In The Seven Woods: Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age
IN THE SEVEN WOODS
BY THE SAME WRITER
The Secret Rose
The Celtic Twilight
Poems
The Wind among the Reeds
The Shadowy Waters
Ideas of Good and Evil
IN THE SEVEN WOODS
Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age
BY
W. B. YEATS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1903
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1903, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up, electrotyped, and published August, 1903.
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.
IN THE SEVEN WOODS
IN THE SEVEN WOODS: BEING POEMS CHIEFLY OF THE IRISH HEROIC AGE.
IN THE SEVEN WOODS.
I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
Hum in the lime tree flowers; and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile
Tara uprooted, and new commonness
Upon the throne and crying about the streets
And hanging its paper flowers from post to post,
Because it is alone of all things happy.
I am contented for I know that Quiet
Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart
Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,
Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs
A cloudy quiver over Parc-na-Lee.
August, 1902.
THE OLD AGE OF QUEEN MAEVE.
Maeve the great queen was pacing to and fro,
Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,
In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,
Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed
Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,
Or on the benches underneath the walls,
In comfortable sleep; all living slept
But that great queen, who more than half the night
Had paced from door to fire and fire to door.
Though now in her old age, in her young age
She had been beautiful in that old way
That’s all but gone; for the proud heart is gone
And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all
But soft beauty and indolent desire.
She could have called over the rim of the world
Whatever woman’s lover had hit her fancy,
And yet had been great bodied and great limbed,
Fashioned to be the mother of strong children;
And she’d had lucky eyes and a high heart,
And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,
At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,
Sudden and laughing.
O unquiet heart,
Why do you praise another, praising her,
As if there were no tale but your own tale
Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?
Have I not bid you tell of that great queen
Who has been buried some two thousand years?
When night was at its deepest, a wild goose
Cried from the porter’s lodge, and with long clamour
Shook the ale horns and shields upon their hooks;
But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power
Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;
And wondering who of the many changing Sidhe
Had come as in the old times to counsel her,
Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall being old,
To that small chamber by the outer gate.
The porter slept although he sat upright
With still and stony limbs and open eyes.
Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise
Broke from his parted lips and broke again,
She laid a hand on either of his shoulders,
And shook him wide awake, and bid him say
Who of the wandering many-changing ones
Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say
Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs
More still than they had been for a good month,
He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing,
He could remember when he had had fine dreams.
It was before the time of the great war
Over the White-Horned Bull, and the Brown Bull.
She turned away; he turned again to sleep
That no god troubled now, and, wondering
What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,
Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh
Lifted the curtain of her sleeping room,
Remembering that she too had seemed divine
To many thousand eyes, and to her own
One that the generations had long waited
That work too difficult for mortal hands
Might be accomplished. Bunching the curtain up
She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,
And thought of days when he’d had a straight body,
And of that famous Fergus, Nessa’s husband,
Who had been the lover of her middle life.
Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,
And not with his own voice or a man’s voice,
But with the burning, live, unshaken voice
Of those that it may be can never age.
He said, ‘High Queen of Cruachan and Mag Ai
A king of the Great Plain would speak with you.’
And with glad voice Maeve answered him, ‘What King
Of the far wandering shadows has come to me?
As in the old days when they would come and go
About my threshold to counsel and to help.’
The parted lips replied, ‘I seek your help,
For I am Aengus and I am crossed in love.’
‘How may a mortal whose life gutters out
Help them that wander with hand clasping hand
By rivers where nor rain nor hail has dimmed
Their haughty images, that cannot fade
Although their beauty’s like a hollow dream.’
‘I come from the undimmed rivers to bid you call
The children of the Maines out of sleep,
And set them digging into Anbual’s hill.
We shadows, while they uproot his earthy house,
Will overthrow his shadows and carry off
Caer, his blue eyed daughter that I love.
I helped your fathers when they built these walls
And I would have your help in my great need,
Queen of high Cruachan.’
‘I obey your will
With speedy feet and a most thankful heart:
For you have been, O Aengus of the birds,
Our giver of good counsel and good luck.’
And with a groan, as if the mortal breath
Could but awaken sadly upon lips
That happier breath had moved, her husband turned
Face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;
But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,
Came to the threshold of the painted house,
Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,
Until the pillared dark began to stir
With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.
She told them of the many-changing ones;
And all that night, and all through the next day
To middle night, they dug into the hill.
At middle night great cats with silver claws,
Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,
Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds
With long white bodies came out of the air
Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.
The Maines’ children dropped their spades, and stood
With quaking joints and terror strucken faces,
Till Maeve called out, ‘These are but common men.
The Maines’ children have not dropped their spades
Because Earth crazy for its broken power
Casts up a show and the winds answer it
With holy shadows.’ Her high heart was glad,
And when the uproar ran along the grass
She followed with light footfall in the midst,
Till it died out where an old thorn tree stood.
Friend of these many years, you too had stood
With equal courage in that whirling rout;
For you, although you’ve not her wandering heart,
Have all that greatness, and not hers alone.
For there is no high story about queens
In any ancient book but tells of you,
And when I’ve heard how they grew old and died
Or fell into unhappiness I’ve said;
‘She will grow old and die and she has wept!’
And when I’d write it out anew, the words,
Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept!
Outrun the measure.
I’d tell of that great queen
Who stood amid a silence by the thorn
Until two lovers came out of the air
With bodies made out of soft fire. The one
About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings
Said, ‘Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks
To Maeve and to Maeve’s household, owing all
In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace.’
Then Maeve, ‘O Aengus, Master of all lovers,
A thousand years ago you held high talk
With the first kings of many pillared Cruachan.
O when will you grow weary.’
They had vanished,
But out of the dark air over her head there came
A murmur of soft words and meeting lips.
BAILE AND AILLINN.
Argument. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but
Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to be
happy in his own land among the dead, told to
each a story of the other’s death, so that their
hearts were broken and they died.
I hardly hear the curlew cry,
Nor the grey rush when wind is high,
Before my thoughts begin to run
On the heir of Ulad, Buan’s son,
Baile who had the honey mouth,
And that mild woman of the south,
Aillinn, who was King Lugaid’s heir.
Their love was never drowned in care
Of this or that thing, nor grew cold
Because their bodies had grown old;
Being forbid to marry on earth
They blossomed to immortal mirth.
About the time when Christ was born,
When the long wars for the White Horn
And the Brown Bull had not yet come,
Young Baile Honey-Mouth, whom some
Called rather Baile Little-Land,
Rode out of Emain with a band
Of harpers and young men, and they
Imagined, as they struck the way
To many pastured Muirthemne,
That all things fell out happily
And there, for all that fools had said,
Baile and Aillinn would be wed.
They found an old man running there,
He had ragged long grass-yellow hair;
He had knees that stuck out of his hose;
He had puddle water in his shoes;
He had half a cloak to keep him dry;
Although he had a squirrel’s eye.
O wandering birds and rushy beds
You put such folly in our heads
With all this crying in the wind
No common love is to our mind,
And our poor Kate or Nan is less
Than any whose unhappiness
Awoke the harp strings long ago.
Yet they that know all things but know
That all life had to give us is
A child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.
Who was it put so great a scorn
In the grey reeds that night and morn
Are trodden and broken by the herds,
And in the light bodies of birds
That north wind tumbles to and fro
And pinches among hail and snow?
That runner said, ‘I am from the south;
I run to Baile Honey-Mouth
To tell him how the girl Aillinn
Rode from the country of her kin
And old and young men rode with her:
For all that country had been astir
If anybody half as fair
Had chosen a husband anywhere
But where it could see her every day.
When they had ridden a little way
An old man caught the horse’s head
With “You must home again and wed
With somebody in your own land.”
A young man cried and kissed her hand
“O lady, wed with one of us;”
And when no face grew piteous
For any gentle thing she spake
She fell and died of the heart-break.’
Because a lover’s heart’s worn out
Being tumbled and blown about
By its own blind imagining,
And will believe that anything
That is bad enough to be true, is true,
Baile’s heart was broken in two;
And he being laid upon green boughs
Was carried to the goodly house
Where the Hound of Ulad sat before
The brazen pillars of his door;
His face bowed low to weep the end
Of the harper’s daughter and her friend;
For although years had passed away
He always wept them on that day,
For on that day they had been betrayed;
And now that Honey-Mouth is laid
Under a cairn of sleepy stone
Before his eyes, he has tears for none,
Although he is carrying stone, but two
For whom the cairn’s but heaped anew.
We hold because our memory is
So full of that thing and of this
That out of sight is out of mind.
But the grey rush under the wind
And the grey bird with crooked bill
Have such long memories that they still
Remember Deirdre and her man,
And when we walk with Kate or Nan
About the windy water side
Our heart can hear the voices chide.
How could we be so soon content
Who know the way that Naoise went?
And they have news of Deirdre’s eyes
Who being lovely was so wise,
Ah wise, my heart knows well how wise.
Now had that old gaunt crafty one,
Gathering his cloak about him, run
Where Aillinn rode with waiting maids
Who amid leafy lights and shades
Dreamed of the hands that would unlace
Their bodices in some dim place
When they had come to the marriage bed;
And harpers pondering with bowed head
A music that had thought enough
Of the ebb of all things to make love
Grow gentle without sorrowings;
And leather-coated men with slings
Who peered about on every side;
And amid leafy light he cried,
‘He is well out of wind and wave,
They have heaped the stones above his grave
In Muirthemne and over it
In changeless Ogham letters writ
Baile that was of Rury’s seed.
But the gods long ago decreed
No waiting maid should ever spread
Baile and Aillinn’s marriage bed,
For they should clip and clip again
Where wild bees hive on the Great Plain.
Therefore it is but little news
That put this hurry in my shoes.’
And hurrying to the south he came
To that high hill the herdsmen name
The Hill Seat of Leighin, because
Some god or king had made the laws
That held the land together there,
In old times among the clouds of the air.
That old man climbed; the day grew dim;
Two swans came flying up to him
Linked by a gold chain each to each
And with low murmuring laughing speech
Alighted on the windy grass.
They knew him: his changed body was
Tall, proud and ruddy, and light wings
Were hovering over the harp strings
That Etain, Midhir’s wife, had wove
In the hid place, being crazed by love.
What shall I call them? fish that swim
Scale rubbing scale where light is dim
By a broad water-lily leaf;
Or mice in the one wheaten sheaf
Forgotten at the threshing place;
Or birds lost in the one clear space
Of morning light in a dim sky;
Or it may be, the eyelids of one eye
Or the door pillars of one house,
Or two sweet blossoming apple boughs
That have one shadow on the ground;
Or the two strings that made one sound
Where that wise harper’s finger ran;
For this young girl and this young man
Have happiness without an end
Because they have made so good a friend.
They know all wonders, for they pass
The towery gates of Gorias
And Findrias and Falias
And long-forgotten Murias,
Among the giant kings whose hoard
Cauldron and spear and stone and sword
Was robbed before Earth gave the wheat;
Wandering from broken street to street
They come where some huge watcher is
And tremble with their love and kiss.
They know undying things, for they
Wander where earth withers away,
Though nothing troubles the great streams
But light from the pale stars, and gleams
From the holy orchards, where there is none
But fruit that is of precious stone,
Or apples of the sun and moon.
What were our praise to them: they eat
Quiet’s wild heart, like daily meat,
Who when night thickens are afloat
On dappled skins in a glass boat
Far out under a windless sky,
While over them birds of Aengus fly,
And over the tiller and the prow
And waving white wings to and fro
Awaken wanderings of light air
To stir their coverlet and their hair.
And poets found, old writers say,
A yew tree where his body lay,
But a wild apple hid the grass
With its sweet blossom where hers was;
And being in good heart, because
A better time had come again
After the deaths of many men,
And that long fighting at the ford,
They wrote on tablets of thin board,
Made of the apple and the yew,
All the love stories that they knew.
Let rush and bird cry out their fill
Of the harper’s daughter if they will,
Beloved, I am not afraid of her
She is not wiser nor lovelier,
And you are more high of heart than she
For all her wanderings over-sea;
But I’d have bird and rush forget
Those other two, for never yet
Has lover lived but longed to wive
Like them that are no more alive.
THE ARROW.
I thought of your beauty and this arrow
Made out of a wild thought is in my marrow.
There’s no man may look upon her, no man,
As when newly grown to be a woman,
Blossom pale, she pulled down the pale blossom
At the moth hour and hid it in her bosom.
This beauty’s kinder yet for a reason
I could weep that the old is out of season.
THE FOLLY OF BEING COMFORTED.
One that is ever kind said yesterday:
‘Your well beloved’s hair has threads of grey
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it’s hard, till trouble is at an end;
And so be patient, be wise and patient, friend.’
But heart, there is no comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again
Because of that great nobleness of hers;
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs
Burns but more clearly; O she had not these ways
When all the wild summer was in her gaze.
O heart, O heart, if she’d but turn her head,
You’d know the folly of being comforted.
THE WITHERING OF THE BOUGHS.
I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds,
‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending and there is no place to my mind.’
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams;
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind,
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.
I know of the leafy paths that the witches take,
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
And of apple islands where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams;
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind,
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.
I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains and sing as they fly,
A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind
With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by;
I know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams;
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind,
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.
ADAM’S CURSE.
We sat together at one summer’s end
That beautiful mild woman your close friend
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said ‘a line will take us hours maybe,
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.’
That woman then
Murmured with her young voice, for whose mild sake
There’s many a one shall find out all heartache
In finding that it’s young and mild and low.
‘There is one thing that all we women know
Although we never heard of it at school,
That we must labour to be beautiful.’
I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’
We sat grown quiet at the name of love.
We saw the last embers of daylight die
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one’s but your ears;
That you were beautiful and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown
As weary hearted as that hollow moon.
THE SONG OF RED HANRAHAN.
The old brown thorn trees break in two high over Cummen Strand
Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand,
Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies;
But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes
Of Cathleen the daughter of Houlihan.
The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea
And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say.
Angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat;
But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet
Of Cathleen the daughter of Houlihan.
The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-na-Bare,
For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air;
Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood;
But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood
Is Cathleen the daughter of Houlihan.
THE OLD MEN ADMIRING THEMSELVES IN THE WATER.
I heard the old, old men say
‘Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.’
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say
‘All that’s beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.’
UNDER THE MOON.
I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde;
Nor Avalon the grass green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while,
Nor Ulad when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind,
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart,
Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon’s light and the sun’s
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long lived ones,
Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier:
Therein are many queens like Branwen, and Guinivere;
And Niam, and Laban, and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn
And the wood-woman whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,
Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,
I hear the harp string praise them or hear their mournful talk.
Because of a story I heard under the thin horn
Of the third moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.
THE PLAYERS ASK FOR A BLESSING ON THE PSALTERIES AND THEMSELVES.
Three Voices together
Hurry to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.
First Voice
Maybe they linger by the way;
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters by the wall;
He dreads the weight of mortal hours.
Second Voice
O no, O no, they hurry down
Like plovers that have heard the call.
Third Voice
O, kinsmen of the Three in One,
O, kinsmen bless the hands that play.
The notes they waken shall live on
When all this heavy history’s done.
Our hands, our hands must ebb away.
Three Voices together
The proud and careless notes live on
But bless our hands that ebb away.
THE RIDER FROM THE NORTH.
From the play of The Country of the Young.
There’s many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
Boughs have their fruit and blossom,
At all times of the year,
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood,
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what is the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world’s bane.’
When their hearts are so high,
That they would come to blows,
They unhook their heavy swords
From golden and silver boughs;
But all that are killed in battle
Awaken to life again;
It is lucky that their story
Is not known among men.
For O the strong farmers
That would let the spade lie,
For their hearts would be like a cup
That somebody had drunk dry.
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what is the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world’s bane.’
Michael will unhook his trumpet
From a bough overhead,
And blow a little noise
When the supper has been spread.
Gabriel will come from the water
With a fish tail, and talk
Of wonders that have happened
On wet roads where men walk,
And lift up an old horn
Of hammered silver, and drink
Till he has fallen asleep
Upon the starry brink.
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what is the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland,
That is the world’s bane.’
I made some of these poems walking about among the Seven Woods, before the big wind of nineteen hundred and three blew down so many trees, & troubled the wild creatures, & changed the look of things; and I thought out there a good part of the play which follows. The first shape of it came to me in a dream, but it changed much in the making, foreshadowing, it may be, a change that may bring a less dream-burdened will into my verses. I never re-wrote anything so many times; for at first I could not make these wills that stream into mere life poetical. But now I hope to do easily much more of the kind, and that our new Irish players will find the buskin and the sock.
ON BAILE’S STRAND: A PLAY.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY.
CUCHULLAIN, the King of Muirthemne.
CONCOBAR, the High King of Ullad.
DAIRE, a King.
FINTAIN, a blind man.
BARACH, a fool.
A Young Man.
Young Kings and Old Kings.
SCENE: A great hall by the sea close to Dundalgan. There are two great chairs on either side of the hall, each raised a little from the ground, and on the back of the one chair is carved and painted a woman with a fish’s tail, and on the back of the other a hound. There are smaller chairs and benches raised in tiers round the walls. There is a great ale vat at one side near a small door, & a large door at the back through which one can see the sea. Barach, a tall thin man with long ragged hair, dressed in skins, comes in at the side door. He is leading Fintain, a fat blind man, who is somewhat older.
BARACH.
I will shut the door, for this wind out of the sea gets into my bones, and if I leave but an inch for the wind there is one like a flake of sea-frost that might come into the house.
FINTAIN.
What is his name, fool?
BARACH.
It’s a woman from among the Riders of the Sidhe. It’s Boann herself from the river. She has left the Dagda’s bed, and gone through the salt of the sea & up here to the strand of Baile, and all for love of me. Let her keep her husband’s bed, for she’ll have none of me. Nobody knows how lecherous these goddesses are. I see her in every kind of shape but oftener than not she’s in the wind and cries ‘give a kiss and put your arms about me.’ But no, she’ll have no more of me. Yesterday when I put out my lips to kiss her, there was nothing there but the wind. She’s bad, Fintain. O, she’s bad. I had better shut the big door too. (He is going towards the big door but turns hearing Fintain’s voice.)
FINTAIN.
(Who has been feeling about with his stick.) What’s this and this?
BARACH.
They are chairs.
FINTAIN.
And this?
BARACH.
Why, that’s a bench.
FINTAIN.
And this?
BARACH.
A big chair.
FINTAIN.
(Feeling the back of the chair.) There is a sea-woman carved upon it.
BARACH.
And there is another big chair on the other side of the hall.
FINTAIN.
Lead me to it. (He mutters while the fool is leading him.) That is what the High King Concobar has on his shield. The High King will be coming. They have brought out his chair. (He begins feeling the back of the other chair.) And there is a dog’s head on this. They have brought out our master’s chair. Now I know what the horse-boys were talking about. We must not stay here. The Kings are going to meet here. Now that Concobar and our master, that is his chief man, have put down all the enemies of Ullad, they are going to build up Emain again. They are going to talk over their plans for building it. Were you ever in Concobar’s town before it was burnt? O, he is a great King, for though Emain was burnt down, every war had made him richer. He has gold and silver dishes, and chessboards and candle-sticks made of precious stones. Fool, have they taken the top from the ale vat?
BARACH.
They have.
FINTAIN.
Then bring me a horn of ale quickly, for the Kings will be here in a minute. Now I can listen. Tell me what you saw this morning?
BARACH.
About the young man and the fighting?
FINTAIN.
Yes.
BARACH.
And after that we can go and eat the fowl, for I am hungry.
FINTAIN.
Time enough, time enough. You’re in as great a hurry as when you brought me to Aine’s Seat, where the mad dogs gather when the moon’s at the full. Go on with your story.
BARACH.
I was creeping under a ditch, with the fowl in my leather bag, keeping to the shore where the farmer could not see me, when I came upon a ship drawn up upon the sands, a great red ship with a woman’s head upon it.
FINTAIN.
A ship out of Aoife’s country. They have all a woman’s head on the bow.
BARACH.
There was a young man with a pale face and red hair standing beside it. Some of our people came up whose turn it was to guard the shore. I heard them ask the young man his name. He said he was under bonds not to tell it. Then words came between them, and they fought, & the young man killed half of them, and the others ran away.
FINTAIN.
It matters nothing to us, but he has come at last.
BARACH.
Who has come?
FINTAIN.
I know who that young man is. There is not another like him in the world. I saw him when I had my eyesight.
BARACH.
You saw him?
FINTAIN.
I used to be in Aoife’s country when I had my eyesight.
BARACH.
That was before you went on shipboard and were blinded for putting a curse on the wind?
FINTAIN.
Queen Aoife had a son that was red haired and pale faced like herself, and everyone said that he would kill Cuchullain some day, but I would not have that spoken of.
BARACH.
Nobody could do that. Who was his father?
FINTAIN.
Nobody but Aoife knew that, not even he himself.
BARACH.
Not even he himself! Was Aoife a goddess & lecherous?
FINTAIN.
I overheard her telling that she never had but one lover, and that he was the only man who overcame her in battle. There were some who thought him one of the Riders of the Sidhe, because the child was great of limb and strong beyond others. The child was begotten over the mountains; but come nearer and I will tell you something.
BARACH.
You have thought something?
FINTAIN.
When I hear the young girls talking about the colour of Cuchullain’s eyes, & how they have seven colours, I have thought about it. That young man has Aoife’s face and hair, but he has Cuchullain’s eyes.
BARACH.
How can he have Cuchullain’s eyes?
FINTAIN.
He is Cuchullain’s son.
BARACH.
And his mother has sent him hither to fight his father.
FINTAIN.
It is all quite plain. Cuchullain went into Aoife’s country when he was a young man that he might learn skill in arms, and there he became Aoife’s lover.
BARACH.
And now she hates him because he went away, and has sent the son to kill the father. I knew she was a goddess.
FINTAIN.
And she never told him who his father was, that he might do it. I have thought it all out, fool. I know a great many things because I listen when nobody is noticing and I keep my wits awake. What ails you now?
BARACH.
I have remembered that I am hungry.
FINTAIN.
Well, forget it again, and I will tell you about Aoife’s country. It is full of wonders. There are a great many Queens there who can change themselves into wolves and into swine and into white hares, and when they are in their own shapes they are stronger than almost any man; and there are young men there who have cat’s eyes and if a bird chirrup or a mouse squeak they cannot keep them shut even though it is bedtime and they sleepy; and listen, for this is a great wonder, a very great wonder, there is a long narrow bridge, and when anybody goes to cross it, that the Queens do not like, it flies up as this bench would if you were to sit on the end of it. Everybody who goes there to learn skill in arms has to cross it. It was in that country too that Cuchullain got his spear made out of dragon bones. There were two dragons fighting in the foam of the sea, & their grandam was the moon, and six Queens came along the shore.
BARACH.
I won’t listen to your story.
FINTAIN.
It is a very wonderful story. Wait till you hear what the six Queens did. Their right hands were all made of silver.
BARACH.
No, I will have my dinner first. You have eaten the fowl I left in front of the fire. The last time you sent me to steal something you made me forget all about it till you had eaten it up.
FINTAIN.
No, there is plenty for us both.
BARACH.
Come with me where it is.
FINTAIN.
(Who is being led towards the door at the back by Barach.) O, it is all right, it is in a safe place.
BARACH.
It is a fine fowl. It was the biggest in the yard.
FINTAIN.
It had a good smell, but I hope that the wild dogs have not smelt it. (Voices are heard outside the door at the side.) Here is our master. Let us stay and talk with him. Perhaps Cuchullain will give you a new cap with a feather. He told me that he would give you a new cap with a feather, a feather with an eye that looks at you, a peacock’s feather.
BARACH.
No, no. (He begins pulling Fintain towards the door.)
FINTAIN.
If you do not get it now, you may never get it, for the young man may kill him.
BARACH.
No, no, I am hungry. What a head you have, blind man. Who but you would have remembered that the hen-wife slept for a little at noon every day.
FINTAIN.
(Who is being led along very slowly and unwillingly.)
Yes, I have a good head. The fowl should be done just right, but one never knows when a wild dog may come out of the woods.
(They go out through the big door at the back. As they go out Cuchullain & certain young Kings come in at the side door. Cuchullain though still young is a good deal older than the others. They are all very gaily dressed, and have their hair fastened with balls of gold. The young men crowd about Cuchullain with wondering attention.)
FIRST YOUNG KING.
You have hurled that stone beyond our utmost mark
Time after time, but yet you are not weary.
SECOND YOUNG KING.
He has slept on the bare ground of Fuad’s Hill
This week past, waiting for the bulls and the deer.
CUCHULLAIN.
Well, why should I be weary?
FIRST YOUNG KING.
It is certain
His father was the god who wheels the sun,
And not king Sualtam.
THIRD YOUNG KING.
(To a young King who is beside him.) He came in the dawn,
And folded Dectara in a sudden fire.
FOURTH YOUNG KING.
And yet the mother’s half might well grow weary,
And it new come from labours over sea.
THIRD YOUNG KING.
He has been on islands walled about with silver,
And fought with giants.
(They gather about the ale vat and begin to drink.)
CUCHULLAIN.
Who was it that went out?
THIRD YOUNG KING.
As we came in?
CUCHULLAIN.
Yes.
THIRD YOUNG KING.
Barach and blind Fintain.
CUCHULLAIN.
They always flock together; the blind man
Has need of the fool’s eyesight and strong body,
While the poor fool has need of the other’s wit,
And night and day is up to his ears in mischief
That the blind man imagines. There’s no hen-yard
But clucks and cackles when he passes by
As if he’d been a fox. If I’d that ball
That’s in your hair and the big stone again,
I’d keep them tossing, though the one is heavy
And the other light in the hand. A trick I learnt
When I was learning arms in Aoife’s country.
FIRST YOUNG KING.
What kind of woman was that Aoife?
CUCHULLAIN.
Comely.
FIRST YOUNG KING.
But I have heard that she was never married,
And yet that’s natural, for I have never known
A fighting woman, but made her favours cheap,
Or mocked at love till she grew sandy dry.
CUCHULLAIN.
What manner of woman do you like the best?
A gentle or a fierce.
FIRST YOUNG KING.
A gentle surely.
CUCHULLAIN.
I think that a fierce woman’s better, a woman
That breaks away when you have thought her won,
For I’d be fed and hungry at one time.
I think that all deep passion is but a kiss
In the mid battle, and a difficult peace
’Twixt oil and water, candles and dark night,
Hill-side and hollow, the hot-footed sun,
And the cold sliding slippery-footed moon,
A brief forgiveness between opposites
That have been hatreds for three times the age
Of his long ’stablished ground. Here’s Concobar;
So I’ll be done, but keep beside me still,
For while he talks of hammered bronze and asks
What wood is best for building, we can talk
Of a fierce woman.
(Concobar, a man much older than Cuchullain, has come in through the great door at the back. He has many Kings about him. One of these Kings, Daire, a stout old man, is somewhat drunk.)
CONCOBAR.
(To one of those about him.) Has the ship gone yet? We have need of more bronze workers and that ship I sent to Africa for gold is late.
