A Faerie Translation

A Play By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

THE ACTORS’ NAMES.

(Note: All the faerie characters have leaf-like ears, and so do Robin ‘Puck’ Goodfellow
and Maidenhair. Perceval is not a faerie until translated.)

PASCAL, a Faerie Knight. He has long red hair, a female face, and pellucid
blue wings, wears an iron Roman vest of armour over a silvern-fabric
tunic, and deep golden armour-boots. On the armour vest one can see a
coat-of-arms.
PENSEE, a female Faerie Warrior. She has long hair the very colour and
lustre of gold, and pellucid pink wings, and wears a bronze Roman vest
of armour over a bearskin tunic, and deep, sand-bitten golden armour-
boots. Her voice is deep and cracked.
PUCK or Robin Goodfellow, the Will-o’-the-wisp. He has a shock of fiery red
hair and a female face, and wears a serrated green doublet and green
hose. He has wings the very colour and lustre of gold.
MAIDENHAIR, the Willotwisp-in-Training. She has long, fiery red hair, a nar-
row face and wings the very colour and lustre of gold. She wears a ser-
rated red doublet and red hose.
PERCEVAL, the Scholar. He has a shock of blond hair and a serious face, and
wears a black doublet (with a white ruff) and black hose, and a black
hat with a black feather.
The Faeries of the Fayery, who serve the Faerie King and Faerie Queen.
There are a hundred of them staying in the Court. All have similar gos-
samer-blue faerie wings, and wear white robes.
The Translatrices, numbered as the FIRST, SECOND, THIRD and FOURTH
TRANSLATRICE. Those four are all that exist. They wear rainbow-
coloured satin robes and have shiny gossamer-green wings.
The FAERIE KING. He is a young, female-faced King crowned with a jew-
elled crown, and wearing a silken murrey-and-white robe. His faerie
wings are the very colour and lustre of gold.
The FAERIE QUEEN . She is a young Queen crowned with a jewelled tiara,
and wearing a silken murrey-and-white robe. Her faerie wings are the
very colour and lustre of silver.
PORUS, the Translated Changeling. He looks like a tallish female-faced boy,
about nine years old, with a shock of brown hair and gossamer-yellow
faerie wings, crowned with flowers and wearing silken white robes.
The Translated PERCEVAL. He is a Faerie version of Perceval, the Scholar. He has a
shock of hair the very colour and lustre of gold, gossamer-red wings,
and a serious female face, and wears a blue doublet and blue hose.
 I.1
A clearing deep in the forest. The red setting sun shines over the forest
to the right, and to the left is the emerging moon. It is the time of sum-
mer when the ground is covered by tall green grass, and when all the
deciduous trees have leaves on every branch. In this area, particularly,
there are both coniferous and deciduous trees, and grass weeds. In the
middle grows a single, tall upright branch-pole ending in a candle-
stick-like branching into two branches, each branch ending in one
sweetbriar flower directed upwards. From the path to the left of the
scene enter Puck and Maidenhair.

Puck
Husht-husht, don’t fear, O Maiden Maidenhair,
It is time now to tame thy mischief light.
This shrine if thou wilt pass as glowing fair,
’Tis time now, O to run and tam’d ignite.

Maidenhair runs round the sweetbriar pole, then returns to Puck. She
is panting quite badly.

Maidenhair
But I don’t know of what this standing shrine
Doth shew t’ us but what we already see:
Only a small, rusty aiglentine:
The puck’s work doth ywis now torture me.

The sweetbriar pole starts glowing from its root to a fire reaching
above the flowers. Maidenhair stands back.

Maidenhair
What will now happen? This is now outside
My ken of mind: In t’ whole of Fayery
There’s no such shrine as this: yet mischief ours
The flower-tall of Faeries do adore.
 Puck approaches the sweetbriar pole. The music turns dramatic.

Maidenhair
What art thou doing! Puck, get out of here!

Loud horns. Smoke. Out of the smoke appear Pascal and Pensee.

Pascal
What puck now waketh us and off to war?

Maidenhair
Ye have misunderstood, warriors unknown.
We the mischief sprights run around this shrine:
Take thee and thy wife into your kingdom Fire,
And as we go, ignite, into the Aiglentine.

Pensee
It is thou hast him misunderstood as such.
We the Warrior-fays are not to be,
Ta’en off to war by some untamed ghosts,
Pucks or sprights, that jest to t’ Faerie King,
And Queen, for their own mischief-wild conceits.
Thus I am Pensee.

Pascal
I am t’ Pascal might.
We don’t respect t’ ignoble deeds of sprights:
Like thy teacher’s chain-dances in forts,
Affraying gabbed humans sans remorse.

Maidenhair shakes Puck strongly.

Maidenhair
Robin, if thou seest, they are warrior sprights.
They know thou dost dance in chains in castles lone.
Thou art renowned thence in much of fancy lore,
Human fancy lore, some of which is true.
Puck
Maiden Maidenhair, if thou art not affray’d!
With thy whole curst conceit, thy soul too is curs’d:
Thou art not a puck, but a faerie maid,
With any love, thou runn’st and fear’st the worst.

Maidenhair stands forth, avoiding the sweetbriar pole, tarries near it,
then stands further forth.

Maidenhair
Oh I run round the shrine, and I win only this:
Two warrior-fays, from the Ancient Land,
I summon in running: something is amiss:
I say, if ye can hear, sink into the sand.
Thus am I maz’d: but lo, my Robin Puck,
Yon cometh a man: we will have good luck.

Pascal and Pensee disappear into the smoke and the smoke vanishes.
Enter Perceval from the left, as if looking at the bushes.

Puck
Hasten now, Maidenhair! Go, ignite with him!
If as not fire-faeries we to humans shew,
They will find us faeries and we will shew the din
Wrongly to the humans and our image, too.

Maidenhair
I ignite, now I with thee do ignite.
We will do the rite and shew those who fight.

Perceval
A rusty aiglentine, all on only branch,
That breaketh into two a-near his top,
This place doth make to me repel with fear.
Where will this lead me? I cannot think of where.

Puck
I ignite, I do ignite, unseen I have stay’d:
O, Maiden Maidenhair, if thou art not affray’d.

Perceval
What voices do I hear?

Puck
Let’s run hence away!

Puck and Maidenhair start running in evading Perceval.

Perceval
Fire-faeries do I see: they try to lead my way.
As it will be a good tale for me to tell,
I will follow them, though they can me quell.

Puck
Maiden Maidenhair, canst not thou haste more?

Perceval
Lo, one speaketh now: in her odd, screamish voice,
She bidd’th the other haste. My Quests, I never have
Heard a fay of fire speak in any way.

Puck
Hence away, Maidenhair! This must be done with haste!

Puck and Maidenhair run off to the right.

Perceval
Alackaday! O fie! They want me to blench!

Perceval runs after Puck and Maidenhair.

 I.2
A dark forest. The sun has since set. The trees reach to the top of the
scene, and the moon shines on their branches. There are three main
pathways: one back-right-to-front-central, and one intersecting it
running from front left to front right, disturbed by a single tree. Puck
and Maidenhair appear running from the path intersecting, from the
left, and hide behind the tree. Puck and Maidenhair seem to glow in
this dark forest.

Maidenhair
Our forms we hide till the man approach we
With our cast fiery flame that men escape:
Whosoever cometh, tell him we do await
Thine, and my first victim: he doth run behind us.

Puck
Methinks thou grow’st forsooth. And we will lead
The Traveller where we translate the eager humans
Into Faeries gentle and but airy sprights.
Maiden Maidenhair, we will have him to-night.

Voice of Perceval from the front left, distant (singing)

O when I was young, if I were young
I chas’d what cannot be.

Puck (not with the song)

Hide!

Voice of Perceval from the front left (singing)

O moonlit nights, and faerie sprights,
Which seem’d to hide from me.
O when I was young, when erst I long’d
To find those kings of quests,
Oh in mine e’es those courtesies
Of elders were behests.
 Perceval stops singing. He enters the stage from the left and searches
over the scene and clearly does not notice Puck and Maidenhair. He
turns to the disturbing tree.

Perceval
Ha! I can see thee, fire-faerie eale.
Speak thou thy shrill voice, or thy true form reveal.

Maidenhair
Alackadaisy! I have not tam’d my fire!
Run hence away, or he will shew his ire!

Puck and Maidenhair start running around Perceval.

Perceval
I count ye are two: tell me if the tales
Do mislead me, if my tale-firmness fails.

Puck
Lead him to the Court: there we will chant his storm
And tell him all, and change his foul, eale form.
Now may’st run hence away: we will run him so
That he shall like an airy puck spright go.

Puck and Maidenhair run away down the path back, and Perceval
follows them.

Voice of Puck
Into this passage follow till the mark,
To yonder black circle, and soon will end the dark.
Maiden Maidenhair, grab him silently,
When thou dost him approach, he go’th to Fayery.
 I.3
Fayery, the faerie-land. A wonderful valley. To either side are shiny
hills, both interrupted by two underground tunnels. The hills are bro-
ken into many steps like a stony staircase. In some places water creeps
down to a soil forum that is wet with the water from the streams. The
hills are taller than the scene. The back is a hill cut off abruptly at its
back, behind which a sweetbriar shrubbery hides a splitting-waterfall
spring. The back hill holds two sweetbriar thrones, where flowers,
weeds and grass, which are on every fraction of the hills, hold the seat,
where the Faerie King and Faerie Queen are ensconced. The Faeries of
the Fayery are sitting at the Court, and the Translatrices are sitting to
the Faerie Queen’s sinister. The Faerie Queen, in turn, is sitting to the
stage-right from the Faerie King. Porus is at first sitting between the
Faerie King and the Faerie Queen. Puck, Maidenhair and Perceval
arrive from the left. Porus meets them.

Porus
Why have ye brought this mortal human here?

Puck
Of tales he t’ us speaketh, and we do truly fear,
That he would tell the mortals where we Faeries are,
And, such as they are, they’ld fight us in a war.
Now, Porus, our Herald, if we can him translate,
And save us from the threat that lieth to his fate.

Porus, Puck and Maidenhair bring Perceval to the Valley.

Perceval
’Tis a stranger valley, than e’er quick eye hath seen.

All the Faeries of the Fayery

’Tis the lair o’ t’ Faerie King and t’ Faerie Queen.
Faerie Queen
Ay, my Faeries, we’ll run round the mortal him.

Faerie King
This translation circle will, then eftsoons begin.
First a roundel round the New Fairy to be made,
Titania, how many men since Time’s erst bade
A welcome we to our land?

Faerie Queen
Mind not thou that wonder:
The birth doth make mistakes, we take and bring from yonder.
Mine Auberon, if thou mind’st not, the roundel should begin!

All the Faeries of the Fayery get out of their seats and down towards
Perceval, who is in the valley. Porus the Changeling, Puck, Maidenhair
and the Four Translatrices join the Faeries of the Fayery, then all the
Faeries of the Fayery, including Porus, Puck, Maidenhair and the
Four Translatrices, without Faerie King and Faerie Queen, hand-in-
hand, start dancing a roundel around Perceval.

All the Roundel-dancers (singing)

We dance around the mortal here,
To turn him to a fay.
Into our brother or sister,
And bless what he doth say.
Speak! Speak, fay-by-turn!
Speak, say what thou wilt be!
We will hark and we will mark:
Well-come to Fayery!

Faerie King and Faerie Queen (singing)

And with thy grace that thou’lt receive
From our Translatrices four,
Thy mortal grossness shall be purg’d
With our Roundel slicing scour.
 The roundel stops, the Four Translatrices close in on Perceval and
start dancing a small roundel around him.

First Translatrice (singing)

I am Cobweb, I will thee
Translate into amity.

Second Translatrice (singing)

I, Peaseblossom, now will thee
Turn into a fay like me.

Third Translatrice (singing)

I, thy Moth, will translate thee
That thou have no calamity.

Fourth Translatrice (singing)

As Mustardseed, then I will thee
Subject to t’ arts known thrice the three.

All the Translatrices (singing)

Thy name tell us so that we
Easily will translate thee.

Perceval (not with the song)

Perceval?

All the Translatrices (singing)

Round a-round the mortal turn,
Changing him as our return.
Beetles black thou wilt not fear,
When thou art chang’d, when they are near.
We give thee magic, faerie grace,
And thou, when fay, wilt hide thy face
From the humans that us fear:
Thou art no mortal, leave them there.
We shadows aren’t a slothful kind:
Many tasks, when fay, thou’lt find.
Fear thou not the rolling smoke:
As it will thee to Fay’ry poke.

Smoke arises, and soon entirely covers the Four Translatrices and
Perceval. Within the moving smoke, the Four Translatrices lead Per-
ceval off and to the right tunnel. There, they go off to the right, and
when they get off scene, the smoke vanishes.
 Epilogue
At the left of the scene is a waterfall split by the rocks into many
smaller waterfalls, and at the right is a rocky landscape. Between them,
an open sky can be seen, and a rainforest tree is seen on a lower row of
rocks from the rocky landscape to the right, which is exactly the row of
rocks by which the rocky landscape joins the rocks with the waterfall
landscape. Below both landscapes is a lake that can be seen behind the
rocks, and far away in the background, a plain with a forest and some
high mountains can be seen. A sad flute song can be heard in the back-
ground. The translated Perceval enters the scene, the rocky landscape,
from the right. He stops at the leftmost ledge of the rocky landscape to
the right. He looks around sadly.

Translated Perceval
Thus, now fay, Perceval doth run for Faeries, fly.
O’er Fay’ry doth he fly, to stray it with a force,
All his scholar lore he hath lost from his eye,
A mortal translated: faeries him reinforce.
He runn’th, he runn’th along: with inner saws and lore,
Both worlds I run and stray: yet I miss my kin,
Or former kin, at least, and now my wish for more
Hath paid his price: now I don’t want to lose my din
Or here my image before mortal humans, as
My Masters say, unless my Mission saith:
And it never doth: I were better do
This mission, as it doth me put into my faith.
Therefore, there is no wonder for us Faeries, too,
For we are perfect: we are the ones who wonders do.

The translated Perceval sneaks off to the back part of the rocky land-
scape.
The curtains close.