by W. B. Yeats
From birth to burial like another man,
That he should change old customs, that were in it
As long as ever the world has been a world?
SECOND CRIPPLE. If I were king I would
not meddle with him,
For there is something queer about a poet.
I knew of one that would be making rhyme
Under a thorn at crossing of three roads.
He was as ragged as ourselves, and yet
He was no sooner dead than every thorn tree
From Inchy to Kiltartan withered away.
FIRST CRIPPLE. The King is but a fool!
MAYOR. — I am getting ready.
FIRST CRIPPLE. A poet has power from beyond the world,
That he may set our thoughts upon old times,
And lucky queens and little holy fish
That rise up every seventh year —
MAYOR. — Hush! hush!
FIRST CRIPPLE. To cure the crippled.
MAYOR. — I am half ready now.
BRIAN. There’s not a mischief I’d be- grudge the King
If it were any other —
MAYOR. — Hush! I am ready.
BRIAN. That died to get it. I have
brought out the food,
And if my master will not eat of it,
I’ll home and get provision for his wake,
For that’s no great way off. Well, have your say,
But don’t be long about it.
MAYOR [goes close to SEANCHAN]. Chief Poet of Ireland,
I am the Mayor of your own town Kinvara,
And I am come to tell you that the news
Of this great trouble with the King of Gort
Has plunged us in deep sorrow — part for you,
Our honoured townsman, part for our good town.
[Begins to hesitate; scratching his head.
But what comes now? Something about the King.
BRIAN. Get on! get on! The food is all set out.
MAYOR. Don’t hurry me.
FIRST CRIPPLE. — Give us a taste of it.
He’ll not begrudge it.
SECOND CRIPPLE. Let them that have their limbs
Starve if they will. We have to keep in mind
The stomach God has left us.
MAYOR. — Hush! I have it!
The King was said to be most friendly to us,
And we have reason, as you’ll recollect,
For thinking that he was about to give
Those grazing lands inland we so much need,
Being pinched between the water and the stones.
Our mowers mow with knives between the stones;
The sea washes the meadows. You know well
We have asked nothing but what’s reasonable.
SEANCHAN. Reason in plenty. Yellowy white hair,
A hollow face, and not too many teeth.
How comes it he has been so long in the world
And not found Reason out?
[While saying this he has turned half
round. He hardly looks at the
MAYOR.
BRIAN [trying to pull MAYOR away]. What good is there
In telling him what he has heard all day I
I will set food before him.
MAYOR [shoving BRIAN away]. Don’t hurry me!
It’s small respect you’re showing to the town!
Get farther off! [to SEANCHAN]. We would
not have you think,
Weighty as these considerations are,
That they have been as weighty in our minds
As our desire that one we take much pride in,
A man that’s been an honour to our town,
Should live and prosper; therefore we be- seech you
To give way in a matter of no moment,
A matter of mere sentiment — a trifle —
That we may always keep our pride in you.
[He finishes this speech with a pompous
air, motions to BRIAN to bring the
food to SEANCHAN, and sits on seat.
BRIAN. Master, Master, eat this! It’s
not king’s food,
That’s cooked for everybody and nobody.
Here’s barley-bread out of your father’s oven,
And dulse from Duras. Here is the dulse, your honour;
It’s wholesome, and has the good taste of the sea.
[Takes dulse in one hand and bread in
other and presses them into SEAN-
CHAN’S hands. SEANCHAN shows by
his movement his different feeling to
BRIAN.
FIRST CRIPPLE. He has taken it, and there’ll be nothing left!
SECOND CRIPPLE. Nothing at all, he wanted his own sort.
What’s honey to a cat, corn to a dog,
Or a green apple to a ghost in a churchyard?
SEANCHAN [pressing food back into BRIAN’S
hands]. Eat it yourself, for you have come a journey,
And it may be ate nothing on the way.
BRIAN. How could I eat it, and your honour starving!
It is your father sends it, and he cried
Because the stiffness that is in his bones
Prevented him from coming, and bade me tell you
That he is old, that he has need of you,
And that the people will be pointing at him,
And he not able to lift up his head,
If you should turn the King’s favour away;
And he adds to it, that he cared you well,
And you in your young age, and that it’s right
That you should care him now.
SEANCHAN [who is now interested]. And is that all?
What did my mother say!
BRIAN. — She gave no message;
For when they told her you had it in mind to starve,
Or get again the ancient right of the poets,
She said: ‘No message can do any good.
He will not send the answer that you want.
We cannot change him.’ And she went indoors,
Lay down upon the bed, and turned her face
Out of the light. And thereupon your father
Said: ‘Tell him that his mother sends no message,
Albeit broken down and miserable.’
[A pause.
Here’s pigeon’s eggs from Duras, and these others
Were laid by your own hens.
SEANCHAN. She has sent no message.
Our mothers know us; they know us to the bone.
They knew us before birth, and that is why
They know us even better than the sweet- hearts
Upon whose breasts we have lain.
Go quickly! Go
And tell them that my mother is in the right.
There is no answer. Go and tell them that.
Go tell them that she knew me.
MAYOR. — What is he saying?
I never understood a poet’s talk
More than the baa of a sheep!
[Comes over from seat. SEANCHAN turns away.
You have not heard,
It may be, having been so much away,
How many of the cattle died last winter
From lacking grass, and that there was much sickness
Because the poor have nothing but salt fish
To live on through the winter?
BRIAN. — Get away,
And leave the place to me! It’s my turn now,
For your sack’s empty!
MAYOR. — Is it ‘get away ‘!
Is that the way I’m to be spoken to!
Am I not Mayor? Aren’t I authority?
Amn’t I in the King’s place? Answer me that!
BRIAN. Then show the people what a king
is like:
Pull down old merings and root custom up,
Whitewash the dunghills, fatten hogs and geese,
Hang your gold chain about an ass’s neck,
And burn the blessed thorn tree
s out of the fields,
And drive what’s comely away!
MAYOR. — Holy Saint Coleman!
FIRST CRIPPLE. Fine talk! fine talk!
What else does the King do?
He fattens hogs and hunts the wise man out.
SECOND CRIPPLE. He fattens geese.
FIRST CRIPPLE. And drives away the swan.
MAYOR. How dare you take his name into your mouth!
How dare you lift your voice against the
King!
What would we be without him?
BRIAN. — Why do you praise him?
I will have nobody speak well of him,
Or any other king that robs my master.
MAYOR. And had he not the right to? and the right
To strike your master’s head off, being the King,
Or yours or mine? I say, * Long live the
King!
Because he does not take our heads from us.’
Call out, ‘Long life to him!’
BRIAN. — Call out for him!
[Speaking at same time with MAYOR.
There’s nobody’ll call out for him,
But smiths will turn their anvils,
The millers turn their wheels,
The farmers turn their churns,
The witches turn their thumbs,
Till he be broken and splintered into pieces.
MAYOR [at same time with BRIAN]. He
might, if he’d a mind to it,
Be digging out our tongues,
Or dragging out our hair,
Or bleaching us like calves,
Or weaning us like lambs,
But for the kindness and the softness that is
in him. — [They gasp for breath.
FIRST CRIPPLE. I’ll curse him till I drop!
[Speaking at same time as SECOND
CRIPPLE and MAYOR and BRIAN,
who have begun again.
The curse of the poor be upon him,
The curse of the widows upon him,
The curse of the children upon him,
The curse of the bishops upon him,
Until he be as rotten as an old mushroom!
SECOND CRIPPLE [speaking at same time as
FIRST CRIPPLE and MAYOR and BRIAN].
The curse of wrinkles be upon him!
Wrinkles where his eyes are,
Wrinkles where his nose is,
Wrinkles where his mouth is,
And a little old devil looking out of every wrinkle!
BRIAN [Speaking at same time with MAYOR
and CRIPPLES]. And nobody will sing for him,
And nobody will hunt for him,
And nobody will fish for him,
And nobody will pray for him,
But ever and always curse him and abuse him.
MAYOR [speaking at same time with CRIPPLES
and BRIAN]. What good is in a poet?
Has he money in a stocking,
Or cider in the cellar,
Or flitches in the chimney,
Or anything anywhere but his own idleness?
[BRIAN seizes MAYOR.
Help! help! Am I not in authority?
BRIAN. That’s how I’ll shout for the King!
MAYOR. Help! help 1 Am I not in the
King’s place?
BRIAN. I’ll teach him to be kind to the poor!
MAYOR. Help! help! Wait till we are in
Kinvara!
FIRST CRIPPLE [beating MAYOR on the legs
with crutch]. I’ll shake the royalty out of his legs!
SECOND CRIPPLE [burying his nails in
MAYOR’S face], I’ll scrumble the ermine
out of his skin 1
[‘The CHAMBERLAIN comes down steps
shoutings “Silence! silence!
silence!”
CHAMBERLAIN. How dare you make this
“proar at the doors.
Deafening the very greatest in the land,
As if the farmyards and the rookeries
Had all been emptied!
FIRST CRIPPLE. It is the Chamberlain.
[CRIPPLES go out.
CHAMBERLAIN. Pick up the litter there,
and get you gone!
Be quick about it! Have you no respect
For this worn stair, this all but sacred door,
Where suppliants and tributary kings
Have passed, and the world’s glory knelt in silence?
Have you no reverence for what all other men
Hold honourable?
BRIAN. — If I might speak my mind,
I’d say the King would have his luck again
If he would let my master have his rights.
CHAMBERLAIN. Pick up your litter! Take your noise away!
Make haste, and get the clapper from the bell!
BRIAN [gutting last of food into basket].
What do the great and powerful care for rights
That have no armies!
[CHAMBERLAIN begins shoving them out with his staff,
MAYOR. My lord, I am not to blame.
I’m the King’s man, and they attacked me for it.
BRIAN. We have our prayers, our curses and our prayers,
And we can give a great name or a bad one.
[MAYOR is shoving BRIAN out before him
with one hand, He keeps his face
to CHAMBERLAIN, and keeps bowing.
The CHAMBERLAIN shoves him with his staff,
MAYOR. We could not make the poet eat, my lord.
[CHAMBERLAIN shoves him with his staff.
Much honoured [is shoved again] — honoured
to speak with you, my lord;
But I’ll go find the girl that he’s to marry.
She’s coming, but I’ll hurry her, my lord.
Between ourselves, my lord [is shoved again
she is a great coaxer.
Much honoured, my lord. Oh, she’s the girl to do it;
For when the intellect is out, my lord,
Nobody but a woman’s any good.
[Is shoved again.
Much honoured, my lord [is shoved again],
much honoured, much honoured!
[Is shoved out, shoving BRIAN out before him
[All through this scene, from the outset of
the quarrel, SEANCHAN has kept his
face turned away, or hidden in his
cloak. While the CHAMBERLAIN has
been speaking., the SOLDIER and the
MONK have come out of the palace.
The MONK stands on top of steps at
one side, SOLDIER a little down steps
at the other side. COURT LADIES are
seen at opening in the palace curtain
behind SOLDIER, CHAMBERLAIN is in the centre.
CHAMBERLAIN [to SEANCHAN]. Well, you
must be contented, for your work
Has roused the common sort against the King,
And stolen his authority. The State
Is like some orderly and reverend house,
Wherein the master, being dead of a sudden,
The servants quarrel where they have a mind to,
And pilfer here and there.
[Pause, finding that SEANCHAN does not answer.
How many days
Will you keep up this quarrel with the King,
And the King’s nobles, and myself, and all,
Who’d gladly be your friends, if you would
let them? — [Going near to MONK.
If you would try, you might persuade him, father.
I cannot make him answer me, and yet
If fitting hands would offer him the food,
He might accept it.
MONK. — Certainly I will not.
I’ve made too many homilies, wherein
The wanton imagination of the poets
Has been condemned, to be his flatterer.
If pride and disobedience are unpunished
Who will obey?
/>
CHAMBERLAIN [going to other side towards
SOLDIER]. If you would speak to him,
You might not find persuasion difficult,
With all the devils of hunger helping you.
SOLDIER. I will not interfere, and if he starve
For being obstinate and stiff in the neck,
‘Tis but good riddance.
CHAMBERLAIN. One of us must do it.
It might be, if you’d reason with him, ladies,
He would eat something, for I have a notion
That if he brought misfortune on the King,
Or the King’s house, we’d be as little thought of
As summer linen when the winter’s come.
FIRST GIRL. But it would be the greater compliment
If Peter’d do it.
SECOND GIRL. Reason with him, Peter.
Persuade him to eat; he’s such a bag of bones!
SOLDIER. I’ll never trust a woman’s word again!
There’s nobody that was so loud against him
When he was at the council; now the wind’s changed,
And you that could not bear his speech or his silence,
Would have him there in his old place again;
I do believe you would, but I won’t help you.
SECOND GIRL. Why will you be so hard “pon us, Peter?
You know we have turned the common sort against us.
And he looks miserable.
FIRST GIRL. — We cannot dance,
Because no harper will pluck a string for us.
SECOND GIRL. I cannot sleep with think- ing of his face.
FIRST GIRL. And I love dancing more than anything.
SECOND GIRL. Do not be hard on us; but yesterday
A woman in the road threw stones at me.
You would not have me stoned?
FIRST GIRL. — May I not dance?
