Chantecler: Play in Four Acts

Chapter 26: Act Fourth The Night of the Nightingale

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About This Book

A verse drama set among anthropomorphic barnyard birds centers on a proud rooster whose conviction that his crowing sustains the dawn shapes his identity. Conversations and quarrels with hens, songbirds, and ostentatious fowl stage debates about art, vanity, sincerity, and leadership, while satiric and lyrical passages examine theatricality and human foibles. Across four acts, pastoral imagery, comic episodes, and escalating tensions force the community to face rivalries, external danger, and tests of courage, prompting reflection on commitment, sacrifice, and the responsibilities of belief.

Act Fourth
The Night of the Nightingale

In the Forest. Evening. Huge trees with thick gnarled roots. At the base of one of the trees, Time or a lightning stroke has hollowed a sort of chamber. Rising slopes carpeted with heather. Rabbit holes. Mosses. Toadstools. Stretched between two ferns, a great cobweb, spangled with water-drops. At the rise of the curtain, Rabbits are discovered on every side among the underbrush, peacefully inhaling the evening air. A time of serene silence and coolness.