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 5 стр.

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.

So you also believe I was in earnest when I asked for a mans head? It was but a drinkers joke, an old juggling feat, to pass the time. I am the best of all drinkers and tipsy companions, the kindest there is among the Shape-changers of the world. Look, I have brought this Golden Helmet as a gift. It is for you or for Leagerie or for Conal, for the best man, and the bravest fighting-man amongst you, and you yourselves shall choose the man. Leagerie is brave, and Conal is brave. They risk their lives in battle, but they were not brave enough for my jokes and my juggling. [He lays the Golden Helmet on the ground.] Have I been too grim a joker? Well, I am forgiven now, for there is the Helmet, and let the strongest take it.

It is my right. I am a year older than Leagerie, and I have fought in more battles.

Give it back to me, I say. What was the treasure but withered leaves when you got to your own door?

Give it to me, I say.

You are too young, Cuchulain. What deeds have you to be set beside our deeds?

I have not taken it for myself. It will belong to us all equally. [He goes to table and begins filling Helmet with ale.] We will pass it round and drink out of it turn about and no one will be able to claim that it belongs to him more than another. I drink to your wife, Conal, and to your wife, Leagerie, and I drink to Emer my own wife. [Shouting and blowing of horns in the distance.] What is that noise?

It is the horseboys and the huntboys and the scullions quarrelling. I know the sound, for I have heard it often of late. It is a good thing that you are home, Cuchulain, for it is your own horseboy and chariot-driver, Laeg, that is the worst of all, and now you will keep him quiet. They take down the great hunting-horns when they cannot drown one anothers voices by shouting. There there do you hear them now? [Shouting so as to be heard above the noise.] I drink to your good health, Cuchulain, and to your young wife, though it were well if she did not quarrel with my wife.

I am Cuchulains chariot-driver, and I say that my master is the best.

He is not, but Leagerie is.

No, but Conal is.

Make them listen to me, Cuchulain.

No, but listen to me.

When I said Cuchulain should have the Helmet, they blew the horns.

Conal has it. The best man has it.

Silence, all of you. What is all this uproar, Laeg, and who began it?

[The Scullions and the Horseboys point at LAEG and cry, He began it. They keep up an all but continual murmur through what follows.

A man with a red beard came where we were sitting, and as he passed me he cried out that they were taking a golden helmet or some such thing from you and denying you the championship of Ireland. I stood up on that and I cried out that you were the best of the men of Ireland. But the others cried for Leagerie or Conal, and because I have a big voice they got down the horns to drown my voice, and as neither I nor they would keep silent we have come here to settle it. I demand that the Helmet be taken from Conal and be given to you.

It has not been given to Conal or to anyone. I have made it into a drinking-cup that it may belong to all. I drank and then Conal drank. Give it to Leagerie, Conal, that he may drink. That will make them see that it belongs to all of us.

Cuchulain is right.

Cuchulain is right, and I am tired blowing on the big horn.

Cuchulain, you drank first.

He gives it to Leagerie now, but he has taken the honour of it for himself. Did you hear him say he drank the first? He claimed to be the best by drinking first.

Did Cuchulain drink the first?

You drank the first, Cuchulain.

Did you claim to be better than us by drinking first?

Is it that old dried herring, that old red juggler who has made us quarrel for his own comfort? [The Horseboys and the Scullions murmur excitedly.] He gave the Helmet to set us by the ears, and because we would not quarrel over it, he goes to Laeg and tells him that I am wronged. Who knows where he is now, or who he is stirring up to make mischief between us? Go back to your work and do not stir from it whatever noise comes to you or whatever shape shows itself.

Cuchulain is right. I am tired blowing on the big horn.

Go in silence.

[The Scullions and Horseboys turn towards the door, but stand still on hearing the voice of LEAGERIES WIFE outside the door.

My man is the best. I will go in the first. I will go in the first.

My man is the best, and I will go in first.

No, for my man is the best, and it is I that should go first.

I am Emer, wife of Cuchulain, and no one shall go in front of me, or sing in front of me, or praise any that I have not a mind to hear praised.

I am Emer, wife of Cuchulain, and no one shall go in front of me, or sing in front of me, or praise any that I have not a mind to hear praised.

All of our three wives shall come in together, and by three doors equal in height and in breadth and in honour. Break down the bottoms of the windows.

[While CONAL and LEAGERIE are breaking down the bottoms of the windows each of their wives goes to the window where her husband is.

[When the windows have been made into doors, CUCHULAIN takes his spear from the door where EMER is, and all three come in at the same moment.

I am come to praise you and to put courage into you, Cuchulain, as a wife should, that they may not take the championship of the men of Ireland from you.

You lie, Emer, for it is Cuchulain and Conal who are taking the championship from my husband.

Cuchulain has taken it.

Townland against townland, barony against barony, kingdom against kingdom, province against province, and if there be but two door-posts to a door the one fighting against the other. [He takes up the Helmet which LEAGERIE had laid down upon the table when he went to break out the bottom of the window.] This Helmet will bring no more wars into Ireland. [He throws it into the sea.]

You have done that to rob my husband.

You could not keep it for yourself, and so you threw it away that nobody else might have it.

You should not have done that, Cuchulain.

You have done us a great wrong.

Who is for Cuchulain?

Let no one stir.

Who is for Cuchulain, I say?

[She draws her dagger from her belt and sings the same words as before, flourishing it about. While she has been singing, CONALS WIFE and LEAGERIES WIFE have drawn their daggers and run at her to kill her, but CUCHULAIN has forced them back. CONAL and LEAGERIE have drawn their swords to strike CUCHULAIN.

Silence her voice, silence her voice, blow the horns, make a noise!

[The Scullions and Horseboys blow their horns or fight among themselves. There is a deafening noise and a confused fight. Suddenly three black hands holding extinguishers come through the window and extinguish the torches. It is now pitch dark but for a very faint light outside the house which merely shows that there are moving forms, but not who or what they are, and in the darkness one can hear low terrified voices.

Did you see them putting out the torches?

They came up out of the sea, three black men.

They have heads of cats upon them.

They came up mewing out of the sea.

How dark it is! one of them has put his hand over the moon.

[A light gradually comes into the windows as if shining from the sea. The RED MAN is seen standing in the midst of the house.

I demand the debt that is owing. I demand that some man shall stoop down that I may cut his head off as my head was cut off. If my debt is not paid, no peace shall come to Ireland, and Ireland shall lie weak before her enemies. But if my debt is paid there shall be peace.

The quarrels of Ireland shall end. What is one mans life? I will pay the debt with my own head. [EMER wails.] Do not cry out, Emer, for if I were not myself, if I were not Cuchulain, one of those that God has made reckless, the women of Ireland had not loved me, and you had not held your head so high. [He stoops, bending his head. Three Black Men come to the door. Two hold torches, and one stooping between them holds up the Golden Helmet. The RED MAN gives one of the Black Men his sword and takes the Helmet.] What do you wait for, old man? Come, raise up your sword!

I will not harm you, Cuchulain. I am the guardian of this land, and age after age I come up out of the sea to try the men of Ireland. I give you the championship because you are without fear, and you shall win many battles with laughing lips and endure wounding and betrayal without bitterness of heart; and when men gaze upon you, their hearts shall grow greater and their minds clear; until the day come when I darken your mind, that there may be an end to the story, and a song on the harp-string.

THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT

The Irish dramatic movement began in May, 1899, with the performance of certain plays by English actors who were brought to Dublin for the purpose; and in the spring of the following year and in the autumn of the year after that, performances of like plays were given by like actors at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. In the third year I started Samhain to defend the work, and on re-reading it and reading it for the first time throughout, have found it best to reprint my part of it unchanged. A number has been published about once a year till very lately, and the whole series of notes are a history of a movement which is important because of the principles it is rooted in whatever be its fruits, and these principles are better told of in words that rose out of the need, than were I to explain all again and with order and ceremony now that the old enmities and friendships are ruffled by new ones that have other things to be done and said.

March, 1908.

SAMHAIN: 1901

When Lady Gregory, Mr. Edward Martyn, and myself planned the Irish Literary Theatre, we decided that it should be carried on in the form we had projected for three years. We thought that three years would show whether the country desired to take up the project, and make it a part of the national life, and that we, at any rate, could return to our proper work, in which we did not include theatrical management, at the end of that time. A little later, Mr. George Moore1 joined us; and, looking back now upon our work, I doubt if it could have been done at all without his knowledge of the stage; and certainly if the performances of this present year bring our adventure to a successful close, a chief part of the credit will be his. Many, however, have helped us in various degrees, for in Ireland just now one has only to discover an idea that seems of service to the country for friends and helpers to start up on every hand. While we needed guarantors we had them in plenty, and though Mr. Edward Martyns public spirit made it unnecessary to call upon them, we thank them none the less.