No More Learning

If the old tales are true,
Queens have wed shepherds and kings beggar-maids;
God's procreant waters flowing about your mind
Have made you more than kings or queens; and not you
But I am the empty pitcher.

ALEEL.

Being silent,
I have said all--farewell, farewell; and yet no,
Give me your hand to kiss.

CATHLEEN.

I kiss your brow,
But will not say farewell. I am often weary,
And I would hear the harp-string.

ALEEL.

I cannot stay,
For I would hide my sorrow among the hills--
Listen, listen, the hills are calling me.

[_They listen for a moment. _

CATHLEEN.

I hear the cry of curlew.

ALEEL.

Then I will out
Where I can hear wind cry and water cry
And curlew cry: how does the saying go
That calls them the three oldest cries in the world?
Farewell, farewell, I will go wander among them,
Because there is no comfort under a roof-tree.

[_He goes out. _

CATHLEEN.

[_Looking through the door after him. _]

I cannot see him. He has come to the great door.
I must go pray. Would that my heart and mind
Were as little shaken as this candle-light.

[_She goes into the chapel. The TWO MERCHANTS enter. _

SECOND MERCHANT.

Who was the man that came from the great door
While we were still in the shadow?

FIRST MERCHANT.

Aleel, her lover.

SECOND MERCHANT.

It may be that he has turned her thought from us
And we can gather our merchandise in peace.

FIRST MERCHANT.

No, no, for she is kneeling.

SECOND MERCHANT.

Shut the door.
Are all our drudges here?

FIRST MERCHANT.

[_Closing the chapel door. _]

I bid them follow.
Can you not hear them breathing upon the stairs?
I have sat this hour under the elder-tree.

SECOND MERCHANT.

I had bid you rob her treasury, and yet
I found you sitting drowsed and motionless,
Your chin bowed to your knees, while on all sides,
Bat-like from bough and roof and window-ledge,
Clung evil souls of men, and in the woods,
Like streaming flames, floated upon the winds
The elemental creatures.

FIRST MERCHANT.

I have fared ill;
She prayed so hard I could not cross the threshold
Till this young man had turned her prayer to dreams.
You have had a man to kill: how have you fared?

SECOND MERCHANT.

I lay in the image of a nine-monthed bonyeen,
By Tubber-vanach cross-roads: Father John
Came, sad and moody, murmuring many prayers;
I seemed as though I came from his own sty;
He saw the one brown ear; the breviary dropped;
He ran; I ran, I ran into the quarry;
He fell a score of yards.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Now that he is dead
We shall be too much thronged with souls to-morrow.
Did his soul escape you?

SECOND MERCHANT.

I thrust it in the bag.
But the hand that blessed the poor and raised the Host
Tore through the leather with sharp piety.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Well, well, to labour--here is the treasury door.

[_They go out by the left-hand door, and enter again
in a little while, carrying full bags upon their
shoulders. _

FIRST MERCHANT.

Brave thought, brave thought--a shining thought of mine!
She now no more may bribe the poor--no more
Cheat our great master of his merchandise,
While our heels dangle at the house in the woods,
And grass grows on the threshold, and snails crawl
Along the window-pane and the mud floor.
Brother, where wander all these dwarfish folk,
Hostile to men, the people of the tides?

SECOND MERCHANT.

[_Going to the door. _]

They are gone. They have already wandered away,
Unwilling labourers.

FIRST MERCHANT.

I will call them hither.

[_He opens the window. _

Come hither, hither, hither, water-folk:
Come, all you elemental populace;
Leave lonely the long-hoarding surges: leave
The cymbals of the waves to clash alone,
And, shaking the sea-tangles from your hair,
Gather about us. [_After a pause. _
I can hear a sound
As from waves beating upon distant strands;
And the sea-creatures, like a surf of light,
Pour eddying through the pathways of the oaks;
And as they come, the sentient grass and leaves
Bow towards them, and the tall, drouth-jaded oaks
Fondle the murmur of their flying feet.

SECOND MERCHANT.

The green things love unknotted hearts and minds;
And neither one with angels or with us,
Nor risen in arms with evil nor with good,
In laughter roves the litter of the waves.

[_A crowd of faces fill up the darkness outside the
window. A figure separates from the others and speaks. _

THE SPIRIT.

We come unwillingly, for she whose gold
We must now carry to the house in the woods
Is dear to all our race. On the green plain,
Beside the sea, a hundred shepherds live
To mind her sheep; and when the nightfall comes
They leave a hundred pans of white ewes' milk
Outside their doors, to feed us when the dawn
Has driven us out of Finbar's ancient house,
And broken the long dance under the hill.

FIRST MERCHANT.

[_Making a sign upon the air. _]

Obey! I make a sign upon your hearts.

THE SPIRIT.

The sign of evil burns upon our hearts,
And we obey.

[_They crowd through the window, and take out of the
bags a small bag each. They are dressed in green robes
and have ruddy hair. They are a little less than the
size of men and women. _

FIRST MERCHANT.

And now begone--begone! [_They go. _
I bid them go, for, being garrulous
And flighty creatures, they had soon begun
To deafen us with their sea-gossip. Now
We must go bring more money. Brother, brother,
I long to see my master's face again,
For I turn homesick.

SECOND MERCHANT.

I too tire of toil.

[_They go out, and return as before, with their bags
full. _

SECOND MERCHANT.

[_Pointing to the oratory. _]

How may we gain this woman for our lord?
This pearl, this turquoise fastened in his crown
Would make it shine like His we dare not name.
Now that the winds are heavy with our kind,
Might we not kill her, and bear off her spirit
Before the mob of angels were astir?

[_A diadem and a heap of jewels fall from the bag. _

FIRST MERCHANT.

Who tore the bag?

SECOND MERCHANT.

The finger of Priest John
When he fled through the leather. I had thought
Because his was an old and little spirit
The tear would hardly matter.

FIRST MERCHANT.

This comes, brother,
Of stealing souls that are not rightly ours.
If we would win this turquoise for our lord,
It must go dropping down of its freewill.
She will have heard the noise. She will stifle us
With holy names.

[_He goes to the oratory door and opens it a little,
and then closes it. _]

No, she has fallen asleep.

SECOND MERCHANT.

The noise wakened the household. While you spoke
I heard chairs moved, and heard folk's shuffling feet.
And now they are coming hither.

A VOICE [_within_].

It was here.

ANOTHER VOICE.

No, further away.

ANOTHER VOICE.

It was in the western tower.

ANOTHER VOICE.

Come quickly; we will search the western tower.

FIRST MERCHANT.

We still have time--they search the distant rooms.
Call hither the fading and the unfading fires.

SECOND MERCHANT.

[_Going to the window. _]

There are none here. They tired and strayed from hence--
Unwilling labourers.

FIRST MERCHANT.

I will draw them in.

[_He cries through the window. _

Come hither, you lost souls of men, who died
In drunken sleep, and by each other's hands
When they had bartered you--come hither all
Who mourn among the scenery of your sins,
Turning to animal and reptile forms,
The visages of passions; hither, hither--
Leave marshes and the reed-encumbered pools,
You shapeless fires, that were the souls of men,
And are a fading wretchedness.

SECOND MERCHANT.

They come not.

FIRST MERCHANT.

[_Making a sign upon the air. _]

Come hither, hither, hither.

SECOND MERCHANT.

I can hear
A crying as of storm-distempered reeds.
The fading and the unfading fires rise up
Like steam out of the earth; the grass and leaves
Shiver and shrink away and sway about,
Blown by unnatural gusts of ice-cold air.

FIRST MERCHANT.

They are one with all the beings of decay,
Ill longings, madness, lightning, famine, drouth.

[_The whole stage is gradually filled with vague forms,
some animal shapes, some human, some mere lights. _

Come you--and you--and you, and lift these bags.

A SPIRIT.

We are too violent; mere shapes of storm.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Come you--and you--and you, and lift these bags.

A SPIRIT.

We are too feeble, fading out of life.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Come you, and you, who are the latest dead,
And still wear human shape: the shape of power.

[_The two robbing peasants of the last scene come
forward. Their faces have withered from much pain. _

Now, brawlers, lift the bags of gold.

FIRST PEASANT.

Yes, yes!
Unwillingly, unwillingly; for she,
Whose gold we bear upon our shoulders thus,
Has endless pity even for lost souls
In her good heart. At moments, now and then,
When plunged in horror, brooding each alone,
A memory of her face floats in on us.
It brings a crowned misery, half repose,
And we wail one to other; we obey,
For heaven's many-angled star reversed,
Now sign of evil, burns into our hearts.

FIRST MERCHANT.

When these pale sapphires and these diadems
And these small bags of money are in our house,
The burning shall give over--now begone.

SECOND MERCHANT.

[_Lifting the diadem to put it upon his head. _]

No--no--no. I will carry the diadem.

FIRST MERCHANT.

No, brother, not yet.
For none can carry her treasures wholly away
But spirits that are too light for good and evil,
Or, being evil, can remember good.
Begone! [_The spirits vanish. _] I bade them go, for they are lonely,
And when they see aught living love to sigh.
[_Pointing to the oratory. _] Brother, I heard a sound in there--a sound
That troubles me.

SECOND MERCHANT.

[_Going to the door of the oratory and peering through it. _]

Upon the altar steps
The Countess tosses, murmuring in her sleep
A broken _Paternoster_.

[_The FIRST MERCHANT goes to the door and stands beside him. _]

She is grown still.

FIRST MERCHANT.

A great plan floats into my mind--no wonder,
For I come from the ninth and mightiest Hell,
Where all are kings. I will wake her from her sleep,
And mix with all her thoughts a thought to serve.

[_He calls through the door. _

May we be well remembered in your prayers!

[_The COUNTESS CATHLEEN wakes, and comes to the door of
the oratory. The MERCHANTS descend into the room again.
She stands at the top of the stone steps. _

CATHLEEN.

What would you, sirs?

FIRST MERCHANT.

We are two merchant men,
New come from foreign lands. We bring you news.
Forgive our sudden entry: the great door
Was open, we came in to seek a face.

CATHLEEN.

The door stands always open to receive,
With kindly welcome, starved and sickly folk,
Or any who would fly the woful times.
Merchants, you bring me news?

FIRST MERCHANT.
We saw a man
Heavy with sickness in the Bog of Allan,
Whom you had bid buy cattle. Near Fair Head
We saw your grain ships lying all becalmed
In the dark night, and not less still than they
Burned all their mirrored lanthorns in the sea.

CATHLEEN.

My thanks to God, to Mary, and the angels,
I still have bags of money, and can buy
Meal from the merchants who have stored it up,
To prosper on the hunger of the poor.
You have been far, and know the signs of things:
When will this yellow vapour no more hang
And creep about the fields, and this great heat
Vanish away--and grass show its green shoots?

FIRST MERCHANT.

There is no sign of change--day copies day,
Green things are dead--the cattle too are dead,
Or dying--and on all the vapour hangs
And fattens with disease and glows with heat.
In you is all the hope of all the land.

CATHLEEN.

And heard you of the demons who buy souls?

FIRST MERCHANT.

There are some men who hold they have wolves' heads,
And say their limbs, dried by the infinite flame,
Have all the speed of storms; others again
Say they are gross and little; while a few
Will have it they seem much as mortals are,
But tall and brown and travelled, like us, lady.
Yet all agree a power is in their looks
That makes men bow, and flings a casting-net
About their souls, and that all men would go
And barter those poor flames--their spirits--only
You bribe them with the safety of your gold.

CATHLEEN.

Praise be to God, to Mary, and the angels,
That I am wealthy. Wherefore do they sell?

FIRST MERCHANT.

The demons give a hundred crowns and more
For a poor soul like his who lies asleep
By your great door under the porter's niche;
A little soul not worth a hundred pence.
But, for a soul like yours, I heard them say,
They would give five hundred thousand crowns and more.

CATHLEEN.

How can a heap of crowns pay for a soul?
Is the green grave so terrible a thing?

FIRST MERCHANT.

Some sell because the money gleams, and some
Because they are in terror of the grave,
And some because their neighbours sold before,
And some because there is a kind of joy
In casting hope away, in losing joy,
In ceasing all resistance, in at last
Opening one's arms to the eternal flames,
In casting all sails out upon the wind:
To this--full of the gaiety of the lost--
Would all folk hurry if your gold were gone.

CATHLEEN.

There is a something, merchant, in your voice
That makes me fear. When you were telling how
A man may lose his soul and lose his God,
Your eyes lighted, and the strange weariness
That hangs about you vanished. When you told
How my poor money serves the people--both--
Merchants, forgive me--seemed to smile.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Man's sins
Move us to laughter only, we have seen
So many lands and seen so many men.
How strange that all these people should be swung
As on a lady's shoe-string--under them
The glowing leagues of never-ending flame!

CATHLEEN.

There is a something in you that I fear:
A something not of us. Were you not born
In some most distant corner of the world?

[_The SECOND MERCHANT, who has been listening at the
door to the right, comes forward, and as he comes a
sound of voices and feet is heard through the door to
his left. _

SECOND MERCHANT [_aside to FIRST MERCHANT_].

Away now--they are in the passage--hurry,
For they will know us, and freeze up our hearts
With Ave Marys, and burn all our skin
With holy water.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Farewell: we must ride
Many a mile before the morning come;
Our horses beat the ground impatiently.

[_They go out to R. A number of peasants enter at the
same moment by the opposite door. _

CATHLEEN.

What would you?

A PEASANT.

As we nodded by the fire,
Telling old histories, we heard a noise
Of falling money. We have searched in vain.

CATHLEEN.

You are too timid. I heard naught at all.

THE OLD PEASANT.

Ay, we are timid, for a rich man's word
Can shake our houses, and a moon of drouth
Shrivel our seedlings in the barren earth;
We are the slaves of wind, and hail, and flood;
Fear jogs our elbow in the market-place,
And nods beside us on the chimney-seat.
Ill-bodings are as native unto our hearts
As are their spots unto the woodpeckers.

CATHLEEN.

You need not shake with bodings in this house.

[_OONA enters from the door to L. _

OONA.

The treasure-room is broken in--mavrone--mavrone;
The door stands open and the gold is gone.

[_The peasants raise a lamenting cry. _

CATHLEEN.

Be silent. [_The cry ceases. _
Saw you any one?

OONA.

Mavrone,
That my good mistress should lose all this money.

CATHLEEN.

You three upon my right hand, ride and ride;
I will give a farm to him who finds the thieves.

[_A man with keys at his girdle has entered while she
was speaking. _

A PEASANT.

The porter trembles.

THE PORTER.

It is all no use;
Demons were here. I sat beside the door
In my stone niche, and two owls passed me by,
Whispering with human voices.

THE OLD PEASANT.

God forsakes us.

CATHLEEN.

Old man, old man, He never closed a door
Unless one opened. I am desolate,
For a most sad resolve wakes in my heart:
But always I have faith. Old men and women,
Be silent; He does not forsake the world,
But stands before it modelling in the clay
And moulding there His image. Age by age
The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard
For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease;
At times it crumbles and a nation falls,
Now moves awry and demon hordes are born.

[_The peasants cross themselves. _

But leave me now, for I am desolate,
I hear a whisper from beyond the thunder.

[_She steps down from the oratory door. _

Yet stay an instant. When we meet again
I may have grown forgetful. Oona, take
These two--the larder and the dairy keys.
[_To THE OLD PEASANT. _] But take you this. It opens the small room
Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore,
Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal
And all the others; and the book of cures
Is on the upper shelf. You understand,
Because you doctored goats and cattle once.

THE OLD PEASANT.

Why do you do this, lady--did you see
Your coffin in a dream?

CATHLEEN.

Ah, no, not that,
A sad resolve wakes in me. I have heard
A sound of wailing in unnumbered hovels,
And I must go down, down, I know not where.
Pray for the poor folk who are crazed with famine;
Pray, you good neighbours.

[_The peasants all kneel. The COUNTESS CATHLEEN ascends
the steps to the door of the oratory, and, turning
round, stands there motionless for a little, and then
cries in a loud voice. _]

Mary, queen of angels,
And all you clouds on clouds of saints, farewell!




ACT IV.


_The cabin of SHEMUS RUA. The TWO MERCHANTS are sitting
one at each end of the table, with rolls of parchment
and many little heaps of gold before them. Through an
open door, at the back, one sees into an inner room, in
which there is a bed. On the bed is the body of MAIRE
with candles about it. _

FIRST MERCHANT.

The woman may keep robbing us no more,
For there are only mice now in her coffers.

SECOND MERCHANT.

Last night, closed in the image of an owl,
I hurried to the cliffs of Donegal,
And saw, creeping on the uneasy surge,
Those ships that bring the woman grain and meal;
They are five days from us.

FIRST MERCHANT.

I hurried East,
A gray owl flitting, flitting in the dew,
And saw nine hundred oxen toil through Meath
Driven on by goads of iron; they, too, brother,
Are full five days from us.

SECOND MERCHANT.

Five days for traffic.

[_While they have been speaking the peasants have come
in, led by TEIG and SHEMUS, who take their stations,
one on each side of the door, and keep them marshalled
into rude order and encourage them from time to time
with gestures and whispered words. _

Here throng they; since the drouth they go in throngs,
Like autumn leaves blown by the dreary winds.
Come, deal--come, deal.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Who will come deal with us?

SHEMUS.

They are out of spirit, sir, with lack of food,
Save four or five. Here, sir, is one of these;
The others will gain courage in good time.

A MIDDLE-AGED MAN.

I come to deal if you give honest price.

FIRST MERCHANT.

[_Reading in a parchment. _]

John Maher, a man of substance, with dull mind,
And quiet senses and unventurous heart.
The angels think him safe. Two hundred crowns,
All for a soul, a little breath of wind.

THE MAN.

I ask three hundred crowns. You have read there,
That no mere lapse of days can make me yours.

FIRST MERCHANT.

There is something more writ here--often at night
He is wakeful from a dread of growing poor.
There is this crack in you--two hundred crowns.

[_THE MAN takes them and goes. _

SECOND MERCHANT.

Come, deal--one would half think you had no souls.
If only for the credit of your parishes,
Come, deal, deal, deal, or will you always starve?
Maire, the wife of Shemus, would not deal,
She starved--she lies in there with red wallflowers,
And candles stuck in bottles round her bed.

A WOMAN.

What price, now, will you give for mine?

FIRST MERCHANT.

Ay, ay,
Soft, handsome, and still young--not much, I think.

[_Reading in the parchment. _

She has love letters in a little jar
On the high shelf between the pepper-pot
And wood-cased hour-glass.

THE WOMAN.

O, the scandalous parchment!

FIRST MERCHANT [_reading_].

She hides them from her husband, who buys horses,
And is not much at home. You are almost safe.
I give you fifty crowns. [_She turns to go. _
A hundred, then.

[_She takes them, and goes into the crowd. _

Come--deal, deal, deal; it is for charity
We buy such souls at all; a thousand sins
Made them our master's long before we came.
Come, deal--come, deal. You seem resolved to starve
Until your bones show through your skin. Come, deal,
Or live on nettles, grass, and dandelion.
Or do you dream the famine will go by?
The famine is hale and hearty; it is mine
And my great master's; it shall no wise cease
Until our purpose end: the yellow vapour
That brought it bears it over your dried fields
And fills with violent phantoms of the lost,
And grows more deadly as day copies day.
See how it dims the daylight. Is that peace
Known to the birds of prey so dread a thing?
They, and the souls obedient to our master,
And those who live with that great other spirit
Have gained an end, a peace, while you but toss
And swing upon a moving balance beam.

[_ALEEL enters; the wires of his harp are broken. _

ALEEL.

Here, take my soul, for I am tired of it;
I do not ask a price.

FIRST MERCHANT [_reading_].

A man of songs:
Alone in the hushed passion of romance,
His mind ran all on sidheoges and on tales
Of Fenian labours and the Red Branch kings,
And he cared nothing for the life of man:
But now all changes.

ALEEL.

Ay, because her face,
The face of Countess Cathleen, dwells with me:
The sadness of the world upon her brow:
The crying of these strings grew burdensome,
Therefore I tore them; see; now take my soul.

FIRST MERCHANT.

We cannot take your soul, for it is hers.

ALEEL.

Ah, take it; take it. It nowise can help her,
And, therefore, do I tire of it.

FIRST MERCHANT.

No; no.
We may not touch it.

ALEEL.

Is your power so small,
Must I then bear it with me all my days?
May scorn close deep about you!

FIRST MERCHANT.

Lead him hence;
He troubles me.

[_TEIG and SHEMUS lead ALEEL into the crowd. _

SECOND MERCHANT.

His gaze has filled me, brother,
With shaking and a dreadful fear.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Lean forward
And kiss the circlet where my master's lips
Were pressed upon it when he sent us hither:
You will have peace once more.

[_The SECOND MERCHANT kisses the gold circlet that is
about the head of the FIRST MERCHANT. _

SHEMUS.

He is called Aleel,
And has been crazy now these many days;
But has no harm in him: his fits soon pass,
And one can go and lead him like a child.

FIRST MERCHANT.

Come, deal, deal, deal, deal, deal; you are all dumb?

SHEMUS.

They say you beat the woman down too low.

FIRST MERCHANT.

I offer this great price: a thousand crowns
For an old woman who was always ugly.

[_An old peasant woman comes forward, and he takes up a parchment and
reads. _]

There is but little set down here against her;
She stole fowl sometimes when the harvest failed,
But always went to chapel twice a week,
And paid her dues when prosperous. Take your money.

THE OLD PEASANT WOMAN [_curtseying_].

God bless you, sir. [_She screams.