The King in Yellow: a Jacobean Noh Play by GraywyvernACT I.
Scene 1. A balcony with rail & painted landscape-sky scene beyond. All characters are masked. Masks are cartoonish but enigmatic. And asymmetrical. Costumes are elaborate & non-functional, but of no distinct era or culture. Furnishings are minimal but strikingly abstract. Characters speak line-endings cleanly, but only in a declamatory fashion for longer monologues. Sometimes silence intervenes (even within a speech), as the actor or director sees fit. The whole manner is of weird contrivance, of Rube Goldberg; of an experiment in danger of not coming off.
NAOTALBA Tailgated by the crimson
Moiety till my carport
Brings vast eclipse & a wall
Comprised of dead cicalas,
I am Naotalba 'tombed
In Naotalba. (turning towards the door) A whelk
Procured these vestments' purple.
CASSILDA (enters) And what the miasmatic
Garboil's thick at double dusk?
NAOTALBA It is a trick of the sky.
CASSILDA Does the sky lie too?
NAOTALBA Badly.
CASSILDA Then school it, till our chaos
Tell there no more than the white
Visage of Naotalba.
NAOTALBA Have it your way, my Lady.
CASSILDA (in a changed tone) Always just about to rain
But never does. One grows sick
Of stalking the asphodel.
(Back to the former:) I begin to remember.
Once there were other azures
Than chalice & gingerbread
Server. We feed the ebbing;
And like buzzards, let our greed
Unscrew us from an airspace.
NAOTALBA For you, perhaps some Tokay?
CASSILDA More, yes. (He pours.) Is the Ball tonight?
NAOTALBA It is.
CASSILDA I have a yearning
Sudden-like, to attend as
Some contraption of Babbage,
An automaton, a pun
In gray alloy.
NAOTALBA (aside) No demon
Better simulates a jest.
(To her) We shall deface this coinage
With alacrity.
CASSILDA --Soon, soon;
But who brings rain to Tlaloc?
(Pauses.) The stillborn worlds appall me.
Who’s stealthily going mad
Feels more & more their rightness
And dwells on pre-smash Krypton
A gnostic geologist.
Go. (He leaves.) (Contemptuously:) Enochian crossword
On a scrap of foolscap. Troll
At nowhere's crossing! (Tenderly:) Topaz
Your eyes, sweet, untenanted
By pain. One quick nocturnal
Interloper could leave you
A pocket of ebony.
Now I think about Alar
But all I feel is the dread
Of discovery. Sickly
By one black candle's saffron
A ukase Plutonian
I’ll issue. Invocation
Merely of what in this mine
Passes for a camera,
I want that bastard followed. (Enter HASTUR.)
HASTUR My queen.
CASSILDA Your eyelids quiver
Like hummingbirds. What is it?
HASTUR It seems from the worked-out goaf
One last gemmate surprise springs.
CASSILDA With disaster we keep tryst?
HASTUR Nothing so grand. It seems, the
Peasants, as if by magic
Have all eloigned.
CASSILDA They never
Petitioned us for mercy.
Not once.
HASTUR All in the grammar
Of rulership. That jasmine
Fragrance becomes you.
CASSILDA So stones
Are become, aye, by yellow.
HASTUR Withhold that word, dear. A time
Will come to wield such a force
But not yet. (In a lower tone) O Cassilda,
Eyes imprisoned by language
Find umgang in their lit cone
The sanguine horizon called
Storm sunset. What morbidness!
Beaker of golden chartreuse
To dispel were ample glare.
(She leaves.) Such a vision I have seen
I'll not soon be rid of. Care's
Defunctive slivers blended,
The hands piled apart, dimness
And the ash of a frail prayer,
And we will be as they are
Under the red baobab.
A lace of flesh from us hangs
Already. Finish the poem
Though it squander the poet,
For all teloi-whorl is myrrh.
Scene 2. Cassilda's chambers. A canopied bed, Danish Moderne dressing table, & an ornate armoire in greenish wood. Tapestries, sconces. Cassilda holds an instrument, part lyre, part astrolabe, & sing-speaks the following, to intermittent discords.
CASSILDA 'Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa
Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
Die though, unheard, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.'
Beneath yon proud magenta fez
You think to live through this last hajj
As if moon’s silver
Cured Carcosa.
What do you want, Camilla?
CAMILLA To see a heart of marble.
CASSILDA Having found it?
CAMILLA Pachelbel
At times assuages.
CASSILDA We need,
All of us, some vengeful dream.
CAMILLA You dream only of the end.
CASSILDA I sleep not.
CAMILLA You are Baja
In sand, in stars, & in forms
Of razor-edged shapeliness.
If our annihilation
Does not ensue, it's Hastur
Keeps dowsing the catafalque.
CASSILDA But I would contain this plague.
CAMILLA And so you do.
CASSILDA Hyades,
Aldebaran, what matter
To the fond kamikaze
Whether his diving haiku
Find publication?
CAMILLA Cobweb
Me not with your metaphors.
I am in difficulty.
CASSILDA (Slowly:) Alas, you’re in R'lyeh.
CAMILLA (Swiftly:) Enceinte.
CASSILDA Tonight, a languid
Waltz shall encircle the ax
Of glass. Escape is not far.
CAMILLA Hastur knows.
CASSILDA Then opium
And oodles. What energy
Remains will do you no good.
CAMILLA I dreamed of a yellow king
Who wore rags & bright feathers
And glided without the weight
His shape ought to have. Across
The drawbridge he came; a thorn
Sprouted in my heart, despair
And the sense of a closed vault.
CASSILDA How narrow's the sepulchre
For a lorn spirit swimming.
CAMILLA This thought is like the wild foehn
Through stone corridors, neon
At once em'rald & amber.
I feel faint.
CASSILDA Mountains of slag
'Twixt us & the truth, sister;
Nor that one bears a fishhook.
CAMILLA What are you saying?
CASSILDA Fragrance
Kills.
CAMILLA Then to Thale I'll turn
Who never turned me down.
CASSILDA Love
To join you, but a pallid
Abyss beckons. Invisible
Are the best phenomena.
It is said that when Sacla
Had done, he left one blue jay
Behind to express his terse
Disavowal of the work,
And I hark to like whisper.
CAMILLA A woman with a mission.
CASSILDA When you encounter him, say
This morning I spared a roach. (Exits.)
CAMILLA What can cause all that rustling
In a mind of emptiness?
I must set off some sulfur
To sweeten. As if expiry
Could come into this crystal
(Enter THALE.) Anyway.
THALE You called?
CAMILLA Zephyr
To my parched cheek, Thale, white
Possesses the azaleas
When you are near. Cassilda
Makes complots.
THALE By what dire signs?
CAMILLA So far, I am uncertain,
But that she grows neglectful
Of her aim, as if soon none
Will be left to--
THALE Aroma
Of her precedes. (Sternly.) Be silent.
CASSILDA (Airily, & with a touch of irony:) Does anyone remember
Where they saw me leave my gloves?
THALE & CAMILLA No.
CASSILDA See you at the party.
(With extreme terror:) Wait. that is not Thale. Look!
(She snatches at his face, but he pulls back in time.)
He wears a mask.
THALE As many
As there are masked hours.
CASSILDA (Angrily:) Mine
The discovery!
(She gets it this time. All draw back.)
STRANGER (Formerly THALE.) Let here
Begin our revels.
CAMILLA (Slowly:) Pale sneer
On blankness, eyes empty black...
'You sir, should unmask.
STRANGER Indeed?
CASSILDA Indeed it's time. We all have
Laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER I wear no mask.
CAMILLA (Terrified, aside to CASSILDA.) No mask? No
Mask!'
STRANGER This visage bright with clay
And cold, dark; a fallow field;
Is only Cabalatrab
Naked.
CASSILDA Nudity does jar
Out of context.
CAMILLA Where’s Thale?
STRANGER (Whispers.) Away.
CASSILDA Now a new accent
Learning, I trow.
CAMILLA One candle
More will unsight us.
STRANGER My art
Is delusion's quietus.
CASSILDA A rock in my shoe. Statesman
Of my father's sort, Uoht would
Know what to make of this buzz.
(Solemnly.) May the great caladium
Of peace enfold you. (Stabs.) All grass
Is flesh.
STRANGER (Dying.) I came to tell--
CASSILDA Flesh
That wants trimming. (Stabs him again.)
CAMILLA Aldones
Sent him, surely.
CASSILDA Your desire
And two cents sent him. Sickly
Our eclipse-light grows, bizarre
The conception of beauty.
CAMILLA Sister, hie us to the swarm.
Scene 3. The Ball. Half a dozen couples, but all the nonspeaking actors stand frozen in appropriate poses. Some sort of irritating music--played backwards?--comes & goes. Their "costumes" resemble modern American clothes, only exaggerated.
HASTUR (Tangoing with Camilla:) Naotalba is absent.
CAMILLA He's always absent.
HASTUR His steel
Was found.
CAMILLA Prison moons attend
His skulking. Sir, have mercy.
HASTUR I fear this development.
Rooks, suddenly blasphemous,
Are at me night & day, they
Whisper: "From Aldebaran
Will seed a novel coral;
'Have you found the yellow sign?'"
(Whenever this is said, the lights flicker.)
CAMILLA When you have tried my lilies
You'll feel much less afflicted.
HASTUR What is that awful incense?
CAMILLA I don't smell anything.
HASTUR Rhyme
Unpaired with aught: I smell blood.
CAMILLA Is it like the waft of sex?
We have just had sex.
HASTUR More wine!
I must have more wine! (He runs away.)
CAMILLA My silk
Seems to have a stain. Bother!
CASSILDA (Waltzing with Yhtill.) The Negaverse is our wills'
Deception?
YHTILL Metaphor. Time
Requires we spin our legend
Each of ourselves, crystalline
Webs without conjunction;
A moment's twinned filigree
Turns to smoke--
CASSILDA Or malachite?
YHTILL Why malachite?
HASTUR (Solus.) The rim’s gold, bright & gemmate
With bubbles, ah, I never
Cease to savor. Amethyst
Dreams alone I crave. Muzzy
As my head is, revellers
Round me, Amontillado
Within me, still I must dream
Of that accursed gecko
Bearing wintry catharsis
They label the Pallid Mask.
Pandemic! O Aziel
Too encompassing's your womb
And too greedy. A silken
Slide of years, just long enough
To fadge a fair aloha
And then let the flames anele.
But now we verge on Hekla
And facepaint with orpiment!
(Weeps.)
CAMILLA (To herself.) Despair is a polltaker.
I had thought this solitude
Would have an end. Frankincense
Drifts away. Her gloves, I will
Cut them into small pieces,
Portraying accordingly
The universal slaughter.
YHTILL (To CASSILDA.) His lordship looks so pale, go
Interrogate soft the oaf.
CASSILDA So, Yhtill, the new creature
Has been here awhile. --Watteau
Surmised. Off to Maremma!
(Approaches HASTUR.)
HASTUR (Brokenly:) The victims of landmines prey
Upon my will.
CASSILDA Zeitlichkeit
Is too much? Crepuscular
And stuff. Try some espresso.
HASTUR I am a burning dumpster.
The old king prostituted
Daughters; Constantinople
Took them; I have done much worse.
CASSILDA We've forgiven the wodwo
For being a wodwo, woe
To the non-wodwos.
HASTUR You give
Yourself too much credit.
CASSILDA Me?
I ground the poison. His mad
Cries made a haunting music
Even now I'm not beyond
Savoring. Insomnia
Has its comforts.
HASTUR Unicorn
And virgin in one. Crimson
Spot on my delirium,
And contemptuous Tarot
Spread.
CASSILDA Buying a large bottle
Is a kind of commitment. (Leaves.)
HASTUR Robed in funest mystery
A psychopathic peacock
Hour nears. We replace breath
With briny wisdom, tears
With the slime of the deep.
CASSILDA (At the edge of the stage.) Veldt
Like this gives us stones for bread
Unless we call on Hali. (Blackout.)
ACT II.
Scene 1. Cassilda’s chambers, but disordered, & the mirror shattered. Burns on some of the furniture & tapestries. Rags on the floor, & torn up books. Cassilda, nude in green body paint, with the corpse of Naotalba, obviously & unseasonably putrescent.
CASSILDA That talk of insanity
Is a code for dissidence
Which strays too far, burrows too
Deep & near to the secret.
You, though, are in it. I'll find
A way for a breach. 'By the
(Sings) Dark of the moon I planted'
One hundred thousand bombs. Weight
Of Mount Yaanek upon you,
Rise! By the swift ebony
Of Aztec priests, by Eurus,
By the blood of the unborn!
You will hear me! By the sleep
Of Pharaohs, by the crone moon;
By the lost blues of Chartres!
You will answer me! Ostrich
Within your head stuck in death, yield
To a stronger pull! Basalt
Is weaker. Now you shall talk
Nor will I permit the mask
Of gibberish, enigma:
Have you found the Yellow Sign?
Say! Whisper voluptuous
One word. Productivity
Will be rewarded. What if
I fashioned anew that face
Of bruise & pallor? So cold
You fiercely remain, still free,
Still as taciturn. Music
You'd send me, Naotalba.
It’s so quiet where I am.
Where knowledge is. Not the dead
Know what I know. Though you care,
The best music dies at once.
(Croons.) 'A-woobie obba dobba,
Obba woobie dobba...' Ear
For miracles, have we? Buzz,
Red smear on the front bumper
Gawking! Naught else calls us food!
O pity, pity for us
All! The singularities
Have taught me jurisprudence,
Intricate weariness
With legs. I eat the tsimtsum
With chopsticks of electrum
And I shit on Fomalhaut.
Why don't you bless my question
Heart? A swaying emptiness
Is all, all. Wail accordingly
From the Pit of Noumenon!
By the slow-blooded Phyva,
I charge thee.
NAOTALBA --Unhook the World.
(CASSILDA grabs him & flings him out of the chair.)
CASSILDA At last!
NAOTALBA You cannot land it.
(She shakes him until his head comes off & rolls away.)
CASSILDA (In a different voice:) Black’s dominion isn’t Black.
Scene 2. Throne Room, dominated by a huge chair that half resembles an electric chair.
HASTUR One lesson's lodged in this night:
'It is a terrible thing
To fall into the hands of'
A 'living god.' --Vorpal edge
Of wisdom rends our velvet
Throats to extinguish some drouth
We haven’t heard of. Jedburgh
Salvation.
YHTILL It's not madness
To guard 'gainst sciamachy.
HASTUR I'll have blackened coelacanth.
YHTILL To kill you an assassin
Has been dispatched.
HASTUR Normalcy.
YHTILL 'Bunched kisses' 'crackle & drag'
In the Negaverse.
HASTUR Raps clack
Calcspar; I resonate to.
O 'hue-tempestuous' orb!
Crimethink by that saddest light,
Pink-gold sodium attack
Converts tragedy to Spam.
And each of us has a sign
Born under, our realm & game;
To else, nescient. The rag
We'll die for. Heimarmenê
Has subdivided spirit--
And no spook on this muskeg
Understands, ophidian,
The coils: each has their fond drug
And warped map of Xibalba.
This is mine. What's that murmur
Swaying the wisteria,
Bringing a foretaste of ice
To the one it want to nab?
My eyes bedim. Melody
Defunctive creeps to occult
My little bonfire of words--
'No dietetic sequel.' (Enter CASSILDA.)
CASSILDA Black milk for Peacock Angel.
HASTUR Thy maquillage looks ghastly.
CASSILDA I filled the cracks with star grout,
My pupils with hematite.
How do you like the façade?
HASTUR I witness the same old jade,
A stone most porismatic
In the palm.
CASSILDA Divinity
Does not suit you. Stick to war.
HASTUR You used to paint with henna
Those pale, lovely hands; now gore
Luauesque. Each finds their path
In the absinthe, Cassilda.
CASSILDA We're not on the same planet.
HASTUR 'Have you found the Yellow Sign?'
CASSILDA Alas, I have too much flesh
And not enough knife.
HASTUR Queen Mab
Complains of her cobweb cage.
CASSILDA I'll leave you a talisman,
And when the last arabesque
Unfurls, you may find me.
HASTUR Salt
Is like Abracadabra
To a snail.
CASSILDA Goodbye, grotto.
I'll see you on Sirius.
(They begin to slash each other with switchblades. The scene continues in pantomime for some time. The blood is bright & non-naturalistic but the actors may realistically feign injury.)
Scene 3. Throne Room, subtly transformed.
CAMILLA All the wives in Carcosa
Have red hair, they say.
YHTILL Triage
Is useless in the matrix;
The rolling cursor curses
And having cursed, moves on. Shall
We?
CAMILLA Black & white's the zebra
Alone among innocents,
Yet he too yields burgundy.
But were you always Thale?
YHTILL Inconstantly, to my shame.
CAMILLA It is a bulwark of gneiss
Keeps me in stir, paradise
Kevork'd.
YHTILL Typhonian age,
All the time we ever had
Together. First, enskyment;
Then funest copulation.
Life is high parabolas
Or nothing.
CAMILLA The tongueless mouths
Of Naxyr vend a proverb
Unknown here, but very apt:
"I garble Babel, Bragi."
YHTILL Dizzyingly velvetish
Is this new invocation.
What will you raise with it?
CAMILLA Ra,
Who'll come whatever you do.
YHTILL That’s so Last-Year's-Sunglasses.
CAMILLA Or transsubstantiation
In gardens of amethyst.
YHTILL A mask unmasks illusion
As fundamental, ocean
We founder in sans land.
CAMILLA My
Old Heliogabalan
Tastes recur. Tell me the truth.
What did you give Cassilda?
YHTILL A lesser plague.
CAMILLA Than language?
YHTILL Heliophobic motives
Afflict us all.
CAMILLA To this quartz
Is ebon.
YHTILL Oolongphaeic
Ever our meaninglessness
Whether we give up one eye
For knowledge or both. Image
Of my desire, be its cairn
And I'll for your sake abort
Flight, rescue, even worry...
CAMILLA So potent is poetry.
YHTILL Hastur with his brainworm moans
All night of the Hyades
And Aldebaran, his cave
To a lost template coded.
CAMILLA But what of the child?
YHTILL Monstrous,
Conceived by gloryglimmer
From Yog-Sothoth himself, if
The thing even have a face
I swear to love it.
CAMILLA Surely,
Double, like Tiresias,
Our flowery fate must stare
T'wards some dazzle.
YHTILL Azrael
Is said to cruise at new moons.
CAMILLA My despair wears cartilage
And circles.
YHTILL Empearl this wine
With believing. Strange hejira,
Yet necessary. Malaise
Will become the law; holy
Its stigmata. They will lock
Themselves within. Level field:
All's quicksand. In the night church
Pulumchva feign cicala
Song; fleshless hands will anele.
CAMILLA And we who’re coals from the goaf,
The diamond's diamond;
For nilpertains daylight our bassoon
Indigo demon.
YHTILL Let world-destruction be our meaning;
Slow poison, our air.
CAMILLA Our new capital will be Dallas.
YHTILL Anaglyphic oafs
To shuffle its pavements till the end
CAMILLA --Since turquoise is dead:
(Together:) Since the Nephilim have turned kiwis.
FINIS.
