Harlequinade | Page 4

and the great black cliffs and the blacker cypresses that grow along its banks. There are signs of a trodden slope and a ferry, and there's a rough old wooden shelter where passengers can wait; a bell hung on the top with which they call the ferryman. And under this now sits Hipponax, the Greek philosopher; and he is ringing the bell very violently and unphilosophically indeed.
Alice goes back to her seat. She can see the scenes from there by twisting her head far round, and she often does. For whether things on the stage go right or wrong, they never go the same way twice, so it is always interesting.
ALICE. This Is the banks of the Styx. That is ... Oh, I said that before.
HIPPONAX. Ferry! Hie! Ferry!
[He rings and rings, but only the black cliffs echo back the hollow sound of the bell.
HIPPONAX. So I was right! There is no ferryman; there are no gods. But yet, though I died of brain fever yesterday afternoon, here still, in some sense, am I. Which confirms the fact that I am an extraordinary man. In the last world I proved that there were no gods because, said I ... it was very simple ... I have never seen them. And in this world ... if by any means I can get across that river ... I'll prove in a second volume that there are none here either.
[And now comes Mercury, who is as beautiful and as calm as the statue of him that rests--as if but for a moment--on its black plinth in the Naples Museum. If that statue could move like a faun, that is what Mercury should be; so it isn't easy to find an actor to play him. And his voice must be clear and sweet. Not loud. But his words mus like the telling of the hours--as befits a god. He stands there in his glory. But Hipponax still tugs at the bell and grumbles, for he sees nothing but empty air.
HIPPONAX. [With a final snap and pull] Ferry!! Not a soul about.
ALICE. He can't see Mercury because he doesn't believe in him.
[Then comes Charon from the ferry with his long pole. He is but a half-god and so can grow old, older and ever old, though he may never die. He looks at Hipponax with great contempt.
CHARON. Another of these philosophers!
HIPPONAX. I have rung this bell I don't know how many times.
CHARON. I heard you.
HIPPONAX. You heard me. [Then he swells.] Do you know who I am? Hipponax.
CHARON. Do you know who I am? Charon.
HIPPONAX. Charon!
[It is as if trees and rocks had begun to speak to him. His breath goes, he fishes wildly for his book, his immortal work they called it, so naturally he did manage to bring one copy out of the world with him.
There's no such--! [But Charon is so very real.] Oh! Well, I'll mention it in a footnote.
CHARON. Stop your foolish talk, man, and stand up. Don't you see who is with me?
HIPPONAX. There's no one with you.
[Then the voice of the god is heard. Music to us. And even to Hipponax, now, it is as if the air round him were gently shaken.
CHARON. Take care.
MERCURY. Charon, the two obols.
[Charon, humbly saluting, takes his fee.
CHARON. If you can't see, can't you hear him?
HIPPONAX. I heard nothing.
CHARON. Give him your mask and cloak to hide the light from his eyes that dazzles you.
HIPPONAX. Give who?
CHARON. It's Mercury, the Messenger.
[Hipponax, himself, is shaking a little now. Charon takes from him his mask and his ragged philosopher's cloak, and, sure enough, as they hang where he places them they seem to cover a human shape.
ALICE. And that's the beginning of Harlequin's clothes.
HIPPONAX. Nonsense. These conjuring tricks. There are no gods. I've proved there are no...
[Mercury has lifted the mask and at sight of that radiance, as if lightning had struck him, Hipponax falls to the ground.
CHARON. Now you've blinded him.
MERCURY. No blinder a worm than he was before ... denying the sun. What are you?
HIPPONAX. [Without lifting his head.] I was once ... a sort of philosopher.
MERCURY. Really! Row him across, Charon; loose him among the shades of the poets and children, and in pity they may teach him to see.
CHARON. Come along.
[He handles him with about that sort of kindness--and no more than enough of it--which you spend on a mangy cur. But then he stops.
What's that? Someone swimming my Styx. On the bank ... shaking himself. Momus, my half-brother.
[And on bounds Momus. He is the comic man, it's easy to see. Well, gods and godlings must be made to laugh sometimes, and since life is simple to them, they laugh at the simplest things. Walking is rather serious. So Momus never walks; he waddles, and they laugh at that. It