Much of his personal behavior he modelled after his namesakeLouis XIV of France, the Sun King. In homage, Ludwig saw himselfas the Moon King, often exchanging his days for nights, andfrequently dressing up as the French monarch. Ludwig's last palace,Herrenchiemsee, unfinished at his death, was a version of Versailles;Ludwig's Hall of Mirrors was even more splendid than its prototypein France.
Ludwig was hom*osexual, and agonizingly so. I place his sexualityat the core of his nature, explaining much of his behavior by it. Hisagonizing was unrelenting, and assumed the classic pattern of theguilt-ridden man who succumbs to his predilections, enjoys themand then loathes and berates himself afterwards, calling upon God,or whatever forces of strength he can summon to keep from fallingagain. Though they exist only in mutilated transcripts, doctoredapparently by the men who dethroned him, his journals arereportedly filled with evidence of a struggle that would have driven lesser mortals to suicide. I see Ludwig as an eccentric genius whose ideas were ahead of his time. What nineteenth-century monarch soresisted war and the greed and bloodshed spawned by it? Or whatmonarch had the vision and the intelligence to try to realize, via hisfantastic palaces and castles, ideas for a society of the future, ideas heexplored with Wagner?
Poetry as biography and history is a specialty of mine. My first useof the mode was in two books on the life of Ann Lee, the English"female Christ" who founded the Shaker religion in America: TheGift to be Simple: A Garland for Ann Lee (Liveright, 1975) andShaker Light, to be published in 1986 by the Unicorn Press. Other"voice" books include: Hawker (Unicorn, 1984), over a hundredpoems in the voice of the eccentric Cornish vicar Robert StephenHawker, who was obsessed with dredging drowned sailors from thesea and burying them in his churchyard. He was also a poet, lovedhaving animals attend his services, and played mermaid for hisparishioners. Kane (Unicorn, 1985), a voice portrait of the Americanexplorer Elisha Kent Kane who reached the Arctic in 1853. His shipfroze fast in the ice off Greenland and never thawed free. Based onthe explorer's journals, Kane delineates the experiences of thatharrowing year and the return of the survivors down the Greenlandcoast. The Blood Countess, published so far as a "Gothic Horror PlayFor Single Performer," recreates the life and psyche of the notoriousHungarian mass murderer Elisabeth Bathory. She killed over 700virgins and bathed in their blood, as a way, she believed, of maintain-ing her youth. She was thwarted in her grisly pursuits when she waswalled up in her castle in 1609. Large sections of Countess haveappeared in Sulfur and Bluefish.
Earlier works of mine anticipated these recent efforts: Connections: Inthe English Lake District (Anvil Press, London,1967), never published inAmerica, is made up of collage poems, lyrics, and narrative pieces,juxtaposing some of Wordsworth's experiences in the Lake District withmy own. Byron Exhumed (included in The Poet as Ice-Skater, ManrootBooks, 1976) employs parody and satire in monologues by persons whohave just heard of Byron's death. The title poem for my Selected PoemsGauguin's Chair (Crossing Press, 1977) depicts Van Gogh's agony over rupture of his friendship with Gauguin.
As so often happens, serendipity determines our directions, both personal and professional. In 1974, I stayed overnight with George Hitchco*ck and Marjorie Simon, in Santa Cruz, California. As I was on my way to bed, George handed me a copy of Wilfrid Blunt's The Dream King. Those readers who know this book, published by Penguin, will preciate the superb quality of its numerous plates. Visconti's much mutilated film Ludwig had not yet appeared, nor had the Syberberg film. I had just written my Shaker books and was seeking a new subject, one that would present esthetic challenges different from those occasioned by Ann Lee. I was immediately intrigued by Ludwig, who struck me as an archetypal esthete and pacifist, one connected with other interests of mine. A good part of my early professional life I spent writing on Oscar Wilde, A.C. Swinburne, James McNeill Whistler, John Addington Symonds, and Walter Pater. I have always been interested in the several arts, an interest encouraged by my mentor at the University of Wisconsin, Jerome Buckley.
As the idea for a long work on Ludwig grew, I decided not to worryabout writing the usual poetry book. The subject-matter would determinethe length. Needless to say, Blunt's biography was indispensable; mydebt to it is enormous. Also important were Ernest Newman's The Lifeof Richard Wagner and Richard Gutman's Richard Wagner: The Man hisMind and his Music. The story of Kainz's ring was told to me by HaroldClurman, one summer at Yaddo. I also owe much to my long-time friendand fellow-poet Paul Trachtenberg, to whom this work is partiallydedicated, for his continuing presence and affection.
An earlier version of Ludwig, called The Picnic in the Snow: Ludwigof Bavaria, was published by Bill Truesdale, the New Rivers Press, in1982, and is now out of print. Bill's enthusiasm and support were crucialat a difficult time in the book's history. The major events of Ludwig arebased on fact; other events occurred to me as I sought to sense Ludwigand make him my own person. People in the book all figured in Ludwig'slife, more or less in the roles I assign them. "Bath" is adapted from RonaldFirbank's The Flower Beneath the Foot, which Ludwig would have loved.I have also adapted passages from Plato and Schopenhauer, and haveassembled passages from Ludwig's letters.
The play version has undergone many transformations, both intext and style of acting. In 1984, Robert Cohen, head of the DramaDepartment, University of California, Irvine, freshly directed thework. My current performances bear Cohen's stamp.
I hope that by publishing the script, along with the full text of thepoems, some director or actor may wish to present the work. I haveno propriety interest in retaining Mad Ludwig for myself as actor. Iam open to possibilities for other productions, and will becooperative in all ways, including permissions fees.
The stage version, as one might expect, differs in some essentialsfrom the poems. At the same time, the play is poetry. An immediatemodel is August Strindberg and his "Chamber Plays". This work, andthe more recent Blood Countess, are to five-act plays what chambermusic is to symphonies and oratorios. My plays require a small andintimate space, so that special timbres can be seen and heard toadvantage. In a cavernous hall much would be lost.
In Mad Ludwig Richard Wagner is more of a shaping presence thanin the poems. At the very outset, Ludwig is preoccupied withWagner, and the stages of the King's deterioration proceed asWagner's death nears. At the very end, by journeying to Mt. Rachelin the Alps in order to mourn Wagner's death, Ludwig mournshimself. This journey Ludwig made in real life. In the poems, afterWagner's demise, disappointed that the shade of Louis XIV has failedto appear as a dinner guest, Ludwig wanders out and stands in a snowstorm. When Richard Hornig, the groom, finds him, Ludwig hasbecome a snow statue.
I sincerely hope that my adapting this work for the stage, and thenacting in it, is appreciated by other poets as a fresh alternative to thenormally staid, conventional poetry reading. We all wish to secure asmany readers for our work as we can, and, certainly, the poem on thepage counts the most. Perhaps my performances will generate morereaders for Ludwig and my other published poems than wouldotherwise have been true.
I am now performing Mad Ludwig in tandem with The BloodCountess, the latter a totally different and bizarre work. Bathory,the Countess, is the antithesis of King Ludwig. She slaughteredpeople, and, so far as I know, Ludwig never hurt anyone, except,perhaps, his Cousin Sophie when he broke off their engagement,sparing her, actually, what would have been a disastrous marriage.Another difference is that Bathory's descent into madness is farmore chilling than Ludwig's -- she maintains a cool, scary rationalityeven in her desparate final moments, as she is arrested and hurriedoff to be walled up in her castle, deprived forever of her furs, jewels,children, virgins, black rituals, Palestrina, and the mad composerGesualdo.
I. Brother, Nuns, Tutors, Gardeners, and Swans
Influenza, spit in my eye.Gingivitis, make me cry.
Consumption is greedy.
Smallpox is ready.
Diptheria is speedy.
And Typhus will snatch you
By and by
* * *
Lying face down in a marsh
we are hoptoads, leap-frogs,
newts. We are dandelion silk
snagged on catkin pods.
Then we are locusts
with knobby eyes:
striiik, striiik
Otto, I command you,
enjoy this game!
* * *
Ludwig follows the jouncing rump-lumps
of his obsequious tutor --
who regales Queen Marie
with details of flora and fauna,
of the texture of mists
they are about to enter,
of the properties of a rainbow
arched as a backdrop
over the castle.
Far behind are the servants
portaging food and fresh clothing.
Ludwig is bored.
Marie calls him obstreperous:
"Your kneecaps won't shatter.
Stop tripping Otto!"
His fair-haired brother
never a bother
hikes along sedately...
A swan! A swan! A swan!
* * *
Stones gaze up at Ludwig.
He invents the ribs, groins, and vaultings
of enormous personal cathedrals.
Streams burble "Ludwig."
A marbled toad, its puce throat
throbbing, is a burly hunter
set to ravish Ludwig in a strawberry meadow.
Sputum.
Body stench and swamp spoor.
* * *
King Max whacks Ludwig
for confusing his ablatives
and misconstruing sums.
What's a father to do?
Ludwig rides well, true,
and his swimming's remarkable.
But he's generally blue.
His posterior is dumpish
and his shoulders slope
to a waist that's waspish.
So Max either ignores him
or gives him advice:
"Excess will kill you
and is bad for the State."
"Say what you mean.
Don't procrastinate."
Daily, Ludwig's hair
is crimped and curled
to soothe Max's displeasure
at seeing his treasure,
his schatz, so lumpish and dumm.
He'd much rather have sired
a burly rooster, or a sweaty wrestler,
Maximilian .
* * *
No one tells you
these facts of life:
to draw back my prepuce
rips the skin connection
attaching the foreskin
to the undershaft!
The odor is horrid.
The foreskin is inflamed.
I swab the glans with a tincture.
Oh, why does no one tell me about my body?
* * *
A prince once tried to kiss a goat
as he was putting on his coat.
"Pray, Sir," said he, "do not persist
Or I shall crack your princely wrist."
* *
A monkey dressed up as a cavalier
Poured ink in the hat of a courtier.
When the very proud man put his hat on his head,
The ink drenched his face; so the monkey fled.
The creature caught was deprived of his clothes,
And the Court Executioner chopped off his nose.
* *
Poor Julius jumped over a wall
and stole some wurst that wasn't his at all.
A watchdog grabbed him by the seat
And yanked him to the doghouse and grabbed the meat.
Imprisoned within the dog's domain.
Julius cried. It started to rain.
The rain turned to sleet, and Julius froze.
A gelid mass of legs, eyes, ears, and nose.
* * *
It's time you stopped building block-castles, Prince.
Don't loll under a parasol in the sun.
Stop dressing up as a nun.
It's time you played battle, clubbed frogs to death, for fun.
Music is perverse and dumb.
Drama is tawdry paste and glitter.
It's time you had a mistress.
Don't lust for the groom who curries the horses.
Let the gardener be, trimming the parterre.
It's time you studied politics, tactics, war...
My body has skin! My body has skin!
I'm burning, burning! Let the wind in!
* * *
Prussia is as foreign to me as Persia.
My mother is a stupid Prussian.
Prussia is as foreign to me as Persia.
Mother, Richard Wagner is from Leipzig.
He is not a Prussian.
I must meet Herr Wagner.
I shall bless him. He shall bless me.
Prussia is as foreign to me as Persia.
Count von Bismarck is a stupid Junker.
He is a Prussian.
Why do you seat me near him
at this horrid state dinner?
A Servant with a grand leg grazes my shoulder.
I stare at the thrushes on my plate.
"Be loyal to the Wittelsbachs, Prince.
They've ruled Bavaria for centuries."
That's his advice!
My mother down the table chatters prose.
A Count-from-Somewhere picks his nose.
I hold my glass above my head
for a servant to fill. He obeys
my will.
If I had a flute, I'd play it.
If I knew an obscene jest, I'd say it.
Father! Live long, so I won't be king!
Prussia, Prussia, Prussia
is as foreign to me as Persia.
* * *
A muted waterfall. A lake.
Fluted urns choked with larkspur.
The crackle of hemlock.
Ludwig strikes tinder,
ignites a pile of twigs
on a stone skull. A bell, a clock.
No one will miss him for an hour.
His fantasy: the novice purged,
whipped by the castle gardener
a muscular Father Superior
with an ivory rosary
wound round his brown skin.
Blood-black loam! Offal from a swine-house! Human ordure!
No! Ludwig's wimple is on fire.
He leaps into the lake,
purges with water
his singeing by fire
* * *
A polarbear, stuffed, presents a
stuffed salmon to a stuffed polarbear
mate. A shrike impales a fieldmouse
on a thorn. A moose
lingers among paper trees, fearing
stuffed wolves about to pursue him.
A barn owl guards the fur-debris
of numerous dinners.
Trays filled with eggs.
An ichthyologist's dream -- shellacked
fish forms. Lepidoptera, wasps, and bees
pinned, under light.
So much raging has ended.
They leave by a door
other than the one they entered.
Governess shields Ludwig's eyes
from the "obscenities:"
Junos and Aphrodites!
Apollos and strigil-scrapers!
Ganymedes and Psyches!
Breasts, buttocks, genitals!
The governess is in a frenzy:
Ludwig darts among the statues.
The King will upbraid Ludwig
then box his ears.
So much raging has ended.
* * *
Swans glide from bronze hemlock shadows.
There's a prince! There's a cavalry officer!
The prince weaves through a flow of willows.
The officer rides directly over. Armfuls
of maize for each, and chunks of Schwarzbrot.
Their wings ruffle the water,
forward and outward.
A silver saber rattles in a sheath.
Death can be graceful, I think.
* * *
A swan's
magnificent trachea
coils within its sternum.
Aroused it sounds a canticle
blown through the twists
and brass turns of a trumpet.
A swan carols when it dies.
Swan-throats carol the deaths of kings
and princes. My own blood's salt
is swan-salt. My palms taste of feathers.
I ruffle the surfaces of lakes.
* * *
A swan dies. Its naked loral space
glows, lulled by waves.
Fishpink that space
between eye and bill.
My gills suck air. I fan water.
A vitrescible wave
wafts the swan into shadow.
Hemlock, spruce, water-lilies.
I leap, shake out light.
My tears wash over small beach stones.
An apple, ripe, plumps
into a sweep of frosty grass.
The water recedes. A leech
adheres to the swan's ear.
My lips are fish lips.
* * *
Two hours after lunch, four hours
to return home. Brisk. Two crags to cross.
Sky shot with clouds. Fatigue. Fatigue.
Epileptic Baron Wuffen chatters to the Queen.
Crumbs in his beard. Glossy trouser-seat.
A thread ripped, a glimmer of
paste-fat buttock. Ludwig craves to lead
the return. But Otto, ahead, clutches
his mother's hand. Oh, she loves Otto!
An oak writhes, drops its roots
down a cliff, writhes again afresh below,
nourishment a matter of suckers,
nodules, seepings, there at their feet.
"Oh, yes, dear Baron, do pluck some edelweiss."
A climb up, well past the oak's blasted top:
the edelweiss, glittering amber among
emeralds. The Baron glances at Ludwig.
"No, no," says the Queen. "Baron, you go."
Look, there's Wuffen's boot! He's far above
the tree now, on a scarp. What luck!
Twenty feet to the flowerpatch, safe
behind a promontory. He'll pick
one flower for the Queen, two for the children.
The baron executes a silly dance,
jiggles, his arms akimbo.
Edelweiss sails from his hand.
He flashes past the oak, to the rock
to the cliff, to the path. An
horrendous boom. Queen Marie
is stunned, Otto hysterical.
The Baron's tongue accentuates
his grin. His teeth swim in foam.
His hands are fists. His eyes
roll upwards, as on a screen.
Old snow. Ludwig presents
his mother with edelweiss.
She tramples it, and slaps his face.
Otto drums his feet,
a partridge in a rage.
* * *
Dawn's rosy finger.
Riplets of water.
Thick stands of plantain
brush my knees.
Mosquitoes whirr.
My posture for fishing
is correct: a half-turn
so as to fling the line
out from the shore,
working the bait in
near the reeds.
There's no life without style.
I'm sixteen.
A strike! Roiled water.
The barb's tangled
in a clump of hazel.
I enter the stream.
I beach the fish.
Oh, magnificent birthday fish!
* * *
Aunt Alexandra has swallowed an entire glass
piano. It happened Sunday, in the forenoon,
after a dismal rehearsal session. Otto says
she'll burp pianissimo. "Irreverence!" screams
the tutor. "You won't be far behind.
Generations of intermarriage, etcetera."
* * *
I would watch the young gardener
through the mullioned window,
waft him kisses, sketch with
the subtlest stroke of my finger
the valleys of his back-muscles.
Tempests whirled his name:
Friedrich! Friedrich!
I fell asleep tangling his hair.
The roses were his to tend.
He is dead now, found drowned
near the castle, in the lake we avoid
since it is so scummed over.
They pole him out of the water, into a boat.
They remove his shirt, trousers, and coat.
Mother orders the flutist to play, to divert
us from the horror in the court.
Father forbids me to visit the shed
to view the body.
The slab he lies on, face up, sweats in moonlight.
My legs near his. My arms stroke his.
The undertaker has not glued his eyes.
His hair is stuck with algae, feathers, leaves.
I slip through his veins. No pain.
I stroke the iced marble of his hand.
I believe I can turn his neck.
It cracks.
The mouth, stiffened cartilage, opens.
A wash of suet sweetens my breath.
This stone shed is a living house!
This, my naked body grabs death,
swims with it, reviles it, shafts it!
The roses were his to tend.
* * *
I'm a worm in a rose
inching toward the stem
seeking fecundity, sludge.
I burrow in
beneath hamlets of grass-roots,
pebbles, grubs.
I reach a meadow.
I burrow upward, lift my head.
I'm a king!
Each green blade, each ant, each toad
are loving underlings.
* * *
Father*, your coffin winds through the streets.
Your shroud is stitched with gold, your lips
sewn cold. The people grieve.
I am afraid. I am not a natural man.
I forgive your beatings, father.
You'd say they're laid up in Heaven.
I now wear your rings, the rubies and opals
of state. Your velvet liveries, sables,
equipages of gold, the black horses (rappen)
drawing your catafalque, now are mine.
Plumes of fire! Grief-lyres jangled!
Father, I am not a natural man!
Maximilian II died Mar. 10, 1864. Ludwig succeeded age 18.
II. Disgust and Desire: Horses, Air, and Water
Following a twist of the bowel
an onset of colitis is sudden, marked
by continuous pain.
A rotation of the intestine
cuts off all circulation.
There is no cure.
Horses like to run, and men like to pursue them.
* * *
Magnificent autumn morning.
A diocese of light! Waves of trees.
Ludwig's velvet riding-hat floats ribbons.
His steeds are Sting,
Foam, and Exhaustion.
His love dons contraceptual uniforms.
Does the moon have a navel?
Elisabeth eschews riding.
She won't say why.
Miles above Kissingen
the King reins in again. He doffs his hat
gives it a pat
and flings it far out
over a waterfall.
"Float!" he commands. "Don't"
stop till you're beached
at her silken-shod feet
where she pouts
on the dock at Kissingen."
Lohengrin, as a swan, sails past,
turns to the young King
who prepares for anything.
The Hunter has a fiery grace.
His head is erect, his tail
flashes. Rubied throat-light,
froth on his mouth. The stroked,
wet forelock electric.
Nothing cracks open.
Naked, Ludwig in the stirrups
is gigantic. His buttocks are marble.
He's a taut drawn muscle.
His ribs ache. His bones breathe
marrow -- he hears them breathe.
Between the stallion's ears
Ludwig's face is wet. White froth
on his lips. His skin rubs back,
pulls forward. The stallion's coulter
is the ridge of his own muscle cantering:
You've chosen this meadow
of daisies and clover.
Your Grauschimmel is tethered,
his coat drenched from the journey.
I nestle near your throat
where your hair falls damply.
I am dreaming, Elisabeth.
Are you dreaming, my dove,
my brilliant rider, of
asphodels and lilies?
* * *
Beneath my nail
soil is distressing.
Muddy boots disgust me. I insist
on my own commode, and a separate
soil pipe connecting a cesspool.
When I touch the seat
atomizers waft scent
throughout the cabinet.
I love swimming.
I am a creature of air and water.
* * *
Up here it doesn't matter
if my hands are yellow,
my boots boast mange, or
my teeth snag gobs of meat.
I despise courtier-apes
wearing leotards sagging at the knees,
and bewigged women who wipe
their ugly faces with flour...
Up the stream:
fir trees ascending.
An occasional branch gleaming,
thrust up, a shorn top.
Birches, cedar, a dead pine.
Rock-walls gapped and piled,
slabs archly placed, with
vacant spaces. Tufts
of broad-leaves, forest grass, bracken.
A scintillant web.
My thoughts disperse among riotous stems,
clustering branches, leaves
as fragile as dragonfly wings.
A path untravelled.
Climbing. Climbing.
Precipitous walls. Water drops thirty feet
into a pool. An outcrop.
Earth temblors.
I soar and twist
foreshorten.
I'm a swan,
equilibrium,
the wind's lover.
* * *
I weary of riding
from Karls-Platz to Linderhof.
I rein in abruptly
and turn very smartly
as a brown-torsoed young farmer
stands stiffly before me.
My body swims sleekly
through lakes of silver
I thrill to a shiver
imagining my fingers
sifting through
schillings
and his glorious black hair.
I rip off a chain
from around my throat,
of filigreed gold
set with sapphires and amethysts.
"Take this," I say. "Take it.
For your beauty revives and astounds me
on this tedious journey."
* * *
Lying amid the dissolving bath crystals
while my man-servant deftly bathes me,
I fall into a sort of coma
as sweet as a religious trance.
Beneath the rhythmic sponge,
perfumed with Kiki, I am St. Sebastian.
As the water grows cloudier
and the crystals evaporate amid the steam
I am St. Theresa.
I would, no doubt, become
the Blessed Virgin herself
but that my bath grows gradually cold.
* * *
If one is sober
the world is unsteady.
Behind every man
a woman crouches in the bushes.
Her eyes glitter
like mouse-eyes.
She begs to go home with you.
Shove her away.
You are stupid.
The street is stage-scenery.
Creep to your bed.
Taste your sweat.
Suck up a mouthful.
Insert your erection
in hot kirsch.
Stammer a prayer.
Jam a splinter into
Your calf-muscle.
Lick the blood from your hands.
German Genre Pictures
Three peasant babies in the mud.
Gute Nacht, Grüss Gott.
Three peasant babies drinking blood.
Totenblässe. Totenblä:sse.
Where is their mother? Where is she?
Den Geist aufgeben! Den Geist aufgeben!
She's coughed up her lungs in a purple flood.
Gute Nacht, Grüss Got.
* *
He poises his chisel.
In the rock-split there are flowers:
orchids, fuchsias, carnations.
He grabs the marble.
His hand is a willow on a tomb.
* *
Maiden, graceful in the fresh hay,
how is your maidenhead today?
Has it quivered and torn?
Here's a ring-necked pheasant for your dinner.
Let me insert my finger.
I'm Hans the poacher tried and true.
And you'll be a woman when I'm through.
* *
An old woman is beating clothes
on a rock with a stick.
Mice-heads emerge from her pocket
where they have been nibbling chocolate.
From her thatched house a cuckoo calls.
Are the children safe?
Will the stag with the stars in his antlers
fetch them home clinging to his shaggy haunches?
If only Hans had worn his coat
and Heide her pinafore.
The old woman knows they'll return.
For the spires of a castle glimmer
where the King sits eating his dinner
and elves slaver
over the blood they are sucking
from weasels.
Gute Nacht. Grüss Got.
III. Richard Wagner
February 1858: Ludwig's governess describes the Munich production of Lohengrin. Ludwig is twelve.
December 1858: Ludwig's tutor presents him with Wagner's theoretical work Opera and Drama.
February 1861: Ludwig attends a production of Lohengrin in Munich, starring Moritz Grill.
June 186l: Lohengrin performed in Munich, at Ludwig's insistence.
December 1861: Ludwig hears Tannhäuser.
February 1863: Lohengrin, starring Albert Niemann.
March 10, 1864: Ludwig is King. He is already steeped in Wagner's operas and Wagner's Art-Work of the Future and The Music of the Future.
April 14, 1864: The new King orders his Cabinet Secretary, Franz von Pfistermeister to locate Wagner, in hiding from creditors, and bring him to Court.
May 4, 1864: Ludwig and Wagner meet for the first time, in Munich.
Raging, let my blood rage or
In its misery boil -- I
Can't remove the barbed point you've set -- the Taroc
Howls for the hanged man, his breath
Asked for (and given) to the victim of a
Rack of ten swords. I wish, friend, your
Daimon had never loosed this pack, these dead
Wastes. For I burn without you, noz
Always, and am a swan whose throat can't emit a
Groan, whose soul is riven by beetles. Bring
News yourself, or by swift messenger, that you love me noon
Evening, or morn-I love you. Please, Richard, come
Remove the black wreath from my door.
* * *
Schopenhauer declares:
the skin of sound
contains the ground
and the violet's root,
the leopard's foot, the whale's marrow,
the horny toe of the sparrow
and peace, and surcease
and brilliance and dalliance.
An engineer is an artist of water,
the architect of stone, the poet of fire.
A composer encompasses these,
welding magnificent syntheses.
a.
If music eschews phenomena entirely,
then music, unlike the other arts is a carbon of the Will itself.
Thus, while the other arts are shadows,
music is the Thing itself.
b.
The painter has his meadows
the poet his scenes, the sculptor
his marble, the composer
his dreams.
c.
Bass tones
are the lowest grades
of the Will's objectification.
That certain high notes always sound faintly
accompanied by the bass
is analogous to the slow
evolution of life.
There is a depth below
which no sound can go. Pitch
is always inseparable from a note,
as is that portion of Will
veined in matter.
d.
Moving upward from the bass
we transcend those Ideas
where the Will objectifies itself.
The exact intervals
parallel the gradations of the Will.
Obviously, from the crystal
to the nightingale (or to men)
everything exists always, pristine,
according to its kind, determined.
e.
Do not though
neglect the
Via the adagio, via
moonlight, we shovel
death into its grave.
My ministers inquire of you
at many inns and hostels.
"Wagner?" they ask, with
harrumphs and sneers.
"It's common, Messenger.
Wagners live all over these slopes."
"Numerous Wagners?"
They might as well declare numerous suns!
Or that Apollo has many guises.
What rot! I order the Ministers
to find you -- they'll know they are near
by a rare effluvium in the air,
a purple haze, an odor of plums and raspberries.
* * *
So, at last you are here!
Please be seated, Herr Wagner.
I kiss your hands.
Now, before we settle terms
I'll peel an orange for you.
They were shipped here on a camel,
from Jerusalem. I have a large supply --
luscious bits of the sultry sun,
for you.
* * *
Your fingers on the keyboard.
Your head bowed intent on a cadenza.
Outside the window,
afternoon snow, late, tumultuous.
We have been here over six hours --
the velvet drapes, the peaco*ck,
the ferns, the fire,
the rosewood of the piano intensified
by the flames.
Each note you score, each chord
thrust past its fumbling, sutures
the world, healing what was rent,
is once again made whole.
I am vexed though, Wagner, Seele,
that as you create and I observe -- yes, yes,
inspiring you. I can't see
your splendid hands, as Apollo must,
or the years clanging down immense corridors.
Alas, my eyes are jellies.
My ears thrum from being too near
flamboyant trumpet voluntaries.
I can't hear your sounds as you do!
I have banished all trumpets from the Court!
* * *
Wagner: Perpetual motion is immortal.
Whatever fails to move
fails to live. Whatever never quits,
itself never ceases moving.
"Whatever is uncreate is indestructible:
nothing is created from it, or can be.
There is thus no beginning. Self-motion
alone begins motions. Motion is the Soul."
Ludwig: "The Soul perfect and fully plumed
soars through the upper air, regulating
the lives of men. The Soul imperfect
drops its feathers, and settles to earth
until a new body requires it,
its self-motion (birth)
signaling for a new Soul."
Wagner: "The natural efficacy of a wing
is to lift heavier matter.
A freshly-formed Soul loves
the physical body, wasting
its ugliness, vice, contraries.
Yes, Zeus drives a winged car.
And you, as King and mortal,
must maintain Soul-motion.
To falter is disharmony,
a betrayal of nature.
Ludwig: "My passion matches the Alps!
In splendor, creative, I am
Vesuvius! I am equal
to the most magnificent spruce
in the Schwarzwald!
I am Byron. I am Werther.
I am Louis Fourteen. I am
Friedrich Schiller.
My incredible double is
Richard Wagner!"
* * *
Schopenhauer says that Reason is feminine. How refreshing! I'd
assumed that Intuition was feminine, not that Reason was. But, if
the fact that Reason gives only after it has received makes it female, I
can see how the woman must be entered by the male before she can
"give." The whole idea is peculiar.
I'm pondering this because of something Wagner said, or, rather,
implied, that my lingering so much in the music room while he
composes is very feminine. I am attending, it is true, in the sense that
I am at a birth, his creation of a masterpiece.
Wagner is Schopenhauer's creative male, the divine incarnation of
Apollo. And I, as I wait, I am, I admit, like Reason smoothing her
skirts, wondering if her placket is moist.
Alas, Richard has not the slightest interest in the erotic turn of my
wrist, as I display it towards him. He will leave the piano shortly, and
I am praying that he come over, thrust back my lace, and kiss my
wrist, nay, bite it out of his passion.
Oh, isolated deserts of Diana, Artemis, Hecate, Selene!
I am the moon's child, I am the Moon King engendered of swans!
The languorous start, exalted leitmotifs. Tristan and Isolde
drink the potion. The blood-pact, slashed wrist to slashed
wrist. The candles in their wrought holders snuffed.
Tristan, your flesh slides into mine!
Mine slides into yours!
I am twisted, and twisted back again!
I am Isolde!
You are Isolde!
A crescendo, as the lovers approach King Mark's Castle in
Cornwall.
IV. War and Peace
My chest, too, I hear, is legendary,
is a Gothic structure complete with
scaffolding and a painter
who decorates the vaultings
and rib-spaces. I don't
direct his hand.
I shall continue to attend
to affairs of state: consultations
on budgets, appointments, decrees.
But, in private, if I choose to dress as a Pasha,
strike attitudes as Louis XIV,
invite my horse to dinner, or chew
calf hearts raw -- that's my affair!
You'll never see Ludwig!
I merely reflect your own faces back
to you. I am increasingly a non-
ceremonious King, but, I warn you,
I am not a weak King.
* * *
As for happiness, it doesn't matter what each of us wants -- the importantthing is to achieve some things we want. Thus, the spirit flourishes.I think of lemons billowing in a sea, or of a stork guarding a chimney-nestfull of tangerines. Every road leads to a goal -- if we don't spend toomuch time thinking it over. The targets we strike are set up shortdistances from us -- but so, alas, life is short.
It is very clear, I think, that a sum of reduced individuals may verywell form a totality of genius. You have vague roles to play. You thinkyou are flying past a door, but you aren't. You are tumbling, actually,past your grave. So, don't get stuck.
Only in Imperial Bavaria can you step from one train to another andfind that you've been on an ordinary train all the while. Your countryis the navel of Europe, and there is considerable fuzz. Do, please, reformyourselves. I shall be available hencefore only in emergencies. I shallbe building castles, and will not be disturbed, even for wars.
1. To play at chivalry and combat as medieval knights is refreshing and sane. Such activities are a form of play-enactment designed toinculcate noble feelings toward a great past. To fight wars in themodern manner is barbarous and disgusting. I command that a newLeonardo da Vinci invent weapons capable of mowing down wholeregiments in a few moments, shortening the agony.
2. Though I ride my white charger as well as any soldier, I am out ofplace among these generals. Their opinion of me is that I should cutmy hair. My opinion of them would char your ears.
3. Wherever I am obliged to wear my military uniform during rain-storms, I shall insist on carrying my helmet in one hand, an umbrellain the other: I've no intention of spoiling my coiffure for anyone. If Idon't have my hair curled every day, how can you expect me to enjoymy food?
4. If we are to wage battles by machinery, let us proceed toslaughter one another until thoroughly sick of the carnage we arewilling to return to settling our differences by individual combat. Iam ready, anytime, anywhere, to meet Otto von Bismarck, or LouisNapoleon. Just let the field be dry, so that my uniform won't bemuddied if I should fall.
5. Wherever I see a handsome young soldier on duty at theResidenz who looks fatigued, I delight in upsetting his officers byordering a sofa brought for him. I sometimes award the youth aspecial ring to commemorate the occasion.
6. The Parisians, I hear, are impressed with me as a pacifist. One oftheir newpapers says that I am not "wicked" King Ludwig, that theonly thing I've ever accompanied my troops on is the piano. I amproud of this reputation.
7. A war? I won't have a war! Tell the generals I am off to Schloss Berg,or to the Roseninsel, or to some other spot where they shall never find me!
* * *
An agent for Bismarck, Herr von der Pfordten
marched to Linderhof and waited in the garden.
The King, from Nowhere, sent word he'd see No One.
Boom, Boom. Saltpeter and tinsel.
Fireworks over the Roseninsel.
In apricot tights and silver mail
Ludwig was Barbarossa.
His lover Paul Taxis was Lohengrin.
"There is no war! I won't allow it!"
Complete with tiller, drawn by swans, the wooden boat
turns round. "Now!"
Floodlights graze the water.
Flecks of silver strike Paul's hauberk.
An embossed shield of plated osier.
Scintillations of gold, blue, and silver.
Concealed in a grove of lindens
an orchestra plays Lohengrin.
Wherever I go out, I get an impression of raised hats. I enjoy myappearance of success with crowds, and since the ministers, and myaged uncle, have become scapegoats for our defeat by Prussia, and Ihave brilliantly, I believe, positioned myself, attired and arrayed toadvantage, as the peacemaker who has managed splendid terms withCrown Prince Frederic Wilhelm of Prussia, also my uncle, the victor-- to whom I declared, forcefully, that I will never become a Schattenkönigohne Macht -- an impotent Shadow King. Obviously, civilized life yearnsfor more than a little brutality.
I have ordered the streets of Bayreuth brilliantly lighted, and as Iapproach the spot where I am to be seen at best advantages, there willexplode two (or four -- I forget which) columns of smoke, ingeniously contrived to inundate the crowd with the aroma of bakedapples and pinetwigs strewn with fire. They shall never forget me.
At Bamberg, I shall allow the wounded soldiers in hospital to touchmy hand, and, perhaps, if I find any sufficiently attractive men I shallplant the kiss-of-state firmly on their finely-coultered lips. I mayeven change a bandage or two, and swab a wounded thigh clear ofinfection. I shall dispense phials of camphor to every soldier. At BadKissingen, in a snowstorm, I shall visit the field where my armiesfought so bravely the last great battle of this hopeless war. Wearingmy coral vest and puce morning-coat, I shall listen patiently as somesmug general explains exactly the positioning of our troops (andthose of the Prussian enemy) at the point of greatest slaughter, andhe shall say where I might have stood (and I shall stand there) withmy sword raised, intimidating the enemy by my courage.
More raised hats. I see naked heads. Paul Taxis, where are you? Yes,to celebrate our defeat, and my brilliant peace arrangements with mydear uncle Crown Prince Frederic, we shall move to Wurzburg wheremy visit to the war cemetery will so overwhelm me that I shall haveto order a theater performance cancelled that evening. Yes, civilized man indeed yearns for a little brutality.
V. The Betrothal
Paul Taxis*, loving body, spirit, friend.
To the Greeks sex was augury.
I see this now, for they have blessed me
with mania,
and I see it as a blessing.
With Wagner, conceptualizing, I am poet,
composer, architect.
I create Valhallas of sound, toppling
white sound-castles,
Wagner's incredible pinnacles!
Paul, when I stroke your thigh
and move upwards, silken, I define my Soul.
Your body-heat translates
into winged stallions
of blues, orchids, and wines.
But for now, let this suffice:
My brain shatters with sound.
I run screaming your name.
We can feign love
but when we love truly
we are so bridled
that our teeth, throat, and tongue
wallow in blood.
I have gathered much blood
in alabaster beakers
and will present a selection
to you, with swollen roses,
when you arrive.
Cherries beware,
she's coming here
wearing quinceblossoms
in her hair. You pheasants
make way for her. Quail,
scatter your young. Today
is her birthday, Sophie's,
my betrothed one's.
Snake-throats in black shadow.
Webbed frog-toes shake the willow.
White arbutus are sleeping.
Peonies are dropping.
I am a deer's thighbone
whitened, in ivy.
Why do you dally? Violets
can't tell you
of the misery I'm feeling.
Sophie's gown forms little voile puffs.
Her bosom is draped. A ribbon traversing her bodice
snags her ankle, and is secured by a pink
rosette. Her riding coat, dark blue,
open at the throat, displays organdy ruffles.
The pleated tail falls rearward. Her riding crop
is so stiff she can't wield it.
Paul, our Bed of Heaven!
There's a curled brown hair -- yours,
and silver stones for hurling
into velvet chasms
when meteors blast the moon.
The Secretary-General
talks politics and finance --
small hairy things. Ugh!
I sign papers, Paul,
seeing you nude, laughing,
lasciviously disported --
loin-energy replenished.
There's no end to it!
Your body smothered in wolf-skin!
It's been over a month since our formal engagement, and the ball whereyou looked so splendid in your brocade, velvet, and lace, and whereI graced you in my new chevauxlegers uniform. I felt that we wereactors in a dramatic tableau. Did you?
But, when I turned to take your arm -- you were standing by that potof palms, remember? Your eyes were frightened. Pearls frozen on asilver cruet.
Do not think me nasty, ever. I should like to give you a photograph ofme, towards my forthcoming visit. I hope to find your servantsunprepared, and you ensconced in your nightshift either reading ordreaming of me. Until then,
A gray goose with a dulcimer, playing
for its dinner, hoping to find its liver
which it dropped in a meadow. A poacher
came upon it, dazzled by the aroma
and the deepening shade of purple.
The flies, too, rampant, nibbled off
choice pieces, until frightened by a chicken
who squawked and dropped her liver
in that same spot by the river.
So the poacher decided that livers are generic
and while reaching for the goose's
his own thick organ loosened
and fell out on the ground.
1.
2.
3.
There is a decor for dreams. And it is crucial that I create thisappropriate decor. I shall use the mechanical ingenuity of the age forenriching my dreams, not for fighting wars.
4.
A damsel with a dulcimer
I fantasize a monster
a facade and a fanfare
brocade and a marblestair
all on our wedding.
A clipped piece of fingernail
a spider from a berrypail
sweat from a coat-of-mail
bacteria from a weasel's tail
gifts at our weddings
Paul Taxis oils his body.
Behind him, candles in a row.
Am I thinking of Sophie now?
Can I smell her perfume?
Sophie, let black
stand for everything you don't know
and white for all that you do know.
Swarms of blue birds flutter past,
followed by swarms of black.
Run my finger down your throat.
The same thing happens: you move.
Earth, sky, castle -- spin away.
Steady, steady, I say, stripping veils.
I loosen your breasts.
How many poems have you read?
Have you dabbled in washes, ever
etched a rose? Written a tune?
(There's a blemish on your nose).
Tinsel and jagged planes, steel
and cut-glass. I see you,
trussed up by your ankles
hairless, sliced from genitals to
(I almost said snout).
I'll admit: its the woman I fear,
a fishnet clotted with snails, baleen,
half-digested meat-slippery, noxious, green.
There's a sallow light tonight.
A stoat sucks its mother's throat.
A frothing penis floats in gravy.
Sophie, my Intended, we are maddened by the moon.
Sophie, my cousin, we shall marry soon.
My father is eating human flesh in his tomb.
The ringed worm is in panic. He can't find a home.
Sophie, my Intended, we are maddened by the moon!
Hohenschwangau is utterly beautiful in the blizzard raging now. Iam alone here in this castle where I spent so much of my boyhood andyouth. To my left is a cosy box-window, before me blueish lamplight.A great swan's wing soothes me. I feel so intimate with ice!
I am rid of people, clamor, the ugly faces of suffering, the balls,audiences, and reviews. My mother who was such a misery to me lastsummer is far off....So too is Sophie! Married to her I should havebeen utterly miserable. Suicide is preferable. The gloomy picturevanishes. The nightmare dissolves. Before me stands your bust, myone friend whom I shall love unto death. You are with meeverywhere...l take courage and endurance from you. I would sufferand die for you. I wish to die for you! I am exalted writing this letter.The whirling snow echoes the creative rhythms of our twined souls.In Valhalla the ancient gods, over rich draughts of mead, rejoice in us,my adored one, for whom I live, for whom I die.
P.S.: I am having considerable trouble with my teeth. Almost alwaysthey pain. I have dreams where they fall out in clusters, as if they aremade of bad plaster.
Ludwig of Bavaria: a play For: Paul Trachtenberg, Robert Cohen, and Paul Vangelisti
Wo gegen mich selber
ich sehnend mich wandte,
aus Ohnmachtschmerzen
schaumend ich aufschoss,
wütender Sehnsucht
sengender Wunsch
den shrecklichen Willen mir schuf,
in den Trümmern der eignen Welt
meine ew'ge Trauer zu enden...("Wotan," Die Walküre, 111:3)
(I turned on myself in agony.
Enraged, I transcended my brutal sorrows.
My virulent aches and desires prompted my decision:
I would terminate my sorrow
in my own ruins.)
(PROPS: 2 six-foot, backless benches painted gold or covered with carpeting or cloth. Must not be of plastic or metal. A large oval floor or hanging mirror, stage left, half turned towards audience. Two eight-foot candelabra, either real or simulated. A pair of white gloves on front bench.)
PROLOGUE (Optional)
(AS AUDIENCE ENTERS THE THEATRE THEY DISCOVER ACTOR ON STAGE APPLYING HIS MAKEUP. AS ACTOR FINISHES, HE MAKES THE FOLLOWING REMARKS, THEN DISAPPEARS, TAKING MAKEUP PARAPHERNALIA WITH HIM.)Ludwig is a figure out of time, spectral.
In his conflicts, we find reflections of those in our own natures. In him they were writ large.
He was a giant in height and temperament, intensely and superbly iconoclastic. He despised and mocked the insipidities of politicians, and generals. When his officials came to find him in order to lead his troops during the Franco-Prussian War, they were unable to locate him for several days; he was found dressed as Barbarossa the ancient Teuton, and with his cousin and lover Paul Taxis, dressed as Lohengrin, was sailing on a lake in a swan boat. An orchestra, hidden in the bushes, was playing Wagner's Lohengrin.
He revered Louis XIV, of France, the Sun King, and frequently dressed as Louis, complete with wig and jewelled cape. His last castle, Herrenchiemsee, was an imitation of Versailles Palace.
Much of the wealth of Bavaria Ludwig spent in the pursuit of beauty, with the building of castles and the patronage of Richard Wagner's music. He saw himself as Wagner's co-creator. He built Bayreuth and made Wagner's Ring cycle possible.
A passion for art dominated Ludwig's life, even as he grew obese and riddled with disease.
His eccentricities, and his ultimate destruction, were the result of gigantic dualisms at war in his nature: sexuality vs. spirituality, beauty vs. ugliness, and passion vs. reason.
Nearly all of what you will now hear occurred in Ludwig's life, includingthe hosting of his horse Cosa Rara to dinner.
(MUSIC UP. OPENING OF BRUCKNER'S "SEVENTH SYMPHONY.")
(ENTERS IN THE DARK, IN FULL COSTUME STANDS AT REAR STAGE FACING AUDIENCE AND AGAINST THE STRAINS OF THE BRUCKNER BEGINS TO SING "O TANNENBAUM " LIGHTS UP SLOWLY. BRUCKNER FADES)
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Wie treu sind deine Blätter
Sie sind so griün in Sommerzeit,
Und auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum. O Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blatter.
(WALKS ENERGETICALLY TO APRON OF STAGE. TEFFLOTH'S BAVARIAN COURT MUSIC UP. PLAYS THROUGHOUT SPEECH.)
Bavaria is not Prussia. I loathe Prussia. Prussia is as foreign to me as Persia. (TONE OF SPOILED CHILD. POINTS TO MOTHER SEATED AT IMAGINARY BANQUET TABLE.) Mother, Richard Wagner is fromLeipzig. He is not a Prussian. I must meet Herr Wagner. I shall bless him. He shall bless me.
Count von Bismarck is a stupid Junker. He is a Prussian. (GESTURES TOWARDS THE COUNT OPPOSITE HIM AT THE TABLE.) Mother, why do you seat me beside him at this horrid state dinner? (MIMES SPREADING NAPKIN ON HIS LAP.)
(STARTLED, AND PLEASED.) A servant with a grand leg grazes my shoulder. I stare at the thrushes on my plate. (PICKS UP BIRD.)
"Count," I say. (PRETENDS TO TALK THROUGH MEGAPHONE TO THE OLD COUNT.) "I feel like drinking money. Prussia is as foreign to me as Persia."
He's flustered, rancid.
I hope he sleeps well after his dinner.
(PUTS HAND TO EAR, AS IF LISTENING TO THE OLD COUNT TURNS TO AUDIENCE AND MIMICS WHA T HE HAS JUST HEARD.)"Be loyal to the Wittelsbachs, Prince. They've ruled Bavaria for centuries."
That's his advice.
(SHRUGS SHOULDERS IN FRUSTRATION.)
My mother down the table chatters prose.
A Count from Somewhere picks his nose.
I raise my glass above my head for a servant to fill.
He obeys my will.
(INCREASINGLY VEXED.) If I had a flute I'd play it. If I knew an obscene jest I'd say it.
(PASSIONATELY, TO HIS FATHER, WHOM HE SEES OUT IN THE AUDIENCE.)Father, Father. Live long so I won't be king! Prussia, Prussia! Prussia is as foreign to me as Persia!
(ONCE THE SPEECH IS FINISHED, HE WHIRLS AS IF HE HAS FORGOTTEN SOMETHING. CIRCLES TO REAR OF STAGE, PEERS OUT, LIKE A CHILD, FROM BEHIND CANDELABRUM. CARESSES CANDELABRUM THROUGHOUT THE SPEECH. BEGINS TALKING TO AUDIENCE, BUT GROWS INCREASINGLY SELF-ABSORBED.)
I would watch the young gardener
through the mullioned window,
waft him kisses, sketch
with my finger the valleys of his back muscles.
Tempests whirled his name: "Friedrich. Friedrich."
I fell asleep tangling his hair.
The roses were his to tend.
(HE IS DRAWN TO APRON OF STAGE WHERE HE LOOKS DOWN, IMAGINING THE DROWNED BODY.)
He's dead now. Found drowned near the castle,
in the lake we avoid since it is so scummed over.
They pole him out of the water, into a boat.
They remove his shirt, trousers, and coat.
Mother orders the flutists to play
to divert us from the horror in the court.
(HE SEEMS TO TAKE THE DROWNED MAN UP IN HIS OWN ARMS AND AS HE DELIVERS THE NEXT LINE MIMES PLACING THE BODY DOWN ON THE FRONT BENCH.)
Father forbids me to visit the shed to view his body.
The slab he lies on, face up, sweats in moonlight.
My legs near his. My arms stroke his. (MIMES THESE ACTIONS, GROWING INCREASINGLY SEXUAL. KNEELS AT BENCH.)
The undertaker has not glued his eyes.
His hair is stuck with algae, feathers, leaves.
I slip through his veins. No pain.
I stroke the iced marble of his hand.
I believe I can turn his neck. It cracks.
His lips open. (MIMES KISSING THE MOUTH.)
A wash of suet sweetens my breath!
(LOOKS OUT AT AUDIENCE, WITH ARMS STRETCHED STRAIGHT OUT AT HIS SIDES.)
This stone shed is a living house! (LIES FACE DOWN ON BENCH.) This my nude body grabs death, swims with it, reviles it, shafts it!
The roses were his to tend.
(DIM LIGHTS. MUSIC: BERLIOZ'S "MARCHE FUNEBRE" DURING ENTIRE EULOGY TO THE DEAD FATHER. LUDWIG, KNEELING AT BENCH IMAGINES CORTEGE TRANSPIRING IN FRONT OF STAGE.)
Father, your coffin winds through the streets.
Your shroud is stitched with gold, your lips
sewn cold. The people grieve.
I am afraid, Father. I am not a natural man.
(NOW IMAGINES FATHER LYING ON BENCH, AS ON A BIER.)
I forgive your beatings, Father. You'd say they're laid up in Heaven. I now wear your rings, the rubies and opals of state.
Your velvet liveries, sables, equipages of gold, the black horses drawing your catafalque now are mine.
Plumes of fire! Grief-lyres jangled!
Father! (RISES. STANDS TALL, BUT WITH PAIN IN HIS VOICE.) I am the King! I am not a natural man! (MUSIC OUT.)
(LIES ON BENCH, ON HIS BACK, AS IF IN HIS BATH. ALMOST FOPPISHLY ELEGANT.)
Lying amid the dissolving bath crystals
while my man-servant deftly bathes me,
I fall into a sort of coma, sweet as a religious trance.
Beneath the rhythmic sponge, perfumed with Kiki,
I am St. Sebastian.
(SITS UP.) As the water grows cloudier and the crystals evaporate amid the steam, I am St. Theresa .I would no doubt become the Blessed Virgin herself, but that (GETS UP. IS IRRITATED.) my bath grows gradually cold. (Adapted from Ronald Firbank)
(TURNS TOWARDS AUDIENCE WITH MUCH VIGOR, STERNNESS.)
My obligations as King do not include
my presenting myself to crowds, no matter
how adoring or starved for celebrities.
I am no gilt statue to be propped in a carriage
and cheered. I am no freak,
although I know the legends that crop up
with the gaminess of exotic mushrooms.
My chest, too, I hear, is legendary,
is a Gothic structure complete with scaffolding
and a painter who decorates (RUBS HIS RIBS.) the vaultings and rib-spaces.
I don't direct his hand.
I shall continue to attend to affairs of state,
consultations on budgets, appointments, decrees. But, in private, if I choose to dress as a Pasha, strike attitudes as Louis XIV, have my soldiers dance naked together, or chew calf-hearts raw, that's my affair. (ALMOST FRIGHTENINGLY AUTOCRATIC.)
(WALK5 TO MIRROR. SAYS THE FIRST TWO LINES, THEN RETURNS T0 HARANGUE AUDIENCE.)
You'll never see Ludwig. I merely
reflect your own faces back to you.
I am increasingly a non-ceremonious King.
But, I warn you, I am not a weak King.
(SITS ON BENCH. TAKES UP GLOVES AND PUTS THEM ON AS HE RECITES. CHARMS THE AUDIENCE THROUGHOUT.)
Though I ride my white charger as well as any officer, I am out of place among the generals. (LAUGHS.) Their opinion of me is that I should cut my hair. My opinion of them would char your ears.
When I am obliged to wear my uniform during rainstorms, I shall insist on carrying my helmet in one hand, my umbrella in the other. I have no intention of spoiling my coiffure for anyone.
If I don't have my hair curled every day, how can you expect me to enjoy my food?
To play at chivalry and combat as medieval knights is refreshing and sane. Such activities are a form of play enactment designed to inculcate noble feelings towards a great past. To fight wars in the modern manner is barbarous and disgusting. I command a new Leonardo da Vinci to invent weapons capable of mowing down whole regiments at once, in a few moments, shortening the agony. If we must wage war by machinery, let us proceed to slaughter one another until sick of the carnage we return to settling our differences by individual combat. I am ready anywhere, anytime, to meet Otto von Bismarck or Louis Napoleon. Just let the field be dry, so that my uniform won't be muddied if I should fall.
The Parisians, I hear, are impressed with me as a pacifist. One of their newspapers says that I am not "wicked" King Ludwig -- the only thing I have accompanied my troops on is the piano. I am proud of this reputaion.
Wherever I see a handsome young soldier on duty at the Residenz who looks fatigued, I delight in upsetting his officers by ordering a sofa brought for him. Sometimes I award the youth a special ring to commemorate theoccasion.
War? War? (RAUCOUS LAUGHTER. GETS UP) I hate war! I won't have a war! Tell the generals I am off to Schloss Berg, (STARTS RUNNING IN CIRCLE TO REAR OFSTAGE, STOPS AT MIRROR.) or to the Roseninsel, or to some other spot where they will never find me!
("OVERTURE" TO LOHENGRIN BEGINS AS LUDWIG GLIMPSES WAGNER WHO HAS ENTERED. HE WELCOMES WAGNER, GESTURING FOR HIM TO SIT AT END OF BENCH. HE BEHAVES IN A NERVOUS, BOYISH MANNER.)
So, at last, you are here. Please, be seated, Herr Wagner. I kiss your hands. Now, before we settle terms, I'll peel an orange for you. They were shipped here on a camel, from Jerusalem. I have a large supply, luscious bits of the sultry sun for you.
Your fingers on the keyboard, your head bowed intent on a cadenza. Outside the window, afternoon snow, late, tumultuous. (ECSTATIC. NEXT LINE TO AUDIENCE.) We have been here over six hours -- the velvet drapes, the peaco*ck, the ferns, the fire, the rosewood of the piano (SMOOTHS HAND OVER BENCH.) intensified by the flames.
Each note you score, each chord thrust past its fumbling, sutures the world, healing what was rent, is once again made whole.
(OUT MUSIC.)
(STAYS BEHIND BENCH THROUGHOUT SPEECH.) I am vexed, though, Wagner, that as you create and I observe -- yes, inspiring you... I can't see your hands, as Apollo must ... or the years clanging down immensecorridors.
Alas, my eyes are jellies. My ears thrum
from being too near flamboyant trumpet voluntaries.
I have banished all trumpets from the court.
I can't hear your sounds as you do!
(ENRAPTURED. ALL SPOKEN FROM BEHIND BENCH.) My passion matches the Alps! In splendor creative I am Vesuvius! I am equal to the most magificent spruce in the Schwarzwald! I am Byron! I am Werther! I am LouisXIV! I am Friedrich Schiller! My incredible double (BOWS TOWARDS WAGNER.) is Richard Wagner!
(COMES DOWN TO EDGE OF STAGE. DIRECTLY TO AUDIENCE.)
Did you know that Schopenhauer says that Reason is feminine? How refreshing! I had assumed that Intuition was feminine, not that Reason was. If the fact that Reason "Gives only after it has received" makes it female, I can see how the woman must be entered by the male before she can "give."
The whole idea is peculiar.
I am pondering this because of something Wagner (LOOKS BACK AT WAGNER.) said, or rather implied, that my lingering so much in the music room while he composes is very feminine. Alas, Richard has not theslightest interest in the erotic turn of my wrist, as I display it towards him. He will leave the piano shortly, and I crave that he come over, thrust back my lace, and kiss my wrist, nay, bite it out of his passion.
(ALL SAID DOWNSTAGE FACING AUDIENCE.) Oh, isolated deserts of Diane, Artemis, Hecate, and Selene! I am the Moon's child! I am the Moon King engendered of swans!
Tristan, your flesh slides into mine. Mine slides into yours. I am Isolde! You are Isolde!
On hearing the Overture again, I am ravished afresh. Not once do I touch myself, nor do I soil my fingers when I wipe the nacreous fluid from my chest with silk.
I am purified! (MUSIC FROM LOHENGRIN UP.) Lohengrin laves me all over with incredible sound! My nerves are on the mark! I am twisted and twisted back again! Lohengrin! Lohengrin! Lohengrin!
(UP FULL WHITE, THEN BLACK. MUSIC CONTINUES FOR HALF A MINUTE OR SO.)
(SEATED ON FRONT BENCH. MIMES WRITING LETTER.)
My dearest Cousin Elisabeth, Dove: I have proposed to Sophie, as you once urged me to do. Though she is your younger sister, you must know that she will never usurp you in my affections. Your marriage prevents my ever enjoying such bliss with you, you selfish adorable creature. Sophie is attractive, slim and is an enthusiast of my own Richard Wagner. She sings, and already knows several of the Master's arias by heart. When you see her you might suggest that she try wearing her ash-blond hair other than plaits. I should like her to appear a bit older than she is. Also, Dove, I am wondering if there isn't a subtle way of hinting that she develop a keener sparkle in her eyes. It has been the fashion recently for women to go about absolutelyexpressionless, as though they've just risen from the tomb. She may take these suggestions quite amiss. You must come here soon, Dove, and you shall spend impossible days alone, with your Eagle, riding over themountains. Your ever-loving cousin, Ludwig.
(SEEMS CAUGHT UNAWARES BY A VISION OF HIS LOVER, COUNT PAUL VON THURN UND TAXIS, IN AUDIENCE. STAYS SEATED.)
Paul Taxis, loving body, spirit, friend,
to the Greeks sex was augury.
I say this now, for the Greeks have blessed me
with mania. And I see it as a blessing.
When I stroke your thigh, Paul, and move upwards, silken,
I define my Soul.
Your body heat translates into winged stallions
of blues, orchids, wines.
As for now, let this suffice:
my brain shatters with sound.
I run screaming your name. (TENDER, BURSTING WITH LOVE.)
(STILL SEATED. MIMES WRITING A LETTER. AFTER A FEW SENTENCES DROPS THE ILLUSION.)
Sophie, dear Sophie, it's been over a month since our formal engagement and the ball where you looked so splendid in your brocade, velvet, and lace, and where I graced you in my new cavalry uniform. (IMAGINES SOPHIE IN AUDIENCE, FAR LEFT OF TAXIS.) I felt that we were actors in a dramatic tableau? Did you? But when I turned to take your arm -- you were standing beside that pot of palms, remember? -- your eyes were frightened.
Sophie, I am truly sorry that I abandoned you at the reception: I wanted desperately to see the last act of Schiller's play. Forgive my impetuous departure.
Also, you must understand that at the Opera, for me to sit near anyone who chatters is a gross violation of my sensibilities. That I don't, therefore, invite you (or anyone else) to my box is no sign of my lessening affection for you.
(JOYOUS.) I have been much preoccupied with my cousin Paul Taxis of late, on the Roseninsel, and have been constitutionally unable to see you. We are installing much machinery for casting the moon and moonlight on the walls. (MIMES MOON, FALLS, BlRDS.) We are hoping that by pushing water up into a large trough, it will tumble realistically as a falls near my bed. Also, a series of wires attached to a metal drum revolving, will imitate the exact calls of day and night birds.
There is a decor for dreams. It is crucial that I create this appropriate decor. I shall use the mechanical ingenuity of the age for enriching my dreams, not for fighting wars.
(SUDDENLY STRUCK BY PAUL'S IMAGE IN THE AUDIENCE.) Paul Taxis oils his body! Candles, behind him, in a row! Am I thinking of Sophie now? Can I smell her perfume?
(MIMES WRITING LETTER...FASTER THAN BEFORE.)
Dear Sophie, I shall visit you shortly and bring my Mother's crown to fit onyou. Just this once, order your Lady-in-Waiting to let us alone, and not, asusual, sit concealed behind a screen or pot of palms spying on us. You havealready seen the crown, I believe, and you will further enhance its delicatefacets.
Yes, another thing: we must postpone our wedding for at least a month, since both my father and grandfather were married then. I am sorry for this postponement.
(RISES. AT EDGE OF STAGE.)
A damsel and a dulcimer
I fantasize a monster
A facade and a fanfare
Brocade and a marblestair
All on our wedding.
A clipped piece of fingernail
A spider from a berrypail
Sweat from a coat-of-mail
Bacteria from a weasel's tail
Gifts at our wedding.
(TO AUDIENCE.)
Where you will be sitting
toad-women will be knitting
a chastity-belt for splitting
our marriage in two
(BACKS UP. SEEMS LOST. CAN'T FIND HIS WAY OFF STAGE.)
Sophie, my Intended, we are maddened by the moon!Sophie, my cousin, we shall marry soon!My father is eating human flesh in his tomb! The ringed worm is in panic, he can't find a home!Sophie, my Intended (VOICE IN CRESCENDO.), wearemaddenedbythemoon!
(RUNS OFF STAGE.)
(BLACK.)
(MUSIC PLAYS FOR 2 OR 3 MINUTES: OVERTURE TO RHEINGOLD. MUSIC CONTINUES THROUGHOUT LUDWIG'S READING OF HISLETTER TO WAGNER. HE IS DISCOVERED SEATED.)
4 November 1867. My dearest Wagner. Hohenschwangau is utterly beautiful in the blizzard raging now. I am alone here in this castle where I spent so much of my boyhood and youth. I am rid of people, clamor, the uglyfaces of suffering, the balls, audiences, reviews. There is peace. A great swan's wing soothes me. I feel so intimate with ice. My mother who was such a misery to me this past summer, is far off. So too is Sophie! I have broken our engagement! Married to her I should have been miserable. Suicide is preferable. The gloomy picture vanishes. The nightmare dissolves.
Before me stands your bust. My one friend whom I shall love unto death! You are with me everywhere. I take courage and endurance from you. I would suffer and die for you. I wish to die for you. I am exalted writing this letter. The whirling snow echoes the creative rhythms of our twined souls. In Valhalla, the ancient gods, over rich draughts of mead, rejoice in us. My adored one! For whom I live! For whom I die!
Your Own LUDWIG
(MUSIC OUT.)PS: (PUSHES ON HIS TEETH.) I am having considerable trouble with my teeth. Almost always they pain. I have dreams where they fall out in clusters, as though they are made of bad plaster.
(GOES DOWNSTAGE. INTIMATE WITH AUDIENCE: HE FEELS THEY ARE AS AMUSED AS HE IS BY THE EVENTS HE RECITES.)
Once the gossips give out
that I'm not about
to marry Sophie, or indeed any woman,
For the good of the State
(here I must divagate)
certain ladies of note
learn their lesson by rote
and decide to rescue Bavaria.
if the King's gone astray --
it's the theme of the day --
then they'll appear contractual.
And by wiles if not wit,
by halter, bridle, or bit
they'll seduce this noble,
but misguided hom*osexual.
One such creature of bifoliate gender
was Lily von Bulyowski, the actress Hungarian
who as Mary Stuart overwhelmed the Bavarians.
I sent her hot notes full of fervent quotes
from Schiller and Shakespeare, signed Romeo.
And despite her charms, I avoided her arms,
and once alone on the Roseninsel,
our midnight walk took the form of a talk
not of the heart but the theater.
Poor Lila was distressed to find her silk dress a mess --
we'd wandered for hours in a soaked meadow --
she decided that I was a miserable smeer
and resumed her career playing Meyerbeer.
There were others I might name both creaking and virginal who sought to spare me that fate worse than death, the love of men noble and seminal. None of these succeeded where the others had failed. Perhaps if they'd worn whiskers and coats of mail?
(REMEMBERS HE HAS DOLLMAN, ETC. WAITING IN THE PALACE, SO HE RUSHES UP-STAGE. HE EMPLOYS LITERAL GESTURES TO SUGGEST DETAILS. HE VISUALIZES THE SCENE, AND MUST CONVINCE AUDIENCE THAT HE DOES. DOLLMAN IS UP-STAGE RIGHT. PFISTERMEISTER IS OFF THE APRON STAGE-LEFT. ARCHITECT IS IN THE AUDIENCE TO THE RIGHT.)
Herr Dollman: (THE KING SEES DOLLMAN AS WEAK AND FOPPISH.) The cupid over the window in the diningroom was to have adorned the chimney piece. Why have you substituted a Bacchus and Venus? And the arms of those chairs were to curve more, as the style demands. Also, the deities above the door and on the ceiling are to be gilt, not white. However, the three peaco*cks forming the Kiosk throne are magnificent.
(TURNS. DISCOVERS WOODCARVER. HE IS PLEASED WITH THE MAN.) Woodcarver, I am delighted with your carving of the 50 swans in the walnut of the Grand Staircase. I am particularly thrilled with the intricacy of the crowns you have carved above each bird.
Herr von Heckel: (SITS. HE HAS CONTEMPT FOR H.) In your painting of Lohengrin, the ship comes too far forward. And Lohengrin's neck should be less tilted -- he looks as if he were beseeching his Lord for a drink of water.
Also, it's absurd to fashion the chain leading from the ship to the swan of roses rather than gold, and I'm shocked you don't see this. If a storm should arise, Herr von Heckel, where would you chain of filthy roses be?
(SNIDE, THEN VERY ANGRY. SPEAKS OVER SHOULDER.) Herr Secretary, why do you interrupt me? There is no more money in the treasury for Herr Wagner? Absurd! I command you to send him a draft immediately in anyamount whatsoever he requires. (RISES AND SPINS AROUND FACING P.) If the treasury is empty, Herr von Pfistermeister, go to Switzerland and rob banks.
(HAS RESPECT FOR ARCHITECT, BUT IS FIRM.) Architect: I cannot abide your failure to carry out my express wishes concerning all details of my castle. Be assured that I care exceedingly that backs and undersides be exact and correct. If you choose to violate my wishes, as you obviously are doing, I shall dismiss you. I am pained that nowhere in this benighted state is there a single person other than myself whom I can trust. I expect also, Architect, that you keep abreast of any changes I desire, no matter how minuscule in the total scheme of this castle. If I decide that a two-foot column beneath a stair is to be Byzantine rather than Gothic, so must it be. If I decide that it must be raised, and arabesqued rather than painted, so must it be.
I am not, you understand, a temperamental king wishing he were an artist. Nor am I asserting my creative temperament willfully over yours the practical and the executive. I am, in fact, your King, and I am to be obeyed down to the final flagstone, rivet, and pin! (POUNDS ONE HAND AGAINST THE OTHER, FOR EMPHASIS.)
(MUSIC: VOGEL: BAVARIAN COURT MUSIC, PLAYED THROUGHOUT SPEECHES TO HORNIG. MUSIC OUT AT OTHER TIMES. KING IS SEATED. BOUNCES TO GIVE IMPRESSION HE IS RIDING IN HIS SLEIGH.)
It's essential, Hornig, protocol,
that you dismount bare-headed, approach my sleigh,
brush the flakes from my face, adjust my robe, and, if I choose, peel an
orange for me.
There, there, I don't believe you've covered my wrist properly.
See that birch tree? It whips out our theme, Hornig, moist, musical: Lovers are never chilly.
Do you feel greasy death beneath your thumbnail?
Pass me a goblet of wine.
(RISES.) Halt this carriage. (MUSIC OUT.) Summon that young farmer (SEEN AT REAR OF AUDIENCE, RIGHT.) working in the field, binding sheaves. No, no, the brown one, stripped to the waist. Summon him. (PAUSE.) Welcome, son. Rise. Rise. Don't kneel. Here's a ruby. Take it. Take it. For your beauty revives and excites me on this tedious journey. (YOUTH DISAPPEARS ON HIM.)
(ENVISIONS WEASELS IN FRONT OF THE STAGE.) Do you see those weasels, Hornig? They're ravenous. Nothing I throw to them (APPEARS TO RIP OFF PIECES OF HIS BODY.) veal, fowl, or venison -- diverts them from my jugular.
(MOVES DOWNSTAGE: VERY INTERIOR -- MADNESS.)
Three peasant babies in the snow.
(GRIMACING.) Gute Nacht. Grüss Gott.
Three peasant babies drinking blood.
(GRIMACING.) Totenblasse. Totenblasse.
Where is their mother? Where is she?
(GRIMACES.) Den Geist aufgeben. Den Geist aufgeben.
She's coughed up her lungs in a purple flood.
(GRIMACES.) Gute Nacht. Grüss Gott.
(SPEEDS UP DELIVERY.) An old woman is beating clothes on a rock with a stick.
Miceheads emerge from her pocket
where they have been nibbling chocolate.
From her thatched house a cuckoo calls.
Are the children safe?
Will the stag with the stars in his antlers
fetch them home
clinging to his shaggy haunches?
If only Hans had worn his coat,
and Heide her pinafore.
The old woman knows they'll return
for the spires of a castle glimmer
where the king sits eating his dinner
and elves slaver
over the blood they are sucking from weasels.
(GRIMACES.) Gute Nacht. Grüss Gott. (GLARES AT AUDIENCE THEN SITS DOWN ON APRON OF STAGE, READY FOR HIS PICNIC.)
(FACES HORNIG, WHO IS TO HIS LEFT. GESTURES WHERE HE WANTS PICNIC CLOTH PLACED. HORNIG SPREADS CLOTH, THEN GOES DOWN INTO PIT BEFORE THE STAGE. LUDWIG IS BENIGN. OUTRAGEOUS.)
Unpack the wine, Hornig. Spread a cloth on the snow, there, near that spruce with the pitch-green branches. Portion the roast quail, the brisket, the potatoes, the mousse. Later serve the brandied coffee.
A proximity to ice improves your appetite.
So why are you shivering? The sun is beneficent.
Note the warmly-colored unicorns prancing on the table-
cloth, among the roses. They aren't cold. Why are you?
See the clouds below the peak,
that roiling, vicious purple.
Stop shivering! I command you!
Scoop out a snowdrift for your velvet cushion.
Pretend that we're sheik and loyal retainer
picnicking on the sand at Sarnarkand!
(HORNIG SEEMS TO HAVE VANISHED IN A CLOUD, LEAVING THE KING DESOLATE. LOOKS WITH AGITATION THROUGH THE AUDIENCE FOR HIIM. RISES, LOOKS AROUND THE STAGE, THEN FINDS HIM. GOES BEHIND CANDELABRUM AND LOOKS OUT AT HORNIG, MUCH AS HE DID EARLIER WITH THE YOUNG DROWNED GARDENER.)
In candlelight Hornig poses for me, first against blue silk, then against red. I'm wearing my robe embroidered with peaco*cks. Hornig's back is half-turned. His leg is raised. One foot rests on a stool near the candelabrum. "I love you," I whisper. "I love you." His buttocks are blue. His hairy thighs aremagnificently turned. (KNEELS. INTENSE SEXUAL FEELING.) "Now!" I say. And he faces me. He smiles as I kneel.
My lips tremble at the fusion -- the torsion of my ugliness, his pulchritude. Hornig, you are a creature foaled in the Moon's house! (BRINGS FACE DOWN ON BENCH.) You are the scrotum of God made flesh!
(LOOKS UP, STARTLED. MIMES DIMENSIONS OF THE WALL.)
A wall enters a bedroom. It glides, stopping near my bed. It blocks my view of the Alps. On the wall, there's a black-haired Queen holding a broom, two brothers writhing in sodomy, some entrails draped neatly as the letter "L." "Mother," says the wall. (RISES. DRAWS WALL VIA MIMING WITH HANDS.) "I break a jug over your head. I beat you with your broom. I trample your breasts into sauasge."
(POINTING AT WALL.) "Father," says the wall, "I pull you from your coffin. I box your ears until you are deaf, then I disembowel you."
"Brother," says the wall, "I plunge into your body until I am bleeding. (SHOUTS.) I ejacul*te chunks of marble."
On returning to bed
I glance in a mirror
and find to my horror
that my teeth have turned black.
My thumbs, when I probe, are covered with plaque.
(LIES DOWN ON BENCH, AS IF IN BED.) My days of smiling in public are over, except at night by dim candlelight when encircling a lover, or, when hugging myself, a grotesque delight!
(TURNS ON SIDE TO TALK TO HORNIG WHOM HE IMAGINES IS IN BED BESIDE HIM.)
Hornig, why do you choose this time to tell me of your betrothal? (DISTURBED, BUT STILL GENTLE.) Can't you see the rain? Must I point to it, encircle it with crayon?
Why do you tell me here?
Are her sweats, her slimes, on my lips now?
I would not have loved you here, had you not stroked me.
(TRIES TO EXCITE HORNIG.) Drink wine with me.
I won't force you again to kiss my body.
Drink. The wine will inflame your breath and excite you.
(REALIZES HE HAS DEMEANED HIMSELF SITS UP.)
I'll never again force you to love my misshapen body.
Go! Go! (WAVES HORNIG OFF STAGE.)
You are afraid.
I am not afraid.
(TO AUDIENCE, FROM THE BED.)
Love is a motion in the loins, or so I've assumed.
Love's pinions drag and flap in the missionary position.
In Love's mansion there is but one room.
Eros perfumes his genitals with civet every afternoon.
I am waiting, Endymion, to waft you to the moon.
Love wipes his fundament on the neck of a loon.
(RUSHES DOWN-STAGE. ALMOST SPEWS THESE WORDS.)
Flatulence and pyorrhea, headaches and diarrhea! A flabby paunch and a flabby ass, had best be jellied and kept under glass, or combined with goose liver into a pâté, (WITH LOW BOW TO AUDIENCE.) and served with mint sauce on Christmas day!
(SUDDENLY VERY INTERIOR.) My brain buzzes as if it owns the world: there's a goblet of embossed silver. Albrecht Dürer drank from it.
Hornig, do you know what I'm saying?
I forgive you for marrying.
I'm a wasp outside a stable
in love with bedrooms.
How else may I numb my aches?
My inflamed gums! The ball-bone
of my hip grinds glass! My gender's wrong!
If I could find that wretched vesicle,
(MIMES THE RIPPING.) I'd rip it forth and cast it to the weasels!
(SUDDENLY REMEMBERS HE HAS INVITED HIS HORSE TO DINNER, AND THAT HE MUST NOT BE LATE. BEGINNING OF BRUCKNER'S 8TH SYMPHONY PLAYS THROUGHOUT MOST OF SPEECH TO COSA RARA.)
Groom, why are you late?
Welcome. Cosa Rara, steed, friend. (GOES AROUND BEHIND BENCH TO SIT. FACES THE AUDIENCE.)
There there. Calm him, Groom. What are you doing
with that white tablecloth? Don't tie it
around his neck. He's a horse. He's not human.
That's why I need him.
Bring the candles closer.
Fine. That's fine, groom. Now depart.
Cosa Rara...your gilt tray, my priceless china...
If only Herr Wagner were here to dine with us.
At this moment, The Götterdämmerung is being performed in Venice:
Please be seated, Herr Wagner.
I kiss your hands.
Before roe settle terms
I'll peel an orange for you.
They upere shipped here on a eamel from Jerusalem . . .
Eat, Cosa Rara, eat.
Your oats were steeped in cognac and toasted. Heaps of Alpine clover dried and powdered, even glazed with sugar. Wheat-kernels plumped in Moselle! (OUT MUSIC.)
Alas! I am not hungry. My robe stifles me. My stomach sags over my belt. Horse, your eyes are as wild as mine. They mock the insipidities of the world. (LAUGHTER.) Let the politicians, the generals, the painted dowagers waffle and bob until they sink! Send them off to the stables without their wigs and dinner!
(WHEN KING LOOKS BACK HE FINDS THE HORSE LEAVING THE THEATER. HE STANDS AND CALLS AFTER HIM, PLEADINGLY.)
Cosa Rara, friend, stay the night. Stay the night!
(SEATED ON UP-STAGE BENCH.) I am bored! Life is catenary, a cable, strung between the Zugspitze of my passion and the contrary peak of my public obligation. A bullet would take longer to travel between my ears(PUTS HANDS TO EARS.) than most men's.
As for now, the cable swings firm over the chasm.
You may send messages along it if you wish.
They shall sizzle like lightning the full-length of my body.
(SEATED, TO AUDIENCE.) I have just eaten a dinner of veal and pheasant and pork and quail, washed down with quantities of Rhenish ale.
I am wretched at having to dine alone.
I lament the suet sheathing my bones.
I despise my need to fondle men, knowing
that I repel them.
"Beauty! Beauty! Beauty!"
The words bruise my lips, pummel my teeth.
Help me. Wagner! Help me!
(IN A TRANCE.) I wish I were a dahlia or a white marguerite plucked
on an amazing night of gauze and tulle.
I wish I were a mushroom, phallus
of the mountain, burgeoned through the mulch after
hours of tempest, grazed and shattered by a stag's hoof.
(DIRECTLY TO AUDIENCE.) I will confess that when I tire of reading, and am driven to hear a human voice, I summon a lackey or a postillion, and get him to tell me about his family. So, you see, my withdrawals are not entirely perversities.
(ABSTRACTED. SLOWLY REMOVES GLOVES.)
I have sifted through the ashes of my kingdom.
Not one of the embers is for me.
Not one of the hardy seeds is for me.
There's a tempest in the chimney.
A terrible snow-crystal sears my hand. (DROPS ROBE.)
(TRANCE-LIKE: A TOTALLY INTERIOR FEELING.)
A swan's magnificent trachea
coils within its sternum. Aroused
it sounds a canticle rung through
the twists and brass turns of a trumpet.
A swan carols . . . when . . .
(YANKS OFF WIG. GLARES ATAUDIENCE.)
Needle-like crystals interlace freezing my face.
(RUSHES TO MIRROR.) a nip here, a nip there.
Diseases ravage my body.
They escape detection, ignore
the dynamics of freezing.
The exact course descends
until the mass uniformly freezes.
It should reach my trachea shortly.
(IN PAIN. FEELS THAT THE AUDIENCE SHARES HIS PLIGHT. THERE IS SOME ANGER IN HIS VOICE, BUT NO SELF-PITY.)
Why can't animals sing?
What shall I bring to the picnic in the snow?
(TRIUMPHANTLY.) I am King of the Night! I am King of Ice!
(MOVES TO APRON, RIGHT. SIEGFRIED'S FUNERAL MUSIC BEGINS.)
Mist soaks the fields.
On the horizon a king booms
clouds of sound. Cloud-bastions
of hail, beaten, envelop him.
He re-emerges, mailed,
his tarn-helm winged, his breast-plate
scarlet, and in his gloved hand, raised toward Heaven,
the Holy Grail.
A globe is in my hands.
It's burning.
I thrust it choked in blood,
beneath my ribs.
I stagger to rise.
Wagner! Wagner! Wagner!
(MOVES BACK TO CENTER STAGE, APRON: SIEGFRIED'S FUNERAL MUSIC CONTINUES WITH VARYING VOLUME. BY END OF PLAY THE CRESCENDO SHOULD BE POWERFUL ENOUGH SO THAT THE ACTOR MUST SHOUT HIS PAIN AGAINST IT.)
Rondures of pain twirl through you, magnificent spruce.
Many a star has grazed your woe-laden branches,
has burst into mystic light, and recombined,
restoring itself to blaze for another 500 years.
I have kissed the lips of the dead, splendid tree,
have stroked cold breasts in the wood where souls wander.
I come here now, to you, in the Spiegelau, to mourn
my dead friend, Richard Wagner.
Shreds of grief hang at intervals
from your bowed ribs weighting them. Black angels trim the
Weihnachtsbaum of death with velvet crape.
(SEES WAGNER LYING ON THE BENCH.)
Smother orchids on his catafalque!
Fashion his coffin of Venetian glass!
A gigantic tree has crashed, shaking the greasy bear in his whiffling sleep. Spice-gums ooze from the slashed trunk. Ants and grubs fatten.
If his features are composed in a smirk
I'll imprison the undertaker!
If his throat is bruised, if the pUtti
under his eyes trickles,
I'll invade Italy! I'll level the Alps!
(KNEELS AT APRON.)
Tree, your branches hide skulls.
Maggots with amber heads and mandibles
squirm through the eyeholes, through the
ragged nostril holes, and drop to the jaws.
They slither, aware that the feast is over,
exotic delights spent, haunches and bowels
once creamy, brains turned to mush . . .
(PROSTRATE ON BENCH, OR KEENING ON FLOOR, FACING AUDIENCE. HE MIMES HAVING A TORTURED MOUTH AND TONGUE.) I spit, my
tongue a swollen toad gagging my throat.
I can't weep.
Flames sear my knuckles.
I seize you, tree, and bellow.
Dunkelheit! Darkness! Dunkelheit!
(AS HE SHOUTS THESE FINAL WORDS HE BRINGS HIS HEAD SLOWLY FORWARDS UNTIL IT TOUCHES THE FLOOR. THE MUSIC CONTINUES AT FULL VOLUME, FOR A GOOD MINUTE OR MORE, BEFORE THE ACTOR LEAVES THE STAGE.)
contents
Layout by Pam Plymell
Cover Design by John Pilcher
Arrangements to produce the stage version of Ludwig may be made through Cherry Valley Editions, Box 303, Cherry Valley, NY 13320.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peters, Robert, 1924-
Ludwig of Bavaria.
1. Ludwig II, King of Bavaria, 1845 1886-Literary collections. I. Title.
PS3566.E756L8 1986 811'.54 86 20779
ISBN 0-916156-82-6
