Percy MacKaye

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ CALIBAN [Looking at the gray cloak.] What’s that? [Pg 81]
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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. [Pg 22]
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! ”

“ 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. [Pg 5]
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. ”

“ 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? [Pg 18]
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? ”

“ PROSPERO Setebos’. Ha, ’tis not his lust I dread, Nay, nor his tiger tooth, nor belly on fire: [Pg 82] ’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.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. [Pg 115]
CALIBAN [Laying his cheek on Miranda’s hand weeps, with great sobs.] Spring—Spring-i’-the-air, thy dew Dabbleth my face. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ There—in Prospero’s words [and Shakespeare’s] —is the text of this Masque. [Pg xv]
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ ARIEL So, Master! [Ariel leads Lust away to the cell beneath.] [Pg 73]
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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! [Pg 21]
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though of necessity it involves aspects of pageantry, its form is more closely [Pg xviii] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. [Pg 121]
THE DUKE
Welcome: fall to! Give us some music; sing! ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [Pg 59] 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? ”