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!