[…] CONT.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
What sort of love is that? It should see me drowning and not wrench me from the water, why operate through the power of the false-virtue of waiting?

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Lo! A just love that would have you swim.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
I am to swim.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Gah, swim?! Swim! I am in the depths! My feet feel naught but emptiness, now, and I paddle like a dog! I have breathed in the water, filled my lungs with it, and felt the burn as it overcomes my presence, so tell me here: what good is a hand that WAITS extended on the shore? My legs tire, and they numb with acid, and you would have me swim to the hand that is all-powerful!

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Consummation is not me; but even I know as such… If it drags you out, you shall hate it. If it lets you sink, you shall curse it. Logically there must be a third fork since it is love. Thus, it waits at the shore, and you shall reach for it.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I am tired.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Then rest, my dearest Saul.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Oh, you speak as though I could… Oh, as though my bones were not hollow, nor heavy, at once… Oh, I only wish for such a thing to be so, as though my thoughts were not a branding iron yoke around my neck!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
The burden of love is a weight. Just as Adam’s. Yet your weight is heavier still; I know you grasp your sorrows by the bosom as though they are the Light itself.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
What else do I have, Gabriel?

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Desire.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Desire is a wound most certain!

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Yes. Indeed. And too the wound that moves your legs away from the jaws of the lion; the thing that saves you from drowning. “Desire to love, to live,” she taught me. The lines blur quickly.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
“She”?

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Even in your hatred, your rejection, and God above, your absolute rage, you are bound to love. You only war against such with a battalion of blinded men because you have known it, and it has marked you so. You wrestle with God because he has touched you, and you wrestle stronger with me because still, I touch you.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I did not ask for this touch.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Mine, or God’s?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
God’s.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
The distinction comes where, if I am but his Saint? You curl into me.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
You are more than your god.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Nor is love something you ask for. It finds you as is.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
And if I were to reject it, is my rejection not capable enough? Is the love so overpowering, disguised as hate, that it shall not have my noncompliance?

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
It shall ache for you.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
(aside)
I do.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
And you shall ache for it.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Then what am I to do?

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
You already know.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Desire.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I do not know.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Desire. (beat) You will still be loved.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
If what?

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
If you do not know, you will still be loved. And you will still long. And between you both, I will forever remain.

(“Álvo, I seem to have lost my sock, can you–ah–“) The air is thick with simmering onions, slightly-burnt cumin, and a notable potency of olive oil. The fan whirs ever-too-loudly. Ceramic plates clink. (“Hahaha, stop!”) A whinny sounds in the background over the colored hills of Lisbon. Unbridled is the sunset.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Do be quiet Young Eros! Let Dionysus interject.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
You already have–

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Of course!

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
This is not your dominion.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Hush, now. Truly, Saul, what a tiresome game this is! Why not let the leash slip from your neck? No need to resist any longer, right? Ah, do you know what they call me? Prithee, entertain me. I will answer myself. The Liberator! Eleutherios! You know how they pray to me? They follow this Orphic hymn, and they say: “Primeval God! Twice-born, thrice begotten, O Bacchic king! Give me in blameless plenty to rejoice!” This I love–“blameless plenty to rejoice”–yes, yes… I am Father of Desire. Eros, mere extension of my Greater will. Eros is limited. He says he is not, he says he is Desire purest. But what Desire is purer than gratification? Love–’tis no wound. I know you object to this, and I concur! It is most immoral. Love, truly, is more so the spill of wine from red-stained lips. Mm, the faster you drink, one would think, the freer you are. My Bacchanalias, kindly, look no farther than there! All engaged in illustrious lustful acts, O taint’d in such golden vulgarities: what greater love and desire shall there be?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
What fucking ‘sexual desire’ would befit between me and God, LORD Almighty?

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
What worth does that God have to you? You deny him in constant… Why not, instead, embrace Desire?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
You mistake me for your revelers, Dionysus. I am still a Jew. I do not desire for the alcoholic forgetfulness you bestow upon your deranged followers, nor the gratified stupor of your rites. I would rather know my suffering than to drink it and succumb to madness ignorant.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
But your suffering is madness, harrumph! What is this agony of yours if not wildest delirium? You are in the body of Bacchus, I feel it. You make a theater of your despair as you barbarically gesture towards skies upwards with curses unheard of, yet accuse me of being the drunkard? One would think, betwixt you and I, such a title is far more suitable for you! The saints all swoon in the face of the blade; and you, Saul, are already drunk! You only wish for a sweeter wine to your strangely-bitter mead.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Drinking is forgetfulness.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Yes, and you are a sober, and you do not wish to forget, and thus you do not wish to drink, and so you do not wish to be of Bacchus, therefore you wish to be of Eros.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I do not wish to be consumed.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Nay, you simply do not wish to be seen inferior!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
I object.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I do not wish to be comforted.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Comfort! Who spoke of comfort? You feel my wine numbs? When you see these ‘drunkards’ yielding to my divinity and tearing the statues of Apollo to dust, you think them numbed? Nay! They burn most passionately! My wine unbinds! Your sorrow is idolatry, to you, and I say, break the idol, and scatter the ashes! Love is an abandon. My honeyed wine shows it to be so, for the “prophetic” blinds of this earth.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
How utterly foolish, how simple you make it seem. Perhaps to you, such is no concern, for you are no man. Nothing in you is humanity. You ask me to dance without chains, how can I, when the mortal weight of God rests upon me? You would not know, for your pantheon is far divorced from the Truest of God. Even a disbeliever, I acknowledge: God is here.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
You are only bound, Saul, for you have been loved–

SAUL THE PHARISEE
–uh-huh–

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
–and to this love you feel obligation.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
And what a terrible thing that is! If he had not loved me, if he had loved me, he would have left me unmade! Unmade, unmade, unmade! Cruelty!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
I love you!

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Love is not something you may reject.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Love is not free, but sex is!

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Love lingers in hatred.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
You may deny sex!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I am a celibate!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Hah, JEWS! How you ache for him still!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
What?

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
GABRIEL! GOD! All the same!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Then let him answer me!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
I do!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Let him descend from his high throne, and explain!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
He is within me, I am immanent!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Oh, if he dares!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
He already has!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
When! You are not God. Perhaps a Spirit in you, yet God is cruel. You are kind.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
In every moment you hath loved, in every face turned towards your brow, in every hand that hath reached for your own… In the child clinging to your robes, that time, in Jerusalem–even in fleeting embraces now lost. You will not hear yet, nigh, to you, there must be an answer in thunder and flame! But I await you here.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I want him to see me. I want him to answer me.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
He does. And he waits.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
I wait!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
You say this, but still you refuse to drink. Pharisee: if you are so determinéd to bear this weight, what will become of you then? Will you clench your fist against the sky ’til you are but bones, and assimilated into the Palestinian grounds once more? Until your Speakers have forgotten their unwritten Torah? What then, will you be free?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
No.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Then why–why resist at all?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Because if I succumb, or if I drink, or if I lay, or if I, if I, if I–truly, if I surrender, you will ask me to forgive him.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Most certainly. (beat) Yes.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
And I do not know if I can.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
But you long to.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Nor do I know if I wish to.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
You must, if you are considering your ability to do so.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Ah, non-committal!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
And so the wound remains.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Mm. As does love.

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
And between you both, in non-matrimony, and in an unholy ceremony, I will remain; faith and heresy, Gabriel and Saul.

(beat)

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Truly, I must interrupt–to go back–foolish Pharisee: forgiveness is not unto him, but for you.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Leave me be. Do not lie to me. You said he has loved me. If so, then let him kneel, let him come down and beg of me.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Then what? Then what, dear? I do this of you. You still hit me with the back of your hand. If he were to kneel, and if his thunders were to dissipate into whispers, and you saw his face, as the earth parts, between the dust, apocalyptic–what would you do?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I do not–I do not mean to hit you. I do not know. I know not what I would do. Gabriel, I do not turn from you…

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
But you do. And I receive you still each time.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Ah, there! The hesitation, O the crack! You know not what you want, Jew! That is your very suffering, not the weight of God, nor the burden of fury, or faith, but your own unknowing! Despite your retributions you are more similar to a follower of Bacchus than what pleases you. O you are maddened with hatred for God, yet, what if he held you? Embraced you, and kissed your brow, just as Gabriel does?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I would hate him still.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
If he answered?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Still.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Yet you love Gabriel.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
‘Tis different.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
What passion you have! You have made an idol of your suffering, my friend. You worry of Gabriel’s love, yet yours seems more dogmatic than his.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
And you think I should crush this idol?

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Not at all! I do not despise suffering, truly, I revel in it! I drink kit! I was torn apart, my limbs scattered and heart savored with plush bread, utterly devoured; do you think I wept for pity? Yearned for pity? Nay! That is Eros’ job, the little one. I danced! I was remade!

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
But you are not whole.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
None of us are. Not even your god.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Blasphemy.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
You ARE blasphemy. And no. Truth. Even the LORD bears wounds. The stigmata glisten in his revived celestial body, still, for what is he, if not his scars?

(beat)

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Do you see now?

SAUL THE PHARISEE
I see nothing.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
You see, and it invades you, but you do not wish to.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Then what would you have me do?

EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Nothing.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Only I will wait.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
I shall drink.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Leave me be.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
I will not.

SAUL THE PHARISEE
Gabriel, dearest, O my love, leave me be.

ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
I cannot.