31 Plays in 31 Days: #20 - "My Misrule"

Day #20 - "My Misrule"

ELORA, a prostitute
BASTIAN, a soldier
~~~

BASTIAN: It's no place of mine to counsel you.

ELORA: Still, sir, say that which you have to say.

BASTIAN: That man will not save you,
Nor bring you joy in any lasting measure.

ELORA: Ha!

BASTIAN: One meets a man gone cheek by jowl in war.
There is naught I know of him that could convince me otherwise.
They call him Wolf,

ELORA: You think you drive the moonbeams from the eyes
Of some night-blind girl who dreams her swain has come?
I see no dashing Woodsman from some tale,
And I know the Wolf no less as well as you.
Far from my savior, he calls to me from that
Great maw which beckons me unto my doom.

BASTIAN: Then why go on with him this way? Why walk
The path if you can sight the creature lay in wait?

ELORA: Are my bonds not plain? My prison clear?
For I have been taken hold by that which captures us
In such torment as from which there is no escape.
I have lov'd the Wolf, that which makes us traitor to ourselves,
And let the garden gate gape wide.
He has slipp'd in, a hunter loose beside
A ewe too beaten down to think of flight.

BASTIAN: You have been cruelly used, poor wretched girl.

ELORA: I have indeed, but not alone by him.
In nothing he deceived me but, in years before,
I fell to fairytales told me by my heart.
My weakness fed his taste, but's my misrule,
I swallowed love's lies, and so became love's fool.