VENUS. Blue lingerie.
TAURUS. Drag (orange items (like a feather boa) if possible).
LIBRA. As a leatherman; black leather vest, chaps, etc., flagged hunter green
PISCES. Little Red Dress (tm).
LUNA IN TAURUS. Silver bondage harness (with cock ring if we can talk him into it!).
SATURN IN LIBRA. I haven't decided yet.
PROBATIONERS. Fetish gear a piacere.
Full light. VENUS, standing before altar, LIBRA and TAURUS kneeling at its sides.
7777777.
7777777.
7777777.
Brother Libra, I command thee to declare the Secret of Venus.
Recites (the Readers' Digest condensed) Swinburne's Hertha. Probationers are installed in various bonds... St. Andrew's Cross, pillory, whatever.
Having ears they hear not. Brothers Taurus and Libra, let the veil be drawn.
They do so.
Twilight. VENUS is enthroned on high, swathed in masses of red hair
and roses. The altar is covered with roses; there is a small flame thereon.
TAURUS and LIBRA draw the inner veil apart. LIBRA returns and kneels.
- Daughter of Glory, child
Of Earth's Dione mild- By the Father of all, the Ægis-bearing King!
- Spouse, daughter, mother of God,
Queen of the blest abode- In Cyprus' splendour singly glittering.
- Sweet sister unto me,
I cry aloud to thee!- I laugh upon thee laughing, O dew caught up from sea!
- Drawn by sharp sparrow and dove,
And swan's wide plumes of love,- And all the swallow's swifter vehemence,
- And, subtler than the Sphinx,
The ineffable iynx- Heralds thy splendour swooning into sense,
- When from the bluest bowers
And greenest-hearted hours- Of Heaven thou smil'st toward earth, a miracle of flowers!
- Down to the loveless sea
Where lay Persephone- Violate, where the shade of earth is black,
- Crystalline out of space
Flames the immortal face!- The glory of the comet-tailed track
- Blinds all black earth with tears.
Silence awakes and hears- The music of thy moving come over the starry spheres.
- Wrapped in rose, green, and gold,
Blues many and manifold,- A cloud of incense hides thy splendour of light;
- Hides from the prayer's distress
Thy loftier loveliness,- Till thy veil's glory shrouds the earth from night;
- And silence speaks indeed,
Seeing the subtler speed- Of its own thought than speech of the Pandean reed!
LIBRA returns.
7777777.
Amen.
333-1-333.
Amen.
1-55555-1.
Amen.
Brother Saturn, what is the hour?
Twilight.
Sister Pisces, from whose house are we come out?
From the House of Death.
Brother Taurus, what is stronger than death?
Love.
Brother Libra, what is the place?
The Mountain of Venus, that hangeth from the navel of the Universe over the Great Abyss.
Let us celebrate the Rite of Venus.
Mark and Cat play "Let Me In". The PROBATIONERS play with each other.
Children of Love, what is the hour?
A confused murmur.
It is the hour of love.
She cracks her whip; ALL freeze in tableau. The lights go out. A long pause.
VENUS pulls the knot to free PISCES, who now reclines out of the throw of the follow spot.
333-1-333.
VENUS is brilliantly illuminated; the rest remain dark.
Little sister, what is the hour?
The dawn is at hand.
Little brother, what is the place?
It is the holy mountain of our Lady Venus.
Children, awake and rejoice.
Awake and rejoice.
How shall we rejoice?
As our Lady hath appointed.
As you like it.
Wherein shall we rejoice?
In our Lady Venus.
In what you will.
Thy will, our lady, and not ours be done!
Mistress, let the adorations be performed!
Children, array yourselves before me, and rejoice in the adorations of my beauty.
They form, each with his partner. LIBRA disappears behind veil.
TAURUS recites invocation.
Hail Hathor, Lady of Emerald, Lady of Thebes.
Hail Hathor, Lady of the West, Lady of the Sacred Land.
Hail Hathor, Lady of Red Water, Lady of the turquoise land.
Hail Hathor, Lady of Peace, Lady of the city of Sixteen.
Eye of Re which is on his forehead;
who gainest mastery over the fiends in thy name of "Sekhet"
kindly of countenance in the Barque of Millions of Years;
a resting-place for him who has done right within the boat of
the blessed;
who built the Great Barque of Osiris in order to cross the water
truth.
Returns to his throne.
Brother Libra, art thou silent?
A pause.
Brother Libra, where art thou?
LIBRA still hidden, recites (the Readers' Digest Condensed) Swinburne's Dolores.
... And the good shall die first, saith thy prophet, Our Lady of Pain.
LIBRA appears and confronts her;
Did he lie? Did he laugh? etc.
... And the joys of the seventy times seven, Our Lady of Pain.
Why chafest thou, brother? Thou art the chiefest of my chosen.
Alas.
Yea, brother: in the end all turn to me, and all return to me.
- Star of the Morning, I arise
- with waxing sun, as darkness dies;
- Eos bears me to azure skies
- in coral palms.
- Then unto me, men raise their eyes
- and praiseful psalms.
- They sing me, gold-bright from the sea,
- giver and goal of ecstasy;
- they pray me for my clemency
- while they forget
- that both desire and agony
- weave passion's net.
- Star of the Evening, by force main
- I raise myself on high to reign;
- men wail, and say that I have slain
- Apollo's light,
- And pierced with countless shards of pain
- the modest night.
- But I am all the goad ye have,
- thus every man must be my slave,
- for in my absence, ye would crave
- no thing at all.
- Gracious, from the abyss I save
- mine every thrall.
- I crack the whip, and ye obey
- because it is the only way
- mankind has ever known to stay
- oblivion;
- and even pain is proof to say
- that ye live on.
- But we were lovers, Death and I,
- from even mankind's infancy.
- My little death's eternity
- in instants spent.
- So therefore, in my service, die --
- and be content!
PISCES performs a sleepy sinuous dance by herself, and returns to
Venus' throne lapsed into herself, and as if exhausted.
Rise, rise, my knight! My king! My love, arise! See the grave avenues of Paradise, The dewy larches bending at my breath, Portentous cedars prophesying death!
She is interrupted by the unutterable melody. LUNA recites a little snippet of
Liber Israfel. PISCES manifests distress.
Brother Libra, what is this song?
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the Ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound.Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided;
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonising this earth with what we feel above.We have past Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray;
Beyond the glassy gulphs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
VENUS manifests distress. PISCES slips away to the throne of LUNA.
LUNA recites over the Conquering Melody:
[SOMETHING BRIEF AND FLIPPANT]
You insolent dog, come to heel and perhaps I'll only hurt you a little!
LUNA ignores her.
Holier than pleasure is pain; nobler is abstinence than indulgence; from sloth and faith we turn to toil and science; from the tame victories of the body to the wild triumphs of the mind.
You lot are really starting to piss me off!
For from thee cometh the Utterance of the Present; but of the Future no word.
And thou wilt?
The Word.
SATURN comes out and dances his dance, and falls, clasping LIBRA'S boot.
Who is this? These are not my dances; these footsteps tread not my measures; not me he worships by the paces and pauses of his feet!
Mark & Cat play something wild and horrible as SATURN drags LIBRA backwards into the dusk. The PROBATIONERS group similarly; boys with boys and girls with girls. Some, too, stand isolated.
Brother Taurus, art thou faithful, thou alone?
Seductively yet ironically.
Knowest thou not me?
Yea, my best boy, and you'll get a reward for good behavior.
Venus, my Mistress!
Come unto me!
She half rises and draws him to her.
Within the veil?
There is no veil before my shrine!
As she reaches for him, he claps handcuffs on her; all the PROBATIONERS jump up
and put her in bondage while TAURUS slips out of his dress to reveal himself as
MERCURY, caduceus (which he gets from behind the throne) and all.
In the Beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God; and the Word was God!
All come forward; SATURN with LIBRA linked; LUNA and PISCES linked;
and bow to him.
The Treason is accomplished.
The mind is nobler than the body.
Friendship is holier than love.
Nature is overcome by wit.
How shall we adore thee?
As you like it.
What shall we sacrifice?
What you will.
Cat & Mark play a moto perpetuo (or something as near to it as possible) ALL, bowing
in adoration to MERCURY.
Brother, what is the hour?
Dawn.
Let us depart unto the work of the day.
Amen.