VARRONIAN: The savages have arrived.
ORANDA: So has the emperor's doom.
VARRONIAN: They are a fearsome lot.
ORANDA: Upon your white chest does fear leave a blot?
VARRONIAN: Oh, no, Oranda. I only pay them a healthy respect.
ORANDA: I fear I have associated myself with a coward.
VARRONIAN: But I will speak words sharper than a sword's point to the troops.
ORANDA: Be a member of the trembling rabble, eh? No, you will lead the troops into battle. You fancied a crown upon your head? It only clings to bloody hands.
VARRONIAN: I can't do that! I am a noble of the robe, I am not allowed to carry a sword.
ORANDA: All that is gone! My will rules from today!
VARRONIAN: My station is too high for violence!
ORANDA: Coward! I'm shamed to stand near you! At first glance of the baboon out of the wild, you are quick to point out how you must avoid the strife that would gain you all.
VARRONIAN: I can still be useful.
ORANDA: Perhaps there is something else you can do.
VARRONIAN: Whatever it is, I would run to do it. Whatever it is.
ORANDA: Good, go to the troops. Bestir them in the barracks with your sword-point words. Tell them to go to the sword racks. Instill them with a fiery zeal to defend the city.
VARRONIAN: Yes, Oranda.
ORANDA: Tell them the regent Oranda, in teary distress, has decided to disobey the emperor. Tell them the empire's welfare is more important than his.
VARRONIAN: Then he will be deposed?
ORANDA: That could be supposed.
VARRONIAN: Yes, I will go at once to the troops. I will. Uh. Where are the troops located, their barracks? On that, I'm... sorely uneducated on that.
ORANDA: Don't you see it?
VARRONIAN: I see it nowhere.
ORANDA: Look, over the edge of the battlement. Yes, lean out. Draw nearer to me.
(FALLING SCREAM)
ORANDA: A disappointment you are, Varronian. Absurdly easy to push you over the edge. But you serve your purpose, though miserably. The crown rejects the cowardly and the bewailer. Ah, the hearty brute has reached the courtyard! I must prepare the troops for battle!
LUDOVICO: Look! It's Oranda! I must stop that consuming cancer!
QUELLNINA: The stew she has cooked has doomed her. But Ludovico, look! The savages flood the courtyard! If only we could find just one chalice, you could destroy them all! If only...oh, Ludovico! They're rampaging at the steps!
BARBARIANS: (NOISES) OUR SUPPER'S HERE!
BARBARIANS: What a meaty feast!
QUELLNINA: Oogh, you are repulsive!
BARBARIANS: Let's sever her head! It talks too much!
QUELLNINA: Auauahh! Let me go! Let me go!
LUDOVICO: You fill me with wine-deprived rage! I should crush your stenchy outrage!
BARBARIANS: Let's carve him up first!! ...Jeho! Jeho! Jeho!
JEHO: Look who I have with me, the emperor himself!
BARBARIANS: Jeho! Jeho! Jeho!
JEHO: Down below is his pyre, so, who wants to help me throw him over?
BARBARIANS: ME! ME! ME!
QUELLNINA: Throw me over with him! He'll have a blissful reunion in death! Oranda's hold will not survive the reaper! For all she drove you to do, I forgive you.
EMPEROR: You did speak truth. Not the product of a soldier's booth. Oranda's ambition has driven us to catastrophe and ruin. She took delight in defaming my name before abandoning me to the savages.
BARBARIANS: THROW THEM OFF! THROW THEM OFF!
ORANDA: Where are the troops? I can't find one---aAAH! Unhand me, wild brute!
LUDOVICO: Join us down the fatal queue your ambition has brought for all of us!
BARBARIANS: THROW THEM OFF! THROW THEM OFF!
JEHO: Good idea, let's now herd them back to the---
BARBARIANS: Look! Look! Patu is back!
JEHO: An abundance of meat! You'll taste good and be refreshing, after we throw them off! If you ever come back, I said, I would kill you!
PATU: I have something to do first. I have an insult to revenge! I want you to feel this chalice, too!
BARBARIANS: An insult to Jeho? Let's throw him off, too!
QUELLNINA: Look! An imperial army of relief!
JEHO: Where?
QUELLNINA: Ludovico, quickly! Take the chalice!
PATU: Give it back!
JEHO: I see no army! What are you trying to do? Baboons! Now take them!
QUELLNINA: Ludovico! Is the chalice empty or full?
LUDOVICO: This chalice, is it without the fluid jewel? It holds no wine! Ah! Yes, I feel it! It escapes its beery cage! It is rising! Unstoppably!
JEHO: Good! We'll saw that off, too!
LUDOVICO: Ah! It's here! It's here! My proclamation is wrung---
LUDOVICO: Rise! The savage is gone! Oranda, your work is undone! From justice it's pointless to run!
EMPEROR: The scoundress! I had hoped to see her bound in chains and distressed.
QUELLNINA: A worse fate is in store for her.
EMPEROR: Such a fate I deserve for forsaking you and causing you such misery. How can you forgive me? Don't lie, I know you shun me, no, don't look at me unless your eyes are full of reproach. No, don't look at me, Quellnina, it gives me hope. Shun me, I beg you. Shun me.
QUELLNINA: I can't curse a victim brought to the bottom of a black lake and made to drink its bile, and spew out edicts so vile. Your guilt is a worse lash than those delivered in the pit. Oranda still suffocates you, find new breath in my forgiveness. Take my hand and breathe again.
EMPEROR: Take your hand?
QUELLNINA: Take it and let's again reign over the land.
EMPEROR: Oh, no problem. Let me take you to a private wine stock Oranda had all along. Drinking joyously after telling all wine had gone poisonous in the empire.
QUELLNINA: With these hidden bottles, we will soon clear the emperor's name when all of Oranda's plans are made known to them, and vineyards once again cover the land.
EMPEROR: But Ludovico must have a bottle now, as an unworthy reward for saving the empire. Yes, please, please, follow me.
LUDOVICO: Marvelous!
EMPEROR AND QUELLNINA: To the future!
LUDOVICO: To the wine!
