Delphi Complete Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 87
(They go once round stage)
So here we’re on the summit. I can see The Aran Islands, Connemara Hills, And Galway in the breaking light; there too The enemy has toppled wall and roof And torn from ancient walls to boil his pot The oaken panelling that had been dear To generations of children and old men. But for that pair for whom you would have my pardon It might be now like Bayeux or like Caen Or little Italian town amid its walls For though we have neither coal nor iron ore To make us rich and cover heaven with smoke Our country, if that crime were uncommitted Had been most beautiful. Why do you dance? Why do you gaze and with so passionate eyes One on the other and then turn away Covering your eyes and weave it in a dance, Who are you? what are you? you are not natural.
THE GIRL
Seven hundred years our lips have never met.
YOUNG MAN
Why do you look so strangely at one another, So strangely and so sweetly?
THE GIRL
Seven hundred years.
YOUNG MAN
So strangely and so sweetly. All the ruin, All, all their handiwork is blown away As though the mountain air had blown it away Because their eyes have met. They cannot hear, Being folded up and hidden in their dance. The dance is changing now. They have dropped their eyes, They have covered up their eyes as though their hearts Had suddenly been broken — never, never Shall Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. They have drifted in the dance from rock to rock. They have raised their hands as though to snatch the sleep That lingers always in the abyss of the sky Though they can never reach it. A cloud floats up And covers all the mountain head in a moment. And now it lifts and they are swept away. I had almost yielded and forgiven it all — This is indeed a place of terrible temptation.
(The Musicians begin unfolding and folding a black cloth. The First Musician comes forward to the front of the stage, at the centre. He holds the cloth before him. The other two come one on either side and unfold it. They afterwards fold it up in the same way. While it is unfolded, the Young Man leaves the stage)
THE MUSICIANS
I
(singing) At the grey round of the hill Music of a lost kingdom Runs, runs and is suddenly still. The winds out of Clare-Galway Carry it: suddenly it is still.
I have heard in the night air A wandering airy music; And moidered in that snare A man is lost of a sudden, In that sweet wandering snare.
What finger first began Music of a lost kingdom. They dreamed that laughed in the sun. Dry bones that dream are bitter, They dream and darken our sun.
Those crazy fingers play A wandering airy music; Our luck is withered away, And wheat in the wheat-ear withered, And the wind blows it away.
II
My heart ran wild when it heard The curlew cry before dawn And the eddying cat-headed bird; But now the night is gone. I have heard from far below The strong March birds a-crow, Stretch neck and clap the wing, Red cocks, and crow.
THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER
Enter Musicians, who are dressed as in the earlier play. They have the same musical instruments, which can either be already upon the stage or be brought in by the First Musician before he stands in the centre with the cloth between his hands, or by a player when the cloth is unfolded. The stage as before can be against the wall of any room.
FIRST MUSICIAN
(During the unfolding and folding of the cloth)
A woman’s beauty is like a white Frail bird, like a white sea-bird alone At daybreak after stormy night Between two furrows upon the ploughed land: A sudden storm and it was thrown Between dark furrows upon the ploughed land. How many centuries spent The sedentary soul In toils of measurement Beyond eagle or mole, Beyond hearing or seeing, Or Archimedes guess, To raise into being That loveliness?
A strange unserviceable thing, A fragile, exquisite, pale shell, That the vast troubled waters bring To the loud sands before day has broken. The storm arose and suddenly fell Amid the dark before day had broken. What death? what discipline? What bonds no man could unbind Being imagined within The labyrinth of the mind? What pursuing or fleeing? What wounds, what bloody press? Dragged into being This loveliness.
(When the cloth is folded again the Musicians take their place against wall. The folding of the cloth shows on one side of the stage the curtained bed or litter on which lies a man in his grave-clothes. He wears an heroic mask. Another man with exactly similar clothes and mask crouches near the front. Emer is sitting beside the bed.)
FIRST MUSICIAN
(speaking) I call before the eyes a roof With cross-beams darkened by smoke. A fisher’s net hangs from a beam, A long oar lies against the wall. I call up a poor fisher’s house. A man lies dead or swooning, That amorous man, That amorous, violent man, renowned Cuchulain, Queen Emer at his side. At her own bidding all the rest have gone. But now one comes on hesitating feet, Young Eithne Inguba, Cuchulain’s mistress. She stands a moment in the open door, Beyond the open door the bitter sea, The shining, bitter sea is crying out, (singing) White shell, white wing I will not choose for my friend A frail unserviceable thing That drifts and dreams, and but knows That waters are without end And that wind blows.
EMER
(speaking) Come hither, come sit down beside the bed You need not be afraid, for I myself Sent for you, Eithne Inguba.
EITHNE INGUBA
No, Madam, I have too deeply wronged you to sit there.
EMER
Of all the people in the world we two, And we alone, may watch together here, Because we have loved him best.
EITHNE INGUBA
And is he dead?
EMER
Although they have dressed him out in his grave-clothes And stretched his limbs, Cuchulain is not dead; The very heavens when that day’s at hand, So that his death may not lack ceremony, Will throw out fires, and the earth grow red with blood. There shall not be a scullion but foreknows it Like the world’s end.
EITHNE INGUBA
How did he come to this?
EMER
Towards noon in the assembly of the kings He met with one who seemed a while most dear. The kings stood round; some quarrel was blown up; He drove him out and killed him on the shore At Baile’s tree, and he who was so killed Was his own son begot on some wild woman When he was young, or so I have heard it said; And thereupon, knowing what man he had killed, And being mad with sorrow, he ran out; And after to his middle in the foam With shield before him and with sword in hand, He fought the deathless sea. The kings looked on And not a king dared stretch an arm, or even Dared call his name, but all stood wondering In that dumb stupor like cattle in a gale, Until at last, as though he had fixed his eyes On a new enemy, he waded out Until the water had swept over him; But the waves washed his senseless image up And laid it at this door.
EITHNE INGUBA
How pale he looks!
EMER
He is not dead.
EITHNE INGUBA
You have not kissed his lips Nor laid his head upon your breast.
EMER
It may be An image has been put into his place, A sea-born log bewitched into his likeness, Or some stark horseman grown too old to ride Among the troops of Mananan, Son of the Sea, Now that his joints are stiff.
EITHNE INGUBA
Cry out his name. All that are taken from our sight, they say, Loiter amid the scenery of their lives For certain hours or days, and should he hear He might, being angry drive the changeling out.
EMER
It is hard to make them hear amid their darkness, And it is long since I could call him home; I am but his wife, but if you cry aloud With that sweet voice that is so dear to him He cannot help but listen.
EITHNE INGUBA
He loves me best, Being his newest love, but in the end Will love the woman best who loved him first And loved him through the years when love seemed lost.
EMER
I have that hope, the hope that some day and somewhere We’ll sit together at the hearth again.
EITHNE INGUBA
Women like
me when the violent hour is over Are flung into some corner like old nut shells. Cuchulain, listen.
EMER
No, not yet for first I’ll cover up his face to hide the sea; And throw new logs upon the hearth and stir The half burnt logs until they break in flame. Old Mananan’s unbridled horses come Out of the sea and on their backs his horsemen But all the enchantments of the dreaming foam Dread the hearth fire.
(She pulls the curtains of the bed so as to hide the sick man’s face, that the actor may change his mask unseen. She goes to one side of platform and moves her hand as though putting logs on a fire and stirring it into a blaze. While she makes these movements the Musicians play, marking the movements with drum and flute perhaps.
Having finished she stands beside the imaginary fire at a distance from Cuchulain & Eithne Inguba.)
Call on Cuchulain now.
EITHNE INGUBA
Can you not hear my voice.
EMER
Bend over him. Call out dear secrets till you have touched his heart If he lies there; and if he is not there Till you have made him jealous.
EITHNE INGUBA
Cuchulain, listen.
EMER
You speak too timidly; to be afraid Because his wife is but three paces off When there is so great a need were but to prove The man that chose you made but a poor choice. We’re but two women struggling with the sea.
EITHNE INGUBA
O my beloved pardon me, that I Have been ashamed and you in so great need. I have never sent a message or called out, Scarce had a longing for your company But you have known and come; and if indeed You are lying there stretch out your arms and speak; Open your mouth and speak for to this hour My company has made you talkative. Why do you mope, and what has closed your ears. Our passion had not chilled when we were parted On the pale shore under the breaking dawn. He will not hear me: or his ears are closed And no sound reaches him.
EMER
Then kiss that image The pressure of your mouth upon his mouth May reach him where he is.
EITHNE INGUBA
(starting back) It is no man. I felt some evil thing that dried my heart When my lips touched it.
EMER
No, his body stirs; The pressure of your mouth has called him home; He has thrown the changeling out.
EITHNE INGUBA
(going further off) Look at that arm That arm is withered to the very socket.
EMER
(going up to the bed) What do you come for and from where?
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
I have come From Mananan’s court upon a bridleless horse.
EMER
What one among the Sidhe has dared to lie Upon Cuchulain’s bed and take his image?
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
I am named Bricriu — not the man — that Bricriu, Maker of discord among gods and men, Called Bricriu of the Sidhe.
EMER
Come for what purpose?
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
(sitting up and showing its distorted face. Eithne Inguba goes out)
I show my face and everything he loves Must fly away.
EMER
You people of the wind Are full of lying speech and mockery. I have not fled your face.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
You are not loved.
EMER
And therefore have no dread to meet your eyes And to demand him of you.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
For that I have come. You have but to pay the price and he is free.
EMER
Do the Sidhe bargain?
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
When they set free a captive They take in ransom a less valued thing. The fisher when some knowledgeable man Restores to him his wife, or son, or daughter, Knows he must lose a boat or net, or it may be The cow that gives his children milk; and some Have offered their own lives. I do not ask Your life, or any valuable thing; You spoke but now of the mere chance that some day You’d sit together by the hearth again; Renounce that chance, that miserable hour, And he shall live again.
EMER
I do not question But you have brought ill luck on all he loves And now, because I am thrown beyond your power Unless your words are lies, you come to bargain.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
You loved your power when but newly married And I love mine although I am old and withered; You have but to put yourself into that power And he shall live again.
EMER
No, never, never.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
You dare not be accursed yet he has dared.
EMER
I have but two joyous thoughts, two things I prize, A hope, a memory, and now you claim that hope.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
He’ll never sit beside you at the hearth Or make old bones, but die of wounds and toil On some far shore or mountain, a strange woman Beside his mattress.
EMER
You ask for my one hope That you may bring your curse on all about him.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
You’ve watched his loves and you have not been jealous Knowing that he would tire, but do those tire That love the Sidhe?
EMER
What dancer of the Sidhe What creature of the reeling moon has pursued him?
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
I have but to touch your eyes and give them sight; But stand at my left side.
(He touches her eyes with his left hand, the right being withered)
EMER
My husband there.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
But out of reach — I have dissolved the dark That hid him from your eyes but not that other That’s hidden you from his.
EMER
Husband, husband!
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
Be silent, he is but a phantom now And he can neither touch, nor hear, nor see; The longing and the cries have drawn him hither. He heard no sound, heard no articulate sound; They could but banish rest, and make him dream, And in that dream, as do all dreaming shades Before they are accustomed to their freedom, He has taken his familiar form, and yet He crouches there not knowing where he is Or at whose side he is crouched.
(a Woman of the Sidhe has entered and stands a little inside the door)
EMER
Who is this woman?
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
She has hurried from the Country-Under-Wave And dreamed herself into that shape that he May glitter in her basket; for the Sidhe Are fishers also and they fish for men With dreams upon the hook.
EMER
And so that woman Has hid herself in this disguise and made Herself into a lie.
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
A dream is body; The dead move ever towards a dreamless youth And when they dream no more return no more; And those more holy shades that never lived But visit you in dreams.
EMER
I know her sort. They find our men asleep, weary with war, Or weary with the chase and kiss their lips And drop their hair upon them, from that hour Our men, who yet knew nothing of it all, Are lonely, and when at fall of night we press Their hearts upon our hearts their hearts are cold.
(She draws a knife from her girdle)
FIGURE of CUCHULAIN
And so you think to wound her with a knife. She has an airy body. Look and listen; I have not given you eyes and ears for nothing.
(The Woman of the Sidhe moves round the crouching Ghost of Cuchulain at front of stage in a dance that grows gradually quicker, as he slowly awakes. At moments she may drop her hair upon his head but she does not kiss him. She is accompanied by string and flute and drum. Her mask and clothes must suggest gold or bronze or brass or silver so that she seems more an idol than a human being. This suggestion may be repeated in her movements. Her hair too, must keep the metallic suggestion.)
GHOST of CUCHULAIN
Who is it stands before me there Shedding such light from limb and hair As when the moon complete at last With every labouring crescent past, And lonely with extreme
delight, Flings out upon the fifteenth night?
WOMAN of the SIDHE
Because I long I am not complete. What pulled your hands about your feet And your head down upon your knees, And hid your face?
GHOST of CUCHULAIN
Old memories: A dying boy, with handsome face Upturned upon a beaten place; A sacred yew-tree on a strand; A woman that held in steady hand In all the happiness of her youth Before her man had broken troth, A burning wisp to light the door; And many a round or crescent more; Dead men and women. Memories Have pulled my head upon my knees.
WOMAN of the SIDHE
Could you that have loved many a woman That did not reach beyond the human, Lacking a day to be complete, Love one that though her heart can beat, Lacks it but by an hour or so.
GHOST of CUCHULAIN
I know you now for long ago I met you on the mountain side, Beside a well that seemed long dry, Beside old thorns where the hawk flew. I held out arms and hands but you, That now seem friendly, fled away Half woman and half bird of prey.