Work Text:
Act 1 Scene 2
The Gates of Castle Dracula
Enter COACHMAN and HARKER
HARKER
What grim place is this that stands before us?
A bastion of dark and dreadful kind.
COACHMAN
Here stands the keep of Castle Dracula!
That mighty fortress of my ancient lord.
Where twice a gross of noble generations
Have bled and died to fight the fearful Turk.
As Dracula has oft the battle led
And put to flight a foe with dreadful cruelty
With grisly wooden poles most fundamental
His sharpest points with bluntest staves to make.
HARKER
What say you man? You make no sense!
What war against the Turk has he pursued?
COACHMAN
Mind not the ramblings of this old servant.
I speak of all the family as one.
For as for years uncounted they have ruled here,
So have my kin always been here to serve
And shovel up the viscera and pizzle
That pools beneath their glorious scarecrows.
The Coachman strikes the door with his fist.
COACHMAN
Oh the ladies who my Lord has welcomed.
The beauties of a hundred lands and more
Have joined their blood with that of Dracula
An empire greater its day than Rome
Athens, Macedon or Byzantium.
Alas that now it comes to this sad pass.
HARKER
The Borgo Pass I find grim, but not sad.
COACHMAN
This sad pass where my Lord Dracula
Must leave the high and noble lair of ages
To cross the water to a dank foul isle
To dwell among merest barbarians.
HARKER
Now look my man I'll have no more insolence!
Enter Dracula
DRACULA
Go slave and trouble my guest no longer!
And you, my excellent and English friend
Enter freely and of your own good will
Go safely and leave behind you something
Of the happiness you bring into my house.