by W. B. Yeats
SIBBY. Give me a taste of it. TRAMP [takes the pot off and slips the ham bone behind him]. Give me some vessel till I’ll give this sky-woman a taste of it.
[JOHN gives him an egg-cup which he fills and gives to SIBBY. JOHN gives him a mug, and he fills this for himself, pouring it back and forward from the mug to a bowl that is on the table, and drinking gulps now and again, SIBBY blows at hers and smells it.
SIBBY. There’s a good smell on it anyway. [Tasting.] It’s lovely. Oh, I’d give the world and all to have the stone that made that!
TRAMP. The world and all wouldn’t buy- it, ma’am. If I was inclined to sell it the Lord Lieutenant would have given me Dublin Castle and all that’s in it long ago.
SIBBY. Oh, couldn’t we coax it out of you any way at all?
TRAMP [drinking more soup]. The whole world wouldn’t coax it out of me except maybe for one thing... [looks depressed]. Now I think of it there’s only one reason I might think of parting it at all.
SIBBY [eagerly]. What reason is that?
TRAMP. It’s a misfortune that overtakes me, ma’am, every time I make an attempt to keep a pot of my own to boil it in, and I don’t like to be always under a compliment to the neighbours, asking the loan of one. But whatever way it is, I never can keep a pot with me. I had a right to ask one of the little man that gave me the stone. The last one I bought got the bottom burned out of it one night I was giving a hand to a friend that keeps a still, and the one before that I hid under a bush one time I was going into Ennis for the night, and some boys in the town dreamed about it and went looking for treasure in it, and they found nothing but eggshells, but they brought it away for all that. And another one....
SIBBY. Give me the loan of the stone itself, and I’ll engage I’ll keep a pot for it.... Wait now till I’ll make some offer to you....
TRAMP [aside], I’d best not be stopping to bargain, the priest might be coming in on me. [Gets up.] Well, ma’am, I’m sorry I can’t oblige you. [Goes to door, shades his eyes and looks out, turns suddenly.] I have no time to lose, ma’am, I’m off. [Comes to table and takes his hat.] Well, ma’am, what offer will you make?
JOHN. You might as well leave it for a day on trial first.
TRAMP [to JOHN]. I think it likely I’ll not be passing this way again. [To SIBBY] Well, now, ma’am, as you were so kind, and for the sake of the good treatment you gave me I’ll ask nothing at all for it. Here it is for you and welcome, and that you may live long to use it. But I’ll just take a little bit in my bag that’ll do for my supper, for fear I mightn’t be in Tubber before night. [He takes up the chicken.] And you won’t begrudge me a drop of whisky when you can make plenty for yourself from this out. [Takes the bottled]
JOHN. You deserve it, you deserve it indeed. You are a very gifted man. Don’t forget the kippeen!
TRAMP. It’s here! [Slaps his pocket and exit, JOHN follows him.]
SIBBY [looking at the stone in her hand]. Broth of the best, stirabout, poteen, wine itself, he said! And the people that will be coming to see the miracle! I’ll be as rich a£ Biddy Early before I die!
[JOHN comes back. SIBBY. Where were you, John?
JOHN. I just went out to shake him by the hand. He’s a very gifted man.
SIBBY. He is so indeed.
JOHN. And the priest’s at the top of the boreen coming for his dinner. Maybe you’d best put the stone in the pot again.
THE KING’S THRESHOLD
TO FRANK FAY
Because of his beautiful speaking in
the character of Seanchan
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
KING GUAIRE.
SEANCHAN (pronounced SHANAHAN).
HIS PUPILS.
THE MAYOR OF KINVARA.
TWO CRIPPLES.
BRIAN, an old servant.
THE LORD HIGH CHAMBERLAIN.
A SOLDIER.
A MONK.
COURT LADIES.
TWO PRINCESSES.
FEDELM.
THE KING’S THRESHOLD
SCENE: Steps before the Palace of KING
GUAIRE at Gort. A table or litter in front of steps at one side, with food on it, and a bench. SEANCHAN lying on steps. PUPILS before steps. KING on the upper step before a curtained door.
KING. I welcome you that have the mastery
Of the two kinds of Music: the one kind
Being like a woman, the other like a man.
Both you that understand stringed instruments,
And how to mingle words and notes together
So artfully, that all the Art’s but Speech
Delighted with its own music; and you that carry
The long twisted horn, and understand
The heady notes that, being without words,
Can hurry beyond Time and Fate and Change.
For the high angels that drive the horse of Time —
The golden one by day, by night the silver —
Are not more welcome to one that loves the world
For some fair woman’s sake.
I have called you hither
To save the life of your great master, Seanchan,
For all day long it has flamed up or flickered
To the fast cooling hearth.
OLDEST PUPIL. When did he sicken?
Is it a fever that is wasting him?
KING. NO fever or sickness. He has chosen death:
Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring
Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom,
An old and foolish custom, that if a man
Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve
Upon another’s threshold till he die,
The common people, for all time to come,
Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold,
Even though it be the King’s.
OLDEST PUPIL. My head whirls round;
I do not know what I am to think or say.
I owe you all obedience, and yet
How can I give it, when the man I have loved
More than all others, thinks that he is wronged
So bitterly, that he will starve and die
Rather than bear it? Is there any man
Will throw his life away for a light issue?
KING. It is but fitting that you take his side
Until you understand how light an issue
Has put us by the ears. Three days ago
I yielded to the outcry of my courtiers —
Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law —
Who long had thought it against their dignity
For a mere man of words to sit amongst them
At the great council of the state and share
In their authority. I bade him go,
Though at the first with kind and courteous words,
But when he pleaded for the poets’ right,
Established at the establishment of the world,
I said that I was King, and that all rights
Had their original fountain in some king,
And that it was the men who ruled the world,
And not the men who sang to it, who should sit
Where there was the most honour. My courtiers —
Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law —
Shouted approval; and amid that noise
Seanchan went out, and from that hour to this
Although there is good food and drink beside him,
Has eaten nothing.
OLDEST PUPIL. I can breathe again.
You have taken a great burden from my mind
For that old custom’s not worth dying for.
KING. Persuade him to eat or drink. Till yesterday
I thought that hunger and weakness had been enough;
But finding them too trifling and too light
To hold his mouth from biting at the grave,
I called you hither, and all my hope’s in you,
And certain of his neighbours and good friends
That I
have sent for. While he is lying there
Perishing, my good name in the world
Is perishing also. I cannot give way,
Because I am King; because if I gave way,
My Nobles would call me a weakling, and it may be
The very throne be shaken.
OLDEST PUPIL. — I will persuade him.
Your words had been enough persuasion, King;
But being lost in sleep or reverie,
He cannot hear them.
KING. — Make him eat or drink.
Nor is it all because of my good name
I’d have him do it, for he is a man
That might well hit the fancy of a king,
Banished out of his country, or a woman’s
Or any other’s that can judge a man
For what he is. But I that sit a throne,
And take my measure from the needs of the State,
Call his wild thought that overruns the measure,
Making words more than deeds, and his proud will
That would unsettle all, most mischievous,
And he himself a most mischievous man.
[He turns to go, and then returns again.
Promise a house with grass and tillage land,
An annual payment, jewels and silken ware,
Or anything but that old right of the poets.
[He goes into palace.
OLDEST PUPIL. The King did wrong to abrogate our right;
But Seanchan, who talks of dying for it,
Talks foolishly. Look at us, Seanchan;
Waken out of your dream and look at us,
Who have ridden under the moon and all the day,
Until the moon has all but come again,
That we might be beside you.
SEANCHAN [half turning round, leaning on
his elbow, and speaking as if in a dream].
I was but now
In Almhuin, in a great high-raftered house,
With Finn and Osgar. Odours of roast flesh
Rose round me, and I saw the roasting spits;
And then the dream was broken, and I saw
Grania dividing salmon by a stream.
OLDEST PUPIL. Hunger has made you
dream of roasting flesh;
And though I all but weep to think of it,
The hunger of the crane, that starves himself
At the full moon because he is afraid
Of his own shadow and the glittering water,
Seems to me little more fantastical
Than this of yours.
SEANCHAN. Why, that’s the very truth.
It is as though the moon changed every-thing —
Myself and all that I can hear and see;
For when the heavy body has grown weak,
There’s nothing that can tether the wild mind
That, being moonstruck and fantastical,
Goes where it fancies. I have even thought
I knew your voice and face, but now the words
Are so unlikely that I needs must ask
Who is it that bids me put my hunger by.
OLDEST PUPIL. I am your oldest pupil, Seanchan;
The one that has been with you many years —
So many, that you said at Candlemas
That I had almost done with school, and knew
All but all that poets understand.
SEANCHAN. My oldest pupil? No, that cannot be,
For it is some one of the courtly crowds
That have been round about me from sunrise,
And I am tricked by dreams; but I’ll refute them.
At Candlemas I bid that pupil tell me
Why poetry is honoured, wishing to know
If he had any weighty argument
For distant countries and strange, churlish kings.
What did he answer?
OLDEST PUPIL. — I said the poets hung
Images of the life that was in Eden
About the child-bed of the world, that it,
Looking upon those images, might bear
Triumphant children. But why must I stand here,
Repeating an old lesson, while you starve?
SEANCHAN. Tell on, for I begin to know the voice.
What evil thing will come upon the world
If the Arts perish?
OLDEST PUPIL. If the Arts should perish,
The world that lacked them would be like a woman,
That looking on the cloven lips of a hare,
Brings forth a hare-lipped child.
SEANCHAN. — But that’s not all:
For when I asked you how a man should guard
Those images, you had an answer also,
If you’re the man that you have claimed to be,
Comparing them to venerable things
God gave to men before he gave them wheat.
OLDEST PUPIL. I answered — and the word
was half your own —
That he should guard them as the Men of Dea
Guard their four treasures, as the Grail King guards
His holy cup, or the pale, righteous horse
The jewel that is underneath his horn,
Pouring out life for it as one pours out
Sweet heady wine.... But now I under- stand;
You would refute me out of my own mouth;
And yet a place at council, near the King,
Is nothing of great moment, Seanchan.
How does so light a thing touch poetry?
[SEANCHAN is now sitting up. He still
looks dreamily in front of him.
SEANCHAN. At Candlemas you called this poetry
One of the fragile, mighty things of God,
That die at an insult.
OLDEST PUPIL [to other PUPILS]. Give me
some true answer,
Upon that day he spoke about the Court
And called it the first comely child of the world,
And said that all that was insulted there
The world insulted, for the Courtly life
Is the world’s model. How shall I answer him?
Can you not give me some true argument?
I will not tempt him with a lying one.
YOUNGEST PUPIL. O, tell him that the
lovers of his music
Have need of him.
SEANCHAN. — But I am labouring
For some that shall be born in the nick o’ time,
And find sweet nurture, that they may have voices,
Even in anger, like the strings of harps;
And how could they be born to majesty
If I had never made the golden cradle?
YOUNGEST PUPIL [throwing himself at SEAN-
CHAN’S feet]. Why did you take me from
my father’s fields?
If you would leave me now, what shall I love?
Where shall I go? What shall I set my hand to?
And why have you put music in my ears,
If you would send me to the clattering houses?
I will throw down the trumpet and the harp,
For how could I sing verses or make music
With none to praise me, and a broken heart?
SEANCHAN. What was it that the poets promised you,
If it was not their sorrow? Do not speak.
Have I not opened school on these bare steps,
And are not you the youngest of my scholars?
And I would have all know that when all falls
In ruin, poetry calls out in joy,
Being the scattering hand, the bursting pod,
The victim’s joy among the holy flame,
God’s laughter at the shattering of the world.
And now that joy laughs out, and weeps and burns
On these bare steps.
YOUNGEST PUPIL. O master, do not die!
OLDEST PUPIL. Trouble him with no useless argument.
Be silent! There is nothing we can do
Except find out
the King and kneel to him,
And beg our ancient right.
For here are some
To say whatever we could say and more,
And fare as badly. Come, boy, that is no use.
[Raises YOUNGEST PUPIL.
If it seem well that we beseech the King,
Lay down your harps and trumpets on the stones
In silence, and come with me silently.
Come with slow footfalls, and bow all your heads,
For a bowed head becomes a mourner best.
[They lay harps and trumpets down one
by one, and then go out very solemnly
and slowly, following one another.
Enter MAYOR, TWO CRIPPLES, and
BRIAN, an old servant. The MAYOR,
who has been heard, before he came
“pon the stage, muttering ‘Chief
Poet,”Ireland,’ etc., crosses in
front of SEANCHAN to the other side
of the steps. BRIAN takes food out of
basket. The CRIPPLES are watching
the basket. The MAYOR has an
Ogham stick in his hand.
MAYOR [as he crosses]. ‘Chief Poet,”Ireland,”Townsman,”Grazing land.’
Those are the words I have to keep in mind —
‘Chief Poet,”Ireland,”Townsman,’ ‘Grazing land.’
I have the words. They are all upon the Ogham.
‘Chief Poet,’’ Ireland,”Townsman,” Grazing land.’
But what’s their order?
[He keeps muttering over his speech
during what follows.
FIRST CRIPPLE. The King were rightly served
If Seanchan drove his good luck away.
What’s there about a king, that’s in the world