Where Don Carotte and Sang Chaud, reciting an opera libretto
in spite of themselves, find themselves upon the stage of a theatre
which, before their astonished eyes,
has taken the place of the tree,
without the donkey having disappeared…
DON CAROTTE
(a long silence; he pretends to slowly sheathe a sword)
God's wounds! Such words might be mistaken for a dart!
What twists, what gulfs, what breaches they impart!
But what reply, poor unarmed soul, did you devise
To that strange dream where the self imprisoned lies?
SANG CHAUD
(humbly)
I have no answer, O my lord, my sire,
Nor know what thoughts such mysteries require.
Yet, by your leave, I hold one thing most true:
These words, prepared long since, were meant for you.
DON CAROTTE
(drawing himself up to his full height)
To me! By Saint George! To me such foolish stuff!
Must this strong arm, which monsters has rebuffed,
Become the servant of a dreaming ass,
Who hurls dark visions at the knights who pass?
Am I a Sorbonne clerk, a learned sage,
Or doctor of spells upon some wizard's page,
To disentangle night when glory calls my name?
SANG CHAUD
(with deferential gravity)
Riddles, my lord, have customs old as time;
Through woods and mountains, through the mists they climb.
None knows who makes them, bears them, or who sells;
Their master sometimes is the one in whom their echo dwells.
And ancient is the law in kingdoms strange
That humble hands bring mighty lords the seeds of change.
An ass may offer, without shame to its station,
What kings upon their thrones discover not through domination.
And who but you, illustrious in your deeds,
Could give these words the strength their meaning needs?
Within your hands, the riddle can but grow,
And your illustrious name with greater splendour glow.
DON CAROTTE
(striking his chest)
Well spoken, friend! Such counsel befits the wise!
You pay my noble name its rightful prize.
Bring forth this knot, though Gordian a hundredfold!
I'll cleave it clean, as sovereigns brave and bold!
But mark you, squire, in this affair so grand,
Let not my fame be brought to shame throughout the land!
Let all proclaim, from here to earth's last end,
That Don Carotte faced abysses without end!
SANG CHAUD
(bowing deeply)
The deed is done, my sire. And with a smile…
DON CAROTTE
(bewildered)
What? Already, knave?
Have I achieved so much by speaking thus so brave?
SANG CHAUD
(with disarming innocence)
You welcomed the question, O noble lord;
Already what approaches you begins to know you.
DON CAROTTE
(recovering himself, though not without embarrassment)
So be it! But begin again, repeat those words;
I paid scant heed to such frivolous shadows.
My spirit, wholly pledged to battles yet unfought,
Lent but half an ear to the confusion that you brought.
SANG CHAUD
(resuming with solemnity)
“Who am I, when daylight banishes my night,
Yet brings an ancient dream's unwearied shade to light?
‘I am,’ a voice declares, ‘the spy of another me,’
And that other, my lord, is none other than me.
But if I am the one who speaks unto himself,
Who receives these words, and who sends them forth?
If I both speak and hear, am I one or two?
And if we are two, which one speaks for both?”*
DON CAROTTE
(freezing, his forefinger raised towards the heavens)
Hold! By all the saints! I see a dawning light!
What yesterday I knew escapes my grasp tonight!
There lies, then, buried deep within our being,
Another captive, watchful, only half asleep!
One speaks and one hears! One slumbers, one keeps watch!
One borrows a mouth, the other lends an ear!
One rules within, the other serves without,
Yet each believes his body his to rule!
But which is master, and which serves as slave?
Who holds the golden key, who gnaws upon the chain?If I proclaim, “I am myself,” by my blood, what do I know?
Who whispered me those words I claim as mine alone?
SANG CHAUD
(with thoughtful caution)
Perhaps, my lord, the mind is split in twain,
Between the things it knows and those it keeps in chain.
What speaks by daylight knows nothing of its sleep;
What speaks within our nights the sun's bright rays must fear.
And what we thought long dead, in memory laid,
May hold the secret threads by which our lives are played.
Thus he who rules may never understand
That some other living being guides his hand.
DON CAROTTE
(seized by a shudder, then growing furious)
'Sblood! I smell enchantment, trickery and snare!
A man within another man! Each laying siege in there!
Is this not witchcraft, or some ancient spell,
To make a mighty lord a scoundrel's plaything?
Answer me! You vile deceiver! Are you mocking me?Would you drag my glory through the deepest mire?
Have you, beneath the guise of serving your great lord,
Smuggled some lying demon into my mind?
SANG CHAUD
(stepping back, both hands outstretched)
May God Himself bear witness! I did but convey
What came unasked, unbidden, without knocking on its way.
I am no sorcerer, no doctor, nor a seer;
Those words reached me by some path whose course remains unclear.
DON CAROTTE
(striding beneath the tree)
But what! If I am I, who proves it so?
Might my own name be all the freedom I can know?
Don Carotte! That name, when I pronounce it loud,
Am I the one who calls it, or does it answer me?
For if my name names me before I think it,
Am I not then the subject of its power?
If I believe I bear it, yet it bears me too,
Who, then, is the knight? And who the tale that tells him?
Upon my faith! Suppose, O dreadful thought profound,
That someone else invented my arrival in this world;
That he bestowed this name, these arms, this noble rank,
And placed his very words upon my speaking tongue!
Then, when I fight, is it truly I who strike?
And if I fall, is it indeed myself whom death will take?And when I say I am in a great sovereign tone,
Who speaks that “I” within this uncertain flesh?
*“Who am I if, waking again and again, day after day,
I am pursued by the echo of words heard in my sleep:
‘I am an infiltrator inside a schizophrenic double agent who is myself.’
Who am I if I am the one who says it, and who am I
if I am merely the one who hears it?”
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