thought of a more prudent way than that?If each one brings a bit of merchandise,
We'll give him such a price he never dreamt of.
Where shall the starving come at merchandise?
We will ask nothing but what all men have.
Their swine and cattle, fields and implements
Are sold and gone.
They have not sold all yet.
For there's a vaporous thing – that may be nothing,
But that's the buyer's risk – a second self,
They call immortal for a story's sake.
They come to buy our souls?
I'll barter mine.
Why should we starve for what may be but nothing?
Teig and Shemus —
What can it be but nothing?
What has God poured out of His bag but famine?
Satan gives money.
Yet no thunder stirs.
There is a heap for each.
(SHEMUS goes to take money.)
But no, not yet,
For there's a work I have to set you to.
So then you're as deceitful as the rest,
And all that talk of buying what's but a vapour
Is fancy bread. I might have known as much,
Because that's how the trick-o'-the-loop man talks.
That's for the work, each has its separate price;
But neither price is paid till the work's done.
The same for me.
Oh, God, why are you still?
You've but to cry aloud at every cross-road,
At every house door, that we buy men's souls.
And give so good a price that all may live
In mirth and comfort till the famine's done,
Because we are Christian men.
Come, let's away.
I shall keep running till I've earned the price.
(who has risen and gone towards fire)
Stop; you must have proof behind the words.
So here's your entertainment on the road.
(He throws a bag of money on the ground.)
Live as you please; our Master's generous.
(TEIG and SHEMUS have stopped. TEIG takes the money. They go out.)
Destroyers of souls, God will destroy you quickly.
You shall at last dry like dry leaves and hang
Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God.
Curse to your fill, for saints will have their dreams.
Though we're but vermin that our Master sent
To overrun the world, he at the end
Shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon
And quench the stars in the ancestral night.
God is all powerful.
Pray, you shall need Him.
You shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion,
Till that low threshold there becomes a wall,
And when your hands can scarcely drag your body
We shall be near you.
(MARY faints.)
(The FIRST MERCHANT takes up the carpet, spreads it before the fire and stands in front of it warming his hands.)
Our faces go unscratched,
Wring the neck o' that fowl, scatter the flour
And look if there is bread upon the shelves.
We'll turn the fowl upon the spit and roast it,
And eat the supper we were bidden to,
Now that the house is quiet, praise our Master,
And stretch and warm our heels among the ashes.
SCENE II
FRONT SCENE. —A wood with perhaps distant view of turreted house at one side, but all in flat colour, without light and shade and against a diapered or gold background.
COUNTESS CATHLEEN comes in leaning upon ALEEL'S arm. OONA follows them.
Surely this leafy corner, where one smells
The wild bee's honey, has a story too?
There is the house at last.
A man, they say,
Loved Maeve the Queen of all the invisible host,
And died of his love nine centuries ago.
And now, when the moon's riding at the full,
She leaves her dancers lonely and lies there
Upon that level place, and for three days
Stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks.
So she loves truly.
No, but wets her cheeks,
Lady, because she has forgot his name.
She'd sleep that trouble away – though it must be
A heavy trouble to forget his name —
If she had better sense.
Your own house, lady.
She sleeps high up on wintry Knock-na-rea
In an old cairn of stones; while her poor women
Must lie and jog in the wave if they would sleep —
Being water
