Cast

Lord Byron
Fletcher - B’s Valet
John Cam Hobhouse - Crony
Scrope Berdmore Davies - ditto
Rev. Francis Hodgson - ditto
Dr. le Mann - Byron’s physician
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator - Queen
Charmain - C’s maidservant
Delilah and a Council of Philistines

 

Scene 1

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​London, 1814 - Dr. le Mann and Byron’s concerned friends are gathered around his bed

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DR: My Lord - you cannot continue this mode of existence (brandishes empty brandy and laudanum bottles) - without catastrophically agitating your vital organs! - it is becoming impossible to distinguish your woeful visage from the white of your pillow-slip! - you must - for the very preservation of your life - pay your bills and repair your manor by (coughs) - by taking a nice little housekeeping wife

B: I fear, good doctor, a wife cannot cure what ails me - for I am ill here (points to knee) - and - besides, my coronet needs regilding, and my ermine needs delousing - I cannot possibly consider spousing! - do you know I have not a sous for either? (throws a cracker to his parrot)

DR(sighs): It is apparent, gentlemen, that his Lordship cannot be moved - or hold his liquor - and will continue to make himself ill by refusing to face reality

B: Fletcher! - fetch me the most libidinous wench of my acquaintance - and some boiling beef tea

H(shakes head): Good day, doctor - I imagine ‘tis only the sale of his mines which can restore his health and his pockets - put those crackers down, Byron! - your parrot has been at those hors d’oeuvres! (grimly observes B scolding his knee) - and - mayhap - his nerves

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DR takes his leave

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B: Hobby - ah! Scrope - hullo Hodgson! (the lads are uneasy) - ye cannot possibly agree that there is but one irksome solution to my ever-mounting woes?

SBD: Well - er - sink me, Byron! - you could perhaps aid your betterment by not ordering such excruciatingly expensive cloathes

B: Oh, if ‘twas only that easy, my dear Scrope (glowers) - remind me, when was the last time I punched you on the nose?

H: Good god, Byron!! - Newstead is not selling - one can’t help but feel the old Augustinians show up spectrally whenever there’s a viewing (paces furiously) - but you must marry - and you have known this since you were a boy! Are you willing to lose your Manor simply because our pale English maidens with fair-sized dowries cannot compare to your mythical “dark-eyed Houri’s”?

FH: To whit, my Lord! - I have a fine lady you may consider - a regular member of my congregation (pokes B’s frail chest) - and! - she has £20k per year, her own upper teeth and should provide you with an heir - as she most certainly has for a great many noblemen, first footmen and paper-hangers - propose, Byron - and your roofs shall - within a respectable nuptial time period - be in excellent repair

B: No matter how fertile your countrywomen - Hodgson (all the men take silent offence) they are all so milk and water - and toast and butter - oh, my poor, poor knee! (thrashes in the fine bedlinen) - those tiresome sighs - those illustrated prayerbooks and bluestocking’d thighs - if I must be wed, I should prefer a wife of (is noticeably sweating) - of - er - unpredictable passion

H: Byron! - Byron! - you are quite ashen! (panics) - lord deliver us! - he has fainted! - quick, Hodgson! - some turpentine!

FH: Hobhouse, I do not believe that an efficacious remedy - at any time (yells) - Fletcher!!

F: Yes, Reverend Hodgson

FH: Your master has passed out - by which substance do you usually revive him?

F: Oh, that would be the Black Drop, your Grace

FH: I’m not a bishop, Fletcher - fetch the medicine - quickly!

The distressed friends gather around B as Fletcher expertly tips the opioid into B’s throat

F(tucks the mumbling B in): If it please the good lord, he shall sleep for a week - I will remind him of his obligation to ye - gentlemen - whenever he awakes from this unfortunate fit of pique

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F bows and the gentlemen head off for a night of bawds and dice

 

Scene 2

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​A large barge on the Nile carries the Egyptian Queen

 

C: By Isis, I am bored!! (stabs a snake) - Charmain? - thou halfwit, you are not supposed to leave my side! (C grovels) - it is your job - is it not? - to curb the murd’rous rage which occasions when I am bereft of distraction?! (flings pet tortoise at an oarsman)

Ch: My Queen - why I…

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Oarsman, holding bleeding ear, angrily approaches the monarch, many armed guards appear

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B: Thou devil! - thou remorseless tyrant! - how I wish ye and your inbreeding cuckoo dynasty in Hell!

C: In where? - and what, pray, is a “devil”?

B: A devil? - erm, one should say - (ponders) - Apep? (gasps, screams and clanging of spears) - Seth? - d’you take my meaning - a being in league with evil and destruction and whatnot

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A spear grazes B’s other ear

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C: Halt! - let the human paddle be! - and bring him forth - ‘twill be entertaining to watch his carcass spin around on a spit while being lightly roasted

Ch(is thrilled): Oh let us, my Queen! - and then we could stuff him with varied samples of Nilotic horticulture - and feed him to yon ravenous Royal vulture!

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A well-knit young man with unnaturally pale skin and a saucy expression on his fine, imperious features presents himself

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C: My, what a pretty corpse you will make - your paleness - oarsman - would suggest you are yet halfway to the afterlife (all slaves and servants laugh nervously)

B: Well may you and your terrified staff laugh at my unfortunate ear, your Majesty! (the Queen stands) - holy fires! - what fine straight suntanned shoulders you have, madam - and how well that diaphanous purple frock becomes you - we wear hessian in my country, which reveals very little of the wond’rous female form beneath - ye, however! - why, your charms are free to view for all and sundry (laughs in an undeniably manly fashion)

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Screams and gnashing of teeth issues from the staff - C cranes her neck and reaches for a decorative statue of a baboon god

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B: Back to your violent attack on my ear - madam - I am a native Briton - Hlāford B́yrōn̄ by clan - and although we - strictly speaking - were never meant to be slaves - one of your henchmen lifted me from my quiet manor of Nēowestead in the county of Snotengaham, just as the flax harvest was ripening

Ch: In which language does the pale man enunciate with such perfectly mellow, golden, rounded vowels, my Queen?

C: Fetch me my flail, Charmain! - now! - so, ‘tis a Briton we have, huh? - quite how our recruitment drive managed to make it up the innards of the northern part of your country is a mystery - anyhow, come closer thou bold youth - Charmain, where is my flail??!! - I should like to examine this “B́yrōn̄” before his luscious curls become dental floss for my crocodiles

B: You imagine I fear your royal reptiles ?! - I am lord of all the swamps and mud huts and porcine inhabitants that surround my larger mud hut - although there are agitations for commonage, I slaughter those that dare venture thus

C: Do you just? - (drags B forward by his rowing shorts) - my, what a marvellous consort you would have made me - however, I am between Romans at the moment (pulls Ch.’s wig) - they would admire the perfection of his chin and mouth, would they not, Charmain? (Ch. is in need of an Ibis-feather fan) - but Britain is rather too soggy to be of any use to me

B: As if a lotus-eater like you would be able for a collar of brawn! (rending of garments by staff) - besides, I would never consort with a female who believes dung beetles are responsible for the dawn

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A thousand poised arrows glisten in the sunlight

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C: Desist, you idiots! - you’ll put a hole in the boat! - (whispers) Lean in, my man of uncomfortable apparel and ripening flax (B boldly advances his bleeding ear) - in truth, Briton, I think they’re all quite mad - I am from Macedonia - where we worship - why, me! - ha - you understand, for the sake of maintaining authority I must appear to admonish you, but meet me in yon scented cabin and you shall spawn the next Pharaoh of all Egypt (slices off one of his curls with a fingernail)

B: Madam, while I appreciate your linguistic skills, I prefer to lay with my own native breed - to say - can you even lift an ox?

C: With these white arms? - why, I am only sixteen (flutters eyelashes, B starts) - but you - my backwoods beauty - shall soon know the strength of an Egyptian Queen

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After a sound thrashing from Charmain’s fan and a slight mangle from the crocodiles, B does indeed take the Queen up on her offer and is knocked out both by her flail and over-reliance on the scent of myrrh

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Scene 3​

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The lads have been dragged from their evening entertainments by Fletcher back to the Albany - B is rolling tumultuously on his Turkish rug

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B: Argh! - stop with the flail, ye exasperating harlot! - where is my mud hut, oh where is my flax? - oh, for a shoeless, flea-bitten British spouse - Hobby, this strident female wants to lock me up in her lighthouse!

H: Fletcher - you utter poltroon! - how much of that substance did you administer?

F(is weeping): What he usually takes after a visit to his bank - or before a visit to Mother Throckmorton’s, Mr. Hobhouse

B: I suppose I shall have to marry her now - will I be a king? - or a concubine? - can’t say I’m delighted to have a portion of the Ptolemies in my bloodline (faints again)

SBD: What nonsense is he spluttering?

FH: That’s the Drop talking - pay no heed, we shall await his return to full compos mentis (sits down on B’s best reading chair) - Fletcher, fetch your master’s best port and brandy - and cigars - also - does his Lordship possess any fresh housemaids?

F: Nay - your Grace - ‘tis just his wither’d centenarian, Mrs. Mule - his firelighter - and I who have (B is conversing with his ermine) - er, stayed

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F hurriedly ferrets out the Drop

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F: Here, look Mr. Hobhouse! - ‘twould appear I didn’t give him half enough!

F: Fletcher, he is more than sedated - the Drop, his sore knee and his exhausted mental state would appear to be somewhat contraindicated

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B lunges at and swallows contents of said bottle

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B: How well you anticipate me, Fletcher - to you I shall leave my laundresses - Mule, my ermine - friends, death by snake poison is the only escape from the thrall in which that devilish foreign Queen holds me (gulps harmless hallucinogen) - goodbye and adieu my friends - I should be much obliged if you’d make live offerings - not the crackers, for they are Jenny’s - to Ra that I not be eaten by a nesting hippopotamus on my journey to t’other side

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Mule and Fletcher wail and weep - his friends keep a close watch on the sweating, spluttering, muttering Lord

 

Scene 4

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Near the Wadi of the Choice Vines, a young man is brought before a council of Philistines

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D: I swear by the lord of the desert springs! - it is he!! - look - look at his upper musculature, his defiant glare - his wild lustr’us hair! - I will have my silver coins!

B: Well! - I don’t know who you are, my lords - but, Delilah, my love? - you pain me to the very loins! - you have sold me as a slave? - after those magical moments we shared (whispers) - tying me up to seven green withes an..

D: Which you broke with your brute strength and which papa had to replace anew! - and which you again broke!

P: You broke two sets of seven green withes, young man? (mutterings amongst the council)

B: ‘Twasn’t really my wish - per se - but you see by looking at the damsel - why, a man would do anything she asked! (gazes) - her great clanking jewellery - her layers and layers of silk chiffon - her cheeks in full bloom - why, she even tied my locks to a loom

P: Well, that was the agreement - you understand? - we cannot let a reckless warrior like yourself hog our foodstuffs and diminish our blue wadi’s miraculous length - Miss Delilah here was hired to discover the source of your unnatural strength

B(is distraught): Oh, thou heartless betrayer of moderate affection and immoderate lust!

P: Wilt thou both cool thy boots! - we shall shed neither blood nor tears near our sacred waters - (to B) ‘tis a patriot’s duty to sleep with the enemy, my dear Samson, e’en yet if it be one of our patriarchs' daughters

B: You think me Samson?! - with these white hands? - ha, I am no large-trunk’d warrior! - I am a wool-trader - Sayyid Byron - and I heard ye on this side of the equinotical line are fond of rugs, scatter cushions, kilims, and suchlike comforts necessary to the nomadic life

D: You are not Samson?!! - sweet mother of the drifting sands! - what will papa say (weeps into a layer of silk chiffon)

P(sneers): You are a hawker of woolstuffs?

B: Do you enjoy a comfortable carpet under you, my lord?

P: That I do

B: Then mock me not for my honest labour - and call off this strumpet - for I am not the powerhouse of legend - although (eyes the P’s) - if you should grace my palm with your silver coins - I could wager why this Babylonian trollop confused me with the enemy

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The council seem impressed by the eloquence of the wool-trader with the strange accent

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B: Not being too fond of the desert glutton myself - he has eaten chunks out of a few of my sheep - I can tell you he holds fast to his tribe’s ancient traditions (B holds out paw - silver is gingerly deposited) - his strength - my Delilah - lies in his hair (D gasps, and smacks forehead) - aye, how often your fingers have roamed my scalp marvelling at my glossy locks, imagining they were the only thing of beauty that hulking menace possessed

P: We are most grateful, Sayyid Byron - I suggest you speed back across said equinotical line to your island home - Miss Delilah’s papa will otherwise insist on the solemn rites after the amount of rope you’ve cost him - and lain in sin with his daughter - often

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B grabs a camel and races at speed; an hysterical D runs after him with sheep shears

 

Scene 5

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B is still tormenting his Turkish rug - the concerned friends have a brainwave, of sorts

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B: Not my hair - not my hair! - my best macassar is resting there! (is grabbing head with force) - my fair Delilah, sweet love of my life! - farewell ye nymph of the refilling glade! - (whispers) Scrope, I for certes would have taken her to wife

SBD: Delilah a wife? - the devil you would?

B: Nay - nay - (is pacing, which is encouraging) - one more torrid female and I feel sure my mind should go astray

SBD: Indeed, why Mother Throckmorton said the very same this eve - d’you remember?

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B is startled

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SBD: Is that not right, Hodgson? - Hobby? (they nod unconvincingly) - while we were all in the back room? - where your favourite of old - Caroline Cameron - that exhausting medical misadventure you once yclept ‘Delilah’ - is now employed

B: My Delilah? - in Mother Throckmortons? - ha! - (rubs hands in glee) - her Philistine employers shall be most annoyed

SBD: Ah, now - you cannot begrudge the strumpet - or her coarser companions - her profession, Byron - I’m sure she has as much affection for you as she does any lobby lounging lord

H: ‘Tis true - for did she not try to clip off a brace of your curls - to sell, as it were, to other working girls

B: My hair? (checks head)

FH: And how well you put the raucous Babylonian in her place! (all titter) - after which you invited us all (all nod) - to your box at Covent Garden to watch Mrs. Siddons fall flat on her face?

H: By the toe of the Pharaoh! - such riot! - imagine at seventy-five portraying the Immortal Bard’s epitome of the sex - fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil! - coquettish to the last..

FH: One would want to be sixteen to play the last queen of Egypt, do you not agree, Byron?

SBD: No, Hodgson, do you not remember? - Byron left the theatre early, complaining that the queen’s violent hysterics were making his ears bleed

B: I watched Siddons play (shudders) Cleopatra? (paces and ponders) - and was accosted by Miss Cameron in the bawdyhouse? - was she wearing Eau de Myrrh? (reaches for ‘Treatise on Madness’ on bookshelves) - I own - the evening is something of a blur

SBD(airily): I suppose when Dr. le Mann administered a tincture for your knee - somewhere in your brain, it effectuated quite a different remedy

B: Ah! - le Mann! - so, the scoundrel drugged me! (flexes leg) - although he did a superb job on my hinge - of course, why else would I be covered in the loose lambswool hairs of the rug on which I sit? - 500 knots per square inch that, my friends - go on - do, feel it (offers up rug)

H: Yes, very fine - so, Byron - now that you remember more clearly the evening past - you must also remember the promise you made the good doctor in respect of your health (FH & SBD glare)

SBD: That was before he swore off Babylonians and exacting foreign Queens for life, Hobby (grinds teeth) ‘twas such sport which made him so very ill! - his Lordship is now sufficiently recovered to enact his own will

B(rattles brain): ‘Twould seem - hmm - I determined to marry - yes? (H is smugly rocking on his heels, FH & SBD are appalled) - to a plain little housekeeping wife of large assets who’ll keep me in good moral order (rumbles through brain) - and, er - nurse my aching patellar, begrudgingly provide me with an heir, sneer at my poesy and demand the confiscation of my brandy cellar? - Mrs. Mule?!

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Mule appears with the coal bucket

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B: Mule, my doctor and my devoted friends have urged me on - for the good of my health and for the preservation of the ancient Manor of my fathers - to wed - I beg thee, Mule, queen of my hearth, wilt thou be my wife?

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B bends on knee, which cracks - Mule accepts and dons B’s ermine collar - the friends go at B’s remaining stash of the Drop with a pickaxe

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END

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