SAM ROGERS

  Questions & Answers

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Cast

Lord Byron

John Cam Hobhouse

Teresa Guiccioli

Leigh Hunt

PB Shelley

Mary Shelley

Fletcher

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SCENE 1

 

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1822, a drizzly night in Pisa - at the Palazzo Lanfranchi, the clock tolls - Fletcher is in a state

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​F: Oh! - our ‘steemed, honoured guests, my Lord must have broken an axle! (paces and tears his apron) - puta madre! - that green chariot hath been a damned cursèd excuse for ambulation since my Lord left Piccadilly!

H: Steady on the vernacular there, Fletcher - perhaps if you would refill our glasses? - unless (to others) - we break the party up for this evening? - devil knows where his Lordship may have (catches TG’s eye) - er -broken down​

MS: A sensible suggestion, Mr. Hobhouse (rises) - our studies need attending, Shelley - this past hour could have been better spent translating the complete works of Calderón into Swahili

PBS: Indeed, dear friends, it is past 6 - I shall reanimate my peptic ulcers unless I return home and wrestle a few Spanish gerunds before night falls

LH(gulps B’s best brandy): Humph! his Lordship! - should we perhaps attend to his collars and stockings whilst we wait?

TG(arises): Mi scusi? - your tone insults - Mr. Leghunt - ye sly wren who flies on the eagle’s back (hisses)

H: Calm, my dear Contessa - ‘tis but a bluster of vulgar cockney humour (glares at H)

F(swipes H’s glass): I shall send Fanny to the scullery for some buttermilk, Mr. Hunt - or mayhap ye could spend the night on milord’s schooner?

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​An ear-splitting growl rebounds off the hallway’s floor, onto the walls and up the marble staircase

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​F: Oh, he’s home! - my Lord is home! (rushes downstairs)

TG: Saints be praised!

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​The salon is frozen - minutes pass - enters an irritated Lord B - courtesies are paid

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​B: My apologies to all (bows) - och and oons! I’m fairly knocked up (sinks into chair) - Fletcher!! - brandy! (to company) - are your glasses filled?

LH: We have been waiting at least an hour, my Lord

B: Have you indeed, Hunt? - how very convenient an excuse to avoid your complaining wife and ten unwashed, squalling, brawling offspring (TG rubs his temples) - grazie, angelo mio (snores)

H: Well, Byron! (B wakes) - this is most unseemly behaviour towards your guests! - is this display of blasé Mediterranean conduct habitual? (B yawns) - have you been bitten? stabbed? short-changed?

B(sighs): No - no, nothing of the sort - yet - worse (eyes room) - my friends, I met a most loathsome reminder of my years of Fame on the road from Bologna

LH: Lady Byron?

B: Sunburn me if even that wouldn’t have been more pleasant!

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TG lights B’s cigar and brushes his hair - he falls asleep, again

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H: Be damned to it, Byron! - you would most certainly lose membership to all your better clubs if you behaved with such outrageous continental loucheness after yet one tot of brandy! - I can only interpret such conduct - and your effeminately long hair - to mean you have no intention of returning to St. James’ any time soon?

B: I merely wished for sleep to eradicate thoughts of my recent distressing reconnoiter, Hobby - however! - I shall not let that bilious individual - whose blackening river rushes through a Stygian liver - ruin our evening (leaps to feet, kissing TG’s tiny hand) - now! - it being too rainy for shooting at small things on fence posts, we shall play a guessing game - “Whom did I meet upon the road?” - the winner shall be awarded the front page of the next edition of the “Liberal” - what say, you Hunt?

LH: Mmm (scans room) - the company present could certainly supply something revolutionary and/or toothsome - oh, dear (snarkily) - the Contessa’s parlour-border-level command of English, I suspect, would render her participation superfluous

B: I’d politely request you cease making love to my Tesoro in such an amateurish manner, Hunt (blows kiss at TG) - perchance you’d return to the company of your wife yet? - despite said Englishwoman being as unfair as sunrise, and as unwarm as noon can get (LH sinks, and reddens) - now - to the Game!

 

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SCENE 2

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​PBS and MS, despite anxiety re. their literary schedules, are inspired by the prospect of being published in Byron’s journal

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​B: Your attention, please - very well - here are my questions:

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Nose and Chin that make a knocker
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker?
Mouth that marks the envious Scorner,
With a Scorpion in each corner
Curling up his tail to sting you
In the place that most may wring you?

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H: Caroline Lamb! (to all) eh wot? - it has to be - if ever there was a sting in a tail, ‘twas hers! - check behind the curtains, Fletcher, ‘twas once her favoured lurking territory in Byron’s apartments - until - and to the devil with her! - she forged a latchkey

MS: No, ‘tis that spider, Lady Melbourne! - she is old enough to have wrinkles - she must be at least thirty

B: Mary - my dear friend - that good Lady has gone to her rest - I believe, beneath a peach tree

PBS: Wring? - like, in a washing tub? - is the scorpion caught in the wringers? - oh, the poor insect - I can hear him crying in pain “Help me Shelley, help the poor misunderstood Scorpion”

MS: No wonder we never go anywhere

B: By the Dog of the Virgin!! - rattle your skulls, my friends! (paces)

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Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy,
Carcase stolen from some mummy,
Bowels—(but they were forgotten,
Save the Liver, and that’s rotten)
Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden,
Form the Devil would frighten G-d in

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TG: Dio mio Byron! - ye blasphemer! - il ordini religiosi will run us into yet another inhospitable principality if you continue to mangle Alexandrines in such a manner!

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​​The atheists in the room scoff obnoxiously - Moretto, B’s faithful bulldog, barks maniacally

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​H: Bowels - mmm - liver - forsooth, that could be any of us (all nod)

PBS: I’m sallow - and sodden - I’m sure of it (checks mirror) - are my eyes of lead-like hue, Mary?

MS: Sit down Shelley! Were you just on the road from Bologna?

PBS: I could have been - could I? (looks at hand) no, I seem to here - yes, I’m not anywhere else - I think (bites nails)

B: Ah! (brightens) - now, Mary - concentrate - you will surely guess it:

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Is’t a Corpse stuck up for show
Galvanized at times to go?
With the Scripture hasn’t connection,
New proof of the Resurrection?
Vampire, Ghost, or Goul, what is it?
I would walk ten miles to miss it

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MS: Claire. Get your coat Shelley

B: Close (shivers) but no (thinks) - I shall require the aid of props - Fletcher! - a lemon and the doorstep beggar’s coat, if you will, and have Moretto stop barking at that window

F: Yes, my honoured Lord

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SCENE 3

 

B paces - blames the strictures of high society that his company has not yet succeeded in guessing the victim of his verses

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​B: As you’re all making a right mull of things - I’ll give you three hints: Bard? Beau? or Banker?

LH: Douglas Kinnaird! How excellent - for me, heheh!! - I have just completed “Ode to Hair - a Follicular Fancy” complete with samples from famous heads - Mr. Hobhouse, you can sketch them - I could publish in each subsequent issue - nail clippings - broken teeth etc. - a franchise of bodily poesy, if you will

B(winces): In the name of Scrope Davies, Hunt! - if I had met that rogueish Kinnaird, I should be back in Venice with my Nine Muses, gambolling my sanity - and medical well-being - away at my casino (H and B laugh riotously)

TG: Que? - what about Venezia?

B: Er - niente, amore mio (rubs chin and dons doorstep beggar’s coat)

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Air so softly supercilious,
Chastened bow, and mock humility,
Almost sickened to Servility

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H: Servile, sick? - your man of law, Hanson? - could be any one of those yellow-gizzarded haunters of Chancery Lane

PBS: Chancery Lane? - the innuendo I have had to endure from that Palace of Brutality!

TG: This - it is Hoppner, the Inglese pettegolezzo! - gossip gossip like a squirrel with empty cheeks!

B: Admirable, Teresa - yet also, no:

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Hear the tales he lends his lip to
Little hints of heavy scandals
Every friend by turns he handles:
All that women or that men do
Glides forth in an innuendo

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LH: Well, that narrows it down to the newspaper men of Grub Street - for certes, they are immune to penitence

H: Or Holland House - of late - or Melbourne House - yea, any House in London since his Lordship left enough hors d’oeuvres of slander for generations of late suppers hence

B: Faith, but our acquaintance is sparse!

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You’re his foe—for that he fears you,
And in absence blasts and sears you:
You’re his friend—for that he hates you,
First obliges, and then baits you,
Darting on the opportunity
When to do it with impunity

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H: Moore! - of course - that undersized Irishman - my bane! - the future hawker of your good name!

B: Hobby, mind your cheek - that is my best - second best - friend of whom you speak

F: Your lemon, my Lord

B: Excellent (B bites lemon)

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Clothed in odds and ends of humour,
Herald of each paltry rumour
From divorces down to dresses,
Woman’s frailties, Man’s excesses:
All that life presents of evil
Make for him a constant revel (spits out lemon)

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MS: Your beautiful mouth, my Lord! - the throne of beauty and love for most women - do not purse it so - ahh! I can’t bear to look - Shelley, look away!

PBS: It has a hideous aspect - Byron! - what have you done - there are snakes - or eels - coming out of your skull!

F: Ah no, Mr. Shelley - he’s but grown his curls long, like they have it here in Italy, it’s called “Il Mulletto”

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​B parades around the room, bent over

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​​B: Then he thinks himself a lover
Why? I really can’t discover,
In his mind, age, face, or figure;
Viper broth might give him vigour:
Let him keep the cauldron steady,
He the venom has already

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LH: Fancies himself a Lover? The Regent thinks himself a Brummel in all things - lawks - is he paying a visit? - Fletcher! - tell Marianne to wash the children - (to B) I’ll need gold sovereigns to buy court clothes - and a powdered peruke - he must have taken to forgiving me!

B: Reel thy head in, Hunt - would I have met the English King on a boggy back road from Bologna? I quite give up - I shall retire - Teresa (TG swishes over and offers her hand)

ALL: One more clue!

B: My revulsion has quite worked its way out from my nethers - however:

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He’s the Cancer of his Species,
And will eat himself to pieces,
Plague personified and Famine,
Devil, whose delight is damning.
For his merits—don’t you know ‘em?
Once he wrote a pretty Poem

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PBS: You met - your doppelganger - along the road - arghhhhh!!! (runs out of the house, followed by an apologising MS)

LH: I do so hope that was a pointed jab, my dear Shelley - heh heh - arrghhh! (Mrs. Hunt tears into the salon and attempts to drag H out by the ear) - and a “pretty poem” it was you once wrote, my Lord - heh heh - arrghhh! (H proceeds to trip down the marble stairs)

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Moretto leaps, growls, and tears at the curtain - out jumps Samuel Rogers -Bard, Beau, Banker, and venomous gossip

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​SR(squealing): Have that hound taken out and shot - if you will, my Lord! (leaps behind sopha)

H: Is that Rogers? - the black-dropped juggler of reputations? - I can’t imagine how I didn’t guess it!

B: Aye, ‘twas indeed said varmint - (to SR) and down which drainpipe did you enter my residence - and when - Mr. Rogers?

SR: In truth, I knocked - but your valet took my coat - gave me broth and a florin - is he always drunk? - are you kin of the bar sinister? (B glares and pales) - heh heh - mmm - I left some poesy in your chariot, but your savage animal bade me climb the balcony (snivels into hanky) - I have been enfolded in yon drapery all through the latter half of your regretful guessing game

H: How any of us missed the whiff of your sulphurous presence, Mr. Rogers, is a mystery (hands SR a clean hanky - turns to B) - although, as a gentleman - of sorts - Mr. Rogers does have the right of reply to your verses, my lord

SR: That I do! - a little something - solely for posterity, my dear Byron, not for the vulgar horde (coughs up a phlegm-like substance) ahem..

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To the Youth who swam from Sestos to Abydos:
If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,
None more than I, thy gratitude would build
On slight foundations; and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert,
Thy wish accomplished

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B(yawns): Posterity will be delighted, I’m sure (T puts on B’s night-cap, H beats a discreet retreat) - it has been a relief to be able to catch and punish so eminent a scandal-monger as yourself, Rogers - good eve - Moretto will show you out

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​​Moretto lunges - SR breaks the window and falls towards an ecstatic PBS, surrendering himself to what he believes to be his avenging, rheumy-eyed angel. MS jogs on

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END​​