The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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it ‘get away’!
Is that the way I’m to be spoken to!
Am I not Mayor? Amn’t I authority?
Amn’t I in the King’s place? Answer me that!
BRIAN.
Then show the people what a king is like:
Pull down old merings and root custom up,
Whitewash the dunghills, fatten hogs and geese,
Hang your gold chain about an ass’s neck,
And burn the blessed thorn trees out of the fields,
And drive what’s comely away!
MAYOR.
Holy Saint Coleman!
FIRST CRIPPLE.
Fine talk! fine talk! What else does the King do?
He fattens hogs and drives the poet away!
SECOND CRIPPLE.
He starves the song-maker!
FIRST CRIPPLE.
He fattens geese!
MAYOR.
How dare you take his name into your mouth!
How dare you lift your voice against the King!
What would we be without him?
BRIAN.
Why do you praise him?
I will have nobody speak well of him,
Or any other king that robs my master.
MAYOR.
And had he not the right to? and the right
To strike your master’s head off, being the King,
Or yours or mine? I say, ‘Long live the King!
Because he does not take our heads from us.’
Call out, ‘Long life to him!’
BRIAN.
Call out for him!
[Speaking at same time with MAYOR.
There’s nobody’ll call out for him,
But smiths will turn their anvils,
The millers turn their wheels,
The farmers turn their churns,
The witches turn their thumbs,
’Till he be broken and splintered into pieces.
MAYOR.
[At same time with Brian.]
He might, if he’d a mind to it,
Be digging out our tongues,
Or dragging out our hair,
Or bleaching us like calves,
Or weaning us like lambs,
But for the kindness and the softness that is in him.
[They gasp for breath.
FIRST CRIPPLE.
I’ll curse him till I drop!
[Speaking at same time as SECOND CRIPPLE and MAYOR and BRIAN, who have begun again.
The curse of the poor be upon him,
The curse of the widows upon him,
The curse of the children upon him,
The curse of the bishops upon him,
Until he be as rotten as an old mushroom!
SECOND CRIPPLE.
[Speaking at same time as FIRST CRIPPLE and MAYOR and BRIAN.
The curse of wrinkles be upon him!
Wrinkles where his eyes are,
Wrinkles where his nose is,
Wrinkles where his mouth is,
And a little old devil looking out of every wrinkle!
BRIAN.
[Speaking at same time with MAYOR and CRIPPLES.]
And nobody will sing for him,
And nobody will hunt for him,
And nobody will fish for him,
And nobody will pray for him,
But ever and always curse him and abuse him.
MAYOR.
[Speaking at same time with CRIPPLES and BRIAN.]
What good is in a poet?
Has he money in a stocking,
Or cider in the cellar,
Or flitches in the chimney,
Or anything anywhere but his own idleness?
[BRIAN seizes MAYOR.
MAYOR.
Help! help! Am I not in authority?
BRIAN.
That’s how I’ll shout for the King!
MAYOR.
Help! help! Am I not in the King’s place?
BRIAN.
I’ll teach him to be kind to the poor!
MAYOR.
Help! help! Wait till we are in Kinvara!
FIRST CRIPPLE.
[Beating MAYOR on the legs with crutch.]
I’ll shake the royalty out of his legs!
SECOND CRIPPLE.
[Burying his nails in MAYOR’S face.]
I’ll scrumble the ermine out of his skin!
[The CHAMBERLAIN comes down steps shouting, ‘Silence! silence! silence!’
CHAMBERLAIN.
How dare you make this uproar at the doors,
Deafening the very greatest in the land,
As if the farmyards and the rookeries
Had all been emptied!
FIRST CRIPPLE.
It is the Chamberlain.
[CRIPPLES go out.
CHAMBERLAIN.
Pick up the litter there, and get you gone!
Be quick about it! Have you no respect
For this worn stair, this all but sacred door,
Where suppliants and tributary kings
Have passed, and the world’s glory knelt in silence?
Have you no reverence for what all other men
Hold honourable?
BRIAN.
If I might speak my mind,
I’d say the King would have his luck again
If he would let my master have his rights.
CHAMBERLAIN.
Pick up your litter! Take your noise away!
Make haste, and get the clapper from the bell!
BRIAN.
[Putting last of food into basket.]
What do the great and powerful care for rights
That have no armies!