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UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT VOLUME.

Post 8vo, cloth limp, 2s. 6d. each.

ORIGINAL PLAYS

BY

W. S. GILBERT.

First and Second Series.

The First Series contains: The Wicked World—Pygmalion and Galatea—Charity—The Princess—The Palace of Truth—Trial by Jury.

The Second Series contains: Broken Hearts—Engaged—Sweethearts—Gretchen—Dan’l Druce—Tom Cobb—H.M.S. ‘Pinafore’—The Sorcerer—The Pirates of Penzance.

Royal 16mo, Japanese leather, 2s. 6d.

THE GILBERT AND SULLIVAN BIRTHDAY BOOK:

QUOTATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR

Selected from Plays by W. S. GILBERT, set to Music by Sir A. SULLIVAN.

Compiled by ALEX. WATSON.

London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 111 St. Martin’s Lane, W.C.

ORIGINAL PLAYS

BY

W. S. GILBERT

SECOND SERIES

CONTAINING

BROKEN HEARTS, ENGAGED, SWEETHEARTS,
DAN’L DRUCE, GRETCHEN, TOM COBB,
THE SORCERER, H.M.S. PINAFORE,
THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1899

CONTENTS.

BROKEN HEARTS.

AN ENTIRELY ORIGINAL FAIRY PLAY,
IN THREE ACTS.

First produced at the Royal Court Theatre, under the management of Mr. Hare, Thursday, 9th December, 1875.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

SCENE: THE ISLAND OF BROKEN HEARTS.

The action of the piece takes place within twenty four hours.

Costumes—1300-1350.

BROKEN HEARTS.

ACT I.

Scene: A tropical landscape. In the distance, a calm sea. A natural fountain—a mere thread of water—falls over a rock into a natural basin. An old sun-dial formed of the upper part of a broken pillar, round the shaft of which some creeping flowers are trained, stands on a small mound. The time is within half an hour of sunset.

Mousta, a deformed, ill-favoured dwarf hump-backed and one-eyed, is discovered seated, reading a small black-letter volume.

Mous. (reads). “To move a mountain.” That will serve me not,

Unless, indeed, ’twill teach me how to lift

This cursed mountain from my crippled back!

“To make old young.” Humph! I’m but forty-two—

But still, I’ll mark that page—the day will come

When I shall find it useful. Ha! what’s this?

“To make the crooked straight; to heal the halt;

And clothe unsightly forms with comeliness.”

At last! At last!

Enter Vavir, who listens in amazement.

(Reads) “Take scammony and rue,

With henbane gathered in a fat churchyard—

Pound in a mortar with three drops of blood,

Drawn from a serpent’s tail at dead of night.”

Yes, yes, that’s plain enough! (reads) “Take pigeon’s egg

Wrapped in the skin of a beheaded toad,

And then—” (sees Vavir) Who’s there?

Vav. (astonished).Why, Mousta?

Mous.Pardon me,

I’m at my book. I did not hear thy step.

Vav. Thy book hath lines both strange and terrible:

Why Mousta, this is arrant sorcery!

How camest thou with such a fearful thing?

Mous. (whispering). An unseen spirit brought it to me—Ay,

Brought it to me. An hour or so ago

I saw a distant boat make for our shores,

The wind was on her bow—she tacked as though

Handled by one well-skilled in such small craft.

Well—on she came—and I awaited her,

Armed with a boat-hook. When within fair hail,

“Sheer off!” I cried; “No stranger touches here!”

But, heedless of my hail, she kept her course,

And, when within a bow-shot of the beach,

Down came her sail, and in she ran to shore!

Vav. (alarmed). Whom did she carry, Mousta?

Mous.Not a soul!

The boat was tenantless! Some unseen power

Had guided her! I overhauled the craft

To find some sign of human agency,

And found—this book.

Vav. (shrinking from it). It is unholy lore!

Oh, burn it, Mousta!

Mous.Burn it? No, not I!

See what I am—dwarfed, twisted, and deformed!

I have a fancy to be tall and straight—

This volume teaches me to have my will.

My only eyeball flashes from its pit

Like a red snake trapped in a sunken snare—

I do not like my eye. As I’ve but one,

I’d have it large and bright. This teaches me

To make it so. My mouth is coarsely cut—

I like a tempting mouth—a mouth that smiles—

A mouth that’s smiled upon. This teaches me

To make it so. I will not burn this book!

The Lady Hilda has entered during the last line.

Hil. And what would’st thou with beauty?

Mous.What would I?

Why, lady, look around; the isle is fair:

Its feathery palms that tower towards the sky,

Its prattling brooks that trickle to the sea,

Its hills and dales, its sea and sky—are fair:

The beasts that dwell upon it, and the birds

That fly above it—even they are fair:

And, beyond all, the ladies who have made

This isle their chosen home are very fair!

And what am I? Why, lady, look at me!

I am the one foul blot upon its face:

I am the one misshapen twisted thing

In this assemblage of rare loveliness:

I am the one accursed discord in

This choir of universal harmony!

Is this, think you, a proud pre-eminence?

Or, rather, is it not a red-hot brand

That stamps its damning impress on one’s heart,

And changes man to devil before his time!

(Sadly.) Ah! you are mocking me!

Hil. (kindly).I mock thee not.

We maidens all (save one) have dearly loved,

And those we loved have died. We, broken hearts,

Knit by the sympathy of kindred woe,

Have sought this isle far from the ken of man;

And having loved, and having lost our loves,

Stand pledged to love no living thing again.

Thou art our trusted servant and our friend;

The only man of all the world of men

Whom we admit upon our virgin shores.

We know thee, and we trust thee, Mousta—Come,

This thought might soften harder hearts than thine!

Mous. (angrily). And why choose me alone of all mankind

To serve you in your island loneliness?

Because my limbs, though crooked, are strongly framed?

Bah, there are tall straight men as strong as I.

Because my heart goes with my fealty?

Why half my wage would buy the heart and soul

Of twenty well-proportioned servitors.

Because by reason of my face and form

I do not count as man? Yes! I’m an ape!

A crippled, crumpled, devil-faced baboon,

Who claims a place amid this loveliness

By title of his sheer deformity!

Now, monkey though I be, I am a man

In all but face and form—I’ve a man’s heart,

A man’s desire to love—and to be loved—(Hilda seems amused.)

Ay, you may laugh—but those who seek to laugh

May find, methinks, more fitting merriment

In such mad love as deals with sun-dials,

Trees, rocks, and fountains, and such baby game.

My love at least is human in its aim.

It’s well you should know this—be on your guard!

[Exit Mousta.

Hil. In truth, the love that Mousta laughs at tells

How strangely ordered is a woman’s heart!

Dost thou remember how, when first we came

To this fair isle, I said, in thoughtless jest,

“As woman’s heart must love, and we are women,

So let us choose our loves”—then, looking round,

“This running fountain shall be mine,” I cried,

And, kneeling by the brink, then sealed the vow

As all such vows are sealed ’twixt men and women—

And thou, poor child, pleased with the jest, replied,

“I take this dial to be my love for life!”

Vavir, we little thought that in those words

We pledged ourselves to an abiding love

That rivals in its pure intensity

The love that we had banished from our hearts!

Yet so it is. We have so dwelt upon

This idle fancy—keeping it alive

With songs and sighs and vows of constancy,

That we have tricked ourselves into a love

Akin to that which we had all forsworn.

I love this little fountain as my life!

Vav. To me my dial is more, far more, than life;

It is the chronicle of the World’s life,

Written by Heaven’s own hand. As, rapt in thought,

I watch its silent solemn shadow creep

From hour to hour, and so from day to day,

True as the Sun itself—an awful record

Of Heaven’s most perfect and most glorious order—

My love is lost in reverential awe.

Oh I have chosen well in choosing this!

It is a holy thing, that bears a warrant,

Sent from the Source of Life, to tell the Earth

That even Time is hastening to its end!

What is mere world-love to such love as this?

Hil. And yet thou hast no cause to shun world-love.

When my great sorrow came and I withdrew

To this lone isle with other broken hearts,

Thou, heart-whole and untouched by love of Man,

Yet gavest up the world and all it holds

To bide with me.

Vav. I do not love the world.

My darling sister found her sorrow there—

The world is naught to me. This tiny isle,

But half a league in girth holds all I love.

My world is where thou art—there let me stay

For the few months that yet remain to me!

I think my time on earth will be but brief.

Hil. Hush, hush, Vavir. I will not hear these things.

Vav. My life has been a very happy life,

So free from pain and sorrow of its own

That, but that I have shared my sister’s grief,

I had not known what pain and sorrow are—

Yet even this calm rest—this changeless peace,

Saps my poor fragile fabric day by day,

And the first shaft that sorrow aims at it,

May shake its puny structure to the ground!

Hil. Why, what sad silly fancy’s this, Vavir?

Thou hast no pain, my child?

Vav.No pain, indeed;

But a calm happiness so strangely still,

It comes not of this world. I am to die

Ere very long. Pray Heaven I be prepared!

Hil. It’s well for me and well for both of us

I do not share these foolish fantasies!

Why, silly child, believest thou that Time

Will see the fruit that ripens on those cheeks,

And note the dainty banquet of those lips,

And not preserve such rich and radiant fare,

For his own feasting in his own good time?

Trust the old Epicure!

[Exeunt Hilda and Vavir together.

Enter Florian. He comes down, looking around him in admiration.

Flor. All men who say I’m five-and-twenty, lie.

I was born but to-day! An hour ago!

Yes—this must be the World. The distant land

In which I’ve passed so many years, and which

I, in my puppy-blindness, called “The World,”

Is but its antechamber.

Enter Mousta (with book).

Born to-day,

And by a process which is new to me,

My faculties are scarcely wide awake,

But if my memory serves me faithfully,

This twisted thing and I have met before.

Mous. The ladies are at supper. Now’s my time

To master, undisturbed by curious eyes,

The ghostly secrets of my spirit book!

Where was I? Oh! (reads) “Take scammony and rue,

With henbane gathered—”

Flor. (coming behind and taking book from him).

Pardon me—that’s mine.

Mous. Oh, Heaven and Earth—a Man! Thou hardy fool,

What dost thou on this isle? (Draws knife.) Come, answer me.

Flor. Give me that knife. (Twists it out of his hand.)

That’s well! Now, what’s your will?

Mous. Go—get thee hence at once.

Flor.No, not just yet.

This Paradise—if Rumour tells the truth—

Is ruled by six fair ladies. I prefer

To take my sailing orders from their lips.

Mous. Their lips are mine!

Flor.Then you’re a lucky dog!

Mous. I am their mouthpiece. By their solemn rules

No man may set his foot upon these shores.

Those rules thy hardihood hath set at naught.

How camest thou, and when?

Flor.I am a Prince,

Prince Florian of Spain. I landed here

From yonder boat—about an hour ago.

Mous. Liar! The boat was empty!

Flor.No, not quite.

I was on board.

Mous. (puzzled). But I was on the beach—

Flor. I know you were—with boat-hook in your hand

To thrust her off. You hailed me angrily:

I had no time to stop and parley then,

So, in the hope that Fate would furnish me

With some more fitting opportunity

To offer you my best apologies,

I kept her head to land, and jumped ashore.

Those best apologies I offer now.

Mous. (alarmed). If you’ll believe me, sir, I saw you not!

Flor. I quite believe you, for I have the power

To make myself invisible at will,

And, having such a power, you’ll see at once

That force will serve you nothing.

Mous. (amazed).Say you true?

Flor. Undoubtedly. I’ve but to wind this veil

(producing a grey gauze veil with gold tassels)

About my head, and I’m invisible,

And so remain till I remove it.

Mous.Why,

This is a priceless Talisman, indeed!

Invisible! I’d give one half my life

To be invisible for half-a-day!

Flor. Indeed? And why?

Mous.There is no living thing

But seeks a mate—What birds and beasts may do

Mousta may seek to do—I want to mate!

And whom d’ye think I want? Some kitchen-wench?