A True and Faithful Relation

An excerpt from my play about John Dee and his conversations with spirits he thought to be angels.

John Dee performing an experiment before the Queen'.

FIRST: Join me, Spencer Klavan, and Paul Vander Klay, and others in Washington, DC for Christ and Community, and Renewing Culture this July.

About fifteen years ago or so I decided I wanted to write a play in blank verse, the meter in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries composed their own. I did it, first of all, as a way to get inside of the mind of an Elizabethan playwright. As a scholar of early modern English literature, it seemed like a worthwhile research project. Secondly, I just wanted to see if I could do it. It might be fun.

I chose as my subject John Dee, the Elizabethan polymath, magician, and sometime counselor to Elizabeth I. In particular, I was interested in exploring the personal, psychological, spiritual, and religious implications in Dee’s so-called “Actions” with spirits. The spirits promised Dee they would help him to restore the language of Adam, by which Dee hoped to restore unity to a fragmented and warring Christendom. Needless to say, it didn’t work out. But on the way to this project not working out, Dee compromised much, his marriage bed no less than his reputation.

The play is entitled A True and Faithful Relation, a title taken Meric Casaubon’s published account (1659) of the transactions between Dee and the spirits. Casaubon meant this revelation to be a cautionary tale, though I doubt reader reception has been anything at all like what he had in mind.

Though I do have hardcopy of the play (not that I know where it is!), I didn’t think I had a digital copy on my laptop (I wrote the play several computer crashes ago), but, lo and behold, I actually do have a copy on my laptop. I’ve been thinking of the play recently, inspired by the conversation we had on The Regeneration Podcast with my friend, the screenwriter, director, and producer Adam Simon. When Adam and I met, we discovered a wealth of common interests—Detroit proto-punk pioneers the MC5, the work and influence of Christopher Bamford, and the story of Dee among many others.

After I finished the play, a section of it was performed at Marygrove College in readers theater with me in the role of Dee and three of my students in accompanying roles. I thought about turning into a screenplay—the story would make a great movie—but I doubt Netflix or the guys and dolls at the big studios would be interested in a screenplay written in blank verse. But it could be a cool thing. Who knows? Elizabethan blank verse would probably be refreshing after being inundated with umpteen ruined comic books. But I digress.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to share the first couple of scenes here. I haven’t read the whole thing in a while, but I read these scenes the other day and found myself laughing at my own jokes. (Mea culpa. “Two Our Fathers and three Hail Marys”). And, now, as they say, without further ado, I give you

A TRUE AND FAITHFUL RELATION

Act I

Scene: The stage is dark. Blue lights rise. As they rise voices accompany them accompanied by music or some effect. Voices of men, of women, of children, of angels. With the multiplication of voices and ideas comes the increasing incidence of light flashes (some effect). The voices echo phrases and speeches from the play. At front center stage is a man sleeping at a writing table. Lights rise, voices subside, effects slowly vanish. The man is in a most untidy room. Piles of books and manuscripts are scattered throughout, some in piles on the floor, some leaning to and fro along shelves. Various alchemical apparatus, dusty and in a state of disuse, clutter shelves. Celestial and terrestrial globes flank the back corners of the set. At one side, unmade and disheveled, is a bed.

Prologue

Voices:	 [all at random seeming] Ouk estin emin e pali pros aima kai sarka…The Lord is gone out against them! …Father!... Give me leave to play in thy house…The curtain is opened…alla pros archas pros tas exousias …Husband!...Father…ALAR LUSDA SOBOLN OD CHISHOLQ CIAL UNAL…Father …ALDON MOM CAOSGO GNAY…Father… quod defertur, non aufertur…We now present in diagrammatic form the proportions already observed… pros tous kosmokratoras tou skotous…Who are you?...tis ponerias en tois epouranios…Not by our own presumption, Dear Lord, but with fear and love…Consumatum est!

Dee: (in his sleep) Jane…Jane…

Enter Madimia.

Madi: [gently rousing her father] 
What, Father, have you slept here all the night?
And here’s your supper still untouched. For shame.
The day is come again! [opens the curtains] See how the sun
Awakens the world with its blessed light.
Are you not well?

Dee:			     My dear, at eighty-one
	To be awake is to be well. [pause] I’m well.

Madi:	I’ve had Alice set out some sausages
	And porridge, Father, for you to breakfast.
	I will go into the city to seek 
Mr. Peters and see about some books.

Dee:	New books! How wonderful, Madimia!

Madi:	Father, I love when you go all schoolboy.
	I go not to buy books: I go to sell.

Dee:	Sell? I did not realize you have books
	So abundant as to sell.

Madi:				  I do not.
	I purpose but to sell some of your own.

Dee:	My books! Out scandal! Out book thief! Out…thing!

Madi:	Father, you know as well as I that we
	Already have decided the matter.
Either I auction some treasured volumes,
	Or you ‘custom your diet to bookworms,
	Leather bindings, velum, and printer’s ink.
	Father….

Dee:	Publish no more!  I haven’t the stomach!
	It’s hard to part from my books, my oldest
	And my truest friends: always resolute,
	Never given to equivocation.
	How I hate to see them depart from me.
	Indeed, ‘tis a very amputation.

Madi:	Don’t worry, Father.  I will sell as few
	As I may, tomes you have long forgotten,
	Enveloped as they are in dust.

Dee:			[half to himself]	  As I.
	But leave Dionysius.  I need him now.

Madi:	I would never dream of consigning him.

Dee:	And Cyprian, and Scotus, and…

Madi:					     Father…

Dee:	Oh, very well.  But be quick about it.

Madi:	I will.  Look for my return by supper.

Dee:	With relish.

Madi:		         Oh, Father!  I’ll return soon.
Exit Madimia.

Dee: 	[Everything is a lecture]
Farewell, gentle angel. Gentle angel…I wonder if she knows I took her name
	From an angel, a spiritual creature.  Kelley saw it—in this room!—dancing, 	playing ‘round my books.  Ah, well.  I heard the strokes myself, but only saw her 	through faith and imagination’s power.  Yet, she was there. Doubt me not: she was there.
Kelley was my scryer.  You do you not know what a scryer is? You are a dull 	generation! A scryer is one whom God hath given power to behold
the beings of the supramundane worlds—spirits benefic or malefic.  He sees 	them held in crystal, in mirror, or in the air itself.  Faeries to some. Angels. Demons. Apparitions.
	(Stage black)


1.1 The same room, thirty-five years earlier. It is clean, ordered, having the appearance of the grandeur of the humanist scholar’s study. The bed is conspicuous by its absence.

Enter Jane with two small children and a nurse.

Jane: 	Husband! Dearest! Where could he have gone?

Enter Dee from door opposite. He holds his hand to his forehead, as if in distress or disappointment.

Jane:	My dear, why do you look so weary?

Dee:					  	   I?
	No, I am not weary—I’m deep in thought!
	But, what cheer? How does my noble Arthur?
	Has my young lord killed many a dragon
	This glorious day?

Art:					Yes, father, seven!

Dee:	Angels protect us! So noble a sum?
	Was it with your lance, lad, or with your sword?

Art:	My lance. And I invoked the protection
	Of St. Michael as you bade me, father.

Dee:	That’s the lad! (Becoming distracted) Michael…angels…where was I?

Jane:	Poor man. What’s the matter? I think I know.
	Do not worry about the rectorship.
	Her Majesty did promise its return
	And with it the full eighty pound per year—
	Paid in angels.

Dee:			That is not funny, wife.

Jane:	Then what is it that vexes you, my lord?

Dee:	I have been cozened.

Jane:				No! By whom?

Dee:  						By Saul.

Jane: 	By your papist scryer! What did you expect?
	Lucky enough for you the Queen did not
	Find out you harbored a recusant priest
	Because you felt the rites and devilry
	He was learned in could help you contact
	God’s holy angels and satisfy your
	Unholy lust for knowledge. Barnabas
	Saul, indeed. You are the cozener, John.
	You cozened yourself. Saul was merely your
	Instrument.

Dee: 		       But he’s lost his golden sound.
	A cracked bell, a dead string, a broken reed. 

Jane:	‘Tis just as well. 

Dee:			  Aye…

Jane:				Aye! Oh, John, do
	Desist from such moping and sighing. You
	Sound so like a broken-hearted maiden.

Dee: 	[sighs] Do I?

Jane:		    God’s holy Mother! Yes, you do!
	John, why not call on Sir Philip Sidney,
	Ralegh, or any of the men at court
	Who’ve been so bold to call upon your mind,
	Your books, and your unbounded graciousness?
	God knows they’ve profited enough from your
	Grand ideas—should you not do the same?

Dee: 	Wife, my ideas are not chattels, whores 
	To be offered to the meanest scoundrel—
	Who, though his coin be struck of purest gold,
	His soul’s a purse of corruption and vice.
	My ideas—if they can be called mine,
	Bestowed, as they are, by the Grace of God—
	Can only be shared with my countrymen;
	And merely my service can I offer
	To my Most Gracious Sovereign, my Queen,
	And the Protectors of her blessed realm.

Child:	Burp! [Nurse stifles laughter-nasty look from Dee]

Jane: 	How you do proceed! You think I don’t know
	How the court’s lack of paying you your due
	Tortures you in your most virtuous soul?
	Don’t feign astonishment—you know it does! 
	And well it should. God knows you deserve more.

Dee:	My dear! The children, the servants, [checking out the window] … the spies.

Jane:	Spies, indeed! [Sends children out with nurse] If only, husband, you would
	Open your own spies and see what is here:
	A wife, children, a house—a home—a home,
	I tell you, abandoned by its master.
	Do not be angry. Of course you are
	Master of this house—your name inks the deed—
	But you live not here: you live in a kingdom
	Oppressed with grand impossibilities.
	Talking with angels! Angels? Do you think
	Barnabas Saul—or any other man, 
	Be he e’er so sanctified—can act your
	Instrument for reaching the messengers
	Of God? 

Dee:		  I do.

Jane: 			  Dear God…

Dee:				     My dearest wife,
	What a burden you must carry. To have
	A husband unlike those of other wives:
	Good men who work the fields or take to sea, 
	Who be soldiers, or burghers whose bellies
	Grow large in sympathy with those of their
	Good wives, rich with the blessings of children;
	Men who, after a long day’s toil, after
	A season on the main, after changing
	Woolens into gold crowns, return to home.
	I am not surprised at your displeasure.

Jane: 	John…

Dee:		No. Every man bears the consequence
	Of his birth, the curse of Adam; every
	Woman the ban of Eve. The farmer’s curse
	Is to labor long, only to have his work
	Brought to nothing by drought or too much rain;
	The sailor’s of storms and being swallowed by
	The sea. We are cursed with the things we love.
	And I am cursed with a desire to know…
	And blessed with a wife I do not merit.

Jane:	Come. I will ask Mary to prepare us
	Something special. Venison with apples?

Dee:  	Well, I suppose. Venison would do well.

Enter servant [Edmund]
	What is it, Edmund?

Ed:				A messenger here 
	At the door, master. Says he’s come from Stains.

Dee: 	My books! Bring him straight in to me, Edmund.   

Jane: 	Husband! More books? Where will you find the room?

Deliveryman enters bearing a trunk full of books.

Dee: 	[To deliveryman] Here! Here! Oh, dearest, not just any books.
	Edmund, make sure our friend is rewarded
	With a little something from our larder.
	[To Jane] O look here: Origen’s Contra celsum,
	The Heptalpus of the divine Picus
	Mirandolus, a man who sucked at 
	Philosophia’s very teat! And this…oh [hides it under his gown]

Jane:	And what do you have there, husband?

Dee:						Nothing.
	 
Jane:	[Taking it from him as from a naughty schoolboy]
	Nothing? [Reads] Ars notoria, quam Creator 
	altissimus Salomoni revelavit.
	The notorius art?

Dee:			     The art of signs.

Jane: 	[Doubtfully] Really?

Dee:			           Really…look at the description:
	“quam Creator altissimus Salomoni
	revelavit”-“which the Creator most
	High hath revealed to Solomon.” Is’t not good?

Jane:	[Disgusted] Notorius. Is’t any wonder all
	The village think you are a conjurer? 
	I will to Mary.  
Exit