Quixote from "Camino Real" by Tennessee Williams

QUIXOTE (looking about the plaza): --Lonely . . .
(To his surprise the word is echoed softly by almost unseen figures huddled below the stairs and against the wall of the town. Quixote leans upon his lance and observes with a wry smile--)
--When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
(He shakes out a dusty blanket. Shadowy arms extend toward him and voices murmur.)
VOICE: Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
QUIXOTE (arranging his blanket): Yes, I'll sleep for a while, I'll sleep and dream for a while against the wall of this town . . .
(A mandolin or guitar plays "The Nightingale of France.")
--And my dream will be a pageant, a masque in which old meanings will be remembered and possibly new ones discovered, and when I wake from this sleep and this disturbing pageant of a dream, I'll choose on among its shadows to take along with me in the place of Sancho . . .
(He blows his nose between his fingers and wipes them on his shirttail.)
--For new companions are not as familiar as old ones but all the same--they're old ones with only slight differences of face and figure, which may or may not be improvements, and it would be selfish of me to be lonely alone . . .
(He stumbles down the incline into the Pit below the stairs where most of the Street People huddle beneath awnings of open stalls.
(The white cockatoo squawks.)
GUTMAN: Hush, Aurora.
QUIXOTE: And tomorrow at this same hour, which we call madrugada, the loveliest of all words, except the word alba, and that word also means daybreak--
--Yes, at daybreak tomorrow I will go on from here with a new companion and this old bit of blue ribbon to keep me in mind of distance that I have gone and distance I have yet to go, and also to keep me in mind of--

Byron from "Camino Real" by Tennessee Williams

That's very true, Senor. But a poet's vocation, which used to be my vocation, is to influence the heart in a gentler fashion than you have made your mark on that loaf of bread. He ought to purify it and lift it above its ordinary level. For what is the heart but a sort of--
(He makes a high, groping gesture in the air.)
--A sort of--instrument!--that translates noise into music, choas into--order . . .
(Abdullah ducks almost to the earth in an effort to stiffle his mirth. Gutman coughs to cover his own amusement.)
--a mysterious order!
(He raises his voice till it fills the plaza.)
--That was my vocation once upon a time, before it was obscured by vulgar plaudits!--Little by little it was lost among gondolas and palazzos!--masked balls, glittering salons, huge shadowy courts and torch-lit entrances!--Baroque facades, canopies and carpets, candelabra and gold plate among snowy damask, ladies with throats as slender as flower-stems, bending and breathing toward me their fragrant breath--
--Exposing their breasts to me!
Whispering, half-smiling!--And everywhere marble, the visible grandeur of marble, pink and gray marble, veined and tinted as flayed corrupting flesh,--and these provided agreeable distractions from the rather frightening solitude of a poet. Oh, I wrote many cantos in Venice and Constantinople and in Ravenna and Rome, on all of those Latin and Levantine excursions that my twisted foot led me into--but I wonder about them a little. They seem to improve as the wine in the bottle--dwindles . . . There is a passion for declivity in this world!
And lately I've found myself listening to hired musicians behind a row of artificial palm trees--instead of the single--pure-stringed instrument of my heart . . .
Well, then, it's time to leave here!
(He turns back to the stage.)
--There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go!
I'm going to look for one, now. I'm sailing to Athens. At least I can look up at the Acropolis, I can stand at the foot of it and look up at broken columns on the crest of a hill--if not purity, at least its recollection . . .
I can sit quietly looking for a long, long time in absolute silence, and possibly, yes, still possibly--
The old pure music will come to me again. Of course on the other hand I may hear only the little noise of insects in the grass . . .
But I am sailing to Athens! Make voyages!--Attempt them!--there's nothing else . . .

Marguerite from "Camino Real" by Tennessee Williams

Oh, Jacques, we're used to each other, we're a pair of captive hawks caught in the same cage, and so we've grown used to each other. That's what passes for love at this dim, shadowy end of the Camino Real . . .
What are we sure of? Not even of our existence, dear comforting friend! And whom can we ask the questions that torment us? "What is this place?" "Where are we?"--a fat old man who gives sly hints that only bewilder us more, a fake of a Gypsy squinting at cards and tea-leaves. What else are we offered? The never-broken procession of little events that assure us that we and strangers about us are still going on! Where? Why? And the perch that we hold is unstable! We're threatened with eviction, for this is a port of entry and departure, there are no permanent guests! And where have we to go when we leave here? Bide-a-While? "Ritz Men Only"? Or under that ominous arch into Terra Incognita? We're lonely. We're frightened. We hear the Streetcleaners' piping not far away. So now and then, although we've wounded each other time and again--we stretch out hands to each other in the dark that we can't escape from--we huddle together for some dim-communal comfort--and that's what passes for love on this terminal stretch of the road that used to be royal. What is it, this feeling between us? When you feel my exhausted weight against your shoulder--when I clasp your anxious old hawk's head to my breast, what is it we feel in whatever is left of our hearts? Something, yes, something--delicate, unreal, bloodless! The sort of violets that could grow on the moon, or in the crevices of those far away mountains, fertilized by the droppings of carrion birds. Those birds are familiar to us. Their shadows inhabit the plaza. I've heard them flapping their wings like old charwomen beating worn-out carpets with gray brooms . . .
But tenderness, the violets in the mountains--can't break the rocks!