throws BLIND MAN down by big chair.
BLIND MAN.
O, that I should have to endure such a plague! O, I ache all over! O, I am pulled to pieces! This is the way you pay me all the good I have done you!
FOOL.
You have eaten it! You have told me lies. I might have known you had eaten it when I saw your slow, sleepy walk. Lie there till the kings come. O, I will tell Conchubar and Cuchulain and all the kings about you!
BLIND MAN.
What would have happened to you but for me, and you without your wits? If I did not take care of you, what would you do for food and warmth?
FOOL.
You take care of me! You stay safe, and send me into every kind of danger. You sent me down the cliff for gulls’ eggs while you warmed your blind eyes in the sun; and then you ate all that were good for food. You left me the eggs that were neither egg nor bird. [BLIND MAN tries to rise; FOOL makes him lie down again.] Keep quiet now, till I shut the door. There is some noise outside—a high vexing noise, so that I can’t be listening to myself. [Shuts the big door.] Why can’t they be quiet! why can’t they be quiet! [BLIND MAN tries to get away.] Ah! you would get away, would you! [Follows BLIND MAN and brings him back.] Lie there! lie there! No, you won’t get away! Lie there till the kings come. I’ll tell them all about you. I will tell it all. How you sit warming yourself, when you have made me light a fire of sticks, while I sit blowing it with my mouth. Do you not always make me take the windy side of the bush when it blows, and the rainy side when it rains?
BLIND MAN.
Oh, good Fool! listen to me. Think of the care I have taken of you. I have brought you to many a warm hearth, where there was a good welcome for you, but you would not stay there; you were always wandering about.
FOOL.
The last time you brought me in it was not I who wandered away, but you that got put out because you took the crubeen out of the pot when nobody was looking. Keep quiet, now!
CUCHULAIN [rushing in].
Witchcraft! There is no witchcraft on the earth, or among the witches of the air, that these hands cannot break.
FOOL.
Listen to me, Cuchulain. I left him turning the fowl at the fire. He ate it all, though I had stolen it. He left me nothing but the feathers.
CUCHULAIN.
Fill me a horn of ale!
BLIND MAN.
I gave him what he likes best. You do not know how vain this fool is. He likes nothing so well as a feather.
FOOL.
He left me nothing but the bones and feathers. Nothing but the feathers, though I had stolen it.
CUCHULAIN.
Give me that horn! Quarrels here, too! [Drinks.] What is there between you two that is worth a quarrel? Out with it!
BLIND MAN.
Where would he be but for me? I must be always thinking—thinking to get food for the two of us, and when we’ve got it, if the moon is at the full or the tide on the turn, he’ll leave the rabbit in the snare till it is full of maggots, or let the trout slip back through his hands into the stream.
[The FOOL has begun singing while the BLIND MAN is speaking.
FOOL [singing].
When you were an acorn on the tree-top,
Then was I an eagle cock;
Now that you are a withered old block,
Still am I an eagle cock.
BLIND MAN.
Listen to him, now. That’s the sort of talk I have to put up with day out, day in.
[The FOOL is putting the feathers into his hair. CUCHULAIN takes a handful of feathers out of a heap the FOOL has on the bench beside him, and out of the FOOL’S hair, and begins to wipe the blood from his sword with them.
FOOL.
He has taken my feathers to wipe his sword. It is blood that he is wiping from his sword.
CUCHULAIN.
[Goes up to door at back and throws away feathers.]
They are standing about his body. They will not awaken him, for all his witchcraft.
BLIND MAN.
It is that young champion that he has killed. He that came out of Aoife’s country.
CUCHULAIN.
He thought to have saved himself with witchcraft.
FOOL.
That blind man there said he would kill you. He came from Aoife’s country to kill you. That blind man said they had taught him every kind of weapon that he might do it. But I always knew that you would kill him.
CUCHULAIN [to the BLIND MAN].
You knew him, then?
BLIND MAN.
I saw him, when I had my eyes, in Aoife’s country.
CUCHULAIN.
You were in Aoife’s country?
BLIND MAN.
I knew him and his mother there.
CUCHULAIN.
He was about to speak of her when he died.
BLIND MAN.
He was a queen’s son.
CUCHULAIN.
What queen? what queen? [Seizes BLIND MAN, who is now sitting upon the bench.] Was it Scathach? There were many queens. All the rulers there were queens.
BLIND MAN.
No, not Scathach.
CUCHULAIN.
It was Uathach, then? Speak! speak!
BLIND MAN.
I cannot speak; you are clutching me too tightly. [CUCHULAIN lets him go.] I cannot remember who it was. I am not certain. It was some queen.
FOOL.
He said a while ago that the young man was Aoife’s son.
CUCHULAIN.
She?
