Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by W. B. Yeats

  CORMAC. Then is ill luck in my hands. If the thread had not broken we should know all. You say you saw Finn pull out his dagger, but was not Diarmuid standing by his side with his hand on Finn’s shoulder? What is the meaning of this? If you do not tell me I will have you beaten and your wheel thrown into the lake.

  [Enter Grania].

  GRANIA. Ah, my father, she can tell you nothing if you speak so loud.

  CORMAC. She has told me strange things, things without meaning.

  GRANIA. YOU never believe her words, father, when she speaks them, but afterwards you find out that she had spoken truly.

  CORMAC. True or false it matters not since they do not help me.

  Where is Diarmuid? Does he speak to-day as he spoke last night?

  GRANIA. He has said nothing to me. But a day and night have gone since you have spoken to him. His mind may have changed. [Going up the stage]. This is the hour when the flock comes home. Diarmuid is thinking of the folding of his sheep. You will find him with the shepherd. Or shall I send Laban to bring him? [Laban gets up and goes out]. The fold is not far from the house. It was brought nearer for the wolves carried off three of our sheep last week... Ah, I see him coming up the path, Laban is going to meet him. [Grania comes down the stage to Cormac]. But, dear father, three days are not a long while to see you in, after seven years. You will come here again and forget the troubles that kingdom brings. You are lonely at Tara. I used to sing for you. Shall I come to Tara and sing for you again?

  CORMAC. But Diarmuid and Finn — you cannot come to Tara until they have made peace. I have persuaded Finn to make peace and I have brought him here... But we go on saying this one thing again and again.

  GRANIA. HOW will it all end? What a broil it has been since that night at Tara.

  CORMAC. Never did men sleep as we slept that night over our ale. We sat at that table like stones till the cock crew. We woke together at the crowing of the cock, and Finn cried out, “Grania has been taken from me.”

  GRANIA. I thought that Finn did not love me, that you made the marriage that you might be stronger than any other king or than any invader.

  CORMAC. Ah, Grania, you have your mother’s eyes. Your mother was very beautiful, Grania.

  GRANIA. I thought nothing but this: that a man should love me among the woods, far among the woods.

  CORMAC. And Diarmuid has loved this fair face very dearly.

  GRANIA. But in this valley love has become terrible and we are sometimes afraid of one another. And now I would have Diarmuid arm the shepherds and lead them against the Lochlanders and drive them into their galleys.

  CORMAC. If you think like this, why did you stand looking down the valley and saying nothing? Diarmuid asked you, and I asked you.

  GRANIA. If I had said “yes” to you, I should have said “no” to Diarmuid. I would say nothing but leave things to work out, whatever will may be in them.

  [Enter Niall and the King’s Councillors. Councillors stand in the background. Niall advances].

  CORMAC. Yes, Niall, I have delayed too long.

  GRANIA. [Going to Niall]. You are going now, Niall, and I have had little time to speak with you, and I would have spoken to you about the days at Tara, when you were my only playfellow. How well I remember going with you, one spring morning to a little pool at the edge of the wood. We sat on the high bank fishing for roach. Have you forgotten?

  NIALL. NO, Princess, I have not forgotten. That same day I showed you a blackbird sitting on her nest. You had never seen a bird sitting on her nest before. But how many things have happened since then: you know the woodland now better than I.

  GRANIA. Shall I ever see Tara again? I have wandered a long way.

  CORMAC. Five days’ journey from here, Grania. We must hurry, neither Niall nor I can keep the saddle for many hours at a time: Diarmuid’s cattle are coming this way and their sides are heavy with the rich grass of the valley which I have given you, and the rooks are flying home.

  [Enter Diarmuid].

  CORMAC. I shall be with Finn in half an hour and I would not say to him the words you bade me say last night. Do not send me to the man you wronged with the words you spoke last night.

  DIARMUID. Tell him to be gone out of my valley.

  CORMAC. Then farewell, dear daughter.

  GRANIA. Father stay with us; Diarmuid, do you not hear? Do you not understand?

  CORMAC. Diarmuid knows how great Finn’s anger will be when I bring him this answer.

  DIARMUID. I have fought Finn and overthrown him. Did I not break out of the house with the seven doors when he had set a watch at all doors? I went out of the door where he himself held the watch and my sword struck the sword out of his hand.

  CORMAC. If you will send me with this answer, so be it. I can say no more. Farewell to all here.

  [Exeunt Cormac, Niall and Councillors].

  DIARMUID. We thought we should weary of the silence of this valley but it is of their voices that we weary. Why should we listen to anything except one another. But they are gone at last, and care is gone with them, and we are alone again with ourselves and our flocks and herds. Come to the door Grania and see my black bull in the meadow. [Coming down the stage to her]. Do you not believe that care is gone with them?

  GRANIA. YOU saw my father’s face as he went out. His look has put a deep care into my heart.

  DIARMUID. These northern raiders will not dare to move from their galleys. They will soon sail away, and should we give up our happiness because we fear they may carry off a few score of cattle?

  GRANIA. Let it be as you wish it, Diarmuid.

  DIARMUID. But oath upon oath is broken. I broke my oath to Finn, and now I break the oath which binds me to take up arms against all invaders. Grania, you would like to see Tara again. You would like to see Finn again.

  GRANIA. I gave up Tara for your sake, Diarmuid, and that was easier than to live in this valley.

  DIARMUID. Ah, you are weary of this valley. But Finn and I are divided, Grania, as by the sea, and if the peace your father has made between us is not to be broken, Finn must leave my valley. It is for your sake, Grania, that he would have me among his Fianna again.

  GRANIA. He has not seen me for seven years.

  DIARMUID. TO see you once is enough, Grania.

  GRANIA. I think that it is for Eri’s sake he would have you among the

  Fianna again. He does not think of women. Why should a woman think of him? Have I not loved you for seven years, Diarmuid? And my father has told you that Finn is bound by an oath and that he has said, “Diarmuid has his love; let him keep her.”

  DIARMUID. He will not break his oath, but he will find some way out of it. There is always treachery behind his peacemaking.

  GRANIA. He made peace with Goll and that peace is still unbroken.

  Yet it was Goll’s father who plundered Finn’s country and murdered his people.

  DIARMUID. Goll does Finn’s bidding although he might be chief man himself. But Finn has not forgiven. Usheen saw a look in his eyes at Tara.

  GRANIA. Ah, how well you remember. That was seven years ago.

  DIARMUID. And when I am dead it will be Goll’s turn.

  GRANIA. Unhappy brooding man, you will neither believe in Finn’s oath nor in my love.

  DIARMUID. Here we have everything we sought for. But in return for this kingdom your father would have me among the Fianna again.

  I thought we should live and die here, I thought our children would grow up about us here, if the gods accept my offering and give us children. [He goes up the stage]. Come, look at the sleepy evening. These evenings are better than the evenings of battle long ago, and were I among my old companions again, Usheen, Goll,

  Caoelte, I should look back upon these quiet evenings when the flock came home and you gave me my supper in the dusk. [Comes down the stage]. If I were to die, Grania, would you be Finn’s wife?

  GRANIA. HOW did such a thought come into your mind?

  DIARMUID. My life be
gan with you and it ends with you. Oh, that these breasts should belong to another, and the usage of this body. Life of my life, I knew you before I was born, I made a bargain with this brown hair before the beginning of time and it shall not be broken through unending time. And yet I shall sit alone upon that shore that is beyond the world — though all the gods are there, the shore shall be empty because one is not there, and I shall weep remembering how we wandered among the woods. But you say nothing Grania. You are weary of the shadows of these mountains and of the smell of the fold. It is many days since you came to my bed and it is many weeks since I have seen an ornament upon you. Your love is slipping from me, it slips away like the water in the brook. You do not answer. These silences make me afraid.

  GRANIA. Then, Diarmuid, go to your old companions.

  DIARMUID. My old companions? What shall I say to them?

  GRANIA. You will fight shoulder to shoulder with Finn and Caoelte.

  You will listen to Usheen’s harp playing, and I shall love you better when you come to me with the reek of battle upon you.

  DIARMUID. We shall be again what we were to one another. You are not that Grania I wandered with among the woods.

  GRANIA. You are no longer that Diarmuid who overthrew Finn at the house of the seven doors.

  DIARMUID. You speak the truth, Grania. I should have gone to the

  Fianna. Now it is too late.

  GRANIA. Cormac cannot have reached the ford, you will overtake him.

  [She goes to her chest and takes out an ornament],

  DIARMUID. Who is the shepherd, Grania? I have never seen him before. Where has he come from?

  GRANIA. What shepherd do you speak of?

  DIARMUID. There, there in the doorway.

  GRANIA. There is nobody there.

  DIARMUID. He beckons me — I must follow — [He goes towards the door], I see him no longer. A mist must have come in my eyes. I see clearer now and there is no one. But I must follow.

  GRANIA. Whom would you follow?

  DIARMUID. I see no one now and yet there was a sudden darkening of the light and a shepherd carrying a hazel stick came into the doorway and beckoned me.

  GRANIA. NO, Diarmuid, nobody has come into that doorway.

  DIARMUID. Nobody came for you, but one came for me. Let me go, Grania.

  GRANIA. NO, no, it is a warning that you must not go.

  DIARMUID. That is not how I understand the warning. I am bidden to leave this valley. He beckoned me. I am bidden to the Fianna.

  [They go out. Enter Laban, who sits down at her wheel and begins to spin. Grania enters shortly after, she stands by the door looking after Diarmuid].

  GRANIA. He is like one whose mind is shaken. His thoughts are far away and I do not know what they are.

  LABAN. He is brooding over that story Conan told him at Tara — it has been in his mind all day.

  GRANIA. And before he left me he saw a shepherd where there was nobody.

  LABAN. A shepherd with a Druid hazel stick.

  GRANIA. It is better that he should live among his old companions.

  He talks one moment of Finn’s crookedness; and at another of my love as if it were waning... In a few minutes, Diarmuid and Finn will meet.

  LABAN. In a few minutes, Finn will stand with his hand on Diarmuid’s shoulder.

  GRANIA. Then I have done well in sending him to Finn. I did it for

  Diarmuid’s sake, and for my father’s sake and for the sake of my father’s kingdom. I chose Diarmuid because he was young and comely, but oh, how can I forget the greatness of Finn. He has gone to bring Finn to me. In a few minutes Finn and his Fianna will stand under this roof.

  LABAN. That is true, my daughter, sit beside me here and tell me what happened to you when you left Tara.

  GRANIA. When we left Tara we came to a little glade on the hillside and we heard there a sudden and a beautiful singing of birds, and we saw a red fox creeping in the grass.

  LABAN. And then?

  GRANIA. And then we saw a young man sitting in the long grass.

  LABAN. What did he say?

  GRANIA. He was but a herdsman’s son seeking a master and so Diarmuid took him into his service, and yet, Mother, I think that he was greater than Diarmuid or I, for he gave us much good service, and so much good counsel. He never put us in a cave that had not two mouths, or let us take refuge in an island that had not two harbours, nor eat our food where we had cooked it, nor sleep where we had eaten it. He never let us lie for many hours in one place, and he often changed our sleeping places in the middle of the night.

  LABAN. What name did he bid you call him?

  GRANIA. He bid us call him, Mudham. But I think he had some great and beautiful name did we but know it. Have you ever seen him,

  Mother?

  LABAN. It is said that none who have seen him have been long content with any mortal lover.

  GRANIA. I have been content with Diarmuid nigh on seven years.

  LABAN. Did you ever hear that beautiful singing of birds again?

  GRANIA. Yes, I heard them sing by the banks of a river; I heard them when Diarmuid broke his oath to Finn. We had wandered by the banks of a river nine days, and Mudham fished for us, and every day we hung an uncooked salmon on a tree as a token to Finn. On the tenth day we hung a cooked salmon, for on the ninth night a sword had not lain between us — but Mother, I can tell you no more. I would have you tell me, you who know all things, what is passing in the valley. Have Finn and Diarmuid made friends? Has Diarmuid passed the fires of the Fianna without speaking?

  LABAN. They have spoken, and they are on their way hither, so forget them for a while, and tell me if you are happy in this valley.

  GRANIA. I stand by the door of this house, seeing the hours wane, waiting for Diarmuid to come home from his hunting. Nothing has happened until to-day, and now Diarmuid and Finn are walking up the valley together, reconciled at last. I had come to think I should never look on a stirring day again, and I had thought to send all the thread you would spin to be woven into a grass green web on which to embroider my wanderings with Diarmuid among the woods. I should have been many years embroidering it, but when it was done and hung round this room, I should have seen birds, beasts, and leaves which ever way I turned, and Diarmuid and myself wandering among them.

  LABAN. But now you have thrown the doors wide open and the days are streaming in upon you again.

  GRANIA. Yes, yes, have I done rightly? Had I not sent Diarmuid to Finn, the broil would have begun again... I must put on my jewels. The Fianna will be here in a moment, and Finn has never seen me in my jewels. Spin for me, Mother, spin for me; tell me I have done rightly. But no, they are coming. I can hear their footsteps. Go to the serving men and bid them take the drinking horns and the flagons from the cupboard. [Exit Laban. Grania stands before a long brazen mirror that hangs upon the wall, and puts the gold circlet about her head and the heavy bracelets upon her arm, and the great many-coloured cloak upon her which she fastens with an emerald clasp. She puts a gold girdle about her waist. Enter Cormac, Finn, Caoelte, Diarmuid and others of the Fianna. Diarmuid is talking to Finn. Enter servants with flagons of ale, drinking horns and torches). Welcome Usheen, welcome Caoelte, welcome Goll and all the noble Fianna into my house. I am happy that such men shall stand under my roof. The shepherds of Ben Bulben will tell each other many years after we are dead that Finn, Usheen, Caoelte, and Goll stood under this roof. [Grania goes to her father and leads him to a high seat]. You cannot go from us now, for I am too glad for leave taking.

  CORMAC. I will stay a little while, and will drink a horn of ale with this noble company who will defend Eri against the men of Lochland.

  DIARMUID. We have been here but three moons and have not had time to build a house great enough for ourselves and for our people. This winter we shall build a house of oak wood great enough for two hundred people to sleep under its pillars. All the Fianna who come shall sleep under our roof.

  GRANIA. When you speak o
f their coming, you make us think of their leave-taking, and I would forget that they shall ever leave us.

  CORMAC. Eri is safe now that her great men are united.

  CAOELTE. For a long while when we lighted our fires at night, there was no fire at which some did not side with Finn, some with Diarmuid. But at last those that were of Finn’s party and those that were of Diarmuid’s party gathered about different fires. And this year the fires were lighted far apart.

  USHEEN. And time wore on until one day the swords were out and the earth red underfoot.

  FINN. If all Eri were red under foot, it was but Grania’s due that men in coming times might know of the love she had put into men’s hearts.

  [He puts his hand on Diarmuid’s shoulder. Two serving men go round with ale. Grania stops them and takes the flagons from them].