Your senators that they look well to Prague;
Their feast of peace was early for the times;
There are more spirits abroad than have been
With Wallenstein !
What is't we hear? My Siegendorf!
Thank Heaven, I see you safe!
Sieg. No, no; I have no children: never more Call me by that worst name of parent.
Ida. [taking ULRIC'S hand]. Who shall dare
say this of Ulric?
(band.
Sieg. Ida, beware! there's blood upon that
Ida. [stooping to kiss it. I'd kiss it off, though
Sieg
It is so! it were mine.
Ulr. Away! it is your father's! [Exit ULRIC
Ida.
Oh, great God!
And I have loved this man!
[IDA falls senseless-JOSEPHINE stands
speechless with horror.
Sieg
The wretch hath slain
Them both!-My Josephine! we are now alone!
Would we had ever been so !-All is over
For me!-Now open wide, my sire, thy grave;
That you have given birth Thy curse hath dug it deeper for thy son
In mine -The race of Siegendorf is past?
THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:
THIS production is founded partly on the story of a novel called The Three Brothers," published many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's 'Wood Demon' was also taken; and partly on the Faust' of the great Goethe. The present publication contains the two first parts only, and the opening chorus of the third. The rest may perhaps appear hereafter.
If there would be another unlike thee,
This wither'd slip of nature's nightshade-my
That monstrous sport of nature. But get hence, Vile form-from the creation, as it hath
And gather wood!
The green bough from the forest.
Arn.
I will but when I bring it,
Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are
So beautiful and lusty, and as free
As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me;
Our milk has been the same.
Bert.
As is the hedgehog's,
Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome
dam
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds
The nipple next day sore and udder dry.
Call not thy brothers brethren! Call me not
Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it was
As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by
Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, urchin, out!
[Exit BERTHA.
-She is gone,
Arn. [solus]. Oh, mother!
and I must do Her bidding-wearily but willingly I would fulfil it, could I only hope A kind word in return. What shall I do? [ARNOLD begins to cut wood: in doing this he wounds one of his hands.
My labour for the day is over now.
Accursed be this blood that flows so fast;
For double curses will be my meed now
At home-What home? I have no home, no
No kind-not made like other creatures, or
To share their sports or pleasures. Must I
bleed, too,
[earth Like them? Oh, that each drop which falls to Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung me!
Or that the devil, to whom they liken me,
Would aid his likeness! If I must partake
His form, why not his power? Is it because
I have not his will too? For one kind word
From her who bore me would still reconcile me
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash
The wound.
[ARNOLD goes to a spring, and stoops to
wash his hands: he starts back.
They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me
What she hath made me. I will not look on it
Again, and scarce dare think on't. Hideous
wretch
That I am! The very waters mock me with
My horrid shadow-like a demon placed
Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle
From drinking therein.
[He pauses.
And shall I live on,
A burden to the earth, myself, and shame
Unto what brought me into life! Thou blood,
Which flow'st so freely from a scratch, let me
Try if thou wilt not in a fuller stream
Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself
On earth, to which I will restore at once
This hateful compound of her atoms, and
Resolve back to her elements, and take
The shape of any reptile save myself,
And make a world for myriads of new worms!
This knife! now let me prove if it will sever
[ARNOLD places the knife in the ground,
with the point upwards.
Now 'tis set,
And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
Myself, and the sweet sun which warm'd me, but
In vain. The birds-how joyously they sing!
So let them, for I would not be lamented:
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell ;
The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!
As he rushes to throw himself upon the
knife, his eye is suddenly caught by the
fountain, which seems in motion.
The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
Not as with air, but by some subterrane
And rocking power of the internal world.
What's here? A mist! No more?—
A cloud comes from the fountain. stands gazing upon it: it is dispelled, and a tall black man comes towards him. Arn. What would you? Speak! Spirit or man? Stran.
Your form is man's, and yet
So many men are that [me
Which is so call'd or thought, that you may add
To which you please, without much wrong to
either.
But come you wish to kill yourself ;-pursue
Your purpose.
Stran. What is that resolution which can e'er
Be interrupted? If I be the devil
You deem, a single moment would have made
Mine, and for ever, by your suicide; [you
And yet my coming saves you.
I said not You were the demon, but that your approach Was like one.
Unless you keep company
With him (and you seem scarce used to such
high
Society), you can't tell how he approaches;
And for his aspect, look upon the fountain,
And then on me, and judge which of us twain
Looks likest what the boors believe to me
Their cloven-footed terror.
Do you dare you
To taunt me with my born deformity?
Stran. Were I to taunt a buffalo with this
Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary
With thy sublime of humps, the animals
Would revel in the compliment. And yet
Both beings are more swift, more strong, more
In action and endurance than thyself, [mighty
And all the fierce and fair of the same kind
With thee. Thy form is natural: 'twas only
Nature's mistaken largess to bestow
The gifts which are of others upon man.
Arn. Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot,
When he spurns high the dust, beholding his
Near enemy; or let me have the long
And patient swiftness of the desert-ship,
The helmless dromedary!-and I'll bear
The fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience.
Stran. I will.
Arn. [with surprise]. Thou canst?
Stran.
Perhaps. Would you aught else?
Arn. Thou mockest me.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.mk/books/content?id=0lcCAAAAQAAJ&output=html_text&pg=RA1-PA518&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=editions:LCCN03026786&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U2ntgoDkl58A3y6NzY-6P6aFWH28g&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=75,382,444,965)
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.mk/books/content?id=0lcCAAAAQAAJ&output=html_text&pg=RA1-PA518&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=editions:LCCN03026786&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U2ntgoDkl58A3y6NzY-6P6aFWH28g&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=476,95,459,240)
Shadows of beauty!
Shadows of power!
Rise to your duty-
This is the hour!
Walk lovely and pliant
From the depth of this fountain, As the cloud-shapen giant
Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.* Come as ye were,
That our eyes may behold
The model in air
Of the form I will mould, Bright as the Iris
When ether is spann'd ;
Such his desire is, [Pointing to AR-
Such my command!
Demons heroic-
Demons who wore
The form of the stoic
Or sophist of yore-
Or the shape of each victor
From Macedon's boy,
To each high Roman's picture,
Who breathed to destroy-
Shadows of beauty!
Shadows of power!
Up to your duty-
This is the hour!
[Various phantoms arise from the waters, and pass in succession before the STRANGER and ARNOLD.
Arn. What do I see?
The black-eyed Roman, with The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er Beheld a conqueror, or look'd along The land he made not Rome's, while Rome became
His, and all those who heir'd his very name.
Arn. The phantom's bald; my quest is beauty. Inherit but his fame with his defects. [Could I Stran. His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs.
You see his aspect-choose it, or reject.
I can but promise you his form : his fame
Must be long sought and fought for.
Arn.
I will fight tog,
But not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass;
His aspect may be fair, but suits me not.
This is a well-known German superstition-a gigantic shadow produced by reflection on the Brocken.
Stran. Then you are far more difficult to You seem congenial, will you wear his features? please Arn. No. As you leave me choice, I am difficult,
Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus's mother, Or Cleopatra at sixteen-an age
When love is not less in the eye than heart. But be it so! Shadow, pass on!
[The phantom of JULIUS CAESAR disappears. Ärn. Be, that the man who shook the earth is gone, And left no footstep?
There you err. His substance Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame More than enough to track his memory; But for his shadow, 'tis no more than yours, Except a little longer and less crook'd
[A second phantom passes. Arn. Who is he? Stran. He was the fairest and the bravest of Athenians. Look upon him well.
More lovely than the last. How beautiful! Stran. Such was the curled son of Cinias ;Wouldst thou
Invest thee with his form?
Been born with it! But since I may choose I will look further.
Who truly looketh like a demigod, [stature,
Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and
If not more high than mortal, yet immortal
In all that nameless bearing of his limbs,
Which he wears as the sun his rays-a something
Which shines from him, and yet is but the flash-
Emanation of a thing more glorious still. [ing
Was he e'er human only?
Let the earth speak,
If there be atoms of him left, or even
Of the more solid gold that form'd his urn.
Arn. Who was this glory of mankind?
Stran.
The shame
Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war-
Demetrius the Macedonian, and
Would that I had Taker of cities.
Arn.
Yet one snadow more.
Stran. [addressing the shadow]. Get thee to
Lamia's lap!
[further [The shade of ALCIBIADES disappears. Lo! behold again!
Stran. Arn. What! that low, swarthy, short-nosed, round-eyed satyr,
With the wide nostrils and Silenus' aspect, The splay feet and low stature ! I had better Remain that which I am.
And yet he was The earth's perfection of all mental beauty,
And personification of all virtue.
But you reject him?
Arn. If his form could bring me That which redeem'd it-no. Stran.
I have no power To promise that; but you may try, and find it Easier in such a form, or in your own.
Arn. No. I was not born for philosophy, Though I have that about me which has need Let him fleet on. [on't. Stran. Be air, thou hemlock-drinker! [The shadow of SOCRATES disappears: another rises.
Arn. What's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard
And manly aspect look like Hercules,
Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
Than the sad purger of the infernal world,
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,
As if he knew the worthlessness of those
For whom he had fought.
[The shade of DEMETRIUS FOLIORCETES
vanishes: another rises.
Fear not, my hunchback; if the shadows of That which existed please not your nice taste, I'll animate the ideal marble, till
Your soul be reconciled to her new garment. Arn. Content! I will fix here.
I must commend Your choice. The god-like son of the sea-goddess,
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks
As beautiful and clear as the amber waves
Of rich Pactolus, roll'd o'er sands of gold,
Soften'd by intervening crystal, and
Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,
All vow'd to Sperchius as they were-behold
And him-as he stood by Polixena, [them!
With sanction'd and with soften'd love, before
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece look'd her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flew.
I love thee most in dwarfs ! A mortal of
Philistine stature would have gladly pared
His own Goliath down to a slight David:
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show
Rather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged,
If such be thy desire and yet, by being
A little less removed from present men
In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all
Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt
A new-found mammoth; and their cursed
engines,
Their culverins, and so forth, would find way
Through our friend's armour there, with greater
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.mk/books/content?id=0lcCAAAAQAAJ&output=html_text&pg=RA1-PA520&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=editions:LCCN03026786&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U3Ve7ENFphnxl9qoaGhe15UEl1W2Q&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=75,598,446,157)
For valour, since deformity is daring.
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become
All that the others cannot, in such things
As still are free to both, to compensate
For stepdame Nature's avarice at first. [tune,
They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of for-
And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar, win them.
Stran. Well spoken! and thou doubtless wilt
remain
Form'd as thou art. I may dismiss the mould
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase
This daring soul, which could achieve no less
Without it.
Arn. Had no power presented me
The possibility of change, I would
Have done the best which spirit may to make
Its way with all deformity's dull, deadly
Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain,
In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders-
A hateful and unsightly molehill to
The eyes of happier men. I would have look'd
On beauty in that sex which is the type
Of all we know or dream of beautiful
Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh-
Not of love, but despair; nor sought to win,
Though to a heart all love, what could not love
In turn, because of this vile crooked clog, [me
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne
It all, had not my mother spurn'd me from her.
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort
Of shape :--my dam beheld my shape was hope-
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere [less.
I knew the passionate part of life, I had
Been a clod of the valley,-happier nothing
Than what I am. But even thus the lowest,
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind, what courage
And perseverance could have done, perchance
Had made me something-as it has made heroes
Of the satne mould as mine. You lately saw me
Master of my own life, and quick to quit it;
And he who is so is the master of
Whatever dreads to die.
|