Macbush

Act IV, Scene 3

Three TV commentators lift up cut-out TV sets, revealing the words "Shock and Awe" across the tops. One is labeled "WarNews 24/7". The second, "Al Sunni" and the third "British Bards Broadcasting."

WARNEWS: Live!

AL SUNNI: From!

BBB: Iraq!

WARNEWS: A barren detested vale you see it is.
Ten thousand urchins make such fearful cries
As any mortal hearing should straight fall mad.

BBB: The skies are painted with
Unnumber'd red sparks:
They are all fire and every one doth shine.

WARNEWS: There's hell, there's darkness,
There's the sulphurous pit:
Burning, scalding, stench, consumption!

AL SUNNI: Never was seen so black a day as this.

BBB: A thousand red burning spits
Come hissing in upon 'em.

WARNEWS: Now thou art come unto a feast of death.

AL SUNNI: America, from forth the kennel of thy womb
Hath crept a hell-hound that doth hunt us all
To chase us to our graves.

BBB: This day hath made much work for tears
In many an English mother.

WARNEWS: Such sheets of fire, such bursts of thunder
I never remember to have heard.

BBB: I have no joy in this conflict tonight:
It is too rash, to unadvised, too sudden, I fear, too early.

AL SUNNI: Ay, me! I see the downfall of our land!

WARNEWS: Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay.
The worst is death, and death shall have his day.

BBB: The tyrannous and bloody act is done:
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.