Act V Scene 1
(the Elephant Graveyard, enter two Hyenas)
Young Hyena:
Is she not to be given a proper burial
Who willfully seeks her own salvation?
Old Hyena:
I tell ya that is so- and therefore
Her corpse will be laid here. The shamans had judged her
And found her unfit for her kind's type o' funeral.
Young Hyena:
So it's unlikely that she drowned herself
In her own defense?
Old Hyena:
Yeah, it has been found so.
Can it be different? I think not.
Young Hyena:
Right, but look! Here lies the water- good. Here
Stands the animal- good. Now if the animal goes to this water,
And drowns himself, it is, whether he wants to or not, he
Goes- mark that. But if the water comes to 'em
And drowns 'em, he drowns not himself- ergo, he
That is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
Old Hyena:
But is this law?
Young Hyena:
Indeed, by Gaia, it is. Shaman's quest law.
Old Hyena:
Is it really? If this had not been
A sue-aside, she should rest
Among the green grasses of the savanna
And not left to scavengers on this bone-yard.
Be gone, paltry lawyer! Whet not your tongue
On words. Better sharpen your teeth
And wait for the funeral procession.
Go, I will call for you.
Young Hyena:
Well ya better do
Before ya gulp up all the luscious treats…
(he leaves)
Old Hyena (ascends a pile of bones, sings):
'In youth, when I did love, did love,
I thought it was very sweet,
To contract, o, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, I thought, there was nothing meet.'
(Simba enters)
Simba:
Familiar scene from my cub-hood-
Hyenas, bones and a song!
Not as fearful anymore, since more fearful
Things have I already come across.
Has this fellow no feeling for his business
That he sings at grave-reaving?
Custom has made it in him
A property of easiness.
Old Hyena (sings):
'But age, with his stealing steps,
Has clawed me in his clutch,
And has shipped me into the land
As if I had never been such.'
(throws aside a skull)
Simba:
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.
How this knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first fratricide! It
Might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
Now overreaches- one that would circumvent the very stars.
Might it have even been my uncle's skull…
Might it not? I will speak to this fellow.
Whose grave's this, hyena?
Old Hyena:
Mine, lion.
Simba:
I think it be yours, indeed,
Since you lie in it.
Old Hyena:
You stand outside it, and therefore it's not yours.
For my part, I'm alive, I don't lie in it,
And yet it is mine.
Simba:
It's yours because it feeds you and keeps you alive.
Old Hyena:
Ya get the point.
Simba:
How absolute the knave is!
The age is grown so picked
That the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier,
He galls his kibe.
Who has been buried in this grave, then?
The skull- whose was it?
Old Hyena:
A whoreson mad fellow's it was!
Whose do you think it was?
Simba:
No idea.
Old Hyena:
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! He threw a
Big coconut on my head once. This same skull
Was Rafiki's skull, the king's sage.
Simba (sadly):
This?
Old Hyena:
That same one.
Simba:
Let me see.
(takes the skull)
Alas, poor Rafiki! I knew him, hyena- a fellow of
Infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He had borne me
On his back a thousand times. And now, how abhorred
In my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung
Those lips that I have kissed I know not how often. Where
Be your advises now? Your spells? Your songs? Your
Flashes of merriment, that used to set the pride on
A roar of laughter? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite
Chop-fallen? 'Now getchoo to my baobab, and do
Paint me an inch tick, to dis my former favour must I come'-
Make them laugh at that now.
Please, hyena, tell me one thing.
Old Hyena:
What's that, lion?
Simba:
Do you think Mufasa looked of this fashion
In the earth?
Old Hyena (grinning):
That is undoubted.
Simba:
And smelled so? Pah!
(puts down the skull)
When has this happened,
That he died?
Old Hyena:
It was about a year after king Mufasa's death
And his son, young Simba,
The very one who has recently been found to be alive
But that is mad, and now sent into the jungle.
Simba:
Why was he sent to the jungle?
Old Hyena:
Why, because he was mad. He will recover his
Wits there. Or, if he don't, it's no great matter.
Simba:
How come?
Old Hyena:
It will not be seen in him there.
There everyone's as mad as him.
Simba:
Well how did he become mad, then?
Old Hyena:
Very strangely, they say.
Simba:
How strangely?
Old Hyena:
By losing his wits, they say.
Simba:
Upon what ground?
Old Hyena:
Why, here- in the Pridelands.
(straightens)
But wait a minute!
Ah, here comes the king,
And with him, my evening meal.
(the procession enters- Scar, Sarabi, Sarafina, Mandrills, Lionesses etc. carrying Nala's corpse)
Simba:
The queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This does hint
The corpse did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life. It was of some estate.
Let us watch a while and wait.
(Simba and the Old Hyena step aside and observe)
Sarafina (tearfully):
What's left of the ceremony?
Mandrill Shaman:
Er obsequies ave been as far enlarged
As we ave warranty- er deat was doubtful.
And, by dees break of de sacred circle,
She should in ground unsanctified be lodged.
Feel free to cry and to interrogate de stars wit your wails
Bot leave er swiftly- for de corpse-eaters.
Sarafina:
Must there no more be done?
Mandrill Shaman:
No more be done!
We would profane de service of de dead
To sing and give de grassy bed to er
As to peace-parted souls.
Sarafina (angrily):
Lay her on the stone
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell you, churlish witch-doctor,
A twinkling star shall my daughter be
When you'll lay howling!
Simba (shocked):
What, the fair Nala!
Sarabi (placing a flower upon the body):
Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!
I hoped you should have been my Simba's mate.
I thought your bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed your grave.
Sarafina:
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed your most ingenious sense
Deprived you of, Nala! Hold off a while,
Till I have caught her once more in my arms!
(embraces the corpse)
And now leave the dead and the living
So that both may be devoured and forgotten!
Simba (coming forward):
Who is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Simba the Lion King.
(attempts to embrace the corpse)
Sarafina (roaring):
You should have died in the stampede!
(grapples with him)
Simba:
Your prayer's incorrect.
I tell you, take your paws from my throat
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let your wisdom fear. Away with your clutch!
Scar:
Separate them!
Sarabi:
Simba! Simba!
(they are parted from each other)
Simba:
Why, I will fight with her upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
Sarabi:
O my son, what theme?
Simba:
I loved Nala. Forty thousand mothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
Sarafina:
You lie!
Scar:
O, he is mad, Sarafina.
Sarabi:
For love of grace,
Take easy on him!
Sarafina:
No! Enough of this!
May I be struck and lie beside my daughter
If I bare but one minute the presence of this traitor!
We had hoped you would save us, Simba…
But it is you who killed Nala, the very one
Who called you her friend, her love!
Simba (distraught):
The words I hear,
I know their meaning,
Yet why is it that they are spoken?
I have killed?
Sarafina:
Yes, you! You, no other!
Was it not that you yourself
Had offended Nala so deeply that she came to me crying
Wishing that you have remained dead?
It took me weeks to lift her up from her despair,
But what good did it bring since not sooner
Than when she regained enough will to live, eat and drink
Zira, that impudent harlot, appears with a belly
Boasting she bares your cubs!
Simba:
No…
Sarafina:
Have you nothing more to say?
The one you were betrothed to and your cub-hood friend
Hearing such a sensation, overwhelmed by deepest awe,
Threw herself into the water-hole
And thus you see her cold body before you.
Have you no more to say?
Simba:
I…
I do not.
Sarafina (attempting to attack him, being held back):
Murderer! Foul traitor!
Back to the gorge with you!
You should be lying on that stone pavement,
Instead of my daughter…
Dare not show yourself at Pride Rock!
A plague!
A curse on you…
(she brakes down crying)
Scar:
Now now, let us not act senselessly.
It would taint sweet Nala's memory
And shatter this ceremony.
There are no murderers here.
Simba- please, leave.
Sees you not that we are in grief?
Simba (aside):
He dares to speak?
Why, is he not the one
Who should be blamed for all this?
Scar (holding Sarabi):
Peace, my pride! Let us go back home.
The sun will rise again in the morning.
(everybody leaves, Simba is left alone by the corpse for a while, then two Hyenas appear from behind the heaps of bones)
Young Hyena (chuckling):
Right you were, pal!
A whole, grown lioness, just for the two of us.
Now I care not if she drowned herself
Or was drowned- the meat will taste the same.
Old Hyena:
Ha-ha, I haven't had lion
Since the former king had died…
Simba (on the edge of crying):
Horrible! Hideous! How awful the vice
For which only blood may now pay the price!
Nala…
Father…
Forgive me!
(the Hyenas approach the corpse laughing, Simba runs away with disgust as the curtain falls)
AN: It was SO much fun writing this scene! It's surprising just how many elements from the play correspond with what's in the movie. You need Hamlet's two childhood friends? BAM- Timon and Pumbaa! You need Ophelia? BAM- Nala! You need to re-write the famous graveyard scene? Hm, now where can I put it if we're thinking of the Pridelands… Oh wait- the Elephant Graveyard! Disney really isn't that creative. Of course I had to use my imagination much, but still- it all fits very well.
This is a very tragic scene that takes part weeks after the end of Act IV. Everybody thinks that Simba went off to the jungle, but the consequences of what he'd done still take effect. Nala was upset after being dumped by the prince, and just as soon as she managed to recover… Yes- this is my little supplement to the story- the role of Zira, who wants to take Simba away from Sarafina, who is trying to use him as a weapon in overthrowing Scar. Talk about an obsession… And so, having much more grave reasons than Ophelia has in 'Hamlet', Nala drowns herself in despair. Sarafina's pissed with Simba, Simba's pissed with himself… but he feels that his inaction has lasted long enough. The final question is- what will he do with his anger?