Collected Plays and Teleplays (Irish Literature) (21 page)

Who’s there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves
Into my private meditations?

QUEEN:
What! Is this alive? How dare you? (
She approaches and examines the sleeping
DRONE;
her disgust is tempered by the fact that after all he is alive and a male.
) Aoh.

DRONE:
(
Asleep.
) I prithee, go to.

QUEEN:
Aoh, the nasty old man!

DRONE:
(
Asleep.
)

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But, when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood;

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage:

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a galléd rock

O’erhang and jutty his confounded base

Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

To his full height!

QUEEN:
Aoh!

DRONE:
Let us seek some desolate shade, and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

QUEEN:
(
Incensed.
) The wretch is drunk with honey! Of all the nerve! How dare the wretch treat his Queen like this—the only female bee in the whole country! How dare he!

DRONE:
Like the Pontick sea,

Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

To the Propontic and the Hellespont;

Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,

Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,

Till that capable and wide revenge

Swallow them up. . . .

QUEEN:
(
Rushing over and shaking him.
) You miserable sot! How dare you mumble your drunken rubbish in the presence of your Queen! HOW DARE YOU! Wake up! Do you hear me? WAKE UP! I command you to wake up, you drunken scoundrel. I am the Queen! THE QUEEN!

DRONE:
(
Only half-waking.
)

This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart,
Hot, hot and moist! This hand of yours requires
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout. . . .

QUEEN:
Wake up! Do you hear me? I command you—WAKE UP! You are the last living bee and I command you to marry me! Do you hear? I COMMAND YOU TO MARRY ME!

DRONE:
Where, where, where?

QUEEN:
(
Pointing up.
) Up there, eight hundred thousand feet up—you know very well where. WAKE UP, you miserable sot! Do you want the race to die out, you cynical nincompoop? WAKE UP!

DRONE:
(
Half-awake.
) Stay, my pet,

And let your reason with your choler question
What ‘tis you go about. To climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first: anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being allow’d his way,
Self-mettle tires him.

QUEEN:
(
Mad.
) Do you refuse? You disobey me? You disobey your Queen’s command? YOU REFUSE TO MARRY ME, YOU TREASONABLE SCOUNDREL! (
She cries hysterically.
) O, you awful, awful, lazy, useless, wretched scoundrel, you refuse to marry me, reject my royal love! O—! (
She breaks down.
)

DRONE:
Be advised;

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself: we may outrun
By violent swiftness, that which we run at
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire that mounts the liquor till ‘t run o’er,
In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advised:
I say again, there is no beeish soul
More stronger to direct you than yourself
If with the sap of reason you would quench,
Or but allay, the fire of passion.

QUEEN:
O that dreadful . . . unctuous . . . oily . . . wretched . . . treasonable . . . useless . . . dirty . . . impossible . . . bore! (
She rushes about the stage in frenzy.
) I’ll kill myself, I’LL KILL MYSELF. (
She screams.
) Do you hear me, I’ll kill myself. (
She catches sight of the sleeping
TRAMP
in foreground.
) I’ll sting something and kill myself. I’ll die, I’ll sting this and die!

(
She stings the
TRAMP
,
who starts up with a cry; then she dies after a brief and noisy paroxysm.
)

TRAMP:
What the bloody hell was that? Bees, begob. (
He examines himself gingerly.
) Begob this place is alive with them divils, I believe wan of them’s after stingin’ me, pumpin’ dirt and poison into me arum. Sure I told yeh—I TOLD YEH there’s a bloody nest of them here. Where’s me bottle? (
He finds it and takes a suck.
) A little drop on the sting and I was right. But where is the sting? (
He notices the dead
QUEEN
and stands up to peer over at her.
) Holy God, a bee as big as a greyhound. Begob the eyes is goin’—that or me oul’ head! What’s goin’ on in this place at all? (
Enter
BASIL
.) Holy God, look at your man!

BASIL:
(
To
DRONE
.) Hallao! What have we here? The Queen, by Jove! (
He examines her.
)

TRAMP:
I never seen bees that size before.

(
BASIL
approaches
DRONE
.)

BASIL:
The Queen, my lord, is dead.

DRONE:
(
Half-asleep.
) She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (
He falls asleep completely.
)

TRAMP:
Begob I AM stung. I am stung! I can feel it now. It’s here in the middle of me arum; wan of them dirty bees has got me! (
His voice becomes steely with menace.
) If I could lay me hands on the bee that done that . . . do you know what I’m goin’ to tell yeh, if I could lay me two hands on the bee that done that, I’d ——

CURTAIN

1
A reference to the fact that Meriel Moore had played Myrrhina in Oscar Wilde’s
The Woman Covered with Jewels
—as part of the “Jack-in-the-Box” performances by the Gate Theatre which also included O’Brien’s
Thirst.

ACT II

The scene is a sandy hillock with stray stones, holes, patches of coarse grass; to the right and left of the stage are boulders, in between which characters appear or disappear on entering or leaving. Amid the boulders to the left, on somewhat of an eminence, is the nest of The Hen, a dark cave-like dwelling from which bits of straw and sticks protrude, it is not possible to see whether the nest is occupied or not. The
TRAMP
is lying asleep in the right foreground, unlighted
.

As the curtain goes up, there are confused sounds of chirping and clucking from the nest and immediately a large
EGG
forces itself or is forced to the edge of the nest. It topples over and rolls down onto the stage, where it is seen that a large lump has fallen out of it. It has scarcely come to rest when a beetle rushes in and tries to roll it off; immediately another rushes in to dispute the prize and they quarrel noisily over it with harsh cries. A third beetle rushes in and joins in the fray. In the middle of it, the
EGG
cries out in a very high shrill voice:

EGG:
I’m being born! I’m being born! Three cheers, hip hip—hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

(
The beetles scurry back somewhat, curious and a bit frightened; the
TRAMP
,
who has been half asleep, raises his head.
)

TRAMP:
Pardin? I beg your pardin . . . ?

EGG:
I am being born. The great moment is at hand. The whole world is bursting into blossom!

(
The beetles have approached the
TRAMP
after hearing him talk; they regard him curiously from a distance for an instant and then scurry off the stage in alarm.
)

TRAMP:
Yer been born? (
Then very doubtfully.
) I see.

EGG:
I’m in the middle of me crisis. I’m threatened with existence. Light is beginning to breed in me eyes. I’m being born!

TRAMP:
Sure that has to happen to us all, I done the same thing meself single-handed years ago. Years ago man.

(
He settles down again and there is a pause; from outside is heard the sound of two beetles talking querulously; they enter
—
MR
..
and
MRS. BEETLE
,
rolling a huge ball of dirt.
)

MR. BEETLE:
(
In an appalling Dublin accent, apparently even flatter than the
TRAMP’S
.) Here we are now, O.K., everything’s game ball.

MRS. BEETLE:
(
In a similar accent.
) Do you know, the sweat is drippin’ out of me. Drippin’ out of me it is.

MR. BEETLE:
An’ isn’t it worth puttin’ yourself into a lather for—a pile of stuff that cost us the grey hairs of a lifetime to put together? I’m steamin’ meself and I’m only sorry it’s not heavier to make me steam more. (
Rapturously.
) Ah begob it’s lovely. It’s very . . . very . . . adjacent.

MRS. BEETLE:
Our gorgeous pile, our lovely savins.

MR. BEETLE:
The savins of a bloody lifetime.

MRS. BEETLE:
It’s what they do call capital in the bew-uks.

MR. BEETLE:
(
Turning to address her impressively.
) Do you know what I’m goin to tell you. Do you see that ball?

MRS. BEETLE:
(
Abstractedly.
) Our gorgeous . . . lovely . . . big . . . gorgeous pile of savins and capital.

MR. BEETLE:
Now that pile of stuff there cost me a lifetime of workin’ and slavin’ . . . and overtime . . . and danger-money . . . and time-and-a-half . . . and Sahurda-work . . . and night-work . . . and piece-work . . . and all classes of work that isn’t known by anny particular name. Do you know that?

MRS. BEETLE:
Sure don’t be talkin’, there’s nothin’ like the capital. It’s lovely—I wouldn’t be without a life’s savins for all the money in the world.

MR. BEETLE:
Sure luckit. I seen meself wan June fourteen shifts on top of one another without a wink of slape or a bite in me mouth to kill the starvation—just to get a little bit more on to the pile, Begob I did and manys the time.

MRS. BEETLE:
Ah certainly, certainly. An’ look how gorgeous an’ big it is now.

MR. BEETLE:
It grew . . . an’ it grew . . . an’ it grew.

MRS. BEETLE:
An’ it’s ours—ours only. It’s our big ball of savins and nobody else owns anny of it.

MR. BEETLE:
I’m bloody sure it’s ours.

MRS. BEETLE:
Our lovely gorgeous capital.

MR. BEETLE:
Too bloody true it’s ours.

MRS. BEETLE:
It’s gorgeous. Sure it is anny wonder some Beetles do be selling their bodies to other Beetles that does have a big pile like this?

MR. BEETLE:
No Beetle could make a ball like mine at that game. Sure look at the size of it.

MRS. BEETLE:
An’ it’s all ours, our gorgeous savins, the nest egg for our ould age.

MR. BEETLE:
Smell it, woman, lick it, taste it! It’s ours!

EGG:
(
Screaming shrilly.
) I’m being born! Born, do you hear me! Everything’s waking, and quaking, and shaking. I’m expected at every minute, I’m nearly here. Hurray!

MR. BEETLE:
(
Still preoccupied with ball.
) It’s very . . . adjacent . . . having a bit of capital, d’ye understand me. It’s very . . . ad-mireable.

MRS. BEETLE:
I’m as happy as Larry at the present time, there’s nothing more to wish for.

MR. BEETLE:
O steady there now, me gerl, I wouldn’t say that. We have wan. Couldn’t we have two?

MRS. BEETLE:
Two! What for?

MR. BEETLE:
Isn’t two better than wan? Or even three. What’s wrong with three?

MRS. BEETLE:
Begob I always knew you had a head on you. Two piles! Three! I never thought of that. TWO big piles, all our very own!

MR. BEETLE:
Luckit. I’ll tell you what. The right game for us is to hide this one and then go off and make another. Do you see?

MRS. BEETLE:
Hide it? Yes, hide it is right. We’d better hide it right away. Ey, supposin’ somebody was to lift it on us . . . ?

MR. BEETLE:
Lift our little pile? O begob then you won’t find me leavin’ it lyin’ around to be whipped be some bloody scoundrel. We’ll find a hole and bury it.

MRS. BEETLE:
Yer right, I’d die if anybody lifted our gorgeous pile. Where are we goin’ to hide it?

MR. BEETLE:
We’ll invest it, put it away, store it, bury it, d’ye understand, put it into a nice deep hole. You stay here and don’t take your eyes off it. I’m off to find a nice hole.

MRS. BEETLE:
O, I hope it’ll be safe, our hard-earned lovely capital. Where are you goin’ now?

MR. BEETLE:
To look for a nice dark hole that nobody else knows about. I’ll be back in a tick. Mind the pile now, don’t take yer eyes off it. (
Exit.
)