The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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as Forgael.
[Going towards AIBRIC.
Become our captain, Aibric. I am resolved
To make an end of Forgael while he sleeps.
There’s not a man but will be glad of it
When it is over, nor one to grumble at us.
You’ll have the captain’s share of everything.
AIBRIC.
Silence! for you have taken Forgael’s pay.
FIRST SAILOR.
We joined him for his pay, but have had none
This long while now; we had not turned against him
If he had brought us among peopled seas,
For that was in the bargain when we struck it.
What good is there in this hard way of living,
Unless we drain more flagons in a year
And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men
In their long lives? If you’ll be of our troop
You’ll be as good a leader.
AIBRIC.
Be of your troop!
No, nor with a hundred men like you,
When Forgael’s in the other scale. I’d say it
Even if Forgael had not been my master
From earliest childhood, but that being so,
If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard
I’ll give my answer.
FIRST SAILOR.
You have awaked him.
[To SECOND SAILOR.
We’d better go, for we have lost this chance.
[They go out.
FORGAEL.
Have the birds passed us? I could hear your voice.
But there were others.
AIBRIC.
I have seen nothing pass.
FORGAEL.
You’re certain of it? I never wake from sleep
But that I am afraid they may have passed,
For they’re my only pilots. If I lost them
Straying too far into the north or south,
I’d never come upon the happiness
That has been promised me. I have not seen them
These many days; and yet there must be many
Dying at every moment in the world,
And flying towards their peace.
AIBRIC.
Put by these thoughts,
And listen to me for awhile. The sailors
Are plotting for your death.
FORGAEL.
Have I not given
More riches than they ever hoped to find?
And now they will not follow, while I seek
The only riches that have hit my fancy.
AIBRIC.
What riches can you find in this waste sea
Where no ship sails, where nothing that’s alive
Has ever come but those man-headed birds,
Knowing it for the world’s end?
FORGAEL.
Where the world ends
The mind is made unchanging, for it finds
Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,
The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,
The roots of the world.
AIBRIC.
Who knows that shadows
May not have driven you mad for their own sport?
FORGAEL.
Do you, too, doubt me? Have you joined their plot?
AIBRIC.
No, no, do not say that. You know right well
That I will never lift a hand against you.
FORGAEL.
Why should you be more faithful than the rest,
Being as doubtful?
AIBRIC.
I have called you master
Too many years to lift a hand against you.
FORGAEL.
Maybe it is but natural to doubt me.
You’ve never known, I’d lay a wager on it,
A melancholy that a cup of wine,
A lucky battle, or a woman’s kiss
Could not amend.
AIBRIC.
I have good spirits enough.
I’ve nothing to complain of but heartburn,
And that is cured by a boiled liquorice root.
FORGAEL.
If you will give me all your mind awhile—
All, all, the very bottom of the bowl—
I’ll show you that I am made differently,
That nothing can amend it but these waters,
Where I am rid of life—the events of the world—
What do you call it?—that old promise-breaker,
The cozening fortune-teller that comes whispering,
‘You will have all you have wished for when you have earned
Land for your children or money in a pot.’
And when we have it we are no happier,
Because of that old draught under the door,
Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all
We have been no better off than Seaghan the fool,
That never did a hand’s turn. Aibric! Aibric!
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,
And find their laughter sweeter to the taste
For that brief sighing.
AIBRIC.
If you had loved some woman—
FORGAEL.
You say that also? You have heard the voices,
For that is what they say—all, all the shadows—
Aengus and Edain, those passionate wanderers,
And all the others; but it must be love
As they have known it. Now the secret’s out;
For it is love that I am seeking