YouLyric
Sign in
Sign up for free
Act Three
Share
Hammill Peter
What's this song about?
Generate meaning
Tap any line for its meaning
1
(Immediately afterwards, Madeline Usher enters, in a trance)
2
MADELINE Carriages at seven
3
I shall wear the flower he gave me
4
It's so cold here
5
deep beneath the lapping water...
6
The water
7
The water
8
My love
9
Head against his shoulder,
10
'cross the lawn I hear the music...
11
Silent blackness,
12
In the lake I'm sinking slowly...
13
Oh, how lovely,
14
nothing could be more becoming...
15
Underwater,
16
floating in the icy darkness...
17
Count the candles
18
'May I dance with you this evening?'...
19
On the surface
20
Swans are feeding high above me...
21
Hold him tightly
22
round and round the floor we're spinning
23
Breathing water
24
I am drowning
25
Watch the sun rise
26
driving home across the meadows...
27
All is darkness
28
I can feel myself dissolving
29
The water
30
The water
31
The darkness
32
The darkness
33
My love
34
Head against his shoulder
35
Floating in the icy darkness
36
Hold him tightly
37
I can feel myself dissolving
38
Oh how lovely
39
Deep beneath the lapping water
40
Count the candles
41
I am drowning I am drowning
42
Count the candles
43
Floating in the icy darkness
44
Hold him tightly
45
I can feel myself dissolving
46
Oh how lovely
47
Deep beneath the lapping water
48
Count the candles
49
I am drowning
50
Oh how lovely
51
I am drowning I am drowning
52
Oh how lovely
53
Oh how lovely
54
Oh how lovely
55
MONTRESOR Stop, Madeline, look at me!
56
My god, man, what is wrong with her?
57
USHER Yes, it's right you should know,
58
She is dying!
59
I have not dared to speak of it.
60
A chronic catalepsy had drained her of her youth.
61
I have watched her waste away and could do nothing!
62
A period of health is followed by sudden coma,
63
death-like sleep.
64
It can last a full day or more,
65
no movement, no colour, no flame in the cheeks.
66
MONTRESOR What, then of these dreaming visions?
67
USHER The recovery, ah, this is even worse!
68
She rises and moves about the house
69
but her mind still sleeps...
70
You see her now a mindless ghost:
71
Beautiful, dead eyes stare in sleep, unrecognising.
72
She speaks in dreams, sees only dreams,
73
she haunts the house in hideous sleepwalking
74
and may not be restrained, for like some automaton
75
she tirelessly thrusts and tears herself
76
against her fetters,
77
heedless of injury.
78
And so she walks and then she wakes,
79
remembering nothing, so week that she can
80
barely build up strength before she is struck down again.
81
Month after month each attack worse than the last.
82
Death will not wait long.
83
Her final days are flickering past.
84
Dear God,
85
helpless,
86
helpless!
87
MONTRESOR But what is the word from her doctors?
88
Do they hold out no hope, nor offer any treatment?
89
USHER MONTRESOR CHORUS
90
They do not understand
91
her case
92
and cannot treat a case
93
they do not understand
94
He does not understand
95
You're dealing with a case
96
Who is her doctor,
97
a specialist I trust?
98
Yes indeed, one of
99
the foremost rank
100
You're dealing
101
with a case
102
Then he will help her,
103
Montresor oh, yes,
104
no more of this he surely must You do not understand
105
now
106
no more talk He does not
107
of cures, please, understand
108
Or of doctor.
109
I bless you concern,
110
but know that she
111
will walk no more tonight.
112
When she wakes soon
113
she will need my care.
114
I must be there, so,
115
dear friend, goodnight.
116
(Usher exits with Madeline, leaving Montresor alone. The Herbalist enters)
117
THE HERBALIST Good evening, sir.
118
And you must be the friend of Mister Usher.
119
I'm so pleased to meet you, sir,
120
but have little time to spare
121
for knowledge such as mine is wanted everywhere.
122
In poor dwellings, yes, but some as great as Usher's.
123
My card...
124
MONTRESOR 'J. Ducrow, Esq. Herbalist,
125
Doctor of Natural Medicine'...
126
HERBALIST At you service, and it could be, sir,
127
that you have need of my panaceas now...
128
I have Mandrake juice that will slake any fever,
129
cures to convince you though you be an unbeliever now...
130
Laugh - would you? - at these seeds of mine.
131
You question the cure's causes,
132
but Logic and Reason do not answer,
133
and Nature runs her courses.
134
I have purest poppy for the soundest of sleeps;
135
a pure cake of hemp plant
136
that's a warranted surcease of worldly sorrow.
137
Lying words will be believed
138
if perfumed by this pastil,
139
or my elixir's guaranteed
140
to bend the will of fairest womankind.
141
Scheme, would you, for a worldly gain?
142
Lust after a frigid virgin?
143
My herbs can grant your secret cravings
144
and my price is modest!
145
MONTRESOR No! No!
146
HERBALIST And my price is modest...
147
MONTRESOR No, thank you! No!
148
HERBALIST Oh it's very modest...
149
MONTRESOR No, no thank you!
150
No!
151
No thank you,
152
No!
153
HERBALIST Perhaps a poultice of Toadbane
154
for weakness of the manly parts,
155
caused by too much wine or age,
156
perhaps by over-frequent natural indulgence...
157
Applied with skill, it will
158
revive the fleshy passions of a corpse...
159
...of a corpse
160
MONTRESOR I said no
161
I meant no!
162
HERBALIST Well then, Good-day...
163
MONTRESOR So that is Usher's idea of a doctor!
164
That wretched mountebank can't help them.
165
I confront madness face to face!
166
And whatever it's cause, it lies within this place
167
I breathe an atmosphere of sorrow;
168
an alien despair makes my courage fail,
169
like the collapse of an opium vision,
170
the hideous dropping of the veil
171
CHORUS Tormented by a thousand doubts and fancies,
172
he will not sleep tonight.
173
Chilled by the gloom of his surroundings,
174
mortal, half-dead mortar.
175
MONTRESOR CHORUS
176
He will not sleep!
177
I see simple solutions
178
He will not sleep!
179
State them laud and clear,
180
but the echoes of the House He will not sleep!
181
shout 'Unreason!'
182
The one thing that I fear.
183
The evil that is done
184
cannot be undone.
185
The evil that will come
186
cannot be prevented.
187
The evil that is done
188
Yet somehow I must help
189
these two tormented souls,
190
cannot be undone.
191
for if I cannot, who will?
192
The evil that will come
193
These are the friends
194
I've loved so dearly...
195
cannot be prevented
196
Leave!
197
No! What a monstrous thought!
198
Depart!
199
How could I even think of it!
200
Go!
201
Abandon those who have need of me!
202
Leave!
203
Oh, but what a temptation,
204
Depart!
205
to run like a thief in the night,
206
Go!
207
And yet now I cannot
208
because it is too late Before it is too late,
209
I feel myself bound up in before you are bound up in
210
the web of fear and pain, the web of fear and pain,
211
the evil that surrounds me. the evil that surrounds you.
212
It cannot be undone.
213
It cannot be undone.
214
The evil that will come
215
cannot be prevented.
216
End of Act Three
0
views
0
meanings
0
comments
Perspectives
0/16
💡
🧒
🧠
📚
🌍
✨
📖
💔
⚖️
🎵
♀️
🌀
👁️
🪞
🏛️
😂
Go Pro
Unlimited meanings · Priority generation
Upgrade
