Take off your handsTake off your damned hands. Loose me, I say!
SIMONE: Nay, you are caught in such a cunning vice
That nothing will avail you, and your life
Narrowed into a single point of shame
Ends with that shame and ends most shamefully.
GUIDO: Oh! let me have a priest before I die!
SIMONE: What wouldst thou have a priest for? Tell thy sins
To God, whom thou shalt see this very night
And then no more for ever. Tell thy sins
To Him who is most just, being pitiless,
Most pitiful being just. As for myself.::
GUIDO: Oh! help me, sweet Bianca! help me, Bianca,
Thou knowest I am innocent of harm.
SIMONE: What, is there life yet in those lying lips?
Die like a dog with lolling tongue! Die! Die!
And the dumb river shall receive your corse
And wash it all unheeded to the sea.
GUIDO: Lord Christ receive my wretched soul tonight!
SIMONE: Amen to that. Now for the other.
[He dies. Simone rises and looks at Bianca. She comes towards him
as one dazed with wonder and with outstretched arms.]
BIANCA: Why
Did you not tell me you were so strong?
SIMONE: Why
Did you not tell me you were beautiful?
[He kisses her on the mouth.]
CURTAIN
For Love of the King
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
Tite Street, Chelsea,
November 27, 1894
My dear Mrs. Chan Toon,
I am greatly repentant being so long in acknowledging receipt of “Told on the Pagoda.” I enjoyed reading the stories, and much admired their quaint and delicate charm. Burmah calls to me.
Under another cover I am sending you a fairy play entitled “For Love of the King,” just for your own amusement. It is the outcome of long and luminous talks with your distinguished husband in the Temple and on the river, in the days when I was meditating writing a novel as beautiful and as intricate as a Persian praying-rug. I hope that I have caught the atmosphere.
I should like to see it acted in your Garden House on some night when the sky is a sheet of violet and the stars like women’s eyes. Alas, it is not likely.
I am in the throes of a new comedy. I met a perfectly wonderful person the other day who unconsciously has irradiated my present with sinuous suggestion: a Swedish Baron, French in manner, Athenian in mind, and Oriental in morals. His society is a series of revelations. . . .
I was at Oakley Street on Thursday; my mother tells me she sends you a letter nearly every week.
Constance desires to be warmly remembered, while I, who am bathing my brow in the perfume of water-lilies, lay myself at the feet of you and yours.
OSCAR WILDE
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
KING MENG BENG (Lord of a Thousand White Elephants, Countless Umbrellas and other attributes of greatness).
U. RAI GYAN THOO (A Prime Minister).
SHAH MAH PHRU (A Girl, half Italian, half Burmese, of dazzling beauty).
DHAMMATHAT (Legal Adviser to the Court).
HIP LOONG (A Chinese Wizard of great repute).
MOUNG PHO MHIN (Minister of Finance).
Two Envoys from the King of Ceylon.
Nobles, Courtiers, Soothsayers, Poonygees, Dancing Girls, Betel-nut Carriers, Umbrella Bearers, Followers, Servants, Slaves, amongst whom are several Chinese but no Indians.
Time: The Sixteenth Century.
ACT I
SCENE I
The palace of the king of burmah. The scene is laid in the Hall of a Hundred Doors. In the distance can be seen the moat, the waiting elephants, and the peacocks promenading proudly in the blinding sunshine of late afternoon. The scene discovers king meng beng seated on a raised cushion sewn with rubies, under a canopy supported by four attendants, motionless as bronze figures. By his side is a betel-nut box, glittering with gems. On either side of him, but much lower down, are the two ambassadors of the king of ceylon, bearers of the King of Ceylon’s consent to the marriage of his only daughter to Meng Beng in two years’ time, men of grave, majestic mien, clad in flowing robes almost monastic in their white simplicity. They smoke gravely at the invitation of meng beng.
Round about are grouped the courtiers, the poonygees, and the kneeling servants, while in the background wait the dancing girls. Banners, propelled with a measured rhythm, create an agreeable breeze. On a great table of gold stand goblets of gold and heaped-up fruits. Everywhere will be observed the
