MERCHANT
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.)
FIRST MERCHANT
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.
END OF SCENE I.
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.
CATHLEEN (stopping)
Surely this leafy corner, where one smells
The wild bee's honey, has a story too?
OONA
There is the house at last.
ALEEL
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.
CATHLEEN
So she loves truly.
ALEEL
No, but wets her cheeks,
Lady, because she has forgot his name.
CATHLEEN
She'd sleep that trouble away—though it must be
A heavy trouble to forget his name—
If she had better sense.
OONA
Your own house, lady.
ALEEL
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 born—yet if she cry their names
They run up on the land and dance in the moon
Till they are giddy and would love as men do,
And be as patient and as pitiful.
But there is nothing that will stop in their heads
They've such poor memories, though they weep for it.
Oh, yes, they weep; that's when the moon is full.
CATHLEEN
Is it because they have short memories
They live so long?
ALEEL
What's memory but the ash
That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?
And they've a dizzy, everlasting fire.
OONA
There is your own house, lady.
CATHLEEN
Why, that's true,
And we'd have passed it without noticing.
ALEEL
A curse upon it for a meddlesome house!
Had it but stayed away I would have known
What Queen Maeve thinks on when the moon is pinched;
And whether now—as in the old days—the dancers
Set their brief love on men.
OONA
Rest on my arm.
These are no thoughts for any Christian ear.
ALEEL
I am younger, she would be too heavy for you.
(He begins taking his lute out of the bag, CATHLEEN, who has turned towards OONA, turns back to him.)
This hollow box remembers every foot
That danced upon the level grass of the world,
And will tell secrets if I whisper to it.
(Sings.)
Lift up the white knee;
Hear what they sing,
Those young dancers
That in a ring
Raved but now
Of the hearts that brake
Long, long ago
For their sake.
OONA
