ANTONINUS: In the ...
SATAN: Hear me.
ANTONINUS: Well?
SATAN: There fell with me from heaven a rare, rare spirit, the light of whose limbs far outshone dawn and evening.
ANTONINUS: Well?
SATAN: We dwell in darkness.
ANTONINUS: What is that to me?
SATAN: For that rare spirit I would have the gaud you wear, that emblem, that bright ornament. In return I offer you--
ANTONINUS: Begone--
SATAN: I offer you--
ANTONINUS: Begone.
SATAN: I offer you-Youth.
ANTONINUS: I will not traffic with you in damnation.
SATAN: I do not ask your soul, only that shining gaud.
ANTONINUS: Such things are not for hell.
SATAN: I offer you Youth.
ANTONINUS: I do not need it. Life is a penance and ordained as a tribulation. I have come through by striving. Why should I care to strive again?
SATAN (smiles): Why?
ANTONINUS: Why should I?
SATAN (laughs, looking through window): It's spring, brother, is it not?
ANTONINUS: A time for meditation.
SATAN (laughs): There are girls coming over the hills, brother. Through the green leaves and the May.
[ANTONINUS draws his scourge from his robe.
ANTONINUS: Up! Let me scourge them from our holy place.
SATAN: Wait, brother, they are far off yet. But you would not scourge them, you would not scourge them, they are so ... Ah! one has torn her dress!
ANTONINUS: Ah, let me scourge her!
SATAN: No, no, brother. See, I can see her ankle through the rent. You would not scourge her. Your great scourge would break that little ankle.
ANTONINUS: I will have my scourge ready, if she comes near our holy place.
SATAN: She is with her comrades. They are maying. Seven girls. (ANTONINUS grips his scourge.) Her arms are full of may.
ANTONINUS: Speak not of such things. Speak not, I say.
[SATAN is leaning leisurely against the wall, smiling through the window.
SATAN: How the leaves are shining. Now she is seated on the grass. They have gathered small flowers, Antoninus, and put them in her hair, a row of primroses.
ANTONINUS (his eyes go for a moment on to far, far places. Unintentionally): What colour?
SATAN: Black.
ANTONINUS: No, no, no! I did not mean her hair. No, no. I meant the flowers.
SATAN: Yellow, Antoninus.
ANTONINUS (flurried): Ah, of course, yes, yes.
SATAN: Sixteen and seventeen and fifteen, and another of sixteen. All young girls. The age for you, Antoninus, if I make you twenty. Just the age for you.
ANTONINUS: You-you cannot.
SATAN: All things are possible unto me except salvation.
ANTONINUS: How?
SATAN: Give me your gaud. Then meet me at any hour between star-shining and cock-crow under the big cherry tree, when the moon is waning.
ANTONINUS: Never.
SATAN: Ah, Spring, Spring. They are dancing. Such nimble ankles.
[ANTONINUS raises his scourge.
SATAN (more gravely): Think, Antoninus, forty or fifty more Springs.
ANTONINUS: Never, never, never.
SATAN: And no more striving next time. See Antoninus, see them as they dance, there with the may behind them under the hill.
ANTONINUS: Never! I will not look.
SATAN: Ah, look at them, Antoninus. Their sweet figures. And the warm wind blowing in Spring.
ANTONINUS: Never! My scourge is for such.
[SATAN sighs. The girls laugh from the hill. ANTONINUS hears the laughter.
A look of fear comes over him.
ANTONINUS: Which ... (a little peal of girlish laughter off). Which cherry tree did you speak of?
SATAN: This one over the window.
ANTONINUS (with an effort): It shall be held accursed. I will warn the brethren. It shall be cut down and hewn asunder and they shall burn it utterly.
SATAN (rather sorrowfully): Ah, Antoninus.
ANTONINUS: You shall not tempt a monk of our blessed order.
SATAN: They are coming this way, Antoninus.
ANTONINUS: What! What!
SATAN: Have your scourge ready, Antoninus.
ANTONINUS: Perhaps, perhaps they have not merited extreme chastisement.
SATAN: They have made a garland of may, a long white garland drooped from their little hands. Ah, if you were young, Antoninus.
ANTONINUS: Tempt me not, Satan. I say, tempt me not!
[The girls sing, SATAN smiles, the girls sing on. ANTONINUS tip-toes to seat, back to window, and sits listening. The girls sing on. They pass the window and shake the branch of a cherry tree. The petals fall in sheets past the window. The girls sing on and ANTONINUS sits listening.
ANTONINUS (hand to forehead): My head aches. I think it is that song.... Perhaps, perhaps it is the halo. Too heavy, too heavy for us.
[SATAN walks gently up and removes it and walks away with the gold disc. ANTONINUS sits silent.
SATAN: When the moon is waning.
[Exit. More petals fall past the window. The song rings on. ANTONINUS sits quite still, on his face a new ecstacy.
CURTAIN.
IF SHAKESPEARE LIVED TO-DAY
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
SIR WEBLEY WOOTHERY-JURNIP} Members of the
MR. NEEKS } Olympus.
JERGINS, an old waiter.
MR. TRUNDLEBEN, Secretary of the Club.
MR. GLEEK, Editor of the "Banner and Evening Gazette" and member of the Olympus.
SCENE
A room in the Olympus Club.
Time: After luncheon.
SIR WEBLEY WOOTHERY-JURNIP and MR. NEEKS sit by a small table. Further away sits MR. GLEEK, the Editor of the "Banner and Evening Gazette." SIR WEBLEY JURNIP rises and rings the bell by the fire-place. He returns to his seat.
MR. NEEKS: I see there's a man called Mr. William Shakespeare putting up for the Club.
SIR WEBLEY: Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Shakespeare? I once knew a man called Shaker.
NEEKS: No, it's Shakespeare-Mr. William Shakespeare.
SIR WEBLEY: Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Do you know anything about him?
NEEKS: Well, I don't exactly recall-I made sure that you--