God and Mammon A Trilogy : Mammon and his Message : Being the Second Part of God and Mammon |
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Scene I:
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 | God and Mammon |  |
Scene I:
—A hall in the Royal Palace. On the right is a dais with a door entering upon it. On the left are rows of carved stalls. There is a considerable space between the dais and the stalls. A large door at the back. When the act begins Sigtrig Harpur and Florimond are keeping order among the harlots, who are seated in the stalls. Signy Snowbird and Candytuft are in the front row.Mammon enters on the right and summons Sigtrig Harpur who ascends the dais.
Mammon.
Are these all licensed women of the town?
Harpur.
Licensed and warranted. They represent
A dozen brothels and every race in Europe.
I've brought a Malay also; and that's a Cuban:
Ten days ago a Matabele died:
With her I could have shown four continents.
Mammon.
These women have been known to many men?
Harpur.
To scores of men; to hundreds, some of them.
Mammon.
Then are they all insane?—in mind, I mean.
Harpur.
Incontinent in mind and body, King:
Their beaten blood, all froth; their nerves, in rags.
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Ploughed up and harrowed and manured with sin,
Their fallow souls are seasoned for my news.
These women will understand me: these, at least.
Harpur.
They are quick to understand.
Mammon.
Timid and bold,
They browbeat their own smiles with sulky looks
Lest they offend me. But these are handsome women!
Some of them have been beautiful; some still
Are comely. They were children once; and once—
My heart begins to choke me; I must speak,
And greatly: otherwise should no man speak,
And least of all to such an audience.—
Subjects and sisters, harlots of the town,
I sent for you to tell you what you are.
You are the corner-stone of Christendom;
And were I Christian with unction I should say,
“You of all classes are the children of God;
Bulwarks of chastity and sinks of lust,
You keep the Christian family possible;
From your corruption orange-blossoms spring,
And glowing blushes of the virgin bride.
Therefore go forth and sin courageously,
Enhance your charms, and triumph in your art:
Be proud and happy as God's good whores should be.”
Some of the harlots begin to sob.
Mammon.
Why do they sob?
Harpur.
Your voice is gracious, King;
And these must either sob, or laugh, or rage;
No mezzo mood with them.
Mammon.
But that is great!
Has vice theurgic power so wonderful?
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Were I a Christian; and extol to heaven
The excelling mystery of iniquity
Whereby God lets his people sanction sin
In vessels of dishonour that the elect
May breed securely in domestic bliss.
But I am here to put an end to sin,
To ruin Christendom, to change the world,
To set the time. With you, then, I begin,
The blood-stained corner-stone. From this day forth
The license is withdrawn; the harlot's trade
Forbidden under penalty of death.
To every legal harlot in Christianstadt
To-day a score of sovereigns shall be given
Wherewith to quit the land or seek in Thule
Another livelihood.
The harlots exclaim, laugh and whisper to each other.
Mammon.
If you would speak
Address me boldly. Can any of you talk?
Harpur.
She that's the silentest among them knows
More turns of speech than twenty crack debaters.
Snowbird.
Can any of us talk!
Mammon.
What is your name?
Snowbird.
They call me Signy Snowbird. [To Harpur]
What do I say?
Your majesty, or sire, or royal highness?
Harpur.
King or King Mammon. These flourishes are dead.
Mammon.
Is that her name?
Harpur.
Her nomme de guerre, bestowed
Upon her swarthy mane and ruddy cheeks;
A simple irony common with her kind.
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What countrywoman are you?
Snowbird.
Of Thule, King.
Mammon.
Say what you wish to say.
Snowbird.
With twenty pounds
I'll book a passage by the evening boat,
And be in Paris in the morning, King.
Thank you a thousand times, great King of Thule.
My word, you are a king!
Mammon.
Leave out the king.
How will you do in Paris?
Snowbird.
I'll tell you what:—
I dream of Paris and the things I've heard;
The cafés and the restaurants in trees;
The gaieties at night—and all night: mad
Montmartredoms, and in the rues—my God!—
The spice of absinthe all the afternoon.
O King, and won't you come?
Harpur.
Control your tongue.
A fine of twenty pounds would stop your jaunt.
Snowbird.
But Signor Sigtrig—
Mammon.
Let her tongue run on:
I understand that harlotry like God
Has no respect of persons.—You intend
To follow harlotry in Paris, harlot?
Snowbird.
I am a lady that delights in things
That please her, King.
Mammon.
I said to drop the king.
Snowbird.
Then drop the harlot.
Mammon.
I call you what you are—
Snowbird.
Are you not king, King Mammon?
Mammon.
From my mouth
You snatch the obvious. Since it is, so be it:
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You mean to follow harlotry in Paris?
Snowbird.
I'm not a harlot, and I never was:
I don't know what you mean by harlotry.
Mammon.
You live by hiring out your sex to men?
Snowbird.
You filthy fellow!—Stupid, ignorant king!
Some of the harlots scream and others hiss.
Mammon.
What trick is this? Whom have you brought me here?
Snowbird.
They must be humoured, still saying what they please,
If one encounters them without the law.
They have a kind of fancy in their trade,
A sort of euphemism in speech and deed
(If I may say so), while their vigour lasts.
Mammon.
I should have known that: I forget myself.
This is the greatness of the Universe.—
Madame and sister, will it please you well
To change your honest calling?
Snowbird.
Brother and King,
I'll tell you what:—I'm sometimes sick of change.
I had a lover once; but that's vieux jeu.
Mammon.
A wilful misconception.
Harpur.
They think it wit.
Mammon.
A lover once? Have you, or any of you,
No inextinguishable fierce desire
For vengeance on the author of your fall?
Snowbird.
And who may he be, King?
Mammon.
He that seduced you.
Snowbird.
No one seduced me. O, la, la!—What's this?
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Men write about? Why, we ourselves seduced
Our own betrayers, every one of us:
Make you no doubt of that. Vengeance on men?
The whole thing's vengeance; love and life and all—
Somebody's bloody vengeance on the world.
[Bursts into tears.
All the harlots with the exception of Candytuft lift up their voices and weep.
Mammon.
I cannot talk with these. What shame to think
The cross of Christ may be their only help!
My message is the greater: once more I try.—
Fair lady, who are you?
Candytuft.
I'm Candytuft.
Mammon.
You're Candytuft!—And why?
Candytuft.
That's asking.
Something to do with cats; I don't know what:
Cats like me or dislike me; I don't know how.
Mammon.
How can I reach them?—Candytuft, you like
Your pleasant calling.
Candytuft.
O, I like it, King!
Mammon.
What do you like about it?
Candytuft.
O, go on!
Mammon.
I am helpless here: my news cannot be told:
The Universe seems to be blotted out.
Beasts, plants would understand me:—and so shall these!
How will you use your twenty pounds? Remember,
Your calling's at an end.
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I think of that;
And wonder what to do.
Mammon.
Work; and in all
Events you and your friends are now set free
From man's brutality.
Candytuft.
O, are we, King!
I never met a brute. Don't you mistake:
You men are brutes at home; but not with us:
Good fellows, happy to be helped: a rough
And tumble wedding, often as not. My life!
What could men do without us? Yes, and the boys
That come ashamed and shy to taste their first
Forbidden fruit? Such a time while it lasts!
We help the world, we help it to be good.
You called us paving-stones—
Mammon.
The corner-stone
Of Christendom.
Candytuft.
I guess your meaning, King;
And guess you're right; we're indispensable,
Like food and drink. How can the world go on
If girls must die for giving men a treat?
Mammon.
How does the world go out?
Candytuft.
I guess your meaning, King:
We have no children. But I've heard it said
The world's too full; so there we help again.
A child when one's alone's the deuce and all
For lightsomeness. ... We can't have everything.
I'm Candytuft, and take it as it comes.
The harlots have dried their eyes, but some of them begin to sob again.
Mammon.
I have them now; I'll grip them by the heart.—
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The harlots are startled and listen attentively.
A woman taken in adultery,
Far off in some barbaric eastern land,
Is punished thus:—with grisly craft they sew
The living sinner in a bullock's hide
Consorted with a cat, and fling the bale
Upon the beach beside the sounding sea
To shrink and crackle in the sun at noon.
Then frantic woman, frantic beast, they fight
With sob and yell in stifling darkness wrapped,
Till their contracting coffin smothers them,
And the slow tide crawls up to hide the thing.
You catch your breath and shiver as I tell
That awful doom. But not less terrible
Is yours, the women set apart and swathed
In dark dishonour; for the vilest hides
Somewhere a heart, and all unknown, unhelped,
Against the teeth and claws of throttling vice,
To the last gasp fights for her womanhood.
Is it not so, my sisters?—I see it is.
Your cruellest pain is when you think of all
The honied treasure of your bodies spent
And no new life to show. O, then you feel
How people lift their hands against themselves,
And taste the bitterest of the punishment
Of those whom pleasure isolates. Sometimes
When darkness, silence, and the sleeping world
Give vision scope, you lie awake and see
The pale sad faces of the little ones
Who should have been your children, as they press
Their cheeks against your windows, looking in
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Denied your wombs and bosoms.
A Harlot.
My God! My God!
Snowbird.
Let me get out of here! This King's a devil!
Candytuft.
You've no right to expose poor women so!
Florimond.
These never can behold your Universe.
Mammon.
They shall be shown.—Sisters, I blame you not;
I hurt you as the surgeon hurts to heal.
The horror of yourselves that stifles you
Is in its essence hope and happiness.
I spoke of sin and sinner, using words
That must be used until the common mind
Escapes from Christendom to the Universe.
You have no souls, therefore you cannot sin—
Snowbird.
Who says I have no soul? You're mad, King Mammon.
Candytuft.
And souls to damn too, damn him!
Mammon.
I have no soul—
Snowbird.
Indeed, and one would think it!
Mammon.
There's no such thing
As soul, but only matter and its powers
Stupendous, which our blood and brain transmute
To thought, emotion, passion, fancy, love.
The vapours radiant in a million stars,
Contracted and condensed as mind in men—
The harlots cease to attend and whisper to each other.
Mammon.
They cannot grasp it, cannot bear to listen.
The thing I have to tell, unthought before,
Demands another language, another folk
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Dismiss these women.—Harlots of Christianstadt—
(A moment, Harpur)—remember my decree:
The money will be paid you, twenty pounds
For your redemption; and in ten weeks' time,
She that regards herself, may pleasantly
Renew her youth and start the world afresh,
A virtuous woman scorning man's embrace
Except with passion and instinctive love
Obsequious and fruitful. Hitherto,
Your love has been too immaterial,
A thing of other world, becoming well
The spirit and corner-stone of Christendom.
Bestial and of this world your love must be—
Florimond.
O King!
Mammon.
I'll make them think.—I say again
You must be natural and chaste; like beasts,
Unconsciously, devoutly bent on offspring.
Conceive; then live with him whose seed you bear
In closest amity and constant love,
That happy children may delight your hearts,
For happy children spring from amorous joys.
But she who hires again for passing pleasure
The portal of her womb shall surely die.
Now go; in silence go, and do my will.
Escorted by Sigtrig Harpur the harlots go out.
Mammon.
Persuasion fails: it must be life or death.—
The paupers next: I'll see them. Quickly, Harpur.
Florimond.
King Mammon, may an old man speak his mind?
Mammon.
And welcome, if his name be Florimond.
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A harlot called you mad just now; the world
Will echo that, and I begin to think it.
Mammon.
I would be thought so—by the Christian world:
A shallow, economic world that counts
Opinions, gains and losses, and patches peace
With heresies and science. How great it was
When armies drunk with faith, time and again,
Scorning example, in ruinous crusades
Purpled the tawny east with valiant blood!
How great when mantled, masked inquisitors
Excised, consumed, annihilated schism
Obnoxious to the church! Great God, how great!
Then was the world a portent; then did men
Transcend humanity!
Sigtrig Harpur marshals a crowd of beggars and criminals of both sexes and advanced in years; among them, Munter and Paaske.
Mammon.
These are the poor,
The aged, horrible unhappy poor;
And these the rascals, worn-out, filthy rogues,
Thieves, murderers, resetters, demireps.
What shall I say to you? I see you leer
With phosphorescent eyes or shrivelled orbs
Opaque, edacious, crapulous and monstrous
Wretchednesses fit to be mocked by devils,
The very proper offal of Christendom.
Show you the Universe? I'll stuff you with it;
Spread out a surfeit of the Universe
In meat and drink, and watch you choke and die,
Glutted with Universe; for I'll not have
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Legacy of Christ. I'll have no poor at all;
And no incurables, no criminals,
No bedlamites. I'll cut out all that's Christ;
And down shall come asylums, hospitals,
With churches, colleges and culture-marts;
I'll raze out cities and dilapidate
The structure of society to lay the ghost
Of Christendom. How can such folk as you
Endure to live, how dare to breathe?
Munter.
No fault
Of ours, O King! We didn't make ourselves.
Mammon.
I say, you did; before the world began
The vapours, metals, earths that integrate
Your bodies, minds and souls:—(and by your souls,
I mean the whole machinery of power,
Vital, emotional and cerebral,
Transmuted from bisexual energy
Of lightning and the loadstone, from the force
Expansible of gases, from intense
Alchemical desires, miraculous
Irradiations, metamorphoses;
And from the everlasting passionate
Molecular attraction, pulsing strong
Even in the matter of a mendicant,
With that recondite, interatomic play
Electrons manage in secluded courts,
So infinitely small that elfin bowers
Beside them seem the spacious vault of heaven):—
The substance of your bodies minds and souls
Was as it is—before the world began?—
Before a single stitch of lightning pierced
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While all the systems, galaxies and suns,
Dissolved in empyrean slumber, dreamed
Unconscious dreams of orbëd splendour flung
Athwart the firmaments in vast array!
Paaske.
Who is responsible for us, King Mammon?
I never wanted to be born.
A Beggar.
Nor I!
A Thief.
Nor any of us!
Mammon.
You did; each one of you;
You only are responsible for you.
Who asked you to become the consciousness
Of matter? Not I;—Not God; there is none.
You are the nauseous passion that compelled
Degenerate pairs to put you forth—the root,
The essence, and the cause of Christendom.
I'll purge the world of you. Patience is past!
The sight of such unhallowed ugliness
Dispels the frail enchantment tolerance hung
Between me and my purpose. Cut it out,
The cancer and the sin; for this is sin;—
To be unhealthy, ugly, base, unfit.
Eternal energy, diseased and foul!
Beyond invective! Brand it, sear it, stop
The thing with instant death! I'll not be cruel:
You shall be feasted; gorged and drunk, the end
Shall steal upon you to the sound of strings
Discoursing symphonies; your dining-room
Shall be your lethal chamber; your festal board,
Your funeral bier.
Munter.
A lethal chamber! Mates,
He means to poison us like homeless dogs.
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Like homeless dogs! I'll not endure you. Earth
Abhors you, and the Universe disowns
The substance of the stars, offspring of lightning,
Ethereal presences, so sullied, so
Malignantly dishonoured—
Munter, Paaske and the others with hoarse cries attempt to leave the room; but are prevented.
Paaske.
You'll not be king
A day when this is known.
A Beggar.
Children will kill
The monster with reproachful looks!
Another Beggar.
And women
Stone him to a pulp!
Mammon.
They have their greatness, too—
The will to live even in the last disgrace:
This is the universe within them, loath
To lose self-consciousness in any plight.—
Fill up the room with soldiers:—soldiers, man's
Authority and power in terms of man:—
Yet must I speak; yet must I say the thing
I am the furnace and alembic of,
Distilling tidings of eternity
In every cell and chamber of my brain.
Harpur has filled the space in front of the dais with soldiers, who enter by the door at the back.
Mammon.
You see: I hold you in my hand, as Heaven
Was once supposed to do; and on my nod
Your lives depend. But I am gracious now;
And you shall choose. Man is my prisoner, guilty
Before the universe of growing old;—
What is more loathsome than extinct desire?
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Nor any woman past conception! Cult
Of age is Christian: only youth should be,
Should have, should do, should rule.
Florimond.
Old age was held
In high repute before the Christians came.
Mammon.
And so it was! Everything foul and false
In pagan usage, weaknesses, decay,
The Christians saved and loved:—high time it is
To put an end to all senility!
Another count against my prisoner, man,
Is clumsiness—a Christian salvage also.
Your intellects are clumsy; you are found out—
Beggars and criminals; the crafty rogue,
The clever mendicant deserve to live
Compared with you. And last is ugliness,
The very brand of Christianity.
You all are ugly—men and women, ugly,
Though once you painted Raphael's pictures, once
Erected Gothic wonders. So ugly, you,
Misshaped, degenerate, asymmetrical,
You should be glad to die! The will to live,
The will to power, the will to happiness—
These are but ministers, the separate strands
And conformation of the will to beauty,
The hidden secret of the Universe.—
I blame you not; you could not help yourselves;
But knowing now what noxious things you are
You ought to die at once. I will decree
That ugliness is criminal, and build
A rich pavilion high upon a hill
For folk to die at dawn and sunset in,
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In vapours of decay. In silence go.
I bid you die at once. Go hence, and die.
The beggars and criminals go out.
Mammon.
Soldiers, I love to see your wholesome faces:
My army, only implement of kings.—
That hideous human offal! The harlots pleased me;
But that was horrible.—The legate now;
I'll see him first; and afterwards, the abbot.
Florimond.
I wish to speak of these, King Mammon.
Mammon.
Speak.
Florimond.
Untried and unaccused they lie in prison.
Not only Thule, but Europe calls for justice.
Mammon.
Without an army like a hobbled horse
One stumbles in the tether of the law.
Diplomacy, chicanery, statesmanship,
Become the masters of the unarmed king.
I waited on my army; and now intend
Such justice as omnipotence may deal.
The legate, quickly:—in another room,
For this is foul with decadence of man.
| God and Mammon | |