Lady Gregory

“ Queen: It is right for her to know it.
King: It is not! It is not!
Princess: Whatever the story is, let me know
it, and not be treated as a child that is without
courage or sense.
Fintan: It's long till I'll come out from my
cleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on the
ridge of the earth. It is laid down by the stars
that cannot lie, that on this day twelvemonth, you
yourself will be ate and devoured by a scaly Green
Dragon from the North! ”

“ Oh, what ails you, honey, that you will not waken?
Queen: She thought it to be a champion and a
high up man that had died for her sake. It is
what broke her down in the latter end, hearing
him to be no big man at all, but a clown!
Nurse: Oh, my darling! And I not here to
tell you! You are a motherless child, and the
curse of your mother will be on me! It was no
clown fought for you, but a king, having generations
of kings behind him, the young King of Sorcha,
Manus, son of Solas son of Lugh.
King: I would believe that now sooner than
many a thing I would hear. ”

“ Queen: I tell you what might be ugly behaviour
in a common man is suitable and right in a king.
But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am
seven times tired of yourself and your ways.
Princess: If no one could force me to give in
to the man that made a claim to me to-day, according
to my father's bond, that bond is there yet to
protect me from any other one.
Queen: Leave me alone! Myself and the
Dall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad
from the oven. I'll send in now to you the King
of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, and the
wedding day will be to-morrow. ”

“ Manus: (To King.) I leave it to the judgment
of your blind wise man.
Queen: (To Dall Glic.) Take care would you
offend myself or the King!
Manus: I put it on you to split justice as it
is measured outside the world.
Dall Glic: It is hard for me to speak. He
has laid it hard on me. My good eye may go
asleep, but my blind eye never sleeps. In the
place where it is waking, an honourable man, king
or beggar, is held to his word.
King: Is it that I must give my daughter to
a lad that owns neither clod nor furrow? Whose
estate is but a shovel for the ashes and a tongs for
the red coals. ”

“ Mother: (To Celia.) Let you blow a blast on me.
(Celia does so.) Now it's much if I can remember
to blow a blast backward upon yourself!
Celia: Stop a minute! Leave what is in me of
life and of courage till I will blow the last blast is
in the bellows upon Conan.
Conan: Stop that! Do you think to change
and to crow over me. You will not or I'll lay my
curse upon you, unless you would change me into
an eagle would be turning his back upon the whole
of ye, and facing to his perch upon the right hand
of the master of the gods!
Celia: Is it to waste the last blast you would? ”

“ Nurse: The Lord be praised, it is the King's
own voice! There's time yet!
King: There's time, is there? There's time
for everyone to give out their chat and their gab,
and to do their business and take their ease and have
a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts
of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the
meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green
grass in the heat of the day, without being pestered
and plagued and tormented and called to and
wakened and worried, till a man is no less than
wore out! ”

“ Conan: Is it that you have got your hearing?
Timothy: My hearing is it? As good as that I
can hear a lie, and it forming in the mind.
Conan: Is that the truth you're saying?
Timothy: Hear, is it! I can hear every whisper
in this parish and the seven parishes are nearest.
And the little midges roaring in the air.—Let ye
whist now with your sneezing in the draught!
Conan: This is surely the work of the bellows.
Another blast gone!
Rock: So it would be too. Mostly the whole
of them gone and spent. It's hard know in the
morning what way will it be with you at night. ”

“ King: Raise her up. It is impossible she can
be gone.
Dall Glic: Gone out and spent, as sudden as
a candle in a blast of wind.
King: Who would think grief would do away
with her so sudden, there to be seven of the like
of him dead?
Nurse: (Rises.) What did you do to her at all,
at all? Or was it through the fright and terror
of the beast?
Queen: She died of the heartbreak, being told
that the strange champion that had put down the
Dragon was killed dead.
Nurse: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie
out of his mouth? (Shouts in her ear.) What
would ail him to be dead? ”

“ I live, or to die with if I should die. I am come
as a poor unknown man, that may slip away after
the fight, to my own kingdom or across the borders
of the world, and no thanks given him and no more
about him, but a memory of the shadow of a cook!
Nurse: I would not think that to be right,
and you the last of your race. It is best for you
to tell the King.
Manus: I lay my orders on you to tell no one
at all.
Nurse: Give me leave but to whisper it to the
Princess Nu. It's ye would be the finest two the
world ever saw. You will not find her equal in all
Ireland! ”

“ Conan: I do not! I would be loth take any
profit, and Aristotle after laying down that to
pleasure or to profit every wealthy man is a slave!
Flannery: What would you do, so?
Conan: I will change all into the similitude of
ancient Greece! There is no man at all can understand
argument but it is from Greece he is. I know
well what I'm doing. I'm not like a potato having
eyes this way and that. People were harmless
long ago and why wouldn't they be made harmless
again? Aristotle said, "Fair play is more
beautiful than the morning and the evening star!" ”

“ Any
house I ever was in there was a good kitchen and
well attended, the Lord be praised!
Queen: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige
the King.
Nurse: Troth, the same King will wait long
till he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I am
not one that was reared between the flags and the
oven in the corner of the one room! To be a nurse
to King's children is my trade, and not to go stirring
mashes, for hens or for humans!
Queen: I heard a crafty woman lay down one
time there was no way to hold a man, only by food
and flattery. ”

“ Dall Glic: That is so. I have it marked upon
the genealogies in the chest.
Fintan: That is great news! It was a heavy
wrong was done me! It had me greatly upset.
Twelve hours out in laying down the birth-time!
That clears the character of myself and
of the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could
make no mistake in my office and in my
billet!
King: Will you stop praising yourself and give
out some sense?
Fintan: Knowledge is surely the greatest thing
in the world! And truth! Twelve hours with
the planets is equal to twelve months on earth. ”

“ Princess: You are surely not ashamed of your
trade!
Manus: To work now, to work. I'll engage to
turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt or
Pharamond King of the Franks! Here, Queen, is
a silver-breast phoenix—draw out the feathers—
they are pure silver—fair and clean. (Queen plucks
eagerly.) King, take your golden sceptre and stir
this pot.
(Gives him one.)
King: (Interested.) What now is in it?
Manus: A broth that will rise over the side
and be consumed and split if you stop stirring
it for one minute only! (King stirs furiously.) ”

“ King: Put it out of mind. It is likely anyway
that the world will soon be ended the way
it is.
Queen: I will send and search out this astrologer
and will question him.
Dall Glic: You have not far to search. He
is outside at the kitchen door at this minute, and
as if questioning after something, and it a half-score
and seven years since I knew him to come
out of his cave.
King: Do not! He might waken up the Dragon
and put him in mind of the girl, for to make his
own foretelling come true.
Nurse: Ah, such a thing cannot be! The
poor innocent child! (Weeps.) ”

“ Queen: And all on the head of yourself!
Princess: I am sorry, and very sorry, for that.
Queen: He is loth to say it to you, but he is
tired and wore out waiting for you to settle with
some match. See what a troubled look he has on
his face.
Princess: (To King.) Is it that you want me
to leave you? (He gives a sob.) (To Dall Glic.)
Is it the Queen urged him to this?
Dall Glic: If she did, it was surely for your good.
Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling, let you
strive to take a liking to some good man that will
come! ”

“ Well, good-bye to ye!
Ye'll maybe believe me to have foreknowledge
another time, and I proved to be right. I have
knocked great comfort out of that!
(Goes.)
King: Oh, my poor child! My poor little
Nu! I thought it never would come to pass, I
to be sending you to the slaughter. And I too
bulky to go out and face him, having led an easy life!
Princess: Do not be fretting.
King: The world is gone to and fro! I'll
never ask satisfaction again either in bed or board,
but to be wasting away with watercresses and rising
up of a morning before the sun rises in Babylon! ”

“ Aristotle, the time he walked Ireland, had come to
this place.
Mother: It might be that, unless it might be
some other thing.
Conan: And that he left some great treasure
hid—it might be in the rath without.
Mother: And what good would it do you a pot of
gold to be hid in the rath where you would never
come near to it, it being guarded by enchanted
cats and they having fiery eyes?
Conan: Did I say anything about a pot of
gold? This was better again than gold. This
was an enchantment would raise you up if you
were gasping from death. Give attention now ...
Aristotle. ”

“ Prince of Marshes: (To Dall Glic.) Give me
some sword or casting spears.
(Dall Glic gives him spears.)
Princess: I am sorry I made fun of you a while
ago. I think you are a good kind man.
Prince of Marshes; (Kissing her hand.) Having
that word of praise I will bring a good heart into
the fight.
(Goes.)
(Taig is slipping out after him.)
Queen: See now the King of Sorcha slipping
away into the fight. Stop here now! (Pulls him
back.) You have a life that is precious to many
besides yourself. Do not go without being well
armed—and with a troop of good fighting men
at your back. ”

“ King: Not to be left in quiet and all I am after
using! Food that was easy to eat! Drink that
was easy to drink! That's the dinner that was
a dinner. That cook now is a wonder!
Dall Glic: That is now the very one I am wishful
to speak about.
King: I give you my word, I'd sooner have
one goose dressed by him than seven dressed by
any other one!
Dall Glic: The Queen that was urging me for
to put my mind to make out some way to get quit
of him.
King: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute
I find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I must
be made an attack on to get quit of him? ”

“ Dall Glic: I will not. I have meddled enough
at your bidding. I am done with living under
dread. Let you blind me entirely! I am free
of you. It might be best for me the two eyes to
be withered, and I seeing nothing but the ever-living
laws!
Prince of Marshes: (Coming to Princess.) It is
my grief that with all the teachers I had there was
not one to learn me the handling of weapons or
of arms. But for all that I will not run away,
but will strive to strike one blow in your defence
against that wicked beast.
Princess: It is a good friend that would rid
us of him. ”

“ King: Let me just taste one little slab of that
venison ham.
Queen: (Poking with a fork.) It would take
seven chewings! Sudden death it would be!
Leave it alone now and rise up. To keep in health
every man should quit the table before he is satisfied
—there are some would walk to the door and back
with every bite.
King: Is it that I am to eat my meal standing,
the same as a crane in a shallow, or moving from
tuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet on the high
road? ”

“ There must be
no delay till Nuala will be married and wed with
someone that will bring her away out of this, and
let the Dragon go hungry home!
Nurse: That she may! Isn't it a pity now
she being so hard to please!
Queen: Young people are apt to be selfish and
to have no thought but for themselves. She must
not be hard to please when it will be to save and
to serve her family and to keep up respect for
their name. Here she is coming.
Nurse: Ah, you would not tell her! You
would not put the dear child under the shadow
of such a terror and such a threat!
King: She must not be told. ”

“ Not by revolutions can humanity be perfected. I might quote from an old oracle, 'The gods are never so turned away from man as when he ascends to them by disorderly methods.' Our spirits may live in the Golden Age but our bodily life moves on slow feet, and needs the lantern on the path and the staff struck carefully into the darkness before us to see that the path beyond is not a morass, and the light not a will o' the wisp. ”

“ King: Hurry on so.
Queen: I myself will go and give you instructions
what way to use the kitchen.
Manus: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief do
in your own royal parlour! (Blows whistle; two dark-skinned
men come in with vessels.) Give me here
those pots and pans!
Queen: What now is about to take place?
Dall Glic: I not to be blind, I would say those
to be very foreign-looking men.
King: It would seem as if the world was grown
to be very queer. ”

“ Dublin, where are you! What would
I'd do going to Dublin? Did you never hear said
the skin to be nearer than the shirt?
Flannery: What do you mean saying that?
Rock: The first one I have to do good to is
myself.
Flannery: Is it that you would grab the benefit
of the bellows?
Rock: In troth I will. I've got a hold of it, and
by cripes I'll knock a good turn out of it.
Flannery: To rob the country and the poor for
your own profit? You are a class of man that is
gathering all for himself.
Rock: It is not worth while we to fall out of
friendship. I will use but the one blast. ”

“ I heard enough of
plots and plans within the last three minutes!
Nurse: You didn't hear this one. No one knows
of it only myself.
King: I was told it by the Dall Glic.
Nurse: You were not! I am only after making
it out on the moment!
King: A plot against the lad of the saucepans?
Nurse: That's it! That's it! Open now the door!
King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and
settling himself to sleep.) Tell away and welcome!
(Shuts eyes.)
Nurse: That's right! You're listening. Give
heed now. That schemer came a while ago letting
on to be the King of Sorcha is no such thing! ”

“ Conan: There would seem to be a great change
—and a sudden change come upon the two of ye.
... (With a roar.) Where now is the bellows?
Flannery: (Sulkily.) What way would I know?
Conan: (Shaking him.) I know well what
happened! It is ye have stolen two of my blasts!
Putting changes on yourselves ye would—much
good may it do ye—. Thieving with your covetousness
the last two nearly I had left!
Rock: (Sulkily.) Leave your hand off me! I
never stole no blast!
Conan: There's a bad class going through the
world. The most people you will give to will be
the first to cry you down. ”

“ I give you warning
...one, two, three!
(Blows.) (Sings: "With a chirrup.") (Air,
"Garryowen.")
"Let you rise and go light like a bird of the air
That goes high in its flight ever seeking its share;
Let you never go easy or pine for a rest
Till you'll be a world's wonder and work with the best!
With a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup,
A chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup, a chirrup!"
Celia: (Staring and standing up.) What is
that? Is it the wind or is it a wisp of flame that
is going athrough my bones! ”