THE HARP OF AENGUS
Edain came out of Midher’s hill, and lay
Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,
And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made
Of opal and ruby and pale chrysolite
Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,
Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,
Because her hands had been made wild by love;
When Midher’s wife had changed her to a fly,
He made a harp with druid apple wood
That she among her winds might know he wept;
And from that hour he has watched over none
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
- FORGAEL
- AIBRIC
- SAILORS
- DECTORA
The deck of an ancient ship. At the right of the stage is the mast, with a large square sail hiding a great deal of the sky and sea on that side. The tiller is at the left of the stage; it is a long oar coming through an opening in the bulwark. The deck rises in a series of steps behind the tiller, and the stern of the ship curves overhead. All the woodwork is of dark green; and the sail is dark green, with a blue pattern upon it, having a little copper colour here and there. The sky and sea are dark blue. All the persons of the play are dressed in various tints of green and blue, the men with helmets and swords of copper, the woman with copper ornaments upon her dress. When the play opens there are four persons upon the deck. AIBRIC stands by the tiller. FORGAEL sleeps upon the raised portion of the deck towards the front of the stage. Two SAILORS are standing near to the mast, on which a harp is hanging.
FIRST SAILOR.
Has he not led us into these waste seas
SECOND SAILOR.
Aye, long and long enough.
FIRST SAILOR.
We have not come upon a shore or ship
These dozen weeks.
SECOND SAILOR.
And I had thought to make
A good round sum upon this cruise, and turn—
For I am getting on in life—to something
That has less ups and downs than robbery.
FIRST SAILOR.
I am so lecherous with abstinence
I’d give the profit of nine voyages
For that red Moll that had but the one eye.
SECOND SAILOR.
And all the ale ran out at the new moon;
And now that time puts water in my blood,
The ale cup is my father and my mother.
FIRST SAILOR.
It would be better to turn home again,
Whether he will or no; and better still
To make an end while he is sleeping there.
If we were of one mind I’d do it.
SAILOR TWO.
Were’t not
That there is magic in that harp of his,
That makes me fear to raise a hand against him,
I would be of your mind; but when he plays it
Strange creatures flutter up before one’s eyes,
Or cry about one’s ears.
FIRST SAILOR.
Nothing to fear.
SECOND SAILOR.
Do you remember when we sank that galley
At the full moon?
FIRST SAILOR.
He played all through the night.
SECOND SAILOR.
Until the moon had set; and when I looked
Where the dead drifted, I could see a bird
Like a grey gull upon the breast of each.
While I was looking they rose hurriedly,
And after circling with strange cries awhile
Flew westward; and many a time since then
I’ve heard a rustling overhead in the wind.
FIRST TWO.
I saw them on that night as well as you.
But when I had eaten and drunk a bellyful
My courage came again.
SECOND SAILOR.
But that’s not all.
The other night, while he was playing it,
A beautiful young man and girl came up
In a white, breaking wave; they had the look
Of those that are alive for ever and ever.
FIRST SAILOR.
I saw them, too, one night. Forgael was playing,
And they were listening there beyond the sail.
He could not see them, but I held out my hands
To grasp the woman.
SECOND SAILOR.
You have dared to touch her?
FIRST SAILOR.
O, she was but a shadow, and slipped from me.
SECOND SAILOR.
But were you not afraid?
FIRST SAILOR.
SAILOR TWO.
’Twas Aengus and Edain, the wandering lovers,
To whom all lovers pray.
FIRST SAILOR.
But what of that?
A shadow does not carry sword or spear.
SECOND SAILOR.
My mother told me that there is not one
Of the ever-living half so dangerous
As that wild Aengus. Long before her day
He carried Edain off from a king’s house,
And hid her among fruits of jewel-stone
And in a tower of glass, and from that day
Has hated every man that’s not in love,
And has been dangerous to him.
FIRST SAILOR.
I have heard
He does not hate seafarers as he hates
Peaceable men that shut the wind away,
And keep to the one weary marriage-bed.
SECOND SAILOR.
I think that he has Forgael in his net,
And drags him through the sea.
FIRST TWO.
Well, net or none,
I’d kill him while we have the chance to do it.
SECOND SAILOR.
It’s certain I’d sleep easier o’ nights
If he were dead; but who will be our captain,
Judge of the stars, and find a course for us?
FIRST SAILOR.
I’ve thought of that. We must have Aibric with us,
For he can judge the stars as well as Forgael.
[Going towards AIBRIC.
Become our captain, Aibric. I am resolved
To make an end of Forgael while he sleeps.
There’s not a man but will be glad of it
When it is over, nor one to grumble at us.
You’ll have the captain’s share of everything.
AIBRIC.
Silence! for you have taken Forgael’s pay.
FIRST SAILOR.
We joined him for his pay, but have had none
This long while now; we had not turned against him
If he had brought us among peopled seas,
For that was in the bargain when we struck it.
What good is there in this hard way of living,
Unless we drain more flagons in a year
And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men
In their long lives? If you’ll be of our troop
You’ll be as good a leader.
AIBRIC.
Be of your troop!
No, nor with a hundred men like you,
When Forgael’s in the other scale. I’d say it
Even if Forgael had not been my master
From earliest childhood, but that being so,
If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard
I’ll give my answer.
FIRST SAILOR.
You have awaked him.
[To SECOND SAILOR.
We’d better go, for we have lost this chance.
[They go out.
FORGAEL.
Have the birds passed us? I could hear your voice.
AIBRIC.
I have seen nothing pass.
FORGAEL.
You’re certain of it? I never wake from sleep
But that I am afraid they may have passed,
For they’re my only pilots. If I lost them
Straying too far into the north or south,
I’d never come upon the happiness
That has been promised me. I have not seen them
These many days; and yet there must be many
Dying at every moment in the world,
And flying towards their peace.
AIBRIC.
Put by these thoughts,
And listen to me for awhile. The sailors
Are plotting for your death.
FORGAEL.
Have I not given
More riches than they ever hoped to find?
And now they will not follow, while I seek
The only riches that have hit my fancy.
AIBRIC.
What riches can you find in this waste sea
Where no ship sails, where nothing that’s alive
Has ever come but those man-headed birds,
Knowing it for the world’s end?
FORGAEL.
Where the world ends
The mind is made unchanging, for it finds
Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,
The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,
The roots of the world.
AIBRIC.
Who knows that shadows
May not have driven you mad for their own sport?
FORGAEL.
Do you, too, doubt me? Have you joined their plot?
AIBRIC.
No, no, do not say that. You know right well
That I will never lift a hand against you.
FORGAEL.
Why should you be more faithful than the rest,
Being as doubtful?
AIBRIC.
I have called you master
Too many years to lift a hand against you.
FORGAEL.
Maybe it is but natural to doubt me.
You’ve never known, I’d lay a wager on it,
A melancholy that a cup of wine,
A lucky battle, or a woman’s kiss
Could not amend.
AIBRIC.
I have good spirits enough.
I’ve nothing to complain of but heartburn,
And that is cured by a boiled liquorice root.
FORGAEL.
If you will give me all your mind awhile—
All, all, the very bottom of the bowl—
I’ll show you that I am made differently,
That nothing can amend it but these waters,
Where I am rid of life—the events of the world—
What do you call it?—that old promise-breaker,
The cozening fortune-teller that comes whispering,
‘You will have all you have wished for when you have earned
Land for your children or money in a pot.’
And when we have it we are no happier,
Because of that old draught under the door,
Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all
We have been no better off than Seaghan the fool,
That never did a hand’s turn. Aibric! Aibric!
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,
And find their laughter sweeter to the taste
For that brief sighing.
AIBRIC.
If you had loved some woman—
FORGAEL.
You say that also? You have heard the voices,
For that is what they say—all, all the shadows—
Aengus and Edain, those passionate wanderers,
And all the others; but it must be love
As they have known it. Now the secret’s out;
For it is love that I am seeking for,
But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind
That is not in the world.
AIBRIC.
And yet the world
Has beautiful women to please every man.
FORGAEL.
But he that gets their love after the fashion
Loves in brief longing and deceiving hope
And bodily tenderness, and finds that even
The bed of love, that in the imagination
Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,
And as soon finished.
AIBRIC.
All that ever loved
Have loved that way—there is no other way.
FORGAEL.
Yet never have two lovers kissed but they
Believed there was some other near at hand,
And almost wept because they could not find it.
AIBRIC.
When they have twenty years; in middle life
They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,
And let the dream go by.
FORGAEL.
It’s not a dream,
But the reality that makes our passion
As a lamp shadow—no—no lamp, the sun.
What the world’s million lips are thirsting for,
Must be substantial somewhere.
AIBRIC.
I have heard the Druids
Mutter such things as they awake from trance.
It may be that the ever-living know it—
No mortal can.
FORGAEL.
Yes; if they give us help.
AIBRIC.
They are besotting you as they besot
The crazy herdsman that will tell his fellows
That he has been all night upon the hills,
Riding to hurley, or in the battle-host
With the ever-living.
FORGAEL.
What if he speak the truth,
And for a dozen hours have been a part
Of that more powerful life?
AIBRIC.
His wife knows better.
Has she not seen him lying like a log,
Or fumbling in a dream about the house?
And if she hear him mutter of wild riders,
She knows that it was but the cart-horse coughing
FORGAEL.
All would be well
Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,
And get into their world that to the sense
Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly
Among substantial things; for it is dreams
That lift us to the flowing, changing world
That the heart longs for. What is love itself,
Even though it be the lightest of light love,
But dreams that hurry from beyond the world
To make low laughter more than meat and drink,
Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,
Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,
Not in its image on the mirror!
AIBRIC.
While
We’re in the body that’s impossible.
FORGAEL.
And yet I cannot think they’re leading me
To death; for they that promised to me love
As those that can outlive the moon have known it,
Had the world’s total life gathered up, it seemed,
Into their shining limbs—I’ve had great teachers.
Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave—
You’d never doubt that it was life they promised
Had you looked on them face to face as I did,
With so red lips, and running on such feet,
And having such wide-open, shining eyes.
AIBRIC.
It’s certain they are leading you to death.
None but the dead, or those that never lived,
Can know that ecstasy. Forgael! Forgael!
They have made you follow the man-headed birds,
And you have told me that their journey lies
Towards the country of the dead.
FORGAEL.
What matter
If I am going to my death, for there,
Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have promised.
That much is certain. I shall find a woman,
One of the ever-living, as I think—
One of the laughing people—and she and I
Shall light upon a place in the world’s core,
Where passion grows to be a changeless thing,
Like charmed apples made of chrysoprase,
Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysolite;
And there, in juggleries of sight and sense,
Become one movement, energy, delight,
Until the overburthened moon is dead.
[A number of SAILORS enter hurriedly.]
FIRST SAILOR.
Look there! there in the mist! a ship of spice!
And we are almost on her!
SECOND SAILOR.
We had not known
But for the ambergris and sandalwood.
FIRST SAILOR.
No; but opoponax and cinnamon.
FORGAEL.
[Taking the tiller from AIBRIC.]
The ever-living have kept my bargain for me,
And paid you on the nail.
AIBRIC.
Take up that rope
To make her fast while we are plundering her.
FIRST SAILOR.
There is a king and queen upon her deck,
And where there is one woman there’ll be others.
AIBRIC.
Speak lower, or they’ll hear.
FIRST SAILOR.
They cannot hear;
They are too busy with each other. Look!
He has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.
SECOND SAILOR.
When she finds out we have better men aboard
She may not be too sorry in the end.
FIRST SAILOR.
She will be like a wild cat; for these queens
Care more about the kegs of silver and gold,
And the high fame that come to them in marriage,
Than a strong body and a ready hand.
SECOND SAILOR.
There’s nobody is natural but a robber,
And that is why the world totters about
Upon its bandy legs.
AIBRIC.
Run at them now,
And overpower the crew while yet asleep!
[Voices and the clashing of swords are heard from the other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail.
A VOICE.
Armed men have come upon us! O, I am slain!
ANOTHER VOICE.
Wake all below!
ANOTHER VOICE.
Why have you broken our sleep?
FIRST VOICE.
Armed men have come upon us! O, I am slain!
FORGAEL.
[Who has remained at the tiller.]
There! there they come! Gull, gannet, or diver,
But with a man’s head, or a fair woman’s,
They hover over the masthead awhile
To wait their friends; but when their friends have come
They’ll fly upon that secret way of theirs.
One—and one—a couple—five together;
And I will hear them talking in a minute.
Yes, voices! but I do not catch the words.
Now I can hear. There’s one of them that says:
‘How light we are, now we are changed to birds!’
Another answers: ‘Maybe we shall find
Our heart’s desire now that we are so light.’
And then one asks another how he died,
And says: ‘A sword-blade pierced me in my sleep.’
And now they all wheel suddenly and fly
To the other side, and higher in the air.
And now a laggard with a woman’s head
Comes crying, ‘I have run upon the sword.
I have fled to my beloved in the air,
In the waste of the high air, that we may wander
Among the windy meadows of the dawn.’
But why are they still waiting? why are they
Circling and circling over the masthead?
What power that is more mighty than desire
To hurry to their hidden happiness
Withholds them now? Have the ever-living ones
A meaning in that circling overhead?
But what’s the meaning? [He cries out.] Why do you linger there?
Why do you not run to your desire,
Now that you have happy winged bodies?
Being too busy in the air and the high air,
They cannot hear my voice; but what’s the meaning?
[The SAILORS have returned. DECTORA is with them. She is dressed in pale green, with copper ornaments on her dress, and has a copper crown upon her head. Her hair is dull red.
FORGAEL.
[Turning and seeing her.]
Why are you standing with your eyes upon me?
You are not the world’s core. O no, no, no!
That cannot be the meaning of the birds.
You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,
But have not bitten yet.
DECTORA.
I am a queen,
And ask for satisfaction upon these
Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.
[Breaking loose from the SAILORS who are holding her.]
Let go my hands!
FORGAEL.
Where do you come from? Who brought you to this place?
They would not send me one that casts a shadow.
DECTORA.
Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,
And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations,
And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,
Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive,
I ask a fitting punishment for all
That raised their hands against him.
FORGAEL.
There are some
That weigh and measure all in these waste seas—
They that have all the wisdom that’s in life,
And all that prophesying images
Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs;
They have it that the plans of kings and queens
Are dust on the moth’s wing; that nothing matters
But laughter and tears—laughter, laughter, and tears;
That every man should carry his own soul
Upon his shoulders.
DECTORA.
You’ve nothing but wild words,
And I would know if you will give me vengeance.
FORGAEL.
When she finds out I will not let her go—
When she knows that.
DECTORA.
What is it that you are muttering—
That you’ll not let me go? I am a queen.
FORGAEL.
Although you are more beautiful than any,
I almost long that it were possible;
But if I were to put you on that ship,
With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge,
It had washed among the stars and put them out,
And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
Until you stood before me on the deck—
As now.
DECTORA.
Does wandering in these desolate seas
And listening to the cry of wind and wave
Bring madness?
FORGAEL.
DECTORA.
And yet you say the water and the wind
Would rise against me.
FORGAEL.
No, I am not mad—
If it be not that hearing messages
From lasting watchers, that outlive the moon,
At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.
DECTORA.
And did those watchers bid you take me captive?
FORGAEL.
Both you and I are taken in the net.
It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
And blew you hither; and their mouths have promised
I shall have love in their immortal fashion.
They gave me that old harp of the nine spells
That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
That none might take you from me.
DECTORA.
[First trembling back from the mast where the harp is, and then laughing.]
For a moment
Your raving of a message and a harp
More mighty than the stars half troubled me.
But all that’s raving. Who is there can compel
The daughter and granddaughter of kings
To be his bedfellow?
FORGAEL.
Until your lips
Have called me their beloved, I’ll not kiss them.
DECTORA.
My husband and my king died at my feet,
And yet you talk of love.
FORGAEL.
The movement of time
Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
One moment has no might upon the moment
That follows after.
DECTORA.
I understand you now.
You have a Druid craft of wicked sound
Wrung from the cold women of the sea—
A magic that can call a demon up,
Until my body give you kiss for kiss.
FORGAEL.
Your soul shall give the kiss.
DECTORA.
I am not afraid,
While there’s a rope to run into a noose
Or wave to drown. But I have done with words,
And I would have you look into my face
And know that it is fearless.
FORGAEL.
Do what you will,
For neither I nor you can break a mesh
Of the great golden net that is about us.
DECTORA.
There’s nothing in the world that’s worth a fear.
[She passes FORGAEL and stands for a moment looking into his face.
I have good reason for that thought.
[She runs suddenly on to the raised part of the poop.
And now
I can put fear away as a queen should.
[She mounts on to the bulwark and turns towardsFORGAEL.
Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face
You do not see my purpose. I shall have gone
FORGAEL [folding his arms].
My hands are still;
The ever-living hold us. Do what you will,
You cannot leap out of the golden net.
FIRST SAILOR.
No need to drown, for, if you will pardon us
And measure out a course and bring us home,
We’ll put this man to death.
DECTORA.
I promise it.
FIRST SAILOR.
There is none to take his side.
AIBRIC.
I am on his side.
I’ll strike a blow for him to give him time
To cast his dreams away.
[AIBRIC goes in front of FORGAEL with drawn sword. FORGAEL takes the harp.
FIRST SAILOR.
No other’ll do it.
[The SAILORS throw AIBRIC on one side. He falls upon the deck towards the poop. They lift their swords to strike FORGAEL, who is about to play the harp. The stage begins to darken. The SAILORS hesitate in fear.
SECOND SAILOR.
He has put a sudden darkness over the moon.
DECTORA.
Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn
To him that strikes him first!
FIRST SAILOR.
I will strike him first.
[He goes close up to FORGAEL with his sword lifted. The harp begins to give out a faint light. The scene has become so dark that the only light is from the harp.
[Shrinking back.] He has caught the crescent moon out of the sky,
And carries it between us.
SECOND SAILOR.
Holy fire
Has come into the jewels of the harp
To burn us to the marrow if we strike.
DECTORA.
I’ll give a golden galley full of fruit,
That has the heady flavour of new wine,
To him that wounds him to the death.
FIRST SAILOR.
I’ll do it.
For all his spells will vanish when he dies,
SAILOR TWO.
Though it be the moon
That he is holding up between us there,
I will strike at him.
THE OTHERS.
And I! And I! And I!
[FORGAEL plays the harp.
FIRST SAILOR.
[Falling into a dream suddenly.]
But you were saying there is somebody
Upon that other ship we are to wake.
You did not know what brought him to his end,
But it was sudden.
SECOND SAILOR.
You are in the right;
I had forgotten that we must go wake him.
DECTORA.
He has flung a Druid spell upon the air,
And set you dreaming.
SECOND SAILOR.
How can we have a wake
When we have neither brown nor yellow ale?
FIRST SAILOR.
I saw a flagon of brown ale aboard her.
THIRD SAILOR.
How can we raise the keen that do not know
What name to call him by?
FIRST SAILOR.
Come to his ship.
His name will come into our thoughts in a minute.
I know that he died a thousand years ago,
And has not yet been waked.
SECOND SAILOR [beginning to keen].
Ohone! O! O! O!
The yew bough has been broken into two,
And all the birds are scattered.
ALL THE SAILORS.
O! O! O! O!
[They go out keening.
DECTORA.
Protect me now, gods, that my people swear by.
[AIBRIC has risen from the ground where he had fallen. He has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream.
AIBRIC.
Where is my sword that fell out of my hand
When I first heard the news? Ah, there it is!
[He goes dreamily towards the sword, but DECTORA runs at it and takes it up before he can reach it.
AIBRIC [sleepily].
Queen, give it me.
DECTORA.
No, I have need of it.
AIBRIC.
Why do you need a sword? But you may keep it,
Now that he’s dead I have no need of it,
For everything is gone.
A SAILOR.
[Calling from the other ship.]
Come hither, Aibric,
And tell me who it is that we are waking.
AIBRIC.
[Half to DECTORA, half to himself.]
What name had that dead king? Arthur of Britain?
No, no—not Arthur. I remember now.
It was golden-armed Iollan, and he died
Brokenhearted, having lost his queen
Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale,
For he was killed. O! O! O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan has been killed.
[While he has been speaking, and through part of what follows, one hears the wailing of the SAILORS from the other ship. DECTORA stands with the sword lifted in front of FORGAEL.
DECTORA.
I will end all your magic on the instant.
[Her voice becomes dreamy, and she lowers the sword slowly, and finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair. She takes off her crown and lays it upon the deck.
This sword is to lie beside him in the grave.
It was in all his battles. I will spread my hair,
And wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,
For I have heard that he was proud and laughing,
Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,
And that he died a thousand years ago.
O! O! O!
[FORGAEL changes the tune.
But no, that is not it.
I knew him well, and while I heard him laughing
They killed him at my feet. O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan that I loved.
But what is it that made me say I loved him?
It was that harper put it in my thoughts,
But it is true. Why did they run upon him,
And beat the golden helmet with their swords?
FORGAEL.
Do you not know me, lady? I am he
That you are weeping for.
DECTORA.
No, for he is dead.
O! O! O! for golden-armed Iollan.
FORGAEL.
It was so given out, but I will prove
That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy
Have buried nothing but my golden arms.
Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
And you will recollect my face and voice,
For you have listened to me playing it
These thousand years.
[He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks behind him. The light goes out of it.
What are the birds at there?
Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
What are you calling out above the mast?
If railing and reproach and mockery
Because I have awakened her to love
My magic strings, I’ll make this answer to it:
Being driven on by voices and by dreams
That were clear messages from the ever-living,
I have done right. What could I but obey?
And yet you make a clamour of reproach.
DECTORA [laughing].
Why, it’s a wonder out of reckoning
That I should keen him from the full of the moon
To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.
FORGAEL.
How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
You know the councils of the ever-living,
And all that tossing of your wings is joy,
And all that murmuring’s but a marriage song;
But if it be reproach, I answer this:
There is not one among you that made love
By any other means. You call it passion,
Consideration, generosity;
But it was all deceit, and flattery
To win a woman in her own despite,
For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
And if you say that she came willingly—
DECTORA.
Why do you turn away and hide your face,
That I would look upon for ever?
FORGAEL.
My grief.
DECTORA.
Have I not loved you for a thousand years?
FORGAEL.
I never have been golden-armed Iollan.
DECTORA.
I do not understand. I know your face
Better than my own hands.
FORGAEL.
I have deceived you
Out of all reckoning.
DECTORA.
Is it not true
That you were born a thousand years ago,
In islands where the children of Aengus wind
In happy dances under a windy moon,
And that you’ll bring me there?
FORGAEL.
I have deceived you;
I have deceived you utterly.
DECTORA.
How can that be?
Is it that though your eyes are full of love
Some other woman has a claim on you,
And I’ve but half?
FORGAEL.
Oh, no!
DECTORA.
And if there is,
If there be half a hundred more, what matter?
I’ll never give another thought to it;
No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.
Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted,
Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;
And that is why their lovers are afraid
To tell them a plain story.
FORGAEL.
That’s not the story;
But I have done so great a wrong against you,
There is no measure that it would not burst.
I will confess it all.
DECTORA.
What do I care,
Now that my body has begun to dream,
And you have grown to be a burning sod
In the imagination and intellect?
If something that’s most fabulous were true—
If you had taken me by magic spells,
And killed a lover or husband at my feet—
I would not let you speak, for I would know
That it was yesterday and not to-day
I loved him; I would cover up my ears,
As I am doing now. [A pause.] Why do you weep?
FORGAEL.
I weep because I’ve nothing for your eyes
But desolate waters and a battered ship.
DECTORA.
O, why do you not lift your eyes to mine?
FORGAEL.
I weep—I weep because bare night’s above,
And not a roof of ivory and gold.
DECTORA.
I would grow jealous of the ivory roof,
And strike the golden pillars with my hands.
I would that there was nothing in the world
But my beloved—that night and day had perished,
And all that is and all that is to be,
All that is not the meeting of our lips.
FORGAEL.
I too, I too. Why do you look away?
Am I to fear the waves, or is the moon
My enemy?
DECTORA.
I looked upon the moon,
Longing to knead and pull it into shape
That I might lay it on your head as a crown.
But now it is your thoughts that wander away,
For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
How great a wrong it is to let one’s thought
Wander a moment when one is in love?
[He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out over the sea, shading his eyes.]
Why are you looking at the sea?
FORGAEL.
Look there!
DECTORA.
What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds
That fly into the west?
FORGAEL.
But listen, listen!
DECTORA.
What is there but the crying of the birds?
FORGAEL.
If you’ll but listen closely to that crying
You’ll hear them calling out to one another
With human voices.
DECTORA.
O, I can hear them now.
What are they? Unto what country do they fly?
FORGAEL.
To unimaginable happiness.
They have been circling over our heads in the air,
But now that they have taken to the road
We have to follow, for they are our pilots;
And though they’re but the colour of grey ash,
They’re crying out, could you but hear their words,
‘There is a country at the end of the world
Where no child’s born but to outlive the moon.’
[The SAILORS come in with AIBRIC. They are in great excitement.
FIRST SAILOR.
The hold is full of treasure.
SECOND SAILOR.
FIRST TWO.
Treasure and treasure.
THIRD SAILOR.
Boxes of precious spice.
FIRST SAILOR.
Ivory images with amethyst eyes.
THIRD SAILOR.
Dragons with eyes of ruby.
FIRST SAILOR.
The whole ship
Flashes as if it were a net of herrings.
THIRD SAILOR.
Let’s home; I’d give some rubies to a woman.
SECOND SAILOR.
There’s somebody I’d give the amethyst eyes to.
FIRST SAILOR.
Let’s home and spend it in our villages.
AIBRIC.
[Silencing them with a gesture.]
We would return to our own country, Forgael,
For we have found a treasure that’s so great
Imagination cannot reckon it.
And having lit upon this woman there,
What more have you to look for on the seas?
FORGAEL.
I cannot—I am going on to the end.
As for this woman, I think she is coming with me.
AIBRIC.
The ever-living have made you mad; but no,
It was this woman in her woman’s vengeance
That drove you to it, and I fool enough
To fancy that she’d bring you home again.
’Twas you that egged him to it, for you know
That he is being driven to his death.
DECTORA.
That is not true, for he has promised me
An unimaginable happiness.
AIBRIC.
And if that happiness be more than dreams,
More than the froth, the feather, the dustwhirl,
The crazy nothing that I think it is,
It shall be in the country of the dead,
If there be such a country.
DECTORA.
No, not there,
But in some island where the life of the world
Leaps upward, as if all the streams o’ the world
Had run into one fountain.
AIBRIC.
Speak to him.
He knows that he is taking you to death;
Speak—he will not deny it.
DECTORA.
Is that true?
FORGAEL.
I do not know for certain, but I know
That I have the best of pilots.
AIBRIC.
Shadows, illusions,
That the shape-changers, the ever-laughing ones,
The immortal mockers have cast into his mind,
Or called before his eyes.
DECTORA.
O carry me
To some sure country, some familiar place.
Have we not everything that life can give
FORGAEL.
How could I rest
If I refused the messengers and pilots
With all those sights and all that crying out?
DECTORA.
But I will cover up your eyes and ears,
That you may never hear the cry of the birds,
Or look upon them.
FORGAEL.
Were they but lowlier
I’d do your will, but they are too high—too high.
DECTORA.
Being too high, their heady prophecies
But harry us with hopes that come to nothing,
Because we are not proud, imperishable,
Alone and winged.
FORGAEL.
Our love shall be like theirs
When we have put their changeless image on.
DECTORA.
I am a woman, I die at every breath.
AIBRIC.
Let the birds scatter for the tree is broken.
And there’s no help in words. [To the SAILORS.] To the other ship,
And I will follow you and cut the rope
When I have said farewell to this man here,
For neither I nor any living man
Will look upon his face again.
[The SAILORS go out.
FORGAEL [to DECTORA]
Go with him,
For he will shelter you and bring you home.
AIBRIC.
[Taking FORGAEL’S hand.]
I’ll do it for his sake.
DECTORA.
No. Take this sword
And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.
AIBRIC.
[Half-falling into the keen.]
The yew bough has been broken into two,
And all the birds are scattered—O! O! O!
Farewell! farewell!
DECTORA.
The sword is in the rope—
The rope’s in two—it falls into the sea,
It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away,
And I am left alone with my beloved,
Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.
The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
Shall be alone for ever. We two—this crown—
I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
O flower of the branch, O bird among the leaves,
O silver fish that my two hands have taken
Out of the running stream, O morning star,
Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
Upon the misty border of the wood,
Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
For we will gaze upon this world no longer.
[The scene darkens, and the harp once more begins to burn as with a faint fire. FORGAEL is kneeling at DECTORA’S feet.
FORGAEL.
[Gathering DECTORA’S hair about him.]
Beloved, having dragged the net about us,
And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;
And that old harp awakens of itself
To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,
That have had dreams for father, live in us.
APPENDIX I
ACTING VERSION OF
THE SHADOWY WATERS
- FORGAEL
- AIBRIC
- SAILORS
- DECTORA
The scene is the same as in the text except that the sail is dull copper colour. The poop rises several feet above the stage, and from the overhanging stern hangs a lanthorn with a greenish light. The sea or sky is represented by a semi-circular cloth of which nothing can be seen except a dark abyss, for the stage is lighted by arc-lights so placed upon a bridge over the proscenium as to throw a perpendicular light upon the stage. The light is dim, and there are deep shadows which waver as if with the passage of clouds over the moon. The persons are dressed in blue and green, and move but little. Some sailors are discovered crouching by the sail. Forgael is asleep and Aibric standing by the tiller on the raised poop.
First Sailor. It is long enough, and too long, Forgael has been bringing us through the waste places of the great sea.
Second Sailor. We did not meet with a ship to make a prey of these eight weeks, or any shore or island to plunder or to harry. It is a hard thing, age to be coming on me, and I not to get the chance of doing a robbery that would enable me to live quiet and honest to the end of my lifetime.
First Sailor. We are out since the new moon. What is worse again, it is the way we are in a ship, the barrels empty and my throat shrivelled with drought, and nothing to quench it but water only.
Forgael [in his sleep]. Yes; there, there; that hair that is the colour of burning.
First Sailor. Listen to him now, calling out in his sleep.
Forgael [in his sleep]. That pale forehead, that hair the colour of burning.
First Sailor. Some crazy dream he is in, and believe me it is no crazier than the thought he has waking. He is not the first that has had the wits drawn out from him through shadows and fantasies.
Second Sailor. That is what ails him. I have been thinking it this good while.
First Sailor. Do you remember that galley we sank at the time of the full moon?
Second Sailor. I do. We were becalmed the same night, and he sat up there playing that old harp of his until the moon had set.
First Sailor. I was sleeping up there by the bulwark, and when I woke in the sound of the harp a change came over my eyes, and I could see very strange things. The dead were floating upon the sea yet, and it seemed as if the life that went out of every one of them had turned to the shape of a man-headed bird—grey they were, and they rose up of a sudden and called out with voices like our own, and flew away singing to the west. Words like this they were singing: ‘Happiness beyond measure, happiness where the sun dies.’
Second Sailor. I understand well what they are doing. My mother used to be talking of birds of the sort. They are sent by the lasting watchers to lead men away from this world and its women to some place of shining women that cast no shadow, having lived before the making of the earth. But I have no mind to go following him to that place.
First Sailor. Let us creep up to him and kill him in his sleep.
Second Sailor. I would have made an end of him long ago, but that I was in dread of his harp. It is said that when he plays upon it he has power over all the listeners, with or without the body, seen or unseen, and any man that listens grows to be as mad as himself.
First Sailor. What way can he play it, being in his sleep?
Second Sailor. But who would be our captain then to make out a course from the Bear and the Pole-star, and to bring us back home?
First Sailor. I have that thought out. We must have Aibric with us. He knows the constellations as well as Forgael. He is a good hand with the sword. Join with us; be our captain, Aibric. We are agreed to put an end to Forgael, before he wakes. There is no man but will be glad of it when it is done. Join with us, and you will have the captain’s share and profit.
Aibric. Silence! for you have taken Forgael’s pay.
First Sailor. Little pay we have had this twelvemonth. We would never have turned against him if he had brought us, as he promised, into seas that would be thick with ships. That was the bargain. What is the use of knocking about and fighting as we do unless we get the chance to drink more wine and kiss more women than lasting peaceable men through their long lifetime? You will be as good a leader as ever he was himself, if you will but join us.
Aibric. And do you think that I will join myself
To men like you, and murder him who has been
My master from my earliest childhood up?
No! nor to a world of men like you
When Forgael’s in the other scale. Come! come!
I’ll answer to more purpose when you have drawn
That sword out of its scabbard.
First Sailor. You have awaked him. We had best go, for we have missed this chance.
Forgael. Have the birds passed us? I could hear your voice.
But there were others.
Aibric.I have seen nothing pass.
Forgael. You are certain of it? I never wake from sleep
But that I am afraid they may have passed;
For they’re my only pilots. I have not seen them
For many days, and yet there must be many
Dying at every moment in the world.
Aibric. They have all but driven you crazy, and already
The sailors have been plotting for your death,
And all the birds have cried into your ears
Has lured you on to death.
Forgael.No; but they promised—
Aibric. I know their promises. You have told me all.
They are to bring you to unheard-of passion,
To some strange love the world knows nothing of,
Some ever-living woman as you think,
One that can cast no shadow, being unearthly.
But that’s all folly. Turn the ship about,
Sail home again, be some fair woman’s friend;
Be satisfied to live like other men,
And drive impossible dreams away. The world
Has beautiful women to please every man.
Forgael. But he that gets their love after the fashion
Loves in brief longing and deceiving hope
And bodily tenderness, and finds that even
The bed of love, that in the imagination
Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
Is no more than a wine cup in the tasting,
And as soon finished.
Aibric. All that ever loved
Have loved that way—there is no other way.
Forgael. Yet never have two lovers kissed but they
Believed there was some other near at hand,
And almost wept because they could not find it.
Aibric. When they have twenty years; in middle life
They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,
And let the dream go by.
Forgael. It’s not a dream,
But the reality that makes our passion
As a lamp shadow—no—no lamp, the sun.
What the world’s million lips are thirsting for,
Must be substantial somewhere.
Aibric. I have heard the Druids
Mutter such things as they awake from trance.
It may be that the dead have lit upon it,
Or those that never lived; no mortal can.
Forgael. I only of all living men shall find it.
Aibric. Then seek it in the habitable world,
Or leap into that sea and end a journey
Forgael. I cannot answer.
I can see nothing plain; all’s mystery.
Yet, sometimes there’s a torch inside my head
That makes all clear, but when the light is gone
I have but images, analogies,
The mystic bread, the sacramental wine,
The red rose where the two shafts of the cross,
Body and soul, waking and sleep, death, life,
Whatever meaning ancient allegorists
Have settled on, are mixed into one joy.
For what’s the rose but that? miraculous cries,
Old stories about mystic marriages,
Impossible truths? But when the torch is lit
All that is impossible is certain,
I plunge in the abyss.
[Sailors come in.]
First Sailor. Look there! There in the mist! A ship of spices.
Second Sailor. We would not have noticed her but for the sweet smell through the air. Ambergris and sandalwood, and all the herbs the witches bring from the sunrise.
First Sailor. No; but opoponax and cinnamon.
Forgael [taking the tiller from AIBRIC]. The ever-living have kept my bargain; they have paid you on the nail.
Aibric. Take up that rope to make her fast while we are plundering her.
First Sailor. There is a king on her deck, and a queen. Where there is one woman it is certain there will be others.
Aibric. Speak lower or they’ll hear.
First Sailor. They cannot hear; they are too much taken up with one another. Look! he has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.
Second Sailor. When she finds out we have as good men aboard she may not be too sorry in the end.
First Sailor. She will be as dangerous as a wild cat. These queens think more of the riches and the great name they get by marriage than of a ready hand and a strong body.
Second Sailor. There is nobody is natural but a robber. That is the reason the whole world goes tottering about upon its bandy legs.
Aibric. Run upon them now, and overpower the crew while yet asleep.
[Sailors and AIBRIC go out. The clashing of swords and confused voices are heard from the other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail.
Forgael [who has remained at the tiller]. There! there! They come! Gull, gannet, or diver,
But with a man’s head, or a fair woman’s.
They hover over the masthead awhile
To wait their friends, but when their friends have come
They’ll fly upon that secret way of theirs,
One—and one—a couple—five together.
And now they all wheel suddenly and fly
To the other side, and higher in the air,
They’ve gone up thither, friend’s run up by friend;
They’ve gone to their beloved ones in the air,
In the waste of the high air, that they may wander
Among the windy meadows of the dawn.
But why are they still waiting? Why are they
Circling and circling over the masthead?
Ah! now they all look down—they’ll speak of me
What the ever-living put into their minds,
And of that shadowless unearthly woman
At the world’s end. I hear the message now.
But it’s all mystery. There’s one that cries,
‘From love and hate.’ Before the sentence ends
Another breaks upon it with a cry,
‘From love and death and out of sleep and waking.’
And with the cry another cry is mixed,
‘What can we do, being shadows?’ All mystery,
And I am drunken with a dizzy light.
But why do they still hover overhead?
Why are you circling there? Why do you linger?
Why do you not run to your desire?
Now that you have happy winged bodies.
Being too busy in the air, and the high air,
They cannot hear my voice. But why that circling?
[The Sailors have returned, DECTORA is with them. She is dressed in pale green, with copper ornaments on her dress, and has a copper crown upon her head. Her hair is dull red.
Forgael [turning and seeing her]. Why are you standing with your eyes upon me?
You are not the world’s core. O no, no, no!
That cannot be the meaning of the birds.
You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,
But have not bitten yet.
Dectora. I am a queen,
And ask for satisfaction upon these
Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.
Forgael. I’d set my hopes on one that had no shadow,—
Where do you come from? who brought you to this place?
Why do you cast a shadow? Answer me that.
Dectora. Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,
And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations,
And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,
Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive,
I ask a fitting punishment for all
That raised their hands against him.
Forgael. There are some
That weigh and measure all in these waste seas—
They that have all the wisdom that’s in life,
And all that prophesying images
Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs;
They have it that the plans of kings and queens
Are dust on the moth’s wing; that nothing matters
But laughter and tears—laughter, laughter, and tears—
That every man should carry his own soul
Upon his shoulders.
Dectora. You’ve nothing but wild words,
And I would know if you would give me vengeance.
Forgael. When she finds out that I’ll not let her go—
When she knows that.
Dectora. What is it that you are muttering—
That you’ll not let me go? I am a queen.
Forgael. Although you are more beautiful than any,
I almost long that it were possible;
But if I were to put you on that ship,
With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge,
It had washed among the stars and put them out,
And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
Until you stood before me on the deck—
As now.
Dectora. Does wandering in these desolate seas
And listening to the cry of wind and wave
Bring madness?
Forgael.Queen, I am not mad.
Dectora. And yet you say the water and the wind
Would rise against me.
Forgael.No, I am not mad—
If it be not that hearing messages
From lasting watchers that outlive the moon
At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.
Dectora. And did those watchers bid you take me captive?
Forgael. Both you and I are taken in the net.
It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
And blew you hither; and their mouths have promised
I shall have love in their immortal fashion.
They gave me that old harp of the nine spells
That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
That none might take you from me.
Dectora [first trembling back from the mast where the harp is, and then laughing]. For a moment
Your raving of a message and a harp
More mighty than the stars half troubled me.
But all that’s raving. Who is there can compel
The daughter and grand-daughter of a king
To be his bedfellow?
Forgael.Until your lips
Have called me their beloved, I’ll not kiss them.
Dectora. My husband and my king died at my feet,
And yet you talk of love.
Forgael.The movement of time
Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
One moment has no might upon the moment
That follows after.
Dectora.I understand you now.
You have a Druid craft of wicked sound.
Wrung from the cold women of the sea—
A magic that can call a demon up,
Until my body give you kiss for kiss.
Forgael. Your soul shall give the kiss.
Dectora.I am not afraid,
While there’s a rope to run into a noose
Or wave to drown. But I have done with words,
And I would have you look into my face
And know that it is fearless.
Forgael. Do what you will,
For neither I nor you can break a mesh
Of the great golden net that is about us.
Dectora. There’s nothing in the world that’s worth a fear.
[She passes FORGAEL and stands for a moment looking into his face.]
I have good reason for that thought.
[She runs suddenly on to the raised part of the poop.]
And now
I can put fear away as a queen should.
[She mounts on the bulwark and turns towards FORGAEL.]
Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face
You did not see my purpose. I shall have gone
Before a hand can touch me.
Forgael [folding his arms]. My hands are still;
The ever-living hold us. Do what you will,
You cannot leap out of the golden net.
First Sailor. There is no need for you to drown. Give us our pardon and we will bring you home on your own ship, and make an end of this man that is leading us to death.
Dectora. I promise it.
Aibric. I am on his side.
I’d strike a blow for him to give him time
To cast his dreams away.
First Sailor. He has put a sudden darkness over the moon.
Dectora. Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn
To him that strikes him first.
First Sailor. I will strike him first. No! for that music of his might put a beast’s head upon my shoulders, or it may be two heads and they devouring one another.
Dectora. I’ll give a golden galley full of fruit
That has the heady flavour of new wine
To him that wounds him to the death.
First Sailor. I’ll strike at him. His spells, when he dies, will die with him and vanish away.
Second Sailor. I’ll strike at him.
The Others. And I! And I! And I!
[FORGAEL plays upon the harp.]
First Sailor [falling into a dream]. It is what they are saying, there is some person dead in the other ship; we have to go and wake him. They did not say what way he came to his end, but it was sudden.
Second Sailor. You are right, you are right. We have to go to that wake.
Dectora. He has flung a Druid spell upon the air,
And set you dreaming.
Second Sailor. What way can we raise a keen, not knowing what name to call him by?
First Sailor. Come on to his ship. His name will come to mind in a moment. All I know is he died a thousand years ago, and was never yet waked.
Second Sailor. How can we wake him having no ale?
First Sailor. I saw a skin of ale aboard her—a pigskin of brown ale.
Third Sailor. Come to the ale, a pigskin of brown ale, a goatskin of yellow.
First Sailor [singing]. Brown ale and yellow; yellow and brown ale; a goatskin of yellow.
All [singing]. Brown ale and yellow; yellow and brown ale!
[Sailors go out.
Dectora. Protect me now, gods, that my people swear by!
[AIBRIC has risen from the ground where he had fallen. He has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream.
Aibric. Where is my sword that fell out of my hand
When I first heard the news? Ah, there it is!
[He goes dreamily towards the sword, but DECTORA runs at it and takes it up before he can reach it.
Aibric [sleepily]. Queen, give it me.
Dectora. No, I have need of it.
Aibric. Why do you need a sword? But you may keep it,
Now that he’s dead I have no need of it,
For everything is gone.
A Sailor [calling from the other ship]. Come hither, Aibric,
And tell me who it is that we are waking.
Aibric [half to DECTORA, half to himself]. What name had that dead king? Arthur of Britain?
No, no—not Arthur. I remember now.
It was golden-armed Iollan, and he died
Brokenhearted, having lost his queen
Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale,
For he was killed. O! O! O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan has been killed.
[He goes out. While he has been speaking, and through part of what follows, one hears the singing of the SAILORS from the other ship. DECTORA stands with the sword lifted in front of FORGAEL. He changes the tune.
Dectora. I will end all your magic on the instant.
[Her voice becomes dreamy, and she lowers the sword slowly, and finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair. She takes off her crown and lays it upon the deck.
The sword is to lie beside him in the grave.
It was in all his battles. I will spread my hair,
And wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,
For I have heard that he was proud and laughing,
Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,
And that he died a thousand years ago.
O! O! O!
[FORGAEL changes the tune.]
But no, that is not it.
I knew him well, and while I heard him laughing
They killed him at my feet. O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan that I loved.
But what is it that made me say I loved him?
It was that harper put it in my thoughts,
But it is true. Why did they run upon him,
And beat the golden helmet with their swords?
Forgael. Do you not know me, lady? I am he
Dectora. No, for he is dead.
O! O! O! for golden-armed Iollan.
Forgael. It was so given out, but I will prove
That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy
Have buried nothing but my golden arms.
Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
And you will recollect my face and voice,
For you have listened to me playing it
These thousand years.
[He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks behind him.
What are the birds at there?
Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
What are you calling out above the mast?
If railing and reproach and mockery
Because I have awakened her to love
By magic strings, I’ll make this answer to it:
Being driven on by voices and by dreams
That were clear messages from the ever-living,
I have done right. What could I but obey?
And yet you make a clamour of reproach.
Dectora [laughing]. Why, it’s a wonder out of reckoning
That I should keen him from the full of the moon
To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.
Forgael. How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
You know the councils of the ever-living,
And all the tossing of your wings is joy,
And all that murmuring’s but a marriage song;
But if it be reproach, I answer this:
There is not one among you that made love
By any other means. You call it passion,
Consideration, generosity;
But it was all deceit, and flattery
To win a woman in her own despite,
For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
And if you say that she came willingly—
Dectora. Why do you turn away and hide your face,
That I would look upon for ever?
Forgael.My grief.
Dectora. Have I not loved you for a thousand years?
Forgael. I never have been golden-armed Iollan.
Dectora. I do not understand. I know your face
Better than my own hands.
Forgael.I have deceived you
Out of all reckoning.
Dectora.Is it not true
That you were born a thousand years ago,
In islands where the children of Aengus wind
In happy dances under a windy moon,
And that you’ll bring me there?
Forgael.I have deceived you;
I have deceived you utterly.
Dectora.How can that be?
Is it that though your eyes are full of love
Some other woman has a claim on you,
And I’ve but half?
Forgael. Oh, no!
Dectora. And if there is,
If there be half a hundred more, what matter?
I’ll never give another thought to it;
No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.
Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted,
Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;
And that is why their lovers are afraid
To tell them a plain story.
Forgael. That’s not the story;
But I have done so great a wrong against you,
There is no measure that it would not burst.
I will confess it all.
Dectora.What do I care,
Now that my body has begun to dream,
And you have grown to be a burning coal
In the imagination and intellect?
If something that’s most fabulous were true—
If you had taken me by magic spells,
And killed a lover or husband at my feet—
I would not let you speak, for I would know
That it was yesterday and not to-day
I loved him; I would cover up my ears,
As I am doing now. [A pause.] Why do you weep?
Forgael. I weep because I’ve nothing for your eyes
But desolate waters and a battered ship.
Dectora. O, why do you not lift your eyes to mine?
Forgael. I weep—I weep because bare night’s above,
And not a roof of ivory and gold.
Dectora. I would grow jealous of the ivory roof,
And strike the golden pillars with my hands.
I would that there was nothing in the world
But my beloved—that night and day had perished,
And all that is and all that is to be,
All that is not the meeting of our lips.
Forgael. Why do you turn your eyes upon bare night?
Am I to fear the waves, or is the moon
My enemy?
Dectora. I looked upon the moon,
Longing to knead and pull it into shape
That I might lay it on your head as a crown.
But now it is your thoughts that wander away,
For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
How great a wrong it is to let one’s thought
Wander a moment when one is in love?
[He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out over the sea, shading his eyes.
Dectora. Why are you looking at the sea?
Forgael. Look there!
There where the cloud creeps up upon the moon.
Dectora. What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds
That fly into the west?
[The scene darkens, but there is a ray of light upon the figures.
Forgael.But listen, listen!
Dectora. What is there but the crying of the birds?
Forgael. If you’ll but listen closely to that crying
You’ll hear them calling out to one another
With human voices.
Dectora.Clouds have hid the moon.
The birds cry out, what can I do but tremble?
Forgael. They have been circling over our heads in the air,
But now that they have taken to the road
We have to follow, for they are our pilots;
They’re crying out. Can you not hear their cry—
‘There is a country at the end of the world
Where no child’s born but to outlive the moon.’
[The Sailors come in with AIBRIC. They carry torches.]
Aibric. We have lit upon a treasure that’s so great
The hold is full—boxes of precious spice,
Ivory images with amethyst eyes,
Dragons with eyes of ruby. The whole ship
Flashes as if it were a net of herrings.
Let us return to our own country, Forgael,
And spend it there. Have you not found this queen?
What more have you to look for on the seas?
Forgael. I cannot—I am going on to the end.
As for this woman, I think she is coming with me.
Aibric. Speak to him, lady, and bid him turn the ship.
He knows that he is taking you to death;
He cannot contradict me.
Dectora.Is that true?
Forgael. I do not know for certain.
Dectora.Carry me
To some sure country, some familiar place.
Have we not everything that life can give
In having one another?
Forgael. How could I rest
If I refused the messengers and pilots
With all those sights and all that crying out?
Dectora. I am a woman, I die at every breath.
Aibric [to the Sailors]. To the other ship, for there’s no help in words,
And I will follow you and cut the rope
When I have said farewell to this man here,
For neither I nor any living man
Will look upon his face again.
[Sailors go out, leaving one torch perhaps in a torch-holder on the bulwark.
Forgael [to DECTORA].Go with him,
For he will shelter you and bring you home.
Aibric [taking FORGAEL’S hand]. I’ll do it for his sake.
Dectora.No. Take this sword
And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.
Aibric. Farewell! Farewell!
[He goes out. The light grows stronger.
Dectora.The sword is in the rope—
The rope’s in two—it falls into the sea,
It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away,
And I am left alone with my beloved,
Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.
The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
Shall be alone for ever. We two—this crown—
I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
O flower of the branch, O bird among the leaves,
O silver fish that my two hands have taken
Out of the running stream, O morning star,
Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
Upon the misty border of the wood,
Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
For we will gaze upon this world no longer.
[The harp begins to burn as with fire.]
Forgael [gathering DECTORA’S hair about him]. Beloved, having dragged the net about us,
And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;
And that old harp awakens of itself
To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,
That have had dreams for father, live in us.
APPENDIX II.
A different Version of Deirdre’s Entrance.
After the first performance of this play in the autumn of 1906, I rewrote the play up to the opening of the scene where Naisi and Deirdre play chess. The new version was played in the spring of 1907, and after that I rewrote from the entrance of Deirdre to her questioning the musicians, but felt, though despairing of setting it right, that it was still mere bones, mere dramatic logic. The principal difficulty with the form of dramatic structure I have adopted is that, unlike the loose Elizabethan form, it continually forces one by its rigour of logic away from one’s capacities, experiences, and desires, until, if one have not patience to wait for the mood, or to rewrite again and again till it comes, there is rhetoric and logic and dry circumstance where there should be life. After the version printed in the text of this book had gone to press, Mrs. Patrick Campbell came to our Abbey Theatre and, liking what she saw there, offered to come and play Deirdre among us next November, and this so stirred my imagination that the scene came right in a moment. It needs some changes in the stage directions at the beginning of the play. There is no longer need for loaf and flagon, but the women at the braziers should when the curtain rises be arraying themselves—the one holding a mirror for the other perhaps. The play then goes on unchanged till the entrance of Deirdre, when the following scene is substituted for that on pages 139-140. (Bodb is pronounced Bove.)
DEIRDRE, NAISI and FERGUS enter. DEIRDRE is carrying a little embroidered bag. She goes over towards the women.
DEIRDRE.
Silence your music, though I thank you for it;
But the wind’s blown upon my hair, and I
Must set the jewels on my neck and head
NAISI.
Your colour has all gone
As ’twere with fear, and there’s no cause for that.
DEIRDRE.
These women have the raddle that they use
To make them brave and confident, although
Dread, toil or cold may chill the blood o’ their cheeks.
You’ll help me, women. It is my husband’s will
I show my trust in one that may be here
Before the mind can call the colour up.
My husband took these rubies from a king
Of Surracha that was so murderous
He seemed all glittering dragon. Now wearing them
Myself wars on myself, for I myself—
That do my husband’s will, yet fear to do it—
Grow dragonish to myself.
[The Women have gathered about her. NAISI has stood looking at her, but FERGUS leads him to the chess-table.
FERGUS.
We’ll play at chess
Till the king come. It is but natural
That she should fear him, for her house has been
The hole of the badger and the den of the fox.
NAISI.
If I were childish and had faith in omens
I’d rather not have lit on that old chessboard
At my homecoming.
FERGUS.
There’s a tale about it,—
It has been lying there these many years,—
Some wild old sorrowful tale.
NAISI.
It is the board
Where Lugaidh Redstripe and that wife of his
Who had a seamew’s body half the year
Played at the chess upon the night they died.
FERGUS.
I can remember now: a tale of treachery,
A broken promise and a journey’s end.
But it were best forgot.
[DEIRDRE has been standing with the women about her. They have been helping her to put on her jewels and to put the pigment on her cheeks and arrange her hair. She has gradually grown attentive to what FERGUS is saying.
NAISI.
If the tale’s true,—
When it was plain that they had been betrayed,
They moved the men and waited for the end
As it were bedtime, and had so quiet minds
They hardly winked their eyes when the sword flashed.
FERGUS.
She never could have played so, being a woman,
If she had not the cold sea’s blood in her.
DEIRDRE.
I have heard the ever-living warn mankind
By changing clouds and casual accidents
Or what seem so.
NAISI.
Stood th’ ever-living there,
Old Lir and Aengus from his glassy tower,
And that hill-haunting Bodb to warn us hence,—
Our honour is so knitted up with staying,
King Conchubar’s word and Fergus’ word being pledged,
I’d brave them out and stay.
DEIRDRE.
No welcomer,
And a bare house upon the journey’s end!
Is that the way a king that means no wrong
Honours a guest?
FERGUS.
He is but making ready
A welcome in his house, arranging where
The moorhen and the mallard go, and where
The speckled heath-cock in a golden dish.
DEIRDRE.
Has he no messenger—
[Etc., etc.]
The play then goes on unchanged, except that on page 151, instead of the short speech of Deirdre, beginning ‘Safety and peace,’ one should read
‘Safety and peace!
I had them when a child, but from that hour
I have found life obscure and violent,
And think that I shall find it so for ever.’
APPENDIX III.
The Legendary and Mythological Foundation of the Plays.
The greater number of the stories I have used, and persons I have spoken of, are in Lady Gregory’s Gods and Fighting Men and Cuchulain of Muirthemne. If my small Dublin audience for poetical drama grows to any size, whether now or at some future time, I shall owe it to these two books, masterpieces of prose, which can but make the old stories as familiar to Irishmen at any rate as are the stories of Arthur and his Knights to all readers of books. I cannot believe that it is from friendship that I weigh these books with Malory, and feel no discontent at the tally, or that it is the wish to make the substantial origin of my own art familiar, that would make me give them before all other books to young men and girls in Ireland. I wrote for the most part before they were written, but all, or all but all, is there. I took the Aengus and Edain of The Shadowy Waters from poor translations of the various Aengus stories, which, new translated by Lady Gregory, make up so much of what is most beautiful in both her books. They had, however, so completely become a part of my own thought that in 1897, when I was still working on an early version of The Shadowy Waters, I saw one night with my bodily eyes, as it seemed, two beautiful persons, who would, I believe, have answered to their names. The plot of the play itself has, however, no definite old story for its foundation, but was woven to a very great extent out of certain visionary experiences.
The foundations of Deirdre and of On Baile’s Strand are stories called respectively the ‘Fate of the Sons of Usnach’ and ‘The Son of Aoife’ in Cuchulain of Muirthemne.
The King’s Threshold is, however, founded upon a middle-Irish story of the demands of the poets at the Court of King Guaire of Gort, but I have twisted it about and revised its moral that the poet might have the best of it. It owes something to a play on the same subject by my old friend Edwin Ellis, who heard the story from me and wrote of it long ago.
APPENDIX IV.
The Dates and Places of Performance of Plays.
The King’s Threshold was first played October 7th, 1903, in the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theatre Society, and with the following cast:
| Seanchan | Frank Fay |
| King Guaire | P. Kelly |
| Lord High Chamberlain | Seumus O’Sullivan |
| Soldier | William Conroy |
| Monk | S. Sheridan-Neill |
| Mayor | William Fay |
| A Cripple | Patrick Colum |
| A Court Lady | Honor Lavelle |
| Another Court Lady | Dora Melville |
| A Princess | Sara Algood |
| Another Princess | Dora Gunning |
| Fedelm | Maire ni Shiubhlaigh |
| A Servant | P. MacShiubhlaigh |
| Another Servant | P. Josephs |
| A Pupil | G. Roberts |
| Another Pupil | Cartia MacCormac |
It has been revised a good many times since then, and although the play has not been changed in the radical structure, the parts of the Mayor, Servant, and Cripple are altogether new, and the rest is altered here and there. It was written when our Society was beginning its fight for the recognition of pure art in a community of which one half is buried in the practical affairs of life, and the other half in politics and a propagandist patriotism.
On Baile’s Strand was first played, in a version considerably different from the present, on December 27th, 1904, at the opening of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and with the following cast:
| Cuchulain | Frank Fay |
| Conchubar | George Roberts |
| Daire (an old King not now in the play) | G. MacDonald |
| The Blind Man | Seumus O’Sullivan |
| The Fool | William Fay |
| The Young Man | P. MacShiubhlaigh |
The old and young kings were played by the following: R. Nash, A. Power, U. Wright, E. Keegan, Emma Vernon, Dora Gunning, Sara Algood. It was necessary to put women into men’s parts owing to the smallness of our company at that time.
The play was revived by the National Theatre Society, Ltd., in a somewhat altered version at Oxford, Cambridge, and London a few months later. I then entirely rewrote it up to the entrance of the Young Man, and changed it a good deal from that on to the end, and this new version was played at the Abbey Theatre for the first time in April, 1906.
The first version of The Shadowy Waters was first performed on January 14th, 1904, in the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, with the following players in the principal parts:
| Forgael | Frank Fay |
| Aibric | Seumus O’Sullivan |
| Dectora | Maire ni Shiubhlaigh |
Its production was an accident, for in the first instance I had given it to the company that they might have some practice in the speaking of my sort of blank verse until I had a better play finished. It played badly enough from the point of view of any ordinary playgoer, but pleased many of my friends; and as I had been in America when it was played, I got it played again privately, and gave it to Miss Farr for a Theosophical Convention, that I might discover how to make a better play of it. I then completely rewrote it in the form that it has in the text of this book, but this version had once again to be condensed and altered for its production in Dublin, 1906. Mr. Sinclair took the part of Aibric, and Miss Darragh that of Dectora, while Mr. Frank Fay was Forgael as before. It owed a considerable portion of what success it met with both in its new and old form to a successful colour scheme and to dreamy movements and intonations on the part of the players. The scenery for its performance in 1906 was designed by Mr. Robert Gregory.
Deirdre was first played at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on November 27th, 1906, with Miss Darragh as Deirdre, Mr. Frank Fay as Naisi, Mr. Sinclair as Fergus, Mr. Kerrigan as Conchubar, and Miss Sara Algood, Miss McNeill, and Miss O’Dempsey as the Musicians. The scenery was by Mr. Robert Gregory.
Printed by A. H. Bullen, at The Shakespeare Head Press,
Stratford-on-Avon.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 242, “shouders” changed to “shoulders” (shoulders, or it may)
Page 254, “anyrate” changed to “any rate” (Irishmen at any rate)