© 2013 David Secunda
ACT I……….. June 1816, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin’s Chalet, Lake Geneva Switzerland
ACT ll…………September 1821, Walkway beside the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy
ACT lll…………July 1822, Beach, Lerici, Italy
Characters
Lord Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) At age ten Lord Byron inherited his title from an uncle. Lord Byron was a leading figure of the Romantic era of poetry and a notorious womanizer. He fathered one legitimate child and many illegitimate children. Although Lord Byron had a loose belief in the tenets of Christianity, his experience of spirituality instinctive. His works, recited in the play include excerpts from the epic poems, “Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage” and “Don Juan”, as well as the shorter poem, “She Walks in Beauty.” He affected a normal walk to overcome a limp caused by his malformed foot.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) A leading Romantic era poet and lover and husband of Mary Shelley. Percy Shelley was fascinated by natural science. He kept a scientific laboratory in his room at Oxford. However, Shelley subordinated science to imagination and moral reasoning. He was eventually expelled from Oxford for his pamphlet, “The Necessity of Atheism”. The process of translating Spinoza from German inspired Shelley’s Idealism and his belief that nature is imbued with spirit. His poems recited in the play are excerpts from “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, “Queen Mab”, “Time”, and “Alastor or the Spirit of Solitude”.
Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) Mary Godwin in Act I and Mary Shelley in Acts ll & lll. The daughter of Mary Woolstonecraft (an early feminist writer of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) and radical anarchist, William Godwin — Mary Shelley was the lover and muse of Percy Shelley. She transferred the intense intellectual and philosophical milieu of her childhood to her relationship with Percy Shelley. An accomplished novelist, she wrote “Frankenstein”, the first work of science fiction in all of literature at age nineteen. The inspiration for “Frankenstein” came after a reading of Coleridge’s “Christobel” with Shelley, Byron, Clairemont, and Polidori. She gave birth to several children, but only one, Percy Florence, survived into adulthood.
Claire Clairmont (27 April 1798 – 19 March 1879), was the step-sister of Mary Shelley. Claire’s mother married William Godwin when Claire was three years old. She was brought up with Mary and was also influenced by the intellectual setting of the household. Educated in the classics, Shakespeare and several languages, as an 18 year old she pursued Lord Byron at the Drury Lane Theatre and remained obsessed with him her entire life.
John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) graduated at age 19 from the University of Edinburgh Medical School where he wrote a thesis on somnambulism. He was employed by Lord Byron as his personal physician on his tour across Europe and during his time with Lord Byron and the Shelleys in Lake Geneva. In August 1821 he committed suicide by poisoning.
Elise Foggi (1792 – ?) Young woman engaged to be the nursemaid of William Shelley—Percy and Mary’s son—and later hired by Lord Byron to care for Allegra, Lord Byron and Claire’s daughter.
Margarita Cogni (1801 – ?) One of Lord Byron’s Italian lovers. This tall dark athletic beauty with a volatile temper, attracted Byron with her peasant spontaneity and primal emotions. Margarita, illiterate when Byron meets her, eventually learns to read.
Three Female Masqueraders may be doubled by actors playing Mary, Claire and Elise.
Murky Figure reminiscent of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (May be doubled and may be a masked character.)
Author’s Note
This fictionalized account of several actual events in the lives of these literary figures has been inspired by journals, letters, and biographies of some of the characters. To expedite the staging of the play, many of the events of the play, which took place over a period of weeks or days, have been condensed into minutes. To maintain the ensemble nature of the play, historical people, who may have briefly appeared in the course of the actual events, have been omitted. For those people portrayed in the following scenes poetry was a way of life. They sported poetry.
This play is set under the shadow of the French Revolution when social norms and mores were in flux. Creative people and political radicals teetered between pre-revolutionary customs and the new lifestyles they imagined. These characters’ poetry—its inspiration from their lives and its application to their lives—reflects the pull between the old and the new.
Throughout the play the characters recite poetry. The shading of the actor’s voice of recitation poses a unique challenge. At times the characters recite verse in social situations with a specific intent: to tease, to seduce, to mock, to provoke, to restrain, to calm. Other times poetry is recited as an element of a dream. And finally, poetry is recited in “formal” readings which transform into dreams.
ACT I — June 1816, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin’s Chalet, Lake Geneva, Switzerland
Scene 1
Sound of waves and wind. Musician playing in the distance. Evening. Minimal set. Lights up on Mary walking towards the window in the sparsely furnished drawing room—a writing table, a vase on the table, some unmatched chairs, a small table, “oil lamps” appear to light the dimly lit room. The bottom section of a staircase, stage right, leads to the upstairs of the house. On stage left of the room is a window. This down stage left window looks outside over Lake Geneva. Just up stage of the window is an exit to a cloak room or entranceway leading to unseen door to the outside. Elise, standing halfway up a ladder, is just finishing hanging one curtain of the two that will frame the window. The window shutters are open. A second curtain is folded on the windowsill. Nearby is a clothing basket with a shawl and a few other items. Short flashes of lightning. Mary stops near the window and looks out into the distance.
Elise: Dr. Polidori climbed to the ridge to look for their sail. He carried a lantern so he for certain will guide them to shore. No need to vex yourself. (Lightning, Thunder. Elise grips the ladder.) My Lord! Miss Godwin, this would be a rare summer night — Lake Geneva behaving more like an ocean than a lake. (Elise comes down the ladder speaking. Sound of wind surge.) Lord Byron seems a natural sailor though, and with Mr. Shelley no doubt, the two of them — I dare say though, the winds too have been most strange tonight. Look at those clouds wrapping around each other like two serpents wrestling. Never seen nothing like it. You’re shivering, Miss. (Reaches in the basket for the shawl.) Take this shawl. There you are. I must say, in the fortnight since your arrival, you and Mr. Shelley have been most kind to me. Not like some. Not like some. I’ve seen some odd ones. (Pause. They listen to the wind.) I dare say, Lord Byron is an unusual man. A striking figure. A rare beauty he is. I can’t help but see that for myself. No sin in looking. I can see by your eye you might’ve peeked yourself. You have, haven’t you. I’ll have you smiling, yet. You’re a dear and a beauty yourself, Miss Godwin. There’s a smile now. A smile for the ages. For certain, Miss Godwin, a beautiful man he is. A better swimmer than a walker, though. Tries to hide his limp. He swims out into the cold lake so far, you’d never notice him. But Mr. Shelley don’t take much to swim—
Mary: (Interrupting) Elise, thank you for the shawl. I see Doctor Polidori’s light. He’s coming down.
Elise: He is coming down. A good sign, Miss. A very could sign. The Doctor must’ve seen something. Look. Those clouds are changing. The low cloud there reaches down to the lake like a monster about to gobble—
Mary: Please. Look in on William. He had been coughing earlier. It has been a while since you fed him.
Elise: Yes, Miss Godwin. And I dare say, he can feed a leviathan’s fill. Slurping it up like that, he’ll be walking in a season or two and then, I dare say, a season or two after that he’ll be talking our ears off. The little sprite has the poets’ blood— I’ll see to him. (Taking the basket Elise exits. Music slowly fades.)
Lord Byron: (off stage) Electricity. Wrought from a juxtaposition of metals?
Shelley: (offstage) Then, current was transmitted through a metal wire to a zinc key implanted under the dead frog’s skin. Almost immediately the dead frog was re-animated. Electricity, the vital force of nature—
Lord Byron: (Entering with Shelley. They’ve been drinking.) Aldini re-animated the severed head from an executed prisoner—
Shelley: Mary. I am delighted to find you awake. (Taking Mary’s hand.)
Mary: Oh Percy. I am most relieved. Lord Byron, it is my pleasure to welcome you again.
Byron: The pleasure is mine to be welcomed by the queen of all Muses.
Mary: (To Shelley.) I waited for you by the window. You surprised me. I didn’t see you come up through the gate.
Shelley: We climbed the steep path around the side of the house. The wind pushed us on shore some ways down.
Mary: (To Byron.) I am grateful you’ve returned Percy safely to me.
(Shelley walks to table and pours wine for Byron and himself.)
Byron: The thanks you bestow on me are due to you. The radiance of your eyes guided us above the lusty waves. (Reciting Coleridge. Bowing to Mary)
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,
That slid into my soul.
Mary: (Curtsies, coy) Am I a queen worthy of your recital? The “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. It was my favourite, but now I most esteem poems authored by my present company. Lord Byron, I am interrupting. Please continue.
Byron: (Flirting with Mary) Yes, I shall continue.
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.
Shelley: (Handing Byron the wine.) You jumped a quatrain.
Byron: Coleridge inked too many. (Byron drinks some wine.)
Mary: Percy, is it fitting to correct such a revered poet, (Mary escapes Byron’s flirting by moving to Percy but looks to Byron.) even though My Lord may have been eluded by a most slippery quatrain.
(Byron places wine on table.)
Byron: (continuing performance) And soon I heard a roaring wind:
(He moves to the windows)
It did not come anear; But with its sound it shook the sails,
(Byron takes the curtain from the window sill unfurls and shakes the curtain. Sound of baby crying.)
That were so thin and sere. (Mary taken away by the crying exits.)
Shelley & Byron: The upper air burst into life!
(Byron goes a few steps up the ladder animating his sails/curtains and with Shelley mimes a ship and storm.)
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.
(Polidoro enters, carrying telescope and light, and is taken aback by their mime.)
Polidori: My lord, from the rise above the house —
Shelley & Byron: (Still holding and waving curtains like a sail.)
And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud; (Crying subsides.)
The moon was at its edge.
(Polidori places the light on the table. Byron twists the curtains and animates them like a snake.)
Shelley: Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
(From the floor Byron light-heartedly attacks Polidoro with the “snake”.)
And when they reared —
Mary: (Entering as she speaks, addressing Shelley.) What a mad roaring is this!
(Pause. Elise enters holding the baby at the foot of the stairs.)
Byron: To Mary Queen the praise be given!
Mary: (Polite.) Percy, you’ve disturbed the baby.
Shelley: Mary, dear, Lord Byron is our guest. (Walking to William.) William will soon sleep. He is content. (WhileWilliam is held by Elise, Shelley kisses William and attends to him while Byron speaks and recites.)
Byron: Queen Mary, on high from Mount Blanc in the shadow of Olympus, she reigns over her humble subjects. Sup now my queen, on my verses. (Reciting to Mary.)
While boyish blood is mantling, who can ‘scape
The fascination of thy magic gaze?
A cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape,
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.
When Paphos fell by Time–accursed Time! —
Polidori: (Ineffectively trying to join the performance.) And I, a comrade in rhyme, a witness to this time.
Byron: (Mockingly attacks Polidori). “This time”… rhymes with “rhyme”. A counterfeit poet! Who would rhyme “time” with “slime” but never “clime”.
(Reciting.) “When Paphos fell by Time–accursed Time!”
(To Mary) “The Queen who conquers all must yield (To Shelley) to thee” —
Mary: Your queen yields to —
Byron: “The Pleasures fed, but sought”…
(Claire enters from upstairs in nightgown and partially open robe [the robe, possibly a cast off from a Duchess]. Claire stops on bottom step. Pause. Byron sees Claire and speaks to her the final line lasciviously, kneeling at the foot of the stairs.)
Byron:”…The Pleasures fed, but sought as warm a clime” .
Claire: (Correcting him.) “The pleasures fled”, my Lord. You said “fed”. ( Pause)
Byron: (Stands. Still playing.) Miss Claire Clairmont to the rescue. The wicked step-sister corrects my verses. My verses! “The pleasure fled”. Yes. That is so. (Personifying himself as pleasure.) The pleasure fled. (Flees from Claire and back to Polidori binding him in the curtains.) Bind his arms! Feed the counterfeit poet to the lions! (Elise exits with William.)
Claire: (Joins the “performance”.) My merciful Lord, take pity on his soul. Find room in your heart for us mortals. Bind my arms instead. Take me.
Byron: I would… I already have!… (For Byron the game ends.) But I have more of my verses for you to copy. I prefer your penmanship with unbound arms.
(Polidori unravels himself.)
Claire: (Still playful.) With pleasure I shall comply with my Lord’s bidding. (Pause. Realizing Byron’s game is finished.)“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”? Gladly, I’ll render a fair copy. More from the Third Canto?
(Polidori unsuccessfully folds the curtains.)
Byron: Yes. The Third Canto, still. Thank you. Miss Clairmont.
Claire: (Reciting. Glad to copy the Cantos, trying to impress Byron and demonstrate friendship.)
Of him who hailed thee, loveliest as thou wast,
Such is the most my memory may desire;
Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require?
Byron: (Presenting himself as the desired memory.) “The most your memory may desire.” I authored this verse, Miss Clairmont, and cannot recite it so accurately. Perhaps with less wine I could better even your step sister with “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
Claire: Few can match my step-sister’s poetical prowess. She has the literary ancestry; her father was the anarchist, William Godwin and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft. Lord Byron would be most intrigued by William Godwin’s manifesto proposing to supplant marriage with free love.
Mary: My dear Claire, remember to tell Lord Byron, my mother preserved her infamy when she wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”. You recount my lineage like a thoroughbred’s pedigree.
Byron: (Retrieves his wine.) A fortunate pedigree. I drink to William Godwin. May we manifest his manifesto of love! (A sip of wine.) A radical father sired to an infamous mother, indeed. To have been a fly on the wall at Miss Godwin’s conception! I would have been nine years old. “Such is the most my memory may desire.” I quote myself. It is slumber I desire.
Polidori: Lord Byron, may we delay our departure. I wish to know more of Miss Godwin’s family history.
Byron: Godwin’s manifesto of free love pricked your curiosity?
Polidori: Well, yes. No. What I wonder is… how Miss Godwin and Miss Clairmont are step-sisters?
Mary: Claire, please tell.
Claire: Doctor Polidori, Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, passed away a few days after Mary was born and so she was named after her mother. Four years later when I was three years old, William Godwin, Mary’s father, who was our neighbour, married my mother, Mary Jane Clairmont.
Byron: The second Mary, he marries, but did not marry the first Mary? To marry a Mary, whether Mary one or Mary two, miscarries the manifesto. Maims his metaphysic. Maligns his morals. Oh equivocator! William Godwin subverts his own philosophy. A subversive pedigree, Miss Godwin. A subversive pedigree, yet, a fortunate pedigree… (He raises his wine glass.) We are all fortunate subversives. (Byron finishes wine. Shelley drinks.)
Polidori: Miss Clairmont, I believe I understand. Your mother married her neighbour, William Godwin.
Claire: Yes, Doctor, but though Mary and I do not share parents’ blood, we share like true blood sisters… We share our deepest of intimacies.
Polidori: Women bewilder me. What “deepest of intimacies” may sisters share?
Claire: We share… our thoughts on the mysteries of life.
Polidori: (Still bewildered.) I see.
Byron: Polly, the dampness from the storm penetrates my bones. We must make our escape.
Polidori: Yes, let us brave the storm together. Good evening, Percy. Miss Clairmont. Miss Godwin.
Mary: A safe walk home to you, Doctor Polidori. And to you…, Lord Byron. (She places her hand on his empty wine glass to take it. Their hands touch on the glass.) It was a pleasure to hear you recite Coleridge, but the greater pleasure was to hear your own new verses.
Byron: The pleasure was mine a hundred-fold. (He releases the glass to Mary.)
Claire: Good night, Doctor. Goodnight to you…, Lord Byron.
Shelley: Tomorrow for tea?
Byron: For tea. Goodnight. Ladies. Tonight I’ll arrange to send the pages for copying, Miss Clairmont. We can find our capes. Percy, I anticipate tomorrow “to have our pleasures fed.”
Shelley: (Byron, Polidori and Percy walking toward exit.) George, the sailing was an adventure I hope to repeat.
Byron: We shall sail again, but on future occasions, forego the brush with death.
(Mary looks intensely at Shelley as Polidori and Byron exit. Shelley sits. Mary places the glass on the table and pulls Shelley’s boots off as the following lines are spoken outside.)
Byron: (Spoken Offstage) I am damp from the storm. Polly, did I tell you about the fiend, Lady Caroline Lamb. Well, this girl is a worse fiend. She corrected me. “Pleasures fled”. “Pleasures fed”. The audacity. She is a little gnat that scoffs incessantly —
Polidori: Not Miss Godwin! (Spoken Offstage)
Byron: No, not Miss Godwin. (Spoken Offstage)
Mary: Your boots are wet.
(Claire takes a page from her gown by her breast crumples it and angrily throws it to the floor. Shelley stands and walks to the page picks it up, unravels it.)
Shelley: This is from Lord Byron’s, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, First Canto… (Shelley reads near the oil lamp with Mary looking at the page.)
Whilome in Albion’s isle there dwelt a youth,
Who ne in virtue’s ways did take delight;
But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,
Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;
Few earthly things found favour in his sight
Save concubines and carnal companie,
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.”
Mary: His verse does recount his life.
Claire: Oh, Percy.
(Shelley neatly folds the page and slips it in the empty vase on the table. Claire stares at Mary and Percy standing together; they look back at Claire. A beat. Claire runs upstairs taking a coal oil lamp. Lights dim somewhat. Sounds of storm fade slowly.)
Shelley: Small hope that he may return her affection.
Mary: You heard him refer to her as a “fiend”.
Shelley: I wasn’t certain. I thought I heard that. Too much wine. Any notion he imagines he’ll say and do. His mind is like a hummingbird flitting from blossom to blossom.
Mary: And Claire is a single blossom in his garden.
Shelley: A large garden with many blossoms. All of England talks of his poetry and his exploits. He bragged to me about a dalliance with his half-sister.
Mary: Augusta. I overheard that bit of gossip on a Bishopgate street. The more sordid the talk the quicker his “Childe Harold” empties off the booksellers’ shelves.
Shelley: Yes. The gossip follows him here to Lake Geneva.
Mary: He likes you.
Shelley: He likes us both. I recited my draft of “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” for him. He agrees with my stance against the moralist poets. He said he can accept me as “a worthy opponent to a vengeful God of plagues”, in spite of our opposing views on the deity. And he admires my personification of Beauty in the poem.
Mary: It is much more than a personification. Beauty and Imagination are truly of nature. (Mary embraces Shelley.)
Shelley: Our love embodies nature. Two creatures inhaling the beauty of nature.
Mary: The breathe begets imagination. And imagination begets poetry.
Shelley: (Touching Mary’s hair.) A mind full of wonders pulses beneath those locks.
Mary: You equal Lord Byron in genius. And you are a most beautiful creature. Listen.
Shelley: The storm has passed us.
(Pause. They breathe together in the silence.)
Mary: The wind calms. (Mary leads Shelley to the chair near the window and Shelley sits. Mary, leaning over from behind the chair, embraces him.)
Shelley: (Calmly recites “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”. Music slowly builds.)
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, –
Like moonbeams that behind some piny shower,
(Unseen, Claire enters and standing on stairs holding William, she watches.)
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
(Murky figure reminiscent of Mary’s Frankenstein monster appears outside the window
looking in.)
Like hues and harmonies and evening,
(Mary moves around the chair and sits on Shelley’s lap. Lights begin to fade.)
Like memory of music fled, –
Like clouds in starlight widely spread…
(Blackout. Brief sound of William crying. Music continues.)
Scene 2
(Lights up on same room as Scene 1. The second curtain has been hung. The ladder has been taken off. Mary is looking out and down through the window of the drawing room watching Byron and Polidori, who are outside and below the level of the window. Byron is convincing Polidori to jump off a low cliff to impress Mary. Music slowly fades. Byron and Polidori speak from offstage.)
Byron: Jump, I tell you. Jump. And surely, you will capture her heart. She’s watching from the window. Dare to leap into the abyss.
Polidori: It must be fifteen feet to the ground. To jump from this precipice would be suicide.
Byron: It is a very minor precipice. Gird your loins against gravity’s grip. Woman melt for men who flaunt danger.
Polidori: How would I gird my loins against gravity?
Byron: We count from Ten to zero and with every count you shed a few stone weight. Contemplate shedding gravity. We begin… Ten! You will be her hero.
(Still Byron and Polidori speak from offstage. Mary continues to watch from the window.)
Byron: Nine! Count with me. (Elise carrying William in one arm and a basket of petticoats and damp women’s under garments enters from upstairs and heads to exit to outside.)
Byron: Eight! Her eyes are fixed on your every move.
Byron: Seven! You must count with me to defy gravity’s grip. (Claire, wrapped only in a sheet, runs after Elise.)
Polidori & Byron: Six! (Elise exits to the outside.)
Polidori & Byron: Five! (Claire exits to outside.)
Polidori & Byron: Four!
Byron: Mind over matter.
Polidori & Byron: Three!
Byron: Gird your loins!
Polidori & Byron: Two!
Polidori & Byron: (Voices continue from outside.) One!
( Polidori screams. Mary runs to the door to the outside.)
Polidori: (Voice from outside. Polidori moaning and in pain.) I fear my ankle is broken.
Byron: (Voice from outside.) We didn’t reach zero, so your loins weren’t properly girded. Take my arm. Let’s go inside. Give me your weight. (Claire runs in wearing a petticoat). Once again gravity is victorious.
Polidori: (Voice from outside.) Some rustling in the hedges startled me. I lost my balance when I saw — (Claire exits to upstairs .)
Byron: (Voice from outside.) I saw her too. Hop up that last step…Miss Godwin! Miss Godwin!
(Polidori leaning on Byron enters. Polidori groans.)
Byron: A rustle in the hedge startled him and he fell.
Mary: Was a rustling hedge so frightening that it could upset your balance? (Mary & Byron help Polidori to the chair by the window.)
Polidori: I pray it’s not broken, perhaps only a bad sprain.
Mary: I’ll remove your boot before it swells. (Mary struggles to remove his boot. Byron holds Polidori’s shoulders. Polidori groans with pain.) The ankle is already swelling, we may have to cut the boot off. Relax your toes. I’m trying not to hurt you. Oh, yes. That’s better… I’ll do it slowly. Here it comes.
Byron: Polly! Stop your whimpering. (The boot comes off.)
Polidori: Thank you Miss Godwin!
Mary: (Feeling his ankle.) There is some swelling, but I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary. (Elise returns with William and the basket empty except for Claire’s sheet half dragging. She stops by the stairs to take in the scene.)
Claire: (From upstairs.) Do we have visitors?
Mary: (Calling toward stairs.) Yes, Claire. (To Byron and Polidori) I’ll get something to wrap the ankle. (Mary moves towards the stairs.)
Claire: (From upstairs.) Entice them to stay! Please, Mary!
Byron: The doctor would much appreciate the afflicted extremity being wrapped in that sheet. (Indicating the sheet in Elise’s basket.) Its fall led to his affliction. (Shelley enters from upstairs.)
Shelley: The doctor fell? I hope it isn’t serious.
Byron: Perhaps you mistook his shriek for little William’s? They are equally irritating.
Shelley: I didn’t hear anything. I was entranced in writing. Mary. (They move down stage from the stairs and embrace. Aside to Mary.) Mary… Mary… Mere words cannot capture the —
Mary: (Aside to Shelley) Thank you for the private reading last night. The verses were quite satisfying. (Mary starts for the stairs.) Doctor, I’ll fetch some wrappings for your ankle. (Mary takes William from Elise. To Elise.) Help me tear some cloth for the Doctor’s ankle.
Shelley: I thought I would take tea with George at his villa.
Mary: Send me word if you decide to go out onto the lake. Lord Byron, good afternoon.
Byron: Good afternoon, Miss Godwin.
Mary: (Mary and Elise exit upstairs.) Only one blanket for William?
Shelley: (Glances out window) Some fool has climbed the tree and is gaping at us. (Shelley moves to exit to outside.) We are continually besieged by these demonic spectators. I will burn that tree with him still clinging to it. Good day, Doctor. (Exits.) George, I’ll wait for you below. (From outside to intruder.) You, Sir, get out of that tree.
Byron: (To Polidori.) Polly Dolly, if I don’t see you by sunset, I’ll send a wagon for you. Percy and I have some matters to discuss. Philosophical and poetic —
Polidori: Am I to be left here with the women?
Byron: Would that terrify you so? Have Miss Godwin treat your… your swelling appendage. She is the ultimate cause. You may further stimulate the conversation recounting your thesis on somnambulism. And ask Miss Clairmont of her progress on the fair copies of my Third Canto. She is a dreadful procrastinator. Have a pleasurable day.
Polidori: George. Stay a moment. (Byron exits. Polidori removes his stocking, wincing.)
Shelley: (From outside to the intruder.) Next time you peer in our window I’ll send the constabulary after you!
Polidori: George. George! Damn. (Polidori throws stocking.)
Mary: (From upstairs. Stern.) He’s cold. Feel him. He’s shivering. Why did you bring him outside with only one blanket?
(Polidori removes a telescope from his waist coat pocket, aims it through the window and scans the horizon through the following dialogue.)
Elise: (From upstairs.) Forgive me, Miss Godwin! The sun seemed to be shining —
Mary: (From upstairs.) Put him in the crib. It’s only sixteen months since my first baby died. I’d sooner lose my life than lose William.
Elise: (From upstairs. ) Yes, Miss. I will be certain he’s warm. I know the pain of a cold baby in my arms. (Mary carrying cloth wraps followed by Elise enters.) Miss Godwin, you remember it was only two days before I came to be William’s nursemaid, I lost my baby, not yet Baptized.
Mary: Yes. I realize how difficult it must have been. My little one was unnamed, and just twelve days old, when I lost her. I still dream I am holding her in my arms… These stings. No man could comprehend.
Elise: I dare say, men are another breed.
Mary: We’ve both lost our first born. I shouldn’t have been stern with you.
Elise: Never mind Miss. I’ve grown fond of the babe. Perhaps you should see to the Doctor’s ankle.
Mary: Yes. Thank you for nursing my William. Thank you. I’ll wrap the Doctor’s ankle.
(Elise exits to upstairs.)
Mary: Spying on the neighbours, Doctor? (Polidori still looks out the window through the telescope.)
Polidori: I am spying…. spying on the neighbour who is spying on us… and since it appears his spy glass is angled at the clothes line in the garden below, I conclude: He is observing your undergarments and Miss Clairmont’s flapping in the wind.
Mary: And what mysteries from our undergarments could his observations bare.
Polidori: (Relaxes telescope on his lap and turns to Mary.) Mysteries, indeed. I wondered that myself —
Mary: (Mary kneels and examines his ankle.) I’ll see to your ankle. You wonder about undergarments, Sir? (As Mary touches ankle Polidori winces.) My undergarments? There seems to be more swelling.
Polidori: No. Not your (Winces again.) undergarments. (Mary begins wrapping his ankle.) I wouldn’t do that. Perhaps if we were… What I would like to say to you….(Catches breath) May I be candid, Miss Godwin?
Mary: Yes, always speak openly with me. And you may call me Mary. You were looking at my undergarments, albeit drying on the line. (Continues wrapping Polidori’s ankle.)
Polidori: Permit me to explain: Our coterie is indeed a subject of wonderment for the outside world. Gossip about Lord Byron and all his ladies. Lady Caroline Lamb. And others, I have witnessed myself.
Mary: You are a seasoned witness.
Polidori: And tittle-tattle about your father Godwin’s musings of free love… they are our legacy. And gossip, though unfounded I’m sure, (pause) about Miss Clairmont with Percy… and you… (Polidori raises telescope and again peers at neighbour.) And so, of course, tourists come eager for a glimpse of some candle-lit happenstance of the night, one of Lord Byron’s mythical nocturnal romps with a lady, and lacking that, they watch the undergarments on the line. The undergarments are Salome’s veils. It is the nature of man to love the mystery underneath the veil.
Mary: (Mary finishes wrapping his ankle. Stands.) Such an astute observation, Doctor. The true nature of man draped by a symbol, the veil. And what of Salome’s spirit —
Polidori: Oh, mon dieu, he sees me! He’s looking right at me now. A duel of spy glasses. Well, I won’t be the first to look away, not under any circumstances. I will stare him down. Scope to scope.
Mary: Scope to scope. Jowl to scope. I might get you to look away. (Pause.) Look…. At… Me.
Polidori: (Pause as he slowly pivots telescope to her bosom.) I am looking at you now.
Mary: What do you see?
Polidori: Miss Godwin … Mary…I see…
Mary: Yes, Doctor.
Polidori: How is your baby, William? (Puts telescope aside) Did he cough last night?
Mary: He coughs less. Much less, I am happy to say. (Claire enters, finely dressed.)
Claire: Doctor, I am delighted you have returned.
Polidori: Miss Clairmont. I hope you are well this morning.
Claire: Thank you for inquiring, Doctor. I am well. Better now that the sun has returned. You’re here alone?
Polidori: Lord Byron arose early this morning to come for Percy. Most days at this hour Lord Byron would still be asleep. His habit is to … write… until dawn and sleep into the afternoon.
Claire: I know… I’ve heard. I see Mary has wrapped your ankle well. Very well.
Polidori: She has nimble fingers. Lord Byron and Percy have gone to the villa for tea.
Claire: He left?
Polidori: Yes, Miss Clairmont. Lord Byron asked me to enquire about your progress on the copying of the Third Canto.
Claire: I received the rough pages early this morning. I have barely lifted the quill. I savour his verses and forget my purpose.
Polidori: I understand. I, also savour — May I share my, my…?
Mary: Yes. Please. Share anything. You are a doctor.
Polidori: I savour all these moments, in these few weeks, since I met you here. Even now, with you, Miss Godwin and with you Miss Clairmont and with Lord Byron. I am truly privileged to be among you. We three will be remembered for ages because of this time with Lord George Byron.
Claire: I too am… privileged… I believe. I am copying verses that will be immortal. I know it with all my heart. But, I wonder how history will see us, the privileged who, in some small way, help Lord Byron. What manner of privilege is this? The pages I render. And other functions. (Pause.) Perhaps I am already immortalized in his poetry. “Concubines and carnal companie”. That is, perhaps, how I will be remembered.
Polidori: Miss Clairmont!
Mary: “Concubines and carnal companie”, a phrase from Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage“. Only some ink on paper. Perhaps I am a concubine. Yes, I am. We came here to Lake Geneva to be free of a social order of gossiping hypocrites who distort love and shun passion. “Concubine” is a word. Our lives, our verses soar beyond the words we write. Beyond slanders. Words are the nectar of the poet’s imagination. When we open ourselves, we can press the nectar from the blossoms. We can drink the nectar and know the bliss of life. Even in “carnal companie” there is nectar. Especially in “carnal companie”. As a woman or as a concubine or as a creature of nature… I love Percy… This is our time, our nectar.
Polidori: I am blessed to know you. You are truly an astounding woman. Miss Godwin, Mary, may I again speak candidly.
Mary: (Claire moves to exit.) Claire! Please stay. (Claire stops by the stairway.) As Lord Byron anointed me “Queen Mary” I command you to always speak candidly.
Polidori: I will treasure eternally this sweet occasion which I witness here. But I fear — to be a perpetual witness — is my fate. First Lord Byron and now you two here today have opened my eyes to a world of beauty, truth and passion. But who am I really? A witness! A voyeur. I beg your pardon ladies, but I must confess immediately — (Claire runs upstairs. Polidori and Mary notice Claire leave.) I must confess my boundless affection to you Miss Godwin!… I am a fool… Mary, I … Mary, only in the charades of a bordello am I treated as a man… I see Lord Byron with women at every inn — even with a chambermaid and I… I want —
Mary: Please. Stop, Doctor. (Pause.) You are as pleasing to the eye as any man, truly. Doctor, I think of you as a little brother, though you may be somewhat older than I.
Polidori: Not a little brother, I would rather… Are you truly content to live as Percy’s …? Percy is married to Harriet.
Mary: Percy and Harriet are no longer together. Doctor, there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Polidori: My philosophy?
Mary: Be patient. Know that you too may be the nectar of poetry.
Polidori: Shall I be your nectar, Mary? That is my dearest desire… to be your nectar, Mary. You are my Fairy Queen. I shall now bid you adieu. (Polidori stands.) Tell Miss Clairmont, I will favourably report to Lord Byron of her progress on the Third Canto. I must take my leave now — (Limping towards the exit to outside.)
Mary: You can hardly walk? You’ll stumble on the path. Take the cane outside the door.
Polidori: Good day. (Polidori exits.)
Mary: The boot! Doctor! Your boot! (Mary runs for the boot and runs to the exit. Polidori peeks in and grasps her hand on the boot and the boot together. A beat. Polidori releases his grasp on her hand and exits with his boot. Mary calls to Claire.) Shall we prepare some tea, before William awakes. He does seem stronger… Claire?
Claire: (Entering.) Am I reduced to the level of his chambermaid? How many chambermaids, char women, strumpets? How many? Can you even count them on two hands? Is that what I am?
Mary: Claire, you heard —
Claire: The Doctor is not half the fool I am. I will love Lord Byron to the end of my life and nobody else… I want what you and Percy have.
Mary: You wanted to have your poet too.
Claire: I am entitled to him.
Mary: There is a difference, my dear. You pursued Lord Byron. Percy pursued me.
Claire: Percy pursued you? I was there with you, when Percy arrived to worship at your father’s feet, the great William Godwin. I know exactly how it happened. You made up the ruse to visit your mother’s grave. To think, your father believed the two of us together with Percy would stave off any impropriety.
Mary: Claire, you must see, from the first words we exchanged, Percy and I shared a philosophical bond.
Claire: Philosophical was it? For all your trysts with Percy, don’t forget, I waited, stood guard on the road by the cemetery, while you two sighed and heaved behind your mother’s grave stone. Then, I wondered about all the sounds. The quickening breath. I was close enough — even for your first time. Like two animals. Two stray cats howling. But I wanted it to be me. With every breath I wanted it to be me. And after the three of us eloped to the continent, every night I heard through the wall. I heard the pleasure you took from each other. For months. All the way through France, Germany, Switzerland and back.
Mary: You didn’t have to sail to France with us.
Claire: What choice did I have? Stay with Godwin. He’s your father, not mine. I don’t even know who my father is. On those first walks with Percy, he might have chosen me. Why not? But for your machinations. On our walks you arranged yourself in the middle, between us.
Mary: You forgot in Germany those nights you jammed yourself between us, in our own bed. Trying to escape those ghosts, phantoms, and rats you invented —
Claire: I invented nothing. A rat ran across my face and I needed Percy —
Mary: Percy. Percy. Percy. You tried to snatch Percy away. Even last year. Back in England while I waited alone in the room heavy with child, you two slinked off and, and —
Claire: Believe what you will. You’ll never know. Certainty doesn’t exit. But I know you better than you know yourself. You want men to want you. You crave control. Teasing poor Doctor Polidori until he aches. I foresee you shuddering in Lord Byron’s arms before long. He’ll be pressing you into his bed and sliding you across the floor. You won’t stop with Percy.
Mary: Percy and I — from the first moment — Percy and I shared something beyond the physical, something rare and ethereal. Our physical love flows from the metaphysical. Always has and always will.
Claire: You are not the centre of the universe. You imagine no one else in the world has what you and Percy have —
Mary: So you couldn’t catch your own poet and now you resent me having mine. What happened? When we introduced ourselves to Lord Byron at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, you could barely speak to him. You were so awkward. Staring at him. Blushing. I spoke for you. I was so embarrassed for you. Did you see him again? Tell me. What happened?
Claire: I went back. Alone. I pretended, even to myself, that I wanted his advice on becoming an actress, but all the time I wanted him in the way you have Percy. I returned to the Drury Lane Theatre several times. I wrote him every day. I could see he was growing impatient with me, bored with me. I was afraid he might reject me permanently.Then, it was like I became someone else, someone daring and possessed. I wrote him… begging him to accept that which had long been the passionate wish of my heart to give. I arranged a room at an inn. He told me he had no place in his life for me. I made myself believe I could change his mind by… by giving myself to him… That I could win his heart like you won Percy’s.
Mary: He had just left his wife. Nature enslaves men’s appetites so they —
Claire: And now Lord George Byron flows through my veins. I still want him. He is all I want. And so I make fair copies of his “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” and feel his child grow inside me.
Mary: Claire, you are —
Claire: I am carrying his child.
Mary: His child?
Claire: Yes. I overheard when Polidori went on about Lord Byron’s… whores. It pains me … I am not his whore, but the tragedy is I wish I were. (Shelley enters carrying two bouquets.)
Shelley: What tragedy? (Shelley is animated and energetic through the rest of the scene.) This is for you. (Handing a bouquet to Claire. Kisses Claire on the cheek.) And this is for you. (Teasing Mary with the bouquet and then lifting her and spinning Mary around. Stops spinning but holding her up. Excited.) That mad man inspires me. (Puts Mary down. She snatches the bouquet.) I didn’t stay for tea after all. I have to start writing immediately. I know how to finish it. (Shifting chair to table.)
Mary: “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”?
Shelley: Yes. Lord Byron led me to it. (Shelley prepares to write, setting quill, ink and paper during this speech. At the same time Claire calmly and slowly goes to place the bouquet in the vase, sees the passage Shelley put there the previous evening and holds the page. Shelley is animated and inspired.) We were dissecting “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” and he quoted his verse: “And conscious Reason whispered to despise His early youth misspent in maddest whim”. Lord Byron’s Voice of Reason whispers in Childe Harold’s ear diverting him from a path of self-destruction to another path, a beneficent path.
Mary: I know of no other poet whose verse so eloquently reveals his life and recollections. His is a powerful mind.
Shelley: Lord Byron led me to see my poem lacked an epiphany. Mary, Claire can you imagine a crossroad in your life when a persona of Reason would warn you of a disaster ahead? (Claire puts the flowers in the vase.) Would you dare to heed Reason’s warning like Childe Harold? (Claire places the page in her bodice.) Then, in an instant before my eyes, the line I pursued, appeared. I envisioned the Shadow of Beauty. The Shadow of Beauty embodied. And the Shadow of Beauty spoke through me as I said the line to George aloud: “Sudden, thy shadow fell upon… I shrieked and clasped my hand in ecstasy!” (Shelley sits at table and begins writing.)
Mary: The embodied Shadow of Beauty made you shriek. Did you truly shriek? (Shelley is writing. Pause.) A collective mind is a most powerful device.
Shelley: Pardon me. Oh, I invited Lord Byron and Polidori for this evening. Lord Byron enjoyed our ” Rime of the Ancient Mariner” last night, so he wants us to read another Coleridge — “Christobel” this time. We thought to make it a more formal reading. Mary, he says he can’t help but think of Christobel when he sees you. What do you say to that?
Mary: (Looking to the window. A beat.) The storm is coming back.
(Blackout. Music. A few beats. Sounds of the storm.)
Scene 3
(Music continues under several lines of Byron’s Reading of Coleridge’s “Christabel” which is well the way through the first part. As the scene progresses the atmosphere of a nightmare creeps in and builds to a peak. Byron sits, reading from a book, at the centre of the long side of the table, centre stage, facing the audience. Mary is by his right side. Polidori to Byron’s left and Shelley to Byron’s right sit at the short ends of the table. Claire lies on the floor in front of the table wearing her “Duchess” robe. Lights come up slowly, but stay low.)
Byron: Quoth Christabel, ‘So let it be!’
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.
(Sound of howling wind slowly comes in.)
But through her brain, of weal and woe,
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline.
To look at the lady Geraldine.
Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropped to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her bosom and half her side —
Mary: The rain is blowing in. I’ll close the shutters. (Mary stands.)
Byron: (Takes Mary’s arm, gently guides her to her chair.) Stay. Let the rain come in.
(Music . A light directly above Claire, lights her brighter than the others. Claire stands shudders, and shivers, for several seconds. Claire, facing the audience, repeats the lines of the poem, reciting continuously through the action, her body swaying. Shelley and Polidori become motionless, frozen in a tableau.)
Claire: Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
(Mary stands. Again, Byron grabs Mary’s arm and pulls her to her chair. Byron and Mary also freeze in a tableau.)
Claire: Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
(Claire turns toward table, back to the audience. As Claire continues to recite, she undoes robe, drops it to the floor and stands wearing a gown reminiscent of ancient Greece.)
Claire: Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropped to her feet, and full in view…
(Claire walks to the window. The others continue to stare from their tableau at Claire’s last position still lit in front of the table. Claire reaches out of the window. Music fades during Lightning, Thunder. Wind. Blackout. Thunder continues. Lights up. Thunder subsides. Claire is again lying at the foot of the table in the exact position as when the scene began. Silence. They are no longer frozen in a tableau.)
Elise: (From the foot of the steps.) Miss Godwin, William is sleeping safe. I just put him down. Will you want anything else? The rain’s coming in somewhat. I’ll close the shutters.
Byron: NO!
Mary: No. Thank you. That will be all.
Elise: Goodnight then. (Exits.)
Byron: Shall I continue?
“Then suddenly, as one defied” —
Mary: The rain is blowing in. I’ll close the shutters. (Mary stands.)
(Byron goes to clutch her arm but freezes in a clutching position as if holding her arm which is absent. Music with the vertical light above Claire comes up. Everyone is frozen in a tableau except Mary and Claire. Mary stares at Claire as she moves towards Claire, and then begins to recite the lines below.)
Mary: Then suddenly, as one defied
Collects herself in scorn and pride
(Mary lies down by Claire.)
And lay down by the maiden’s side!-
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah, well-a-day!
And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say:
Claire: ‘In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!
(After completing the previous lines the music volume rises gradually, the tall murky figure appears outside the window. Mary and Claire walk hand in hand to the window. The others continue to stare at Mary and Claire’s last position still lit in front of the table. Mary reaches out of the window. The murky figure hands Mary a small baby bundle. Sound of a chortling baby. Claire takes the baby from Mary. In slow motion they become alarmed as they look at the baby. Lightning Thunder. Wind. Blackout. Thunder continues. Lights up. Thunder subsides. Baby and murky figure are gone. Byron is clutching Mary’s arm. Claire is again lying at the foot of the table in the same position as when Byron went to clutch Mary’s arm. Silence.)
Elise: (From the foot of the steps.) Miss Godwin, William is sleeping safe. I just put him down. Will you want anything else? The rain’s coming in somewhat. I’ll close the shutters.
Byron: NO!
Mary: No. Thank you. That will be all.
Elise: Goodnight then. (Exits.)
Byron: Shall I continue? (Byron recites without pause, stands and walks around the table toward Claire, as Mary, entranced, climbs from her chair and crawls under the table. Polidori and Shelley in a tableaux stare at the vertical light which comes up over Claire.)
Byron: And when the trance was o’er, the maid
Paused awhile, and inly prayed:
Then falling at the Baron’s feet —
Mary: ‘By my mother’s soul do I entreat
That thou this woman send away!’
(Byron lifts Claire. The murky figure appears outside the window.)
Byron: She said: and more she could not say.
(As Byron continues reciting, he carries Claire to the window.)
Byron: For what she knew she could not tell,
O’er-mastered by the mighty spell.
(Byron passes her through the window to the murky figure outside. Lightning. Thunder. Wind. Blackout. Thunder continues. Lights up. Thunder subsides. Byron and Mary have returned to their seats. Where Claire earlier lied is her gown. )
Elise: (From the foot of the steps.) Miss Godwin, your infant daughter is terribly cold. She isn’t breathing. I’ll rub her by the fire. Will you want anything else? The rain’s coming in somewhat. I’ll close the shutters.
Byron: NO!
Mary: What about William? Is he safe?
Elise: Goodnight then. (Exits.)
Mary: Is he safe? Is he safe? Is he safe? IS HE SAFE?
Byron: Shall I continue?
Mary: Is he safe? (Polidori and Byron stare at the vertical light.)
Child’s Voice (pre-recorded with reverberation, calmly spoken):
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast: Mary: (simultaneously) Is he safe?
Her silken robe, and inner vest, Mary: (simultaneously) Is he safe?
(Mary moves around table to vertical light, reaching.)
Child’s Voice: Dropped to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her bosom and half her side- Mary: (simultaneously) Is he safe?
A sight to dream of, not to tell! Mary: (simultaneously) Is he safe?
O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!
(Shelley rushes to Mary and shields Mary’s eyes. Shelley stares into the “apparition” — which he imagines — in the light.)
Chorus of Children’s Voices Building from whisper: Behold… Behold … Behold (Repeated underneath the dialogue until nearly the end of scene.)
Shelley: The eyes! The eyes! Why do you glare at me so. Her nipples! Her nipples! Are eyes! (Shelley pulls Mary to the floor addressing Mary as Christabel.) Christabel. Where her nipples should be — eyes gape! (Mary crawls and slides away towards window. Shelley cries and moans. From his knees Shelley claws at and touches the “apparition’s feet and legs” in the light, then becomes still and stares into the apparition’s “eyes” and continues speaking.) Her chest heaves, the eyes socketed in her breasts heave too. The eyes sway too but roll in their sockets to stay ever transfixed on my stare. Newborn babes suckling here would straight away turn to demons! Serpent eyes swelling, pulsating with every breath. STOP! STOP I SAY! The EYES! Hideous SERPENT EYES! (Shelley collapses. Mary reaches the window climbs to stand on windowsill facing Shelley. Curtains are blowing. She extends her arms horizontally grabbing the curtains as if crucified.) I drown in your gaze. I am drowning. I am drowning. The light from those EYES! NOOOOOOooo! (Shelley touches his cheek and tastes his tears.)
Mary: (Out of breath.) Is he safe?
Shelley: Tears of milky venom wash my cheek.
Mary: (Out of breath.) Is he safe?
(“Behold” and music stops suddenly. Byron and Polidori motionless continue to stare into the light. Silence. Mary and Shelley breath heavily in the silence, gasping for air, spent. Several beats of breathing in the silence. Blackout. Sound of horses galloping away. Music.)
Scene 4
(Music continuing from previous scene. Morning. The table has been moved back to the wall. Polidori is asleep on top of the table. Byron is asleep under the table. Claire’s sheer gown from the “Christabel” reading is beside Byron. Mary comes down the stairs as the lights come up, stands by the foot of the stairs. Shelley looks out the window. Byron wakes up, sees the gown, smells it. Byron stands.)
Byron: We will now each write our own ghost story. (Pause.)
Shelley: Yes. A ghost story. A most intriguing enterprise. Mary?
Mary: (Mary walks to the window.) From each one of us. Yes. I shall also dream up a subject for a ghost story.
Shelley: That voyeur is in the tree again. ( Shelley and Mary stand side by side looking out the window. Music slowly fades.)
Mary: Where? Where?
Shelley: There. Just to the right of the trunk. Do you see him?
Mary: No… Yes. I was looking into the distance and I didn’t notice he’s close.
Shelley: (Looking out the window.) Sir! You there! You, sir! I will give you a count of ten to climb down before I send for the constabulary…. (As the counting begins Elise carrying William in one arm and a basket of petticoats and damp women’s undergarments in the other arm enters the from upstairs. Claire, running, wrapped in a sheet, chases, as in Scene 2, but quicker.) Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. (Elise exits to the outside.) Six. (Claire exits.) Five. Four. Three. Two. One. (Claire returns wearing a petticoat and runs by Polidori, who suddenly opens his eyes, sees her and falls off the table. His boots are off. Shelley and Mary, startled by the noise of his fall, turn. Claire exits to upstairs. Polidori hops around, his ankle re-injured. Elise enters from outside and passes by carrying William and the basket with the sheet dangling out. Byron flings Claire’s gown in Elise’s basket as she passes. Elise exits upstairs.)
Mary: (To Polidori.) Finally awake. It’s nearly dusk.
Shelley: Polly, sit down. (Calling upstairs.) Elise! Prepare a poultice for Doctor Polidori’s ankle. (Doctor sits on a chair near the window and examines his ankle .)
Elise: (From upstairs.) Have my hands full with William, Sir.
Mary: (Looking out window.) Vanished.
Byron: Miss Clairmont vanished? (Pouring wine.)
Mary: The man in the tree vanished.
Byron: The man in the tree?
Mary: Left half his breeches dangling from the branch.
Polidori: (Percy looks at Polidori’s ankle.) The ankle’s healing. Really. The swelling’s down. Percy. It’s you I’m troubled about.
Mary: (Still looking out the window.) He might be dead in the garden.
Polidori: Percy, what infected you last night was a most peculiar sort of somnambulatory rage.
Shelley: It’s all quite murky now. I recall as George read from “Christabel”… Then, then —
Mary: (To Shelley.) You ran outside shrieking. (Glances to window.) That man surely fell from the tree. I’ll search the garden.
Byron: No. I’ll look. (During Polidori’s speech Byron walks to exit to outside drinking wine.)
Polidori: George recited the verse recounting the witch disrobing in Christabel’s chamber. (Byron exits.) Quite naked, breasts bared in all their glowing alabaster, she turned to Christabel. Precisely when Christabel might see the witch’s exposed, well rounded, naked breasts… Percy, you released a most wretched scream and ran from the house, saying…
(Pause. Mary and Shelley waiting for his words.)
Shelley: What did I say?
Polidori: You repeated the words, even after you fell to the ground shaking. And kept repeating those words and repeating those words and repeating and repeating, until I emptied a pail of rain on your head.
Shelley: What words, Sir?
Polidori: You said. Over and over again, you said …”Her nipples… Her nipples. Are eyes.”
Shelley: “Her nipples are eyes?” Whose nipples?
Polidori: The witch’s’ nipples. Geraldine in the poem. Geraldine’s nipples. “Her nipples. Are eyes.” After you calmed somewhat and caught your breath, I helped you inside and I administered some ether.
Shelley: Ether?
Polidori: Yes. Then you slept.
Elise: (Enters with poultice.) Doctor, I readied your poultice. Miss Godwin, William is sleeping safe. I just put him down.
Polidori: (Taking the poultice from Elise.) Thank you.
Shelley: Her nipples. Eyes… I remember. (Shelley starts breathing hard. Agitated.)
(Polidori stands and with Elise and Mary helps Shelley to his chair.)
Polidori: Not to worry, Miss Godwin. It’s a small relapse. Sit down, Percy. Take the poultice. (Polidori puts the poultice on the back of Shelley’s neck.)
Shelley: I don’t want the damn poultice. (Shelley throws the poultice out the window.)
Mary: Elise, thank you. That will be all.
Elise: Yes, Miss Godwin. (Elise exits to upstairs.)
Polidori: Percy, concentrate on a pleasant subject. We shall turn our attention elsewhere and relieve Percy’s symptoms. Miss Godwin, what did you dream last night.
Byron: (From outside.) I found him! He has a poultice on his face.
Polidori: I dreamt of a woman peeping through a keyhole. That’s all I remember of my dreams from last night. Please, Miss Godwin. Perhaps you can recall a dream. Miss Godwin you must —
Mary: Last night I dreamt our first baby was here. The baby I lost. In William’s place. In the crib.
Shelley: In William’s crib?
Mary: Yes. She was cold. So cold. Not breathing. We rubbed her by the fire. And we rubbed her and rubbed her. And she breathed. She lived. I was so happy. And this morning she wasn’t there.
Shelley: Mary, (Stands. Shelley embraces Mary.) Promise me you will —
Byron: (From outside.) I suspect he is quite dead.
Mary: Yes. What shall I promise?
Shelley: Promise to always share with me… share all your dreams, all your thoughts.
Mary: I have. And truly, I will. I had another dream.
Shelley: Yes. Mary.
Mary: My dream. It is haunting. I caution you —
Polidori: Miss Godwin, you must tell —
Mary: I dreamt of a —
Byron: (Byron rushes in.) Percy! Polly! I found the man from the tree. He’s impaled on some stakes in a hedge. Help me remove him. (Mary and Shelley start for the exit.) Miss Godwin, it’s too horrible for you to see.
Shelley: Mary, please stay. (Mary stays. Shelley, and Byron hurry to exit to outside.)
Polidori: (Polidori struggles to put on his boots. Knowing they are alone, Polidori resumes calling her Mary.) Mary, your dream. Please continue —
Mary: But the man from the tree —
Polidori: I must know your dream.
Byron: (From outside.) Poor soul. He was disembowelled. Perhaps on the far hedge, then. Too horrible for a woman’s eyes.
Mary: (Polidori listens intently.) I dreamt of a dismembered torso. (Pause.) And strewn around the torso were animal parts, and limbs, and organs. (Pause.) Unable to fall back asleep I lay awake and speculated… perhaps a corpse could be re-animated. Galvanism, electricity offers a possibility for such things. Perhaps the component parts of a creature could be brought together, manufactured, and imbued with vital warmth. Electricity might spark life’s vital force. Perhaps electricity is life’s vital force.
Polidori: Miss Godwin! Mary, what you are suggesting is very unsettling… If a man may bestow life to another man from dead parts, without God’s hand, then this new formed creature would not possess a soul, for only God may give man a soul. And if a man is without a soul — Let us pursue this line of reasoning. Well, then. If we were to assume all men were animated from such a vital power in nature such as electricity, then, all men would be without souls. Therefore, under these circumstances, there may be no necessity for God.
Mary: (Patronizing.) Blasphemous words. Be careful, Doctor. Percy’s pamphlet, “The Necessity of Atheism”, led to his expulsion from Oxford.
Claire: (Claire enters from stairs carrying pages of manuscript. A sense of urgency.) Mary, what happened last night during the reading of “Christobel”?
Polidori: Miss Godwin I must speak to you, later… privately. (Polidori limping, exits to outside.)
Claire: While Lord Byron read, I went out, for a brief instant, and when I returned everyone had vanished. No word. No felicitation… Where is Lord Byron? I heard him calling from outside.
Mary: There was a mishap. A man fell out of a tree.
Claire: A man fell out of a tree. A man fell out of a tree! What connection does that have to Lord Byron’s whereabouts? Never mind. I’ll find him myself. (Shelley entering with poultice from outside bumps into Claire. Claire exits to outside.)
Shelley: (Out of breath, carrying poultice.) He’s not there. The man from the tree. George said he saw his corpse on the hedge with this poultice on his face. Then after, when we both went to move him —
Mary: He’s not dead?
Shelley: He vanished. He melted into thin air. George and Polly are going to Villa Diodati.
Mary: Perhaps on the road they’ll pass our man from the tree.
Elise: (Entering from stairs with urgency.) Mister Shelley! Bless my soul! You have the poultice. (Elise grabs the poultice from his hands.) I shouldn’t have given you that poultice. Its herbs are mighty dangerous.
Shelley: What herbs?
Elise: (Turns to leave.) I have to look after William. I heard him cough.
Shelley: (Grabs her arm firmly.) No one coughed. Tell me. What dangerous herbs? What about this poultice? Where did you find these herbs?
Elise: Geraldine. Geraldine gave them to me. The woman camped under the big oak. I never meant them for this poultice. Those herbs are for a direly sick baby. For William, in case of high fever. A final cure to put off… Geraldine warned me. She’s a good woman. Told her I served poets, so she refused my coins. (Percy, light-headed, releases her arm. Elise runs upstairs with poultice.)
Shelley: Geraldine?… I feel faint. That vision… when the woman turns to face Christobel… it disturbs me still. (Sits.) At first, this morning I had no recollection but now those eyes glaring from her … I see them. … Piercing as through a mist, those eyes… the image lingers… Claire. (Stands. Distraught. Paces.) That monster, that fell from the tree is loose. Claire! Claire should be here. I must find her before — He’ll be seeking revenge against —
Mary: Percy, please. A corpse on a hedge… suddenly alive and seeking revenge. The whole incident is preposterous. Claire will soon catch Lord Byron and Doctor Polidori. Your imagination is running away from you. You need rest.
Shelley: I do. I must talk with Claire and George. First, I’ll sit for a moment. (Sits. Mary softly caresses his forehead and cheek. Shelley calms.) I’ll rest for a moment. (Pause. Shelley looks at Mary, addresses her.) Queen Mab, my Fairy Queen…
Mary : I am your Fairy Queen. Shall I ply my magic? Or… Please recite some verses from “Queen Mab”.
Percy: Yes. I shall… (Pauses to recall verse. Mary massages his head. Shelley begins calmly reciting.) “How wonderful is Death ” —
Mary: Percy. Another verse. Please, begin from… “Joy to the Spirit”. (Continues caressing Shelley.)
Shelley: Yes, Queen Mab. My enchanting Fairy Queen …. (Grateful for Mary’s attention and love he recites “Queen Mab” seeing the images from the poem in Mary’s face.)
Joy to the Spirit came, —
Such joy as when a lover sees
The chosen of his soul in happiness,
And witnesses her peace
Whose woe to him were bitterer than death,
Sees her unfaded cheek
Glow mantling in first luxury of health,
Thrills with her lovely eyes
Which like two stars amid the heaving main
Sparkle through liquid bliss.
Mary: “Liquid bliss.” Your words are transcendent.
Shelley: Well coupled we are, Mary.
Mary: I feel, now, the complete union of our hearts… in this instant… of liquid bliss. In this instant — Our. Liquid. Bliss. Crystallizes. (Pause. Shelley looks deeply into her eyes. They breathe.)
Shelley: For the first time, I truly understand my own words… “your eyes sparkle through liquid bliss.” Your eyes sparkle through liquid bliss.
Mary: Percy. Through the mist of time, I foresee myself looking back on… this. (Pause.)
Shelley: Shall we finish the verse? (Continues reciting.)
Then in her triumph spoke the Fairy Queen: (Looking to Mary to speak.)
Mary: (Continues from Percy.)
The present now is past,
And those events that desolate the earth
Have faded from the memory of Time…
… To me is given
The wonders of the human world to keep,
Space, matter, time, and mind…
Shelley: My muse.
Mary: We are well coupled.
Shelley: Yes, Mary. And well joined we are with all our company… Lord Byron, the Doctor, Claire and… you and me.
Mary: Undeniably so.
Shelley: A collective mind within our coterie here is borne.
Mary: And we ….”The wonders of the human world to keep,
“Space, matter, time, and mind.”
Shelley: And as wonders of the human world we are uncovering a vital force here, unrealized by previous poets… George’s suggestion that we each write a ghost story shall be a true test, an experiment for our collective mind.
Mary: I shall compose a story. And the Doctor too… likely about his woman spying through a keyhole.
Shelley: No doubt, George’s mind will unleash some chilling pages that surely would frighten Claire from her copying his Cantos.
Mary: And send her scurrying into our bed chamber. Soon she will need some task to occupy her time. I should tell you, Claire carries —
Shelley: Claire. What burning urgency sent Claire running after George?
Mary: I would assume she’s distraught because… she’s carrying Lord Byron’s child. I wanted to —
Shelley: Of course. I thought as much. I should have pinned George down on the matter when we first arrived here, but I’ve avoided broaching the subject. I suspect Claire wants it settled and has run off to negotiate with George. He is obligated to provide financial compensation.
Mary: You knew she was carrying his child?
Shelley: Yes.
Mary: How long?
Shelley: I can’t recall. A while. Before we left England. She informed you too. Very well. We both know. When did she tell you?
Mary: Yesterday. You knew “a while” and you didn’t share it with me.
Shelley: She asked me to keep it secret from you.
Mary: Secret? A secret with Claire.
Shelley: Well, yes. Claire confides in me.
Mary: Claire confides in you?
Shelley: Yes. She does. Mary, have you no secrets?
Mary: Secrets from you? I think not. What other secrets do you and she share? (Mary continues over Shelley’s next line.)
Shelley: Mary. Claire and I only —
Mary: I am so blind. Claire and Percy. Percy and Claire always flitting about. Strolling to the solicitor. Prancing around to the publishers. Rowing on the Thames. When did these deceptions begin? Those long intimate walks in Bath? Before that? When I was expecting William? Before? Perhaps you had her too behind my mother’s gravestone.
Claire: (Offstage.) Do not be cold with me!
Byron: (Offstage.) Away with you!
(Byron and Claire, Claire dragging on his waistcoat tails with one hand, clutching the manuscript with the other hand, enter.)
Claire: I throw myself upon your mercy —
Byron: Take this woman off —
Claire: (Clutching Byron) I confessed my love for you, I gave you my unbounded affection, and you betray me with chambermaids!
Byron: (Breaking free.) I made no promises. Scarcely a betrayal since I am married to Annabelle.
Claire: Well, Percy is married to Harriet, not Mary.
Byron: Percy, an eighteen-year-old girl flings herself at you. What man would resist? Percy, would you resist?
Claire: I will show you “fling”. You want your fair copies! (Flings loose pages of manuscript in the air.) Here! Rendered with my fair hand. There’s your Childe Harold’s “concubines and carnal companie”.
Byron: You impudent little fiend. No women makes a scene with me.
Claire: Too many have made grand scenes with you. Lady Caroline Lamb. Your wife, Annabelle. The spawn of your scenes people the isle. Your sister, Augusta —
Byron: Augusta doesn’t make scenes.
Claire: When your sister bears your children, the whole of society endures that scene. Have you no moral boundaries?
Byron: No. I abhor moral boundaries. I recognize that. My moral boundaries are infinite. Righteous zealotry, hypocritical conventions, I despise. I planted two children in Augusta. Two of her brood are mine. Augusta, who shares a father with me — Captain Jack. I stallioned her beneath tall meadow sedge. By a cold stream, mud swallowing our knees, Augusta, one eye gazing over her shoulder through her sodden hair, drank me in. Then I drank the stream tasting our dissolved humours. I drank her flesh and pressed her beneath me deep into the mud. (Starts to address Augusta mental image.) We share our father’s wild blood, Augusta. And even now I crave our salt-fish fragrances suffocating the air, our mingling fluids sparking our hairs to stand on end. (Back to Claire.) I know exactly who I am and what I am. And I am content in my utter depravity!
Claire: Mary, Percy, I beg you. Help… me.
Shelley: Claire, I wish… George, you make the world your conundrum. People loathe your conduct and yet they cannot stop gawking at you.
Byron: The masses envy my freedom. They may pursue freedom, but they’re afraid to catch it. The Voice of Reason speaking to my Childe Harold speaks to me in only one ear. The Voice of Freedom speaks louder in my other ear.
Shelley: George, Claire’s situation is desperate. Perhaps you should make arrangements for Claire and her child.
Byron: How do I know the brat is mine? (Pause.)
Mary: Percy? Claire? (Pause.)
Claire: (Walks to Lord Byron. Close. Looks him in the eye.) The. Brat. Is. Yours.
(Blackout.)
— Intermission —
ACT II — September, 1821, Walkway beside the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy
Scene 1
(A single Italian column upstage left. A nearly bare stage with a bench downstage left; a short post to tie a gondola off and some bundled rope, suggest a walkway by a Venetian Canal. Polidori , upstage right, sits at a small table raised above the level of the stage with a few steps down to the stage, suggesting a tavern-cafe. A small vial and a very large – wide – book are on the table in front of him. Polidori is in whiteface reminiscent of an other-worldly clown, looking dead. Polidori cannot be seen or heard by the other characters. Although the stage directions between Polidori’s readings are written between lines of poetry, the fluidity of the poetry should be maintained. The stage directions indicate whether the poetry is recited continuously during the action or if there is a pause in the poetry recital. Music continues underneath the poetry. Night. Lights up on Polidori only.)
Polidori (Reads): “Don Juan” by Lord George Gordon Byron (Pause, as he skims down the page.)
And Coleridge too has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,
(Quickly drinks vial and dies reading the next two lines.)
Explaining metaphysics to the nation.
I wish he would explain his explanation.
(Lights up on stage indicating night. Polidori slumps over his table and stops reciting. The music continues. The streets are alive with masqueraders. The mood is festive and flirtatious. Lord Byron wears a mask — he has a second feminine mask on his hand which has a long haired wig attached. This second mask on his hand is hidden under his cape. He enters stage left, drunkenly stumbling away from four masked woman, three wearing capes: [Three of the women may be the actors playing Claire, Mary and Elise disguised as Italians.] The fourth without a cape, is Margarita, wild hair, her worn and slightly torn gaudy dress hangs off one shoulder. Out of breath Byron stops. The women, laughing and giggling, surround him for a few beats and one of them runs her hands over his body. From behind Margarita grabs that woman and pushes her away. Suddenly he shows the mask on his hand and the women step back and pretend to be frightened. He animates the mask on his hand like a puppet, making it caress him [“transforming” it into a woman]. Polidori sits up and begins to recite the six lines of verse below, starting slowly, sensually. Byron kisses the mask/puppet on his hand, it “kisses him back” as Polidori recites. The women feign jealousy.)
Polidori: Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss;
A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,
And beauty, all concentrating like rays
Into one focus, kindled from above;
Such kisses as belong to early days,
Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,
(Polidori recites continuously while Byron with his free hand grabs the forearm of his masked hand as if holding the mask/puppet figure like a woman — staring intently into her eyes through his own mask. The four masked woman are entertained and excited. Byron forces ” the mask/puppet [“the woman”] to lie down on the bench.)
Polidori (Recites continuously from the stanza above.):
And the blood ‘s lava, and the pulse a blaze…
Each kiss a heart-quake…
She ceased, and turn’d upon her pillow; pale
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
Waved and o’ershading her wan cheek, appears
Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail,
(As Polidori reads continuously from the stanza above: The mask/puppet on Byron’s hand sleeps. Very slowly Byron starts to recline to lie next to the mask/puppet. Two women quickly exit stage right laughing – [actors also playing Mary and Claire]. Margarita tries to keep Byron from reclining causing Byron’s mask to slip off his face. His face is seen by the audience. Byron reclines to lie with the mask/puppet.)
Polidori (Recites continuously from the stanza above.):
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
Its snow through all;—her soft lips lie apart,
And louder than her breathing beats her heart.
(Polidori pauses after “beats her heart”. Once Byron has reclined, Margarita covers Byron with the cape and crawls under the cape with him. The masked woman walks backwards towards the exit laughing hoping Byron will call her back. She waits near the exit. Byron passes out. Polidori resumes reading)
Polidori: (Recites.) Don Juan First Canto …
Hail, Muse! et cetera.— We left Juan sleeping,
Pillow’d upon a fair and happy breast,
And watch’d by eyes that never yet knew weeping,
And loved by a young heart, too deeply blest
To feel the poison through her spirit creeping…
(The masked woman bumps into Shelley who is entering stage left. The masked woman turns facing Shelley.)
Shelley: Giovane donna. Dove si trova il ponte di Rialto. (Shelley asks the woman for directions to the Rialto Bridge.)
Masked Woman: (Flirtatiously. Speaks rapidly.) Giovane. Vado vicino a quella casa. Devi venire con me. Mio marito è a Milano. Vieni con me prima di andare a casa di Battista (She tells Shelley her house is near his destination and her husband is in Milan and that he should come with her. The masked woman pulls Shelley to stage left.)
Shelley: Repeat that slowly, please.
Masked Woman: Non importa.
(Shelley and masked woman exit, stage left. Margarita shifts herself causing her mask and Byron’s female mask to jut out from underneath the cape like a two headed creature.)
Polidori (Recites.):
The love of offspring ‘s nature’s general law,
From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings;
There ‘s nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw
Like an invasion of their babes and sucklings;
(Claire and Mary enter stage right, lost.)
Polidori (Recites continuously from the stanza above.):
And all who have seen a human nursery, saw
How mothers love their children’s squalls and chucklings…
(Lights dim on Polidori. Music fades.)
Claire: I shall have my child. I shall have my child. (Pause. Mary and Claire look around trying to decide which direction to take.) It would be on our first night in Venice you would lose Percy.
Mary: I’ve already explained it, he vanished into that crowd the instant I released my hold on his cape.
Claire: You should not have released your hold then. (From across the stage, Claire sees the masks jutting out from under the cape covering Byron and Margarita on the bench.) Mary, please stay close. These masks are terrifying.
Mary: Perhaps, in that tempest of masqueraders, Percy will stumble on Lord Byron.
Claire: Mary, it haunts me. If only I had loved any other man — Lord Byron barricades me from my own daughter. And then he cloisters her in that convent. In that disease infested swamp in Ravenna. He is more considerate of his servants and dogs.
Mary: The Magistrates’ ruling forbids Lord Byron’s contact with the child he had with his wife, so he keeps your Allegra.
Claire: He inflicts on me what the magistrates inflict on him. He parcels out revenge on the women who’ve borne his children!
Mary: Please, dear.
Claire: Oh yes. Not Augusta! Their incestuous litter he flaunts —
Mary: My dear, Claire. You’re attracting attention from those windows.
Claire: Mary, you have Lord Byron’s esteem, the success of your Frankenstein novel, and two children.
Mary: Take comfort in the Venice sights.
Claire: You have your husband’s love.
Mary: My husband’s love? I fear his purpose was to strand us.
Claire: I have nothing but a small hope that I may see my daughter for a few days. And even that hope fades. Promise me, Mary. You will do everything in your power to help me get my Allegra back?
Mary: We are lost. Perhaps we can find a gondola to take us back.
(Claire and Mary look for gondola and walk towards the stage right exit. Margarita, wearing mask, suddenly stands, runs towards Mary and Claire who are shocked and momentarily frozen with fear. Mary, and Claire run and exit stage right.)
(Byron’s cape slips. Margarita notices it and runs back to him. Margarita takes off her mask and tugs on his jacket and wakes him. Byron sees her. Byron sits up pushes Margarita away and stumbles upstage and “vomits” with back to the audience.)
Margarita (Peasant Italian accent.): I bring something clean you. Don’t go in canal. Per favore. No swim now. Man drown here. Sorvast. (Drowned.) (Margarita puts mask on.)
(Music. Lights up on Polidori sitting up at the table. Polidori reads.)
Polidori (Recites.): Love, constant love, has been my constant guest,
And yet last night, being at a masquerade,
(Polidori quickly drinks vial and dies reading next two lines.)
I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan,
Which gave me some sensations like a villain.
(Light dim somewhat on Polidori, now slumped over table. Margarita moves to stage left exit. Shelley enters stage left, passing Margarita exiting. Shelley gradually recognizes Byron stumbling towards the bench and runs to him.)
Shelley: George! Let me help you. (Shelley helps Byron sit on the bench, pulls a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and wipes Byron’s chin with the handkerchief.)
Byron: (Foggy.) Percy? Percy. You’ve come. You were at the masquerade?
Shelley: Quite accidentally. We’d only just arrived in Venice; we stepped outside and were swept away by a sea of revelers.
Byron: I am so pleased you have rescued me.
Shelley: It is you who have rescued me. I am quite lost.
Byron: I presume Miss Godwin is with you in Venice. I beg your pardon; she is now Mrs. Shelley.
Shelley: She is. And both our children are here. And the servants.
Byron: And Allegra’s mother?
Shelley: Yes, Claire is here. (Folds handkerchief and replaces it in his pocket.)
Byron: No matter. We celebrate Dionysius tonight.
Shelley: As I recall, you celebrate Dionysius every night. Your celebrations will kill you.
Byron: Hah! I shall be immortal. My publisher… and my lovers tell me so. I can’t breathe. Help me off with this coat. (Byron tries to unbutton jacket, then stands. Percy helps him unbutton and remove his jacket as they converse.) Paint a portrait of my immortality with your phrases.
Shelley: (Mockingly pedantic.) You will be immortalized… immortalized in your verses. Whispers of your dread exploits waft among the shadows of time. Your verses melt into the infinite ocean of the collective mind.
Byron: (Byron applauds.) Melt? Melt into the ocean?
Shelley: Of the… Collective Mind. Our four years since Lake Geneva seem like a few breaths.
(Shelley places Byron’s waistcoat over the back of the bench and moves to embrace him.)
Byron: A moment, please. I fear I must vomit. (Shelley reaches for his handkerchief. Pause. Byron breathes deeply. Feels relief.) Damn. Nothing rhymes with vomit. I must tell you, of all poets it is your verse I favour.
Shelley: Not Coleridge.
Byron: No. He was a youthful dalliance. I’ll recite one of yours… You sent me this one. Please, sit. (Shelley sits.) Listen. (Byron recites “Ocean of Time” teasingly playing a lover, one knee on the bench in a lunge, looking deeply into Shelley’s eyes.)
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
(Byron moves to both knees on the ground.)
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore…
(Byron collapses his head on Shelley’s knee for an instant.)
Shelley: You’ve committed my poem to memory! I am honoured… Comet.
Byron: (Byron raises up high on knees.) Comet?
Shelley: Comet rhymes with vomit.
Byron: (Byron stands, speaking in a light-hearted mocking tone.) You do go on and on about “waters of deep woe” and “wrecks on shore”. Too much sadness. Your incessant waters and oceans wet your pages and dilute your ink.
Shelley: Not so wet as your shuddering, shivering lovers spurting ink and blackening your pages and hands so that not all my great oceans will wash the ink clean from your hands.
Byron: I shall raise a glass to that. (Looks to tavern, upstage right.) Wine!
Shelley: (Shelley stands.) This night’s wine has already turned your insides out. Does Childe Harold’s “Voice of Reason” not call for —
Byron: The Voice of Reason wears a mask tonight. WINE! I say!
Shelley: You aren’t home, you know. You can’t call for wine from the street.
Byron: I thought I was in my bed chamber. Just now a lover was bouncing up and down right here. (Points to lap.) That is a worthy subject for verse. (Byron walks upstage and up the steps to Polidori’s table, calling to the tavern where Polidori is slumped over, but visible only to the audience.) WINE! WINE! I say! Bring me wine!
Shelley: (Gesturing to the tavern where Polidori sits.) George, no one is there.
Byron: I have called for wine and I shall have wine!
Shelley: It’s late. The tavern is empty. Look, George. You’ve disturbed the households across the canal. Their candles are lit now.
Byron: (Byron starting to remove his shirt runs down the steps and down stage to dive into the canal. Shelley pursues him.) Then I shall swim across and drench their candles!
(Shelley catches him and holds him around the chest from behind. Shelley continues to restrain him while Byron struggles in Shelley’s arms for the next four speeches. Byron’s shirt is half off.)
Byron: (Calling across canal.) Back to your breeding! You dull-witted spectators! I shall rise from the water! And batter down your doors! Release me —
Shelley: Calm yourself —
Byron: (Still struggling and calling across canal.) I SHALL HAVE YOUR WINE! THEN YOUR WIVES! I shall ravish entire households. I must swim! WINE —
Shelley: Drink water —
Byron: WINE —
Shelley: Not wine. (Shelley squeezes tighter.) Water! Water is the universal elixir. (Byron relaxes in Shelley’s arms.)
Byron: You are my elixir. (Shelley still holding Byron from behind. With little position change Shelley’s restraint becomes and an embrace.)
Shelley: You must know your carousing wastes your magnificent talent. How many more “Don Juans” you might write!
Byron: I am no Milton lost to paradise, writing from a cell. This world’s delights inspire my verse. The “dread exploits” of Don Juan flood my mind.
Shelley: Your fictions become more real than your true self. They become your puppet masters and you their puppet. Childe Harold and now Don Juan pull your strings.
Byron: (Byron breaks away from Shelley’s embrace and faces him.) Your metaphor overshoots its mark and rebounds to you. Your women are your puppeteers pulling your strings to satisfy their whims. No woman puppets me! No one pulls my strings! (Byron walks back to the bench.) My verse mirrors myself, nothing more. (Byron sits.) Nothing more.
(Pause.)
Shelley: Have you heard—the critic Southey lumped us together into the Satanic School of Poetry?
Byron: So, you see, we are equals in our debauchery.
Shelley: If Southey insults us, we’ve accomplished much.
Byron: Indeed. You have accomplished much. You nearly upset the social order, when you published the narrative about the incestuous lovers, the, the—
Shelley: The “Revolution of the Golden City”. The publishers withdrew it. Incest is not a worthy subject for the magistrates, as you well know.
Byron: I do know magistrates don’t understand poets. I’ve lost in court enough to know that. We’ve both suffered our losses. Your first wife, Harriet, drowned herself. (Shelley is caught off-guard.) The child she was carrying, yours?
Shelley: Not sure. No, I think not.
Byron: You’re not faulting yourself for Harriet’s drowning? (Byron stands.) Percy! Percy, even from her grave she pulls your puppet strings. (Byron walks to Shelley.) Look at me. You mustn’t fault yourself for that woman’s rash act. Percy! You’re not falling into one of your trances, are you?
Shelley: No, but I still —
Byron: Tell me you won’t fault yourself. Please, Percy. Never feel a deeper love for a woman than she feels for you. Never! Never. You know about Polidori? Poor Polly poisoned himself lamenting some unrequited love. What femme phantasm pulled poor Polly’s puppet strings? Polly Dolly. I loved him. It’s strange, sometimes I hear his voice echoing across the canal.
Shelley: Perhaps you hear the gondoliers singing —
Byron: Polly’s fatal flaw was hubris, believing he could sit with us on Olympus.
Shelley: A fashionable flaw, hubris. (Pause.) I wonder…Claire wonders how her daughter is faring.
Byron: I care not what she wonders. That woman is your puppeteer even now pulling your strings. With your puppet lips you might speak with her woman’s voice, asking me how my daughter is faring?
Shelley: I must serve as her intermediary. You haven’t answered her letters. All I ask is for some news of Allegra.
Byron: Very well then. (Byron walks to the bench.) Her health is excellent. Allegra is my joy. (Byron sits.) Her temper, not bad. She has a devil of a spirit. Her Papa’s nature.
Shelley: Thank you.
Byron: l look forward to her being the pillar of my old age. You know I keep her in the care of the nuns at Bagnacavallo near Ravenna. (Margarita enters with cloth and another shirt.)
Shelley: Yes. Some months ago you wrote that you placed her there to be raised a Roman Catholic. Claire worries about Ravenna. The putrid swamps there —
Margarita: I bring this. Clean you.
Byron: Margarita, this is Mister Shelley. Together we comprise the Satanic School of Poetry.
Margarita: (Margarita starts wiping Byron’s neck with the cloth.) Mister Shelley. I not read poems.
Byron: She doesn’t’ read at all. Her talents lie elsewhere.
Shelley: (To Margarita) Buona sera, Senorina. (To Byron.) Claire would like to see Allegra.
Byron: (Byron pushes Margarita off and stands. She sits on the ground by his feet.) See Allegra? For what? To turn the child against me? (Removes shirt.) To teach her there is no Deity? (Throws shirt to the ground.) I want to be done with that woman!
Margarita: I kill her for you.
Shelley: Claire truly loves the child. She would settle for some visits. Perhaps we can come to a compromise.
Byron: With Miss Clairmont? A compromise? There is no such beast.
Shelley: Perhaps we —
Byron: Very well. I want the whole nightmare concluded. As long as there is a convenience of access — for both of us — she can have the child live with her.
Shelley: She can take Allegra to live with her and Mary and me? I’ll bring Claire to your —
Byron: No. In a fortnight I’ll have a servant bring her by coach from the convent. I’ll send Allegra to you with Elise. (Looks to Margarita.) I have some business to attend. Bring me home, Margarita. But first… we will disguise ourselves. A little magic. (Byron takes woman’s bloomers from his waistcoat pocket. The coat is on the bench. Margarita goes to slap him. Byron catches her arm.) I found them, my dear. No doubt these undergarments were dropped by a careless char woman. (Byron removes his pants, puts the bloomers on, and in one motion sweeps Margarita’s dress off her and puts it on himself. Margarita puts on Byron’s pants, fresh shirt, jacket and his cape. The following dialogue happens while they exchange clothes and dress themselves. Music sounding like it is being played on a passing gondola starts faintly and slowly builds — a guitar or concertina. Spoken directly to Margarita.) And if you will have patience, you will soon have what you want. (To Shelley.) She can be jealous and… wild, but that is a small price to pay for such a rare beauty. (Referring to Margarita.) She walks in beauty. “She walks in beauty”. Good title. You’ve read it?
Shelley: (Shelley walks to the bench.) I have a vague recollection of… (Shelley sits.) some “waves in every raven tress” —
Byron: I wrote it and I don’t recall any waves. I’ve heard that Mrs. Shelley has had great success with her book… “Frankenstein”. I’ve read it. Haunting. Perhaps she should publish it under her own name next time. Some rumours claim you wrote it. You didn’t write it, did you? No. Not your style, though it does have its oceans. You and Mary must call on me tomorrow. Every day.
Shelley: It would be our pleasure to —
Byron: To have joy one must share it. Was our time at Lake Geneva only moments ago? Do you recall how you were terrified by my reading of “Christabel”? Oh, yes. “Eyes where her nipples should be. “Eyes for Nipples”, a good title. Nothing rhymes with nipple and it would never pass the censors?
Shelley: Cripple. (Pause. Author’s note: Byron’s malformed foot is his chief vulnerability.)
Byron: Cripple? (Pause. For an instant Byron believes Shelley has called him a “cripple”.)
Shelley: Cripple rhymes with nipple.
Byron: (Byron understanding the coincidence and trying to hide his momentary lapse of strength.) Of course. I would never have thought of that. Never, never. Very clever. Percy, you must attend the masquerade here. Leave Mrs. Shelley at home. The succulent fruit is for the plucking. (Pause.) Why so silent? (Pause. Byron looks out at the canal.) I know that musician in the gondola.
Margarita: He play at masquerade.
Byron: A storm is coming. (The music is now “close”. Margarita puts on Byron’s male mask and he puts on the woman’s mask with the attached wig; the masks go on simultaneously. Margarita, now dressed in Byron’s clothes walks to Byron, now in Margarita’s clothes. He curtsies signaling he wants to dance with her. She bows. Since the word “cripple” was mentioned, Byron wants to dance to show Shelley he can dance well. Sweeping across the entire stage they dance to the music. Byron dances overcoming his limp and his now lessening inebriation. During their dance Shelley watches from the bench. After some dancing Margarita releases Byron in a turn. He “chaineés“ over to Shelley on the bench, curtsies and stays in a plié for several beats. Shelley stands and leads Byron as they dance. They stop, Byron’s back towards Margarita. Byron kisses Shelley. Shelley opens his eyes and sees the very jealous Margarita who has a knife — which she had concealed in her boots or bloomers. She approaches and threatens Shelley. Shelley backs away a few steps. Byron walks up to Margarita slowly and takes the knife. They remove their masks and kiss. Byron and Margarita laugh.)
Margarita: (To Byron.) Andremo a casa e scopare. (We’ll go home and have sex.)
Byron: (To Shelley.) Are you able to find your way home?
Shelley: Yes, but… I shan’t go home just yet. I’ve escaped.
Byron: I see… (Byron places the knife on the bench and reaches in the pocket of his waistcoat now worn by Margarita. They smile as he explores the pocket.) Since you’ve escaped, I have a gift for you. (Byron takes out a vial. The music is slowly fading.) I was presented this vial of bliss at the masquerade by a thoroughly reliable Englishman. I don’t partake myself. (Byron hands Shelley the vial — identical to Polidori’s vial.) But I do remember on Lake Geneva —
Shelley: Laudanum?
Byron: Indeed. We shall celebrate Dionysus.
Shelley: We shall.
Byron: Take only half the customary dose… perhaps three drops. It is potent. (Byron hands Shelley an eye dropper, also from the waistcoat pocket.) Good night.
Margarita: Good night, Mister Shelley. One day I learn to read your poem. (Byron and Margarita put their masks on again. Dream music gradually fades in.)
Shelley: Good night. (Shelley removes the cork from the vial and looks at the vial.)
Byron: Pleasant dreams. (Byron takes the knife off the bench.) I cut away your puppet strings. (Byron swings the knife above Shelley’s head.)
(Margarita picks up the soiled shirt and any other remaining clothes and she and Byron exit stage right laughing. Shelley sits on the bench. General lighting dims gradually as lights go up on Polidori slumped over at the table. Just as Shelley begins the motion of throwing the vial’s contents back into his mouth, Polidori quickly sits up. Shelley stops the motion and frozen in that action for a few beats, decides not to drink the vial’s contents. Instead with the eye dropper Shelley drops a few drops on his tongue. Shelley replaces the cork and puts the vial in his waistcoat pocket. Shelley falls asleep.)
(Polidori reads “She Walks in Beauty” continuously through the following action. Music continues under the poetry recitation. During the first four lines, Mary dressed as a nymph on an ancient Grecian urn, enters stage left and walks to centre stage and stares at Shelley sleeping, then she begins to dance very slowly.)
Polidori: She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
(Dreaming, Shelley turns his head opening his eyes to Mary as Mary dances gracefully, ethereally, almost floating. Polidori looks up from the book and watches her too; he is now reciting from memory.)
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
(Polidori , continuously reciting, the book in one hand, vial raised in the other hand toasting to Mary, stands, descends, and walks towards Mary slowly. We see his cut puppet “strings” [thin ropes], for the first time, attached to his wrists and ankles trailing behind him. A shorter “string” dangles from his heart. Two short strings dangle from the book. Shelley watches. The light on his upstage table goes out.)
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
(Mary dances for Polidori as he approaches. For the last line of the following verse she pulls Polidori’s heart string. In his dream Shelley watches.)
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
(As he completes the recital, Polidori, in slow motion starts to move the vile of poison to his lips. Mary grabs a puppet string attached to his wrist and pulls the string to stop him from taking the poison. Mary and Polidori struggle as he tries to move the poison to his lips. Howling Wind Sound. We hear recorded sound from Act I Scene 3 of Children’s Voices saying “Behold!” repeatedly, merged into the dream music and wind. During the struggle Shelley walks towards Polidori. Shelley pulls the strings dangling from the book — still held by Polidori — and the pages of the book unfurl into a large painting of a woman’s breasts and partial torso, eyes where her nipples should be. The wide book has only one large folded piece of canvas with the painting, which unfolds when pulled by the “strings” [thin ropes] attached to the bottom of the painting. Mary and Polidori — still holding the book — freeze in a tableau. Terrorized Shelley falls back and crawls downstage staring at the painting and continues to crawl downstage.)
(The light comes up on the upstage table as Mary and Polidori freeze in tableau. The murky figure — from the Act I Scene 3, Christobel Dream — stands behind the upstage “cafe” table; he raises the telescope and looks at Shelley. Blackout. Music fades. Silence. Splashing sound of someone falling in the canal. Silence. Sound of child crying. Mary and Polidori exit in blackout. In the blackout Shelley moves to the bench and resumes his original sleeping position. Lights up. Claire runs in barefoot from stage right, “blood” make-up on one of her feet. Claire is lost. She changes direction and hesitates a few times and then sees Shelley, recognizes him and runs to him.)
Claire: Percy. Percy. (Claire shakes him by both shoulders.) Percy, please wake up. (Shelley wakes up.)
Shelley: Is Mary safe?
Claire: (Catching breath between phrases.) She’s home… with the children.
Shelley: Is she safe?
Claire: Mary’s asleep. I was too restless to sleep. The masqueraders kept me awake.
Shelley: Mary’s asleep then. How are Clara and William?
Claire: William fares well. Clara worsens.
Shelley: Our haste to travel here has been at Clara’s expense. Claire, your feet are bare!
Claire: Percy, I want my child so much. I need Allegra back!
Shelley: Claire, listen. Lord Byron —
Claire: I went to his house. (Pause.) I heard a child cry. I thought perhaps she had been brought back from the convent. I slipped into Allegra’s chamber. I hoped we could steal off to Russia or Norway — anywhere far away. But she wasn’t in her chamber. Then I wanted to find you. I was lost in the maize of streets. I approached some masqueraders to ask for directions. It was Lord Byron in the street with a strumpet costumed as a dandy. Both of them were disguised. Lord Byron, even in a woman’s garb, I recognized his gait. He can’t hide it. He passed me this close. Didn’t utter a word. Not even a glance. Then he led the woman under an archway and he had his enterprise with her. I watched. And as they trembled in the peak of their pleasure, his mask slipped from his face and in the light beam of a passing gondola he watched me with a serpent gleam in his eye. He looked deep, deep into me. (Claire collapses on bench. Shelley notices the blood on her foot and gently touches her foot.) It was a demon eye that melted me.
(Shelley kneels next to Claire and removes his handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and wraps his handkerchief around her “bloody” foot.)
Shelley: He will give you Allegra.
Claire: The pain of his glance — He will give me my child? Oh, my Allegra. When? When? When!
(A beat… Music comes up slowly. One of the masquerading women passes laughing, looking back over her shoulder as if pursued. Shelley still kneeling, Claire gently pulls Shelley’s head to her lap and strokes his hair. The light slowly fades as the masquerader walks backwards towards the exit.)
Scene 2 — Walkway in front of Lord Byron’s villa, Venice
(Lights up. Morning. In front of Lord Byron’s Venetian villa on the Grand Canal. A few pillars adorn the entrance, upstage centre. And a few large ceramic pots with herbs decorate the villa entrance up stage. Some crates waiting to be loaded on a boat serve as seats down stage. Lord Byron, in a swim costume, is stretching, preparing for a swim in the Grand Canal. Mary enters stage right. Mary approaches quickly with his manuscript, slows, nearly stops and takes in his striking figure. She stands behind Lord Byron. He senses her and turns slowly. Music fades.)
Byron: I am pleased to see you, Mrs. Shelley. And, you have the fair copies of “Don Juan”.
Mary: Yes, Lord Byron. As always, it is a pleasure to be in your company. Truly, it has been a privilege rendering the copies of Don Juan”, and being the first to partake of your poetry.
Byron: Thank you, Mrs. Shelley. It pleases me to know you are the first to taste these words.
Mary: I didn’t copy the last page because I couldn’t decipher a few words.
Byron: (Taking the manuscript.) I shall send you another copy of the last page this evening. Thank you. I regret we won’t have long to visit this morning. I have made a wager with two gentlemen. I claimed I would be faster in a swim to the Rialto Bridge and back.
Mary: I have confidence you will win the wager. I spoke with Percy about your judgement on Allegra’s education. I will do everything in my powers to support your efforts. Thank you for agreeing to permit the visitations with Allegra. Claire will find such joy in these visitations.
Byron: By law, as the father, I am empowered to act in the child’s interest. Mrs. Shelley, on questions of religion you and your husband — and your step sister — stand at odds with me. And so I think it would be in the child’s interest to curtail these visitations.
Mary: Reconsider, my Lord. I believe our philosophies intersect more than they might diverge.
Byron: Indeed. How so?
Mary: We can agree that Christ fought for justice for the masses.
Byron: That is true, however, the Spirit of God is something more than justice. The Spirit of God imbues man with a soul.
Mary: And on the question of Spirit, our philosophies are not entirely conflicting either. I feel, however, the spirit of life is generated in nature.
Byron: In nature. Your Doctor Frankenstein with a galvanic spark put a spirit of life in a monster created from dismembered corpses. But a galvanic spark is not a soul and so the monster lacked morality intrinsic to Christianity. Your monster murdered.
Mary: Yes he did. At first the monster imitated the evil he saw around him in the world. In the end my monster develops morality by evading belief in God. (Mary argues passionately forgetting her original plea for commonality. Byron takes in her passion more than her words.) Obedience to legions of priests imposing the word of God is no morality. We acquire morality through reflection. The monster learned to feel the sufferings he left on the trail of his rampage. Even on the verge of starvation in the company of the animals in the pen, he chose not to kill. You do recall my passage when he thinks to himself: ” I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite.”
(Elise enters from up stage villa door carrying a small basket of apples.)
Elise: Good morning, my Lord. Good morning, Mrs. Shelley.
Mary: Good morning, Elise.
Elise: Lord Byron, you must take some nourishment before such a long swim.
Byron: No. Elise.
Mary: (Mary takes an apple from Elise’s basket and extends her arm holding the apple to his mouth.) Lord Byron, you will need sustenance to win the race.
Byron: Mrs. Shelley, what would your monster think of Christ. (Byron bites the apple and chews it.)
Mary: To be honest, I must say… Christ told stories. He was the consummate showman, a humanitarian magician, a compassionate mountebank… nothing more.
Byron: I cannot abide that, Mrs. Shelley. And to be blunt, I do not want my daughter raised an atheist. In the convent she will be educated about Holy matters with other children of my rank. I don’t want any of my children thrown into a sea of temptation and hypocrisy without knowing how to swim. Elise, take this manuscript and place it on my desk and bring me that bundle of letters on the red chair.
Elise: Yes, Lord Byron. (Elise places the basket of apples on a crate and exits upstage with the manuscript.)
Byron: Beyond religion, there is another question to be considered, the temperament of your step-sister. I have too many misgivings about these visitations. (Again Mary holds the apple to Byron’s mouth, her arm fully extended. He takes hold of her wrist holding the apple. Both are tempted, Mary more than Byron.) Mrs. Shelley, once again, you offer me the forbidden fruit. (Byron, holding her wrist, slowly steps very close to her, opens his mouth and begins to bite into the apple then hesitates. His mouth open. Their eyes locked. Pause. Then speaks.) Our philosophies duel, while our passions mingle. Does your Frankenstein monster have that capacity? (Pause.) Mrs. Shelley, I find our debates as stimulating as this fruit. But I wish not “to glut my appetite.” (Releases her wrist and steps away.) So you see, Mrs. Shelley, I do recall that line from your book.
Mary: Yes.
Byron: I want you to pass on to your stepsister her old letters. Elise will bring them. I have no need for them. And I wish to remind you, your stepsister is not to visit here. Under any circumstances. (Sound effect of two people jumping in the water. He looks to stage left exit.) There are my friends. Scott! Mingalo! They’ve already jumped into the water. I must be off, Mrs. Shelley. To dive into the watery abyss. Thank you for the excellent copies you’ve made me. (Walking quickly to exit.)
Mary: (Walking after Byron.) I shall walk along the canal and watch you win the swim race. (Byron exits stage left.)
Byron: (From off stage.) Can you walk as fast as I swim? (Mary exits after him holding the apple.)
Elise: (Enters.) I have the letters.
Mary: (From off stage.) I will endeavour to do so. Lord Byron. Please wait!
Elise: Mrs. Shelley. Mary?
(Sound of Lord Byron plunging into the canal. Elise sits alone on a crate down stage right, places the bundle of several dozen letters on the crate next to her. She takes a letter from her bodice and slips it in the bundle of letters. She prays. Margarita enters running, drenched with sweat, back in her own clothes from previous scene, her hair wild. Elise stops praying when she sees Margarita. Out of breath, Margarita speaks as she runs in from stage right.)
Margarita: Dove si trova? Where is he? Where is he? (She places her hands on a stack of crates trying to catch her breath.)
Elise: Lord Byron?
Margarita: Si.
Elise: Margarita, he is swimming with friends in the Grand Canal. Left just now.
Margarita: With Mr. Shelley. (Margarita sits.)
Elise: Mr. Shelley doesn’t swim. With two others.
Margarita: I rest. Then I find him.
Elise: (Looking carefully at Margarita.) Did you sleep last night?
Margarita: No sleep. I with Lord Byron here last night. Many nights I stay here. This morning I go home. Husband, say he see me at masquerade with Lord Byron. The old man, he slap me. (Shows bruise.) See. So I take his wrinkled neck like this. Hold tight like I kill a chicken. He doesn’t breathe. Long time he doesn’t breathe. I think he dead. I spit on him. Then he — (She gasps exaggeratingly.) Like that. He get a knife and chase me in house. He scream for constables. I run. Lord Byron help me?
Elise: He’s swimming to Rialto Bridge and back.
Margarita: That far. He strong.
Elise: Yes, that he is. Strong.
Margarita: My husband weak. An old goat. Fifty-two years. And he not stand. I try one hundred ways, one hundred time to get him stand. He not stand.
Elise: He’s a cripple?
Margarita: No. He walks good. He not… stand. Stand.
Elise: Stand? Erezione?
Margarita: Erezione! (They laugh.)
Elise: Erezione!
Margarita: Erezione! Erezione!
Elise: I have a herbal remedy to make erezione. I shall give you some herbs which I have seen cure that affliction. I grow herbs — for only a few friends. In those pots up there on the balcony.
Margarita: These herbs make erezione?
Elise: But, I warn you. Not too much or he will stand for a week.
Margarita: I don’t care if husband stand… and Lord Byron not need herb. You like to be his servant.
Elise: Yes.
Margarita: You are servant other places before.
Elise: I came to serve Lord Byron when he took the little Allegra into his care. I served Mr. and Mrs. Shelley before that.
Margarita: I was Lord Byron’s servant before you. (Picks up letters and looks through them.) What for, these letters?
Elise: Mrs. Shelley’s stepsister, Miss Clairmont wrote them to Lord Byron. (Elise starts weeping quietly.)
Margarita: Miss Clairmont? Don’t know her. Miss Clairmont write many letters. English women talk too much. Not like English men. All they want is — Read me one. Then we laugh at English woman. (Realizes none have been opened.) They not open. He never read letters? (Notices Elise is weeping.) You have tears. Why you cry? (Pause.) Tell me.
Elise: Can’t say it.
Margarita: You nice to me. I help. Tell me.
Elise: Twice now I missed my monthlies…. (Margarita has a bewildered look.) I haven’t… bled. For two months.
Margarita: Down there. You not bleed. You have baby in you. (Margarita takes apple from the basket and eats it.)
Elise: Yes.
Margarita: You have husband?
Elise: I have someone. Yes.
Margarita: Good.
Elise: It’s not my man’s.
Margarita: You tell your man, baby his. Men believe this.
Elise: I haven’t seen him since I left Switzerland, four years ago.
Margarita: Four years. He not believe this his baby. Who father of baby? (Pause.) Tell me. Say his name. (Pause.)
Elise: I can’t say —
Margarita: George? (Margarita stands.) Lord Byron?
Elise: Yes.
Margarita: (Margarita angrily throws apple into a crate; she is jealous.) You have his baby? (Pause. Then has realization.) You. Have. His baby? His baby.
Elise: Yes.
Margarita: I, too. I have his baby. In me. His baby. There. I not bleed. I see. I see now. Lord Byron. He no good. No good. (Claire enters from stage left. Sees Margarita. Claire stops.) I find him now. (Margarita and Claire look at each other. Claire steps back. Pause. To Claire.) Do not be afraid. I not hurt you. Do not be afraid. I have his baby. I find him now. (Walks to exit stage left passing close to Claire.) I find him now. Non abbiate paura… (Do not be afraid. Elise stands. Margarita exits. They watch Margarita run away stage left.) Lo trovo adesso. Lo trovo adesso. (I find him now.)
Elise: Good morning, Miss Clairmont. Lord Byron’s swimming now.
Claire: That woman. Does Lord Byron…?
Elise: Yes, Miss Clairmont.
Claire: Any word from Mister Shelley about Allegra?
Elise: No, Miss Clairmont. I expect you will be holding your Allegra soon. Very soon. (Pause.) Miss Clairmont, when Lord Byron comes back, don’t let him see you.
Claire: Of course. He’d prefer it that way.
Elise: Oh, and he asked me to give you your letters. (Elise picks up the bundle of letters and gives them to Claire.) That’s the lot of them.
Claire: Thank you, Elise. Thank you. (Claire examines them.) They haven’t been opened. They’re still sealed. The wax is intact on every letter. (Finds one with the seal broken.) This one has been opened. Did you open this one, Elise?
Elise: No, Miss Clairmont. I never read even one of your letters.
Claire: This is not my handwriting. Mary wrote this… to Percy. (Claire unfolds the unsealed letter.) How did Mary’s letter get in with these other letters? (Claire sits down and places the sealed letters on the crate next to her.)
Elise: Perhaps Mr Shelley left the letter when —
Claire (Reads.): “Dearest Love. Claire arrived yesterday night and whether it might be that she was in a croaking humour or whether she represented things as they really were I know not… She talks of Harriet’s debts to a large amount. They must be paid…” (To Elise.) Mary wrote this last September when we were in England. (Reads.) “Now this requires our serious consideration… one matter you must settle on before going to Italy… Allegra’s departure ought certainly not to be delayed. You do not seem enough to feel the absolute necessity there is that she should join her father with every possible speed. Write me a long letter concerning all these things and put the letter into the post yourself” … (Re-reading.) “The absolute necessity there is to join her father”. (Claire crumples letter.) Did you know this, Elise? That Mary persuaded Mr. Shelley to send Allegra away from me to her father.
Elise: I do recall a talk of that sort, back in England, when we stayed in Marlow. But Miss Clairmont, this will all be settled soon enough. You’ll have Allegra with you. Mr. Shelley arranged it with Lord Byron. She’s on her way by coach from Ravenna. I’m certain of it.
Claire: It seems some devious efforts on your part brought these letters to me? Why would you —
Elise: I fear that …
Claire: Yes.
Elise: It is most proper that you raise the child… And I fear that Lord Byron may debauch Allegra. He wants her in his charge to raise her as a mistress.
(Pause.)
Claire: No, Elise. He has a fertile imagination. But I cannot believe —
(Mary enters stage left, surprised to find Claire in front of Lord Byron’s villa.)
Mary: Good morning, Claire… Elise.
Elise: Good morning, Mrs. Shelley. We are all looking forward to Allegra’s return.
Claire: Good morning, Mary.
Mary: Claire, I spoke with Lord Byron this morning and —
Claire: So early, Mary. I believe it is his habit to rise from bed in the afternoon. What would bring you here in the early morning?
Mary: Two gentlemen wagered Lord Byron on a swim race this morning and I had to speak to him about “Don Juan” before he started the swim. (Mary had no prior knowledge of the swim race and is covering her motive for choosing an early visit.)
Claire: “Don Juan”?
Mary: You well know I am copying his Cantos. I could not decipher some words in his draft. You remember… his writing is —
Claire: Difficult. I remember.
Mary: Lord Byron told me there has been a change of plans. Allegra will —
Claire: A change? (Claire stands.) I was led to believe Percy and Lord Byron had come to an agreement.
Mary: Lord Byron has reservations about your temperament.
Claire: My temperament, Mary. My child has been stolen. So I may, I think, have a temperament.
Mary: Perhaps he will still grant you visitations if —
Claire: Visitations? (Claire unfolds the letter in her fist.)
Elise: I best be going to see when the coach with Allegra is arriving. Good morning, Mrs. Shelley, Miss Clairmont. (Elise exits stage right.)
Claire: Mary, I am curious about a matter that is very dear to me. I want to ask you a question and I want your most sincere answer.
Mary: It has always been my wish for us to be honest and sincere.
Claire: Have you always supported my desire to bring up my daughter?
Mary: Yes. A child flourishes best with a mother.
Claire: Thank you. May I read you something.
Mary: Of course. Are you composing poetry now?
Claire: No, Mary. You wrote it. But I would hardly call it poetry. (Claire reads the letter.) “Allegra’s departure ought certainly not to be delayed. You do not seem enough to feel the absolute necessity there is that she should join her father with every possible speed.”
Mary: (Mary tears the letter from Claire’s hands.) How did you get this letter? Percy would never show you this. You pried into Percy’s desk. You stole it.
Claire: The letter came into my possession only minutes ago.
Mary: It was Elise.
Claire: The source of this letter is irrelevant.
Mary: I wrote it. Yes. It is my handwriting. I was only concerned about Allegra’s welfare. I assumed she would fare better with her father.
Claire: Now, my dear, you contradict yourself. Would she fare better with her father or mother?
Mary: I was trying to —
Claire: Yes, Mary. How could you conspire? With that monster.
Mary: Monster? Monster. You are so naive. This is what we do, my dear. We create monsters. We become our own monsters. And then we devour each other. I do it. Lord Byron does. And Percy does it.
Claire: Percy?
Mary: Yes, Percy. Well-mannered Percy too is a monster. His wife drowned herself and took her unborn child too. That eats his heart every day. And mine. I am drowning, Claire. I am pulling you under with me. I am pulling Percy down. I am so sorry we are mired in this. The self-important writer of “Frankenstein”. I was swept away in a whirlpool of accolades. Swept away with Lord Byron and Percy. I won my poet, Claire. And then I wanted everything imagination could invent. From my imagination a monster was borne. But I want for the Voice of Reason taming the monster in me. Claire, you are both foolish and wise. You don’t see the futility of your single-minded passion for Lord Byron. But you saw through me. You saw the strange power he has over me. Now I see it too. I see how I acquiesced to his seizure of your daughter. If I had the power to turn back Time — (Pause.) On Lake Geneva when we were with poor Doctor Polidori, you wondered how history would see us. I wonder too.
Elise: (From off stage.) No! Mr. Shelley, no. You must wait! It is no time to tell her! (Percy, with Elise screaming and crying, trying to restrain him, enters stage right.) I beg you. Don’t say —
Mary: Don’t say what.
Elise: (On her knees.) Wait. Please wait.
Shelley: Claire. Sit down, please. (Claire sits.)
Elise: Mr. Shelley. Please.
Shelley: On the way here from Ravenna … Allegra’s fever became very high. She had typhus. It worsened quickly. Claire, I am so sorry, Allegra has left us.
Claire: When can I see her. Will she live with me in Venice? I’ll take her back to England. (Claire stands.) Where is she? Is she safe?
Shelley: Allegra is dead. (Pause.)
Claire: It is not true. Say it is not true. Mary, persuade him to tell me it is not true. Mary you were always able to persuade him. She lives. She lives. (Claire stares out into canal.)
Shelley: No Claire. Allegra is gone.
Mary: Percy, let’s take Claire home. We have a feverish child of our own.
Claire: Look Mary. Look Percy. In the canal. The swimmer. It’s Lord Byron. It is a certainty. It is Lord Byron swimming. He is such a fine swimmer. A fine swimmer… I will love only him… for the rest of my life… only him.
(Blackout. Music.)
ACT III — July 1822, Beach, Lerici, Italy
Scene 1
(Music from the end of Act II cross fades into sounds of gentle waves . A beach, Lerici. Late afternoon. Up stage centre is a piece of a wrecked boat lying upside down. The upward facing piece of the hull has a relatively flat surface just under two meters long running up and down stage. The hull is tilted slightly higher on the upstage end. A light is also installed here, to contribute to the fire effect in the final scene. Driftwood and a few stacks of twigs lay about the beach. Elise sits up stage left on a large piece of driftwood holding two “babies” in bundles. Margarita is reading Shelley’s “Alastor or the Spirit of Solitude”. Her mastery of English is evidence she has studied. As she reads the poem from a small book in her hand, she embodies the text. Lights up.)
Margarita: He turned,
And saw by the warm light of their own life
Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled
His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
Her panting bosom:–she drew back awhile,
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
(Music fades.)
Elise: You’ve learned to read.
Margarita: For Lord Byron, I’ve learned to read. This poem, “Alastor“ by Mr. Shelley.
Elise: That’s beautiful. I dare say you are a marvel. (Elise hands Margarita her baby.)
Margarita: Now his Lordship doesn’t want me. He liked me better when I couldn’t read. Now he won’t touch me.
Elise: He doesn’t want you? (Elise place her baby on the ground.) I dare say, were I a man, I can only think what I might do. (Her hand searches around in her bodice.) Well, I am no man. Yet, one might be tempted. You’ve borne a baby, but you’re a grander beauty than ever. I dare say, it’s no sin to think on it. One might be tempted. (Extracts the pouch she has found in her bosom.) A remedy for your — his problem, my dear.
Margarita: Yes.
Elise: (Elise hands her a small pouch of herbs.) Slip this herb into his Lordship’s cup of tea. Or wine.
Margarita: I remember. You warned me, it’s strong . Not too much.
Elise: Well, this time give him a large dose. (They laugh.) Listen. (Pause.) The Shelleys! They’d fancy me drudging away at chores. Come here. Behind these planks. (Forgets her baby for a second and runs back to get her. They hide behind the wreck as Mary and Percy enter stage right.)
(Mary and Percy stop downstage centre and embrace.)
Margarita: (Whisper.) My baby is stirring.
Elise: Shhh!
Mary: Goodbye, then. (Percy walks a few steps away.) Percy, you must not go now. Not now.
Shelley: (Percy turns and walks to her.) Edward has the Don Juan’s sails trimmed, provisions stored, and our friends are waiting in Livorno. I cannot delay another moment. (They embrace. Mary feels something poking her during the embrace and reaches inside his waistcoat front pocket.) It’s my copy of Keats.
Mary: I embrace two poets, one in the flesh and one of the spirit. (They embrace again.)
Shelley: With these winds we’ll skip over the twenty miles of waves ahead of us and arrive just before midnight.
Mary: Look. Those crimson gray clouds do not bode well. Hecate’s shading the sky. Stay. (They kiss.) Or else I’ll bundle little Percy up and we’ll hire a coach. We’ll travel together.
Shelley: Because of hasty travel plans we lost both William and Clara. (Pause.) I shouldn’t have said… Mary, you’ve been so strong.
Mary: (Mary steps away.) I haven’t. I’ve been weak and cold. I’ve isolated myself.
Shelley: No, Mary. Too often death’s shadow has darkened our path. It is I whose moods rose and fell with the tides.
Mary: Death celled me off from the universe. I want to come out of that cell now. Remember, my love, I was your muse guiding even your dreams. I sipped every verse you wrote. You must talk to me about your writing again. Those talks were my sustenance.
Percy: Mary, you have been my sustenance. Truly, it is you who had sustained me.
Mary: We can again be two hearts of one spirit. Even in our nocturnal embraces our dreams mingled. Remember on Lake Geneva with Lord Byron and Doctor Polidori. It was a dream that inspired my novel. (Pause.) You had a dream last night.
Shelley: I did. We’ll talk, my love. Edward is waiting. Mary, I love you above myself and above all the world. (He kisses her again and walks away.)
Mary: Tell me one dream before you go. Delay for a few more breaths. You were screaming in your sleep last night. You said you dreamt about Edward Williams. Tell me.
Shelley: Edward is waiting to sail. When I return, I’ll tell you. We’ll write together. Some new verses. Some new monsters.
Mary: Please, tell me. Then, you’ll go.
Shelley: I have only a dim recollection. I remember. I dreamt we were sleeping…
Mary: In your dream you were sleeping?
Shelley: Yes. Sleeping in our house… (Slowly recollects.) Edward came to warn me. He said, “Get up Shelley, the sea is flooding the house and it’s all coming down.”
Mary: Yes. Is that all?
Shelley: In the dream I went to the window and saw the sea rushing in. Suddenly my vision changed and… It’s all so hazy.
Mary: Tell me. (Percy runs back to her. Pause.) Please, tell me.
Shelley: And I saw the figure of myself strangling you. Oh, Mary. I would never… (They embrace and kiss. Percy runs away. Exits stage left.)
Mary: (Calling after him.) If I do not see you soon, I’ll go to Pisa with the child. (Mary runs after him, exits stage left.)
(Margarita and Elise come from behind the wreck and walk to stage right trying very hard to hold back their laughing. Elise is holding both babies. They mock Mary and Shelley.)
Margarita: (Holding back laughter.) “It’s all so hazy.”
Elise: (Holding back laughter.) “Two hearts of one spirit.”
Margarita: “Hecate’s…?”
Elise and Margarita: “Shading the sky!”
Margarita: “I embrace two poets, one by the book… (She embraces her book of Shelley’s poems.) And. (Margarita holds up the pouch of herbs.) One. In. (Thrusts hips.) The flesh!” (They explode in laughter but then try to keep their babies sleeping while still laughing.)
Elise: (Catching her breath.) Read another passage. My beauty, read more.
Margarita: I lost my place.
Elise: Start here. (Elise still holding both babies points at a page in the book with her nose at “Alastor or the Spirit of Solitude”. Margarita reading, they walk slowly down stage and turn to the stage left. Elise begins to breast feed one of the two babies she carries.)
Margarita: This is still from “Alastor”…
The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky
Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.
Following his eager soul, the wanderer
Leaped in the boat; he spread his cloak aloft
On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,
(As they walk left Polidori in the clown death make-up enters from stage left reading from the large book. His cut puppet strings trailing from his wrists, ankle and heart.)
Polidori and Margarita: (Read in unison.)
And felt the boat speed o’er the tranquil sea
Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.
(Polidori passes downstage of them.)
Elise: A strange one there. He was reading the same words as you.
Margarita: Where? (She looks around. Polidori looks out to sea.) I don’t see anyone.
Elise: I don’t see him now either. Bless my soul! I was so taken by your recitation, I never noticed I have your baby suckling. (Elise and Margarita laughing exit stage left.)
Margarita: No matter. I’ll take yours.
(Lights dim. Sound effect of a storm fades in under Polidori’s reading as the sounds of gentle waves fade. The lights flash. Some Thunder and Lightning.)
Polidori: Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on,
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea.
The waves arose. Higher and higher still
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest’s scourge
Like serpents struggling in a vulture’s grasp.
Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war (Light begins to fade slowly.)
Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
With dark obliterating course…
(Blackout. [The actor playing] Shelley hides under the piece of the wreck during the blackout and cannot be seen by the audience. During blackout Mary’s voice is heard.)
Mary: Is he safe? Is he safe? Is he safe? Is he safe?
(Storm sounds cross fade back into sounds of gentle waves.)
Scene 2
(Lights up to show late afternoon. Mary stands, with Elise down stage, both staring into the distance over the sea. Elise holds a few twigs. Same set on the beach as the last scene except on stage left is a basket holding Elise and Margarita’s two babies bundled together sleeping. Lights up. Sounds of waves continue.)
Elise: You haven’t eaten a bite since Mr. Shelley and Mr. Williams sailed, nearly a fortnight now. (Showing Mary a twig.) You’ll waste away to a twig and what good would a twig be to a lusty man like Mr. Shelley. I’ll have you smiling yet. You have no need to worry so. Mr. Shelley has been coming and going in these waters for some time and he always comes back to his lady. Look now. The sky is finally clearing. Perhaps, Mr. Shelley and his friend have found a safe cove somewhere between Livorno and here. I dare say, they’re likely drinking wine and sporting on some beach. (Claire enters stage right.) I’m going to bring you a taste of that soup on the stove and if you don’t eat it yourself, I will feed you like a —
Claire: Elise, never mind the soup. Climb up to the house. See if there is any sign of Lord Byron yet.
Elise: Yes, Miss Clairmont. (Elise exits stage left.)
Mary: Percy would know not to sail in a storm. He would know.
Claire: He would know. Mary, I have a letter from the post.
Mary: Thank you, Claire. (Opening letter.) The bay is so wide. And the waves even in clear weather — (Mary reads to herself.)
Claire: The Don Juan is a well constructed vessel able to withstand any waves. I am certain if they intended to sail home and they saw an approaching storm they would turn directly to shore. And now with the weather improving they’ll soon be sailing again and arrive here, I hope, before midnight.
Mary: (Looking over the letter.) The Hunts are enquiring about Percy’s safe return.
Elise: (Off stage.) Mrs. Shelley, Lord Byron is coming down to the beach now.
Mary: (Paraphrasing the letter.) Hunt says when he last spoke with him, Percy was hoping to hastily return… to me. Hunt reports that Trelawny watched their departure. He says, Shelley left July 8 in uncertain weather — That’s nearly a week ago. Trelawny advised them not to sail and followed their departure in his spy glass. As a storm approached on the horizon, he was immediately concerned for the Don Juan. Shelley continued to sail out to sea as fishing boats sped to the harbour for safety.
Claire: Then it is… all over. (Voice breaking. Turns and walks upstage right.)
Mary: No. No, it is not all over, but this suspense is dreadful.
(Byron enters with Elise behind from stage left.)
Byron: Mrs. Shelley, I’ve just came from Pisa. (Hurries to Mary intending to embrace Mary.) I learned the Don Juan sailed from Livorno. (Stops short of Mary upon seeing Claire.)
Claire: We’ve received this news.
Byron: Good afternoon, Miss Clairmont. It has been some time since —
Claire: Since we’ve spoken. Since I gave Allegra —
Byron: If only I hadn’t …
Claire: Hadn’t sent her to Ravenna.
Byron: Yes. I made a decision, a calamitous decision, and I suffer for it. And I’m certain you must…
Claire: Yes.
Byron: Very well then.
(Sound of horses.)
Mary: That must be someone bringing news.
Byron: Perhaps there is some news. I did send parties of men to search the coast from here to Livorno. I’ve sent letters to several sea captains sailing out of Genoa, imploring them to watch for the Don Juan.
Claire: We are grateful —
Mary: I offered him no comfort. Since I miscarried last month, I have been so difficult. He has had terrible dreams. If this were to be our last month…
Byron: I have sailed with him. I pray I could walk across this sea to his vessel and together we might true his course.
Mary: If he were lost — No, I must still hope. For eight years I communicated with unlimited freedom, with one whose genius, far transcended mine. He awakened and guided my thoughts. I conversed with him. I obtained new lights from him, and my mind was satisfied.
(Margarita runs in from stage left carrying the copy of Keat’s poetry.)
Margarita: Lord Byron, Mrs. Shelley. You must come. Some men came on horses. They found someone.
Byron: Mrs. Shelley, I’ll go.
Margarita: He had this in his waistcoat. (Claire goes to Margarita and takes the Keats poetry from Margarita.) Lord Byron, this way.
(Margarita and Byron exit stage left.)
Claire: It is Keats. This past month he was never without his Keats. I fear the worst. (She opens the book to the first page. Pause.) It is Percy’s. It is… over now. (Pause. A lock of her hair held together with string, marks a place in the book. Claire opens the book to that place and walking to down stage right reads. Mary weeps.)
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! –
Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.
(Byron enters stage left carrying Shelley’s “body” wrapped in a ragged piece of a sail; the only part of him exposed, a partially decomposed hand, dangles from the sail. Margarita and Elise enter and stop.)
Byron: He was an elementary being and death does not apply to him. (Pause. Mary runs to the corpse and holds the hand and weeps.) For all mankind he invented Truth, Beauty, Passion and Love. Mary, you look like a ghost. Light seems to emanate from the features of your face as though Percy’s spirit melted into yours. His Spirit electrifies your flesh and courses through your veins. I see it. Oh, Mary. It is his Soul, Mary. It is his Soul. I see it.
Mary: Percy,… I… (Continues weeping.)
Byron: (He walks to centre stage carrying Shelley’s remains.) Shall I raise the song of Death to my friend? Shall I give his fame to the winds? No, my heart speaks in sighs: faint and broken are… the sounds of… sorrow…. (Byron’s voice breaks. He places the body on the piece of wreckage and backs away from the body. Margarita and Elise collect pieces of driftwood and twigs and lean them against the shipwreck remnant. Mary moves down stage right with Claire. Lights slowly dim to dusk.) What is a human body? Why it might be the rotten carcase of a sheep for all I can distinguish! Look an old rag retains its form longer than he who wove it. What an humbling and degrading thought that we shall one day resemble this. (Byron begins to undress, intending to swim, as he moves to the stage left exit.) I must to the sea. What unnatural spirit of Neptune’s waters drenched his breath and extinguished our poet?
(Polidori enters with a torch and “symbolically” ignites the funeral pyre. The light underneath the wreck flickers and a vertical light from above flickers to create a fire effect. Fire sound effect. Byron exits stage left, partially undressed.Polidori moves up stage left of corpse. Claire and Mary, weeping, comfort each other down stage right. Margarita and Elise on their knees pray down stage left. Shelley speaks the words of his poem, ” Hymn to Intellectual Beauty ” as he slowly rises on the steps hidden behind the “burning” ship hull remnant.)
Shelley:
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming, —
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!
(Shelley remains standing behind the funeral pyre. Sound effect of Byron plunging in the sea. Elise and Margarita go to the cradle and pick up their babies. Lights are dimmed to lower levels. Light accentuates Mary and Claire.)
Mary: Now I am alone! The stars may behold my tears, and the winds drink my sighs. No eye answers mine. Oh my beloved Percy — It is not true that this heart was cold to you. Tell me, for now you know all things. Did I not in the deepest solitude of thought repeat to myself my good fortune in possessing you? How often during those happy days I thought how superiorly gifted in being united to one to whom I could unveil myself.
(Pause. Polidori takes out his telescope, looks out to sea, and walks towards Elise and Margarita who are holding the babies down stage left. He continues peering out the telescope into the blackout. When Polidori is halfway to Elise, Mary begins speaking.)
Mary: Liquid Bliss. (Pause.) Liquid Bliss.
(Polidori still looking out to sea stops behind Elise.)
Elise: I see Lord Byron swimming. Swimming away from us. Far out in the dark water. He’s just a tiny speck in a great sea. (Pause.)
Shelley: Liquid Bliss.
(Blackout. End of play.)
Prop List
Ladder
Curtains
Shawl
Telescope (Monocular Spy Glass)
Wine Jar
Wine Glasses
3 Bundled Babies
Laundry Basket
with Woman’s Bloomers and Petticoats
Wrappings for Bruised Ankle
Poultice
Two Identical Bouquets
Vase
Quill, Ink and Blank Manuscript Paper
Small Pouch Containing Herbs
An Unsealed Letter
Two Stacks of Poetry Pages
A Single Sheet of Poetry
Bundle of Sealed Unopened Letters
Two Identical Vials
Woman’s Bloomers
Eye Dropper
Wide & Broad Book Containing
Painting of Woman’s Torso with
Eyes for Nipples
Mask Reminiscent of Frankenstein Monster
4 Woman’s Masquerade Masks
1 Woman’s Masquerade Mask
with Wig Attached
1 Man’s Masquerade Mask
Margarita’s Knife
1 Small Basket of Apples
Published Boo of Keat’s Poem
Shelley’s Corpse Wrapped in Sail
with Decomposed Hand
Basket/Cradle
Bibliography
Barzun, Jacques (ed.), The Selected Letters of Lord Byron. Farrar, Straus, and Young, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1953.
Bennett, Betty T. (ed.), The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume I, “A part of the Elect”. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1980.
Stocking, Marion Kingston (ed.), The Journals of Claire Clairmont 1814-1827. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968.
The Poetry Foundation — http://www.poetryfoundation.org
David Secunda 