{"id":6184,"date":"2020-07-16T12:12:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T12:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:19:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:19:40","slug":"benedict-arnold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/benedict-arnold\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedict Arnold"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\npre::first-letter { float: none !important; font-size: 100% !important; padding: none !important; font-family: \"Palatino Linotype\", \"Book Antiqua\", Palatino, serif; }\n<\/style>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n\r\na tragedy\r\n\r\nby Gregg Glory\r\n[Gregg G. Brown]\r\n\r\nPublished by BLAST PRESS\r\ncopyright 1988\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 1<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nCornwalis has overwhelmed our Gates\r\nIn South Carolina at Camden-town\r\nWhere the crepey willows hang their sad limbs\r\nIn liquid embraces that clasp the air\r\nIncestuous summer's sultry melting\r\nClots with riotous cries of our defeated. \r\nThis, and other engagements that went\r\nAgainst us begin to bind the free determination of our course\r\nAs with water that cannot choose its level\r\nBut drops indeterminately to the base\r\nThey that cannot see to steer their courses\r\nFunnel blindly to black ends.\r\nBut we are men, and do not flow unwillingly\r\nBut rather march our rivers to a sea\r\nOf our own devising. Hortatio Gates\r\nBeing the main hand of our forces south\r\nShould bear some load of blame for our flank's wounds\r\nThat were insufficiently defended.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nBut Gates is a good man.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nBut the gate was weak.\r\nAnd others have proved false before this.\r\nThis is the worst dark year of war\r\nCriminal monarchy has knighted on us yet.\r\nThe British boar gores our youthful state,\r\nAnd the foundling nation bleeds dangerously.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nEach honorable drop the unaccepting earth\r\nWill vomit up at warty faces\r\nAnd drown their fatal squeals in innumerable floods\r\nRained so fast dizzy sanity must think\r\nAll the weeping face of nature broke blood sobs\r\nTo gape on woeful corpses of Americans.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nIf things stand as they are, we stand defeated.\r\n\r\n\r\n[Enter Messenger\r\n<strong>MESSENGER<\/strong> \r\nSir, the British, in sharp ambition\r\nTo retain their sovereignty in these states\r\n(Which, by God, and by my blood, they shall not)\r\nHave cut the French fleet off at Brest,\r\nThe harbor of our hopes, with a deep blockade.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nIt seems dry powder has stopped up\r\nWhat otherwise would flow to our advantage.\r\n[Stuff missing...]\r\nEngland has bottled France's valor up\r\nAnd you would launch this tirade instead. \r\nRashness makes a gentleman look ill;\r\nIt spots him with the indecent cheek of youth\r\nHeated by inconstant purposes boiling all at once\r\nTo make intemperate kettles sing and pipe, \r\nFuelled by logs from his own wayward eye.\r\nYou have me at a disadvantage in our fencing\r\nThat I must sit by and seem to straddle it.\r\nCongress will have much to say of this.\r\nI shall not send a commendation yet,\r\nForced to the narrow end of our sharp argument\r\nBy outward circumstances. Be at peace--\r\nAnd know that I shall meditate in state\r\nOn this grave, vital matter. And I think\r\nEven our hissing Southern fires must wait\r\nTo be quenched in decision's cooler hour.\r\n\r\n[Exit all but he\r\nDiscord in these linen ranks does not suit;\r\nA more polished rupture in our debate\r\nWill make itself felt presently, I fear.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 2<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nWelcome, gentlemen, to all our royal roast.\r\nFeed on what your appetites have pleasure\r\nTo consume: piled tables, music's sweetest note,\r\nAnd ladies liberally dispersed\r\nTwitch skirts to the fiddler's cricketing.\r\nFormality is left tarrying past sundown.\r\nPut out your worries of these flashing times\r\nIn our pooled merriment which chills those heats.\r\nA shooting star is the only shot we'll fear.\r\nSo, men, summer's last dragonflies let's be:\r\nClip on fancy's wings and navigate these smiles\r\nThat tell of rustic silence in a booming mire.\r\nLadies, attach your sultry glows;\r\nFlit lithesome and into dark rushes blow.\r\n\r\n[Aside] We've had our country quiet ripped by war\r\nInstead of the fiddler's jumping saw.\r\nToo much death leaves pleasure at the door.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE <\/strong>\r\nCannons sometimes are veiled, and soldiers sleep.\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nTo dream on drums' martial melodies.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nPerhaps it is so, but while our joys can stir\r\nDrink up the entertainment you have poured\r\nAnd put on the evening's delightful gear\r\nThat must mask our more familiar faces.\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nMajor Andre, although you must visit\r\nSecretly, in deepest danger to your self\r\nAnd of your loyalty make some pretense\r\nAs might a spy, you've determined me to laugh.\r\nI'll speak no more of war. Fiddler, scratch!\r\n\r\n[Goes off\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nWhile my honesty must dissemble here\r\nI'll study out how to read these masquers' looks\r\nAnd trace tracks of deer in these confused woods;\r\nThere's one white hind whose heart leaps plain\r\nAnd in colonial marshes wears a crown.\r\nHis wife, obeying some royal cue, tips\r\nHer antlered wine glass and prepares\r\nTo hoof. But here walks a man among ranks\r\nMakes a solemn clowning of our license;\r\nDignity in motion, with shoulders to bear his crown;\r\nAmong the jumping minions of these woods\r\nHe bears a royal poise.\r\nWho is this stag that makes such noble browse\r\nAmong the rude reeds offered here?\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nArnold.\r\nPothead, leave off that lady's slipper\r\nUnless you'd have a flower trod on you.\r\n\r\n<strong>POTHEAD<\/strong> \r\n                  Aye, sir.\r\n[Aside] Although it'd be a pretty bruise would bloom.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nBenedict Arnold?\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\n                The same, He who bravely saved\r\nSaratoga from retribution's whip\r\nWith limping victory. ---Cullion, Scissors,\r\nFetch the rich broth and tar it on their hungers\r\nNeed makes misbehave. Mr. Andre,\r\nI must knock skulls or find no brains; pardon. [Goes\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong>\r\nPerhaps my secret purpose, burning low, has here\r\nFound some powder for its hidden light.\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nPeggy, lift a leg, and show these ladies\r\nHow to reel that never hopped before.\r\n\r\n<strong>CULLION<\/strong> \r\nAre women frogs to hop like that?\r\n\r\n<strong>POTHEAD<\/strong> \r\n                                    Hop-hop\r\nIs too lewd for frogs, but not too loose for maids.\r\n\r\n<strong>CULLION<\/strong> \r\nYou stuff ears rudely, salad-maker.\r\n\r\n<strong>POTHEAD<\/strong> \r\nThere's dancers behind the kitchen fires\r\nStomping on a flat spot. Cullion? \r\n\r\n<strong>CULLION<\/strong> \r\nI'll dance you to shards.         \r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nShe dances with the tempered grace of one\r\nThat never made immodest show before.\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nYou shall come to know my daughter hereafter.\r\n\r\n[Benedict and Peggy dancing\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nLet these soulful travelers quit travail\r\nOn your cold lips' firmament; restful earth,\r\nLet me stretch out my full measure on the ground\r\nAs final mortal toil all lies down to do\r\nEven to this last particle of desire.\r\nTaking the measure of my life's content,\r\nStir still contentment to disclose a love\r\nClose encamped in his stilted tent,\r\nReady as a pilgrim in the wilderness\r\nTo study out the flowers how they bloom\r\nOr how dull whippoorwills take punishment of rain,\r\nOr anything, or nothing, or any service give\r\nBeneath the starry barbs fixed in your glance.\r\nOn this grass field that tombs up men\r\nAnd builds no further monument of dust\r\nBut wild everlasting weeds I'll lie down\r\nAnd become myself some substance of the grass.\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nDaughter, daughter! Stand on ceremony\r\nAnd sing the saddest song you know to out-weep\r\nThese egregious wars.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nThe willow song.\r\n\r\n<strong>MRS BENEDICT ARNOLD<\/strong> \r\nIt goes against the gladness of the hour.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nNot while you have breath, or the song power\r\nTo enchant sadness, opposites must turn\r\nAs one divided face in a mirror meets\r\nItself; antinomies, reconcile.\r\n\r\n[Peggy, soon to be Mrs. Benedict Arnold, sings the Willow Song\r\n\r\n<strong>MRS BENEDICT ARNOLD<\/strong> \r\n[Aside] This weighty general treads a heavy slope;\r\nHard walks shorten the breath, yet invigorate\r\nThe breather--- so he takes his duties with this death---\r\nA heavy slope, but always tending upward \r\nTo a rarer air his appointment will survey.\r\nIf I tend him in this most grievous hour,\r\nMy fortunes with his merits will incline.\r\n\r\n[News of Benedict's wife's death is given to Benedict\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nSomeone whispers her death to him.\r\n\r\n<strong>WOMAN<\/strong> \r\n                        How does\r\nThe news adhere?\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\n                         Like some sad Pan of the woods\r\nForcing spring sighs from melancholy pipes\r\nHe makes some measure of polite delight\r\nBlow through the hollow of his sorrows\r\nAnd excuses himself from festive faces.\r\n\r\n<strong>WOMAN<\/strong> \r\nWistful already on a new continent\r\nGreater than the ocean for men to make\r\nDiscoveries on.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE <\/strong>\r\n                            These woods are already\r\nOld in blood, and familiar death will make\r\nThe strangest places home. Let's call ourselves\r\nPoor Arabs under wandering stars and moor our sorrows\r\nTo the nearest ditch. We've sunk a fen in heaven.\r\n\r\n[Exit Benedict\r\n\r\n<strong>FATHER<\/strong> \r\nAll good things must have their ends\r\nOr else in surfeit cease to please.\r\nGoodnight, and God bless the king!\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 3<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nThis is a bad way to growl the hours off.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nIt is unmannerly of me to drag\r\nOur nation's fatherhood into question.\r\nBut had we all so many fathers\r\nInheritance would grow old waiting\r\nFor their departures. Death's bounty granted,\r\nHalf a world would fall under coltish feet.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nWhat a mother to lie so foully seeded\r\nBy so many men it must change her hue\r\nFrom virgin white to heavy ripeness\r\ngreen apples aging against the frost\r\nThat splits the skin.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nWe must modify this\r\nTacky image that sticks unwanted\r\nIn the guileless minds of the people.\r\nPick another has not so many heads\r\nTo breed confusion with; one sterling man\r\nTo break this slavish earth from the tyrant's chains,\r\nStamp freedom on her rejoicing heart,\r\nAnd tie themselves like lovers in\r\nSilken bonds of holy matrimony.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nThat would save us.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nAnd make the country's sons\r\nJump to destroy their mother's naked foes\r\nWho, all unarmed against their laying on,\r\nThe weak wailing enemy they'll tear apart\r\nAs a bear a babe.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nGeorge Washington\r\nIs a man who may stand the test of this.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nHe has virile character enough.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nHe is Cato enough to make modest\r\nAny citizen.\r\n\r\n<strong>____: <\/strong>\r\nAnd the people love him for his wisdom.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nIs everyone agreed then? \r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nWashington!\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nWashington.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nNo one could elect a better father.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nWashington it is.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nThank you, gentlemen;\r\nWe are all well bred in this.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 4<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nWill the state have me for a general?\r\nI have deserved it before this, but redcoats\r\nLike the march of blood to a loving heart\r\nCarry my cause forward, past timid debates,\r\nTo a blushing estimation. You hold\r\nIn a commanding purview all my cause\r\nAnd, as a coursing eagle, have reared up\r\nOne equal in sinew to yourself\r\nTipped with wings to caress new heavens with.\r\ndiscern and decide, sir;\r\nAs a man, I will not buffet you from\r\nThe nest of our mutual resolution\r\nBut I may resign.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nSeal up your thoughts. Tomorrow\r\nFlies at us out of a boundless night\r\ninfinite in hopes, uncircumscribed\r\nBy today's pace, universal\r\nIn expectation, beyond scope in device,\r\nPast description, assignment or fixed state\r\nTo which at dusk it narrowly returns.\r\nThreat nothing, and train shrieking councils silent\r\nUntil this weaning cause bears some issue.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nWill the state have me for a general?\r\nI am not softly barbed to this extreme\r\nLike some tender babe crying at cold hands\r\nThat tender only its own fostering\r\nBut I must know. Will the state have me\r\nFor a general?\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\n                                I have no idea.\r\nI must shut myself up, priest-like,\r\nIn meditation until some crowd of thoughts\r\nClamorously emerge. From my chamber\r\nI'll then proceed with the curative\r\nFor these uncertain ill expectations\r\nThat have unhoused sleep from your breast\r\nAnd stalk night for comforts. Until then\r\nGo in the company of good thoughts\r\nAnd take what peace you can from this: \r\nmy love\r\nWhich, like a small warden following your thoughts,\r\nWalks with you in this indecisive hour.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nDo not let the public censure of my\r\nPrivate house weight anything in your\r\nFraught deliberations, sir.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\n                               I shall not.\r\nControversy could not so mar your wife\r\nThat I would not recognize her merits.\r\nI may have wooden teeth but not even\r\nAn oak leg could make me forget her dances.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nMay the night give you happy dreams, sir.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nThanks.\r\n\r\nMay my gracious wishes give you some cause\r\nTo rest. Dismissed, and good night.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nGoodnight, sir.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE 5<\/h2>\n<p>[Four skinners on the road]<\/p>\n<p><strong>FIRST SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nIs this the way into the fort the lady said?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SECOND SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nIn the way or out of it, either way is a safer way for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FIRST SKINNER <\/strong><br \/>\nHow safer?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SECOND SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nIf in the way, we&#8217;re on our way, and we should discover the fort, and that&#8217;s a safe place; there beg food, and that&#8217;s a safe thought for our bellies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>THIRD SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nIf our bellies could think.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SECOND SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nWhy what&#8217;s man but a thinking belly?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FIRST SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nAnd if out?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SECOND SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nThat&#8217;s safest. If out, we&#8217;re in ourselves, which is to say by ourselves, which is to count our four selves. And if for ourselves and by ourselves, then that&#8217;s a proof of choice, because of self-election. And its better to be choosers than to be beggars.<\/p>\n<p><strong>THIRD SKINNER<\/strong><br \/> <br \/>\nAy, and out of harm&#8217;s way as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SECOND SKINNER<\/strong><br \/> <br \/>\nAnd, if in the harming mood, out of the way of catching ears.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FOURTH SKINNER<\/strong><br \/>\nWait. A horse. Hide yourselves, you bellies, if you need necks.<\/p>\n<p>[Enter Major Andre<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 6<\/h2>\r\n\r\n[At Benedict's Wife's graveside]\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nQuiet, heart. Here is one has stored\r\nHer mellow contents in the earth. Quiet earth,\r\nThat such a mellowness would burst this confining dirt\r\nFallen on it! And like the repeating sea\r\nSurge to cover me and with blessing waters\r\nWash my guilts. All my dead grief lie\r\nCongealed in thee. Too-bruised a soul\r\nTo bear out her mortal term one more day.\r\nWhen you took breath, you breathed me in\r\nAnd, feeding the brief sustenance on which you fed,\r\nHeld me for a breathing moment consoled\r\nIn every breath, and banished with the last.\r\nExpelled into a harming world, all wounds,\r\nAnd this the worst. What made these small ones,\r\nInspired their dust or molded their forms\r\nFrom nothingness, what set the skipping creatures up to\r\nKick, weep, damage, sing, race, trip\r\nAnd make all manner of motions on this\r\nPocky flat of weeds and mud? What gods play\r\nWith us so that our shadows throw a pattern\r\nThat makes hearts break? O to wive the earth\r\nIs better than marrying shadows.\r\nSo you this inanimate steadfastness wed\r\nAnd be content. There's material to shift\r\nInto a dying memorial for thee.,\r\nThere's ivy glosses the weak side of the hill,\r\nAnd a blood-touched cowslip advantages the root\r\nUnder a guarding tree's solemn nod--\r\nAnd here's a peck of bruised violets\r\nNature's quiet weep may keep fresh.\r\n\r\n[Enter Andre\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nHere comes one will give my ambitions\r\nWeight to lever the barricaded world with yet\r\nAnd pluck it from its setting. \r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\n                                             Mr. Arnold!\r\nI have had letters of you of late, sir.\r\nShall we unfold their contents in this\r\nWindy place? The bed-moans of ghosts make me unquiet,\r\nAnd many shelved here have died of the pox.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nFor the least sick inflicted me, I stand\r\nReady to ill the world with maladies.\r\nThese inmates of the earth will understand\r\nThe business between us better than most\r\nThat caper naughtily above.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\n                                            The price\r\nLast given in our correspondence suits\r\nHis majesty, General Arnold.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nThanks, sir.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nDo you accept these terms, sir? They are yours.\r\nThe commission is affixed by lawful\r\nSignatures in every degree required. [Holding paper\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nA bloody hand upholds it, and an impatient vengeance\r\nUrges me to it! The subtlest wrongs\r\nHave I undertaken to prosecute. Dead crimes\r\nMoldering forgetful ages in the crypt\r\nDemand witnessing airs; I'll unpack them\r\nAnd render the impaled, drained corpses up\r\nTo the forgiveless justice these times impose.\r\nBut I have more recent instances\r\nTo prick me into action. Pale Washington,\r\nWhose stiff demeanor showed him a boy\r\nIn his father's boots, prating in a voice\r\nMore fit for Christmas caroling than these\r\nAugust hours, has refused my due promotion\r\nAmong the motley rebels.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 7<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nContinent Liberty! Blasphemous child\r\nWhose maternal love curdles in your teeth\r\nAs though the very hour of your conceit had soured,\r\nDie on this rock of tribulations with my curse\r\nTo salt your sweet breath of youth.\r\nWhat chainless father, deep in thought\r\nupon this present brink and brood of time\r\nwould shed one precious drop for pity's sake\r\non this old infant famished winds have sucked\r\nempty of moist life? Its fist of face turns mummy-looks\r\nto the patient mother gasping down her tongue.\r\nWhat man would claim the irreconcilable absurdity\r\nof so puling and morose a babe\r\nThat has not his presence in its features\r\nAnywhere, no habitual grimace\r\nOr thoughtful look, or any other sign\r\nOf the slightest lending of his blood?\r\nStand that man before me, if he lives,\r\nWho can love such a one as this---\r\nSprawling, unconnected and like to die---\r\nAnd I'll make such yeasty homage to his paternal gore\r\nAs will feed a teeming wilderness of orphans\r\nNurse the bitterest pebbles to airy peaks\r\nPlay uncle to the wily crocodile\r\nHold all-hated basilisks for sons\r\nDeclare strange fish for grandsons, never eat\r\nOf anything possessed of eyes again\r\nAnd name a father for every drop of rain.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 8<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nThese slim letters give much base for great fear,\r\nAs much, indeed, as if they stood rampart\r\nAgainst the unbearable ocean. My fear,\r\nGod save us gentlemen, builds much on them\r\nAnd sees the whetted sword of treachery\r\nRise from coils of fog too-late burnt away\r\nBy this papery light. Over us treason's blade\r\nHangs from a thread as slender as was\r\nOur hope to escape hanging, gagged and cauled.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nWhat is in paper to make us shake so?\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nThe blackest ink that ever poured\r\nFrom a treacherous heart.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\n                                          Treason!\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nBlack words to a loyal ear.\r\n\r\n[Wash. reads aloud the price agreed to, \r\nwhen and where first treachery to take\r\nplace, at west point]\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\n                                            Blacker still.\r\n[aside] I fear this charge of thoughts\r\nMay unseat his gallant reason\r\nRidden so hard upon. To see this\r\nSafire of his eye that he prized so much\r\nCast in the mud. Reason thus cast down\r\nWhat skeleton or scarecrow fear, tremor-stuffed,\r\nWill sit enthroned in his usurped crown?\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nCold, my heart, now that all your blood has left you?\r\nThe bleeding time's unstopped, and far must race\r\nThe most precious element the cistern\r\nOf our state had cradled-- until the gripping ground\r\nRip open and crush it darkly to its breast.\r\nWhat wrong word struck him from our chambers,\r\nOutpacing fear to fence a globed ambition\r\nIn the circuit of a crown? Did we scourge\r\nOur hero of Saratoga from us?\r\nHave I mistaked myself? To hold a man\r\nProperly in discernment, to neither\r\nIncrease his credits at too dear a cost\r\nTo the creditor, nor to hold him a purse\r\nPrematurely empty, discarding what\r\nMay pay a future debt, is wisdom's trick.\r\nIt seems I have lost gold in this business,\r\nFumble-fingered in early mock of my\r\nWitless age, still all unhatched before me.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nWho has hands enough to catch all the dropping\r\nSorrows of our state?\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\n                                    Still be still. He is\r\nStill in the rapture of his puzzlement.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nIt's lost; it's lost. Our cause\r\nUndoes itself. With this grave loss, all that's\r\nBright becomes confused, and a smoky film\r\nDulls all our polished reasons to one dim;\r\nAnd honor's high name is beaten down.\r\nThe absolute model of fierce virtue\r\nCracked from our estimation, falls splintering\r\nManly sorrow and war's  roaring griefs\r\nTo flooded tears that overwhelm our breasts' basin\r\nOnce so full of hopes to baptize ant with grief\r\nWhose tiny hearts great nature never taught\r\nTo that sad purpose.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\n                                    This is not a grief\r\nSupports our purpose; justice leaves us\r\nIf we infect the least. Therefore, proud men,\r\nDespise this traitor who abandons hope\r\nFor the small prosperities of the minute.\r\nGod floods the sickly flea with perpetual\r\nRenewal of its blood; so much more shall we\r\nFind medicine to prop our valors up\r\nIn this bountiful land. Let's look to us\r\nTo remedy these debilitating griefs\r\nUnwarranted disaster prompts into our eyes\r\nAnd dryly try some healing action\r\nThat'll cut the killing cancer from us\r\nAnd toss it blackly in a surgeon's basin.\r\nNoosing thus foulness to it pit, this snip\r\nYanks us, pulley-like, to blind justice's\r\nEquilibrium.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nWe stand at the point\r\nOf this deeply ravined matter which may fall out\r\nTo either side.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\n                       Slight starts have great effects.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nThen let us start.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\n                              He holds towards the fort.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nWe follow first who shall lead him later.\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\nIt is a most unlikely daisy-chain\r\nWhere causes fly barking after loosed effects.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nThis dog has changed his master.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\nLive, justice!\r\n\r\n<strong>ADAMS<\/strong> \r\n                        If Benedict die, it shall.\r\n\r\n<strong>LAFAYETTE<\/strong> \r\n                                                          Live, justice!\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nThe horses stand prepared, and wait by the post.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nNow that the operation's upon us,\r\nLet us feel nothing, and act as men.\r\n\r\n[Exuent\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h1>SCENE 9<\/h1>\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nA dangerous silence infects his tongue\r\nWho should speak plain truth, carry victory\r\nOn winged speeches, and subvert defeat\r\nWith heavy damnations thundering down\r\nThe most buoyant enemy. What canker\r\nShifts his emphasis from plush can and must\r\nTo lisping cautious coulds and sighing shoulds?\r\nWhat ocean of doubts in his mouth has drowned\r\nHis fighting spirit? That such a bravery,\r\nCorroded to a speechless face of rust\r\nPuts tin ears on to frustrate [muffle] other's pleas\r\nThat still richly ring his former note [out loud]\r\nMocks love's gold syllable.\r\n\r\n[Enter Washington]  Quiet! Dead steps\r\nEcho after us.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nMr. Hamilton,\r\nI shall not grant your wish this day.\r\n...\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nAre these alphabets worthless that you grant\r\nMy letters nothing?\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nI have thought it out.\r\nI cannot sustain your current loss\r\nFrom this office. You knot the cords of revolt\r\nTo this controlling post, and keep strict leash\r\nOn blooded hounds which, following too close\r\nOn boorish hooves in the heated chase,\r\nWould nose themselves to slaughterhouse hooks.\r\nThat knot I dare not let slip to looser ends;\r\nBut must keep my tight designs circumscribed\r\nWithin the pre-dated orbit of success.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nLeadership reads men, not stars, sir.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\n                             Alex,\r\nTake this: my good will, from me, and be dismissed.\r\nI'll call upon you presently.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nAye, sir.\r\n\r\n[Exit Washington\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 10<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nWhere did you spy out dead Andre's death\r\nTo carry back this sad report to me\r\nTo break my eyes with your tragic witness?\r\n\r\n<strong>MESSENGER<\/strong> \r\nFrom the crowd. It is a story shortly told.\r\nThat taught one how to weep for nobleness  [Andre in cell sentence here\r\nThat never cried before. Hamilton's final plea,\r\nStopped by great Washington unflinchingly,\r\nThat the man be proudly shot to his face\r\nInstead of hung like a spying dog,\r\nArrived at a late and useless hour;\r\nAnd Washington, praying for ignorance\r\nTo support fortitude better than resolve,\r\nLet him languish in hope. The gentleman\r\nAscending the scaffold at crooked dawn,\r\nLet nothing of fear touch his noble looks\r\nBut bore all patiently, until the taunting crowd\r\nTaunted itself to silence, and then\r\nForgave his murderer's hands before they struck.\r\nBut when the pressing moment was upon him,\r\nDistasteful of the executioner's vile grease,\r\nCried out: \"Black hands, off!\"\r\nAnd sweetened the thin rope around his neck\r\nTo smooth his own way to death. Sorrow sweated\r\nFrom us below, that the baleful sun should glare\r\nOn a sight so pitiless. He swung too long\r\nKicking in the evil heaving air\r\nTill stranger hands helped press his case\r\nTo a choked end.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nIt's said death's a great corrupter of things,\r\nRobs men of their looks and makes all smiles hang\r\nFrom one jaw; the contrary sexes are mixed\r\nIn death's crucible, and in hell all's stirred\r\nIndifferent alike. Death sweetens a little partridge\r\nThat's left a-hanging, left too raw by life.\r\nHere's one dissolved to a simple skull\r\nStares from its breaking handful of bones.\r\nA feather's stir\r\nIndicates the meter of life still ticks\r\nIts pulsed spur with indifferent vanity\r\nTowards an undiscovered conclusion.\r\nSome worm is in him that yet eats his breath.\r\nEvils do die when their prosecutors perish.\r\nWhere the maps end, there ends England. Not before.\r\nWith the royal fabric stretched out so,\r\nWe'll snip the lists\r\nAnd trim ambition back from its massy sprawl.\r\nThere is no martyrs in our woods, who for this\r\nGhostly union still unprecipitate\r\nWill surrender up to heaven in a breath \r\nTheir moist souls. \r\nSalve, salve!\r\nMy conscience burns! Sweeten this wound a little\r\nWith healing oils. It was left too much alone\r\nAnd began to rot.\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 11<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>\r\nWhen I see my love\r\nSome acuity in my blood, unrepentant still,\r\nShakes this house of bones almost to death;\r\nFlesh unclasps its shape, good meat from the sticking ribs\r\nLightly falls-- and all that in some portion\r\nAdded to this man to make his body up\r\nRetract their actions. Not one stands with him.\r\nNo                  or conjured ghost\r\nFostered by the blood within this quaking vessel\r\nNor sempiternal spirit more real than brass\r\nFlashes forth on this moment's dark haunting.\r\nProbing lights through the dim forest come\r\nAnd the stately elm and oak, made ghastly\r\nCast cold apparitions against our hearts. I ran,\r\nBut the sudden presence of the light\r\nCast after me its searching fingers in the dark\r\nDistorting what bright day made plain, so that\r\nFurled shadows opened and hung empty in the air.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 12<\/h2>\r\n\r\n[On the Hudson River\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nMen, that have rowed half over\r\nThis watercourse, join with me and the king\r\nTo teach this upstart nation to better learn\r\nTheir duties to their betters and the state;\r\nThey cry 'freed!' that were never bound, salute boys\r\nWho mock their royal parentage out of house,\r\nAnd declaim against a sinless king\r\nIts grammar and its graces. Speak, lads,\r\nWhose tongues were corked with enforced oaths.\r\nWill you come to me, England, and reward?\r\n\r\n<strong>FIRST SAILOR<\/strong> \r\nOne coat serves my turn well enough.\r\n\r\n<strong>SECOND SAILOR <\/strong>\r\nPerhaps we'll have to let it at the neck.\r\n\r\n<strong>FIRST SAILOR<\/strong> \r\nSo long as no foreign leash can make me speak\r\nAgainst myself, I am content.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nNot one of you for promotion, stern coin,\r\nAnd the king? Poor farmers may find some use\r\nFor a headless body stuffed with paper\r\nTo augur against crows, but men cannot.\r\nWhat is this feather to beat back British lead?\r\nRow on, lost sons, into the middle distance\r\nOf the lapping Hudson.\r\n\r\n<strong>BRITISH COMMANDER<\/strong> \r\nHoist up; gaff them!\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nGood, sir; these men are your prisoners\r\nThat pulled me, like a drowning lark,\r\nFrom the snickering jaws of an American fox\r\nRabid with its last victim.\r\n\r\n<strong>BRITISH COMMANDER <\/strong>\r\nSecure them\r\nIn the pitchy hold. For your comfort, sir,\r\nWe're straight for Hitchings in New York.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 13<\/h2>\r\n\r\n[West Point\r\n\r\n<strong>FIRST SOLDIER<\/strong>\r\nIt seems a lean defense.\r\n\r\n<strong>SECOND SOLDIER<\/strong> \r\nWe cut it from a calf\r\nStaked to feed a royal appetite\r\nFor weak veal.\r\n\r\n<strong>FIRST SOLDIER<\/strong> \r\nWe are too ready to lose\r\nThe teeth of our defense. A broken picket\r\nSmiles southward, and there by the molded canon\r\nAnd wet fuel, the captain's dog trots through it\r\nFor his bacon at the fire. O it's\r\nAn airy ward stops winded cherubim\r\nAnd no rat else.\r\n\r\n<strong>SECOND SOLDIER<\/strong> \r\nSilence, I see a man\r\nFestooned with generalship marching up\r\nWho's not our thin minister whipping hence\r\nFlailed by some impertinence in his blood\r\nTo scourge us to our duty.\r\n\r\n<strong>FIRST SOLDIER<\/strong> \r\n[enter Washington]   Sir!\r\n\r\n<strong>SECOND SOLDIER <\/strong>\r\nSir!\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 14<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nTo come on an enemy in the wilderness\r\nDefines bewilderment.\r\nO excellent Andre, though you death's quietus keep\r\nYour boot speaks my death. What will next cry out\r\nFor drenching revenge? Indifferent nature\r\nPuts on accusing looks, great trees scowl down\r\nAnd wronged rivers overwhelm their banks with blood\r\nSeeking to break me liquidly into\r\nThe general woe. Stop your welling mouths\r\nBloated arteries of the live world's heart,\r\nThat foul blood may not stain your cheeks of innocence!\r\nFouled with blood. Do not stain those green cheeks\r\nOf innocence! Matronly nature herself parted pursed\r\nShouts for a traitor's blood with her wounds.\r\nAnd mothers instantly their infants disembowel\r\nIf in their crying time, drop signifying dews\r\nFrom eyes that did their future life contain\r\nEncompassing guilty acts weeping manhood\r\nGrows to perform, dew-nourished at the root,\r\nUntil a mighty traitor's bloody orchard\r\nBears black fruit forth. What element\r\nWill not shout against it? Speak, stones!\r\nThere's solid hatreds in you;\r\nAnd stern-faced hatred may be returned, like for like,\r\nWould you broach this raging flesh with timid gags?\r\nSooner would the executed leaves\r\nRush up to weight winter branches down, or false day\r\nCast man's shadow backwards into the sun\r\nThan true hatred be separated from its object.\r\nOur animosities cleave to us like sons\r\nThat grow to hate us for our past defaults.\r\nNature opposing nature, we two\r\nTitans will grapple at the earth's stone root\r\nTo provoke a universal chaos\r\nThat makes mountains moan, and the pinched sky\r\nDescry against these red violence until,\r\nRock-like, one lies down and dies. So will I\r\nOverturn this time's natural course\r\n...\r\nPreternatural cold, this killing heat,\r\nAll this inconstant, unnatural weather\r\nHas tolled men and flowers down in equal numbers;\r\nDislodged the heads of innocents in a rain of blood\r\n...\r\nThese unnatural heats oppress a man\r\nYearning to breathe free. Vegetation\r\nBursts its flourishing colors like a drunk\r\nFiery juices set roaring in the dark--\r\nBattering daylight objects with as fierce\r\nA scorning spirit and ten mens' strength\r\nAs blinded Cyclopes\r\nyeowling Ulysses to the sea.\r\n\r\n[to some group, Brit soldiers(?)]\r\nThis elixir will uphold your doubtful bloods\r\nAgainst charms adverse and curses magical\r\nBolt cannons in your glance, whose wounding loves\r\nShatter my heart. Such fires stir there now\r\nThat would topple Troy again with their lashing sparks\r\nAnd call from her harlot's lodgings out of bed\r\nDark Helen to her reckoning before\r\nKind Greece's mild forgiving princes\r\nWho would pay the devil's pension\r\nFor his forty years of effort with a pitchfork.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 15<\/h2>\r\n\r\n[The Mad scene, 4th act pathos\r\n\r\n<strong>MRS BENEDICT ARNOLD<\/strong> \r\nMartha, can you not take cold tongs and pluck\r\nThis blazing iron from my head? Dear God\r\nTeach some one of your creatures to act pity:\r\nEven if it is only a docile doe, whose hoof\r\nBrains it from me damagingly, or a mouse\r\nWhose small eye, even though no more\r\nThan a moist berry in the corner\r\nBut shows some drop of pity as I die,\r\nI'll die comforted. Ah, ah, the transparent pain\r\nBurns my wits away, and I am left\r\nConfronted with visions. Wild orisons\r\nWhose surmise uninjured wits may make out\r\nWith lenses undimmed by smoke\r\nForetell injuries with images\r\nThat ghost truth forth. This man's come\r\nTo steal the laughing goodness of my pure child\r\nTo some killing block, whose flaws,\r\nNow all filled up with blood,\r\nOpen thirsty wounds again that gasp\r\nFor some oily balm to close them up again\r\necholess as graves. For the sweet closed cordial\r\nOf my child's life, they gasp. Such essence,\r\nIndiscriminately poured, heals the world.\r\nPrecious beyond belief, my rapt child\r\nForgive your mother's lunacy; she bought truth\r\nWith the furious coinage of her burning brain\r\nAnd thus dissolves to ruins. Smoke, smoke,\r\nBoil out your impure entrails, so I get some light\r\nTo view my wretchedness; my impure self\r\nIs almost entirely gone. Your dear father,\r\nUniversally reviled, will crawl the globe\r\nTo inching death, and creep quiet down\r\nAll unhallowed to a markless grave.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nShe does deeply wrong herself. Some tempest\r\nHas spilled her sanity past its bounds,\r\nOverfull...\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nI take it ill;\r\nThese corrupt imaginings smell of truer woe.\r\n\r\n<strong>HAMILTON<\/strong> \r\nO her forging brain casts mad shadows on us all.\r\nAnd madness has a power to pour out such images\r\nAs will make a spider weep.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 16<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nIf I could regain the native virtue\r\nOf my lineaments, add leg to leg again\r\nAnd rise to my accustomed height once more\r\nThen this limber body would be base enough\r\nTo vault the starry gates of fame, writ large\r\nIn the fiery pages of the sky\r\nNo hurricanes of chaos could erase.\r\nThe day spills out. I would dance the time away\r\nBut am lamely played to play out other tricks.\r\n\r\n...\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nDo you join victory.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nI join a fault in nature these tinkerers\r\nOf belling liberty cannot mend.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nLet us commence an act that will take off\r\nThe head of grief that cries these times awry.\r\nA grizzly mane stiff with blood looms above\r\nSleepless rings under pale festering looks\r\nNodding dark affirmations to vilest thoughts\r\nThe skull of man ever clasped within. Worms\r\nHave eaten out the eye of judgment\r\nThat rested there; discernment by these acid times\r\nIs all dissolved away. Strike the vitals\r\nOf this lizard death and, as with an angel's\r\nMinistering sword, burn the socket clean.\r\nThus much of a doctor may a soldier be.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nYour words stir new bloods in me that disturb\r\nSettled causes and stony truths long-held\r\nSince the credulity of childhood\r\nPropped my eyes wide. And for my new child\r\nThis world, fire-lit with war and stories\r\nOf war, must put off catastrophe's dead look\r\nAnd assume [resume] its former virtue, wood by wood.\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nWood by wood, we must pursue the fight.\r\nThe lark's high spirit casts a contagious eye\r\nOver the sorriest mule that ever paced its slow way\r\nTo unlikely death, to make it dance.\r\nWhen our resolution into dullards' ears\r\nDarts, then mules shall dance, and take head, and start\r\nAnd every croaking revolutionist\r\nJoin a royal choir.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>   \r\nYou hit a rich note\r\nThat makes my exalted spirit begin to chafe\r\nAt rebel strictures, heavily laid on.\r\nAre they God's anointed to dispose\r\nOf my several talents with one roared No?\r\nThe washing mob may break huge stones at my feet\r\nUntil eternity dims, and their angry sighs\r\nDisappointed sighs at last fall down\r\nIn cracked earth's foundations laid\r\nLike so many birds robbed of their song\r\nBefore I'll dissolve into their\r\nOcean of souls. Eliminating Death\r\nCould not nullify individual spirit\r\nMore than that blank anonymity.\r\n\r\n[Could not with its sleeping scythe nullify\r\nIndividual spirit more than that \r\nBlank anonymity.]\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nShould this herd of tax-cheats, stampeding fate\r\nTo magnify their base estates in this\r\nGrave matter, gain all the best and my child\r\nNothing at all?\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nPoor sensate thing,\r\nTo take the breathing impulse from a father\r\nDeserving more in though and consequence\r\nThan this startled nation, all wobble-legged,\r\nDropped bastardly from lowing Liberty.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>   \r\nAn infant hydra, milked on rebellion,\r\nTo rise to hissing victory in mother's blood?\r\nDamned abortion, that lifts its unfinished shape\r\nTo bawl the devil's accusations in\r\nHer face, return to the womb and sew up\r\nYour premature pangs with gentle growth\r\nSo when next your tottering independence\r\nYou declare, similar fond looks\r\nWill beam down on a mannered child to help\r\nIts infant steps' solitary tread.\r\n\r\nCannot a man cup the sun in his eye\r\nAnd conquer it by blinking? High moments make men proud\r\nTo build to those epiphanies out of stocks.\r\nThese grievous injuries, connected\r\nWith a base ambition to be great\r\n...\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 17<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>MRS BENEDICT ARNOLD <\/strong>\r\nHusband, though you prepare a plan of blood,\r\nDraw peaceful melting looks like modest cloths\r\nSoftly round your warlike visage, more grim than\r\nJove's contentious heats which rend heaven's peace\r\nAnd break rocks in simplest expression.\r\nas when unformed infants in surprise mouth \"O!\"\r\nYou dismembering looks in rude appraisal\r\nFlat opposing mountains,___\r\nSuck the nodding crests from ambitious waves,\r\nCut the lusty growth of vile anxious weeds\r\nAnd stop up the natural flow of breath\r\nThat emanates from man. Composite totem\r\nOf all fears, your living words draw graves and tears\r\nUnbidden from the peaceful earth.\r\nTo preserve your countenance against this\r\nPruning time, put on shielded bloods. Prepare\r\nLooks of adamant and a brow of stone, turn\r\nSuch a paleness to the world as will turn shears.\r\nPull over your spontaneous face, which shows\r\nThe least effect of bloods with red alarm\r\nThis mask of paleness and lack of heart\r\nSo arctic deep that lively eyes, sheltered\r\nUnder ice-pale cliffs, betray nothing of your sense\r\nAnd cast cold fire on the ambling nothing beneath.\r\n[on B's love for England]\r\nDislikes are usually petty, loves profound.\r\nAn angry man is all in the moment\r\nConcentrated, all his scattered fury\r\nDwindled to a panting second's Yes or No.\r\nDo not dwindle to an instant's rash act.\r\nLet sedate pity quell your breast,\r\nInjecting action with some placid drop of care\r\nTo instill silent thought in the loudest hour\r\nThe roaring voice of fury can fill out.\r\nTake these soft words softly from me still.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>  \r\nLove,\r\n\r\n<strong>MRS BENEDICT ARNOLD <\/strong>\r\nBeing much in love, he is much dissuaded\r\nOf this war's virtue against its mother state.\r\nThe rebellious child must bite the mother's\r\nFountain pap and dry the succor that would soothe the woe\r\nOf outrageous actions born in a wrathful breast\r\nThat, all out of color\r\nIn its new-found foundling solitude\r\nBerates the stones for heartlessness\r\nAnd starts ungentle wars against the skies\r\nFor proving dry of mercy and comfortless.\r\nBut no chilling brand is he\r\nWhose flame extinguishes into slender smoke\r\nRemoved from the warm burning of the hearth\r\nThat tended his fearful spark to a declaiming fire\r\nThat spoke well of the father embers of his origins\r\nAnd grew rosy as the healthful sun\r\nIn the still rising jets of their old flames.  [unceasing jets]\r\nDutiful boy, he has brought his bouquet home\r\nTo a mother's watering hands, a father's caress;\r\nDue reward for his glory in the field.\r\nThat which nature holds in dreadful sequestration\r\nUnpalatable secrets, more somber than loved affairs\r\nShut from bald reasons prying eye\r\nAnd with hoarded dread ceremony made great\r\nBeyond the open capacity of its locked strength\r\nAs an untold nightmare will breed day-dragons\r\nBefore many days after the mournful child\r\nFirst started from his bed, so too\r\nIs this trick of treason, which once made plain\r\nIs a loyal toy with which even dogs may play\r\nAnd not bark and back away with guilty looks.\r\nThis trick treason is a most palatable device---\r\nAn ornament to my soul's wide estate\r\nWhich in its offices is like a tree\r\nWhose tap root touches the foundation stone\r\nOf the deep weeping rivers of the earth\r\nAnd there sucks such dark nutrition up as will spur\r\nSap into these branches, well arrayed,\r\nAnd enlarged by careful thought as to their duties\r\nThat sit kingly in the sun. This ornament,\r\nSharp to its purpose, and placed to its perfection\r\nOn the swaying top of the Christmas tree!\r\nSo do these branchy arms of my intents\r\nSpread withering shade above my enemies\r\nAnd gather up my loves and those principle\r\nTo my ambitious thought's success and true affections\r\nIn one sweep casting both comfort and distress.\r\nThat tree is England's empire, not some\r\nUpstart stock that tenderly clings\r\nTo the merest rock, but a mighty, tall,\r\nAnd all-compelling oak that surmounts\r\nThe hill o the world. And I, in my white treachery,\r\nAm cut from this new, unnursed, tender slug,\r\nThis milkless bud that tears from the gangling rock\r\n---O weaker than a babe emptied of its blood!---\r\nAnd am grafted to that root.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 18<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>   \r\n[of Mrs. B?] How can you, o cruel gods,\r\nThis incorporeal spirit take and bind it\r\nThus damagingly in the body's glass house?\r\nWhat whisper of reason upholds your airy whims?\r\nThe body in its bottle may drop with age\r\nAnd end itself shatteringly, or let\r\nThe slow work of beetles strip it piecemeal\r\nTo naked death.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 19<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>MRS BENEDICT ARNOLD <\/strong>\r\nConstance, go and gather up\r\nYour master's traveling necessities\r\nAnd assemble all here.\r\n\r\n[exit Constance\r\n                        The hope of life\r\nRides upon these measures. Other action\r\nOr tension's inactivity might tighten him\r\nPast his valor's breaking. A ban's as good as his bones,\r\nBut bones do break. Silence must attend this crying hour\r\nOr else all will lay revealed, and the sky\r\nWail for its bloody cup of justice---\r\nFor every creeping creature in nature knows\r\nTreason's an abhorred thing.\r\n\r\n[Enter Constance, with provisions\r\n                             Thank you, Constance.\r\nYou do better duty to man. who's one illness\r\nDeath is, than you can know.\r\n\r\n<strong>CONSTANCE<\/strong> \r\nGrace take you, ma'am.\r\n\r\n[Knock at the door\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nWhere's your lady, ma'am?\r\n\r\n<strong>CONSTANCE<\/strong> \r\nLaid sick in bed, sir,\r\nAnd will not stir.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nSteal into her presence quietly\r\nAnd give her our healthful wishes.\r\n\r\n<strong>CONSTANCE<\/strong> \r\nYes, sir.\r\n\r\n<strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong> \r\nIs there any breakfast for these cold patriots\r\nTired with long riding?\r\n\r\n<strong>CONSTANCE<\/strong> \r\nWarming in the kitchen\r\n\r\n[short list of breakfast items]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>SCENE 20<\/h2>\r\n\r\n[Benedict on Battlefield as British General]\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>   \r\nDrag the abject prisoner forward, sir,\r\nTo let his fates engulf him.\r\n\r\n[Enter prisoner, with flag\r\n                         American,\r\nYou are bound to the hour of your death\r\nBeyond the alteration of pleading mouths\r\nSo speak the truth. How am I perceived\r\nBy my former countrymen?\r\n\r\n<strong>AMERICAN<\/strong> \r\nI see the rope\r\nBeing readied against the jaced spruce\r\nAnd shall speak my mind before it departs\r\nMy trunk.\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>   \r\nSay on, say on.\r\n\r\n<strong>AMERICAN<\/strong>  \r\nGeneral Opinion\r\nHas you a monster, a pale worm\r\nOf your mother's and her brother's bed.\r\nAnd when she was too much charged with the\r\nResentful pus of your sullen babydom\r\nWith wicked cabal knives she tricked you out.\r\nWhereon, you stood, a babe still regal\r\nIn his own mother's blood, who new-lunged shouts\r\n\"I am Judas Iscariot, come back\r\nTo damn an innocent nation, if I can.\"\r\nSo much is said, and worse believed.\r\nWith this as index, the charade of honor\r\nYou have these past two-score years perpetrated\r\nIs laid as open as a raw skinned hare.\r\nSo much is said. And it's promised that your leg,\r\nShattered at Saratoga, we'll bury\r\nAnd hang the rebel (filthy) rest.\r\n\r\n[Throws flag in Benedict's face\r\n\r\n<strong>BENEDICT<\/strong>   \r\nBury the leg, bury the leg\r\nAnd hang the engine that drove it? Corporals,\r\nDrag the dead here. \r\n\r\n[Exit prisoner &Co.\r\nFace the judgment of the dead, damned Washington,\r\nAs I these living lashes must forbear\r\nThat more than cut my more than sinning flesh\r\nTo harrow out of hiding this howling soul\r\nThat afflicts me. I'll arrange these slain ones\r\nAll arraigned in gory robes of blood\r\nAnd set their cadaverous wisdoms over him\r\nTo condemn his sutured testimony\r\nSewn from old rags of homey truth\r\nInto this motley American.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>EPILOGUE<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>MAJOR ANDRE<\/strong> \r\nIn the torn house of contemporanity\r\nDull, fitful plays drag and start across the stage\r\nAs like a play as is a surgeon's map to man:\r\nPacked with dry, expository words\r\nThat bleed nothing, nor rend themselves, nor laugh,\r\nAt the rich mystery of a discovered action\r\nOr apt comparison appareled in a rhyme.\r\nAnd so, to patch our playing with the critic's\r\nAttentive needle, we must first amend\r\nThe base material with which we may begin.\r\nSilks, then, for sails to take us high and far,\r\nAnd leave the burlap for the butchers of good words,\r\nGlum comedians of a farce other wits began.\r\nHaving studied my false part\r\nWith diligence fit for an infant art\r\nThat rages a mere moment and is gone\r\nI ask you, elders, to learn your bit\r\nAnd entertain yourselves as befits your years---\r\nFor, as the magic dark of love allows,\r\nWhich, in this spotted theatre we may half sustain,\r\nTo erase our faults and increase your youthful powers\r\nEach clap will grow you backwards by an hour.\r\nSo strain, and clap, until you reach\r\nThe lying cradle of some honest sleep.\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>a tragedy by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown] Published by BLAST PRESS copyright 1988 SCENE 1 HAMILTON Cornwalis has overwhelmed our Gates In South Carolina at Camden-town Where the crepey willows hang their sad limbs In liquid embraces that clasp the air Incestuous summer&#8217;s sultry melting Clots with riotous cries of our defeated. This, and <a href='https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/benedict-arnold\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1740,1761],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plays","category-benedict-arnold","category-1740-id","category-1761-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7355,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions\/7355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}