Act V
Scene 1
The Piazza of the Golden Inn
Don Sebastian: (quietly) Are you through?
Jonah: I am
Don Sebastian: Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to press.
Duena Maria: Also bear with all of us; for we all join in Don Sebastian’s suit.
Jonah: Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn?
Don Sebastian: Nay, but I know a worthy priest nearby, who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? this may grow too serious.
Jonah: Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?
Another Don: (to other Don) Though there are no Auto-da-Fes in Lima now, I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need for this.
Jonah: (runs after Don Sebastian) Excuse me for running after you; but may I also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists you can. (lights fade)
Scene 2
The Golden Inn as seen in Act 1, Scene 1.
(There is a flurry of activity. The goddesses are setting up an Ayahuasca altar. Jonah watches activity with interest. Duena Maria and Duena Caharina mix materials, while singing incantation song. At the end of the song they have a large bottle full of a foamy, chocolate colored thick liquid. After the song all gather around the altar. )
Duena Maria: (to Jonah) This is a great medicine. A gift of grace from a mortal who conquered death and became immortal, became a god. God gives true instruction, he gives Immortal Truth, true revelation in the song that Ayahuasca sings.
(Duena Maria and the goddesses sing a joyous Ayahuasca song. She pours individual doses of Ayahuasca and offers the krater to everyone in the circle around the altar. All drink from the krater. Jonah drinks deeply from the krater.)
Duena Maria: Some must bear too much truth. More truth than can be borne. Ayahuasca heals with the joy that God brings.
(goddesses sing another Ayahuasca song and pour another round of medicine. Everyone around the altar drinks. Jonah drinks deeply from the krater.)
Jonah: (Ecstatically) Awe moves in my soul!
The terrible fatality.
Fatality.
Doom.
Doom! Doom! Doom! Something whispers it.
(whisperingly) doom
Doom of what?
Doom of our white day.
We are doomed, doomed.
And the doom is in America.
The doom of our white day. (pauses)
Ah, well, if my day is doomed, and I am doomed with my day, it is something greater than I which dooms me, so I accept my doom as a sign of the greatness which is more than I am. (pauses)
I am not bound to any haven ahead.
But rushing from all havens astern. (pauses then shouts)
Moby Dick!
Who is He!
You want to Know
Who? What is?
Moby Dick! (pauses)
(softly) He is the last ghastly hunt,
He is the deepest blood being of the white race,
our deepest blood nature.
And he is hunted, hunted, by the maniacal fanaticism of our rational, scientific, desperately common-sensible consciousness.
We must hunt him down.
To subject him to our will.
We enlist all races in this maniacal hunt of our-Selves.
Dark races and pale,
red, yellow, and black, east and west,
Quaker and fire-worshipper in this hunt which is our doom and our suicide.
Hot blooded sea-born Moby Dick.
Hunted by monomaniacs of the rational, scientific, material idea. (pauses then shouts)
But He will not be destroyed!
Will go where he will go! (pauses then shouts)
Oh God!
Oh God!
What next, when the ‘Pequod’ has sunk.
She sank in the war, and we are all flotsam.
Now what next.
Who knows?
Quien sabe?
Quien sabe, Deosa?
Quien sabe, senor?
The ‘Pequod’ went down.
And the ‘Pequod’ was the ship of the white American soul.
She sank, taking with her blackman and Indian and Polynesian, Asiatic and Quaker
and good common-sensible,
business-like Yankees
and Ishmael:
He sank all the lot of them. (pauses then shouts)
What next?
Oh God!
What next?
Quien sabe! (pauses then shouts)
Yo se!
I know.
Arribe!
I rise in The Righteous Mutiny!
God rises in The Righteous Mutiny!
Our Deepest Blood Being rises in The Righteous Mutiny!
And the master and oppressor of this fallen world is himself judged and condemned by The Righteous Mutiny.
Don Sebastian: (returns with tall, solemn Ayahuasca priest/shaman.) This is the priest. He is a Holy Evangelist. He brings you the Holy Evangelists. He brings you what is hidden in plain sight in the Holy Evangelists.
Jonah: (collecting himself, pausing) Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.
Yea, the story I have told ye is true. I know it to be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since.
© 2003-2005 Sam Libby - All Rights Reserved
Scene 1
The Piazza of the Golden Inn
Don Sebastian: (quietly) Are you through?
Jonah: I am
Don Sebastian: Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to press.
Duena Maria: Also bear with all of us; for we all join in Don Sebastian’s suit.
Jonah: Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn?
Don Sebastian: Nay, but I know a worthy priest nearby, who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? this may grow too serious.
Jonah: Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?
Another Don: (to other Don) Though there are no Auto-da-Fes in Lima now, I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need for this.
Jonah: (runs after Don Sebastian) Excuse me for running after you; but may I also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists you can. (lights fade)
Scene 2
The Golden Inn as seen in Act 1, Scene 1.
(There is a flurry of activity. The goddesses are setting up an Ayahuasca altar. Jonah watches activity with interest. Duena Maria and Duena Caharina mix materials, while singing incantation song. At the end of the song they have a large bottle full of a foamy, chocolate colored thick liquid. After the song all gather around the altar. )
Duena Maria: (to Jonah) This is a great medicine. A gift of grace from a mortal who conquered death and became immortal, became a god. God gives true instruction, he gives Immortal Truth, true revelation in the song that Ayahuasca sings.
(Duena Maria and the goddesses sing a joyous Ayahuasca song. She pours individual doses of Ayahuasca and offers the krater to everyone in the circle around the altar. All drink from the krater. Jonah drinks deeply from the krater.)
Duena Maria: Some must bear too much truth. More truth than can be borne. Ayahuasca heals with the joy that God brings.
(goddesses sing another Ayahuasca song and pour another round of medicine. Everyone around the altar drinks. Jonah drinks deeply from the krater.)
Jonah: (Ecstatically) Awe moves in my soul!
The terrible fatality.
Fatality.
Doom.
Doom! Doom! Doom! Something whispers it.
(whisperingly) doom
Doom of what?
Doom of our white day.
We are doomed, doomed.
And the doom is in America.
The doom of our white day. (pauses)
Ah, well, if my day is doomed, and I am doomed with my day, it is something greater than I which dooms me, so I accept my doom as a sign of the greatness which is more than I am. (pauses)
I am not bound to any haven ahead.
But rushing from all havens astern. (pauses then shouts)
Moby Dick!
Who is He!
You want to Know
Who? What is?
Moby Dick! (pauses)
(softly) He is the last ghastly hunt,
He is the deepest blood being of the white race,
our deepest blood nature.
And he is hunted, hunted, by the maniacal fanaticism of our rational, scientific, desperately common-sensible consciousness.
We must hunt him down.
To subject him to our will.
We enlist all races in this maniacal hunt of our-Selves.
Dark races and pale,
red, yellow, and black, east and west,
Quaker and fire-worshipper in this hunt which is our doom and our suicide.
Hot blooded sea-born Moby Dick.
Hunted by monomaniacs of the rational, scientific, material idea. (pauses then shouts)
But He will not be destroyed!
Will go where he will go! (pauses then shouts)
Oh God!
Oh God!
What next, when the ‘Pequod’ has sunk.
She sank in the war, and we are all flotsam.
Now what next.
Who knows?
Quien sabe?
Quien sabe, Deosa?
Quien sabe, senor?
The ‘Pequod’ went down.
And the ‘Pequod’ was the ship of the white American soul.
She sank, taking with her blackman and Indian and Polynesian, Asiatic and Quaker
and good common-sensible,
business-like Yankees
and Ishmael:
He sank all the lot of them. (pauses then shouts)
What next?
Oh God!
What next?
Quien sabe! (pauses then shouts)
Yo se!
I know.
Arribe!
I rise in The Righteous Mutiny!
God rises in The Righteous Mutiny!
Our Deepest Blood Being rises in The Righteous Mutiny!
And the master and oppressor of this fallen world is himself judged and condemned by The Righteous Mutiny.
Don Sebastian: (returns with tall, solemn Ayahuasca priest/shaman.) This is the priest. He is a Holy Evangelist. He brings you the Holy Evangelists. He brings you what is hidden in plain sight in the Holy Evangelists.
Jonah: (collecting himself, pausing) Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.
Yea, the story I have told ye is true. I know it to be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since.
© 2003-2005 Sam Libby - All Rights Reserved
