If it be not that hearing messages
From lasting watchers that outlive the moon
At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.
_Dectora._ And did those watchers bid you take me captive?
_Forgael._ Both you and I are taken in the net.
It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
And blew you hither; and their mouths have promised
I shall have love in their immortal fashion.
They gave me that old harp of the nine spells
That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
That none might take you from me.
_Dectora_ [_first trembling back from the mast where the
harp is, and then laughing_]. For a moment
Your raving of a message and a harp
More mighty than the stars half troubled me.
But all that’s raving. Who is there can compel
The daughter and grand-daughter of a king
To be his bedfellow?
_Forgael._ Until your lips
Have called me their beloved, I’ll not kiss them.
_Dectora._ My husband and my king died at my feet,
And yet you talk of love.
_Forgael._ The movement of time
Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
One moment has no might upon the moment
That follows after.
_Dectora._ I understand you now.
You have a Druid craft of wicked sound.
Wrung from the cold women of the sea—
A magic that can call a demon up,
Until my body give you kiss for kiss.
_Forgael._ Your soul shall give the kiss.
_Dectora._ I am not afraid,
While there’s a rope to run into a noose
Or wave to drown. But I have done with words,
And I would have you look into my face
And know that it is fearless.
_Forgael._ Do what you will,
For neither I nor you can break a mesh
Of the great golden net that is about us.
_Dectora._ There’s nothing in the world that’s worth a fear.
[_She passes FORGAEL and stands for a moment looking
into his face._]
I have good reason for that thought.
[_She runs suddenly on to the raised part of the poop._]
And now
I can put fear away as a queen should.
[_She mounts on the bulwark and turns towards FORGAEL._]
Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face
You did not see my purpose. I shall have gone
Before a hand can touch me.
_Forgael_ [_folding his arms_]. My hands are still;
The ever-living hold us. Do what you will,
You cannot leap out of the golden net.
_First Sailor._ There is no need for you to drown. Give us our pardon
and we will bring you home on your own ship, and make an end of this
man that is leading us to death.
_Dectora._ I promise it.
_Aibric._ I am on his side.
I’d strike a blow for him to give him time
To cast his dreams away.
_First Sailor._ He has put a sudden darkness over the moon.
_Dectora._ Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn
To him that strikes him first.
_First Sailor._ I will strike him first. No! for that music of his
might put a beast’s head upon my shoulders, or it may be two heads and
they devouring one another.
_Dectora._ I’ll give a golden galley full of fruit
That has the heady flavour of new wine
To him that wounds him to the death.
_First Sailor._ I’ll strike at him. His spells, when he dies, will die
with him and vanish away.
_Second Sailor._ I’ll strike at him.
_The Others._ And I! And I! And I!
[_FORGAEL plays upon the harp._]
_First Sailor_ [_falling into a dream_]. It is what they are saying,
there is some person dead in the other ship; we have to go and wake
him. They did not say what way he came to his end, but it was sudden.
_Second Sailor._ You are right, you are right. We have to go to that
wake.
_Dectora._ He has flung a Druid spell upon the air,
And set you dreaming.
_Second Sailor._ What way can we raise a keen, not knowing what name to
call him by?
_First Sailor._ Come on to his ship. His name will come to mind in a
moment. All I know is he died a thousand years ago, and was never yet
waked.
_Second Sailor._ How can we wake him having no ale?
_First Sailor._ I saw a skin of ale aboard her—a pigskin of brown ale.
_Third Sailor._ Come to the ale, a pigskin of brown ale, a goatskin of
yellow.
_First Sailor_ [_singing_]. Brown ale and yellow; yellow and brown ale;
a goatskin of yellow.
_All_ [_singing_]. Brown ale and yellow; yellow and brown ale!
[Sailors _go out_.
_Dectora._ Protect me now, gods, that my people swear by!
[_AIBRIC has risen from the ground where he had fallen.
He has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream._
_Aibric._ Where is my sword that fell out of my hand
When I first heard the news? Ah, there it is!
[_He goes dreamily towards the sword, but DECTORA runs
at it and takes it up before he can reach it._
_Aibric_ [_sleepily_]. Queen, give it me.
_Dectora._ No, I have need of it.
_Aibric._ Why do you need a sword? But you may keep it,
Now that he’s dead I have no need of it,
For everything is gone.
_A Sailor_ [_calling from the other ship_]. Come hither, Aibric,
And tell me who it is that we are waking.
_Aibric_ [_half to DECTORA, half to himself_].
What name had that dead king? Arthur of Britain?
No, no—not Arthur. I remember now.
It was golden-armed Iollan, and he died
Brokenhearted, having lost his queen
Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale,
For he was killed. O! O! O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan has been killed.
[_He goes out. While he has been speaking, and through
part of what follows, one hears the singing of the
SAILORS from the other ship. DECTORA stands with the
sword lifted in front of FORGAEL. He changes the tune._
_Dectora._ I will end all your magic on the instant.
[_Her voice becomes dreamy, and she lowers the sword slowly, and
finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair. She takes off her crown
and lays it upon the deck._
The sword is to lie beside him in the grave.
It was in all his battles. I will spread my hair,
And wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,
For I have heard that he was proud and laughing,
Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,
And that he died a thousand years ago.
O! O! O!
[_FORGAEL changes the tune._]
But no, that is not it.
I knew him well, and while I heard him laughing
They killed him at my feet. O! O! O! O!
For golden-armed Iollan that I loved.
But what is it that made me say I loved him?
It was that harper put it in my thoughts,
But it is true. Why did they run upon him,
And beat the golden helmet with their swords?
_Forgael._ Do you not know me, lady? I am he
That you are weeping for.
_Dectora._ No, for he is dead.
O! O! O! for golden-armed Iollan.
_Forgael._ It was so given out, but I will prove
That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy
Have buried nothing but my golden arms.
Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
And you will recollect my face and voice,
For you have listened to me playing it
These thousand years.
[_He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp
slips from his hands, and remains leaning against the
bulwarks behind him._
What are the birds at there?
Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
What are you calling out above the mast?
If railing and reproach and mockery
Because I have awakened her to love
By magic strings, I’ll make this answer to it:
Being driven on by voices and by dreams
That were clear messages from the ever-living,
I have done right. What could I but obey?
And yet you make a clamour of reproach.
_Dectora_ [_laughing_]. Why, it’s a wonder out of reckoning
That I should keen him from the full of the moon
To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.
_Forgael._ How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
You know the councils of the ever-living,
And all the tossing of your wings is joy,
And all that murmuring’s but a marriage song;
But if it be reproach, I answer this:
There is not one among you that made love
By any other means. You call it passion,
Consideration, generosity;
But it was all deceit, and flattery
To win a woman in her own despite,
For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
And if you say that she came willingly—
_Dectora._ Why do you turn away and hide your face,
That I would look upon for ever?
_Forgael._ My grief.
_Dectora._ Have I not loved you for a thousand years?
_Forgael._ I never have been golden-armed Iollan.
_Dectora._ I do not understand. I know your face
Better than my own hands.
_Forgael._ I have deceived you
Out of all reckoning.
_Dectora._ Is it not true
That you were born a thousand years ago,
In islands where the children of Aengus wind
In happy dances under a windy moon,
And that you’ll bring me there?
_Forgael._ I have deceived you;
I have deceived you utterly.
_Dectora._ How can that be?
Is it that though your eyes are full of love
Some other woman has a claim on you,
And I’ve but half?
_Forgael._ Oh, no!
_Dectora._ And if there is,
If there be half a hundred more, what matter?
I’ll never give another thought to it;
No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.
Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted,
Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;
And that is why their lovers are afraid
To tell them a plain story.
_Forgael._ That’s not the story;
But I have done so great a wrong against you,
There is no measure that it would not burst.
I will confess it all.
_Dectora._ What do I care,
Now that my body has begun to dream,
And you have grown to be a burning coal
In the imagination and intellect?
If something that’s most fabulous were true—
If you had taken me by magic spells,
And killed a lover or husband at my feet—
I would not let you speak, for I would know
That it was yesterday and not to-day
I loved him; I would cover up my ears,
As I am doing now. [_A pause._] Why do you weep?
_Forgael._ I weep because I’ve nothing for your eyes
But desolate waters and a battered ship.
_Dectora._ O, why do you not lift your eyes to mine?
_Forgael._ I weep—I weep because bare night’s above,
And not a roof of ivory and gold.
_Dectora._ I would grow jealous of the ivory roof,
And strike the golden pillars with my hands.
I would that there was nothing in the world
But my beloved—that night and day had perished,
And all that is and all that is to be,
All that is not the meeting of our lips.
_Forgael._ Why do you turn your eyes upon bare night?
Am I to fear the waves, or is the moon
My enemy?
_Dectora._ I looked upon the moon,
Longing to knead and pull it into shape
That I might lay it on your head as a crown.
But now it is your thoughts that wander away,
For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
How great a wrong it is to let one’s thought
Wander a moment when one is in love?
[_He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out
over the sea, shading his eyes._
_Dectora._ Why are you looking at the sea?
_Forgael._ Look there!
There where the cloud creeps up upon the moon.
_Dectora._ What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds
That fly into the west?
[_The scene darkens, but there is a ray of light upon
the figures._
_Forgael._ But listen, listen!
_Dectora._ What is there but the crying of the birds?
_Forgael._ If you’ll but listen closely to that crying
You’ll hear them calling out to one another
With human voices.
_Dectora._ Clouds have hid the moon.
The birds cry out, what can I do but tremble?
_Forgael._ They have been circling over our heads in the air,
But now that they have taken to the road
We have to follow, for they are our pilots;
They’re crying out. Can you not hear their cry—
‘There is a country at the end of the world
Where no child’s born but to outlive the moon.’
[_The _Sailors_ come in with AIBRIC. They carry
torches._]
_Aibric._ We have lit upon a treasure that’s so great
Imagination cannot reckon it.
The hold is full—boxes of precious spice,
Ivory images with amethyst eyes,
Dragons with eyes of ruby. The whole ship
Flashes as if it were a net of herrings.
Let us return to our own country, Forgael,
And spend it there. Have you not found this queen?
What more have you to look for on the seas?
_Forgael._ I cannot—I am going on to the end.
As for this woman, I think she is coming with me.
_Aibric._ Speak to him, lady, and bid him turn the ship.
He knows that he is taking you to death;
He cannot contradict me.
_Dectora._ Is that true?
_Forgael._ I do not know for certain.
_Dectora._ Carry me
To some sure country, some familiar place.
Have we not everything that life can give
In having one another?
_Forgael._ How could I rest
If I refused the messengers and pilots
With all those sights and all that crying out?
_Dectora._ I am a woman, I die at every breath.
_Aibric_ [_to the _Sailors__]. To the other ship,
for there’s no help in words,
And I will follow you and cut the rope
When I have said farewell to this man here,
For neither I nor any living man
Will look upon his face again.
[__Sailors_ go out, leaving one torch perhaps in a
torch-holder on the bulwark._
_Forgael_ [_to DECTORA_]. Go with him,
For he will shelter you and bring you home.
_Aibric_ [_taking FORGAEL’S hand_]. I’ll do it for his sake.
_Dectora._ No. Take this sword
And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.
_Aibric._ Farewell! Farewell!
[_He goes out. The light grows stronger._
_Dectora._ The sword is in the rope—
The rope’s in two—it falls into the sea,
It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away,
And I am left alone with my beloved,
Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.
The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
Shall be alone for ever. We two—this crown—
I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
O flower of the branch, O bird among the leaves,
O silver fish that my two hands have taken
Out of the running stream, O morning star,
Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
Upon the misty border of the wood,
Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
For we will gaze upon this world no longer.
[_The harp begins to burn as with fire._]
_Forgael_ [_gathering DECTORA’S hair about him_].
Beloved, having dragged the net about us,
And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;
And that old harp awakens of itself
To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,
That have had dreams for father, live in us.
APPENDIX II.
A DIFFERENT VERSION OF DEIRDRE’S ENTRANCE.
After the first performance of this play in the autumn of 1906, I
rewrote the play up to the opening of the scene where Naisi and Deirdre
play chess. The new version was played in the spring of 1907, and after
that I rewrote from the entrance of Deirdre to her questioning the
musicians, but felt, though despairing of setting it right, that it was
still mere bones, mere dramatic logic. The principal difficulty with
the form of dramatic structure I have adopted is that, unlike the loose
Elizabethan form, it continually forces one by its rigour of logic away
from one’s capacities, experiences, and desires, until, if one have
not patience to wait for the mood, or to rewrite again and again till
it comes, there is rhetoric and logic and dry circumstance where there
should be life. After the version printed in the text of this book had
gone to press, Mrs. Patrick Campbell came to our Abbey Theatre and,
liking what she saw there, offered to come and play Deirdre among us
next November, and this so stirred my imagination that the scene came
right in a moment. It needs some changes in the stage directions at the
beginning of the play. There is no longer need for loaf and flagon, but
the women at the braziers should when the curtain rises be arraying
themselves—the one holding a mirror for the other perhaps. The play
then goes on unchanged till the entrance of Deirdre, when the following
scene is substituted for that on pages 139-140. (Bodb is pronounced
Bove.)
_DEIRDRE, NAISI and FERGUS enter. DEIRDRE is carrying
a little embroidered bag. She goes over towards the
women._
DEIRDRE.
Silence your music, though I thank you for it;
But the wind’s blown upon my hair, and I
Must set the jewels on my neck and head
For one that’s coming.
NAISI.
Your colour has all gone
As ’twere with fear, and there’s no cause for that.
DEIRDRE.
These women have the raddle that they use
To make them brave and confident, although
Dread, toil or cold may chill the blood o’ their cheeks.
You’ll help me, women. It is my husband’s will
I show my trust in one that may be here
Before the mind can call the colour up.
My husband took these rubies from a king
Of Surracha that was so murderous
He seemed all glittering dragon. Now wearing them
Myself wars on myself, for I myself—
That do my husband’s will, yet fear to do it—
Grow dragonish to myself.
[_The _Women_ have gathered about her. NAISI has
stood looking at her, but FERGUS leads him to the
chess-table._
FERGUS.
We’ll play at chess
Till the king come. It is but natural
That she should fear him, for her house has been
The hole of the badger and the den of the fox.
NAISI.
If I were childish and had faith in omens
I’d rather not have lit on that old chessboard
At my homecoming.
FERGUS.
There’s a tale about it,—
It has been lying there these many years,—
Some wild old sorrowful tale.
NAISI.
It is the board
Where Lugaidh Redstripe and that wife of his
Who had a seamew’s body half the year
Played at the chess upon the night they died.
FERGUS.
I can remember now: a tale of treachery,
A broken promise and a journey’s end.
But it were best forgot.
[_DEIRDRE has been standing with the women about her.
They have been helping her to put on her jewels and to
put the pigment on her cheeks and arrange her hair. She
has gradually grown attentive to what FERGUS is saying._
NAISI.
If the tale’s true,—
When it was plain that they had been betrayed,
They moved the men and waited for the end
As it were bedtime, and had so quiet minds
They hardly winked their eyes when the sword flashed.
FERGUS.
She never could have played so, being a woman,
If she had not the cold sea’s blood in her.
DEIRDRE.
I have heard the ever-living warn mankind
By changing clouds and casual accidents
Or what seem so.
NAISI.
Stood th’ ever-living there,
Old Lir and Aengus from his glassy tower,
And that hill-haunting Bodb to warn us hence,—
Our honour is so knitted up with staying,
King Conchubar’s word and Fergus’ word being pledged,
I’d brave them out and stay.
DEIRDRE.
No welcomer,
And a bare house upon the journey’s end!
Is that the way a king that means no wrong
Honours a guest?
FERGUS.
He is but making ready
A welcome in his house, arranging where
The moorhen and the mallard go, and where
The speckled heath-cock in a golden dish.
DEIRDRE.
Has he no messenger—
[Etc., etc.]
The play then goes on unchanged, except that on page 151, instead of
the short speech of Deirdre, beginning ‘Safety and peace,’ one should
read
‘Safety and peace!
I had them when a child, but from that hour
I have found life obscure and violent,
And think that I shall find it so for ever.’
APPENDIX III.
THE LEGENDARY AND MYTHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF THE PLAYS.
The greater number of the stories I have used, and persons I have
spoken of, are in Lady Gregory’s _Gods and Fighting Men_ and _Cuchulain
of Muirthemne_. If my small Dublin audience for poetical drama grows to
any size, whether now or at some future time, I shall owe it to these
two books, masterpieces of prose, which can but make the old stories
as familiar to Irishmen at any rate as are the stories of Arthur and
his Knights to all readers of books. I cannot believe that it is from
friendship that I weigh these books with Malory, and feel no discontent
at the tally, or that it is the wish to make the substantial origin
of my own art familiar, that would make me give them before all other
books to young men and girls in Ireland. I wrote for the most part
before they were written, but all, or all but all, is there. I took the
Aengus and Edain of _The Shadowy Waters_ from poor translations of the
various Aengus stories, which, new translated by Lady Gregory, make up
so much of what is most beautiful in both her books. They had, however,
so completely become a part of my own thought that in 1897, when I was
still working on an early version of _The Shadowy Waters_, I saw one
night with my bodily eyes, as it seemed, two beautiful persons, who
would, I believe, have answered to their names. The plot of the play
itself has, however, no definite old story for its foundation, but was
woven to a very great extent out of certain visionary experiences.
The foundations of _Deirdre_ and of _On Baile’s Strand_ are stories
called respectively the ‘Fate of the Sons of Usnach’ and ‘The Son of
Aoife’ in _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_.
_The King’s Threshold_ is, however, founded upon a middle-Irish story
of the demands of the poets at the Court of King Guaire of Gort, but I
have twisted it about and revised its moral that the poet might have
the best of it. It owes something to a play on the same subject by my
old friend Edwin Ellis, who heard the story from me and wrote of it
long ago.
APPENDIX IV.
THE DATES AND PLACES OF PERFORMANCE OF PLAYS.
_The King’s Threshold_ was first played October 7th, 1903, in the
Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theatre Society, and
with the following cast:
Seanchan FRANK FAY
King Guaire P. KELLY
Lord High Chamberlain SEUMUS O’SULLIVAN
Soldier WILLIAM CONROY
Monk S. SHERIDAN-NEILL
Mayor WILLIAM FAY
A Cripple PATRICK COLUM
A Court Lady HONOR LAVELLE
Another Court Lady DORA MELVILLE
A Princess SARA ALGOOD
Another Princess DORA GUNNING
Fedelm MAIRE NI SHIUBHLAIGH
A Servant P. MACSHIUBHLAIGH
Another Servant P. JOSEPHS
A Pupil G. ROBERTS
Another Pupil CARTIA MACCORMAC
It has been revised a good many times since then, and although the play
has not been changed in the radical structure, the parts of the Mayor,
Servant, and Cripple are altogether new, and the rest is altered here
and there. It was written when our Society was beginning its fight for
the recognition of pure art in a community of which one half is buried
in the practical affairs of life, and the other half in politics and a
propagandist patriotism.
_On Baile’s Strand_ was first played, in a version considerably
different from the present, on December 27th, 1904, at the opening of
the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and with the following cast:
Cuchulain FRANK FAY
Conchubar GEORGE ROBERTS
Daire (_an old King not now in the play_) G. MACDONALD
The Blind Man SEUMUS O’SULLIVAN
The Fool WILLIAM FAY
The Young Man P. MACSHIUBHLAIGH
The old and young kings were played by the following: R. Nash, A.
Power, U. Wright, E. Keegan, Emma Vernon, Dora Gunning, Sara Algood. It
was necessary to put women into men’s parts owing to the smallness of
our company at that time.
The play was revived by the National Theatre Society, Ltd., in a
somewhat altered version at Oxford, Cambridge, and London a few months
later. I then entirely rewrote it up to the entrance of the Young
Man, and changed it a good deal from that on to the end, and this new
version was played at the Abbey Theatre for the first time in April,
1906.
The first version of _The Shadowy Waters_ was first performed on
January 14th, 1904, in the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, with the following
players in the principal parts:
Forgael FRANK FAY
Aibric SEUMUS O’SULLIVAN
Dectora MAIRE NI SHIUBHLAIGH
Its production was an accident, for in the first instance I had given
it to the company that they might have some practice in the speaking of
my sort of blank verse until I had a better play finished. It played
badly enough from the point of view of any ordinary playgoer, but
pleased many of my friends; and as I had been in America when it was
played, I got it played again privately, and gave it to Miss Farr for
a Theosophical Convention, that I might discover how to make a better
play of it. I then completely rewrote it in the form that it has in the
text of this book, but this version had once again to be condensed
and altered for its production in Dublin, 1906. Mr. Sinclair took the
part of Aibric, and Miss Darragh that of Dectora, while Mr. Frank Fay
was Forgael as before. It owed a considerable portion of what success
it met with both in its new and old form to a successful colour scheme
and to dreamy movements and intonations on the part of the players. The
scenery for its performance in 1906 was designed by Mr. Robert Gregory.
_Deirdre_ was first played at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on November
27th, 1906, with Miss Darragh as Deirdre, Mr. Frank Fay as Naisi, Mr.
Sinclair as Fergus, Mr. Kerrigan as Conchubar, and Miss Sara Algood,
Miss McNeill, and Miss O’Dempsey as the Musicians. The scenery was by
Mr. Robert Gregory.
_Printed by A. H. BULLEN, at The Shakespeare Head Press,
Stratford-on-Avon._
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.