such that dry dust never clouds it.
So speak, such that when you speak
it falls like dew upon our love.
You’re quiet. What do you see there?
Snow White:
You do talk like a waterfall
of silence, yet you’re not silent.
Prince:
What’s wrong, speak! You look so somber,
so plaintive right down to your toes,
as if you were searching for words
that whisper love. Do not sulk there.
Speak up when something troubles you.
Unroll it just like a carpet
on which we will merrily play.
To dally in heartache does one good.
Snow White:
You talk forever and promise
silence though. What are you saying,
talking headlong on and on?
Confidence is not so quick-tongued.
Love fancies it soft and serene.
O if you’re not devoted
to my bliss in every sense,
then say so. Say it, for you say
unfaithfulness would talk away
eagerly, talkative, so fast.
Prince:
Let us drop that.
Snow White:
Yes, let’s make small talk, be merry.
Let us banish from love’s kingdom
melancholy and dolefulness.
Let’s jest and dance and cheer aloud.
Why worry of the pain of now,
which commands us to be silent!
Well, what see you in the garden?
Prince (looking out the window):
Alas, what I see is fair and sweet
to the naked eye that but sees.
To feeling, which takes in this scene
with its fine net, it is sacred.
To intellect, which knows the past,
it’s disgusting, a dirty flood
of muddy water. Oh, it takes
a twofold view, sweet and terrible,
thoughtful and beautiful. Look there,
with your own eyes, see for yourself.
Snow White:
No, say, what’s going on? Just tell me.
From your lips then I could gather
such a picture’s subtle detail.
If you paint it, surely you will
cleverly, prudently temper
the view’s poignancy. Now, what goes?
Rather than look, I’d rather hear.
Prince:
It is the most lovely passion
that ever inflamed two lovers.
The Queen kisses the Hunter’s lips,
and he gives kiss after kiss back.
They sit beneath the willow tree,
whose long branches flutter downward
on both their heads. The grass kisses
the tangle of interlocked feet.
The wood bench sighs under the press
of their bodies making one body
in the rapture of their embrace.
O, so a tiger pair would mate
in the jungle, far from the real world.
The sweet bliss makes them one, tears them
apart just to bring them closer
all over again. I’m speechless,
imageless at such an image.
Will you see it and be speechless?
Snow White:
No, such a thing would disgust me.
Come away from that filthy scene.
Prince:
The colors barely release me
from its spell. It is a painting,
and sweet love is its painter.
O, how she lies down there, this Queen,
being crushed inside his strong arms.
How she cries from passion and how
her beau smothers her with kisses,
like one smothering a bowl of food,
no, a sky, this mouth opening
on heavenly passion itself.
That rogue is utterly shameless.
He thinks his green hunting jacket
protects him from barbs. Here’s a barb,
what seems to bewitch me up here.
O, I’m furious. It’s this woman!
Not this wretch. O, just that woman!
Something does wrong to that crude wretch.
Alas, this sweet, this sweet woman.—
If I could only lose the sense
of what I saw. Now I’m lost.
A storm rages above it all,
what is called love, wishes being called,
but no longer. Go, everything.
Snow White:
Woe unto me that I must hear.
Prince:
Woe unto us that I must see.
Snow White:
O, how I long for nothing more
than to be smiling and dead, dead.
This I am too and always was.—
I’ve never felt life’s seething storm.
I feel as still as this soft snow
that lies for a ray of sunlight
that accepts it. I’m snow this way—
and melt away with a warm breeze
meant not for me but for the spring.
Sweet is this seeping down. Dear earth,
receive me unto your dwelling!
The sun is too painful for me.
Prince:
Do I give you this terrible pain?
Snow White:
O no, not you. You could never!
Prince:
How lovely you are, how you laugh
for me, come smiling! Don’t love me.
I simply disturb your repose.
O, to have left your coffin alone!
How beautiful you lay therein,
snow in a silent winter world.
Snow White:
Snow, always snow?
Prince:
Forgive me, you dear winter scene,
you likeness of serene white calm.
If I upset you, it happened
only for love. Now this love turns
away from you again weeping,
toward the Queen. Please forgive this love
for lifting you from that coffin,
the glass one, wherein you lay
with rosy cheeks, an open mouth,
and this breath just like one alive,
this picture to die for most sweet.
I should have left it just like that,
with love kneeling before you then.
Snow White:
Look, look! Now that I am alive
you dump me like a dead body!
How very strange you men all are.
Prince:
Rightly scold me. You’re being tender.
Hate me and I’ll kneel before you.
If you called me a rotten knave
it would fit well. But let me now
find that lovely Queen, for I wish
to free her from a love unworthy.
I beg of you, be very cross
with me, indeed, be very mad.
Snow White:
Why then? Give me a reason why?
Prince:
Well, because I’m such a villain
to run from you to another,
she who excites his mind more now.
Snow White:
You are not a villain! Well, well—
that mind, that mind of yours is more
excited? What’s on your mind is so
mindless. What a pack of dogs must
excite your mind such that you flee
like a terrified deer, the foe
pursuing you. Well, so be it.
So fly from me then to this stream
with the better water to lap.
I’ll remain, smiling, teasing you
with my pale white hand outstretched,
follow your flight with a gay voice
that calls: Snow White shall wait for you.
Come, knock on this
familiar door
and laugh aloud. And then you turn
your dear, faithful head to me
begging me to just be quiet,
for shouting serves no purpose.—Go!
O go then, for I release you.
And do commend me to my Queen.
Prince:
Commend you to the Queen? What for?
Am I dreaming?
Snow White:
Well, am I not allowed to send
my regards to Mommy with you,
who’s down there in that shady park
occupied with her needlework?
She sews a token of her love—
what do I care. I owe her love,
and love sends its regards with you.
Say, I forgive her. No, not that.
Anyway, it doesn’t show well
for a child to be on her knees
and begging for me to forgive.
You’ll be half love’s own already
on your knees. Then say it like so,
in passing, like sugared pastry,
and pay heed when she nods so fair,
when she’s choking with emotion
and gives her hand for your hot kiss,
which sends, you being so chivalrous,
my forgiveness for this mistake.
How impatient I am for word
from my mother. So be quick, go!
Prince:
Snow White, I don’t understand you.
Snow White:
That has nothing to do with it.
Go now, I beg of you. Leave this
flower to herself that can only
bloom in full in her solitude.
so calm down then. Depart, leave me
to dream here, to close myself up
as though some gaily colored plant.
Go to this other flower, go,
draw upon her sweeter fragrance.
Prince:
You should calm down. Just wait here.
I shall bring the Queen back to you
reconciled. I’ll look for her now
down there in her shady garden
and talk to that villain Hunter.
No matter where and when and how,
I’ll find him too. So until then,
just remain calm and wait for us.
Exits.
Snow White:
He’s filled with turmoil and counsels
calm in me that in richer measure
than his has possession of me.
Everything goes the way it must.
This untrue prince has done me wrong.
But I’ll not cry, the same way
I would not rejoice had I proof
of his innermost love for me.
Fury more than fury musters
I cannot do, and who silently
keeps silent chokes down fear, so
this I will do. Oh my, here comes
Mother herself and all alone.
To the Queen, who enters.
O kind mother, O forgive me.
She throws herself at her feet.
Queen:
What is this for, my child? Get up.
Snow White:
No, on my knees like this for you.
Queen:
What’s with you, what makes you this way,
what is trembling so in your breast?
Stand up and tell me what is wrong.
Snow White:
Do not withdraw this gentle hand
that I would cover with kisses.
How much have I longed for its squeeze!
A shyer plea for forgiveness
has never been made as shyly
as mine to you. Forget, forgive.
Please be my merciful mother.
Let me be your good little girl
who clasps frightened to your body.
O sweet hand, I had thought of you,
you coming for my life, offering
me the apple: something not true.
Sin so fine is only contrived
of recalling all kinds of things.
My thinking is the only sin
there is here. O please absolve me
of the suspicion that wronged you.
I only want to love, love you.
Queen:
What? Did I not send the Hunter?
Did I not spur him on with kisses
to you to do this great, great sin?
You know that you’re not thinking right.
Snow White:
I just feel! A feeling thinks sharp.
It knows every little detail
of this matter. A feeling,
far more noble than to recall,
will think a situation through,
but to forgive. And its judgment,
which is devoid of all judgment,
judges more severe, simply too.
So I see nothing in thinking.
It just speculates here and there,
full of big airs and opinions,
says this happened like so and keeps
making petty condemnations.
Away with the judge who but thinks!
If he can’t feel, he must think small.
His verdict makes a belly ache.
It’s bland and drives the plaintiff mad.
It absolves the sinner of sin,
dropping the charges in one breath.
Go and fetch me this other judge,
that sweet, ignorant feeling. Hear
what it says. Oh, it says nothing.
It smiles, it kisses the sin dead,
caresses it like its sister,
chokes it with kisses. My feeling
absolves you of all sin. It lies
before you on beseeching knees
and begs, calls me sinner, me who
pleads so frightened for forgiveness.
Queen:
The poison apple I sent you;
you took a bite, of course, and died.
The dwarfs bore you in the coffin,
the one of glass, until the kiss
of the Prince brought you back to life.
That is what happened, am I right?
Snow White:
All of it’s true up to the kiss.
The defiling mouth of a man
has never before kissed these lips.
The Prince, and how he could kiss too—
he had no hair upon his chin.
He’s still a little boy, elsewise
like the body he’s trapped inside,
small, like the mind he depends on.
Of one prince’s kiss say nothing more
of it, Mommy. The kiss is dead,
for he never sensed the wetness
on both sides of two moistened lips.
What did I want to talk about?
Ah, of sin, that stands on its knees,
before you, of the dear sinner.
Queen:
No, that is wrong. You yourself tell
fairy-tale lies. Surely it
says that I am an evil queen,
that I dispatched the Hunter to you,
and gave you the apple to eat.
Now answer me straight about this.
Your begging me for forgiveness
is just a joke, isn’t that right?
All of this gesture and technique
is rehearsed, a script cleverly
practiced by you yourself. You have,
as it turns out, only made me
suspicious. What are you doing now?
Snow White:
Looking upon your kind, soft hand,
seeing its beauty wondrously
waking in a child a feeling
almost totally extinguished.
No, you are no sinner at all:
where would you get this idea?
Neither am I. We’re still spotless
of all guilt, immaculately
watching an immaculate sky
being as mild as it has been here.
Once we did evil to ourselves.
But that is far too long ago
to remember. Now part for me,
I beg you, those dear lips of yours.
Tell me something very happy.
Queen:
I sent you off to die sparing
not one kiss or caress on him,
who followed you like a wild beast,
hunting you through woods and fields
until you fell down to the ground.
Snow White:
Ah, yes, I know the story well,
about the apple, the coffin.
Be so kind as to tell me more.
Why does nothing else come to mind?
Must you hang on to these details?
Must you forever draw on them?
Queen:
With kisses, kisses I fired on
the Hunter, my bloodthirsty man.
O, how the kisses came raining
like drops of dew upon that face
swearing faith to me, harm to you.
Snow White:
Forget about it, my dear Queen.
I beg you think no more of it.
Do not roll your big eyes like that.
Why do you shake? You’ve only
been good to me all of your life,
for which I’m utterly grateful.
If love knew of a better word,
then it might speak less awkwardly.
Love is boundless for that reason.
It knows to say nothing when it’s
wholly enrapt in your being.
Hate me so that I can but love
more childlike, more wholeheartedly
and lovingly by myself,
for no other reason than that
love is sweet and ambrosial
to one who humbly offers it.
Don’t you hate me?
Queen:
I hate myself much more than you.
Once I did hate you, begrudging
your beauty despite the whole world,
for the whole world sang your praises,
gave you homage while I, the Queen,
was looked upon suspiciously.
O did that make my blood boil.
It turned me into this tigress.
I didn’t see with my own eyes.
I didn’t hear with my own ears.
Unfounded hate but saw and heard,
ate, dreamt, performed, and slept for me.
I lay sadly upon my ear,
doing what it did. That’s in the past.
Hate now wants to love. And love hates
itself for not loving harder.
Why look, there comes the young Prince.
Go, kiss him, call him your precious.
Tell him I shall be nice to him
despite his bitter words spoken
in your favor. Go and tell him!
The Prince enters.
Prince:
Fair Queen, I’ve been looking for you.
Queen:
Fair? This is a polite greeting.
I do like you, Prince, Snow White’s half,
to whom you wish to be married.