America -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography
Before half a dozen speeches had been said it was quite clear that the
dark-eyed child who played the Indian King was the heart and fire of the
piece. They were all clever children and well trained, but he alone
lived his part. His small figure moved with a grace and dignity that
even his grotesque apparel could not spoil. The costumer had evidently
built his design for the costume of an Indian chief upon legends of wild
men drawn from the history of Hanno and his gorillas, adding whatever
absurdities he had gathered from sailors of the Gold Coast and the
Caribbean Sea. Armadas, who had made a voyage to Newfoundland and seen
the stately figure of a sachem outlined against a sunset sky, thought
that the boy's instinct was truer than the costumer's tradition.
"Let me arrange thy habit, lad," he said when the first scene ended and
the clown began his dance. With a few deft touches, ripping down one
side of the tunic and wreathing a girdle of ivy and bracken, he changed
the whole outline of the figure. With the hairy tunic draped as a cloak,
and the ungainly plumed head-dress arranged as a warrior's crest, the
character which had been almost ridiculous became heroic, as the author
of the masque evidently had intended. The little King's beautiful voice
changed like the singing of a Cremona violin as he spoke his lines to
the white stranger:
"To this our wild domain we welcome thee
In honorable hospitality.
If Thou dost come as the great Lord of Life,
The Lord of bear and wolf, and stag and fox,
Leopard and ape, and rabbits of the rocks,
We are thy children, as our brothers are,--
The furry folk of forest fastnesses,
The bright-winged birds that wanton with the breeze,
The seal that sport amid the sapphire seas.
We worship gods of lightning and of thunder,
Of winds and hissing waves, the rainbow's wonder,
The fruits and grains, borne by the kindly earth,
And all the mysteries of death and birth.
Say who you are, and from what realm you hail,
White spirits that in winged peraguas sail?
If ye be angels, tell us of your heaven.
If ye be men, tell us who is your King."
It was not a long play, and had been written by a court poet especially
for the children, of whose acting the Queen was fond. There were dances
and songs--a sailor's contra-dance to the music of a horn pipe, a
stately passamezzo by the Indian court, a madrigal and an ode in
compliment to the Queen.[3] Finally the leader of the white men planted
the banner of England on the little knoll, and in the name of his
sovereign received the homage of the Indians. The last notes of the
final chorus had just died away when trumpets called from the Thames,
and the scene melted into chaos. Off ran the players, cramming costumes
and properties into their wallets as they went, to see the Queen land at
the water-gate. Amadas and Barlowe took the same direction less
hurriedly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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