BY TRISTAN TZARA
Translated by Michael Benedikt
CHARACTERS
EYE
MOUTH
NOSE
EAR
NECK
EYEBROW
ACT I
(Neck stands downstage, Nose opposite, confronting the
audience. All the other characters enter and leave as they please.
The gas heart walks slowly around, circulating widely; it is the only
and greatest three-act hoax of the century; it will satisfy only
industrialized imbeciles who believe in the existence of men of
genius. Actors are requested to give this play the attention due a
masterpiece such as Macbeth or Chantecler, but to treat the
author-who is not a genius with no respect and to note the levity of
the script which brings no technical innovation to the theatre.)
EYE: Statues jewels
roasts statues jewels roasts
statues jewels roasts statues jewels roasts
statues jewels roasts
and the wind open to mathematical allusions
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
he was in love with a stenographer
eyes replaced by motionless navels
mister mygod is an excellent journalist
inflexible yet acquatic a good-morning was drifting in the air
what a sad season
MOUTH: The conversation is lagging isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it.
MOUTH: Very lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Naturally, isn't it?
EYE: Obviously, isn't it?
MOUTH: Lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Obviously, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Very lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Naturally, isn't it?
EYE: Obviously, isn't it?
MOUTH: Lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Obviously, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
NOSE: You over there, man with starred scars, where are you
running?
EAR: I'm running toward happiness
I'm burning in the eyes of passing days
I swallow jewels
I sing in courtyards
love has not court nor hunting horn to fish up
hard-boiled-egg hearts with.
( Mouth exits.)
NOSE: You over there, man with a scream like a fat pearl, what are
you eating?
EAR: Over two years have passed, alas, since I set out on this
hunt. But do you see how one can get used to fatigue and how death
would be tempted to live, the magnificent emperor's death proves it,
the importance of everything diminishes-every day-a little . . .
NOSE: You over there, man with wounds of chained wool molluscs,
man with various pains and pockets full, pieman of all maps and
places, where do you come from?
EYE: The bark of apotheosized trees shadows wormy verse but the
rain makes organized poetry's clock tick. The banks filled with
medicated cotton-wool. String man supported by blisters like you and
like all others. To the porcelain flower play us chastity on your
violin, 0 cherry tree, death is so quick and cooks over the
bituminous coal of the trombone capital.
NOSE: Hey you over there, sir ….
EAR: Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
EAR: The eye tells the mouth: open your mouth for the candy of
the eye.
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
EYE: Upon the ear the vaccine of serious pearl flattened to
mimosa.
EAR: Don't you think it's getting rather warm?
MOUTH (who has just come in again): It gets warm in the summer.
EYE: The beauty of your face is a precision chronometer.
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
EAR: The watch hand indicates the left ear the right eye the
fore-head the eyebrow the forehead the eyebrow the left eye the left
ear the lips the chin the neck.
EYE: Clytemnestra, the diplomat's wife, was looking out of the
window. The cellists go by in a carriage of Chinese tea, biting the
air and openhearted caresses. You are beautiful, Clytemnestra, the
crystal of your skin awakens our sexual curi-osity. You are as tender
and as calm as two yards of white silk. Clytemnestra, my teeth
tremble. I'm cold, I'm afraid. I'm green I'm flower I'm gasometer I'm
afraid. You are mar-ried. My teeth tremble. When will you have the
pleasure of looking at the lower jaw of the revolver closing in my
chalk lung. Hopeless, and without any family.
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
MOUTH: Too sensitive to approval by your good taste I have
decided to shut off the faucet. The hot and cold water of my charm
will no longer be able to divert the sweet results of your sweat,
true love or new love. (Exits.)
EAR (entering): His neck is narrow but his foot is quite large.
He can easily drum with his fingers or toes on his oval belly which
has already served as a ball several times during rugby. He is not a
being because he consists of pieces. Simple men manifest their
existences by houses, important men by monuments.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true ….
EYEBROW: "Where," "how much," "why," are monuments. As, for
example, Justice. What beautifully regular functioning, prac-tically
a nervous tic or a religion.
NOSE (decrescendo): How true how true how true how true how true .
.
EYEBROW: In the lake dipped twice in the sky-the bearded sky-a
pretty morning was found. The object fleeting between the nostrils.
Acidulous taste of weak electric current, this taste which at the
entrances to salt mines switches to zinc, to rub-ber, to
cloth-weightless and grimy. One evening-while out walking in the
evening-someone found, deep down, a tiny little evening. And its name
was good evening.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . .
EYE: Look out! cried the hero, the two paths of smoke from those
enemy houses were knotting a necktie--and it rose overhead to the
navel of the light.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . . .
EAR: Carelessly the robber changed himself into a valise, the
phys-icist might therefore state that the valise stole the robber.
The waltz went on continuously--it is continuously which was not going on--it was waltzing--and the lovers were tearing off pieces of
it as it passed--on old walls posters are worth-less.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . .
EYE: They kept catching colds with great regularity. For the
regu-larity of his life a little death, too. Its name was continuity.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . .
EYE: Never had a fisherman made more assassinating shadows under
the bridges of the city. But suddenly midnight sounded beneath the
stamp of a blink and tears mingled in telegrams undecoded and
obscure.
EYEBROW: He flattened out like a bit of tin foil and several drops
several memories several leaves testified to the cruelty of an
impassioned and actual fauna. Wind the Curtain of nothingness
shakes--his stomach is full of foreign money. Nothingness drinks
nothingness: the air has arrived with its blue eyes, and that is why
he goes on taking aspirin all the time. Once a day we give abortive
birth to our obscurities.
EYE: We have the time, alas, time is lacking no longer. Time
wears mustaches now like everyone, even women and shaven Americans.
Time is compressed-the eye is weak-but it isn't yet in the miser's
wrinkled purse.
MOUTH: Isn't it?
EYE: The conversation is lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Very lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Naturally, isn't it?
MOUTH: Obviously, isn't it?
EYE: Lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Very lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Naturally, isn't it?
MOUTH: Lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Obviously mygod.
CURTAIN
Continued