The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 2 of 8. William Butler Yeats

The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 2 of 8 - William Butler Yeats


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pride and disobedience are unpunished

      Who will obey?

CHAMBERLAIN[Going to other side towards SOLDIER.]

      If you would speak to him,

      You might not find persuasion difficult,

      With all the devils of hunger helping you.

SOLDIER

      I will not interfere, and if he starve

      For being obstinate and stiff in the neck,

      ’Tis but good riddance.

CHAMBERLAIN

      One of us must do it.

      It might be, if you’d reason with him, ladies,

      He would eat something, for I have a notion

      That if he brought misfortune on the King,

      Or the King’s house, we’d be as little thought of

      As summer linen when the winter’s come.

FIRST GIRL

      But it would be the greater compliment

      If Peter’d do it.

SECOND GIRL

      Reason with him, Peter.

      Persuade him to eat; he’s such a bag of bones!

SOLDIER

      I’ll never trust a woman’s word again!

      There’s nobody that was so loud against him

      When he was at the table; now the wind’s changed,

      And you that could not bear his speech or his silence,

      Would have him there in his old place again;

      I do believe you would, but I won’t help you.

SECOND GIRL

      Why will you be so hard upon us, Peter?

      You know we have turned the common sort against us,

      And he looks miserable.

FIRST GIRL

      We cannot dance,

      Because no harper will pluck a string for us.

SECOND GIRL

      I cannot sleep with thinking of his face.

FIRST GIRL

      And I love dancing more than anything.

SECOND GIRL

      Do not be hard on us; but yesterday

      A woman in the road threw stones at me.

      You would not have me stoned?

FIRST GIRL

      May I not dance?

SOLDIER

      I will do nothing. You have put him out,

      And now that he is out – well, leave him out.

FIRST GIRL

      Do it for my sake, Peter.

SECOND GIRL

      And for mine.

[Each girl as she speaks takes PETER’S hand with her right hand, stroking down his arm with her left. While SECOND GIRL is stroking his arm, FIRST GIRL leaves go and gives him the dishSOLDIER

      Well, well; but not your way. [To SEANCHAN.] Here’s meat for you.

      It has been carried from too good a table

      For men like you, and I am offering it

      Because these women have made a fool of me.

[A pause.

      You mean to starve? You will have none of it?

      I’ll leave it there, where you can sniff the savour.

      Snuff it, old hedgehog, and unroll yourself!

      But if I were the King, I’d make you do it

      With wisps of lighted straw.

SEANCHAN

      You have rightly named me.

      I lie rolled up under the ragged thorns

      That are upon the edge of those great waters

      Where all things vanish away, and I have heard

      Murmurs that are the ending of all sound.

      I am out of life; I am rolled up, and yet,

      Hedgehog although I am, I’ll not unroll

      For you, King’s dog! Go to the King, your master.

      Crouch down and wag your tail, for it may be

      He has nothing now against you, and I think

      The stripes of your last beating are all healed.

[The SOLDIER has drawn his sword.
CHAMBERLAIN[Striking up sword.]

      Put up your sword, sir; put it up, I say!

      The common sort would tear you into pieces

      If you but touched him.

SOLDIER

      If he’s to be flattered,

      Petted, cajoled, and dandled into humour,

      We might as well have left him at the table.

[Goes to one side sheathing sword.
SEANCHAN

      You must need keep your patience yet awhile,

      For I have some few mouthfuls of sweet air

      To swallow before I have grown to be as civil

      As any other dust.

CHAMBERLAIN

      You wrong us, Seanchan.

      There is none here but holds you in respect;

      And if you’d only eat out of this dish,

      The King would show how much he honours you.

[Bowing and smiling.

      Who could imagine you’d so take to heart

      Being put from the high table? I am certain

      That you, if you will only think it over,

      Will understand that it is men of law,

      Leaders of the King’s armies, and the like,

      That should sit there.

SEANCHAN

      Somebody has deceived you,

      Or maybe it was your own eyes that lied,

      In making it appear that I was driven

      From the King’s table. You have driven away

      The images of them that weave a dance

      By the four rivers in the mountain garden.

CHAMBERLAIN

      You mean we have driven poetry away.

      But that’s not altogether true, for I,

      As you should know, have written poetry.

      And often when the table has been cleared,

      And candles lighted, the King calls for me,

      And I repeat it him. My poetry

      Is not to be compared with yours; but still,

      Where I am honoured, poetry is honoured —

      In some measure.

SEANCHAN

      If you are a poet,

      Cry out that the King’s money would not buy,

      Nor the high circle consecrate his head,

      If


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