The Devil’s Drive:

An Unfinished Rhapsody

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Cast

The Devil

Lord Byron

PB Shelley

Mary Shelley

Robert Southey

Henry Brougham

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​Scene 1

 

1816 - Shelley is pacing on the balcony of the Villa Diodati

 

PBS: How foolish it was to leave an English summer of tepid rain and breezes fair, for this damned - do pardon me - suffocating galvanic air! Why we can barely see the sun! (looks frightedly to Byron) - pray, can you? - can you see the sun?

B: Yes, I have seen it - more particularly during daytime, my dear Shelley

PBS(bites nails): I feel we are cursed - odious visions and vapours follow us where'er we go! Mary says 'tis aught but my own delusions

B: In truth, my friend - we are not the sole partakers of these violent volcanic effusions

PBS: I have waking dreams, Byron - dreams most ghastly (whispers) - the Devil shadows my days and watches over my shoulder most steadfastly

B: Do you believe in the Devil? - you, who do not believe in the Almighty?(scoffs) - Shelley, my friend, have you begun to fret for your earthly remains?

PBS: Oh! - but I have seen him - at  Godwin’s - at Hunt’s - at Southey’s - he hid in the candle flames

B: Just so? - well now, if you could arrange it, I would relish meeting that hornéd man (sighs) - post-Piccadilly, I am more or less ennui'd with the tiresome human tribe

PBS: You are bored by your present company?(huffs) - well, pfft! - I am in no position to offer a supernatural bribe!

B: How vastly prickly you are, Shelley - I am but somnambulating my way around well-bred soireés, riveting conversation, fainting dames, Polidori's tracasseries (looks around) - there must be delights undiscovered - but how - and where - to find them? 

PBS: From my experience at Southey’s - the Devil stays at home till five and dines on some homicides done in Ragout

B: Good god! - och and ew!

 

A puff of smoke appears on the balcony

 

PBS: Oh this damned - apologies - volcanic dust!

D(smoking a contraband cigar): Apologies are unnecessary, my dear Shelley

 

Shelley screams - Byron asks the Devil for a cigar

 

D: Certainly, my Lord, I know your favoured blend - for I have oft watched you exhale

B: I do not believe we’ve been introduced (mutters to S) - for starters, his manners are quite beyond the pale (observes the Devil closely) You are something of a disappointment, Devil - your unclipped nasal sproutings - it's true - are somewhat alike to Southey's (sneers, decisively) - To surmise - the manifestation of Sin and Corruption you well may be - but whilst you neglect the fundamentals of grooming - you shall offer no threat to the clubhouses of St. James, the bawds of the Town - or the Holy See

 

B frowns and turns his back - D's nose catches fire

 

B: Well, sap my vitals, Shelley! I feel little magnetic allurement towards this saucy jade - e'en with his superb taste in tobacco - I doubt he can proffer any directions to delights undiscovered or joys waylaid

 

Shelley is hiding behind the wisteria

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D(soldiers on): Lord Byron - ah! such an old, familiar name! Shall we take a drive? I walk in the morning - I ride at night - in darkness my children take most delight, for that’s when I see how my favourites thrive

B: The axles on my coach keep breaking - and be damned to Baxter!! - I'm afraid I cannot oblige

D: Baxter? I’ll see what I can do - back to me - at present my purpose is speed, to see my manor as much as I may - and watch that no souls shall be poach’d away

B: If we follow’d my taste, indeed, I should mount a deluxe wagon of my past loves - and smile to see them coo like doves

D: Hmm (rubs pointed chin) - well, I do possess a splendid state coach at Carlton House, a chariot in Seymour Place, and - at Stepney by Bow - an omnibus

B: They are hardly formidable temptations - however - it is time for supper, would you care to join us?

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B relieves Shelley of his wisteria -  a mutual glance of great politeness passes between B and the Devil

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Scene 2

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Mary and Fletcher bring out plates of beef and lentil stew

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M: Who have you bought home, Shelley? Am I imagining that pointed tail - is it a Swiss custom? Why has he brought outsize cutlery?

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PBS is rocking himself and chewing on candle wax

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D(to Mary): Hello, I am the Devil, Lucifer or Satan - what you will - (tail is swishing) I feel obliged to note that the lavish reports of Satanic activity which I've received re. this establishment have been somewhat exaggerated - really, I expected more from you all

B: The night is young, Monsieur (B and F cackle) - pray tell, Devil, who informed you of our chaste little gathering? As you see, we observe the strictest attention to decorum and are free from all offense to either God or Man - Woman - Sobriety - or Alchemy

D(ears are smoking): As it happens, tales of irredeemable scurrility were lent by two friends - to make amends - tales of translucent, beribboned bath robes and badly-stitched, scanty small cloathes (M gasps) - flouncing wantonly on his Lordship’s balcony

M: I can assure you, Satan, that the petticoats were in the imagination rather of the spectator than in the actual company of his Lordship (with impressive conviction) for he has given no cause for scandal!

PBS(to Mary): So sweet his eye and its sulphury glare - so soft to his ear the cry of despair

D(overhears): I sprang up from the earth for this! (holds up Swiss-embroidered placemat) Stepp’d across the sea? - made a jump from Moscow to France? I even had to rest my hoof on one of your deuced turnpike roads (fire begins to exit his eyes and ears) Why, my sources are habitually sound (cracks knuckles) - there'll be heaven to pay if those wretches have given me the run-around! (tail is swishing wildly)

M: Humph! Look at him - perch’d on a mountain of my slain beef-cheeks without even taking a bite

D: I've had better on the Leipsic plain (attempts to frighten M) - for the field ran so red with the blood of the dead - that it blush’d like the waves of hellllll!!! 

B: My dear Devil, perhaps you should read Mary's book (M beams) - however, to business - it is possible I may be of assistance in your quandary - for I am as familiar with slanderers, libellers and pond-worshippers as, I wager, you are 

D(mumbling to himself): I will have their souls! - they live no very great way from a bishop’s abode

B: And I will venture a sound speculation as to your sources (smirks) - this deception smacks of Robert Southey and Henry Brougham - for they have the combined wit of a decapitated horned toad

D: Why, these are the softest notes that could soothe my ear, as sweet as the sound of a widow sighing or a maid by her lover lying - as round her fell her long fair hair - she look’d to heaven with that frenzied air - which seem‘d to ask if a God were there

B(yawns):  You have a marked inability to focus, Devil, and furthermore (looms over D) - that you don't know your berry spoon from your plover's egg spoon, appalls​ - your abominable tailoring, aggrieves - your acidic corporeal form, which is ruining my upholstery, antagonises! - moreover, it would appear that wit, capital conversation, and quirky observations are gifts from the heavens. I must ask you, as a Gentleman, to leave - and perhaps take the troublesome Italian doctor with you

D(is outraged):  I need not your soul my ancient peer - I leave you to your brothel and your beer, your council board and your Westminster (haughtily) I - as a  “quondam aristocrat" - will walk up to your House so like one of your own! Ha!

B(laughs): Good luck - you will be somewhat outnumbered (opens door) - we have no further need of your company - I have been subject to worse devilment at Melbourne House

D: Amateurs! I have urgent business in the Lake District with the laureate and his literary spouse​​​​

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Disappears in a puff of smoke - PBS is spread-eagled on a fine Brussels tapestry - Mary is taking notes - B throws his copy of  “The Monk" into the fire

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Scene 3

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An overly cosy library - Southey and Brougham are chuckling over tobacco-free cigars

 

S: Admirable job of work, my dear Brougham (they shake hands) - and more advantageous - for you - than drooling over the wives of your social betters and bribing John Murray's typesetters

HB: I consider it the pinnacle of my crusade against that dog Byron - which began when he was in his minority and has carried on - impotently - to this day

S: Better to bring the devil down before he pens an epic masterpiece, eh?

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D appears in a puff of smoke

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D: No need to summon me, good Gentlemen - I was on my way

S(is not taken aback): How did you reach our cliffs so white - and what are you doing here I pray? 

D: My eyes are good, and I can see by night what you see by day

HB (becoming nervous): Did you make your tour of Geneva, as instructed? - did you keep a journal?

S(equally so): Hah, erm - of all the wondrous sights nocturnal?

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HB and S quietly inhale

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D: Devil if I have you Men of the Row - I've been pretty well cheated, haven't I though?!

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Instead of a pistol - the D cocks his tail and seizes HB and S by the throat

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D: First and foremost, those badly-parented females are not even blood-sisters! - secondly, the poets spend most of their time not drinking worm juice from the skulls of dead monks - but faffing around on the lake moaning about the insensibilities of English (HB and S are vigorously squirming) - thirdly, I'm not convinced if one - the one with a countenance from heaven (nose turns blue) - does not possess something of a reverence for the Almighty 

HB: Oh, but I have heinous stories about their living arrangements - just let me get the Courier and the Morning Post - why, they detest those villains..

S: Quite rightly!

D: What the deuced good is that to me now?! Nature - in the form of waterfalls and chirping crickets - has redeemed their souls - and, although the strange man-child with the undressed hair is still an atheist, he would not survive long in Hell - which isn't much fun for me

HB: That Byron is a near relation of yours - I swear it - look, read this (hands D “Hours of Idleness") - it is Satanic, nay, dastardly!!

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D flips through the book - fire is again coming out of his ears and nose

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D(sneering majestically): It is in fact quite sweet - You! - my proboscisly-enhanced poet - will go with me - for I find we have much better manners below (to HB) - if you harangue me when you pass my border, I shall hint to my friend Moloch to call you to order!

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HB & S(sniveling): But we have long careers of envy and puffery ahead of us!

D: I am aware of that - I am only taking your souls - what remains on earth is what you will be remembered by! (laughs and carries the two souls away on his pitchfork)

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S(to HB, shivering in a corner): Zounds Brougham, forget your prayers! - I've just had a stupendous vision about a little girl and three bears..

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END