George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

The cadence of this reply makes a full close in the conversation. CUSINS twists his face dubiously and contemplates UNDERSHAFT. UNDERSHAFT contemplates him.

CUSINS Barbara wont stand that. You will have to choose between your religion and Barbara.

UNDERSHAFT So will you, my friend . She will find out that that drum of yours is hollow.

CUSINS Father Under shaft : you are mistaken: I am a sincere Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and remorse and despair of the old hell-ridden evangelical sects: it marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by its happy garrison. It picks the waster out of the public house and makes a man of him: it finds a worm wriggling in a back kitchen, and lo! a woman! Men and women of rank too, sons and daughters of the Highest. It takes the poor professor of Greek, the most artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures, from his meal of roots, and lets loose the rhapsodist in him; reveals the true worship of Dionysos {22} 22 22 (p. 96) “Dionysos”: In Greek mythology, Dionysus, the god of wine, is not one of the original Olympian gods and is consequently something of an outsider — a foundling god, one might say. The Greeks associated Dionysus with wine-drinking and ecstatic reveling, hence with the abandonment (or transcendence) of reason and rational restraint of the appetites. Gilbert Murray’s translation of Euripides’ The Bacchae, which depicts the seduction and destruction of the young ruler Pentheus by Dionysus, influenced the writing of Major Barbara, as did Shaw’s friendship and collegial relationship with Murray. Murray’s translation of Euripides’ Hippolytus was performed at the Court Theatre the same year Major Barbara was performed there. to him; sends him down the public street drumming dithyrambs [he plays a thundering flourish on the drum].

UNDERSHAFT You will alarm the shelter.

CUSINS Oh, they are accustomed to these sudden ecstasies of piety. However, if the drum worries you — [he pockets the drumsticks; unhooks the drum; and stands it on the ground opposite the gateway ] .

UNDERSHAFT Thank you.

CUSINS You remember what Euripides says about your money and gunpowder?

UNDERSHAFT No.

CUSINS [declaiming]

One and another

In money and guns may outpass his brother;

And men in their millions float and flow

And seethe with a million hopes as leaven;

And they win their will; or they miss their will;

And their hopes are dead or are pined for still;

But whoe’ er can know

As the long days go

That to live is happy, has found his heaven. {23} 23 23 (p. 96) “One and another / In money and guns may outpass his brother; ... / But whoe’er can know ... / That to live is happy, has found his heaven”: Shaw has Cusins quote from Murray’s translation of The Bacchae, but he substitutes “money and guns” for Murray’s “gold and power.”

My translation: what do you think of it?

UNDERSHAFT I think, my friend, that if you wish to know, as the long days go, that to live is happy, you must first acquire money enough for a decent life, and power enough to be your own master.

CUSINS You are damnably discouraging. [He resumes his declamation. ]

Is it so hard a thing to see

That the spirit of God — whate‘er it be —

The Law that abides and changes not, ages long,

The Eternal and Nature-born; thesethings be strong?

What else is Wisdom? What of Man’s endeavor,

Or God’s high grace so lovely and so great?

To stand from fear set free? to breathe and wait?

To hold a hand uplifted over Fate?

And shall not Barbara be loved for ever? {24} 24 24 (p. 97) “Is it so hard a thing to see ... / And shall not Barbara be loved for ever?”: Cusins continues to quote from The Bacchae, substituting “Fate” for “Hate” in Murray’s original and, as he goes on to indicate, “Barbara” in place of “loveliness.”

UNDER SHAFT Euripides mentions Barbara, does he?

CUSINS It is a fair translation. The word means Loveliness.

UNDERSHAFT May I ask — as Barbara’s father — how much a year she is to be loved for ever on?

CUSINS As Barbara’s father, that is more your affair than mine. I can feed her by teaching Greek: that is about all.

UNDERSHAFT Do you consider it a good match for her?

CUSINS [with polite obstinacy] Mr. Undershaft: I am in many ways a weak, timid, ineffectual person; and my health is far from satisfactory. But whenever I feel that I must have anything, I get it, sooner or later. I feel that way about Barbara. I dont like marriage: I feel intensely afraid of it; and I dont know what I shall do with Barbara or what she will do with me. But I feel that I and nobody else must marry her. Please regard that as settled. — Not that I wish to be arbitrary; but why should I waste your time in discussing what is inevitable?

UNDERSHAFT You mean that you will stick at nothing: not even the conversion of the Salvation Army to the worship of Dionysos.

CUSINS The business of the Salvation Army is to save, not to wrangle about the name of the pathfinder. Dionysos or another : what does it matter?

UNDERSHAFT [rising and approaching him] Professor Cusins: you are a young man after my own heart.

CUSINS Mr. Under shaft : you are, as far as I am able to gather, a most infernal old rascal; but you appeal very strongly to my sense of ironic humor.

UNDERSHAFT mutely offers his hand. They shake.

UNDERSHAFT [suddenly concentrating himself] And now to business.

CUSINS Pardon me. We were discussing religion. Why go back to such an uninteresting and unimportant subject as business?

UNDERSHAFT Religion is our business at present, because it is through religion alone that we can win Barbara.

CUSINS Have you, too, fallen in love with Barbara?

UNDERSHAFT Yes, with a father’s love.

CUSINS A father’s love for a grown-up daughter is the most dangerous of all infatuations. I apologize for mentioning my own pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in the same breath with it.

UNDERSHAFT Keep to the point. We have to win her; and we are neither of us Methodists. [58] LIndershaft means that Barbara might find Methodism, a religion of the common people, appealing.

CUSINS That doesnt matter. The power Barbara wields here — the power that wields Barbara herself — is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism, not Methodism —

UNDERSHAFT Not Greek Paganism either, eh?

CUSINS I admit that. Barbara is quite original in her religion.

UNDERSHAFT [triumphantly] Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her inspiration comes from within herself.

CUSINS How do you suppose it got there?

UNDERSHAFT [in towering excitement] It is the Undershaft inheritance. I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my converts and preach my gospel —

CUSINS What! Money and gunpowder!

UNDERSHAFT Yes, money and gunpowder; freedom and power; command of life and command of death.

CUSINS [urbanely: trying to bring him down to earth] This is extremely interesting, Mr. Under shaft. Of course you know that you are mad.

UNDERSHAFT [with redoubled force] And you?

CUSINS Oh, mad as a hatter. You are welcome to my secret since I have discovered yours. But I am astonished. Can a madman make cannons?

UNDERSHAFT Would anyone else than a madman make them? And now [with surging energy] question for question. Can a sane man translate Euripides?

CUSINS No.