Tales Before Tolkien (56 page)

I'll cross my princely husband.

Rosa. Why make assurances of our characters

To one who is a very part of us?

Am I a person—once I shall be in my palace

Commanding and arranging everything—

To dread to let my sister call me sister?

(to Violetta)
Godmother to your children even I'll be.

Lila.
(to Witch)
So now that we have settled it, I beg you show us

Which of the pies is which, and we can eat them

At once, without delay.

Nightshade. Already I see

The hunger works!

Reckless as gobblers—

Greedy as Turks!

One maid only the chant not moves

Because her heart already loves

When door stands wide

And treasure's inside

Useless the key!

Rosa. In short, it's evident which has won your favour

Of us three sisters. And she's welcome to it

(Meaning no rudeness!) if you will but tell us

What she, as well as we, requires to know—

Which pie we each must eat, to our desire!

Nightshade. He! he!

Were I to tell you that, the spell were lost!

Discover for yourselves!

Lila. The pies are all alike!

Nightshade. I go to fetch your Emerald the sprite

Hers
are your Princes (he who's none is
mine!
)

It's proper you should thank her for her bounty.

Taste you no crumb till my return

When your three choices we will learn—

Your three lots in the fatal churn

Churning your fates from dreams to men!

E'en while you bite

I'll read the fates right

But when with maiden's substance is mixed

The witch-pie magic—fast-fixed! fast-fixed!

Those fates will be—

Full willingly

I'll speak them then!

(She points towards the ground.)

See yonder snail

In house of horn

Hastening slowly

Like ship in sail

By zephyr borne!

Ere it wins

That stony crack

Like a man's sins

I'll be back.

So delay not to choose

Which husband is whose

While to speed your intent

I'll add one last hint—

On what shall be bitten

The names are written!

(Exit)

Lila. Heavens! what mystery has she spoken now?

Are they inscribed like ancient monuments

Or birthday-cakes, these pies?

(Rosa doubtfully takes up a mince-pie, then utters a startled exclamation.)

Rosa. Look! Writing in fire! It's scarcely holy!

(Lila quickly seizes one of the two remaining pies, first to stare at it, then to turn it round in her fingers while she reads to herself what is written on it. Meanwhile Violetta more quietly takes and glances at the last pie.)

Lila. Listen to this!—

“She who me takes

Fortune shakes.”

I'll
keep
this one—until I've heard the others.

Rosa, how runs yours?

Rosa.
(reading aloud)
“She who me eats

Day-dawn greets.”

Lila. It's too mysterious—I like mine better.

(to Violetta)
Your one has sorcery writing, too?

Violetta.
(handing her pie to Lila) You
read it—and if you wish to, keep it

Instead of yours.

Lila.
(reading aloud)
“She who me chooses

Nothing loses.”

I'll keep my own.

(She returns Violetta her pie.)

“She who me takes,

Fortune shakes”—

The promise is transparent

For if you shake a tree, down comes its fruit—

The goodly fruit of Fortune—in my case

A Prince! More difficult are your two legends.

Rosa. Because you're young and dull of comprehension!

The election is soon made for older me.

Nothing
to lose is not therefore to gain

Something
—while on the other hand be sure

The day-dawn is to banish hateful night—

My night of hopeless longing for the things

I have not!—This I hold, without a doubt,

Is best of all the choices!

Lila. We dare not lightly guess, and praise our guesses—

Too much depends on it. For we shall never

So near Princesses be a second time

In our dim, moveless lives. So, Violetta—

Cool as you are, uncaring as you seem—

Say what
you
think about these oracles!

It often is said that they without the will

Are clear-sighted.

Rosa.
(to Violetta)
We'll trust your loyalty and candour.

Violetta. I'd help you, but I see no more than you

Into the meanings.

Rosa. You would, but do not, help us!

Violetta. To help you, I am giving up my choice.

Lila. You're most unkind!

Rosa. I hope she is not more than most unkind!

Surely by your strange sympathy, Violetta,

With that old hag, her handiwork you'd know?

We only ask which is the unblest pie!

Violetta. Poor anxious sisters! if I knew, I'd say.

Rosa. What use then was it to be her pet, and kiss her!

Violetta. Indeed, no
use.

Lila.
(smiling wryly)
Still you may think you have a useful friend

At court! How we decide, little you care—

You
won't be left to wander in the cold!

Violetta. You scar your heart, to have such evil thoughts.

Truly I felt her bodily seeming hid

Another spirit in her. Hardly a witch

She was. And so I kissed her—for she wanted it—

Not anything the feeling was to gain me.

Rosa. Though you may chance to reap a gain from it!

(While the sisters are contending, enter behind them silently from the cave's interior Mother Nightshade and Emerald. The Witch's face is muffled. For a minute they stand unnoticed, overhearing the talk. Then the Witch takes a single stride to approach the girls swiftly, and stamps her foot. They see her, and Rosa and Lila recoil, but Violetta stays where she is.)

Nightshade.
(in a shrill and awful, yet lovely, voice of command)
Peace!

(There is a hush, while faint music plays, But it soon stops.)

Nightshade.
(more quietly)
Peace!—all of you. Emerald, be you my tongue!

Emerald. I may not say I cannot

And yet, alas! I scarcely have a tongue

Even for myself!

Frightened I am—

Melancholy and miserable

And everything a fairy should not be.

I don't know what I've done!

My ill-considered wish for you three innocents

Plunges
one
into woe

And now the moment has arrived

When, out of hesitating mists,

Your fortunes shall take solid lasting shape.

I have no impudence to show you what to do—

A life I've spoilt!

Nightshade.
(warningly)
Emerald!

Emerald. Oh yes, I know!—

I must be quick to obey Titania's ring!—

But my heart mutinies

Just like a bird struggling in limy snare!—

However! since it's so ruled—come, dear three!

Divided by a fairy's airy whim—

You hold in hand these pies made by the Witch

Two I have bless'd, one
she
has far from bless'd—

You know about them?

Lila. Yes, indeed we know.

Emerald. Two girls shall have resounding marriages,

One, an unkind one—

Have you the resolution now to eat?

Rosa. Violetta does not want a Prince

Only whether we have chosen right

We're not quite sure.

Emerald. But now you must decide.

Lila. Then we'll decide to keep the one in our hand,

Each of us. Please—
please
be quick!

Rosa. What must we do?

Emerald. As one by one I shall invite you

Tell me aloud what pie it is you hold

Then, to the last crumb and currant, eat it up!

Rosa. My privilege is to be first—nor would I shirk it

Though all this weird to-do were much more horrid!

Lila. For, in the books, the eldest of the sisters

Always
goes first!

Rosa. In those same books, the youngest is most fair

And therefore she's triumphant. Now is
real
life—

Different in all respects, though very strange.

I'll call you “highness” when you are one, Lila!

You do the same for me!

Lila. Mark that the title is in
your
mouth first,

Dear Rosa! Let it be a prophecy!

Emerald. The Queen of Fairies her ring is here—

Have care in case it carries back a tale

Of wrangling maids! Say nothing more at all

Save to my questions. You, Rosa, speak the first!

Rosa. I am to meet the dawn—such is the message

Of
my
pie!

(She eats.)

Emerald. Impatient Lila, what does yours announce?

Lila. I shall shake Fortune. May I do so truly!

(She eats.)

Emerald. Since I am back I have not heard your voice,

Quiet Violetta! What then promises

Your
writing?

Violetta. I nothing lose.

Emerald. So won't you eat?

Violetta.
(thoughtfully and looking away)
Why must I eat,

Thereby to keep the things I'd
rather
lose?

Am I so gracious that I have no ugliness

Or awkwardness—so saintly that there's in me

No trace of envy, spite or meanness—I could lose?

But if it says, I am to lose no
good

That may invisibly be reaching to me—

Shall I be like a huckster, demanding first

To
see
the good?—or like a faithful heart,

Adventuring in unknown places,

Confiding in the eventual mercy of Heaven?

(She eats)

(While the three are eating their pies, Emerald steps to the front, wringing her hands softly)

Emerald.
(aside)
The mottoes are not mine—

Old Nightshade, she has written them in her fire!

I don't know which are good and which is bad—

I dare not ask her!

(She walks about, then comes to a stand again, with clasped hands.)

There's nothing happening yet!—what will be next?

Will the Witch speak?—

Surely these husbands can't appear to-day—

This minute?—

The spell must have a time to take effect—

Except that the Witch knows now, and may from malice

Give the bad news for one!

In truth, I overlooked that there might be

This unendurable interval of waiting!

It's hard, and cruel, and mocking!—

These feelings, I think, must be the dreadful kind

That mortals have—troubling all their faces!

I may be turning mortal! Perhaps I
am!
—

No! I'm not strong enough—I'd die at once!

(She sings quietly)

He without friend

Cannot love

Cannot defend

Cannot save.

His heart of love

Dungeoned is—

The day above

Through chinks it sees.

His heart of love

Sickens and dies—

It cannot move

After its eyes.

(The sisters have finished their pies. Violetta, drawing near to Emerald, gently touches her arm.)

Violetta. Now always will your song be my song too!

Emerald.
(perturbed)
Nearly without knowing what I did,

I sang it!—

Yet if its sense has found an echo in you

Because you've chosen
him
it fits so closely,

Your song through life I fear indeed it shall be!—

Dear Rosa and Lila, how is it with you?

Has the song saddened
you,
like Violetta?

Rosa. I heard you sing, but not attended well—

Much louder in my spirit the pie is singing!

Marvellously gay I feel, and nothing sad!

My Prince—no doubt of it!—is on his way

To kiss and wed me!

Lila. Already mine is here!—or just the same.—

Poor Violetta! with your sweet emotions

Of sympathy and pity! Marry
them,

Violetta! For
me,
a man of flesh and blood!

Lovely shall be the flesh, and high the blood!

Rosa. You're nearest to me, Lila, after all!

There's something in the failure to aim high—

Give it the best name we will—

Lila. Stamps a mean nature!—I know! And that's the way

Of thinking of the world.

If we are called upon to set example—

Rosa. We must be less eccentric!

Violetta, in the low place she has chosen,

May be so if she pleases. Almost the only—

Lila. I know what you would say! Almost the only

Right that the humble have, is to
be
humble.

She who sits high—

Rosa.
Must
be as proud as she has been ambitious!

Emerald. But are you
sure,
dear Violetta's sisters,

You've eaten Princes?

Lila. If I have not now eaten the
handsomest
Prince,

I make a vow I'll never eat again!

Rosa. Mine should be statelier and nobler to suit my years

If there is justice in it! And to suit my taste,

Handsomer too!

Lila. If mine's not handsomer, I'll be discontent—

And nobler, and richer!

Emerald.
(to Rosa)
But are you as sure as she?

Rosa. I'm sure I greatly like what I have eaten!