The Porters
An Attic Tragedy
Enter the Master
MASTER
I hail the silence of this peaceful court.
Hail, greenness of the grass between my toes,
Hail, sniper, in thy solitary nest,
Hail, student high-heeled on the cobblestones.
O pain, O heaviness about my heart,
O murmur of the microbes in my blood,
And mumble of the microbes in my brain,
Alas, alas, our portered peace is o’er.
I, Master of this place, long have I held
This corporate body as my own dear flesh.
I would as soon give up my healthy heart
To serve as chamber for the Union
As give up Trinity. But it is done
The Chancellor’s word has crushed my fighting hopes.
O lady from a sere and yellow campus
Was our fair lawn too proud an English green?
O porters, come, come, porters, porters, sing
A threnody, my porters, for the lawn.
A frolicking and unknown arsonist
Has burned the Union down, and they are come
To hold debate tonight upon the grass.
Enter chorus of Porters, singing and dancing solemnly.
PORTERS
How blue the hills, how pink the skies,
How low the flowers’ heads,
How fierce the cows in hoof and fierce
The words they said.
A cry of cows across the fields
How faint I hear it now.
How bright the troglodyte’s pale eyes
Upon the cows.
How brutal the catastrophe!
How howled the son of Zeus!
How horrible the howl, the plea,
The weak excuse!
The Roman troglodyte – no more
And Heracles – no more
But robbery – oh, more and more
And more, and more.
MASTER
O Porters, if my placid mind could be
Stirred up by songs, it had been by your song.
PORTERS
Thank God, my Master, for your placid mind
All suffering minds should suffer placidly.
MASTER
My Porters, look! They come across the grass!
The chief debaters and their atheist crew!
Enter the President of the Union, Union Hacks, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, with many Aides and Voters, and Trinity catering offering everybody champagne.
PRESIDENT
All hail, great Master! Madam, hail! I come
For you to answer my best pleasure and
The pleasure of these noble Western guests.
MASTER
Give them champagne. I fear my bursting heart.
Give me champagne as well.
PRESIDENT
Debaters both!
The rules are clear.
HARRIS
Oh no, my lord, they’re not.
You have forgot: we are Americans.
PRESIDENT
O, you know nothing then and cannot learn.
TRUMP
Mark how he spites us, Harris.
HARRIS Ha! I mark.
My sharp ire starts to turn. Perhaps it has
Directed been too long on mine own liver.
TRUMP
That liver is the Grand Old Party, Harris.
HARRIS
Perhaps, perhaps. Anon.
PRESIDENT
This Master here
Has kindly used us, though she was forced to’t.
PORTERS
You speak too arrogantly, president.
PRESIDENT
So let’s applaud the Master, worthy Hacks.
The Hacks applaud but without enthusiasm.
MASTER
Hm!
I hear the slurping as they drink my wine,
The crackling of my devoured cheese straws,
More loud than this applause and more sincere.
PORTERS
My Master, we are stronger than the Hacks,
Dear Master, we could kill these thankless Hacks.
MASTER
O bide a while. Anon. Perhaps anon.
PRESIDENT
Debate then, and be brief. At eight o’clock
A lady from the Isle of Love arrives
And she has promised me an audience,
A private audience, before her talk.
MASTER
The Isle of Love? Isle of Disease, more like!
Yes means yes, but not every yes is wise.
Sleek soul, take heed, take heed of syphilis.
TRUMP
O Harris, hear you this? Our mother state,
Our metropole, a den of white-toothed vice?
I christen it today Scrofulous England.
HARRIS
But Donald, you are scrofulous as well,
Unless the New York Times are false, and I
Would take the Times’ word for a thousand pounds.
TRUMP
A politician’s past is full of sin
And white hairs ill become reality
TV stars – this I never knew til now.
In those white teeth of her from th’Isle of Love,
For, I confess, I met her yesternight,
I see reflected a bad countenance.
America must not descend to this.
The horrors of Love Island and the Union
Must not infest those sunny Western shores;
This savage internecine civil strife
Must stop at Cornwall and no further come.
Harris, my enemy, so that not ever
The soul of Cambridge enter the firm bosom
Of our great nation, I here offer thee
The nomination of the GOP.
And I beg, if you will, that to make all
Complete and perfect, I might humbly serve
As your vice-presidential nominee.
MASTER
O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!
Americans to be appalled at us!
Americans, we are appalled at you!
HARRIS
Not now, for now you have no right.
Donald, I take your hand and take your gift.
I see not quite how it is yours to give
And yet I trust that all shall be resolved
Now that we two are joined ‘gainst English foes.
From now on I am all Republican
And call on Lincoln, Nixon, Teddy R,
And Reagan as my gods.
TRUMP
O Harris, I
Bow me before Cleveland and Kennedy
And spit with Democratic spit upon
These lisping, lecturing and lecherous English.
PRESIDENT
Master, you hear these words with ears as fresh
In English pride as mine, although yours are
In other senses older. I’ll not stand
This language on the grass of this great court.
O Porters! Hacks! Unite! We’ll drive the Yank
In wild confusion from the sacred grass
And drive them even to the chalky cliffs
To swim, if any can, and try their luck
That frog republic with which they rebelled!
Instruments of violence are drawn. The Porters dance martially while the Hacks gnash their teeth and make warlike howls. The Aides and Voters lie down on the grass like snipers. Punters rush from the river wielding their poles as spears.
PORTERS
O Camus, Camus, Camus, Cam,
O river’s holy surge,
O Camus, come, come, murky stream,
Come sing their dirge.
Enter the river-god Camus with St Radegund and Henry VIII.
ST RADEGUND
O hail, combatants, and put down your swords,
Put down your guns, O Yankees, now at last.
We come as, as it were, a Trinity
Sent by a triune and protecting God
Whose wrath against this place extends not yet
To seeing it destroyed.
HENRY VIII
O Harris, Trump,
Lay down your arms – it is a monarch speaks
And a real monarch.
CAMUS
And I am the god
Who lies from Grantchester to Cambridge town
And keeps a watery bed. I order peace.
I have put out the raging Union fire
Although I was reluctant to at first
Why prayed you not, you Hacks? Did you not hear
Persuasive speeches on the love of God
Some four or five terms back? It matters not
Although most gravely for your living souls
(Take heed, all readers, any readers left).
I have put out the fire – return, O Hacks
Unto your habitat.
HENRY VIII
Your Hackbitat.
CAMUS
And Master, Porters, hasten to your Lodges.
‘Tis time the grass resumed its customed sheen.
I’ll water it with my brown blood and I
Will speed these Yankees home on my brown back
Making a novel current in th’Atlantic
Come, Punters, punt these happy Yankees home.
MASTER
Bipartisan and blushing Yankees, hail
And fare you well.
HARRIS AND TRUMP
Fare you well, Master, too.
And fare you well, O so-called President.
PRESIDENT
Farewell, farewell. My island love awaits.
MASTER
The college bids you all a long farewell.
Everyone exits, except the Porters, who dance slowly towards the Lodge.
PORTERS
A porter’s life, a happy life!
A porter’s life for me!
To port the port is all my sport
A porter’s life for me.
Applaud!
Travisty 