Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Eileen O'Donovan
Funded by School of History, University College, Cork
1. First draft.
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A friend suggested to me the subject of this play, an Irish folk-tale from Lady Wildes' Ancient Legends. I have for years struggled with something which is charming in the naive legend but a platitude on the stage. I did not discover till a year ago that if the wise man humbled himself to the fool and received salvation as his reward, so much more powerful are pictures than words, no explanatory dialogue could set the matter right. I was faintly pleased when I converted a music-hall singer and kept him going to Mass for six weeks, so little responsibility does one feel for those to whom one has never been introduced; but I was always ashamed when I saw any friend of my own in the theatre. Now I have made my philosopher accept God's will, whatever it is, and find his courage again, and helped by the elaboration of verse, have so changed the fable that it is not false to my own thoughts of the world. (Yeats, p. 188)
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Text has been proof-read twice.
The electronic text represents the edited text. Lines (or parts of them) reproduced in italics in the printed edition are tagged hi rend="ital".
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Created: By William Butler Yeats (18651939). (1912)
Beatrix Färber (ed.)
Beatrix Färber (ed.)
Eileen O'Donovan (ed.)
Eileen O'Donovan (data capture)
Scene: Pupils come in and stand before the stage curtain, which is still closed. One pupil carries a book.
First Pupil
He said we might choose the subject for the lesson.
Second Pupil
There is none of us wise enough to do that.
Third Pupil
It would need a great deal of wisdom to know what it is we want to know.
Fourth Pupil
I will question him.
Fifth Pupil
You?
Fourth Pupil
Last night I dreamt that some one came and told me to question him. I was to say to him, You were wrong to say there is no God and no soulmaybe, if there is not much of either, there is yet some tatters, some tag on the windso to speaksome rag upon a bush, some bob-tail of a god. I will argue with him, nonsense though it beaccording to my dream, and you will see how well I can argue, and what thoughts I have.
First Pupil
I'd as soon listen to dried peas in a bladder, as listen to your thoughts.
[Fool comes in.]
Fool
Give me a penny.
Second
Let us choose a subject by chance. Here is his big book. Let us turn over the pages slowly. Let one of us put down his finger without looking. The passage his finger lights on will be the subject for the lesson.
Fool
Give me a penny.
Third Pupil
(Taking up book) How heavy it is.
Fourth Pupil
Spread it on Teigue's back, and then we can all stand round and see the choice.
Second Pupil
Make him spread out his arms.
Fourth Pupil
Down on your knees. Hunch up your back. Spread your arms out now, and look like a golden eagle in a church. Keep still. Keep still.
Fool
Give me a penny.
Third Pupil
Is that the right cry for an eagle cock?
Second Pupil
I'll turn the pagesyou close your eyes and put your finger down.
Third Pupil
That's it, and then he cannot blame us for the choice.
First Pupil
There, I have chosen. Fool, keep stilland if what's wise is strange and sounds like nonsense, we've made a good choice.
Fifth Pupil
The Master has come.
Fool
Will anybody give a penny to a fool?
[ [One of the pupils draws back the stage curtain showing the Master sitting at his desk. There is an hour-glass upon his desk or in a bracket on the wall. One pupil puts the book before him.]
First Pupil
We have chosen the passage for the lesson. Master. There are two
Wise Man
That passage, that passage! what mischief has there been since yesterday?
First Pupil
None, Master.
Wise Man
Oh yes, there has; some craziness has fallen from the wind, or risen from the graves of old men, and made you choose that subject.
Fourth Pupil
I knew that it was folly, but they would have it.
Third Pupil
Had we not better say we picked it by chance?
Second Pupil
No; he would say we were children still.
First Pupil
I have found a sentence under that one that saysas though to show it had a hidden meaninga beggar wrote it upon the walls of Babylon.
Wise Man
Then find some beggar and ask him what it means, for I will have nothing to do with it.
Fourth Pupil
Come, Teigue, what is the old book's meaning when it says that there are sheep that drop their lambs in November?
Fool
To be sureeverybody knows, everybody in the world knows, when it is Spring with us, the trees are withering there, when it is Summer with us, the snow is falling there, and have I not myself heard the lambs that are there all bleating on a cold November dayto be sure, does not everybody with an intellect know that; and maybe when it's night with us, it is day with them, for many a time I have seen the roads lighted before me.
Wise Man
The beggar who wrote that on Babylon wall meant that there is a spiritual kingdom that cannot be seen or known till the faculties whereby we master the kingdom of this world wither away, like green things in winter. A monkish thought, the
First Pupil
If he meant all that, I will take an oath that he was spindle-shanked, and cross-eyed, and had a lousy itching shoulder, and that his heart was crosser than his eyes, and that he wrote it out of malice.
Second Pupil
Let's come away and find a better subject.
Fourth Pupil
And maybe now you'll let me choose.
First Pupil
Come.
Wise Man
Were it but true 'twould alter everything
until the stream of the world had changed its course,
[A pause.]
I have dreamed it twice.
First Pupil
Something has troubled him.
[Pupils go out]
Wise Man
Twice have I dreamed it in a morning dream,
Now nothing serves my pupils but to come
With a like thought. Reason is growing dim;
A moment more and Frenzy will beat his drum
Fool
Give me a penny.
Wise Man
That I should dream it twice, and after that, that they should pick it out.
Fool
Won't you give me a penny?
Wiseman
What do you want? What can it matter to you whether the words I am reading are wisdom or sheer folly?
Fool
Such a great, wise teacher will not refuse a penny to a fool.
Wise Man
Seeing that everybody is a fool when he is asleep and dreaming, why do you call me wise?
Fool
O, I know,I know, I know what I have seen.
Wise Man
Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us.
Fool
When I went by Kilcluan, where the bells used to be ringing at the break of every day, I could hear nothing but the people snoring in their houses. When I went by Tubbervanach,
Wise Man
And you too have called me wiseyou would be paid for that good opinion doubtless.Run to the kitchen, my wife will give you food and drink.
Fool
That's foolish advice for a wise man to give.
Wise Man
Why, Fool?
Fool
What is eaten is goneI want pennies for my bag. I must buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time the sun is weak, and snares to catch the rabbits and the hares, and a big pot to cook them in.
Wise Man
I have more to think about than giving pennies to your like, so run away.
Fool
Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. The fishermen let me sleep among their nets in the loft because I bring them luck; and in the summer time, the wild creatures let me sleep near their nests and their holes. It
Wise Man
What are the shears for?
Fool
I won't tell you. If I told you, you would drive them away.
Wise Man
Drive them away! Who would I drive away?
Fool
I won't tell you.
Wise Man
Not if I give you a penny?
Fool
No.
Wise Man
Not if I give you two pennies?
Fool
You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won't tell you.
Wise Man
Three pennies?
Fool
Four, and I will tell you.
Wise Man
Very wellfour, but from this out I will not call you Teigue the Fool.
Fool
Let me come close to you, where nobody will hear me; but first you must promise not to drive them away. (Wise Man nods.) Every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black nets.
Wise Man
A strange place that to fish in.
Fool
They spread them out on the hills that they may catch the feet of the angels; but every morning just before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with the shears and the angels fly away.
Wise Man
(Speaking with excitement) Ah, now I know that you are Teigue the Fool. You say that I am wise, and yet I say, there are no angels.
Fool
I have seen plenty of angels.
Wise Man
No, no, you have not.
Fool
They are plenty if you but look about you. They are like the blades of grass.
Wise Man
They are plenty as the blades of grassI heard that phrase when I was but a child and was told folly.
Fool
When one gets quiet. When one is so quiet that there is not a thought in one's head maybe, there is something that wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet, and then all in a minute one can smell summer flowers, and tall people go by, happy and laughing, but they will not let us look at their faces. Oh no, it is not right that we should look at their faces.
Wise Man
You have fallen asleep upon a hill, yet, even those that used to dream of angels dream now of other things.
Fool
I saw one but a moment agothat is because I am lucky. It was coming behind me, but it was not laughing.
Wise Man
There's nothing but what men can see when they are awake. Nothing, nothing.
Fool
I knew you would drive them away.
Wise Man
Pardon me, Fool,
I had forgotten whom I spoke to. Well, there are your four pennies
Fool you are called.
[The Fool goes close to him.]
or else it's, Fool, be gone.
[The Fool goes further off.]
Or, Fool, stand there.
[The Fool straightens himself up.]
Or, Fool, go sit in the corner.
[The Fool sits in the corner.]
And all the while
What were they all but fools before I came?
What are they now, but mirrors that seem men,
Because of my image? Fool, hold up your head.
[Fool does so.]
What foolish stories they have told of the ghosts
That fumbled with the clothes upon the bed,
Or creaked and shuffled in the corridor,
Or else, if they were pious bred,
Of angels from the skies,
[An angel has come in. It should be played by a man if a man can be found with the right voice, and may wear a little golden domino and a halo made of metal. Or the whole face may be a beautiful mask, in which case the last sentence on page 136 should not be spoken.]
Yet it is strange, the strangest thing I have known,
That I should still be haunted by the notion
That there's a crisis of the spirit wherein
We get new sight, and that they know some trick
[{[Fool goes out. (Wise Man sees Angel.)]]
What are you? Who are you?
I think I saw some like you in my dreams,
When but a child. That thing about your head,
that brightness in your hairthat flowery branch;
But I have done with dreams, I have done with dreams.
Angel
I am the crafty one that you have called.
Wise Man
How that I called?
Angel
I am the messenger.
Wise Man
What message could you bring to one like me?
Angel
(Turning the Hour-glass) That you will die when the last grain of sand
Has fallen through this glass.
Wise Man
I have a wife.
Children and pupils that I cannot leave:
Why must I die, my time is far away?
Angel
You have to die because no soul has passed
The heavenly threshold since you have opened school,
But grass grows there, and rust upon the hinge;
Wise Man
And whither shall I go when I am dead?
Angel
You have denied there is a purgatory,
Therefore that gate is closed; you have denied
There is a heaven, and so that gate is closed.
Wise Man
Where then? For I have said there is no hell.
Angel
Hell is the place of those who have denied;
They find there what they planted and what dug.
Wise Man
Pardon me, blessed Angel,
I have denied and taught the like to others.
But how could I believe before my sight
Had come to me?
Angel
It is too late for pardon.
Wise Man
Had I but met your gaze as now I met it
But how can you that live but where we go
In the uncertainty of dizzy dreams
Angel
Only when all the world has testified,
May soul confound it, crying out in joy,
and laughing on its lonely precipice.
What's dearth and death and sickness to the soul
That knows no virtue but itself? Nor could it,
Wise Man
It is as hard for you to understand
Why we have doubted, as it is for us
To banish doubtwhat folly have I said?
There can be nothing that you do not know:
Give me a yeara montha weeka day,
I would undo what I have donean hour
Give me until the sand has run in the glass.
Angel
Though you may not undo what you have done,
I have this power if you but find one soul,
[Pupils sing in the distance.
Who stole your wits away and where are they gone?
Wise Man
My pupils come,
Before you have begun to climb the sky
I shall have found that soul. They say they doubt,
But what their others dinned into their ears
Cannot have been so lightly rooted up;
Besides, I can disprove what I once proved
Angel
Farewellfarewell,
For I am weary of the weight of time.
[[Angel goes out. Wise Man makes a step to follow and pauses. Some of his pupils come in at the other side of the stage.]
First Pupil
Master, master, you must choose the subject.
[Enter other pupils with Fool, about whom they dance; all the pupils may have little cushions on which presently they seat themselves.]
Second Pupil
Here is a subject where have the Fool's wits gone? (singing)
Who dragged your wits away
Where no one knows?
Or have they run off
On their own pair of shoes?
Fool
Give me a penny.
First Pupil
The Master will find your wits.
Second Pupil
And when they are found, you must not beg for pennies.
Third Pupil
They are hidden somewhere in the badger's hole,
But you must carry an old candle end
If you would find them.
Fourth Pupil
They are up above the clouds.
Fool
Give me a penny, give me a penny.
First Pupil (singing)
I'll find your wits again,
Come, for I saw them roll.
To where old badger mumbles
In the black hole.
Second Pupil (singing)
No, but an angel stole them
The night that you were born,
And now they are but a rag,
On the moon's horn.
Wise Man
Be silent.
First Pupil
Can you not see that he is troubled?
[[All the pupils are seated.]]
Wise Man
What do you think of when alone at night?
Do not the things your mothers spoke about,
Before they took the candle from the bedside,
Rush up into the mind and master it,
Till you believe in them against your will?
Second Pupil (to first pupil)
You answer for us.
Third Pupil (in a whisper to the first pupil)
Be careful what you say;
If he persuades you to an argument,
He will but turn us all to mockery.
First Pupil
We had no minds until you made them for us;
Wise Man
You answer with incredible things.
It is certain that there is one,though it may be but one
Believes in God and in some heaven and hell
In all those things we put into our prayers.
First Pupil
We thought those things before our minds were born,
But that was long agowe are not children.
Wise Man
You are afraid to tell me what you think
Because I am hot and angry when I am crossed.
I do not blame you for it; but have no fear,
First Pupil
There is no one, Master,
There is not one but found them sweet as milk.
Wise Man
The things that have been told us in our childhood
Are not so fragile.
Second Pupil
We are no longer children.
Third Pupil
We all believe in you and in what you have taught.
Other Pupils
All, all, all, all, in you, nothing but you.
Wise Man
I have deceived youwhere shall I go for words
I have no thoughtsmy mind has been swept bare.
The messengers that stand in the fiery cloud,
Fling themselves out, if we but dare to question.
And after that, the Babylonian moon
Blots all away.
First Pupil (to other pupils)
I take his words to mean
That visionaries, and martyrs when they are raised
Above translunary things, and there enlightened,
Second Pupil
How well he imitates their trick of speech.
Third Pupil
Their air of mystery.
Fourth Pupil
Their empty gaze.
As though they'd looked upon some winged thing,
And would not condescend to mankind after.
First Pupil
Master, we have all learnt that truth is learnt
When the intellect's deliberate and cold,
Wise Man
When it is melted, when it all fumes up,
They walk, as when beside those three in the furnace
The form of the fourth.
First Pupil
Master, there's none among us
That has not heard your mockery of these,
Or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot.
Wise Man
Something incredible has happened
someone has come
First Pupil (to other pupils)
You'd think the way he says it, that he felt it.
There's not a mummer to compare with him.
He's something like a man.
Second Pupil
Give us some proof.
Wise Man
What proof have I to give, but that an angel
An instant ago was standing on that spot.
[[The pupils rise]]
Third Pupil
You dreamed it.
Wise Man
I was awake as I am now.
First pupil (to the others)
I may be dreaming now for all I know.
He wants to show we have no certain proof
Of anything in the world.
Second Pupil
There is this proof that shows we are awakewe have all one world
While every dreamer has a world of his own,
And sees what no one else can.
Third Pupil
Teigue sees angels. So when the Master says he has seen an angel,
He may have seen one.
First Pupil
Both may still be dreamers;
Unless it's proved the angels were alike.
Second Pupil
What sort are the angels, Teigue?
Third Pupil
That will prove nothing,
Unless we are sure prolonged obedience
has made one angel like another angel
As they were eggs.
First Pupil
The Master's silent now:
For he has found that to dispute with us
Seeing that he has taught us what we know
Is but to reason with himself. Let us away,
and find if there is one believer left.
Wise Man
Yes, yes. Find me but one that still believes
The things that we were told when we were children.
Third Pupil
He'll mock and maul him.
Fourth Pupil
From the first I knew
He wanted somebody to argue with.
[[They go.]]
Wise Man
I have no reason left. All dark, all dark!
[[Pupils return laughing. They push forward fourth pupil.]]
First Pupil
Here, Master, is the very man you want.
Fourth Pupil
I never said it.
Wise Man
Dear friend, dear friend, do you believe in God?
Fourth Pupil
Master, they have invented this to mock me.
Wise Man
You are afraid of me.
Fourth Pupil
They know well. Master,
That all I said was but to make them argue.
They've pushed me in to make a mock of me,
Because they knew I could take either side
And beat them at it.
Wise Man
If you believe in God,
You are my soul's one friend.
[[Pupils laugh.]]
Mistress or wife,
can give us but our good or evil luck
Amid the howling world, but you shall give
Eternity, and those sweet-throated things
That drift above the moon.
[The pupils look at one another and are silent.]
Second Pupil
How strange he is.
Wise Man
The angel that stood there upon that spot,
Said that my soul was lost unless I found out
One that believed.
Fourth Pupil
Cease mocking at me, Master,
For I am certain that there is no God
Nor immortality, and they that said it
Made a fantastic tale from a starved dream
To plague our hearts. Will that content you. Master?
Wise Man
The giddy glass is emptier every moment,
And you stand there, debating, laughing and wrangling.
[[He drives them out.]]
I'll call my wife, for what can women do,
That carry us in the darkness of their bodies,
But mock the reason that lets nothing grow
Unless it grow in light. Bridget, Bridget.
A woman never ceases to believe,
Say what we will. Bridget, come quickly, Bridget.
[Bridget comes in wearing her apron. Her sleeves turned up from her arms which are covered with flour.]
Wife, what do you believe in? Tell me the truth,
And notas is the habit with you all
Something you think will please me.
Do you pray?
Bridget
Prayersno, you taught me to leave them off long ago. At first I was sorry, but I am glad now, for I am sleepy in the evenings.
Wise Man
Do you believe in God?
Bridget
Oh, a good wife only believes in what her husband tells her.
Wise Man
But sometimes, when the children are asleep
And I am in the school, do you not think
About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels,
Bridget
I think about nothingsometimes I wonder if the linen is bleaching white, or I go out to see if the crows are picking up the chicken's food.
Wise Man
My God,my God! I will go out myself.
My pupils said that they would find a man whose faith I never shookthey may have found him.
Therefore I will go outbut if I go,
The glass will let the sands run out unseen.
I cannot goI cannot leave the glass.
Go call my pupilsI can explain all now,
Only when all our hold on life is troubled,
[He clutches Bridget as she is going.]
Say to them,
That Nature would lack all in her most need,
Could not the soul find truth as in a flash,
Upon the battle-field, or in the midst
Of overwhelming waves, and say to them
But no, they would but answer as I bid.
Bridget
You want somebody to get up an argument with.
Wise Man
Look out and see if there is any one
There in the streetI cannot leave the glass,
Bridget
I don't understand a word you are saying. There's a crowd of people talking to your pupils.
Wise Man
Go out and find if they have found a man
Who did not understand me when I taught
Or did not listen.
Bridget
It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments.
[She goes out.]
Wise Man
Strange that I should be blind to the great secret,
And that so simple a man might write it out
Upon a blade of grass or bit of rush
With naught but berry juice, and laugh to himself
Writitng it out, because it was so simple.
[Enter Bridget followed by the Fool.]
Fool
Give me something; give me a penny to buy bacon in the shops and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak.
Bridget
I have no pennies. (To Wise Man) Your pupils cannot find anybody to argue with you. There's nobody in the whole country with
Wise Man
Then I am lost indeed.
Bridget
Leave me alone now, I have to make the bread for you and the children.
[[She goes into kitchen.]]
Wise Man
Children, children!
Bridget
Your father wants you, run to him.
[[Children run in.]]
Wise Man
Come to me, children. Do not be afraid.
First Child
We have not forgotten, Father.
Second Child
Oh no, Father.
Both children
(As if repeating a lesson) There is nothing we cannot see, nothing we cannot touch.
First Child
Foolish people used to say that there was, but you have taught us better.
Wise Man
Go to your mother, goyet do not go. What can she say? If am dumb you are lost;
And yet, because the sands are running out,
I have but a moment to show it all in. Children,
the sap would die out of the blades of grass
Had they a doubt. They understand it all,
Being the fingers of God's certainty,
Yet can but make their sign into the air;
But could they find their tongues they'd show it all;
But what am I to say that am but one,
[Children have run out.]
But they are gone; what made them run away?
[The Fool comes in with a dandelion.]
Look at me, tell me if my face is changed.
Is there a notch of the fiend's nail upon it
Already? Is it terrible to sight?
Because the moment's near.
[Going to glass.]
I dare not look,
I dare not know the moment when they come.
No, no, I dare not. (Covers glass.)
Will there be a footfall,
Or will there be a sort of rending sound,
Or else a cracking, as though an iron claw
[Fool has begun to blow the Dandelion.]
What are you doing?
Fool
Wait a minutefourfivesix.
Wise Man
What are you doing that for?
Fool
I am blowing the dandelion to find out what hour it is.
Wise Man
You have heard everything, and that is why
You'd find what hour it isYou'd find that out,
That you may look upon a fleet of devils
Dragging my soul away. You shall not stop,
Fool
So you ask me now. I thought when you were asking your pupils, Will he ask Teigue the Fool? Yes, he will, he will; no, he will notyes, he will. But Teigue will say nothing. Teigue will say nothing.
Wise Man
Tell me quickly.
Fool
I said, Teigue knows everything, not
Wise Man
Speak, speak, for underneath the cover there
The sand is running from the upper glass,
And when the last grain's through, I shall be lost.
Fool
I will not speak. I will not tell you what is in my mind. I will not tell you what is in my bag. You might steal away my thoughts. I met a bodach on the road yesterday, and he said, Teigue, tell me how many pennies are in your bag; I will wager three pennies that there are
Wise Man
There's but one pinch of sand, and I am lost
If you are not he I seek.
Fool
O, what a lot the Fool knows, but he says nothing.
Wise Man
Yes, I remember now. You spoke of angels.
You said but now that you had seen an angel.
You are the one I seek, and I am saved.
Fool
Oh no. How could poor Teigue see angels? Oh, Teigue tells one tale here, another there, and everybody gives him pennies. If Teigue had not his tales he would starve.
[He breaks away and goes out.]
Wise Man
The last hope is gone,
And now that it's too late I see it all,
We perish into God and sink away
into realitythe rest's a dream.
[The Fool comes back.]
Fool
There was one there there by the threshold stone, waiting there; and he said, Go in, Teigue, and tell him everything that he asks you. He will give you a penny if you tell him.
Wise Man
I know enough, that know God's will prevails.
Fool
Waiting till the moment had comethat is what the one out there was saying, but I might tell you what you asked. That is what he was saying.
Wise Man
Be silent. May God's will prevail on the instant,
Although His will be my eternal pain.
I have no question: It is enough, I know what fixed the station
Of star and cloud.
And knowing all, I cry
That what so God has willed
On the instant be fulfilled,
Though that be my damnation.
[He dies.]
Fool
Wise manWise man, wake up and I will tell you everything for a penny. It is I, poor Teigue the Fool. Why don't you wake up, and say, There is a penny for you, Teigue? No, no, you will say nothing. You and I, we are the two fools, we know everything, but we will not speak.
[Angel enters holding a casket.]
O, look what has come from his mouth! O, look what has come from his mouththe white butterfly! He is dead, and I have taken his soul in my hands;
[He goes out.]
curtain