The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

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СКАЧАТЬ I grown more dangerous of late?

      But that’s not it. I understand it all.

      It’s you that have changed. You’ve wives and children now,

      And for that reason cannot follow one

      That lives like a bird’s flight from tree to tree.—

      It’s time the years put water in my blood

      And drowned the wildness of it, for all’s changed,

      But that unchanged.—I’ll take what oath you will:

      The moon, the sun, the water, light, or air,

      I do not care how binding.

      CONCHUBAR.

      On this fire

      That has been lighted from your hearth and mine;

      The older men shall be my witnesses,

      The younger, yours. The holders of the fire

      Shall purify the thresholds of the house

      With waving fire, and shut the outer door,

      According to the custom; and sing rhyme

      That has come down from the old law-makers

      To blow the witches out. Considering

      That the wild will of man could be oath-bound,

      But that a woman’s could not, they bid us sing

      Against the will of woman at its wildest

      In the shape-changers that run upon the wind.

      [CONCHUBAR has gone on to his throne.]

      THE WOMEN.

      [They sing in a very low voice after the first few words so that the others all but drown their words.

      May this fire have driven out

      The shape-changers that can put

      Ruin on a great king’s house

      Until all be ruinous.

      Names whereby a man has known

      The threshold and the hearthstone,

      Gather on the wind and drive

      The women, none can kiss and thrive,

      For they are but whirling wind,

      Out of memory and mind.

      They would make a prince decay

      With light images of clay,

      Planted in the running wave;

      Or, for many shapes they have,

      They would change them into hounds,

      Until he had died of his wounds,

      Though the change were but a whim;

      Or they’d hurl a spell at him,

      That he follow with desire

      Bodies that can never tire,

      Or grow kind, for they anoint

      All their bodies, joint by joint,

      With a miracle-working juice

      That is made out of the grease

      Of the ungoverned unicorn.

      But the man is thrice forlorn,

      Emptied, ruined, wracked, and lost,

      That they follow, for at most

      They will give him kiss for kiss;

      While they murmur, ‘After this

      Hatred may be sweet to the taste.’

      Those wild hands that have embraced

      All his body can but shove

      At the burning wheel of love,

      Till the side of hate comes up.

      Therefore in this ancient cup

      May the sword-blades drink their fill

      Of the homebrew there, until

      They will have for masters none

      But the threshold and hearthstone.

      CUCHULAIN.

       [Speaking, while they are singing.]

      I’ll take and keep this oath, and from this day

      I shall be what you please, my chicks, my nestlings.

      Yet I had thought you were of those that praised

      Whatever life could make the pulse run quickly,

      Even though it were brief, and that you held

      That a free gift was better than a forced.—

      But that’s all over.—I will keep it, too.

      I never gave a gift and took it again.

      If the wild horse should break the chariot-pole,

      It would be punished. Should that be in the oath?

      [Two of the WOMEN, still singing, crouch in front of him holding the bowl over their heads. He spreads his hands over the flame.

      I swear to be obedient in all things

      To Conchubar, and to uphold his children.

      CONCHUBAR.

      We are one being, as these flames are one:

      I give my wisdom, and I take your strength.

      Now thrust the swords into the flame, and pray

      That they may serve the threshold and the hearthstone

      With faithful service.

      [The KINGS kneel in a semicircle before the two WOMEN and CUCHULAIN, who thrusts his sword into the flame. They all put the points of their swords into the flame. The third WOMAN is at the back near the big door.

      CUCHULAIN.

      O СКАЧАТЬ