Waiting for Godot

by Samuel Beckett

ESTRAGON: I had a dream. VLADIMIR: Don’t tell me! ESTRAGON: I dreamt that— VLADIMIR: DON’T TELL ME! ESTRAGON: (gesture towards the universe). This one is enough for you? (Silence.)

ESTRAGON: I’m unhappy. VLADIMIR: Not really! Since when? ESTRAGON: I’d forgotten.

VLADIMIR: We are happy. ESTRAGON: We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are happy? VLADIMIR: Wait for Godot.

VLADIMIR: No no! (He reflects.) We could start all over again perhaps. ESTRAGON: That should be easy. VLADIMIR: It’s the start that’s difficult. ESTRAGON: You can start from anything. VLADIMIR: Yes, but you have to decide.

VLADIMIR: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.) Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? (Estragon says nothing.) It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come—

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go? ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go. They do not move.