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• The Force of Habit : ACT ONE Scene Two

The Force of Habit, translated by Kathleen Jeffs (née Mountjoy)

ACT ONE Scene Two

Context:

Costanza and Pedro are reunited after many years. They have each raised one of their two children, and so Felix and Hipolita are reunited for the first time in their adult lives. Costanza has raised their son Felix as a girl, and Pedro has raised their daughter Hipolita as a boy.

Sample text

Enter DON PEDRO DE MONCADA, with a greying beard, and DOÑA HIPOLITA, in man’s attire, and an OLD MAN, DON FELIX’S tutor.

PEDRO:

My lady, won’t you embrace me?
Or is it that you do not recognise me?
Is silence your only answer?
They embrace.
What is it? Why are you crying?

Although I must look different now,
for time has done its work on me,
my heart has never changed;
it has always been yours.

COSTANZA:

My Don Pedro, the great joy of our reunion
has put a lump in my throat,
and I would be even more constrained
if the remnants of our love

were not now bursting through my eyes
and freeing my tongue to speak.

PEDRO:

My love, come again and embrace me tenderly.
They embrace.

COSTANZA:

Can you really be in my arms again?

PEDRO:

And how we’ve aged!
I confess I’ve a few more grey hairs,
what do you think of them?
But then, who does like grey hairs?

COSTANZA:

I have an answer for that.

PEDRO:

What do you think?

COSTANZA:

I saw them, sir, and
their effect on me was only to increase

the tenderness of my love for you,
and I prudently contemplate them,
I respectfully admire them,
I piously look on them
and I softly ... weep for them.

PEDRO:

By your answer I see that you
have lost none of your wit, my lady;
but now it will be best if you

look with your serene eyes
upon this handsome youth,
and embrace him just as you have embraced me.

COSTANZA:

Who is it? What’s this? Oh, my!

PEDRO:

This is the branch from our tree,
but he is a copy which has been
written over with quite new material.

COSTANZA:

He is the very picture of
how I used to look.

HIPOLITA kneels.

HIPOLITA:

Give me your hands to kiss.

COSTANZA:

I’ll give you my soul, my daughter,
my precious daughter.

HIPOLITA:

My mother and my lady.

COSTANZA:

You’re dressed in a man’s suit?
And why is that?

PEDRO:

Since she was a baby,
I have changed her name and thoughts
if not her being into those of a man.
I dressed her in male attire

in order to attract less attention
in our many campaigns in the war,
and just as if she were my sword,
I have kept her always at my side.

She grew up in the war and she saw
how to fight, wound and kill,
and now she can show
what she learned as a child.

A breastplate suits her well,
as would fit El Cid himself;
she can wield a pike and fire
a harquebus and a musket.

I’d swear that she fights
if not with such good judgment
then certainly with as much spirit as a man.

In fact, it distresses her
to see herself as a woman.
Miracles like this are common,
it’s the force of habit.

COSTANZA:

May God protect her all her life.

HIPOLITA:

Only to spend it serving you.

COSTANZA:

And this precious boy has stayed with me
while I was left without you.

PEDRO:

Is this my Don Felix?

COSTANZA:

It’s him.

PEDRO:

How I have wanted to find out about him!

DON FELIX kneels.

FELIX:

Let me kiss your hand, if not your feet.

PEDRO:

My hand and my arms I give to you.

They embrace, and FELIX stands up.

Son, this is strange,
for you are now twenty years old,
yet you’re in this long dress? Why?
Is this some kind of devotion?
Do you intend to join the church?

COSTANZA:

No, but to stop him buckling on a sword,
to keep him by my side,
to have him for company
at night in my room,

by day in my sitting-room,
as a comfort in difficult times,
so that I would never have to risk
losing him, my one consolation,

I never encouraged him to change
from his childish skirts into a man’s suit,
and this long habit has been like
shackles I have placed on his feet,

so that he would not be disturbed
by going out and seeing what’s outside.
Miracles like this are common,
it’s the force of habit.

PEDRO:

No one has ever seen or imagined
such a novel and strange thing—
you have acted as a cowardly woman.

COSTANZA:

I’m a mother, and I’m on my own.

This is how I have learned to protect myself.

PEDRO:

Don Felix would do better
to fight spiritedly against this bad custom
of dressing as a woman
which diminishes his valour.

I think it’s terrible
for you to keep your little monk on a leash;
he’ll have to take off that dress
before I can take off my spurs and relax in this house.

He has to change right away,
into something more suitable.
(to COSTANZA) Does he have any male clothes at all?

COSTANZA:

Yes, but I don’t let him wear them.

PEDRO:

And as for Hipolita, you will put a long dress on her
and have her hair done up,
and you will now have her company
in your room and in the sitting-room.

I’ll take Don Felix to accompany me,
so that he can learn to show spirit,
and I know that he will,

he will change his views of the world
when he puts on his sword—
for the House of Moncada
does not tolerate these womanly men.

That is the way we will do it,
so that everyone will be amazed
how you will make a woman of this man
and I will make a man of this woman.

It’s cruel for men to be forced to wear
long skirts like girls—
Go now, and put on her
the clothes you take off him.

I’ll wait here, hopeful
that we can change their habits
by changing their clothes.

HIPOLITA:

I refuse to change.

COSTANZA:

I’ll go now to do as you wish.

PEDRO:

God help me.

HIPOLITA:

This is going very well for the two of us!

Vile fortune, what have you done?

FELIX:

It will be even worse for me
if I have to leave my mother.

PEDRO:

Who helped you to raise Felix?

OLD MAN:

It was me.

Exit COSTANZA, FELIX and HIPOLITA

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation The Force of Habit by Kathleen Jeffs (née Mountjoy) is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.

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