Delphi complete works of.., p.31
Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated), page 31
HESTER. Oh, you don’t think of leaving us?
GERALD. Mother, you won’t leave us?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I might bring shame upon you!
GERALD. Mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. For a little then: and if you let me, near you always.
HESTER. [To MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Come out with us to the garden.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Later on, later on. [Exeunt HESTER and GERALD. MRS. ARBUTHNOT goes towards door L.C. Stops at looking-glass over mantelpiece and looks into it. Enter ALICE R.C.]
ALICE. A gentleman to see you, ma’am.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Say I am not at home. Show me the card. [Takes card from salver and looks at it.] Say I will not see him.
[LORD ILLINGWORTH enters. MRS. ARBUTHNOT sees him in the glass and starts, but does not turn round. Exit ALICE.] What can you have to say to me to-day, George Harford? You can have nothing to say to me. You must leave this house.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Rachel, Gerald knows everything about you and me now, so some arrangement must be come to that will suit us all three. I assure you, he will find in me the most charming and generous of fathers.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. My son may come in at any moment. I saved you last night. I may not be able to save you again. My son feels my dishonour strongly, terribly strongly. I beg you to go.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Sitting down.] Last night was excessively unfortunate. That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely because I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Turning round.] A kiss may ruin a human life,
George Harford. I know that. I know that too well.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. We won’t discuss that at present. What is of importance to-day, as yesterday, is still our son. I am extremely fond of him, as you know, and odd though it may seem to you, I admired his conduct last night immensely. He took up the cudgels for that pretty prude with wonderful promptitude. He is just what I should have liked a son of mine to be. Except that no son of mine should ever take the side of the Puritans: that is always an error. Now, what I propose is this.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth, no proposition of yours interests me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. According to our ridiculous English laws, I can’t legitimise Gerald. But I can leave him my property. Illingworth is entailed, of course, but it is a tedious barrack of a place. He can have Ashby, which is much prettier, Harborough, which has the best shooting in the north of England, and the house in St. James Square. What more can a gentleman require in this world?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Nothing more, I am quite sure.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. As for a title, a title is really rather a nuisance in these democratic days. As George Harford I had everything I wanted. Now I have merely everything that other people want, which isn’t nearly so pleasant. Well, my proposal is this.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I told you I was not interested, and I beg you to go.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. The boy is to be with you for six months in the year, and with me for the other six. That is perfectly fair, is it not? You can have whatever allowance you like, and live where you choose. As for your past, no one knows anything about it except myself and Gerald. There is the Puritan, of course, the Puritan in white muslin, but she doesn’t count. She couldn’t tell the story without explaining that she objected to being kissed, could she? And all the women would think her a fool and the men think her a bore. And you need not be afraid that Gerald won’t be my heir. I needn’t tell you I have not the slightest intention of marrying.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You come too late. My son has no need of you.
You are not necessary.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What do you mean, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. That you are not necessary to Gerald’s career. He does not require you.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I do not understand you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Look into the garden. [LORD ILLINGWORTH rises and goes towards window.] You had better not let them see you: you bring unpleasant memories. [LORD ILLINGWORTH looks out and starts.] She loves him. They love each other. We are safe from you, and we are going away.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Where?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. We will not tell you, and if you find us we will not know you. You seem surprised. What welcome would you get from the girl whose lips you tried to soil, from the boy whose life you have shamed, from the mother whose dishonour comes from you?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You have grown hard, Rachel.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I was too weak once. It is well for me that I have changed.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I was very young at the time. We men know life too early.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. And we women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women. [A pause.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Rachel, I want my son. My money may be of no use to him now. I may be of no use to him, but I want my son. Bring us together, Rachel. You can do it if you choose. [Sees letter on table.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. There is no room in my boy’s life for you. He is not interested in YOU.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Then why does he write to me?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. What do you mean?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What letter is this? [Takes up letter.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. That - is nothing. Give it to me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is addressed to ME.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You are not to open it. I forbid you to open it.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. And in Gerald’s handwriting.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It was not to have been sent. It is a letter he wrote to you this morning, before he saw me. But he is sorry now he wrote it, very sorry. You are not to open it. Give it to me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It belongs to me. [Opens it, sits down and reads it slowly. MRS. ARBUTHNOT watches him all the time.] You have read this letter, I suppose, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. No.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You know what is in it?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I don’t admit for a moment that the boy is right in what he says. I don’t admit that it is any duty of mine to marry you. I deny it entirely. But to get my son back I am ready - yes, I am ready to marry you, Rachel - and to treat you always with the deference and respect due to my wife. I will marry you as soon as you choose. I give you my word of honour.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You made that promise to me once before and broke it.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I will keep it now. And that will show you that
I love my son, at least as much as you love him. For when I marry
you, Rachel, there are some ambitions I shall have to surrender.
High ambitions, too, if any ambition is high.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I decline to marry you, Lord Illingworth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Are you serious?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Do tell me your reasons. They would interest me enormously.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I have already explained them to my son.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I suppose they were intensely sentimental, weren’t they? You women live by your emotions and for them. You have no philosophy of life.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions, and for them, if you will. I have two passions, Lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What sort of love is that which needs to have hate as its brother?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It is the sort of love I have for Gerald. Do you think that terrible? Well it is terrible. All love is terrible. All love is a tragedy. I loved you once, Lord Illingworth. Oh, what a tragedy for a woman to have loved you!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. So you really refuse to marry me?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Because you hate me?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. And does my son hate me as you do?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. No.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I am glad of that, Rachel.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. He merely despises you.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What a pity! What a pity for him, I mean.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Don’t be deceived, George. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Reads letter over again, very slowly.] May I ask by what arguments you made the boy who wrote this letter, this beautiful, passionate letter, believe that you should not marry his father, the father of your own child?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It was not I who made him see it. It was another.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What FIN-DE-SIECLE person?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. The Puritan, Lord Illingworth. [A pause.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Winces, then rises slowly and goes over to table where his hat and gloves are. MRS. ARBUTHNOT is standing close to the table. He picks up one of the gloves, and begins pulling it on.] There is not much then for me to do here, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Nothing.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is good-bye, is it?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. For ever, I hope, this time, Lord Illingworth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. How curious! At this moment you look exactly as you looked the night you left me twenty years ago. You have just the same expression in your mouth. Upon my word, Rachel, no woman ever loved me as you did. Why, you gave yourself to me like a flower, to do anything I liked with. You were the prettiest of playthings, the most fascinating of small romances . . . [Pulls out watch.] Quarter to two! Must be strolling back to Hunstanton. Don’t suppose I shall see you there again. I’m sorry, I am, really. It’s been an amusing experience to have met amongst people of one’s own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one’s mistress, and one’s -
[MRS. ARBUTHNOT snatches up glove and strikes LORD ILLINGWORTH across the face with it. LORD ILLINGWORTH starts. He is dazed by the insult of his punishment. Then he controls himself, and goes to window and looks out at his son. Sighs and leaves the room.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Falls sobbing on the sofa.] He would have said it. He would have said it.
[Enter GERALD and HESTER from the garden.]
GERALD. Well, dear mother. You never came out after all. So we have come in to fetch you. Mother, you have not been crying? [Kneels down beside her.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. My boy! My boy! My boy! [Running her fingers through his hair.]
HESTER. [Coming over.] But you have two children now. You’ll let me be your daughter?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Looking up.] Would you choose me for a mother?
HESTER. You of all women I have ever known.
[They move towards the door leading into garden with their arms round each other’s waists. GERALD goes to table L.C. for his hat. On turning round he sees LORD ILLINGWORTH’S glove lying on the floor, and picks it up.]
GERALD. Hallo, mother, whose glove is this? You have had a visitor. Who was it?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. [Turning round.] Oh! no one. No one in particular. A man of no importance.
CURTAIN
SALOMÉ
This tragedy was first written by Wilde in 1891 in French and three years later an English translation was published by Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde’s lover. Both versions are available in this collection. The play tells in one act the Biblical story of Salomé, stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather’s dismay, requests the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward for her dancing.
In 1892 rehearsals began for the play’s debut, for inclusion in Sarah Bernhardt’s London season, though preparations were halted when the Lord Chamberlain’s licensor of plays banned Salomé on the basis that it was illegal to depict Biblical characters on the stage. The play was first published in French in February 1893, and the English translation, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, followed in February the following year. Wilde and Douglas had quarrelled over the translation of the text which Wilde felt was very poor due to Douglas’ poor understanding of French, though his lover claimed that the errors were really in Wilde’s original text. Beardsley and the publisher John Lane were also drawn into the argument, though they sided with Wilde. In a gesture of reconciliation, Wilde did the work himself, but dedicated Douglas as the translator rather than having them sharing their names on the title-page.
The play was eventually premiered on 11 February 1896, while Wilde was in prison, in Paris at the Comédie-Parisienne in a staging by Aurélien Lugné-Poë’s theatre group, the Théâtre de l’Œuvre.
Wilde’s interest in Salomé’s image had been stimulated by descriptions of Gustave Moreau’s paintings in Joris-Karl Huysmans’s ‘À rebours’.
A first edition illustration
CONTENTS
PERSONNES
SCÈNE
Oscar Wilde and Douglas in 1893
Maud Allan as Salomé with the head of John the Baptist in an early adaptation the play
PERSONNES
HÉRODE ANTIPAS, Tétrarque de Judée
IOKANAAN, le prophète
LE JEUNE SYRIEN, capitaine de la garde
TIGELLIN, un jeune Romain
UN CAPPADOCIEN
UN NUBIEN
PREMIER SOLDAT
SECOND SOLDAT
LE PAGE D’HÉRODIAS
DES JUIFS, DES NAZARÉENS, etc.
UN ESCLAVE
NAAMAN, le bourreau
HÉRODIAS, femme du Tétrarque
SALOMÉ, fille d’Hérodias
LES ESCLAVES DE SALOMÉ
SCÈNE
[Une grande terrasse dans le palais d’Hérode donnant sur la salle de festin. Des soldats sont accoudés sur le balcon. A droite il y a un énorme escalier. A gauche, au fond, une ancienne citerne entourée d’un mur de bronze vert. Clair de lune.]
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Comme la princesse Salomé est belle ce soir!
LE PAGE D’HÉRODIAS. Regardez la lune. La lune a l’air très étrange. On dirait une femme qui sort d’un tombeau. Elle ressemble à une femme morte. On dirait qu’elle cherche des morts.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Elle a l’air très étrange. Elle ressemble à une petite princesse qui porte un voile jaune, et a des pieds d’argent. Elle ressemble à une princesse qui a des pieds comme des petites colombes blanches. . . On dirait qu’elle danse.
LE PAGE D’HÉRODIAS. Elle est comme une femme morte. Elle va très lentement. [Bruit dans la salle de festin.]
PREMIER SOLDAT. Quel vacarme! Qui sont ces bêtes fauves qui hurlent?
SECOND SOLDAT. Les Juifs. Ils sont toujours ainsi. C’est sur leur religion qu’ils discutent.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Pourquoi discutent-ils sur leur religion?
SECOND SOLDAT. Je ne sais pas. Ils le font toujours . . . Ainsi les Pharisiens affirment qu’il y a des anges, et les Sadducéens disent que les anges n’existent pas.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Je trouve que c’est ridicule de discuter sur de telles choses.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Comme la princesse Salomé est belle ce soir!
LE PAGE D’HÉRODIAS. Vous la regardez toujours. Vous la regardez trop. Il ne faut pas regarder les gens de cette façon . . . Il peut arriver un malheur.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Elle est très belle ce soir.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Le tétrarque a l’air sombre.
SECOND SOLDAT. Oui, il a l’air sombre.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Il regarde quelque chose.
SECOND SOLDAT. Il regarde quelqu’un.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Qui regarde-t-il?
SECOND SOLDAT. Je ne sais pas.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Comme la princesse est pâle! Jamais je ne l’ai vue si pâle. Elle ressemble au reflet d’une rose blanche dans un miroir d’argent
LE PAGE D’HÉRODIAS. Il ne faut pas la regarder. Vous la regardez trop!
PREMIER SOLDAT. Hérodias a versé à boire au tétrarque.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. C’est la reine Hérodias, celle-là qui porte la mitre noire semée de perles et qui a les cheveux poudrées de bleu?
PREMIER SOLDAT. Oui, c’est Hérodias. C’est la femme du tétrarque.
SECOND SOLDAT. Le tétrarque aime beaucoup le vin. Il possède des vins de trois espèces. Un qui vient de l’île de Samothrace, qui est pourpre comme le manteau de César.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Je n’ai jamais vu César.
SECOND SOLDAT. Un autre qui vient de la ville de Chypre, qui est jaune comme de l’or.
