University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

(The Spanish Camp. Soldiers drinking and playing at dice between the tents.)
First Soldier.

Second Soldier.

Third Soldier.
Ay, faith, there's youth in this; and we had better
Enjoy it while we have it. Our small store
Of barrelled sunshine will have trickled dry
For many a day and many a month and year
Before we reach the fountain.

First Soldier.
That it will;
And every single drop of cellared wine
In Christendom as well. The magic Water
Seems ebbing ever further from our eyes
As every month goes by.

Third Soldier.
And yet they say
That the commander thinks success quite certain,
Now that the Indian king has sent the envoys.
This morning they were walking through the camp,
With their great golden armlets.

Second Soldier.
Yes, I saw them;
And they are all old men, which of itself
Is proof sufficient 'gainst the Fount of Youth;
For if the Indians had it in their kingdom,
Would the ambassadors that they have sent us
Have snow upon their heads?

Fourth Soldier.
Ay, so I thought
This very morning, as I saw them pass;
But Pedro says it is because their king
Keeps all the magic water for himself,
And takes good care his subjects shouldn't taste it,
That he alone may always be as young,
And always be as strong.

Second Soldier.
But some assert
That if he's got no wrinkles it's because
He's never twice the same.

Sourth Soldier.
What dost thou mean—
Not twice the same?

Second Soldier.
I mean that he's elected
Only for some few eyars, among the strongest
Of their young warriors, and then yields his place
To one as young; that's why he's never old,
And youth is always seated on the throne.
And if there's any truth in what I'm told,
Atalpa is a title, not a name;
And their young king, instead of having reigned
Six hundred years, has not reigned sixty months.

First Soldier.
If that's the case, the sooner we give up
This wild-goose chase, the better for us all.

Fourth Soldier.
For my part, I am getting every day
Less faith in this strange water.

Third Soldier.
So am I.

Fifth Soldier.
Why, if the Fount of Youth exists on earth,
Would not that God-cursed and eternal Hebrew,
Who ever trudges round and round the world,
Over the graves of those whose birth he saw,
Have found it out by now? His curse compels
The lonely horror of his dusty feet
To measure and re-measure every inch
Of hill and plain, of city and of desert;
And if the Fount of Youth were to be found
He would have drunk the draught.

Third Soldier.
Perhaps he has.

Fifth Soldier.
No, he is old as ever. On the day
Before we sailed from Spain, as I was thinking
About the Fount of Youth and all our hopes,
I met him in the street, just as the Dusk
Was putting Day to bed.

Second Soldier.
What was he like?

Fifth Soldier.
His great white beard, a yard in length and more,
Waved in the wind behind him. In his hand
He held a tall spiked staff on which were notched
The fifteen notches of his centuries.
His Syrian sandals, bound with dusty thongs,
Were made of hide of crocodile, to stand
The wear and tear of his eternal trudging;
His wrinkled gourd, less wrinkled than his face,
The minister of his eternal thirst,
Swung from his girdle, made of one great snake-skin,
With tail in mouth—the symbol of his life.
I barred his way; he started like a sleeper,
And shot a flame from out his sunken sockets.
‘Why stopp'st thou me, Ephemeral?' he asked;
‘Walk to thy grave, and let me go my way,
To make the earth another belt of steps.’
‘Tarry,’ I answered, ‘but to tell me this:
HAst ever lighted, in thy endless journey,
Upon the thing they call the Fount of Youth?’
He paused a moment, while a frown of pain
Convulsed his brow. ‘The Fount of Youth?’ he said
Like one who slowly mutters in a dream;
‘It bubbles up between the feet of Death,
In every land, in every plain and city,
And Death and I have nought that is in common.’
And he passed on and vanished in the twilight.

Fourth Soldier.
Strange, very strange. There's still a little wine
At bottom of the flagon; pass it round.
Can any of you tell me, is it true
That the commander's daughter wears her arm
Since Thursday in a sling?

Third Soldier.
Ay, true as gospel.
At first they said that she had had a fall,
But now they say one of her Indian women
Sprang at he with a knife. They're lithe as panthers,
And just as fell. They say she's pardoned her
And hushed it up.

Fourth Soldier.
Well, anyhow, she's hurt.
Here's her good health; she's been the soldier's friend
All through the expedition. Dost remember
How she took up our cause against Morasquez
The day he tried to cheat us of the salt;
And how she saved Pedrillo from the lashes,
When all was ready waiting?

Second Soldier.
And he's grateful;
He'd give his life to save her little finger.

Fourth Soldier.