that must be truly said
or you'll lie alone in your lonely bed.
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
WALTON as shepherd
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
Lying's an art needed to rule;
but also used to make man love's fool --
three words then that in my ken
make women better liars than men.
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
MARGARET AND WALTON as shepherds
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
It's said God said lying's a sin --
what's all to lose when heaven's to win?
Three words, three words, oh 'deed I do --
so giving my self I say I love you.
La-la-la tra-la-la la-di-da la-di-dai-ra.
Hopkins, as the Demon, comes in on Walton and Margaret and Winslow, as shepherds, who, surprised and terrified, run away. Hopkins, as the Demon, uncomprehending and exhausted, turns to figuring out -- confusedly, by trail-and-error -- how to get warm by the fire and feed wood to it, dress in the capes and furs left by them, kill and eat a lamb also left by them, and drink the wine they left behind. As this pantomime continues, Hopkins, as the Demon, clearly revivifying, starts trying to make words. Warm, fed, rested, and in wonderment, Hopkins, as the Demon, sees the moon, and starts braying tenderly at it. Hopkins as the Demon, trying to sing and move rhythmically, chants and shuffles shamanistically, circling the fire in a trance.
THE DEMON momentarily emerging from hiding from where it has been watching, and seen and heard only by the members of the audience
If I had not been born full grown, I'd not
have learned so much so quickly -- no, oh no;
but I'd have languished in my brute, blind lot
until by trial and stumble I'd have come to know.
Know what? Know ritual -- and what of it?
Just gesture, so hewed to, the more to hide
our own invention of it -- shackled to love it
for how its hum and prayer it helps abide
the constant lightning in the cortexed skull.
Our blessings and our shibboleths they find,
ascending to the welkin's topsyturvy hull,
their answer and their mirror in our mind.
Oh how would I, drawn as a flooding tide,
rise up in prayer to this welling muse inside!
And thus did I begin my education,
all on my own, to progress into future,
so feared, unknown -- as if by imitation
I might possess a power of culture,
and win some peace within to keep at bay
the wilding rage of chaos engorged to kill.
I understood nothing, and every pained assay
at comprehending more took ferocious will.