nobody had spoken.) Columbine’s “How curious to strangle him like that” is spoken extremely slowly, in a voice of awe, curiosity, and horror.  For a moment the two characters seem almost to feel and be subdued by the tragedy that has taken place.  They remain standing very quietly while Cothurnus speaks his final lines off stage, and for a moment after he has said, “The audience will forget”; then very slowly raise their eyes and exchange glances, Pierrot nods his head curtly and says, “That’s so”; they set their bowls gaily back on the table, and the play begins again.

Pierrot in such lines as “Ah, Columbine, as if it mattered!” speaks with mock saccharine tenderness; but in such lines as “If you were a fly you would be dead by now!” although he speaks very gaily his malice must be apparent almost even to her; Columbine bores him to death.  When he says, “I’ll go and strum the moon!” he is for the instant genuinely excited and interested; he is for this moment like a child, and is happy.

COLUMBINE:  Pretty and charming, but stupid; she never knows what Pierrot is talking about, and is so accustomed to him that she no longer pretends to understand him; but she is very proud of him, and when he speaks she listens with trustful admiration.  Her expression, “I cannot live without” this or that, is a phrase she uses in order to make herself more attractive, because she believes men prefer women to be useless and extravagant; if left to herself she would be a domestic and capable person.

COTHURNUS:  This character should be played by a tall and imposing figure with a tremendous voice.  The voice of Cothurnus is one of the most important things in the acting play.  He should have a voice deeper than the voice used by any of the other persons, should speak weightily and with great dignity, but almost without intonation, and quite without feeling, as if he had said the same words many times before.  Only in his last speech may he be permitted a comment on the situation.  This speech should be spoken quite as impressively as the others and fully as slowly.

CORYDON and THYRSIS:  These two characters are young, very simple, and childlike; they are acted upon by the force that sits on the back of the stage behind them.  More and more as their quarrel advances they begin to see that something is wrong, but they have no idea what to do about it, and they scarcely realize what is happening, the quarrel grows so from little things into big things.  Corydon’s first vision of the tragedy is in “It’s terrible when you stop to think of it.”  Thyrsis’ first vision comes when he looks into the pool; in seeing the familiar reflection he is struck by the unfamiliarity of one aspect of it, the poisonous root; for the first time he realizes that this man who is about to kill with poisoned water his most beloved friend, is none other than Thyrsis himself,—­“’Tis I!” The personalities of Thyrsis and Corydon are not essentially different.  They develop somewhat differently, because of the differing circumstances.