Books: Androcles and the Lion
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George Bernard Shaw >> Androcles and the Lion
ANDROCLES. Oh bad wicked Tommy, to chase the Emperor like that!
Let go the Emperor's robe at once, sir: where's your manners?
(The lion growls and worries the robe). Don't pull it away from
him, your worship. He's only playing. Now I shall be really angry
with you, Tommy, if you don't let go. (The lion growls again)
I'll tell you what it is, sir: he thinks you and I are not
friends.
THE EMPEROR (trying to undo the clasp of his brooch) Friends! You
infernal scoundrel (the lion growls)don't let him go. Curse this
brooch! I can't get it loose.
ANDROCLES. We mustn't let him lash himself into a rage. You must
show him that you are my particular friend--if you will have the
condescension. (He seizes the Emperor's hands, and shakes them
cordially), Look, Tommy: the nice Emperor is the dearest friend
Andy Wandy has in the whole world: he loves him like a brother.
THE EMPEROR. You little brute, you damned filthy little dog of a
Greek tailor: I'll have you burnt alive for daring to touch the
divine person of the Emperor. (The lion roars).
ANDROCLES. Oh don't talk like that, sir. He understands every
word you say: all animals do: they take it from the tone of your
voice. (The lion growls and lashes his tail). I think he's going
to spring at your worship. If you wouldn't mind saying something
affectionate. (The lion roars).
THE EMPEROR (shaking Androcles' hands frantically) My dearest Mr.
Androcles, my sweetest friend, my long lost brother, come to my
arms. (He embraces Androcles). Oh, what an abominable smell of
garlic!
The lion lets go the robe and rolls over on his back, clasping
his forepaws over one another coquettishly above his nose.
ANDROCLES. There! You see, your worship, a child might play with
him now. See! (He tickles the lion's belly. The lion wriggles
ecstatically). Come and pet him.
THE EMPEROR. I must conquer these unkingly terrors. Mind you
don't go away from him, though. (He pats the lion's chest).
ANDROCLES. Oh, sir, how few men would have the courage to do
that--
THE EMPEROR. Yes: it takes a bit of nerve. Let us invite the
Court in and frighten them. Is he safe, do you think?
ANDROCLES. Quite safe now, sir.
THE EMPEROR (majestically) What ho, there! All who are within
hearing, return without fear. Caesar has tamed the lion. (All the
fugitives steal cautiously in. The menagerie keeper comes from
the passage with other keepers armed with iron bars and
tridents). Take those things away. I have subdued the beast. (He
places his foot on it).
FERROVIUS (timidly approaching the Emperor and looking down with
awe on the lion) It is strange that I, who fear no man, should
fear a lion.
THE CAPTAIN. Every man fears something, Ferrovius.
THE EMPEROR. How about the Pretorian Guard now?
FERROVIUS. In my youth I worshipped Mars, the God of War. I
turned from him to serve the Christian god; but today the
Christian god forsook me; and Mars overcame me and took back his
own. The Christian god is not yet. He will come when Mars and I
are dust; but meanwhile I must serve the gods that are, not the
God that will be. Until then I accept service in the Guard,
Caesar.
THE EMPEROR. Very wisely said. All really sensible men agree that
the prudent course is to be neither bigoted in our attachment to
the old nor rash and unpractical in keeping an open mind for the
new, but to make the best of both dispensations.
THE CAPTAIN. What do you say, Lavinia? Will you too be prudent?
LAVINIA (on the stair) No: I'll strive for the coming of the God
who is not yet.
THE CAPTAIN. May I come and argue with you occasionally?
LAVINIA. Yes, handsome Captain: you may. (He kisses her hands).
THE EMPEROR. And now, my friends, though I do not, as you see,
fear this lion, yet the strain of his presence is considerable;
for none of us can feel quite sure what he will do next.
THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Caesar: give us this Greek sorcerer to be a
slave in the menagerie. He has a way with the beasts.
ANDROCLES (distressed). Not if they are in cages. They should not
be kept in cages. They must all be let out.
THE EMPEROR. I give this sorcerer to be a slave to the first man
who lays hands on him. (The menagerie keepers and the gladiators
rush for Androcles. The lion starts up and faces them. They surge
back). You see how magnanimous we Romans are, Androcles. We
suffer you to go in peace.
ANDROCLES. I thank your worship. I thank you all, ladies and
gentlemen. Come, Tommy. Whilst we stand together, no cage for
you: no slavery for me. (He goes out with the lion, everybody
crowding away to give him as wide a berth as possible).
In this play I have represented one of the Roman persecutions of
the early Christians, not as the conflict of a false theology
with a true, but as what all such persecutions essentially are:
an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the
interests involved in the established law and order, organized
and maintained in the name of religion and justice by politicians
who are pure opportunist Have-and-Holders. People who are shown
by their inner light the possibility of a better world based on
the demand of the spirit for a nobler and more abundant life, not
for themselves at the expense of others, but for everybody, are
naturally dreaded and therefore hated by the Have-and-Holders,
who keep always in reserve two sure weapons against them. The
first is a persecution effected by the provocation, organization,
and arming of that herd instinct which makes men abhor all
departures from custom, and, by the most cruel punishments and
the wildest calumnies, force eccentric people to behave and
profess exactly as other people do. The second is by leading the
herd to war, which immediately and infallibly makes them forget
everything, even their most cherished and hardwon public
liberties and private interests, in the irresistible surge of
their pugnacity and the tense pre-occupation of their terror.
There is no reason to believe that there was anything more in the
Roman persecutions than this. The attitude of the Roman Emperor
and the officers of his staff towards the opinions at issue were
much the same as those of a modern British Home Secretary towards
members of the lower middle classes when some pious policeman
charges them with Bad Taste, technically called blasphemy: Bad
Taste being a violation of Good Taste, which in such matters
practically means Hypocrisy. The Home Secretary and the judges
who try the case are usually far more sceptical and blasphemous
than the poor men whom they persecute; and their professions of
horror at the blunt utterance of their own opinions are revolting
to those behind the scenes who have any genuine religious
sensibility; but the thing is done because the governing classes,
provided only the law against blasphemy is not applied to
themselves, strongly approve of such persecution because it
enables them to represent their own privileges as part of the
religion of the country.
Therefore my martyrs are the martyrs of all time, and my
persecutors the persecutors of all time. My Emperor, who has no
sense of the value of common people's lives, and amuses himself
with killing as carelessly as with sparing, is the sort of
monster you can make of any silly-clever gentleman by idolizing
him. We are still so easily imposed on by such idols that one of
the leading pastors of the Free Churches in London denounced my
play on the ground that my persecuting Emperor is a very fine
fellow, and the persecuted Christians ridiculous. From which I
conclude that a popular pulpit may be as perilous to a man's soul
as an imperial throne.
All my articulate Christians, the reader will notice, have
different enthusiasms, which they accept as the same religion
only because it involves them in a common opposition to the
official religion and consequently in a common doom. Androcles is
a humanitarian naturalist, whose views surprise everybody.
Lavinia, a clever and fearless freethinker, shocks the Pauline
Ferrovius, who is comparatively stupid and conscience ridden.
Spintho, the blackguardly debauchee, is presented as one of the
typical Christians of that period on the authority of St.
Augustine, who seems to have come to the conclusion at one period
of his development that most Christians were what we call wrong
uns. No doubt he was to some extent right: I have had occasion
often to point out that revolutionary movements attract those who
are not good enough for established institutions as well as those
who are too good for them.
But the most striking aspect of the play at this moment is the
terrible topicality given it by the war. We were at peace when I
pointed out, by the mouth of Ferrovius, the path of an honest man
who finds out, when the trumpet sounds, that he cannot follow
Jesus. Many years earlier, in The Devil's Disciple, I touched the
same theme even more definitely, and showed the minister throwing
off his black coat for ever when he discovered, amid the thunder
of the captains and the shouting, that he was a born fighter.
Great numbers of our clergy have found themselves of late in the
position of Ferrovius and Anthony Anderson. They have discovered
that they hate not only their enemies but everyone who does not
share their hatred, and that they want to fight and to force
other people to fight. They have turned their churches into
recruiting stations and their vestries into munition workshops.
But it has never occurred to them to take off their black coats
and say quite simply, "I find in the hour of trial that the
Sermon on the Mount is tosh, and that I am not a Christian. I
apologize for all the unpatriotic nonsense I have been preaching
all these years. Have the goodness to give me a revolver and a
commission in a regiment which has for its chaplain a priest of
the god Mars: my God." Not a bit of it. They have stuck to their
livings and served Mars in the name of Christ, to the scandal of
all religious mankind. When the Archbishop of York behaved like a
gentleman and the Head Master of Eton preached a Christian
sermon, and were reviled by the rabble, the Martian parsons
encouraged the rabble. For this they made no apologies or
excuses, good or bad. They simple indulged their passions, just
as they had always indulged their class prejudices and commercial
interests, without troubling themselves for a moment as to
whether they were Christians or not. They did not protest even
when a body calling itself the AntiGerman League (not having
noticed, apparently, that it had been anticipated by the British
Empire, the French Republic, and the Kingdoms of Italy, Japan,
and Serbia) actually succeeded in closing a church at Forest Hill
in which God was worshipped in the German language. One would
have supposed that this grotesque outrage on the commonest
decencies of religion would have provoked a remonstrance from
even the worldliest bench of bishops. But no: apparently it
seemed to the bishops as natural that the House of God should be
looted when He allowed German to be spoken in it as that a
baker's shop with a German name over the door should be pillaged.
Their verdict was, in effect, "Serve God right, for creating the
Germans!" The incident would have been impossible in a country
where the Church was as powerful as the Church of England, had it
had at the same time a spark of catholic as distinguished from
tribal religion in it. As it is, the thing occurred; and as far
as I have observed, the only people who gasped were the
Freethinkers. Thus we see that even among men who make a
profession of religion the great majority are as Martian as the
majority of their congregations. The average clergyman is an
official who makes his living by christening babies, marrying
adults, conducting a ritual, and making the best he can (when he
has any conscience about it) of a certain routine of school
superintendence, district visiting, and organization of
almsgiving, which does not necessarily touch Christianity at any
point except the point of the tongue. The exceptional or
religious clergyman may be an ardent Pauline salvationist, in
which case his more cultivated parishioners dislike him, and say
that he ought to have joined the Methodists. Or he may be an
artist expressing religious emotion without intellectual
definition by means of poetry, music, vestments and architecture,
also producing religious ecstacy by physical expedients, such as
fasts and vigils, in which case he is denounced as a Ritualist.
Or he may be either a Unitarian Deist like Voltaire or Tom Paine,
or the more modern sort of Anglican Theosophist to whom the Holy
Ghost is the Elan Vital of Bergson, and the Father and Son are an
expression of the fact that our functions and aspects are
manifold, and that we are all sons and all either potential or
actual parents, in which case he is strongly suspected by the
straiter Salvationists of being little better than an Atheist.
All these varieties, you see, excite remark. They may be very
popular with their congregations; but they are regarded by the
average man as the freaks of the Church. The Church, like the
society of which it is an organ, is balanced and steadied by the
great central Philistine mass above whom theology looms as a
highly spoken of and doubtless most important thing, like Greek
Tragedy, or classical music, or the higher mathematics, but who
are very glad when church is over and they can go home to lunch
or dinner, having in fact, for all practical purposes, no
reasoned convictions at all, and being equally ready to persecute
a poor Freethinker for saying that St. James was not infallible,
and to send one of the Peculiar People to prison for being so
very peculiar as to take St. James seriously.
In short, a Christian martyr was thrown to the lions not because
he was a Christian, but because he was a crank: that is, an
unusual sort of person. And multitudes of people, quite as
civilized and amiable as we, crowded to see the lions eat him
just as they now crowd the lion-house in the Zoo at feeding-time,
not because they really cared two-pence about Diana or Christ, or
could have given you any intelligent or correct account of the
things Diana and Christ stood against one another for, but simply
because they wanted to see a curious and exciting spectacle. You,
dear reader, have probably run to see a fire; and if somebody
came in now and told you that a lion was chasing a man down the
street you would rush to the window. And if anyone were to say
that you were as cruel as the people who let the lion loose on
the man, you would be justly indignant. Now that we may no longer
see a man hanged, we assemble outside the jail to see the black
flag run up. That is our duller method of enjoying ourselves in
the old Roman spirit. And if the Government decided to throw
persons of unpopular or eccentric views to the lions in the
Albert Hall or the Earl's Court stadium tomorrow, can you doubt
that all the seats would be crammed, mostly by people who could
not give you the most superficial account of the views
in question. Much less unlikely things have happened. It is true
that if such a revival does take place soon, the martyrs will not
be members of heretical religious sects: they will be Peculiars,
Anti-Vivisectionists, Flat-Earth men, scoffers at the
laboratories, or infidels who refuse to kneel down when a
procession of doctors goes by. But the lions will hurt them just
as much, and the spectators will enjoy themselves just as much,
as the Roman lions and spectators used to do.
It was currently reported in the Berlin newspapers that when
Androcles was first performed in Berlin, the Crown Prince rose
and left the house, unable to endure the (I hope) very clear and
fair exposition of autocratic Imperialism given by the Roman
captain to his Christian prisoners. No English Imperialist was
intelligent and earnest enough to do the same in London. If the
report is correct, I confirm the logic of the Crown Prince, and
am glad to find myself so well understood. But I can assure him
that the Empire which served for my model when I wrote Androcles
was, as he is now finding to his cost, much nearer my home than
the German one.