The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II by Thornton Wilder
AGIS (His head against the post of the palace door): No.
ALCESTIS: I was taught these things. Even I. You will learn them, King Agis . . . Through Laodamia’s suffering you will learn them.
(Broken, he goes through the palace door.
During his slow exit, the light begins to fall on Apollo, entering from the palace doors. In his descent, he wears his cloak, but the hood has fallen back on his shoulders, showing a garland around his head. He first addresses Alcestis from the doors; then moves behind her.
Left alone, Alcestis closes her eyes and takes a few steps left. Her head seems to bend with great weariness; she seems to shrink to a great age. She turns right and starts to move toward the gate to the road, her eyes half open.)
APOLLO: A few more steps, Alcestis. Through the gate . . . and across the road . . . and into my grove.
ALCESTIS: So far . . . and so high . . .
APOLLO: Now another step. It is not a hill. You do not have to raise your foot.
ALCESTIS: It is too far. Let me find my grave here.
APOLLO: You will not have that grave, Alcestis.
ALCESTIS: Oh, yes. I want my grave . . .
APOLLO: The grave means an end. You will not have that ending. You are the first of a great number that will not have that ending. Still another step, Alcestis.
ALCESTIS: And will there be grandchildren, and the grandchildren of grandchildren . . .?
APOLLO: Beyond all counting.
ALCESTIS: Yes . . . What was his name?
APOLLO: Admetus.
ALCESTIS: Yes. And the shining one I wanted to serve?
APOLLO: Apollo.
ALCESTIS: Yes . . . (Near the gate) All the thousands of days . . . and the world of cares . . . (Raising her head, with closed eyes) And whom do I thank for all the happiness?
APOLLO: Friends do not ask one another that question.
(She goes out.
Apollo raises his voice, as though to ensure that she will hear him beyond the wall.)
Those who have loved one another do not ask one another that question . . . Alcestis.
END OF PLAY
TRANSITION FROM The Alcestiad TO The Drunken Sisters
At the close of the three acts of The Alcestiad a curtain falls. Apollo comes before the curtain.
APOLLO (To the audience): Wait! Wait! We have still one more thing to do. We are in Greece, and here we do not believe that audiences should return to their homes immediately after watching stories that present what is difficult and painful in human life. Here we have this custom: we require that the poet write a short satyr play in the spirit of diversion—even of the comical. (Confidentially) We claim that the tragic insight cannot stand alone. It tends to its own excess. As one of you (Pointing into the audience) has said: neither Death nor the Sun permits itself to be gazed at fixedly. And further, we require that this satyr play deal with some element—some secondary aspect—of the preceding play. So—what shall we show you? Teiresias—the six hundred year old, the too-much-loved? How from time to time the gods made him young again; how from time to time they even changed him into a woman? And the quarrel between Zeus and Hera about that? (He starts laughing hut tries to control himself) No, no—that’s not suitable here. That play is too coarse. The Greeks have stomachs strong enough to endure such unseemly matters, but (He is again overcome with laughter) it is . . . No, no—not here. Or shall we show you the story about the sisters of Queen Alcestis? Her father, King Pelias, was an old fool and her two sisters were not very clever. That often happens in families—there is just one intelligent person. We could show you how the archcook Medea whispered into the sisters’ ears, pretending to show them how they could make their dear father young again . . .
(Suddenly changing his tone) No! It is true that there are people who laugh only when they hear about something cruel. That play is a heap of cruelties, and when you went home you would be ashamed of yourselves for having been amused by it.
We have another: it is not very funny. Tonight did you ask yourselves how it was possible that the life of King Admetus was extended? Those great ladies the weird sisters, the Fates—can they be bribed? We shall show you how it happened.
(He starts taking off his outer robes, under which he is dressed as a kitchen boy, and calls into the wings: “My hat! My hat!”)
In this little play I am again Apollo, in the disguise of a kitchen boy.
(From the wings are reached out to him a large cone-shaped straw hat and a belt, from which the effects of a kitchen boy—onions, etc.—hang. He calls into the wings: “My bottles!” sets his hat on his head, and puts on the belt.)
I hate disguises, I hate drunkenness—(From the wings he receives a rope, from which three bottles hang) —but see these bottles I have hanging around my neck? I hate lies and stratagems—but I’ve come to do crookedly what even All-Father Zeus could not do without guile: extend a human life.
(Calling through the curtain to the rear or into the wings: “All ready?” and then turning again to the audience.)
Yes, all is ready for the satyr play, to conclude the solemn trilogy of The Alcestiad.
(He remains standing at the proscenium pillar as the curtain rises.)
The Drunken Sisters
A SATYR PLAY
The Drunken Sisters, The Alcestiad’s satyr play, was first added to the text for the German production, which opened June 27, 1957 in Zurich.
In her introduction to The Alcestiad acting edition, Isabel Wilder paid special attention to the Fates’ masks. Her brother learned “through experience that a mask should not be too ugly, not too grotesque, for then it distracts and alienates the viewer. If that happens its purpose is defeated.” In addition to serving as satyr play for The Alcestiad, The Drunken Sisters also represents Gluttony in Wilder’s cycle on “The Seven Deadly Sins” (published in The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder: Volume I, TCG, 1997).
CHARACTERS
SETTING
The time of Admetus, King of Thessaly.
The Three Fates are seated on a bench, which is largely hidden by their voluminous draperies. They wear the masks of old women, touched by the grotesque but with vestiges of nobility. Seated are Clotho with her spindle, Lachesis with the bulk of the thread of life on her lap, and Atropos with her scissors. They rock back and forth as they work, passing the threads from right to left. The audience watches them for a time in silence, broken only by a faint humming from Clotho.
CLOTHO: What is it that goes first on four legs, then on two legs? Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me!
LACHESIS (Bored): You know it!
CLOTHO: Let me pretend that I don’t know it.
ATROPOS: There are no new riddles. We know them all.
LACHESIS: How boring our life is without riddles! Clotho, make up a riddle.
CLOTHO: Be quiet, then, and give me a moment to think . . . What is it that . . . What is it that . . .?
(Enter Apollo, disguised.)
APOLLO (To the audience): These are the great sisters—the Fates. Clotho weaves the threads of life; Lachesis measures the length of each; Atropos cuts them short. In their monotonous work of deciding our lives they are terribly bored, and like so many people who are bored, they find great pleasure in games—in enigmas and riddles. Naturally they can’t play cards, because their hands are always busy with the threads of life.
ATROPOS: Sister! Your elbow! Do your work without striking me.
LACHESIS: I can’t help it—this thread is s-o-o l-o-o-ong! Never have I had to reach so far.
CLOTHO: Long and gray and dirty! All those years a slave!
LACHESIS: So it is! (To Atropos) Cut it, dear Sister. (Atropos cuts it—click!) And now this one; cut this. It’s a blue one—blue for bravery: blue and short.
ATROPOS: So easy to see! (Click)
LACHESIS: You almost cut that purple one, Atropos.
ATROPOS: This one? Purple for a king?
LACHESIS: Yes; watch what you’re doing, dear. It?
APOLLO (Aside): Aie!
LACHESIS: I’ve marked it clearly. He’s to die at sunset.
APOLLO (To the audience): No! No!
LACHESIS: He’s the favorite of Apollo, as was his father before him, and all that tiresome house of Thessaly. The queen Alcestis will be a widow tonight.
APOLLO (To the audience): Alcestis! Alcestis! No!
LACHESIS: There’ll be howling in Thessaly. There’ll be rolling on the ground and tearing of garments . . . Not now dear; there’s an hour yet.
APOLLO (Aside): To work! To work, Apollo the Crooked! (He starts the motions of running furiously while remaining in one place, but stops suddenly and addresses the audience) Is there anyone here who does not know that old story—the reason why King Admetus and his Queen Alcestis are dear to me? (He sits on the ground and continues talking with raised forefinger) Was it ten years ago? I am little concerned with time. I am the god of the sun; it is always light where I am. Perhaps ten years ago. My father and the father of us all was filled up with anger against me. What had I done? (He moves his finger back and forth) Do not ask that now; let it be forgotten . . . He laid upon me a punishment. He ordered that I should descend to earth and live for a year among men—I, as a man among men, as a servant. Half hidden, known and not known, I chose to be a herdsman of King Admetus of Thessaly. I lived the life of a man, as close to them as I am to you now, as close to the just and to the unjust. Each day the king gave orders to the other herdsmen and myself; each day the queen gave thought to what went well or ill with us and our families. I came to love King Admetus and Queen Alcestis and through them I came to love all men. And now Admetus must die. (Rising) No! I have laid my plans. I shall prevent it. To work. To work, Apollo the Crooked. (He again starts the motions of running furiously while remaining in one place. He complains noisily) Oh, my back! Aie, aie. They beat me, but worst of all they’ve made me late. I’ll be beaten again.
LACHESIS: Who’s the sniveler?
APOLLO: Don’t stop me now. I haven’t a moment to talk. I’m late already. Besides, my errand’s a terrible secret. I can’t say a word.
ATROPOS: Throw your yarn around him, Lachesis. What’s the fool doing with a secret? It’s we who have all the secrets.
(The threads in the laps of the Sisters are invisible to the audience. Lachesis now rises and swings her hands three times in wide circles above her head as though she were about to fling a lasso, then hurls the noose across the stage. Apollo makes the gesture of being caught. With each strong pull by Lachesis, Apollo is dragged nearer to her. During the following speeches Lachesis lifts her end of the strands high in the air, alternately pulling Apollo up, almost strangling him, and flinging him again to the ground.)
APOLLO: Ladies, beautiful ladies, let me go. If I’m late all Olympus will be in an uproar. Aphrodite will be mad with fear—but oh, already I’ve said too much. My orders were to come immediately, and to say nothing—especially not to women. The thing’s of no interest to men. Dear ladies, let me go.
ATROPOS: Pull on your yarn, Sister.
APOLLO: You’re choking me. You’re squeezing me to death.
LACHESIS (Forcefully): Stop your whining and tell your secret at once.
APOLLO: I can’t. I dare not.
ATROPOS: Pull harder, Sister. Boy, speak or strangle. (She makes the gesture of choking him)
APOLLO: Ow! Ow!—Wait! I’ll tell the half of it, if you let me go.
ATROPOS: Tell the whole or we‘ll hang you up in the air in that noose.
APOLLO: I’ll tell, I’ll tell. But—(He looks about him fearfully)—promise me! Swear by the Styx that you’ll not tell anyone, and swear by Lethe that you’ll forget it.
LACHESIS: We have only one oath—by Acheron. And we never swear it—least of all to a sniveling slave. Tell us what you know, or you’ll be by all three rivers in a minute.
APOLLO: I tremble at what I am about to say. I . . . ssh . . . I carry . . . here . . . in these bottles . . . Oh, ladies, let me go. Let me go.
CLOTHO AND ATROPOS: Pull, Sister.
APOLLO: No! No! I’ll tell you. I am carrying the wine for . . . for Aphrodite. Once every ten days she renews her beauty . . . by . . . drinking this.
ATROPOS: Liar! Fool! She has nectar and ambrosia, as they all have.
APOLLO (Confidentially): But is she not the fairest?. . . It is the love gift of Hephaistos; from the vineyards of Dionysos; from grapes ripened under the eye of Apollo—of Apollo who tells no lies.
SISTERS (Confidentially to one another in blissful anticipation): Sisters!
ATROPOS (Like sugar): Pass the bottles up, dear boy.
APOLLO (In terror): Not that! Ladies! It is enough that I have told you the secret! Not that!
ATROPOS: Surely, Lachesis, you can find on your lap the thread of this worthless slave—a yellow one destined for a long life?
APOLLO (Falling on his knees): Spare me!
ATROPOS (To Lachesis): Look, that’s it—the sallow one, with the tangle in it of dishonesty, and the stiffness of obstinacy, and the ravel-ravel of stupidity. Pass it over to me, dear.
APOLLO (His forehead touching the floor): Oh, that I had never been born!
LACHESIS (To Atropos): This is it. (With a sigh) I’d planned to give him five score.
APOLLO (Rising and extending the bottles, sobbing): Here, take them! Take them! I’ll be killed anyway. Aphrodite will kill me. My life’s over.
ATROPOS (Strongly, as the Sisters take the bottles): Not one more word out of you. Put your hand on your mouth. We’re tired of listening to you.
(Apollo, released of the noose, flings himself facedown upon the ground, his shoulders heaving. The Sisters put the flagons to their lips. They drink and moan with pleasure.)
SISTERS: Sisters!
LACHESIS: Sister, how do I look?
ATROPOS: Oh, I could eat you. And I?
CLOTHO: Sister, how do I look?
LACHESIS: Beautiful! Beautiful! And I?
ATROPOS: And not a mirror on all the mountain, or a bit of still water, to tell us which of us is the fairest.
LACHESIS (Dreamily, passing her hand over her face): I feel like . . . I feel as I did when Kronos followed me about, trying to catch me in a dark corner.
ATROPOS: Poseidon was beside himself—dashing across the plains trying to engulf me.
CLOTHO: My own father—who can blame him?—began to forget himself.
ATROPOS (Whispering): This is not such a worthless fellow, after all. And he’s not bad-looking. (To Clotho) Ask him what he sees.
LACHESIS: Ask him which of us is the fairest.
CLOTHO: Boy! Boy! You bay meek. I mean, you . . . you may thpeak. Thpeak to him, Lakethith; I’ve lotht my tongue.
LACHESIS: Boy, look at us well! You may tell us which is the fairest.
(Apollo has remained facedownward on the ground. He now rises and gazes at the Sisters. He acts as if blinded: he cowers and uncovers his eyes, gazing first at one and then at another.)
APOLLO: What have I done? This splendor! What have I done? You—and you—and you! Kill me if you will, but I cannot say which one is the fairest. (Falling on his knees) Oh, ladies—if so much beauty has not made you cruel, let me now go and hide myself. Aphrodite will hear of this. Let me escape to Crete and take up my old work.
ATROPOS: What was your former work, dear boy?
APOLLO: I helped my father in the marketplace; I was a teller of stories and riddles.
(The Sisters are transfixed. Then almost with a scream:)
SISTERS: What’s that? What’s that you said?
APOLLO: A teller of stories and riddles. Do the beautiful ladies enjoy riddles?
SISTERS (Rocking from side to side and slapping one another): Sisters, do we enjoy riddles?
ATROPOS: Oh, he would only know the old ones. Puh! The blind horse . . . the big toe . . .
LACHESIS: The cloud . . . the eyelashes of Hera . . .
CLOTHO (Harping on
ATROPOS: The porpoise . . . Etna . . .
APOLLO: Everyone knows those! I have some new ones—
SISTERS (Again, a scream): New ones!
APOLLO (Slowly): What is it that is necessary to—(He pauses. The Sisters are riveted)
LACHESIS: Go on, boy, go on. What is it that is necessary to—
APOLLO: But—I only play for forfeits. See! If I lose . . .
CLOTHO: If you looth, you mutht tell uth which one ith the faireth.
APOLLO: No! No! I dare not!
LACHESIS (Sharply): Yes!
APOLLO: And if I win?
ATROPOS: Win? Idiot! Stupid! Slave! No one has ever won from us.
APOLLO: But if I win?
LACHESIS: He doesn’t know who we are!
APOLLO: But if I win?
CLOTHO: The fool talkth of winning!
APOLLO: If I win, you must grant me one wish. One wish, any wish.
LACHESIS: Yes, yes. Oh, what a tedious fellow! Go on with your riddle. What is it that is necessary to—
APOLLO: Swear by Acheron!
CLOTHO AND LACHESIS: We swear! By Acheron! By Acheron!
APOLLO (To Atropos): You, too.
ATROPOS (After a moment’s brooding resistance, loudly): By Acheron!
APOLLO: Then: ready?
LACHESIS: Wait! One moment. (Leaning toward Atropos, confidentially) The sun is near setting. Do not forget the thread of Ad—You know, the thread of Ad—
ATROPOS: What? What Ad? What are you whispering about, silly?
LACHESIS (Somewhat louder): Not to forget the thread of Admetus, King of Thessaly. At sundown. Have you lost your shears, Atropos?
ATROPOS: Oh, stop your buzzing and fussing and tend to your own business. Of course I haven’t lost my shears. Go on with your riddle, boy!
APOLLO: So! I’ll give you as much time as it takes to recite the names of the Muses and their mother.
LACHESIS: Hm! Nine and one. Well, begin!
APOLLO: What is it that is necessary to every life—and that can save only one?
(The Sisters rock back and forth with closed eyes, mumbling the words of the riddle.