The Fountain of Youth :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Fountain of Youth

A Fantastic Tragedy in Five Acts. By Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Lee-Hamilton, Eugene

[section]

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

ACT I.

II.

ACT II.

III.

IV.

II.

III.

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ACT II.

SCENE I.

(Forepart of the vessel.)
First Sailor.
This is the nineteenth day. This white-hot sun
Has stewed the sea to syrup.

Second Sailor.
And so thick
That this swift ship, inclosed in sticky coils,
Stands like a spoon that stands of its own self.

First Sailor.
The water in the barrels ebbs away:
Death's hand is tightening round our parching throats;
The curse of God is on us.

Second Sailor.
That was clear,
Even before the skeletons, like sharks,
Swam in the sunset in the vessel's wake;
Was it not I who saw the first one raise
His long white arm above the livid water,
And gave the alarm? The sun—dost thou remember?—
Was almost on a level with the wave;
A bright-red glare was thrown upon the sea,
All of a sudden, 'neath its bloodshot ball,

Just like the flag of crimson in the bull-ring,
Beneath the bull's wild eye. The whole sea glowed
A pool of new-shed blood. Then, one by one,
The skulls and arm-bones crested each small wave
Behind the vessel far as eye could reach,
Until it seemed as if the countless dead,
Who lie unburied in the ocean's depths,
Had risen to the surface, and gave chase;
But we outsailed them.

Third Sailor.
Then the great white fog
Off Cape Cardozo, when we saw the giants
That towered o'er the mast by head and shoulders
And loomed like monstrous shadows through the vapour,
Now lighter and now darker as they waded
Further or nearer round us. I remember
How Sanchez cried, ‘By luck! the vapour thickens:
If one of them should see us, he will pluck
The ship from out the water by the mast,
And whirl it like a sling about his head.’
How we escaped I know not.

First Sailor.
Nor do I.
But worse, I take it, was the Wind of Whispers,
That blew for three whole days in spite of prayer,
Of exorcism, and of holy water,
And said to each a different thing of horror,
In his own mother's voice, as if from far.
I know not what it may have said to thee;
But unto me it said nine times distinctly:
‘I see thee sinking through a hundred fathoms,
And fish swim after thee.’

Third Sailor.
Anon the moon
Will have her stare at us, as here we stick,
And make a mirror of the fetid sea,
And then the water-witches rising up
Will swim around the vessel as last night,
And croak their song of death. They came so close
As I was standing in the middle watch,
That I could see the wrinkles on their cheeks,
And on their knotty fingers.

Fourth Sailor.
Aye, last night
The sea-hags swam a-dance in all their number:
There must have been a hundred in the reel.
Their hair is old gray seaweed, and they wear
A necklace fashioned out of drowned men's teeth.
Some say they once were beautiful and young—
The whitest of the mermaids; but their lips
Betrayed the secret of the ocean gold,
So they were stricken old, and cursed for ever;
And now they work the mischief of the sea,
And stir up tempests with their spellful songs.
Down in their green and slimy ocean-caves,
They spin the thread of every vessel's voyage,
And where they cut the thread the ship goes down;
It's they who have becalmed us.

Fifth Sailor.
Look, the moon
Is cropping up above the water-line,
Round as a silver plate. And, by the Lord!

There are the hags already. Dost thou see?
Out there, just in the moonshine, right ahead,
One of them swimming like a fish that rolls.
And now a second and a third joins in.
Ho, ho! the lewd old sea-maids! how they play!
Thou'lt hear their singing when they all are there.

Song of Waterwitches.

We scatter the leaven
That raises to heaven
The storm that we brew;
Each multiplied bubble
Shall bring into trouble
Some merry ship's crew;

We put into motion
The whirlpools of ocean
With twitch of the thumb,
When sailors are sleeping,
Or drowsy watch keeping,
And down the ships come.

The water-spout's tower,
That spins till you cower,
Is born of the reel
Which faster and faster
We dance, when we master
Some great ocean-keel.

We touch with a finger
The vessels that linger
Above where we lurk;
And the leak never ceases,
But ever increases,
Till Death does his work.

We crouch where the conger
Winds, stronger and stronger,
Round livid dead limbs;
And where, like a floating
Medusa's head, gloating,
The octopus swims.

In caves where the jellies,
With luminous bellies,
Seem watery moons;
And fish phosphorescent
Shed light evanescent
Where heaven's ray swoons.

And now, with a leaden
Stagnation, we deaden
The sea and the air,
Until in the vessel
A horror shall nestle,
There, ever there.

And day on day follows
Until the throat swallows
Brine in its strain;
And even another,
Till brother kills brother,
To drink of his vein;

The while the broad ocean
Knoweth no motion,
Vapour nor breath,
But thirst, and thereafter
Madness and laughter,
Dancing and death.

First Sailor.
What art thou looking at so hard, now that the waterhags have disappeared? Answer; what art thou staring at?

Second Sailor.
Look just a little to the left of the moon, on the waterline. What dost thou see?

First Sailor.
Very strange! It was not there half an hour ago. It has three peaks, with the valleys clear between them.

Second Sailor.
It is not twenty miles off. We must have drifted with an unfelt current. Call Diego. Where is the commander?

Third Sailor.
In his cabin, deep in thought.

First Sailor.
Thinking how to get us a little water for our cracking throats!

Third Sailor.
Yes, from the Fountain of Youth.

SCENE II.

(Another part of the vessel.)
Juan.
Oh, hers is fairer than the white, still face
Which peeps between the fleeces of the sky,

And flashes silver from each dark wave's crest!
Out on the boasted power of the moon,
Who rules the tides of cold unconscious Ocean—
And only twice in every lazy day!
My lady sways the living tides that run
From heart to pulse, and throb in brow and limb—
The tides that ebb with fear, or flow with joy
A hundred times a day. Ay! hide thy face
Behind the screen of yonder sluggish cloud,
That she whose face is fairer than thy own
May meet me here more safely; for the peril
To both of us is great. Oh, how she started
When, looking vaguely round, her eyes met mine,
And recognised me under my disguise
Of Florestan, the mate. Agrippa's eye
Fastened upon her with a quick suspicion—
I thought that all was lost. Shall I be able
To keep my face, my gestures, and my tongue
In such obedience as my part exacts?
Shall I be able to coerce my passion
When I shall hear the officers and men
Speak rashly of her face, or see them fix
Their look of hungry insolence upon it!
Did I not hear, this very day, two sailors
Call her the destined trophy of Agrippa?
And did my knife not almost leap at once
Out of my sash? And she—can she control
Her glorious eyes and meet me twenty times,
And never even give me one quick look
For other eyes to catch? Oh, who shall measure
The danger of the part we have to play?
And yet how else, if I am to protect her
From still more threatening perils, which the folly
Of her mad, reckless dreamer of a father

Will plunge her into, in untrodden lands
In his great search for youth? How else, how else,
If I am ever to make mine for ever
That truer fount of loveliness and youth
Which sparkles in her eyes, and ripples over
In lightest waves of magic when she speaks,
That truer, brighter fount, from which my soul
Takes such delicious draughts? How old the world
Would grow for me without it; how decrepit
And cold and dull would grow all earthly things!
But hush! I see her, veiled in silver shadow.

(Enter Rosita.)
Rosita.
I cannot sleep for thinking of thy peril;
Thy life hangs on a thread.

Juan.
The thread of gold
That couples it to thine.

Rosita.
If thou wert found
In this disguise, no earthly help could save thee.

Juan.
We will control our eyes. Oh, I would wrap
The cloak of peril round me seven times,
So but I wore it as thy livery.

Rosita.
I would thou wert not here.

Juan.
Oh, didst thou think
That I could stay behind and let thee face
The wild and Protean treachery of ocean,
Towards the regions of fantastic fear,
And not watch over thee? Didst thou imagine
That I could stay in Spain while thou wert seeking
A frightful country, in whose virgin forests
The Indian and the tiger will make peace
To meet a white invader? Oh, not I!
Thy father takes thee to the lands of fever
Whose breath will kill the roses on thy cheeks,
Whose heat will scorch the dewdrops of thy gladness.
In his mad seeking for his own lost youth
He sacrifices thine.

Rosita.
Alas! I know it.

Juan.
I had a plan before we sailed from Spain
To save thee from the folly of his visions,
And carry thee away; but Fate prevented,
Putting the bar of accident between
The wheel-spokes of my purpose; but one day
I mean to do it still, when chance shall favour,
And bear thee back to Europe.

Rosita.
Oh, mine own,
It cannot be. Alas! I cannot do it.
Hast thou not said thyself, a minute since,
That we are sailing to the lands of fever?
Oh, who will nurse him if he sickens there?
I am the only being that he loves.

Juan.
He has no love except the Fount of Youth.

Rosita.
Yes; but of earthly loves he loves me most.

Juan.
And loving thee the lesser of the two,
He shall not step between thyself and me
And rob me of my love.

Rosita.
Another shadow
Than his may step between us.

Juan.
How, another?

Rosita.
Two nights ago I had a dream of death.

Juan.
Oh, love! my love!

Rosita.
I had a dream of death.
I stood alone in an immense cave-temple,
Whose thickset pillars, hewn in the live rock,
Sustained a heavy vault, which seemed to crush
The spirit out. The red and lurid flicker
Of countless torches danced upon the stone,
But all was empty. Suddenly a clash

As of a thousand cymbals shook the vault,
And, starting out of shadow, all about me,
A thousand dusky warriors locked me round
In the wild horror of a dizzy war-dance;
And ever louder grew their guttural cries,
And ever nearer closed the hideous circle
Of painted demons with their brandished arrows,
As I stood trembling in the frightful centre,
Until at last they reached and overwhelmed me,
Beneath their countless numbers. Then, blindfolded,
They led me through the endless echoing caves,
With ceaseless, measured chant of ‘Lo, the victim!
We bring her to the Goddess, the Destroyer,
We bring her to the ever-murdering Beauty,
The Flower of Cruelty, the Scented Throttler,
The wondrous Executioner of Nature.’
And as we wound along in slow procession,
With measured tramp, a strange narcotic odour,
Delicious, and yet horrible, grew stronger,
Until it grew intolerable as pain.
Then we stood still, and in a pealing voice
I heard them cry, ‘Now lay her in the lap
Of the Great Merciless.’ And then they raised me
As if on to an altar; round my throat,
Round limbs and body, strange and snake-like coils,
Which were not snakes, but felt like fleshy thongs,
Elastic and resistless, wound and wound.
I felt my body changing into pulp,
And in the monstrous agony I woke.

Juan.
Oh, hideous and most horrible of dreams!

Rosita.
What dost thou think the murdering goddess was?

Juan.
An empty fear, the strangling goddess, nightmare,
Born of this leaden heat.

Rosita.
Love, I think not;
I think it was a presage of the future,
A foresight of a fate that waits me there.

Juan.
Whate'er it is, it shall be kissed away—
But hush! I see the figure of Agrippa
There in the moonlight; and he must not find us
So near together—Every time I see
His bold unholy eyes upon thy beauty,
It sets my fingers playing with my knife.
Away, away, he must not find us here!

SCENE III.

(Officer's cabin.)
Sanchez.
What think'st thou the Biminians may be like?

Garcia.
I know not what to think or to expect.
Some say that they are dwarfs and others giants.
Some say they are amphibious men whose cities
Are built in lakes, and paved like oozy Venice
With dark-green water. They can stay for hours
Like otters at the bottom; then rise up
And shoot a flight of arrows; which, when done,
They dive once more.

Sanchez.
Pedrillo says they live
In subterranean labyrinths like rabbits,
With issues imperceptible to man;
And often, of a sudden in the desert,
From cities unsuspected under-foot,
Armies start up, or vanish all at once
Leaving the landscape bare.

Morasquez.
I know a man
Who says their cities stand on giant trees
High overhead: each forest is a city,
Up in the starry sky. They wear their hair
In one black rope that hangs along their back,
And, when their father dies, they dress in yellow.

Garcia.
No, those are the Chineses of Cathay
That mourn in yellow: the Biminians mourn
In black like Christians.

Carpaza.
What of their religion?

Sanchez.
Some say that they are worshippers of fire,
And others that they worship their own souls.
I know a monk who says they are Nestorians,
Worse than all Jews and Moslems.

Cucheres.
Thou art wrong.
I know an Indian at Hispaniola,

Whose brother once was wrecked upon their coast:
And so I know for certain what they worship.
They have as goddess a terrific flower,
A sort of Venus' fly-trap, so gigantic
That it can eat a man with as much ease
As ours can eat a fly, and once a month
They feed it with a slave.

Sanchez.
The thing may be,
For things as strange have been. But on the whole
It seems more likely that they be Nestorians,
Or heretics of some sort.—This is clear,
That whatsoever be their faith, its root
Must be outrooted, just as has been done
In Guatemala. They use bloodhounds there:
Balboa has them trained on wicker figures
In human shape, and filled with carrion flesh;
Each hound is entered on the army list,
And gets a soldier's pay. Balboa says
That if the Indians now can understand
The doctrine of the Trinity, 'tis thanks
To these same hounds; he calls them his confessors.

Carpaza.
It is a pity that we cannot use
His hounds at home to teach the Moors their prayers,
A year or two, and they would be good Christians.
What sayest thou, Sanchez?

(Enter Agrippa.)
Sanchez.
Aye, it is a pity
The king is overkind: he should have rooted
Their race and their religion out of Spain
After Granada.

Agrippa.
Talking of the Moslem?

Morasquez.
Yes, and how to treat them.

Agrippa.

I will tell you:
Give a guitar, and you shall have a ballad.

I will tell you how, returning
From the far Arabian seas,
Once I set a bonfire burning
When I served the Portuguese.

Under Vasco we had rounded
Tempest Cape to India's shore,
And with Lisbon lead had sounded
Seas that none had sailed before,

And bombarded town and village
Of the coast, exacting gold;
Filling up the ships with pillage,
Higher than the hulls could hold;

Crazing with an unknown thunder
Every shaved and turbaned head;
Heaping higher still the plunder
And the bodies of the dead;

Till each Soldan, gemmed and sooty,
Trembled in his yellow shoes;
Never were such piles of booty
Captured in a single cruise.

Then to Muscat, where we sighted
On our path a Moslem sail;
On its sluggishness we lighted
Like a hawk upon a quail.

Mecca pilgrims in a vessel
Large and heavy, sailing slow,
Crowded as when insects nestle,
Head-dressed like the Moors we know.

Vasco cried, ‘I know their turban:
Moorish vermin, one and all;
We'll baptize them, as Pope Urban
Recommends, with cannon-ball.’

It was no slight work to board her:
Every devil fought like five;
But at last, by Vasco's order,
Not one man was left alive.

But the children and the women
Still remained upon the ship,
Waiting for the fatal omen
That should fall from Vasco's lip.

And the Admiral said, ‘Listen;
For the women we've no room;
Twenty children we can christen,
Choose them, thou, ere fall of gloom.’

So I from the ship selected
Twenty children, with a boat;
But, ere rowing back, reflected,
Shall I burn, or let her float?

‘She will serve instead of torches
To light back my men and me
If the women find it scorches,
They can jump into the sea.’

And I lit a fuse and threw it
'Mid the tackle dry as hay,
Where the wind of nightfall blew it
Gently; and we rowed away.

When sufficient distance sheltered,
On our oars we lay a spell,
Where the vessel, when it weltered,
Could not suck us down to hell.

Night had gathered. Like a spire,
Of a sudden by-and-by,
Shot the pinnacle of fire,
Dazzling-white from sea to sky.

Then all reddened, and the water
Round the ship for miles away,
Took the lurid hue of slaughter,
And the vividness of day.

As we watched it never dimming,
But with radiance that increased,
Something from the ship came swimming—
Something—was it man or beast?

Round it sputtered glowing ashes
Like a rain of bright red blood;
We could see the head by flashes
Struggling through the crimson flood.

While for half a mile or nearly
It pursued its lurid track,
Till we saw a woman clearly,
With a child upon her back.

`By the Gospel! it's another
Little Christian to baptize,
Being brought us by its mother—
I can see its head and eyes.

‘What a zeal for the salvation
Of her little suckling calf;
Swim, and save it from damnation!
She's too fond of it by half.’

And we watched her progress, betting,
Would she reach us, no or yes?
We could see that she was getting
Weaker in her swimmer's stress.

But she managed still to reach us
And her gurgling shouts were wild,
In her lingo to beseech us
To have mercy on her child.

So we took it from her shoulder,
As she grappled to the boat;
Back into the sea we rolled her,
With a handspike in her throat.

Juan
(who has entered unnoticed, in time to hear the end of Agrippa's story).
Thou art a base coward.

Agrippa.
Ha, what's that? Say it again.

Juan.
Thou art a base, base coward.

Agrippa
(springing at him with his dagger).
Take that!

(Juan snatches his wrist and averts the blow. They roll on the ground together, over and over. Juan wrenches the dagger out of Agrippa's grasp and holds it to his throat.)
Juan.
Shall I stick it in thy throat? There, keep thy dog's
life—I make thee a present of it. But stick no more
handspikes in women's throats.

[The others separate them and exeunt.

SCENE IV.

(Cabin of Ponce de Leon.)
Ponce de Leon
(alone).

At last the fixed complexion of the sky
Knows omens of a change; and well it may—
This is the twentieth day of the stagnation;
I was beginning in my soul to think
That this swift vessel, planted in foul brine,
Had stricken root, and was for ever tethered
To this one spot of sea. Oh, with what thirst
In these three weeks of waiting have I panted!
Not for the base, unvivifying water
For which the others yearned, but for the rills,
The trickling diamond of my constant thought
By day and night. Doth not each fretful hour
Of new delay and baffled expectation,

That trifles with the longing of my heart,
Add threads of silver to my grizzling beard?
Last night there was a change in the moon's cheek,
The catspaw nears, the wind will rise to-night,
And then we shall unfurl.

Fernandez' ship?
My mind misgives me at its disappearance.
We parted company a month ago:
What if he were perchance to reach the goal
Before myself, and, landing first, to make
A private treaty with the immortal king?
I think him treacherous enough for that.
Come in, Agrippa!

(Enter Agrippa.)
Well, there is a change.

Agrippa.
I know there is. Have I not had my eyes
Hard fixed for half the night upon the moon
And on the faint, faint vapours that have formed
Upon the horizon? Yes, there is a change.
I have already given all the orders:
The men are ready, and within twelve hours
We shall unfurl the sails and turn the helm
Back on Hispaniola.

Ponce de Leon.
Hell and thunder!
What dost thou mean?

Agrippa.
I mean that there is water
Sufficient in the cisterns (and that barely)
To reach Hispaniola, but not half
The quantity of water that is needed
To reach our destination.

Ponce de Leon.
Say it slower;
Say it again; say I have heard thee wrong;
It cannot be, O God, it cannot be!
Say that thou didst not say to me ‘Turn back!’

Agrippa.
It is not I who say it, but the cisterns;
Come and inspect the water for yourself.

Ponce de Leon.
Back to Hispaniola for the want
For some few paltry gallons of fresh water!
It cannot be; I say it cannot be;
The thought is mad and monstrous. Why, it means
At least a year of wasted plan and effort:
What am I saying? Why, it means the death
Of the whole enterprise. For who would get
This mutinous crew to sail the sea again?
It cannot be; I say it cannot be:
It is a passing nightmare of thy dreaming,
And while I turn my back upon the goal,
Fernandez with my other ship will reach it,
And cheat me of the object of my life.

Agrippa.
There is no arguing with parching throats:
'Tis not by talking of the Fount of Youth
That you can quench a sailor's raging thirst.
Come and inspect the cisterns.

Ponce de Leon.
It may rain:
The gathering clouds are near.

Agrippa.
I know these seas:
Have I not sailed them at this very season?
The wind is near, but not a drop of rain.

Ponce de Leon.
And to be cheated of the Fount of Founts,
Of that all-potent and ineffable draught,
For lack of some few gallons of such water
As any dog can lap in any street!
The thought will drive me mad. Rather than turn,
I will blow up the ship with all it holds,
And my own self.

Agrippa.

The thought is very kind;
But, as it happens that the crew and I
Have not such violent and engrained objection
To reach old age as you have, I must pray you
To put your powder to some other use
Than sending all to Heaven. I have told you
How matters stand; the case is very simple:
Compute the gallons and compute the mouths.
But there are ways of cutting Gordian knots,
Which only old adventurers of the sea
Like my own self can practise.

And now listen.
What would you give me if, despite the cisterns,
I led you to the goal? Weigh well your answer.

Ponce de Leon.
All that I have and love, save mine own life.

Agrippa.
Even the promise of your daughter's hand?

Ponce de Leon
(very slowly).
Yes, even that.

Agrippa.
Well, if you give me that,
And put me in possession for twelve hours
Of undisputed power on this vessel,
I take you to Bimini. Do you swear?

Ponce de Leon.
I swear it by the shrine of Compostella.

Agrippa.
We understand each other. I will leave you
To your own meditations for a little,
While I give orders.

[Exit Agrippa.
Ponce de Leon
(alone).
Is it a stagger that has left me dizzy,
Or is it only that my soul has stood
For half a score of black and icy minutes
A-shivering in the lobby of despair,
And still feels numb—and now that once again
I stand and warm me by the hearth of hope?
Why is it that I feel as if a part
Of my own self had been lopped off for ever?
O Youth Eternal, spirit that I serve,
Why hast thou asked me for my daughter's weal?
Why hast thou asked of me to break her heart?
Thou knowest that I can no more resist
The dazzling fascination of thy splendour

Than can the moth who flutters scorching circles
Around the perilous flame. O well thou knowest
That if thou needest victims for thy altar
It is not I, thy priest and devotee,
Who can refuse them. Have not other men,
In order to attain their baser goals
Of avarice, or ambition, to crush out
Love, conscience, mercy, happiness, health, and slumber
For a base god? And shall I dream that thou,
The ever-glorious and the ever-dazzling,
Will let me lave my wrinkles in thy Fount
At lesser price than that?
And must not she
Who is to share the incomparable boon
Consent to share its price? Must she not pay
In the red gold of happiness and peace,
She on whose cheek perennial youth will sit
For ever safe from ever-gnawing years?
Aye, she must pay her share. (Re-enter Agrippa.)

Already back?
What orders hast thou given in these five minutes
Of thine omnipotence?

Agrippa.
Now I will tell you.
For these two days the sailors have been watching
A phantom island on the faint horizon.
It is a thing of unsubstantial vapour,
A freak of light portending change of weather.
I have commanded thirty men in boats,
Under the charge of Florestan, the mate,
To leave the ship and to await us there.

Ponce de Leon.
What, in a phantom island! Art thou mad?

Agrippa.
Then, while they land upon it, we sail on.
The crew, diminished by so many men,
And put upon half-rations of fresh water,
Can reach Bimini safely.

Ponce de Leon.
But, good God!
Why, this is simply murder. What! Send out
In open boats upon this unsailed sea
These thirty men, to slowly die of thirst,
Or drink the maddening horror of the brine!

Agrippa.
If they but think sufficiently on sugar
The sea will not taste salt.

Ponce de Leon.
It cannot be,
I cannot let this monstrous thing be done.

Agrippa.
The thing is done already.

Ponce de Leon.
Christ of Heaven!

Agrippa.
The thing is done already: they have left,
And now are past recall. Did you not give me
The power of life and death upon this ship?

Ponce de Leon.
O Fount of Youth! what hast thou made me do!

Agrippa
(aside).
And so I turn his vanities to profit,
As I shall do a many times in future.
Upon the misty basis of his dreams
I will build up the structure of my house,
The solid edifice of real power.
While he is seeking for the Fount of Youth,
I will make mine the regions that we conquer.
He has a royal charter in his pocket;
But I, once made his son-in-law, shall be
The real viceroy, master of the substance,
Until such time as, feeling strength sufficient,
I shall deprive him even of the shadow.

Ponce de Leon.
O Fount! O Fount! What hast thou made me do?