Act the Fourth
Resolve to be thyself, and know that he,
Who finds himself, loses his misery.
- Matthew Arnold, Self-dependence
~ 4.1 ~
At Mrs. Brisby's house
|
[Enter Martin and Teresa] |
Martin: |
How were that? |
Teresa: |
I was contemplating the roundness of an egg. |
Martin: |
Yea, it's prolate, - the egg and the question, - tho' what does it mean? Shall I contemplate the granularity of corn? the pucker of a crab apple? the toughness of capes? |
Teresa: |
Fine things, those. |
Martin: |
I'll enjoy an egg when I can have it, and let its
roundness my stomach philosophize. |
Shrew: |
It is a good evening, but I'd know where thy mother is. The wind's a nip, I've come out of its chill for th'day. |
Martin: |
Ay, it's a tough whispered threat on Timmy's life. |
Shrew: |
But thy mother'd shake fists at the wind. O, such hard
breath! |
Teresa: |
[to Cynthia] How is he? |
Cynthia: |
Not so well. |
Martin: |
What a life, indeed, one for another. |
Cynthia: |
He's in a painful fit; speaking of... of strange things. Stygian substances; the shielding of demonic fires in an angel's garb. He spoke of tottering on the world's bank, fearing a dangerous alluvial transport... and yet, he's in such a transport now I would not touch him. Perhaps he is not in a fit after all. |
Shrew: |
Heavens. |
Martin: |
Tell him he need not fear disguised demons, and that he may trust his eyes. |
Cynthia: |
Those are good words, Martin, but to say them to him is another thing. |
Martin: |
So I shall, as always. |
Shrew: |
I wonder that such a one ever saw the light of day. |
Cynthia: |
How, now? |
Shrew: |
That such an product may be made from thy parents pulls me aback. I should think his a prime number. |
Cynthia: |
So's seven. |
Teresa: |
So's three. |
Shrew: |
Yea, so is thirteen. |
Cynthia: |
There are thirteen notches on the door. |
Teresa: |
Thirteen silvers are set on the mantel. |
Shrew: |
I'd fain check them for tarnish. |
Martin: |
I wonder at you all. That boy's placid as Dulcinea on a Sunday. I spoke to him about you and Mother, and he began counting the patches on his warming quilt. There's one more red than yellow, and one more white than black. Let anyone interpret these humours as he will, I'd ask Ages about it. |
Shrew: |
Thou wouldst weary Ages with it. |
Martin: |
Only until he told me what it meant - I am not unreasonable. |
Teresa: |
Perhaps it has more to do with the blanket than with Timmy. |
Cynthia: |
Or perhaps more with the one as sewed it. |
Martin: |
Wise words. But he's under the blanket now, sleeping soundly. I'd find it unfollowing that he were ill if my mother wasn't consternated. |
Shrew: |
Crestfallen mothers, when the wrong's their child, |
Martin: |
Yea, 'tis Mother as keeps his soul still; his worrying tremors shake life off as a cloak. |
Teresa: |
Then what's a sister to do? O, I should make more tea! |
Martin: |
Teresa, you emulate our mother's care with uncanny aptitude. |
Cynthia: |
Mother keeps the gears running. The shrew's to substitute
her governance... |
Shrew: |
O, never mind me, child. |
Martin: |
Aye, Timmy's in such bristly care, when I |
~ 4.2 ~
In Nicodemus' chamber
|
[Enter Brisby, Nicodemus, and Patrick] |
Nicodemus: |
Of trials of the weary and the worn |
Patrick: |
Joy's one source only, and is
the wordless, inexplicable answer to many a question. I'd sing thee a song,
father, and this needs no music; indeed, fits better without it: |
Nicodemus: |
Nay, let thy voice not dwell upon those notes, |
Patrick: |
Then I shall sing another. |
Nicodemus: |
No, sing thee not that song; it seems too far |
Patrick: |
Now this is a demand. I'll search high and low, from the
heathers' harmony to the mountains' melody, from the deepest note of the bass
to the airiest strike of the soprano, but what's to do with an alto in a
tree? Many want songs of their miseries; many want songs of pomp and myth to
take their dwelling off the moan o'the day; very few want songs of
happenstance they may not know, but may access at any moment. |
Brisby: |
It matters not anyway. Here comes a new audience. |
Ages: |
A hail, Brisby! I suppose Nicodemus has told thee everything. |
Brisby: |
Well, it has been a telling, that's true. |
Priest: |
Ah, this is the one I am to aid? |
Ages: |
Aid, yea, I suppose. Such an odd thing to demand of a kettled fish. |
Priest: |
And here is Nicodemus' comical son. |
Patrick: |
Yea, here am I, and I am here. |
Brisby: |
Who is this, Patrick? |
Ages: |
Why, this is the priest, and also our finest medicinary and gallipot. |
Patrick: |
He's a drugger! Cackle and glee-guffaw! |
Priest: |
And you are as you've always been, a rosary of jokes: decades of the same. |
Patrick: |
Aye, but read with heartfelt devotion. |
Priest: |
Yea, you read their worn roundness faithfully, and fumble them through your fingers. |
Patrick: |
I handle them with due reverence. Anything that's served many a clown so long's quite the relic. |
Ages: |
[to Brisby] Everybody needs to learn their craft, and this has been a great source for me. This rat's archiving ability is phenomenal. He'll tell you in a split hair, what... |
Patrick: |
[to Brisby] We'll have you for our perdue. |
Ages: |
Pray, what, Patrick? |
Patrick: |
Ages, I am a bit more direct than you are. You'd fright coveyed quail with a pair of sticks; I'd just light a charge. I am to the point. That is what you were going to ask her, isn't it? |
Justin: |
'Perdue' is such a harsh word. It makes us sound ungrateful... to send the widow of our late warrior into the battle alone! |
Patrick: |
You were going to appoint the wife to fill the dead husband's place. That's not ingratitude, but it would be well for the contracted to know what she was in. |
Brisby: |
[to the priest] Father, tell me strait what I'm to do... and let it be as round as one of Patrick's jokes. |
Patrick: |
How, now? |
Priest: |
We've need to stay the cat for work tonight; |
Ages: |
You need not her intimidate. |
Priest: |
Is't so? |
Brisby: |
I understand, and am not taken back, |
Patrick: |
[to Brisby] Jonathan's role, though beautiful, was repetitive. His phrase of melody was continually the same, which left him ample room for innovative variation. His size - his small size - which allowed him to drug NIMH's food, allowed him also to drug the cat's food. The only entrance to the farmhouse we have unseen is a knothole on the side: and that too small for any of us, except Jonathan and Ages. |
Ages: |
The first is dead, the last is incapacitated. |
Justin: |
Although Jenner may command echelons of sense, take to our
front ranks! He has |
Priest: |
Child, we have no choice, and it is with grave apology that we present this to thee. |
Brisby: |
I'd take a part, the saving of my son's |
Justin: |
No lance, no horse, aye, and I shouldn't think the purdue has any armour, correct? |
Brisby: |
I'd need not them, I'd make up for the lack, |
Justin: |
Keep your clutch for now, but when the time comes, lose it before your life! |
Brisby: |
The trench is cut, the melt has only one |
Priest: |
That's the talk! |
Nicodemus: |
And so, the beset are beset e'en more |
~ 4.3 ~
At Mrs. Brisby's house
|
[Enter the shrew] |
Shrew: |
The even lumbers to our door to cast |
Martin: |
My brother's ill... O, O, he is so ill; good shrew, I know I've been hope's very mirror, but I cannot keep a reflection much longer... the only reflections I make give me pain. O, Timothy! How I've played with him; how I've teased him; how I've loved him! |
Shrew: |
Do not despair; that is the only irreparable damage that might be done. Remember thy mother's admonition for faith. |
Martin: |
Faith... O, that I had something easily believed in!... but wait. Let me pace about you. Heavens! Glorious heavens - you have sent me a vision that fills my eyes! Surely I can easily believe in this great and massive sign before me; I have the evidence of it before my eyes. The less empirical evidence becomes me in the vision. |
Shrew: |
That is the Martin I know; that is the Martin I know, the sly, wicked taunter I love. Thou hast one modoc and one aim only, but a violent and versatile throw to thee. |
Martin: |
Macronic monster! |
Shrew: |
Irreverent nincompoop! |
Teresa: |
What's the wrong? |
Shrew: |
Nothing; we are vastly enjoying ourselves. |
Teresa: |
Aye, 'tis thy spectator's game, Martin. How's the score? |
Martin: |
Bright and brilliant. 'Tis a fine music. |
Shrew: |
Lyres don't have the bite of the tongue. It is as is written, the smallest members may control the entire body. |
Martin: |
Just as a thin baton leads the entire orchestra... lyre and all, and sees the score through the bright and glum parts, the speedy and slow, the glorious and gloomy... the fleet and the ostentatiously ponderous. |
Shrew: |
Thou devil. |
Martin: |
To wit, I am always at the keel. |
Teresa: |
Mother! |
Cynthia: |
More noise? O, it's mother! |
Shrew: |
I'm glad to see you in one piece. Did you decide not to go to the thornbush, and scavenge for dinner instead? |
Brisby: |
No, I've been to the bush... and I must leave shortly. |
Martin: |
This is, indeed, a story of repeated themes. |
Brisby: |
Yea, Nicodemus said something to that effect... |
Cynthia: |
Nicodemus? |
Brisby: |
Of matter of fact, the Rats' leader. He told me how they were sought by mysterious recluses with ill-gotten knowledge, and how their resource lent them measures of sapience... |
Shrew: |
That's a bed-story; you might entertain Timmy with it. |
Brisby: |
And I attended a rather unpleasant parliament with great pomp and half a degree of eloquence... and a fine blade to hurt. The sharpest thorns cannot be seen with the eye. |
Shrew: |
You've learned some lessons today. |
Brisby: |
I was even seen by a clown! |
Shrew: |
Do you want a cold poultice, or some wintergreen to chew, or perhaps both? |
Brisby: |
But I am away. I came first to reassure you. I'm glowing! Timmy, I think, has a safe and sure sleep. |
Martin: |
A safe and sure sleep is the last thing to be wished upon him. |
Brisby: |
I came secondly to tell you something important. If anybody strange should come to the door, let him in. |
Shrew: |
Now this is madness, plain madness! |
Brisby: |
I'm leaving for the house, the farmer's home |
Shrew: |
She'd shoot the hare and ignore the hart! She'd wipe the mote away and fasten the plank in! Aye, she'd save Timmy in losing the rest of us! |
Cynthia: |
She is a brave one, shrew. Remember, 'tis such a life, one for another. |
Shrew: |
One for another - one for another! Who for whom? I've had doubts afore, I could not speak my venturesome worries, I could not breathe suspicion; now, I'd pile my speculation to the stars and let it topple in my wind or stand blatant as the truth! First, the Owl: he did not accomplish Brisby's seeking, then secondly the Rats, who did not claim her life either. Two unsure dangers she's sought to fall by, and neither has done so much as slap her wrist. So, for her charmed third attempt, she'll brave a sure danger: one she's known before, the very one her husband fell by. The cat gives her an open promise. He'll be glad to gobble her away; he'll be glad to crush her into voidity. A stark and unveiled nihilism I see; I fear her nobleness is a show; I fear her weakness is untempered by any braveness. That is the record as the shrew reads it; that is the story as the shrew sees it. |
Brisby: |
That is a fine bed-story to destroy Timmy with. Didn't you do this before? |
Shrew: |
I saw then as in a dark glass. |
Martin: |
Leave my mirror out. I will not return the reflections of ghosts, and I don't know whether to believe. |
Brisby: |
Believe if I live. Believe if I die. Believe if the shrew tells thee every dark tale between here and Khartoum. Believe if Timmy burns like a furnace. Believe if the rain should come down dry and the snow searing. Believe if an apple should taste like an eggshell. Believe if the stars shine by day and the sun by night. Believe in God, believe in thyself, believe in thy mother; I love thee! If thou canst not believe, nothing lives for thee. If thou believest not, no wonder's overt, only those as might catch thee off-guard, in a moment of weak doubting. A dead world welcomes no life; an unsanctioned, unblessed, unmeaningful life can offer no worth. It cannot lend of goods it was never given. Believe, believe, or thy life is gone. It is a simple lesson; learn it well, dear Martin. |
Martin: |
A good study; I should start by believing it. |
Cynthia: |
Is't true? Is anything the shrew says true? |
Teresa: |
Whether anything here is true, first I'd know. We can easily remember how Martin's swearing can wear; Gibraltar might be a'tumbling. It is easy for a letter at the front to be slaughtered. |
Martin: |
You know I've meant what I did swear to you, |
Shrew: |
That is an easy trick for devils' minds, |
Brisby: |
I see that you can keep yourselves amused, |
Shrew: |
Spoken like a true disdainer of life. |
Brisby: |
My goal's to greater life than was before, |
Shrew: |
Then I shall play my rotund part. Be as thou sayest! Let me never catch thee going back on thy word. |
Brisby: |
What good is speaking words, without a mind |
Martin: |
Such a rondo I hear played! If the ending is still set in the major key, all shall still be well, I should think. |
Shrew: |
Thou shouldst think indeed - but thou rarely dost. |
Teresa: |
I've no mind left for such sport. I should think you both are asleep. Do you hear our mother? |
Shrew: |
I hear thy mother, and I'll live as if |
Brisby: |
We're hurting even now |
Shrew: |
Be gone no more! Stay, if this house is moved, stay, if Timmy is saved, stay, if we've no more worry! |
Brisby: |
I cannot. I've said I shouldn't. If I should forget my task, and play idle, many may die, and Timmy almost certainly shall. Call me not benevolent. I could not live with myself should I manifest such a fault. |
Shrew: |
Then away, before I say a hateful word, and let the sun set for aught on a grieved friend. I love thee, and shall miss thee! |
Martin: |
Good mother, thou wert brave beyond my know; |
Shrew: |
Mad! All mad! |
Teresa: |
I'd think the cat's mad. Good faith, mother! This night's the press. Live one night, mother, one night! Thou hast slept many nights through... live this night as easily. |
Brisby: |
I'll try. You three have faith e'en more than me. |
Cynthia: |
We've sought to be good children, and take our mother at her word. If thou must go to the farmer's house, the cat's house too, I only wish I could attend, also. |
Brisby: |
O, I love thee; hours! Just a matter of hours! |
Shrew: |
So leaves intrepid her I'll never see, |
Cynthia: |
Mayhap you know it better than you suppose, but fancy thine emotions more. |
Shrew: |
I wish I knew Love better, how it seems |
Martin: |
It would approach thy giddy mind of sense. |
Shrew: |
I have thee still, Martin, such rough consolation! Sorrow shall now envelop me in the night. Be off to bed, such young souls should not bear this sight. |
Cynthia: |
I hope she is happier tomorrow. |
Martin: |
She would quote the danker writ. 'Joy cometh in the
morning.' |
Shrew: |
I know no eve as dimmed so lossfully, |
~ 4.4 ~
In the farmhouse
|
[Enter Brisby] |
Brisby: |
This domed cathedral's walled, there is a limit its
expanse, |
Voice: |
[off-stage] How! Speak'st thou? Who's there? |
Brisby: |
This does a bit offset me. Where art thou? |
Voice: |
I've spoken, come follow my voice! I see thee not. |
Brisby: |
Art thou behind the wall, the mud and straw? |
Voice: |
Not I. Art thou behind the wall, forsooth? |
Brisby: |
I see a wall before me, whether side |
Voice: |
I heard thee speak of our vast cathedral. To the sufficiently large, everything's small. A brave and beautiful night 'tis, but there's a cat about. |
Brisby: |
I've ne'er a mind for chatter; I've a sombre task before; |
Voice: |
I am sorry. I would doff my cap, if you could see me - but if you could see me, you could also see that I am not wearing any cap. |
Brisby: |
Is't dark and lonely on that side of the wall? Stuffy, perhaps? |
Voice: |
You've no idea. |
Brisby: |
I'd wonder at this dwelling, for I live within a case |
Voice: |
My room's of mud |
Brisby: |
Yea, that's true. |
Voice: |
You seem a sorry soul. What drives you here? |
Brisby: |
My forfeit hangs beyond my reach, I'm trothed |
Voice: |
That is a mystery. |
Brisby: |
My child is ill. |
Voice: |
I've not a child my own. |
Brisby: |
My life is torn, |
Voice: |
I that assert my own example, yea, |
Brisby: |
This is even the great cynic's conclusion: 'Fear God, keep his commandments; such is the entire duty of man.' I've never lived as a cynic, how emphatically I must repeat the same in my conclusion! |
Voice: |
So must we all, to vapour I must go, |
Brisby: |
Farewell. |
Farmer: |
Oy, I'd make it eight of the clock; I need be in bed! What, is it raining? |
Brisby: |
[to herself] But a drizzle. |
Farmer: |
Yes, it is, but a drizzle. |
Messenger: |
Good evening, kind bauer. If you are uneasy, that is a good thing. Tonight, the sky is more than foreboding, and it has seen everything from one horizon to the other. |
Farmer: |
That may be the case, but how can any such calamity involve me? What am I caught in? |
Messenger: |
It rises from the paradoxes of men. We own our land; in doing so we own some measure of responsibility for those dumb creatures in our land. |
Brisby: |
[to herself] Hm. This kind of talk might put Jenner straight. |
Messenger: |
Taking land our own! It is 'round the forest to your neighbor, is it not? |
Farmer: |
Aye, is this his complaint? O, it's not those rats, is't? |
Messenger: |
Nay, it is not your neighbor's complaint. Of the rats, I shall not say more than is necessary. |
Farmer: |
They've made colony in my sprawling rosebush, that much I know. |
Messenger: |
Listen, listen! I care not about your rats. I have come to tell you of a visitor who shall come to this door tonight... or more than one visitor, I do not know the number. You will know them by the talisman they will present you. On the front it will bear the letters N-I-M-H, some intaglio scrawls and a design that could well be a cartographer's curlicue. On the back will be assorted legends, the name of the token's bearer, and a warning: it is death to counterfeit, it is death to give to another. |
Farmer: |
I am to be shown a criminal's signet! Why are they not in prison? |
Messenger: |
There is no gaol as could hold these men... the king knows it is safer to give them a supervised parole. I pray that you shall never met an unholier man than he who will come to you tonight. He may have nets; he may have some assorted trappings of capture. If you should hear strange speech or unidentifiable noises come from this man, attribute it to the buzzing of an insect. Do not affront your visitor, he is your guest... but do not turn your back on him. |
Farmer: |
They are polite to send a herald ahead to announce their coming. |
Messenger: |
I am no herald. I am a sentry of the king, and I have come to warn, not announce! Remember my words, if you have to carve them into your palm! It would be better for you to have a sore hand for a week than to forget one word I have said to you tonight. It is my duty to observe their comings and goings, and I'd trade my post with a decoy on the front if I could. |
Farmer: |
I hear. |
Messenger: |
Hear me, indeed. Five hundred years from now your house may be a cairn of gloom for weary travelers, and a grim foreboding edifice less temporal than tonight's ill-sheening sky. God's blessing upon thee! Thou art in need! Thou'rt in need, good man. |
Farmer: |
I am slightly overcome. You are from the king; such a wonder! Pray, what is this matter? You may tell me, I am a gentle man. |
Messenger: |
Substances hellish. The foulest, most infernal affair I have ever been blighted with, cursed with, ah! I am bound my life to watch these fiends; they show me spectacles that would steal the breath away from lesser men. See the furrows on my face! I am half the age you'd expect, or a third; life is so dilated for me I cannot tell. But I must be gone. There are two fewer eyes watching this band, and that is a curse on England greater than Gallic legions five thousand strong. I now take my leave, but, O, I pray and plea that you shall condition yourself wisely! Be guided from above, or be lost! |
Farmer: |
I shall pray for your relief. |
Messenger: |
Pray for yours, at first. |
Brisby: |
[to herself] NIMH... roving malignancies! Not in my house! |
Farmer: |
O, the cat! I nearly forgot. I must set him in for his food, the arrant beast! If he were of any worth, he'd have caught the whole lot of those rats. 'Tis all right anyhow, I shall be up all night, I fear, waiting for some ghoul. I wonder if I shall be rested enough to break the ground tomorrow. |
Brisby: |
[to herself] Breaking the ground! O, but that is now the least of my worries... wait, I am alive! All's well, I'd best be off if the cat is coming; all's well! Can I really say that? All's well. How that sounds well! |
Farmer: |
'Tis going to be a night. How strange a man |
Brisby: |
And waking hours |
Farmer: |
Such blaze! Methinks I've caught a dryer clutch |
Brisby: |
Yea, may sputter, and, if so, |
~ 4.5 ~
Outside of Mrs. Brisby's house
|
[Enter the shrew, in haste] |
Shrew: |
Help, O, help! This is an astonishing day for all! Help!
Our field is being overrun with evils I cannot comprehend! |
Jeremy: |
Help! I seem to be at a heavy inconvenience! O, help! |
Shrew: |
Stay thee where thou art, lest I trip thee. |
Jeremy: |
I shall trip me. [He stumbles] A good stop, that. |
Shrew: |
It is not often that one can conquer such a foul beast. Thou'rt a stunning trophy. |
Jeremy: |
I am a stunning sleeper. |
Shrew: |
O, be muffled. I caught thee nobly well. [aside] Help! Help! [to Jeremy] Be still; I know thou'st demons encroached upon thee. |
Jeremy: |
Take up a tally. |
Shrew: |
Thou vehicular monstrosity! Ill omen or no, I should think demons could find better lodges. Pray tell, who cast thee into thee? Was this a matter of will or of force? |
Jeremy: |
Kind shrew, if you should ever come upon a genuine demon, I believe you should speak him into stark madness. |
Shrew: |
O, thou wouldst weaken my resolve with flattering - a fine trick, but I am too wise for't. Thou must perjure thyself now. Didst thou sweep Mrs. Brisby to her death today? |
Jeremy: |
Good lady, I am sure I do not understand you. |
Shrew: |
Thou art evasive. Speak something definitely. |
Jeremy: |
I definitely wish to be away from here. |
Shrew: |
Nay, something stronger than that... the Nicene Creed! Recite ye the Nicene Creed! |
Jeremy: |
Help! Help! I'm taken by an inquisition! |
Shrew: |
O, I have not put on my gendarme's cap yet. Help! Help! |
Brisby: |
How is this call... O, no! |
Shrew: |
Brisby! O, thou art alive! But new shadows have fallen
upon this field... O, we are lost! Timmy shall die! The plow shall destroy
us, for it has a masthead in the shape of a devil to guide it, and evil eyes
set all around it - O, it shall plow its waves deeply, and set a wake tall
enough to cover us all decisively, bury us... drown us... O, it drives
through hurricano winds unabashedly! We are lost! We are lost! O, Brisby...
I... I... |
Brisby: |
Perhaps thou'rt seeing the grasses' dark shadows. It is a pitch night, but there is a brilliant moon out, and full. |
Shrew: |
Full misery! It shines on full misery! |
Brisby: |
Calm, now. I say, sometimes I have five children. |
Shrew: |
Thou hast been brave until now, but in that black pile thou'st a roll of convoluted demons, black spirits, a spiral of night's forces, who live by rapine. They shall take us! They shall take us all! |
Jeremy: |
Who's taken whom? |
Shrew: |
[continually to Brisby] The plow has lasted through thy storms, thy challenges, and yet has kept her keel steadily. This field is an ocean, and shall take us all! |
Jeremy: |
Thou hast a shrew's acuity, indeed. Wishing to remain good, I shall not say more than that. |
Brisby: |
Good Jeremy, what is this matter? She's taken thee in ribbons; to whom shall she present thee? |
Jeremy: |
She means to take me for herself. |
Shrew: |
I mean to take it for the scrutiny of all that is good. |
Jeremy: |
She took to my neb with a riding crop! |
Shrew: |
A switch of sounder means than thy tongue... this corbie's a harpy, and I'd sooner set it away than prattle with it, tea with it, befriend it! |
Brisby: |
Good Jeremy, let me apologise. I fear having me for a friend has caused thee more grief than good, and I'd cut thy fetters once more. |
Jeremy: |
Cut my wingfeathers first! |
Shrew: |
To take the screaming flight from banshee's right, |
Jeremy: |
To be a clipped and helpless crow's a plight. |
Shrew: |
Aye, I suppose. As Mrs. Brisby is still alive, I shan't be harsh with you. |
Brisby: |
Then I shall take to these strings again - what was that about an orchestral theme? I fear my part's a tad redundant. But if I bow the violin, I've bested the cat; if I pluck the harp, I join the angels; if I play the cello, 'tis a reverbant sound that should swell throughout the hall, and reveal its secrets to me. |
Jeremy: |
I hear a ringing in my ears. Pray, cut these strings. |
Brisby: |
I play the strings; I cut the ribbons. Yea, that makes the round complete and consistent. Here, to new freedom I set thee. Shrew, shall you help me? |
Shrew: |
My rapiers are set to the vast taunting of evil... and thy son. |
Brisby: |
True enough. For such an oceanic beast, shrew, these knots would turn any sailor to laughing. |
Shrew: |
He cannot well undo them. |
Brisby: |
A proud achievement. Thou hast him in bonds which he could set himself in. |
Jeremy: |
Pray, do not fray the cords too badly. I may use these for my nest. |
Brisby: |
The freedman is always welcome to keep his former chains. |
Shrew: |
I spent the last hour collecting that bird's snare-stuff, but don't ask me! |
Brisby: |
Remind me to ask you two sometime where you collect all of these bits of twine and cord. My entire life I've lived in the same field as you, and I've found very little such hempy miscellany. Thou'rt natural accumulators. |
Shrew: |
I've known pack rats to envy before. |
Brisby: |
I have just about freed thee... there, 'tis off. I should think thou canst shake them away now. |
Jeremy: |
[rising] I can! Escape, I'm free again, and off - |
Brisby: |
Now, shrew, art thou not jealous? |
Shrew: |
I mourn the evening bound to the ground. I must now go home and convince myself this was a dream - my friend letting go of captured evil; such taint must stain her soul, I am afraid. |
Brisby: |
Thou art afraid of shadows, as thou said, |
Shrew: |
If I am afraid, I take it as my business. Truly, thou speak'st like one insane! I will away now; I am tired, too. Take thee some rest, if thou canst set aside thy ratty inventions; if not, stay thee up the night and converse with the moon while full. |
Brisby: |
Good night, friend shrew. |
Shrew: |
Good night, friend mouse. |
Brisby: |
O, why have I such ache? Ah, if it weren't I, it would be
somebody else, I suppose, somebody greater than I. How ductile is the soul!
Mine's been stretched over this entire field, to the deeps of the forest, to
the hollows in the ground; that is well enough. May it someday be golden
tinsel for a spotless gown. Hark! The crickets play! |
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