Spook you seem to be in despair at once at the plight and the nature of humanity.
What if the purpose of an organism (or species!) in life was to replace itself with its
successor?
[quote=George Bernard Shaw]
In the Beginning
ACT I
The Garden of Eden. Afternoon. An immense serpent is sleeping with
her head buried in a thick bed of Johnswort, and her body coiled in
apparently endless rings through the branches of a tree, which is
already well grown; for the days of creation have been longer than our
reckoning. She is not yet visible to anyone unaware of her presence, as
her colors of green and brown make a perfect camouflage. Near her head a
low rock shows above the Johnswort.
The rock and tree are on the border of a glade in which lies a dead fawn
all awry, its neck being broken. Adam, crouching with one hand on the
rock, is staring in consternation at the dead body. He has not noticed
the serpent on his left hand. He turns his face to his right and calls
excitedly.
**
ADAM. Eve! Eve!
EVE'S VOICE. What is it, Adam?
ADAM. Come here. Quick. Something has happened.
EVE [_running in_] What? Where? [_Adam points to the fawn_]. Oh! [_She
goes to it; and he is emboldened to go with her_]. What is the matter
with its eyes?
ADAM. It is not only its eyes. Look. [_He kicks it._]
EVE. Oh don't! Why doesn't it wake?
ADAM. I don't know. It is not asleep.
EVE. Not asleep?
ADAM. Try.
EVE [_trying to shake it and roll it over_] It is stiff and cold.
ADAM. Nothing will wake it.
EVE. It has a queer smell. Pah! [_She dusts her hands, and draws away
from it_]. Did you find it like that?
ADAM. No. It was playing about; and it tripped and went head over heels.
It never stirred again. Its neck is wrong [_he stoops to lift the neck
and shew her_].
EVE. Dont touch it. Come away from it.
_They both retreat, and contemplate it from a few steps' distance with
growing repulsion._
EVE. Adam.
ADAM. Yes?
EVE. Suppose you were to trip and fall, would you go like that?
ADAM. Ugh! [_He shudders and sits down on the rock_].
EVE [_throwing herself on the ground beside him, and grasping his knee_]
You must be careful. Promise me you will be careful.
ADAM. What is the good of being careful? We have to live here for ever.
Think of what for ever means! Sooner or later I shall trip and fall. It
may be tomorrow; it may be after as many days as there are leaves in
the garden and grains of sand by the river. No matter: some day I shall
forget and stumble.
EVE. I too.
ADAM [_horrified_] Oh no, no. I should be alone. Alone for ever. You
must never put yourself in danger of stumbling. You must not move about.
You must sit still. I will take care of you and bring you what you want.
EVE [_turning away from him with a shrug, and hugging her ankles_] I
should soon get tired of that. Besides, if it happened to you, _I_
should be alone. I could not sit still then. And at last it would happen
to me too.
ADAM. And then?
EVE. Then we should be no more. There would be only the things on all
fours, and the birds, and the snakes.
ADAM. That must not be.
EVE. Yes: that must not be. But it might be.
ADAM. No. I tell you it must not be. I know that it must not be.
EVE. We both know it. How do we know it?
ADAM. There is a voice in the garden that tells me things.
EVE. The garden is full of voices sometimes. They put all sorts of
thoughts into my head.
ADAM. To me there is only one voice. It is very low; but it is so near
that it is like a whisper from within myself. There is no mistaking it
for any voice of the birds or beasts, or for your voice.
EVE. It is strange that I should hear voices from all sides and you only
one from within. But I have some thoughts that come from within me and
not from the voices. The thought that we must not cease to be comes from
within.
ADAM [_despairingly_] But we shall cease to be. We shall fall like the
fawn and be broken. [_Rising and moving about in his agitation_]. I
cannot bear this knowledge. I will not have it. It must not be, I tell
you. Yet I do not know how to prevent it.
EVE. That is just what I feel; but it is very strange that you should
say so: there is no pleasing you. You change your mind so often.
ADAM [_scolding her_] Why do you say that? How have I changed my mind?
EVE. You say we must not cease to exist. But you used to complain
of having to exist always and for ever. You sometimes sit for hours
brooding and silent, hating me in your heart. When I ask you what I have
done to you, you say you are not thinking of me, but of the horror of
having to be here for ever. But I know very well that what you mean is
the horror of having to be here with me for ever.
ADAM. Oh! That is what you think, is it? Well, you are wrong. [_He sits
down again, sulkily_]. It is the horror of having to be with myself for
ever. I like you; but I do not like myself. I want to be different; to
be better, to begin again and again; to shed myself as a snake sheds its
skin. I am tired of myself. And yet I must endure myself, not for a day
or for many days, but for ever. That is a dreadful thought. That is what
makes me sit brooding and silent and hateful. Do you never think of
that?
EVE. No: I do not think about myself: what is the use? I am what I am:
nothing can alter that. I think about you.
ADAM. You should not. You are always spying on me. I can never be alone.
You always want to know what I have been doing. It is a burden. You
should try to have an existence of your own, instead of occupying
yourself with my existence.
EVE. I _have_ to think about you. You are lazy: you are dirty: you
neglect yourself: you are always dreaming: you would eat bad food and
become disgusting if I did not watch you and occupy myself with you. And
now some day, in spite of all my care, you will fall on your head and
become dead.
ADAM. Dead? What word is that?
EVE [_pointing to the fawn_] Like that. I call it dead.
ADAM [_rising and approaching it slowly_] There is something uncanny
about it.
EVE [_joining him_] Oh! It is changing into little white worms.
ADAM. Throw it into the river. It is unbearable.
EVE. I dare not touch it.
ADAM. Then I must, though I loathe it. It is poisoning the air. [_He
gathers its hooves in his hand and carries it away in the direction from
which Eve came, holding it as far from him as possible_].
Eve looks after them for a moment; then, with a shiver of disgust, sits
down on the rock, brooding. The body of the serpent becomes visible,
glowing with wonderful new colors. She rears her head slowly from the
bed of Johnswort, and speaks into Eve's ear in a strange seductively
musical whisper.
THE SERPENT. Eve.
EVE [_startled_] Who is that?
THE SERPENT. It is I. I have come to shew you my beautiful new hood. See
[_she spreads a magnificent amethystine hood_]!
EVE [_admiring it_] Oh! But who taught you to speak?
THE SERPENT. You and Adam. I have crept through the grass, and hidden,
and listened to you.
EVE. That was wonderfully clever of you.
THE SERPENT. I am the most subtle of all the creatures of the field.
EVE. Your hood is most lovely. [_She strokes it and pets the serpent_].
Pretty thing! Do you love your godmother Eve?
THE SERPENT. I adore her. [_She licks Eve's neck with her double
tongue_].
EVE [_petting her_] Eve's wonderful darling snake. Eve will never be
lonely now that her snake can talk to her.
THE SNAKE. I can talk of many things. I am very wise. It was I who
whispered the word to you that you did not know. Dead. Death. Die.
EVE [_shuddering_] Why do you remind me of it? I forgot it when I saw
your beautiful hood. You must not remind me of unhappy things.
THE SERPENT. Death is not an unhappy thing when you have learnt how to
conquer it.
EVE. How can I conquer it?
THE SERPENT. By another thing, called birth.
EVE. What? [_Trying to pronounce it_] B-birth?
THE SERPENT. Yes, birth.
EVE. What is birth?
THE SERPENT. The serpent never dies. Some day you shall see me come out
of this beautiful skin, a new snake with a new and lovelier skin. That
is birth.
EVE. I have seen that. It is wonderful.
THE SERPENT. If I can do that, what can I not do? I tell you I am very
subtle. When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You
see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I
say 'Why not?' I made the word dead to describe my old skin that I cast
when I am renewed. I call that renewal being born.
EVE. Born is a beautiful word.
THE SERPENT. Why not be born again and again as I am, new and beautiful
every time?
EVE. I! It does not happen: that is why.
THE SERPENT. That is how; but it is not why. Why not?
(...)
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