INTERLUDE ITHIRD ACTION:ROMANCOMMUNITY ACTORS[150]Comprise
INTERLUDE I
THIRD ACTION:ROMAN
COMMUNITY ACTORS[150]
Comprise
THEME
The Emperor Caligula witnesses a farcical comedy in pantomime, enacted in a street of Rome, A. D. 40.
ACTION
As the last of the Greeks disappear right, the Interlude trumpets sound at the left gate. There immediately resounds a great shout and clamor of voices, crying aloud: “Caligula! Salve, Imperator!” The gate is thrown open, and the Roman populace throng in, accompanying—in varied groups of squalor and poverty—the gorgeous Patricians that escort the Emperor Caligula, borne in a chariot, behind which follow a troupe of Roman Pantomime Actors and Mimes who carry a light platform with curtain, which they set up [centre, north], facing the altar.
The curtain is painted to represent the street exterior of a house, in the Pompeian-Roman style. In the centre, set in a lintel frame, isdepicted a wide squat door, the stage platform forming its sill. Above the door is a window casement. Both door and window are devised to open and close practically. The top of the curtain is designed as an over-jutting tiled roof.
With the Pantomimists come a group of Musicians, consisting of players on flutes, shields and cymbals, citherns and lyres, and two who wear fastened to their ankles pairs ofscabilla, a kind of cymbal for the feet.
The Populace and Patricians meantime cross to right of centre [further southwest].
In the chariot beside Caligula rides Naevoleia, a female Mime, whom Caligula—with amorous playfulness—kisses and crowns with gold laurel as she alights. Alighting with her, he himself helps to attire her in the garments worn in her part of the nymph Omphale in the stage pantomime to follow. Doing so, he thrusts aside—with a glance and gesture of jealous anger—the Chief Actor, who [in the part of Hercules] approaches to assist.
Caligula then escorts her to the improvised stage where she teasingly parts with him to play her rôle in the Comedy. Caligula returns to his chariot.
And now the Comedy is announced by the appearance [through the curtain door] of Pantomimus, a particolored figure, garbed antiquely as a harlequin, wreathed and masked.[26]
Behind Pantomimus, enter [on either side of him] two little Pantomimi, half his height, exactly resembling him in every particular. These, as with skipping step and motion Pantomimus makes his introduction, imitate his every movement of wand and gesture.
By his action, which is accompanied by flute, cymbal, andscabillaplayers, Pantomimus describes very briefly the plot of the comedy which is to follow, viz:
THE SPHINX AND HERCULES[27]THEME
Hercules, lured by the nymph Omphale to live with her a woman’s way of life, becomes terribly bored, rebels, and vows to a statue of the Sphinx to resume his manly exploits. By the help of the satyr Silenus, however, who makes Hercules drunk, Omphale—in guise of the Sphinx—wins Hercules back and marries him.
ACTION
As Pantomimus concludes this dumb-show exposition, he signs to his two Assistants, who run out and bring back two stage properties, which they place on either side: the right-hand one represents a squat pillar, on the top of which is the sitting figure of a bronze Sphinx; the left-hand—a set-piece of foliage and shrubbery.
All three then make their exit.
Enter, then, on the ground plane, from behind the stage platform, Servus, a house-slave, masked as such. He places on the platform a low seat and, beside it, a heap of wool and spinning materials. Then he prostrates himself toward the left ground entrance, as enter there—dancing to cymbal music—a group of young girl-mimes [without masks], dressed as Nymphs and carrying distaffs.
In the midst of these—preceded by most of them—enter Hercules, in grotesque mask, which depicts a comic-dejected expression. He is wadded after the manner of the comic histrionic vase-figures of antiquity, and walks downcast. Instead of his legendary lion’s skin, there hangs from his shoulder the wooly pelt of a sheep; in place of his knotted club, his hand holds a huge distaff; and for the rest he is dressed like a Greek woman.
He is accompanied by Omphale, masked as a beautiful and amorous nymph. Over her shoulders she wears his lion’s skin; in one hand she holds his massive club; with the other she caresses him.
With coquetting wiles, the Nymphs in their dancing draw the two toward the centre, where they sit beside the wool—Hercules, with heavy sighs, beginning to spin, while Omphale, posing in the lion’s skin, approves his labor. Here the Nymphs, reclined about them on the platform and the ground, execute a rhythmic dance with their arms and distaffs, singing to their movement:
Angustam amice pauperiem patirobustus acri militia puercondiscat et Parthos ferocesvexet eques metuendus hastavitamque sub divo et trepides agatin rebus ilium ex moenibus hosticismatrona bellanti tyranniprospiciens et adulta virgosuspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminumsponsus lacessat regius asperumtactu leonem, quem cruentaper medias rapit ira caedes.
Angustam amice pauperiem patirobustus acri militia puercondiscat et Parthos ferocesvexet eques metuendus hastavitamque sub divo et trepides agatin rebus ilium ex moenibus hosticismatrona bellanti tyranniprospiciens et adulta virgosuspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminumsponsus lacessat regius asperumtactu leonem, quem cruentaper medias rapit ira caedes.
Angustam amice pauperiem patirobustus acri militia puercondiscat et Parthos ferocesvexet eques metuendus hastavitamque sub divo et trepides agatin rebus ilium ex moenibus hosticismatrona bellanti tyranniprospiciens et adulta virgosuspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminumsponsus lacessat regius asperumtactu leonem, quem cruentaper medias rapit ira caedes.
At the culmination of this, Hercules, who has been repelling theattentions of Omphale, at first with feeble ennui, but afterward with increasing determination, now rises in grandiose disgust, and—snatching from her his lion’s skin and club—repudiates her and the Nymphs.
Flinging down the sheep’s pelt and setting his foot upon it, he breaks his distaff in pieces and, threatening Omphale, drives the Nymphs off the scene, left. [During this excitement, Servus—who has been standing aside—seizes the heap of wool, and exit with it in flight.] Turning then to the image of the Sphinx, Hercules expresses in dumb-show how, lured by the riddle of the Sphinx, he aspires to fight and conquer the world for her sake. Laying his club and lion’s skin devoutly at the foot of the column, he kneels, embraces it, and raises then his arms in supplication to the Sphinx.
Thus kneeling, he is watched furtively at a distance by Omphale, who, at his outburst, has run to the edge of the foliage, right. Hercules, rising, puts on his lion’s skin, and brandishing his club heroically for the benefit of the immovable Sphinx, goes off, left.
Immediately Omphale seizes from amid the foliage a sylvan pipe, and blows on it a brief, appealing ditty. At this, from behind the foliage, run out boy-mimes, in the guise of Fauns; she gesticulates to them beseechingly. They run back and presently return, advancing topipe-music, accompanying and leading a goat, astride of which sits Silenus, an old grotesque Satyr, in mask.
Omphale greets him joyfully and helps him down from the goat. She then describes to him in pantomime the late outburst of Hercules—his breaking the spindle, his enamoration for the Sphinx, etc., and prays his aid and advice.
Silenus pauses an instant in philosophical absorption, then gives a leap and skip. Omphale, seeing that he has hit on some plan, expresses her pleasure and inquires what his plan may be. Silenus bids her call a slave. Omphale claps her hands toward the left entrance. Servus enters. Silenus signs to him. Servus goes back and returns immediately, rolling in a wine-cask, from which he fills an antique beaker. From this Silenus sips and approves. He then points to the Sphinx and asks if be that of which Hercules is enamored. Omphale assents. Silenus then directs Servus to lift the Sphinx down from the pillar. Servus does so, revealing its hollow interior as he carries it. Silenus, drawing Omphale’s attention to this fact of its hollowness, opens the door in the curtain, and commands Servus to bear the Sphinx within. Servus does so. Silenus, then, pointing to the window above the door, whispers in the ear of Omphale, who, delighted, enters the door after Servus. Silenus closes the door as Hercules reënters, left.
The hero has discarded his woman’s garb, and comes forward now dressed as a man, with lion’s skin and club—his mask changed to one of an exultant and martial expression.
Silenus greets him with obsequious and cunning servility and offers him wine. Hercules, with good-natured hauteur, condescends to accept the cup which he offers. While he is drinking, the window above in the curtain opens, and Omphale thrusts her head out, revealing [within] beside her own, the Sphinx’s head. Silenus secretively motions her to be cautious. Seeing his gesture, Hercules looks up, but not swiftly enough to detect Omphale, who withdraws. Again looking forth, as he turns to drink again, Omphale mocks Hercules below, dropping wisps of wool on his head, the source of which, however, Hercules fails to detect. Silenus explains that the wool is really feathers, which fell from a bird flying overhead.
Hercules now, under the sly persuasions of the old Satyr, grows more pleased with the wine, and becomes drunk—as he becomes so, expressing to Silenus, with increasing familiarity and descriptive force, all the mighty exploits he intends to accomplish in the service of the incomparable Sphinx, whose living prototype he declares he will immediately set forth in search of.
Starting now, humorously drunk, to depart [right] he is detained by Silenus, who points upward to the window, where now the blank, immovable face of the Sphinx looks forth at the sky. Hercules, bewildered, asks Silenus if it is really the Sphinx herself and alive? Silenus assents and proves his assertion by pointing to the deserted pedestal. At this, Hercules addresses the Sphinx, with impassioned gestures. The Sphinx remains immovable. Hercules becomes discouraged. Silenus then puts a pipe in his hand, and tells him to play it. He does so, and is rewarded by a slow, preternatural look from the Sphinx. At this he plays more vociferously and, surrounded by the little piping Fauns, performs a serenade beneath the casement, while Silenus, looking on from a distance, rubs his hands with sly delight.
The serenade ends by Hercules, on his knees, imploring the Sphinx to come down. The Sphinx at length consents and the casement closes. Silenus calls his Fauns away to the edge of the foliage, and Hercules goes to the door.
For a moment nothing happens and Hercules knocks on the steps impatiently with his club. Then the door opens and enter the Sphinx—dressed below in the Greek garments of Omphale, but from the waist upward consisting of the sitting image of the Sphinx, beneathwhose closed wings the arms of Omphale are thrust through and have place for motion.
The Sphinx, its tail swinging behind, descends the steps, reticent and impassive, attended by Hercules, drunk and enamored.
Then at the foot of the steps, to the accompaniment from the foliage of the piping Fauns, who play softly a variation of the serenade theme, Hercules woos the Sphinx, who, at the proper moment, succumbs to his entreaties. After embracing him amorously, she extends her hand to him. He seizes it to kiss; she withdraws it and signifies that he must put a ring on the ring-finger. Hercules hunts about him in vain for the ring. Calling then to Silenus and the Fauns, he explains to them the situation.
Silenus, producing a ring, hands it to Hercules, who puts it on the finger of the Sphinx.
Instantly a clash of cymbals is heard from the left, and a clapping of palms from the right, and re-enter the dancing Nymphs, who encircle the scene just as Servus removes from the bride the great mask of the Sphinx, thereby revealing her to the astounded Hercules—as Omphale, who embraces him, exulting in her ring.
Just as she is embracing and kissing him, the scene is interrupted by a cry of jealous rage from Caligula who springs from his chariot, calling: “Hercules!” At his gesture slaves run before him, seize Hercules, and hale him toward Caligula, who bids them whip him. Frightened, for an instant, Omphale [the Mime Naevoleia] then hastens as if to intercede, but, seeing Caligula’s expression, taunts him with toying bravado, and finally as he kisses her makes him burst with her into laughter, as Hercules is dragged off through the hooting crowd, flogged by Caligula’s slaves. [During the latter part of this Roman Action, LUST has appeared at the mouth of Caliban’s cell and looked on. His voice now joins the loud laughter of Caligula.]
Dispersing in confusion, the Pantomime Actors remove their curtain and platform [right] into the darkness, which now envelops also Caligula and the Roman populace.
END OF INTERLUDE I