(At Baile's Strand. Emer with her women attendants armed. They are grouped beneath a yew tree. All around is desolate. A view of hills, the sea hard by.)
Emer. This is the place, Baile's Strand--and time--the fortieth day,
Since he went forth with her--that sorceress--on his way
To his new mad adventure. Yet it was best. My mind
Is confident of this, and he will come back kind,
And eager as of old. How glorious the world is,
Clothed as it is to--day, with these glad promises,
In spite of the black winter. Winter is best for us
Who are no longer babes--ungraced, but glorious
With its wild gleams of joy illumining the sea.
To--day he will return. This thing she promised me,
A home--coming to--night--who knows, a honeymoon,
In spite of my fool rivals. See you none coming?
[She looks towards the sea.
Attendant. None.
The sea mist drives too thickly.
Emer. Nor on the moor? Hard by!
Now, surely there were voices?
Attendant. It was the plover's cry.
Emer. Your ears are dull to--day. My own are prescient
Of something brave at hand, of a new grand event,
Which shall repay all sorrows. What was it she said,
That crone, for my consoling while I watched his bed
In the Speckled House and wept? A wise wife wins, it was.
A wife wins against all, and all things come to pass
For her that shall have patience. The rest come and go,
Are smiled on, and pass smiling; but the true wife; no,
She triumphs in her tears;--and in the end he lays
His tired head in her lap, and turns on her his face,
Though it be only dying. If I could hold him thus,
At last, if only thus!
Attendant. There is one approaching us,
A woman and alone.
Emer. A woman? Old or young?
Attendant. Her path is from Emain. She has let loose her tongue,
And calls to us aloud. She is weeping.
Emer. Who is she?
Attendant. Nay. It is one we know. It is Eithne.
Emer. Let her be.
You shall not speak to her. What does the woman here,
Thus once more on my path, to stand my challenger
In face of all, and him--and on this day of days?
I hate the girl's white face and her fair love--sick ways,
And her mad songs and tears. Stand close.
(Enter Eithne, who is walking wildly as if in a dream.)
Eithne. Have you seen him?
Attendant. Whom?
Eithne. The man who is bewitched, your hero. Is there room
For more than one in the world? Cuchulain. Of your grace,
Friends, tell me of Cuchulain.
Emer. Woman, hold your peace.
There are none here your friends.
Eithne. I have seen it in the air.
There has been a battle lost. He won once. I was there.
I saw him smite Eochaid and the confederate foes,
And later, in his triumph. But to--day, who knows?
Look at the eagles soaring.
Emer. Pass upon your road.
We have no news of a fight. For evil or for good,
Pass on your road. Away!
Eithne. I fear harm by the sea,
If he should have met Manannan. His first victory
Was in the hills afar, where the King's power was weak,
But here Manannan rules. He has the strength to wreak
His vengeance on Cuchulain, since he knows all.
Emer. All? How?
Eithne. Manannan rules the sea. The storms before him bow
As servants to his nod. He has the magic wand
That brings them in their cohorts thundering on the land.
None may withstand him here.
Emer. And he seeks what?
Eithne. His wife,
Who has defied his power, and is a cause of strife
In all the Fairy realm to all the world--and thee.
Emer. To me. I will not listen. Pass on thy way.
Eithne. Nay, see
The eagles overhead. They watch death from afar.
It shall be a day of trouble.
Emer. Go, then, seek thy war.
But trouble me no further. Out of my sight, begone
Ere it be worse for thee
(threatening her).
Eithne. Nay, I go quickly.
Emer. Run.
Lest I should smite thee, girl.
Eithne
(frightened). Ah, whither?
Emer. Where thou wilt.
Follow thy birds, not me, lest thy fool's blood be spilt,
For my wrath rises at thee.
(Aside.)Yet my mind misgives.
She presages an ill.
(To Eithne.) The man you look for lives.
Follow your birds. Away!
Eithne. I will go down to the sea
And watch for what befalls.
Emer. Ay, and go warily.
If Manannan be abroad.
(Exit Eithne.)She, too, is on the quest
Crazed with her love of him, her heart sore like the rest,
Ready to kneel; to adore. Yet, why should we thus make
Our lives a cup poured out for men's mad pleasure's sake.
This Eithne is a fool. But the wisest wins no more
Than just her stake, their tolerance. We all count it store
If we can hold them with us for some years in chain--
Some years, some months, some days. Our wisdom is in vain.
They always are our masters, since love binds us still,
And we wait on, their slaves, rough ride us as they will,
Hating each other for it with an insensate hate.
O, women, you are fools. And yet, and yet, and yet--
Settanta comes to--day.
(To Attendants.) Is there still nothing? There!
That was a strain of music, not far off, an air
Like the Fairy chaunt, most sweet, yet ominous withal.
They are bringing him in triumph.
Attendant. It is a festival.
They are coming from the hill.
Second Attendant. A single voice it is;
A single woman's voice.
Attendant. I hear the cadences
Of another with her, a man.
Emer. It is his voice.
(Fand is heard singing.)
And hers?
It is not Eithne's. Listen. See that no one stirs
A hand or foot to them. Closer, I bid you, maids.
I bid you closer yet and hide you chattering heads.
We will watch them as they come.
[They stand behind the tree.
(Enter Cuchulain and Fand as lovers. She scatters flowers of faery, singing as they walk. Laeg follows at a distance. and remains in the background as they advance.)
Fand
(sings)
Song--``O the Days that are Done.''
O the days that are done,
The days of the fading summer,
Brown leaves and days of brown,
Loves that are scattered and flown
With the whirling leaves from the tree,
When the rain is on land and sea,
And the white mists have hid the sun
From the face of the sad newcomer.
Cease, O rain, from thy tears.
Laugh, winter. I bring thee roses.
Why dost thou weary our ears,
Wind, with thy insolent jeers?
For lo in love's path I strew
Bell--flowers and bind--weeds blue,
And poppies to ease love's fears,
And ever and always roses.
(She offers him an apple of love, and sings again.)
Apples of love, how sweet,
Love, for thy sake I gather.
Who that of these shall eat,
Love's guidance shall guide his feet,
Love's lightning shall blind his eyes,
Love's wit shall have made him wise,
Since laughter is all love's meat.
And tears shall assail him never.
Cuchulain. Is this the tree you spoke of?
Fand. It is the tree of Fate,
The goal where all love ends,--a little desolate,
A little dark and sombre,--like a day that was,
And cannot be again.
Cuchulain. I do not love its boughs.
Fand. Yet we shall laugh to--morrow.
Cuchulain. We will away from it,
I will not be made sad. Time shall not part us yet.
Fand. We are time's slaves, not masters,--even we who ride
Like kings upon his back, in our joy glorified.
Time bears us royally, but only at his will.
Here he has stopped with us and points towards the hill,
And bids us down afoot. We have been happy, love,
Too happy to lament, or weep, or argue of,
As if love were eternal and our souls our own.
(Sighs.) Ah, love is not eternal.
(After a pause.) You will remember Fand,
Who was so sweet to you awhile in a strange land,
And gathered shells with you, white shells by the lake's shore,
And strewed flowers at your feet, and loved you, alas, more
Than ever she loved man.
Cuchulain. Now, by the powers that are,
This parting shall not be. Be the day near or far,
We will go on together and confront our fate.
We will love on for ever.
Fand. Love? It is too late.
I dare not fail your Emer or be false to her.
This is the tryst I named her, and the hour is near;
'Tis now that we must part. Ah, if indeed she knew,
She would forgive. Your Emer! She is wise and true,
The first of womankind, as you, alas, of men.
Cuchulain, have you loved me? Truly? Once again
Kiss me before we part
(they embrace). There, I put on this veil
(veiling herself) And hide myself in ugliness, lest my resolve should fail.
I am now another woman--one she would approve
And whom you could not kiss.
Cuchulain
(drawing aside her veil). Not yet an instant, love.
I dare not lose your beauty.'Tis my strength, my life!
Fand. And thou who art my strength! It were well to be thy wife
And not as thus, immortal,--and so lose thee. See,
There are real tears in my eyes, the first Fand's vanity
Has ever shed for man.
Cuchulain. We will away, sweetheart,
And dwell in your high mountains with your gods, apart
From men and their sad ways. Ah, Fand, I love these tears
Better than all the laughter of your glad god's years,
Though those, too, were my glory. Fand of the fair cheek.
Fand of the passionate eyes. Fand.
Fand. Speak to me still. Speak.
Tell me in words you love me once more ere I go
(they embrace). I will never more love mortal.
Cuchulain. Nor I woman. No;
Never while life shall hold me.
[Emer advances. Cuchulain and Fand start apart, Fand veiling herself again hurriedly.Laeg places himself between them and theAttendants.
Emer. Cease. This shall not be.
Cuchulain, stand aside.
(To Fand.)What means this mummery,
This fooling, this disguisement of a treacherous face?
Off with these lying weeds! They hide not your disgrace.
I have seen all and I know.
(She tears off Fand's veil.)
Cuchulain. Mad woman, hold thy hand.
This lady is protected.
Emer. She is revealed. 'Tis Fand.
Fand's self, and not another--not Fand's messenger,
But just Fand's wanton self. Woe and alas for her!
Woe for our womanhood! What was it that she said
Of the fair Fairy wisdom, the high lives they led,
These queens upon their mountains, nobler than our own?
The brave immortal part played by the gods alone
Transcending our poor virtue? Fand, in the open day,
Stealing our heroes' hearts, as gold is stolen away,
And robbing their lean wits, till they are such as he,
The man who stands beside her! Fand with her chastity!
Fand with the flower--like eyes! Fand with the pure proud face!
Fand like a tear unshed! O, these bold goddesses!
How like are they to women!
[Emer rushes on Fand with a dagger. Cuchulainseizes her arm. Laeg interposes between them and the Attendants.
Cuchulain. Emer! Once more have done.
This is no place for brawling. Wenches, every one
Stand back--or fear my hand.
Laeg. Back, maids. Have you forgot
The terror of Cuchulain? Nay, I warrant not,
Or must Laeg teach it you? To your distaffs, girls, away!
(Laeg drives them out, and they fly screaming.)
[Exit Laeg and Attendants.
Cuchulain
(alone with Emer, Fand in the background). Now, by the name of him by whom I swear, to--day
Shall see an end of it between us two. What rage
Is this that hath beset thee? Am I, then, in cage,
Like a tamed wolf, with thee that thou shouldst hold me cheap
And dare me to my wrath? What harvest wouldst thou reap
With thy mad herd of women set thus on my track,
And thy insane weak hand and the innocuous wrack
Of thy vain railing words? Put down that childish steel.
Its violence does thee wrong.
Emer. Wouldst thou, then, see me kneel
At my foe's feet, Settanta?
Cuchulain. I would see thee make
Thy face fair to my friends. Nay, coil thee like a snake;
Thou shalt not master me.
Emer. Settanta.
(They struggle for the dagger.)
Cuchulain. Cast it down,
Then we will argue it. I care not, smile or frown,
So thou obey.
Emer
(yielding). I will obey, Cuchulain. There.
I do it at thy word. It flies a messenger
(throwing away her dagger) To thy foes slain for thee, how many, in past days,
To tell them I repent; that henceforth Emer's ways
Are the ways of a weak girl, of one who strikes no blow
Even for the man she loves. It is gone--and let it go--
And with it love and hatred and all pride in thee.
Thou hast enough of maids to soothe thy vanity.
Be they henceforth thy safeguard. I am absolved of all.
Cuchulain. Emer.
Emer. I am not thy wife. I am thy slave, thy thrall,
Even as these others are
(kneeling).I kneel to thee. I kiss
The ground beneath thy feet, like them, in ecstacies,
Entreating and cajoling; lies upon my lips
And flatteries on my tongue; false to the finger tips.
Is thy wrath satisfied, thou great Sualtim's son,
Thou hero of the world, thou scourge of Albion,
King of all kings--Cuchulain? It is a helot sues,
No wife to war with thee, to claim rights, to abuse
Thy too long patience tried. I am thy concubine
To weep tears on thy bosom; one so wholly thine
As to laugh when thou shalt strike her. Strike and thou shalt see.
Cuchulain. Emer, enough, rise up. I may not strive with thee.
Thou shalt have back thy weapon, were it but for Ferdiad's ford,
Where we two stood at bay, thy dagger and my sword,
We two against all Connaught. Only do thou stay on
Gentle as once thou wert. What evil have I done
So great that thou shouldst flout me? This one is a queen,
As worthy as thyself; nor shall she stand between
Thy pride and our long love, since thou art first and best,
And a man's heart has needs besides his earliest.
I will call back thy women.
[Exit.
Fand. Ah! He loves her still.
Emer. He is subdued and won. His wrath was terrible,
Yet shall his love make light the anguish of his hand--
And I--I am weak--weak--weak--
Fand
(advancing). What would you, then, of Fand,
Lady, of more account than Fand would freely give?
There was no need of menace, of wild words that grieve,
Of the least ungenerous thought. Gladly would Fand consent
To all your asking. Nay. Him you so nobly lent
She came but to restore. Were it her heart's best blood
You should desire of her, 'tis Fand would make it good,
'Tis Fand that would bestow.
Emer. Why did you take this man,
If you so little loved him, for so brief a span--
This man of all mankind? It is an ugly trade
To steal love from another, be you wife or maid,
And you, bride of Manannan. Why have you done this thing?
Fand. Ah, lady, you have said it. Manannan is a king,
Glorious, and to be feared, and once I loved him well.
I came to him a bride, his chosen one. A spell
He wrought on me to love him, though he in truth was old
And I a child in years, with gifts and manifold
Persuasions of fair words. But now he loves me not,
And lives apart and far, and I am clean forgot,
And see his face no more. Brave suitors came to me
How many, with their loves? Yet I loved chastity
More than them all, and said them nay, how oft, how long
Nor would I be consoled, though I had suffered wrong,
Until the day you know of. Then I heard of him,
Your hero who was sick, and idly in a whim
Of pity I came to you. We Sidhe have a rule
To love anew each Spring, and I was named a fool
For my long continence, and when I saw his face
I knew his cure lay only in my arms' embrace,
And my cure in his arms. If I did wrong to you,
See, I repair it well. I give you your full due,
Your hero sound and whole.
Emer. And is that all your creed?
Is that your Fairy wisdom? For one evil deed
To do a deed more evil? For a love disdained
To take another love, and count the loss regained?
How is your anger vanquished? How is your grief avenged?
Does your wound hurt you less because your bed is changed?
Can pain be cured by killing? Out on your Fairy faith.
Fand. Emer, we are not as you, who have not, as you, death
To be our full consoler, nor the calm of age
To make our griefs grow less and our sick souls more sage.
We may not be thus fixed who are for ever young,
And so for ever sentient. He who does us wrong
Needs at our hands, and swiftly, his full punishment,
And we, who grieve love lost, to be less innocent,
Lest we should weep eternally eternal tears.
And so our loves grow wanton. You, with your short years,
May dare more constancy. We always must forget,
Nor venture to love wholly, lest we smart for it
Beyond our power to endure. Our loves are like the flowers
We gather in your meadows in our idle hours
And hold them in both hands, and yet as soon let go.
'Tis on their scent we live, the sweetness that we know
Too well to leave untasted. Time is full of blossoms,
And full of wild sweet loves we press to our sad bosoms,
And are revenged and happy and find life again.
Your world is our rose garden and its flowers your men.
I did not mean to wrong you. What shall I say more?
Emer. And you now love him?
Fand. Surely. Yet think not therefore
I am less true to you. You are a happy woman,
A woman happier far than I who am less human.
I would not keep him from you. He is yours to--day--
To--night--I promised it; and I will go my way
Where none shall learn to follow, and so keep my word.
Alas, my grief, my grief!
(She weeps.)
Emer. Nay, I forgive having heard.
And women need forgiveness. We are all weak. We stand,
We two, like children lost in a bewitched strange land,
The land of one man's heart, where we alone are kin.
I grudge you nothing. Nay, why should my heart begin
Its thankless toil anew of weaving the mad wind,
Less wild than a man's heart, and when it goes more kind?
Let me be given up.
Fand. Not so. Indeed, not so.
I will not stand before you. What is my small woe
To your wife's right of grief? It must come in the end.
I go upon a journey where no soul shall lend
Its voice of comforting; but time cures all,
And our time is eternal, one long festival,
Where the guests come and go and none of them sits long.
Long love proves a long weeping and a longer wrong.
(Aside.) Yet it is pity you, Emer of the yellow hair,
Should leave Fand to her sorrow, and take all her share.
(Re--enter Cuchulain, Laeg, and the Women in disorder.)
[Fand retires to the back of the stage.
Cuchulain
(giving Emer her dagger). Here, take your plaything back. It yet may serve a need
If that be true these tell. What is it, Laeg, they said?
Attendant. We have seen shapes and shadows terrible to men.
Hands which have struck at us. The sea mist in the glen
Is full of an armed host with tongues that mock at us
And eyes that flash defiance. There are sounds ominous
Of hurt in every tree, and angers which speak loud.
Hark! Heard you not the thunder?
Laeg. There is a mighty cloud
That broods upon the sea and seems a living thing,
A shadow of destruction.
Fand
(aside). It is himself, the King,
Manannan, in his wrath! He has come to claim his own.
[Darkness. A loud thunderclap is heard.Every one starts aside.
Cuchulain. Laeg. To your arms! Stand fast! What was that presence here?
I felt it on my face, and 'twas no gossamer.
It swept me like a bough. To your arms, Laeg, and strike home!
Take that, and that, and that.
[He strikes at phantoms in the air, and they both rush about fighting.
Women. We are lost!
A Terrible Voice. Fand! Fand!
Fand. I come.
[The storm dies away. Fand disappears.
Cuchulain. The storm is past,--take courage,--and the foul spectral host
With its lewd apparitions. Is none strayed or lost,
Emer, of all your women?
Emer. No one of the band.
We are all here.
Laeg. Save one.
Cuchulain. What mean you? Where is Fand?
Where is the Queen? Speak out.
Emer. There was a voice that cried
Aloud to her to come, and would not be denied:
``Fand! Fand!'' I saw her turn, and with her lips apart,
In the great darkness, standing thus, her white hand on her heart.
She seemed to fade and vanish.
Cuchulain
(to Emer). Woman. What is this?
What hast thou done with Fand? Are these thy sorceries?
Are these thy jealous doings?
Emer. It was Manannan's voice
That called on her to follow; and the rest her choice.
She has gone back to the sea with him. She has chosen her lot.
Cuchulain. Was I not here, Cuchulain? Nay. She loved him not.
Why should she follow him? It is thy jealous guile
Has driven her out from us. She would not waste a smile
On all the proud Sidhe Kings that ever kneeled to her,
Manannan or another, or one precious tear
From her sweet flower--like eyes on the unpitying sea.
Why should she seek its bosom? Why should she fly from me?
If you have raised this route, Emer, by Him that is,
You shall see my face no more. Women, take heed of this:
If Fand be not restored there shall no more be seen
A lady in this land to be beloved of men,
Nor any save the reprobate. My hand shall take
Such toll upon you all, such vengeance for her sake,
That you shall grieve you lived. Away with you! Away!
Search by the seas and shores, probe every cape and bay,
And inlet where she lies;--nor come with her again
Save as her slaves and servants.
Laeg. It has turned his brain,
He has grown mad.
[Cuchulain is driving them out when Eithne enters, carrying a cloak.
Cuchulain. What! A new woman, and not Fand?
Women, you are triflers all, and this is a mad land.
Away, with you! Away!
Eithne. He has forgotten me.
Emer. Speak to him, Eithne, straight, lest he do injury.
Have you seen no woman pass?
Eithne. My grief! I have seen the king,
Manannan of the sea, with his fiend--following.
There was tempest on the beach, and a black multitude
Of shapes upon the waves and cloud which fought with cloud,
And storm--wind with more storm.
Emer. No woman?
Eithne. There was a queen
Passed down towards the shore new--clothed in the Sidhe green,
And fair, exceeding fair.
Emer. What did she?
Eithne. She was singing
As those sing who are glad, and to the King's robe clinging
As those cling who are gay and ask what all men give.
Cuchulain. Traitress! She smiled on him? You did not hear her grieve?
Eithne. The King looked down at her, and her eyes met his eyes,
And she stopped short in her song, and the tears seemed to rise
An instant to her lids, and her eyes looked like flowers
With raindrops on their petals when they are caught in showers
And the sun shining still. Then with a sudden whim,
Even as he stooped to kiss her, she snatched his cloak from him--
This cloak--and broke away with her white feet to the sea,
Laughing a childish laugh, to where I stood, while he,
Pale in his rage, stood there and cursed as she fled on
Unharmed to the sea's brink, spite of his malison.
And passing me she dropped the mantle, while they all
Pursued her through the waves which rose to meet them tall
As a ship's side, it seemed,--or may be 'twas a ship
Tall as a wave. And there the whole dark fellowship
Mounted in haste with her, while the mist shut them in,
And the wind's roaring drowned their voices' impotent din,
Which suddenly grew still. For she, as she left the cloak,
Cried, ``Shake it in their faces.'' And I stood up and shook
The robe as she had bidden, and the ocean's roar
Ceased, and the waves dropped down and fawned upon the shore,
Like spaniels at the lash, while through the silence came
A last word of command, and she named Cuchulain's name,
And cried, ``Go back to him and tell him, with my kiss,
It is Manannan's robe of full forgetfulness.
Shake it before Cuchulain; it shall cure his hurt.''
Laeg. It is the robe of power, Manannan's magic shirt,
The healer of all sorrow.
Cuchulain. Were it a robe of death,
Yet shake it in our faces. That which quickeneth
Shall it not also kill?
Emer. Ay, Eithne, for us all,
We need it sore each one, since each of us is thrall,
Of his own happier past, which asks to be forgot.
Shake it in all our faces. Shake it. It matters not
Whether it was good or evil, pain or lesser pain.
The past is only sorrow.--O to begin again
With a clean memory, purged alike of love and hate!
Cuchulain. We are grown weary all, and death is to forget.
[Eithne sings, waving the cloak slowly to and fro, and becoming more animated in the last verses. At the end of verse two the stage, which has gradually become lighter, shows full sunlight, while the countenances of all grow gay.
Song--``Away, thou Thief.''
Away, thou thief
Of the world, Grief!
Tears, away, both of pain and pleasure!
We have had enough
Of the things of love.
We have weighed our days, and have proved their measure.
For Love, the master,
Has brought disaster,
Through running faster
Than feet could follow.
Our need is grievous
He here should leave us,
To dream without him in hill and hollow.
Better it is,
In a world like this,
Where years deceive, and no day is sure.
Where Love is cruel,
And friends are fuel,
To end than mend what we cannot cure.
For Love, the master,
Runs ever faster,
And brings disaster
On all that follow.
Why should he grieve us?
Nay, let him leave us,
To breathe more freely on hill and hollow.
Shine sweet sun,
On a day begun,
As of childhood won from the ways of sorrow.
All that was pain
Has become our gain,
Like a night of rain on a cloudless morrow.
For Love, the master,
Has brought disaster,
Through flying faster
Than feet could follow.
Here shall he leave us,
Since need is grievous
Of rest more blest upon hill and hollow.
This cloak I shake
On the eyes that ache,
They shall sleep, then wake to a new sweet silence.
The storm's distress
In forgetfulness
Shall grow less and less in life's wiser islands.
For Love, our pastor,
No longer master,
Shall bring disaster
On none that follow,
Nor he deceive us
As once, nor grieve us,
While we go free over hill and hollow.
Curtain.
