Lord Byron’s Love Letter

-          Tennessee Williams

There are four characters in this play: Ariadne (the spinster), her mother (the old woman), the matron and her husband (Winston Tutwiler). The events of this play take place in New Orleans where Mardi Grass festival is organized every year. The matron and her husband have come to New Orleans from Milwaukee to observe the festival. They are waiting for the parade.

            While waiting for the parade, the matron falls into the trap of the spinster and the old woman. They are very clever to cheat the tourists. They have pasted a notice which claims that they have Lord Byron’s love letters.

            When the matron comes in, the old woman hides herself behind the screen. She directs the spinster about what to do and what to say to the matron, but she doesn’t show up herself.

            The spinster claims that her grandmother was loved by Lord Byron. She met him in Greece where he had been in voluntary exile. He fought for the freedom there. The spinster’s grandmother met Lord Byron on the steps of the Acropolis in Athens when she was just 16 years old. She has described the event in her diary which the spinster and the old woman possess. The spinster reads the detail for the matron. The   old woman corrects it many times when the spinster commits mistake.

            According to the diary written by the supposed Agnes, Lord Byron’s beloved, she met him in a dramatic way. She had been to the Acropolis with her aunt. When they had to climb up the steps, her aunt became ill. So, she left her aunt with her driver and climbed up the Acropolis alone. She saw a handsome man ahead of her. The man turned back and looked at her frequently but each time he pretended to be watching the beautiful panorama. At the top of the Acropolis, he spread his arms and looked at the sky. The spinster’s grandmother was impressed by him so much that she thought he was the God Apollo in modern dress. Then, he faced her and picked her gloves from the ground. When he gave the gloves to her, his fingers touched her palm slightly.

            The spinster doesn’t complete the story. She arouses a curiosity in the matron’s mind and shows her the supposed letters of Lord Byron from a distance. But she doesn’t allow her to read them. She says her grandmother died shortly after the death of Lord Byron in the war. Then she reads the matron and her husband a sonnet of her grandmother. Meanwhile, the parade of the festival passes by. The matron’s husband runs out and she follows him. The spinster asks her for one dollar or at least a quarter. But the matron is worried about her husband who is semi-consciously drunk. So, she runs after him without paying them money.