This Kool-Aid has a funny flavor.

Attention TPM posters. This post is radioactively stupid. DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY COMMENT HERE. And now, for "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first edition:

PART I
An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth one.

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
`By thy long beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;
The guests are met, the feast is set :
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
`There was a ship,' quoth he.
`Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child :
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone :
He cannot choose but hear ;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

`The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line.

The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he !
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon--'
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music ; but the Mariner continueth his tale.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she ;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear ;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

The ship driven by a storm toward the south pole.

`And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong :
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
The southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold :
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !

Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came ;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit ;
The helmsman steered us through !

And lo ! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.

And a good south wind sprung up behind ;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo !

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine ;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.

`God save thee, ancient Mariner !
From the fiends, that plague thee thus !--
Why look'st thou so ?'--With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

PART II

The Sun now rose upon the right :
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo !

His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner, for killing the bird of good luck.

And I had done an hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe :
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow !

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist :
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze continues ; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free ;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be ;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea !

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !
That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night ;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

A Spirit had followed them ; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels ; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.

And some in dreams assuréd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so ;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root ;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

The shipmates, in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner : in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

PART III

There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time ! a weary time !
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist ;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist !
And still it neared and neared :
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship ; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail ;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood !
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail ! a sail !

A flash of joy ;

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call :
Gramercy ! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide ?

See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more !
Hither to work us weal ;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel !

The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done !
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun ;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace !)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.

Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears !
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres ?

The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship.

And those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate ?
And is that Woman all her crew ?
Is that a DEATH ? and are there two ?
Is DEATH that woman's mate ?

[first version of this stanza through the end of Part III]

Like vessel, like crew !

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold :
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice ;
`The game is done ! I've won ! I've won !'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

No twilight within the courts of the Sun.

The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out :
At one stride comes the dark ;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

At the rising of the Moon,

We listened and looked sideways up !
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip !
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steerman's face by his lamp gleamed white ;
From the sails the dew did drip--
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The hornéd Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after another,

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

His shipmates drop down dead.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.

The souls did from their bodies fly,--
They fled to bliss or woe !
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow !

PART IV
The Wedding-Guest feareth that a Spirit is talking to him ;

`I fear thee, ancient Mariner !
I fear thy skinny hand !
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

(Coleridge's note on above stanza)

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'--
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest !
This body dropt not down.

But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea !
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm,

The many men, so beautiful !
And they all dead did lie :
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on ; and so did I.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away ;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray ;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat ;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they :
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high ;
But oh ! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye !
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward ; and every where the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide :
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside--

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread ;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charméd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes :
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire :
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam ; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

O happy living things ! no tongue
Their beauty might declare :
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware :
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The spell begins to break.

The self-same moment I could pray ;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

PART V

Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole !
To Mary Queen the praise be given !
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew ;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank ;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs :
I was so light--almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blesséd ghost.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

And soon I heard a roaring wind :
It did not come anear ;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life !
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about !
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge ;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud ;
The Moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side :
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on ;

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on !
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ;
Yet never a breeze up-blew ;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do ;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee :
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.

But not by the souls of the men, nor by dæmons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.

`I fear thee, ancient Mariner !'
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest !
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest :

For when it dawned--they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast ;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun ;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing ;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning !

And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute ;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased ; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

[Additional stanzas, dropped after the first edition.]

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe :
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

The lonesome Spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid : and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean :
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion--
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound :
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.

The Polar Spirit's fellow-dæmons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong ; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare ;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

`Is it he ?' quoth one, `Is this the man ?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew :
Quoth he, `The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'

PART VI

FIRST VOICE

`But tell me, tell me ! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing--
What makes that ship drive on so fast ?
What is the ocean doing ?'

SECOND VOICE

`Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast ;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast--

If he may know which way to go ;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see ! how graciously
She looketh down on him.'

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance ; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.

FIRST VOICE

`But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind ?'

SECOND VOICE

`The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly ! more high, more high !
Or we shall be belated :
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is abated.'

The supernatural motion is retarded ; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather :
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high ;
The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter :
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away :
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

The curse is finally expiated.

And now this spell was snapt : once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen--

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head ;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made :
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring--
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too :
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
On me alone it blew.

And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.

Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed
The light-house top I see ?
Is this the hill ? is this the kirk ?
Is this mine own countree ?

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray--
O let me be awake, my God !
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn !
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the Moon.

AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN

By: William Butler Yeats

I
I WALK through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way -- the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire. a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy --
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age --
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage --
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.

IV
Her present image floats into the mind --
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once -- enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

V
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her Son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

VI
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Soldier Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

VII
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts -- O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise --
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

VIII
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

And now, an old Michigander's folk tune.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

by Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind

When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

Millions of disaffected voters

Are you sure it isn't a million-billion?

Dante’s Divine Comedy
More than 14,000 lines long, the Divine Comedy is composed of three canticas (Ital. pl. cantiche) — Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) — each consisting of 33 cantos (Ital. pl. canti). An initial canto serves as an introduction to the poem and is generally not considered to be part of the first cantica, bringing the total number of cantos to 100. The number 3 is prominent in the work, represented here by the length of each cantica. The verse scheme used, terza rima, is hendecasyllabic (lines of eleven syllables), with the lines composing tercets according to the rhyme scheme aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ….
Albert Ritter sketched the Comedy's geography from Dante's Cantos: Hell's entrance is near Florence with the circles descending to Earth's centre; sketch 5 reflects Canto 34's inversion as Dante passes down, and thereby up to Mount Purgatory's shores in the southern hemisphere, where he passes to the first sphere of Heaven at the top.The poem is written in the first person, and tells of Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting during the Easter Triduum in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition which is highlighted in Dante's earlier work La Vita Nuova.
In Northern Italy's political struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, Dante was part of the Guelphs, who in general favored the Papacy over the Holy Roman Emperor. Florence's Guelphs split into factions around 1300: the White Guelphs, who opposed secular rule by Pope Boniface VIII and who wished to preserve Florence's independence, and the Black Guelphs, who favored the Pope's control of Florence. Dante was among the White Guelphs who were exiled in 1302 by the Lord-Mayor Cante de' Gabrielli di Gubbio, after troops under Charles of Valois entered the city, at the request of Boniface and in alliance with the Blacks. The Pope said if he had returned he would be burned at the stake. This exile, which lasted the rest of Dante's life, shows its influence in many parts of the Comedy, from prophecies of Dante's exile to Dante's views of politics to the eternal damnation of some of his opponents.
In Hell and Purgatory, Dante shares in the sin and the penitence respectively. The last word in each of the three parts of the Divine Comedy is "stars".
Inferno
The poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, "midway in the journey of our life" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita), and so opens in medias res. Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblically allotted age of 70 (Psalm 90:10), lost in a dark wood (perhaps, allegorically, contemplating suicide—as "wood" is figured in Canto XIII, and also the mention of suicide is made in Canto I of Purgatorio with "This man has not yet seen his last evening; But, through his madness, was so close to it, That there was hardly time to turn about" implying that when Virgil came to him he was on the verge of suicide or morally passing the point of no return), assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf; allegorical depictions of temptations towards sin) he cannot evade, and unable to find the "straight way" (diritta via) to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain). Conscious that he is ruining himself, that he is falling into a "deep place" (basso loco) where the sun is silent ('l sol tace), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Inferno is a symbolic instance of poetic justice; for example, the fortune-tellers have to walk forwards with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because they tried to do so in life. Allegorically, the Inferno represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really is.
The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix.Dante passes through the gate of hell, on which is inscribed the famous phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"[3] Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Opportunists, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil (among these Dante recognizes either Pope Celestine V, or Pontius Pilate; the text is ambiguous). Mixed with them are the outcasts, who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron, their punishment to eternally pursue a banner, and be pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them while maggots and other such insects drink their blood and tears. This symbolizes the sting of their conscience and the repugnance of sin.
Then Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil forces Charon to take them, but their passage across is undescribed since Dante faints and does not awake until he is on the other side.
The Circles of Hell
Virgil guides Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating at the center of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. Each circle's sinners are punished in a fashion fitting their crimes: each sinner is afflicted for all of eternity by the chief sin he committed. People who sinned but prayed for forgiveness before their deaths are found in Purgatory, where they labor to be free of their sins, not in Hell. Those in Hell are people who tried to justify their sins and are unrepentant. Furthermore, those in hell have knowledge of the past and future, but not of the present. This is a joke on them in Dante's mind because after the Final Judgment, time ends; those in hell would then know nothing. The nine circles are:
First Circle (Limbo)
Here reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. Here also reside those who, if they lived before the coming of Christ, did not pay fitting homage to their respective deity. They are not punished in an active sense, but rather grieve only their separation from God, without hope of reconciliation. The chief irony in this circle is that Limbo shares many characteristics with Elysian Fields; thus the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of heaven. Without baptism ("the portal of faith," Canto IV, l.36) they lacked the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive. Limbo includes green fields and a castle, the dwelling place of the wisest men of antiquity, including Virgil himself, as well as the Islamic philosophers Averroes and Avicenna. In the castle Dante meets the poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan and the philosophers Socrates and Plato. Interestingly, he also sees Saladin in Limbo. (Canto IV) Dante implies that all virtuous pagans find themselves here, although he later encounters two in heaven and one (Cato of Utica) in purgatory.
Beyond the first circle, all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin are judged by Minos, who sentences each soul to one of the lower eight circles by wrapping his tail around himself a corresponding number of times. The lower circles are structured according to the classical (Aristotelian) conception of virtue and vice, so that they are grouped into the sins of incontinence, violence, and fraud (which for many commentators are represented by the leopard, lion, and she-wolf[4]). The sins of incontinence — weakness in controlling one's desires and natural urges — are the mildest among them, and, correspondingly, appear first:
"Gianciotto Discovers Paolo and Francesca" by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
Second Circle
Those overcome by lust are punished in this circle. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown about to and fro by a violent storm, without hope of rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly. Francesca da Rimini informs Dante of how she and her husband's brother Paolo committed adultery and died a violent death at the hands of her husband. (Canto V)
Third Circle
Cerberus guards the gluttons, forced to lie in a vile slush made by freezing rain, black snow, and hail. This symbolizes the garbage that the gluttons made of their lives on earth, slavering over food. Dante converses with a Florentine contemporary identified as Ciacco ("Hog" — probably a nickname) regarding strife in Florence and the fate of prominent Florentines. (Canto VI)
Fourth Circle
Those whose concern for material goods deviated from the desired mean are punished in this circle. They include the avaricious or miserly, who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. Guarded by Plutus (whom Dante almost certainly conflated with Pluto), each group pushes a great weight against the heavy weight of the other group. After the weights crash together the process starts over again. (In Gustave Doré's illustrations for this scene, the damned push huge money bags.) (Canto VII)
Fifth Circle
In the swamp-like water of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen or slothful lie gurgling beneath the water. Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff. On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph from a prominent family. (Cantos VII and VIII)
Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.The lower parts of hell are contained within the walls of the city of Dis, which is itself surrounded by the Stygian marsh. Punished within Dis are active (rather than passive) sins. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels. Virgil is unable to convince them to let Dante and him enter, and the Furies and Medusa threaten Dante. An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets. (Cantos VIII and IX)
Sixth Circle
Heretics are trapped in flaming tombs. Dante holds discourse with a pair of Florentines in one of the tombs: Farinata degli Uberti, a Ghibelline; and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, a Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend and fellow poet Guido Cavalcanti (Cantos X and XI). The followers of Epicurus are also located here (Canto X).
Seventh Circle
This circle houses the violent. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur, and it is divided into three rings:
Outer ring, housing the violent against people and property, who are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood, to a level commensurate with their sins. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron, patrol the ring, firing arrows into those trying to escape. The centaur Nessus guides the poets along Phlegethon and across a ford in the river. (Canto XII)
Middle ring: In this ring are the suicides, who are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees. They are torn at by the Harpies. Unique among the dead, the suicides will not be bodily resurrected after the final judgment, having given their bodies away through suicide. Instead they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the limbs. Dante breaks a twig off one of the bushes and hears the tale of Pier delle Vigne, who committed suicide after falling out of favor with Emperor Frederick II. The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained (i.e. money and property). They are perpetually chased by ferocious dogs through the thorny undergrowth. (Canto XIII) The trees are a metaphor; in life the only way of the relief of suffering was through pain (i.e. suicide) and in Hell, the only form of relief of the suffering is through pain (breaking of the limbs to bleed).
Inner ring: The violent against God (blasphemers), the violent against nature (sodomites), and the violent against art (usurers), all reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups. Dante converses with two Florentine sodomites from different groups: Brunetto Latini, a poet; and Iacopo Rusticucci, a politician. (Cantos XIV through XVI) Those punished here for usury include Florentines Catello di Rosso Gianfigliazzi, Ciappo Ubriachi, and Giovanni di Buiamonte, and Paduans Reginaldo degli Scrovegni and Vitaliano di Iacopo Vitaliani.
Eighth Circle

Dante's guide rebuffs Malacoda and his fiends between bolgia five and six in the Eighth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 21.
Dante climbs the flinty steps in bolgia seven in the Eighth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 26.
The falsifiers, who thrive in a diseased society, are now themselves diseased, Inferno, Canto 30.The last two circles of Hell punish sins that involve conscious fraud or treachery. The circles can be reached only by descending a vast cliff, which Dante and Virgil do on the back of Geryon, a winged monster represented by Dante as having the face of an honest man and a body that ends in a scorpion-like stinger. (Canto XVII)
The fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil—are located in a circle named Malebolge ("Evil Pockets"), divided into ten bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches:
Bolgia 1: Panderers (pimps) and seducers march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons. Just as they misled others in life, they are driven to march by demons for all eternity. In the group of panderers the poets notice Venedico Caccianemico, who sold his own sister to the Marchese d'Este, and in the group of seducers Virgil points out Jason. (Canto XVIII)
Bolgia 2: Flatterers are steeped in human excrement. This is because their flatteries on earth were nothing but "a load of crap". (Canto XVIII)
Bolgia 3: Those who committed simony are placed head-first in holes in the rock, with flames burning on the soles of their feet (resembling an inverted baptism). One of them, Pope Nicholas III, denounces as simonists two of his successors, Pope Boniface VIII and Pope Clement V. (Canto XIX)
Bolgia 4: Sorcerers and false prophets have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward. In addition, they cry so many tears that they cannot see. This is symbollic because these people tried to see into the future by forbidden means; thus in Hell they can only see what is behind them and cannot see forward. (Canto XX)
Bolgia 5: Corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals. They are guarded by devils called the Malebranche ("Evil Claws"). Their leader, Malacoda ("Evil Tail"), assigns a troop to escort Virgil and Dante to the next bridge. The troop hook and torment one of the sinners (identified by early commentators as Ciampolo), who names some Italian grafters and then tricks the Malebranche in order to escape back into the pitch. (Cantos XXI through XXIII)
Bolgia 6: The bridge over this bolgia is broken: the poets climb down into it and find the Hypocrites listlessly walking along wearing gold-gilded lead cloaks. Dante speaks with Catalano and Loderingo, members of the Jovial Friars. It is also ironic in this canto that whilst in the company of hypocrites, the poets also discover that the guardians of the fraudulent (the malebranche) are hypocrites themselves, as they find that they have lied to them, giving false directions, when at the same time they are punishing liars for similar sins. (Canto XXIII)
Bolgia 7: Thieves, guarded by the centaur (as Dante describes him) Cacus, are pursued and bitten by snakes. The snake bites make them undergo various transformations, with some resurrected after being turned to ashes, some mutating into new creatures, and still others exchanging natures with the snakes, becoming snakes themselves that chase the other thieves in turn. Just as the thieves stole other people's substance in life, and because thievery is reptillian in its secrecy, the thieves' substance is eaten away by snakes and their bodies are constantly stolen by other thieves. (Cantos XXIV and XXV)
Bolgia 8: Fraudulent advisors are encased in individual flames. Dante includes Ulysses and Diomedes together here for their role in the Trojan War. Ulysses tells the tale of his fatal final voyage (an invention of Dante's), where he left his home and family to sail to the end of the Earth. He equated life as a pursuit of knowledge that humanity can attain through effort, and in his search God sank his ship outside of Mount Purgatory. This symbolizes the inability of the individual to carve out one's own salvation. Instead, one must be totally subservient to the will of God and realize the inability of one to be a God unto oneself. Guido da Montefeltro recounts how his advice to Pope Boniface VIII resulted in his damnation, despite Boniface's promise of absolution. (Cantos XXVI and XXVII)
Bolgia 9: A sword-wielding demon hacks at the sowers of discord. As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again. "How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; In front of me doth Ali weeping go, Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; And all the others whom thou here beholdest, Disseminators of scandal and of schism. While living were, and therefore are cleft thus." Muhammad tells Dante to warn the schismatic and heretic Fra Dolcino (Cantos XXVIII and XXIX). Interestingly enough, Dante views both Muhammad and Ali as schismatic Christians, blaming the former for conflict between Christian and Muslim, and the second for conflict between Sunni and Shiite.
Bolgia 10: Here various sorts of falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impersonators), who are a disease on society, are themselves afflicted with different types of diseases (Cantos XXIX and XXX). Potiphar's wife is briefly mentioned here for her false accusation of Joseph. In the notes on her translation, Dorothy L. Sayers remarks that Malebolge "began with the sale of the sexual relationship, and went on to the sale of Church and State; now, the very money is itself corrupted, every affirmation has become perjury, and every identity a lie; no medium of exchange remains."[5]
Ninth Circle
Dante speaks to the traitors in the ice, Inferno, Canto 32.The Ninth Circle is ringed by classical and Biblical giants. The giants are standing either on, or on a ledge above, the ninth circle of Hell, and are visible from the waist up at the ninth circle of the Malebolge. The giant Antaeus lowers Dante and Virgil into the pit that forms the ninth circle of Hell. (Canto XXXI) Traitors, distinguished from the "merely" fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying one in a special relationship to the betrayer, are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus. Each group of traitors is encased in ice to a different depth, ranging from only the waist down to complete immersion. The circle is divided into four concentric zones:
Zone 1: Caïna, named for Cain, is home to traitors to their kindred. The souls here are immersed in the ice up to their necks. (Canto XXXII)
Zone 2: Antenora is named for Antenor of Troy, who according to medieval tradition betrayed his city to the Greeks. Traitors to political entities, such as party, city, or country, are located here. Count Ugolino pauses from gnawing on the head of his rival Archbishop Ruggieri to describe how Ruggieri imprisoned and starved him and his children. The souls here are immersed at almost the same level as those in Caïna, except they are unable to bend their necks. (Cantos XXXII and XXXIII)
Zone 3: Ptolomæa is probably named for Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, who invited Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them. Traitors to their guests are punished here. Fra Alberigo explains that sometimes a soul falls here before the time that Atropos (the Fate who cuts the thread of life) should send it. Their bodies on Earth are immediately possessed by a fiend. The souls here are immersed so much that only half of their faces are visible. As they cry, their tears freeze and seal their eyes shut- they are denied even the comfort of tears. (Canto XXXIII)
Zone 4: Judecca, named for Judas the Iscariot, Biblical betrayer of Christ, is for traitors to their lords and benefactors. All of the sinners punished within are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted to all conceivable positions.
Satan is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 34.Dante and Virgil, with no one to talk to, quickly move on to the center of hell. Condemned to the very center of hell for committing the ultimate sin (treachery against God) is Satan, who has three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow, each having a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor. Satan himself is represented as a giant, terrifying beast, weeping tears from his six eyes, which mix with the traitors' blood sickeningly. He is waist deep in ice, and beats his six wings as if trying to escape, but the icy wind that emanates only further ensures his imprisonment (as well as that of the others in the ring). The sinners in the mouths of Satan are Brutus and Cassius in the left and right mouths, respectively, who were involved in the assassination of Julius Caesar (an act which, to Dante, represented the destruction of a unified Italy), and Judas Iscariot (the namesake of this zone) in the central, most vicious mouth, who betrayed Jesus. Judas is being administered the most horrifying torture of the three traitors, his head in the mouth of Lucifer, and his back being forever skinned by the claws of Lucifer. (Canto XXXIV) What is seen here is a perverted trinity. Satan is impotent, ignorant, and evil while God can be attributed as the opposite: all powerful, all knowing, and good. The two poets escape by climbing down the ragged fur of Lucifer, passing through the center of the earth, emerging in the other hemisphere just before dawn on Easter Sunday beneath a sky studded with stars.
Purgatorio
Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino, painted circa 1530.
Plan of Mount Purgatory. As with Paradise, the structure is of the form 2+7+1=9+1=10.Having survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend out of the undergloom, to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world (in Dante's time, it was believed that Hell existed underneath Jerusalem). The Mountain is on an island, the only land in the Southern Hemisphere, created with earth taken from the excavation of hell. At the shores of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil are attracted by a musical performance by Casella, but are reprimanded by Cato, a pagan who has been placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain. The text gives no indication whether or not Cato's soul is destined for heaven: his symbolic significance has been much debated. (Cantos I and II).
Allegorically, the Purgatorio represents the Christian life. Christian souls arrive escorted by an angel, singing in exitu Israel de Aegypto. In his Letter to Cangrande, Dante explains that this reference to Israel leaving Egypt refers both to the redemption of Christ and to "the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace."[6] Appropriately, therefore, it is Easter Sunday when Dante and Virgil arrive.
The Purgatorio is notable for demonstrating the medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth. During the poem, Dante discusses the different stars visible in the southern hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. At this stage it is, Dante says, sunset at Jerusalem, midnight on the River Ganges, and sunrise in Purgatory.
Dante starts the ascent of Mount Purgatory at sunrise. On the lower slopes (designated as "ante-Purgatory" by commentators) Dante meets first a group of excommunicates, detained for a period thirty times as long as their period of contumacy. Ascending higher, he encounters those too lazy to repent until shortly before death, and those who suffered violent deaths (often due to leading extremely sinful lives). These souls will be admitted to Purgatory thanks to their genuine repentance, but must wait outside for an amount of time equal to their lives on earth (Cantos III through VI). Finally, Dante is shown a beautiful valley where he sees the lately-deceased monarchs of the great nations of Europe, and a number of other persons whose devotion to public and private duties hampered their faith (Cantos VII and VIII). Dante's beautiful description of evening in this valley (Canto VIII) was the inspiration for a similar passage in Byron's Don Juan.[7] From this valley Dante is carried (while asleep) up to the gates of Purgatory proper (Canto IX).
The gate of Purgatory is guarded by an angel who uses the point of his sword to draw the letter "P" (signifying peccatum, sin) seven times on Dante's forehead, abjuring him to "wash you those wounds within." The angel uses two keys, silver (remorse) and gold (reconciliation) to open the gate – both are necessary.[8] The angel at the gate then warns Dante not to look back, lest he should find himself outside the gate again, symbolizing Dante having to overcome and rise above the hell that he has just left and thusly leaving his sinning ways behind him.
From there, Virgil guides the pilgrim Dante through the seven terraces of Purgatory. These correspond to the seven deadly sins, each terrace purging a particular sin in an appropriate manner. Those in purgatory can leave their circle whenever they like, but essentially there is an honor system where no one leaves until they have corrected the nature within themselves that caused them to commit that sin. Souls can only move upwards and never backwards, since the intent of Purgatory is for souls to ascend towards God in Heaven, and can ascend only during daylight hours, since the light of God is the only true guidance.
Associated with each terrace are historical and mythological examples of the relevant deadly sin and of its opposite virtue, together with an appropriate prayer and beatitude.
The Terraces of Purgatory
In an example of humility, the Emperor Trajan stops to render justice to a poor widow, Purgatorio, Canto 10
Dante's meeting with Matelda, lithograph by Cairoli (1889)On the first three terraces of Purgatory are purified those whose sins were caused by perverted love directed towards actual harm of others.
First Terrace. The proud are purged by carrying giant stones on their backs, unable to stand up straight (Cantos X through XII). This teaches the sinner that pride puts weight on the soul and it is better to throw it off. Furthermore, there are carvings of historical and mythological examples of pride and humility to learn from. With the weight on one's back, one cannot help but see this carved pavement and learn from it. The prayer for this terrace is the Lord's Prayer, and the beatitude is blessed are the poor in spirit. At the ascent to the next terrace, an angel clears a letter P from Dante's head. This process is repeated on each terrace. Each time a P is removed, Dante's body feels lighter, because he becomes less and less weighed down by sin.
Second Terrace. The envious are purged by having their eyes sewn shut and wearing clothing that makes the soul indistinguishable from the ground (Cantos XIII through XV). This is akin to a falconer's sewing the eyes of a falcon shut in order to train it. God is the falconer and is training the souls not to envy others and to direct their love towards Him. Two examples of envy (Cain who was jealous of his brother, and Aglauros who was jealous of her sister) are contrasted with three of generosity. Because the souls here cannot see, the examples are voices on the air, including Jesus' words "love your enemies." As he is leaving the terrace, the dazzling light of the angel causes Dante to observe that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection "as theory and experiment will show."[9]
Third Terrace. The wrathful are purged by walking around in acrid smoke (Cantos XV through XVII). Souls correct themselves by learning how wrath has blinded their vision, impeding their judgment (the sin of wrath represents a perversion of the natural love of justice). The prayer for this terrace is the Agnus Dei, and the beatitude is blessed are the peacemakers.
On the fourth terrace we find sinners whose sin was that of deficient love—that is, sloth or acedia.
Fourth Terrace. The slothful are purged by continually running (Cantos XVIII and XIX). Those who were slothful in life can only purge this sin by being zealous in their desire for penance. Allegorically, spiritual laziness and lack of caring lead to sadness, and so the beatitude for this terrace is blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.[10]
On the fifth through seventh terraces are those who sinned by loving good things, but loving them in a disordered way.
Fifth Terrace. The avaricious and prodigal are purged by lying face-down on the ground, unable to move (Cantos XIX through XXI). Excessive concern for earthly goods—whether in the form of greed or extravagance—is punished and purified. The sinner learns to turn his desire from possessions, power or position to God. It is here that the poets meet the soul of Statius, who has completed his purgation and joins them on their ascent to paradise.
Sixth Terrace. The gluttonous are purged by abstaining from any food or drink (Cantos XXII through XXIV). Here, the soul's desire to eat a forbidden fruit causes its shade to starve. To sharpen the pains of hunger, the former gluttons on this terrace are forced to pass by cascades of cool water without stopping to drink. (Considering Dante's use of Greek myth, this may be inspired by Tantalus.)
Seventh Terrace. The lustful are purged by burning in an immense wall of flames (Cantos XXV through XXVII). All of those who committed sexual sins, both heterosexual and homosexual, are purified by the fire. Excessive sexual desire misdirects one's love from God and this terrace is meant to correct that. In addition, perhaps because all sin has its roots in misguided love, every soul who has completed his penance on the lower six cornices must pass through the wall of flame before ascending to the Earthly Paradise. Here Dante, too, must share the penance of the redeemed as the last "P" is removed from his forehead.
Dante's meeting with Beatrice, by John William WaterhouseThe ascent of the mountain culminates at the summit, which is in fact the Garden of Eden (Cantos XXVIII through XXXIII). This place is meant to return one to a state of innocence that existed before the sin of Adam and Eve caused the fall from grace. Here Dante meets Matelda, a woman of grace and beauty who prepares souls for their ascent to heaven. With her Dante witnesses a highly symbolic procession that may be read as an allegorical masque of the Church and the Sacrament. The procession forms an allegory within the allegory, a little like Shakespeare's play within a play. One participant in the procession is Beatrice, whom Dante loved in childhood, and at whose request Virgil was commissioned to bring Dante on his journey.
Virgil, as a pagan, is a permanent denizen of Limbo, the first circle of Hell, and may not enter Paradise; he vanishes. Beatrice then becomes the second guide, and will accompany Dante in his vision of Heaven.
Dante drinks from the River Lethe, which causes the soul to forget past sins, and then from the River Eunoë, which effects the renewal of memories of good deeds. Thus purified, souls can direct their love fully towards God to the best of their inherent capability to do so. They are then ready to leave Mount Purgatory for Paradise. Being totally purged of sin, Purgatorio ends with Dante's vision aimed at the stars, anticipating his ascent to heaven.
Paradiso
Dante and Beatrice speak to Piccarda and Constance of Sicily, in a fresco by Philipp Veit, Paradiso, Canto 3After an initial ascension (Canto I), Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. These are concentric and spherical, similar to Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. Dante admits that the vision of heaven he receives is the one that his human eyes permit him to see. Thus, the vision of heaven found in the Cantos is Dante's own personal vision, ambiguous in its true construction. The addition of a moral dimension means that a soul that has reached Paradise stops at the level applicable to it. Souls are allotted to the point of heaven that fits with their human ability to love God. Thus, there is a heavenly hierarchy. All parts of heaven are accessible to the heavenly soul. That is to say all experience God but there is a hierarchy in the sense that some souls are more spiritually developed than others. This is not determined by time or learning as such but by their proximity to God (how much they allow themselves to experience Him above other things). It must be remembered in Dante's schema that all souls in Heaven are on some level always in contact with God.
While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based around different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues.
The Spheres of Heaven
The nine spheres are:
First Sphere. The sphere of the Moon is that of souls who abandoned their vows, and so were deficient in the virtue of fortitude (Cantos II through V). Dante meets Piccarda, sister of Dante's friend Forese Donati, who died shortly after being forcibly removed from her convent. Beatrice discourses on the freedom of the will, and the inviolability of sacred vows.
Second Sphere. The sphere of Mercury is that of souls who did good out of a desire for fame, but who, being ambitious, were deficient in the virtue of justice (Cantos V through VII). Justinian recounts the history of the Roman Empire. Beatrice explains to Dante the atonement of Christ for the sins of humanity.
Third Sphere. The sphere of Venus is that of souls who did good out of love, but were deficient in the virtue of temperance (Cantos VIII and IX). Dante meets Charles Martel of Anjou, who decries those who adopt inappropriate vocations, and Cunizza da Romano. Folquet de Marseilles points out Rahab, the brightest soul among those of this sphere, and condemns the city of Florence for producing that "cursed flower" (the florin) which is responsible for the corruption of the Church.
Folquet de Marseilles bemoans the corruption of the Church, in a miniature by Giovanni di Paolo, Paradiso, Canto 9
Illustration of Dante's Paradiso, showing Thomas Aquinas and 11 other teachers of wisdom in the sphere of the Sun, by Giovanni di Paolo (between 1442 and c.1450)
Dante and Beatrice see God as a point of light surrounded by angels; from Gustave Doré's illustrations for the Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto 28Fourth Sphere. The sphere of the Sun is that of souls of the wise, who embody prudence (Cantos X through XIV). Dante is addressed by St. Thomas Aquinas, who recounts the life of St. Francis of Assisi and laments the corruption of his own Dominican Order. Dante is then met by St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan, who recounts the life of St. Dominic, and laments the corruption of the Franciscan Order. The two orders were not always friendly on earth, and having members of one order praising the founder of the other shows the love present in Heaven. Dante arranges the wise into two rings of twelve; his choices of who to include give his assessment of the significant philosophers of medieval times. Finally, Aquinas introduces King Solomon, who answers Dante's question about the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
Fifth Sphere. The sphere of Mars is that of souls who fought for Christianity, and who embody fortitude (Cantos XIV through XVIII). The souls in this sphere form an enormous cross. Dante speaks with the soul of his ancestor Cacciaguida, who praises the former virtues of the residents of Florence, recounts the rise and fall of Florentine families and foretells Dante's exile from Florence, before finally introducing some notable warrior souls (among them Joshua, Roland, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon).
Sixth Sphere. The sphere of Jupiter is that of souls who personified justice, something of great concern to Dante (Cantos XVIII through XX). The souls here spell out the Latin for "Love justice, ye that judge the earth," and then arrange themselves into the shape of an imperial eagle. Present here are David, Hezekiah, Trajan (converted to Christianity according to a medieval legend), Constantine, William II of Sicily, and (Dante is amazed at this) Rhipeus the Trojan, saved by the mercy of God.
Seventh Sphere. The sphere of Saturn is that of the contemplatives, who embody temperance (Cantos XXI and XXII). Dante here meets Peter Damian, and discusses with him monasticism, the doctrine of predestination, and the sad state of the Church. Beatrice, who represents theology, becomes increasingly lovely here, indicating the contemplative's closer insight into the truth of God.
Eighth Sphere. The sphere of fixed stars is the sphere of the Church Triumphant (Cantos XXII through XXVII). Here, Dante sees visions of Christ and of the Virgin Mary. He is tested on faith by Saint Peter, hope by Saint James, and love by Saint John the Evangelist. Dante justifies his medieval belief in astrology, that the power of the constellations is drawn from God.
Ninth Sphere. The Primum Mobile ("first moved" sphere) is the abode of angels (Cantos XXVII through XXIX). Dante sees God as a point of light surrounded by nine rings of angels, and is told about the creation of the universe.
From the Primum Mobile, Dante ascends to a region beyond physical existence, called the Empyrean (Cantos XXX through XXXIII). Here the souls of all the believers form the petals of an enormous rose. Beatrice leaves Dante with Saint Bernard, because theology has here reached its limits. Saint Bernard prays to Mary on behalf of Dante. Finally, Dante comes face-to-face with God Himself, and is granted understanding of the Divine and of human nature. His vision is improved beyond that of human comprehension. God appears as three equally large circles within each other representing the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with the essence of each part of God, separate yet one. The book ends with Dante trying to understand how the circles fit together, how the Son is separate yet one with the Father but as Dante put it "that was not a flight for my wings" and the vision of God becomes equally inimitable and inexplicable that no word or intellectual exercise can come close to explaining what he saw. Dante's soul, through God's absolute love, experiences a unification with itself and all things "but already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed by the Love that turns the sun and all the other stars".

Fifty effing screens of comments and not a single rec. Gotta be a NEW RECORD!

Guided by Voices; Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox:

Traveller’s diagram
for Where I am for what I am
??? vision? (visual?) code?
Overloads, it all explodes
And hey, let’s throw the great party
today for the rest of our lives
The band is just about to get started
So throw the switch
It’s rock-n-roll time

Fo ce li let’s us blow?
Then the onion lady blows
Kisses to the crying cooks with baited hooks
and lady looks?

And hey, let’s throw the great party
today for the rest of our lives
The band is just about to get started
So throw the switch
It’s rock-n-roll time

You must be willing just to ride along with me
You must be happy just to do the job for free
Yours for the taking if you follow simple rules
Such acts of subservience were never taught in schools

Spit me out from your cosmos
Draft me into your troops
Set me up for the knockdown
You can watch
And I’ll be back when it’s over

I’m much greater than you think
I’m swimmer in the drink
I’m much greedier than you think
I’m slammer in the drink

And oh, mesh gear fox
Put out another bag of tricks from scientific box
Time’s wasting and you’re not gonna live forever
And if you do
I’ll come back and marry you
No use changin’ now
You couldn’t anyhow and ever (forever?)

It’s not the way that I fear that I feel
It’s the way you act
It’s the way you look when you’re near me
It’s not so hard to conceal to concede? (conceal?)
It’s the things you say
It’s the things you do go right through me

(I need to like bands with longer songs)

Outstanding comments!!!!

Song of Myself

1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the
earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is
ahead?

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old
and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my
feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and
poke-weed.

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and
am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

8
The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs,
The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain'd by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.

9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd
feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner.

11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
Little streams pass'd all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.

From the cinder-strew'd threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

13
The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat
away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of
his polish'd and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what
is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.

I believe in those wing'd purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional,
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something
else,
And the in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well
to me,
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.

14
The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close,
Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.

The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the
chickadee, the prairie-dog,
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,
The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,
I see in them and myself the same old law.

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
They scorn the best I can do to relate them.

I am enamour'd of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,
Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and
mauls, and the drivers of horses,
I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
Scattering it freely forever.

15
The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane
whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving
dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are
ready,
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and
looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's
bed-room;)
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the
manuscript;
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by
the bar-room stove,
The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,
the gate-keeper marks who pass,
The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do
not know him;)
The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their
rifles, some sit on logs,
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels
his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,
As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them
from his saddle,
The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their
partners, the dancers bow to each other,
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the
musical rain,
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and
bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut
eyes bent sideways,
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for
the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it
off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne
her first child,
The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the
factory or mill,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead
flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering
with blue and gold,
The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his
desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,
The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow
him,
The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white
sails sparkle!)
The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,
The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling
about the odd cent;)
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock
moves slowly,
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and
pimpled neck,
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to
each other,
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)
The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great
Secretaries,
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined
arms,
The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the
hold,
The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,
As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the
jingling of loose change,
The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the
roof, the masons are calling for mortar,
In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it
is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and
small arms!)
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows,
and the winter-grain falls in the ground;
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in
the frozen surface,
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep
with his axe,
Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or
pecan-trees,
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through
those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or
Altamahaw,
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons
around them,
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after
their day's sport,
The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by
his wife;
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

16
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,
A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and
hospitable down by the Oconee I live,
A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest
joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin
leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger,
Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen
off Newfoundland,
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and
tacking,
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the
Texan ranch,
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving
their big proportions,)
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands
and welcome to drink and meat,
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their
place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)

17
These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to
nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.

18
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer'd and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit
in which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

Vivas to those who have fail'd!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes
known!

19
This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments
with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of
hair,
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the
side of a rock has.

Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
through the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

20
Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity
goes to the fourth-remov'd,
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.

Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with
doctors and calculated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn
less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.

I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
after all.)

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.

21
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with
me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and
still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom'd night - press close magnetic nourishing
night!
Night of south winds - night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night - mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset - earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my
sake!
Far-swooping elbow'd earth - rich apple-blossom'd earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love - therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

22
You sea! I resign myself to you also - I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,
We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of
the land,
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.

Sea of stretch'd ground-swells,
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves,
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.

Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation,
Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms.

I am he attesting sympathy,
(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that
supports them?)

I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet
of wickedness also.

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.

Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and
rectified?

I find one side a balance and the antipedal side a balance,
Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,
Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
There is no better than it and now.

What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such
wonder,
The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an
infidel.

23
Endless unfolding of words of ages!
And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.

A word of the faith that never balks,
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time
absolutely.

It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all,
That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.

I accept Reality and dare not question it,
Materialism first and last imbuing.

Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!
Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,
This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of
the old cartouches,
These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas.
This is the geologist, this works with the scalper, and this is a
mathematician.

Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!
Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,
I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.

Less the reminders of properties told my words,
And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and
extrication,
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and
women fully equipt,
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that
plot and conspire.

24
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from
them,
No more modest than immodest.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the current
and index.

I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their
counterpart of on the same terms.

Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,
Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the
father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.

Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.

I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and
heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am
touch'd from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of
my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!
You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!
Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded
duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!
Sun so generous it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my
winding paths, it shall be you!
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever touch'd,
it shall be you.

I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,
Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my
faintest wish,
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the
friendship I take again.

That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics
of books.

To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,
The air tastes good to my palate.

Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising
freshly exuding,
Scooting obliquely high and low.

Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.

The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!

25
Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of
worlds.

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,
It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,
Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?

Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of
articulation,
Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded?
Waiting in gloom, protected by frost,
The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
I underlying causes to balance them at last,
My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all
things,
Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search
of this day.)

My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really
am,
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.

Writing and talk do not prove me,
I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.

26
Now I will do nothing but listen,
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute
toward it.

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,
clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and
night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of
work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the
sick,
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing
a death-sentence,
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the
refrain of the anchor-lifters,
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of
swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles
and color'd lights,
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two
and two,
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black
muslin.)

I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.

I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,
Ah this indeed is music - this suits me.

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.

I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?)
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them,
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent
waves,
I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of
death,
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call Being.

27
To be in any form, what is that?
(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,)
If nothing lay more develop'd the quahaug in its callous shell were
enough.

Mine is no callous shell,
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,
To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can
stand.

28
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly
different from myself,
On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and
pasture-fields,
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of
me,
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.

The sentries desert every other part of me,
They have left me helpless to a red marauder,
They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.

I am given up by traitors,
I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the
greatest traitor,
I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.

You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its
throat,
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.

29
Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!
Did it make you ache so, leaving me?

Parting track'd by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual loan,
Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.

Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and vital,
Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden.

30
All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,
(What is less or more than a touch?)

Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,
Only what nobody denies is so.)

A minute and a drop of me settle my brain,
I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,
And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,
And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each
other,
And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it
becomes omnific,
And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.

31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the
stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg
of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits,
grains, esculent roots,
And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
But call any thing back again when I desire it.

In vain the speeding or shyness,
In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,
In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones,
In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes,
In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying
low,
In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky,
In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs,
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods,
In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador,
I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.

32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their
possession.

I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly
terms.

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my
caresses,
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.

His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and
return.

I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.

33
Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at,
What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass,
What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed,
And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of the
morning.

My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps,
I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents,
I am afoot with my vision.

By the city's quadrangular houses - in log huts, camping with
lumber-men,
Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,
Weeding my onion-patch or hosing rows of carrots and parsnips,
crossing savannas, trailing in forests,
Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase,
Scorch'd ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the
shallow river,
Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the
buck turns furiously at the hunter,
Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the
otter is feeding on fish,
Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,
Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the
beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tall;
Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, over
the rice in its low moist field,
Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and
slender shoots from the gutters,
Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the
delicate blue-flower flax,
Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with
the rest,
Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the
breeze;
Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low
scragged limbs,
Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of
the brush,
Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot,
Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great
goldbug drops through the dark,
Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to
the meadow,
Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous
shuddering of their hides,
Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle
the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;
Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,
Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs,
Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it
myself and looking composedly down,)
Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat
hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,
Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,
Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,
Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,
Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents,
Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupting
below;
Where the dense-starr'd flag is borne at the head of the regiments,
Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island,
Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance,
Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,
Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of
base-ball,
At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license,
bull-dances, drinking, laughter,
At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the
juice through a straw,
At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,
At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings;
Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,
screams, weeps,
Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are
scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,
Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud to
the mare, where the cock is treading the hen,
Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short
jerks,
Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome
prairie,
Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles
far and near,
Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-lived
swan is curving and winding,
Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her
near-human laugh,
Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the
high weeds,
Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground with
their heads out,
Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery,
Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,
Where the yellow-crown'd heron comes to the edge of the marsh at
night and feeds upon small crabs,
Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon,
Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over
the well,
Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,
Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,
Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through the
office or public hall;
Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with
the new and old,
Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome,
Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks
melodiously,
Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church,
Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher,
impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting;
Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon,
flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,
Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the clouds,
or down a lane or along the beach,
My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the
middle;
Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy, (behind me
he rides at the drape of the day,)
Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or the
moccasin print,
By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,
Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;
Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,
Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any,
Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him,
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a
long while,
Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my
side,
Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars,
Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the
diameter of eighty thousand miles,
Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest,
Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its
belly,
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,
I tread day and night such roads.

I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product,
And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green.

I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul,
My course runs below the soundings of plummets.

I help myself to material and immaterial,
No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.

I anchor my ship for a little while only,
My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.

I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a
pike-pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue.

I ascend to the foretruck,
I take my place late at night in the crow's-nest,
We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough,
Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful
beauty,
The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the scenery is
plain in all directions,
The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my
fancies toward them,
We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to
be engaged,
We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with still
feet and caution,
Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city,
The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities
of the globe.

I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires,
I turn the bridgroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,
I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
They fetch my man's body up dripping and drown'd.

I understand the large hearts of heroes,
The courage of present times and all times,
How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the
steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of
days and faithful of nights,
And chalk'd in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will
not desert you;
How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and
would not give it up,
How he saved the drifting company at last,
How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the
side of their prepared graves,
How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the
sharp-lipp'd unshaved men;
All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there.

The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her
children gazing on,
The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence,
blowing, cover'd with sweat,
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous
buckshot and the bullets,
All these I feel or am.

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,
I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the
ooze of my skin,
I fall on the weeds and stones,
The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,
Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with
whip-stocks.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the
wounded person,
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my
comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.

I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my
sake,
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,
White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared
of their fire-caps,
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.

Distant and dead resuscitate,
They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock
myself.

I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort's bombardment,
I am there again.

Again the long roll of the drummers,
Again the attacking cannon, mortars,
Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.

I take part, I see and hear the whole,
The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots,
The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip,
Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs,
The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped
explosion,
The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously waves
with his hand,
He gasps through the clot Mind not me - mind - the entrenchments.

34
Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,
(I tell not the fall of Alamo,
Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,
The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,)
'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve
young men.

Retreating they had form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for
breastworks,
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemies, nine times their
number, was the price they took in advance,
Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,
They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and
seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners of war.

They were the glory of the race of rangers,
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age.

The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and
massacred, it was beautiful early summer,
The work commenced about five o'clock and was over by eight.

None obey'd the command to kneel,
Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight,
A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead
lay together,
The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them
there,
Some half-kill'd attempted to crawl away,
These were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the blunts of
muskets,
A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two more
came to release him,
The three were all torn and cover'd with the boy's blood.

At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies;
That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young
men.

35
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to
me.

Our foe was no sulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)
His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer,
and never was, and never will be;
Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us.

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd,
My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.

We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water,
On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire,
killing all around and blowing up overhead.

Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,
Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain,
and five feet of water reported,
The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold
to give them a chance for themselves.

The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,
They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.

Our frigate takes fire,
The other asks if we demand quarter?
If our colors are struck and the fighting done?

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,
We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part
of the fighting.

Only three guns are in use,
One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's
main-mast,
Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and
clear his decks.

The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially
the main-top,
They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.

Not a moment's cease,
The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the
powder-magazine.

One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are
sinking.

Serene stands the little captain,
He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,
His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.

36
Stretch'd and still lies the midnight,
Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,
Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the
one we have conquer'd,
The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a
countenance white as a sheet,
Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin,
The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully
curl'd whiskers,
The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,
The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,
Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh
upon the masts and spars,
Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of
waves,
Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,
A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining,
Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by
the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,
The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,
Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long,
dull, tapering groan,
These so, these irretrievable.

37
You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!
In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd!
Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering,
See myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep
watch,
It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.

Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him
and walk by his side,
(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat
on my twitching lips.)

Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried
and sentenced.

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the
last gasp,
My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, away from me people
retreat.

Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them,
I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.

38
Enough! enough! enough!
Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams,
gaping,
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the
bludgeons and hammers!
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and
bloody crowning.

I remember now,
I resume the overstaid fraction,
The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any
graves,
Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.

I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average
unending procession,
Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,
Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,
The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.

Eleves, I salute you! come forward!
Continue your annotations, continue your questionings.

39
The friendly and flowing savage, who is he?
Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?

Is he some Southwesterner rais'd out-doors? is he Kanadian?
Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California?
The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea?

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,
They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay
with them.

Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb'd
head, laughter, and naivete,
Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and emanations,
They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,
They are waited with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of
the glance of his eyes.

40
Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask - lie over!
You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also.

Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands,
Say, old top-knot, what do you want?

Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,
And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot,
And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and
days.

Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,
When I give I give myself.

You there, impotent, loose in the knees,
Open your scarf'd chop

I managed to avoid reading the whole Whitman poem for a long time, through several lit classes, but I obviously missed a good 'un.

Thanks for posting the old guy's stuff.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door--
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never--nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!

Sorry, I just had to look it up:

WHOIS information for: justsaynodeal.com:

Are Diane and Diana the same person?

"We are not entertaining McCain for vengeance but we are feeling completely left out," said Diane Mantouvalos, a Clinton supporter from Florida.

Mantouvalos is now talking about organising a Million Women March at the Democratic convention in Denver to protest at what she sees as unfair treatment of her candidate. "I think Clinton feels she is in a strong enough position to go the convention," Mantouvalos said.

I think they're the same person. Note the style similarity between "justsaynodeal.com" and her own page at "http://andoniapr.com/about.html"

I wonder how her clients will feel about her trying to sabotage the election.

rofl, love it! :D

FADE IN:

INT. DINING HALL - SARAH SIDDONS SOCIETY - NIGHT

It is not a large room and jammed with tables, mostly for
four but some for six and eight. A long table of honor, for
about thirty people, has been placed upon a dais.

Diner is over. Demi-tasses, cigars and brandy. The overall
effect is one of worn elegance and dogged gentility. It is
June.

The CAMERA, as it has been throughout the CREDIT TITLES, is
on the SARAH SIDDONS AWARD. It is a gold statuette, about a
foot high, of Sarah Siddons as The Tragic Muse. Exquisitely
framed in a nest of flowers, it rests on a miniature altar in
the center of the table of honor.

Over this we hear the crisp, cultured, precise VOICE of
ADDISON deWITT:

ADDISON'S VOICE
The Sarah Siddons Award for
Distinguished Achievement is
perhaps unknown to you. It has been
spared the sensational and
commercial publicity that attends
such questionable "honors" as the
Pulitzer Prize and those awards
presented annually by the film
society...

The CAMERA has EASED BACK to include some of the table of
honor and a distinguished gentleman with snow-white hair who
is speaking. We do not hear what he says.

ADDISON'S VOICE
The distinguished looking gentleman
is an extremely old actor. Being an
actor - he will go on speaking for
some time. It is not important what
you hear what he says.

The CAMERA EASES BACK some more, and CONTINUES until it
discloses a fairly COMPREHENSIVE SHOT of the room

ADDISON'S VOICE
However it is important that you
know where you are, and why you are
here. This is the dining room of
the Sarah Siddons Society.
The occasion is its annual banquet
and presentation of the highest
honor our Theater knows - the Sarah
Siddons Award for Distinguished
Achievement.

A GROUP OF WAITERS are clustered near the screen masking the
entrances of the kitchen. The screens are papered with old
theatrical programs. The waiters are all aged and venerable.
They look respectfully toward the speaker.

ADDISON'S VOICE
These hollowed walls, indeed many
of these faces, have looked upon
Modjeska, Ada Rehan and Minnie
Fiske; Mansfield's voice filled the
room, Booth breathed this air. It
is unlikely that the windows have
been opened since his death.

CLOSE - THE AWARD on its altar, it shines proudly above five
or six smaller altars which surround it and which are now
empty.

ADDISON'S VOICE
The minor awards, as you can see,
have already been presented. Minor
awards are for such as the writer
and director - since their function
is merely to construct a tower so
that the world can applaud a light
which flashes on top of it and no
brighter light has ever dazzled the
eye than Eve Harrington. Eve... but
more of Eve, later. All about Eve,
in fact.

THE CAMERA MOVES TO: CLOSE - ADDISON deWITT, not young, not
unattractive, a fastidious dresser, sharp of eye and
merciless of tongue. An omnipresent cigarette holder projects
from his mouth like the sward of D'Artagnan.

He sits back in his chair, musingly, his fingers making
little cannonballs out of bread crumbs. His narration covers
the MOVE of the CAMERA to him:

ADDISON'S VOICE
To those of you who do not read,
attend the Theater, listen to
uncensored radio programs or know
anything of the world in which we
live - it is perhaps necessary to
introduce myself. My name is
Addison deWitt.
My native habitat is the Theater -
in it I toil not, neither do I
spin. I am a critic and
commentator. I am essential to the
Theater - as ants are to a picnic,
as the ball weevil to a cotton
field...

He looks to his left. KAREN RICHARDS is lovely and thirtyish
in an unprofessional way. She is scraping bread crumbs,
spilled sugar, etc., into a pile with a spoon. Addison takes
one of her bread crumbs. She smiles absently. Addison rolls
the bread crumb into a cannonball.

ADDISON'S VOICE
This is Karen Richards. She is the
wife of a playwright, therefore of
the Theater by marriage. Nothing in
her background or breeding should
have brought her any closer the
stage than row E, center...

Karen continues her doodling.

ADDISON'S VOICE
... however, during her senior year
in Radcliffe, Lloyd Richards
lectured on drama. The following
year Karen became Mrs. Lloyd
Richards. Lloyd is the author of
'Footsteps on the Ceiling' - the
play which has won for Eve
Harrington the Sarah Siddons
Award...

Karen absently pats the top of her little pile of refuse. A
hand reaches in to take the spoon away. Karen looks as the
CAMERA PANS with IT to MAX FABIAN. He sits at her left. He's
a sad-faced man with glasses and a look of constant
apprehension. He smiles apologetically and indicated a white
powder with he unwraps. He pantomimes that his ulcer is
snapping.

Karen smiles back, returns to her doodling. Addison mashes a
cigarette stub, pops it out of his holder. He eyes Max.

ADDISON'S VOICE
There are two types of theatrical
producers. One has a great many
wealthy friends who will risk a tax
deductible loss. This type is
interested in Art.

Max drops the powder into some water, stirs it, drinks, burps
delicately and close his eyes.

ADDISON'S VOICE
The other is one to whom each
production mean potential ruin or
fortune. This type is out to make a
buck. Meet Max Fabian. He is the
producer of the play which has won
Eve Harrington the Sarah Siddons
Award...

Max rests fitfully. He twitches. A hand reaches into the
SCENE, removes a bottle of Scotch from before him. The CAMERA
follows the bottle to MARGO CHANNING. She sits at Max's left,
at deWitt's right. An attractive, strong face. She is
childish, adult, reasonable, unreasonable - usually one when
she should be the other, but always positive. She pours a
stiff drink.

Addison hold out the soda bottle to her. She looks at it, and
at him, as if it were a tarantula and he had gone mad. He
smiles and pours a glass of soda for himself.

ADDISON'S VOICE
Margo Channing is the Star of the
Theater. She made her first stage
appearance, at the age of four, in
'Midsummer Night's Dream'. She
played a fairy and entered - quite
unexpectedly - stark naked. She has
been a Star ever since.

Margo sloshes her drink around moodily, pulls at it.

ADDISON'S VOICE
Margo is a great Star. A true Star.
She never was or will be anything
less or anything less...
(slight pause)
... the part for which Eve
Harrington is receiving the Sarah
Siddons Award was intended
originally for Margo Channing...

Addison, having sipped his soda water, puts a new cigarette
in his holder, leans back, lights it, looks and exhales in
the general direction of the table of honor. As he speaks the
CAMERA MOVES in the direction of his glance...

ADDISON'S VOICE
Having covered in tedious detail
not only the history of the Sarah
Siddons Society, but also the
history of acting since Thespis
first stepped out of the chorus
line - our distinguished chairman
has finally arrived at our reason
for being here...

At this point Addison's voice FADES OUT and the voice of the
aged actor FADES IN. CAMERA is in MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT of him
and the podium.

AGED ACTOR
I have been proud and privileged to
have spent my life in the Theater -
"a poor player ... that struts and
frets his hour upon the stage" -
and I have been honored to be, for
forty years, Chief Promoter of the
Sarah Siddons Society...
(he lifts the Sarah
Siddons Award from its
altar)
Thirty-nine times have I placed in
deserving hands this highest honor
the Theater knows...
(he grows a bit arch, he
uses his eyebrows)
Surely no actor is older than I - I
have earned my place out of the
sun...
(indulgent laughter)
... and never before has this Award
gone to anyone younger than its
recipient tonight. How fitting that
it should pass from my hands to
hers...

EVE HANDS: Lovely, beautifully groomed. In serene repose,
they rest between a demi-tasse cup and an exquisite small
evening cup.

AGED ACTOR
Such young hands. Such a young
lady. Young in years, but whose
heart is as old as the Theater...

Addison's eyes narrow quizzically as he listens. Then,
slowly, he turns to look at Karen...

AGED ACTOR
Some of us a privileged to know
her. We have seen beyond the beauty
and artistry-

Karen never ceases her thoughtful pat-a-cake with the crumbs.

AGED ACTOR
-that have made her name resound
through the nation. We know her
humility. Her devotion, her loyalty
to her art.

Addison's glance moves from Karen to Margo.

AGED ACTOR
Her love, her deep and abiding love
for us-

Margo's face is a mask. She looks down at the drink which she
cradles with both hands.

AGED ACTOR
-for what we are and what we do.
The Theater. She has had one wish,
one prayer, one dream. To belong to
us.
(he's nearing his curtain
line)
Tonight her dream has come true.
And henceforth we shall dream the
same of her.
(a slight pause)
Honored members, ladies and
gentlemen - for distinguished
achievement in the Theater - the
Sarah Siddons Award to Miss Eve
Harrington.

The entire room is galvanized into sudden and tumultuous
applause. Some enthusiastic gentlemen rise to her feet...
Flash bulbs start popping about halfway down the table of the
Aged Actor's left...

Eve rises - beautiful, radiant, poised, exquisitely gowned.
She stands in simple and dignified response to the ovation.

A dozen photographers skip, squat, and dart about like water
bugs. Flash bulbs pop and pop and pop...

THE WAITERS applaud enthusiastically...

AGED ACTOR, Award in hand, he beams at her...

EVE smiles sweetly to her left, then to her right...

MAX has come to. He applauds lustily.

ADDISON's applauding too, more discreetly.

MARGO, not applauding. But you sense no deliberate slight,
merely an impression that as she looks at Eve her mind is on
something else...

KAREN, nor is she applauding. But her gaze is similarly fixed
on Eve in a strange, faraway fashion.

ADDISON, still applauding, his eyes flash first at Margo and
then at Karen. Then he directs them back to Eve. He smiles
ever so slightly.

The applause has continued unabated. EVE turns now, and moves
gracefully toward the Aged Actor. She moves through
applauding ladies and gentlemen; from below the flash bulbs
keep popping...

As she nears her goal, the Ages Actor turns to her. He holds
out the award. Her hand reaches out for it. At that precise
moment - with the award just beyond her fingertips - THE
PICTURE HOLDS, THE ACTION STOPS. The SOUND STOPS.

ADDISON'S VOICE
Eve. Eve, the Golden Girl. The
cover girl, the girl next door, the
girl on the moon... Time has been
good to Eve, Life goes where she
goes - she's been profiled,
covered, revealed, reported, what
she eats and when and where, whom
she knows and where she was and
when and where she's going...

ADDISON has stopped applauding, he's sitting forward, staring
intently at Eve... his narration continues unbroken.

ADDISON'S VOICE
... Eve. You all know all about
Eve... what can there be to know
that you don't know...?

As he leans back, the APPLAUSE FADES IN as tumultuous as
before. Addison's look moves slowly from Eve to Karen.

KAREN, she leans forward now, her eyes intently on Eve. Her
lovely face FILLS THE SCREEN as the APPLAUSE FADES ONCE MORE -
as she thinks back:

KAREN'S VOICE
When was it? How long? It seems a
lifetime ago. Lloyd always said
that in the Theater a lifetime was
a season, and a season a lifetime.
It's June now. That was - early
October... only last October. It
was a drizzly night, I remember I
asked the taxi to wait...

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. NEW YORK THEATER STREET - NIGHT

Traffic is not heavy, the shows have broken some half-hour
before. The rain is just a drizzle.

There are other theaters on the street; display lights are
being extinguished. Going out just as Karen's taxi pulls up
is: MARGO CHANNING in 'AGED IN WOOD'. The marquis display
below includes "Max Fabian Presents" and "By Lloyd Richards."

The taxi comes to a stop at the alley. Karen can be seen
through the closed windows telling the driver to wait. Then
she gets out. She takes a step, hesitates, then looks about
curiously:

KAREN'S VOICE
Where was she? Strange... I had
become so accustomed to seeing her
there night after night - I found
myself looking for a girl I'd never
spoken to, wondering where she
was...

She smiles a little at her own romanticism, puts her head
down and makes her way into the alley.

EXT. ALLEY - CURRAN THEATER - NIGHT

Karen moves toward the stage door. She passes a recess in the
wall - perhaps an exit - about halfway.

EVE'S VOICE
(softly)
Mrs. Richards...

Karen hesitates, looks. Eve is barely distinguishable in the
shadow of the recess. Karen smiles, waits. Eve comes out. A
gooseneck light above them reveals her...

She wears a cheap trench coat, low-heeled shoes, a rain hat
stuck on the back of her head... Her large, luminous eyes
seem to glow up at Karen in the strange half-light.

KAREN
So there you are. It seemed odd,
suddenly, your not being there...

EVE
Why should you think I wouldn't be?

KAREN
Why should you be? After all, six
nights a week - for weeks - of
watching even Margo Channing enter
and leave a theater-

EVE
I hope you don't mind my speaking
to you...

KAREN
Not at all.

EVE
I've seen you so often - it took
every bit of courage I could raise-

KAREN
(smiles)
To speak to just a playwright's
wife? I'm the lowest form of
celebrity...

EVE
You're Margo Channing's best
friend. You and your husband are
always with her - and Mr.
Sampson... what's he like?

KAREN
(grins)
Bill Sampson? He's - he's a
director.

EVE
He's the best.

KAREN
He'll agree with you. Tell me, what
do you between the time Margo goes
in and comes out? Just huddle in
that doorway and wait?

EVE
Oh, no. I see the play.

KAREN
(incredulous)
You see the play? You've seen the
play every performance?
(Eve nods)
But, don't you find it - I mean
apart from everything else - don't
you find it expensive?

EVE
Standing room doesn't cost much. I
manage.

Karen contemplates Eve. Then she takes her arm.

KAREN
I'm going to take you to Margo...

EVE
(hanging back)
Oh, no...

KAREN
She's got to meet you-

EVE
No, I'd be imposing on her, I'd be
just another tongue-tied gushing
fan...

Karen practically propels her toward the stage door.

KAREN
(insisting)
There isn't another like you, there
couldn't be-

EVE
But if I'd known... maybe some
other time... I mean, looking like
this.

KAREN
You look just fine...
(they're at the stage
door)
... by the way. What's your name?

EVE
Eve. Eve Harrington.

Karen opens the door. They go in.

INT. BACKSTAGE - CURRAN THEATER - NIGHT

Everything, including the doorman, looks fireproof.

Eve enters like a novitiate's first visit to the Vatican.
Karen, with a "Good evening, Gus -" to the doorman, leads the
way toward Margo's stage dressing room. Eve, drinking in the
wonderment of all the surveys, lags behind. Karen waits for
her to catch up...

EVE
You can breathe it - can't you?
Like some magic perfume...

Karen smiles, takes Eve's arm. They proceed to Margo's
dressing room.

EXT. MARGO'S DRESSING ROOM - CURRAN THEATER - NIGHT

No star on the closed door; the paint is peeling. A type
written chit, thumbtacked, says MISS CHANNING.

As Karen and Eve approach it, an uninhibited guffaw from
Margo makes them pause.

KAREN
(whispers)
You wait a minute...
(smiles)
... now don't run away-

Eve smiles shakily. At the same moment:

MARGO'S VOICE
(loudly; through the door)
"Honey chile," I said, "if the
South had won the war, you could
write the same plays about the
North!"

Karen enters during the line.

INT. MARGO'S DRESSING ROOM - CURRAN THEATER - NIGHT

It is a medium-sized box, lined with hot water pipes and
cracked plaster. It is furnished in beat-up wicker. A door
leads to an old-fashioned bathroom.

Margo is at the dressing table. She wears an old wrapper, her
hair drawn back tightly to fit under the wig which lies
before her like a dead poodle. Also before her is an almost
finished drink.

LLOYD RICHARDS is stretched out on the wicker chaise. He's in
his late thirties, sensitive, literate.

Between them, by the dressing table, is BIRDIE - Margo's
maid. Her age is unimportant. She was conceived during a
split week in Walla Walla and born in a carnival riot. She is
fiercely loyal to Margo.

Karen enters during the line Margo started while she was
outside. Lloyd chuckles, Birdie cackles.

KAREN
Hi.
(she goes to kiss Lloyd)
Hello, darling-

MARGO
Hi.
(she goes right on - in a
think "Suth'n" accent)
"Well, now Mis' Channin', ah don't
think you can rightly say we lost
the wah, we was mo' stahved out,
you might say - an' that's what ah
don' unnerstand about all these
plays about love-stahved Suth'n
women - love is one thing we was
nevah stahved for the South!"

LLOYD
How was the concert?

KAREN
Loud.

BIRDIE
Lemme fix you a drink.

KAREN
No thanks, Birdie.

Karen laughs with them.

LLOYD
Margo's interview with a lady
reporter from the South-

BIRDIE
The minute it gets printed they're
gonna fire on Gettysburg all over
again...

MARGO
It was Fort Sumter they fired on-

BIRDIE
I never played Fort Sumter.

She takes the wig into the bathroom. Margo starts creaming
the make-up off her face.

MARGO
Honey chili had a point. You know,
I can remember plays about women -
even from the South - where it
never even occurred to them whether
they wanted to marry their fathers
more than their brothers...

LLOYD
That was way back...

MARGO
Within your time, buster. Lloyd,
honey, be a playwright with guts.
Write me one about a nice, normal
woman who shoots her husband.

Birdie comes out of the bathroom without the wig.

BIRDIE
You need new girdles.

MARGO
Buy some.

BIRDIE
The same size?

MARGO
Of course!

BIRDIE
Well. I guess a real tight girdle
help when you're playin' a lunatic.

She picks up Lloud empty glass, asks "more"? He shakes his
head. She pours herself a quick one.

KAREN
(firmly)
Margo does not play a lunatic,
Birdie.

BIRDIE
I know. She just keeps hearin' her
dead father play the banjo.

MARGO
It's the tight girdle that does it.

KAREN
I find these wisecracks
increasingly less funny! 'Aged in
Wood' happens to be a fine and
distinguished play-

LLOYD
- 'at's my loyal little woman.

KAREN
The critics thought so, the
audiences certainly think so -
packed houses, tickets for months
in advance - I can't see that
either of Lloyd's last two plays
have hurt you any!

LLOYD
Easy, now...

MARGO
(grins)
Relax, kid. It's only me and my big
mouth...

KAREN
(mollified)
It's just that you get me so mad
sometimes... of all the women in
the world with nothing to complain
about-

MARGO
(dryly)
Ain't it the truth?

KAREN
Yes, it is! You're talented,
famous, wealthy - people waiting
around night after night just to
see you, even in the wind and
rain...

MARGO
Autograph fiends! They're not
people - those little beast who run
in packs like coyotes-

KAREN
They're your fans, your audience-

MARGO
They're nobody's fans! They're
juvenile delinquents, mental
detectives, they're nobody's
audience, they never see a play or
a movie, even - they're never
indoors long enough!

There is a pause. Lloyd applauds lightly.

KAREN
Well... there's one indoors now.
I've brought her back to see you.

MARGO
You've what?

KAREN
(in a whisper)
She's just outside the door.

MARGO
(to Birdie; also a
whisper)
The heave-ho.

Birdie starts. Karen stops her. It's all in whisper, now,
until Eve comes in.

KAREN
You can't put her out, I
promised... Margo, you've got to
see her, she worships you, it's
like something out of a book-

LLOYD
That book is out of print, Karen,
those days are gone.
Fans no longer pull the carriage
through the streets - they tear off
clothes and steal wrist watches...

KAREN
If you'd only see her, you're her
whole life - you must have spotted
her by now, she's always there...

MARGO
Kind of mousy trench coat and funny
hat?
(Karen nods)
How could I miss her? Every night
and matinee - well...

She looks to Birdie.

BIRDIE
Once George Jessel played my
hometown. For a girl, gettin' in to
see him was easy. Gettin' out was
the problem...

They all laugh. Karen goes to the door, opens it. Eve comes
in. Karen closes the door behind her. A moment.

EVE
(simply)
I thought you'd forgotten about me.

KAREN
Not at all.
(her arm through Eve's)
Margo, this is Eve Harrington.

Margo changes swiftly into a first-lady-of-the-theater
manner.

MARGO
(musically)
How do you do, my dear.

BIRDIE
(mutters)
Oh, brother.

EVE
Hello, Miss Channing.

KAREN
My husband...

LLOYD
(nicely)
Hello, Miss Harrington.

EVE
How do you do, Mr. Richards.

MARGO
(graciously)
And this is my good friend and
companion, Miss Birdie Coonan.

BIRDIE
Oh, brother.

MARGO
Miss Coonan...

LLOYD
(to Birdie)
Oh brother what?

BIRDIE
When she gets like this... all of a
sudden she's playin' Hamlet's
mother...

MARGO
(quiet menace)
I'm sure you must have things to do
in the bathroom, Birdie dear.

BIRDIE
If I haven't, I'll find something
till you're normal.

She goes into the bathroom.

MARGO
Dear Birdie. Won't you sit down,
Miss Worthington?

KAREN
Harrington.

MARGO
I'm so sorry... Harrington. Won't
you sit down?

EVE
Thank you.

She sits. A short lull.

MARGO
Would you like a drink? It's right
beside you...

KAREN
I was telling Margo and Lloyd about
how often you'd seen the play...

They start together, and stop in deference to each other.
They're a little flustered. But not Eve.

EVE
(to Margo)
No, thank you.
(to Lloyd)
Yes. I've seen every performance.

LLOYD
(delighted)
Every performance? Then - am I safe
in assuming you like it?

EVE
I'd like anything Miss Channing
played...

MARGO
(beams)
Would you, really? How sweet-

LLOYD
(flatly)
I doubt very much that you'd like
her in 'The Hairy Ape'.

EVE
Please, don't misunderstand me, Mr.
Richards. I think that part of Miss
Channing's greatness lies in her
ability to choose the best plays...
your new play is for Miss Channing,
isn't it, Mr. Richards?

MARGO
Of course it is.

LLOYD
How'd hear about it?

EVE
There was an item in the Times. i
like the title. 'Footsteps on the
Ceiling'.

LLOYD
Let's get back to this one. Have
you really seen every performance?
(Eve nods)
Why? I'm curious...

Eve looks at Margo, then drops her eyes.

EVE
Well. If I didn't come to see the
play, I wouldn't have anywhere else
to go.

MARGO
There are other plays...

EVE
Not with you in them. Not by Mr.
Richards...

LLOYD
But you must have friends, a
family, a home-

Eve pauses. Then shakes her head.

KAREN
Tell us about it - Eve...

Eve looks at her - grateful because Karen called her "Eve."
Then away, again...

EVE
If I only knew how...

KAREN
Try...

EVE
Well...

Birdie comes out of the bathroom. Everybody looks at her
sharply. She realizes she's in on something important. She
closes the door quietly, leans against it.

EVE
Well... it started with the play
before this one...

LLOYD
'Remembrance'.

MARGO
Did you see it here in New York?

EVE
San Francisco. It was the last
week. I went one night... the most
important night in my life - until
this one. Anyway... I found myself
going the next night - and the next
and the next. Every performance.
Then, when the show went East - I
went East.

BIRDIE
I'll never forget that blizzard the
night we played Cheyenne. A cold
night. First time I ever saw a
brassiere break like a piece of
matzos...

Eve looks at her unsmilingly, then back to her hands.

KAREN
Eve... why don't you start at the
beginning?

EVE
It couldn't possibly interest you.

MARGO
Please...

Eve speaks simply and without self-pity.

EVE
I guess it started back home.
Wisconsin, that is. There was just
mum, and dad - and me. I was the
only child, and I made believe a
lot when I was a kid - I acted out
all sorts of things... what they
were isn't important. But somehow
acting and make-believe began to
fill up my life more and more, it
got so that I couldn't tell the
real from the unreal except that
the unreal seemed more real to
me... I'm talking a lot of
gibberish, aren't I?

LLOYD
Not at all...

EVE
Farmers were poor in those days,
that's what dad was - a farmer. I
had to help out. So I quit school
and I went to Milwaukee. I became a
secretary. In a brewery.
(she smiles)
When you're a secretary in a
brewery - it's pretty hard to make
believe you're anything else.
Everything is beer. It wasn't much
fun, but it helped at home - and
there was a Little Theater Group...
like a drop of rain in the desert.
That's where I met Eddie. He was a
radio technician. We played
'Liliom' for three performances, I
was awful - then the war came, and
we got married. Eddie was in the
air force - and they sent him to
the South Pacific. You were with
the O.W.I., weren't you Mr.
Richards?
(Lloyd nods)
That's what 'Who's Who' says...
well, with Eddie gone, my life went
back to beer. Except for a letter a
week. One week Eddie wrote he had a
leave coming up. I'd saved my money
and vacation time. I went to San
Francisco to meet him.
(a slight pause)
Eddie wasn't there. They forwarded
the telegram from Milwaukee - the
one that came from Washington to
say that Eddie wasn't coming at
all. That Eddie was dead...
(Karen puts her hand on
Lloyd's)
... so I figured I'd stay in San
Francisco. i was alone, but
couldn't go back without Eddie. I
found a job. And his insurance
helped... and there were theaters
in San Francisco. And one night
Margo Channing came to play in
'Remembrance'... and I went to see
it. And - well - here I am...

She finishes dry-eyes and self-composed. Margo squeezes the
bridge of her nose, dabs at her eyes.

BIRDIE
(finally)
What a story. Everything but the
bloodhounds snappin' at her rear
end...

That breaks the spell. Margo turns to her-

MARGO
There are some human experiences,
Birdie, that do not take place in a
vaudeville house - and that even a
fifth-rate vaudevillian should
understand and respect!
(to Eve)
I want to apologize for Birdie's-

BIRDIE
(snaps in)
You don't have to apologize for me!
(to Eve)
I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
It's just my way of talkin'...

EVE
(nicely)
You didn't hurt my feelings, Miss
Coonan...

BIRDIE
Call me Birdie.
(to Margo)
As for bein' fifth-rate - i closed
the first half for eleven years an'
you know it!

She slams into the bathroom again. At that precise instant
BILL SAMPSON flings open the door to the dressing room. He's
youngish, vital, undisciplined. He lugs a beat-up suitcase
which he drops as he crosses to Margo-

BILL
Forty-five minutes from now my
plane takes off and how do I find
you? Not ready yet, looking like a
junk yard-

MARGO
Thank you so much.

BILL
Is it sabotage, does my career mean
nothing to you? Have you no human
consideration?

MARGO
Show me a human and I might have!

KAREN
(conscious of Eve)
Bill...

BILL
The air lines have clocks, even if
you haven't! I start shooting a
week from Monday - Zanuck is
impatient, he wants me, he needs
me!

KAREN
(louder)
Bill-

MARGO
Zanuck, Zanuck, Zanuck! What are
you two - lovers?

Bill grins suddenly, drops to one knee beside her.

BILL
(smiling)
Only in some ways. You're
prettier...

MARGO
I'm a junk yard.

KAREN
(yells)
Bill!

BILL
(vaguely; to Karen)
Huh?

KAREN
This is Eve Harrington.

Bill flashes a fleeting look at Eve.

BILL
Hi.
(to Margo)
My wonderful junk yard. The mystery
and dreams you find in a junk yard-

MARGO
(kisses him)
Heaven help me, I love a psychotic.

Bill grins, rises, sees Eve as if for the first time.

BILL
Hello, what's your name?

EVE
Eve. Eve Harrington.

KAREN
You've already met.

BILL
Where?

KAREN
Right here. A minute ago.

BILL
That's nice.

MARGO
She, too, is a great admirer of
yours.

BIRDIE
Imagine. All this admiration in
just one room.

BILL
Take your mistress into the
bathroom and dress her.
(Birdie opens her mouth)
Without comment.

Birdie shuts it and goes into the bathroom. In a moment we
hear a shower start to run. Eve gets up.

KAREN
You're not going, are you?

EVE
I think I'd better. It's been -
well, I can hardly find the words
to say how it's been...

MARGO
(rises)
No, don't go...

EVE
The four of you must have so much
to say to each other - with Mr.
Sampson leaving...

Margo, impulsively crosses to Eve.

MARGO
Stick around. Please. Tell you what
- we'll put Stanislavsky on his
plane, you and I, then go somewhere
and talk.

EVE
Well - if I'm not in the way...

MARGO
I won't be a minute.

She darts into the bathroom. Eve sits down again.

KAREN
Lloyd, we've got to go-

Lloyd gets up. Karen crosses to pound on the bathroom door.
She yells - the shower is going...

KAREN
Margo, good night! I'll call you
tomorrow!

Margo's answer is lost in the shower noise. Karen crosses to
kiss Bill. She's joined by Lloyd.

KAREN
Good luck, genius...

BILL
Geniuses don't need good luck.
(he grins)
I do.

LLOYD
I'm not worried about you.

BILL
Keep the thought.

They shake hands warmly. Karen and Lloyd move to Eve.

KAREN
Good night, Eve. I hope I see you
again soon-

EVE
I'll be at the old stand, tomorrow
matinee-

KAREN
Not just that way. As a friend...

EVE
I'd like that.

LLOYD
It's been a real pleasure, Eve.

EVE
I hope so, Mr. Richards. Good
night...

Lloyd shakes her hand, crosses to join Karen who waits at the
open dressing room door.

EVE
Mrs. Richards.
(Karen and Lloyd look
back)
... I'll never forget this night as
long as I live. And I'll never
forget you for making it possible.

Karen smiles warmly. She closes the door. They leave.

KAREN'S VOICE
- and I'll never forget you, Eve.
Where were we going that night,
Lloyd and I? Funny the things you
remember - and the things you
don't...

INT. MARGO'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT

Eve sits on the same chair. Bill keeps moving around. Eve
never takes her eyes off him. He offers her a cigarette. She
shakes her head. He looks at his watch.

EVE
You said forty-seven minutes.
You'll never make it.

BILL
(grins)
I told you a lie. We'll make it
easily. Margo's got no more
conception of time than a halibut.

He goes to the dressing table, picks up Margo's pocketbook,
opens it. He finds a letter. He glances at it, puts it back.

BILL
She's been carrying that letter
around for weeks. I've read it
three times...

There's a sudden sharp yelp from the bathroom.

MARGO'S VOICE
You're supposed to zip the zipper -
not me.

BIRDIE'S VOICE
Like tryin' to zip a pretzel -
stand still!

Bill grins.

BILL
What a documentary those two would
make... like the mongoose and the
cobra-

He sprawls on the chaise, closes his eyes. A pause.

EVE
(finally)
So you're going to Hollywood.

Bill grunts in the affirmative. Silence.

BILL
Why?

EVE
I just wondered.

BILL
Just wondered what?

EVE
Why.

BILL
Why what?

EVE
Why you have to go out there.

BILL
I don't have to. I want to.

EVE
Is it the money?

BILL
Eighty percent of it will go for
taxes.

EVE
Then why? Why, if you're the best
and most successful young director
in the Theater-

BILL
The Theatuh, the Theatuh-
(he sits up)
- what book of rules says the
Theater exists only within some
ugly buildings crowded into one
square mile of New York City? Or
London, Paris or Vienna?
(he gets up)
Listen, junior. And learn. Want to
know what the Theater is? A flea
circus. Also opera. Also rodeos,
carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal
dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man
band - all Theater. Wherever
there's magic and make-believe and
an audience - there's Theater.
Donald Duck, Ibsen, and The Lone
Ranger, Sarah Bernhardt, Poodles
Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne, Betty
Grable, Rex and Wild, and Eleanora
Duse. You don't understand them
all, you don't like them all, why
should you? The Theater's for
everybody - you included, but not
exclusively - so don't approve or
disapprove. It may not be your
Theater, but it's Theater of
somebody, somewhere.

EVE
I just asked a simple question.

BILL
(grins)
And I shot my mouth off. Nothing
personal, junior, no offense...
(he sits back down)
... it's just that there's so much
bushwah in this Ivory Green Room
they call the Theatuh - sometimes
it gets up around my chin...

He lies down again.

EVE
But Hollywood. You mustn't stay
there.

BILL
(he closes his eyes)
It's only one picture deal.

EVE
So few come back...

BILL
Yeah. They keep you under drugs out
there with armed guards...

A pause.

EVE
I read George Jean Nathan every
week.

BILL
Also Addison deWitt.

EVE
Every day.

BILL
You didn't have to tell me.

Margo, putting on an earring, buzzes out of the bathroom
followed by Birdie. Bill sits up.

MARGO
(en route)
I understand it's the latest thing -
just one earring. If it isn't, it's
going to be - I can't find the
other...

She grabs her pocketbook, starts rummaging. Out comes the
letter...

BILL
Throw that dreary thing away, it
bores me-

Margo drops it in the wastebasket, keeps rummaging.

EVE
(concerned)
Where do you suppose it could be?

BIRDIE
It'll show up.

MARGO
(gives up)
Oh well...
(to Birdie)
... look through the wigs, maybe it
got caught-

BILL
Real diamonds in a wig. The world
we live in...

MARGO
(she's been looking)
Where's my coat?

BIRDIE
Right where you left it...

She goes behind the chaise. She comes up with a magnificent
mink.

BILL
(to Margo)
The seams.

Margo starts to straighten them.

MARGO
(to Eve)
Can't keep his eyes off my legs.

BILL
Like a nylon lemon peel-

MARGO
(straightens up)
Byron couldn't have said it more
graciously... here we go-

By now she's in the coat and has Eve's arm, heading for the
door. Bill puts his arms around Birdie.

BILL
Got any messages? What do you want
me to tell Tyrone Power?

BIRDIE
Just give him my phone number, I'll
tell him myself.

Bill kisses her cheek. She kisses Bill.

BIRDIE
Kill the people.
(to Margo)
Got your key?

MARGO
(nods)
See you home...

Margo and Eve precede Bill out of the door...

EXT. LAGUARDIA FIELD - NIGHT

American Airlines baggage counter. The rain has stopped, but
it's wet.

Margo, Eve, and Bill are stymied behind two or three couples
waiting to be checked in. Margo's arm is through Bill's. They
become increasingly aware of their imminent separation. Eve
senses her superfluity.

A lull. Bill cranes at the passenger heading the line, in
earnest conversation with the dispatcher. He sighs.

MARGO
They have to time it so everybody
gets on at the last minute. So they
can close the doors and let you
sit.

The man up ahead moves on.

BILL
Ah...

EVE
I have a suggestion.
(they look at her)
There's really not much time left -
I mean, you haven't had a minute
alone yet, and - well, I could take
care of everything here and meet
you at the gate with the ticket...
if you'd like.

BILL
I think we'd like very much. Sure
you won't mind?

EVE
Of course not.

Bill hands Eve the ticket. Margo smiles gratefully at her.
Eve smiles back.

EXT. PASSAGE AND GATE - LAGUARDIA - NIGHT

It's covered, with glass windows. Margo's arm is in Bill's.

BILL
She's quite a girl, that what's-her
name...

MARGO
Eve. I'd forgotten they grew that
way...

BILL
The lack of pretense, that sort of
strange directness and
understanding-

MARGO
Did she tell you about the Theater
and what it meant?

BILL
(grins)
I told her. I sounded off.

MARGO
All the religions in the world
rolled into one, and we're Gods and
Goddesses... isn't it silly,
suddenly I've developed a big
protective feeling for her - a lamb
loose in our big stone jungle...

Bill pauses and pulls her to one side. Some passengers go by.
A pause.

MARGO
Take care of yourself out there...

BILL
I understand they've got the
Indians pretty well in hand...

MARGO
Bill...

BILL
Huh?

MARGO
Don't get stuck on some glamour
puss-

BILL
I'll try.

MARGO
You're not such a bargain, you
know, conceited and thoughtless and
messy-

BILL
Everybody can't be Gregory Peck.

MARGO
- you're a setup for some gorgeous
wide-eyed young babe.

BILL
How childish are you going to get
before you quit it?

MARGO
I don't want to be childish, I'd
settle for just a few years-

BILL
(firmly)
And cut that out right now.

MARGO
Am I going to lose you, Bill? Am I?

BILL
As of this moment you're six years
old...

He starts to kiss her, stops when he becomes aware of Eve
standing near them. She has his ticket in her hand.

EVE
All ready.

She hands Bill his ticket, they start toward the gate.

INT. BOARDING GATE - LAGUARDIA - NIGHT

The D.C. 6 in the b.g. A few visitors. Bill hands his ticket
to the guard, turns to Eve.

BILL
Thanks for your help... good luck.

EVE
Goodbye, Mr. Sampson.

Bill puts his arms around Margo.

BILL
Knit me a muffler.

MARGO
Call me when you get in...

They kiss. Margo's arms tighten desperately. Bill pulls away,
kisses her again lightly, starts for the plane. Margo turns
away. Eve puts her arms through Margo's.

Bill pauses en route to the plane.

BILL
Hey - junior...

Margo turns to look at him with Eve.

BILL
Keep your eyes on her. Don't let
her get lonely. She's a loose lamb
in a jungle...

Eve looks at Margo. Margo smiles.

EVE
Don't worry...

Bill waves, climbs aboard. The door is closed behind him, the
departure routine starts...

Margo and eve turn to go. They walk down the passage. As they
walk, Eve gently disengages her arm from Margo's and puts it
comfortingly about her...

MARGO'S VOICE
That same night we sent for Eve's
things, her few pitiful
possessions... she moved into the
little guest room on the top
floor...

INT. DINING HALL - NIGHT

MARGO slides her fingers reflectively up and down the sides
of the almost empty highball glass.

MARGO'S VOICE
... she cried when she saw it - it
was so like her little room back
home in Wisconsin.

ADDISON eyeing her quizzically. He offers her the whiskey.

MARGO shakes her head, absently. She looks down at her glass
again. Then, she raises her eyes to look at Eve.

MARGO'S VOICE
... the next three weeks were out
of a fairy tale - and I was
Cinderella in the last act. Eve
became my sister, lawyer, mother,
friend, psychiatrist and cop - the
honeymoon was on...

INT. MARGO'S LIVING ROOM - DAY

It's one floor above street level. A long narrow room,
smartly furnished - including a Sarah Siddons Award.

MARGO'S NARRATIVE overlaps into the scene which is a SILENT
ONE.

Eve sits at a smart desk. She is just arranging a stack of
letters which she carries to Margo with a pen. Margo sits
comfortably by the fire with a play script. She hands the
scrips up to Eve, shakes her head and holds her nose. Eve
smiles, takes the script, hands Margo the letters to sign.

Birdie comes in with a tea tray which she sets on a low table
before the fire.

The phone rings.

Birdie and Eve both go for it. Eve gets there first. By her
polite but negative attitude, we know she is giving someone a
skillful brush-off.

Birdie glares first at her, then at Margo.

Margo leans her head back, closes her eyes blissfully...

Birdie slams the double door to the landing on her way out...

INT. BACKSTAGE - CURRAN THEATER - DAY

From the wings. The audience is never visible. Eve in the
f.g. Margo and company taking a curtain call. Tumultuous
applause... the curtain falls. The cast, except for Margo and
two male leads, walk off. The curtain rises again...

EVE, watching and listening to the storm of applause. Her
eyes shine, she clasps and unclasps her hands...

THE STAGE, Eve again in the f.g., but closer. Again the
curtain falls. This time the two men go off. Curtain rises on
Margo alone. If anything, the applause builds...

EVE, that same hypnotic look... there are tears in her eyes.
The curtain falls offscene, then rises again -

MARGO, the curtain falls again between her and CAMERA...

BACKSTAGE, the curtain just settling on the floor. Margo
starts off.

STAGE MANAGER
One more?

MARGO
(shakes her head)
From now on it's not applause -
just something to do till the
aisles get less crowded...

She walks as she talks and winds up at Eve - still in the
wings. Eve's eyes are wet, she dabs at her nose.

MARGO
What - again?

EVE
I could watch you play that last
scene a thousand times and cry
every time-

MARGO
(grins)
Performance number one thousand of
this one - if I play it that long -
will take place in a well-padded
booby hatch...

She takes Eve's arm, they stroll toward her dressing room.

EVE
I must say you can certainly tell
Mr. Sampson's been gone a month.

MARGO
You certainly can. Especially if
you're me between now and tomorrow
morning...

EVE
I mean the performance. Except for
you, you'd think he'd never even
directed it - it's disgraceful the
way they change everything
around...

MARGO
(smiles)
Well, teacher's away and actors
will be actors...

EVE
During your second act scene with
your father, Roger Ferraday's
supposed to stay way upstage at the
arch. He's been coming closer down
every night...

MARGO
When he gets too close, I'll spit
in his eye.

They're at her dressing room by now. Margo's been unhooking
her gown, with Eve's help. They go in.

INT. MARGO'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT

It's undergone quite a change. A new carpet, chintz covers
for the furniture, new lampshades, dainty curtains across the
filthy barred window.

Birdie waits within. She's listening to a fight; she shuts it
off as they enter.

MARGO
(entering)
You bought the new girdles a size
smaller. I can feel it.

BIRDIE
Something maybe grew a size bigger.

MARGO
When we get home you're going to
get into one of those girdles and
act for two and half hours.

BIRDIE
I couldn't get into the girdle in
two an' a half hours...

Margo's out of her wig and dress by now. She gets into her
robe, sits at the dressing table. Eve's on the chaise, by the
discarded costume.

EVE
You haven't noticed my latest bit
of interior decorating...

MARGO
(turns, looks)
Well, you've done so much... what's
new?

EVE
The curtains. I made them myself.

MARGO
They are lovely. Aren't they
lovely, Birdie?

BIRDIE
Adorable. We now got everything a
dressing room needs except a
basketball hoop.

MARGO
Just because you can't even work a
zipper. It was very thoughtful,
Eve, and I appreciate it-

A pause. Eve rises, picking up Margo's costume.

EVE
While you're cleaning up, I'll take
this to the wardrobe mistress-

MARGO
Don't bother. Mrs. Brown'll be
along for it in a minute.

EVE
No trouble at all.

And she goes out with the costume. Birdie opens her mouth,
shuts it, then opens it again.

BIRDIE
If I may so bold as to say
something - did you ever hear the
word "union"?

MARGO
Behind in your dues? How much?

BIRDIE
I haven't got a union. I'm slave
labor.

MARGO
Well?

BIRDIE
But the wardrobe women have got
one. And next to a tenor, a
wardrobe woman is the touchiest
thing in show business-

MARGO
(catching on)
Oh-oh.

BIRDIE
She's got two things to do - carry
clothes an' press 'em wrong - an'
just let anybody else muscle in...

As she talks, Margo hurries to the door and out after Eve.

INT. BACKSTAGE - CURRAN THEATER - NIGHT

Margo pops out, looks for Eve, then stares in amazement.

EVE, near the wings. She stands before a couple of cheval
mirrors set up for cast members. She has Margo's dress held
up against her body. She turns this way and that, bows as if
to applause - mimicking Margo exactly...

MARGO watches her curiously. Then she smiles.

MARGO
(calling)
Eve-

EVE, startled, whips the gown away, turns to Margo.

MARGO smiles understandingly.

MARGO
(quietly)
I think we'd better let Mrs. Brown
pick up the wardrobe...

Wordlessly, Eve brings it toward her...

INT. MARGO'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Margo's asleep. A bedside clock with a luminous dial reads 3
A.M. exactly. The phone rings. Her head comes up out of the
pillow, she shakes it. She fumbles, switches on a lamp, then
picks up the phone.

MARGO
Hello..

OPERATOR'S VOICE
We are ready with your call to
Beverly Hills...

MARGO
Call, what call?

OPERATOR'S VOICE
It this Templeton 89970? Miss Margo
Channing?

MARGO
That's right, but I don't
understand-

OPERATOR'S VOICE
We are ready with the call you
placed for 12 midnight, California
time, to Mr. William Sampson in
Beverly Hills...

MARGO
I placed...?

OPERATOR'S VOICE
Go ahead, please...

BILL'S VOICE
(a loud, happy squawk)
Margo! What a wonderful surprise!

Margo jumps at his vehemence. As she does so, the SCREEN
WIPES DOWN DIAGONALLY LEFT TO RIGHT, so that Margo remains in
the lower right-hand diagonal of the screen and Bill is
disclosed in the upper left. He, too, is in bed, reading. His
clock says midnight.

BILL
(continuing)
What a thoughtful, ever-lovin'
thing to do-

MARGO
(dazed)
Bill? Have I gone crazy, Bill?

BILL
You're my girl, aren't you?

MARGO
That I am...

BILL
Then you're crazy.

MARGO
(nods in agreement)
When - when are you coming back?

BILL
I leave in a week - the picture's
all wrapped up, we previewed last
night... those previews. Like
opening out of town, but
terrifying. There's nothing you can
do, you're trapped, you're in a tin
can-

MARGO
- in a tin can, cellophane or
wrapped in a Navajo blanket, I want
you home...

BILL
You in a hurry?

MARGO
A big hurry, be quick about it - so
good night, darling, and sleep
tight...

BILL
Wait a minute! You can't hang up,
you haven't even said it-

MARGO
Bill, you know how much I do - but
over the phone, now really, that's
kid stuff...

BILL
Kid stuff or not, it doesn't happen
every day, I want to heat it - and
if you won't say it, you can sing
it...

MARGO
(convinced she's gone mad)
Sing it?

BILL
Sure! Like the Western Union boys
used to do...

Margo's eyes pop. Her jaw and the phone sag.

MARGO
Bill... Bill, it's your birthday.

BILL
And who remembered it? Who was
there on the dot, at twelve
midnight...?

Margo knows damn well it wasn't she.

MARGO
(miserably)
Happy birthday, darling...

BILL
The reading could have been better,
but you said it - now "many happy
returns of the day..."

MARGO
(the same)
Many happy returns of the day...

BILL
I get a party, don't I?

MARGO
Of course, birthday and welcome
home... who'll I ask?

BILL
(laughs)
It's no secret, I know all about
the party - Eve wrote me...

MARGO
She did...?

BILL
She hasn't missed a week since I
left - but you know all that, you
probably tell her what to write...
anyway, I sent her a list of people
to ask - check with her.

MARGO
Yeah... I will.

BILL
How is Eve? Okay?

MARGO
Okay.

BILL
I love you...

MARGO
(mutters)
I'll check with Eve...

BILL
What?

MARGO
I love you too. Good night, darling-

BILL
See you...

Margo hangs up. Bill hangs up. He replaces the phone, picks
up his book... SLOW WIPE until ONLY MARGO is on screen. She
puts her phone away. She gets a cigarette. She lights it. She
rolls over on her back...

INT. MARGO'S BEDROOM - DAY

Margo is propped up in bed, still reflective. Birdie comes in
with her breakfast tray and a "hi" which gets a "hi" from
Margo. She starts on some petty chores. Margo takes a sip of
orange juice...

MARGO
Birdie-

BIRDIE
Hmm?

MARGO
You don't like Eve, do you?

BIRDIE
Do you want an argument or an
answer?

MARGO
An answer.

BIRDIE
No.

MARGO
Why not?

BIRDIE
Now you want an argument.

MARGO
She works hard.

BIRDIE
Night an' day.

MARGO
She's loyal and efficient-

BIRDIE
Like an agent with one client.

MARGO
She thinks only for me...
(no answer from Birdie)
... doesn't she?

BIRDIE
(finally)
Well... let's say she thinks only
about you, anyway...

MARGO
How do you mean that?

Birdie stops whatever it is she's doing.

BIRDIE
I'll tell you how. Like - let's see
- like she was studyin' you, like
you were a play or a book or a set
of blueprints. How you walk, talk,
think, eat, sleep-

MARGO
(breaks in; sharply)
I'm sure that's very flattering,
Birdie, and I'm sure there's
nothing wrong with that!

There is a sharp, brisk knock. Eve comes in. She's dressed in
a smart suit. She carries a leather portfolio.

EVE
Good morning!

Margo says "good morning," Birdie says nothing. Eve shows off
the suit, proudly.

EVE
Well - what do you think of my
elegant new suit?

MARGO
Very becoming. It looks better on
you than it did on me.

EVE
(scoffs)
I can imagine... you know, all it
needed was some taking in here and
letting out there - are you sure
you won't want it yourself?

MARGO
Quite sure. I find it just a bit
too - too "Seventeenish" for me...

EVE
(laughs)
Oh, come now, as though you were an
old lady... I'm on my way. Is there
anything more you've thought of-?

MARGO
There's the script to go back to
the Guild-

EVE
I've got it.

MARGO
- and those checks or whatever it
is for the income tax man.

EVE
Right here.

MARGO
It seems I can't think of a thing
you haven't thought of...

EVE
(smile)
That's my job.
(she turns to go)
See you at tea time...

MARGO
Eve...
(Eve turns at the door)
... by any chance, did you place a
call from me to Bill for midnight
California time?

EVE
(gasps)
Oh, golly. And I forgot to tell you-

MARGO
Yes, dear. You forgot all about it.

EVE
Well, I was sure you'd want to, of
course, being his birthday, and
you've been so busy these past few
days, and last night I meant to
tell you before you went out with
the Richards - and I guess I was
asleep when you got home...

MARGO
Yes, I guess you were. It - it was
very thoughtful of you, Eve.

EVE
Mr. Sampson's birthday. I certainly
wouldn't forget that. You'd never
forgive me.
(she smiles shyly)
As a matter of fact, I sent him a
telegram myself...

And she's gone. Margo stares at the closed door. Then at
Birdie. Birdie, without comment, goes out. Margo, alone,
looks down at her orange juice. Absently, she twirls it in
its bed of shaved ice...

INT. DINING HALL - SARAH SIDDONS SOCIETY - NIGHT

MARGO, reflectively twirling her highball glass. The applause
continues. She lifts her glass to drink. Her glance meets
Karen's. She raises the glass in a silent toast.

KAREN smiles wanly at Margo's toast. Then the smile fades as
she looks reflectively back to Eve...

KAREN'S VOICE
I saw Eve quite often after our
first meeting, but we never really
talked again - until the party
Margo gave for Bill when he
returned from Hollywood...

INT. MARGO'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

It's January. The bed is littered with fur coats. Through the
open door, from the floor below, the murmur of a party at a
late hour. No hilarity.

KAREN'S VOICE
It's always convenient at a party
to know the hostess well enough to
use her bedroom rather than go
where all the others have to go...

Karen is making repairs at Margo's dressing table. Eve
enters, carrying a magnificent sable coat which she drops on
the bed.

KAREN
Now who's show up at this hour?
It's time people went home - hold
that coat up...
(Eve holds it up; Karen
whistles)
... whose is it?

EVE
Some Hollywood movie star, her
plane got in late.

KAREN
Discouraging, isn't it? Women with
furs like that where it never gets
cold...

EVE
Hollywood.

KAREN
Tell me, Eve - how are things with
you? Happy?

Eve melts into warmth. She beams, sits on the bed. Karen has
spun around on the dressing table stool.

EVE
There should be a new word for
happiness. Being here with Miss
Channing has been - I just can't
say, she's been so wonderful, done
so much for me-

KAREN
(smiles)
Lloyd says Margo compensates for
underplaying on the stage by
overplaying reality...
(she gets up, gets her
coat)
... next to that sable, my new mink
seems like an old bedjacket...
(throws it over her
shoulder)
... you've done your share, Eve.
You've worked wonders with Margo...

She starts out.

EVE
(hesitantly)
Mrs. Richards.

KAREN
(pauses, smiles)
Karen.

EVE
Karen...
(she picks at the
coverlet)
... isn't it awful, I'm about to
ask you for another favor - after
all you've already done.

KAREN
(crosses to her)
Nobody's done so much, Eve, you've
got to stop thinking of yourself as
one of the Hundred Neediest
Cases... what is it?

EVE
Well... Miss Channing's affairs are
in such good shape... there isn't
enough to keep me as busy as I
should be, really - not that I've
ever considered anything that would
take me away from her... but the
other day - when I heard Mr. Fabian
tell Miss Channing that her
understudy was going to have a
baby, and they'd have to replace
her...

She looks down at the coverlet once more.

KAREN
... you want to be Margo's new
understudy.

EVE
I don't let myself think about it,
even-
(she looks up, rises as
she speaks)
- but I do know the part so well,
and every bit of the staging,
there'd be no need to break in a
new girl-
(suddenly afraid, she
sits)
- but suppose I had to go on one
night? To an audience that came to
see Margo Channing. No, I couldn't
possibly...

KAREN
(laughs)
Don't worry too much about that.
Margo just doesn't miss
performances. If she can walk,
crawl or roll - she plays.

EVE
(nods proudly)
The show must go on.

KAREN
No, dear. Margo must go on.
(she sits beside Eve)
As a matter of fact, I see no
reason why you shouldn't be Margo's
understudy...

EVE
Do you think Miss Channing would
approve?

KAREN
I think she would cheer.

EVE
But Mr. Richards and Mr. Sampson-

KAREN
They'll do as they're told.

Eve smiles a little. A pause.

EVE
Then - would you talk to Mr. Fabian
about it?

KAREN
Of course.

EVE
You won't forget it?

KAREN
I won't forget.

EVE
I seem to be forever thanking you
for something, don't I?

She hugs Karen, leaves. She nearly collides with Birdie on
her way in.

BIRDIE
The bed looks like a dead animal
act. Which one is sables?

KAREN
(pointing)
But she just got here...

BIRDIE
She's on her way. With half the men
in the joint.
(she hold up the coat)
It's only a fur coat...

KAREN
What did you expect - live sables?

BIRDIE
A diamond collar, gold sleeves -
you know, picture people...

They start out.

KAREN
Bill says actors out there eat just
as infrequently as here-

BIRDIE
They can always grab oranges off
trees. This you can't do in Times
Square...

Through the open door, we see them go down the stairs and out
of sight.

INT. SECOND FLOOR LANDING AND STAIRS - NIGHT

Karen and Birdie come down the stairs to Bill, Max, Addison,
a blonde young lady named MISS CASWELL (Addison's protegee-of
the-moment) - and, at the feet of Bill and Addison... Eve.
They are all seated on the steps.

Birdie goes through and down the stairs to the first floor.
Karen remains with the others.

Addison is holding forth:

ADDISON
Every now and then, some elder
statesman of the Theater or cinema
assures the public that actors and
actresses are just plain folk.
Ignoring the fact that their
greatest attraction to the public
is their complete lack of
resemblance to normal human beings.

MISS CASWELL
(as Birdie and the sables
pass)
Now there's something a girl could
make sacrifices for.

BILL'S VOICE
And probably has.

MISS CASWELL
Sable.

MAX
(to Miss Caswell)
Did you say sable - or Gable?

MISS CASWELL
Either one.

ADDISON
It is senseless to insist that
theatrical folk in New York,
Hollywood and London are no
different from the good people of
Des Moines, Chillicothe and
Liverpool. By and large, we are
concentrated gatherings of
neurotics, egomaniacs, emotional
misfits, and precocious children-

MAX
(to Bill)
Gable. Why a feller like that don't
come East to do a play...

BILL
(nods)
He must be miserable, the life he
lives out there-

ADDISON
These so-called abnormalities -
they're our stock in trade, they
make us actors, writers, directors,
et cetera in the first place-

MAX
Answer me this. What makes a man
become a producer?

ADDISON
What makes a man walk into a lion
cage with nothing but a chair?

MAX
This answer satisfies me a hundred
percent.

ADDISON
We all have abnormality in common.
We are a breed apart from the rest
of the humanity, we Theater folk.
We are the original displaced
personalities...

BILL
(laughs; to Eve)
You don't have to read his column
tomorrow - you just heard it. I
don't agree, Addison...

ADDISON
That happens to be your particular
abnormality.

BILL
Oh, I admit there's a screwball
element in the Theater. It sticks
out, it's got spotlights on it and
a brass band. But it isn't basic,
it isn't standard - if it were, the
Theater couldn't survive...

MISS CASWELL
(to a passing butler)
Oh, waiter...

The butler goes right by.

ADDISON
That isn't a waiter, my dear.
That's a butler.

MISS CASWELL
Well, I can't yell "Oh, butler,"
can I? Maybe somebody's name is
Butler...

ADDISON
You have a point. An idiotic one,
but a point.

MISS CASWELL
I don't want to make trouble. All I
want is a drink.

MAX
(getting up)
Leave me get you one...

MISS CASWELL
(pitching)
Oh, thank you, Mr. Fabian.

Max leaves with her empty glass.

ADDISON
Well done. I see your career rising
in the East like the sun...
(to Bill)
... you were saying?

BILL
I was saying that the Theater is
nine-tenths hard work. Work done
the hard way - by sweat,
application and craftsmanship. I'll
agree to this - that to be a good
actor, actress, or anything else in
the Theater, means wanting to be
that more than anything else in the
world...

EVE
(abruptly)
Yes. Yes, it does.

BILL
(goes on)
It means concentration of ambition,
desire, and sacrifice such as no
other profession demands... And
I'll agree that the man or woman
who accepts those terms can't be
ordinary, can't be - just someone.
To give so much for almost always
so little...

Eve speaks almost unaware of what she says. She looks at no
one in particular, just off...

EVE
So little. So little, did you say?
Why, if there's nothing else -
there's applause. It's like - like
waves of love coming over the
footlights and wrapping you up.
Imagine...
To know, every night, that
different hundreds of people love
you... they smile, their eyes shine
- you've pleased them, they want
you, you belong. Just that alone is
worth anything...

She becomes aware of Addison's strange smile, of Bill's looks
of warm interest. She's embarrassed, she turns away - then
scrambles to her feet as Margo approaches with Lloyd from the
direction of the pantry.

Margo's had too much to drink. Her fake smile fades as Eve
gets up. She's unpleasant and depressed.

MARGO
Don't get up. And please stop
acting as if I were the queen
mother.

EVE
(hurt)
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-

BILL
(sharply)
Outside of a beehive, Margo, your
behavior would hardly be considered
either queenly or motherly!

MARGO
You're in a beehive, pal, didn't
you know? We're all busy little
bees, full of stings, making honey
day and night-
(to Eve)
- aren't we, honey?

KAREN
Margo, really...

MARGO
Please don't play governess, Karen,
I haven't your unyielding good
taste, I wish I'd gone to Radcliffe
too but father wouldn't hear of it -
he needed help at the notions
counter...
(to Addison)
I'm being rude now, aren't I? OR
should I say "ain't I"?

ADDISON
You're maudlin and full of self
pity. You're magnificent.

Max has come up with Miss Caswell's drink.

LLOYD
How about calling it a night?

MARGO
And you pose as a playwright. A
situation pregnant with
possibilities - and all you can
think of is everybody to go to
sleep...

BILL
It's a good thought.

MARGO
It won't play.

KAREN
As a nonprofessional, I think it's
an excellent idea. Undramatic, but
practical...

As she speaks, she makes her way to Lloyd's side.

MARGO
Happy little housewife...

BILL
Cut it out.

MARGO
This is my house, not a theater! In
my house you're a guest, not a
director-!

KAREN
Then stop being a star - start
treating your guests as your
supporting cast!

ADDISON
Hear, hear...

LLOYD
Now let's not get into a big hassle-

KAREN
It's about time we did! It's about
time Margo realized that what's
attractive on stage need not
necessarily be attractive off.

MARGO
(suddenly)
All right! I'm going to bed.
(to Bill)
You be the host. It's your party.
Happy Birthday, welcome home, and
we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you.

She starts upstairs.

BILL
Need any help?

MARGO
(pauses, smiles)
To put me to bed? Take my clothes
off, hold my head, tuck me in, turn
off the lights, tiptoe out...? eve
would. Wouldn't you, Eve?

EVE
If you'd like.

MARGO
I wouldn't like.

She goes up, exits out of sight. A pause. Miss Caswell
reaches up to take the drink out of Max's hand.

MAX
I forgot I had it.

MISS CASWELL
I didn't.

Bill gets up and goes after Margo...

ADDISON
Too bad! We'll miss the third act.
They're going to play it off stage.

Eve turns away abruptly, in sudden tears.

LLOYD
Coming?

KAREN
In a minute...

She crosses to Eve, puts an arm around her.

KAREN
You mustn't mind Margo too much,
even if I do...

EVE
But there must be some reason,
something I've done without
knowing...

KAREN
The reason is Margo and don't try
to figure it out. Einstein
couldn't.

EVE
If I thought I'd offended her, of
all people-

KAREN
Eve. I'm fond of Margo too. But I
know Margo. And every now and then
there is nothing I want to do so
much as to kick her right square in
the pants.

EVE
(smiles)
Well - if she's got to pick on
someone, I'd just as soon it was
me.

Karen smiles back. She joins Lloyd and Max.

LLOYD
Max is going to drop us...

ADDISON
I've often wondered, Max, why you
bother with a chauffeur and
limousine in New York City.

MAX
In my case it's necessary. Too many
taxi drivers write plays.

ADDISON
And too many of them are produced.

MISS CASWELL
Let's go sit by the piano.

ADDISON
You have me confused with Dan
Dailey. You go sit by the piano.
(to Eve)
And you come sit by me.
(to the others)
Good night.

They laugh, say "good night," and start downstairs. As Eve
crosses to Addison:

EVE
Karen...
(Karen pauses)
... you won't forget, will you?
What we talked about before?

Scene 1

[opening music]
[wind]
[clop clop clop]
KING ARTHUR: Whoa there!
[clop clop clop]
SOLDIER #1: Halt! Who goes there?
ARTHUR: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
SOLDIER #1: Pull the other one!
ARTHUR: I am,... and this is my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court
at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master.
SOLDIER #1: What? Ridden on a horse?
ARTHUR: Yes!
SOLDIER #1: You're using coconuts!
ARTHUR: What?
SOLDIER #1: You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together.
ARTHUR: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through--
SOLDIER #1: Where'd you get the coconuts?
ARTHUR: We found them.
SOLDIER #1: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
SOLDIER #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our
land?
SOLDIER #1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
ARTHUR: Not at all. They could be carried.
SOLDIER #1: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the husk!
SOLDIER #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
SOLDIER #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I'm not interested!
SOLDIER #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
SOLDIER #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point.
SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
SOLDIER #1: But then of course a-- African swallows are non-migratory.
SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah.
SOLDIER #1: So, they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway.
[clop clop clop]
SOLDIER #2: Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?
SOLDIER #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
SOLDIER #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!
SOLDIER #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
SOLDIER #2: Well, why not?

Scene 2

[thud]
[clang]
CART MASTER: Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[cough cough...]
[clang]
[...cough cough]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead! Ninepence.
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
 Bring out...
[rewr!]
...your dead!
[rewr!]
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER: Here's one.
CART MASTER: Ninepence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
CART MASTER: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
CART MASTER: 'Ere. He says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not!
CART MASTER: He isn't?
CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon. He's very ill.
DEAD PERSON: I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.
CART MASTER: Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON: I don't want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don't be such a baby.
CART MASTER: I can't take him.
DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!
CUSTOMER: Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER: I can't.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
CART MASTER: No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when's your next round?
CART MASTER: Thursday.
DEAD PERSON: I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
CART MASTER: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
CUSTOMER: Right. All right.
[howl]
[clop clop clop]
Who's that, then?
CART MASTER: I dunno. Must be a king.
CUSTOMER: Why?
CART MASTER: He hasn't got shit all over him.

Scene 3

[thud]
[King Arthur music]
[thud thud thud]
[King Arthur music stops]
ARTHUR: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
ARTHUR: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven.
ARTHUR: I-- what?
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old.
ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you 'Man'.
DENNIS: Well, you could say 'Dennis'.
ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis'.
DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR: I did say 'sorry' about the 'old woman', but from the behind you looked--
DENNIS: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior!
ARTHUR: Well, I am King!
DENNIS: Oh, King, eh, very nice. And how d'you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which
perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress with the--
WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh! How d'you do?
ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Whose castle is that?
WOMAN: King of the who?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: Well, we all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN: Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
ARTHUR: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one lives there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,...
[angels sing]
...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to
carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a
mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it,
didn't you?

Scene 4

[King Arthur music]
[music stops]
BLACK KNIGHT: Aaaagh!
[King Arthur music]
[music stops]
BLACK KNIGHT: Aaagh!
GREEN KNIGHT: Ooh!
[King Arthur music]
[music stops]
[stab]
BLACK KNIGHT: Aagh!
GREEN KNIGHT: Oh!
[King Arthur music]
Ooh! Uuh.
[music stops]
BLACK KNIGHT: Aaaagh!
[clang]
BLACK KNIGHT and GREEN KNIGHT: Agh!, oh!, etc.
GREEN KNIGHT: Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah!
[woosh]
[BLACK KNIGHT kills GREEN KNIGHT]
[thud]
[scrape]
BLACK KNIGHT: Umm!
[clop clop clop]
ARTHUR: You fight with the strength of many men, Sir Knight.
[pause]
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
[pause]
I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my court at Camelot.
[pause]
You have proved yourself worthy. Will you join me?
[pause]
You make me sad. So be it. Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT: None shall pass.
ARTHUR: What?
BLACK KNIGHT: None shall pass.
ARTHUR: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge.
BLACK KNIGHT: Then you shall die.
ARTHUR: I command you, as King of the Britons, to stand aside!
BLACK KNIGHT: I move for no man.
ARTHUR: So be it!
ARTHUR and BLACK KNIGHT: Aaah!, hiyaah!, etc.
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's left arm off]
ARTHUR: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
BLACK KNIGHT: 'Tis but a scratch.
ARTHUR: A scratch? Your arm's off!
BLACK KNIGHT: No, it isn't.
ARTHUR: Well, what's that, then?
BLACK KNIGHT: I've had worse.
ARTHUR: You liar!
BLACK KNIGHT: Come on, you pansy!
[clang]
Huyah!
[clang]
Hiyaah!
[clang]
Aaaaaaaah!
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right arm off]
ARTHUR: Victory is mine!
[kneeling]
We thank Thee Lord, that in Thy mer--
BLACK KNIGHT: Hah!
[kick]
Come on, then.
ARTHUR: What?
BLACK KNIGHT: Have at you!
[kick]
ARTHUR: Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
BLACK KNIGHT: Oh, had enough, eh?
ARTHUR: Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left.
BLACK KNIGHT: Yes, I have.
ARTHUR: Look!
BLACK KNIGHT: Just a flesh wound.
[kick]
ARTHUR: Look, stop that.
BLACK KNIGHT: Chicken!
[kick]
Chickennn!
ARTHUR: Look, I'll have your leg.
[kick]
Right!
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT: Right. I'll do you for that!
ARTHUR: You'll what?
BLACK KNIGHT: Come here!
ARTHUR: What are you going to do, bleed on me?
BLACK KNIGHT: I'm invincible!
ARTHUR: You're a looney.
BLACK KNIGHT: The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then.
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's last leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT: Oh? All right, we'll call it a draw.
ARTHUR: Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT: Oh. Oh, I see. Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!

Scene 5

MONKS: [chanting] Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
CROWD: A witch! A witch!
[bonk]
A witch! A witch!
MONKS: [chanting] Pie Iesu domine...
CROWD: A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch! A witch!
Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! We've found a witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch!
VILLAGER #1: We have found a witch. May we burn her?
CROWD: Burn her! Burn! Burn her! Burn her!
BEDEVERE: How do you know she is a witch?
VILLAGER #2: She looks like one.
CROWD: Right! Yeah! Yeah!
BEDEVERE: Bring her forward.
WITCH: I'm not a witch. I'm not a witch.
BEDEVERE: Uh, but you are dressed as one.
WITCH: They dressed me up like this.
CROWD: Augh, we didn't! We didn't...
WITCH: And this isn't my nose. It's a false one.
BEDEVERE: Well?
VILLAGER #1: Well, we did do the nose.
BEDEVERE: The nose?
VILLAGER #1: And the hat, but she is a witch!
VILLAGER #2: Yeah!
CROWD: We burn her! Right! Yeaaah! Yeaah!
BEDEVERE: Did you dress her up like this?
VILLAGER #1: No!
VILLAGER #2 and 3: No. No.
VILLAGER #2: No.
VILLAGER #1: No.
VILLAGERS #2 and #3: No.
VILLAGER #1: Yes.
VILLAGER #2: Yes.
VILLAGER #1: Yes. Yeah, a bit.
VILLAGER #3: A bit.
VILLAGERS #1 and #2: A bit.
VILLAGER #3: A bit.
VILLAGER #1: She has got a wart.
RANDOM: [cough]
BEDEVERE: What makes you think she is a witch?
VILLAGER #3: Well, she turned me into a newt.
BEDEVERE: A newt?
VILLAGER #3: I got better.
VILLAGER #2: Burn her anyway!
VILLAGER #1: Burn!
CROWD: Burn her! Burn! Burn her!...
BEDEVERE: Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
VILLAGER #1: Are there?
VILLAGER #2: Ah?
VILLAGER #1: What are they?
CROWD: Tell us! Tell us!...
BEDEVERE: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2: Burn!
VILLAGER #1: Burn!
CROWD: Burn! Burn them up! Burn!...
BEDEVERE: And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1: More witches!
VILLAGER #3: Shh!
VILLAGER #2: Wood!
BEDEVERE: So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3: B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE: Good! Heh heh.
CROWD: Oh, yeah. Oh.
BEDEVERE: So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1: Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE: Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #1: Oh, yeah.
RANDOM: Oh, yeah. True. Uhh...
BEDEVERE: Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1: No. No.
VILLAGER #2: No, it floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1: Throw her into the pond!
CROWD: The pond! Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE: What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1: Bread!
VILLAGER #2: Apples!
VILLAGER #3: Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1: Cider!
VILLAGER #2: Uh, gra-- gravy!
VILLAGER #1: Cherries!
VILLAGER #2: Mud!
VILLAGER #3: Uh, churches! Churches!
VILLAGER #2: Lead! Lead!
ARTHUR: A duck!
CROWD: Oooh.
BEDEVERE: Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1: If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE: And therefore?
VILLAGER #2: A witch!
VILLAGER #1: A witch!
CROWD: A witch! A witch!...
VILLAGER #4: Here is a duck. Use this duck.
[quack quack quack]
BEDEVERE: Very good. We shall use my largest scales.
CROWD: Ohh! Ohh! Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Ahh! Ahh...
BEDEVERE: Right. Remove the supports!
[whop]
[clunk]
[creak]
CROWD: A witch! A witch! A witch!
WITCH: It's a fair cop.
VILLAGER #3: Burn her!
CROWD: Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn! Burn!...
BEDEVERE: Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
ARTHUR: I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
BEDEVERE: My liege!
ARTHUR: Good Sir Knight, will you come with me to Camelot and join us at the Round Table?
BEDEVERE: My liege! I would be honored.
ARTHUR: What is your name?
BEDEVERE: 'Bedevere', my liege.
ARTHUR: Then I dub you 'Sir Bedevere, Knight of the Round Table'.

Narrative Interlude

NARRATOR: The wise Sir Bedevere was the first to join King Arthur's knights, but other illustrious names were soon to follow: Sir Lancelot the Brave,
Sir Gallahad the Pure, and Sir Robin the-not-quite-so-brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, who had nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor, who had nearly stood up to
the vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill, and the aptly named Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film.
Together they formed a band whose names and deeds were to be retold throughout the centuries: the Knights of the Round Table.