King: My daughter! At last we are alone together.
Zara: Yes, and I'm glad we are, for I want to speak to you very seriously.Do you know this paper?
King: (aside) Da--! (Aloud) Oh yes--I've--I've seen it.
Where in the world did you get this from?
Zara: It was given to me by Lady Sophy--my sisters' governess.
King: (aside) Lady Sophy's an angel, but I do sometimes wish she'd mind her own business! (Aloud) It's--ha!
ha!--it's rather humorous.
Zara: I see nothing humorous in it.I only see that you, the des-potic King of this country, are made the subject of the most scandalous insinuations.Why do you permit these things?
King: Well, they appeal to my sense of humor.It's the only really comic paper in Utopia, and I wouldn't be without it for the world.
Zara: If it had any literary merit I could understand it.
King: Oh, it has literary merit.Oh, distinctly, it has literary merit.
Zara: My dear father, it's mere ungrammatical twaddle.
King: Oh, it's not ungrammatical.I can't allow that.
Unpleas-
antly personal, perhaps, but written with an epigrammatical point that is very rare nowadays--very rare indeed.
Zara: (looking at cartoon) Why do they represent you with such a big nose?
King: (looking at cartoon) Eh? Yes, it is a big one! Why, the fact is that, in the cartoons of a comic paper, the size of your nose always varies inversely as the square of your popularity.It's the rule.
Zara: Then you must be at a tremendous discount just now! Isee a notice of a new piece called "King Tuppence," in which an English tenor has the audacity to personate you on a public stage.I can only say that I am surprised that any English tenor should lend himself to such degrading personalities.
King: Oh, he's not really English.As it happens he's a Utopian, but he calls himself English.
Zara: Calls himself English?
King: Yes.Bless you, they wouldn't listen to any tenor who didn't call himself English.
Zara: And you permit this insolent buffoon to caricature you in a pointless burlesque! My dear father--if you were a free agent, you would never permit these outrages.
King: (almost in tears) Zara--I--I admit I am not altogether a free agent.I--I am controlled.I try to make the best of it, but sometimes I find it very difficult--very difficult indeed.Nominally a Despot, I am, between ourselves, the helpless tool of two unscrupulous Wise Men, who insist on my falling in with all their wishes and threaten to denounce me for immediate explosion if I remonstrate! (Breaks down completely)Zara: My poor father! Now listen to me.With a view to remodel-ling the political and social institutions of Utopia, Ihave brought with me six Representatives of the principal causes that have tended to make England the powerful, happy, and blameless country which the consensus of European civiliza-tion has declared it to be.Place yourself unreservedly in the hands of these gentlemen, and they will reorganize your country on a footing that will enable you to defy your persecutors.They are all now washing their hands after their journey.Shall I introduce them?
King: My dear Zara, how can I thank you? I will consent to any-thing that will release me from the abominable tyranny of these two men.(Calling) What ho! Without there!
(Enter Calynx) Summon my Court without an instant's delay!
(Exit Calynx)
FINALE
Enter every one, except the Flowers of Progress.
CHORUS
Although your Royal summons to appear From courtesy was singularly free, Obedient to that summons we are here--What would your Majesty?
RECITATIVE -- KingMy worthy people, my beloved daughter Most thoughtfully has brought with her from England The types of all the causes that have made That great and glorious country what it is.
Chorus: Oh, joy unbounded!
Sca., Tar., Phan (aside).Why, what does this mean?
RECITATIVE -- ZaraAttend to me, Utopian populace, Ye South Pacific island viviparians;All, in the abstract, types of courtly grace, Yet, when compared with Britain's glorious race, But little better than half clothed Barbarians!
CHORUS
Yes! Contrasted when With Englishmen, Are little better than half-clothed barbarians!
Enter all the Flowers of Progress, led by Fitzbattleaxe.
SOLOS -- Zara and the Flowers of Progress.
(Presenting Captain Fitzbattleaxe)
When Britain sounds the trump of war (And Europe trembles), The army of the conqueror In serried ranks assemble;'Tis then this warrior's eyes and sabre gleam For our protection--He represents a military scheme In all its proud perfection!
Chorus: Yes--yes He represents a military scheme In all its proud perfection.
Ulahlica! Ulahlica! Ulahlica!
SOLO -- Zara.
(Presenting Sir Bailey Barre, Q.C., M.P.)A complicated gentleman allow to present, Of all the arts and faculties the terse embodiment, He's a great arithmetician who can demonstrate with ease That two and two are three or five or anything you please;An eminent Logician who can make it clear to you That black is white--when looked at from the proper point of view;A marvelous Philologist who'll undertake to show That "yes" is but another and a neater form of "no."Sir Bailey: Yes--yes--yes--"Yes" is but another and a neater form of "no."All preconceived ideas on any subject I can scout, And demonstrate beyond all possibility of doubt, That whether you're an honest man or whether you're a thief Depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.
Chorus: Yes--yes--yes That whether your'e an honest man, etc.
Ulahlica! Ulahlica! Ulahlica!
Zara: (Presenting Lord Dramaleigh and County Councillor)What these may be, Utopians all, Perhaps you'll hardly guess--They're types of England's physical And moral cleanliness.
This is a Lord High Chamberlain, Of purity the gauge--He'll cleanse our court from moral stain And purify our Stage.
Lord D.: Yes--yes--yes Court reputations I revise, And presentations scrutinize, New plays I read with jealous eyes, And purify the Stage.
Chorus: Court reputations, etc.