by W. B. Yeats
‘Before the thirtieth year of life
A maid forlorn or hated wife.’
It is the thought of the great Chrysostom, who wrote in a famous passage that women loved according to the soul, loved as saints can love, keep their beauty longer, have greater happiness than women loved according to the flesh. That thought has comforted me, but it is a terrible thing to be responsible for another’s happiness. There are moments when I doubt, when I think Chrysostom may have been wrong. But now I have your poem to drive doubt away. You have addressed me in these noble words:
‘You taught how I might youth prolong
By knowing what is right and wrong;
How from my heart to bring supplies
Of lustre to my fading eyes;
How soon a beauteous mind repairs
The loss of chang’d or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Can spread a smoothness o’er the skin.’
JOHN CORBET. The words upon the window-pane!
MRS. HENDERSON [in Swift’s voice]. Then, because you understand that I am afraid of solitude, afraid of outliving my friends — and myself — you comfort me in that last verse — you overpraise my moral nature when you attribute to it a rich mantle, but O how touching those words which describe your love:
‘Late dying, may you cast a shred
Of that rich mantle o’er my head;
To bear with dignity my sorrow,
One day alone, then die to-morrow.’
Yes, you will close my eyes, Stella. O, you will live long after me, dear Stella, for you are still a young woman, but you will close my eyes. [Mrs. Henderson sinks back in chair and speaks as Lulu.]
Bad old man gone. Power all used up. Lulu can do no more. Goodbye, friends. [Mrs. Henderson, speaking in her own voice.} Go away, go away! [She wakes.] I saw him a moment ago, has he spoilt the séance again?
MRS. MALLET. Yes, Mrs. Henderson, my husband came, but he was driven away.
DR. TRENCH. Mrs. Henderson is very tired. We must leave her to rest.
[To Mrs. Henderson.] You did your best and nobody can do more than that.
[He takes out money.
MRS. HENDERSON. No.... No.... I cannot take any money, not after a séance like that.
DR. TRENCH. Of course you must take it, Mrs. Henderson.
[He puts money on table, and Mrs. Henderson gives a furtive glance to see how much it is. She does the same as each sitter lays down his or her money.
MRS. MALLET. A bad séance is just as exhausting as a good séance, and you must be paid.
MRS. HENDERSON. NO.... No.... Please don’t. It is very wrong to take money for such a failure.
[Mrs. Mallet lays down money.
CORNELIUS PATTERSON. A jockey is paid whether he wins or not.
[He lays down money.
MISS MACKENNA. That spirit rather thrilled me.
[She lays down money.
MRS. HENDERSON. If you insist, I must take it.
ABRAHAM JOHNSON. I shall pray for you to-night. I shall ask God to bless and protect your séances.
[He lays down money.
[All go out except John Corbet and Mrs. Henderson.
JOHN CORBET. I know you are tired, Mrs. Henderson, but I must speak to you. I have been deeply moved by what I have heard. This is my contribution to prove that I am satisfied, completely satisfied.
[He puts a note on the table.]
MRS. HENDERSON. A pound note — nobody ever gives me more than ten shillings, and yet the séance was a failure.
JOHN CORBET [sitting down near Mrs. Henderson], When I say I am satisfied I do not mean that I am convinced it was the work of spirits. I prefer to think that you created it all, that you are an accomplished actress and scholar. In my essay for my Cambridge doctorate I examine all the explanations of Swift’s celibacy offered by his biographers and prove that the explanation you selected was the only plausible one. But there is something I must ask you.
Swift was the chief representative of the intellect of his epoch, that arrogant intellect free at last from superstition. He foresaw its collapse. He foresaw Democracy, he must have dreaded the future.
Did he refuse to beget children because of that dread? Was Swift mad? Or was it the intellect itself that was mad?
MRS. HENDERSON. Who are you talking of, sir?
JOHN CORBET. Swift, of course.
MRS. HENDERSON. Swift? I do not know anybody called Swift.
JOHN CORBET. Jonathan Swift, whose spirit seemed to be present tonight.
MRS. HENDERSON. What? That dirty old man?
JOHN CORBET. He was neither old nor dirty when Stella and Vanessa loved him.
MRS. HENDERSON. I saw him very clearly just as I woke up. His clothes were dirty, his face covered with boils. Some disease had made one of his eyes swell up, it stood out from his face like a hen’s egg.
JOHN CORBET. He looked like that in his old age. Stella had been dead a long time. His brain had gone, his friends had deserted him.
The man appointed to take care of him beat him to keep him quiet.
MRS. HENDERSON. NOW they are old, now they are young. They change all in a moment as their thought changes. It is sometimes a terrible thing to be out of the body, God help us all.
DR. TRENCH [at doorway]. Come along, Corbet. Mrs. Henderson is tired out.
JOHN CORBET. Good-bye, Mrs. Henderson.
[He goes out with Dr. Trench. All the sitters except Miss
Mackenna, who has returned to her room, pass along the passage on their way to the front door. Mrs. Henderson counts the money, finds her purse, which is in a vase on the mantelpiece, and puts the money in it.]
MRS. HENDERSON. HOW tired I am! I’d be the better of a cup of tea.
[She finds the teapot and puts kettle on fire, and then as she crouches down by the hearth suddenly lifts up her hands and counts her fingers, speaking in Swift’s voice.] Five great Ministers that were my friends are gone, ten great Ministers that were my friends are gone. I have not fingers enough to count the great Ministers that were my friends and that are gone. [She wakes with a start and speaks in her own voice.] Where did I put that tea-caddy? Ah! there it is. And there should be a cup and saucer. [She finds the saucer.] But where’s the cup? [She moves aimlessly about the stage and then, letting the saucer fall and break, speaks in Swift’s voice.]
Perish the day on which I was born!
Curtain
THE RESURRECTION
To Junzo Sato
who gave me a sword
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
The Hebrew —
The Syrian
The Greek —
Christ
Three Musicians
THE RESURRECTION
Before I had finished this play I saw that its subject-matter might make it unsuited for the public stage in England or in Ireland. I had begun it with an ordinary stage scene in the mind’s eye, curtained walls, a window and door at back, a curtained door at left. I now changed the stage directions and wrote songs for the unfolding and folding of the curtain that it might be played in a studio or a drawing-room like my dance plays, or at the Peacock Theatre before a specially chosen audience. If it is played at the Peacock Theatre the Musicians may sing the opening and closing songs, as they pull apart or pull together the proscenium curtain; the whole stage may be hung with curtains with an opening at the left. While the play is in progress the Musicians will sit towards the right of the audience, if at the Peacock, on the step which separates the stage from the audience, or one on either side of the proscenium.
[Song for the unfolding and folding of the curtain]
I
I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side,
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
And then did all the Muses sing
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
As though God’s death w
ere but a play.
II
Another Troy must rise and set,
Another lineage feed the crow,
Another Argo’s painted prow
Drive to a flashier bauble yet.
The Roman Empire stood appalled:
It dropped the reins of peace and war
When that fierce virgin and her Star
Out of the fabulous darkness called.
[The Hebrew is discovered alone upon the stage; he has a sword or spear. The Musicians make faint drum-taps, or sound a rattle; the Greek enters through the audience from the left.
THE HEBREW. Did you find out what the noise was?
THE GREEK. Yes, I asked a Rabbi.
THE HEBREW. Were you not afraid?
THE GREEK. HOW could he know that I am called a Christian? I wore the cap I brought from Alexandria. He said the followers of Dionysus were parading the streets with rattles and drums; that such a thing had never happened in this city before; that the Roman authorities were afraid to interfere. The followers of Dionysus have been out among the fields tearing a goat to pieces and drinking its blood, and are now wandering through the streets like a pack of wolves. The mob was so terrified of their frenzy that it left them alone, or, as seemed more likely, so busy hunting Christians it had time for nothing else. I turned to go, but he called me back and asked where I lived. When I said outside the gates, he asked if it was true that the dead had broken out of the cemeteries.
THE HEBREW. We can keep the mob off for some minutes, long enough for the Eleven to escape over the roofs. I shall defend the narrow stair between this and the street until I am killed, then you will take my place. Why is not the Syrian here?
THE GREEK. I met him at the door and sent him on a message; he will be back before long.
THE HEBREW. The three of us will be few enough for the work in hand.
THE GREEK [glancing towards the opening at the left]. What are they doing now?
THE HEBREW. While you were down below, James brought a loaf out of a bag, and Nathaniel found a skin of wine. They put them on the table. It was a long time since they had eaten anything. Then they began to speak in low voices, and John spoke of the last time they had eaten in that room.
THE GREEK. They were thirteen then.
THE HEBREW. He said that Jesus divided bread and wine amongst them. When John had spoken they sat still, nobody eating or drinking. If you stand here you will see them. That is Peter close to the window. He has been quite motionless for a long time, his head upon his breast.
THE GREEK. Is it true that when the soldier asked him if he were a follower of Jesus he denied it?
THE HEBREW. Yes, it is true. James told me. Peter told the others what he had done. But when the moment came they were all afraid. I must not blame. I might have been no braver. What are we all but dogs who have lost their master?
THE GREEK. Yet you and I if the mob come will die rather than let it up that stair.
THE HEBREW. Ah! That is different. I am going to draw that curtain; they must not hear what I am going to say.
[He draws curtain.]
THE GREEK. I know what is in your mind.
THE HEBREW. They are afraid because they do not know what to think. When Jesus was taken they could no longer believe him the
Messiah. We can find consolation, but for the Eleven it was always complete light or complete darkness.
THE GREEK. Because they are so much older.
THE HEBREW. No, no. You have only to look into their faces to see they were intended to be saints. They are unfitted for anything else. What makes you laugh?
THE GREEK. Something I can see through the window. There, where I am pointing. There, at the end of the street.
[They stand together looking out over the heads of the audience¦]
THE HEBREW. I cannot see anything.
THE GREEK. The hill.
THE HEBREW. That is Calvary.
THE GREEK. And the three crosses on the top of it.
[He laughs again-]
THE HEBREW. Be quiet. You do not know what you are doing. You have gone out of your mind. You are laughing at Calvary.
THE GREEK. NO, no. I am laughing because they thought they were nailing the hands of a living man upon the Cross, and all the time there was nothing there but a phantom.
THE HEBREW. I saw him buried.
THE GREEK. We Greeks understand these things. No god has ever been buried; no god has ever suffered. Christ only seemed to be born, only seemed to eat, seemed to sleep, seemed to walk, seemed to die. I did not mean to tell you until I had proof.
THE HEBREW. Proof?
THE GREEK. I shall have proof before nightfall.
THE HEBREW. You talk wildly, but a masterless dog can bay the moon.
THE GREEK. No Jew can understand these things.
THE HEBREW. It is you who do not understand. It is I and those men in there, perhaps, who begin to understand at last. He was nothing more than a man, the best man who ever lived. Nobody before him had so pitied human misery. He preached the coming of the
Messiah because he thought the Messiah would take it all upon himself. Then some day when he was very tired, after a long journey perhaps, he thought that he himself was the Messiah. He thought it because of all destinies it seemed the most terrible.
THE GREEK. How could a man think himself the Messiah?
THE HEBREW. It was always foretold that he would be born of a woman.
THE GREEK. To say that a god can be born of a woman, carried in her womb, fed upon her breast, washed as children are washed, is the most terrible blasphemy.
THE HEBREW. If the Messiah were not born of a woman he could not take away the sins of man. Every sin starts a stream of suffering, but the Messiah takes it all away.
THE GREEK. Every man’s sins are his property. Nobody else has a right to them.
THE HEBREW. The Messiah is able to exhaust human suffering as though it were all gathered together in the spot of a burning-glass.
THE GREEK. That makes me shudder. The utmost possible suffering as an object of worship! You are morbid because your nation has no statues.
THE HEBREW. What I have described is what I thought until three days ago.
THE GREEK. I say that there is nothing in the tomb.
THE HEBREW. I saw him carried up the mountain and the tomb shut upon him.
THE GREEK. I have sent the Syrian to the tomb to prove that there is nothing there.
THE HEBREW. You knew the danger we were all in and yet you weakened our guard?
THE GREEK. I have risked the apostles’ lives and our own. What I have sent the Syrian to find out is more important.
THE HEBREW. None of us are in our right mind to-day. I have got something in my own head that shocks me.
THE GREEK. Something you do not want to speak about?
THE HEBREW. I am glad that he was not the Messiah; we might all have been deceived to our lives’ end, or learnt the truth too late.
One had to sacrifice everything that the divine suffering might, as it were, descend into one’s mind and soul and make them pure.
[A sound of rattles and drums, at first in short bursts that come between sentences, but gradually growing continuous.] One had to give up all worldly knowledge, all ambition, do nothing of one’s own will. Only the divine could have any reality. God had to take complete possession. It must be a terrible thing when one is old, and the tomb round the corner, to think of all the ambitions one has put aside; to think, perhaps, a great deal about women. I want to marry and have children.
THE GREEK [who is standing facing the audience, and looking out over their heads]. It is the worshippers of Dionysus. They are under the window now. There is a group of women who carry upon their shoulders a bier with an image of the dead god upon it. No, they are not women. They are men dressed as women. I have seen something like it in Alexandria. They are all silent, as if something were going to happen. My God! What a spectacle! In Alexandria a few men paint their lips
vermilion. They imitate women that they may attain in worship a woman’s self-abandonment. No great harm comes of it — but here! Come and look for yourself.
THE HEBREW. I will not look at such madmen.
THE GREEK. Though the music has stopped, some men are still dancing, and some of the dancers have gashed themselves with knives, imagining themselves, I suppose, at once the god and the Titans that murdered him. A little further off a man and woman are coupling in the middle of the street. She thinks the surrender to some man the dance threw into her arms may bring her god back to life. All are from the foreign quarter, to judge by face and costume, and are the most ignorant and excitable class of Asiatic Greeks, the dregs of the population. Such people suffer terribly and seek forgetfulness in monstrous ceremonies. Ah, that is what they were waiting for. The crowd has parted to make way for a singer. It is a girl. No, not a girl; a boy from the theatre. I know him. He acts girls’ parts. He is dressed as a girl, but his finger-nails are gilded and his wig is made of gilded cords. He looks like a statue out of some temple. I remember something of the kind in Alexandria. Three days after the full moon, a full moon in March, they sing the death of the god and pray for his resurrection.