As you quench a stinking lamp with a damp cloth. THE FIRST WATCHER: O night! O chasm of blackness! O open door through which whistles the wind! We had come hither and stretched ourselves on your threshold. But the abyss gave back no words. Who can fathom its secret ways? So we remained here and the thought has come to me that there is nothing that can be changed. The night is black and there is no more hope. THE THIRD WATCHER: They die together. All the people shall be found cold in death, men and women and children and babes at the breast. Therefore let us lie here and sleep, Or go, if you have a wife, and lie with her. And let not the maid-servant make too much noise in the kitchen or the baby in the room below, Or the mouse in the cupboard or the fly against the pane. We have begged and it has been in vain. Our sin has found us out. Who can conquer our ignorance? Why are we born, since now it seems better to die? What should we do and why should we do it? We cannot attain to ability and we sway and stagger like a man who stands in a hot bath, Or one who yawns from the fumes of a reeking opium pipe. This parish dreams and is like a people who, like a nation of hens Ranged on the ramparts of the quay, watch how the red sun drops away into a night that knows no day.... _(Pause._ THE FIRST WATCHER: Such is the report that we have to make to you. THE KING: Wretched nonentities! He is a fool who puts his trust in you! I knew you and your fathers before you, a broken reed to lean upon! In my old age and bitter need there is little comfort in you! My curse upon you, watchers that sleep! My curse upon you, sleepers, dreamers of dreams! THE FIFTH WATCHER: A curse upon you yourself, old man! Be accursed, crowned carrion, lapdog, clown! Is it not you who have brought us to this pass? Curse you, and curse all men who have power in their hands, Who have power in their hands, O God, and do not know how to use it! Why do you come to break our sleep and keep our eyes from slumber? You curse me, do you, old phantom? And I throw back your curse in your teeth! A curse on your royal race, temporal King, on the office that you hold, on the system that permits your impotent sway! A curse on all my teachers, from the one who taught me to read to the one who turned me loose with a box on the ear, dazzled and full of words! For they took me when I was only a child and they gave me dirt to eat. A curse on my father and on my mother also! A curse on the food they gave me, and on their ignorance, and on the example they set me! THE KING: Madman, be still! THE FIFTH WATCHER: Why did you waken me, old man? Now you shall not silence me! Whom else shall I curse? I am full of malediction! My bile pours forth in a flood and boils up even to my eyes! And so great is the spasm that shakes me That my ribs are cracking with it and my bones are riven apart! I will curse myself! Myself, because I am worthless, lost, dishonored,