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ANTONINUS: In the ...

SATAN: Hear me.

ANTONINUS: Well?

SATAN: There fell with me from heaven a rare, rare spirit, the light of whose limbs far outshone dawn and evening.

ANTONINUS: Well?

SATAN: We dwell in darkness.

ANTONINUS: What is that to me?

SATAN: For that rare spirit I would have the gaud you wear, that emblem, that bright ornament. In return I offer you--

ANTONINUS: Begone--

SATAN: I offer you--

ANTONINUS: Begone.

SATAN: I offer you-Youth.

ANTONINUS: I will not traffic with you in damnation.

SATAN: I do not ask your soul, only that shining gaud.

ANTONINUS: Such things are not for hell.

SATAN: I offer you Youth.

ANTONINUS: I do not need it. Life is a penance and ordained as a tribulation. I have come through by striving. Why should I care to strive again?

SATAN (smiles): Why?

ANTONINUS: Why should I?

SATAN (laughs, looking through window): It's spring, brother, is it not?

ANTONINUS: A time for meditation.

SATAN (laughs): There are girls coming over the hills, brother. Through the green leaves and the May.

[ANTONINUS draws his scourge from his robe.

ANTONINUS: Up! Let me scourge them from our holy place.

SATAN: Wait, brother, they are far off yet. But you would not scourge them, you would not scourge them, they are so ... Ah! one has torn her dress!

ANTONINUS: Ah, let me scourge her!

SATAN: No, no, brother. See, I can see her ankle through the rent. You would not scourge her. Your great scourge would break that little ankle.

ANTONINUS: I will have my scourge ready, if she comes near our holy place.

SATAN: She is with her comrades. They are maying. Seven girls. (ANTONINUS grips his scourge.) Her arms are full of may.

ANTONINUS: Speak not of such things. Speak not, I say.

[SATAN is leaning leisurely against the wall, smiling through the window.

SATAN: How the leaves are shining. Now she is seated on the grass. They have gathered small flowers, Antoninus, and put them in her hair, a row of primroses.

ANTONINUS (his eyes go for a moment on to far, far places. Unintentionally): What colour?

SATAN: Black.

ANTONINUS: No, no, no! I did not mean her hair. No, no. I meant the flowers.

SATAN: Yellow, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS (flurried): Ah, of course, yes, yes.

SATAN: Sixteen and seventeen and fifteen, and another of sixteen. All young girls. The age for you, Antoninus, if I make you twenty. Just the age for you.

ANTONINUS: You-you cannot.

SATAN: All things are possible unto me except salvation.

ANTONINUS: How?

SATAN: Give me your gaud. Then meet me at any hour between star-shining and cock-crow under the big cherry tree, when the moon is waning.

ANTONINUS: Never.

SATAN: Ah, Spring, Spring. They are dancing. Such nimble ankles.

[ANTONINUS raises his scourge.

SATAN (more gravely): Think, Antoninus, forty or fifty more Springs.

ANTONINUS: Never, never, never.

SATAN: And no more striving next time. See Antoninus, see them as they dance, there with the may behind them under the hill.

ANTONINUS: Never! I will not look.

SATAN: Ah, look at them, Antoninus. Their sweet figures. And the warm wind blowing in Spring.

ANTONINUS: Never! My scourge is for such.

[SATAN sighs. The girls laugh from the hill. ANTONINUS hears the laughter.

A look of fear comes over him.

ANTONINUS: Which ... (a little peal of girlish laughter off). Which cherry tree did you speak of?

SATAN: This one over the window.

ANTONINUS (with an effort): It shall be held accursed. I will warn the brethren. It shall be cut down and hewn asunder and they shall burn it utterly.

SATAN (rather sorrowfully): Ah, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: You shall not tempt a monk of our blessed order.

SATAN: They are coming this way, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: What! What!

SATAN: Have your scourge ready, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: Perhaps, perhaps they have not merited extreme chastisement.

SATAN: They have made a garland of may, a long white garland drooped from their little hands. Ah, if you were young, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: Tempt me not, Satan. I say, tempt me not!

[The girls sing, SATAN smiles, the girls sing on. ANTONINUS tip-toes to seat, back to window, and sits listening. The girls sing on. They pass the window and shake the branch of a cherry tree. The petals fall in sheets past the window. The girls sing on and ANTONINUS sits listening.

ANTONINUS (hand to forehead): My head aches. I think it is that song.... Perhaps, perhaps it is the halo. Too heavy, too heavy for us.

[SATAN walks gently up and removes it and walks away with the gold disc. ANTONINUS sits silent.

SATAN: When the moon is waning.

[Exit. More petals fall past the window. The song rings on. ANTONINUS sits quite still, on his face a new ecstacy.

CURTAIN.

IF SHAKESPEARE LIVED TO-DAY

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

SIR WEBLEY WOOTHERY-JURNIP} Members of the

MR. NEEKS } Olympus.

JERGINS, an old waiter.

MR. TRUNDLEBEN, Secretary of the Club.

MR. GLEEK, Editor of the "Banner and Evening Gazette" and member of the Olympus.

SCENE

A room in the Olympus Club.

Time: After luncheon.

SIR WEBLEY WOOTHERY-JURNIP and MR. NEEKS sit by a small table. Further away sits MR. GLEEK, the Editor of the "Banner and Evening Gazette." SIR WEBLEY JURNIP rises and rings the bell by the fire-place. He returns to his seat.

MR. NEEKS: I see there's a man called Mr. William Shakespeare putting up for the Club.

SIR WEBLEY: Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Shakespeare? I once knew a man called Shaker.

NEEKS: No, it's Shakespeare-Mr. William Shakespeare.

SIR WEBLEY: Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Do you know anything about him?

NEEKS: Well, I don't exactly recall-I made sure that you--