No More Learning

But a window to the left shows the
thick leaves of a coppice; the landscape suggests
silence and loneliness. There is a door to right and
left, and through the side windows one can see anybody
who approaches either door, a moment before he enters.
In the centre, a part of the house is curtained off;
the curtains are drawn. There are unlighted torches in
brackets on the walls. There is, at one side, a small
table with a chessboard and chessmen upon it, and a
wine flagon and loaf of bread. At the other side of
the room there is a brazier with a fire; two women,
with musical instruments beside them, crouch about
the brazier: they are comely women of about forty.
Another woman, who carries a stringed instrument,
enters hurriedly; she speaks, at first standing in the
doorway. _


FIRST MUSICIAN.

I HAVE a story right, my wanderers,
That has so mixed with fable in our songs,
That all seemed fabulous. We are come, by chance,
Into King Conchubar's country, and this house
Is an old guest-house built for travellers
From the seashore to Conchubar's royal house,
And there are certain hills among these woods,
And there Queen Deirdre grew.

SECOND MUSICIAN.

That famous queen
Who has been wandering with her lover, Naisi,
And none to friend but lovers and wild hearts?

FIRST MUSICIAN.

[_Going nearer to the brazier. _]

Some dozen years ago, King Conchubar found
A house upon a hillside in this wood,
And there a comely child with an old witch
To nurse her, and there's nobody can say
If she were human, or of those begot
By an invisible king of the air in a storm
On a king's daughter, or anything at all
Of who she was or why she was hidden there
But that she'd too much beauty for good luck.
He went up thither daily, till at last
She put on womanhood, and he lost peace,
And Deirdre's tale began. The King was old.
A month or so before the marriage day,
A young man, in the laughing scorn of his youth,
Naisi, the son of Usnach, climbed up there,
And having wooed, or, as some say, been wooed,
Carried her off.

SECOND MUSICIAN.

The tale were well enough
Had it a finish.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

Hush! I have more to tell;
But gather close that I may whisper it:
I speak of terrible, mysterious ends--
The secrets of a king.

SECOND MUSICIAN.

There's none to hear!

FIRST MUSICIAN.

I have been to Conchubar's house, and followed up
A crowd of servants going out and in
With loads upon their heads: embroideries
To hang upon the walls, or new-mown rushes
To strew upon the floors, and came at length
To a great room.

SECOND MUSICIAN.

Be silent; there are steps!

[_Enter FERGUS, an old man, who moves about from door
to window excitedly through what follows. _

FERGUS.

You are musicians by these instruments,
And if as seems--for you are comely women--
You can praise love, you'll have the best of luck,
For there'll be two, before the night is in,
That bargained for their love, and paid for it
All that men value. You have but the time
To weigh a happy music with the sad;
To find what is most pleasing to a lover,
Before the son of Usnach and his queen
Have passed this threshold.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

Deirdre and her man!

FERGUS.

I thought to find a message from the king,
And ran to meet it. Is there no messenger
From Conchubar to Fergus, son of Rogh?
I was to have found a message in this house.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

Are Deirdre and her lover tired of life?

FERGUS.

You are not of this country, or you'd know
That they are in my charge, and all forgiven.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

We have no country but the roads of the world.

FERGUS.

Then you should know that all things change in the world,
And hatred turns to love and love to hate,
And even kings forgive.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

An old man's love
Who casts no second line, is hard to cure;
His jealousy is like his love.

FERGUS.

And that's but true.
You have learned something in your wanderings.
He was so hard to cure, that the whole court,
But I alone, thought it impossible;
Yet after I had urged it at all seasons,
I had my way, and all's forgiven now;
And you shall speak the welcome and the joy
That I lack tongue for.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

Yet old men are jealous.

FERGUS [_going to door_].

I am Conchubar's near friend, and that weighed somewhat,
And it was policy to pardon them.
The need of some young, famous, popular man
To lead the troops, the murmur of the crowd,
And his own natural impulse, urged him to it.
They have been wandering half-a-dozen years.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

And yet old men are jealous.

FERGUS [_coming from door_].

Sing the more sweetly
Because, though age is arid as a bone,
This man has flowered. I've need of music, too;
If this gray head would suffer no reproach,
I'd dance and sing--and dance till the hour ran out,
Because I have accomplished this good deed.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

Look there--there at the window, those dark men,
With murderous and outlandish-looking arms--
They've been about the house all day.

[_Dark-faced MEN with strange barbaric dress and arms
pass by the doors and windows. They pass one by one and
in silence. _

FERGUS [_looking after them_].

What are you?
Where do you come from, who is it sent you here?

FIRST MUSICIAN.

They will not answer you.

FERGUS.

They do not hear.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

Forgive my open speech, but to these eyes
That have seen many lands, they are such men
As kings will gather for a murderous task,
That neither bribes, commands, nor promises
Can bring their people to.

FERGUS.

And that is why
You harped upon an old man's jealousy.
A trifle sets you quaking. Conchubar's fame
Brings merchandise on every wind that blows.
They may have brought him Libyan dragon-skin,
Or the ivory of the fierce unicorn.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

If these be merchants, I have seen the goods
They have brought to Conchubar, and understood
His murderous purpose.

FERGUS.

Murderous, you say?
Why, what new gossip of the roads is this?
But I'll not hear.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

It may be life or death.
There is a room in Conchubar's house, and there--

FERGUS.

Be silent, or I'll drive you from the door.
There's many a one that would do more than that,
And make it prison, or death, or banishment
To slander the High King.

[_Suddenly restraining himself and speaking gently. _

He is my friend;
I have his oath, and I am well content.
I have known his mind as if it were my own
These many years, and there is none alive
Shall buzz against him, and I there to stop it.
I know myself, and him, and your wild thought
Fed on extravagant poetry, and lit
By such a dazzle of old fabulous tales
That common things are lost, and all that's strange
Is true because 'twere pity if it were not.

[_Going to the door again. _

Quick! quick! your instruments! they are coming now.
I hear the hoofs a-clatter. Begin that song;
But what is it to be? I'd have them hear
A music foaming up out of the house
Like wine out of a cup. Come now, a verse
Of some old time not worth remembering,
And all the lovelier because a bubble.
Begin, begin, of some old king and queen,
Of Lugaidh Redstripe or another; no, not him,
He and his lady perished wretchedly.

FIRST MUSICIAN [_singing_].

'Why is it,' Queen Edain said,
'If I do but climb the stair. . . . '

FERGUS.

Ah! that is better. . . . They are alighted now.
Shake all your cockscombs, children; these are lovers.

[_FERGUS goes out. _

FIRST MUSICIAN.

'Why is it,' Queen Edain said,
'If I do but climb the stair
To the tower overhead,
When the winds are calling there,
Or the gannets calling out,
In waste places of the sky,
There's so much to think about,
That I cry, that I cry? '

SECOND MUSICIAN.

But her goodman answered her:
'Love would be a thing of naught
Had not all his limbs a stir
Born out of immoderate thought;
Were he anything by half,
Were his measure running dry.
Lovers, if they may not laugh,
Have to cry, have to cry. '

[_DEIRDRE, NAISI, and FERGUS have been seen for a
moment through the windows, but now they have entered.
NAISI lays down shield and spear and helmet, as if
weary. He goes to the door opposite to the door he
entered by. He looks out on to the road that leads to
CONCHUBAR'S house. If he is anxious, he would not have
FERGUS or DEIRDRE notice it. Presently he comes from
the door, and goes to the table where the chessboard
is. _

THE THREE MUSICIANS [_together_].

But is Edain worth a song
Now the hunt begins anew?
Praise the beautiful and strong;
Praise the redness of the yew;
Praise the blossoming apple-stem.
But our silence had been wise.
What is all our praise to them,
That have one another's eyes?

FERGUS.

You are welcome, lady.

DEIRDRE.

Conchubar has not come.
Were the peace honest, he'd have come himself
To prove it so.

FERGUS.

Being no more in love,
He stays in his own house, arranging where
The curlew and the plover go, and where
The speckled heath-cock in a golden dish.

DEIRDRE.

But there's no messenger.

FERGUS.

He'll come himself
When all's in readiness and night closed in;
But till that hour, these birds out of the waste
Shall put his heart and mind into the music.
There's many a day that I have almost wept
To think that one so delicately made
Might never know the sweet and natural life
Of women born to that magnificence,
Quiet and music, courtesy and peace.

DEIRDRE.

I have found life obscure and violent,
And think it ever so; but none the less
I thank you for your kindness, and thank these
That put it into music.

FERGUS.

Your house has been
The hole of the badger or the den of the fox;
But all that's finished, and your days will pass
From this day out where life is smooth on the tongue,
Because the grapes were trodden long ago.

NAISI.

If I was childish, and had faith in omens,
I'd rather not have lit on that old chessboard
At my home-coming.

FERGUS.

There's a tale about it--
It has been lying there these many years--
Some wild old sorrowful tale.

NAISI.

It is the board
Where Lugaidh Redstripe and that wife of his,
Who had a seamew's body half the year,
Played at the chess upon the night they died.

FERGUS.

I can remember now a tale of treachery,
A broken promise and a journey's end;
But it were best forgot.

NAISI.

If the tale is true,
When it was plain that they had been betrayed,
They moved the men, and waited for the end,
As it were bedtime, and had so quiet minds
They hardly winked their eyes when the sword flashed.

FERGUS.

She never could have played so, being a woman,
If she had not the cold sea's blood in her.

DEIRDRE.

I have heard that th' ever-living warn mankind
By changing clouds, and casual accidents,
Or what seem so.

FERGUS.

If there had been ill luck
In lighting on this chessboard of a sudden,
This flagon that stood on it when we came
Has made all right again, for it should mean
All wrongs forgiven, hospitality
For bitter memory, peace after war,
While that loaf there should add prosperity.
Deirdre will see the world, as it were, new-made,
If she'll but eat and drink.

NAISI.

The flagon's dry,
Full of old cobwebs, and the bread is mouldy,
Left by some traveller gone upon his way
These many weeks.

DEIRDRE.

No one to welcome us,
And a bare house upon the journey's end.
Is that the welcome that a king spreads out
For those that he would honour?

NAISI.

Hush! no more.
You are King Conchubar's guest, being in his house.
You speak as women do that sit alone,
Marking the ashes with a stick till they
Are in a dreamy terror. Being a queen,
You should have too calm thought to start at shadows.

FERGUS.

Come, let us look if there's a messenger
From Conchubar's house. A little way without
One sees the road for half a mile or so,
Where the trees thin or thicken.

NAISI.

When those we love
Speak words unfitting to the ear of kings,
Kind ears are deaf.

FERGUS.

Before you came
I had to threaten these that would have weighed
Some crazy phantasy of their own brain
Or gossip of the road with Conchubar's word.
If I had thought so little of mankind
I never could have moved him to this pardon.
I have believed the best of every man,
And find that to believe it is enough
To make a bad man show him at his best,
Or even a good man swing his lantern higher.

[_NAISI and FERGUS go out. The last words are spoken as
they go through the door. One can see them through part
of what follows, either through door or window. They
move about, talking or looking along the road towards
CONCHUBAR'S house. _

FIRST MUSICIAN.

If anything lies heavy on your heart,
Speak freely of it, knowing it is certain
That you will never see my face again.

DEIRDRE.

You've been in love?

FIRST MUSICIAN.

If you would speak of love,
Speak freely.
There is nothing in the world
That has been friendly to us but the kisses
That were upon our lips, and when we are old
Their memory will be all the life we have.

DEIRDRE.

There was a man that loved me. He was old;
I could not love him. Now I can but fear.
He has made promises, and brought me home;
But though I turn it over in my thoughts,
I cannot tell if they are sound and wholesome,
Or hackles on the hook.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

I have heard he loved you,
As some old miser loves the dragon-stone
He hides among the cobwebs near the roof.

DEIRDRE.

You mean that when a man who has loved like that
Is after crossed, love drowns in its own flood,
And that love drowned and floating is but hate.
And that a king who hates, sleeps ill at night,
Till he has killed, and that, though the day laughs,
We shall be dead at cockcrow.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

You have not my thought.
When I lost one I loved distractedly,
I blamed my crafty rival and not him,
And fancied, till my passion had run out,
That could I carry him away with me,
And tell him all my love, I'd keep him yet.

DEIRDRE.

Ah! now I catch your meaning, that this king
Will murder Naisi, and keep me alive.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

'Tis you that put that meaning upon words
Spoken at random.

DEIRDRE.

Wanderers like you,
Who have their wit alone to keep their lives,
Speak nothing that is bitter to the ear
At random; if they hint at it at all
Their eyes and ears have gathered it so lately
That it is crying out in them for speech.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

We have little that is certain.

DEIRDRE.

Certain or not,
Speak it out quickly, I beseech you to it;
I never have met any of your kind,
But that I gave them money, food, and fire.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

There are strange, miracle-working, wicked stones,
Men tear out of the heart and the hot brain
Of Libyan dragons.

DEIRDRE.

The hot Istain stone,
And the cold stone of Fanes, that have power
To stir even those at enmity to love.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

They have so great an influence, if but sewn
In the embroideries that curtain in
The bridal bed.

DEIRDRE.

O Mover of the stars
That made this delicate house of ivory,
And made my soul its mistress, keep it safe.

FIRST MUSICIAN.

I have seen a bridal bed, so curtained in,
So decked for miracle in Conchubar's house,
And learned that a bride's coming.

DEIRDRE.

And I the bride?
Here is worse treachery than the seamew suffered,
For she but died and mixed into the dust
Of her dear comrade, but I am to live
And lie in the one bed with him I hate.
Where is Naisi? I was not alone like this
When Conchubar first chose me for his wife;
I cried in sleeping or waking and he came,
But now there is worse need.

NAISI [_entering with FERGUS_].

Why have you called?
I was but standing there, without the door.

DEIRDRE [_going to the other door_].

The horses are still saddled, follow me,
And hurry to our ships, and get us gone.

NAISI.

[_Stopping her and partly speaking to her, partly to
FERGUS. _]

There's naught to fear; the king's forgiven all.
She has the heart of a wild bird that fears
The net of the fowler or the wicker cage,
And has been ever so. Although it's hard,
It is but needful that I stand against you,
And if I did not you'd despise me for it,
As women do the husbands that they lead
Whether for good or evil.

DEIRDRE.

I have heard
Monstrous, terrible, mysterious things,
Magical horrors and the spells of wizards.

FERGUS.

Why, that's no wonder, you've been listening
To singers of the roads that gather up
The tales of the whole world, and when they weary
Imagine new, or lies about the living,
Because their brains are ever upon fire.

DEIRDRE.

Is then the king that sends no messenger,
And leaves an empty house before a guest,
So clear in all he does that no dim word
Can light us to a doubt?

FERGUS.

However dim,
Speak it, for I have known King Conchubar
Better than my own heart, and I can quench
Whatever words have made you doubt him.

NAISI.

No,
I cannot weigh the gossip of the roads
With a king's word, and were the end but death,
I may not doubt him.

DEIRDRE.

Naisi, I must speak.

FERGUS.

Let us begone, this house is no fit place,
Being full of doubt--Deirdre is right.

[_To DEIRDRE, who has gone towards the door she had
entered by. _

No, no,
Not by that door that opens on the path
That runs to the seashore, but this that leads
To Conchubar's house. We'll wait no messenger,
But go to his well-lighted house, and there
Where the rich world runs up into a wick
And that burns steadily, because no wind
Can blow upon it, bring all doubts to an end.
The table has been spread by this, the court
Has ridden from all sides to welcome you
To safety and to peace.

DEIRDRE.

Safety and peace!
I had them when a child, but never since.

FERGUS.

Men blame you that you have stirred a quarrel up
That has brought death to many. I have poured
Water upon the fire, but if you fly
A second time the house is in a blaze
And all the screaming household can but blame
The savage heart of beauty for it all;
And Naisi that but helped to tar the wisp
Be but a hunted outlaw all his days.

DEIRDRE.

I will be blamed no more! there's but one way.
I'll spoil this beauty that brought misery
And houseless wandering on the man I loved,
And so buy peace between him and the king.
These wanderers will show me how to do it,
To clip my hair to baldness, blacken my skin
With walnut juice, and tear my face with briars.
Oh! that wild creatures of the woods had torn
This body with their claws.

NAISI.

What is your meaning?
What are you saying? That he loves you still?

DEIRDRE.

Whatever were to happen to this face,
I'd be myself; and there's not any way
But this way to bring trouble to an end.

NAISI.

Answer me--does King Conchubar still love--
Does he still covet you?

DEIRDRE.

Tell out the plot,
The plan, the network, all the treachery,
And of the bridal chamber and the bed,
The magical stones, the wizard's handiwork.

NAISI.

Take care of Deirdre, if I die in this,
For she must never fall into his hands,
Whatever the cost.

DEIRDRE.

Where would you go to, Naisi?

NAISI.

I go to drag the truth from Conchubar,
Before his people, in the face of his army,
And if it be as black as you have made it,
To kill him there.

DEIRDRE.

You never would return;
I'd never look upon your face again.
Oh, keep him, Fergus; do not let him go,
But hold him from it. You are both wise and kind.

NAISI.

When you were all but Conchubar's wife, I took you;
He tried to kill me, and he would have done it
If I had been so near as I am now.
And now that you are mine, he has planned to take you.
Should I be less than Conchubar, being a man?

[_Dark-faced MESSENGER comes into the house, unnoticed. _

MESSENGER.

Supper is on the table; Conchubar
Is waiting for his guests.

FERGUS.

All's well, again!
All's well! all's well! You cried your doubts so loud,
That I had almost doubted.

NAISI.

I would have killed him,
And he the while but busy in his house
For the more welcome.

DEIRDRE.

The message is not finished.

FERGUS.

Come quickly. Conchubar will laugh, that I--
Although I held out boldly in my speech--
That I, even I--

DEIRDRE.

Wait, wait! He is not done.

FERGUS.

That am so great a friend, have doubted him.

MESSENGER.

Deirdre, and Fergus, son of Rogh, are summoned;
But not the traitor that bore off the queen.
It is enough that the king pardon her,
And call her to his table and his bed.

NAISI.

So, then, it's treachery.

FERGUS.

I'll not believe it.

NAISI.

Tell Conchubar to meet me in some place
Where none can come between us but our swords.

MESSENGER.

I have done my message; I am Conchubar's man;
I take no message from a traitor's lips.

[_He goes. _

NAISI.

No, but you must; and I will have you swear
To carry it unbroken.

[_He follows MESSENGER out. _

FERGUS.

He has been suborned.
I know King Conchubar's mind as it were my own;
I'll learn the truth from him.

[_He is about to follow NAISI, but DEIRDRE stops him. _

DEIRDRE.

No, no, old man,
You thought the best, and the worst came of it;
We listened to the counsel of the wise,
And so turned fools. But ride and bring your friends.
Go, and go quickly. Conchubar has not seen me;
It may be that his passion is asleep,
And that we may escape.

FERGUS.

But I'll go first,
And follow up that Libyan heel, and send
Such words to Conchubar, that he may know
At how great peril he lays hands upon you.

[_NAISI enters. _]

NAISI.

The Libyan, knowing that a servant's life
Is safe from hands like mine, but turned and mocked.

FERGUS.

I'll call my friends, and call the reaping-hooks,
And carry you in safety to the ships.
My name has still some power. I will protect,
Or, if that is impossible, revenge.

[_Goes out by other door. _

NAISI.

[_Who is calm, like a man who has passed beyond life. _]

The crib has fallen and the birds are in it;
There is not one of the great oaks about us
But shades a hundred men.

DEIRDRE.

Let's out and die,
Or break away, if the chance favour us.

NAISI.

They would but drag you from me, stained with blood.
Their barbarous weapons would but mar that beauty,
And I would have you die as a queen should--
In a death chamber. You are in my charge.
We will wait here, and when they come upon us,
I'll hold them from the doors, and when that's over,
Give you a cleanly death with this grey edge.

DEIRDRE.

I will stay here; but you go out and fight.
Our way of life has brought no friends to us,
And if we do not buy them leaving it,
We shall be ever friendless.

NAISI.

What do they say?
That Lugaidh Redstripe and that wife of his
Sat at this chessboard, waiting for their end.
They knew that there was nothing that could save them,
And so played chess as they had any night
For years, and waited for the stroke of sword.
I never heard a death so out of reach
Of common hearts, a high and comely end:
What need have I, that gave up all for love,
To die like an old king out of a fable,
Fighting and passionate? What need is there
For all that ostentation at my setting?
I have loved truly and betrayed no man.
I need no lightning at the end, no beating
In a vain fury at the cage's door.

[_To MUSICIANS. _]

Had you been here when that man and his queen
Played at so high a game, could you have found
An ancient poem for the praise of it?
It should have set out plainly that those two,
Because no man and woman have loved better,
Might sit on there contentedly, and weigh
The joy comes after. I have heard the seamew
Sat there, with all the colour in her cheeks,
As though she'd say: 'There's nothing happening
But that a king and queen are playing chess. '

DEIRDRE.

He's in the right, though I have not been born
Of the cold, haughty waves. My veins are hot.
But though I have loved better than that queen,
I'll have as quiet fingers on the board.
Oh, singing women, set it down in a book
That love is all we need, even though it is
But the last drops we gather up like this;
And though the drops are all we have known of life,
For we have been most friendless--praise us for it
And praise the double sunset, for naught's lacking,
But a good end to the long, cloudy day.

NAISI.

Light torches there and drive the shadows out,
For day's red end comes up.

[_A MUSICIAN lights a torch in the fire and then
crosses before the chess-players, and slowly lights the
torches in the sconces. The light is almost gone from
the wood, but there is a clear evening light in the
sky, increasing the sense of solitude and loneliness. _

DEIRDRE.

Make no sad music.
What is it but a king and queen at chess?
They need a music that can mix itself
Into imagination, but not break
The steady thinking that the hard game needs.

[_During the chess, the MUSICIANS sing this song. _]

Love is an immoderate thing
And can never be content,
Till it dip an ageing wing,
Where some laughing element
Leaps and Time's old lanthorn dims.
What's the merit in love-play,
In the tumult of the limbs
That dies out before 'tis day,
Heart on heart, or mouth on mouth,
All that mingling of our breath,
When love-longing is but drouth
For the things come after death?

[_During the last verses DEIRDRE rises from the board
and kneels at NAISI'S feet. _]

DEIRDRE.