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Colombine

Chapter 15: PHILOSOPHY
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About This Book

Set on a windswept hill that hides ancient Roman traces and fairy rings, the fantasy play blends rustic vernacular and commedia dell'arte figures to stage scenes of memory, folklore, and romantic rivalry. A fairylike maid meets two country labourers, recounts the site's layered past, and foretells a comic, ritualized duel between Harlequin and Pierrot for her affection. Interwoven prologue poems and stage tableaux alternate lyrical reflections on time and place with light comedy, costume spectacle, and debates about love, fate, and the endurance of ritual. The piece balances pastoral atmosphere, nostalgia, and theatricality in brief, episodic scenes voiced in verse and colloquial dialogue.

PHILOSOPHY

When I was young, in days gone by,
 I smoked Wild Woodbines on the sly.
They made me ill, but what of that?
’Twas nothing much to grumble at;
For, don’t you see?—
If I had shirked that pallid brow
I couldn’t smoke Havanas now.
The only girl I ever kissed,
Both found and left an optimist.
She jilted me, but even that
Was nothing much to grumble at;
For, don’t you see?—
I’ve such a cozy little den,
And know a lot of married men.
And now, although I’m getting stout,
And though my hair is falling out,
And people call me old and fat,
There’s nothing much to grumble at;
For, don’t you see?—
Although I am a perfect fright,
I don’t look bad by candle light.