II re in giallo e il mascherata della morte

The King in Yellow And The Masque of Death (Italian: Il re in giallo e il mascherata della morte) is a 1974 Italian gaillo film directed by Emilo Miraglia.

The third film in a loose trilogy comprising: The Night Evelyn Rose From The Grave, and, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, II re in giallo e il mascherata della morte, was Emilo’s last film and it is considered by many critics to be the reason for his departure from the film business and his reclusive later years.

Not picked up for redistribution in the US by Canning Films, as a result of issues surrounding the Blood Wedding scene, the film is the least known of the trilogy although it is regarded as the best written.

(Image) The opening titles of Il re in gaillo e il mascherata della morte, sadly snapped from a second or third gen video copy. Why, oh why hasn't this been released on blu-ray.

Thomas de Castigne's "The King with the Gold Mask"

The following verse version of Marcus Schwob's story "the King with the Golden Mask" long considered an influence on Le Roi en Jaune, was discovered among the Castigne Papers.

This translation into English has been prepared by Simon Bucher-Jones (MA)(J)



"For Anatole France(1) and Marcus Schwob"

THE KING IN THE GOLD MASK

The King in the Gold Mask arose,

From his Throne of Black where his wisdom strove,

To puzzle the truth from the passing hours,

And demanded to know why the Guardian Powers,

At the Gates of his throne-room had crossed their spears,

Had the sound of iron ringing reached their ears?

All around in the court, where the bronze fires blazed,

Fifty priests genuflected, amazed,

And fifty fools, in their bells and tatters

Mocked at the majesty of these matters.

In a semi-circle around the King,

The Ladies curtseyed, like anything.

Rose-pink, and royal-purple, the brazier flames

Shadows cast on the Pale-masked Dames.

And imitation, the jesters made,

Of the wealth and power that were displayed,

In silver, and gold, and copper, and wood,

Around the court as statues stood.

The masks of the Jesters were fixed in laughter,

The Priests’ masks showed worry, about the hereafter.

Fifty to the left, were hilarity true,

On the right, fifty scowled, at secrets they knew.

And the light cloth masks of the women there,

In artifice, showed movement fair.

The masks showed, beauty, patience, youth,

Every facet, except the truth.

But the Golden Mask of the risen King,

Was carven with majesty’s noble mien.

He stood as quiet, as the silent tombs,

Of his grim forebears, as the empty rooms,

Of the fallen Kings, who silence amassed,

In their long dark graves, of whom he was last.

Once his ancestors had shown their passion,

On naked faces, but long the fashion,

Had been for the faces wrought by art,

That are said to show the inward heart.

But no one could say, not even the Priests,

If the face of the King was in the least,

Like the mask he wore both night and day,

And not even the Priests could say,  

Why for generations it had been,

The rule the King’s face should not be seen.

But as the Kings ruled, it came to pass,

The subjects did the same, en mass

And no one now to the royal abode,

Would come by ship or come by road,

Unless their face was covered, for shame,

Afflicted all, without a name.

And the King and his family saw nothing amiss,

In the covering up of their faces, like this,

For custom, is habit, and habit, is rote,

And nothing done often, is something of note.

Now the clattering blows on the iron of the gates,

And the striving of the Guards as against unknown fates,

That roused up the King from his contemplation,

Will soon admit of an explanation,

For he shouts in a voice, inhuman and grave,

That would shiver the hearts of the fearless or brave:

“Who dares to lay siege, to my intimate feasts,

When I sit, in the midst, of my dames, fools, and priests!”

And the trembling Guards, told the King in His Grace,

“It is but a poor man of the mendicant race,

But though his old limbs are in hessian smothered,

We can not admit him, with his face uncovered.”

“Why let the man in,” said the King in His Pride,

“A poor beggar man has no secrets to hide.

He may not give up, by an eyebrow’s mere raising,

What nobles are scorned and what nobles he’s praising!”

But, the tallest of priests with the most solemn mask,

Bowed low to the King, and said “Sire, I must ask,

You not to admit, to your sight, this old man,

For we Priests recall, how the oracles ran:

‘Ill-luck it will be to the King’s Holy Race,

If ever they look on a man’s unmasked face.’ “

And the smallest of fools, in the funniest mask,

Bowed low to the King, and said “I too must ask.

If being concealed is the mark of the King,

Is not the old beggar, a wonderful thing,

For while you conceal part of you, a- “masque d’or”

He is hidden completely, by guards and the door!”

And the most lissom maid, with the most cunning face,

Of fine downy feathers all moulded, in place,

Bowed low to the King, supplicating or praying,

In the hope he would hear, in words she was not saying,

And see in her eyes, which were blue as the sky,

That she feared the old man, though she did not know why.

Then the King – in his pride – said again his first choice,

And the Guards in their armour obeying his voice,

Let in the old man with no mask of his own -

Save his beard - he advanced to the foot of the throne:

Through the forest of pikes, through the swords of steel-wrought

That in green gold, and red gold, reflected the Court.

“Speak thou,” said the King to the beggar who began,

To speak with the strong voice, of a young virile man:

“If the King so commands, I will speak, with good grace,

But is this the King?   Or someone in his place?

(1) Marcus Schwob dedicates this story to Anatole France.  Thomas de Castigne intended to send a copy of his verse form to Marcus, but seems to have neglected to do so, the original letter remaining among the family papers recently made available for study.


The rest of this translation will be printed in the Jaune Studies Yearbook Dec-15

The Crome Quartos - part 2

THE CROME(1) QUARTOS
BY DAVID STRATA

PART II : THE FEARFUL WEDDING(2) 



STANZA I

"Two there are, there, and the riddle is,

Which of the two is more afraid?"

Thought(3) sneers behind his broad, hair’d hand,

"The ball-less Prince who’s never roamed abroad(4),

The Princess who must face the marriage bed,

And all the awkward questions it may raise,

About the absence of a maiden head"(5)?

STANZA II


“He’ll never miss what he has never felt,

The teetotaller who never broached a vat(6),””

The odious Stale(7), remarks and sniggers too,

A guard, in grey and black, swats at his head,

Stale curses, and is forcibly restrained,

Drumming his spurred heels on the wooden pew.

While upward, upward, swells the organ note.

Notes:
(1) David Strata, deliberately co-opted the word 'Crome' from Huxley's satire. Writing privately (letter to Edward Upward, 3rd Sep 1923) that he 'defied the young upstart to sue'.  Ironically Strata was only very slightly older than Huxley and this 'spat' is an example of young authors jockeying for position.
(2) Text here is from the first published edition: 1st Dec 1924, Merrithought Press.
(3) Young Thought or Young Uoht in MS.  Amended in published text - a clear reference in MS to either the work of Thomas de Castigne or Robert W. Chambers.
(4) The ball-less Prince would be Juvre, whose emblem may be the ball covered in stars:
but who is 'ball-less' ie eunuchoid n Uoht's estimation because of his lack of experience of women.
(5) This suggests the bride is not a maiden and raises the old question: whose child is Thomas?  See also the ambiguity in Act 1 Scene 4 Lines 31-33, and Cassilda's nursing of the Child in Act II Scene 6.
(6) That is, as a virgin Juvre, can not know what it feels like to take a virgin, and thus will
not know his bride has been sexually active.
(7) Perhaps, Stale = Thales, as Thought = Uoht.


The full text of this paper will be printed in the Jaune Studies Yearbook Dec 2015.

Paper by Fredrick Morris - The Crome Quartos - part 1

"DENIS STONE: THE CROME QUARTOS AND THE KING IN YELLOW"

An Analysis By Fredrick Morris

Much of what the general public knows today of the poet David Strata (1898 - 1927) can be found in Huxley's vindictive parody of him as "Denis Stone" in "Crome Yellow" (1921) but before his alcoholism and suicide in 1927, he had created a substantial body of work.  He first became the subject of public attention for his light verse - though his poems where never quite as fatuous as 'The Woman Who Was Like A Tree' (Crome Yellow, Huxley) - and for his series of 'pen-poem-portraits' of the famous, the equivalent in words, of Max Beerbohm's sketches. Who can forget his dig at Churchill then Secretary of State for Air: 

"Himself, his balloon rising to the top
Could not predict the coming of the pop!" (On Churchill, Tit-bits 1923)

Or his lines on the anniversary of the death of Oscar Wilde:

"Had he stayed safely this side of the bars,
 To feed his panthers, he would have the stars,
 Instead breaking zoo-keeper's etiquette,
 He flung himself in gutters, je regrette."  (On Wilde, Punch 1920)

Cruel, we may think, and  in the view of later history perhaps unjustified, but at the time, Strata was considered a politically astute writer, and his poems appeared in magazines as diverse as Punch, Harpers, Tit-Bits, and the early New Yorker under Harold Ross. He was by no means the 'sweet child in white trousers' of Huxley's parody - but a short pugnatious Irish youth in his early twenties: "infuriated by the rich, revolted by the poor, and bored by the middle-classes", as Dorothy Parker said (Private letter 11th August 1922, published 2014, Unpublished Letters Of Dorothy Parker, Sevenford Valley University Press).  Huxley's parody splits Strata's real personna between the dilletante 'Denis Stone' and the 'intuition driven' hack 'Mr Barbecue-Smith'.  Interestingly Huxley's, Denis Stone, and Barbecue-Smith, could also be said to represent the early writings of Robert W. Chambers (The King In Yellow) set against his latter work (the largely forgotten though popular in their day, romantic novels). Huxley's quotes the 'fearful thing it was to fall into His hands' in the preaching of Mr Bodiham (Crome Yellow, Chapter IX) , and his descriptions of the pallid doll like face of Anne Wimbush, and the similar countenance of Mrs Bodiham suggest that he himself was well aware of the Play as does the inclusion of Rabidranath Tagore (The King of the Dark Chamber) among the writers recognised by Mary.

[Peer review comment: or perhaps Huxley was a dreadful snob about women, and Rabidranath was sufficiently famous - he did win the Noble Prize in 1910 - to come to mind.  Not everything in art is a signifier that the artist has read the Play.  You might almost as well assert that "Thom Ryng" the author of the 1999 version, took his name deliberately from the mysterious author "Thom" of the 10 volume works and wonderings, on the false bookshelf (Crome Yellow, Chapter XIV). SBJ MA(J)]

Late in 1924 David Strata began work on a sustained body of poems modelled on T.S.Eliot's The Wasteland and drawing on material  from Irish mythology as well as papers reaching him from his French connections on his mother's side.  (Huxley correctly attributes to him a love of French literature, although he suggests that it mainly took the form of trashy somewhat racy novels). Without being able to pin down these papers, it is clear that some may have contained material pertaining to the Play. 

Consider these lines, addressed to Edward Upward (1903-2009), in the prologue to the Quartos (1924) considered by many critics to refer in part to Strata's disasterous and short affair with Feiron Morris:

"I do not think the choice remains my own,
To write or not to write, to live or die,
Can we be said to throw down all the fates,
When mothers or the priests tie up the gates
And masked, patrol the roads that lead to town."  (Crome Quartos, Prologue, 1924)

 Surely, this must be influenced by CASSILDA's lines at Act 1 Scene 2:  46-49

                                   
"And yet they feel the choice / remains their own,
 Or that is wrought by fates impersonal,
 Not mother picked, nor Priest however masked."

[Surely? Or perhaps Blake's The Garden of Love (1794)  could have influenced both independantly?

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.

 SBJ MA(J) ]

Of greatest interest to us, must be whether the material seen second hand in Strata, can inform the gaps in the extant 1893 text - specifically the section of his long poem called THE FEARFUL WEDDING.

This paper will reproduce the twenty four stanzas of David Strata's CROME QUARTOS: II THE FEARFUL WEDDING, and suggest how they may be read as a missing scene of Thomas de Castigne's Le Roi en Jaune.                       

What is Jaune Studies?

Jaune Studies : is the study of the content, effect, influences on, and influence of the 'Yellow' (Jaune) or decadent literature of the 1890s (predominantly in English, American, and French).

It includes as core texts and authors but is not limited to: Swindburne, Oscar Wilde, The Yellow Book, Robert W. Chambers Anthology "The King In Yellow", Thomas de Castigne's play "Le Roi en Jaune", the works of Poe, Baudelaire, Jarry, and their successors.

It is presently offered as a Degree and Masters degree level course at a small number of select educational establishments.  It should be noted that the Miskatonic University course is paired with Medieval Metaphysics as a specialism.

Publication in the Journal both physically and online is a much sought after accolade and can be cited as peer reviewed work for the purposes of CV or Academic Application.


Editor (2015)  Simon Bucher-Jones MA(Jaune)