TÊTE-D'OR
A PLAY IN THREE ACTS
BY
PAUL CLAUDEL
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
JOHN STRONG NEWBERRY
NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON - HUMPHREY MILFORD - OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXIX
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Table of Content
[Dedication]
O day! Having felt, like the touch of water upon the head,
The desire to be alone and to weep where none could find me,
Laughing I walked where the fragrance of the riotous garden spread
Its honeyed share, and left the flowers and the trees behind me.
And from behind me, borne from the breathing depths, as I went,
With eyes half-closed, there came to fall upon my hair
The holy benediction of things most excellent,
And seeds and shreds of down were softly mingled there.
Behind me the eternal woods uplifted leafy domes,
Behind me banks of blossoms, packed to the brim with sweets,
Towards the expectant nose, prepared to breathe their balms,
Like some strong nuptial body upraised their ardent heats.
Roses and yellow asphodels that sturdy stems upbear,
In the mellow disarray of their golden panoply,
Shone forth like lamps that gleam through the white and liquid air
When but a single diamond adorns the sleeping sky.
For like one who stops and turns and listens to the sea
When to his ear is borne its low, mysterious whisper,
Above the shining earth, beaming resplendently,
I saw that star, First-Born of the dawning Future, Vesper!
O only child of the King, among so many slaves!
Pilgrim unique o'er city paths seeking the distant sea!
Planet of morn, re-born in evening's dusky caves!
Star anadyomene in the depth of the garden's greenery!
Mysteriously o'er the hour a subtle influence reigns,
Deepening peace, maintaining, with strange and mystic art,
The secret length of the days that are gone where only the honey remains
Of animate life, enhived in this everlasting heart.
Feebly the dying breeze stirs in its dark retreat.
O joy supreme, O love beyond what words can say!
Over this sordid world that has so enslaved my feet
Endureth the ineffable unfolding of the day!
In such an hour there passes in laughing ecstasy
The poet, sprung from a race obscure, who never shall grow old,
His golden dream fulfills itself in the twilight. Silently
He is merged in the springtime of the gods, the eternal age of gold!
Gazing into the eye of the world with an eye on fire to see,
As one gapes for the juicy plums that the topmost branches bear,
As, 'twixt his dusky brides, hard Jacob bowed the knee
To gain from the hand of a father the blessing on an heir,
I live! Come, rain and storm! I shall not be unmanned!
Bearing my destiny, aware of the term of Fate's delay,
Laughing I walked beneath the grim and terrifying land
Of burning constellations that cross a milky way.
Dramatis Personae
Simon Agnel, later Tête-d'or, afterwards the King
Cébès
The King
First Watcher
Second Watcher
Third Watcher
Fourth Watcher
Fifth Watcher
The Princess
Cassius, the Messenger
The Tribune of the People
The Go-Between
The High Prefect
The Schoolmaster
The Brother of the King
The Man Out of Office
The Chief of Staff
First Captain
Second Captain
Third Captain
Fourth Captain
The Deserter
The Standard-Bearer
First Subaltern
Second Subaltern
The Messenger
The Centurion
The Commander of the Cavalry
The Commander of the Second Army
Citizens, Soldiers, Officers
Place
Act I: The Open Fields.
Act II: A Hall in the King's Palace.
Act III: A Waste Place in the Caucasus.
Act I
The open fields at the end of winter.
Enter, at the back, simon agnel, dressed like a peasant. He bears upon his shoulder the body of a woman, and carries a spade.
Enter, in front, cébès, walking slowly.
Cébès: I stand here,
Untaught, irresolute,
A man new-born confronting things unknown.
I turn my face towards the Future and the lowering arch of the sky. My soul is full of weariness!
I know nothing. There is nothing I can do. What shall I say? What shall I do?
How shall I use these hands that hang at my sides, these feet
That bear me about as in a dream?
Speech is but a noise and books are only paper.
There is no one here but myself. And all that is about me,
The foggy air, the rich fields,
The trees, the low-lying clouds
Seem to speak to me, soundlessly, to ask inarticulate questions.
The ploughman
Turns homeward with his plough. I hear its slow creaking.
It is the time when women bring water from the wells.
It is night.—What am I?
What am I doing? For what do I wait?
And I answer, "I do not know!"
And in my heart there is a wild desire
To weep or to cry aloud
Or to laugh or leap in the air and wave my arms!
"Who am I?"
There are still some patches of snow. I hold in my hand a sprig of pussy-willow.
For March is like a woman blowing a fire of green wood.
—That the Summer
And the dreadful day under the glare of the sun may be forgotten,
O Nature,
Here I offer myself to you!
I know so little!
Look at me! There is something that I need.
But what it is I do not know and I could cry forever
Loud and low like a child that one hears in the distance, like children left alone beside the glowing embers!
O lowering sky! Trees, earth, darkness, night of rain!
Look upon me! Grant my prayer!
(He sees simon.
Who is that?
(He approaches him.
Are you digging a drain? It is getting late.
Simon (straightening his back): Who is there? What do you want?
Cébès: What are you doing there?
Simon: Does this field belong to you?
Cébès: It is my father's.
Simon: Suffer me to dig this hole in it.
Cébès (seeing the body): What is that?
Simon (continuing to dig): The woman who was with me.
Cébès: Who is she? Oh, I know her! And is she dead!
Simon: I did not cause her death.
Cébès: Oh! Oh! It is she! It is she!
And is it thus that I find you! Cold and wet!
You that were kind to all, light-hearted, vital!
Simon: Cébès!
Cébès: What? You know me?
Simon: What do they call that slate-roofed belfry, Cébès?
What place is this?
Cébès: Agnel! Simon Agnel!
Simon: Are any of my family still here?
Cébès: No. The house has been sold.
Simon: Is my father alive?
Cébès: He is dead, and your mother also.
The others have gone away.
Simon: Is it so!
Cébès: Where have you been, unhappy man? Why did you go?
And what of that woman lying there?
Simon: Why? Who knows?
A wild and adventurous spirit, shame,
A desire to reach the end of the road, to follow the lure of the plain that stretches towards the horizon,
And I went out from the house and left the old familiar faces.
Dead!
Cébès: Where did you go?
Simon: I did not know that she loved me.
One day I caught her by the throat, crushing her body against the side of the barn,
For I was a violent man. She came to join me.
I have wandered,
I have dreamed many dreams, I have known
Men and the things that at present exist.
I have seen strange roads, strange cultures, strange cities. One leaves them behind and they are gone.
And the sea that is very far away and further than the sea.
And as I was returning, bringing back the branch of a pine...
Cébès: It was there that she found you?
Simon: Together
By many mountains and rivers we wandered seeking the South and that other ocean.
Then we returned to this place.
Cébès: Where did you say?
Simon: There, to that hut. I tried to light a fire but it was too wet.
—I think it is deep enough now.
(He climbs out of the hole.
Cébès: O that she should be lying there like this!
Simon: O this place! This place!
Turning hence my unworthy eyes what have I sought among multitudes of men but the testimony of my own soul!
And it was here that, girding up its loins, it came to find me!
Standing in the red of the dawn, the warmth of the rising sun on our hair,
We had re-united our souls through our lips, and with artless arms she clasped me to her breast!
And I brought her here that this place whence I had set out might mock me! There she lies fallen at my feet!
My curse on this country! A murrain on the cattle! May the pigs die of plague!
Ah! Ah! This place! O soil of sticky clay!
I am worthless! What could I do! What was the use! Ah, why should I try to be
Different from what I am? And it is here
That alone and with my feet in the earth I raise my bitter cry,
While the wind masks my face with rain!
O woman, ever faithful
Who followed me, uncomplaining
Like a fairy in thrall, like a queen
Who wraps her bleeding feet in tatters of cloth of gold!
I cried to her, "Come, down into the mud!"
Horror incarnate, shame, infamy teeming with desires, this is the knowledge I have gained at the last!
Listen! When she was dying she pressed my hand against her cheek,
And kissed me, keeping her eyes on mine,
And she said that she could sing me prophecies
Like an old ship that has come to the end of the world.
And at the last when she was dying she tried to speak,
Tears were in her eyes! Who knows what she saw, what she regretted!
Cébès: Alone and so pale!
Simon: She looked at me and wept and kissed my hands with burning lips!
"Are you in pain?" I said.
She shook her head.
She looked at me and I do not know what she wished to say. Who can understand a woman?
Into the grave with you!
(He lifts the body.
Cébès: May I help you?
Simon: Yes. I shall be glad of your help. It shall not be forgotten.
I will take her shoulders, you take her feet.
(They take up the body.
Not like that! Let her sleep face downward.
(They lower her face downward, into the grave.
Cébès: May she sleep well!
Simon: There! Go! Enter, enter into the raw earth! Lie at your ease, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, your mouth pressing against the clay,
As in the days when prone upon our pillows we rushed towards sleep!
And now I shall load a burden of earth on your back!
(He throws the earth into the grave. When it is full he walks on it, stamping it down.
Fill it up! Room must be found for the earth whose place you have taken.
—So there are none of my family left?
Cébès: Not one. The house is closed. The fields lie fallow.
(Silence.
Her father is still alive.
Simon: Would you have me ask him for a night's lodging?
Cébès: He is old. He has known much sorrow.
He lives alone, an object of charity, despised by everyone.
He is bent like a scythe. His hands hang down below his knees. He has never been the same since his daughter went away.
Simon: I shall come to this place no more.
Can you see where the grave was?
Cébès: There is not a sign of it. How it rains!
Simon: O gentle Giver of Knowledge,
Twofold teacher who while you spoke held your face before me like a book,
Here take your rest, deeper than the buried grain!
Here, where you cannot hear the noise of the roads or the fields, the sounds of ploughing and sowing,
Remembered only by me, in a place that no one knows,
And let not even this spade nor your staff like the broken oar of a sailor
Remain to mark your grave!
(He throws away the spade.
And now let us go!
Cébès: May I go with you?
Simon: Come.
You do not talk, comrade.
(They walk along together.
Cébès: Oh, I am sad! I am exceedingly sad!
Simon: Death!
Thoughts,
Actions that sleep, like new-born babes
Drawing up their knees to their bellies reassume
The shape of the maternal mold.
One ceases to live.
Old age obscures the memory. The sick man
Wakes all alone and while the rain drives against the windows, he hears the sound of a falling silver spoon.
And the smile has mercifully been given to the old.
Cébès: She is dead.
Simon: A woman has withdrawn her hand from mine, mysteriously veiling her eyes.
And I, her mate, am left alone.
To what pale region of the air shall I raise my yearning mouth?
What shall I repeat in my silence, "I shall find strength, I shall make the effort...."
Ah, where shall I look? Where shall I go? The skies are like iron and I remain here, the woman's legacy, full of vague menaces and anguished cries.
—What is there left in life? I have travelled. I have seen the world. O worthless calendar of petty days!
Though the members of my body
Should bristle as thick as fir saplings upon a mountain side,
For what would I employ that multitude?
The woman I loved is no more!
And yet... When she was sleeping yesterday, I went out
Knowing that the next day I should be alone.
It was night and my heart was heavier than a suspended stone.
But, as I walked to and fro, slowly there came to me
A sense of the living force within my soul, the vital essence,
That does not enter into marriage, nor pass through the gates of birth,
The secret purpose of my being.
Cébès: O that I also might...
But no one has ever bothered about me.
Simon: What did you say?
Cébès: I could tell you...
I could lament in such a fashion that you would comprehend....
Simon: Some woman already...?
Cébès: No.
Simon: Indeed the desire
For this being who has the face of a child
Is strange. I do not believe in their laughter.
Age makes them fat like fowls.
But to slip away thus like a handful of sand that runs through the fingers...
Pah! These fancies!
Perhaps some day you will understand.
(They come to the road.
Cébès: Who is that? (aside) It is her father.
(An old man, bent almost double, enters, trundling a wheelbarrow on which is a basket and a hoe.
Simon (aside): Speak to him.
Cébès (to the peasant): Good evening.
(the peasant stops and sets down the wheelbarrow.
(Silence.
How are things going to-day?
The Peasant: Eh, I don't know. I think it can't be more than five o'clock. The days don't get much longer.
Simon (shouting in his ear): And how is your daughter?
The Peasant: I don't know. She is not with me any more.
Simon: Perhaps she is better off than you are, eh?
The Peasant: Ah! She might help me out a bit then.
'Tis a bad business, surely!
Good-night to you, masters.
(He goes out. They remain silent for a moment.
Cébès (pointing up the road): That way lies the village.
You must spend the night with me.
Simon: No, my road lies yonder.
There is now no place to receive me. I will not lodge in the house of another.
I have no other wealth than these old clothes. But I shall stretch myself on a stone and be content.
I myself am my table and my bed.
I shall not die, but live!
I shall not die, but live!
I wish not to die, but to live!
For I am not alone.
Cébès: Who is with you?
Simon: The voice of my living soul!
I have heard men mourn their misfortunes, but what misfortune can there be?
None.
—It grows dark.
Cébès: It is night.
Simon: Watch the road and speak more softly.
The dry brambles shiver; the branches creak or sway without a sound; the brooks gurgle among the reeds.
We stand in the midst of space, with all about us the blackness,
The melancholy of Earth.
We pass along the road.
And we alone exhale the warm breath of living beings.
Haha! My nerves are unstrung.
You there ... Cébès... Do you hear me?
Cébès: Yes.
Simon: Speak to me. Had you not something to tell me?
Cébès: I want...
Simon: What do you want?
Cébès: Nothing!
Only a room when it snows and that no one should know where I am!
Simon: What did you say?
Cébès: I am only a boy. There has been no one to help me!
I have had to endure much suffering.
I am plagued with bitter fancies. I shrink from the light of the sun.
Why should you force me to speak only to mock at me? Simon: I will take you by the hair of your head and shake you.
Come, in whom will you confide if not
In the man who at this very moment
Walks at your side through the blackness of night.
I tell you that you are a man and not a child, like some pale seedling pushing its way through the mould.
I am only a little older than you,
Yet I have sworn
To hold myself erect!
To never yield, to have no fear, and to accomplish what I undertake!
Speak! Take my arm
For the night is so dark one can scarcely see.
Cébès: Ah, well! I am very wretched! O that I might set forth clearly things that are obscure!
Where shall I begin?
To express the weariness that has no beginning, but has become a part of one's consciousness like the familiar things of every day?
Thus might the young man speak
Who like an emperor dethroned, his head thrust through a sack, sits motionless with haggard eyes,
While the wind makes free with his hair like a wanton trull,
Vacantly contemplating the dawn of another day
Full of little whisperings like a dead tree;
The multitude of foolish men who interrogate each other, fight, talk, and cast their eyes this way and that,
And then, turning towards us the hairy side of the head, disappear like the Manes;
The catastrophes and the sombre passions;
The clouds that cover the hills with shadows; the cries of beasts, the hum of the villages, the clatter of the highways;
The wood, and the chant of the coursing wind; the carts that are charged with sheaves and flowers;
And the Victories that pass their appointed way like harvesters, with swarthy cheeks,
Veiled and bearing a drum on a golden thigh.