Yet from my founts of life, fecund, divine, Still dauntless lovers dare my dark tribunal, Building a common shrine To hold their love communal.
So out of War up looms unconquered Art: Blind forces rage, but masters rise to mould them. Soldiers and kings depart; Time’s artists—still behold them!
As the Spirit of Time ceases to speak, the light passes to the entrances of the Greek ground-circle, where now—from either side—enters a Pageant of the great Theatres of the world—from the ancient Theatre of Dionysus to the Comedie Francaise—in symbolic groups, with their distinctive banners and insignia. The names of these are blazoned on their group standards, and the groups themselves [like those that follow] are announced from either end of the high balcony above the inner stage by two spirit Trumpeters, the one beneath a glowing disk of the sun, the other beneath a sickle moon.
While these, below, have ranged themselves on the ground-circle and steps above—the groups of War, Lust, and Death have dwindled away in the background darkness—leaving only Prospero, Miranda, and Ariel, grouped in light at the centre.
Then on either wing of the stage, at right and left, appears luminous a colossal mask—the one of Tragedy, the other of Comedy. Through the mouths of these, now come forth, in national pageant groups,[20] the creators of the art of the theatre from antiquity to the verge of the living present: the world-famed actors, dramatists, producers, musicians, directors, and inventors of its art.
First come the great Actors, in the guise of their greatest rôles—from Thespis and Roscius of old to Irving, Salvini, Coquelin, Booth, of modern times, the comic actors tumbling forth from the Mask of Comedy, the tragic from the Tragic Mask.
They are followed by national groups of the great Dramatists from Æschylus to Ibsen, who pass in review before Prospero.
Among these, with the Elizabethan Dramatists, grouped with Marlowe, Green, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and others, appears the modest figure of Shakespeare, at first unemphasized.
For one moment, however, as Shakespeare himself approaches Prospero, he pauses, Prospero rises, and the two figures—strangely counterparts to their beholders—look in each other’s eyes: a moment only. For Prospero, slipping off his cloak, lays it on the shoulders of Shakespeare, who sits in Prospero’s place, while Prospero moves silently off with the group of Dramatists.
Finally, when these pageants of Time have passed, and the stately Spirit of Time vanished in dark on the Yellow Sands, the only light remains on the figure of Shakespeare—and the two with him: Ariel tiptoe behind him, peering over his shoulder; Miranda beside him, leaning forward, with lips parted to speak.