Sir T. I perceive it. Hopeful men
Are always digging graves unwittingly;
Cathedrals—noble cenotaphs of faith
Long dead: academies—of plastic art
The tomb; our ancient universities—
The mausoleum and the monument
Of learning; justice in the law-courts buried
Lies most worshipfully; soon our sculptured banks—
To make an end—will be the sepulchre
Of all finance: is not the whole world bankrupt?
Groom. Turn it to ribaldry! I love the stage,
And hate to see it made the prostitute
Of crafty godliness that's mainly this—
The rancid odour of a worn-out sex.
To see the stage that should be sweet, humane,
More tolerant than art, freer than sin—
Let me say sin to mean all human scope,
The utmost license of unbridled mirth,
The noble freedom of the tragic mood,
A perfect liberty of drift and range,
The universal mind and deed of man:
To see the stage corrupted by the church,
Debauched by bland religion, venomous
Betrayer of the spirit; and foul with creed,
The helpless necessary excrement
Wherewith religion sullies everything:
To see this loathsome doom of what I love
Is deadlier to me than blank despair,
Than death and everlasting obloquy!
Sir T. To me it means the element I use,
For church and stage are dramaturgy both:
The one inspires a happy will to death;
The other floods the soul of man with life.
If you must carp against the stage, attack
The usury that leads it on a chain,
Exploiting all that's base: there's loads of gold
In flattered meannesses; the public pays
To be degraded: easiest escape
Is downward to the abyss; the greasy plank
Requires no effort.
Groom. Tristram of the times,
The creature of infectious decadence
That triumphs everywhere: a harvest home
Of mellow, putrid autumns; afternoon
And twilight of the state, the church, the stage.
By heaven and earth, the syndicated shows
That pay the big percentages are sweet
Beside a gelded Shakespeare, and the priest
Pronouncing benediction from the stalls!
Sir T. The decadence is everywhere?—perhaps;
But how should that concern the decadents?
Their function is to hasten the decay.
It has been held, it has been proved that life
Is but the decadence of matter, soul
The decadence of life; now, soul itself,
The parasite that drains the sap of life,
Begins its decadence. But what of that?
We must go through with it.—Come, will you play
Prince Troilus, boy; or, flatly, are you drunk?
Groom. [Drinks] I cannot tell; perhaps: I love to drink:
The dingy world becomes a crystal orb
Revealing truth when wine enlightens me—
Truth like a sumptuous vision in a bell
Of dew, a magic bubble blown to film
That melts and bursts, a passion of delight,
A shimmering womb of diverse stains and deep.
By Bacchus and his panthers, I believe
A great career of drunkenness were worth
A man's ambition! Alcohol's as good
As law, the church, the army, or the stage!
Henceforth my business and my art will be
To drink and to be drunken. [Drinks] Odours faint
Of pallid wayside roses, heavier scents
Of roses of the garden, deeper snares
Of bowls of roses ripe and faded, bowls
Of leaves of roses, faded, dark and sweet,
The last aroma! Clusters of the vine,
Mature, deep-bosomed, umbered with the sun;
Old dregs and essences of happiness,
Of women's pulses wound like springs of steel,
Of sanguine wars, of sinews, swords, of hearts
As hard as nether millstones, burning love
Like molten adamant! Oh, heaven and hell
Are wed and wanton in a cup of wine,
Bouquet and ichor of eternity!
I shall go out and cry it in the streets.
Sir T. [To the Actors in the wings]
Go with him to his room. Let him drink on
Until he sleeps. That is the end of this.
[Groom goes out, accompanied by the Actors.]
Lady S. [Coming down quickly]
And this the end for us, Sir Tristram. Drink.
Sir T. [Taking the vial which Lady Sumner offers]
Are you insane? You have not drunk?