The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

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      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.

      Is 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!

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