W. B. Yeats

“ THE GREEN HELMET An Heroic Farce Scene: 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 low rocks which make the ground outside higher than it is within, and beyond the rocks a misty moon-lit sea. Through the windows one can see nothing but the sea. There is a great chair at the opposite side to the door, and in front of it a table with cups and a flagon of ale. ”

“ And I drink to Emer, my wife.
[A great noise without and shouting]
Why, what in God’s name is that noise?
Conall
What else but the charioteers and the kitchen and stable boys
Shouting against each other, and the worst of all is your own,
That chariot-driver, Laeg, and they’ll keep it up till the dawn,
And there’s not a man in the house that will close his eyes to-night,
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Or be able to keep them from it, or know what set them to fight.
[A noise of horns without]
There, do you hear them now? ”

“ A drinking joke and a gibe and a juggler’s feat, that is all,
To make the time go quickly—for I am the drinker’s friend,
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The kindest of all Shape-Changers from here to the world’s end,
The best of all tipsy companions. ”

“ Another sooty fellow has plucked the moon from the air.
[A light gradually comes into the house from the sea, on which the moon begins to show once more. 87 There is no light within the house, and the great beams of the walls are dark and full of shadows, and the persons of the play dark too against the light. The Red Man is seen standing in the midst of the house. The black cat-headed Men crouch and stand about the door. One carries the Helmet, one the great sword]
Red Man
I demand the debt that’s owing. Let some man kneel down there
That I may cut his head off, or all shall go to wrack. ”

“ I’ll lay the whole thing bare.
You saw the luck that he had when he pushed in past me there.
Does anything stir on the sea?
Laegaire
Not even a fish or a gull.
Conall
You were gone but a little while. We were there and the ale-cup full.
We were half drunk and merry, and midnight on the stroke
When a wide, high man came in with a red foxy cloak,
With half-shut foxy eyes and a great laughing mouth,
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And he said when we bid him drink, that he had so great a drouth
He could drink the sea.
Cuchulain
I thought he had come from one of you
Out of some Connaught rath, and would lap up milk and mew ”

“ And if a man is lucky all wish his luck away,
And take his good name from him between a day and a day.
Laegaire
I would he’d come for all that, and make his young wife know
That though she may be his wife, she has no right to go
Before your wife and my wife, as she would have gone last night
Had they not caught at her dress, and pulled her as was right;
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And she makes light of us though our wives do all that they can.
She spreads her tail like a peacock and praises none but her man.
Conall
A man in a long green cloak that covers him up to the chin
Comes down through the rocks and hazels. ”

“ They carry great horns, ladles and the like]
Laeg
I am Laeg, Cuchulain’s driver, and my master’s cock of the yard.
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Another
Conall would scatter his feathers.
[Confused murmurs]
Laegaire
[To Cuchulain]
No use, they won’t hear a word.
Conall
They’ll keep it up till the dawn.
Another
It is Laegaire that is the best,
For he fought with cats in Connaught while Conall took his rest
And drained his ale pot.
Another
Laegaire—what does a man of his sort
Care for the like of us! He did it for his own sport. ”