Goltzius and the Pelican Company Page #7

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Or was she creating her own lines?

Either way, she did well.

- You're a married woman.

- Well, that is true.

- And an infidel.

- Infidel?

- What, I wonder, is that?

- I am a Jewish prisoner-of-war.

I am to be respected

as a Jewish prisoner-of-war.

Respected?

Well, I am always surprised

when people say that.

Respect is never automatic.

It always has to be earned.

Don't you think you have

to earn that respect? Come on!

Earn my respect.

I could help you. Bind him.

And so the conversation

of seduction continued,

till Potiphar's wife - or was it Susannah?

Until she had the poor boy helpless.

However, either way,

he was young and lecherous enough,

despite himself,

to make his anatomy behave well.

Mutilated or not,

Jewish or not,

the responses are certainly familiar.

No. You have to stop now.

I can't go with women.

A little jabber?

A rolling pin?

A comedy in three acts,

two repeatable,

one explosive?

Arrest him! He tried to rape me.

Look at him, all red-faced

and red-pricked.

His clothes in my bed

and his smell on my sheets!

I... Where's Adaela?

Wait, this was not the deal.

I had a contract where's Adaela?

What the hell are you doing here?

I thought Eduard was playing Joseph

It didn't happen. It did not happen.

Don't worry, Potiphar.

It did not happen.

- Oh, shut up.

- But it nearly did.

- Shut up!

- The wretch!

- The wretch!

- You stupid b*tch!

Shut up!

Where's Adaela?

Well, we engineered that one

well enough.

How gullible are those

stretched by lechery?

Get out! All of you!

I thought

that Eduard was playing Joseph.

How can I bloody play Potiphar

if my brother is playing Joseph?

I end up a second substitute

to my bloody brother.

Get out. Get out, get out.

And what the hell

did you think you were doing?

Playing the dirty little vagabond

with your prick out.

You could see I was playing Joseph

for God's sake.

A biblical hero!

It didn't seem like a biblical hero,

the way you were playing him.

But I preserved his innocence.

Oh, yes, yes, his innocence.

Yes, yes.

With your erect prick.

Like a donkey in heat!

Why, thank you, brother!

Donkeys are uncommonly well endowed.

However, as you saw,

the sex was not consummated.

Oh, no, no, it bloody nearly

was consummated. Yes.

One more minute and Joseph's

famous reputation for innocence

would be exploded completely.

What the hell do you think

you were doing?

Much the same

as you hoped to do, I imagine.

Don't you understand?

If I died without a son

you would be the next in line!

What an exhibition in public, huh?

For the next Margrave of Alsace.

What about your exhibition of yourself?

Potiphar's wife was lonely.

What? Like hell she was lonely.

- She wanted company.

- Like hell she did.

Potiphar was reputed

to be interested in young men.

- What?

- Which the Rabbi says

excuses his wife

for trying to seduce Joseph.

What kind of goddamned

sophistry is that?

If I'm playing Potiphar

what does that make me?

- A f***ing sodomite?

- Well...

- That's what the Rabbi told me.

- Oh, yeah...

The Rabbi is finding excuses for you

to expose your prick in public?

I think the Rabbi,

between you and me, brother,

will excuse anything

the actress Susannah

is prepared to do in public.

It would seem, Master Goltzius,

that your dramas

begin to encroach

on the well-being of my court.

Your brother, sir, volunteered.

As an example of the dutiful reticence

and repudiation of evil

that this court is capable of.

Shut up, Goltzius.

I suspect you of insidious entreaties

to a young man

not at all sure of his sexuality,

to comer me into a position

of some embarrassment,

and thus, force my arm

to sign your contract.

A risky stratagem,

which would have undermined

my credibility if believed.

What truly surprised me however,

was that I had an unlikely ally.

This court is replete with stories

of the boy's sexual sophistication.

I cannot believe for one minute

that Mosaic law would be

so fastidiously sympathetic

to such exhibited lechery.

The law of Moses

is sympathetic to women

in ways that later

and less sophisticated religions

have not seen fit to be.

We enjoyed this argument

between the Margrave's

religious servants.

The freedom of speech in my court,

which enables you to speak

with such liberality,

may not be found elsewhere

in Christendom.

Am I, as a Jew,

to be interested in Christendom?

There are limits to my liberality.

As an example of those limits,

you shall be silenced here.

- Gag him.

- I protest!

So you do!

Join the heretic, Boethius!

Sir, may I suggest we proceed

with the entertainment as planned?

Excuse me, remove ourselves

a little from the heat

and the affairs of the moment,

and move to our next

performance in your honour?

I suggest, sir, that we consider

the story of Samson and Delilah.

And now we have here

a candidate to play Samson.

He is hirsute enough to play Samson.

He's big enough

to play an ogre and a giant.

A man who over-reaches himself

to stand up for the actress

who plays Potiphar's wife.

Let's see if he and his flesh

can be made to stand up for Delilah.

I have come, Joachim,

like a good Christian,

to visit the prisoners in prison.

Prison visiting is the sixth charity.

Joachim,

I am going to call you Joseph.

May I call you Joseph?

That way we can be easier

in our identities.

I have undertaken to impersonate

a beaten and disgraced Joseph.

So why not?

I am going to set aside

our master-pupil relationship

in favour of your most

delightful performance.

I was very impressed.

I confess that I have never seen you

so delightfully vulnerable before.

As you sat before me as a student,

legs crossed,

attentive.

Mouth a little open.

Your breeches stretched.

Your declaration is now nakedly,

Master Cleaver, in the open.

I dreamt.

I was tempted by the Devil

in the guise of an angel

to prove my imperviousness to sin.

The Devil disguised as an angel

led me to a jail.

And there to test me...

...he beat me and he whipped me.

And men...

I believe I awoke.

The dream was incomplete.

Am I ever likely to understand

the outcome?

Well, it is not impossible that

we could remake the dream.

And maybe I could enact the angel.

Then you must beat me, a sinner.

In expectation, I brought

an instrument of punishment.

Did Boethius write

that most devastating ending

for the protestant?

Or was it the natural course of events

that brought us to this point?

Who was writing the scripts now?

Master Cleaver wishes

identification with Christ.

You must be humiliated

in a way that society holds

most abased.

And the criminal courts

will take you to the stake

and burn you

since you have submitted

to such a humiliation.

Do you freely submit to such humiliation?

Ne.

I do. Like my saviour,

I must be unutterably punished.

Then here is the first passage

to the stake, f*ggot.

In your dream,

you thought it was an angel

impersonating the Devil

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