LIBRETTI FOR STAGE WORKS
Op.7 - Diarmuid and Gráinne
Words by Michéal Mac Liammóir adapted from his unpublished English translation of his play Diarmuid agus Gráinne
used with permission.
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ACT ONE
Scene One
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A curtained room in Tara. The Wise Woman of the Hills and the old Nurse are talking together. They are old women in long black cloaks.
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WISE WOMAN
And is it tonight the betrothal feast will be held?
NURSE
It is tonight surely. They are preparing rich meats and dishes, ale and mead, bowls of sweetmeats and loaves of fine white bread in all the kitchens of Tara. It will be a grand night. The newest of all foods, the oldest of all drinks.
WISE WOMAN
Aye, that is so. [She chuckles]
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NURSE
Why are you laughing, Wise Woman? [The chuckles grow louder] Why are you laughing? By the Gods, your laughter is thin and high like the clashing of battle swords and blades in the wars of old times.
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WISE WOMAN
I laugh because of the secrets I have.
NURSE
And what are they?
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WISE WOMAN
Och, my secrets are…my secrets. Dark and terrible they are,
like the great woods of Connacht in a twilight of November.
NURSE
Have they to do with the High King?
WISE WOMAN
They have not, nor yet with the Queen.
NURSE
Then it is of Gráinne you are speaking? Of the child I nursed at my breast?
WISE WOMAN
Gráinne the fair may be one of those who are in my thoughts, one of those three great wayward ones who are in my secret thoughts.
NURSE
Ah, see now, there are three great ones who live in your secret thoughts, Wise Woman of the Hills.
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WISE WOMAN
Aye, that is so.
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NURSE
Oh, you are thinking of Fionn Mac Cool.
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WISE WOMAN
That is true for you, old Nurse. And now, can you guess the third?
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NURSE
The third…the third…ah now…no, by the Gods, I can think of no one.
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WISE WOMAN [mysteriously, coming closer]
Then I will tell you. The third is Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.
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NURSE
Oh, that will be one of the men of the Fianna.
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WISE WOMAN
One of the men of the Fianna? That is a strange way to speak of the pulse of Fionn’s heart, for Diarmuid is different from all the other men of the Fianna. Indeed he is different from all the other men of the five parts of Ireland.
NURSE
How is he different, Wise Woman?
WISE WOMAN
I will tell you. On his brow there is a star. A little shining star.
NURSE
Oh, that should have been put there by the Green People of the Raths.
WISE WOMAN
Listen, and I will tell you. [lowering her voice] One time, when Diarmuid with three others of the men of the Fianna were hunting, they came at the full of night to an old cabin in the woods, and a light shining out through the door of the cabin.
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NURSE
Ah, that’s wonderful. You’d think it was out of an old tale.
WISE WOMAN
They went into the cabin, and who should be in it but an old man, and he bade them welcome. And in company with the old man there was a young beautiful girl and a cat.
NURSE
The Gods look down upon us!
WISE WOMAN
The old man gave them a room to sleep in, and no sooner were they inside their beds than a young girl came into the room, and the brightness of her beauty shone out through the darkness like the light of the moon.
NURSE
And what was the name of the young girl?
WISE WOMAN [with a chuckle]
Her name was Youth. And the three men that were with Diarmuid were speaking with her and whispering. But to each of them she said: I belonged to you once, I never will belong to you again.
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NURSE
Oh, she was right surely.
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WISE WOMAN
Then Diarmuid himself went over to her, and whispered to her with words of sweet honey and fine melodious songs. But this is what she said to him: I belonged to you once, I never will belong to you again.
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NURSE
She was hard and cold indeed, like the high waves of the sea.
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WISE WOMAN
And then she said: But come nearer to me, Diarmuid, and I will put a star of love on your brow, the way no woman will ever see it shining there without giving you her love.
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NURSE
That is a wonderful thing now…
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She is interrupted by the entrance of Sive, the tiring maid of Gráinne: a dark-looking woman. She carries a jewel box and some ornaments in her hands.
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SIVE
What is this, old Nurse? You are gossiping here with the Wise Woman while Fionn Mac Cool and his men are coming nearer to Tara with every minute that passes. My shame on you, old Nurse.
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NURSE
Oh Sive, the Wise Woman of the Hills has grand talk. She could tame the red foxes of the woods with her stories, she would coax the birds from the branches with her tales.
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SIVE
Fine talk she has, that’s true!... [she is drawn into the gossip]
Was it of Fionn and Gráinne you were speaking, Wise Woman?
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WISE WOMAN
It was, maybe.
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NURSE
Of Fionn and Gráinne, and of Diarmuid O Duibne as well.
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SIVE
Of Diarmuid O Duibhne! Is it he that has the star?... [Two slaves walk across the stage bearing wine and fruits]
Hush! Hush now, I say! For in Tara every word that is spoken over the fires at twilight has grown to be a fabulous story at the dawn of day. And let you cease your gossip! I know well it was of Diarmuid’s love star you were speaking!
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NURSE
Ay, that is true, Sive, and what I’d like to know…
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WISE WOMAN
Will you cease your talk, old Nurse! Oh, why will you be telling everything I say to you to every prattling serving boy and woman in the Halls of Tara?
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SIVE
Indeed, and if it’s of myself…
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NURSE
Diarmuid would have a strange and a wild life, if every woman that sees him would give her love to him.
WISE WOMAN
It’s easy to see that you never laid an eye on the son of Donn, or heard any stories of his fame at all.
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NURSE
Why do you say that?
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SIVE
Doesn’t the world know of the cap of feathers Diarmuid wears? Doesn’t all the world know of the cap of blue eagles’ feathers he wears, pulled down over his brow? Ah, if Gráinne knew of the story of that star and of the way he has hidden it under the blue cap of feathers, it’s little love she’d give to Fionn Mac Cool.
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WISE WOMAN
Hush, Sive! Silence! You speak rashly about things you cannot understand when you speak of Gráinne and Diarmuid. Because you have a learned a little of the wisdom of the green hills and of the hollow hills, because I myself have taught you to brew charms and drugs and sleepy draughts, you think you know all…But you do not know all…You do not even know how soon your share of knowledge may be called for. You are a child yet, a child without knowledge, without wisdom…
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SIVE
Yet I know some things, Wise Woman.
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WISE WOMAN
Aye, you are learning. But of what is stirring in Tara tonight you know nothing. But hush! Let us part! I hear a stir and a murmur in the air, and soon the betrothal feast will begin. Do not forget these words of mine tonight, and when Gráinne calls you to her aid be ready with the strongest brew you have.
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SIVE
When Gráinne calls me to her aid? I do not understand, Wise Woman.
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WISE WOMAN
You do not understand. But look to the feast tonight. Look to the feast, I’m saying! And when young Diarmuid enters, mark him well! [to Nurse] Come now, old Nurse, the feast begins and old crows must fly away and not disturb the game. Oh! I am weary tonight. My grief for Fionn Mac Cool… [absently] Outside the walls of Tara the night creeps softly down. The wind is rising among the gaps of the hills. A red star…hangs low among the branches of the trees without these walls…
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She and the Nurse walk slowly off together. Sive watches them and walks out in the other direction. Then the two slaves come, and when they have placed the two braziers into the two opposite corners of the stage they draw back the curtains before which the scene has been played and disclose the Middle Court of Tara
Scene Two
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The Middle Court of Tara. Banquet spread. At the back of the stage stand Gráinne and Sorcha looking through the curtained window
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SORCHA
They are gathering together on the green below. [Silence] Your father is putting welcome before each man.
The nobles are all making a circle about him where he stands.
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GRÁINNE [after a pause]
I see a red star hanging low among the branches of a tree.
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SORCHA
How the torches flare! Look, Gráinne, look well! The flower and the pick of the men of Ireland!
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GRÁINNE
Wind is stirring the grasses of the hillside. Wind is crying among the gaps of the hills.
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SORCHA
The light of the flames puts the colour of wine onto everything. The helmets of the warriors seem to be made of shadow and fire.
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GRÁINNE
Ah, the wind is quieter now. The night is very dark.
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SORCHA
Their cloaks are heavy with fine ornaments; their shirts are of linen that is whiter than milk; they have claps of bronze and brooches of gold…It is a handsome company we will have in Tara tonight, my daughter.
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GRÁINNE
What a great space the darkness makes. There is no end to it, no end. To run…to run like a hare…away through the darkness.
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SORCHA
Have you forgotten that you are to be betrothed tonight to Fionn? Ah, but your blood is cold, like ice.
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GRÁINNE [smiling]
My blood is cold?
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SORCHA
Ay, cold. For do you not know this, that there is no woman in Ireland who would not give her two eyes to be in the place you stand tonight. To be the wife of Fionn!
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GRÁINNE
I have no mind for marriage.
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SORCHA
Gráinne! My shame you are!
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GRÁINNE
I have no mind for marriage, I say. I have no wish for it. What is Fionn Mac Cool to me? He has grey hair; his eyes are losing their fire, and his tongue its ready wit…I know he is no longer young. He will be slow and stern and harsh, and puffed up with pride…no, but I have no mind for marriage.
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SORCHA
You are a foolish child…You are like a young hare running on the green hills with no thought at all of tomorrow.
[She turns impatiently away and looks through the window again] But hush, hush!...
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GRÁINNE
What is it you see?
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SORCHA
I see Óisin, son of Fionn. [she points] The man in a long green cloak with metal clasps, his shirt white and fine, and a fillet of red gold round his head, who stands by a pillar of the house, that is Óisin, son of Fionn.
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GRÁINNE
He is a comely man.
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SORCHA
Oh Gráinne, Gráinne! There is Fionn himself! Do you not see?
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GRÁINNE
Where is he?
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SORCHA
He stands near Óisin now, his hand upon his shoulder. Now he talking to your father. [Pause]
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GRÁINNE
I see a grey-haired man with deep eyes, a long mantle of purple on him, and a helmet of shining bronze fashioned with great wings. His fingers are covered with jewels and now he is smiling, but I think for all that he is a hard and a heavy man.
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SORCHA [engrossed]
Oh, he has moved away. Maybe he is coming into the house. No, for the others follow him…Oh, I must be ready to greet them!
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She goes off hurriedly. Enter Dirring the Druid. The Queen, as she passes, motions him towards Gráinne
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DIRRING
Your life and health, daughter of the High King of Ireland! Hail, Gráinne, daughter of the King!
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GRÁINNE
Hail, Dirring!
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She kneels before him and receives his blessing. Then she turns back to the window
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DIRRING
What are you looking at from the window, Gráinne?
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GRÁINNE
I am looking at the darkness.
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DIRRING
At the darkness?
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GRÁINNE
Yes. I see a red star shining through the darkness of a tree. I see the grasses stirring in the wind on the side of the hill. I see blackness rising up out of the earth like a raven. All these things I see, Dirring, and yet I see them not. For the light of the torches spills like blood upon my father’s guests, and they stand in front of the darkness in shapes of ruddy flesh and forms of gleaming bronze, with eyes that glow in the fireshine. I am watching first the darkness of the night, and then the great men of the Fianna who are coming to Tara for my betrothal feast.
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DIRRING [coming closer to her and pointing out of the window]
And do you know who that man is?
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GRÁINNE
Which man is that?
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DIRRING
That fine and noble man who wears a robe of purple and a helmet fashioned with wings?
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GRÁINNE
Yes. I know.
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DIRRING
Well, Gráinne?
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GRÁINNE
That is Fionn Mac Cool, the man who is to be my husband. [The murmur of voices outside swells into a cheer] Oh, my grief! my grief! that I am not as free as the birds of the air, or with wild things of the woods! Oh, isn’t it a great wonder and a great shame that it was not for his son Óisin that Fionn asked me, and not for himself at all? For Óisin would be more fitting for me than a man who is older than my own father.
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DIRRING
Be calm now, little fawn. Be a good child.
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GRÁINNE
Tell me now, Dirring, tell me…Who is that dark-browed white-skinned man who stands on Óisin’s right hand?
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DIRRING
That is Goll, the son of Morna. He is called Goll the Ready Fighter.
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GRÁINNE
And who is the brown-haired slim-bodied man who stands and talks with Óisin?
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DIRRING
That is Osgar, the son of Óisin…It is a fine company of men…
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GRÁINNE [after a slight pause]
And tell me, Dirring, tell me…Who is that tall young sweet-worded man, whose cheeks are like the rowan-berry, whose brows are like the stroke of a pen, whose eyes are like mountainy pools at evening, he who wears a cap of blue feathers on his head and stands between Óisin and Fionn?
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DIRRING [shocked by the look in her eyes]
That is the apple of Fionn’s eye, the greatest (next to himself) in all the battalions of the Fianna, the man most beloved of women in all Ireland.
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GRÁINNE
And what is his name?
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DIRRING
His name is Diarmuid, the grandson of Duibhne.
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GRÁINNE [turns from the window and sits, preoccupied]
That is a goodly company, indeed.
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DIRRING [watching her curiously]
And at the head of all that company, Gráinne, is Fionn, he who is to be betrothed to you in Tara tonight.
[He is startled by the look in her eyes] The blessing of the Gods be with you, daughter of the King!
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He leaves. Gráinne rises abruptly, moves downstage and claps her hands three times. Sive and the Nurse enter, carrying a cloak, a headdress, a little copper mirror, jewels and paints for the face
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GRÁINNE
Put on my cloak and crown, Sive and old Nurse.
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Business of dressing Gráinne. They hand her the mirror and the paints. She looks intently at her face and begins touching her lips and eyes with colour, and hanging the jewels about her neck
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NURSE
Oh my thousand treasures, how fine you will be with your shining jewels and crown!
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GRÁINNE
No, the amber rings, Sive.
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SIVE
And the brooch of yellow gold.
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NURSE
And the bracelets of findrinny.
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GRÁINNE
Come, tell me Sive and my old Nurse, are you envious of me tonight?
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NURSE
Ah Gráinne, little moon of the sky, would not the stars and the sun themselves be envious of your light?
Would not the silver trout be envious of your joy, and he leaping with strength of his own joy in the stream?
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SIVE
Why, who could breathe the air without being envious of beauty like your beauty?
Of strength like your strength? Of happiness like your happiness?
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GRÁINNE
Happiness? Do you think that I am happy, Sive?
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SIVE
How could you be otherwise, unless…
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GRÁINNE
Yes…unless…?
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SIVE [confused]
No, no…I meant to say another thing…
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NURSE
Of course you are happy, child, like the speckled thrushes in the month of May!
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SIVE
You have everything in the world that heart can desire!
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GRÁINNE
Ah, you don’t understand. Even you, Sive, even you do not understand. You are all the same in this place. To be fine and handsome, proud and laughing, to have jewels and rich stuffs and mirrors of polished bronze or copper, and to live in Tara…you all think that is enough…to live in Tara by the Gods! Where you’d watch the sun lying motionless on the wall and hear the minutes and the hours crawl by with feet of heavy stone and see the clouds that are free chasing each other on the hillside without, or see the torches flaming on the drinking horns and pots of mead at evening time, or a great shadow—the shadow of a watchman it may be—passing your door at night, and how all your life is watched and watched, and how it slips out and slides away from you like a great shadow itself…and they say: Oh fortunate Gráinne! to be so loved of Fionn Mac Cool! Fionn Mac Cool! From one prison to another! From one greybeard to another…Oh, isn’t it a great thing to be the bride of an old man whose fame is ranked and raved over the fire by the companies of bloody and brutish hunters or of grey-haired lisping women?
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NURSE and SIVE
Ah, noble Gráinne!
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SORCHA [enters]
What, you are looking in the mirror still? My jewels are so heavy round my throat! So, is everything in order?
Gráinne, you are pale tonight. [Gráinne is silent] You are pale, I say, Gráinne. Too pale, it may be, with those amber braids. And silent too…This is strange for your betrothal night. You should be glad and laughing.
[Sounds of talking and laughter outside] Hush now, they are coming in.
[She seats herself on the throne] Take her aside until the moment of betrothal.
Gráinne goes out with Sive and the Nurse
Scene Three
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Enter High King with slaves, followed by Óisin, Goll, Osgar, Caoilte, Dirring and other men and youths. They go on one knee before the Queen and then break into groups around the throne
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KING [taking Sorcha’s hand]
Men of Fianna!
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MEN
Hail, High King of Ireland, hail!
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KING
I put a hundred thousand welcomes before you once more, men of the Fianna.
May be the blessings of the Gods be on you all.
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MEN
The blessings of the Gods on the High King of Ireland!
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KING
Bring Gráinne forth! [Two slaves go out]
Tonight I ask a special blessing of love on my daughter and on your great chief.
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Gráinne enters in a cloak of ceremony and is saluted by the company. She bows her head to the High King and stands motionless. The messenger to Fionn returns and stands aside. The company face the door
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MEN
Fionn! Fionn Mac Cool!
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Fionn enters; his eyes meet the eyes of Gráinne. He turns without a word and bows to the King, then takes his place by the throne with folded arms. His face is expressionless
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KING
Bow down your heads now, Gráinne and Fionn Mac Cool. Receive the blessing of Angus, Lord of Love!
The harps play; they kneel. Dirring the Druid passes before the King and holds a branch of hazel over the bowed heads of Fionn and Gráinne. Pause. Gráinne raises her head shyly and meets the fixed gaze of Fionn. She shrinks back at first but then tosses her head and looks at him half-mockingly
DIRRING [half audible]
By the sun and the moon and by the secret of the earth will these two be bound…and may the blessings of joy and peace flow from the great Lord of Love, from him who is crowned with flaming light, from him whose hair is molten gold, whose limbs are mighty…Rise up now, Fionn and Gráinne. Rise up, I say. [He leads them aside]
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KING [to Sorcha]
Did you see his face when he first looked upon my daughter?
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SORCHA [looking round the room]
Often are great men turned to fools by any lovely face. You are always talking of your daughter…
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DIARMUID [at the door: the men of the Fianna salute him]
Hail, High King of Ireland! Hail, wife of the High King!
[He goes on one knee and receives blessing from the King and Druid] May the Gods bless and save you all.
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KING
You are late, Diarmuid?
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DIARMUID
Your pardon.
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KING
Is Fionn satisfied? I give you your pardon, Diarmuid.
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FIONN
Diarmuid.
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DIARMUID [rising and going to him]
Your pardon that I am late, Fionn Mac Cool.
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FIONN
What kept you so long from my side?
DIARMUID
A strange thing it was. A wise woman that met me in the shadows of a great thorn tree where I stood, and she spoke to me of love, and of a broken friendship.
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FIONN
What did she say?
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DIARMUID
She said that sorrow was at hand. I told her that I must be present at the betrothal of my friend. She said…
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FIONN
What did she say?
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DIARMUID
She said there was no need. She said my time was not yet come. [Pause]
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FIONN
Forget those words. But Diarmuid, I must speak with you. Stay with me a little, for I am chilled with ecstasy and fear.
DIARMUID
Fear, say you, Fionn?
FIONN
Aye…aye…Diarmuid, do you see this women here? [He indicated Gráinne, who all this time has been watching them]
DIARMUID
I see a young girl straight and tall, a young girl more beautiful than a bough of the apple tree under blossom, one lighter and more swift than a golden fawn of the woods, softer and more sweet than the honey of the bees, wilder and more frail than the cold clouds of dawn.
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FIONN
Frail?
DIARMUID
Aye Fionn, for there is that in the glance of her eyes that tells of fleeting wishes and of passions lighter than a moment’s thought…but her hair is like the blossom of the furze and her skin is warm and white like new milk, and her lips are as red as red roses in the land of the Sidhe…she is a golden candlestick on the table of kings…Why should you be afraid?
FIONN
Diarmuid, pulse of my heart, I am afraid. For there are women in the world whose beauty is wrapped in disaster, women who have death in the honey of their lips. When she is near I hear a strange music playing in the air about my head…
DIARMUID
Hush, she is coming towards us. She would speak with you alone, maybe.
FIONN
No, do not leave me for a little while. Stay with me, Diarmuid, for a short time only.
GRÁINNE
You were speaking of me, Fionn and Diarmuid?
FIONN
We… [he stammers and stops]
DIARMUID
We were praising your beauty, daughter of the High King.
GRÁINNE
Oh, do not praise my beauty. Praise my strength.
DIARMUID
Strength, Gráinne, is one of the treasures of a man…not a woman.
GRÁINNE [smiling]
And yet it is the hidden strength of women that bids men to run hither and thither for their sakes.
FIONN
You speak in riddles, Gráinne.
GRÁINNE
No, but I speak plainly.
FIONN
You speak in riddles. I cannot understand riddles.
DIARMUID
And yet it may be, daughter of the King, that Fionn Mac Cool could ask you some riddles himself that would pet even your wits to the test.
GRÁINNE
I am ready for them.
DIARMUID
Ask her those riddles, Fionn.
FIONN
I will. Tell me, if you can, those three things that I will ask you, Gráinne.
GRÁINNE
I am waiting, Fionn Mac Cool.
FIONN
What is the best of jewels?
GRÁINNE [swiftly]
The knife, Fionn Mac Cool.
FIONN
What is sharper than a spear’s head?
GRÁINNE [crossing between them, then looking from one man to another]
The wit of a woman…between two men.
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FIONN
What is swifter than the wind?
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GRÁINNE
A woman’s mind, O Fionn.
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DIARMUID
Those were well answered, Gráinne the fair.
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GRÁINNE
I would answer seven times as many…but why should I be asked these questions, Fionn Mac Cool? Is it not enough that I am beautiful? Is it not enough that my lips are like blood spilt on the snow, that my hair…how do the words of the old song go? [She looks mockingly at Diarmuid]…that my hair is like the blossom of the furze and my skin like new milk? Is it not enough [in a lower tone, a little bitterly] that I am to belong to you?
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FIONN
Be silent. Be silent. Your beauty troubles me.
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He puts his arm round Diarmuid, and they go upstage together. Enter Sive: Gráinne stops her
GRÁINNE
Sive!
SIVE
Princess?
GRÁINNE
Oh Sive, is it not a pitiful thing that I should be given in marriage to Fionn. For indeed I feel a great coldness in my heart when he is speaking to me, and no flame of love at all.
SIVE [glibly]
Oh Gráinne, oh daughter of kings and oh honey mouth, those are strange words for the bride of Fionn.
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GRÁINNE
Why must I marry him? Why must I marry him? A man of grey hair and of slow heavy thoughts like the mountain fogs.
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SORCHA [coming over from throne]
Oh what are you speaking, Gráinne, to your tiring-woman? Come away! Come with me into the second court, for there are ladies there and warriors from Allen who would speak with you. [Laughter. They go out]
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FIONN
Oh Óisin, oh Diarmuid and oh Goll! The beauty of this woman troubles me. For her head is thrown back high and proud, and if her voice is gentle itself her lips and her eyes have all the scorn and all the laughter of the world.
DIARMUID
And her hands, Fionn…her hands are restless and swift like the flight of white birds over the sea’s breast, like the rushing of the wind through the green shadow of a wood.
FIONN
No, but she troubles me.
ÓISIN
Do not let your heart be shaken by these fantasies, my father. All will be well.
GOLL
These are but dreams and shadows. The beauty of this woman has disturbed your brain, and your thoughts are driven like a flock of geese to the rim of the world.
DIARMUID
And there lies madness, Fionn… [Fionn leads Diarmuid aside and they talk together]
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FIONN
Her beauty and her scorn are the cloaks of disaster. Danger like a wild thing of the wind looks out of her eyes and laughs at me. [Laughs suddenly]
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DIARMUID
Why should we not be happy, Fionn? Listen, the air shakes like a purple flower. There is laughter and the murmur of festivity, and red wine waiting in the drinking horns. And Gráinne waits for you. Why should we not be happy?
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FIONN
Stay with me for a little, Diarmuid, stay with me here, and tell me of the strange and wonderful things. Tell me of lovely faithless women.
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DIARMUID
Of whom should I speak to you tonight? Of all the beautiful treacherous women of the world? The people of Munster have a story of a woman of the eastern world who…
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CAOILTE [while the above conversation continues]
He is disturbed indeed.
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GOLL
He is raving like a fool at the rising of the moon. Do you see him now, Óisin? Who would think the blood would burn so yet in Fionn Mac Cool?
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CAOILTE
What are you saying, Goll?
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ÓISIN
Do you mean that my father is old?
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GOLL
He is no longer young.
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ÓISIN
And he speaks like one out of his wits?
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GOLL
Aye. For who but one whose wits were gone would cry out for beauty and for peril? Who but a fool would say disaster looked out of the eyes of Gráinne?
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ÓISIN
Be silent, Goll! or by my hand, I’ll strike the head from your shoulders with my sword!
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CAOILTE
For shame! We are guests in Tara.
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GOLL
You shall find me ready for a fight, Óisin! Be we at home in Allen, or in the halls of Tara, or in the courts of the kings of the Eastern World itself!
​
ÓISIN
Oh listen now! Listen, men of Ireland, the treacherous coward of the world! Stand back now away from me…stand back well, I say, for if you come any further towards me on the floor maybe the stars themselves would be quenched and dimmed with the red spurts of blood I’d send hurtling from my sword’s point through the high air.
​
GOLL
By my sword, Óisin, it’s wild bad talk you have spoken on this night, and take care now that it’s not my sword you’ll feel yourself, thrust in like a thin flame of anger through your cold trembling rat-headed body!
​
ÓISIN
By the sun and moon! [They fight]
​
MEN [crowding about them]
Shame, shame! To brawl at Tara!
​
KING
Come now! What is this tumult? Your men are wrangling, Fionn.
​
FIONN
Óisin and Goll, my shame upon you both!
​
DIARMUID
Put up your hands, the two of you! This is a feast of love, not the red field of battle!
​
CAOILTE
They will bring blood and shame upon us all in Tara.
​
SORCHA [entering with Gráinne]
What is this noise?
​
OSGAR
They are beside themselves.
​
GRÁINNE
What are they fighting for?
​
OSGAR
Who can tell, daughter of the King?
​
CAOILTE
For a mad trifle.
​
FIONN
Oh, they are like wild beasts. Part them, Diarmuid!
​
DIARMUID
I will do that. Put up your swords now, Óisin and Goll Mac Morna. [They fight still] Put up your swords, I say!
[He draws his own sword] Is it the fire of battle you would be kindling in place of the fire of friendship and love, the way you’d have Tara laid bare with your quarrellings and bickerings and the wind and the wolves howling in the darkness. Where before there was wine and bronze torchlight and red gold and the company of kings?
​
ÓISIN
Do not meddle with us, Diarmuid!
GOLL
Make a great space about us!
​
DIARMUID
No, but you shall stop!
​
Diarmuid knocks down the sword of Óisin, and knocks Goll’s sword to the ground. He picks up the second sword from the floor and hands it back to Goll. As he does so the cap of blue feathers drops from his head, revealing the star of love on his brow
​
FIONN
That was a shameful brawl, Óisin and Goll Mac Morna.
DIARMUID
Shameful it was indeed.
FIONN
Come now, Óisin my son. Come, Goll Mac Morna. I will have no hatred or fierce looks on this night of all nights. Let you make a new bond of friendship now. That is the wish of Fionn. [He joins their hands] The pardon of the High King for this offence!
​
He leads them upstage to the King. Gráinne, who has crept round the wall to watch the fight, seizes the feathered cap and offers it to Diarmuid, who has just sheathed his sword. He turns and sees Gráinne with the cap. Instinctively he hides his brow with his left hand, but she has seen the star of love and starts back with a wild gesture. He takes the cap from her with his free hand, replaces it on his head and bows his thanks, then turns and joins the group of men. Gráinne sinks back towards the wall, and remains there lost in thought. Sive joins her
​
KING [coming forward]
We’ll speak of it no more. I put a hundred thousand welcomes before you all in Tara tonight. Let us move to the table. Cuan and Darrach, pour out wine for us. [They take their places. Gráinne remains by the wall] Gráinne, you will take your place for us.
​
GRÁINNE
I will come presently, my father. I am preparing a toast for the feast.
​
The slaves pour out the wine. The company drink together. Gráinne claps her hands
GRÁINNE
Sive!
​
SIVE
I am here, noble lady.
​
GRÁINNE
Sive, you are wise in the matter of drugs and potions.
​
SIVE [starting and then smiling slyly]
There are some secrets that I know…
​
GRÁINNE
Sive, all these people here are tiring me tonight…I wish for them to go.
​
SIVE
If that were possible.
​
GRÁINNE
It must be possible. If they will not go from me, then I will go from them. But I will not go alone.
​
SIVE
Princess?...
​
GRÁINNE
I will do as I wish. And you, Sive, you must help me…What must I do to cast these people into sleep?
​
SIVE
I have a potion…
​
GRÁINNE
Then give it to me.
​
SIVE [looking craftily at her]
What reward will you give me, princess?
​
GRÁINNE
Ach! [She tears a necklace from her throat and throws it at the feet of Sive, who snatches it up] Now, speak.
​
SIVE [producing a phial]
I have it here.
GRÁINNE [taking it in her hand]
Ah!...how must I use it, Sive?
​
SIVE
You must pour it into the wine they are drinking…
​
GRÁINNE
Will that mean death?
​
SIVE
It will not, but a long and deep slumber. When they have drunk deeply of this potion, one has but to strike upon the little harp of sleep, and they will fall like stones into a trance as deep as the shadows of the sea.
​
GRÁINNE
The little harp of sleep?
​
SIVE
That is the harp I was given by a man of enchantments that came from the North. It is made of apple-wood, and its strings are of fine silver that is woven in a country of the Eastern World. When they hear that chord they’ll sleep until the dawn whitens in the sky.
​
GRÁINNE
And then we shall be far away from Tara.
​
SIVE
What are these words, princess?
​
GRÁINNE
It is nothing. Bring me the great golden cup, and when I make this signal strike upon the harp.
She takes her place at the centre of the table. Exit Sive
​
KING
More wine, more wine for my guests, Cuan and Darrach! Pour out more wine and mead, and set fruits and meats upon the table! Fionn, I drink to you. I drink with all my heart to your happiness and to my daughter’s joy.
​
FIONN
I drink to you, High King of Ireland, to your life and health. And to the life and health of your Queen. And I drink…to Gráinne of the golden hair…I drink…
​
DIARMUID
These are good toasts indeed, and I will make another. I praise the High King of Ireland, and I praise his Queen. Men of the Fianna, let us drink now to Fionn and Gráinne, to the strength and loveliness of all Ireland.
​
ALL
To Fionn and Gráinne.
​
GRÁINNE [when the tumult has died down, softly]
Oh, my love, my love! Oh, thousand treasures and oh pulse of my heart!
​
The murmur of voices rises a little again
​
OSGAR
The mead is even better than the red wine or the ale…
CAOILTE
Ah, who remembers the story of the cloak of grey feathers now?
KING
A story, a story out of the old days! A story out of the old days…
SORCHA
Diarmuid should know a hundred thousand of them…
GOLL
Where are the story tellers and the bards?
FIONN
Gráinne is pale and silent.
ÓISIN
These ripe cool fruits slip down the throat like wine…
GRÁINNE
Why does she not bring the cup? [looks at phial] This should be a powerful and a sleepy draught!
Ah! [Enter Sive with the golden cup] Is there wine in it?
​
SIVE
There is, princess.
​
GRÁINNE
Then hold it here. [Pours drug into the cup] That fills it to the brim. [She rises]
​
Voices from the table Gráinne…
​
GRÁINNE [in a loud clear voice]
Give this cup now to Fionn Mac Cool. Say it is myself that sends it to him, and bid him drink deep for love of me.
[lowering her voice] Then when I make the sign do as I bade you.
​
SIVE
I obey, princess. [goes to Fionn with cup]
​
FIONN [rising and lifting the great cup]
Oh Gráinne the beautiful, I drink first to yourself, who are my share of the world and the thousand treasures of my heart. And I drink to all this company of bravery and of love. May all the blessings of the earth and air fall too upon my comrade and my friend, upon Diarmuid the grandson of Duibhne. [He drinks]
​
KING
Let the great cup be passed from lip to lip that every one may join in that toast. Then let the harpers play!
​
The drink is circulated with cheers and cries. It reaches Diarmuid last of all. Gráinne has risen and is watching him closely. She makes a gesture with her hands and her cloak falls to the ground. The harp is struck. At the sound all the feasters except Diarmuid and Gráinne sink into sleep, their heads in their hands
Scene Four
​
Diarmuid and Gráinne are left alone at the table: both are standing. The lighting darkens from amber to deep red like the light of dying torches. Silence
​
GRÁINNE
Put down the cup!
​
DIARMUID [putting down cup slowly]
What does this mean? [No answer] Gráinne, daughter of the High King of Ireland, what does this mean? Why have all these people fallen at the feast as though the wine they drank contained some subtle poison? They fell without a struggle, without a cry…Oh! you are smiling, Gráinne. You know more than your eyes or your lips will tell. But I will know your secret. I will pluck it out of your mouth. [Sternly] What have you done, daughter of the King? What have you poured into the wine? Come… answer me. You will not speak? Then I will waken Tara. [turns to go]
​
GRÁINNE
Stay! [He stops and turns round again to look at her. Hesitates. They move closer towards each other. Pause]
Diarmuid O Duibhne. [Pause] Diarmuid O Duibhne.
​
DIARMUID
I hear your voice, Gráinne the beautiful.
​
GRÁINNE
You hear my voice, but you will not listen to my words.
​
DIARMUID
I may not listen.
​
GRÁINNE
But hear me, son of Donn. Hear my words. Give me an hour, a minute…
​
DIARMUID
I may not hear you.
​
GRÁINNE [coming closer to him]
Do you see all these sleeping people, Diarmuid? Do you see them? They are heavy and helpless with the magical draught I have poured into their wine, and they will be there without a stir, without a movement, until the grey ones of the eastern sky bring the dawn, until the birds wake among the leaves and the wind sighs through the hills, until the day is come…
​
DIARMUID
And then?
​
GRÁINNE
And then we will be far away from Tara.
​
DIARMUID
You look at me strangely, daughter of the King.
​
GRÁINNE
Can you read my eyes?
​
DIARMUID
I may not look at them.
​
GRÁINNE
Can you read my eyes?
​
DIARMUID
I dare not look at them.
​
GRÁINNE
What do you read in my eyes?
​
DIARMUID
No, but I will not look…I will not look…I have no wish to read the thing that is written in your eyes.
​
GRÁINNE
Then tell me, what is the thing that is hidden in my heart? Can you not tell me that? Can you not tell me that, Diarmuid of the sweet words? Then I will tell you.
​
She leans her head upon his breast: slowly he puts his arms around her. She looks up at him
​
GRÁINNE
When the sky grows pale in the east, and the grasses on the hills are blown slantwise by the winds of dawn, we will be far away, Diarmuid. When the morning brightens we will be far away from Tara.
​
DIARMUID [taking her hands and suddenly holding her at arm’s length]
Set me free, Gráinne. For though there is sweetness in your touch it is a sweetness that is slumb’rous with poisonous warmth, and there is the glimmer of poison in your eyes.
​
GRÁINNE [draws him down upon the seat she has vacated, and kneels at his feet]
Take me out of this house, Diarmuid. Take me away from my father, away from Fionn, away…to some desolate place where there is nothing but the wind and the shadows of great hills, and the moon smiling at herself in dark waters, and your two eyes like stars in the emptiness of a dream.
​
DIARMUID
I will not bring you away with me. I will not meddle with any woman that is promised to Fionn.
​
GRÁINNE
Ah! what is Fionn Mac Cool to me?
​
DIARMUID
Your love is promised to him.
​
GRÁINNE
And what is he to you?
​
DIARMUID
He is my captain and the friend of my heart. My word is pledged to him. I will not bring you away with me. [He rises to his feet]
​
GRÁINNE
Then, if that is so… [She rises and suddenly makes a gesture with both hands outstretched, a mystical sign] I put you under Druid bonds to come with me out of Tara tonight, before the awakening of these people from their sleep. I put you under Druid bonds to do this thing.
​
DIARMUID [aghast and helpless]
What are these bonds you are putting on me, daughter of the King? Is it not a strange thing that you should choose myself from all the warriors and sons of Kings that are here tonight?
​
GRÁINNE
It is not without cause that I have given you my love, Diarmuid
​
DIARMUID
What was the cause?
​
GRÁINNE
I was standing by the door there when you parted the men that were fighting together, and your cap of eagles’ feathers fell to one side, and my eyes were opened then and I gave you the love that I have never given to any man…Ah! you have taken my love from me, Diarmuid; you hold it now in your two hands. You may break my life on the green stones like a hawk’s egg if you will. Do what you choose with it! You have poured wine into my veins and filled my heart with fire…Do with my life what you will, I’m saying, for already you’ve taken all my peace from me. Stars and moon you have taken, and east and west, aye and the golden sun itself out of the sky you have taken…
​
DIARMUID
Oh Gráinne, these are wild and terrible words you are speaking here tonight.
​
GRÁINNE
What is it that is terrible in my words?
​
DIARMUID
You are betrothed to Fionn!
​
GRÁINNE
But I do not love Fionn! It is you that I love, Diarmuid. Oh, why will you not take me away from this place?
​
DIARMUID
I do not love you, Gráinne.
​
GRÁINNE
Yet you put your arms about me, son of Donn.
​
DIARMUID
Yes, you are very beautiful.
​
GRÁINNE
And you shall kiss my mouth.
​
DIARMUID
Gráinne!
​
GRÁINNE
And though you will not take me, you shall follow me this night out of Tara. [Pause]
​
DIARMUID
Oh Gráinne, the heart of a woman is like the tangled twilight of a great wood, where the boughs and the leaves and the branches entwine the hands and feet and lead the poor wanderer into dim and unknown places. The heart of a woman is mysterious and wayward surely. And why should you give this love to me and not to Fionn Mac Cool, the best lover of women in Ireland?
​
GRÁINNE
Oh, why will you be for ever talking of Fionn Mac Cool? Always and always of Fionn Mac Cool. I tell you Diarmuid, it is you that I love; and you will follow me this night out of Tara, for I have put you under Druid bonds to do it.
​
DIARMUID
Daughter of the High King!
GRÁINNE
I am listening.
DIARMUID
I cannot do this thing.
GRÁINNE
You are under bonds, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
It is true. [Pause]
​
GRÁINNE
Look into my eyes, Diarmuid.
​
He slowly raises his eyes. Then suddenly he takes her in his arms and kisses her mouth
​
DIARMUID
Oh, my share of the world!... [Suddenly he thrusts her away] Oh, you are terrible, terrible! You are shameless and terrible! And when you are in my arms I become wild and forgetful, and now I will never know peace again. I have kissed your lips, Gráinne of the enchantments, and everything is changed―it is all terrible now, a world of endless darkness and pitiless ravening winds. What have you done to me this night, in Tara? What have you done to me this night? Oh my grief, my grief that I am not a hundred thousand miles away, my grief that I ever set eyes upon your hair of amber and gold or on your white sweet throat or on your curving treacherous lips. Ah, don’t touch me! Don’t touch me, I say! Stand back away from me, for there is that in your touch, Gráinne, that would make me mad. Ah! you are shameless, shameless I say, to do what you have done tonight, and I do not know any gap or cave or western corner of Ireland that will hide your shame or mine. Go out now from the door and let the darkness fall about you as a cloak might fall. And if I do follow you, it is not as a lover I will come, but I will keep my word to Fionn Mac Cool.
​
GRÁINNE
Follow me, Diarmuid O Duibhne…
​
She opens the curtains and disappears, beckoning and smiling. Bewildered and like one in a dream, Diarmuid follows her out. The light falls on the empty cloak of Gráinne. Curtain
​
ACT TWO
Scene One
​
A dark place in Faery. Two tall figures, fantastically dressed, stand one at each side of a great tree whose branches disappear into a faintly coloured twilight. A third figure, carrying a lighted taper, runs swiftly past them and vanishes into the shadow. There is a murmur of wind
​
First FIGURE
One passes me in the wind just now who knows all about the mortal clan.
Second FIGURE
About their loves and hates?
First FIGURE
Aye, their loves and hates, their friendships and their battles.
Second FIGURE
One who knows of Fionn Mac Cool and of the Fianna of Ireland?
First FIGURE
Of more than that it may be. Tales of the lovers he knows, stories of Diarmuid and Gráinne the fair.
Second FIGURE
Oh, we must catch him! We must pluck his secret from him!
​
A third figure of the people of Faery enters running and dancing. As he runs he sings to himself
​
Third FIGURE
Nine days and nights, nine days and nights, and still they leave unbroken bread behind them everywhere.
First FIGURE
There he goes! There he goes!
Second FIGURE
Catch him! Catch him, as he passes, by the hair.
Third FIGURE
Unbroken bread they leave behind for Fionn in every cave and wood, unbroken bread.
Second FIGURE
There, catch him now!
First FIGURE [running after the third, and dragging him back by the hair]
Stay! Stay with us here and tell us more. Is it of Diarmuid you are speaking, of the friend of Fionn?
Third FIGURE
Oh, let my hair go! You will pull it from my head!
​
Second FIGURE
But tell us more. Is it of Diarmuid you are speaking, of the friend of Fionn?
​
Third FIGURE
Oh, it is surely not of Diarmuid alone, but of Gráinne, of beautiful white Gráinne.
​
First FIGURE
And what is that you were saying about unbroken bread?
​
Second FIGURE
Aye, what was that?
​
Third FIGURE
Unbroken bread? The son of Donn leaves unbroken bread behind him where they have slept.
​
Second FIGURE
Why does he do that?
First FIGURE
Yes, it is strange. Why does he do that?
Third FIGURE
Nine days and nights, nine days and nights, nine days full of the golden blossoms of the sun, nine nights pale with the silver blossoms of the moon, and still they leave unbroken bread, still they leave unbroken bread.
​
First FIGURE
You do not answer our question.
Second FIGURE
No, you run and dance and call out your words to the wind and cry out your stories to the air, and laugh and mutter of unbroken bread, and yet you will not tell us what it means.
First FIGURE
Tell us now! Tell us now! Why does he leave unbroken bread behind him where he and Gráinne have slept?
Third FIGURE
Why, I will tell you if you do not pull my hair…Diarmuid has kept his word to Fionn Mac Cool. He has kept his word to Fionn Mac Cool, and to prove that he has never made his own wife of Gráinne, daughter of the King, he leaves unbroken bread for Fionn to find in every place.
Second FIGURE
Go tell it to the players of the pipes, tell it to the dancers of the wind.
First FIGURE
Diarmuid has kept his word to Fionn Mac Cool.
Third FIGURE
But will it always be so?
First FIGURE
Whisper it in the dark places under the raths.
Second FIGURE
Whisper it in the rushes in the pool.
Third FIGURE
Will it always be so? Will it always be so? The children of the earth are wild and passionate too.
Second FIGURE
And in a hut among the leaves of a wood… [The Third Figure shakes his head]
First FIGURE
Or in a cavern by the green waves of the sea?
Third FIGURE [nodding his head]
Ah, will he change, will he change to her then? Will he always keep his word to Fionn Mac Cool?
​
Second FIGURE
Or will the dewy leaves or branches of great trees whisper secret thoughts in his ear?
​
First FIGURE
Or the dim, storm-loud shadows put secret love into his breast?
​
Third FIGURE
Ah, ah, ah! will he change to her then?
​
Angus, the God of Love, goes swiftly past them in the twilight
All Three FIGURES
Hush! Hush! Hush!
First FIGURE
Angus is passing on his way to earth.
Third FIGURE
Angus of the birds is passing on his way to them.
Second FIGURE
Look, look! The plumes of his wings are like pale petals of flame.
First FIGURE
Why is he masked and cloaked in shadows of dim silver?
Third FIGURE
Ah, who can tell, who can tell?
First FIGURE
But love should wear no mask?
Second FIGURE
Love should wear no mask.
Third FIGURE
To Diarmuid and Gráinne love is unborn. Unmasked his face would terrify them.
Second FIGURE
Is it to Diarmuid and Gráinne he is going?
Third FIGURE
Aye, he is going towards the lovers of the hills and the woods.
First FIGURE
He is on his way to them.
Second FIGURE
Love is on his way to them.
Third FIGURE
The birds are singing in the fire about his head.
First FIGURE
Come, come away! Let us follow him.
Second FIGURE
Let us follow him. Through the dim air let us follow him; up through the air to where the mortal clan fight their hard battles, and kiss softly when the darkness fades.
Third FIGURE
Come! Come!
The scene fades
Scene Two
​
A hut in a wood. Gráinne is lying on a pile of skins, stitching a strip of embroidery with a needle of bone. She is humming to herself. At the back of the hut there are three doors, the middle door being open, and through it one sees the leaves of the wood hanging in a silver twilight. There is a suggestion of loneliness and desolation. Diarmuid enters with a spear which he throws down in a corner; then he sits down and watches Gráinne. Presently she speaks without lifting her eyes from her work
GRÁINNE
Nine days and nights we are travelling together, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID [watching her, idly]
Aye, that is so.
GRÁINNE
Nine days and nights we are travelling together, and you have never given me your love.
DIARMUID [turning away]
You know well I’ll never break my word to Fionn Mac Cool.
​
GRÁINNE
Nine golden days and nine black nights of stars we have wandered through the woods and glens, and yet you have not changed to me, Diarmuid O Duibhne.
​
DIARMUID
I will never change, I say. I will keep my word to Fionn. Nine times I have left unbroken bread behind us whenever we have been together, you and I, to prove to Fionn that my word still binds me. I will always leave unbroken bread.
​
GRÁINNE
No.
DIARMUID
You think your will is stronger than my own, Gráinne?
GRÁINNE
I know my passion is stronger than your will, son of Donn. It is stronger than the will of all the men of Ireland. It is stronger than myself, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
Stronger than yourself?
GRÁINNE
Yes, it is stronger than myself. The black wind out of the north is not so strong as is the desire in my heart for your love. The green mountains of the waves when they leap towards the moon are not so strong. There is nothing under the sun, Diarmuid, that is as strong as my desire for you.
DIARMUID
Hush!
GRÁINNE
Ah, why will you never listen to my words?
DIARMUID
Hush, I say!
GRÁINNE
What is it that you hear?
DIARMUID
I hear nothing but the whispering of the leaves, the murmuring of the boughs about the walls of this hut.
GRÁINNE
Then why is it that you bid me hush?
DIARMUID
Because I know…
GRÁINNE
Oh, what is coming to you, Diarmuid?
DIARMUID
I know that one is drawing nearer to us through the twilight. One that is stronger and more fair than mortal man.
GRÁINNE
A man of the Sidhe?
DIARMUID
Be still, daughter of the King.
Angus appears in a dim rose-coloured light at the door in the middle of the hut. He stretches his arms out in blessing
DIARMUID
Angus! Angus of the birds!
​
GRÁINNE
Angus! Great God of Love! [They kneel at his feet]
​
ANGUS
Rise up, oh wandering children of the earth. Rise up and be prepared for what I have to say to you this night, I who have travelled through the flaming silence of the twilight to this secret place among the shadows of great trees where you are living with your fear, I who have travelled from dim lands beyond the world to tell you of your danger, I who have travelled down through haunted woods and glens to save you. Rise up, for I will tell you what is coming.
DIARMUID
My foster-father!
ANGUS
I bring you tidings of grief and sorrow. Stories of danger I bring you, and tales of bloody peril.
​
GRÁINNE
It is of Fionn he is speaking.
ANGUS
Stories of Fionn I bring to you this night.
DIARMUID
Oh, what are the stories of Fionn?
GRÁINNE [sitting down and covering her face with her hands]
What stories would they be but stories of revenge? Stories of hatred and battle? Tales of hunting and pursuit and blood?
ANGUS
He is in pursuit.
DIARMUID
And he is near?
ANGUS
He is in this wood whose boughs and leaves rustle against your walls.
GRÁINNE
My grief, my grief! he will kill us if he finds us here, and our blood will flow in red streams, and our bodies be thrown like stones into holes and caves of the earth, or flung to the wild things of the woods.
ANGUS
My sorrow for you, Diarmuid, my sorrow for you this night.
DIARMUID
Oh, I am not afraid of Fionn. I would meet him in any place at all. I would meet him on the summit of the hills, or in the darkness of the glens, or in this little hut itself. I would meet him face to face without fear, without shame, and I would tell him the truth.
ANGUS
And the truth, my foster-son?
DIARMUID
I have never broken my trust with him. I have never made my own woman of the daughter of the King.
ANGUS
I will help you, Diarmuid. I will give protection to yourself and the daughter of the High King.
Suddenly a horn blows three blasts outside, and there is a distant sound of swords and axes and of marching feet. Diarmuid and Gráinne start and look at each other
GRÁINNE
It is Fionn! It is Fionn Mac Cool!
DIARMUID
He is approaching us, and there are others with him, armed men and warriors.
GRÁINNE
I will never go back to him.
ANGUS
Listen to my words, wandering children of the earth.
GRÁINNE
Oh, Angus! Angus of the birds!
ANGUS
Listen to my words, and I will save you.
DIARMUID
We are listening, my foster-father.
ANGUS
This is what you have to do. Let each of you come under my cloak, and you will be invisible to the eye of man, and I will bring you with me out of this place. I will bring you away by dark forgotten paths to secret places of the waters where you will be safe.
GRÁINNE
Oh, we will go with you.
Angus stretches out his arms under his cloak
​
DIARMUID [suddenly]
I will not go.
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
I will not go, I say. I will stay in the place. I will meet Fionn face to face.
The tumult outside comes nearer and grows louder
GRÁINNE
Oh, he will kill you. He will kill you, my share of the world!
DIARMUID
I will stay here, daughter of the King. [to Angus] But let Gráinne come under your cloak, my foster-father. Take her and give her shelter and peace. Give her the shelter than I could not make for her, and the peace that I could not give her. Take her far from this place to the great cavern that is by the sea under Ben Adair, and if I am alive I will follow you; and…if I am killed tonight…bring Gráinne back with you to Tara and give her to her father, the High King of Ireland, and he will do well with her, or ill.
GRÁINNE
Oh, why will you stay in the wood of misfortune and death?
DIARMUID
I will not come.
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid! [He looks at her without moving] Diarmuid! [She moves a step nearer to him; he makes no move]
Diarmuid, son of Donn… [She puts her arms about him]
​
DIARMUID [forcing her hands to her side]
May you go well, daughter of the King.
​
GRÁINNE
Oh!...
Pause. Then she straightens herself and walks slowly towards Angus, who holds out his arms;
she creeps under his great cloak
ANGUS
Farewell, my foster-son
.
He vanishes from the door of the hut
Scene Three
​
Diarmuid stands motionless for a while, then crosses over and shuts the door and bars it heavily as the two side doors are barred. Then he picks up his helmet and takes his armoured belt and sword in his hand and looks at them silently
​
DIARMUID
Strange! Strange and pitiful! [He fastens his belt about him, and takes up his shield and spear] That I should deck my body about with the bright cold armour against the friend of my heart. Strange and pitiful, aye, and wild and terrible. That we should meet as enemies in this lonesome house among the trees, where there is no sound but the wind crying among the boughs outside, or the stoats and the weasels making a stir among the dead leaves. Oh, Fionn Mac Cool! Fionn Mac Cool of the Fianna of Ireland! That we should meet in battle and in hatred, as though this field were the red field of battle and of death. That we should meet with hard cold eyes and with lips pressed tight with rage…My curses, my curses on the love that Gráinne gave me on that night of feasting in Tara! My curses on the bonds of Gráinne that dragged me out into the wilderness of the hills, and my curses on the beauty of Gráinne that will never let me be at peace! The grief in my heart is like the highest waves of the sea when they break into foam against the black rocks on a night of storm, or like the voice of a hound in the shadows when the moon is full, or like the endless clouds of a twilight of November when there is no sound but the curlews crying in the wind, and all the wine and honey and all the ale and mead of the Country of the Young would not cure my sorrow, my sharp bitter grief this night!
​
Blows are struck on the left hand door of the cabin
​
DIARMUID
What is that noise? [He picks up shield and spear and crosses to the door] Who is there? Who is there?
​
Voices of MEN [outside]
No enemies of yours are here, Diarmuid O Duibhne, but Óisin and Osgar and their men.
​
DIARMUID
No enemies of mine?
​
Voices of MEN
No enemies but friends, for we know well, Diarmuid, that whatever you have done has some reason and cause we cannot understand.
​
DIARMUID
Aye, you are right surely.
​
Voices of MEN
We are your friends, Diarmuid. We will believe nothing but the story from your own mouth.
​
DIARMUID
You are my friends, you say?
​
Voices of MEN
Come out to us, Diarmuid, and you shall pass through our ranks as a friend.
​
DIARMUID
I will not come.
​
Voices of MEN
Come out to us! Come out to us!
​
DIARMUID
I will not come. I will wait till I see at which of these three doors stands Fionn himself.
​
Tumult at the door on right. Diarmuid cross to it
DIARMUID
Who is there?
​
Voices of MEN
Friends of your own we are, Diarmuid son of Donn. Caoilte and Goll and their men stand here at this door.
DIARMUID
You are my friends?
Voices of MEN
Come out to us, Diarmuid, and we will let you pass as a friend.
DIARMUID
I will not come!
Voices of MEN
Why will you not come, Diarmuid? We are your true friends.
DIARMUID
It is because of that, and because Óisin and Osgar are my true friends as well, that I will not come. I will not have it that the wrath of Fionn fall upon you for my sake.
​
Voices of MEN
Come out to us, come out to us!
​
DIARMUID
I will not come! [Tumult and clashing of arms at middle door. Diarmuid crosses to it] Who is there?
​
FIONN and Voices of MEN
No friends of yours are here, Diarmuid of the treacherous lips, but Fionn Mac Cool of the Fianna of Ireland and three hundred fighting men along with him who will make a thousand red and bloody wounds in your white body.
​
FIONN
And let you open the door, Diarmuid, or we shall break it open with our axes and our spears, and let you come out and face us now, or we shall know that you are not treacherous and false alone but a coward as well.
​
DIARMUID
Fionn Mac Cool of the Fianna of Ireland, these are words of wild hatred to one who was your friend.
​
FIONN and Voices of MEN
Open the door! Open the door!
​
DIARMUID
I will do that and I will pass among your ranks without fear.
​
He flings the door open. Fionn appears with his spear ready in his hand; behind him are many armed men with wild faces. They face each other, Fionn with his spear still raised
​
FIONN
Oh treacherous son of Donn! Oh false friend whose lips never spoke the truth. Oh worthless comrade whose lips I have always believed. I have found you at last. [He lets the spear drop a little and Diarmuid watches narrowly] You stand before me in all your shame and all your treachery, you who have lied and smiled at me, you who have spoken sweet words with your honeyed lips and tricked me while I was asleep, you who have sold my love and stolen my beloved. I have found you at last.
​
DIARMUID
You do not speak the truth.
​
FIONN
Oh, is it not a great wonder that the earth does not shake beneath your feet to hear these words, that the sea does not rise in floods and torrents higher than the mountain tops, that the sun does not topple out of the sky like a fallen torch! I do not speak the truth when I say that you are smooth and false and treacherous, I that was drugged at the feast of my betrothal in Tara and that woke to find my thousand treasures stolen from my side, and you yourself vanished like a thief at the break of day from a house he had robbed.
​
DIARMUID
You wrong me, Fionn.
​
FIONN
Would that were true, Diarmuid. I would that there were any words or deeds in me that could wrong you, that could make what you have done to me less terrible than the truth. But there are no words…there are no deeds…you have betrayed me.
​
DIARMUID
Fionn, you wrong me.
​
FIONN
No! Diarmuid, you have betrayed me as no man in Ireland or in the great world has ever betrayed his friend. You have taken all sight out of my eyes and all strength out of my hands, and my fear is great that you have taken all trust out of my heart. You have left me hard and cold, like a stone of the hills.
​
DIARMUID
Fionn, Fionn Mac Cool, you will listen to me.
​
FIONN
Ah, your voice! that was like the sweet harp-string to my ears, it is cruel and sharp to me now like a knife.
​
DIARMUID
You will listen to my words, Fionn!
​
FIONN
Like a knife your voice is, that once was warmer than wine.
​
DIARMUID
Fionn! You must listen to my story!
​
FIONN
Jagged and gleaming it is, like a cold knife that stabs and stabs at my heart.
​
DIARMUID
Fionn!
​
FIONN
Oh, do not speak to me, Diarmuid. Do not speak to me. Let me keep my cold heart and hard thoughts, for indeed when a man has been broken and shattered by treachery as I have been, what can he do but to become cold and grey and dumb, like a stone of the hills?
​
DIARMUID
I have never broken my trust with you. I have never used Gráinne for love.
​
FIONN
Oh, you are lying to me. You are more treacherous than the wind that blows out of the east.
​
DIARMUID
The unbroken bread I have left behind me in every place is my proof to you that Gráinne still belongs to you.
​
FIONN
How can I believe these words, Diarmuid?
DIARMUID
These are true words that I have spoken.
FIONN
Ah, I would kill you with my own hands, faithless friend, treacherous enemy, secret shameful lover!
DIARMUID [with sudden anger]
Don’t touch me!― Ah, what is it to me if you believe me or not? What is it to me if you stand there shaking like an old tree in a great wind, with anger against me that was your friend? What is it to me if your eyes are filled with tears and your hands twitching with rage because you think that I have done you wrong? What is it to me, I say? I who have been faithful and true to you always, who have never broken my word to you, who have told no lies but the truth only. But what is the truth to your mind this night, Fionn Mac Cool? What is the truth to your mind this night? A poor useless ragged thing you’d fling away from you like a bone at a feast, a thing you’d despise and mock and fling away as you would bruise and break and fling away your love for me and mine for you. You have no care for the truth. You will not listen to the truth. You will listen only to the anger and bitterness of your own heart. But what is that to me? What is it all to me now? It is less to me than the trampled mud and the broken twigs of the earth under my feet. I will become cold and hard like yourself, Fionn Mac Cool, and if it is like a stone your heart has become towards me, my heart for you shall be like flint, like ice-bound rock, like the swords of the fierce gods of Lochlann! You to have spoken this night of your love that you say you have betrayed, you that will not believe my sacred pledge to you, you that will not listen to my words, you that pursue me with three hundred fighting men to hack me to pieces before you have heard my story, you have called me false friend, treacherous enemy, secret shameful lover. You lie, you lie, you lie! And the liar is seven times a fool, Fionn, when he lies about his friend, for he can never know but that one day his lies may become the truth.
​
FIONN
Oh Diarmuid son of Donn, why do you speak these bitter words against me?
DIARMUID
I? Bitter against you?
FIONN
You are terrible, Diarmuid, when you speak with such anger against me.
DIARMUID
And you, Fionn, are terrible when you march down upon me with three hundred fighting men at your heels who would make a thousand words in my body at a word from you. You are terrible, when you will not believe I speak the truth. You are terrible when you will not listen to my story.
FIONN
You do not understand the pain I have endured.
DIARMUID
And you do not understand the grief I have suffered.
FIONN
Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
I have no other thing to say.
FIONN
Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
All that was in my mind I have said.
FIONN
Diarmuid, listen to me!
DIARMUID
And now let your tell your men to do with me what they will.
FIONN
Listen to me, Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
You will do that.
FIONN
Understand me…​
DIARMUID
You will do that, Fionn.
FIONN
Listen to me, Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
You will do that, Fionn Mac Cool.
A pause. They look steadfastly at each other. Finally Fionn’s eyes waver and fall. He bows his head, then lifts his hand
​
FIONN [in a loud lifeless voice]
Let Diarmuid O Duibhne pass through your ranks without hurt, without harm, warriors and fighting men. Let him pass through your ranks now a friend, and let no man lay a hand upon his body for his harm. That is the wish of Fionn.
​
He drops his arms. Diarmuid walks past him across the stage, then suddenly turns round facing him
DIARMUID
All that is finished. I am cold now, and strong and swift like a young hound that follows the deer on the hills when the wind is high. I am free and unfettered and I am full of desire. I will go out now and break off the leaves and the flowers of the wood with my two hands. I will climb the branches; I will scale the boughs. I will pluck the topmost blossom and the sweetest fruit of the tree, and I will taste it with my mouth.
​
FIONN
Gráinne…
Diarmuid looks at him triumphantly and passes out, his shield and spear raised. He disappears among the men outside the middle door. A pause
FIONN [suddenly]
Let him not pass! Let him not pass, warriors and fighting men! Let you hack him to pieces!
Let his blood flow in red streams on the naked earth!
​
Voices of MEN
He is gone! He has escaped us, Fionn! He has gone! He has gone!
​
CAOILTE
He rose on the staves of his spear and went like a flame!
​
Voices of MEN
He has gone!
​
FIONN
He rose on the staves of his spear and went like a flame!
​
His back to the audience, he raises his two arms in a great gesture of despair
ACT THREE
Scene One
​
A sea cavern. Gráinne is lying on a rock watching through the mouth of the cavern the dark starless evening. Behind her stands Angus, impassively watching her. The waves break softly at intervals outside the cavern
​
ANGUS
You are silent, Gráinne. For a long while I have watched you through all the pale hours of this day, lying there on the rocks, and since the dawn broke you have been silent. You have spoken no word. You have offered no prayer.
[Gráinne looks at him dreamily and holds up one hand. A long wave breaks outside the cave]
And your body is shaken by desire, Gráinne. It is shaken by desire and passion as the waves are shaken by the wind.
​
GRÁINNE
Oh Angus, Master of Love!
ANGUS
You call me by my name, and yet it is not love that speaks through your words, Gráinne.
The wind gives a sudden cry
​
GRÁINNE
Listen!
ANGUS
Desire is gnawing at your heart. Desire and fear are eating your heart away, and in the dim tumult of your soul there is no peace.
GRÁINNE
The waves would destroy the black rocks. They would bruise them with their lips; they would kiss them into dust.
ANGUS
Ah, white daughter of the human clan, why will you never look in my face?
GRÁINNE
The waves are kissing the black rocks. They are falling on them with long sweet murmurings; they are swooning as they fall with loud dark battle-cries of love. But for me there are no kisses, no dark murmurings, no sweet battle-cries. I must lie in this sea-haunted place in loneliness, and wait…Oh, why does he not come? Why does he not come to me, Angus? Why must I wait and wait in this dark place, where there is no sound but the roaring of the wind and the beating of the waves and the far lonely music of your voice that seems an echo of their voices, telling me of things that I can never understand?
ANGUS
Diarmuid is on his way to you, daughter of the King.
​
GRÁINNE
Angus, Angus! oh, speak again!
ANGUS
He is on his way to you. He is threading the narrow lonely paths of danger in the darkness of the night. He is thrusting aside the matted thorny boughs of the blackberry and the furze; he is fighting his way through the stormy gaps of the hills; and though the storm rises with angry cries from the sea, and though the wind and the rain tangle his hair over his eyes, and the shapeless evil spirits of the night pull at his cloak with cold crooked fingers as he passes, he is on his way to you, Gráinne, he is coming to you.
GRÁINNE
He is coming? He is coming to me?
ANGUS
He fights his way through the clamour of the wind and the storm as they rise together out of the secret places of the dark. He runs shouting along the strand where the foam hisses at his feet and the fog writhes about his head and his eyes are fixed always on the cave where you lie waiting for him, Gráinne the fair.
GRÁINNE
He is coming to me!
ANGUS
And yet there is no love for him in your heart, Gráinne. There is no love in your heart but only desire, and desire makes your voice tremble and shake like a torch flame in the storm.
​
GRÁINNE
Oh, he is coming! He is coming to me!
​
Gráinne is in an ecstasy of expectation, her finger held up as though she actually heard the footsteps of Diarmuid. Angus goes slowly out of the cave unseen by Gráinne
​
DIARMUID [his voice is heard outside mingled with the wind]
Out! Out! Out and away from me, green witches of the sea, grey witches of the air!
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid! Diarmuid!
​
He appears with blowing cloak at the mouth of the cave. Gráinne rushes to meet him and sinks slowly to her knees in front of him. Her hands stretch out towards him. He holds her two hands and looks down at her, his face changing slowly from an expression of desire to one of grief
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid, pulse of my heart!
DIARMUID
The storm is rising still without.
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid of the sweet words!
DIARMUID
The winds and the waves are roaring in loud battle, and the night is full of evil shadows. I have travelled far.
GRÁINNE
But you have come to me, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
There were loud voices in the storm, loud voices crying and calling to me of the vengeance of Fionn.
GRÁINNE
But you have escaped from Fionn, my thousand treasures! You have escaped from Fionn at the end of it all, and we are safe together. Is there no joy in your heart, Diarmuid, that we are together again?
DIARMUID [breaking from her]
Ah, would that my eyes had never seen your hair of golden light and golden shadows! Would that my ears had never heard your voice softer than the song of the birds! Would that my mouth had never known the red sweetness of your lips!
​
GRÁINNE [following him softly and crouching at his side]
My heart cries out to you, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
My grief! my grief upon the world!
GRÁINNE
Why are the shadows so upon you, Diarmuid? Why are the clouds so low upon your heart?
DIARMUID
I have seen Fionn,
GRÁINNE
You have seen him? Seen him face to face?
DIARMUID
Aye.
GRÁINNE
And…and… [she puts her hand timidly on his arm, as though to convince herself of his safety] Ah, my great joy!
​
DIARMUID
Joy?
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid, show me your great spear?
​
DIARMUID
My spear? [He gives it to her]
​
GRÁINNE
No…no…Diarmuid, show me your sword. [He draws it and gives it to her] No blood? There is no blood?
​
DIARMUID
What is this talk of blood?
​
GRÁINNE
Why did you dry your spear? Why did you wipe your sword? Why did you clean your knife?
​
DIARMUID
I do not understand, daughter of the King. What is in your thoughts?
​
GRÁINNE
Oh, I would laugh and dance and clap my hands to see Fionn’s blood upon your sword. Why did you wipe his blood away?
Why did you wipe away the rust that was our happiness?
​
DIARMUID
What are you saying? I will hear no more.
​
GRÁINNE
Or was it with an axe you did it, Diarmuid? Or with your own two hands? My thousand treasures, was it with your hands you did it? How did you rid us both of Fionn Mac Cool?
​
DIARMUID
Be silent. Fionn is not dead.
​
GRÁINNE
Not dead?
​
DIARMUID
Those are my words.
​
GRÁINNE
Fionn is not dead?
​
DIARMUID
He and three hundred fighting men are in pursuit. They will track us down for all his broken words of sorrow. They will track us down and hack us into pieces.
​
GRÁINNE
What, he was sorrowful when you spoke to him?
​
DIARMUID
He said that I was false and treacherous; that I had betrayed his love and stolen his beloved like a thief.
​
GRÁINNE [bitterly]
Fionn sorrowful! And you, what did you say?
​
DIARMUID
Who knows what savage words I spoke to him?
​
GRÁINNE
But when you fought…what then?
​
DIARMUID
There was no fight between us, Gráinne.
​
GRÁINNE
What? [she starts away from him in disgust]
​
DIARMUID
Why is this anger on you, Gráinne?
​
GRÁINNE
Oh, don’t speak to me. Don’t speak to me.
​
DIARMUID
But tell me what it is, Gráinne.
​
GRÁINNE
Ah! if the black ones of the storm were here in this cave with me, I would get more love and more happiness from them than I will ever get from you, Diarmuid of the sweet words. If Muadhan the young fighting lad were here, or the three fierce champions of Muir-na-Iocht were here, I would get strong love and deep kisses from them. But I am weary of the world, Diarmuid. I am weary of the slow timid sons of the earth. If the black ones of the storm were here in this cave tonight, if the green ones out of the sea…
​
Thunder drowns her words and frightens her. She puts her hands over her ears. When it has died away she looks dumbly at Diarmuid
​
DIARMUID [with sudden anger]
Then come! Come! [Lightning] Come, black ones of the storm, green ones of the sea!
​
Thunder peals closer to the cave
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid! Diarmuid!
​
DIARMUID
Come out of the darkness of the storm! Come into this cave where there is torchlight and warmth, meat and drink in pots of red bronze, and the white flesh of an amorous daughter of Kings! Come in out of the storm! Come in out of the sea!
​
Lightning and thunder
Scene Two
​
Suddenly at the mouth of the cave appears a figure of a man clothed in fantastic green. He carries a square jewelled board and a closed bag that glimmers faintly in his hands. His appearance is strange and wild and scarcely human
​
CIACH
Out of the sea I come and out of the blackness of the storm.
​
DIARMUID
There is a welcome before you in this place.
​
CIACH
There is a welcome for me from you, Diarmuid of the Fianna of Ireland, but what of my welcome from this daughter of kings?
GRÁINNE
Oh, he is of the people of the dark places.
DIARMUID
But bid him welcome, Gráinne, bid him welcome. Bid him welcome, I say.
GRÁINNE
Why, he might fill this lonely cavern by the tide with every sort of evil. His friends might flow in out of the tossing waters, out of the howling storm!
​
DIARMUID
Who knows? Who knows what hides behind the curtains of the dark?
CIACH
You wrong me, noble people. No shape of wickedness or evil am I, but Ciach a warrior, and I have come to shelter from the darkness of the storm.
GRÁINNE
No shape of wickedness? Ah, his long green hands! What darkness can he need to shelter from with us?
DIARMUID
To shelter from the storm? That’s enough. Why, you are welcome here. Gráinne, put a welcome before him. Put a welcome before this man.
​
GRÁINNE
He knew our names and we had never told him what they were. How pale he is! How strangely he is dressed! Yet I will welcome him…
​
DIARMUID
You are dreaming, Gráinne. Do the thing that I have bid you do.
​
GRÁINNE [she looks coldly at Ciach]
You are welcome here.
​
CIACH
Hark! The winds are lashing the waves till they leap and roar like angry hounds.
There is no quietness in the night. [He listens and chuckles quietly to himself]
​
DIARMUID
What is it that you hear in the storm?
​
CIACH
Hush! There are voices in the storm.
​
DIARMUID
What voices are they?
​
CIACH
Voices rising up out of the sea…
​
DIARMUID
What do they speak of?
​
CIACH
Of love they speak.
​
GRÁINNE
Voices crying on the wind…
​
DIARMUID
Of love they speak… [A long silence]
​
CIACH [with a sudden laugh]
Why, what is this silence falling like a cloud between us here? I am welcome here…there is shelter in this place…shelter from the bitter storm. Will you play chess with me, son of Donn?
​
GRÁINNE
Do not play with him.
​
CIACH
Will you play chess with me, Diarmuid O Duibhne?
​
DIARMUID
There is no board, there are no men in this place.
​
CIACH
I have a chessboard of white bronze that is set with pale cold stones of the sea. I have chessmen of green bronze and findrinny in a bag that is made of the scales of a fish. [He spreads out the board and empties the chessmen onto a flat-topped rock]
GRÁINNE
Do not play with him.
​
CIACH
Will you play with me, Diarmuid?
​
DIARMUID
Are you a good player?
​
CIACH
A game will tell you that.
​
GRÁINNE
Oh, do not play with him, Diarmuid.
​
CIACH
We will play chess together, Diarmuid of the women. [He sets up the men on the board]
DIARMUID
I will play with you.
​
CIACH
But we will not play without stakes, Diarmuid.
​
GRÁINNE [tonelessly]
Ah!...
​
DIARMUID
What stake would you play for?
​
CIACH
Listen! Listen to the wind, how it cries and calls across the sea! It is speaking of love…
DIARMUID
What stake would you play for?
CIACH
…and when the thunder rolls, it is telling of the anger of love that is not satisfied.
DIARMUID
What stake would you play for, man of the Fomor?
CIACH
Why, we can speak of that when the game is played.
DIARMUID
Let it be so.
They sit down to play. Gráinne crouches on the floor near to them and watches the game. The light grows dimmer and the figures of Ciach, Diarmuid and Gráinne become almost invisible in the shadow. A greenish twilight brightens slowly outside the mouth of the cave and the roaring of the wind and waves grows less. In the twilight Angus appears, and with him are the three people of Faery. They carry green rushes in their arms and they are peering into the cave
ANGUS
The hour draws near.
First FIGURE
Pull down the curtains of the night.
Second FIGURE
Make a dim sheltered sweetness of the dark for love.
Third FIGURE
These are the shadows that shall watch their love tonight.
ANGUS
The hour draws near.
First FIGURE
Pull down the curtains of the night.
Second FIGURE
Strew the cold floor with rushes for their bed.
Third FIGURE
These are the green waves that shall sing their bridal song.
ANGUS
The chessmen move across the little squares of bronze. The cave is dark and still. The players’ thoughts are cold and quiet as pearl and findrinny, but for all that blood and death hang smiling overhead, and love all pale and trembling shall follow them.
It darkens
First FIGURE
Oh, see! Oh, see!
Second FIGURE
The curtains of the night are drawing down.
Third FIGURE
The shadows of the waves are pale like love.
ANGUS
The hour draws near. Away, away! Hover above them in the hollows of the air and watch over their sleep of love with song and music until the dawn whitens the gates of the East. Away, away! [Figures vanish] Diarmuid, my foster-son, my joy and my grief for you this night. My joy and my grief for you and for this woman of ivory and gold who has given that which is sweeter, redder and more terrible than the blood of an enemy spilt on the snow by murderous hawks.
​
Angus goes. The warm dull light in the cavern steals back and reveals the three figures by the big rock. The hand of Ciach is upraised and holds a chessman. He puts it triumphantly on the board and watches Diarmuid maliciously. At last he rises
CIACH
The game is finished, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
Aye, that is so.
CIACH
The game is finished and it is I who have won.
DIARMUID
It was a good game and well played.
GRÁINNE
Why has the wind ceased crying in the air? [rising] There is a silence in the cave as though the night held its breath.
CIACH
And my stake, Diarmuid?
DIARMUID [rising and facing him]
What is your stake, Fomorian?
​
A slight pause; they look steadfastly at each other. Then Ciach springs away with a laugh, and goes swiftly towards Gráinne. He slides his arms around her waist
​
CIACH
Give Gráinne to me, son of Donn. Give me white Gráinne for a wife. That is my stake.
DIARMUID
Take your hands from her body!
CIACH
That is my stake.
DIARMUID
Take your cold dark hands from her body, I say!
CIACH [without moving]
That is my stake, Diarmuid of the sweet words.
​
DIARMUID [drawing his sword]
Take your hands from her, Ciach of the Fomor, or by the Gods I will strike at you with my sword!
​
CIACH
Give me white Gráinne for a wife, Diarmuid. That is my stake. [He caresses her and laughs defiantly]
​
DIARMUID
Gráinne, will you put this man from you.
​
GRÁINNE [suddenly angry]
Why should I put him from me, Diarmuid? Why should I put him from me? Am I not going with yourself for many golden days and for many black nights of stars, and you have never shown me as much desire for love as this cold man out of the storm is showing me now.
​
DIARMUID
Take your green otter’s hands from her body, Ciach, or I swear I will stretch you out dead on the floor of this cave, and the great crabs shall come sidling out of the sea to feast on your flesh, and the evil ones of the waves shall rot your bones and marrow into cold slime.
​
CIACH
Give me white Gráinne for a wife.
​
DIARMUID
Draw and defend yourself!
​
He rushes forward; Ciach draws and they fight. Gráinne with a strange cry, half of fear and half of joy, goes to the back of the cave and watches them. Ciach falls with a scream on his lips; Diarmuid places one foot on his body and drives his sword through his heart. There is a short struggle
​
CIACH [dying]
I see the marks of tusks upon your throat, Diarmuid…I see the marks of a great boar’s tusks upon your proud white throat…
​
He dies. The wind gives a sudden cry, and a peal of high far-away laughter is heard outside the cave
GRÁINNE
What is that laughter?
DIARMUID
That is the laughter of the Fomor who keen his death.
GRÁINNE
He is dead! He is dead!
DIARMUID
Let the waves of the sea take back his body to themselves.
​
He drags the body to the mouth of the cave and throws it outside. The thin high piercing laughter is heard now faintly and with it confused and distant singing
​
Scene Three
​
As Diarmuid returns Gráinne creeps close to him
GRÁINNE [softly]
Why did you kill him, Diarmuid?
​
DIARMUID
He was my enemy.
​
GRÁINNE
Was there no other cause that you killed him?
​
DIARMUID
What other cause?
​
GRÁINNE
Did you not kill him…because…
​
DIARMUID
Because?
​
GRÁINNE
Because you were jealous, Diarmuid? Because when you saw his cold green hands upon my body you were jealous?
​
DIARMUID
I killed him because he was my enemy.
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid… [in a low voice] Oh, you anger me. You anger me.
​
DIARMUID
And why is that, daughter of the King?
​
GRÁINNE
Oh, I could kill you. I would see you dead, my grief! Cold and dead at my feet!
​
She rushes at him suddenly and sticks a knife into his side. He staggers slightly, then straightens up and continues without moving the knife
​
DIARMUID
Oh Gráinne, woman who never took a step aright, though you are as beautiful as a tall blossoming tree in the Country of the Young, though your hair is the colour of yellow flag-flowers in the summer and your body is white like the foam and your eyes clearer than the dew of the grass, yet your love is as frail as smoke and your hatred as nimble as flame. I have lost my own people by you and by your Druid bonds, Gráinne, and the friends of my heart and the friends that used to hunt with me and fight with me and play with me. I have lost the peace of the hills and the music of the woods and the freedom of the waters by you. Oh Gráinne, little white fawn of the mountains, it was a bad night that you gave your love to me in Tara of the Kings, and not to Fionn Mac Cool to whom you were given for a wife.
​
GRÁINNE
Oh Diarmuid of the sweet words, whose voice is like wine to me, or like the sleepy music of harps that are played in a wood of silver and gold, I had no power over the love I gave you on that night of feasting in Tara, for I saw the little shining star on your forehead, and my heart fell down before you at that moment, and when you came near me it was as though great fires were kindled in the darkness of my mind, and as though honey were flowing through my body in golden sweet streams.
​
DIARMUID
Oh Gráinne, beautiful daughter of the King, I am weary of the fight.
​
GRÁINNE
My love and my thousand treasures…if you are weary…
DIARMUID
I am weary indeed, Gráinne.
GRÁINNE
Why, I will cut heather and rushes and spread them for your bed.
DIARMUID
Will you do that for me, daughter of the King?
GRÁINNE
I will go out into the night, Diarmuid; I will climb over the rocks and the stones, until I come to where green rushes grow. I’ll cut them for your bed and spread them softly…Give me a knife, Diarmuid, to cut the rushes with.
DIARMUID [pointing to the floor]
Why, there are rushes spread.
​
GRÁINNE
Then I will gather heather and more rushes.
​
DIARMUID
There is no need.
​
GRÁINNE
Give me a knife, son of Donn.
​
DIARMUID
Oh Gráinne of the ready tongue and of the wayward forgetful mind, why do you not look for the knife in its sheath?
GRÁINNE
What do you mean?
DIARMUID
The knife is in its sheath where you yourself placed it.
GRÁINNE
Ah!
She sees, as if for the first time, the knife in Diarmuid’s side and staggers back as though blinded, her hands to her face. A long pause
DIARMUID
Draw the knife from its sheath with your own hands, Gráinne.
She comes towards him slowly, shaking with sudden tears. She draws the knife out and looks at it. Then, shuddering, she throws it far away from her. She sinks to the ground at his feet and puts her arms about him. His face changes as he bends towards her; slowly he takes her into his arms
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid, Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
Hush, my share of the world. The waves shall sing our bridal song tonight.
GRÁINNE
You will leave broken bread behind us in the place tomorrow, Diarmuid. You will leave broken bread behind us in the place for Fionn Mac Cool…
Diarmuid bends towards her and kisses her lips. The waves break softly at intervals outside the cave. They turn away to the cavern entrance, through which the moonlight floods, and meet in a warm embrace
​
​
ACT FOUR
Scene One
​
A great room in Rath Gráinne, the home of Diarmuid and Gráinne many years later. There are copper shields and tapestries and great skins hanging on the walls, and a long settle covered with figured cloth occupies one side of the stage. A huge window is at the back, and in front of this stands Sive, her back to the audience. Outside the night is falling and the room is in shadow. A red moon is rising slowly out of the mist. Sive draws a curtain half across the window so that only a portion of the darkening sky remains visible
​
SIVE
The colour of rust is on the moon. The colour of rust or of blood that was spilled long ago is on the moon tonight.
How cold the air is!
​
A sound of men’s voices, talking and shouting, and of laughter, is heard from another room. Sive turns and lights two great torches, and heaps coal into the braziers. Luan suddenly rushes into the room, wild and dishevelled. He nearly collides with Sive, then sees who it is and starts back
​
LUAN
Oh Sive, great stories I have heard tonight. Strange wonderful things I have seen on the hillside, and on the side of Ben Bulben in the twilight.
SIVE
What is your talk? Have you no thought at all to be rushing in on me like this? For all you know your master might have been here, or his lady, aye or Fionn Mac Cool himself.
​
LUAN
Ah, but you must listen, Sive!
​
SIVE
You must learn to be more gentle. You must learn to have manners.
​
LUAN
But I have something to tell you!
​
SIVE
What is it?
​
LUAN
A strange thing I’ve seen on the hills tonight. A strange fearful thing I’ve seen. A big fierce long-tusked boar I’ve seen, running wild on the shoulder of the hill and raising his snout to the moon.
​
SIVE [with a very slight start]
A wild boar you’ve seen? Is that so strange and wonderful?
​
LUAN
Strange and wonderful he was if you could have seen him, Sive. He was bigger than all the boars of Ireland, and when I saw him first standing there without a movement on the ridge of the hill and his eyes on the moon rising up out of the fog, I thought there was like a dark curl of flame about his head and a cloud of green smoke twisting up from the ground where he stood…
​
SIVE [half whispering]
What did you do then?
​
LUAN
Great fear I had, and I made a rush to get away, and I cut down through the two dark woods of the old well till I got home again. Ah, it’s a good thing to be safe in the rath to watch the torchlight shining on the walls, and see the doors shutting out the bad thing of the night.
​
SIVE
A great boar with flame and smoke about him, standing alone on the side of Ben Bulben…
LUAN
Aye, spears of flame there were about him, and big curling clouds of smoke…
SIVE [abruptly]
Cease your chatter. What made you come into this room at all? Whom are you seeking?
​
LUAN
My master Diarmuid and his lady.
SIVE
And why do you wish to see them?
LUAN
A message I have to them from Fionn.
SIVE
A message? What message?
LUAN
The message is from Fionn Mac Cool to Diarmuid and to Gráinne. It is not for your ears, Sive.
SIVE
What is this talk? Not for my ears?
LUAN
It is not.
SIVE [half to herself]
Why should Fionn send a message to his hosts? Will he not be at the feast tonight? At the last feast of their new friendship?
LUAN
Their new friendship?
SIVE
May the Gods look down upon your ignorance that didn’t know of the bitterest quarrel Ireland ever saw.
LUAN
A quarrel? Between whom?
SIVE
Between Fionn and your master, who else?
LUAN
Oh, tell me of that quarrel.
SIVE
I will not. Isn’t that an old story now, and isn’t it a better thing to forget a quarrel than to remember it?
LUAN
Aye, maybe.
SIVE
And they themselves have forgotten it. It is better so. Diarmuid is a rich man, aye and a powerful man, and our mistress could well see that he and Fionn must be friends again.
LUAN
Why did she see that?
SIVE
Our mistress is a woman. Fionn is the greatest fighting man in Ireland. He is the most powerful friend in the world…aye, and the worst enemy… [She turns away and busies herself about the room]
​
LUAN
Fionn is a great man surely.
SIVE
Gráinne was wise to remake the friendship between himself and Diarmuid…
[She breaks off] What is that you have in your hand?
[pointing to a ring in his hand] That is a ring of Fionn Mac Cool’s. Isn’t it often I saw it on his hand. Give it to me.
LUAN
I will not.
SIVE
Give it to me.
​
LUAN
I will not.
SIVE
Give it to me, I say.
LUAN
I will not. I will not.
SIVE
Was it Fionn gave it you?
LUAN
Maybe it was.
SIVE
Maybe it was? [She threatens him] How dare you?
​
LUAN
It was for Gráinne he gave it me, and a message along with for my master.
SIVE
And you won’t tell me that message?
LUAN
I will not.
SIVE
Where was it you saw Fionn?
LUAN
In a clearing of the great wood of Eas Dara he was, talking with three strangers.
SIVE
Strangers?
LUAN
Aye, big black men they were in shirts of green and long straight cloaks of black, and they were talking of Diarmuid and…
SIVE
And of what else?
LUAN
Talking and whispering they were of the great boar of Ben Bulben.
SIVE
Hush!
LUAN
Why, what is the matter?
SIVE [suddenly, after a pause]
Tell nothing of that story to your master or his lady. Tell nothing of that story of the strangers, or of the wild boar you saw lifting his snout to the moon on the shoulder of the hill.
​
LUAN
But…but Diarmuid will hear that story of the boar I saw if I tell him or if I don’t.
SIVE
Why?
LUAN
Didn’t I tell you all the Fianna were there as I came in through the hall of the seven doors, Óisin and Osgar and all of them; and they said they would have great sport tomorrow chasing and hunting him on the side of the hill.
Sive looks at him with impotent fury for a moment. Then she goes over to the window
​
SIVE
You are a fool, Luan. A fool… [She turns and looks out into the night]
The moon is high up in the sky now, but the colour of rust is on it still. Ah! the air is very cold.
​
LUAN [turning to look at her]
Aye, it is the last night of the year. Ah! there are bad things crying out in the darkness tonight. It’s a good thing to see the torchlight shining on the bronze and the copper, and to shut out the cold and the blackness with a door of fine strong oak.
Scene Two
​
Diarmuid enters with Gráinne. He leads her to the long settle, where she lies back among the cushions. Half smiling he watches her for a moment, stroking her hair
​
GRÁINNE
Is all ready for the feast tonight?
SIVE
It is, princess.
DIARMUID [turning to Luan]
What is your business?
LUAN
Out in the woods at the hunt I was today, noble person, on the side of the hill where the deer were gathered and in the hollows of Eas Dara, and I bring you a message from Fionn Mac Cool.
​
DIARMUID
From Fionn?
GRÁINNE
Is Fionn out here in the rath? You have been running hard.
DIARMUID
Aye, your hair is tossed and your clothes are torn…Where did you see Fionn?
LUAN
In the clearing of the wood of Eas Dara I saw him, noble person.
GRÁINNE
Why did you run so fast?
LUAN
I ran because…
DIARMUID
Why did you run?
LUAN [after a warning glance from Sive]
Ah, it was nothing, master…a fear I had of the bad things that wait in the shadows on the last night of the year.
​
Gráinne looks straight at him and then glances over her shoulder. She is silent
​
DIARMUID
Come, you must have no fear of the shadows. What is the message from Fionn?
FIONN
He bade me tell you, noble person, that a messenger of his own people came westward from Allen of Leinster with news that have troubled him, and asks you to forgive him that he left the hunt today.
GRÁINNE [looking at Diarmuid]
When will he be here?
LUAN
Soon, princess, very soon he will be here, for he was on horseback and I was on foot. He will be here tonight before you sit down to eat and drink, and he will tell you his story.
DIARMUID
It is well.
LUAN [crosses and kneels before Gráinne. He offers the ring]
Fionn Mac Cool sends you this ring, lady.
​
GRÁINNE [taking ring]
May you go well.
Diarmuid looks at her keenly for a moment; she meets his eyes and slowly draws the ring onto her finger. Luan looks boldly at Sive, bows to Diarmuid and Gráinne and goes
​
SIVE
That is a fine ring, princess.
GRÁINNE
Fine indeed.
SIVE
The stones are coloured like wine, or like red gold that has the light of flames going through it.
GRÁINNE
They are red like the sun that goes down in the west on an evening of storm, or like the moon that rises out of the mist when the night is dark and blood is to be spilt on the earth.
SIVE [starts slightly and glances at the window]
Will you dress in the cloak of ceremony for the last feast tonight, noble lady?
GRÁINNE
No…
SIVE
But Gráinne…princess…are you not feasting tonight? Will you not wear the cloak of gold with the pale stones?
DIARMUID [suddenly]
Leave us, Sive.
​
Sive goes out. Gráinne removes her cloak and stretches languidly on the settle and examines the ring. Diarmuid comes slowly to her from behind, bends down and looks at the ring on her finger. He sighs and turns to look out of the window
​
GRÁINNE
There is something you forgot to tell me tonight, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
What is that?
GRÁINNE
You did not tell me that Fionn had left the hunt.
DIARMUID
Why, it was such a small thing. Why should I tell you?
GRÁINNE
Yes, it was a small thing. Did he leave suddenly?
DIARMUID
He rode away through the trees of Colooney as the twilight fell, and eastward to the great wood of the quicken trees.
GRÁINNE
He is a strange man.
DIARMUID
He is our friend.
GRÁINNE
Yes, he is our friend now. We are no longer lovers that wander without shelter through the wild woods
where the rain lashes the boughs about our heads, and the darkness of the night makes our feet
to stumble among the stones of the hills. [She twists the ring on her finger]
​
DIARMUID
I would not lose his friendship for all the riches of Ireland, for all the cattle of the plain of Meath, for all the gold and bronze and copper shields of the south.
​
GRÁINNE
No, why should you? We have so much power already; we have so many silks and shields, cattle and horses and lands, and bowls of gold and polished copper.
​
DIARMUID
Gráinne!
​
GRÁINNE
Ah, I know…I laugh too much at the world.
​
DIARMUID
You laugh too much at Fionn.
​
GRÁINNE
I do not laugh at Fionn.
​
DIARMUID [suddenly]
Why do you twist that ring upon your finger? Let me see it.
​
She passes it to him; he hands it back
​
DIARMUID
No, I wish to see it on your hand.
​
She puts it back; he takes her hand and gazes intently at the ring
GRÁINNE
Why do you sigh, my share of the world?
DIARMUID
I was troubled last night by evil dreams.
GRÁINNE [startled]
By evil dreams?
​
DIARMUID
Aye…there came a wild thing into my dreams that snatched you from me, and I saw you then as though you were far away, yet close and bright and clear like the flowers of the grass, and by your side…
​
GRÁINNE
Speak!
​
DIARMUID
By your side stood Fionn.
​
Gráinne suddenly rises and goes over to the window
​
DIARMUID
Gráinne, where are you? Where are you, Gráinne?
​
GRÁINNE
How red the moon is tonight! She is like a shield that has been stained with blood. There are long cold fingers of cloud that are stretched across her face. They cut away her light as though they were black battle knives. They are like stains of anger on a shield, like stains of bloody anger on a shield of rust.
Scene Three
As Fionn enters Diarmuid starts, then rises mechanically and bows his head. Gráinne turns from the window
​
FIONN [at the door]
Your life and your health, Diarmuid. Gráinne, my greeting to you this night.
​
GRÁINNE
Happiness from the gods on you, Fionn.
​
FIONN
Diarmuid, you will forgive me for this day… you will forgive me that I left the hunt without warning.
​
DIARMUID
It was nothing.
​
FIONN
Did you get my message?
​
DIARMUID
I did…you are troubled, Fionn, with news from Allen?
FIONN
Aye, there is trouble in Allen, and trouble in Sliebh Cua.
DIARMUID
What is the trouble?
​
FIONN [hesitating]
Raids on my cattle there are, and tales of unrest, stories of discontent from Conan Maol and…
​
DIARMUID [smiling]
Stories of discontent from Conan Maol? That is no new thing at all.
​
FIONN
Ah, there are things that trouble me now, Diarmuid, more than they would have troubled me at one time.
There is weariness over my mind, a mist over my thoughts.
​
DIARMUID
And these rumours from Allen and Sliebh Cua have disturbed you?
​
FIONN
Aye, they have…they have…
​
GRÁINNE
There is something else in your thoughts, Fionn.
​
FIONN [looks at her for a moment in silence]
That is true.
​
GRÁINNE
Yes, it is true. Your eyes are restless and mournful, like one whose dreams are too vivid not to seem terrible when the dawn whitens in the sky.
​
FIONN
My dreams trouble me.
​
DIARMUID
Dreams! Dreams!...
​
FIONN
When the night goes away from us, she takes with her our dreams like shining dragons with their starry eyes and scales of glittering fire…then the dawn comes and we awake; and with the dawn ride down the dragons of new dreams with scales of lead and eyes like frozen coins. And youth…
​
DIARMUID
Youth is the bright dragon of your dreams.
​
FIONN
Youth is the bright dragon that the darkness brings. Youth is like the night.
​
GRÁINNE
And age? Is that not like the night? Like the darkness of night that falls on the mountains when the earth is tired.
​
FIONN
No, age is like the grey and rain-washed break of day. Age is like the dawn. That is the sorrow of life.
DIARMUID
The dragon of the dawn with scales of lead.
FIONN
Diarmuid, I cannot feast tonight. Give me your pardon for that…I cannot feast tonight.
DIARMUID
Why, Fionn, if you have no mind to feast let it be so.
GRÁINNE
Have you a mind for sleep, Fionn Mac Cool?
FIONN
For sleep? Aye, for sleep.
DIARMUID
Then there will be no feast tonight.
FIONN
But Diarmuid…
​
DIARMUID
It shall be so. There shall be no feast while my friend, my chief guest, is not at the table.
FIONN
You are my friend, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
I think that I am nearer to you than before. Our friendship was broken by an evil chance. It is remade by a new understanding. It is sealed by a new bond. It has been through the fire and flames have made it firm.
FIONN
That is true. Is it not true, Gráinne?
GRÁINNE
It is true indeed.
DIARMUID
Why do you smile, Gráinne?
GRÁINNE
I smile because our friendship is remade.
FIONN
Is it not well? Should we not all be happy?
GRÁINNE
I must give you thanks, Fionn.
FIONN
For what?
GRÁINNE
For this ring. It has given me great joy.
FIONN
It is a small token only.
GRÁINNE
Come, tell me…will you not feast with us tonight?
Fionn, who has been looking at her intently, starts as though he were suddenly reminded of something
​
FIONN
Your pardon, Gráinne. Your pardon, both. I am troubled and weary. I would sleep. Your pardon.
DIARMUID
We understand it well. [He claps his hands: his slaves appear] Let food and drink be brought to the men of the Fianna in the room of the seven doors. There will be no feast tonight. [The slaves go out]
FIONN
I will go now.
​
DIARMUID
You go with our love and blessing, Fionn. And may the Gods give you a sound sleep. May your sleep be sound and sweet this night.
FIONN
My blessing be with you, Diarmuid, and with your Gráinne of the undying beauty.
GRÁINNE
A sound sleep to you, Fionn.
FIONN
Diarmuid, I…
DIARMUID
What is it, my friend?
FIONN
Diarmuid, if…
DIARMUID
If?
FIONN
No, it is nothing. My blessing be with you both.
He looks at them sadly for a moment and goes out
Scene Four
Diarmuid and Gráinne are left alone
​
GRÁINNE
He is strange tonight.
DIARMUID
How, strange?
GRÁINNE
He is full of secrets. Troubled by dreams and visions and wrapped in a cloud of grief he is, and yet there is a fierceness in his eyes, a wildness, something that waits and watches and will not be at peace.
DIARMUID
Age is coming upon him. His mind is shaken and unquiet.
​
GRÁINNE
But why is that?
DIARMUID
Who knows? Who knows? Because the world changes, and hope flickers, and light fades out of the sky, and the hair grows grey, and lines and shadows creep about the brows and lips. Because all things must change and wither, and the leaves fall from the tree, and mist covers the tops of the hills, and the tide wears away the stones of the strand, and the shadows droop and gather in the glens. Because every day when we awake we have forgotten the dreams of the night, and because every night when we sleep the dreams of the day are like a troop of thin shadows in our minds, without sense, without meaning.
GRÁINNE
You speak as though these words came from your own thoughts, Diarmuid, and not from Fionn’s at all.
DIARMUID
The thoughts are my own, and they are Fionn’s, and they are every man’s when the night is dark and the flare falters in the torches and the day is done.
GRÁINNE
Or when the wine has been left untested at the feast. And the year is done. This is the last night of the year.
DIARMUID
Aye, the last night of the year.
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid, why should you be sad tonight?
DIARMUID [caressing her]
Aye, why should I be sad? I who have houses and lands and cattle and a woman of beauty at my side, shields of red bronze on the walls, and wine and meat and linen in the cupboards.
​
GRÁINNE
Why are you sad, my pulse?
DIARMUID
I, sad? I who have won back the good will of the High King and the friendship of Fionn Mac Cool.
I am not sad, Gráinne, I am not sad.
GRÁINNE
Yes, you are sad.
DIARMUID
There was a song made by Daire of the poems, and in that poem he made a great keening and lamenting because of a young boy that was changed by a woman of the Sidhe into a white hound running and leaping on the hills, and when he came back to his own shape again he was grey and withered and his friend…
GRÁINNE
Yes, his friend, Diarmuid?
DIARMUID
He had forgotten him.
GRÁINNE
Why do you think of this song tonight?
DIARMUID
I do not know, I do not know.
GRÁINNE
I do not trust Fionn.
DIARMUID
Why is that?
GRÁINNE
I do not trust him, his eyes are restless. They watch me always. I do not trust him.
DIARMUID
Ah, you are dreaming, Gráinne.
GRÁINNE
No, no, he watches us. He watches us both. Always he is watching. Watching and waiting, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
What is in your thoughts?
​
GRÁINNE
I am afraid, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
You afraid, little fawn?
GRÁINNE
Do you remember when we were in the woods together, in the thick woods of Dubhros where the stars looked through the leaves and saw us lying in a shadowy place. Your head was in my lap and I made a sleepy song for you out of the secret words of the wind, and you looked up and smiled though no bird sang.
DIARMUID
You had no fear then.
GRÁINNE
And there was a day high on the summit of Ben Adair when the sun was warm. We lay on the heather in an open place. I heard the bees drone in the tall blue air, and under us low blue waves lapped and lapped. We heard the baying of Fionn’s hounds and turned and ran and hid in a great cave close to the water’s edge.
DIARMUID
You had no fear then.
GRÁINNE
I had no fear then though we were betrayed. I had no fear in the caves or in the bogs, in the hills or in the plains, because I knew…
DIARMUID
You knew?
GRÁINNE
Who was our enemy.
DIARMUID
And now you know no longer?
GRÁINNE
I am afraid, Diarmuid, I am afraid…
DIARMUID
Aye, why should I be sad? When we slept among hills and woods and lonely rocks on beds of rushes or of soft green boughs, when the stars shone above us in the sky or the wind tangled the hair over our eyes. I know…I know, white Gráinne. I know that longing when the blood turns wild at the calling of the cuckoo in deep woods, or at the rushing of the rain through slanted blowing grass, or at the hot still perfume of the yellow furze.
GRÁINNE
Your lips were on my lips one twilight when the curlew cried and the wind was hushed, and though Fionn’s fighting men has run us down and we were hiding in a barren place where there was nothing but grey clouds and greyer colder stones, yet we were happy and I knew no fear.
DIARMUID
And now—you are afraid?
A slave enters with a bowl of wine which he puts on the table; as he passes Gráinne she starts. He is about to go
GRÁINNE
Put out the torches.
He puts the torches out, leaving the stage in a dimness which makes the space of sky beyond the window seem fairly luminous
​
GRÁINNE
Go. [He goes out]
DIARMUID
Why do you have the torches quenched?
GRÁINNE
Give me your lips, Diarmuid. Bend down your head towards me. Give me your lips.
Diarmuid takes her into his arms. As their lips are about to meet, he starts as though he had heard some sound
​
DIARMUID
Hush! [He half pushes her away]
GRÁINNE
Your lips, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
Did you not hear a call?
GRÁINNE
Bend down your head to me, son of Donn.
DIARMUID
A call out of the blackness it was, a hunting horn and the voice of a hound calling out of the dark.
GRÁINNE
Your lips, give me your lips, Diarmuid.
DIARMUID
Calling me to follow it is.
GRÁINNE
You will not go. There is no sound in the night. Give me your lips, my treasure, my life, give me your lips! You will not go from me into the blackness of the night where all the evil shapes of November would take you from me.
DIARMUID
I must follow the voice of the hound.
GRÁINNE
Stay with me, stay with me, Diarmuid!
DIARMUID
Bring me my spears!
GRÁINNE
You are going from me!
DIARMUID
Bring me my spears!
GRÁINNE
You will take the big spears with you, Diarmuid. You will take the great fierce one with you, and the spear of Red Victory.
DIARMUID
Bring me the Little Wild One and the Spear of Swift Death.
GRÁINNE
Take the big spears with you, Diarmuid! Take the big spears with you!
DIARMUID
Do as I bid you!
His eyes are fixed on the door. Gráinne looks at him for a moment, then fetches the two spears and his hunting coat
DIARMUID
Call my hound to me! Call Mac an Chuill!
​
GRÁINNE
Do not go, Diarmuid, do not go from me into the darkness!
He rushes out
Scene Five
​
There are three great blasts on a horn outside
​
GRÁINNE
That is the call of Fionn! Óisin! Osgar! Caoilte! Goll! [She wheels round in terror] Sive! Sive!
​
She claps her hands; Sive enters
​
GRÁINNE
Go out, Sive, and strike upon the shield of battle! Awake the house! Drag out the men of the Fianna from their beds!
Go, Sive, go quickly!...Stay! Go into the sleeping room of Fionn Mac Cool and tell me…what is there…
​
Sive goes. Gráinne remains motionless
​
GRÁINNE
The last night of the year!...
​
A tumult of voices outside. Sive enters
SIVE
Princess!
GRÁINNE
Speak!
SIVE
The sleeping room of Fionn is empty.
GRÁINNE
Yes, it is empty. [suddenly beside herself] The shield of battle! The shield of warning! Why do you not strike upon the shield?
SIVE
They are striking, princess.
GRÁINNE
To me it is all silent.
Enter hastily Óisin, Osgar, Caoilte and Goll
ÓISIN
What is the matter?
CAOILTE
Who strikes upon the shield of battle?
OSGAR [pointing at Gráinne]
Look! Look! Look!
​
CAOILTE
What is it, Gráinne the fair?
OSGAR
What is the matter?
GOLL
She is pale, like death,
GRÁINNE
There was a horn that blew in the darkness of the night, and a wild thing that passed on the side of Ben Bulben.
OSGAR
What are you saying?
GRÁINNE
The sleeping room of Fionn is empty.
Horns backstage, very distant
​
GOLL
What was that?
CAOILTE
Who is it that follows a chase in the blackness of the night?
SIVE
That was the call of Fionn. [She is silent, looking at Gráinne]
GOLL
Did you hear?
CAOILTE
Let us go to the window. [They rush to the window]
OSGAR
Look!
ÓISIN
I see a torch that flames through the mist…
GOLL
…and something that moves swiftly in the shadow.
CAOILTE
There are three shapes that move swiftly…
GOLL
Look!
ÓISIN
There are two men and a beast…
OSGAR
Oh!
CAOILTE
Oh! The torch has burnt out. There is nothing now but the black shape of the hill.
ÓISIN
It is Diarmuid and my father who are out on Ben Bulben.
​
GOLL
What is it that they fight?
The others are about to speak when Sive holds up her hand as a signal for silence. All turn to look at Gráinne
GRÁINNE [her voice passionless and cold, her face the face of a sleep-walker]
It is the wild boar of Ben Bulben out there in the blackness, and Diarmuid fighting him.
​
ALL [variously]
That cannot be true! The wild boar of Ben Bulben!—May the Gods look down upon us! That is no hunt at all!—That would be a fight, a bloody and terrible fight!—Diarmuid is a strong man.—Why did Fionn go?—There is one that holds a torch. It is no hunt but a fight.—A fight! A fight between a man and a beast!—There is one that tilts at the beast with a spear. —The green boar of Ben Bulben!—The last night of the year it is.—A dark bad night it is and the moon is red. —The moon is coloured like blood.
​
SIVE
Have no fear, princess.
​
ÓISIN
Diarmuid will win the fight.
​
CAOILTE
They are cheering on the hill.
​
Óisin turns from the window and stands watching Gráinne; the others remain watching impatiently
GRÁINNE
He is fighting the boar of Ben Bulben and the night is dark. Fionn it was that called him in the shadow. Fionn Mac Cool it was.
OSGAR
Let us go! Let us see Diarmuid as he kills the boar! Let us go to the hill.
CAOILTE
Come, Óisin, come! Let us watch the fight! Let us see how Diarmuid kills the great boar of the west.
ÓISIN
I will not leave Gráinne.
GRÁINNE
Mac an Chuill, the hound of Diarmuid, has fled in terror from the boar. Diarmuid is alone.
ÓISIN
Fionn Mac Cool is with him, princess.
CAOILTE [half turning from the window, to Osgar]
She speaks as though she stood upon the hill and watched the fight.
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid has loosed the Spear of Swift Death. He aims it now at the face of the boar.
​
GOLL [also turning, to Caoilte]
Terror has made her mad.
​
OSGAR
Come, let us watch the fight!
​
ÓISIN
I will not leave…
​
OSGAR and CAOILTE
Oh, let us watch!
​
ÓISIN
I will not leave her alone.
​
GRÁINNE
A-ah! The wild boar has rushed at him… The earth is out from under his feet…He has fallen…he has fallen…
​
CAOILTE
How can she tell what happens when the night is so dark?
GOLL
And she does not even look into the darkness.
SIVE
She is looking into the darkness with the eyes of her love.
OSGAR [still looking out from the window]
Look! The clouds have hidden the moon. [peers out] I can see nothing now.
​
GOLL [turns to join Osgar]
No, the night is like a great black cave.
​
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid has risen…He has caught the boar with his two hands. His grip is terrible. It is like a ring of iron, or like the cold sharp fingers of a winter’s night. He has caught the boar with his two hands. [Faint sounds of cheering on the hill] The boar rushes round and round the hill in a huge circle, but he cannot free himself.
​
ÓISIN
Gráinne! Gráinne! Where do you see this thing?
SIVE
Hush!
GRÁINNE
Angus, Lord of Love, where are you this night? Angus of the Birds, where are you hiding this night?
OSGAR
The clouds are passing away from the moon.
GOLL
Look! Look! Do you see that?
CAOILTE
I see nothing but a dim shape that rushes in great circles on the mountain top. It is too dark to see rightly.
GRÁINNE
Ah! the boar has freed himself…he stands there in the red moonlight, waiting…
CAOILTE
Can you see anything?
OSGAR
No, but I think there is nothing stirring.
GRÁINNE
Ah!
She staggers; Óisin and Sive rush to help her, but she motions them away. There is a cry of horror from the hill
ÓISIN
Oh, what is on you, Gráinne?
SIVE
What is that mournful cry that rises from the hill?
CAOILTE
Why does Gráinne cry out?
OSGAR
Someone is coming to the rath.
GOLL
Who is it?
CAOILTE
What is it they carry?
GRÁINNE [cold and pale but now with passion in her voice]
Open the great gates of bronze that he may pass.
​
All look at her in amazement. The two slaves go out. Soon is heard the drawing of heavy bolts and the opening of the gates, The light grows dim
Scene Six
​
Diarmuid is brought in on a stretcher; blood is streaming from his throat and chest
​
GRÁINNE [kneeling by him]
My soul, my soul! Look into my eyes, my soul!
​
DIARMUID
Oh golden fawn, oh share of the world, oh honey-mouth…
​
All the others come and kneel beside him
DIARMUID
Oh my brothers and my friends, why do you bow your heads? Why do you kneel and weep? Did I not kill the wild boar of the mountain? Though it went hard with me there in the blackness of the night, in the red dazzle of the moon, and my throat and my breast streaming with blood.
​
GOLL
See his breast, how it bleeds!
​
CAOILTE
It is torn like a ragged sail in the wind.
​
ÓISIN
His eyes are wide with pain.
​
OSGAR
There are red tusk-wounds in his throat.
​
DIARMUID
Take your cold green hands from her body, Ciach of the Fomor! The chessmen are scattered!
​
GRÁINNE
Go, leave him to me.
​
The back of the stage is now in almost total darkness; only the red glow of the night illuminates the room. The men of the Fianna withdraw from the bier to the back. Óisin hesitates and then follows
DIARMUID
Cool, cool your fingers are…
GRÁINNE
Ah, do not speak, my soul.
DIARMUID
Why…who is it that looks over your shoulder?
GRÁINNE
No-one.
DIARMUID
Who is it that looks over your shoulder?
GRÁINNE
Diarmuid, my pulse, there is no-one.
DIARMUID
Ah, I know now who stands behind you.
GRÁINNE
Whom do you see?
DIARMUID
I see…Fionn Mac Cool. Look into my eyes.
A movement at the back. Fionn has entered. He comes slowly forward and gazes at Diarmuid over Gráinne’s shoulder
DIARMUID
Who is it that looks over your shoulder?
​
GRÁINNE
There is no-one there…Ah!
​
She glances over her shoulder and meets Fionn’s eyes
​
FIONN [grimly]
There is joy in my heart tonight, Diarmuid, to see you as you lie there tonight. Your beauty is destroyed and your comely face is marred. I look at you now between the eyes and I laugh at your wounds and I tell you with my own lips that my heart is glad to see the blood on your breast and the gashes on your white throat, you that were proud and beautiful and that now are broken and beaten, lying there before me like a fine blossoming tree that was struck down by the storm.
​
DIARMUID
Those are hard words to be speaking to me, Fionn, you that have the power to heal me if you would use it.
FIONN
How could I heal you, Diarmuid?
DIARMUID
There was a time when you were given great knowledge at the Boinn, and with it you were given this gift, Fionn, that anyone to whom you would give a drink of water out of your two hands would be young and well and strong again from sickness and from wounds…Fionn…Fionn Mac Cool…
FIONN
You deserve no drink from me. You have earned nothing from me but the thing you have found this night: the ruin of your beauty, the withering of your strength and the coming of your death.
DIARMUID
Fionn!
FIONN
Your death you have earned from me, I say. You that went to Tara with me as my friend and stole white Gráinne from me.
DIARMUID [struggling to speak]
Fionn…
FIONN
I have never forgotten what you did to me, Diarmuid.
OSGAR
See how his breath comes fast.
ÓISIN
His face is white.
CAOILTE
It is whiter than water at evening time.
GOLL
Why is Gráinne so still?
They come slowly forward
​
DIARMUID
Not for myself or for Gráinne will I weep, nor for you, Fionn Mac Cool, but for Óisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Goll and my comrades…I see Goll stretched out in a lonely place where the wind lifts his hair from his cold white brow; I see Osgar lying dead, his body that was comely and whiter than milk torn like a tree in the wind with a thousand battle-wounds; I see Caoilte an old man fretting after his sons, and death coming upon him in a lonesome house; I see Óisin who will live after you all, an old withered man making a lament for the Fianna in a time when Ireland shall be changed, an old white broken man bending low with the burden of his sorrow beneath the heavy clouds, listening to the voice of the bells…in a time when Ireland shall be changed…Fionn!...Water!...Bring me water!...
​
Fionn motions to Óisin who brings water in a copper bowl. He pours some of the water into Fionn’s hands
DIARMUID
Gráinne!...
​
Gráinne crosses and kneels by the bier. Fionn who is bringing the water sees the look that passes between them. He lets the water fall. Long silence
​
DIARMUID
It is well. Look into my eyes, Gráinne…
​
Gráinne bends over him. Diarmuid dies. The men of the Fianna go on their knees. Gráinne, still kneeling, half turns from the body of Diarmuid; Fionn stretches out his hand to her. She starts back in horror, her hand to her mouth; seeing the ring of Fionn on her finger, her eyes remain fixed on it. The expression of hatred on her face turns slowly to one that is half mockery, half despair. She drags herself slowly to her feet and moves deliberately to Fionn
GRÁINNE
Who is it that you hold in your arms, Fionn Mac Cool?
FIONN
Who but Gráinne the fair?
GRÁINNE
No, no! Do you not see? [she points to the body triumphantly] Gráinne is there!...
Fionn with fear in his eyes folds his cloak about her and they go out together. It grows slowly dark. Diarmuid is left alone; the men are kneeling about him in a half circle. No light remains except the red glow of the sky; this too fades. Total darkness
Op 16. - The Dialogues of Óisin and Saint Patric
Adapted from the old Irish legends by Leon Wiltshire
​
The lights rise. Óisin and Patric are seated in large chairs after a vigil of prayer. Both have fallen asleep
​
PATRIC [stirs and opens his eyes]
Rise up and listen to the song of the Psalm, Óisin; you have slept long enough. No more for you the sound of battle and bloody conquest; age has sapped your strength and vigour.
​
ÓISIN [opens his eyes]
I have no pleasure in the song of the Psalms or the priests who sing them, and my strength and manhood have only deserted me since Fionn and his armies are no more. It is the songs of battles that I love.
​
PATRIC
Come now, there has never since the world was young been sweeter music than the Psalms and the words of God; it is time now to forget the war-trumpets and serve in the armies of the priests. [He rises and moves towards an alcove]
ÓISIN
Your memory fails you. In my time I have also served the priests, and until now no-one has accused me of doing otherwise. Yet I still say that I have heard much sweeter music than the sound of the monastery bells or the chanting of the priests.
​
Patric in the alcove pours water and washes
​
ÓISIN
I have heard the song of the blackbird in Leiter Laoi, and the sound of the Dord Fian: the sweet notes of a thrush in a shady vale, the sound of the keel of a boat rasping on a shingle shore. Why, the baying of the hounds was of more joy to me than all your church music: yes, even the twelve hounds that belonged to Fionn, when he unleashed them from the Suir, their notes were sweeter than all your harps and pipes. [Patric brings water and Óisin, also washes, rising from his seat. Patric sits again]
And now that Fionn is no more, do you wish me to forget those sounds and memories? Better for me to have died with him! For I tell you bluntly, that the priests and their missals and myself will never see eye to eye, and that if Fionn and the Fianna were still alive, I would leave this monastery with its bells and priests and follow him, as would a fawn follow the deer through the valleys. And were I you, Patric, I would ask God in Heaven to send to earth again Fionn of the Fianna and all his race, for you will never see or hear the like of him again.
​
PATRIC
Though I admire you, Óisin, you are putting me on edge. Nor will I intercede with Heaven for the return of Fionn, for I abhor his way of living that only fills the valleys with the sound of the hunting horn and the baying hounds.
ÓISIN
Yet if you had been in the company of the Fianna, my monastic and cheerless friend, even you would have forgotten your priestly robes and fellow clerics and followed him.
​
PATRIC
Blaspheming poet that you are, I would not forsake my faith in God for any man who has lived on this earth, east or west; and the priesthood will take sweet revenge on you if you carry on speaking in this vein.
​
ÓISIN
Oh, but don’t you see that it was Fionn’s delight to hear the baying of his hounds on the mountains, to see the wild dogs leave their lairs and to see the strength and pride of his armies?
​
PATRIC
Because Fionn took delight in those pursuits, it does not follow that every other man must delight in them. Remember Fionn and his hounds are now dead and forgotten by many; and you too, Óisin, will not live for ever.
​
ÓISIN
Fionn’s memory will never die. We might lie forgotten but his generosity will still live, and will be remembered by those who are not yet born.
​
PATRIC
Little good it does for him, or for you now! However much gold you and he gave away, Fionn for his treachery and oppression is now lying chained in Hell.
​
ÓISIN
Even though you are appointed by the Roman Church with all its finery, I will not believe that Fionn, with all his generosity, is now in the hands of demons and devils.
​
PATRIC
I tell you truthfully, Fionn is in bonds in Hell. The man you thought so pleasant and generous, showed no respect for God; and for his sins suffers in the house of Hell.
​
ÓISIN
If only Fionn’s friends were alive, Morna’s sons, brown-haired Diarmuid and brave Osgar, they would storm any stronghold, be it Heaven or Hell, and release him.
​
PATRIC
Even if his friends were all alive and all the Fianna that ever were, they could not release him from where he is suffering the torments of the damned.
​
ÓISIN
Why did God inflict this awful punishment? Fionn was generous, loved his hounds and his hunting, and always honoured the bards and poets.
​
PATRIC
You have just given the reason. Fionn honoured those above God. That is why he rots in Hell.
ÓISIN
You who know the Psalms, Patric, do you still say that the Fianna and the five provinces of Ireland with them could not release Fionn? Where is your pity, Patric?...the Lord of the Fianna locked in Hell!...Fionn whose heart was without envy, without hatred, a heart full of courage. Is God unwilling to give food to the hungry and charity to the poor? Fionn never refused to give to the rich or the poor, and yet you say he is locked in Hell! If this is so, I say God is unjust. Fionn never asked for much: just to listen to the sound of Druim Dearg, to sleep at the streams of Eas Euadh, to hunt the deer along the bays of Gallimh, to hear the tune of the blackbird in Leiter Laoi, the bellowing of the ox at Magh Moir, and the lowing of the calf at Gleann da Mhail, the excitement of the hunt at Sliebh Crot, and sound of the fawns around Sliebh Crua, the scream of the seagulls away over Corrus, the screech of the carrion crows over the battlefield, the lap of the waves vexing the prow of a boat, the howling of the hounds at Drum Leis, the voice of Bran at Cnoc-an-Air, the babbling of the streams around Sliebh Mis.
[He rises and moves slowly towards Patric, who also rises to assist him] O Patric! My heart cries within me, when I think of what I have become now: a bent old man without suppleness, without fleetness, without strength, going to Mass at the altar; a man with no more battles to wage, no more pleasure of the spoils of war; a man with no more agility for the games, or hunting—the two sports that delighted me.
​
PATRIC [thrusts him away]
Enough of this; your mind wanders. Let your past glories remain in the past. The Fianna are gone. Set your mind to what lies before you.
​
ÓISIN
Yes!...and when I die, I hope, Patric, that you who have nagged and bothered my soul die with me. For I tell you that if the least of the Fianna were still alive you would not live long after me. [He in his turn thrusts Patric away from him]
Fionn was lucky. The music that led him to the long sleep was the cackling of the ducks from the Lake of the Three Narrows, the scolding talk of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn, the grouse of the heather of Cruchan, the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of Berries, the whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories, or from the rough branches of the ridge by the stream; the call of the otter of Druim re Coir, the tune of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn. Ah! Never have I heard sweeter music; would that it would remain with me for ever! Fionn was indeed lucky, for all I have left me is fasting, going without food or drink and praying.
Better by far, if I had not been baptised!
​
PATRIC
In my opinion it did not harm you. You eat and drink enough and then you decry your religion.
ÓISIN
If you think that this is enough, I would rather eat Fionn’s crumbs in the banqueting hall of Hell than receive the last sacrament from you.
PATRIC
Fionn ate what he got from the fruits of the fields, or whatever he could kill on the rough hills. He got his fill of Hell at the end for his disbelief.
ÓISIN
No!...that was not the way! We ate our fill of all good things and shared with everyone who needed. O Patric, you priest of Rome! Please let me remember the old days; let me talk of Diarmuid and Goll and of the straight-speaking Fergus.
PATRIC
Indeed you may remember and speak of the old days as much as you like, but only after you have made your peace with God and heeded His words. For, let me tell you, you are reaching the end of your days and senility is come upon you.
ÓISIN
Answer me a question if you please, since it is you who have the knowledge of spiritual matters. Will my dog be allowed into Heaven with me, when I go to meet my Maker?
PATRIC
Are you mad? Have you lost all sense of reason? No dog or hound of yours will be allowed in the courts of God Almighty.
ÓISIN
Well, if ever I were to meet God and my hound were at my side, I would make whosoever would provide me with food should also provide for my dog; and I think also this, that I would rather have one of my warrior friends of the Fianna at my side than your idea of the Lord of Piety and you together.
PATRIC
Oh Óisin of the sharp and gleaming sword! It is better to be with God for one day, than the whole of the Fianna of Ireland forever!
ÓISIN
Because I am old and cannot defend them, I tell you, Patric, do not pour scorn and abuse on the great men of the Fianna.
PATRIC
Come now, it’s foolish to be always talking of the Fianna. Remember you are near to death and you should be talking more about the Son of God. It is He that will help you.
ÓISIN
When I was young I would sleep out on the mountain under the grey mists, and if there were deer about I would never sleep hungry.
PATRIC
Your age makes your mind wander. You lose your way between the straight and narrow path and the crooked one. For your own sake, keep away from the crooked path that leads to Hell; take the straight, and the angels of God shall come under your head.
ÓISIN
Were I able to be with Fergus the generous and Diarmuid now, we would choose any path, and the devil take you and your priests!
PATRIC
Say no more, Óisin! Do not speak out against the priests that travel the whole world spreading the message of God, or you will have to answer to him in a terrible fashion!
ÓISIN
Listen, Patric, I fear no more your priests. In fact, when I hunted the boar in the valley and I could not find it, it would sorrow me more, than to see every priest in the world beheaded.
PATRIC
It is pitiful hearing you talk like this; it is more pitiful than your blindness. For if you had the sight within you, great would be your desire for Heaven.
ÓISIN
What desire would I have for Heaven, that beautiful City, without Caoilte, without Goll, without my father being with me? Were I with them, the leap of the buck or the sight of badgers between two valleys would be of more delight to me than all the delights of Heaven that you tell me about.
PATRIC
Your thoughts run away with you and will come to nothing. The pleasure and the mirth that you possessed when young and have departed with age; and what is more, if you do not take my advice to give reverence to God this very night, the entry to Heaven will be closed. There will no choice either way.
ÓISIN
Were myself and the Fianna on top of some hill with spears and with drawn bows, we would choose any way, despite your books and priests and Church bells.
PATRIC
You and the Fianna were never united enough. You were like wisps of smoke, or like a stream that flows through a valley. You were like a swirling wind on top of some hill.
ÓISIN
Yet if I were in the company of my strong armed friends that you so decry, I would not be starved through fasting but would be going to sleep with a full stomach at the day’s ending.
PATRIC
Listen, and listen gladly. I will force you to leave all thought of your nonsensical Fianna and make you receive the sacrament of God, the star- maker.
ÓISIN
You make me laugh!...a priest as intelligent and travelled as you are, t o even think I would desert such a noble body of men as the Fianna!
​
PATRIC
However great and noble you think the Fianna were, have you not noticed that the priesthood now get the best places at the feasts, and the best of the meat and the wine? Your Fionn and the Fianna are slowly forgotten; let them lie where they are, on the flagstones of Hell! You take the last rites, and take your place in Heaven!
ÓISIN
More lies from the priest who bears the shepherd’s staff! But if God and my son Osgar were fighting it out hand to hand over the fate of the Fianna and God defeated him, then would I say that your God had a strong argument.
PATRIC
Be converted to God, before it is too late! It is better to be with God for one hour, than the whole of the Fianna of Ireland forever!
ÓISIN Why do you say that God and his priests are better than Fionn? As Lord of the Fianna, a more generous and honourable man never lived. Yet you say a generous man never goes to Hell. Ask of God, Patric! Ask does He remember when the Fianna were full of life; does He remember one of them who was not generous and valiant in the fight? We detested treachery and falsehoods. We were victorious in battle because of our truth and strength. You think the sweetest sound is the voice of the priests singing Psalms in the church, to prove to God their sincerity; but are they more loyal or sincere in their words than Fionn or the Fianna? If my comrades were still alive, I would leave this psalm-crooning monastery very quickly. Alas, they are dead, and the church-bells mock me. Come, my departed friends! Come, Osgar my long-lost son! Bring your sharp and victorious swords, and cut loose the chains of the Church that bind me!
PATRIC
Enough, you bumbling idiot! It is my King that formed the Heavens; it is He that makes the trees to blossom, it is He that made the Sun and the Moon, the fields and the grass.
ÓISIN
If your King took delight in shaping these things, it was not so with my King. His delight was defeating the enemy, the company of his courtiers, the delight and excitement of the chase and seeing his name revered the length and breadth of the land. When the two great peoples came over the Sea, where then was your God? Where, Patric? I have heard that your King of Saints never reddened his hands with blood spilled on the battlefield, but many a bloody battle and victory were gained by the Fianna; and what is more, Patric, if Fionn saw your King chained and fettered he would fight tooth and nail to release him. Would it not be just and fair if your King would sever the bonds that bind Fionn in Hell? In the name of mercy, tell me, Patric, that the Fianna will be received in Heaven by God! Maybe your King owes me a favour, for am I not among His priests, without food through fasting, without fine clothes, without the sweet sound of the pipes, without honouring the song of the bards, without my hounds and the sound of the hunting horn, without the pleasure of defending the sea-coast, without courting and gaining the love of beautiful women.
Patric with a gesture of disgust leaves him. Óisin sinks slowly back into his chair, overcome with fatigue
​
ÓISIN
For all the suffering I bear through denying myself these pleasures, I forgive the King of Heaven in my will.
​
MONKS [offstage]
Kyrie, eleison! Christe, eleison!
​
ÓISIN
The cold fog of death shrouds me deeply tonight! Last night was long, I feel today will be much longer, and tomorrow will be
longer still; without the chase of deer or stag and the sweet song of the harp, I yearn, but the hours pass slowly. Time is long.
MONKS
Kyrie, eleison! Christe, eleison!
ÓISIN
The cold fog of death shrouds me deeply tonight! Throughout the world no-one bears as much trouble as I; my youth and my strength are gone, chained forever by age; the cold fog of death shrouds me deeply tonight!
​
MONKS
Requiescat in pace!
​
ÓISIN
I am the last of the Fianna, great Óisin son of Fionn, listening to the voice of the bells; the cold fog of death shrouds me deeply tonight!
He dies. Patric advances towards the dead man, closes his eyes, and pronounces a final benediction
MONKS
Kyrie, eleison!
​
The lights fade into darkness
Op 21 - The Nightingale and the Rose
Adapted by the composer from the short story by Oscar Wilde
​
A great mysterious garden shrouded in many shadows. It is dusk: deep, silent dusk. To the left, a great holm oak, deep myrtle green, soars into the sky. Towards the right a sundial, with a rose tree behind it. On the extreme right, the walls of the house whence opens a large window. Another rose tree stands towards the left, under the shadow of the holm; but the largest and most mysterious rose tree lies across the back of the stage like a great spreading portent of ill fate. On the grass beneath the holm oak the Student is discerned, lying with his head in his hands so that it seems that he sleeps; but then he stirs, and his eyes fill with tears
​
The STUDENT
She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses; but in all my garden there is no red rose. No red rose in all my garden! Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine; yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.
The NIGHTINGALE [from her nest in the holm, wonderingly to herself]
Here, at last, is the true lover! Night after night have I sung of him, though I knew him not; night after night have I told his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is dark as the hyacinth, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow.
​
The STUDENT
The Prince gives a ball tomorrow night, and my love will be of the company. If I bring her a red rose, she will dance with me till dawn. If I bring her a red rose, then I will hold her in my arms, and she will lean her head upon my shoulder, and her hand will be clasped in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall sit lonely, and she will pass me by. She will have no heed of me, and my heart shall break.
​
The NIGHTINGALE
Here, indeed, is the true lover! What I sing, he suffers; what to me is joy, to him is pain. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals, Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market place. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor is it weighed out in the balance for gold.
​
The STUDENT
The musicians will sit in their balcony, and play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance to the sound of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly that her feet will not touch the floor, and the courtiers in their gay dresses will throng about her. But with me she will not dance, for I have no red rose to give her!
​
The GREEN LIZARD
Why is he crying?
The BUTTERFLY
Why indeed?
The DAISY
Why indeed?
The NIGHTINGALE
He is weeping for a red rose.
The GREEN LIZARD, The BUTTERFLY and the DAISY
For a red rose? How very ridiculous!
The GREEN LIZARD
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
The Student has slowly subsided weeping upon the grass once more, and remains still. Night begins to fall ever more deeply over the garden. The Nightingale spreads her wings and flies forth from the holm over the garden, lighting upon the tree beneath the oak
​
The NIGHTINGALE
Give me a red rose; and I will sing you my sweetest song.
The WHITE ROSE TREE
My roses are white, as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my brother who grows round the old sundial, and perhaps he will give you what you want.
So the Nightingale flies to the rose that grows by the sundial
​
The NIGHTINGALE
Give me a red rose; and I will sing you my sweetest song.
The YELLOW ROSE TREE
My roses are yellow, as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his scythe. But go to my brother who grows beneath the Student’s window, and perhaps he will give you what you want.
So the Nightingale flies to the great tree: the grey, mysterious and ominous tree beneath the window of the house at the back of the stage
The NIGHTINGALE
Give me a red rose; and I will sing you my sweetest song.
The RED ROSE TREE
My roses are red, as red as the feet of the dove, and redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the ocean cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has nipped my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no roses at all this year.
The NIGHTINGALE
One rose is all I want, one red rose! Is there no way by which I can get it?
The RED ROSE TREE
There is a way; but it is so terrible that I dare not tell it to you.
The NIGHTINGALE
Tell it to me; I am not afraid.
The RED ROSE TREE
If you want a red rose, you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart’s blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and your life-blood will flow into my veins, and become mine.
The NIGHTINGALE
Death is a great price to pay for a red rose; and Life is very sweet to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the sun in his chariot of gold, and the moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is greater than Life, and what is heart of a nightingale compared to the heart of a man?
She flies soaring into the air, and sweeps over the garden like a shadow. When she reaches the oak, she stands high above the Student
​
The NIGHTINGALE
Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s blood. All that I ask of you is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though he is wise; and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense.
​
The STUDENT [looks uncomprehendingly up into the branches]
She has form, that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks only of music, and everybody knows that the arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good!
​
He has risen and walked slowly towards the house, and now he goes in. Silence descends upon the night and upon the garden
VOICES in the TREES
The Moon shines ever more brightly in the Heavens; and the Nightingale flies to the Rose Tree, and sets her breast against the thorn; and the cold crystal stars lean down and listen. And she sings first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl.
A vision appears in the centre of the garden: a naked youth and maiden who walk through the garden with graceful movements. Tenderly they embrace one another with tentative movements, then more passionate embraces: they slowly disappear into the darkness once more
VOICES in the TREES
And slowly a rose begins to blossom; pale at first, as the mist that hangs over the river, pale as the wings of the morning, and silver as the feet of the dawn, pale as the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, as the shadow of the rose upon a water pool.
​
The RED ROSE TREE
Press closer, little Nightingale! or the Day will come before the Rose is finished.
VOICES in the TREES
And so the Nightingale presses closer against the thorn, and her song grows louder as she sings of the birth of passion in the soul of a man and maid.
The two ideal lovers appear once again, embracing tenderly as before, and once more vanish into the night
VOICES in the TREES
And a flush of pink comes into the leaves of the rose, like the flush on the face of the Bridegroom when he kisses the lips of the Bride.
​
The RED ROSE TREE
Press closer, little Nightingale! or the Day will come before the Rose is finished.
VOICES in the TREES
And so the Nightingale presses closer against the thorn, and the thorn touches her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shoots through her. Bitter, bitter is the pain, and wilder, wilder grows her song, for the sings of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.
The ideal lovers again appear; this time the man supports the woman with his arm. A red light falls on the scene; the woman falls into the man’s arms. He bears her to the ground, and there lies with her
VOICES in the TREES
And the rose becomes crimson, like the rose of the crimson sky, like the ruby crimson of the heart.
Red light floods the scene, tinting the rose crimson; the two lovers appear to sink into the earth
But the Nightingale’s voice grows fainter, and her wings begin to beat, and a film comes over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grows her song, as it were something choking her in the throat. Then she gives one last burst of music.
[Increasing moonlight] The white Moon heareth it, and she forgets the dawn, and lingers on in the sky.
The red rose heareth it, and it trembles all over with ecstasy, and opens its petals to the cold morning air.
Echo beareth it to the purple caverns in the hills, and wakes the sleeping shepherds from their dreams.
It floateth through the reeds of the river, and they bear its message to the sea.
The RED ROSE TREE
Look! look! the rose is finished now!
​
The Nightingale falls to the ground
​
VOICES in the TREES
But the Nightingale lies dead in the long grass, and the thorn is in her heart.
Stillness and darkness envelop the scene. Day begins to dawn. The sun rises. The morning light shines into the garden, illuminating all with a silver radiance. And the rose too seems to glow, shedding forth a light of its own
The STUDENT [opens his window]
Why, what a wonderful piece of luck! Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in my life! It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name.
He comes forth from the house, and steps down to the rose; and reverently he plucks it. The Beloved enters the garden
The STUDENT
You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose! Here is the reddest rose in all the world.
You will wear it tonight next your heart, and as we dance together it will tell you how I love you.
The BELOVED [frowns]
I am afraid it will not go with my dress. And besides, the Chamberlain’s nephew has sent me some real jewels,
and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.
​
The STUDENT
Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful!
​
And he throws the rose down upon the ground, quite faded and its radiance extinguished
The BELOVED
Ungrateful! I tell you what, you are very rude; and after all, who are you? Only a student. Why, I don’t believe you have even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain’s nephew has!
She turns on him in fury, and stamps viciously on the rose, grinding it into the dust with her heel. Then she turns her back on him and strides rapidly out. The Student stands stock still, as if turned to stone. There is a long silence
The STUDENT
What a silly thing Love is! It is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and as in this age to be practical is everything I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics.
​
He returns back into the house. The garden glows in the daylight: but the rose has quite faded, and the Nightingale is invisible in the grass
Op 28 - The Children of Lyr
Adapted by the composer
​
ACT ONE
​
Scene One
​
The Curtain, if there is one, rises. The stage is in total darkness. At the front appears the Bard, as though seen in a vision
​
The BARD
The King of Erin, Lyr, had three beautiful children. There were three boys, Aodh, Conn and Ficne; and one girl, Finuidhla, who was the apple of her father’s eye. But on a sad day their mother died, and her father the Bobh Dearg gave his second daughter Aoife to Lyr as wife. At first, Aoife was happy in her marriage, and gave to Lyr her whole love; but she was grieved to see that he cared but little for her, and thought only for her sister’s children.
​
Slowly the light begins to grow behind the Bard, who gradually vanishes
​
The BARD
And then came that day when Aoife took her terrible revenge upon the innocent children. On one bright morning of the early summer she set out to visit her father, the Bobh Dearg, and took the children with her…
​
The scene now disclosed represents the shore of Lough Lein. The lakeside is thickly overgrown right down to the water; above to the left it is to be supposed that a road runs. It is early morning, but the sun has already risen and birds are singing in the trees. The lake sparkles in the spring sunshine, and it is obviously going to be a fine hot day. There is a distant sound of children’s laughter, which then fades away. From above there come the voices of children
​
FINUIDHLA and CONN
Come down here! Come down here! Here it is cool!
AODH
It is early yet. We can rest here for a while, and go on to see our grandfather in the evening.
FICNE
Come on, mother!
They come into sight, with Aoife, a tall woman of great beauty, struggling along in their wake. Unlike the children, she is not laughing. Indeed, were it not for the fact that she is following them, it would seem that she were angry; her face is not of the kind that is made for laughter. The children sit down and dabble their feet in the waters of the lake with great merriment; Aoife sits down nearby, but further along the lake shore
CHILDREN
O how cool is the lake to our feet,
O how cool!
The lake sparkles in the sun,
the lake the spring rains have formed.
Our journey already has been long,
and now we are near to its end.
O how cool is the lake to our feet,
O how cool!
AOIFE
Children…
FINUIDHLA
Yes, mother?
​
She detaches herself, and joins her mother while the other children continue their song
AOIFE
Did your father say anything to you before we set out today?
FINUIDHLA
No, mother.
AOIFE [slightly surprised]
Nothing, girl?
​
FINUIDHLA
He wished us goodbye, mother, and…
AOIFE
Yes?
​
FINUIDHLA
He bade us take care on the way.
​
AOIFE [sharply]
Take care? Take care? Why is there a need to take care when I am with you?
​
FINUIDHLA [simply]
I don’t know, mother.
​
AOIFE [almost to herself]
Ah! your father…Does he think only… [recalling herself] But wait, child. Did your father say anything else?
FINUIDHLA
No mother, but…
AOIFE
But?
FINUIDHLA [simply and innocently]
He looked sad, mother. I think it was because we were going away.
AOIFE [rather bitterly]
I am sure it was not because I was going away.
​
FINUIDHLA
Why do you say that, mother?
​
The boys gradually return along the lake shore
AOIFE
Ah! ah! your father!
FINUIDHLA
What, mother?
AOIFE
You, more than me…
​
FINUIDHLA
What do you mean, mother? I do not understand you.
AOIFE
But I am prepared…
FINUIDHLA
What, mother?
Aoife remains deep in thought. Finuidhla returns to the other children
CHILDREN
O how cool is the lake to our feet,
O how cool!
AOIFE [rises abruptly]
Come, children, we must be going.
​
CONN
But mother, the lake is so cool and the day is so hot!
CHILDREN
The lake is so cool and refreshing!
AOIFE
Come with me, children!
CHILDREN
But the lake is so cool!
AOIFE
Cool? Cool? Then, children, I will go on alone…
CHILDREN
No, mother, wait for us!
AOIFE [at the top of the bank]
Cool? No, wait! Why, why? Let me no more delay?
​
As the children push up through the undergrowth, Aoife draws out from beneath her cloak a druidical wand. It grows rapidly dark as she sweeps it over their heads. When the lights slowly steal back, the children have vanished; in their place, four swans float gracefully on the water. Aoife looks on with grim satisfaction
​
AOIFE [raising her arms]
Depart from me, you graceful swans,
and make your home in the water cool;
build your nest on the reedy shore
and lie for sleep in the dank pool.
Depart from me, unhappy swans,
and make your music sad and sweet
for all the years
before you your destiny meet.
CHILDREN
You, whom we thought loved us always,
now have turned us into swans.
And yet we have our tongues and minds,
and our song will ever be the same:
AOIFE
No hand may stay your agony
before one thousand years are past;
and all that you have you shall find lost
before you regain your shapes at last.
CHILDREN
Ah, mother! Ah, mother!
AOIFE
You, however, may not threaten me again. I shall go on my way to my father’s court; and Lyr will not live long when he sees what has become of his beloved children. And you, you are cool for ever, and I have won!
She sweeps rapidly away and disappears up the bank
CHILDREN
Ah! Ah!
The light rapidly fades. The voices of the swans are heard behind the curtain
Scene Two
​
The lights rise. The scene now disclosed is the great grange of the Bobh Dearg at Brugh na Bóinne; spiral hangings cover the walls. Courtiers in long white cloaks line the sides of the stage; the Bobh Dearg is seated at the centre
COURTIERS
We are the children of the Tuatha de Danaan that never change or die.
We are the wind and waves on the sea.
We are the eagles on the rocks.
We are the rays of the sun.
We are the children of the Tuatha de Danaan that never change or die.
We are the most beautiful of plants.
We are the lakes in the plain.
We are the word of knowledge.
We are the head of the spear in battle.
Who spreads light on the gathering of the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the places where the sun rests?
Aoife enters
BOBH DEARG [cheerfully]
Aoife, my daughter! be welcome to my grange.
​
AOIFE [coolly]
I thank thee, noble father.
​
BOBH DEARG
But the children…where are they?
​
AOIFE
The children…the children…but Lyr would not let them come.
​
BOBH DEARG
I wonder at that, for those children are dearer to me than my own children.
AOIFE
Those children are dearer to everyone than I!
BOBH DEARG
What is this, Aoife?
AOIFE
Nothing, father, nothing…
BOBH DEARG
Aoife! tell me the truth!
AOIFE
I have told you the truth, father!
BOBH DEARG
Aoife!
AOIFE
I have not lied!
BOBH DEARG
Tell me the truth!
AOIFE
Ah!...It was not Lyr who prevented the children from coming to you, father Bobh Dearg, it was I, your daughter, your own daughter… [her defiance breaks; she hesitates] and their foster-mother.
There are four swans that swim on the Lake of Birds,
singing the sweet music of the Sidhe:
and they are the children of Lyr!
BOBH DEARG and COURTIERS
Aoife! Aoife!― Ah! how dreadful!
AOIFE
But I repent me of what I have done, father, and I beg of you mercy.
BOBH DEARG
Aoife, how long will this dread enchantment last?
AOIFE
For one thousand years, until all who now live shall be dead.
BOBH DEARG
Then, Aoife, since you have condemned these children to life for one thousand years, you yourself shall not escape their fate. A black crow will you become, croaking harshly, and you will fly the length of the earth, until you have found wisdom; and in that same hour that they shall at last find their salvation, shall you also be released from your penance.
He draws forth a druid wand; Aoife recoils in horror
AOIFE
Ah!...
The scene is suddenly shrouded in total darkness. The voice of Lyr is heard, very distantly, behind the scene
Scene Three
​
The lights again rise to disclose the shore of Lough Lein, as in the first scene; the swans swim on the waters, which are illuminated by the rays of the slowly setting sun
​
CHILDREN
Our hearts break for our sad father
searching for us through all the world;
leaping at shadows and phantoms and clues
everywhere that he may.
But we, four swans,
drift here on the foam of the lake,
and must swim on the waves
for one thousand years of long torment.
FINUIDHLA
But cease! for riding down from the hills our father’s warriors
make their way to the shore; they make their way slowly, with hearts sore.
CHILDREN
Their hearts are as dull as their shields,
for their way has been long;
for the de Danaan host have searched for us many years through,
and now they have found us and lost us too.
​
The followers of Lyr march slowly down to the lake shore, with Lyr at their head. He stops as he hears the swans singing
LYR
O swans, tell me! How come you to have human voices?
FINUIDHLA
I will tell you that, father.
LYR
Father?
FINUIDHLA
Yes, father. For we are your own children, turned into the shape of swans by the evil power of Aoife our mother.
ALL
Ah!...Ah!...
LYR
Ah!...my children!
From the other direction there enter with slow steps the Bobh Dearg and his courtiers
BOBH DEARG
Lyr, and you O beautiful swan-children, grieve no more. For Aoife has confessed to me her deed, and I have placed a penance on her, that she may undo some of the wrong that she has done. But there can be no end to your enchantment until one thousand years have passed, and the word of the One who will rise from death has come into Erin. That word alone will cleanse you from Aoife’s curse.
LYR
That word alone will cleanse them from Aoife’s curse.
CHILDREN
That word alone will cleanse us from Aoife’s curse.
LYR
I shall never move from this place, my children,
and here I shall build my castle anew,
and on these lakes will I live my life until I must die.
BOBH DEARG
It is time when I must go from hence.
But never will I close my eyes in peace,
for to part with the song of these children
breaks my heart in twain.
CHILDREN
Tears and wailing rise within our hearts
and our breasts heave as the waves of the lake
when the wind sweeps across its troubled surface,
until the hand of time shall pass.
LYR
O comely Conn, O Aodh, O Ficne, and my dear Finuidhla,
I shall never forsake you,
nor shall I ever leave this lake shore where the birds sing.
BOBH DEARG
I should never have borne a daughter to such wrong,
and should never have given Aoife to Lyr as wife.
And so, with heavy heart and heavy step, I return to my grange.
CHILDREN
Far down the tangle forest of time
our paths are mapped beyond redemption,
until the word of the One who shall rise from death shall remove our grief.
​
The stage has become almost totally dark as the sunset has covered the land. The Bobh Dearg and his followers slowly depart, and the followers of Lyr also slowly withdraw. Lyr and his children alone remain in the gathering dusk
​
CHILDREN
Farewell, O father, for we may
never more joy in your company;
the night falls, and with it falls the curtain
on our hopes and happiness.
LYR
My children! My children!
CHILDREN
Farewell, O father, the wind bears us away,
and we must bear it company,
and never shall we have our rest again
until His word is heard in Erin’s land.
The words of the swans slowly dissolve into the sad but sweet music of the Sidhe. And Lyr alone remains visible on the lake shore, in the deepening shadows of the coming night
ACT TWO
Scene One
​
Once more the curtain, if any, arises in total darkness. Slowly the sun rises. On the far left stands the ruin of an ancient monastery, its walls now much broken down. The rest of the stage discloses the lake shore, but the fringe of vegetation along its length is now gone, and the foreshore is barren. And although the lake still glitters in the morning sunlight, there is no sound of birds to sing welcome to the morn: the whole land is now desolate and empty. A bell within the ruined monastery begins to peal a slow tocsin; then within is heard the sound of a monkish voice chanting
EVOGH
Kyrie, eleison! Christe, eleison!
​
The voice is now joined by the distant voices of the four swans, which occasionally overwhelm it and are then drowned in their turn
EVOGH
Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
CHILDREN
Our clothing is without a stain,
our bodies are clad in white feathers;
although once we were clad in purple,
drinking wine and not water.
EVOGH
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
The tocsin of the bell peals out again; and the voices of the swans draw nearer
​
CHILDREN
Our food and our drink are only the white sand
and the bitter water of the lake,
when once we drank mead of hazel nuts
from round four-lipped cups.
EVOGH
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
Benedicamus Deo. Deo gratias.
CHILDREN
And our beds are now hard ones,
rocks standing out from the water,
where once we spread out upon beds
of the feathers of birds.
​
Slowly the four swans have come into sight, swimming across the waters of the lake. The bell rings again to toll the close of the service. During the following passage Evogh comes slowly out of the monastery, marvelling at the song
CHILDREN
We remember our dead companions:
our grandfather who never deceived us,
the sweet kisses of Lyr our father
when he walked with us along the ridges.
EVOGH
I hear the voices of swans singing the music of the Sidhe, at once sad and sweet, beautiful and sleepy.
CHILDREN
We are the children of Lyr.
EVOGH
Then blessed be the name of the Lord, who hath led me to you.
For many years I have sought you, until I discovered this ruined castle. What is this castle, that you treasure it so?
FINUIDHLA
It is our father’s house.
EVOGH
Your father’s house?
CHILDREN
Gone are the noble halls,
crumbled the pillars and walls;
weeds, bent by the wind,
cover the ground. All is passed.
Silence fills the air;
but the wind sighs still,
and our memories rise
from the ground. All is passed.
No warriors remain here,
no victories or alarms;
all, our father and his warriors,
lie in the ground. All is passed.
​
EVOGH
O blessed children, come unto me. For I shall tell you of the living Lord, and teach you the meaning of his death.
The children leave the water and follow Evogh into the ruins of the castle
CHILDREN
The bell rings.
AODH
It tolls the end of our mother’s wrong.
CHILDREN
The bell rings.
CONN and FICNE
We greet it with our faery song.
CHILDREN
The bell rings.
FINUIDHLA
The Lord who was dead has risen again.
CHILDREN
The bell rings.
They have passed within the walls; the bell rings its monotonous tocsin. The stage darkens very slowly
Scene Two
​
When the lights rise we are again in the grange as in Act One Scene Two, but the old spiral hangings are gone. Now the barren walls are hung with a few purple tapestries and a great cross decorates one wall. The King is seated upon his throne; by his side is seated his new Queen. His courtiers line the walls; to one side stands the court bard Daire
​
KING
Come now, the time is ripe for revelry. Daire, sing your songs for us.
COURTIERS
Daire, sing your songs for us.
KING
Come, sing.
DAIRE
Of what shall I sing, O King?
KING
Sing to us a beautiful tale, that my new bride may be pleased.
DAIRE
Then, my lord, I will sing to you of the children of Lyr.
He comes forward with a harp in his hand. The King looks lovingly at the Queen and smiles
DAIRE
On the Lake of Birds they float and sing
the sweet gentle music of the Sidhe.
Into swans were turned the children of Lyr
one thousand years ago.
Their mother envied their father their love
and wrought this wrong upon them.
Into swans were turned the children of Lyr
one thousand years ago.
And still they float and sing and swim
on the Lake of Birds by the ruined castle.
DAIRE and COURTIERS
Into swans were turned the children of Lyr
one thousand years ago.
QUEEN [abruptly, to herself]
Ah!...the children of Lyr!
KING [concerned]
What is it, my sweet bride?
​
QUEEN
A crow came today to my window; I had paid no heed to it till this moment, but it croaked Remember the children of Lyr
and once strange thoughts filled my mind. And, by that mind, I have a great desire to see those children of Lyr.
DAIRE [continuing]
The swans may not leave the Lake of Birds
until the curse be lifted from them.
​
DAIRE and COURTIERS
Into swans were turned the children of Lyr
one thousand years ago.
QUEEN
My lord, bring to me those children of Lyr!
KING
My dearest, I may not.
QUEEN
Bring the children to me!
KING
My dearest, I cannot.
QUEEN
Bring to me the children of Lyr!
KING
My dearest, I will not.
QUEEN
By my mind, my lord, I shall never remain in this castle for one night unless you do my will in this matter!
KING
My dearest!...
QUEEN
Unless you do my will!
She rises from the throne and moves quickly out of the hall. The King remains in an agony of doubt
​
DAIRE
By good Evogh they are now tended
Who tells them of the living Lord.
DAIRE and COURTIERS
Into swans were turned the children of Lyr
one thousand years ago.
KING
Then, by that Lord who was dead and now lives, the children of Lyr I will have!
He rises with sudden resolution and storms out after the Queen. The light rapidly fades
Scene Three
​
Voices are heard in the darkness
EVOGH
Sanctus.
CHILDREN
Sanctus, Sanctus.
EVOGH
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
CHILDREN
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloriae tuae!
EVOGH and CHILREN
Hosanna in excelsis!
EVOGH
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
EVOGH and CHILREN
Hosanna in excelsis!
The lights rise once again; and the scene is once again on the lake shore, as in the first scene. Dark clouds cover the sky. The swans once more swim in the water; on the shore stands Evogh
EVOGH
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
CHILDREN
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
​
EVOGH
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
CHILDREN
miserere nobis.
KING [offstage]
Halt!
​
CHILDREN
What is it?
EVOGH
’Tis the King! Hush now, my children!
KING [arrives breathlessly with his followers]
Most holy man, my wife desires a boon.
EVOGH
My noble liege, I am at your service.
KING
My wife wishes to see the children of Lyr.
EVOGH
She may come to see them most willingly.
KING [rather hesitantly]
She does not wish that. She wishes to see these children and honour them at court.
EVOGH [startled]
But the swans may not be taken from the lake.
​
KING [seeing a way out of the problem]
Shall we not ask the children themselves? What do the swans say?
​
CONN
My lord, we will stay with his holy man, who has at last taught us the meaning of death.
KING [his control giving way]
Rebellious children!
​
EVOGH [averting a threat]
Stay, my lord! Lay no hand upon them!
​
KING [foiled momentarily]
Children, will you follow me?
​
AODH
My lord, we may not come.
​
KING [furiously]
Then I have means to compel your obedience, whether you will or no!
​
He beckons to one of his followers, who comes forward and proffers to the King four long silver chains
EVOGH
No, my lord, you must not!
CHILDREN
Ah!...Ah!...
KING
You will follow!
He places the chains around the necks of the swans. At once there is a violent peal of thunder and darkness descends. When the light steals slowly back, the swans have vanished; in their place stand four wrinkled old people, one woman and three men—the children of Lyr restored to their human form, but one thousand years old. The King with a violent cry covers his eyes and stumbles away with his followers. Evogh stands aghast, and then slowly moves towards the transformed children
CHILDREN
Come, father, shrieve us now; our lives are over.
Dig our graves beneath the bell and cover us over.
Lay us upright in our tombs in the cold earth,
and there we will sleep until there comes our second birth.
​
EVOGH
Ah, my children!
​
With great stillness the withered children crumple to the ground and die. The dark thunderclouds slowly descend to cover the scene
EVOGH
Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!
Miserere mei, Domine!
​
Once more the scene is shrouded in total darkness. The curtain, if any, falls very slowly
Op 41 - Arcturus
FIRST SEQUENCE
Prelude SURTUR
​
The Curtain rises to disclose an ornate room laid out to accommodate a séance. The medium, Backhouse, is surrounded by a number of guests: Faull, the owner of the house, Mrs Jameson and Kent-Smith, an elderly gentleman
​
FAULL
Do you smoke? No? Then will you take a drink?
BACKHOUSE
Not at present, thank you. [Pause]
​
FAULL
Everything is satisfactory? The material-isation will take place?
BACKHOUSE
I see no reason to doubt it.
FAULL
That’s good. I would not like my guests to be disappointed. I have your cheque written out in my pocket.
BACKHOUSE
Afterwards will do quite well.
FAULL
Nine o’clock was the time specified, I believe?
BACKHOUSE
I fancy so.
Mrs JAMESON
What amazes me, if you must know, is not so much the manifestation itself—though that will surely be wonderful—as your assurance that it will take place. Tell me the grounds of your confidence.
BACKHOUSE
I dream with open eyes, and others see my dreams. That is all.
Mrs JAMESON
But that’s wonderful!...
KENT-SMITH
So we are to see wonders tonight?
FAULL
Fresh material for your autobiography?
KENT-SMITH
Ah, you should not have mentioned my unfortunate book. An old public servant is merely amusing himself in his retirement, Mr Backhouse. You have no cause for alarm; I have studied in the school of discretion.
BACKHOUSE
I am not alarmed. There can be no possible objection to your publishing whatever you please.
KENT-SMITH
You are most kind.
Mrs JAMESON
Trent is not coming tonight?
​
FAULL
I never thought he would. It’s not in his line...
​
Mrs Trent enters
​
FAULL
Ah, Mrs Trent! The last of our circle. Then I might suggest that we begin?
Mrs TRENT
Did you, or did not you not, say that I might invite anyone I pleased, Montague?
​
FAULL
Of course I did; but what’s the matter?
Mrs TRENT
Perhaps I have been somewhat presumptuous; I don’t know. I have invited a couple of friends to join us. No, no-one knows them...the two most extraordinary individuals you ever saw. And mediums, I am sure.
FAULL
It seems very mysterious. Who are these conspirators?
Mrs JAMESON
At least tell us their names!
Mrs TRENT
One rejoices in the name of Maskull, the other in that of Nightspore. That’s nearly all I know about them, so don’t overwhelm me with questions.
KENT-SMITH
But where did you pick them up? You must have met them somewhere.
Mrs TRENT
But this is a cross-examination! Have I sinned against convention? I swear I will tell you not another word about them. They will be here directly, and then I will deliver them to your tender mercy.
FAULL
I don’t know them, and nobody else seems to; but of course we will be very pleased to have them... Shall we wait, or what?
Mrs TRENT
I said nine, and it’s past that now. It’s quite possible they may not turn up after all...Anyway, don’t wait.
BACKHOUSE
I would prefer to start at once.
All move to the séance table and seat themselves. Backhouse alone remains standing
​
BACKHOUSE
Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness a materialization. That means that you will see something appear in space that was not previously there. At first it will appear as a vaporous form, but finally it will be a solid body which anyone present may feel or handle. For this body will be in the human shape. It will be a real man or woman—which, I can’t say—but a man or woman without known antecedents. If, however, you demand from me an explanation of the materialised form—where it comes from, whence the atoms and molecules comprising its tissues are derived—I am unable to satisfy you. I am about to produce the phenomenon; if anyone can explain it to me afterwards, I shall be very grateful. That is all I have to say.
​
He seats himself; the lights dim until the table is only dimly visible. The door opens and two figures enter, escorted by a manservant
​
MANSERVANT
Mr Maskull, Mr Nightspore.
Maskull and Nightspore enter and remain standing silently by the door. The manservant withdraws. Mrs Trent beckons them, and the two men sit. A cloud begins to gather within the room. Slowly the figure of a shrouded young man with closed eyes becomes visible.
​
BACKHOUSE
Stop the music. Anyone who wishes may approach the materialisation. You are at liberty to touch.
Mrs Trent starts and draws back, but Faull rises and grasps the hand of the shrouded youth. The figure opens its eyes and a cryptic smile plays across its mouth. Mrs James rises abruptly from the table and seems about to faint; Maskull intercepts her and Mrs Trent leads her from the room. Backhouse sits suddenly apart, his face in his hands. Nightspore advances slowly towards the youth, when the door bursts violently open and Krag enters
​
KRAG
Ah-ai, gentlemen? So we have a little visitor here?
He advances with menace towards the figure
​
BACKHOUSE
Be careful of what you are doing!
KRAG
What’s the matter, spirit usher?
BACKHOUSE
I don’t know who are you are, but if you use physical violence towards that, as you seem inclined to do, the consequences may prove very unpleasant.
KRAG
And without pleasure our evening would be spoiled, wouldn’t it, my mercenary little friend?
With sudden force Krag leaps upon the apparition and breaks its neck. There is a faint unearthly scream, and darkness at once falls across the scene isolating Krag, Nightspore and Maskull
​
KRAG [turns to Maskull]
Well, Maskull, what you think of it all? Wouldn’t you like to see the land where such fruit grows wild?
MASKULL
What sort of fruit?
KRAG
That specimen goblin.
MASKULL
Who are you, and how did you come here?
KRAG
Maybe your friend will recognise me.
​
NIGHTSPORE
What do you want of me, Krag?
KRAG
You see, he does know me...Still the same old gnawing hunger?
NIGHTSPORE
What is doing, these days?
KRAG
Surtur has gone, and we are to follow him.
MASKULL
How do you come to know each other, and of whom are you speaking?
NIGHTSPORE
Krag has something for us.
MASKULL
What brought you to that house tonight, Krag, and what made you act as you did? How are we to understand that apparition?
​
KRAG
In its native wilds.
​
MASKULL
And where is that mysterious country?
KRAG
Tormance.
MASKULL
That’s a strange name...but where is it?
KRAG
It is the residential suburb of Arcturus.
MASKULL
What is he talking about, Nightspore? Do you mean the star of that name?
KRAG
Tormance is its one inhabited planet.
MASKULL
You must have invented a new form of humour, Krag.
KRAG
I am glad if I can amuse you, Maskull, if only for a few days.
MASKULL
I meant to ask you...how did you know my name?
KRAG
It would be odd if I didn’t, seeing that I only came here on your account.
MASKULL
On my account?
KRAG
Surely. On your account and Nightspore’s. We three are to be fellow travellers.
​
Darkness again covers the stage; through this can be dimly discerned only the figures of Nightspore and Maskull. A high tower is visible in the distance
​
MASKULL
What is that tower, Nightspore?
NIGHTSPORE
We sail from the platform on the top.
MASKULL
Tonight?
NIGHTSPORE
Yes.
MASKULL
Then we are looking at the gateway to Arcturus.
NIGHTSPORE
You no longer think it impossible, I fancy.
They have come to the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. Nightspore falls to his knees and peers over the brink
​
MASKULL
What is interesting down there, Nightspore?
Nightspore remains silent: above the rolling of the surf the sound of a beating drum is heard
​
MASKULL
We came here solely to hear that?
​
NIGHTSPORE
It is called the Drum of Starkness. You will not hear that name again, but you will hear that sound again.
MASKULL
And if I do, what will it signify?
NIGHTSPORE
It bears its own message. Only, try always to hear it more and more distinctly...Now we must make haste to meet Krag.
MASKULL
Is he in the tower? Are you coming up?
NIGHTSPORE
No; I shall wait here.
Vision One STARKNESS
NIGHTSPORE
Was Krag there?
MASKULL
If we was, I didn’t see him. But I heard a voice.
NIGHTSPORE
What did it say?
MASKULL
Don’t you understand, Maskull, that you are only a tool to be used and then broken? Nightspore is asleep now, but when he wakes you must die. You will go, but he will return.
A light appears in the tower
​
MASKULL
Look! Krag must be in the tower, after all.
​
NIGHTSPORE
Yes; he is getting ready.
MASKULL
I hope he doesn’t expect us to join him there. It was beyond my powers; but why, Heaven knows.
NIGHTSPORE
It is Tormance gravity.
MASKULL
I understand you...or, rather, I don’t...but it doesn’t matter. Who is Surtur?
NIGHTSPORE
We others are but dreamers; he is the Master.
MASKULL
I fancy you are right, for though I know nothing about him his mere name has an exciting effect on me...Are you personally acquainted with him?
NIGHTSPORE [in a choking voice]
It may be...I forget...
MASKULL
Do you know so many extraordinary men that you can forget some of them? Perhaps you can tell me this: will we meet him, where we are going?
NIGHTSPORE
You will meet death, Maskull...Ask me no more questions. I can’t answer them.
MASKULL [coldly]
Then let us wait for Krag.
Krag appears from the tower, carrying a lantern
​
KRAG
Are you ready to start?
MASKULL
By all means, if you are.
​
KRAG [surveying him critically]
I heard you stumbling about in the tower. You couldn’t get up, it seems.
​
MASKULL
It certainly seems like an obstacle, for Nightspore informs me that the start takes place from the top.
KRAG
You realise that until you are able to climb to the top, you are unfit to face the gravitation of Tormance?
MASKULL
I am quite willing to see what you can do.
KRAG [produces a knife from his pocket]
Remove your coat, and roll up your shirtsleeves.
MASKULL
Do you mean to make an incision with that?
KRAG
Yes, and don’t make difficulties, because the effect is certain, but you can’t possibly understand it beforehand.
MASKULL
Still, a cut with a pocket-knife...
NIGHTSPORE
It will answer, Maskull.
MASKULL
Then bare your arm too, you aristocrat of the universe. Let us see what your blood is made of.
While Nightspore does so, Krag makes a savage slash in Maskull’s arm
​
MASKULL [scowling with pain]
Do I bind it up?
KRAG [spits on the wound]
Pull your shirt down. It won’t bleed any more.
[He also cuts Nightspore, and throws the knife on the floor] That’s finished. Now you can follow me.
They pause outside the entrance to the tower
​
MASKULL
I heard a voice up those stairs.
KRAG
What did it say?
NIGHTSPORE
That Maskull is to go, but that I am to return.
KRAG
The voyage is getting notorious. There must be ill-wishers about...Well, Maskull, do you want to return?
MASKULL
I don’t know what I want; but I thought the thing curious enough to be mentioned.
KRAG
It’s not a bad thing to hear voices, but you mustn’t for one moment imagine that all is wise that comes to you out of the night world.
​
The launch platform, a crystalline craft some ten feet long, comes into view
​
NIGHTSPORE
Maskull will sleep through the journey?
KRAG
And you too, if you wish, my altruistic friend. I am pilot, and you as passengers can amuse yourselves as you please.
MASKULL
And you assert that Surtur is already there?
KRAG
Surtur is where he is. He is a great traveller.
MASKULL
Won’t I see him?
KRAG [looks him in the eyes]
Don’t forget that you have asked for it, and wanted. Few people in Tormance will know more about him than you will, but your memory will be your worst friend.
They mount upon the launch platform, and crouch low upon it. Oblivion veils the scene
SECOND SEQUENCE
The surface of Tormance. Maskull revives alone, with a wind blowing against him. He is sprawled on the red sandy ground in great pain, as if encumbered with a body of immense weight
​
MASKULL
Nightspore! Krag!
There is no reply; a milky vapour lies over the ground as the day breaks. The scene disclosed in alien to earth. Tydomin, with a cloak spread over her arm, enters and rouses Maskull
​
TYDOMIN
Do you think you can put it on yourself? Poor man: how you are suffering!
MASKULL
Where am I? Is this Tormance?
TYDOMIN
Yes; you are with friends.
MASKULL
This is extraordinary! What is happening?
TYDOMIN
I am reading your thoughts, as you are reading mine. Still, speech is better, for then the heart can be read too.
MASKULL
They say that speech is given to us to deceive others.
TYDOMIN
One can deceive with thought, too. But I am thinking of the best, not of the worst.
MASKULL
Have you seen my friends?
TYDOMIN
Did you not come here alone?
MASKULL
I came with two men, in a machine. I must have lost consciousness on arrival, and I haven’t seen them since.
TYDOMIN
That is very strange. No, I haven’t seen them; they can’t be here, or we would have known it. I and my husband...
MASKULL
What is your name, and your husband’s?
TYDOMIN
My name is Tydomin; my husband is Panawë. We live a long way away from here. Still, it came to us both last night that you were lying here insensible. We almost quarrelled about which of us should come to you; but in the end I won. I won because I am the stronger-hearted of us too; but he is the purer in perception.
MASKULL
My great thanks, Tydomin!
TYDOMIN
Oh, why do you say that? What pleasure is greater than loving-kindness? I rejoiced at the opportunity...But now we must exchange blood.
​
MASKULL
What is this?
TYDOMIN
It must be so. Your blood is far too thick and heavy for this world. Until you have an infusion of mine, you will never get up.
​
They exchange blood
​
TYDOMIN
What is your name?
​
MASKULL
Maskull.
TYDOMIN
Where have you come from, with this awful blood? I feel polluted. Why did you come here, Maskull?
MASKULL
Will you believe me if I say I hardly know? I came with those two men. Perhaps I was attracted by curiosity, or perhaps it was the love of adventure.
TYDOMIN
Perhaps. I wonder. Those friends of yours must be terrible men. Why did they come?
MASKULL
That I can tell you. They came to follow Surtur.
TYDOMIN
I don’t understand it. One of them at least must be a bad man, and yet if he is following Surtur he can’t be really bad.
MASKULL
What do you know about Surtur? Have you seen him?
TYDOMIN
No. I have done nothing to deserve it yet. Some day I may have the opportunity to sacrifice myself, and then I may be rewarded by meeting and talking with Surtur.
MASKULL
I have certainly come to another world.
TYDOMIN [points to a mountain in the far distance]
That is my home.
​
MASKULL
You didn’t come from there!
TYDOMIN
Yes, I did; and that is where we have to go to now.
The scene changes to the reedy margin of a dark green lake. Panawë is seated on a rock; he rises to greet his wife and guest
​
PANAWË
The stranger is red-blooded, then?
MASKULL
How do you speak in a tongue you have never heard before?
PANAWË
Thought is a rich, complex thing. I can’t say if I am really speaking your tongue by instinct, or if you yourself are translating my thoughts into your own tongue as I utter them.
TYDOMIN
Already you see that Panawë is wiser than I.
PANAWË
What is your name?
MASKULL
Maskull.
PANAWË
That name must have some meaning...but again, thought is a strange thing. I connect that name with something; but with what?
TYDOMIN
Try to discover.
PANAWË
Has there been a man in your world who stole something from the Maker of the Universe, in order to ennoble his fellow-creatures?
MASKULL
There was such a man; his name was Prometheus.
PANAWË
Well, you seem associated in my mind with that action; but what it all means I can’t say.
MASKULL
There must be some confusion. These are heights beyond me.
TYDOMIN
Think of it as a good omen; for Panawë never lies.
​
She turns and enters a cave; Maskull looks after her
​
MASKULL
I can’t believe how I have walked so far in a morning, and she has been twice the distance!
PANAWË
Love flows in her veins instead of blood, and that is why she is so strong.
MASKULL
You know, she gave me some of it?
PANAWË
Otherwise you could not ever have started.
MASKULL
I shall never forget that. Will it disturb her if we talk?
PANAWË
No.
MASKULL
But how do you feel?
PANAWË
I require little sleep. In any case, it’s more important that you should find out something about your new life. If you intend to go through, you ought to be instructed about the dangers.
Vision Two JOIWIND
MASKULL
That is fascinating. Now I begin to know my way around better. But one thing puzzles me.
PANAWË
What is that?
MASKULL
How does it happen that men here are ignorant of tools and arts, and have no civilization; and yet contrive to be social in their habits, and wise in their thoughts?
PANAWË
Do you imagine, then, that love and wisdom come from tools? But I see how it arises. In your world you have duller senses; and to make up for the deficiency, you are obliged to call in the assistance of stones and metals. But that is by no means a sign of superiority.
Darkness covers the scene; then Tydomin is seen with Maskull
​
TYDOMIN
Is this selfishness, Maskull? or are you drawn by something greater than yourself?
MASKULL
We must be reasonable. I cannot settle down here until I have found out something about this surprising new planet. Remember what a long way I have come...But, very likely, I shall return here.
TYDOMIN
Do not promise that; for I shall go with you.
MASKULL
You are a blessed spirit, Tydomin!
In the distance is seen a slender tree in the shape of a three-pronged fork embedded in a pile of rocks
​
MASKULL
What may that be, Tydomin?
TYDOMIN
It is Hator’s trifork.
MASKULL
And what is its purpose?
TYDOMIN
It is a guide to Sant.
MASKULL
And who, or what, is Hator?
TYDOMIN
Hator was the founder of Sant, many hundreds of years ago. He laid down the principles they all live by; that trifork is his symbol. When I was a child, my father told me the story.
MASKULL
Does it affect you in any way?
TYDOMIN
And why should it? I am only a woman, and these are masculine mysteries.
MASKULL
A sort of gladness has come over me...
​
Clouds cover the stage; through the gloom only Maskull is to be seen, isolated at the centre of the stage. Confronting him is a dimly suggested figure in human form
SURTUR
Maskull: look at me. Who am I?
MASKULL
I think that you are Surtur.
SURTUR
I am Surtur. You know this is my world. Why do you think I have brought you here? I wish you to serve. Those who joke at my world, those who mock its stern eternal rhythms, its beauty and sublimity (which are not skin deep, but proceed from fathomless roots): they shall not escape.
MASKULL
I do not mock it.
SURTUR
It is necessary for you to serve me. You are my servant and helper.
MASKULL
I shall not fail.
SURTUR
This is for my sake, and not for yours.
The whole stage is completely shrouded in a mist of cloud. Surtur’s form is suddenly elevated skyward and the lights grow out. A fanfare crashes overhead
THIRD SEQUENCE
An electric storm rages across the stage; the day is cold and dark, and green snow falls. Maskull and Tydomin are seen
​
MASKULL
What are those waterspouts in the distance?
TYDOMIN
They are not waterspouts, but mobile columns of lightning.
MASKULL
Then they are dangerous?
TYDOMIN
So we think.
MASKULL
Someone who is wandering there seems to have a different opinion. If there is danger he ought to be warned.
TYDOMIN
He who is anxious to teach will learn nothing.
​
The two of them watch the actions of the stranger, who now becomes visible. He raises his arms above his head, as if summoning the columns of lightning. The electric storm discharge themselves with a series of loud explosions; Spadevil stands erect and uninjured, and they approach him cautiously
​
TYDOMIN [with wonder and awe]
He must be a Sant man. I have seen no-one quite like him before. [excitedly] This is a day of days for me.
MASKULL [calmly]
He must be an individual of great importance. If this man is going to Sant, I think I shall bear him company.
[with warmth] We now can part; no doubt you will think it is time.
SPADEVIL [has arrived near to them]
Let Tydomin come too.
TYDOMIN
You know my name; also my sex. It is death for me to enter Sant.
SPADEVIL [with some pride]
That is the old law. I am the bearer of the new law.
TYDOMIN
Is it so, and will it be accepted?
SPADEVIL
The old skin is cracking; the new skin has been forming underneath. The sloughing has arrived.
The storm gradually dies away; the green snows continue
​
MASKULL
What is your name?
SPADEVIL
My name, Maskull, is Spadevil. You, a voyager across the dark ocean of space, shall be my first witness and follower; you, Tydomin, a daughter of the despised sex, shall be the second.
TYDOMIN
But what is the new law?
SPADEVIL
Until eyes see, of what use is it for ear to hear? Come, both of you, to me!
Spadevil touches Tydomin on the forehead; she kisses his hand and turns in rapture to Maskull
​
TYDOMIN
Nothing can injure me now. Oh, Maskull, you and I have been fools together!
SPADEVIL
The future is ours; it starts fresh and clean from this moment. But why do you hesitate, Maskull? Are you afraid?
MASKULL [goes to Spadevil and touches his forehead]
You were quite right, Tydomin! We have been fools! So near the light all the time, and never guessed it! Always buried in the past or future, systematically ignoring the present; and now it turns out that, apart from the present, we have no life at all! The new law is an iron devotion to duty. Spadevil, now I mean to follow you to the end. I can do no less.
SPADEVIL
Watch, that you do not lose your gift.
TYDOMIN
You promised that I would enter Sant with you?
SPADEVIL
Attach yourself to the truth, and not to me. For I may die before you, but the truth will accompany you to the end. However, now let us journey together, the three of us.
MASKULL
Spadevil, are you a man, or more than a man?
SPADEVIL
He that is not more than a man is nothing.
MASKULL
Where have you now come from?
SPADEVIL
From brooding. Out of no other mother can truth be born. I have brooded, and reflected; and I have brooded again. Now, after months of absence from Sant, the truth stands forth before me, in its simple splendour like an upturned diamond.
[MASKULL
I see it shining. But how much does it owe to ancient Hator?
SPADEVIL
Knowledge has its uses. The blossom was to Hator, the fruit is to me. Hator was also a brooder, but now his followers do not brood. In Sant all is icy selfishness, a living death. They hate pleasure, and this hatred is the greatest pleasure to them.
MASKULL
Your fellow-countrymen, then, are sick with self-love?
SPADEVIL
The men of other countries are the slaves of pleasure and desire, knowing it. But the men of my country are the slaves of pleasure and desire, not knowing it.
​
In the first public staging at the Sherman Theatre Cardiff in 1983, the above lines and their music were omitted from the performance.
​
MASKULL
And what is Hator’s trifork?
​
SPADEVIL
The stem is hatred of pleasure. The first fork is disentanglement from the sweetness of the world. The second fork is power over those who still writhe in the nets of illusion. The third fork is the healthy glow of one who steps into icy water.
​
TYDOMIN
Show me a sign that you are not as other men; that we may know that our blood will not be wasted.
SPADEVIL
I don’t persuade the senses, but the soul. Does your duty call you to Sant? Then go there. Does it not call you to Sant?
Then go no further. Is that not simple? What other signs are necessary?
​
MASKULL
Did I not see you dispel the spouts of lightning? No common man could have done that.
SPADEVIL
Who knows what any man can do? But what every man can do is his duty; and, to open their eyes to that, I must go to Sant, and if necessary lay down my life.
A crimson cloud lingers overhead in rapidly darkening twilight. The three travellers come abruptly on the figure of a man—Caticë—who advances towards them, holding a trifork
​
SPADEVIL
Has the trifork passed to you? You must be Caticë.
CATICË
Yes. Why have you brought this kiss-lover to Sant?
SPADEVIL
I have brought another thing to Sant. A new law.
CATICË
State it.
SPADEVIL
The truth is simple, even for the simplest men. I destroy Nature, and set up Law.
CATICË
Do you follow Spadevil in his new faith, stranger?
MASKULL
As far as death.
CATICË
With this stone, I strike out one of your eyes. When you have but one, you will see with me; you will remember with Spadevil. You will then choose the superior.
Maskull offers his head to Catice, who responds with a mighty blow to Maskull’s face
​
TYDOMIN [anxiously]
What do you feel, Maskull? What do you see?
MASKULL
Henceforth, as long as I live, I shall fight with my nature, and refuse to feel pleasure. And I advise you to do the same.
SPADEVIL [harshly]
Is there no duty?
MASKULL
It seems to me a cloak under which we share the pleasure of other people.
CATICË [with terrible exaltation]
Prove your sincerity! Kill this man and his mistress, according to the law of Hator.
MASKULL [reluctantly]
Be my witness, Caticë, that this thing was forced upon me.
​
CATICË [raptly]
Hator is looking, and approving.
Maskull glances at a pile of rocks; he picks up the largest and hurls it at Spadevil, killing him instantly
​
TYDOMIN
Be very quick, Maskull, and don’t let me keep him waiting.
Maskull hurls the second rock at Tydomin. It hits her in the chest and head. In silence Maskull goes to her and supports her in his arms. She looks into his face, smiles and dies. Darkness begin to descend
​
MASKULL [dully]
Tell me, Caticë: if I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you have accepted his faith?
[Caticë makes no reply] Then these deaths were not a necessity, but a crime!
CATICË [calmly]
His part was played; and henceforth the woman would have dragged down his ideal, with her soft love and loyalty. Regret nothing, stranger; but go away at once out of this land.
​
MASKULL [coldly]
Just say this, before we part: why does pleasure seem to shameful to us?
CATICË
Because in pleasure we forget our goal.
MASKULL
And that is?
CATICË
Muspel.
Vision Three WOMBFLASH
Darkness has veiled the scene
FOURTH SEQUENCE
Out of the darkness emerges a desolate scene by the barren seashore of a great Ocean. It is the cold bleak hour shortly before dawn. As the light grows the misshapen form of Krag may be gradually discerned, crouched by the water’s edge. Maskull slowly enters and advances towards him
​
MASKULL
Where in the devil’s name have you come from, Krag?
KRAG
The great point is, I am here.
MASKULL
Where is Nightspore?
KRAG
Not far away.
MASKULL
It seems a hundred years since I saw you. Why did you two disappear in such a damnable fashion.
KRAG
You were right for it. You have run through the gamut...Come! the sun is rising.
MASKULL
How long will it be before the sun rises?
​
KRAG
Some small time yet.
​
MASKULL
Shall I live to see it, do you think?
KRAG
Do you want to?
​
MASKULL
At one time I did; but now I’m indifferent. Why did we come here?
KRAG
To follow Surtur.
MASKULL
Why do you keep up the mystery? Who or what is Surtur? Is he a God?
KRAG
Don’t concern yourself about that. You will never know.
​
MASKULL
What am I to believe of you?
KRAG
Believe your senses.
MASKULL
It seems my senses have been over-whelmed by the pools of blood that I have waded through. I hear the drumming of the world; or is it my heart that beats? I am to die. Both love and hate condemn the man whose love condemns the one he loves to death. The ocean beckons; lead me to the dawn, and let the rising sun in glory justify my night.
KRAG
You think that you are thoroughly disillus-ioned, don’t you? Well, that may prove to be the last and strongest illusion of all.
Silence falls between them. Slowly a boat draws towards them across the water, with Gangnet seated in its bows. She rises with grace and advances towards Maskull
​
GANGNET
Welcome to the ocean, Maskull. Forget your troubles here, you over-tested man.
MASKULL
What made you expect me, and how do you know my name?
KRAG [roughly]
Haven’t you a greeting for me too, Gangnet?
GANGNET [with some urgency]
Maskull: I know this man better than you. Don’t answer his questions. Say nothing to him. Despise him. If you refuse to notice his existence, he is as good as not there.
​
MASKULL
I begin to tire of it all. It seems I shall add one more to my murders, before I have finished. Is it here we take to the water?
KRAG
We are going to the ocean.
MASKULL
If you are omniscient, Krag, what is my end to be?
KRAG
Gangnet will murder you.
GANGNET
You lie! I wish Maskull nothing but good.
KRAG
At all events, he will be the cause of your death...But what does it matter? The main point is, you are quitting this futile world.
MASKULL
You speak in riddles, and I don’t understand you. Must you go on talking? I want to be quiet.
​
Gangnet beckons them into the boat, which sails out into the ocean. The barren bank disappears; slowly the light reveals fiery waters
​
MASKULL
The sun is rising, Gangnet.
​
GANGNET
It begins to trouble you?
MASKULL
It is so solemn—tragical, almost—yet it recalls me to earth. Life is no longer important, but this is important.
GANGNET
Daylight is like night to this other daylight. Within half an hour you will be like one who has stepped from a dark forest into an open sky. Then you will wonder how you could have been so blind.
MASKULL
Are we already on the ocean, Gangnet?
GANGNET
Yes.
MASKULL
Then nothing remains but my death.
GANGNET
Don’t think of death, but life.
MASKULL
It’s growing brighter—at the same time, more sombre. Krag seems to be fading away...
GANGNET
There is the sun!
The deep glow of the sunrise spreads across the ocean as day begins
​
GANGNET
What do you feel?
​
MASKULL
I have set myself against the infinite... Why, Gangnet, I am nothing!
GANGNET
No, you are nothing.
MASKULL
Then nothing can hurt me.
GANGNET
How could it?
MASKULL
I have lost my will; I feel as if some foul tumour had been scraped away, leaving me whole and free.
GANGNET
Do you now understand life, Maskull?
MASKULL
I understand nothing, except I have no will any more. But this is life.
KRAG [rises; his shadow darkens the sun]
Is Gangnet expatiating on his famous blue sun?
​
MASKULL
What do you want of us, Krag?
KRAG
Don’t you understand, Maskull, that your death has arrived?
He advances towards Maskull. The water disappears, the sunlight is extinguished. The bark is transformed into a cloud, and Maskull—alone on it—is floating through the atmosphere. Gangnet has vanished. Down below, all is fire; the light grows
higher and higher, until it fills the whole scene. Throughout this, the great solemn drumbeats arise, growing ever more and more clangourous
​
MASKULL
What are you doing, Krag?
KRAG
Beating on your heart, Maskull...
At once the vision vanishes. The ocean is still faintly illuminated by sunlight. Krag stands over Maskull
​
MASKULL [calmly and gently]
What is this ocean called?
KRAG
Surtur’s Ocean.
MASKULL
Where is Nightspore?
KRAG [leaning over him, very quietly]
You are Nightspore.
MASKULL [almost with fear]
Who...are you?...
Krag maintains a gloomy silence. Maskull dies. Darkness descends. The figure of Nightspore becomes visible, gazing long and earnestly at Maskull’s body
​
KRAG [turns his head]
The night is really past at last, Nightspore...The day is here.
NIGHTSPORE
Why was all this necessary?
KRAG [sternly]
Ask Surtur. His world is no joke. He has a strong grasp, but I have a stronger. Maskull was his, but Nightspore is mine.
NIGHTSPORE
You say the night is past; but the night is still here. Am I dead or alive?
KRAG
We are approaching Muspel.
NIGHTSPORE
There is the drumming.
KRAG
Do you understand it; or have you forgotten?
NIGHTSPORE
I remember.
KRAG
There is hard work, and danger, and the risk of total death, waiting for us yonder.
NIGHTSPORE
Have I not finished, then?
KRAG
If you wish it. You have got through. But will you?
NIGHTSPORE
I can’t face rebirth. The horror of death is nothing to it.
KRAG
You are still stupid with earth fumes, and see nothing straight.
NIGHTSPORE
Shall I remember?
KRAG
Yes, you’ll remember.
NIGHTSPORE
Accompany me, Krag, or I shall be lost.
KRAG
There is nothing for me in Muspel.
NIGHTSPORE
I don’t know if I can endure it.
KRAG
Enter in, and lose no time, Nightspore! Time here is more precious than time on earth. We cannot squander the minutes; there are terrible and tragic affairs to attend to, which cannot wait for us...Go in at once! Stop for nothing!
NIGHTSPORE
Where shall I go? I have forgotten everything.
KRAG
Enter, enter! There is only one way. You can’t mistake it.
NIGHTSPORE
Why do you bid me go in, if I am to come out again?
KRAG
To have your wounds healed.
Vision Four MUSPEL
KRAG
You have seen everything?
NIGHTSPORE
The struggle is hopeless.
KRAG
Did I not say I am the stronger?
NIGHTSPORE
You may be stronger, but he is the mightier.
KRAG
I am the stronger and the mightier. Surtur’s empire is but a shadow on the face of Muspel. But nothing will be achieved without the bloodiest blows...What do you mean to do?
NIGHTSPORE [looks at him strangely]
Are you not Surtur, Krag?
KRAG
Yes.
NIGHTSPORE
Yes...But what is your name on Earth?
KRAG
It is Pain.
NIGHTSPORE
That, too, I must have known.
​
They proceed into the darkness
Op. 56 - Zenobia
by Leon Wiltshire
​
Palmyra, the capital of Zenobia’s once far-flung empire. A room in the palace with a great window looking eastward towards the sunrise, decorated with many ornaments. Three Palmyran serving maids. Distant voices
​
Two LADIES
Greatest of Gods, the world’s bright eye,
whose wanderings start on the desert’s edge
and nightly bathes herself in the waters of the West,
refreshed once more to start another day.
Welcome, great Mithras!
Welcome, destroyer of the dark!
And in your glory lighten the gloom
in which our palace is cast.
​
First LADY
Perhaps the sun and these flowers will gladden her eye.
​
Second LADY
This royal-coloured gown will bring a glow to her cheek.
First and Second LADIES [variously]
These silks from Cathay...this marble from Greece...this gold from Ophir...this saddle from Spain to grace her favourite palfrey...this gifts and the morning alone must cheer the heart of the loneliest Queen, will bring back a smile to her most downcast face.
Third LADY [interrupting them]
You know nothing of Queens—two spoiled handmaidens, whose minds are full of baubles and trinkets!
​
First and Second LADIES
We thought only to cheer; we know no other way.
​
Third LADY
She, the Queen of the East alone in her sorrow, grieving the death of her Lord Odenathus. These two like gods held sway from the Nile to Babylon, lords of the desert and city alike. Vanquished were their enemies, and the might of Persia trembled at their name.
​
First and Second LADIES
Happy those times, golden the age, when peace like a mantle covered the East. Fortune herself seemed to smile on the land. The spice from afar, the jewels, the caravanserai, the silver and gold of all the world seemed to pass through Palmyra.
Third LADY
We grew too rich, our wealth and fame reached out to the West; and in his marble halls in Rome, the world’s conqueror seethed with envy.
First LADY
What then?
Third LADY
Unhappy days. Rome the invincible stretched out her hand to seize the wealth. No power on earth Rome’s legions can withstand. Sea or land have no margins for her, the gods themselves lead their squadrons to battle. Their soldiers like locusts cover the land.
Second LADY
But Palmyra, and Zenobia, are still free.
Third LADY
My heart grows pale to think again. The Lord Odenathus gathered his force and, like wild stallions, Rome and the East met; and then it seemed that the old order changed. Rome was thrown back; victory was ours.
First and Second LADIES
Why does your heart grow pale? Victory is ours!
Third LADY
Fortune frowned. Victory was ours; the land rejoiced, and so did the King. Banquets and feasts the palace held, the wine flowed free and loud the people sang. And mid the feasting and carousing the King held a mighty hunting expedition to supply the meat; and in one dark moment a spear, accidentally thrown, struck the King a mortal blow. And he lay dead at Zenobia’s feet.
First and Second LADIES
The Gods have mercy; our poor Queen! A great victory and a tragic death.
Third LADY
Fortune still frowned. The Roman wolves gathered again, led by their Emperor, a son of Mars. Again the East met the West, as two wild bulls over a herd would fight; and Zenobia, without her King to lead, was thrown back to Palmyra with her army defeated. Now she waits the final thrust from the army and spears of Aurelian. But quiet! tend to your duties! arrange your flowers, tidy the room! The Queen comes.
ZENOBIA [entering, to the Third Lady]
May the Gods smile on you, my Severa; and on you also, my little handmaidens. Away with you two now!—but stay with me, my Severa. [The First and Second Ladies leave] What news? What other troubles can you add?
​
Third LADY
Nothing, my lady. All has been quiet through the night; but your generals and advisers wait outside.
ZENOBIA
Kind Severa, leave me now. [The Third Lady leaves. Zenobia wanders aimlessly about the room, touching the gown, saddle, statues, etc. She smells the flowers]
Can these blooms more fragrance bring to me
that when my husband’s breath I breathed?
Can all these treasures buy for me
one moment with the one I loved?
The wandering moon my nightly vigils keeps
with me, while stars that never moved
can see my sorrow. While the sun
which burned while oceans seethed,
can’t staunch my tears that spring so readily.
The wandering moon my nightly vigils keeps
with me, while stars that never moved
can see my sorrow. No more, no more!—
my heart will bound no more
till distant seas no more will beat upon the shore.
She walks to the corner of the room and beats gently on a gong. A slave enters
Bring Longinus to me.—No more!...
LONGINUS [enters]
Why delay longer, my lady? Aurelian at this moment is preparing his assault on the city walls. The desert is wide; with fast horses, we can be well away from the city by nightfall.
​
ZENOBIA
What shall I do?
​
LONGINUS
As I say. Leave the city.
​
ZENOBIA
These people have been like my own children. I cannot desert them thus in their hour of need. Odenathus would not wish me to do that.
​
LONGINUS
My gentle lady, all the love in the world cannot bring back Odenathus. Neither can all your hate drive back Aurelian from the city walls. Think of this: am I not worthy? Am I not a soldier? Was I not Odenathus’ friend? and this: have I not always loved you? Perhaps now is not the time to speak of my love, but for your sake let us flee, raise another army, and make ourselves a new kingdom further towards the East.
​
ZENOBIA
This is not the time to talk of your love for me, Longinus; neither by word nor deed have I encouraged such a passion. Indeed, I have been almost like a sister to you, and Odenathus as your brother.
​
LONGINUS
Do you recall the days, when like two young gods your court did keep? when days would never end, or nights begin? A thousand Eastern dancers would sweep the floor with dances to amuse you. Your faces showed the pleasure; your eyes with wine and music sparkled. Did you look on me at all? For, if you had, you would have seen no delight on my face. I did not see the dancers, or your blazing court. My only delight was when, perhaps, you smiled on me.
​
ZENOBIA
How could I have seen?
​
LONGINUS
How blind is love?
​
ZENOBIA
My eyes, and love, were only for the King.
LONGINUS
Yes!—and my heart beat only for the Queen.
ZENOBIA and LONGINUS
To you my heart was never turned;
for you a sister’s love was shown;
one love I gave, and that one only burned
for him, my Lord and King.
ZENOBIA
Longinus!
LONGINUS
My lady?
ZENOBIA
Tell me of this Roman Mars, this Roman Emperor who in the night straddles this world, whose wish is an Empire’s command.
LONGINUS
Like fabled Alexander, who put the East to flight, this Aurelian with his youth and wisdom, his courage in battle, his leniency in conquest, has so endeared himself to his countless legions that they would support and follow him, even if her were to make war on Hades itself.
ZENOBIA
What of his bearing and manners, his court and counsellors?
​
LONGINUS
When first in battle, along with Odenathus, we met the Western wolves, the Roman legions had gathered in warlike formation. Their swords and their helms, their breastplates and spears gleamed as sunlight sparkles on the quiet waters of an oasis. Amid the legions, shining like brazen mirrors, were the captains of the cohorts, each like sons of the Great Old Gods. Suddenly the ranks opened, and forward rode Aurelian; the legions and captains were dimmed by his brilliance. Alone he rode, blazing in his martial dress, like Mithras himself when he outshines the dog star in the heat of the morning.
​
ZENOBIA
What chance is there of mercy and justice from such a man? He and his legions will lay waste our cities, and our people will be taken into a vile slavery, taken into the grey Western countries where Mithras himself rarely smiles, their tears mixing with the incessant rain.
​
LONGINUS
Ablaze with martial spirit as he is, there lies in his breast compassion too. He did not slay the already wounded; he treated not ill the unhappy prisoners. The cities he has taken are not laid waste or violated, and he dispenses justice with mercy.
​
ZENOBIA
There is then some hope, some ray of light.
LONGINUS
Of what do you speak?
ZENOBIA
From your own description. You speak of mercy, compassion and justice. Surely, is there anyone who requires these virtues more than I? mercy for me who fought for my land, mercy for my subjects who fought and died in my cause, and now live under the shadow of the yoke. Who could deny compassion, when they hear my tragic tale? Zenobia, Queen of the East, now humbled, defeated, widowed by Fortune’s cruel joke. Come then, Justice, to my aid! Right the wrongs that I have suffered, make not my subjects pay for my mistakes or reap the tragic harvest I have sown. The slender thread for which the downcast grope, some not in vain, spun by the God called Hope, perhaps into my hand may fall so that I may grasp at still the slightest chance.—Not for myself alone, but for the one who loved and love and now are gone.
​
LONGINUS
Enough. You and I will suffer no more. At the rising moon’s appointed hour, swift horses over the wide desert’s rolling waste will take us from this ill-starred land to a haven far from the cries of war.
​
ZENOBIA
Indeed the swift horses will fly over the rolling desert’s waste, but not with me astride.
​
LONGINUS
Why, what is your reason?
​
ZENOBIA You, my dearest friend, will ride to Aurelian’s camp and there plead my cause, and surrender my land and people to the waiting legions.