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15 A Toast to Mother Nature |
From Mary Celeste |
[Children have been watching the dance; as it ends, the Barkers' Child is rescuing Arthur's ship, and the Doctor and his Wife, two of the Tourists, are greeting a roving Botanist who comes on with a canvas-covered vasculum and sundry exotic blooms preserved in large test-tubes]
Barkers' Child
Here's a fine explorer
a fiend for foreign flora
and he's hot-foot from some fascinating forest
Please sir, spare an orchid
or a paw-paw for a poor kid?
Maybe some day I could be a florist?
[Botanist shrugs the cheeky Child aside, (Doctor mutters something like 'Damn your impudence') and addresses his colleagues]
Botanist
I'll take this new variety
to the Royal Society
I know it's going to earn me lasting fame
They'll take it as a pattern
and they'll christen it in Latin
to commemorate me and my name
Me me me me me! An orchid, christened after me!
So I'll drink a toast to Mother Nature for my immortality!
[Botanist chinks a glass with Doctor and his Wife, with whom this ambition evidently strikes a chord]
Doctor
I have a lot of clients
want to make their mark in science
bequeath their names to History when they go
But every plant's been classified
the whole of Nature pacified
and soon there won't be any we don't know
Doctor's Wife
I'll give you my opinion
as an expert Darwinian:
Don't wait around for species to evolve!
Just use your skill and patience
breeding personal mutations
and your naming dilemma is solved
Children
No no no no no! That's something Man must never do!
if you mess around with Mother Nature she will mess around with you
[Lines four to nine of the following verse are accompanied by a simple ostinato while Botanist, Doctor and his Wife speculate, perhaps in sprechstimme]
All Three
Then we could fill each distant corner
with made-to-measure fauna
It's such a jolly civilised idea
Botanist
I shall cross an iguana
with a seven-foot piranha
Doctor
I shall cross a young opossum
with a sprig of apple-blossom
Doctor's Wife
I shall cross an axlotl
with my old hot water-bottle
Doctor
But we'll name it after you, sir, never fear
[Tourists catch on to this idea and leap from their seats in turn to add fatuous hybrid ideas, again perhaps in sprechstimme. This is done as a rhyming game with the first line of each couplet being issued in the manner of a challenge: the Band vamps gamely while the Tourists strive to come up with matching rhymes, and some of their efforts are foolishly lame]
Tourists {ad lib}
I shall cross a pink hydrangea ...
... with a tall dark handsome stranger
I shall cross a giant turtle ...
... with my ancient Auntie Myrtle
I shall cross a capercaillie ...
... with Benjamin Disraeli
I shall cross a Bengal tiger ...
... with another Bengal tiger
[Tourist picks up Arthur's toy ship; it shortly has to be switched surreptitiously for an expendable substitute]
I shall cross th'Atlantic Ocean ...
... With a short uneasy motion
I shall cross an alligator ...
... with a piece of fried potato
All save Children
Yes and Nature will be redundant in a year!
[Full backing resumes, brazen key-change; those who have left their seats are now square-dancing uninhibitedly with hoes and rakes]
We shall give our names to fishes
that we breed to taste delicious
our fame will run like rabbits through the land
we know we've got the talents
to preserve a healthy balance
so the human race will keep the upper hand
Goodbye to the monotony
of farming and botany
we'll cultivate the test-tube, not the clod
and in the final showdown
when you fling your garden hoe down
you can dance round the world like a god
Children
Whoa there, whoa whoa whoa! The humans are not a master-race
And we'll show you what becomes of sailing people who did not know their place
[Thunder: the children, led by the Barkers' Child, fix the substitute ship on one of the Botanist's long-handled tools; further hafts socket on to this until the toy ship is swaying about above their heads, as if in the storm]