The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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to hesitate; scratching his head.
But what comes now? Something about the King.
BRIAN.
Get on! get on! The food is all set out.
MAYOR.
Don’t hurry me.
FIRST CRIPPLE.
Give us a taste of it.
He’ll not begrudge it.
SECOND CRIPPLE.
Let them that have their limbs
Starve if they will. We have to keep in mind
The stomach God has left us.
MAYOR.
Hush! I have it!
The King was said to be most friendly to us,
And we have reason, as you’ll recollect,
For thinking that he was about to give
Those grazing lands inland we so much need,
Being pinched between the water and the stones.
Our mowers mow with knives between the stones;
The sea washes the meadows. You know well
We have asked nothing but what’s reasonable.
SEANCHAN.
Reason in plenty. Yellowy white hair,
A hollow face, and not too many teeth.
How comes it he has been so long in the world
And not found Reason out?
[While saying this he has turned half round. He hardly looks at the MAYOR.
BRIAN.
[Trying to pull MAYOR away.]
What good is there
In telling him what he has heard all day!
I will set food before him.
MAYOR.
[Shoving BRIAN away.]
Don’t hurry me!
It’s small respect you’re showing to the town!
Get farther off! [To SEANCHAN.] We would not have you think,
Weighty as these considerations are,
That they have been as weighty in our minds
As our desire that one we take much pride in,
A man that’s been an honour to our town,
Should live and prosper; therefore we beseech you
To give way in a matter of no moment,
A matter of mere sentiment—a trifle—
That we may always keep our pride in you.
[He finishes this speech with a pompous air, motions to BRIAN to bring the food to SEANCHAN, and sits on seat.
BRIAN.
Master, master, eat this! It’s not king’s food,
That’s cooked for everybody and nobody.
Here’s barley-bread out of your father’s oven,
And dulse from Duras. Here is the dulse, your honour;
It’s wholesome, and has the good taste of the sea.
[Takes dulse in one hand and bread in other and presses them into SEANCHAN’S hands. SEANCHAN shows by his movement his different feeling to BRIAN.
FIRST CRIPPLE.
He has taken it, and there’ll be nothing left!
SECOND CRIPPLE.
Nothing at all; he wanted his own sort.
What’s honey to a cat, corn to a dog,
Or a green apple to a ghost in a churchyard?
SEANCHAN.
[Pressing food back into BRIAN’S hands.]
Eat it yourself, for you have come a journey,
And it may be eat nothing on the way.
BRIAN.
How could I eat it, and your honour starving!
It is your father sends it, and he cried
Because the stiffness that is in his bones
Prevented him from coming, and bid me tell you
That he is old, that he has need of you,
And that the people will be pointing at him,
And he not able to lift up his head,
If you should turn the King’s favour away;
And he adds to it, that he cared you well,
And you in your young age, and that it’s right
That you should care him now.
SEANCHAN.
[Who is now interested.]
And is that all?
What did my mother say?
BRIAN.
She gave no message;
For when they told her you had it in mind to starve,
Or get again the ancient right of the poets,
She said: ‘No message can do any good.
He will not send the answer that you want.
We cannot change him.’ And she went indoors,
Lay down upon the bed, and turned her face
Out of the light. And thereupon your father
Said: ‘Tell him that his mother sends no message,
Albeit broken down and miserable.’ [A pause.
Here’s a pigeon’s egg from Duras, and these others
Were laid by your own hens.
SEANCHAN.
She has sent no message.
Our mothers know us; they know us to the bone.
They knew us before birth, and that is why
They know us even better than the sweethearts
Upon whose breasts we have lain.
Go quickly! Go
And tell them that my mother was in the right.
There is no answer. Go and tell them that.
Go tell them that she knew me.
MAYOR.
What is he saying?
I never understood a poet’s talk
More than the baa of a sheep!
[Comes over from seat. SEANCHAN turns away.
You have not heard,
It may be, having been so much away,
How many of the cattle died last winter
From lacking grass, and that there was much sickness
Because the poor have nothing but salt fish
To live on through the winter?
BRIAN.
Get away,
And leave the place to me! It’s my turn now,
For your sack’s empty!
MAYOR.