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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
CHANTICLEER, by EDMOND ROSTAND Poem Explanation Poet's Biography
First Line: The three strokes are heard
Last Line: (the curtain falls)
First Line: The three strokes are heard
Last Line: (the curtain falls)
LIST OF CHARACTERS
CHANTICLEER.
PATOU.
THE BLACKBIRD.
THE PEACOCK.
THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE GREAT HORNED OWL.
THE HOOT OWL.
LITTLE SCOPS.
THE FIGHTING COCK.
THE HUNTING DOG.
A CARRIER PIGEON.
THE WOODPECKER.
THE CAT.
THE TURKEY.
THE DUCK.
THE YOUNG GUINEA.
THE GANDER.
A CAPON.
A PULLET.
ANOTHER PULLET.
A BANTAM.
A YOUNG COCKEREL.
TWO PIGEONS, WHO ARE TUMBLERS.
THE SWAN.
THE MAGPIE USHER.
THE CUCKOO.
FIRST RABBIT.
SECOND RABBIT.
TWO CHICKS.
THE NIGHT BIRDS.
THE COCKS.
THE TOADS.
THE PHEASANT HEN.
THE GUINEA HEN.
THE OLD HEN.
THE WHITE HEN.
THE GRAY HEN.
THE BLACK HEN.
THE BUFF HEN.
THE HOUDAN.
THE TURKEY HEN.
THE GOOSE.
THE MOLE.
THE WARBLER OF THE GARDENS.
THE WARBLER OF THE REEDS.
A SPIDER.
A HERON, A PIGEON, A GUINEA PIG.
The Creatures of the Barnyard, The Beasts of the Forest, The Rabbits, The
Birds, The Bees, The Wasps, The Cicadas, Voices.
PRELUDE
(The three strokes are heard. The curtain trembles and begins to
rise. At that moment a cry is heard, "Not yet!" and
THE DIRECTOR OF THE PLAY (springing from his proscenium box, hurries
on the stage. He is an important looking personage in a black suit,
and as he rushes on the stage, he repeats):
Not yet!
(The curtain falls; the Director turns to the audience, and
addressing himself first to the Prompter's box, he begins to
speak, in verse):
Not yet! Behold a moving wall,
And, since so much is certain,
Why let impatience spoil it all
By jerking up the curtain?
Charming, to view this great red wall
With mask and chaplet gilded
And from the sounds let guess forestall
The scene the author builded.
Just this one eve, let's make believe;
Each to his taste construct the scene,
Listen and dream ...
(Bending forward, the Director listens to the sounds
which begin to come from behind the curtain.)
A step, I do believe.
Is it a road? ... Bird's wings! A garden green?
Don't raise the curtain yet!
A magpie, screaming loud, takes wing,
I hear shoes' wooden clatter:
A courtyard ... near a vale ... in spring;
Dogs bark. Birds sing and chatter.
Little by little bring the scene to light.
Sound, more than sight, creates an atmosphere.
—A sheep-bell tinkles, now is silent quite:
There must be grass, for goats are cropping near.
And surely in the valley there are trees,—
A bullfinch sings the song born in her throat;
In the farmyard an osier cage, one sees,
For hark! a blackbird's tutored, captive note.
A wagon rattles on the cobble stones;
A brimming bucket splashes from a well;
Birds' feet upon the roof,—a wing dove's moans!
A barnyard, or a mill. Which, who can tell?
Some straw is moved: I heard a latch that fell.
A stable, or a haymow! Weather clear,—
I heard a locust! Sunday! Hear the bell?
Two jaybirds call. A forest, then, is near.
Hush! Out of all the cheerful summer sounds,
Nature composes in a happy dream
An overture most lovely that abounds
In distance, winds, and evening all agleam.
And every sound,—song of a passing lass,
Chuckle of babies on a donkey's back,—
Tells of a summer Sunday, after Mass;—
Crack of a gun! The music of the pack!
A window opens; and a door is closed;—
The farmyard picture every mind must keep.
The harness jingles; off the wagon goes.
The dog sleeps sound; Grimalkin feigns a sleep.
Sunday! The good folk keep their holiday!
A VOICE (behind the scenes, while the stamping of a horse is heard also): @
3Ho, there, old Gray!
ANOTHER VOICE (as if calling to somebody within): Coming?
We'll get home late!
ANOTHER VOICE: Is the dove cote barred?
A MAN'S VOICE: Yes.
A WOMAN'S VOICE: Oh, my parasol!
A MAN'S VOICE (with a crack of the whip): Get ap!
The wagon rattles through the gate.
They're off, the harness jingling loud and long.
With songs and laughter they are on the way.
A sudden turn has cut in two their song.
... No one is left. Now, we can have the play.
Philosophy may say no soul is left.
Well humbly then we'll hope a heart is there.
Life of all drama is not yet bereft,—
Laughter and pain remain when man is otherwhere.
(He listens)
A bumblebee with burly noise and fuss
Knocks at a lily's door. She lets him in.
Æsop shall fill the prompter's box for us,
No mortal else. Now let the play begin!
The people of the play perhaps are small,
But
(looking up)
Alexander!
(to the Audience):
—My chief carpenter,—
Let it come down!
VOICE (above):. It comes!
THE DIRECTOR: A magic wall
Of glass that shows the size we men prefer.
Hark to the violins! With crystal bows
Their perfect harmony the crickets play.
On go the footlights as at other shows,
The small musicians vanish quite away.
A small brown leader of a cricket choir!
Burru! The bumblebee's emerged, all yellow!
A chicken cheeps; that makes LaFontaine nigher!
Beethoven's cuckoo,—hear the noisy fellow!
Soft! Let the garish lights be very dim!
Hist! The mysterious watchman of the wood
From this strange setting bids us list to him,
Three times he calls. Silence is understood.
We have not grown too dull for Nature's school.
Stale Custom's reign is banished in a trice.
The curtain lifts, by Master Cuckoo's rule,
For the Woodpecker gives the signal thrice!
(The curtain rises)
ACT I
THE EVENING OF THE PHEASANT HEN
THE SETTING
Interior of a Farmyard
The sounds have given the scene in very fact.
A sagging gate. Vine-covered wall. Some hay,
A dung-hill. Heaps of straw. The waning day.
A country scene. So let us watch the act.
On the thatched roof, a very cataract
Of vine and bloom. Kennel not far away.
Farm implements in orderly array.
In march the Flock. The lifted claws contract.
A blackbird in a cage. A cart. A well,
Ducks. Sunshine. There a feather fell.
A lonely wing flutters the quiet air.
The chicks on fighting for a worm are bent.
The turkey's wattle makes a scarlet flare.
Warm, sunny silence; clucking, deep content.
SCENE I
(All the Poultry, HENS, PULLETS, COCKERELS, walking about or
climbing up and down the little ladder that leads into the Hen House; CHICKS,
DUCKS, TURKEYS, etc.; the BLACKBIRD in his cage, which hangs in the
wistaria vine; the CAT, sleeping on the wall; later, a BUTTERFLY
among the flowers.)
THE WHITE HEN (pecking): Ah, how exquisite!
ANOTHER HEN (running up): She is eating!
ALL THE HENS (running up): What?
WHITE HEN: A dainty glow-worm I, at last, have got,—
Perfumes the beak, with roses he's been stuffin'!
THE BLACK HEN (stopping before the BLACKBIRD'S cage,
admiring): He whistles like a ...
THE WHITE HEN: Like a ragamuffin!
THE TURKEY GOBBLER (correcting her solemnly):
Rather, a shepherd lad of Sicily!
THE DUCK: He never finishes.
THE TURKEY: Indeed, not he.
Finish!
(He hums the air the BLACKBIRD whistles.)
"How sweet it is to pluck ... to pluck ... "
It is not Art to finish, Duck. "To pluck! ...
Bravo!"
(The BLACKBIRD comes out of his cage and
lighting on the wistaria, makes a bow.)
A CHICK (astonished): O see! He's coming out!
THE BLACKBIRD (bowing):
You bet! It catches me when people shout.
(He steps back.)
THE CHICK: But he is caged.
THE TURKEY: No, no, my Chick. He's free.
Abrupt he comes, and goes as suddenly.
A cage he has, but one without a latch.
"To pluck" ... and never tell the thing you catch,
That's Art!
THE BLACK HEN (catching sight of a butterfly
alighting on the flowers, at the back, that grow higher than the wall):
Look, what a lovely butterfly!
WHITE HEN: Where?
BLACK HEN: Yonder; where the woodbine grows so high.
THE TURKEY (instructively):
We call that great moth "March's butterfly."
CHICK (following the butterfly with his eyes): He's on a pink!
WHITE HEN (to the TURKEY): The March one? Why?
BLACKBIRD (poking his head through the bars):
Easy! Because he comes in Mid July.
WHITE HEN: The Blackbird's tumbling.
THE TURKEY (wagging his head): Not for tumbling's sake!
ANOTHER CHICKEN: Pretty, a butterfly!
THE BLACKBIRD: An easy thing to make;
Briefly,—you take a W and you set it on a Y.
A HEN (enchanted):
Four beak strokes,—he has sketched a butterfly!
TURKEY: He schematizes! "Sketch?" The word is humbling!
Master in jester's mask, he thinks while tumbling.
A CHICK (to a HEN):
Mama, why do the cat and dog so hate each other?
THE BLACKBIRD (poking his head through the bars):
Each wants the opera seat held by the other.
THE CHICK (bewildered): They have a theatre?
BLACKBIRD: A fairy one.
THE CHICK: Huh?
BLACKBIRD: Yes. Each time, before the play is done.
The Sleeping Princess, Block o' Wood, in bliss
Wakes, blushing to Prince Kindling's glowing kiss.
THE TURKEY (dully dazzled by this labored nonsense):
How cleverly he shows that strife of races
Is nothing more nor less than strife of places.
A vigorous thinker!
THE BUFF HEN (to the WHITE HEN, who is pecking):
You eat pimentoes?
WHITE HEN: Every day, I think.
BUFF HEN: Are they so good?
WHITE HEN: They make the feathers pink.
BUFF HEN: Ah!
A VOICE (in the distance): Cuckoo!
WHITE HEN: Listen!
VOICE: Cuckoo!
A GRAY HEN (running up quite out of breath):
Oh, which Cuckoo?
The wild one in the woods, or hid from view,
Lodged in the lodge, he of the wooden clock?
THE VOICE (farther away): Cuckoo!
WHITE HEN (listening): The wild one.
GRAY HEN (catching her breath): Oh, I had a shock!
I thought I'd missed the Other!
WHITE HEN (coming closer): Then it's true!
You love him?
GRAY HEN (sadly): Yes, without a single view!
There in the kitchen hangs my worshipped one
Between the farmer's greatcoat and his gun.
I hear him calling and I run,—to find
He has drawn back; closed is his window-blind.
This evening I will roost here, on this sill.
(She takes her stand on the threshold.)
A VOICE: White Hen! ...
SCENE II
The Same. A CARRIER PIGEON on the roof; later, CHANTICLEER
WHITE HEN (looking around, moving her head with little jerks):
Who called me?
THE VOICE: Just a Carrier Dove.
WHITE HEN (still looking in every direction): Where?
THE PIGEON: Here, upon the slooping roof, above.
WHITE HEN (looking up and seeing him): Oh!
THE PIGEON: With grave dispatches I am on my way,
And yet, I stop. Good day.
WHITE HEN: Postman, good day.
PIGEON: Since I'm appointed Postman of the Air
Across your farmyard I must often fare,
And I would be so happy if I could ...
WHITE HEN (spies a grain of corn): One moment! ...
ANOTHER HEN (running up to her, inquisitively): She's eating!
ALL THE HENS (running up): Is it good?
WHITE HEN: A grain of corn.
GRAY HEN (taking up the interrupted conversation with the WHITE HEN): Yes,
on this very still!
WHITE HEN (looking at the door): The door is shut.
GRAY HEN: Ah, but I'll stick my bill,
When I hear my Cuckoo, and hope he will look who ...
THE PIGEON (calling impatiently): White Hen!
WHITE HEN: One moment!
(To the other HEN): But ... to see this Cuckoo.
Stick your bill, where?
GRAY HEN (showing a round hole at the bottom of the door):
Through Tabby's hole, before his little shutter
Falls.
THE PIGEON (complainingly):
'Might as well be drinking from the gutter.
Whitest of hens ...
WHITE HEN (hopping toward him): You said, sir? ...
PIGEON: I would be ...
WHITE HEN (with a curtsey): Bluest of bluecoats! ...
PIGEON: Happy, could I see ...
WHITE HEN: What?
PIGEON: I am audacious ... Oh, I should be dumb ...
See, for a moment ...
ALL THE HENS (impatiently): Well, what?
PIGEON: Oh, ... his comb!
WHITE HEN (to the FLOCK, laughing): He wants to see ...
PIGEON: Of course he holds aloof ...
But just a glimpse!
WHITE HEN (to the others, laughing):
He's clawing down the roof.
Be clam!
THE PIGEON: My wife and I admire him so!
WHITE HEN: Like all the world.
PIGEON: Yes, ma'am. Of course, I know,—
But travelling so, I want to tell my wife,
From actual seeing, what he's like in life.
WHITE HEN (pecking tranquilly):
He is superb, there's no use to deny.
PIGEON: We in the dove cote hear him crowing nigh.
It adds a nobler beauty to the scene
Than a white hamlet to a mountain's green.
His voice reëchoes from the utmost height,
Pierces the azures like a ray of light,—
A golden needle with a thread of gold
Joining the sky and valley fold on fold!
He is the Cock!
BLACKBIRD (hopping in and out of his cage):
For whom all hearts go toc-toc.
A HEN: Our Cock!
BLACKBIRD: His, her, its, our, your, and their Cock!
TURKEY (to the PIGEON): He will soon be here.
PIGEON: You, sir, you know him well?
TURKEY (importantly):
Know him? I saw the youngster chip his shell.
I gave him bugle lessons.
PIGEON: You, sir?
TURKEY: No doubt. It is no trouble
To teach the cockcrow, when you have a gobble.
PIGEON (eagerly): Where was he born?
THE TURKEY (showing an old, covered basket, worn and broken): Hatched in
that very basket.
THE PIGEON: His mother's still alive?—if one may ask it.
TURKEY: There.
PIGEON: Where?
TURKEY: That basket.
PIGEON: Her strain?
TURKEY: The foster mother's race,—
A Gascon Hen, yes, Pau's her native place.
BLACKBIRD (poking his head out):
The very Gascon hen, as like as not,
King Henry wished for every Frenchman's pot.
PIGEON:
To have hatched the Cock! How proud that Hen must be!
TURKEY: A foster mother's pride that's good to see.
Her lusty chick,—that's all she seems to know,
And if we tell her we can see him grow,
The embers of her mind a moment glow.
(He turns to the basket.)
He's growing, Grandma.
ALL THE FLOCK: We can see him grow!
(Immediately, the cover of the basket lifts and a tousled old head
emerges.)
THE PIGEON (tenderly, to the OLD HEN):
It pleases you, ma'am, that the Flock has said it?
THE HEN IN THE BASKET (nodding her head, sententiously):
Aye, Wednesday's crop does Tuesday credit.
(She disappears. The cover falls.)
TURKEY: The lid from time to time comes up like that,
And, crack! a bit of folk-lore comes so pat,
Some say she has the cunning to adapt ...
PIGEON: White Hen!
TURKEY (as he goes back):
And sometimes her remarks are really apt!
THE OLD HEN (lifting the cover of her basket, behind him):
When the Peacock's away, then the Turkey tail's spread.
(The Turkey turns; the lid of the basket has fallen.)
PIGEON (to the WHITE HEN):
Ma'am, is it true, as all the world has said
That Chanticleer is never hoarse? Ma'am, is that true?
WHITE HEN (pecking busily): Of course.
PIGEON (with growing fervor):
How proud the Flock must be that one of you
Is counted 'mongst those famous animals
Whose name will live till yonder stable falls.
TURKEY: Very proud! Very!
(to aCHICK) Who are those animals?
CHICK (reciting glibly, at first):
They are, Noah's dove and the barb of St. Roche,
And the horse of Cali ...
TURKEY: Cali? ...
CHICK: C ... Cali ...
PIGEON: The Cock!
Is it true that his song, rhythmic, warlike, yet gay,
Makes laughter in labour, affrights birds of prey?
WHITE HEN (pecking away): True.
CHICK (still struggling): Cali ...
PIGEON: Is it true that the Cock
Guards each shell that is rife with the hope of the Flock
So the wiggliest weasel that ever stretched leg
Cannot mar his bosom with stain of ...
BLACKBIRD (poking his head through the bars): An egg?
WHITE HEN: Yes, that's true.
CHICK (still struggling for the word): Cali ...
TURKEY (prompting): Gu? ...
PIGEON: Hen, is it true ...
CHICK (jumping for joy at finding the lost name): Gula.
PIGEON: ... That there be such marvels as folks say there are,—
A Secret,—a Secret that makes his comb red;
So red that the cockscomb awakes in its bed
As if called by its name?
WHITE HEN (rather bored): Yes, Posty, it's true.
PIGEON: He has told it to no one, not even to you?
WHITE HEN: No.
PIGEON: Keeps his secret away from his wife?
WHITE HEN (correcting him): Wives.
PIGEON (gasping a little): A doub ... double life?
BLACKBIRD: He crows. You coo, you know.
PIGEON: He hasn't told
His favourite wife?
THE HOUDAN (sharply): No!
WHITE HEN (also sharply): Nothing!
BLACK HEN (also sharply): No!
BLACKBIRD (poking his head through the bars):
Silence! And see unfold
An aërial drama. Watch the butterfly.
Small Pegasus,—he sees not ...
(A butterfly net is seen above the wall; it is coming very
stealthily toward the butterfly, resting on a flower.)
A HEN: Oh, what?
THE TURRKEY (solemnly): Destiny.
BLACKBIRD: In gauze.
WHITE HEN: Gracious! It's a net, ...
And on a rod. ...
BLACKBIRD: What is more serious yet,
Beyond the rod, a boy!
(In a stage whisper, looking at the Butterfly):
You dodge a thorn.
To-night, four pins your plumage will adorn.
ALL (anxiously watching the slow approach of the net):
He stirs ... It's coming ... yes, but very slow ...
'Twill catch him! No! Yes, surely! I say, no!
(The Butterfly is almost captured, when one suddenly hears afar): Coco
rico!
(Warned by the cry, the Butterfly flits away. The net wavers a moment
disappointedly, and then disappears.)
SEVERAL HENS: Hein? What? What's that?
(A Hen, who mounted on a wheelbarrow, watches the Butterfly's
flight): He has escaped ... He's free!
BLACKBIRD (ironically): Chanticleer, playing at knight errantry.
PIGEON (much moved): Chanticleer!
A HEN: On the wall! He comes!
ANOTHER HEN: He is very near!
WHITE HEN (to the PIGEON): You'll see! A splendid cock!
BLACKBIRD (poking his head through the bars): Ho, Chanticleer!
Easy to make, a cock.
TURKEY: He thinks with force! Oh! ...
BLACKBIRD: You take a Honfleur melon for the torso;
For legs, asparagus of Argenteuil:
Bayonne pimento head, as I'm a merle!
Currants of Bar-le-Duc for eyes; for tail,
Rouen leeks, curved, blue-green: Lest Soissons fail,
He has two tiny beans for ears. And so
Behold your Cock complete!
THE PIGEON (mildly): Without the crow!
BLACKBIRD: That detail! You admit that it resembles?
(He shows him CHANTICLEER who appears on the wall.)
PIGEON (looking at CHANTICLEER with very different eyes):
No, not at all! Under a crest that trembles
I see the very Chevalier of Day.
A burdened wain trembling upon its way
Has dropped the gold-green cloak that wraps him round,
And with a shining sickle it is bound!
CHANTICLEER (on the wall, with a long, guttural sigh): Co ...
BLACKBIRD: Say, when he gargles in his throat like that
He's courting or composing, bet your hat!
CHANTICLEER (motionless on the wall, his head lifted):
Flame! Lighten!
BLACKBIRD: He's burbling!
CHANTICLEER: Ah, enclose! ...
A HEN: He pauses, claw in air ...
BLACKBIRD: Poetic pose!
CHANTICLEER: Thine is the only gold, O Golden One,
The wise adore.
PIGEON (in an awed whisper): He speaks to what?
BLACKBIRD (jeeringly): Sonny, the sun.
CHANTICLEER:
Thou driest the tears of every living thing;
Thou makest dead blossoms shimmer in the breeze,—
A gentle fate that lendest life and wing
And makes playmates for Pyrenees spring
Roussillon's almond trees.
I worship thee whose glory makest bright
Labour's damp forehead; gilds the honeycomb;
Shines in the flower's cup; gilds the thatch with light,
Dividing only multiplies thy might,
Like mother love at home!
I sing to thee. Accept me as thy priest!
You smile, and soapsuds glisten like a gem.
Your last ray lights the cottage of the least,
Whose toil began with day and has not ceased;
You smile good night, to them.
BLACKBIRD (poking his head through the bars):
He's at it now! Too late to head him off!
TURKEY (watching CHANTICLEER, who, hopping to a hayrick, by
degrees comes down): How proud he struts.
A HEN (drinking from a patent cone-shaped contrivance):
A very handy trough!
BLACKBIRD: A Toulousain, singing "O my-ee Countr-ee."
CHANTICLEER (beginning to walk about the yard):
Thou turnest ...
ALL THE HENS (running to the WHITE HEN):
What's she eating?
WHITE HEN: Corn, you see.
CHANTICLEER:
You make the sunflower turn her yellow head;
Gleam on my gilded brother of the tower;
Shine softly through where linden boughs are spread,—
And who beneath that blessed tree would tread
Must crush a golden flower.
The earthen pot becomes a gilded urn;
The cloth spread out to dry, a banner fair;
The hayricks wear gold mantles in their turn;
The small brown beehive, see it glow and burn!
The Maid with Golden Hair!
Glory upon the meadows and the vines!
Glory upon the threshold and the field!
The lizard's eyes are gemmed; the swan's wing shines;
Glorious the tiniest and the boldest lines!
Glory to thee we yield!
The shadow falls from thee, O Radiant One,
Walking beside us, lying at our feet;
Thou makest two gifts, where was only one.
Darkness itself thy gracious will has done!
Thy reign is made complete!
I worship thee! Thou fillest the air with posies;
Flames in the streams; in all the bushes, gods!
The darkest tree a golden glow discloses!
O Sun! Without thee, roses were ... just roses;
And clods, just clods!
PIGEON: Let me go home and tell that to my wife!
She'll talk about it all her natural life!
CHANTICLEER (seeing him, with stately courtesy):
Thanks, Stranger Bluecoat. Such applause is sweet.
Pray lay my service at her coral feet.
(The PIGEON flies off.)
BLACKBIRD: And right he is. He ought to boost his boosters.
CHANTICLEER (heartily, to the Farmyard):
To work, chicks, hens, ducks, ganders, roosters!
Gaily to work!
(A fly passes, buzzing.)
I like you, buzzing fly!
Watch her. Her flight is charming to the eye.
TURKEY (pompously): Yes, but in my esteem she lost a lot
After the little matter of ...
CHANTICLEER (going toward him): Well, what?
TURKEY: The fly upon the ...
CHANTICLEER: Well, I don't know why.
What proves the coach could climb, without the fly?
Far better than the coachman's "Hup! Go 'lang!"
Was the small song of sunshine that she sang.
Believe 'twas the force of his oaths, if you will,
And the coachman who carried the coach up the hill,
No, No! More effective than any whip's smart
Was the fly's song of sunshine that came from the heart!
TURKEY: Yes ... but ...
CHANTICLEER (turning his back on him):
Joyfully, let us work. Time, Master Gander,
To lead your ladies to the pond out yander.
GANDER (coolly): You think so?
CHANTICLEER (going briskly toward him):
Gander, who'd be so dashing.
Go to the pool before you do your splashing!
(The Ganders start off hurriedly.)
Here, bantam, it is time that you were working.
Thirty-two slugs, remember, and no shirking!
You, Cockerel, try your cocorico through,
And let the Echo say it after you.
COCKEREL (bashfully): The Echo, why?
CHANTICLEER: To teach your epiglottis
Exactly what a cockerel's proper note is.
I did the trick;—I'm told I did it well,—
Almost before my tail shook off the shell.
A HEN (affectedly): That's most uninteresting.
CHANTICLEER: Everything's interesting!
Hover your eggs beneath your idle wing.
(The Hen scuttles away. To Another Hen):
Under the vervein and the potentilla
Nab all the slugs. And if a caterpillar
Would eat our flowers, just grab him,—don't be slack!—
And make him rub his stomach ... with his back!
(The Hen goes out. To Another Hen):
Chase the grasshopper from the cabbage beds.
Their catapults are riddling all the heads.
(The Hen goes out. To all the remaining Hens):
You ...
(Catching sight of the OLD HEN whose head appears above the rim of
the basket):
Why, good evening, Mammy.
(The OLD HEN looks at him admiringly): Have I grown?
THE OLD HEN: Tadpoles turn into frogs if left alone.
CHANTICLEER: Yes'm.
(The cover falls. Resuming his tone of command, to the Hens):
All you, line up and, nimbly, go
Scratch in the meadow.
WHITE HEN (to the GRAY HEN): Coming?
GRAY HEN: 'Sh, dear. No!
I'll keep tryst with my Cuckoo.
(She hides behind the basket.)
CHANTICLEER: Little Houdan,
What makes you walk so slow and act so wooden?
HOUDAN (approaching): Cock ...
CHANTICLEER: What?
HOUDAN: Ain't I your darlin'?
CHANTICLEER (hurriedly): 'Sh!
HOUDAN: It hurts me not to know.
WHITE HEN (coming up from the other side): Cock ...
CHANTICLEER: What?
WHITE HEN: Since I'm your favourite ...
CHANTICLEER: S ... sh!
WHITE HEN: I think I ought to know ...
BLACK HEN (who has come quietly up behind him):
Cock ...
CHANTICLEER: What?
BLACK HEN (coquettishly):
Because ... because you love me so ...
CHANTICLEER: S ... s ... sh!
BLACK HEN: Tell me, my dear ...
WHITE HEN: The secret of ...
HOUDAN: Your crow.
(She hops closer. In a voice full of curiosity):
All hidden in your throat and closely fit,
Have you a whistle? ...
CHANTICLEER: Hidden, isn't it?
WHITE HEN (same business):
I guess you use the means all tenors use,—
Swallow raw eggs?
CHANTICLEER: Am I a mink? The deuce!
BLACK HEN (same business):
You take some snails, the spiral shell and all,
And make a kind of pasty ...
CHANTICLEER: Pectoral?
ALL THREE: Chanti ...
CHANTICLEER (abruptly): Enough! Be off!
(They start hastily.)
But wait! Two words!
Always remember, O my pretty birds,
When your red combs are flashing in the grass,
Coming and going, passing to repass,
Like scarlet poppies playing hide-and-seek,
Real poppies, growing flowers, are small and weak,
Rooted and helpless. Clumsy shepherdesses
Crush with their feet and flout them with their dresses,
Counting their stitches, heedless, as they go,
That 'tis a crime to treat a flower so,—
To crush a posy, even with a woman!
But you, my hens, must never be so ... human.
Guard the wild carrot, fine lace of the fields.
Spare every bud, but take the slug it yields!
The flowers are sisters, growing on one heather;
Beneath the sickle, let them fall together.
(They start again. He recalls them.)
Oh, hey! You know the rule?
A HEN (bowing): Oh, yes.
CHANTICLEER: Pay it good heed.
Repeat it ... Keep ...
ALL THE HENS (in concert): ... The leader in the lead!
CHANTICLEER: Now you may go, my Hens. No, stay, come back!
(In a very grave voice.)
Never peck while you cross a track.
A SOUND (far off): Honk! Honk!
CHANTICLEER: Come back!
SOUND (nearer): Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
CHANTICLEER (barring the way, while the Hens tremble):
Be very still and wait.
SOUND (passing and growing fainter): Honk! Honk!
CHANTICLEER (stepping aside to let the Hens pass): Now!
GRAY HEN (hidden): No one saw me!
HOUDAN (going out last of all): I am here to state
We'll soon taste gasoline on all the corn!
SCENE III
(CHANTICLEER; the BLACKBIRD in his cage; the CAT, still
sleeping on the wall; the GRAY HEN, hidden behind the basket of
the OLD HEN.)
CHANTICLEER (to himself after a while):
I'll tell it to no Chicken born,
This secret whose glory weighs down like a rock.
I myself will forget it. Be gay, Master Cock.
(He struts gaily up and down.)
I'm proud. I'm good looking. I strut and I stop.
I do a fancy step and a turn or two I try;
And sometimes with a pretty lass
So pleasantly the time I pass
The old wheelbarrow on the grass lifts both its shafts on high.
To-morrow for burdens! ... A nice grain of rye.
I'll eat and be merry. It reddens the comb.
So red will be my comb and eye
The robin scarce with me can vie
The bullfinch with his gorgeous tie must hand his head at home.
Fine weather. Fine spirits. I curvet and crow.
My duty is done. I've a right to this air
Merle would call 'like Merlingo.'
Musketeer, camerlingo.
My trumpet I blow. I ...
A TERRIBLE VOICE: Chanticleer, have a care!
CHANTICLEER: Now what Animal tells me, the Cock, to beware?
SCENE IV
PATOU (baying from his kennel): Me! Me!
(He appears.)
CHANTICLEER (stepping back):
It's you, Patou, good shaggy pate?
There are straws all over your eyes, old Mate.
PATOU: But I can see the dust in yourrrs.
CHANTICLEER: Mad, hey?
PATOU: Rrrrrrrr ...
CHANTICLEER: He's raging when he rolls his rs that way.
PATOU: I'm rolling them to keep you, sirrr, from harm.
Guardian of homestead, garden and of farm,
Over all these I must keep watch and ward,
But 'tis your song that I most closely guard.
I tell you I believe your crow's in danger.
CHANTICLEER: You're growling like the old dog in the manger.
PATOU: Don't go to joking. Something is the matter;—
I tell you I can smell it like a ratter.
CHANTICLEER: You're not a terrier.
PATOU: (shaking his head): Chanticleer, who knows?
CHANTICLEER: (considering him critically):
It's true ... you are ...
PATOU: Of every breed that grows.
I am just a dog; a son of all the races;
Artois, Saintonge,—in my soul yelp all places,—
Retrievers, mastiffs, spaniels, what d'ye lack,
My soul's a dreaming circle yes, a pack.
Sprit of all the dogs in me behold!
CHANTICLEER: Old friend, no wonder it's a heart of gold!
PATOU: We, Chanticleer, are brothers from our birth;
You sing to the sun and you scratch in the earth;
I, when I plan the choicest kind of fun ...
CHANTICLEER: You lie on the earth and you sleep in the sun!
PATOU (barking ecstatically): Yep!
CHANTICLEER: This double love does serve to make us one!
PATOU: I bay the moon, because I love the sun;
I dig big holes, because I love the sun,—
To let him shine deep down in every one.
CHANTICLEER: I know. The gardener's wife has told the farm!
But come, what ails you? Where's the threatened harm?
My humble, golden reign seems safe. I see no taken ...
THE OLD HEN (lifting the lid of the basket to show her head):
The egg looked like marble before it was broken.
(The cover falls.)
CHANTICLEER (to PATOU): What dangers?
PATOU: There are two. First, there's that cage.
(One can hear the whistling of the BLACKBIRD.)
CHANTICLEER: Well, what ... ?
PATOU: He whistles.
CHANTICLEER: Well?
PATOU: He wants to be "the rage."
He laughs at ...
CHANTICLEER: What?
PATOU: At everything.
CHANTICLEER (ironically): The devil!
PEACOCK (screams in the distance):
E ... on! E ... on!
PATOU: And that's another evil.
PEACOCK (further away): E ... on!
PATOU: His notes are falser than the village choir.
CHANTICLEER: He's just a fool. Blackbird's a harmless liar.
Why let them vex you?
PATOU: I know they'll work you harm.
Here we are, honest creatures on a farm.
The Peacock's fashion notes, the Blackbird's puns
Just play the mischief with us simple ones.
On marble terraces of new-rich folks
One got his airs. The other got his jokes
From some cheap tradesman's shop-worn stock of wit.
With whistling or with fan-strokes watch 'em hit
At every kind of honest work or love.
Their smoking gas jet flouts the light above.
The last thing in the world one ought to bring
To honest barnyards is the latest thing;
The dullest talker underneath the sun
Has ... half a meaning or a double one.
You know enough to tell a grain of corn
From worthless pearls. Why let this thing go on?
(The BLACKBIRD whistles "Pleasant it is to pluck ... to pluck.")
A bird that whistles tunes!
CHANTICLEER (indulgently): Well, anyway
He whistles tunes.
PATOU (grudgingly): Part of one tune, I'd say!
CHANTICLEER (watching the BLACKBIRD): 'Moves easily.
PATOU: 'Don't put your mind at ease;—
A bird that does a turn on a trapeze!
CHANTICLEER: But look here, Patou, he has lots of sense.
PATOU: Y ... No he hasn't, with this fool pretense
Of playing cynic. Where the fellow goes,
The lily's soiled; the rose is less a rose.
CHANTICLEER: He has some taste.
PATOU: The taste of any quack,—
It's easy to look decent dressed in black.
A wholesome fellow dares a dash of red.
CHANTICLEER: He is original when all is said.
He's very droll.
PATOU: Ye ... No, he isn't! Not a single bit.
A trick of foolery is sorry wit.
He plays with words, and makes an epigram
Saying "one is" where plain folks say "I am."
CHANTICLEER: He's an amusing fool.
PATOU: He's quick, and dirty.
It wouldn't strain your wit enough to hurt ye
To say, when watching good old Brindle graze,
"She knows her way to hay, ... and haes her ways."
Or, say of old Mrs. Duck behind her back,
"That girl has given her bill to many a quack."
The Blackbird never cares whose name is hit.
Slander he has for style and slang for wit.
CHANTICLEER: The little fellow isn't all to blame.
He wears the modern garb. He plays the game.
PATOU (growls): Huh?
CHANTICLEER (looking at the BLACKBIRD):
He looks, in his plain coat, as grave as death.
PATOU: An undertaker's man, who buries Faith.
CHANTICLEER (laughing):
You make him blacker than he is, I know.
PATOU: A whistling blackbird is a dwarfish crow.
CHANTICLEER: His littleness is not ...
PATOU (shaking his ears impressively): A thing to fear? Indeed?
Satan made evil from an appleseed.
A little piece of cloth can make a sample.
A blackbird and a crow set one example.
The penknife is the cutlass come to town:
A wasp is just a tiger simmered down!
CHANTICLEER (amused by PATOU'S vehemence):
Well, granted! He's ugly and wicked and dull!
PATOU: We don't know what he is. Is one thought in his skull?
Has he got any heart? "Tu! tu! tu!"
CHANTICLEER: But his sin?
PATOU: He sings "tu-tu, tu-tu" and does it agin;
And nothing is worse in my straw-filled old eyes
Than to sing "Tu-tu, tu-tu" and make it sound wise.
Oh, every day,—that's why I growl and roar,—
Both hearts and words mean less and rattle more!
CHANTICLEER: Patou! ...
PATOU: They use the language like a very sewer.
I'm no man's lap-dog, but I like things pure.
Hungry and thirsty, but alert and strong,
I'd follow some poor shepherd all day long,
If, when night came, still having naught to eat,
The untroubled waters of the lake I'd meet.
Oh, what are marrow bones and kennel bars
To glassy pools where dogs may lap the stars!
CHANTICLEER (astonished because PATOU sinks his voice almost to a
whisper): Why do you speak so low?
PATOU: I have no choice.
Who speaks of stars to-day must lower his voice.
(He puts his head sadly between his paws.)
CHANTICLEER (comfortingly): Look up!
PATOU: I'm a cowardly cur, Chanticleer.
I will cry as I please!
(He howls at the top of his lungs): Stars!
(Somewhat consoled) Be ... manned! Let 'em hear!
SOME PASSING HENS (cackling): Stars! Star-gazer! Stars!
PATOU: There! You hear!
The time when the pullets will whistle is near.
CHANTICLEER (strutting a bit):
I sing my song. My hens are true. What then?
PATOU: The heart of the Flock is the heart of the hen.
You pluck from hens' beaks payment for your crowing!
CHANTICLEER: Love lightens labor, sets all hearts to glowing.
And I ...
PATOU: Cock, I've been young, as young as you;
A devilish eye, devilish good looking, too.
I was deceived! For any better bred
Or better looking? No! She lost her head
Over, now what? now what?
(He gives two huge barks. CHANTICLEER jumps.)
CHANTICLEER: You scared me!
PATOU: Clean forgot
For a dachshund that trod upon his ears!
BLACKBIRD (hearing PATOU'S last words and sticking his head
between the bars of his cage):
The dachshund copped the girl and hence these tears!
I hear him telling that old dachshund story.
Well, you were it. The dachshund get the glory.
All is one; one is all; and the dachshund won out.
With all my wit you've heard so much about
A widower in black, my beak's still yellow,
And I'm called cuckoo and a naughty fellow!
PATOU: Just let me tell you, sir, it is a puzzle
How one dares certain jests.
BLACKBIRD: O, get a muzzle!
PATOU: You little joker, who the devil are you?
BLACKBIRD: Pet of the poultry yard!
PATOU: To make it rue!
BLACKBIRD: Preached like a prophet. Let me in this game.
(Hopping along the twisted branches of the wistaria, he comes down.)
Madam Wistaria is a crooked dame!
PATOU (seeing him approach): Rrrrrrr.
CHANTICLEER: Tut, he's a friend!
PATOU: Who mocks behind your back.
CHANTICLEER (to the BLACKBIRD):
When you're the topic, gossip doesn't lack.
(The OLD HEN, poking her head above the rim of the basket):
Strike rotten wood and watch the wood lice scatter.
(The cover falls.)
PATOU (to CHANTICLEER): He laughs at you.
BLACKBIRD: So, the old priest can chatter.
PATOU (disregarding him):
Says, when your soul gives forth its ardent cry,
"He shows his comb outlined against the sky."
CHANTICLEER (to the BLACKBIRD): You say that?
BLACKBIRD (confidentially): Sure. It don't hurt you, you see,
And jests at you get such applause for me!
PATOU: Look here, do you admire, or hate, the Cock?
BLACKBIRD: I ... criticize details, ... admire him in block.
PATOU: You always peck two grains.
BLACKBIRD: I have two dishes.
PATOU: I am straightforward.
BLACKBIRD: Tut! The fellow wishes
To be a water-dog of '48,
I like to seem a little up to date.
PATOU (making a lunge, but held by his chain):
I've a good mind to dye your black coat red.
(The BLACKBIRD hops nimbly away and PATOU goes back in his
corner, growling):
You're lucky,—though you wouldn't miss your head!
CHANTICLEER: Don't fret yourself. He is trying to be smart.
He would applaud true beauty from his heart.
PATOU: Not with both wings! Don't talk to me! A bird
Whose cage stands open, who is so absurd
He'll let good katydids just go to waste
And hop inside to eat that bird food paste!
BLACKBIRD: The towser don't consider for a minute
The poacher likes a pie with blackbirds in it.
PATOU: I know the brushwood has a golden light.
BLACKBIRD: A slug of lead outweighs that gold all right.
The quail has quailed so often; he believes
He tastes so good, roasted in grapevine leaves,
He has grown canny, so the hunting man
Just gets the kind he can; we get the can.
PATOU: The buck superbly through the forest passes
What though his hoof strike sometimes mid the grasses
A broken cartridge!
BLACKBIRD: Yes, and that's just the reason,
Hat racks are cheapest in the hunting season.
PATOU: But liberty ... the scent of violets ...
BLACKBIRD: Your uncle isn't taking any bets.
Wild wood's not varnished like my new trapeze;
Nests are not half so water tight as these;
Wild birds are taught no tunes and rain-filled pools
Ain't water filtered by the latest rules.
(PATOU moves impatiently, and BLACKBIRD hops a little farther
away, saying):
Sling all the mud you please! I have my tub!
CHANTICLEER (a little out of patience):
Don't you get tired of all this flub-a-dub?
BLACKBIRD: My Cock, I like to make you show your spurs.
PATOU: Rrrr. Pitch him out, however he demurrrrrs.
BLACKBIRD: Don't say "demurs," good dog. Say "though he kicks."
CHANTICLEER: This endless word play in my gullet sticks.
BLACKBIRD: I sling my slang almighty well, I think
A Paris sparrow taught me. Slinging ink
And slinging slang are all the rage in Paris so he says.
CHANTICLEER: I knew a Robin well in other days.
He was the chosen friend of Michelet.
The poet's comrade did not talk that way.
BLACKBIRD: I keep up with the times. Old Patou's nutty.
One can't be smart and stick at being smutty.
PATOU: You stinking thing! How can you let him be, Cock?
"Smutty's" his password; "smart" is for the Peacock.
CHANTICLEER (scornful): The Peacock?
PATOU (furiously): Yes, the Peacock.
THE BLACKBIRD (showing PATOU to CHANTICLEER):
He's foaming at the mouth like English ale.
CHANTICLEER: What does he do?
BLACKBIRD (before PATOU can answer):
He makes eyes with his tail!
PATOU: His dandyism our contentment rifles.
CHANTICLEER: Where do you see it?
PATOU: In a thousand trifles.
THE OLD HEN (bobbing up):
Down stream, a bubble broke and sank;
Washing was done along the bank.
CHANTICLEER: So far, I've seen no bubbles, I declare.
PATOU (pointing to a passing GUINEA PIG):
My Cock, just watch that Guinea Pig out there.
CHANTICLEER (looking at him): Isn't he yellow?
GUINEA PIG (in a tone of annoyance): Khaki, please.
CHANTICLEER (to PATOU): Kha ... ?
PATOU: Bubble one.
Now watch that waddling duck go past, my son.
CHANTICLEER: She's going to take her bath.
DUCK (turning and correcting him drily): You mean my tub.
CHANTICLEER: Her ... What? What's that? Her ...
PATOU: Bubble, bub!
(At this moment, the CUCKOO CLOCK begins to strike): Cuckoo!
THE GRAY HEN (leaving her hiding place runs wildly to the cottage):
'Tis he! By old Grimalkin's hole
I soon shall see the idol of my soul!
(She pokes her head in the cat hole. The clock is silent.)
Alas, too late!
(Calling) Once more! Ah, fatal luck.
CHANTICLEER (turning at the sound): Huh?
GRAY HEN (despairingly, all her attention fixed on the interior of the cottag
e): He speaks no more!
BLACKBIRD (aside): It is a half he's struck!
CHANTICLEER (sternly, coming up behind her):
You are not in the field?
GRAY HEN: My life's a wreck!
CHANTICLEER: What are you doing?
GRAY HEN: S ... s ... stretching out my neck!
CHANTICLEER: To see whom?
GRAY HEN (greatly agitated): Oh!
CHANTICLEER: Whom?
GRAY HEN: Oh!
CHANTICLEER: Confess!
GRAY HEN: The Cuckoo!
CHANTICLEER: No!
(He is overcome) You love him? Why?
GRAY HEN: A Swiss,—a foreign bird!
PATOU: Well, there you have it! That is bubble third.
GRAY HEN: He is a thinker. ... Ah, I must succumb! ...
CHANTICLEER: My rival is a patent pendulum.
THE GRAY HEN (enthusiastically):
He comes out just by rule, so much like Kant!
CHANTICLEER: Like what?
GRAY HEN: Like Kant.
CHANTICLEER: Can't what? Oh, I can't ...
I cannot ... stomach this. Be gone instanter.
BLACKBIRD:
Well, can't you hear? He's canned you. Can't you canter?
(GRAY HEN scuttles away.)
CHANTICLEER: The zany! When did my wife hear of Kant?
PATOU: At the Guinea's.
CHANTICLEER: That plaster beak with head aslant
Who cries, "Come back"?
PATOU: You see, she has a day.
CHANTICLEER: Another?
PATOU: Her own day, at home, "receives," they say.
CHANTICLEER: Receives what, where?
BLACKBIRD: Down in the kitchen garden.
PATOU: Where the straw man is set to act as warden.
CHANTICLEER: The scarecrow?
BLACKBIRD: Thanks to him, it's as select
As in a country place one could expect.
CHANTICLEER: Huh?
BLACKBIRD: Yes, he keeps the timid folk away,—
The poor relation and the country jay.
CHANTICLEER: The Guinea's day! They'll all be crazy soon!
The Guinea's day!
PATOU (phlematically): A bubble!
CHANTICLEER: A balloon!
BLACKBIRD (imitating the GUINEA'S voice): Mondays, at five.
CHANTICLEER: What do they do?
PATOU: No sense! Not a lick!
They cackle; turkey struts; the chickens ... chick
BLACKBIRD (imitating the GUINEA):
Mondays, from five to six. We try to keep
It most informal.
CHANTICLEER: Five! They ought to be asleep.
PATOU: She has 'em in the morning.
CHANTICLEER: What d'ye say?
BLACKBIRD: You see, at that hour, one has fullest sway;
The gardener's missing and the garden's free.
It has to be at five or not a Tea.
CHANTICLEER: It's perfect nonsense.
BLACKBIRD: Sure. It's utter rot.
PATOU: You needn't talk. You're always on the spot.
CHANTICLEER (looking at the BLACKBIRD): He goes there?
BLACKBIRD: Sure. I'm quite a toast I vow.
PATOU: I'm thinking ...
CHANTICLEER: What are you grumbling in your collar now?
PATOU: Some pretty hen will take you there, some week.
CHANTICLEER: Me?
PATOU: You.
CHANTICLEER (furious): Me?
PATOU: Yes ... she'll lead you by the beak!
CHANTICLEER: Who? Me? Who? Me?
PATOU: Yes, you, you fiery lover.
A tidy bill can always bowl you over.
BLACKBIRD (imitating the Cock marching around a Hen):
You turn about,
"Behold, 'tis I, my lass!"
And you go, "Co ... "
CHANTICLEER: The bird's an utter ass!
THE BLACKBIRD (keeping it up): Your wing trails ...
PATOU (trembling and sniffing): Big Jules hunts!
BLACKBIRD: That rouses Rover?
PATOU (eyes shining, ears pricked up):
Yes, that excites ... No, ... no, it don't ... that's over.
(Relaxing, he ends his speech in a muffled voice.)
BLACKBIRD: Your heart is touched?
PATOU: Perhaps a mother bird ...
BLACKBIRD: Eyes wet?
PATOU: Yes, sir.
BLACKBIRD: Old age, or cold? My word,
It's pure excess of ... animality.
Cold in the head and warmth of heart! Tee-hee!
PATOU: My members war in me. I hear a shot;
And my retriever blood is on the spot.
An instant, lo, my watch-dog instinct wakes!
I see a trembling doe amid the brakes;
A rabbit darts, the chase is pressing hard;
And lo, awakes my soul of Saint Bernard!
(Another shot is heard.
THE BLACKBIRD (hiding behind the basket): Another!
SCENE V
The Same. The GOLDEN PHEASANT; a moment, BRIFFAUT
A GOLDEN PHEASANT (flying suddenly over the wall, falls exhausted in the
court, crying): Hide me!
CHANTICLEER: Heaven!
PATOU: A Golden Pheasant!
PHEASANT (running toward CHANTICLEER):
Not the great Chanticleer?
BLACKBIRD (hidden behind the Basket): He finds that pleasant!
THE GOLDEN PHEASANT (running hither and thither):
Save me, if you are he!
CHANTICLEER: Trust me!
(Another shot is heard.)
PHEASANT (hiding behind CHANTICLEER, and giving a little shriek):
A ... i ... e! Another shock!
CHANTICLEER: Why, he's a nervous bird, this Pheasant Cock.
PHEASANT: I cannot fly another foot, kind sir.
(The PHEASANT faints.)
BLACKBIRD: Dramatic swoon! A very pretty stir!
CHANTICLEER (who supports the PHEASANT with one wing):
When his ruff falls, how beautiful he is!
Water! (He runs to the drinking trough) A shame to wet pure gold like
this!
(Nevertheless he spatters the PHEASANT vigorously with the other
wing.)
PHEASANT (reviving): I am pursued. Oh, hide me!
BLACKBIRD: Ten-twen-thirty!
(To the Pheasant)
How could they aim at you and never hurt ye?
PHEASANT (fluttering wildly):
From pure surprise. They thought they had a lark.
When I got up, they missed the shining mark.
I saw a flash; they saw a flare of gold.
The dog is on the trail. I hate an old ...
(seeing PATOU, quickly):
I hate a hunting dog.
(to CHANTICLEER):
Oh, hide me, sir!
CHANTICLEER (agitated):
I will ... and yet I can't ... but how demur? ...
Where hide this glowing thing?
Most noble stranger,
Where can one hide the rainbow when in danger?
PATOU: There, near the beehives, where the vines have grown,
Is my green cottage, where I live alone.
Take it, and welcome.
(The PHEASANT darts in; but the long tail feathers show outside.)
PATOU (continues): Huh, these showy clothes
Are ill to hide.
(He sits down in front of his kennel, on the long feathers, and
pretends to be eating out of his pan.)
Best sit here, I suppose.
(Enter BRIFFAUT, under the wall; ears flopping, jaws dripping.)
PATOU (trying to seem unconcerned): Good day.
BRIFFAUT (sniffing): Something smells good.
PATOU (modestly, showing his pan): My cottage soup, perhaps.
BRIFFAUT: 'Ve you seen a pheasant hen?
PATOU (surprised, reflective): Pheasant?
CHANTICLEER (walking up and down, with forced gaiety):
Of all fierce chaps!
Good form, that English air, no use denying.
PATOU: A pheasant cock? ... Why yes, I saw one flying.
BRIFFAUT: That's she!
PATOU: The pheasant hen's a Cinderella.
This was a golden bird, a splendid fellow.
BRIFFAUT: That's she all right.
CHANTICLEER (coming nearer, incredulous):
A golden Pheasant Hen?
BRIFFAUT: You didn't know that happens now and then?
CHANTICLEER and PATOU: No!
BLACKBIRD: Take it from me, he's drawing the long bow.
BRIFFAUT: It is exceptional. It happens, though.
My master read ... extraordinary thing ...
Happens with grouse, too ...
BLACKBIRD: Let him have his fling ...
Go on from "happens!" ...
PATOU (impatiently): What?
BRIFFAUT: Occurs, my friends ...
CHANTICLEER (scratching the ground): What?
BRIFFAUT: Shall we say the male bird sometimes lends ...
Or, rather, let us say the hen admires
His gay spring garb, and of a sudden tires
Of sitting, drably dressed. She hotly yearns
For gold and purple. Nature then returns
Her colours, and, a splendid Amazon,
She spreads her wings, all golden, to the sun,
Preferring freedom and her colours gay
To chirping nestlings under wings of gray.
In brief, renounces all hen virtues steady ...
CHANTICLEER (abruptly): What's that to you?
BRIFFAUT (taken aback): I vex you? What?
PATOU (aside): Already!
CHANTICLEER: In brief this bird at which your master shot ...
BRIFFAUT: Was a hen pheasant.
(He begins to sniff again.)
PATOU (showing his empty pan): Sorry. The last I've got.
BRIFFAUT: Smells good.
CHANTICLEER (aside): I do not like that nosing!
BRIFFAUT: Fancy!
One day ...
BLACKBIRD: Another yarn!
(A whistle is heard.)
CHANTICLEER (to BRIFFAUT): Your master wants ye.
BRIFFAUT: Worse luck! Good day.
(He disappears.)
PATOU: Good-bye.
CHANTICLEER: He's gone at last!
BLACKBIRD (calling): Briffaut!
CHANTICLEER: What in the mischief ...
BLACKBIRD: Not so fast!
BRIFFAUT (his head reappearing under the wall): Well, sir?
BLACBIRD: Take care!
CHANTICLEER (in an angry aside to BLACKBIRD):
Be careful what you try on!
BLACKBIRD (to BRIFFAUT): You'll lose ...
BRIFFAUT: Well, what?
BLACKBIRD: Your jaw, unless it's made of iron.
BRIFFAUT: (disappearing with a snort of rage): Hon! ...
SCENE VI
CHANTICLEER, BLACKBIRD, PATOU, PHEASANT HEN, the CAT, still sleeping on
the wall, the OLD HEN in her basket
CHANTICLEER (to the BLACKBIRD, after an interval, for the BLACKBIRD
has climbed into his cage again and is looking over the wall): He's gone?
BLACKBIRD: Clean gone?
CHANTICLEER (going toward the kennel):
You can come out, dear Lady.
THE PHEASANT HEN (appearing on the threshold of the kennel): Rebellious and
enfranchised,—truly said he!
Daughter of kings, gold-robed, beyond a doubt,
Yet pheasant of the woods.
(She comes out with a bound.)
BLACKBIRD: She's branching out!
PHEASANT: My home, the forest; hunted there ...
CHANTICLEER: O fool,
Who'd chase a jewel with a leaden tool!
PHEASANT HEN:
Under the brushwood where the sunshine sifts,
I live. But whence came I, whence came my gifts?
From Persia, India, China, who can say?
I am born to be the prism for the ray
Of sun that turns the arrar tree to fire,
And not to hide from poachers in a brier!
Am I Kin Ky? Or Pheonix? There's no voice!
Yet Fable leaves to me a splendid choice,
And I have chosen Colchis for my home.
Upon the wrist of Jason have I come.
A bird of gold, I am the Golden Fleece!
PATOU: Who? you?
PHEASANT: The Pheasant!
PATOU: You mean, the Pheasant Hen.
PHEASANT: Ah, peace!
I represent my race, I bear its shield
Of purple. Too long I have laid concealed,
A dead leaf near a ruby. Far too pale
I found that fate, and taking from the male
His glittering hues, at last came to my own.
I gave them glories they had never known.
This ruff of gold, these epaulettes of green,
This purple corslet, have a finer sheen,
A livelier lustre on my frailer form.
I made a toilet of a uniform!
CHANTICLEER: Ah, she is dazzling!
PATOU (growling to himself): It's enough to choke us!
He's fell in love with this here hocus-pocus!
BLACKBIRD (coming down and turning a somersault):
I've got to see the Guinea Hen this minute!
She'll have a fit! The old set won't be in it
She must invite her.
(To CHANTICLEER) Well, ta-ta, I'm gone.
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT):
You come then from the East, whence comes the Dawn?
PHEASANT: My life is full of picturesque disorder,
—If from the East, from the Bohemian border.
PATOU (aside, heart-broken): A gypsy! Wow!
PHEASANT (to CHANTICLEER, making her ruff show its irridescent
lights): Have you remarked these colors? I alone
Share with Aurora this bronze-golden tone.
Princess of brushwood, Empress of the glade!
—Adventuresses all affect this shade,
This yellow crest! My moving palace shakes,
Built of the flags that quiver near the lakes.
I adore the forest. In September days
It smells of dead, dry wood ...
PATOU (in consternation): What is her craze?
PHEASANT: Mad as a twig caught up by a sirocco,
I flit, I tremble, am beside myself ...
CHANTICLEER (who has begun to trail one wing, turns slowly around, as the B
LACKBIRD has done only a little while ago, in imitating him, and makes in
his throat very softly the sound): Co ... a ... co ...
The PHEASANT HEN looks at him. Feeling himself encouraged, he
begins a bit louder): Co ...
PHEASANT: Sir, let me tell you if you act that way
For my sake ...
CHANTICLEER (stopping): What?
PHEASANT: The eye, the turn, the play
Of trailing wing, the "Co!"
CHANTICLEER: But I ...
PHEASANT HEN: The whole effect,
Is very good,—but one which I reject.
CHANTICLEER (rather crestfallen): Madam ...
PHEASANT: I understand. It is the Cock,
And all the farmyard,—yes, the whole Hen Flock,
Lives in the hope, a touching one, dear knows,
Of winning just a glance between two crows.
A cock so confident he cannot rest
Till he has made a conquest of a guest,
A stranger,—not a short-gowned hen, low-born,
Who runs to clucking as she runs to corn.
CHANTICLEER: But ...
PHEASANT: I'm not susceptible; I'm not demure,
And for my taste, the Cock is too cocksure.
CHANTICLEER: Cocksure?
PHEASANT: And spoiled. The only mate I'd own
Would love, not glory, but myself alone.
CHANTICLEER: But ...
PHEASANT: Love a great Cock,—I am not such a hen!
CHANTICLEER (after a little pause):
But ... Madam ... let ... let us go walking, then!
PHEASANT: Yes, like good comrades.
CHANTICLEER: Comrades.
PHEASANT: Pair of chickens.
CHANTICLEER: Very old friends.
PHEASANT: Not old, that word quite sickens,—
Plain friends.
CHANTICLEER (coming nearer):
Surely, not plain! Pray, will you take my wing?
And see the court?
PHEASANT: Pray show me everything.
CHANTICLEER (stopping by the patent trough):
A bad invention! Chickens can't rely on
Sterilized water in a trough of iron;
But all the rest, familiar, fair and good,
The dove cote's thatch, the door of oaken wood ...
BLACKBIRD (reëntering, aside):
The Guinea's throwing fits to beat the band!
PHEASANT: You lead a quiet life. On every hand Tranquillity.
CHANTICLEER: All on the safest plan.
The Master is a Vegetarian.
He loves his animals and gives them names,
Out of his books,—he's always playing games!
The ass is Midas. Io is the cow.
BLACKBIRD (watching them):
We're playing we're the landed gentry, now!
PHEASANT (indicating the BLACKBIRD): And this?
CHANTICLEER: Our local wit.
PHEASANT: What does he do?
CHANTICLEER: Keeps busy ...
PHEASANT: How?
CHANTICLEER: Seeing both sides. It makes him rather dizzy.
Very hard work.
PHEASANT: Naughty, he seems to me.
BLACKBIRD (casting a glance at the PHEASANT'S scarlet plastron):
She's nabbed his Nibs, that's very plain to see.
CHANTICLEER (continuing the tour of the yard):
The hayrick. The old wall. Here, when I crow,
The lizards swarm; the hayrick leaning, so.
Here's where I scratch before the crow's begun,
And from this pan I drink when it is done.
PHEASANT (smiling): Your crow then has importance?
CHANTICLEER (gravely): Very great.
PHEASANT: Why?
CHANTICLEER: That's my secret.
PHEASANT: Tell me ... this affair of state.
CHANTICLEER (changing the subject, points to a bundle of sticks in the corner
): My friends, the faggots.
PHEASANT: Taken from my wood! ...
Then it is true, as I have understood
You have a secret?
CHANTICLEER (briefly): Yes.
PHEASANT: I coax in vain?
CHANTICLEER (climbing on the wall at the end of the yard):
From here, you see the rest of my domain,—
The kitchen garden where at twilight crawls
A serpent from whose head a fountain falls.
PHEASANT: And this is all?
CHANTICLEER: That's all.
PHEASANT: And do you think
That barrowful of kale, earth's outer brink?
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: Has not your fancy followed where they led
When the wild geese sweep northward overhead?
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: But all these things are workaday and dull.
CHANTICLEER: I find them every day more beautiful.
PHEASANT: Day after day the same!
CHANTICLEER: No single one
Is ever twice the same,—beneath the sun.
She makes all new!
PHEASANT: She? Who?
CHANTICLEER: The Living Light!
The housewife's red geranium, crimson-bright,
Glows still, and changes still. The wooden shoe,
Bulging with straw, is beautiful and new.
The wooden rake, the overalls beneath,
That holds dead grasses still between its teeth!
The pitchfork, like an urchin in disgrace,
Stands in the corner, upright in his place,
And dreams of harvest! Skittles, scarlet-gowned
That good old Patou rolls upon the ground!
The wooden basin, rotted half away,
Round which an ant keeps travelling every day,
Making the trip,—so our globe trotter reckons,
Around the rim, with luck, in eighty seconds!
I tell you, none of these is twice the same.
And as for me, my heart is all aflame
With ecstasy of praises for the power
That gilds a pitchfork and perfects a flower.
I gazed upon the bind-weed on the ground,
And admiration made my eyes so round!
PHEASANT: One sees you have a soul. But ... such a soul
Can rest content, far from life's stress and dole
Behind a barnyard fence where pussy sleeps?
CHANTICLEER:
One knows life when one looks and laughs and weeps.
All tragedy is where an insect dies;
And through a knot-hole one can see the skies.
THE OLD HEN (bobbing up):
Nobody knows the stars like clear well water.
CHANTICLEER (introducing her before the cover falls):
My foster mother.
OLD HEN (slyly): Ain't he handsome, daughter?
PHEASANT (going toward the OLD HEN):
A Cock, whose vision is his own salvation.
CHANTICLEER (going toward PATOU):
With such a hen, one can have conversation.
(One hears without piercing cries and a clack that approaches
rapidly.)
SCENE VII
The Same; the GUINEA HEN and all the Poultry Yard
(Cries without, coming nearer): Ah!
THE BLACKBIRD (in his cage): Enter the Pot-a-rack!
(All the Poultry enter tumultuously, led by the GUINEA HEN, much exc
ited.)
GUINEA (running up to the PHEASANT):
Good luck! Ah, Madam, you have gotten back.
How beautiful she is.—I flew to meet you.
I want to know you better. I entreat you ...
(General chorus of admiration): Ahh!
(They circle round the PHEASANT, conversation, squawks,
cackling.)
CHANTICLEER (aside, looking at the PHEASANT):
—How well she walks!
(Looks at his hens) You hens, there! oh bend your legs!
Goodness! You walk as if you trod on eggs.
PATOU: He's dead in love. Just listen to him mutter.
GUINEA (presenting the YOUNG GUINEA): Madam, my son.
YOUNG GUINEA (admiringly): Her hair's as blonde as ...
A HEN (in a stage whisper): Butter.
CHANTICLEER (turning abruptly to the Hens): To roost!
PHEASANT (politely regretful): Already?
CHANTICLEER: Yes, they keep early hours.
(The Hens begin to mount the ladder into the Hen House.)
A HEN (a little mortified and cross): We have to go to roost!
PHEASANT: A staircase to their bowers!
Shut in like that, I couldn't sleep a wink.
GUINEA HEN: My dear, there's an affinity, I think.
CHANTICLEER (looking at the PHEASANT):
How well she fits her clothes; gives them an air.
They might as well wear smocks, those others there.
PHEASANT (excusing herself to the GUINEA HEN):
This evening I must seek my woods again.
GUINEA (desolated): Really?
(A shot is heard.)
PATOU: They're hunting still.
GUINEA: You must remain.
CHANTICLEER (earnestly):
Yes, we must keep her prisoner for to-night.
PHEASANT: Where could I sleep?
PATOU: The kennel is all right.
PHEASANT: Under a roof?
PATOU (urgently): Go in.
PHEASANT: But you, then?
PATOU: I?
Oh, I was made to sleep beneath the sky.
THE PHEASANT (resigning herself): Well, till to-morrow.
GUINEA (screaming out): Oh, to-morrow, say!
EVERYBODY (startled): To-morrow, what?
YOUNG GUINEA: Why, that is Mother's "day."
GUINEA (gushingly to PHEASANT):
Oh, won't you, dear? Ah, most informally,
Come in, ... Monday, ... at five ... a little tea?
The Peacock ...
CHANTICLEER (climbing the ladder to inspect):
Twilight mirk comes on apace.
(In a tone of command):
Is every one in his accustomed place?
GUINEA (below, to the PHEASANT):
Peacock will come. It's by the currant bushes.
CHANTICLEER: The turkeys on their perch?
GUINEA: I hate these crushes,
Where one meets everybody.
CHANTICLEER: Ducks all covered?
GUINEA: Perhaps the Tortoise ...
PHEASANT (politely): Really?
CHANTICLEER (who has reached the highest rung of the ladder):
Are the chicks all hovered?
YOUNG GUINEA (sarcastically): A cry for every rung?
CHANTICLEER (to YOUNG GUINEA): Yes, it behooves ...
(to the FLOCK): Everything safe?
(to the YOUNG GUINEA): To care for what one loves.
To do one's duty on the humblest ladder.
GUINEA (still urging the PHEASANT):
The Houdan promises,—to make us gladder,—
The Cock!
(To CHANTICLEER, gushingly): We're thrilled!
CHANTICLEER: But ...
THE HOUDAN (putting her head out of the Hen House
dictatorially): You will go.
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT (at the foot of the ladder looking at him): Yes.
CHANTICLEER: But why?
PHEASANT: Because you told the other, no.
CHANTICLEER: Ah?
PATOU: Hon!
PHEASANT (earnestly): Oh, I beg of you ...
CHANTICLEER: Why, really, I ...
PATOU: Huh! She could make him crow and not half try!
THE OLD HEN (appearing): You make a whistle from a reed.
(The cover falls. Little by little night comes.)
CHANTICLEER: I ... really ... I ... indeed ...
A VOICE: Let's go to sleep.
TURKEY: Quandoque dormitat ...
BLACKBIRD: Good lullaby.
CHANTICLEER (very firmly): I will not go. Good night.
PHEASANT (rather vexed): Good night.
(She enters the kennel with a bound. The
twilight deepens to dark blue.)
PATOU (sleepily, lying in front of his kennel):
We'll sleep until the eastern sky is bright ...
All rosy pink as ... as ... Oh, yes, I tell ye ...
As rosy as a little puppy's belly.
GUINEA HEN (going to sleep):
Come back ... from five to six ...
BLACKBIRD (half asleep): Tu tu, tu tu ...
CHANTICLEER (still high on the ladder): All fast asleep?
(He sees a chick creeping out)
A chick sneaks out! Hey, you!
(He hurries after him and drives him back, precipitately.)
You would, would you?
(The chick scrambles back to his place.
In chasing him, CHANTICLEER comes close to the kennel. He calls very softly
): Pheasant! Pheasant Hen?
PHEASANT (lost in the straw, in a dreamy voice): What?
CHANTICLEER: Nothing ...
(He hesitates, and then with a sigh): Nothing.
(He regretfully mounts his ladder.)
PHEASANT: I am dreaming, then.
PATOU (unmistakably asleep): Bell ... Y.
PHEASANT: Under a roof ... I'm too Bo ... he ...
CHANTICLEER (sleepily):
To roost (one hears him speaking in a sleepy voice)
To roost. It's fully time for me. ...
PHEASANT (with a last, sleepy effort):
Bo ... he ... mi ... an ...
(Her head is lifted for a moment, droops and disappears in the
straw.)
VOICE OF CHANTICLEER (almost asleep):
... to close my eyes.
(Silence. He sleeps.)
(In the darkness two big green eyes shine out on the wall.)
THE CAT: To let mine shine!
(On the barn roof two yellow eyes shine out.)
A VOICE: And open mine!
(Two more yellow eyes shine out.)
A VOICE: And mine!
(Two more yellow eyes shine out) And mine!
(The outlines of three barn owls can be dimly seen.)
SCENE VIII
The Poultry Yard sleeps; the CAT wakes on the wall; three BARN OWLS,
later the MOLE, and the voice of the CUCKOO
AN OWL: Two green eyes!
THE CAT (stretching herself on the wall and looking at the other
phosphorescent eyes): Six yellow eyes!
OWL: On the wall!
CAT: On the barn!
OWL: Tabby!
CAT: Hoot-owl!
THE THREE OWLS: Cat!
CAT: Hoot!
ONE OF THE OWLS: Miaul!
BLACKBIRD (waking): What's this I hear?
FIRST OWL (to the CAT): To-wit; conspiracy!
THE CAT: To-night?
THE THREE OWLS: Yes. Who-oo? Who?
THE CAT (joyfully): Psfft! Where?
OWLS (together): To-wit: the yew tree close to the holly tree!
CAT: What is the hour? Miaw! The hour of fate?
OWLS: To-wit, to-wit; at eight, at eight, at eight.
(Zigzagging of bats in the air.)
Blind Bats of night that juggle in the dark ...
THE CAT: They're with us?
OWLS: Yes.
FIRST OWL: That's the Mole scratching. Hark!
THE CAT: Is she with us?
OWLS: Yes.
CAT (speaking toward the door of the lodge):
Hasten thy tic-toc.
And speed the hour of eight, O cuckoo clock!
FIRST OWL: He's for us?
THE CAT: Yes. And certain birds of light
Dark, silent watchers, share the thoughts of Night.
TURKEY (from the centre of a furtive group of Poultry that has
feigned sleep): This evening, dear round eyes, you go?
THE OWLS: We go!
FIRST OWL: There meet all round eyes from above, below.
BLACKBIRD: I'd like to see that.
PATOU (growling in his dreams): Rrrrrr ...
THE CAT (reassuring the Night Birds):
He's grumbling in his sleep.
CHANTICLEER (within): Co ...
THE OWLS (in a panic): Who? Who? Who? 'Tis he.
TURKEY: Fly!
FIRST OWL: Nay, the night is deep.
We disappear if we but close our eyes.
(All the eyes are closed. Black darkness.)
CHANTICLEER (appearing at the top of his ladder):
Blackbird, did you hear something?
BLACKBIRD: Yes, get wise!
OWLS (frightened): To whoo?
BLACKBIRD: Tremble!
A somber plot!
CHANTICLEER: Ah!
BLACKBIRD (melodramatically): Against you!
CHANTICLEER (reassured): Joker!
(He goes back.)
OWLS (opening their eyes): He's gone!
BLACKBIRD (satisfied): I dissemble,
Yet none's betrayed. So ... I am true.
AN OWL: You are for us? ...
BLACKBIRD: N ... no. ... Say, may I come, too?
AN OWL: No Night Bird eats a blackbird; they aren't seen,
So you may come.
BLACKBIRD: The password?
OWLS: Shadow and rapine!
PHEASANT (sticking her head out of the kennel):
I smother in this house. I fight for breath,
And
(She sees the Night Birds): Oh! ...
(She draws her head back quietly but lies watching.)
OWLS: Hush!
(They close their eyes. All is still. They reopen them.)
Naught! Let's go!
A VOICE (from the Group of Poultry): Luck, birds of death!
THE OWL: Thank you, but why?
CAT: Night tells, what Day would hide:
I hate the Cock,—the dog is on his side!
THE TURKEY: I hate the Cock, I, Gobbler propter hoc.
I knew him as cockerel, deny him as Cock.
THE DUCK: I hate him; he has no web between his toes,
And so he traces stars where'er he goes.
A CHICKEN: I hate the Cock because I am so plain.
ANOTHER: I hate the Cock because he is so vain.
One finds his spur on every violet.
ANOTHER: His statue on the highest roofs is set
As weather-vane, still chip of the old block.
AN OWL (to a big Chicken): And you, good Capon?
CAPON (surlily): I do not like the Cock.
THE CUCKOO (beginning to strike eight, inside the house):
Cuckoo!
FIRST OWL: The hour!
CUCKOO (in clock): Cuckoo! cuckoo!
SECOND OWL: O hark!
CLOCK: Cuckoo!
(A pale ray illumines all one side of the Poultry Yard.)
FIRST OWL: The moon!
CUCKOO: Cuckoo!
FIRST OWL (spreading his wings): We cleave the dark.
THE CUCKOO: Cuckoo!
THE MOLE (her head showing at the door of her hill):
The dank brown earth ...
FIRST OWL: To-wit: the Mole?
Now tell us why you hate him, dusty soul?
THE MOLE: Because I never saw him!
CUCKOO IN THE CLOCK: Cuckoo!
FIRST OWL (to the CUCKOO): You hate him, on what ground?
CUCKOO CLOCK (striking the last count):
He strikes although he's never wound.
Cuckoo!
FIRST OWL: We do not love ...
SECOND OWL (hurriedly to his companions):
They will get our bough!
ALL (opening their wings): We hate the Cock ...
(They fly off. Silence.)
THE PHEASANT (coming slowly out of the kennel):
I almost love him, now.
(Curtain)
ACT II
THE MORNING OF THE COCK
THE SETTING
A group of holly trees. A garden old;
A sad place when at night the hawkweed bends
Beside the nettle by the path none tends;
But when the dawn kindles the east to gold
The glories of my Valley so unfold
For the sad night it makes complete amends.
Under no alien sun her river rolls;
The arms of France her gracious curves enfold.
Horizon calm, that bounds desire,—not dreams;
Slim poplars. Gentle range. How strong it seems
Lifting a village from the slope below.
The skies are skies of home. A wreath of smoke
Drifts from the chimney of some simple folk.
It is the pipe, one whispers, of Corot.
SCENE I
(The Night Birds of all sizes and kinds form a huge
circle, establishing themselves on the rocks, the brambles and the limbs of the
holly trees; the CAT crouches in the grass; the BLACKBIRD perches on
a bit of dead wood. As the curtain rises there is deep darkness. All the
Night Birds are motionless, darkly-shadowed outlines, eyes closed. The GREAT
HORNE OWL, perched on a tree trunk, presides. The BARN OWL only has his
great yellow eyes open. He proceeds to the roll-call, and at every name one
sees two great round yellow eyes shine out through the darkness.)
THE BARN OWL (calling): Strix!
(Two eyes shine out.) Scops!
(Two eyes shine out.) Hoot Owl!
(Two eyes shine out.) Screech Owl!
(Two eyes shine out.)
ONE NIGHT BIRD (to another): Grand Duke's presiding.
BARN OWL (continuing the roll-call):
Owl of the Yew! The Belfrey! And the Wood! Wherever hiding.
(At each name two yellow eyes shine out.)
ONE NIGHT BIRD (to a newcomer): The roll-call!
THE OTHER: Yes, I know. I'm glad I came.
Your eyes must open when they call your name.
THE BARN OWL: Surnia! Wood Owl! Nyctate!
(The three pairs of eyes open simultaneously.)
Brachyote! (No eyes appear.)
BARN OWL (repeats): Brachyote?
A NIGHT BIRD: One minute!
They say Brachyote delayed to kill a linnet.
BRACHYOTE (arriving): Here!
BARN OWL: They all turn out when talk is of the Cock.
ALL THE NIGHT BIRDS (with one voice): All!
BARN OWL: Hulotte!
(Two eyes shine out.) Caparacoch!
(No eyes open.)
BARN OWL (insistently): Ca-pa-ra-coch?
—Ah, well, at last!
CAPARACOCH (breathless, opens his eyes and apologizes):
I live so far away!
BARN OWL (drily): Some birds fly fast.
(He looks about him.) I think that all are here!
(Calling.) Cheveche! Chevette!
(Now all the eyes are open.)
THE GREAT HORNED OWL (solemnly): Begin aright
Giving the Cry that makes us all as one!
ALL: Long live the Night!
(Repressed, mysterious, fierce, accompanied with beating of wings
and long cries into the night, one birds calls to another with ferocious gestur
es.)
THE GREAT HORNED OWL: Live the Night and her Dominion!
Forth we fare on muted pinion,
Soft as breath,
That the partridge in her cover
Hear not, dream not, poised above her
Shadowy Death.
THE BARN OWL: Live the Night that keeps me stranger
Both to honor and to danger!
Forth I flop,
No one seeing, no one knowing,
Till the rabbit's blood is flowing
Drop by drop.
AN OLD OWL: Live the Shadows as they darken!
AN OWLET: Silences whence all may hearken
Craunching jaws!
SCREECH OWL: Coolness that each feather tickles,
While blood-warm the crimson trickles
Through our claws.
ANOTHER: Live the Rock whence Terror oozes!
ANOTHER (giving his cry): Graveyard guide-posts Horror chooses.
THE BARN OWL: To whoot with might.
CHURCH OWL: And miaul.
OWLET: Ulule!
SCREECH OWL: And screech! and whine!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL: Till infidels would make the Sign!
ALL: Long live the Night!
GREAT HORNED OWL: Live the deadly fogs entwining,
Fogs, that dull the stars' sharp shining,—
The Night's one blot.
THE BARN OWL: When our sharpened claws contract
And the rat's light bones are cracked
We need them not.
GREAT HORNED OWL: Live the Night to vengeance given!
When the tom-tit's heart is riven
For his graces!
Darkness is at war with Beauty.
Rive and rend, our dearest duty,
In all places.
THE OWLET: Night,—that makes all beggars choosers!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL: Birds of Prey are never losers.
Night besmirches; ...
But the jay has lost no brightness,
Nor the mourning doves their whiteness
On their perches.
A SCREECH OWL: Live the hour when, egg-shells crushing,
Down our thirsty throats go rushing
Hopes parental.
A BARN OWL: Hour when, all as one conspiring,
That deed seem which we're desiring
Accidental.
GREAT HORNED OWL: Live the Shadow, sire of Terror!
Leaving earth to us and Error.
THE BARN OWL: To whoot with might!
THE CHURCH OWL: And miaul!
ALL THE SCREECH OWLS: And screech!
ALL THE WOOD OWLS: Ulule!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL: For then
The Eagle's heart is like the Wren!
ALL: Long live the Night!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL: Now let us hear with solemn unction
The Barn Owl speak!
SEVERAL VOICES: 'Sh!
THE BLACKBIRD (on his faggot): Charming function!
THE BARN OWL (oratorically): My fellow Night Birds!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL (to his neighbor):
This appeals to me,
The darkest corner and the mouldiest tree,
The empty flower pots, there, upon the right,
Beyond the hollies. ...
ALL THE NIGHT BIRDS: Whoo? Whoo?
GREAT HORNED OWL: Gloom and all delight.
THE BARN OWL: Night Birds!
AN OLD OWL (suddenly):
The Mole. How far she had to climb!
ANOTHER OWL: Beneath the thyme, she bored.
THE BLACKBIRD (hopping): Subway,—behind thyme!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL (to his neighbor):
Is it the Blackbird?
BLACKBIRD (coming forward): Yes, your Grace, and that—
That pair of agates yonder, is the Cat.
GREAT HORNED OWL: I know, I hear her lick her padded paws.
BARN OWL (continuing his speech):
Fellow Night Birds, fellows by all the laws,
That bind—I say, that make,—that form, a tie
Among all creatures of the Evil Eye,—
ALL THE NIGHT BIRDS (cackling and swaying after their fashion): Ha! Ha!
GREAT HORNED OWL (opening his wings to enforce order):
Be silent!
BLACKBIRD: Here, I've got a squint
But not an evil eye. That's just a hint.
I take no part!
AN OWL: Then really he takes ours.
BLACKBIRD (aside): I do not envy him his mental powers.
BARN OWL (continuing):
Come! With malevolence that naught conceals,
Declare the Cock a thief!
ALL: A thief! He steals!
THE BLACKBIRD: Steals what?
THE GREAT HORNED OWL: Our health and our delight.
BLACKBIRD: What are you giving me? How?
BARN OWL: He steals the Night!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL:
He gives us, by his song, attacks of spleen
And heart-disease, announcing ...
THE BLACKBIRD (hopping): Oh, you mean
The light!
(General movement of anger. The BLACKBIRD, terrified, hides behind
some faggots.)
GREAT HORNED OWL:
Don't speak that word! Don't speak that word.
Night trembles when its hateful sound is heard!
BLACKBIRD (prudently, correcting himself): I mean the Dawn!
(Same general movement.)
THE OWLET (hurriedly): An evil word to hatch!
It grates as grates the striking of a match!
THE BARN OWL:
Say "he announces ... folding the dark cloth."
BLACKBIRD: But daylight ...
ALL (same movement; cries of agony):
Oh, not that. It makes us wroth!
GREAT HORNED OWL: Say "what will come."
BLACKBIRD: Why is the Cock so scolded
Because ...
ALL (checking him): To-wit:
BLACKBIRD (cautiously): To-wit, the cloth is folded ...
Since—what will come ... will come!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL:
It tortures us. Our very claws grow numb
Hearing his bright ...
BLACKBIRD (flippantly): His dark
GREAT HORNED OWL: His brazen song,
Recalling that the night can not be long.
ALL (wracked with grief): Not long ... not long!
GREAT HORNED OWL:
He crows while yet the gracious night is black.
CRIES (from all sides): A thief! A thief!
GREAT HORNED OWL: His singing holds us back
From profit!
ALL: Prophet! Prophet!
GREAT HORNED OWL: From what is left!
Just at the burrow we must stop, bereft ...
BARN OWL: Of bloody feasts.
OWLET: And witches' midnight meeting,—
Upon a wizard's fist all darkness greeting.
THE GREAT HORNED OWL:
When he has crowed, we lose our normal state.
BARN OWL: An evil thing to hasten!
GREAT HORNED OWL: Hence our hate!
LONG-EARED OWL:
When he has crowed, our reign of death is waning!
SCREECH OWL:
Upon the dark ... that which we fear—is gaining!
BARN OWL: When his clear call has torn the Night apart,
We writhe like maggots in an apple's heart.
THE BLACKBIRD (entirely bewildered, from his faggot):
But other cocks ...
GREAT HORNED OWL: They put no night to rout.
His song alone we must ...
ALL THE NIGHT BIRDS (flapping their wings): Put out! Put out!
AN OWL: How shall we do it?
BARN OWL (indicating the BLACKBIRD): He has done his part.
BLACKBIRD: Who? Me?
BARN OWL: You mock him.
ALL (chuckling and rocking): Ha! Ha!
GREAT HORNED OWL (opening his wings): Hush!
(They resume their sinister immobility.)
BARN OWL: It made him smart,
And yet his song our very blood can chill.
He is too strong for ridicule to kill.
ALL: How shall we do it?
BARN OWL: The Peacock, painted clown ...
ALL (chuckling and rocking): Ha-ha!
GREAT HORNED OWL (opening his wings): Silence!
(Immobility once more.)
BARN OWL: He works against him, and he cries him down.
He's less the fashion, but his crow is surer.
Become less popular, his song is purer.
ALL: How is it to be done?
A SCREECH OWL: Strangle the Cock!
CRIES: Death to the Cock!
LONG-EARED OWL: Aristocrat, who plays the demigogue.
ANOTHER: While wearing spurs, he wears a bonnet red.
GREAT HORNED OWL: All Night Birds rise!
(All seem to grow larger; wings wide open, eyes rounder; the night
seems to deepen.)
BLACKBIRD (unawed and mocking): Night's coming to a head.
THE BARN OWL:
Strangle him? How? We're blind when he comes out!
ALL (groaning): Alas!
A LONG-EARED OWL (cautiously): Let's do it from a distance.
GREAT HORNED OWL: Wise no doubt,
But most impracticable.
A VOICE (from a branch): Chairman, I say!
May I explain my plan?
GREAT HORNED OWL: Scops-eared, you may.
ALL (seeing a small Owl flop from a branch and come forward):
Scops! little Scops!
SCOPS (bowing to the GREAT HORNED OWL):
You know, great Nyctalope,
There lives, beyond the garden, on yon slope,
A birds' school-teacher, ... avi-cult-u-rer, ...
Who raises for the fairs, ... or some prefer
To call 'em poultry shows, ... in various places,
The finest game cocks, of the foolest races.
The Peacock, great discoverer of freaks,—
(Rending the eardrum with his endless shrieks
He cannot bear a Song that rends the dark,—)
This bird, who seeks out all new birds of mark,
Any new creature, strange ...
GREAT HORNED OWL (to his neighbor): Or, better, stranger ...
SCOPS (continuing): Hopes to present,—thus hoping to endanger
Chanticleer's vogue, ... Monday, at five ...
ALL (laughing): The Guinea's day!
SCOPS: All these fine birds, whose glories as they say
Will quite eclipse the Cock.
BLACKBIRD (hopping): 'Twill knock him flat!
THE GREAT HORNED OWL:
These Cocks are locked in, always. What of that?
SCOPS: This evening, sir, when all the Cocks were out
To peck the corn a servant flung about
Like golden hail,—forth from a tree I flop
Scaring the girl ...
AN OWL (to his neighbor): A crafty bird, this Scops!
SCOPS: Seeing a bird, you know, of evil omen
Is too much for the courage of a woman.
ALL (chuckling and swaying): Ha! Ha!
GREAT HORNED OWL (opening his wings): Be still!
(Immobility again.)
She fled, her arms before her face!
The coop is open. All about the place
The birds are straying, and the fancy ninnies
Will meet the Cock, to-morrow, at ...
ALL (choking with laughter): The Guinea's.
BLACKBIRD: He won't be there. He says ...
SCOPS: Oh, curse him? Is that true?
THE CAT (phlegmatically): Go on. He'll be there.
BLACKBIRD: (looking at the CAT from a safe distance):
Tiger, who told you?
THE CAT: I've seen a bird that makes him trail his wing.
He'll be there.
BLACKBIRD: When you're asleep you do not miss a thing.
GREAT HORNED OWL: Granted, he'll go. Then ... ?
SCOPS: Chanticleer, you see,
Though famous, is a country bird, and he
Seeing this ...
BLACKBIRD (whistling the word): Five o'clock ...
SCOPS: And all the airs
Of all the
BLACKBIRD (whistling): Snobs ...
SCOPS: Will try, ... I think he dares ...
To show this
BLACKBIRD (whistling): Minstrel show ...
SCOPS: A thing or two.
THE GREAT HORNED OWL (trembling with excitement):
You thin ... a cock fight?
SCOPS: And our dream come true!
THE CAT: Suppose he wins?
SCOPS: Angora, be it known
Among the fancy breeds one Cock is shown
A great Pit-Game known through the whole creation,
A tawny fighting cock.
BLACKBIRD (watching the ruffled plumage): Profound sensation!
SCOPS (continuing):
One who has conquered champions near and far,
A White Pile! Yes, and on his heels there are
To slay his enemies, a pair of spurs,—
Not Nature's kind. More deadly far than hers.
To-morrow evening Chanticleer is dead;
His eyes picked out, his feathers few, and red.
BARN OWL (enthusiastically): We'll see his corpse.
GREAT HORNED OWL (erect, dreadful):
Yes, and the Comb we dread,
We'll tear it off,—having attained our ends,—
And we will eat it!
ALL (with a great hurly-burly, ending in their horrible swaying and
chuckling): We will eat it, friends!
GREAT HORNED OWL (opening his wings): Hush!
(Immobility.)
SCOPS: Then ...
BLACKBIRD (skipping): A pretty business!
SCOPS: What?
BLACKBIRD: What you propose.
If I believed you meant it, goodness knows,
I'd tell the Cock. But I'll not go so fast
(He concludes with four little jumps)
Because ... he laughs ... the best ... who laughs at last. ...
SCOPS (ironically): Oh, very well!
(He goes on, more and more excited.)
And if those fancy cocks
To-morrow night aren't safe behind their locks,
We'll eat them too—it's all that they are good for.
GREAT HORNED OWL (to his neighbor):
With Blackbird for dessert!
BLACKBIRD (who missed that): What's that?
SCOPS (hastily): Nothing!
(With insane frenzy) I stood for killing ...
(One hears in the distance)
Cocorico!
(Sudden silence. SCOPS stops and crouches down. All the Owls
suddenly seem thinner and smaller.)
ALL (looking about and blinking): What? What was that?
(And all at once they open their wings and make ready for
flight, calling):
HORNED OWL: Hoot Owl! Screech Owl!
BLACKBIRD (hopping from one to the other): I say, don't go.
Why, what's your hurry?
VOICE (of one Night Bird calling to another):
Long Ear!
BLACKBIRD: Dawn's far away, I'm thinking.
BARN OWL: No! When he crows, at once he sets us blinking.
A SCREECH OWL: Surnia, you coming?
ANOTHER (calling): Nyctale?
ANOTHER (joining her, flying): Yes, my dear.
(They start to fly, staggering, uncertain.)
BLACKBIRD (astonished): They're stumbling. Ain't it queer?
NIGHT BIRDS (blinking and doing queer, sad little turns in the air): I suff
er ... Ay ... ay ... ay!
BLACKBIRD (watching) Eye trouble, that is clear.
(The Owls fly off, one by one.)
THE GREAT HORNED OWL (remaining after all the rest have gone, with a cry of
pain and range):
How can this Cock, foe of whatever flies,
Have in his voice a light that hurts our eyes?
(Flies heavily away.)
VOICES (of the Night Birds from afar): Strix!
BLACKBIRD (following them with his eyes, among the trees and later in the
blue gulf of the Valley):
They are calling.
VOICE (from a great distance): Scops!
BLACKBIRD (looking into the Valley where the dark wings pass, growing
smaller and smaller): A wavering flight!
VOICE (calling and dying away in the distance):
Owl of the Wood, the Yew, the Bel—
BLACKBIRD: They're out of sight!
(Looks around and is at once the buffoon again.)
It's supper time. I think I'll have a bite.
(At this moment the PHEASANT comes with a bound from the
brushwood and falls in front of him.)
You! ...
SCENE II
The BLACKBIRD, the PHEASANT; later, CHANTICLEER
PHEASANT (breathlessly):
I ran! ... You ... here! ... I nearly died of fright!
You overheard their great conspiracy?—
BLACKBIRD (foraging cheerfully in the moss):
I'm studying insectology, you see.
PHEASANT: I tried to hear,—far off, in a deep ditch ...
(In an agonized voice) Ah! ...
BLACKBIRD (with open amazement): What?
PHEASANT: The plot!
BLACKBIRD (calmly): Went off without a hitch.
PHEASANT (stupefied): Huh?
BLACKBIRD: Blue shadows, good impressionist effect,—
The Owls as earnest as you could expect.
PHEASANT (bounding): Heavens! They planned his death!
BLACKBIRD: No, his decease
Less dangerous. These owls are birds of peace.
PHEASANT: But ...
BLACKBIRD: Don't you fret. The Owls were grave enough.
There'll be no other grave from all this guff.
PHEASANT: These Owls ...
BLACKBIRD: ... Act well; but old stuff, very old.
PHEASANT: What?
BLACKBIRD (impertinently):
Rather like yours, they had a tale twice told.
PHEASANT: Ah ...
BLACKBIRD (soothingly):
Their eyebrows go twice all around their eyes.
That's overdone. This plot went round likewise.
PHEASANT (coming and going feverishly):
I never understand when one is jesting.
BLACKBIRD (winking one eye):
You do the gypsy well, it's interesting.
PHEASANT: You wouldn't jest, if he were menaced,—Neighbor!
BLACKBIRD: Each owl's a bandit with a pewter sabre,—
Brigands of Big Talk,—very harmless fowl!
PHEASANT: Hulotte?
BLACKBIRD: A screecher?
PHEASANT: And the Great Horned Owl?
BLACKBIRD: He has two headlights, lighted by a trick,
Crick-crack! And that Cheveche, she's mighty slick.
Hers are like his, but they're acetylene;
One of the neatest stage effects I've seen.
PHEASANT (quite bewildered by this raillery):
Then? ...
BLACKBIRD: Nothing doing, Madam Zingerella.
There's not a bit of danger for your fellow.
PHEASANT: Truly? I was so scared!
BLACKBIRD: Well, trembling gypsy,
We're all in danger,—chiefly from dyspepsy.
Because he keeps his head beneath his wing
An ostrich's stomach's such a famous thing.
—It's all arranged.
PHEASANT: Ah!
BLACKBIRD: Yes, our day you know
Has said, politely, Tragedy must go.
PHEASANT: But should we not at least warn Chanticleer?
BLACKBIRD: And start him hunting trouble? No, my dear.
PHEASANT (quickly): Yes, you are right.
BLACKBIRD: Sure. You can shy at anything at all
And make a mountain of a plantain gall.
PHEASANT: You have good sense.
BLACKBIRD: Yes, little Forest Queen.
VOICE OF CHANTICLEER (without): Co ...
PHEASANT (trembling): Oh, 'tis he!
CHANTICLEER (calling from a distance): Who's there?
PHEASANT: I!—Has he seen?
CHANTICLEER (still in the distance):
The Pheasant! You! Are you alone?
PHEASANT (looking at the BLACKBIRD): Yes!
BLACKBIRD (understanding): ... Supper time! I'm gone.
PHEASANT (to BLACKBIRD, in a low voice): Well?
BLACKBIRD (making a sign for silence): 'Sh.
(He goes out, right, ordering) Fresh wood lice, waiter!
PHEASANT (in a whisper): Better say nothing?
BLACKBIRD: Yes. I'll see you later.
SCENE III
CHANTICLEER, the PHEASANT
CHANTICLEER: So early up?
PHEASANT: To see the sunrise, yes.
CHANTICLEER (trembling): Ah? ...
PHEASANT: Am I not excellent?
CHANTICLEER: Uh-huh!
PHEASANT: You're worried. Come, confess.
CHANTICLEER: I slept but ill.
PHEASANT (politely): Indeed?
(A pause.)
CHANTICLEER: You're going to this—day?
The Guinea's tea?
PHEASANT: Why, that's what made me stay!
CHANTICLEER: Ah, yes ... (a pause) ... I do detest her, I ...
PHEASANT: Come to her tea?
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: Let us say good-bye.
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: Go to the party! You will see me, there.
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: You will not come?
CHANTICLEER: I will, but in despair.
PHEASANT: Why?
CHANTICLEER: It is so weak!
PHEASANT: That isn't yielding much.
CHANTICLEER: Ah?
PHEASANT (coming softly up to him):
That which would be ...
CHANTICLEER (seeing her approaches, frightened):
... Would be ...
PHEASANT: A sacrifice to touch
My heart is ... tell me ... what you've told
No other.
CHANTICLEER (trembling greatly): The Secret of my Song?
PHEASANT: Yes!
CHANTICLEER: Bird of Gold,
My secret?
PHEASANT: Sometimes, just at the border of my wood,
I hear you singing in the sun's first flood.
CHANTICLEER (flattered):
Indeed! My song comes even to your hearing?
PHEASANT: Yes.
CHANTICLEER (starting back): My Secret! Never!
PHEASANT: You are not ... endearing!
CHANTICLEER: You torture me!
THE PHEASANT (languidly): The Cock and the Pheasant: Fable.
CHANTICLEER (whispering): A Cock loved a Pheasant!
PHEASANT: And he was not able
To tell her anything.
CHANTICLEER: Moral:
PHEASANT: He was so mean.
CHANTICLEER (close beside her):
Moral: The darling's dress had golden sheen.
PHEASANT: Moral: I always hate familiar men.
Go say Co ... a ... co to some barnyard hen.
CHANTICLEER (stamping): Ah, I am furious!
PHEASANT: Say it to me then.
Co ...
(They are beak to beak.)
CHANTICLEER (ardently): Co ...
PHEASANT: Better than that ... Quite slow!
CHANTICLEER (with a long note of tenderness): Co ...
PHEASANT: Look, and don't laugh! ... Tell me the Secret, now.
CHANTICLEER: What do you ask?
PHEASANT: You yearn to tell, I vow.
CHANTICLEER: This golden head has won—though it be wrong—
The golden secret of my morning song.
(He marches abruptly up to her)
Will you be worthy, when the word is said?
Is your heart true, your blood all loyal red?
PHEASANT: Speak!
CHANTICLEER: Look at me, Pheasant, striving to devine
Yourself my Secret, tell-tale line on line.
Curved like a trumpet,—like a hunter's horn,—
For my vocation surely was I born,
That from my body Song might rise and swell
As ducks were fashioned like a diving bell.
Wait! Have you seen how, now and then, I pause,
Scratching the grass-plot with impatient claws,
As one who seeks for treasure underground?
PHEASANT: I always thought that it was corn you found.
CHANTICLEER: It is not food that tirelessly I seek,
If corn be found, it is not for my beak,
Scornful of grain, I give it to some hen.
PHEASANT: Well, tell me why you dig the turf up then?
What are you looking for?
CHANTICLEER: A place to stand;
For, when I crow,—so Someone Else has planned—
I must stand firm.
PHEASANT: I know, and then you pause ...
CHANTICLEER: I never crow until my eight sharp claws
Beneath the grass and flowers she brings to earth.
The stones that wound, have found the good black earth!
Then, closely clinging to the honest soil,
I sing ... no song that I have learned with toil, ...
This, Pheasant, is full half the mystery;
A Song untaught the good Earth gives to me.
It comes like sap out of the soil of Home,
And in its hour, it rises like a foam,
Filling my life,—a gift a royal prize.
When the sun waits, below the darkened skies,
Then, thrilling as the leaves and branches thrill,
Tremblings and throbbings all my being fill.
I feel that I am needed and was born
To be a trumpet and a curving horn.
As sounding conch-shells speak with Ocean's voice,
I am the Voice of Earth. And I rejoice
To be not bird, not cock,—only a mighty cry,
The cry of earth, uplifted to the sky!
PHEASANT: Chanticleer!
CHANTICLEER: This cry of earth, piercing the utmost night,
Is such a cry of passion for the light,
A cry of love so absolute, I say,
For the fair treasure that we call the Day,
From all that long for her; the pine's rough bark;
The foot-path rough with roots that 'scaped the dark;
The mosses on them; trembling oats half-grown;
The tiniest crystal of the tiniest stone;
'Tis such a cry of those who would reclaim
Colour, reflection, crest, and pearl and flame;
A yearning cry from every dew-wet flower
That longs to shine a rainbow for an hour;
The forest dark that fails not to aspire
To end its alleyed depths with flames of fire;—
This cry that to the azure mounts through me
Is such a cry of hungry agony
From all that lurks, disgraced and shut away,
Not knowing why, from the good Light of Day;
A cry of cold, of weariness, of fright
From everything defrauded by the Night;
The rose that trembles in the dark alone;
The hay that fain would dry and so be thrown
Into the barn; the tools that wish to reach
Their share of harvest; linens spread to bleach
Yearning the promised whiteness to achieve;
The cry of Beasts, who need not to deceive,
With naught to hide, nor any need to shrink;
Of rivers, crystal-clear from bed to brink.
Even—O Night, thy works disown thy reign!—
The pool would be a mirror; mud again
Be one with honest soil and all it yields;
The cry magnificent of waiting fields
Travailing in birth of barley and of wheat;
Of trees whose blossoming is not complete;
Of green grapes, longing for a purple dress;
The bridge that waits for passing feet to press,
And flitting o'er it in the morning breeze
Birds shadows in the shadow of trees;
The cry of all who, thralled by Night no more,
Would wake and sing and work! Mountain, or cottage door;
A work-bench or a stone, made warm again
For human touch, or insects' patient train;
A cry of longing, love and need's distress
For all of Beauty, all of Wholesomeness,
Of all who wish in joy and Light of Day
To do their work with none to say them nay;
And when in me rises that vast appeal,
My very soul grows greater and I feel,
Being more spacious, I can draw again
Into my trumpet heart, more love, more pain;
If this great cry each moment grows more great;
If reverent, ere I send it forth, I wait,
Then, when to hurl it out, my lungs contract,
I know so surely 'tis a mighty act,
I have such faith in my life-given Crow,
To make Night fall, as fell great Jericho,—
PHEASANT (aghast): Chanticleer!
CHANTICLEER: So full of faith I send my song victorious,
A trumpet call so pure, so proud, so glorious,
That the horizon trembling crimson-bright,
Obeys me!
PHEASANT: Chanticleer!
CHANTICLEER: In vain the Night
Offers a twilight truce. I suddenly ...
PHEASANT: Chanticleer!
CHANTICLEER: ... Recoil, all dazzled by the thing I see,
Vermilion shine my feathers every one,
And I, the Cock, bring back to Earth the Sun!
PHEASANT: Then the whole secret of your Crow ...
CHANTICLEER: Is this—I dare
To fear the East would sleep without its blare.
I do not say "Cocorico" to please the Echo,
To let her answer faintly "Cocorico."
I think not of glory; I think of the Light.
I crow; in that form I believe and I fight,
And if no Crow as proud on earth you hear
It means, I sing clear that it may be clear!
PHEASANT: But these are crazy words. You bring to birth? ...
CHANTICLEER: What opens every flower, and soul, on earth,—
An eye, a window,—all that seeks the Light!
If Dawn be gray, I have not sung aright.
PHEASANT: But when you crow by day?
CHANTICLEER: I exercise
Or else I swear the sun shall surely rise;
Promise the harrow ploughshare and the spade,
"To-morrow'll come. Let no one be afraid."
PHEASANT: But who wakes you?
CHANTICLEER: Dread lest I should forget,—
Greater than all alarums ever set.
PHEASANT: You think your crow across the world is hurled?
CHANTICLEER (simply):
I don't know very well what is the world.
I crow for this my Valley,—hoping, so
In every valley, is one cock to crow.
PHEASANT: Nevertheless ...
CHANTICLEER (rising): But here I chatter on
And never realize 'tis time for Dawn.
PHEASANT: You'll bring it?
CHANTICLEER: These, you say, are crazy words?
I'll make the Dawn before you, Queen of Birds.
Sure in my very soul the deep desire
To please you, adding to the greater fire,
Will make me crow as never rooster crew
To make the Day most beautiful, for you.
PHEASANT: Fairer than other days?
CHANTICLEER: Assuredly.
Every new impulse that is born in me
Strengthens my Song, compact of all desire.
My happiness shall set the earth on fire!
(And planting himself on the rising ground that commands the Valley):
Madam!
PHEASANT (looking at him outlined against the sky):
How beautiful he is!
CHANTICLEER: Mark well the skies.
Already pale? Dawn heard my earliest cries;
The sun is only hiding, out of sight.
PHEASANT: He is so beautiful he may be right!
CHANTICLEER (speaking toward the East)
Ah! Sun! I feel you, lifting up your head.
I laugh for rapture in my wattles red.
(And driving down his spurs, suddenly, in a thrilling voice):
Cocorico!
PHEASANT: What powers within his swelling body lurk?
CHANTICLEER: Obey me! I am Earth and I am Work!
The symbol of the forge-fire is my crest;
The ploughshare's furrows ruffle all my breast.
(Whispers mysteriously) Yes, yes, July!
PHEASANT: What is he saying?
CHANTICLEER: Part, with April, take!
(He leans to right and left, as if reassuring someone.)
I listen, Bramble; and I listen, Brake.
PHEASANT: He is superb!
CHANTICLEER (to PHEASANT):
I have to think of these ... I have no choice
(Caresses the earth with his wing.)
Yes, Grass! ... these small desires with me for Voice.
(Speaking again to invisible things)
A golden ladder ... dance there all day long?
PHEASANT: Who wants a ladder?
CHANTICLEER: All the midges throng.
—Cocorico!
PHEASANT (watching the skies and the fields):
A trembling blue stirs in the misty air.
A star goes out.
CHANTICLEER: No! Still the star is there!
Even in daylight, stars shine,—never doubt.
PHEASANT: You do not blot them? ...
CHANTICLEER: I blot nothing out!
—But you shall see how greatly I illume!
PHEASANT: Oh, I see fade ...
CHANTICLEER: What?
PHEASANT: The blue has lost its gloom!
CHANTICLEER: Now it is green!
PHEASANT: Green, orange!
CHANTICLEER: Green turned to gold
You are the first, this morning, to behold!
(The distant plain is robed in purple.)
PHEASANT: The dawn seems bounded by the purple heather!
CHANTICLEER (beginning to show signs of exhaustion):
Cocor ...
PHEASANT: Oh, yellow on the pines!
CHANTICLEER: All must be gold together!
PHEASANT: Now gray!
CHANTICLEER: It must be white. All is not finished yet.
—Cocorico!—Ill done!—but I am set!
PHEASANT: Each knot on every tree an eglantine!
CHANTICLEER (with new enthusiasm):
This day must be of all days most divine,
Since to my faith I add my mighty love.
Now, does my voice call Daylight from above?
PHEASANT (carried away by the COCK'S frenzy):
All—all is possible if all is love!
CHANTICLEER (in a voice of command):
Horizon, give again, for all my crowing
Your line of little poplars slimly growing.
PHEASANT (leaning over to see the Valley):
I see the shadows vanish at your cry.
CHANTICLEER: We see great mysteries, my love and I.
Ho, distant hills, your lines are not yet clear!
You love me, Pheasant?
PHEASANT: Ah, we must love, dear,
We two who share the Secret of the Day.
CHANTICLEER: You make me sing so no Dawn shall be gray.
PHEASANT (bounding to him): I love you!
CHANTICLEER: What you whisper, Golden One
Will bring more glory from to-morrow's sun.
PHEASANT: I love you!
CHANTICLEER: Could you whisper "I adore"
A flood of gold on yonder hill I'd pour.
PHEASANT (madly): Well ... I adore!
CHANTICLEER (sending his Cry thrilling): Cocorico!
(The mountain grows golden.)
PHEASANT (showing the foothills still purple):
But see the hills!
CHANTICLEER: A little patience, pray!
The heights are first to welcome back the day!
Cocorico!
PHEASANT: Across a little slope
Glides one bright ray.
CHANTICLEER: 'Tis yours.
PHEASANT: The general hope
Touches the village, brings it back to life.
CHANTICLEER: Coc ... (his voice breaks)
PHEASANT: You can do no more.
CHANTICLEER (rallying): Success means strife!
(Wildly) Cocorico ... Cocorico!
PHEASANT: But you are faint!
CHANTICLEER:
There still are shreds of gray. Sun, hear my plaint
—Cocorico!
PHEASANT: You'll kill yourself!
CHANTICLEER: My life and I
Are only precious as we form a cry.
PHEASANT (leaning against him): I'm proud of you.
CHANTICLEER: Your head against me pressed!
PHEASANT: I hear the day that rises in your breast!
I'm hearing in your heart the royal fountain
That will to-morrow purple yonder mountain.
CHANTICLEER (while the cottage chimneys in the distance begin to send up
smoke-wreaths in the dawning light):
I give to you these homes of country folk.
As men give ribbons, I give wreaths of smoke.
PHEASANT (watching the plain): I see your work more plain.
CHANTICLEER: I see your eyes!
PHEASANT: Upon the meadow!
CHANTICLEER: On your ruff
(Suddenly in a choking voice) Ah exquisite surprise!
PHEASANT: What is it?
CHANTICLEER: Doing my duty wrought this lovely thing;
Gliding my Valley, I made gold your wing!
(Tearing himself away, he turns precipitately to the right.)
The shadows, fleeing, left some work to do.
Cocorico!
PHEASANT (looking at the sky): Oh, dear!
CHANTICLEER (looking also; sadly): Yes, it is true
The morning star grows pale!
PHEASANT (regretting the little spark the Dayspring hides):
It disappears!
CHANTICLEER (bravely):
It is an hour for gladness, not for tears.
(Shaking off melancholy, he hurls himself to the left)
There's something still to do. Coc ...
(At this moment several cocks are heard. Their song rings in the
Valley.)
There! You hear!
PHEASANT: Who dares?
CHANTICLEER: Those are the other cocks.
PHEASANT (leaning over to see the Plain): But now Earth wears
Her morning gown of pink.
CHANTICLEER: And they, Oh, hark!
Believe the Light they see!
PHEASANT: Sing to blue skies! ...
CHANTICLEER: But I sang in the dark.
My Song was first; I sang it in the Night.
In darkness, it is brave to trust in Light.
PHEASANT (indignantly): Crowing,—while you still crow!
CHANTICLEER: Why, that is well.
Their songs accord with mine, its volume swell.
These several songs, although they know it not,
Hasten the shadows' rout from every spot.
(On the brow of the hill he cries to the distant cocks):
Together all!
CHANTICLEER (and all the COCKS together): Cocorico!
CHANTICLEER (alone, with familiar cordiality):
Boldly, bright Day!
PHEASANT (at his side, stamping): Boldly!
CHANTICLEER (cheering the Light on):
That thatch is not yet gold.
Forward! The hemp needs green. Brave Day, be bold!
PHEASANT (in a transport): White on the road!
CHANTICLEER: Blue on the river, ho!
PHEASANT (with a great cry of joy): The sun! The sun! ...
CHANTICLEER: I see him! ... Yet I know
That still he lies along the horizon's rim.
He must be lifted from the forest dim!
(Both, reeling back, seem to be pulling together, lifting him
up. CHANTICLEER sends out a cry of welcome): Co ...
PHEASANT (calling as the Cock crows): He's coming!
CHANTICLEER: ... co ...
PHEASANT: One sees ...
CHANTICLEER: ... ri ... ri ...
PHEASANT: His face
CHANTICLEER: ... co!
PHEASANT: Clear above the trees.
CHANTICLEER (with a last desperate effort): Cocorico!
(Both cry in one breath, flooded with sunshine)
At last!
CHANTICLEER (with satisfaction): 'Tis great!
(Staggers wearily against a tree-trunk.)
PHEASANT (running up to him, while all is one great glory):
A song to greet the Sun!
CHANTICLEER (very low): I have no voice. I sang ere day begun.
(And as all the other cocks crow in the Valley, he adds peacefully):
It doesn't matter. Hear the others crowing!
PHEASANT (surprised): You do not sing to greet him?
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT (horrified): He lives not knowing
You made him rise?
CHANTICLEER: What does it matter, dear?
PHEASANT: But ...
CHANTICLEER: Hush, my Sweet, my Golden One; come near
And let me thank you, ere its gold is gone,
For never was a more successful dawn.
PHEASANT: You sang in darkness and in twilight pale.
How are you paid?
CHANTICLEER: By life in yonder vale.
(Truly, busy sounds begin to ascend.)
Tell me the sounds. I have not strength to listen.
PHEASANT (who runs and perches on the brow of the hill, listening): A
finger strikes a sky that seems to glisten. ...
CHANTICLEER: The Angelus!
PHEASANT: Now, other blows; I hear within their tone
Earth's Angelus, after high Heaven's own. ...
CHANTICLEER: The forge!
PHEASANT: Lowing,—and then a song. ...
CHANTICLEER: The plow, my sweet.
PHEASANT (still listening):
A nest of birds falls in the little street. ...
CHANTICLEER (more and more moved): The school.
PHEASANT: Sprites all unseen that move with impish grace
Having a water-fight! ...
CHANTICLEER: The washing place.
PHEASANT: Suddenly, everywhere,—the strangest things,—
Great iron locusts, rubbing iron wings. ...
CHANTICLEER (standing up, proudly):
Why, if the scythes are whetting in the plain,
To-day they go to reap the golden grain.
(The noises increase and blend; clocks, hammers, washing-bats,
laughter, songs, grinding of steel, cracking of whips.)
The world's at work! ... I did it! ... Awful thought!
Ah help me, Pheasant! If it be for naught!
(He looks about him, bewildered.)
I made the Sun rise. How? And whence? And why?
When reason comes again, a fool am I.
I, who believe I light the heavenly ray, ...
I am so modest ...
PHEASANT: What?
CHANTICLEER: You'll not betray?
You will not tell?
PHEASANT: My Cock!
CHANTICLER: You promise me?
—If this were guessed by any enemy!
PHEASANT (moved): Chanticleer!
CHANTICLEER: I find myself unworthy of my gift.
Why am I chosen this great orb to lift?
When I have kindled all the heavens' glory,
Pride, that upbore me, falls. I doubt my story.
What! I, so little, made the mighty Dawn,
And must to-morrow, if the world go on?
I cannot do it! I have not the power!
Never again! This is my bitter hour.
Comfort me!
PHEASANT (tenderly): Dear!
CHANTICLEER: The weight is so profound.
—The swelling pride, what time I scratch the ground,
Will it come back? The future is enshrouded,
I know not how, in days forever clouded.
Now you can understand what wrings my heart.
The Swan is certain, if her long neck dart,
To find, beneath the water, grasses green.
The eagle seizes what his eye has seen.
You find your ant's-nests hidden in the earth.
I only know my work has awful worth.
My daily task remains a mystery.
I know not what to-morrow's fate may be.
Can I be sure, if I but do my part,
I'll find my song still welling from my heart?
PHEASANT (enfolding him with her wings):
Yes, you will find it, yes!
CHANTICLEER: Speak to me so.
Believe, with me,—but when I do not know,
Tell me!
PHEASANT: You're beautiful.
CHANTICLEER: No way my doubts to kill!
PHEASANT: You sang so well!
CHANTICLEER: Ah, say that I sang ill
But made to rise ...
PHEASANT: Oh, how I worship you.
CHANTICLEER: No,—tell me, Pheasant, what I say is true.
PHEASANT: What?
CHANTICLEER: That it is I who make ...
PHEASANT: My glorious Cock, you make
The sun to rise!
BLACKBIRD: (suddenly appearing): Hello, old fellow! Shake!
SCENE IV
The Same; the BLACKBIRD
CHANTICLEER: The Blackbird! Oh, my Secret!
BLACKBIRD (bowing admiringly): Sure!
CHANTICLEER: This cynic bird!
(To the Pheasant):
Don't leave us ... All my soul is bare. He heard ...
His mockery can enter.
BLACKBIRD: It was great!
CHANTICLEER: But where were you?
BLACKBIRD (showing a flower-pot, empty and overturned):
Who? Me? Behind the plate.
CHANTICLEER: How ...
BLACKBIRD: Well, I supped on earwigs, casserolle,
When suddenly, upon my little soul,
A dazzling ...
CHANTICLEER: But ...
BLACKBIRD: But what? It jars you some
To find a pot ain't always deaf and dumb?
CHANTICLEER: To listening in a flower-pot he has sunk!
BLACKBIRD: A flower-pot doesn't matter when you're drunk,
And I was drunk and crazy, on my soul!
I kicked the clay, while ogling through the hole.
PHEASANT: You saw?
BLACKBIRD (showing the hole in the bottom of the flower-pot):
Yes, for this cone-shaped earthen pot
For yellow bills a neat black hole has got.
And it was great! 'Twas worth a curtain call!
PHEASANT: Since you admire it, I forgive you all.
CHANTICLEER: But ...
BLACKBIRD: (coming and going excitedly):
'Twas lovely beauty! (That is pleonasm
CHANTICLEER: What! You—you could ...
BLACKBIRD: Could feel enthusiasm!
I'm not a duffer at that kind of sport, ...
But you, old man, ... oh, this is real transport!
CHANTICLEER: Truly?
BLACKBIRD: I do not need, when I admire, you know
A postman pigeon paid to tell you so.
The Cock that sings! Hou! And the dawn that shone!
Hou!
PHEASANT: I think I'll have to leave you two alone.
CHANTICLEER: Where are you going?
PHEASANT (a little ashamed of her frivolity): To the ...
BLACKBIRD: You and she
Have made the daybreak,—for the Guinea's Tea!
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT): Ought I to go?
PHEASANT (tenderly): Knowing that which I know,
I'll take the Guinea your regrets.
CHANTICLEER (rather melancholy): You go?
PHEASANT (gaily): I must,—to show your sunshine on my gown.
I'll come again. Wait here!
BLACKBIRD (to CHANTICLEER): That won't go down.
CHANTICLEER (looking at him): What won't?
BLACKBIRD: Of course I mean the sun you raised!
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT): You'll soon be back?
PHEASANT: Yes, yes. (Whispers, as she disappears.)
The Blackbird is enlightened and amazed.
(She flies off.)
SCENE V
CHANTICLEER, the BLACKBIRD
CHANTICLEER (coming back to the BLACKBIRD):
Your whistle?
BLACKBIRD: Lor'! You knocked it down my throat,
And wonder taught me quite another note.
Like this, you know
(Whistles admiringly
Hu ... ca ... hu ...
(Bows his head gravely) 'Twas great, my lad.
CHANTICLEER (trustingly):
I told Patou that you were not so bad.
BLACKBIRD (with profound conviction): The greatest ever!
CHANTICLEER (modestly): Oh!
BLACKBIRD: The hens to win
(Whistles admiringly
To make them think you make the day begin!
(CHANTICLEER moves abruptly
Simple you say? It was ... when once you spoke!
Were you hatched from the egg Columbus broke?
CHANTICLEER: But
BLACKBIRD: You beat all Don Juans, future, past and present!
Making a sunrise to scare up a Pheasant!
And it was done!
CHANTICLEER (in an angry voice): Be silent!
BLACKBIRD: ... Little roof,
All gilded, pretty! Midges! Lots of proof!
CHANTICLEER: Be silent!
BLACKBIRD: And that last modest bit. I reverence you,
Or rather what you know ...
CHANTICLEER (controlling himself, drily):
The Dawn? It's true
I have that honour.
BLACKBIRD: O you Troubadour!
You don't believe what happened?
CHANTICLEER: More and more
The Day advances. Yes.
BLACKBIRD: O you Prophet!
You did it well. You did her well. Now doff it.
CHANTICLEER: The Dawn? 'Twas fairly done. But every day
The sun obeys me.
BLACKBIRD: O you Joshu-ay!
You feel Dawn coming, then you up and crow,
We lyricists will plagiarize, you know.
CHANTICLEER (crying out): Wretch!
BLACKBIRD (surprised):
Watch is over! What keeps you on deck?
(Winking
Mad since I learned his trick ... "young rubberneck."
CHANTICLEER: I know no trick. I sing with open heart.
BLACKBIRD (skipping): It is a system!
CHANTICLEER: Don't laugh at this,—this is a thing apart.
Don't,—if you love me!
BLACKBIRD: Sure, I love such a master!
CHANTICLEER (bitterly): Half-heartedly!
BLACKBIRD: Pollux, I'm just half—Castor
To doubt this Fiat Lux is no assault
Upon yourself!
CHANTICLEER: Not that!
BLACKBIRD: It's not my fault.
I cannot strut ...
CHANTICLEER (watching him): It's true. He hops—and hops.
See! I am shaken
(He tries to stop him) but he never stops!
He dodges Truth.
BLACKBIRD (hopping past): Just take me as I am.
CHANTICLEER (pleading):
Folly unchecked as deep as sin can damn.
This touches the deep places of my soul!
I must, I must convince you!
BLACKBIRD (passing): Ain't he droll?
CHANTICLEER:
Just once! At heart you know 'twas truth you heard?
BLACKBIRD (hopping): Sure!
CHANTICLEER: You guess its awful cost,—you hopping bird?
BLACKBIRD: You bet!
CHANTICLEER: Surely the song you overheard by stealth
You know it must have taken splendid ...
BLACKBIRD: Health!
CHANTICLEER: Ah, let's be serious,—for we both have wings.
BLACKBIRD: Brother, let's talk about eternal things.
CHANTICLEER: To face the Sun,—to call him from the centre
Of utter Night requires
BLACKBIRD: A lynx-eyed Stentor.
(He skips nimbly out of reach.)
CHANTICLEER: This little soul!
(With desperate patience) Yet I must follow on.
Wait! Do you comprehend what is the dawn?
BLACKBIRD: Why, yes, old top; it's when the red horizon
Hatches a ... sun. Vulgar, but not surpris'n'.
CHANTICLEER:
When on yon crest Light pours its golden fountain? ...
BLACKBIRD: Mons laborat: Of course the sun's a-mountin'.
(He hops out of reach.
CHANTICLEER (following him):
When I sing in its rays, as it pierces the thicket,
Ere the cricket has waked? ...
BLACKBIRD: Why, I say, that ain't cricket!
(He skips aside once more.
CHANTICLEER (beside himself):
Have you no need to utter any cry
When I have brought the rose flame to the sky
That makes the distant heron rosy-pink,
A very ibis?
BLACKBIRD: Ibis ... Ibid ... That means Repeat, I think.
(He hops out of reach.
CHANTICLEER (despairingly):
It tires me more to give this soul a chance
Than chasing katydids all over France.
(Violently) You did not see the sky, benighted soul?
BLACKBIRD (honestly):
One only sees the ground through that black hole.
(He shows the flower-pot with the hole in the bottom.)
CHANTICLEER: You saw no heights their scarlet banners flinging?
BLACKBIRD: I watched your feet the whole time you were singing.
CHANTICLEER (sadly): Ah!
BLACKBIRD: Sure. Footprints, on the earth all damp with dew,
Of Dawn's awakener.
CHANTICLEER: Bird, I pity you.
Go to your shades, bird of obscurity!
BLACKBIRD: Well, Cock o' Dawn, that's good enough for me.
CHANTICLEER: 'Tis to the Sun I turn.
BLACKBIRD: Fire-worshipper!
CHANTICLEER: What gives life its sole worth?
BLACKBIRD: Here! I demur!
We've argued till you nearly broke a trace.
CHANTICLEER: Effort! which renders sacred all our race.
And therefore, scorner of all strife sublime,
I scorn you, but the snail whose patient slime
Ensilvers a whole faggot, I esteem.
All worthy life is Effort, and a Dream.
BLACKBIRD (snapping up the snail the COCK indicated):
That's one thing I can swallow!
CHANTICLEER: Ah, have done!
—Destroy a little life, to make a pun!
You've no more heart than soul. Enough. I've quit.
BLACKBIRD (jumping up on the faggot):
Ah, but I have a mind!
CHANTICLEER: I question it.
BLACKBIRD (getting spiteful):
All right! I'll offer you some hellebore
And then I wash my claws. You prove and more
All that your foes have said.
CHANTICLEER (coming nearer): What is this story?
BLACKBIRD: This play of Sun-bird; "I am light and glory."
CHANTICLEER:
You seek my foes? Who can rely upon you?
BLACKBIRD: That vexes you?
CHANTICLEER: No, punster! Shame upon you!
All comes out even, and you can but deal
Doubly with friends, who only half can feel.
(Marching up to him) Who are my enemies?
BLACKBIRD: The Birds of Night.
CHANTICLEER: Fool! Then I read my destiny aright,
If Night Birds are my foes!
BLACKBIRD: Does that insure it?
They have eye-trouble and are bound to cure it
By cutting off ...
CHANTICLEER: What?
BLACKBIRD: The alarm clock
CHANTICLEER: Eh?
BLACKBIRD: Your throat.
CHANTICLEER: With what?
BLACKBIRD: A brother.
CHANTICLEER: Cock?
BLACKBIRD: A bird of note,
A real St. George.
CHANTICLEER: Where?
BLACKBIRD: At the Guinea's.
CHANTICLEER: Bah!
BLACKBIRD: He's armed, they say, as all the pit-cocks are
And wouldn't leave of you enough for hash
If we should go.
(Seeing CHANTICLEER starts off)
Where are you trying to dash?
CHANTICLEER: To the Guinea's.
BLACKBIRD: I've gone and told this crazy Chevalier.
(Makes a feint of stopping him.)
Don't go.
CHANTICLEER: Yes.
BLACKBIRD: No.
CHANTICLEER (stopping in front of the flower-pot):
Stay!
BLACKBIRD: What?
CHANTICLEER: Now did I hear
You got in that?
BLACKBIRD: Why, yes.
CHANTICLEER: How?
BLACKBIRD (hopping into the pot again): So. Quite pat,
(poking his beak through the hole in the bottom)
By this black little hole, while looking at ...
CHANTICLEER: The ground? Then try it this way
and look through
At heaven by a little hole of blue!
(With a blow of his wing he turns the pot over on the BLACKBIRD
whom one hears pounding against his earthen prison and whistling in a
stifled voice)
Mocker! You shun the azure, but one can
Force you at least as much of heaven to scan
As from a flower-pot's shelter can be learned
When some strong wing your scheme has overturned.
(He goes off.)
(The curtain falls)
ACT III
THE GUINEA'S DAY
THE SETTING
Corner of an Old-fashioned Flower and Vegetable Garden
Pot-herbs and flowers. Egg-plants and ladies-traces.
Bouquet of Nymph and feast of Faun are there.
The reigning Rose. Gourd-vines, her throne to bear.
Onions for gravies. Lavender for laces.
Above the cauliflower in ordered spaces.
Still turning to her god in patient prayer,
Her black face, yellow framed, one ceaseless stare,
A wry-necked Sunflower now the Orient faces.
The Scarecrow by the currants stands, in wrath.
A watering pot, a barrow, bar the path.
Among the artichokes, an upright spade.
Part of the whitewashed wall has worn away;
On part, the berry bushes cast their shade,
Enlarged, blue-clear, mulberries for a day.
SCENE I
The GUINEA, CHICKENS, DUCKS, CHICKS, etc.; the PHEASANT;
the BLACKBIRD; later, PATOU; INVISIBLE CHORUS OF WASPS,
BEES and KATYDIDS
(When the curtain rises, there is great clucking,
calling and clattering of Hens and Chickens.)
GUINEA HEN (fluttering from one to another):
How do you do? One can't move for the numbers.
The crowd I've asked goes clear to the cucumbers.
ORCHESTRA (in the air): We murmur low ...
GUINEA (to a hen): Yes, Mondays, set apart ...
A HEN (looking at the enormous pumpkins which resemble newly-fired stoneware@
1): What pumpkins!
GUINEA: Good bits of ceramic art!
A CHICK (hearing the chorus, beak raised): Somebody's singing!
GUINEA: Yes ...
WASPS: We murmur low ...
GUINEA (airily): I have the wasps ...
(To a hen) How do you do?
(To chick) ... you know.
(She whirls about.)
CHORUS OF WASPS: We murmur low—In blooming trees;
As round we go;—Fruits ripen slow.—Some day they'll grow
To mulberries.
PHEASANT (who passes with the BLACKBIRD, laughing):
So you were captured?
BLACKBIRD: Like a small boy's hat
He clapped it on. I soon kicked out of that.
(Looking around.) Chanticleer isn't here?
PHEASANT (surprised): He means to come?
PATOU (suddenly appearing on the barrow, where, as from a judge's bench, he
watches the coming and going):
I hope he'll change his mind and stay at home.
BLACKBIRD (surprised to see him): Patou!
PATOU (lifting his head, which was burrowed in his collar, from which
dangles a piece of broken chain):
The Cock in passing told your tale to me.
In rage I burst my chain and came to see.
GUINEA (seeing the BLACKBIRD):
He's here ... our cynic, ... our—our Prince of Guyers!
A CHOIR (in the trees): 'Twas great ... He did ... We sing ...
PHEASANT (lifting her head): What! Choirs!
GUINEA: I have the Katydids.
CHORUS OF KATYDIDS: Who knows ... what thing—made green ... the
wing. ...
Elate ... It rose ... He sang ... We sing.
YOUNG GUINEA (hurriedly to his mother): Say Katherinedids!
A MAGPIE (in a black coat and white tie, announces the guests as
they enter by one of the little round holes chickens make in
hedges): The Gander!
GANDER (entering, sprightly): Announcements, eh?
GUINEA (modestly): Good form forbids
Omitting that. An usher has to stay
At the thorn-gate.
MAGPIE: The Duck!
DUCK (entering, dazzled): Announcements?
GUINEA (casually): Yes, I have an extra man ...
MAGPIE (announcing): Mrs. Turkey.
TURKEY HEN (stiffly): Announcements?
GUINEA: Cook's husband ... quite a plan.
CHORUS (among the flowers): Velvet bodies ...
TURKEY HEN (raising her beak): A choir?
GUINEA (airily): I have the Bees.
CHORUS: Golden treasure ...
TURKEY HEN: Wonders everywhere!
GUINEA: The Bees are here, ... the ... Kathryndids in there.
(To a hen passing) How do you do to you?
BEES (on the right): Golden ...
KATYDIDS: He did.
GUINEA (to the PHEASANT): These are all new to you?
YOUNG GUINEA: Pease blossoms there!
GUINEA: Some pumpkins here!
BLACKBIRD: You're quite a pair!
PHEASANT (jostled in the crush, to the BLACKBIRD):
Let's hide behind this sheltering watering pot.
BLACKBIRD: Bald-Pate-by-Spells, he's called, a name he got
Because he has, when he is held just right,
A shower of tresses, which are silver white.
GUINEA (seeing the CAT, who, lying along the limb of a tree, watches ever
ything): I've the old Cat!
BLACKBIRD: Mewthusalem!
(A clear whistle is heard from a pear tree.)
GUINEA (in a flutter): I have the Lark.
BLACKBIRD: It's larks, if you have them.
PATOU (dejectedly): More puns!
GUINEA: I have the Dragon Fly!
BLACKBIRD: That's rather slim. 'Twould be a drag on me. I pass it by.
PATOU (raging): Wit of a Blackbird!
GUINEA (pecks a cabbage leaf and shakes off some drops of water): I've the
Dew! It fell!
PATOU (growling): He'll make a pun on that!
BLACKBIRD: Why, sure. Dew tell!
GUINEA (pointing to several chicks running around):
You've seen them? Of the Order of I. C.
PHEASANT: I. C.?
GUINEA: Incubator Chickens!
PHEASANT (innocently): Oh, I see.
GUINEA (presenting the chicks): All from the upper tier.
A CHICK (nudging his neighbor with his wing):
She's quite impressed!
GUINEA (scornfully): Hen-covered eggs! Huh!
BLACKBIRD: Are rotten, eh? I guessed.
MAGPIE (announcing): The Guinea Pig.
GUINEA: The famous one that was inoculated.
You've heard about him? I have heard it stated
'Twas anti-toxin—and we have him here!
I've everybody!
(To the GUINEA PIG) How d'y'do?
(To the PHEASANT) My dear,
Let me present my friend, ... He's really big,
Hyphen, you know, ... yes, Guinea-Hyphen-Pig.
The Gobbler lectures near the Currant Patch,
By the Tea Roses, ... club teas, ... dear, you catch ...
The thought?
(To a passing Hen) How do you do to you?
Club teas and current topics! Ah, that's new to you?
(Whirling about)
I've everybody! I've the Golden Pheasant,
The Duck—it's really Duke you know,—is present;
I have ...
(She looks about and fails to see the TORTOISE.)
No, no, he's late. I mean the Tortoise.
BLACKBIRD (regretfully):
What subject will he miss? You haven't—taught us.
GUINEA (suddenly grave): A lecture on the Moral Problem.
BLACKBIRD (desolated at his loss): Oh!
(GUINEA goes back, fluttering madly among her guests.)
PHEASANT (to the BLACKBIRD): Who is this Tortoise?
BLACKBIRD: Old and rather slow;—
A bit hard-shelled for Moral Problems, though.
Does walking stunts, in English checks, y'know.
(Buzzing is heard in the Hollyhocks.)
PHEASANT: A Drone!
GUINEA (hurrying back to them):
I have the Drone,—of course a lesser light,
But very fetching.
BLACKBIRD: Bees have point all right.
GUINEA (leaping toward the DRONE):
How do you do? (Whirls madly, trying to follow him.)
—Tortoise is all I lack.
BLACKBIRD (touching his forehead with the tips of his wing):
No, that ain't all!
GUINEA (at the back of the patch, screaming like a guinea):
Glad to see you back! Come back! Come back!
A HEN (seeing cherries fall near her): Why, here are cherries!
PHEASANT (lifting her head): There's a breeze.
GUINEA (running wildly forward again): I have the Breeze;
She shakes down cherries from the cherry trees.
Quite unexpected. Came informally! ...
I have—I have ...
(She flutters away.)
BLACKBIRD: "What will the harvest be?"
(By careful manoeuvres he has reached the tree where the CAT is
lying. He whispers to the CAT):
Cat, what about the plot?
THE CAT (who can see far beyond the hedge):
It moves. I see a file
Of fancy Cocks. Peacock, in modern style.
Leads them along.
A CRY WITHOUT: E-on!
(Everybody rushes toward the entrance.)
PATOU (growling): Hear his accordeon!
MAGPIE (announcing): The Peacock.
PHEASANT (to the BLACKBIRD): Nicknamed?
BLACKBIRD: Chevalier of Eon!
SCENE II
The Same. The PEACOCK
GUINEA (to the PEACOCK, who enters slowly, head held stiff and
high): Master, stand here! Oh, how I love those tones!
Peacock and sunflowers! Isn't that Burne-Jones?
ALL (pressing around the PEACOCK): Dear Master!
A PULLET (whispering to a duck):
You are launched, if he but speak.
I try to get his notice every week.
ANOTHER PULLET (who has succeeded in getting near the PEACOCK,
stammering with emotion):
Master, how do you find my latest cheep?
PEACOCK (lets fall the word): Definitive!
(Sensation.)
A DUCK (trembling): Oh, he's very deep!
And my quack, quack, O Master?
PEACOCK (lets fall): Lapidary!
(Sensation.)
GUINEA: Oh, how discerning! I have noticed! Very!
At my Teas oftenest, he says his word—
PEACOCK: Hebdominal!
ALL THE CHICKENS (half fainting): Oh!
A HEN (advancing, faintly): Luminous! Master Phenomenal,
How do you find my dress?
PEACOCK (after a glance): Affirmative!
THE HOUDAN (same play): My hat is ... ? (Sensation.)
PEACOCK (close attention): Total! (Sensation.)
GUINEA (enthusiastically): Just total, as I live!
PHEASANT (who pretends to hear only the Bees):
I hear again the Choir Invisible.
GUINEA (presenting her son to the PEACOCK'S attention):
How do you find my son?
PEACOCK: Derisible!
CHORUS OF BEES: We whisper deep ...
GUINEA (enchanted): Oh, he's derisible!
PHEASANT: Who is?
GUINEA: My son!
CHORUS OF BEES: We whisper deep ... And buzzing creep. ... Where lilies sleep
. ...
GUINEA (going back to the PEACOCK): Be altruistic
And praise my orchestra. It's ...
PEACOCK: Asynartistic!
A HEN (to the GUINEA):
Such verbal skill, my dear, is rare in Birds.
GUINEA: I call him Master of Unwonted Words.
PEACOCK (offering his words in a loud discordant voice):
I am in truth ...
GUINEA: Oh, a most striking fact!
PEACOCK: Ruskin, attenuated, with more tact ...
GUINEA: How true!
PEACOCK: Due to myself. This difference is between us,
I'm a priestly Phyllornis, a Messan Maecenas,
A volatilizer of vocal vocabularies,
The genuine gemmed judge of linguistic constabularies.
PATOU: Oh, my head!
PEACOCK (carelessly): I am ... shall I say guardian ...
GUINEA (gushingly): Yes!
PEACOCK: Ah, no! Thesmothetes.
GUINEA (to PHEASANT):
You've seen our Peacock. Now you know what great is.
PHEASANT (a little bored):
Surely I know. The Cock will soon be here.
GUINEA (enchanted):
To-day! My Mondays are my fad, my dear—
My little teas grow still more ...
PEACOCK (a little spitefully): Ostentatious!
GUINEA: An ostentatious tea! And, Oh good gracious,—
(She announces to everybody, with enthusiasm)
Chanticleer!
PEACOCK (whispering):
Your greatest triumph has not yet been seen.
GUINEA (in a flutter): A greater ...
PEACOCK (bowing his head mysteriously).
GUINEA: Who?
PEACOCK (moving back): You'll see.
GUINEA (persistently, following): Who?
PEACOCK: Oh!
MAGPIE (announcing): Cock Braekel or Campine!
SCENE III
The Same; later, one by one, the COCKS
GUINEA (stopping short, overcome):
Cock Braekel? At my Tea? There's some mistake!
COCK BRAEKEL (bowing): Madam!
GUINEA (her breath taken away by the white cock with black marks): I'm so
surprised. I don't know how to take
This ...
MAGPIE (announcing): The Slate-clawed Cock of ...
GUINEA: Oh, dear me!
MAGPIE (finishing): Of Ramelslohe!
PEACOCK (carelessly, in the GUINEA'S ear, while the dazzling cock
bows): One of our newest leucotites!
GUINEA (her mind in a tumult):
One of our—one of our look-a-sights!
MAGPIE (announcing, in a voice more and more triumphant):
Cock Wyandotte, who has a Brown Spur cross!
(Mad excitement among the hens.)
GUINEA (quite wild):
Merciful Heavens! Son, come back. I'm at a loss ...
YOUNG GUINEA (running up): Mama!
GUINEA: Cock Wyandotte!
PEACOCK (with studied carelessness):
That fluted comb is New Art, is it not?
GUINEA (to the newcomers, who are surrounded by astonished cluckings):
Fluted combs. ... Gentlemen ... I mean ... your Graces ...
YOUNG GUINEA (who has run to look outside): Mama!
GUINEA (to the cocks): At my tea!
YOUNG GUINEA: Here's more to take their places!
MAGPIE: The Cock of ...
GUINEA: Mercy! Of what?
MAGPIE: Mesapotamia with the Double Comb!
GUINEA (hurling herself at the newcomer):
Double Comb! O, sir, O, Master ... You ... at my At Home!
PEACOCK: Fie on all desuetude! I wished to show
Young Gentlemen superlative, raræ aves, you know.
GUINEA (dashing back to the PEACOCK):
Oh, thanks, dear Peacock!
(To the PHEASANT, patronizingly) Pardon me, my dear,
The Cock of Mesapotamia being here,
You'll understand. ...
(Runs up to the great cock, who inclines his two combs.)
The honour you have done
My home. ...
MAGPIE (announcing): The Ring-eyed Orpington!
GUINEA (wildly): Ring-eyed!
BLACKBIRD: She is the worst!
MAGPIE (while the GUINEA flies to the ORPINGTON COCK):
Barbed Cock of Varna!
PEACOCK (to the GUINEA): Slavonic!
GUINEA (leaving the ORPINGTON and rushing to the BARBED COCK): I knew
it from the first,—
Slavonic soul! This makes my Day complete!
MAGPIE (announcing): The Scotch Gray ...
GUINEA (leaping up in the air): Heavens!
MAGPIE (finishing): ... Cock with Pink Feet!
GUINEA (leaving the BARBED COCK for the SCOTCH GRAY):
Oh, that Pink Foot! Dramatic as I live,
To launch a Pink Foot!
(With profound conviction) Oh, how tentative!
MAGPIE (announcing): The Cock ...
GUINEA (wildly): There can't be any more at my At Home!
MAGPIE (finishing): With Goblet Comb!
GUINEA (who rushes to each newcomer with mad enthusiasm):
With Goblet Comb!
Oh, sir, how new,—a goblet! Oh, I beg ...
MAGPIE: Blue Andalusian Cock!
GUINEA (rushing to the ANDALUSIAN COCK): Surely your egg
Was laid among the strings of a guitar,
A Spanish one!
MAGPIE: The Langsham Cock!
PEACOCK: A Tartar, sir, you are!
ALL THE HENS (dazzled by the BLACK GIANT): A Tartar!
MAGPIE (announcing): Gold-spangled Hamburg Cock!
CRIES FROM THE HENS (at sight of this gold-laced cock in a cocked hat):
Gold-spangled! Hamburg!
BLACKBIRD: Major!
GUINEA: ... Joyful shock
Will kill me! Oh, my famous little Teas!
(To the HAMBURG COCK, whose plastron is striped yellow and
black) Oh, sir, what is your waistcoat ... ?
BLACKBIRD: Zebra,—see the z's!
GUINEA: Zebra ... Oh, this surpasses all ... surpasses all ...
All my ... all our ...
MAGPIE: The Cock ...
GUINEA (bounding forward): Oh!
MAGPIE: Of Burmah!
GUINEA: Did he call
Him Cock of Burmah?
(The excitement grows.)
PEACOCK: Yes, an Indian Prince!
GUINEA: He has a Hindoo soul! I know it, since
(Going up to him adoringly) I'm rather esoteric!
MAGPIE (announcing): Cocks Poland-Dutch
And Padua!
GUINEA: This is too much!
(COCKS OF PADUA enter shaking their feathers.)
MAGPIE: Gold-spangles! Silver-spangles!
GUINEA (gazing at the plumes of the newcomers):
Over every head a cascade dangles
And streams ...
BLACKBIRD: The streams a-bridged!
GUINEA (who no longer knows what she is saying):
Bridges! and streams!
PHEASANT (to PATOU):
Poor thing, she just repeats or else she screams.
MAGPIE (announcing with louder and louder cries more and more marvellous
cocks): The Cock of Bagdad!
PEACOCK (whose harsh voice dominates the tumult):
... Thousand and One Nights!
GUINEA: Yes, he is Thousand ...
ALL THE HENS: So thousand ...
GUINEA: Dazzling sights!
PEACOCK: 'Tis Karamalzaman himself!
MAGPIE: Ruffed Bantam Cock!
GUINEA (enchanted): How eighteenth century! A dwarf, a flock Of dwarfs!
YOUNG GUINEA (in a low voice): Be calm, Mama! You can ...
GUINEA: Oh, no, I can't. It's Karamalzaman!
I can't tell which I like best ...
MAGPIE: The Guelders Cock!
GUINEA (precipitating herself on the newcomer):
Another Belgian! And another shock
Of ...
MAGPIE: Malay Cock with Serpent Neck!
GUINEA (to the PEACOCK): 'Tis for your sake!
To you we owe this neck of Peacock-Snake!
MAGPIE: Duck-breasted Cock! Cock with Beak of Rook!
The Vulture-Footed Cock!
GUINEA (who has cast herself upon the new arrivals in turn, clamoring at sigh
t of the last one): Oh, Master look!
A marvel—an Albino! On his head,—look please,—
He has a cheese. ...
A HEN: A cream cheese!
ALL THE HENS: A cream cheese!
MAGPIE: The Creve-Coeur Cock!
GUINEA (dashing to him): Oh, horns upon his head!
PEACOCK: Satanic!
MAGPIE: Ptarmigan Cock!
PEACOCK: An esthete!
GUINEA (rushing forward): A ... what you said!
He wears a Syrian helmet!
MAGPIE: White Pile Cock!
GUINEA (dashing up): He has upon his head ...
(She stops suddenly, seeing his clipped comb)
... Why, ne'er a lock
Nor nothing! Isn't that complete?
THE CAT (to the BLACKBIRD, from her height on the tree, pointing out
the WHITE PILE):
That's the pit-cock. He hides, upon his feet,
A pair of gaffs.
(WHITE PILE mingles with the throng of fancy cock and is lost to
sight. The palpitating hens are surrounded with the throng of new cocks.)
MAGPIE: The Negro Cock!
GUINEA (crazily among the crowd of cocks filling the garden with
their plumes, crests, cascades, colbacks, double and triple
combs): Oh, dear!
My dear ... I mean, ... dear sir! ...
PATOU: She's mighty near
Clean crazy.
GUINEA (to nobody): Master ...
MAGPIE: The Cock of Nine Toes or the Bare-necked Cock!
GUINEA: The Naked Cock!
MAGPIE (correcting): Bare-necked.
GUINEA (to a hen): This shouldn't shock,
It's so sincere!
BLACKBIRD: Bang! Boom!
MAGPIE: Cock of Japan.
BLACKBIRD: Bing!
MAGPIE: Cock Splendens!
GUINEA (seeing this cock, whose train is eight metres long):
A court train for a man!
MAGPIE: The turbaned Cock ...
BLACKBIRD (seeing this one is quite flat behind): I like his front!
MAGPIE (finishing): ... Or Cock without a Rump!
GUINEA (beside herself):
This is the end! He does look like a frump,
But quite beyond a doubt,
Means not a thing behind!
BLACKBIRD: Does mammy know you're out?
MAGPIE (while more and more hetroclitical cocks come surging Past) Cock
Walikikili, Pseudo-Chinese!
GUINEA: How smart!
PEACOCK: Kaleidoscopic ... cosmopolitan ... New Art.
MAGPIE: Blue Java! White Java!
BLACKBIRD (losing all shame): Java coffee-colored!
GUINEA (rushing to the Javanese guests): Ah, gentlemen!
MAGPIE: Brahma Cock, ... Cochin Cock!
PEACOCK (superbly) A famous dullard!
The Orient in decay!
GUINEA (insanely): Decay
PEACOCK: A morbid charm!
GUINEA (to the COCHIN):
Oh, what an obscene eye and morbid charm!
MAGPIE (screaming at the top of his lungs as if seized with the general
delirium):
Chili Cock, forward! Antwerp Cock, across!
ALL THE HENS (falling upon the newcomers):
Morbid!
Decayed!
And forward!
GUINEA: Oh, a cross!
MAGPIE: The Tumbler Cock without Feet!
A HEN (faintly) On ... his ... belly!
GUINEA: An India-Rubber Cock!
PHEASANT (to PATOU, who from his barrow, looks into the distance
And Chanticleer?
PATOU: I tell ye
He's nearly here
PHEASANT: You see him?
PATOU: ... Scratching up the ground.
He comes.
MAGPIE: Umbrella-crested Rooster of Ghoondook!
CRIES OF ENTHUSIASM: Oh!
MAGPIE: Iberian Cock with Linen Whiskers!
CRIES OF ADMIRATION: Look!
MAGPIE: Bans-Backin, or Chub-cheeked of Thuringia!
CRIES: Oh!
BLACKBIRD: I think the Magpie's stringing you!
MAGPIE: Cock Buff-Cochin-Yankee-Plymouth-Rock!
CHANTICLEER (appearing on the threshold, behind the last-announced cock):
Announce, without addition, please, the Cock.
SCENE IV
The Same. CHANTICLEER; later, the PIGEONS and the SWAN
MAGPIE (measures CHANTICLEER with his eyes, then, disdainfully): The
Cock!
CHANTICLEER (from the threshold, to the GUINEA):
Excuse me, Madam,
(He bows) —Your obedient slave,—
If I present myself in plumage grave.
GUINEA: Come in! Oh, come on in!
CHANTICLEER: Should I? Who knows?
I have a limited supply of toes.
GUINEA (graciously): Oh, never mind!
CHANTICLEER: I have ascended no Karpathian height, ...
... And I have feet I can't keep out of sight.
GUINEA: But ...
CHANTICLEER: ... Ear like a clove of garlic, crimson comb. ...
GUINEA: One pardons business dress for an At Home.
CHANTICLEER (advancing): I only have—alas that I'm so sober—
The green of young April, the gold of October.
I am abashed. The Cock, and just the Cock,—
One found in every farmyard with his flock;
A cock made like a cock, whose forms still rise
Upon the clock-tower; in the artist's eyes;
And in the penny toys,—those happy cocks,—
A baby finds 'mongst shavings in a box.
A VOICE (ironically, from the noisy group): The Gallic Cock?
CHANTICLEER (mildly, but without turning his head):
None needs to use that name,
If native born and certain of his claim;
But this good name you take upon your beak
When you say just, The Cock, of him you speak.
BLACKBIRD (to CHANTICLEER, very low):
I've seen your butcher!
CHANTICLEER (who sees the PHEASANT near):
Hush! She must not know.
PHEASANT (coquettishly): You came to see me?
CHANTICLEER (bowing): Say "I told you so."
GUINEA (hearing the COCHIN-CHINA chuckling, surrounded by the hens):
The Cochin-China's dreadful!
CHANTICLEER (turning): That will do!
THE HENS (around the COCHIN-CHINA, giving affected shrieks of
horror): Oh!
GUINEA (delighted): The most salacious, gallinacious ...
CHANTICLEER (more loudly): That will do!
THE COCHIN-CHINA (stops, and with sly surprise):
The Gallic Cock!
CHANTICLEER: I am no Gallic Cock
If by that word, perverted, you would mock!
Now, by the Sun! Here is no hen but knows
'Tis no soprano when my trumpet blows.
But your perversities that would excite
Innocent hens in filth to find delight
Revolt my love of Love. I honour passion
Honest and wholesome. But this modern fashion
Of broken, dirty, Kitchen-China clatter,
Giggling and keeking, is another matter.
In my veins flows red blood of honest stock.
I am no Kitchen Capon, but a Cock!
PHEASANT (whispering): Come to the woods. I love you!
CHANTICLEER (looking around him): If there would appear
One simple soul!
MAGPIE: Two pigeons!
CHANTICLEER (not able to believe his ears,—to the GUINEA):
Two are here?
GUINEA: I was expecting them!
CHANTICLEER (drawing a long breath):
Two Pigeons! Oh, at last!
(He runs to the entrance.)
PIGEONS (entering with marvellous leaps): Hop! Hop!
CHANTICLEER (recoiling):
They're tumblers! Well, that hope is past!
PIGEONS (presenting themselves between two somersaults):
We're English clowns!
CHANTICLEER: LaFontaine! This is humbling!
GUINEA (bounding after the acrobats who disappear in the crowd): Hop! Hop!
CHANTICLEER: Pigeons who live by tumbling!
There must be something real! This can't go on!
Something sincere ...
MAGPIE: The Swan!
CHANTICLEER: Thank Heaven! A swan!
(Recoiling.) He's black!
THE BLACK SWAN (preening himself, highly satisfied):
I gave up white, but left the outline on!
CHANTICLEER: And you are just the shadow of a swan!
SWAN (abashed): But ...
CHANTICLEER (escaping him, and leaping on a bench where, through a gap in
the hedge, he can see distant field):
Let me get up upon this bench and see
If Nature still exist though far from me.
I see green grass, a sucking calf, a cow.
Thank Heaven! The calf has but one head, I vow!
(He comes down, near the PHEASANT.)
PHEASNAT: Oh, come away! The woods are honest green,
Remote and fit for love ...
BLACKBIRD: (to the GUINEA, pointing out the PHEASANT and
CHANTICLEER are deep in conversation, standing very close to each
other): A case!
GUINEA: (viviciously)You mean ... ?
(she opens her wings to screen them.)
I love an intrigue,—and at my At Home!
BLACKBIRD (poking under the GUINEA'S wing to watch them): I think she m
eans to annex that crimson comb.
PHEASNAT: (to CHANTICLEER): Ah, come!
CHANTICLEER (drawing back, afraid):
No, I must sing where Fate decrees.
Here, I am useful and beloved.
PHEASNAT (remembering what she heard last night in the farmyard): By
these?
No, no Come to the woods where we may hear
Real pigeons bill and coo. Ah come, my dear!
TURKEY (at the back of the patch):
Madam, the great Peacock ...
PEACOCK (modestly): Peculiar Cock ...
TURKEY: Will spread his tail. He yields to our entreaties.
PEACOCK: My faith! I am ... my list so near complete is ...
(Coolly) Shall I say artisan ... ?
GUINEA (effusively): Yes!
PEACOCK: No! Pyrobolist.
Recall dodecagynia most amethyst,
They're less cuproid prasine and smaragdine
Those multiform fires that we often have seen
Which rain from all skies, most fourteenth-of-Julyly;
Capital capitules capitularily.
CHANTICLEER: May the devil admire me!
PEACOCK: I dare to say I ...
PHEASNAT: I understood that!
PEACOCK: ... Despite general disuse
Use fan-phantasm fantastic ...
(A scream of admiration is heard.)
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT): The Goose!
PEACOCK: When its rays roll around, with its rose-rays arrayed,
All the joyousest joys ...
CHANTICLEER: And the noisomest noise!
(PEACOCK spreads his tail.)
A COCK (to the PEACOCK):
Master, whom do you choose to put all in the shade?
COCK OF PADUA (hurrying forward):
Me! I look like a palm tree!
A CHINESE COCK (thrusting the other aside):
Me! I'm like a geranium.
AN ENORMOUS MUFTI (shooing the CHINESE COCK back):
Me! I wear a cauliflower on my calcanium!
CHANTICLEER: Why, every one's the Barnum and the Shows!
ALL (parading under the eyes of the PEACOCK):
See my beak! See my feet! See my tail! See my toes!
CHANTICLEER (calling to them suddenly):
Your summer opening, see, the wind approves.
The Scarecrow gives his blessing. Look, he moves!
(Truly, behind them, the wind has lifted the Scarecrow's arms,
which are silently extended above this masquerade.)
ALL (startled): Huh?
CHANTICLEER: Now, hear what the Manikin says to the Fan!
(And while the wind blows through the holes, and flutters the
rags, lending a strange life to the Scarecrow)
The bird makes a pose, but the pose makes a man.
Now, what say the pantaloons dancing a jig,
But "I once was the Fashion?" The coat, waxing big
With the breath of the wind? "I once was the style."
The vest,—"I led the fashion,"—provoking a smile!
And what, the old hat that a beggar rejected?
"I once was the fashion." These poor sleeves expected
To capture the wind—for so fleetly it passes,
They thought 'twas the Fashion!
PEACOCK (to the Poultry, who are rather scared):
Why, come, you poor asses,
The Scarecrow can't talk.
CHANTICLEER: It is what Man would tell us.
PEACOCK (whispering to his neighbors):
I introduced you, and the Cock is just jealous.
(To CHANTICLEER, ironically)
What do you think of all these high-born folk?
It's really time the Country Landlord spoke.
CHANTICLEER: I think that these are fabricated Cocks,
Made by a merchant wanting fancy stocks,
Who, to elucubrate a useless thing,
Took here a caruncle and there a wing;
I think that in these cocks is no more Cock
Than idle hands can whittle from a block.
They show far better in a catalogue
Than in a farmyard near some honest dog.
These roosters, bristled, frizzled, tufted, curled,
Were never made by Nature in the world.
Nature's maternal hand makes smooth and fair;
'Twas Aviculture made those ... notions ... there.
Those popinjays, convulsed, deformed, uncouth,
Have neither style nor beauty, line nor truth.
Their forms have lost the egg-shell's sweet ellipse,
—A poultry yard from the Apochalypse!
A COCK: But, sir ...
CHANTICLEER: And I say,—bear you witness, O Sun!—
When a Cock is a Cry then his duty is done.
And not being that, it is justice ironic
That makes him both revolting and bubonic,—
Soon disappearing; his one notoriety,
To be a variety of a variety!
A COCK: But ...
CHANTICLEER (going now from one to another):
Yes, Cocks affecting scorn of Nature's plan,
Cockarde, cock-feather, cock and cockalan,
With supercockly cockernonies crested, ...
—I prate like Peacock when my wrath has bested
My silent resolution,—Cockatoos, cockaded
With coquelicos, cockerily shaded;
Not cocksure only of your cocoricos,
You are—just poppycock and hybrid echoes!
Fashion! the cock-brained victim that she chooses
For her cock-bree, just plays cock-all,—and loses!
She, cock-a-bendy, takes you cock-a-hoop,
Then throws you down, like chickens with the roup,
Like old cock-metal or last year's cocoon,
When some new cock with coccyx more buffoon
Comes cock-a-pentie 'gainst her cock-hedge rotten!
Well in a ... cock-a-trice ... he'll be forgotten!
Of all coqueluchons cockarde ever wore,
Some egg can hatch one cockaleekie more.
Cockchaffers chased, rococo cocks again
Will go eat cockles, exiled from Cockayne!
A COCK: How can a fellow not be that? ... rococo?
CHANTICLEER: By thinking of his ...
A COCK: Of his? ...
ALL THE COCKS: Of his? ...
CHANTICLEER: Cocorico!
A COCK (haughtily):
We think of that, sir, and have made it known!
CHANTICLEER: To whom, pray?
SCENE V
The Same. Three Young Chickens Who Have Been Hopping Alertly Among the Fancy
Cocks
FIRST CHICKEN: To us.
SECOND CHICKEN: Of course.
THIRD CHICKEN: To us.
ALL THREE (bowing simultaneously): Your tone,
Maestro?
FIRST CHICKEN (interrogatively): Your voice?
SECOND CHICKEN (same play): Bass?
THIRD CHICKEN (same play): Tenor?
SECOND CHICKEN: Lyric?
THIRD CHICKEN: Old or new?
CHANTICLEER (taken aback, looking at the GUINEA):
What is all this? An interlude?
GUINEA: An interview.
SECOND CHICKEN: You take it in the chest?
THIRD CHICKEN: Or in the head?
CHANTICLEER: I take it—how?
FIRST CHICKEN: Talk! We investigate. I think you said
You took it in the ...
CHANTICLEER (trying to pass and run away): An investigation?
THIRD CHICKEN (barring the way):
The Cocorical Movement of the Nation.
FIRST CHICKEN (same business): Your first repast is frugal?
CHANTICLEER: Who's this Chick
Whose questions like a teasel's claw-hooks stick?
FIRST CHICKEN (bowing): I represent the Cocoricograph.
SECOND CHICKEN (same play): The Cocoricologue.
CHANTICLEER (nervously): I want to laugh
But ... (He tries to pass.)
FIRST CHICKEN: No, you don't,—without a paragraph.
CHANTICLEER (hemmed in): I ...
SECOND CHICKEN: You must have tendencies?
CHANTICLEER: Like others, then.
SECOND CHICKEN: What most attracts you?
CHANTICLEER: Why, a pretty hen.
FIRST CHICKEN (unsmilingly):
Nothing, of course, would part you from your song?
CHANTICLEER: But ... I send it ...
SECOND CHICKEN: Then? ...
CHANTICLEER: It goes,—so you are wrong.
THIRD CHICKEN (more and more insistent):
You live by rule? ... Reports, you know, are rife ...
CHANTICLEER: I ...
FIRST CHICKEN: You life is ... ?
CHANTICLEER: My Song!
SECOND CHICKEN: And your song is ... ?
CHANTICLEER: My life.
THIRD CHICKEN: How do you sing?
CHANTICLEER: By effort, struggle, pain.
FIRST CHICKEN: But tripartite or normal, please explain.
Coc-ori-co or Co-co-ri- ...
(He beats the measure furiously with his wing.)
CHANTICLEER (stepping back): He'll hit me in the face.
SECOND CHICKEN: Do you count one-one-two? One-three?
Three-one? What place
Has rhythm in your own dynamic scheme?
BLACKBIRD (crying out):
Who has not his own pet dynamic scheme?
CHANTICLEER: ... ic scheme?
THIRD CHICKEN: Where do you lay the stress?
Upon the Co ... ?
CHANTICLEER: The stress? ... Upon the Co? ...
THIRD CHICKEN: On the ri ... ?
CHANTICLEER: On ... ?
FIRST CHICKEN (impatiently): What does your School express?
CHANTICLEER: The School of Cocks?
SECOND CHICKEN (glibly): Why surely. Some there be
Who sing Cocorico—others Kikiriki!
FIRST CHICKEN (same manner):
One must be Cocoriquist or Kikiriquist!
CHANTICLEER: Coco ... Kiki ...
THIRD CHICKEN: Others, of course, exist.
A COCK (advancing):
The sole French form is Cockadoodledoo.
CHANTICLEER: Now, who the devil is he?
FIRST CHICKEN: Anglo-Hindoo.
SECOND CHICKEN: And that Turk there whose comb is like a cyst
Sings Coucouroucou.
THE TURK (coming forward): I am Coucourouquist.
SECOND CHICKEN (screeching in CHANTICLEER'S ear):
Master, don't you replace in certain cases
Your Cocorico by Caceracases?
CHANTICLEER (startled): Cacaraquist, then?
ANOTHER COCK (coming up on the right): I, sir, suppress
The vowels. (He crows.) K! K! K! K!
CHANTICLEER (trying to escape): Is this distress
A nightmare?
ANOTHER COCK (coming up on the left):
Oh, oh, I say! You fellows want
When crowing just to mute the consonant.
CHANTICLEER (quite upset):
How many tricks can Turks and Arabs play
With four good syllables as plain as Day?
ANOTHER COCK (thrusting all the rest aside):
For me, I mingle all ... Cocaricocacou!
In one song, free and flowing.
CHANTICLEER: He's crazy, and I'm going!
COCK (crying loudly): Flowing ...
CHANTICLEER (struggling to pass and crying as loudly): Going!
ALL THE COCKS (around him, struggling in a mass):
No, Cacar ... No, Kiki ... No, Coucour ...
CHANTICLEER: Who trusts in his own story?
THE COCK WHO MIXES ALL TOGETHER:
The free Cocorico! It's obligatory!
CHANTICLEER: Who is this cock who lords it over all?
FIRST CHICKEN: A wondrous cock who never crows at all.
CHANTICLEER (with meek despair):
And I am just a simple Cock that crows.
EVERYBODY (disgusted, moving off): Oh, well!
CHANTICLEER: I give my song,—the rose tree gives her rose.
PEACOCK (sarcastically): I foresaw the rose!
CHANTICLEER (aside, nervously, to BLACKBIRD):
When will my butcher come?
These Chicks have talked me blind and deaf and dumb.
EVERYBODY (scornfully): The Rose! Oh!
GUINEA (shocked by such banality):
Let's speak of flowers more fit for my At Home,
More ...
PEACOCK: Obsolete.
(With the most disdainful impertinence.)
Will you decline Rosa?
CHANTICLEER: I will, with pleasure, Peacock that you are!
And yet, I pardon you and your rude cry,
For slurs upon the lovely Rose, Rosae,
For you, poor trickster, lose your little all.
For all your fireworks, she reigns in Bengal.
(He looks about him.)
But from Bantams to Dorkings, Cocks, be as I am
Defenders, Champions of ...
A COCK (indifferently): Whom?
CHANTICLEER: The Rose, Rosam.
To declare to the world ...
BLACKBIRD (cynically): It's a cinch that he poses
As Champion Quixotic ...
CHANTICLEER: Rosarum, of Roses.
Whom all should adore.
A COCK: Whom?
CHANTICLEER (more and more challenging in his fervor):
Whom? Roses, Rosas
Where sleeps the rain as in the alcarazas.
Roses, that are and will be ...
A VOICE (cold and cutting): Painted wenches.
(All the fancy cocks fall back, disclosing the WHITE PILE, who
appears tall, thin and sinister, at the back, between their serried ranks.)
CHANTICLEER: At last!
BLACKBIRD: It's time to climb up on the benches!
CHANTICLEER (to the WHITE PILE): Sir ...
PHEASANT: You won't take up the challenge of this giant?
CHANTICLEER: One can be smaller and yet self-reliant.
(To the WHITE PILE, as he crosses slowly to him)
A word like that is one a Cock should fear
To use. And you resemble ...
(A chick has run out between CHANTICLEER and the pit-cock.
CHANTICLEER gently puts him aside, saying):
Please excuse me, dear.
(To the WHITE PILE, looking irritatingly at his shaven
comb): A combless cockatoo.
WHITE PILE (stupefied):
Combless? ... Cockatoo? Who ... Who ... Who?
CHANTICLEER (beak to beak with the WHITE PILE):
You ... You ... You.
(A pause. They look each other over. Ruffs lifted.)
THE WHITE PILE (with emphasis):
In both Americas, when on my tour,
I killed three Clayborns,—it was rarely fewer
In any pit,—two Sherwoods, brace of Smoks;
A Black Sumatra. ... Other owner pokes
Some grains of dope in his, to brace their muscles,—
Five Red Games at Cambridge, ten Braekel at Brussels.
CHANTICLEER (very simply):
If boast must be of killing, I am dumb.
I've succoured, shielded and protected some.
I may be brave, in my own humble way.
Put off that air of mole-hill-masher, pray.
I came to-day knowing you lay in wait.
The rose upon my beak was merely bait,—
A chance for you to show your brutal mettle.
You did not fail to snatch the dangled petal.
Your name?
WHITE PILE: White Pile. And yours, sir?
CHANTICLEER: Chanticleer.
PHEASANT (running to PATOU): Patou!
CHANTICLEER (fiercely to PATOU, who growls angrily):
Here, you, keep out ...
PATOU (rolling his rs): It's harrrrd, my dearrr.
PHEASANT (to CHANTICLEER):
A Cock need not die for a flower, goodness knows.
CHANTICLEER: He slurs at the Sun who besmirches a Rose.
PHEASANT (running to the BLACKBIRD):
You said it would be arranged! Your word depends ...
BLACKBIRD: One can't patch up a quarrel between friends.
GUINEA (uttering screams of despair):
Frightful! A duel! And at my At Home!
How sad! (to her son) to think the Tortoise hasn't come.
A VOICE (calling as one who calls the odds):
Chanticleer, ten to one!
THE GUINEA (beginning to place her guests, making the hens climb on
flower-pots, gourd vines and benches): Hurry!
BLACKBIRD: Guinea's happy.
Honours of an affair of honour. Rather snappy.
(A big circle forms. On the second row, the fine cocks; in
front, avid for the spectacle, all the hens, all the chicks, and
all the ducks of the Poultry Yard.)
PATOU: Go in and win. They want to see your guts.
CHANTICLEER (sadly): I've done them only good.
PATOU (showing him the circle hateful and expectant): Look!
(All the necks are stretched out; all the eyes gleaming.
It is hideous. CHANTICLEER looks, understands, and hangs his head.)
PHEASANT (with a cry of disgust and anger):
Oh, the barnyard sluts!
CHANTICLEER (lifting himself to his full height again):
So be it. Let them know what I have been!
My Secret!—They shall hear! ...
PATOU (earnestly): Ah, no. I've seen
Your secret, boy, in my old dreamer's heart!
CHANTICLEER (addressing the crowd in a ringing voice, his
chest lifted as one who makes his confession of faith):
Know all that it is I ...
(A terrible silence. To the WHITE PILE, who has
moved impatiently): Patience! We'll quickly start!
I wish to do, before the Butcher Bird
Has done his part,—a brave deed.
WHITE PILE: Ah?
CHANTICLEER: Yes,—make myself absurd.
PHEASANT: No!
CHANTICLEER: I wish to die mid laughter, set at naught.
(To the crowd)
Make merry, poultry by a blackbird taught!
(In a voice that rises and rings gloriously)
It is I and my Song that illumine your skies.
(Stupefaction. Then a wave of merriment sweeps the crowd)
Is every one merry? On guard!
THE GOLD-SPANGLED COCK OF PADUA (bowing his colback):
Sirs, time flies.
(The fight begins.)
VOICES (amidst peals of laughter):
It's killing! ... Side-splitting! ... 'Twill kill me ...
He said ...
BLACKBIRD: The old French gaiety is not quite dead.
A CHICKEN: 'Tis day when he sings!
A DUCK: He sings and all's bright.
CHANTICLEER (while warding off the WHITE PILE'S blows):
Yes, I, who bring back to the Valley, the Light!
A CHICKEN: How?
CHANTICLEER (in a solemn voice while parrying and thrusting):
Because they neither try to make or mar,
The songs of other cocks as nothing are,
But mine ...
(He is wounded.)
A VOICE: Biff! In the neck!
CHANTICLEER: ... brings back ...
(He is wounded again.)
TURKEY: A fool, say I.
CHANTICLEER: ... the day ...
(He is wounded again.)
A VOICE: Pam! On the beak!
CHANTICLEER: ... Dayl ...
A VOICE: Bing! In the eye!
CHANTICLEER (staggering, blind with blood): ... the Daylight!
A VOICE (mockingly): A thing to make one an obscurantist!
CHANTICLEER (repeats mechanically, under the rain of blows):
I bring the dawn!
PATOU (baying): Yes, yes, yes, yes!
THE PHEASANT (sobbing): He missed!
Oh, hit him, darling!
A CHICK: Nickname for the Dawn!
ALL (applauding): Yes!
(WHITE PILE throws CHANTICLEER.)
PHEASANT: Horrors!
BLACKBIRD (supplying the quip): The Horizontal Houri.
A VOICE: Are you on?
A nickname for the Cock!
ALL (stamping and shouting): Yes!
BLACKBIRD: Safety Razor!
ANOTHER VOICE: Or the Latin Light.
CHANTICLEER (defending himself, foot to foot):
Another quip! I still can kick all right!
A VOICE: The Latin Reveille!
CHANTICLEER (who now seems kept alive by the jibes):
Another pun!
And I whose only feats of arms were done
Upon a farm ...
ANOTHER VOICE: The beak-on!
CHANTICLEER: I thank you. I ...
(His feathers flutter around him.)
CRIES OF EXULTATION: He's being picked!
CHANTICLEER: I feel ... Another jest!
A CHICK: Light up! Light up!
CHANTICLEER:.. That pricked!
I feel by some strange law
Strengthened by insults, mockery and ...
AN ASS (putting his head over the hedge): Hew-haw!
CHANTICLEER: Thank you. That teaches me to fight.
WHITE PILE (sneering): He fight!
He's down and out!
PHEASANT (pleading): Ah, stop!
A VOICE: Four to one on the White!
PHEASANT (seeing CHANTICLEER'S bleeding throat):
He's bleeding!
A HEN (standing on tip-toe behind the SPANGLED PADUA COCK):
I want to see the blood!
WHITE PILE (striking furiously): I'll have your hide!
THE HEN (that wants to see): I can't see for his crest!
BLACKBIRD: Hats off, inside!
(It is evident that CHANTICLEER is lost. He rolls over as if
dying.)
A VOICE: A good one! On the comb!
PIERCING CRIES (from all the maddened cries):
Hey! Snatch it off him then!
Kill! Strangle! Tear!
PATOU (from the barrel): Ah, quit! You sound like men!
(Measured cries, that keep time with the blows rained upon
CHANTICLEER.)
In the eye! On the head! On the wing! On the ... the ...
(Sudden silence.)
CHANTICLEER (surprised):
Why—what ... the circle breaks, the applauders flee?
(He looks about him. The WHITE PILE, leaving the attack, has run clo
se to the hedge. There is a strange movement among the fowls.)
CHANTICLEER (exhausted, bleeding, reeling):
What are they planning for my agony?
(And suddenly, overcome) Oh, joy, Patou!
PATOU: What now?
CHANTICLEER: I wronged them! See!
For every one, ceasing to laugh and talk
And jibe, comes to my side.
PATOU (seeing that as they run to CHANTICLEER, they look anxiously up at
the sky, says simply):
Look, Chanticleer! The hawk!
CHANTICLEER: Ah!
(A shadow passes slowly over the motley flock, crouching and huddling
and instinctively drawing closer and closer to CHANTICLEER.)
PATOU: One does not count, when the great Shadow lowers,
On stranger cocks to shield these heads of ours.
CHANTICLEER (suddenly on his feet, at his full height, magnificent, his
wounds forgotten, and in his old tone of authority):
That's right. Around me! Close!
(And all, their heads crouched between their wings, press
precipitately around him.)
PHEASANT: Oh, brave and gentle heart!
(The Shadow passes again. The pit-cock himself grows
smaller. Only CHANTICLEER remains, towering above a sea of feathers that tr
embles tumultuously.)
A CHICK (following the hawk with his eyes):
Two times a shadow nearly seemed to dart!
CHANTICLEER (calling the chicks, who run madly to him):
Here, Chickies!
PHEASANT: You will take them 'neath your wings?
CHANTICLEER: Their mother is a box,—poor tiny things.
(The Shadow in ever-lowering circles passes a third time, ever
blacker.).
PHEASANT (looking steadily up): He's poised!
ALL (moaning with fright): Oh!
CHANTICLEER (calling to the skies in a thrilling voice):
I am here!
PATOU: He hears that call!
PHEASANT: He has flown!
(The Shadow passes.)
ALL (uttering cries of joy and deliverance): Ah!
(And they run to get their places to see the end of the fight.)
PATOU (furiously): Now take your places, all.
CHANTICLEER (trembling): You mean it?
(He looks. It is true. The circle instantly forms again. The
necks are stretched out. The eyes gleam.)
PHEASANT: And now they want your death in very deed,
Because you saw their terror and their need.
CHANTICLEER: He cannot kill me now,—nor they, nor he,—
For I have seen the Common Enemy.
(He marches up to the WHITE PILE.)
I found my courage, trembling for another.
WHITE PILE (stupefied by the sudden onslaught):
Whence came this strength?
CHANTICLEER: Where you lost yours, my brother.
I rage at black, as bulls grow wroth at red.
Thrice have I seen Night in the bird o'erhead.
(The WHITE PILE, pressed against the hedge, is about to
use his gaffs.)
PHEASANT (crying): Beware! He has two razors hid!
CHANTICLEER: I knew it.
THE CAT (from his tree to the WHITE PILE):
Now, use your gaffs!
PATOU (ready to jump from the wheelbarrow):
You Cat, if he should do
I'll kill him, surely!
THE CROWD (frustrated, angry): Ah!
PATOU: ... Despite your cries!
WHITE PILE (feeling that he is lost): So much the worse!
PHEASANT (who doesn't take her eyes off him):
One gaff is turned!
WHITE PILE (striking with the gaff): He dies!
(He gives a terrible cry as CHANTICLEER, leaping aside, evades the t
hrust.) Ah! (He falls.)
BEWILDERED CRIES FROM THE SPECTATORS: What happened?
BLACKBIRD: Nothing, that is, just a sleight
Of foot. He cut his left one with his right!
THE CROWD (hooting, follows the WHITE PILE, who, having gotten painfully
up, limps away to safety): Hu!
PATOU and the PHEASANT (laughing, crying, talking in a breath, around
CHANTICLEER, who lies motionless, exhausted, his eyes closed.)
Chanticleer, we are here,—to take you home!
What do you say?
CHANTICLEER (opening his eyes, looking at them, says softly):
To-morrow's dawn will come.
SCENE VI
The Same, except for the WHITE PILE, who has disappeared
(The crowd, having chased the WHITE PILE out of sight, coming back
tumultuously to CHANTICLEER, applauding him.)
CHANTICLEER (starting, and crying in a terrible voice):
Back all of you! I know now what you are!
(The crowd retreats precipitately.)
PHEASANT (bounding up to him):
Come to the forest, where real wild beasts are!
CHANTICLEER: No, I'll stay here.
PHEASANT: Knowing them, Chanticleer?
CHANTICLEER: Because I know!
PHEASANT: You will remain?
CHANTICLEER: Not for these,—for my Crow.
Less clear, perhaps, 'twould thrill from alien soil!
The dawn will come. For that we live and toil,
My Song and I.
(Obsequious movement of the crowd toward him.)
Back, you! Since what befell
I only have my Song.
(All fall back and, alone with his pride, he begins): Co ...
(To himself, rallying against his grief)
Only my Song. Sing well!
(He begins again.)
Co ... Do I take it in my throat? Or ... Co ... Up in the head?
Shall I count one-three, or, who was it said
Two-two,—the accent, ... Coucour ... no, I seem
A little puzzled ... Kikir ... and the scheme? ...
Coc ... (Seized with agony.)
I am embroiled in all their schemes and schools.
Eagles would fall if eagles flew by rules.
And ...
(He makes a desperate effort to crow, which ends in a hoarse croak.)
Coc ... I cannot sing! I am bewildered,—I
Who knew not how I sang, but only why!
(With a cry of despair.)
I've nothing left! All gone! Oh Light above
How shall I find my Song!
PHEASANT: Ah, come!
CHANTICLEER (throwing himself on her breast): My love!
PHEASANT: Come to my forest, where birds freely sing!
CHANTICLEER: Oh, let us go!
(He starts off with her, and then turns suddenly):
But first ...
PHEASANT (trying to hurry him away): Ah, come, my king.
CHANTICLEER (resolutely, coming back):
To all the ... Guineas ... gathered for these teas,
Leave this good garden. ... Am I right, O Bees? ...
To its fair task of bringing fruit from flowers.
BUZZING OF THE BEES: Sound sense! ... Sound sense! ...
CHANTICLEER: It is a law in this wise world of ours,
Nothing that's done in noise is well done. Noise prevents
The peach from ripening. And the grape ...
BEES (buzzing away): Sound sense.
CHANTICLEER: ... loses its purple bloom.
BEES (in the distance): Sound sense.
CHANTICLEER (going back with PHEASANT): Now let's away
But first I have a warning for these G ...
(PHEASANT puts her wing over his beak)
... good hens; these fancy roosters, ... stylish, very ...
Will find their feeding pans so necessary,
They'll run off at the cry of
(Imitating a voice, calling) "Chick, chick, chicky,"—
For very hungry are these gentry tricky.
PHEASANT (leading him away): Come, dear.
A HEN: She's taking him!
CHANTICLEER: Yes.
(Going down again) But I must come back
To tell this Peacock, with ...
(pointing to the GUINEA) ... this Pot-a-rack..
GUINEA (enchanted): Insulted in my home! A big sensation!
CHANTICLEER (to the PEACOCK):
Colonel of Fashion, by your own creation,
Your neck is blue, your Bengal spirits quail,
For fear of "going out" before your tail.
Hurried along by all its myriad eyes,
Some day you'll fall and you will never rise
Save in that crypt where most false artists stop
(Imitating the PEACOCK'S tricks of speech)
Shall I say ... stuffer's?
GUINEA (automatically): Yes.
CHANTICLEER: No, Taxidermist's Shop,
To use the word you would yourself have chosen.
BLACKBIRD: Pam!
CHANTICLEER (turning to him): And as for you ...
BLACKBIRD: You go along, suppose'n.
CHANTICLEER: I'm going on.
(He comes nearer) You met,—unlucky day!—
A smart Parisian Sparrow, so you say,
And you were lost. Since then your only vision
Has been of seeming,—shall I say?—Sparisian.
BLACKBIRD: But ...
CHANTICLEER: I'm going on. You never thought a minute
A whistle's not a flute for blowing in it.
You even walk, your folly to complete,
As sparrows hop along a city street.
BLACKBIRD: I ...
CHANTICLEER: I'm surely going on. Without surcease,
"Sparrowing" day and night; not finding peace
Even in dreams; of truth you've grown so chary
You're less a sparrow than a caught canary.
BLACKBIRD: I ...
CHANTICLEER: Poor country blackbird, trying day and night
To seem, not rustic, but suburbanite.
To mincing speech grosbeaks are not inclined
The slang you try is just green grapes, you'll find.
Your beak cracks honest corn, nor finds it trouble;
You'll find Parisian grapes a bursting bubble.
You learned from the Sparrow his dodge and his trick,
A wit's understudy, 'tis there that you stick;
You've learned, at the best, from this Sparrow from town
To be Pantaloon to a far better Clown.
Rivarol out of style is dubbed Calino soon
For wit overstrained makes the greatest buffoon.
... You offer scepticisms long gone out,
Picked up like crumbs. It takes no sense to doubt.
Poor little bird, who, full of mean delight,
Hurries hot-foot old scandals to recite.
Poor bird, that finds streets "broad," and meadows "narrow."
BLACKBIRD: But ...
CHANTICLEER: I'm going on! You imitate the Sparrow!
He is not slily mean, the dullest knows;
He never makes a fetish of a pose;
He plays his pranks as saucy gamins do!
He has no cult of levity like you,—
Percher on bushes, whistler of one note!
(One of the Japanese Cocks behind him titters)
—I'll stuff your ka-kimona down your throat,
Cock of Japan!
JAPANESE COCK (hurriedly): Excuse me, sir!
CHANTICLEER (continuing to the BLACKBIRD): You try
To ape the sparrow,—but he perches high.
Telegraph wires his chirrups underscore.
Ah, well! I do not wish to grieve you more,
But—I have listened, when they stole my corn,—
They put you on the blink,—you are not on ...
BLACKBIRD (abashed): The Cock talks slang?
CHANTICLEER: I speak all, I, the Cock;
I speak every tongue from Languedoc to Bontoc.
BLACKBIRD: Bontoc?
CHANTICLEER:
That shot went home. Let someone put you Jerry.
BLACKBIRD: Jer ... ?
CHANTICLEER:
That's what I said. Your slang is musty, very,
Truly Parisian, made in Germany,
Shopworn Hanover seconds ...
BLACKBIRD: ... Sec ... ?
CHANTICLEER: Off the quay!
BLACKBIRD: He's scolding me for slang in speech that bristles ...
CHANTICLEER: He whistles best, who oftener sings than whistles.
BLACKBIRD: But ...
CHANTICLEER: You said "go on." I do it. You are vexed?
BLACKBIRD: I ...
CHANTICLEER: The Safety Razor cuts when none expects.
BLACKBIRD (wildly): Oh! (He tries to escape.)
CHANTICLEER (following him):
You ape the Sparrow! But his impudence
Is not a form of staying on the fence,
A pose of vagueness that the crowds admire;
The Sparrow's eye is glad,—or flashes fire.
You lack the key that winds this charming toy!
He's gay and honest as a saucy boy,—
The secret of the little beggar's charm
By which a heart of steel he can disarm,
Till there is nothing we would not forgive
His "penny, chippie, see!" But he would give
Without the "penny," if you listened well,
The secret key. He's sound as any bell;
'Tis that he's gay and bold he loves,—believes;
Upon a railing under city eaves,
Bound by the sky, the only cage he knows,
He feasts on breadcrumbs that a baby throws.
We trust the rascal's merriness of heart,
For he is gay in spite of hunger's smart.
His cry of "Chippie!" teasing old and young
Were often "Pity" on a meaner tongue.
—You ape a bird with such mad courage blest
The very Arc de Triomphe holds his nest,
The breach i' the barricade?—A heart so free
There gay defiance in his "Chippie! See!"
He sings at a bullet and laughs at a spit!
His heart makes the bird,—not his walk nor his wit!
You are not gay, because you are not loving.
You think ill-humor, humor. That wants proving.
You can't dethrone our honest little friend
With wry-mouthed laughter; teach us to depend
On gilt extinguishers instead of sparks.
Oh, guess again! We aren't such easy marks!
—His wit is sunny. Yours is rather murky.
GUINEA (applauding whatever is said at her Day): Bravo!
A HEN (to the BLACKBIRD): You'll take it out ... ?
BLACKBIRD (prudently): Yes, on the Turkey.
(At this moment a Voice is heard calling):
Chick, chick, chicky!
(And all the splendid Cocks, rushing toward the irresistible Voice,
leave in a mass.)
GUINEA (running after them): Really, must you go?
A PADUA (left alone of his kind): Yes ... Pardon ...
(He vanishes.)
THE GUINEA (in her most society clatter):
They're going ... breaking up ... I didn't know ...
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT): My Golden One, come now.
GUINEA (running to CHANTICLEER): You, who're so brave
You'd save yourself?
CHANTICLEER: It is my Song I'd save.
THE GUINEA (running to her son):
My son, I'm in a state! I want a sheath ...
I mean, a hob ...
A HEN (crying after CHANTICLEER):
When are you coming back?
CHANTICLEER (as he disappears): When you have teeth!
(He goes off with the PHEASANT.)
GUINEA (to the YOUNG GUINEA):
Such a success! Such famous people sought us!
(Whirling about among the very last departing guests)
Good-bye! ... Till Monday! ... Well, that's done!
THE MAGPIE (announcing): The Tortoise!
(The curtain falls)
ACT IV
THE NIGHT OF THE NIGHTINGALE
THE SETTING
The Heart of the Forest
A green asylum for a heart deceived.
Shadow that quiets, and a peace that grows
To healing, where the giant oak upthrows
His crook-backed roots, against the dark relieved.
Here squirrels scuttle. Darting rabbits cross
To burrows where the lusty colt's-foot grows.
Its pearly tents the mushroom village shows.
An acorn, noiseless, falls upon the moss.
Evening. A spring. A bind-weed. World's eclipse.
From tall osmondas to pale heather tips
The spider's graceful web is thrown and wrought.
Within its mesh, a perfect drop of dew,
Convex, unbroken, gleams the darkness through,—
A little lady-bird in crystal caught.
SCENE I
(As the curtain rises one sees in the underbrush, half-hidden,
rabbits drinking in the evening. A moment of silence and coolness.)
RABBITS, an Invisible CHOIR of BIRDS
A RABBIT: It is the hour when the two warblers sweet,
Black-hooded or brown-mantled, as is meet,
—One from the reeds, one from the garden's sherds;—
Call us to evening prayer.
A VOICE (in the trees): O God of Birds!
ANOTHER: Or rather, lest an Alien Ear should mark,—
The vulture's God is not God of the lark,—
O God of little Birds!
A THOUSAND VOICES (in the leaves): O God of Little Birds!
THE FIRST VOICE: Who made our bodies light as spoken words;
Who painted Thy blue sky upon our wings;
We thank Thee for the Day, and for the springs
Wherefrom we drank; the wholesome grain we ate;
For all Thy care of us who on Thee wait
The brightness of our eyes so small and round
Which spy the foes no human eye had found;
The tools Thy tiny gardeners never lack,—
Our rakes and pruning-hooks of white and black.
THE SECOND VOICE:
To-morrow we will strive with weed and blight;
Forgive, we pray, our little sins to-night,—
The stolen, tempting berries, two or three.
THE FIRST VOICE: We cannot sleep if unforgiven by Thee,
Unless Thou close our triple-guarded eyes
And keep us 'neath Thy wing till morn arise.
Lord, if some man have paid with snare and stone
The songs Thy birds about his path have strown,
The toil that slew the weevil in his wheat,
—Aye though his net have caught some fledgling sweet,
Teach us forgiveness, though it be not easy,
In the dear name of Francis of Assisi,
Forgiving man whatever hurts or girds
Because one man has said, "My brother birds."
THE SECOND VOICE (as if intoning a Litany):
And thou, Saint Francis, blesser of our wings,
ALL THE VOICES: Pray for us!
THE VOICE: Priest of the morning lark that soars and sings,
ALL THE VOICES: Pray for us!
Confessor of the Finches! Loving Dreamer,
Who by thy faith became the Birds' Redeemer,
Gave us our souls, absolved them of all taint,
ALL THE VOICES: Pray for us!
THE FIRST VOICE: And obtain, beloved Saint,
Our grain of barley ...
THE SECOND VOICE: Millet ...
ANOTHER VOICE: And of wheat!
THE FIRST VOICE: So be it!
ALL (with a soft murmur that goes to the very bounds of the
forest): so be it!
CHANTICLEER (stepping, after a moment, from the hollow of a huge tree): S
o be it!
(The shadow has grown bluer. A ray of moonlight falls across the spider
web which seems sprinkled with silver powder. The PHEASANT in her turn
comes softly from the tree and comes noiselessly up behind CHANTICLEER.)
SCENE II
CHANTICLEER, the PHEASANT, some of the time, the RABBITS; from
time to time, the WOODPECKER
CHANTICLEER: Now has the moonlight touched the tallest brake.
Now has ...
A LITTLE TREMBLING VOICE: Night for Delight.
THE PHEASANT: Our thanks, good Weaver, take.
CHANTICLEER: And now ...
THE PHEASANT (just behind him):
Now, in the moonlight, you may steal a kiss.
CHANTICLEER: I hate the Rabbits looking on like this!
(The PHEASANT claps her wings. The RABBITS, startled, pop into t
heir holes. On all sides, the white cotton-tails flash into the burrows.)
PHEASANT (coming back to CHANTICLEER): There!
(Their beaks meet.) Do you love my forest?
CHANTICLEER: Every tree
For here my Song has come again to me.
—Let's go to roost, for early I must crow.
PHEASANT (imperiously): One single time.
CHANTICLEER: Yes.
PHEASANT: For the past month, you know,
Just once a day!
CHANTICLEER (resignedly): Yes.
PHEASANT: Does the sun rise yet?
CHANTICLEER: It rises!
PHEASANT: See what bargains I can get!
For one sole song, then, is the dawn less bright?
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: So ...
(Offering her beak) kiss me!
(Finding the caress somewhat absent-minded)
You didn't do it right!
(Going back to her idea)
Why should you strive so? All your soul you give.
The dawn is pretty, true, but one must live.
Oh you male creatures! Lacking hens, my dear,
How often you'd be duped!
CHANTICLEER (with conviction): But you are here!
PHEASANT: And when I sleep it's barbarous to go
Cocolico a hundred times.
CHANTICLEER: Goosie, cocorico!
PHEASANT: Cocolico!
CHANTICLEER 'Rico.
PHEASANT (lifting her head and calling into the top of the tree):
Oh, Professor, please!
... I'll ask the greatest scholar in the trees.
(To the WOODPECKER, who appears half in and half out of a hole near
the top of the tree; he wears a green frock coat, a buff waistcoat and a red
skull-cap.)
Does one say Cocoli ... or Cocorico?
THE WOODPECKER (bowing a long and learned bill):
Both are correct.
CHANTICLEER and the PHEASANT (in a breath):
Uh-hun! I told you so!
THE WOODPECKER: All onomatopœias are empirical.
'Lico is tenderer; 'rico is more lyrical.
(He disappears.)
CHANTICLEER: When I cocolico, it is for thee.
PHEASANT: You 'rico for the Dawn.
CHANTICLEER: That's jeal-ous-y!
PHEASANT (withdrawing coquettishly):
You love me more than Her?
CHANTICLEER (with a warning cry):
A snare! ... One moment more ...
(In reality, close against the tree a net is spread.)
PHEASANT: It would have sprung!
CHANTICLEER (looking at it): The dev ...
PHEASANT: Prohibited. An Act of 'forty-four.
CHANTICLEER (laughing): How do you know that, Sweet?
PHEASANT: Recall my name!
That is a Game Law. She you love is Game!
CHANTICLEER (with a tinge of sadness):
Yes, different strains in our two bosoms stir.
PHEASANT (coming to his side with a bound):
Oh, more than She you must adore me!
WOODPECKER (appearing): Her!
CHANTICLEER (raising his head): Not grammar in a love scene!
PHEASANT (to the WOODPECKER): Listen here,
Please knock three times before you reappear!
WOODPECKER (disappearing): Oh, very well!
PHEASANT (to CHANTICLEER):
Somteimes he comes in wrong
But he's a bird of learning, ... strong ...
CHANTICLEER (absently): How, strong?
PHEASANT: He's a bird linguist!
CHANTICLEER: Ah?
PHEASANT: Because, you see,
Birds, when they pray, use just French poetry.
We chatter in the woods no mortal near,
In onomatopœias crystal clear.
CHANTICLEER: Why, birds speak Japanese!
(The WOODPECKER raps thrice with his beak, Toc-toc-toc, on the
tree.)
Come in!
WOODPECKER: In Japanese?
CHANTICLEER: Yes, so, "tio-tio, twee, twee!"
WOODPECKER: In Japanese!
They've spoken Greek since Aristophanes!
CHANTICLEER (going ardently to the PHEASANT):
For the love of Greek! (they kiss each other)
WOODPECKER: I tell you, idle youth
Who care so little to be taught the truth,
The stone-chat's merry "wees, wees, wees, trat-tra-ta"
Is a corruption sir, of Lysistrata.
(He disappears.)
PHEASANT (to CHANTICLEER):
Am I the only girl you ever loved?
(Toc-toc-toc is heard.)
CHANTICLEER: Come in!
PHEASANT (to CHANTICLEER): You swear it?
WOODPECKER (appearing, his skull-cap bobbing):
It is clearly proved.
The thrush sings tira-para in the wood.
Para, along, in Greek; water is understood.
(He disappears.)
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT): He has Greek on the brain!
PHEASANT: Greek skull-cap, too!
But Chanticleer,—I'm all the world to you?
CHANTICLEER: Of course, but ...
PHEASANT: In my gown of living gold,
What do you think of me?
CHANTICLEER: Dear, I behold
A symbol of the Dawn,—a living law
To make me faithful!
PHEASANT: You never saw
On any morning Dawns like those that rise
At your caresses always in my eyes!
CHANTICLEER: I hold within my heart this memory;—
We two believing in my destiny,
In that great hour when our great love was born,
And you forgot your gold for that of Morn.
PHEASANT: Always the Dawn! I'll say things I'll regret.
CHANTICLEER (dryly): Say them.
PHEASANT: Well ... in the glade ... to-day ... I met ...
CHANTICLEER (looking at her, cries out):
Oh! The Cock Pheasant!
(With sudden violence): Swear, and swear to-night,
You'll not go near the glade!
PHEASANT (feeling that she has won): Give up the Light!
Love me the best!
CHANTICLEER (sadly): Oh!
PHEASANT: Promise, just to crow ...
CHANTICLEER: One single time? I've promised!
(One hears Toc-toc-toc) Come in!
WOODPECKER (appearing and pointing to the net with his long bill): You
should know
The farmer set that trap. He says he'll take
The Pheasant.
PHEASANT (gaily): Well, he won't. That's his mistake.
WOODPECKER: He means to keep you on the farm.
PHEASANT (indignantly): Alive?
(To CHANTICLEER, in a tone of reproach):
Your farm!
CHANTICLEER (seeing a Rabbit at the door of its burrow):
A Rabbit! Tête-a-têtes don't thrive!
RABBIT (calling to the PHEASANT and showing the snare):
You see, you put your foot upon this spring.
PHEASANT (in a superior tone):
I know traps, sonny. I do no such thing.
Besides, dogs are the only things I fear.
(To CHANTICLEER)
Your farm, which you regret!
CHANTICLEER (in a tone of injured innocence): Who? Me?
PHEASANT (to the Rabbit, tapping him with her wing to make him go back
to his hole): Just dogs, my dear.
And that reminds me, it is time I went
And crossed my trail to put them off the scent
CHANTICLEER:
To put them off the scent—good idea—go!
PHEASANT (starting off, comes back to CHANTICLEER):
You're homesick for your farm!
CHANTICLEER (indignantly): Me? Me?
(She goes out. He repeats, indignantly):
Who? Me? You know ...
(He follows her with his eyes. Then, whispering to the WOODPECKER):
Is she clean gone? You're sure she will not come ...
WOODPECKER (who can see far, from his hole at the top of the tree): No.
SCENE III
CHANTICLEER, the WOODPECKER
CHANTICLEER (eagerly):
I'm going to hear from all the folks at home.
WOODPECKER (with curiosity): Through whom?
CHANTICLEER: The Blackbird!
WOODPECKER: Why, I thought he hated ...
CHANTICLEER: Not that, exactly. He's so rattlepated
Everything goes, with him. He likes to teach me
The latest news.
WOODPECKER (stupefied): He's coming here?
CHANTICLEER (transformed since the PHEASANT has left; gay, airy, almost
roguish): Not he. But he can reach me
By telephone. The morning glory vine
About his cage has roots that intertwine
With this white bind-weed by the water, so
(He goes to the bind-weed)
We find the service pretty good.
(He plunges his beak into the trembling, milk-white chalice.)
Hello!
WOODPECKER (lifting his head ... to himself):
"Allos, another;" speaks to another; from the Greek.
CHANTICLEER: Hello! The Blackbird, please.
WOODPECKER (keeping watch): ... Unwise to speak
Into that very bind-weed in full sight.
CHANTICLEER (getting more cheerful every minute, coming back to the
WOODPECKER):
No other flower keeps open every night.
When Blackbird answers, as he will you'll see,
He wakes a bee that sleeps in this ...
THE BEE (in the bind-weed): Vrrrr!
CHANTICLEER: The bee!
(He runs alertly to the flower): We're connected ...
WOODPECKER (shocked by the neologism):
... By a bind-weed. Verbal tricks!
CHANTICLEER (listening in the chalice): Ah! ... this morning?
WOODPECKER (full of curiosity): What?
CHANTICLEER (in a voice suddenly trembling):
... Came off with thirty chicks?
(He listens again) Old Briffaut ill?
(As if something kept him from hearing)
Dog-on those Dragon Flies!
Ladies, please don't cut in!
(He listens) And big Jules tries
To hunt with Patou?
(To the WOODPECKER): If you knew Patou!
(He plunges his head into the bind-weed blossom again)
Huh? All goes ill without me? Is that true?
(Highly gratified) Waste, naturally ...
WOODPECKER (on the watch, calls in a low voice):
The Pheasant!
CHANTICLEER (deep in the flower cup): Ah?
WOODPECKER (desperately agitated): Oh, do ring off!
CHANTICLEER: ... Ducks roosted in the barrow, near the trough?
WOODPECKER: 'Sh!
SCENE IV
The Same; the PHEASANT
THE PHEASANT (as she comes in, making a threatening gesture at the
WOODPECKER): Go back!
(WOODPECKER retreats precipitately. PHEASANT listens to
CHANTICLEER.)
CHANTICLEER (in the bind-weed. More and more interested):
Go off! All? ... Yes ... No ... eh? Not steady? ...
WOODPECKER (who has timidly reappeared):
I hope an ant gets on his tongue!
CHANTICLEER (in the bind-weed): Already?
The Peacock out of fashion?
WOODPECKER (trying to warn him, behind the PHEASANT'S back): 'Sh!
PHEASANT (turning furiously): You!
(WOODPECKER retreats again, precipitately.)
CHANTICLEER (in the bind-weed): ... Rather
An old Cock, eh? ... The hens ...
(With increasing relief in the intonation)
Well, well! ... well, well!
(He ends with evident satisfaction): A father!
(As if in answer to a question)
Do I sing? ... Yes ... Not here ... Down by the pond.
PHEASANT: Huh?
CHANTICLEER (with a tinge of bitterness):
These golden birds won't let you go beyond
A little effort and a little cost.
I sing in secret, or the Dawn were lost.
PHEASANT (advancing threateningly, behind him): Oh!
CHANTICLEER (in the bind-weed):
When all her dazzling beauty ...
PHEASANT (checking herself): Ah!
CHANTICLEER: ... is asleep ...
Oh, but a thing to dream of! ...
PHEASANT (delighted): Ah!
CHANTICLEER: I creep
PHEASANT (enraged): Oh!
CHANTICLEER: Out in the dew, afar, and sing the number
Of songs I need to wake the Dawn from slumber.
When darkness yields and just one more is needed
I sing that near the Pheasant. It's succeeded
So far ... Eh, what? ... The dew? With one wing stroke
I've brushed it from my feet before she woke.
PHEASANT (behind him):
You brushed it off! You brushed the dew off!
CHANTICLEER (turning): Ay!
(In the bind-weed):
No ... nothing ... later ... yes ... ring off ... good-bye.
PHEASANT (violently): Not only are you trying once again
To get the news of some plain barnyard hen ...
CHANTICLEER (evasively): Oh!
PHEASANT: But even ...
CHANTICLEER: I ...
BEE (in the bind-weed): Vrrrrrrrrr!
CHANTICLEER (putting his wing over the blossom): I ...
BEE (in the bind-weed, buzzing against his wing): Vrrrrrrrrrrrr!
PHEASANT: Deception so complete
You thought of brushing off your dew-wet feet!
CHANTICLEER: But ...
PHEASANT: This country fellow from his straw heap taken
And honored with my love! ... To be forsaken!
CHANTICLEER (recovering himself):
To share a soul with Dawn! A better part
Than lonely reigning in an empty heart.
PHEASANT (unreconciled): I am forsaken, for Aurora's beam.
CHANTICLEER: All great love lives crowned by a greater Dream.
How can you doubt a nobler love must run
Into a heart wide open to the Sun?
PHEASANT: My burnished wing would sweep all save the present
Clean from your mind ...
CHANTICLEER: Who, then, are you?
(They are now face to face, defying each other)
PHEASANT: The Pheasant!
Who robbed the splendid male of all his gold!
CHANTICLEER. A woman still these splendid plumes enfold,—
A woman,—ever jealous of the Dream!
PHEASANT (crying madly):
Ah, fold me to your heart and hush!
CHANTICLEER (clasping her in a fierce embrace): I seem
Content in my Cock's heart!
(Then, with infinite regret) We've missed the goal!
You do not love the Awakener's sunlit soul.
PHEASANT: Deceived me for the Dawn! At any cost,
Deceive the Dawn for me!
CHANTICLEER: I? How?
PHEASANT (striking the ground, pettishly, with her foot, and
speaking in a spoilt tone): I want ...
CHANTICLEER (horrified): You've crossed ...
PHEASANT: You are not to sing for one whole day.
CHANTICLEER: I?
PHEASANT: I want you not to sing for one whole day!
CHANTICLEER: And I say, you've crossed
The bounds of reason. Shall a day be lost,—
To leave the shadows victor in the Valley?
PHEASANT: Oh, what harm could it do, if daylight dally?
CHANTICLEER: What lies too long, enshadowed and asleep,
Grows used to lies, and to Death's slumber deep.
PHEASANT: Don't sing for just one day.
(In a spiteful tone) ... Convince me, dear!
CHANTICLEER (trembling): I know what you want!
PHEASANT: And I know what you fear!
CHANTICLEER (ardently): I will sing always!
PHEASANT: And if you are wrong?
If dawn could come ...
CHANTICLEER (with fierce resolve):
I'll think it is my Song!
PHEASANT (with a shower of tears):
Could you forget it once, if I should cry?
CHANTICLEER: No.
PHEASANT: Could nothing make you miss the hour?
CHANTICLEER: Not I!
I feel the oppression of the dark too much.
PHEASANT: Oppressed, you say? If once put to the touch
You'll find you sing to make the world admire,
And not to bring the dawn. In vain aspire
(With scornful emphasis)
To charm the wood that knows the finches' song.
CHANTICLEER: You wish to hurt me, but you do me wrong.
PHEASANT: You wouldn't get the votes, in fifty ages,
Of six toadstools and twenty saxifrages.
The ardent orioles through the bushes thrill
Their "Pir-Piriol."
WOODPECKER (coming half out of his hole):
The Greek, "pur, puros."
CHANTICLEER: You, be still!
(The WOODPECKER disappears precipitately.)
PHEASANT (insistent): The Echo finds your efforts rather pale
When she has heard the heavenly Nightingale.
CHANTICLEER: You weary me.
(He walks away.)
PHEASANT (following him): You've heard him?
CHANTICLEER: Never.
PHEASANT: Well,
So lovely is his music,—Ah, I tell
But half the truth!—that always, they who hear
For the first time ...
(She stops, struck with an idea) Oh!
CHANTICLEER: Oh, what?
PHEASANT: Oh, nothing, dear!
(Aside) You feel the dark oppress you! ...
CHANTICLEER (coming back): What?
PHEASANT (with a little ironical curtsey): I said
Nothing ... except ... I think ... I'll go to bed.
(CHANTICLEER goes back to go to roost.)
THE PHEASANT (aside, alone):
He does not know that when the Nightingale
Sings in the sounding forest, all clocks fail.
The happy hours that vanish like a dream
Five blissful minutes to the listener seem,—
Enchanted hours of the old German story.
CHANTICLEER (seeing that she is not coming, comes back to her):
What are you saying, love?
PHEASANT (laughing in his face): An allegory!
A VOICE (without): Illustrious Cock!
CHANTICLEER (looking about him): Who calls?
PHEASANT (who has gone in the direction of the sound):
There ... by that stem ...
(She suddenly leaps back)
Gracious, they are ...
(Shuddering) They are ...
(She hides in the crotch of the tree, saying):
You talk to them!
SCENE V
CHANTICLEER; the PHEASANT hidden in the crotch of the tree; the TOADS
A BIG TOAD (hopping from the grass): We come
(One sees other Toads behind him.)
CHANTICLEER: Good Lord, how ugly!
THE BIG TOAD (obsequiously): I repeat
For all the thinking Woods we come, to greet
The author of the songs ...
CHANTICLEER (with disgust): Ugh! Paunch to paw!
THE BIG TOAD (giving a little hop toward him):
New!
ANOTHER TOAD (same play): Clear!
ANOTHER TOAD (same play): Brief!
ANOTHER TOAD (same play): Vital!
TWO TOADS (hopping, simultaneously): True to modern law!
CHANTICLEER: Be seated, sirs. Pardon, if my surprise ...
(They seat themselves around a big toadstool as around a table.)
THE BIG TOAD: True, we are ugly!
CHANTICLEER (politely): You have pretty eyes.
THE BIG TOAD (pulling himself up with two hands on the toadstool): But
Chevaliers of this Toad-Table Round,
We praise the Parsifal whom we have found
To give the world a song.
SECOND TOAD: True ...
BIG TOAD: Heavenly ...
THIRD TOAD: ... Of earth, I say ...
BIG TOAD (authoritatively):
That makes the Nightingale's a worn-out lay!
CHANTICLEER (aghast): The Nightingale's!
SECOND TOAD (in a tone of finality):
Is nothing, sir, to yours. It lacks your range.
CHANTICLEER (bewildered): Sirs ...
BIG TOAD (with a little jump): It's time another ...
SECOND TOAD (same play): Another ...
THIRD TOAD (same play): Another ...
FOURTH TOAD: Something strange ...
FIFTH TOAD (eagerly, to his neighbor):
Above all, something furnished by a stranger ...
THE BIG TOAD: Should change the fashion.
CHANTICLEER: I ... to be ... the changer?
ALL: Praise to the Cock!
CHANTICLEER (more and more surprised):
The Wood is not severe!
BIG TOAD: Down with the Nightingale!
CHANTICLEER (more and more bewildered): Down with? ...
SECOND TOAD: Let no Toad hear
His sing-song ...
BIG TOAD: Insignificant.
THIRD TOAD: And null.
FOURTH TOAD (scornfully): A moss-back!
FIFTH TOAD: And this foolish name Bulbul!
ALL (puffing with laughter, and hopping): Bul-bul!
BIG TOAD: He goes like this,
(Imitating) "Tio! Tio!"
SECOND TOAD: He lacks resource.
His song is just a fountain at its source.
(He, too, caricatures the NIGHTINGALE'S song) "Tio!"
CHANTICLEER: But ...
BIG TOAD (ardently):
Do not defend,—your own style is too strong,—
The impressionistic gargling of his song.
SECOND TOAD: This worn-out tenor offers every comer
His cavatina of St. Martin's summer.
THIRD TOAD: His "take thy lute,"—it's really too absurd.
CHANTICLEER (indulgently):
No doubt he does his best, this little bird.
BIG TOAD: He offends the taste of ever virtuoso.
CHANTICLEER: You want some kind of change, or I suppose so.
THIRD TOAD (in an unanswerable tone):
Your song unmasked his out-of-date creations.
ALL THE TOADS (explosively): Down with the Nightingale.
CHANTICLEER (whom by degrees they have surrounded):
Sirs—dear Batrachians,
My song, 'tis true, has natural notes. It springs
From ...
BIG TOAD: It gives us wings!
CHANTICLEER (modestly): Oh!
ALL (quivering as if about to fly): Wings!
BIG TOAD: You sing of Life ...
CHANTICLEER: Indeed ...
SECOND TOAD: ... As one who understood
All life.
CHANTICLEER (carried away):
'Tis true I have a crest of flesh and blood.
ALL THE TOADS (applauding with their little hands):
Bravo! Very good!
BIG TOAD: That motto is a programme.
SECOND TOAD: Since we've agreed upon a cryptogramme,
Shall we not give the chief ...
CHANTICLEER (defending himself): Kind sirs ...
SECOND TOAD: ... We've lacked so long
A banquet ...
ALL (beating the Toadstool): Banquet!
PHEASANT (putting her head out from her hiding place in the tree): What's
that?
CHANTICLEER (flattered in spite of himself):
A banquet to my Song.
PHEASANT (rather ironically): You will accept?
CHANTICLEER: What will you ... Tendencies ...
Art ... and the Thinking Forest ... all of these
(He indicates the TOADS)
I give them wings ... The Bulbul's out, you know ...
He goes
(To the TOADS): How does he goes?
ALL THE TOADS (grotesquely): "Tio! Tio! Tio! Tio!"
CHANTICLEER (to the PHEASANT, with indulgent pity):
He goes "Tio! Tio!"
I think I need not scruple, dear, and so ...
A VOICE (in the tree above him sounds a long, moving, limpid note): Tio!
(Silence.)
CHANTICLEER (trembling, lifting up his head): What is it?
BIG TOAD (hastily and embarrassed):
Nothing. The Nightingale.
THE VOICE (slowly, marvellously, with the sigh of a soul in every note):
Tio! Tio! Tio! ... Tio!
CHANTICLEER (turning to the TOADS): You Toads!
THE TOADS (jumping back): Huh?
SCENE VI
The Same. The NIGHINGALE, invisible; little by little, all the Animals in
the Woods
THE NIGHTINGALE (in the tree, in a sighing voice):
I feel, all little, lost in this black tree,
The mighty soul of evening stirs in me.
CHANTICLEER (marching to the TOADS): You dared?
THE TOADS (recoiling): But ...
NIGHTINGALE: Ravine enchanted by the pale moon's shine!
CHANTICLEER: ... Compare my rude song to that voice divine!
Venomous Toads! ... Fool, that I did not see
They planned to do to him, as those to me!
BIG TOAD (suddenly swelling up): Oh, well! ...
NIGHTINGALE: The vapors tremble like a veil.
THE BIG TOAD (vaingloriously):
Bedecked are we with pustules pale.
(And all now, puffing, press around CHANTICLEER and the tree.)
CHANTICLEER: I did not see, I, who have envied none,
The poisoned feast that almost was begun.
NIGHTINGALE:
What matter? Soon or late, though all toads planned,
We two,—the strong, the tender,—understand.
CHANTICLEER (religiously): Sing!
A TOAD ( hastening to the tree in which the NIGHTINGALE sings):
Let's daub the bark with slimy hands and feet
And slaver on the trunk!
CHANTICLEER (trying to stop a Toad as he hastens heavily to the tree):
Your voice is sweet,
They tell me. Why this jealousy and hate?
TOAD (in a tone of real suffering):
But when another sings, I suppurate!
(And he joins his brothers.)
BIG TOAD (frothing and mumbling):
There comes upon our tongues a scum-like lather.
(To his neighbor)
Toadspittle ...
THE OTHER: I gather.
ANOTHER: Toadspittle ...
ALL: We gather.
A TOAD (tenderly, putting his arm around the neck of one who hangs
back): Come slaver!
CHANTICLEER ( to the NIGHTINGALE): They will mar your song.
NIGHTINGALE (proudly): Ah, no. But rather
I'll take up their refrain in mine ...
BIG TOAD (caressing the head of a little one): Come slaver!
THE TOADS (all together at the foot of the tree which they
encircle in a crawling mass):
The warty toads, around we go.
NIGHTINGALE: And make thereof a Villanelle.
TOADS: In slimy skins, we slaver slow.
NIGHTINGALE: I sing, and no repose I know.
My drooping wings my longing tell.
TOADS: The warty toads, around we go.
(And the Villanelle continues, made by the
alternating voices, one weaving a song ever
higher, and more deliriously sweet; the
others, with the refrain, ever more envious, hoarser and lower.)
THE NIGHTINGALE and THE TOADS:
I sing. Blue clear the heavens grow
And in the soul of evening dwell. ...
—In slimy skins we slaver slow.
All lovely words that throb and glow
And dusk-sweet breath of pimpernel ...
—The warty toads around we go.
Young love that dreams not of love's woe,
These weight my heart, and from it well ...
—In slimy skins we slaver slow.
Raptures, despairs of long ago,
Held by some dread enchantment's spell.
—The warty toads aroundwe go.
All sobs from my soft bosom flow,
There Lost Hope has her citadel.
—In slimy skins we slaver slow.
My deathless songs as blossoms, blow,—
The wind flower, and the asphodel.
—The warty toads around we go.
CHANTICLEER (rapt into the rhythm):
Near these delicious pipes, my crow
Would jangle like a broken bell.
Sing! They retreat!
TOADS (who are really retreating,
dispersed by the victorious song): ... we slaver slow.)
CHANTICLEER: They go, in witches' pots to throw
Dark potions, evil fates to tell,
Black magic, as ...
TOADS (already in the underbrush): ... around we go.
CHANTICLEER: But thou! The beasts, or friend or foe,
Troop down to drink thy villanelle.
Oh, see! They come, enchanted ...
TOADS (losing themselves in the weeds): —slow
CHANTICLEER: On dainty hoofs, a trembling doe
Comes, as her longing doth impell,
Albeit a wolf behind doth
TOADS (altogether vanishing): —go.
CHANTICLEER: The squirrels join our group below;
The wild hare hastens from the dell
The woods learn brotherhood, Ah! ...
(Vague note, very far away): —slow.
CHANTICLEER: No toad remains on earth, I know!
(The song reigns. It is now
only a romance without words, a shower of ecstatic notes.)
CHANTICLEER: The glow-worms now their little lamps hang out.
Goodness comes forth, and hate is put to rout.
Hunters and hunted in a circle wait,
Harmless and happy as in earth's first state.
The evening star seems suddenly less far.
The spider, looking up to where you are,
Throws, far her silver thread ... begins to climb ...
ALL THE FOREST (in a long sigh of ecstasy): Ah!
(And it is like an
Enchanted Forest; the
moonlight is softer;
the little green
fires of the
glow-worm
twinkle
in the
moss,
and
from all sides, around the trees slip the shadows of the charmed beasts, muzzle
s lifted, eyes shining. And the WOODPECKER, his bark door opened, bows his
beak reverently. And all the RABBITS, their long ears lifted, stand at
their clay thresholds.)
CHANTICLEER: What does he sing, using no word or rhyme, Squirrel?
SQUIRREL (from his height): He sings of leaps!
CHANTICLEER: What say you, Hare?
THE HARE (in the copse): Of fears!
CHANTICLEER: You, Rabbits?
ONE OF THE RABBITS: Of the Dew.
CHANTICLEER: You, Fawn?
THE FAWN (in the depths of the woods): Of tears.
CHANTICLEER: You, Wolf?
THE WOLF (with a gentle, far-off howl): The Moon!
CHANTICLEER: Tree of the golden wound,
O singing Pine?
THE PINE (one of whose branches vaguely beats time):
My wounds shall yet resound
Beneath the resined bow in harmonies.
CHANTICLEER: Woodpecker, you?
THE WOODPECKER (ecstatically); Of Aristophanes ...
CHANTICLEER (hurriedly, interrupting him):
I know ... You, Spider?
THE SPIDER (swaying at the end of her thread):
Oh, in every lovely strain
There shines my web embroidered by the rain.
CHANTICLEER: You, Raindrop-in-the-web?
A LITTLE VOICE (coming from the web): I see afar
The glow-worm.
CHANTICLEER: You, Glow-worm?
A LITTLE VOICE (in the grass): Oh, the star!
CHANTICLEER: You whose pale beams our little forest cover,
If I may speak to you ...
A VOICE (from the sky): Of earth's first Lover.
CHANTICLEER: What is this spring ...
PHEASANT (scanning the horizon through the trees):
'Twas not so pale at first.
CHANTICLEER: Where each one finds the water for his thirst? (Listening more
devoutly)
He tells me of the Day my song must bring.
PHEASANT: (aside): And tells so well that you forgot to sing.
CHANTICLEER: Woodcock, what living water have you drawn?
WOODCOCK: I don't know, but it's lovely.
PHEASANT (who, for her part, has not failed for a moment to watch the
horizon): Nearly gone!
CHANTICLEER (to the NIGHTINGALE, in a discouraged voice):
Oh, sing! But, knowing crystal, shall I trust
My copper trumpet?
NIGHTINGALE: Chanticleer, you must.
CHANTICLEER: How can I sing? My song will seem to me
Too crimson and too brutal.
NIGHTINGALE: Mine, maybe,
Seems sometimes far too facile and too blue.
CHANTICLEER: How have I won this graciousness from you?
NIGHTINGALE: You fought a battle for my love, the Rose.
Know then this brave, sad thing each toiler knows,
That never Cock of Dawn or Nightingale
Sings all he dreams. If we succeed, we fail.
CHANTICLEER (with passionate desire): To be a lullaby!
NIGHTINGALE: To be a Cry!
CHANTICLEER: I make none weep!
NIGHTINGALE: And I arouse none, I! ...
(But after this breath of regret he takes up again his song,
with a voice always higher, sweeter, purer.)
What does it matter! Sing, Ah sing! though knowing
That nobler songs from other lips are flowing!
Sing! Sing! until ...
(A detonation. A flash from the thicket. Brief silence.)
Then a little dingy body falls at CHANTICLEER'S feet.)
CHANTICLEER (leans over, looks):
The Nightingale ... is killed.
(And without seeing the pale tremor that begins to stir in the air, he c
ries with a sob)
Dead! When his song had not five minutes thrilled!
(One or two feathers softly fall.)
PHEASANT: His feathers!
CHANTICLEER (as the little body moves convulsively for the last time):
Die, then, little André Chenier.
(Rustling of dry leaves, and from a thicket emerges PATOU'S
shaggy head.)
SCENE VII
The Same. For a short time, PATOU
CHANTICLEER (to PATOU): You!
(With bitter reproach) You come to hunt him.
PATOU (ashamed): Big Jules' poaching mania
Makes me ...
CHANTICLEER (who has sprung in front of the body to shield it, now steps asid
e, disclosing it): A Nightingale!
PATOU (hanging his head): Yes, men are strong
And they send bullets where they hear a song.
CHANTICLEER: The beetle-sexton come. Oh, see, Patou!
PATOU (steps back, softly):
Big Jules shall never know his shot went true.
PHEASANT (always looking toward the East):
He does not see the night depart!
CHANTICLEER (leaning toward the grass, which moves softly about the little
body): Work well,
And let the body sleep just where it fell.
You Beetles know the truth men hold so cheap,
That we sleep best, where we have fallen asleep.
The happiest sleep is theirs, the holiest tomb,
Who rest unmoved where Death has built their home.
(To the BEETLES, as the NIGHTINGALE'S body is softly
lowered): Cover him ...
PHEASANT (aside, looking to the East): Over there ...
CHANTICLEER: Yet he shall rise,
And see, this night, the Bird of Paradise.
PHEASANT (aside): The horizon pales!
(A whistle is heard in the distance.)
PATOU (to CHANTICLEER): I'll come back. Jules is calling.
PHEASANT (looking now at CHANTICLEER, now at the East,
uneasily): Ah, how to keep from him what is befalling?
(She goes tenderly to CHANTICLEER, her wings open to hide from him t
he direction whence a suggestion of light is coming, and, profiting by his
grief):
Come, weep beneath my wing!
(With a sob, he puts his head under the wing of his comforter,
which quickly enfolds him.)
THE PHEASANT (lulls him, murmuring): My wing is soft.
CHANTICLEER (huskily): Yes.
PHEASANT (lulling him and looking behind her from time to time,
turning her head quickly, watching the dawning light.)
(Aside) Dawn is near.
(To CHANTICLEER) You see ...
(Aside) ... I see aloft
(To CHANTICLEER) My wing ...
(Aside) Crimson upon the trees.
(To CHANTICLEER)
A shield, a cradle, and a cloak, all these,
A kiss, that lies like thistle-down about you.
You see ...
(She bounds aside, folding her wings)
You see that Dawn can come without you!
CHANTICLEER (with the uttermost cry of agony that voice can utter): Ah!
PHEASANT (implacably): The moss will soon be crimson.
CHANTICLEER (running to the Mosses): No! Oh, wait!
Not without me! Not without me!
(The Mosses grow pink) Ingrate!
PHEASANT: The horizon ...
CHANTICLEER (imploringly to the horizon): No!
PHEASANT: Grows golden.
(Truly, all the East is gold.)
CHANTICLEER (reeling): Treachery!
PHEASANT: You're nothing to the Dawn,—the world to me!
CHANTICLEER (feebly): It's true ...
PATOU (returning happy and cordial):
I've come to take you home, my lad;
Everyone wants you,—why the Farm's gone mad
Wanting the Cock their daylight to restore.
CHANTICLEER: So they believe, since I believe no more!
PATOU (stopping, dismayed): What?
PHEASANT (leaning eagerly against CHANTICLEER):
Better a heart pressed closer against your heart
Than the High Heaven that does its work apart!
CHANTICLEER: Yes.
PHEASANT: Nor need we care that shadows lie below
If heart to heart as one ...
CHANTICLEER (half-heartedly): Y-yes ...
(Suddenly he springs away from her, stands at his full
height and cries with a loud voice): Cocorico!
PHEASANT (dismayed): Why do you crow?
CHANTICLEER: That I may be reproved
Who have three times denied the thing I loved.
PHEASANT: What now?
CHANTICLEER: My task.
(To PATOU): The trail! It's all I ask.
Lead on!
PHEASANT: What are you going to do?
CHANTICLEER: My task!
PHEASANT (furiously): What night remains?
CHANTICLEER: Closed eyes let no day through.
PHEASANT (showing him the increasing glory of the East):
Go, wake the sleepers!
CHANTICLEER: And St. Peter, too!
PHEASANT: This day, without your song, has come to be!
CHANTICLEER: My task is surer than the day I see!
PHEASANT (pointing to the NIGHTINGALE'S body already
half lost to sight):
Your faith can no more rise than that dead bird.
A VOICE (in the tree above their head, suddenly gives
forth a note, limpid, moving, exquisite): Tio! Tio!
THE PHEASANT (amazed): Another song?
PATOU (his ears pricked up): Better than that we heard
Before.
PHEASANT (terrified, looking first into the tree,
then at the half-made grave): Still other songs,
although the first one fail?
THE VOICE: There must be, in the Woods, a Nightingale.
CHANTICLEER (with exultation) :
And in the soul, so fixed and sure a faith
That it will rise, triumphant, over death.
PHEASANT: But if the sun rise?
CHANTICLEER: Then it comes I say
For fragments of my song of yesterday.
(At this moment damp gray clouds pass above the trees.)
THE OWLS (whooting with joy): He's silent!
PATOU (lifting his head and following them with his eyes):
... Owls, that hid beneath the roof
And in the belfry, come ...
OWLS (regaining their holes in the old trees): He's still! He's still!
CHANTICLEER: Here's proof
That I have served the lovely Light of Day.
When I am silent, all the Owls are gay.
(Marching up to the PHEASANT, with a sort of challenge)
I make Aurora come,—nor is that all.
PHEASANT (chokingly): You make ... ?
CHANTICLEER: On those gray mornings when no sunbeams fall
Upon the flock that thinks itself undone,
The copper of my song reflects the sun.
(And he stands boldly)
Come! Let me sing!
PHEASANT: What power has he to aid
Who doubts his task?
CHANTICLEER: why,—one just plies his trade.
PHEASANT (with obstinate anger):
But if without you, still the great orb runs?
CHANTICLEER: Then I am Cock of yet more distant Suns.
My cry the veil of Night so rends and mars,
It makes those peeps of day we call the stars.
I shall not see lighten on all the towers
Those massed stars, turning Night to golden showers,
But if I sing, sonorous, clear, exact,
And if still other Cocks repeat the act,
Sonorous, true, on every farm, I say
That there will be no Night.
PHEASANT: Ah, when?
CHANTICLEER: Some Day.
PHEASANT: Go, then! Forget our Forest!
CHANTICLEER: Surely not!
Can I forget the noble, verdant spot,
That taught me this: who loses the Great Dream
Must die, or rise and conquer in its beam!
PHEASANT (in a voice she tries to make insulting):
Go, mount your ladder with those barnyard things.
CHANTICLEER: The birds have taught me how to mount with wings!
PHEASANT: Go home, to see the Old Hen in the Basket.
CHANTICLEER: Forest, what will she say,—I humbly ask it,—
Forest of Toads and Poachers,—things unpleasant,—
Forest of Nightingale,—and of the Pheasant!
What will she say to me, since I have known
Your joys, your pains?
PATOU (imitating the loving old voice): "He has grown."
CHANTICLEER (earnestly): Yes, I have grown.
(He starts off.)
PHEASANT: He's gone! To keep them, spite of all Fate brings,
We need arms! arms! And we have only wings!
CHANTICLEER (stopping, troubled): She's crying?
PATOU (hurriedly): Come along!
CHANTICLEER: Not yet!
PATOU: All right.
It takes an old dog to endure that sight!
PHEASANT (bounding toward CHANTICLEER, crying):
Take me!
CHANTICLEER (turning; in an inflexible voice):
Will you come next the Dawn?
PHEASANT (recoiling fiercely): Never!
CHANTICLEER: Good-bye!
PHEASANT: I hate you!
CHANTICLEER (already starting homeward through
the under-brush): I adore you. Therefore I
But ill could serve the Great Cause I adore
Near one who values any creature more!
(He disappears.)
SCENE VIII
The PHEASANT, PATOU; later, the
WOODPECKER, the RABBITS and the Voices of the Waking Forest
PATOU: Cry, then!
SPIDER (in her web, which has caught a ray of sunshine):
Morning, take warning!
PHEASANT (furiously, breaking the web with her wing):
Spider, be still!
He flouted me! I wish some fate would kill ...
WOODPECKER (who from his window has watched CHANTICLEER'S departure,
suddenly in a tone of alarm):
The Poacher sees him.
OWLS (in the trees): The Cock had better run!
A YOUNG RABBIT (standing on tiptoe to see what the Poacher is doing):
He's broke his gun in two!
AN OLD RABBIT: To load it, son!
PATOU (terrified): Will that begaitered, yellow-legginged peasant
Shoot at a Cock?
PHEASANT (opening her wings): Not if he sees a Pheasant!
PATOU (throwing himself in front of her):
What are you going to do?
PHEASANT: My task!
(She flies toward the danger.)
WOODPECKER (seeing that as she rises she will touch the spring of the
forgotten snare): The trap! Beware!
(Too late. The spring flies.)
PHEASANT (with a cry of despair): Ah!
PATOU: She is taken!
PHEASANT (struggling in the meshes): He is lost!
PATOU (wildly): She here ... he there
(All the Rabbits stick their heads out to see what is happening.)
PHEASANT (crying aloud in an ardent prayer):
O Dawn protect him!
THE OWLS (hopping for joy on their perches):
See the barrel shine!
PHEASANT: Touch with thy dew-wet wing,—for he is thine,
O Dawn,—the cartridge! Trip him in his path!
He hunts thy Cock! Ah, strike him in Thy wrath!
Speak, Nightingale! The cruel are his foes!
NIGHTINGALE (with a supplicating sob):
He fought a battle for my love, the Rose!
PHEASANT (solemnly):
Oh, let him live! And I will find my share
Of all the world within his barnyard there!
O Sun, my Cock your banner has unfurled
That makes his shadow ... that makes all my world!
The day grows brighter. Sounds from all sides.)
WOODFECKER (singing): The sky is blue!
A ROOK (flying by, cawing): The daylight grows!
PHEASANT: Day wakes to give him warning! ...
ALL THE BIRDS (waking in all the trees):
Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!
PHEASANT: They can sing!
A JAY (passing, like a blue falme): Ha-ha!
WOODPECKER (nodding gravely): That is Homeric laughter.
PHEASANT (crying in the midst of the waking world):
Oh, let him live!
THE JAY (repassing): Ha-ha!
A CUCKOO (far away): Cuckoo!
PHEASANT: I yield! Forever after!
PATOU (lifting his head to the sky): Forever after!
PHEASANT: Light, whom I dared dispute, O please forgive!
Shine in the hunter's eyes, and let him live!
And thine, O Morning Glow, the praise shall be
If thy gold powder ...
(A detonation. She utters a sharp cry)
Ah!
(And then finishes in a scarcely audible voice)
... win the victory!
(Silence.)
CHANTICLEER'S VOICE (from a great distance): Cocorico!
CRY OF ALL THE FOREST: Saved!
RABBITS (gaily, coming out of their holes):
Let's turn a hand-spring in the thyme out there!
A VOICE (fresh and solemn, in the trees): O God of Birds!
RABBITTS (ceasing their antics, and suddenly still and solemn):
It is the morning prayer.
WOODPECKER (calling to the PHEASANT):
They're coming for the net.
PHEASANT (closing her eyes): So be it, then.
THE VOICE (in the trees): God, Whose we are ...
PATOU: Hush! Lower the curtain! Men!
(He goes out. All the animals hide. And in the net, wings spread wide, t
hroat quivering, pressed close to earth, feeling the approach of the giant,
she waits.)
(The curtain falls)
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