by W. B. Yeats
Colman. I think we had better go down to the river and see are there any eels on the lines we set. We must find something for supper. It is near sunset; see how the crows are flying home.
Paul Ruttledge. [Looking up.] The crows are my darlings! I like their harsh merriment better than those sad cries of the wind and the rushes. Look at them, they are tossing about like witches, tossing about on the wind, drunk with the wind.
Colman. Well, I’ll go look at the lines, anyhow. Put turf on the fire, Aloysius; Bartley should soon be home from Shanaglish.
Aloysius. I wonder why he isn’t home by this. I’m uneasy till I see him, after the way the people treated me to-day. [Shades his eyes to look out.] Here he is! He’s running!
Colman. [Coming over to him.] He is running hard! He must be in some danger — —
* * *
Enter Bartley out of breath.
Bartley. Run, run, come away, there’s not a minute to lose.
Colman. What is the matter? what has happened?
Bartley. The people are coming up the road! They attacked me in the market! They followed me, they are on the road. I slipped away across the fields. Run, run!
Colman. What is it? What are they going to do to us?
Bartley. You would know that if you saw them! They have stones and sticks. Raging they are, and calling for our lives. They say we brought witchcraft and ill-luck on the place! Come to the boat, it’s in the rushes; they won’t see us, we’ll get to the island. Hurry, hurry! [He runs out.
Aloysius. Come, Brother Paul, hurry, hurry!
Paul Ruttledge. I am going to stay.
Bartley. They will kill us if we stay! Brother Colman said they have stones and sticks; I think I hear them!
Paul Ruttledge. You are afraid because you have been shut up so long. I am not afraid because I have lived upon the roads, where one is ready for anything that may happen. One has to learn that, like any other thing. I will stay.
Aloysius. He wants the crown!
Paul Ruttledge. Where is Bartley?
Colman. He is gone. Come, you must go too, we can’t leave you here. You have too much to do to throw your life away, we have all too much to do.
Paul Ruttledge. No, no. There is nothing to do; I am going to stay.
Aloysius. I will stay with you. [Takes his hand.
Paul Ruttledge. Death is the last adventure, the first perfect joy, for at death the soul comes into possession of itself, and returns to the joy that made it. [A great shout outside.
Colman. [Seizing Aloysius.] Come, come, Aloysius! come, Paul! We haven’t a moment, here they are. [Drags Aloysius away.
Paul Ruttledge. Good-bye, Aloysius, good-bye, Colman. Keep a pick going at the foundations of the world.
Colman and Aloysius run on.
One of the Mob outside. They are here in the ruins!
Another Voice. This way! This way!
Paul Ruttledge. I will not go. I have a little reason for staying, but no reason is too little to be the foundation of martyrdom. People have been martyred for all kinds of reasons, and my reason that is not worth a rush will do as well as any other. [Looks round.] Ah! they are gone. A little reason, a little reason. I have entered into the second freedom — the irresponsibility of the saints.
Sings.
Parasti in conspectu meo mensam
Adversus eos qui tribulant me.
Impinguasti in oleo caput meum,
Et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est.
[People rush in with sticks uplifted.
One of the Mob. Where are the heretics?
Another. We’ll make an end of their witchcraft!
Another. Here is the worst of them!
Another. Give me back my cattle you put the sickness on!
Another. We’ll have no witchcraft here! Drive away the unfrocked priest!
Another. Make an end of him when we have the chance!
Paul Ruttledge. Yes, make an end of me. I have tried hard to live a good life; give me a good death now.
One of the Crowd. Quick, don’t give him time to put the evil eye on us!
[They rush at him. His hands are seen swaying about above the crowd.
Paul Ruttledge. I go to the invisible heart of flame!
One of the Crowd. Throw him there now! Where are the others?
Another. They must be among the rocks.
Another. They are not; they are gone down the road!
Another. I tell you it’s in the rocks they are! It’s in the rocks they’re hiding!
Another. They are not; they couldn’t run in the rocks; they’re running down the road.
Several Voices. They’re on the road; they’re on the road.
[They all rush out, leaving Paul Ruttledge lying on the ground. It grows darker. Fathers Colman and Aloysius creep up.
Colman. Paul, Paul, come; we have still time to get to the boat.
Aloysius. Oh! they have killed him; there is a wound in his neck! Oh! he has been the first of us to get the crown!
Colman. There are voices! They must be coming back! Come to the boat, maybe we can bury him to-morrow!
[They go out. Paul Ruttledge half rises and sinks back.
Enter Charlie Ward and Sabina Silver.
Charlie Ward. They have done for him. I thought they would.
Sabina Silver. Oh, Paul, I never thought to find you like this! He’s not dead; he’ll come round yet.
Charlie Ward. [Opens his shirt and puts in his hand on his heart.] Paul!
Paul Ruttledge. Ah! Charlie, give me the soldering iron — no, bring me the lap anvil — I’m as good a tinker as any of you.
Charlie Ward. He thinks he’s back on the roads with us! He is done for.
Sabina Silver. I knew he’d have to come back to me to die after all; it’s a lonesome thing to die among strangers.
Paul Ruttledge. That is right, that is right, take me up in your brazen claws. But no — no — I will not go out beyond Saturn into the dark. Take me down — down to that field under the earth, under the roots of the grave.
Sabina Silver. I don’t know what he is saying. I never could understand his talk.
Paul Ruttledge. O plunge me into the wine barrel, into the wine barrel of God.
Sabina Silver. Won’t you speak to me, Paul? Don’t you know me? I am Sibby; don’t you remember me, Sibby, your wife?
Charlie Ward. He sees you now; I think he knows you.
[Paul Ruttledge has raised himself on his elbow and is looking at Sabina Silver.
Sabina Silver. He knows me. I was sure he would know me.
Paul Ruttledge. Colman, Colman, remember always where there is nothing there is God. [He sinks down again.
One of the Crowd. [Coming back with two or three others.] I knew they must be in the rocks.
Charlie Ward. Well, he’s gone! There’ll soon be none of us left at all. And I never knew what it was he did that brought him to us.
Sabina Silver. Oh, Paul, Paul!
[Begins to keen very low, swaying herself to and fro.
One of the Crowd. [To Charlie Ward.] Was he a friend of yours?
Charlie Ward. He was, indeed. I must do what I can for him now.
One of the Crowd. That’s natural, that’s natural. It’s a pity they did it. They’d best have left him alone. We’d best be going back to the town.
[Sabina Silver raises the keen louder. The Strangers and Charlie Ward take off their hats.
Curtain
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN
This one-act play was written in collaboration with Lady Gregory in 1902 and it was first performed on 2 April of the same year. It is a startlingly nationalistic work, encouraging young men to sacrifice their lives for the heroine Cathleen ni Houlihan, who represents an independent and separate Irish state. The title character first appears as an old woman, at the door of a family celebrating their son’s wedding. She describes her four “beautiful green fields,” representing the four provinces, that have been unjustly taken from her.
With little subtlety, she requests a blood sacrifice, declaring that “many a child will be born and there will be no father at the christening”.
A scene from the 1912 production of the play
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
PETER GILLANE.
MICHAEL GILLANE his son, going to be married.
PATRICK GILLANE a lad of twelve, Michael’s brother.
BRIDGET GILLANE Peter’s wife.
DELIA CAHEL engaged to MICHAEL.
THE POOR OLD WOMAN.
NEIGHBOURS.
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN
Scene: Interior of a cottage close to Killala, in 1798. Bridget is standing at a table undoing a parcel. Peter is sitting at one side of the fire, Patrick at the other.
Peter. What is that sound I hear?
Patrick. I don’t hear anything. [He listens.] I hear it now. It’s like cheering. [He goes to the window and looks out.] I wonder what they are cheering about. I don’t see anybody.
Peter. It might be a hurling match.
Patrick. There’s no hurling to-day. It must be down in the town the cheering is.
Bridget. I suppose the boys must be having some sport of their own. Come over here, Peter, and look at Michael’s wedding-clothes.
Peter [shifts his chair to table]. Those are grand clothes, indeed.
Bridget. You hadn’t clothes like that when you married me, and no coat to put on of a Sunday any more than any other day.
Peter. That is true, indeed. We never thought a son of our own would be wearing a suit of that sort for his wedding, or have so good a place to bring a wife to.
Patrick [who is still at the window]. There’s an old woman coming down the road. I don’t know, is it here she’s coming?
Bridget. It will be a neighbour coming to hear about Michael’s wedding. Can you see who it is?
Patrick. I think it is a stranger, but she’s not coming to the house. She’s turned into the gap that goes down where Murteen and his sons are shearing sheep. [He turns towards Bridget.] Do you remember what Winny of the Cross Roads was saying the other night about the strange woman that goes through the country whatever time there’s war or trouble coming?
Bridget. Don’t be bothering us about Winny’s talk, but go and open the door for your brother. I hear him coming up the path.
Peter. I hope he has brought Delia’s fortune with him safe, for fear her people might go back on the bargain and I after making it. Trouble enough I had making it.
[Patrick opens the door and Michael comes in.]
Bridget. What kept you, Michael? We were looking out for you this long time.
Michael. I went round by the priest’s house to bid him be ready to marry us to-morrow.
Bridget. Did he say anything?
Michael. He said it was a very nice match, and that he was never better pleased to marry any two in his parish than myself and Delia Cahel.
Peter. Have you got the fortune, Michael?
Michael. Here it is.
[He puts bag on table and goes over and leans against the chimney-jamb. Bridget, who has been all this time examining the clothes, pulling the seams and trying the lining of the pockets, etc., puts the clothes on the dresser.]
Peter [getting up and taking the bag in his hand and turning out the money]. Yes, I made the bargain well for you, Michael. Old John Cahel would sooner have kept a share of this awhile longer. “Let me keep the half of it till the first boy is born,” says he. “You will not,” says I. “Whether there is or is not a boy, the whole hundred pounds must be in Michael’s hands before he brings your daughter in the house.” The wife spoke to him then, and he gave in at the end.
Bridget. You seem well pleased to be handling the money, Peter.
Peter. Indeed, I wish I had had the luck to get a hundred pounds, or twenty pounds itself, with the wife I married.
Bridget. Well, if I didn’t bring much I didn’t get much. What had you the day I married you but a flock of hens and you feeding them, and a few lambs and you driving them to the market at Ballina? [She is vexed and bangs a jug on the dresser.] If I brought no fortune, I worked it out in my bones, laying down the baby, Michael that is standing there now, on a stook of straw, while I dug the potatoes, and never asking big dresses or anything but to be working.
Peter. That is true, indeed. [He pats her arm.]
Bridget. Leave me alone now till I ready the house for the woman that is to come into it.
Peter. You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too. [He begins handling the money again and sits down.] I never thought to see so much money within my four walls. We can do great things now we have it. We can take the ten acres of land we have a chance of since Jamsie Dempsey died, and stock it. We will go to the fair of Ballina to buy the stock. Did Delia ask any of the money for her own use, Michael?
Michael. She did not, indeed. She did not seem to take much notice of it, or to look at it at all.
Bridget. That’s no wonder. Why would she look at it when she had yourself to look at, a fine, strong young man? It is proud she must be to get you, a good steady boy that will make use of the money, and not be running through it or spending it on drink like another.
Peter. It’s likely Michael himself was not thinking much of the fortune either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.
Michael [coming over towards the table]. Well, you would like a nice comely girl to be beside you, and to go walking with you. The fortune only lasts for a while, but the woman will be there always.
[Cheers.]
Patrick [turning round from the window]. They are cheering again down in the town. Maybe they are landing horses from Enniscrone. They do be cheering when the horses take the water well.
Michael. There are no horses in it. Where would they be going and no fair at hand? Go down to the town, Patrick, and see what is going on.
Patrick [opens the door to go out, but stops for a moment on the threshold]. Will Delia remember, do you think, to bring the greyhound pup she promised me when she would be coming to the house?
Michael. She will surely.
[Patrick goes out, leaving the door open.]
Peter. It will be Patrick’s turn next to be looking for a fortune, but he won’t find it so easy to get it and he with no place of his own.
Bridget. I do be thinking sometimes, now things are going so well with us, and the Cahels such a good back to us in the district, and Delia’s own uncle a priest, we might be put in the way of making Patrick a priest some day, and he so good at his books.
Peter. Time enough, time enough; you have always your head full of plans, Bridget.
Bridget. We will be well able to give him learning, and not to send him trampling the country like a poor scholar that lives on charity.
[Cheers.]
Michael. They’re not done cheering yet.
[He goes over to the door and stands there for a moment, putting up his hand to shade his eyes.]
Bridget. Do you see anything?
Michael. I see an old woman coming up the path.
Bridget. Who is it, I wonder. It must be the strange woman Patrick saw awhile ago.
Michael. I don’t think it’s one of the neighbours anyway, but she has her cloak over her face.
Bridget. It might be some poor woman heard we were making ready for the wedding and came to look for her share.
Peter. I may as well put the money out of sight. There is no use leaving it out for every stranger to look at.
[He goes over to a large box in the corner, opens it, and puts the bag in and fumbles at the lock.]
Michael. There she is, father! [An Old Woman passes the window slowly; she looks at Michael as she passes.] I’d sooner a stranger not to come to the house the night before my wedding.
Bridget. Open the door, Michael; don’t keep the poor woman waiting.
[The Old Woman comes in. Michael stands aside to make way for her.]