The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 4 of 8. The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement - William Yeats 4 стр.

You did not tell us your name yet, maam.

Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.

I think I knew someone of that name once. Who was it, I wonder? It must have been someone I knew when I was a boy. No, no; I remember, I heard it in a song.

They are wondering that there were songs made for me; there have been many songs made for me. I heard one on the wind this morning.

they will have no need of prayers, they will have no need of prayers.

I do not know what that song means, but tell me something I can do for you.

Come over to me, Michael.

Hush, father, listen to her.

It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes, will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all that, they will think they are well paid.

Look at him, Peter; he has the look of a man that has got the touch. [Raising her voice.] Look here, Michael, at the wedding clothes. Such grand clothes as these are! You have a right to fit them on now, it would be a pity to-morrow if they did not fit. The boys would be laughing at you. Take them, Michael, and go into the room and fit them on.

What wedding are you talking of? What clothes will I be wearing to-morrow?

These are the clothes you are going to wear when you marry Delia Cahel to-morrow.

I had forgotten that.

[He looks at the clothes and turns towards the inner room, but stops at the sound of cheering outside.

There is the shouting come to our own door. What is it has happened?

[Neighbours come crowding in, PATRICK and DELIA with them.

There are ships in the Bay; the French are landing at Killala!

[PETER takes his pipe from his mouth and his hat off and stands up. The clothes slip from MICHAELS arm.

Michael! [He takes no notice.] Michael! [He turns towards her.] Why do you look at me like a stranger?

The boys are all hurrying down the hill-sides to join the French.

Michael wont be going to join the French.

Tell him not to go, Peter.

Its no use. He doesnt hear a word were saying.

Try and coax him over to the fire.

Michael, Michael! You wont leave me! You wont join the French, and we going to be married!

[MICHAEL breaks away from DELIA, stands for a second at the door, then rushes out, following the OLD WOMANS voice. BRIDGET takes DELIA, who is crying silently, into her arms.

Did you see an old woman going down the path?

I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen.

THE GOLDEN HELMET

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

Cuchulain

Leagerie

Conal

Emer, Cuchulains wife

Leageries Wife

Conals Wife

Laeg, Cuchulains chariot-driver

Red Man

Horseboys and Scullions

Three Black Men

THE GOLDEN HELMET

A house made of logs. There are two windows at the back and a door which cuts off one of the corners of the room. Through the door one can see rocks, which make the ground outside the door higher than it is within, and the sea. Through the windows one can see nothing but the sea. There are three great chairs at the opposite side to the door, with a table before them. There are cups and a flagon of ale on the table.

At the Abbey Theatre the house is orange red, and the chairs, tables and flagons black, with a slight purple tinge which is not clearly distinguishable from the black. The rocks are black, with a few green touches. The sea is green and luminous, and all the characters, except the RED MAN and the Black Men are dressed in various tints of green, one or two with touches of purple which looks nearly black. The Black Men are in dark purple and the RED MAN is altogether dressed in red. He is very tall and his height is increased by horns on the Golden Helmet. The Helmet has in reality more dark green than gold about it. The Black Men have cats heads painted on their black cloth caps. The effect is intentionally violent and startling.

Not a sail, not a wave, and if the sea were not purring a little like a cat, not a sound. There is no danger yet. I can see a long way for the moonlight is on the sea.

Ah, there is something.

It must be from the land, and it is from the sea that danger comes. We need not be afraid of anything that comes from the land. [Looking out of door.] I cannot see anybody, the rocks and the trees hide a great part of the pathway upon that side.

It sounded like Cuchulains horn, but thats not possible.

Yes, thats impossible. He will never come home from Scotland. He has all he wants there. Luck in all he does. Victory and wealth and happiness flowing in on him, while here at home all goes to rack, and a mans good name drifts away between night and morning.

I wish he would come home for all that, and put quiet and respect for those that are more than she is into that young wife of his. Only this very night your wife and my wife had to forbid her to go into the dining-hall before them. She is young, and she is Cuchulains wife, and so she must spread her tail like a peacock.

I can see the horn-blower now, a young man wrapped in a cloak.

Do not let him come in. Tell him to go elsewhere for shelter. This is no place to seek shelter in.

That is right. I will tell him to go away, for nobody must know the disgrace that is to fall upon Ireland this night.

Nobody of living men but us two must ever know that.

Go away, go away!

I am a traveller, and I am looking for sleep and food.

A law has been made that nobody is to come into this house to-night.

Who made that law?

We two made it, and who has so good a right? for we have to guard this house and to keep it from robbery, and from burning and from enchantment.

Then I will unmake the law. Out of my way!

I thought no living man but Leagerie could have stood against me; and Leagerie himself could not have shoved past me. What is more, no living man could if I were not taken by surprise. How could I expect to find so great a strength?

Go out of this: there is another house a little further along the shore; our wives are there with their servants, and they will give you food and drink.

It is in this house I will have food and drink.

Go out of this, or I will make you.

[The YOUNG MAN seizes LEAGERIES arm, and thrusting it up, passes him, and puts his shield over the chair where there is an empty place.

It is here I will spend the night, but I wont tell you why till I have drunk. I am thirsty. What, the flagon full and the cups empty and Leagerie and Conal there! Why, whats in the wind that Leagerie and Conal cannot drink?

It is Cuchulain.

Better go away to Scotland again, or if you stay here ask no one what has happened or what is going to happen.

What more is there that can happen so strange as that I should come home after years and that you should bid me begone?

I tell you that this is no fit house to welcome you, for it is a disgraced house.

What is it you are hinting at? You were sitting there with ale beside you and the door open, and quarrelsome thoughts. You are waiting for something or someone. It is for some messenger who is to bring you to some spoil, or to some adventure that you will keep for yourselves.

Better tell him, for he has such luck that it may be his luck will amend ours.

Yes, I had better tell him, for even now at this very door we saw what luck he had. He had the slope of the ground to help him. Is the sea quiet?

There is nothing stirring.

Cuchulain, a little after you went out of this country we were sitting here drinking. We were merry. It was late, close on to midnight, when a strange-looking man with red hair and a great sword in his hand came in through that door. He asked for ale and we gave it to him, for we were tired of drinking with one another. He became merry, and for every joke we made he made a better, and presently we all three got up and danced, and then we sang, and then he said he would show us a new game. He said he would stoop down and that one of us was to cut off his head, and afterwards one of us, or whoever had a mind for the game, was to stoop down and have his head whipped off. You take off my head, said he, and then I take off his head, and that will be a bargain and a debt between us. A head for a head, that is the game, said he. We laughed at him and told him he was drunk, for how could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped off? Then he began abusing us and calling us names, so I ran at him and cut his head off, and the head went on laughing where it lay, and presently he caught it up in his hands and ran out and plunged into the sea.

I have imagined as good, when I had as much ale, and believed it too.

I tell you, Cuchulain, you never did. You never imagined a story like this.

Why must you be always putting yourself up against Leagerie and myself? and what is more, it was no imagination at all. We said to ourselves that all came out of the flagon, and we laughed, and we said we will tell nobody about it. We made an oath to tell nobody. But twelve months after when we were sitting by this table, the flagon between us

But full up to the brim

The thought of that story had put us from our drinking

We were telling it over to one another

Suddenly that man came in with his head on his shoulders again, and the big sword in his hand. He asked for payment of his debt, and because neither I nor Leagerie would let him cut off our heads he began abusing us and making little of us, and saying that we were a disgrace, and that all Ireland was disgraced because of us. We had not a word to say.

If you had been here you would have been as silent as we were.

At last he said he would come again in twelve months and give us one more chance to keep our word and pay our debt. After that he went down into the sea again. Will he tell the whole world of the disgrace that has come upon us, do you think?

Whether he does or does not, we will stand there in the door with our swords out and drive him down to the sea again.

What is the use of fighting with a man whose head laughs when it has been cut off?

We might run away, but he would follow us everywhere.

He is coming; the sea is beginning to splash and rumble as it did before he came the last time.

Let us shut the door and put our backs against it.

It is too late. Look, there he is at the door. He is standing on the threshold.

[A MAN dressed in red, with a great sword and red ragged hair, and having a Golden Helmet on his head, is standing on the threshold.

Go back into the sea, old red head! If you will take off heads, take off the head of the sea turtle of Muirthemne, or of the pig of Connaught that has a moon in his belly, or of that old juggler Manannan, son of the sea, or of the red man of the Boyne, or of the King of the Cats, for they are of your own sort, and it may be they understand your ways. Go, I say, for when a mans head is off it does not grow again. What are you standing there for? Go down, I say. If I cannot harm you with the sword I will put you down into the sea with my hands. Do you laugh at me, old red head? Go down before I lay my hands upon you.