By LADY GREGORY
Drama
SEVEN SHORT PLAYS.
FOLK-HISTORY PLAYS. 2 VOLS.
NEW COMEDIES.
THE GOLDEN APPLE.
THE DRAGON.
OUR IRISH THEATRE. A CHAPTER OF
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
THE KILTARTAN MOLIERE.
THE IMAGE AND OTHER PLAYS.
THREE WONDER PLAYS.
Irish Folk-Lore and Legend
VISIONS AND BELIEFS. 2 VOLS.
CUCHULAIN OF MURITHEMNE.
GODS AND FIGHTING MEN.
SAINTS AND WONDERS.
POETS AND DREAMERS.
THE KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK.
THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK.
HUGH LANE'S LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENT,
WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE DUBLIN
GALLERIES.
Three Wonder Plays
By
Lady Gregory
G.P. Putnam's Sons London & New York
Note
These plays have been copyrighted in the United States and Great Britain.
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages.
All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. Performances are forbidden and right of presentation is reserved.
Application for the right of performing these plays or reading them in public should be made to Samuel French, 26, Southampton Street, Strand, London, W.C.2.
Made in Great Britain by
THE BOTOLPH PRINTING WORKS
GATE STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2
CONTENTS
THE DRAGON
ACT I
PERSONS
The King
The Queen.
The Princess Nuala.
The Dall Glic (THE BLIND WISE MAN).
The Nurse.
The Prince of the Marshes.
Manus, King of Sorcha.
Fintan, The Astrologer.
Taig.
Sibby (TAIG'S MOTHER).
Gatekeeper.
Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes.
Foreign Men Bringing in Food.
The Dragon.
ACT I
Scene: A room in the King's house at Burren.
Large window at back with deep window seat.
Doors right and left. A small table and some
chairs.
Dall Glic: (Coming in with tray, which he puts
on table. Goes back to door.) You can come in,
King. There is no one here.
King: (Coming in.) That's very good. I was
in dread the Queen might be in it.
Dall Glic: It is a good thought I had bringing
it in here, and she gone to give learning to the
Princess. She is not likely to come this side. It
would be a great pity to annoy her.
King: (Hastily swallowing a mouthful.) Look
out now the door and keep a good watch. The
time she will draw upon me is when I am eating
my little bite.
Dall Glic: I'll do that. What I wouldn't
see with my one eye, there's no other would see
with three.
King: A month to-day since I wed with her, and
well pleased I am to be back in my own place. I
give you word my teeth are rusting with the want
of meat. On the journey I got no fair play. She
wouldn't be willing to see me nourish myself,
unless maybe with the marrow bone of a wren.
Dall Glic: Sure she lays down she is but thinking
of the good of your health.
King: Maybe so. She is apt to be paying too
much attention to what will be for mine and for
the world's good. I kept my health fair enough,
and the first wife not begrudging me my enough.
I don't know what in the world led me not to stop
as I was.
Dall Glic: It is what you were saying, it was
for the good of the Princess Nuala, and of yourself.
King: That is what herself laid down. It
would be a great ease to my mind, she was saying,
to have in the house with the young girl, a far-off
cousin of the King of Alban, and that had been
conversation woman in his Court.
Dall Glic: So it might be too. She is a great
manager of people.
King: She is that ...I think I hear her
coming.... Throw a cloth over the plates.
Queen: (Coming in.) I was in search of you.
King: I thought you were in Nuala's sunny
parlour, learning her to play music and to go through
books.
Queen: That is what I thought to do. But I
hadn't hardly started to teach her the principles
of conversation and the branches of relationships
and kindred of the big people of the earth, when
she plucked off the coverings I had put over the
cages, and set open their doors, till the fiery birds
of Sabes and the canaries of the eastern world
were screeching around my head, giving out every
class of cry and call.
King: So they would too.
Queen: The royal eagles stirred up till I must
quit the place with their squawking, and the
enchanted swans raising up their heads and pecking
at the beadwork on my gown.
King: Ah, she has a wish for the birds of the air,
that are by nature light and airy the same as herself.
Queen: It is time for her to turn her mind
to good sense. What's that? (Whipping cloth
from tray.) Is it that you are eating again, and
it is but one half-hour since your breakfast?
King: Ah, that wasn't a breakfast you'd call
a breakfast.
Queen: Very healthy food, oaten meal flummery
with whey, and a griddle-cake; dandelion tea
and sorrel from the field.
King: My old fathers ate their enough of wild
herbs and the like in the early time of the world.
I'm thinking that it is in my nature to require a
good share of nourishment as if to make up for the
hardships they went through.
Queen: What now have you within that pastry
wall?
King: It is but a little leveret pie.
Queen: (Poking with fork.) Leveret! What's
this in it? The thickness of a blanket of beef;
calves' sweetbreads; cocks' combs; balls mixed
with livers and with spice. You to so much as
taste of it, you'll be crippled and crappled with
the gout, and roaring out in your pain.
King: I tell you my generations have enough
done of fasting and for making little of the juicy
meats of the world.
Queen: And the waste of it! Goose eggs and
jellies.... That much would furnish out a dinner
for the whole of the King of Alban's Court.
King: Ah, I wouldn't wish to be using anything
at all, only for to gather strength for to steer
the business of the whole of the kingdom!
Queen: Have you enough ate now, my dear?
Are you satisfied?
King: I am not. I would wish for a little taste
of that saffron cake having in it raisins of the sun.
Queen: Saffron! Are you raving? You to
have within you any of the four-and-twenty sicknesses
of the race, it would throw it out in red
blisters on your skin.
King: Let me just taste one little slab of that
venison ham.
Queen: (Poking with a fork.) It would take
seven chewings! Sudden death it would be!
Leave it alone now and rise up. To keep in health
every man should quit the table before he is satisfied
—there are some would walk to the door and back
with every bite.
King: Is it that I am to eat my meal standing,
the same as a crane in a shallow, or moving from
tuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet on the high
road?
Queen: Well, at the least, let you drink down
a share of this tansy juice. I was telling you it
would be answerable to your health.
King: You are doing entirely too much for me.
Queen: Sure I am here to be comfortable to
you. This house before I came into it was but
a ship without a rudder! Here now, take the
spoon in your hand.
Dall Glic: Leave it there, Queen, and I'll
engage he'll swallow it down bye-and-bye.
Queen: Is it that you are meddling, Dall Glic?
It is time some person took you in hand. I wonder
now could that dark eye of yours be cured?
Dall Glic: It is given in that it can not, by
doctors and by druids.
Queen: That is a pity now, it gives you a sort
of a one-sided look. It might not be so hard a
thing to put out the sight of the other.
Dall Glic: I'd sooner leave them the way they
are.
Queen: I'll put a knot on my handkerchief till
such time as I can give my mind to it.... Now,
my dear (to King), make no more delay. It is
right to drink it down after your meal. The
stomach to be bare empty, the medicine might
prey upon the body till it would be wore away
and consumed.
King: Time enough. Let it settle now for
a minute.
Queen: Here, now, I'll hold your nose the way
you will not get the taste of it.
(She holds spoon to his mouth. A ball flies
in at window; he starts and medicine
is spilled.)
Princess: (Coming in with Nurse.) Is it true
what they are telling me?
Queen: Do you see that you near hit the King
with your ball, and, what is worse again, you have
his medicine spilled from the spoon.
Princess: (Patting him.) Poor old King.
Queen: Have you your lessons learned?
Princess: (Throwing books in the air.) Neither
line nor letter of them! Poem book! Brehon
Laws! I have done with books! I am seventeen
years old to-day!
Queen: There is no one would think it and
you so flighty as you are.
Princess: (To King.) Is it true that the cook
is gone away?
King: (Aghast.) What's that you're saying?
Queen: Don't be annoying the King's mind
with such things. He should be hidden from every
trouble and care.
Princess: Was it you sent him away?
Queen: Not at all. If he went it was through
foolishness and pride.
Princess: It is said in the house that you annoyed
him.
Queen: I never annoyed any person in my life,
unless it might be for their own good. But it
fails some to recognise their best friend. Just
teaching him I was to pickle onion thinnings as it
was done at the King of Alban's Court.
Princess: Didn't he know that before?
Queen: Whether or no, he gave me very little
thanks, but turned around and asked his wages.
Hurrying him and harrying him he said I was,
and away with him, himself and his four-and-twenty
apprentices.
King: That is bad news, and pitiful news.
Queen: Do not be troubling yourself at all. It
will be easy find another.
King: It might not be easy to find so good a
one. A great pity! A dinner or a supper not
to be rightly dressed is apt to give no pleasure in
the eating or in the bye-and-bye.
Queen: I have taken it in hand. I have a good
headpiece. I put out a call with running lads
and with the army captains through the whole
of the five provinces; and along with that, I have
it put up on tablets at the post office.
Princess: I am sorry the old one to be gone.
To remember him is nearly the farthest spot in
my memory.
Queen: (Sharply.) If you want the house to
be under your hand only, it is best for you to settle
into one of your own.
Princess: Give me the little rush cabin by the
stream and I'll be content.
Queen: If you mind yourself and profit by
my instruction it is maybe not a cabin you will
be moving to but a palace.
Princess: I'm tired of palaces. There are too
many people in them.
Queen: That is talking folly. When you settle
yourself it must be in the station where you were
born.
Princess: I have no mind to settle myself yet
awhile.
Nurse: Ah, you will not be saying that the
time Mr. Right will come down the chimney,
and will give you the marks and tokens of a king.
Queen: There might have some come looking
for her before this, if it was not for you petting
and pampering her the way you do, and encouraging
her flightiness and follies. It is likely she will get
no offers till such time as I will have taught her
the manners and the right customs of courts.
Nurse: Sure I am acquainted with courts myself.
Wasn't it I fostered comely Manus that is presently
King of Sorcha, since his father went out of the
world? And as to lovers coming to look for her!
They do be coming up to this as plenty as the eye
could hold them, and she refusing them, and they
laying the blame upon the King!
King: That is so, they laying the blame upon
myself. There was the uncle of the King of
Leinster; he never sent me another car-load of
asparagus from the time you banished him away.
Princess: He was a widower man.
King: As to the heir of Orkney, since the time
you sent him to the right about, I never got so
much as a conger eel from his hand.
Princess: As dull as a fish he was. He had a
fish's eyes.
King: That wasn't so with the champion of
the merings of Ulster.
Princess: A freckled man. He had hair the
colour of a fox.
King: I wish he didn't stop sending me his
tribute of heather beer.
Queen: It is a poor daughter that will not
wish to be helpful to her father.
Princess: If I am to wed for the furnishing
of my father's table, it's as good for you to wrap
me in a speckled fawnskin and roast me!
(Runs out, tossing her ball.)
Queen: She is no way fit for marriage unless
with a herd to the birds of the air, till she has a
couple of years schooling.
King: It would be hard to put her back to
that.
Queen: I must take it in hand. She is getting
entirely too much of her own way.
Nurse: Leave her alone, and in the end it will
be a good way.
Queen: To keep rules and hours she must learn,
and to give in to order and good sense. (To King.)
There is a pigeon messenger I brought from Alban
I am about to let loose on this day with news of
myself and of yourself. I will send with it a message
to a friend I have, bidding her to make ready for
Nuala a place in her garden of learning and her
school.
King: That is going too fast. There is no
hurry.
Queen: She is seventeen years. There is no
day to be lost. I will go write the letter.
Nurse: Oh, you wouldn't send away the poor
child!
Dall Glic: It would be a great hardship to
send her so far. Our poor little Princess Nu!
Queen: (Sharply.) What are saying? (Dall
Glic is silent.)
King: I would not wish her to be sent out
of this.
Queen: There is no other way to set her mind
to sense and learning. It will be for her own
good.
Nurse: Where's the use troubling her with
lessons and with books that maybe she will never
be in need of at all. Speak up for her, King.
King: Let her stop for this year as she is.
Queen: You are all too soft and too easy. She
will turn on you and will blame you for it, and
another year or two years slipped by.
Nurse: That she may!
Dall Glic: Who knows what might take place
within the twelvemonth that is coming?
King: Ah, don't be talking about it. Maybe
it never might come to pass.
Dall Glic: It will come to pass, if there is truth
in the clouds of sky.
King: It will not be for a year, anyway. There'll
be many an ebbing and flowing of the tide within
a year.
Queen: What at all are you talking about?
King: Ah, where's the use of talking too
much.
Queen: Making riddles you are, and striving
to keep the meaning from your comrade, that is
myself.
King: It's best not be thinking about the thing
you would not wish, and maybe it might never
come around at all. To strive to forget a threat
yourself, it might maybe be forgotten by the
universe.
Queen: Is it true something was threatened?
King: How would I know is anything true,
and the world so full of lies as it is?
Nurse: That is so. He might have been wrong
in his foretelling. What is he in the finish but an
old prophecy?
Dall Glic: Is it of Fintan you are saying that?
Queen: And who, will you tell me, is Fintan?
Dall Glic: Anyone that never heard tell of
Fintan never heard anything at all.
Queen: His name was not up on the tablets
of big men at the King of Alban's Court, or of
Britain.
Nurse: Ah, sure in those countries they are
without religion or belief.
Queen: Is it that there was a prophecy?
King: Don't mind it. What are prophecies?
Don't we hear them every day of the week? And
if one comes true there may be seven blind and
come to nothing.
Queen: (To Dall Glic.) I must get to the root
of this, and the handle. Who, now, is Fintan?
Dall Glic: He is an astrologer, and understanding
the nature of the stars.
Nurse: He wore out in his lifetime three eagles
and three palm trees and three earthen dykes.
It is down in a cleft of the rocks beyond he has
his dwelling presently, the way he can be watching
the stars through the daytime.
Dall Glic: He prophesied in a prophecy, and
it is written in clean letters in the King's yew-tree
box.
King: It is best to keep it out of sight. It
being to be, it will be; and, if not, where's the
use troubling our mind?
Queen: Sound it out to me.
Dall Glic: (Looking from window and drawing
curtain.) There is no story in the world is worse
to me or more pitiful; I wouldn't wish any person
to hear.
Nurse: Oh, take care it would come to the
ears of my darling Nu!
Dall Glic: It is said by himself and the heavens
that in a year from this day the King's daughter will
be brought away and devoured by a scaly Green
Dragon that will come from the North of the
World.
Queen: A Dragon! I thought you were talking
of some danger. I wouldn't give in to dragons.
I never saw one. I'm not in dread of beasts unless
it might be a mouse in the night-time!
King: Put it out of mind. It is likely anyway
that the world will soon be ended the way
it is.
Queen: I will send and search out this astrologer
and will question him.
Dall Glic: You have not far to search. He
is outside at the kitchen door at this minute, and
as if questioning after something, and it a half-score
and seven years since I knew him to come
out of his cave.
King: Do not! He might waken up the Dragon
and put him in mind of the girl, for to make his
own foretelling come true.
Nurse: Ah, such a thing cannot be! The
poor innocent child! (Weeps.)
Queen: Where's the use of crying and roaring?
The thing must be stopped and put an end to.
I don't say I give in to your story, but that would
be an unnatural death. I would be scandalised
being stepmother to a girl that would be swallowed
by a sea-serpent!
Nurse: Ochone! Don't be talking of it at
all!
Queen: At the King of Alban's Court, one
of the royal family to die over, it will be naturally
on a pillow, and the dead-bells ringing, and a
burying with white candles, and crape on the
knocker of the door, and a flagstone put over the
grave. What way could we put a stone or so
much as a rose-bush over Nuala and she in the
inside of a water-worm might be ploughing its way
down to the north of the world?
Nurse: Och! that is what is killing me entirely!
O save her, save her.
King: I tell you, it being to be, it will be.
Queen: You may be right, so, when you would
not go to the expense of paying her charges at the
Royal school. But wait, now, there is a plan
coming into my mind.
Nurse: There must surely be some way!
Queen: It is likely a king's daughter the beast—
if there is a beast—will come questioning after, and
not after a king's wife.
Dall Glic: That is according to custom.
Queen: That's what I am saying. What we
have to do is to join Nuala with a man of a husband,
and she will be safe from the danger ahead of her.
In all the inventions made by poets, for to put
terror on children or to knock laughter out of fools,
did any of you ever hear of a Dragon swallowing
the wedding ring?
All: We never did.
Queen: It's easy enough so. There must be
no delay till Nuala will be married and wed with
someone that will bring her away out of this, and
let the Dragon go hungry home!
Nurse: That she may! Isn't it a pity now
she being so hard to please!
Queen: Young people are apt to be selfish and
to have no thought but for themselves. She must
not be hard to please when it will be to save and
to serve her family and to keep up respect for
their name. Here she is coming.
Nurse: Ah, you would not tell her! You
would not put the dear child under the shadow
of such a terror and such a threat!
King: She must not be told. I never could
bear up against it.
(Nuala comes in.)
Queen: Look now at your father the way he is.
Princess: (Touching his hand.) What is fretting
you?
Queen: His heart as weighty as that the chair
near broke under him.
Princess: I never saw you this way before.
Queen: And all on the head of yourself!
Princess: I am sorry, and very sorry, for that.
Queen: He is loth to say it to you, but he is
tired and wore out waiting for you to settle with
some match. See what a troubled look he has on
his face.
Princess: (To King.) Is it that you want me
to leave you? (He gives a sob.) (To Dall Glic.)
Is it the Queen urged him to this?
Dall Glic: If she did, it was surely for your good.
Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling, let you
strive to take a liking to some good man that will
come!
Princess: Are you going against me with the rest?
Nurse: You know well I would never do that!
Princess: Do you, father, urge me to go?
King: They are in too big a hurry why
wouldn't they wait a while, for a quarter, or three-quarters
of a year.
Princess: Is that all the delay I am given, and
the term is set for me, like a servant that would be
banished from the house?
King: That's not it. That's not right. I
would never give in to let you go ...if it
wasn't ...
Princess: I know. (Stands up.) For my own
good!
(Trumpet outside.)
Gatekeeper: (Coming in.) There is company
at the door.
Queen: Who is it?
Gatekeeper: Servants, and a company of women,
and one that would seem to be a Prince, and young.
Princess: Then he is come asking me in marriage.
Dall Glic: Who is he at all?
Gatekeeper: They were saying he is the son
of the King of the Marshes.
King: Go bring him in.
(Gatekeeper goes.)
Dall Glic: That's right! He has great riches
and treasure. There are some say he is the first
match in Ireland.
Nurse: He is not. If his father has a copper
crown, and our own King a silver one, it is the
King of Sorcha has a crown of gold! The young
King of Sorcha that is the first match.
Dall Glic: If he is, this one is apt to be the
second first.
Queen: Do you hear, Nuala, what luck is flowing
to you?
Dall Glic: Do not now be turning your back
on him as you did to so many.
Princess: No; whoever he is, it is likely I will
not turn away from this one.
Queen: Go now and ready yourself to meet him.
Princess: Am I not nice enough the way I am?
Queen: You are not. The King of Alban's
daughter has hair as smooth as if a cow had licked it.
(Princess goes.)
Gatekeeper: Here is the Prince of the Marshes!
(Enter Prince, very young and timid, an old lady
on each side slightly in advance of him.)
King: A great welcome before you....
And who may these be?
Prince: Seven aunts I have....
First Aunt: (Interrupting.) If he has, there
are but two of us have come along with him.
Second Aunt: For to care him and be company
for him on his journey, it being the first time he
ever quitted home.
Queen: This is a great honour. Will you take
a chair?
First Aunt: Leave that for the Prince of the
Marshes. It is away from the draught of the
window.
Second Aunt: We ourselves are in charge of
his health. I have here his eel-skin boots for the
days that will be wet under foot.
First Aunt: And I have here my little bag of
cures, with a cure in it that would rise the body
out of the grave as whole and as sound as the time
you were born.
(Lays it down.)
King: (To Prince.) It is many a day your
father and myself were together in our early time.
What way is he? He was farther out in age than
myself.
Prince: He is ...
First Aunt: (Interrupting.) He is only middling
these last years. The doctors have taken him in
hand.
King: He was more for fowling, and I was
more for horses—before I increased so much in
girth. Is it for horses you are, Prince?
Prince: I didn't go up on one up to this.
First Aunt: Kings and princes are getting scarce.
They are the most class is wearing away, and it is
right for them keep in mind their safety.
Second Aunt: The Prince has no need to go
upon a horse, where he has always a coach at his
command.
King: It is fowling that suits you so?
Prince: I would be well pleased ...
First Aunt: There is great danger going out
fowling with a gun that might turn on you after
and take your life.
Second Aunt: Why would the Prince go into
danger, having servants that will go following
after birds?
Queen: He is likely waiting till his enemies will
make an attack upon the country to defend it.
First Aunt: There is a good dyke around about
the marshes, and a sort of quaking bog. It is not
likely war will come till such time as it will be made
by the birds of the air.
King: Well, we must strive to knock out some
sport or some pleasure.
Prince: It was not on pleasure I was sent.
First Aunt: That's so, but on business.
Second Aunt: Very weighty business.
King: Let the lad tell it out himself.
Prince: I hope there is no harm in me coming
hither. I would be loth to push on you ...
First Aunt: We thought it was right, as he
was come to sensible years ...
King: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his
time.
Prince: My father ... and his counsellors ...
and my seven aunts ...that said it would be
right for me to join with a wife.
Queen: They showed good sense in that.
Prince: (Rapidly.) They bade me come and
take a look at your young lady of a Princess to see
would she be likely to be pleasing to them.
First Aunt: That's it, and that is what brought
ourselves along with him—to see would we be
satisfied.
King: I don't know. The girl is young—
she's young.
First Aunt: It is what we were saying, that
might be no drawback. It might be easier train
her in our own ways, and to do everything that
is right.
King: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing
that is right, but it's sometimes hard to know.
Second Aunt: Not in our place. What the
King of the Marshes would not know, his counsellors
and ourselves would know.
Queen: It will be very answerable to the Princess
to be under such good guidance.
First Aunt: For low people and for middling
people it is well enough to follow their own opinion
and their will. But for the Prince's wife to have
any choice or any will of her own, the people would
not believe her to be a real princess.
(Princess comes to door, listening unseen.)
King: Ah, you must not be too strict with a
girl that has life in her.
Prince: My seven aunts that were saying they
have a great distrust of any person that is lively.
First Aunt: We would rather than the greatest
beauty in the world get him a wife who would be
content to stop in her home.
(Princess comes in very stately and with a
fine dress. She curtseys. Aunts curtsey
and sit down again. Prince bows uneasily
and sidles away.)
First Aunt: Will you sit, now, between the
two of us?
Princess: It is more fitting for a young girl
to stay in her standing in the presence of a king's
kindred and his son, since he is come so far to look
for me.
Second Aunt: That is a very nice thought.
Princess: My far-off grandmother, the old
people were telling me, never sat at the table
to put a bit in her mouth till such time as her
lord had risen up satisfied. She was that obedient
to him that if he had bidden her, she would have
laid down her hand upon red coals.
(Prince looks bored and fidgets.)
First Aunt: Very good indeed.
Princess: That was a habit with my grandmother.
I would wish to follow in her ways.
King: This is some new talk.
Queen: Stop; she is speaking fair and good.
Princess: A little verse, made by some good
wife, I used to be learning. "I always should:
Be very good: At home should mind: My husband
kind: Abroad obey: What people say."
First Aunt: (Getting up.) To travel the world,
I never thought to find such good sense before me.
Do you hear that, Prince?
Prince: Sure I often heard yourselves shaping
that sort.
Second Aunt: I'll engage the royal family will
make no objection to this young lady taking charge
of your house.
Princess: I can do that! (Counts on fingers.)
To send linen to the washing-tub on Monday, and
dry it on Tuesday, and to mangle it Wednesday,
and starch it Thursday, and iron it Friday, and
fold it in the press against Sunday!
Second Aunt: Indeed there is little to learn
you! And on Sundays, now, you will go driving
in a painted coach, and your dress sewed with gold
and with pearls, and the poor of the world envying
you on the road.
Queen: (Claps hands.) There is no one but
must envy her, and all that is before her for her
lifetime!
First Aunt: Here is the golden arm-ring the
Prince brought for to slip over your hand.
Second Aunt: It was put on all our generations of
queens at the time of the making of their match.
Princess: (Drawing back her hand.) Mine is
not made yet.
First Aunt: Didn't you hear me saying, and
the Prince saying, there is nothing could be laid
down against it.
Princess: There is one thing against it.
Queen: Oh, there can be nothing worth while!
Princess: A thing you would think a great
drawback and all your kindred would think it.
Queen: (Rapidly.) There is nothing, but maybe
that she is not so tall as you might think, through
the length of the heels of her shoes.
Second Aunt: We would put up with that much.
Princess: (Rapidly.) It is that there was a
spell put upon me—by a water-witch that was of
my kindred. At some hours of the day I am as
you see me, but at other hours I am changed into
a sea-filly from the Country-under-Wave. And
when I smell salt on the west wind I must race and
race and race. And when I hear the call of the
gulls or the sea-eagles over my head, I must leap
up to meet them till I can hardly tell what is my
right element, is it the high air or is it the loosened
spring-tide!
Queen: Stop your nonsense talk. She is gone
wild and raving with the great luck that is come
to her!
(Prince has stood up, and is watching her
eagerly.)
Princess: I feel a wind at this very time that
is blowing from the wilderness of the sea, and
I am changing with it.... There. (Pulls down
her hair.) Let my mane go free! I will race
you, Prince, I will race you! The wind of March
will not overtake me, Prince, and I running on the
top of the white waves!
(Runs out; Prince entranced, rushes to door.)
Aunts: (Catching hold of him.) Are you going
mad wild like herself?
Prince: Oh, I will go after her!
First Aunt: (Clutching him) Do not! She
will drag you to destruction.
Prince: (Struggling to door.) What matter! Let
me go or she will escape me! (Shaking himself
free.) I will never stop till I come to her.
(He rushes out, Second Aunt still holding on
to him.)
First Aunt: What at all has come upon him?
I never knew him this way before!
(She trots after him.)
Princess: (Comes leaping in by window.) They
are gone running the road to Muckanish! But
they won't find me!
Queen: You have a right to be ashamed of
yourself and your play-game. It's easy for you
to go joking, having neither cark nor care: that
is no way to treat the second best match in Ireland!
King: You were saying you had your mind
made up to take him.
Princess: It failed me to do it! Himself and
his counsellors and his seven aunts!
Queen: He will give out that you are crazed
and mad.
Princess: He will be thankful to his life's end
to have got free of me!
King: I don't know. It seemed to me he
was better pleased with you in the finish than
in the commencement. But I'm in dread his
father may not be well pleased.
Princess: (Patting him.) Which now of the
two of you is the most to be pitied? He to
have such a timid son or you to have such an unruly
daughter?
Queen: It is likely he will make an attack on
you. There was a war made by the King of Britain
on the head of a terrier pup that was sent to him
and that made away on the road following hares.
It's best for you to make ready to put yourself at
the head of your troop.
King: It's long since I went into my battle
dress. I'm in dread it would not close upon my
chest.
Queen: Ah, it might, so soon as you would
go through a few hardships in the fight.
King: If the rest of Adam's race was of my
opinion there'd be no fighting in the world at
all.
Queen: It is this child's stubbornness is leading
you into it. Go out, Nuala, after the Prince. Tell
him you are sorry you made a fool of him.
Princess: He was that before—thinking to
put me sitting and sewing in a cushioned chair,
listening to stories of kings making a slaughter
of one another.
Queen: Tell him you have changed your mind,
that you were but funning; that you will wed
with him yet.
Princess: I would sooner wed with the King
of Poison! I to have to go to his kingdom, I'd
sooner go earning my wages footing turf, with a
skirt of heavy flannel and a dress of the grey frieze!
Himself and his bogs and his frogs!
Queen: I tell you it is time for you to take a
husband.
Princess: You said that before! And I was
giving in a while ago, and I felt the blood of my
heart to be rising against it! And I will not give
in to you again! It is my own business and I will
take my own way.
Queen: (To King.) This is all one with the
raving of a hag against heaven!
King: What the Queen is saying is right. Try
now and come around to it.
Princess: She has set you against me with her
talk!
Queen: (To King.) It is best for you to lay
orders on her.
Princess: The King is not under your
orders!
Queen: You are striving to make him give in
to your own!
King: I will take orders from no one at all!
Queen: Bid her go bring back the Prince.
Princess: I say that I will not!
Queen: She is standing up against you! Will
you give in to that?
King: I am bothered with the whole of you!
I will give in to nothing at all!
Queen: Make her do your bidding so.
King: Can't you do as you are told?
Princess: This concerns myself.
King: It does, and the whole of us.
Princess: Do you think you can force me to
wed?
King: I do think it, and I will do it.
Princess: It will fail you!
King: It will not! I was too easy with you
up to this.
Princess: Will you turn me out of the house?
King: I will give you my word, it is little but
I will!
Princess: Then I have no home and no father!
It is to my mother you must give an account.
You know well it is with the first wife you will go
at the Judgment!
Queen: Is it that you would make threats to
the King? And put insults upon myself? Now
she is daring and defying you! Let you put an end
to it!
King: I will do that! (Stands up.) I swear
by the oath my people swear by, the seven things
common to us all; by sun and moon; sea and dew;
wind and water; the hours of the day and night,
I will give you in marriage and in wedlock to the
first man that will come into the house!
Princess: (Shrinking as from a blow.) It is the
Queen has done this.
Queen: I will give you out the reason, and
see will you put blame on me or praise!
Nurse: Oh, let you stop and not draw it down
upon her!
Queen: It is right for me to tell it; it is true
telling! You not to be married and wed by this
day twelvemonth, there will be a terrible thing
happen you ...
Nurse: Be quiet! Don't you see Fintan himself
looking in the window!
King: Fintan! What is it bring you here
on this day?
Fintan: (A very old man in strange clothes at
window.) What brings me is to put my curse
upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone
and vanished out of this, without bringing me my
request, that was a bit of rendered lard that would
limber the swivel of my spy-glass, that is clogged
with the dripping of the cave.
Nurse: And you have no bad news?
Queen: Nothing to say on the head of the
Princess, this being, as it is, her birthday?
Fintan: What birthday? This is not a birthday
that signifies. It is the next will be the birthday
concerned with the great story that is foretold.
Queen: It is right for her to know it.
King: It is not! It is not!
Princess: Whatever the story is, let me know
it, and not be treated as a child that is without
courage or sense.
Fintan: It's long till I'll come out from my
cleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on the
ridge of the earth. It is laid down by the stars
that cannot lie, that on this day twelvemonth, you
yourself will be ate and devoured by a scaly Green
Dragon from the North!
END OF ACT I.
ACT II
ACT II
Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse.
Nurse: Cheer up now, my honey bird, and
don't be fretting.
Princess: It is not easy to quit fretting, and
the terrible story you are after telling me of all
that is before and all that is behind me.
Nurse: They had no right at all to go make
you aware of it. The Queen has too much talk.
An unlucky stepmother she is to you!
Princess: It is well for me she is here. It is
well I am told the truth, where the whole of you
were treating me like a child without sense, so
giddy I was and contrary, and petted and humoured
by the whole of you. What memory would there
be left of me and my little life gone by, but of a
headstrong, unruly child with no thought but
for myself.
Nurse: No, but the best in the world, you
are; there is no one seeing you pass by but would
love you.
Princess: That is not so. I was wild and taking
my own way, mocking and humbugging.
Nurse: I never will give in that there is no
way to save you from that Dragon that is foretold
to be your destruction. I would give the
four divisions of the world, and Ireland along
with them, if I could see you pelting your ball
in at the window the same as an hour ago!
Princess: Maybe you will, so long as it will hurt
nobody.
Nurse: Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be the
tracks of tears upon your face, and that great terror
before you.
Princess: I will wipe them away! I will not
give in to danger or to dragons! No one will
see a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter
of Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut like
Deirdre that went sighing and lamenting till she
was put to death, the world being sick and tired
of her complaints, and her finger at her eye dripping
tears!
Nurse: That's right, now. You had always
great courage.
Princess: There is like a change within me.
You never will hear a cross word from me again.
I would wish to be pleasant and peaceable until
such time ...
(Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.)
Dall Glic: (Coming in.) The King is greatly
put out with all he went through, and the way
the passion rose in him a while ago.
Nurse: That he may be twenty times worse
before he is better! Showing such fury towards
the innocent child the way he did!
Dall Glic: The Queen has brought him to the
grass plot for to give him his exercise, walking his
seven steps east and west.
Nurse: Hasn't she great power over him to
make him to that much?
Dall Glic: I tell you I am in dread of her myself.
Some plan she has for making my two eyes equal.
I vexed her someway, and she got queer and humpy,
and put a lip on herself, and said she would take
me in hand. I declare I never will have a minute's
ease thinking of it.
Nurse: The King should have done his seven
steps, for I hear her coming.
(Dall Glic goes to recess of window.)
Queen: (Coming in.) Did you, Nurse, ever at
any time turn and dress a dinner?
Nurse: (Very stiff.) Indeed I never did. Any
house I ever was in there was a good kitchen and
well attended, the Lord be praised!
Queen: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige
the King.
Nurse: Troth, the same King will wait long
till he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I am
not one that was reared between the flags and the
oven in the corner of the one room! To be a nurse
to King's children is my trade, and not to go stirring
mashes, for hens or for humans!
Queen: I heard a crafty woman lay down one
time there was no way to hold a man, only by food
and flattery.
Nurse: Sure any mother of children walking the
road could tell you that much.
Queen: I went maybe too far urging him not
to lessen so much food the way he did. I only
thought to befriend him. But now he is someway
upset and nothing will rightly smooth him but to
be thinking upon his next meal; and what it will
be I don't know, unless the berries of the bush.
Dall Glic: (Leaning out of the window.) Here!
Hi! Come this way!
Queen: Who are you calling to?
Dall Glic: It is someone with the appearance
of a cook.
Queen: Are you saying it is a cook? That
now will put the King in great humour!
(Manus appears at the window.)
Nurse: (Looking at him.) I wouldn't hardly
think he'd suit. He has a sort of innocent look.
I wouldn't say him to be a country lad. I don't
know is he fitted to go readying meals for a royal
family, and the King so wrathful if they do not
please him as he is. And as to the Princess Nu!
There to be the size of a hayseed of fat overhead
on her broth, she'd fall in a dead faint.
Manus: I'll go on so.
Queen: No, no. Bring him in till I'll take a
look at him!
Manus: (Coming inside.) I am a lad in search
of a master.
Manus: (Inside.) I am a lad in search of a
master.
Queen: And I myself that am wanting a cook.
Manus: I got word of that and I going the road.
Queen: You would seem to be but a young lad.
Manus: I am not very far in age to-day. But
I'll be a day older to-morrow.
Queen: In what country were you born and
reared?
Manus: I came from over, and I am coming
hither.
Queen: What wages now would you be asking?
Manus: Nothing at all unless what you think
I will have earned at the time I will be leaving
your service.
Queen: That is very right and fair. I hope
you will not be asking too much help. The last
cook had a whole fleet of scullions that were no
use but to chatter and consume.
Manus: I am asking no help at all but the
help of the ten I bring with me.
(Holds up fingers.)
Queen: That will be a great saving in the house!
Can I depend upon you now not to be turning
to your own use the King's ale and his wine?
Manus: If you take me to be a thief I will go
upon my road. It was no easier for me to come
than to go out again.
Queen: (Holding him.) No, now, don't be so
proud and thinking so much of yourself. If I
give you trial here I would wish you to be ready
to turn your hand to this and that, and not be
saying it is or is not your business.
Manus: My business is to do as the King wishes.
Queen: That's right. That is the way the
servants were in the palace of the King of Alban.
Manus: That's the way I was myself in the
King's house of Sorcha.
Queen: Are you saying it is from that place you
are come? Sure that should be a great household!
The King of Sorcha, they were telling me, has
seven castles on land and seven on the sea, and
provision for a year and a day in every one of them.
Manus: That might be. I never was in more
than one of them at the one time.
Queen: Anyone that has been in that place would
surely be fitting here. Keep him, Nurse! Don't let
him make away from us till I will go call the King!
(Goes out.)
Nurse: Sure it was I myself that fostered the
young King of Sorcha and reared him in my lap!
What way is he at all? My lovely child! Give
me news of him!
Manus: I will do that....
Nurse: To hear of him would delight me!
Manus: It is I that can tell you....
Nurse: It is himself should be a grand king!
Manus: Listen till you hear!...
Nurse: His father was good and his mother was
good, and it's likely, himself will be the best of all!
Manus: Be quiet now and hearken!...
Nurse: I remember well the first day I saw him
in the cradle, two and a score of years back! Oh,
it is glad, and very glad, I'll be to get word of him!
Manus: He is come to sensible years....
Nurse: A golden cradle it was and it standing
on four golden balls the very round of the sun!
Manus: He is out of his cradle now. (Shakes
her shoulder.) Let you hearken! He is in need
of your help.
Nurse: He'll get it, he'll get it. I doted down
on that child! The best to laugh and to roar!
Manus: (Putting hand on her mouth.) Will
you be silent, you hag of a nurse? Can't you see
that I myself am Manus, the new King of Sorcha?
Nurse: (Starting back.) Do you say that?
And how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know you
in any place. Stand back till I'll get the full of
my eyes of you! Like the father you are, and you
need never be sorry to be that! Well, I said to
myself and you looking in at the window, I would
not believe but there's some drop of king's blood
in that lad!
Manus: That was not what you said to me!
Nurse: And wasn't the journey long on you
from Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun? Is
it your foot-soldiers and your bullies you brought
with you, or did you come with your hound and
your deer-hound and with your horn?
Manus: There was no one knew of my journey.
I came bare alone. I threw a shell in the sea and
made a boat of it, and took the track of the wild
duck across the mountains of the waves.
Nurse: And where in the world wide did you
get that dress of a cook?
Manus: It was at a tailor's place near Oughtmana.
There was no one in the house but the mother. I
left my own clothes in her charge and my purse
of gold; I brought nothing but my own blue
sword. (Throws open blouse and shows it.) She gave
me this suit, where a cook from this house had
thrown it down in payment for a drink of milk.
I have no mind any person should know I am a king.
I am letting on to be a cook.
Nurse: I would sooner you to come as a champion
seeking battle, or a horseman that had gone astray,
or so far as a poet making praises or curses according
to his treatment on the road. It would be a bad
day I would see your father's son taken for a kitchen
boy.
Manus: I was through the world last night in
a dream. It was dreamed to me that the King's
daughter in this house is in a great danger.
Nurse: So she is, at the end of a twelvemonth.
Manus: My warning was for this day. Seeing
her under trouble in my dream, my heart was hot
to come to her help. I am here to save her, to
meet every troublesome thing that will come at
her.
Nurse: Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing
that!
Manus: I was not willing to come as a king,
that she would feel tied and bound to live for if
I live, or to die with if I should die. I am come
as a poor unknown man, that may slip away after
the fight, to my own kingdom or across the borders
of the world, and no thanks given him and no more
about him, but a memory of the shadow of a cook!
Nurse: I would not think that to be right,
and you the last of your race. It is best for you
to tell the King.
Manus: I lay my orders on you to tell no one
at all.
Nurse: Give me leave but to whisper it to the
Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest two the
world ever saw. You will not find her equal in all
Ireland!
Manus: I lay it as crosses and as spells on you
to say no word to her or to any other that will
make known my race or my name. Give me now
your oath.
Nurse: (Kneeling.) I do, I do. But they will
know you by your high looks.
Manus: Did you yourself know me a while ago?
Nurse: (Getting up.) Oh, they're coming! Oh,
my poor child, what way will you that never handled
a spit be able to make out a dinner for the
King?
Manus: This silver whistle, that was her pipe
of music, was given to me by a queen among the
Sidhe that is my godmother. At the sound of it
that will come through the air any earthly thing
I wish for, at my command.
Nurse: Let it be a dinner so.
Manus: So it will come, on a green tablecloth
carried by four swans as white as snow. The
freshest of every meat, the oldest of every drink,
nuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise!
(King, Queen, Princess, Dall Glic come in.
Princess sits on window sill.)
Queen: (To King.) Here now, my dear. Wasn't
I telling you I would take all trouble from your
mind, and that I would not be without finding a
cook for you?
King: He came in a good hour. The want of a
right dinner has downed kingdoms before this.
Queen: Travelling he is in search of service
from the kings of the earth. His wages are in no
way out of measure.
King: Is he a good hand at his trade?
Queen: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to
give a hand here and there.
King: What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish
to know? And all that comes up from the tide?
Bream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me—
stewed or fried with butter till the bones of it melt
in your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand
but is the better of a quality cook—only oysters,
that are best left alone, being as they are all gravy
and fat.
Queen: I didn't question him yet about cookery.
King: It's seldom I met a woman with right
respect for food, but for show and silly dishes and
trash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled
as a badger on St. Bridget's day.
Queen: If this youth of a young man was able to
give satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court,
I am sure that he will make a dinner to please
yourself.
Manus: I will do more than that. I will dress
a dinner that will please myself.
Princess: (Clapping hands.) Very well said!
King: Sound out now some good dishes such
as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen
will put them down in a line of writing, that I can
be thinking about them till such time as you will
have them readied.
Queen: There are sheeps' trotters below; you
might know some tasty way to dress them.
Manus: I do surely. I'll put the trotters within
a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in
a suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb,
and the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ...
King: What now is a Maderalla?
Manus: He is a beast that saves the cook trouble,
swallowing all those meats one after another—in
Sorcha.
King: That should be a very pretty dish. Let
you go make a start with it the way we will not be
famished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic,
to the larder.
Dall Glic: I'm in dread it's as good for him to
stop where he is.
King: What are you saying?
Dall Glic: Those lads of apprentices that left
nothing in it only bare hooks.
Nurse: It is the Queen would give no leave
for more provision to come in, saying there was
no one to prepare it.
Manus: If that is so, I will be forced to lay
my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the
Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at
my bidding.
King: Hurry on so.
Queen: I myself will go and give you instructions
what way to use the kitchen.
Manus: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief do
in your own royal parlour! (Blows whistle; two dark-skinned
men come in with vessels.) Give me here
those pots and pans!
Queen: What now is about to take place?
Dall Glic: I not to be blind, I would say those
to be very foreign-looking men.
King: It would seem as if the world was grown
to be very queer.
Queen: So it is, and the mastery being given
to a cook.
Manus: So it should be too! It is the King
of Shades and Shadows would have rule over the
world if it wasn't for the cooks!
King: There's some sense in that now.
(Strange men are moving and arranging baskets
and vessels.)
Manus: There was respect for cooks in the
early days of the world. What way did the Sons
of Tuireann get their death but going questing
after a cooking spit at the bidding of Lugh of the
Long Hand! And if a spit was worthy of the death
of heroes, what should the man be worth that is
skilled in turning it? What is the difference
between man and beast? Beast and bird devour
what they find and have no power to change it.
But we are Druids of those mysteries, having
magic and virtue to turn hard grain to tender cakes,
and the very skin of a grunting pig to crackling
causing quarrels among champions, and it singing
upon the coals. A cook! If I am I am not without
good generations before me! Who was the first
old father of us, roasting and reddening the fruits
of the earth from hard to soft, from bitter to kind,
till they are fit for a lady's platter? What is it
leaves us in the hard cold of Christmas but the
robbery from earth of warmth for the kitchen
fire of (takes off cap) the first and foremost of all
master cooks—the Sun!
Princess: You are surely not ashamed of your
trade!
Manus: To work now, to work. I'll engage to
turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt or
Pharamond King of the Franks! Here, Queen, is
a silver-breast phoenix—draw out the feathers—
they are pure silver—fair and clean. (Queen plucks
eagerly.) King, take your golden sceptre and stir
this pot.
(Gives him one.)
King: (Interested.) What now is in it?
Manus: A broth that will rise over the side
and be consumed and split if you stop stirring
it for one minute only! (King stirs furiously.)
Princess (She is looking on and he goes over to her),
there are honey cakes to roll out, but I will not
ask you to do it in dread that you might spoil the
whiteness ...
Princess: I have no mind to do it.
Manus: Of the flour!
Princess: Give them here.
(Rolls them out indignantly.)
Manus: That is right. Take care, King, would
the froth swell over the brim.
Princess: It seems to me you are doing but
little yourself.
Manus: I will turn now and ... boil these
eggs.
(Takes some on a plate; they roll off.)
Princess: You have broken them.
Manus: (Disconcerted.) It was to show you a
good trick, how to make them sit up on the narrow
end.
Princess: That is an old trick in the world.
Manus: Every trick is an old one, but with
a change of players, a change of dress, it comes
out as new as before. Princess (speaks low), I
have a message to give you and a pardon to ask.
Princess: Give me out the message.
Manus: Take courage and keep courage through
this day. Do not let your heart fail. There is
help beside you.
Princess: It has been a troublesome day indeed.
But there is a worse one and a great danger before
me in the far away.
Manus: That danger will come to-day, the
message said in the dream. Princess, I have a
pardon to ask you. I have been playing vanities.
I think I have wronged you doing this. It was
surely through no want of respect.
Gatekeeper: (Coming in.) There is word come
from Ballyvelehan there is a coach and horses
facing for this place over from Oughtmana.
Queen: Who would that be?
Gatekeeper: Up on the hill a woman was, brought
word it must be some high gentleman. She could
see all colours in the coach, and flowers on the
horse's heads.
Goes out.)
Dall Glic: That is good hearing. I was in
dread some man we would have no welcome for
would be the first to come in this day.
Queen: Not a fear of it. I had orders given
to the Gateman who he would and would not
keep out. I did that the very minute after the
King making his proclamation and his law.
King: Pup, pup. You need not be drawing
that down.
Queen: It is well you have myself to care you
and to turn all to good. I gave orders to the
Gateman, I say, no one to be let in to the door
unless carriage company, no other ones, even if they
should wipe their feet upon the mat. I notched
that in his mind, telling him the King was after
promising the Princess Nu in marriage to the first
man that would come into the house.
Manus: The King gave out that word?
Queen: I am after saying that he did.
Dall Glic: Come along, lad. Don't be putting
ears on yourself.
Manus: I ask the King did he give out that
promise as the Queen says?
King: I have but a poor memory.
Nurse: The King did say it within the hour,
and swore to it by the oath of his people, taking
contracts of the sun and moon of the air!
Dall Glic: What is it to you if he did? Come
on, now.
Manus: No. This is a matter that concerns
myself.
Queen: How do you make that out?
Manus: You, that called me in, know well that
I was the first to come into the house.
Queen: Ha, ha! You have the impudence! It
is a man the King said. He was not talking about
cooks.
Manus: (To the King.) I am before you as a
serving lad, and you are a King in Ireland. Because
you are a King and I your hired servant you will not
refuse me justice. You gave your word.
King: If I did it was in haste and in vexation,
and striving to save her from destruction.
Manus: I call you to keep to your word and
to give your daughter to no other one.
Queen: Speak out now, Dall Glic, and give
your opinion and your advice.
Dall Glic: I would say that this lad going away
would be no great loss.
Manus: I did not ask such a thing, but as it
has come to me I will hold to my right.
Queen: It would be right to throw him to the
hounds in the kennel!
Manus: (To King.) I leave it to the judgment
of your blind wise man.
Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Take care would you
offend myself or the King!
Manus: I put it on you to split justice as it
is measured outside the world.
Dall Glic: It is hard for me to speak. He
has laid it hard on me. My good eye may go
asleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the
place where it is waking, an honourable man, king
or beggar, is held to his word.
King: Is it that I must give my daughter to
a lad that owns neither clod nor furrow? Whose
estate is but a shovel for the ashes and a tongs for
the red coals.
Queen: It is likely he is urged by the sting of
greed—it is but riches he is looking for.
King: I will not begrudge him his own asking
of silver and of gold!
Manus: Throw it out to the beggars on the
road! I would not take a copper half-penny!
I'll take nothing but what has come to me from
your own word!
(King bows his head.)
Princess: (Coming forward.) Then this battle
is not between you and an old king that is feeble,
but between yourself and myself.
Manus: I am sorry, Princess, if it must be a
battle.
Princess: You can never bring me away against
my will.
Manus: I said no word of doing that.
Princess: You think, so, I will go with you of
myself? The day I will do that will be the day
you empty the ocean!
Manus: I will not wait longer than to-day.
Princess: Many a man waited seven years for
a king's daughter!
Manus: And another seven—and seven generations
of hags. But that is not my nature.
I will not kneel to any woman, high or low, or
crave kindness that she cannot give.
Princess: Then I can go free!
Manus: For this day I take you in my charge.
I cross and claim you to myself, unless a better
man will come.
Princess: I would think it easier to find a better
man than one that would be worse to me!
Manus: If one should come that you think
to be a better man, I will give you your own way.
Princess: It is you being in the world at all
that is my grief.
Manus: Time makes all things clear. You
did not go far out in the world yet, my poor little
Princess.
Princess: I would be well pleased to drive
you out through the same world!
Manus: With or without your goodwill, I
will not go out of this place till I have carried out
the business I came to do.
Dall Glic: Is it the falling of hailstones I hear
or the rumbling of thunder, or is it the trots of
horses upon the road?
Queen: (Looking out.) It is the big man that
is coming—Prince or Lord or whoever he may be.
(To Dall Glic.) Go now to the door to welcome
him. This is some man worth while. (To Manus.)
Let you get out of this.
Manus: No, whoever he is I'll stop and face
him. Let him know we are players in the one game!
King: And what sort of a fool will you make
of me, to have given in to take the like of you for
a son-in-law? They will be putting ridicule on me
in the songs.
Queen: If he must stop here we might put
some face on him.... If I had but a decent
suit.... Give me your cloak, Dall Glic. (He
gives it.) Here now ... (To Manus.) Put this
around you.... (Manus takes it awkwardly.) It
will cover up your kitchen suit.
Manus: Is it this way?
Queen: You have no right handling of it—
stupid clown! This way!
Manus: (Flinging it off.) No, I'll change no
more suits! It is time for me to stop fooling and
give you what you did not ask yet, my name. I
will tell out all the truth.
Gatekeeper: (At door.) The King of Sorcha!
(Taig comes in.)
King and Queen: The King of Sorcha! (They
rush forward to greet him.)
Nurse: (To Manus.) Did ever anyone hear
the like!
Manus: It seems as if there will be a judgment
between the man and the clothes!
Queen: (To Taig.) There is someone here that
you know, King. This young man is giving out
that he was your cook.
Taig: He was not. I never laid an eye on him
till this minute.
Queen: I was sure he was nothing but a liar
when he said he would tell the truth! Now, King,
will you turn him out the door?
King: And what about the great dinner he has
me promised?
Manus: Be easy King. Whether or no you
keep your word to me I'll hold to mine! (Blows
whistle.) In with the dishes! Take your places!
Let the music play out!
(Music plays, the strange men wheel in tables
and dishes.)
CURTAIN
ACT III
ACT III
Scene: Same. Table cleared of all but vessels of
fruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig sitting
in front, Nurse and Dall Glic standing in background.
Queen: Now, King, the dinner being at an end,
and the music, we have time and quiet to be
talking.
Taig: It is with the King's daughter I am come
to talk.
Queen: Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She
will be here on the minute, but it is best for you
to tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you
are come.
Taig: It is so, where I was after being told
she would be given as a wife to the first man that
would come into the house.
Queen: And who in the world wide gave that
out?
Taig: It was the Gateman said it to a hawker
bringing lobsters from the strand, and that got no
leave to cross the threshold by reason of the oath
given out by the King. The half of the kingdom
she will get, they were telling me, and the king
living, and the whole of it after he will be dead.
Nurse: There did another come in before you.
Let me tell you that much!
Taig: There did not. The lobster man that
set a watch upon the door.
Queen: A great honour you did us coming
asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha!
Taig: Look at my ring and my crown. They
will bear witness that I am. And my kind coat of
cotton and my golden shirt! And under that
again there's a stiff pocket. (Slaps it.) Is there
e'er a looking-glass in any place? (Gets up.)
Dall Glic: There is the shining silver basin of
the swans in the garden without.
Taig: That will do. I would wish to look
tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife.
(He and Dall Glic go outside window but in sight.)
(Princess comes in very proud and sad.)
Queen: You should be proud this day, Nuala,
and so grand a man coming asking you in marriage
as the King of Sorcha.
Nurse: Grand, indeed! As grand as hands and
pins can make him.
Princess: Are you not satisfied to have urged
me to one man and promised me to another since
sunrise?
Queen: What way could I know there was
this match on the way, and a better match beyond
measure? This is no black stranger going the
road, but a man having a copper crown over his
gateway and a silver crown over his palace door!
I tell you he has means to hang a pearl of gold
upon every rib of your hair! There is no one
ahead of him in all Ireland, with his chain and his
ring and his suit of the dearest silk!
Princess: If it was a suit I was to wed with he
might do well enough.
Queen: Equal in blood to ourselves! Brought
up to good behaviour and courage and mannerly ways.
Princess: In my opinion he is not.
Queen: You are talking foolishness. A King
of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is he himself
sets the tune for manners.
Princess: He gave out a laugh when old Michelin
slipped on the threshold. He kicked at the dog
under the table that came looking for bones.
Queen: I tell you what might be ugly behaviour
in a common man is suitable and right in a king.
But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am
seven times tired of yourself and your ways.
Princess: If no one could force me to give in
to the man that made a claim to me to-day, according
to my father's bond, that bond is there yet to
protect me from any other one.
Queen: Leave me alone! Myself and the
Dall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad
from the oven. I'll send in now to you the King
of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, and the
wedding day will be to-morrow.
Princess: I will not see him, I will have nothing
to do with him; I tell you if he had the rents of
the whole world I would not go with him by day
or by night, on foot or on horseback, in light or in
darkness, in company or alone!
(Queen has gone while she cries this out.)
Nurse: The luck of the seven Saturdays on
himself and on the Queen!
Princess: Oh, Muime, do not let him come
near me! Have you no way to help me?
Nurse: It's myself that could help you if I
was not under bonds not to speak!
Princess: What is it you know? Why won't
you say one word?
Nurse: He put me under spells.... There
now, my tongue turned with the word to be dumb.
Taig: (At the window.) Not a fear of me,
Queen. It won't be long till I bring the Princess
around.
Princess: I will not stay! Keep him here till
I will hide myself out of sight! (Goes.)
Taig: (Coming in.) They told me the Princess
was in it.
Nurse: She has good sense, she is in some other
place.
Taig: (Sitting down.) Go call her to me.
Nurse: Who is it I will call her for?
Taig: For myself. You know who I am.
Nurse: My grief that I do not!
Taig: I am the King of Sorcha.
Nurse: If you say that lie again there will blisters
rise up on your face.
Taig: Take care what you are saying, you
hag!
Nurse: I know well what I am saying. I have
good judgment between the noble and the mean
blood of the world.
Taig: The Kings of Sorcha have high, noble
blood.
Nurse: If they have, there is not so much of
it in you as would redden a rib of scutch-grass.
Taig: You are crazed with folly and age.
Nurse: No, but I have my wits good enough.
You ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll
get satisfaction on you yet! I'll show out who
you are!
Taig: Who am I so?
Nurse: That is what I have to get knowledge
of, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold hell!
Taig: Do your best! I dare you!
Nurse: I will save my darling from you as sure
as there's rocks on the strand! A girl that refused
sons of the kings of the world!
Taig: And I will drag your darling from you
as sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana!
Nurse: Oughtmana ...Is that now your living
place?
Taig: It is not.... I told you I came from
the far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my cloak
that has on it the sign of the risen sun!
Nurse: Cloaks and suits and fringes. You have
a great deal of talk of them.... Have you e'er a
needle around you, or a shears?
Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but he
withdraws it quickly.) Here ...no ...What
are you talking about? I know nothing at all of
such things.
Nurse: In my opinion you do. Hearken now.
I know where is the real King of Sorcha!
Taig: Bring him before me now till I'll down
him!
Nurse: Say that the time you will come face
to face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to tell
out nothing about him, but I have liberty to make
known all I will find out about yourself.
Taig: Hurry on so. Little I care when once
I'm wed with the King's daughter!
Nurse: That will never be!
Taig: The Queen is befriending me and in
dread of losing me. I will threaten her if there
is any delay I'll go look for another girl of a
wife.
Nurse: I will make no delay. I'll have my
story and my testimony before the white dawn
of the morrow.
Taig: Do so and welcome! Before the yellow
light of this evening I'll be the King's son-in-law!
Bring your news, then, and little thanks you'll
get for it! The King and Queen must keep up
my name then for their own credit's sake. (Makes
a face at her as King comes in with Dall Glic, and
servants with cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her
fist.) (Rises.) I was just asking to see you, King,
to say there is a hurry on me....
King: (Sitting down on window seat while Servant
arranges cushions about him.) Keep your business
a while. It's a poor thing to be going through
business the very minute the dinner is ended.
Taig: I wouldn't but that it is pressing.
King: Go now to the Queen, in her parlour,
and be chatting and whistling to the birds. I give
you my word since I rose up from the table I am
going here and there, up and down, craving and
striving to find a place where I'll get leave to lay
my head on the cushions for one little minute.
(Taig goes reluctantly.)
Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from servants.) Let
you go now and leave the King to his rest.
(They go out.)
King: I don't know in the world why anyone
would consent to be a king, and never to be left
to himself, but to be worried and wearied and
interfered with from dark to daybreak and from
morning to the fall of night.
Dall Glic: I will be going out now. I have
but one word only to say....
King: Let it be a short word! I would be
better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in
the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the
hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the
sea!
Dall Glic: There is one thing only could cause
me to annoy you.
King: It should be a queer big thing that
wouldn't wait till I have my rest taken.
Dall Glic: So it is a big matter, and a weighty
one.
King: Not to be left in quiet and all I am after
using! Food that was easy to eat! Drink that
was easy to drink! That's the dinner that was
a dinner. That cook now is a wonder!
Dall Glic: That is now the very one I am wishful
to speak about.
King: I give you my word, I'd sooner have
one goose dressed by him than seven dressed by
any other one!
Dall Glic: The Queen that was urging me for
to put my mind to make out some way to get quit
of him.
King: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute
I find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I must
be made an attack on to get quit of him?
Dall Glic: It is on the head of the Princess Nu.
King: Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing, now,
he was ...in spite of me ...to wed with her
...against my will ...and it might be unknownst
to me.
Dall Glic: Such a thing must not happen.
King: To be sure, it must not happen. Why
would it happen? But supposing—I only said
supposing it did. Would you say would that
lad grow too high in himself to go into the kitchen
...it might be only an odd time ...to oblige
me ...and dress a dinner the same as he did
to-day?
Dall Glic: I am sure and certain that he would
not. It is the way, it is, with the common sort,
the lower orders. He'd be wishful to sit on a chair
at his ease and to leave his hand idle till he'd grow
to be bulky and wishful for sleep.
King: That is a pity, a great pity, and a great
loss to the world. A big misfortune he to have
got it in his head to take a liking to the girl. I
tell you he was a great lad behind the saucepans!
Dall Glic: Since he did get it in his head, it is
what we have to do now, to make an end of
him.
King: To gaol him now, and settle up ovens
and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he,
to shorten the day, be apt to start cooking?
Dall Glic: In my belief he will do nothing at
all, but to hold you to the promise you made,
and to force you to send away the King of Sorcha.
King: To have the misfortune of a cook for
a son-in-law, and without the good luck of profiting
by what he can do in his trade! That is a hard thing
for a father to put up with, let alone a king!
Dall Glic: If you will but listen to the advice
I have to give....
King: I know it without you telling me. You
are asking me to make away with the lad! And
who knows but the girl might turn on me after,
women are so queer, and say I had a right to have
asked leave from herself?
Dall Glic: There will no one suspect you of
doing it, and you to take my plan. Bid them
heat the big oven outside on the lawn that is for
roasting a bullock in its full bulk.
King: Don't be talking of roasted meat! I
think I can eat no more for a twelvemonth!
Dall Glic: There will be nothing roasted that
any person will have occasion to eat. When the
oven door will be open, give orders to your bullies
and your foot-soldiers to give a tip to him that
will push him in. When evening comes, news will
go out that he left the meat to burn and made off
on his rambles, and no more about him.
King: What way can I send orders when I'm
near crazed in my wits with the want of rest. A
little minute of sleep might soothe and settle my
brain.
(Lies down.)
Dall Glic: The least little word to give leave
...or a sign ...such as to nod the head.
King: I give you my word, my head is tired
nodding! Be off now and close the door after
you and give out that anyone that comes to this
side of the house at all in the next half-hour, his
neck will be on the block before morning!
Dall Glic: (Hurriedly.) I'm going! I'm
going.
(Goes.)
King: (Locking door and drawing window curtains.)
That you may never come back till I ask you!
(Lies down and settles himself on pillows.) I'll be
lying here in my lone listening to the pigeons
seeking their meal. "Coo-coo," they're saying,
"Coo-coo."
(Closes eyes.)
Nurse: (At door.) Who is it locked the door?
(Shakes it.) Who is it is in it? What is going on
within? Is it that some bad work is after being
done in this place? Hi! Hi! Hi!
King: (Sitting up.) Get away out of that,
you torment of a nurse! Be off before I'll have
the life of you!
Nurse: The Lord be praised, it is the King's
own voice! There's time yet!
King: There's time, is there? There's time
for everyone to give out their chat and their gab,
and to do their business and take their ease and have
a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts
of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the
meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green
grass in the heat of the day, without being pestered
and plagued and tormented and called to and
wakened and worried, till a man is no less than
wore out!
Nurse: Up or down, I'll say what I have to
say, if it cost me my life. It is that I have to tell
you of a plot that is made and a plan!
King: I won't listen! I heard enough of
plots and plans within the last three minutes!
Nurse: You didn't hear this one. No one knows
of it only myself.
King: I was told it by the Dall Glic.
Nurse: You were not! I am only after making
it out on the moment!
King: A plot against the lad of the saucepans?
Nurse: That's it! That's it! Open now the door!
King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and
settling himself to sleep.) Tell away and welcome!
(Shuts eyes.)
Nurse: That's right! You're listening. Give
heed now. That schemer came a while ago letting
on to be the King of Sorcha is no such thing! What
do you say?...Maybe you knew it before?
I wonder the Dall Glic not to have seen that for
himself with his one eye.... Maybe you don't
believe it? Well, I'll tell it out and prove it.
I have got sure word by running messenger that
came cross-cutting over the ridge of the hill....
That carrion that came in a coach, pressing to bring
away the Princess before nightfall, giving himself
out to be some great one, is no other than Taig the
Tailor, that should be called Taig the Twister,
down from his mother's house from Oughtmana,
that stole grand clothes which were left in the
mother's charge, he being out at the time cutting
cloth and shaping lies, and has himself dressed out
in them the way you'd take him to be King! (King
has slumbered peacefully all through.) Now, what
do you say? Now, will you open the door?
Queen: (Outside.) What call have you to
shouting and disturbing the King?
Nurse: I have good right and good reason to
disturb him!
Queen: Go away and let me open the door.
Nurse: I will go and welcome now; I have
told out my whole story to the King.
Queen: (Shaking door.) Open the door, my
dear! It is I myself that is here! (King looks
up, listens, shakes his head and sinks back.) Are
you there at all, or what is it ails you?
Nurse: He is there, and is after conversing
with myself.
Queen: (Shaking again.) Let me in, my dear
King! Open! Open! Open! unless that the
falling sickness is come upon you, or that you are
maybe lying dead upon the floor!
Nurse: Not a dead in the world.
Queen: Go, Nurse, I tell you, bring the smith
from the anvil till he will break asunder the lock
of the door!
(King annoyed, waddles to door and opens it
suddenly. Queen stumbles in.)
King: What at all has taken place that you
come bawling and calling and disturbing my rest?
Queen: Oh! Are you sound and well? I was
in dread there did something come upon you,
when you gave no answer at all.
King: Am I bound to answer every call and
clamour the same as a hall-porter at the door?
Queen: It is business that cannot wait. Here
now is a request I have written to the bully of
the King of Alban, bidding him to strike the head
off whatever man will put the letter in his hand.
Write your name and sign to it, in three royal words.
King: I wouldn't sign a letter out of my right
hour if it was to make the rivers run gold. There
is nothing comes of signing letters but more trouble
in the end.
Queen: Give me, so, to bind it a drop of your
own blood as a token and a seal. You will not
refuse, and I telling you the messenger will go
with it, and that will lose his head through it, is no
less than that troublesome cook!
King: (With a roar.) Anyone to say that word
again I will not leave a head on any neck in the
kingdom! I declare on my oath it would be
best for me to take the world for my pillow and
put that lad upon the throne!
(Queen goes back frightened to door.)
Gateman: (Coming in.) There is a man coming
in that will take no denial. It is Fintan the
Astrologer.
(Fintan enters with Dall Glic, Nurse, Princess,
Taig, Manus and Prince of the Marshes
crowding after him.)
King: Another disturbance! The whole world
would seem to be on the move!
Queen: Fintan! What brings him here again?
Fintan: A great deceit? A terrible deception!
King: What at all is it?
Fintan: Long and all as I'm in the world, such
a thing never happened in my lifetime!
Queen: What is it has happened?
Fintan: It is not any fault of myself or any
miscounting of my own! I am certain sure of
that much. Is it that the stars of heaven are
gone astray, they that are all one with a clock—
unless it might be on a stormy night when they
are wild-looking around the moon.
King: Go on with your story and stop your
raving.
Fintan: The first time ever I came to this place
I made a prophecy.
Dall Glic: You did, about the child was in the
cradle.
Fintan: And that was but new in the world.
It is what I said, that she was born under a certain
star, and that in a score of years all but two,
whatever acting was going on in that star at the
time she was born, she would get her crosses in the
same way.
Dall Glic: The cross you foretold to her was
to be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would
come upon a twelvemonth from this very day.
Fintan: That's it. That was according to
my reckoning. There was no mistake in that.
And I thought better of the Seven Stars than
they to make a fool of me, after all the respect
I had showed them, giving my life to watching
themselves and the plans they have laid down
for men and for mortals.
King: It seems as if I myself was the best prophet
and that there is no Dragon at all.
Fintan: What a bad opinion you have of me
that I would be so far out as that! It would be
a deception and a disappointment out of measure,
there to come no Dragon, and I after foretelling
and prophesying him.
King: Troth, it would be no disappointment
at all to ourselves.
Fintan: It would be better, I tell you, a score
of king's daughters to be ate and devoured, than
the high stars in their courses to be proved wrong.
But it must be right, it surely must be right. I
gave the prophecy according to her birth hour,
that was one hour before the falling back of the sun.
Dall Glic: It was not, but an hour before the
rising of the sun.
Fintan: Not at all! It was the Nurse herself
told me it was at evening she was born.
Queen: There is the Nurse now. Let you ask
her account.
Fintan: (To Nurse.) It was yourself laid down
it was evening!
Nurse: Sure I wasn't in the place at all till
Samhuin time, when she was near three months
in the world.
Fintan: Then it was some other hag the very
spit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie.
Nurse: Sure that one was banished out of this
on the head of telling lies. An hour ere sunrise,
and before the crowing of the cocks. The Dall
Glic will tell you that much.
Dall Glic: That is so. I have it marked upon
the genealogies in the chest.
Fintan: That is great news! It was a heavy
wrong was done me! It had me greatly upset.
Twelve hours out in laying down the birth-time!
That clears the character of myself and
of the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could
make no mistake in my office and in my
billet!
King: Will you stop praising yourself and give
out some sense?
Fintan: Knowledge is surely the greatest thing
in the world! And truth! Twelve hours with
the planets is equal to twelve months on earth.
I am well satisfied now.
Queen: So the Dragon is not coming, and the
girl is in no danger at all?
Fintan: Not coming! Heaven help your poor
head! Didn't I get word within the last half-hour
he is after leaving his den in the Kingdoms of the
Cold, and is at this minute ploughing his way to
Ireland, the same as I foretold him, but that I
made a miscount of a year?
Nurse: (Putting her arm round Princess.) Och!
do not listen or give heed to him at all!
Queen: When is he coming so?
Fintan: Amn't I tired telling you this day
in the place of this day twelvemonth. But as to
the minute, there's too much lies in this place
for me to be rightly sure.
King: The curse of the seven elements upon
him!
Fintan: Little he'll care for your cursing. The
whole world wouldn't stop him coming to your
own grand gate.
Princess: (Coming forward.) Then I am to die
to-night?
Fintan: You are, without he will be turned
back by someone having a stronger star than your
own, and I know of no star is better, unless it might
be the sun.
Queen: If you had minded me, and given in
to ring the wedding bells, you would be safe out
of this before now.
Fintan: That Dragon not to find her before
him, he will ravage and destroy the whole district
with the poisonous spittle of his jaw, till the want
will be so great the father will disown his son and
will not let him in the door. Well, good-bye to ye!
Ye'll maybe believe me to have foreknowledge
another time, and I proved to be right. I have
knocked great comfort out of that!
(Goes.)
King: Oh, my poor child! My poor little
Nu! I thought it never would come to pass, I
to be sending you to the slaughter. And I too
bulky to go out and face him, having led an easy life!
Princess: Do not be fretting.
King: The world is gone to and fro! I'll
never ask satisfaction again either in bed or board,
but to be wasting away with watercresses and rising
up of a morning before the sun rises in Babylon!
(Weeps.) Oh, we might make out a way to baffle
him yet! Is there no meal will serve him only
flesh and blood? Try him with Grecian wine,
and with what was left of the big dinner a while ago!
Gateman: (Coming in.) There is some strange
thing in the ocean from Aran out. At first it was
but like a bird's shadow on the sea, and now you
would nearly say it to be the big island would have
left its moorings, and it steering its course towards
Aughanish!
Dall Glic: I'm in dread it should be the Dragon
that has cleared the ocean at a leap!
King: (Holding Princess.) I will not give you
up! Let him devour myself along with you!
Dull Glic: (To Princess.) It is best for me
to put you in a hiding-hole under the ground,
that has seven locked doors and seven locks on
the farthest door. It might fail him to make
you out.
Nurse: Oh, it would be hard for her to go
where she cannot hear the voice of a friend or
see the light of day!
Princess: Would you wish me to save myself
and let all the district perish? You heard what
Fintan said. It is not right for destruction to be
put on a whole province, and the women and the
children that I know.
Queen: There is maybe time yet for you to
wed.
Princess: So long as I am living I have a choice.
I will not be saved in that way. It is alone I will
be in my death.
Manus: (Coming to King.) I am going out
from you, King. I might not be coming in to
you again. I would wish to set you free from
the promise you made me a while ago, and the bond.
King: What does it signify now? What does
anything signify, and the world turning here and
there!
Manus: And another thing. I would wish to
ask pardon of the King's daughter. I ought not
to have laid any claim to her, being a stranger in
this place and without treasure or attendance.
And yet ...and yet ...(stoops and kisses hem
of her dress), she was dear to me. It is a man who
never may look on her again is saying that.
(Turns to door.)
Taig: He is going to run from the Dragon!
It is kind father for a scullion to be timid!
Queen: It is in his blood. He is maybe not
to blame for what is according to his nature.
Manus: That is so. I am doing what is according
to my nature.
(Goes, Nurse goes after him.)
Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Go throw a dishcloth
after him that the little lads may be mocking him
along the road!
Dall Glic: I will not. I have meddled enough
at your bidding. I am done with living under
dread. Let you blind me entirely! I am free
of you. It might be best for me the two eyes to
be withered, and I seeing nothing but the ever-living
laws!
Prince of Marshes: (Coming to Princess.) It is
my grief that with all the teachers I had there was
not one to learn me the handling of weapons or
of arms. But for all that I will not run away,
but will strive to strike one blow in your defence
against that wicked beast.
Princess: It is a good friend that would rid
us of him. But it grieves me that you should
go into such danger.
Prince of Marshes: (To Dall Glic.) Give me
some sword or casting spears.
(Dall Glic gives him spears.)
Princess: I am sorry I made fun of you a while
ago. I think you are a good kind man.
Prince of Marshes; (Kissing her hand.) Having
that word of praise I will bring a good heart into
the fight.
(Goes.)
(Taig is slipping out after him.)
Queen: See now the King of Sorcha slipping
away into the fight. Stop here now! (Pulls him
back.) You have a life that is precious to many
besides yourself. Do not go without being well
armed—and with a troop of good fighting men
at your back.
Taig: I am greatly obliged to you. I think
I'll be best with myself.
Queen: You have no suit or armour upon you.
Taig: That is what I was thinking.
Queen: Here anyway is a sword.
Taig: (Taking it.) That's a nice belt now.
Well worked, silver thread and gold.
Queen: The King's own guard will go out with
you.
Taig: I wouldn't ask one of them! What
would you think of me wanting help! A Dragon!
Little I'd think of him. I'll knock the life out of
him. I'll give him cruelty!
Queen: You have great courage indeed!
Taig: I'll cut him crossways and lengthways
the same as a yard of frieze! I'll make garters of
his body! I'll smooth him with a smoothing iron!
Not a fear of me! I never lost a bet yet that I
wasn't able to pay it!
Gateman: (As he rushes in, Taig slips away.)
The Dragon! The Dragon! I seen it coming and
its mouth open and a fiery flame from it! And
nine miles of the sea is dry with all it drank of it!
The whole country is gathering the same as of a
fair day for to see him devour the Princess.
(Princess trembles and sinks into a chair.
King, Queen and Dall Glic look from
window. They turn to her as they
speak.)
Queen: There is a terrible splashing in the sea!
It is like as if the Dragon's tail had beaten it into
suds of soap!
Dall Glic: He is near as big as a whale!
King: He is, and bigger!
Queen: I see him! I see him! He would seem
to have seven heads!
Dall Glic: I see but one.
Queen: You would see more if you had your
two eyes! He has six heads at the least!
King: He has but one. He is twisting and
turning it around.
Dall Glic: He is coming up towards the flaggy
shore!
King: I hear him! He is snoring like a flock
of pigs!
Queen: He is rearing his head in the air! He
has teeth as long as a tongs!
Doll Glic: No, but his tail he is rearing up!
It would take a ladder forty feet long to get to
the tip of it!
Queen: There is the King of Sorcha going out
the gate for to make an end of him.
Dall Glic: So he is, too. That is great bravery.
King: He is going to one side. He is come
to a stop.
Dall Glic: It seems to me he is ready to fall in
his standing. He is gone into a little thicket of
furze. He is not coming out, but is lying crouched
up in it the same as a hare in a tuft. I can see his
shoulders narrowed up.
Queen: He maybe got a weakness.
King: He did, maybe, of courage. Shaking
and shivering, he is like a hen in thunder. In my
opinion, he is hiding from the fight.
Queen: There is the Prince of the Marshes
going out now, and his coach after him! And
his two aunts sitting in it and screeching to him
not to run into danger!
King: He will not do much. He has not pith
or power to handle arms. That sort brings a bad
name on kings.
Dall Glic: He is gone away from the coach.
He is facing to the flaggy shore!
Queen: Oh, the Dragon has put up his head
and is spitting at him!
King: He has cast a spear into its jaw! Good man!
(Princess goes over to window.)
Dall Glic: He is casting another! His hand
shook ...it did not go straight. He is gone
on again! He has cast another spear! It should
hit the beast ...it let a roar!
Princess: Good little Prince! What way is
the battle now?
Dall Glic: It will kill him with its fiery breath!
He is running now ...he is stumbling ...the
Dragon is after him! He is up again! The two
Aunts have pushed him into the coach and have
closed the iron door.
King: It will fail the beast to swallow him coach
and all. It is gone back to refresh itself in the sea.
You can hear it puffing and plunging!
Queen: There is nothing to stop it now. (To
Princess.) If you have e'er a prayer, now is the
time to say it.
Dall Glic: Stop a minute ...there is another
champion going out.
King: A man wearing a saffron suit ...who
is he at all? He has the look of one used to giving
orders.
Princess: (Looking out.) Oh! he is but going
to his death. It would be better for me to throw
myself into the tide and make an end of it.
(Is rushing to door.)
King: (Holding her.) He is drawing his sword.
Himself and the Dragon are thrusting at one
another on the flags!
Princess: Oh, close the curtains! Shut out the
sound of the battle.
(Dall Glic closes curtains.)
King: Strike up now a tune of music that will
deafen the sound!
(Orchestra plays. Princess is kneeling by
King. Music changes from discord to
victory. Two Aunts and Gateman rush
in. Noise of cheering heard without as
the Gateman silences music.)
Gateman: Great news and wonderful news and
a great story!
First Aunt: The fight is ended!
Second Aunt: The Dragon is brought to his
last goal!
Gateman: That young fighting man that has
him flogged! Made at him like a wave breaking
on the strand! They crashed at one another like
two days of judgment! Like the battle of the
cold with the heat!
First Aunt: You'd say he was going through
dragons all his life!
Second Aunt: It can hardly put a stir out of
itself!
Gateman: That champion has it baffled and
mastered! It is after being chased over seven
acres of ground!
First Aunt: Drove it to its knees on the flaggy
shore and made an end of it!
King: God bless that man to-day and to-morrow!
Second Aunt: He has put it in a way it will eat
no more kings' daughters!
Princess: And the stranger that mastered it—
is he safe?
First Aunt: What signifies if he is or is not, so
long as we have our own young prince to bring
home!
Gatekeeper: He is not safe. No sooner had he
the beast killed and conquered than he fell dead,
and the life went out of him.
Princess: Oh, that is not right! He to be dead
and I living after him!
King: He was surely noble and high-blooded.
There are some that will be sorry for his death.
Princess: And who should be more sorry than
I myself am sorry? Who should keen him unless
myself? There is a man that gave his life for me,
and he young and all his days before him and shut
his eyes on the white world for my sake!
Queen: Indeed he was a man you might have
been content to wed with, hard and all as you are
to please.
Princess: I never will wed with any man so
long as my life will last, that was bought for me
with a life was more worthy by far than my own!
He is gone out of my reach; let him wait for me
to give him my thanks on the other side. Bring
me now his sword and his shield till I will put
them before me and cry my eyes down with grief!
Gateman: Here is his cap for you, anyway, and
his cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For the
champion you are crying was no other than that
lad of a cook!
Queen: That is not true! It is not possible!
Gateman: Sure I seen him myself going out the
gate a while ago. He put off his cook's apparel
and threw it along with these behind the turfstack. I
gathered them up presently and I coming in the door.
King: The world is gone beyond me entirely!
But what I was saying all through, there was
something beyond the common in that boy!
Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to chair.)
Let you be comforted now, knowing he cannot
come back to lay claim to you in marriage, as it
is likely he would, and he living.
Princess: It is he saved me after my unkindness!...
Oh, I am ashamed ...ashamed!
Queen: It is a queer thing a king's daughter
to be crying after a man used to twisting the spit
in place of weapons, and over skivers in the place
of a sword!
Princess: (Gropes and totters.) What has happened?
There is something gone astray! I have
no respect for myself.... I cannot live! I am
ashamed. Where is Nurse? Muime! Come to
me, Muime!...My grief! The man that died
for me, whether he is of the noble or the simple
of the world, it is to him I have given the love of
my soul!
(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on
window seat.)
Nurse: (Rushing in.) What is it, honey?
What at all are they after doing to you?
Queen: Throw over her a skillet of water. She
is gone into a faint.
Dall Glic: (Who is bending over her.) She is
in no faint. She is gone out.
Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling! What
call had I to leave you among them at all?
King: Raise her up. It is impossible she can
be gone.
Dall Glic: Gone out and spent, as sudden as
a candle in a blast of wind.
King: Who would think grief would do away
with her so sudden, there to be seven of the like
of him dead?
Nurse: (Rises.) What did you do to her at all,
at all? Or was it through the fright and terror
of the beast?
Queen: She died of the heartbreak, being told
that the strange champion that had put down the
Dragon was killed dead.
Nurse: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie
out of his mouth? (Shouts in her ear.) What
would ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell
you the true story. No man in Ireland ever was
half as good as him! It was himself mastered the
beast and dragged the heart out of him and forced
down a squirrel's heart in its place, and slapped a
bridle on him. And he himself did but stagger
and go to his knees in the heat and drunkenness
of the battle, and rose up after as good as ever he
was! It is out putting ointments on him that I
was up to this, and healing up his cuts and wounds!
Oh, what ails you, honey, that you will not waken?
Queen: She thought it to be a champion and a
high up man that had died for her sake. It is
what broke her down in the latter end, hearing
him to be no big man at all, but a clown!
Nurse: Oh, my darling! And I not here to
tell you! You are a motherless child, and the
curse of your mother will be on me! It was no
clown fought for you, but a king, having generations
of kings behind him, the young King of Sorcha,
Manus, son of Solas son of Lugh.
King: I would believe that now sooner than
many a thing I would hear.
Nurse: (Keening.) Oh, my child, and my
share! I thought it was you would be closing my
eyes, and now I am closing your own! You to
be brought away in your young youth! Your hand
that was whiter than the snow of one night, and
the colour of the foxglove on your cheek.
(A great shouting outside and burst of music.
A march played. Manus comes in, followed
by Fintan and Prince of the Marshes.
Shouts and music continue. He leads the
Dragon by a bridle. The others are in
front of Princess, huddled from Dragon.
Queen gets up on a chair.)
Manus: Where is the Princess Nu? I have
brought this beast to bow itself at her feet.
(All are silent. Manus flings bridle to
Fintan's hand. Dragon backs out. All
go aside from Princess.)
Nurse: She is here dead before you.
Manus: That cannot be! She was well and
living half an hour ago.
Nurse: (Rises.) Oh, if she could but waken
and hear your voice! She died with the fret of
losing you, that is heaven's truth! It is tormented
she was with these giving out you were done away
with, and mocking at your weapons that they laid
down to be the cleaver and the spit, till the heart
broke in her like a nut.
Manus: (Kneeling beside her.) Then it is myself
have brought the death darkness upon you at the
very time I thought to have saved you!
Nurse: There is no blame upon you, but some
that had too much talk!
(Goes on keening.)
Manus: What call had I to come humbugging
and letting on as I did, teasing and tormenting
her, and not coming as a King should that is come
to ask for a Queen! Oh, come back for one minute
only till I will ask your pardon!
Dall Glic: She cannot come to you or answer
you at all for ever.
Manus: Then I myself will go follow you and
will ask for your forgiveness wherever you are gone,
on the Plain of Wonder or in the Many-Coloured
Land! That is all I can do ...to go after you
and tell you it was no want of respect that brought
me in that dress, but hurry and folly and taking
my own way. For it is what I have to say to you,
that I gave you my heart's love, what I never gave
to any other, since first I saw you before me in
my sleep! Here, now, is a short road to reach you!
(Takes sword.)
Prince of Marshes: (Catching his hand.) Go
easy now, go easy.
Manus: Take off your hand! I say I will die
with her!
Prince of Marshes: That will not raise her up
again. But I, now, if I have no skill in killing
beasts or men, have maybe the means of bringing
her back to life.
Nurse: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it
you have at all?
Prince of Marshes: (Taking bag from his Aunt.)
These three leaves from the Tree of Power that
grows by the Well of Healing. Here they are
now for you, tied with a thread of the wool of
the sheep of the Land of Promise. There is power
in them to bring one person only back to life.
First Aunt: Give them back to me! You
have your own life to think of as well as any other
one!
Second Aunt: Do not spend and squander that
cure on any person but yourself!
Prince of Marshes: (Giving the leaves.) And if
I have given her my love that it is likely I will
give to no other woman for ever, indeed and
indeed, I would not ask her or wish her to wed
with a very frightened man, and that is what I
was a while ago. But you yourself have earned her,
being brave.
Manus: (Taking leaves.) I never will forget it
to you. You will be a brave man yet.
Prince of Marshes: Give me in place of it your
sword; for I am going my lone through the world
for a twelvemonth and a day, till I will learn to
fight with my own hand.
(Manus gives him sword. He throws off cloak
and outer coat and fastens it on.)
Nurse: Stand back, now. Let the whole of ye
stand back. (She lays a leaf on the Princess's mouth
and one on each of her hands.) I call on you by
the power of the Seven Belts of the Heavens, of
the Twelve Winds of the World, of the Three
Waters of the Sea!
(Princess stirs slightly.)
King: That is a wonder of wonders! She is stirring!
Manus: Oh, my share of the world! Are you
come back to me?
Princess: It was a hard fight he wrestled with.
...I thought I heard his voice.... Is he come
from danger?
Nurse: He did. Here he is. He that saved
you and that killed the Dragon, and that let on
to be a serving boy, and he no less than one of
the world's kings!
Manus: Here I am, my dear, beside you, to be
your comrade and your company for ever.
Princess: You!...Yes, it is yourself. Forgive
me. I am sorry that I spoke unkindly to you
a while ago; I am ashamed that it failed me to
know you to be a king.
(She stands up, helped by Nurse.)
Manus: It was my own fault and my folly.
What way could you know it? There is nothing
to forgive.
Princess: But ...if I did not recognise you
as a king ...anyway ...the time you dropped
the eggs ...I was nearly certain that you were
no cook!
(They embrace.)
Queen: There now I have everything brought
about very well in the finish!
(A scream at door. Taig rushes in, followed
by Sibby, in country dress. He kneels at
the Queen's feet, holding on to her skirt.)
Sibby: Bad luck and bad cess to you! Torment
and vexation on you! (Seizes him by back of neck
and shakes him.) You dirty little scum and leavings!
You puny shrimp you! You miserable ninth part
of a man!
Queen: Is it King or the Dragon Killer he is
letting on to be yet, or do you know what he is
at all?
Sibby: It's myself knows that, and does know
it! He being Taig the tailor, my own son and
my misfortune, that stole away from me a while
ago, bringing with him the grand clothes of that
young champion (points to Manus) and his gold!
To borrow a team of horses from the plough he
did, and to bring away the magistrate's coach! But
I followed him! I came tracking him on the road!
Put off now those shoes that are too narrow for
you, you red thief, you! For, believe me, you'll
go facing home on shank's mare!
Taig: (Whimpering.) It's a very unkind thing
you to go screeching that out before the King,
that will maybe strike my head off!
Sibby: Did ever you know of anyone making a
quarrel in a whisper? To wed with the King's
daughter, you would? To go vanquish the water-worm,
you would? I'll engage you ran before you
went anear him!
Taig: If I didn't I'd be tore with his claws
and scorched with his fiery breath. It is likely
I'd be going home dead!
Sibby: Strip off now that cloak and that body-coat
and come along with me, or I'll make split
marrow of you! What call have you to a suit
that is worth more than the whole of the County
Mayo? You're tricky and too much tricks in you,
and you were born for tricks! It would be right
you to be turned into the shape of a limping
foxy cat!
Taig: (Weeping as he takes off clothes.) Sure
I thought it no harm to try to go better
myself.
Prince of Marshes: (Giving his cloak and coat.)
Here, I bestow these to you. If you were a while
ago a tailor among kings, from this out you will
be a king among tailors.
Sibby: (Curtseying.) Well, then, my thousand
blessings on you! He'll be as proud as the world
of that. Now, Taig, you'll be as dressed up as the
best of them! Come on now to Oughtmana, as
it is long till you'll quit it.
(They go towards door.)
Dragon: (Putting his head in at window.) Manus,
King of Sorcha, I am starved with the want of food.
Give me a bit to eat.
Fintan: He is not put down! He will devour
the whole of us! I'd sooner face a bullet and
ten guns!
Dragon: It is not mannerly to eat without
being invited. Is it any harm to ask where will
I find a meal will suit me?
Princess: Oh, does he ask to make a meal of
me, after all?
Dragon: I am hungry and dancing with the
hunger! It was you, Manus, stopped me from the
one meal. Let you set before me another.
King: There is reason in that. Drive up now
for him a bullock from the meadow.
Dragon: Manus, it is not bullocks I am craving,
since the time you changed the heart within me
for the heart of a little squirrel of the wood.
Manus: (Taking a cocoa-nut from table.) Here
is a nut from the island of Lanka, that is called
Adam's Paradise. Milk there is in it, and a kernel
as white as snow.
(He throws it out. Dragon is heard crunching.)
Dragon: (Putting head in again.) More! Give
me more of them! Give them out to me by the
dozen and by the score!
Manus: You must go seek them in the east of
the world, where you can gather them in bushels
on the strand.
Dragon: So I will go there! I'll make no delay!
I give you my word, I'd sooner one of them than
to be cracking the skulls of kings' daughters, and
the blood running down my jaws. Blood! Ugh!
It would disgust me! I'm in dread it would cause
vomiting. That and to have the plaits of hair
tickling and tormenting my gullet!
Princess: (Claps hands.) That is good hearing,
and a great change of heart.
Dragon: But if it's a tame dragon I am from this
out, I'm thinking it's best for me to make away
before you know it, or it's likely you'll be yoking
me to harrow the clods, or to be dragging the
water-car from the spring well. So good-bye the
whole of ye, and get to your supper. Much good
may it do you! I give you my word there is
nothing in the universe I despise, only the flesh-eaters
of Adam's race!
CURTAIN.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I wrote The Dragon in 1917, that now seems so many long years away, and I have been trying to remember how I came to write it. I think perhaps through some unseen inevitable kick of the swing towards gay-coloured comedy from the shadow of tragedy. It was begun seriously enough, for I see among my scraps of manuscripts that the earliest outline of it is entitled "The Awakening of a Soul," the soul of the little Princess who had not gone "far out in the world." And that idea was never quite lost, for even when it had all turned to comedy I see as an alternative name "A Change of Heart." For even the Dragon's heart is changed by force, as happens in the old folk tales and the heart of some innocent creature put in its place by the conqueror's hand; all change more or less except the Queen. She is yet satisfied that she has moved all things well, and so she must remain till some new breaking up or re-birth.
As to the framework, that was once to have been the often-told story of a King's daughter given to whatever man can "knock three laughs out of her." As well as I remember the first was to have been when the eggs were broken, and another when she laughed with the joy of happy love. But the third was the stumbling-block. It was necessary the ears of the Abbey audience should be tickled at the same time as those of the Princess, and old-time jests like those of Sir Dinadin of the Round Table seem but dull to ears of to-day. So I called to my help the Dragon that has given his opportunity to so many a hero from Perseus in the Greek Stories to Shawneen in those of Kiltartan. And he did not sulk or fail me, for after one of the first performances the producer wrote: "I wish you had seen the play last night when a big Northern in the front of the stalls was overcome with helpless laughter, first by Sibby and then by the Dragon. He sat there long after the curtain fell, unable to move and wiping the tears from his eyes; the audiences stopped going out and stood and laughed at him." And even a Dragon may think it a feather in his cap to have made Ulster laugh.
A.G.
Coole, February, 1920.
ORIGINAL CAST
"The Dragon " was first produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 21st April, 1919, with the following cast:
The King BARRY FITZGERALD
The Queen MARY SHERIDAN
The Princess Nuala EITHNE MAGEE
The Dall Glic (The Blind Wise Man) PETER NOLAN
The Nurse MAUREEN DELANY
The Prince of the Marshes J. HUGH NAGLE
Manus—King of Sorcha ARTHUR SHIELDS
Fintan—The Astrologer F.J. MACCORMICK
Taig FLORENCE MARKS
The Dragon SEAGHAN BARLOW
The Porter STEPHEN CASEY
The Gatekeeper HUBERT M'GUIRE
Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes {ESME WARD
{DYMPHNA DALY
ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS
PERSONS
The Mother
.
Celia
(HER DAUGHTER).
Conan