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Read Ebook: The Piper: A Play in Four Acts by Peabody Josephine Preston
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Ebook has 404 lines and 11582 words, and 9 pages
BARBARA No; no! Ah, father, bid them stay awhile And play it all again.--Or, if not all, Do let us see that same good youth again, Who swallowed swords--between the Ark Preserved And the Last Judgment!
REYNARD Michael-the-Sword-Eater, Laurels for thee!
KURT Silence!
JACOBUS Good people--you have had your shows; And it is meet, that having held due feast, Both with our market and this Miracle, We bring our holiday to close with prayer And public thanks unto Saint Willibald,-- Upon whose day the rats departed thence.
REYNARD Saint Willibald!
BEAR --Saint Willibald!
OTHER ANIMALS to drink from the fountain at the foot of the Shrine.--MICHAEL, like one in a dream, comes down towards BARBARA, who gazes back at him, fascinated, through her laughter.
BARBARA Is it for pay you loiter, Master Player? Were you not paid enough?
MICHAEL No.--One more look.
BARBARA Here, then.--Still not enough?
MICHAEL
No! One more smile.
BARBARA Why would you have me smile?
MICHAEL Oh, when you smiled, It was--it was like sunlight coming through Some window there, --some vision of Our Lady. A man--that passes for a mountebank.
BARBARA I knew!
MICHAEL What then?
BARBARA Thou art of noble birth. 'T is some disguise, this playing with the fire!
MICHAEL Yes.--For to-day, I lord it with the fire. But it hath burned me, here. Farewell to you, my Lady, in-the-Moon. Is this your Boy?
VERONIKA Ay, he is mine; My only one. He loved thy piping so.
PIPER And I loved his.
HANS' WIFE Poor little boy! He's lame!
PIPER 'T is all of us are lame! But he, he flies.
VERONIKA Jan, stay here if you will, and hear the pipe, At Church-time.
PIPER Wilt thou?
JAN Mother lets me stay Here with the Lonely Man.
PIPER The Lonely Man? To see Him smile.
Then run along. And ask the Piper if he'll play again The tune that charmed the rats.
ANOTHER They might come back!
OLD URSULA Piper! I want the tune that charmed the rats! If they come back, I'll have my grandson play it.
PIPER I pipe but for the children.
ILSE Oh, do pipe Something for Fridolin!
HANSEL Oh, pipe at me! Now I'm a mouse! I'll eat you up! Rr--rr!--
CHILDREN Oh, pipe! Oh, play! Oh, play and make us dance! Oh, play, and make us run away from school!
PIPER Why, what are these?
CHILDREN We're mice, we're mice, we're mice! . . . We're mice, we're mice! We'll eat up everything!
MARTIN'S WIFE 'T is church-time. La, what will the neighbors say?
ILSE Oh, please do play something for Fridolin!
AXEL'S WIFE Do hear the child. She's quite the little mother!
PIPER A little mother? Ugh! How horrible. That fairy thing, that princess,--no, that Child! A little mother? Drop the ugly thing!
MARTIN'S WIFE Now, on my word! and what's amiss with mothers? Are mothers horrible?
PIPER No, no. But--care And want and pain and age. . . And penny-wealth,-- And penny-counting.--Penny prides and fears-- Of what the neighbors say the neighbors say!--
MARTIN'S WIFE And were you born without a mother, then?
ALL Yes, you there! Ah, I told you! He's no man. He's of the devil.
MARTIN'S WIFE Who was your mother, then?
PIPER Mine!--Nay, I do not know. For when I saw her, She was a thing so trodden, lost and sad, I cannot think that she was ever young, Save in the cherishing voice.--She was a stroller; My father was a stroller.--So, you have it! And since she clave to him, and hunger too, The Church's ban was on her.--Either live, Mewed up forever,--she! to be a nun; Or keep her life-long wandering with the wind; The very name of wife stript from her troth. That was my mother.--And she starved and sang; And like the wind, she roved and lurked and shuddered Outside your lighted windows, and fled by, Storm-hunted, trying to outstrip the snow, South, south, and homeless as a broken bird,-- Limping and hiding!--And she fled, and laughed, And kept me warm; and died! To you, a Nothing; Nothing, forever, oh, you well-housed mothers! As always, always for the lighted windows Of all the world, the Dark outside is nothing; And all that limps and hides there in the dark; Famishing,--broken,--lost! And I have sworn For her sake and for all, that I will have Some justice, all so late, for wretched men, Out of these same smug towns that drive us forth After the show!--Or scheme to cage us up Out of the sunlight; like a squirrel's heart Torn out and drying in the market-place. My mother! Do you know what mothers are?-- Your children! Do you know them? Ah, not you! There's not one here but it would follow me, For all your bleating!
AXEL'S WIFE Kuno, come away!
H'm! My good man, we have faithfully debated Whether your vision of so great a sum Might be fulfilled,--as by some miracle. But no. The moneys we administer Will not allow it; nor the common weal. Therefore, for your late service, here you have Full fifteen guilders, and a pretty sum Indeed, for piping!
KURT Take them!
JACOBUS Either that, Or, to speak truly, nothing! Come, come. Nay, count them, if you will.
KURT Time goes!
PIPER Ay. And your oath?
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