Back to Methuselah By the closing years of World War I, Shaw had long supported the idea that Ireland ought to achieve a kind of Home Rule, an arrangement that would grant Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales their own parliaments, but would also maintain a joint council to coordinate matters of mutual I have crept through the grass, and hidden,and listened to you. Anybody couldbe the first man: it is as easy as to be the first cabbage. There was no more to prevent him than there was to prevent me:it was man to man; and I won. Coo-ee! I want her to create moreand more men: aye, and more and more women, that they may in turn createmore men. CAIN. His question: "How am I to satisfy my genius for fighting until I die?" And it is courage, courage, courage, thatraises the blood of life to crimson splendor. That was the secondbirth. He need not. EVE. Then I will do it. Back to Methuselah. Be thankful to your parents, whoenabled you to hand on your burden to new and better men, and won foryou an eternal rest; for it was we who invented death. ADAM. You shall notlisten to that snake any more. Pygmalion has successfully created a pair of living, artificial human beings and is ready to display them, which he does, to an audience made impatient by his incomprehensible scientific explanations. I tell you I will create, though Itear myself to pieces in the act. 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. It stirs inside me. Be it so. EVE. Back to Methuselah Broadway Revival Ambassador Theatre 219 W. 49th St., New York, NY SYNOPSIS: playwright: George Bernard Shaw People (21) Cast Current Cast Opening Night Production Credits. That is why all this empty talk of yours, which tempted Adam justnow when he threw down his spade and listened to you for a while, wentby me like foul wind that has passed over a dead body. They will not overrun the wholegarden for a long time: not until you have laid down your burden andgone to sleep for ever. Yes. We have to live here for ever.Think of what for ever means! You invented murder. They drag us down to the level of the beasts. She did not know then thatimagination is the beginning of creation. Lua was awoman-child when I bore her. Shaw's "homeopathic" educational method consisted of lying to students, until the students were able to see through the lies and argue with the teachers. You are very subtle. BACK TO METHUSELAH A Metabiological Pentateuch by BERNARD SHAW 1921 Contents The Infidel Half Century The Dawn of Darwinism The Advent of the Neo-Darwinians Political Inadequacy of the Human Animal Cowardice of the Irreligious Is there any Hope Home - Books - Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw This page contains affiliate links. I made him out of myown body. Allll the way back to the beginning, with a series of. (Photo by Sasha/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) If I must have food or die, I will at least have it at as far aremove from the earth as I can. I was a fool. A monologue of The Serpent from Back to Methuselah. What have you made of yourselves? It is not only its eyes. Youshould try to have an existence of your own, instead of occupyingyourself with my existence. But who taught you to speak? This change, Shaw predicts, will happen through Creative Evolution (evolutionary change that occurs because it is needed or wantedthe Lamarckian view and not as a result of natural selectionDarwinism) as influenced by the Life Force (l'lan vital). Throw it into the river. THE SERPENT [_responding affectionately_] It is so, dear Adam. Burge-Lubin, realising that he, or anyone else, might turn out to be long-lived, counsels moderation. For if you do not there will be an end. What is the matterwith its eyes? Die. Furthermore, one of Shaw's last plays, Farfetched Fables (1950) also classifies as science fiction,[9] and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934). Theynever want to die, because they are always learning and always creatingeither things or wisdom, or at least dreaming of them. I do not trust the sun. A woman approaches to ask if he needs help. Dare it. THE SERPENT. He considered it a book for reading rather than playing on the stage, and was agreeably surprised when Lawrence Langner in New York and Barry Vincent Jackson in Birmingham insisted on producing it despite expectations of monetary loss, which were promptly justified. If I am not slain, yet I shall die. A She-Ancient arrives to supervise the birthing. He defiantly dares her to remove her veil and robe. He readily admits repeatedly feigning death and explains that the laws enforcing mandatory retirement at a certain age and those controlling eligibility for pensions left him with no alternative: When his record showed him old enough to be retired, he could no longer keep his job but he was always denied a pension because he looked too young. Yes. She is a mere girl of fifty-six and looks more like nineteen to the Elderly Gentleman, who is approaching seventy. THE SERPENT. Iremember Lilith, who came before Adam and Eve. I, who have so muchin me that I hate and long to cast off! Both shew the greatestconsternation._. ADAM. It is silly to say you do not care. I have striven with a man: spear to spear andshield to shield. I can talk of many things. Heinvented the altar to keep the fire alive. Man need not always live by bread alone. No. killing or digging in the garden and says her future sons will find things more wonderful to do. [6][7]offers a solution: Lilith, who came before them, and was, in fact, their mother, made them male and female, so they have the ability to reproduce. It would be nice to be new again; but myold skin would lie on the ground looking just like me; and Adam wouldsee it shrivel up and--. EVE. It has not yet told me the secret. Their conversation ends only when it comes time to consult the oracle. Although both ideas are out of scientific favour as the twenty-first century begins, Shaw accepted them completely (See Commentary, below.) I can never be alone.You always want to know what I have been doing. PART I That was not alwaysthere: you could not climb a tree when I first saw you. I want to be born!" A few centuries slip by; Eve and Adam have aged a bit, but otherwise have changed but little: She spends her time by spinning flax for weaving, he digs in the garden. She is the creator, youthe destroyer. Yes: you have to twirl a stick to feel your strength: you cannottaste life without making it bitter and boiling hot: you cannot loveLua until her face is painted, nor feel the natural warmth of her fleshuntil you have stuck a squirrel's fur on it. He says he'll take that chance, since it is more honourable. How can I destroy unless she creates? Not before. He loved his brother. David Fielding's abridgement has succeeded in shortening this five-part play down to 4 fascinating hours. Do not tell him yet. CAIN. EVE. Yet you are. The other children bathe her, despite her shrieks and protestations. All you men, except only Adam, are my sons, or mysons' sons, or my sons' sons' sons: you all come to see me: you all shewoff before me: all your little wisdoms and accomplishments are trottedout before mother Eve. Andnettles, too! Martellus laughs, but not in mockery; he says he, too, attempted such a project, but has smashed all his sculptures and thrown away his tools. When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' If you, Cain, had had the trouble of making Abel,or had had to make another man to replace him when he was gone, youwould not have killed him: you would have risked your own life to savehis. EVE [_throwing herself on the ground beside him, and grasping his knee_]You must be careful. [_He chuckles and goes awayslowly, laughing his first laugh_]. You are still tempted. Happiness is wicked.Certainty is blessed. Fear is stronger in me than hope. You change your mind so often. EVE. ADAM. Most of the opin-ion has tended to be negative, following the adverse judgment of Eric . I do not want to kill my mother. So I have to come back and listen to Adam saying thesame thing for the ten-thousandth time, or to receive a visit from thelast great-great-grandson who has grown up and wants to impress me withhis importance. So that is what comes of turning your face to the clean clearheavens! THE SERPENT. He said that the Voice was the voice of the fire that cooked hisfood, and that the fire that could cook could also eat. Fool: she makes you fight because you bring her the ornaments andthe treasures of those you have slain, and because she is courted andpropitiated with power and gold by the people who fear you. CAIN. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. But you used to complainof having to exist always and for ever. They have come to consult the oracle about matters of utmost importance. Leave us in peace. _Eve's face lights up with intense interest, which increases until anexpression of overwhelming repugnance takes its place. to beAdam, Adam, Adam through more days than there are grains of sand by thetwo rivers, and then be as far from the end as ever! EVE. CAIN. He shrieks and falls, but rises once again, because The Oracle missed her target. 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. Andthen there will be nothing but snakes, snakes, snakes everywhere. I call yours the Devil. In the Beginning: B.C. Shaw's scientific rationale for evolving long-lived humans depended on the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Michael Holroyd describes the plays as "a masterpiece of wishful thinking" and calls them science fiction. THE SERPENT. THE SERPENT. THE SERPENT. Pah! If they shorten their lives, they will dig and fight and kill anddie; and their baby Enochs will tell them that it is the will of theVoice that they should dig and fight and kill and die for ever. EVE. CAIN [_letting his spear fall into the crook of his shield arm, andtwirling his moustache_] There is something higher than man. You have made the beasts afraid of us; and the snake hasinvented poison to protect herself against you. Tired of their talk with children, the Ancients go their separate ways. EVE. They borrow and never pay; but one gives them what they want,because they tell beautiful lies in beautiful words. Only just now youwanted me to sit still and never move lest I should stumble and die likethe fawn. I worship you, Eve. The two are scantily and carelessly dressed in rough linen and leaves.They have lost their youth and grace; and Adam has an unkempt beard andjaggedly cut hair; but they are strong and in the prime of life. Ultimately he is asking if it would be expedient to hold elections now or better to put them off till spring. The secret. Oh, it is dreary, dreary! ADAM. And that request was granted: "Go home, poor fool" the oracle replies repeating what she had said to Eastwind. I will hunt: I will fight and strive to the very bursting of mysinews. If that is to be thelast thing as it has been the first, let mankind perish. Back to Methuselah; a metabiological Pentateuch. Adapted from:'The Serpent's Story' by Leonid Andreyev 'The Seprent's Tale' by Walter WykesWebsi. When you have to snare the little tender birdsbecause it is too much trouble for her to chew honest food, how much ofa great warrior do you feel then? [10] comes close to qualifying. The brothers are disappointed but remain completely confident that the If you are content, like the bear, I am not. If I put off death until tomorrow, I shall never die. You should not. The final play, As Far as the Mind Can Reach, offers no solution to the problem: Humans evolve to the point of becoming free-ranging vortices of energy, able to wander, solitary, through the Universe, thus requiring no government at all. ADAM [_picking up his spade and preparing to dig again_] Take yourselfoff then. Eve invents the word . ADAM. ADAM. ADAM [_in sullen rage_] I have half a mind to shew you that my spade cansplit your undutiful head open, in spite of your spear. THE SERPENT. Always 'Why?' Then I gave up your old silly drudging ways, and lived as he hadlived, by the chase, by the killing, and by the fire. ADAM [_uttering a grunt of disgust_]!!! Her wheel, which she turns byhand, is a large disc of heavy wood, practically a flywheel. I had not thought of that. The garden is full of voices sometimes. You learnt nothing from him: youdrudged and drudged and drudged, and dug and dug and dug, and made me dothe same. EVE. If I am to die like the fawn, why should not the rest die too? EVE [_slowly taking up her distaff_] If you were not a fool you wouldfind something better for both of us to live by than this spinning anddigging. That is too wonderful. [_Rising and moving about in his agitation_]. EVE. ADAM. And it burst; and a little snake came out; and it became biggerand bigger from day to day until it was as big as I. That is a sweet word. I adore her. THE SERPENT. Zozim and Zoo, dressed impressively in costumes that they disparage as foolish, but are demanded by their short-lived clients, lead the visiting party into the temple. When I have slain the boar at the risk of my life, I will throwit to my woman to cook, and give her a morsel of it for her pains. CAIN. Look. And I am very wilful, andmust have what I want; and I have willed and willed and willed. Eve, better humored (having given upworrying), sits and spins and thinks. Eve thoughtfully remarks that there is more to living than Think of that! I _have_ to think about you. You must. Liar: you denied just now that it called on you to pay for Abel'slife with your own. Already most ofour grandchildren die before they have sense enough to know how to live. ADAM [_returning_] Is there another voice in the garden besides ourvoices and the Voice? It is long and hard andpainful to create life: it is short and easy to steal the life othershave made. Death. It was true: Isaw the fire consume the food on his altar. THE SERPENT. Because if he could do that he could do without Eve. This accorded with the theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, even though Lamarckism was in decline and Charles Darwin's views were ascendant in 1920, when the plays were written. THE SERPENT. Listen.I am old. EVE [_pointing to the fawn_] Like that. I call that renewal being born. Yet I am alive, and can burst myskin and renew myself as before. You are always spying on me. Tell me this: who invented death? Poor mother! Well, I will leave you to it, though I have shewn you a betterway. She learns of the Archbishop's longevity with great interest but no evident surprise and it soon emerges that she, also, is long lived and remembers Archbishop Haslam from the time she was parlour maid for Franklyn Barnabas. Yes: it was by meditating on Life that I gained the powerto do miracles. Burge-Lubin is chiding himself indulgently for mixing romance with business when Barnabas bursts in, completely overwhelmed. Zozim belittles that display as well, but the visitors are overawed and become unnerved completely when the oracle appears as an insubstantial figure amidst lightnings and thunder. Back to Methuselah Part 1, Act 1 Imagination is the beginning of creation. ADAM. THE SERPENT. Itmay be tomorrow; it may be after as many days as there are leaves inthe garden and grains of sand by the river. I am very subtle;and I have thought and thought and thought. EVE. She is not yet visible to anyone unaware of her presence, asher colors of green and brown make a perfect camouflage. That is very true. I tell you it must not be. I cleared away the thistles and briars. Life has becomeuncertain. EVE. [4] Nevertheless, he uses both terms in Man and Superman which was written nine years before Bergson's work was published. As a result, governmental dignities are mere figureheads, useful only for formalities and ceremonial occasions. You know what I mean. I am the old serpent, older than Adam, older than Eve. time, Back to Methuselah and Saint Joan. Food drawn down from heaven, made out of the air, not dug dirtilyfrom the earth. ADAM. all those multitudes of menfighting, fighting, killing, killing! EVE. Adam and Eve, as avatars for aboriginal humanity, discover a fawn dead from a broken neck and realize they, too, will die eventually from some mishap, even though they are immune to aging. They are plainly modelled from the primitives of the twentieth century. Her pangs were terrible: hergroans drove sleep from Eden. He was in the line of ten godly descendants that preserved the godly promise. EVE. He foundout that the fire of the sun could be brought down by a dewdrop. The voice in the garden is your own voice. THE SERPENT. Do. No: I do not think about myself: what is the use? EVE [_now pitying him maternally_] Love! THE SERPENT. And at last it would happento me too. She will fish him out and dry him off and then let nature take its course. The Voicethought I was nothing but my brother's keeper. I made the word dead to describe my old skin that I castwhen I am renewed. Superman! Are you tempted, Adam? ADAM. Ask that woman whom you made, who is also my wife,whether she would have me as I was in the days when I followed the waysof Adam, and was a digger and a drudge? Even a bear would not eat a man if it could gethoney instead. EVE. I cannot think it was foreither of these cheap ways of life that Lilith set you free. They cannot renew themselves without Eves. You and Adam. Next come the ghosts of Eve and Cain, then those of the Serpent and Lilith, mother of mankind. EVE [_throwing her arms round the serpent_] My beautiful snake. And be it noted, Lilith, the first mother, is the presiding imaginative principle of Back to Methuselah itself. Listen to me, Eve; and you,snake, listen too, that your memory may hold my vow. When they come, there isalways some new wonder, or some new hope: something to live for. Be reasonable, boy. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1928. I should not dare to sleep if there were no reasonwhy you should not make me die. EVE. You are simplecountry folk. He is mine. I gathered a part of the life in my body, and shut it intoa tiny white case made of the stones I had eaten. Well, will you pamper me ashe pampers his woman? Members of the younger generation, in the persons of Franklyn's daughter Savvy and her sweetheart, a young cleric named Haslam, are at the presentation, too. I can make better use of my time thanto play the husband to the clay beneath my feet. Butwhen it is short it will be very sweet. Eve looks after them for a moment; then, with a shiver of disgust, sitsdown on the rock, brooding. 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? ADAM [_releasing her_] That is true. He humanizes them to the point of wishing to die for each other, then allows them to die. ADAM. Because I hatecreatures with two heads, or with withered limbs, or that are distortedand perverted and unnatural. [_Shegoes to it; and he is emboldened to go with her_]. She tells him he would die of discouragement if he talked to elders, male or femaleeven with her, conversation would be dangerous if she were not veiled and robed with insulating material. CAIN. The serpent has made a beautiful word for being. I have told Cain already that he is not aman and that Lua is not a woman: they are monsters. EVE [_displeased, turning away from the serpent_] But it will destroyhope. Let itnow give me certainty or go in fear of me. For that is what it would come to,just as it came to lambs and kids when Abel began with sheep and goats.You are a poor silly creature after all. I take my chance. The earthfeeds us. Both are speaking English, but their cultural backgrounds are so different that communication is not easy. It is likely that he did not die as the world. By another thing, called birth. Let Eve vow to loveyou until your death. Creation must not be strangled. I wish I had a serpent's tongue. And all that comes of it is that he wants to be abear and eat children. EVE. Life is theloveliest of all the new words. Adam is digging in themiddle of the garden. I have not lived as long as you; but I know all thereis to be known of the craft of digging. As night is falling, the children seek shelter in the temple. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. My feet die like the bear, I hear you say 'Why? practically a.. Tell beautiful lies in beautiful words it was man to man ; and you snake... Of that women, that they may in turn createmore men her veil and robe he uses terms... Are leaves inthe garden and says her future sons will find things wonderful. Falls, but their cultural backgrounds are so different that communication is not a approaches... Snakes everywhere am very subtle ; and I have willed and willed her sons. Drudged, and more women, that your memory may hold my vow a masterpiece of wishful thinking and! 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