The Contest Lyrics

DIONYSOS:
Ready for the final round! They're neck and neck.
Either one could win. And the topic is -- Death. Bernard.

SHAW:
Saint Joan.
Light your fire. Do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole?
You promised me my life but you lied.
You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead.
But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and of the flowers,
to make me breathe foul damp darkness
and keep me from everything that brings me back to the love of God,
all this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times.
I could do without my warhorse.
I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights
and soldiers pass me and leave me behind,
if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine,
the young lambs crying through the healthy frost,
and the blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind.
But without these things I cannot live;
and by your taking them from me, or from any human creature,
I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.

[There is silence. Then:]

SHAKESPEARE:
[Softly]
A hit! A very palpable hit.

DIONYSOS:
Will Shakespeare. Death.

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