"I had a little trading company." "The Pelican Company." "Engravers, printers, a writer, an actor or two." "All of us specialised in words." "We traded in words." "Words in books." "Words on the stage." "And the members of my company travelled with their wives and their mistresses." "And my nephew, Eduard." "And a young woman called Susannah, who I once knew, carnally." "Yes." "I needed some money for some business expansion." "I wanted to make pictures as well as words." "Pictures in books." "Pictures on the stage." "Every new visual technology is expensive" "And every new visual technology, sooner or later, gets into bed with lechery." "My aim was always to take a trip to Italy." "It was winter-time, ten years ago." "We fetched up in Colmar on the Rhine, and I sought an audience with the local military-governor." "The Margrave." "By his own account, a libertarian." "With just a little imagination we seduced him, and we convinced him to part with his money." "And maybe also with his dignity." "Don't be alarmed." "I am obliged to take a public shit at 6 o'clock." "Whether my digestion demands it, or not." "To satisfy my courtiers that the ceremony is not completely a farce," "I've trained my body to respond as it is asked." "By long precedence, relating back to God knows when," "I am obliged to present my human self to the populace as an ordinary man." "Some ancestor, eager to abase himself as some act of penance for some unmentionable crime " "though it's my feeling also as a curious act of self-indulgent exhibitionism - decided that the palace library was the perfect place for such things." "Maybe he was thinking of books as excrement?" "It has become a custom." "Proceed." "Your highness, signor, prince," "Your Majesty..." "Sire..." "Sir?" "I am looking to found a new printing press in The Hague, the Netherlands." "To spread the new learning of classical and biblical knowledge." "The new Humanisme from Italy with a Protestant understanding." "So, Your Highness, signor, prince," "Your Majesty, sire, sir... we have come to you, devout Christian and established humanist to help us in our endeavour." "How much do you want?" "And what do I get in return?" "Well, what we intend to plan, signor, is an illustrated "Book of Ovid", concentrating on the adventures, the sensuous adventures, of Jupiter." "What we might tentatively call the "Infidelities of Jupiter"." "Or we could say, the "Jealousies of Juno", his wife." "And what we then conceive of producing is an illustrated Old Testament, with the familiar moral stories, but told with a singular new freedom." "In other words "dirty books"?" "How much?" "150,000 crowns for a printing press." "80,000 crowns for yearly maintenance." "The sale of prints will pay for running costs." "And the Treasury receives 40% of all profits arising from sales." "Apple." "Fruit of knowledge?" "Hm?" "Entry of evil into the world?" "I never eat apples." "I peel them for my monkeys." "Which monkeys do you peel your apples for?" "My Pelican Company." "Pelican Company?" "You have taken up a dangerous task." "Pelicans." "Pelicans are a bird that feed their young by the blood of their breast." "We aim to amuse you." "We will present dramas of these edifying stories to demonstrate the range of our ambitions and the nature of our interests." "It will be a sort of advertisement for our endeavour." "Concentrate first on the Bible, the Old Testament, to demonstrate our faith." "And only secondly, tackle the classical allegories to demonstrate our learning." "Declaration of faith before learning will open all manner of permissibilities." "And you have ten years to manufacture the best books of their kind in Europe." "Exclusively for me." "And you entertain us for six nights, and then, we can sign a contract on your leaving this estate on Monday next." "If, that is all expectations are duly met." "We are interested in six sexual taboos." "Surely, in this day and age, criminal offences, and surely, in any age, culpable sins." "Let me introduce - this might surprise you - my wet nurse." "A most estimable lady, who has very little indeed to learn of love." "All my servants are black." "As you can see, it is fashionable to have black servants." "Here, black servants disappear in the dark, did you know?" "They disappear after sunset." "They become invisible." "Invisible servants have always been very desirable." "The black does not stop at their necks, even their pricks, cunts and their bottocks are black." "Though don't mess with them, one mustn't mess with them." "Eh, Ebola?" "It's forbidden." "We don't want anyone seriously fooled, or disappointed, do we?" "It is Ebola's birthday." "It has been considerable years since my toothless mouth sucked from her warm and nourishing nipples." "Just for me, because I know when you make a thing with all your heart you essentially make it first of all for yourself and then for one other person." "Make your entertainments for that one other person - my royal wet nurse." "Make her happy and you will therefore make me happy, very happy indeed " "Master Goltzius, engraver print maker... pornographer?" "Mind... the steps." "We had escarpment imported from Paris." "Please come this way." "Naughty!" "Naughty!" "Ladies of the Court, Your Eminencies, ladies and gentlemen," "The Pelican Company from The Hague in the Netherlands is pleased to present to you" ""The Discovery of Original Carnal Sin" ""by Adam and Eva in the Garden of Eden"." "This is man." "God's property." "The first sin and possible crime is voyeurisme." "You must of course ask yourself what, in fact, will this Colmar audience be doing now?" "What, in fact, are you doing now?" "Is the theatre the legitimate place where we permit ourselves to be licensed voyeurs?" "This is woman." "God and man's property." "So, we had secured a foothold on their credibility." "As I hope we have on yours." "The Creation was much more conceptual." "God would never have been so vulgar." "Don't you think, Rabbi, that it was very beautiful?" "No, I do not." "This was a display of abject carnality, fit for a bordello!" " Genesis is never so explicit." " Unfortunately not." "Otherwise we would all believe with much greater enthusiasm." "We are going, of course, to tell the old, old story, in the accustomed manner of long and venerable repute." "The slow anticipation of the business of love building up to its true demonstration." "Get the nipples to itch, the scrotums to tighten, the pricks to rise, the mound of Venus to swell." "Man." "I call you Adam." "Adam is an ancient Aramaic word meaning many things." "A beginning." "A start." "An ego." "An eye." "An empty space ready to be inked in." "As I give you a name, you must now..." "As God gives Adam a name, he must now do likewise to everything else in this fresh, clean, brave new world." "Choose wisely." "I had employed an English playwright," "Boethius." "Said he knew all the new English playwrights." "So many choices." "So many to choose from." "Start with the larger concepts and move freely down through the categories of size." "That's what I always do." "Sky!" "Very good." "English theatre was booming at that time." "Still is." "I paid him a fee of £8 a play." "I met him at a theatre in Southwark." "We were both taking a shit together." "He noticeably wore no underlinen." "Tree." "Yes." "Indeed, I see you have quite grasped the concept." "You are beginning to understand God's intentions." "Well done, Adam!" "Well done." "Roughly shoved his prick into his codpiece as though it was a serviceable sword into a scabbard." "Now, I will leave you in order to spend a little time with some abstract values that still need attending to." "Do not exceed yourself." "I liked this playwright." "I liked what I saw of his prick and how he handled it." "What effrontery!" "You cannot clap God." "Why ever not?" " May your palms burn in hell." " Jesus!" "He was only applauding good works, like a good Christian." " I'm going to clap with him!" " So am I." "The Biblical Creation of Man - and woman - for painters, has always presented problems." "There is just about enough information in Genesis to open possibilities, but far too little information to expand those possibilities in any useful descriptive way." "I am snake!" "It's up to me to name names." "You name him!" "After all, your word is law, Adam." "In the beginning was the word." "Who are you quoting?" "Quoting?" " Why, God of course." " What about me in all this?" "Susannah was the unbalanced mainstay, in more ways than one." "Let me name names." "What should I call this?" "Apple." "Good." "Take the apple." "It can become a symbol of the tree and therefore of knowledge." "Use it to obtain some wisdom." "How do I do that?" "Well, Adam could try biting it, Eva." "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." "That's also a quotation." "Not necessarily from God, though." " Bite?" " Yes." "Go on." "Bite." "B.I.T.E." "Yah." "The depiction of this important moment is always a little contentious, huh?" "Van Eyck painted a good version of this." "It is a question of expectation - the entry of sin into the world." "And since in the end we need to sin in this way, else you and I would not be here, what on earth is God playing at, banning that which is absolutely necessary?" "Makes absolutely no sense, huh?" "Durer made a fine print, yeah." "Though a little heroic." "And he avoids passing any sort of judgment." "His Adam and Eva are, in the end, very impassive." "Now, this model became a sort of formula." "There is a version by Cornelis Cornelis van Haarlem." "Ideal man." "Ideal woman." "Man a brown triangle." "Woman a white oval." "It was an invention, a concept that stuck." "Mouth." "Breast." "Kiss." "Slow down." "You have time." "All eternity, in fact." "Now, there is a thing that wants a name." "What shall we name what Adam possesses and Eva does not?" "Cock." "Oh, I have it " ""penis"." "And how about a word for her hungry mouth?" "I can offer you this." "Vagina." "Penis." "Vagina." "The primary apparatus." "Doing it like that is going to be frowned upon." "It will be described as doing it like a dog." "Could you imagine history recording that the first love of Adam and Eva accompanied by "ar ar ar ar", barking?" "Dog, a four-legged animal that runs in a pack." "And, if in any doubt, remember that "dog" is only "God" backwards." "And it may be true that only man in the whole animal kingdom makes love from the front." "Man, you may say indeed, is the odd man out, so to speak." "So try a reversal." "Believe me, reversals can be entertaining." "Watch her face." "See her eyes." "Feel her stiffened nipples against your chest." "Hold her body by the hips Adam, by the pelvis, by the pelvic bones that will shelter your eventual little baby." "And now they have all the words, all 26 to make the very globe itself." ""In the beginning was the word."" "The world is on its way to uncounted millions and millions, of little Evas and Adams." "Enjoy the pleasure - to over-population and beyond." "Not bad, huh?" "We had only been there a short time." "We did well, pulling all these special effects together." "We are disturbed by your little play, which is blasphemous." "We have four counts of blasphemy that must be addressed." "One - a naked God." "Two - a God that speaks with mortal words." "Three - an actor that plays both God and Satan." "Four - extreme disrespect for Adam and Eve, the parents of all mankind." "We agreed to a debate." "The Margrave was particular." "He had constructed a debating hall for just that very purpose." "I agreed." "I was after a contract." "Nakedness is vulnerability." "You make God vulnerable." "How can God be vulnerable?" "Nakedness is also pride, a long way from any mortal shame." "I need to sell to live and work, find salaries for six employees, maintain a printing press, keep up with developments, be ahead of the trade, find new markets." "Make, maintain and market." "God did not make man in his own image." "But man has made God in his own image." "Thus necessarily giving him a penis and an anus." "This is extreme blasphemy." "Arrest this man for insufferable pride for presuming he knows God's nature and anatomy!" "How much theology do you need to ask who could have mothered Eve, if God has a penis but no womb?" "A reasonable enough question, from a pregnant wife to a lustful husband." "A question to you, er, Rabbi." "Were Adam and Eve technically brother and sister?" "And if they were, is it not unlawful for them to lie together?" "Put the Holy Stories in the hands of women and the lay public, and you have wholesale confusion." "And is that not exactly what Calvinists have done?" "Margrave, husband?" "Why did the serpent deny them love-making from behind, when that's all we do?" "Well now, with these so eager critics, you are pushing your good fortune to the edge." "And where is the edge?" "I never know." "Let us try to find the edge together." "You will be Adam and I will be Eve." "Adam is supposed to be the master and Eve is certainly his slave." "And give me something of yours to wear to indicate my lowly position in your life." "And we can board this very boat of a bed and sail away." "My corset." "A most restricting garment." "A slave has no arms to protect himself." "Then I will have no arms." "Bind my arms." "I can be armless." "Harmless, like a worm." "You're a stuffed shirt and a lout." "Very well." "I obey." "I think of myself as the worm's worm." "Like a worm." "All worm." "I am worming beyond the worm's greatest possibility of worming." "I am indeed The Worm." "Well then, silence." "Worms are silent." "I command you to be a silent lover." "Now, I want to sail away." "Lift me up so I can sail away." "My God, gods and goddesses!" "I scarcely believe in a God but I miss him if he is responsible for this." "Blasphemy!" "We must arrive at the same harbour at the same time." "I promise." "I think I promise." "Ebola?" "Ebola?" "Quick!" "Quick, a letter." "A letter." "Dear Madam..." "Dear Madam..." "Who are you?" "A mirage?" "So near and yet so far." "So near," "I can smell the scent of the soap that slides between your thighs," "So far, my fingers can never be long enough to brush across your nipples." "Madam, may I approach you?" "Will you approach me, shaming me as I am wrapped in winter furs?" "Would you accept the offer of my warm cloak wrapped around your delightful soft, pink and cream most delightful body, Madam?" "Madam," "I could come to you across every rooftop in the world." "Ebola!" "She is going!" "She is leaving us!" "The Pelican Company will now present to you a dramatisation of the story from the Book of Genesis, describing the efforts of Lot and his daughters to continue the human heritage after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah." "The second sexual prohibition of our intended dramatised six is incest." "The other taboos may be considered crimes and sins against society." "This taboo shrieks out her objection in deficient progeny and infertility." "When the fires at Sodom and Gomorrah raged," "Lot and his daughters, grimy, sweating and exhausted, took refuge in a hostelry across the river from the conflagration." "All right!" "Strike me dead, like you did my wife!" "But God wanted Lot for a purpose and did not destroy him." "I had a mistress." "She washed my feet." "Where is she now?" "God, why were you so jealous?" "What are these two whispering about?" "Did they have husbands?" "Did they have lovers?" "God in Heaven we have come to this to make babies!" "And the pleasure of it is all yours, God." "Or is it the Devil's?" "Well it happened." "He came." "We must have a boy." "This story of Lot and his daughters is one of those subjects that permits painters to legitimately indulge in their own lechery and not be morally condemned." "I could always argue that I am painting a moral lesson against incest." "It is legitimate voyeurisme." "Like Actaeon spying on Diana, and the elders spying on Susanna, and David watching Bathsheba bathing on the roof of her palace." "Euripedima." "We are too old for this." "We made our daughters a long time ago." "We must have a boy." "A second boy." "And they did." "They did have a boy." "Two boys." "That night, these two sisters conceived." "Each with a son." "And the boys were healthy and whole." "No sign of the curse of incest about them." "Lot's dynasty was preserved." "And the world was allowed to begin yet again." "Third time lucky?" "Did God overreact?" "And remember, this is the second time that God got it wrong." "God cannot make mistakes." "The first time was with Noah, when the world had to be flooded to rid it of the wicked." "And now wickedness is to be destroyed by fire." "Water and fire." "What will he use next to demonstrate his wrath?" "You, it sounds." "Do not laugh." "This man is dangerous." "Can't you impeach that playwright?" "Accuse him of something - blasphemy, heresy, moral turpitude?" "We can." " Which?" " All of them." "But you invited debate in a court of free speech, and in public any of these accusations may turn against your reputation for the same." "Your morality as a man is a private affair between you and your God, may he forgive you!" "But as a prince, your morality is a public issue." "Your case with William Boethius over his concubine Adaela will be compared to the case of David with his concubine Bathsheba." "Only you are no David and are entirely unlikely to produce a Solomon, with that stupid brainless ninny you married to excuse your actions." "Find me a charge, or I'll find one myself." "Tomorrow night's performance will take place on the palace roof." "High in the air." "Goltzius." "I cannot play Bathsheba tomorrow night." "And why ever not?" "Are you afraid of heights?" "Huh?" "Too much exposure." "On the roof, or of your person?" "Come on." "Are you really saying this?" "Huh?" " Are you really telling me this?" " Yes." "You love being in front of an audience." "There are limits." "And I'm sure you have not reached them." "It's best I limit my appearances." "I must preserve myself a little." "The Margrave has taken a personal interest in me." "I'm going to reserve myself for him." "I tried to keep everything under control, but there are things that just elude you, escape your jurisdiction." "And none more so than the actor or actress." "Your eyes madam, held the melancholy of the world." "Why, thank you, sir." "You are too generous." "Though I was not so sure I understood that last kiss." "A presumption by our friend the playwright?" "Oh, on the contrary." "I insisted he should do it to remind him where his duty lay and my love resided." "I trust we will see you again tomorrow night?" " Oh, no." "The role of Bathsheba is always played by Susannah." "It requires a mature woman." "And she has played it with excellence many times before." "They are the loose cannon on board the ship." "And whatever you pay them or charm them with, or bribe them or threaten them, if they have made up their minds you are obliged to go with the flow." "Like a dead fish." "Ah, Goltzius!" "You are here to amuse me, to amuse my court, goddamn it!" "I thought, sire," "I thought that you had your own procurer, your own pander?" "I beg your pardon, madam, your own procuress." "It is not an official title." "Oh, and why ever not?" "You must make it one." "The royal body-taster." "If you want such a title Ebola, you shall have it." "Especially if you persuade that young lady to rehearse a little with me." "You can offer her what you think is suitable." "Up to half my kingdom, I was thinking." "Huh!" "But only if you think it's suitable." "Come, we too have a stately ship at sea, and must sail away." "Bon voyage, monsieur." "Bon voyage, Goltzius, mariner!" "You have just drowned your ship." "How do I get to fuck that woman?" "What's stopping you?" "Her husband." "Her husband?" "Her husband is not her husband." "He does not believe in husbands." "She is his mistress, therefore anybody's." " Kill him." " Ha." "Goyal, your solutions are far too real." "Darling, death is as simple as it gets." "I'm not fucking my wife in public." "All right." "Then I'll play David and I can fuck your wife in public." "Out of the fucking question." "Now, give me that peddle box." "It's a pity, because then I think we lose our finances to build the printing press that you wanted so badly." "That you planned for, drew for, painted for, for five years." "Planning and work down the drain, out to sea, washed up, drowned, swamped." "You really think that the prince wants to see my wife being fucked when he can buy any woman in the world?" "Turn it around and shake it." "What happened to Susannah?" "If she wants more money we must find it." "It's Susannah." "It's not the money." "Susannah has seen the light." "She is besotted with the Margrave." "She says he is a great lover, and she wants to save herself for him, she does not want to lose her chances by appearing naked in public any more." "She says that the Margrave is bored with his silly wife and as soon as he has a son he will not fuck with her again, and then maybe even divorce her." "Susannah's thinking of marriage?" "My god that woman is a fool." "Try telling her that." "All right, erm, how do you want to do it?" "Boethius can be very inventive." "I don't want to do it, least not in public." "Boethius will think of something suitable, so you don't look totally exposed." "How about a suit of armour?" "For you or for Portia?" "Could be exciting, the metal and the flesh." "Quadfrey was the master technician." "I always thought, curiously, that Quadfrey was a masculine woman in a celibate's neuter clothing." "Whenever possible, he went as naked as normal decency permitted." "Though naked as an innocent child went naked in the nursery." "Look, you have a decent sized prick!" "Beautiful!" "And..." "And..." "You... get your buttocks shaved, huh?" "And you can show us a kingly arse with some rich royal treasure dangling beneath." "I'm not doing it and neither is Portia." "I remember in the dunes near Noordwijk, you were happy to show all the world what you had." "Exposure was a happy state of affairs for you then." "I was drunk and younger." "Be drunk again." "David was a Jew and circumcised." "Make sure you keep it erect, huh?" "Pull the foreskin back hard and you could wear a phallic ring." " I've seen them in Brussels." " Fuck you!" "Fuck you!" "Fuck you!" "I want a Hungarian Elephant Press with the whale-boards on the front plates." "I don't know what that is exactly, but, by God, I will get you one, even if I have to drag it from Hungary myself." "And small-bore sliders with the cusps facing the right-hand side." "My God, Hendrick, for small-bore right-handed sliders, you had better show us a good trumpet." "And Portia had better be a good strumpet." "Jesus Christus, Hendrick, a Hungarian Elephant Press for the sight of your willy?" "You know, all this could do your marriage some good, Hendrick." "We have to fuck in public." "We hardly ever fuck in private so why should we have to fuck in public?" "To excite the Margrave to cough up enough money to keep us all working for the next five years." "Fucking for money?" "Maybe that will turn you on." "How much?" "It's said that the only difference between a whore and a wife is that the first plainly asks to be paid straight away." "And, er, babies?" "What about babies?" "Will they be part of the equation?" "Good lord!" "Could be." " If we had any." " And we don't." "And why?" "Because you can't." "Unproven." "Well, it might work!" "Maybe some public exposure will stiffen up your lust again." "And..." "Eduard could watch me!" "Bitch!" "That talentless, lecherous youth." "He has been asking after me, you know?" "He's been asking after most women." "And some men, I have heard." "You give me a son and Eduard disappears from view." " A challenge?" " I want a child, Quadfrey." "I want a child." "You said it would set us up for five years?" "Yes." "I'll do it." "If you'll do it." "But..." "I want a house with red and white shutters in The Hague with a yard of pleached beech trees and, um..." "ten potted orange bushes, and a red tulip garden, and a 20-foot long lavender hedge with a path of crushed shells to a gazebo overlooking a silent canal." "With swans." " Whore." " Pimp." "We now bring to your attention the true biblical tale of David and Bathsheba." "David and Bathsheba were later to become the parents of the most esteemed King of the Jews." "Solomon, the wisest man, it was to be said, in the whole civilised world." "Madam?" "Sir?" "I know your husband." "I hope you should." "He's a loyal officer to all your efforts." "A brave man." "He serves me well." "Very well." "Like a true subject." "Like a true subject should." "Like all my subjects should." "You are one of my subjects." "I am indeed, Your Majesty." "And you, too, will serve me well?" "I am obliged to." "Obligation?" "Your husband, it is true, serves me from obligation." "But, I am convinced, for he has given me copious proof, from also out of love and affection and true personal loyalty." "He is eager to please me, for he knows if he pleases me, he pleases his country and therefore, he pleases himself." "You see how we all benefit?" "The areas of pleasing, Your Majesty," "I suspect might not be quite the same." "He's a soldier fighting your battles." "You, too, can be a soldier fighting my battles." "Battles, Your Majesty?" "The battle of my heart." "We did arrange for the exhibition of the mutilated bloody corpse of Bathsheba's husband slain in the centre of battle in which David had placed him." "The Old Testament authors being persuaded to condone adultery abetted by murder." "Or was it murder abetted by adultery?" "No more talk about your husband." "He is very, very far away." "Absent." "Unknowledgeable of our meeting." "Ignorant that we are together." "Innocent of our intimacy." "Proceed." "One last thing." "If you intend to impregnate me with your seed," "I am, at this time, at the peak of my receptivity." "Then, madam, you make yourself and your body even more deliciously and vulnerably desirable." "The thought that my seed could penetrate, re-arrange, activate and decidedly change the intimate and warm, moist, interior secret spaces of your delightful body fills me with a very great desire indeed." "Madam, you should prepare yourself." "Take off your clothes." "Here then was the exposition of the third sexual taboo - adultery, crime against property." "Nature could not care less about the proposition of adultery." "A child is a child, however conceived." "And nature has succeeded with adultery admirably, since it is accompanied by extremes of excitement that augur well for a successful outcome - a child." "I haven't seen your prick rise so high or so hard in a very long time." "You, too, opened up for the occasion." "Perhaps Portia, we should again find a way to perform in private like we performed in public." "David cannot have used such spite and deceitfulness with Bathsheba." "God would never have let him be so predatory." "David is the glory of Judaism, great King of the Jews." "I intensely dislike the role of the dramaturge, telling you all the time what you have done wrong, how you could do that better, that it is not true to life." "That it did not really happen like that." "How on earth do they know?" "Were they there at the foot of the cross?" "When they rolled in the Trojan Horse?" "When Eva ate the apple?" "When Lot fucked his daughters?" "When David watched Bathsheba at her bath?" "When Potiphar's wife fucked or did not fuck Joseph?" "When Samson had a haircut?" "And here in Colmar were too many dramaturges - academics of the church, elders, judges, knowing their Bibles like the back of their hands, dogmatically declaring that what they knew was what the bible knew and therefore was the truth!" "First, seduction." "Then, conception." "Then the death of the child." "Solomon could not have been conceived out of wedlock." "So the first bastard child had to go." "Have you considered it might have been infanticide perpetuated by him?" " Shame on you!" " Deceit!" "And deceit and deceit, and deceit on her." "And on her husband, who was so tirelessly loyal." "He stayed away because he preferred" " the company of his soldiers." " Hey, what now?" "Are you seeking excuses for David?" "Are you accusing Bathsheba's husband of being a sodomite to excuse David's miserable behaviour?" " God had a purpose." " Ah!" "You may depend he did!" "Enough!" "Take this man and shut his mouth." "Objection, objection." "You invited us here because of your reputation for free speech." "Because you do not like what he says, you shut him up?" "What is that, free speech?" "So that he can speak with a dirty mouth?" "And you Margrave, you certainly did enjoy yourself." "because I saw you smile and I saw you sweat a little and I saw you lift your backside as your prick rose." "And when I looked in your window at half past midnight," "I saw you sucking your wife's nipples and rubbing your fingers into her cunt." "Shut up!" "You had no business looking in my window!" "And why?" "Because it wasn't your wife you were abusing, but her two little 14-year old sisters?" "Enough!" "Shut him up." "Stop this wheel." "Get him!" "Take him away!" "Take him away!" "Arrest him!" "Get out!" "You could say the story really starts here." "Signor Quadfrey?" "Madam." "I have something for you." "I am certain it is Herr Goltzius' property." "My husband and his brother had appropriated it." "Good Lord!" "Goltzius has been looking for that, believing it stolen." "He will be pleased to have it returned." "You see, we are all in it." "And with, sometimes, alarming frankness." "You see madam, here you are, easily identifiable by your fulsome belly." "I feel that you could touch and hold and breathe in the company of a woman with much care." "Madam, on that stage I was acting." "I am surprised that, though you all profess to be in the new trade of printing, you are all so accomplished on the stage." "There are parts of the anatomy, madam, that appear to know what to do without rehearsal." "Consequently, there is... much satisfaction in a good natural performance simply for its own sake." "I wish I could believe that of myself." "Oh, do I hear of disappointment?" "Do I detect evidence of a belief in a poor performance?" "That cannot surely be, otherwise, I imagine madam you would not be inhabiting the fulsome good shape I see before me." "I should also say that the printing presses of the northern world have always been closely associated with the acting profession." "There was, and is, a third reason." "Commercial necessity." "The Pelican Company was on short shrift." "We were only running so far in advance of our debts." "Performing on the stage was only a way to make it possible for us to perform in books." "The two are not so very, very, very very different." "Hey toad, you can be the Margrave." "Slimy in character, if not looks." "Sluggish." "Are you sluggish?" "Amphibious." "A watery sort of complexion." "And... warty body." "I wouldn't know." "We would have to strip the Margrave and see." "Persistently living close to water." "Hidden genitals, no big prick." "No big prick?" "Come on, show me your prick." "I don't see your prick, toady." "So perhaps you're female?" "Wouldn't know about the Margrave." "Don't think he's a female." "He fancies Adaela." ""The Princess and the Toad"!" "Watch out you don't turn into a prince, toady!" "Oh, if you touch my Adaela, you'll end up with a stake in your heart." "Hey!" "A croaker!" "A croaker!" "Does that mean..." "Does that mean someone is gonna die?" "Where is Boethius?" "You mean the heretic?" "In jail, where he belongs" "What will happen to him?" "For the moment I suspect simply nothing." "Later - interrogation, education." "Torture." "You mean to get him to change his mind?" "I doubt it." "We wouldn't bother our engineers." "They are expensive." "What, anyway, is torture nowadays?" "Watching that younger daughter of Lot the other night, not being able to touch her, hold her," "kiss her, stroke her body, was torture." "Signor, on Boethius your use of torture would not work." "You'd be surprised, you really would." "Physical pain changes everyone's mind." "I will make you a bargain." "Release this man from the possibility of his torture and I will endeavour to release you from the possibility of your torture." "Why on earth would you want to support a man who denies God?" "Because, Margrave, he is intelligent, amusing and he makes me think, and think hard." "He upsets every complacency and prejudice that is in me, and I like that." "That man is valuable to me." "And, may I suggest - to you." "Only as a creature who has introduced me to his mistress's delightful, desirable body." "But, Mr Pornographer, see what you can do." "I give you one day and one night." "Then, who knows?" "Your writer needs his fingers to write." "Madam, you are married to the Margrave of Alsace." "A mighty match." "And you are very pregnant." "Could you be really aware of the time you are spending here alone with me?" "Yes, I am." "Why are you prepared to take such mighty risks?" "I, I saw you as..." "I wanted to see my husband." "And I was..." "I was jealous of what he was not and you were." "Soon, I will give birth to a boy." "And then my freedom, any freedom will be gone." "Completely gone." "I will be the Mother Queen." " A fated..." " Hm, oh, yeah!" "...and very closely watched and never private woman." "Give me a last night of freedom with a man who could play the ideal which I might want to see in my husband." "Madam, I'm sure and certain that your child will be breast-fed by a wet nurse." "So I will have access." "So I, alone, will have access to suckle your breasts." "Roman Charity." "The suckling of an adult male on milk - straight from the source, so to speak, huh?" "Classic story is Cimon and Pero." "The elderly Cimon is imprisoned by his political enemies to a death by starvation." "His daughter, Pero, mother of a young baby, visits him in prison and feeds him from her breast." "Supreme sacrifice?" "A love for a father that knows no limit?" "Paternal demand that brooks no disobedience?" "Belated sublimated incest?" "Sheer titillation?" "Successive painters uphold sacrifice, emphasise devotion, expose hypocrisy, advertise the erotic, debase daughterly concern." "Come." "Take me, as you took Bathsheba, King David." "Go!" "Go, Quadfrey!" " Quadfrey, for Christ's sake!" " We are discovered." "Get going, swim downstream." "Have you been watching us all the time?" "Yes." "You weren't so bad." "I've got a bigger prick than you and her arse looked inviting." "I liked the way she had your prick on reins..." " Fucking shut fucking up." " You'd better get out, and quick!" "There's a trapdoor." "Adaela will surely be there." "See if you can get her to hide you." "For Christ's sake, they'll have your prick as a trophy." "Go!" "You will lose your head if they catch you." "His head?" "He'll lose his prick first." "Have you noticed there are no black children in this palace?" "You'd think there should be, considering the mighty army of black servants, male and female." "I'd love to have a black baby with one of them." "You can't." "It's forbidden." "You have to put up with me." "And if..." "If black flesh excites you that much, why don't you... black me over with Quadfrey's ink?" "Come." "Quadfrey's dead." "Drowned!" "Bound to be." "Swept out into the freezing waters of the Rhine." "It's winter." "He'll freeze." "What the hell did you think you were doing?" "In love?" "In love?" "I don't believe it!" "She has no business being in love." "She's a dynastic pawn!" "Dynastic pawns don't fall in love." "We could make a fortune." "Deluxe signed copies." "Printed black babies in the print shops of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Paris." "No pain." "No sweat." "No mess." "No quicker way to populate the world." "Stick them in the ground in Virginia alongside tobacco plants." "And black babies and tobacco could grow together, side by side." "A mirage in the water." "A big scaly white fleshy fish with a Neptune cock wrapped around with red ribbon." "And a swordfish nose that could tickle me deep inside." "Impotent, by all accounts." "A fishy eunuch." "He can't even get his wife pregnant." "Don't worry." "The baby's yours." " Who are these ladies?" " Just white servants dancing." "And not dancing very well." "True, but that's intentional." "I understand unprotected innocence can be alluring." "Possibly." "You see?" " Oh, dear, what a waste." " Yes, you could say that." "Choice - castration or Adaela?" "Castration, of course." "But considering the amount of blood now in my very erect prick, I will probably bleed to death." "I have to take to the Margrave something to prove you have been tortured." " Finger!" " No!" "No!" "You fucking fat black nigger bitch." "Pain releases all the greatest and worst prejudices, now doesn't it just?" "I... have a proposition." "I will play Potiphar's wife." "My word!" "A quick reaction, I wonder why." "Susannah will play Potiphar's wife." "I think that you should ask her to stand down." " I'm sure she won't." " I won't." "I could easily agree, if I can play Potiphar." "Of course you can play Potiphar." "When Joseph, stupid boy, proves to be reluctant," "Potiphar's wife goes to her husband, who is played by you." "You put Joseph in jail." "Then I, as Potiphar's wife sleep with my husband Potiphar, who is you." "Easy." "Simple." "And you release Boethius." " Is it a bargain?" " Such eagerness, good Lord!" "Potiphar, indeed, could do those things." "And he must." "It's part of the bargaining contract." "So I, the Margrave, playing Potiphar, legitimately, so to speak, sleeps with his wife." "You cannot do this." "The Margrave is going to be mine." "No Susannah." "Think, think." "That is never going to happen." "Yes, it is." "Yes, it bloody is!" "There's something much more valuable than a fucking finger!" "You open this door!" "Your Madame, madam, honourable sirs, gentlemen." "This evening, we present to you for your moral education," ""The Seduction of Joseph by Potiphar's Wife"." "We are at Luxor, in Egypt, home of the Pharaohs." "Most particularly, we are invited to the house of Potiphar, the Pharaoh's chancellor." "And - ooh!" " most pertinently we have been invited innocently, like Joseph, to the chamber of Potiphar's wife." "Like Joseph, we can imagine ourselves to be on an innocent visit, to supervise some small domestic pecuniary business, to evaluate the cost of repainting the chamber decorations, the importation of new bed-fittings from Mesopotamia or the purchase of a new chamber pot." "Good luck." "Our next and fourth sexual taboo - the seduction of the young." "Which is a crime against innocence and a naked demonstration of power." "Joseph, how much do they pay you?" "I don't get paid." "I'm a Jewish prisoner-of-war." "I'm a slave and I have no use for money." " God provides." " Really?" "What does he provide?" "Sunlight." "Day and night." "The air." "The ground I walk on." "He is the Great Provider." " Be unfaithful, be quiet." " Yes." "Be quiet." "Be noisy, shout, fall silent, sleep naked like a hedonist, sleep clothed and shaven like a nun." "Sleep naked like a hedonist, sleep clothed and shaven like a nun." "Now, there's a thing - nuns." "Adaela as a shaven nun." "This could be alluring." "Let us talk about your clothes." "I wear the uniform of a servant, the hat and the shoes of a slave, and all the necessary tags and badges and the compulsory labels that say I am a Jew." "I wear the obligatory yellow Star of David." "Well, well, I'm sure I can persuade my husband to get rid of all those tags and badges and compulsory labels." "The subject of Potiphar's wife is fashionable among painters and their clients, just now in Europa." "And it is curious to see how each painter deals with the subject." "What changes is the, er, well now, the degree of the sexual demand, huh?" "The desire of Potiphar's wife as read largely on her face." "Then..." "Then the strength of Joseph's resistance." "How repulsed, in fact, is Joseph?" "Doesn't that feel cooler?" " Yes." " And you look so much better." "Not quite so stupid in the clothes provided by someone else." "So handsome." "You really are a handsome young man." "I'll take off my shirt." "That's better." "How about those heavy trousers?" " No." " I say yes." "I'm told the Jews mark themselves as separate human beings from the rest of us." "To indicate their separateness, their superiority." "That they cut and mutilate themselves to prove that they are Jews." "Surely, a contradiction for people keen to be appreciated as "very civilised"." "Are they doubting that God fashioned them correctly so that they have to finish the job themselves?" "I'm curious." "Will you let me see if it's true?" "Will you show me?" "There now!" "You must surely now feel more comfortable?" "Cooler?" " I am." " Let me look at you." "Good!" "Beautiful!" "And I do believe that the marks of a Jew could not be so bad after all." "I was expecting something very wounded." "There are some equivocations here." "The important question is, did I suspect that the Margrave's brother, and therefore we may presume the Margrave himself, was circumcised?" "Were they Jewish?" "This family of Holy Roman Empire brethren?" "I doubted it then and I doubt it now." "You may turn around again." "Look at me." "Look at my body." "Are you pleased with what you see?" ""No, madam!"" "Why ever not?" "Many men would be happy to see what you're looking at." "Sulking, unrequited lover." " But freely, freely." " Spiteful." "Spiteful." "Freely." "What in God's name is that?" "Is there anything called freedom?" "I'm the free-est man in this kingdom and I do not feel free at all." "Now, I'm giving you love and affection." "Well, let's say affection." "Physical affection." "Perhaps love, who knows?" "But being a man of God..." "I suspect you would not want the love of a woman." "Was Susannah acting her role or was she reacting to what she observed?" "Was she remembering the lines written for her by Boethius?" "Or was she creating her own lines?" "Either way, she did well." " You're a married woman." " Well, that is true." " And an infidel." " Infidel?" " What, I wonder, is that?" " I am a Jewish prisoner-of-war." "I am to be respected as a Jewish prisoner-of-war." "Respected?" "Well, I am always surprised when people say that." "Respect is never automatic." "It always has to be earned." "Don't you think you have to earn that respect?" "Come on!" "Earn my respect." "I could help you." "Bind him." "And so the conversation of seduction continued, till Potiphar's wife - or was it Susannah?" "Until she had the poor boy helpless." "However, either way, he was young and lecherous enough, despite himself, to make his anatomy behave well." "Mutilated or not," "Jewish or not, the responses are certainly familiar." "No." "You have to stop now." "I can't go with women." "A little jabber?" "A rolling pin?" "A comedy in three acts, two repeatable, one explosive?" "Arrest him!" "He tried to rape me." "Look at him, all red-faced and red-pricked." "His clothes in my bed and his smell on my sheets!" "I..." "Where's Adaela?" "Wait, this was not the deal." "I had a contract, where's Adaela?" "What the hell are you doing here?" "I thought Eduard was playing Joseph" "It didn't happen." "It did not happen." "Don't worry, Potiphar." "It did not happen." " Oh, shut up." " But it nearly did." " Shut up!" " The wretch!" " The wretch!" " You stupid bitch!" "Shut up!" "Where's Adaela?" "Well, we engineered that one well enough." "How gullible are those stretched by lechery?" "Get out!" "All of you!" "I thought that Eduard was playing Joseph." "How can I bloody play Potiphar if my brother is playing Joseph?" "I end up a second substitute to my bloody brother." "Get out." "Get out, get out." "And what the hell did you think you were doing?" "Playing the dirty little vagabond with your prick out." "You could see I was playing Joseph for God's sake." "A biblical hero!" "It didn't seem like a biblical hero, the way you were playing him." "But I preserved his innocence." "Oh, yes, yes, his innocence." "Yes, yes." "With your erect prick." "Like a donkey in heat!" "Why, thank you, brother!" "Donkeys are uncommonly well endowed." "However, as you saw, the sex was not consummated." "Oh, no, no, it bloody nearly was consummated." "Yes." "One more minute and Joseph's famous reputation for innocence would be exploded completely." "What the hell do you think you were doing?" "Much the same as you hoped to do, I imagine." "Don't you understand?" "If I died without a son you would be the next in line!" "What an exhibition in public, huh?" "For the next Margrave of Alsace." "What about your exhibition of yourself?" "Potiphar's wife was lonely." "What?" "Like hell she was lonely." " She wanted company." " Like hell she did." "Potiphar was reputed to be interested in young men." " What?" " Which the Rabbi says excuses his wife for trying to seduce Joseph." "What kind of goddamned sophistry is that?" "If I'm playing Potiphar what does that make me?" " A fucking sodomite?" " Well..." " That's what the Rabbi told me." " Oh, yeah..." "The Rabbi is finding excuses for you to expose your prick in public?" "I think the Rabbi, between you and me, brother, will excuse anything the actress Susannah is prepared to do in public." "It would seem, Master Goltzius, that your dramas begin to encroach on the well-being of my court." "Your brother, sir, volunteered." "As an example of the dutiful reticence and repudiation of evil that this court is capable of." "Shut up, Goltzius." "I suspect you of insidious entreaties to a young man not at all sure of his sexuality, to corner me into a position of some embarrassment, and thus, force my arm to sign your contract." "A risky stratagem, which would have undermined my credibility if believed." "What truly surprised me however, was that I had an unlikely ally." "This court is replete with stories of the boy's sexual sophistication." "I cannot believe for one minute that Mosaic law would be so fastidiously sympathetic to such exhibited lechery." "The law of Moses is sympathetic to women in ways that later and less sophisticated religions have not seen fit to be." "We enjoyed this argument between the Margrave's religious servants." "The freedom of speech in my court, which enables you to speak with such liberality, may not be found elsewhere in Christendom." "Am I, as a Jew, to be interested in Christendom?" "There are limits to my liberality." "As an example of those limits, you shall be silenced here." " Gag him." " I protest!" "So you do!" "Join the heretic, Boethius!" "Sir, may I suggest we proceed with the entertainment as planned?" "Excuse me, remove ourselves a little from the heat and the affairs of the moment, and move to our next performance in your honour?" "I suggest, sir, that we consider the story of Samson and Delilah." "And now we have here a candidate to play Samson." "He is hirsute enough to play Samson." "He's big enough to play an ogre and a giant." "A man who over-reaches himself to stand up for the actress who plays Potiphar's wife." "Let's see if he and his flesh can be made to stand up for Delilah." "I have come, Joachim, like a good Christian, to visit the prisoners in prison." "Prison visiting is the sixth charity." "Joachim, I am going to call you Joseph." "May I call you Joseph?" "That way we can be easier in our identities." "I have undertaken to impersonate a beaten and disgraced Joseph." "So why not?" "I am going to set aside our master-pupil relationship in favour of your most delightful performance." "I was very impressed." "I confess that I have never seen you so delightfully vulnerable before." "As you sat before me as a student, legs crossed, attentive." "Mouth a little open." "Your breeches stretched." "Your declaration is now nakedly, Master Cleaver, in the open." "I dreamt." "I was tempted by the Devil in the guise of an angel to prove my imperviousness to sin." "The Devil disguised as an angel led me to a jail." "And there to test me he beat me and he whipped me." "And then..." "I believe I awoke." "The dream was incomplete." "Am I ever likely to understand the outcome?" "Well, it is not impossible that we could remake the dream." "And maybe I could enact the angel." "Then you must beat me, a sinner." "In expectation, I brought an instrument of punishment." "Did Boethius write that most devastating ending for the protestant?" "Or was it the natural course of events that brought us to this point?" "Who was writing the scripts now?" "Master Cleaver wishes identification with Christ." "You must be humiliated in a way that society holds most abased." "And the criminal courts will take you to the stake and burn you since you have submitted to such a humiliation." "Do you freely submit to such humiliation?" "I do." "I do." "Like my saviour, I must be unutterably punished." "Then here is the first passage to the stake, faggot." "In your dream, you thought it was an angel impersonating the Devil to save you from yourself." "When, in fact, it was the Devil impersonating an angel to be certain you abased yourself beyond all your current hopes." "There was no reprieve for the Christ you wanted to be." "Nobody came to save Christ." "Nobody!" "Nobody at all." "So why should anyone come to save you?" "No reprieve." "But we can drown you." "Now you will not burn at the stake for permitting sodomy." "You will drown instead." " Can you swim?" " I-I can't." "I can't." " Master Cleaver..." " I can't swim." " You can't swim?" " I don't know." "No, then you will surely drown." "Faggot!" "Miserable imitation Christ!" "The fifth sexual taboo - prostitution." "Love exchanged for money." "Accompanied here by treachery." "It is a little theatrical presentation that demonstrates..." "Delilah." "Delilah is the established byword for treachery." ""The treacherous woman."" "She sells Samson for a prophetic thirty pieces of silver." "What else do you have that may be described as pertinent to Samson, Rabbi Moab?" " I cannot consort with you." " I think you can, Rabbi Moab." "Isn't that what you have been wanting to do these past four evenings?" "And because you are Susannah" "I will not give in to the demands of other men's lechery." "I am not in danger of committing sins of the flesh with you, with my body, but only with my mind." "Although God can see my mind and will excoriate me mercilessly, no one else will know." "My fight will be with God alone, and He knows that, and I know that." "But it will exist only between us." "No one else will know." "What is all this whispering?" "Is this your text, Rabbi, or the heretic's?" "I think the Rabbi is searching, my lord, to find words to condone his lechery for me." "Let him, and I feel that he will rise to the occasion and we shall all be entertained." "Let us begin as accustomed lovers do." "Come here." "Let me kiss you." "Ooh, you stink!" "Susannah, it is the dead Calvinist who stinks!" "You are in need of a wash." " Now, take off your armour." " I protest." "Save your voice, lover, and let me do the talking." "God will understand that you are being forced." "God will not accept actions made under torture." "Am I tortured?" "I am tortured." "What of this body?" "What is it that permits you your great strength?" " I believe in God." " So do I." "But I am a weak woman." "Does he make me strong because I believe in him?" "I see!" "God believes in me!" "There now." "Are you and your God satisfied?" "You are still Susannah and not Delilah." "And those two women are great distances apart." "Now tell me, Samson, what is the reason for your strength?" " I have lost it with you." " That is not the answer I want." "Tell me!" "Tell me the source of your strength." "In the story of Samson, it was said that Samson's hair gave him his strength." "Shave it and he would become weak." "I don't believe in such tales." "They are symbolic." "Metaphors." "His strength, like mine, relies in a belief in God." "I have been celibate all of my life." "I feel already without strength." "I feel weak and vulnerable." " Quickly!" "He is yours!" " No!" " Do not blind me!" " Don't touch his eyes!" " Don't blind him!" " Do not blind me!" "All men are brought low by lechery." "Now!" "Your critics have been silenced, Margrave." "Look at them!" "One gagged, one dead, one blinded." "Bravo!" "What of your reputation now for liberality of speech?" "In the face of heresy and treason, I have no choice." "Of course you have choice!" "You are not threatened." "Why turn these harmless dramas into vicious games of politics?" "The games of the flesh are small, superficial." "We are like children playing games with our anatomy." "You make these games significant in ways that suggest you fear them." "And do you not think that the stories of the Bible are surely written by men?" "And is not their purpose to guide and advise by metaphor and not by literal truth?" "Sorry." "The story of Samson is to show how all men can be deceived by women." "I am one of these perfidious women who so deceive." "And I have a choice to make." "We are going to make a move to the New Testament." "We are going to play the drama of John the Baptist and Salome!" " No, we are not Adaela." " Goltzius, I decide." "No." "We are illustrating the Old Testament in print and drama." "We are not breaking the conditions of our commission!" "Oh, Goltzius, this time I decide." "We are performing Jewish tales and not Christian tales." "Come, come, Goltzius!" "They're all Jews!" "And, therefore, all Jewish tales." "I'm going to dance for you in recompense for the insult you believe you have received." "I will play Salome." "You will play Herod." "The dance of the seven veils?" "You will dance for me?" " How will you dance for me?" " Oh, you know the story." "I will dance for you as Salome danced for Herod." "Seductive." "Voluptuous, immoral." "How can I refuse?" "I accept, I will play Herod." "Ecclesiastical friends and companions of religious toleration in this liberated country of Alsace, tonight we present to you the last of our biblical dramas, all of them tales of morality that troubled our Jewish and Christian forebears, and laid down examples for our moral education." "By special request, tonight, we present a tale from the enlightened New Testament that has great moral lessons worthy of the Old Testament to teach us." "The story, no less, of Johannes the Baptist and Princess Salome, the beautiful daughter-in-law of Herodus the Great," "King of the Jews by Roman decree." "May I present to you none less than the Margrave of Alsace, who has graciously agreed to play the great King Herodus." "And this on the day when the Margrave's esteemed uncle, Ricardo, has been appointed as Cardinal of Alsace - an honour that I am certain, will be well received and appreciated by us all." "Go away!" "So the sixth sexual taboo - necrophilia." "Am I to see Salome's love of the dead?" "More!" "Dance for me again." "It was too quick." "Dance the same dance again." "I promised to dance for you, and I did." " Enough." " I will pay you." "I will pay The Pelican Company well." "I will grant The Pelican Company all they want." "Goltzius shall have his printing press." "I will commission a thousand books." "It was me who danced for you, not The Pelican Company." "For you, then." "For you." "What do you want me to give you?" "Ask me a price." " Anything?" " Ha ha!" "Anything!" "Lust makes you untrustworthy, as lust makes all men untrustworthy." "Ask me!" " Ask me for anything." " Very well." "I will dance for you again, if you release my lover, Boethius." "No." "Never." " He's a heretic." " Then, no." "I'm leaving." "The price of my dancing is his freedom." " No, stop." " No." "I..." "I'll give you jewels." "Money." "Gold." "There is only one thing I want." "I will give you the county of Haguenau Forest." "Four cities, three castles, 30,000 citizens, and... and... taxes for a year on the salt from the salt mines." "I will give you half my kingdom." "I want my lover, Boethius." "Nothing else." " No!" " Well then, no more dancing." "I want my lover." "Release John the Baptist." "No!" "Never!" " Never!" " Herod." "Herod." "Margrave, chéri." "Just give her what she wants." "Fulfil the ending of the story." "There are plenty more birds in the trees and you have me for ever." "We all know what happened to John the Baptist." "Give her what she wants." "His prick and his head do not have to remain on his body." " Do it." " Very well." " You can have what you want." " Have him brought here." "I want him to see me dance as well." "Bring him!" "Fetch him!" "Now dance!" "Dance!" "Now, you must pay the price." "You must let me take what you agreed." "I will not be intimidated." "Go on!" "Give it to her." "Give her the worthless head and the pathetic prick she so desires." "Give her what she asked for." "No, you wouldn't dare!" "Wait." "Wait." "What about your..." "What about your reputation for mercy, for clemency?" "If you do it, you will be cursed!" "I will curse you, and you will die a miserable death." "You will be eaten by worms." "Ooh-hoo, worms!" "Adaela, the wordy worm." "The noisy worms!" "Margrave, her predisposition for worms needs attention." "If she says you will be consumed by worms then she will be right." "Shut your noisy mouth, Boethius." "Do it!" "Do it!" "Do it!" "She provokes you." "Do it!" "She is making a fool of you." "Do it!" "Yeah." "Then the whole thing turned sour." "It was meant to be an acted metaphor." "It became a bloody reality." "I had transgressed." "Moving to the New Testament had shifted my focus." "Adaela suffered such that she could turn her life into a personal mythology that would always dramatise her and give her existence a black and melodramatic focus." "Maybe I was the one who suffered most." "I am the Margrave!" "It was time for my best speech." "My lords, maybe it is the greatest irony that the most unrepentant non-believer, William Boethius, a man who has often explained his beliefs here in this court, should play the part of one of the most prominent true believers" "and prophets of Christianity, Johannes the Baptist, and be executed in his place." "Shame." "Shame." "Maybe we might take the metaphor further and consider that William Boethius is a prophet of the unbelief to come, like Johannes was a prophet of Christus and Christianity." "Boethius may be an exception now, but in the future, his sort might be the common and perhaps the ordinary, in a way that believing Christians are now the common and the ordinary." "50,000 for a new printing press." "100,000 for an illustrated Old Testament." "Please sign." "We expect to see results." "The Margrave's power is not so little." "His arm of influence could be considerable." "All the way to The Hague in the Netherlands." "Princes talk not infrequently to princes." "We had got what we wanted - exactly and absolutely." "And I certainly got what I wanted." "I now had the time and the freedom to afford to do exactly what I had always wanted to do, which is to paint." "It has not gone unnoticed that you carry with you a book of drawings to which, if I am not mistaken, you constantly make contributions." "I'm willing to give you, um..." "50,000 for it." "You may take the money now." "But soon in Rome we will meet." "I expect you to bring me your little book." "You see how I trust you?" "I met Cardinal Ricardo in Rome, and Susannah was there." "Susannah's face stays with us all, as indeed do other characteristics of her anatomy." "50 copies of the illustrated Old Testament, as demanded." "I am to deliver them in person, and, if satisfactory, we enter into the second part of the commission - an illustrated book of Ovid." ""Leda and the Swan"," ""Ganymedus and the Eagle"," ""Europa and the Bull"," ""Callisto and Diana"." "Io, fucked in a cloud of Jupiter." "And "Danae and the Shower of Gold"." "And the Margrave is no longer in charge." "He is considered insane, and ferried about his palaces on a wheeled bed." "Don't cry." "Don't, don't." "It's all right." "You see?" "The mood of the court is entirely changed." "They say that winter has been banished, and the court is gay and infectious." "I look forward to return." "And I wish you, of course, every lechery that you could wish for yourself."