Shaw's promotion of Creative Evolution was always wrong, always shallow, and often rather cheap. promotional cinema showing sundry important Britons who have lost their lives by drowning, but who, with the invention's help, might not have perished. [_He kicks it._]. Look. ADAM [_dropping the snake's head in his excitement_] What! Whereupon she vanishes, the lighting turns to daylight and the abyss is no more. _Eve's face lights up with intense interest, which increases until anexpression of overwhelming repugnance takes its place. He is at his zenith now but realizes a time will come when the people will rebel and he will become the casualty. (5 episodes, 1952) Series Writing Credits George Bernard Shaw . ADAM. BACK TO METHUSELAH The first performances of Back to Methuselah were undertaken By the Theatre Guild of New York, and began on the 27th February 1922 in the Garrick Theatre in that city. But the rest of us will die sooner or later, like the fawn. Burge-Lubin is chiding himself indulgently for mixing romance with business when Barnabas bursts in, completely overwhelmed. When you fighters do notget killed in fighting one another or fighting the beasts, you die frommere evil in yourselves. Moreover, he has recognized the person as the currently alive and active Archbishop of York. Youmust never put yourself in danger of stumbling. But it does not grow longer for all its practice instreaming, because you have not willed it so. THE SERPENT. In the preface, Shaw speaks of the pervasive discouragement and poverty in Europe after World War I, and relates these issues to inept government. I can raise you out of that. I tell you you must not make up stories about this. Already most ofour grandchildren die before they have sense enough to know how to live. He need not. ADAM. Bind the future by your will. Mine I call the Voice ofGod. [_She sits on the rock and throws herarms round the serpent, who begins whispering to her_]. I have imagined a glorious poem of many men, of more men thanthere are leaves on a thousand trees. What? And if Adam keeps his vow I will love no other man until he dies. Man-eating! Dead. _Adam throws down his spade, and stands looking darkly at Eve._. That is a great thought. The answer they had expected was the one Sir Eastwind had reported: "When Britain was cradled in the west, the east wind hardened her and made her great. In an effort to shed light on what he regards as a pervasive failure of modern governance, Shaw projects his imagination backwards and forwards in time, dissecting what went wrong and . CAIN. ADAM. And at last I found a way of gatheringtogether a part of the life in my body--. The Ancients' evolutionary goal, he tells the. It is I who have to do the miracle. I can never be alone.You always want to know what I have been doing. The Ancient examines the newly born carefully and pronounces her fit to live. Let me go, you fool. Besides, if it happened to you, _I_should be alone. Find me one word for it all: you, who are so clever at words. You see, Eve,what a splendid thing it is not to have to live for ever. Oh, it is dreary, dreary! Of the coming true of your dreams and mine. Yes: that is splendid: that will bind the future. It is a burden. [_To Eve_] We have made our vows; and if you mustcreate, you shall create within the bounds of those vows. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden), The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day, The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170, Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000, and As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920. EVE [_throwing herself on the ground beside him, and grasping his knee_]You must be careful. A housemaid announces the opportune arrival of Lubin and Burge, two prominent politicians with antagonistic viewpoints; they will serve as sounding-boards while the brothers present their case for the need of longer lifetimes. In rejecting yourdrudgery, have I not embraced evils and agonies of which you knownothing? I could kill both of you; andyou could no more defend yourselves than a couple of sheep. You think too much. Promise me you will be careful. No: they will not kill us: they will feel as I do. EVE. THE SERPENT. I have another thought: I must tell it to Adam. Poorwretch: do you think I do not know her, and know you, better than that?Do you risk your life when you trap the ermine and the sable and theblue fox to hang on her lazy shoulders and make her look more like ananimal than a woman? You need not live to see another summer; and yet thereshall be no end. ADAM. She did not know then thatimagination is the beginning of creation. In one word, to conceive. I will make other Adams, other Eves. Andthen there will be nothing but snakes, snakes, snakes everywhere. ADAM. change is sure to happen. Pah! Arjillax explains that he intends to place images in the temple that range in age from the newly-born to the full glory of maturity. And I to him! 2) Methuselah also was the oldest of all known mankind. [10] comes close to qualifying. You may die when I have made another Adam. A monologue of The Serpent from Back to Methuselah. And what he will be to youand not to any other woman is husband; and what you will be to him andnot to any other man is wife. THE SERPENT. ADAM. [_To Cain_] Your father is a fool skin deep;but you are a fool to your very marrow; and your baggage of a wife isworse. Let Eve vow to loveyou until your death. But for her, I could notresist the sport of trying to kill you, in spite of my fear that youwould kill me. Danger and fear follow my steps everywhere. Hope is wicked. [4] Nevertheless, he uses both terms in Man and Superman which was written nine years before Bergson's work was published. Yet I do not want youto die before me. What is the good of being careful? I have never in my soul listenedwillingly when you have told me of the Voice that whispers to you. Butif you invented death, why do you blame me, who am a minister of death? You imagine what you desire;you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will. As night is falling, the children seek shelter in the temple. She loved me more than ever. Yes. EVE. THE SERPENT. THE SERPENT. It cannothappen. I followed your teaching. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text According to Louis Crompton in Shaw the Dramatist (pp. THE SERPENT. ADAM. ADAM [_throwing his arm round her shoulder with an expression ofanguish_] Oh no: that is plain without any voice. The diggers come: the fighters and killers come:they are both very dull; for they either complain to me of the lastharvest, or boast to me of the last fight; and one harvest is just likeanother, and the last fight only a repetition of the first. She enjoys the flirting, but rejects a rendezvous and breaks the connection. THE SERPENT. Why did it not tell Cain that? EVE. What are you now, with your shield and spear, and your brother'sblood crying from the ground against you? Food drawn down from heaven, made out of the air, not dug dirtilyfrom the earth. CAIN. ADAM. He laughed at me; and then came my great idea: why notkill him as he killed the beasts? THE SERPENT. THE SERPENT. The rock and tree are on the border of a glade in which lies a dead fawnall awry, its neck being broken. ADAM [_picking up his spade and preparing to dig again_] Take yourselfoff then. Child-eating! That comes before everything. Do not tell him yet. I do not want to kill my mother. He shrieks and falls, but rises once again, because The Oracle missed her target. He was not my keeper any more than I was his: why did he notkill me? He can imagine: he canwill: he can desire: he can gather his life together for a great springtowards creation: he can create all things except one; and that one ishis own kind. I do not want to kill women. [5] These concepts had some currency among Shaw's contemporaries, and the Methuselah plays are based on Shaw's extrapolations from the two principles. There must besomething greater than the snake. When Adam delved and Eve span, where was then the gentleman? Your bowels become rotten; yourhair falls from you; your teeth blacken and drop out; and you die beforeyour time, not because you will, but because you must. But I have some thoughts that come from within me andnot from the voices. Eve looks after them for a moment; then, with a shiver of disgust, sitsdown on the rock, brooding. Oh! And Ihave eaten strange things: stones and apples that you are afraid to eat. My boy: this is neither man nor woman nor lovenor life. Back to Methuselah. ADAM [_horrified_] Oh no, no. Savvy and Haslam are nearly unaffected because the entire idea is well above their heads. THE SERPENT. The thought that we must not cease to be comes fromwithin. I shewed the little case to the sun, and left it in itswarmth. He loved his brother. But is it long enough for theother things, the great things? EVE. . EVE [_petting her_] Eve's wonderful darling snake. And be it noted, Lilith, the first mother, is the presiding imaginative principle of Back to Methuselah itself. 2008. Shaw, Bernard. Be it so. Morning. If they learn to propagate they can make other humans to tend the garden and thus be free to escape from living when they wish. Superman! Her concern is that the old man's tears are a sign that he is suffering from discouragement, a dire sickness contracted by short-livers when they talk to long-livers over sixty. But who taught you to speak? You must not move about.You must sit still. He changed the beasts hekilled into meat by the fire on the altar. You can imagine such an end; but you cannot desire it,therefore cannot will it, therefore cannot create Adams only. You have made the beasts afraid of us; and the snake hasinvented poison to protect herself against you. When he falls, he shall beavenged sevenfold: the Voice has said it; so beware how you plot againstme, you and all the rest. _They both retreat, and contemplate it from a few steps' distance withgrowing repulsion._. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden), The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day, The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170, Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000, and As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920. Theynever want to die, because they are always learning and always creatingeither things or wisdom, or at least dreaming of them. Life has becomeuncertain. Ultimately he is asking if it would be expedient to hold elections now or better to put them off till spring. You say we must not cease to exist. It is terrible; but there is no joy like it. Adam: we need not livefor ever. THE SERPENT. It is I who must conceive. The moment you find we need not last for ever,you talk as if we were going to end today. She rears her head slowly from thebed of Johnswort, and speaks into Eve's ear in a strange seductivelymusical whisper. That will be life indeed: life lived to the verymarrow: burning, overwhelming life. You can feel nothing but atorment, and believe nothing but a lie. THE SERPENT. CAIN. Yes, until you create another Adam. THE SERPENT. That is too long astory. You are the nurses and valets of the oxen and dogs andasses you have tamed to work for you. When Ican bear no more, I go to our old garden, that is now a mass of nettlesand thistles, in the hope of finding the serpent to talk to. Listen to me, Eve; and you,snake, listen too, that your memory may hold my vow. There is no mistaking itfor any voice of the birds or beasts, or for your voice. CAIN. The fawn stumbled and fell anddied. she inquires and he says "Yes," adding that he is touring these islands for sentimental reasons because, in ancient times, they were the centre of the British Commonwealth. EVE [_angrily to the snake_] This death that you have brought into thegarden is an evil thing. Conrad has published their You dare come hereboasting about that good-for-nothing Lua, the worst of daughters and theworst of wives! Cassio from 'Othello'3rd Gentleman from 'The Winter's Tale'Cain from 'Back to Methuselah' by George Bernard Shaw [_He picks up his shield and spear_]. Both sit on theground_]. [12] The BBC, in contrast, was able to provide lavish scenery by sheer power of description for its 1958 radio production of the entire play,[13]. That was the secondbirth. David Fielding's abridgement has succeeded in shortening this five-part play down to 4 fascinating hours. It is unbearable. Languages: English, Espanol | Site Copyright Jalic Inc. 2000 - 2023. EVE [_displeased, turning away from the serpent_] But it will destroyhope. After the briefest sort of conversation, the pair leaves together, obviously intending to produce some long-lived children. The sun will give life. And at last it would happento me too. It does not console me. Leave me to my digging, and yourmother to her spinning. I can remember when you were yourself a thing that couldnot happen. The secret. No: he invented it himself. All were written during 1918 to 1920 and published simultaneously by Constable (London) and Brentano's (New York) in 1921. EVE. Why not bringthem up from childhood never to know any other lot, so that they maybelieve that we are gods, and that they are here only to make lifeglorious for us? Masoretic Text According to the sun, and often rather cheap told me of the serpent, am. 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