by W. B. Yeats
I could not sleep because of her. Speak to him;
Tell it out plain, and make him understand.
And if it be he thinks I shall stay living,
Say that I will not.
NAISI. — Would I had lost life
Among those Scottish kings that sought it of me,
Because you were my wife, or that the worst
Had taken you before this bargaining!
O — O eagle! If you were to do this thing,
And buy my life of Conchubar with your body,
Love’s law being broken, I would stand alone
Upon the eternal summits, and call out,
And you could never come there, being banished.
DEIRDRE. [kneeling to CONCHUBAR]. I would obey, but cannot. Pardon us.
1 — I know that you are good. I have heard you praised
For giving gifts; and you will pardon us,
Although I cannot go into your house.
It was my fault. I only should be punished.
[Unseen by DEIRDRE, NAISI is gagged.
The very moment these eyes fell on him,
I told him; I held out my hands to him;
How could he refuse? At first he would not —
I am not lying — he remembered you.
What do I say? My hands? — No, no, my lips —
For I had pressed my lips upon his lips —
I swear it is not false — my breast to his;
[CONCHUBAR motions; NAISI, unseen by DEIRDRE, is taken behind the curtain.
Until I woke the passion that’s in all,
And how could he resist? I had my beauty.
You may have need of him, a brave, strong man,
Who is not foolish at the council-board,
Nor does he quarrel by the candle-light
And give hard blows to dogs. A cup of wine
Moves him to mirth, not madness.
[She stands up.
What am I saying?
You may have need of him, for you have none
Who is so good a sword, or so well loved
Among the common people. You may need him,
And what king knows when the hour of need may come?
You dream that you have men enough. You laugh.
Yes; you are laughing to yourself. You say,
‘I am Conchubar — I have no need of him.’
You will cry out for him some day and say,
‘If Naisi were but living ‘ — [she misses NAISI]. Where is he?
Where have you sent him? Where is the son of Usna?
Where is he, O, where is he?
[She staggers over to the musicians.
The executioner has come out with sword on which there is blood; CONCHUBAR points to it. The musicians give a wail.
CONCHUBAR The traitor who has carried off my wife
No longer lives. Come to my house now, Deirdre,
For he that called himself your husband’s dead.
DEIRDRE., O, do not touch me. Let me go to him. — [Pause.
King Conchubar is right. My husband’s dead.
A single woman is of no account,
Lacking array of servants, linen cupboards,
The bacon hanging — and King Conchubar’s house
All ready, too — I’ll to King Conchubar’s house.
It is but wisdom to do willingly
What has to be.
CONCHUBAR But why are you so calm?
I thought that you would curse me and cry out,
And fall upon the ground and tear your hair.
DEIRDRE [laughing]. You know too much of women to think so;
Though, if I were less worthy of desire,
I would pretend as much; but, being myself,
It is enough that you were master here.
Although we are so delicately made,
There’s something brutal in us, and we are won
By those who can shed blood. It was some woman
That taught you how to woo: but do not touch me:
I shall do all you bid me, but not yet
Because I have to do what’s customary.
We lay the dead out, folding up the hands,
Closing the eyes, and stretching out the feet,
And push a pillow underneath the head,
Till all’s in order; and all this I’ll do
For Naisi, son of Usna.
CONCHUBAR — It is not fitting.
You are not now a wanderer, but a queen,
And there are plenty that can do these things.
DEIRDRE. [motioning CONCHUBAR away].
No, no. Not yet. I cannot be your queen,
Till the past’s finished, and its debts are paid.
When a man dies, and there are debts unpaid,
He wanders by the debtor’s bed and cries,
‘There’s so much owing.’
CONCHUBAR — You are deceiving me.
You long to look upon his face again.
Why should I give you now to a dead man
That took you from a living?
[He makes a step towards her.
DEIRDRE. — In good time.
You’ll stir me to more passion than he could,
And yet, if you are wise, you’ll grant me this:
That I go look upon him that was once
So strong and comely and held his head so high
That women envied me. For I will see him
All blood-bedabbled and his beauty gone.
It’s better, when you’re beside me in your strength,
That the mind’s eye should call up the soiled body,
And not the shape I loved. Look at him, women.
He heard me pleading to be given up,
Although my lover was still living, and yet
He doubts my purpose. I will have you tell him
How changeable all women are; how soon
Even the best of lovers is forgot,
When his day’s finished.
CONCHUBAR — No; but I will trust
The strength that you have praised, and not your purpose.
DEIRDRE. [almost with a caress]. It is so small a gift and you will grant it
Because it is the first that I have asked.
He has refused. There is no sap in him;
Nothing but empty veins. I thought as much.
He has refused me the first thing I have asked —
Me, me, his wife. I understand him now;
I know the sort of life I’ll have with him;
But he must drag me to his house by force.
If he refuses [she laughs] he shall be mocked of all.
They’ll say to one another, ‘Look at him
That is so jealous that he lured a man
From over sea, and murdered him, and yet
He trembled at the thought of a dead face!’
[She has her hand upon curtain.
CONCHUBAR How do I know that you have not some knife,
And go to die upon his body?
DEIRDRE. — Have me searched,
If you would make so little of your queen.
It may be that I have a knife hid here
Under my dress. Bid one of these dark slaves
To search me for it. — [Pause.
CONCHUBAR Go to your farewells, queen.
DEIRDRE. Now strike the wire, and sing to it a while,
Knowing that all is happy, and that you know
Within what bride-bed I shall lie this night,
And by what man, and lie close up to him
For the bed’s narrow, and there outsleep the cock-crow. [She goes behind the curtain.
FIRST MUS. They are gone, they are gone.
The proud may lie by the proud.
SECOND MUS. Though we were bidden to sing, cry nothing loud.
FIRST MUS. They are gone, they are gone.
SECOND MUS. — Whispering were enough.
FIRST MUS. Into the secret wilderness of their love.
SECOND MUS. A
high, grey cairn. What more is to be said?
FIRST MUS. Eagles have gone into their cloudy bed.
[Shouting outside. Fergus enters.
Many men with scythes and sickles and torches gather about the doors.
The house is lit with the glare of their torches.
FERGUS. Where’s Naisi, son of Usna, and his queen?
I and a thousand reaping-hooks and scythes
Demand him of you.
CONCHUBAR You have come too late.
I have accomplished all. Deirdre is mine;
She is my queen, and no man now can rob me.
I had to climb the topmost bough, and pull
This apple among the winds. Open the curtain,
That Fergus learn my triumph from her lips.
[The curtain is drawn back. The musicians begin to keen with low voices.
No, no; I’ll not believe it. She is not dead —
She cannot have escaped a second time!
FERGUS. King, she is dead; but lay no hand upon her.
What’s this but empty cage and tangled wire,
Now the bird’s gone? But I’ll not have you touch it.
CONCHUBAR You are all traitors, all against me — all.
And she has deceived me for a second time;
And every common man can keep his wife,
But not the King.
[Loud shouting outside: ‘Death to Conchubar!’ ‘Where is Naisi?’
etc. The dark-skinned men gather round CONCHUBAR and draw their swords; but he motions them away.
I have no need of weapons,
There’s not a traitor that dare stop my way.
Howl, if you will; but, I being king, did right
In choosing her most fitting to be queen,
And letting no boy lover take the sway.
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS
CONTENTS
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
FATHER JOHN
THOMAS HEARNE a coach builder.
ANDREW HEARNE his brother.
MARTIN HEARNE his nephew.
JOHNNY BACACH
PAUDEEN beggars.
BIDDY LALLY
NANNY
ACT I
Scene: Interior of a coach builder’s workshop. Parts of a gilded coach, among them an ornament representing the lion and the unicorn. Thomas working at a wheel. Father John coming from door of inner room.
Father John. I have prayed over Martin. I have prayed a long time, but there is no move in him yet.
Thomas. You are giving yourself too much trouble, Father. It’s as good for you to leave him alone till the doctor’s bottle will come. If there is any cure at all for what is on him, it is likely the doctor will have it.
Father John. I think it is not doctor’s medicine will help him in this case.
Thomas. It will, it will. The doctor has his business learned well. If Andrew had gone to him the time I bade him, and had not turned again to bring yourself to the house, it is likely Martin would be walking at this time. I am loth to trouble you, Father, when the business is not of your own sort. Any doctor at all should be able, and well able, to cure the falling sickness.
Father John. It is not any common sickness that is on him now.
Thomas. I thought at the first it was gone asleep he was. But when shaking him and roaring at him failed to rouse him, I knew well it was the falling sickness. Believe me, the doctor will reach it with his drugs.
Father John. Nothing but prayer can reach a soul that is so far beyond the world as his soul is at this moment.
Thomas. You are not saying that the life is gone out of him!
Father John. No, no, his life is in no danger. But where he himself, the spirit, the soul, is gone, I cannot say. It has gone beyond our imaginings. He is fallen into a trance.
Thomas. He used to be queer as a child, going asleep in the fields and coming back with talk of white horses he saw, and bright people like angels or whatever they were. But I mended that. I taught him to recognise stones beyond angels with a few strokes of a rod. I would never give in to visions or to trances.
Father John. We who hold the faith have no right to speak against trance or vision. St. Teresa had them, St. Benedict, St. Anthony, St. Columcille. St. Catherine of Sienna often lay a long time as if dead.
Thomas. That might be so in the olden time, but those things are gone out of the world now. Those that do their work fair and honest have no occasion to let the mind go rambling. What would send my nephew, Martin Hearne, into a trance, supposing trances to be in it, and he rubbing the gold on the lion and unicorn that he had taken in hand to make a good job of for the top of the coach?
Father John [taking it up]. It is likely it was that sent him off. The flashing of light upon it would be enough to throw one that had a disposition to it into a trance. There was a very saintly man, though he was not of our church, he wrote a great book called “Mysterium Magnum,” was seven days in a trance. Truth, or whatever truth he found, fell upon him like a bursting shower, and he a poor tradesman at his work. It was a ray of sunlight on a pewter vessel that was the beginning of all. [Goes to the door of inner room.] There is no stir in him yet. It is either the best thing or the worst thing can happen to anyone that is happening to him now.
Thomas. And what in the living world can happen to a man that is asleep on his bed?
Father John. There are some would answer you that it is to those who are awake that nothing happens, and it is they that know nothing. He is gone where all have gone for supreme truth.
Thomas [sitting down again and taking up tools]. Well, maybe so. But work must go on and coach building must go on, and they will not go on the time there is too much attention given to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow, no profit in it to anyone at all. A coach now is a real thing and a thing that will last for generations and be made use of the last, and maybe turn to be a hen-roost at its latter end.
Father John. I think Andrew told me it was a dream of Martin’s that led to the making of that coach.
Thomas. Well, I believe he saw gold in some dream, and it led him to want to make some golden thing, and coaches being the handiest, nothing would do him till he put the most of his fortune into the making of this golden coach. It turned out better than I thought, for some of the lawyers came looking at it at assize time, and through them it was heard of at Dublin Castle ... and who now has it ordered but the Lord Lieutenant! [Father John nods.] Ready it must be and sent off it must be by the end of the month. It is likely King George will be visiting Dublin, and it is he himself will be sitting in it yet.
Father John. Martin has been working hard at it, I know.
Thomas. You never saw a man work the way he did, day and night, near ever since the time, six months ago, he first came home from France.
Father John. I never thought he would be so good at a trade. I thought his mind was only set on books.
Thomas. He should be thankful to myself for that. Any person I will take in hand I make a clean job of them the same as I would make of any other thing in my yard, coach, half coach, hackney-coach, ass car, common car, post-chaise, calash, chariot on two wheels, on four wheels. Each one has the shape Thomas Hearne put on it, and it in his hands; and what I can do with wood and iron, why would I not be able to do it with flesh and blood, and it in a way my own?
Father John. Indeed I know you did your best for Martin.
Thomas. Every best. Checked him, taught him the trade, sent him to the monastery in France for to learn the language and to see the wide world; but who should know that if you did not know it, Father John, and I doing it according to your own advice?
Father John. I thought his nature needed spiritual guidance and teaching, the best that could be found.
Thomas. I thought myself it was best for him to be away for a while. There are too many wild lads about this place. He to have stopped here, h
e might have taken some fancies and got into some trouble, going against the Government, maybe, the same as Johnny Gibbons that is at this time an outlaw having a price upon his head.
Father John. That is so. That imagination of his might have taken fire here at home. It was better putting him with the Brothers, to turn it to imaginings of heaven.
Thomas. Well, I will soon have a good hardy tradesman made of him now that will live quiet and rear a family, and maybe be appointed coach builder to the royal family at the last.
Father John [at window]. I see your brother Andrew coming back from the doctor; he is stopping to talk with a troop of beggars that are sitting by the side of the road.
Thomas. There now is another that I have shaped. Andrew used to be a bit wild in his talk and in his ways, wanting to go rambling, not content to settle in the place where he was reared. But I kept a guard over him; I watched the time poverty gave him a nip, and then I settled him into the business. He never was so good a worker as Martin; he is too fond of wasting his time talking vanities. But he is middling handy, and he is always steady and civil to customers. I have no complaint worth while to be making this last twenty years against Andrew. [Andrew comes in.]
Andrew. Beggars there are outside going the road to the Kinvara fair. They were saying there is news that Johnny Gibbons is coming back from France on the quiet. The king’s soldiers are watching the ports for him.
Thomas. Let you keep now, Andrew, to the business you have in hand. Will the doctor be coming himself, or did he send a bottle that will cure Martin?