{"id":4171,"date":"2006-01-10T08:01:48","date_gmt":"2006-01-10T13:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4171"},"modified":"2023-08-17T07:26:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T11:26:32","slug":"the-books-mary-of-scotland-maxwell-anderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4171","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cMary of Scotland\u201d (Maxwell Anderson)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next script on my script shelf<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"MaryOfScotland.jpg\"Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is Mary of Scotland<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Maxwell Anderson<\/p>\n

Awesome play. First produced by the Theatrical Guild in 1930 with Helen Hayes playing Mary of Scotland. It’s in verse. It’s kick-ass. I’ve worked on the last scene before in acting class – it’s between Elizabeth and Mary – Mary’s imprisoned, Elizabeth comes to visit her. Historically inaccurate but HUGELY theatrical, and devastating to both characters – it’s a vicious scene, absolutely fantastic – two women circling one another, trying to win. You think Elizabeth has the upper hand, and then Mary seizes it … you think Mary is winning, and then Elizabeth seizes the reins back … it’s great great stuff for actors. Of course, because of the title of the play – Mary ends up being the emotional victor in the play – even though Elizabeth wins in the eyes of the real world.<\/p>\n

I’ll excerpt from that scene – it’s the very end of the play.<\/p>\n


\nEXCERPT FROM Mary of Scotland<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Maxwell Anderson<\/strong><\/p>\n

MARY. I have seen but a poor likeness, and yet I believe
\nThis is Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nI am Elizabeth.
\nMay we be alone together?<\/p>\n

[At a sign from Mary the maids go out. Elizabeth enters and the doors swing to behind her<\/i>]<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI had hoped to see you.
\nWhen last you wrote you were not sure.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nIf I’ve come
\nSo doubtfully and tardigrade, my dear,
\nAnd break thus in upon you, it’s not for lack
\nOf thinking of you. Rather because I’ve thought
\nToo long, perhaps, and carefully. Then at last
\nIt seemed if I saw you near, and we talked as sisters
\nOver these poor realms of ours, some light might break
\nThat we’d never see apart.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nHave I been so much
\nA problem?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nHave you not? When the winds blow down
\nThe houses, and there’s a running and arming of men,
\nAnd a great cry of praise and blame, and the center
\nOf all this storm’s a queen, she beautiful —
\nAs I see you are —<\/p>\n

MARY. Nay —<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nAye, with the Stuart mouth.
\nAnd the high forehead and French ways and thoughts —
\nWell, we must look to it. — Not since that Helen
\nWe read of in dead Troy, has a woman’s face
\nStirred such a confluence of air and waters
\nTo beat against the bastions. I’d thought you taller,
\nBut truly, since that Helen, I think there’s been
\nNo queen so fair to look on.<\/p>\n

MARY. You flatter me.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nIt’s more like envy. You see this line
\nDrawn down between my brows? No wash or ointments
\nNor wearing of straight plasters in the night
\nWill take that line away. Yet I’m not much older
\nThan you, and had looks, too, once.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI had wished myself
\nFor a more regal beauty such as yours,
\nMore fitting for a queen.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nWere there not two verses
\nIn a play I remember!
\n“Brightness falls from the air;
\nQueens have died young and fair” –?
\nThey must die young if they’d die fair, my cousin.
\nBrightness falls from them but not from you yet,
\nbelieve me,
\nIt’s envy, not flattery.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nCan it be — as I’ve hoped —
\nCan it be that you come to me as a friend —
\nWishing me well?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. Would you have me an enemy?<\/p>\n

MARY. Oh! if that were so, if that were so.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. Aye?<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI have great power to love! Let them buzz forever
\nBetween us, these men with messages and lies,
\nYou’ll find me still there, and smiling, and open-hearted,
\nUnchanging while the cusped hills wear down!<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nNay, pledge
\nNot too much, my dear, for in these uncertain times
\nIt’s slippery going for all of us. I, who seem now
\nSo firm in my footing, well I know one mis-step
\nCould make me a most unchancy friend. If you’d keep
\nYour place on this rolling ball, let the mountains slide
\nAnd slip to the valleys. Put no hand to them
\nOr they’ll pull you after.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nBut does this mean you can lend
\nNo hand to me, or I’ll pull you down?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nI say it
\nRecalling how I came to my throne as you did,
\nSome five or six years before, beset as you were
\nWith angry factions — and came there young, loving truth,
\nAs you did. This was many centuries since,
\nOr seems so to me, I’m so old by now
\nIn shuffling tricks and the huckstering of souls
\nFor lands and pensions. I learned to play it young,
\nMust learn it or die. — It’s thgus if you would rule;
\nGive up good faith, the word that goes with the heart,
\nThe heart that clings where it loves. Give these up, and love
\nWhere your interest lies, and should your interest change
\nLet your love follow it quickly. This is queen’s porridge
\nAnd however little stomach she has for it
\nA queen must eat it.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI, too, Elizabeth,
\nHave read my Machiavelli. His is a text-book
\nMuch studied in the French court. Are you serious
\nTo read me this lesson?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYou have too loving a heart,
\nI fear, and too bright a face to be a queen.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nThat’s not what’s charged againt me.
\nI’ve been traduced as a murderess and adultress
\nAnd nothing I could have said, and nothing done
\nWould have warded the blow. What I seek now is only
\nMy freedom, so that I may return and prove
\nIn open court, and before my witnesses,
\nThat I am guiltless. You are the Queen of England,
\nAnd I am held prisoner in England. Why am I held,
\nAnd who is it holds me?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nIt was to my interest, child,
\nTo protect you, lest violence be offered to a princess
\nAnd set a precedent. Is there anyone in England
\nWho could hold you against my will?<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nThen I ask you as a sovereign,
\nSpeaking to you as an equal, that I be allowed
\nTo go and fight my own battles.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. It would be madness.<\/p>\n

MARY. May I not be judge of that?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. See, here is our love!<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nIf you wish my love and good-will you shall have it freely
\nWhen I am free.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYou will never govern, Mary. If I let you go
\nThere will be long broils again in Scotland, dangers,
\nAnd ripe ones, to mym peace at home. To be fair
\nTo my own people, this must not be.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nNow speak once
\nWhat your will is, and what behind it! You wish me here,
\nYou wish me in prison — have we come to that?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. It’s safer.<\/p>\n

MARY. Who do you wish to rule in Scotland,
\nIf not my Stuart line?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nHave I said, my dear,
\nThat I’d bar the Stuarts from Scotland, or bar your reign
\nIf you were there, and reigned there? I say only
\nYou went the left way about it, that since it’s so
\nAnd has fallen out so, it were better for both our kingdoms
\nIf you remained my guest.<\/p>\n

MARY. For how long?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nUntil
\nThe world is quieter.<\/p>\n

MARY. And who will rule in my place?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. Why, who rules now? Your brother.<\/p>\n

MARY. He rules by stealth!<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nBut all this could be arranged,
\nOr so I’m told, if your son were to be crowned king,
\nAnd Moray made regent.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nMy son in Moray’s hands —
\nMoray in power —<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. Is there any other way?<\/p>\n

[A pause<\/i>]<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nElizabeth — I have been here a long time
\nAlready — it seems so. If it’s your policy
\nTo keep me — shut me up — I can argue no more —
\nNo — I beg now. There’s one I love in the north,
\nYou know that — and my life’s there, my throne’s
\nthere, my name
\nTo be defended — and I must lie here darkened
\nFrom news and from the sun — lie here impaled
\nOn a brain’s agony — wondering even sometimes
\nIf I were what they said me — a carrion thing
\nIn my desires — can you understand this? — I speak it
\nToo brokenly to be understood, but I beg of you
\nAs you are a woman and I am — and our brightness falls
\nSoon enough at best — let me go, let me have my life
\nOnce more — and my dear health of mind again —
\nFor I rot away here in my mind — in what
\nI think of myself — some death-tinge falls over one
\nIn prisons —<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nIt will grow worse, not better. I’ve known
\nStrong men shut up alone for years — it’s not
\nTheir hair turns white only; they sicken within
\nAnd scourge themselves. If you would think like a queen
\nThis is no place for you. The brain taints here
\nTill all desires are alike. Be advised and sign
\nThe abdication.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nStay now a moment. I begin to glimpse
\nBehind this basilisk mask of yours. It was this
\nYou’ve wanted from the first.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. This what I wanted?<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nIt was you sent Lord Throgmorton long ago
\nWhen first I’d have married Bothwell. All this while
\nSome evil’s touched my life at every turn.
\nTo cripple what I’d do. And now — why, now —
\nLooking on you — I see it incarnate before me —
\nIt was your hand that touched me. Reaching out
\nIn little ways — here, a word, there an action — this
\nWas what you wanted. I thought perhaps a star —
\nWildly I thought it — perhaps a star might ride
\nAstray — or a crone that burned an image down
\nIn wax — filling the air with curses on me
\nAnd slander; the murder of Rizzio, Moray in that
\nAnd you behind Moray — the murder of Darnley,
\nThrogmorton
\nBehind that too, you with them — and that winged scandal
\nYou threw at us when we were married. Proof I have none
\nBut I’ve felt it — would know it anywhere — in your eyes —
\nThere — before me.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nWhat may become a queen
\nIs to rule her kingdom. Had you ruled yours I’d say
\nShe has her ways, I mine. Live and let live
\nAnd a merry world for those who have it. But now
\nI must think this over — sadness has touched your brain.
\nI’m no witch to charm you, make no incantations:
\nYou came here by your own road.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI see how I came.
\nBack, back, each step the wrong way, and each sign followed
\nAs you’d have me go, till the skein picks up and we stand
\nFace to face here. It was you forced Bothwell from me —
\nYou there, and always. Oh, I’m to blame in this, too!
\nI should have seen your hand.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nIt has not been my use
\nTo speak mcuh or spend my time —<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nHow could I have been
\nMistaken in you for an instant?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYou were not mistaken.
\nI am all women I must be. One’s a young girl,
\nYoung and harrowed as you are — one who could weep
\nTo see you here — and one’s a bitterness
\nAt what I have lost and can never have, and one’s
\nThe basilisk you saw. This last stands guard
\nAnd I obey it. Lady, you came to Scotland
\nA fixed and subtle enemy, more dangerous
\nTo me than you’ve ever known. This could not be borne,
\nAnd I set myself to cull you out and down,
\nAnd down you are.<\/p>\n

MARY. When was I your enemy?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYour life was a threat to mine, your throne to my throne,
\nYour policy a threat.<\/p>\n

MARY. How? Why?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nIt was you or I.
\nDo you know that?
\nThe one of us must win
\nAnd I must always win.
\nThe Lords have brought a parchment
\nFor you to sign. Sign it and live.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nIf I sign it
\nDo I live where I please? Go free?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nNay, I would you might,
\nBut you’d go to Bothwell, and between you two
\nYou might be too much for Moray. You’ll live with me
\nIn London. There are other loves, my dear.
\nYou’ll find amusement there in the court. I assure you
\nIt’s better than a cell.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nAnd if I will not sign
\nThis abdication?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYou’ve tasted prison. Try
\nA diet of it.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nAnd so I will. I wait for Bothwell —
\nAnd wait for him here.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nWhere you will wait, bear in mind,
\nIs for me to say. Give up Bothwell,
\nGive up your throne if you’d have
\nA life worth living.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI will not.
\nThis trespass
\nAgainst God’s right will be known. The nations will know it,
\nMine and yours. They will see you as I see you
\nAnd pull you down.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nChild, child, I’ve studied this gambit
\nBefore I play it. I will send each year
\nThis paper to you. Not signing, you will step
\nFrom one cell to another, step lower always,
\nTill you reach the last, forgotten, forgotten of men,
\nForgotten among causes, a wraith that cries
\nTo fallen gods in another generation
\nThat’s lost your name. Wait then for Bothwell’s rescue.
\nIt will never come.<\/p>\n

MARY. I may never see him?<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nNever.
\nIt would not be wise.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nOh! Oh! —
\nAnd suppose indeed you won
\nWithin our lifetime, still looking down from the heavens
\nAnd up from men around us, God’s spies that watch
\nThe fall of the great and little, they will find you out —
\nI will wait for that, wait longer than a life,
\nTill men and the times unscroll you, study the tricks
\nYou play, and laugh, as I shall laugh, being known
\nYour better, haunted by your demon, driven
\nTo death or exile by you, unjustly. Why,
\nWhen all’s done, it’s my name I care for, my name and heart,
\nTo keep them clean.
\nWin now, take your triumph now,
\nFor I’ll win men’s hearts in the end — though the sifting takes
\nThis hundred years — or a thousand.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nAnd you are gulled
\nBy what men write in histories, this or that,
\nAnd never true? I am careful of my name
\nAs you are, for this day and longer. It’s not what happens
\nThat matters, no, not even what happens that’s true,
\nBut what men believe to have happened.
\nWhat will be said about us in after years
\nBy men to come, I control that, being who I am.
\nIt will be said of me that I governed well,
\nAnd wisely, but of you, cousin, that your life,
\nShot through with ill-loves, battened on lechery, made you
\nAn ensign of evil, that men tore down and trampled.
\nShall I call for the Lords’ parchment?<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nAnd still I win.
\nThis crooked track
\nYou’ve drawn me on, cover it, let it not be believed
\nThat a woman was a fiend. Yes, cover it deep,
\nAnd heap my infamy over it, lest men peer
\nAnd catch sight of you as you were and are. In myself
\nI know you to be an eater of dust. Leave me here
\nAnd set me lower this year by year, as you promise,
\nTill the last an oubliette, and my name inscribed
\nOn the four winds. Still, still I win! I have been
\nA woman, and I have loved as a woman loves,
\nLost as a woman loses. I have borne a son,
\nAnd he will rule Scotland — and England. You have
\nno heir!
\nA devil has no children.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYou shall suffer
\nFor this.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nAnd that I can do. A woman
\nCan do that. Come turn the key. I have a hell
\nFor you in my mind, where you will burn and feel it,
\nLive where you like, and softly.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nOnce more I ask you,
\nAnd patiently. Give up your throne.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nNo, devil.
\nMy pride is stronger than yours, and my heart beats blood
\nSuch as yours has never known. And in this dungeon, I win here, alone.<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH. [turning<\/i>]
\nGood night, then.<\/p>\n

MARY. Aye, good night.
\n[Elizabeth goes to the door<\/i>]
\nBeaton!<\/p>\n

ELIZABETH.
\nYou will not see your maids again,
\nI think. It’s said they bring you news from the north.<\/p>\n

MARY.
\nI thank you for all kindness.<\/p>\n

[Elizabeth goes out. Mary stands for a moment in thought, then, going to the window, she sits again in her old place and looks out into the darkness<\/i>]<\/p>\n

CURTAIN<\/p>\n

\n