60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ What gets his living honest by his fists.

       I may not have the polish of some toffs

       As I could mention on; but up to now

       No man has took my number down. I scale

       Close on twelve stun; my age is twenty-three;

       And at Bill Richardson’s Blue Anchor pub

       Am to be heard of any day by such

       As likes the job. I don’t know, governor,

       As ennythink remains for me to say.

      CETEWAYO. Six wives and thirty oxen shalt thou have

       If on the sand thou leave thy foeman dead.

       Methinks he looks scornfully on thee.

       [To Cashel] Ha! dost thou not so?

      CASHEL. Sir, I do beseech you

       To name the bone, or limb, or special place

       Where you would have me hit him with this fist.

      CETEWAYO. Thou hast a noble brow; but much I fear

       Thine adversary will disfigure it.

      CASHEL. There’s a divinity that shapes our ends

       Rough hew them how we will. Give me the gloves.

      THE MASTER OF THE REVELS. Paradise, a professor.

       Cashel Byron,

       Also professor. Time! [They spar.

      LYDIA. Eternity

       It seems to me until this fight be done.

      CASHEL. Dread monarch: this is called the upper cut,

       And this a hook-hit of mine own invention.

       The hollow region where I plant this blow

       Is called the mark. My left, you will observe,

       I chiefly use for long shots: with my right

       Aiming beside the angle of the jaw

       And landing with a certain delicate screw

       I without violence knock my foeman out.

       Mark how he falls forward upon his face!

       The rules allow ten seconds to get up;

       And as the man is still quite silly, I

       Might safely finish him; but my respect

       For your most gracious majesty’s desire

       To see some further triumphs of the science

       Of self-defence postpones awhile his doom.

      PARADISE. How can a bloke do hisself proper justice

       With pillows on his fists?

      [He tears off his gloves and attacks Cashel with his bare knuckles.

      THE CROWD. Unfair! The rules!

      CETEWAYO. The joy of battle surges boiling up

       And bids me join the mellay. Isandhlana

       And Victory! [He falls on the bystanders.

      THE CHIEFS. Victory and Isandhlana!

      [They run amok. General panic and stampede. The ring is swept away.

      LUCIAN. Forbear these most irregular proceedings.

       Police! Police!

      [He engages Cetewayo his umbrella. The balcony

       comes down with a crash. Screams from its

       occupants. Indescribable confusion.

      CASHEL [dragging Lydia from the struggling heap].

       My love, my love, art hurt?

      LYDIA. No, no; but save my sore o’ermatchéd cousin.

      A POLICEMAN. Give us a lead, sir. Save the English flag.

       Africa tramples on it.

      CASHEL. Africa!

       Not all the continents whose mighty shoulders

       The dancing diamonds of the seas bedeck

       Shall trample on the blue with spots of white.

       Now, Lydia, mark thy lover. [He charges the Zulus.

      LYDIA. Hercules

       Cannot withstand him. See: the king is down;

       The tallest chief is up, heels over head,

       Tossed corklike o’er my Cashel’s sinewy back;

       And his lieutenant all deflated gasps

       For breath upon the sand. The others fly

       In vain: his fist o’er magic distances

       Like a chameleon’s tongue shoots to its mark;

       And the last African upon his knees

       Sues piteously for quarter. [Rushing into Cashel’s arms.] Oh, my hero:

       Thou’st saved us all this day.

      CASHEL. ’Twas all for thee.

      CETEWAYO. [trying to rise]. Have I been struck by lightning?

      LUCIAN. Sir, your conduct

       Can only be described as most ungentlemanly.

      POLICEMAN. One of the prone is white.

      CASHEL. ’Tis Paradise.

      POLICEMAN. He’s choking: he has something in his mouth.

      LYDIA [to Cashel]. Oh Heaven! there is blood upon your hip.

       You’re hurt.

      CASHEL. The morsel in yon wretch’s mouth

       Was bitten out of me.

      [Sensation. Lydia screams and swoons in Cashel’s arms.

      ACT IV

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      Wiltstoken. СКАЧАТЬ