Medieval pictures of Adam, Eve and the Temptation narrative are projected on the half-curtain. The set consists of two trees and further downstage a few vines, the whole area surrounded by the radiant blue, semi-circular cyclorama. The trees and the vines are to be of some abstract of stylised design. Under these Trees of Knowledge and of Eternal Life, Adam and Eve, both nude, are discovered relaxing, living in childlike innocence, surrounded by various wild animals which display no aggression or fear. The tame animals are represented by dancers in leotards carrying heads of animals made of some suitable material, and showing, if possible, some of their characteristic features. Soft music. Brilliant sunshine.
EVE
Life! Life! Sweet life! It’s good to be alive!
ADAM
To be the master of the living world.
EVE
To feel secure, to be provided for,
and all we have to offer in return
is gratitude to Him for these delights.
ADAM
I see, dependence is your nature, Eve.
But I feel thirsty. See this fruit above me?
It tempts the appetite.
EVE
I’ll pick you one.
THE LORD’S VOICE
Adam, I’ve given all the world to you,
But those accursed trees you must avoid.
An alien spirit tends their fruit to tempt you:
whoever tastes of them, shall taste death also.
Go, seek the ripening grapes among the vines
and in their cooling shade in restful ease
escape the radiant midday’s sweltering heat.
ADAM
A strange command. He means it I believe.
EVE
But why are these the best - of all the trees?
And yet forbidden!
ADAM
Why! The sky is blue.
The woodland green. It is so. That’s enough.
Let’s heed the warning, Eve. Come, follow me!
[They settle down under the shade of the vines.]
EVE
Here, lean your head against my breast. I’ll fan you.
In a sudden gust of wind Lucifer appears among the branches, wearing a black leotard and a black cape with a rich yellow lining.
ADAM
What’s this? A noise I’ve never heard before.
It sounded, Eve, as if some alien force
had broken loose upon the world.
EVE
I’m frightened!
The heavenly hosts have fallen silent. Listen!
ADAM
My cheek against your breast I can still hear them.
EVE
Should all the lights of Heaven be blotted out,
I could still see their glitter in your eyes.
What other source of light were I to seek,
born as I am of your intense desire?
As if that lordly sun in radiant glory,
shunning his lonely vigil in the skies,
had thrown his likeness on the glassy water,
made love to her, fond of her company,
forgetting generously what she was:
a pale reflection of his radiance.
Were he to wane, she too would come to nought.
ADAM
Hush, Eve! Don’t talk like that. You make me blush.
Futile the sound with no one there to hear it,
the light without a pleasing shape to shine on,
and so would I be, were it not for you,
my better self, my more accomplished image,
in whom I may adore what is my own.
LUCIFER
It’s meant to be in private, I suppose.
I’ll turn my back, lest I provoke a tattle.
Think of the cold and wily Lucifer
seduced to dabble in these childish games!
[A bird starts singing on a bough.]
EVE
You hear it, Adam? Can you understand
the happy love-song of this little bird?
ADAM
I’ve heard the soothing murmur of the brook:
its message sounded much the same to me.
EVE
How wonderful it is - this harmony!
So many voices on a single theme.
LUCIFER
We’ve heard enough of nonsense. Down to business.
I swore they’d perish, and perish they must.
Yet I’m unsettled on my course of action.
Ambition, knowledge: tempting propositions,
but are they likely to impress the creatures,
both charged with passion, as it would appear,
who, thus protected by this - aptitude
for mutual love, may well frustrate my efforts?
No time to vacillate. I’ll take my chance.
Another gust of wind. Lucifer walks up to the terrified couple. A lurid light envelops the scene. Lucifer laughs.
Are you dismayed?
[to Eve, who is about to run away]
Don’t go, my charming lady!
Allow me to admire you for a moment.
Eve stops, slowly gathering courage. Lucifer to the audience.
This stratagem will work a million times.
[to Adam]
Afraid, Adam?
ADAM
Of you, unsightly creature?
LUCIFER
[to the audience]
A fine progenitor of haughty males.
[to Adam]
Hail, brother spirit!
ADAM
Tell me, who are you?
Are you from down below or from above?
LUCIFER
Just as you like: it’s all the same with us.
ADAM
I’ve never heard of any other humans.
LUCIFER
There are a few things yet you haven’t heard of,
and won’t hear either. No! The Old One up there,
he didn’t create you out of dust, you know,
only to share the universe with you.
Indeed, he’ll keep you while you worship him,
and tell you what to eat or stay away from,
protect you, lead you like some woolly beast…
No need at all for you - to be aware.
ADAM
To be aware? What am I not aware of?
Don’t I appreciate that blessed sun,
the sweet delight of being and the graces
which God bestowed on us in great abundance?
He made me lord and master of the earth.
LUCIFER
That is perhaps the view the maggots take
nibbling the fruit which you might want to eat,
or birds of prey stooping to make a kill.
What’s there to make you feel superior?
In you and them there glows a tiny spark,
the stirring of the same eternal power,
which, like so many wavelets of a stream,
now sparkle for a while, then lost to sight
sink in the merging currents’ murky depths.
There is, indeed, one thing: the power to know,
lying dormant in your subconscious mind.
Now, that could make you come of age: the choice,
the gift of knowing right and wrong, the freedom,
to be the master of your destiny,
unshackled from the leash of providence…
Of course, you may prefer to be a worm
which breeds contented in its cosy dungheap
with not a thought till life will pass it by.
Where resignation may console the weak,
the strong will stand his own ground, resolute.
ADAM
Amazing words. You leave me quite bewildered.
EVE
Exciting, Adam, new and beautiful!
LUCIFER
Of course, knowledge itself will not suffice:
you can’t aspire to work in large dimensions
without attaining - immortality.
What scope is there to find in transient life?
This is the secret of that very fruit
your master has forbidden you to eat:
this gives you god-like, all-pervading knowledge,
and this gives beauty that will never fade.
EVE
To think our Maker could’ve been so mean!
ADAM
Aren’t you deceiving me?
[A shaft of light breaks through the eerie darkness.]
THE CHOIR OF ANGELS
Unhappy world,
you’re tempted by Negation!
THE LORD’S VOICE
Man, beware!
ADAM
That sound again!
LUCIFER
It’s wind among the branches.
[chanting]
Rise, elements
without delay
mankind to win
for us today!
[Gusts of wind. The shaft of light fades out.]
These trees belong to me.
ADAM
But who are you?
Considering you look like one of us.
LUCIFER
Look at the eagle, soaring in the clouds,
or at the mole, burrowing in the soil:
each has its sphere, its point of reference.
The spirit world’s beyond your comprehension,
therefore to you your own kind seems supreme.
And yet, since dogs’ ideals must be canine,
dogs do you honour thinking you’re a dog.
As you regard them your inferior,
and tower above them as their destiny
to mete out curse or blessing like a god,
so we consider your estate below us,
the proud denizens of the realm of spirits.
ADAM
Then you’re one of them?
LUCIFER
That I am, indeed,
the foremost power of all the potentates,
who stood beside the very throne of God
and in his highest glory claimed a share.
ADAM
Then why don’t you stay in the lofty skies?
Why come to us who dwell amongst the dust?
LUCIFER
I’m tired of being second in command,
that dull, routine life, and that puerile band
of heavenly choristers with children’s voices,
the host which never doubts, always rejoices.
I long for strife, I want disharmony,
to stir the powers, to found a world for me
for independent souls to flourish there -
I welcome all who join me - all who dare.
ADAM
But if we left the path He had appointed,
God promised He would punish us for it.
EVE
Why should He punish us? If He appointed
a path upon which we were meant to walk,
most likely He would have us so created
that no enticement could prompt us to leave it.
Or would He have us perched above the gulf
without a head for height and doomed to fall?
But if our trespass were of His designing,
like storms which rumble in the sunny season,
then who could allocate the rights and wrongs
between the days of thunder and of heat?
LUCIFER
Behold the first of all philosophers!
Madam, scholars will follow up your thesis
and argue and debate it through the ages:
some will take fright, some end up in asylums,
but none of them will ever find the answer.
You could as well abandon speculation.
A given thing has far too many aspects:
when you’ve considered all in turn, you find
you end up less informed than when you started,
and you have no time left to make your point.
Reflection is the bane of active minds.
EVE
In that case I shall go and take the fruit.
ADAM
But God has cursed it!
[Lucifer laughs.]
Go on! Give me one!
And come what may, we face the consequences.
They taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: first Eve, then Adam.
Here’s knowledge, God’s prerogative!
EVE
Moreover,
here’s youth for ever!
LUCIFER
Come! Here lies your way.
This is the Tree of Immortality.
Quick! Quick! Come on!
As Lucifer is trying to hurry the couple to the second tree, a Cherub in red leotard, wearing a mask and holding a flaming sword, stands in their way.
CHERUB
This road is barred to you!
THE LORD’S VOICE
Adam, Adam, you have deserted me:
now I renounce you. Learn as best you may.
EVE
We’re finished!
LUCIFER
You despair?
ADAM
Me? Not at all.
It’s just the shock of my awakening.
Come, Eve! We have to go. Let’s turn our face
away from this inhospitable place.
THE CHOIR OF ANGELS
Mourn, kindred spirits, all! Mourn, everyone!
The earth is lost. The ancient lie has won.