NEIGHBOURS: Peace be to this house! And is Samuel at once gone forth? Yea! Good seemeth thy feast, O Jesse!
JESSE: An heifer, of the first year, fat and goodly! Reach forth thy hand.
They all sit around the huge, smoking platter. JESSE dips in his hand, and carries the mess to his mouth.
NEIGHBOUR: Yea! Good is the feast! And blessed be Samuel, who came to Bethlehem this day!
Re-enter DAVID: sits down and eats. They all dip their hands in the great platter, and eat in silence.
Verily, this is a great feast! Surely the Lord hath visited thy house this day, O Jesse!
CURTAIN
SCENE V
SAUL’S house in Gilgal. MERAB and MICHAL in the courtyard, spinning wool, with their maidens. They are laughing and giggling.
1ST MAIDEN: Now I’ll ask one! I’ll ask one.
MERAB: Ask then!
3RD MAIDEN: Why does a cow look over a wall?
MICHAL: Yah! Yah! We know that old one. We all know it.
MERAB: Who knows the answer? Hold your hand up.
Only MICHAL holds up her hand.
3RD MAIDEN: There! There! They don’t know it! Why does a cow look over a wall?
1ST MAIDEN: To see what’s on the other side.
MICHAL: Wrong! Wrong! How silly! (Laughter.)
2ND MAIDEN: Because it wants to get out.
MICHAL: Wrong! And it’s such an easy one.
3RD MAIDEN: Why does a cow look over a wall?
4TH MAIDEN: To scratch its neck. (Much laughter.)
3RD MAIDEN: Wrong! Wrong! All wrong! Give it up!
MICHAL: No! No! Let them guess again. Why does a cow look over a wall?
1ST MAIDEN: To see if David’s coming to drive her to pasture. (Wild laughter.)
MICHAL: That’s wrong! That’s not the answer!
MERAB: Give it up?
3RD MAIDEN (laughing wildly): To see if David’s coming to drive her to pasture!
MICHAL: That’s not the answer, Stupid!
1ST MAIDEN: Why not, say I? It’s as good as the real answer. — The cows of Jesse will have to look a long time over a wall. (Much laughter.) No doubt they’re looking at this moment. (Shrieks of laughter.) Mooo-oo! Moo-oo! David, come home. (Hysterical laughter.)
MICHAL: Fool! Fool! That’s not the answer.
1ST MAIDEN: Yes. That’s the answer in Bethlehem. Why does a Bethlehem cow look over a wall? — Because David’s come to Gilgal. (Much laughter.)
MICHAL: That’s wrong! That’s wrong!
2ND MAIDEN: It’s not wrong for a Bethlehem cow.
MICHAL: But it’s not a Bethlehem cow. (Much laughter.)
1ST MAIDEN: Is it the heifers of Gilgal? (Wild laughter.)
4TH MAIDEN: Why do the heifers of King Saul look over the wall in Gilgal?
1ST MAIDEN: Listening to the music. (Wild laughter.)
MERAB (amid her laughter): If my father hears us!
MICHAL: You are all fools! You don’t know the right answer. You can’t guess it! You can’t guess it.
2ND MAIDEN: Well, what is it then? Only Michal knows what the cow is looking for! (Laughter.)
MAIDENS: Go on! Go on! Tell us, Michal!
MICHAL: Because she can’t see through it. (Laughter.)
1ST MAIDEN: See through what? (Wild laughter.)
MAIDENS: See through what? (All laughing.)
2ND MAIDEN: Because who can’t see through what? (Shrieks of laughter.)
1ST MAIDEN: What a senseless answer! Because she can’t see through it! (Shrieks of laughter.)
MICHAL: You are all fools! fools! fools! You know nothing. You don’t know anything.
Enter SAUL — angry.
SAUL: Enough! Enough! What is all this? Is there a madness among the women? Silence, I say!
MICHAL: We are but telling riddles.
SAUL: It shall not be! What! am I to hear the shrieks of my daughters’ folly spoiling the morning? I will riddle you a riddle you shall not care for. (MAIDENS steal away.)
MERAB: We had thought my father was abroad among the men.
SAUL: You had thought, had you! And your father’s being abroad was timely to let loose your ribaldry!
MICHAL: Nay, Father, there was no ribaldry. The maid did only ask, why does a cow look over a wall?
SAUL (shouting): Be still! Or I will run this spear through your body. Am I to wrestle with the Lord and fail because of the wantoning of my daughters among their maidens! Oh! cursed in my offspring as in all things!
MERAB steals away.
Cursed above all in my womenfolk!
MICHAL: Could we not help you, Father, to strive with the Lord? They say the wise women can command the spirits of the deep.
SAUL: Art thou then a seeress? art thou amongst the witches?
MICHAL: Not so. But Saul my father is among the wondrous. Should not his daughter be as wise as the wise women who can see into the mysteries?
SAUL (groaning): This is the sin of witchcraft! The hand of my children is against me!
MICHAL: Nay, Father, we would indeed be for you, and not against you.
SAUL: I have sworn to wipe out the sin of witchcraft from the land, I have sworn the death of all who lure the people with spirits and with wizardry. I have killed the soothsayers in the towns and the villages.
MICHAL: But, Father, might I not see the Bolt in a cloud, or call the Spirits out of the earth! I am your daughter, is that to be a witch?
SAUL: Thou art a spawn of evil, and I will run thee through.
MICHAL: But why! Oh, why!
SAUL: Thy soul is a soul of a witch that workest against thy father. I call on the Lord, and my heart foams, because He will not hear me. I know it now. It is thee, thou witch! (Wanting to strike her with the spear.)
MICHAL (weeping): It is not so! It is not so! The people say of thee, the Lord has departed from thee, and I would only help thee with the Lord, as Jonathan helps thee against the Philistines.
SAUL (horrified): Is the Deep a Philistine! Nay, now I know thou art the brood of witches, who catch the powers of the earth by cunning. Now I will surely pierce thee through, that my house may be pure, and the Fire may look on me again.
MICHAL (screams): My lord! My lord!
SAUL: I will pierce thee through. For I have sworn the death of all witches, and such as steal the powers of earth and sky by their cunning. It will be as good a deed in the sight of the Lord, as when the prophet of God slew Agag, and Samuel will turn to me again. For I am empty when the Lord abandons me. And evil spirits break into my empty place, and torture me. — I will surely slay this witch, though she were seven times my youngest. For she lifts the latch to the evil spirit that gets into my soul unawares.
MICHAL: My lord! My lord! I am no witch! I am not!
SAUL: Thou art a witch, and thy hand worketh against me, even when thou knowest not. Nay, thou art a witch and thy soul worketh witchcraft even when thou sleepest. Therefore I will pierce thee through. And I will say unto the people: Saul hath slain the witch that gnawed nearest into his heart.
MICHAL: I will not be slain! (Shrieks.)
Enter JONATHAN and DAVID, running.
JONATHAN: My Father!
DAVID: O King!
SAUL: This is the witch that hinders me with the Lord!
JONATHAN: This, Father! Why, Michal is a child, what can she know of witchcraft?
SAUL: It is in her will. My soul tells me that women with their evil intentions are playing against me, with the Lord. And this is she. She shall die as the others, seeresses, died, to cleanse the land before the Lord God.
DAVID: But yet, O King, thy servant has heard it is a hard thing to be a witch, a work of silent labour and of years. And this maiden your daughter is not silent, I think, nor does she seem to waste her young brows in secret labours.
JONATHAN: This is true enough. She is a feather-brain.
SAUL: Yet is her spirit against her father’s.
MICHAL (still weeping): No! No! I would help him.
SAUL: It may be so. Yet though I wrestle, the spirit of the Deep will not come to me. And the wound is greater than a wound in battle, bleeding inwardly. I am a strange man unto myself.
DAVID: Yet Saul is King, comely in his pride, and a great leader in battle. His deeds cry unto the whirlwind and are heard. Why should Saul wrestle with the Lord? Saul speaks in actions, and in the time of action the spirit of God comes upon him, and he is King in the sight of all men.
SAUL: It is even so. Yet my soul does not cease to ache, like the soul of a scorned woman, because the Lord will not descend upon me and give me peace in strength.
DAVID: Who is strong like Saul, in Israel?
SAUL: Yet his strength is as a drunken man’s — great with despair.
DAVID: Nay, O King! These are fancies. How can my lord speak of despair, when victory is with him, and the light is on his brow in the sight of all Israel!
SAUL: Can I so deceive myself?
DAVID: Surely the King deceives himself.
JONATHAN: Surely, Father, it is a strange self-deception you put on yourself.
SAUL: Can it be so? Yet if so, why does Samuel visit me no more, and withhold his blessing? And why do I feel the ache in me, and the void, where the Full should be? I cannot get at the Lord.
MICHAL: May I speak, my Father?
SAUL: Yea!
MICHAL: Why not laugh as you used to laugh. Father, and throw the spear in sport, at a mark, not grip it in anger? Saul is beautiful among men, to make women weep for joy if he smile at them. Yet his face is heavy with a frown.
SAUL: Why should I smile at thee, witch?
MICHAL: To gladden me, Father. For I am no witch.
SAUL: And when dost thou need gladdening, say?
MICHAL: Now, Father, even here!
SAUL: Thy sorrows are deep, I warrant me.
Touches her cheek with his fingers.
MICHAL: Yea! Did not this strange young man — indeed he is but a boy — find me chidden and disgraced and in tears before the King?
SAUL: And what then?
MICHAL: Who is this boy from the sheepfolds of Bethlehem, that he should think lightly of the King’s daughter in Gilgal?
DAVID: Nay! What man could think lightly of Michal the daughter of Saul? Her eyes are like the stars shining through a tree at midnight.
MICHAL: Why through a tree?
SAUL (laughing suddenly): Thou bird of the pert whistle! Run! Run, quail! Get thee among the maidens! Thou hast piped long enough before the men.
MICHAL: Even if I run my thoughts run with me.
SAUL: What thoughts, bird of mischief?
MICHAL: That this boy, ruddy with the shepherd’s sun, has seen my tears and my disgrace.
DAVID: Surely the tears of Michal are like falling stars in the lonely midnight.
MICHAL: Why, again, in the night?
SAUL (laughing aloud): Be gone! Be gone! No more!
Exit MICHAL.
SAUL: She is a chick of the King’s nest! Think not of her, David!
DAVID: But she is pleasant to think of.
SAUL: Even when she mocks thee?
DAVID: Very pleasant.
SAUL: The young men flee from a mocking woman.
DAVID: Not when the voice is sweet.
SAUL: Is Michal’s voice sweet? To me at times it is snarling and bad in my ears.
DAVID: That is only when the harp-strings of the King’s ears are unstrung.
SAUL: It may be. Yet I think I am cursed in my womenfolk. Was not the mother of Jonathan a thorn in my heart? What dost thou prescribe for a thorn in the heart, young wiseling?
DAVID: Pluck it out, O King, and throw it aside, and it is forgotten.
SAUL: But is it easy to pluck out a rancorous woman from the heart?
DAVID: I have no certain knowledge. Yet it should not be hard, I think.
SAUL: How?
DAVID: A man asks in his heart: Lord, Who fannest the fire of my soul into strength, does the woman cast fuel on the Lord’s fire within me, or does she cast wet sand? Then if the Lord says: She casts wet sand, she departs for ever from a man’s presence, and a man will go nigh unto her no more, because she seeks to quench the proper fire which is within him.
SAUL: Thou art wiser than if thou hadst been many times wived. Thou art a cocksure stripling.
DAVID: My brothers say of me, I am a cocksure malapert. Yet I do not wish to be! Why am I so, my lord?
SAUL (laughing): It must be the Lord made thee so.
DAVID: My brother has struck me in the face, before now, for words in which I saw no harm.
SAUL (laughing): Didst see the harm afterwards?
DAVID: Not I. I had a bruised mouth, and that was harm enough. But I thought still the words were wise.
SAUL (laughing): Dost think so even yet?
DAVID: Yea, they were wise words. But unwisely spoken.
SAUL (laughing heartily): The Lord sends the wisdom, and leaves thee to spend it! You offer a tit-bit to a wolf, and he take your fingers as well.
DAVID: I shall learn in the King’s household.
SAUL: Among the wolves?
DAVID: Nay, the lion is nobler than the wolf.
SAUL: He will not grudge thee thy callow wisdom. — I go to speak with Abner.
DAVID: Can I serve the King in anything?
SAUL: Not now.
Exit SAUL.
DAVID: He has gone in good humour.
JONATHAN: We found him in an evil one.
DAVID: Evil spirits out of the earth possess him, and laughter from a maiden sounds to him as the voice of a hyena sounds to a wounded man stricken in the feet.
JONATHAN: It is so. He rails at his daughter, and at the mother who bore me, till my heart swells with anger. Yet he was not always so. Why is it?
DAVID: He has lost the Lord, he says.
JONATHAN: But how? Have I lost the Lord, too?
DAVID: Nay! You are good.
JONATHAN: I wish I knew how my father had lost the Lord. — You, David, the Dawn is with you. It is in your face. — Do you wrestle before the Lord?
DAVID: Who am I, that I should wrestle before the Lord? But when I feel the Glory is with me, my heart leaps like a young kid, and bounds in my bosom, and my limbs swell like boughs that put forth buds. — Yet I would not be vainglorious.
JONATHAN: Do you dwell willingly here in Gilgal?
DAVID: I am strange here, and I miss my father, and the hills where the sheep are, in Bethlehem. Yet I comfort myself, turning my soul to the Nameless; and the flame flares up in my heart, and dries my tears, and I am glad.
JONATHAN: And when my father has been bitter and violent, and you go alone in tears, in a strange place — I have seen the tears, and my heart has been sad — then do you yearn for Bethlehem, and your own?
DAVID: I am weak still. — But when I see the stars, and the Lord in darkness alive between them, I am at home, and Bethlehem or Gilgal is the same to me.
JONATHAN: When I lie alone in camp, and see the stars, I think of my mother, and my father, and Michal, and the home place. — You, the Lord becomes a home to you, wherever you are.
DAVID: It is so. I had not thought of it.
JONATHAN: I fear you would never love man nor woman, nor wife nor child, dearly.
DAVID: Nay! I love my father dearly, and my brothers and my mother.
JONATHAN: But when the Lord enters your soul, father or mother or friend is as nothing to you.
DAVID: Why do you say so? — They are the same. But when the Lord is there, all the branches are hidden in blossom.
JONATHAN: Yea! — I, alas, love man or woman with the heart’s tenderness, and even the Lord cannot make me forget.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated) Page 709
