text:
Collaborative play writing/Cardenio/Act 2

Act 2. Scene 1. A street

Enter Fernando and Fabian

Fernando. Ha, no? Did I- did she- Ha? Wondrously wonderful!

Fabian. Sir?

Fernando. Ha? Someone speaks.

Fabian. Sir?

Fernando. I'll mumble awhile and go.

Enter Giraldo

Fabian. Your master is wondrously distracted.

Giraldo. I believe so, sir, but I have ceased to wonder at his wondering wanderings.

Fabian. Why?

Giraldo. It seems to be his habitual manner after escaping away from any damsel's chamber.

Fabian. Is it so? I wish my nephew's friend would be more reservedly discreet in the Spanish fashion after his adventures.

Giraldo. I have often tried to convince him of that, but he leads himself alone by the rope of his proper self.

Fabian. So, sir, we hear Cardenio is away to your father's court.

Fernando. Ha! Is it come to this? Devils, monsters in morning gloom or evening cheer!

Giraldo. I told you, sir.

Fabian. Do you heed, Fernando? Your friend, we hear, left today.

Giraldo. So has my master, no one knows where.

Fabian. My lord?

Fernando. Yes, sir, the news with you?

Fabian. I believe so, sir.

Fernando. You are right, sir, I always say the same.

Fabian. Hear him, Giraldo. By not stirring the ladle of understanding, his pot is boiling over.

Fernando. To have enjoyed her, to have given- what?

All that at present I can boast my own,

With each reversion of the world we know,

Had its inheritance been mine: and now-

Just doom of guilty joys!- I grieve as much

As if I rifled stores of loveliness,

The charms of innocence and artless love,

Just as before I was devoured with wants

Because she spurned my vows, and shut all doors

Against the thunders of her Jupiter.

Fabian. Yes, downright love, more obviously than most!

We often see the foolishness of that.

Fernando. Now then to darker pits of recollection!

Was it not so? A promise first of marriage, bound with the surety of a thousand vows, not the lighter ones, as usual, yet I remember, those could not prevail. The unpracticed maiden trembled. How did I choose to relieve Mars' loins tormented? Saved by rape alone! But because I snatched the imperfect joy, all forms of memory torment me worse than I was before. Not love, but brutal violence prevailed, to which time and place cohered dishonourably. Shame, shame!

Fabian. What a pedlar's pack of sorrows this is! I fancy servants should help to discharge him.

Exit Fabian

Fernando. Hold, let me be more severe against myself, not unjust.- Was it a rape?- You laugh, Giraldo.

Giraldo. I never can, sir.

Fernando. I hear the dreaded laughter of men's thoughts.

As in the past, shrieks and exclamations would certainly have repulsed my lusts.- True, Giraldo, I hear you well, at no time did Violante consent, but neither did she resist. In silence all! Is it the coyness of a surprised virgin or the terrible resentment of the ravished? Is a man yet born who would not risk the guilt, to meet that joy?- The guilt! True, but then recall the dangers of the hour, the invisible tears, the silent clamors of a ruined maiden, pursuing me to bed and night. Those, those, I fear, as it already does my conscience, those will shatter the pretense of my honor. What is to be done? I have no choice. Luscinda reigns confesssed as the tyrant queen of my revolted heart, and Violante seems the brief usurper. By my arts, Cardenio is removed.- Friendship, how will you answer that? That a man can reason down fevers of the blood, or sooth with words the anguish in his heart! Then, Cardenio, I might be, indeed, your friend. They only should condemn me, who, devoid of passion, never have tried disputes between virtue and desire. But those who have as I

The loose escapes of youthful nature known,

Must blink at mine, indulgent to their own.

Giraldo. You are rhyming mad and therefore mischievous. I pray you, master, follow me, but distantly, fearing, I hope, to strike at any time your poor servant's caboche.

Exeunt Fernando and Giraldo

Act 2. Scene 2. Violante's house

Enter Violante and Ancianida

Violante. Whom will I look on without gushing blood?

No eye of honor with a virgin gaze

Will fail to find my guilt. What nimble speech

Of protest will avail me in my house

To say I was not willing? Winks and smirks,

The condemnation of the wise, no hope,

Except to publish my dishonor, wound

My fame anew.- O miseries untold!

If told, more awful than the wrenching thighs,

The blubbered lips, the hairy breath on them.

To seem like all our neighbors: virtuous! Yet

To know it is not so and never will be so.

Ancianida. Forget all, madam.

Violante. Do you behold this blood?

Ancianida. Hide it, clean it away.

Violante. What should I do? Which altar should I pray

On? Man's? The god we love and worship hates.

Ancianida. What a to-do for opening what would have popped open in any case!

Violante. Should I pursue or stay? Both I abhor

To think of in my state.

Ancianida. Rest quietly to sleep and then forget.

Violante. I hate you, Ancianida.

Ancianida. Never say so. I bleed worse than you do on hearing that.

Violante. Hate, hate, hate, hate you.

Ancianida. No!

Violante. I vehemently do, but mostly I

Detest myself for living on this day.

Enter Giraldo

Ancianida. Madam, here hastes Giraldo, to bring you Fernando's letter, I expect.

Violante. A letter for me! How I tremble now!

Yes, woman, quaver for your man again.-

Your lord's for court, Giraldo?

Giraldo. No, madam.

Violante. O my presaging heart! Where is he, then?

Giraldo. His business veers him to some other course.

Violante. But where, I pray?- How fears torment my love

Ridiculously!

Giraldo. A two month's journey in his future state.

Violante. Where, where? Where is he now? Not gone so soon?-

Blessed virgins, I lack patience to keep feet

Down on this floor, but rather jump away.-

Did he deliberate? Or did the task

Conceive as soon as it was bedded down?

Giraldo. Madam, I do not know, nor is it part of my orders to await your answer. I recommend the letter as your morning piece of entertainment.

Exit Giraldo

Ancianida. Have you ever set eyes on such a slave?

Violante. To hearts like mine suspense is misery.

Wax, render up his trust: may these contents

Be prosperous or fatal. One or both

Are thoroughly my due.

(reading

"Prudence should teach what indiscretion commits. I have already stepped towards this show of wisdom by prevailing on myself to bid you forever farewell."

O, wretched and betrayed! Lost Violante!

Heart-wounded with a thousand perjured vows,

With studied language poisoned, given up

To desperation. I am now become

The tomb of my own honor, dark enough

For death alone to dwell in. I invite

Consuming desolation to my house,

Bequeated for your spoil: the fabric ruined,

Which cannot be repaired, at once put down.

What should I do?- But that's not worth my thought:

I will commend to hazard all the time

That I can spend hereafter. Farewell, dad,

Whom I'll no more offend, farewell, all men,

Whom I'll no more believe, and last of all

Adieu, all honorable women here,

Whom I'll no longer shame. The way I go

I never know. May sorrow be my guide.

Exeunt Violante and Ancianida

Act 2. Scene 3. Before Bernardo's house

Enter Fernando and Giraldo

Fernando. Where are the eyes, the voice, the charms of gait,

Each beauteous particle, each nameless grace,

The parents of a new-created love?

All these in Violante, it would seem,

Were not, except as a disease in me,

Who fancied graces in her. When a man

Never beholds more than a hawthorn, he

Says cedars are tall trees, and scorns the shade

That a once loved bush lent him. Hold awhile.

Pale honor sickens in reflections of

My blackest pool. How is opinion safe

If I pursue Luscinda as my whore?

Giraldo. Again accumulating injuries

Such as a dizzy world has rarely seen.

Fernando. To Violante first, or else Cardenio,

To her a perjured wretch, to him a cheat,

And to myself a casual murderer

Of my own self, or what I fancy so,

Without whose image of renown and truth

My dog's the creature of a nobler kind.

Giraldo. You will amend no doubt.

Fernando. No, pleasure is too strong for reason's curb,

And conscience sinks quite overpowered still

Beneath perfumes of beauty's languid sweets.

Luscinda, authoress of all my crimes,

Appears, to vindicate my empire. May

She aid to press my choking honor down,

And I am wholly holily her own.

Away! I'll whistle for you when I sin.

Exit Giraldo, enter Bernardo and Luscinda

Bernardo. Fie, my loved lord, why do you wait outside?

If you suspect your welcome, I have brought

Luscinda to assure you of it now.

Fernando. A kiss, as sweet as odors of the spring,

But cold as dews that dwell on morning buds!

Luscinda, has your father conquered you?

Can duty then at last obtain the prize

When you refuse to love? Will your meek slave

Obtain his gladness with Bernardo's choice?

Ah, no. I read my ruin in your eyes:

That sorrow, cloudier than a thousand storms,

Commands me to seek shelter hurriedly

In leeky rotted cabins of despair.

Bernardo. Luscinda, only daughter, dear to life,

You are not now to learn this noble lord-

Whom but to name restores my failing age-

Has with a lover's eye beheld your grace,

Through which his heart speaks more than poets can,

Which offers joy and happiness to you

With honor to our house. Imagine then

The birth and qualities of such a man

Already recognized, whom none can rate

Too cheap for you.

Luscinda. My father, on my rough knee I beseech

You to pause but one moment in our house

Before you quite achieve your daughter's end.

My heart bleeds tears when once considering

All kindly tendernesses, yet distrust

What is still left behind. Consider here

Whoever must occasion others' fault

Cannot be innocent. Do not yield to

The world of censure a way to reproach

Your sudden whims, or to my charge lay what

I hourly fear, the sin of cuckoldry.

Bernardo. I pray you, fear neither marriage nor the other. I tell you, wench, in love there's always more fear than danger. For my part, as soon as you are married to this lord, my own anxieties will be over, except, when you are gone, the overseeing of my kitchen.

Luscinda. Sir, I should be the vainest sexless thing

Once to esteem myself the worthy aim

Of crowning ducal honor. In my youth,

When but to hear Fernando's swelling vows,

I would subdue my inexperienced fears

To make me wholly his. That past is smoke,

And my firm-plighted faith by your consent

Was long since given to Cardenio's love.

Bernardo. My consent I take away again. Like a simplet, you have yielded your affections to a fellow who does not care one bean for them, one who has abandoned you for a jaunt at court, one who, I should say, is looking for a place. Time enough to refuse to marry when my face lies in the grass.

Fernando. Just so it seems, my only lovely sweet.

Can your Cardenio feel my passions? No.

His love is man's amusement of an hour,

A brief repose from business or repasts,

The sport of youth and fashion of the age.

Had he but known the hopes, the doubts, the fears,

The loftiest passions of variety

That play the tyrant on my tortured heart,

He never would have left you to pursue

I do not know exactly what or where,

To practice cringes with a slavish rout,

To barter certain blisses for unsure

And fleeting honor.

Luscinda. Opposing whirlwinds, shouldering the tide,

Make fearful billows rise to drown my hopes.

Is it then possible you can forget

What is due to your name and ducal birth,

To friendship's only law, to faith reposed,

To honor in Cardenio's honesty?

O think, my lord, how much Cardenio loves,

Recall his services, his well-tried faith,

This very hour, wherever he may lie.

Your favor is the envy of the court

And secret triumph of his grateful heart.

Cardenio, how securely you most depend

On vows and honorings of a duke's son!

Mistaken youth! This minute filches you

Of all your heart holds dear. Fernando thus

Repays the merits of unhappy hearts.

Fernando. My honor, slumbering, hears the alarm.

I was to blame to parley with you thus:

It shows me to myself, and troubles me.

Bernardo. The wealth, the honor, by this light, the crown, the open way to riches, the horror of denial, by this light, I lose all directions about me, I am slipping; do I see a hole?

Luscinda. I am beginning where you end. I pray

And conjure you, by nature's interest,

By chastest love between yourself and her-

O holy mercies, were she living here!-

Forgive and pity. Sir, remember well

How my loved mother said a thousand times

Her father would have forced her virgin choice,

But when the conflict raged between her love

And duty, she forgot at once she was

A daughter, to pay all her vows to love.

You thought this well. My case is now the same.

You are the father, once too well condemned,

I, what my mother was, but not so happy.

Bernardo. A fool! You tell old stories to undo us. How, you cannot sleep with a man except by precedent, ha? You will be married to one who wants none of you? You will be happy nobody's way but your own, the young girl's modern malady. Do you mark your father? Spare your tongue for your husband's bed, using you hardly to bid you spare what you have a great deal too much of. Go your ways, do you hear? Get ready within two days to be covered by a husband you do not deserve to feed and clean. Do it, or, by your dead mother, you are no acquaintance of mine.

Fernando. Be gentler, almost father.

Luscinda. More woes for woman, circled round with fire:

No side-road to escape but through the flames.

Should I resolve to live, or die instead

With a kind father's blessing on my head?

With other slave-girls, choices are not hard:

But interest, that rules the world, has made

A merchandise of hearts, and virgins now

Must choose as they are bidden, wedding well

When wedding men without esteem or love.

By nobler springs will my affections shove,

Not own a master, but the man I love.

Exit Luscinda

Bernardo. Go your ways, contradiction.- Follow her, my lord, run with her in the very heat. This obstinacy must be combated by importunity as obstinate as it.

Exit Fernando and enter Camillo

My daughter says rightly, Camillo. Her mother was such another, but I do not know what. Two of us courted her at the same time, I remember. She loved neither, but chose me, her father's worst choice, only to spite that surly fool. Now the refusing arts lie on my side.

Camillo. My worthy neighbor, I am much in fortune's favor to find you here alone. I have a request to you.

Bernardo. Name it, neighbor. You see how happy my mood is to grant anyone his wish.

Camillo. I have long held you in singular respect. What I'll now reveal must be the proof of it. You know, sir, I have one son.

Bernardo. I do. What of that?

Camillo. In fortune I am blessed with him. You know what I aim at.

Bernardo. Fairly well.

Camillo. My entire inheritance belongs to Cardenio, now entirely engaged in attendance on our master, the duke. But before he went, he left with me the secret of his heart, the love of your daughter. For your consent, Camillo said, he is as ready for feats as Hercules was. I took one night to think on it, bringing you the happy results, to bind the contract with half my fortune at once, the entire sum on my unwelcome death, and meanwhile my hearty blessing. Ha? What do you say to that, Bernardo?

Bernardo. Surely, neighbor, I admit having heard of this matter.

Camillo. No doubt you have, eh?

Bernardo. I recollect it well.

Camillo. Was it so long ago?

Bernardo. Last Tuesday at the latest.

Camillo. Am I mocked, Bernardo?

Bernardo. Not mocked, Camillo, but love-matters, you know, change in an hour. Time tricks us.

Camillo. Why do you speak of time? I see how this goes. Can a minute take a man by the shoulder, to shake away his honor? Let me tell you, neighbor, either a strong wind or light honesty drops so easily.

Bernardo. Will you put indignation inside your pocket while I tell you the truth of my matter and hers? My daughter, you know, is such a tender wordling that she cannot meet a duke's oldest son and heir without desperately loving him. Now you know, neighbor, when greatness rides after a man of my years, prudence, and breeding, who can prevent my being overtaken by it? I profess, it was not my seeking, neighbor.

Camillo. A fox digs in the hollowness of your heart. Were I to give a bad conscience its true likeness, it would be drawn after a very near neighbor to a certain poor neighbour of yours, with a murrain on the horses carrying your honors and titles.

Bernardo. So nimble with me?

Camillo. If I speak nothing, I hear nothing. If you mean what you say, it is a lie before you speak it. I'll see Luscinda in front of your face, finding out from her whether she lives in the same story. If so, I'll believe your wife was true to you.

Exit into Bernardo's house

Bernardo. Two words before you enter my sad house.

Exit Bernardo following him

Act 2. Scene 4. Before Bernardo's house

Enter Luscinda above and Fabian below

Luscinda. Sst, sir! Are you Cardenio's uncle, sir?

Fabian. I hope I am. Luscinda, I dare think?

Luscinda. Of all that very own unhappy she!

How tediously I wait at balconies,

Yet know no one who passes!- If I trust

My letter to a stranger whom I think

Bears most an honest face, I am undone.

We fancy we are skilled in faces, when

Deception mars our life. Fernando's whim

Lies bleeding in me now, so that each face

Which must reflect some good removes my trust,

His faces promising all truth and love,

Since nature in the noblest forms deceive.

Be fortunate, because you lack his faith.

I see him, though I know he thinks I do

Not. But you are in all Cardenio's, no?

Fabian. I am since childhood.

Luscinda. As you were of a virtuous matron born-

For love is found in love- I conjure you

To grant a single boon to helplessness.

Fabian. I know you and will help you willingly.

Luscinda. I have no time to emphasize my suit

With many words, or rather I lack words

Despite my leisure, but for love of love,

And as you hate all forms of misery-

I wander. Do you know Cardenio's house?

Fabian. The ducal palace, where he waits intructions.

Luscinda. Convey this letter to him. Sir, believe

You do love's service in it, having cause

And motive never to repent your pains.

(Throwing down the letter

Bernardo. (within

Luscinda?

Luscinda. I trust you. May love put it in your heart

To assuage our woman-wearied woes.

Fabian. Do not doubt it.

Exit Fabian

Luscinda. May richer hands than mine requite such boons.

Bernardo. (within

Why, daughter, I am hungrier than I was

When first I sat at table.

Luscinda. I come.

Exit Luscinda


text:
Collaborative play writing/Cardenio/Act 3

Act 3. Scene 1. The ducal palace

Enter Cardenio and Rodrigo

Rodrigo. Here is the money for my brother's choice

Of horses as he wished.

Cardenio. I thank you as himself.

Rodrigo. Hold. Is Fernando your good friend as yet?

Cardenio. Yes, I would fight against thick hordes of steel

Who dare to say my friend and I are not.

Rodrigo. Remain at court.

Cardenio. Why, my good lord?

Rodrigo. Some matters much pertaining to his case,

Like a physician seeking blood to find

Whether the patient is amendable,

You may discover, for his weal and mine.

Cardenio. I serve your pleasure as I would my own.

Exit Rodrigo and enter Fabian

My uncle sweating in unseemly haste!

Fabian. A message from your love.

Cardenio. Luscinda?

Fabian. I hope a Spanish lover has not two.

Cardenio. No.

Fabian. When from the window she cried out my name,

New passions shook her voice, while from her eyes

Distraction wildly shot her random bolts,

Bespeaking news above a common grief.

Cardenio. (reading

O treacherous and damned Fernando! Friend?

Yes, as a scorpion when the locust sings.

Fabian. Some hardier patience, nephew, when you cry.

Cardenio. Is there a treachery akin to this

Recorded anywhere? I'll tear the book.

It is itself its very parallel,

Drawn by a false geometer professed.

Did I say friendship? I say nothing yet,

A sound heard growling fierce among the beasts,

The emptiest tigers holding amity

Together while confronting evil man.

Fabian. Resigned upbraidings cool the broth of time.

Cardenio. I'm counseled.

Fabian. To wild employments take me, any course

That's honest, though unsafe. With violent deeds,

I'll give you cause to say an uncle lives.

Cardenio. No more than this, kind uncle: go to her

To say Cardenio will become Cardenio,

Postpone a wedding blessed by maddened priests,

Most happily spoil wine-cups of his lust,

All good events ensuing. Let me crave

One minute with Rodrigo, then disguise

The lover as the predator of man,

To yield me to my love, unmarked and sure.

Fabian. You will not lack my help in anything.

Cardenio. Luscinda, bear on boulders rudest shocks,

Hold out your breath against desire's assault

From one of widest harm. Our services

Will be devoted to repay such constancy.

Exeunt Cardenio and Fabian

Act 3. Scene 2. Inside a church

Enter Fernando and Giraldo

Fernando. I could not penetrate, but reached so far,

Attempting to in vain, that to becalm

The angry-hopeful dad, I was forced to

Propose that woman's hope called marriage rites.

Giraldo. How, to be wedded now?

Fernando. Come, never stare, I will find ways or die

Preventing man's disaster.

Giraldo. Otherwise you are another, not Fernando.

Fernando. Though both expect me married in this place,

I will find ways to thwart the entreprise.

Giraldo. And we, except the principals, convened to enjoy the spectacle.

Fernando. Behold and learn.

Giraldo. I do, both for myself and my uncertain progeniture.

Fernando. Through this door for bolder planning.

Giraldo. I follow.

Exeunt Fernando and Giraldo, enter Luscinda in a wedding dress and Ancianada

Luscinda. Were you discharged from your former place?

Ancianada. I was, through no fault of my own.

Luscinda. I'm told you played the bawd.

Ancianada. The unfortunate result of an absurd and cruel misunderstanding between myself and my former mistress.

Luscinda. Having lost Florinda, I take you.

Ancianada. My mistress!

Luscinda. I hope, to the last sweaty minute hope,

He'll come. Cardenio has not yet received

My note, or else some other faces have

Repealed his changing eye, for what excuse

Explains a tardiness so wilful? None.

It is no business. - No, no! Ah, that note!

Ancianada. Man will be trusted more than woman is.

Luscinda. Not yet delivered, or the man is sick,

Or- pale suggestion, will you frighten me?-

Cardenio with Fernando plan and wink

On plotted purposes to yield me up,

Expecting many other mistresses.

Presumption can make powerful this point:

His own protraction, that friend left behind-

His strain lacks jealousy and therefore love.

As surely as life pukes into death,

This new surmise seems boldest revelation.

Fernando would not, dares not thus infringe

The law of friendship, to provoke a man

Who holds a sword and bears the flag of youth

As fresh as he- dares not- contrivances,

Gross daubing between men.- I'm overheard.

Enter Cardenio

Luscinda. Go, Ancianada, prove you are my own

By keeping off my father for a time.

Ancianada. You speak to one born for such tricks.

Exit Ancianada

Cardenio. Luscinda, has this happy veil of love,

Unhappy to me, lost me to all knowledge here?

Luscinda. O my Cardenio! Save me from myself.

Your sad voice batters down debates of doubt,

And cures me of a thousand heartsick fears

Sprung from blank absence, yet awakes a mist

Of other sleeping terrors.- Do you weep?

Cardenio. Luscinda, no, or if I do, it is

The substance of my eye. Could I but weep!

For then my eye would melt against my heart,

And kill the conflagration raging there.

Luscinda. You are possessed in full how things go here.

First, welcome heartily to my last hour.

Now maiden springtime bliss is almost done,

My briefest lease of life almost expired.

Cardenio. Not so, Luscinda.

Luscinda. Cardenio, yes. An everlasting wolf

Broods in my house, which I cannot close out.

I cannot moan and weep in further talk.

Thus it is: your brief absence yields down births

Of what my note aborted, at this time

Almost on the effecting-

(Bells are heard

Hear music breathing on my catafalque,

Now, now, a-tuning, which must celebrate

A business too discordant! Tell me, then,

What you will do.

Cardenio. I do not know. Advise me in this case.

I'll kill the traitor.

Luscinda. Take instant heed: his death, though much deserved,

Can better no known cause. No killing here.

Cardenio. My blood stands stiller, all my faculties

Are by enchantments stopped. Your gracious force,

The guardian of sworn faith and suffering,

Inspires prevention of this dreaded way

The moment it is uttered. Hurry out,

To fly this instant from the house of woe.

Luscinda. Alas, impossible! My steps are watched.

No exit in my scene, or in your own.

Cardenio. To see you wedding-ravished to my nose?

I'll force our passage. Do I wear a sword?

On man's thigh never sharper if I see

The faithless actor play his part; if not,

I will lead you to honor. Should he take,

Call me a tame pale coward, as when mice

Affright the owl in barns. Give it to men.

Luscinda. Cardenio, peace, and trust on only love.

I have forethought somewhat a choicer way

To disappoint my nuptials.- Hark again.

(Bells are heard

Those are the bells that knoll for us. The lights

Move all our way and groan. Behind that door

Take up your secret stand. No more disputes:

There you may mark the passages of hell,

Yet, more: I charge you by our dearest ties,

Whatever you behold, or hear, or feel,

In your concealment rest a silent grave.

Come, hide, discerning I am Amazon-armed

(showing a dagger

To fall, a dark-faced dripping sacrifice

Before the Christian world.

(thrusting Cardenio behind a door

I dare not tell most of my purposes,

Lest they wrap you in very agonies

A manly love could never understand.

Enter Bernardo and re-enter Fernando

Fernando. Luscinda, will you in such darkened gloom

My triumph darken, suffering dismay

And wan displeasure to subdue that cheek

Where love should lie enthroned? Behold your slave-

No, do not frown, for each hour of our life

Will task me to your service, till by marks

Of candid love I blot your low-born love

From every loving parchment.

Luscinda. With such a pen, my pages will be stained.

The counsel is corrupt.

Fernando. Come, you will change, and change, and change again.

Luscinda. Why make your wife's breasts of such stones as these

So liable to change? This strategem

Still speaks against itself, and vilifies

The purest of our judgment. For birth's sake,

I will not heap my hoarded curses yet,

Or give my meanings language. For the love

Of all good things together, yet take heed,

And spurn the tempter back.

Bernardo. Perverse and foolish wretch!

Luscinda. How may a woman be obedient and

Wise? My obedience cannot strip my love,

Nor can I then be wise. Grace against grace!

Ungracious if I disobey a father's fad,

More perjured if I do! My lord, reflect,

Not yet too late, should ever knots be tied,

Some violence damnable is often used,

No fashion to dissever but with whoring.

You wed an empty body, not my own,

No part of my affection. Sound it well,

Cardenio's love is not Fernando's wife:

Have you one nerve inside of ears for that?

Fernando. No shot of reason can come near the place

Where love reigns fortified. The day will come

When you will chide this backwardness,

And bless the fervor of our violent course.

Luscinda. Never, Fernando, never, never, friend.

When you will find what prophet you appear,

You'll speak with untamed madmen all day long.

Bernardo. No more of talking in a darksome fog.

If you will knit to your obedience, good;

If not, unbolt the portal and be gone,

My blessing far behind meek insolence.

Luscinda. Your pardon, father, as I love true words,

I will not swerve from duty and respect,

Though costing dead reales of our Spanish blood.

Bernardo. Well, to the point at last. We'll finish this.

Give me your hand.- My honored lord, receive

My daughter of me - come, no dragging back

Except with curses- whom I yield to you,

And wish you joy and honor on this day.

Luscinda. His is the elder claim, his, his, his, his.

Bernardo. Ha! Who are you?

Luscinda. One almost sinking in my knowledge, piked

Right through like soldiers with man's injuries.

Fernando. Is it Cardenio speaking? Hear at once:

Is he not sent by our commands at court,

Awaiting our dismissal? Will he dare,

Our vassal merely ours, to sneak away

Unpriviledged, alone, and secretly,

To leave my business unaccomplished?

Luscinda. Ungenerous lord! Circumstance of things

Should stop the tongue of question. You wrong me,

Twit me so basely in so dear a point

As stains the cheek of honor with dark blood,

All bonds of service cancel, bid respect

Shog off, throw wildly all alliances

In eminence, and, in their awful stead,

Fill up a panting heart with just defiance.

If you have sense of shame or justice, then

Forego this sad intent, or with your sword,

As if I were a man, cut me. I'll thank.

Cardenio dead, Luscinda may be yours,

But, living, far too rich a prize for lords.

Fernando. Vain girl! The present hour is fraught with gears

Of richer moment. Love will first be served.

Should courage hold my claim to take you here,

I may have leisure to chastise these dares.

Luscinda. I'll seize my right.

Bernardo. What, here, a brawl? Man with a woman tugged?

I'll turn each sworder boisterously away,

And see none live to mar our joys today.

(Luscinda faints

Fernando. She dies.

Bernardo. Ha! Are you glad?- No, give her air. Away!

Fernando. My hopeful mind misdoubts my sanity.-

Giraldo!

Enter Giraldo

What paper falls from her? Let us see that.

Bernardo. Lift her head. Darkness will recover her.

The handwriting is hers.

Fernando. (reading

She will do violence to herself, alone

Or in the church, which nature has prevented here.

What dagger does she mean? Search her out well.

Bernardo. Here is the dagger. O the stubborn sex,

Rash even to cold pits of madnesses!

Fernando. Life flows in her again. I knew it would.-

Giraldo, bear her to her chamber door,

And tend her as you would your mother's corpse.

Exit Giraldo bearing Luscinda

Bernardo, these tumults will soon decline,

The cause removed, and all return to love.

In women, passions show as brief a spark

As they are cannon-potent in effect.

Bernardo. Our curate waits.

Fernando. Let every priest nod off on prayer-books.

Come, let us go. My soul is all on fire,

And burns impatient at a fool's delay.

Exeunt Fernando and Bernardo

Act 3. Scene 3. A street

Enter Rodrigo and Camillo

Rodrigo. Cardenio's quittance suddenly and a

No-brother's perdurated absences,

Warm only for a stranger woman's needs,

Who cannot couple but my father howls

Almost to madness, thrust me to suspicions

And sleep-preventing dreams- no, worse than those:

Snuff out the recreations sex demands

At candle-light. So like a whirlwind's might

They snatch me off, away from my own self.

Perforce I know my brother, yet, old sir,

Rejoiced to meet you in resolving mists

In this kin's compounds, as if dirtying

The glass in chemical experiments

That appertain to me. Say what ails you.

Camillo. Ha?

Rodrigo. Come. Is it possible old men forget

Their friends as well as where their houses are?

Camillo. Friends!

Rodrigo. A being who loves others for an hour.

Camillo. None of those, should you be like other lords.

Rodrigo. I am Rodrigo, as I rarely lie,

Yet I protest I love you very well.

Camillo. You love my son too very well, I think,

One who believes too suddenly court-creed.

Rodrigo. All is not well, but do not rail as yet

Before I know your troubles or my own.

Camillo. All lords behave dishonorably still.

Rodrigo. I am so far from understanding wrongs

That I know nothing of your discontents.

Camillo. You do not know yet, on my conscience, how

Your brother, noble Lord Fernando- heap

Rots on dissemblers!- under masks and shades

Of buying coursers, from his plighted faith

Displaced Cardenio. Is this honoring?

Do you befriend such an inconstant friend?

Rodrigo. I dare not say so.

Camillo. Now that you filch him of his love, take all:

Complete your malice by dispatching life,

Both his and mine together in an hour.

Rodrigo. If you regard, I'll speak a little more.

Camillo. The duke your father- more such men, O world!-

Would have been scissored in three pieces ere

Committing treachery. By Venus' shell,

Had he but dreamt Fernando had resolved

To prick apart a man and woman thus-

I lose what I am saying-

Rodrigo. More of a father's madness, I can guess.

Camillo. Done, done. I ease my spleen, that's all. Now talk.

Rodrigo. As second son of a duke, hear my plea,

A feint for no man and no woman. I

Am so far from guilt of the least suspicion

Of what you mean that, fearing the reports

On your Cardenio and my brother may

Bemonster gorgons fit to startle me,

I travel here to know the truth from you.-

More wondering?

Camillo. Can there be one so near in blood as you

To that Fernando speaking honestly?

Rodrigo. When he is good, my nearness I confess,

But since his fall, he's nothing, sand on stones,

A stranger's face I glanced at yesterday

And as soon lost to mind.

Camillo. This changes me. Forgive old fools, my lord,

I never knew your goodness till this hour.

Rodrigo. No harm as yet.

Camillo. Yet is it possible you never heard

Of brawls between Luscinda, virgin-proof

Against assaults of man's incontinence,

And your persisting brother?

Rodrigo. No, nothing of all this.

Enter Fabian

Camillo. My brother?

Fabian. I bear you tidings, brother, I wish by

Some other tongue delivered than my own.

Camillo. From where, I pray?

Fabian. From your son.

Camillo. Where is he?

Fabian. Much more than I can tell or hope to find.

But this I can assure you: he has left

The city raging mad. May nature send

Him comfort! To that cursed marriage he

Stepped forth to interrupt, but never did.

Instead, some citizens reveal, he ran,

His collar torn, away to darksome glens

With ravished looks, wild, more like human beasts

Than man condemned.

Camillo. I pray, call priests to bid the knoll for me.

Go, go, my friend. Your news deserve no thanks.

Exit Fabian

What does your lordship say to this new tale?

Rodrigo. Nothing, except all will be well, nothing.

Camillo. It must, though we live in a crooked world.

Farewell, Cardenio! Do you even live?

Enter Bernardo

Bernardo. Such harms arise from forcing women where

They hate. Thus, thus, old fools rewarded still!

Behold an aged oak, alone and shorn,

Bare for all tempests. I should weep again,

Though almost with vexations dried to death.

Lord, what a heavy prisoner I hold

Within, against my will, detested, dead.

Camillo. Has worse ill weathers dashed you stupidly?

Bernardo. Luscinda, were I with you grovelling!

Camillo. You come to mock?

Bernardo. Ha?

Camillo. Do not dissemble: you may find a knave

As bad as you, undoing you of life.

I hope to see that day before I die.

Bernardo. No need, Camillo, I can die alone,

A fool sufficient to himself. Rail loud,

As bitterly as thought-dreams wing aloft,

For I deserve much worse. Luscinda's gone,

To forests, caves, I know not where or how.

Camillo. She has a blessing being far away

From you. I was too poor a brother for

Ambition, to be grafted into stocks

Of rising nobleness. My state was mocked

And my alliance scorned. Because of you,

I lose a son, which must not be excused.

(taking out a sword

Rodrigo. Hold off. Be counseled. Fear yet worse from fate.

Both equal in your losses, urge no more.

To son and daughter's full recovery,

My foot stands foremost.

Bernardo. Camillo, hear unhappy pleas near death,

Do not for charity deny your love.

Permit this lord to make two brothers of

Us, whom misfortune never joined. What I

Have been, forget; what I intend to be,

Believe and feed. Give me your trembling hand.

Camillo. May heaven make you honest! I cannot.

Rodrigo. Done like good men! Before we part in quest

Of friends, attendants over wildest rocks

Will ease our search. Tomorrow may we meet

To tell the happy fortunes of our day.

Exeunt Rodrigo, Camillo, and Bernardo, enter Violante and re-renter Fabian

Violante. Rodrigo, hear my silent voice of woe,

I wish your brother had such care and scope!

Yet there remains some little nest of hope

To chirp me to some patience. A bad match

Is crossed, the parties separate, and I

May see again the man who has betrayed,

To wound his conscience sharply. Home again

I will not go, wherever fortune guides,

Though every step I take I trample on

Black snakes as fearful as a man becomes.

Hear, my Fernando, I will follow you

Wherever day appears. Time may beget

More wonders.- Are you here again? What news?

Fabian. None but the worst. Your father loudly makes

Some offers by a crier so that men

May bring you home again.

Violante. Are you corrupted?

Fabian. No.

Violante. Honest?

Fabian. I hope you do not fear me.

Violante. I cannot yet. When you deceive, take heed,

Cursed of all heaven's creatures.

Fabian. I'll hang instead.

Violante. Bless nature for that end. I heard a man

Say more than this, and yet that man is false.

You will not be so.

Fabian. No, by my life-

Violante. I credit you. But yet I pray you hear:

Take heed, do not fail: I do not doubt you,

Yet I have trusted such a serious face

And been abused more evilly than most.

Fabian. If I fail in your trust-

Violante. I do you wrong to hold your honesty

At distance thus. You will know my intents.

Get me a goatherd's habit.

Fabian. Done certainly within an hour. What else?

Violante. Wait for me in the evening, when I say

You'll see my strangest ends. Take heed once more.

Fabian. Do I behold the wretched common case

Of an abandoned woman hurrying

To catch her mate?

Violante. You do, but to what purpose is unknown.

I hate myself much more than I hate him,

For honorable women always find

One word to stamp out hornet lusts before

The head appears above the virgin wall.

This only as a counsel: life and death

I proffer equally into your hand:

Let no reward or hope aside from mine

Be cast into a scale to plummet faith.

Be honest but for virtue's sake, that's all:

He who kneels on that treasure cannot fall.

Exeunt Violante and Fabian

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Collaborative play writing/Cardenio/Act 4

Act 4. Scene 1. Before a cave

Enter the master of the goats and a goatherd

Master. That boy is as sweet-faced- may nature if not his mother comfort him!- as a goat-master ever doted on.

Goatherd. Should he still have a mother, I believe she's a woe-woman at this hour.

Master. Why should the lad wander into unpeopled mountains, where nothing is as if it were?

Goatherd. Except hunger and sharp winds. His melancholy, master, explains she-devils sometimes speaking through his eyes and togue. He has had some unspeakable deed foully played on him, I very much fear.

Master. What of the madman we see erringly stumbling across wet parts of the fields almost every morning? How does he eat?

Goatherd. Sometimes he steals our victuals, though we desire him to feed with us. Instead of a grace, he beats us on the head, then grovels, hands filled with dirt and meat towards his mouth.

Master. Where does he sleep?

Goatherd. Where night-time overtakes languor.

Master. Some fair-snouted woman is responsible, skittish in vagaries, variable in bleatings, the usual cause of men's madness.

Goatherd. Should he lodge within the sound of us, I know our music would allure. How attentively he stands while we holler, how transfixed while the boy murmurs love-ditties to nobody!

Master. May-day approaches.

Goatherd. When we'll foot it, no?

Master. Disorderly, ridiculously.

Goatherd. With contests in wrestling, hammer-tossing, and more, such as who farts loudest. Should we invite women to these games?

Master. No, they are undeniably feeble in appreciating such high-noted arts.

Goatherd. Here is our meat of the day.

Master. Two onions and a slice of bread!

Goatherd. Who feeds better? No eating of thistles for us.

Master. Not the duke or court-canaries warbling praises to his toe-nails chew so quietly and serenely without worries.

Goatherd. Yet we should use women in some way.

Master. How otherwise but in the usual way?

Goatherd. Bouncing, rubbing, fretting, the hedge-way, the behind-the-herd way, where pleasure waits for a man with or without instruction.

Master. Our sermon of the mount, where low ones cover the lowest.

Goatherd. The poor in earthly heaven.

Master. Mourning little, meek when we achieve, filled when we spill, merciful when we give and receive, pure when her back is dirtied, peaceful when she is, with no persecution of the loins, never reviled unless we rise before her turn.

Goatherd. The madman comes.

Master. He wanders strangely over to us.

Goatherd. Not a word to cross him, master, if you love your shoulders.

Master. We'll note the maddest fits, to entertain our friends at supper-time.

Enter Cardenio

Cardenio. More horsemanship! Hell-riding is denounced:

Return my steeds loose to their native wilds,

Beasts all too manly noble to be made

The property of baseness. What report

Did he write to his brother? What a man

Was I? Why do I never open doors?

She's married to Fernando, or else dead.

No, Perseus did not know his seat as well

As Parthians, riding smoothly with no rein,

Unmatched in virtue's firmness. Will this lord

Die when men rail on him? Is it not meet?

Master. I do not know what to say, neither can I unriddle wildness, though all Spain's confessors challenge me for this.

Cardenio. I will return to court, where virtues grace,

With a large list of praises neatly penned!

What venom-worlds smell there, mere food for snakes,

When commendations bait to ruin fools!

All his reports are gyves and manacles

To keep me bolted there, while senders fuke

In games of treachery.

Master. Fuke?

Cardenio. To enter several holes with hats or not.

She fainted to be his. I know she did.

But why did I not enter? I should have.

That tears me, though some others may be used.

You have an aspect fitting Plato's dream,

And, as it seems, much travelled, Strabo-deep:

Have you not seen the phoenix of the earth,

I mean, Luscinda, whom, against my will,

I failed, a traitor's poison to himself?

Goatherd. By nature's truth, not I.

Cardenio. I have, and know her haunts, where she builds up

Her cloudy nest, till, like the credulous,

I showed the mint-leaves to a friend made sure,

Who has robbed me of them. Believe no friend,

Keep counsels closely hidden. Do you sleep

On women? Do not let your pride or hers

Be wanton to display her charms to men.

Love is contagious, so that breaths of praise

Or glances kindle down its flame, to turn

A friend into a greener stellion, shown

And demonstrated, though it hurts my brain

To speak of that when goatherds onion me.

Goatherd. Some moral we may profit by one day.

Enter Violante in a goatherd's clothes

Master. Our timid boy? The madman pensively

Observes. Go towards him, boy, look his way.

Violante. Alas, I tremble when I speak to men.

Cardenio. A pretty youth! Come here, child. Do your songs

Import something of love?

Goatherd. Ah-hah, that theme again? Should the boy please him, we'll trace something on the ground.

Violante. My only subject, sir.

Cardenio. Sit here, then. Never tremble, loveliness.

Arcadia never wrongs a goatherd-boy.

Violante. Why do you look on me?

Cardenio. It puzzles my philosophy to see

That rudest blasts, sunblows, and dashing rains

Have marked no fiercer furrows on your hands,

Or hurt the bloom of poppy-colored cheeks.

You weep too, do you not?

Violante. I sometimes do.

Cardenio. I weep. Extremely young and not bold!

Violante. But feeling far more sorrows than my years.

Cardenio. Yet all these have not broken your complexion.

You have a strong heart, much the happier still.

I know you are a very loving woman.

Violante. A woman, sir?

Goatherd. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! He takes the boy for a woman.

Cardenio. You met the disappointment; foulest blurs

Cross out such loves as ours.

Violante. You read truth in my face.

Cardenio. Where lies the fault? The rising man in us?

You trusted someone?- Ho! I hit the cause.

Violante. Not far astray from very violent truths.

Cardenio. This world is full of noble cozeners.

Young virgins must be wary on their way.

I know a duke's son turned into a knave.

Will you be ruled by me?

Violante. I will.

Cardenio. Then kill yourself.

Violante. By no means. How, commit self-murder? No.

Cardenio. The surest way to kill a villain's hope

Of worse deceptions, conscience netting him

The longest day he swims across in lust.

I'll have it so.

Goatherd. I fear, the tempest of his fits is returning. Row back, all hands.- Sir, do you lack anything?

Cardenio. More lies that cannot hurt while standing steeled

Against all farther wrongs. Behind me, boy,

Or woman, I now think. I will avenge.

O treacherous Fernando, have I caught

My enemy and hers?

Goatherd. Help, master, otherwise he kills me certainly.

Violante. Fernando, the duke's son?- I'm free from him.

Exit Violante

Cardenio. Fernando, I will pull your marrow for

Wrongs heaped on frailer heads. Faith-breaker, knave,

I'll suck the blood together with your eyes.

Master. Hold off, this goatherd is no duke's son.

Cardenio. Good. Let him slink to court, to hide the false.

Not all his father's guards will shield him there,

Or should he prove too strong for mortal arm,

I will solicit every flatterer

To send me vengeance. I will do it now.

The wrathful elements will wage such wars

As vultures will haunt him, to pick his heart,

And nature pour forth all her plagues in aid

To join in punishment of trust betrayed.

Exit Cardenio

Goatherd. Go your ways, and vengeance with you!- I pray you, feel my nose: is it still there, master?

Master. As well as may be.

Goatherd. He pulled at it as if dragging a bullock backward by the tail. Had it been another man's nose or prick, who can tell where they had been? He has so dashed over it that I'll never whistle to my goats again, to make some holiday in clover. Come, will we go? I fear. Should the fool return, our second course may be worse against my stomach.

Master. Walk on ahead. I'll find the boy again.

Goatherd. Do not linger.

Master. No, I am always quick when thus aroused.

Exit the goatherd and re-enter Violante

You are no boy.

Violante. Ha?

Master. Voice, gesture, faces, everything you are

Bespeak of soft and female handsomeness.

You put on seeming, with that garb deceive,

Persuading me you play the swain for game,

To cloak some hidden lust, forced by a need.

I wait too long to mark disguise's shifts,

Not understanding woman's lustier ways

In country courtship. That strange madman's coil

Drove woman shaking out. Such fears betray.

If proven right, I'm happy. Come here, boy,

Where did you leave the herd?

Violante. Grazing below, sir.- What do you mean in stroking thus my cheeks?

Master. You have not learnt to whistle yet or fold,

How to make dogs bring in the strayer-offs.

Violante. My will is able, but my knowledge nill.

Master. A proper woman! Do you always blush?

Most certainly a woman! Speak, false man.

Violante. Ah, how I tremble still! Unusual

To find such kindness at a master's hand!

Always a poor boy, every time distraught.

Unhand. Too much indulgence makes boys rude.

Master. Are you so cunning?

Violante. The eyes take fire, and measure every piece

Of youth about me. Pricking with the eyes!

My goats lack water, master: should I go

To drive them to the cisterns? I can wish

I were five miles away from men who hurt.

Master. All this is not sufficient, hidden prize,

To make a fool of me. The hair like sheep,

The delicate fine hands! Change colors, do.

You understand, a very woman's face!

Violante. Out, strangely beside! Though of that sex,

You are so honest and so truly good,

Despite disguises, that you never wrong

So faint a creature begging you to hold.

Master. Entirely made for love! Will you comply?

I'm all the warmer with your cooling speech,

And nothing you can say can dull the edge.

Violante. The foulest searching hairy hands again!-

My breeches now?

Master. I'll look inside for once.- You lack something.

Violante. Quench out such foul affections, love's false thieves.

I'll be a woman with an honest man,

To tell so sad a story that your eyes

Cannot but choose to pity it and weep.

Master. No tales but tails are wanting.

Violante. If you have any goodness, let me go.

Exit the master dragging Violante towards the cave, enter Rodrigo and Fabian

Rodrigo. Hoa, goatherd, will you hear?

Fabian. What bawling rogue are you?

Rodrigo. Good day to you. I thought all goatherds were asleep at this hour in this field.

Fabian. I am no goatherd. You had lied, for you were waking when you shouted.

Rodrigo. I am no nearer a goatherd than you are.

Fabian. The duke's son, I think. Pardon me, my lord.

Rodrigo. Did you hear a boy crying?

Fabian. I did. What then?

Rodrigo. Why do you beat your son?

Fabian. To make him cry.

Rodrigo. Can you tell the way to the next nunnery?

Fabian. I can, but the question is whether I will or not. I cogitate, deciding I will not.

Rodrigo. What country-brutish fellowship is this?

My brother tells me by his letters that

The mistress of his soul is near this field

Where she takes secret sanctuary, from

Which place we'll bring her back. Camillo's quest

Is not forgotten either, who seeks out

Your nephew, I think, as his father's hope.

I left dismayed Camillo in my coach.

Fabian. I'll seek to seek.

Exit Fabian and enter Fernando

Rodrigo. Say, brother, why an avid whore's pursuit

Throughout the duchy?

Fernando. I have lost a fair mistress hearts moan for,

And seek the means to win her to my lust.

From traitor nuns I have obtained word of the place

In which she hides from father, lover, all,

To live the usual false religious life.

Rodrigo. You live in troubles.

Fernando. Most noble brother, I admit in full

I have too freely given scope to heats

Intemperate and rashest base desires,

Yet do not think I can engage troth-plight

To any woman fainting in a church

Because she hates my sight. No, never fear.

She has my loins, not eyes. Until this hour,

My passions reign in blood, never in mind,

No newest convert grown to purest thoughts.

I must in anguish spend my days to come,

If I do not take her down: so much love

Attracts my lusts.

Rodrigo. How? In a cloister peeping as you wish

Can never be: no men but priests go there.

Fernando. What should we do?

Rodrigo. I'll serve you once, to save your honor, for

If you do not pull down that whore, you'll lose

The little you have left. Are you not hot

To pray in burial rites?

Fernando. Ha?

Rodrigo. It will be so. We will transport a corpse

To a graveyard, and, coming lately by,

Crave night's admission to place our hearse in.

That is the course, for with such charity

Strict zeal and custom of the house give way.

Fernando. Most opportunely I saw a hearse

Along the way, which for mere gold we'll hire,

To put strange thoughts into unlikely acts.

Rodrigo. Once lodged, the means of her conveyance will

By safe and secret forces be assured.

But, brother, know my terms. If a fair face

Will in the world return, forgetting dreams,

Most earthly-worthy to a brother's eye,

Let me woo her and win her, your consent

With my loose purposes annexed in steel.

Fernando. After I take her, take her, too, twice more.

I do not look with common eyes. She is

A noble woman, who, to make her so,

Lacks two duke's sons, as many women do.

Rodrigo. A lover's praises feast no sickly ear.

Come, to our plot! We bring night in with us.

Exeunt Rodgrigo and Fernando

Act 4. Scene 2. Before a convent

Enter Cardenio and Laurencia

Laurencia. Compose yourself.

Cardenio. Pour hot oils on my head. Luscinda: one

That nature made much stronger than a reed,

How happy had I been were I inside

Her comforting! That maiden is too cold.

Laurencia. Good, calm again. I'll have you so and so.

I'll take this lucid interval to work on you.

These wild and solitary places feed

Your pains with pain. Let better houses guide

You to quit forlorn states that yield no peace.

Cardenio. You speak of convents?

Laurencia. I do.

(Sounds of weeping are heard

Cardenio. Ha! Hark, a sound. Do you hear nothing yet?

Laurencia. The voice of saddest human instruments

Expressing sorrow, no inhabitant

Who likes his life.

Cardenio. The better.

Laurencia. So near our convent, hating wordliness,

A fine place to hear saddest music in!

Cardenio. I'm often visited with such glad airs.

The spirit of some hapless man who died

Or left his love to pine, a faithless wench

Regretting bitterly, now haunt these fields.

Fond echo! I forego my lighter strains today

To hear more heedfully a girl's complaint.

Go whisper jangling in her palest ear

How deeply all our vows have been betrayed,

Both hers and mine, the sorrowing I bear,

See whether hearts of deploration feel

Another's woe, or smile, indifferent.

Now must she heal her blank despair, or die,

Though death will pity much too slowly still.

Laurencia. See how her sorrow strives in you! This strain

Has searched you to the heart.

Cardenio. Too excellent grief! Have you ever loved?

Laurencia. No.

Cardenio. Learn to grieve, then. Go tell my sorrow's pith,

See whether lamentation feels my woe.

Now must she heal her blank despair, or die,

Though death will pity much too slowly still.

Is this not heavenly?

Laurencia I never heard the like.

Cardenio. I'll tell you, abbess, but say nothing yet.

I'm strangely touched by the sorry sound,

Diffusing sweetest peace throughout my mind,

But yet I wonder, what companion sad

Grief brings here to outbid my unsold pains.

Stand off, stand off, stand off, she seems, she is.

Enter Violante

Laurencia. A woeful woman dressed in withered leaves!

Violante. How much more grateful are these craggy hills

And these wild trees than things of nobler wills,

For these receive complaints, and mourn again

In many violent echoes. All good men

Fall dead asleep forever, none are left

Who have the sense and touch of tenderness

For virtue's sake, no, scarcely any yet

From whom a girl expects advice in fears,

Ease to complaining, or redress of wrongs.

Cardenio. This is a verdant sorrow. Gather it.

Violante. What dangers have I run, what insults borne,

Exposing ruins of myself? Grief's blade

On those soul-spotted hinds, two vicious ones!

Who would have thought that such a lout as he,

Whose best feed is coarse bread, best beverage

Clear water, should have so much blood on it?

I shake all over, blushing worse than when

Our thighs are pricked.- Pale nature, hear for once-

To think what men have made of woman's love!

Cardenio. She's not Luscinda, but yet music's own.

When speaking next, heed her as seriously

As widows once possessing loves at sea,

When wild winds every morning blow at dawn.

Violante. I cannot slice the traitor's memory

Out of my mind. Lorn virgins, living yet

To hear my mournful tale when I am ash,

Be wiser. On their oaths no more believe-

No tears, no cries, false all, or anything

A man can promise- than to clouds, that now

Miscarry pleasing shapes, but nothing are,

For they will cheat, if you receive their love,

The very God they worship. Valor, truth,

Discretion, honesty, and all they show

To make these seeming saints are but the wiles

By which male sirens lure us to decay.

Cardenio. Do you weep, abbess? Ah, I hope you do.

I drop into the fountain of her griefs.

Laurencia. She weeps extremely.

Cardenio. Let her weep mountains. Sorrows live in tears.

Laurencia. But not religion.

Violante. O false Fernando!

Cardenio. Ha!

Violante. And oh, fool, fool, I, I, more fool than all,

Forsaken Violante, whose belief

And childish love has made you so, go, die,

For there is no one left to comfort you.

What can bring heart-ease but a quiet grave?

There all the miseries I long have felt

And those to come will sweetly sleep with me.

My spirit wandering in obsequies,

May wayward fortune guide Fernando here,

To weep repentance on my pale dead corpse.

Cardenio. Stay. Is it possible you are the girl

Fernando often speaks of laughingly?

Not Violante, whom he boasts to fool?

Violante. That lost name, spoken by one needfully

Possessed with knowledge of my state, kills fears.

Who are you, sir? From where do you arrive?

Know that I am that hopeless Violante.

Cardenio. And I, too far from any earthly weal

I know of yet, much-wronged Cardenio.

Violante. Cardenio!

Cardenio. I once was thought so.

Violante. I heard your loved one fainted in the church,

The second prey to my Fernando's will.

Cardenio. Should cursed Fernando have the power to

Change you into a boy, lamentably,

Will not such mischiefs make me anything,

To claim an equal share in miseries

His crimes have bred in us?

Violante. Well I know it. It will, no doubt it will.

Yet pardon me, I could not know your face

Before I knew your griefs. When last we met,

The accent of your voice struck on my ear

Like nightmares I had known, but floods of grief

Drowned my remembrance. If you please to sit-

Since finding suffering's companion makes

For something in my nothing- yield an ear.

I will most likely tell you something yet

Of your Luscinda that may silence you.

Laurencia. Some happy blessings on you! Henceforth, I

Protest never to leave you naked. Hold.

We will shift grounds, to guide your sadder steps

To some remoter gloom, where, undisturbed,

We may compare our woes, dwell on the scale

Of mutual injuries, till eyes run down-

Cardenio. And we infect each other with travails.

Laurencia. Is no religious patience heeded here?

Cardenio. Religious patience? But the food of fools,

And we will vomit that, to feed despair

Instead. Worn with griefs, enter caves of death,

And in a sigh yield up our hated breath.

Exeunt Cardenio, Laurencia, and Violante


text:
Collaborative play writing/Cardenio/Act 5

Act 5. Scene 1. Inside the convent

Enter Rodrigo and Fernando, carrying the bound Luscinda

Rodrigo. Rest certain, maiden, nothing will betide

But fair and noble usage. Pardon us

When hitherto a course of violence snatched

You from that seat of contemplation which

Some yield their life as if in afterlife.

Luscinda. My lord, where am I?

Rodrigo. Still in the nunnery. No blush or fear:

Your honor has as fair a guard as when

You slept in cradles. Know then what is done,

Which I presume you understand not well,

Has this use: to preserve the life of one

Who dies for love of you, my brother and

Your friend, beneath whose emblem we desire

To rest our hearse one night inside your walls,

Where we surprise you.

Enter Violante, hiding behind a pillar

Luscinda. Are you Rodrigo, virtuously seen

As virtue's son amid a court of vice,

And dare you lose this as the advocate

Of such a sinful brother, treacherous

In best of times and brutal at the worst?

Rodrigo. A fearful charge!

Luscinda. Take heed to bear respect for virtue's name

If not her essence. Should you loosen me

From your Fernando, not push me to him,

I will somehow be happy.

Rodrigo. Come, answer, not amazedly, I hope,

For, as I bear one mind, I am ashamed.

Fernando. Luscinda, you are freed. Thus self-condemned,

At your feet I sue for your gentlest ruth.

True, I have erred, which lovers will impute

With modesty to love, and only love,

The tyrant god who bows us to his sway,

Rebellious to all laws of reasoning,

Who will not have his votaries thrown off,

But calls commanding when he most obeys.

He promulgated what your eyes inspired,

Whose jewelled firebrands, piercing through the gloom,

Enrich my mansion from impure desires,

To kindle in our hearts a restful flame.

Luscinda. Arise, my lord. Dissembled passion gains

True hates. Should I drink wine when seeing lees

That, poison's image, murder my desires?

Rodrigo. I am no agent in your story yet,

But see you suffer wrongs which lack redress,

Though patience must be begged as we advance

To yonder lodge above the abbey walls,

Where your distresses will find due respect,

Till which time sorrow governs me as much

As nearness and affection to my kin.

Call my attendants yours, the freer yours,

For, as a man the hardiest Spaniards love,

No might beside your will prevails with us.

Exeunt Fernando and Luscinda, Violante advancing forward

Violante. Your ear an anxious moment! Scorn my youth

This night, yet listen to a tale of grief.

Rodrigo. What ails you? Why thus singling me for help

When I have need of it so hurriedly?

Violante. The due observance of nobility

Vowed to the mourning virgin makes me bold

To give it more employments than before.

Rodrigo. Ha? Who are you?

Violante. You know your brother's Violante, no?

Rodrigo. Indeed, he speaks of you.

Violante. Most guilty looks! I will already help

Your knowledge of a brother hurting all.

Rodrigo. How?

Violante. I am a woman whom your brother loves.

He lies extremely, but me he loves.

Rodrigo. Come, do not whimper, maiden. Must I hear

Day after day throughout each month or year

Of a licentious brother's broken faiths?

How did you enter inside convent walls?

Violante. That, as we trudge away, should it please you,

I will reveal, an open woman still.

This barren place, whom some despise to name,

Gives birth to many wonders of lost love.

Here wanders mad Cardenio, fool of worth,

In love with wrongs more than Luscinda's face.

Rodrigo. Cardenio! Is he here?

Violante. I say, Cardenio. Slumber dulls his eyes,

Oppressed with thinking ill of all the world.

Rodrigo. Thanks to a brother, pits of falsehood I

Can smell in darkness. May the fairest end

Succeed all yet. Should that most loving head,

Laurencia, abbess of religion's den,

But think it best, Cardenio will be served

As fortunately as I hope you may.

Come, you have overjoyed a man who thought

Man's goodness but the hearsay of fool's mouths.

The duke will hear appeals. Until I do

In equal goodness what my brother did

Contrary-wise, I'll swim with you in tears.

Lead me to my Cardenio.

Exeunt Rodrigo and Violante

Act 5. Scene 2. Inside the lodge

Enter the duke of Osuna, Camillo, and Bernardo

Camillo. Yes, your grace would then have had a son, Bernardo a daughter, and I an heir. But let the physician escape with his money when the disease cannot be cured. I'll rub fate cleanly for my grave, and there an end.

Osuna. Sorrows never help us, sirs.

Camillo. Hang me, my lord, if I shed another tear. I weep so long that I am blind, even for my hawks, toys next to my son, should they fly house-high, aiming at the sun.

Osuna. You mourn like April. Bernardo is not so downcast yet.

Bernardo. Let all go.

Osuna. Ha? So woebegone?

Bernardo. I kiss imagined daughters on my knee.

Osuna. Disobedient children dig a father's grave.

Bernardo. And disobedient fathers, too.

Camillo. The young are wanton. The next storm we have because of that, we'll gallop homeward, whining like pigs in the wind.

Bernardo. My daughter in any fashion, any day!

Osuna. Will you kiss her unmarried with bairns?

Bernardo. All ten of them.

Camillo. You might have had that with my son. Find another fool to mend her gap with.

Osuna. Rodrigo charged you to wait here, but

Has overslipped the time, at which his notes

In haste request that I should be. Some bad

Event is ushered in by this delay.-

Giraldo, speedily!

Enter Giraldo

Giraldo. Should comforts please your grace, Fernando comes.

Osuna. Giraldo, I should thank you heartily

For your so timely news. Is he alone?

Giraldo. Attended well, perhaps too well, my lord,

For in his train we see a hearse approach

With all due rites of mourning.

Bernardo. A hearse?

Camillo. Destruction's end: a hearse, a hearse! More woes,

The final one, thank Christ. It is my son's.

Osuna. Bid them all enter ceremoniously.

Giraldo. At once and faster still, your eminence.

Exit Giraldo

Osuna. May my Fernando live, though sinning half

The day and more each night until I die.

Camillo. Cardenio, dead! I was alive but now.

Enter Rodrigo

Osuna. O, welcome, sound Rodrigo! Quickly, news!

Camillo. Do you bring joy or grief, my lord? For me,

Whatever comes, I'll live a month or two,

Curse my physician should my health be good,

And then beneath a stone lies seventy.

Rodrigo. A manly patience!- Noble father, I

Bring ease to sorrows. My endeavors are

Never so barren as a needless fear.

Osuna. In heavy clouds of seeding overspread.

Enter Fernando and Luscinda

Rodrigo. The company I bring bear witness to

The busiest of our times engaged in good.

Bernardo finds a daughter here, and you

A wandering heir seeking pardon most.

Bernardo. A daughter! A daughter! A daughter! In joyful miraculously plentuous floods I weep. (striking her

Luscinda. Ha!

Bernardo. My daughter! My daughter! My daughter! Joyfully my lips tremble in everlasting thankfulness. (kissing her

Luscinda. So do mine.

Rodrigo. How first I met with them, how brought them here

More leisure will retell with circumstance.

Fernando. Confusion! Is this pleasure's only den

You promised lust, my brother? Tricked, undone!

As low as earth, I bow resistlessly

To ask your pardon, honorable lord.

Osuna. You drag a damaged waggon to the barn,

Restoring usefulness in what I was.

One comfort I have most been missing long;

Your whore-manned follies will be left abroad.

Camillo. Joys everywhere except for me. I'm ruined

Without one hope of hope forever, should

My son be dead.

Rodrigo. Time guides my hand to work your happiness

As well as that of others, newest friend.

Enter Violante and Fabian, re-enter Giraldo, the latter two carrying a hearse

Camillo. I thank your lordship for unlikely news.

Rodrigo. Ha? Fabian and unhappy?

Violante. Your ear once more, Rodrigo!

Rodrigo. Ha? Why these serious faces? Are my eyes

Now different or is the coffin so?

Camillo. Should this black hearse forever hold my son,

I'll ask death to make me a grandfather,

And like a lucky fellow disappear.

Though full of pleasing business, it would be

Most wondrous should he not do all the good

He can accomplish when a man has done.

Rodrigo. I'll introduce a woman some should know.

Do you know her, Fernando?

Fernando. I think I do.

Violante. I think he does.

Bernardo. Be known for wisdom. Tears distract our joys.

Violante. I do not weep for my own self tonight.

Rodrigo. What do you mean?

Luscinda. Not Violante?

Violante. Yes, Violante.

Luscinda. I once heard of Fernando's hated love.

Violante. No.

Fernando. No.

Rodrigo. Why is my Fabian sad?

Fabian. I will be so all day most of the year.

Bernardo. My daughter, never heed Fernando's love.

Osuna. Hear a repentant father.

Luscinda. More willingly than fish a fisherman.

Osuna. The voice of parents is the voice of God,

To children heaven's first lieutenants. God

Made fathers not for common usages

Of procreation, or else beasts would be

As noble as we are, but to block up

At custom houses of security

The wanton freight of youth's quick passages,

With which most sail at random, straightening

The moral line they bend so dismally.

For this are we made fathers and for this

We challenge duty on our children's part.

Obedience is the sacrifice of truths,

Too necessary in a lying world,

Whose form we carry, though we sometimes lie

Obligingly for their own sake or ours.

Bernardo. Heed your duke's words, unheeding eighteen.

Luscinda. I wish I had ten ears to gobble them.

Osuna. Your are Fernando's dearest love, I hear.

Violante. No.

Luscinda. My gracious lord, let me unmannerly

Request no further pressing of worn suits,

Persuasions on his subject wheezing out

To grave-sites, reverently holding hands

With patience as a friend to bury them,

Till I shake hands with smiling-grieving mien

In parting from old sorrows veiled for show.

Camillo. That snuff never begot this candle. No,

He was some rarer fellow. Thank with tears

Of joy your mother's whoring, no harm done.

Were I but young again, and had but you,

A good horse under me with a straight sword,

Thus much for money or inheritance.

Osuna. Ha? Are you satisfied with such an answer, son?

Fernando. Enthusiasm wakes my ear at last.

I knew her fainting was pretended, thus

Revealing truths with falseness of her love

To true Cardenio, whom I almost tricked,

Regretting bitterly I could not do.

Camillo. Why look at me? I'll look on coffins still.

Remove the cover, so that I can see

Who died, and whether I should grieve today.

Fernando. Giraldo, lift the cover for the man

Who has most need to see some stranger there.

Giraldo. I do.

(The cover is lifted

Camillo. Is it my son? Ah, no, ah, no, ah, no!

Ten thousand years do not suffice to hold

The passions throttling the old man in me.

Osuna. Ha? Ha? He falls.

Camillo. How did I fail to crush my head? Drown me

With tears, eyes, stifle me in my son's box.

Should I not sleep? A father by a son

Is gladly buried, not as it should be.

Fabian. I should say something to console, but can

Find nothing to this nothing. When he first

Came in the world, we knew he would end so.

Luscinda. Cardenio, I have come to bury you,

Not marry. A farewell to hopeful dreams

Of happiness, at once by Atropos

Unwillingly cut off.

Camillo. More blessings on his ghost, wherever it

May go, if anywhere. His mother will

Perhaps die, too. Why not? More sorrows, more,

Until we gagging die from and for them.

Luscinda. Too many rites must be performed again

Before I woo again. A woman loved

By a corpse now! If some dare doubt

My cheerless testimony, wear your love

Where mine is, here, within the grieving heart,

Deep, deep within, not in an eye or tongue,

For there it wears away, or with two tears

Washed out from old remembrance. Mine's like lead.

No doctor's pill, but time or death cures it.

Bernardo. I'm a bad friend, worse father, but can strive

Henceforth to merit your all-grieving loves.

Exeunt Camillo, Bernardo, Luscinda, and Giraldo carrying the hearse

Osuna. Though marriage in these sorrows seems like wives

Pretending love, I will sift out my son's

Deceits. If not Luscinda, Violante!

Violante. Make your conditions quickly. I seal them

Thus on a traitor's mouth. (kissing Fernando

Fernando. Ha?

Rodrigo. A girl whose equal is not found in haste.

You are the ripe one every inch, I swear.

Fernando. What violent courtship is this?

Rodrigo. Will she become your harlot, brother, one

But lately so already, to her grief?

Fernando. My harlot!

Rodrigo. A flowing maiden strumpeted by you,

But more and worse, you stole her from her friends,

And promised her a dukedom.

Fernando. I? Never.

Rodrigo. On deadly light occasions let her by

High on these hills, where she was nearly starved,

Had not Laurencia found her straying ill.

A rape's not handsome, brother.

Fernando. Sir, you are merry.

Rodrigo. You'll find both death and marriage sober truths.

Osuna. If so, I hate you, son.

Fernando. A fiction all. My brother, you must please

To look at other fools to prick with fears.

Permit the angry woman to say whore,

Whom I refused. If so, know me no more.

Rodrigo. Here is the injured woman. If denied,

I wrong a brother's honor overmuch.

Osuna. A pretty piece of damage, I can swear!

Where were you born?

Violante. On the other side of the mountain.

Osuna. Where are your friends?

Violante. I only know a father, best of lords.

Osuna. How could you leave a worried father thus?

Violante. That noble lord once pleased to like my face,

And, without lying, doting so on me

That with his promises he won my love,

Cohered with duty from a father's choice.

I follow where he goes, my own no more.

Rodrigo. What do you say now, brother?

Osuna. What can he say?

Fernando. As I have breath for truth, a lying trick.

I never saw the woman in a bed.

Violante. Do not take up a witness to a wrong.

It is not noble of you to despise

What you have made, for if I cog for gold,

Let justice use her bloodiest rods on me.

Osuna. Fernando, fie! I am the more ashamed.

These are no tears of cunning on her face.

Rodrigo. Impartial nature meant this woman as

A bride, for otherwise we will abhor

And marvel to see virtue bob and cursed.

Osuna. Once more, why did you leave your father thus?

Violante. Ah, that to me? I see I'm still unknown,

For, by my faith in man, now almost gone,

I'll never live until I use my wits

To capture what I lost in honor's cause.

What youth is able to achieve, I'll do,

With or without a father's approbation.

My will I'll put in act, to please my man.

I cannot steal, therefore to all the world

I am but stolen till I get him back

To where I was, unmounted but for me.

Osuna. As deeply honest as her poverty.

Violante. To my undoing.

Rodrigo. Never say so again. Fernando, swear

You'll marry, otherwise no brother here.

Osuna. This son abuses men and women's hopes

Already. Are there further plots he thinks

Of? We can guess.

Fernando. Unless retrieving witnesses to wrongs,

It is injustice to believe a whore,

I having sworn against it. You will have-

I bind it with my honor- satisfaction

To all your wishes if you prove the rape.

Violante. I wish no more, my lord. I say tonight

I have a thousand noble witnesses

For honesty and trust. Look up above.

Fernando. Huh!

Rodrigo. She speaks the truth.

Fernando. The modern woman takes men to her heels,

To gain advantage of her sex, then to

Snatch up advantages meant for our own.

Rodrigo. I'll be her voucher.

Fernando. A very plain confederacy of fools

To slander a duke's son!

Rodrigo. That she has been the agent of your couch

Appears in your own letter, here produced

To make her credits mine, the writing, yours,

The matter, love, for so it is expressed.

Osuna. Perhaps the forgery of a he-bawd.

Fernando. Mere forgery cannot confound me yet.

Osuna. Read it, Rodrigo.

Rodrigo. (reading

"Prudence should teach what indiscretion commits. I have already stepped towards this show of wisdom by prevailing on myself to bid you forever farewell."

Fernando. This can mean everything or nothing, sir.

Osuna. I think you lie.

Fernando. My gracious father, I confess I whored

With her, but what of that? I coddled her,

The purport all too trivial for your ear,

She wishing to avenge her honor lost,

But why I must be married when we erred

I cannot solve as yet, for, to my mind,

And by the honors of my birth and house,

The minion's face I never wish to see.

Violante. In debt with protestation's false bank-notes.

Rodrigo. Why should a woman do herself such wrong

As to admit she erred in trusting you?

Fernando. Because she lacks my money on her back

And avid cunt.

Rodrigo. Your friendship warrants no abuse of sex.

Fernando. If you provoke me thus, I will forget

What you are to me. These are practices

And mindless villanies to scandal me.

Rodrigo. Where is the witness to prove him untrue?

Fernando. No witness but a hypocrite can come.

Osuna. Hold.

Fernando. Ha?

Osuna. What do I read on her face, sorrowing?

Fernando. By all my sins, a woman wanting more.

Rodrigo. Whose practice breaks off?

Osuna. Is she a mounting whore? Are you too false?

Rodrigo. A woman having done him services,

And she unpaid for it except in rape!

Violante. My lord, I do not come to bruise your honor.

Your pure affection dead, though first betrayed,

My claim may die with it. But let me not

Shrink meekly to the grave with infamy.

Protect my virtue, though it hurts your faith,

And my last breath will speak Fernando true.

Fernando. In what shamed conflicts wounded honor strives

Inside my breast! But honor overcomes.

She looks as beauteous and as innocent

As when I wronged her. Virtuous Violante,

Too good for me! Dare you still love a man,

So faithless as I am? I know your love.

Thus, thus, and thus, I print repentances.

Let every man read it here. Gracious lord

And father, pardon. Make me richer still

With love. This is no wife, yet honor's truth.

No other will I take until I find for her

A worthier match.

Osuna. Here's a new change, Rodrigo looking glum.

Fernando. Together with Luscinda's, in whose arms

I almost wronged Cardenio. Everyone,

Forgive by taking home my holiest oaths.

Let those be fortunate who has deserved.

I must admit the baseness of my wrongs,

And purpose recompense. Lone Violante,

You must again be widowed, for I vow

A ceaseless pilgrimage not to know joy,

Until, a gracious duke before my time,

I give that to Camelio and to you.

Osuna. O, grief! He will improve after I die.

Rodrigo. I'll stop your voyage, father. Violante,

What do you think now of this honest man?

Violante. Alas, my lord, my thoughts are all employed.

He has a face reminding me of love,

Which I thought too well of. What confidence!

He never weeps.- Ha! Stay. It cannot be:

He has his eye, his gestures, shapes, and love.

I wish he could speak. Ecstasy of love!

I thought I saw that, but beheld a dream.

Rodrigo. I'm almost starved for kisses, while this man

Takes all in all.

Fernando. Stand forty feet off, no man troubling me.

Much good may that do to your envying.

Rodrigo. To him again! I will not hinder love,

But this was never she.

Osuna. His falsest righteousness has crossed your love.

Think, Violante, from the tempest blown,

Though sour afflictions combat hope awhile,

When lovers swear true faith, strange listeners

Stand peeping on the golden battlements,

And waft resources to eternal thrones,

Such were my vows, and so are they repaid.

If you can hope, join hands together soon.

A providence above our power rules,

Ask him forgiveness when the villain sins.

Violante. The fault was love's, not his.

Fernando. Brave, generous, and empty Violante!

I know your nobleness of old, a prize

For men who seize. Mere passion made me blind.

Once more, share in a heart that never will

Wrong you again.

Rodrigo. Embraces cut excuses.

Osuna. I must in part repair my son's offense:

At your best leisure, Violante, know

Our court, and know, our worthiest Violante,

I have another smaller debt to pay.

Once, when I chased the boar, your father saved

My life, for whose deed, and for virtue's sake,

Though your descent be low, call me your pot

Of gold. A match drawn out from honesty

Is pedigree enough. Are you all pleased?

Fernando. All.

Rodrigo. All.

Violante. All.

Osuna. And I not least. We'll now return to court,

Where after travels we may yet behold

More loves completed, to restrain at last

Youth's wanderings, and there solemnity

And grace will much improve my joys,

And make those lovers who your story read

Wish lovers' wanderings like mine succeed.

Exeunt Osuna, Rodrigo, Fernando, and Violante


text:
User talk:Daviddoria

 Hello Daviddoria, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Maximillion Pegasus 13:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Talk page usability
Thanks for your message - and welcome to Wikiversity. Keep your suggestions coming. At the start, people can often see really good ideas before they become used to Wikiversity.

We could (somehow) inject users' talk pages with "leave message" links such as I've added. But generally the approach has been to let people organise their own talk pages. And once one knows how to edit a page, then it is pretty straightforward. So, its possible, but would need much more community discussion. See what you think after a while.

You could add to your own talk page - at least to get started. Try grabbing/adapting the code from here User talk:Jtneill/Header.

Sincerely, James. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

 * BTW - the same type of link can be found on Colloquium - "start your discussion here". -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:04, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

 * Sure, but I am recommending adding this automatically to everyone's talk page. This way there is uniformity and usability automatically! In fact, I found this: http://wikieducator.org/Talk:Content and it has this "forum" functionality built right in! I would highly recommend adopting this. Daviddoria 12:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Technical education materials
Hi David, sorry about the belated reply. The slides uploaded onto Wikiversity were all that is documented of my Feb. talk. I'm likely to be coming to the conference in June. I agree with you about technical education over here, and research is another area of the site that could definitely use improvement. Perhaps we could meet sometime if you are in NYC? Does your project directly relate to your graduate work? --La comadreja formerly AFriedman RESEARCH (talk) 02:14, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Technical topics initiative
I looked at engineering notes, and I sympathized with your "what is the point?" I am quickly attempting to button-up neuropsychology as a foundation for my future counseling career, but much further than required. Getting buried here is an understatement. For instance, the all important pituitary gland is named for "snot." I am attempting to object-orient neuroanatomy so as to easily map systems, such as emotional limbic, into functionality, which I am calling "functional-orientation." The purpose is to then implement an object orientation for specific types of neurons where the neurons map into the whole thing, and can be defined in terms of functionality at the very high levels. That way we can have a neuron-down approach to therapy, by simply overturning the structure.--JohnBessatalk 16:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi John - I'm glad you agree! You may also be interested in reading some things on my blog - http://daviddoria.blogspot.com - particularly http://daviddoria.blogspot.com/2010/05/teach-why-not-how.html . Some similar concepts there. There is a new program of Wikipedia called "Campus Ambassadors". We are trying to reach out to students to approach their faculty to incorporate Wikipedia editing into their courses. The idea would be, for example, for someone in a neuropsychology who is frustrated with the way things are being taught to "summarize" or "re-explain" these things that you have mentioned in Wikipedia articles. It is all about "collecting understanding". Surely hundreds of people before you have struggled with exactly the same issues, figured them out a little bit, but then never recorded the result of their new understanding anywhere where the next guy could find it! Students are the perfect demographic for this because they are already in the position where they "have" to understand it eventually (hopefully!) so if just one of them "gets it" and then explains it, no one else should ever again struggle with exactly the same problem. This program is being piloted with public policy-ish courses (there is funding from some groups interested in improving public awareness in this area). If it works well, they will be trying to expand to other topics. Daviddoria 14:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi
Hi, how are you? It was nice to meet you, if only for a little while. Are you coming back to NY soon? Would you like to comment on or edit the Research portal? I just added that to the sitenotice. --La comadreja formerly AFriedman RESEARCH (talk) 01:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It was nice to meet you too. I get down to NYC about once a month - I'd be happy to meet for a chat any time I'm there.
 * What do you mean by the "sitenotice"?
 * I'll look at the research page closer in the next couple of days, but my initial thoughts are
 * 1) The front page is very very long. I would make it more concise with maybe a link to 'current research topics' and 'guide to research' rather than the giant lists on the front page
 * 2) I'm not sure I understand the concept - I am all about "free and open" everything, but research is my job. That is, it takes massive amounts of time and energy (50 hours/week). I could never see myself able to generate any worthwhile research that I would do "on my own time". I would try to publish in a "respected" scientific journal (ideally an open access one, but for now maybe not even so). Can you explain why I would want to use the research portal? Maybe I'll get the idea more once I take a look at the content that is already there. I'll get back to you soon...Daviddoria 02:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi David, Just to let you know, I tend to see emails sooner than I see these Talk page posts. --La comadreja formerly AFriedman RESEARCH (talk) 12:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

title: User talk:Daviddoria


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User:Katastrophy9

To be updated in the near future. Stay Tuned.

title: User:Katastrophy9


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User talk:Katastrophy9

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User talk:Shynepublishers30

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title: User talk:Shynepublishers30