Play on Words

full length · drama

Mary Stuart: A Tragedy

by Friedrich Schiller · translated by Joseph Charles Mellish

18 roles (0M / 0F / 18 any) · approx 198–273 minutes · 5 acts

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

Characters

Mary lead 166 speeches
Mortimer supporting 136 speeches
Elizabeth supporting 133 speeches
Burleigh supporting 109 speeches
Leicester supporting 103 speeches
Paulet supporting 79 speeches
Kennedy supporting 57 speeches
Melvil minor 42 speeches
Davison minor 33 speeches
Shrewsbury minor 24 speeches
Aubespine minor 16 speeches
Kent minor 11 speeches
O'Kelly minor 10 speeches
Talbot minor 9 speeches
Curl minor 9 speeches
Bellievre minor 5 speeches
Page minor 5 speeches
Officer minor 3 speeches

Read the play

Enter MARGARET CURL, bearing a golden cup of wine; she places it hastily upon the table, and leans, pale and trembling, against a chair.

Melvil. How, madam! What has frightened you?

Kennedy. Oh God!

BURGOYN. Speak, madam!

Curl. What, alas! have I beheld!

Melvil. Come to yourself, and say what you have seen!

Curl. As I went down the staircase which conducts To the great hall below, a door stood open; I looked into the chamber, and I saw-- Oh heaven!

Melvil. What saw you?

Curl. All the walls were hung With black; a spacious scaffold, too, o'erspread With sable cloth, was raised above the floor, And in the middle of the scaffold stood A dreadful sable block! upon it lay A naked, polished axe:--the hall was full Of cruel people, crowding round the scaffold Who, with a horrid thirst for human blood, Seemed waiting for the victim!

THE WOMEN. Gracious heaven, Protect our queen!

Melvil. Be calm; the queen approaches.

Monologues from this play