{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14588/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14588","id":"gutenberg_14588","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14588","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Drama"],"text":"THREE WONDER PLAYS\n\nBy LADY GREGORY\n\nDrama\n\n\nOther works:\n\nSEVEN SHORT PLAYS.\nFOLK-HISTORY PLAYS. 2 VOLS.\nNEW COMEDIES.\nTHE GOLDEN APPLE.\nTHE DRAGON.\nOUR IRISH THEATRE. A CHAPTER OF\n  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.\nTHE KILTARTAN MOLIERE.\nTHE IMAGE AND OTHER PLAYS.\nTHREE WONDER PLAYS.\n\n\nIrish Folk-Lore and Legend\n\nVISIONS AND BELIEFS. 2 VOLS.\nCUCHULAIN OF MURITHEMNE.\nGODS AND FIGHTING MEN.\nSAINTS AND WONDERS.\nPOETS AND DREAMERS.\nTHE KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK.\nTHE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHUGH LANE'S LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENT\n  WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE DUBLIN\n  GALLERIES.\n\n\n\n\nThree Wonder Plays\n\nBy\n\nLady Gregory\n\nG.P. Putnam's Sons\nLondon & New York\n\nNote\n\nThese plays have been copyrighted in the United\nStates and Great Britain.\n\nAll rights reserved, including that of translation\ninto foreign languages.\n\nAll acting rights, both professional and amateur,\nare reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and\nall countries of the Copyright Union, by the author.\nPerformances are forbidden and right of presentation\nis reserved.\n\nApplication for the right of performing these plays\nor reading them in public should be made to Samuel\nFrench, 26, Southampton Street, Strand, London,\nW.C.2.\n\n\n\n\n_Made in Great Britain by_\n\nTHE BOTOLPH PRINTING WORKS\nGATE STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nTHE DRAGON\n\nARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS\n\nTHE JESTER\n\n\n\n\nTHE DRAGON\n\nACT I\n\nPERSONS\n\n_The King_\n\n_The Queen_.\n\n_The Princess Nuala_.\n\n_The Dall Glic_ (THE BLIND WISE MAN).\n\n_The Nurse_.\n\n_The Prince of the Marshes_.\n\n_Manus, King of Sorcha_.\n\n_Fintan, The Astrologer_.\n\n_Taig_.\n\n_Sibby_ (TAIG'S MOTHER).\n\n_Gatekeeper_.\n\n_Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes_.\n\n_Foreign Men Bringing in Food_.\n\n_The Dragon_.\n\n\n\n\nACT I\n\n\n_Scene: A room in the King's house at Burren.\nLarge window at back with deep window seat.\nDoors right and left. A small table and some\nchairs_.\n\n_Dall Glic: (Coming in with tray, which he puts\non table. Goes back to door.)_ You can come in,\nKing. There is no one here.\n\n_King: (Coming in.)_ That's very good. I was\nin dread the Queen might be in it.\n\n_Dall Glic_: It is a good thought I had bringing\nit in here, and she gone to give learning to the\nPrincess. She is not likely to come this side. It\nwould be a great pity to annoy her.\n\n_King: (Hastily swallowing a mouthful.)_ Look\nout now the door and keep a good watch. The\ntime she will draw upon me is when I am eating\nmy little bite.\n\n_Dall Glic_: I'll do that. What I wouldn't\nsee with my one eye, there's no other would see\nwith three.\n\n_King_: A month to-day since I wed with her, and\nwell pleased I am to be back in my own place. I\ngive you word my teeth are rusting with the want\nof meat. On the journey I got no fair play. She\nwouldn't be willing to see me nourish myself,\nunless maybe with the marrow bone of a wren.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Sure she lays down she is but thinking\nof the good of your health.\n\n_King_: Maybe so. She is apt to be paying too\nmuch attention to what will be for mine and for\nthe world's good. I kept my health fair enough,\nand the first wife not begrudging me my enough.\nI don't know what in the world led me not to stop\nas I was.\n\n_Dall Glic_: It is what you were saying, it was\nfor the good of the Princess Nuala, and of yourself.\n\n_King_: That is what herself laid down. It\nwould be a great ease to my mind, she was saying,\nto have in the house with the young girl, a far-off\ncousin of the King of Alban, and that had been\nconversation woman in his Court.\n\n_Dall Glic_: So it might be too. She is a great\nmanager of people.\n\n_King_: She is that ...I think I hear her\ncoming.... Throw a cloth over the plates.\n\n_Queen: (Coming in.)_ I was in search of you.\n\n_King_: I thought you were in Nuala's sunny\nparlour, learning her to play music and to go through\nbooks.\n\n_Queen_: That is what I thought to do. But I\nhadn't hardly started to teach her the principles\nof conversation and the branches of relationships\nand kindred of the big people of the earth, when\nshe plucked off the coverings I had put over the\ncages, and set open their doors, till the fiery birds\nof Sabes and the canaries of the eastern world\nwere screeching around my head, giving out every\nclass of cry and call.\n\n_King_: So they would too.\n\n_Queen_: The royal eagles stirred up till I must\nquit the place with their squawking, and the\nenchanted swans raising up their heads and pecking\nat the beadwork on my gown.\n\n_King_: Ah, she has a wish for the birds of the air,\nthat are by nature light and airy the same as herself.\n\n_Queen:_ It is time for her to turn her mind\nto good sense. What's that? (_Whipping cloth\nfrom tray_.) Is it that you are eating again, and\nit is but one half-hour since your breakfast?\n\n_King_: Ah, that wasn't a breakfast you'd call\na breakfast.\n\n_Queen_: Very healthy food, oaten meal flummery\nwith whey, and a griddle-cake; dandelion tea\nand sorrel from the field.\n\n_King_: My old fathers ate their enough of wild\nherbs and the like in the early time of the world.\nI'm thinking that it is in my nature to require a\ngood share of nourishment as if to make up for the\nhardships they went through.\n\n_Queen_: What now have you within that pastry\nwall?\n\n_King_: It is but a little leveret pie.\n\n_Queen: (Poking with fork.)_ Leveret! What's\nthis in it? The thickness of a blanket of beef;\ncalves' sweetbreads; cocks' combs; balls mixed\nwith livers and with spice. You to so much as\ntaste of it, you'll be crippled and crappled with\nthe gout, and roaring out in your pain.\n\n_King_: I tell you my generations have enough\ndone of fasting and for making little of the juicy\nmeats of the world.\n\n_Queen_: And the waste of it! Goose eggs and\njellies.... That much would furnish out a dinner\nfor the whole of the King of Alban's Court.\n_King_: Ah, I wouldn't wish to be using anything\nat all, only for to gather strength for to steer\nthe business of the whole of the kingdom!\n\n_Queen_: Have you enough ate now, my dear?\nAre you satisfied?\n\n_King:_ I am not. I would wish for a little taste\nof that saffron cake having in it raisins of the sun.\n\n_Queen_: Saffron! Are you raving? You to\nhave within you any of the four-and-twenty sicknesses\nof the race, it would throw it out in red\nblisters on your skin.\n\n_King_: Let me just taste one little slab of that\nvenison ham.\n\n_Queen: (Poking with a fork.)_ It would take\nseven chewings! Sudden death it would be!\nLeave it alone now and rise up. To keep in health\nevery man should quit the table before he is satisfied\n--there are some would walk to the door and back\nwith every bite.\n\n_King_: Is it that I am to eat my meal standing,\nthe same as a crane in a shallow, or moving from\ntuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet on the high\nroad?\n\n_Queen_: Well, at the least, let you drink down\na share of this tansy juice. I was telling you it\nwould be answerable to your health.\n\n_King_: You are doing entirely too much for me.\n\n_Queen_: Sure I am here to be comfortable to\nyou. This house before I came into it was but\na ship without a rudder! Here now, take the\nspoon in your hand.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Leave it there, Queen, and I'll\nengage he'll swallow it down bye-and-bye.\n\n_Queen_: Is it that _you_ are meddling, Dall Glic?\nIt is time some person took you in hand. I wonder\nnow could that dark eye of yours be cured?\n\n_Dall Glic_: It is given in that it can not, by\ndoctors and by druids.\n\n_Queen_: That is a pity now, it gives you a sort\nof a one-sided look. It might not be so hard a\nthing to put out the sight of the other.\n\n_Dall Glic_: I'd sooner leave them the way they\nare.\n\n_Queen_: I'll put a knot on my handkerchief till\nsuch time as I can give my mind to it.... Now,\nmy dear (_to King_), make no more delay. It is\nright to drink it down after your meal. The\nstomach to be bare empty, the medicine might\nprey upon the body till it would be wore away\nand consumed.\n\n_King_: Time enough. Let it settle now for\na minute.\n\n_Queen_: Here, now, I'll hold your nose the way\nyou will not get the taste of it.\n\n(_She holds spoon to his mouth. A ball flies\nin at window; he starts and medicine\nis spilled_.)\n\n_Princess: (Coming in with Nurse.)_ Is it true\nwhat they are telling me?\n\n_Queen_: Do you see that you near hit the King\nwith your ball, and, what is worse again, you have\nhis medicine spilled from the spoon.\n\n_Princess: (Patting him.)_ Poor old King.\n\n_Queen_: Have you your lessons learned?\n\n_Princess: (Throwing books in the air.)_ Neither\nline nor letter of them! Poem book! Brehon\nLaws! I have done with books! I am seventeen\nyears old to-day!\n\n_Queen:_ There is no one would think it and\nyou so flighty as you are.\n\n_Princess: (To King.)_ Is it true that the cook\nis gone away?\n\n_King: (Aghast.)_ What's that you're saying?\n\n_Queen:_ Don't be annoying the King's mind\nwith such things. He should be hidden from every\ntrouble and care.\n\n_Princess:_ Was it you sent him away?\n\n_Queen:_ Not at all. If he went it was through\nfoolishness and pride.\n\n_Princess:_ It is said in the house that you annoyed\nhim.\n\n_Queen:_ I never annoyed any person in my life,\nunless it might be for their own good. But it\nfails some to recognise their best friend. Just\nteaching him I was to pickle onion thinnings as it\nwas done at the King of Alban's Court.\n\n_Princess:_ Didn't he know that before?\n\n_Queen:_ Whether or no, he gave me very little\nthanks, but turned around and asked his wages.\nHurrying him and harrying him he said I was,\nand away with him, himself and his four-and-twenty\napprentices.\n\n_King:_ That is bad news, and pitiful news.\n\n_Queen:_ Do not be troubling yourself at all. It\nwill be easy find another.\n\n_King:_ It might not be easy to find so good a\none. A great pity! A dinner or a supper not\nto be rightly dressed is apt to give no pleasure in\nthe eating or in the bye-and-bye.\n\n_Queen:_ I have taken it in hand. I have a good\nheadpiece. I put out a call with running lads\nand with the army captains through the whole\nof the five provinces; and along with that, I have\nit put up on tablets at the post office.\n\n_Princess:_ I am sorry the old one to be gone.\nTo remember him is nearly the farthest spot in\nmy memory.\n\n_Queen: (Sharply.)_ If you want the house to\nbe under your hand only, it is best for you to settle\ninto one of your own.\n\n_Princess:_ Give me the little rush cabin by the\nstream and I'll be content.\n\n_Queen:_ If you mind yourself and profit by\nmy instruction it is maybe not a cabin you will\nbe moving to but a palace.\n\n_Princess:_ I'm tired of palaces. There are too\nmany people in them.\n\n_Queen:_ That is talking folly. When you settle\nyourself it must be in the station where you were\nborn.\n\n_Princess:_ I have no mind to settle myself yet\nawhile.\n\n_Nurse:_ Ah, you will not be saying that the\ntime Mr. Right will come down the chimney,\nand will give you the marks and tokens of a king.\n\n_Queen:_ There might have some come looking\nfor her before this, if it was not for you petting\nand pampering her the way you do, and encouraging\nher flightiness and follies. It is likely she will get\nno offers till such time as I will have taught her\nthe manners and the right customs of courts.\n\n_Nurse:_ Sure I am acquainted with courts myself.\nWasn't it I fostered comely Manus that is presently\nKing of Sorcha, since his father went out of the\nworld? And as to lovers coming to look for her!\nThey do be coming up to this as plenty as the eye\ncould hold them, and she refusing them, and they\nlaying the blame upon the King!\n\n_King:_ That is so, they laying the blame upon\nmyself. There was the uncle of the King of\nLeinster; he never sent me another car-load of\nasparagus from the time you banished him away.\n\n_Princess:_ He was a widower man.\n\n_King:_ As to the heir of Orkney, since the time\nyou sent him to the right about, I never got so\nmuch as a conger eel from his hand.\n\n_Princess:_ As dull as a fish he was. He had a\nfish's eyes.\n\n_King:_ That wasn't so with the champion of\nthe merings of Ulster.\n\n_Princess:_ A freckled man. He had hair the\ncolour of a fox.\n\n_King:_ I wish he didn't stop sending me his\ntribute of heather beer.\n\n_Queen:_ It is a poor daughter that will not\nwish to be helpful to her father.\n\n_Princess:_ If I am to wed for the furnishing\nof my father's table, it's as good for you to wrap\nme in a speckled fawnskin and roast me!\n\n_(Runs out, tossing her ball_.)\n\n_Queen:_ She is no way fit for marriage unless\nwith a herd to the birds of the air, till she has a\ncouple of years schooling.\n\n_King:_ It would be hard to put her back to\nthat.\n\n_Queen:_ I must take it in hand. She is getting\nentirely too much of her own way.\n\n_Nurse:_ Leave her alone, and in the end it will\nbe a good way.\n\n_Queen:_ To keep rules and hours she must learn,\nand to give in to order and good sense. _(To King.)_\nThere is a pigeon messenger I brought from Alban\nI am about to let loose on this day with news of\nmyself and of yourself. I will send with it a message\nto a friend I have, bidding her to make ready for\nNuala a place in her garden of learning and her\nschool.\n\n_King:_ That is going too fast. There is no\nhurry.\n\n_Queen:_ She is seventeen years. There is no\nday to be lost. I will go write the letter.\n\n_Nurse:_ Oh, you wouldn't send away the poor\nchild!\n\n_Dall Glic:_ It would be a great hardship to\nsend her so far. Our poor little Princess Nu!\n\n_Queen: (Sharply.)_ What are saying? _(Dall\nGlic is silent.)_\n\n_King:_ I would not wish her to be sent out\nof this.\n\n_Queen:_ There is no other way to set her mind\nto sense and learning. It will be for her own\ngood.\n\n_Nurse:_ Where's the use troubling her with\nlessons and with books that maybe she will never\nbe in need of at all. Speak up for her, King.\n\n_King:_ Let her stop for this year as she is.\n\n_Queen:_ You are all too soft and too easy. She\nwill turn on you and will blame you for it, and\nanother year or two years slipped by.\n\n_Nurse:_ That she may!\n\n_Dall Glic:_ Who knows what might take place\nwithin the twelvemonth that is coming?\n\n_King:_ Ah, don't be talking about it. Maybe\nit never might come to pass.\n\n_Dall Glic_: It will come to pass, if there is truth\nin the clouds of sky.\n\n_King_: It will not be for a year, anyway. There'll\nbe many an ebbing and flowing of the tide within\na year.\n\n_Queen_: What at all are you talking about?\n\n_King_: Ah, where's the use of talking too\nmuch.\n\n_Queen_: Making riddles you are, and striving\nto keep the meaning from your comrade, that is\nmyself.\n\n_King_: It's best not be thinking about the thing\nyou would not wish, and maybe it might never\ncome around at all. To strive to forget a threat\nyourself, it might maybe be forgotten by the\nuniverse.\n\n_Queen_: Is it true something was threatened?\n\n_King_: How would I know is anything true,\nand the world so full of lies as it is?\n\n_Nurse_: That is so. He might have been wrong\nin his foretelling. What is he in the finish but an\nold prophecy?\n\n_Dall Glic_: Is it of Fintan you are saying that?\n\n_Queen_: And who, will you tell me, is Fintan?\n\n_Dall Glic_: Anyone that never heard tell of\nFintan never heard anything at all.\n\n_Queen_: His name was not up on the tablets\nof big men at the King of Alban's Court, or of\nBritain.\n\n_Nurse_: Ah, sure in those countries they are\nwithout religion or belief.\n\n_Queen_: Is it that there was a prophecy?\n\n_King_: Don't mind it. What are prophecies?\nDon't we hear them every day of the week? And\nif one comes true there may be seven blind and\ncome to nothing.\n\n_Queen: (To Dall Glic_). I must get to the root\nof this, and the handle. Who, now, is Fintan?\n\n_Dall Glic:_ He is an astrologer, and understanding\nthe nature of the stars.\n\n_Nurse:_ He wore out in his lifetime three eagles\nand three palm trees and three earthen dykes.\nIt is down in a cleft of the rocks beyond he has\nhis dwelling presently, the way he can be watching\nthe stars through the daytime.\n\n_Dall Glic:_ He prophesied in a prophecy, and\nit is written in clean letters in the King's yew-tree\nbox.\n\n_King:_ It is best to keep it out of sight. It\nbeing to be, it will be; and, if not, where's the\nuse troubling our mind?\n\n_Queen:_ Sound it out to me.\n\n_Dall Glic: (Looking from window and drawing\ncurtain.)_ There is no story in the world is worse\nto me or more pitiful; I wouldn't wish any person\nto hear.\n\n_Nurse:_ Oh, take care it would come to the\nears of my darling Nu!\n\n_Dall Glic:_ It is said by himself and the heavens\nthat in a year from this day the King's daughter will\nbe brought away and devoured by a scaly Green\nDragon that will come from the North of the\nWorld.\n\n_Queen:_ A Dragon! I thought you were talking\nof some danger. I wouldn't give in to dragons.\nI never saw one. I'm not in dread of beasts unless\nit might be a mouse in the night-time!\n\n_King:_ Put it out of mind. It is likely anyway\nthat the world will soon be ended the way\nit is.\n\n_Queen: I_ will send and search out this astrologer\nand will question him.\n\n_Dall Glic_: You have not far to search. He\nis outside at the kitchen door at this minute, and\nas if questioning after something, and it a half-score\nand seven years since I knew him to come\nout of his cave.\n\n_King_: Do not! He might waken up the Dragon\nand put him in mind of the girl, for to make his\nown foretelling come true.\n\n_Nurse_: Ah, such a thing cannot be! The\npoor innocent child! _(Weeps.)_\n\n_Queen_: Where's the use of crying and roaring?\nThe thing must be stopped and put an end to.\nI don't say I give in to your story, but that would\nbe an unnatural death. I would be scandalised\nbeing stepmother to a girl that would be swallowed\nby a sea-serpent!\n\n_Nurse_: Ochone! Don't be talking of it at\nall!\n\n_Queen_: At the King of Alban's Court, one\nof the royal family to die over, it will be naturally\non a pillow, and the dead-bells ringing, and a\nburying with white candles, and crape on the\nknocker of the door, and a flagstone put over the\ngrave. What way could we put a stone or so\nmuch as a rose-bush over Nuala and she in the\ninside of a water-worm might be ploughing its way\ndown to the north of the world?\n\n_Nurse_: Och! that is what is killing me entirely!\nO save her, save her.\n\n_King_: I tell you, it being to be, it will be.\n\n_Queen_: You may be right, so, when you would\nnot go to the expense of paying her charges at the\nRoyal school. But wait, now, there is a plan\ncoming into my mind.\n\n_Nurse_: There must surely be some way!\n\n_Queen_: It is likely a king's daughter the beast--if\nthere is a beast--will come questing after, and\nnot after a king's wife.\n\n_Dall Glic_: That is according to custom.\n\n_Queen_: That's what I am saying. What we\nhave to do is to join Nuala with a man of a husband,\nand she will be safe from the danger ahead of her.\nIn all the inventions made by poets, for to put\nterror on children or to knock laughter out of fools,\ndid any of you ever hear of a Dragon swallowing\nthe wedding ring?\n\n_All_: We never did.\n\n_Queen_: It's easy enough so. There must be\nno delay till Nuala will be married and wed with\nsomeone that will bring her away out of this, and\nlet the Dragon go hungry home!\n\n_Nurse_: That she may! Isn't it a pity now\nshe being so hard to please!\n\n_Queen_: Young people are apt to be selfish and\nto have no thought but for themselves. She must\nnot be hard to please when it will be to save and\nto serve her family and to keep up respect for\ntheir name. Here she is coming.\n\n_Nurse_: Ah, you would not tell her! You\nwould not put the dear child under the shadow\nof such a terror and such a threat!\n\n_King_: She must not be told. I never could\nbear up against it.\n\n_(Nuala comes in_.)\n\n_Queen:_ Look now at your father the way he is.\n\n_Princess: (Touching his hand.)_ What is fretting\nyou?\n\n_Queen:_ His heart as weighty as that the chair\nnear broke under him.\n\n_Princess:_ I never saw you this way before.\n\n_Queen:_ And all on the head of yourself!\n\n_Princess:_ I am sorry, and very sorry, for that.\n\n_Queen:_ He is loth to say it to you, but he is\ntired and wore out waiting for you to settle with\nsome match. See what a troubled look he has on\nhis face.\n\n_Princess: (To King.)_ Is it that you want me\nto leave you? _(He gives a sob.) (To Dall Glic.)_\nIs it the Queen urged him to this?\n\n_Dall Glic:_ If she did, it was surely for your good.\n\n_Nurse:_ Oh, my child and my darling, let you\nstrive to take a liking to some good man that will\ncome!\n\n_Princess:_ Are you going against me with the rest?\n\n_Nurse:_ You know well I would never do that!\n\n_Princess:_ Do you, father, urge me to go?\n\n_King:_ They are in too big a hurry why\nwouldn't they wait a while, for a quarter, or three-quarters\nof a year.\n\n_Princess:_ Is that all the delay I am given, and\nthe term is set for me, like a servant that would be\nbanished from the house?\n\n_King:_ That's not it. That's not right. I\nwould never give in to let you go ...if it\nwasn't ...\n\n_Princess_: I know. _(Stands up.)_ For my own\ngood!\n\n_(Trumpet outside.)_\n\n_Gatekeeper_: (_Coming in_.) There is company\nat the door.\n\n_Queen_: Who is it?\n\n_Gatekeeper_: Servants, and a company of women,\nand one that would seem to be a Prince, and young.\n\n_Princess_: Then he is come asking me in marriage.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Who is he at all?\n\n_Gatekeeper_: They were saying he is the son\nof the King of the Marshes.\n\n_King_: Go bring him in.\n\n_(Gatekeeper goes_.)\n\n_Dall Glic_: That's right! He has great riches\nand treasure. There are some say he is the first\nmatch in Ireland.\n\n_Nurse_: He is not. If his father has a copper\ncrown, and our own King a silver one, it is the\nKing of Sorcha has a crown of gold! The young\nKing of Sorcha that is the first match.\n\n_Dall Glic_: If he is, this one is apt to be the\nsecond first.\n\n_Queen_: Do you hear, Nuala, what luck is flowing\nto you?\n\n_Dall Glic_: Do not now be turning your back\non him as you did to so many.\n\n_Princess_: No; whoever he is, it is likely I will\nnot turn away from this one.\n\n_Queen_: Go now and ready yourself to meet him.\n\n_Princess_: Am I not nice enough the way I am?\n\n_Queen_: You are not. The King of Alban's\ndaughter has hair as smooth as if a cow had licked it.\n\n_(Princess goes_.)\n\n_Gatekeeper_: Here is the Prince of the Marshes!\n\n_(Enter Prince, very young and timid, an old lady\non each side slightly in advance of him_.)\n\n_King_: A great welcome before you....\nAnd who may these be?\n\n_Prince_: Seven aunts I have....\n\n_First Aunt: (Interrupting.)_ If he has, there\nare but two of us have come along with him.\n\n_Second Aunt_: For to care him and be company\nfor him on his journey, it being the first time he\never quitted home.\n\n_Queen_: This is a great honour. Will you take\na chair?\n\n_First Aunt_: Leave that for the Prince of the\nMarshes. It is away from the draught of the\nwindow.\n\n_Second Aunt_: We ourselves are in charge of\nhis health. I have here his eel-skin boots for the\ndays that will be wet under foot.\n\n_First Aunt_: And I have here my little bag of\ncures, with a cure in it that would rise the body\nout of the grave as whole and as sound as the time\nyou were born.\n\n_(Lays it down_.)\n\n_King: (To Prince_.) It is many a day your\nfather and myself were together in our early time.\nWhat way is he? He was farther out in age than\nmyself.\n\n_Prince_: He is ...\n\n_First Aunt: (Interrupting_.) He is only middling\nthese last years. The doctors have taken him in\nhand.\n\n_King_: He was more for fowling, and I was\nmore for horses--before I increased so much in\ngirth. Is it for horses you are, Prince?\n\n_Prince_: I didn't go up on one up to this.\n\n_First Aunt_: Kings and princes are getting scarce.\nThey are the most class is wearing away, and it is\nright for them keep in mind their safety.\n\n_Second Aunt_: The Prince has no need to go\nupon a horse, where he has always a coach at his\ncommand.\n\n_King_: It is fowling that suits you so?\n\n_Prince_: I would be well pleased ...\n\n_First Aunt_: There is great danger going out\nfowling with a gun that might turn on you after\nand take your life.\n\n_Second Aunt_: Why would the Prince go into\ndanger, having servants that will go following\nafter birds?\n\n_Queen_: He is likely waiting till his enemies will\nmake an attack upon the country to defend it.\n\n_First Aunt_: There is a good dyke around about\nthe marshes, and a sort of quaking bog. It is not\nlikely war will come till such time as it will be made\nby the birds of the air.\n\n_King_: Well, we must strive to knock out some\nsport or some pleasure.\n\n_Prince_: It was not on pleasure I was sent.\n\n_First Aunt_: That's so, but on business.\n\n_Second Aunt_: Very weighty business.\n\n_King_: Let the lad tell it out himself.\n\n_Prince_: I hope there is no harm in me coming\nhither. I would be loth to push on you ...\n\n_First Aunt_: We thought it was right, as he\nwas come to sensible years ...\n\n_King_: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his\ntime.\n\n_Prince_: My father ... and his counsellors ...\nand my seven aunts ...that said it would be\nright for me to join with a wife.\n\n_Queen_: They showed good sense in that.\n\n_Prince: (Rapidly.)_ They bade me come and\ntake a look at your young lady of a Princess to see\nwould she be likely to be pleasing to them.\n\n_First Aunt_: That's it, and that is what brought\nourselves along with him--to see would we be\nsatisfied.\n\n_King_: I don't know. The girl is young--she's\nyoung.\n\n_First Aunt_: It is what we were saying, that\nmight be no drawback. It might be easier train\nher in our own ways, and to do everything that\nis right.\n\n_King_: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing\nthat is right, but it's sometimes hard to know.\n\n_Second Aunt_: Not in our place. What the\nKing of the Marshes would not know, his counsellors\nand ourselves would know.\n\n_Queen_: It will be very answerable to the Princess\nto be under such good guidance.\n\n_First Aunt_: For low people and for middling\npeople it is well enough to follow their own opinion\nand their will. But for the Prince's wife to have\nany choice or any will of her own, the people would\nnot believe her to be a _real_ princess.\n\n_(Princess comes to door, listening unseen.)_\n\n_King_: Ah, you must not be too strict with a\ngirl that has life in her.\n\n_Prince_: My seven aunts that were saying they\nhave a great distrust of any person that is lively.\n\n_First Aunt_: We would rather than the greatest\nbeauty in the world get him a wife who would be\ncontent to stop in her home.\n\n_(Princess comes in very stately and with a_\n_fine dress. She curtseys. Aunts curtsey\nand sit down again. Prince bows uneasily\nand sidles away.)_\n\n_First Aunt_: Will you sit, now, between the\ntwo of us?\n\n_Princess_: It is more fitting for a young girl\nto stay in her standing in the presence of a king's\nkindred and his son, since he is come so far to look\nfor me.\n\n_Second Aunt_: That is a very nice thought.\n\n_Princess_: My far-off grandmother, the old\npeople were telling me, never sat at the table\nto put a bit in her mouth till such time as her\nlord had risen up satisfied. She was that obedient\nto him that if he had bidden her, she would have\nlaid down her hand upon red coals.\n\n_(Prince looks bored and fidgets.)_\n\n_First Aunt_: Very good indeed.\n\n_Princess_: That was a habit with my grandmother.\nI would wish to follow in her ways.\n\n_King_: This is some new talk.\n\n_Queen_: Stop; she is speaking fair and good.\n\n_Princess_: A little verse, made by some good\nwife, I used to be learning. \"I always should:\nBe very good: At home should mind: My husband\nkind: Abroad obey: What people say.\"\n\n_First Aunt: (Getting up.)_ To travel the world,\nI never thought to find such good sense before me.\nDo you hear that, Prince?\n\n_Prince_: Sure I often heard yourselves shaping\nthat sort.\n\n_Second Aunt_: I'll engage the royal family will\nmake no objection to this young lady taking charge\nof your house.\n\n_Princess_: I can do that! _(Counts on fingers.)_\nTo send linen to the washing-tub on Monday, and\ndry it on Tuesday, and to mangle it Wednesday,\nand starch it Thursday, and iron it Friday, and\nfold it in the press against Sunday!\n\n_Second Aunt_: Indeed there is little to learn\nyou! And on Sundays, now, you will go driving\nin a painted coach, and your dress sewed with gold\nand with pearls, and the poor of the world envying\nyou on the road.\n\n_Queen: (Claps hands.)_ There is no one but\nmust envy her, and all that is before her for her\nlifetime!\n\n_First Aunt_: Here is the golden arm-ring the\nPrince brought for to slip over your hand.\n\n_Second Aunt_: It was put on all our generations of\nqueens at the time of the making of their match.\n\n_Princess: (Drawing back her hand.)_ Mine is\nnot made yet.\n\n_First Aunt_: Didn't you hear me saying, and\nthe Prince saying, there is nothing could be laid\ndown against it.\n\n_Princess_: There is one thing against it.\n\n_Queen_: Oh, there can be nothing worth while!\n\n_Princess_: A thing you would think a great\ndrawback and all your kindred would think it.\n\n_Queen: (Rapidly.)_ There is nothing, but maybe\nthat she is not so tall as you might think, through\nthe length of the heels of her shoes.\n\n_Second Aunt_: We would put up with that much.\n\n_Princess: (Rapidly.)_ It is that there was a\nspell put upon me--by a water-witch that was of\nmy kindred. At some hours of the day I am as\nyou see me, but at other hours I am changed into\na sea-filly from the Country-under-Wave. And\nwhen I smell salt on the west wind I must race and\nrace and race. And when I hear the call of the\ngulls or the sea-eagles over my head, I must leap\nup to meet them till I can hardly tell what is my\nright element, is it the high air or is it the loosened\nspring-tide!\n\n_Queen_: Stop your nonsense talk. She is gone\nwild and raving with the great luck that is come\nto her!\n\n_(Prince has stood up, and is watching her\neagerly.)_\n\n_Princess_: I feel a wind at this very time that\nis blowing from the wilderness of the sea, and\nI am changing with it.... There. _(Pulls down\nher hair.)_ Let my mane go free! I will race\nyou, Prince, I will race you! The wind of March\nwill not overtake me, Prince, and I running on the\ntop of the white waves!\n\n_(Runs out; Prince entranced, rushes to door.)_\n\n_Aunts: (Catching hold of him.)_ Are you going\nmad wild like herself?\n\n_Prince_: Oh, I will go after her!\n\n_First Aunt: (Clutching him)_ Do not! She\nwill drag you to destruction.\n\n_Prince: (Struggling to door.)_ What matter! Let\nme go or she will escape me! _(Shaking himself\nfree.)_ I will never stop till I come to her.\n\n_(He rushes out, Second Aunt still holding on\nto him.)_\n\n_First Aunt_: What at all has come upon him?\nI never knew him this way before!\n\n_(She trots after him.)_\n\n_Princess: (Comes leaping in by window.)_ They\nare gone running the road to Muckanish! But\nthey won't find me!\n\n_Queen_: You have a right to be ashamed of\nyourself and your play-game. It's easy for you\nto go joking, having neither cark nor care: that\nis no way to treat the second best match in Ireland!\n\n_King_: You were saying you had your mind\nmade up to take him.\n\n_Princess_: It failed me to do it! Himself and\nhis counsellors and his seven aunts!\n\n_Queen_: He will give out that you are crazed\nand mad.\n\n_Princess_: He will be thankful to his life's end\nto have got free of me!\n\n_King_: I don't know. It seemed to me he\nwas better pleased with you in the finish than\nin the commencement. But I'm in dread his\nfather may not be well pleased.\n\n_Princess: (Patting him.)_ Which now of the\ntwo of you is the most to be pitied? He to\nhave such a timid son or you to have such an unruly\ndaughter?\n\n_Queen_: It is likely he will make an attack on\nyou. There was a war made by the King of Britain\non the head of a terrier pup that was sent to him\nand that made away on the road following hares.\nIt's best for you to make ready to put yourself at\nthe head of your troop.\n\n_King_: It's long since I went into my battle\ndress. I'm in dread it would not close upon my\nchest.\n\n_Queen_: Ah, it might, so soon as you would\ngo through a few hardships in the fight.\n\n_King_: If the rest of Adam's race was of my\nopinion there'd be no fighting in the world at\nall.\n\n_Queen_: It is this child's stubbornness is leading\nyou into it. Go out, Nuala, after the Prince. Tell\nhim you are sorry you made a fool of him.\n\n_Princess_: He was that before--thinking to\nput me sitting and sewing in a cushioned chair,\nlistening to stories of kings making a slaughter\nof one another.\n\n_Queen_: Tell him you have changed your mind,\nthat you were but funning; that you will wed\nwith him yet.\n\n_Princess_: I would sooner wed with the King\nof Poison! I to have to go to his kingdom, I'd\nsooner go earning my wages footing turf, with a\nskirt of heavy flannel and a dress of the grey frieze!\nHimself and his bogs and his frogs!\n\n_Queen_: I tell you it is time for you to take a\nhusband.\n\n_Princess_: You said that before! And I was\ngiving in a while ago, and I felt the blood of my\nheart to be rising against it! And I will not give\nin to you again! It is my own business and I will\ntake my own way.\n\n_Queen: (To King.)_ This is all one with the\nraving of a hag against heaven!\n\n_King_: What the Queen is saying is right. Try\nnow and come around to it.\n\n_Princess_: She has set you against me with her\ntalk!\n\n_Queen: (To King.)_ It is best for you to lay\norders on her.\n\n_Princess_: The King is not under your\norders!\n\n_Queen_: You are striving to make him give in\nto your own!\n\n_King_: I will take orders from no one at all!\n\n_Queen_: Bid her go bring back the Prince.\n\n_Princess_: I say that I will not!\n\n_Queen_: She is standing up against you! Will\nyou give in to that?\n\n_King_: I am bothered with the whole of you!\nI will give in to nothing at all!\n\n_Queen_: Make her do your bidding so.\n\n_King_: Can't you do as you are told?\n\n_Princess_: This concerns myself.\n\n_King_: It does, and the whole of us.\n\n_Princess_: Do you think you can force me to\nwed?\n\n_King_: I do think it, and I will do it.\n\n_Princess_: It will fail you!\n\n_King_: It will not! I was too easy with you\nup to this.\n\n_Princess_: Will you turn me out of the house?\n\n_King_: I will give you my word, it is little but\nI will!\n\n_Princess_: Then I have no home and no father!\nIt is to my mother you must give an account.\nYou know well it is with the first wife you will go\nat the Judgment!\n\n_Queen_: Is it that you would make threats to\nthe King? And put insults upon myself? Now\nshe is daring and defying you! Let you put an end\nto it!\n\n_King_: I will do that! _(Stands up.)_ I swear\nby the oath my people swear by, the seven things\ncommon to us all; by sun and moon; sea and dew;\nwind and water; the hours of the day and night,\nI will give you in marriage and in wedlock to the\nfirst man that will come into the house!\n\n_Princess: (Shrinking as from a blow.)_ It is the\nQueen has done this.\n\n_Queen_: I will give you out the reason, and\nsee will you put blame on me or praise!\n\n_Nurse_: Oh, let you stop and not draw it down\nupon her!\n\n_Queen_: It is right for me to tell it; it is true\ntelling! You not to be married and wed by this\nday twelvemonth, there will be a terrible thing\nhappen you ...\n\n_Nurse_: Be quiet! Don't you see Fintan himself\nlooking in the window!\n\n_King_: Fintan! What is it bring you here\non this day?\n\n_Fintan: (A very old man in strange clothes at\nwindow.)_ What brings me is to put my curse\nupon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone\nand vanished out of this, without bringing me my\nrequest, that was a bit of rendered lard that would\nlimber the swivel of my spy-glass, that is clogged\nwith the dripping of the cave.\n\n_Nurse_: And you have no bad news?\n\n_Queen_: Nothing to say on the head of the\nPrincess, this being, as it is, her birthday?\n\n_Fintan_: What birthday? This is not a birthday\nthat signifies. It is the next will be the birthday\nconcerned with the great story that is foretold.\n\n_Queen_: It is right for her to know it.\n\n_King_: It is not! It is not!\n\n_Princess_: Whatever the story is, let me know\nit, and not be treated as a child that is without\ncourage or sense.\n\n_Fintan_: It's long till I'll come out from my\ncleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on the\nridge of the earth. It is laid down by the stars\nthat cannot lie, that on this day twelvemonth, you\nyourself will be ate and devoured by a scaly Green\nDragon from the North!\n\nEND OF ACT I.\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\n_Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse_.\n\n_Nurse_: Cheer up now, my honey bird, and\ndon't be fretting.\n\n_Princess_: It is not easy to quit fretting, and\nthe terrible story you are after telling me of all\nthat is before and all that is behind me.\n\n_Nurse_: They had no right at all to go make\nyou aware of it. The Queen has too much talk.\nAn unlucky stepmother she is to you!\n\n_Princess_: It is well for me she is here. It is\nwell I am told the truth, where the whole of you\nwere treating me like a child without sense, so\ngiddy I was and contrary, and petted and humoured\nby the whole of you. What memory would there\nbe left of me and my little life gone by, but of a\nheadstrong, unruly child with no thought but\nfor myself.\n\n_Nurse_: No, but the best in the world, you\nare; there is no one seeing you pass by but would\nlove you.\n\n_Princess_: That is not so. I was wild and taking\nmy own way, mocking and humbugging.\n\n_Nurse_: I never will give in that there is no\nway to save you from that Dragon that is foretold\nto be your destruction. I would give the\nfour divisions of the world, and Ireland along\nwith them, if I could see you pelting your ball\nin at the window the same as an hour ago!\n\n_Princess_: Maybe you will, so long as it will hurt\nnobody.\n\n_Nurse_: Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be the\ntracks of tears upon your face, and that great terror\nbefore you.\n\n_Princess_: I will wipe them away! I will not\ngive in to danger or to dragons! No one will\nsee a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter\nof Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut like\nDeirdre that went sighing and lamenting till she\nwas put to death, the world being sick and tired\nof her complaints, and her finger at her eye dripping\ntears!\n\n_Nurse_: That's right, now. You had always\ngreat courage.\n\n_Princess_: There is like a change within me.\nYou never will hear a cross word from me again.\nI would wish to be pleasant and peaceable until\nsuch time ...\n\n_(Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.)_\n\n_Dall Glic: (Coming in.)_ The King is greatly\nput out with all he went through, and the way\nthe passion rose in him a while ago.\n\n_Nurse_: That he may be twenty times worse\nbefore he is better! Showing such fury towards\nthe innocent child the way he did!\n\n_Dall Glic_: The Queen has brought him to the\ngrass plot for to give him his exercise, walking his\nseven steps east and west.\n\n_Nurse_: Hasn't she great power over him to\nmake him to that much?\n\n_Dall Glic_: I tell you I am in dread of her myself.\nSome plan she has for making my two eyes equal.\nI vexed her someway, and she got queer and humpy,\nand put a lip on herself, and said she would take\nme in hand. I declare I never will have a minute's\nease thinking of it.\n\n_Nurse_: The King should have done his seven\nsteps, for I hear her coming.\n\n_(Dall Glic goes to recess of window.)_\n\n_Queen: (Coming in.)_ Did you, Nurse, ever at\nany time turn and dress a dinner?\n\n_Nurse: (Very stiff.)_ Indeed I never did. Any\nhouse I ever was in there was a good kitchen and\nwell attended, the Lord be praised!\n\n_Queen_: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige\nthe King.\n\n_Nurse_: Troth, the same King will wait long\ntill he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I am\nnot one that was reared between the flags and the\noven in the corner of the one room! To be a nurse\nto King's children is my trade, and not to go stirring\nmashes, for hens or for humans!\n\n_Queen_: I heard a crafty woman lay down one\ntime there was no way to hold a man, only by food\nand flattery.\n\n_Nurse_: Sure any mother of children walking the\nroad could tell you that much.\n\n_Queen_: I went maybe too far urging him not\nto lessen so much food the way he did. I only\nthought to befriend him. But now he is someway\nupset and nothing will rightly smooth him but to\nbe thinking upon his next meal; and what it will\nbe I don't know, unless the berries of the bush.\n\n_Dall Glic: (Leaning out of the window.)_ Here!\nHi! Come this way!\n\n_Queen_: Who are you calling to?\n\n_Dall Glic_: It is someone with the appearance\nof a cook.\n\n_Queen_: Are you saying it is a cook? That\nnow will put the King in great humour!\n\n_(Manus appears at the window.)_\n\n_Nurse: (Looking at him.)_ I wouldn't hardly\nthink he'd suit. He has a sort of innocent look.\nI wouldn't say him to be a country lad. I don't\nknow is he fitted to go readying meals for a royal\nfamily, and the King so wrathful if they do not\nplease him as he is. And as to the Princess Nu!\nThere to be the size of a hayseed of fat overhead\non her broth, she'd fall in a dead faint.\n\n_Manus_: I'll go on so.\n\n_Queen_: No, no. Bring him in till I'll take a\nlook at him!\n\n_Manus: (Coming inside.)_ I am a lad in search\nof a master.\n\n_Manus: (Inside.)_ I am a lad in search of a\nmaster.\n\n_Queen_: And I myself that am wanting a cook.\n\n_Manus_: I got word of that and I going the road.\n\n_Queen_: You would seem to be but a young lad.\n\n_Manus_: I am not very far in age to-day. But\nI'll be a day older to-morrow.\n\n_Queen_: In what country were you born and\nreared?\n\n_Manus_: I came from over, and I am coming\nhither.\n\n_Queen_: What wages now would you be asking?\n\n_Manus_: Nothing at all unless what you think\nI will have earned at the time I will be leaving\nyour service.\n\n_Queen_: That is very right and fair. I hope\nyou will not be asking too much help. The last\ncook had a whole fleet of scullions that were no\nuse but to chatter and consume.\n\n_Manus_: I am asking no help at all but the\nhelp of the ten I bring with me.\n\n_(Holds up fingers.)_\n\n_Queen_: That will be a great saving in the house!\nCan I depend upon you now not to be turning\nto your own use the King's ale and his wine?\n\n_Manus_: If you take me to be a thief I will go\nupon my road. It was no easier for me to come\nthan to go out again.\n\n_Queen: (Holding him.)_ No, now, don't be so\nproud and thinking so much of yourself. If I\ngive you trial here I would wish you to be ready\nto turn your hand to this and that, and not be\nsaying it is or is not your business.\n\n_Manus_: My business is to do as the King wishes.\n\n_Queen_: That's right. That is the way the\nservants were in the palace of the King of Alban.\n\n_Manus_: That's the way I was myself in the\nKing's house of Sorcha.\n\n_Queen_: Are you saying it is from that place you\nare come? Sure that should be a great household!\nThe King of Sorcha, they were telling me, has\nseven castles on land and seven on the sea, and\nprovision for a year and a day in every one of them.\n\n_Manus_: That might be. I never was in more\nthan one of them at the one time.\n\n_Queen_: Anyone that has been in that place would\nsurely be fitting here. Keep him, Nurse! Don't let\nhim make away from us till I will go call the King!\n\n_(Goes out.)_\n\n_Nurse_: Sure it was I myself that fostered the\nyoung King of Sorcha and reared him in my lap!\nWhat way is he at all? My lovely child! Give\nme news of him!\n\n_Manus_: I will do that....\n\n_Nurse_: To hear of him would delight me!\n\n_Manus_: It is I that can tell you....\n\n_Nurse_: It is himself should be a grand king!\n\n_Manus_: Listen till you hear!...\n\n_Nurse_: His father was good and his mother was\ngood, and it's likely, himself will be the best of all!\n\n_Manus_: Be quiet now and hearken!...\n\n_Nurse_: I remember well the first day I saw him\nin the cradle, two and a score of years back! Oh,\nit is glad, and very glad, I'll be to get word of him!\n\n_Manus_: He is come to sensible years....\n\n_Nurse_: A golden cradle it was and it standing\non four golden balls the very round of the sun!\n\n_Manus_: He is out of his cradle now. _(Shakes\nher shoulder.)_ Let you hearken! He is in need\nof your help.\n\n_Nurse_: He'll get it, he'll get it. I doted down\non that child! The best to laugh and to roar!\n\n_Manus: (Putting hand on her mouth.)_ Will\nyou be silent, you hag of a nurse? Can't you see\nthat I myself am Manus, the new King of Sorcha?\n\n_Nurse: (Starting back.)_ Do you say that?\nAnd how's every bit of you? Sure I'd know you\nin any place. Stand back till I'll get the full of\nmy eyes of you! Like the father you are, and you\nneed never be sorry to be that! Well, I said to\nmyself and you looking in at the window, I would\nnot believe but there's some drop of king's blood\nin that lad!\n\n_Manus_: That was not what you said to me!\n\n_Nurse_: And wasn't the journey long on you\nfrom Sorcha, that is at the rising of the sun? Is\nit your foot-soldiers and your bullies you brought\nwith you, or did you come with your hound and\nyour deer-hound and with your horn?\n\n_Manus_: There was no one knew of my journey.\nI came bare alone. I threw a shell in the sea and\nmade a boat of it, and took the track of the wild\nduck across the mountains of the waves.\n\n_Nurse_: And where in the world wide did you\nget that dress of a cook?\n\n_Manus_: It was at a tailor's place near Oughtmana.\nThere was no one in the house but the mother. I\nleft my own clothes in her charge and my purse\nof gold; I brought nothing but my own blue\nsword. _(Throws open blouse and shows it.)_ She gave\nme this suit, where a cook from this house had\nthrown it down in payment for a drink of milk.\nI have no mind any person should know I am a king.\nI am letting on to be a cook.\n\n_Nurse_: I would sooner you to come as a champion\nseeking battle, or a horseman that had gone astray,\nor so far as a poet making praises or curses according\nto his treatment on the road. It would be a bad\nday I would see your father's son taken for a kitchen\nboy.\n\n_Manus_: I was through the world last night in\na dream. It was dreamed to me that the King's\ndaughter in this house is in a great danger.\n\n_Nurse_: So she is, at the end of a twelvemonth.\n\n_Manus_: My warning was for this day. Seeing\nher under trouble in my dream, my heart was hot\nto come to her help. I am here to save her, to\nmeet every troublesome thing that will come at\nher.\n\n_Nurse_: Oh, my heavy blessing on you doing\nthat!\n\n_Manus_: I was not willing to come as a king,\nthat she would feel tied and bound to live for if\nI live, or to die with if I should die. I am come\nas a poor unknown man, that may slip away after\nthe fight, to my own kingdom or across the borders\nof the world, and no thanks given him and no more\nabout him, but a memory of the shadow of a cook!\n\n_Nurse_: I would not think that to be right,\nand you the last of your race. It is best for you\nto tell the King.\n\n_Manus_: I lay my orders on you to tell no one\nat all.\n\n_Nurse_: Give me leave but to _whisper_ it to the\nPrincess Nu. It's ye would be the finest two the\nworld ever saw. You will not find her equal in all\nIreland!\n\n_Manus_: I lay it as crosses and as spells on you\nto say no word to her or to any other that will\nmake known my race or my name. Give me now\nyour oath.\n\n_Nurse: (Kneeling.)_ I do, I do. But they will\nknow you by your high looks.\n\n_Manus_: Did you yourself know me a while ago?\n\n_Nurse: (Getting up.)_ Oh, they're coming! Oh,\nmy poor child, what way will you that never handled\na spit be able to make out a dinner for the\nKing?\n\n_Manus_: This silver whistle, that was her pipe\nof music, was given to me by a queen among the\nSidhe that is my godmother. At the sound of it\nthat will come through the air any earthly thing\nI wish for, at my command.\n\n_Nurse_: Let it be a dinner so.\n\n_Manus_: So it will come, on a green tablecloth\ncarried by four swans as white as snow. The\nfreshest of every meat, the oldest of every drink,\nnuts from the trees in Adam's Paradise!\n\n_(King, Queen, Princess, Dall Glic come in.\nPrincess sits on window sill.)_\n\n_Queen: (To King.)_ Here now, my dear. Wasn't\nI telling you I would take all trouble from your\nmind, and that I would not be without finding a\ncook for you?\n\n_King_: He came in a good hour. The want of a\nright dinner has downed kingdoms before this.\n\n_Queen_: Travelling he is in search of service\nfrom the kings of the earth. His wages are in no\nway out of measure.\n\n_King_: Is he a good hand at his trade?\n\n_Queen_: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to\ngive a hand here and there.\n\n_King_: What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish\nto know? And all that comes up from the tide?\nBream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me--stewed\nor fried with butter till the bones of it melt\nin your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand\nbut is the better of a quality cook--only oysters,\nthat are best left alone, being as they are all gravy\nand fat.\n\n_Queen_: I didn't question him yet about cookery.\n\n_King_: It's seldom I met a woman with right\nrespect for food, but for show and silly dishes and\ntrash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled\nas a badger on St. Bridget's day.\n\n_Queen_: If this youth of a young man was able to\ngive satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court,\nI am sure that he will make a dinner to please\nyourself.\n\n_Manus_: I will do more than that. I will dress\na dinner that will please _my_self.\n\n_Princess: (Clapping hands.)_ Very well said!\n\n_King_: Sound out now some good dishes such\nas you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen\nwill put them down in a line of writing, that I can\nbe thinking about them till such time as you will\nhave them readied.\n\n_Queen_: There are sheeps' trotters below; you\nmight know some tasty way to dress them.\n\n_Manus_: I do surely. I'll put the trotters within\na fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in\na suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb,\nand the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ...\n\n_King_: What now is a Maderalla?\n\n_Manus_: He is a beast that saves the cook trouble,\nswallowing all those meats one after another--in\nSorcha.\n\n_King_: That should be a very pretty dish. Let\nyou go make a start with it the way we will not be\nfamished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic,\nto the larder.\n\n_Dall Glic_: I'm in dread it's as good for him to\nstop where he is.\n\n_King_: What are you saying?\n\n_Dall Glic_: Those lads of apprentices that left\nnothing in it only bare hooks.\n\n_Nurse_: It is the Queen would give no leave\nfor more provision to come in, saying there was\nno one to prepare it.\n\n_Manus_: If that is so, I will be forced to lay\nmy orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the\nBrown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at\nmy bidding.\n\n_King_: Hurry on so.\n\n_Queen_: I myself will go and give you instructions\nwhat way to use the kitchen.\n\n_Manus_: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief do\nin your own royal parlour! _(Blows whistle; two dark-skinned\nmen come in with vessels.)_ Give me here\nthose pots and pans!\n\n_Queen_: What now is about to take place?\n\n_Dall Glic_: I not to be blind, I would say those\nto be very foreign-looking men.\n\n_King_: It would seem as if the world was grown\nto be very queer.\n\n_Queen_: So it is, and the mastery being given\nto a cook.\n\n_Manus_: So it should be too! It is the King\nof Shades and Shadows would have rule over the\nworld if it wasn't for the cooks!\n\n_King_: There's some sense in that now.\n\n_(Strange men are moving and arranging baskets\nand vessels.)_\n\n_Manus_: There was respect for cooks in the\nearly days of the world. What way did the Sons\nof Tuireann get their death but going questing\nafter a cooking spit at the bidding of Lugh of the\nLong Hand! And if a spit was worthy of the death\nof heroes, what should the man be worth that is\nskilled in turning it? What is the difference\nbetween man and beast? Beast and bird devour\nwhat they find and have no power to change it.\nBut we are Druids of those mysteries, having\nmagic and virtue to turn hard grain to tender cakes,\nand the very skin of a grunting pig to crackling\ncausing quarrels among champions, and it singing\nupon the coals. A cook! If I am I am not without\ngood generations before me! Who was the first\nold father of us, roasting and reddening the fruits\nof the earth from hard to soft, from bitter to kind,\ntill they are fit for a lady's platter? What is it\nleaves us in the hard cold of Christmas but the\nrobbery from earth of warmth for the kitchen\nfire of _(takes off cap)_ the first and foremost of all\nmaster cooks--the Sun!\n\n_Princess_: You are surely not ashamed of your\ntrade!\n\n_Manus_: To work now, to work. I'll engage to\nturn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt or\nPharamond King of the Franks! Here, Queen, is\na silver-breast phoenix--draw out the feathers--they\nare pure silver--fair and clean. _(Queen plucks\neagerly.)_ King, take your golden sceptre and stir\nthis pot.\n\n_(Gives him one.)_\n\n_King: (Interested.)_ What now is in it?\n\n_Manus_: A broth that will rise over the side\nand be consumed and split if you stop stirring\nit for one minute only! _(King stirs furiously.)_\nPrincess _(She is looking on and he goes over to her)_,\nthere are honey cakes to roll out, but I will not\nask you to do it in dread that you might spoil the\nwhiteness ...\n\n_Princess_: I have no mind to do it.\n\n_Manus_: Of the flour!\n\n_Princess_: Give them here.\n\n_(Rolls them out indignantly.)_\n\n_Manus_: That is right. Take care, King, would\nthe froth swell over the brim.\n\n_Princess_: It seems to me you are doing but\nlittle yourself.\n\n_Manus_: I will turn now and ... boil these\neggs.\n\n_(Takes some on a plate; they roll off.)_\n\n_Princess_: You have broken them.\n\n_Manus: (Disconcerted.)_ It was to show you a\ngood trick, how to make them sit up on the narrow\nend.\n\n_Princess_: That is an old trick in the world.\n\n_Manus_: Every trick is an old one, but with\na change of players, a change of dress, it comes\nout as new as before. Princess _(speaks low)_, I\nhave a message to give you and a pardon to ask.\n\n_Princess_: Give me out the message.\n\n_Manus_: Take courage and keep courage through\nthis day. Do not let your heart fail. There is\nhelp beside you.\n\n_Princess_: It has been a troublesome day indeed.\nBut there is a worse one and a great danger before\nme in the far away.\n\n_Manus_: That danger will come to-day, the\nmessage said in the dream. Princess, I have a\npardon to ask you. I have been playing vanities.\nI think I have wronged you doing this. It was\nsurely through no want of respect.\n\n_Gatekeeper: (Coming in.)_ There is word come\nfrom Ballyvelehan there is a coach and horses\nfacing for this place over from Oughtmana.\n\n_Queen_: Who would that be?\n\n_Gatekeeper_: Up on the hill a woman was, brought\nword it must be some high gentleman. She could\nsee all colours in the coach, and flowers on the\nhorse's heads.\n\n_Goes out_.)\n\n_Dall Glic_: That is good hearing. I was in\ndread some man we would have no welcome for\nwould be the first to come in this day.\n\n_Queen_: Not a fear of it. I had orders given\nto the Gateman who he would and would not\nkeep out. I did that the very minute after the\nKing making his proclamation and his law.\n\n_King_: Pup, pup. You need not be drawing\nthat down.\n\n_Queen_: It is well you have myself to care you\nand to turn all to good. I gave orders to the\nGateman, I say, no one to be let in to the door\nunless carriage company, no other ones, even if they\nshould wipe their feet upon the mat. I notched\nthat in his mind, telling him the King was after\npromising the Princess Nu in marriage to the first\nman that would come into the house.\n\n_Manus_: The King gave out that word?\n\n_Queen_: I am after saying that he did.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Come along, lad. Don't be putting\nears on yourself.\n\n_Manus_: I ask the King did he give out that\npromise as the Queen says?\n\n_King_: I have but a poor memory.\n\n_Nurse_: The King did say it within the hour,\nand swore to it by the oath of his people, taking\ncontracts of the sun and moon of the air!\n\n_Dall Glic_: What is it to you if he did? Come\non, now.\n\n_Manus_: No. This is a matter that concerns\nmyself.\n\n_Queen_: How do you make that out?\n\n_Manus_: You, that called me in, know well that\nI was the first to come into the house.\n\n_Queen_: Ha, ha! You have the impudence! It\nis a _man_ the King said. He was not talking about\ncooks.\n\n_Manus: (To the King.)_ I am before you as a\nserving lad, and you are a King in Ireland. Because\nyou are a King and I your hired servant you will not\nrefuse me justice. You gave your word.\n\n_King_: If I did it was in haste and in vexation,\nand striving to save her from destruction.\n\n_Manus_: I call you to keep to your word and\nto give your daughter to no other one.\n\n_Queen_: Speak out now, Dall Glic, and give\nyour opinion and your advice.\n\n_Dall Glic_: I would say that this lad going away\nwould be no great loss.\n\n_Manus_: I did not ask such a thing, but as it\nhas come to me I will hold to my right.\n\n_Queen_: It would be right to throw him to the\nhounds in the kennel!\n\n_Manus: (To King.)_ I leave it to the judgment\nof your blind wise man.\n\n_Queen: (To Dall Glic.)_ Take care would you\noffend myself or the King!\n\n_Manus_: I put it on you to split justice as it\nis measured outside the world.\n\n_Dall Glic_: It is hard for me to speak. He\nhas laid it hard on me. My good eye may go\nasleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the\nplace where it is waking, an honourable man, king\nor beggar, is held to his word.\n\n_King_: Is it that I must give my daughter to\na lad that owns neither clod nor furrow? Whose\nestate is but a shovel for the ashes and a tongs for\nthe red coals.\n\n_Queen_: It is likely he is urged by the sting of\ngreed--it is but riches he is looking for.\n\n_King_: I will not begrudge him his own asking\nof silver and of gold!\n\n_Manus_: Throw it out to the beggars on the\nroad! I would not take a copper half-penny!\nI'll take nothing but what has come to me from\nyour own word!\n\n_(King bows his head.)_\n\n_Princess: (Coming forward.)_ Then this battle\nis not between you and an old king that is feeble,\nbut between yourself and myself.\n\n_Manus_: I am sorry, Princess, if it must be a\nbattle.\n\n_Princess_: You can never bring me away against\nmy will.\n\n_Manus_: I said no word of doing that.\n\n_Princess_: You think, so, I will go with you of\nmyself? The day I will do that will be the day\nyou empty the ocean!\n\n_Manus_: I will not wait longer than to-day.\n\n_Princess_: Many a man waited seven years for\na king's daughter!\n\n_Manus_: And another seven--and seven generations\nof hags. But that is not my nature.\nI will not kneel to any woman, high or low, or\ncrave kindness that she cannot give.\n\n_Princess_: Then I can go free!\n\n_Manus_: For this day I take you in my charge.\nI cross and claim you to myself, unless a better\nman will come.\n\n_Princess_: I would think it easier to find a better\nman than one that would be worse to me!\n\n_Manus_: If one should come that you think\nto be a better man, I will give you your own way.\n\n_Princess_: It is you being in the world at all\nthat is my grief.\n\n_Manus_: Time makes all things clear. You\ndid not go far out in the world yet, my poor little\nPrincess.\n\n_Princess_: I would be well pleased to drive\nyou out through the same world!\n\n_Manus_: With or without your goodwill, I\nwill not go out of this place till I have carried out\nthe business I came to do.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Is it the falling of hailstones I hear\nor the rumbling of thunder, or is it the trots of\nhorses upon the road?\n\n_Queen: (Looking out.)_ It is the big man that\nis coming--Prince or Lord or whoever he may be.\n_(To Dall Glic.)_ Go now to the door to welcome\nhim. This is some man worth while. _(To Manus.)_\nLet you get out of this.\n\n_Manus_: No, whoever he is I'll stop and face\nhim. Let him know we are players in the one game!\n\n_King_: And what sort of a fool will you make\nof me, to have given in to take the like of you for\na son-in-law? They will be putting ridicule on me\nin the songs.\n\n_Queen_: If he must stop here we might put\nsome face on him.... If I had but a decent\nsuit.... Give me your cloak, Dall Glic. _(He\ngives it.)_ Here now ... _(To Manus.)_ Put this\naround you.... _(Manus takes it awkwardly.)_ It\nwill cover up your kitchen suit.\n\n_Manus_: Is it this way?\n\n_Queen_: You have no right handling of it--stupid\nclown! This way!\n\n_Manus: (Flinging it off.)_ No, I'll change no\nmore suits! It is time for me to stop fooling and\ngive you what you did not ask yet, my name. I\nwill tell out all the truth.\n\n_Gatekeeper: (At door.)_ The King of Sorcha!\n_(Taig comes in.)_\n\n_King and Queen_: The King of Sorcha! _(They\nrush forward to greet him.)_\n\n_Nurse: (To Manus.)_ Did ever anyone hear\nthe like!\n\n_Manus_: It seems as if there will be a judgment\nbetween the man and the clothes!\n\n_Queen: (To Taig.)_ There is someone here that\nyou know, King. This young man is giving out\nthat he was your cook.\n\n_Taig_: He was not. I never laid an eye on him\ntill this minute.\n\n_Queen_: I was sure he was nothing but a liar\nwhen he said he would tell the truth! Now, King,\nwill you turn him out the door?\n\n_King_: And what about the great dinner he has\nme promised?\n\n_Manus_: Be easy King. Whether or no you\nkeep your word to me I'll hold to mine! _(Blows\nwhistle.)_ In with the dishes! Take your places!\nLet the music play out!\n\n_(Music plays, the strange men wheel in tables\nand dishes.)_\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\n\n_Scene: Same. Table cleared of all but vessels of\nfruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig sitting\nin front, Nurse and Dall Glic standing in background_.\n\n_Queen_: Now, King, the dinner being at an end,\nand the music, we have time and quiet to be\ntalking.\n\n_Taig_: It is with the King's daughter I am come\nto talk.\n\n_Queen_: Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She\nwill be here on the minute, but it is best for you\nto tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you\nare come.\n\n_Taig_: It is so, where I was after being told\nshe would be given as a wife to the first man that\nwould come into the house.\n\n_Queen_: And who in the world wide gave that\nout?\n\n_Taig_: It was the Gateman said it to a hawker\nbringing lobsters from the strand, and that got no\nleave to cross the threshold by reason of the oath\ngiven out by the King. The half of the kingdom\nshe will get, they were telling me, and the king\nliving, and the whole of it after he will be dead.\n\n_Nurse_: There did another come in before you.\nLet me tell you that much!\n\n_Taig_: There did not. The lobster man that\nset a watch upon the door.\n\n_Queen_: A great honour you did us coming\nasking for her, and you being King of Sorcha!\n\n_Taig_: Look at my ring and my crown. They\nwill bear witness that I am. And my kind coat of\ncotton and my golden shirt! And under that\nagain there's a stiff pocket. _(Slaps it.)_ Is there\ne'er a looking-glass in any place? _(Gets up.)_\n\n_Dall Glic_: There is the shining silver basin of\nthe swans in the garden without.\n\n_Taig_: That will do. I would wish to look\ntasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife.\n_(He and Dall Glic go outside window but in sight.)_\n\n_(Princess comes in very proud and sad.)_\n\n_Queen_: You should be proud this day, Nuala,\nand so grand a man coming asking you in marriage\nas the King of Sorcha.\n\n_Nurse_: Grand, indeed! As grand as hands and\npins can make him.\n\n_Princess_: Are you not satisfied to have urged\nme to one man and promised me to another since\nsunrise?\n\n_Queen_: What way could I know there was\nthis match on the way, and a better match beyond\nmeasure? This is no black stranger going the\nroad, but a man having a copper crown over his\ngateway and a silver crown over his palace door!\nI tell you he has means to hang a pearl of gold\nupon every rib of your hair! There is no one\nahead of him in all Ireland, with his chain and his\nring and his suit of the dearest silk!\n\n_Princess_: If it was a suit I was to wed with he\nmight do well enough.\n\n_Queen_: Equal in blood to ourselves! Brought\nup to good behaviour and courage and mannerly ways.\n\n_Princess_: In my opinion he is not.\n\n_Queen_: You are talking foolishness. A King\nof Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is he himself\nsets the tune for manners.\n\n_Princess_: He gave out a laugh when old Michelin\nslipped on the threshold. He kicked at the dog\nunder the table that came looking for bones.\n\n_Queen_: I tell you what might be ugly behaviour\nin a common man is suitable and right in a king.\nBut you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am\nseven times tired of yourself and your ways.\n\n_Princess_: If no one could force me to give in\nto the man that made a claim to me to-day, according\nto my father's bond, that bond is there yet to\nprotect me from any other one.\n\n_Queen_: Leave me alone! Myself and the\nDall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad\nfrom the oven. I'll send in now to you the King\nof Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, and the\nwedding day will be to-morrow.\n\n_Princess_: I will not see him, I will have nothing\nto do with him; I tell you if he had the rents of\nthe whole world I would not go with him by day\nor by night, on foot or on horseback, in light or in\ndarkness, in company or alone!\n\n_(Queen has gone while she cries this out.)_\n\n_Nurse_: The luck of the seven Saturdays on\nhimself and on the Queen!\n\n_Princess_: Oh, Muime, do not let him come\nnear me! Have you no way to help me?\n\n_Nurse_: It's myself that could help you if I\nwas not under bonds not to speak!\n\n_Princess_: What is it you know? Why won't\nyou say one word?\n\n_Nurse_: He put me under spells.... There\nnow, my tongue turned with the word to be dumb.\n\n_Taig: (At the window.)_ Not a fear of me,\nQueen. It won't be long till I bring the Princess\naround.\n\n_Princess_: I will not stay! Keep him here till\nI will hide myself out of sight! _(Goes.)_\n\n_Taig: (Coming in.)_ They told me the Princess\nwas in it.\n\n_Nurse_: She has good sense, she is in some other\nplace.\n\n_Taig: (Sitting down.)_ Go call her to me.\n\n_Nurse_: Who is it I will call her for?\n\n_Taig_: For myself. You know who I am.\n\n_Nurse_: My grief that I do not!\n\n_Taig_: I am the King of Sorcha.\n\n_Nurse_: If you say that lie again there will blisters\nrise up on your face.\n\n_Taig_: Take care what you are saying, you\nhag!\n\n_Nurse_: I know well what I am saying. I have\ngood judgment between the noble and the mean\nblood of the world.\n\n_Taig_: The Kings of Sorcha have high, noble\nblood.\n\n_Nurse_: If they have, there is not so much of\nit in you as would redden a rib of scutch-grass.\n\n_Taig_: You are crazed with folly and age.\n\n_Nurse_: No, but I have my wits good enough.\nYou ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll\nget satisfaction on you yet! I'll show out who\nyou are!\n\n_Taig_: Who am I so?\n\n_Nurse_: That is what I have to get knowledge\nof, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold hell!\n\n_Taig_: Do your best! I dare you!\n\n_Nurse_: I will save my darling from you as sure\nas there's rocks on the strand! A girl that refused\nsons of the kings of the world!\n\n_Taig_: And I will drag your darling from you\nas sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana!\n\n_Nurse_: Oughtmana ...Is that now your living\nplace?\n\n_Taig_: It is not.... I told you I came from\nthe far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my cloak\nthat has on it the sign of the risen sun!\n\n_Nurse_: Cloaks and suits and fringes. You have\na great deal of talk of them.... Have you e'er a\nneedle around you, or a shears?\n\n_Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but he\nwithdraws it quickly.)_ Here ...no ...What\nare you talking about? I know nothing at all of\nsuch things.\n\n_Nurse_: In my opinion you do. Hearken now.\nI know where is the real King of Sorcha!\n\n_Taig_: Bring him before me now till I'll down\nhim!\n\n_Nurse_: Say that the time you will come face\nto face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to tell\nout nothing about him, but I have liberty to make\nknown all I will find out about yourself.\n\n_Taig_: Hurry on so. Little I care when once\nI'm wed with the King's daughter!\n\n_Nurse_: That will never be!\n\n_Taig_: The Queen is befriending me and in\ndread of losing me. I will threaten her if there\nis any delay I'll go look for another girl of a\nwife.\n\n_Nurse_: I will make no delay. I'll have my\nstory and my testimony before the white dawn\nof the morrow.\n\n_Taig_: Do so and welcome! Before the yellow\nlight of this evening I'll be the King's son-in-law!\nBring your news, then, and little thanks you'll\nget for it! The King and Queen must keep up\nmy name then for their own credit's sake. _(Makes\na face at her as King comes in with Dall Glic, and\nservants with cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her\nfist.) (Rises.)_ I was just asking to see you, King,\nto say there is a hurry on me....\n\n_King: (Sitting down on window seat while Servant\narranges cushions about him.)_ Keep your business\na while. It's a poor thing to be going through\nbusiness the very minute the dinner is ended.\n\n_Taig_: I wouldn't but that it is pressing.\n\n_King_: Go now to the Queen, in her parlour,\nand be chatting and whistling to the birds. I give\nyou my word since I rose up from the table I am\ngoing here and there, up and down, craving and\nstriving to find a place where I'll get leave to lay\nmy head on the cushions for one little minute.\n\n_(Taig goes reluctantly.)_\n\n_Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from servants.)_ Let\nyou go now and leave the King to his rest.\n\n_(They go out.)_\n\n_King_: I don't know in the world why anyone\nwould consent to be a king, and never to be left\nto himself, but to be worried and wearied and\ninterfered with from dark to daybreak and from\nmorning to the fall of night.\n\n_Dall Glic_: I will be going out now. I have\nbut one word only to say....\n\n_King_: Let it be a short word! I would be\nbetter pleased to hear the sound of breezes in\nthe sycamores, and the humming of bees in the\nhive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the\nsea!\n\n_Dall Glic_: There is one thing only could cause\nme to annoy you.\n\n_King_: It should be a queer big thing that\nwouldn't wait till I have my rest taken.\n\n_Dall Glic_: So it is a big matter, and a weighty\none.\n\n_King_: Not to be left in quiet and all I am after\nusing! Food that was easy to eat! Drink that\nwas easy to drink! That's the dinner that _was_\na dinner. That cook now is a wonder!\n\n_Dall Glic_: That is now the very one I am wishful\nto speak about.\n\n_King_: I give you my word, I'd sooner have\none goose dressed by him than seven dressed by\nany other one!\n\n_Dall Glic_: The Queen that was urging me for\nto put my mind to make out some way to get quit\nof him.\n\n_King_: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute\nI find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I must\nbe made an attack on to get quit of him?\n\n_Dall Glic_: It is on the head of the Princess Nu.\n\n_King_: Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing, now,\nhe was ...in spite of me ...to wed with her\n...against my will ...and it might be unknownst\nto me.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Such a thing must not happen.\n\n_King_: To be sure, it must not happen. Why\nwould it happen? But supposing--I only said\nsupposing it did. Would you say would that\nlad grow too high in himself to go into the kitchen\n...it might be only an odd time ...to oblige\nme ...and dress a dinner the same as he did\nto-day?\n\n_Dall Glic_: I am sure and certain that he would\nnot. It is the way, it is, with the common sort,\nthe lower orders. He'd be wishful to sit on a chair\nat his ease and to leave his hand idle till he'd grow\nto be bulky and wishful for sleep.\n\n_King_: That is a pity, a great pity, and a great\nloss to the world. A big misfortune he to have\ngot it in his head to take a liking to the girl. I\ntell you he was a great lad behind the saucepans!\n\n_Dall Glic_: Since he did get it in his head, it is\nwhat we have to do now, to make an end of\nhim.\n\n_King_: To gaol him now, and settle up ovens\nand spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he,\nto shorten the day, be apt to start cooking?\n\n_Dall Glic_: In my belief he will do nothing at\nall, but to hold you to the promise you made,\nand to force you to send away the King of Sorcha.\n\n_King_: To have the misfortune of a cook for\na son-in-law, and without the good luck of profiting\nby what he can do in his trade! That is a hard thing\nfor a father to put up with, let alone a king!\n\n_Dall Glic_: If you will but listen to the advice\nI have to give....\n\n_King_: I know it without you telling me. You\nare asking me to make away with the lad! And\nwho knows but the girl might turn on me after,\nwomen are so queer, and say I had a right to have\nasked leave from herself?\n\n_Dall Glic_: There will no one suspect you of\ndoing it, and you to take my plan. Bid them\nheat the big oven outside on the lawn that is for\nroasting a bullock in its full bulk.\n\n_King_: Don't be talking of roasted meat! I\nthink I can eat no more for a twelvemonth!\n\n_Dall Glic_: There will be nothing roasted that\nany person will have occasion to eat. When the\noven door will be open, give orders to your bullies\nand your foot-soldiers to give a tip to him that\nwill push him in. When evening comes, news will\ngo out that he left the meat to burn and made off\non his rambles, and no more about him.\n\n_King_: What way can I send orders when I'm\nnear crazed in my wits with the want of rest. A\nlittle minute of sleep might soothe and settle my\nbrain.\n\n_(Lies down.)_\n\n_Dall Glic_: The least little word to give leave\n...or a sign ...such as to nod the head.\n\n_King_: I give you my word, my head is tired\nnodding! Be off now and close the door after\nyou and give out that anyone that comes to this\nside of the house at all in the next half-hour, his\nneck will be on the block before morning!\n\n_Dall Glic: (Hurriedly.)_ I'm going! I'm\ngoing.\n\n_(Goes.)_\n\n_King: (Locking door and drawing window curtains.)_\nThat you may never come back till I ask you!\n_(Lies down and settles himself on pillows.)_ I'll be\nlying here in my lone listening to the pigeons\nseeking their meal. \"Coo-coo,\" they're saying,\n\"Coo-coo.\"\n\n_(Closes eyes.)_\n\n_Nurse: (At door.)_ Who is it locked the door?\n_(Shakes it.)_ Who is it is in it? What is going on\nwithin? Is it that some bad work is after being\ndone in this place? Hi! Hi! Hi!\n\n_King: (Sitting up.)_ Get away out of that,\nyou torment of a nurse! Be off before I'll have\nthe life of you!\n\n_Nurse_: The Lord be praised, it is the King's\nown voice! There's time yet!\n\n_King_: There's time, is there? There's time\nfor everyone to give out their chat and their gab,\nand to do their business and take their ease and have\na comfortable life, only the King! The beasts\nof the field have leave to lay themselves down in the\nmeadow and to stretch their limbs on the green\ngrass in the heat of the day, without being pestered\nand plagued and tormented and called to and\nwakened and worried, till a man is no less than\nwore out!\n\n_Nurse_: Up or down, I'll say what I have to\nsay, if it cost me my life. It is that I have to tell\nyou of a plot that is made and a plan!\n\n_King_: I won't listen! I heard enough of\nplots and plans within the last three minutes!\n\n_Nurse_: You didn't hear this one. No one knows\nof it only myself.\n\n_King_: I was told it by the Dall Glic.\n\n_Nurse_: You were not! I am only after making\nit out on the moment!\n\n_King_: A plot against the lad of the saucepans?\n\n_Nurse_: That's it! That's it! Open now the door!\n\n_King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and\nsettling himself to sleep.)_ Tell away and welcome!\n\n_(Shuts eyes.)_\n\n_Nurse_: That's right! You're listening. Give\nheed now. That schemer came a while ago letting\non to be the King of Sorcha is no such thing! What\ndo you say?...Maybe you knew it before?\nI wonder the Dall Glic not to have seen that for\nhimself with his one eye.... Maybe you don't\nbelieve it? Well, I'll tell it out and prove it.\nI have got sure word by running messenger that\ncame cross-cutting over the ridge of the hill....\nThat carrion that came in a coach, pressing to bring\naway the Princess before nightfall, giving himself\nout to be some great one, is no other than Taig the\nTailor, that should be called Taig the Twister,\ndown from his mother's house from Oughtmana,\nthat stole grand clothes which were left in the\nmother's charge, he being out at the time cutting\ncloth and shaping lies, and has himself dressed out\nin them the way you'd take him to be King! _(King\nhas slumbered peacefully all through.)_ Now, what\ndo you say? Now, will you open the door?\n\n_Queen: (Outside.)_ What call have you to\nshouting and disturbing the King?\n\n_Nurse_: I have good right and good reason to\ndisturb him!\n\n_Queen_: Go away and let me open the door.\n\n_Nurse_: I will go and welcome now; I have\ntold out my whole story to the King.\n\n_Queen: (Shaking door.)_ Open the door, my\ndear! It is I myself that is here! _(King looks\nup, listens, shakes his head and sinks back.)_ Are\nyou there at all, or what is it ails you?\n\n_Nurse_: He is there, and is after conversing\nwith myself.\n\n_Queen: (Shaking again.)_ Let me in, my dear\nKing! Open! Open! Open! unless that the\nfalling sickness is come upon you, or that you are\nmaybe lying dead upon the floor!\n\n_Nurse_: Not a dead in the world.\n\n_Queen_: Go, Nurse, I tell you, bring the smith\nfrom the anvil till he will break asunder the lock\nof the door!\n\n_(King annoyed, waddles to door and opens it\nsuddenly. Queen stumbles in.)_\n\n_King_: What at all has taken place that you\ncome bawling and calling and disturbing my rest?\n\n_Queen_: Oh! Are you sound and well? I was\nin dread there did something come upon you,\nwhen you gave no answer at all.\n\n_King_: Am I bound to answer every call and\nclamour the same as a hall-porter at the door?\n\n_Queen_: It is business that cannot wait. Here\nnow is a request I have written to the bully of\nthe King of Alban, bidding him to strike the head\noff whatever man will put the letter in his hand.\nWrite your name and sign to it, in three royal words.\n\n_King_: I wouldn't sign a letter out of my right\nhour if it was to make the rivers run gold. There\nis nothing comes of signing letters but more trouble\nin the end.\n\n_Queen_: Give me, so, to bind it a drop of your\nown blood as a token and a seal. You will not\nrefuse, and I telling you the messenger will go\nwith it, and that will lose his head through it, is no\nless than that troublesome cook!\n\n_King: (With a roar.)_ Anyone to say that word\nagain I will not leave a head on any neck in the\nkingdom! I declare on my oath it would be\nbest for me to take the world for my pillow and\nput that lad upon the throne!\n\n_(Queen goes back frightened to door.)_\n\n_Gateman: (Coming in.)_ There is a man coming\nin that will take no denial. It is Fintan the\nAstrologer.\n\n_(Fintan enters with Dall Glic, Nurse, Princess,\nTaig, Manus and Prince of the Marshes\ncrowding after him.)_\n\n_King_: Another disturbance! The whole world\nwould seem to be on the move!\n\n_Queen_: Fintan! What brings him here again?\n\n_Fintan_: A great deceit? A terrible deception!\n\n_King_: What at all is it?\n\n_Fintan_: Long and all as I'm in the world, such\na thing never happened in my lifetime!\n\n_Queen_: What is it has happened?\n\n_Fintan_: It is not any fault of myself or any\nmiscounting of my own! I am certain sure of\nthat much. Is it that the stars of heaven are\ngone astray, they that are all one with a clock--unless\nit might be on a stormy night when they\nare wild-looking around the moon.\n\n_King_: Go on with your story and stop your\nraving.\n\n_Fintan_: The first time ever I came to this place\nI made a prophecy.\n\n_Dall Glic_: You did, about the child was in the\ncradle.\n\n_Fintan_: And that was but new in the world.\nIt is what I said, that she was born under a certain\nstar, and that in a score of years all but two,\nwhatever acting was going on in that star at the\ntime she was born, she would get her crosses in the\nsame way.\n\n_Dall Glic_: The cross you foretold to her was\nto be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would\ncome upon a twelvemonth from this very day.\n\n_Fintan_: That's it. That was according to\nmy reckoning. There was no mistake in that.\nAnd I thought better of the Seven Stars than\nthey to make a fool of me, after all the respect\nI had showed them, giving my life to watching\nthemselves and the plans they have laid down\nfor men and for mortals.\n\n_King_: It seems as if I myself was the best prophet\nand that there is no Dragon at all.\n\n_Fintan_: What a bad opinion you have of me\nthat I would be so far out as that! It would be\na deception and a disappointment out of measure,\nthere to come no Dragon, and I after foretelling\nand prophesying him.\n\n_King_: Troth, it would be no disappointment\nat all to ourselves.\n\n_Fintan_: It would be better, I tell you, a score\nof king's daughters to be ate and devoured, than\nthe high stars in their courses to be proved wrong.\nBut it must be right, it surely must be right. I\ngave the prophecy according to her birth hour,\nthat was one hour before the falling back of the sun.\n\n_Dall Glic_: It was not, but an hour before the\nrising of the sun.\n\n_Fintan_: Not at all! It was the Nurse herself\ntold me it was at evening she was born.\n\n_Queen_: There is the Nurse now. Let you ask\nher account.\n\n_Fintan: (To Nurse.)_ It was yourself laid down\nit was evening!\n\n_Nurse_: Sure I wasn't in the place at all till\nSamhuin time, when she was near three months\nin the world.\n\n_Fintan_: Then it was some other hag the very\nspit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie.\n\n_Nurse_: Sure that one was banished out of this\non the head of telling lies. An hour ere sunrise,\nand before the crowing of the cocks. The Dall\nGlic will tell you that much.\n\n_Dall Glic_: That is so. I have it marked upon\nthe genealogies in the chest.\n\n_Fintan_: That is great news! It was a heavy\nwrong was done me! It had me greatly upset.\nTwelve hours out in laying down the birth-time!\nThat clears the character of myself and\nof the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could\nmake no mistake in my office and in my\nbillet!\n\n_King_: Will you stop praising yourself and give\nout some sense?\n\n_Fintan_: Knowledge is surely the greatest thing\nin the world! And truth! Twelve hours with\nthe planets is equal to twelve months on earth.\nI am well satisfied now.\n\n_Queen_: So the Dragon is not coming, and the\ngirl is in no danger at all?\n\n_Fintan_: Not coming! Heaven help your poor\nhead! Didn't I get word within the last half-hour\nhe is after leaving his den in the Kingdoms of the\nCold, and is at this minute ploughing his way to\nIreland, the same as I foretold him, but that I\nmade a miscount of a year?\n\n_Nurse: (Putting her arm round Princess.)_ Och!\ndo not listen or give heed to him at all!\n\n_Queen_: When is he coming so?\n\n_Fintan_: Amn't I tired telling you this day\nin the place of this day twelvemonth. But as to\nthe minute, there's too much lies in this place\nfor me to be rightly sure.\n\n_King_: The curse of the seven elements upon\nhim!\n\n_Fintan_: Little he'll care for your cursing. The\nwhole world wouldn't stop him coming to your\nown grand gate.\n\n_Princess: (Coming forward.)_ Then I am to die\nto-night?\n\n_Fintan_: You are, without he will be turned\nback by someone having a stronger star than your\nown, and I know of no star is better, unless it might\nbe the sun.\n\n_Queen_: If you had minded me, and given in\nto ring the wedding bells, you would be safe out\nof this before now.\n\n_Fintan_: That Dragon not to find her before\nhim, he will ravage and destroy the whole district\nwith the poisonous spittle of his jaw, till the want\nwill be so great the father will disown his son and\nwill not let him in the door. Well, good-bye to ye!\nYe'll maybe believe me to have foreknowledge\nanother time, and I proved to be right. I have\nknocked great comfort out of that!\n\n_(Goes.)_\n\n_King_: Oh, my poor child! My poor little\nNu! I thought it never would come to pass, I\nto be sending you to the slaughter. And I too\nbulky to go out and face him, having led an easy life!\n\n_Princess_: Do not be fretting.\n\n_King_: The world is gone to and fro! I'll\nnever ask satisfaction again either in bed or board,\nbut to be wasting away with watercresses and rising\nup of a morning before the sun rises in Babylon!\n_(Weeps.)_ Oh, we might make out a way to baffle\nhim yet! Is there no meal will serve him only\nflesh and blood? Try him with Grecian wine,\nand with what was left of the big dinner a while ago!\n\n_Gateman: (Coming in.)_ There is some strange\nthing in the ocean from Aran out. At first it was\nbut like a bird's shadow on the sea, and now you\nwould nearly say it to be the big island would have\nleft its moorings, and it steering its course towards\nAughanish!\n\n_Dall Glic_: I'm in dread it should be the Dragon\nthat has cleared the ocean at a leap!\n\n_King: (Holding Princess.)_ I will not give you\nup! Let him devour myself along with you!\n\n_Dull Glic: (To Princess.)_ It is best for me\nto put you in a hiding-hole under the ground,\nthat has seven locked doors and seven locks on\nthe farthest door. It might fail him to make\nyou out.\n\n_Nurse_: Oh, it would be hard for her to go\nwhere she cannot hear the voice of a friend or\nsee the light of day!\n\n_Princess_: Would you wish me to save myself\nand let all the district perish? You heard what\nFintan said. It is not right for destruction to be\nput on a whole province, and the women and the\nchildren that I know.\n\n_Queen_: There is maybe time yet for you to\nwed.\n\n_Princess_: So long as I am living I have a choice.\nI will not be saved in that way. It is alone I will\nbe in my death.\n\n_Manus: (Coming to King.)_ I am going out\nfrom you, King. I might not be coming in to\nyou again. I would wish to set you free from\nthe promise you made me a while ago, and the bond.\n\n_King_: What does it signify now? What does\nanything signify, and the world turning here and\nthere!\n\n_Manus_: And another thing. I would wish to\nask pardon of the King's daughter. I ought not\nto have laid any claim to her, being a stranger in\nthis place and without treasure or attendance.\nAnd yet ...and yet ..._(stoops and kisses hem\nof her dress)_, she was dear to me. It is a man who\nnever may look on her again is saying that.\n\n_(Turns to door.)_\n\n_Taig_: He is going to run from the Dragon!\nIt is kind father for a scullion to be timid!\n\n_Queen_: It is in his blood. He is maybe not\nto blame for what is according to his nature.\n\n_Manus_: That is so. I am doing what is according\nto my nature.\n\n_(Goes, Nurse goes after him.)_\n\n_Queen: (To Dall Glic.)_ Go throw a dishcloth\nafter him that the little lads may be mocking him\nalong the road!\n\n_Dall Glic_: I will not. I have meddled enough\nat your bidding. I am done with living under\ndread. Let you blind me entirely! I am free\nof you. It might be best for me the two eyes to\nbe withered, and I seeing nothing but the ever-living\nlaws!\n\n_Prince of Marshes: (Coming to Princess.)_ It is\nmy grief that with all the teachers I had there was\nnot one to learn me the handling of weapons or\nof arms. But for all that I will not run away,\nbut will strive to strike one blow in your defence\nagainst that wicked beast.\n\n_Princess_: It is a good friend that would rid\nus of him. But it grieves me that you should\ngo into such danger.\n\n_Prince of Marshes: (To Dall Glic.)_ Give me\nsome sword or casting spears.\n\n_(Dall Glic gives him spears.)_\n\n_Princess_: I am sorry I made fun of you a while\nago. I think you are a good kind man.\n\n_Prince of Marshes; (Kissing her hand.)_ Having\nthat word of praise I will bring a good heart into\nthe fight.\n\n_(Goes.)_\n\n_(Taig is slipping out after him.)_\n\n_Queen_: See now the King of Sorcha slipping\naway into the fight. Stop here now! _(Pulls him\nback.)_ You have a life that is precious to many\nbesides yourself. Do not go without being well\narmed--and with a troop of good fighting men\nat your back.\n\n_Taig_: I am greatly obliged to you. I think\nI'll be best with myself.\n\n_Queen_: You have no suit or armour upon you.\n\n_Taig_: That is what I was thinking.\n\n_Queen_: Here anyway is a sword.\n\n_Taig: (Taking it.)_ That's a nice belt now.\nWell worked, silver thread and gold.\n\n_Queen_: The King's own guard will go out with\nyou.\n\n_Taig_: I wouldn't ask one of them! What\nwould you think of me wanting help! A Dragon!\nLittle I'd think of him. I'll knock the life out of\nhim. I'll give him cruelty!\n\n_Queen_: You have great courage indeed!\n\n_Taig_: I'll cut him crossways and lengthways\nthe same as a yard of frieze! I'll make garters of\nhis body! I'll smooth him with a smoothing iron!\nNot a fear of me! I never lost a bet yet that I\nwasn't able to pay it!\n\n_Gateman: (As he rushes in, Taig slips away.)_\nThe Dragon! The Dragon! I seen it coming and\nits mouth open and a fiery flame from it! And\nnine miles of the sea is dry with all it drank of it!\nThe whole country is gathering the same as of a\nfair day for to see him devour the Princess.\n\n_(Princess trembles and sinks into a chair.\nKing, Queen and Dall Glic look from\nwindow. They turn to her as they\nspeak.)_\n\n_Queen_: There is a terrible splashing in the sea!\nIt is like as if the Dragon's tail had beaten it into\nsuds of soap!\n\n_Dall Glic_: He is near as big as a whale!\n\n_King_: He is, and bigger!\n\n_Queen_: I see him! I see him! He would seem\nto have seven heads!\n\n_Dall Glic_: I see but one.\n\n_Queen_: You would see more if you had your\ntwo eyes! He has six heads at the least!\n\n_King_: He has but one. He is twisting and\nturning it around.\n\n_Dall Glic_: He is coming up towards the flaggy\nshore!\n\n_King_: I hear him! He is snoring like a flock\nof pigs!\n\n_Queen_: He is rearing his head in the air! He\nhas teeth as long as a tongs!\n\n_Doll Glic_: No, but his tail he is rearing up!\nIt would take a ladder forty feet long to get to\nthe tip of it!\n\n_Queen_: There is the King of Sorcha going out\nthe gate for to make an end of him.\n\n_Dall Glic_: So he is, too. That is great bravery.\n\n_King_: He is going to one side. He is come\nto a stop.\n\n_Dall Glic_: It seems to me he is ready to fall in\nhis standing. He is gone into a little thicket of\nfurze. He is not coming out, but is lying crouched\nup in it the same as a hare in a tuft. I can see his\nshoulders narrowed up.\n\n_Queen_: He maybe got a weakness.\n\n_King_: He did, maybe, of courage. Shaking\nand shivering, he is like a hen in thunder. In my\nopinion, he is hiding from the fight.\n\n_Queen_: There is the Prince of the Marshes\ngoing out now, and his coach after him! And\nhis two aunts sitting in it and screeching to him\nnot to run into danger!\n\n_King_: He will not do much. He has not pith\nor power to handle arms. That sort brings a bad\nname on kings.\n\n_Dall Glic_: He is gone away from the coach.\nHe is facing to the flaggy shore!\n\n_Queen_: Oh, the Dragon has put up his head\nand is spitting at him!\n\n_King_: He has cast a spear into its jaw! Good man!\n\n_(Princess goes over to window.)_\n\n_Dall Glic_: He is casting another! His hand\nshook ...it did not go straight. He is gone\non again! He has cast another spear! It should\nhit the beast ...it let a roar!\n\n_Princess_: Good little Prince! What way is\nthe battle now?\n\n_Dall Glic_: It will kill him with its fiery breath!\nHe is running now ...he is stumbling ...the\nDragon is after him! He is up again! The two\nAunts have pushed him into the coach and have\nclosed the iron door.\n\n_King_: It will fail the beast to swallow him coach\nand all. It is gone back to refresh itself in the sea.\nYou can hear it puffing and plunging!\n\n_Queen_: There is nothing to stop it now. _(To\nPrincess.)_ If you have e'er a prayer, now is the\ntime to say it.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Stop a minute ...there is another\nchampion going out.\n\n_King_: A man wearing a saffron suit ...who\nis he at all? He has the look of one used to giving\norders.\n\n_Princess: (Looking out.)_ Oh! he is but going\nto his death. It would be better for me to throw\nmyself into the tide and make an end of it.\n\n_(Is rushing to door.)_\n\n_King: (Holding her.)_ He is drawing his sword.\nHimself and the Dragon are thrusting at one\nanother on the flags!\n\n_Princess_: Oh, close the curtains! Shut out the\nsound of the battle.\n\n_(Dall Glic closes curtains.)_\n\n_King_: Strike up now a tune of music that will\ndeafen the sound!\n\n_(Orchestra plays. Princess is kneeling by\nKing. Music changes from discord to\nvictory. Two Aunts and Gateman rush\nin. Noise of cheering heard without as\nthe Gateman silences music.)_\n\n_Gateman_: Great news and wonderful news and\na great story!\n\n_First Aunt_: The fight is ended!\n\n_Second Aunt_: The Dragon is brought to his\nlast goal!\n\n_Gateman_: That young fighting man that has\nhim flogged! Made at him like a wave breaking\non the strand! They crashed at one another like\ntwo days of judgment! Like the battle of the\ncold with the heat!\n\n_First Aunt_: You'd say he was going through\ndragons all his life!\n\n_Second Aunt_: It can hardly put a stir out of\nitself!\n\n_Gateman_: That champion has it baffled and\nmastered! It is after being chased over seven\nacres of ground!\n\n_First Aunt_: Drove it to its knees on the flaggy\nshore and made an end of it!\n\n_King_: God bless that man to-day and to-morrow!\n\n_Second Aunt_: He has put it in a way it will eat\nno more kings' daughters!\n\n_Princess_: And the stranger that mastered it--is\nhe safe?\n\n_First Aunt_: What signifies if he is or is not, so\nlong as we have our own young prince to bring\nhome!\n\n_Gatekeeper_: He is not safe. No sooner had he\nthe beast killed and conquered than he fell dead,\nand the life went out of him.\n\n_Princess_: Oh, that is not right! He to be dead\nand I living after him!\n\n_King_: He was surely noble and high-blooded.\nThere are some that will be sorry for his death.\n\n_Princess_: And who should be more sorry than\nI myself am sorry? Who should keen him unless\nmyself? There is a man that gave his life for me,\nand he young and all his days before him and shut\nhis eyes on the white world for my sake!\n\n_Queen_: Indeed he was a man you might have\nbeen content to wed with, hard and all as you are\nto please.\n\n_Princess_: I never will wed with any man so\nlong as my life will last, that was bought for me\nwith a life was more worthy by far than my own!\nHe is gone out of my reach; let him wait for me\nto give him my thanks on the other side. Bring\nme now his sword and his shield till I will put\nthem before me and cry my eyes down with grief!\n\n_Gateman_: Here is his cap for you, anyway, and\nhis cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For the\nchampion you are crying was no other than that\nlad of a cook!\n\n_Queen_: That is not true! It is not possible!\n\n_Gateman_: Sure I seen him myself going out the\ngate a while ago. He put off his cook's apparel\nand threw it along with these behind the turfstack. I\ngathered them up presently and I coming in the door.\n\n_King_: The world is gone beyond me entirely!\nBut what I was saying all through, there was\nsomething beyond the common in that boy!\n\n_Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to chair.)_\nLet you be comforted now, knowing he cannot\ncome back to lay claim to you in marriage, as it\nis likely he would, and he living.\n\n_Princess_: It is he saved me after my unkindness!...\nOh, I am ashamed ...ashamed!\n\n_Queen_: It is a queer thing a king's daughter\nto be crying after a man used to twisting the spit\nin place of weapons, and over skivers in the place\nof a sword!\n\n_Princess: (Gropes and totters.)_ What has happened?\nThere is something gone astray! I have\nno respect for myself.... I cannot live! I am\nashamed. Where is Nurse? Muime! Come to\nme, Muime!...My grief! The man that died\nfor me, whether he is of the noble or the simple\nof the world, it is to him I have given the love of\nmy soul!\n\n_(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on\nwindow seat.)_\n\n_Nurse: (Rushing in.)_ What is it, honey?\nWhat at all are they after doing to you?\n\n_Queen_: Throw over her a skillet of water. She\nis gone into a faint.\n\n_Dall Glic: (Who is bending over her.)_ She is\nin no faint. She is gone out.\n\n_Nurse_: Oh, my child and my darling! What\ncall had I to leave you among them at all?\n\n_King_: Raise her up. It is impossible she can\nbe gone.\n\n_Dall Glic_: Gone out and spent, as sudden as\na candle in a blast of wind.\n\n_King_: Who would think grief would do away\nwith her so sudden, there to be seven of the like\nof him dead?\n\n_Nurse: (Rises.)_ What did you do to her at all,\nat all? Or was it through the fright and terror\nof the beast?\n\n_Queen_: She died of the heartbreak, being told\nthat the strange champion that had put down the\nDragon was killed dead.\n\n_Nurse_: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie\nout of his mouth? _(Shouts in her ear.)_ What\nwould ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell\nyou the true story. No man in Ireland ever was\nhalf as good as him! It was himself mastered the\nbeast and dragged the heart out of him and forced\ndown a squirrel's heart in its place, and slapped a\nbridle on him. And he himself did but stagger\nand go to his knees in the heat and drunkenness\nof the battle, and rose up after as good as ever he\nwas! It is out putting ointments on him that I\nwas up to this, and healing up his cuts and wounds!\nOh, what ails you, honey, that you will not waken?\n\n_Queen_: She thought it to be a champion and a\nhigh up man that had died for her sake. It is\nwhat broke her down in the latter end, hearing\nhim to be no big man at all, but a clown!\n\n_Nurse_: Oh, my darling! And I not here to\ntell you! You are a motherless child, and the\ncurse of your mother will be on me! It was no\nclown fought for you, but a king, having generations\nof kings behind him, the young King of Sorcha,\nManus, son of Solas son of Lugh.\n\n_King_: I would believe that now sooner than\nmany a thing I would hear.\n\n_Nurse: (Keening.)_ Oh, my child, and my\nshare! I thought it was you would be closing my\neyes, and now I am closing your own! You to\nbe brought away in your young youth! Your hand\nthat was whiter than the snow of one night, and\nthe colour of the foxglove on your cheek.\n\n_(A great shouting outside and burst of music.\nA march played. Manus comes in, followed\nby Fintan and Prince of the Marshes.\nShouts and music continue. He leads the\nDragon by a bridle. The others are in\nfront of Princess, huddled from Dragon.\nQueen gets up on a chair.)_\n\n_Manus_: Where is the Princess Nu? I have\nbrought this beast to bow itself at her feet.\n\n_(All are silent. Manus flings bridle to\nFintan's hand. Dragon backs out. All\ngo aside from Princess.)_\n\n_Nurse_: She is here dead before you.\n\n_Manus_: That cannot be! She was well and\nliving half an hour ago.\n\n_Nurse: (Rises.)_ Oh, if she could but waken\nand hear your voice! She died with the fret of\nlosing you, that is heaven's truth! It is tormented\nshe was with these giving out you were done away\nwith, and mocking at your weapons that they laid\ndown to be the cleaver and the spit, till the heart\nbroke in her like a nut.\n\n_Manus: (Kneeling beside her.)_ Then it is myself\nhave brought the death darkness upon you at the\nvery time I thought to have saved you!\n\n_Nurse_: There is no blame upon you, but some\nthat had too much talk!\n\n_(Goes on keening.)_\n\n_Manus_: What call had I to come humbugging\nand letting on as I did, teasing and tormenting\nher, and not coming as a King should that is come\nto ask for a Queen! Oh, come back for one minute\nonly till I will ask your pardon!\n\n_Dall Glic_: She cannot come to you or answer\nyou at all for ever.\n\n_Manus_: Then I myself will go follow you and\nwill ask for your forgiveness wherever you are gone,\non the Plain of Wonder or in the Many-Coloured\nLand! That is all I can do ...to go after you\nand tell you it was no want of respect that brought\nme in that dress, but hurry and folly and taking\nmy own way. For it is what I have to say to you,\nthat I gave you my heart's love, what I never gave\nto any other, since first I saw you before me in\nmy sleep! Here, now, is a short road to reach you!\n\n_(Takes sword.)_\n\n_Prince of Marshes: (Catching his hand.)_ Go\neasy now, go easy.\n\n_Manus_: Take off your hand! I say I will die\nwith her!\n\n_Prince of Marshes_: That will not raise her up\nagain. But I, now, if I have no skill in killing\nbeasts or men, have maybe the means of bringing\nher back to life.\n\n_Nurse_: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it\nyou have at all?\n\n_Prince of Marshes: (Taking bag from his Aunt.)_\nThese three leaves from the Tree of Power that\ngrows by the Well of Healing. Here they are\nnow for you, tied with a thread of the wool of\nthe sheep of the Land of Promise. There is power\nin them to bring one person only back to life.\n\n_First Aunt_: Give them back to me! You\nhave your own life to think of as well as any other\none!\n\n_Second Aunt_: Do not spend and squander that\ncure on any person but yourself!\n\n_Prince of Marshes: (Giving the leaves.)_ And if\nI have given her my love that it is likely I will\ngive to no other woman for ever, indeed and\nindeed, I would not ask her or wish her to wed\nwith a very frightened man, and that is what I\nwas a while ago. But you yourself have earned her,\nbeing brave.\n\n_Manus: (Taking leaves.)_ I never will forget it\nto you. You will be a brave man yet.\n\n_Prince of Marshes_: Give me in place of it your\nsword; for I am going my lone through the world\nfor a twelvemonth and a day, till I will learn to\nfight with my own hand.\n\n_(Manus gives him sword. He throws off cloak\nand outer coat and fastens it on.)_\n\n_Nurse_: Stand back, now. Let the whole of ye\nstand back. _(She lays a leaf on the Princess's mouth\nand one on each of her hands.)_ I call on you by\nthe power of the Seven Belts of the Heavens, of\nthe Twelve Winds of the World, of the Three\nWaters of the Sea!\n\n_(Princess stirs slightly.)_\n\n_King_: That is a wonder of wonders! She is stirring!\n\n_Manus_: Oh, my share of the world! Are you\ncome back to me?\n\n_Princess_: It was a hard fight he wrestled with.\n...I thought I heard his voice.... Is he come\nfrom danger?\n\n_Nurse_: He did. Here he is. He that saved\nyou and that killed the Dragon, and that let on\nto be a serving boy, and he no less than one of\nthe world's kings!\n\n_Manus_: Here I am, my dear, beside you, to be\nyour comrade and your company for ever.\n\n_Princess_: You!...Yes, it is yourself. Forgive\nme. I am sorry that I spoke unkindly to you\na while ago; I am ashamed that it failed me to\nknow you to be a king.\n\n(_She stands up, helped by Nurse_.)\n\n_Manus_: It was my own fault and my folly.\nWhat way could you know it? There is nothing\nto forgive.\n\n_Princess_: But ...if I did not recognise you\nas a king ...anyway ...the time you dropped\nthe eggs ...I was nearly certain that you were\nno cook!\n\n(_They embrace_.)\n\n_Queen_: There now I have everything brought\nabout very well in the finish!\n\n(_A scream at door. Taig rushes in, followed\nby Sibby, in country dress. He kneels at\nthe Queen's feet, holding on to her skirt_.)\n\n_Sibby_: Bad luck and bad cess to you! Torment\nand vexation on you! (_Seizes him by back of neck\nand shakes him_.) You dirty little scum and leavings!\nYou puny shrimp you! You miserable ninth part\nof a man!\n\n_Queen_: Is it King or the Dragon Killer he is\nletting on to be yet, or do you know what he is\nat all?\n\n_Sibby_: It's myself knows that, and does know\nit! He being Taig the tailor, my own son and\nmy misfortune, that stole away from me a while\nago, bringing with him the grand clothes of that\nyoung champion (_points to Manus_) and his gold!\nTo borrow a team of horses from the plough he\ndid, and to bring away the magistrate's coach! But\nI followed him! I came tracking him on the road!\nPut off now those shoes that are too narrow for\nyou, you red thief, you! For, believe me, you'll\ngo facing home on shank's mare!\n\n_Taig: (Whimpering.)_ It's a very unkind thing\nyou to go screeching that out before the King,\nthat will maybe strike my head off!\n\n_Sibby_: Did ever you know of anyone making a\nquarrel in a whisper? To wed with the King's\ndaughter, you would? To go vanquish the water-worm,\nyou would? I'll engage you ran before you\nwent anear him!\n\n_Taig_: If I didn't I'd be tore with his claws\nand scorched with his fiery breath. It is likely\nI'd be going home dead!\n\n_Sibby_: Strip off now that cloak and that body-coat\nand come along with me, or I'll make split\nmarrow of you! What call have you to a suit\nthat is worth more than the whole of the County\nMayo? You're tricky and too much tricks in you,\nand you were born for tricks! It would be right\nyou to be turned into the shape of a limping\nfoxy cat!\n\n_Taig: (Weeping as he takes off clothes.)_ Sure\nI thought it no harm to try to go better\nmyself.\n\n_Prince of Marshes: (Giving his cloak and coat.)_\nHere, I bestow these to you. If you were a while\nago a tailor among kings, from this out you will\nbe a king among tailors.\n\n_Sibby: (Curtseying.)_ Well, then, my thousand\nblessings on you! He'll be as proud as the world\nof that. Now, Taig, you'll be as dressed up as the\n\nbest of them! Come on now to Oughtmana, as\nit is long till you'll quit it.\n\n_(They go towards door.)_\n\n_Dragon: (Putting his head in at window.)_ Manus,\nKing of Sorcha, I am starved with the want of food.\nGive me a bit to eat.\n\n_Fintan_: He is not put down! He will devour\nthe whole of us! I'd sooner face a bullet and\nten guns!\n\n_Dragon_: It is not mannerly to eat without\nbeing invited. Is it any harm to ask where will\nI find a meal will suit me?\n\n_Princess_: Oh, does he ask to make a meal of\nme, after all?\n\n_Dragon_: I am hungry and dancing with the\nhunger! It was you, Manus, stopped me from the\none meal. Let you set before me another.\n\n_King_: There is reason in that. Drive up now\nfor him a bullock from the meadow.\n\n_Dragon_: Manus, it is not bullocks I am craving,\nsince the time you changed the heart within me\nfor the heart of a little squirrel of the wood.\n\n_Manus: (Taking a cocoa-nut from table.)_ Here\nis a nut from the island of Lanka, that is called\nAdam's Paradise. Milk there is in it, and a kernel\nas white as snow.\n\n_(He throws it out. Dragon is heard crunching.)_\n\n_Dragon: (Putting head in again.)_ More! Give\nme more of them! Give them out to me by the\ndozen and by the score!\n\n_Manus_: You must go seek them in the east of\nthe world, where you can gather them in bushels\non the strand.\n\n_Dragon_: So I will go there! I'll make no delay!\nI give you my word, I'd sooner one of them than\nto be cracking the skulls of kings' daughters, and\nthe blood running down my jaws. Blood! Ugh!\nIt would disgust me! I'm in dread it would cause\nvomiting. That and to have the plaits of hair\ntickling and tormenting my gullet!\n\n_Princess_: (_Claps hands_.) That is good hearing,\nand a great change of heart.\n\n_Dragon_: But if it's a tame dragon I am from this\nout, I'm thinking it's best for me to make away\nbefore you know it, or it's likely you'll be yoking\nme to harrow the clods, or to be dragging the\nwater-car from the spring well. So good-bye the\nwhole of ye, and get to your supper. Much good\nmay it do you! I give you my word there is\nnothing in the universe I despise, only the flesh-eaters\nof Adam's race!\n\nCURTAIN.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR'S NOTE\n\n\nI wrote _The Dragon_ in 1917, that now seems so many\nlong years away, and I have been trying to remember how\nI came to write it. I think perhaps through some unseen\ninevitable kick of the swing towards gay-coloured comedy\nfrom the shadow of tragedy. It was begun seriously\nenough, for I see among my scraps of manuscripts that the\nearliest outline of it is entitled \"The Awakening of a Soul,\"\nthe soul of the little Princess who had not gone \"far out\nin the world.\" And that idea was never quite lost, for\neven when it had all turned to comedy I see as an alternative\nname \"A Change of Heart.\" For even the Dragon's heart\nis changed by force, as happens in the old folk tales and\nthe heart of some innocent creature put in its place by the\nconqueror's hand; all change more or less except the\nQueen. She is yet satisfied that she has moved all things\nwell, and so she must remain till some new breaking up or\nre-birth.\n\nAs to the framework, that was once to have been the\noften-told story of a King's daughter given to whatever\nman can \"knock three laughs out of her.\" As well as I\nremember the first was to have been when the eggs were\nbroken, and another when she laughed with the joy of\nhappy love. But the third was the stumbling-block. It\nwas necessary the ears of the Abbey audience should be\ntickled at the same time as those of the Princess, and old-time\njests like those of Sir Dinadin of the Round Table\nseem but dull to ears of to-day. So I called to my help the\nDragon that has given his opportunity to so many a hero\nfrom Perseus in the Greek Stories to Shawneen in those\nof Kiltartan. And he did not sulk or fail me, for after\none of the first performances the producer wrote: \"I\nwish you had seen the play last night when a big Northern\nin the front of the stalls was overcome with helpless\nlaughter, first by Sibby and then by the Dragon. He sat\nthere long after the curtain fell, unable to move and wiping\nthe tears from his eyes; the audiences stopped going out\nand stood and laughed at him.\" And even a Dragon may\nthink it a feather in his cap to have made Ulster laugh.\n\nA.G.\n\nCoole, February, 1920.\n\nORIGINAL CAST\n\n\"The Dragon \" was first produced at the Abbey\nTheatre, Dublin, on 21st April, 1919, with the\nfollowing cast:\n\nThe King BARRY FITZGERALD\n\nThe Queen MARY SHERIDAN\n\nThe Princess Nuala EITHNE MAGEE\n\nThe Dall Glic (The Blind Wise Man) PETER NOLAN\n\nThe Nurse MAUREEN DELANY\n\nThe Prince of the Marshes J. HUGH NAGLE\n\nManus--King of Sorcha ARTHUR SHIELDS\n\nFintan--The Astrologer F.J. MACCORMICK\n\nTaig FLORENCE MARKS\n\nThe Dragon SEAGHAN BARLOW\n\nThe Porter STEPHEN CASEY\n\nThe Gatekeeper HUBERT M'GUIRE\n\nTwo Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes {ESME WARD\n                                       {DYMPHNA DALY\n\n\n\n\nARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS\n\nPERSONS\n\n\n_The Mother_.\n\n_Celia_ (HER DAUGHTER).\n\n_Conan_ (HER STEPSON).\n\n_Timothy_ (HER SERVING MAN).\n\n_Rock_ (A NEIGHBOUR).\n\n_Flannery_ (HIS HERD).\n\n_Two Cats_.\n\n\nACT I\n\n\n\n\nACT I\n\n\n_Scene: A Room in an old half-ruined castle_.\n\n_Mother_: Look out the door, Celia, and see is\nyour uncle coming.\n\n_Celia_: (_Who is lying on the ground, a bunch of\nribbons in her hand, and playing with a pigeon, looks\ntowards door without getting up_.) I see no sign of\nhim.\n\n_Mother_: What time were you telling me it was\na while ago?\n\n_Celia_: It is not five minutes hardly since I was\ntelling you it was ten o'clock by the sun.\n\n_Mother_: So you did, if I could but have kept\nit in mind. What at all ails him that he does not\ncome in to the breakfast?\n\n_Celia_: He went out last night and the full moon\nshining. It is likely he passed the whole night\nabroad, drowsing or rummaging, whatever he does\nbe looking for in the rath.\n\n_Mother_: I'm in dread he'll go crazy with digging\nin it.\n\n_Celia_: He was crazy with crossness before that.\n\n_Mother_: If he is it's on account of his learning.\nThem that have too much of it are seven times\ncrosser than them that never saw a book.\n\n_Celia_: It is better to be tied to any thorny bush\nthan to be with a cross man. He to know the\nseventy-two languages he couldn't be more crabbed\nthan what he is.\n\n_Mother_: It is natural to people do be so clever\nto be fiery a little, and not have a long patience.\n\n_Celia_: It's a pity he wouldn't stop in that\nschool he had down in the North, and not to come\nback here in the latter end of life.\n\n_Mother_: Ah, he was maybe tired with enlightening\nhis scholars and he took a notion to acquaint\nourselves with knowledge and learning. I was\ntrying to reckon a while ago the number of the\nyears he was away, according to the buttons of my\ngown (_fingers bodice_), but they went astray on me\nat the gathers of the neck.\n\n_Celia_: If the hour would come he'd go out of\nthis, I'd sing, I'd play on all the melodeons that\never was known! (_Sings_.) (_Air, \"Shule Aroon_.\")\n\n  \"I would not wish him any ill,\n  But were he swept to some far hill\n  It's then I'd laugh and laugh my fill,\n  Coo, Coo, my birdeen b\u00e1n astore.\n\n  \"I wish I was a linnet free\n  To rock and rustle on the tree\n  With none to haste or hustle me,\n  Coo, Coo, my birdeen b\u00e1n astore!\"\n\n_Mother_: Did you make ready now what will\nplease him for his breakfast?\n\n_Celia_: (_Laughing_.) I'm doing every whole\nthing, but you know well to please him is not\npossible.\n\n_Mother_: It is going astray on me what sort of\negg best suits him, a pullet's egg or the egg of a\nduck.\n\n_Celia_: I'd go search out if it would satisfy him\nthe egg of an eagle having eyes as big as the moon,\nand feathers of pure gold.\n\n_Mother_: Look out again would you see him.\n\n_Celia_: (_Sitting up reluctantly_.) I wonder will\nthe rosy ribbon or the pale put the best appearance\non my party dress to-night? (_Looks out_.) He is\ncoming down the path from the rath, and he having\nhis little old book in his hand, that he gives out\nfell down before him from the skies.\n\n_Mother_: So there is a little book, whatever\nlanguage he does be wording out of it.\n\n_Celia_: If you listen you'll hear it now, or hear\nhis own talk, for he's mouthing and muttering as\nhe travels the path.\n\n_Conan_: (_Comes in: the book in his hand open,\nhe is not looking at it_.) \"Life is the flame of the\nheart ...that heat is of the nature of the stars.\" ...It\nis Aristotle had knowledge to turn that\nflame here and there.... What way now did he\ndo that?\n\n_Mother_: Ah, I'm well pleased to see you coming\nin, Conan. I was getting uneasy thinking you\nwere gone astray on us.\n\n_Conan_: (_Dropping his book and picking it up\nagain_.) I never knew the like of you, Maryanne,\nunder the canopy of heaven. To be questioning\nme with your talk, and I striving to keep my mind\nupon all the wisdom of the ancient world. (_Sits\ndown beside fire_.)\n\n_Mother_: So you would be too. It is well able\nyou are to do that.\n\n_Conan_: (_To Celia_.) Have you e'er a meal to\nleave down to me?\n\n_Celia_: It will be ready within three minutes of\ntime.\n\n_Conan_: Wasting the morning on me! What\ngood are you if you cannot so much as boil the\nbreakfast? Hurry on now.\n\n_Celia_: Ah, hurry didn't save the hare. (_Sings\nironically as she prepares breakfast_.) (_Air, \"Mo\nBhuachailin Buidhe_.\")\n\n  \"Come in the evening or come in the morning,\n  Come when you're looked for or come without warning;\n  Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you\n  And the oftner you come here the more I'll adore you.\"\n\n_Conan_: Give me up the tea-pot.\n\n_Celia_: Best leave it on the coals awhile.\n\n_Conan_: Give me up those eggs so. (_Seizes them_.)\n\n_Celia_: You can take the tea-pot too if you are\ncalling for it. (_Goes on singing mischievously as\nshe turns a cake_.)\n\n  \"I'll pull you sweet flowers to wear if you'll choose them,\n  Or after you've kissed them they'll lie on my bosom.\"\n\n_Conan_: (_Breaking eggs_.) They're raw and\nrunning!\n\n_Celia_: There's no one can say which is best,\nhurry or delay.\n\n_Conan_: You had them boiled in cold water!\n\n_Celia_: That's where you're wrong.\n\n_Conan_: The young people that's in the world\nnow, if you had book truth they wouldn't believe\nit. (_Flings eggs into the fire and pours out tea_.)\n\n_Mother_: I hope now that is pleasing to you?\n\n_Conan_: (_Threatening Celia with spoon_.) My\nseven curses on yourself and your fair-haired tea.\n(_Puts back tea-pot_.)\n\n_Celia_: (_Laughing_.) It was hurry left it so weak\non you!\n\n_Mother_: Ah, don't be putting reproaches on\nhim. Crossness is a thing born with us. It do run\nin the blood. Strive now to let him have a quiet life.\n\n_Conan_: I am not asking a quiet life! But to\ncome live with your own family you might as well\ntake your coffin on your back!\n\n_Celia_: (_Sings_.)\n\n  \"We'll look on the stars and we'll list to the river\n  'Till you ask of your darling what gift you can give her.\"\n\n_Conan_: That girl is a disgrace sitting on the\nfloor the way she is! If I had her for a while I'd\nput betterment on her. No one that was under\nme ever grew slack!\n\n_Celia_: _You_ would never be satisfied and you\nto see me working from dark to dark as hard as a\npismire in the tufts.\n\n_Mother_: Leave her now, she's a quiet little girl\nand comely.\n\n_Conan_: Comely! I'd sooner her to be like the\nugliest sod of turf that is pockmarked in the bog,\nand a handy housekeeper, and her pigeon doing\nsomething for the world if it was but scaring its\ncomrades on a stick in a barley garden!\n\n_Celia_: Ah, do you hear him! (_Stroking pigeon_.)\n(_Sings_.)\n\n  \"But when your friend is forced to flee\n  You'll spread your white wings on the sea\n  And fly and follow after me--\n  Go-d\u00e9 tu Mavourneen sl\u00e2n!\"\n\n_Mother_: I wonder you to be going into the rath\nthe way you do, Conan. It is a very haunted place.\n\n_Conan_: Don't be bothering me. I have my\nreason for that.\n\n_Mother_: I often heard there is many a one lost\nhis wits in it.\n\n_Conan_: It's likely they hadn't much to lose.\nWithout the education anyone is no good.\n\n_Mother_: Ah, indeed you were always a tip-top\nscholar. I didn't ever know how good you were\ntill I had my memory lost.\n\n_Conan_: Indeed, it is a strange thing any wits\nat all to be found in _this_ family.\n\n_Mother_: Ah, sure we are as is allotted to us at\nthe time God made the world.\n\n_Conan_: Now _I_ to make the world--\n\n_Mother_: You are not saying you would make a\nbetter hand of it?\n\n_Conan_: I am certain sure I could.\n\n_Mother_: Ah, don't be talking that way!\n\n_Conan_: I'd make changes you'd wonder at.\n\n_Celia_: It's likely you'd make the world in one\nday in place of six.\n\n_Mother_: It's best make changes little by little\nthe same as you'd put clothes upon a growing\nchild, and to knock every day out of what God\nwill give you, and to live as long as we can, and\ndie when we can't help it.\n\n_Conan_: And the first thing I'd do would be to\ngive you back your memory and your sense. _(Sings.)\n(Air, \"The Bells of Shandon.\")_\n\n  \"My brain grows rusty, my mind is dusty,\n  The time I'm dwelling with the likes of ye,\n  While my spirit ranges through all the changes\n  Could turn the world to felicity!\n  When Aristotle...\"\n\n_Mother_: It is like a dream to me I heard that\nname. Aristotle of the books.\n\n_Conan: (Eagerly.)_ What did you hear about him?\n\n_Mother_: I don't know was it about him or was\nit some other one. My memory to be as good as\nit is bad I might maybe bring it to mind.\n\n_Conan_: Hurry on now and remember!\n\n_Mother_: Ah, it's hard remember anything and\nthe weather so uncertain as what it is.\n\n_Conan_: Is it of late you heard it?\n\n_Mother_: It was maybe ere yesterday or some\nday of the sort; I don't know. Since the age\ntampered with me the thing I'd hear to-day I\nwouldn't think of to-morrow.\n\n_Conan_: Try now and tell me was it that\nAristotle, the time he walked Ireland, had come to\nthis place.\n\n_Mother_: It might be that, unless it might be\nsome other thing.\n\n_Conan_: And that he left some great treasure\nhid--it might be in the rath without.\n\n_Mother_: And what good would it do you a pot of\ngold to be hid in the rath where you would never\ncome near to it, it being guarded by enchanted\ncats and they having fiery eyes?\n\n_Conan_: Did I say anything about a pot of\ngold? This was better again than gold. This\nwas an enchantment would raise you up if you\nwere gasping from death. Give attention now ...\nAristotle.\n\n_Mother_: It's Harry he used to be called.\n\n_Conan_: Listen now. _(Sings.) (Air, \"Bells of\nShandon.\")_\n\n  \"Once Aristotle hid in a bottle\n  Or some other vessel of security\n  A spell had power bring sweet from sour\n  Or bring blossoms blooming on the blasted tree.\"\n\n_Mother: (Repeating last line_.) \"Or bring blossoms\nblooming on the blasted tree.\"\n\n_Conan_: Is that now what you heard ...that\nAristotle has hid some secret spell?\n\n_Mother_: I won't say what I don't know. My\nmemory is too weak for me to be telling lies.\n\n_Conan_: You could strengthen it if you took it\nin hand, putting a knot in the corner of your shawl\nto keep such and such a thing in mind.\n\n_Mother_: If I did I should put another knot in\nthe other corner to remember what was the first\none for.\n\n_Conan_: You'd remember it well enough if it\nwas a pound of tea!\n\n_Mother_: Ah, maybe it's best be as I am and not\nto be running carrying lies here and there, putting\ntrouble on people's mind.\n\n_Conan_: Isn't it terrible to be seeing all this\nfolly around me and not to have a way to\nbetter it!\n\n_Mother_: Ah, dear, it's best leave the time under\nthe mercy of the Man that is over us all.\n\n_Conan_: (_Jumping up furious_.) Where's the\nuse of old people being in the world at all if they\ncannot keep a memory of things gone by! (_Sings_.)\n(_Air, \"O the time I've lost in wooing_.\")\n\n  \"O the time I've lost pursuing\n  And feeling nothing doing,\n  The lure that led me from my bed\n  Has left me sad and rueing!\n  Success seemed very near me!\n  High hope was there to cheer me!\n  I asked my book where would I look\n  And all it did was fleer me!\"\n\n_Mother_: What is it ails you?\n\n_Conan_: That secret to be in the world, and I\nall to have laid my hand on it, and it to have gone\nastray on me!\n\n_Mother_: So it would go too.\n\n_Conan_: A secret that could change the world!\nI'd make it as good a world to live in as it was in\nthe time of the Greeks. I don't see much goodness\nin the trace of the people in it now. To\nchange everything to its contrary the way the\nbook said it would! There would be great satisfaction\ndoing that. Was there ever in the world\na family was so little use to a man? (_Sings in\ndejection_.) (_Air, \"My Molly O.\"_)\n\n  \"There is a rose in Ireland, I thought it would be mine\n  But now that it is hid from me I must forever pine.\n  Till death shall come and comfort me for to the grave I'll go\n  And all for the sake of Aristotle's secret O!\"\n\n_Celia_: I wonder you wouldn't ask Timothy\nthat is older again than what my mother is.\n\n_Conan_: Timothy! He has the hearing lost.\n\n_Celia_: Well there is no harm to try him.\n\n_Conan_: (_Going to door_.) Timothy!... There,\nhe's as deaf as a beetle.\n\n_Mother_: It might be best for him. The thing\nthe ear will not hear will not put trouble on the\nheart.\n\n_Celia_: (_Who has gone out comes pushing him in_.)\nHere he is now for you.\n\n_Conan_: Did ever you hear of Aristotle?\n\n_Timothy_: Aye?\n\n_Conan_: Aristotle!\n\n_Timothy_: Ere a bottle? I might ...\n\n_Conan_: Aristotle.... That had some power?\n\n_Timothy_: I never seen no flower.\n\n_Conan_: Something he hid near this place.\n\n_Timothy_: I never went near no race.\n\n_Conan_: Has the whole world its mind made up\nto annoy me!\n\n_Celia_: Raise your voice into his ear.\n\n_Conan_: (_Chanting_.)\n\n  \"Aristotle in the hour\n  He left Ireland left a power\n  In a gift Eolus gave\n  Could all Ireland change and save!\"\n\n_Timothy:_ Would it now?\n\n_Conan:_ You said you had heard of a bottle.\n\n_Timothy:_ A charmed bottle. It is Biddy Early\nput a cure in it and bestowed it in her will to her son.\n\n_Conan:_ Aristotle that left one in the same way.\n\n_Timothy:_ It is what I am thinking that my old\ngenerations used to be talking about a bellows.\n\n_Conan:_ A bellows! There's no sense in that!\n\n_Timothy:_ Have it your own way so, and give\nme leave to go feeding the little chickens and the\nhens, for if I cannot hear what they say and they\ncannot understand what I say, they put no reproach\non me after, no more than I would put\nit on themselves. (_Goes_.)\n\n_Celia:_ Let you be satisfied now and not torment\nyourself, for if you got the world wide you\ncouldn't discover it. You might as well think to\nthrow your hat to hit the stars.\n\n_Conan:_ You have me tormented among the\nwhole of ye. To be without ye would be no harm\nat all. (_Sits down and weeps_.) Of all the families\nanyone would wish to live away from I am full\nsure my family is the worst.\n\n_Mother:_ Ah, dear, you're worn out and contrary\nwith the want of sleep. Come now into the\nroom and stretch yourself on the bed. To go\nsleeping out in the grass has no right rest in it at\nall! (_Takes his arm_.)\n\n_Conan:_ Where's the use of lying on my bed\nwhere it is convenient to the yard, that I'd be\nafflicted by the turkeys yelping and the pullets\npraising themselves after laying an egg! and the\ncackling and hissing of the geese.\n\n_Mother:_ Lie down so on the settle, and I'll let\nno one disturb you. You're destroyed, avic, with\nthe want of sleep.\n\n_Conan:_ There'll be no peace in this kitchen no\nmore than on the common highway with the\npeople running in and out.\n\n_Mother:_ I'll go sit in the little gap without, and\nthe whole place will be as quiet as St. Colman's\nwilderness of stones.\n\n_Conan:_ The boards are too hard.\n\n_Mother:_ I'll put a pillow in under you.\n\n_Conan:_ Now it's too narrow. Leave me now\nit'll be best.\n\n_Mother:_ Sleep and good dreams to you. (_Goes\nsinging sleepy song_.)\n\n_Conan:_ The most troublesome family ever I\nknew in all my born days! Why is that people\ncannot have behaviour now the same as in ancient\nGreece. (_Sits up_.) I'll not give them the satisfaction\nof going asleep. I'll drink a sup of the\ntea that is black with standing and with strength.\n(_Drinks and lies down_.) I'll engage that'll keep\nme waking. (_Music heard_.) Is it to annoy me\nthey are playing tunes of music? I'll let on to be\nasleep! (_Shuts eyes_.)\n\n(_Two large Cats with fiery eyes look over top\nof settle_.)\n\n_1st Cat:_\n\n  See the fool that crossed our path\n  Rummaging within the rath.\n\n  Coveting a spell is bound\n  Agelong in our haunted ground.\n\n  Hid that none disturb its peace\n  By a Druid out from Greece.\n\n  Spies and robbers have no call\n  Rooting in our ancient wall.\n\n  Man or mortal what is he\n  Matched against the mighty Sidhe?\n\n\n_2nd Cat_:\n\n  Bid our riders of the night\n  Daze and craze him with affright,\n\n  Leave him fainting and forlorn\n  Hanging on the moon's young horn.\n\n  Let the death-bands turn him pale\n  Through the venom of our tail.\n\n  Let him learn to love our law\n  With the sharpness of our claw.\n\n  Let our King-cat's fiery flash\n  Turn him to a heap of ash.\n\n\n_1st Cat_:\n\n  Punishment enough he'll find\n  In his cross and cranky mind.\n\n  Ha, ha, ha, and ho, ho, ho,\n  He'd a sharper penance know,\n\n  We'd have better sport to-day\n  If he got his will and way,\n\n  Found the spell that lies unknown\n  Underneath his own hearthstone.\n\n(_They disappear saying together_:)\n\n  Men and mortals what are ye\n  Matched against the mighty Sidhe?\n\n_Conan_: (_Looking out timidly_.) Are they gone?\nHere, Puss, puss! Come hither now poor Puss!\nThey're not in it.... Here now! here's milk\nfor ye. And a drop of cream.... (_Gets up,\npeeps under settle and around_.) They are gone!\nAnd that they may never come back! I wouldn't\nwish to be brought riding a thorny bush in the night\ntime into the cold that is behind the sun! What\nnow did they say? Or is it dreaming I was? Oh,\nit was not! They spoke clear and plain. The\nhidden spell that I was seeking, they said it to be\nin the hiding hole under the hearth. (_Pokes,\nsneezes_.) Bad cess to Celia leaving that much\nashes to be choking me. Well, the luck has come\nto me at last!\n\n(_Sings as he searches_.)\n\n  \"Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding,\n  Loudly the war cries rise on the gale;\n  Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bounding\n  To join the thick squadrons in Saimear's green vale.\n  On every mountaineer, strangers to flight and fear;\n  Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh\n  Bonnaught and gallowglass, throng from each mountain pass.\n  On for old Erin, O'Donnall Abu.\"\n\n(_Pokes at hearthstone_.) Sure enough, it's\nloose! It's moving! Wait till I'll get\na wedge under it!\n\n(_Takes fork from table_.) It's coming!\n\n(_Door suddenly opens and he drops fork and\nsprings back_.)\n\n_Mother_: (_Coming in with Rock and Flannery_.)\nHere now, come in the two of ye. Here now, Conan,\nis two of the neighbours, James Rock of Lis Crohan\nand Fardy Flannery the rambling herd, that are\ncome to get a light for the pipe and they walking\nthe road from the Fair.\n\n_Conan_: That's the way you make a fool of me\npromising me peace and quiet for to sleep!\n\n_Mother_: Ah, so I believe I did. But it slipped\naway from me, and I listening to the blackbird on\nthe bush.\n\n_Conan_: (_To Rock_.) I wonder, James Rock,\nthat you wouldn't have on you so much as a halfpenny\nbox of matches!\n\n_Rock_: (_Trying to get to hearth_.) So I have\nmatches. But why would I spend one when I can\nget for nothing a light from a sod?\n\n_Flannery_: Sure, I could give you a match I\nhave this long time, waiting till I'll get as much\ntobacco as will fill a pipe.\n\n_Mother_: It's the poor man does be generous.\nIt's gone from my mind, Fardy, what was it\nbrought you to be a servant of poverty?\n\n_Flannery_: Since the day I lost on the road my\nforty pound that I had to stock my little farm of\nland, all has wore away from me and left me bare\nowning nothing unless daylight and the run of\nwater. It was that put me on the Shaughrann.\n\n(_Sings \"The Bard of Armagh.\"_)\n\n  \"Oh, list to the lay of a poor Irish harper,\n  And scorn not the strains of his old withered hand,\n  But remember the fingers could once move sharper\n  To raise the merry strains of his dear native land;\n  It was long before the shamrock our dear isle's loved emblem.\n  Was crushed in its beauty 'neath the Saxon Lion's paw\n  I was called by the colleens of the village and valley\n  Bold Phelim Brady, the bard of Armagh.\"\n\n_Rock_: Bad management! Look what I brought\nfrom the Fair through minding my own property--\u00a320\nfor a milch cow, and thirty for a score of\nlambs!\n\n_Mother_: \u00a320 for a cow! Isn't that terrible\nmoney!\n\n_Conan_: Let you whist now! You are putting\na headache on me with all your little newses and\ncountry chat!\n\n(_Mother goes, the others are following_.)\n\n_Rock_: (_Turning from door_.) It might be better\nfor yourself, Conan Creevey, if you had minded\nbusiness would bring profit to your hand in place\nof your foreign learning, that never put a penny\npiece in anyone's pocket that ever I heard. No\nearthly profit unless to addle the brain and leave\nthe pocket empty.\n\n_Conan_: You think yourself a great sort! Let\nme tell you that my learning has power to do more\nthan that!\n\n_Rock_: It's an empty mouth that has big talk.\n\n_Conan_: What would you say hearing I had\npower put in my hand that could change the entire\nworld? And that's what you never will have power\nto do.\n\n_Rock_: What power is that?\n\n_Conan_:\n\n  Aristotle in the hour\n  He left Ireland left a power....\n\n_Rock_: Foolishness! I never would believe in\npoetry or in dreams or images, but in ready money\ndown. (_Jingles bag_.)\n\n_Conan_: I tell you you'll see me getting the\nvictory over all Ireland!\n\n_Rock_: You have but a cracked headpiece thinking\nthat will come to you.\n\n_Conan_: I tell you it will! No end at all in the\nworld to what I am about to bring in!\n\n_Rock_: It's easy praise yourself!\n\n_Conan_: And so I am praising myself, and so will\nyou all be praising me when you will see all that\nI will do!\n\n_Rock_: It is what I think you got demented in\nthe head and in the mind.\n\n_Conan_: It is soon the wheel will be turned and\nthe whole of the nation will be changed for the\nbest. (_Sings_.)\n\n  \"Dear Harp of my country, in darkness I found thee,\n  The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,\n  When proudly, my own Irish Harp, I unbound thee,\n  And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song,\n  The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness\n  Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;\n  But so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of sadness,\n  That ev'n in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.\"\n\n_Flannery_: That's a great thought, if it is but a\nvanity or a dream.\n\n_Rock_: (_Sneeringly_.) Well now and what would\n_you_ do?\n\n_Flannery_: I would wish a great lake of milk,\nthe same as blessed St. Bridget, to be sharing with\nthe family of Heaven. I would wish vessels full\nof alms that would save every sorrowful man. Do\nthat now, Conan, and you'll have the world of\nprayers down on you!\n\n_Rock_: It's what I'd do, to turn the whole of\nGalway Bay to dry land, and I to have it for myself,\nthe red land, the green land, the fallow and the\nlea! The want of land is a great stoppage to a man\nhaving means to lay out in stock.\n\n(_Sings_.) (_Air, \"I wish I had the shepherd's lamb.\"_)\n\n  \"I wish I had both mill and kiln,\n  I wish I had of land my fill;\n  I wish I had both mill and kiln,\n  And all would follow after!\"\n\n_Flannery_: Ah, the land, the land, the rotten\nland, and what will you have in the end but the\nbreadth of your back of it? Let you now soften\nthe heart in that one (_points to Rock_) till he would\nrestore to me the thing he is aware of.\n\n_Conan_: It was not for that the spell was\npromised, to be changing a few neighbours or a\nthing of the kind, or to be doing wonders in this\nbroken little place. A town of dead factions! To\nchange any of the dwellers in this place would be\nto make it better, for it would be impossible to\nmake it worse. The time you wouldn't be meddling\nwith them you wouldn't know them to be\nbad, but the time you'd have to do business with\nthem that's the time you'd know it!\n\n_Rock_: I suppose it is what you are asking to\ndo, to make yourself rich?\n\n_Conan_: I do not! I would be loth take any\nprofit, and Aristotle after laying down that _to_\npleasure or _to_ profit every wealthy man is a slave!\n\n_Flannery_: What would you do, so?\n\n_Conan_: I will change all into the similitude of\nancient Greece! There is no man at all can understand\nargument but it is from Greece he is. I know\nwell what I'm doing. I'm not like a potato having\neyes this way and that. People were harmless\nlong ago and why wouldn't they be made harmless\nagain? Aristotle said, \"Fair play is more\nbeautiful than the morning and the evening star!\"\n\n\"Be friendly with one another,\" he said, \"and\nlet the lawyers starve!\" I'll turn the captains of\nsoldiers to be as peaceable as children picking\nstrawberries in the grass. I've a mind to change\nthe tongue of the people to the language of the\nGreeks, that no farmer will be grumbling over a\nhalfpenny Independent, but be following the plough\nin full content, giving out Homer and the praises\nof the ancient world!\n\n_Flannery_: If you make the farmers content you\nwill make the world content.\n\n_Rock_: You will, when you'll bring the sun from\nGreece to ripen our little lock of oats!\n\n_Conan_: So I will drag Ireland from its moorings\ntill I'll bring it to the middling sea that has no ebb\nor flood!\n\n_Rock_: You will do well to put a change on the\ncollege that harboured you, and that left you so\nmuch of folly.\n\n_Conan_: I'll do that! I'll be in College Green\nbefore the dawn is white--no but before the night\nis grey! It is to Dublin I will bring my spell, for\nI ever and always heard it said what Dublin will\ndo to-day Ireland will do to-morrow! (_Sings_.)\n\n  \"Let Erin remember the days of old\n  Ere her faithless sons betrayed her--\n  When Malachy wore the collar of gold\n  Which he won from her proud invader--\n  When her kings with standards of green unfurl'd,\n  Led the Red-Branch knights to danger;\n  Ere the emerald gem of the western world\n  Was set in the crown of a stranger.\"\n\n_Rock_: And maybe you'll tell us now by what\nmeans you will do all this?\n\n_Conan_: Go out of the house and I will tell you\nin the by and bye.\n\n_Rock_: That is what I was thinking. You are\ntalking nothing but lies.\n\n_Conan_: I tell you that power is not far from\nwhere you stand! But I will let no one see it only\nmyself.\n\n_Flannery_: There might be some truth in it.\nThere are some say enchantments never went out\nof Ireland.\n\n_Conan_: It is a spell, I say, that will change\nanything to its contrary. To turn it upon a snail,\nthere is hardly a greyhound but it would overtake;\nbut a hare it would turn to be the slowest thing in\nthe universe; too slow to go to a funeral.\n\n_Rock_: I'll believe it when I'll see it.\n\n_Conan_: You could see it if I let you look in\nthis hiding-hole.\n\n_Rock_: Good-morrow to you!\n\n_Conan_: Then you will see it, for I'll raise up\nthe stone. (_Kneels_.)\n\n_Rock_: It to be anything it is likely a pot of\nsovereigns.\n\n_Flannery_: It might be the harp of Angus.\n\n_Rock_: I see no trace of it.\n\n_Conan_: There is something hard! It should\nlikely be a silver trumpet or a hunting-horn of gold!\n\n_Rock_: Give me a hold of it.\n\n_Conan_: Leave go! (_Lifts out bellows_.)\n\n_Rock_: Ha! Ha! Ha! after all your chat, nothing\nbut a little old bellows!...\n\n_Conan_: There is seven rings on it.... They\nshould signify the seven blasts....\n\n_Rock_: If there was seventy times seven what\nuse would it be but to redden the coals?\n\n_Conan_: Every one of these blasts has power to\nmake some change.\n\n_Rock_: Make one so, and I'll plough the world\nfor you.\n\n_Conan_: Is it that I would spend one of my\nseven blasts convincing the like of ye?\n\n_Rock_: It is likely the case there is no power in\nit at all.\n\n_Conan_: I'm very sure there is surely. The world\nwill be a new world before to-morrow's Angelus bell.\n\n_Flannery_: I never could believe in a bellows.\n\n_Rock_: Here now is a fair offer. I'll loan you\nthis bag of notes to pay your charges to Dublin if\nyou will change that little pigeon in the crib into a\ncrow.\n\n_Conan_: I will do no such folly.\n\n_Rock_: You wouldn't because you'd be afeared\nto try.\n\n_Conan_: Hold it up to me. I'll show you am\nI afeared!\n\n_Rock_: There it is now. (_Holds up cage_.)\n\n_Conan_: Have a care! (_Blows_.)\n\n_Rock_: (_Dropping it with a shriek_.) It has me\nbit with its hard beak, it is turned to be an old\nblack crow.\n\n_Flannery_: As black as the bottom of the pot.\n\n_Crow_: Caw! Caw! Caw!\n\n(_Cats reappear and look over back of settle_.)\n\n(_Music from behind_.) (\"_O'Donnall Abu_.\")\n\nCURTAIN\n\nACT II\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\n_Conan alone holding up bellows, singing_:\n\n_Conan:_\n\n  \"And doth not a meeting like this make amends\n  For all the long years I've been wandering away\n  Deceived for a moment it's now in my hands--\n  breathe the fresh air of life's morning again!\"\n\n_Celia_: (_Comes in having listened amused at\ndoor; claps hands_.) Very good! It is you yourself\nshould be going to the dance house to-night in\nplace of myself. It is long since I heard you rise\nso happy a tune!\n\n_Conan_: (_Putting bellows behind him_.) What\nbrings you here? Is there no work for you out in\nthe garden--the cabbages to be cutting for the\ncow....\n\n_Celia_: I wouldn't wish to roughen my hands\nbefore evening. Music there will be for the dancing!\n\n(_She lilts Miss McLeod's Reel_.)\n\n_Conan_: Let you go ready yourself for it so.\n\n_Celia_: Is it at this time of the day? You\nshould be forgetting the hours of the clock the\nsame as the poor mother.\n\n_Conan_: It is a strange thing since I came to\nthis house I never can get one minute's ease and\nquiet to myself.\n\n_Celia_: It was hearing you singing brought me in.\n\n_Conan:_ I'd sooner have you without! Be\ngoing now.\n\n_Celia:_ I will and welcome. It is to bring out\nmy little pigeon I will, where there is a few grains\nof barley fell from a car going the road.\n\n_Conan:_ Hurry on so!\n\n_Celia: (Taking up cage.)_ He is not in his crib.\n_(Looking here and there.)_ Where now can he\nhave gone?\n\n_Conan:_ He should have gone out the door.\n\n_Celia:_ He did not. He could not have come\nout unknown to me. Coo, coo,--coo--coo.\n\n_Conan:_ Never mind him now. You are putting\nmy mind astray with your Coo, coo--\n\n_Celia:_ He might be in under the settle.\n_(Stoops.)_ Where are you, my little bird. _(Sings.)\n(Air, \"Shule Aroon_.\")\n\n  \"But now my love has gone to France\n  His own fair fortune to advance;\n  If he comes back again 'tis but a chance;\n  Os go d\u00e9 tu Mavourneen sl\u00e2n!\"\n\n_Conan: (Putting her away.)_ What way would\nhe be in it? Let you put a stop to that humming.\n_(Seizes her.)_ Come here to the light ...is it\nyou sewed this button on my coat?\n\n_Celia:_ It was not. It is likely it was some\ntailor down in the North.\n\n_Conan:_ It is getting loose on the sleeve.\n\n_Celia_: Ah, it will last a good while yet. Coo, coo!\n\n_Conan: (Getting before her.)_ It would be no\ngreat load on you to get a needle and put a stitch\nwould tighten it.\n\n_Celia:_ I'll do it in the by and bye. There, I\ntwisted the thread around it. That'll hold good\nenough for a while.\n\n_Conan:_ \"Anything worth doing at all is worth\ndoing well.\"\n\n_Celia:_ Aren't you getting very dainty in your\ndress?\n\n_Conan:_ Any man would like to have a decent\nappearance on his suit.\n\n_Celia:_ Isn't it the same to-day as it was\nyesterday?\n\n_Conan:_ Have you ne'er a needle?\n\n_Celia:_ I don't know where is it gone.\n\n_Conan:_ You haven't a stim of sense. Can't\nyou keep in mind \"Everything in its right place.\"\n\n_Celia:_ Sure, there's no hurry--the day is long.\n\n_Conan:_ Anything has to be done, the quickest\nto do it is the best.\n\n_Celia:_ I'm not working by the hour or the day.\n\n_Conan:_ Look now at Penelope of the Greeks,\nand all her riches, and her man not at hand to urge\nher, how well she sat at the loom from morn till\nnight till she'd have the makings of a suit of frieze.\n\n_Celia:_ Ah, that was in the ancient days, when\nyou wouldn't buy it made and ready in the shops.\n\n_Conan:_ Will you so much as go to find a towel\nwould take the dust off of the panes of glass?\n\n_Celia:_ I wonder at you craving to disturb the\nspider and it after making its web.\n\n_Conan:_ Well, go sit idle outside. I wouldn't\nwish to be looking at you! Aristotle that said a\nlazy body is all one with a lazy mind. You'll be\nbegging your bread through the world's streets\nbefore your poll will be grey.\n\n(_Sings_.)\n\n  \"You'll dye your petticoat, you'll dye it red,\n  And through the world you'll beg your bread;\n  And you not hearkening to e'er a word I said,\n  It's then you'll know it to be true!\"\n\n_Celia_: (_Sings_.)\n\n  \"Come here my little birdeen! Coo!\"\n\n_Conan_: (_Putting his hand on her mouth_.) Be\ngoing out now in place of calling that bird that is\nas lazy and as useless as yourself.\n\n_Celia_: My little dove! Where are you at all!\n\n_Conan_: A cat to have ate it would be no great\nloss!\n\n_Celia_: Did you yourself do away with him?\n\n_Conan_: I did not.\n\n_Celia_: (_Wildly breaking free throws herself down_.)\nThere is no place for him to be only in under\nthe settle!\n\n_Conan_: (_Dragging at her_.) It is not there.\n\n_Celia_: (_Who has put in her hand_.) O what is\nthat? It has hurt me!\n\n_Conan_: A nail sticking up out of the floor.\n\n_Celia_: (_Jumping up with a cry_.) It's a crow!\nA great big wicked black crow!\n\n_Conan_: If it is let you leave it there.\n\n_Celia_: (_Weeping_.) I'm certain sure it has my\npigeon killed and ate!\n\n_Conan_: To be so doleful after a pigeon! You\nhaven't a stim of sense!\n\n_Celia_: It was you gave it leave to do that!\n\n_Conan_: Stop your whimpering and blubbering!\nWhat way can I settle the world and I being\nharassed and hampered with such a contrary class!\nI give you my word I have a mind to change\nmyself into a ravenous beast will kill and devour ye\nall! That much would be no sin when it would be\naccording to my nature. (_Sings or chants_.)\n\n  \"On Clontarf he like a lion fell,\n  Thousands plunged in their own gore;\n  I to be such a lion now\n  I'd ask for nothing more!\"\n\n_Celia: (Sitting down miserable_.) You are a very\nwicked man!\n\n_Conan_: Get up out of that or I'll make you!\n\n_Celia_: I will not! I'm certain you did this\ncruel thing!\n\n_Conan: (Taking up bellows_.) I'd hardly begrudge\none of my six blasts to be quit of your slowness\nand your sluggish ways! Rise up now before\nI'll make you that you'll want shoes that will never\nwear out, you being ever on the trot and on the\nrun from morning to the fall of night! Start up\nnow! I'm on the bounds of doing it!\n\n_Celia_: What are you raving about?\n\n_Conan_: To get quit of you I cannot, but to\nchange your nature I might! I give you warning\n...one, two, three!\n\n_(Blows.) (Sings: \"With a chirrup.\") (Air,\n\"Garryowen.\")_\n\n  \"Let you rise and go light like a bird of the air\n  That goes high in its flight ever seeking its share;\n  Let you never go easy or pine for a rest\n  Till you'll be a world's wonder and work with the best!\n\n  With a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,\n  A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,\n  A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,\n  A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!\"\n\n_Celia_: (_Staring and standing up_.) What is\nthat? Is it the wind or is it a wisp of flame that\nis going athrough my bones!\n\n(_Rock and Flannery come in_.)\n\n(_Celia rushes out_.)\n\n_Rock_: (_Out of breath_.) We went looking for a\ncar to bring you to the train!\n\n_Flannery_: There was not one to be found.\n\n_Rock_: But those that are too costly!\n\n_Flannery_: Till we went to the Doctor of the\nUnion.\n\n_Rock_: For to ask a lift for you on the ambulance....\n\n_Flannery_: But when he heard what we had to\ntell--\n\n_Rock_: He said he would bring you and glad\nto do it on his own car, and no need to hansel\nhim.\n\n_Flannery_: And welcome, if it was as far as the\ngrave!\n\n_Rock_: All he is sorry for he hasn't a horse that\nwould rise you up through the sky--\n\n_Conan_: Let him give me the lift so--it will be\na help to me. It wasn't only with his own hand\nAlexander won the world!\n\n_Flannery_: Unless you might give him, he was\nsaying, a blast of the bellows, that would change\nhis dispensary into a racing stable, and all that\ncome to be cured into jockeys and into grooms!\n\n_Conan_: What chatterers ye are! I gave ye no\nleave to speak of that.\n\n_Rock_: Ah, it costs nothing to be giving out\nnewses.\n\n_Flannery_: The world and all will be coming to\nthe door to throw up their hats for you, and you\nmaking your start, cars and ass cars, jennets and\ntraps. _(Sings.)_\n\n  \"O Bay of Dublin, how my heart your troublin',\n  Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream;\n  Like frozen fountains that the sun set bubblin'\n  My heart's blood warms when I but hear your name!\"\n\n_Conan_: It's my death I'll come to in Dublin.\nThat news to get there ahead of me I'll be pressed\nin the throng as thin as a griddle.\n\n_Flannery_: So you might be, too. All I have\nthat might protect you I offer free, and that's this\ngood umbrella that was given to me in a rainstorm\nby a priest. _(Holds it out.)_\n\n_Rock_: And what do you say to me giving you\nthe loan of your charges for the road?\n\n_Conan_: Come in here, Maryanne! and give a\nglass to these honest men till they'll wish me good\nluck upon my journey, as it's much I'll need it,\nwith the weight of all I have to do.\n\n_Mother: (Coming in.)_ So I will, so I will and\nwelcome ...but that I disremember where did\nI put the key of the chest.\n\n_Conan_: I'll engage you do! There it is before\nyou in the lock since ere yesterday. _(Mother puts\nbottle and glasses on table.)_\n\n_Flannery: (Lifting glass.)_ That you may bring\ngreat good to Ireland and to the world!\n\n_Rock_: Here's your good health!\n\n_Conan_: I'm obliged to you!\n\n_Rock and Flannery: (Sing.) (Air, \"The Cruiskeen\nl\u00e1n.\")_\n\n  \"Gramachree ma cruiskeen Slainte geal mavourneen,\n  Gramachree a cool-in bawn, bawn, bawn, b\u00e2n-b\u00e1n-b\u00e1n,\n  Oh, Gra-ma-chree a cool-in bawn.\"\n\n_(They nod as they finish and take out their\npipes and sit down. A banging is heard.)_\n\n_Conan_: What disturbance is that?\n\n_(Celia comes in, her hair screwed up tight,\nskirt tucked up, is carrying a pail,\nbrush, cloth, etc., lets them drop and\nproceeds to fasten up skirt.)_\n\n_Mother_: Ah, Celia, what is on you? I never\nsaw you that way before.\n\n_Conan_: Ha! Very good! I think that you will\nsay there is a great change come upon her, and a\nright change.\n\n_Celia_: Look now at the floor the way it is.\n\n_Mother_: I see no other way but the way it is\nalways.\n\n_Celia_: There's a bit of soot after falling down\nthe chimney. _(Picks up tongs.)_\n\n_Mother:_ Ah, leave it now, dear, a while.\n\n_Celia_: Anything has to be done, the quickest\nway to do it is the best. _(Having taken up soot,\nflings down tongs.)_\n\n_Conan_: Listen to that! Now am I able to\nwork wonders?\n\n_Rock_: It is that you have spent on her a blast?\n\n_Conan_: If I did it was well spent.\n\n_Flannery_: I'm in dread you have been robbing\nthe poor.\n\n_Rock_: It is myself you have robbed doing that.\nYou have no call to be using those blasts for your\nown profit!\n\n_Conan_: I have every right to bring order in\nmy own dwelling before I can do any other thing!\n\n_Celia_: All the dust of the world's roads is\ngathered in this kitchen. The whole place ate\nwith filth and dirt.\n\n_(Begins to sweep.)_\n\n_Conan_: Ah, you needn't hardly go as far as that.\n\n_Celia_: Anything that is worth doing is worth\ndoing well. _(To Rock.)_ Look now at the marks\nof your boots upon the ground. Get up out of\nthat till I'll bustle it with the broom!\n\n_Rock: (Getting up.)_ There is a change indeed\nand a queer change. Where she used to be singing\nshe is screeching the same as a slate where you'd\nbe casting sums!\n\n_Celia: (To Flannery.)_ What's that I see in\nunder your chair? Rise up. _(He gets up.)_ It's\na pin! _(Sticks it in her dress.)_ Everything in its\nright place! _(Goes on flicking at the furniture.)_\n\n_Mother_: Leave now knocking the furniture to\nflitters.\n\n_Celia_: I will not, till I'll free it from the dust\nand dander of the year.\n\n_Mother_: That'll do now. I see no dust.\n\n_Celia_: You'll see it presently. _(Sweeps up a cloud.)_\n\n_Mother_: Let you speak to her, Conan.\n\n_Conan_: Leave now buzzing and banging about\nthe room the same as a fly without a head!\n\n_Celia_: Never put off till to-morrow what you\ncan do to-day.\n\n_Conan_: I tell you I have things to settle and\nto say before the car will come that is to bring me\non my road to Dublin.\n\n_Celia: (Stopping short.)_ Is it that you are going\nto Dublin?\n\n_Conan_: I am, and within the hour.\n\n_Celia_: Pull off those boots from your feet!\n\n_Conan_: I will not! Let you leave my boots\nalone!\n\n_Celia_: You are not going out of the house with\nthat slovenly appearance on you! To have it said\nout in Dublin that you are a class of man never has\nclean boots but of a Sunday!\n\n_Conan_: They'll do well enough without you\nmeddling!\n\n_Celia_: Clean them yourself so! _(Gives him a\nrag and blacking and goes on dusting.)_\n\n_(Sings.) (Air, \"City of Sligo.\")_\n\n  \"We may tramp the earth\n  For all that we're worth,\n  But what odds where you and I go,\n  We never shall meet\n  A spot so sweet\n  As the beautiful city of Sligo.\"\n\n_Conan_: What ailed me that I didn't leave her\nas she was before.\n\n_Celia: (Stopping work.)_ What way are they now?\n\n_Conan: (Having cleaned his boots, putting them\non hurriedly.)_ They're very good. _(Wipes his brow,\ndrawing hand across leaving mark of blacking.)_\n\n_Celia_: The time I told you to put black on\nyour shoes I didn't bid you rub it upon your brow!\n\n_Conan_: I didn't put it in any wrong place.\n\n_Celia_: I ask the whole of you, is it black his face\nis or white?\n\n_All_: It is black indeed.\n\n_Celia_: Would you put a reproach on the whole\nof the barony, going up among big citizens with a\nface on you the like of that?\n\n_Conan_: I'll do well enough. There will be\nthe black of the smoke from the engine on it any\nway, and I after journeying in the train.\n\n_Celia_: You will not go be a disgrace to me.\n\n_Conan_: If it is black it is yourself forced me to it.\n\n_Celia_: If I did I'll make up for it, putting a\nclean face upon you now. _(Dips towel in pail and\nsings \"With a fillip\"--air, \"Garryowen\"--as she\nwashes him.)_\n\n  \"Bring to mind how the thrush gathers twigs for his nest\n  And the honey bee toils without ever a rest\n  And the fishes swim ever to keep themselves clean,\n  And you'll praise me for making you fit to be seen!\n  With a fillip, a fillip, a fillip.\n  A fillip, a fillip, a fillip.\n  A fillip, a fillip, a fillip, a fillip,\n  A fillip, a fillip, a fillip, a fillip!\"\n\n_Conan_: Let me go, will you! Let you stop!\nThe soap that is going into my eye!\n\n_Celia_: My grief you are! Let you be willing\nto suffer, so long as you will be tasty and decent\nand be a credit to ourselves.\n\n_Conan_: The suds are in my mouth!\n\n_Celia_: One minute now and you'll be as clean\nas a bishop!\n\n_Conan_: Let me go, can't you!\n\n_Celia_: Only one thing wanting now.\n\n_Conan_: I'm good enough, I tell you!\n\n_Celia_: To cut the wisp from the back of your\npoll.\n\n_Conan_: You will not cut it!\n\n_Celia_: And you'll go into the grandeurs of\nDublin and you being as neat as an egg.\n\n_Conan: (With a roar.)_ Leave meddling with\nmy hair. I that can change the world with one\nturn of my hand!\n\n_Celia_: Wait till I'll find the scissors! That's\nnot the way to be going showing off in the town,\nif you were all the saints and Druids of the universe!\n\n_Conan: (Breaking free and rushing out.)_ My\nseven thousand curses on the minute when I didn't\nleave you as you were. _(Goes.)_\n\n_Celia: (Looking at Mother.)_ There's meal on\nyour dress from the cake you're after putting in\nthe oven--where now did that bellows fall from?\n_(Taking up bellows.)_ It comes as handy as a\ngimlet. There _(blows the meal off)_, that now will\nmake a big difference in you.\n\n_Rock: (Seizing bellows.)_ Leave now that down\nout of your hand. Let you go looking for a\nscissors!\n\n_(Celia goes off singing \"The Beautiful City\nof Sligo.\")_\n\n_Mother: (Sitting down.)_ I'm thinking it's seven\nyears to-day, James Rock, since you took a lend\nof my clock.\n\n_Rock_: You're raving! What call would I have\nto ask a lend of your clock?\n\n_Mother_: The way you would rise in time for\nthe fair of Feakle in the morning.\n\n_Rock_: Did I now?\n\n_Mother_: You did, and that's my truth. I was\nstanding here, and you were standing there, and\nCelia that was but ten years was sucking the sugar\noff a spoon I was after putting in a bag that had\ncome from the shop, for to put a grain into my\ntea.\n\n_Rock: (Sneering.)_ Well now, didn't your memory\nget very sharp!\n\n_Mother_: You thought I had it forgot, but I\nremember it as clear as pictures. The time it stood\nat was seven minutes after four o'clock, and I\nnever saw it from that day till now. This very\nday of the month it was, the year of the black\nsheep having twins.\n\n_Rock_: It was but an old clock anyway.\n\n_Mother_: If it was it is seven years older since\nI laid an eye on it. And it's kind father for you\nrobbing me, where it's often you robbed your own\nmother, and you stealing away to go cardplaying\nthe half crowns she had hid in the churn.\n\n_Rock_: Didn't you get very wicked and hurtful,\nyou that was a nice class of a woman without no\nharm!\n\n_Flannery_: Ah, Ma'am, you that was easy-minded,\nit is not kind for you to be a scold.\n\n_Mother_: And another thing, it was the same\nday where Michael Flannery _(turns to him)_ came in\nan' told me of you being grown so covetous you\nhad made away with your dog, by reason you\nbegrudged it its diet.\n\n_Rock: (To Flannery.)_ You had a great deal to\nsay about me!\n\n_Mother_: And more than that again, he said\nyou had it buried secretly, and had it personated,\ncreeping around the haggard in the half dark\nand you barking, the way the neighbours would\nthink it to be living yet and as wicked as it was\nbefore.\n\n_Rock: (To Flannery.)_ I'll bring you into the\nCourts for telling lies!\n\n_Mother: (Coming near Rock and speaking into\nhis ear.)_ And there's another thing I know, and\nthat I made a promise to her that was your wife\nnot to tell, but death has that promise broke.\n\n_Rock_: Stop, can't you!\n\n_Mother_: I know by sure witness that it was\nyou found the forty pound _he (points to Flannery,\nwho nods)_ lost on the road, and kept it for your\nown profit. Bring me now, I dare you, into the\nCourts!\n\n_Rock: (Fearfully.)_ That one would remember\nthe world! It is as if she went to the grinding\nyoung!\n\n_(Conan's voice heard. Singing: \"Let me be\nmerry\" in a melancholy voice.)_\n\n  \"If sadly thinking with spirits sinking\n  Could more than drinking my cares compose,\n  A cure for to-morrow from sighs I'd borrow,\n  And hope to-morrow would end my woes.\n\n  But as in wailing there's nought availing,\n  And Death unfailing will strike the blow,\n  Then for that reason and for a season,\n  Let us be merry before we go!\"\n\n_Mother_: It is Conan will near lose his wits\nwith joy when he knows what is come back to me!\n\n_Conan: (Peeping in.)_ Is Celia gone?\n\n_Flannery_: She is, Conan.\n\n_Conan_: It's a queer thing with women. If\nyou'll turn them from one road it's likely they'll\ngo into another that is worse again.\n\n_Rock_: That is so indeed. There is Celia's\nmother that is running telling lies, and leaving a\nheavy word upon a neighbour.\n\n_Mother_: I'll give my promise not to tell it out\nin Court if he will give to poor Michael Flannery\nwhat is due to him, and that is the whole of what\nhe has in his bag!\n\n_Conan: (Laughing scornfully.)_ Sure _she_ has no\nmemory at all. It fails her to remember that two\nand two makes four.\n\n_Mother_: You think that? Well, listen now to\nme. Two and two is it? No, nine times two that\nis eighteen and nine times three twenty-seven,\nnine times four thirty-six, nine times five forty-five,\nnine times six fifty-four, nine times seven\nsixty-three, nine times eight seventy-two, nine\ntimes nine eighty-one.... Yes, and eleven times,\nand any times that you will put before me!\n\n_Conan_: That's enough, that's enough!\n\n_Mother_: Ha, ha! You giving out that I can\nkeep no knowledge in mind and no learning, when\nI should sit on the chapel roof to have enough of\nslates for all I can cast up of sums! Multiplication,\nAddition, subtraction, and the rule of three!\n\n_Conan_: Whist your tongue!\n\n_Mother_: Is it the verses of Raftery's talk into\nthe Bush you would wish me to give out, or the\nthree hundred and sixty-nine verses of the Contention\nof the Bards--_(Repeats verse of \"The Talk\nwith the Bush\" in Irish.)_\n\n  \"C\u00e9ad agus m\u00edle roi\u00e1mh am na h-Airce\n  T\u00fas agus crothugadh m'aois agus mo dhata\n  Th\u00e1 me o shoin im' shuidhe san \u00e1it so\n  Agus is iomdha sg\u00e9al a bhf\u00e9adain tr\u00e1cht air.\"\n\nOr I'll English it if that will please you:\n\n  \"A hundred years and a thousand before the time of the Ark\n  Was the beginning and creation of my age and my date;\n  I am from that time sitting in this place,\n  And it's many a story I am able to give news of.\"\n\n_Conan: (Putting hands to ears and walking\naway.)_ I am thinking your mind got unsettled\nwith the weight of years.\n\n_Mother: (Following him.)_ No, but your own\nthat got scattered from the time you ran barefoot\ncarrying worms in a tin can for that Professor of a\nCollegian that went fishing in the stream, and that\nyou followed after till you got to think yourself a\nlamp of light for the universe!\n\n_Conan_: Will you stop deafening the whole world\nwith your babble!\n\n_Mother_: There was always a bad drop in you\nthat attached to you out of the grandfather. What\ndid your languages do for you but to sharpen\nyour tongue, till the scrape of it would take the\nskin off, the same as a cat! My blessing on you,\nConan, but my curse upon your mouth!\n\n_Conan_: Oh, will you stop your chat!\n\n_Mother_: Every word you speak having in it\nthe sting of a bee that was made out of the curses\nof a saint!\n\n_Conan_: Stop your gibberish!\n\n_Mother_: Are you satisfied now?\n\n_Conan_: I'm not satisfied!\n\n_Mother_: And never will be, for you were ever\nand always a fault-finder and full of crossness\nfrom the day that you were small suited.\n\n_Conan_: You remember that, too?\n\n_Mother_: I do well!\n\n_Conan_: Where is the bellows? Was it you\n_(to Flannery)_ that blew a blast on her?\n\n_Flannery_: It was not.\n\n_Conan_: Or you?\n\n_Rock_: It's long sorry I'd be to do such a thing!\n\n_Conan_: It is certain someone did it on her.\nWhere now is it?\n\n_Mother: (Seizing him.)_ And I remember the\nday you threw out your mug of milk into the street,\nby reason, says you, you didn't like the colour of\nthe cow that gave it!\n\n_Conan_: Will you stop ripping up little annoyances,\ntill I'll find the bellows!\n\n_Rock_: It's what I'm thinking, her memory will\nsoon be back at the far side of Solomon's\nTemple.\n\n_Mother: (Repeats in Irish.)_ Agus is iomdha\nsg\u00e9al a bhf\u00e9adain tra\u00e1cht air!\n\n_Conan: (Shouting.)_ Is it that you'll drive the\nseven senses out of me!\n\n_Mother_: Is it that you begrudge me my recollection?\nHa! I have it in spite of you. _(Sings.)_\n\n  \"Oft in the stilly night\n  Ere slumber's chain hath bound me\n  Fond memory brings the light\n  Of other days around me.\n  The smiles, the tears, of childhood's years,\n  The words of love then spoken--\n  The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone,\n  The cheerful hearts now broken.\n\n  \"Thus in the stilly night--ere slumber's chain\n    hath bound me\n  Fond memory brings the light\n  Of other days around me!\"\n\n_Celia: (Bursting in.)_ Where is Conan?\n\n_Conan_: What do you want of me?\n\n_Celia_: I have got the hair brush.\n\n_Conan_: Let you not come near me!\n\n_Celia_: And the comb!\n\n_Conan_: Get away from me!\n\n_Celia_: And the scissors.\n\n_Conan_: Will you drive me out of the house or\nwill I drive you out of it!\n\n_Celia_: Ah, be easy!\n\n_Conan_: I will not be easy!\n\n_Celia: (Pushing him back in a chair.)_ It will\ndelight the world to see the way I'll send you out!\n\n_Conan_: Is the universe gone distracted mad!\n\n_Celia_: Be quiet now!\n\n_Conan_: Leave your hold of me!\n\n_Celia_: One stir, and the scissors will run into\nyou!\n\n_(Sings \"With a snippet, a snippet, a snippet.\")_\n\nCURTAIN\n\nACT III\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\n\n_The two Cats are looking over the settle_.\n\n_Music behind scene: \"O Johnny, I hardly knew\nyou!\"_\n\n_1st Cat_: We did well leaving the bellows for\nthat foolish Human to see what he can do. There\nis great sport before us and behind.\n\n_2nd Cat_: The best I ever saw since the Jesters\nwent out from Tara.\n\n_1st Cat_: They to be giving themselves high\nnotions and to be looking down on Cats!\n\n_2nd Cat_: Ha, Ha, Ha, the folly and the craziness\nof men! To see him changing them from one\nthing to the next, as if they wouldn't be a two-legged\nlaughing stock whatever way they would\nchange.\n\n_1st Cat_: There's apt to be more changes yet\ntill they will hardly know one another, or every\nother one, to be himself! _(Sings.)_\n\n  \"Where are your eyes that looked so mild,\n    Hurroo! Hurroo!\n  Where are your eyes that looked so mild\n  When my poor heart you first beguiled,\n  Why did you run from me and the child?\n    O Johnny, I hardly knew you!\n\n  \"With drums and guns and guns and drums,\n  The enemy nearly slew you!\n  My darling dear you look so queer,\n    O Johnny, I hardly knew you!\n\n  \"Where are the legs with which you run,\n  When you went to carry a gun.\n  Indeed your dancing days are done,\n    O Johnny, I hardly knew you!\"\n\n_(Timothy and Mother come in from opposite\ndoors. Cats disappear--music still heard\nfaintly.)_\n\n_Mother: (Looking at little bellows in her hand.)_\nDo you know _That_ what it is, Timothy?\n\n_Timothy_: Is it now a hand-bellows? It's long\nsince I seen the like of that.\n\n_Mother_: It is, but _what_ bellows?\n\n_Timothy_: Not a bellows? I'd nearly say it to be one.\n\n_Mother_: There has strange things come to pass.\n\n_Timothy_: That's what we've all been praying\nfor this long time!\n\n_Mother_: Ah, can't you give attention and strive\nto listen to me. It is all coming back to my mind.\nAll the things I am remembering have my mind\ntattered and tossed.\n\n_Timothy: (Who has been trying to hear the music,\nsings a verse.)_\n\n  \"You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg,\n    Hurroo! Hurroo!\n  You're a yellow noseless chickenless egg,\n  You'll have to put up with a bowl to beg.\n    O Johnny, I hardly knew you!\n\n_(Music ceases.)_\n\n_Mother_: Will you give attention, I say! It\nwill be worth while for you to go chat with me now\nI can be telling you all that happened in my years\ngone by. What was it Conan was questioning me\nabout a while ago? What was it now....\n\n  \"Aristotle in the hour\n  He left Ireland left a power!\"...\n\n_Timothy_: That now is a very nice sort of a\nlittle prayer.\n\n_Mother: (Calling out.)_ That's it! Aristotle's\nBellows! I know now what has happened. This\nthat is in my hand has in it the power to make\nchanges. Changes! Didn't great changes come in\nthe house to-day! _(Shouts.)_ Did you see any great\nchange in Celia?\n\n_Timothy_: Why wouldn't I, and she at this\nminute fighting and barging at some poor travelling\nman, saying he laid a finger mark of bacon-grease upon\nthe lintel of the door. Driving him off with a broken-toothed\nrake she is, she that was so gentle that she\nwouldn't hardly pluck the feathers of a dead duck!\n\n_Mother_: It was surely a blast of this worked\nthat change in her, as the blast she blew upon me\nworked a change in myself. O! all the thoughts\nand memories that are thronging in my mind and\nin my head! Rushing up within me the same as\nchaff from the flail! Songs and stories and the\nnewses I heard through the whole course of my\nlifetime! And I having no person to tell them out\nto! Do you hear me what I'm saying, Timothy?\n_(Shouts in his ear.)_ What is come back to me is\nwhat I lost so long ago, my MEMORY.\n\n_Timothy_: So it is a very good song.\n\n_(Sings.)_\n\n  \"By Memory inspired, and love of glory fired,\n  The deeds of men I love to dwell upon,\n  And the sympathetic glow of my spirit must bestow\n  On the memory of Mitchell that is gone, boys, gone--\n  The memory of Mitchell that is gone!\"\n\n_Mother_: Thoughts crowding on one another,\nmixing themselves up with one another for the\nwant of sifting and settling! They'll have me\ndistracted and I not able to speak them out to\nsome person! Conan as surly as a bramble bush,\nand Celia wrapped up in her bucket and her broom!\nAnd yourself not able to hear one word I say. _(Sobs,\nand bellows falls from her hands.)_\n\n_Timothy_: I'll lay it down now out of your way,\nma'am, the way you can cry your fill whatever\nails you.\n\n_Mother: (Snatching it back.)_ Stop! I'll not\npart with it! I know now what I can do! Now!\n_(Points it at him.)_ I'll make a companion to be\nlistening to me through the long winter nights and\nthe long summer days, and the world to be without\nany end at all, no more than the round of the\nfull moon! You that have no hearing, this will\nbring back your hearing, the way you'll be a\nlistener and a benefit to myself for ever. I\nwouldn't feel the weeks long that time!\n\n_(Blows. Timothy turns away and gropes\ntoward wall.)_\n\n_(She sings: Air, \"Eileen Aroon.\")_\n\n  \"What if the days go wrong,\n  When you can hear!\n  What if the evening's long,\n  You being near,\n  I'll tell my troubles out,\n  Put darkness to the rout\n  And to the roundabout!\n  Having your ear!\"\n\n_(Rock at door: sneezes. Mother drops bellows\nand goes. Timothy gives a cry,\nclaps hands to ears and rushes out as if\nterrified.)_\n\n_Rock: (Coming in seizes bellows.)_ Well now,\ndidn't this turn to be very lucky and very good!\nThe very thing I came looking for to be left there\nunder my hands! _(Puts it hurriedly under coat.)_\n\n_Flannery: (Coming in.)_ What are you doing\nhere, James Rock?\n\n_Rock_: What are you doing yourself?\n\n_Flannery_: What is that in under your coat?\n\n_Rock_: What's that to you?\n\n_Flannery_: I'll know that when I see it.\n\n_Rock_: What call have you to be questioning me?\n\n_Flannery_: Open now your coat!\n\n_Rock_: Stand out of my way!\n\n_Flannery: (Suddenly tearing open coat and seizing\nbellows.)_ Did you think it was unknownst to me\nyou stole the bellows?\n\n_Rock_: Ah, what steal?\n\n_Flannery_: Put it back in the place it was!\n\n_Rock_: I will within three minutes.\n\n_Flannery_: You'll put it back here and now.\n\n_Rock: (Coaxingly.)_ Look at here now, Michael\nFlannery, we'll make a league between us. Did\nyou ever see such folly as we're after seeing to-day?\nSitting there for an hour and a half till that one\nsettled the world upside down!\n\n_Flannery_: If I did see folly, what I see now is\ntreachery.\n\n_Rock_: Didn't you take notice of the way that\nfoolish old man is wasting and losing what was\ngiven him for to benefit mankind? A blast he has\nlost turning a pigeon to a crow, as if there wasn't\nenough in it before of that tribe picking the spuds\nout of the ridges. And another blast he has lost\nturning poor Celia, that was harmless, to be a holy\nterror of cleanness and a scold.\n\n_Flannery_: Indeed, he'd as well have left her\nas she was. There was something very pleasing\nin her little sleepy ways.\n\n_(Sings.)_\n\n  \"But sad it is to see you so\n  And to think of you now as an object of woe;\n  Your Peggy'll still keep an eye on her beau.\n    O Johnny, I hardly knew you!\"\n\n_Rock_: Bringing back to the memory of his\nmother every old grief and rancour. She that has\na right to be making her peace with the grave!\n\n_Flannery_: Indeed it seems he doesn't mind\nwhat he'll get so long as it's something that he\nwants.\n\n_Rock_: Three blasts gone! And the world didn't\nbegin to be cured.\n\n_Flannery_: Sure enough he gave the bellows no\nfair play.\n\n_Rock_: He has us made a fool of. He using it\nthe way he did, he has us robbed.\n\n_Flannery_: There's power in the four blasts\nleft would bring peace and piety and prosperity\nand plenty to every one of the four provinces of\nIreland.\n\n_Rock_: That's it. There's no doubt but I'll\nmake a better use of it than him, because I am a\nbetter man than himself.\n\n_Flannery_: I don't know. You might not get\nso much respect in Dublin.\n\n_Rock_: Dublin, where are you! What would\nI'd do going to Dublin? Did you never hear said\nthe skin to be nearer than the shirt?\n\n_Flannery_: What do you mean saying that?\n\n_Rock_: The first one I have to do good to is\nmyself.\n\n_Flannery_: Is it that you would grab the benefit\nof the bellows?\n\n_Rock_: In troth I will. I've got a hold of it, and\nby cripes I'll knock a good turn out of it.\n\n_Flannery_: To rob the country and the poor for\nyour own profit? You are a class of man that is\ngathering all for himself.\n\n_Rock_: It is not worth while we to fall out of\nfriendship. I will use but the one blast.\n\n_Flannery_: You have no right or call to meddle\nwith it.\n\n_Rock_: The first thing I will meddle with is my\nown rick of turf. And I'll give you leave to go do\nthe same with your own umbrella, or whatever\nproperty you may own.\n\n_Flannery_: Sooner than be covetous like yourself\nI'd live and die in a ditch, and be buried\nfrom the Poorhouse!\n\n_Rock_: Turf being black and light in the hand,\nand gold being shiny and weighty, there will be\nno delay in turning every sod into a solid brick of\ngold. I give you leave to do the same thing, and\nwe'll be two rich men inside a half an hour!\n\n_Flannery_: You are no less than a thief! _(Snatches\nat bellows.)_\n\n_Rock_: Thief yourself. Leave your hand off it!\n\n_Flannery_: Give it up here for the man that\nowns it!\n\n_Rock_: You may set your coffin making for I'll\nbeat you to the ground.\n\n_Flannery: (As he clutches.)_ Ah, you have given\nit a shove. It has blown a blast on yourself!\n\n_Rock_: Yourself that blew it on me! Bad cess\nto you! But I'll do the same bad turn upon you!\n_(Blows.)_\n\n_Flannery_: There is some footstep without.\nHeave it in under the ashes.\n\n_Rock_: Whist your tongue! _(Flings bellows\nbehind hearth.)_\n\n_(Conan comes in.)_\n\n_Conan_: With all the chattering of women I\nhave the train near lost. The car is coming for\nme and I'll make no delay now but to set out.\n\n_(Sings.)_\n\n  \"Oh the French are on the sea,\n    Says the Sean Van Vocht,\n  Oh the French are on the sea,\n    Says the Sean Van Vocht,\n\n  Oh the French are in the bay,\n    They'll be here without delay,\n  And the Orange will decay,\n    Says the Sean Van Vocht!\"\n\nHere now is my little pack. You were saying,\nThomas Flannery, you would be lending me the\nloan of your umbrella.\n\n_Flannery_: Ah, what umbrella? There's no fear\nof rain.\n\n_Conan: (Taking it.)_ You to have proffered it\nI would not refuse it.\n\n_Flannery: (Seizing it.)_ I don't know. I have\nto mind my own property. It might not serve\nit to be loaning it to this one and that. It might\nleave the ribs of it bare.\n\n_Conan_: That's the way with the whole of ye. I\nto give you my heart's blood you'd turn me upside\ndown for a pint of porter!\n\n_Flannery_: I see no sense or charity in lending to\nanother anything that might be of profit to myself.\n\n_Conan_: Let you keep it so! That your ribs may\nbe as bare as its own ribs that are bursting out\nthrough the cloth!\n\n_Rock_: Do not give heed to him, Conan. There\nis in this bag _(takes it out)_ what will bring you every\nwhole thing you might be wanting in the town.\n_(Takes out notes and gold and gives them.)_\n\n_Conan_: It is only a small share I'll ask the lend of.\n\n_Rock_: The lend of! No, but a free gift!\n\n_Conan_: Well now, aren't you turned to be very\nkind? _(Takes notes.)_\n\n_Rock_: Put that back in the bag. Here it is, the\nwhole of it. Five and fifty pounds. Take it and\nwelcome! It is yourself will make a good use of\nit laying it out upon the needy and the poor.\nChanging all for their benefit and their good! Oh,\nsince St. Bridget spread her cloak upon the Curragh\nthis is the most day and the happiest day ever\ncame to Ireland.\n\n_Conan: (Giving bag to Flannery.)_ Take it you,\nas is your due by what the mother said a while ago\nabout the robbery he did on you in the time past.\n\n_Flannery_: Give it here to me. I'll engage I'll\nkeep a good grip on it from this out. It's long\nbefore any other one will get a one look at it!\n\n_Conan_: There would seem to be a great change--and\na sudden change come upon the two of ye.\n..._(With a roar.)_ Where now is the bellows?\n\n_Flannery: (Sulkily.)_ What way would I know?\n\n_Conan: (Shaking him.)_ I know well what\nhappened! It is _ye_ have stolen two of my blasts!\nPutting changes on yourselves ye would--much\ngood may it do ye--. Thieving with your covetousness\nthe last two nearly I had left!\n\n_Rock: (Sulkily.)_ Leave your hand off me! I\nnever stole no blast!\n\n_Conan_: There's a bad class going through the\nworld. The most people you will give to will be\nthe first to cry you down. This was a wrong out\nof measure! Thieves ye are and pickpockets!\nYe that were not worth changing from one to\nanother, no more than you'd change a pinch of\ndust off the road into a puff of ashes. Stealing\naway my lovely blasts, bad luck to ye, the same as\nPrometheus stole the makings of a fire from the\nancient gods!\n\n_Flannery_: That is enough of keening and\nlamenting after a few blasts of barren wind--I'll\nbe going where I have my own business to attend.\n\n_Conan_: Where, so, is the bellows?\n\n_Flannery_: How would I know?\n\n_Conan_: The two of ye won't quit this till I'll\nfind it! There is another two blasts in it that\nwill bring sense and knowledge into Ireland yet!\n\n_Rock_: Indeed they might bring comfort yet\nto many a sore heart!\n\n_Conan: (Searching.)_ Where now is it? I\ncouldn't find it if the earth rose up and swallowed\nit. Where now did I lay it down?\n\n_Rock_: There's too much changes in this place\nfor me to know where anything is gone.\n\n_Conan: (At door.)_ Where are you, Maryanne!\nCelia! Timothy! Let ye come hither and search\nout my little bellows!\n\n_(Timothy comes in, followed by Mother.)_\n\n_Conan_: Hearken now, Timothy!\n\n_Timothy: (Stopping his ears.)_ Speak easy, speak easy!\n\n_Conan_: Take down now your fingers from your\nears the way you will hear my voice!\n\n_Timothy_: Have a care now with your screeching\nwould you split the drum of my ear?\n\n_Conan_: Is it that you have got your hearing?\n\n_Timothy_: My hearing is it? As good as that I\ncan hear a lie, and it forming in the mind.\n\n_Conan_: Is that the truth you're saying?\n\n_Timothy_: Hear, is it! I can hear every whisper\nin this parish and the seven parishes are nearest.\nAnd the little midges roaring in the air.--Let ye\nwhist now with your sneezing in the draught!\n\n_Conan_: This is surely the work of the bellows.\nAnother blast gone!\n\n_Rock_: So it would be too. Mostly the whole\nof them gone and spent. It's hard know in the\nmorning what way will it be with you at night.\n    _(Sings.)_\n\n  \"I saw from the beach when the morning was\n    shining\n  A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on--\n  came when the sun o'er the beach was declining,\n  The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.\"\n\n_Timothy_: It is yourself brought the misfortune\non me, calling your Druid spells into the house.\n\n_Conan_: It is not upon you I ever turned it.\n\n_Timothy_: You have a great wrong done to me!\n\n_Mother_: It is glad you should be and happy.\n\n_Timothy_; Happy, is it? Give me a hareskin cap\nfor to put over my ears, having wool in it very thick!\n    _(Sings.)_\n\n  \"Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,\n  Break not ye breezes your chain of repose,\n  While murmuring mournfully Lir's lonely daughter\n  Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.\n\n  \"When shall the swan, her death-note singing,\n  Sleep with wings in darkness furl'd?\n  When will heaven its sweet bells ringing\n  Call my spirit from this stormy world?\"\n\n_Mother_: Come with me now and I'll be chatting\nto you.\n\n_Timothy_: Why would I be listening to your\nblather when I have the voices of the four winds to\nbe listening to? The night wind, the east wind,\nthe black wind and the wind from the south!\n\n_Conan_: Such a thing I never saw before in all\nmy natural life.\n\n_Timothy_: To be hearing, without understanding\nit, the language of the tribes of the birds! (_Puts\nhands over ears again_.) There's too many sounds\nin the world! The sounds of the earth are terrible!\nThe roots squeezing and jostling one another\nthrough the clefts, and the crashing of the acorn\nfrom the oak. The cry of the little birdeen in\nunder the silence of the hawk!\n\n_Conan:_ (_To Mother_.) As it you let it loose\nupon him, let you bring him away to some hole or\ncave of the earth.\n\n_Timothy_: It is my desire to go cast myself in\nthe ocean where there'll be but one sound of its\nwaves, the fishes in its meadows being dumb!\n(_Goes to corner and hides his head in a sack_.)\n\n_Mother_: Even so there might likely be a mermaid\nplaying reels on her silver comb, and yourself\ncraving after the world you left.\n    (_Sings: Air, \"Spailpin Fanach_.\")\n\n  \"You think to go from every woe to peace in the\n    wide ocean,\n  But you will find your foolish mind repent its\n    foolish notion.\n  When dog-fish dash and mermaids splash their\n    finny tails to find you,\n  I'll make a bet that you'll regret the world you\n    left behind you!\"\n\n_Celia:_ (_Clattering in with broom, etc_.) What\nare ye doing, coming in this room again after I\nhaving it settled so nice? I'll allow no one in the\nplace again, only carriage company that will have\nno speck of dust upon the sole of their shoe!\n\n_Mother_: Oh, Celia, there has strange things\nhappened!\n\n_Celia_: What I see strange is that some person\nhas meddled with that hill of ashes on the hearth\nand set it flying athrough the air. Is it hens ye\nare wishful to be, that would be searching and\nscratching in the dust for grains? And this thrown\ndown in the midst! (_Holds up bellows_.)\n\n_Conan_: Give me my bellows!\n\n_Mother_: No, but give it to me!\n\n_Rock and Flannery_: Give it to myself!\n\n_Timothy:_ (_Looking up, with hands on ears_.)\nMy curse upon it and its work. Little I care if it\ngoes up with the clouds.\n\n_Celia_: What in the world wide makes the whole\nof ye so eager to get hold of such a thing?\n\n_Conan_: It has but the one blast left!\n    (_Sings_.)\n\n  \"'Tis the last Rose of Summer\n  Left blooming alone,\n  All her lovely companions\n  Are faded and gone.\n  No flower of her kindred,\n  No rosebud is nigh,\n  To reflect back her blushes\n  Or give sigh for sigh!\"\n\n_Celia_: What are you fretting about blasts and\nabout roses?\n\n_Rock:_ It has a charm on it--\n\n_Flannery:_ To change the world--\n\n_Mother:_ That chedang myself--\n\n_Conan:_ For the worse--\n\n_Mother:_ And Timothy--\n\n_Conan:_ For the worse--\n\n_Rock:_ Myself and Flannery--\n\n_Conan:_ For the worse, for the worse--\n\n_Mother:_ Conan that changed yourself with it--\n\n_Conan:_ For the very worst!\n\n_Celia:_ (_To Conan_.) Is it riddles, or is it that\nyou put a spell and a change upon me?\n\n_Conan:_ If I did, it was for your own good!\n\n_Celia:_ Do you call it for my good to set me\nrunning till I have my toes going through my shoes?\n(_Holds them out_.)\n\n_Conan:_ I didn't think to go that length.\n\n_Celia:_ To roughen my hands with soap and\nscalding water till they're near as knotted and as\nugly as your own!\n\n_Conan:_ Ah, leave me alone! I tell you it is not\nby my own fault. My plan and my purpose that\nwent astray and that broke down.\n\n_Celia:_ I will not leave you till you'll change me\nback to what I was. What way can these hands go\nto the dance house to-night? Change me back, I say!\n\n_Rock:_ And me--\n\n_Timothy:_ And myself, that I'll have quiet in my\nhead again.\n\n_Conan:_ I cannot undo what has been done.\nThere is no back way.\n\n_Timothy:_ Is there no way at all to come out of\nit safe and sane?\n\n_Conan:_ (_Shakes head_.) Let ye make the best of it.\n\n_Flannery: (Sings.) (Air, \"I saw from the Beach.\")_\n\n  \"Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning\n  The close of our day, the calm eve of our night.\n  Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning,\n  Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best light.\"\n\n_Mother: (Who has bellows in her hand.)_ Stop!\nStop--my mind is travelling backward ...so far\nI can hardly reach to it ...but I'll come to it\n...the way I'll be changed to what I was before,\nand the town and the country wishing me well, I\nhaving got my enough of unfriendly looks and hard\nwords!\n\n_Timothy:_ Hurry on, Ma'am, and remember, and\ntake the spell off the whole of us.\n\n_Mother:_ I am going back, back, to the longest\nthing that is in my mind and my memory!...\nI myself a child in my mother's arms the very day\nI was christened....\n\n_Conan:_ Ah, stop your raving!\n\n_Mother:_ Songs and storytelling, and my old\ngenerations laying down news of this spell that is\nnow come to pass....\n\n_Rock:_ Did they tell what way to undo the\ncharm?\n\n_Mother:_ You have but to turn the bellows the\nsame as the smith would turn the anvil, or St.\nPatrick turned the stone for fine weather ...\nand to blow a blast ...and a twist will come\ninside in it and the charm will fall off with that\nblast, and undo the work that has been done!\n\n_All:_ Turn it so!\n      (_Cats look over, playing on fiddles \"O Johnny, I\n              hardly knew you,\" while mother blows on each_.)\n\n_Timothy:_ Ha! (_Takes hands from ears and puts\none behind his ear_.)\n\n_Rock:_ Ha! Where now is my bag? (_Turns\nout his pockets, unhappy to find them empty_.)\n\n_Flannery:_ Ha! (_Smiles and holds out umbrella\nto Conan, who takes it_.)\n\n_Mother: (To Celia.)_ Let you blow a blast on me.\n(_Celia does so_.) Now it's much if I can remember\nto blow a blast backward upon yourself!\n\n_Celia:_ Stop a minute! Leave what is in me of\nlife and of courage till I will blow the last blast is\nin the bellows upon Conan.\n\n_Conan:_ Stop that! Do you think to change\nand to crow over me. You will not or I'll lay my\ncurse upon you, unless you would change me into\nan eagle would be turning his back upon the whole\nof ye, and facing to his perch upon the right hand\nof the master of the gods!\n\n_Celia:_ Is it to waste the last blast you would?\nNot at all. As we burned the candle we'll burn the\ninch! I'll not make two halves of it, I'll give it to\nyou entirely!\n\n_Conan:_ You will not, you unlucky witch of illwill!\n        (_Protects himself with umbrella_.)\n\n_Celia: (Having got him to a corner.)_ Let you\ntake things quiet and easy from this out, and be as\ncontent as you have been contrary from the very\nday and hour of your birth!\n      _(She blows upon him and he sits down smiling.\n              Mother blows on Celia, and she sits down\n              in first attitude_.)\n\n_Celia:_ (_Taking up pigeon_.) Oh, there you are\ncome back my little dove and my darling!\n        (_Sings: \"Shule Aroon.\"_)\n\n  \"Come sit and settle on my knee\n  And I'll tell you and you'll tell me\n  A tale of what will never be,\n  Go-d\u00e9-t\u00f3u-Mavourneen slan!\"\n\n_Conan:_ (_Lighting pipe_.) So the dove is there,\ntoo. Aristotle said there is nothing at the end but\nwhat there used to be at the beginning. Well now,\nwhat a pleasant day we had together, and what\ngood neighbours we all are, and what a comfortable\nfamily entirely.\n\n_Rock:_ You would seem to have done with your\ncomplaints about the universe, and your great plan\nto change it overthrown.\n\n_Conan:_ Not a complaint! What call have I to\ngo complaining? The world is a very good world,\nthe best nearly I ever knew.\n        (_Sings_.)\n\n  \"O, a little cock sparrow he sat on a tree,\n  O, a little cock sparrow he sat on a tree,\n  O, a little cock sparrow he sat on a tree,\n  And he was as happy as happy could be,\n  With a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!\n\n  \"A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!\n  A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!\n  A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!\n  A chirrup, a chirrup, a----!\"\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nNOTE TO ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS\n\nI had begun to put down some notes for this play when\nin the autumn of 1919 I was suddenly obliged (through\nthe illness and death of the writer who had undertaken it)\nto take in hand the writing of the \"Life and Achievement\"\nof my nephew Hugh Lane, and this filled my mind and\nkept me hard at work for a year.\n\nWhen the proofs were out of my hands I turned with\nbut a vague recollection to these notes, and was surprised\nto find them fuller than they had appeared in my memory,\nso that the idea was rekindled and the writing was soon\nbegun. And I found a certain rest and ease of mind in\nhaving turned from a long struggle (in which, alas, I had\nbeen too often worsted) for exactitude in dates and names\nand in the setting down of facts, to the escape into a world\nof fantasy where I could create my own. And so before\nthe winter was over the play was put in rehearsal at the\nAbbey Theatre, and its first performance was on St.\nPatrick's Day, 1921.\n\nI have been looking at its first scenario, made according\nto my habit in rough pen and ink sketches, coloured with\na pencil blue and red, and the changes from that early\nidea do not seem to have been very great, except that in\nthe scene where Conan now hears the secret of the hiding-place\nof the Spell from the talk of the cats, the Bellows\nhad been at that time left beside him by a dwarf from the\nrath, in his sleep. The cats work better, and I owe their\nsuccess to the genius of our Stage Carpenter, Mr. Sean\nBarlow, whose head of the Dragon from my play of that\nname had been such a masterpiece that I longed to see\nthese other enchanted heads from his hand.\n\nThe name of the play in that first scenario was \"The\nFault-Finder,\" but my cranky Conan broke from that\nnarrowness. If the play has a moral it is given in the words\nof the Mother, \"It's best make changes little by little,\nthe same as you'd put clothes upon a growing child.\" The\nrestlessness of the time may have found its way into Conan's\nmind, or as some critic wrote, \"He thinks of the Bellows\nas Mr. Wilson thought of the League of Nations,\" and so\nhis disappointment comes. As A.E. writes in \"The National\nBeing,\" \"I am sympathetic with idealists in a hurry, but\nI do not think the world can be changed suddenly by\nsome heavenly alchemy, as St. Paul was smitten by a light\nfrom the overworld. Though the heart in us cries out\ncontinually, 'Oh, hurry, hurry to the Golden Age,' though\nwe think of revolutions, we know that the patient marshalling\nof human forces is wisdom.... Not by revolutions\ncan humanity be perfected. I might quote from an old\noracle, 'The gods are never so turned away from man as\nwhen he ascends to them by disorderly methods.' Our\nspirits may live in the Golden Age but our bodily life\nmoves on slow feet, and needs the lantern on the path\nand the staff struck carefully into the darkness before us to\nsee that the path beyond is not a morass, and the light\nnot a will o' the wisp.\" (But this may not refer to our\nown Revolution, seeing that has been making a step now\nand again towards what many judged to be a will o' the\nwisp through over seven hundred years.)\n\nAs to the machinery of the play, the spell was first to\nhave been worked by a harp hung up by some wandering\nmagician, and that was to work its change according to\nthe wind, as it blew from north or south, east or west.\nBut that would have been troublesome in practice, and\nthe Bellows having once entered my mind, brought there\nI think by some scribbling of the pencil that showed Conan\nprotecting himself with an umbrella, seemed to have every\nnecessary quality, economy, efficiency, convenience.\n\nAs to Aristotle, his name is a part of our folklore. The\nold wife of one of our labourers told me one day, as a bee\nbuzzed through the open door: \"Aristotle of the Books\nwas very wise but the bees got the better of him in the\nend. He wanted to know how did they pack the comb,\nand he wasted the best part of a fortnight watching them,\nand he could not see them doing it. Then he made a\nhive with a glass cover on it and put it over them, and\nhe thought to watch them. But when he went to put his\neye to the glass, they had it all covered with wax so that\nit was as black as the pot, and he was as blind as before.\nHe said he was never rightly killed till then. The bees\nhad him beat that time surely.\" And Douglas Hyde\nbrought home one day a story from Kilmacduagh bog, in\nwhich Aristotle took the place of Solomon, the Wise Man\nin our tales as well as in those of the East. And he said\nthat as the story grew and the teller became more familiar,\nthe name of Aristotle was shortened to that of Harry.\n\nAs to the songs they are all sung to the old Irish airs I\ngive at the end.\n\nA. GREGORY.\n\nAugust 18, 1921.\n\n\n\n\nTHE JESTER\n\nA PLAY IN THREE ACTS\n\nFOR RICHARD\n\nJanuary, 1919\n\nA.G.\n\nPERSONS\n\n_The Five Princes_.\n\n_The Five Wrenboys_.\n\n_The Guardian of the Princes and Governor of the Island_.\n\n_The Servant_.\n\n_The Two Dowager Messengers_.\n\n_The Ogre_.\n\n_The Jester_.\n\n_Two Soldiers_.\n\n_The Scene is laid in The Island of Hy Brasil, that\nappears every seven years_.\n\n_Time: Out of mind_.\n\n\n\n\nACT I\n\n\n\n\nACT I\n\n\n_Scene: A winter garden, with pots of flowering\ntrees or fruit-trees. There are books about and\nsome benches with cushions on them and many\ncushions on the ground. The young_ PRINCES _are\nsitting or lying at their ease. One is playing\n\"Home, Sweet Home\" on a harp. The_\nSERVANT--_an old man_--_is standing in the\nbackground_.\n\n_1st Prince_: Here, Gillie, will you please take off\nmy shoe and see what there is in it that is pressing\non my heel.\n\n_Servant_: (_Taking it off and examining it_.) I\nsee nothing.\n\n_1st Prince_: Oh, yes, there is something; I have\nfelt it all the morning. I have been thinking this\nlong time of taking the shoe off, but I waited for\nyou.\n\n_Servant_: All I can find is a grain of poppy seed.\n\n_1st Prince_: That is it of course--it was enough\nto hurt my skin.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Gillie, there is a mayfly tickling\nmy cheek. Will you please brush it away.\n\n_Servant_: I will and welcome. (_Fans it off_.)\n\n_3rd Prince_: Just give me, please, that book\nthat is near my elbow. I cannot reach to it without\ntaking my hand off my cheek.\n\n_Servant_: I wouldn't wish you to do that.\n(_Gives him book_.)\n\n_4th Prince_: Gillie, I think, I am nearly sure,\nthere is a feather in this cushion that has the quill\nin it yet. I feel something hard.\n\n_Servant_: Give it to me till I will open it and\nmake a search.\n\n_4th Prince_: No, wait a while till I am not lying\non it. I will put up with the discomfort till then.\n\n_5th Prince_: Would it give you too much trouble,\nGillie, when you waken me in the morning, to\ncome and call me three times, so that I can have\nthe joy of dropping off again?\n\n_Servant_: Why wouldn't I? And there is a\nthing I would wish to know. There will be a\nsupper laid out here this evening for the Dowager\nMessengers that are coming to the Island, and I\nwould wish to provide for yourselves whatever\nfood would be pleasing to you.\n\n_1st Prince_: It is too warm for eating. All I\nwill ask is a few grapes from Spain.\n\n_2nd Prince_: A mouthful of jelly in a silver\nspoon ...or in the shape of a little castle with\ntowers. When will the Lady Messengers be here?\n\n_Servant_: Not before the fall of day.\n\n_2nd Prince_: The time passes so quietly and\npeaceably it does not feel like a year and a day since\nthey came here before.\n\n_Servant_: No wonder the time to pass easy and\nquiet where you are, with comfort all around you,\nand nothing to mark its course, and every season\nfeeling the same as another, within the glass walls\nand the crystal roof of this place. And the old\nQueen, your godmother, sending her own Chamberlain\nto take charge of you, and to be your Guardian,\nand Governor of the Island. Sure, the wind\nitself must slacken coming to this sheltered place.\n\n_3rd Prince_: That is a great thing. I would\nnot wish the rough wind to be blowing upon me.\n\n_4th Prince_: Or the dust to be rising and coming\nin among us to spoil our suits.\n\n_5th Prince_: Or to be walking out on the hard\nroads, or climbing over stone walls, or tearing\nourselves in hedges.\n\n_1st Prince_: That is the reason we were sent\nhere by the Queen, our Godmother, in place of\nbeing sent to any school. To be kept safe and\nsecure.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Not to be running here and there\nlike our own poor five first cousins, that used to\nbe slipping out and rambling in their young youth,\ntill they were swallowed up by the sea.\n\n_3rd Prince_: It was maybe by some big fish of\nthe sea.\n\n_2nd Prince_: It might be they were brought\naway by sea-robbers coming in a ship.\n\n_3rd Prince_: Foolish they were and very foolish\nnot to stay in peace and comfort in the house where\nthey were safe.\n\n_Servant_: There is no fear of _ye_ stirring from\nwhere you are, having every whole thing ye can\nwish.\n\n_4th Prince_: Here is the Guardian coming!\n\n(_They all rise_.)\n\n_Guardian_: (_A very old man, much encumbered\nwith wraps, coming slowly in_.) Are you all here,\nall the five of you?\n\n_All_: We are here!\n\n_Guardian_: (_Standing, leaning on a stick, to\naddress them_.) It's a pity that these being holidays,\nyour teachers and tutors are far away.\n\nGone off afloat in a cedar boat to a College of\nLearning out in Cathay.\n\n_1st Prince_: It's a pity indeed they're not here\nto-day.\n\n_Guardian_: For it's likely you looked in your\nalmanacs, or judged by the shape of the lessening\nmoon,\nThat your Godmother's Dowager Messengers are\ndue to arrive this afternoon.\n\n_2nd Prince_: We did and we think they'll be\nhere very soon.\n\n_Guardian_: But I know they'll be glad that each\nroyal lad, put under my rule in place of a school,\nCan fashion his life without trouble or strife, and\nbe shielded from care in a nice easy chair.\n\n_3rd Prince_: As we always are and we always\nwere.\n\n_Guardian_: It is part of my knowledge that lads\nin a college, and made play one and all with a bat\nand a ball,\nCome often to harm with a knock on the arm,\nand their hands get as hard as the hands of a clown.\n\n_4th Prince_: But ours are as soft as thistledown.\n\n_Guardian_: And I've seen young princes not\nfar from your age, go chasing beasts on a winter day,\nAnd carted home with a broken bone, and a\nyard of a doctor's bill to pay;\nOr going to sail in the teeth of a gale, when the\nwaves were rising mountains high,\nOr fall from a height that was near out of sight,\nrobbing rooks from their nest in a poplar tree.\n\n_5th Prince: (To another_.) But that never\nhappened to you or me.\n\n_Guardian_: Or travelling far to a distant war,\nwith battles and banners rilling their mind,\nAnd creeping back like a crumpled sack, content\nif they'd left no limbs behind.\n\n_1st Prince_: But we'll have nothing to do with\nthat, but stop at home with an easy mind.\n\n_Guardian: (Sitting down.)_ That's right. And\nnow I would wish you to say over some of your\ntasks, to make ready for the Dowager Messengers,\nthat they may bring back a good report to the\nQueen, your Godmother.\n\n_1st Prince_: We'll do that. We would wish to be\na credit to you, sir, and to our teachers.\n\n_Guardian_: Say out now some little piece of\nLatin; that one that is my favourite.\n\n_1st Prince_:\n\n  Aere sub gelido nullus rosa fundit odores,\n  Ut placeat tellus, sole calesce Dei.\n\n_Guardian_: Say out the translation.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Beneath a chilly blast the rose,\nloses its sweet, and scentless blows;\n\nIf you would have earth keep its charm, stop\nin the sunshine and keep warm.\n\n_Guardian_: Very good. Now your history book;\nyou were learning of late some genealogies of kings,\nmight suit your Godmother.\n\n_3rd Prince_:\n\n  William the First as the Conqueror known\n  At the Battle of Hastings ascended the throne,\n  His Acts were all made in the Norman tongue\n  And at eight every evening the curfew was rung\n  When each English subject by royal desire\n\n  Extinguished his candle and put out his fire.\n  He bridled the kingdom with forts round the Border\n  And the Tower of London was built by his order.\n\n_2nd Prince_:\n\n  William called Rufus from having red hair,\n  Of virtues possessed but a moderate share,\n  But though he was one whom we covetous call,\n  He built the famed structure called Westminster Hall.\n  Walter Tyrrell his favourite, when hunting one day,\n  Attempted a deer with an arrow to slay,\n  But missing his aim, shot the King to the heart\n  And the body was carried away in a cart.\n\n_Guardian_: That will do. You have that very\nwell in your memory. Now let me hear the\ngrammar lesson.\n\n_3rd Prince_:\n\n  A noun's the name of anything\n  As school or garden, hoop or swing.\n\n_Guardian_: Very good, go on.\n\n_4th Prince_:\n\n  Adjectives tell the kind of noun\n  As strong or pretty, white or brown.\n\n_5th Prince_:\n\n  Conjunctions join the nouns together\n  As men and children, wind or weather.\n\n_Guardian_: It will be very useful to you to have\nthat so well grafted in your mind.... What\nnoise is that outside?\n\n_Servant_: It is some strolling people.\n\n_1st Prince_: Oh, Guardian, let them come in.\nWe will do our work all the better if we have some\namusement now.\n\n_Guardian_: Maybe so. I am well pleased when\namusements come to our door, that you can see\nwithout going outside the walls.\n\n_(A Jester enters in very ragged green clothes\nand broken shoes.)_\n\nBut this is a very ragged looking man. Do you\nknow anything about him, Gillie?\n\n_Servant_: I seen him one time before.... At\nthe time of the earthquake out in Foreign. A mad\njester he was. A tramp class of a man. _(To Jester.)_\nWhere is it you stop?\n\n_Jester_: Where do I stop? Where would I be\nbut everywhere, like the bad weather. I stop in\nno place, but going through the whole roads of\nthe world.\n\n_Guardian_: What brought you in here?\n\n_Jester_: Hearing questions going on, and answers.\nI am well able to give help in that. It's\nnot long since I was giving instruction to the sons\nof the King of Babylon. Here now is a question.\nHow many ladders would it take to reach to the\nmoon?\n\n_1st Prince_: It should be a great many.\n\n_2nd Prince_: I give it up.\n\n_Jester_: One ...if it is long enough! Which\nis it easier to spell, ducks or geese?\n\n_3rd Prince_: Ducks I suppose because it's shorter.\n\n_Jester_: Not at all but geese. Do you know\nwhy? Because it is spelled with _ees_. Tell me\nnow, can you spell pup backwards?\n\n_4th Prince_: P-u-p....\n\n_Jester_: Not at all.\n\n_4th Prince_: But it is.\n\n_Jester_: No, that is pup straight forwards....\nCan you run back and forwards at the same time?\n\n_4th Prince_: Answer it yourself so.\n\n_Jester_: You would be as wise as myself then.\nBut I'll show you some tricks. Look at these\nthree straws on my hand. Will I be able to blow\ntwo of them away, and the other to stay in its place?\n\n_5th Prince_: They would all blow away.\n\n_Jester_: Look now. Puff! (_He has put his\nfinger on the middle one_.) Now is it possible?\n\n_5th Prince_: It is easy when you know the way.\n\n_Jester_: That is so with all knowledge. Can you\nwag one ear and keep the other quiet?\n\n_1st Prince_: Nobody can do that.\n\n_Jester: (Wagging one ear with his finger.)_ There,\nnow you see I have done it! There's more learning\nthan is taught in books. Wait now and I'll give\nyou out a song I'll engage you never heard. (_Sings\nor repeats_.)\n\n  It's I can rhyme you out the joy\n  That's ready for a lively boy.\n  Cuchulain flung a golden ball\n  And followed it where it would fall,\n  And when they counted him a child\n  He took the flying swans alive.\n  And Finn was given hares to mind\n  Till he outran them and the wind;\n  And he could swim and overtake\n  The wild duck swimming on the lake.\n  Osgar's young music was to thwack\n  The enemy and drive him back....\n\n_Guardian_: That's enough now. I have no\nfancy for that class of song. What other amusements\nare there?\n\n_Servant_: There are the Wrenboys are come here\nat the end of their twelve days' funning.\n\n_Jester_: That's it! The Wrenboys; a rambling\ntroop; rambling the world like myself. I will make\nplace for them. The old must give way to the\nyoung.\n\n(_He goes and sits down in a corner, munching\na crust and dozing_.)\n\n_Servant_: Come in here let ye, and show what\nye can do!\n\n(_Wrenboys come in playing a fife. They are\nwearing little masks and are dressed in\nragged tunics; they carry drum and, fife,\nand stand in a line_.)\n\n_All Five Wrenboys: (Together.)_\n\n  The wren, the wren, the King of all birds,\n  On Stephen's Day was caught in the furze.\n  Although he's small his family's great,\n  Rise up kind gentry and give us a treat!\n  (_Rub-a-tub-tub-tub, on the drum_.)\n\n  Down with the kettle and up with the pan\n  And give us money to bury the wren!\n  _(Rub-a-tub.)_\n\n  We followed him twenty miles since morn,\n  The Wrenboys are all tattered and torn.\n  From Kyle-na-Gno we started late\n  And here we are at this grand gate!\n  _(Rub-a-tub.)_\n\n  He dipped his wing in a barrel of beer--\n  We wish you all a Happy New Year!\n  Give us now money to buy him a bier\n  And if you don't, we'll bury him here!\n  (_Rub-a-tub, and fife_.)\n\n(_Princes laugh and clap hands_.)\n\n_1st Prince_: That is very good.\n\n_2nd Prince_: We must give them some money to\nbury the wren!\n\n_Guardian_: Come on then and I will give you\nsome. They will be glad of it. Play now the\nharp as you go.\n\n(_Princes go off playing, \"Home, Sweet Home_.\"\n_The Wrenboys sit down_.)\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It is likely we'll get good treatment.\n\n_Jester: (Coming forward.)_ Ye should be tired.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: We should be, but that we have\nour feet well soled,--with the dust of the road!\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: If walking could tire us we might\nbe tired. But we're as well pleased to be moving,\nwhere we have no house or home that you'll call a\nhouse or a home.\n\n_Jester_: That's not so with those young princes.\nWouldn't you be well pleased if ye could change\nplaces with them? (_He goes back to his corner_.)\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: They are lovely kind young\nprinces. I was near in dread they might set the\ndogs at us.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: They would do that if they\nknew the Ogre had sent us to spy out the place\nfor him.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It failed us to see what he wanted\nus to see. It is likely he will beat us, when we go\nback, with his cat-o'-nine-tails.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: Wouldn't it be good if we could\ndo as that Jester was saying and change places with\nthose sons of kings! They that can lie in the\nsunshine on soft pillows.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: They that can use food when they\nask it, and not have to wait till they can find it,\nor steal it, or get it what way they can.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: And not to be waiting till you'll\nhear a rabbit squealing, with the teeth of a weasel\nin his neck.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: And the weasel when you take\nit to be spitting poison at you, the same as a serpent.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: It would be a nice thing to be\neating sweet red apples in place of the green crabs.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Or to be maybe sucking marrow-bones.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: It is likely they are as airy and\nas careless as the blackbird singing on the bush.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: It's likely they go following after\nfoxes on horses, having huntsmen and beagles at\ntheir feet.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: Or go out sporting and fowling\nwith their greyhound and with their gun.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: Or matching fighting cocks.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It's likely they lead a gentleman's\nlife, card-playing and eating and drinking, and\nracing with jockeys in speckled clothes.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: Their brooches were shining like\ngreen fire, the same as a marten cat's eyes. They\nhave everything finer than another.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: Their faces as clean as a linen\nsheet. Their hair as if combed with a silver comb.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: There is no one to so much as\nput a clean shirt on ourselves.\n\n_5th Wrenboy: (Rubbing his hand_.) I never\nfelt uneasy at the dirt that is grinted into me till\nI saw them so nice.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: That music they were playing\nput me in mind of some far thing. It is dreamed\nto me, and it is never leaving my mind, that there\nis something I remember in the long ago ...\nmusic in a house that was as bright as the moon,\nor as the brightest night of stars.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: Whisht! They are coming!\n\n(_The Princes come back_.)\n\n_1st Prince_: Here are coppers for you.\n\n_2nd Prince_: And white money.\n\n_3rd Prince_: And here is a piece of gold.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: We are thankful to you! We'll\nbury the Wren in grand style now!\n\n_4th Prince_: Have you far to go?\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Not very far if it was a straight\nroad. But it is through the forest we go, beyond\nthe lake.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: We will hardly be there before\nthe moon rises.\n\n_1st Prince_: Are you afraid in the night time?\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: I am not. But I've seen a great\ndeal of strange things at that time.\n\n_2nd Prince_: What sort of things?\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: Fairies you'd see.\n\n_3rd Prince_: Are there such things?\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: One night I was attending a pot-still,\nroasting oats for to make still-whiskey, and I\nseen hares coming out of the wood, by fours and by\nsixes, and they as thin as thin....\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: Hares are the biggest fairies of all.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: And down by the sea _I_ met a\nweasel bringing up a fish in his mouth from the\ntide. And I often seen seals there, seals that are\nenchanted and look like humans, and will hold up\na hand the same as a Christian.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: I that saw a hedgehog running\nup the side of a mountain as swift as a racehorse.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It's the moonlight is the only time!\n\n_1st Prince_: I never saw the moon but through\na window.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: That's the time to go ramble.\n_(He chants_.)\nYou'll see the crane in the water standing,\nAnd never landing a fish, for fright,\nFor he can but shiver seeing in the river\nHis shadow shaking in the bright moonlight.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_:\nOr you may listen to the plover's whistle,\nWhen high above him the wild geese screech;\nOr the mallard flying, as the night is dying,\nHis neck out-stretched towards the salt sea beach.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_:\nWhen dawn discloses the oak and shows us\nThe wide sky whitening through the scanty ash,\nHigh in the beeches the furry creatures,\nSquirrel and marten lightly pass.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_:\nThe badger scurries to find his burrow\nThe rabbit hurries to hide underground.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_:\nThe pigeon rouses the thrush that drowses,\nThe woods awaken and the world goes round!\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Come now, it's time to be taking\nthe road. Thank you, noble Gentlemen! That\nyou may be doing the same thing this day fifty years!\n_(They go off playing fife and beating drum_.)\n\n_1st Prince_: I would nearly wish to be in their\nplace to go through the world at large.\n\n_2nd Prince_: They can go visit strange cities,\nsailing in white-sailed ships.\n\n_3rd Prince_: They have no lessons to learn.\n\n_4th Prince_: No hours to keep. No clocks to\nstrike.\n\n_5th Prince_: No Lady Messengers coming to\nshow off to.\n\n_1st Prince_: They should be as merry as midges.\n\n_2nd Prince_: As free as the March wind.\n\n_3rd Prince_: I don't know how we stopped so\nlong shut up in this place.\n\n_4th Prince_: I would be nearly ready to change\nplaces with them if such a thing were possible.\n\n_Jester: (Who has had his back to them comes\nforward; the Princes stand on his right in a half\ncircle.)_ And why wouldn't you change?\n\n_5th Prince_: It is a thing not possible.\n\n_Jester_: I never could know the meaning of that\nword \"impossible.\" Where there's a will there's\na way.\n\n_1st Prince_: It seems to me like the sound of a\nbell ringing a long way off, that I had leave at one\ntime to go here and there.\n\n_Jester_: If you are in earnest wanting to come to\nthat freedom again you will get it.\n\n_2nd Prince_: No, we would be followed and\nbrought back through kindness.\n\n_Jester_: If you have the strong wish to make\nthe change you can make it.\n\n_1st Prince_: I think I was never so much in\nearnest in all my life.\n\n_(The Jester takes his pipe and plays a note\non it. The Wrenboys come back beating\ntheir drum. They stand in a half circle\non Jester's left.)_\n\n_Jester: (To all.)_\n\n  If it's true ye wish to change,\n  Some to have a wider range,\n  Some to have an easy life,\n  Some to rove into the wild,\n  If you do it, do it fast,\n  Do it while you have the chance.\n\n_Wrenboys: (Together.)_ We will change! We will!\n\n_Jester: (To Princes.)_\n\n  If you wish to leave your ease\n  And live wild and free like these\n  Like the fawn free and wild,\n  Not closed in as is a child,\n  Take your chance as it has come,\n  Let you run and run and run,\n  Where you'll get your joy and fun!\n\n_2nd Prince:_ They will know us, they will know us!\n\n_Jester:_ Change your clothes, change your clothes!\n\n_3rd Prince:_ They will know us every place.\n\n_Jester:_ Put their masks upon your face.\n\n_(Wrenboys give them the masks.)_\n\n  You never will be missed\n  For I will throw a dust\n  Before everybody's eye\n  That wants to look or pry\n  To see if you are here,--\n  And if you should appear\n  To be someway strange or queer\n  They will think themselves are blind\n  Or confused in the mind!\n\n_(Throws a handful of dust over all the boys.)_\n\n\n  Dust of Mullein, work your spell;\n  Keep the double secret well!\n\n_5th Prince: (To a Wrenboy.)_\n\n  Give me here your coat now fast\n  I don't want to be the last.\n\n_(They all rapidly change coats and caps.)_\n\n_Jester:_ That will do, that is enough.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: But my hands are very rough.\n\n_Jester_:\n\n  Never mind; never mind,\n  The truth is hard to find!\n\n_Guardian: (Off stage.)_ Gillie, do as you are\ntold, shut the door, it's getting cold.\n\n_1st Prince_: Oh, I'm in dread! What will be\nsaid!\n\n_2nd Prince_: I'd sooner stay in my old way!\n\n_Jester_:\n\n  Never mind, never mind!\n  The truth is hard to find!\n  Keep steady. Are you ready?\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: I'll be ashamed if I am blamed.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: I have no grace or lovely face!\n\n_Jester: (To Princes.)_ Too late, too late! Go\nout the gate!\n\n(_The Princes have taken up fife and drum.\nThey march out playing_.)\n\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\nSCENE I\n\n(_A front scene. A poor hut or tent, the\nPrinces are coming in slowly, some limping.\nThey are in Wrenboys' clothes and the\nmasks are in their hands_.)\n\n_1st Prince_: This should be the hut where the\nWrenboys told us to come.\n\n_2nd Prince_: It is a poor looking place.\n\n_3d Prince_: It is good to have any place to sit\ndown in for a while. My back is aching.\n\n_4th Prince_: My feet are all scratched and torn.\nThere are blisters rising.\n\n_5th Prince:_ I thought we would never come to\nthe end of the road. The stones by the lake were\nso hard and so sharp.\n\n_1st Prince_: It was a root of a tree I fell over\nthat made these bruises on my knees. I was\nwatching a hawk that was still and quiet up in the\nair, and when it made a swoop all of a sudden\nI stumbled and fell.\n\n_2nd Prince_: It was in slipping where the rocks\nare high I gave this twist to my arm. I can hardly\nmove it.\n\n_3rd Prince_: But wasn't the sight of the sunset\nsplendid over the lake? And the hills so blue!\n\n_4th Prince_: I like the tall trees best. I tried\nto climb up one of them, but it was so smooth I\ndid but slip and fall.\n\n_1st Prince_: I would wish to walk as far as the\nhills, and to have a view of the ocean that is beyond.\n\n_5th Prince_: I am hungry. I wonder where we\nwill get our supper.\n\n_4th Prince_: Not in this place, anyway, it must\nbe making ready in some big guesthouse.\n\n_3rd, Prince_: What will they give us, I wonder?\n\n_2nd Prince_: I wish we had in our hand what\nthey have ready for us at home.\n\n_1st Prince_: What use would it be to us? Do\nyou remember what we asked to be given, some\njellies and a few grapes? It is not that much\nwould satisfy me now.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Indeed it would not. I never felt\nso sharp a hunger in my longest memory.\n\n_3rd Prince_: It is roasted meat I would wish for.\n\n_4th Prince_: There were pigeons in the tall\ntrees. They will maybe give us a pigeon pie.\n\n_5th Prince_: I would be content with a plate of\nminced turkey with poached eggs.\n\n_1st Prince_: I would sooner have a roasted\nchicken, with bread sauce.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Be quiet.... I think I hear someone\ncoming! _(Looks out.)_\n\n_3rd Prince: (Looking out.)_ I see him. He is not\na right man ...he is very strange looking....\n\n_4th Prince: (Looking out.)_ Oh! It is an Ogre!\nA Grugach!\n\n_(All shrink back and hurriedly put on masks.)_\n\n_Ogre: (Coming in: he wears a frightful mask, has\nred hair and a cloak of rough skins and carries a\nwhip with many lashes_.) What makes ye late to-night,\nye young schemers? What was it delayed\nye? Lagging along the road.\n\n_1st Prince_: We came as fast as we could. It\nwas getting dusk in the wood.\n\n_Ogre_: Dusk, good morrow to you! I'll dusk\nye! I had a mind to go after ye and to change\nmyself into the form of a wolf, and catch a hold of\nye with my long sharp teeth!\n\n_2nd Prince_: We did not know there was any\ngreat hurry.\n\n_Ogre_: There is always hurry when you are on\nmy messages. What did I bring you away from\nyour own house for and put ye on the shaughraun\nfor and keep ye wandering, if it was not to be\nserviceable and helpful to myself. Show me now\nwhat ye have in your pocket or your bag.\n\n_3rd Prince_: This is all we got in the bag. (_Holds\nit out_.) It is but very little.\n\n_Ogre_: (_Turning it out and counting it_.) Coppers!\nSilver! What is this? A piece of gold! Is that\nwhat ye call little? What notions ye have! Take\ncare did ye keep any of it back! If ye did I'll\nskin ye with the lash of my cat-o'-nine-tails.\n(_Shakes it_.)\n\n_4th Prince_: That is all we got. It should maybe\npay for our supper in some place.\n\n_Ogre_: What supper? To go buy supper with\nmy money! It will go to add to my store of\ntreasure in the cave that is under ground.\n\n_5th Prince_: We are hungry, very hungry. When\nwill the supper be ready?\n\n_Ogre_: It will be ready whenever ye will ready\nit for yourselves. Ye should know that by this time.\n\n_1st Prince_: We would make it ready if we were\nacquainted with the way.\n\n_Ogre_: It is gone cracked ye are? What is it\nye are thinking to get for your supper? What\nailed ye that ye didn't climb a tree and suck a few\npigeon's eggs?\n\n_2nd Prince_: We were thinking of a pigeon pie.\n\n_Ogre_: A what!!!\n\n_2nd Prince_: A pigeon pie.\n\n_Ogre_: Hurry on then making your pigeon pie!\nThere are pigeons enough there in the corner, that\na hawk that is my carrier brought me in a while\nago. And there's a pike that was in the lake these\nhundred years, an otter is after leaving at my door.\n\n_3rd Prince_: (_Taking a pigeon_.) I don't think\nthis is a right pigeon.\n\n_4th Prince_: Pigeons in a pie are not the pigeons\nthat have feathers.\n\n_5th Prince_: (_To Ogre_.) Please, sir, where can\nwe find pigeons without feathers, that are trussed\non a silver skewer?\n\n_Ogre_: Aye? What's that?\n\n_1st Prince_: Never mind. You'll anger him.\nMaybe we can pull the feathers off these. I have\nread of plucking a pigeon in our books. (_They\nbegin to pluck_.)\n\n_2nd Prince_: It is very hard work.\n\n_3rd Prince_: I never knew feathers could stick\nin so hard.\n\n_4th Prince_: The more we pull out the more\nthere would seem to be left.\n\n_5th Prince_: It will be a feather pie we will be\ngetting in the end.\n\n_1st Prince_: (_Throwing it down_.) It is no use.\nWe might work at it to-day and to-morrow and be\nno nearer to a finish.\n\n_2nd Prince_: The pike might be better.\n\n_3rd Prince_: It has no feathers anyway.\n\n_4th Prince_: (_Touching it_.) It is raw and bleeding!\n\n_5th Prince_: We might roast it.\n\n_1st Prince_: The fire is black out.\n\n_2nd Prince_: I wonder what way can we kindle it?\n\n_3rd Prince_: Better ask him. (_Points to Ogre_.)\n\n_2nd Prince_: Please, sir, what way can we kindle\nthe fire?\n\n_Ogre_: What!\n\n_4th Prince_: We would wish to light the fire.\n\n_Ogre_: Well, do so.\n\n_5th Prince_: If we had a box of matches....\n\n_Ogre_: Matches! What are you talking about?\nMatches won't be invented for the next seven\nhundred years.\n\n_1st Prince_: What can we do then, we are starving\nwith hunger.\n\n_Ogre_: Let ye blow a breath upon a coal under\nthe ashes, and bring in small sticks from the wood.\n\n_2nd Prince_: (_Blowing_.) The ashes are choking me.\n\n_Ogre_: Very good. Then you'll put no delay\non me, waiting till you'll cook your supper.\n\n_3rd Prince_: Where can we get it then?\n\n_Ogre_: You'll go without it, as you were too\nhelpless to catch it, or to dress it, there's no one\nwill force you to eat it.\n\n_4th Prince_: If there is nothing for us to eat we\nhad best pass the time in sleep.\n\n_5th Prince_: I am all covered with ashes and\ndirt. (_To Ogre_.) Please, where can I find a towel\nand a piece of soap?\n\n_Ogre_: Soap! Is it bewitched ye are or demented\nin the head? Did ever anyone hear of\nsoap unless of a Saturday night? Letting on to be\nas dainty and as useless as those young princes\nbeyond, that are kept closed up in a tower of glass.\nCome on now. If there is no food that suits you,\nleave it. It is time for us to get to work.\n\n_1st Prince_: But it is bed-time.\n\n_Ogre_: Your bed-time is the time when I have\nno more use for you. Don't you know I have\nmade a plan? What was it I sent you for, spying\nout that place of the young princes? Wasn't it\nto see where is it that treasure is kept, the golden-handled\nsword of Justice that is used by the\nGuardian when he turns Judge.\n\n_2nd Prince_: That is kept in the Courthouse.\n\n_Ogre_: That's right ...in what part of it?\n\n_3rd Prince_: What do you want it for?\n\n_Ogre_: I have it in my mind this long time to\nget and to keep it in my cave under ground, along\nwith the rest of my treasures that are in charge of\nmy two enchanted cats. I have had near enough\nof grubbing for gold with a pick in the clefts and\ncrannies of the earth. It is time for me to find\nsome rest, and get into my hand what is ready\nworked and smelted and purified. We are going\nto that Courthouse to-night. If we cannot get in\nat the door, I will put ye in at the window and ye\ncan open the door to myself. I will find out\nwhere the sword is, and away with us, and it in\nmy hand.\n\n_4th Prince_: But that would be stealing.\n\n_Ogre_: What else would it be?\n\n_4th Prince_: But that is wrong. It is against the law.\n\n_Ogre_: The law! That is the Judge's trade.\nBreaking it is mine.\n\n_5th Prince_: Ask him for it and maybe he will\ngive it to you, he is so kind.\n\n_Ogre_: I'll take no charity! What I get I'll\nearn by taking it. I would feel no pleasure it being\ngiven to me, any more than a huntsman would\ntake pleasure being made a present of a dead fox,\nin place of getting a run across country after it.\nCome on now! We'll have the moon wasted.\nWe'll hardly get there before the dawn of day.\n\n_1st Prince_: Whatever time you get there the\nGuardian will be awake. There is a cock of Denmark\nperched on the curtain rod of his bed,\nspecially to waken him if there is any stir.\n\n_Ogre_: There is, is there? What a fool you\nthink me to be. Do you see that pot?\n\n_2nd Prince_: We do see it.\n\n_Ogre_: Look what there is in it.\n\n_3rd Prince_: Nothing but a few bare bones.\n\n_Ogre_: Well, that is all that is left of the Judge's\ncock of Denmark, that was brought to me awhile\nago by a fox that is my messenger, and that I have\nboiled and ate and devoured.\n\n_All the Princes_: O! O! O!\n\n_Ogre_: (_Cracking his whip_.) He was boiled in\nthe little pot. Come on now and lead the way, or\nI give you my word it is in the big pot your own\nbones will be making broth for my breakfast in the\nmorning! (_Cracks whip_.) Now, right about face!\nQuick march!\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II\n\n_(The Winter Garden, evening. The Servant\nsettling benches and a table.)_\n\n_Guardian: (Coming in.)_ Are the Dowager\nMessengers come? They are late.\n\n_Servant:_ They are come. They are at the\nlooking-glasses settling themselves.\n\n_Guardian:_ As soon as they are ready you will\ncall in the Princes for their examination before\nthem, and their tasks.\n\n_Servant:_ I will.\n\n_Guardian:_ The Messengers will have a good\nreport to bring back of them. They have come\nto be good scholars, in poetry, in music, in languages,\nin history, in numbers and all sorts. The\nold Queen-Godmother will be well satisfied with\ntheir report.\n\n_Servant:_ She might and she might not.\n\n_Guardian:_ They would be hard to please if they\nare not well pleased with the lads, as to learning\nand as to manners and behaviour.\n\n_Servant:_ Maybe so. Maybe so. There are\nstrange things in the world.\n\n_Guardian:_ You're in bad humour, my poor\nGillie. Have you been quarrelling with the cook,\nor did you get up on the wrong side of your\nbed?\n\n_Servant:_ There is times when it is hard not to\nbe in a bad humour.\n\n_Guardian:_ What are you grumbling and hinting at?\n\n_Servant:_ There's times when it's hard to believe\nthat witchcraft is gone out of the world.\n\n_Guardian:_ That is a thing that has been done\naway with in this Island through my government,\nand through enlightenment and through learning.\n\n_Servant:_ Maybe so. Maybe so.\n\n_Guardian:_ I suppose a three-legged chicken has\ncome out of the shell, or a magpie has come before\nyou in your path? Or maybe some token in the\nstars?\n\n_Servant:_ It would take more than that to put\nme astray.\n\n_Guardian:_ Whatever it is you had best tell it out.\n\n_Servant:_ To see lads of princes, sons of kings,\nand the makings of kings, that were mannerly and\nwell behaved and as civil as a child a few hours\nago, to be sitting in a corner at one time as if in\ndread of the light, and tricking and fooling and\ngrabbing at other times.\n\n_Guardian:_ Oh, is that all! The poor lads.\nThey're out of their habits because of their Godmother's\nMessengers coming. They are making\nmerry and funning, thinking there might be\nmessages for them or presents.\n\n_Servant:_ Funning is natural. But blowing their\nnose with their fingers is not natural.\n\n_Guardian:_ High spirits. Just to torment you\nin their joy.\n\n_Servant:_ To get a bit of chalk, and to make\nmarks in the Hall of dancing, and to go playing\nhop-scotch.\n\n_Guardian:_ High spirits, high spirits! I never\nsaw boys better behaved or more gentle or with\nmore sweetness of speech. I am thinking there is\nnot one among them but will earn the name of\nHoney-mouth.\n\n_Servant:_ Have it your own way. But is it a\nnatural thing, I am asking, for the finger nails to\nmake great growth in one day?\n\n_Guardian:_ Stop, stop, be quiet. Here now are\nthe Dowager Messengers. _(Two old ladies in\ntravelling costume appear; bowing low to them.)_\nYou are welcome for the sake of her that sent you,\nand for your own sakes.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger:_ We are come from the\nCourt of the Godmother Queen, for news of the\nPrinces now in your charge;\n\nShe hopes they have manners, are minded well,\nand never let run at large;\n\nFor she never has yet got over the fret, of their\nfive little cousins were swept away.\n\n_Guardian:_ Let your mind be at ease, for you'll\nbe well pleased with the youngsters you're going\nto see to-day.\n\nThey're learning the laws to speak and to pause--may\nbe orators then, or Parliament men.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger:_ Are they shielded from\nharm?\n\n_Guardian:_\n\nIn my sheltering arm;\nDo their work and their play in a mannerly way\nAnd go holding their nose, and tipped on their\ntoes,\nIf they pass through a street, that they'll not soil\ntheir feet.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: And next to good\nmanners and next to good looks ...\n\n_Guardian_:\nI know what you'll say ...she asks news of the cooks;\nI'm with her in putting them equal to books;\nThere's some rule by coaxing and some rule by beating,\nBut my principle is, tempt them on with good eating.\nWhen everything's said, isn't Sparta as dead\nAs many a place never heard of black bread?\nAnd as to a lad who a tartlet refuses,--\nIf Cato stewed parsnips he hated the Muses!\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: And at meals are they\ntaught to behave as they ought?\n\n_Guardian_:\nYou'll be well satisfied and the Queen will have pride,\nYou will see every Prince use a fork with his mince,\nAnd eating his peas like Alcibiades,\nWho would sooner go mute than play on the flute\nLest it made him grimace and contorted his face.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: Oh, all that you say\ndelights us to-day!\n\nWe'll have good news to bring of these sons of\na king.\n\n_Servant_: Here they are now coming.\n\n(_Wrenboys in Princes' clothes come in awkwardly_.)\n\n_Guardian_:\nNow put out a chair.\nWhere these ladies may hear.\nCome over, my boys ...(Now what is that noise?)\nCome here, take your places, and show us your\nfaces,\nAnd say out your task as these ladies will ask.\nI would wish them to know how you say _Parlez-vous_,\nAnd I'd like you to speak in original Greek\nAnd make numeration, and add up valuation;\nBut to lead you with ease and on by degrees\nIn case you are shy in the visitors' eye\nI will let you recite, as you easily might,\nThe kings of that Island that no longer are silent\nBut ask recognition and to take a position--\n(Though if stories are true they ran about blue,\nWhile we in Hy-Brasil wore our silks to a frazzle--)\nSo the rhymes you may say that I heard you to-day;\nAnd the opening will fall on the youngest of all.\n\n_Servant:_ Let you stand up now and do as you\nare bid. _(Touches 5th Wrenboy_.)\n\n_Guardian:_ Go on, my child, say out your lesson.\nWilliam the First as the Conqueror known....\n_(Boy puts finger in mouth and hangs his head.)_\nAh, he is shy. Don't be affrighted, go on now;\ndon't you remember it?\n\n_5th Wrenboy:_ I do not.\n\n_Guardian:_ Try it again now. You said it off\nquite well this morning.\n\n_5th Wrenboy:_ It fails me.\n\n_Guardian:_ Now I will give you a start: \"William\nthe First as the Conqueror known,\nAt the Battle of Hastings ascended the throne\n...\" Say that now.\n\n_5th Wrenboy: (Nudging 4th.)_ Let you word it.\n\n_4th Wrenboy: (To Guardian.)_ Let you word it\nagain, sir.\n\n_Guardian_: \"William the First as the Conqueror\nknown.\"\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: William the First as the congereel\nknown....\n\n_Guardian_: What is that? You would not do\nit to vex me! Gillie is maybe right. There is\nsomething strange.... (_To another_.) You may\ntry now. Go on to the next verse. \"William\ncalled Rufus from having red hair.\" ..._(He does\nnot answer_.) Say it anyone who knows....\n\n_3rd Wrenboy: (Putting up his hand_.) I know\na man that has red hair!\n\n_All the Wrenboys: (Cheerfully)_ So do I! So\ndo I!\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: He lives in the wood beyond!\nHe is no way good! He is an Ogre, a Grugach....\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: He can turn himself into the shape\nof a beast, or he can change his face at any time;\nsometimes he'll be that wicked you would think\nhe was a wolf; he would skin you with his cat-o'-nine-tails!\n\n_Guardian_: What gibberish are you talking?\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: He goes working underground to\nget gold!\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: It is minded by enchanted cats!\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: They would tear in bits anyone\nthat would find it!\n\n_Guardian_: Now take care, lads, this is carrying\na joke too far. I was wrong to begin with that\nsilly history. Tell me out now the parts of speech.\n\n  \"A noun's the name of anything\n  As school or garden, hoop or swing.\"\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: An owl's the name of anything....\n\n_Guardian_: A _noun_.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: An _owl_.\n\n_Guardian_: Don't pretend you don't know it.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: I do know it. I know an owl\nthat sits in the cleft of the hollow sycamore and\neats its fill of mice, till it can hardly put a stir\nout of itself.\n\n_Guardian_: I do wish you would stop talking\nnonsense.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It is not, but sense. It devoured\nere yesterday a whole fleet of young rats.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: It's as wise as King Solomon.\n\n_Guardian_: Gillie was right. There is surely\nsomething gone wrong in their heads.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: Go out yourself and you'll see are\nwe wrong in the head! Inside in the old sycamore\nhe is sitting through the daylight.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: There is something gone\nwrong in _somebody's_ head.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: (_Tapping her forehead_.)\nThe poor Guardian; he is too long past his youth.\nIt is well we came to look how things were going\nbefore it is too late.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: Ask them to say something\nthey _do_ know.\n\n_Guardian_: Here, you're good at arithmetic, say\nnow your numbers.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Twelve coppers make a shilling.\nI never handled more than that.\n\n_Guardian_: (_Angrily_.) Well, do as the lady said,\ntell us something you _do_ know.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: (_Standing up, excited_.) I know\nthe way to make bird-lime, steeping willow rods in\nthe stream....\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: I know how to use my fists; I\nknocked a tinker bigger than myself.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: I am the best at wrestling. I\nknocked _him_self. (_Pointing at 3rd_.)\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: I that can skin a fawn after\ncatching him running!\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_. Where now did you get\nthat learning?\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: Here and there, rambling the\nwoods, sleeping out at night. I would never\nstarve in any place where grass grows!\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: This is worse than\nneglect. The poor old Guardian the Queen put\nher trust in must be in his dotage.\n\n_Guardian_: (_Hastily_.) Here, there is at least one\nthing you will not fail in. Take the harp (_hands\nit to the 1st Wrenboy_) and draw out of it sweet\nsounds, (_To Dowager Messengers_.) He can play\na tune so sweet it has been known to send all the\nhearers into a sound sleep. Here now, touch the\nstrings with all your skill.\n\n(_1st Wrenboy bangs harp, making a crash_.)\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: (_With hands to ears_.)\nMercy! Our poor ears!\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: That is the poorest\nmusic we have ever heard.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: That sound would send\nno one into their sleep. It would be more likely\nto send them into Bedlam.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: Whatever they knew\nlast year, they have forgotten it all now.\n\n_Guardian_: (_Weeping into his handkerchief_.) I\ndon't know what has come upon them! At noon\nthey were the most charming lads in the whole\nworld. Their memory seems to have left\nthem!\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: It is as if another\nmemory had come to them. They did not learn\nthose wild tricks shut up in the garden.\n\n_Servant: (To Boys_.) Can't ye behave nice and\nnot ugly? _(To Guardian_.) You would not believe\nme a while ago. I said and I say still there is\nenchantment on them, and spells.\n\n_Guardian_: Oh, I would be sorry to think such\na thing. But they never went on this way in their\ngreenest youth.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: If there is a spell upon\nthem what way can it be taken off?\n\n_Servant_: It is what I always heard, that to make\na rod of iron red in the fire, and to burn the enchantment\nout of them is the only way.\n\n_Guardian_: Oh, boys, do you hear that! You\nwould not like to be burned with a red hot rod!\nSay out now what at all is the matter with you?\nWhat is it you feel within you that is putting you\nfrom your gentle ways?\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: The thing that I feel in me is\nhunger. The thing I would wish to feel inside me\nis a good fistful of food.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: They have been starved\nand stinted! It would kill their Godmother on\nthe moment if she was aware of that!\n\n_Guardian_: It is a part of their playgame. They\nhave everything they ask.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy: I_ did not eat a farthing's worth\nsince yesterday.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: My teeth are rusty with the want\nof food!\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: I want some dinner!\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: We want something to eat!\n\n_Guardian_: Give them whatever you have ready\nfor them, Gillie.\n\n_Servant: (Giving the plates.)_ Here is the supper\nye gave orders for this morning.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: What is it at all?\n\n_Servant_: It is your choice thing. Jellies and\ngrapes from Spain.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy: (Pushing away grapes)_ Berries!\nI thought to get better than berries from the bush.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: There's not much satisfaction in\nberries!\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: If it was a pig's foot now; or as\nmuch as a potato with a bit of dripping.\n\n_5th Wrenboy: (Looking at jelly.)_ What now is\nthis? It has like the appearance of frog spawn.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_; Or the leavings of a fallen star.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: Shivering it is and shaking. It's\nnot natural! (_Drops his plate_.)\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: There is nothing here to satisfy\nour need.\n\n_2nd. Dowager Messenger:_ I am nearly sorry for\nthem, poor youngsters. When they were but little\ntoddlers they never behaved like that at home.\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: It's the starvingest place ever I\nwas in!\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: There must be something\nin what they say. They would not ask for\nfood if they were not in need of it. And the\nGuardian making so much talk about his table and\nhis cooks. We cannot go home and report that\nthey have no learning and no food.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: As to learning I don't\nmind. But as to food, I would not wish to leave\nthem without it for the night. They might be as\nsmall as cats in the morning.\n\n_Guardian_: They are dreaming when they say\nthey are in want of food.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: It is a dream that will\nwaken up their Godmother.\n\n_Servant_: Look, ma'am, at the table behind you,\nand you will see is this a scarce house! That is\nwhat is set out for yourselves, ma'am, lobsters\nfrom Aughanish! A fat turkey from the barley\ngardens! A spiced and larded sucking pig! Cakes\nand sweets and all sorts! It is not the want of\nprovision was ever brought against us up to this!\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: If all this is for us, we\nwould sooner give it up to those poor children.\n\n(_To Wrenboys_.) Here, my dears, we will not eat\nwhile you are in want of food. We will give it all\nto you.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Is it that we can have what is on\nthat table?\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: You may, and welcome.\n\n_1st Wrenboy: (With a shout.)_ Do you hear\nthat news! Come on now. Take your chance!\nI'll have the first start! Skib scab! Hip, hip,\nhooray!\n\n(_They rush at table and upset it, flinging\nthemselves on the food_)\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\n\n_The Hall of Justice. It is nearly dawn. The last\nof the Princes is getting in through the window.\nThey are wearing their masks_.\n\n_Ogre: (Outside door to left.)_ Open now the door\nfor myself.\n\n_1st Prince_: No, we will get rid of him now. Let\nthe Grugach stay outside.\n\n_2nd Prince_: That will be best. He cannot\nbreak the bars of this door, or get round over the\nhigh wall to the door on the other side.\n\n_3rd Prince_: I am sore with the blows he put on\nus, driving us before him through the wood.\n\n_4th Prince_: Let us call to the Guardian, and let\nhim deal with him. He can bring his foot soldiers\nand his guns.\n\n_5th Prince_: A villain that Ogre is and a thief,\nwanting to steal away the golden-handled sword.\nBut we would not tell him where it was, and he\nnever will find it under the step of the Judge's\nchair. (_Lifts top of step, takes out sword and puts it\nback again_.)\n\n_Ogre: (Outside.)_ Are ye going to open the door?\n\n_1st Prince_: It is a great thing to have that\nstrong door between us.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Take care would he break it in.\n\n_3rd Prince_: No fear. It would make too much\nnoise. It would bring every person in the house\nrunning.\n\n_4th Prince_: Let us go quick and call the\nGuardian.\n\n_5th Prince_: What will he _say_ seeing us in these\nclothes? He will be vexed with us.\n\n_1st Prince_: It was folly of us running away.\nBut he will forgive us, knowing it will teach us\nbetter sense.\n\n_2nd Prince_: Come to him then, I don't mind\nwhat he will do to us so long as we are safe from\nthe terrible Grugach of an Ogre. (_All go to right\ndoor, it opens and Ogre bursts in_.)\n\n_Ogre_: Ye thought to deceive me, did ye? Ye\nthought to bar me out and to keep me out? And\nI after minding you and caring you these seven\nyears!\n\n_3rd Prince_: What way did you get in?\n\n_Ogre_: It's easy for me to get in any place. If\nI had a mind I could turn into a house fly and come\nthrough the lockhole of the door. It's much if I\ndon't change the whole lot of ye into small birds,\nand myself to a hawk going through you! Or, into\nfrightened mice, and I myself into a starving cat!\nIt's much if I don't skin you with this whip, and\ngrind your bones as fine as rape seed!\n\n_4th Prince_: I will call for help! (_Tries to shout_.)\n\n_Ogre: (Putting hand over his mouth and lifting\nwhip.)_ Shout now and welcome, and it is bare\nbones will be left of you! If it wasn't that I need\nyou to search out the golden-handled sword for me\nI'd throttle the whole of ye as easy as I'd squeeze\nan egg! Come on now! Show me where the\ntreasure is hid.\n\n_5th Prince_: How would we know?\n\n_Ogre_: Didn't I send ye spying it out, and if it\nfails ye to make it out, I'll boil and bake you!\n\n_1st Prince: (Looking about and pointing to end\nof room_.) It might be there.\n\n_Ogre_: What way would it be on the bare floor?\nSearch it out.\n\n_2nd Prince: (Looking under a bench_.) It might\nbe here.\n\n_Ogre_: It is not there.\n\n_3rd Prince: (Looking up chimney_?) This would\nbe a good hiding-place.\n\n_Ogre: (Looks up_.) There is nothing in it, only\nan old nest of a jackdaw,--a bundle of bare twigs.\nTrying to deceive me you are and to lead me astray.\n\n_4th Prince_: It might be on the shelf.\n\n_Ogre_: Stop your chat unless you have something\nworth saying.\n\n_5th Prince: (Sitting down on step under which\nsword is hidden_.) Are you certain there is any\ntreasure at all?\n\n_Ogre_: You are humbugging and making a fool\nof me! _(Lashes whip and seizes him_.) Get up\nnow out of that! _(Drags him up and taps board.)\n_ There is a hollow sort of a sound.... That is\na sort of place where a treasure might be hid.\n_(Drags up board_.) I see something shining. _(Pulls\nout sword_.) Oh, it is a lovely sword! And the\nhandle of pure gold. The best I ever seen!\n\n_1st Prince: (To the others_.) I'll make a run now\nand call out and awaken all in the house! _(Is going\ntowards door_.)\n\n_Ogre: (Seizing him_.) You'd make your escape\nwould you?\n\n_1st Prince: (Calling out_.) Ring the big bell,\nring the bell! I forgot it till now.\n\n(_They pull a bell-rope and bell is beard clanging_.)\n\n_Ogre: (Rushing at them as they ring it_.) I'll stop\nthat!\n\n_(Voices are heard, at door to right. Ogre rushes to other door_.)\n\n_2nd Prince_: I'll get the sword from him. _(Snatches\nit away as Ogre is rushing at him. Servant and\nGuardian come in_.)\n\n_Guardian_: What is going on! (_Blows a whistle_.)\nHere, soldiers of the guard!\n\n_(Feet are heard marching and bugle blowing at\nleft door. Ogre rapidly slips off his mask,\nand appears as a harmless old man.)_\n\n_Guardian:_ Thieves! Robbers! Burglars!\nHere, soldiers, surround the place; who are these\nruffians? Murder! Robbery! Fire!\n\n_(Two soldiers come in_.)\n\n_Servant_: They are the very same youngsters\nwere at our door this morning, doing their play;\nthose Wrenboys!\n\n_Guardian_: They are thieves. There is one of\nthem bringing away my gold-handled sword. _(He\nand Servant seize sword_.)\n\n_Ogre: (Coming forward and bowing low_.) It\nis time for you to come, your honour my lordship!\nI am proud to see you coming! It was I myself\nthat rang the bell and that called and awakened\nyou, where I would not like to see the place robbed\nand left bare by these scum of the world!\n\n_All the Princes_: Oh! Oh! Oh!\n\n_Guardian_: What have you to do with it?\nWhere do you come from?\n\n_Ogre_: An honest poor man I am....\n\n_Servant_: You have a queer wild sort of a\ndress.\n\n_Ogre_: Making a living I do be, dressing up as a\nhobgoblin and a bogey man to get an odd copper\nfrom a mother here and there, would be wishful to\nfrighten a stubborn child from bawling or from\ntricks. Passing the door I was, and hearing a noise\nI looked in, and these young villains were after\nrising a board and taking out that sword you seen\nin their hands. It is then that I made a clamour\nwith the bell.\n\n(_Princes laugh_.)\n\n_Guardian_: Who are they at all?\n\n_Ogre_: It is I myself say it; they are the terror\nof the whole district.\n\n_1st Prince_: You may save your breath and stop\nthat talk. This gentleman knows us well. He\nknows us and will recognise us.\n\n_Guardian_: I do recognise you. I saw you but\nyesterday.\n\n_2nd Prince_: There now, what do you say?\n\n_Guardian_: You are those vagabond Wrenboys\nthat came tricking and begging to my gate.\n\n_Princes_: Oh! Oh! Oh!\n\n_Ogre_: That's it! Spying round they were!\nThinking to do a robbery! Robbery they're after\ndoing!\n\n_3rd Prince_: We were doing no such thing!\n\n_Guardian_: You were! I stopped you making\noff with my sword of Justice.\n\n_Ogre_: If it wasn't for me hindering them they\nwould have it swept.\n\n_Guardian_: That was very honest of you.\n\n_4th Prince_: (_Rushing at Ogre_.) It is you that\nare a rogue and a thief!\n\n_Other Princes_: Throw him down while we have\nthe chance. (_They surround him_.)\n\n_Guardian_: Silence! Don't make that disturbance!\nI felt a suspicion yesterday the first\ntime I saw your faces there was villainy hidden\nbeneath the dust that was on your cheeks.\n\n_4th Prince_: Listen to us, listen!\n\n_Guardian_: And whatever I thought then, you\nare seventeen times more wicked looking now!\nAnd the very scum of the roads!\n\n_5th Prince_: Oh, have you forgotten your\nnurslings!\n\n_Guardian: It_ is well you reminded me of them.\n(_To Servant_.) Go now and bring the young Princes\nhere till they will see justice done! They are\nmaybe gone a bit wild and foolish since yesterday,\nput out by those Dowager Messengers. But whatever\nthey were at their worst, they are King George\ncompared with these!\n\n_1st Prince_: You _must_ listen!\n\n_Guardian_: Must! What is that language!\nThat is a word was never said to me since I was\nmade the Queen's Chamberlain. Here! Put a\ngag upon their mouths! (_Soldiers do so, tying a\nhandkerchief on mouth of each_.) Tie their hands\nbehind them with ropes. (_This is done_.) Rapscallions!\nDo they think to terrify and command me!\nI that am not only Governor of the Island but am\nSupreme Judge whenever I come into this Court.\n\n_Ogre_: That is very good and very right! Keep\nthe gag in their mouth! You wouldn't like to be\nlistening to the things they were saying a while\nago! They were giving out great impudence and\nvery disrespectful talk!\n\n_Guardian_: Give me here my Judge's wig and\nmy gown! (_Puts them on_.) Where now are the\nyoung Princes?\n\n_Servant_: They are coming now.\n\n_Guardian_: It will be a great help in their education\nseeing justice done by me, as straight as was\never done by Aristides. Give me here that book of\npunishments and rewards. I'll see what is bad\nenough for these lads! (_He consults book_.)\n\n_Servant_: Here now are the Princes.\n\n_(Wrenboys come in wearing Princes' clothes_)\n\n_1st Wrenboy: (To another_) Do you see who it\nis that is in it?\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: It is the young Princes in our\nclothes!\n\n_3rd Wrenboy_: What in the world wide brought\nthem here? Believe me it was through some\nvillainy of the Grugach.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: What at all has happened?\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: Go ask them what it was brought\nthem, or what they came doing.\n\n_1st Wrenboy: (To Princes_) What is it brought\nyou here so soon?\n\n(_Princes shake their heads_)\n\n_2nd Wrenboy: (Coming back_) There is a gag\non their mouths!\n\n_3rd Wrenboy: (Going and looking_) Their hands\nare tied with a rope.\n\n_4th Wrenboy_: They had not the wit to stand\nagainst the Grugach; it is not long till they were\nbrought to trouble.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: It was seventeen times worse\nfor them to be under him than for ourselves that\nwas used to him, and to his cruelty and his ways.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It was bad enough for ourselves.\nWe were not built for roguery.\n\n(_The Dowager Messengers rushing in_.)\n\n_Dowager Messengers: (Together.)_ What is going\non? What has happened?\n\n_Guardian_: What you see before you has happened.\nThose young thieves came to try and to\nrob the house. They were found by myself in the\nvery act of bringing away my golden-handled\nsword! They were stopped by this honest man.\n(_Points to Ogre_.)\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: There would seem to be\na great deal of wickedness around this place!\n\n_Guardian_: I'll put a stop to it! I'll use my\nrights as Judge! To have that sort of villainy\nrunning through the Island, it would come through\nwalls of glass or of marble, and lead away the best.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: There must be something\ngone wrong in the stars, our own young\nprinces having gone wild out of measure, and these\nyoung vagabonds doing no less than house-breaking!\nIt is hard to live!\n\n_Ogre_: Indeed, ma'am, it would be a great blessing\nto the world if all the boys in it could be born\ngrown up.\n\n_Guardian: (Sighing_.) I, myself, am beginning\nto have that same opinion.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: And so am I myself.\nYoung men have strength and beauty, and old\nmen have knowledge and wisdom, but as to boys!\nAfter what we saw a while ago in the supper\nroom!\n\n_Servant_: The Court is about to sit! Take your\nplaces!\n\n_(Wrenboys make for the dock and Princes the\njury-box.)_\n\n_Guardian_: What do you mean, prisoners, going\nup there, that is the place for honourable men!\nFor a jury! It is here in the criminals' dock your\nplace is.\n\n_Servant: (To Wrenboys_.) Oh, that is the wrong\nplace you're in. That is for the wicked and the\npoor that are brought to be tried and condemned.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: It is a place the like of that I was\nput one time I was charged before a magistrate\nfor snaring rabbits.\n\n_Servant_: Silence in the Court. The Judge is\nabout to speak.\n\n_Guardian: (Reading out of book.)_\nIt's laid down in a clause of the Cretian laws,\nThat were put through a filter by Solon,\nThat for theft the first time, though a capital crime\nA criminal may keep his poll on.\nThough _(consults another book_) some jurists believe\nThat a wretch who can thieve,\nHas earned a full stop, not a colon.\n\n_Ogre_: That was said by a better than Solon.\n\n_Guardian_:\nAnd the book says in sum, to cut off the left thumb,\nMay be penalty enough for a warning;\nThough _(looks at another book_) the Commentors say\nThat one let off that way\nWill be thieving again before morning.\n\n_Ogre_: So he will, and the jury suborning.\n\n_Guardian:_\nFor the second offence, as the crime's more immense,\nTake the thumb off the _right_ hand instead;\nAnd the third time he'll steal, without any appeal,\nThe hangman's to whip off his head.\n\n_Ogre_:\nVery right to do so, for a thief as we know,\nIsn't likely to steal when he's dead.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_:\nYou won't order the worst, as this crime is the first,\nIt's a pity if they have to swing.\n\n_Guardian_:\nIn the Commentors' sense, a _primal_ offence\nIs as much an impossible thing\nAs a stream without source, a blow struck without\nforce,\nOr leaves without roots in the spring.\n\n_Ogre_: Or a catapult wanting a sling.\n\n_Guardian_:\nBut although this case is proved on its face\nTo be what is called _a priori_\nI cannot refuse to consider the views\nOf the amiable lady before me. _(Bows to 2nd\nDowager Messenger.)_\nIn compliance to her I am ready to err\nOn the side that she leans to, of mercy,\nFor she has a kind tongue, and the prisoners are\nyoung;\nBut that they may not live to curse me,\nI give out my decree, the _left_ thumb shall be\nKept in Court till the next time they'll come.\nAnd now if you please let whoever agrees\nWith my pledge turn down his own thumb.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: It is very just and right.\n(_Turns down hers_.)\n\n_Ogre_: You're letting them off too easy. They're\na bad example to the world. But to take the\nthumb off them is better than nothing! _(Turns\ndown both his thumbs.)_\n\n_Guardian: (To Wrenboys.)_ Well, my dear pupils,\nI don't see you turn down your thumbs.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: We cannot do it. _(They cover\ntheir faces with their hands.)_\n\n_Ogre_: Get on so. I never saw the work I'd\nsooner do than checking youngsters!\n\n_Guardian_: Where is the Executioner?\n\n_Servant_: I sent seeking him a while ago, thinking\nhe might be needed.\n\n_Guardian_: Bring him in.\n\n_Servant_: He is not in it. There was so little\nbusiness for him this long time under your own\npeaceable rule, that he is after leaving us, and\ntaking a job in a slaughter house out in foreign.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: Maybe that is a token\nwe should let them off.\n\n_Ogre: (Briskly.)_ I am willing to be useful; give\nme here a knife or a hatchet!\n\n_Servant: (To Ogre.)_ You need not be pushing\nyourself forward. _(To Guardian.)_ There is a\nstranger of an Executioner chanced to be passing\nthe road, just as I sent out, and he looking for\nwork. He said he would do the job for a four-penny\nbit and his dinner, that he is sitting down\nto now.\n\n_Guardian: (Sitting up straight and taking up sword.)_\n\n  Bring him in quick. It often seems a curious thing that I,\n  Who in my ordinary clothes would hardly hurt a fly,\n  Hold to the rigour of the law when I put on gown and wig,\n  As if for mere humanity I didn't care a fig.\n  For once I'm seated on the bench I do not shrink or flinch\n  From the reddest laws of Draco, or the practice of Judge Lynch.\n\n_Servant: (At door.)_ Here he is now.\n\n_(Jester comes in, disguised as Executioner, a\nlong cloak with hood over his head.)_\n\n_Guardian_: Here is the sword _(hands it to him\nand reads)_, \"In case of the first act of theft the\nleft thumb is to be struck off.\" There are the\ncriminals before you. That is what you have to do.\n\n_Jester: (Taking the sword.)_ Stretch out your\nhands! There is hurry on me. I was sitting at\nthe dinner I engaged for. I was called away from\nthe first mouthful, and I would wish to go back\nto the second mouthful that is getting cold.\n\n_Guardian: (Relenting.)_ Maybe now the fright\nwould be enough to keep them from crimes from\nthis out. They are but young.\n\n_Jester: (To Princes.)_ Don't be keeping me\nwaiting! Put out now your hands. _(They shake\ntheir heads.)_\n\n_Servant_: They cannot do that, being bound.\n\n_Jester_: If you will not stretch out your hands\nwhen I ask you, I will strike off your heads without\nasking! _(Flourishes sword.)_\n\n_Guardian: (Standing up.)_ I did not empower\nyou to go so far as that! It is without my\nauthority!\n\n_Jester_: You have given over the power of the\nlaw to the power of the sword. It must take its way!\n\n_Guardian_: I will not give in to that! I have\nall authority here!\n\n_Jester_: If you grow wicked with the Judge's\nwig on your head, so do I with this sword in my\nhand! You called me in to do a certain business\nand I am going to do it! I am not going to get a\nbad name put on me for breach of contract! If\na labourer is given piece work cutting thistles with\na hook he is given leave to do it, or a rat catcher\ndoing away with vermin in the same way! He\nis not bid after his trouble to let them go loose out\nof his bag! And why would an Executioner that\nis higher again in the profession be checked. Isn't\nmy pride in my work the same as theirs? And\nalong with that, let me tell you I belong to a\nTrades Union!\n\n_(Guardian moans and covers his face.)_\n\n_(To the Princes.)_ Kneel down now! Where you\nkept me so long waiting and that the Judge attempted\nto interfere with me, I have my mind\nmade up to make an end of you! _(Holds up sword.)_\n\n_1st Wrenboy: (Rushing forward and putting his\narms about Prince.)_ You must not touch him!\nThese lads never did any harm!\n\n_2nd Wrenboy: (Protecting a Prince.)_ It is we\nourselves are to be punished if anyone must be\npunished.\n\n_3d Wrenboy_: They are innocent whoever is to\nblame.\n\n_Jester_: Take their place so! Someone must be\nput an end to.\n\n_(All the Wrenboys kneel.)_\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Here we are so. We changed\nplaces with them for our own pleasure, thinking\nto lead a prince's life, and if there is anyone must\nsuffer by reason of that change let it be ourselves.\n\n_Jester_: I'll take off their gags so and let them free.\n\n_(He cuts cord of gags and hands, then throws\nsome dust over all boys as before, saying):_\n\n  Dust of Mullein leave the eyes\n  You made fail to recognise\n  Princes in their poor disguise;\n  Princes all, had men clear eyes!\n\n_(The Princes throw off their masks.)_\n\n_1st Prince_: It is all a mistake! Oh, Guardian,\ndon't you know now that we are your murslings\nand your wards! Look at the royal mark upon\nour arm, that we brought with us into the world.\n_(They turn up sleeves and show their arms.)_\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: I am satisfied without\nlooking at the royal sign. I have been looking at\ntheir finger nails. Those other nails _(pointing to\nWrenboys)_ have never been touched with a soapy\nbrush.\n\n_2nd Prince_: It is strange you did not recognise\nus. It was that Jester yesterday when we changed\nour coats that threw a dust of disguise between you\nand us.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: Was it that these lads\nrobbed you of your clothes?\n\n_3d. Prince_: Not at all.\n\n_4th Prince_: We ourselves that were discontented\nand wishful to change places with them.\n\n_Guardian_: A very foolish thing, and that I have\nnever read of in any of my histories.\n\n_5th Prince_: We were the first to wish the change.\nIt is we should be blamed.\n\n_5th Wrenboy_: No, but put the blame on us!\nThe Wrenboys you seen yesterday.\n\n_Guardian_: Ah, be quiet, how do I know who\nyou are, or if ever I saw you before! My poor\nhead is going round and round.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: Now do you know us! _(All recite\n\"The Wren, the Wren, the King of All Birds.\" Give\nfirst verse.)_\n\n_Guardian: (Stopping his ears.)_ Oh, stop it!\nThat makes my poor head worse again.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy: (Pulling up sleeve.)_ If you had\nchanced to see our right arm you would recognise\nus. We were not without bringing a mark into\nthe world with us, if it is not royal itself.\n\n_(Wrenboys strip their arms.)_\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: What is he talking\nabout? _(Seizes arm and looks at it.)_\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: It is the same mark as\nis on the princes, the sign and token of a King!\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: It is certain these must\nbe their five little royal cousins, that were stolen\naway from the coast.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: If we were brought away it was\nby that Grugach that has kept us in his service\nthrough the years.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger_: It is no wonder they\ntook to one another. It was easy to know by the\nway they behaved they had in them royal blood.\n\n_(The Boys turn to each other, the Ogre is\nslipping out.)_\n\n_Jester: (Throwing off his cloak and showing his\ngreen ragged clothes.)_ Stop where you are!\n\n_Ogre_: Do your best! You cannot hinder me!\nI have spells could change the whole of ye to a\ncairn of grey stones! _(Makes signs with his hands.)_\n\n_Jester: (In a terrible voice.)_ Are you thinking\nto try your spells against _mine_?\n\n_Ogre: (Trembling and falling on his knees.)_ Oh,\nspare me! Hold your hand! Do not use against\nme your spells of life and death! I know you\nnow! I know you well through your ragged dress!\nWhat are my spells beside yours? You the great\nMaster of all magic and all enchantments, Manannan,\nSon of the Sea!\n\n_Jester_: Yes, I am Manannan, that men are apt\nto call a Jester and a Fool, and a Disturber, and a\nMischief-maker, upsetting the order of the world\nand making confusion in its order and its ways.\n_(Recites or sings.)_\n\n  For when I see a master\n  Hold back his hireling's fee\n  I shake my pepper castor\n  Into his sweetened tea!\n\n  And when I see a plan make\n  The Birds that watch us frown,\n  I come and toss the pancake\n  And turn it upside down!\n\n  In this I follow after\n  Lycurgus who was wise;\n  To the little god of laughter\n  I make my sacrifice!\n\nAnd now here is my word of command! Everyone\ninto his right place!\n\n_Ogre_: Spare me! Let me go this time!\n\n_Jester_: Go out now! I will not bring a blemish\non this sword by striking off your ugly head. But\nas you have been through seven years an enemy\nto these young boys, keeping them in ignorance\nand dirt, they that are sons of a king, I cross and\ncommand you to go groping through holes and dirt\nand darkness through three times seven years in\nthe shape of a rat, with every boy, high or low,\ngentle or simple, your pursuer and your enemy.\nAnd along with that I would recommend you to\nkeep out of the way of your own enchanted cats!\n\n_(Ogre gives a squeal and creeps away on all fours.)_\n\n_Guardian_: I think I will give up business and\ngo back to my old trade of Chamberlain and of\nshutting out draughts from the Court. The\nweight of years is coming on me, and it is time for\nme to set my mind to some quiet path.\n\n_1st Dowager Messenger_: Come home with us\nso, and help us to attend to our cats, that they will\nbe able to destroy the rats of the world.\n\n_2nd Dowager Messenger: (To Princes.)_ It is best\nfor you come to your Godmother's Court, as your\nGuardian is showing the way.\n\n_1st Prince_: We may come and give news of our\ndoings at the end of a year and a day.\n\nBut now we will go with our comrades to learn\ntheir work and their play.\n\n_2nd Prince_: For lying on silken cushions, or\nstretched on a feathery bed.\n\nWe would long again for the path by the lake,\nand the wild swans overhead.\n\n_3d Prince_: Till we'll harden our bodies with\nwrestling and get courage to stand in a fight.\n\n_4th Prince_: And not to be blind in the woods\nor in dread of the darkness of night.\n\n_1st Wrenboy_: And we who are ignorant blockheads,\nand never were reared to know\nThe art of the languaged poets, it's along with\nyou we will go.\n\n_5th Prince_: Come show us the wisdom of woods,\nand the way to outrun the wild deer,\nTill we'll harden our minds with courage, and\nbe masters of hardship and fear.\n\n_2nd Wrenboy_: But you are candles of knowledge,\nand we'll give you no ease or peace,\nTill you'll learn us manners and music, and news\nof the Wars of Greece.\n\n_1st Prince_: Come on, we will help one another,\nand going together we'll find,\nJoy with those great companions, Earth, Water,\nFire, and Wind. _(They join hands.)_\n\n_Jester_: It's likely you'll do great actions, for\nthere is an ancient word,\nThat comradeship is better than the parting of\nthe sword,\nAnd that if ever two natures should join and\ngrow into one,\nThey will do more together than the world has\never done.\nSo now I've ended my business, and I'll go, for\nmy road is long,\nBut be sure the Jester will find you out, if ever\nthings go wrong!\n\n_(He goes off singing.)_\n\n  And so I follow after\n  Lycurgus who was wise;\n  To the little god of laughter\n  I pay my sacrifice!\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nNOTES FOR THE JESTER\n\nI was asked one Christmas by a little schoolboy to write\na play that could be acted at school; and in looking for\na subject my memory went back to a story I had read in\nchildhood called \"The Discontented Children,\" where,\nthough I forget its incidents, the gamekeeper's children\nchanged places for a while with the children of the Squire,\nand I thought I might write something on these lines.\nBut my mind soon went miching as our people (and\nShakespeare) would say, and broke through the English\nhedges into the unbounded wonder-world. Yet it did\nnot quite run out of reach of human types, for having found\nsome almost illegible notes, I see that at the first appearance\nof Manannan I had put in brackets the initials \"G.B.S.\"\nAnd looking now at the story of that Great Jester, in the\nhistory of the ancient gods, I see that for all his quips and\nmischief and \"tricks and wonders,\" he came when he\nwas needed to the help of Finn and the Fianna, and gave\ngood teaching to the boy-hero, Cuchulain; and I read\nalso that \"all the food he would use would be a vessel of\nsour milk or a few crab-apples. And there never was any\nmusic sweeter than the music he used to be playing.\"\n\nI have without leave borrowed a phrase from \"The\nCandle of Vision,\" written by my liberal fellow-countryman,\nA.E., where he says, \"I felt at times as one raised from\nthe dead, made virginal and pure, who renews exquisite\nintimacies with the divine companions, with Earth, Water,\nAir, and Fire.\" And I think he will forgive me for quoting\nanother passage now from the same book, for I think it\nmust have been in my mind when I wrote of my Wrenboys:\n\"The lands of Immortal Youth which flush with magic\nthe dreams of childhood, for most sink soon below far\nhorizons and do not again arise. For around childhood\ngather the wizards of the darkness and they baptize it\nand change its imagination of itself, as in the Arabian\ntales of enchantment men were changed by sorcerers who\ncried, 'Be thou beast or bird.' So ...is the imagination\nof life about itself changed and one will think he is a worm\nin the sight of Heaven, he who is but a god in exile....\nWhat palaces they were born in, what dominions they are\nrightly heir to, are concealed from them as in the fairy\ntale the stolen prince lives obscurely among the swineherd.\nYet at times men do not remember, in dreams or in the\ndeeps of sleep, they still wear sceptre and diadem and\npartake of the banquet of the gods.\"\n\nThe Wrenboys still come to our door at Coole on\nSt. Stephen's Day, as they used in my childhood to come\nto Roxborough, but it is in our bargain that the wren\nitself must be symbolic, unmolested, no longer killed in\nvengeance for that one in the olden times that awakened\nthe sentinels of the enemy Danes by pecking at crumbs\non a drum. And, indeed, these last two or three years\nthe rhymes concerning that old history have been lessened,\nand their place taken by \"The Soldiers Song.\"\n\nI think the staging of the play is easy. The Ogre's hut\nmay be but a shallow front scene, a curtain that can be\ndrawn away. The masks are such as might be used by\nWrenboys, little paper ones, such as one finds in a Christmas\ncracker, held on with a bit of elastic, and would help to\nget the change into the eyes of the audience, which\nManannan's Mullein-dust may not have reached.\n\n\n\n\nAir: \"Shule Aroon\"\n\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"Mo Bhuachailin Buidhe\"\n\n_Brightly_\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"The Bells of Shandon\"\n\nMy brain grows rus-ty, my mind is dus-ty\nThe time I'm dwelling with the like of ye; While my spirit\nrang-es through all the changes could turn the\nworld to fel-is-it-y When Ar-is-tot-le\n\n[Music]\n\nThe Time I've Lost in Wooing\n\n_Poco allegretto_\n[Music]\n\nMy Molly-O\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"O Donall Abu\"\n\n[Music]\n\nThe Bard of Armagh\n\n_Slow_.\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"Dear Harp of My Country\"\n\n[Music]\n\nI wish I had the shepherd's lamb\n\nI wish I had the shep-herd's lamb, the shep-herd's lamb, the\nshepherd's lamb, I wish I had the shepherd's lamb, And\nKa-tie com-ing af-ter: Iso o gur-rim\ngur-rim hoo iso gra-ma-chree gon kel-lig hoo, Iso\no gur-rim gur-rim hoo, Sthoo pat-tha beg dho wau-her.\n\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"Let Erin Remember\"\n\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"And doth not a meeting like this\"\n\n[Music]\n\nGarryowen\n\n_Quickly_.\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"O Bay of Dublin\"\n\n[Music]\n\nThe Cruiskeen L\u00e1n\n\n_With expression_.\n[Music]\n\nThe Beautiful City of Sligo\n\n_Quickly_.\n[Music]\n\nThe Deserter's Meditation\n\n_Slow_.\n[Music]\n\nOft in the Stilly Night\n\n_Slow_.\n[Music]\n\nJohnny, I hardly knew you\n\n_Spirited_\n[Music]\n\nBy Memory Inspired\n\n[Music]\n\nEileen Aroon\n\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"The Shan Van Vocht\"\n\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"I saw from the beach\"\n\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"Silent, O Moyle\"\n\n[Music]\n\nAn Spailin F\u00e1nach\n\n_Moderately_\n[Music]\n\nAir: \"The Last Rose of Summer\"\n\n[Music]","title":"Three Wonder Plays","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":49236}