The Caucasus. A natural terrace in a lofty place, opening toward the North and the East and surrounded by colossal trees. A formidable vertical trench is open towards the West, cutting through the mountain like a street.

Night. All the upper part of the scene is occupied by the constellation of the Great Bear, distinguishable through the mist. From below at a great depth the rumble of wheels and the jingling of harness, suggesting the passing of troops.

The princess, clothed in leaves and the skins of animals, is stretched on the ground.

The Princess: I am cold! I am hungry!

Will this dreadful night never end? And yet already I see the stars of morning, and Mars, ruddy and golden, gleams above my head.

O constellations bending over man, O shining city in the skies of night, take pity on me!

(Silence. Rustling in the trees.

I listen! What do you whisper, trees that know everything?

You are arguing endlessly, like men that are fettered by the leg.

And I, I lie on the earth at your feet in this abyss of the earth!

I had withdrawn to the desert places, to this extremity

Of the world, protecting my body with leaves and the skins of beasts,

Fleeing from men, like an animal, for fear they should catch me and kill me.

But now the mountain is full of unaccountable noises and I do not know whither to go.

And I am so weak that I cannot stir.

Alas! Why should I wish for the sun when he will reveal me to all?

And here like a ewe with a broken leg I lie at the mercy of anyone that passes.

(A long pause. Daybreak.

The Princess: I am cold! I am hungry!

(Pause. The sun rises.

(Hoof-beats without. Enter on horseback cassius bearing the Sword. He rides to an eminence from which he can observe the whole country.

(Enter on horseback tÊte-d'or surrounded by his staff.

The Chief of Staff: What do you see, Cassius?

Cassius: Nothing. The mist rises.

First Captain: What is that on the ground there?

Second Captain: The skull of a man!

Third Captain: The skeleton of a cow!

Fourth Captain: And look! A whole heap of them! Bones of men and beasts!

TÊte-d'or: What do they call this place?

The Chief of Staff: It is called "The Door," for the ultimate door is here.

This is the threshold that opens on the everlasting North and the regions of the sunrise.

Here is the rampart; the slanting joint through which Europe is bound to the Earth of the Earth.

And here it is that they fettered the ancient Thief of Fire

When the Eagle, falling like a thunderbolt,

Fastened upon him and tore the liver from his body.

—What do you see, Cassius?

Cassius (shouting): Space!

The Chief of Staff: Look North. What do you see?

Cassius: I see the expanse of the Earth!

The Chief of Staff: Turn to the sacred East!

Cassius: The earth is unrolled like a carpet. And the distance is veiled in mist.

(He returns towards them.

(The chief of staff and another Captain dismount and taking tÊte-d'or's horse by the bridle they lead him to the place where cassius stood.

The Chief of Staff: Look, O King, and take, for all that you see is yours.

And the earth is yours like a field of which the extent has been measured.

Look! Yonder the ocean lies, flat and enclosed, a round mirror. For here

Toiling upwards we have reached the level of the world and here the ascent is over.

"The Door" this place is called, for here in ancient times, the wandering peoples of the Plain, at this high pass,

Halted to sacrifice, as the bones will testify, offering fire to the gods of Space,

Before they crossed the dark defile and began the perilous descent,

Forming nations according to the hollows of the earth.

Now after the lapse of centuries it is we that appear from the other side

Presenting to the descendants of those who remained behind a new sceptre.

See, O King, we have rediscovered Space!

Then advance, O King, and cross the gigantic plain,

That we may ascend the final step and conquer

The enormous altar of Asia.

(Silence.

(tÊte-d'or without speaking points out the princess lying in the bushes.

A Captain: What is that?

(He touches her with the point of his lance. She groans.

The Captain: It lives. But I do not know whether it is a beast or a woman.

(He dismounts and taking her in his arms, lifts her from the ground.

Another Captain: Strange beings inhabit this mountain. This has the hide of a beast, the hair of a woman.

TÊte-d'or: It is a woman, dying of thirst, poor creature! Give her my gourd.

(He hands them his gourd. They put it to her lips. She drinks and indicates by gestures that she can stand alone.

TÊte-d'or: Who are you, young girl?

(She shakes her head, indicating by gestures that she does not understand.

A Captain: Doubtless she does not understand any language.

(She opens her mouth, indicating by gestures that she is hungry.

TÊte-d'or: She is hungry. (He gives her a bit of black bread.)

Take my bread. Eat, innocent creature!

The Captain: Sire, will you not keep this bread for yourself? For the day will be long and hard.

TÊte-d'or: I am not hungry. And see how she is clothed against the chills of the night in this bleak place.

Take my cloak also, young girl.

(He puts his cloak around her shoulders.

Forward!

A Captain: Go before us, Cassius.

—O herald, your armor mirrors the red disk of the sun, and you are all agleam!

(They go out.

(The princess eats the bread.

The Deserter (starting up from the thicket where he had been lying in wait): Give me your bread!

(He throws himself upon her and snatches the bread away from her.

The Princess (crying out): Leave me a little of the bread!

The Deserter: What's this? You speak my language?

Wait! Wait a little!

(He stares at her long and attentively, then he begins to laugh.

A-a-a-h!

(He doffs his hat and awkwardly makes a pretence of bowing, in mockery. Then he stares at her chuckling without saying anything.

A-a-a-h!

Oh, this is good!

How does it happen that you are here?

Don't pretend that you can't understand what I say. See, the red is creeping to your cheeks. Ah! Ah!

Answer!

Do you think I don't know you? Others perhaps might not recognise you, but I, I recognise you!

The Princess: I think you do not know me.

The Deserter: Ha! (He wags his head and winks knowingly.)

You are the daughter of the old King.

The Princess: Since you know it, be ashamed!

The Deserter: Ashamed?

See if I am ashamed! Take that for yourself for your "ashamed"!

(He strikes her with all his strength. She falls to the ground, then, rising, she stands before him, motionless.

The Deserter: None of your fine airs with me!

We are alone in this place, we two! You are my dog, I can kill you if I choose,

One by one I can cut off your limbs with my knife if such should be my humor. Do you hear?

Now it is my turn!

Ah! Ah! So you do not recognise me? I had a place in the palace, in the kitchens! Eh? You didn't trouble your pretty head about the likes of me! It was I who seasoned the dishes to suit your gullet.

And you thought of me no more than if I had been a rat, or a snake in the cranny of a wall.

But I, I knew you well and I hated you, believe me! Oh!

And here you are in my hands and I can do with you as I will.

The Princess: What have I done?

The Deserter: Why was your father, old scamp that he was, made king instead of me?

If I had had education I should have been as good a king.

What is the reason that some have more than others?

Why is it that some have all they want, as much as they wish to drink and eat, and that others have nothing at all?

Perhaps you think I can live on bricks, eh?

I am a married man and I had children dependent on me, yet I had to work in the fields. I was not made for that sort of labor, I have my certificate.

And these rascal landlords leave you nothing at all.

And they took me away to the war! What has their war to do with me?

Does one murder women when they are with child?

Why have they taken me? Why are my children both of them lying dead?

Answer, trull, can one live without eating?

The Princess: You can answer that yourself, you that took the bread that I had.

The Deserter: That bread? What is it, bread? With what is it made, bread?

The Princess: With barley or rye.

The Deserter: You know that, eh? Who is it that grows the barley or the rye?

Who reaps it? Who threshes it? Who grinds it? Who makes it into bread?

If the bread were turned to someone who had a nose and a mouth and it commanded you to do its will

Would you not have to obey?

And the maker of the bread, is he not the bread itself?

Yet he has not even the right to keep it for himself, but here I take it from you again, by force.

—So come here! Here, I say!

The Princess: Since you are my master, I am here. You can kill me if you wish.

The Deserter (taking her by the hand): Come.

The Princess: What do you mean to do with me? Why do you take me beneath this gloomy tree?

The Deserter: There is a hawk that someone has fastened by the wings to the trunk of this pine with two nails. See how its head droops.

The Princess: It is a very barbarous custom.

The Deserter: Presently you will replace that bird.

The Princess: What did you say? You are not thinking of doing what you say?

Ah! Ah!

You will not fasten me to that tree like a bird that one nails by the wings!

The Deserter (pulling out the nails): They do not hold firmly.—They can be used again. That stone will be my hammer.

The Princess: Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

The Deserter: Give me your hands.

The Princess (hiding her hands and smiling with terror): No! No!

The Deserter: You do not wish it? Of what use are they?

The Princess: I tell you this, my friend. These hands that do not know how to work

Could bring a better nourishment than bread,

Although I know how to make bread as well.

And you, what prompts you to devour me?

And those who saw me took no thought of food and, young or old, their hearts burned within them.

Alas, my beauty has abandoned me! If it were otherwise you would not wish to kill me nor would you have humiliated me in such rude fashion, striking me in the face.

What have I done?

Do not kill me! Merely because I cannot work like you

Do I deserve this horrible punishment,

Dying so slowly, my two hands pierced with nails?

Do not do it, lest those that love me

Should not accept the excuse that you did not know who I am and your name should be a thing accursed forever.

For I was the honor of our native land and there is no more beauty there since I am there no longer.

And what will they say if they learn that it was you who killed me, nailing me thus?

The Deserter (sharpening the nails on a stone): What use are all these words?

The Princess: Clod, I am a queen!

The highest dignity

To which humanity can attain was mine, nor can you take it away.

Who am I? Who are you? Look me in the eyes.

Will you dare to raise your hand against me? What common ground can there be between me and you?

The Deserter: You will know it through your hands.

(The princess raises her hands and places them against the trunk of the tree.

The Princess: Very well. Where shall I place them?

The Deserter: Here. Raise your hands.

I am not tall enough. Stay where you are.

(He finds a large stone and mounts on it. Seizing the right arm of the princess he fastens it to the tree with a cord; then spreading out the fingers he manages with much difficulty to drive a nail through the hand.

The Princess (shrieking): Ah! Ah!

Ah! ah!

Ah! ah!

O heavens!

The Deserter: The left hand.

The Princess: Here it is.

(He nails the left hand in the same way, then descends from the stone.

The Deserter: You did not cry that time, eh?

The Princess (spitting in his face):

I despise you, gross brute!

The blood jets from my hands! But in spite of these arms made fast above my head, I remain what I have been.

The Deserter: Take care that I do not kill you before your time!

The Princess: Go!

The Deserter: Won't you bid me good-bye? Won't you clasp me by the hand?

The Princess: I am fastened to this post, but my royal soul

Is unimpaired and therefore

This place has all the honor of a throne.

The Deserter: Now I can eat my bread.

(He slowly eats his bread to the last mouthful, without removing his eyes from her, and, picking up the crumbs, he swallows them.

The Deserter: Fasten the pelt more closely around your shoulders for it exposes the flesh beneath the arm, and it is not fitting you should uncover yourself so before a man.

Ah! Ah! The tears are flowing from your eyes! Now I can die, for I have seen you weep!

Stay where you are. With night the wolves will come

And, rearing up, they will rend you piece-meal and tear your limbs from your body,

And the ravens will pluck out your eyes.

Stay there and die.

(He goes out.

The Princess (shrieking suddenly): Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!

Oh! (She stops as if stifled.)

O hands by which I am fixed as the vine is fastened to the wall!

—O light that fills all space! O sun that makes the day, like a judge considering everything!

See me pinioned thus, and these nails that are buried up to the head in my hands.

It is morning still and I shall remain till noon,

And till evening and till I am dead.

But this is as it should be and I shall not complain.

I shall die erect

As is most fitting for one of a kingly race.

O hands, I had dreamed that some day I should bring you both to my husband

That he might bind you with the bonds of wedlock,

But these nails are more suitable.

My blood jets on high and it falls upon my head and runs down my body!

Ah! Ah!

My arms are heavy as lead!

O God! My feet are free and I can only stamp on the earth.

And if I remain, resting so on both feet,

I pull on the nails and stifle and suffer intolerable pain!

But if I stand on tiptoe, my strength is soon gone.

O God, have pity on me!

(Long silence which is supposed, to last many hours and during which the stage remains empty.

(Enter from the left the standard bearer on horseback with the subalterns and the Escort. The first subaltern mounts upon a rock.

The Standard Bearer: What do you see?

The Subaltern: Nothing. The mountain shuts off the view on this side.

The Second Subaltern: Why is it that the King did not take his standard with him?

The Standard Bearer: I do not know for till to-day I always stood at his side, when, at the crisis of the battle, he mounted on his horse,

Holding the banner on which is shown the black and terrible eagle

That soars towards the sun with the corpse of a man in his talons.

And the sun one does not see, but all the banner is of the color of gold.

But to-day he bade me remain behind at the place that commands the deep defile

And wait till he returned or gave the signal.

The First Subaltern: The standard hangs without movement upon its staff.

The Standard Bearer: And we also remain motionless at this threshold of the world.

By what a path we have come, rising out of the West like a bird!

O young man new to the army,

Assuredly you will see the King of the world reigning, but you have not seen what we have seen!

Terror and bewilderment march before him, and, as if they did not know how to use them,

Armies lay down their arms upon the ground.

He has appeared in the midst of cowards,

He has rushed among the multitudes like a lion attacking a drove of pigs!

And they have arisen against him like the sea, and they have subsided and lapped the dust at his feet.

And now we appear at the door, confronting ancient Asia!

(Gust of wind. Confused clamor in the distance.

The First Subaltern: Do you hear?

The Second Subaltern: At this very moment the battle is being fought.

(Pause.

And what are we going to do now?

The Standard Bearer: First for a long time

We must march across the level plain.

The First Subaltern: And then they say we shall come upon a mountain

So high that it touches heaven, and out of heaven itself

Four rivers, as white as milk, descend to earth.

And passing on we shall behold again

The sea, like a brimming cup.

A land of gold is there and its fragrance alone is so sweet

That it seems as if the soul were drawn from the body as in a dream

And in the exultation of the woman who conceives.

The monkeys hide in flowering trees and the sand has the scent of olives

And the submarine volcanoes appear like sunken lotus flowers and like fountains of gushing wine!

The Standard Bearer: All's one!

My will is to do the will of the King and to take my stand at his side

Holding the Standard, and such is my portion of the earth.

Assuredly it is just that we should adore like a god one who commands with wisdom.

His heart is profound and he has been given the knowledge of how to rule.

Thus his power increases, image of boldness divine and of justice that cannot be moved,

Like a tree above a well where men and herds come to drink.

And his spirit is like a marvellous fig tree

Together disclosing the flowers and the fruit.

The First Subaltern: As for the army that he has brought to this place—

The Standard Bearer: Never has such an army been seen! And one would think it was led by Love himself.

All see it from afar like a golden flower in the grass.

And, dearer than the face of his wife, each one of these gross men

Bears graven on his heart the holy image of the King.

And there is no question of officers and soldiers, but each one

Takes his part like a musician and they form a single body,

And death has lost its meaning.

(Pause. Vague clamor in the distance. All keep their eyes fixed on the Standard.

The First Subaltern: He has left behind the ancient flag.

The Standard Bearer: The Standard of the Empire is here, but they march under various ensigns.

Many bear the image of the Sun

Who embraces the Heaven and the Earth, and arms go out from his radiance.

Fishermen in a bark are throwing their net about him, spurred foresters are mounting towards him through the spreading oaks.

And those who have come from the place where the earth, comes to an end

Hoist ocean weeds or the lead of the sounding-line, and floating above them one sees

The Sword-fish with scarlet fins, or the god of the Sea, with eyes of horn, disgorging his tongue like a stone,

Or the salutary sign of the cross with equal branches:

And such are the signs of those who live on the brink of the deep abyss.

Other flags are green like a field, and grass is fastened there and the hair of animals and bones and sacks of earth.

The image of the wheat arises from the furrow amidst a flight of pigeons with outspread wings; and words come out of the mouth,

And the vine like a woman is bound upon the wine-press;

And something also recalls the Sun

When in September, after the harvest is gathered,

Like a pontiff who prostrates himself, he piously kisses the naked earth.

Others still! And they represent nothing defined, but are like a field of flowering buckwheat,

Or the shimmering azure, full of the leaves of peartrees, when seen through the fringe of drooping lashes,

Or an irruption of bees, or the seducing sea!

And others, stiff with embroidery, embody curious legends,

A reaper plies his scythe; a naked man

Grasping a whip in both hands is fighting a four-winged eagle of silver.

And others portray strange dreams; the disk of the moon,

Dragons, panthers that eat the gods,

Or roses, and an embroidered briar.

But I could not tell you all the signs though I were to speak forever.

The Second Subaltern: There is one that you did not mention.

(A great square of silk is hoisted above one of the mountains to the East.

The First Subaltern: Eh?

The Standard Bearer: I do not know what it is! I do not know what this means!

(A trumpet is heard sounding clearly as if it announced something.

The First Subaltern (shouting): Listen!

The Standard Bearer: I hear and I do not understand!

But I am struck with horror and my soul putrefies within me.

The First Subaltern: How that ominous flag flaps in the wind.

(Pause.

Voice (calling from below): Ho!

(Echo.

The Second Subaltern (bending over the precipice): There is someone below who signals that he wishes to come up.

The Standard Bearer: Make fast the tackle.

Lower away the cord.

(They do as he says. The cord runs out. Then the soldiers pull it up and after a time an armed man appears hanging from the rope. He comes to the ground.

The Standard Bearer: Who are you, O man that rises from the depths?

The Messenger: Prostrate yourselves before me, for on my tongue sits death!

I will tell you what I saw, and why I fled and could not stay where I was, and called to you to draw me up to this place and not to leave me below.

The Standard Bearer: Say no more!

The Messenger: I will announce the accursed thing

That you may fall to the earth like men deprived of life,

For the King of men is dead.

All (crying aloud): Ho! ho!

The Messenger: At least I will tell what I know, for our detail was on guard at the crest of the mountain yonder,

And we saw our army advance in good order across the plain, and the men were like tiny specks.

And at noon they stopped to eat, and then resumed their march, and always we followed them.

The Standard Bearer: Well? Well?

The Messenger: Then a smoke arose from the earth and a thick dust blown by a violent wind, blotting out the army,

And for long it hung above them so that we saw them no more.

But when it was dissipated we perceived

An infinite army advancing to oppose them.

The Standard Bearer: It is impossible! From whence would it come?

The Messenger: I do not know. Perhaps the wind brought them like lice.

But still we looked and, listen well to this,

We saw our army fleeing.

The Standard Bearer: What tale is this?

Surely the dust was in your eyes.

The Messenger: I say that they fled! And not one of them remained

But we saw them run as fast as they were able.

And one man only remained, alone in the midst of the plain and we recognised who it was

And then it was that I also

Fled, wishing to see no more.

(Profound silence. Pause.

The First Subaltern (bending over the precipice): I see a crowd of men approaching at a gallop.

Many Voices (calling from below): Ho!

(Echo.

(They let down the rope after having fastened a large plank to it by means of chains.

(The soldiers hoist the tackle. And soon over the brink of the precipice, on the plank where lies the body of tÊte-d'or, emerges the group of Captains, so crowded that some dangle their legs in the void, and others are clinging to the chains.

(The group rises almost to the height of the sun, which it obscures, then the tackle turns and the plank slowly descends to the earth. They alight.

A Captain (shouting and indicating the Standard with a gesture): Rend the silk from the ensign and tear the banner in two!

And take the staff and break it over your knee!

For now the eagle returns from a dolorous flight

Bearing the corpse of a man in its talons.

See what we bring, as we rise to this bleak and lofty place,

That here we may hold the rites of burial, on this portal of the world, at this place whence all the earth is visible.

Thus about this dead body we re-assemble like birds.

Begone from us, O sun!

Second: O TÊte-d'or! O master! O King! O King!

We have soared to this place, all your eaglets, bearing you back with us.

O dead body!

Let the woman weep over her first-born son! The man shall cry, mourning the death of his King, and tears shall appear on his face,

And he shall not be comforted.

Third: Begone from us, O sun! Leave us alone and insult us no longer.

Now the earth turns its face towards night, and you, who stood in your place like a mountain, disappear! You see this, Father!

Look, we reveal him to you, that you may put your mouth on our misery!

Now leave us alone that we may mourn this prey that we hold between our hands.

O King! O King!

Like the Angel that bears the seal of life you rose towards the Unchanging!

And now we bring you back with us, having lifted you from the ground.

Gaze upon this! Behold it, mountains, and you O forests, that sprang from the fraternal tree!

Let a shudder run through the roots of all that grows because the King of men is dead!

O malediction on man! O death! O condemnation!

O prisoning place! O horror of the place in which we are!

O King! O King!

You are dead and it is death we are holding in our hands!

The Standard Bearer: Stop! Put an end to this fury!—You force me to speak.

Grief, arises within me like the longing to vomit felt by a woman with child,

And the tears that I would shed

Freeze, as when Christmas time prevents the winter from weeping!

—Here! Lay him here, with funereal pomp expose the royal body

On this square rock employed in ancient rites,

That the form of the bleeding man may there appear once more

In the eyes of the heavens and the earth!

(They raise the body.

So your army was defeated?

The Captain: Know that we were victorious. All is ended.

(The body is laid upon the rock.

The Standard Bearer: Behold it! See!

Head! Hands! O body defiled and stained! Is it thus he is stretched supine!

He lies

Bleeding, eyes closed, teeth showing,

His cheeks all crusted with sand!

Fetch water! Wash him! Let one of you become his serving-maid!

Here we are one beside the other

Like heirs in the empty house of a dead man.

(They remove his helmet and loosen his hair.

Cassius (howling): O hair!

O master! Master! Who will give Cassius another pang to satisfy his passion!

(He tears his face.

Oh! that my nails would fill themselves with foulness!

That my limbs, that this frame

Would grow old and like the charred log cover itself with scales of ash!

That this snout

Would grow the tusks of a boar and dig the earth like a ploughshare!

Our leader is dead. O beasts, my brothers, hail!

The Standard Bearer (to one of these who is caring for tÊte-d'or): You hold his hair on your arm and you bury there the comb.

And also the comb buries itself in my soul and I see this as though it were in a dream.

O soldiers, what has happened?

The Centurion: What do you wish to know?

Is not this enough? What more do you wish to learn?

Cursed be this country into which we have come!

Cassius: It is I who will speak and tell you everything.

And as it was I who announced victory so now shall I proclaim death!

Certainly death was our guide

When counter to the course of the sun we advanced across the infinite plain

And, looking back, beheld the mountains behind us.

At noon we sat and ate, then we took up our march again.

But know that the heat was intolerable

And under the weight of their packs and arms the soldiers died like flies,

For the sun consumed us and we could find no shelter.

And at two o'clock the wind arose, blowing the sand,

And we remained there swallowed up like men engulfed in the earth,

And when we emerged from the dust,

We saw the red sun burning above our heads like a Moloch,

And before us there lay an army.

The Standard Bearer: But what army?

Cassius: Be still and do not uselessly interrupt me.

Assuredly antique humanity had come before its sister.

And as of old on the day of the separation we carefully considered one another.

Their faces are nearer than ours to the color of the earth,

And we saw in their hands the primitive arms and tools, and in their midst were set the kings and the chieftains, and above their heads the ancient idols swayed,

The squatting, three-faced monsters, each brandishing six pairs of arms,

And camels also were there and ranks of elephants, and tigers in wooden cages,

And we heard the hollow thunder of gongs.

Thus we gazed at each other,

For our forebears descended on Europe, who like a man with outstretched arms lies upon the bosom of the waters,

And theirs remained to multiply in the place in which they were.

And we had lived our life in war and in tears, beset

By the spirits of turbulence and wrath that rise from the restless and uninhabited sea.

And over them with hangman's hands had been securely established the domination

Of Brahma, Prince of Error, and Buddha, the demon of Peace,

And above us burned the inflamed face of the sun.

Voice: O!

Cassius: There we were,

Hair full of sand, wading in sand up to the fleshy part of the leg,

And seeing that multitude confronting us,

Fear entered into us and a distaste for fighting, and for going forward forever on the face of that desert land.

And we saw that we were few and dispersed and our cannon were sunk in the sand.

And the King exhorted us, stretching out his arms,

And he pushed his horse here and there, but we did not listen to him,

And we did not turn our eyes away from the foe,

And from their ranks.

As the nomads of the caravans are wont to cry to each other with an enormous perforated shell, we heard the blowing of a conch or horn!

O but the sound was sad and harsh!

Voice: O!

Cassius: Thus did this primal people speak to us.

And nothing could longer restrain us, but the army like one man irresistibly recoiled.

And, O shame, they began to flee!

Voice: O! O!

Cassius: This the King saw and he did not try to prevent it, and he alone remained.

Then he threw his sword to the ground, and dismounting from his horse he unbridled it.

And alone he advanced against the opposing army, holding the bit to heaven,

Thus we saw him advance

Like a wrathful pigeon that leaps towards the female dragging its wings.

Voice: O!

Cassius: This we saw! And they threw themselves upon him tooth and nail like savage rats.

And there were some who took him by the arms and others by the legs and others caught at his head from behind,

And we, unhappy wretches, we saw him towering out of the midst of them, engulfed as far as the girdle.

And he struggled like a horse that dogs have gripped by the ears

Crying out in a dreadful voice, and with his loins dragging his living prison this way and that!

And there was one who, holding his sword in both hands,

Sought for the joint of the armor, like a cook who opens a crab with the point of a knife.

Voice: O!

Cassius: O!

What a clear and poignant cry we heard him give, like mighty Pallas feeling the grasp of the Satyr,

Such that the memory of it made

Our bones vibrate like instruments!

And we recognised the voice as the woman knows the cry of her mate,

And we also cried aloud and in frantic haste rushed forward.

Three times we charged that multitude, and in the end, yielding beneath our despair, they scattered like a flock.

And as the affrighted Hindu

Turns in his course

To watch the wounded elephant, mad with pain,

Who pursues him like a mountain across the dazzling ricefields, thus they saw our army charging close at their heels.

And we found our king again, lying upon the ground,

Like a sack of gold that robbers had abandoned,

Dead, bereft of breath.

And now we return bearing away this spoil.

Voice: O! Alas! O King, O King!

Cassius: Cry louder! Let the earth be broken in two!

Let the revelation of the sun be quenched!

Let the Tree of Eternity, that like oranges bears the worlds

And like apples and like sugared figs and grapes,

Crash down its roots in air!

For man has terminated here his greatest enterprise. Now all is ended.

And he did not prevail

Against the power that holds things in place.

Cry louder!

Let your tears pour forth in floods! Go to your homes and throw yourselves on the ground!

As for me, O King, I loved you.

You were my life and with wonder I looked upon you, King of men!

And your herald goes before you!

Hark to the voice of the herald! Everything is ended.

All effort has come to its vain conclusion.

—And I, Cassius, having proclaimed these tidings,

I disappear.

(He throws himself over the precipice.

(Pause.

(Someone approaches and bends over the body of tÊte-d'or.

The Centurion: What is he doing?

A Captain: It is the surgeon.

The Centurion: At what is he looking? The King is dead.

Another: No, for the body is not yet rigid.

Another: What did you say? Have we brought him back with us alive?

(The surgeon signs to them to stop talking.

(Silence.

One of the Bystanders: Well?

The Surgeon: Give me the sponge. Help me. Remove his cuirass.

Gently!

Loosen his clothes at the throat.

(They do as he says.

A Captain: O reddened body! O mutilated body!

Another: The bleeding has stopped.

(The surgeon puts his ear to the chest of tÊte-d'or.—Silence.

The Centurion (aside): For what does he still search?

First Captain: He is clever. He has the ear of a maker of clocks.

He listens like a mole.

The Surgeon (rising): He lives.

The Centurion: He lives? Will he recover?

The Surgeon: No. (He buries a finger in one of the wounds.)

The King (uttering a cry): Ah!

The Centurion: He is coming to himself.

(Pause. The king regains consciousness and looks about him.

The King: Is there a surgeon here?

The Surgeon: I am a surgeon, Sire.

The King: Shall I die?

(The surgeon, who is washing his hands, nods his head.

The King: Who will stand before me and gnash his teeth in my face, and swear

That I am only a sabre of wood and that, like some ridiculous baby,

I have brought my host to this desert, confounding marches and battles with things in story books.

Cowards!

Cowards,

Cowards! A plague upon me for having trusted you, cowards!

I have been thrown to the ground and the mob has stamped on my body,

And here I lie struck down and brought to nought!

Come, do not be afraid! See, I am weak and defenceless! Throw yourselves upon me like animals!

Beat out my brains with your clubs! Strike! Kick me to death with your boots!

The Surgeon: Take care. You have started the bleeding again.

The King: Let each of these new eyes

Pour forth its sap like tears! And let me become as red as Mars, and let me be resplendent with your shame

Like a mirror!

—But were you conquerors?

The Centurion: We were, Sire.

The King: I have no strength. I can do nothing more.

O stout limbs now broken, I, I,

I lie here at your mercy, more feeble than a debauched old man,

Than some vile candle-end whose liquorous eye pours forth its flame! This wretched body, this ignoble thing,

Refuses to my soul its proper speech!

What force is failing me? You abandon me, Royal Power!

You are a doctor?

The Surgeon: Yes.

The King: Bring me health to drink in a cup and hold it to my lips! Restore my strength again!

I have no more power! I myself cannot be born again!

There, there,—

The Surgeon: What is it that you want?

The King: There, there, all about me, here,

These clothes I still have on, these plates of iron. Quickly!

Rid me of these rags. Let me wholly reveal myself

As on the day the maternal habitation put the male out of doors! Let me be naked!

O healing brews, O balms!

Linen fresh and white, envelop me in linen!

Wrap me in a napkin like a loaf of bread!

(They do as he says.

The Surgeon: You are feeling better now?

The King: Bound in swaddling bands like a baby.

(Pause.

The Centurion: Simon!

The King: What name do I hear? Who calls me?

The Centurion: Agnel! Simon Agnel!

The King: Who dares to call me so?

The Centurion: I, I dare! Let me weep above you, my royal brother!

Here you lie and you touch the earth with your head.

Arise, stand erect and draw the sword, uplift in your hand the sceptre!

O my royal brother, prone you lie on the ground and I am bending above you!

The Standard Bearer: Alas, O King!

The Commander of the Cavalry: Alas!

A Captain: Alas!

Another: Master, master! Do you, our ruler, abandon us?

The King: What do you wish of me? Devour me!

The Centurion: Ruined stature of our hope! Image bloody and wasted!

Open your arms at the moment of your death, and press to your breast in farewell, the sheaf of your geniuses with their sublime faces!

Whence have you drawn your courage and your strength?

Here instruct us, lest we despair! O

Noble effort, you disappear whelmed in the holocaust!

(Pause.

The King (crying out): Ah! Ah! Ah!

First Captain: What convulsion seizes him?

The King (crying out): Ah, ah, alas! Ah, ah, alas! Ah, alas!

Second Captain: He remembers! He remembers! Wrath enters into him and he rears himself up like a half-killed cat!

Third: The soul in such crises will forget

The death of the body, even as a woman forgets that she is naked.

The King: My dream! My dream!

My hope torn from my jaws, and wholly lost!

Ah! ah!

Why

Was this force given to me when I still could stand erect? Why this desire

Voracious, obstinate, insatiable?

O passion!

O soul for which nothing existed too great! And see, these hands

Clasp the void and take hold on nothing!

O vanquished soul! O futile thing that I am!

Miserably, O miserably have I been cast to the earth and slain!

The Centurion: Answer us, TÊte-d'or! Who will establish justice among the people? The justice that rests on force?

The King: Certainly I have failed in my promises.

But it matters little.—I wish, I wish—

The Centurion: You have not received, having given.

The King: I could not do it! I could not do it, I am not a god.

In what have I been lacking? Where do you find my fault?

(He tears off the bandages) Rend me, hiccough! Off with you, rag! And let each spring

Burst forth with a bubble as large as the eye-ball of a horse!

Creatures who revel in omnipotence, behold me, lying in this cursed place, a wretched man pouring forth streams of blood!

Ah! ah! Sparks of fire, the tide of battle!

And the troating warrior, like a tower, the shaggy horse with hands of horn! Ah! ah!

Charge! Forward! Forward!

—Redness, hole, mouth, gullet of glory, insupportable gate! O you mighty Beings,

Let them cut off my hands and my feet, and to you I will stretch the stumps, and on my bones

I will march to you! To you!

First Captain: What a sight to see!

Second: Hold his feet, wipe the foam from his mouth.

Third: Horror! More than horror! Spectacle

Lamentable, detestable, terrible, pitiable! And we have

Two eyes to see this, stupidly ranged about him, like cattle that gather around a watering-place!

The Centurion: Calm yourself, O King!

The Standard Bearer: How the blood jets out of him!

How the mare shakes her mane in the breeze! What life

Like that of a tiger is taken in his bones! How he roars, how he

Writhes, smearing the altar with blood, till it trickles down in rills,

And all about him the earth drinks.

(The king calms himself.

First Captain (to another who has turned his head towards the West):

—What is it that you see?

Second Captain: What a conflagration flares in the sky!

(All turn their eyes towards the West.

Third Captain: A street

Is opened through the stony breast of the earth.

And the wall is so high that the trees that cling there appear like tufts of laurel.

And here and there, detaching themselves from the ancient rock, the forms of monsters watch on the cornices, and what might be the ruins of bygone cities.

And the Sun stands at the end in his magnificence and in a dreadful splendor.

Everything is full of gold and we stand confronting a blinding glory.

The King: He founders! He founders! He falls!

He sinks towards the nether abyss.

It is not the Sun, it is the dreadfully flaming citadel of our hope!

And man will not make a higher ascent lest together his path and he plunge headlong!

You, springs, tomb of the forests where I have lived so long, branches charged with malediction, paths, deep-sunken roads,

See what injustice I suffer!

To-day I try in vain to escape from an innocent sepulchre!

And you, like an everlasting face,

Infinite riches of the year, world abounding in fruits,

I shall not possess you, crowned like the mother of Zeus!

And I shall not kiss you like a King, O Peace!

King not by chance but by force and truth,

O earth! O earth that I cannot conquer!

(He throws himself on the ground.

(They raise him and replace him on the rock.

(Confused clamor below.

A Captain (leaning over the precipice): It is the army returning.

Another: They draw themselves up at the foot of this precipice.

The Centurion: Is he still alive?

The Surgeon: He lives. I cannot understand how.

First Captain: Let us go! What do we still await?

(The centurion raises his hand.

Second Captain: He is coming to himself. His eyes re-open.

The Centurion: Sire, how is it with you?

The King: How long has it been

Since I

Was living?

First Captain: You were unconscious some minutes.

The King: Death has surrendered me. Some minutes?

The First Captain: Yes.

The King: I lay there during centuries of matter. A slumber—

Second Captain: What does he say?

Third: He speaks of slumber.

The King:—A slumber vile, inert, constraining. A detestable oblivion. There only the soul exists.

I have touched the bottom and now like a diver I rise again.

I have lived.

Ah!

Who would try to make me believe

That I have been different from other men?

A man of fantastic dreams!

No! For I have been a man of strong desires.

—What could I do? Reply!

I have striven with agony. In what have I fallen short of what I might have done? All, all failed!

And I remained alone and I did not despair, but still believed.

And I die. But the royal sign

Shall not be effaced from my brow.

First Captain: Yes, TÊte-d'or.

The King: If I have been impure in anything,

I ask for pardon. My desire

Has been for mighty things.

—If you love me, do not let me succumb to this horrible feebleness! Ah!

Ah! Things not attained!

Cut me to pieces! Wrench my limbs from their sockets!

Dismember me and fix my quarters above the gates of cities,

That cowards may be shamed and infants in the wombs of their mothers may be given ferocious souls!

(Clamor below.

The Centurion: O King, your army is there drawn up in the depths below,

And they call us, pressing against the base of the cliff, for they think that you are dead.

The King: Certainly I am dead.

Throw them my clothes! Throw them the spoils of my body!

For I strip myself since they have abandoned me. And to them revert the effects of the deceased.

Throw them the standard also. All the sky is my standard!

(They kneel all around him.

The Centurion: O King, pardon us!

First Captain: Pardon us, O King! And do not keep your anger against us, but pardon!

Second: Pardon us.

The King (stretching out his hand): Farewell, my friends!

The Centurion: Farewell, King of men!

Let me kiss you, royal hand! O fist more precious than a draught of water!

The King: Farewell to you! Men, farewell!

Gestures, the sound of steps in withered leaves, stumbled phrases

Repeated with an idiot's stubborn fury, a confusion of faces and words. All this for a moment.

And yet with attentive ears they hearken to the rustle of laurel leaves or, with wide eyes regarding the holy redness,

Of the evening of the seasons, they wish to be content.

As for me I have made you rise from your idleness,

And I have summoned you out of the shade in which you sat,

And I brought you an order, and this is the order I gave you, I commanded you to go forth!

Neither the world nor the multitude of men has prevailed against us.

And I led you up to this empty space. For here is the place where it has been ordained that I should die.

Then leave me now. Farewell to you, my comrades!

I will die alone!

A Captain: Alas!

The King: Why, alas? Farewell, my comrades. It was destined that this should be.

Farewell, I love you all.

What place is this, Centurion?

The Centurion: It is the upper pass. More rugged and difficult than the lower.

The King: Destroy the roads! Block the approaches with stones and the trunks of trees

That men may not trouble me: for I do not wish to go down into the earth again.

This will suffice. Do not lament. And do not order my army to display some emphatic sign of grief.

Go, nor look behind.

The matter is between myself and oblivion.

—I see above me the air that envelops all, and these gigantic trees,

Like half-burned piles in the rivers of air, thrusting up devastated boughs

To the silent call of this wall of conflagration,

Giving back, as they sway together, a muffled bleating.

Here I lie to rot, to lose my face like a veil,

Grinning at the moon through knots of crawling worms.

The Standard Bearer: Do you think that man, being dead, is born again?

The King: I do not believe in the fables of old women;

Nor that the sooth-sayer, urging on his plough, sees Tagus sprout from the furrow;

Nor that there exists in this temple of the world

Any god other than ignorant man,

Nor that this child of the woman,

When he has rendered up his mortal form,

Shall be born again from the womb of Isis.

A Captain: What did you say?

The King: Here I swear it to you and call the black Night to witness....

Nothing. It is a matter of no importance. I care but little about that Afterwards

Which makes up all the song ... one single word.

And in truth I should also care but little about what comes Before! And yet

I can say that unsatisfied I go from the theatre. I die and I am living!

—But for the strongest bulls this life is naught but a dandelion in the wind!

Why should we wish to fortify our eyes

Against the continual fatigue of sleep

—Yet—Listen to me!—while you live—

A Captain: We are listening.

The King: Listen to these last words that I can say! And first

I desire for you a soaring mind, a courage with shoes of fire,

As the young man chafes with impatience at the prisoning walls of his home

When he has put on his boots, and dashing out, skims over the mud as if he were on wings!

I bid you beware of compromise and of altering yourselves,

But keep your heart immovable like a millstone, like the holy bonds of your inheritance!

Take a resolution and steadfastly follow it! Tread everything under your feet, your wife and your house and yourself, as you would tread on a garment. Beware of any change! For aside from yourself what is there, can you tell me? And you yourself are something.—Lay your foundations there.

Of yourselves alone are you surely masters. Beware of being dispossessed.

And I,

I have believed myself a power more than human, an elemental force! I have appeared in the midst of your monotonous week.

I can speak no longer. God! I die anew. Shall I reappear again?

Farewell!

I have come to the furthest verge of life, and now once more

I sink in a sea of shadows.

(He faints.

The Standard Bearer: Reverently wipe the foam from his lips!

We must go and leave him alone! Let him repose in his place; TÊte-d'or,

Who, never knowing human incertitude, held to his one inextinguishable desire, is now no more.

First Captain: The future is only a landscape reflected in the water, the past is of less account than a beechnut and the present is nothing at all.

The Master of the Cavalry: See, it is time for us to return, for yonder beyond the mountain,

Leaving a road piled high with sorrow, the sun is engulfed in mist!

It is the moment when in summer at the time when cherries are ripe and the air is filled with a universal song

And the children bathe above the mills and naked eat their lunches, while a blanched half-moon is suspended in the sky;

Trees, waters, the borders of ditches, the expanse of ripening fields flame beneath the mysterious splendor of the hour of Saturn.

—Now that it is Autumn perhaps some old woman at home, mother or servant-maid,

Thinks of us as she gathers in the washing from the line or sits in the courtyard working at her sewing.

The air still sweet grows fresher; the towering walnut trees

Cover the church with shade and the rooks are drowsing upon the cross!

The Centurion: A gorgonian lamentation fills the mountains and the valleys,

The Bear of night has seized the sun between his paws

And the spacious forests of oaks and pines have shuddered at the sight.

Birds, that pass in the desert day, flee more swiftly, far away, wild geese and herons!

And bearing this news

Arrest with a long and piercing cry the traveller on his road, so that he says to himself, "What has it seen?"

"Whence does it come? What does it mean, this mournful cry in the distance?"

What furnace fires these cantons of gold? What chase leads the wind in the desert and the country of infinite trees? What lament is this that rises?

Certainly someone great is going to die and that is why the wind is raised,

That it may bear away the flame of his soul, and that the oak may be shaken to its base.

It is Nature who demands that she should receive again her illustrious child!

She has lent him to us long enough to perform the task ordained,

And now she takes him back again, the cycle being completed.

And we, insensible and stupid,

We have let him slip from our hands like flashing gold that falls and sinks in the stream!

—O days sublime!

(They all go out at the back, except one of the captains who goes in another direction.

(Silence. Then rolling of funeral drums below.

The Princess: No! No!

I do not wish to re-open my eyes!

Ah! ah! I suffer! Ho! ho!

I am alive—

Rending pain pierces me!

I am still alive!

(She opens her eyes and tries to walk and lower her arms.

Ah!

—O

God!—

O hands! O, O arms! I am fastened here by the hands!

And racked, I fell into a dream, unhappy girl that I am!

I see again! The troubled day brings the arduous end of life.

How long must I remain here? The day draws to its end.

—Who is there? What man is that?

Ah! It is he! Yes,

He of whom they spoke when the violence

Of the pain made me swoon towards death.—Dead!

O TÊte-d'or!

You are dead before me and soon I shall follow you.

(The king stirs and sighs.

He is not dead.

The King: Ah!

The Princess: His soul returns to him. He has been wounded in some combat. He is covered with blood.

But why have they left him thus dishevelled and uncleansed?

The King: Ah!

The Princess: I will not speak. Thus do we die together!

(She sobs.) But truly this pain is unbearable!

My God!

My bones! My arms! Ah! ah!

(She utters a sharp cry.

The King: What cry is that? Who is there?

The Princess: He heard me. What have I done?

The King: Someone uttered a cry. Is there anyone here?

(Silence.

The Princess (in a very low voice): It is I.

The King: Is there anyone here? I seem to hear a voice that says, "It is I."

The Princess (more loudly): It is I.

The King: Who are you?

The Princess: I am the one to whom you gave your bread

This morning, and your mantle also.

The King: This morning? So now you speak? You speak my language?

Yet that cry that I heard ... I know that voice.

The Princess: The Queen.

(Silence.

The King: You are not that till I am dead.

Are you glad to see me?

The Princess: Yes, I am content.

The King: What did you say? Draw nearer. I have robbed you of everything. Come and avenge yourself upon my body with the malice only known by women who hate. (He laughs.)

The Princess: Are you wounded

Mortally?

The King: Yes.

The Princess: I cannot come to you.

The King: Why not?

The Princess: I am fastened by the hands.

The King: What did you say?

The Princess: When you usurped my father's place

And had me driven away,

I became a wanderer,

And no one wished to take me in for they were afraid of you.

And at last I found a refuge in the mountains, among the trees and shrubs,

And savage animals, far from the eyes of men.

And this morning after you had given me your bread....

—And so you did not recognise me?

The King: No.

The Princess: Am I so changed? I know that my beauty is gone.

—... A man threw himself upon me and took it from me,

—And that did not satisfy his evil soul. But he has, ah! ah!

The King: Well?

The Princess: ... By the hands, ah!

The King: Well?

The Princess: He has nailed me to a tree.

I have been here many hours.

Why I die, I do not know.

But as for you, I have called to you

To tell you that you die justly,

Because I ought to be the Queen and you ought not to be the King.

And to-day we are both dying in the same place.

The King: You are nailed by the hands!

The Princess: Yes. What is that to you?

I am weak. I shall be the first to die.

The King: How is it you have not been seen?

The Princess: I am fastened to a pine

Whose branches make a roof that descends to the ground in front of me.

The King: Where is this tree?

The Princess: I am just behind you.

The King: Now

When it is more difficult to stir one foot than the whole mass of an empire

I must rise

From the lazy bed of death.

(He struggles to his feet and walks toward her, reeling.

The Princess: What are you doing?

The King: This way?

The Princess: Leave me! What are you doing?

Why do you come?

The King: Is it you that I hold? I can no longer see distinctly. Let me

Lean upon you till I can get my breath. I can do no more!

I need your help to keep myself on my feet.

(Pause.

Where are your hands?

The Princess: What can you do?

The King: Where are your hands? I tell you that now I cannot see distinctly.

Quickly, before I fall.

I feel your hair. Your arms are here.

I cannot raise my arms. My hands are dead

Like those of a man who has stayed too long in cold water.

But there is still strength in my head. My teeth shall serve for pincers.

(He pulls the nail out of the left hand.

One hand—the other.

(He pulls out the other nail.

Ah!

(He reels violently.

The Princess: You are falling! Take care!

The King: I plunge my thighs in the void! Death shakes me violently!

I am falling! I am falling!

Do not forget that I have drawn out the nails from your hands.

(He falls before her.

(The princess sways and falls to her knees and remains crouching beside him.

The Princess: It is not just that he should die stretched on the ground here. I must carry him back.

(She tries to raise him.

How heavy he is! I cannot do it! And yet it must be done!

With these maimed hands, these arms that are weaker than tendrils of ivy, this body that cannot even support its own weight.

(She carries him with difficulty to the funeral bier where she replaces him.

I have done it! I have rivalled the black ant that drags a burden greater than itself.

(She puts her ear to the breast of the king.

But who would have believed

That he could still be alive! I hear the beating of his heart.

Here I will wait until it is silent

Or until mine has stopped.

—No. He awakes.

The King (he looks at her with friendly eyes): Behold the courage of the wounded, the strength that sustains the weak,

The fellowship of the dying. She could carry me here with these bleeding and dislocated hands.

Through this same meek courage with which you have dragged me here, through this naive endurance,

The woman in her sphere is the image of an inspired resignation, teaching good will to men,

As formerly, servant of the house, she became servant of God.

And it is you

Who join me once more in this place where I must perish!

Do not be ashamed because you see me naked.

It is needful at times that the woman, wife or nurse,

Should contemplate man in his virility.

Consider it! I was man! And through me the strength of the man has satisfied his will,

And suddenly I have been broken! I have been thrown, like carrion, under the shadow of a tree!

Those others, I did not wish to have them see me die. But we cannot hide ourselves

From the eyes of the woman who bears us children. Stay, if this pleases you,

My enemy! What do you say? Do you think that our obstinate souls

Do not wish to keep their grievance?

Mine still preserves a savor of ancient rancour against you,

For you come of a race of enemies.—And yet

I thank you.

The Princess: I do not wish

To have you thank me.

The King (scrutinising her): Your face is beautiful and in itself sets forth your sovereignty.

—You hate me with reason. For it seems

That we must hate those who have done us wrong.

And you

Have much to lay at my door. Avenge yourself

On these pitiable remains!

But I beg you to do one of two things,

Either kill me, if such is your will, upon the instant,

Or let me die and do not trouble me with your importunate cries.

It is the moment in which I would meditate alone.

The Princess: I do not hate you.

The King: I am glad. Farewell, young girl.

(He smiles at her.

(Pause.

The Princess: O TÊte-d'or!

I do not regret that you killed my father!

How happy I am! It is you

Who took my royal throne, and it is through your doing

That I have walked the roads with weary feet, in shame and poverty, despised, insulted, denied, and that I have come to this place and that I die!

And I could wish that it had been you

Who nailed me to that tree,

And I would have closed my eyes to feel the better,

And loving you I would have died in silence.

My very dear! O my most precious one!

You see, this injury that you did me was not in vain.

I die indeed like you! This last, this lingering suffering has frozen me to death.

O let me be like the gathered flower that smells the sweeter, and like the new-mown grass!

O I am happy to think that there is not one of my many sufferings but had its source in you,

And that now I can breathe them back to you, like a perfume, O my master!

The King: O Pity with hands transpierced!

Sweet as the last of the sun!

Happy is he who can take this rapture in his arms and kiss it on the softness of its cheek!

I am overjoyed to see you, Benediction!

As the supreme sun

Dyes golden the saliva on the lips and the tears in the eyes and the dew in its rose-leaf cradle,

And makes a multitude happy in the mist....

I do not see clearly! Listen to what I have to say to you.

Death presses me!

The Princess: Do not die yet, I beg of you!

The King: Death is nothing; but here, here is the final throe!

On what a breast do you lay your head, Compassion!

The vintage is wholly trodden, and from my wounds there oozes only water.

I did not wish to weep, but to arise and walk.

But man goes only forward and he must halt at last.

And from his eyes gush forth the waters

Of that sea whose tide is the same for every breast.

It has been given to you to charm all hearts, august shoot of the cedar!

The Princess: I give you all that I have.

The King: And I also was not destitute of glory.

Ha! ha!

The Princess: Do not laugh thus with that contorted mouth!

The King: Shadows! Shadows!

Call back the army that I may solemnly address them,

Call back the army that I may explain to them everything, having woefully arisen.

Shadows on every man!

Wretched men, most wretched among you all is the person of the King that lies here.

O earth, receive my body! O death, accept my mysterious soul!

The Princess: O TÊte-d'or, do not die so desolate!

The King: Ah! Ah!

The Princess: Listen, my brother!

The King: Ah!

The Princess (putting her hand on his head): Hush! Hush!

—You were able

To resurrect the ruin of your body,

And, in despite of death,

Incarnate suffering, to make your way to me, emerging from the tomb like a man that had been flayed!

O sight to wring the heart,

That, royal both, we should encounter thus!

You, robed in blood, and I,

A tortured thing, transfixed against a tree,

Sunk in a stupor, blind, like a wretched caterpillar!

You have delivered me!

And I,

I shall not permit you to die in such despair.

No, do not think that you can do it!

She will not abandon you, she whom you have delivered,

Pressing your mouth against the palms of her bleeding hands!

Behold you have delivered one who is stronger than yourself!

The King: No, woman! You cannot

Take this life in your hair.

Live! Be queen! All that I have I leave to you.

Mortal man,

As a traveller benighted in bitter cold takes refuge in the entrails of his horse,

Comforts himself with his woman, seizing her by the breast.

But as for me, I do not desire you.

Let me die alone!

Once more

Like a flame there rolls

In my breast the great desire.

Ah!

The child of my mother

Has been enmeshed in a whirling fury, as his face is enmeshed by the soft and terrestrial flame of his hair;

But now I, a better mother, I myself like a rigid son, shall give birth to a hairy soul!

I hope! I hope! I aspire.

You cannot undo this tough soul with your woman's nails.

Again it fills its iron harness.

—Ah! I see again! Ah! ah!

(The sun near its setting fills all the scene with an immense redness.

O sun! You, my

Only love! O gulf and fire! O abyss! O blood!

O blood! O

Door! Gold! Gold! Absorb me, anger!

The Princess: How his thirst upraises him.

The King: I see.

—An odor of violets excites my soul to undo it.

The Princess: TÊte-d'or, think of me!

The King: O Father,

Come! O Smile, recline upon me.

As the folk of the vintage before the vats

Go out from the house of the wine-press by all the doors like a torrent,

My blood by all these wounds goes out to meet you in triumph.

I die. Who shall relate

That dying, arms outstretched, I held the sun on my breast like a wheel?

O Prince, clothed with glory,

Breast against breast you mingle yourself in my terrestrial blood! Drink the slave!

O lion, you overwhelm me! O eagle, you grasp me in your talons!

The Princess: He is dead.

O body, you repose in incorruptible gold.

(Silence.

I remember everything, the winter, the days of feasting,

The people I knew, the times of rejoicing and of mourning, the changes of the weather, the countries I have seen,

And my robes that were kept in the cypress chest.

O Prince! O Master! King of men!

(Pause.

(Steps. Voices behind the scenes.

(Enter the commander of the second army with other officers.

The Commander: Here?

The Captain: Here, on this rock in the middle.

The Commander: I do not dare to advance. Monarchy reposes in these shadows.

The Captain: He is there.

The Commander (perceiving the princess): But who is that? Whom have you left beside him?

The Captain: No one.

The Commander: No one? Yet yonder are hands and the semblance of a face. Look.

An Officer: Yes. There is someone there beside the bier.

The Captain: It is most astonishing. I saw them all depart before I set out myself to meet you.

The Commander: Hola! Is there someone living in the shade of the trees and the night?

The Officer: No answer.

The Commander: Let us advance.

(Together they approach.

First Officer: A young girl.

Second Officer: And fainting or dead.

The Commander: Care for her. Find if she lives!...

And I for him

Lying here with a face so pale....

(He puts his hand, on the breast of the king.

The Princess: Ah!

First Officer: Does she live?

Second Officer: Yes. She is coming to herself.

The Commander: Both live.

First Officer: What did you say?

The Commander: A glimmer of life like the fire in a dying coal. The four limbs are dead; but still the heart stirs beneath the touch of the fingers.

And see!

Second Officer: Yes; his lips are moving.

First Officer: Speak to him. Perhaps he will hear. And if he hears he may contrive to speak.

The Commander: O King! I am the head of the second army.

Have you anything to say to me?

The King: Let her ... let her....

The Commander: Did you hear?

The King: Let her be....

The Commander: Let her be ...?

First Officer: What? Speak.

The King: Qu....

(He dies.

The Commander: Peace to his soul!

The Second Officer: He said "Queen," I heard him.

The Commander: Let her be Queen?

Another Officer (who supports the princess): Ah! A thing horrible and very strange!

See!

Another: Her hands bleed.

Another: Pierced through and through!

The Commander: Who can she be? Let her be Queen? Who? Have any of you seen this wild, creature before?

First Officer: No.

Someone: I know

That face,

That face in so far as I can see

In the obscurity of the twilight.

The Commander: Who is she?

(The princess regains consciousness.

The Man (staring at her): I know it....

No longer.

The Princess: What men are you? Let me go!

(She frees herself and falls.

Someone: She speaks our language.

The Commander: Lift her with all respect.

(They support her in their arms.

Young girl, can you hear me?

The Princess: Yes.

The Commander: Who are you?

The Princess: Why should I hide it? Your former King who was killed by that man there....

The Commander: Are you his daughter?

The Princess: I am.

The Commander: TÊte-d'or

Commands that you be Queen.

The Princess: He said this to you?

The Commander: Yes, with his last breath.

The Princess: Then let it be according to his wish.

The Commander: What he wished, we also wish.

The Princess: Make haste! Clothe me again in the garments of a queen.

The Commander: What did you say?

The Princess: The coronation costume. Put it on me.

The crown and the sceptre.

The Commander: Go search for it, one of you. The royal treasures are packed among our stores.

(An Officer goes out.

The Commander (to the princess): I am astonished to see you.

The Princess: After I had left your country

I was pursued

Thus far. And here I lived.

But have you never seen me

Before?

The Commander: Never.

The Princess: You will be faithful to me?

The Commander: Yes, Queen.

The Princess: All is well.

(Enter many men hearing various parts of the coronation costume.

The Princess: These are the things I asked for?

The Commander: Yes.

The Princess: You must serve as my maids, soldiers.

My strength is gone.

The Commander (to another): You, support her beneath the other arm.

(They present to her one by one the parts of the coronation costume.

First Officer: The long chemise, the Alb.

(They put them on her.

The Princess: I saw him....

The Commander: It is true. At the last moment of his life.

The Princess: One desire lived in him

Still. Certainly a desire still burned in his breast.

—The robe.

Second Officer: Here it is.

The Princess: Hide me under the costume of the Queen.

(They put the robe on her.

The Princess: The sleeves. Gently, gently, my friends! Ah!

Have patience. My arms are somewhat rusty.

The Commander: O Queen, let me take your foot.

(They remove the hide boot and put a sandal in its place.

Third Officer: This that you remove is the shoe of the exile.

The Commander: And they place upon your foot the imperial sandal with fastenings of gold.

(They do the same for the other foot.

The Princess: What is there still to do? Throw the mantle over my shoulders. Quick, I am in haste! Fasten this clasp!

And you, place the crown on my head, O paranymph!

The Commander: Be Queen!

(He places the crown on her head.

The Princess: The sceptre. (They present it to her.) How shall I hold it? (To the commander.) See this hand!

(She turns it painfully from side to side.

The Commander: It bleeds!

The Princess: Poor hand!

(She looks at it with a kind of smile.

I have been nailed....

The Commander: Nailed!

The Princess: Know that I have been nailed by the hands.

What are they good for? Nailed like a bird of the night.

Like the tree that is crucified that it may fructify.

The Commander: You have suffered a great outrage.

The Princess: I cannot hold the golden sceptre and yet I must. Help me.

Clench my fist with your hand that I may hold it erect.

(She grasps the sceptre.

The Commander: Hail to you, Queen!

All: Hail!

The Princess: Indeed there still is dimly visible

Through thickening veils of murky air

The procurator of royalty,

The ruler of men, the bell-wether of the tribe.

I, woman, covered with this sumptuous apparel!

Nothing is lacking. The crown is on my head,

And the pompous train of the mantle sweeps the earth at my feet.

The Commander: Queen....

The Princess: Dust and ashes!

Why was I born what I am? It is only I.

I am the sovereign of a season that is ending.

Who calls me queen, unless it be the queen of things that exist no more,

Or of the leaves in the instant that they swim in the dusty air?

Already the mist submerges the valleys and, through the fog,

The Moon shines forth, like a beckoning finger with sharply pointed nail.

Lead me....

The Commander: Where?

The Princess: To your testator, there.

(She approaches the body of the king.

O dead body, do not refuse this present that I bring you.

It is to you that I speak, body!

That austere spirit

Who inhabited you is now as far removed

From you as from me.

—Oh, that I had been dowered with that soul! Here, all ungrateful more vainly than the urn of Aquarius empties itself....

—But you!

This is ineffable.

It is to you that I make this last offering, belovÈd dead.

—Help me to lower myself.

(She painfully sinks to her knees and kisses him on the lips, then rises.

You tremble, my heart?

I was born that I might live. And I die that I may....

(She dies.

First Officer: The Queen is dead.

Second Officer: How her head suddenly drooped beneath the crown!

The Commander: O Queen! O Empress still warm!

Third Officer: Her golden shoes have made

Only a rustling in the bed of leaves.

(Pause. The commander gently and respectfully lays the body of the Queen on the ground.

The Commander: Three dead Kings! Events most strange!

The laws of custom broken, human weakness surmounted, the obstacle of circumstances

Dissipated. And our effort, reaching a vain conclusion,

Undoes itself like a fold.

Place the queen on a shield, clad in her royal robes. We will bear her with us.

We must descend. The West, behind the shaggy boughs of sombre pines,

Grows pale, and Memnon cries in the mist!

Thus a hundred times before us

Hyperion will disappear in the clouds

Before our rear-most legion will see its flaming buckler sink in the blackness of the sea.

(They raise the body.

Exalt these shining feet which thus adorned to tread the earth no more shall retraverse

The people.

As for us, we understand how not to be afraid!

And if attacked we will show

Gums that are formidable yet.

(Retreat, scarcely perceptible in the distance.

Come! Those who go before us already are far away.

Forward! Home! To the West!

(They all go out.

FINIS.