Aimé Césaire - A Tempest Act 1 Scene 2 lyrics

SCENE 2 MIRANDA Oh God! Oh God! A sinking ship! Father, help! PROSPERO ( enters hurriedly carrying a megaphone) Come daughter, calm yourself! It's only a play. There's really nothing wrong. Anyway, everything that happens is for our own good. Trust me, I won't say any more. MIRANDA But such a fine ship, and so many fine, brave lives sunk, drowned, to wrack and ruin .... A person's heart would have to be hard as stone not to be touched .... PROSPERO Drowned... hmmm. That remains to be seen. But draw near, Princess. The time has come. MIRANDA You mock me, father, when you call me a Princess, for I am unworldly. Wild as I am you have always given me a good life, treated me like a queen of the flowers, the paths and the running streams; you've allowed me to run barefoot through thorn and flower, spared by the first, caressed by the latter. PROSPERO Princess it is . . . for how else does one address the daughter of a Prince? I cannot leave you in ignorance any longer. Milan is the city of your birth, and the city where for many years I was the Duke. MIRANDA Then how did we come here? And tell me, too, by what ill fortune did a prince turn into the reclusive hermit you are now, here, on this desert isle? Was it because you found the world distasteful, or through the perfidy of some enemy? Is our island a prison or a hermitage? I have often wanted to ask you, and today you shall tell me all. PROSPERO In a way, it is because of all those things. First, it is because of political disagreements, because of the intrigues of my ambitious younger brother. Antonio is his name, your uncle, and Alonso the name of the envious King of Naples. How their ambitions were joined, how my brother became the accomplice of my rival, how the latter promised the former his protection and my throne the devil alone knows how all that came about. In any event, when they learned that through my studies and experiments I had managed to discover the exact location of these lands many had sought for centuries, and that I was making preparations to set forth to take possession of them, they hatched a scheme to steal my as-yet-unborn empire from me. They suborned my people, they stole my charts and documents and, to get rid of me, they denounced me to the Inquisition as a magician and sorcerer. To be brief, one day I saw arriving at the palace men to whom I had never granted audience: the priests of the Holy Office. (Flashback: standing before Prospero, who is wearing his ducal robes, we see a Friar reading from a parchment scroll.) THE FRIAR The Holy Inquisition for the preservation and integrity of the Faith and the pursuit of heretical perversion, acting through the special powers entrusted to it by the Holy Apostolic See, informed of the errors you profess, insinuate and publish against God and his Creation with regard to the shape of the Earth and the possibility of discovering other lands, notwithstanding the fact that the Prophet Isaiah stated and taught that the Lord God is seated upon the circle of the Earth and in its center is Jerusalem and that around the world lies inaccessible Paradise, convinced that it is through wickedness that to support your heresy you quote Strabus, Ptolemy and the tragic author Seneca, thereby lending credence to the notion that profane writings can aspire to an authority on a level of the most profound of the Holy Scriptures, given your notorious use by both night and day of Arabic calculations and scribblings in Hebrew, Syrian and other demonic tongues and, lastly, given that you have hitherto escaped punishment owing to your temporal authority and have, if not usurped, then transformed that authority and made it into a tyranny, doth hereby strip you of your titles, positions and honors in order that it may then proceed against you according to due process through a full and thorough examination, under which authority we require that you accompany us. PROSPERO (back in the present) And yet, the trial they said they were going to hold never took place. Such creatures of darkness are too much afraid of the light. To be brief: instead of k**ing me they chose even worse to maroon me here with you on this desert island. MIRANDA How terrible, and how wicked the world is! How you must have suffered! PROSPERO In all this tale of treason and felony there is but one honorable name: Gonzalo, counsellor to the King of Naples and fit to serve a better master. By furnishing me with food and clothing, by supplying me with my books and instruments, he has done all in his power to make my exile in this low place bearable. Now, through a singular turn, Fortune has brought to these shores the men involved in the plot against me. My prophetic science had of course already informed me that they would not be content with seizing my lands in Europe and that their greed would win out over their cowardice, that they would confront the sea and set out for those lands my genius had discovered. I couldn't let them get away with that, and since I was able to stop them, I did so, with the help of Ariel. We brewed up the storm you have just witnessed, thereby saving my possessions overseas and bringing the scoundrels into my power at the same time. (Enter Ariel.) PROSPERO Well, Ariel? ARIEL Mission accomplished. PROSPERO Bravo; good work! But what seems to be the matter? I give you a compliment and you don't seem pleased? Are you tired? ARIEL Not tired; disgusted. I obeyed you but why not come out with it? I did so most unwillingly. It was a real pity to see that great ship go down, so full of life. PROSPERO Oh, so you're upset, are you! It's always like that with intellectuals! So be it! What interests me is not your moods, but your deeds. Let's split: I'll take the zeal and you can keep your doubts. Agreed? ARIEL Master, I must beg you to spare me this kind of labor. PROSPERO (shouting) Listen, and listen well! I've got a job to do, and I don't care how it gets done! ARIEL You've promised me my freedom a thousand times, and I'm still waiting. PROSPERO Ingrate! And who freed you from Sycorax, may I ask? Who rent the pine in which you had been imprisoned and brought you forth? ARIEL Sometimes I almost regret it .... After all, I might have turned into a real tree in the end .... Tree: there's a word that really gives me a thrill. I think about it a lot: palm tree -- long, high fuse topped with nonchalant, squid-like elegance. Baobab -- like the soft entrails of some monster creature. Ask the calao bird that lives a cloistered season in its branches. Or the ceiba tree -- spread out beneath the proud sun. O bird, o green mansions set in the living earth! PROSPERO Stuff it! I don't like talking trees. As for your freedom, you'll have it when I'm good and ready. In the meanwhile, look after the ship. I'm going to have a few words with Master Caliban. I've been keeping my eye on him, and he's getting a little too emancipated. (Calling.) Caliban! Caliban! (He sighs.) (Enter Caliban.) CALIBAN Uhuru! PROSPERO What did you say? CALIBAN I said, Uhuru! PROSPERO Back to your native language again. I've already told you, I don't like it. You could be polite, at least; a simple "hello" wouldn't k** you. CALIBAN Oh, I forgot... But as froggy, waspish, pustular and dung-filled a "hello" as possible. May today hasten by a decade the day when all the birds of the sky and beasts of the earth will feast upon your corpse! PROSPERO Gracious as always, you ugly ape! How can anyone be so ugly? CALIBAN You think I'm ugly well, I don't think you're handsome either. With that big hooked nose, you look just like some old vulture. (Laughing) An old vulture with a scrawny neck! PROSPERO Since you're so fond of invective, you could at least thank me for having taught you to speak at all. You savage . . . a dumb animal, a beast I educated, trained, dragged up from the bestiality that still sticks out all over you! CALIBAN In the first place, that's not true. You didn't teach me a thing! Except to jabber in your own language so that I could understand your orders chop the wood, wash the dishes, fish for food, plant vegetables, all because you're too lazy to do it yourself. And as for your learning, did you ever impart any of that to me? No, you took care not to. All your science and know-how you keep for yourself alone, shut up in big books like those. PROSPERO What would you be without me? CALIBAN Without you? I'd be the king, that's what I'd be, the King of the Island. The king of the island I inherited from my mother, Sycorax. PROSPERO There are some family trees it's better not to climb! She's a ghoul! A witch from whom and may God be praised d**h has delivered us. CALIBAN Dead or alive, she was my mother, and I won't deny her! Anyhow, you only think she'd dead because you think the earth itself is dead .... It's so much simpler that way! Dead, you can walk on it, pollute it, you can tread upon it with the steps of a conqueror. I respect the earth, because I know that it is alive, and I know that Sycorax is alive. Sycorax. Mother. Serpent, rain, lightning. And I see thee everywhere! In the eye of the stagnant pool into which I gaze unflinching, through the rushes, in the gesture made by twisted root and its awaiting thrust. In the night, the all-seeing blinded night, the nostril-less all-smelling night! Often, in my dreams, she speaks to me and warns me .... Yesterday, even, when I was lying by the stream on my belly lapping at the muddy water, when the Beast was about to spring upon me with that huge stone in his hand .... PROSPERO If you keep on like that even your sorcery won't save you from punishment! CALIBAN That's right, that's right! In the beginning, he was all sweet talk: dear Caliban here, my little Caliban there! And what do you think you'd have done without me in this strange land? Ingrate! I taught you the trees, fruits, birds, the seasons, and now you don't give a damn Caliban the animal, Caliban the slave! I know that story! Once you've squeezed the juice from the orange, you toss the rind away! PROSPERO Oh! CALIBAN Do I lie? Isn't it true that you threw me out of your house and made me live in a filthy cave, a hovel, a slum, a ghetto? PROSPERO It's easy to say "ghetto"! It wouldn't be such a ghetto if you took the trouble to keep it clean! And there's something you forgot, which is that what forced me to get rid of you was your lust. Good God, you tried to rape my daughter! CALIBAN Rape! Rape! Listen, you old goat, you're the one that puts those s**y thoughts in my head. Let me tell you something: I couldn't care less about your daughter, or about your cave, for that matter. If I complain, it's on principle, because I didn't like living with you at all, as a matter of fact. Your feet stink! PROSPERO I did not summon you here to argue. Away with you! Back to work! Wood, water, and lots of both! I'm expecting company today. CALIBAN I've had just about enough. There's already a pile of wood that high .... PROSPERO Enough! Take care, Caliban! If you keep grumbling you will be thrashed. And if you don't step lively, if you try to go on strike or to sabotage things, I'll beat you. Beating is the only language you really understand. So much the worse for you: I'll speak it, loud and clear. Off with you, and hurry! CALIBAN All right, I'm going� but this is the last time. It's the last time, do you hear me? Oh... I forgot: I've got something important to tell you. PROSPERO Important? Well, out with it. CALIBAN It's this: I've decided I don't want to be called Caliban any longer. PROSPERO What kind of rot is that? I don't understand. CALIBAN Put it this way: I'm telling you that from now on I won't answer to the name Caliban. PROSPERO What put that notion into your head? CALIBAN Well, because Caliban isn't my name. It's as simple as that. PROSPERO It's mine, I suppose! CALIBAN It's the name given me by hatred, and every time it's spoken it's an insult. PROSPERO My, how sensitive we're getting to be! All right, suggest something else .... I've got to call you something. What will it be? Cannibal would suit you, but I'm sure you wouldn't like that, would you? Let's see what about Hannibal? That fits. And why not... they all seem to like historical names. CALIBAN Call me X. That would be best. Like a man without a name, or to be more precise, a man whose name has been stolen. You talk about history well, that's history, and everyone knows it! Every time you call me it reminds me of a basic fact, the fact that you've stolen everything from me, even my identity! Uhuru! (He exits.) (Enter Ariel as a sea-nymph.) PROSPERO My dear Ariel, did you see how he looked at me, that glint in his eye? That's something new. Well, let me tell you, Caliban is the enemy. As for those people on the boat, I've changed my mind about them. Give them a scare, but for God's sake don't touch a hair of their heads! You'll answer to me if you do! ARIEL I've suffered too much myself from having had to be the agent of their sufferings not to be pleased at your mercy. You can count on me, Master. PROSPERO Yes, however great their crimes, if they repent you can a**ure them of my forgiveness. They are men of my race, and of high rank. As for me, at my age one must rise above disputes and quarrels and think about the future. I have a daughter. Alonso has a son. If they were to love each other, I would give my consent. Let Ferdinand marry Miranda, and may their marriage bring us harmony and peace. That is my plan. I wish to see it carried out. As for Caliban, does it matter what that villain plots against me? All the nobility of Italy, Naples and Milan henceforth combined, will protect my person. Go! ARIEL Yes, Master. Your orders will be fully carried out. (Ariel sings.) Sandy seashore, deep blue sky, Surf is rising, sea birds fly Here the lover finds delight, Sun at noontime, moon at night. Join hands lovers, join the dance, Find contentment, find romance. Sandy seashore, deep blue sky, Cares will vanish� so can I� FERDINAND What is this music? It has led me here and now it stops .... No, there it is again .... ARIEL (singing) Waters move, the ocean flows, Nothing comes and nothing goes... Strange days are upon us . . . Oysters stare through pearly eyes Heart-shaped corals gently beat In the crystal undersea Here the journey ends � oh see: Waters move and ocean flows, Nothing comes and nothing goes... Strange days are upon us... FERDINAND What do I see before me? A goddess? A mortal? MIRANDA I know what I'm seeing: a flatterer. Young man, your ability to pay compliments in the situation in which you find yourself at least proves your courage. Who are you? FERDINAND As you see, a poor shipwrecked soul. MIRANDA But one of high degree! FERDINAND In other surroundings I might be called "Prince," "son of the King"� But, no, I was forgetting� not "Prince" but "King," alas .... "King" because my father has just perished in the disaster. MIRANDA Poor young man! Here, you'll be received with hospitality and we'll support you in your misfortune. FERDINAND Alas, my father .... Can it be that I am an unnatural son? Your pity would make the greatest of sorrows seem sweet. MIRANDA I hope you'll like it here with us. The island is pretty. I'll show you the beaches and the forests, I'll tell you the names of fruits and flowers, I'll introduce you to a whole world of insects, of lizards of every hue, of birds .... Oh, you cannot imagine! The birds!... PROSPERO That's enough, daughter! I find your chatter irritating and let me a**ure you, it's not at all fitting. You are doing too much honor to an imposter. Young man, you are a traitor, a spy, and a woman-chaser to boot! No sooner has he escaped the perils of the sea than he's sweet-talking the first girl he meets! You won't get round me that way. Your arrival is convenient, because I need more manpower: you shall be my house servant. FERDINAND Seeing the young lady, more beautiful than any wood-nymph, I thought I was Ulysses on Nausicaa's isle. But hearing you, Sir, I now understand my fate a little better I see I have come ashore on the Barbary Coast and am in the hands of a cruel pirate. (Drawing his sword.) However, a gentleman prefers d**h to dishonor! I shall defend my life with my freedom! PROSPERO Poor fool: your arm is growing weak, your knees are trembling! Traitor! I could k** you now... but I need help. Follow me. ARIEL It's no use trying to resist, young man. My master is a sorcerer: neither your pa**ion nor your youth can prevail against him. Your best course would be to follow and obey him. FERDINAND Oh God! What sorcery is this? Vanquished, a captive yet far from rebelling against my fate, I am finding my servitude sweet. Oh, I would be imprisoned for life if only heaven will grant me a glimpse of my sun each day, the face of my own sun. Farewell, Nausicaa. (They exit.)