ACT I
Scene: A Room in an old half-ruined castle.
Mother: Look out the door, Celia, and see is
your uncle coming.
Celia: (Who is lying on the ground, a bunch of
ribbons in her hand, and playing with a pigeon, looks
towards door without getting up.) I see no sign of
him.
Mother: What time were you telling me it was
a while ago?
Celia: It is not five minutes hardly since I was
telling you it was ten o'clock by the sun.
Mother: So you did, if I could but have kept
it in mind. What at all ails him that he does not
come in to the breakfast?
Celia: He went out last night and the full moon
shining. It is likely he passed the whole night
abroad, drowsing or rummaging, whatever he does
be looking for in the rath.
Mother: I'm in dread he'll go crazy with digging
in it.
Celia: He was crazy with crossness before that.
Mother: If he is it's on account of his learning.
Them that have too much of it are seven times
crosser than them that never saw a book.
Celia: It is better to be tied to any thorny bush
than to be with a cross man. He to know the
seventy-two languages he couldn't be more crabbed
than what he is.
Mother: It is natural to people do be so clever
to be fiery a little, and not have a long patience.
Celia: It's a pity he wouldn't stop in that
school he had down in the North, and not to come
back here in the latter end of life.
Mother: Ah, he was maybe tired with enlightening
his scholars and he took a notion to acquaint
ourselves with knowledge and learning. I was
trying to reckon a while ago the number of the
years he was away, according to the buttons of my
gown (fingers bodice), but they went astray on me
at the gathers of the neck.
Celia: If the hour would come he'd go out of
this, I'd sing, I'd play on all the melodeons that
ever was known! (Sings.) (Air, "Shule Aroon.")
"I would not wish him any ill,
But were he swept to some far hill
It's then I'd laugh and laugh my fill,
Coo, Coo, my birdeen bán astore.
"I wish I was a linnet free
To rock and rustle on the tree
With none to haste or hustle me,
Coo, Coo, my birdeen bán astore!"
Mother: Did you make ready now what will
please him for his breakfast?
Celia: (Laughing.) I'm doing every whole
thing, but you know well to please him is not
possible.
Mother: It is going astray on me what sort of
egg best suits him, a pullet's egg or the egg of a
duck.
Celia: I'd go search out if it would satisfy him
the egg of an eagle having eyes as big as the moon,
and feathers of pure gold.
Mother: Look out again would you see him.
Celia: (Sitting up reluctantly.) I wonder will
the rosy ribbon or the pale put the best appearance
on my party dress to-night? (Looks out.) He is
coming down the path from the rath, and he having
his little old book in his hand, that he gives out
fell down before him from the skies.
Mother: So there is a little book, whatever
language he does be wording out of it.
Celia: If you listen you'll hear it now, or hear
his own talk, for he's mouthing and muttering as
he travels the path.
Conan: (Comes in: the book in his hand open,
he is not looking at it.) "Life is the flame of the
heart ...that heat is of the nature of the stars." ...It
is Aristotle had knowledge to turn that
flame here and there.... What way now did he
do that?
Mother: Ah, I'm well pleased to see you coming
in, Conan. I was getting uneasy thinking you
were gone astray on us.
Conan: (Dropping his book and picking it up
again.) I never knew the like of you, Maryanne,
under the canopy of heaven. To be questioning
me with your talk, and I striving to keep my mind
upon all the wisdom of the ancient world. (Sits
down beside fire.)
Mother: So you would be too. It is well able
you are to do that.
Conan: (To Celia.) Have you e'er a meal to
leave down to me?
Celia: It will be ready within three minutes of
time.
Conan: Wasting the morning on me! What
good are you if you cannot so much as boil the
breakfast? Hurry on now.
Celia: Ah, hurry didn't save the hare. (Sings
ironically as she prepares breakfast.) (Air, "Mo
Bhuachailin Buidhe.")
"Come in the evening or come in the morning,
Come when you're looked for or come without warning;
Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you
And the oftner you come here the more I'll adore you."
Conan: Give me up the tea-pot.
Celia: Best leave it on the coals awhile.
Conan: Give me up those eggs so. (Seizes them.)
Celia: You can take the tea-pot too if you are
calling for it. (Goes on singing mischievously as
she turns a cake.)
"I'll pull you sweet flowers to wear if you'll choose them,
Or after you've kissed them they'll lie on my bosom."
Conan: (Breaking eggs.) They're raw and
running!
Celia: There's no one can say which is best,
hurry or delay.
Conan: You had them boiled in cold water!
Celia: That's where you're wrong.
Conan: The young people that's in the world
now, if you had book truth they wouldn't believe
it. (Flings eggs into the fire and pours out tea.)
Mother: I hope now that is pleasing to you?
Conan: (Threatening Celia with spoon.) My
seven curses on yourself and your fair-haired tea.
(Puts back tea-pot.)
Celia: (Laughing.) It was hurry left it so weak
on you!
Mother: Ah, don't be putting reproaches on
him. Crossness is a thing born with us. It do run
in the blood. Strive now to let him have a quiet life.
Conan: I am not asking a quiet life! But to
come live with your own family you might as well
take your coffin on your back!
Celia: (Sings.)
"We'll look on the stars and we'll list to the river
'Till you ask of your darling what gift you can give her."
Conan: That girl is a disgrace sitting on the
floor the way she is! If I had her for a while I'd
put betterment on her. No one that was under
me ever grew slack!
Celia: You would never be satisfied and you
to see me working from dark to dark as hard as a
pismire in the tufts.
Mother: Leave her now, she's a quiet little girl
and comely.
Conan: Comely! I'd sooner her to be like the
ugliest sod of turf that is pockmarked in the bog,
and a handy housekeeper, and her pigeon doing
something for the world if it was but scaring its
comrades on a stick in a barley garden!
Celia: Ah, do you hear him! (Stroking pigeon.)
(Sings.)
"But when your friend is forced to flee
You'll spread your white wings on the sea
And fly and follow after me—
Go-dé tu Mavourneen slân!"
Mother: I wonder you to be going into the rath
the way you do, Conan. It is a very haunted place.
Conan: Don't be bothering me. I have my
reason for that.
Mother: I often heard there is many a one lost
his wits in it.
Conan: It's likely they hadn't much to lose.
Without the education anyone is no good.
Mother: Ah, indeed you were always a tip-top
scholar. I didn't ever know how good you were
till I had my memory lost.
Conan: Indeed, it is a strange thing any wits
at all to be found in this family.
Mother: Ah, sure we are as is allotted to us at
the time God made the world.
Conan: Now I to make the world—
Mother: You are not saying you would make a
better hand of it?
Conan: I am certain sure I could.
Mother: Ah, don't be talking that way!
Conan: I'd make changes you'd wonder at.
Celia: It's likely you'd make the world in one
day in place of six.
Mother: It's best make changes little by little
the same as you'd put clothes upon a growing
child, and to knock every day out of what God
will give you, and to live as long as we can, and
die when we can't help it.
Conan: And the first thing I'd do would be to
give you back your memory and your sense. (Sings.)
(Air, "The Bells of Shandon.")
"My brain grows rusty, my mind is dusty,
The time I'm dwelling with the likes of ye,
While my spirit ranges through all the changes
Could turn the world to felicity!
When Aristotle..."
Mother: It is like a dream to me I heard that
name. Aristotle of the books.
Conan: (Eagerly.) What did you hear about him?
Mother: I don't know was it about him or was
it some other one. My memory to be as good as
it is bad I might maybe bring it to mind.
Conan: Hurry on now and remember!
Mother: Ah, it's hard remember anything and
the weather so uncertain as what it is.
Conan: Is it of late you heard it?
Mother: It was maybe ere yesterday or some
day of the sort; I don't know. Since the age
tampered with me the thing I'd hear to-day I
wouldn't think of to-morrow.
Conan: Try now and tell me was it that
Aristotle, the time he walked Ireland, had come to
this place.
Mother: It might be that, unless it might be
some other thing.
Conan: And that he left some great treasure
hid—it might be in the rath without.
Mother: And what good would it do you a pot of
gold to be hid in the rath where you would never
come near to it, it being guarded by enchanted
cats and they having fiery eyes?
Conan: Did I say anything about a pot of
gold? This was better again than gold. This
was an enchantment would raise you up if you
were gasping from death. Give attention now ...
Aristotle.
Mother: It's Harry he used to be called.
Conan: Listen now. (Sings.) (Air, "Bells of
Shandon.")
"Once Aristotle hid in a bottle
Or some other vessel of security
A spell had power bring sweet from sour
Or bring blossoms blooming on the blasted tree."
Mother: (Repeating last line.) "Or bring blossoms
blooming on the blasted tree."
Conan: Is that now what you heard ...that
Aristotle has hid some secret spell?
Mother: I won't say what I don't know. My
memory is too weak for me to be telling lies.
Conan: You could strengthen it if you took it
in hand, putting a knot in the corner of your shawl
to keep such and such a thing in mind.
Mother: If I did I should put another knot in
the other corner to remember what was the first
one for.
Conan: You'd remember it well enough if it
was a pound of tea!
Mother: Ah, maybe it's best be as I am and not
to be running carrying lies here and there, putting
trouble on people's mind.
Conan: Isn't it terrible to be seeing all this
folly around me and not to have a way to
better it!
Mother: Ah, dear, it's best leave the time under
the mercy of the Man that is over us all.
Conan: (Jumping up furious.) Where's the
use of old people being in the world at all if they
cannot keep a memory of things gone by! (Sings.)
(Air, "O the time I've lost in wooing.")
"O the time I've lost pursuing
And feeling nothing doing,
The lure that led me from my bed
Has left me sad and rueing!
Success seemed very near me!
High hope was there to cheer me!
I asked my book where would I look
And all it did was fleer me!"
Mother: What is it ails you?
Conan: That secret to be in the world, and I
all to have laid my hand on it, and it to have gone
astray on me!
Mother: So it would go too.
Conan: A secret that could change the world!
I'd make it as good a world to live in as it was in
the time of the Greeks. I don't see much goodness
in the trace of the people in it now. To
change everything to its contrary the way the
book said it would! There would be great satisfaction
doing that. Was there ever in the world
a family was so little use to a man? (Sings in
dejection.) (Air, "My Molly O.")
"There is a rose in Ireland, I thought it would be mine
But now that it is hid from me I must forever pine.
Till death shall come and comfort me for to the grave I'll go
And all for the sake of Aristotle's secret O!"
Celia: I wonder you wouldn't ask Timothy
that is older again than what my mother is.
Conan: Timothy! He has the hearing lost.
Celia: Well there is no harm to try him.
Conan: (Going to door.) Timothy!... There,
he's as deaf as a beetle.
Mother: It might be best for him. The thing
the ear will not hear will not put trouble on the
heart.
Celia: (Who has gone out comes pushing him in.)
Here he is now for you.
Conan: Did ever you hear of Aristotle?
Timothy: Aye?
Conan: Aristotle!
Timothy: Ere a bottle? I might ...
Conan: Aristotle.... That had some power?
Timothy: I never seen no flower.
Conan: Something he hid near this place.
Timothy: I never went near no race.
Conan: Has the whole world its mind made up
to annoy me!
Celia: Raise your voice into his ear.
Conan: (Chanting.)
"Aristotle in the hour
He left Ireland left a power
In a gift Eolus gave
Could all Ireland change and save!"
Timothy: Would it now?
Conan: You said you had heard of a bottle.
Timothy: A charmed bottle. It is Biddy Early
put a cure in it and bestowed it in her will to her son.
Conan: Aristotle that left one in the same way.
Timothy: It is what I am thinking that my old
generations used to be talking about a bellows.
Conan: A bellows! There's no sense in that!
Timothy: Have it your own way so, and give
me leave to go feeding the little chickens and the
hens, for if I cannot hear what they say and they
cannot understand what I say, they put no reproach
on me after, no more than I would put
it on themselves. (Goes.)
Celia: Let you be satisfied now and not torment
yourself, for if you got the world wide you
couldn't discover it. You might as well think to
throw your hat to hit the stars.
Conan: You have me tormented among the
whole of ye. To be without ye would be no harm
at all. (Sits down and weeps.) Of all the families
anyone would wish to live away from I am full
sure my family is the worst.
Mother: Ah, dear, you're worn out and contrary
with the want of sleep. Come now into the
room and stretch yourself on the bed. To go
sleeping out in the grass has no right rest in it at
all! (Takes his arm.)
Conan: Where's the use of lying on my bed
where it is convenient to the yard, that I'd be
afflicted by the turkeys yelping and the pullets
praising themselves after laying an egg! and the
cackling and hissing of the geese.
Mother: Lie down so on the settle, and I'll let
no one disturb you. You're destroyed, avic, with
the want of sleep.
Conan: There'll be no peace in this kitchen no
more than on the common highway with the
people running in and out.
Mother: I'll go sit in the little gap without, and
the whole place will be as quiet as St. Colman's
wilderness of stones.
Conan: The boards are too hard.
Mother: I'll put a pillow in under you.
Conan: Now it's too narrow. Leave me now
it'll be best.
Mother: Sleep and good dreams to you. (Goes
singing sleepy song.)
Conan: The most troublesome family ever I
knew in all my born days! Why is that people
cannot have behaviour now the same as in ancient
Greece. (Sits up.) I'll not give them the satisfaction
of going asleep. I'll drink a sup of the
tea that is black with standing and with strength.
(Drinks and lies down.) I'll engage that'll keep
me waking. (Music heard.) Is it to annoy me
they are playing tunes of music? I'll let on to be
asleep! (Shuts eyes.)
(Two large Cats with fiery eyes look over top
of settle.)
1st Cat:
See the fool that crossed our path
Rummaging within the rath.
Coveting a spell is bound
Agelong in our haunted ground.
Hid that none disturb its peace
By a Druid out from Greece.
Spies and robbers have no call
Rooting in our ancient wall.
Man or mortal what is he
Matched against the mighty Sidhe?
2nd Cat
:
Bid our riders of the night
Daze and craze him with affright,
Leave him fainting and forlorn
Hanging on the moon's young horn.
Let the death-bands turn him pale
Through the venom of our tail.
Let him learn to love our law
With the sharpness of our claw.
Let our King-cat's fiery flash
Turn him to a heap of ash.
1st Cat
:
Punishment enough he'll find
In his cross and cranky mind.
Ha, ha, ha, and ho, ho, ho,
He'd a sharper penance know,
We'd have better sport to-day
If he got his will and way,
Found the spell that lies unknown
Underneath his own hearthstone.
(They disappear saying together:)
Men and mortals what are ye
Matched against the mighty Sidhe?
Conan: (Looking out timidly.) Are they gone?
Here, Puss, puss! Come hither now poor Puss!
They're not in it.... Here now! here's milk
for ye. And a drop of cream.... (Gets up,
peeps under settle and around.) They are gone!
And that they may never come back! I wouldn't
wish to be brought riding a thorny bush in the night
time into the cold that is behind the sun! What
now did they say? Or is it dreaming I was? Oh,
it was not! They spoke clear and plain. The
hidden spell that I was seeking, they said it to be
in the hiding hole under the hearth. (Pokes,
sneezes.) Bad cess to Celia leaving that much
ashes to be choking me. Well, the luck has come
to me at last!
(Sings as he searches.)
"Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding,
Loudly the war cries rise on the gale;
Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bounding
To join the thick squadrons in Saimear's green vale.
On every mountaineer, strangers to flight and fear;
Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh
Bonnaught and gallowglass, throng from each mountain pass.
On for old Erin, O'Donnall Abu."
(Pokes at hearthstone.) Sure enough, it's
loose! It's moving! Wait till I'll get
a wedge under it!
(Takes fork from table.) It's coming!
(Door suddenly opens and he drops fork and
springs back.)
Mother: (Coming in with Rock and Flannery.)
Here now, come in the two of ye. Here now, Conan,
is two of the neighbours, James Rock of Lis Crohan
and Fardy Flannery the rambling herd, that are
come to get a light for the pipe and they walking
the road from the Fair.
Conan: That's the way you make a fool of me
promising me peace and quiet for to sleep!
Mother: Ah, so I believe I did. But it slipped
away from me, and I listening to the blackbird on
the bush.
Conan: (To Rock.) I wonder, James Rock,
that you wouldn't have on you so much as a halfpenny
box of matches!
Rock: (Trying to get to hearth.) So I have
matches. But why would I spend one when I can
get for nothing a light from a sod?
Flannery: Sure, I could give you a match I
have this long time, waiting till I'll get as much
tobacco as will fill a pipe.
Mother: It's the poor man does be generous.
It's gone from my mind, Fardy, what was it
brought you to be a servant of poverty?
Flannery: Since the day I lost on the road my
forty pound that I had to stock my little farm of
land, all has wore away from me and left me bare
owning nothing unless daylight and the run of
water. It was that put me on the Shaughrann.
(Sings "The Bard of Armagh.")
"Oh, list to the lay of a poor Irish harper,
And scorn not the strains of his old withered hand,
But remember the fingers could once move sharper
To raise the merry strains of his dear native land;
It was long before the shamrock our dear isle's loved emblem.
Was crushed in its beauty 'neath the Saxon Lion's paw
I was called by the colleens of the village and valley
Bold Phelim Brady, the bard of Armagh."
Rock: Bad management! Look what I brought
from the Fair through minding my own property
—£20 for a milch cow, and thirty for a score of
lambs!
Mother: £20 for a cow! Isn't that terrible
money!
Conan: Let you whist now! You are putting
a headache on me with all your little newses and
country chat!
(Mother goes, the others are following.)
Rock: (Turning from door.) It might be better
for yourself, Conan Creevey, if you had minded
business would bring profit to your hand in place
of your foreign learning, that never put a penny
piece in anyone's pocket that ever I heard. No
earthly profit unless to addle the brain and leave
the pocket empty.
Conan: You think yourself a great sort! Let
me tell you that my learning has power to do more
than that!
Rock: It's an empty mouth that has big talk.
Conan: What would you say hearing I had
power put in my hand that could change the entire
world? And that's what you never will have power
to do.
Rock: What power is that?
Conan
:
Aristotle in the hour
He left Ireland left a power....
Rock: Foolishness! I never would believe in
poetry or in dreams or images, but in ready money
down. (Jingles bag.)
Conan: I tell you you'll see me getting the
victory over all Ireland!
Rock: You have but a cracked headpiece thinking
that will come to you.
Conan: I tell you it will! No end at all in the
world to what I am about to bring in!
Rock: It's easy praise yourself!
Conan: And so I am praising myself, and so will
you all be praising me when you will see all that
I will do!
Rock: It is what I think you got demented in
the head and in the mind.
Conan: It is soon the wheel will be turned and
the whole of the nation will be changed for the
best. (Sings.)
"Dear Harp of my country, in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,
When proudly, my own Irish Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song,
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
But so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of sadness,
That ev'n in thy mirth it will steal from thee still."
Flannery: That's a great thought, if it is but a
vanity or a dream.
Rock: (Sneeringly.) Well now and what would
you do?
Flannery: I would wish a great lake of milk,
the same as blessed St. Bridget, to be sharing with
the family of Heaven. I would wish vessels full
of alms that would save every sorrowful man. Do
that now, Conan, and you'll have the world of
prayers down on you!
Rock: It's what I'd do, to turn the whole of
Galway Bay to dry land, and I to have it for myself,
the red land, the green land, the fallow and the
lea! The want of land is a great stoppage to a man
having means to lay out in stock.
(Sings.) (Air, "I wish I had the shepherd's lamb.")
"I wish I had both mill and kiln,
I wish I had of land my fill;
I wish I had both mill and kiln,
And all would follow after!"
Flannery: Ah, the land, the land, the rotten
land, and what will you have in the end but the
breadth of your back of it? Let you now soften
the heart in that one (points to Rock) till he would
restore to me the thing he is aware of.
Conan: It was not for that the spell was
promised, to be changing a few neighbours or a
thing of the kind, or to be doing wonders in this
broken little place. A town of dead factions! To
change any of the dwellers in this place would be
to make it better, for it would be impossible to
make it worse. The time you wouldn't be meddling
with them you wouldn't know them to be
bad, but the time you'd have to do business with
them that's the time you'd know it!
Rock: I suppose it is what you are asking to
do, to make yourself rich?
Conan: I do not! I would be loth take any
profit, and Aristotle after laying down that to
pleasure or to profit every wealthy man is a slave!
Flannery: What would you do, so?
Conan: I will change all into the similitude of
ancient Greece! There is no man at all can understand
argument but it is from Greece he is. I know
well what I'm doing. I'm not like a potato having
eyes this way and that. People were harmless
long ago and why wouldn't they be made harmless
again? Aristotle said, "Fair play is more
beautiful than the morning and the evening star!"
"Be friendly with one another," he said, "and
let the lawyers starve!" I'll turn the captains of
soldiers to be as peaceable as children picking
strawberries in the grass. I've a mind to change
the tongue of the people to the language of the
Greeks, that no farmer will be grumbling over a
halfpenny Independent, but be following the plough
in full content, giving out Homer and the praises
of the ancient world!
Flannery: If you make the farmers content you
will make the world content.
Rock: You will, when you'll bring the sun from
Greece to ripen our little lock of oats!
Conan: So I will drag Ireland from its moorings
till I'll bring it to the middling sea that has no ebb
or flood!
Rock: You will do well to put a change on the
college that harboured you, and that left you so
much of folly.
Conan: I'll do that! I'll be in College Green
before the dawn is white—no but before the night
is grey! It is to Dublin I will bring my spell, for
I ever and always heard it said what Dublin will
do to-day Ireland will do to-morrow! (Sings.)
"Let Erin remember the days of old
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her—
When Malachy wore the collar of gold
Which he won from her proud invader—
When her kings with standards of green unfurl'd,
Led the Red-Branch knights to danger;
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger."
Rock: And maybe you'll tell us now by what
means you will do all this?
Conan: Go out of the house and I will tell you
in the by and bye.
Rock: That is what I was thinking. You are
talking nothing but lies.
Conan: I tell you that power is not far from
where you stand! But I will let no one see it only
myself.
Flannery: There might be some truth in it.
There are some say enchantments never went out
of Ireland.
Conan: It is a spell, I say, that will change
anything to its contrary. To turn it upon a snail,
there is hardly a greyhound but it would overtake;
but a hare it would turn to be the slowest thing in
the universe; too slow to go to a funeral.
Rock: I'll believe it when I'll see it.
Conan: You could see it if I let you look in
this hiding-hole.
Rock: Good-morrow to you!
Conan: Then you will see it, for I'll raise up
the stone. (Kneels.)
Rock: It to be anything it is likely a pot of
sovereigns.
Flannery: It might be the harp of Angus.
Rock: I see no trace of it.
Conan: There is something hard! It should
likely be a silver trumpet or a hunting-horn of gold!
Rock: Give me a hold of it.
Conan: Leave go! (Lifts out bellows.)
Rock: Ha! Ha! Ha! after all your chat, nothing
but a little old bellows!...
Conan: There is seven rings on it.... They
should signify the seven blasts....
Rock: If there was seventy times seven what
use would it be but to redden the coals?
Conan: Every one of these blasts has power to
make some change.
Rock: Make one so, and I'll plough the world
for you.
Conan: Is it that I would spend one of my
seven blasts convincing the like of ye?
Rock: It is likely the case there is no power in
it at all.
Conan: I'm very sure there is surely. The world
will be a new world before to-morrow's Angelus bell.
Flannery: I never could believe in a bellows.
Rock: Here now is a fair offer. I'll loan you
this bag of notes to pay your charges to Dublin if
you will change that little pigeon in the crib into a
crow.
Conan: I will do no such folly.
Rock: You wouldn't because you'd be afeared
to try.
Conan: Hold it up to me. I'll show you am
I afeared!
Rock: There it is now. (Holds up cage.)
Conan: Have a care! (Blows.)
Rock: (Dropping it with a shriek.) It has me
bit with its hard beak, it is turned to be an old
black crow.
Flannery: As black as the bottom of the pot.
Crow: Caw! Caw! Caw!
(Cats reappear and look over back of settle.)
(Music from behind.) ("O'Donnall Abu.")
CURTAIN
ACT II