Caliban by the Yellow Sands: A Community Masque of the Art of the Theatre
Date: 2018-10-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: American drama; Shakespeare; William; 1564-1616 -- Anniversaries; etc.

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Title: Caliban by the Yellow Sands: A Community Masque of the Art of the Theatre

Author: Percy MacKaye

Illustrator: Robert Edmond Jones

Joseph Urban

Release date: October 11, 2018 [eBook #58076]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Paul Marshall, Mary Glenn Krause, MFR and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIBAN BY THE YELLOW SANDS: A COMMUNITY MASQUE OF THE ART OF THE THEATRE ***

- WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYE

- DRAMAS

- The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy.

- Jeanne d’Arc. A Tragedy.

- Sappho and Phaon. A Tragedy.

- Fenris The Wolf. A Tragedy.

- A Garland to Sylvia. A Dramatic Reverie.

- The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous.

- Yankee Fantasies. Five One-act Plays.

- Mater. An American Study in Comedy.

- Anti-matrimony. A Satirical Comedy.

- To-morrow. A Play in Three Acts.

- A Thousand Years Ago. A Romance of the Orient.

- The Immigrants. A Lyric Drama.

- MASQUES

- Caliban. A Shakespeare Masque.

- Saint Louis. A Civic Masque.

- Sanctuary. A Bird Masque.

- The New Citizenship. A Civic Ritual.

- POEMS

- The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems.

- Uriel, and Other Poems.

- Lincoln. A Centenary Ode.

- The Present Hour.

- Poems and Plays. In Two Volumes.

- ESSAYS

- The Playhouse and the Play.

- The Civic Theatre.

- A Substitute for War.

- AT ALL BOOKSELLERS

- Uniform with this volume

- SAINT LOUIS: A Civic Masque

- AS ENACTED BY 7,000 CITIZENS OF SAINT LOUIS

CALIBAN

PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF SETEBOS, BY JOSEPH URBAN

CALIBAN
BY THE YELLOW SANDS

BY
Percy MacKaye

Garden City New York
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1916

ENDORSED BY THE DRAMA LEAGUE OF AMERICA

Copyright, 1916, by
Percy MacKaye

All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian

All acting rights, and motion picture rights, are reserved
by the author in the United States, Great Britain
and countries of the copyright Union

SPECIAL NOTICE
Regarding Public Performances and Readings

No performance of this Masque—professional or amateur—and no public reading of it may be given without the written permission of the author and the payment of royalty.

The author should be addressed in care of the publishers.

During the Shakespeare Tercentenary season of 1916, the
Masque—after its New York production at the City College
Stadium, May 23, 24, 25, 26, 27—will be available for production elsewhere, on a modified scale of stage performance.

With proper organization and direction, amateur participants may take part in performances with or without the Interludes.

For particulars concerning performances wholly amateur, address
Miss Clara Fitch, Secretary Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee, 736
Marquette Building, Chicago, Ill.

After June first, a professional company, which will coöperate with local communities, will take the Masque on tour. For particulars address Miss A. M. Houston, Drama League of America, 736 Marquette
Building, Chicago, Ill.

“Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands!”
The Tempest.

CALIBAN

BY THE YELLOW SANDS

A COMMUNITY MASQUE
Of the Art of the Theatre

Devised and Written to Commemorate the
Tercentenary of the Death of
SHAKESPEARE

Illustrations by
Joseph Urban & Robert Edmond Jones

TO · THE · ONLIE
BEGETTER · OF · THE · BEST
IN · THESE · INSUING
SCENES · MASTER · W · S

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS

Cover Design: “When the kings of earth clasp hands”
(Act II, Second Inner Scene).
By Robert Edmond Jones.

Preliminary Sketch of Setebos.
By Joseph Urban

Frontispiece

| facing page

Ground Plan for Auditorium (with Stages
of Masque Proper and Interludes).
By Joseph Urban

xxx

Design of Stage for Masque Proper.
By Joseph Urban

xxxii

Preliminary Sketch for Seventh Inner Scene.
By Robert Edmond Jones

98

Preliminary Sketch for Tenth Inner Scene.
By Robert Edmond Jones

138

APPENDIX

Inner Structure of Masque (Chart).
By Percy MacKaye

154

A Community Masque Audience (Photograph).
By E. O. Thalinger

156

Community Masque Organization Plan (Chart).
By Hazel MacKaye

158

CONTENTS

page
Preface | xiii
Masque Structure | xxix
Persons and Presences | xxxi
Prologue | 3
First Interlude | 32
Act I | 34
Second Interlude | 76
Act II | 78
Third Interlude | 110
Act III | 111
Epilogue | 142
Appendix | 147

PREFACE

Three hundred years alive on the 23rd of April, 1916, the memory of
Shakespeare calls creatively upon a self-destroying world to do him honor by honoring that world-constructive art of which he is a master architect.

Over seas, the choral hymns of cannon acclaim his death; in battle-trenches artists are turned subtly ingenious to inter his art;
War, Lust, and Death are risen in power to restore the primeval reign of Setebos.

Here in America, where the neighboring waters of his “vexed Bermoothes”
lie more calm than those about his own native isle, here only is given some practical opportunity for his uninterable spirit to create new splendid symbols for peace through harmonious international expression.

As one means of serving such expression, and so, if possible, of paying tribute to that creative spirit in forms of his own art, I have devised and written this Masque, at the invitation of the Shakespeare
Celebration Committee of New York City.

The dramatic-symbolic motive of the Masque I have taken from
Shakespeare’s own play “The Tempest,” Act I, Scene 2. There, speaking to Ariel, Prospero says:

“Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? This damn’d witch Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing was hither brought with child
And there was left by the sailors. Thou ...
Wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthly and abhorred commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her most potent ministers
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine, within which rift
Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain ...
Then was this island—
Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp hag-born—not honor’d with
A human shape ... that Caliban
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in, ... it was a torment
To lay upon the damn’d.... It was mine art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.”

“It was mine art”.... There—in Prospero’s words [and
Shakespeare’s]—is the text of this Masque.

The art of Prospero I have conceived as the art of Shakespeare in its universal scope: that many-visioned art of the theatre which, age after age, has come to liberate the imprisoned imagination of mankind from the fetters of brute force and ignorance; that same art which, being usurped or stifled by groping part-knowledge, prudery, or lust, has been botched in its ideal aims and—like fire ill-handled or ill-hidden by a passionate child—has wrought havoc, hypocrisy, and decadence.

Caliban, then, in this Masque, is that passionate child-curious part of us all [whether as individuals or as races], grovelling close to his aboriginal origins, yet groping up and staggering—with almost rhythmic falls and back-slidings—toward that serener plane of pity and love, reason and disciplined will, where Miranda and Prospero commune with
Ariel and his Spirits.

In deference to the master-originator of these characters and their names, it is, I think, incumbent on me to point out that these four characters, derived—but reimagined—from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,”
become, for the purposes of my Masque, the presiding symbolic Dramatis
Personæ of a plot and conflict which are my own conception. They are thus no longer Shakespeare’s characters of “The Tempest,” though born of them and bearing their names.

Their words [save for a very few song-snatches and sentences] and their actions are those which I have given them; the development of their characters accords with the theme—not of Shakespeare’s play but of this Masque, in which Caliban’s nature is developed to become the protagonist of aspiring humanity, not simply its butt of shame and ridicule.

My conception and treatment also of Setebos [whose name is but a passing reference in Shakespeare’s play], the fanged idol [substituted by me for the “cloven pine”]; of Sycorax, as Setebos’ mate [in form a super-puppet, an earth-spirit rather than “witch”], from both of whom Caliban has sprung; of the Shakespearian Inner Scenes, as brief-flashing visions in the mind of Prospero; of the “Yellow Sands”
as his magic isle, the world; these are not liberties taken with text or characters of Shakespeare; they are simply the means of dramatic license whereby my Masque aims to accord its theme with the art and spirit of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s own characters, that use his words[1] in scenes of his plays, have then no part in my Masque, except in the Inner
Scenes,[2] where they are conceived as being conjured by Prospero and enacted by the Spirits of Ariel.

The theme of the Masque—Caliban seeking to learn the art of
Prospero—is, of course, the slow education of mankind through the influences of coöperative art, that is, of the art of the theatre in its full social scope. This theme of coöperation is expressed earliest in the Masque through the lyric of Ariel’s Spirits taken from “The
Tempest”; it is sounded, with central stress, in the chorus of peace when the kings clasp hands on the Field of the Cloth of Gold;[3] and, with final emphasis, in the gathering together of the creative forces of dramatic art in the Epilogue. Thus its motto is the one printed on the title page, in Shakespeare’s words:

“Come unto these yellow sands
And then take hands.”

So much for my Masque in its relationship to Shakespeare’s work and his art. Its contribution to the modern development of a form of dramatic art unpractised by him requires some brief comment.

This work is not a pageant, in the sense that the festivals excellently devised by Mr. Louis N. Parker in England, Mr. Lascelles in Canada, or
Mr. Thomas Wood Stevens in America have been called pageants. Though of necessity it involves aspects of pageantry, its form is more closely related to the forms of Greek drama and of opera. Yet it is neither of these. It is a new form to meet new needs.

I have called this work a Masque, because—like other works so named in the past—it is a dramatic work of symbolism involving, in its structure, pageantry, poetry, and the dance. Yet I have by no means sought to relate its structure to an historic form; I have simply sought by its structure to solve a modern [and a future] problem of the art of the theatre. That problem is the new one of creating a focussed dramatic technique for the growing but groping movement vaguely called
“pageantry,” which is itself a vital sign of social evolution—the half-desire of the people not merely to remain receptive to a popular art created by specialists, but to take part themselves in creating it; the desire, that is, of democracy consistently to seek expression through a drama of and by the people, not merely for the people.

For some ten years that potential drama of democracy has interested me as a fascinating goal for both dramatist and citizen, in seeking solution for the vast problem of leisure.[4] Two years ago at Saint Louis I had my first technical opportunity, on a large scale, to experiment in devising a dramatic structure for its many-sided requirements. There, during five performances, witnessed by half a million people, about seven thousand citizens of Saint Louis took part in my Masque [in association with the Pageant by Thomas Wood Stevens].
In the appendix of this volume a photograph gives a suggestion of one of those audiences, gathered in their public park [in seats half of which were free, half pay-seats] to witness the production.[5]

That production was truly a drama of, for, and by the people—a true Community Masque; and it was largely with the thought of that successful civic precedent that the Shakespeare Celebration first looked to Central Park as the appropriate site to produce their
Community Festival, the present Masque, as the central popular expression of some hundreds of supplementary Shakespearean celebrations.

In so doing, they conceived the function of a public park—as it is conceived almost universally west of the Eastern States, and almost everywhere in Europe—to be that of providing outdoor space for the people’s expression in civic art-forms.

The sincere opposition of a portion of the community to this use of
Central Park would never, I think, have arisen, if New York could have taken counsel with Saint Louis’s experience, and its wonderfully happy civic and social reactions. The opposition, however, was strong and conscientious; so that, on the same principle of community solidarity which was the raison d’etre for their informal application to use
Central Park, the Shakespeare Celebration withdrew their wish to use it. To split community feeling by acrimonious discussion was contrary to the basic idea and function of the Celebration, which are to help unite all classes and all beliefs in a great coöperative movement for civic expression through dramatic art.

One very important public service, however, was performed by this
Central Park discussion; it served clearly to point out a colossal lack in the democratic equipment of the largest and richest metropolis of the western hemisphere: namely, the total lack of any public place of meeting, where representative numbers of New York citizens can unite in seeing, hearing, and taking part in a festival or civic communion of their own. New York, a city of five million inhabitants, possesses no public stadium or community theatre. Little Athens, a mere village in comparison, had for its heart such a community theatre, which became the heart of civilization. Without such an instrument, our own democracy cannot hope to develop that coöperative art which is the expression of true civilization in all ages.

Happily for the Shakespeare Celebration and its aims, a large measure of solution has, at the date of this preface, been attained by the gracious offer of the New York City College authorities, through
President Mezes, to permit the use of the Lewisohn Stadium and athletic field, temporarily to be converted into a sort of miniature Yale Bowl, for the production of the Shakespeare Masque on the night of May 23rd and the following four nights.

By the brilliant conception and technical plans of Mr. Joseph Urban for joining to the present concrete stadium of Mr. Arnold Brunner its duplicate in wood, on the east side of the field, and so placing the stage on its narrower width to the north, there will be created a practical outdoor theatre, remarkable in acoustics, qualified to accommodate in excellent seats about twenty thousand spectators, and some two or three thousand participants in the festival.

If such a consummation shall eventually become permanent there, it will complete the realization of a practicable dream already rendered partly complete by Mr. Adolf Lewisohn’s public-spirited donation of the present concrete structure. Referring to that practicable dream,
I wrote four years ago in my volume “The Civic Theatre”:[6] “One day last spring, traversing with President John Finley the grounds lately appropriated, through his fine efforts, by the City of New York for a great stadium at the City College, I discussed with him the splendid opportunity there presented for focussing the popular enthusiasm toward athletic games in an art dramatic and nobly spectacular.”

This new dramatic art-form, then—a technique of the theatre adapted to democratic expression and dedicated to public service—I have called by the name Community Masque, and have sought to exemplify it on a large scale in two instances, at Saint Louis and at New York.

The occasion of this preface is not one to discuss the details of that new technique further than to suggest to the public, and to those critics who might be interested to make its implications clearer than the author and director of a production has time or opportunity to do, that the exacting time limits of presenting dramatically a theme involving many dissociated ages, through many hundreds of symbolic participants and leaders, are conditions which themselves impel the imagination toward creating a technique as architectural as music, as colorful as the pageant, as dramatic as the play, as plastic as the dance.

That my own work has attained to such a technique I am very far from supposing. I have, however, clearly seen the need for attaining to it, whatever the difficulties, if a great opportunity for democracy is not to be lost. To see that much, at a time when the vagueness of amateurs, however idealistic in desire, is obscuring the austere outlines of a noble technical art looming just beyond us, may perhaps be of some service.

As visual hints to the structure (Inner and Outer) of the present
Masque, the charts here published may be suggestive to the reader.
To the reader as such it remains to point out one vital matter of technique, namely, the relation of the dramatic dialogue to the
Masque’s production.

Even more than a play [if more be possible], a Masque is not a realized work of art until it is adequately produced. To the casual reader, this
Masque, as visualized merely on these printed pages, may appear to be a structure simply of written words: in reality it is a structure of potential interrelated pantomime, music, dance, lighting, acting, song
[choral and lyric], scene values, stage management and spoken words.

Words spoken, then, constitute in this work but one of numerous elements, all relatively important. If no word of the Masque be heard by the audience, the plot, action, and symbolism will still remain understandable and, if properly produced, dramatically interesting.
Synchronous with every speech occur, in production, effects of pantomime, lighting, music, and movement with due proportion and emphasis. Such, at least, is the nature of the technique sought, whether or not this particular work attains to it.

A Masque must appeal as emphatically to the eye as a moving picture, though with a different appeal to the imagination.

Because of this only relative value of the spoken word, there are many producers [theoretical and practical] who believe that the spoken word should be eliminated entirely from this special art of the theatre.

Artists as eminent and constructive in ideas as Gordon Craig, and many whom his genius has inspired, advocate indeed this total elimination of speech from the theatre’s art as a whole. For them that art ideally is the compound of only light and music and movement. The reason for this,
I think, is because the sensibility of those artists is preëminently visual. Moreover, they are relatively inexpert, as artists, in the knowledge of the technique and values of the spoken word. Being visually expert and creative, they have, by their practical genius, established a world-wide school of independent visual art [assisted only by mass sounds of music].

For them this art has well nigh become the art of the theatre. Yet it is not so, I think, and can never be so, to that watching and listening sensibility for which all dramatic art is created—the soul of the audience. That soul, our soul, is a composite flowering of all the senses, and the life-long record of the spoken word [reiterated from childhood] is an integral, yes, the most intimate, element of our consciousness.

The association of ideas and emotions which only the spoken word can evoke is, therefore, a dramatic value which the art of the theatre cannot consistently ignore. It is chiefly because those artist-experts in word values, the poets, who might contribute their special technique to the theatre’s art, turn elsewhere creatively, that the field is left unchallenged and open to the gifted school of the visualists. The true dramatic art—which involves ideally a total coöperation—does not, and cannot, exclude the poet-dramatist. Shakespeare and Sophocles lived before electric light; if they had lived after, they would have set a different pace for Bakst and Reinhardt, and established a creative school more nobly poised in technique, more deeply human in appeal.

Now, therefore, when the poets are awaking to a new power and control of expression, here especially in our own country, if they will both learn and teach in this larger school, there rises before us the promise of an art more sensuous, sane, and communal than the theatre has ever known.

So, in the pioneering adventure of this Masque, which seeks by experiment to relate the spoken word to its larger coöperation with the visual arts, I have devised a structure in which the English language, spoken by actors, is an essential dramatic value.

Why, then, take pains [as I have done] to make it relatively non-essential in case it should not be heard?

For this reason: that now—at the present temporary and still groping stage of development of community Masque organization and production—there can be, in the nature of the case, no complete assurance beforehand of adequate acoustics in setting, or of voices trained to large-scale outdoor speech.

But, if this be so, would it not be the wiser part of creative valor to adapt my structure wholly to these elementary conditions, risk nothing, and devise simply pantomime?

No, for by that principle no forward step for the spoken word could ever be taken. If we are to progress in this new art, we must seek to make producing conditions conform to the spoken play, even more than the play to those conditions.

And this can be done; it has been done.

At Saint Louis the vast amphitheatre for my Masque was at first considered, by nearly all who saw it, to be utterly unsuited to the spoken word; yet, after careful study, experiment and technical provision for its use, the speech of actors was heard each night by at least two-thirds of the hundred and fifty thousand listeners. Of the seven thousand actors only about fifteen spoke, but these conveyed the spoken symbolism and drama of the action.

In the present Masque I have focussed the spoken word on the raised constructed stage of wood [A. and B. in the Chart], confined it to the speech of eight principal acting parts, and about twenty other subordinate parts, whose speaking lines [from Shakespeare’s plays] are still further focussed at the narrower inner stage [A. in the Chart], provided with special sounding boards.

On the other hand, for the ground-circle of the “Yellow Sands” [C.
in the Chart], where the thousands of participants in the Interludes take part under an open sky, I have provided no spoken words, but only pantomime, mass movements, dances and choruses.

To the reader, then, I would repeat, that the words of this printed
Masque are an essential, though not an exclusive, part of its structure, and are meant primarily to be spoken, not primarily to be read.

As in the case of my Civic Ritual “The New Citizenship”[7] this Masque can only have its completely adequate production on a large and elaborate scale. Like the Civic Ritual, however, which—originally designed for the New York stadium—is being performed on an adapted scale in many parts of the country, in schools and elsewhere, this
Masque may perhaps serve some good purpose in being made available for performance in a smaller, simpler manner, adapted to the purposes of festivals during this year of Shakespeare’s Tercentenary. At the invitation, therefore, of Mr. Percival Chubb, President of the Drama
League of America, who first suggested to me the writing of a Memorial
Masque to Shakespeare, the publishers have made arrangements with officers of the Drama League for making known its availability as stated in their announcement printed at the back of this volume.

The accompanying stage-designs are the work of Mr. Joseph Urban, the eminent Viennese artist and producer [who has recently become an
American], and of Mr. Robert Edmond Jones, designer of the scenes and costumes for Mr. Granville Barker’s production of “The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife.”

At the date of this preface, Mr. Arthur Farwell has nearly completed his compositions for the lyric choruses and incidental music of the
Masque. The choruses will shortly be made available, published by G.
Schirmer, New York.

With all three of these artists I am fortunate in being associated in preparations for the Masque’s New York production next May.

These preparations have met with many complex difficulties of launching and organization; the time remaining is very brief to accomplish the many-sided community task for which the Masque is designed; only the merest beginnings of so vast a movement can be attempted; but, with coöperation and support from those who believe in that task, the producers look forward hopefully to serving, in some pioneering degree, the great cause of community expression through the art of the theatre.

Percy MacKaye.

New York, February 22, 1916.

MASQUE STRUCTURE

The Action

The action takes place, symbolically, on three planes: (1) in the cave of Setebos (before and after its transformation into the theatre of
Prospero); (2) in the mind of Prospero (behind the Cloudy Curtains of the inner stage); and (3) on the ground-circle of “the Yellow Sands”
(the place of historic time).

The Time

The Masque Proper is concerned, symbolically, with no literal period of time, but with the waxing and waning of the life of dramatic art (and its concomitant, civilization) from primitive barbaric times to the verge of the living present.

The Interludes are concerned with ritualistic glimpses of the art of the theatre (in its widest, communal scope) during three historical periods: (1) Antiquity, (2) the Middle Ages, and (3) Elizabethan England.

The Epilogue is concerned with the creative forces of dramatic art from antiquity to the present, and—by suggestion—with the future of those forces.

The Setting

The setting of the entire Masque is architectural and scenic, not a background of natural landscape as in the case of most outdoor pageants. Being constructed technically for performance, on a large scale, by night only, its basic appeals are to the eye, through expert illusions of light and darkness, architectural and plastic line, the dance, color, and pageantry of group movements; to the ear, through invisible choirs and orchestra, stage instrumental music and voices of visible mass-choruses [in the Interludes only].

As indicated by the accompanying diagram [Time Chart][8] of its Inner Structure, the Masque Proper is enacted by a comparatively few [about thirty] professional actors, who use the spoken word to motivate the large-scale pantomime of their action; the Interludes
[which use no spoken word, but only dance, pageantry, miming, and choruses] are performed by community participants [to the number of thousands]; the Epilogue utilizes both kinds of performers.

Corresponding to this Inner Structure, the Outer Structure consists of three architectural planes or acting stages [all interdependent]:
a modified form of Elizabethan stage, [here called “the Middle
Stage—B”] consisting of a raised platform [to which steps lead up from a ground-circle, eight feet below] provided with a smaller, curtained
Inner Stage [A—under a balcony, on which the upper visions appear, and above which the concealed orchestra and choirs are located]. This Inner
Stage is two feet higher than the Middle Stage, from which ramps lead up to it. Shutting it off from the other, its “Cloudy Curtains,” when closed, meet at the centre; when they are open, the inner Shakespearean scenes [visions in the mind of Prospero] are then revealed within.

Between the raised Middle Stage and the audience lies the
Ground-Circle—in form like the “orchestra” of a Greek theatre. Here the community Interludes take place around a low central Altar, from which rises a great hour-glass, flowing with luminous sands. This ground-circle is the place of the Yellow Sands, the outer wave-lines of which are bordered by the deep blue of the space beyond. The circle itself, representing the magic isle of Prospero [the temporal place of his art], is mottled with shadowy contours of the continents of the world.

Beneath the middle stage, and between the broad spaces of the steps which lead up to it from the ground-circle, is situated, at centre, the mouth of Caliban’s cell, which thus opens directly upon the Yellow Sands.

All of these features of the setting, however, are invisible when the Masque begins, and are only revealed as the lightings of the action disclose them.

GROUND·PLAN

FOR·AUDITORIUM·AND·STAGE
OF·SHAKESPEARE·MASQUE

A·INNER·STAGE·SHAKESPEARE·SCENES
B·MIDDLE·STAGE·ACTION·OF·MASQUE·PROPER·
C·OUTER·STAGE·(ON·THE·YELLOW·SANDS)·ACTION·OF·INTERLUDES·

PERSONS AND PRESENCES

I. OF THE MASQUE PROPER[9]

Speaking Persons

ARIEL |
SYCORAX[10] |
CALIBAN |
PROSPERO |
MIRANDA |
Lust |
Death |
War |
Caligula | [Impersonated by Lust]
One in Gray | [Impersonated by Death]
Another in Gray | [Impersonated by Caliban]
Mute Presences
SETEBOS[11] |
Choral Presences
SPIRITS OF ARIEL |
POWERS OF SETEBOS |
Pantomime Groups
Lust Group | ┐ |
Death Group | │ |
War Group | ├ | Impersonated by the Powers of Setebos
Roman Group | │ |
The Ones in Gray | ┘ |
Transformation Choir | ┐ |
Gregorian Choir | ├ | Impersonated by the Spirits of Ariel
The Ones in Green | ┘ |
The Nine Muses |
Renaissance Fauns |

II. OF THE TEN INNER-STAGE SCENES

[Enacted by the Spirits of Ariel.]

See Appendix: Pages 159-161.

Of these scenes eight are spoken scenes taken from plays of
Shakespeare; one (the sixth) is a pantomime devised from a descriptive speech in “Henry the Eighth,” Act I, Scene I; one (the fourth) is a tableau scene symbolic of the early Christian Church. Those taken from
Shakespeare are printed in black-faced type.

III. OF THE INTERLUDES

See Appendix: Pages 162, 166, 172, 184, 187, 190, 195.

IV. OF THE EPILOGUE

- Speaking Persons
- The Spirit of Time
- Shakespeare [as Prospero]
- Pantomime Groups[12]

- Theatres [with Musicians, Dancers, Designers, Producers,

- Inventors, etc.: Creators of the art of the theatre]

- Actors

- Dramatists

- Spirit Trumpeters [Announcers of the Groups]

STAGE·FOR·SHAKESPEARE·MASQUE·

BEHIND THE CLOUDY CURTAINS IS STAGE A OF INNER SCENES (SEE GROUND PLAN)
IN FRONT OF THE CURTAINS IS STAGE B OF MASQUE PROPER (SEE GROUND PLAN)
AT CENTRE, CALIBAN’S CELL OPENS UPON STAGE C OF INTERLUDES (SEE GROUND PLAN)

CALIBAN

PROLOGUE

The action begins in semi-darkness, out of which sound invisible choirs.

The scene is the cave of SETEBOS, whose stark-colored idol—half tiger and half toad—colossal and primitive—rises at centre above a stone altar.

On the right, the cave leads inward to the abode of SYCORAX; on the left, it leads outward to the sea, a blue-green glimpse of which is vaguely visible.

High in the tiger-jaws of the idol, ARIEL—a slim, winged figure, half nude—is held fettered.

In the dimness, he listens to deep-bellowing choirs from below, answered by a chorus of sweet shrill voices from within.

THE VOICES FROM BELOW
[Sing.]
Setebos! Setebos!

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
[Sing.]
Ariel!

ARIEL
[Calls aloud.]
O, my brave spirits!

THE VOICES FROM BELOW
Setebos! Setebos!
Over us which art, and under:
Fang of fire
From mouth of thunder!
Hungering goad
From belly of mire!
Tiger and toad—
Setebos!
Blood which art on the jungle bloom,
Sloth and slumber and seed in the womb:
Which art wondrous
Over and under us,
Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
Sealèd in a starless cell,
We are shut from dawn and sky.
Ariel!—Ariel!
Why?

ARIEL
Setebos knows, but his jaws
Fetter me fast: he is dumb—
Answering never.

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
We, who parch for dew and star—
Ariel!—Ariel!—
Must we perish where we are?
Tell!

ARIEL
Sycorax knows, but she sits
There in the cave with her son—
Mocking us ever.

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN
Ariel!

ARIEL
Call me no more,
Lest they torment us. I hear them
Coming now.

THE VOICE OF SYCORAX
Caliban!

ARIEL
Hush!

[Gigantic, the twisted form of SYCORAX looms from within the rock.]

SYCORAX
[Calling toward the sea.]
Come, fish-fowl! Leave thy flapping in the mud
And keep thy father’s temple. Call his priests.
Thy father Toad’s a god, hath double teeth
In his two heads. The Tiger loins of him
Begot thee in my belly for a cub
To lick his paws and purr, else he may pinch thee
Behind an eye-tooth, like yon flitter mouse
That hangs there wriggling.

THE VOICE OF CALIBAN
So, so Sycorax!—
Coming!

SYCORAX
Aye, so so: crawling still!

[Malformed and hissing, CALIBAN enters on his belly and arms.]

CALIBAN
Syc-Syco-
Sycorax! See!

SYCORAX
What hast thou got thee?

CALIBAN
[Laughs, half rising, and holds up a wriggling creature.]
Got
A little god—a little Caliban.
Ha!—make him out of mud. See: Squeezed it round
And slipped him through my fist-hole. Am a god:
[Rising.]
See Sycorax—her grandchild!

SYCORAX
’Tis an eel-worm.
Fling him to the white bat yonder.

[Her form vanishes in the rock.]

CALIBAN
[Approaching the idol.]
Ariel,
Here’s food for thee: a wormling for thy beak.
So, my trapped bird:—How sayst, ha?

ARIEL
[Sings.]
“Where the bee sucks there suck I.”

CALIBAN
[Laughing.]
Bee, sayst thou?
Still buzzest of thy wings, and eatest—air!

ARIEL
[Sings.]
“In a cowslip’s bell I lie.”

CALIBAN
My father’s gullet is no cowslip’s bell.
Shalt lie in the belly of Setebos.
[Tossing away the eel.]
—What waitest for?

ARIEL
I am waiting for one who will come.

CALIBAN
Aye? Who will come?

ARIEL
One from the heart of the world; and he shall rise
On tempest of music and in thunder of song.

CALIBAN
[Gaping.]
Thunder and tempest—so!

ARIEL
[With ecstasy.]
I see him now.

CALIBAN
[Crouching back.]
See him! Where, now?

ARIEL
In my dream:—He bears
A star-wrought staff and hooded cloak of blue,
And on his right hand bums the sun, and on
His left, the moon; and these he makes his masks
Of joy and sorrow.

CALIBAN
Where? Mine eye seeth naught.

ARIEL
Before him comes a maid—a child, all wonder—
And leads, him to this blighted isle.

CALIBAN
What for, here?

ARIEL
To set me free, and all my air-born spirits
Whom Setebos holds prisoned in this earth.

CALIBAN
Free? What’s that—free?

ARIEL
What thou canst never be
Who never shalt dance with us by yellow sands.

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[Sing within.]
“Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss’d
The wild waves whist.
Foot it featly here and there”—

CALIBAN
Ho, blast their noises! Stop thy spirits’ squealing.
Their piping itcheth me like hornets’ stings.

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[Sing on, within.]
“And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear”—

CALIBAN
[Screaming.]
Setebos! Squash ’em!

POWERS OF SETEBOS
[Sing below with strident roarings, drowning the song of Ariel’s Spirits.]
Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!

CALIBAN
[Exulting grotesquely.]
Who’ll dance by yellow sands?—Who’s free now, spirit?
Ho, Caliban can squash their music. Free?
Aren’t I a god, bitch-born, the son of Setebos
Can howl all hell up? Worship me, thou wings!
Praise my toad-father in his temple!

ARIEL
The priests
Of Setebos are Lust and Death and War.
Not Ariel—nor Ariel’s Spirits ever—
Shall do them honor. One shall come hereafter
Whom we now worship, waiting.

CALIBAN
[Roaring.]
Sycorax!

SYCORAX
[Reappearing.]
Swallow thy croakings, bullfrog. Call the priests,
And fill this spirit’s nostrils with the reek
Of Setebos, his blood-rites.

THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[Cry out piercingly.]
Ariel!

ARIEL
Peace, my brave hearts! Be dumb—but still be dreaming!

CALIBAN
Powers of Setebos!—Lust, Death, War,—ho, now!
Hither, and do my father worship!

ARIEL
[Stifling a cry.]
Ah!

[Enter LUST, DEATH, and WAR, arrayed as priests of Setebos.]

SYCORAX
[To Caliban.]
Come, toad-boy: watch with me, within.

CALIBAN
[Going within the cave, as Sycorax disappears.]
Free, saith?
Will dance by yellow sands?—Now, Spirit, dance!

[As Caliban goes within, the powers of Setebos come forth.
At the altar beneath Ariel, the three Priests lead them in ceremonial rites of primeval pageantry and dance—the sacrificial worship of Setebos. Above them Ariel suffers, with closed eyes. In their rites, Lust pours his libation, and lights the altar fire, which—when War has made there his living sacrifice—Death extinguishes in darkness.
Through the dark, which gradually changes to a glowing dusky Ariel speaks aloud.]

ARIEL
O Spirits, I have dreamed, but Death has closed
My sight in darkness. Spirits, I have begotten
Sweet Joy, but Lust hath drowned her in his wine.
Yea, I have wove Love wings, but War hath robbed them
And riven his lovely body all alive
To feed the hungering flames of Setebos.
My Spirits, I your master am unmastered.
Speak to me! Comfort me! Is there no joy,
No love, no dream, that shall survive this dark?
Hath this our isle no king but Caliban?
Are there no yellow sands where we shall dance
To greet the master of a timeless dawn?
Or must there break no morning?—Ah, you are dumb
Still to my doubtings. Yet the dark grows pale,
And, paling, pulses now with rosier shadows;
And now the shadows tremble, and draw back
Their trailing glories: hark! All little birds
Wake in the gloaming: look! What young Aurora
Walks in the dusk below, and like a child
Turns her quick face to listen?—Ah!

[Below, against the light from the sea, has entered the dim Figure he descries.]

THE FIGURE
Who calls?

ARIEL
Spirits, ’tis she! O, we have dreamed her true
At last—Miranda!

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[Call, in echoing song.]
Miranda!

MIRANDA
[Searching with her eyes.]
Earth and air
Echo my name. Who calls me?

ARIEL
Ariel.

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[As before.]
Ariel!

MIRANDA
Light and dark spin webs around me.
What art thou, voice—and where?

ARIEL
Here—and your servant.

MIRANDA
[Beholding him.]
O me!—poor Spirit!—What mouth so terrible
Utters a voice so tender?

ARIEL
Setebos,
God of this isle, holds me in ’s fangs.

MIRANDA
But why?

ARIEL
I will not serve him.

MIRANDA
[Naïvely, drawing nearer to the huge idol.]
Setebos, be kind.
Release this Spirit.

ARIEL
He hath nor ears, nor eyes,
Nor any sense to know thee by, but only
These tusks and claws and his toad-belly.

MIRANDA
Dost
Thou suffer, so?

ARIEL
Not now.

MIRANDA
And hath he held thee
Long captive?

ARIEL
Since old ocean’s slime first spawned
Under the moon, I have awaited thee
And him thou bringest here.

MIRANDA
You mean my father,
Prospero.

ARIEL
[Exultingly.]
Hail him, Spirits!

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[Sing.]
Prospero!

MIRANDA
Yea, many a starry journey we have made
Searching this isle. At last to-day, at dawn,
I saw its yellow sands, and heard thy voice
Calling for pity. Now my father is come
And shall release thee.

ARIEL
Where? Where is he?

MIRANDA
Here:
His cloak is round us now: he holds us now
In his great art, revealing each to each
Though he be all invisible.

[Reëntering, Caliban comes forward, sniffing and peering at Miranda.]

CALIBAN
Hath feet
And hair: hath bright hair shineth like a fish’s tail;
Hath mouth, and maketh small, sweet noises.

ARIEL
[Crying out.]
Beast,
Go back!

MIRANDA
[Staring, amazed.]
What’s here?

CALIBAN
Ca—Caliban; cometh here
To smell what ’tis.
[He sniffs nearer; then howls strangely.]
Spring in the air: Oho!

MIRANDA
Alas, poor creature! Who hath hurt thee?

CALIBAN
Hurt?
Who hurteth God? Am seed of Setebos:
Am Caliban: the world is all mine isle:
Kill what I please, and play with what I please;
So, yonder, play with him: pull out his wings
And put ’em back to grow.—Where be thy wings,
Spring-i’-the-air?

MIRANDA
O Ariel, is this sight
A true thing, and speaks truly?

ARIEL
What you hear
And see—’tis my master.

MIRANDA
’Tis so wonderful
I know not how to be sad.

CALIBAN
[In puzzled fascination, staring at Miranda.]

The moon hath a face
And smileth on the lily pools, but hath
No lily body withal: thy body is
All lilies and the smell of lily buds,
And thy round face a pool of moonbeams!

MIRANDA
[With smile and laughter.]
Nay,
Then look not in, lest thou eclipse the moon.

CALIBAN
Syc—Sycorax hath no such laughing: soundeth
Like little leaves i’ the rain! Hath no such mouth
Bright-lipp’d with berries ripe to suck i’ the sun—
Sycorax.

MIRANDA
Who is Sycorax?

ARIEL
Ah, pain!

CALIBAN
Ho, she that hath calved Caliban to the bull
Setebos, my blood-sire. [Pauses at a glowing thought, then cries with sudden exultance:] So shall us twain
Caliban all this world!

[He crouches, then rolls over at her feet.]

—Laugh, Spring-i’-the-air!
Lift so thy lily-pad foot and rub his ear
Where the fur tickleth, and let thy Caliban
Tongue-lick its palm.

[He lies, dog-like, on his back, and laughs loud.]

MIRANDA
This wonder grows too wild.

ARIEL
Go, go! O flee away!

CALIBAN
[Leaping up.]
Away?—Aye, so!
[He approaches Miranda, who recoils, half fearful.]
Wist where salt water lappeth warm i’ the noon
And shore-fish breed i’ the shoals.—Wist where the sea-bull
Flap-flappeth his fin and walloweth there his cow
And snoreth the rainbow from his nostrils.

[He begins to dance grotesquely about her.]

Ho,
Spring-i’-the-air! shalt leap, shalt roll in the sun,
Shalt dance with lily-warm limbs, shalt race wi’ the gulls!
Shalt laugh, and call—Come, Come!

Come, come, Caliban!
Catcheth who catcheth can!
Mateth mew, mateth man:
Catch, come, Caliban!

ARIEL
O Setebos, let me go free!

MIRANDA
[To Caliban.]
Peace! Dance no more.
Go hence, and leave me.

CALIBAN
[Staring.]
Hence? Aye, both—us twain.

MIRANDA
[With simple command.]
Nay, thou alone.

CALIBAN
[With narrowing eyes, draws nearer.]
Saith what?

MIRANDA
[Unafraid.]
Go from me.

CALIBAN
[Stops, with a hissing growl.]
Syc-
Syc-Sycorax! Sycorax!

SYCORAX
[Reappearing.]
Mole in the mire, wilt squeak
When thou art trod on?—Bite! Bite, Setebos’ son!
Let the brave wonder breed of thee.

CALIBAN
Aye, mother.
[With rising passion—to Miranda.]
A child! Shalt bear me such as thou, with head
Of Caliban: no eel-worm, nay—a wonder,
With lily feet, that walk. Ho, Setebos!

SYCORAX
Setebos! Mate them at thine altar.

MIRANDA
[Fleeing from Caliban, pauses in terror of Sycorax.]
Save me!

POWERS OF SETEBOS
[Sing within.]
Setebos! Setebos!

CALIBAN
[Rushing toward Miranda.]
Mine!

MIRANDA
Save me, father!

ARIEL
[Calling shrilly.]
Prospero!

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
[Sing within.]
Prospero! Hail!

[A clap of thunder strikes, rolling, in sudden darkness.
Lightnings burst from the idol of Setebos.
From the flashing gloom, choruses of contending spirits commingle the roar of their deep bass and high-pitched choirs.]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
Prospero! Prospero!
Out of our earth-pain
Raise and array us
In splendor of order!
Pour on our chaos—
Prospero! Prospero!—
Peace to our earth-pain!

POWERS OF SETEBOS

Setebos! Setebos!
Lord of our earth-bane,
Loose on his wrath way
The beast of thy jungle!
Pour on our pathway—
Setebos! Setebos!
Blood for thine earth-bane!

[Amid the tempestuous song, darkness, and thunder, appears on the left a glowing, winged throne. On the throne sits PROSPERO—in one hand, a scroll; in the other, a miraculous staff.]

PROSPERO
[Raising his staff.]
Darkness, be light!—Tempest, be calm!—Miranda!
[The scene grows light, and is still.]

MIRANDA
[At the steps of the throne.]
Father!

PROSPERO
Come to me, child.
[As she mounts to him gladly.]
Sit here beside me.
[She sits at his feet, nestling in the folds of his great garment.]
My cloak and staff protect thee.

MIRANDA
[Raising her eyes in dread.]
But the wild thing?

PROSPERO
Must be transformed.—Caliban!

CALIBAN
[Crouching at the centre, howls terribly.]
Setebos—sire!
Sycorax—mother! Hast swallowed them. Lord Thunder,
Strike us no more!

PROSPERO
I strike no more till time
Hath need of thunder. Rise now and be tamed,
Howler at Heaven.

CALIBAN
[Rising, bewildered.]
Tamed, saith? What shall it be—
That “tamed?”

PROSPERO
That shalt thou learn of Ariel.
Now—Ariel!

[He looks toward Ariel, still held in the mouth of Setebos.
Sycorax lies heaped and still by the altar.]

ARIEL
[Joyously.]
Master!

PROSPERO
Sycorax, lo, ’tis dead.

CALIBAN
[With wailing cry.]
Ah—yo!

PROSPERO
The will of Setebos is matched with mine
To rule our world. Time shall award the prize—
Mine own Miranda—to his power or mine.
His might is awful, but mine art is deep
To foil his power and exalt mine own.
Ariel, thy spirits shall help me.

ARIEL
Master, how?

PROSPERO
Thou, long time artless, now shalt learn mine art
To win my goal—Miranda’s freedom. Never
Till this immortal Caliban shall rise
To lordly reason, can Miranda hold
Her maiden gladness undismayed. For that
I will release thee from those fangs
Of Setebos.

ARIEL
For that, dear master, I have waited
Long ages, dreaming.

PROSPERO
So, wilt give thy promise
To learn of me, and teach this monster here?

ARIEL
O set me free to be thy servant ever.
Master, I promise!

PROSPERO
Fly! Run free!—Unfang him,
Setebos!
[Prospero raises his staff.
Slowly the tiger-jaws of the Idol open their fangs.
Ariel, with a joyous cry, slips into the air, and—as he floats fluttering to the earth—his unseen choir of Spirits sing with shrilly gladness:]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
Prospero! Prospero! Hail!

ARIEL
[Dancing on the earth.]
Free! Free!

MIRANDA
[Eagerly.]
O, now his fettered Spirits: Free them too!

PROSPERO
Well urged, my own Miranda.—Setebos,
Disgorge these long-embowelled choirs!—Spirits,
Come forth!

[Again Prospero raises his staff.

Yawning enormous, the toad-mouth of the Idol, fitted with green and blue light, widens to a lurid aperture out of which come forth—dancing—the star-bright
Spirits of Ariel.

As they come, Ariel—springing toward Caliban—cries exultingly:]

ARIEL
Now, Caliban, we dance by yellow sands!

[Singing as they rush forth, the Spirits dart with Ariel swiftly about the grovelling Caliban and chase him, dodging and whining, down the steps to the ground-circle, mottled with its shadowy continents of the world, and rimmed with its long, yellow wave-lines.]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
“Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss’d
The wild waves whist.
Foot it featly here and there
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear:
Hark, hark!
Bow-wow!
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow-wow!
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry: cock-o-diddle-dow!”

[Encircling Caliban in their dance, and pelting him with bright handfuls of the yellow sands, they tease and drive him howling into his cave cell, where his dark, monstrous shape silhouettes for a moment on the orange-red glow, then vanishes within.

As he disappears, to their last “Bow-wow!”
and “"Cock-a-diddle-dow!”, they hasten back above to Ariel, who leads them before Prospero.]

ARIEL
The beast is routed, Master. Was’t well done?

PROSPERO
The routed beast—returns. I charge thee, Spirit,
Not to torment, but teach him—for which task
Thou wilt require mine art. So by its power
We will transform this cave of Setebos
To be a temple to Miranda. Now
Let these thy Spirits lead her to her shrine
Yonder, where all her maiden Muses wait
To make her welcome.

[Prospero points to where, on the right, appears Miranda’s shrine. From its portals come forth the Nine Muses, bearing lutes and pipes. Prospero, turning to Miranda, rises and gives her into Ariel’s care.]

Child, go with them now
And tarry till I summon.

MIRANDA
Sir, I will.
I thank you and these Spirits, and may we all
Be saved from Setebos.

ARIEL
Sweet Mistress, follow!

[To a melodious tiding and piping played by the Muses,
Ariel and his Spirits escort Miranda to the centre, where the Muses meet and conduct her into the shrine, while Ariel’s Spirits—at a gesture from him—dart through the centre of the Cloudy Curtains and disappear.]

PROSPERO
[Calling.]
Now hither, bird, and perch!

ARIEL
[Running to him, on the throne.]
Beside you, Master!

PROSPERO
[Pointing to the ground-circle.]
Seest yonder Yellow Sands? There sleep the shores,
The cloudy capes and continents of time;
There wane and wax eternal tides, that mark
The ebb and flow of empires with their foam.
There shalt thou see the million-colored skein
Whereof I weave mine art. Look well and learn!
For this my art is of no only land
Or age, but born of all—itself a world
Snatched from the womb of History, to survive
Its mortal mother in imagination.—
Dost thou attend me?

ARIEL
Word and will, dear Master!

[At the mouth of Caliban’s cell are now visible Lust,
Death, and War, who in pantomime indicate to Caliban their conspiracy against Prospero and Ariel.]

PROSPERO
’Tis well, for thou must prove my pupil. Look!
Even now the priests of Setebos conspire
With Caliban against us. They will compass
My fall, Miranda’s ruin, and thy bondage
Unless mine art can foil them. Therefore, now
Thou shalt behold the pageant of mine art
Pace from antiquity. First, while yon glass
Lets flow its yellow sands, behold appear
My rites of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
And, while they pass, I will instruct thee how
To use them.—Pageant, appear!

[A deep gong sounds.]
Lo, Egypt comes!

FIRST INTERLUDE[13]

Now in succession through the great gates of the ground-circle, in colorful incursions of costume and musky appear three main pageant groups, that perform—with distinctive artistry of dance, pantomime, mass movement, and choral song—three ritual episodes of the dramatic art of antiquity. The nature of each, by a few brief sentences,
Prospero expounds to Ariel, and so to the audience. Concluding, each group of the first two departs from the circle.

The first Action—a symbolic ritual of Egypt—enters in seven separate processions, which converge at the centre in worship of the golden god
Osiris.

The second group—expressing the noble zenith of Greek dramatic art—chants, with aspiring, athletic dance, the second chorus of the
Antigone of Sophocles, celebrating the splendor of man. This Action is performed by the altar.

With the third enters a contrasted decadence of the theatre’s art with the Roman Mimes, who enact a farcical Comedy in Masks, in presence of the emperor Caligula and the Roman populace. Concluding, this Roman group does not depart, but retiring into partial shadow on the right, awaits there its later summons.

ACT I

[As the Roman Interlude closes, the light passes from the ground-circle to the middle stage, where Prospero—descending his throne with Ariel—moves toward the centre. While they speak together there, Caliban—coming from his cave—crawls part way up the steps and lies flat, occasionally lifting his head to listen.]

PROSPERO
So, Ariel, I have harvested for thee
These orchards of mine art, and let thee taste
Their varied fruitages, some that have ripened
In climes auspicious, some that are part decayed.
Now from three vineyards—Egypt, Greece, and Rome—
I will distill a varicolored wine
For Caliban to drink. So, steeped in spirit,
Haply he also shall see visions. Hast
Thou learned by heart all that I whispered to thee?

ARIEL
All, Master.

PROSPERO
Tell me part.

ARIEL
You will create
Out of this world of art three scenes of vision.

PROSPERO
And who shall act them—say!

ARIEL
My Spirits shall;
And I will be their Prologue.

PROSPERO
For what purpose?

ARIEL
To tutor this beast.

PROSPERO
And why?

ARIEL
That he may grow
To reverence Miranda, and forswear Setebos.

PROSPERO
So! and to dispel the Powers
Of Setebos, I have transformed his cave
To be her temple and my theatre.—Look!

[Prospero raises his staff toward the darkness that conceals the background. As he does so, increasing light reveals the rude, irregular contours of the cave of Setebos transformed to the architectural lines of a splendid proscenium, in the oblong of which the Cloudy Curtains shut off the inner stage.
The idol of Setebos has vanished.
While this transformation is taking place, the Spirit Choirs of Ariel appear above the proscenium, singing.]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
In the same abode and cell
Where the Toad was wont to dwell,
And the Tiger stretched his claw,
We have built a shrine of Law:
We have chosen the lair of hate
To love, imagine and create.

Out of blood and dross,
Out of Setebos,
We are risen to show
The art of Prospero:
Here within his head and heart
Our souls are servants of his art.

[Their appearances vanish above.]

ARIEL
Most noble Master! Show me now behind
Those cloudy curtains: How have you transformed
The cave within?

PROSPERO
Come; I will show thee how.

[Prospero and Ariel pass through the curtains at the centre and disappear within.
Meanwhile Caliban, peering above the top step, stares in dumb awe at the changed scene. There he is hailed from below by the priest of Setebos, Lust, who comes forth from his cell and calls:]

LUST
Caliban! Remember Setebos!

CALIBAN
[Starting, backs down the steps in scared pantomime.]
Aye, Setebos! But I hear their watch-dogs bark:
Bow-wow! I feel their tongue-bites yet—their torments.

LUST
Caliban! Restore thy father’s temple.

CALIBAN
Yea, but my father had no feet to dance.
Curse on their yellow sands! They sting my eyes
Still wi’ their blindings. Blast ’em!

[He springs part way up the steps again.]

LUST
Caliban!
Restore the priests of Setebos!

CALIBAN
His priests!
Nay, what if the cock sang—their chanticleer
His Diddle-diddle-dow! Burneth my spine
Still with that crowing.

[Reënter Prospero through the curtains.]

LUST
Hush! he comes again.
I await thy call. Cry on Caligula
And I will come.

[Lust goes in the cell.]

PROSPERO
[Calling within the curtains.]
Now, Ariel, where art thou?
Ariel!

ARIEL
[Stepping forth from behind the curtains, dressed in the garb of Prologue, bows low.]

Here, great Master! I am now
Prologus, at your service.

PROSPERO
Nay, not mine
But his. [Calling.]
Come, Caliban: behold thy tutor.
Behind these curtains he will show thee now
More than thy nature dreams on. If thou obey him
And learn mine art, thou shalt go free like him.
If not, thou shalt be spitted on a tooth
More sharp than Setebos. What sayest?

CALIBAN
[Cringing.]
Lord,
Art Cock o’ the world, and Caliban thy worm;
Yea, only beggeth thee crow no more, nor set
Thy dancing dogs to bark at him.

PROSPERO
Tush, fool:
Wilt thou obey?

CALIBAN
Obeyeth both of you.

PROSPERO
That’s well. Sit here and watch. Now, Ariel,
Thy prologue: then reveal what lies behind.

[Prospero mounts his throne, on the steps of which Caliban squats below him, watching and listening with growing curiosity. At the centre, before the Cloudy Curtains,
Ariel speaks.]

ARIEL
From Egypt, by our Master’s art,
Behold now, when these curtains part,
A scene of fleeting pageantry:
Behold where pale Mark Antony
Hath fled his sore defeated ships
In quest of Cleopatra’s lips,
And turned the tides of war amiss
To pawn a kingdom for a kiss.—
So, by my Spirits’ acting, see
Of what strange stuff these humans be!

[Ariel retires within through the curtains, which then—to the melodic dirge of flutes within—draw apart, disclosing the inner stage, which depicts a scene of vivid Egyptian coloring.]

FIRST INNER SCENE

Against a background of deep blue sky, the barge[14] of Cleopatra lies moored at an ancient wharf:

From the left, along the wharf, enters Mark Antony, attended by
Soldiers and Populace in Roman and Egyptian garb.

ANTONY
Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon ’t;
It is ashamed to bear me! Friends, come hither.
I am so hated in the world, that I
Have lost my way forever. I have a ship
Laden with gold; take that, divide it; fly,
And make your peace with Cæsar.

ALL
Fly! Not we.

ANTONY
I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards
To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;
I have myself resolv’d upon a course
Which has no need of you; be gone....
Nay, do so; for, indeed, I have lost command....

[His followers depart, and Antony throws himself down on a buttress of the wharf.
Meantime from the barge, Cleopatra—who has looked on and listened—is led down to the landing by Charmian and her Attendants, behind whom Eros
[a friend of Antony] follows.
They approach Antony, who—absorbed in his grief—does not see them.]

EROS
Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him....

CHARMIAN
Do! Why, what else?

CLEOPATRA
Let me sit down. O Juno!

[As Cleopatra sinks down near him, Antony—now beholding her—starts up with a cry of surprise and passionate pain.]

ANTONY
No, no, no; no, no!

EROS
[Pointing to Cleopatra’s piteous aspect.]
See you here, sir?

ANTONY
[Hiding his face.]
O fie, fie, fie!

CHARMIAN
[Bending over her.]
Madam!

EROS
[Appealing to Antony.]
Sir, sir,—

ANTONY
Yes, my lord, yes; he at Philippi kept
His sword e’en like a dancer, while I struck
The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and ’twas I
That the mad Brutus ended ... yet now—No matter.

[He sinks down again.]

CLEOPATRA
[Rising, to her Attendants.]
Ah, stand by ... sustain me! O!

EROS
Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches.
Her head’s declin’d, and death will seize her, but
Your comfort makes the rescue.

ANTONY
[Drawing still away, despairfully.]
I have offended reputation,
A most unnoble swerving.

EROS
Sir, the queen!

[Cleopatra and Antony face each other—gazing into each other’s eyes.]

ANTONY
[Suddenly crying out.]

O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See,
How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
By looking back what I have left behind
’Stroy’d in dishonor.

CLEOPATRA
O my lord, my lord,
Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
You would have follow’d.

ANTONY
Egypt, thou knew’st too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.

CLEOPATRA
O my pardon!

ANTONY
Now I must
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
With half the bulk o’ the world play’d as I pleased,
Making and marring fortunes. You did know
How much you were my conqueror; and that
My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.

CLEOPATRA
[Touching his arm, clings to him.]
Pardon, pardon!

ANTONY
[Overcome at her touch.]
Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss.
Even this repays me.... Wine!
Bring wine, within there: wine! For fortune knows
We scorn her most when most she offers blows.
[He embraces Cleopatra.
From the right slaves enter, bearing chalices and wine-beakers. With them come flutists and harpers, making festal music.
Snatching from them a golden cup, Antony raises it aloft with an impassioned gesture, returning the triumphant smile of the Egyptian queen.]

CLOSING, THE CLOUDY CURTAINS
SHUT OFF THE SCENE.

[Meantime Caliban, who has risen absorbed and drawn slowly nearer in child-like fascination, stands for an instant, bewildered. Then, with a cry, he leaps forward in the dim-lit space and gropes along the curtains with arms wide.]

CALIBAN
Ho, light! All’s smother: ’tis gone! Yo—yo, all gone—
Cloud-swallowed, all! Ah, woman, snake-bright queen,
Thou wonder-thing, come back! Ah, where—where—where?

PROSPERO
So, so! Canst thou, then, taste my vision, slave?
[He descends the throne toward Caliban.]

CALIBAN
[Staring about him.]
O dazzle-blue, gold-shine, hot lotus smell!
Blood-root in bloom, and scarlet water-weed!—
O silver sight and tinkle-tickling sound!—
Spurteth my body with joy—burst in my brain
Enormous moons of wonder!—Float, still float,
You purpling sails! Blaze, thou flame-woman! Speak
Sparkles of kissing fire!

PROSPERO
[Approaching him.]
Nay, art thou touched
Beyond thy tiger cravings?

CALIBAN
Ho, Lord Master,
Lord Chanticleer, unswallow from thy gorge
The world thou hast devoured!

PROSPERO
[Pointing toward Ariel, who comes forth again as
Prologus through the curtains.]

Ask of thy tutor;
He hath revealed that world to thy brute ken.—
Ariel, this lump of earth hath dreams within ’t,
That now begin to sprout. Send it more sun
And watering.

ARIEL
Sir, your art is rain and sun:
I am but air, to carry its wet or warmth
Whereso you list.

PROSPERO
So let it fall on him
Till he shall wax to a more worthy plant
For Miranda’s temple-garden.—Here is my Staff:
This wields my power. Here keep it in thy charge
Till I return. So, use it as a rod
To instruct this bungling cub of Setebos.

ARIEL
[As Prospero goes.]
I will, sir.—Go you far?

PROSPERO
No farther than
The frontiers of mine art. Farewell a while!

[Prospero passes within through the curtains. Half confiding, half suspicious, Caliban comes near to
Ariel and questions him.]

CALIBAN
Art, saith! What’s that—his art?

ARIEL
’Tis that which burns
Now in thy blood: the same which conjured hither
Bright Egypt and the kiss of Antony.

CALIBAN
The woman and the kiss! Nay, saidest now
’Tis rain and sun!

ARIEL
’Tis so.

CALIBAN
Where falleth his rain?
Where shineth his sun?

ARIEL
Yonder on the Yellow Sands.

CALIBAN
Nay, show me this art! Is ’t hidden in thy hand?
Here, let me hold the staff.
[Caliban reaches for the staff; Ariel raises it warningly.]

ARIEL
Stay! Touch it not
Lest it shall scorch thy fingers and set fire
To the building world. The staff of Prospero
Is for his servants, not for slaves, to wield.

CALIBAN
[Drawing back from it, in fear.]
Scorcheth my fingers, ah?—So wield it, thou!
Show me once more the snake-bright queen.

ARIEL
Nay, Egypt
No more! But come with me to Prosper’s throne
Where I play master now. Here thou shalt sit
And watch the battlements of eternal Troy
Where Troilus woos inconstant Cressida.

CALIBAN
Showest me once more—woman?

ARIEL
Even so;
For many kinds of woman make mankind.

[Rising, Ariel points toward the inner stage and speaks chantingly.]
Now, from out Time’s storied sphere,
Homer’s Troy I summon here,
On a dawn when Hector seeks
Battle with the besieging Greeks:
There, while heroes throng the gates,
Cressida her lover ’waits,
Casting from a height apart
Tangling hooks for Troilus’ heart.—
Behold her now, by Prosper’s art!
[Ariel raises his staff.]

SECOND INNER SCENE[15]

The Cloudy Curtains draw back, revealing the battlements of Troy.
Above, on a rampart, in the first rays of morning, CRESSIDA appears, with a maiden Attendant.

Below, murmuring crowds are looking toward the outer gates. Among them pass the aged Trojan Queen, and the Greek Helen, in her younger beauty.

CRESSIDA
[Peering below.]
Who were those went by?

ATTENDANT
Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA
And whither go they?

ATTENDANT
Up to the eastern tower
To see the battle—Hector,
Before the sun uprose, was harnessed light
And to the field goes he.
[Enter behind them Pandarus.]

CRESSIDA
Hector’s a gallant man.—
[Turning to greet him.]
Good morrow, Uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS
[Smiling.]
Good morrow, Cousin Cressid.
[Trumpets are sounded, off left.]
Hark! They are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see them as they pass toward
Ilium?

CRESSIDA
At your pleasure.

[They move to a better vantage. At a gesture from Cressida the Attendant departs.]

PANDARUS
Here, here’s an excellent place. I’ll tell you them all by their names, as they pass by; but mark
Troilus above the rest.

CRESSIDA
[With a reproving laugh.]
Speak not so loud.

[Below, from the left, Trojan warriors, in battle gear, begin to pass by, through the admiring populace who cheer them occasionally.
Among them
ÆNEAS PASSES

PANDARUS
That’s Æneas: is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark
Troilus; you shall see anon.
ANTENOR PASSES

CRESSIDA
Who’s that?

PANDARUS
That’s Antenor: he’s one o’ the soundest judgments in Troy. But when comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus anon. If he sees me, you shall see him nod at me.

CRESSIDA
[Archly.]
Will he give you the nod?

PANDARUS
You shall see.

CRESSIDA
If he do, the rich shall have more.
HECTOR PASSES

PANDARUS
That’s Hector: that, that, look you, that; there’s a fellow!
Go thy way, Hector! There’s a brave man, niece.

CRESSIDA
O, a brave man!

PANDARUS
Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil comes to him, it’s all one. Yonder comes Paris—Paris!
PARIS PASSES

Who said he came hurt home to-day? He’s not hurt.
Why, this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha! Would
I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.
HELENUS PASSES

CRESSIDA
Who’s that?

PANDARUS
[Searching with his eyes, grows impatiently expectant.]
That’s Helenus.—I marvel where Troilus is.—That’s
Helenus—I think he went not forth to-day.—That’s
Helenus.

CRESSIDA
Can Helenus fight, uncle?

PANDARUS
Helenus? no. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well.—I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you hear the people cry “Troilus?”
TROILUS PASSES
[As he approaches, the populace cheer him.
His eyes, however, search about till they rest on the battlement, where Cressida, returning his look, starts back, trembling.
Noting both their actions, Pandarus continues flauntingly to point out the young hero.]

’Tis Troilus! There’s a man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus!

CRESSIDA
Peace! For shame, peace!

PANDARUS
Mark him: note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector’s.
O admirable youth! Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him.

[While he is speaking, Cressida has taken from her hair a flower, knotted its stem to an arrow, and dropped the arrow beneath the rampart, where Troilus lifts it with a smile and happy gesture, bearing it away with him, right. As Pandarus now turns to her,
Cressida looks away left and points to others below.]

CRESSIDA
Here comes more.
MORE FORCES PASS

PANDARUS
Asses, fools, dolts! Chaff and bran! Porridge after meat! I could live and die i’ the eyes of Troilus.
Ne’er look, ne’er look! the eagles are gone; crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

[Enter, above, Troilus’ Boy, who speaks to Pandarus.]

THE BOY
Sir, my lord Troilus would instantly speak with you.

PANDARUS
Where?

THE BOY
At your own house; there he unarms him.

PANDARUS
Good boy, tell him I come. [Exit Boy.]
Fare ye well, good niece.
[He goes off, above.]

CRESSIDA
Adieu, uncle!

[Below, the last of the soldiers and populace have passed off, right, where Cressida gazes after them, speaking aloud to herself:]

O more in Troilus thousandfold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing.
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

[Below, from the right, Troilus hastens back, alone.
The arrow with the flower he has thrust through the links in his chain armor on his left side. Pointing to it, he calls up toward the battlement.]

TROILUS
Cressida!

CRESSIDA
[With a glad cry.]
Troilus!

[Unwinding her long wine-red scarf, she ties it to the battlement, whence it flutters down to Troilus.
Seizing it, he mounts by its aid toward the rampart, where the face of Cressida peers luringly above him.]

TROILUS
[Calling upward as he mounts.]
Cressida!
[Just as he is about to reach Cressida,

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE.

[At the centre Caliban now leaps up in loud, excited laughter. Clapping his hands in the air, he strides toward Ariel on the throne.]

CALIBAN
Aha! Troy, Troy! Lips of Troyland and Egypt!
Lovers in links of gold! Ho, wine of woman
Bubbling in vats of war!—drinketh you all
Caliban, Caliban, son of Setebos.—Ariel,
Learnest me Art? Lo, now: I am his Artist!
Tell him, Lord Prospero, Caliban createth
Glories more ’stounding still. Art? Ho, ’tis God’s play!
But me? Am God i’ the mire: can make me Troy
And purple Egypt out of the mud i’ my palm;
Giveth me only that—his little play stick
[Pointing to the staff in Ariel’s hand.]
To stir in the mud withal.

ARIEL
Not yet!—This staff
Is wrought to stir the spirits of the air,
Not dabble i’ the slime.

CALIBAN
Why so? From bog-slime bloometh
The lotus, and the sea-lark feedeth her young
Along the salt flats.—
[With childish wheedling.]
Prithee—the staff?

ARIEL
[Descending the throne.]
’Twould burn thee.
Touch not till thou art free. Yet patience, monster,
For thou hast learned to answer well, and growest
Rarely in thought and speech.

CALIBAN
[Tickled to laughter.]
Yea, clever monster
Soon groweth monstrous clever. More art, fine Ariel!
Let Caliban speak thy Prologue.

ARIEL
Hush!—Miranda!

[From her shrine Miranda comes forth, with the Muses.
Seeing the two, she pauses astonished.]

MIRANDA
Nay!—Is this Ariel?

ARIEL
’Tis I—Prologus.
Will you hear me, Mistress?

MIRANDA
[As Caliban approaches.]
Thou!—thou, Caliban!

ARIEL
My pupil.

CALIBAN
[With confiding assurance.]
Liketh well thy father’s art,
Spring-i’-the-air.

MIRANDA
God speed thy learning, monster!
I am more fain to help thee in that task
Than all else in the world.

CALIBAN
[Astonished and eager.]
Wouldst help me—thou?

MIRANDA
How happy, if I could!

CALIBAN
Yea, canst thou!—Hark:
[Glancing from his garb to Ariel’s.]
Let me wear glory, too! What booteth me
To be his Artist, if I wear no cloth
To show my glory? He there talketh no Prologue
Without his toga. Tog me, too, in brave
Colors!

MIRANDA
Well thought on.
[To one of the Muses.]
Quick, Euterpe: Fetch
Bright vesture forth.

ARIEL
For Caliban?

MIRANDA
For whom
So fit? The need of beauty lies
Most near to them who lack it.

[Euterpe returns, bringing bright garments, which she and the other Maidens help now to put upon Caliban.]

So, dear Muses:
Lay on!

CALIBAN
[Delightedly tries to survey himself.]

Ha, Sycorax, an thou wert here now
To look on this thy son!

[He parades, with swelling pleasure, before the Muses.]

Gaze well, good Spirits!
Now, Ariel, thy pupil soon shall teach thee
What thing this Art is: yea, teach Prospero
A lesson in ’s own lore.

MIRANDA
[To Ariel, who is about to protest.]
Pray, let him tarry
This time with us. He is too full of dreams
To act us harm. Speak on thy Prologue.

CALIBAN
[Still parading.]
Prologue!
Aye, good: my Prologue shall come after.

ARIEL
Mistress,
Keep here, this staff for your protection.

[Accepting the staff from Ariel, Miranda takes seat on the shrine, where the Muses range themselves about her.]

MIRANDA
So!
Be near us, Caliban.

CALIBAN
[Moving to the shrine steps, speaks to Ariel.]
What showest now?

ARIEL
[At centre, before the curtains.]
Now, in Time’s emblazoned tome
Egypt, Greece, turn page for Rome.

CALIBAN
[Mutters aloud.]
Rome, ha! I’ll show you Rome!

ARIEL
Rocked by mighty Cæsar’s fall
Glooms the world in battle pall,
Where by midnight, worn and spent,
Weary Brutus, in his tent,
Watches ’mid the Roman host.
There the pallid Cæsar’s ghost
Rises from his candle-flame
Accusing.—Who shall bear that blame?
Can Brutus wake a world from shame?

[Ariel disappears through the curtains.
Miranda raises the staff.]

THIRD INNER SCENE

The Cloudy Curtains part, disclosing the tent of Brutus, by moonlight.

Brutus—his outer armor laid aside—sits on a couch: near him Lucius, a boy, nods drowsily over a stringed instrument. After a brief pause,
Brutus—gazing at him—speaks wistfully:

BRUTUS
Bear with me, good boy:
Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile
And touch thy instrument a strain or two?

LUCIUS
Aye, my lord, an’t please you.

BRUTUS
It does, my boy:
I should not urge thy duty past thy might;
I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

LUCIUS
I have slept, my lord, already.

BRUTUS
It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again;
I will not hold thee long. If I do live
I will be good to thee.

LUCIUS
[Tuning his instrument, sings dreamily:]

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the seed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.

[Lucius falls asleep.]

BRUTUS
This is a sleepy tune. O murderous slumber,
Lay’st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good-night;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.—
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turned down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

[The Ghost of Cæsar appears.]

How ill this taper burns!—Ha! Who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou anything?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.

[In the darkness, dark ghostly shapes, hardly visible, appear to urge forward the dead Cæsar, who alone is luminous.]

THE GHOST
Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

BRUTUS
Why comest thou?

THE GHOST
To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

BRUTUS
Well; then I shall see thee again?

THE GHOST
Aye, at Philippi.

BRUTUS
Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then.

[The Ghost and the dim Shapes disappear.
Brutus rises.]

Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest:
Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.—
[Calling aloud.]
Boy, Lucius! Romans, Romans! Awake—awake!

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

[Instantly, in the semi-darkness without, Caliban—with a great cry—springs among the Muses, snatches from Miranda the staff, and rushes with it to the centre of the middle stage, shouting aloud:]

CALIBAN
Awake, Romans, awake!
[Low thunders growl, and sharp flashes glimmer about him.]

MIRANDA
[Cries out, appalled.]
The staff! His staff!
Touch not its power, lest thou lay waste the world!

CALIBAN
[Grasping the staff, staggers and sways wildly with it, as though being shocked by an invisible force.]
Rome! Now do I hold the roof-beam o’ the world.
Now am I lord of lightnings: Lo, mine art
Shaketh the throne of Prospero.
[He strides upon the throne, raising the staff.]
Awake,
Imperial Rome! Return, ye snake-bright women
Of Troy and Egypt! Stain these yellow sands
Wine-red with spillings of your wreathèd bowls,
And let the orgied priests of revel reign.—
Caligula, be crowned by Setebos!
Caligula! Caligula! Caligula!

[While he cries aloud, the Powers of Setebos come forth from the cell beneath, clad as Roman men, women, and slaves and, joined by the Roman Interlude Pageant on the ground-circle, raise the Emperor on a palanquin upon their shoulders, and bear him up the steps to the middle stage, shouting “Caligula!”

Here a scene of mingled riot and orgy follows:

Women dancers with golden bowls, slaves shackled and driven with whips, rabble groups scrambling for bread loaves flung them by heralds, armed soldiery, and gorgeous patrician lords: these swarm in a sordid saturnalia, from the midst of which the masked form of Caligula rises dominant in splendor. At his gesture, slaves tear the
Muses from their shrine, and give them over to the revellers.

High above all, clutching the staff, his huge limbs rioting grotesque from his silken garments, Caliban dances on the throne of Prospero.

Below, bass voices of invisible choirs chant through the din:

“Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!”

Seized from the throne with the Muses,
Miranda—at the centre—is borne in faint dread to the reaching arms of Caligula, who is about to place upon her his crown, when a sudden pealing of silvery trumpets strikes silence over all. In awe the revellers gaze upward, and turn toward the background, listening.

Above them there, from the darkness, appears a colossal CROSS, burning with white fire.

Caligula drops his crown.

Shadow falls on the colorful pageantry, and all sink slowly to their knees, as the Spirits of Ariel appear again above—their luminous wings outspread like seraphim.

At either end one blows a slim tapering trumpet.

High and clear, then, their choirs chant in
Gregorian unison:

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
Vexilla Regis pródeunt;
Fulget Crucis mystérium,
Quo carne carnis Cónditor
Suspénsus est patíbulo.

Quo vulneratis ínsuper
Mucróne diro lanceæ,
Ut nos laváret crimine,
Manavit unda et sánguine.

O Crux, ave, spes, unica:
Hoc Passiónis témpore,
Auge piis justítiam
Reisque dona veniam.

Te summa Deus Trínitas,
Collaudet omnis spiritus:
Quos per Crucis mystérium
Salvas, rege per sæcula.

During this chant, the dim revellers beneath bow their bodies more low.

And now, to faint organ music, the Cloudy
Curtains, parting, reveal the INNER STAGE hung like an early
Christian shrine in a catacomb—with primitive tapestries of dusky blue and gold. Against these in the glow of candles, an image of haloed
Saint Agnes holds a white lamb, which silent shepherds are adoring.
This group remains motionless as a tableau.

Then silently from either side two priests come forth with swinging censers. Passing forward and down the steps to the ground-circle, they are followed in the dim light by the Roman revellers, who rise and pass off through the Interlude gates.

Last of all rises Caligula, who pauses hesitant, looking back where Miranda still kneels, now grouped about by her
Muses.

As he stoops to lift his crown from the earth, two Figures in the INNER SCENE—a Shepherd Boy, and a Shepherd wrapt in a hide mantle—stir from the still picture and come forward in a circle of light, while

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE
behind them, and above the white cross vanishes.

Speaking from the place of light to the
Emperor’s form in shadow, the Shepherd calls to him:]

THE SHEPHERD
Caligula!

THE EMPEROR
Who calls?

THE SHEPHERD
Reveal thyself—
What thing thou art.

[Stepping slowly into the light, the EMPEROR bows himself before the SHEPHERD, holding up his crown which the Shepherd takes and says with a gesture:]

Lay off thy mask.

[Rising, the Emperor puts of his mask, revealing himself as the Priest of Setebos.]

Hail, Lust!

LUST
[To the Shepherd.]
Hail, Prospero!

PROSPERO
[Putting of his sheepskin cloak, which the boy takes from him.]
Return to Setebos.
[To the Shepherd Boy.]
Ariel, lead him below.

ARIEL
So, Master!
[Ariel leads Lust away to the cell beneath.]

MIRANDA
[Rising, goes to Prospero’s arms.]
Father!
[From the outer dimness, Caliban—who, since the appearance of the burning Cross, has lain flat on the throne steps— now grovels forward [trailing his silken garment by one sleeve] and flings the staff of Prospero into the light space.]

CALIBAN
No more! Will never touch it more!

PROSPERO
[Staring at the staff.]
A thousand years
To build, and build for beauty, yet in one flare
Of riot lust, a lubber idiot
Confounds time and my toil.—Ah, daughter, daughter!
How shall mine art reclaim this lapsing ape
From his own bondage?

MIRANDA
Sir, my heart is shaken;
Yet the sweet sight of Agnes and her lamb
Hath shown new comfort.

[Stooping, she lifts the staff and holds it toward him.]

Therefore, even as a Shepherd,
Take up thy staff in patience, and urge still onward
This poor sloughed sheep.

PROSPERO
Yea, patience! Sun, moon, stars,
And all that waxes hath its waning-hour;
But patience is the night behind the stars,
Steadfast through all eclipse.

[With his staff, he touches Caliban where he lies cringed.]

Stir, thou thick clot
Of clay and god-spittle! Let thine atoms thaw
To mud, where Prosper may imprint once more
His blurrèd seal.

CALIBAN
[Hoarsely, half rising.]
Mud: yea, methought to be
His Artist, and make dream-things of mine own
Like Ariel his spirits, yet now—am mud.

MIRANDA
[Pitifully.]
Nay, star-dust!

ARIEL
[Returning.]
Master, from those far frontiers
You visited, have you not brought us back
More pageants of your art?

PROSPERO
Yes, Ariel:
Back from the dim bourns of the Middle Age
Of Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
And now, for this slave’s tutelage, I’ll show you
Their quaint moralities and mad-cap mirth.
Come hither, and watch: Lo, olden Germany!
Pageant of the north, appear.

SECOND INTERLUDE[16]

Once more, through the community gates of the ground-circle, appear, in contrasted ritual, successive Folk-Groups, that perform now episodic phases of the dramatic art of Europe in the Middle Ages.
Concluding, each group departs.

First comes the Germanic, in part grimly austere, in part naïvely grotesque. On a portable, three-tiered stage this group enacts both audience and players of a popular morality play: a pantomime scene depicting—in heaven, earth, and hell—the tragic, romantic HISTORY OF
DOCTOR FAUSTUS.

This Action is followed by the contrasted splendor of a mediæval
French scene. Here, in presence of the Kings of France and England, on THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, is performed a colorful tournament on horseback.

Last follows a fusion of the Spanish and Italian groups in the
Third Action: a light-hearted dramatic Scherzo, full of laughter, knavery, and romantic love, performed—in the midst of a festa—by the pied actors of the COMMEDIA DELL’ ARTE.

During this last Action, Prospero and Ariel [above] have withdrawn through the Cloudy Curtains, leaving Caliban alone, staring spellbound at the many-hued festival below him.

ACT II

[Now, when the Italian Interlude is concluded, the light—passing to the middle stage—illumines at centre the lone figure of Caliban, where he squats above his cell. Gazing out over the ground-circle, he calls aloud his yearning thoughts:]

CALIBAN
O Sands—Yellow Sands! Falleth on you his rain,
Shineth his sun! Yea, there his breeding dews
Quicken your blind rock-seeds, till wondrous live things
Burst ’em with flame-bright petals; and where his light falls
You blossom with stars and flowers: But me—me saith,
Am mud! Calleth me a bubble of black ooze
Can breed but only mine own belly-kind—
Bog-fish and moles.—Lieth!
[Rising with a great gesture.]
He lieth! ’Tis lies!
Sands!—You wild, yellow sands! I, too, I, too,
Am born to dance by your eternal waves
And build brave temples there. I, too, shall bring you
Shoutings of life-song, like those Spirits.—Lo,
I come to you—I come now!

[Running down the steps, he rushes out upon the ground-circle, where he stoops on bent knees and kisses the shining earth.
Behind him, at the entrance of the cell, Death appears, holding a great gray cloak.
He comes forward, speaking in a thin monotone.]

DEATH
Caliban!

CALIBAN
[Raising his head.]
What calleth me there?

DEATH
Death: priest of Setebos.

CALIBAN
His temple is fallen: will build no more like his.

DEATH
Thou shalt restore his temple, Caliban.

CALIBAN
[Rising.]
Nay, will not!

DEATH
None can say me Nay. I am
The will to not be which denies all wills.

[Through the Cloudy Curtains—slowly—Prospero enters, in troubled meditation.]

CALIBAN
And I am Caliban: [Pointing toward Prospero.]
will be his servant.

DEATH
Caliban, thou shalt fail. Thyself art failure,
Setebos’ son.

CALIBAN
Myself am done with Setebos:
Wear now Miranda’s cloth.

DEATH
Thou shalt wear mine.
Behold!

CALIBAN
[Looking at the gray cloak.]
What’s that?

DEATH
My cloak, where thou shalt hide
To snare Miranda unto bondage. Hark!

[Far, cold, and thin a dirgeful choir sounds from the cell behind the figure of Death.]

THE DIRGE
Gray—gray—gray: Joy be unholy and hidden;
Wan be the rainbow of wonder, frozen the tide!
Blind—blind—blind: Passion be pale and forbidden;
Dumb be the lips of the soul to Beauty denied!

PROSPERO
[Speaks to Ariel, who comes running from behind the
Cloudy Curtains.]
Blithe bird of mine, my heart is boding ill.
Hast thou heard?

ARIEL
Nay, Master, what?

PROSPERO
His dirges.

ARIEL
Whose?

PROSPERO
Setebos’. Ha, ’tis not his lust I dread,
Nay, nor his tiger tooth, nor belly on fire:
’Tis when his fever cools: when the gray ash
Covers the life-flame, and the boiling senses
Skim with thin ice, and the rank bloom wears hoar-frost:
Not savage souls, ’tis dead souls that defeat us.
Not red, but gray—gray.

[While Prospero and Ariel have spoken together above,
Caliban, below, has been drawn half hypnotized by Death toward the cell.]

DEATH
[To Caliban.]
Follow me.

CALIBAN
I follow!

DEATH
[At the cell’s mouth, lifts the gray cloak to put upon
Caliban.]
Wear now my color.

CALIBAN
[As Death touches him, springs back.]
No, no; thy hand-touch freezeth.
[Fearfully he leaps up the steps, crying aloud:]
Prospero! I will serve thee.

DEATH
[Disappearing within the cell.]
Thou shalt fail.

CALIBAN
[Bowing before Prospero.]
Master, raise up thy servant.

PROSPERO
Raise thyself.

CALIBAN
[Slowly rising.]
So—while thou lookest on me, I can rise.

PROSPERO
Nay, look once more on what I now create
For thee to rise by. ’Tis mine art, not me,
Reigns as thy master. Master it, and go free.

[The Three move toward the throne, where they soon group themselves on the steps.]

CALIBAN
What wilt thou show me now?

PROSPERO
A mind distraught—
Grasping at realms invisible—like thine,
Poor groping dreamer. Ariel, from the scroll
Of mine old Gothic meditations, bid
Thy spirits blazon now a glimpse of Hamlet.

[He hands to Ariel his scroll.]

ARIEL
Your will, great Master, we revere it.—
Lo where, to meet his father’s spirit,
Pale Hamlet watches now, before
The parapets of Elsinore!

[Ariel raises the scroll; then, unrolling it, bends his looks upon it, while the Cloudy Curtains part, revealing the

FIFTH INNER SCENE.

On a platform at Elsinore, by blazing starlight, three Figures are seen pacing the cold.

HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET
What hour now?

HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.

MARCELLUS
No, it is struck.

HORATIO
Indeed?
I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held its wont to walk.

[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.]

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-start reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge....

HORATIO
[Pointing.]
My lord, it comes!

[Enter Ghost.]

HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!—
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O answer me!...
What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

[The Ghost beckons Hamlet.]

HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

MARCELLUS
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.

HORATIO
No; by no means.

HAMLET
It will not speak; then I will follow it.

HORATIO
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?—
It waves me forth again: I’ll follow it.

MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET
Hold off your hands.

HORATIO
Be ruled; you shall not go.

HAMLET
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!—Go on; I’ll follow thee!

[As Hamlet, impetuous, makes after the departing ghost,

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

CALIBAN
[Springing up.]
No, no! Follow not! Let him not follow! ’Tis
A spirit lureth to Setebos and Death.
He knoweth him not, what ’tis;—but, master, I know.
Me, me too hath he beckoned with blind eyes
And offered his gray cloth.

PROSPERO
Thee? Death hath beckoned
And yet thou didst not follow?

CALIBAN
Hither I fled
To serve thee, but he said that I should fail;
Yet—yet, and thou wilt help, I will not fail!

PROSPERO
And what wouldst have of me?

CALIBAN
[Pointing to Ariel.]
Thy wonder scroll:
Nay, not thy staff again! Will never more
Botch with thy lightnings. Nay, but this littler thing
Lend me, and let me bear it against Death
To free my father’s spirit from his gray pall.
Lettest Ariel: let now thy Caliban
Conspire to serve thee.

[He reaches for the scroll.]

PROSPERO
Why, thou wheedlest well,
And I must hope in thy self-weening. Yet
Beware lest thou thyself shalt wear the drab
Thou takest from him: Gray hath arsenic
More keen than scarlet or the corroding blood
That sered the flesh of Hercules.

CALIBAN
[Eagerly.]
Wilt lend me
The scroll?

PROSPERO
[With a gesture to Ariel.]
Here!

[Ariel hands the scroll, which Prospero then gives to Caliban.]

Use this token of mine art
Less blindfold than the last.

[Caliban bounds away with the scroll.]

ARIEL
[Half protesting.]
Will trust him, Master?

PROSPERO
Yea, though he fail me yet again, for only
Trust can create its object.

CALIBAN
[Joyfully kissing the scroll and raising it.]
Now, now, Setebos,
Thy son shall wean thy Powers from Death, thy priest!

[Descending the steps, Caliban hastens to the mouth of the cell, where—as he is about to enter—Death reappears and hails him.]

DEATH
Welcome, Caliban!

[Death beckons within. Pausing momentarily, Caliban seems about to draw back, but recovering his purpose cries out hoarsely:]

CALIBAN
Go on; I’ll follow thee.

[He follows within and disappears. Caliban and Death have hardly vanished, when Miranda comes from her shrine, followed by the Muses, who are accompanied by a troop of Fauns. The classic hides of these are partly concealed by gay mediæval garments [Florentine and French], and some bear in their hands great vellum books and parchments, which they stack in a pile near the shrine.]

MIRANDA
[Calling joyously.]
Muses, sweet friends to mirth! Come forth again
And fetch your little Fauns, that drowsed so long
In mildew’d vaults of antique vellum, through all
The winters of dark ages. Come, sad Clio,
Unpucker your frown! You, pale Melpomene,
Blush to a lovelier time. Yond yellow sands,
That ran blood-red with orgies of old Rome,
Shine golden now with young renascence. The ages
Renew their summer. Joy hath its June once more,
For once more Prosper reigns.

PROSPERO
[As Miranda comes to him.]
’Tis thy returning
Restores my summer time. I see thou hast
Been rummaging old lockers.

MIRANDA
Aye, sir, and found
These sharp-eared Fauns, hiding like wintered field-mice
In attic parchments. So I set ’em free
To play, while Care the Cat’s away.—Come, now,
Sicilian boys, caper your shag-hair shins,
And thou, Terpsychore, lead on their dance
To please my father.

[At her command, Terpsychore and the Fauns—to instruments played by the Muses—perform a joyous dance before
Prospero. As they conclude, he greets them with a smile.]

PROSPERO
Thanks, you hearts upleaping!
After long ominous hours, thanks for your festa!
And you, dear child incorrigible for joy,
Come now, I will requite you—not in gold,
But golden fantasy, wrought all one glow
Of shadowless shining.

MIRANDA
Ah, another vision?

PROSPERO
Aye, ’tis a vision, that myself beheld
Shine on the soil of France. I’ll show you Peace:
The kings of earth at peace, after red battle;
Two kings of men, each clasping brother’s hand
Warm with the golden passion of strong peace.

MIRANDA
What kings were they, and where?

PROSPERO
England and France:
’They met in the vale of Andren, ’twixt Guynes and Arde;
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;
Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung
In their embracement, as they grew together.’—[17]
But tell us, Ariel, what I told thee remember,
How Peace was crowned on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

MIRANDA
How brave a name! Would I had been there!

ARIEL
[Bowing, as Prologue.]
’You lost
The view of earthly glory: men might say
Till this time pomp was single, but now married
To one above itself. Each following day
Became the next day’s master, till the last
Made former wonders its. To-day, the French,
All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
Shone down the English; and to-morrow, they
Made Britain India: every man that stood
Show’d like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labor
Was to them as a painting: now this masque
Was cried incomparable, and the ensuing night
Made it a fool and beggar. The two Kings,
Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,
As presence did present them.’[18]—Lo, now, see
How first they met, and clasped their hands in peace!

[Lifting Prospero’s staff, Ariel makes a gesture toward the Cloudy Curtains, which part, discovering the

SIXTH INNER SCENE

Here, to an opening fanfare of golden trumpets, takes place a PANTOMIME, all of gold, depicting to the eye, as in a glowing fantasy, the meeting of the Kings and their Retinues: the alighting of the Kings from horseback, their embracement and their clasping of hands.

During this enactment of the pantomime, the choirs of Ariel’s Spirits sing, unseen:]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL
Glory and serenity,
Splendor of desire,
Blend where golden lilies bloom
Mid St. George’s fire:
Lilies of France!—behold
How they glow on the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
And the battle-captains curb their bands
Where the kings of earth clasp hands.

Power and principality
Raise to Peace their choir
Where Lord Christ his lilies cling
Round the Dragon’s ire:
Lilies of Christ!—behold
How they flame from the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
Where the captains bow to their Lord’s commands
And the kings of men clasp hands.

[At the climax of the meeting of the Kings,

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

PROSPERO
[Smiling, to Miranda.]
This glowing taketh thee.

MIRANDA
O, my good father!
Methinks my soul is a flake o’ the sun, for where
Things golden shine, I spangle, too; yea, burn
To be Aurora, and trail cloth of gold
Around the world.

PROSPERO
Unless my will miscarry,
Thou shalt be such a morning messenger
And wake the world with beauty. Now my plans
Wait on a vast result, for Caliban
Himself hath gone to deal with Setebos
His gray priest, Death.

MIRANDA
What, Caliban! O glad
Hope for us all! Your art begins to triumph,
And Ariel’s Spirits to conquer.

PROSPERO
That still waits:
Meanwhile mine art drinks from this renaissance
Deep draughts against a dark to-morrow.—Hither,
You Fauns! Come, bear my gold-emblazoned scrolls
And silver-claspèd books before me!

[Lifting the scrolls and volumes from their pile by the shrine, the Fauns come forward with them to Prospero, who turns affectionately to Miranda.]

I
Will leave you now, and pore awhile on these
For further conjurings.

MIRANDA
[Detaining him.]
Yet conjure once
Again before you go!

PROSPERO
What wouldst thou, dear?

MIRANDA
Hardly I know: but something high, serene,
And passionately fair: some vision’d glimpse
Of fadeless youth, and lovers rich through love.

PROSPERO
Why, Ariel hath his orders still.—[To Ariel.] List, pupil:
To glad thy mistress’ heart, when I am gone,
Pour the warm moon-wine of Italian night
Into a dream-cup, where entrancèd lovers
Seal with charm’d lips their vows. Therein dissolve
What visions rise, till they shall melt in one
Gloaming of love and music.—So, Miranda,
Rich dreams! Faun-boys, bear on my books before me!

[Accompanied by the bright-clothed Fauns, bearing the great books and scrolls in quaint procession, Prospero departs through the throne-entrance.
Meantime, the Muses and Miranda gather at the shrine, where Ariel approaches Miranda.]

ARIEL
Mistress—

MIRANDA
Hark, Muses! Ariel, speak on!

ARIEL
Ear and eye, now, list and lo:
Mirth of mad Mercutio,
Juliet’s sigh for Romeo;
Dim Lorenzo’s murmur’d “Ah!”
For moon-dreaming Jessica;
Dance of flower-soul’d Perdita
Wafted to her Florizel
Like a wave o’ the sea: List well;
Lo, their night renews its spell!

[At Ariel’s last word and gesture, the Cloudy Curtains part, disclosing the

SEVENTH INNER SCENE

In the glow and gloom of Italian night, as high clouds intermittently obscure the moon, a palace garden lies in deep shadow. Emerging only partly into view, where soft light-floodings fall on moss-stained statue, marble bench, and balcony, there is revealed at first [on the left] nothing but a glimpse of garden wall, before which flash in the dimness two pied figures
[Benvolio and Mercutio]. Calling shrilly, their young voices rain showers of fluting laughter.

PRELIMINARY SKETCH FOR SEVENTH INNER SCENE: JONES

BENVOLIO
Romeo! My cousin Romeo!...
He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.

MERCUTIO
Nay, I’ll conjure, too:
Romeo! humors! madman! passion! lover!—
I conjure thee by thy true love’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us!—
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not.

BENVOLIO
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
To be consorted with the humorous night:
Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

MERCUTIO
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark ...
Romeo, good-night: I’ll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?

[They disappear, swallowed up in black shadow. And now the shadow, shifting, leaves bare in mellow moonshine a glimpse of the garden and the balcony, where Juliet, bending forward, calls mysteriously into the dark below:]

JULIET
Hist! Romeo! hist! O for a falconer’s voice,
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.

ROMEO
[Emerging, below, from the shadow.]
It is my soul that calls upon my name:
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!

JULIET
Romeo!

ROMEO
My dear?

JULIET
At what o’clock to-morrow
Shall I send to thee?

ROMEO
At the hour of nine.

JULIET
I will not fail: ’tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.

ROMEO
Let me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIET
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.

ROMEO
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.

JULIET
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird,
Who lets it hop a little from her hand....
Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow!

[Once more deep shadow engulfs the scene; and now, out of the dark, harmonious music sounds in strains of passionate wistfulness. So, as the music sounds, on the right, beams of the moon reveal a flowery bank, whereby Lorenzo and Jessica are discovered.]

LORENZO
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins,
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

[Swift shadow sweeps over them in darkness. Waning from its visionary theme to a hint of the “muddy vesture of decay,” the music flows onward then into a dance melody; moonlight touches the garden again [on the left]
with its liquid glow, wherein—whirled into light from a group of shadowy dancers outside—Florizel and Perdita are disclosed.]

FLORIZEL
[As Perdita withdraws shyly her hand from his, speaks to her ardently.]
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever ... When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
That all your acts are queens....

PERDITA
O Doricles,
Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
And the true blood which peepeth fairly through ’t,
Do plainly give you an unstained shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You woo’d me the false way.

FLORIZEL
I think you have
As little skill to fear as I have purpose
To put you to ’t. But come; our dance, I pray:
Your hand, my Perdita!

PERDITA
[Giving her hand confidingly.]
My Florizel!

[Together they dance away into the dark and the luring music, as

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

[Still, after the curtains’ closing, the music continues, but now more faint, changing the idyllic strains of the dance rhythm to a minor sadness, which gradually takes form as a drear, monotonous processional.
Through the faint music, Miranda speaks to Ariel.]

MIRANDA
Too brief! too brief, sweet bird! O Ariel, be
Time’s nightingale, and charm these lovers back
To yearn immortal youth. Methinks already
Their absence leaves us age’d: Dost thou not feel
A waning of high powers? Doth not a pallor
Creep on the glowing world?

ARIEL
Yea, so I have felt
After the equinox—November coming on.

MIRANDA
[Starting, as she gazes at one of the Muses.]
Euterpe dear! What lock of gray is this
In thy bright hair?—Quick, Ariel: fetch my father,
For sudden my heart aches, and I wish him near.

ARIEL
Straight I will bring him, and my Spirits, too.
Be merry, mistress: they shall soon restore us.

[Ariel hastens off, left. As he does so, the Muses, with downcast looks, file off right into the shrine.]

MIRANDA
Nay, darling Muses! do not leave me, too.
What, must you all go hence? Still I must tarry
To greet my father. Friends, good-bye!
[They depart.]
Ah me!
What voices make their dirge within my heart?

[While she has spoken, the mouth of Caliban’s cell, emitting a ghastly glow, fills with dim Shapes, which pour outward, and swarm slowly upward over the steps, covering the stage with a moving, huddled grayness, out of which two cloaked Figures rise distinct in the dusk. As they come forth and hover nearer to Miranda, a cold dirge issues with them from below.]

THE DIRGE
[As before.]
Gray—gray—gray: Joy be unholy and hidden;
Wan be the rainbow of wonder, frozen the tide!
Blind—blind—blind: Passion be pale and forbidden;
Dumb be the lips of the soul to Beauty denied!

[Slowly the gray hosts surround Miranda, who stares at them, only half believing their presence, till the dusk, growing lighter, reveals their long Puritan cloaks and peaked hats, and the two muffled Ones in
Gray towering before her. Then faintly she speaks to them:]

MIRANDA
What are you? Why are you come? Ah, you—’tis you:
Priest of Setebos!—Caliban!
[She sways and falls.]

CALIBAN
Ha, she swooneth.—
O Death, unfasten thy spell!

DEATH
Nay, thou hast failed.

[Lifting the scroll of Prospero, which he has taken from
Caliban, Death makes a gesture to his followers.]

Bear her to Setebos!

[Then, laying his hand upon Caliban, he turns with him backward, as a group of the gray-cloaked Shapes raise the limp form of Miranda to a cloth-draped bier, and thus bear her downward toward the cell’s mouth. In dim processional, as they go, they raise again their dirge:]

THE DIRGE
Gray—gray—gray: Love, be sin-born of Misgiving!
Life, be a garment of dullness, drab from the loom!
Bleak—bleak—bleak: Death, Death is lord of the living:
Not in the clay but the heart of man lies the tomb.

[Disappearing in the cell below, their chant dies away.
Above them, from the left, Ariel returns, alone.
Searching in the dusk, half fearfully, he calls:]

ARIEL
Miranda—mistress: He hath vanished. Nowhere
Can I find trace of him. Yea, and my Spirits
They, too—they, too, are gone, lost in the grayness:
All have deserted us! Miranda—mistress!
Where art thou? Gone, thyself?—and I alone!
O gray, that hast engulfed a world of beauty,
Where shall I find them ever more—my master,
My star-bright mistress? Hear me, Yellow Sands!
If you have beheld them, answer now my prayer!
[Outstretching his arms toward the Sands.]
Prospero! Prospero!—Master!

[From far across the Sands bursts a mellow radiance, and the rich voice of Prospero calling in answer:]

PROSPERO
Ariel! Ariel!
Ho, bird!

[Springing into light upon the farthest wave-lines of the
Yellow Sands, Prospero comes returning, surrounded by the Spirits of Ariel, clad all in green and bearing in their midst a garlanded May-pole.
Marching joyously across the circle toward Ariel, all in radiant glow, they come shouting a choral song:]

THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL

“Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu.—Sing cuccu!

“Awe bleteth after lomb
Lhouth after calve cu!
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!

“Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!”

[Leaping up the steps, they plant the May-pole at the centre, where Ariel greets them.]

ARIEL
Dear Master! O blithe hearts: Have welcome home!

PROSPERO
Welcome our May-pole back!—Where is thy mistress?

ARIEL
[Startled.]
Alas! You know not?

PROSPERO
[Reassuringly.]
Nay, I know. But cheerly,
My birdlings! Now that ye are flocked once more
Round this enchanted tree, I’ll conjure you
Out of mine art such joyous rites, that they
Shall draw your Mistress even from the tomb
To join our revels. Come now, gather round
And watch my antic rites of Merry England!

THIRD INTERLUDE[19]

Now through the Interlude gates, and from all sides, a jocund festival pours into the illumined space of the ground-circle: the folk festival of Elizabethan England.

Simultaneously, in different parts, as in a merry rural fair, various popular arts and pastimes begin, and continue together: Morris dancers and pipers, balladists and play-actors, folk dancers, fiddlers, clowns, and Punch-and-Judy performers romp, rant, parade, and jingle amongst flower-girls and gay-garbed jesters spangling by the bright venders’ booths.

Central, at a point of vantage, above a gaping crowd of lumpkins and children, Noah’s wife harangues the heavens from the old play.

So they pursue their merriment, till the low rumble and lowering of a thunder-cloud disperses them with its passing shadow.

ACT III

[At the conclusion now of the
English Interlude, out of the shadow a roseate glow suffuses the cell of Caliban, from which the green-clad Spirits of Ariel come running forth, bringing in their midst Miranda. Leading her in daisy chains, they mount with her the steps toward Prospero, singing in glad chorus:]

THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL
“Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

“The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

“The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring! the sweet Spring!”

PROSPERO
[Greeting her.]
Welcome, most dear!

MIRANDA
Once more you bring me home,
And the gray world wears green!

THE VOICE OF CALIBAN
[Calling, beneath.]
Ho, Spring-i’-the-air!

MIRANDA
Hark!

[From his cell, bare-headed, with gray cloak unbound and flapping behind, Caliban bursts forth and hastens toward them.]

CALIBAN
Spring-i’-the-air! Ah, leave me not alone!
Take me forth with thee, too! Not Death can hold me
When thou goest forth from him.

MIRANDA
It was thyself
That led’st me unto him.

CALIBAN
With thee—with thee
Would I lie even with Death. But when thou leavest,
Thy life-song prickleth his sod, and maketh my sap
To leap, and lick the sun again.
[Kneeling before her.]
O, whither
Thou goest, let Caliban go, and wear thy cloth
Whatso its colors be!

PROSPERO
[Darkly.]
Keep from her, slave!
Touch not her hem. Her Muses garbed thee once
Gay in her colors. Thou soiled’st them with shame.
Next time thou worest drab, and lured’st thy Mistress
Deathward in gray. Now—now thou darest crave
Once more to wear her cloth?

CALIBAN
Yea, do I! See:
This cloak—so I forswear it!

[He puts off the gray cloak, tears it, and tramples upon it; then turns to Miranda.]

Give me now
Thy green to wear!

PROSPERO
Insolence infinite!
Ariel, my staff!

MIRANDA
Stay!—What to do?

PROSPERO
[About to raise the staff.]
To teach
This unwhipt hound—to howl.

CALIBAN
[Starting back.]
Great Master!

MIRANDA
Grace,
Dear Father! Patience needs no quick compulsion.
Thine art is wondrous patient, and this poor
Slow climber needs thine art.

PROSPERO
Why, once again
Thou art my wiser self.
[To Caliban.]
Go, lick her hand,
And feed from it.

CALIBAN
[Laying his cheek on Miranda’s hand weeps, with great sobs.]
Spring—Spring-i’-the-air, thy dew
Dabbleth my face. O wonder, what art thou
That fillest so mine eyes with rain-shine?

MIRANDA
April,
Not I, can conjure spring i’ the air, and April
Plies rarest art in England.—Ariel,
Fetch us, from out my father’s dreamery,
Nature’s spring-charm and echo of English song!
[To the Spirits of Ariel.]
Our greenwood cloth! Come, busk him, merry men all:
Aye, both of us!

CALIBAN
[Rapturously.]
This time I will not fail thee.

MIRANDA
[To Prospero, indicating Caliban.]
Have faith in this fellow-creature, and let these spirits
Clothe him anew.

PROSPERO
As you like it, dear, be it so!

[The Spirits clothe Caliban and Miranda in green, while from within the Cloudy Curtains an unseen chorus sings:]

THE CHORUS
“Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.”

ARIEL
Spirits within, ho!
[The Spirits run through the curtains, at centre, and disappear within.]
Prosper’s hood
Broods now a dream of Arden wood,
Where young Orlando, daring fight
For succor of old Adam’s plight,
Defies the greenwood company—
But meets there with no enemy.

CALIBAN
[By the throne with Miranda and Prospero, murmurs aloud:]
No enemy!
[As Ariel raises his staff, the Cloudy Curtains part, disclosing

THE EIGHTH INNER SCENE

A place of dappled shine and shadow in the forest. No boughs or trees are visible, but only a luminous glade of color, where falling sunlight filters a swaying glow and gloom from high, wind-stirred branches above. On the edges of the scene, the semi-obscurity half conceals forms of the forest company [Jacques, the Duke, etc.] who, seated about their noon-time meal, sing their chorus:

THE CHORUS
Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i’ the sun,
Seeking the food he eats
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

[Enter Orlando, with his sword drawn.]

ORLANDO
[Fiercely.]
Forbear, and eat no more!

JACQUES
Why, I have eat none yet.

ORLANDO
Nor shalt not, till necessity be served.

THE DUKE
What would you have? Your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness.

ORLANDO
I almost die for food; and let me have it.

THE DUKE
Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

ORLANDO
Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you:
I thought that all things had been savage here;
And therefore put I on the countenance
Of stern commandment. But whate’er you are
That in this desert inaccessible
Under the shade of melancholy boughs
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have looked on better days,
If ever been where bells have knoll’d to church,
If ever sat at any good man’s feast,
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear
And known what ’tis to pity and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.

THE DUKE
True is it that we have seen better days,
And have with holy bell been knoll’d to church,
And sat at good men’s feasts, and wiped our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender’d:
And therefore sit you down in gentleness
And take upon command what help we have
That to your wanting may be minister’d.

ORLANDO
Then but forbear your food a little while,
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn
And give it food. There is an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step
Limp’d in pure love: till he be first suffic’d
I will not touch a bit.

THE DUKE
Go find him out,
And we will nothing waste till you return.

ORLANDO
I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!
[Exit Orlando.]

THE DUKE
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.

JACQUES
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players!

[Re-enter Orlando with Adam, whom he helps to support.]

THE DUKE
Welcome! Set down your venerable burden
And let him feed.

ORLANDO
I thank you most for him.

ADAM
So had you need:
I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

THE DUKE

Welcome: fall to! Give us some music; sing!

[Once more, as the chorus resumes the song “Under the Greenwood Tree,”

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

[The music dies away within.
With a strange, dawning reverence, Caliban turns to
Miranda and speaks:]

CALIBAN
“I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.”—
Like him there you have furnish’d me food of pity
And a new world with no enemy!

MIRANDA
You have none,
Save the blind storms of your own nature.

CALIBAN
Those
Tempests are still now.

PROSPERO
[Approaching.]
So mine art hath power
Once more to calm? Good: now the time is ripe
Methinks to rest awhile, for I am happily
Weary, and will take rest from thought.—Miranda,
Wilt come within? Unhood me for brief slumber,
And smooth my couch?

MIRANDA
[Rising.]
Right gladly.

PROSPERO
[To Ariel.]
And thou, too,
One moment: I’ve more for this tutelage.

[Prospero passes off, right, by the throne exit, accompanied by Ariel. Miranda, about to follow, pauses at Caliban’s entreating voice.]

CALIBAN
Stay! What your pity hath made me cries to you—
Leave me not! Let me be yours!

MIRANDA
[Wonderingly.]
How mean you—mine?

CALIBAN
Your Caliban, your creature, your bond slave
To fetch and bear for you.

MIRANDA
I want no bonds
’Twixt me and any friend. Nay, we are friends
And free to serve each other.

CALIBAN
Yet I yearn
For more: I know not what.

MIRANDA
What more could be
More happy?

CALIBAN
Here I crawled upon my belly
Brute-stuttering for you, where now I stand
And pray—with Prosper’s tongue. His art hath bred
Within my blood a kinship with your kindness
That cries: “Miranda, thou and I are one!”—
I know not how—I know not how.

MIRANDA
You love me.
’Tis simple, then: I love you, Caliban.

CALIBAN
[In a splendor of amazement.]
Lovest me—thou? thou!—Wilt be mine?

MIRANDA
Nay, truly
You know not how. Love knows not mine and thine,
But only ours; and all the world is ours
To serve Love in. I am not thine, good friend.
[She goes within.]

CALIBAN
Stay yet!—She loveth me! Yet Love, she saith,
Love knows not mine and thine.

A VOICE FROM BENEATH
[Calls deeply.]
She shall be thine,
Caliban!

CALIBAN
[Starting.]
Mine! Who saith that word?

THE VOICE
She shall
Be thine!

CALIBAN
How mine?—Say!

THE VOICE
Thou shalt fight for her.

CALIBAN
[Pointing toward the Cloudy Curtains.]
Shall fight? Nay, there—the youth put by his sword,
For the other said: “Your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness.”

THE VOICE
Yet thou shalt fight!

CALIBAN
[Springing forward above his cell.]
What art thou?
[From the mouth of the cell a flame-colored Figure strides forth and replies:]

THE FIGURE
War: thy father’s
Priest.—Caliban, remember Setebos!

CALIBAN
Ha, Setebos! Com’st thou once more with priest-craft
To lure me back to him?—Begone!

WAR
Yet not
Without me shalt thou win Miranda.

CALIBAN
[Fiercely.]
Go!

WAR
[Returning within the cell, disappears as his voice dies away.]
Remember War! Miranda shall be thine!

CALIBAN
[Hoarsely.]
Miranda—mine!

ARIEL
[Comes running from the throne entrance.]
Ho, pupil, now be merry!
Great Prosper sleeps, and from his slumber sends thee
A dream of fairy laughter.

CALIBAN
[Darkly, amazed.]
Laughter!

ARIEL
Aye,
An English make-believe of antic elves
And merry wives, to douse the lustful fire
Of old John Falstaff, lured to Windsor Forest.—
Our Master deems thou hast learned art enough
To laugh at apings of it.

CALIBAN
[Still amazed, but curious.]
Laugh?

ARIEL
Aye, list!

[Caliban stands on one side, with arms folded and listens.]

To Windsor’s magic oak now turn:
There—his fatty bulk in guise
Of the hornèd hunter Herne—
Big Sir John in ambush lies
Where the counterfeited fays
Troop along the forest ways:
How his lust will cease to burn
For the Merry Wives—now gaze
Yonder by the oak, and learn!

[Ariel raises his staff. Parting, the Cloudy Curtains disclose

THE NINTH INNER SCENE

The gigantic trunk of an oak rises in moonlight, surrounded by the glimmering purple of the obscure forest.

Trooping from the left, enter the disguised Fairies, following their leader Sir Hugh Evans.]

EVANS
Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts:
be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when
I give the watch ’ords, do as I pid you: Come, come; trib, trib.
[They conceal themselves.
A distant chiming sounds as Falstaff enters, disguised as Herne, wearing a stag’s head with great horns.]

FALSTAFF
The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me!
Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! That, in some respects, makes a beast a man, in some other a man a beast.

CALIBAN
[Listening intently near the edge of the scene.]
A man a beast!

FALSTAFF
Think on ’t, Jove: Where gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i’ the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove! Who comes here? My doe?

[Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.]

MRS. FORD
Sir John! Art thou there, my deer? My male deer?

FALSTAFF
My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of green sleeves; I will shelter me here.

MRS. FORD
Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

FALSTAFF
Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter?
As I am a true spirit, welcome!

[Noise within.]

MRS. PAGE
Alas, what noise?

MRS. FORD
Heaven forgive our sins!

FALSTAFF
What should this be?

MRS. PAGE AND MRS. FORD
Away! Away!
[They run off.]

FALSTAFF
I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

[Enter Sir Hugh Evans, disguised as before; Pistol, as Hobgoblin; Mistress Quickly, Anne Page, and others as Fairies, with tapers.]

MRS. QUICKLY
Fairies, black, gray, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

PISTOL
Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys!

FALSTAFF
They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
[He lies upon his face.]

EVANS
Where’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleeps, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy;
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy!
But those as sleep and think not on their sins
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins!

CALIBAN
[Growing excitedly absorbed.]
Ha, pinch them, saith!

MRS. QUICKLY
Away; disperse: but till ’tis one o’clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

EVANS
Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.

FALSTAFF
Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

PISTOL
Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth.

MRS. QUICKLY
With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

PISTOL
A trial, come.

EVANS
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.]

FALSTAFF
Oh! Oh! Oh!

CALIBAN
[Crying out.]
Ah, ah! They plague him, too!

MRS. QUICKLY
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, Fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

ALL
[As they dance about him, pinch, burn him, and sing:]

Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, Fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out!

FALSTAFF
[Rising and pulling off his buck’s head, cries out:]
Oh! Oh! Oh!
[As he is about to flee, tormented by the dancing figures,

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

CALIBAN
[Bursting into bitter laughter.]
Ah-ha, ha!
“Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!”
Mocketh me, mocketh me, ah!—A man with horns
And heart of monster!
[Striding fiercely toward Ariel.]
He mocketh me, thy lord!

ARIEL
[Laughing silverly.]
Why, ’tis but fairy sport for laughter.

CALIBAN
[With choking passion.]
Laughter!
Ah-ha! Me, too—me, too, thy spirits plagued
And pinched, to piping jigs.
[Seizing Ariel.]
I tell thee, smiling
Spirit, thy laughter scorcheth me with nettles,
[Pointing toward the curtains.]
And that hot bulk of lust hath made my loins
To rage with boiling blood.

ARIEL
[Struggling.]
Unclutch thy hand!

CALIBAN
Not till I bleed that oil of laughter from thee
Which lappeth me in flame.

THE VOICE OF WAR
[Calls deeply from below.]
Hail, Caliban!

CALIBAN
[Pausing, releases Ariel, and listens.]
Callest me, War?

THE VOICE
Miranda shall be thine!

CALIBAN
Mine!—Yea, now I am mocked to know myself
What rutting stag I am! And her, the doe
I mate, my horns shall battle for, and be
Mine own—mine, mine! Miranda!

MIRANDA
[Coming from within, right, raises her hand in gentle warning.]
Hush thy tone;
My father slumbers yet.
[Showing Prospero’s hood, which she carries.]
He hath put by
This hood, wherein he sends thee here another
Visioning.

CALIBAN
[Stares at her, breathing hard.]
So: what now?

ARIEL
[To Miranda.]
He rages, Mistress.
Beware! He babbleth of War.

MIRANDA
Why, then he conjures
The dream my father sends: another picture,
Painted in gules on England’s ancient shield:
King Harry, by the high walls of Harfleur.
[To Caliban.]
So you may learn, good friend, how noblest natures
Are moved to tiger passions—by a painting
Called Honor, dearer than their brothers’ lives.

CALIBAN
Why will he show me this?

MIRANDA
Perchance that you,
Born of a tiger’s loins, seeing that picture,
May recognize an image of yourself
And so recoil to reason and to love.

CALIBAN
So, mocketh me once more?

MIRANDA
Nay, never that.
But let us look thereon, and learn together.

CALIBAN
[Starts toward her, but curbs himself, trembling.]
Together!

MIRANDA
[To Ariel.]
Hold his magic hood and conjure.

ARIEL
[Taking the hood of Prospero.]

Image of Strife, may never more
Your like draw near!
Pageant of long-forgotten War,
Appear!
Harry of England, lo, is here!

[As Ariel lifts Prospero’s hood on the staff, the
Cloudy Curtains party and discover

THE TENTH INNER SCENE

Before high mediæval walls, partly shattered, to pealing of trumpets, appear in their armor, King Henry the Fifth, and his nobles, surrounded by soldiers, with cross-bows and scaling-ladders.

Standing above on a parapet, the King is exhorting them with vehement ardor.

KING HENRY
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with the English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect....
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noble English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of War-proof!...
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not....
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry, “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

THE SOLDIERS
[With a great shout.]
Ho, God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

[As they leap forward, to the blare of trumpets, and begin to scale the ladders,

THE CLOUDY CURTAINS CLOSE

[Instantly Caliban, seizing from the staff the hood of
Prospero, shakes it aloft and shouts:]

PRELIMINARY SKETCH FOR TENTH INNER SCENE: JONES

CALIBAN
Ho, God for Caliban and Setebos!
War, War for Prosper’s throne! Miranda’s shrine!
[A booming detonation resounds, and a roar of voices from below.]

THE VOICES

Caliban, Caliban, hail!

[From the throne-entrance Prospero—unhooded—hastens in, surrounded by the Spirits of Ariel, bearing long shining lances. Mounting swiftly the throne and joined by Ariel and Miranda, Prospero calls to Caliban, who—wearing his hood and lifting his staff—strides toward him.]

PROSPERO
[His unhooded features revealing their likeness to
Shakespeare’s.]
Who wakes my sleep
With these usurping thunders?

CALIBAN
War and I!
Now Setebos returns, and thou art fallen!

[A second detonation booms.
Red glare bursts from Caliban’s cell, and War rushes forth with the Powers of Setebos, clad in his flaring habiliments, followed by the groups of Lust and Death.
Bearing lighted torches, amid the roaring of Setebos choruses, flashing fireworks and bombs, they swarm upon the half-obscure stage.
Led by War, the flame-colored hordes clash with the
Spirits of Ariel, overcome them, and take captive
Miranda, Prospero, and Ariel.
As War holds Miranda in his power, Prospero confronts
Caliban who—wearing his hood and raising his staff—exults before him:]

Hail, Prospero! Who now is master-artist!
Who wieldeth now the world?

PROSPERO
Hail, Caliban!
Slumb’ring, from me thou robb’st my hood and staff
Which wield my power; yet not mine art they wield
Without my will: my will thou canst not rob
Nor ravish.

CALIBAN
[With eyes gleaming.]
But Miranda!

PROSPERO
Nay, nor her:
For she is charmed against thy body’s rape
By chastity of soul. Thy will and War
May break, but cannot build the world: And One,
Who bore us all within her womb, still lives
To stanch our wounds with her immortal healing.

CALIBAN
Where?

PROSPERO
[Pointing.]
Yonder, on the Yellow Sands! She rises now
And calls across the tides of fleeting change
Her deathless artists of the plastic mind—
My art that builds the beauty of the world.

EPILOGUE

Where Prospero points, the light passes from the pageant of War to the centre of the Yellow Sands.

There, in mellow splendor, a serene female Figure, rising majestic from the altar, calls to the thronging shadows.

THE SPIRIT OF TIME
Children of men, my passionate children, hark!
To-day and Yesterday I am To-morrow:
Out of my primal dark
You dawn—my joy, my sorrow.

Lovers of life, you rapturous lovers, lo
The lives you clutch are by my lightnings riven:
Yea, on my flux and flow,
Like sea-birds tempest-driven.

Yet from my founts of life, fecund, divine,
Still dauntless lovers dare my dark tribunal,
Building a common shrine
To hold their love communal.

So out of War up looms unconquered Art:
Blind forces rage, but masters rise to mould them.
Soldiers and kings depart;
Time’s artists—still behold them!

As the Spirit of Time ceases to speak, the light passes to the entrances of the Greek ground-circle, where now—from either side—enters a Pageant of the great Theatres of the world—from the ancient Theatre of Dionysus to the Comedie Francaise—in symbolic groups, with their distinctive banners and insignia. The names of these are blazoned on their group standards, and the groups themselves [like those that follow] are announced from either end of the high balcony above the inner stage by two spirit Trumpeters, the one beneath a glowing disk of the sun, the other beneath a sickle moon.

While these, below, have ranged themselves on the ground-circle and steps above—the groups of War, Lust, and Death have dwindled away in the background darkness—leaving only Prospero, Miranda, and Ariel, grouped in light at the centre.

Then on either wing of the stage, at right and left, appears luminous a colossal mask—the one of Tragedy, the other of Comedy. Through the mouths of these, now come forth, in national pageant groups,[20]
the creators of the art of the theatre from antiquity to the verge of the living present: the world-famed actors, dramatists, producers, musicians, directors, and inventors of its art.

First come the great Actors, in the guise of their greatest rôles—from Thespis and Roscius of old to Irving, Salvini, Coquelin,
Booth, of modern times, the comic actors tumbling forth from the Mask of Comedy, the tragic from the Tragic Mask.

They are followed by national groups of the great Dramatists from
Æschylus to Ibsen, who pass in review before Prospero.

Among these, with the Elizabethan Dramatists, grouped with Marlowe,
Green, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and others, appears the modest figure of Shakespeare, at first unemphasized.

For one moment, however, as Shakespeare himself approaches
Prospero, he pauses, Prospero rises, and the two figures—strangely counterparts to their beholders—look in each other’s eyes: a moment only. For Prospero, slipping off his cloak, lays it on the shoulders of Shakespeare, who sits in Prospero’s place, while Prospero moves silently off with the group of Dramatists.

Finally, when these pageants of Time have passed, and the stately
Spirit of Time vanished in dark on the Yellow Sands, the only light remains on the figure of Shakespeare—and the two with him: Ariel tiptoe behind him, peering over his shoulder; Miranda beside him, leaning forward, with lips parted to speak.

Then to these, out of the dimness, comes forth Caliban. Groping, dazed, he reaches his arms toward the dark circle, where the stately
Spirit has vanished. In a voice hoarse with feeling, he speaks aloud.

CALIBAN
Lady of the Yellow Sands! O Life! O Time!
Thy tempest blindeth me: Thy beauty baffleth.—
A little have I crawled, a little only
Out of mine ancient cave. All that I build
I botch; all that I do destroyeth my dream.
Yet—yet I yearn to build, to be thine Artist
And stablish this thine Earth among the stars—
Beautiful!
[Turning to the light, where the Three are grouped.]
—O bright Beings, help me still!
More visions—visions, Master!

[With gesture of longing, he crouches at Shakespeare’s feet, gazing up in his face, which looks on him with tenderness. With Caliban, Miranda too appeals to the Cloaked Figure.]

MIRANDA
[Wistfully.]
—Master?
[To her raised eyes, he returns a pensive smile.]

SHAKESPEARE

[As Prospero]“Child,
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

[Then, while the light focusses and fades in darkness on the pensive form of Shakespeare, the choirs of
Ariel’s Spirits repeat, unseen, in song:]

THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

FINIS

APPENDIX

CONTENTS OF APPENDIX

1. | Foreword
2. | Persons and Presences (of the Ten Inner Scenes)
3. | Interludes I, II, III
4. | Epilogue
5. | Announcements

FOREWORD

The actors of a Community Masque being members of the community, it becomes the function of the Masque-director to reverse the traditional order of theatrical procedure and—so far as possible—to take the public, as participants, into the confidence of “behind the scenes”
beforehand.

If this were a play only [in the Broadway sense], I should gather together my staff and company for a preliminary reading, assign parts, devise plans of rehearsal, and get personally in touch with the comparatively few persons involved in its production. Being, however, a new kind of drama, involving some thousands of persons as actors, and some scores of leaders as a projected staff, it becomes practically necessary to print and publish, before production, not only the foregoing spoken and sung Masque-Proper, but the sketched-in outlines of the nonspeaking Interludes which follow.

In the nature of the case, these outlines are preliminary and [though necessarily printed here] are still plastic and susceptible to various modifications. Thus publication at the moment in New York is essentially for the purpose of rendering each of the hundreds of participants more intimately familiar with his or her special relationship
[as group participant or group principal] to the work as a whole.

To this is also added the need for making its text and stage-directions available to communities outside of New York, which have already expressed their desire to organize for its production after next May.

An interesting American phase of the New York production is the problem of carrying its community meaning to the still polyglot population, so that steps have been taken for the immediate translation of the Masque into Italian, German, and Yiddish.

By referring to the chart inner structure, the reader will see that it offers a technical solution for the participation of about a dozen national and civic groups within the time limits of the festival, without disintegrating the organic unity of the plot and action of the drama, with which the actions of the various groups are fused and synthesized. This form of technique
[the result of some years of thought and experiment in this field]
contributes a basis for the future development of the outdoor community art of the theatre, on a scale adapted to modern cities.

The Masque thus becomes, so to speak, a Masque of Masques. For example, the seven-minute Don Giovanni pantomime scene-plot of the Spanish and
Italian Action in Interlude II [of which Mr. Ernest Peixotto is the community group-chairman] is being enlarged, under Mr. Peixotto’s direction, into the spring festival of the MacDowell Club, performed locally at its clubhouse, lasting an hour and a half, for the Prologue of which the author has written the dialogue.

So each of the other Interlude Actions, necessarily brief in time-limit, is itself a potential Masque or festival, capable of being developed locally into larger proportions. And this is being done in
New York in the case of several other of the Interlude Actions.

At the present date, among those who are actively interested in the production side of the Interludes, are the Misses Lewisohn, and their associates of the Neighborhood Playhouse, for interpreting the
Egyptian; Mr. Franklin Sargent of the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts, in association with members of the Greek Colony, for the Greek;
Mr. Arturo Giovannitti [who, as poet, is also translating the Masque into Italian] and members of the Italian colony, for the Roman; Mr.
Otto J. Merkel, and members of the German University League, for the
German; Mr. Charles A. Donner and members of the Alliance Francaise, for the French; Mr. Rene Wildenstein, Mr. Peixotto, and members of the Spanish-speaking community, for the Spanish-Italian; the New York
Branch of the English Folk-Dance Society, under direction of Mr. Cecil
Sharp, for the Interlude of Elizabethan England; the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters [Chairman, Mr. William Dean
Howells], for the Epilogue.

As indicated in the Inner Structure Chart, an Action of ancient
India[21] was originally planned for the beginning of Interlude I. This was chiefly devised, in conference with the author and director, by the director of the community Interludes, Mr. Garnet Holme, who has brought to this New York production his very valuable experience in directing outdoor festivals in California and England. Owing, however, to brevity of time and the pressure of organization details, this Action has been omitted from the production in May.

- SHADED: MASQUE PROPER:
- SPEAKING ACTORS (ABOUT 30)
- MUTE FIGURANTS (ABOUT 300)
- INVISIBLE CHOIRS
- ACTION ON STAGES A & B OF GROUND PLAN

- WHITE: INTERLUDES & EPILOGUE:
- NON-SPEAKING PARTICIPANTS (ABOUT 2,000)
- VISIBLE CHORUSES
- COMMUNITY DANCES
- PANTOMIME ACTING
- MASS MOVEMENTS
- ACTION ON STAGE C OF GROUND PLAN

Of the other members of the producing staff of the Interludes, Mrs.
Robert Anderson contributes to her direction of the community dances her admirable knowledge of the subject, and Mrs. John W. Alexander to the Interlude costuming [in association with Mr. Urban and Mr. Jones]
the excellent insight and artistry which contributed so much [with the work of her husband, the late President of the Academy] to the impressiveness of the “Joan of Arc” stadium performance at Harvard, and other productions of Maude Adams and Charles Frohman.

In the following descriptions of the Interlude Actions, the numbers of community actors are based on an arbitrary computation [at this date] of a total of 1,500, at least double which number will require to be enlisted to make sure of sufficient persons for the five New
York performances. The numbers here printed, however, are purely tentative and are subject to modification. Of the terms used for community actors, the term Participants means those who take part in the Interludes only; Figurants those who also take part in groups of the Masque Proper; Specials those who take part only in the special group, or groups, designated.

In the projected tour of the Masque outside of New York, a modified performance of the Masque, on a smaller scale, when acted without the Interludes, will require, in local community actors, only the Figurants.

It will be evident, I think, to the reader, that the organization of a community for a Masque performance on so large a scale is a special technique, only recently in process of development. As a contribution to this technique, the appended Community Organization Chart has been drawn up by my sister, Hazel MacKaye, who has brought to it her experience, of several years, in organizing and directing community pageants and masques, some of them of her own authorship.

Space and time do not permit of further comment in this Foreword on many important social relationships and reactions involved in this new community art. The accompanying photograph, however, of a Community
Masque audience—150,000 citizens of Saint Louis gathered in May,
1914, to witness the Pageant and Masque of Saint Louis, in which over
7,000 of their fellow-citizens took part—may be suggestive to the imagination of the reader. On the background may be seen, at centre, the thousand-foot stage, and, at left and right, the tents of the community actors, men and women.

Space and time also do not permit of any adequate emphasis upon the enormous importance, and contribution to this growing art-form, of music in its community aspects. In this respect, the splendid pioneering work of Mr. Harry H. Barnhart in creating community choruses in Rochester and New York City is fundamentally significant. In the creative field of composition, rich in its manifold promise, Mr. Arthur
Farwell, director of the New York Music School Settlement, and composer of the music of this Masque, has devoted probably more attention than any other American composer to this community type of musical art.

A COMMUNITY MASQUE AUDIENCE

Copyright, 1914. By E. O. Thalinger, St. Louis

150,000 SPECTATORS OF THE PAGEANT AND MASQUE OF SAINT LOUIS,
IN WHICH 7,500 CITIZENS TOOK PART, MAY, 1914
[IN BACKGROUND, CENTRE, THE STAGE; RIGHT AND LEFT, TENTS OF ACTORS]

To the Shakespeare Celebration of New York, since its origin last year in activities of the Drama League, Miss Mary Porter Beegle, of Barnard
College, has contributed her unflagging zest and enthusiasm, Mr. Howard
Kyle his disinterested, manifold services, Miss Kate Oglebay her remarkable thoroughness in organizing the Supplementary Celebrations.

In his original and deeply based work of experiment, through channels of the People’s Institute and the School for Community Centre
Workers, Mr. John Collier has shown fundamental leadership in a field all-important to the community purposes of this Masque: the modern economics and organization of coöperative art.

As this Foreword goes to press, Prof. Richard Ordynski has joined Mr.
Urban in the work of the Masque’s New York production.

To Mr. Everard Thompson, producers and committees alike are indebted for his unfailing, friendly resourcefulness.

As references to the reader curious to study the art of the theatre in the eras touched upon in these Interludes, a lengthy Bibliography might well be submitted. For this Foreword, it may suffice to refer to three very useful works, in several volumes, viz: “The Drama,” Editor Alfred
Bates, Historical Publishing Company [a dozen volumes]; “The Art of the Theatre,” Karl Manzius, Scribners, [5 volumes]; “The Theatre, Its
Development in France and England, and a History of Its Greek and Latin
Origins,” Charles Hastings, London, Duckworth, 1902 [and Lippincott].

The beneficial possibilities of community festival art and organization are, of course, commensurate with the time and opportunity afforded for their development. As mentioned in the Preface, the time for the
New York production has, by unavoidable circumstance, become far too brief to accomplish, between the present date and the 23rd of May the deep social reactions potential in this festival. A year, instead, for the work of preparation would be none too much. It is hoped, however, that the production of this Masque may at least help to establish the festival movement in New York on a sound and perennial community basis.

Percy MacKaye.

New York, March 26, 1916.

PERSONS AND PRESENCES

OF THE TEN INNER SCENES

[Enacted by the Spirits of Ariel.]

- FIRST INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Antony
- Cleopatra
- Charmian
- Eros
- PANTOMIME GROUPS
- Roman Soldiers
- Egyptian Populace
- Flutists
- Harpists
- Wine Bearers

- SECOND INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Cressida
- Her Attendant
- Pandarus
- Boy
- Troilus
- MUTE PERSONS
- Hecuba
- Helen
- Æneas
- Antenor
- Hector
- Paris
- Helenus
- PANTOMIME GROUPS
- Trojan Warriors
- Trojan Populace

- THIRD INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Brutus
- Lucius, a boy
- Ghost of Cæsar
- MUTE PRESENCES
- Shapes in the Darkness

- FOURTH INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Saint Agnes [An Image]
- A Shepherd [Impersonated by Prospero]
- A Shepherd Boy [Impersonated by Ariel]
- Other Shepherds

- FIFTH INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Hamlet
- Horatio
- Marcellus
- MUTE PERSONS
- The Ghost of Hamlet’s Father

- SIXTH INNER SCENE
- [Derivative from Shakespeare]
- PANTOMIME PERSONS AND GROUPS
- King Henry the Eighth, of England
- King Francis the First, of France
- Their Soldiers and Followers

- SEVENTH INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Benvolio
- Mercutio
- Romeo
- Juliet
- Lorenzo
- Florizel
- Perdita
- MUTE PERSONS
- Jessica

- EIGHTH INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Orlando
- Jacques
- Duke
- Adam
- PANTOMIME GROUPS
- Foresters of Arden

- NINTH INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS
- Sir Hugh Evans [as Fairy]
- Sir John Falstaff
- Mistress Ford
- Mistress Page
- Mistress Quickly [as Fairy]
- Pistol [as Hobgoblin]
- PANTOMIME GROUPS

- Fairies [Counterfeited by Followers of Sir Hugh]

- TENTH INNER SCENE
- SPEAKING PERSONS AND GROUPS
- King Henry the Fifth
- His Soldiers and Followers

INTERLUDE I

FIRST ACTION: EGYPTIAN

COMMUNITY ACTORS [148]

Comprise

Participants [75]
Figurants [73]
Osiris, the god of summer and fecundity.
Worshippers of Osiris [Men and Women].
7 | Groups, each group comprising |
15 | Dancers [Parts & Figs.] |
5 | Drum-players, Followers [Parts and Figs.] |
1 | Priest Leader [Participant] |
Total | Dancers | 105
” | Drum-players | 35
| | 140
” | Leaders | 7
| | 147
Osiris | | 1
| | 148

THEME

Egyptian Worshippers of the god Osiris, B. C. 1000, celebrate his resurrection from death by a dramatic ritual, symbolizing how the seven portions of his rended body unite again at his rebirth.

ACTION

At the deep pealing of gongs, from each of the three entrances to the ground-circle, two diverging Processions issue forth, a seventh issuing from the cell of Caliban. All are dressed in robes and concealing masks of black.

Slowly, to the rhythmic beat of Egyptian drums [borne by the last five in each procession], by seven separate routes, they move out upon the Yellow Sands, and so converge toward the altar at the centre.

Within about a rod of the altar they pause, while their seven
Priest-Leaders move forward—each bearing a fire urn—to the altar, on which an immense circular disk lies. On the disk, a prone Shape lies concealed beneath a black cloth.

Bowing before the altar, the seven Priests then rise and, mounting the steps, extend their arms to touch the rim of the disk. Thus—their black masks turned skyward—they raise their shrill voices in a mournful Egyptian chant.

Moving then backward to the ground, they drop incense within their seven urns, from which rise seven pillars of smoke, lighted by the glow of fire beneath.

In this increasing glow, the black Shape on the disk stirs, slowly rises beneath its dark cloth, and extends upward its hidden arms.
During this, the drums beat from a low muffled cadence increasingly to a loud rolling rhythm, to which now—at a shrill choral cry from all the worshippers—the black cloth on the central Shape sloughs to its feet, revealing—in a burst of radiant splendor—the flame-bright form of the god Osiris.

In tall shining mitre, he raises his ox-herd’s whip and shepherd’s crook. With these, to the joyous cries of his Worshippers, he bestows with archaic gesture a seven-fold sign of benediction.

Once more then mounting the altar steps, the Priests step forth from their black robes and masks in their own garments of yellow gold. Thus, touching again the rim of the disk, they begin to revolve it—at first slowly.[22]

And now at its first motion, Osiris begins to dance.

In this dance he expresses the former beneficence of his life, the sufferings of his death, the rending of his body into seven parts and finally the joy of his resurrection.[23]

In rhythm to the primitive music, the Priests revolve the disk to the dancing movement of the god.

In this revolving movement his Worshippers below join in a dance on the ground (expressive of the blending of the seven parts of his body), where one by one successively the seven Processions encircle the altar and the dancing Osiris. As they do so, they slough off their dark garments, weaving thus a whirling movement in which the proportion of black ever diminishes while the golden yellow increases, until finally—in a blaze only of gold-yellow radiance—the Priests raise aloft on its pedestal the disk, still spinning, while the flame-red god, still dancing, is borne away in procession by his joyous
Worshippers, shouting aloud their shrill cries of “Osiris!”

When all have disappeared through the south gate of the circle,
Prospero on his throne speaks to Ariel,[24] announcing the Second Action of the Interlude—his art of the drama in Greece.

INTERLUDE I

SECOND ACTION: GREEK

COMMUNITY ACTORS [175]

Comprise

Participants [100]
Individuals [2] | Actors [9]
Sophocles | Antigone
The Choregus[25] | Ismene
Friends of Sophocles [20] | Creon
Aristophanes | Haemon
Socrates | Eurydice
Anaxagoras | Teiresias
Alcibiades | A Watchman
Euripides | A Messenger
Fifteen Others | A Second Messenger
Chorus [60] | Trainers and Stage Leaders [5]
Choreutai [In four bands, | Chorodidaskalos [Chorus Master]
fifteen in each band.] |
| Orchestrodidaskalos
Musicians [4] | [Dancing Master]
Four Fute-players | Choryphaios [Stage Chorus Leader]
| Two Parastatai [His
| Assistant Leaders]
Figurants [75]
Athenian Audience [75]
Pericles |
Aspasia |
Seventy-three Others. |

THEME

Sophocles rehearses the Second Chorus of his drama “Antigone” in the
Theatre of Dionysus, at Athens, B. C. 440.

ACTION

At the sounding of Interlude trumpets, the light passes to the great gates of the ground-circle, from which simultaneously two main groups enter.

From the right enter Athenian Citizens, accompanying Pericles and
Aspasia. These move forward to the north portion of the Yellow Sands
[between the centre of stage B and the altar] and there form the semicircle of an antique audience, which faces the altar and the modern audience. Among these, two seats are placed for Aspasia and Pericles.

From the left gate, meanwhile, has entered the Choregus [producer of the play], in conversation with Sophocles, followed closely by a group of twenty friends, among whom are Socrates, Aristophanes, Anaxagoras,
Alcibiades, and Euripides. These move toward the centre. There
Sophocles summons the Chorodidaskalos [Chorus Master], and the
Orchestrodidaskalos [Dancing Master] to confer with him and the
Choregus. Returning part way toward the left gate, the Chorus Master calls aloud “Antigone!”

Enter, then [left], the Actor of the part of Antigone, followed by a group of Actors comprising the impersonators of Ismene, Creon, Haemon,
Eurydice, Teiresias, a Watchman, and two Messengers. With these, who carry their classic masks in their hands, the Choregus confers in pantomime, directs them to join Sophocles at the altar, and then calls aloud: “Choreutai!”

Thereupon enter the Choreutai [Members of the Chorus], sixty in number, in four bands, fifteen in each band. Preceded by the Choryphaios [Stage
Chorus Leader] and four Flute-players [one for each band], escorted by two Parastatai [Assistant Leaders], the Chorus march in military order first south [each band in three ranks of five men] till they are opposite the altar, then east [each band in five files of three men], till they halt near the altar.

Here, after Sophocles has greeted Pericles and Aspasia nearby in the impromptu audience [which his group of friends have now joined], after he has chatted with Socrates, and been chaffed by Aristophanes and
Alcibiades, he turns with the Choregus to conduct the rehearsal.

After giving directions to Antigone and Ismene, who rehearse in pantomime a snatch of their first scene together, and after a few instructions to Haemon, Euripides, and Teiresias, Sophocles now bids the Choregus direct the last few passages between Creon and the
Messenger, just before the Second Chorus in the play.

They do so in pantomime; Creon, with final threatening gesture to the
Messenger, makes his exit, and the Messenger—thanking the gods for his escape from Creon’s anger—also departs.

And now, by direction of Sophocles, the Chorus Master and the Master of Dance make signal to the Chorus and the Flute-players; Sophocles steps back near Pericles and his other friends: the Flutists begin playing and, under leadership of the two masters of choral song and of dance, the Chorus—with vigorous, rhythmic cadence of their athletic bodies—perform an austere dance about the altar, raising to its measure their choral song:

CHORUS

The words of this chorus are translated here by the author from the
Second Chorus of Sophocles’ play “Antigone.”

Many are the wonders of time, but the mightiest wonder is man;
Man! for he maketh his path with the south wind, over the surges
Down where the storm-white billows
Loom to devour him: Yea,
And Earth, the immortal, the oldest of gods,
The untoilsome, he tameth with toiling horses
Dark where his turning ploughshare
Plougheth from age unto age.

Birds, O the wild-hearted birds, and the breeds of the savage wood
Deep in his woven nets he hath snared, and the broods of the bright sea
Leadeth he likewise captive—
Master of masters, Man!
And high on the hills he hath tracked to her wild
The shaggy-maned horse and yoked her in harness;
Tireless, too, hath his spirit
Tamed the wild mountain bull.

Words, and the wind of great thought, and the mood that mouldeth a state,
These hath he mastered, and knoweth to parry the white frost arrow’s
Pitiless barb, and the pouring
Arrows of purple rain.
All, all hath he mastered, and all that may come
He meeteth with cunning and power; but only
Death hath he failed to master:
Death is the master of man.

As they conclude, a runner comes hastening from the right gate, calling
“Pericles!”

Pericles rises, receives in pantomime the message of the runner, and indicates to Sophocles that he must return to the city.

He and Aspasia and their followers depart [right gate]. With a gesture, then, to the Choregus, Sophocles dismisses the rehearsal; he and his friends follow the others; the Chorus forms again in files and ranks, moving off with the playing Flute-players to the right Interlude gate, where all disappear.

INTERLUDE I

THIRD ACTION: ROMAN

COMMUNITY ACTORS [150]

Comprise

Participants and Specials
Individuals [2]
Caligula, Emperor of Rome
Naevoleia, a female Mime
Roman Patricians [21]
Roman Populace [80]
Musicians [10]
Two Players of Flutes
”” ” Citherns
”” ” Lyres
”” ” Scabillae [foot cymbals]
”” ” Shields and Cymbals
Pantomime Actors [7]
Pantimimus, announcing the Pantomime, “Hercules and the Sphinx.”
Two Boy Pantomimi
Hercules, the demigod
Silenus, the satyr
Servus, a slave
Omphale, a Nymph [afterward disguised as the Sphinx]
Mimes and Dancers [32]
16 Boy-Mimes, as Fauns
16 Girl-Mimes, as Nymphs

THEME

The Emperor Caligula witnesses a farcical comedy in pantomime, enacted in a street of Rome, A. D. 40.

ACTION

As the last of the Greeks disappear right, the Interlude trumpets sound at the left gate. There immediately resounds a great shout and clamor of voices, crying aloud: “Caligula! Salve, Imperator!” The gate is thrown open, and the Roman populace throng in, accompanying—in varied groups of squalor and poverty—the gorgeous Patricians that escort the
Emperor Caligula, borne in a chariot, behind which follow a troupe of Roman Pantomime Actors and Mimes who carry a light platform with curtain, which they set up [centre, north], facing the altar.

The curtain is painted to represent the street exterior of a house, in the Pompeian-Roman style. In the centre, set in a lintel frame, is depicted a wide squat door, the stage platform forming its sill. Above the door is a window casement. Both door and window are devised to open and close practically. The top of the curtain is designed as an over-jutting tiled roof.

With the Pantomimists come a group of Musicians, consisting of players on flutes, shields and cymbals, citherns and lyres, and two who wear fastened to their ankles pairs of scabilla, a kind of cymbal for the feet.

The Populace and Patricians meantime cross to right of centre [further southwest].

In the chariot beside Caligula rides Naevoleia, a female Mime, whom
Caligula—with amorous playfulness—kisses and crowns with gold laurel as she alights. Alighting with her, he himself helps to attire her in the garments worn in her part of the nymph Omphale in the stage pantomime to follow. Doing so, he thrusts aside—with a glance and gesture of jealous anger—the Chief Actor, who [in the part of
Hercules] approaches to assist.

Caligula then escorts her to the improvised stage where she teasingly parts with him to play her rôle in the Comedy. Caligula returns to his chariot.

And now the Comedy is announced by the appearance [through the curtain door] of Pantomimus, a particolored figure, garbed antiquely as a harlequin, wreathed and masked.[26]

Behind Pantomimus, enter [on either side of him] two little Pantomimi, half his height, exactly resembling him in every particular. These, as with skipping step and motion Pantomimus makes his introduction, imitate his every movement of wand and gesture.

By his action, which is accompanied by flute, cymbal, and scabilla players, Pantomimus describes very briefly the plot of the comedy which is to follow, viz:

THE SPHINX AND HERCULES[27]
THEME

Hercules, lured by the nymph Omphale to live with her a woman’s way of life, becomes terribly bored, rebels, and vows to a statue of the Sphinx to resume his manly exploits. By the help of the satyr
Silenus, however, who makes Hercules drunk, Omphale—in guise of the
Sphinx—wins Hercules back and marries him.

ACTION

As Pantomimus concludes this dumb-show exposition, he signs to his two
Assistants, who run out and bring back two stage properties, which they place on either side: the right-hand one represents a squat pillar, on the top of which is the sitting figure of a bronze Sphinx; the left-hand—a set-piece of foliage and shrubbery.

All three then make their exit.

Enter, then, on the ground plane, from behind the stage platform,
Servus, a house-slave, masked as such. He places on the platform a low seat and, beside it, a heap of wool and spinning materials.
Then he prostrates himself toward the left ground entrance, as enter there—dancing to cymbal music—a group of young girl-mimes [without masks], dressed as Nymphs and carrying distaffs.

In the midst of these—preceded by most of them—enter Hercules, in grotesque mask, which depicts a comic-dejected expression. He is wadded after the manner of the comic histrionic vase-figures of antiquity, and walks downcast. Instead of his legendary lion’s skin, there hangs from his shoulder the wooly pelt of a sheep; in place of his knotted club, his hand holds a huge distaff; and for the rest he is dressed like a Greek woman.

He is accompanied by Omphale, masked as a beautiful and amorous nymph.
Over her shoulders she wears his lion’s skin; in one hand she holds his massive club; with the other she caresses him.

With coquetting wiles, the Nymphs in their dancing draw the two toward the centre, where they sit beside the wool—Hercules, with heavy sighs, beginning to spin, while Omphale, posing in the lion’s skin, approves his labor. Here the Nymphs, reclined about them on the platform and the ground, execute a rhythmic dance with their arms and distaffs, singing to their movement:

Angustam amice pauperiem pati robustus acri militia puer condiscat et Parthos feroces vexet eques metuendus hasta vitamque sub divo et trepides agat in rebus ilium ex moenibus hosticis matrona bellanti tyranni prospiciens et adulta virgo suspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminum sponsus lacessat regius asperum tactu leonem, quem cruenta per medias rapit ira caedes.

At the culmination of this, Hercules, who has been repelling the attentions of Omphale, at first with feeble ennui, but afterward with increasing determination, now rises in grandiose disgust, and—snatching from her his lion’s skin and club—repudiates her and the Nymphs.

Flinging down the sheep’s pelt and setting his foot upon it, he breaks his distaff in pieces and, threatening Omphale, drives the Nymphs off the scene, left. [During this excitement, Servus—who has been standing aside—seizes the heap of wool, and exit with it in flight.] Turning then to the image of the Sphinx, Hercules expresses in dumb-show how, lured by the riddle of the Sphinx, he aspires to fight and conquer the world for her sake. Laying his club and lion’s skin devoutly at the foot of the column, he kneels, embraces it, and raises then his arms in supplication to the Sphinx.

Thus kneeling, he is watched furtively at a distance by Omphale, who, at his outburst, has run to the edge of the foliage, right. Hercules, rising, puts on his lion’s skin, and brandishing his club heroically for the benefit of the immovable Sphinx, goes off, left.

Immediately Omphale seizes from amid the foliage a sylvan pipe, and blows on it a brief, appealing ditty. At this, from behind the foliage, run out boy-mimes, in the guise of Fauns; she gesticulates to them beseechingly. They run back and presently return, advancing to pipe-music, accompanying and leading a goat, astride of which sits
Silenus, an old grotesque Satyr, in mask.

Omphale greets him joyfully and helps him down from the goat. She then describes to him in pantomime the late outburst of Hercules—his breaking the spindle, his enamoration for the Sphinx, etc., and prays his aid and advice.

Silenus pauses an instant in philosophical absorption, then gives a leap and skip. Omphale, seeing that he has hit on some plan, expresses her pleasure and inquires what his plan may be. Silenus bids her call a slave. Omphale claps her hands toward the left entrance. Servus enters. Silenus signs to him. Servus goes back and returns immediately, rolling in a wine-cask, from which he fills an antique beaker. From this Silenus sips and approves. He then points to the Sphinx and asks if be that of which Hercules is enamored. Omphale assents. Silenus then directs Servus to lift the Sphinx down from the pillar. Servus does so, revealing its hollow interior as he carries it. Silenus, drawing
Omphale’s attention to this fact of its hollowness, opens the door in the curtain, and commands Servus to bear the Sphinx within. Servus does so. Silenus, then, pointing to the window above the door, whispers in the ear of Omphale, who, delighted, enters the door after Servus.
Silenus closes the door as Hercules reënters, left.

The hero has discarded his woman’s garb, and comes forward now dressed as a man, with lion’s skin and club—his mask changed to one of an exultant and martial expression.

Silenus greets him with obsequious and cunning servility and offers him wine. Hercules, with good-natured hauteur, condescends to accept the cup which he offers. While he is drinking, the window above in the curtain opens, and Omphale thrusts her head out, revealing [within]
beside her own, the Sphinx’s head. Silenus secretively motions her to be cautious. Seeing his gesture, Hercules looks up, but not swiftly enough to detect Omphale, who withdraws. Again looking forth, as he turns to drink again, Omphale mocks Hercules below, dropping wisps of wool on his head, the source of which, however, Hercules fails to detect. Silenus explains that the wool is really feathers, which fell from a bird flying overhead.

Hercules now, under the sly persuasions of the old Satyr, grows more pleased with the wine, and becomes drunk—as he becomes so, expressing to Silenus, with increasing familiarity and descriptive force, all the mighty exploits he intends to accomplish in the service of the incomparable Sphinx, whose living prototype he declares he will immediately set forth in search of.

Starting now, humorously drunk, to depart [right] he is detained by Silenus, who points upward to the window, where now the blank, immovable face of the Sphinx looks forth at the sky. Hercules, bewildered, asks Silenus if it is really the Sphinx herself and alive?
Silenus assents and proves his assertion by pointing to the deserted pedestal. At this, Hercules addresses the Sphinx, with impassioned gestures. The Sphinx remains immovable. Hercules becomes discouraged.
Silenus then puts a pipe in his hand, and tells him to play it. He does so, and is rewarded by a slow, preternatural look from the Sphinx. At this he plays more vociferously and, surrounded by the little piping
Fauns, performs a serenade beneath the casement, while Silenus, looking on from a distance, rubs his hands with sly delight.

The serenade ends by Hercules, on his knees, imploring the Sphinx to come down. The Sphinx at length consents and the casement closes.
Silenus calls his Fauns away to the edge of the foliage, and Hercules goes to the door.

For a moment nothing happens and Hercules knocks on the steps impatiently with his club. Then the door opens and enter the
Sphinx—dressed below in the Greek garments of Omphale, but from the waist upward consisting of the sitting image of the Sphinx, beneath whose closed wings the arms of Omphale are thrust through and have place for motion.

The Sphinx, its tail swinging behind, descends the steps, reticent and impassive, attended by Hercules, drunk and enamored.

Then at the foot of the steps, to the accompaniment from the foliage of the piping Fauns, who play softly a variation of the serenade theme,
Hercules woos the Sphinx, who, at the proper moment, succumbs to his entreaties. After embracing him amorously, she extends her hand to him.
He seizes it to kiss; she withdraws it and signifies that he must put a ring on the ring-finger. Hercules hunts about him in vain for the ring.
Calling then to Silenus and the Fauns, he explains to them the situation.

Silenus, producing a ring, hands it to Hercules, who puts it on the finger of the Sphinx.

Instantly a clash of cymbals is heard from the left, and a clapping of palms from the right, and re-enter the dancing Nymphs, who encircle the scene just as Servus removes from the bride the great mask of the
Sphinx, thereby revealing her to the astounded Hercules—as Omphale, who embraces him, exulting in her ring.

Just as she is embracing and kissing him, the scene is interrupted by a cry of jealous rage from Caligula who springs from his chariot, calling: “Hercules!” At his gesture slaves run before him, seize
Hercules, and hale him toward Caligula, who bids them whip him.
Frightened, for an instant, Omphale [the Mime Naevoleia] then hastens as if to intercede, but, seeing Caligula’s expression, taunts him with toying bravado, and finally as he kisses her makes him burst with her into laughter, as Hercules is dragged off through the hooting crowd, flogged by Caligula’s slaves. [During the latter part of this Roman
Action, LUST has appeared at the mouth of Caliban’s cell and looked on.
His voice now joins the loud laughter of Caligula.]

Dispersing in confusion, the Pantomime Actors remove their curtain and platform [right] into the darkness, which now envelops also Caligula and the Roman populace.

END OF INTERLUDE I

INTERLUDE II

FIRST ACTION: GERMANIC

COMMUNITY ACTORS [150]

Comprise

Participants [150]
Individuals [2]
Forerunner [Einschreier] | Out-crier [Ausschreier]
Pantomime Actors [6] | Musicians [10]
Doctor Faustus | Ten Pipers
An Apprentice |
Lucifer | Symbolic Group [22]
Two Devils | Doctors [8]
Helena | Priests [4]
| Artists [9]
| Melancholia [1]
Citizens of Nüremberg [110] |
Men and Women [70] |
Apprentices [40] |

THEME

On a street of Nüremberg, in their Shrovetide festival, a band of
Apprentices enact, on a wheeled stage, a pantomime scene from an early version of “Doctor Faustus.” Time: Sixteenth century.

ACTION

At Prospero’s final words in Act I, the playing of pipes is heard at the right Interlude Gates, where enter a band of Apprentices, accompanying a wheeled street-stage, drawn by donkeys with bells and set with a three-fold scene of Earth, Heaven, and Hell. Some of the
Apprentices are masked, some disguised as fools. They enter, singing an old German folk song, and march to the centre of the ground-circle
(between the altar and the south entrance), where the stage pauses.
Before them has hastened a forerunner (Einschreier), blowing a horn and shouting: “Schauspieler! Doctor Faustus!”

Along with them, Pipers accompany their singing. Behind them follow folk of Nüremberg, gaping peasants and merry-making young people.

From the left gate, meanwhile [in obscurer light], enters a graver group, clad symbolically as Doctors of Learning, Priests, and Artists, accompanying another wheeled vehicle, the stage of which is wholly curtained from view.

These stop at some distance from the former group, and look on from a place of shadow.

And now, where the first stage has paused in a place of brighter glow, the Actors appear and begin their pantomime.

Doctor Faustus appears on the Middle Stage, Earth. There, amid his astronomical instruments, he greets the gaping crowd and points a telescope toward the place of Heaven. Suddenly a comet flashes above the stage. An Apprentice inquires the reason. Doctor Faustus explains it by revealing its two fathers—the Sun and the Moon, which now appear shining simultaneously in Heaven.

At this sorcery, Lucifer comes from Hell, signifies to Faustus that his hour has come, and that he must follow him. Faustus begs a last wish, which Lucifer reluctantly grants. He begs to see once more his beloved
Helena of Troy.

Then in Heaven appears Helena, who comes to Faustus on Earth and embraces him. But now Lucifer—summoning two tailed devils with pitch-forks—bids them drag Faustus from the arms of Helena, who flees back to Heaven, disappearing there, as Faustus is prodded and haled to the up-bursting flames of Hell, amid the exultant laughter of Lucifer.

At this finale, the stage and its audience moves off through the left gate, while the graver Symbolic Group—crossing right in deep shadow—pauses at the centre.

There, for a moment, the curtains of their pageant stage are drawn, revealing—in mystic light—a dim-glowing tableau of Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia.

As this pales into darkness, the Group with its curtained stage moves vaguely off, and vanishes through the right gate of the Interlude.

INTERLUDE II

SECOND ACTION: FRENCH

COMMUNITY ACTORS [150]

Comprise

Participants [50]
Figurants [100]
Individuals [4] |
Francis I, of France | Heralds [10: Figurants]
Henry VIII, of England | French [5]
French Tourney-rider | English [5]
English Tourney-rider |
Nobles and Courtiers | Servants and Followers
[88: Figurants] | [48: Participants]
French [44] | French [24]
English [44] | English [24]

THEME[28]

To celebrate Peace between their nations, after long war, Francis I of
France and Henry VIII of England meet on the Field of the Cloth of Gold
[A. D. 1520], and hold a tournament.

ACTION

After the mystic tableau of the Melancholia has departed, a peal of trumpets from the Interlude gates [right and left] ushers in a pageant of contrasted splendor.

In the left gateway appear the Heralds of the French, in the right, of the English.

Then [to music of the unseen orchestra, above, playing the instrumental music only of the Chorus “Glory and Serenity,” which later is sung by voices in Act II], enter, on horseback, the two Kings, Francis I and
Henry VIII, accompanied by their Nobles and Servants.

All are clad in golds and yellows.

On the banners of the English is depicted St. George and the Dragon; on the banners of the French—the lilies of France.

The servants set up at centre [just south of Caliban’s cell] a gorgeous canopy with two thrones, in which the two Kings, dismounting, take their seats, the French followers grouped on the left, the English on the right.

Then to the royal presence, a Herald summons, by trumpet call, two
Tourney-riders [French and English], who come riding in armor, from the south gate, on horses caparisoned with their national colors and symbols.

Taking their places, at signal again of the Herald, to shouts of the spectators, they ride at each other with set lances, in a mock battle—which comprises two actions.

In the first action, the French rider is unhorsed, in the second, the
English rider.

During both actions, the English cry “St. George for England!” the
French “Vive la France!”

Between the two actions, the French King rises and toasts the English
King, to acclamations of the French.

After the second action, King Henry compliments King Francis, to acclamations of the English.

Then, as the two Kings clasp hands, both sides shout aloud: “God save the King!” and “Vive le Roi!” raising aloft their banners and emblems.

At the climax of this demonstration, the invisible orchestra resumes the march of “Glory and Serenity,” to which the Kings, remounting their horses, ride off side by side, followed by their English and French suites, now commingled, disappearing through the south gateway.

INTERLUDE II

THIRD ACTION: SPANISH-ITALIAN

COMMUNITY ACTORS [150]

Comprise

Participants [150]
[No Figurants]
Individuals [2] | Improvised Comedy
The Doge of Venice | Actors [6]
The Spanish Ambassador | Il Capitano
| Arlecchino
Venetian Nobles [24] | Il Commandatore
Spanish Courtiers [24] | Pantalone
| Brighella
Venetian Populace [94] | Columbina

THEME

On the plaza of St. Marks in Venice [A. D., about 1630], a troop of
Improvised Comedy Actors [of the Commedia dell’ Arte] enact before the Doge and the Spanish Ambassador, amid the populace, during a festa, a pantomime scene depicting an adventure of Don Giovanni.

ACTION

When the last of the gold-clad French and English have departed through the South Gate, a chiming of church-bells from the gates of the north
[right and left] gives signal for the entrance there of an Italian Festa.

From the right, enters the Doge with his Venetian nobles, accompanied by the Italian populace; from the left, the Spanish Ambassador and his
Suite, accompanied by a troop of Improvised Comedy Actors, who set up a platform on wooden horses before the Doge and the Ambassador where they meet and greet each other, at right of centre [north].

Here six Actors mount the platform, at the back of which is a curtain, divided in the middle.

These are Il Capitano [the Captain], Arlecchino [Harlequin], Il
Commandatore [the Commander], Pantalone [Pantaloon], Brighella, and
Columbina [Columbine]. They all pass behind the curtain, through the folds in the middle.

After a moment’s prelude of stringed instruments, then, the Pantomime begins.

First, in semi-darkness, Harlequin appears, carrying a lighted lantern on the end of a sword. At a noise of laughter from behind the curtain he stops and trembles. The laughter sounds again, deep and harsh; Harlequin trembles so violently that the lantern falls and goes out.

In the dimness, enter Il Capitano in the part of Don Giovanni, muffled in an immense cloak. Harlequin falls on his back, feigning death, but keeping his sword pointing upward. Stumbling against him,
Don Giovanni draws his sword and strikes the sword of Harlequin, who leaps up. They begin a duel, in the midst of which they suddenly recognize each other as friends and embrace.

Enter now [bringing lanterns, which illumine the stage more brightly] Pantaloon and Brighella.
Both are wrapped in cloaks.

Greeting Don Giovanni, who returns the greeting, Pantaloon explains that he has a rendezvous with a beautiful young lady [the head of
Columbine having peered momentarily through the curtain]; that he will make a certain sign to call her; that he must be cautious, as she has a fierce and suspicious father. Don Giovanni becomes very interested, and confides that he, too, must attend a rendezvous, for which he needs a disguise. For this, he persuades Pantaloon to change cloaks with him.
They do so, their servants also exchanging cloaks.

Exeunt then Pantaloon and Brighella.

Don Giovanni now, approaching the curtain, makes the aforesaid sign described by Pantaloon. At this, enter Columbine, who mistakes him for Pantaloon and approaches him lovingly. He allows her to do so, but soon—opening his cloak—he terrifies her by his wrong identity.
However, he is handsomer than Pantaloon, and quickly wins her for himself. In this Harlequin delightedly assists him.

Finally, just as Columbine succumbs and goes to his arms, her father, The Commander, enters. Seeing her in Don Giovanni’s arms, he bursts into terrible anger, draws his sword, and attacks the lover.
Harlequin tries to prevent him but fails.

Putting the frightened Columbine behind him, Don Giovanni returns the attack with his sword, fights and suddenly kills the Commander, who falls motionless.

In terror, Columbine and Harlequin scream and run out [through the curtain], leaving Don Giovanni standing with one foot and his sword-point prodding the dead body.

To screams and shudderings also from the horrified onlookers of the populace, darkness falls on the stage.

Then, as suddenly—in a burst of light—the Actors come trooping forth all together in laughter, make faces and comic gestures at the people, remove their curtain and stage, and run off [right], to merry twanging of instruments, followed by the Doge, Ambassador, and populace.

END OF INTERLUDE II

INTERLUDE III

In the New York production in May, 1916, the performance of this Interlude will be arranged by members of the New
York City Centre of the U. S. A. Branch of the English Folk Dance
Society, under the personal direction of Mr. Cecil J. Sharp, who has devised the Action of this Interlude, and has worded the description of it—in conference with the author—as here printed.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

Action Continuous, in 8 Successive Episodes

COMMUNITY ACTORS [about 400]

Comprise

Participants and Figurants
Individuals | Tideswell Procession: [100]
Sun | May Tree Procession: [100]
Frost | Morris Dance Group: [25]
May Queen | Dancers: 16
Hobby Horse Dancer | Attendants: 9
Club-Man | Hobby Horse Group: [25]
Fool | Dancers: 15
Witch | Attendants: 10
King | Tumblers and Jugglers: [25]
Queen | Rustic Play-Actors: [25]
Noah | Winter Group: [50]
Noah’s Wife | Spring Group: [50]

THEME

Celebration of an Elizabethan May Day Festival on the outskirts of an
English town.

ACTION

1: CONTEST BETWEEN SPRING AND WINTER

A group of 25 young men, representing Winter, all dressed in close-fitting black garments, enter from Caliban’s cell. They carry a ball and, commanded by one of their number—Frost—advance slowly and dejectedly and lie down near the centre of the ground guarding the ball. A group of 25 young men, dressed in tight-fitting green garments, representing Spring, enter through the right Interlude Gate. Headed by one of their number—Sun—they come forward running and shouting.
Winter[29] rise and stand in defence of the ball. A scuffle ensues and the ball is released from the scrimmage. It is then kicked about by both sides,
Spring trying to force it toward the water,[30] Winter repelling it therefrom. Sun and Frost encourage their respective supporters but do not touch the ball. Groups of villagers come in, by twos and threes [20 to 25 in number], and join the ranks of Spring, who are thus enabled to overpower Winter. Eventually, one of the Spring group secures the ball, holds it aloft and, surrounded by his followers, runs toward the water. Winter follow, fatigued and languid. As the Spring man approaches the water, maidens, 10 or 12 in number, enter from various quarters and swell the group. The ball is then raised and ceremonially thrown into the water; whereupon, the girls join Spring in hunting Winter back again into their cave.

2: PROCESSIONAL DANCE THROUGH VILLAGE

While Winter is being driven off the arena, a procession of Villagers, comprising 50 couples [i. e., partners], enter through South Interlude
Gate and dance the Tideswell Processional Morris. The dancers include men, women, and children of all classes and are dressed in their holiday clothes, plentifully bedecked with flowers and ribbons. Each carries two handkerchiefs, one in each hand, or, if preferred, boughs of May blossom. They dance round the arena in a spiral until the front couple reach the centre; whereupon, all raise their arms and shout on the last chord of the tune. Spring and all the actors already on the ground join in the procession at the rear, or wherever they can squeeze in.

3: REVELS AND AMUSEMENTS

Upon the completion of the dance, the dancers disperse noisily all over the ground. The children play Singing Games, e. g., “Oats and Beans,”
“Here We Come Gathering Nuts (i. e. Knots) in May,” “Old Sir Roger,”
etc., in different parts of the ground—not too close together. Booths and stalls are brought in, a rustic stage[31] is set up, tumblers and jugglers, surrounded by groups of spectators, give their performances, and all unite in a scene of general merriment.
Couples, each consisting of a boy and a girl, carry May garlands, sing
May day songs, and solicit offerings. The young men chase the girls and kiss them “under the green,” i. e., while raising the boughs of green over their heads.

4: MAY POLE PROCESSION

The following procession enters from South Interlude Gate.

- [1] Two Jack-O’-Greens

- [2] Plough-boys with plough.

- [3] Sowers.

- [4] Reapers.

- [5] Wagon, drawn by several yoke of oxen, carrying the tree.

- [6] Milkmaids.

- [7] Blacksmiths.

- [8] Wheelwrights.

- [9] Carpenters.

- [10] Butchers.

- [11] Shoemakers.

- [1] Hidden in bushes of green, surmounted by a

- May Garland.

- [2] White smocks, patched with pictures, in red

- and black cloth, representing farm-animals. Hats

- covered with flowers, their plough smothered with

- ribbons and flowers.

- [3] Carrying baskets of grain, pretending to sow.

- [4] With reaping hooks or sickles.

- [5] Wagon and oxen decorated with greenery and

- ribbons, the horns of the oxen with flowers. The

- carters, who walk on either side of the wagon, wear

- broad-brimmed hats, short smocks, breeches, all

- covered with ribbons and flowers, and carry whips

- or goads similarly decorated, with which they urge

- on the oxen.

- [6] Carrying pails and dishes; wearing short

- dresses, and sun-hats or bonnets, all covered with

- flowers and ribbons.

- [7] With bare heads, leathern aprons, carrying

- implements of trade—hammers, anvils, tongs.

- [8] Carrying or rolling wheels.

- [9] With saws, planes, tools, etc.

- [10] Wearing blue blouses, carrying marrow bones

- and cleavers, and clashing them as they march.

When the wagon reaches the May-pit, the procession halts. The tree is ceremonially removed, ivy, laurels, and other greenery wound round it spirally, a large bunch of flowers placed at the top, and then, in dead silence, solemnly raised to position. Directly this is accomplished, the spectators raise a great shout and repeat it three times: “The Pole is up.”

5: ELECTION OF MAY QUEEN, AND MAY POLE DANCE

The men disperse in groups and, after some discussion and altercation, proceed in a body to the woman of their choice, present her with a wreath of May blossom, with ribbon streamers and rosettes for her dress, and escort her to a raised mound of grass where every one may see her. She is kissed “under the green” by the men, amid much laughter and merriment. The woman chosen is a regular “man’s girl,” jolly and of a romping kind, quite different from the conventional May Queen.

A large group is formed round the May pole in a ring, alternately men and women, and all take hands. The May pole dance is then performed—“Sellenger’s Round” and “Gathering Peascods.”

6: HOBBY HORSE AND PADSTOW MAY SONG

The hobby horse is made in the following way: A wooden hoop, about
3 feet in diameter, is covered with black canvas with a hole in the centre, about the size of a man’s head. The canvas is edged with red and white ribbon round the circumference, and depends from the edges about 4 feet like a curtain. The hoop is then placed on a man’s shoulders, his head, hidden in a tall conical mask of many colors, passing through a hole in the centre of the canvas, the curtain hiding his body and legs. In the front of the hoop is a long, slender horse’s head, made of wood, and at the back of the hoop is attached a curly horse’s tail about 18 inches long. The horse is accompanied by the
“Club-man” who is dressed in black, covered with rosettes and bows of colored ribbon, and wears a grotesque mask similar to that of the hobby horse. Throughout the proceedings, he faces the Horse and dances backward, holding in his right hand a stout, nobbed club, about 18 to
24 inches in length, colored like the mask.

The hobby horse enters from the left Interlude Gate, escorted by six or eight couples of men, gaily dressed and decorated with flowers, singing the May song, in which the assembled spectators join. As they make their appearance, the crowd runs out, meets them, and surrounds them in a ring, in the middle of which the horse and its attendant dance, the former every now and again dashing out and trying to catch one of the maidens, who, with much laughter, usually succeeds in avoiding his clumsy embraces. When the tune has been sung a few times, a slight pause is made, the horse sinks down with his head on the ground, the club-man drops on one knee and places his club on the horse’s nose, while the crowd sing very solemnly the dirge-like strain, “O Where is
St. George?” At the conclusion of this, a slight pause is made and then the riotous May song is suddenly taken up and the dance resumed. This may be repeated once or twice, when the proceedings are interrupted by the entrance of the

7: MORRIS DANCERS

The dancers, all of them men, are 16 in number and are accompanied by a King and Queen, Witch and Fool, and Hobby horses. The Witch and Fool head the procession, the former with his broom, and the latter with his stick, fox’s tail, and bladder clearing the way. The King and Queen march at the head of the Morris dancers, the King beating time with his sword. The Hobby horses prance round and aid the Witch and Fool in clearing a passage. The dancers move forward, dancing the “Winster
Processional Dance.” When the procession has reached a good position in the centre, the tune changes and without pause the dancers perform the
“Winster Morris Reel,” “The Old Woman Tossed up in a Blanket.”

For the dresses of the dancers see photographs in The Morris Book
[parts II and III]. The Witch is a man dressed in bedraggled woman’s clothes, with face blackened, and carries a short besom. The Fool has a pork-pie hat covered with flowers and feathers, tunic, to the hips, of bright multi-colored stuff edged with silver fringe, buckskin breeches, stockings of odd colors, and bells round the ankles. He carries a stick with a fox’s tail at one end and a bladder at the other. Sometimes he has a dinner-bell attached to the middle of his back. The King and Queen are serious characters, the latter being represented by a man dressed in woman’s clothes. The King carries a sword and should be dressed in the military dress of the period: the Queen is grandly dressed, with a touch of comic extravagance, in the garb of a court lady of the period. The Hobby horses—say half a dozen in number—are of the “tournament” variety, and carry sticks and bladders.

8: COUNTRY DANCES AND RECESSIONAL

When the Morris dance is finished, the company disperses and amuses itself for a while until the pipe-and-taborers make their appearance.
This is a signal for every one to find a partner for a country dance.
Groups are formed all over the ground and “The Black Nag” is performed, followed by a Longways dance, e. g., “Row well, ye mariners.” On the conclusion of the latter, the dancers, who are already in processional formation, dance off the ground to the “Helston Ferry Processional
Dance,” disappearing in different groups through the several exits.

EPILOGUE

ACTION: INTERNATIONAL AND SYMBOLIC

THEME

In three main, symbolic groups—Theatres, Actors, Dramatists—The
Spirit of Time summons the creative forces of the art of the theatre, to defeat the destructive influences of War, Lust, and Death, and prophetically to survive them.

ACTION[32]

First, from the two gates [right and left] of the ground-circle, the
Pageant of Theatres enters in two processions, which group themselves
[right and left of Caliban’s cell] on the flight of steps and ramps leading to Stage B.

Secondly, through the mouth-entrances of the Masks of Comedy and of
Tragedy, the Comic Actors [through the former] and the Tragic Actors
[through the latter] enter upon stage B, cross before Prospero and take their stations, with their respective Theatres, on the steps and ramps.

Thirdly, the Dramatists, of Comedy and Tragedy, do likewise.

In this procession of the Dramatists, occurs the pantomime and stage business of the meeting between Prospero and Shakespeare.

After the procession of Dramatists, all three main groups are enveloped by darkness, in which—after the final choir of Ariel’s spirits—they disperse, unseen.

EPILOGUE

COMMUNITY ACTORS [300]

Comprise

SPECIALS: 300
Theatres:    Total | 100 persons [25 groups]
Actors:” | 100”
Dramatists:  ” | 100”
| ----
[33]Grand total | 300”

From the following lists of Theatres, Actors, and
Dramatists, revised and modified, the final groups will be selected.
The lists, as here given, are merely preliminary, and have been sketched in, during the printing of this Appendix, so as not to be wholly omitted from the publication of this edition. As far as they concern the New York production of the Masque, they are not to be construed as anything more than suggestive material for the necessarily impressionistic pageant-groups of the Epilogue.

THEATRES

ANCIENT GREECE

Theatre of Dionysus at Athens, Epidaurus, Ephesus, Sicyon.

ANCIENT ROME

Theatre of Pompey, Scarrus, Balbus Cornelius, Marcellus.

Provincial Theatres

Antioch, Lyons, Herculaneum, Orange.

CONSTANTINOPLE

Hippodrome, of Emperor Septimius Severus.

ITALY

Florence | della Pergola
Venice | Fenice
Genoa | Carlo Felice
Milan | La Scala
Vicenza | Olympian Theatre

PORTUGAL

Lisbon San Carlos

FRANCE

Hotel du Burgoyne, Comedie Francaise, Palais Royal, Odeon,
Porte St. Martin, Antoine.

AUSTRIA

Vienna Burgtheater

GERMANY

Weimar, Deutsches, Lessing.

RUSSIA

Art Theatre, Warsaw; Kremlin, Moscow.

AMERICA

New York

Booth’s, Bowery, Wallack’s, Daly’s.

Boston

Federal Street, Boston Theatre, Boston Museum.

Philadelphia

Arch Street, Walnut Street, Chestnut Street.

Chicago

McVicker’s.

San Francisco

California.

Washington

Ford’s.

New Orleans

St. Charles.

ENGLAND

Globe, Bankside, Bear Garden, Hope, Swan, Drury Lane, Haymarket, Covent Garden.

Dublin

Smock Alley.

ACTORS

GREECE

Thespis, Polus [of
Aegina], Aristodemus, Neoptolemus, Thessalus, Athenodorus, Cleander,
Mynniscus [of Chalcis], Callipides, Timotheus.

ROME

Esopus, Roscius, C. Publilius, Ambivius Turpio, Haitilius
Praenestinus, Bathyllus, Pylades, Publilius Syrus.

ITALY

[Actors] Domenico Biancolelli, Luigi Riccoboni, Nicola Barbieri,
Francesco Andreini, Fiorelli, Tommasino, Salvini, Madena, Rossi.

[Actresses] Sedowsky, Isabella Andreini, Ristori.

SPAIN

[Actors] Lope de Rueda, Navarro of Toledo, Alonso de Olmedo,
Sebastian de Prado, Isidoro Maiquez, José Valero, Julián Romea, Rafael
Calvo, Antonio Vico.

[Actresses] La Baltasara, La Calderona, La Pacheca,
La Tirana, Rita Luna, Matilde Diez.

FRANCE

[Actors] Jodelet, Harduin, Rodogune, Talma, Got, LeKain, Molé,
Fréville, Baron, Montfleury, Lemaitre, Coquelin, Mounet Sulley.

[Actresses] Dangville, Rachel, George, Mars, Des Oeillets, Bejart,
Champmeslé, Lecouvreur, Dumesnil, Clairon, David.

HOLLAND

[Actors] Louis Bouwmeister, Willem Haverkorn, Johannes Haverkamp,
Andries Snoek.

[Actresses] Mme. Wattier.

GERMANY

[Actors] Possart, Bamay, Kainz, Iffland, Konrad, Ekkof, Dawison,
Lewinsky, Döhring, Ackerman, Carl Bonn, Dalberg, L. Dessoit, Anschutz,
Hasse, Beckmann, Gabillon.

[Actresses] Sonnenthal, Devrient, Schröder, Carolina Neuber,
Charlotte Wolter, Julie Rettich, Julie Löwe, Carolina Bauer,
Geistinger, Zitt, Raabe, Buske, Fleck, Brockmann, Matkowsky,
Dingelstedt, Borchers.

[SCANDINAVIA]

DENMARK

[Actors] Ludwig
Phister, Christen N. Rosenkilde, Nicolai Nielsen, Emil Poulsen, Michael
Wieke, Michael Rosing.

[Actresses] Johanne Louise Heiberg, Anna Neilsen, Julie Södring.

SWEDEN

[Actors] Fredrik Deland, Ebba Hwasser, Pierre Deland, Karl Georg
Dahlquist.

NORWAY

[Actors] Johannes Brun, Henrik Klausen.

[Actresses] Laura Gundersen, Lucie Wolf, Sophie Pavelius.

RUSSIA

[Actors] V. Samoilov, N. Samoilov, Nikitin, Ershov, Lenski,
Karatygina (family), M. S. Shchepkin, Krapivnitzki.

[Actresses] Fedotava, Vyera Samortova, Savina, Karatygina
(family), Kommissaryhevskaya, E. P. Struyskaya.

AMERICA

[Actors] Junius Brutus Booth, Jas. Wallack, Edwin Forrest, Edwin
Booth, Lester Wallack, Wm. Warren, John McCulloch, Lawrence Barrett,
E. A. Sothern, Jos. Jefferson, Wm. Florence, James A. Hackett, John
Gilbert, Edward L. Davenport, Wm. B. Wood, T. A. Cooper, Wilson
Barrett, Rignold, Chas. Wheatley, MacKean, Buchanon, James Murdock, J.
B. Roberts, Williamson, Whiffin, Tony Pastor, Hart, Harrigan, Stuart
Robson, John T. Raymond, Denman Thompson, Maurice Barrymore, Richard
Mansfield.

[Actresses] Charlotte Cushman, Mrs. John Drew, Modjeska, Matilda
Heron, Mme. Ponisi, Laura Keene, Fannie Davenport, Ada Rehan.

GREAT BRITAIN

[Actors] Burbage, Betteron, Colley Cibber, Garrick, Macready, Edmund
Kean, Tyrone Power, Samuel Phelps, Buckstone, Charles Macklin, Samuel
Foote, Tate Wilkinson, Barry, Quinn, Henderson, John Philip Kemble,
Robert Wilks, Thomas Sheridan, Henry Mossop, John Liston, William
Betty, Henry Irving, Lawrence Irving.

[Actresses] Nance Oldfield, Mrs. Betterton, Mrs. Mountfort, Mrs.
Bracegirdle, Nell Gwynne, Mrs. Siddons, Peg Woffington, Fanny Kemble,
Hannah Pritchard, Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Jordan, George Anne Bellamy,
Helen Barry, Helen Faucit, Katherine Clive, Mrs. Farren.

DRAMATISTS

GREECE

[Tragedy] Aeschylus, Choerilus, Pratinas, Phrynichus, Sophocles,
Euripides, Carcinus, Chaeremon.

[Comedy] Phormis [of Maenalus], Epicharmus, Susarion, Chionides,
Aristophanes, Eupolis, Magnes, Philemon, Menander, Rhinthon,
Apollodorus, Diphilus, Posidippus.

ROME

[Tragedy] Livius Andronicus, Accius, Pacuvius, Asinius Pollis,
Varius, Ovid, Seneca, Curiatius Maternus, J. Cæsar Strabo.

[Comedy] Plautus, Terence, Ennius, Statius Caecilius, Lavinius,
Naevius, Melissus, Afranius, Laberius, Pomponius, Atta.

ITALY

[Tragedy] Ariosto, Manzoni, Alfieri, Nicolini, Tasso.

[Comedy] Metastasio, Martelli, Maffei, Gozzi, Pindemonti, Monti,
Flavio, Goldoni.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

[Spain] Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Alarcon, Gongora,
Argensola, Moreto, de Hoz, Canizarez, Luzan, Huerta.

[Portugal] Saa de Miranda, Gil Vincente, Ferreira, Garcao.

FRANCE

Etienne Jodelle, Garnier, Larivey, Montcrétien, Hardi, Viaud,
Scudéri, Corneille, Boisrobert, Chevreau, Scarron, de Bergerac,
Quinault, Molière, Boursault, Racine, Voltaire, l’Hermite, Rotrou,
Crébillon, Le Sage, Beaumarchais, Longpierre, Fontenelli, La Motte,
Legrand, Destouches, Marivaux, Sardou, Hugo, Dumas, Scribe, Zola,
Legouvé, Augier, Halévy, Le Maitre, De Vigny.

HOLLAND

Hooft, Brederoo, Vondel, Vos, Goes, Pels, Asselijn, van
Focquenbroch, Bilderdijk.

GERMANY

Hans Sachs, Gryphius, Gottshed, Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, Kozebue,
Hafner, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Novalis, Arnim, Hoffmann, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, Kleist, Grillparzer, Schlegel, Freytag, Heyse, Gutzkow,
Wagner, Werner, Körner, Klingemann, Uhland, Chamisso, Arndt, Heine,
Grabbe, Immermann, Weise, Grinunelohausen, Klinger, Ludwig, Laube,
Holm, Giebel, Wildenbruch, Angengruber, Nestroy, Raimund.

SCANDINAVIA

Holberg, Oehlenschläger, J. L. Heiberg, Bjornson, Wessel, Ewald,
Hauch, Hostrup, Hertz, Paludan-Müller, Overskou, Ibsen, Lidner, Tegner,
Runeberg, Blanche, Strindberg, Kielland, Lie.

RUSSIA

Sumarokoff, Catherine II, Von Viezin, Krilov, Astrovski, Pushkin,
Gogol, Tolstoi, Tchekhof, Griboyedov.

AMERICA

Royal Tyler, John Howard Payne, Boker, Longfellow,
Wm. Young, N. P. Willis, Dion Boucicault, John Brougham, Augustin Daly,
Steele MacKaye, Bronson Howard, James A. Herne, Clyde Fitch, William
Vaughn Moody.

GREAT BRITAIN

Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, Shirley, Greene, Peele, Webster, Ford,
Massinger, Middleton, Heywood, Lyly, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Dekker,
Marston:—Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Otway, Etheredge, d’Urfey, Farquhar, d’Avenant, Sedley, Lacy, Shadwell, Crowne, Steele,
Addison, Rowe:—Goldsmith, Sheridan, Fielding, Shelley:—Knowles,
Lytton, Robertson, Tennyson, Browning, Reade, Taylor, Wilde:—Phillips,
Synge, Hankin, Davidson.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Information for Communities, Clubs, Societies, and Drama
League Centres throughout the Country about

Mr. PERCY MACKAYE’S

SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY MASQUE
Entitled
“CALIBAN: BY THE YELLOW SANDS”

Doubleday, Page & Company have pleasure in announcing Mr. MacKaye’s
Masque, which in many respects has become the national tribute of the
New York Shakespeare Celebration, the Shakespeare National Memorial
Committee, and The Drama League of America for the anniversary of 1916.

The publication of the Masque has been hurried as much as possible in order to give communities, societies, colleges, and Drama League centres throughout the country an opportunity to read the text and thus arrange their celebrations in harmony with the Masque.

The first performances of the Masque will be given by the New York
Shakespeare Celebration during the week of May 23d, when it will be enacted out of doors, at night, in the City College Stadium adapted to seat about 20,000 spectators. There several thousand citizens of New
York will take part in conjunction with a body of actors of national repute. It will then be released for use by other communities or societies on June 1st. Immediately after the close of the New York performances, a professional company will take the Masque on the road for presentation by them in conjunction with community and club groups throughout the country. The professional company will fill the leading parts and take with them a complete outfit of scenery and properties.
For full particulars, address the Chairman of the National Circuit
Committee, 736 Marquette Bldg., Chicago, Ill., or, Augustin Duncan, 50
West 12th St., New York City.

Amateur performances of the Masque may also be given after June
1st, without the aid of the professional company, by making proper arrangements for securing permission. Full directions for amateur performances, or for public readings where seats are sold, may be had from Miss Alice Houston, National Headquarters, Drama League of
America, Chicago, Ill.

The Drama League of America strongly recommends to its centres the use of the Masque as the special League reading for April. The text will be available in two editions: Paper at 50 cents and Cloth at $1.25 or thereabouts.

The Drama League hopes to establish in the near future a Pageant
Series, similar to the Play Series, of which “Caliban” by Mr.
MacKaye would be the first volume.

REMEMBER THESE POINTS

“CALIBAN: BY THE YELLOW SANDS”

By Percy MacKaye. A National tribute to
Shakespeare for 1916. Endorsed by the Drama League of America.

FIRST PERFORMANCE

New York, May 23d, by citizens and notable group of professional actors.

RELEASED FOR GENERAL USE

June 1st. Acting rights may be secured as indicated below:—

PERFORMANCES BY COMMUNITIES OR
CLUBS WITH PROFESSIONAL COMPANY

Full particulars may be had by addressing Miss Alice M. Houston, Chairman Circuit Committee, Drama
League of America, 1426 Forest Ave., Evanston, Ill.

ALL-AMATEUR PERFORMANCES

Full particulars may be had by addressing Miss Clara Fitch, Chairman Shakespeare Tercentenary
Committee, 736 Marquette Bldg., Chicago, Ill.

PUBLIC READINGS WHERE SEATS ARE SOLD

For particulars address Miss Houston (as above).

THE PRINTED BOOK OF THE MASQUE

Paper edition 50 cents. Cloth edition
$1.25 net. For sale everywhere at book shops or by Doubleday, Page &
Company, Garden City, New York.

New York City

Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration

CIVIC ORGANIZATION

MISS MARY PORTER BEEGLE, Chairman

MRS. AXEL O. IHLSENG, Executive Secretary
10 East 43d Street, New York City
Telephone, Murray Hill 9745

Supplementary Celebrations | Chairman of Finance
MISS KATE OGLEBAY, Chairman | MR. W. FORBES MORGAN, Jr.
MISS FERN CLAWSON, Vice-Chairman | Executive Chairman
| MR. EVERARD THOMPSON
Advisory on Forms of Celebrations | Masque Committee Chairman
MISS JOSEPHINE BEIDERHASE | MRS. SIMEON FORD
MISS FRANCES E. CLARKE | Music
MR. ARTHUR FARWELL | MR. HARRY BIRNBAUM
MR. WM. CHAUNCY LANGDON |
MISS AZUBAH LATHAM | Organizing Director of the Masque
MISS CONSTANCE MACKAY | Mr. GARNET HOLME
| Telephone, Greeley 1137
Board of Directors
Prof. Allan Abbott | Dr. George F. Kunz
Miss Mary Porter Beegle | Howard Kyle
Dr. William E. Bohn | Miss Olivia Leventritt
Cranston Brenton | Mrs. Philip M. Lydig
John Collier | W. Forbes Morgan, Jr.
Miss Laura Sedgwick Collins | Mrs. M. Fairchild Osborn
Mrs. August Dreyer | Miss Florence Overton
Max Eastmab | Rev. Dr. Joseph Silverman
Mrs. William Einstein | Prof. Edmund Bronk Southwick
Mrs. Simeon Ford | Mr. M. J. Stroock
Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim | Mr. Everard Thompson
Mrs. J. Norman de R. Whitehouse

THE SHAKESPEARE CELEBRATION

will present
in the Lewisohn Stadium of the College of the City of New York
on the nights of May 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 1916, at Eight O’clock

The Community Masque

CALIBAN
By the Yellow Sands

PRODUCTION STAFF

Author and Director
Percy MacKaye

Composer and Director of Music
Arthur Farwell

Producers
Joseph Urban
Richard Ordynski

Designer of Inner Scenes
Robert Edmond Jones

Director of Interludes
Garnet Holme

Director of Costumes
Mrs. John W. Alexander

Director of Dances
Mrs. Robert Anderson

Staff Assistant
Hazel MacKaye

Office of the Director: 529 Marbridge Bldg. (34th St. & 6th Ave.); telephone, Greeley 1137.

For particulars regarding Tickets, etc., communication should be made with the office of the Shakespeare Celebration, 10 East 43d St.,
New York. Telephones, Murray Hill 9745 and 4158.

THE MAYOR’S HONORARY COMMITTEE

For the New York Shakespeare Celebration

OTTO H. KAHN, Chairman.

Herbert Adams | Rev. John Haynes Holmes
Dr. Felix Adler | Frederic C. Howe
Jacob P. Adler | Arthur Curtiss James
John G. Agar | Mrs. Paul Kennaday
Robert Aitken | Dr. J. J. Kindred
Winthrop Ames | Darwin P. Kingsley
Donn Barber | Lee Kohns
Joseph Barondess | Dr. George F. Kunz
Mrs. August Belmont | Thomas W. Lamont
Gutzon Borglum | Dr. Henry M. Leipsiger
Chancellor Elmer E. Brown | Adolph Lewisohn
Henry Bruere | M. J. Lavelle, V.G.
Arnold Brunner | Walter Lippmann
Pres. Nicholas Murray Butler | Philip Lydig
Abraham Cahan | Clarence H. Mackay
Mrs. William Astor Chandler | Miss Elizabeth Marbury
William M. Chase | Edwin Markham
Joseph H. Choate | Miss Helen Marot
Thomas W. Churchill | Dr. Brander Matthews
Paul D. Cravath | Rev. Howard Melish
John D. Crimmins | Dr. Appleton Morgan
George Cromwell | J. P. Morgan
R. Fulton Cutting | Dr. Henry Moskowitz
Walter Damrosch | Adolph S. Ochs
R. S. Davis | Ralph Pulitzer
Henry P. Davison | Percy R. Pyne, 2d
Robt. W. de Forest | W. C. Reick
Mrs. Camden C. Dike | Elihu Root
A. J. Dittenhoefer | Edward A. Rumely
Cleveland H. Dodge | Jacob M. Schiff
Caroline B. Dow | Mortimer L. Schiff
Frank L. Dowling | James Speyer
Mrs. H. Edward Dreier | Francis Lynde Stetson
Max Eastman | Frederic A. Stokes
Samuel H. Evins | J. G. Phelps Stokes
John H. Finley | Josef Stransky
Ned Arden Flood | Oscar S. Straus
Daniel C. French | Augustus Thomas
Charles Dana Gibson | Louis Untermeyer
Bertram C. Goodhue | Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt
Rt. Rev. David H. Greer | Oswald Garrison Villard
Jules Guerin | Miss Lillian D. Wald
Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim | Dr. James J. Walsh
Mrs. Benjamin Guiness | Cabot Ward
Norman Hapgood | J. Alden Weir
Mrs. J. Borden Harriman | Charles D. Wetmore
William Laurel Harris | Edward J. Wheeler
Col. George Harvey | F. W. Whitridge
Timothy Healy | Thomas W. Whittle
A. Barton Hepburn | George Wickersham
Morris Hillquit | William G. Willcox
James P. Holland | Dr. Stephen S. Wise
| H. J. Wright

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The words of Shakespeare used in this Masque, are quoted from the
Tudor Edition of Shakespeare’s Works, edited by Neilson and Thorndike
(Macmillan). The stage directions and cuts, however, are not taken from any edition, but have been made by me for purposes of the Inner Scenes.

[2] In this book these Inner Scenes are printed in black-faced type.

[3] This is the motive of Mr. Robert Edmond Jones’ cover design for this volume.

[4] An outline of suggestions on this subject I published in a volume,
“The Civic Theatre, in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure” [1912].
Further ideas and their applications are contained in the prefaces and dramatic texts of my Bird Masque “Sanctuary,” “Saint Louis: A Civic
Masque,” and “The New Citizenship,” a Civic Ritual.

[5] The outgoing cost of the Saint Louis production was $122,000; the income $139,000. The balance of $17,000 has been devoted to a fund for civic art. The cost of producing a single play by Sophocles at Athens was $500,000.

[6] Page 71, on Constructive Leisure (Mitchell Kennerley, 1912).

[7] New York, 1915, Macmillan.

[8]
See Appendix, page 154.

[9] The Masque Proper consists of the Prologue and Three Acts, without the Inner Scenes and the Epilogue and Interludes.

[10] Visualized by a Super-puppet.

[11] Visualized by an idol.

[12]
See Appendix: Pages 207-216.

[13] The more detailed description of this Interlude is given in the
Appendix, pages 162 to 183.

[14]

“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them. The oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke.... For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature. On each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With diverse-color’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool....
Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs.”
—[Antony and Cleopatra: II, 2. Shakespeare.]

The charm and splendor of this description applies here only to the beauty of the barge and those it bears: otherwise Cleopatra and her attendants are, in their appearance, distraught and fearful, and the barge shows signs of recent perilous escape from the scene of Antony’s sea-battle with Octavius Cæsar.

Being here conceived as a plastic vision in the mind of Prospero, this Inner Scene—an excerpt from Act III, Scene XI, of Shakespeare’s play—has, by dramatic license appropriate to this masque, been laid in a scene suggested by the above description of the barge.

[15] During this scene, Caliban—watching intently—slides from the steps of the throne and crawls slowly forward on his stomach to the centre, where he lies prone, with head lifted—his body pointed toward the
Inner stage—kicking at times his lower legs [from the knees] in the air.

[16] For fuller description of this Interlude, see Appendix, pages 184-194.

[17] From Shakespeare’s “King Henry the Eighth,” Act I, Scene 1.

[18] From Shakespeare’s “King Henry the Eighth,” Act I, Scene 1.

[19]
See Appendix, pages 196-204, for more detailed description.

[20] For details of these Epilogue groups, see Appendix, pages 205-216.

[21] The plan for this India episode is based on a ritual scene of the ancient Hindu drama “Shakuntala,” by Kalidasa, translated by Garnet
Holme and Arthur W. Ryder, and recently produced by the authors in
California. The translation is published by University of California
Press, Berkeley, 1914. Those communities that may desire to include this Action in their local festivals should communicate with Mr. Garnet
Holme, care of The Shakespeare Celebration, 10 East 43rd Street,
New York City.

[22] The revolving of the disk, of course, is apparent only, not real.
Actually, the disk remains motionless; it appears to revolve because of the motion of the Priests around it.

[23] See “Kings and Gods of Egypt,” Alexandre Moret; pp. 69-108.

[24] Similarly before each of the Actions of each Interlude, Prospero makes a brief explanatory comment to Ariel (and thus to the audience).

[25] The Choregus was the Producer, usually a man of great wealth.

[26] In one hand Pantomimus carries a wand resembling a caduceus, but differing from that of Mercury in that the heads of the twining snakes are carved as little masks of comedy, and the tip of the wand, to which the flying wings are affixed, is the shining disk of a mirror, into which at times Pantomimus peers quaintly at his reflection.

[27] The Pantomime is adapted from a Roman Interlude by the author in his drama “Sappho and Phaon.”

[28] This Theme inheres in an excerpt from Shakespeare’s “King Henry VIII,”
Act I, Scene I, quoted by Ariel as Prologue to the Sixth Inner Scene of the Masque, for which the actual dialogue of no Shakespeare Scene dealing with France appears so appropriate for the Masque’s uses as a pantomime based on this excerpt from Henry VIII.

[29] The words Winter and Spring refer to the respective Groups.

[30] The water is represented by the blue ground, beyond the verge of the Yellow Sands.

[31] Here the play-actors enact a scene from the old play of “Noah’s Flood.”

[32] The Action here described, like that of all the preceding Interludes, is simply a preliminary outline, subject to modification and development at rehearsals.

[33] With this number several hundred of the Interlude participants and Masque figurants are to be correlated in the final ensemble.

Transcriber’s Notes:

The cover image is in the public domain.

Uncertain or antiquated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.

The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.

Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.

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Table of Contents

- CALIBAN BY THE YELLOW SANDS

- PREFACE

- MASQUE STRUCTURE

- The Action
- The Time
- The Setting

- PERSONS AND PRESENCES

- I. OF THE MASQUE PROPER[9]
- II. OF THE TEN INNER-STAGE SCENES
- III. OF THE INTERLUDES
- IV. OF THE EPILOGUE

- PROLOGUE

- FIRST INTERLUDE[13]

- ACT I

- FIRST INNER SCENE
- SECOND INNER SCENE[15]
- THIRD INNER SCENE

- SECOND INTERLUDE[16]

- ACT II

- FIFTH INNER SCENE.
- SIXTH INNER SCENE
- SEVENTH INNER SCENE

- THIRD INTERLUDE[19]

- ACT III

- THE EIGHTH INNER SCENE
- THE NINTH INNER SCENE
- THE TENTH INNER SCENE

- EPILOGUE

- APPENDIX

- FOREWORD
- PERSONS AND PRESENCES
- FOOTNOTES:

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE