The Second Birth Of Tragedy Poem by Leila Samarrai

Gods too seek sanctuary in dreams
(Conversation of Hypnos and Melpomena)
(place of deed: the cave of Hypnos)

(Hypnos sits in front of the fireplace, wrapped in fur, shivers from the cold while simultaniously playing with a pendulum carefully observing it from all sides. It appears as though he deeply thought over, those thoughts brightening him. Melpomena enters, all in rags, unkempt hair, bare headed.)

MELPOMENA:
Do not look at me with sleepy eyes! I know where I should be now!
(ripping the remains of the dress from her body and plucking hair. She wept.)

HYPNOS:
Have you canceled the play?

MELPOMENA:
Not I her, but her me… Not I… No longer.

(Hypnos returns to the pendulum and wraps himself in a black chasuble, while he shivers with his entire body.)

MELPOMENA:
(gazing at him)
Trickster, oh Hypnos
Wrapped you are in theater curtains
Blacker they are than thy cave
Wave towards me with your pendulum
I dreamt with an eye open
And I have seen reality, oh Киркане
That beloved lie of the Theater
Do it!
Mesmerize me!
For the whisk of the mad hypnothiser
Sways even the wings of Gods
Illusion!
The wings of a bird
Overshadoweded once a dream!
(A Shadow is hard to overshadow!)
Livid, pale, awake to death
I am no longer Melpomena!
An aggressive clown I am
In the theater of comedy!
(Follow me into the theater!)
Come! Do! Wave your hand!
In front the audience, the wild beast
With a thousand soft heads!
Overshadow me! There, in front of all!
For
Perhaps clean laught(mock) er(y)
Summons the mind to play
And Nature to believe the Truth
(Who to whome but an illusion to an illusion)
Perhaps destructive фортура
Fills the emptiness in the act
In role!
Enchant me!
Either I sleep as before
Or close my eyes.

HYPNOS:
Let us go, but after I stoke the fireplace.

MELPOMENA:
Yes, too cold is for dreams… And I…
Play passions
Improvising merely…
Here and there…
No flash

HYPNOS:
Tragedy!

MELPOMENA:
Fixed her eyes on me, horrified!
Оh, my loving Hegote
From whose lips
I drank
Plunged the knife to hearts
Murdered heroes
In a role I play
And all that…
Miserable, miserably lifeless
Are furries prosecuting me?
Must be because of Megara
She set me against Talia
Maddened by jealous
So my wag sister
Derides me out of vengeance.
Let us go now, depart!
(rises suddenly)

HYPNOS:
May the fire burn
Now that I have stoked it!

MELPOMENA:
One wood is breaking
In the fireplace. It is raw.
His organic nature
Does not let it go aflame!
Same as I… Burning
With fire of violent passion.
Violence! Without passion! That is it!
And the violence!
She burns, but I do not see
Nor the senses feel her.
If I could like before
Believe in passion
I would birth the truth
And be the same old
Playful tragedienne
I lost myself in the theater!
(Why, I? ! Melpomena!)
Merely I am a wild cavewoman
Strolling the theater, but not walkng it
The play does not survive.

HYPNOS:
Console yourself, Melpomena! That is good tragedy!

MELPOMENA:
But unblessed!
Unawakened by concious, how was she made? !
Not by my skillful hand!
She made herself!
Broke loose from her Createress!
Run amok!
No Muse to tame her!
What inspiration is it?
It is sinister grimacing
And roaring of omni-human
In a shroud of theater curtains
Dead souls, dead tongue awaits me.

HYPNOS:
I am life for I am Dream
I am Illusion and Companion
What I learned
Teaching Calderon
And few more awakened Dreamers
Walking on dreams
Whipping their hopes
Waking untamed desires
Benumbing reminiscences
Rinsing the dream of Gods!
That much double-natured I am!
No need for a sabre nor a blade
Nor a mask
To kill the knavish king
If you can see
The fire of fantasy in the fireplace,
Do not accede for untruth
And do not play from the heart (A Woman!)
Against the Stanislavic pendulum.
(As he spoke it, Tragedy reborn.)