Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 71
THIRD KING.
He will have killed him. They have begun the fight!
(They all go out, leaving the house silent and empty. There is a pause during which one hears the clashing of the swords. Barach and Fintain come in from side door. Barach is dragging Fintain.)
BARACH.
You have eaten it, you have eaten it, you have left me nothing but the bones.
FINTAIN.
O, that I should have to endure such a plague.
O, I ache all over. O, I am pulled in pieces.
This is the way you pay me all the good I have done you!
BARACH.
You have eaten it, you have told me lies about a wild dog. Nobody has seen a wild dog about the place this twelve month. Lie there till the Kings come. O, I will tell Concobar and Cuchullain and all the Kings about you!
FINTAIN.
What would have happened to you but for me, and you without your wits. If I did not take care of you what would you do for food and warmth!
BARACH.
You take care of me? You stay safe and send me into every kind of danger. You sent me down the cliff for gull’s eggs while you warmed your blind eyes in the sun. And then you ate all that were good for food. You left me the eggs that were neither egg nor bird. (The blind man tries to rise. Barach makes him lie down again.)
Keep quiet now till I shut the door. There is some noise outside. There are swords crossing; a high vexing noise so that I can’t be listening to myself. (He goes to the big door at the back and shuts it.) Why can’t they be quiet, why can’t they be quiet. Ah, you would get away, would you? (He follows the blind man who has been crawling along the wall and makes him lie down close to the King’s chair.) Lie there, lie there. No, you won’t get away. Lie there till the Kings come, I’ll tell them all about you. I shall tell it all. How you sit warming yourself, when you have made me light a fire of sticks, while I sit blowing it with my mouth. Do you not always make me take the windy side of the bush when it blows and the rainy side when it rains?
FINTAIN.
O good fool, listen to me. Think of the care I have taken of you. I have brought you to many a warm hearth, where there was a good welcome for you, but you would not stay there, you were always wandering about.
BARACH.
The last time you brought me in, it was not I who wandered away, but you that got put out because you took the crubeen out of the pot, when you thought nobody was looking. Keep quiet now, keep quiet till I shut the door. Here is Cuchullain, now you will be beaten. I am going to tell him everything.
CUCHULLAIN.
(Comes in and says to the fool) Give me that horn.
(The fool gives him a horn which Cuchullain fills with ale and drinks.)
FINTAIN.
Do not listen to him, listen to me.
CUCHULLAIN.
What are you wrangling over?
BARACH.
He is fat and good for nothing. He has left me the bones and the feathers.
CUCHULLAIN.
What feathers?
BARACH.
I left him turning a fowl at the fire. He ate it all. He left me nothing but the bones and feathers.
FINTAIN.
Do not believe him. You do not know how vain this fool is. I gave him the feathers, because I thought he would like nothing so well.
(Barach is sitting on a bench playing with a heap of feathers which he has taken out of the breast of his coat.)
BARACH.
(Singing) When you were an acorn on the tree top —
FINTAIN.
Where would he be but for me? I must be always thinking, thinking to get food for the two of us, and when we’ve got it, if the moon’s at the full or the tide on the turn, he’ll leave the rabbit in its snare till it is full of maggots, or let the trout slip through his hands back into the water.
BARACH.
(Singing) When you were an acorn on the tree top,
Then was I an eagle cock;
Now that you are a withered old block,
Still am I an eagle cock!
FINTAIN.
Listen to him now! That’s the sort of talk I have to put up with day out day in. (The fool is putting the feathers into his hair. Cuchullain takes a handful of feathers out of the heap and out of the fool’s hair and begins to wipe the blood from his sword with them.)
BARACH.
He has taken my feathers to wipe his sword. It is blood that he is wiping from his sword!
FINTAIN.
Whose blood? Whose blood?
CUCHULLAIN.
That young champion’s.
FINTAIN.
He that came out of Aoife’s country?
CUCHULLAIN.
The Kings are standing round his body.
FINTAIN.
Did he fight long?
CUCHULLAIN.
He thought to have saved himself with witchcraft.
BARACH.
That blind man there said he would kill you. He came from Aoife’s country to kill you. That blind man said they had taught him every kind of weapon that he might do it. But I always knew that you would kill him.
CUCHULLAIN.
(To the blind man.) You knew him, then?
FINTAIN.
I saw him when I had my eyes, in Aoife’s country.
CUCHULLAIN.
You were in Aoife’s country?
FINTAIN.
I knew him and his mother there.
CUCHULLAIN.
He was about to speak of her when he died.
FINTAIN.
He was a Queen’s son.
CUCHULLAIN.
What Queen, what Queen? (He seizes the blind man.)
Was it Scathach? There were many Queens.
All the rulers there were Queens.
FINTAIN.
No, not Scathach.
CUCHULLAIN.
It was Uathach then. Speak, speak!
FINTAIN.
I cannot speak, you are clutching me too tightly. (Cuchullain lets him go.) I cannot remember who it was. I am not certain. It was some Queen.
BARACH.
He said a while ago that the young man was Aoife’s son.
CUCHULLAIN.
She? No, no, she had no son when I was there.
BARACH.
That blind man there said that she owned him for her son.
CUCHULLAIN.
I had rather he had been some other woman’s son. What father had he? A soldier out of Alba? She was an amorous woman, a proud pale amorous woman.
FINTAIN.
None knew whose son he was.
CUCHULLAIN.
None knew? Did you know, old listener at doors?
FINTAIN.
No, no, I knew nothing.
BARACH.
He said a while ago that he heard Aoife boast that she’d never but the one lover, and he the only man that had overcome her in battle. (A pause.)
FINTAIN.
Somebody is trembling. Why are you trembling, fool? the bench is shaking, why are you trembling? Is Cuchullain going to hurt us? It was not I who told you, Cuchullain.
BARACH.
It is Cuchullain who is trembling. He is shaking the bench with his knees.
CUCHULLAIN.
He was my son, and I have killed my son.
(A pause.)
‘Twas they that did it, the pale windy people,
Where, where, where? My sword against the thunder.
But no, for they have always been my friends;
And though they love to blow a smoking coal
Till it’s all flame, the wars they blow aflame
Are full of glory, and heart uplifting pride,
And not like this; the wars they love awaken
Old fingers and the sleepy strings of harps.
Who did it then? Are you afraid; speak out,
For I have put you under my protection
And will reward you well. Dubthach the Chafer.
He had an old grudg
e. No, for he is with Maeve.
Laegaire did it. Why do you not speak?
What is this house?
(A pause.)
Now I remember all.
FINTAIN.
He will kill us. O, I am afraid!
CUCHULLAIN.
(Who is before Concobar’s chair.)
‘Twas you who did it, you who sat up there
With that old branch of silver, like a magpie
Nursing a stolen spoon. Magpie, Magpie,
A maggot that is eating up the earth!
(Begins hacking at the chair with his sword.)
No, but a magpie for he’s flown away.
Where did he fly to?
FINTAIN.
He is outside the door.
CUCHULLAIN.
Outside the door?
FINTAIN.
He is under Baile’s yew-tree.
CUCHULLAIN.
Concobar, Concobar, the sword into your heart.
(He goes out. A pause. The fool goes to the great door at back and looks out after him.)
BARACH.
He is going up to King Concobar; they are all under the tree. No, no, he is standing still. There is a great wave going to break and he is looking at it. Ah! now he is running down to the sea, but he is holding up his sword as if he were going into a fight. (A pause.) Well struck, well struck!
FINTAIN.
What is he doing now?
BARACH.
O! he is fighting the waves.
FINTAIN.
He sees King Concobar’s crown on every one of them.
BARACH.
There, he has struck at a big one. He has struck the crown off it, he has made the foam fly. There again another big one. (Shouting without.)
FINTAIN.
Where are the Kings? What are the Kings doing?
BARACH.
They are shouting and running down to the shore, and the people are running out of the houses, they are all running.
FINTAIN.
You say they are running out of the houses, there will be nobody left in the houses. Listen, fool.
BARACH.
There, he is down! He is up again! He is going out into the deep water.
FINTAIN.
Come here, fool; come here, I say.
BARACH.
(Coming towards him but looking backward towards the door.) What is it?
FINTAIN.
There will be nobody in the houses. Come this way, come quickly; the ovens will be full; we will put our hands into the ovens. (They go out.)
DEIRDRE
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
MUSICIANS.
FERGUS, an old man.
NAISI, a young king.
DEIRDRE, his queen.
A DARK-FACED MESSENGER.
CONCHUBAR (pronounced conochar), the old King of
ULADH, who is still strong and vigorous.
DARK-FACED EXECUTIONER.
DEIRDRE
Scene: A Guest-house in a wood. It is a rough house of timber; through the doors and some of the windows one can see the great spaces of the wood the sky dimming, night closing in. But a window to the left shows the thick leaves of a coppice; the landscape suggests silence and loneliness. There is a door to right and left, and through the side windows one can see anybody who approaches either door, a moment before he enters. In the centre, a part of the house is curtained off; the curtains are drawn. There are unlighted torches in brackets on the walls. There is, at one side, a small table with a chessboard and chessmen upon it. At the other side of the room there is a brazier with a fire; two women, with musical instruments beside them, crouch about the brazier: they are comely women of about forty. Another woman, who carries a stringed instrument, enters hurriedly; she speaks, at first standing in the doorway.
FIRST MUSICIAN. I have a story right, my wanderers,
That has so mixed with fable in our songs,
That all seemed fabulous. We are come, by chance,
Into King Conchubar’s country, and this house
Is an old guest-house built for travellers
From the seashore to Conchubar’s royal house,
And there are certain hills among these woods
And there Queen Deirdre grew.
SECOND MUSICIAN. That famous queen
Who has been wandering with her lover Naisi,
And none to friend but lovers and wild hearts?
FIRST MUS. [going nearer to the brazier].
Some dozen years ago, King Conchubar found
A house upon a hillside in this wood,
And there a comely child with an old witch
To nurse her, and there’s nobody can say
If she were human, or of those begot
By an invisible king of the air in a storm
On a king’s daughter, or anything at all
Of who she was or why she was hidden there
But that she’d too much beauty for good luck.
He went up thither daily, till at last
She put on womanhood, and he lost peace,
And Deirdre’s tale began. The King was old.
A month or so before the marriage day,
A young man, in the laughing scorn of his youth,
NAISI, the son of Usna, climbed up there,
And having wooed, or, as some say, been wooed,
Carried her off.
SECOND MUS. The tale were well enough
Had it a finish.
FIRST MUS. Hush! I have more to tell;
But gather close that I may whisper it:
I speak of terrible, mysterious ends —
The secrets of a king.
SECOND MUS. — There’s none to hear!
FIRST MUS. I have been to Conchubar’s house and followed up
A crowd of servants going out and in
With loads upon their heads: embroideries
To hang upon the walls, or new-mown rushes
To strew upon the floors, and came at length
To a great room.
SECOND MUS. Be silent; there are steps!
[Enter FERGUS, an old man, who moves about from door to window excitedly through what follows.
FERGUS. I thought to find a message from the king.
You are musicians by these instruments,
And if as seems — for you are comely women —
You can praise love, you’ll have the best of luck,
For there’ll be two, before the night is in,
That bargained for their love, and paid for it
All that men value. You have but the time
To weigh a happy music with a sad;
To find what is most pleasing to a lover,
Before the son of Usna and his queen
Have passed this threshold.
FIRST MUS. — Deirdre and her man!
FERGUS. I was to have found a message in this house,
And ran to meet it. Is there no messenger
From Conchubar to Fergus, son of Rogh?
FIRST MUS. Are Deirdre and her lover tired of life?
FERGUS. You are not of this country, or you’d know
That they are in my charge and all forgiven.
FIRST MUS. We have no country but the roads of the world.
FERGUS. Then you should know that all things change in the world,
And hatred turns to love and love to hate,
And even kings forgive.
FIRST MUS. — An old man’s love
Who casts no second line, is hard to cure;
His jealousy is like his love.
FERGUS. — And that’s but true.
You have learned something in your wanderings.
He was so hard to cure, that the whole court,
But I alone, thought it impossible;