Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/583
were to look out of the window there, you would see the crowd becoming wickeder every minute. Come! (He gives his arm to the Queen.)
QUEEN: You have a plan to stop their anger so that I shall not be martyred?
PRIME MINISTER: My plan will be disclosed before the face of the people and there alone.
(They go out. Nona comes in with a bottle of wine and a boiled lobster and lays them on the middle of the floor. She puts her finger on her lip and stands in the doorway towards the back of the stage.)
DECIMA (comes cautiously out of her hiding place singing):
"He went away," my mother sang,
"When I was brought to bed."
And all the while her needle pulled
The gold and silver thread.
She pulled the thread and bit the thread
And made a golden gown,
She wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.
(She is just reaching her hand for the lobster when Nona comes forward holding out towards her the dress and mask of Noah's wife which she had been carrying over her left arm.)
NONA: Thank God you are found. (Getting between her and the lobster.) No, not until you have put on this dress and mask. I have caught you now and you are not going to hide again.
DECIMA: Very well, when I have had my breakfast.
NONA: Not a mouthful till you are dressed ready for the rehearsal.
DECIMA: Do you know what song I was singing just now?
NONA: It is that song you're always singing. Septimus made it up.
DECIMA: It is the song of the mad singing daughter of a harlot. The only song she had. Her father was a drunken sailor waiting for the full tide and yet she thought her mother had foretold that she would marry a prince and become a great queen. (Singing):
"When she was got," my mother sang,
"I heard a sea-mew cry,
I saw a flake of yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh."
How therefore could she help but braid
The gold upon my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care.
The moment ago as I lay here I thought I could play a Queen's part, a great Queen's part; the only part in the world I can play is a great Queen's part.