The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays, by
William B. Yeats and Lady Gregory
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Title: The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays
Author: William B. Yeats
Lady Gregory
Release Date: July 29, 2008 [EBook #26144]
Language: English
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THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS
AND OTHER PLAYS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS
AND OTHER PLAYS
BY
WILLIAM B. YEATS
AND
LADY GREGORY
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1908
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1904, 1908,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
New edition. Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1908.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
About seven years ago I began to dictate the first of these Plays to
Lady Gregory. My eyesight had become so bad that I feared I could
henceforth write nothing with my own hands but verses, which, as
Theophile Gautier has said, can be written with a burnt match. Our
Irish Dramatic movement was just passing out of the hands of English
Actors, hired because we knew of no Irish ones, and our little troop of
Irish amateurs--as they were at the time--could not have too many
Plays, for they would come to nothing without continued playing.
Besides, it was exciting to discover, after the unpopularity of blank
verse, what one could do with three Plays written in prose and founded
on three public interests deliberately chosen,--religion, humour,
patriotism. I planned in those days to establish a dramatic movement
upon the popular passions, as the ritual of religion is established in
the emotions that surround birth and death and marriage, and it was
only the coming of the unclassifiable, uncontrollable, capricious,
uncompromising genius of J. M. Synge that altered the direction of the
movement and made it individual, critical, and combative. If his had
not, some other stone would have blocked up the old way, for the public
mind of Ireland, stupefied by prolonged intolerant organisation, can
take but brief pleasure in the caprice that is in all art, whatever its
subject, and, more commonly, can but hate unaccustomed personal
reverie.
I had dreamed the subject of "Cathleen ni Houlihan," but found when I
looked for words that I could not create peasant dialogue that would go
nearer to peasant life than the dialogue in "The Land of Heart's
Desire" or "The Countess Cathleen." Every artistic form has its own
ancestry, and the more elaborate it is, the more is the writer
constrained to symbolise rather than to represent life, until perhaps
his ladies of fashion are shepherds and shepherdesses, as when Colin
Clout came home again. I could not get away, no matter how closely I
watched the country life, from images and dreams which had all too
royal blood, for they were descended like the thought of every poet
from all the conquering dreams of Europe, and I wished to make that
high life mix into some rough contemporary life without ceasing to be
itself, as so many old books and Plays have mixed it and so few modern,
and to do this I added another knowledge to my own. Lady Gregory had
written no Plays, but had, I discovered, a greater knowledge of the
country mind and country speech than anybody I had ever met with, and
nothing but a burden of knowledge could keep "Cathleen ni Houlihan"
from the clouds. I needed less help for the "Hour-Glass," for the
speech there is far from reality, and so the Play is almost wholly
mine. When, however, I brought to her the general scheme for the "Pot
of Broth," a little farce which seems rather imitative to-day, though
it plays well enough, and of the first version of "The Unicorn," "Where
there is Nothing," a five-act Play written in a fortnight to save it
from a plagiarist, and tried to dictate them, her share grew more and
more considerable. She would not allow me to put her name to these
Plays, though I have always tried to explain her share in them, but has
signed "The Unicorn from the Stars," which but for a good deal of the
general plan and a single character and bits of another is wholly hers.
I feel indeed that my best share in it is that idea, which I have been
capable of expressing completely in criticism alone, of bringing
together the rough life of the road and the frenzy that the poets have
found in their ancient cellar,--a prophecy, as it were, of the time
when it will be once again possible for a Dickens and a Shelley to be
born in the one body.
The chief person of the earlier Play was very dominating, and I have
grown to look upon this as a fault, though it increases the dramatic
effect in a superficial way. We cannot sympathise with the man who sets
his anger at once lightly and confidently to overthrow the order of the
world, for such a man will seem to us alike insane and arrogant. But
our hearts can go with him, as I think, if he speak with some humility,
so far as his daily self carry him, out of a cloudy light of vision;
for whether he understand or not, it may be that voices of angels and
archangels have spoken in the cloud, and whatever wildness come upon
his life, feet of theirs may well have trod the clusters. But a man so
plunged in trance is of necessity somewhat still and silent, though it
be perhaps the silence and the stillness of a lamp; and the movement of
the Play as a whole, if we are to have time to hear him, must be
without hurry or violence.
NOTES
I cannot give the full cast of "Cathleen ni Houlihan," which was first
played at St. Teresa's Hall, Dublin, on April 3, 1902, for I have been
searching the cupboard of the Abbey Theatre, where we keep old
Play-bills, and can find no record of it, nor did the newspapers of the
time mention more than the principals. Mr. W. G. Fay played the old
countryman, and Miss Quinn his wife, while Miss Maude Gonne was
Cathleen ni Houlihan, and very magnificently she played. The Play has
been constantly revived, and has, I imagine, been played more often
than any other, except perhaps Lady Gregory's "Spreading the News," at
the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
The "Hour-Glass" was first played at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, on
March 14, 1903, with the following cast:--
The Wise Man J. W. Digges
Bridget, his wife Maire T. Quinn
Her children Eithne and Padragan ni Shiubhlaigh
{ P. I. Kelly
Her pupils { Seumas O'Sullivan
{ P. Colum
{ P. MacShiubhlaigh
The Angel Maire ni Shiubhlaigh
The Fool F. J. Fay
The Play has been revived many times since then as a part of the
repertoire at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
"The Unicorn from the Stars" was first played at the Abbey Theatre on
November 23, 1907, with the following cast:--
Father John Ernest Vaughan
Thomas Hearne Arthur Sinclair
Andrew Hearne J. A. O'Rourke
Martin Hearne F. J. Fay
Johnny Bacach W. G. Fay
Paudeen J. M. Kerrigan
Biddy Lally Maire O'Neill
Nanny Bridget O'Dempsey
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS 1
By Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats.
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN 135
By W. B. Yeats.
THE HOUR-GLASS 169
By W. B. Yeats.
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS
CHARACTERS
FATHER JOHN
THOMAS HEARNE _a coach builder._
ANDREW HEARNE _his brother._
MARTIN. HEARNE _his nephew._
JOHNNY BACACH }
PAUDEEN }
BIDDY LALLY } _beggars._
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,
he 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?
ANDREW. The doctor can't come, for he is down with lumbago in the back.
He questioned me as to what ailed Martin, and he got a book to go
looking for a cure, and he began telling me things out of it, but I
said I could not be carrying things of that sort in my head. He gave me
the book then, and he has marks put in it for the places where the
cures are ... wait now ... [_Reads._] "Compound medicines are usually
taken inwardly, or outwardly applied. Inwardly taken they should be
either liquid or solid; outwardly they should be fomentations or
sponges wet in some decoctions."
THOMAS. He had a right to have written it out himself upon a paper.
Where is the use of all that?
ANDREW. I think I moved the mark maybe ... here now is the part he was
reading to me himself ... "the remedies for diseases belonging to the
skins next the brain: headache, vertigo, cramp, convulsions, palsy,
incubus, apoplexy, falling sickness."
THOMAS. It is what I bid you to tell him--that it was the falling
sickness.
ANDREW [_dropping book_]. O my dear, look at all the marks gone out of
it. Wait now, I partly remember what he said ... a blister he spoke of
... or to be smelling hartshorn ... or the sneezing powder ... or if
all fails, to try letting the blood.
FATHER JOHN. All this has nothing to do with the real case. It is all
waste of time.
ANDREW. That is what I was thinking myself, Father. Sure it was I was
the first to call out to you when I saw you coming down from the
hillside and to bring you in to see what could you do. I would have
more trust in your means than in any doctor's learning. And in case you
might fail to cure him, I have a cure myself I heard from my
grandmother ... God rest her soul ... and she told me she never knew it
to fail. A person to have the falling sickness, to cut the top of his
nails and a small share of the hair of his head, and to put it down on
the floor and to take a harry-pin and drive it down with that into the
floor and to leave it there. "That is the cure will never fail," she
said, "to rise up any person at all having the falling sickness."
FATHER JOHN [_hands on ears_]. I will go back to the hillside, I will
go back to the hillside, but no, no, I must do what I can, I will go
again, I will wrestle, I will strive my best to call him back with
prayer. [_Goes into room and shuts door._]
ANDREW. It is queer Father John is sometimes, and very queer. There are
times when you would say that he believes in nothing at all.
THOMAS. If you wanted a priest, why did you not get our own parish
priest that is a sensible man, and a man that you would know what his
thoughts are? You know well the Bishop should have something against
Father John to have left him through the years in that poor mountainy
place, minding the few unfortunate people that were left out of the
last famine. A man of his learning to be going in rags the way he is,
there must be some good cause for that.
ANDREW. I had all that in mind and I bringing him. But I thought he
would have done more for Martin than what he is doing. To read a Mass
over him I thought he would, and to be convulsed in the reading it, and
some strange thing to have gone out with a great noise through the
doorway.
THOMAS. It would give no good name to the place such a thing to be
happening in it. It is well enough for labouring men and for half-acre
men. It would be no credit at all such a thing to be heard of in this
house, that is for coach building the capital of the county.
ANDREW. If it is from the devil this sickness comes, it would be best
to put it out whatever way it would be put out. But there might no bad
thing be on the lad at all. It is likely he was with wild companions
abroad, and that knocking about might have shaken his health. I was
that way myself one time....
THOMAS. Father John said that it was some sort of a vision or a trance,
but I would give no heed to what he would say. It is his trade to see
more than other people would see, the same as I myself might be seeing
a split in a leather car hood that no other person would find out at
all.
ANDREW. If it is the falling sickness is on him, I have no objection to
that ... a plain, straight sickness that was cast as a punishment on
the unbelieving Jews. It is a thing that might attack one of a family
and one of another family and not to come upon their kindred at all. A
person to have it, all you have to do is not to go between him and the
wind or fire or water. But I am in dread trance is a thing might run
through the house, the same as the cholera morbus.
THOMAS. In my belief there is no such thing as a trance. Letting on
people do be to make the world wonder the time they think well to rise
up. To keep them to their work is best, and not to pay much attention
to them at all.
ANDREW. I would not like trances to be coming on myself. I leave it in
my will if I die without cause, a holly stake to be run through my
heart the way I will lie easy after burial, and not turn my face
downwards in my coffin. I tell you I leave it on you in my will.
THOMAS. Leave thinking of your own comforts, Andrew, and give your mind
to the business. Did the smith put the irons yet on to the shafts of
this coach?
ANDREW. I'll go see did he.
THOMAS. Do so, and see did he make a good job of it. Let the shafts be
sound and solid if they _are_ to be studded with gold.
ANDREW. They are, and the steps along with them ... glass sides for the
people to be looking in at the grandeur of the satin within ... the
lion and the unicorn crowning all ... it was a great thought Martin had
the time he thought of making this coach!
THOMAS. It is best for me go see the smith myself ... and leave it to
no other one. You can be attending to that ass car out in the yard
wants a new tyre in the wheel ... out in the rear of the yard it is.
[_They go to door._] To pay attention to every small thing, and to fill
up every minute of time, shaping whatever you have to do, that is the
way to build up a business. [_They go out._]
FATHER JOHN [_bringing in_ MARTIN]. They are gone out now ... the air
is fresher here in the workshop ... you can sit here for a while. You
are now fully awake; you have been in some sort of a trance or a sleep.
MARTIN. Who was it that pulled at me? Who brought me back?
FATHER JOHN. It is I, Father John, did it. I prayed a long time over
you and brought you back.
MARTIN. You, Father John, to be so unkind! O leave me, leave me alone!
FATHER JOHN. You are in your dream still.
MARTIN. It was no dream, it was real ... do you not smell the broken
fruit ... the grapes ... the room is full of the smell.
FATHER JOHN. Tell me what you have seen where you have been.
MARTIN. There were horses ... white horses rushing by, with white,
shining riders ... there was a horse without a rider, and someone
caught me up and put me upon him, and we rode away, with the wind, like
the wind....
FATHER JOHN. That is a common imagining. I know many poor persons have
seen that.
MARTIN. We went on, on, on ... we came to a sweet-smelling garden with
a gate to it ... and there were wheat-fields in full ear around ... and
there were vineyards like I saw in France, and the grapes in bunches
... I thought it to be one of the town-lands of heaven. Then I saw the
horses we were on had changed to unicorns, and they began trampling the
grapes and breaking them ... I tried to stop them, but I could not.
FATHER JOHN. That is strange, that is strange. What is it that brings
to mind ... I heard it in some place, _Monocoros di Astris_, the
Unicorn from the Stars.
MARTIN. They tore down the wheat and trampled it on stones, and then
they tore down what were left of the grapes and crushed and bruised and
trampled them ... I smelt the wine, it was flowing on every side ...
then everything grew vague ... I cannot remember clearly ... everything
was silent ... the trampling now stopped ... we were all waiting for
some command. Oh! was it given! I was trying to hear it ... there was
some one dragging, dragging me away from that ... I am sure there was a
command given ... and there was a great burst of laughter. What was it?
What was the command? Everything seemed to tremble around me.
FATHER JOHN. Did you awake then?
MARTIN. I do not think I did ... it all changed ... it was terrible,
wonderful. I saw the unicorns trampling, trampling ... but not in the
wine troughs.... Oh, I forget! Why did you waken me?
FATHER JOHN. I did not touch you. Who knows what hands pulled you away?
I prayed; that was all I did. I prayed very hard that you might awake.
If I had not, you might have died. I wonder what it all meant. The
unicorns ... what did the French monk tell me ... strength they meant
... virginal strength, a rushing, lasting, tireless strength.
MARTIN. They were strong.... Oh, they made a great noise with their
trampling!
FATHER JOHN. And the grapes ... what did they mean?... It puts me in
mind of the psalm ... _Ex calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est._ It
was a strange vision, a very strange vision, a very strange vision.
MARTIN. How can I get back to that place?
FATHER JOHN. You must not go back, you must not think of doing that;
that life of vision, of contemplation, is a terrible life, for it has
far more of temptation in it than the common life. Perhaps it would
have been best for you to stay under rules in the monastery.
MARTIN. I could not see anything so clearly there. It is back here in
my own place the visions come, in the place where shining people used
to laugh around me and I a little lad in a bib.
FATHER JOHN. You cannot know but it was from the Prince of this world
the vision came. How can one ever know unless one follows the
discipline of the church? Some spiritual director, some wise, learned
man, that is what you want. I do not know enough. What am I but a poor
banished priest with my learning forgotten, my books never handled, and
spotted with the damp?
MARTIN. I will go out into the fields where you cannot come to me to
awake me ... I will see that townland again ... I will hear that
command. I cannot wait, I must know what happened, I must bring that
command to mind again.
FATHER JOHN [_putting himself between_ MARTIN _and the door_]. You
must have patience as the saints had it. You are taking your own way.
If there is a command from God for you, you must wait His good time to
receive it.
MARTIN. Must I live here forty years, fifty years ... to grow as old as
my uncles, seeing nothing but common things, doing work ... some
foolish work?
FATHER JOHN. Here they are coming. It is time for me to go. I must
think and I must pray. My mind is troubled about you. [_To_ THOMAS _as
he and_ ANDREW _come in._] Here he is; be very kind to him, for he has
still the weakness of a little child.
[_Goes out._]
THOMAS. Are you well of the fit, lad?
MARTIN. It was no fit. I was away ... for a while ... no, you will not
believe me if I tell you.
ANDREW. I would believe it, Martin. I used to have very long sleeps
myself and very queer dreams.
THOMAS. You had, till I cured you, taking you in hand and binding you
to the hours of the clock. The cure that will cure yourself, Martin,
and will waken you, is to put the whole of your mind on to your golden
coach, to take it in hand, and to finish it out of face.
MARTIN. Not just now. I want to think ... to try and remember what I
saw, something that I heard, that I was told to do.
THOMAS. No, but put it out of your mind. There is no man doing business
that can keep two things in his head. A Sunday or a Holyday now you
might go see a good hurling or a thing of the kind, but to be spreading
out your mind on anything outside of the workshop on common days, all
coach building would come to an end.
MARTIN. I don't think it is building I want to do. I don't think that
is what was in the command.
THOMAS. It is too late to be saying that the time you have put the most
of your fortune in the business. Set yourself now to finish your job,
and when it is ended, maybe I won't begrudge you going with the coach
as far as Dublin.
ANDREW. That is it; that will satisfy him. I had a great desire myself,
and I young, to go travelling the roads as far as Dublin. The roads are
the great things; they never come to an end. They are the same as the
serpent having his tail swallowed in his own mouth.
MARTIN. It was not wandering I was called to. What was it? What was it?
THOMAS. What you are called to, and what everyone having no great
estate is called to, is to work. Sure the world itself could not go on
without work.
MARTIN. I wonder if that is the great thing, to make the world go on.
No, I don't think that is the great thing ... what does the Munster
poet call it ... "this crowded slippery coach-loving world." I don't
think I was told to work for that.
ANDREW. I often thought that myself. It is a pity the stock of the
Hearnes to be asked to do any work at all.
THOMAS. Rouse yourself, Martin, and don't be talking the way a fool
talks. You started making that golden coach, and you were set upon it,
and you had me tormented about it. You have yourself wore out working
at it and planning it and thinking of it, and at the end of the race,
when you have the winning post in sight, and horses hired for to bring
it to Dublin Castle, you go falling into sleeps and blathering about
dreams, and we run to a great danger of letting the profit and the sale
go by. Sit down on the bench now, and lay your hands to the work.
MARTIN [_sitting down_]. I will try. I wonder why I ever wanted to
make it; it was no good dream set me doing that. [_He takes up wheel._]
What is there in a wooden wheel to take pleasure in it? Gilding it
outside makes it no different.
THOMAS. That is right now. You had some good plan for making the axle
run smooth.
MARTIN [_letting wheel fall and putting his hands to his head_]. It is
no use. [_Angrily._] Why did you send the priest to awake me? My soul
is my own and my mind is my own. I will send them to where I like. You
have no authority over my thoughts.
THOMAS. That is no way to be speaking to me. I am head of this
business. Nephew or no nephew, I will have no one come cold or
unwilling to the work.
MARTIN. I had better go. I am of no use to you. I am going.... I must
be alone.... I will forget if I am not alone. Give me what is left of
my money, and I will go out of this.
THOMAS [_opening a press and taking out a bag and throwing it to
him_]. There is what is left of your money! The rest of it you have
spent on the coach. If you want to go, go, and I will not have to be
annoyed with you from this out.
ANDREW. Come now with me, Thomas. The boy is foolish, but it will soon
pass over. He has not my sense to be giving attention to what you will
say. Come along now; leave him for a while; leave him to me, I say; it
is I will get inside his mind.
[_He leads_ THOMAS _out._ MARTIN, _when they have gone, sits
down, taking up lion and unicorn._]
MARTIN. I think it was some shining thing I saw.... What was it?
ANDREW [_opening door and putting in his head_]. Listen to me, Martin.
MARTIN. Go away--no more talking--leave me alone.
ANDREW [_coming in_]. Oh, but wait. I understand you. Thomas doesn't
understand your thoughts, but I understand them. Wasn't I telling you I
was just like you once?
MARTIN. Like me? Did you ever see the other things, the things beyond?
ANDREW. I did. It is not the four walls of the house keep me content.
Thomas doesn't know, oh, no, he doesn't know.
MARTIN. No, he has no vision.
ANDREW. He has not, nor any sort of a heart for frolic.
MARTIN. He has never heard the laughter and the music beyond.
ANDREW. He has not, nor the music of my own little flute. I have it
hidden in the thatch outside.
MARTIN. Does the body slip from you as it does from me? They have not
shut your window into eternity?
ANDREW. Thomas never shut a window I could not get through. I knew you
were one of my own sort. When I am sluggish in the morning Thomas says,
"Poor Andrew is getting old." That is all he knows. The way to keep
young is to do the things youngsters do. Twenty years I have been
slipping away, and he never found me out yet!
MARTIN. That is what they call ecstasy, but there is no word that can
tell out very plain what it means. That freeing of the mind from its
thoughts. Those wonders we know; when we put them into words, the words
seem as little like them as blackberries are like the moon and sun.
ANDREW. I found that myself the time they knew me to be wild, and used
to be asking me to say what pleasure did I find in cards, and women,
and drink.
MARTIN. You might help me to remember that vision I had this morning,
to understand it. The memory of it has slipped from me. Wait; it is
coming back, little by little. I know that I saw the unicorns
trampling, and then a figure, a many-changing figure, holding some
bright thing. I knew something was going to happen or to be said, ...
something that would make my whole life strong and beautiful like the
rushing of the unicorns, and then, and then....
JOHNNY BACACH'S VOICE [_at window_]. A poor person I am, without food,
without a way, without portion, without costs, without a person or a
stranger, without means, without hope, without health, without
warmth....
ANDREW [_looking towards window_]. It is that troop of beggars;
bringing their tricks and their thieveries they are to the Kinvara
fair.
MARTIN [_impatiently_]. There is no quiet ... come to the other room.
I am trying to remember....
[_They go to door of inner room, but_ ANDREW _stops him._]
ANDREW. They are a bad-looking fleet. I have a mind to drive them away,
giving them a charity.
MARTIN. Drive them away or come away from their voices.
ANOTHER VOICE. I put under the power of my prayer,
All that will give me help,
Rafael keep him Wednesday;
Sachiel feed him Thursday;
Hamiel provide him Friday;
Cassiel increase him Saturday.
Sure giving to us is giving to the Lord and laying up a store in the
treasury of heaven.
ANDREW. Whisht! He is coming in by the window! [JOHNNY B. _climbs in._]
JOHNNY B. That I may never sin, but the place is empty!
PAUDEEN. Go in and see what can you make a grab at.
JOHNNY B. [_getting in_]. That every blessing I gave may be turned to a
curse on them that left the place so bare! [_He turns things over._] I
might chance something in this chest if it was open.... [ANDREW _begins
creeping towards him._]
NANNY [_outside_]. Hurry on now, you limping crabfish, you! We can't
be stopping here while you'll boil stirabout!
JOHNNY B. [_seizing bag of money and holding it up in both hands_].
Look at this now, look! [ANDREW _comes behind and seizes his arm._]
JOHNNY B. [_letting bag fall with a crash_]. Destruction on us all!
MARTIN [running forward, seizes him. Heads disappear]. That is it! Oh,
I remember! That is what happened! That is the command! Who was it sent
you here with that command?
JOHNNY B. It was misery sent me in and starvation and the hard ways of
the world.
NANNY [_outside_]. It was that, my poor child, and my one son only.
Show mercy to him now, and he after leaving gaol this morning.
MARTIN [_to_ ANDREW.]. I was trying to remember it ... when he spoke
that word it all came back to me. I saw a bright, many-changing figure
... it was holding up a shining vessel ... [_holds up arms_] then the
vessel fell and was broken with a great crash ... then I saw the
unicorns trampling it. They were breaking the world to pieces ... when
I saw the cracks coming, I shouted for joy! And I heard the command,
"Destroy, destroy; destruction is the life-giver; destroy."
ANDREW. What will we do with him? He was thinking to rob you of your
gold.
MARTIN. How could I forget it or mistake it? It has all come upon me
now ... the reasons of it all, like a flood, like a flooded river.
JOHNNY B. [_weeping_]. It was the hunger brought me in and the drouth.
MARTIN. Were you given any other message? Did you see the unicorns?
JOHNNY B. I saw nothing and heard nothing; near dead I am with the
fright I got and with the hardship of the gaol.
MARTIN. To destroy ... to overthrow all that comes between us and God,
between us and that shining country. To break the wall, Andrew, the
thing, whatever it is that comes between, but where to begin?...
ANDREW. What is it you are talking about?
MARTIN. It may be that this man is the beginning. He has been sent ...
the poor, they have nothing, and so they can see heaven as we cannot.
He and his comrades will understand me. But now to give all men high
hearts that they may all understand.
JOHNNY B. It's the juice of the grey barley will do that.
ANDREW. To rise everybody's heart, is it? Is it that was your
meaning?... If you will take the blame of it all, I'll do what you
want. Give me the bag of money, then. [_He takes it up._] Oh, I've a
heart like your own! I'll lift the world too! The people will be
running from all parts. Oh, it will be a great day in this district.
JOHNNY B. Will I go with you?
MARTIN. No, you must stay here; we have things to do and to plan.
JOHNNY B. Destroyed we all are with the hunger and the drouth.
MARTIN. Go then, get food and drink, whatever is wanted to give you
strength and courage; gather your people together here; bring them all
in. We have a great thing to do. I have to begin ... I want to tell it
to the whole world. Bring them in, bring them in, I will make the house
ready.
ACT II
SCENE: The same workshop a few minutes later. MARTIN. seen arranging
mugs and bread, etc., on a table. FATHER JOHN comes in, knocking at
open door as he comes.
MARTIN. Come in, come in, I have got the house ready. Here is bread and
meat ... everybody is welcome. [Hearing no answer, turns round.]
FATHER JOHN. Martin, I have come back.... There is something I want to
say to you.
MARTIN. You are welcome; there are others coming.... They are not of
your sort, but all are welcome.
FATHER JOHN. I have remembered suddenly something that I read when I
was in the seminary.
MARTIN. You seem very tired.
FATHER JOHN [_sitting down_]. I had almost got back to my own place
when I thought of it. I have run part of the way. It is very important.
It is about the trance that you have been in. When one is inspired from
above, either in trance or in contemplation, one remembers afterwards
all that one has seen and read. I think there must be something about
it in St. Thomas. I know that I have read a long passage about it years
ago. But, Martin, there is another kind of inspiration, or rather an
obsession or possession. A diabolical power comes into one's body or
overshadows it. Those whose bodies are taken hold of in this way,
jugglers and witches and the like, can often tell what is happening in
distant places, or what is going to happen, but when they come out of
that state, they remember nothing. I think you said----
MARTIN. That I could not remember.
FATHER JOHN. You remembered something, but not all. Nature is a great
sleep; there are dangerous and evil spirits in her dreams, but God is
above Nature. She is a darkness, but He makes everything clear--He is
light.
MARTIN. All is clear now. I remember all, or all that matters to me. A
poor man brought me a word, and I know what I have to do.
FATHER JOHN. Ah, I understand; words were put into his mouth. I have
read of such things. God sometimes uses some common man as His
messenger.
MARTIN. You may have passed the man who brought it on the road. He left
me but now.
FATHER JOHN. Very likely, very likely, that is the way it happened.
Some plain, unnoticed man has sometimes been sent with a command.
MARTIN. I saw the unicorns trampling in my dream. They were breaking
the world. I am to destroy, that is the word the messenger spoke.
FATHER JOHN. To destroy?
MARTIN. To bring again the old disturbed exalted life, the old
splendour.
FATHER JOHN. You are not the first that dream has come to. [_Gets up
and walks up and down._] It has been wandering here and there, calling
now to this man, now to that other. It is a terrible dream.
MARTIN. Father John, you have had the same thought.
FATHER JOHN. Men were holy then; there were saints everywhere, there
was reverence, but now it is all work, business, how to live a long
time. Ah, if one could change it all in a minute, even by war and
violence.... There is a cell where St. Ciaran used to pray, if one
could bring that time again.
MARTIN. Do not deceive me. You have had the command.
FATHER JOHN. Why are you questioning me? You are asking me things that
I have told to no one but my confessor.
MARTIN. We must gather the crowds together, you and I.
FATHER JOHN. I have dreamed your dream; it was long ago. I had your
vision.
MARTIN. And what happened?
FATHER JOHN [_harshly_]. It was stopped. That was an end. I was sent
to the lonely parish where I am, where there was no one I could lead
astray. They have left me there. We must have patience; the world was
destroyed by water, it has yet to be consumed by fire.
MARTIN. Why should we be patient? To live seventy years, and others to
come after us and live seventy years it may be, and so from age to age,
and all the while the old splendour dying more and more.
[A noise of shouting. ANDREW, who has been standing at the
door for a moment, comes in.]
ANDREW. Martin says truth, and he says it well. Planing the side of a
cart or a shaft, is that life? It is not. Sitting at a desk writing
letters to the man that wants a coach or to the man that won't pay for
the one he has got, is that life, I ask you? Thomas arguing at you and
putting you down, "Andrew, dear Andrew, did you put the tyre on that
wheel yet?" Is that life? No, it is not. I ask you all what do you
remember when you are dead? It's the sweet cup in the corner of the
widow's drinking house that you remember. Ha, ha, listen to that
shouting! That is what the lads in the village will remember to the
last day they live!
MARTIN. Why are they shouting? What have you told them?
ANDREW. Never you mind. You left that to me. You bade me to lift their
hearts, and I did lift them. There is not one among them but will have
his head like a blazing tar barrel before morning. What did your
friend, the beggar, say? The juice of the grey barley, he said.
FATHER JOHN. You accursed villain! You have made them drunk!
ANDREW. Not at all, but lifting them to the stars. That is what Martin
bade me to do, and there is no one can say I did not do it.
[_A shout at door and beggars push in a barrel. They all cry,
"Hi! for the noble master!" and point at_ ANDREW.]
JOHNNY B. It's not him, it's that one!
[_Points at_ MARTIN.]
FATHER JOHN. Are you bringing this devil's work in at the very door? Go
out of this, I say! Get out! Take these others with you!
MARTIN. No, no, I asked them in; they must not be turned out. They are
my guests.
FATHER JOHN. Drive them out of your uncle's house!
MARTIN. Come, Father, it is better for you to go. Go back to your own
place. I have taken the command. It is better, perhaps, for you that
you did not take it. [MARTIN _and_ FATHER JOHN _go out._]
BIDDY. It is well for that old lad he didn't come between ourselves and
our luck. It would be right to have flayed him and to have made bags of
his skin.
NANNY. What a hurry you are in to get your enough! Look at the grease
on your frock yet with the dint of the dabs you put in your pocket!
Doing cures and foretellings, is it? You starved pot picker, you!
BIDDY. That you may be put up to-morrow to take the place of that
decent son of yours that had the yard of the gaol wore with walking it
till this morning!
NANNY. If he had, he had a mother to come to, and he would know her
when he did see her, and that is what no son of your own could do, and
he to meet you at the foot of the gallows!
JOHNNY B. If I did know you, I knew too much of you since the first
beginning of my life! What reward did I ever get travelling with you?
What store did you give me of cattle or of goods? What provision did I
get from you by day or by night but your own bad character to be joined
on to my own, and I following at your heels, and your bags tied round
about me?
NANNY. Disgrace and torment on you! Whatever you got from me, it was
more than any reward or any bit I ever got from the father you had, or
any honourable thing at all, but only the hurt and the harm of the
world and its shame!
JOHNNY B. What would he give you, and you going with him without leave?
Crooked and foolish you were always, and you begging by the side of the
ditch.
NANNY. Begging or sharing, the curse of my heart upon you! It's better
off I was before ever I met with you, to my cost! What was on me at all
that I did not cut a scourge in the wood to put manners and decency on
you the time you were not hardened as you are!
JOHNNY B. Leave talking to me of your rods and your scourges! All you
taught me was robbery, and it is on yourself and not on myself the
scourges will be laid at the day of the recognition of tricks.
PAUDEEN. Faith, the pair of you together is better than Hector fighting
before Troy!
NANNY. Ah, let you be quiet. It is not fighting we are craving, but the
easing of the hunger that is on us and of the passion of sleep. Lend me
a graineen of tobacco till I'll kindle my pipe--a blast of it will take
the weight of the road off my heart.
[ANDREW _gives her some_. NANNY. _grabs at it._]
BIDDY. No, but it's to myself you should give it. I that never smoked a
pipe this forty year without saying the tobacco prayer. Let that one
say, did ever she do that much?
NANNY. That the pain of your front tooth may be in your back tooth, you
to be grabbing my share! [_They snap at tobacco._]
ANDREW. Pup, pup, pup. Don't be snapping and quarrelling now, and you
so well treated in this house. It is strollers like yourselves should
be for frolic and for fun. Have you ne'er a good song to sing, a song
that will rise all our hearts?
PAUDEEN. Johnny Bacach is a good singer; it is what he used to be doing
in the fairs, if the oakum of the gaol did not give him a hoarseness in
the throat.
ANDREW. Give it out so, a good song; a song will put courage and spirit
into any man at all.
JOHNNY B. [_singing_].
Come, all ye airy bachelors,
A warning take by me:
A sergeant caught me fowling,
And fired his gun so free.
His comrades came to his relief,
And I was soon trepanned;
And, bound up like a woodcock,
Had fallen into their hands.
The judge said transportation;
The ship was on the strand;
They have yoked me to the traces
For to plough Van Dieman's land!
ANDREW. That's no good of a song, but a melancholy sort of a song. I'd
as lief be listening to a saw going through timber. Wait, now, till you
will hear myself giving out a tune on the flute. [_Goes out for it._]
JOHNNY B. It is what I am thinking there must be a great dearth and a
great scarcity of good comrades in this place, a man like that
youngster having means in his hand to be bringing ourselves and our
rags into the house.
PAUDEEN. You think yourself very wise, Johnny Bacach. Can you tell me
now who that man is?
JOHNNY B. Some decent lad, I suppose, with a good way of living and a
mind to send up his name upon the roads.
PAUDEEN. You that have been gaoled this eight months know little of
this countryside.... It isn't a limping stroller like yourself the boys
would let come among them. But I know. I went to the drill a few
nights, and I skinning kids for the mountainy men. In a quarry beyond
the drill is ... they have their plans made.... It's the square house
of the Browns is to be made an attack on and plundered. Do you know now
who is the leader they are waiting for?
JOHNNY B. How would I know that?
PAUDEEN [_singing_].
Oh, Johnny Gibbons, my five hundred healths to you.
It is long you are away from us over the sea!
JOHNNY B. [_standing up excitedly_]. Sure that man could not be John
Gibbons that is outlawed.
PAUDEEN. I asked news of him from the old lad [_points after_ ANDREW],
and I bringing in the drink along with him. "Don't be asking
questions," says he; "take the treat he gives you," says he. "If a lad
that had a high heart has a mind to rouse the neighbours," says he,
"and to stretch out his hand to all that pass the road, it is in France
he learned it," says he, "the place he is but lately come from, and
where the wine does be standing open in tubs. Take your treat when you
get it," says he, "and make no delay, or all might be discovered and
put an end to."
JOHNNY B. He came over the sea from France! It is Johnny Gibbons
surely, but it seems to me they were calling him by some other name.
PAUDEEN. A man on his keeping might go by a hundred names. Would he be
telling it out to us that he never saw before, and we with that clutch
of chattering women along with us? Here he is coming now. Wait till you
see is he the lad I think him to be.
MARTIN [_coming in_]. I will make my banner; I will paint the Unicorn
on it. Give me that bit of canvas; there is paint over here. We will
get no help from the settled men--we will call to the lawbreakers, the
tinkers--the sievemakers--the sheep-stealers. [_He begins to make
banner._]
BIDDY. That sounds to be a queer name of an army. Ribbons I can
understand, Whiteboys, Rightboys, Threshers, and Peep-o'-day, but
Unicorns I never heard of before.
JOHNNY B. It is not a queer name, but a very good name. [_Takes up Lion
and Unicorn._] It is often you saw that before you in the dock. There
is the Unicorn with the one horn, and what is it he is going against?
The Lion of course. When he has the Lion destroyed, the Crown must fall
and be shivered. Can't you see? It is the League of the Unicorns is the
league that will fight and destroy the power of England and King
George.
PAUDEEN. It is with that banner we will march and the lads in the
quarry with us; it is they will have the welcome before him! It won't
be long till we'll be attacking the Square House! Arms there are in it;
riches that would smother the world; rooms full of guineas--we will put
wax on our shoes walking them; the horses themselves shod with no less
than silver!
MARTIN [_holding up the banner_]. There it is ready! We are very few
now, but the army of the Unicorns will be a great army! [_To_ JOHNNY
B.] Why have you brought me the message? Can you remember any more? Has
anything more come to you? Who told you to come to me? Who gave you the
message?... Can you see anything or hear anything that is beyond the
world?
JOHNNY B. I cannot. I don't know what do you want me to tell you at
all.
MARTIN. I want to begin the destruction, but I don't know where to
begin ... you do not hear any other voice?
JOHNNY B. I do not. I have nothing at all to do with freemasons or
witchcraft.
PAUDEEN. It is Biddy Lally has to do with witchcraft. It is often she
threw the cups and gave out prophecies the same as Columcille.
MARTIN. You are one of the knowledgeable women. You can tell me where
it is best to begin, and what will happen in the end.
BIDDY. I will foretell nothing at all. I rose out of it this good
while, with the stiffness and the swelling it brought upon my joints.
MARTIN. If you have foreknowledge, you have no right to keep silent. If
you do not help me, I may go to work in the wrong way. I know I have to
destroy, but when I ask myself what I am to begin with, I am full of
uncertainty.
PAUDEEN. Here now are the cups handy and the leavings in them.
BIDDY [_taking cups and pouring one from another_]. Throw a bit of
white money into the four corners of the house.
MARTIN. There! [_Throwing it._]
BIDDY. There can be nothing told without silver. It is not myself will
have the profit of it. Along with that I will be forced to throw out
gold.
MARTIN. There is a guinea for you. Tell me what comes before your eyes.
BIDDY. What is it you are wanting to have news of?
MARTIN. Of what I have to go out against at the beginning ... there is
so much ... the whole world, it may be.
BIDDY [_throwing from one cup to another and looking_]. You have no
care for yourself. You have been across the sea; you are not long back.
You are coming within the best day of your life.
MARTIN. What is it? What is it I have to do?
BIDDY. I see a great smoke, I see burning ... there is a great smoke
overhead.
MARTIN. That means we have to burn away a great deal that men have
piled up upon the earth. We must bring men once more to the wildness of
the clean green earth.
BIDDY. Herbs for my healing, the big herb and the little herb; it is
true enough they get their great strength out of the earth.
JOHNNY B. Who was it the green sod of Ireland belonged to in the olden
times? Wasn't it to the ancient race it belonged? And who has
possession of it now but the race that came robbing over the sea? The
meaning of that is to destroy the big houses and the towns, and the
fields to be given back to the ancient race.
MARTIN. That is it. You don't put it as I do, but what matter? Battle
is all.
PAUDEEN. Columcille said the four corners to be burned, and then the
middle of the field to be burned. I tell you it was Columcille's
prophecy said that.
BIDDY. Iron handcuffs I see and a rope and a gallows, and it maybe is
not for yourself I see it, but for some I have acquaintance with a good
way back.
MARTIN. That means the law. We must destroy the law. That was the first
sin, the first mouthful of the apple.
JOHNNY B. So it was, so it was. The law is the worst loss. The ancient
law was for the benefit of all. It is the law of the English is the
only sin.
MARTIN. When there were no laws men warred on one another and man to
man, not with one machine against another as they do now, and they grew
hard and strong in body. They were altogether alive like Him that made
them in His image, like people in that unfallen country. But presently
they thought it better to be safe, as if safety mattered, or anything
but the exaltation of the heart and to have eyes that danger had made
grave and piercing. We must overthrow the laws and banish them!
JOHNNY B. It is what I say, to put out the laws is to put out the whole
nation of the English. Laws for themselves they made for their own
profit and left us nothing at all, no more than a dog or a sow.
BIDDY. An old priest I see, and I would not say is he the one was here
or another. Vexed and troubled he is, kneeling fretting, and ever
fretting, in some lonesome, ruined place.
MARTIN. I thought it would come to that. Yes, the church too ... that
is to be destroyed. Once men fought with their desires and their fears,
with all that they call their sins, unhelped, and their souls became
hard and strong. When we have brought back the clean earth and
destroyed the law and the church, all life will become like a flame of
fire, like a burning eye.... Oh, how to find words for it all ... all
that is not life will pass away!
JOHNNY B. It is Luther's church he means, and the humpbacked discourse
of Seaghan Calvin's Bible. So we will break it and make an end of it.
MARTIN [_rising_]. We will go out against the world and break it and
unmake it. We are the army of the Unicorn from the Stars! We will
trample it to pieces. We will consume the world, we will burn it away.
Father John said the world has yet to be consumed by fire. Bring me
fire.
ANDREW. Here is Thomas coming! [_All except_ MARTIN _hurry into next
room._ THOMAS _comes in._]
THOMAS. Come with me, Martin. There is terrible work going on in the
town! There is mischief gone abroad! Very strange things are happening!
MARTIN. What are you talking of? What has happened?
THOMAS. Come along, I say; it must be put a stop to! We must call to
every decent man!... It is as if the devil himself had gone through the
town on a blast and set every drinking house open!
MARTIN. I wonder how that has happened. Can it have anything to do with
Andrew's plan?
THOMAS. Are you giving no heed to what I'm saying? There is not a man,
I tell you, in the parish, and beyond the parish, but has left the work
he was doing, whether in the field or in the mill.
MARTIN. Then all work has come to an end? Perhaps that was a good
thought of Andrew's.
THOMAS. There is not a man has come to sensible years that is not drunk
or drinking! My own labourers and my own serving-man are sitting on
counters and on barrels! I give you my word the smell of the spirits
and the porter and the shouting and the cheering within made the hair
to rise up on my scalp.
MARTIN. And there is not one of them that does not feel that he could
bridle the four winds.
THOMAS [_sitting down in despair_]. You are drunk, too. I never
thought you had a fancy for it.
MARTIN. It is hard for you to understand. You have worked all your
life. You have said to yourself every morning, "What is to be done
to-day?" and when you are tired out you have thought of the next day's
work. If you gave yourself an hour's idleness, it was but that you
might work the better. Yet it is only when one has put work away that
one begins to live.
THOMAS. It is those French wines that did it.
MARTIN. I have been beyond the earth, in paradise, in that happy
townland. I have seen the shining people. They were all doing one thing
or another, but not one of them was at work. All that they did was but
the overflowing of their idleness, and their days were a dance bred of
the secret frenzy of their hearts, or a battle where the sword made a
sound that was like laughter.
THOMAS. You went away sober from out of my hands; they had a right to
have minded you better.
MARTIN. No man can be alive, and what is paradise but fulness of life,
if whatever he sets his hand to in the daylight cannot carry him from
exaltation to exaltation, and if he does not rise into the frenzy of
contemplation in the night silence. Events that are not begotten in joy
are misbegotten and darken the world, and nothing is begotten in joy if
the joy of a thousand years has not been crushed into a moment.
THOMAS. And I offered to let you go to Dublin in the coach! [ANDREW
_and the beggars have returned cautiously._]
MARTIN [_giving banner to_ PAUDEEN]. Give me the lamp. The lamp has
not yet been lighted, and the world is to be consumed! [_Goes into
inner room._]
THOMAS [_seeing_ ANDREW]. Is it here you are, Andrew? What are the
beggars doing? Was this door thrown open, too?... Why did you not keep
order? I will go for the constables to help us!
ANDREW. You will not find them to help you. They were scattering
themselves through the drinking houses of the town; and why wouldn't
they?
THOMAS. Are you drunk, too? You are worse than Martin. You are a
disgrace.
ANDREW. Disgrace yourself! Coming here to be making an attack on me and
badgering me and disparaging me. And what about yourself that turned me
to be a hypocrite?
THOMAS. What are you saying?
ANDREW. You did, I tell you. Weren't you always at me to be regular and
to be working and to be going through the day and the night without
company and to be thinking of nothing but the trade? What did I want
with a trade? I got a sight of the fairy gold one time in the
mountains. I would have found it again and brought riches from it but
for you keeping me so close to the work.
THOMAS. Oh, of all the ungrateful creatures! You know well that I
cherished you, leading you to live a decent, respectable life.
ANDREW. You never had respect for the ancient ways. It is after the
mother you take it, that was too soft and too lumpish, having too much
of the English in her blood. Martin is a Hearne like myself. It is he
has the generous heart! It is not Martin would make a hypocrite of me
and force me to do night walking secretly, watching to be back by the
setting of the seven stars! [_He begins to play his flute._]
THOMAS. I will turn you out of this, yourself and this filthy troop! I
will have them lodged in gaol.
JOHNNY B. Filthy troop, is it? Mind yourself! The change is coming! The
pikes will be up and the traders will go down!
[_All seize him and sing._]
When the Lion shall lose his strength,
And the braket thistle begin to pine,--
The harp shall sound sweet, sweet at length
Between the eight and the nine!
THOMAS. Let me out of this, you villains!
NANNY. We'll make a sieve of holes of you, you old bag of treachery!
BIDDY. How well you threatened us with gaol! You skim of a weasel's
milk!
JOHNNY B. You heap of sicknesses! You blinking hangman! That you may
never die till you'll get a blue hag for a wife!
[MARTIN _comes back with lighted lamp._]
MARTIN. Let him go. [_They let_ THOMAS _go and fall back._] Spread out
the banner. The moment has come to begin the war.
JOHNNY B. Up with the Unicorn and destroy the Lion! Success to Johnny
Gibbons and all good men!
MARTIN. Heap all those things together there. Heap those pieces of the
coach one upon another. Put that straw under them. It is with this
flame I will begin the work of destruction. All nature destroys and
laughs.
THOMAS. Destroy your own golden coach!
MARTIN [_kneeling_]. I am sorry to go a way that you do not like, and
to do a thing that will vex you. I have been a great trouble to you
since I was a child in the house, and I am a great trouble to you yet.
It is not my fault. I have been chosen for what I have to do. [_Stands
up._] I have to free myself first and those that are near me. The love
of God is a very terrible thing!
[THOMAS _tries to stop him, but is prevented by tinkers_.
MARTIN _takes a wisp of straw and lights it._]
We will destroy all that can perish! It is only the soul that can
suffer no injury. The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of
the stars!
[_He throws his wisp into the heap. It blazes up._]
ACT III
SCENE: _Before dawn a few hours later. A wild, rocky place._ NANNY
_and_ BIDDY LALLY _squatting by fire. Rich stuffs, etc., strewn about._
PAUDEEN _sitting, watching by_ MARTIN, _who is lying, as if dead, a
sack over him._
NANNY [_to_ PAUDEEN]. Well, you are great heroes and great warriors
and great lads altogether to have put down the Browns the way you did,
yourselves and the Whiteboys of the quarry. To have ransacked the house
and have plundered it! Look at the silks and the satins and the
grandeurs I brought away! Look at that now! [_Holds up a velvet
cloak._] It's a good little jacket for myself will come out of it. It's
the singers will be stopping their songs and the jobbers turning from
their cattle in the fairs to be taking a view of the laces of it and
the buttons! It's my far-off cousins will be drawing from far and near!
BIDDY. There was not so much gold in it all as what they were saying
there was. Or maybe that fleet of Whiteboys had the place ransacked
before we ourselves came in. Bad cess to them that put it in my mind to
go gather up the full of my bag of horseshoes out of the forge. Silver
they were saying they were, pure white silver; and what are they in the
end but only hardened iron! A bad end to them! [_Flings away
horseshoes._] The time I will go robbing big houses again it will not
be in the light of the full moon I will go doing it, that does be
causing every common thing to shine out as if for a deceit and a
mockery. It's not shining at all they are at this time, but duck yellow
and dark.
NANNY. To leave the big house blazing after us, it was that crowned
all! Two houses to be burned to ashes in the one night. It is likely
the servant-girls were rising from the feathers, and the cocks crowing
from the rafters for seven miles around, taking the flames to be the
whitening of the dawn.
BIDDY. It is the lad is stretched beyond you have to be thankful to for
that. There was never seen a leader was his equal for spirit and for
daring! Making a great scatter of the guards the way he did! Running up
roofs and ladders, the fire in his hand, till you'd think he would be
apt to strike his head against the stars.
NANNY. I partly guessed death was near him, and the queer shining look
he had in his two eyes, and he throwing sparks east and west through
the beams. I wonder now was it some inward wound he got, or did some
hardy lad of the Browns give him a tip on the skull unknownst in the
fight? It was I myself found him, and the troop of the Whiteboys gone,
and he lying by the side of a wall as weak as if he had knocked a
mountain. I failed to waken him, trying him with the sharpness of my
nails, and his head fell back when I moved it, and I knew him to be
spent and gone.
BIDDY. It's a pity you not to have left him where he was lying, and
said no word at all to Paudeen or to that son you have, that kept us
back from following on, bringing him here to this shelter on sacks and
upon poles.
NANNY. What way could I help letting a screech out of myself and the
life but just gone out of him in the darkness, and not a living
Christian by his side but myself and the great God?
BIDDY. It's on ourselves the vengeance of the red soldiers will fall,
they to find us sitting here the same as hares in a tuft. It would be
best for us follow after the rest of the army of the Whiteboys.
NANNY. Whist, I tell you! The lads are cracked about him. To get but
the wind of the word of leaving him, it's little but they'd knock the
head off the two of us. Whist!
[_Enter_ JOHNNY B. _with candles._]
JOHNNY B. [_standing over_ MARTIN]. Wouldn't you say now there was some
malice or some venom in the air, that is striking down one after the
other the whole of the heroes of the Gael?
PAUDEEN. It makes a person be thinking of the four last ends, death and
judgment, heaven and hell. Indeed and indeed my heart lies with him. It
is well I knew what man he was under his by-name and his disguise.
[_Sings._]
Oh, Johnny Gibbons, it's you were the prop to us!
You to have left us we are put astray!
JOHNNY B. It is lost we are now and broken to the end of our days.
There is no satisfaction at all but to be destroying the English; and
where now will we get so good a leader again? Lay him out fair and
straight upon a stone, till I will let loose the secret of my heart
keening him! [_Sets out candles on a rack, propping them with stones._]
NANNY. Is it mould candles you have brought to set around him, Johnny
Bacach? It is great riches you should have in your pocket to be going
to those lengths and not to be content with dips.
JOHNNY B. It is lengths I will not be going to the time the life will
be gone out of your own body. It is not your corpse I will be wishful
to hold in honour the way I hold this corpse in honour.
NANNY. That's the way always: there will be grief and quietness in the
house if it is a young person has died, but funning and springing and
tricking one another if it is an old person's corpse is in it. There is
no compassion at all for the old.
PAUDEEN. It is he would have got leave for the Gael to be as high as
the Gall. Believe me, he was in the prophecies. Let you not be
comparing yourself with the like of him.
NANNY. Why wouldn't I be comparing myself? Look at all that was against
me in the world; would you be matching me against a man of his sort
that had the people shouting for him and that had nothing to do but to
die and to go to heaven?
JOHNNY B. The day you go to heaven that you may never come back alive
out of it! But it is not yourself will ever hear the saints hammering
at their musics! It is you will be moving through the ages chains upon
you, and you in the form of a dog or a monster! I tell you, that one
will go through purgatory as quick as lightning through a thorn bush.
NANNY. That's the way, that's the way:
Three that are watching my time to run
The worm, the devil, and my son.
To see a loop around their neck
It's that would make my heart to leap!
JOHNNY B. Five white candles. I wouldn't begrudge them to him, indeed.
If he had held out and held up, it is my belief he would have freed
Ireland!
PAUDEEN. Wait till the full light of the day and you'll see the burying
he'll have. It is not in this place we will be waking him. I'll make a
call to the two hundred Ribbons he was to lead on to the attack on the
barracks at Aughanish. They will bring him marching to his grave upon
the hill. He had surely some gift from the other world, I wouldn't say
but he had power from the other side.
ANDREW [_coming in, very shaky_]. Well, it was a great night he gave
to the village, and it is long till it will be forgotten. I tell you
the whole of the neighbours are up against him. There is no one at all
this morning to set the mills going. There was no bread baked in the
night-time; the horses are not fed in the stalls; the cows are not
milked in the sheds. I met no man able to make a curse this night but
he put it on my own head and on the head of the boy that is lying there
before us.... Is there no sign of life in him at all?
JOHNNY B. What way would there be a sign of life and the life gone out
of him this three hours or more?
ANDREW. He was lying in his sleep for a while yesterday, and he wakened
again after another while.
NANNY. He will not waken. I tell you I held his hand in my own and it
getting cold as if you were pouring on it the coldest cold water, and
no running in his blood. He is gone sure enough, and the life is gone
out of him.
ANDREW. Maybe so, maybe so. It seems to me yesterday his cheeks were
bloomy all the while, and now he is as pale as wood-ashes. Sure we all
must come to it at the last. Well, my white-headed darling, it is you
were the bush among us all, and you to be cut down in your prime.
Gentle and simple, everyone liked you. It is no narrow heart you had;
it is you were for spending and not for getting. It is you made a good
wake for yourself, scattering your estate in one night only in beer and
in wine for the whole province; and that you may be sitting in the
middle of paradise and in the chair of the graces!
JOHNNY B. Amen to that. It's pity I didn't think the time I sent for
yourself to send the little lad of a messenger looking for a priest to
overtake him. It might be in the end the Almighty is the best man for
us all!
ANDREW. Sure I sent him on myself to bid the priest to come. Living or
dead, I would wish to do all that is rightful for the last and the best
of my own race and generation.
BIDDY [_jumping up_]. Is it the priest you are bringing in among us?
Where is the sense in that? Aren't we robbed enough up to this with the
expense of the candles and the like?
JOHNNY B. If it is that poor, starved priest he called to that came
talking in secret signs to the man that is gone, it is likely he will
ask nothing for what he has to do. There is many a priest is a Whiteboy
in his heart.
NANNY. I tell you, if you brought him tied in a bag he would not say an
Our Father for you, without you having a half crown at the top of your
fingers.
BIDDY. There is no priest is any good at all but a spoiled priest; a
one that would take a drop of drink, it is he would have courage to
face the hosts of trouble. Rout them out he would, the same as a shoal
of fish from out the weeds. It's best not to vex a priest, or to run
against them at all.
NANNY. It's yourself humbled yourself well to one the time you were
sick in the gaol and had like to die, and he bade you to give over the
throwing of the cups.
BIDDY. Ah, plaster of Paris I gave him. I took to it again and I free
upon the roads.
NANNY. Much good you are doing with it to yourself or any other one.
Aren't you after telling that corpse no later than yesterday that he
was coming within the best day of his life?
JOHNNY B. Whist, let ye! Here is the priest coming.
[FATHER JOHN _comes in._]
FATHER JOHN. It is surely not true that he is dead?
JOHNNY B. The spirit went from him about the middle hour of the night.
We brought him here to this sheltered place. We were loth to leave him
without friends.
FATHER JOHN. Where is he?
JOHNNY B. [_taking up sacks_]. Lying there, stiff and stark. He has a
very quiet look, as if there was no sin at all or no great trouble upon
his mind.
FATHER JOHN [_kneels and touches him_]. He is not dead.
BIDDY [_pointing to_ NANNY]. He is dead. If it was letting on he was,
he would not have let that one rob him and search him the way she did.
FATHER JOHN. It has the appearance of death, but it is not death. He is
in a trance.
PAUDEEN. Is it heaven and hell he is walking at this time to be
bringing back newses of the sinners in pain?
BIDDY. I was thinking myself it might away he was, riding on white
horses with the riders of the forths.
JOHNNY B. He will have great wonders to tell out the time he will rise
up from the ground. It is a pity he not to waken at this time and to
lead us on to overcome the troop of the English. Sure those that are in
a trance get strength that they can walk on water.
ANDREW. It was Father John wakened him yesterday the time he was lying
in the same way. Wasn't I telling you it was for that I called to him?
BIDDY. Waken him now till they'll see did I tell any lie in my
foretelling. I knew well by the signs he was coming within the best day
of his life.
PAUDEEN. And not dead at all! We'll be marching to attack Dublin itself
within a week. The horn will blow for him, and all good men will gather
to him. Hurry on, Father, and waken him.
FATHER JOHN. I will not waken him. I will not bring him back from where
he is.
JOHNNY B. And how long will it be before he will waken of himself?
FATHER JOHN. Maybe to-day, maybe to-morrow; it is hard to be certain.
BIDDY. If it is _away_ he is, he might be away seven years. To be lying
like a stump of a tree and using no food and the world not able to
knock a word out of him, I know the signs of it well.
JOHNNY B. We cannot be waiting and watching through seven years. If the
business he has started is to be done, we have to go on here and now.
The time there is any delay, that is the time the Government will get
information. Waken him now, Father, and you'll get the blessing of the
generations.
FATHER JOHN. I will not bring him back. God will bring him back in His
own good time. For all I know he may be seeing the hidden things of
God.
JOHNNY B. He might slip away in his dream. It is best to raise him up
now.
ANDREW. Waken him, Father John. I thought he was surely dead this time;
and what way could I go face Thomas through all that is left of my
lifetime after me standing up to face him the way I did? And if I do
take a little drop of an odd night, sure I'd be very lonesome if I did
not take it. All the world knows it's not for love of what I drink, but
for love of the people that do be with me! Waken him, Father, or maybe
I would waken him myself. [_Shakes him._]
FATHER JOHN. Lift your hand from touching him. Leave him to himself and
to the power of God.
JOHNNY B. If you will not bring him back, why wouldn't we ourselves do
it? Go on now, it is best for you to do it yourself.
FATHER JOHN. I woke him yesterday. He was angry with me; he could not
get to the heart of the command.
JOHNNY B. If he did not, he got a command from myself that satisfied
him, and a message.
FATHER JOHN. He did ... he took it from you ... and how do I know what
devil's message it may have been that brought him into that devil's
work, destruction and drunkenness and burnings! That was not a message
from heaven! It was I awoke him; it was I kept him from hearing what
was maybe a divine message, a voice of truth; and he heard you speak,
and he believed the message was brought by you. You have made use of
your deceit and his mistaking ... you have left him without house or
means to support him, you are striving to destroy and to drag him to
entire ruin. I will not help you, I would rather see him die in his
trance and go into God's hands than awake him and see him go into
hell's mouth with vagabonds and outcasts like you!
JOHNNY B. [_turning to_ BIDDY]. You should have knowledge, Biddy Lally,
of the means to bring back a man that is away.
BIDDY. The power of the earth will do it through its herbs, and the
power of the air will do it kindling fire into flame.
JOHNNY B. Rise up and make no delay. Stretch out and gather a handful
of an herb that will bring him back from whatever place he is in.
BIDDY. Where is the use of herbs and his teeth clenched the way he
could not use them?
JOHNNY B. Take fire so in the devil's name and put it to the soles of
his feet. [_Takes lighted sod from fire._]
FATHER JOHN. Let him alone, I say!
[_Dashes away the sod._]
JOHNNY B. I will not leave him alone! I will not give in to leave him
swooning there and the country waiting for him to awake!
FATHER JOHN. I tell you I awoke him! I sent him into thieves' company!
I will not have him wakened again and evil things, it may be, waiting
to take hold of him! Back from him, back, I say! Will you dare to lay a
hand on me? You cannot do it! You cannot touch him against my will!
BIDDY. Mind yourself; don't be bringing us under the curse of the
church.
[JOHNNY _falls back_. MARTIN _moves._]
FATHER JOHN. It is God has him in His care. It is He is awaking him.
[MARTIN _has risen to his elbow._] Do not touch him, do not speak to
him, he may be hearing great secrets.
MARTIN. That music, I must go nearer ... sweet, marvellous music ...
louder than the trampling of the unicorns ... far louder, though the
mountain is shaking with their feet ... high, joyous music.
FATHER JOHN. Hush, he is listening to the music of heaven!
MARTIN. Take me to you, musicians, wherever you are! I will go nearer
to you; I hear you better now, more and more joyful; that is strange,
it is strange.
FATHER JOHN. He is getting some secret.
MARTIN. It is the music of paradise, that is certain, somebody said
that. It is certainly the music of paradise. Ah, now I hear, now I
understand. It is made of the continual clashing of swords!
JOHNNY B. That is the best music. We will clash them sure enough. We
will clash our swords and our pikes on the bayonets of the red
soldiers. It is well you rose up from the dead to lead us! Come on now,
come on!
MARTIN. Who are you? Ah, I remember.... Where are you asking me to come
to?
PAUDEEN. To come on, to be sure, to the attack on the barracks at
Aughanish. To carry on the work you took in hand last night.
MARTIN. What work did I take in hand last night? Oh, yes, I remember
... some big house ... we burned it down.... But I had not understood
the vision when I did that. I had not heard the command right. That was
not the work I was sent to do.
PAUDEEN. Rise up now and bid us what to do. Your great name itself will
clear the road before you. It is you yourself will have freed all
Ireland before the stooks will be in stacks!
MARTIN. Listen, I will explain ... I have misled you. It is only now I
have the whole vision plain. As I lay there I saw through everything, I
know all. It was but a frenzy, that going out to burn and to destroy.
What have I to do with the foreign army? What I have to pierce is the
wild heart of time. My business is not reformation but revelation.
JOHNNY B. If you are going to turn back now from leading us, you are no
better than any other traitor that ever gave up the work he took in
hand. Let you come and face now the two hundred men you brought out,
daring the power of the law last night, and give them your reason for
failing them.
MARTIN. I was mistaken when I set out to destroy church and law. The
battle we have to fight is fought out in our own minds. There is a
fiery moment, perhaps once in a lifetime, and in that moment we see the
only thing that matters. It is in that moment the great battles are
lost and won, for in that moment we are a part of the host of heaven.
PAUDEEN. Have you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises
and with your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to
ridicule us, it is the last day you will live!
JOHNNY B. The curse of my heart on you! It would be right to send you
to your own place on the flagstone of the traitors in hell. When once I
have made an end of you, I will be as well satisfied to be going to my
death for it as if I was going home!
MARTIN. Father John, Father John, can you not hear? Can you not see?
Are you blind? Are you deaf?
FATHER JOHN. What is it? What is it?
MARTIN. There on the mountain, a thousand white unicorns trampling; a
thousand riders with their swords drawn ... the swords clashing! Oh,
the sound of the swords, the sound of the clashing of the swords! [_He
goes slowly off stage._]
[JOHNNY B. _takes up a stone to throw at him._]
FATHER JOHN [_seizing his arm_]. Stop ... do you not see he is beyond
the world?
BIDDY. Keep your hand off him, Johnny Bacach. If he is gone wild and
cracked, that's natural. Those that have been wakened from a trance on
a sudden are apt to go bad and light in the head.
PAUDEEN. If it is madness is on him, it is not he himself should pay
the penalty.
BIDDY. To prey on the mind it does, and rises into the head. There are
some would go over any height and would have great power in their
madness. It is maybe to some secret cleft he is going to get knowledge
of the great cure for all things, or of the Plough that was hidden in
the old times, the Golden Plough.
PAUDEEN. It seemed as if he was talking through honey. He had the look
of one that had seen great wonders. It is maybe among the old heroes of
Ireland he went raising armies for our help.
FATHER JOHN. God take him in His care and keep him from lying spirits
and from all delusions.
JOHNNY B. We have got candles here, Father. We had them to put around
his body. Maybe they would keep away the evil things of the air.
_Paudeen._ Light them so, and he will say out a Mass for him the same
as in a lime-washed church.
[_They light the candles on the rock._ THOMAS _comes in._]
THOMAS. Where is he? I am come to warn him. The destruction he did in
the night-time has been heard of. The soldiers are out after him and
the constables ... there are two of the constables not far off ...
there are others on every side ... they heard he was here in the
mountain ... where is he?
FATHER JOHN. He has gone up the path.
THOMAS. Hurry after him! Tell him to hide himself ... this attack he
had a hand in is a hanging crime.... Tell him to hide himself, to come
to me when all is quiet ... bad as his doings are, he is my own
brother's son; I will get him on to a ship that will be going to
France.
FATHER JOHN. That will be best; send him back to the Brothers and to
the wise Bishops. They can unravel this tangle. I cannot; I cannot be
sure of the truth.
THOMAS. Here are the constables; he will see them and get away.... Say
no word.... The Lord be praised that he is out of sight.
[CONSTABLES _come in._]
CONSTABLE. The man we are looking for, where is he? He was seen coming
here along with you. You have to give him up into the power of the law.
JOHNNY B. We will not give him up! Go back out of this or you will be
sorry.
PAUDEEN. We are not in dread of you or the like of you.
BIDDY. Throw them down over the rocks!
NANNY. Give them to the picking of the crows!
ALL. Down with the law!
FATHER JOHN. Hush! He is coming back. [_To_ CONSTABLES.] Stop, stop ...
leave him to himself. He is not trying to escape; he is coming towards
you.
PAUDEEN. There is a sort of a brightness about him. I misjudged him
calling him a traitor. It is not to this world he belongs at all. He is
over on the other side.
[MARTIN _has come in. He stands higher than the others upon
some rocks._]
MARTIN. _Ex calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est!_
FATHER JOHN. I must know what he has to say. It is not from himself he
is speaking.
MARTIN. Father John, heaven is not what we have believed it to be. It
is not quiet; it is not singing and making music and all strife at an
end. I have seen it, I have been there. The lover still loves, but with
a greater passion; and the rider still rides, but the horse goes like
the wind and leaps the ridges; and the battle goes on always, always.
That is the joy of heaven, continual battle. I thought the battle was
here, and that the joy was to be found here on earth, that all one had
to do was to bring again the old, wild earth of the stories, but no, it
is not here; we shall not come to that joy, that battle, till we have
put out the senses, everything that can be seen and handled, as I put
out this candle. [_He puts out candle._] We must put out the whole
world as I put out this candle [_he puts out candle_]; we must put out
the light of the stars and the light of the sun and the light of the
moon [_he puts out the remaining candles and comes down to where the
others are_], till we have brought everything to nothing once again. I
saw in a broken vision, but now all is clear to me. Where there is
nothing, where there is nothing ... there is God!
CONSTABLE. Now we will take him!
JOHNNY B. We will never give him up to the law!
PAUDEEN. Make your escape! We will not let you be followed.
[_They struggle with_ CONSTABLES; _the women help them; all
disappear, struggling. There is a shot._ MARTIN _falls dead.
Beggars come back with a shout._]
JOHNNY B. We have done for them; they will not meddle with you again.
PAUDEEN. Oh, he is down!
FATHER JOHN. He is shot through the breast. Oh, who has dared meddle
with a soul that was in the tumults on the threshold of sanctity?
JOHNNY B. It was that gun went off and I striking it from the
constable's hand.
MARTIN [_looking at his hand, on which there is blood_]. Ah, that is
blood! I fell among the rocks. It is a hard climb. It is a long climb
to the vineyards of Eden. Help me up. I must go on. The Mountain of
Abiegnos is very high ... but the vineyards ... the vineyards!
[_He falls back, dead. The men uncover their heads._]
PAUDEEN [_to_ BIDDY]. It was you misled him with your foretelling that
he was coming within the best day of his life.
JOHNNY B. Madness on him or no madness, I will not leave that body to
the law to be buried with a dog's burial or brought away and maybe
hanged upon a tree. Lift him on the sacks; bring him away to the
quarry; it is there on the hillside the boys will give him a great
burying, coming on horses and bearing white rods in their hands.
[_They lift him and carry the body away, singing._]
Our hope and our darling, our heart dies with you.
You to have failed us, we are foals astray!
FATHER JOHN. He is gone, and we can never know where that vision came
from. I cannot know; the wise Bishops would have known.
THOMAS [_taking up banner_]. To be shaping a lad through his lifetime,
and he to go his own way at the last, and a queer way. It is very queer
the world itself is, whatever shape was put upon it at the first!
ANDREW. To be too headstrong and too open, that is the beginning of
trouble. To keep to yourself the thing that you know, and to do in
quiet the thing you want to do, there would be no disturbance at all in
the world, all people to bear that in mind!
CURTAIN
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN
CHARACTERS
PETER GILLANE.
MICHAEL GILLANE _his son, going to be married_.
PATRICK GILLANE _a lad of twelve, Michael's brother_.
BRIDGET GILLANE _Peter's wife_.
DELIA CAHEL _engaged to_ MICHAEL.
THE POOR OLD WOMAN.
NEIGHBOURS.
SCENE: _Interior of a cottage close to Killala, in 1798._ BRIDGET _is
standing at a table undoing a parcel._ PETER _is sitting at one side of
the fire,_ PATRICK _at the other_.
PETER. What is that sound I hear?
PATRICK. I don't hear anything. [_He listens._] I hear it now. It's
like cheering. [_He goes to the window and looks out._] I wonder what
they are cheering about. I don't see anybody.
PETER. It might be a hurling match.
PATRICK. There's no hurling to-day. It must be down in the town the
cheering is.
BRIDGET. I suppose the boys must be having some sport of their own.
Come over here, Peter, and look at Michael's wedding-clothes.
PETER [_shifts his chair to table_]. Those are grand clothes, indeed.
BRIDGET. You hadn't clothes like that when you married me, and no coat
to put on of a Sunday any more than any other day.
PETER. That is true, indeed. We never thought a son of our own would be
wearing a suit of that sort for his wedding, or have so good a place to
bring a wife to.
PATRICK [_who is still at the window_]. There's an old woman coming
down the road. I don't know, is it here she's coming?
BRIDGET. It will be a neighbour coming to hear about Michael's wedding.
Can you see who it is?
PATRICK. I think it is a stranger, but she's not coming to the house.
She's turned into the gap that goes down where Murteen and his sons are
shearing sheep. [_He turns towards_ BRIDGET.] Do you remember what
Winny of the Cross Roads was saying the other night about the strange
woman that goes through the country whatever time there's war or
trouble coming?
BRIDGET. Don't be bothering us about Winny's talk, but go and open the
door for your brother. I hear him coming up the path.
PETER. I hope he has brought Delia's fortune with him safe, for fear
her people might go back on the bargain and I after making it. Trouble
enough I had making it.
[PATRICK _opens the door and_ MICHAEL _comes in._]
BRIDGET. What kept you, Michael? We were looking out for you this long
time.
MICHAEL. I went round by the priest's house to bid him be ready to
marry us to-morrow.
BRIDGET. Did he say anything?
MICHAEL. He said it was a very nice match, and that he was never better
pleased to marry any two in his parish than myself and Delia Cahel.
PETER. Have you got the fortune, Michael?
MICHAEL. Here it is.
[_He puts bag on table and goes over and leans against the
chimney-jamb._ BRIDGET, _who has been all this time examining
the clothes, pulling the seams and trying the lining of the
pockets, etc., puts the clothes on the dresser._]
PETER [_getting up and taking the bag in his hand and turning out the
money_]. Yes, I made the bargain well for you, Michael. Old John Cahel
would sooner have kept a share of this awhile longer. "Let me keep the
half of it till the first boy is born," says he. "You will not," says
I. "Whether there is or is not a boy, the whole hundred pounds must be
in Michael's hands before he brings your daughter in the house." The
wife spoke to him then, and he gave in at the end.
BRIDGET. You seem well pleased to be handling the money, Peter.
PETER. Indeed, I wish I had had the luck to get a hundred pounds, or
twenty pounds itself, with the wife I married.
BRIDGET. Well, if I didn't bring much I didn't get much. What had you
the day I married you but a flock of hens and you feeding them, and a
few lambs and you driving them to the market at Ballina? [_She is vexed
and bangs a jug on the dresser._] If I brought no fortune, I worked it
out in my bones, laying down the baby, Michael that is standing there
now, on a stook of straw, while I dug the potatoes, and never asking
big dresses or anything but to be working.
PETER. That is true, indeed. [_He pats her arm._]
BRIDGET. Leave me alone now till I ready the house for the woman that
is to come into it.
PETER. You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too. [_He
begins handling the money again and sits down._] I never thought to see
so much money within my four walls. We can do great things now we have
it. We can take the ten acres of land we have a chance of since Jamsie
Dempsey died, and stock it. We will go to the fair of Ballina to buy
the stock. Did Delia ask any of the money for her own use, Michael?
MICHAEL. She did not, indeed. She did not seem to take much notice of
it, or to look at it at all.
BRIDGET. That's no wonder. Why would she look at it when she had
yourself to look at, a fine, strong young man? It is proud she must be
to get you, a good steady boy that will make use of the money, and not
be running through it or spending it on drink like another.
PETER. It's likely Michael himself was not thinking much of the fortune
either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.
MICHAEL [_coming over towards the table_]. Well, you would like a nice
comely girl to be beside you, and to go walking with you. The fortune
only lasts for a while, but the woman will be there always.
[_Cheers._]
PATRICK [_turning round from the window_]. They are cheering again
down in the town. Maybe they are landing horses from Enniscrone. They
do be cheering when the horses take the water well.
MICHAEL. There are no horses in it. Where would they be going and no
fair at hand? Go down to the town, Patrick, and see what is going on.
PATRICK [_opens the door to go out, but stops for a moment on the
threshold_]. Will Delia remember, do you think, to bring the greyhound
pup she promised me when she would be coming to the house?
MICHAEL. She will surely.
[PATRICK _goes out, leaving the door open._]
PETER. It will be Patrick's turn next to be looking for a fortune, but
he won't find it so easy to get it and he with no place of his own.
BRIDGET. I do be thinking sometimes, now things are going so well with
us, and the Cahels such a good back to us in the district, and Delia's
own uncle a priest, we might be put in the way of making Patrick a
priest some day, and he so good at his books.
PETER. Time enough, time enough; you have always your head full of
plans, Bridget.
BRIDGET. We will be well able to give him learning, and not to send him
trampling the country like a poor scholar that lives on charity.
[_Cheers._]
MICHAEL. They're not done cheering yet.
[_He goes over to the door and stands there for a moment,
putting up his hand to shade his eyes._]
BRIDGET. Do you see anything?
MICHAEL. I see an old woman coming up the path.
BRIDGET. Who is it, I wonder. It must be the strange woman Patrick saw
awhile ago.
MICHAEL. I don't think it's one of the neighbours anyway, but she has
her cloak over her face.
BRIDGET. It might be some poor woman heard we were making ready for the
wedding and came to look for her share.
PETER. I may as well put the money out of sight. There is no use
leaving it out for every stranger to look at.
[_He goes over to a large box in the corner, opens it, and
puts the bag in and fumbles at the lock._]
MICHAEL. There she is, father! [_An_ Old Woman _passes the window
slowly; she looks at_ MICHAEL _as she passes._] I'd sooner a stranger
not to come to the house the night before my wedding.
BRIDGET. Open the door, Michael; don't keep the poor woman waiting.
[_The_ OLD WOMAN _comes in._ MICHAEL _stands aside to make
way for her._]
OLD WOMAN. God save all here!
PETER. God save you kindly!
OLD WOMAN. You have good shelter here.
PETER. You are welcome to whatever shelter we have.
BRIDGET. Sit down there by the fire and welcome.
OLD WOMAN [_warming her hands_]. There is a hard wind outside.
[MICHAEL _watches her curiously from the door_. PETER _comes
over to the table._]
PETER. Have you travelled far to-day?
OLD WOMAN. I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled
so far as myself, and there's many a one that doesn't make me welcome.
There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but
they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn't listen to me.
PETER. It's a pity indeed for any person to have no place of their own.
OLD WOMAN. That's true for you indeed, and it's long I'm on the roads
since I first went wandering.
BRIDGET. It is a wonder you are not worn out with so much wandering.
OLD WOMAN. Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but
there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think
old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone out of me. But
when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.
BRIDGET. What was it put you wandering?
OLD WOMAN. Too many strangers in the house.
BRIDGET. Indeed you look as if you'd had your share of trouble.
OLD WOMAN. I have had trouble indeed.
BRIDGET. What was it put the trouble on you?
OLD WOMAN. My land that was taken from me.
PETER. Was it much land they took from you?
OLD WOMAN. My four beautiful green fields.
PETER [_aside to_ BRIDGET]. Do you think could she be the widow Casey
that was put out of her holding at Kilglass awhile ago?
BRIDGET. She is not. I saw the widow Casey one time at the market in
Ballina, a stout fresh woman.
PETER [_to_ OLD WOMAN]. Did you hear a noise of cheering, and you
coming up the hill?
OLD WOMAN. I thought I heard the noise I used to hear when my friends
came to visit me. [_She begins singing half to herself._]
I will go cry with the woman,
For yellow-haired Donough is dead,
With a hempen rope for a neckcloth,
And a white cloth on his head,--
MICHAEL [_coming from the door_]. What is that you are singing, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired
Donough, that was hanged in Galway. [_She goes on singing, much
louder._]
I am come to cry with you, woman,
My hair is unwound and unbound;
I remember him ploughing his field,
Turning up the red side of the ground,
And building his barn on the hill
With the good mortared stone;
O! we'd have pulled down the gallows
Had it happened in Enniscrone!
MICHAEL. What was it brought him to his death?
OLD WOMAN. He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.
PETER [_aside to_ BRIDGET]. Her trouble has put her wits astray.
MICHAEL. Is it long since that song was made? Is it long since he got
his death?
OLD WOMAN. Not long, not long. But there were others that died for love
of me a long time ago.
MICHAEL. Were they neighbours of your own, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. Come here beside me and I'll tell you about them. [MICHAEL
_sits down beside her at the hearth._] There was a red man of the
O'Donnells from the north, and a man of the O'Sullivans from the south,
and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and
there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years
ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow.
MICHAEL. Is it in the west that men will die to-morrow?
OLD WOMAN. Come nearer, nearer to me.
BRIDGET. Is she right, do you think? Or is she a woman from beyond the
world?
PETER. She doesn't know well what she's talking about, with the want
and the trouble she has gone through.
BRIDGET. The poor thing, we should treat her well.
PETER. Give her a drink of milk and a bit of the oaten cake.
BRIDGET. Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring
her on her way. A few pence, or a shilling itself, and we with so much
money in the house.
PETER. Indeed I'd not begrudge it to her if we had it to spare, but if
we go running through what we have, we'll soon have to break the
hundred pounds, and that would be a pity.
BRIDGET. Shame on you, Peter. Give her the shilling, and your blessing
with it, or our own luck will go from us.
[PETER _goes to the box and takes out a shilling._]
BRIDGET [_to the_ OLD WOMAN]. Will you have a drink of milk?
OLD WOMAN. It is not food or drink that I want.
PETER [_offering the shilling_]. Here is something for you.
OLD WOMAN. That is not what I want. It is not silver I want.
PETER. What is it you would be asking for?
OLD WOMAN. If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he
must give me all.
[PETER _goes over to the table, staring at the shilling in
his hand in a bewildered way, and stands whispering to_
BRIDGET.]
MICHAEL. Have you no one to care you in your age, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have not. With all the lovers that brought me their love,
I never set out the bed for any.
MICHAEL. Are you lonely going the roads, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have my thoughts and I have my hopes.
MICHAEL. What hopes have you to hold to?
OLD WOMAN. The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again; the hope
of putting the strangers out of my house.
MICHAEL. What way will you do that, ma'am?
OLD WOMAN. I have good friends that will help me. They are gathering to
help me now. I am not afraid. If they are put down to-day, they will
get the upper hand to-morrow. [_She gets up._] I must be going to meet
my friends. They are coming to help me, and I must be there to welcome
them. I must call the neighbours together to welcome them.
MICHAEL. I will go with you.
BRIDGET. It is not her friends you have to go and welcome, Michael; it
is the girl coming into the house you have to welcome. You have plenty
to do, it is food and drink you have to bring to the house. The woman
that is coming home is not coming with empty hands; you would not have
an empty house before her. [_To the_ OLD WOMAN.] Maybe you don't know,
ma'am, that my son is going to be married to-morrow.
OLD WOMAN. It is not a man going to his marriage that I look to for
help.
PETER [_to_ BRIDGET]. Who is she, do you think, at all?
BRIDGET. You did not tell us your name yet, ma'am.
OLD WOMAN. Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that
call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
PETER. I think I knew someone of that name once. Who was it, I wonder?
It must have been someone I knew when I was a boy. No, no, I remember,
I heard it in a song.
OLD WOMAN [_who is standing in the doorway_]. They are wondering that
there were songs made for me; there have been many songs made for me. I
heard one on the wind this morning. [_She sings._]
Do not make a great keening
When the graves have been dug to-morrow.
Do not call the white-scarfed riders
To the burying that shall be to-morrow.
Do not spread food to call strangers
To the wakes that shall be to-morrow;
Do not give money for prayers
For the dead that shall die to-morrow ...
they will have no need of prayers, they will have no need of prayers.
MICHAEL. I do not know what that song means, but tell me something I
can do for you.
PETER. Come over to me, Michael.
MICHAEL. Hush, father, listen to her.
OLD WOMAN. It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are
red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk
the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets
in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have
gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born,
and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They
that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all
that, they will think they are well paid.
[_She goes out; her voice is heard outside singing._]
They shall be remembered for ever,
They shall be alive for ever,
They shall be speaking for ever,
The people shall hear them for ever.
BRIDGET [_to_ PETER]. Look at him, Peter; he has the look of a man
that has got the touch. [_Raising her voice._] Look here, Michael, at
the wedding-clothes. Such grand clothes as these are. You have a right
to fit them on now; it would be a pity to-morrow if they did not fit.
The boys would be laughing at you. Take them, Michael, and go into the
room and fit them on. [_She puts them on his arm._]
MICHAEL. What wedding are you talking of? What clothes will I be
wearing to-morrow?
BRIDGET. These are the clothes you are going to wear when you marry
Delia Cahel to-morrow.
MICHAEL. I had forgotten that.
[_He looks at the clothes and turns towards the inner room,
but stops at the sound of cheering outside._]
PETER. There is the shouting come to our own door. What is it has
happened?
[PATRICK _and_ DELIA _come in._]
PATRICK. There are ships in the Bay; the French are landing at Killala!
[PETER _takes his pipe from his mouth and his hat off, and
stands up. The clothes slip from_ MICHAEL's _arm._]
DELIA. Michael! [_He takes no notice._] Michael! [_He turns towards
her._] Why do you look at me like a stranger?
[_She drops his arm_. BRIDGET _goes over towards her._]
PATRICK. The boys are all hurrying down the hillsides to join the
French.
DELIA. Michael won't be going to join the French.
BRIDGET [_to_ PETER]. Tell him not to go, Peter.
PETER. It's no use. He doesn't hear a word we're saying.
BRIDGET. Try and coax him over to the fire.
DELIA. Michael! Michael! You won't leave me! You won't join the French,
and we going to be married!
[_She puts her arms about him; he turns towards her as if
about to yield._ OLD WOMAN's _voice outside._]
They shall be speaking for ever,
The people shall hear them for ever.
[MICHAEL _breaks away from_ DELIA _and goes out._]
PETER [_to_ PATRICK, _laying a hand on his arm_]. Did you see an old
woman going down the path?
PATRICK. I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a
queen.
THE HOUR-GLASS:
A MORALITY
CHARACTERS
A WISE MAN.
SOME PUPILS.
A FOOL.
AN ANGEL.
THE WISE MAN'S WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN.
SCENE: _A large room with a door at the back and another at the side or
else a curtained place where the persons can enter by parting the
curtains. A desk and a chair at one side. An hour-glass on a stand near
the door. A creepy stool near it. Some benches. A_ WISE MAN _sitting at
his desk._
WISE M. [_turning over the pages of a book_]. Where is that passage I
am to explain to my pupils to-day? Here it is, and the book says that
it was written by a beggar on the walls of Babylon: "There are two
living countries, the one visible and the one invisible; and when it is
winter with us it is summer in that country, and when the November
winds are up among us it is lambing time there." I wish that my pupils
had asked me to explain any other passage. [_The_ FOOL _comes in and
stands at the door holding out his hat. He has a pair of shears in the
other hand._] It sounds to me like foolishness; and yet that cannot be,
for the writer of this book, where I have found so much knowledge,
would not have set it by itself on this page, and surrounded it with so
many images and so many deep colours and so much fine gilding, if it
had been foolishness.
FOOL. Give me a penny.
WISE M. [_turns to another page_]. Here he has written: "The learned in
old times forgot the visible country." That I understand, but I have
taught my learners better.
FOOL. Won't you give me a penny?
WISE M. What do you want? The words of the wise Saracen will not teach
you much.
FOOL. Such a great wise teacher as you are will not refuse a penny to a
Fool.
WISE M. What do you know about wisdom?
FOOL. Oh, I know! I know what I have seen.
WISE M. What is it you have seen?
FOOL. When I went by Kilcluan where the bells used to be ringing at the
break of every day, I could hear nothing but the people snoring in
their houses. When I went by Tubbervanach where the young men used to
be climbing the hill to the blessed well, they were sitting at the
crossroads playing cards. When I went by Carrigoras, where the friars
used to be fasting and serving the poor, I saw them drinking wine and
obeying their wives. And when I asked what misfortune had brought all
these changes, they said it was no misfortune, but it was the wisdom
they had learned from your teaching.
WISE M. Run round to the kitchen, and my wife will give you something
to eat.
FOOL. That is foolish advice for a wise man to give.
WISE M. Why, Fool?
FOOL. What is eaten is gone. I want pennies for my bag. I must buy
bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the
time when the sun is weak. And I want snares to catch the rabbits and
the squirrels and the hares, and a pot to cook them in.
WISE M. Go away. I have other things to think of now than giving you
pennies.
FOOL. Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. Bresal the Fisherman
lets me sleep among the nets in his loft in the winter-time because he
says I bring him luck; and in the summer-time the wild creatures let me
sleep near their nests and their holes. It is lucky even to look at me
or to touch me, but it is much more lucky to give me a penny. [_Holds
out his hand._] If I wasn't lucky, I'd starve.
WISE M. What have you got the shears for?
FOOL. I won't tell you. If I told you, you would drive them away.
WISE M. Whom would I drive away?
FOOL. I won't tell you.
WISE M. Not if I give you a penny?
FOOL. No.
WISE M. Not if I give you two pennies?
FOOL. You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won't
tell you!
WISE M. Three pennies?
FOOL. Four, and I will tell you!
WISE M. Very well, four. But I will not call you Teigue the Fool any
longer.
FOOL. Let me come close to you where nobody will hear me. But first you
must promise you will not drive them away. [WISE M. _nods._] Every day
men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills,
great black nets.
WISE M. Why do they do that?
FOOL. That they may catch the feet of the angels. But every morning,
just before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with my shears, and the
angels fly away.
WISE M. Ah, now I know that you are Teigue the Fool. You have told me
that I am wise, and I have never seen an angel.
FOOL. I have seen plenty of angels.
WISE M. Do you bring luck to the angels too?
FOOL. Oh, no, no! No one could do that. But they are always there if
one looks about one; they are like the blades of grass.
WISE M. When do you see them?
FOOL. When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one,
something happy and quiet like the stars--not like the seven that move,
but like the fixed stars. [_He points upward._]
WISE M. And what happens then?
FOOL. Then all in a minute one smells summer flowers, and tall people
go by, happy and laughing, and their clothes are the colour of burning
sods.
WISE M. Is it long since you have seen them, Teigue the Fool?
FOOL. Not long, glory be to God! I saw one coming behind me just now.
It was not laughing, but it had clothes the colour of burning sods, and
there was something shining about its head.
WISE M. Well, there are your four pennies. You, a fool, say "glory be
to God," but before I came the wise men said it.
FOOL. Four pennies! That means a great deal of luck. Great teacher, I
have brought you plenty of luck!
[_He goes out shaking the bag._]
WISE M. Though they call him Teigue the Fool, he is not more foolish
than everybody used to be, with their dreams and their preachings and
their three worlds; but I have overthrown their three worlds with the
seven sciences. [_He touches the books with his hands._] With
Philosophy that was made from the lonely star, I have taught them to
forget Theology; with Architecture, I have hidden the ramparts of their
cloudy heaven; with Music, the fierce planets' daughter whose hair is
always on fire, and with Grammar that is the moon's daughter, I have
shut their ears to the imaginary harpings and speech of the angels; and
I have made formations of battle with Arithmetic that have put the
hosts of heaven to the rout. But, Rhetoric and Dialectic, that have
been born out of the light star and out of the amorous star, you have
been my spear-man and my catapult! Oh! my swift horsemen! Oh! my keen
darting arguments, it is because of you that I have overthrown the
hosts of foolishness! [_An_ Angel, _in a dress the colour of embers,
and carrying a blossoming apple bough in her hand and a gilded halo
about her head, stands upon the threshold._] Before I came, men's minds
were stuffed with folly about a heaven where birds sang the hours, and
about angels that came and stood upon men's thresholds. But I have
locked the visions into heaven and turned the key upon them. Well, I
must consider this passage about the two countries. My mother used to
say something of the kind. She would say that when our bodies sleep our
souls awake, and that whatever withers here ripens yonder, and that
harvests are snatched from us that they may feed invisible people. But
the meaning of the book may be different, for only fools and women have
thoughts like that; their thoughts were never written upon the walls of
Babylon. I must ring the bell for my pupils. [_He sees the_ ANGEL.]
What are you? Who are you? I think I saw some that were like you in my
dreams when I was a child--that bright thing, that dress that is the
colour of embers! But I have done with dreams, I have done with dreams.
ANGEL. I am the Angel of the Most High God.
WISE M. Why have you come to me?
ANGEL. I have brought you a message.
WISE M. What message have you got for me?
ANGEL. You will die within the hour. You will die when the last grains
have fallen in this glass. [_She turns the hour-glass._]
WISE M. My time to die has not come. I have my pupils. I have a young
wife and children that I cannot leave. Why must I die?
ANGEL. You must die because no souls have passed over the threshold of
Heaven since you came into this country. The threshold is grassy, and
the gates are rusty, and the angels that keep watch there are lonely.
WISE M. Where will death bring me to?
ANGEL. The doors of Heaven will not open to you, for you have denied
the existence of Heaven; and the doors of Purgatory will not open to
you, for you have denied the existence of Purgatory.
WISE M. But I have also denied the existence of Hell!
ANGEL. Hell is the place of those who deny.
WISE M. [_kneels_]. I have, indeed, denied everything, and have taught
others to deny. I have believed in nothing but what my senses told me.
But, oh! beautiful Angel, forgive me, forgive me!
ANGEL. You should have asked forgiveness long ago.
WISE M. Had I seen your face as I see it now, oh! beautiful angel, I
would have believed, I would have asked forgiveness. Maybe you do not
know how easy it is to doubt. Storm, death, the grass rotting, many
sicknesses, those are the messengers that came to me. Oh! why are you
silent? You carry the pardon of the Most High; give it to me! I would
kiss your hands if I were not afraid--no, no, the hem of your dress!
ANGEL. You let go undying hands too long ago to take hold of them now.
WISE M. You cannot understand. You live in that country people only see
in their dreams. Maybe it is as hard for you to understand why we
disbelieve as it is for us to believe. Oh! what have I said! You know
everything! Give me time to undo what I have done. Give me a year--a
month--a day--an hour! Give me to this hour's end, that I may undo what
I have done!
ANGEL. You cannot undo what you have done. Yet I have this power with
my message. If you can find one that believes before the hour's end,
you shall come to Heaven after the years of Purgatory. For, from one
fiery seed, watched over by those that sent me, the harvest can come
again to heap the golden threshing floor. But now farewell, for I am
weary of the weight of time.
WISE M. Blessed be the Father, blessed be the Son, blessed be the
Spirit, blessed be the Messenger They have sent!
ANGEL [_at the door and pointing at the hour-glass_]. In a little
while the uppermost glass will be empty. [_Goes out._]
WISE M. Everything will be well with me. I will call my pupils; they
only say they doubt. [_Pulls the bell._] They will be here in a moment.
They want to please me; they pretend that they disbelieve. Belief is
too old to be overcome all in a minute. Besides, I can prove what I
once disproved. [_Another pull at the bell._] They are coming now. I
will go to my desk. I will speak quietly, as if nothing had happened.
[_He stands at the desk with a fixed look in his eyes. The
voices of the pupils are heard outside singing these words._]
I was going the road one day,
O the brown and the yellow beer,
And I met with a man that was no right man
O my dear, O my dear.
[_The sound grows louder as they come nearer, but ceases on
the threshold._]
_Enter_ PUPILS _and the_ FOOL.
FOOL. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Who is that pulling at my bag?
King's son, do not pull at my bag.
A YOUNG MAN. Did your friends the angels give you that bag? Why don't
they fill your bag for you?
FOOL. Give me pennies! Give me some pennies!
A YOUNG M. What do you want pennies for?--that great bag at your waist
is heavy.
FOOL. I want to buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and
strong drink for the time when the sun is weak, and snares to catch
rabbits and the squirrels that steal the nuts, and hares, and a great
pot to cook them in.
A YOUNG M. Why don't your friends tell you where buried treasures are?
Why don't they make you dream about treasures? If one dreams three
times there is always treasure.
FOOL [_holding out his hat_]. Give me pennies! Give me pennies!
[_They throw pennies into his hat. He is standing close to
the door, that he may hold out his hat to each newcomer._]
A YOUNG M. Master, will you have Teigue the Fool for a scholar?
ANOTHER YOUNG M. Teigue, will you give us your pennies if we teach you
lessons? No, he goes to school for nothing on the mountains. Tell us
what you learn on the mountains, Teigue.
WISE M. Be silent all! [_He has been standing silent, looking away._]
Stand still in your places, for there is something I would have you
tell me.
[_A moment's pause. They all stand round in their places._
TEIGUE _still stands at the door._]
WISE M. Is there anyone amongst you who believes in God? In Heaven? Or
in Purgatory? Or in Hell?
ALL THE YOUNG MEN. No one, Master! No one!
WISE M. I knew you would all say that; but do not be afraid. I will not
be angry. Tell me the truth. Do you not believe?
A YOUNG M. We once did, but you have taught us to know better.
WISE M. Oh, teaching! teaching does not go very deep! The heart remains
unchanged under it all. You have the faith that you have always had,
and you are afraid to tell me.
A YOUNG M. No, no, Master!
WISE M. If you tell me that you have not changed, I shall be glad and
not angry.
A YOUNG M. [_to his_ NEIGHBOUR]. He wants somebody to dispute with.
HIS NEIGHBOUR. I knew that from the beginning.
A YOUNG M. That is not the subject for to-day; you were going to talk
about the words the beggar wrote upon the walls of Babylon.
WISE M. If there is one amongst you that believes, he will be my best
friend. Surely there is one amongst you. [_They are all silent._]
Surely what you learned at your mother's knees has not been so soon
forgotten.
A YOUNG M. Master, till you came, no teacher in this land was able to
get rid of foolishness and ignorance. But every one has listened to
you, every one has learned the truth. You have had your last
disputation.
ANOTHER. What a fool you made of that monk in the market-place! He had
not a word to say.
WISE M. [_comes from his desk and stands among them in the middle of
the room_]. Pupils, dear friends, I have deceived you all this time. It
was I myself who was ignorant. There is a God. There is a Heaven. There
is fire that passes and there is fire that lasts for ever.
[TEIGUE, _through all this, is sitting on a stool by the
door, reckoning on his fingers what he will buy with his
money._]
A YOUNG M. [_to_ Another]. He will not be satisfied till we dispute
with him. [_To the_ WISE MAN.] Prove it, Master. Have you seen them?
WISE M. [_in a low, solemn voice_]. Just now, before you came in,
someone came to the door, and when I looked up I saw an angel standing
there.
A YOUNG M. You were in a dream. Anybody can see an angel in his dreams.
WISE M. Oh, my God! It was not a dream! I was awake, waking as I am
now. I tell you I was awake as I am now.
A YOUNG M. Some dream when they are awake, but they are the crazy, and
who would believe what they say? Forgive me, Master, but that is what
you taught me to say. That is what you said to the monk when he spoke
of the visions of the saints and the martyrs.
ANOTHER YOUNG M. You see how well we remember your teaching.
WISE M. Out, out from my sight! I want someone with belief. I must find
that grain the Angel spoke of before I die. I tell you I must find it,
and you answer me with arguments. Out with you, out of my sight! [_The_
YOUNG MEN _laugh._]
A YOUNG M. How well he plays at faith! He is like the monk when he had
nothing more to say.
WISE M. Out, out, this is no time for laughter! Out with you, though
you are a king's son! [_They begin to hurry out._]
A YOUNG M. Come, come; he wants us to find someone who will dispute
with him.
[_All go out._]
WISE M. [_alone; he goes to the door at the side_]. I will call my
wife. She will believe; women always believe. [_He opens the door and
calls._] Bridget! Bridget! [BRIDGET _comes in, wearing her apron, her
sleeves turned up from her floury arms._] Bridget, tell me the truth;
do not say what you think will please me. Do you sometimes say your
prayers?
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 evening.
WISE M. But do you not believe in God?
BRIDGET. Oh, a good wife only believes what her husband tells her!
WISE M. But sometimes, when you are alone, when I am in the school and
the children asleep, do you not think about the saints, about the
things you used to believe in? What do you think of when you are alone?
BRIDGET [_considering_]. I think about nothing. Sometimes I wonder if
the linen is bleaching white, or I go out to see if the cows are
picking up the chickens' food.
WISE M. Oh, what can I do! Is there nobody who believes he can never
die? I must go and find somebody! [_He goes towards the door, but stops
with his eyes fixed on the hour-glass._] I cannot go out; I cannot
leave that; go and call my pupils again--I will make them understand--I
will say to them that only amid spiritual terror, or only when all that
laid hold on life is shaken can we see truth--but no, do not call them,
they would answer as I have bid.
BRIDGET. You want somebody to get up an argument with.
WISE M. Oh, look out of the door and tell me if there is anybody there
in the street! I cannot leave this glass; somebody might shake it! Then
the sand would fall more quickly.
BRIDGET. I don't understand what you are saying. [_Looks out._] There
is a great crowd of people talking to your pupils.
WISE M. Oh, run out, Bridget, and see if they have found somebody that
all the time while I was teaching understood nothing or did not listen.
BRIDGET [_wiping her arms in her apron and pulling down her sleeves_].
It's a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must be
always having arguments. [_Goes out and shouts through the kitchen
door._] Don't be meddling with the bread, children, while I'm out.
WISE M. [_kneels down_]. "_Confiteor Deo omnipotente beatæ Mariæ...._"
I have forgotten it all. It is thirty years since I have said a prayer.
I must pray in the common tongue, like a clown begging in the market,
like Teigue the Fool! [_He prays._] Help me, Father, Son, and Spirit!
[BRIDGET _enters, followed by the_ FOOL, _who is holding out
his hat to her._]
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 the_ WISE MAN.] Your pupils cannot
find anybody to argue with you. There is nobody in the whole country
who has enough belief to fill a pipe with since you put down the monk.
Can't you be quiet now and not always wanting to have arguments? It
must be terrible to have a mind like that.
WISE M. I am lost! I am lost!
BRIDGET. Leave me alone now; I have to make the bread for you and the
children.
WISE M. Out of this, woman, out of this, I say! [BRIDGET _goes through
the kitchen door._] Will nobody find a way to help me! But she spoke of
my children. I had forgotten them. They will believe. It is only those
who have reason that doubt; the young are full of faith. Bridget,
Bridget, send my children to me.
BRIDGET [_inside_]. Your father wants you; run to him now.
[_The two_ CHILDREN _come in. They stand together a little
way from the threshold of the kitchen door, looking timidly
at their father._]
WISE M. Children, what do you believe? Is there a Heaven? Is there a
Hell? Is there a Purgatory?
FIRST CHILD. We haven't forgotten, father.
THE OTHER CHILD. Oh, no, father. [_They both speak together, as if in
school._] There is nothing we cannot see; there is nothing we cannot
touch.
FIRST CHILD. Foolish people used to think that there was, but you are
very learned and you have taught us better.
WISE M. You are just as bad as the others, just as bad as the others!
Do not run away; come back to me. [_The_ CHILDREN _begin to cry and run
away._] Why are you afraid? I will teach you better--no, I will never
teach you again. Go to your mother! no, she will not be able to teach
them.... Help them, O God!... The grains are going very quickly. There
is very little sand in the uppermost glass. Somebody will come for me
in a moment; perhaps he is at the door now! All creatures that have
reason doubt. O that the grass and the plants could speak! Somebody has
said that they would wither if they doubted. O speak to me, O grass
blades! O fingers of God's certainty, speak to me! You are millions and
you will not speak. I dare not know the moment the messenger will come
for me. I will cover the glass. [_He covers it and brings it to the
desk. Sees the_ FOOL, _who is sitting by the door playing with some
flowers which he has stuck in his hat. He has begun to blow a dandelion
head._] What are you doing?
FOOL. Wait a moment. [_He blows._] Four, five, six.
WISE M. What are you doing that for?
FOOL. I am blowing at the dandelion to find out what time it is.
WISE M. You have heard everything! That is why you want to find out
what hour it is! You are waiting to see them coming through the door to
carry me away. [FOOL _goes on blowing._] Out through the door with you!
I will have no one here when they come. [_He seizes the_ FOOL _by the
shoulders, and begins to force him out through the door, then suddenly
changes his mind._] No, I have something to ask you. [_He drags him
back into the room._] Is there a Heaven? Is there a Hell? Is there a
Purgatory?
FOOL. So you ask me now. When you were asking your pupils, I said to
myself, if he would ask Teigue the Fool, Teigue could tell him all
about it, for Teigue has learned all about it when he has been cutting
the nets.
WISE M. Tell me; tell me!
FOOL. I said, Teigue knows everything. Not even the cats or the hares
that milk the cows have Teigue's wisdom. But Teigue will not speak; he
says nothing.
WISE M. Tell me, tell me! For under the cover the grains are falling,
and when they are all fallen I shall die; and my soul will be lost if I
have not found somebody that believes! Speak, speak!
FOOL [_looking wise_]. No, no, I won't tell you what is in my mind,
and I won't 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 pulled the strings tighter, like this; and when
I go to sleep every night I hide the bag where no one knows.
WISE M. [_goes towards the hour-glass as if to uncover it_]. No, no, I
have not the courage. [_He kneels._] Have pity upon me, Fool, and tell
me!
FOOL. Ah! Now, that is different. I am not afraid of you now. But I
must come nearer to you; somebody in there might hear what the Angel
said.
WISE M. Oh, what did the Angel tell you?
FOOL. Once I was alone on the hills, and an angel came by and he said,
"Teigue the Fool, do not forget the Three Fires; the Fire that
punishes, the Fire that purifies, and the Fire wherein the soul
rejoices for ever!"
WISE M. He believes! I am saved! The sand has run out.... [FOOL _helps
him to his chair._] I am going from the country of the seven wandering
stars, and I am going to the country of the fixed stars!... I
understand it all now. One sinks in on God; we do not see the truth;
God sees the truth in us. Ring the bell. [FOOL _rings bell._] Are they
coming? Tell them, Fool, that when the life and the mind are broken the
truth comes through them like peas through a broken peascod. Pray,
Fool, that they may be given a sign and carry their souls alive out of
the dying world. Your prayers are better than mine.
[FOOL _bows his head_. WISE MAN's _head sinks on his arm on
the books_. PUPILS _are heard singing as before, but now they
come right into the room before they cease their song._]
A YOUNG MAN. Look at the Fool turned bell-ringer!
ANOTHER. What have you called us in for, Teigue? What are you going to
tell us?
ANOTHER. No wonder he has had dreams! See, he is fast asleep now.
[_Goes over and touches him._] Oh, he is dead!
FOOL. Do not stir! He asked for a sign that you might be saved. [_All
are silent for a moment._] ... Look what has come from his mouth ... a
little winged thing ... a little shining thing.... It is gone to the
door. [_The_ ANGEL _appears in the doorway, stretches out her hands and
closes them again._] The Angel has taken it in her hands.... She will
open her hands in the Garden of Paradise. [_They all kneel._]
CURTAIN
* * * * *
BY ALFRED NOYES
Poems
With an Introduction by HAMILTON W. MABIE
_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net_
"Imagination, the capacity to perceive vividly and feel sincerely, and
the gift of fit and beautiful expression in verse-form--if these may be
taken as the equipment of a poet, nearly all of this volume is poetry.
And if to the sum of these be added the indescribable increment of
charm which comes occasionally to the work of some poet, quite unearned
by any of these catalogued qualities of his, you have a fair measure of
Mr. Noyes at his best.... Two considerations render Mr. Noyes
interesting above most poets: the wonderful degree in which the
personal charm illumines what he has already written, and the surprises
which one feels may be in store in his future work. His feelings have
already so much variety and so much apparent sincerity that it is
impossible to tell in what direction his genius will develop. In
whatever style he writes,--the mystical, the historical-dramatic, the
impassioned description of natural beauty, the ballad, the love
lyric,--he has the peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found
the truest expression of himself."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
_PUBLISHED BY_
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
MR. ALFRED NOYES'S POEMS
The Flower of Old Japan
Contains also "Forest of Wild Thyme," of which the _Argonaut_ says: "It
is not only an exquisite piece of work, but it is a psychological
analysis of the child-mind so daring and yet so convincing as to lift
it to the plane where the masterpieces of literature dwell. It can be
read with delight by a child of ten. It is put into the mouth of a
child of about that age, but the adult must be strangely constituted
who can remain indifferent to its haunting spell or who can resist the
fascination which lies in its every page."
"We are reminded both of Stevenson--to whom Mr. Noyes pays a glowing
tribute--and Lewis Carroll; yet there is no imitation; Mr. Noyes has a
distinct poetic style of his own.... In a matter-of-fact age such verse
as this is an oasis in a desert land."--_Providence Journal._
"It has seemed to us from the first that Noyes has been one of the most
hope-inspiring figures in our latter-day poetry. He, almost alone, of
the younger men seems to have the true singing voice, the gift of
uttering in authentic lyric cry some fresh, unspoiled
emotion."--_Post._
Mr. Richard Le Gallienne in the _North American Review_ pointed out
recently "their spontaneous power and freshness, their imaginative
vision, their lyrical magic." He adds: "Mr. Noyes is surprisingly
various. I have seldom read one book, particularly by so young a
writer, in which so many different things are done, and all done so
well.... But that for which one is most grateful to Mr. Noyes in his
strong and brilliant treatment of all his rich material, is the gift by
which, in my opinion, he stands alone among the younger poets of the
day, his lyrical gift."
_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net_
_PUBLISHED BY_
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
Lyrical and Dramatic Poems
BY W. B. YEATS
_In two volumes; each, $1.75 net_
The two-volume edition of the Irish poet's works includes everything he
has done in verse up to the present time. The first volume contains his
lyrics; the second includes all of his five dramas in verse: "The
Countess Cathleen," "The Land of Heart's Desire," "The King's
Threshold," "On Baile's Strand," and "The Shadowy Waters."
William Butler Yeats stands among the few men to be reckoned with in
modern poetry, especially of a dramatic character. The _New York Sun_,
for example, refers to him as "an important factor in English
literature," and continues:--
"'Cathleen ni Hoolihan' is a perfect piece of artistic work, poetic
and wonderfully dramatic to read, and, we should imagine, far more
dramatic in the acting. Maeterlinck has never done anything so true
or effective as this short prose drama of Mr. Yeats's. There is not
a superfluous word in the play and no word that does not tell. It
must be dangerous to represent it in Ireland, for it is an Irish
Marseillaise.... In 'The Hour Glass' a noble and poetic idea is
carried out effectively, while 'A Pot of Broth' is merely a
dramatized humorous anecdote. But 'Cathleen ni Hoolihan' stirs the
blood, and in itself establishes Mr. Yeats's reputation for good."
The _New York Herald_ remarks:--
"Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the most
widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called Celtic
renaissance. More than this, he stands among the few men to be
reckoned with in modern poetry."
_PUBLISHED BY_
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
A History of English Poetry
BY W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D.
Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford
_Cloth, 8vo, $3.25 net per volume_
VOLUME I. The Middle Ages--Influence of the Roman Empire--The
Encyclopædic Education of the Church--The Feudal System.
VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation--Influence of the Court
and the Universities.
VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century--Decadent
Influence of the Feudal Monarchy--Growth of the National Genius.
VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama--Influence of
the Court and the People.
VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth
Century--Effects of the Classical Renaissance--Its Zenith and
Decline--The Early Romantic Renaissance.
* * *
"It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great value and
signal importance to the history of English Literature."--_Pall Mall
Gazette._
_PUBLISHED BY_
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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