The Bruitish Empire (The Perseverance of Prince Chi)

PROLOGUE

Hear ye! Hear ye! This is the Ten O'Clock news and nothing is well. We find ourselves in a Bruitish Empire. Named for Brutus who slayed great Ceaser, then came to this isle to found a kingdom of his own. Later scholars claimed this invention, but since the war these quibblers have been silenced. Now our kingdom bows to Chinese overlords, our princes are fed by their tutors on a diet of eastern classics. If this boxes your brain, I feel your pain. My Chinese boxing is weak. To me all this is Greek. Somehow our story has got twisted. Our windscreen has got misted. An evil tyrant rules the land and makes the princes and princesses suffer terrible humiliations of the worst kind. He is not kind to his kind. He is not gentle whether his subject is Jew or Gentile. He doesnt discriminate twixt the two. He is not afraid to get familiar with family. You get the picture. The frame is broken. His kindness is token. Twin princesses are fled. A young prince is spoon fed. A neighbourly cousin of a king plays for time for his kin. A not so brutal prince Brutus, named for the land that is his namesake, fights the tyrants forces. Strangely all this seems foreshadowed in that book of Chinese wisdom of Confucious, the I Ching. This kingdom has lost much of its bling. Strange parallels are drawn tween east and west. West is no longer the best. Not since the war. To meddle with time is a crime, but we are not certain if we face forward or back. This broadcast is under attack. If you hear this...Resist....Resist...Resist

Act 1 Scene 1

BRUITISH KING

How goest your kind attendance on that youngest of my kind? What is his state?

MINISTER

He qouteth, my liege, much from that terrible new piece of playing, by Squire Bill Shakespeare named 'Hamlet'. Though he does make a very merry madness with the manner of the speech. Methinks he is something akin to a child of secondary school vigour, who is given something of a punishment essay and chooseth to write some great folly in mock of his grave professor. He is also given over entirely to the manner of speech that is to found in the writings of our friends in the far west, that is to say, that of The Mandarins of Confucius, sire. He is a an absolute bedevilment to minister to with his largactyl and lithium, grave majesty, as he has a great propensity to mock the great strength at arms of that learned race, and in his mockery does find great truth in his blows gainst the ministers of state who do mind to his mental state,

and sire, his mind being in a mental state, he plays so very merry with the offices of state that he pays no mind to the ministers who mind him.

BRUITISH KING

Is he, then, behind in his lessons of state?

MINISTER

So very behind, sire, that one must needs be cruel to be kind. One must bind, by which I mean he must be bound, and like the very hound that chases the hind he must be shown the scent of his reason by the very stain of his own blood.

BRUITISH KING

It is all to the good. What of his brother, Brutus? The very name and fable of my able estate, Is he still much scaped? Is he scraped passed the grasp of my rasp? For to grind his will to that which I mind is still the very will of my mill. To grind his bones to make my bread is my intent if he does not repent his recent treason gainst my reason.

MINISTER

His blows gainst your men are the very truth of your lack of ruth. By which I mean he is in truth so very ruthless gainst those men at arms who stand gainst him as to be the proof of the teeth that your blood gives to those of your line, which has its free use of kith or kine as suits its design.

BRUITISH KING

This is great finery. But what of mine two daughters, born at the same time.

MINISTER

Sire, they are fled, before they could bled. Being of one blood they braved the great flood 'twixt here and the kingdom of the frank, where the king is very French. They did brave that great trench that has ever been called the channel and feared not charnel ground nor hunting hound till they are quite quit your majesties bank.

Pg2

BRUITISH KING

And what of the king of the western isle? Does he rest with us while?

MINISTER

Indeed sire and does naught but smile. His very teeth are his crowns for he seldom frowns and is so fixt for a good resolution with your estate that he does make more art than the Tate, sire.

BRUITISH KING

I will take note. May my enemies learn my punishments by rote.

CUT

Act1 Scene 2

YOUNG PRINCE

King. How weary, stale and unprofitable seem to me the uses of this word. My mind I must gird gainst these words that cut. How I must ever weed this garden of my mind, if my father, fie on him, I am not to grow after his kind. For a seed once planted, so grows. Can it go gainst its nature? I know not. But if a special feed can be got then mayhap a seedling could grow stronger than the rotten oak. I choke that the king of the western isle rule not. But this tyrant be no more like that noble lord than I be to Prince Chi of Confucian fame. Aye I could bare the name but not the pain. His very fame is the token of my shame. His very reason was to mask reason with unreason. But I, my mind falls like the leaves of the season. Tis not the work of man with his plan but the attack of nature that is in retreat. A heart that is gripped with the chill of onward marching winter. But behold! Here comes the saint of my season. For I believe that saint nick, be he old or not, brings me toys for my bedevilment.

MINISTER

Noble prince. How goest your lessons in law? Are you passed the bar?

YOUNG PRINCE

I am no more passed the bar than a drunkard for I am not so drunk in my reason that I mistake it for a pink elephant. My madness blows west to east. When the wind blows north I know a whore from a hat stand.

MINISTER

But you must have reason not to drink from the cup of the law. For it is his majesties very legal desire to see you back within.

YOUNG PRINCE

But it is by the very law of nature that I am struck low. Not from the blow of man. For it is by my brain chemistry that my mind is set racing. It is my madness that is braced by the very constution of the Bruitish constitution. This is the only law I know. For it is said, ' Not light but darkness. First he climbed up to very heaven. Then he was plunged into the very depths of earth.'

pg 3

MINISTER

I know of no reason why you would speak such.

YOUNG PRINCE

Aye, me marbles ave deserted me. Just see to it that I get my just deserts. A mandarin would be very sweet. Peeled by my own hand and left to stand while I watched. As my hands are bound I shall have to use the tip of the tongue and the teeth and the lips to consume the rascal. Bring me a seedless fruit. The very eunuch of nature and leave him for me to devour.

MINISTER

Sire you shall have no supper cept that which matron decrees.

YOUNG PRINCE

Prithee what shall that be?

MINISTER

A double dose of pepper.

Sprays his eyes with pepper spray.

CUT

Act 1 Scene 3

ISLISH KING

Marry, my jaw doth ache like that of the proverbial ass that Sampson did strike down his foes with. And perchance I will have a hair cut for this will be a close shave. For I must lead this tyrant on a merry dance till Brutus, this empires namesake, can strike the deathblow pon his fathers rank ambition. For true. Patricide and regicide both decide your place in hell. But is this beast not intent on infanticide and by killing future kings is it not future regicides that he doth commit? Fie ont fie. Is it not mine own soul that I do lead on a dance. It is the very dance of death. For when the music stops do we not die? Ho my liege!

BRUITISH KING

Well met brother.

ISLISH KING

Sire you are too kind.

BRUITISH KING

Are we not of a kind and both of one mind?

ISLISH KING

Sire, are we not?

BRUITISH KING

Brother that is for you to say.

Pg4

ISLISH KING

Then sire, you have said it! By your noble generosity is the proof that we are of one blood.

BRUITISH KING

Come then, let us to chess. Methinks that before the game is through, I will mate your queen afore I slay your king. For to slay the power is to kill the desire.

ISLISH KING

Your reason is too strong for me sire! Mayhap I may win the game by some happy chance.

BRUITISH KING

Mayhap.

CUT TO

Act 1 Scene 4

A beach in France.

YOUNG PRINCESS

Oh that I were of a manly state, I would bury my shaft deep into his heart. The very rape of my rod would be the end of my cause and my claim to manhood.

PRINCESS ELDER

you have reason sister, but peace, you have done much to trouble his reason.

YOUNG PRINCESS

How so?

PRINCESS ELDER

The young prince spake oft to me of the manner in which the confuscians of old would defeat their foes.

YOUNG PRINCESS

Speak to me of it. To hear of times when my dear brother was happy will much settle my mind.

PRINCESS ELDER

By yielding to the main force they kept afloat their great estate.

YOUNG PRINCESS

But this is the very manner of woman!

PRINCESS ELDER

In truth sister you do speak. But give me a hearing. In the matter of love, who lasts longer? He or she?

Pg 5

YOUNG PRINCESS

Why she. For she is like the unto the ocean, while he a mere fishing vessel tossed on the wave.

PRINCESS ELDER

Then what difference tween a humble fish boat and the very titanic? Mighty he might be but when sunk, sunk for all time, while the sea sits limpid.

YOUNG PRINCESS

And the confuscians found this to be reason not folly?

PRINCESS ELDER

Sister! Did they not suffer the khans who rode stallions like unto the armada. But their nation did swallow them up.

YOUNG PRINCESS

I know this to be true, but still I doubt.

PRINCESS ELDER

Persevere sister. Think of your young brother and his lowly state, yet they crush him not for he yields his very mind to them. Can we not yield our country if it means victory.

YOUNG PRINCESS

You speak too bold sister!

PRINCESS ELDER

Tush. I meant not to fool with words, but in there, there is a truth. For if what the young prince says is in troth sense, then shall we not yield aught in our defence.

YOUNG PRINCESS

But what of honour?

PRINCESS ELDER

And what honour have they?

YOUNG PRINCESS

You speak strong words of weakness but my fortitude doth tremble at them.

PRINCESS ELDER

Peace sis. Tis not to be. I but paint a scene. Come. To the court of the frank.

CUT

pg 6

Act 1 Scene 5

PRINCE BRUTUS

To kill or not to kill. That is not the question. Nay, for me it is a question of how not should. For this father of mine is so very rank in his corruption that let us not call it killing but burial in unconsecrated ground. For in troth he is already dead. He that has no compassion in his heart but his own passion for the art of torture. It is not just the body he rack but the mind. For in the name of reason he does so stain the name of the same that he does drive one to unreason on a point of honour. Oh things rank and stale that do rot in the dark places of the heart have no comparison to those born of too much faith placed in misplaced calculus. My dear old tutor spake ' you did not carry the one, prince Brutus.' Well it is his employer who did not carry the one. That one being the young prince whom has kept the truth of my camp in the Hounslow hills hidden in the wastes of his senselessness. Come now Brutus. To battle.