PAPA UBU *(beginning to wake up)*. Get M...

PAPA UBU (beginning to wake up). Get Mama Ubu! Cut off her ears!

MAMA UBU. Ah God! Where am I? I’m losing my mind! Ah! no, Lord! Thank heavens, I see Little Papa Ubu asleep near me! Let’s be nice. Well, my fat fellow, did you sleep well?

PAPA UBU. Very poorly! He was well hard, that bear! Fight of the ravenous against the tough, but the ravenous completely ate and devoured the tough, as you’ll see when daylight comes. Do you hear, noble Paladins?

MAMA UBU. What’s he babbling about? He’s even stupider than when he left. Who’s he talking to?

PAPA UBU. Cotice, Battery, answer me, pshite-bag. Where are you? Ah! I am afraid. But someone spoke. Who spoke? It’s not the bear, I suppose. Pshite! Where are my matches? Ah! I lost them in battle.

MAMA UBU (aside). Let’s take advantage of the situation and the night. Let’s pretend to be a ghost, and make him promise to forgive us our larcenies.

PAPA UBU. But, by Saint Anthony, someone speaks! Ham of God! Hang me if they’re not.

MAMA UBU (magnifying her voice). Yes, Mister Ubu, someone speaks indeed, and the trumpet of the archangel which shall draw the dead from the ash and the final dust would not speak otherwise! Listen to this stern voice. It is the voice of the Archangel Gabriel, who can only give good advice.

PAPA UBU. Oh! That, indeed!

MAMA UBU. Do not interrupt me or I shall say no more, and it’ll be your funeral.

PAPA UBU. Ah, my belly! I’ll be quiet, I won’t say another word.

MAMA UBU. We were saying, Mister Ubu, that you’re a fat bastard.

PAPA UBU. Very fat, indeed, it’s true.

MAMA UBU. By God, shut up about yourself!

PAPA UBU. Oh! angels don’t swear.

MAMA UBU (aside). Pshite! (Continuing.) You are married, Mister Ubu.

PAPA UBU. Absolutely, to the last of the minxes.

MAMA UBU. You mean to the most charming of women.

PAPA UBU. A horror. She has claws everywhere. One doesn't know how to take her.

MAMA UBU. It is necessary to take her with kindness, Lord Ubu, and if you do you’ll see that she’s at least the equal of Venus in Paradise.

PAPA UBU. Who did you say had lice?

MAMA UBU. You aren’t listening, Mister Ubu. Lend us a more attentive ear. (Aside.) But we must hurry, the day is about to break. Mr. Ubu, your woman is adorable and delicious. She doesn’t have a single fault.

PAPA UBU. You’re mistaken. There isn’t a single fault she doesn’t possess.

MAMA UBU. Silence! Your woman has never been unfaithful to you.

PAPA UBU. I’d like to see the man that would want her. What a harpy!

MAMA UBU. She doesn’t drink.

PAPA UBU. Not since I took the key to the cellar. Before, at seven o’clock in the morning, she was drunk and reeking of brandy. Now that she perfumes herself with heliotrope she smells no worse. It’s all the same to me. But now I’m the only one that can get drunk.

MAMA UBU. Stupid fool! Your wife doesn’t steal your gold.

PAPA UBU. No? That’s funny.

MAMA UBU. She doesn’t syphon off a single coin.

PAPA UBU. Witness, sir, our noble and unfortunate Horse of Phynances, who, not being fed for three months, had to do the entire campaign dragged by the bridle across the Ukraine. He died on the job, the poor idiot!

MAMA UBU. All lies. Your wife is perfect, and you, what a monster you are!

PAPA UBU. All I say is true. My wife is a rogue, and what a fathead you are!

MAMA UBU. Take care, Papa Ubu!

PAPA UBU. Ah, that’s right. I forgot who I was talking to. No, I didn’t say what I just said.

MAMA UBU. You killed Wenceslas.

PAPA UBU. That was not of course my fault. It’s what Mama Ubu wanted.

MAMA UBU. You killed Boleslas and Ladislas.

PAPA UBU. Too bad for them! They wanted to hit me!

MAMA UBU. You broke your promise to Bordure, and then you killed him.

PAPA UBU. I’d rather it was me that reigns in Lithuania than him. At present you can see it isn’t either of us. At least, you can see it isn’t me.

MAMA UBU. There’s only one way for all your misdemeanours to be forgiven.

PAPA UBU. What is it? I’m willing to become a holy man. I want to be a bishop, and see my name on the calendar.

MAMA UBU. You must forgive Mama Ubu for having diverted a little money.

PAPA UBU. Hey well, voilà! I will forgive her when she has returned it all and when I’ve thoroughly thrashed her, and when she has brought my Horse of Phynances back to life.

MAMA UBU. He’s obsessed with that horse. Ah, I’m lost! The day breaks.

PAPA UBU. Well, anyway, I’m happy to know for sure that my dear wife has been fleecing me. I have it now from a reliable source. Omnis a Deo scientia, which means : Omnis, all; a Deo, knowledge ; scientia, comes from God. There is the explanation of the phenomenon. But Madame Apparition doesn’t say anything any more. What can I do to comfort her? What she said was very funny. Hold, but it is daylight. Ah! Lord! Now by my Horse of Phynances, it’s Mama Ubu!

MAMA UBU (brazenly). That’s not true. I’m going to excommunicate you!

PAPA UBU. Ah! Carrion! MAMA UBU. What profanity!

PAPA UBU. Ah, this is too much. I see perfectly well that it’s you, soft minx! Why the devil are you here?

MAMA UBU. Lap is dead and the Poles hunted me.

PAPA UBU. And me, it is the Russians who hunted me. Beautiful minds meet.

MAMA UBU. In this case a beautiful mind has met an ass.

PAPA UBU. Ah! Hey well. She is now going to meet a palmipede. (He throws the bear at her.)

MAMA UBU (falling in a heap under the weight of the bear). Ah, great God! What horror! Ah, I die! I choke! It’s killing me! It’s swallowing me! It’s digesting me!

PAPA UBU. It’s dead, stupid. Oh! But, as a matter of fact, maybe it isn’t! Ah Lord!, no, it isn’t dead! Let’s save ourselves! (Getting back up on his rock.) Pater noster qui es…

MAMA UBU* (disentangling herself)*. Hold! where is he?

PAPA UBU. Ah, Lord! There she is again. Soft creature, is there no way of getting rid of her? Is it dead, this bear?

MAMA UBU. Hey, yes, you stupid arse! He’s already cold. How did he get here?

PAPA UBU (confused). I don’t know. Ah, so, I know. He wanted to eat Battery and Cotice me, and I killed him with one blow of the Paternoster Noster.

MAMA UBU. Battery, Cotice, Paternoster Noster! What’s is that? He is mad, my finance!

PAPA UBU. It’s exactly as I say. And it’s you who’s mad, my little gibbon!

MAMA UBU. Tell me about your campaign. Papa Ubu.

PAPA UBU. Oh, lady, no! It is too long. All I know is that in spite of my incontestable valour, everybody beat me.

MAMA UBU. What, even the Poles?

PAPA UBU. They were shouting: Long live Wenceslas and Bougrelas! I believe they wanted to quarter me. Oh! the fanatics! And then they killed Rensky.

MAMA UBU. That’s a matter of indifference to me! You know that Bougrelas killed Paladin Lap?

PAPA UBU. I’m indifferent! And then they killed poor Lascy.

MAMA UBU. Who cares?

PAPA UBU. Oh, but all the same, hold on, you carrion! Get down on your knees before your lord and master. (He grabs her and forces her to kneel.) You’re going to undergo capital punishment.

MAMA UBU. Oh, mercy, Mister Ubu!

PAPA UBU. Are you finished? Then I’ll begin: twisting of the nose, extraction of hair, penetration of the ears with a small stick, extraction of the brains through the heels, laceration of the bottom, partial or even total suppression of the bone marrow – if that will remove the spininess of your character – not forgetting the cutting open of the bladder, and finally the grand beheading a la Saint John the Baptist, the whole drawn from the holy writings of both the Old Testament and the New, set in order, corrected and perfected by the here-present Master of Finance! How does that suit you, fathead? He goes to lacerate her.

MAMA UBU. Mercy, Mister Ubu!

Alfred Jarry, King Ubu (Ubu Roi), Trans. Patrick Wittacker, Smashwords, 2007. https://www.patakosmos.com/database-open-access/king-ubu-alfred-jarry.pdf

• Full text of Ubu Roi provided by Patrick Whittaker at Smashwords.com