His Son
Aleel
A Poet
The Countess Cathleen
Oona
Her Foster Mother
Two Demons disguised as Merchants
Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings
The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times
SCENE I
Scene.—A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. The walls are of one colour. The scent should have the effect of missal painting. Mary, awoman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern.
MARY
What can have made the grey hen flutter so?
(TEIG, a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside the hearth.)
TEIG
They say that now the land is famine struck
The graves are walking.
MARY
There is something that the hen hears.
TEIG
And that is not the worst; at Tubber-vanach
A woman met a man with ears spread out,
And they moved up and down like a bat's wing.
MARY
What can have kept your father all this while?
TEIG
Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard,
A herdsman met a man who had no mouth,
Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh;
He saw him plainly by the light of the moon.
MARY
Look out, and tell me if your father's coming.
(TEIG goes to door.)
TEIG
Mother!
MARY
What is it?
TEIG
In the bush beyond,
There are two birds—if you can call them birds—
I could not see them rightly for the leaves.
But they've the shape and colour of horned owls
And I'm half certain they've a human face.
MARY
Mother of God, defend us!
TEIG
They're looking at me.
What is the good of praying? father says.
God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep.
What do they care, he says, though the whole land
Squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth?
MARY
You'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies
Upon your father, or yourself, or me.
I would to God he were home—ah, there he is.
(SHEMUS comes in.)
What was it kept you in the wood? You know
I cannot get all sorts of accidents
Out of my mind till you are home again.
SHEMUS
I'm in no mood to listen to your clatter.
Although I tramped the woods for half a day,
I've taken nothing, for the very rats,
Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought,
And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
TEIG
Then you have brought no dinner.
SHEMUS
After that
I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads,
And held a hollow hand among the others.
MARY
What, did you beg?
SHEMUS
I had no chance to beg,
For when the beggars saw me they cried out
They would not have another share their alms,
And hunted me away with sticks and stones.
TEIG
You said that you would bring us food or money.
SHEMUS
What's in the house?
TEIG
A bit of mouldy bread.
MARY
There's flour enough to make another loaf.
TEIG
And when that's gone?
MARY
There is the hen in the coop.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!
TEIG
And the last penny gone.
SHEMUS
When the hen's gone,
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock,
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?
MARY
God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,
Will cater for us still.
SHEMUS
His kitchen's bare.
There were five doors that I looked through this day
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.
MARY
Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,
And all fool talk from the ear.
SHEMUS
Who's passing there?
And mocking us with music?
(A stringed instrument without.)
TEIG
A young man plays it,
There's an old woman and a lady with him.
SHEMUS
What is the trouble of the poor to her?
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce
For the day's meat.
MARY
God's pity on the rich.
Had we been through as many doors, and seen
The dishes standing on the polished wood
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the rich.
TEIG
They're coming here.
SHEMUS
Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees.
MARY
Had I but time to put the place to rights.
(CATHLEEN, OONA, and ALEEL enter.)
CATHLEEN
God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.
MARY
We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.
CATHLEEN
It may be that we are that trouble, for we—
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour—
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.
MARY
Then you are Countess Cathleen?
CATHLEEN
And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.
OONA
The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.
CATHLEEN
And this young man, that should have known the woods—
Because we met him on their border but now,
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea—
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come
That he can give no help.
MARY
You have still some way,
But I can put you on the trodden path