The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan Part 65

RUTH: To-night he dies!

KING: Yes, or early to-morrow.

FREDERIC: His girls likewise?

RUTH: They will welter in sorrow.

KING: The one soft spot RUTH: In their natures they cherish-- FREDERIC: And all who plot KING: To abuse it shall peris.h.!.+

ALL: To-night he dies, etc.

(Exeunt KING and RUTH. FREDERIC throws himself on a stone in blank despair. Enter MABEL.)

RECIT--MABEL

All is prepared, your gallant crew await you.

My Frederic in tears? It cannot be That lion-heart quails at the coming conflict?

FREDERIC: No, Mabel, no.

A terrible disclosure Has just been made.

Mabel, my dearly-loved one, I bound myself to serve the pirate captain Until I reached my one-and-twentieth birthday-- MABEL: But you are twenty-one?

FREDERIC: I've just discovered That I was born in leap-year, and that birthday Will not be reached by me till nineteen forty!

MABEL: Oh, horrible! catastrophe appalling!

FREDERIC: And so, farewell!

MABEL: No, no!

Ah, Frederic, hear me.

DUET--MABEL and FREDERIC

MABEL: Stay, Fred'ric, stay!

They have no legal claim, No shadow of a shame Will fall upon thy name.

Stay, Frederic, stay!

FREDERIC: Nay, Mabel, nay!

To-night I quit these walls, The thought my soul appalls, But when stern Duty calls, I must obey.

MABEL: Stay, Fred'ric, stay!

FREDERIC: Nay, Mabel, nay!

MABEL: They have no claim-- FREDERIC: But Duty's name.

The thought my soul appalls, But when stern Duty calls, MABEL: Stay, Fred'ric, stay!

FREDERIC: I must obey.

BALLAD--MABEL

Ah, leave me not to pine Alone and desolate; No fate seemed fair as mine, No happiness so great!

And Nature, day by day, Has sung in accents clear This joyous roundelay, "He loves thee-- he is here.

Fa-la, la-la, Fa-la, la-la.

He loves thee-- he is here.

Fa-la, la-la, Fa-la."

FREDERIC: Ah, must I leave thee here In endless night to dream, Where joy is dark and drear, And sorrow all supreme-- Where nature, day by day, Will sing, in altered tone, This weary roundelay, "He loves thee-- he is gone.

Fa-la, la-la, Fa-la, la-la.

He loves thee-- he is gone.

Fa-la, la-la, Fa-la."

FREDERIC: In 1940 I of age shall be, I'll then return, and claim you--I declare it!

MABEL: It seems so long!

FREDERIC: Swear that, till then, you will be true to me.

MABEL: Yes, I'll be strong!

By all the Stanleys dead and gone, I swear it!

ENSEMBLE

Oh, here is love, and here is truth, And here is food for joyous laughter: He (she) will be faithful to his (her) sooth Till we are wed, and even after.

Oh, here is love, etc.

(FREDERIC rushes to window and leaps out)

MABEL: (almost fainting) No, I am brave! Oh, family descent, How great thy charm, thy sway how excellent!

Come one and all, undaunted men in blue, A crisis, now, affairs are coming to!

(Enter POLICE, marching in single file)

SERGEANT: Though in body and in mind POLICE: Tarantara! tarantara!

SERGEANT: We are timidly inclined, POLICE: Tarantara!

SERGEANT: And anything but blind POLICE: Tarantara! tarantara!

SERGEANT: To the danger that's behind, POLICE: Tarantara!

SERGEANT: Yet, when the danger's near, POLICE: Tarantara! tarantara!

SERGEANT: We manage to appear POLICE: Tarantara!

SERGEANT: As insensible to fear As anybody here, As anybody here.

POLICE: Tarantara! tarantara!, etc.

MABEL: Sergeant, approach! Young Frederic was to have led you to death and glory.

POLICE: That is not a pleasant way of putting it.

MABEL: No matter; he will not so lead you, for he has allied himself once more with his old a.s.sociates.

POLICE: He has acted shamefully!

MABEL: You speak falsely. You know nothing about it. He has acted n.o.bly.

POLICE: He has acted n.o.bly!

MABEL: Dearly as I loved him before, his heroic sacrifice to his sense of duty has endeared him to me tenfold; but if it was his duty to const.i.tute himself my foe, it is likewise my duty to regard him in that light. He has done his duty. I will do mine. Go ye and do yours.

(Exit MABEL) POLICE: Right oh!

SERGEANT: This is perplexing.

POLICE: We cannot understand it at all.

SERGEANT: Still, as he is actuated by a sense of duty-- POLICE: That makes a difference, of course. At the same time, we repeat, we cannot understand it at all.

SERGEANT: No matter. Our course is clear: we must do our best to capture these pirates alone. It is most distressing to us to be the agents whereby our erring fellow- creatures are deprived of that liberty which is so dear to us all-- but we should have thought of that before we joined the force.

POLICE: We should!

SERGEANT: It is too late now!

POLICE: It is!

SOLO AND CHORUS

SERGEANT: When a felon's not engaged in his employment POLICE: His employment SERGEANT: Or maturing his felonious little plans, POLICE: Little plans, SERGEANT: His capacity for innocent enjoyment POLICE: 'Cent enjoyment SERGEANT: Is just as great as any honest man's.

POLICE: Honest man's.

SERGEANT: Our feelings we with difficulty smother POLICE: 'Culty smother SERGEANT: When constabulary duty's to be done.