by W. B. Yeats
FEDELM. But you will tell me all about their songs
When we’re at home. You have need of rest and care,
And I can give them you when we’re at home.
And therefore let us hurry, and get us home.
SEANCHAN. It’s certain that there is some trouble here,
Although it’s gone out of my memory.
And I would get away from it. Give me
your help. — [Trying to rise.
But why are not my pupils here to help me?
Go, call my pupils, for I need their help.
FEDELM. Come with me now, and I will send for them,
For I have a great room that’s full of beds
I can make ready; and there is a smooth lawn
Where they can play at hurley and sing poems
Under an apple-tree.
SEANCHAN. — I know that place:
An apple-tree, and a smooth level lawn
Where the young men can sway their hurley sticks.
[Sings.]
The four rivers that run there,
Through well-mown level ground,
Have come out of a blessed well
That is all bound and wound
By the great roots of an apple,
And all the fowl of the air
Have gathered in the wide branches
And keep singing there.
[FEDELM, troubled, has covered her eyes with her hands.
FEDELM. No, there are not four rivers, and those rhymes
Praise Adam’s paradise.
SEANCHAN. — I can remember now,
It’s out of a poem I made long ago
About the Garden in the East of the World,
And how spirits in the images of birds
Crowd in the branches of old Adam’s crab- tree.
They come before me now, and dig in the fruit
With so much gluttony, and are so drunk
With that harsh wholesome savour, that their feathers
Are clinging one to another with the juice.
But you would lead me to some friendly place,
And I would go there quickly.
FEDELM [helping him to rise]. Come with me.
[He walks slowly, supported by her, till
he comes to table.
SEANCHAN. But why am I so weak? Have
I been ill?
Sweetheart, why is it that I am so weak?
[Sinks on to seat.
FEDELM [goes to table]. I’ll dip this piece of
bread into the wine,
For that will make you stronger for the journey.
SEANCHAN. Yes, give me bread and wine;
that’s what I want,
For it is hunger that is gnawing me.
[He takes bread from FEDELM, hesitates,
and then thrusts it back into her hand.
But, no; I must not eat it.
FEDELM. — Eat, Seanchan.
For if you do not eat it you will die.
SEANCHAN. Why did you give me food?
Why did you come?
For had I not enough to fight against
Without your coming?
FEDELM. — Eat this little crust,
Seanchan, if you have any love for me.
SEANCHAN. I must not eat it — but that’s beyond your wit.
Child! child! I must not eat it, though I die.
FEDELM {passionately]. You do not know
what love is; for if you loved,
You would put every other thought away.
But you have never loved me.
SEANCHAN [seizing her by wrist]. You, a child,
Who have but seen a man out of the window,
Tell me that I know nothing about love,
And that I do not love you? Did I not say
There was a frenzy in the light of the stars
All through the livelong night, and that the night
Was full of marriages? But that fight’s over
And all that’s done with, and I have to die.
FEDELM [throwing her arms about him]. I
will not be put from you, although I think
I had not grudged it you if some great lady,
If the King’s daughter, had set out your bed.
I will not give you up to death; no, no!
And are not these white arms and this soft neck
Better than the brown earth?
SEANCHAN [struggling to disengage himself ].
Begone from me!
There’s treachery in those arms and in that voice.
They’re all against me. Why do you linger there?
How long must I endure the sight of you?
FEDELM. O, Seanchan! Seanchan!
SEANCHAN [rising]. Go where you will,
So it be out of sight and out of mind.
I cast you from me like an old torn cap,
A broken shoe, a glove without a finger,
A crooked penny; whatever is most worth- less.
FEDELM [bursts into tears], Oh, do not
drive me from you!
SEANCHAN [takes her in his arms’]. What did I say,
My dove of the woods? I was about to curse you.
It was a frenzy. I’ll unsay it all.
But you must go away.
FEDELM. — Let me be near you.
I will obey like any married wife.
Let me but lie before your feet.
SEANCHAN. Come nearer. [Kisses her.
If I had eaten when you bid me, sweetheart,
The kiss of multitudes in times to come
Had been the poorer.
[Enter KING from palace, followed by
the two PRINCESSES.
KING [to FEDELM]. Has he eaten yet?
FEDELM. NO, King, and will not till you have restored
The right of the poets.
KING [coming down and standing before
SEANCHAN]. Seanchan, you have refused
Everybody I have sent, and now
I come to you myself.
FEDELM. — Come nearer, King,
He is now so weak he cannot hear your voice.
KING. Seanchan, put away your pride as I
Have put my pride away. I had your love
Not a great while ago, and now you have planned
To put a voice by every cottage fire,
And in the night when no one sees who cries,
To cry against me till my throne has crumbled.
And yet if I give way I must offend
My courtiers and nobles till they, too,
Strike at the crown. What would you have of me?
SEANCHAN. When did the poets promise safety, King?
KING. Seanchan, I bring you bread in my own hands,
And bid you eat because of all these reasons,
And for this further reason, that I love you.
[SEANCHAN -pushes bread away, with
FEDELM’S hand.
You have refused, Seanchan?
SEANCHAN. — We have refused it.
KING. I have been patient, though I am a king,
And have the means to force you. But that’s ended,
And I am but a king, and you a subject.
Nobles and courtiers, bring the poets hither;
[Enter COURT LADIES, MONK, SOLDIERS,
CHAMBERLAIN, and COURTIERS with
PUPILS, who have halters round their necks.
For you can have your way. I that was man,
With a man’s heart, am now all king again,
Speak to your master; beg your life of him;
Show him the halter that is round your necks.
If his heart’s set upon it, he may die;
But you shall all die with him.
[Goes up steps.
Beg your lives!
Begin, for you have little time to lose.
Begin it, you that are the oldest pupil.
OLDEST PUPIL. Die, Seanchan, and pro-
claim the right of the poets.
>
KING. Silence! you are as crazy as your master.
But that young boy, that seems the youngest of you
I’d have him speak. Kneel down before him, boy;
Hold up your hands to him that you may pluck
That milky-coloured neck out of the noose.
YOUNGEST PUPIL. Die, Seanchan, and pro-
claim the right of the poets.
SEANCHAN. Come nearer me that I may know how face
Differs from face and touch you with my hands.
O more than kin, O more than children could be,
For children are but born out of our blood
And share our frailty. O my chicks, my chicks!
That I have nourished underneath my wings
And fed upon my soul.
[He rises and walks down steps.
I need no help.
He needs no help that joy has lifted up
Like some miraculous beast out of Ezekiel.
The man that dies has the chief part in the story,
And I will mock and mock that image yonder,
That evil picture in the sky — no, no!
I have all my strength again, I will outface it.
O look upon the moon that’s standing there
In the blue daylight — take note of the com- plexion
Because it is the white of leprosy
And the contagion that afflicts mankind
Falls from the moon. When I and these are dead
We should be carried to some windy hill
To lie there with uncovered face awhile
That mankind and that leper there may know
Dead faces laugh.
[He falls and then half rises.
King! King! Dead faces laugh.
[He dies.
OLDEST PUPIL. King, he is dead; some
strange triumphant thought
So filled his heart with joy that it has burst,
Being grown too mighty for our frailty,
And we who gaze grow like him and abhor
The moments that come between us and that death
You promised us.
KING. — Take up his body.
Go where you please and lay it where you please,
So that I cannot see his face or any
That cried him towards his death.
YOUNGEST PUPIL. Dead faces laugh!
The ancient right is gone, the new remains
And that is death.
[They go towards the King holding out their halters.
We are impatient men,
So gather up the halters in your hands.
KING. Drive them away.
[He goes into the palace. The SOLDIERS
block the way before the PUPILS,
SOLDIER. — Here is no place for you.
For he and his pretensions now are finished.
Begone before the men-at-arms are bidden
To beat you from the door.
OLDEST PUPIL. — Take up his body
And cry that driven from the populous door
He seeks high waters and the mountain birds
To claim a portion of their solitude.
[They make a litter with cloak and
staffs or use one discovered, heaped
with foody at the opening of the play.
YOUNGEST PUPIL. And cry that when they
took his ancient right
They took all common sleep; therefore he claims
The mountain for his mattress and his pillow.
OLDEST PUPIL. And there he can sleep on, not noticing,
Although the world be changed from worse to worse,
Amid the changeless clamour of the curlew.
[They raise the Utter on their shoulders
and move a few steps.
YOUNGEST PUPIL [motioning to them to stop
Yet make triumphant music; sing aloud
For coming times will bless what he has blessed
And curse what he has cursed.
OLDEST PUPIL. — NO, no, be still,
Or pluck a solemn music from the strings
You wrong his greatness speaking so of triumph.
YOUNGEST PUPIL. O silver trumpets, be you lifted up
And cry to the great race that is to come.
Long-throated swans upon the v/aves of time,
Sing loudly for beyond the wall of the world
That race may hear our music and awake.
OLDEST PUPIL [motioning the musicians to
lower their trumpets]. Not what it leaves
behind it in the light
But what it carries with it to the dark
Exalts the soul; nor song nor trumpet blast
Can call up races from the worsening world
To mend the wrong and mar the solitude
Of the great shade we follow to the tomb.
[FEDELM and the PUPILS go out carrying
the litter. Some play a mournful music.
ON BAILE’S STRA ND
PERSONS OF THE PLAY.
CUCHULLAIN, the King of Muirthemne.
CONCOBAR, the High King of Ullad.
DAIRE, a King.
FINTAIN, a blind man.
BARACH, a fool.
A Young Man.
Young Kings and Old Kings.
ON BAILE’S STRAND
SCENE: A great hall by the sea close to Dundalgan. There are two great chairs on either side of the hall, each raised a little from the ground, and on the back of the one chair is carved and painted a woman with a fish’s tail, and on the back of the other a hound. There are smaller chairs and benches raised in tiers round the walls. There is a great ale vat at one side near a small door, & a large door at the back through which one can see the sea. Barach, a tall thin man with long ragged hair, dressed in skins, comes in at the side door. He is leading Fintain, a fat blind man, who is somewhat older.
BARACH.
I will shut the door, for this wind out of the sea gets into my bones, and if I leave but an inch for the wind there is one like a flake of sea-frost that might come into the house.
FINTAIN.
What is his name, fool?
BARACH.
It’s a woman from among the Riders of the Sidhe. It’s Boann herself from the river. She has left the Dagda’s bed, and gone through the salt of the sea & up here to the strand of Baile, and all for love of me. Let her keep her husband’s bed, for she’ll have none of me. Nobody knows how lecherous these goddesses are. I see her in every kind of shape but oftener than not she’s in the wind and cries ‘give a kiss and put your arms about me.’ But no, she’ll have no more of me. Yesterday when I put out my lips to kiss her, there was nothing there but the wind. She’s bad, Fintain. O, she’s bad. I had better shut the big door too. (He is going towards the big door but turns hearing Fintain’s voice.)
FINTAIN.
(Who has been feeling about with his stick.) What’s this and this?
BARACH.
They are chairs.
FINTAIN.
And this?
BARACH.
Why, that’s a bench.
FINTAIN.
And this?
BARACH.
A big chair.
FINTAIN.
(Feeling the back of the chair.) There is a sea-woman carved upon it.
BARACH.
And there is another big chair on the other side of the hall.
FINTAIN.
Lead me to it. (He mutters while the fool is leading him.) That is what the High King Concobar has on his shield. The High King will be coming. They have brought out his chair. (He begins feeling the back of the other chair.) And there is a dog’s head on this. They have brought out our master’s chair. Now I know what the horse-boys were talking about. We must not stay here. The Kings are going to meet here. Now that Concobar and our master, that is his chief man, have put down all the enemies of Ullad, they are going to build up Emain again. They are going to talk over their plans for building it. Were
you ever in Concobar’s town before it was burnt? O, he is a great King, for though Emain was burnt down, every war had made him richer. He has gold and silver dishes, and chessboards and candle-sticks made of precious stones. Fool, have they taken the top from the ale vat?
BARACH.
They have.
FINTAIN.
Then bring me a horn of ale quickly, for the Kings will be here in a minute. Now I can listen. Tell me what you saw this morning?
BARACH.
About the young man and the fighting?
FINTAIN.
Yes.
BARACH.
And after that we can go and eat the fowl, for I am hungry.
FINTAIN.
Time enough, time enough. You’re in as great a hurry as when you brought me to Aine’s Seat, where the mad dogs gather when the moon’s at the full. Go on with your story.
BARACH.
I was creeping under a ditch, with the fowl in my leather bag, keeping to the shore where the farmer could not see me, when I came upon a ship drawn up upon the sands, a great red ship with a woman’s head upon it.
FINTAIN.
A ship out of Aoife’s country. They have all a woman’s head on the bow.
BARACH.