The Play's the Thing

(The bit players, minus NEVILLE, are still sitting on the ground playing cards. COLIN is sitting on his script. LOCKHART stalks onstage closely followed by the Luggage and takes the cards away)

LOCKHART: Sorry to interrupt you, chaps, but you have to act now.

(CRABBE and GOYLE, puff up and look threatening (a scene too late), and COLIN waits until LOCKHART's back is turned before sticking out his tongue)

COLIN: (reads his script, then sighs) Does this make any sense to either of you?

CRABBE: (sticks his nose into his script, then holds it at arm's length) This is messed up. Can you read this? 'Zat a hundred seven? Hands script to COLIN)

COLIN: (looks at him, looks at script, looks back at him. CRABBE is easily a foot taller than him and about twice as heavy.) Close enough not to go there. I've got a hundred and forty. Hey, cool, a smiley-face! (Hands back CRABBE's script)

GOYLE: (reading slowly from his script) And mine, two hundred:
But though they jump not on a just... account,--
As in these cases, where the aim... reports,
'Tis oft with... difference--yet do they all confirm
A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to... Kiprez?

HERMIONE: He can read?

DRACO: (shrugs) Wasn't it you who said something about hidden talents?

COLIN: I guess I could be wrong, but that's what the script says, Goyle.

NEVILLE: (Nervously) Whathowhathowhatho?

CRABBE: Uhm... that guy just talked. (points at his script) Says he's a sailor?

(NEVILLE scuttles onstage)

COLIN: Hi Neville! What's up?

NEVILLE: The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes So was I bid report here to the state By Signior Angelo?

COLIN: Umm... what do you guys think?

GOYLE: (face buried in script) This cannot be,
By no assay of reason: 'tis a... payje-ant,
To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
The... importancy of Kiprez to the Turk,
And let ourselves again but... unnerstand,
That as it more concerns the Turk than... roads?
So may he with more... fackle question bear it,
For that it stands not in such... warlike brace,
But... altogether lacks the... apples?
That Roads is dressed in: if we make... thought of this,
We must not think the Turk is so... unskilful
To leave that latest which... concerns him first...
Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
To wake and wage a... danger profit... less.

COLIN: I don't think so... which road are we talking here?

NEVILLE: Here is more news?

(He exits stage left, running as fast as he can, and about thirty seconds later reenters stage right and out of breath)

NEVILLE: The Ottomites reverend and gracious Steering with due course towards the isle of Rhodes Have there injointed them with an after fleet?

CRABBE: Huh? What? Fleet? Roads?

NEVILLE: Of thirty sail and now they do restem Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano Your trusty and most valiant servitor With his free duty recommends you thus And prays you to believe him?

COLIN: Why wouldn't I believe him? Wait, do I know him?

CRABBE: Who?

COLIN: Get this Montano! I don't think I've ever even met him, and he's saying out of the blue he's not lying to me? That's really weird.

CRABBE: Hey, Draco. Who's this guy Marcus fatso's blabbing about?

(Enter DEAN, DRACO, RON, SEAMUS and the Luggage, once more in lieu of an officer. NEVILLE exits stage left again running as fast as he can and beats his reentry time by ten seconds. He collapses on the ground, panting, to make a second officer)

COLIN: Hi Dean! I'm kinda lost. Am I on yet? Can you help? (to SEAMUS) Hi Seamus! You can help too if you want.

SEAMUS: (ignoring Colin) So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
Take hold on me, for my particular grief
Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
And it is still itself. (looks at the Luggage)
Is this thing following me around? Is it hungry or something?

LOCKHART: [offstage] Shouldn't be... it ate two days ago.

COLIN: Why, what's the matter?

SEAMUS: My daughter! O, my daughter!

COLIN: (startled) You have a daughter, Seamus? What happened? Is she dead?

CRABBE: Uhhhh...

SEAMUS: Ay, to me;
She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
For nature so preposterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
Sans witchcraft could not.

GINNY: Oh sure. Blame it on witches, why don't you.

HERMIONE: Men!

COLIN: ...That's not nice. Well, I suppose we'll find whoever umm... abused your... daughter and make him pay, huh, Seamus?

SEAMUS: Humbly I thank your grace. (points at DEAN)
Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
Your special mandate for the state-affairs
Hath hither brought.

COLIN: Dean?! I'm... um... I'm sure he's sorry, Seamus...

GOYLE: Where are we? I'm lost.

DRACO: (muttering) What else is new?

COLIN: (to DEAN, trying to be severe) What do you have to say for yourself, Dean?

SEAMUS: Nothing! but this is so.

DEAN: (elbows him to one side) Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic,
For such proceeding I am charged withal,
I won his daughter.

SEAMUS: (shoves DEAN back) A maiden never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
That will confess perfection so could err
Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
To find out practises of cunning hell,
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
He wrought upon her.

LOCKHART: Now, there! Here's acting! If we can keep up like this-

COLIN: ...I don't think Dean would do something like that, Seamus... are you sure you have a daughter? Aren't you too young?

LOCKHART: (sighs) I spoke too soon, didn't I?

CRABBE: (to DEAN) Hey, speak up. You gonna let Finnegan call you names?

DEAN: I do beseech you,
Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
And let her speak of me before her father:
If you do find me foul in her report,
The trust, the office I do hold of you,
Not only take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my life.

COLIN: Okay. Somebody go get this girl then.

LOCKHART: Miss Granger, I'm the one who's supposed to be panicking here. You haven't even come on stage yet.

HERMIONE: They're mangling it!

LOCKHART: (dryly) I noticed.

DEAN: Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.

DRACO: (muttering) I'm not going because you told me to, Thomas, I'm going because it's in the script.

DEAN: And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
I do confess the vices of my blood,
So justly to your grave ears I'll present
How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
And she in mine.

COLIN: Well, okay. Go ahead, Dean.

DEAN: Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels' history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak,--such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

(Enter DRACO, GINNY, and NEVILLE. NEVILLE is still being dragged by his elbow and held onstage)

COLIN: Ginny? Seamus, you think Ginny is your daughter?

NEVILLE: Let me go, Malfoy. I want to sit down....

DRACO: No.

COLIN: That... that was a cool story, Dean. If I were Ginny I'd fall in love with you too. Seamus... um... Ginny's not your daughter, so calm down, okay? Really.

(CRABBE and GOYLE snore from where they laid down during DEAN's monologue)

SEAMUS: I pray you, hear her speak:
If she confess that she was half the wooer,
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:
Do you perceive in all this noble company
Where most you owe obedience?

GINNY: (takes a deep breath and takes DEAN's hand. RON goes red in the face) My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty:
To you I am bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband,
And so much duty as my mother show'd
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.

SEAMUS: God be wi' you! I have done.
Please it your grace, on to the state-affairs:
I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
Come hither, Moor:
I here do give thee that with all my heart
Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child:
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.

COLIN: (confused) So... we're not fighting anymore? Ginny likes Dean and that's okay with you?

LOCKHART: Acting, Mr. Creevey! It's called acting!

SEAMUS: So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
We lose it not, so long as we can smile.
He bears the sentence well that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears,
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.

COLIN: Oh yeah. These Turk guys have ships, but we don't know how many and I don't think they're evenm really there, right? So what do we do?

DEAN: The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise
A natural and prompt alacrity
I find in hardness, and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife.
Due reference of place and exhibition,
With such accommodation and besort
As levels with her breeding.

COLIN: You're worried about Ginny? That's sweet. Well... Seamus thinks she's his daughter, so she can stay with him. I mean, if you're asking me what I think.

SEAMUS: I'll not have it so.

DEAN: Nor I.

GINNY: Nor I; I would not there reside,
To put my father in impatient thoughts
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;
And let me find a charter in your voice,
To assist my simpleness.

COLIN: Huh?

GINNY: That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord:
I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
And to his honour and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

DEAN: Let her have your voices.
Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,
To please the palate of my appetite,
Nor to comply with heat--the young affects
In me defunct--and proper satisfaction.
But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
I will your serious and great business scant
For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness
My speculative and officed instruments,
That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities
Make head against my estimation!

COLIN: (completely lost) Ummm... all right. Sure, whatever.

CRABBE: (waking up) Duh?

DEAN: With all my heart.

(COLIN stares stupidly at everyone else, at a loss for words.)

HERMIONE: (yelling)

COLIN: What, this? (stands up and retrieves the script, then thumbs through it) Where are we? Am I on yet?

LOCKHART: (sighs) Ignore him, everyone! Go on to the next line, Mr. Thomas.

DEAN: So please your grace, my ancient;
A man he is of honest and trust:
To his conveyance I assign my wife,
With what else needful your good grace shall think
To be sent after me.

COLIN: [reading from his script] Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you Against the general enemy Ottoman. (to SEAMUS) I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior; We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.
Am I right? How was that?

(LOCKHART refuses to answer)

GOYLE: Aydoo...brave More, use Des... Desdee... that girl well.

(SEAMUS herds COLIN, GOYLE, and CRABBE offstage with small assistance from NEVILLE. The Luggage follows them and settles into a 'sitting' position next to LOCKHART)

DEAN: My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:
And bring them after in the best advantage.

(DEAN takes Ginny's other hand and looks into her eyes soulfully. RON looks about to explode)

DEAN, cont'd: Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
To spend with thee: we must obey the time.

(Exit DEAN and GINNY, holding hands)

RON: Iago,--

DRACO: (cheerfully, more or less lost in his part) What say'st thou, noble heart?

RON: (trying to act natural) What will I do, thinkest thou?

DRACO: Why, go to bed, and sleep.

COLIN: (offstage) But it's not even lunchtime yet...

(There is a brief scuffle during which HERMIONE and GINNY corner COLIN and gag him)

RON: I will incontinently drown myself. thinks for a minute) What the hell did I just say?

DRACO: If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman!

HERMIONE: (saccharine-sweetly) Does this mean you love him now, Malfoy?

RON: (trying to ignore Hermione) It is silliness
to live when to live is torment; and then have we a prescription
to die when death is our physician.

DRACO: O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four
times seven years; and since I could distinguish
betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man
that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I
would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I
would change my humanity with a baboon.

RON: (startled) Did you just call me a baboon? (At a glare from Hermione, he clears his throat) Hm. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

DRACO: Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus
or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or
distract it with many, either to have it sterile
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the
power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
you call love to be a sect or scion.

RON: It cannot be.

DRACO: (throws an arm around Ron's shoulders and speaks conspiratorially, again fully involved in his part) It is merely a lust of the blood and a
permission of the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself!
drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy
friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with
cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with
an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It
cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her
love to the Moor,-- put money in thy purse,--nor he
his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou
shalt see an answerable sequestration:--put but
money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in
their wills: fill thy purse with money:--the food
that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must
change for youth: when she is sated with his body,
she will find the error of her choice: she must
have change, she must: therefore put money in thy
purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money
thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou
shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of
drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek
thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than
to be drowned and go without her.

RON: [ducks away, looking sick] Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?

LOCKHART: (whispering, to HERMIONE) Mr. Weasley's not a bad actor, is he?

HERMIONE: He's not acting.

DRACO: Thou art sure of me:--go, make money:--I have told
thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I
hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no
less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge
against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost
thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many
events in the womb of time which will be delivered.
Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more
of this to-morrow. Adieu.

RON: Where shall we meet i' the morning?

DRACO: At my lodging.

(HERMIONE snickers audibly from offstage. Both RON and DRACO glare at her, and RON goes red in the face again)

RON: I'll... um... I'll be with thee betimes.

DRACO: Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

RON: (blankly) Hear what? Oh! What say you?

DRACO: No more of drowning, do you hear?

HERMIONE: (laughing) Awwww, isn't that sweet?

RON: (glowering at her) What did I ever do to you?

LOCKHART: (amused) That's enough, Miss Granger.

RON: I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.

SEAMUS: Boy, are you a sucker.

(RON exits quickly)

RON: (singsonging and purposefully mispronouncing her name) Hey, Her-mee-own.... (smiles nastily) We need to talk....

DRACO: (ignoring them) Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe.
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office: I know not if't be true;
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:
To get his place and to plume up my will
In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--
After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
That he is too familiar with his wife.
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected, framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

LOCKHART: Well, at least we have one actor here.