| PROLOGUE |
| ACT I |
| ACT II |
Overture; forest sounds, roaring of lions, Christian hymn faintly.
A jungle path. A lion’s roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes from thejungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the jungle on three legs,holding up his right forepaw, in which a huge thorn sticks. He sits down andcontemplates it. He licks it. He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scrapingit along the ground, and hurts himself worse. He roars piteously. He licks itagain. Tears drop from his eyes. He limps painfully off the path and lies downunder the trees, exhausted with pain. Heaving a long sigh, like wind in atrombone, he goes to sleep.
Androcles and his wife Megæra come along the path. He is a small, thin,ridiculous little man who might be any age from thirty to fifty-five. He hassandy hair, watery compassionate blue eyes, sensitive nostrils, and a verypresentable forehead; but his good points go no further; his arms and legs andback, though wiry of their kind, look shrivelled and starved. He carries a bigbundle, is very poorly clad, and seems tired and hungry.
His wife is a rather handsome pampered slattern, well fed and in the prime oflife. She has nothing to carry, and has a stout stick to help her along.
MEGAERA.
(suddenly throwing down her stick) I won’t go another step.
ANDROCLES.
(pleading wearily) Oh, not again, dear. What’s the good ofstopping every two miles and saying you won’t go another step? We mustget on to the next village before night. There are wild beasts in this wood:lions, they say.
MEGAERA.
I don’t believe a word of it. You are always threatening me with wildbeasts to make me walk the very soul out of my body when I can hardly drag onefoot before another. We haven’t seen a single lion yet.
ANDROCLES.
Well, dear, do you want to see one?
MEGAERA.
(tearing the bundle from his back) You cruel beast, you don’t carehow tired I am, or what becomes of me (she throws the bundle on theground): always thinking of yourself. Self! self! self! always yourself!(She sits down on the bundle).
ANDROCLES.
(sitting down sadly on the ground with his elbows on his knees and his headin his hands) We all have to think of ourselves occasionally, dear.
MEGAERA.
A man ought to think of his wife sometimes.
ANDROCLES.
He can’t always help it, dear. You make me think of you a good deal. Notthat I blame you.
MEGAERA.
Blame me! I should think not indeed. Is it my fault that I’m married toyou?
ANDROCLES.
No, dear: that is my fault.
MEGAERA.
That’s a nice thing to say to me. Aren’t you happy with me?
ANDROCLES.
I don’t complain, my love.
MEGAERA.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
ANDROCLES.
I am, my dear.
MEGAERA.
You’re not: you glory in it.
ANDROCLES.
In what, darling?
MEGAERA.
In everything. In making me a slave, and making yourself a laughing-stock. Itsnot fair. You get me the name of be