University of Virginia Library

ACT II

Scene I.

—A year later. In the hall of the Royal Dûn at Tara. The walls covered with skins, stag's heads and boar's heads, weapons: at intervals great torches. At lower end, a company of warriors, for the most part in bratta of red and green, or red and green and blue, like tartan but in long, broad lines or curves, and not in squares, deerskin gaiters and sandals. Also harpers and others, and white-clad druids and bards. On a dais sits Eochaidh the High King. Beside him sits Etain, his queen. Behind her is a group of whiterobed girls.
Harpers (strike a loud clanging music from their harps).
Chorus of Bards
Glory of years, O king, glory of years!
Hail, Eochaidh the High King of Eiré, hail!
Etain the Beautiful, hail!

Other Bards, Harpers, and Minstrels
Hail!

Druids
Hail!

Warriors
Hail!

Eochaidh
Drink from the great shells and horns! ... for I am glad
That on this night which rounds my year of joy,
In amity and all glad fellowship
We feast together.
[Turning to Etain
Etain, speak, my Queen.

Etain
[Rising
Warriors and druids, bards, harpers, friends
Of high and low degree, I who am queen
Do also thank you. But I am weary now,
And weary too with strange perplexing dreams
Thrice dreamed: and so I bid you all farewell.
[Bows low. Turning to the king adds
To you, dear love, my lord and king, I too
Will bid farewell to-night.

Eochaidh
[Lovingly
Say not farewell:
Say not farewell, dear love, for we shall meet
When the last starry dews are gathered up
And loud in the green woods the throstles call.

Etain
Dear, I am tired.... Farewell!

Eochaidh
No, no, my fawn—
My fawn of love: this night, this night I pray
Leave me not here alone: for under all
This outer tide of joy I am sore wrought
By dreams and premonitions. For three nights
I have heard sudden laughters in the dark,
Where nothing was; and in the first false dawn
Have seen phantasmal shapes, and on the grass
A host of shadows marching, bent one way
As when green leagues of reed become one reed
Blown slantwise by the wind.

Etain
I, too, have heard
Strange delicate music, subtle murmurings,
A little lovely noise of myriad leaves,
As though the greenness on the wind o' the south
Came traveling to bare woods on one still night:
[A pause
I, too, have heard sweet laughter at the dawn,
Amid the twilight fern: but when I leaned
To see the unknown friends, no more than this
I saw—grey delicate shadows on the grass,
Grey shadows on the fern, the flowers, the leaves,
Swift flitting, like foam-shadows o'er a wave,
Before the grey wave of the coming day.
[A pause: then suddenly
But I am weary. Eochaidh, love and king,
Sweet sleep and sweeter dreams!

[Etain leans and kisses the king. He stoops, and takes her right hand, and lifts it to his lips. Warriors raise their swords and spears, as Etain leaves, followed by her women.
Warriors and Others
The Queen! The Queen!

Harpers (strike a loud clanging music from their harps).
Chorus of Bards
Glory of years, O king, glory of years!
Hail, Eochaidh Ard-Righ of Eiré, hail! hail!
Etain the Beautiful, hail!

Other Bards, Harpers, and Minstrels
Hail!

Druids
Hail!

Warriors
Hail!

Eochaidh
[Raising a white hazel-wand, till absolute silence falls
Now go in peace. To one and all, good-night.
[The warriors, bards, minstrels troop out, leaving only the harpers and a few druids, who do not follow, but stand uncertain as a stranger passes through their midst and confronts the king. He is young,

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princely, fair to see; clad all in green, with a gold belt, a gold torque round his neck, gold armlets on his bare arms, and two gold torques round his bare ankles. On his long curling dark hair, falling over his shoulder, is a small green cap from which trails a peacockfeather. To his left side is slung a small clarsach, or harp.

Midir
Hail, Eochaidh, King of Eiré.

Eochaidh
[Standing motionless and looking fixedly at the stranger
Hail, fair sir!

Midir
[With light grace
Sorrow upon me that I am so late
For this great feasting; but I come from far,
And winds and rains delayed me. Yet full glad
I am to stand before the king to-night
And claim a boon!

Eochaidh
No stranger claims in vain
Here in my Dûn, a boon if that boon be
Such I may grant without a loss of fame,
Honour, or common weal. But first, fair sir,
I ask the name and rank of him who craves,
To all unknown?

Midir
I am a king's first son:
My kingdom lies beyond your lordly realms,
O king, and yet upon our mist-white shores
The Three Great Waves of Eiré rise in foam.
But I am under geasa, sacred bonds,
To tell to no one, even to the king,
My name and lineage. King, I wish you well:
Lordship and peace and all your heart's desire.

Eochaidh
Fair lord, my thanks I give. Lordship I have,
And peace a little while, though one brief year
Has seen its birth and life: my heart's desire—
Ah, unknown lord, give me my heart's desire—
And I will give you lordship of these lands,
Kingship of Eiré, riches, greatness, power,
All, all, for but the little infinite thing
That is my heart's desire!

Midir
And that, O king?

Eochaidh
It is to know there is no twilight hour
Upon my day of joy: no starless night
Wherein my swimming love may reach in vain
For any shore, wherein great love shall drown
And be a lifeless weed, which the pale shapes
Of ghastly things shall look at and pass by
With idle fin.

Midir
Have not the poets sung
Great love survives the night, and climbs the stars,
And lives th' immortal hour along the brows
Of that infinitude called Youth, whom men
Name Oengus, Sunrise?

Eochaidh
Sir, I too have been
A poet.

Midir
Within the Country of the Young,
Whence I have come, our life is full of joy,
For there the poet's dreams alone are true.

Eochaidh
Dreams ... dreams....
[A pause: then abruptly
But tell me now, fair lord, the boon
You crave.

Midir
I have heard rumour say that there is none
Can win the crown at chess from this crowned king
Called Eochaidh.

Eochaidh
Well?

Midir
And I would win that crown:
For none in all the lands that I have been
Has led me to the maze wherein the pawns
Are lost or go awry.

Eochaidh
Sir, it is late,
But if I play with you, and I should win,
What is the guerdon?

Midir
That—your heart's desire.

[A pause
Midir
And what, O king, my guerdon if I win?

Eochaidh
What you shall ask.

Midir
Then be it so, O, king.

Eochaidh
Yet why not on the morrow, my fair lord?
To-night the hour is late; the queen is gone:
The chessboard lies upon a fawnskin couch
Beside the queen. She is weary, asleep.
To-morrow then ...

Midir
[Drawing from his green vest a small chess-board of ivory, and then a handful of gold pawns
Not so, Ard-Righ, for see
I have a chess-board here, fit for a king—
For it is made of yellow ivory
That in dim days of old was white as cream
When Dana, mother of the ancient gods,
Withdrew it from her thigh, with golden shapes
Of unborn gods and kings to be her pawns.

Eochaidh
[Leaning forward curiously
Lay it upon the dais. In all my years
I have seen none so fair, so wonderful.

[Both lie upon the dais, and move the pawns upon the ivory board Harpers (play a delicate music).
A Young Minstrel
[Sings slowly

Scene II.

—The same.
Eochaidh
[Rising abruptly, followed by Midir more slowly
So, you have won! For the first time the king
Has known one subtler than himself. Fair sir,
Your boon?

Midir
O king, it is a little thing.
All that I ask is this, that I may touch
With my own lips the white hand of the queen:
And that sweet Etain whom you love so well
Should listen to the distant shell-sweet song,
A little echoing song that I have made
Down by the foam on sea-drown'd shores to please
Her lovelier beauty.

Eochaidh
Sir, I would that boon
Were other than it is: for the queen sleeps
Grown sad with weariness and many dreams:
But as you have my kingly word, so be it.
[Calls to the young minstrel
Go boy, to where the women sleep, and call
Etain, the Queen.

[The minstrel goes, to left Harpers (play a low delicate music).
[Enter Etain, in a robe of pale green, with mistletoe intertwined in her long loose hair
Eochaidh
Welcome, fair lovely queen.
But, Etain, whom I love as the dark wave
Loves the white star within its travelling breast,
Why do you come thus clad in green, with hair
Entangled with the mystic mistletoe, as when
I saw you first, in that dim, lonely wood
Down by forgotten shores, where the last clouds
Slip through grey branches into the grey wave?

Etain
I could not sleep. My dreams came close to me
And whispered in my ears. And someone played
A vague perplexing air without my room.
I was as dim and silent as the grass,
Till a faint wind moved over me, and dews
Gathered, and in the myriad little bells
I saw a myriad stars.

Eochaidh
This nameless lord
Has won a boon from me. It is to touch
The whiteness of this hand with his hot lips,
For he is fevered with a secret trouble,
From rumour of that beauty which too well
I know a burning flame. And he would sing
A song of echoes caught from out the foam
Of sea-drown'd shores, a song that he has made,
Dreaming a foolish idle dream, an idle dream.

Etain
[Looking long and lingeringly at Midir, slowly gives him her hand. When he has raised it to his lips, bowing, and let it go, she starts, puts it to her brow bewilderingly, and again looks fixedly at Midir
Fair nameless lord, I pray you sing that song.

Midir
[Slowly chanting and looking steadfastly at Etain

[Silence. Etain again puts her hand to her brow bewilderedly
Etain
[Dreamily
I have heard.... I have dreamed.... I, too, have heard,
Have sung ... that song: O lordly ones that dwell
In secret places in the hollow hills,
Who have put moonlit dreams into my mind
And filled my noons with visions, from afar
I hear sweet dewfall voices, and the clink,
The delicate silvery spring and clink
Of faery lances underneath the moon.

Midir

[Etain moves a little nearer, then stops. She puts both hands before her eyes, then withdraws them
Etain
I am a small green leaf in a great wood
And you, the wind o' the South!

[Silence. Eochaidh, as though spellbound, cannot advance, but stretches his arms towards Etain
Eochaidh
Etain, speak!
What is this song the harper sings, what tongue
It this he speaks? for in no Gaelic lands
Is speech like this upon the lips of men.
No word of all these honey-dripping words
Is known to me. Beware, beware the words
Brewed in the moonshine under ancient oaks
White with pale banners of the mistletoe
Twined round them in their slow and stately death.
It is the Feast of Sáveen.

Etain
All is dark
That has been light.

Eochaidh
Come back, come back, O love that slips away!

Etain
I cannot hear your voice so far away:
So far away in that dim lonely dark
Whence I have come. The light is gone.
Farewell!

Eochaidh
Come back, come back! It is a dream that calls,
A wild and empty dream! There is no light
Within that black and terrible abyss
Whereon you stand. Etain, come back, come back,
I give you life and love.

Etain
I cannot hear
Your strange forgotten words, already dumb
And empty sounds of dim defeated shows.
I go from dark to light.

Midir
[Slowly whispering
From dark to light.

Eochaidh
O, do not leave me, Star of my Desire!
My love, my hope, my dream: for now I know
That you are part of me, and I the clay,
The idle mortal clay that longed to gain,
To keep, to hold, the starry Danann fire,
The little spark that lives and does not die.

Etain
Old, dim, wind-wandered lichens on a stone
Grown grey with ancient age: as these thy words,
Forgotten symbols. So, Farewell: farewell!

Midir
Hasten, lost love, found love! Come, Etain, come!

Etain
What are those sounds I hear? The wild deer call
From the hill-hollows: and in the hollows sing,
Mid waving birchen boughs, brown wandering streams:
And through the rainbow'd spray flit azure birds
Whose song is faint, is faint and far with love:
O, home-sweet, hearth-sweet, cradle-sweet it is,
The song I hear!

Midir
[Slowly moving backward
Come, Etain, come! Afar
The hillside maids are milking the wild deer;
The elf-horns blow: green harpers on the shores
Play a wild music out across the foam:
Rose-flusht on one long wave's pale golden front,
The moon of faery hangs, low on that wave.
Come! When the vast full yellow flower is swung
High o'er the ancient woods wherein old gods,
Ancient as they, dream their eternal dreams
That in the faery dawns as shadows rise
And float into the lives and minds of men
And are the tragic pulses of the world,
Then shall we two stoop by the Secret Pool
And drink, and salve our sudden eyes with dew
Gathered from foxglove and the moonlit fern,
And see.... [Slowly chanting and looking steadfastly at Etain


Etain
Hush! Hush!
Who laughed?

Midir
None laughed. All here are in a spell
Of frozen silence.

Etain
Sure, sure, one laughed.
Tell me, sweet Voice, which one among the Shee
Is he who plays with shadows, and whose laugh
Moves like a bat through silent haunted woods?

Midir

[Slowly Etain, clasping his hand, moves away with Midir. They pass the spell-bound guards, and disappear. A sudden darkness falls. Out of the shadow Dalua moves rapidly to the side of Eochaidh, who starts, and peers into the face of the stranger
Eochaidh
It is the same Dalua whom I met
Long since, in that grey shadowy wood
About the verge of the old broken earth
Where, at the last, moss-clad it hangs in cloud.

Dalua
I am come.

Eochaidh
My dreams! my dreams! Give me my dream!

Dalua
There is none left but this—

[Touches the king, who stands stiff and erect, sways, and falls to the ground
Dalua
...... the dream of Death.