Zora Neale Hurston, "The First One" (Full text of one-act play) (1927)
A Play in One Act
By ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Time: Three Years After the Flood
Place: Valley of Ararat
Persons: Noah, His Wife, Their Sons: Shem, Japheth, Ham; Eve, Ham's Wife; The Sons' wives and children (6 or 7).
Setting: Morning in the Valley of Ararat. The Mountain is in the near distance. Its lower slopes grassy with grazing herds. The very blue sky beyond that. These together form the back-ground. On the left downstage is a brown tent. A few shrubs are scattered here and there over the stage indicating the temporary camp. A rude altar is built center stage. A Shepherd's crook, a goat skin water bottle, a staff and other evidences of nomadic life lie about the entrance to the tent. To the right stretches a plain clad with bright flowers. Several sheep or goat skins are spread about on the ground upon which the people kneel or sit whenever necessary.
Action: stage. Curtain rises on an empty stage. It is dawn. A great stillness, but immediately Noah enters from the tent and ties back the flap. He is clad in loose fitting dingy robe tied about the waist with a strip of goat hide. Stooped shoulders, flowing beard. He gazes about him. His gaze takes in the entire stage.
Noah (fervently): Thou hast restored the Earth, Jehovah, it is good. (Turns to the tent.) My sons! Come, deck the altar for the sacrifices to Jehovah. It is the third year of our coming to this valley to give thanks offering to Jehovah that he spared us.
(Enter Japheth bearing a haunch of meat and Shem with another. The wife of Noah and those of Shem and Japheth follow laying on sheaves of grain and fruit (dates and figs). They are all middle-aged and clad in dingy garments.
Noah: And where is Ham---son of my old age? Why does he not come with his wife and son to the sacrifice?
Mrs. Noah: He arose before the light and went.
(She shades her eyes with one hand and points toward the plain with the other.) His wife, as ever, went with him.
Shem (impatiently): This is the third year that we have come here to this Valley to commemorate our delivery from the flood. Ham knows the sacrifice is made always at sunrise. See! (He points to rising sun.) He should be here.
Noah (lifts his hand in a gesture of reproval): We shall wait. The sweet singer, the child of my loins after old age had come upon me is warm to my heart-let us wait.
(There is off-stage, right, the twanging of a rude stringed instrument and laughter. Ham, his wife and son come dancing on down-stage right. He is in his early twenties. He is dressed in a very white goat-skin with a wreath of shiny green leaves about his head. He has the rude instrument in his hands and strikes it. His wife is clad in a short blue garment with a girdle of shells. She has a wreath of scarlet flowers about her head. She has black hair, is small, young and lithe. She wears anklets and wristlets of the same red flowers. Their son about three years old wears nothing but a broad band of leaves and flowers about his middle. They caper and prance to the altar. Ham's wife and son bear flowers. A bird is perched on Ham's shoulder.
Noah (extends his arms in greeting): My son, thou art late. But the sunlight comes with thee. (Ham gives bird to Mrs. Noah, then embraces Noah.)
Ham (rests his head for a moment on Noah's shoulder): We arose early and went out on the plain to make ready for the burnt offering before Jehovah.
Mrs. Shem (tersely): But you bring nothing.
Ham: See thou! We bring flowers and music to offer up. I shall dance before Jehovah and sing joyfully upon the harp that I made of the thews of rams. (He proudly displays the instrument and strums once or twice.)
Mrs. Shem (clapping her hands to her ears): Oh, Peace! Have we not enough of thy bawling and prancing all during the year? Shem and Japheth work always in the fields and vineyards, while you do naught but tend the flock and sing!
Mrs. Japheth (looks contemptously at both Ham and Noah): Still, thou art beloved of thy father. He gives thee all his vineyards for thy singing, but Japheth must work hard for his fields.
Mrs. Shem: And Shem
Noah (angrily): Peace! Peace! Are lust and strife again loose upon the Earth? Jehovah might have destroyed us all. Am I not Lord of the world? May I not bestow where I will? Besides, the world is great. Did I not give food, and plenty to the thousands upon thousands that the waters licked up? Surely there is abundance for us and our seed forever. Peace! Let us to the sacrifice.
(Noah goes to the heaped up altar. Ham exits to the tent hurriedly and returns with a torch and hands it to Noah who applies it to the altar. He kneels at the altar and the others kneel in a semi-circle behind him at a little distance.
Noah makes certain ritualistic gestures and chants): "O Mighty Jehovah, who created the Heaven and the firmaments thereof, the Sun and Moon, the stars, the Earth and all else besides—--
Others: I am here
I am here, O, Jehovah
I am here
This is thy Kingdom, and I am here.
(A deep silence falls for a moment.)
Noah: Jehovah, who saw evil in the hearts of men, who opened upon them the windows of Heaven and loosed the rain upon them---And the fountains of the great deep were broken up.
Others (repeat chant)
Noah: Jehovah who dried up the floods and drove the waters of the sea again to the deeps-who met Noah in the Vale of Ararat and made covenant with Noah, His servant, that no more would he smite the Earth---And Seed time and Harvest, Cold and Heat, Summer and Winter, day and night shall not cease forever, and set His rainbow as a sign.
Noah and Others: We are here O Jehovah
We are here
We are here
This is Thy Kingdom
And we are here.
(Noah arises, makes obeisance to the smoking altar, then turns and blesses the others.)
Noah: Noah alone, whom the Lord found worthy; Noah whom He made lord of the Earth, blesses you and your seed forever. (At a gesture from him all arise. take the meat from the altar and the tent.) Eat, drink and make The women carry it into joyful noise before him. For He destroyed the Earth, but spared us. (Women re-enter with bits of roast meat-all take some and eat. All are seated on the skins.)
Mrs. Noah (feelingly): Yes, three years ago, all was water, water, WATER! The deeps howled as one beast to another. (She shudders.) In my sleep, even now, I am in that Ark again being borne here, there on the great bosom.
Mrs. Ham (wide-eyed): And the dead! Floating, floating all about us—-We were one little speck of life in a world of death! (The bone slips from her hand.) And there, close beside the Ark, close with her face upturned as if begging for shelter---my mother! (She weeps, Ham comforts her.)
Mrs. Shem (eating vigorously): She would not repent. Thou art as thy mother was a seeker after beauty of raiment and laughter. God is just. She would not repent.
Mrs. Ham: But the unrepentant are no less loved. And why must Jehovah hate beauty?
Noah: Speak no more of the waters. Oh, the strength of the waters! The voices and the death of it! Let us have the juice of the grape to make us forget. Where once was death in this Valley there is now life abundant of beast and herbs. (He waves towards the scenery.) Jehovah meets us here. Dance! Be glad! Bring wine! Ham smite thy harp of ram's thews and sing!
(Mrs. Noah gathers all the children and exits to the tent. Shem, Japheth, their wives and children eat vigorously. Mrs. Ham exits, left. Ham plays on his harp and capers about singing. Mrs. Ham re- enters with goatskin of wine and a bone cup. She crosses to where Noah reclines on a large skin. She kneels and offers it to him. He takes the cup-she pours for him. Ham sings---)
Ham: "I am as a young ram in the Spring
Or a young male goat.
The hills are beneath my feet
And the young grass.
Love rises in me like the flood
And ewes gather round me for food."
His wife joins in the dancing. Noah cries "Pour" and Mrs. Ham hurries to fill his cup again. Ham joins others on the skins. The others have horns suspended from their girdles. Mrs. Ham fills them all. Noah cries "pour" again and she returns to him. She turns to fill the others' cups.
Noah (rising drunkenly): Pour again, Eve, and Ham sing on and dance and drink-drown out the waters of the flood if you can. (His tongue grows thick. Eve fills his cup again. He reels drunkenly toward the tent door, slopping the liquor out of the cup as he walks.) Drink wine, forget water—it means death, death! And bodies floating, face up! (He stares horrified about himself and creeps stealthily into the tent, but sprawls just inside the door so that his feet are visible. There is silence for a moment, the others are still eating. They snatch tid-bits from each other.)
Japheth (shoves his wife): Fruit and herbs, woman!
(He thrusts her impatiently forward with his foot.) She exits left.
Shem (to his wife): More wine!
Mrs. Shem (irritated): See you not that there is plenty still in the bottle? (He seizes it and pours. Ham snatches it away and pours. Shem tries to get it back but Ham prevents him. Reenter Mrs. Japheth with figs and apples. Everybody grabs. Ham and Shem grab for the same one, Ham gets it).
Mrs. Shem (significantly): Thus he seizes all else that he desires. Noah would make him lord of the Earth because he sings and capers. (Ham is laughing drunkenly and pelting Mrs. Shem with fruit skins and withered flowers that litter the ground. This infuriates her.)
Noah (calls from inside the tent): Eve, wine, quickly! I'm sinking down in the WATER! Come drown the WATER with wine.
(Eve exits to him with the bottle. Ham arises drunkenly and starts toward the tent door.)
Ham (thickly): I go to pull our father out of the water, or to drown with him in it. (Ham is trying to sing and dance.) "I am as a young goat in the sp- sp- sp-. (He exits to the tent laughing. Shem and Japheth sprawl out in the skins. The wives are showing signs of surfeit. Ham is heard laughing raucously inside the tent. He re-enters still laughing.)
Ham (in the tent door): Our Father has stripped himself, showing all his wrinkles. Ha! Ha! He's as no young goat in the spring. Ha! Ha! (Still laughing, he reels over to the altar and sinks down behind it still laughing.) The old Ram, Ha! Ha! Ha! He has had no spring for years! Ha! Ha! (He subsides into slumber. Mrs. Shem looks about her exultantly.)
Mrs. Shem: Ha! The young goat has fallen into a pit! (She shakes her husband.) Shem! Shem! Rise up and become owner of Noah's vineyards as well as his flocks! (Shem kicks weakly at her.) Shem! Fool! Arise! Thou art thy father's first born. (She pulls him protesting to his feet.) Do stand up and regain thy birthright from (she points to the altar) that dancer who plays on his harp of ram thews, and decks his brow with bay leaves. Come!
Shem (brightens): How?
His wife: Did he not go into the tent and come away laughing at thy father's nakedness? Oh (she beats her breast) that I should live to see a father so mocked and shamed by his son to whom he has given all his vineyards! (She seizes a large skin from the ground.) Take this and cover him and tell him of the wickedness of thy brother.
Mrs. Japheth (arising takes hold of the skin also): No, my husband shall also help to cover Noah, our father. Did I not also hear? Think your Shem and his seed shall possess both flocks and vineyard while Japheth and his seed have only the fields?
(She arouses Japheth, he stands.) Shem: He shall shareMrs. Shem (impatiently): Then go in (the women release the skin to the men) quickly, lest he wake sober, then will he not believe one word against Ham who needs only to smile to please him.
(The men lay the skin across their shoulders and back over to the tent and cover Noah. They motion to leave him.)
Mrs. Shem: Go back, fools, and wake him. You have done but half.
(They turn and enter the tent and both shake Noah. He sits up and rubs his eyes. Mrs. Shem and Mrs. Japheth commence to weep ostentatiously).
Noah (peevishly): Why do you disturb me, and why do the women weep? I thought all sorrow and all cause for weep.ng was washed away by the flood. (He is about to lie down again but the men hold him up.)
Shem: Hear, father, thy age has been scoffed, and thy nakedness made a thing of shame here in the midst of the feasting where all might know- thou the Lord of all under Heaven, hast been mocked.
Mrs. Shem: And we weep in shame, that thou our father should have thy nakedness uncovered before us.
Noah (struggling drunkenly to his feet): Who, who has done this thing?
Mrs. Shem (timidly crosses and kneels before Noah): We fear to tell thee, lord, lest thy love for the doer of this iniquity should be so much greater than the shame, that thou should slay us for telling thee.
Noah (swaying drunkenly): Say it, woman, shall the lord of the Earth be mocked? Shall his nakedness be uncovered and he be shamed before his family?
Shem: Shall the one who has done this thing hold part of thy goods after thee? How wilt thou deal with them? Thou hast been wickedly shamed.
Noah: No, he shall have no part in my goods-his goods shall be parcelled out among the others. Mrs. Shem: Thou art wise, father, thou art just!
Noah: He shall be accursed. His skin shall be black! Black as the nights, when the waters brooded over the Earth!
(Enter Mrs. Noah from tent, pauses by Noah.)
Mrs. Noah (catches him by the arm): Cease! Whom dost thou curse?
Noah (shaking his arm free. The others also look awed and terrified and also move to stop him.
All rush to him. Mrs. Noah attempts to stop his mouth with her hand. He shakes his head to free his lips and goes in a drunken fury): Black! He and his seed forever. He shall serve his brothers and they shall rule over him— Ah-Ah- (He sinks again to the ground.
There is a loud burst of drunken laughter from behind the altar.)
Ham: Ha! Ha! I am as a young ram-Ha! Ha! Mrs. Noah (to Mrs. Shem): Whom cursed Noah?
Mrs. Shem: Ham-Ham mocked his age. Ham uncovered his nakedness, and Noah grew wrath- ful and cursed him. Black! He could not mean black. It is enough that he should lose his vineyards. (There is absolute silence for a while. Then realization comes to all. Mrs. Noah rushes in the tent to her husband, shaking him violently.)
Mrs. Noah (voice from out of the tent): Noah! Arise! Thou art no lord of the Earth, but a drunkard. Thou hast cursed my son. Oh water, Shem! Japheth! Cold water to drive out the wine. Noah! (She sobs.) Thou must awake and unsay thy curse. Thou must! (She is sobbing and rousing him. Shem and Japheth seize a skin bottle from the ground by the skin door and dash off right. Mrs. Noah wails and the other women join in. They beat their breasts.
Enter Eve through the tent. She looks puzzled.) Mrs. Ham: Why do you wail? Are all not happy today?
Mrs. Noah (pityingly): Come, Eve. Thou art but a child, a heavy load awaits thee. (Eve turns and squats beside her mother-in- law.)
Eve (carressing Mrs. Noah): Perhaps the wine is too new. Why do you shake our father?
Mrs. Noah: Not the wine of grapes, but the wine of sorrow bestirs me thus. Turn thy comely face to the wall, Eve. Noah has cursed thy husband and his seed forever to be black, and to serve his brothers and they shall rule over him.
(Re-enter the men with the water bottle running.)
Mrs. Noah seizes it and pours it in his face. He stirs.) See, I must awaken him that he may un- speak the curse before it be too late.
Eve: But Noah is drunk-surely Jehovah hears not a drunken curse. Noah would not curse Ham if he knew. Jehovah knows Noah loves Ham more than all. (She rushes upon Noah and shakes him violently.) Oh, awake thou (she shrieks) and uncurse thy curse. (All are trying to rouse Noah. He sits, opens his eyes wide and looks about him. Mrs. Noah carresses him.)
Mrs. Noah: Awake, my lord, and unsay thy curse.
Noah: I am awake, but I know of no curse. Whom did I curse? Mrs. Noah and Eve: Ham, lord of the Earth. (He rises quickly to his feet and looks bewildered about.)
Japheth (falls at his feet): Our father, and lord of all under Heaven, you cursed away his vineyards, but we do not desire them. You cursed him to be black-he and his seed forever, and that his seed shall be our servants forever, but we desire not their service. Unsay it all.
Noah (rushes down stage to the footlights, center. He beats his breast and bows his head to the ground.) Oh, that I had come alive out of my mother's loins! Why did not the waters of the flood bear me back to the deeps! Oh Ham, my son!
Eve (rushing down to him): Unspeak the Curse! Unspeak the Curse!
Noah (in prayerful attitude): Jehovah, by our covenant in this Valley, record not my curses on my beloved Ham. Show me once again the sign of covenant-the rainbow over the Vale of Ararat.
Shem (strikes his wife): It was thou, covetous woman, that has brought this upon us.
Mrs. Shem (weeping): Yes, I wanted the vineyards for thee, Shem, because at night as thou slept on my breast I heard thee sob for them. I heard thee murmur "Vineyards" in thy dreams.
Noah: Shem's wife is but a woman.
Mrs. Noah: How rash thou art, to curse unknowing in thy cups the son of thy loins.
Noah: Did not Jehovah repent after he had destroyed the world? Did He not make all flesh? Their evils as well as their good? Why did He not with His flood of waters wash out the evil from men's hearts, and spare the creatures He had made, or else destroy us all, all? For in sparing one, He has preserved all the wickedness that He creates abundantly, but punishes terribly. No, He destroyed them because vile as they were it was His handiwork, and it shamed and reproached Him night and day. He could not bear to look upon the thing He had done, so He destroyed them.
Mrs. Noah: Thou canst not question.
Noah (weeping): Where is my son?
Shem (pointing): Asleep behind the altar.
Noah: If Jehovah keeps not the covenant this time, if He spare not my weakness, then I pray that Ham's heart remains asleep forever.
Mrs. Shem (beseeching): O Lord of the Earth, let his punishment be mine. We coveted his vineyards, but the curse is too awful for him. He is drunk like you-save him, Father Noah.
Noah (exultantly): Ah, the rainbow! The promise! Jehovah will meet me! He will set His sign in the Heavens! Shem hold thou my right hand and Japheth bear up my left arm.
(Noah approaches the altar and kneels. The two men raise his hands aloft.) Our Jehovah who carried us into the ark—
Sons: Victory, O Jehovah! The Sign.
Others (beating their breasts): This is Thy Kingdom and we are here.
Noah: Who saved us from the Man of the Waters.
Sons: Victory, O Jehovah! The Sign.
Others: We belong to Thee, Jehovah, we belong to Thee.
(There is a sudden, loud raucous laugh from behind the altar. Ham sings brokenly, "I am a young ram in the Spring.")
Noah (hopefully): Look! Look! To the mountain--- do ye see colors appear?
Mrs. Noah: None but what our hearts paint for us-ah, false hope.
Noah: Does the sign appear, I seem to see a faint color just above the mountain. (Another laugh from Ham.)
Eve: None, none yet. (Beats her breast violently, speaks rapidly.) Jehovah, we belong to Thee, we belong to Thee.
Mrs. Noah and Eve: Great Jehovah! Hear us. We are here in Thy Valley. We who belong to Thee! (Ham slowly rises. He stands and walks around the altar to join the others, and they see that he is black. They shrink back terrified. He is laughing happily. Eve approaches him timidly as he advances around the end of the altar. She touches his hand, then his face. She begins kissing him.)
Ham: Why do you all pray and weep?
Eve: Look at thy hands, thy feet. Thou art cursed black by thy Father. (She exits weeping left.)
Ham (gazing horrified at his hands): Black! (He appears stupified. All shrink away from him as if they feared his touch. He approaches each in turn. He is amazed. He lays his hand upon Shem.
Shem (shrinking): Away! Touch me not!
Ham (approaches his mother. She does not repel him, but averts her face.) Why does my mother turn away?
Mrs. Noah: So that my baby may not see the flood that hath broken the windows of my soul and loosed the fountains of my heart.
(There is a great clamor off stage and Eve reenters left with her boy in her arms weeping and all the other children in pursuit jeering and pelting him with things. The child is also black. Ham looks at his child and falls at Noah's feet.
Ham (beseeching in agony): Why Noah, my father and lord of the Earth, why?
Noah (sternly): Arise, Ham. Thou art black. Arise and go out from among us that we may see thy face no more, lest by lingering the curse of thy blackness come upon all my seed forever.
Ham (grasps his father's knees. Noah repels him sternly, pointing away right. Eve steps up to Ham and raises him with her hand. She displays both anger and scorn.)
Eve: Ham, my husband, Noah is right. Let us go before you awake and learn to despise your father and your God. Come away Ham, beloved, come with me, where thou canst never see these faces again, where never thy soft eyes can harden by looking too oft upon the fruit of their error, where never thy happy voice can learn to weep.
Come with me to where the sun shines forever, to the end of the Earth, beloved the sunlight of all my years. (She kisses his mouth and forehead. She crosses to door of tent and picks up a water bottle. Ham looks dazedly about him.
His eyes light on the harp and he smilingly picks it up and takes his place beside Eve.
Ham (lightly cynical to all): Oh, remain with your flocks and fields and vineyards, to covet, to sweat, to die and know no peace. I go to the sun. (He exits right across the plain with his wife and child trudging beside him. After he is off- stage comes the strumming of the harp and Ham's voice happily singing: "I am as a young ram in the Spring." It grows fainter and fainter until it is heard no more. The sun is low in the west. Noah sits looking tragically stern. All are ghastly calm. Mrs. Noah kneels upon the altar facing the mountain and she sobs continually.
CURTAIN
We belong to Thee, O Jehovah
We belong to Thee.
She keeps repeating this to a slow curtain).
First published in Ebony and Topaz, 1927