 | The Shadow Garden |  |
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SCENE I
Interior of the Witch's hut. A fire burning on a rude hearth beneath a simmering cauldron over which the Ape is bending. The Cat sits near, watching his every movement; the Cock and Owl glower down from the cobwebbed rafters, that are hung with fantastic paraphernalia gathered from the forest and field, such as skins of snakes, beasts, birds, and dried masses of herbs, pods, gourds and flowers.Ape:
Seven times the cauldron rumbled; seven times more
The brew must bubble and be muttered o'er.—
What of the night, O Imp made like a Cock?
Cock:
The white-eyed moon is up. 'T is twelve o'clock:
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And round the graves the dead-men's-candles flock.
Ape:
'T is time to add the nightshade to the brew.—
How works the Abracadabra that she drew
There on the ceiling o'er thee, Imp and Owl?
Owl:
The letters burn, blood-red; some fair, some foul.
Cat:
Woe to you should the charm fail, be at fault!
Ape:
And to you all.—Time for the Dead-Sea salt.
Cat:
She would transfix us, jail us in the stone,
The hottest torture-place of this her hearth.
Ape:
And there forever we should mew and moan.
Cat:
And whine and whimper, having little mirth.
Ape:
The flame grows fulvous; voices try to speak
In every bubble; scum begins to streak
The glaucous surface of the brew with slime.—
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Cat:
Read! read!—What do you read?—What says the charm?
Ape:
It is not perfect yet. It is not time.
All that I know, it worketh: one draws near.
Owl:
Who? who?
Cock:
He knows not.
Ape:
'T is a form of fear.
Cat:
A moment there two eyes, like red coals, gleamed,
What time the Cock crowed and the Owlet screamed.
Ape:
Look! look!—the embers seem to lose their glow
In deeper crimson entering from below.—
Quick, Imps, come hither! spread abroad your wings,
This side and that, and fan and never miss!—
Each little demon in the fire that springs
Is clamouring for attention.—How they hiss!
Cat:
O demon in an Ape, it is the brew,
The magic broth itself, that laughs at you!
Or tries to speak a bubble-mumbled word.
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'T is true; 't is true!—The sound comes from the pot.
Shrilly it whistles like some vampire-bird.
A red steam rises; blood-red; glowing hot,
Rolling above the brim: a face, a form
It now evolves.—Look at its burning eyes,
And the forked beard, red as the flame that tries
To indicate its mouth.—It lifts its arm.—
Master, 't is thou!
[The Spirit of Evil appears and steps, sardonically smiling, from the cauldron. The Ape flings himself upon his face before him, while the Cat crawls on its belly, whining and mewing, to his feet, and the Cock and the Owl flutter wildly overhead crowing and hooting.
Evil:
And knew ye not 't was I?—
Have you forgot so soon the speech of Hell?
The symbol-language, and the serpent-sign?—
Needs must ye see me, ay! before ye know!—
Now, by the Pit! earth dulls your wits. I'll swear
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Than earth and water teach you here!—How else?
You heads of tar and mud! not to divine
'T was I addressed you through the bubbling brew!
Having a message that I would impart
Without appearing.—Blunderheads and blocks,
Who name yourselves my workmen! Imps, forsooth!—
Wittols, who need a flail of sulphur-flame
And whips of fire to sharpen your dull wits.
Ape:
Spare us, O Master! Flay us not with fire!
Our fault it was not.—She, our earthly Mistress,
Neglected to communicate to us
The cipher through whose aid it is we read,
And she interprets all thy messages,
Spoken in symbols and in shadowy runes.
Evil:
The hag said naught to you of one expected?
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Only of something due thee here tonight,
Two lives, she is reluctant to surrender.
Evil:
She grows too difficult of my control
As she grows older. When her years were less
She was more willing to make sacrifice,
And dance the nights out in the arms of Evil.—
Where is she now?—Where doth the hag delay?
Ape:
O Lord of Night, we know not.—Ere the moon
Had topped the hills she mumbled to herself
And went to gather magic in the wood,
Leaving us here to 'tend this brewing charm.
Evil:
Magic, thou slave?—What magic? and for whom?
Ape:
Ingredients for the charm that now we brew.
Evil:
What charm? for what?—Her time is overdue.—
We need no charms here at a sacrifice;
My presence is sufficient. Sorcery
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At least its dim import escapes my reading.—
An hour ago she should have sacrificed.—
If she have not by cockcrow she is mine.
Ape:
Preparatory to some sacrifice
She said she made this brew; then wove a spell
To bind two lives, demanded as thy due,
Two infant lives, there in the ancient wood.
Evil:
So she comes round again!—Or am I fooled?—
Last year she bungled—let the child escape—
And seemed nowise concerned.—It was the first;
And I was lenient with her; heretofore
Each year, for many years, with promptitude
The sacrifice was made.—I half suspect
She wearies of her bargain, and again
Defaults in payment of the Innocent.—
Woe to her if 't is true, if she should fail.—
Two lives are due me; me, who have prolonged
Her mortal life of sin beyond all men's.
Ape:
Yea, she remembers and will keep her word.
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Evil:
So stands the bond.—But where doth she delay?
Let her produce the infants!—Where are they?—
Much I suspect her heart is softening.—
Ape:
Lord of eternal Fire, an hour ago
My Mistress sent two Fiends to bring these babes
Her arts had lured into the forest near,
Holding them there, lost, till the demons find.
Evil
(pacing impatiently to and fro):
Long, long, too long, yea, I am made to wait,
Like some vile minion of her own vile hearth!
The warted Witch! the hag of mole and wen!
Would she were here now for my hands to rend!
Ape:
Hark! limping footsteps hobble to the door.
Evil:
'T is she.
[The Witch enters, leaning on a crutch-handled cane; a bag bulging with forest flora on her bended back.
Thou hag! Why hast thou thus delayed?
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(bowing and cringing):
Your Majesty is early—by an hour!—
It was the hour of one, not twelve, your slave
Set for the sacrifice.—My memory 's bad,
But I—he! he!—I made a memorandum;
That is, my Cock there did, who is my clock:
He'll tell you to the second all that 's done
And all to do; no book is more correct.
Evil:
Where are the victims?—What care I for time!
Witch:
They will be here anon. Have thou no fear.
My ministers, old Lob and Hob, good Fiends,
Have them in care, and, long ere this, have found.—
They come anon, he! he!—Ay! they will come.
Evil:
Thou art too sure. Sure wast thou once before.
Beware, lest thy unbounded surety
Lead thee too far—and fail me as before,
A year ago, whenas, at thy connival—
Nay, never shake thy grizzly head, old Witch!—
Thou didst abet it, well I read thy face,
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When, at thy very door, the child escaped.—
Thou didst default then; and I did condone:
On this condition: that two lives be rendered,
This night, this hour to me, and youth extended
Thy wretched body for another year.
Witch:
Those lives are due thee and they shall be thine.
He! he!—I'm honest. I discharge my debts
Even when I hate—Oh! I'm an honest witch!
Evil:
Honest? Ho! ho!—Thou shalt discharge thy contract.
Swear it, or else now forfeit me thy soul!
Witch:
Make me the black beast which thou straddlest
When howls the Witches' Sabbath, and the storm
Flogs the wild hills with rain, and whips of wind
Lash mad the forests over which they drive
On hazel-branch and broom and rags of cloud,
If, at the hour, I make not good my word!
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Well sworn!—I'll ride thee to the next carousal!
What hast thou there?—there, in thy ghastly bag?
Witch:
Simples for sorcery, for charms and spells:
Herbs, roots and fungi, gathered in the moon.
Here 's snakeroot, henbane, and dark hellebore;
Mandrake, that shrieks with madness when 't is dug;
And here is blistering ivy, whose mere touch
Cancers the flesh; and here the crooked root
That oozes blood, when broken, like a wound:
Here 's nightshade, monkshood, purple as putrefaction,
Or as a drunkard's lips in stertorous sleep
Breathing contagion; here is adder's tongue
Reeking beside it, speckled as a snake:
And spathes of arum; fritillaria,
Puffed, streaked, like throats of vipers;—wolfsbane, blue
As apoplexy: tawny toadflax, too,
Jaundiced with yellow as a maid that pines
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Bulbs, herbs of witchcraft, powerful of charm,
Potent for incantation and for rites,
Occult, unholy in the cause of Evil.
[Bowing low.
Evil:
Although thy list is long, still more thou hast:
Enough to summon half of Hell to aid.—
No more delay. What! wouldst thou still evade,
Procrastinate, postpone what should be now?—
Away with this, thy fetich, roots and herbs.—
Consult thy magic, and inform me then
Where are the victims; why thy Fiends delay.
Witch:
They come anon I say.—When I have mixed
This filth-sprung toadstool and its death's-head cup,
This devil's snuff-box, rotted into green
And venomous dust; this fungus from an oak,
On which a man was hanged, a liverous brown,—
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With many another goblin agaric
And fungoid thing, that Earth like bubbles breathes
And forms from forest offal and decay;
Excrescences and tumours of old soil,
Bloated, exuding forth, pale-pulped with poison:—
When these have simmered thrice, then with this stone,
Ta'en from a serpent's head; and this one, found
Deep in a toad's; and venom from this vial,—
A viper's fang,—dropped in the central turmoil,
Then shalt thou read in the precipitate scum
That streaks the liquid magic (as a slug
Trails its slow slime zig-zag across a leaf's
Decaying green)—strange words and characters,
The wild handwriting of the Three in Hell,
Who rule the world and thee, O Lord of Evil.
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The time is come to read: the oily lines
Hiss out and vanish: slowly there uncoils
A serpent symbol or druidic sign,
And slowly now resolves itself in vapour.—
Witch:
All, all is troubled.
Evil:
Yea; thou canst not read.—
Mumble thy toothless spells.—Thou look'st in vain.
The Three reply not, or thy plans are thwarted.
Witch
(to her Familiar):
My nimble Demon bring me fire; live coals.
Place me a circle here; and in the circle
The Abracadabra of the powerful spell,
Through which the Spirits of the Air are summoned
And made reveal what Earth and Heaven keep hidden.
Through them my divinations shall be cleared,
And I shall know the thing that I would know,
And hear through airy lips report of that
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Ape
(after drawing the circle and cabala as commanded):
Mistress, 't is done.
Witch:
Now hand me here my wand;
And stand thou there and finger on the flame
This sorcerous powder of imperious scent.—
Now, Lord of Night and Evil, we must wait.
Evil:
Wait! wait!—too long now have I waited, Witch!—
Weave thy mad spells, and summon up thy Spirits.
The hour runs out, and thy vile life runs with it.
Witch
(weaving strange figures in the mist of smoke made by the burning powder and muttering to herself as if in incantation):
I weary of my bondage, service to thee,
O spirit of Darkness!—Hatred and disgust
Of what I am and of the works of Hell
Have taken me by the heart, like two wild wolves,
And tear me horribly.—My power is gone:
Lost in the one desire to fail in this,
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I know not whence it came—but come it is:
And, with it, all the old desires, that rode,
Galloping to headlong Hell, escape me now,
As one short year ago they did: deserters,
Abandoning the ranks of Hate for Pity.
Evil
(regarding her suspiciously):
What dost thou mumble, Witch?—'T is like a prayer.—
Wilt thou turn priestess now, or prophetess,
Of Good or Evil?—All thy arts are vain.—
Why, for an instant, I could swear I felt
The presence of antagonistic Good,
Breathing a pure breath through the cloud of sin.—
Thy spells are powerless, and avail no more.
Witch
(without ceasing to wave her wand in the thickening smoke):
These will not fail me. Hear them where they come!—
Their wild wings whip the heavens into storm,
And the scared moon hurries to hide her face.
[Thunder and a noise of winds outside the hut, whose door and windows seem supernaturally shaken.
| The Shadow Garden | |