Groom. I'll speak this matter out. When plays were damned By churchmen, and the player a citizen Of rascaldom on sufferance living only, Great was the stage, a lover of all life, The friend of sinners and the home of sin, A city of refuge for humanity Escaping from religion and the curses Of the law; for church and stage are deadly foes; They can be strong only in enmity; And both were shrines of art when either shunned The other, or met in battle: now that they mix, Illicit lovers and against the lust Of nature, sterile hybrids mock their couch; And soon the lofty strain of either ends In mere abortion. When the monarch set The lethal signet on the theatre Of gross respectability, knighting you, Sir Tristram, and other players unfortunate, Ranking you in the state with grocers, brewers, Distillers, lawyers, painters, aldermen, He dealt a double blow at church and stage And both are bleeding from the wound. Sir T. Why this To me--me specially? Groom. Because you haunt The clergy, and the clergy fawn on you, Singling you out: the Bishop of St. James's Is fast your friend: and nonconformists--Hell! Have sung your praise in public. I maintain The stage must stand alone like all things great, Unspotted of the church, the state, the world. Sir T. You try my patience. This is so--all this, And endless matter to a like intent. Groom. But who has grasped the meaning? who perceives That these luxurious theatres of ours Are only living graves--the ornate tomb Of drama? Sir T. I perceive it. Hopeful men Are always digging graves unwittingly; Cathedrals--noble cenotaphs of faith Long dead: academies--of plastic art The tomb; our ancient universities-- The mausoleum and the monument Of learning; justice in the law-courts buried Lies most worshipfully; soon our sculptured banks-- To make an end--will be the sepulchre Of all finance: is not the whole world bankrupt? Groom. Turn it to ribaldry! I love the stage, And hate to see it made the prostitute Of crafty godliness that's mainly this-- The rancid odour of a worn-out sex. To see the stage that should be sweet, humane, More tolerant than art, freer than sin-- Let me say sin to mean all human scope, The utmost license of unbridled mirth, The noble freedom of the tragic mood, A perfect liberty of drift and range, The universal mind and deed of man: To see the stage corrupted by the church, Debauched by bland religion, venomous Betrayer of the spirit; and foul with creed, The helpless necessary excrement Wherewith religion sullies everything: To see this loathsome doom of what I love Is deadlier to me than blank despair, Than death and everlasting obloquy!