blood wedding - act ii, scene i [remix]
In the first scene of act 2 we see the Bride and Maid alone; the Maid is getting her mistress ready for the next day and the Bride is complaining about the heat, the Maid and her dead mother's fate. A knock on the door reveals Leonardo; he talks of his burning passion for the Bride and the foolish pride that kept him from marrying her when he had the chance. Clearly upset by his words, the Bride refuses to listen to him, fighting what she realizes are deep feelings she still has for her ex. Finally the Maid sends Leonardo away just as the wedding guests begin arriving. The Father, Mother, and Bridegroom arrive as well and the wedding party heads off to the church. Before the party leaves, however, the Bride begs the Bridegroom to stay close to her. Typical of their marriage, after a furious argument Leonardo and his Wife head off stage as well.
………………………
It is night on the veranda of the Bride's house. A front door can be seen off to one side. The Maid and Bride enter. The Bride wears only petticoats full of embroidery and a low-cut white bodice. Her legs and arms are bare.
Maid: I will finish combing your hair out.
Bride: One cannot be inside. Not in this heat.
Bride [sitting in a chair and looking at herself in a little, silver hand mirror]: My mother was from a place where there were many trees … and rich land.
Maid: And she was so cheerful!
Bride: But here she was consumed by it.
Maid: Fate. [1]
Bride: As all women are slowly consumed. The walls are throwing off so much heat — Ouch! Don't pull so hard!
Maid: I'm just trying to get this last wave right. I want it to fall over your forehead. How beautiful you are! Ai! [the Maid kisses the Bride passionately]
Bride [pulling herself always]: Keep combing my hair.
Maid [combing]: You are so lucky … you are going to hold a man in your arms … you are going to kiss him … and then you are going to feel his weight on top of you!
Bride: Shut up.
Maid: And the best part is when you wake up and feel him beside you … and he tickles your shoulders with his breath … it feels just like a nightingale's feather.
Bride [angrily]: Can't you shut up?
Maid: But my child! It's a wedding, and a wedding is that and nothing more. Is it nice things to eat? No. Is it bouquets of flowers? No. It's a shining bed and two people in it.
Bride: It's not right to talk about such things.
Maid: Perhaps … but it's the only true joy of getting married!
Bride: Or the only true bitterness.
Maid: I'm going to set the orange blossoms in your hair from here to here so that they will shine like a crown.
Bride [looking at herself again in the mirror]: Give them to me. [she works them around on her head for a few seconds and then slumps in defeat]
Maid: What is it?
Bride: Just leave me alone.
Maid: This is no time to be sad! Give me the orange blossoms. [The Bride throws them to the floor] Ai! Child! What sort of trouble are you asking for by throwing your wedding crown to the floor like that? Lift your head up! Don't you want to get married? Say so, then. You can still change your mind.
Bride: But this is a very big step.
Maid: One that has to be taken.
Bride: I've given my word.
Maid: Here. I'm going to put the crown back on you.
Bride [sitting up]: Hurry. They should be arriving soon.
Maid: They'll have been on the road for at least two hours already.
Bride: How far is it from here to the church?
Maid: Let us see … five leagues by the way of the river, twice that on the road. [begins to sing]
Let the bride wake
on the morning of her wedding.
And may all the rivers of the world
carry your crown home!
Bride [finally smiling]: Come on.
Maid [kisses her warmly on the lips and begins to dance and sing around her]:
Let her wake
under the green bouquet
of laurel in blossom.
Let her wake
by the trunk and the bough
of the sweet laurel in bloom!
[A loud knocking is heard]
Bride [standing up]: Go and open the door! It must be our first guests. [exits]
Maid [in surprise]: You?
Leonardo: Me. Good morning.
Maid: You are the first one to arrive!
Leonardo: Wasn't I invited?
Maid: Yes.
Leonardo: Then that's why I'm here.
Maid: And your wife?
Leonardo: I rode the horse … she's, er, coming along by cart.
Maid: Didn't you run across any other guests?
Leonardo: Yes. I passed several on the horse.
Maid: You'll kill that animal with so much riding.
Leonardo: When he dies [shrugs] he is dead. [pause]
Maid: Sit down. Nobody's up yet.
Leonardo: Not even the bride?
Maid: I'm going to help dress her right now.
Leonardo: The bride! She must be extremely happy!
Maid: And the baby?
Leonardo: Which one?
Maid: Your son.
Leonardo [stirring himself, as if waking from a dream]: Ah!
Maid: Are they bringing him too?
Leonardo: No. [pause and distant singing can be heard]
Singers:
Let the bride wake [2]
on the morning of her wedding.
Leonardo [echoing song]:
Let the bride wake
on the morning of her wedding.
Maid: That's the guests now … but it sounds like they are still some distance away.
Leonardo: So [rising] will the bride wear a big crown, eh? It shouldn't be too big. Something a bit smaller might suit her better. Did the bridegroom bring the orange blossom she's to wear … on her breast?
Bride [entering still with bare legs and petticoats]: He's brought them.
Maid [strongly]: Don't come out dressed like that.
Bride: What does it matter? [to Leonardo seriously] Why did you ask if he brought the orange blossoms? Do you have something in mind?
Leonardo: Not at all! What would I have in mind? You know me; you know there's nothing I can say. But tell me … what have I really been to you? Look back, look and refresh your memory … two oxen and a tumbledown shack were never enough to you, were they? Yes! That's what burns deep inside of me.
Bride: Why have you come?
Leonardo: To see your marriage.
Bride: Just as I saw yours!
Leonardo: What else could have I done? My hands were tied a long time ago, you know that. You can kill me, but you can't spit on me. Not for all the shiny money in the world!
Bride: That's not true!
Leonardo: I don't want to talk about this anymore because I'm a man of hot blood and I don't want all these hills to hear my shouting.
Bride: But mine will be louder.
Maid: This bickering can't go on. [to the Bride] You must not talk about the past! [she looks at the door in increasing fearfulness]
Bride: You are right. I shouldn't even speak to you. But it makes me wild with rage that you should come here to look at me and spy on my wedding and hint at crude things … asking about the orange blossoms. [angrily] Go! and wait for your wife outside.
Leonardo: Can't we even talk, you and I?
Maid: No! you can't talk!
Leonardo: Ah … after my wedding – and everyday since — I've thought night and day about who was at fault … and every time I think about it there is always someone new to blame … because there is always blame to go around!
Bride: [sarcastically] Oh yes! Oh yes! A man with a horse knows a lot of ways to wear down a poor girl stuck out in the desert. But I still have my pride and that's why I'm getting married. I shall lock myself up with my husband, whom I must love more than anything in this whole world.
Leonardo: Your pride won't be any help to you.
Bride: [crying out] Don't come near me!
Leonardo: Keeping quiet and burning inside is the worst punishment we can inflict on each other. What good did it do to me to have pride and never look at you again? leaving you to lie awake night after night? None at all! … it only poured fire all over me! Because you believe that time can heal and that walls can seal up and we both know it's not true! It's not true! When things are buried deep inside you, there's nobody that can ever pull them out!
Bride [trembling]: I can't listen to you! I can't listen to your voice … it's as if I drunk anisette and fell asleep on a quilt of roses. And I drown, it draws me under … I know that I'm suffocating, but … I still have to go on and on and on.
Maid [to Leonardo, grabbing his jacket]: You must go right now!
Leonardo [softly]: It's the last time I shall ever speak to her. Don't be afraid.
Bride: And I know I'm crazy and I know you are rotting out my heart and here I am quietly listening to you … watching you strut around my room.
Leonardo: I can't rest without telling you all these things. I got married … now it's your turn.
Maid [to Leonardo]: She is getting married!
Singers [from a far]:
Let the bride wake
on the morning of her wedding.
Bride [crying]: Let the bride wake? God! [she runs off]
Maid [furious]: Don't you come near her again!
Leonardo: Don't worry. [exits. the sun is rising outside]
Girl 1 [entering, singing]:
Let the bride wake
on the morning of her wedding!
Let the circle of life go around
her wedding crown today! [3]
Singers [outside]: The bride! The bride!
Maid [using false gaiety, singing]:
Let the bride wake
under the green bouquet
of laurel in blossom.
Let the bride wake
under the trunk and bough
of the sweet laurel in bloom!
Girl 2 [entering, singing]:
Let the bride wake
and slowly begin to move.
Dress her in a blouse of snow
with jasmine in her hair.
Maid [singing]:
The bride! The bride!
Before the moon sets!
Girl 1 [singing]:
The bride! The bride!
Before her love flies!
Boy 1 [entering, holding his hat in the air, singing]:
Let the bride wake!
Let he wedding fill the air!
The scent of roses!
The aroma of fresh bread!
Let life's kisses fall everywhere!
Singers [outside]: The bride! The bride!
Girl 2 [singing]:
The bride comes
with veil of silver behind!
The bridegroom twines her around his heart
with a flowering golden chain!
Maid [singing]:
Down in the lemon grove
the bride of love lies down.
Girl 3 [entering, singing]:
Down in the orange grove
the bridegroom strips her bare
and lays her down.
[Three Guests enter]
Boy 1 [singing]:
And on wedding day
the bride arrives
tamed like a dove.
Let the bells of dawn chime.
Let us chase night with love.
Guest [singing]:
The bride! The pale, pale bride!
A warm day awaits you
before your long night of love!
Girl 1 [singing]:
Come down to us now,
my little-dark eyed pet!
Bring your long veil of silk!
Bring your smile that shames the sun!
Guest [singing]:
Come down to us now
with your black, black hair!
Throw open your balcony
and let in the bright air!
Boy 1 [singing]:
Rise up, young bride! Rise up!
Let orange blossoms fill the sky!
Maid [singing]:
Let me weave a splendid tree for you!
Let me decorate it with purple ribbons
and songs of joy and love, my dear!
Singers [outside]: The bride! The bride!
Boy 1 [singing]:
Today is the day of your wedding!
Guest [singing]:
Today is the day of your wedding
when you'll be crowned with love!
Fairer than any flower!
Purer than any dove!
Father [entering, singing]:
Ah! Fair and pure indeed!
My one treasure! My one joy!
And I give her to the bridegroom today!
Girl 3 [singing]:
The bridegroom! The bridegroom!
The sun's golden flower!
The moon's silver dagger!
Maid: [singing]:
My little pet!
How happy you shall be today!
Boy2 [singing]:
The bride! The bride!
Maid [singing]:
And happier still I know you'll be
when night comes nearby
and all the light has gone away!
Girl 1 [singing]:
Let your wedding call you!
and call!
through the hot air!
Girl 2:
The Bride! The Bride!
Maid:
Let the bells ring
and ring again!
Boy 1:
Here she comes now.
She is coming.
Maid:
With the power of a bull
the wedding now begins!
[Enter the Bride dressed in a black dress cut in the style of early 1900's fashion; very tight around her hips and with a train of gauze and lace. On her head is the orange blossom crown. Offstage the sound of guitars can be heard. The Girls push forward to embrace the Bride]
Girl 3: What is that scent you are wearing in your hair?
Bride [laughing]: I don't use any scent.
Girl 3 [inspecting the dress]: Your dress is to die for!
Boy 1: A toast for the groom!
Bridegroom: Good health to everyone!
Girl 1 [placing a flower behind his ear]:
The bridegroom! The bridegroom!
The golden flower of the sun!
Girl 2:
The bridegroom! The bridegroom!
The silver knife of the moon!
[The Bridegroom walks to the Bride]
Bride: What made you wear those shoes?
Bridegroom: They are much brighter than my black ones.
Wife [entering and kissing the Bride]: I wish you both ever lasting joy.
[They talk excitedly]
Leonardo [entering as if having to perform some horrid obligation]:
This day you will be wed.
And this wedding wreath
we will place on your head.
Wife:
So that life from you will flow
like the sun to brighten all the lands
with its warmth.
Mother [to Father]: What are they doing here?
Father: They are family. Today we shall forgive everyone.
Mother: I will say nothing … but I will never forgive.
Bridegroom: The orange blossom has brought the sun to your hair.
Bride: Let's get to the church as soon as we can.
Bridegroom: Ha ha! You can't wait to get married?
Bride: No. All I want is to be your wife and to be alone with you and to shut everyone's voices out but yours.
Bridegroom: Just the two of us …
Bride: And to fix my eyes on yours. And for you to hold me so tight that even if my dead mother called me from the grave I could never break free …
Bridegroom: My arms are strong enough to hug and hold you for forty years and never let you go.
Bride [dramatically taking his arm]: Don't let me go … ever.
Father: We must get a move on it. Get the coaches and the carts ready … the sun is already high in the sky.
Mother: Go easy … let us not start this of all days badly.
[The large door at the back opens and everyone starts to exit]
Maid [crying]:
You leave your house
a girl dressed in white.
Your body is like a star
shining into the night.
Girl 1:
A fair girl dressed in white.
You fly from your house
like a star through the air. [exits]
Girl 1:
Here comes the bride!
Maid:
The breeze carries flowers
through the air.
Girl 3:
The beautiful bride!
Maid:
The breeze gently lifting
the lace from her hair.
[The wedding party exits. Rhythmical guitars and tambourines can be heard offstage. Leonardo and his Wife are left alone.]
Wife: Shall we go?
Leonardo: Where?
Wife: To the church, of course. But not by horse, I want you to come with me.
Leonardo: You mean in the cart?
Wife: Do you have any better suggestions?
Leonardo: I have no intention of climbing into any cart.
Wife: And I have no intention of going to a wedding without my husband. I cannot take very much more of this.
Leonardo: Then that makes two of us.
Wife: Why are you looking at me that way? Why? You look like your have knives in your eyes!
Leonardo: Let us just go.
Wife: I do not understand this … I think and I do not want to think. But one thing I have to know … it's over … and I have a child and another on its way. And you simply say “let us just go” … the exact same thing that happened to my mother is happening to me. I am not moving from here …
[Voices are heard off-stage]
Voices:
A fair girl dressed in white.
You fly from your house
like a star through the air.
Wife [weeping]:
You fly from your house
like a star through the air.
I flew so happily from mine as well … with the
whole of the world in my heart and mouth.
Leonardo [standing up]: Let us go.
Wife [in disbelief]: The two of us?
Leonardo: Yes. [pause] Come on. [they exit]
Voices:
A fair girl dressed in white.
You fly from your house
like a star through the air.
[Slow curtain]
Footnotes
1. Fate. Federico, in both his poetry and dramas, appears fascinated with the motif of fate, predestination, as a way to convey a terrible fatalism that seems to have followed him throughout his life. If the accounts that both his friends and critics alike retell of him can be believed this fatalism might have had more to do with bouts of manic depression (had psychotherapy been available at the time). The biographer and editor Howard T. Young (1964) recounts a story of Garcia Lorca's "state of constant delight in the world A friend recalls being roused late one night by a knock on the door which turned out to be [Federico], bubbling with excitement from having seen a shoe hanging from a tree. 'It's tremendous,' Garcia Lorca had urged … Such a state of natural wonder had its counterpart in fits of dark depression. 'Those who thought him as a gaily colored bird did not know him,' wrote the poet Vincente Aleixandre" (140).
2. Let the bride wake. At this point of the play Garcia Lorca has a chorus of voices (some off-stage, some on) arrive to represent the town folk and various relatives who are all witnessing the events that are about to unfold. In context of the Bride and her doubts about marriage the voices all serve to urge her down the conventional path.
3. Her wedding crown today! Compared to the lullaby sung by the Wife and Mother-in-law in act i, scene ii, again we have a seemingly innocent song filled with fatalism; the tension between describing the bounties of marriage mixed with the fleeting nature of life.
Work Cited
Young, Howard T. The victorious expression. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press. (1964)