Tales From the Public Domain: 3

The Soap Opera

The Soap Opera was created by Dallas Wheatley. If you liked what you heard, please rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts, or tell your friends and family about it! Spreading the word makes all the difference.

Many thanks to Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com for the music. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The tracks used in this episode are "Ripples", "Snowdrop", "Silver Flame", and "Finding Movement".

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Performers

• Eleanor Grey

• Vin Ernst

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Dica By Sappho Performed by Eleanor Grey

With flowers fair adorn thy lustrous hair, Dica, amidst thy locks sweet blossoms twine, With thy soft hands, for so a maiden stands Accepted of the gods, whose eyes divine Are turned away from her—though fair as May She waits, but round whose locks no flowers shine.

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Prophesy By Sappho Performed by Eleanor Grey

Methinks hereafter in some later spring Echo will bear to men the songs we sing.

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Dead Shalt Thou Lie By Sappho Performed by Eleanor Grey

When thou fallest in death, dead shalt thou lie, nor shall thy memory Henceforth ever again be heard then or in days to be, Since no flowers upon earth ever were thine, plucked from Pieria's spring, Unknown also 'mid hell's shadowy throng thou shalt go wandering.

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Invocation By Sappho Performed by Eleanor Grey

Come, Venus, come Hither with thy golden cup, Where nectar-floated flowerets swim. Fill, fill the goblet up; These laughing lips shall kiss the brim,— Come, Venus, come!

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Hymn to Aphrodite By Sappho Performed by Eleanor Grey

Daughter of Zeus and Immortal, Aphrodite, serene Weaver of spells, at thy portal Hear me and slay not, O Queen!

As in the past, hither to me From thy far palace of gold, Drawn by the doves that o'erflew me, Come, as thou earnest of old.

Swiftly thy flock bore thee hither, Smiling, as turned I to thee, Spoke thou across the blue weather, "Sappho, why callest thou me?"

"Sappho, what Beauty disdains thee, Sappho, who wrongest thine heart, Sappho, what evil now pains thee, Whence sped the dart?

"Flies from thee, soon she shall follow, Turns from thee, soon she shall love, Seeking thee swift as the swallow, Ingrate though now she may prove."

Come, once again to release me, Join with my fire thy fire, Freed from the torments that seize me, Give me, O Queen! my desire!

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A Haunted House By Virginia Woolfe Performed by Vin Ernst

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here tool" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it,' one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps its upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe" the pulse of the house beat softly. "The treasure buried; the room . . ." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us, coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat gladly. 'The Treasure yours."

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning--" "Silver between the trees--" "Upstairs--" 'In the garden--" "When summer came--" 'In winter snowtime--" "The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.

Nearer they come, cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. "Look," he breathes. "Sound asleep. Love upon their lips."

Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years--" he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs, "sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure--" Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. "Safe! safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry "Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart."

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