by W. B. Yeats
Do not the things your mothers spoke about,
Before they took the candle from the bedside,
Rush up into the mind and master it,
Till you believe in them against your will?
SECOND PUPIL (to first pupil)
You answer for us.
THIRD PUPIL (in a whisper to first pupil)
Be careful what you say;
If he persuades you to an argument,
He will but turn us all to mockery.
FIRST PUPIL
We had no minds until you made them for us;
Our bodies only were our mothers’ work.
WISE MAN
You answer with incredible things. It is certain
That there is one,--though it may be but one--
Believes in God and in some heaven and hell--
In all those things we put into our prayers.
FIRST PUPIL
We thought those things before our minds were born,
But that was long ago--we are not children.
WISE MAN
You are afraid to tell me what you think
Because I am hot and angry when I am crossed.
I do not blame you for it; but have no fear,
For if there’s one that sat on smiling there,
As though my arguments were sweet as milk
Yet found them bitter, I will thank him for it,
If he but speak his mind.
FIRST PUPIL
There is no one, Master,
There is not one but found them sweet as milk.
WISE MAN
The things that have been told us in our childhood
Are not so fragile.
SECOND PUPIL
We are no longer children.
THIRD PUPIL
We all believe in you and in what you have taught.
OTHER PUPILS
All, all, all, all, in you, nothing but you.
WISE MAN
I have deceived you--where shall I go for words--
I have no thoughts--my mind has been swept bare.
The messengers that stand in the fiery cloud,
Fling themselves out, if we but dare to question,
And after that, the Babylonian moon
Blots all away.
FIRST PUPIL (to other pupils)
I take his words to mean
That visionaries, and martyrs when they are raised
Above translunary things, and there enlightened,
As the contention is, may lose the light,
And flounder in their speech when the eyes open.
SECOND PUPIL
How well he imitates their trick of speech.
THIRD PUPIL
Their air of mystery.
FOURTH PUPIL
Their empty gaze,
As though they’d looked upon some winged thing,
And would not condescend to mankind after.
FIRST PUPIL
Master, we have all learnt that truth is learnt
When the intellect’s deliberate and cold,
As it were a polished mirror that reflects
An unchanged world; and not when the steel melts,
Bubbling and hissing, till there’s naught but fume.
WISE MAN
When it is melted, when it all fumes up,
They walk, as when beside those three in the furnace
The form of the fourth.
FIRST PUPIL
Master, there’s none among us
That has not heard your mockery of these,
Or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot.
WISE MAN
Something incredible has happened--some one has come
Suddenly like a grey hawk out of the air,
And all that I declared untrue is true.
FIRST PUPIL (to other pupils)
You’d think the way he says it, that he felt it.
There’s not a mummer to compare with him.
He’s something like a man.
SECOND PUPIL
Give us some proof.
WISE MAN
What proof have I to give, but that an angel
An instant ago was standing on that spot.
[The pupils rise.
THIRD PUPIL
You dreamed it.
WISE MAN
I was awake as I am now.
FIRST PUPIL (to the others)
I may be dreaming now for all I know.
He wants to show we have no certain proof
Of anything in the world.
SECOND PUPIL
There is this proof
That shows we are awake--we have all one world
While every dreamer has a world of his own,
And sees what no one else can.
THIRD PUPIL
Teigue sees angels.
So when the Master says he has seen an angel,
He may have seen one.
FIRST PUPIL
Both may still be dreamers;
Unless it’s proved the angels were alike.
SECOND PUPIL
What sort are the angels, Teigue?
THIRD PUPIL
That will prove nothing,
Unless we are sure prolonged obedience
Has made one angel like another angel
As they were eggs.
FIRST PUPIL
The Master’s silent now:
For he has found that to dispute with us--
Seeing that he has taught us what we know--
Is but to reason with himself. Let us away,
And find if there is one believer left.
WISE MAN
Yes, yes. Find me but one that still believes
The things that we were told when we were children.
THIRD PUPIL
He’ll mock and maul him.
FOURTH PUPIL
From the first I knew
He wanted somebody to argue with.
[They go.
WISE MAN
I have no reason left. All dark, all dark!
[Pupils return laughing. They push forward fourth pupil.
FIRST PUPIL
Here, Master, is the very man you want.
He said, when we were studying the book,
That maybe after all the monks were right,
And you mistaken, and if we but gave him time,
He’d prove that it was so.
FOURTH PUPIL
I never said it.
WISE MAN
Dear friend, dear friend, do you believe in God?
FOURTH PUPIL
Master, they have invented this to mock me.
WISE MAN
You are afraid of me.
FOURTH PUPIL
They know well, Master,
That all I said was but to make them argue.
They’ve pushed me in to make a mock of me,
Because they knew I could take either side
And beat them at it.
WISE MAN
If you believe in God,
You are my soul’s one friend.
[Pupils laugh.
Mistress or wife
Can give us but our good or evil luck
Amid the howling world, but you shall give
Eternity, and those sweet-throated things
That drift above the moon.
[The pupils look at one another and are silent.
SECOND PUPIL
How strange he is.
WISE MAN
The angel that stood there upon that spot,
Said that my soul was lost unless I found out
One that believed.
FOURTH PUPIL
Cease mocking at me, Master,
For I am certain that there is no God
Nor immortality, and they that said it
Made a fantastic tale from a starved dream
To plague our hearts. Will that content you, Master?
WISE MAN
The giddy glass is emptier ev
ery moment,
And you stand there, debating, laughing and wrangling.
Out of my sight! Out of my sight, I say.
[He drives them out.
I’ll call my wife, for what can women do,
That carry us in the darkness of their bodies,
But mock the reason that lets nothing grow
Unless it grow in light. Bridget, Bridget.
A woman never ceases to believe,
Say what we will. Bridget, come quickly, Bridget.
[Bridget comes in wearing her apron. Her sleeves turned up
from her arms, which are covered with flour.
Wife, what do you believe in? Tell me the truth,
And not--as is the habit with you all--
Something you think will please me. Do you pray?
Sometimes when you’re alone in the house, do you pray?
BRIDGET
Prayers--no, you taught me to leave them off long ago. At first I was
sorry, but I am glad now, for I am sleepy in the evenings.
WISE MAN
Do you believe in God?
BRIDGET
Oh, a good wife only believes in what her husband tells her.
WISE MAN
But sometimes, when the children are asleep
And I am in the school, do you not think
About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels,
And all the things that you believed in once?
BRIDGET
I think about nothing--sometimes I wonder if the linen is bleaching
white, or I go out to see if the crows are picking up the chickens’ food.
WISE MAN
My God,--my God! I will go out myself.
My pupils said that they would find a man
Whose faith I never shook--they may have found him.
Therefore I will go out--but if I go,
The glass will let the sands run out unseen.
I cannot go--I cannot leave the glass.
Go call my pupils--I can explain all now,
Only when all our hold on life is troubled,
Only in spiritual terror can the Truth
Come through the broken mind--as the pease burst
Out of a broken pease-cod.
[He clutches Bridget as she is going.
Say to them,
That Nature would lack all in her most need,
Could not the soul find truth as in a flash,
Upon the battle-field, or in the midst
Of overwhelming waves, and say to them--
But no, they would but answer as I bid.
BRIDGET
You want somebody to get up an argument with.
WISE MAN
Look out and see if there is any one
There in the street--I cannot leave the glass,
For somebody might shake it, and the sand
If it were shaken might run down on the instant.
BRIDGET
I don’t understand a word you are saying. There’s a crowd of people
talking to your pupils.
WISE MAN
Go out and find if they have found a man
Who did not understand me when I taught,
Or did not listen.
BRIDGET
It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always
be having arguments.
[She goes out.
WISE MAN
Strange that I should be blind to the great secret,
And that so simple a man might write it out
Upon a blade of grass or bit of rush
With naught but berry juice, and laugh to himself
Writing it out, because it was so simple.
[Enter Bridget followed by the Fool.
FOOL
Give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops and nuts in
the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak.
BRIDGET
I have no pennies. (To Wise Man) Your pupils cannot find anybody to
argue with you. There’s nobody in the whole country with belief enough
for a lover’s oath. Can’t you be quiet now, and not always wanting to
have arguments? It must be terrible to have a mind like that.
WISE MAN
Then I am lost indeed.
BRIDGET
Leave me alone now, I have to make the bread for you and the children.
[She goes into kitchen.
WISE MAN
Children, children!
BRIDGET
Your father wants you, run to him.
[Children run in.
WISE MAN
Come to me, children. Do not be afraid.
I want to know if you believe in Heaven,
God or the soul--no, do not tell me yet;
You need not be afraid I shall be angry,
Say what you please--so that it is your thought--
I wanted you to know before you spoke,
That I shall not be angry.
FIRST CHILD
We have not forgotten, Father.
SECOND CHILD
Oh no, Father.
BOTH CHILDREN
(As if repeating a lesson) There is nothing we cannot see, nothing we
cannot touch.
FIRST CHILD
Foolish people used to say that there was, but you have taught us better.
WISE MAN
Go to your mother, go--yet do not go.
What can she say? If I am dumb you are lost;
And yet, because the sands are running out,
I have but a moment to show it all in. Children,
The sap would die out of the blades of grass
Had they a doubt. They understand it all,
Being the fingers of God’s certainty,
Yet can but make their sign into the air;
But could they find their tongues they’d show it all;
But what am I to say that am but one,
When they are millions and they will not speak--
[Children have run out.
But they are gone; what made them run away?
[The Fool comes in with a dandelion.
Look at me, tell me if my face is changed,
Is there a notch of the fiend’s nail upon it
Already? Is it terrible to sight?
Because the moment’s near.
[Going to glass.
I dare not look,
I dare not know the moment when they come.
No, no, I dare not. (Covers glass.)
Will there be a footfall,
Or will there be a sort of rending sound,
Or else a cracking, as though an iron claw
Had gripped the threshold stone?
[Fool has begun to blow the dandelion.
What are you doing?
FOOL
Wait a minute--four--five--six--
WISE MAN
What are you doing that for?
FOOL
I am blowing the dandelion to find out what hour it is.
WISE MAN
You have heard everything, and that is why
You’d find what hour it is--you’d find that out,
That you may look upon a fleet of devils
Dragging my soul away. You shall not stop,
I will have no one here when they come in,
I will have no one sitting there--no one--
And yet--and yet--there is something strange about you.
I half remember something. What is it?
Do you believe in God and in the soul?
FOOL
So you ask me now. I thought when you were asking your pupils, ‘Will he
ask Teigue the Fool? Yes, he will, he will; no, he will not--yes, he
will.’ But Teigue will say nothing. Teigue will say nothing.
WISE MAN
Tell me quickly.
FOOL
I said, ‘Teigue knows everything, n
ot even the green-eyed cats and the
hares that milk the cows have Teigue’s wisdom’; but Teigue will not speak,
he says nothing.
WISE MAN
Speak, speak, for underneath the cover there
The sand is running from the upper glass,
And when the last grain’s through, I shall be lost.
FOOL
I will not speak. I will not tell you what is in my mind. I will not
tell you what is in my bag. You might steal away my thoughts. I met a
bodach on the road yesterday, and he said, ‘Teigue, tell me how many
pennies are in your bag; I will wager three pennies that there are
not twenty pennies in your bag; let me put in my hand and count them.’
But I gripped the bag the tighter, and when I go to sleep at night I
hide the bag where nobody knows.
WISE MAN
There’s but one pinch of sand, and I am lost
If you are not he I seek.
FOOL
O, what a lot the Fool knows, but he says nothing.
WISE MAN
Yes, I remember now. You spoke of angels.
You said but now that you had seen an angel.
You are the one I seek, and I am saved.
FOOL
Oh no. How could poor Teigue see angels? Oh, Teigue tells one tale here,
another there, and everybody gives him pennies. If Teigue had not his