Stephen: (Swaying) I don’t avoid
it. He provokes my intelligence.
Biddy the clap: One immediately
observes that he is of patrician lineage.
The virago: Green above the red, says
he. Wolfe Tone.
The bawd: The red’s as good as
the green. And better. Up the soldiers!
Up
King Edward!
A rough: (Laughs) Ay! Hands up
to De Wet.
May the God above
Send down a dove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throats
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY: (THE ROPENOOSE ROUND HIS NECK, GRIPES IN HIS ISSUING
BOWELS WITH BOTH HANDS)
I bear no hate to a living
thing,
But I love my country beyond
the king.
Rumbold, demon barber: (Accompanied
by two BLACKMASKED assistants, advances
with Gladstone bag which he
opens) Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by
Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin
dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains
in a sheet in the cellar, the unfortunate female’s
throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent
Seddon to the gallows.
(He jerks the rope. The
assistants leap at the victim’s
legs and drag him downward,
grunting the croppy boy’s
tongue protrudes violently.)
Horhot ho hray hor hother’s
hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A
violent erection of the hanged
sends GOUTS of sperm spouting
through his DEATHCLOTHES on to
the cobblestones. Mrs Bellingham,
Mrs Yelverton Barry and the
honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys
rush forward with their handkerchiefs
to sop it up.)
Rumbold: I’m near it myself. (He
undoes the noose) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As
applied to Her Royal Highness. (He plunges
his head into the gaping belly
of the hanged and draws out
his head again clotted with
coiled and smoking entrails) My
painful duty has now been done. God save the
king!
