Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by W. B. Yeats

  USHEEN. Diarmuid!

  [Grania gives back Diarmuid’s sword].

  NIALL. The King and Finn son of Cool are seated, the guests at this table are Usheen, Caoelte, Goll son of Morna, Diarmuid, Fergus, Fathna. The tables for the rest of the Fianna are spread beyond the arras of the western hall.

  [The Fianna and serving men withdraw leaving Niall and one serving man to wait at the king’s table].

  CORMAC. My daughter, why do you not take your place beside Finn son of Cool?

  GRANIA. Every night, father, I have poured out your ale, I would do so this the last time, and this night pour out my husband’s for the first time.

  CORMAC. Grania must not pour out our ale.

  FINN. But if this be her wish?

  GRANIA. It is the first favour I have asked.

  FINN. All here will remember this as an honour.

  [The King signs to the serving men to withdraw, Grania returns to Laban].

  GRANIA. Has this been done well? Give me the ale.

  LABAN. Here are two flagons that I have made sleepy... but no,

  I will make a spell over them.

  Do all that I bid you

  Pour sleep in the ale horns

  That all that have drunk them

  May sleep as on pillows

  Till cock crow at morning.

  Give them this ale and they will sleep till cockcrow. Give it to all but Caoelte and Usheen and Diarmuid.

  [Laban goes out. Grania passes along the table filling the cups and horns. Caoelte and Usheen are the last who should be served. When she comes to Diarmuid she stands looking at him].

  CORMAC. Why do you not fill Diarmuid’s cup?

  [Grania drops the flagon],

  GRANIA. The ale is all spilled; I will bring another flagon.

  CORMAC. Daughter, I do not like the spilling of ale at a marriage feast.

  CONAN. It never happens but it brings ill luck.

  DIARMUID. Conan sees ill luck everywhere. When will Finn take away his favour from Conan, and let the Fianna give him his deserts?

  FINN. Tell us a story Caoelte, and put the spilling of the ale out of our minds.

  [Caoelte rises from his place, and takes his harp. He stands touching his harp as if uncertain what story he is going to tell]. Tell us the story of the house of the quicken trees.

  CAOELTE. Yes, I will tell you the story of the house of the quicken trees. [A pause]. It is gone, it went out of my mind of a sudden. A new story is coming to me... it is coming to me... I see a man lying dead and his wife going away with another.

  FINN. What quarrel have you with me, Caoelte, that you tell such a story at my marriage?

  CAOELTE. There is fear on me, Finn, for I saw beyond the world suddenly and clearly.

  USHEEN. Let us hear the story of the quicken trees. Tell it to us, Caoelte. Or shall we ask Goll to tell it to us? [He tries to rouse Goll], Goll is sleepy.

  CONAN. You have no need to tell your stories to make men sleepy.

  The names of them are enough.

  FINN. Let us drink and forget our thoughts of ill luck.

  CONAN. The Fianna have had their share of good luck. To-day the ale has been spilt, and a strange tale put into Caoelte’s mind.

  DIARMUID. I am weary of Conan’s bitter tongue, Finn. I would beat him from the table.

  FINN. It would be worst of all for blows to be struck at my marriage feast. Conan and Diarmuid, I will have peace.

  CORMAC. [Trying to rouse himself]. Let Conan tell his story or let

  Usheen tell us a story; I am growing sleepy.

  USHEEN. I cannot remember any story — I too have had my thoughts taken away.

  CONAN. Diarmuid, Caoelte, and Usheen have forgotten their boasting stories, but Conan has many a pleasant story and no one asks him for one. I will tell a pleasant story. I will tell of the death of Diarmuid.

  FINN. I will have no tale of death at my marriage feast. To speak of

  Diarmuid’s death may be to bring death upon him. Be silent or you may take his luck away.

  GRANIA. [Coming nearer to the table]. Will Diarmuid die by sword or will he be made captive?

  FINN. I forbid this story.

  DIARMUID. The story of my death is an old story, and it no longer makes me afeared. Tell on.

  CONAN. [Obsequiously. Coming from the table]. Oh, my beautiful

  Grania, this is the way it was. Diarmuid was put out to foster with a shepherd, and no one was so beautiful as Diarmuid when he was a child, except the shepherd’s son. The shepherd’s son was much more beautiful than Diarmuid and his beauty made Diarmuid’s father jealous and one day he crushed the shepherd’s son to death between his knees.

  GRANIA. Tell me of Diarmuid, tell me of Diarmuid.

  CONAN. The shepherd wept and wept. Oh, how he wept. And after a while he took his second son into the woods, and made a spell over him with a Druid hazel stick, and changed him into a black and bristleless boar. And some day that boar is to break out of the woods and to kill many men and many women. All the Fianna are to gather for the hunting of him; they are to hunt him round Eri and through Eri and from kingdom to kingdom. Oh what a hunting, oh, what a hunting!

  GRANIA. Tell me more of Diarmuid. Tell me quickly.

  CONAN. I must drink again, I am thirsty again. [He drinks]. Diarmuid must go out against that boar and must be killed. It was to kill him that the shepherd made the spell over his second son. He shall be torn by the tusks, and his face shall be foul, because it will be bloody. I would that the women of Eri could see him when he is foul and bloody. [He staggers], I am growing sleepy, because I have to run the messages of the Fianna... [He recovers himself], I shall live to see him when the tusks have torn him, for it has been foretold of him also that he shall not live long. He shall not be remembered for the deeds of arms but as a lover of women. He shall live as a lover of women, and his life will soon be over. Who has put witchcraft in my ale? Who among the Fianna has done this?

  [He falls],

  USHEEN. He said there was witchcraft in the ale, and look, they are all sleeping. Who was it that put witchcraft into the ale, Grania?

  GRANIA. Laban, the Druidess has done this for me. I had never a mind to marry Finn. But why does not Diarmuid come to us? [Diarmuid comes from the table]. It was for you that I ordered witchcraft to be put into the ale.

  DIARMUID. For me, Grania?

  GRANIA. I had never a mind to marry Finn. I am going away with you to-night, we shall be far away before they awake.

  DIARMUID. You and I, and you did not see me before this night!

  GRANIA. I desired you and you were in my thoughts before I saw you, Diarmuid. You were in my thoughts, Diarmuid.

  [She takes him in her arms.]

  DIARMUID. I too desired you and you were in my thoughts — oh beautiful woman! You were in my thoughts, Grania. Let me look at you. Let me put back your hair. Your eyes are grey, Grania, your eyes are grey and your hands... But Finn, but Finn... Grania wife of Finn, why have you played with me?

  GRANIA. I am not the wife of Finn [She goes towards Diarmuid].

  And now I cannot be Finn’s wife for you have held me in your arms and you have kissed me.

  DIARMUID. What is this madness, Grania? Here, here this night and

  Finn sleeping there.

  GRANIA. If he had loved me, his love would have been stronger than witchcraft. [A pause]. But why do you go away? Is not my hair soft, are not my cheeks red, is not my body shapely? You held my hair in your hands but now, and your lips were on my cheek and lips. Were not my lips soft? You see that he shrinks from me. It may be that no man will take me because he wants me, but only because I am a king’s daughter. Would you shrink from me,

  Caoelte, if it were you I had asked to go away with me. Would you, Usheen?

  CAOELTE. Look, Grania, at the sleeping man whose ale you have bewitched.

  USHEEN. If Finn were to wake, he would take some terrible vengeance for this.

  GRANIA. What is his vengeanc
e to me now? I will go into the woods and will wander alone there till I die.

  FINN. [In his sleep], Diarmuid! Diarmuid!

  DIARMUID. When I looked into your eyes, Grania, it was as though I had come out of a cave into the dawn. But I cannot, I cannot, we have sworn an oath to Finn. We swore it upon the rock where the earth screamed under Con son of Filmy. If the oath were broken the earth would send famine, the corn would wither, the Fianna would be divided, an enemy would come.

  USHEEN. Take down your shield and begone from her Diarmuid.

  GRANIA. He looks at me because it has been foretold.

  DIARMUID. [Disengaging himself from Usheen and Caoelte]. What has been foretold? Who has foretold it?

  USHEEN. [Putting his hand on Diarmuid’s shoulder]. Diarmuid!

  CAOELTE. You will be the first of the Fianna to break his oath.

  DIARMUID. The fortune teller has lied, if she has said that I will break my oath to Finn. What did she tell you? What has she said?

  Has she said this?

  GRANIA. She spoke of a woman pledged to marry a man whom she did not love, and of a man who would come and take her away from that marriage bed. She foretold that the man would leave all things and that the woman would leave all things for love’s sake. She foretold that they would go away in the middle of the marriage feast, and wander in the unpeopled woods, and be happy by the rushy margin of many streams.

  DIARMUID. And the man is I, and the woman is you.

  GRANIA. She foretold that it shall seem as if all men had forgotten them, but the wild creatures shall not fly from them. They shall be happy under green boughs and become wise in all woodland wisdom, and as she spoke I too seemed to see them wandering on paths untrodden by the feet of the deer, where there are sudden odours of wild honey, and where they will often throw their arms about one another and kiss one another on the mouth. [She goes nearer to him]. And she told me, Diarmuid, that we should make our beds with the skins of deer under cromlechs and in caves, and awake from sleep we know not why, as though the dwarfs in the rocks had called to us, that we might see the starlight falling through the leaves. She told me the dwarfs of the rocks and the secret people of the trees should watch over us, and though all the men of Eri were our enemies they should not pluck us out of one another’s arms.

  DIARMUID. I must not listen or I will take her in my arms. I will awake Finn — Finn, Finn awake!

  GRANIA. What would you tell him?

  DIARMUID. That the world vanishes, that I see nothing but you.

  GRANIA. Is it not said that Diarmuid never refused help to a woman, and who is more helpless than I?

  DIARMUID. Had you not told me that you loved me, I would have helped you.

  GRANIA. Help me, Diarmuid.

  DIARMUID. Caoelte and Usheen have seen my trouble; they will tell

  Finn of my trouble. She has asked me for help and I must give it.

  GRANIA. [Standing at the door which she has thrown open]. Come,

  Diarmuid, to the woods, the birds of Aonghus, the birds of love, the birds that the eye cannot see, sing joyously, sing fiercely, they clap their wings and sing.

  DIARMUID. She asks for my help and I must give it.

  USHEEN. From this night the Fianna are broken in two.

  CAOELTE. And the kingdom that was to be made safe is in danger, and Diarmuid’s oath is broken.

  DIARMUID. My oath is not broken, tell Finn that. Tell him that this sword shall guard her by day, and will lie between us at night. Tell him I will send some messenger, some token that shall say to him — Finn, I bring you word that so many hours or so many moons have passed by and that Diarmuid’s oath is unbroken.

  GRANIA. The woods are sad with their summer sadness, and the birds of love have become silent, but they are not sleeping, their eyes are bright among the boughs...

  [She goes out].

  DIARMUID. I must follow her. Upon whose face shall I after this look in friendship again?

  [He takes his shield from the wall and goes out].

  USHEEN. [Goes to the door and looks after them]. They have gone westward to the woods.

  CAOELTE. When Finn wakes, we must tell him that they have gone eastward towards the sea.

  ACT II.

  Diarmuid’s house. A spinning wheel to left. Walls made of roughly hewed timber. Laban sitting before the spinning wheel. Cormac sitting near her. The twilight is slowly deepening. Enter Diarmuid and a shepherd carrying fleeces.

  DIARMUID. We have not yet finished our shearing. There are a few more sheep and we shall be done.

  [Diarmuid and shepherd go out].

  CORMAC. Every kind of sorrow has come upon this land: the Fianna are divided, and the galleys of our enemies are drawn up upon the shore. Our kingdom will be over-run by the Lochlanders and the hunting of Diarmuid and Grania will begin again.

  LABAN. Have your long talks with Diarmuid come to no better end than that?

  CORMAC. I talked with Diarmuid late into the night and I could not persuade him. Old woman who has spoken nothing but lies, I told him that the kingdom I had given him would be taken from him, and that I could not save him from Finn, or Eri from the invader.

  LABAN. I heard your voices, but I did not hear Grania’s voice.

  CORMAC. He said “Tell Finn to begone from my valley, let the sod be blown into flame again and the pursuit of Diarmuid and Grania begin again.”

  LABAN. And Grania stood by the door post watching the moon shining down the valley, looking to where Diarmuid’s cattle were feeding and towards the encampment of Finn.

  CORMAC. Yes, she stood there saying nothing. I turned to her often, saying, “If I take this message to Finn, you will have to fly into the woods again.”

  LABAN. And she answered nothing?

  CORMAC. Only this: “Where will Laban go if we are driven from this valley?” She said, “Father, you brought her here to be near me and if we are driven into the woods you will see that no harm comes to her.” But remember how near the Fianna were to hanging you from a rafter that night at Tara, and if I bring Diarmuid’s message to Finn I may not know how to save you from them.

  LABAN. They did not dare. The rope fell out of Goll’s hand; and Conan told them they could not hang me but with a rope that I had spun, and they tried to make me spin one.

  CORMAC. Yes, yes, but Finn has waited for three days. [Going to the door]. This sunset ends the third day. The horses are waiting and

  Niall is at their heads. Speak if you have found any meaning in the thread.

  LABAN. The thread keeps breaking as it runs from the distaff.

  CORMAC. Then the end of somebody is near; the end of Diarmuid or of Grania or of Finn... or the end of Eri. You must tell me before

  I go for I cannot wait any longer.

  LABAN. The thread is breaking; I cannot find a whole thread in the flax.

  CORMAC. You have lied to me, old woman. You brought me this long way that you might be near Grania. [She gets up from the wheel, Cormac puts her back again]. But spin since there is flax in the distaff, the earth knows all things and the flax comes out of the earth.

  LABAN. What would you know? If there be forgiveness in Finn’s heart?

  CORMAC. The men of Lochland have dragged up 70 galleys on to the beach of Rury.

  LABAN. You are troubled, being afraid that Caoelte and Usheen may not fight against the men of Lochland because they are angry with

  Finn. You are afraid that Finn may begin the hunting of Diarmuid and Grania again? You are afraid that Diarmuid and Grania...

  CORMAC. Old woman full of wisdom about everything but the danger that waits us, I have to carry Diarmuid’s answer to Finn and I would know what will happen to Diarmuid and to my daughter.

  You sit silent. Will you answer me?

  [A long pause, the King walks up the stage slowly and when he turns Laban rises from the wheel],

  LABAN. I see Diarmuid standing by Finn with his hand on Finn’s shoulder.

  CORMAC. Then they are friend
s.

  LABAN. I see Diarmuid drawing his sword.

  CORMAC. Against whom, Laban? And then....

  LABAN. I can see Finn drawing his dagger.

  CORMAC. His dagger — his sword — look again.

  LABAN. It is a dagger that I see.

  CORMAC. NOW wind the thread tightly round the forefinger. Now hold the thread tightly and look, for the earth knows all and her knowledge is in the flax.

  LABAN. The vision has passed from me, I see nothing else.

  CORMAC. Spin again, spin another thread.

  LABAN. I cannot see more than once, and the thread is broken again, you have broken it.