epilogue
(The bar. Strephon, Alexis, Corydon and the Manager are silently drinking. On TV, Cloris presents the late night news. The body of Celia is fished out of a canal. )
Cloris (on TV)
After death nothing is, and nothing, death;
The utmost limit of a grasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear,
Nor be concerned which way or where
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring time swallows us whole;
Impartial death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
God's everlasting fiery jails
(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools).
With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales.
Dreams, whimsies, and no more. (John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 1647-1680)
Corydon (staring at the set)
Man is a watch, wound up at first, but never
Wound up again: once down, he's down for ever.
The watch once down, all motions then do cease;
And man's pulse stopp'd, all passions sleep in peace. (Robert Herrick, 1591-1674)
Strephon (gets up to switch it off)
This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere
And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
And though it sometimes seem of its own might
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light
But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,
For when 'tis most admired, in a thought,
Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought. (William Drummond of Hawthorden, 1585-1649)
Alexis
My comforts drop and melt away like snow:
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,
Which my fierce youth did bandie, fall and flow
Like leaves about me, or like summer friends,
Flyes of estates and sunne-shine. But to all,
Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking,
But in my prosecutions slack and small;
As a young exhalation, newly waking,
Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky;
But cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow,
And settling to a cloud, doth live and die
In that dark state of tears: to all, that so
Show me, and set me, I have one reply,
Which they that know the rest, know more than I. (George Herbert, 1593-1633)
15. Vertue
(Baritone)
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
(George Herbert, 1593-1633)
