Public-domain ebook
by W. B. Yeats
Language: en414 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Poetry·Plays/Films/Dramas·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #49609.
The opening · free to read
Steps before the Palace of KING GUAIRE at Gort. A table in front of steps at one side, with food on it, and a bench by table. SEANCHAN lying on steps. PUPILS before steps. KING on the upper step before a curtained door.
KING.
I WELCOME you that have the mastery Of the two kinds of Music: the one kind Being like a woman, the other like a man. Both you that understand stringed instruments, And how to mingle words and notes together So artfully, that all the Art’s but Speech Delighted with its own music; and you that carry The long twisted horn, and understand The heady notes that, being without words, Can hurry beyond Time and Fate and Change. For the high angels that drive the horse of Time— The golden one by day, by night the silver— Are not more welcome to one that loves the world For some fair woman’s sake. I have called you hither To save the life of your great master, Seanchan, For all day long it has flamed up or flickered To the fast cooling hearth.
OLDEST PUPIL.
When did he sicken? Is it a fever that is wasting him?
KING.
No fever or sickness. He has chosen death: Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom, An old and foolish custom, that if a man Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve Upon another’s threshold till he die, The common people, for all time to come, Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold, Even though it be the King’s.
OLDEST PUPIL.
My head whirls round; I do not know what I am to think or say. I owe you all obedience, and yet How can I give it, when the man I have loved More than all others, thinks that he is wronged So bitterly, that he will starve and die Rather than bear it? Is there any man Will throw his life away for a light issue?
KING.
It is but fitting that you take his side Until you understand how light an issue Has put us by the ears. Three days ago I yielded to the outcry of my courtiers— Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law— Who long had thought it against their dignity For a mere man of words to sit amongst them At my own table. When the meal was spread, I ordered Seanchan to a lower table; And when he pleaded for the poets’ right, Established at the establishment of the world, I said that I was King, and that all rights Had their original fountain in some king, And that it was the men who ruled the world, And not the men who sang to it, who should sit Where there was the most honour. My courtiers— Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law— Shouted approval; and amid that noise Seanchan went out, and from that hour to this, Although there is good food and drink beside him, Has eaten nothing.
OLDEST PUPIL.
I can breathe again. You have taken a great burden from my mind, For that old custom’s not worth dying for.
KING.
Persuade him to eat or drink. Till yesterday I thought that hunger and weakness had been enough; But finding them too trifling and too light To hold his mouth from biting at the grave, I called you hither, and all my hope’s in you, And certain of his neighbours and good friends That I have sent for. While he is lying there Perishing, my good name in the world Is perishing also. I cannot give way, Because I am King. Because if I gave way, My Nobles would call me a weakling, and it may be The very throne be shaken.
OLDEST PUPIL.
I will persuade him. Your words had been enough persuasion, King; But being lost in sleep or reverie, He cannot hear them.
KING.
Make him eat or drink. Nor is it all because of my good name I’d have him do it, for he is a man That might well hit the fancy of a king, Banished out of his country, or a woman’s, Or any other’s that can judge a man For what he is. But I that sit a throne, And take my measure from the needs of the State, Call his wild thought that overruns the measure, Making words more than deeds, and his proud will That would unsettle all, most mischievous, And he himself a most mischievous man.
[_He turns to go, and then returns again._
Promise a house with grass and tillage land, An annual payment, jewels and silken ware, Or anything but that old right of the poets.
The King did wrong to abrogate our right; But Seanchan, who talks of dying for it, Talks foolishly. Look at us, Seanchan; Waken out of your dream and look at us, Who have ridden under the moon and all the day, Until the moon has all but come again, That we might be beside you.
SEANCHAN.
[_Half turning round, leaning on his elbow, and speaking as if in a dream._]
I was but now In Almhuin, in a great high-raftered house, With Finn and Osgar. Odours of roast flesh Rose round me, and I saw the roasting-spits; And then the dream was broken, and I saw Grania dividing salmon by a stream.
OLDEST PUPIL.
Hunger has made you dream of roasting flesh; And though I all but weep to think of it, The hunger of the crane, that starves himself At the full moon because he is afraid Of his own shadow and the glittering water, Seems to me little more fantastical Than this of yours.
SEANCHAN.
Why, that’s the very truth. It is as though the moon changed everything— Myself and all that I can hear and see; For when the heavy body has grown weak, There’s nothing that can tether the wild mind That, being moonstruck and fantastical, Goes where it fancies. I had even thought I knew your voice and face, but now the words Are so unlikely that I needs must ask Who is it that bids me put my hunger by.
OLDEST PUPIL.
I am your oldest pupil, Seanchan; The one that has been with you many years— So many, that you said at Candlemas That I had almost done with school, and knew All but all that poets understand.
SEANCHAN.
My oldest pupil? No, that cannot be, For it is some one of the courtly crowds That have been round about me from sunrise, And I am tricked by dreams; but I’ll refute them. At Candlemas I bid that pupil tell me Why poetry is honoured, wishing to know If he had any weighty argument For distant countries and strange, churlish kings. What did he answer?
OLDEST PUPIL.
I said the poets hung Images of the life that was in Eden About the child-bed of the world, that it, Looking upon those images, might bear Triumphant children. But why must I stand here, Repeating an old lesson, while you starve?
SEANCHAN.
Tell on, for I begin to know the voice. What evil thing will come upon the world If the Arts perish?
OLDEST PUPIL.
If the Arts should perish, The world that lacked them would be like a woman, That looking on the cloven lips of a hare, Brings forth a hare-lipped child.
SEANCHAN.
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