Scene 1

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1810, Patras - Byron has been confined to bed for three days with a savage tertian

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B(groaning): This is a very ridiculous situation - stuck on a cold room’s floor

(sitting up) - within a bed of iron, with three coverlids like lead

F: My lord (claps hands) - you are in a state of recovery! (sobs, gratefully)

DR: Only by the blessing of God and two glysters are you able to sit up at all - you were much much debilitated milord - and feverish - you undoubtedly can't remember any of the outrageous amendments you made to your will re. Nicolo

B(to F): Who is that? Is it a coat and breeches dangling o’er a nook? Lord Sligo's gigolo?

F: No, my Lord - it's Dr. Romanelli, and he's prescribing a puke

DR: Poor Byron sweats - alas! how changed from him so plump in feature, and so round in limb

F: My Lord! Here is the victor of a fever and its friends - Dr. Romanelli and his art, his lordship mends!

B: I thank you Dr. Breeches - I feel sure cool water and quiet would have succeeded as effectively as that glyster pipe (scowls) I shall be the victor of this horse fever - Vely Pacha gave me a very pretty horse - where is my horse?

DR: The horse is in quarantine with your tortoises - also, you should not consult medical tomes milord - the glyster is guaranteed for the tertian - as unpleasant as it may be at the time (takes B's temperature) - your fever has almost subsided - how are we feeling about another puke?

B: Why is that pair of breeches taking my temperature, Fletcher? Let's have Champagne - I feel deucedly ill - get Murray to the cellar

F: We are not in Newstead my Lord

B: Devil we are! - I'm going shooting, Fletcher - get me my umbrella

DR: We are in Greece, milord (to F) - you, yeoman, would be of more use attending to the laundry and boiling bones for broth

F: But I must serve my Lord - I fear greatly that he is not as grinning and gay like when he was 'ere in Newstead’s monkish fane (bites his sleeves)

DR: Come here you inelastic peasant - I fear you are quite in the early stages of glystering yourself, unless you habitually splutter the babble of a bird-brain

B: Take the poker to him, Fletcher! Do! 

F: ​Oh to be home! - dear Newstead, the scene of profanation and Champagne, beef stew, and one of my wives

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Nicolo staggers into the sick room and faints onto the cold room's floor

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Scene 2

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N: Oh mio Dio, mi bruciano gli occhi, sono all'inferno!!! ahhhhh!!aiuta mi Byron!!

B: My Italian is not quite there yet, my faithful Dragoman

N: Oh my God, my eyes are burning, I'm in hell!!! ahhhhh!!help me, Byron!!

B: Dr. Breeches - to the stripling! 

DR: I fear he is to be glystered, milord

F: I shall fetch hot towels and scissors, emetics, glysters, bark, and all the host of physic, Dr. Breeches

DR: Good yeoman! - pronto, and don't forget the leeches!

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F wanders unsteadily out the door - is gone a considerable time

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DR: Yeoman!!! Where is that urn of human chittlings?! (to N) - I shall return il mio giovane amico (rushes outside)

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DR rushes right back in

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DR(panicking): Milord - as I correctly assessed, your yeoman also has the Tertian and has gone rogue! He is on a corner near the barracks - in a fashionable dress from Ackerman’s Repository - selling curls of your hair to balding light infantrymen!

B: That is so vastly like Fletcher! (B & N laugh) - fear not my good Dr. Breeches - he needs no fever to go rogue, as you say, and often wears tea-kettles instead of shoes

DR: I must glyster him! - 'twill be the highlight of my career - why, in his current state, it's very unlikely he'd refuse

B: You'll have to catch that bold yeoman first, Dr. Breeches - I have timed him sprinting from cottage to cottage in moonlit fields near my ancient mansion - more oft than not, sans trews

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F strides saucily in

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F: Good day my fine gentlemen! Is your hair thinning? - come buy my lovely dark auburn locks - you sir (to B) - your strength has been depleted by the careless Samson-like distribution of your hair to young ladies - here, let me glue this on (attempts to attack B with his own hair)

B(leaps up): Zounds, Fletcher - you have shocked the tertian out of me! (takes ownership of his hair - looks to N) I will help to toast and water my poor Nicolo and the idiot Fletcher - over to you, Dr. Breeches - the Glyster will have to do!

DR: Indeed - milord!

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DR treats both N and F with the dreaded, ere effective, glyster - B mops their fevered brows and reads the rough draft of CHP as they recover

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Scene 3

 

Byron and co. have recovered - Lord Sligo is visiting

 

S: How's all in the infirmary? Good god, Byron! - you are twice as pale as I remember, which is to say - almost transparent

B(still a-bed): Hullo Sligo - I have been vomited and purged but am no longer contagious - though it was a close run thing I assure you

S: Ah well! - the joys of the Levant are not confined to convents, my dear Byron - why not come and stay on my boat - feel free to bring Mr. Giraud and your man in the pleasant frock

B: How amusing - no, I need to recall my bodily dignity from a recent therapeutical shock (whispers) - Sligo, I was excessively glystered! (stares intently ) My friend, if I ever fall by the Glyster pipe of Romanelli - recollect this injunction re. my poesy - that Boards are odious, and would any Bard provoke - one would not be unpublished when one’s dead - so let my works be bound in Red!

S: Hobhouse would be a better man to remember such an injunction - however, I shall try. Addio my friends - to better days ahead!

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S waves his sailor's bonnet - leaves ​

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N: We are returning to Athens - si, milord Byron? - your pretty horse and tortoises are out of quarantine

B: We shall, my ambrosial Italian preceptor - the convent must be an unholy mess - the vegetable garden quite massacred

F: Where is my green parasol? (clasps head) Oh! my poor head is giddy with the late fever - I'm in need of  Sal Volatile (groans) - or paracetamol

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B hauls F onto Vely Pasha's pony - B and N carry the tortoises on their shoulders and walk towards Athens, whose sun has not set, as yet

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​​End