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Scene Nine:
Will
Set Get
Revenge
in a Box?
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OSIRIS
enters and SET welcomes him. MUSIC returns to We All Are Free
as SET escorts OSIRIS to show him the box.
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SET:
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Please, everyone, welcome our royal guest. Hail, King Osiris!
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ENSEMBLE:
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Hail, Osiris.
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OSIRIS:
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It seems that you really want me to notice this box.
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SET:
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I felt you'd appreciate the quality of the work. And look, the inside is even more wonderful. At the bottom the image of Geb, our Father, the Earth, and inside the top, our mother Nut, the Sky. Inside each star there's some cunning work of paint or stone, the artist wouldn't tell me, that holds the light, so one could lie inside this box and see the whole blaze of the night sky. Imagine. Come and watch.
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ENSEMBLE
sings a few lines of The God of Life
as SET leads OSIRIS toward the thrones. They sit. REDs open the
box again and the MUSIC and comedy continue.
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OSIRIS:
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What
is the point of this game?
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SET:
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Each
one is trying to be the one whose body fits the box perfectly.
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OSIRIS:
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If
someone does that, what happens?
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SET:
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He
wins the box.
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OSIRIS:
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All
right. . . . What? You must be joking. This is the most marvelous
work of art in Egypt. And you want to throw it away in a party
game?
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SET:
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Nobody's
won it yet. And I doubt anybody will.
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OSIRIS:
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This
doesn't make sense. Why do you have to be so perverse all the
time?
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SET:
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I
thought I was being a generous host. Is it perverse to give something
of value to someone else?
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OSIRIS:
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No,
but . . . there's still something. You're doing it for effect
again.
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SET:
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(To
ALL:) This is disappointing. I wanted to offer this work of art
to the one who can fit inside it, but no one here can, so I'll
have to go on admiring it myself. Too bad. Will no one else try?
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The game and MUSIC continue, as REDs invite a few more
CITIZENS to try their luck.
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SET:
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Isn't
it possible I might get tired of doing the same thing the same
way all the time? What if I were kind, and generous? What if I
tried to be more like you? You give things away every day.
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MUSIC ends and silence falls as OSIRIS rises and goes toward
The BOX.
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OSIRIS:
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Not like this. This box is much too beautiful to wager on.
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SET:
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It's worthy of a King.
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OSIRIS:
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It is, but the King alone should not enjoy it.
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SET:
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If it fits you, it is yours. You can keep it in the royal palace, so everybody who goes there can see it. Imagine every person in Egypt knowing, "If I visit the King and Queen at their palace, I get to see famous the Box of the Stars." What a wonderful gift to the people.
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OSIRIS crosses to the box and gets inside it. As soon as OSIRIS reclines in the box, REDs slams the lid shut. SET opens the bag of nails, dumps them on top of the box. REDs take out concealed mallets and pounding the nails around the rim of the box.
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REDs
and any CELEBRANTS who have joined SET assist him, and carry the
box, with OSIRIS still in it, out of the space.
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SET:
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We are going for a little walk along the river. Osiris loves
to go there.
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SET
and the other conspirators exit with BOX. MUSIC shifts from SET's
tonalities of E and E flat into E minor. A swallow's cry is heard.
Crystal bowls in A flat and E. Lights fade.
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