The Project Gutenberg EBook of Androcles and the Lion, by George Bernard Shaw

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Title: Androcles and the Lion

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Posting Date: June 4, 2009 [EBook #4003]
Release Date: May, 2003
First Posted: October 5, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ANDROCLES AND THE LION

BERNARD SHAW

1912

PROLOGUE

Overture; forest sounds, roaring of lions, Christian hymn
faintly.

A jungle path. A lion's roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes
from the jungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the
jungle on three legs, holding up his right forepaw, in which a
huge thorn sticks. He sits down and contemplates it. He licks it.
He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scraping it along the
ground, and hurts himself worse. He roars piteously. He licks it
again. Tears drop from his eyes. He limps painfully off the path
and lies down under the trees, exhausted with pain. Heaving a
long sigh, like wind in a trombone, he goes to sleep.

Androcles and his wife Megaera come along the path. He is a
small, thin, ridiculous little man who might be any age from
thirty to fifty-five. He has sandy hair, watery compassionate
blue eyes, sensitive nostrils, and a very presentable forehead;
but his good points go no further; his arms and legs and back,
though wiry of their kind, look shrivelled and starved. He
carries a big bundle, is very poorly clad, and seems tired and
hungry.

His wife is a rather handsome pampered slattern, well fed and in
the prime of life. She has nothing to carry, and has a stout
stick to help her along.

MEGAERA (suddenly throwing down her stick) I won't go another
step.

ANDROCLES (pleading wearily) Oh, not again, dear. What's the good
of stopping every two miles and saying you won't go another step?
We must get on to the next village before night. There are wild
beasts in this wood: lions, they say.

MEGAERA. I don't believe a word of it. You are always threatening
me with wild beasts to make me walk the very soul out of my body
when I can hardly drag one foot