heart," et cetera. /'// throw up my dinner
if I have to hear that bragging tale again.
TALIPED: No clairvoyance, Gynander: just my brain,
my passèd human brain — that's what it took!
GYNANDER: Then use your passèd brain to find the crook,
since you're so good at riddles. Here's a clue:
Know yourself. Begin your search with you.
You'll see the man you're after in a mirror;
take your falseface off — - you'll see him clearer.
TALIPED: We see a flunking traitor; that's what we see!
A nasty, scheming, blind old AC/DC
traitor to the College! My wife's brother's
in cahoots with you, I'll bet — - and others
too, no doubt. I see your pretty plot:
you'll pin the rap on me, and when you've got
me banished from the place, my brother-in-law
and you will be co-deans. I never saw
such flunkèdnessl
GYNANDER: Your brother-in-law's a fool,
but you're a nut. When this play's over you'll
regret you made that silly vow of yours.
You tragic-hero types are bloody bores.
Who are you, Taliped? Say who your dad was!
Where were you born? Why'd you come to Cadmus?
Why marry Agenora and no other — -
a woman old enough to be your mother?
Labdakides himself could hardly stand her!
You're the blind one, Dean; not old Gynander,
TALIPED: Be glad you're old; I'd have your derrière
on a platter if you weren't old, you fairy!
Because I haven't bragged about my past, sir,
you make me out to be some nameless bastard,
and tell me ifs unnatural to enjoy
a woman who is — - well, mature…
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [Aside]
Oh, boy,
that gal's mature, all right! Poor Agenora — -
she'd be senile if she were maturerl
TALIPED: [TO GYNANDER]
There seems to be no end to your affronts
and dark insinuations!
GYNANDER: Let me once
again declare, more clearly than before,
the ugly answer to our problems: You're
the wretch you want. You'll see, when Scene Four's done,
that you're your daughter's brother, your own stepson
and foster-father, uncle to your cousin,
your brother-in-law's nephew, and (as if that wasn't
enough) a parricide — - and matriphile!
Bye-bye now, Taliped. You call me vile,
but your two crimes will have us all upchucking:
father-murdering and mother —
TALIPED: Ducking
out won't save you! You'll hear from me!
GYNANDER: You killed your daddy.
TALIPED: No!
GYNANDER: You shagged your mommy.
With these last dreadful words the old man withdrew, led by the youngster. The Committee Chairman restrained Taliped from assaulting him, and presently the Dean retired, much agitated, into the Deanery, pausing on the doorsill to shake his fist at the crabbed back of the Proph-prof Emeritus. The Chairman then gathered the committee around him to sing an ode on this appalling new development. This time they danced in pairs and clapped their hands three times sharply at the end of the longer lines.
Things have gone from bad to worse, [STROPHE 1
And in singsong doggerel verse
We will sing a song of things that make us stagger:
First the Founder's Hall Proph-prof,
Then Gynander sounded off,
And it seems as though the Dean's a mother-shagger.
Though he's often made us sore, [ANTISTROPHE 1
No one's called him that before;
So we trust Gynander's just a little batty.
It's a first-class tragic trauma
To be told you've humped your momma,
And to further hear you've murthered dear old Daddy.
But Dean Taliped's no dummy; [STROPHE 2
Agenora's not his mummy
(Even if she's over fifty, which she sure is).
Though the old dean came a cropper,
He could not have been the poppa
Of a lad who came to Cadmus as a tourist.
So we won't believe the slander [ANTISTROPHE 2
That our old Proph-prof, Gynander,
Made us ill with — - not until it's verified.
Since the Dean pays us our wages,
We declare the charge outrageous
And quite false. The Dean's our boss. Gynander lied.
Dean Taliped's brother-in-law now strode onstage and commenced the second episode by addressing the Committee Chairman:
BROTHER-IN-LAW: Just now I met that sly old pederast
Gynander, with his boyfriend, and I asked
him how his interview with Taliped
had gone. If half of what the bugger said
is true, then cross my heart and hope to flunk
if I don't break the neck of that young skunk
my sister had the lack of sense to marry.
Called me a traitor, did he? I declare!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: He
did say something of the sort, I'm sure.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: I'll slug him!