Play on Words

full length · drama

The Daughter of Heaven

by Pierre Loti · translated by Ruth Helen Davis

32 roles (0M / 0F / 32 any) · approx 169–233 minutes · 1 acts

Royalty-free Public domain — free to read, perform, and adapt. No licence needed.

Characters

Empress lead 131 speeches
Emperor lead 95 speeches
Faithful Prince supporting 69 speeches
Fount supporting 48 speeches
Arrow-Bearer minor 21 speeches
Tartar General minor 20 speeches
Golden Lotus minor 16 speeches
Winged Prince minor 15 speeches
Tranquil Beauty minor 14 speeches
Pearl minor 12 speeches
Child minor 8 speeches
Fir-Sapling minor 7 speeches
All minor 7 speeches
Humpback minor 6 speeches
Cinnamon minor 6 speeches
Astrologer minor 6 speeches
The Child minor 6 speeches
Veiled-Light minor 5 speeches
Rock minor 4 speeches
Strong-Arm minor 4 speeches
Second Spy minor 4 speeches
The Grand Mistress minor 3 speeches
Poplar minor 3 speeches
Officer minor 3 speeches
First Spy minor 3 speeches
Wan-Tsi minor 3 speeches
Watchman minor 3 speeches
Second Woman minor 3 speeches
The Crowd minor 3 speeches
Third Officer minor 3 speeches
Fourth Officer minor 3 speeches
Second Tableau minor 2 speeches

Read the play

_The_ EMPRESS, _the_ FAITHFUL PRINCE, _and several_ LADIES-IN-WAITING.

[THE EMPRESS _watches him disappear, and then mounts the steps of the terrace to get a last glimpse of him, and when he is out of sight she cries aloud in her anguish, wringing her hands._]

Faithful Prince. Noble Sovereign, have courage.

Empress. Ah, no, leave me. I am at the end of my strength!-----I played the Empress, did I not, as long as my child was here?----Now that he is gone, let me be a woman, let me be his mother!----I shall never again see him whom you have just taken away from me. Never, do you hear? I feel it, I know it! Since we are above ordinary beings, may Heaven be just to us and give us superhuman strength! Why have we hearts like other people, and anguish which breaks them?----Ah, the very beggar-women in rags in the street are less miserable! No handsome spy comes to them, to make their souls falter, and then flees-and after that their children are not taken away from them!----Your Empress would rather be a beggar, hungry and cold, but clasping her little one to her breast-----Yes, a beggar I tell you, who holds out her hand to passers-by as she sits on the steps of a temple!----[_Sobbing, she throws herself on the terrace steps._]

CURTAIN

ACT THREE.

[_Before the curtain rises, shots are heard. It is nightfall in the Imperial Citadel at Nanking, half battered-down by the_ TARTARS. _Behind a huge wall with battlements are heard the sound of trumpets and the shouts of soldiers in the distance. At the back, to the left is a bronze gate, heavily boarded and surmounted by a black turret with a three-tiered angular roof. In the middle of the stage is a funeral pile of scaffolding and fagots. At the back, to the right, the crenellated wall continues; terraces are visible and in the far distance the outline of the palace stands out in relief against the sky, yellow in the setting sun. On the top of the wall, and over the gateway are Chinese soldiers, who are firing their last shots at the invisible besiegers._]

Monologues from this play