University of Virginia Library

ACT I

Scene I

Scene, a wood near Magus's Cottage. storm. Magus solo.
MAGUS.
Now doth the vollied and rebellowing thunder
Rock the huge earth, and all the dizzy hills
Quake at his coming, while the arrowy bolt
With ravaging course athwart the dark immense
Comes rushing on its wings of fire—the North
With hoarse congratulation and wild threats
Gives answer to his brother winds that rave
From the three corners of the lurid sky.
The spirits of past time are on the blast,
They leave their misty halls to commune with
The airy footed children of the storm—
Dimly they ride in gleaming steel upon
The vaultings of their cloudy chariots—
O thou omnipotent Love, whose boundless sway
And uncontroll'd dominion boweth down
The Spirits of the Mighty, thou great Despot,
Who bindest in thy golden chains the strong
And the imbecile, thou immortal Pan-Arch
Tyrant o' th'earth and sea whose sunless depth
And desolate Abyss is vivified
And quicken'd at thy bidding—thou vast link
Of the Creation—thou deep sentiment!
Thou only to be understood by those
Who feel thee and aid thy purpose, albeit I summon
Into thy presence Beings whose dark brows
Are furrow'd with the care of pride, whose natures
Hold less congeniality with thine
Than the condenséd, cold compacted wave
To a consuming fire—But to my task!
[He draws a cabalistic ring on the ground
'Tis well! Mishapen imp,
Last born of triform Hecate, hear my voice!
Stand forth and wait my summons, Spirit of Hell!
[DEVIL starts up in the middle of the ring
All hail! All hail! thou solitary power
Whose habitation is the grisly flame
Which guards that gate of Hell that looks along
The measureless deep, whose inky waste divides
The Evil and the Blest—Now weave thy web
Of subtle machination, ply thy power
In such a delicate and important cause
As needs thy chief attention—mark me well!

DEVIL
I come, O I come, at the sound of my name
From the depths and the caverns of Hell where I lie,
I can rush through the torrent and ride on the flame
Or mount on the whirlwind that sweeps thro' the sky—
What wilt thou have me do for thee? Shall I weave
The sunbeams to a crown for thy bald brows?
Shall I ungarter the Plëiades for thee
And twist their glittering periscelides
To keep the hose up on thy minishing calves?
Shall I unchair Cassiopeia's brightness
And fetch her close stool for thee? or pluck the
Nanny-goat
From off the back of that old blade whose haunches
Quiver beneath the feather'd foot of Perseus?
Shall I ungird Orion's strength, or bring thee
A grinder of that mighty snake, whose folds
Far stretching through the unconfined space
Involve seven worlds?

MAGUS
A truce with thine heroics!
A murrain take thine ill tim'd pleasantry!
If thou are not the most impertinent Devil
That ever smelt bitumen, pri'thee hear me.
Affairs of high importance call me hence,
No would I borrow of that usurer
Procrastination, whose vast interest
Is almost higher than his principal.
Procrastination, like the wayward tide,
With imperceptible and secret course
Gains hourly on us till that we are left
No landing place whereon to set our feet—
So lost and tangled is the maze of cares
Protracted and put off from day to day.

DEVIL
What is the end and purport of thy words?
And wherewith can I serve thee?

MAGUS
Thou shalt hear:
For I forthwith upon the yeasty wave,
With hasty expedition of swift oars
Shall now embark—but to thee I commit
(Until such time as I retrace my way)
My loving wife, to guard her chaste and pure
As stainless snow, brush'd by the windy wing
Of Eagle on the stormy mountain top,
Or like the virgin lily, whose rare sweets
Combining with the ambient atmosphere,
Do make a paradise of this fair earth,
So delicate are its odours.

DEVIL
Gentle master,
I would do ought but this—I'd dive i' th'sea,
I'd ride the chariot of the rocking winds
Alarum'd by the thunder's awful knell,
Or from the hornéd corners of the Moon
I'd pluck the charméd flowers that flourish there;
I'd visit far Arcturus, the bright length
Of the Ecliptic and the spangled Lyre,
Or that dim star which in Boötes' wain
Shines nightly, or I'd bring thee gems from out
The stilly chambers of the mighty deep,
The boundless halls of porphyry, where sit
The ancient fathers of the sea with beards
That sweep the burnish'd chrysolite beneath 'em—
All this and more I'd do for thee, for these
Are trifles to that weighty task, to guard
A woman 'gainst her will.

MAGUS
This once, good Friend,
Exert thy power—the task is short—eftsoones
I shall be here again—till then farewell!

[Exit MAGUS.

Scene II

DEVIL
A very decent, tolerable task—
Outwit a woman—that were difficult;
Place in one scale my graceless Devilship—
Her ladyship in t'other—weigh us both,
I do much fear me lest her ladyship
Untwist my meshes, foil my purposes
And by her subtile intricacy of wit
Mislead my choicest, noblest, nicest guile.
The very fuscous and embrownéd cheek
Of his Satanick Majesty might blanch
Before a woman's art. O Styx and Acheron!
What deprecations, amulets and charms,
What exorcisms, crossings and bead countings,
What Ave-Maries will be play'd against me!
I value not your amulets and charms
The twentieth part of half a rotten murphy
Or a split pea, albeit I do confess me
I'm apt to turn tail on an Ave-Mary,
And quail a little at a Pater-Noster,
Except when it's said backwards. I remember me
When I was summon'd up by this same Magus
And unto this same office ('twas the dead
Of a most chilly winter) that I lit
I' th'grey o' th'morning on a blue nos'd Monk
And pluck'd him by the beard, whereat he shrunk
In all his sinews like a sensitive plant
And chatter'd from the bottom of his cowl
“Apage Sathanas iniquissime!”
Whereat I tripp'd him up and laid him prone
Holding close conference with his Mother Earth
About the damage of his splinter'd nose,
And having punch'd him fundamentally
With my strong hooves, I left him bruised and battered
As a beefsteak.

Scene III

MAGUS
There is nothing on all this earth that's precious
To him who owns it, but Anxiety,
With heavy Anthesis i' the other scale,
O'er balances the pleasure on't: the rich ore
Is mixed with so much dross we cannot separate it.
There gleams no blue speck in the clouded waste
Of the charg'd atmosphere (not more perchance
Than is enough to make a butcher's surtout)
But minute after minute threatens us,
Lest in the misty wrappings of gray clouds
We lose that island space of narrowing blue—
The man who hoards a casket, shuddering
Will press it closer to his aching heart,
If the deep reed bed should but tremble to
The wind that strays thro' its rustling depths, or wave
Its trembling shadows to the ambiguity
Of moonlight. So it fares with him who knows
The windings of the world and fain would cherish
All that he loves from its intrusion:
Distrust increases with increase of years,
She is the firstborn of Experience
And ye may know her by her stealthy shuffle
And the keen gray twinkle of her deep-sunk eye
And the rejectings of her anxious front
To gaze at her own shadow. If ye greet her,
Or pass your hand in hers, she will respond
With an uncordial and relaxing grasp,
As though she did repent her courtesy
E'en in the doing o't—but from her counsel
We learn that many a gay flower, which disperses
Incense to every wandering air, fades off
And grows to a poisonous berry, which gives death
To all who taste it—that the broider'd side
Of Life's fair tapestry, with its woven groups
Of gloomy imagery, and the inwrought splendour
Of flower and fruitage, sheweth fair to the eyes
Of inexperienced immaturity,
But unto those whose rarity of locks
The hand of Time hath salted, she exhibits
The dark reverse of it,
The intertwinings and rough wanderings
Of random threads and wayward colourings—
A mêlée and confusion of all hues,
Disorder of a system which seemed Order.
Yet never, in my gayest hour of Being,
Was I so sanguine as to deem to my fate
Would with each longing of impatient Hope
Each gasp and indraw of the hasty breath
Sparkle like Oroonoko in a tube,
Which even as it ignites and inflames
Doth change to bitter ashes.

Scene IV

Enter AMORET
MAGUS
Here Amoret, a word with thee!

AMORET
Proceed.

MAGUS
I am called hence by strong necessity.

AMORET
Alas! and when shall Heaven's auspicious breath
Restore thee to these longing eyes?

MAGUS
Perhaps
E're yet again the silver moon shall fill
The curvéd radiance of her glowing horns.

AMORET
How in thy tedious absence shall I chide
The lazy motion of the lagging hours?
Hours will seem days.

MAGUS
Sweet Amoret I would
Thy tongue were not at variance with thy heart.

AMORET
True as the handle of the horologe,
As ever moved by the works within,
So move my lips responsive to my heart:
True as the many-chorded Harp returns
Harmonious answers to a master's touch—
So speaks this tongue congenial to my Soul.

MAGUS
It is not mine to draw aside the veil
Of dark deception, or unmask the thoughts
Of other minds—My Necromantic arts
Could never teach me this—sooner might I
Transmute this bodily form into some shape
Of wingéd bird or lazy quadruped
Or bloodless habitant of Ocean's wave.

AMORET
Alas! and why should false suspicion's breath,
With such ill-omened and pernicious words
Tarnish the lustre of my spotless fame?

MAGUS
I cannot trace the windings of a heart,
The searchless windings of a woman's mind,
For that Egyptian labyrinth famed of old
With all its maze of avenues and chambers
Were nothing to it—like a lightsome feather
When put in balance with a ton of lead.

AMORET
(weeping)
What weighty cause, what reason have I giv'n
That thou should'st treat me thus unkindly, Magus?
Have I not lent to thee my youth, my time,
And all that I possess? To thee o'er whom
Full eighty suns have roll'd, while these young eyes
Have barely seen a score, yet would I live
Embosom'd in the fulness of content,
Did not thy temper, fretful and morose,
Still find new themes to harp upon and rail,
Making the shadow of a sound reality,
And the thin air solidity of substance,
For thou art jealousy personified.

MAGUS
Pass not too harsh a judgment on me, Amoret.
Causes however slight do oft give birth to
The same effects as spring from weightier reasons.
The little burning taper's tremulous ray
And th'inexhaustible fount of fire which lives
And emanates from the great Sun, would move
The Dial's circling shadows equally.
And, if thy nature in itself be fickle,
Remember that the windy vane will veer
To the Heaven's lightest murmuring, as well as
To the strong tempest's chiding; one light word,
One thoughtless look, may lead frail spirits as far
As the vice pre-meditated.
Who shall know man, or freely explicate
The many folds of character? or who
Shall bear the lamp of subtle scrutiny
Into the deep recesses of the heart?
Each Being is a world within himself,
A complicated Engine, whose main springs
Are circumstance and habit, and were this space
Of limited life a chain of centuries,
And each particular minute o't employ'd
In the developing another's nature,
'Twere all too short for th'purpose.
I have liv'd long and shall live longer, I
Have mix'd with life in all its variations,
I have visited the camp, the court, the mob,
The riotous tavern, the unruly Hell,
The penetrated hovel, the high palace,
I have had friends and they were stedfast, enemies
And they were bitter—I have wandered far
From th'utmost Arctic to its opposite,
I have seen the thievish Russ, the crusty Spaniard,
The bold, brave Switzer, the freehearted Scot,
The musical Italian, the proud Angle,
The volatile, light-heeled Frank, the sleepy Turk,
The money-loving and broad-bas'd Mynheer—

AMORET
Illiberal innuendos and dark hints
Are gender'd of suspicion—she who views
All objects thro' a mighty magnifier
And multiplies to her diseased vision
Accumulation of anxieties.

MAGUS
Well, Amoret, I will believe thee true
And faithful as the compass to the pole.
For in life's passage would I always look
Upon that side of things which sheweth fairest,
Else were our days but one continued gloom,
A weary scene of surmise and mistrust.
The breath of life blows chillingly enow
To nip our sweetest hopes, and heaven forefend
That we should waken bootless grievances—
When the keen Ether is condens'd with frost
Who would not cleave to th'sunny side o' th'wall?
And hark ye, Amoret, one word of counsel!
Close thou thy casement early, nor look down
At sound of querulous serenade or flute
Wooing the dewy wings o' th'midnight air
To carry upwards on their whispering down
Unto the gaping portals of thine ears
Its soothing luxury of tender tone—
Regard not thou the glancing of the eye—
The pressure of the hand—the easy lapse
Of honey'd words from amatory lips—
All this regard not—Now farewell; may Heaven
And the good Saints protect thee!

[Going
AMORET
The like wish
Attend thee on thy way!

MAGUS
(returning)
If I have said
Ought roughly or in anger—

AMORET
Think not of it!
Once more farewell!—

MAGUS
Farewell, my own good Amoret,
And if my humour should sometimes show testy,
Impute it all unto the love I bear thee,
Which effervesceth of its own intensity,
And oftentimes mounts upward and boils over
Because of its own fervour.

[Exit
AMORET
Go thy ways!
Thou yellowest leaf on Autumn's wither'd tree!
Thou sickliest ear of all the sheaf! thou clod!
Thou fireless mixture of Earth's coldest clay!
Thou crazy dotard, crusted o'er with age
As thick as ice upon a standing pool!
Thou shrunken, sapless, wizen Grasshopper,
Consuming the green promise of my youth!
Go, get thee gone, and evil winds attend thee,
Thou antidote to love! thou bane of Hope,
Which like the float o' th'fisher's rod buoys up
The sinking line and by its fluctuations
Shows when the pang of Disappointment gnaws
Beneath it! But to me are both unknown:
I never more can hope and therefore never
Can suffer Disappointment.
He bears a charmed life and will outlast me
In mustiness of dry longevity,
Like some tough mummy wither'd, not decay'd—
His years are countless as the dusty race
That people an old Cheese and flourish only
In the unsoundest parts on't.
The big waves shatter thy frail skiff! the winds
Sing anything but lullabies unto thee!
The dark-hair'd Midnight grant no ray to thee,
But that of lightning, or the dreadful splendour
Of the conflicting wave! the red bolt scathe thee!
Why was I link'd with such a frowzy mate,
With such a fusty partner of my days?

Scene V

(Enter DEVIL)
[AMORET shrieks, covers her face with her hand and runs to the door. DEVIL brings her back and forces her into a chair
DEVIL
Madam! What's this? What? Railing? Fie! for shame!
(Nay, sit you still and hear me.) Think you then
To play Xantippe with impunity,
Who gave her philosophical old spouse
So choice and delicate a water bath
To whet his appetite one frosty morning
Before his breakfast? Do you hearken to me?

AMORET
Ye saints defend me—I shall die with terror.

DEVIL.
How, now, my dainty one, my delicate ward,
My pretty piece of frail mortality,
Where think you is the rendezvous of Saints,
Where their celestial club-room, that you make
A fretwork argent of your snowy fingers,
And cast your jetty pupils up on high
Until the blank, unanimated white
Usurps the field of vision?
A most unphilosophical conclusion!
Point thy hands downward, turn thine eyes to the floor!
There is a Heaven beneath this Earth as fair
As that which roofs it here.
Dost think that Heaven is local, and not rather
The omnipresence of the glorified
And liberated Spirit—the expansion
Of man's depress'd and fetter'd faculties
Into omniscience?

AMORET
O ye Powers have mercy!

DEVIL
Have mercy, quoth'a! when had thy tongue mercy
Upon thy betters, mistress? Curb it straightly,
'Tis the most dangerous member of the Body—
Unto the wise a blessing and a benefit,
A healing balm of mild Persuasion,
A sewer up of rents, sweet Pity's oracle,
A curber of dissension's contumely—
But in the mouth of the improvident
Worse than an Adder's fang.
It prompts the brain to hatch, the hand to execute,
The heart to shake off conscience and the back
To throw away the burden of restraint,
The saucy foot to spurn Authority.
Faith and troth, Madam, if my fates had bid me
To tread the thorny path of life with thee,
If the indissoluble, firm-knit chain
Of fixed alliance in its sacred bond
Had joined the fortune of thy stars with mine,
Would I become a target of your taunts?
The mark and butt of your unruly tongue?
Would I be baffled, like the idle wave
Fuming and fretting on a changeless rock,
Without the power to make impression
On the obdurate nature of the stone?
Would I be hurried like the dust of the earth
With every gale of passion to and fro,
Or be the plaything of your haughtiness
To gibe and sneer at?

AMORET
Hence! Avaunt, foul fiend!
Bear hence the terrors of thy crooked horns
And the long windings of thy sinuous tail!
Oh! that I could speak Latin, whose magic sounds
And Elfin syllables might drive thee far
To thy remotest Hell.

DEVIL
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Now by my Devilship 'tis wondrous plain,
Plain as the polish of a marble floor,
Plain as the surface of a bowling green,
Plain as the nose upon a Negro's face,
That husbands are the veriest dolts in nature.
Ye henpeck'd mates, who, like insensate drones,
Doze out your sleepy melancholy days,
Who twist and twine beneath th'oppression
Of woman's will, did ever Nature leave
To man on earth a want unsatisfied?
Has she not planted in each towering hedge
That fronts the King's highway, in each green wood
That crowns the balmy summit of the hill
A sovereign remedy to curb the power
Of overbearing insolence and pride?
Ye are all wrapt in apathy, else where
Would ARGUMENTUM BACULINUM be?
'Tis a most delicate physic, suited to
All ages from the schoolboy to the wife.
It quickens business, makes the lazy blood,
Which heretofore was stagnant, circulate,
'Tis the primeval origin of virtue,
Moulding the mind to good, it checks the freaks
Of growing vice i' th'heart; corrects the hardness
Of our ferocious natures like the iron
Which when most beaten is most ductile; thus
Men's natures are all malleable: should'st thou use them
Mildly, they turn again and trample thee;
But should'st thou hold and rein them straitly in,
And curb the mettled nature of their spirits,
When first they leave life's starting-post, they fear thee,
And fearing honour, honouring obey thee,
Obeying, love thee. Honour, love and fear
All meet in a bamboo. Oh! Heaven and Earth!
Why wilt thou crouch and bow and lick the dust
Whereon thy consort treads? Beat back the stream
And to the violence of the ridgéd waves
Oppose the massy stonework of thy power,
Though for awhile it roar and bound above
The opposition of thy barrier—
Yet raise thy dam up higher—higher still—
Till the submissive stream with silent course
Seek its far fount. She'll never rave again,
Unless in negligence or flexibility
Of yielding nature thou should'st leave some avenue
To her insinuating and sapping force,
(Which will not leave one stone unturn'd, until
She doth recover her dominion)
Some faithless fissure or uncemented hole,
Whence her ebullient spirit may leap forth,
At first in an attenuated stream,
Unto new contest, and enlarging straightly
May hurry thy frail mound down its rough bed,
And leave thee with one finger in thine eye
To wail the pliability which led thee
To trust thus far.

AMORET
I know not whence thou comest,
Nor who thou art, nor what thy message here,
Nor how I may exorcise thee, or drive
Thy troubled spirit to its biding-place.
If there be ought of pity in thy soul,
I do beseech thee leave me to my thoughts
And solitude.

DEVIL
Thoughts! Thoughts! what thoughts are thine
But evil and dishonour?

AMORET
Nay, I'll kneel
And pray thee to depart.

DEVIL
Out on thee, woman!
Devils are faithful to their trust.

AMORET
Alas!
Am I entrusted then to thee?

DEVIL
Dost weep?
Is that a tear which stains thy cheek? Nay—now
It quivers at the tip-end of thy nose
Which makes it somewhat dubious from which feature
It first had issue.

AMORET
I conjure thee—

DEVIL
Tears!
The rain of sentiment, the dews of feeling,
The beads of sensibility!
They are the coinage of a single wish.
I know that ye can summon them at will.
They are a woman's weapons, sword and shield,
Wherewith she braves remonstrance and breaks hearts—
Those faithful sluices never are drawn dry.
Even the withering heat of passion
But leads them forth in greater plenitude.
What! more! I know ye can command them, woman,
Even to the precise number, ten or twenty,
As suits occasion—
More yet? Methinks the cavity o' thy skull
Is brine i' th'room o' brains. More yet? at this rate
You'd float a ship o' the line.
This is the cogent stream wherewith ye turn
The mill-wheel of men's love (whose motion
Guides all the inner workings o' the heart)
And grind what grist ye please.

AMORET
I pray thee—

DEVIL
Get thee to bed—yet stay—but one word more—
Let there be no somnambulations,
No colloquy of soft-tongued whisperings
Like the low hum of the delighted bee
I' th'calyx of a lily—no kerchief-waving!
No footfalls i' th'still night! Lie quietly,
Without the movement of one naughty muscle,
Still as a kernel in its stone, and lifeless
As the dull yoke within its parent shell,
Ere yet the punctum saliens vivify it.
I know ye are perverse, and ever wish,
Maugre my wholesome admonitions,
To run obliquely like the bishop at chess,
But I'll cry “check” to ye, I warrant ye
I'll prove a “stalemate” to ye.

AMORET
(half aside)
In all conscience
My mate is stale enough.

DEVIL
Do'st mutter? how?
Would you outface the devil, Insolence?
Or tweak me like St. Dunstan by the nose,
Who scarified my smeller for a twelvemonth?
Who would cast seeds i' th'ocean? who would graft
Good counsel's fruits upon a stock so sterile?
Oh! Amoret! there is no honour in thee;
Thou art the painted vision of a dream,
Whose colours fade to nothing, a fair rainbow
Mocking the tantalized sight, an airy bubble,
O'er whose bright surface fly the hues of light,
As if to hide the nothingness within.
Few will bear sounding—cast the plummet in
And it will draw up mud, vile, worthless mud.
Gaze on the mirror of the silver lake
In its clear picture deftly pencilling
The soft inversion of the tremulous woods,
But probe it not to th'bottom—weeds, rank weeds,
Darkness and swarming reptiles harbour there.
Now go and ponder on my words. Begone.
[Exit AMORET
I am in troth a moralising devil,
Quite out o' my element; my element, fire.
Then come my spirit, with thy torch light up
The strongest flame of thine ability,
Use all thine efforts—work thy passage, as
The restless rushing of a fiery flood
Within the hollow and sonorous earth.
Now to my charge—I must be violent, fierce,
And put that ugly disposition on
Which is my portion by inheritance
From my great grandsire Lucifer—Good lack!
I'll make the scurvy-pated villains skip
As they were mad, e'en though they thronged about me,
As thick as Beelzebub on Beelzebub,
Alias as thick as horseflies on horse-dung.
'Twill be a troublesome office. Nay, by Phlegethon,
I'd rather be the chilly watch, whose voice
Sounds midnight through the length o' the hazy streets
In some great city, by the misty light
O' th'fumigated moon, than guard a woman.
When will the reign of feminine intrigues
Of female politics and folly cease?
It will be much about that time, methinks,
When this dark field of earth shall be sow'd thick
With the gay stars of Heav'n and the keen ploughshare
Shall trench deep furrows in the inverted sky;
When his triple mitred Holiness shall become
An arrant Protestant, and all their Eminences
Shall be unboiled into th'humility
Of black canonicals; when a second Becket
Shall thunder excommunication
From out his lordly see of Canterbury;
When Summer shall be Winter, and Spring Autumn;
When cold shall rarify and heat condense;
When Almacks shall become the rendezvous
Of burly citizens and citizens' wives,
And Lady J—y wearied shall throw down
The reins of Fashion and—think better things;
When high soul'd man shall walk upon his head,
When Colonel B—y shall shake hands with Decency
And read or write a sermon.
So! So! methinks in good truth I have hemm'd in
My proposition with a sweeping circle
Of insurmountable improbabilities.
Yon taper sinks i' th'socket; Time wears quickly,
Yet treads in shoes of felt. What is't o'clock?
[Going to the timepiece
Half after midnight! These mute moralizers,
Pointing to the unheeded lapse of hours,
Become a tacit eloquent reproach
Unto the dissipation of this Earth.
There is a clock in Pandemonium,
Hard by the burning throne of my Great Grandsire,
The slow vibrations of whose pendulum,
With click-clack alternation to and fro,
Sound “EVER, NEVER!” thro' the courts of Hell,
Piercing the wrung ears of the damn'd that writhe
Upon their beds of flame, and, whensoe'er
There may be short cessation of their wailings,
Through all the boundless depth of fires is heard
The shrill and solemn warning “EVER, NEVER.”
Then bitterly, I trow, they turn and toss
And shriek and shout, to drown the thrilling note—
[Looking again at the timepiece
Half after midnight! Wherefore stand I here?
Methinks my tongue runs twenty knots an hour:
I must unto mine office.

[Exit abruptly