Monologue

Megaera Monologue from Androcles and the Lion

From Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw

female · defiant · 1:56 min

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(who has revived during the waltz) Oh, you coward, you haven’t danced with me for years; and now you go off dancing with a great brute beast that you haven’t known for ten minutes and that wants to eat your own wife. Coward! Coward! Coward! (She rushes off after them into the jungle). ACT I Evening. The end of three converging roads to Rome. Three triumphal arches span them where they debouch on a square at the gate of the city. Looking north through the arches one can see the campagna threaded by the three long dusty tracks. On the east and west sides of the square are long stone benches. An old beggar sits on the east side of the square, his bowl at his feet. Through the eastern arch a squad of Roman soldiers tramps along escorting a batch of Christian prisoners of both sexes and all ages, among them one Lavinia, a goodlooking resolute young woman, apparently of higher social standing than her fellow-prisoners. A centurion, carrying his vinewood cudgel, trudges alongside the squad, on its right, in command of it. All are tired and dusty; but the soldiers are dogged and indifferent, the Christians light-hearted and determined to treat their hardships as a joke and encourage one another. A bugle is heard far behind on the road, where the rest of the cohort is following.

About this piece

Megaera confronts a cowardly figure for abandoning her in favor of a dangerous beast, highlighting themes of betrayal and courage amidst a backdrop of Roman oppression.

20s · anger · betrayal · courage · identity · power

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