ANNE
Damned creatures...foul petitioners
with the ghostly remains of human
faces and nothing that remains of
human souls...weak, grey things
that float like ashes from one
petty errand to another! You
willingly embrace your deaths, your
fetters and chains, and take them
and make them part of yourselves!
Not I! Not I! I will not grovel
before the law of sameness, of
boredom, of living without fire,
living dead, like the black man's
zombi, a human face without a human
soul, conscribed to its master's
will! NOT I! If I fight alone, I
still fight! I still flare and fire
in the grey face of despair! I spit
in your faces, all of you,
representatives of despair, victims
of despair, unredeemable committers
of that most heinous sin, taking
your soul and letting it die
forgotten! Who are you to die
having done nothing? Who are you to
die having not lived? Who are you
to presume there is no other way? I
am the other way, I am, yes, bride
of the devil! Hellcat! Being of
fire and strength! Powerful with
the power of life lived, life being
lived, life unwasted! Give me my
soul, and let me live, then I shall
die early and joyous! Repent,
sinners who cannot bring themselves
to sin, despair-mongers and despair
victims, repent! Let your soul be
free, let your life be lived!
Break
ANNE
'Tis better to rule in the hell and
inferno of one's own soul than to
serve in the grey wastes of
this...colonial Heaven.
Break
ANNE
Pierre...god, Pierre...it was all
wasted...the despair always wins in
the end, doesn't it?
Always...every fire goes to grey
ash...far too soon...I don't want
to be a housewife, Pierre...
PIERRE
Anne...whatever you are doing, you
are Anne Bonny. You are, now and
forever, the keeper of your soul.
ANNE
That's not true, Pierre...they're
all...so dead...and thence I go...
PIERRE
You don't have to. Though the flame
burns not so bright, it will burn
again...you can't be extinguished.
ANNE
But I can be ... it can get me,
make me dead inside. I don't
rightly know what it is...it kills
your soul. Kills all spark of
humanity inside.
PIERRE
They are humans in their own
insides, Anne, the best of them,
and they are out there. They don't
have to...
ANNE
Damn you, you faggot Frenchman!
They're DEAD, can't you see that?
They're DEAD and they have no
escape even to Hell! They merely go
on...as if they were still alive.
PIERRE
Some of them do. There are more,
they are human, and they appear as
the rest.
ANNE
Why? Why would you want to appear
to be soulless?
PIERRE
To save your soul. To save it for
when you need it, when God in his
wisdom kills your husband...
ANNE
...or your child, that's what
you're going to say.
PIERRE
YES, Anne, that IS what I'm going
to say. You don't have to fan your
soul's fires all over, you have to
keep it in the hearth, keep it,
keep by it, feed it and care for
it. And when you need the light and
heat, then it is THERE. When it's
fanned out and eaten all it can get
its gluttonous fingers on, it will
be ash...to ash.
ANNE
Go away, Pierre. Bring me that
drunkard.
Break.
ANNE
Mary...I love you.
MARY
As I love you, Anne.
There is no romance in their eyes or in their faces. Only
care.
Break.
ANNE
I am adrift on a lonely sea...all
around me, the ghosts and bodies of
those who have given up,
died...fallen to the forces of grey
despair, become the stuff of it. I
want to keep fighting, but it's too
hard...I can feel myself drown...my
throat is on fire...but my arms and
legs...so cold...
Break.
Anne is kneeling on deck in the ghostly moonlight, her axe
before her on the bow like the sword of an age-old crusader.
ANNE
(penitently)
Drain, drain the bowl and fill...
Let the world wag as it will...
Let the heavens growl
Let the devil howl
Drain, drain the bowl and fill...
Let the world wag as it will...
Break.
ANNE
God almighty! So there's a woman
whose breast beats as hot as mine,
whose eyes could hide their flash
no more, whose limbs are as like as
hot fire! This will be a delectable
duel!
AMAZON
Bitch! Whore! I said go!
Break.
ANNE
Sometimes I wonder...Bayard's
lover, the Spanish amazon...she was
alive. She was really alive...and
there aren't many of us.
She sighs.
ANNE
At least she lived, and we having
lived are unafraid to die.
EDDES
What do you fear, if it's not to
bold?
ANNE
To be lifeless.
EDDES
Thought you weren't 'fraid of
death?
ANNE
No, idiot, lifelessness isn't as
like death. Lifelessness is going
on, even without a soul...the
cowardly snitch of a sailor, the
puffy effete nobleman...everyone!
Everyone who is afraid to live with
a heart that beats, and a soul and
a passion that sets it to flame.
Eddes ponders her words.
EDDES
You're right...that is more
fearsome still than death.
Break.
ANNE
My word, Pierre...she was a live
one.
PIERRE
Pardon me to say, but now she's a
dead one.
ANNE
A fitting thing.
Break.
ANNE
Die, papist bastard!
Break.
ANNE
(seriously)
I never want to stop laughing.
(covering it with good
cheer)
...or drinking or pirating or...
(She grabs a sailor and
kisses him lustily before
smiling for her crowd)
Break.
JAMES
Why must you persist in your
verses? We haven't the time!
ANNE
I can feel it...feel life shunting
from my breast onto my page. Feel
my soul move, my fire burn, my...
JAMES
No. Thank you.
Break.
PIERRE
I love you, Anne.
ANNE
I love you too, Pierre.
They embrace warmly and without romance.
PIERRE
Mon beau fille...