THE PRINCESS (_making a movement_): Farewell! CÉBÈS: Do not go! Stay with me! THE PRINCESS: Take my hand. (_He takes it._) Listen to my last word. CÉBÈS: I am listening. THE PRINCESS: Farewell! CÉBÈS: Not that! Not that cruel word! Do not go! THE PRINCESS: Farewell! The song draws to an end! And the face of the singer, The Gatherer-of-Flowers, Fades in the dusk of evening Till only the eyes remain and the violet ghost of the mouth. He who loves goes forth to greet The Bride, And the door is opened by invisible hands. Farewell, for I am going. _(CÉBÈS half rises and, stretching out his hand towards her, passes it over her face. There is a tense silence._ THE PRINCESS (_rushing to the middle of the stage_): O my father, You commanded me to show myself before you and I am here, a wretched girl decked out in these fantastic robes! I have spoken, adding what was needful to phrases learned by heart. I suffer! I suffer! My soul is shaken in me! And you, my father, is it thus I see you, gnawing your beard, And fixing blood-shot eyes on the ground! Let me go, I beg of you! The beautiful and illustrious lady who spoke just now is gone And in her place there is only I myself, an every-day young girl, careful of her nails and her complexion. Good-bye, father! Good-bye to you all! For the sadness rises also in me and I must go, Groping my way through gloomy corridors. O father! O mother that I never knew! Soon I shall lie full length on the ground with outspread hands, Or, with a hidden spring of blood welling up between my breasts, I shall mock the maid who falls asleep in her chair. --Off with you, heavy and importunate robes! _(She goes out._ The King (_springing violently to his feet_): Go! It is well! No imagined terror! Here is horror itself. Look at me, me the old man! By this hoary beard that I tear with both hands, I swear That disaster incarnate Stands before you and cries, _"Adsum!"_ You heard the sound of his rage like a battle beneath the horizon, And now with nodding funereal plumes The Agony of Death strides terribly towards you, like a colossus, with copper cheeks, shaking the flimsy structures you have reared! "I wandered in, the night with foam as thick as a camel's slaver, dripping from my jaws! I was an outcast! The hounds of hell were gnawing my heart! Now in the day I stride before the legions, mid blood and the crackle of fire, like a flaming windmill, brandishing a flail, clenching between my teeth a sword as big as an oar!" THE FIFTH WATCHER: I defy you! I fear you not! --Mangle me, cut me to bits and my severed head shall spring and bite! Let the thunderbolt flay me and like Ajax voiding lightning and the water of the sea from mouth and nose, A blinding mass, I shall vomit Against heaven my malediction like a dart. THE KING: Ruin! Destruction! The forest flames! The rivers are choked with wreckage! The belfries full of clanging bells crash into chaos! O my desolate fields!