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Read Ebook: Mary Magdalene: A Play in Three Acts by Maeterlinck Maurice Teixeira De Mattos Alexander Translator
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev PageEbook has 969 lines and 19769 words, and 20 pagesI see olive-trees, paths, tombs.... Then I see the pediments of palaces or temples, columns, cypresses.... One might think one's self in the outskirts of Rome.... But I do not perceive.... SILANUS It was Herod the Great, a sort of raving lunatic, but given to building, who filled this valley with splendid palaces more Roman than those of Rome herself.... But look half-way down the hill, to the left of those three tall cypresses, three or four stadia from here.... Do you espy one of the most beautiful marble villas?... VERUS The villa with the wide white steps leading to a semicircular colonnade adorned with statues?... SILANUS That is where she has retired.... VERUS Mary Magdalene?... In that solitude, so far from the city?... SILANUS She told me that she was fleeing from the fanaticism of the Jews, the tumult and the sickening smells, which increase twofold at Jerusalem as the Passover approaches.... VERUS Then you see her?... You have spoken to her?... SILANUS The good Appius, knowing that the sight of a young and beautiful woman delights my eyes without endangering them, did not dissuade her from coming up to the house of a disarmed and harmless old man.... VERUS What did she say to you?... What impression did she make upon you?... SILANUS She was clad in a raiment that seemed woven of pearls and dew, in a cloak of Tyrian purple with sapphire ornaments, and decked with jewels that rendered a little heavier this eastern pomp. As for her hair, surely, unloosed, it would cover the surface of that porphyry vase with an impenetrable veil of gold.... VERUS I speak of her intelligence, her character.... Do not mistake: she is no vulgar courtezan.... She has other attractions, binding love more firmly.... SILANUS I minded only her beauty, which is real and contents the eye.... However, we can judge better presently: she will soon be coming.... VERUS She is coming here?... But does she know that she will find me with you?... SILANUS Most certainly. It seemed to me that this meeting would do more to assuage your malady than the wise counsels threatened by Appius.... VERUS But she?... What did she say when she learnt that.... SILANUS She smiled with a quivering and pensive grace.... The other guests will be our indispensable Appius and Coelius, your fellow-pupil at Praeneste.... I hope that they will bring our poor friend Longinus, who, three weeks ago, lost a little daughter two years old.... I will try to console him, by good and persuasive arguments, for a sorrow certainly disproportionate to his loss. We shall have, among other dishes--all excellent, I hope,--two fish from the Jordan, new to you, which, dressed by Davus, my old cook.... But I hear the sound of the double flute.... It must be the litter of the queen of Bethany and Jerusalem at the threshold of my house.... Your eyes will soon behold the soft light which they have missed and mine the smile that pleases them ... unless the silver mirrors in the Atrium delay her longer than they should.... VERUS She is here.... SCENE II THE SAME, MARY MAGDALENE SILANUS "Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense?... Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners," as your sacred books sing at the approach of the Shulamite?... MARY MAGDALENE Do not speak to me of my sacred books. I loathe them, as I loathe everything that comes from that deceitful and sordid, greedy and mischievous nation.... VERUS I will say then, in the Roman fashion, "Hail to the eldest daughter of Aglaia, youngest and happiest of the Graces!" MARY MAGDALENE Pity me, instead of praising me. I was robbed, last night, of my Carthaginian rubies, besides twelve of my finest pearls; and, what I feel even more, my Babylonian peacock and all the muraenae in my fish-pond.... VERUS Who dared commit such manifest sacrilege?... MARY MAGDALENE I do not know.... I have had the slaves in charge of the aviary and the fish-pond beaten with rods and put to the torture: they have confessed nothing and I believe that they know nothing.... VERUS Have you no clue, no suspicion? SILANUS The theft amazes me, for the country is safe.... I have been living here for nigh six years; and no one has ever tried to rob me of an atom of my wisdom, which is never under lock and key and is the only precious thing that I possess.... The Jew is crafty, sly and evil-minded; he practises cheating and usury as well as most of the cringing virtues and vices; but he nearly always avoids frank, straightforward theft, honest theft, if one may say so.... Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page |
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