Chapter 2

(She pulls the curtains of the bed so as to hide the sick man's face, that the actor may change his mask unseen. She goes to one side of platform and movesher hand as though putting logs on a fire and stirring it into a blaze. While she makes these movements the Musicians play, marking the movements with drum and flute perhaps.Having finished she stands beside the imaginary fire at a distance from Cuchulain & Eithne Inguba.)

Having finished she stands beside the imaginary fire at a distance from Cuchulain & Eithne Inguba.)

Call on Cuchulain now.

Can you not hear my voice.

Bend over him.Call out dear secrets till you have touched his heartIf he lies there; and if he is not thereTill you have made him jealous.

Cuchulain, listen.

You speak too timidly; to be afraidBecause his wife is but three paces offWhen there is so great a need were but to proveThe man that chose you made but a poor choice.We're but two women struggling with the sea.

O my beloved pardon me, that IHave been ashamed and you in so great need.I have never sent a message or called out,Scarce had a longing for your companyBut you have known and come; and if indeedYou are lying there stretch out your arms and speak;Open your mouth and speak for to this hourMy company has made you talkative.Why do you mope, and what has closed your ears.Our passion had not chilled when we were partedOn the pale shore under the breaking dawn.He will not hear me: or his ears are closedAnd no sound reaches him.

Then kiss that imageThe pressure of your mouth upon his mouthMay reach him where he is.

(starting back) It is no man.I felt some evil thing that dried my heartWhen my lips touched it.

No, his body stirs;The pressure of your mouth has called him home;He has thrown the changeling out.

(going further off) Look at that armThat arm is withered to the very socket.

(going up to the bed)What do you come for and from where?

I have comeFrom Mananan's court upon a bridleless horse.

What one among the Sidhe has dared to lieUpon Cuchulain's bed and take his image?

I am named Bricriu—not the man—that Bricriu,Maker of discord among gods and men,Called Bricriu of the Sidhe.

Come for what purpose?

(sitting up and showing its distorted face. Eithne Inguba goes out)

I show my face and everything he lovesMust fly away.

You people of the windAre full of lying speech and mockery.I have not fled your face.

You are not loved.

And therefore have no dread to meet your eyesAnd to demand him of you.

For that I have come.You have but to pay the price and he is free.

Do the Sidhe bargain?

When they set free a captiveThey take in ransom a less valued thing.The fisher when some knowledgeable manRestores to him his wife, or son, or daughter,Knows he must lose a boat or net, or it may beThe cow that gives his children milk; and someHave offered their own lives. I do not askYour life, or any valuable thing;You spoke but now of the mere chance that some dayYou'd sit together by the hearth again;Renounce that chance, that miserable hour,And he shall live again.

I do not questionBut you have brought ill luck on all he lovesAnd now, because I am thrown beyond your powerUnless your words are lies, you come to bargain.

You loved your power when but newly marriedAnd I love mine although I am old and withered;You have but to put yourself into that powerAnd he shall live again.

No, never, never.

You dare not be accursed yet he has dared.

I have but two joyous thoughts, two things I prize,A hope, a memory, and now you claim that hope.

He'll never sit beside you at the hearthOr make old bones, but die of wounds and toilOn some far shore or mountain, a strange womanBeside his mattress.

You ask for my one hopeThat you may bring your curse on all about him.

You've watched his loves and you have not been jealousKnowing that he would tire, but do those tireThat love the Sidhe?

What dancer of the SidheWhat creature of the reeling moon has pursued him?

I have but to touch your eyes and give them sight;But stand at my left side.

(He touches her eyes with his left hand, the right being withered)

My husband there.

But out of reach—I have dissolved the darkThat hid him from your eyes but not that otherThat's hidden you from his.

Husband, husband!

Be silent, he is but a phantom nowAnd he can neither touch, nor hear, nor see;The longing and the cries have drawn him hither.He heard no sound, heard no articulate sound;They could but banish rest, and make him dream,And in that dream, as do all dreaming shadesBefore they are accustomed to their freedom,He has taken his familiar form, and yetHe crouches there not knowing where he isOr at whose side he is crouched.

(a Woman of the Sidhe has entered and stands a little inside the door)

Who is this woman?

She has hurried from the Country-Under-WaveAnd dreamed herself into that shape that heMay glitter in her basket; for the SidheAre fishers also and they fish for menWith dreams upon the hook.

And so that womanHas hid herself in this disguise and madeHerself into a lie.

A dream is body;The dead move ever towards a dreamless youthAnd when they dream no more return no more;And those more holy shades that never livedBut visit you in dreams.

I know her sort.They find our men asleep, weary with war,Or weary with the chase and kiss their lipsAnd drop their hair upon them, from that hourOur men, who yet knew nothing of it all,Are lonely, and when at fall of night we pressTheir hearts upon our hearts their hearts are cold.

(She draws a knife from her girdle)

And so you think to wound her with a knife.She has an airy body. Look and listen;I have not given you eyes and ears for nothing.

(The Woman of the Sidhe moves round the crouching Ghost of Cuchulain at front of stage in adance that grows gradually quicker, as he slowly awakes. At moments she may drop her hair upon his head but she does not kiss him. She is accompanied by string and flute and drum. Her mask and clothes must suggest gold or bronze or brass or silver so that she seems more an idol than a human being. This suggestion may be repeated in her movements. Her hair too, must keep the metallic suggestion.)

Who is it stands before me thereShedding such light from limb and hairAs when the moon complete at lastWith every labouring crescent past,And lonely with extreme delight,Flings out upon the fifteenth night?

Because I long I am not complete.What pulled your hands about your feetAnd your head down upon your knees,And hid your face?

Old memories:A dying boy, with handsome faceUpturned upon a beaten place;A sacred yew-tree on a strand;A woman that held in steady handIn all the happiness of her youthBefore her man had broken troth,A burning wisp to light the door;And many a round or crescent more;Dead men and women. MemoriesHave pulled my head upon my knees.

Could you that have loved many a womanThat did not reach beyond the human,Lacking a day to be complete,Love one that though her heart can beat,Lacks it but by an hour or so.

I know you now for long agoI met you on the mountain side,Beside a well that seemed long dry,Beside old thorns where the hawk flew.I held out arms and hands but you,That now seem friendly, fled awayHalf woman and half bird of prey.

Hold out your arms and hands againYou were not so dumbfounded whenI was that bird of prey and yetI am all woman now.

I am notThe young and passionate man I wasAnd though that brilliant light surpassAll crescent forms, my memoriesWeigh down my hands, abash my eyes.

Then kiss my mouth. Though memoryBe beauty's bitterest enemyI have no dread for at my kissMemory on the moment vanishes:Nothing but beauty can remain.

And shall I never know againIntricacies of blind remorse?

Time shall seem to stay his course,For when your mouth and my mouth meetAll my round shall be completeImagining all its circles run;And there shall be oblivionEven to quench Cuchulain's drouth,Even to still that heart.

Your mouth.

(They are about to kiss, he turns away)

O Emer, Emer.

So then it is sheMade you impure with memory.

Still in that dream I see you stand,A burning wisp in your right hand,To wait my coming to the house,As when our parents married us.

Being among the dead you love herThat valued every slut above herWhile you still lived.

O my lost Emer.

And there is not a loose-tongued schemerBut could draw you if not dead,From her table and her bed.How could you be fit to wiveWith flesh and blood, being born to liveWhere no one speaks of broken trothFor all have washed out of their eyesWind blown dirt of their memoriesTo improve their sight?

Your mouth, your mouth.

(Their lips approach but Cuchulain turns away as Emer speaks.)

If he may live I am content,Content that he shall turn on me,If but the dead will set him freeThat I may speak with him at whiles,Eyes that the cold moon or the harsh seaOr what I know not's made indifferent.

What a wise silence has fallen in this dark!I know you now in all your ignoranceOf all whereby a lover's quiet is rent.What dread so great as that he should forgetThe least chance sight or sound, or scratch or markOn an old door, or frail bird heard and seenIn the incredible clear light love castAll round about her some forlorn lost day?That face, though fine enough, is a fool's faceAnd there's a folly in the deathless SidheBeyond man's reach.

I told you to forgetAfter my fashion; you would have none of it;So now you may forget in a man's fashion.There's an unbridled horse at the sea's edge.Mount; it will carry you in an eye's winkTo where the King of Country-Under-Wave,Old Mananan, nods above the board and movesHis chessmen in a dream. Demand your lifeAnd come again on the unbridled horse.

Forgive me those rough words. How could you knowThat man is held to those whom he has lovedBy pain they gave, or pain that he has given,Intricacies of pain.

I am ashamedThat being of the deathless shades I choseA man so knotted to impurity.

(The Ghost of Cuchulain goes out)

To you that have no living light, but droppedFrom a last leprous crescent of the moon,I owe it all.

Because you have failedI must forego your thanks, I that took pityUpon your love and carried out your planTo tangle all his life and make it nothingThat he might turn to you.

Was it from pityYou taught the woman to prevail against me?

You know my nature—by what name I am called.

Was it from pity that you hid the truthThat men are bound to women by the wrongsThey do or suffer?

You know what being I am.

I have been mocked and disobeyed—your powerWas more to you than my good-will, and nowI'll have you learn what my ill-will can do;I lay you under bonds upon the instantTo stand before our King and face the chargeAnd take the punishment.

I'll stand there first.And tell my story first, and ManananKnows that his own harsh sea made my heart cold.

My horse is there and shall outrun your horse.

(The Figure of Cuchulain falls back, the Woman of the Sidhe goes out. Drum taps, music resembling horse hoofs.)

I heard the beat of hoofs, but saw no horse,And then came other hoofs and after thatI heard low angry cries and thereuponI ceased to be afraid.

Cuchulain wakes.

(The figure turns round. It once more wears the heroic mask.)

Eithne Inguba take me in your arms,I have been in some strange place and am afraid.

(The First Musician comes to the front of stage, the others from each side and unfold the cloth singing)

What makes her heart beat thus,Plain to be understoodI have met in a man's houseA statue of solitude,Moving there and walking;Its strange heart beating fastFor all our talking.O still that heart at last.O bitter reward!Of many a tragic tomb!And we though astonished are dumbAnd give but a sigh and a wordA passing word.Although the door be shutAnd all seem well enough,Although wide world hold notA man but will give you his love.The moment he has looked at you,He that has loved the bestMay turn from a statueHis too human breast.O bitter reward!Of many a tragic tomb!And we though astonished are dumbOr give but a sigh and a wordA passing word.What makes your heart so beat?Some one should stay at her side.When beauty is completeHer own thought will have diedAnd danger not be diminished;Dimmed at three quarter lightWhen moon's round is finishedThe stars are out of sight.O bitter reward!Of many a tragic tomb!And we though astonished are dumbOr give but a sigh and a wordA passing word.

O bitter reward!Of many a tragic tomb!And we though astonished are dumbAnd give but a sigh and a wordA passing word.

Although the door be shutAnd all seem well enough,Although wide world hold notA man but will give you his love.The moment he has looked at you,He that has loved the bestMay turn from a statueHis too human breast.

O bitter reward!Of many a tragic tomb!And we though astonished are dumbOr give but a sigh and a wordA passing word.

What makes your heart so beat?Some one should stay at her side.When beauty is completeHer own thought will have diedAnd danger not be diminished;Dimmed at three quarter lightWhen moon's round is finishedThe stars are out of sight.

O bitter reward!Of many a tragic tomb!And we though astonished are dumbOr give but a sigh and a wordA passing word.

(When the cloth is folded again the stage is bare.)

Here ends, 'Two Plays for Dancers,' by William Butler Yeats. Four hundred copies of this book have been printed and published by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats on paper made in Ireland, at the Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum, in the County of Dublin, Ireland. Finished on the tenth day of January in the year nineteen hundred and nineteen.

Back to Index Next